The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (172 page)

Anna stood frozen for the briefest of
moments. She had collided with the dead and their combined momentum
had briefly canceled each other out. She felt the bullets as they
passed her, a disturbance of the air, before she heard them. Wasps,
she thought, and that was her last thought.

Pearl watched as the rifle stitched a
line from left to right. The dead falling, Anna's jacket puffing
out, bits of the polyester filling taking flight. She dragged the
line of fire back. Halfway through her second hurried pass the clip
expired.

She found herself ejecting the clip
before she even realized what she was doing. Her legs were planted
wide. Her mouth was a grim twisted scar of white. One hand went
searching for the new clip and found the grenades again. She
continued on to the clip, wrenched it free and then slamming it
home, but the remaining dead were gone. Two of them lay on the
pavement, heads exploded, the other had crawled away into the
darkness beyond the hanging tarps. A few quick movements and the
rifle was back on her shoulder, depending from the strap. Her hand
wrenched the first grenade free as she ran at the entrance. She
skidded to a near stop mere feet from the entrance, collapsing as
she did.

Anna was dead. She lay still, a large
pool of her blood surrounding her head. Part of her neck ripped
away. A few moments before she had been whole, Pearl's mind
jabbered. A few seconds ago she had been alive. Pearl shut down the
self talk as quickly as it had started. She had fallen to her knees
as she skidded to a full stop, tearing the knees from her jeans as
she did. Her leg was screaming in protest. She looked down and saw
red blooming from the wound in her upper thigh. The wound that had
all but healed over.

She reached for a second grenade as
tears squirted from her eyes. She bought first one, then the other
to her mouth and freed the pins with her teeth, holding the levers
down in he fisted hands. She heard the pins as they struck the
stone and pinged, leaping back into the air. She reached forward
and rolled each grenade under the tarps, listening as they rattled
across the stone floor and into the cave: She scrambled to her feet
as quickly as she could and began running for the brush near the
cliffs.

The explosions came before she was
prepared, catching her as she was running, launching her into the
air. She felt her feet leave the ground, saw the brush flash by,
the river appear below her.

Bluechip

Bear, Beth & Billy

In the end there had been no great
trick involved in finding what they needed. They had followed the
elevators down the hall and a trail of blood that had lead to them
there. Whatever had happened, Weston had not managed to escape
unhurt. Two floors below they had found the ruins of Bluechip.
Doors smashed, observations rooms open and empty. The power was on,
but little was running. Someone had gotten to the main power supply
and turned off all the locking systems. They had done it for their
own reasons and whatever those reasons had been they played well
enough into their own needs.

Lights flickered in the halls as they
walked to area. The virus labs were easy to find. It was there that
the main thrust of the attack had taken place. A bullet proof glass
enclosure had kept those guarding the area safe: Once the locks had
gone down that same area had trapped them.

Blood ran from the walls, puddled on
the floor between the airlocks. There were less than a half dozen
bodies in evidence, others must have managed to escape the area.
Bear knew what they were looking for and found it in one of the
storage rooms. The small glass vials, and the silver canisters. Row
after row filled the shelves. A large section appeared to be
missing. Whether it contained the same antidote he did not know,
whether it had made it out of the facility, no matter what it was,
was likewise questionable. A scattering of documents on the floor.
Folders, case studies, Bear saw when he picked them up. Someone had
dropped them. Most were marked classified. He found out later that
Weston had dropped them when he had been surprised and attacked. He
had made it out alive, just, the folders had been dropped in his
haste: Left there for anyone to find. All the experiments he had
directed. All of his personal files where he had documented the
life of the V virus from the start of experimentation on live
subjects to disseminating it to the population in its many forms.
He knew none of that when he picked it up. He only knew it could be
useful to them.

“
That it,” Beth asked. Her
voice echoed off the yellow tiled walls causing her to start. Her
heart slammed into her rib-cage and skipped a beat. She drew a
quick breath and blew it out slowly.

“
Same stuff he showed me,”
Bear said. He looked around at the walls as he spoke. He picked up
a plastic bin from a nearby table: Small compartments inside of it,
all empty. He handed it to Billy who held it open as Bear filled it
with dozens of containers of each of the antidotes. He closed it
and billy slipped it into one of his over-sized pockets and closed
the flap. Bear sighed.

“
I don't know which is
which... He never told me, although I'm sure he knew.”

“
Doesn't matter,” Billy
said. He licked at his lips which suddenly seemed too
dry.

Beth met his eyes. “Do you know
that?”

Billy nodded. “No, I mean yes, I don't
know, but Pearl does. She saw it handled. Didn't tell me, I didn't
think to ask, but she's back at the cave, we'll know soon
enough.”

Bear nodded. His eyes traveled around
the room once more. “Let's go,” he said as they left the room at a
fast walk. A few seconds later they were riding the elevators back
two levels up.

TEN

November
9
^th

Pearl

The water swept her
quickly downstream toward the west, but it also saved her life. She
managed to get to a rocky ledge a half mile down and haul herself
from the water. A half hour of climbing, her head pounding, had
bought her to the River road once more. She had managed to keep
both pistols and one of the grenades. Her rifle, the other grenade,
and her canteen of water had been ripped away by the current. When
she reached the top she stripped her clothes off, wrung the water
from them and hung them on some bushes to dry. She took the time to
clean both pistols as she waited. They weren't perfectly dry, but
she was sure they would fire if she needed them, and to think
she
wouldn't
need
them was dangerous. She knew she would, it was just a matter of
when. She sat quietly, cleaned the weapons and then checked herself
over.

Her body was a mass of bruises. Blacks,
blues, yellows and everything in between. One shoulder hurt to
move. Her thigh was once again weeping blood, split open, red and
raw. Her headache was at a dull roar, she could feel each
individual pulse beat in her temple. She marveled at it, thankful
it wasn't worse than it was. After all, she told herself, she might
well be dead as opposed to sitting naked on the grassy verge of the
roadway examining her weapons as her clothing dried. The thought
made her smile and she allowed the smile to stay for a bit. Billy
entered her mind a few moments later and the smile slipped away.
She pushed the thought and worry away and went back to cleaning her
guns.

The stiff breeze dried her clothes
within an hour, she re-dressed and then sat off carefully in the
direction of downtown.

The Outrunners

Bear, Beth and Billy had found Pearl
later that afternoon. Billy had driven aimlessly through the
streets that were cleared, following the routes she might take for
supplies. He had seen a shadow by the mouth of an alleyway and
slowed the truck a block away, unwilling to get ambushed if it was
not her; shot mistakenly if it was her. He and Bear had walked
around the block and nearly gotten themselves shot anyway as they
approached her. She had returned her pistols to their holsters and
sagged back against the alleyway wall as Billy had frozen on the
sidewalk.

Billy had sprinted to the alleyway;
fallen to his knees and she had collapsed into his arms. Bear and
Beth had left them for some time to themselves. When they had come
from the alleyway a few long minutes later they had all hugged with
emotion, tears unchecked.

They drove the truck out of the city
and into the barn where they had left it initially. Bear pulled the
doors and they sat in the dim light cast by the holes in the roof,
watching dust motes disturbed by the air swirling in the shafts of
light: Enjoying the silence for a time.

Billy had begun to work on Pearl,
disinfecting her wounds, bandaging her thigh and her head. She
dressed in cleans clothes that belonged to Beth. They could pick up
others somewhere down the road. The thing that had him worried was
the infection that was obvious in her thigh wound. He had gotten
some antibiotics in her, and he would keep her on them. She had
demolished two bottles of vitamin water and several handfuls of
peanuts, but she had eaten nothing else. Billy had let it go. It
was a start. The silence came back and held for a few moments
before Bear spoke.

His voice was heavy with emotion, his
eyes leaking slowly. “They came in the late afternoon. They
captured us immediately. My stupidity. They held us prisoner. I
don't even know how many days. I fell for the old, we won't kill
you or imprison you routine.”

“
We had no choice,“ Beth
added. “They outnumbered us. It was that simple. We had to give up
our weapons and look for a way out.” She took a deep breath and
tears began to spill faster from her eyes. Bear pulled her to
him.

“
We waited for them to fuck
up and they did. I think they saw Billy coming through the air
venting. I think that tipped the scale. They had no way to know he
was just one man, after all I had made a point of telling Weston
there were more on the way.”

Beth pulled away, scrubbing at her eyes
with her hand. “Internally they were all opposed to each other,
falling apart. It was on the edge when we got there, and Billy just
tipped the scale and it blew up... Some of them came and dragged me
out of my cell... They took me, not for any good purpose,” she
looked down and gathered herself in. When her eyes rose they were
clear, red tinged, but determination rode there. “The faction that
took me had already been through a war of their own. They were
deserting.”

“
I kept looking for ways to
slow them down... Trip purposely, or not so purposely. They bound
my hand and I fell the last time and hurt it.” She held it up now,
the wrist swollen and red.

“
I guess that's where I
came in,” Bear said as Beth paused. “I had finally realized that it
was up to me to escape. I had made my way out and I was searching
for her. I had heard them take her, but I had to work at my own
escape: Once I got out I knew I couldn't be far behind. I got a
rifle from one of the ones they had killed, caught them in the
tunnel and we faced off there.”

“
And then Billy came out of
nowhere. There was a short fight. It ended badly for them,” Beth
added.

Billy worked free a plastic box from
one of his wide side pockets.

“
They got both, Pearl,”
Billy told her.

Pearl drew in a sharp breath as he
opened the plastic lid and showed her the vials and canisters
inside. “God, Billy, we have it.” She reached forward and liberated
one of the silver canisters.

Bear continued. “It was almost too
late. That was earlier today... We didn't find out until later all
that happened. We killed a half dozen, half of those who were still
alive there. They were holding a half dozen others,” he shook his
head. “They killed them before we could get them,” he
shrugged.

Beth swiped at her eyes. “The guy that
ran the base ordered them killed, us too.” She let out a pent up
breath. “He's done for too though,” she laughed bitterly. “Got bit
on the way out by one of the dead... One of his own dead. By now
they are probably everywhere in there. They had already found their
way into the air passages.“

“
You saw him then?” Pearl
asked.

“
We made our way out and
bought him with us as we came,” She rose to her feet as she spoke,
pulled a flashlight from her waist and held it with her teeth. She
reached down and grasped pearls hand, pulling her to her feet.
“Still alive, what a wonder,” She shook her head as she walked into
the shadowed interior. She flicked the flashlight on a few seconds
later.

Weston lay, chained to an old beam end.
Curled on his side. His breathing was ragged and tortured. A mass
of small black lines ran across the back of his neck toward his
face.

“
Nothing we can do for
him. He's a goner. They had shot him a half dozen times, twice in
the stomach.” She squatted before him and Pearl joined her. “Shot
the one that got him in the head. He's not coming back... Hadn't
planned it, just didn't prepare to meet dead in the
passageways.”

Pearl made to pull her weapon. “He'll
turn.”

“
No... Wait and listen,
Pearl.” Bear walked over along with Billy. “We want to dose him
with Rex, so if it's true... If we got what we went for, he can't
come back.” Bear pulled a silver canister and a small vial from his
own pocket. “One for them, one for us... I just need to know which
is which: If it is what it is supposed to be we'll know soon enough
after we hit him with it.”