The Zombie Whisperer (Living With the Dead) (18 page)

“The original purpose of the virus was a weapon of mass destruction. Biological in nature.” He glanced at the grenades. “The soldiers on this Team Twelve haven’t been vaccinated. If this detonates near them it will turn them into zombies, but not you guys.”

Dave stared at the grenades. “But Sarah wasn’t vaccinated.”

“Josh and I have been looking at the blood work, running more tests. We think… we
think
… that the baby’s DNA has altered her. We
think
she’ll be immune.”

“What if she’s not?” Dave asked in horror.

Robbie was pale, he hesitated way too long. “We know for sure that the baby will be. We can extract him in the lab and probably save him if his growth rate has been calculated correctly. Use them as a last resort.”

Dave briefly considered handing them back, refusing this thing. But he didn’t. He shoved them in the pack he’d slung on his back and patted The Kid’s head before he headed after his team and tried not to think about a last resort scenario that would leave him considering turning Sarah into a zombie in order to save his child.

It wasn’t going to come to that. It couldn’t.

Chapter Seventeen

Don’t mess with Mama.

The light came on again, this time brighter because there were more people coming into the warehouse carrying their stupid lanterns. I sat up straight from my position dozing in the chair I was tied to and watched as they all strolled toward me. Major Keel, a couple of his guys and Nadia, who was stone-faced and pale. Good, I hoped she felt like shit.

“All right, Sarah,” Keel said as he motioned to his cronies to loosen my ties. “Here’s how it’s going to work. We’re going to hook you up to some machines and let Nadia get a look at you, see how that thing you call a baby is coming along and if we’re safe to move you. If you don’t follow directions, I will shoot you in the eye with this tranq gun.”

He held it up and leveled it at my eyeball as if to accentuate what he was saying.

I’m a tough girl, okay, but anything entering the eyeball
totally
squigs me out. And
my
eyeball? Forget it.

“Okay,” I said, flexing my hands as I was freed. “I’m not going to try anything. I promise.”

“Good,” he said, but he looked a little disappointed as he motioned his guys to take my arms.

They pulled me to my feet and turned me toward the back of the warehouse, an area I hadn’t been able to see due to being restrained and in the total dark. There were pieces of medical equipment there, including an ultrasound and a table with stirrups. A delivery table.

I shivered as they moved me closer.

“I thought you were going to take me out of here to deliver the baby,” I said. “What do you need that for?”

“In case of unforeseen circumstances,” Major Keel said and motioned for the soldiers to get me onto the table.

“You know, I can do this,” I said, pulling away gently and pushing myself up on the table. “No need to shove or shoot my eyeballs, okay?”

I laid back, watching as Nadia motioned to the door. Someone had hooked up a generator apparently, because the lights suddenly came on, nearly blinding me after hours of pitch dark to dim lighting conditions. I squinted, but I could still see well-enough to see she was hooking up the ultrasound. My second in a handful of days.

And to think, before the outbreak, I would have had to pay an arm and a leg for such personal medical attention. Zombie Outbreaks were a revolution for health care, honestly.

I tensed as she started pushing up my shirt.

“Does everyone have to be part of this?” I asked, looking at the soldiers who were staring at me.

Keel pursed his lips. “Men stand back. But don’t leave.”

“Gee, thanks,” I muttered. “Cause I’m so scary.”

“Don’t forget how many of my men were killed in the past, Sarah,” Keel growled, but he turned away as Nadia rubbed the gel over my stomach and started her procedure.

I glared at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be in West Virginia?”

Her gaze slipped to Keel and held there, then she shrugged. “They need my help first.”

I stifled a laugh. “Sounds like they’re altering the deal. Pray they do not alter it further.”

“I don’t think
Empire Strikes Back
is appropriate at this moment, Sarah,” Nadia snapped.

Yeah, she said that, but I’d gotten to her and with nothing more than the truth that she’d compromised herself and for what? What was possibly a very empty promise. Sucked to be her.

“Cut the chatter,” Keel said. “What can you tell me?”

Nadia stared at the screen. “The growth rate is pretty amazing and seems to be increasing,” she admitted with a whistle. “The last time I looked, the child’s size indicated about a four and a half month fetus. Now it’s closer to six to seven… in less than a week.”

“How soon until we could pull it?” Keel asked.

I gasped, my hand coming to protectively cover my stomach, which really was quite a bit more swollen. “Hey, he’s not a damn weed!”

“Isn’t he?” Keel sneered. He looked at Nadia. “We can take him now, can’t we? Research says twenty-four weeks is the base for survival.”

She shook her head. “Not without respirators and a neo-natal care unit, Major.”

“You could-”

“No.” She folded her arms. “I can’t. You aren’t taking this baby until it is the equivalent of at least thirty weeks. I would be far more comfortable at over thirty-four weeks since we don’t have anything approaching medical intervention out here.”

I could have interrupted, but kept my mouth shut. I might not like the girl, but she was standing up for my baby. At least for now.

“And how long will that take?” he snapped.

She glanced at the screen again. “If one week for Sarah equals about two months? Another week to ten days would make me most comfortable and then only if we do another ultrasound to see the growth of the baby at that point.”

“Then we move her,” he snapped. “On the plane today, we could be over the wall by tomorrow.”

I caught my breath. If I was taken away, taken to the stomping grounds of this crazy ass, the chances of me ever seeing Dave again were minimal. The chances of me saving Little Zombie were even less. I reached out and caught Nadia’s hand without even thinking, squeezing hard as I willed tears not to fall in front of this asshole.

She glanced down at me, held my stare for a moment and then, to my shock, she shook her head.

“Major, when Sarah came in from Montana, she had a highly adverse reaction to the flight. In fact, that was how we determined she was pregnant, she almost lost the child then.”

My eyes went wide. Lies, all of it! But lies with a very important design.

“It’s true,” I said, sniffling because now it seemed like it could help me. “We barely were able to stabilize me or the child. Just the thought of another flight-”

“She seemed fine on the chopper,” Keel interrupted me. The dude was a sociopath, he had no empathy for me and my fake ailments. So rude.

Nadia shrugged. “The chopper flies lower, there’s no cabin pressure issue. Plus, she’s looking pale.”

“And not feeling so good,” I lied, again touching my belly. Was I laying it on too thick? Or not quite thick enough? Hard to get that balance right.

“Fuck,” Keel muttered, staring at me like he was trying to read me.

I’m sure he had a feeling we could be bullshitting him… but with even a small chance he would lose his bounty, he had to hesitate. I was counting on it.

“Put her on the plane, you risk losing any information you want out of a live birth for the mother or the child,” Nadia said in a firm, don’t-fuck-with-me medical tone. “But I guess if you just want a cadaver, you can fly her out tonight.”

He clenched his fists at his sides and then pivoted away. “Fine. We stay. Unhook her and I’ll send someone back to tie her up.”

I could hear him barking orders as he headed toward the exit to the warehouse. For a moment, Nadia and I were alone. I squeezed her hand again, this time in thanks.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

She drew back, truly surprised.

“Not that I don’t still hate your guts,” I added.

She stifled a laugh. “I wouldn’t expect anything else. I deserve that hate.”

She shut the machines down and handed me a towel to wipe off my stomach.

“Look, Sarah, I am not trying to hurt you or that kid,” she said softly, casting her glance toward the guard who was slowly making his way toward us. “I swear to you, I wasn’t part of any plans Keel has.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I actually believe that, Nadia, but whether you meant to involve yourself this way or not, you’re in this now. You’re in this and you know what he’s going to do to me, to the baby…” I bit back a gasp as the air left my lungs when I pictured it too vividly. “I’m begging you to help me like you just did. The fact that you did it at all makes me think you want to save us. I
need
you to save us.”

She opened her mouth, but she wasn’t able to answer one way or another before the soldier was right on top of us, snapping about us shutting up, dragging me off to be tied to my chair again and leaving me wondering if Nadia would come through.

And if she did, who she would come through for.

#

The helicopter was landing, but it felt like it moved at a snail’s pace, hovering and dipping little by little. Dave knew the reason. He had eyes in his head. He could see the zombies that were being attracted from all angles by the whirling blades. They were runners, too, hauling as fast as they could toward the food source.

“Gas bomb,” Lisa announced, tossing a canister out the door.

It bounced on the pavement and began to exude a faintly purple gas. The zombies who encountered it staggered, slowed and fell in piles. Dave reached into his pocket and felt the two gas grenades there that The Kid had given to him before they left the lab just a short time ago. They would do something similar to what Lisa’s bombs were doing… only they would kill, or worse really, humans.

And maybe Sarah.

He pushed the thought from his mind because the helicopter dropped quickly, taking the limited window the gas bomb had afforded them. Lisa cut the engine and they all jumped out, pulling weapons to protect her while she secured the chopper so it would be ready for their return.

“I had to land about a mile from the warehouses,” she explained as she withdrew a machete for close work. “So Keel and his men wouldn’t hear the engine. We’ll have to huff it the rest of the way.”

Dave couldn’t complain. It was better than miles and miles on foot through zombie-congested streets and confusing blockades. That might have taken him a day instead of a few minutes travel time.

But he sure as hell hoped Sarah would be at this location and not up in Snoqualmie where weather would hamper both the helicopter’s ability to land and their maneuverability once they had feet on the ground. There was snow up there even this time of year, blocked roads, avalanches. All around crap.

He shook his head and tried to focus as they walked up the street toward the warehouses.

Back in the days when carnivals weren’t abandoned and absolutely terrifying, there had been this game Dave had liked. It was a shooter where cardboard cutouts of people would pop up and there would only be a split second to decide where to fire. Some of the cutouts were innocent people, some were scary targets.

That was what the next ten blocks were like, except with no innocent cutouts in the mix. It seemed like every fifteen feet, a zombie would pop out of a building or drag itself on broken limbs from an alley. They kept firing, reloading, firing, reloading until Dave started to wonder if they were going to have enough ammo left for an actual rescue attempt.

After about half a mile, Lisa crouched down next to a burned out shell of a building and glanced at the map they’d found of the area before they left the lab.

“Okay, we’re getting close. And that means we need to switch to silent weaponry.” She pulled a katana from a sling on her back. It was a beautiful blade, sharpened to razor perfection. “First, it will reduce the encounters, second, we don’t want to telegraph our arrival to Keel and his band of assholes.”

“Keel and the Assholes,” McCray quipped. “I think I knew them back before Lead Tongue hit it big. Sort of a bunch of wankers, terrible lead singer.”

Nicole was stifling giggles at his ridiculousness, but she managed to smack his arm. “Babe, not really the time, okay?”

He grinned at me. “Just trying a thing. You know, Dave, the snarky asides really do help in these life or death situations.”

Dave rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to tell Sarah. I’m sure she’ll appreciate this epiphany of yours, McCray.”

“Are you morons done?” Lisa asked, her tone laced with frustration. “I’d like to go save the girl and get home for a lukewarm beer if you don’t mind.”

Dave nodded. “Yeah, yeah, sounds good.”

He holstered his pistol and pulled the baseball bat from his sling. Ah, the old standby. He did love a classic. Good thing, too, because judging from the big pod of zombies coming their way around the corner from the alley where they’d hunkered down, he was going to be using it quite a bit.