Z-Volution (19 page)

“New one, incoming!” Veronica pointed behind them where another zombie moved toward them. “Hold on!” She blasted the top of its skull open with her firearm and it dropped dead, its cranial contents running into a storm drain.

“One more glove!” Alex prepared the left baseball mitt while Veronica got control of the elastic again. They moved in and Alex crammed the glove onto the zombie’s other hand, cinching it down as before. “Play ball!” Then he stepped away and admired his handiwork.

The zombie prisoner looked ridiculous, wearing a garish hockey mask with a professional leather catcher’s mitt on each hand, while its arms were bound together in front of it with a piece of elastic, the free end of which was held by Veronica.

Alex pointed toward the CDC Headquarters building. “Okay, let’s go, Sports Fan!”

30.

Washington, D.C. – PEOC

“Sir, if we want to have any chance of getting out of here, we have to leave now.”

Remington ignored the other commando. He was aware of everything in this bunker—the three soldiers he had left, the sixteen-plus corpses, half of them partially-devoured, the rest with their heads blown off, the screens, some demolished and others showing either news feeds of the mayhem around the country or the scene outside captured by the closed circuit cameras—but his primary focus was on the man at the other end of the video feed.

“Mr. President…”

“DeKirk,” the other man said with a glint in his eye as he backed away slightly and again the room filled the screen. Remington noted blood stains on the walls, gore streaking the tabletop and what looked like something large and hulking moving outside, in the doorway, perhaps guarding it.

What the hell happened there? And what was he dealing with?
A budding sense of dread and hopelessness rose in his chest.
Could he elicit an answer and get to the truth?
“What’s your situation, there, sir? Do you require assistance?”

“Under control for the moment, major, and much better than your situation, I wager.”

Remington chewed his lip and eyed the closed circuit monitor. A herd of crylos stampeded across the White House lawn, while zombie pileups here and there indicated the recently deceased. DeKirk was right, things had deteriorated rapidly up there.
Was there an escape route down here?
There had to be, but he didn’t know the layout or have any blueprints.
First things first.

He turned to the closest aide and whispered, “Clear the bunker and look for an alternate exit.”

“Good thinking, major,” said DeKirk, and Remington lifted his eyes.
Great hearing or was this place just that wired up?

“Sir… Mr. President.” Remington stood at attention again. “Orders? Can you give me a status update? I assume you have full access there, as protocols have been transferred. Do you have links to the Air Force? To NORAD, to NATO? Europe? Are they offering assistance? Or are they facing something similar?”

DeKirk raised a hand motioning restraint. “Easy. From our initial reports, this…outbreak of madness has mostly been limited to the U.S. eastern seaboard and the gulf states.”

“Outbreak of madness? Is that what we’re calling it?”

DeKirk smiled and shrugged. “For lack of a more dramatic…and Hollywood fright night kind of term.”

“Call ‘em zombies,” said one of the remaining commandos.

“And fuckin’ dinosaurs from the grave,” muttered another.

“Yes,” DeKirk said, “I’ve heard the reports and…seen wondrous sights.”

Wondrous?
Remington repressed a shudder, again unable to take his eyes off DeKirk’s oddly-hued pupils.

“Tell me, major. What would you suggest for our next course of action?”

He swallowed hard, tasting dust and blood and smoke. “Contact NATO, or mobilize our carriers overseas and activate the divisions supporting Germany and Korea, organize a coalition of other nations, stop the outbreak first from spreading overseas. I assume all flights are grounded. Then consider quarantines of…hell, the entire Mid-Atlantic states, maybe use the Mississippi as the dividing line, and…”

“We have new reports in from Los Angeles,” said DeKirk in a less-than-sullen tone.

A lump lodged in his throat. “What reports?”

“Overrun with the infected. It happens fast, as you I’m sure you know well by now.”

Remington lowered his eyes. “Then…”

“We’re working on it,” DeKirk said. “And yes, NATO will be our next call. I imagine they’re pissing their pants right about now. Phones ringing off the hook upstairs, if you could get up there, with no response obviously. But we can’t leave them waiting, we’ll get in touch.”

A hundred scenarios swarmed in Remington’s mind, all revolving around how to protect the heartland, to set up defensible zones and perimeters of safety, to find some way to save the survivors (including his own family, hopefully) and mitigate the damage still to come.

“Tell him,” said the commando at his back, “about the other mission.”

Remington’s eyes darted to him in a warning, but it was too late.

“Mission?” DeKirk leaned forward. “Yes, tell me, major. Or marine…I’m eager to hear of any other last minute strategies my predecessor may have deemed worthy. I am learning on the job, so to speak. First day and all.”

Remington met the look of his soldier.
Damn. No choice, but were his fears unfounded?
He knew nothing of this DeKirk, this man suddenly thrust into power and given all the keys to the country, whatever that may be worth at the moment. Was he just some schlep groomed and kept ready in case the impossible happened? Or was there more to it? Even though he mentioned being new on the job—a job that would have any reasonable person stressed out beyond belief—he nevertheless seemed very calm and in control.
Something so not right about him,
as if none of this came as any surprise to him.
The man should be a puddle of absolute fear and loss, and yet he’s cool as an icicle.

He thought of his daughter, and everything again seemed to hang in the balance.
Don’t tell him,
came her voice across the miles and down through the earth.
Don’t, Daddy…

“The CDC,” said the commando, blurting it out as if the words were plucked right out of his throat. “The president…I mean the former president…sent an agent out on a mission.”

“Atlanta?” DeKirk asked, raising an eyebrow. “Major, is this true?”

Remington returned his attention to the screen.
Don’t tell.

He had no choice. Cat was out of the bag.
But what could it matter?
“I only heard part of it, sir. Not sure the agent even got to the airport, she would have had to get through all the chaos, and…”

“She?” DeKirk leaned in. “That wouldn’t be Agent Winters, now would it?”

Remington blinked. “Uh…sir, I think…”

“Thank you, major. So my predecessor sent the young agent with experience against these things down to the one place that might have… what…a cure? An antidote or vaccine?” He narrowed his eyes. “What was it, soldier?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said the commando, and Remington nodded, shrugging. “Only heard she was being sent there on a mission.”

“An urgent mission, by the sounds of things.” DeKirk turned and put his hands together behind his back. “Sounds like maybe I have a call to make before I respond to those Europeans.”

Remington’s lips dried out and felt like they were parched from days in the sun. “Sir, with all due respect…”

“That will be all,” president DeKirk said, angling his head around so Remington could see the glint of yellow now, the irises changing, losing the battle to a hunger barely suppressed.

What the hell, was he…?

“Thank you for your information,” DeKirk added, licking his lips. “I’ll take care of things from here. I don’t expect you’ll make it out of there alive, but maybe someday I will see you again. In one form or another.”

He reached forward, and before Remington could even think of a response, the screen went blank and left them in silence.

The silence of their tomb.

31.

CDC, Atlanta

Dr. Arcadia Grey had seen a lot of bizarre things in the last few hours, but she hadn’t been prepared for the sight out the street entrance camera. The agent and the guy she was with from Washington were back, but not alone.

It reminded her of Halloween back home, looking out the front door and seeing a ludicrous costume, kids out-doing themselves for a good trick-or-treat performance. Except this time it was something far more severe, and the trick, if not avoided carefully, would be a nasty death. On the other hand, the treat was an antidote that could save all of humanity.

Once reasonably sure the specimen—a thrashing, zombified man with blood streaked down the front of his torn shirt, his wrists bound with some kind of elastic behind his back and his head covered like Jason from Friday the 13
th
in a hockey mask—was not going to break out and feast on the few survivors in here, Arcadia released the door locks and allowed them in.

Sealing the door behind them, she then spoke over the lobby intercom and directed Alex and Veronica to the east stairwell. Not trusting the elevators to continue operating reliably, and concerned about all manner of alternative entrance points for those monsters, perhaps through the rooftop access to elevators shafts, she sent them down the long way.

“Stairs?” she heard Alex muttering. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Sorry,” Dr. Grey spoke into the intercom. “Can’t take chances. Just…hold him tight and pretend he’s your infirmed grandpa or something.”

“Wonderful,” Alex said. “Okay Granddad, down you go. You know, we could just shove him down the stairs or put a leash on him and drag him down behind us?”

“Whatever works, just don’t kill him.” Arcadia replied. “No cameras in there so I won’t get the show either way. So just take your friend and go down three levels and on Sub-3, I’ll buzz you through. Head down the hall, and there will be two more secured access doors you’ll need clearance for, and then you’ll find me.”

She released the speaker button, then leaned back in her chair and returned her attention to the computer where she had various algorithms running to test Xander’s solution. Matching protein strings vied against the prion strains in a simulated dance of give and take, the prions almost always overmatching anything thrown at them.

What is it, Xander, what am I missing?
She chewed the end of a pencil, glaring down its length at the screen.
What were
you
missing?
Other than the obvious, that this was all theoretical on his part, smashed together on the fly while the island was exploding around him and he was locked in a room surrounded by zombies. He didn’t have time to do real life tests or to fine-tune the equations. That was all up to her, and she was in the same situation, except here it was a whole city—hell, probably the whole country if not the world—crumbling around her.

No pressure.

She studied the interacting strands some more, then looked again at the other screen with Xander’s formulae and conclusions. Shaking her head, she stood and headed to the other section of the room, to the lab where she called over two colleagues to help her prep the table with restraints.

“Let’s move people, we’ve got a test subject coming down and this might be our only chance at this.”

The others—a young woman named Marie, barely out of grad school, and an older man named Brian, with glasses and a grey pony tail who looked like he belonged out jamming with a folk band instead of in here with the world’s most dangerous microbes, didn’t move too fast to join her.

Their attention was still riveted on the main TV screen, set up in the corner of the lab beside wall-length freezer units and cabinets full of tools and slides and other equipment. Arcadia paused to watch the news feed—something she had resisted for most of the past hour, afraid of exactly the kind of reaction she was about to have.

Desperation, hopelessness, and complete disbelief.

“It can’t be real,” Marie said, echoing her thoughts.

As she waited for Alex and Veronica and the zombie specimen, Arcadia couldn’t help but watch the live feed—shakier than a Blair Witch movie—as if it were found footage of a crowd of horrified civilians running down what looked to be Park Avenue in New York City. Towering buildings on all sides, yellow cabs parked or crashed and just left in place, blurry forms leaping onto others and tearing into them, shredding clothes and flesh; something in the distance: an unfocused shape, huge and hulking, barreling through the street and lowering great jaws to scoop up its prey, then howling into the smoke-filled sky. Other smaller bird-like creatures hurtled up and down, pulling the camera’s focus mercifully up and away from the carnage on the streets.

For just a moment, Arcadia caught a glimpse of a helicopter up there around the rooftops, spinning helplessly, trying to shake off two of the bird-creatures. Then something huge loomed large in the camera’s view, a scream pierced the audio, and the screen went black, turned to static and then… nothing for an uncomfortable few moments until another view took its place, this time of a sedate woman at a desk in a newsroom. Lights flickered overhead and her eyes darted around nervously.

“We have confirmation,” she began, “that the White House is no more…destroyed and abandoned…that the president is dead and the alternate government, location undisclosed, has stepped in. We are assured that everything that can be done is being done, but can confirm at this time that the country is no longer being run from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We are told…told again that the best course of action is to remain in your homes. Stay off the streets, lock your doors, hide in the basements if you can, and wait. Our troops are being mobilized…and we can only hope that this…infection hasn’t spread to our bases in other more secure locations. We are told we can, and will, mount a counter offensive—we will quarantine those areas deemed already lost and…”

The woman shook her head. Her hands trembled and she obviously couldn’t go on, but somehow mustered enough strength for one more thought before she got up and ran to the side, off camera.

“God save us.”

#

Arcadia buzzed the trio into her secure lab, then re-secured the door and set the alarms. She briefly checked the screens and saw with alarm that a greater collection of zombies were congregating outside the main entrance and the side doors, probing, looking for ways in as if they smelled the last good meal left in the city.

Or were they here for some other reason?

She shook her head. That was being paranoid. These infected…they were mindless brutes, dead in most senses of the word except for the ability to move, and of course to feel hunger; but they were truly mindless, acting instinctively.

Or were they?
They seemed to be drawn here to the CDC building, directed here for some reason.

“Were you followed?” she asked Alex as he led in the shambling, thrashing creature. She could sense its hunger, its raw animalistic nature, mixed with a primordial fearsomeness, and she trembled as if she stood before the ultimate predator.

“Followed?” Alex almost choked on the word. “I guess you could say that.”

Veronica glanced over her shoulder as if expecting a mob of crazed zombies to be right behind them, clawing at the locked doors. “After we got our sports fan here, they seemed to all be on hyper-drive, coming at us from everywhere. Barely made it here without having to drop him and run.” She let out a breath only after the specimen was deposited onto the table and strapped down with the help of the other two scientists. Veronica took a step back, wiped off her hands and then offered one to Arcadia.

“Special Agent Veronica Winters. Despite everything, I really am glad to meet you.”

Arcadia reluctantly took the hand, thinking she’d have to immediately disinfect. “I imagine you know all about me.”

The agent nodded. “Because of Xander Dyson. Yes. I had you monitored for a couple years in fact, in case he ever contacted you again.”

“Slippery one, he was. Never gave a hint as to where the hell he was or what he was really up to. Even when we were together.”

“Sorry,” Veronica said with a shrug.

“No,” Arcadia replied, softer. “I’m sorry. I know what he did. To your…”

“Let’s not go there,” Veronica interrupted. “We have a job to do, and every second here with them sniffing around the building is too long. They’re going to get in soon—or else make it impossible for us to leave.”

“How long do you need?” Alex asked.

Arcadia went to her workstation beside the thrashing, hissing creature on the table.

“We’re about to find out.” She looked up for a moment, back to Veronica. “Find out if Dyson actually sent me something that might atone for all the bad shit he did in his life.”

“Can’t believe he might be our last hope.”

“Me either,” Arcadia said, selecting a needle and preparing an injection. “But he was a damn genius, and given what’s happening out there….” She looked up at the TV again, where new scenes of violence, smoking cities and mobilizing armed units flashed over and over.

“What’s the latest?” asked Alex, taking his eyes off the captive now that it was finally secured. “Last we knew, major cities on the eastern coast were in trouble. It looks like Atlanta is done for… I’m sorry.” He glanced at Marie, and then Brian, the one with the ponytail who looked even more ashen.

“We haven’t heard from our families,” he said.

Marie swallowed hard then spoke. “I had a friend text me that they were leaving with a National Guard convoy. Not sure where they’re going. Into the Midwest.”

“Safest bet,” Alex agreed. He turned his attention to the screen, where the outline of the White House, in flames, stood like some surreal doomsday movie poster. “Washington?”

Arcadia shook her head.

“Gone. Transfer of power to the backup contingent, wherever they are.”

“Hopefully NORAD in Colorado,” Veronica said.

Alex turned and tapped the specimen on the forehead on its mask. “Where we have to take you, ASAP. Let’s hurry this along.”

“Wait,” Marie said. “I think I heard there’s finally going to be a press conference. Some kind of national announcement.”

“About time,” said Brian. “See if the new guy has a clue how to fix this.”

“It’s the Rapture,” Marie said in a hollow voice. “No one can fix it.”

“It’s not the goddamned Rapture,” Arcadia snapped, fixing the solution and prepping the needle, looking for a spot on the zombie’s arm to insert it. “It’s just an ancient mutated protein that’s… raised the dead to devour the living and sent forth ancient devilish monsters…”

“The Rapture,” Marie echoed, nodding her head. “Whatever you want to call it…”

“We’re screwed,” Brian voiced.

“Um, have some faith,” Alex said. “We can beat this thing, or at least kill them all and sort it all out. First, though, someone has to accept that this was all planned. We were infected on purpose, a deliberate attack to wipe us out.”

“Who would do that?” Marie asked, wide-eyed as she turned her attention to the screen again, where the American flag stood beside an empty podium. “Terrorists? ISIS?”

“No, try a greedy megalomaniac son of a…”

Alex’s voice died and his heart skipped just as Veronica’s hand found his in a flash and squeezed it like a vise.

“No way,” they both said, staring at the TV, at the man in a pressed blue suit and power yellow tie who calmly walked up to the podium, smoothed back his silvery hair and turned a confident, smiling face upon the world.

“President?” Veronica said in a shaking voice that Arcadia imagined echoed a lifetime of disbelief and horror.

“DeKirk.”