Deadlocked 8 (38 page)

When he spoke, the words came with a
mechanical echo. “Cobra Dawn, get back in your room.”

“What’s going on?” I saw other guards
marching down the hall behind the man at my door, all of them
dressed the same.

“It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

I watched as one of the other guards walked
up to the door across the hall and opened it. Yvonne Dawn was
there, willowy and afraid, twirling her blonde hair anxiously as
the guard escorted her to the hallway and then in the direction of
the great room.

“Where’s Yvonne going?” I asked before I
noticed that there were other girls being escorted along the hall
as well, all of them headed to the same place. “Where are you
taking the others?”

“Get back in your room,” said the guard as he
lifted his rifle and pointed it at me.

I sneered and said, “You can’t shoot me.”

“I can, and I will. Stop causing trouble and
get back in your room.”

“Where are the others going?” I asked as I
watched the frightened girls being led past.

The guard didn’t answer. Instead, he took the
last step up into my ready room from the hall, and then used the
butt of his gun to push me backward. The aggression was a surprise,
and I staggered back until I slammed into the shower door as the
guard aimed his rifle out at me, the red laser blinding me as it
shined in my eyes.

“Last chance, Cobra. Either you stay in here,
nice and quiet, or I shut you up for good.”

I nodded and said, “Okay, you win.”

He lingered, uncertain if I could be trusted.
“Don’t try coming out here. I’ll be guarding the door.” And with
that, I was closed off again, locked away in my prison.

But he’d unwittingly revealed something to me
that made all the difference. He’d implied that he needed to guard
me, and the only reason to guard someone’s door is if you’re afraid
they’ll get out. That meant that the knockout gas that had been
used on me so many times in the past wasn’t an option for them.

This was no test by mother. Something was
happening that concerned the guards, and I knew I’d never have a
better chance than this to escape. But how? As confident as I was
in my ability to take out one of the guards, running out into the
hall to do it would result in the other guards quickly subduing
me.

My mind raced as I tried to come up with a
plan. Somehow, I had to get the guard into my room. That way I
could take him down without anyone seeing us. It wouldn’t be easy,
but anything worthwhile rarely is.

If I was right, and Hero’s friends had
dropped more bombs into the facility, then it was reasonable to
assume that the guards were trying to prepare for the same thing
that had occurred the last time. I glanced up at the ceiling, and
recalled the day the zombie fell down into the great hall. That had
been the impetus of everything, and I tried to figure out how to
convince the guard that the same thing was happening again.

I went into the bathroom and took a roll of
toilet paper off its holder. Then I returned to my bedroom and set
the roll on the desk. In order for this plan to work, I had to hope
that no one was watching from the cameras and relaying my actions
to the guards. Of course, if that were the case then any escape
attempt I made was doomed in the first place, so I set about
continuing with my plan.

I rolled up my sleeve and then bit down hard
onto the skin of my forearm. I ignored the pain as I drew blood,
gnashing my teeth like one of the zombies. When I’d succeeded, I
dabbed the blood with some toilet paper and then stood on my chair
so that I could blot it on the ceiling. I smeared the blood around
one of the nearly imperceptible lines that revealed a ceiling
panel, hoping to make my ruse more believable, and then I knelt
down and squeezed my wound until blood seeped out onto the floor,
forming a small pool.

Next, I went to the bathroom and cleaned my
self-inflicted wound, wrapped it with toilet paper, and then pulled
my sleeve back over it. I hoped that the wound wouldn’t bleed
enough to give me away. I had to hurry. I almost made a mistake,
but caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, revealing the
blood smeared around my mouth. I rinsed off, and wiped away the
stubborn stain with more toilet paper.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” said
the guard when I opened the door behind him.

I did my best to feign panic. “There’s blood
in here! Something’s in the ceiling. I think it’s one of the things
that fell down a few months ago. It’s in the ceiling. Come look.
Come see!” I urged him in, but he stood warily outside. “Don’t let
it eat me! You have to come in and see.”

The guard pressed at a button on the side of
his mask and then said, “Command, we’ve got a possible containment
breach above the Dawn’s rooms, over.”

I stood there watching as the guard listened
to a response that I couldn’t eavesdrop on. I felt the blood on my
arm begin trickle away from the shoddy bandage. I crossed my arms,
still trying to pretend to be afraid, and then glanced down to see
that blood had seeped down to my wrist. The material that the
Dawn’s suits were made of did an admirable job of containing the
leak, but I knew it would eventually become saturated as well. In
my haste, I’d taken too serious a bite at myself.

“No,” said the guard in response to someone
other than me. “Nothing came through. Just blood, apparently,
over.” Another pause. “Yeah, I’ll check it out and report back,
over.” He released the small, green button beside where his ear
would be under his mask, and I knew that I had to keep him from
hitting that button again, or I would risk alerting every other
guard in the facility when I attacked him.

“Come on,” I said and waved him in. He
followed, slow and steady, his thick boots clopping on the tile as
he came. His suit rattled, and I studied how it shifted as he
moved. I saw the knife at his side, and was already familiar with
the way his rifle worked. I’d learned a lot in my short time on the
surface, and I was going to put that knowledge to good use.

We got to my room, and I pointed up at the
smear on the ceiling. He came warily in, and then stepped closer to
the pool on the floor. He clicked on the light on the underside of
his rifle and shined it at the brilliant red blood on the
floor.

“That’s not Undying blood,” he said. “They
bleed black.” Then he reached up to touch the button on the side of
his mask that would let him communicate with the other guards.

His hand was no longer on the rifle. This was
my chance.

I grabbed his wrist at the same time that I
kicked at the back of his knee, forcing him to the ground as I
jerked his arm behind his back, causing him to cry out in pain. He
wasn’t weak, but neither was I. He tried to pull away, but my grip
on his arm was only meant as a diversion. He focused solely on
getting his arm free while I reached down for his knife. After a
quick click of the snap that held it in place, I unsheathed his
blade and then released his other arm so that I could slam the back
of his head with my elbow. I was perched on the back of his legs,
which caused him to fall forward and plant his hands on the ground
to stop from hitting the floor face first. I waited for his
inevitable next move.

He did as I expected, and tried to turn and
force me off his back. I used his momentum to my advantage, and
allowed us to tumble to the side, giving him false hope that he was
getting the upper hand. As we rolled, I wrapped my legs around his
waist, and slid my left arm under his. My left hand reached back to
his helmet, and I gripped one of the tubes there, jerking upward to
reveal the soft, cloth neck piece that I’d learned was there from
attacking other guards again and again over the past few
months.

Every night since I’d been brought back to
this prison I’d been planning for this moment. As I lay drifting to
sleep, I would imagine this fight, and all of the different ways it
could go. For my victim, this was a sudden and chaotic altercation,
but for me it was a choreographed dance.

With a soft, pliable section of his armor
revealed, I plunged the blade deep into him. Everything had played
out exactly as I’d hoped, but this was the part I couldn’t have
planned for.

Killing a person isn’t something that I was
trained in, and my expectation that the man would die instantly was
quickly proven false. Sticking the knife in him didn’t still him,
but instead seemed to give him a jolt of strength. His body
stiffened, and he ripped out of my grip, throwing me off as he
spun. I was stunned as I slid away, my thigh smearing the blood I’d
left on the floor, and could only watch as the guard gripped his
knife with both hands and jerked it free. A spurt of his blood came
out with the blade, spraying across the wall behind me, and then I
saw torrents pouring down across his suit. He dropped the knife,
and it clattered on the tile as he reached out for the weapon at
his side. He raised the rifle, but I launched myself over him. I
pinned the gun to the floor with my left hand and then used my
right to claw at his already wounded neck. I dug my fingers in,
pulling at the wound and forcing him to try and stop me. I got my
fingers in, and felt the hot rush of blood cascading over my
knuckles. He took my wrist and tried to pull me away, but that only
worsened his already fatal wound.

Our struggle lasted longer than I’d ever
anticipated, and he fought to survive until we were splashing
around in his blood. I had to wrap myself around him, twisting my
limbs within his to keep him still, and finally his strength
failed. We sat there entwined as he gasped and gurgled, and his
final few breaths turned into long, desperate groans.

Once he was dead, I stripped and started the
arduous task of cleaning the blood off. After that I would get
dressed and see if I couldn’t start the revolution that would free
the Dawns.

* * *

Beatrice Dell

“Why are we landing?” I asked.

Gabe didn’t answer me.

I was with the other members of The
Electorate that had evacuated the facility before the Undying there
had a chance to swarm the area. Gabe revealed to us that he’d been
working with Hank, and even relayed some of the communications that
I knew only Hank had been privy to. I was devastated that we were
losing the Dawns, but at least we were still alive. It was a minor
victory in the midst of a massive defeat, but as I’d said before,
survival was the real game.

There were only female members of The
Electorate here with me, since this facility only housed the female
Dawns. The other women were mostly just wives of wealthy investors
in The Electorate, and they’d happily allowed me to take charge.
They owed me their lives.

Gabe had given me the only other headset so
that he could communicate with me during our flight. We were
supposed to be headed out to a place in the mountains, out where we
could be certain that the Tempest Strain wouldn’t reach us. Gabe
explained that The Electorate would retrieve us within the next few
months, but at least we’d avoid the devastation that was about to
sweep through the lowlands.

Our flight path took us over the ruins of
Denver, giving us a chance to look down on the devastation our
apocalypse had wrought. I’d been looking out through the windows of
the large passenger-transport style helicopter, enjoying the view
it afforded, when I noticed that we were descending.

“Gabe, why are we going down?”

“I have to make a stop here,” said Gabe. The
noise in the helicopter was loud enough that I required the helmet
to hear him. “To refuel.”

The other ladies were murmuring as they
noticed our descent. “It’s okay,” I yelled out to them. “We’re just
refueling.”

Gabe landed us atop a skyscraper in Denver,
using the helipad of one of the crumbling towers. After a moment,
he unbuckled himself from his seat and stood up. He walked over to
the door and opened it, allowing the bitterly cold air to whoosh
in. The other women shouted out in disapproval.

“Time to go,” said Gabe as he motioned at the
door.

“What?” I asked, bewildered.

“Time to get the fuck out.” Gabe took out a
pistol and pointed it at the head of the woman closest to him. She
yelled out in shock and terror as he used his other hand to start
unlatching her restraints.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Giving you what you deserve, Beatrice.” He
flashed a toothy grin. “Welcome to hell.”

“I don’t understand,” I said as I watched him
push the other women out of the helicopter one by one. “Is someone
else picking us up here?”

He laughed and shook his head, “Nope.”

His betrayal was suddenly apparent to me. We
were being left here to die. “Gabe, listen to me. You’re making a
mistake. If you take us to safety, then The Electorate will make it
worth your while.”

“Will they?” he asked with a sarcastic edge.
“What will they give me?” He continued to force the other women out
as he talked to me.

“Anything you want. You’ll live like a king.
I’ll make sure of it.”

“A king?” he asked, sounding overly
impressed. “That sounds like a good deal. Will I get a castle and
everything?” He passed by me as he continued to unbuckle the other
women and usher them out.

“This isn’t a time for jokes, Gabe. You’re
giving up a perfect life in exchange for a short one here. No one’s
going to survive the next apocalypse, I can promise you that. Don’t
be a fool!”

“Come on Beatrice,” said Gabe. “You still
haven’t told me what you’ll give me. If you can’t convince me, then
you’re going to die out here. If you don’t die trying to get down
through this building, then there’s no doubt you’ll get eaten alive
when you get to the streets. Denver is infested. You need to do a
better job of convincing me to save your ass. What about that
castle I wanted.”