The Dead Live On (25 page)

    Kate emerged from her bath feeling refreshed and content, for the moment. The only thing on her mind
now, was a good night’s sleep. There were four full size beds in the room but she wasn’t going to be picky. She threw herself in the bed closest to the bathroom door, and for the first time in her life; she found herself silently saying the Children’s Prayer and was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  On her way to find Jack, Pat opened the door to the room she picked for her and the children. A dim triangle of light from the hall was cast on the empty bed where she had lay Angel, only an hour before. Her heart skipped a beat and she opened the door wider to see that Angel had crawled into bed with Ethan. Pat thought to wake her and put her back in her bed, but she decided against it. The girl had lost her father and needed the comfort.

         
She continued her search for Jack until she found him in the main living area, seated at the small bar in the corner, shooting Jack Daniels straight. The large flat screen T.V. on the wall showed Al Pacino at his best, in Scarface. The scene that played involved a motel room, a chainsaw and a lot of blood. She had seen enough of that. After locating the remote, she turned the television off.

        
“It was the only good movie on the shelf. I needed some normalcy,” he said while pulling another shot glass from the cabinet, sitting it in front of her.

 
“No, I don’t want any, thank you. I think that you should refrain from taking your next shot as well. I need to talk to you.”

       
“Okay, what would you like to talk about?” He asked, pouring another shot anyway. He loved the way the liquor warmed his chest as it went down and he wanted to take advantage of it.

       
“I think that they brought the President here.”

       
“Kate said the same thing, I told her I’d check it out in the morning, and I will, but I think they would have taken him somewhere else.”

       
“Where, Jack? Where else would they have taken him? There is no safer location.”

       
“There is another location, just as safe, in Washington. I’m sure that he would have wanted to be closer to home. Are you sure that you don’t want a shot?” He began filling the glass that he had sat down in front of her moments before.

       
“No, I don’t want any! This is serious! They didn’t have enough time to get to Washington! They were here, in Georgia, so why would they go all the way to Washington when there is a perfectly safe place here. Not to mention that this is the central control station for the launching of the bombs that are supposed to eliminate this fucked up situation. If they didn’t plan to come here, they would’ve never shown up at the CDC.”

       
“Okay, so what if they did? What do you suggest we do, Pat? We both know that the doors are controlled from the inside. I don’t think we have anything to worry about based on that one fact. Their all dead and it’s been at least a month, so any of them that may have been an Able, are way past that stage and just as senseless as the rest of them. We can’t get in and they can’t get out. I say, we let it go.” 

       
“Well, I can’t rest until I know for sure, Jack. We’ve been friends for many years and you know me. I am not easily intimidated but I am afraid, Jack. I am very afraid. We can’t get out of here for a long time and I just need to know if I have to constantly be on alert, or if I can finally relax and get some sleep.”

       
“Okay. Let’s go and get Kate and we’ll all check it out. The most we will be able to do is try to listen for any movement, but we’ll do that if it will make you feel better.” Jack came out from behind the bar and hugged her. They had been friends for a very long time and he would do just about anything to ease her mind. If it weren’t for her support when his wife had passed, he probably wouldn’t be alive today and Ethan would be an orphan.

       
“Jack, let’s just let Kate sleep, if all we can do is listen at the door. She’s been through enough, lately.”

       
“All right, let’s go.”

Chapter Thirty Seven

“How much longer do you think I am going to let you keep me in here, Dr. Richards?” Montgomery asked while standing over him as he watched the monitor that showed the entrance to the wing .Dr. Richards stood and turned to him, pointing his finger in Montgomery’s face.

“As long as I fucking say!
If you hit that button, even a second before I am ready, I will knock you from here to Sunday. Do you understand,” he said putting his face so close to Montgomery’s that their noses almost touched. “It opens when I say it opens.”

     
“Just who do you think you are, speaking to me in that manner?” I am now the President of this great country and-” Richards shoved him.

    
“Right now, you’re just a piece of shit, inching ever closer to death with each second that ticks by. Your Presidential status doesn’t mean a fucking thing! You have no weight to throw around, so shut up before I open this door and let your wife do with you as she sees fit. Which I assume that you know, will not turn out too well for you, my friend.”

    
Montgomery fell silent at the mention of his wife and looked to the door where Cassie stood on the other side, her fingers gripping the edge of the window, leaving flakes of dried blood on the glass and her eyes on Montgomery. They seemed to grow much wider at the comment that Richards had made about pushing him out there. Dr. Richards translated it as a look of anticipation, but pushed it from his mind because that was not possible. Montgomery had been distracted by movement on the monitor and diverted Dr. Richards’ attention from him. “Look! Out there! They’re here, now open the door!” Richards pushed Montgomery down in the chair and hit the button marked intercom.

   
Jack approached the doors to the Presidential wing with Pat following close behind. He pulled on the handles and not only did the door not open, it didn’t budge. The lock held the doors securely. Looking back at Pat, he started to tell her that there was nothing to worry about when they heard a low voice. They looked up in the corner of the wall above the door and saw a very small security camera, and a smaller perforated metal plate beside it. He stood on his tiptoes to get closer so he could make out what was being said.

   
“Don’t make any noise, do not knock on the door or speak. It seems that their hearing is very finely attuned. There are four infected persons, just inside the door and there are several more within this area. We are in a security room on the right side, about twenty feet inside the door. My speaking to you now is attracting them closer to us and away from the entrance. If you are armed, show them to me. If you aren’t, take this opportunity to retrieve your weapons and return.” Jack stepped back and showed his weapon and Pat followed his lead.

   
“Okay, good. I am going to open the door. When I do, three of the four are pressed against the door to the room we are in. One has drifted away towards the entrance to the Presidential living quarters, which is maybe fifteen feet from where you will be standing when you enter. I will say again, there are several others in hall to the living quarters, so be careful. There is a weapon in the floor and when I get out of this room, I will retrieve it and help you. Nod, if you have understood all that I have said.” Jack nodded and took a deep breath. They had their weapons drawn and at the ready.

“Damn, I thought we were through with this shit for a while,” Jack whispered.

Pat couldn’t keep herself from saying in a whisper as well, “I told you so. I’m ready, are you?”

“Do I have a choice?” He replied.

Dr. Richards spoke over the intercom again. “Okay, when you are sure you are prepared; nod your head to give me the ‘okay’ to open the doors. As soon as I am free from this room, I will help you.”
Jack stood firm and nodded. Dr. Richards hit the button and the door made a loud click as the security lock was disengaged, and the doors swung outward to reveal the dead inside. The smell of death and decomposition was so strong that their bodies jerked visibly as they struggled to suppress the urge to vomit as they move forward into the wing. The sound the door made when it was unlocked got the attention of the dead that had been trapping Dr. Richards and Montgomery in the security room. Pat and Jack held their fire until the zombies moved far enough away from the door, so the two men could get out without any risk of contact.

     
Pat’s first shot took out the dead that had been on the left side of the room. His brain exploded out the back side of his head, spraying the west wall with gore. She then turned her attention to the two in front of them and quickly fired off two rounds that took them down immediately. Jack’s first bullet went clean through the right side of Cassie’s face and embedded in the wall. It threw her off enough to back her away from the door. Dr. Richards burst out of the room first, and the heavy door smashed Cassie against the wall behind it, causing her decomposing body to easily crumple to the floor. Montgomery scrambled out on his hands and knees immediately after, trying to keep out of the way of gun fire. The rest of the dead had begun slowly but surely, filing through the door to the hall. Dr. Richards had obtained Scott’s weapon and began firing at them beside Pat and Jack.

Kate awoke to a sound that she was sure was gunfire and loud voices to accompany it
.
She jumped from the bed and grabbed her weapon, checking the clip to make sure it was fully loaded as she ran down the hall to locate where it was coming from. Ethan and Angel had been awaked by the noise as well and were standing in the hall outside their bedroom, Ethan hugging Angel, both were crying. She quickly shoved them back into the room and gave them instructions to lock the door and wait for her return. Satisfied that they would listen to her she continued around the corner towards the commotion.

      Though there weren’t many, it seemed that they would not stop coming through the door. Terrified of being shot by accident, Montgomery stayed huddled on the floor in the middle of the room and didn’t know that Cassie was slowly dragging herself up behind him. Dr. Richards, turned to see this though, and was frozen in place. Not because he was afraid, but because as Cassie drew closer to Montgomery; Dr. Richards saw that she was smiling. It was the most unnervingly wicked thing that he had ever seen in his life. This was a face he would never forget.

    
Montgomery saw that Dr. Richards had been horrified by something behind him and turned his head to see. Montgomery tried to scream but what came out of his mouth was more of a squeal as he tried to scuttle out of her reach. Dr. Richards had thought for only a second, that Cassie was finally going to get her prize, after a month of waiting for the mouse to come out and play. But it was not yet meant to be because, out of nowhere, a tall and attractive, copper-haired woman had stood in front of Montgomery and shot Cassie in the top of her head and the threat to Montgomery was terminated. He quickly crawled out to the main hall, put his back against the wall and closed his eyes.

     
Dr. Richards broke from his trance to turn his attention back to the doorway, now filled with the truly dead bodies of the living dead. They lie there in a pile. It seemed that for each one that went down; it made it just a little harder for the next one to move ahead, thus making it easier for Jack and Pat to hit their mark.

     
While Kate expressed her agitation with them for not coming to get her to go along and Jack enlightened her on why she was not awakened, Pat turned her attention to the heap of dead before them.

     
“I don’t see the President or the First Lady here.” Pat said as she observed the pile of dead while keeping her distance. It was a little hard to determine by trying to see their faces, due the decomposition, but the clothes had given clues of secret servicemen and the sons of the president and possibly a couple personal secretaries. “So, they weren’t brought here, after all?” She asked while holstering her weapon and looking at Dr. Richards for an answer. He explained the situation, at least what had happened after he had arrived and how he had an agent chain up the doors of the rooms the officials were in.

     
“The originally infected agent; Connor, turned soon after a bout of illness and infected the remaining agents, my nurse and Mrs. Rosen’s personal assistant. I had no choice but to block the door and leave them to their own devices. The screams were terrible and I will probably hear them in my dreams for the rest of my life, or what little there may be left of it.”

     
“There is no chance of them escaping the rooms?” Jack asked.

     
“No. We used heavy duty chains, the doors are solid oak and they open inward. They can’t break through them.”

“Okay, why the chains?”

      “So any new addition to our party would’ve known there were infected persons inside.”

     
“That makes sense. Everyone, check yourselves and make sure that you don’t have blood on you. We did well at keeping them mess behind them. Thank you, for your help,” he said to Dr. Richards.