Rise of the Dead (18 page)
"Did you check out the rest of this place?" I ask Quentin.
"Not yet," he says. "You want to have a look around?"
I get up off the couch and follow Quentin towards the hall.
"You coming?" I pause to ask Danielle.
"I'm going to get a shower first," she says, pouring herself a cup of cold coffee. "Okay." I almost call her doll again but decide not to. It didn't seem to go over too well the first time.
The underground facility is nothing more than several other rooms connected by a long, dimly lit hallway. The generators are in a utility room down the right end of the hall. The room also holds a fuse box, a water heater and filtration system, and a complicated air conditioning or treatment unit. We open a door across the hall to find a small closet with a mop, bucket, some towels and spray bottles.
“Not much going on down here,” says Quentin.
“No, there isn’t,” I agree.
“Just the essentials,” he says.
We go into the communications room, which is across the hall from the common area. There is a big control board that seems to control the entire facility. There are readings for fuel levels, power usage, air quality. There are also several video monitors that cycle through a series of cameras recording the interior and exterior of the bunker. Fletcher is still outside, the dog sniffs around the overgrown field, the night vision cameras shows their green shapes and eerie eyes. Several enormous phones sit on a charging terminal. The huge devices remind me of the first cordless phones ever made. An old radio with a shining silver microphone sits next to a shelf of boring looking manuals. I pick up one that’s titled,
SURVIVAL FM 21-76
. Real catchy. There are similar books for things like first aid, guerrilla warfare, and boobytraps. I decide to hang on to the survival book since I haven’t found anything else to read. At least, it’ll help kill some time down here.
“You know what all this stuff does?” I ask Quentin.
“Most of it,” he says. “The rest of it doesn’t seem too complicated.” He looks over the board.
“It’s like being on some spaceship,” I say. “I’m afraid to touch anything.” I stare at the changing images on the monitors. I like being able to see everything and to know that everything is all being monitored and controlled in this little room.
We exit the communications room and head to the other end of the hallway. Just past the storage room, there is a small exercise room with a treadmill, some free weights, and a stationary bike. The next door we open reveals a small washer and dryer with some spare bedsheets and towels folded neatly on shelves. Across the hall, we open the door to a supply room. There are racks along the wall stocked with assorted rifles, knives, handguns, and ammunition. I spot some shotguns, some grenades, there is even an RPG. Aside from the weapons, there are tons of first aid supplies, clothes, food stores, and countless bottles of water.
“God damn,” breathes Quentin. He picks up a package of white underwear and some socks. “There must be enough in here to last us, at least, six months.”
The heavy door closes in the next room. The sound of the dog panting echoes in the hall. We leave the supply room and head back to the storage room. Fletcher digs through a large rucksack.
“We got some company out there,” he says. He pulls out a pair of night vision goggles. “Must have been drawn here by the helicopter.”
“How many?” I ask.
“Can’t see in the dark, man,” he says. “I can hear them out there, though. Creepy as shit.”
I completely forgot it was the middle of the night already. Being down here is really going to take some getting used to.
“You need a hand?” ask Quentin. He grabs up on of the assault rifles and the helmet beside his pack.
Fletcher looks at Quentin.
“If you’re up for it,” he says.
I gather up the assault rifle I had carried in. It’s a little heavier than I expected and I hold it awkwardly. Fletcher watches me.
“You know what you’re doing with that?” he asks.
“No idea,” I admit.
“How about you sit this one out,” he says, without even bothering to make it sound like a question. He walks across the room and reaches for my pack, pulling out a two-way radio and turns it on. “Keep eyes on those screens in the control room.”
I put down the assault rifle and take the handset from him. Fletcher doesn’t really need me to monitor the screens. It’s just something to get me out of the way. As much as I feel completely inept, I am more relieved than anything. I realize I am totally unprepared to go out there and stalk the living dead in total darkness.
“I don’t think any of them breached the gate, but just keep checking,” he says. “We don’t need anything sneaking up on us.”
“Got it,” I say, turning to head to the control room.
“Blake,” he says, as I make a turn to go down the hall. I wait while he straps a helmet on his head. “When we get back, we’ll go over some shit, so you know what’s what. Sound good?”
“Alright,” I mumble, so it comes out as an apology. “Good luck.”
I pass Stitch in the hall on my way to the control room, and his excited tail smacks my leg as I go by. He stops and looks back at me before running to tag along with Quentin and Fletcher. Even the dog is more help than me. I sit down in the swivel chair in the control room, putting the radio and the survival manual down on the workspace.
I pick up and flip through a few pages of the manual while I wait. Scanning the contents, I encounter a list of skills I don’t have. Now my life could depend on them. The lives of the few remaining people I know could depend on them, too. I don’t want to learn them, but I am determined to now. There is no way I am going to be a liability.
“Hey.”
The sudden voice jars me, and I knock the radio over as I try to swivel around and put the manual down.
“Sorry,” says Danielle. She runs her fingers through her dripping hair. “Where is everybody?”
“Quentin and Fletcher went outside. Fletcher heard some of those things out there while he was out with the dog.”
“You can see everything in here,” she says. She leans over the table next to me, looking at the images on the monitors. The scent of the soap or shampoo coming off her distracts me from whatever else she is saying. I am wondering how we all use the same soap, but it smells more intense coming off her skin.
“What?” I ask.
“Are you okay?” she says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I was just... distracted.” I look down and twist the ring on my finger to straighten it out. A knot tightens in my gut. I feel guilty about the things I won’t even admit to myself.
“Are there a lot of them out there?” she asks again.
“I don’t see very many,” I say. “It seems like they are all outside the fence still.” I point to one of the screens with a camera focused on the perimeter fence. Four figures grasp the barricade, pressing their bodies and faces against the metal.
“Why don’t we just leave them there if they can’t get in?” she asks.
Before I can think of a logical answer, the radio squawks and I hear Fletcher whispering through the speaker.
“Blake, you copy?” he says.
I grab the radio off the table and click the button on the side. “Yeah,” I say. “Loud and clear.”
I see them just outside the exit on one of the screens. Fletcher looks up at the camera as he speaks.
“What do you see out there?” he asks.
“I see four of them on the north fence,” I answer.
“There’s two miles of fencing there,” he says. “I need you to be more specific.”
I check the screens again, waiting for the camera angle to come up where I spotted the corpses. There must be some way to switch them manually, but I can’t figure it out. “About 100 yards from the northeast corner,” I say.
“Okay, we’re moving out,” he whispers.
When the camera on the main entrance cycles back around, the two men are gone. I listen to them talking quietly over the radio.
“Watch our six,” Fletcher orders Quentin.
Danielle taps me on the shoulder and points to another screen. There are two more corpses on a different camera that covers part of the east fence. I click the button on the radio.
“Fletcher?” I say.
“What is it?” he asks.
“There’s two more about midway on the eastern fence.”
A long pause.
“I don’t have a visual, but I hear them,” Fletcher finally responds. “Will check it out on the way back. Over.”
I look around at the control board in front of me, trying to read all the various controls and locate something that might work the cameras.
“What are you looking for?” asks Danielle.
“There has to be some way to switch through the cameras manually.”
She reaches up on top of one of the screens and pulls down a remote. She hits a couple of buttons and cycles through the cameras that cover the perimeter. She stops it on the camera that has a view of the four corpses along the north fence. Feeling a little stupid for not being able to figure that out myself, I thank her for the assistance.
“They’re nuts to go out there at night.”
“Maybe it’s better,” I say. “At least, they have night vision. Who knows how well those things can see in the dark.”
Unfortunately, the night vision also makes it all too easy to see the physical state of the undead outside. I watch a huge man in overalls with a hand and forearm chewed to a pulpy mess. It clings to the fence with the only good hand it has and flails at the barrier with the phantom hand. A disemboweled woman in a tattered and stained nightgown drags her intestines through the weeds. The other man, he is more of a boy, really, is stark naked. His lower jaw is missing from his face. The last corpse sports a motorcycle helmet.
I wonder if I should mention the helmet to Fletcher. I am pretty sure a helmet won’t stop a bullet to the head, though. Before I can pick up the radio to make the call, I see one of the four figures along the fence flop back. The naked boy lands hard on his back and is still.
“Short, controlled bursts,” whispers Fletcher.
I hear a muffled series of taps. The woman in the nightgown and the guy in the overalls collapse in the grass. Over the radio, it sounds like they are taking them out with a typewriter. The suppressed shots are exactly like the sound of someone typing snippy words with the keys.
“That fucker is wearing a helmet,” Quentin gripes.
A few more rounds pepper the helmet, lodging in the cracked surface.
“Damn thing must be kevlar,” says Fletcher.
The radio goes quiet again. I watch the motorcycle rider assault the fence with renewed intensity. Fletcher emerges onto the screen from the right. He retrieves a pistol from a holster strapped to his thigh. He slips the muzzle through the fence, and tucks it into the bottom of the helmet and pulls the trigger. Brain matter spatters the face shield and the corpse drops to the ground.
“Target down,” breathes Fletcher as he exits the screen.
I stare at the image on the screen. I can’t take my eyes off the bodies on the ground. It isn’t the same watching it on these screens. At first, it doesn’t seem real, so I become absorbed in the violence. Once the action cuts to a new scene, the story will go on. Except those bodies don’t move, the scene will never change. The corpses of the people will remain lifeless in the grass, and they will always be there for as long as I keep watching.
“Proceeding to the east perimeter,” whispers Fletcher. “You still got eyes on the other ones?”
“Yeah,” I say. I manage to pull my eyes away from the bodies on the screen and search the control panel to try and pull the east perimeter up on the monitor. Danielle stares at the corpses too, but she snaps out of it then and finds a switch that brings up the camera outside the east perimeter.
They are two young women with long, dark hair, wearing long dark dresses. They aren’t clawing at the fence like the others, just loitering side-by-side along the edge of the road. Their blank eyes stare up at the camera. I swear it’s like they can see us somehow.
“They’re twins,” I mumble.
One of them has a face that is half devoured. She has lost an ear, and her cheek has been eaten away leaving her teeth and jaw entirely exposed. The other sister had her throat ripped open. Her head lolls slightly to one side.
“It’s like they’re looking at us,” says Danielle.
“That’s impossible.”
“What else could they be doing?” she says.
“What’s wrong?” asks Fletcher over the radio.
“Nothing,” I say. “These two just aren’t acting like the others.”
“How so?” he says.
“They’re just staring at the camera,” I tell him.
There is another long pause.
“You sure they’re dead?” Quentin asks.
“They’re dead,” I say. “They’re all messed up.”
“Alright base, we’ll check it out. Over,” whispers Fletcher.
“Roger,” I respond. “Over.”
The pale empty eyes continue to stare at me. Now I want to switch the screen off. If I don’t have to look at them, it will eliminate the terrifying power of their presence.
“Wish they’d hurry up. These two are freaking me out,” says Danielle.
“They weren’t doing that before were they?” I ask.
“No they were walking down the road,” says Danielle. “I wonder what made them stop.”
I try to come up with a rational explanation, but I find nothing. They were heading north before. If they heard the other gunshots, they should have kept heading north. I haven’t seen any of them show any signs of intelligence before now. So what the hell is this?
