The Romero Strain (22 page)

I stood up and my erection stood, too. I certainly couldn’t roam the halls naked with my pride saluting the world, especially since it was getting close to the four hours. I knew Marisol well enough to know that she’d be urging David for an earlier arrival. I needed to get to the infirmary and back, dress her wounds, and get her out before they entered.

Inside the closet I found a bathrobe amongst the meticulously pressed pants and shirts. I put on the bathrobe and a pair of oversized shoes, and picked up the pistol from the dresser, just in case. As I walked toward the door, Luci called to me in a low-pitched screech. I didn’t have to know the language to know she was trying to get me to stay. I tried to firmly deny her wishes, but a forceful screech came out of me. I frightened myself with how loud it had been.

Luci fell silent in compliance.

* * *

There was nothing more I could do for her. Her wounds were dressed and it was time to go. I dressed in some oversized fatigues, and dressed Luci in an oversized fatigue shirt. I thought of putting pants on her, and reconsidered. I was not sure about the whole bathroom thing; would she know how to de-pants and go to the bathroom, or would she just soil herself?

I picked her up in my arms and carried her out the door and down the hall, to the main entrance. I hoped I could exit that way. I stood her up and activated the elevator with the white swipe card. The card worked. As the elevator took us up, I tried not to look at her. She knew I was expelling her. She gently clawed at me. I tried to ignore her, but I knew what she was trying to say. I wasn’t trying to be cold-hearted and callous by the act I was committing. I honesty did feel remorse for rejecting her. Out of lack of good judgment, we mated , repeatedly, and she had most likely formed a bond with me. But ousting her was what had to be done, guilt or not.

The automatic door opened revealing a room nearly as big as the elevator car. As we entered, I saw a biometric security scanner to my right. The door closed behind me. If my magstrip card did not override the terminal security I was screwed.

On the opposite side of the room I found a simple magnetic stripe card reader, no biometrics, no keypad. I passed the card through the thin slot and the door opened. Before us was a two-sectional, heavy steel door, painted drab olive. At first I did not see any way of opening the door, but then I noticed an unobtrusive button set in the doorframe. The two sections of the heavy door parted, one section retracting upward into the ceiling, and the other into the floor. There was an entrance into an old, dimly lit, narrow freight elevator, which looked vaguely familiar. I pushed the button marked
Open
. The door behind us shut. I didn’t know if I could get back from where I came.

The elevator door parted like the other. We were under Grand Central on an unused platform. I glanced to my left. There was an entrance with a sign that read: M 50. I had seen it before, on television. We had emerged from the old manual freight elevator of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

It was the six-foot wide elevator that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt supposedly used when he traveled by train to New York City. Reportedly, his armor-plated Pierce Arrow car would drive off the train, onto the platform, and into the elevator. Once at street level, the elevator gates would be opened to reveal 49
th
Street.

The locked entrance to the secret station was down a stairway concealed behind a brass door marked 101-121 49
th
Street, below a sign that read,
Metro-North Fire Exit.
There was another stairway exit, without an elevator, on the 50
th
Street side of the hotel building.

I was standing on the platform of Track 61. Tracks heading to and from Grand Central ran under Park Avenue between 42
nd
and 97
th
Street, deep below street level. Some of the tunnel lights were still lit. Grand Central’s power source, some which came from the New York Power Authority, remained active. Though it was nighttime, the length of the enclosed train shed prevented me from seeing the night sky.

At the platform’s edge was a military transport train, six cars in length. It was how project personnel and equipment got in and out of the facility unnoticed. The train blocked my view of the southern portion of the passageway, but as I scouted north I could see a few people quickly moving toward us. I was sure they were the undead.

“I’m sorry, Luci. But you can’t stay with me. You have to go.” I nudged her forward. She was resistant.

She wasn’t going to leave. I was forced to do something I didn’t want to do, yell at her. As I began, another abrupt screech came bellowing out. “Shit,” I gasped, having frightened myself. Somehow she understood my vocalization, even though I had no idea what it could possibly mean. To me it had just been an involuntary absurd vocalization. She fled in the direction of three undead. I feared for her. She was an injured creature about to encounter stronger opponents. My worries were unfounded. She swiftly evaded them and made a successful escape. Luci disappeared into the darkness. I hoped she would survive the insurmountable odds that awaited her out there.

I saw others approaching. I re-entered the car, pressed the
Close
button, and quickly ran to its opposite end. As I swiped the card through the reader I heard the thunderous, frantic pounding of the undead on the platform door. I moved into the complex elevator and the door leading to the freight elevator closed. It was the moment of truth. If the card in my hand required a biometric scan, I was screwed. I whispered a brief prayer to my god before I swiped it through the scanner. Whether it had been divine intervention or merely luck, I felt blessed. The door opened.

There was one other thing I needed to do before I returned to my friends: enter Doctor France’s room. I wasn’t sure what I would find, but I hoped in his haste to flee he left something that would shed light on the inconsistencies in his various stories.

I had been correct. On his desk were nearly a dozen file folders neatly stacked, a diary, and an open letter placed squarely in the middle. I briefly skimmed the letter. It was a two-page notice regarding the shutdown of the facility, the transfer and reassignment of base operations support personnel, and in-house civilian personnel, including him. There were also files regarding the transmutes, called
Project Night Owl
. He was being reassigned to Fort Wyvern and would be reporting to Doctor Josephson. It appeared Dick was going to lose his stature as the lead scientist and become a subordinate, which I’m sure didn’t sit well with him. The letter was dated March 16
th
and signed by General A. Wolfe, Base Realignment and Closure Commission, Department of Defense.

VI. Sex, Lies & Video Tape

I leaned back in Base Commander Colonel R.D. Harmon’s comfortable, brown leather chair, awaiting Doctor France. It was our ninth day in our new home. I thought about how much we had accomplished in our short occupation. The first three days we spent disposing of the bodies, disinfecting the facility, and making repairs to the facility electrics. However,
we
made repairs to the facility electrics was an incorrect statement. None of us we were allowed to touch the electrics, nor were we allowed to simply toss corpses into the facility incinerator.

“This is not a cremator but a
rotary-kiln waste incinerator
for energy recovery and incineration that burns refuse-derived fuel as well as diesel
,” Corporal Drukker’s lecture began. “You will not haphazardly toss dead bodies into my incinerator. This is our lifeline.
The heat produced by the rotary-kiln is used to generate steam, which is then used to drive that turbine in order to produce electricity.” I tried to point out that dead bodies were refuse-derived fuel, but the five-minute lecture went unbroken.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me go back to right after our survivor group entered the underground complex.

Our first task, before we attempted a thorough security check of the facility, was to arm ourselves. Though there were plenty of weapons scattered through the hallways we did not use them, not because most had been soaking in coagulating pools of possibly contaminated blood, but because the master sergeant was not going to allow it. “A dirty weapon is a dangerous weapon,” he warned.

The weapons storage room was not as providing as I thought it would be. The space was small and only contained a half a dozen shotguns, a few pistols, eight rifles and not a lot of ammunition. It appeared they had begun to remove the items for transport, for everything contained in the narrow room had been tagged and coded.

Though the room had yielded little, it was a secure place to temporarily leave Max. Our first destination was to be the command center, and none of us could be certain that we would find it free of any threat. It was better if he was out of harm’s way.

After I secured the weapons’ depository, Master Sergeant Brown gave us a quick demonstration on how to lock and load and effectively neutralize an enemy. Our A-team stood next to the entrance of the command center with weapons poised. I figured since no troops came after me when I entered the complex there was no one living inside the facility, or at the very least, no one willing to venture out of their safe place.

The master sergeant pounded heavily on the door, and peered up at the camera mounted to the left of the top of the doorframe. He waved and held up his ID badge, but received no response. The speaker next to the camera was silent and the door remained closed. We had our answer, there was no one living inside.

Everyone took a defensive position to the left of the door as I swiped the card. That is, everyone except the doctor who sat on the floor, still in pain from his bite and the bitch-slapping I gave him hours ago.

I stepped back in line with the others in the corridor, knelt down next to the Kermit, and aimed my weapon. The door opened. Nothing sprung out. We waited silently for the invasion with our guns aimed at the entry. Ten to fifteen seconds the door automatically closed, though the tension and suspense we felt made it seem longer. I tapped the sergeant on the shoulder and told him I was going to re-open the door. The group moved up a few feet more, confident in the fact that there was no one in the control room. I had an uneasy feeling about what lie beyond the entrance. So did the sergeant, who had not taken his aim off the door even after it had closed.

I swiped the card again and quickly moved into position. As I did they appeared.

Three zombies abruptly stepped over the threshold, into the hallway. We jumped back. I knelt down to shoot, making sure I wasn’t in the line of fire. I didn’t want to get shot in the back of the head by Gung-ho Joe. A barrage of lead was unleashed. The three creatures did not jerk nor twist as a multitude of projectiles riddled their bodies. There was no macabre projectile puppetry or grisly bullet ballet. Simply, the dead don’t dance.

In real life people don’t get thrown back or twitch as bullets enter the body; usually there was little movement at all, unless there was a point blank range shotgun shell to the chest, and even then it was barely perceptible. The theatrics and over the top melodrama seen in films was a product of Hollywood; it made for better cinematic drama. How boring would it be to witness someone getting shot and just falling down dead?

But the blood and tissue spray was real. Blood spattered in every direction as the undead were ripped apart. Chunks of flying flesh was slamming the walls. Stray bullets struck in all parts of the far wall and ceiling, like someone was blindly shooting. The sarge and I stopped firing. As the bodies hit the floor, the others followed our lead. Joe broke through the ranks and approached the bodies before anyone could stop him. He stood above them momentarily with his back to the door, peering down, waiting to see if there were any signs of life. He emptied his weapon into the corpses, like a man with a vendetta.

I knew what was about to happen before the creature emerged from the command center. Joe was pre-occupied and didn’t notice that one of the undeads was lying in the entranceway, preventing the door from closing. As the door pressed against the zombie’s leg, it immediately reopened. Another zombie popped out and lunged at him. I shoved Joe away before the thing could latch onto him. We both fell onto the entrails and blood on the floor. A barrage of bullets blasted the creature. It fell dead at our feet.

“God fucking damn it!” I yelled. I was soaked in bodily fluids once again.

I refused to help Joe to his feet. Instead I picked up his carbine and pointed it at his chest. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re a danger to us all and a menace to yourself.”

“Go ahead,” he demanded. “Shoot!” he ordered as he stood up from the floor.

I gave him a leg kick to his outer thigh, and as his leg buckled I finished with a gun-butt to his forehead. I didn’t hold back. I was extremely pissed at him for his stupidity and singular mindedness.

The pain and the force of the two blows were too much for him. He fell onto the floor, into the guts and blood.

The master sergeant stood over him. “That was a stupid thing you did, son,” Kermit said, admonishing him. He helped Joe to his feet, then looked Joe squarely in the eyes. “If you ever do something like that again,
I’ll
kill you.”

Joe was silent, not because he was too stunned to speak, but because he knew the sarge would be true to his word.

I cautiously entered the command center, followed by David and the girls. Joe was relegated to the back with the doctor, out of our way and without a weapon. We entered, guns at the ready, but the room was devoid of the living or the undead.

The room was not as large as I thought it would be, and resembled a NASA mission control center with fewer consoles. The lights were on. Everything was clearly visible as we entered, including the body of a male slumped over in an office chair below a wall of video monitors. I approached with trepidation, not knowing if he was truly dead or would spring up at me the moment I was within striking distance.