Beyond Death (Book 2): Apocalypse (6 page)

Chase had been taking notes when Dax entered the lab. He looked up briefly, but went right back to scribbling out the latest test results. They’d moved from mice to zombies with the theory that Lucas had come to him with a month ago. The cure seemed just out of their reach now. The sliver of light at the end of the tunnel, plus the treat of dying from boredom, kept them going.

“Chase,” Dax said. “I need to talk to you.”

“Ah, sure,” Chase said putting his pen down. “I’m at a place I can take a break.”

“In a private room, please,” Dax whispered.

Chase only nodded and followed Dax out of the room, down the hall, and into another.

“So, what is on your mind, Dax?” Chase asked.

“We’re getting too comfortable. If a massive group of zombies comes this way, we’re done for,” Dax began abruptly.

“I don’t think that’s likely,” Chase said with a shake of his head. “We haven’t seen a group of zombies since we got here, what is it… however many weeks ago. Plus, they seem to move slower these days.”

“We can’t take the chance,” Dax continued.

“Look, I appreciate your concern, but we’re good now. We all stick close together and we all have access to guns. Plus, the research is coming along. I never would have believed it a month ago, but I think we are actually coming close to a breakthrough. If we’d have had the right kind of setup, we probably would have been there long ago, but we keep plugging away,” Chase smiled.

“That’s just it,” Dax complained. “I don’t have anything to do! I know it sounds silly to say, but I’m going mad. You and Lucas, you have your work. But me, I patrol the building, I eat or nibble, I sleep, that’s it.”

“What you do is important, the most important thing. Without you, Lucas and I couldn’t work and the women wouldn’t be safe.”

“And I’ll keep doing it, just give me something else to do, anything else,” Dax begged.

“Sure. I’ll think on it,” Chase said, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “But, right, now I have to get back to the lab.

On his way there, he saw Jayda entering the lab. Seemed everyone needed to talk. He went back to work, and tried to make small talk with her, but she was moody. So moody in fact, that she seemed to blame every issue she had on him.

“I barely sleep. All I do is puke. We eat the same thing over and over again, and the baby isn’t liking it obviously,” Jayda complained.

“From the sounds of your tone, you blame this all on me too?” Chase sighed.

Jayda didn’t say anything. As tears rimmed her eyes, she just threw her arms around Chase. Hesitantly, he hugged her back, bringing his arms around her and pulling her close. He let his brain take a break. This close to her, he couldn’t think. He especially couldn’t contemplate what it felt like to have her in his arms. She needed him, and he’d be whatever she needed him to be. He’d made peace with only that.

“I did it!” Lucas’ voice broke them apart.

“Did what?” Chase asked, turning but not moving away from Jayda.

“I stopped the cell from decomposing,” he answered emphatically. “I tested it again and again. I replicated it. I’m ready to test it on an actual zombie!” 

“I think we are just another couple of hours away from seeing positive results on these zombies,” Chase said to Lucas.

He was shocked to see the boy’s eyes when he looked up. They worked side by side, long hours, but rarely actually looked at each other.  The tired smile he got from him warmed his heart. All he’d seen of him lately was from the side, which showed how thin he was getting. Weight he couldn’t afford to lose.

“Do you hear that?” Chase asked. “It’s like someone is knocking on a door downstairs, I think.”

“Well, that’s never good,” Lucas sighed. “I’m sure Dax has it under control, whatever it is. But since we’re waiting, maybe we should go see if we can help him out in any way.”

“Sure,” Chase said, already on the move to the door of the lab.

The banging got louder and louder as they went. When the reached the bottom of the stairs and went into the hall, they saw Dax on the floor. Chase ran over to try to wake him, but with no success. He shook and shook him, shouting his name, but the guy hung lifeless from where Chase had him by the shirt.

“Look,” Lucas said holding up an empty liquor bottle. “I thought he smelled like alcohol. He must have had this hoarded somewhere. I just found it under this blanket of his.”

As the banging got louder, or maybe just more insistent, Chase shook Dax harder. His eyes blinked several times before he looked at Chase with a glazed over look. Lucas, who had run to a window and back shook his head as he crouched back down beside them.

“There’s a mass of them out there. I can’t make out how many, but it’s bad,” he exclaimed.  “Looks like the door is about to give too.”

“Shit!” Chase growled, letting Dax fall to the ground. “We have to get out of here. Looks like it’s time to see how far we can get on the gas we have left in the tank of the van. Come on. Help me get Dax to his feet, and let’s clear out.”

They were just at the stairs with a wobbly Dax when the door gave. Stopping, they shot as many zombies as they could to give themselves enough of a start to get the women and get out the far set of stairs.

Chase saw Lucas run into the lab. Dax, who had sobered up quickly, he sent to gather the women as he went in after Lucas. He found the boy frantically packing stuff up.

“Look, we don’t have time for this,” Chase yelled. “We have to go.”

“I can’t just leave it here,” Lucas stammered.

Just then, a zombie appeared on the other side of Lucas. The far door to the lab hadn’t been closed. Before he could get a word out, the zombie went for Lucas. Without hesitation, Chase blew the zombie’s head off. He moved to shut the door against the onslaught of the next bodies. Thankfully, most of them had all gotten slower and weaker as the days rolled by. You could tell the new ones from the older ones.

“We have to go,” he said to Lucas as he helped him to his feet.

“But the research. We’ll lose everything,” Lucas sighed.

“Not if I save that brain of yours we won’t. We can duplicate it between us. We don’t have a choice. Let’s go!”

With a sad Lucas in tow, Chase caught up to Dax and the women. They loaded a few meager supplies into the van and took off just as a group of zombies reached them. Chase fished for his ringing phone as he drove away without any destination in mind.

“Hello,” he answered.

“Is this Chase Douglas?” the voice on the other end asked.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“My name is Frank. I’m a friend of Daniel’s. I can help you.”

Chase sat in the van in an abandoned parking lot with his eyes on the empty road.  The outdoor mall at his back with its broken windows dark had no more appeal. He looked back in the van at the rest of his motley crew. Each looked a bit worse for the wear. Maybe not as bad as the scenery, but a close second.

“I’m worried he won’t come,” Jayda seemed she’d just spoken her thought out loud.

“He’ll come,” Chase sighed, not even believing himself.

He looked down to where Lucas and Sherri held hands. They all had no other hope but to wait for this man named Frank to meet them here. Food, ammo, gas, it all remained in short supply at this moment. The store behind him didn’t even look worth the risk to rummage through.

“So, when you spoke with him again, he said to meet him in this parking lot?” Jayda asked.

“Yes,” Chase sighed.

“You are sure you got the right address?” she asked again.

“Yes. I had the right address last time. Obviously something happened to Daniel.  Truthfully, I’m not one hundred percent sure this guy will show either. But I know I have the right spot, and I know at this point we have no better options than to wait it out. This is the absolute best I can do for all of you at the moment.”

Silence fell over the van. It made Chase uneasy, but as much as he wanted to break it, he didn’t want to be questioned anymore either. He ticked off the conversations he’d had with Frank in his head. Trying to find a shred of hope to cling to, he went through the conversations again and again to the point they were just comforting endless chatter in his brain.

His thoughts were interrupted by Dax, beside him, taping on the front window. Chase followed where Dax’s finger pointed down the road. Seeing a vehicle, he sat up straight.

“It’s a Humvee. That’s a good sign,” Chase said.

He didn’t turn to look at the rest of them. He just kept his eyes glued to the road. Soon he could see another car right behind the military vehicle. Unmarked, he wondered why it seemed to follow so close behind a vehicle that could practically run it over if it wanted to.

Soon enough, the Humvee pulled into the parking lot. At least three rows of parking stripes away, it did a one-eighty to face the car that screeched its tires coming to a stop. The doors on both opened and suddenly shots were fired.

“Duck,” Chase yelled to them all, even as he ducked himself but checked to see that everyone had followed his command.

Peering over the dashboard, he watched the man from the Humvee shoot the two men who’d gotten out of the car. The survivor of the shootout turned then to walk toward the van.

“Damn, I hope this is Frank,” he said as he jumped out of the van, his hand on his own gun despite the fact the guy walking his way had holstered his own.

“I’m Frank,” the guy said right away.

“Good, cause I’m Chase. Where’s Daniel? Who were the guys in the car that you blew away?”

“They were the enemy,” Frank said with a shrug. “Daniel died. Everyone at the base died except for me. I was the lucky one I guess. The base wasn’t safe once the virus spread through it.  But Daniel said a lot of good things about you. I promised him that I would find you.”

Chase just nodded, then changed to shaking his head. Over his shoulder he saw all sets of eyes on them.

“You guys made it this far without protection?” Frank asked, then continued without skipping a beat, “I’m impressed.”

“I need to know how Daniel died. We toured together. We were the best of friends. I just need the closure,” Chase stated.

Frank leaned in and promised to tell him later.

“I know of a safe place we can go. It’s off the beaten path a ways, but we will be safe there for now,” Frank commanded and then turned on his heel to go back to the Humvee.

Chase felt a great sense of relief in letting this guy take the lead from him.

“It’s a two day journey to the military base,” Frank said to the group.

They all sat around in an old motel room, top floor, that Frank had brought them to. The place smelled and looked like something out of a good horror movie set, but it seemed to work. They were not the only ones using the place, and it seemed they’d worked out a set of guards below. Chase looked down at the sheets, obviously used by many, and wondered if the virus was the only thing they had to fear. He looked at Jayda, but she sat on a blanket that Frank had provided for her on the same bed.

“I hear there is a cure there, so if we can all just make it without getting bit, then we’ll be in good shape,” Frank added.

“I wish Richard could have held on until we found a cure,” Jayda mumbled.

“We all do,” Chase said back.

He wondered about her thinking. It had been well over a month since he’d died, almost two. Maybe she just hadn’t thought her comment out. He was sure she still missed him. She’d had nothing but time to think on it. Of course, time seemed to stand still for all of them recently.

“Wait till I tell you about the research that Chase and I have done toward finding a cure,” Lucas said to Frank.

“Lucas,” Chase exclaimed, and then caught himself.

“What’s wrong?” Frank asked. “Is there a reason you don’t want me to know?”

“No, it’s just that it’s not quiet done and we lost all the results when we had to flee the lab we were working out of.”

“I’m interested to hear more, though. I mean, what you can remember of it. I don’t know exactly what they have where we are going, but what you’ve done could help, I’m sure,” Frank went on.

Chase nodded to Lucas and let the boy go on enthusiastically about their work from the stem cell research to the special mouse to the latest zombies. He didn’t need to even chime in to help as Lucas rambled on about stopping the cell decomposition of the virus. He knew the kid had a mind like a steel trap.

After, Frank told them to all get some sleep as they’d leave early in the morning. Chase tossed and turned as he counted off each of the others falling asleep. Lucas and Sherri must have done the same, because about an hour later, they snuck out of the room. He didn’t worry about them with the guards. He knew the boy to be smart enough to find an empty room. There had been quite a few of them when they’d entered.

What did bother him, however, was Frank sneaking out shortly after them. He crept to the door once he heard it close, and then moved to the window to see where Frank had headed too. Before he moved the curtain, he heard Frank’s voice. Peeking out, he saw the guy on the phone. Chase crouched there barely breathing as Frank related, near verbatim, what Lucas had told him about their research.