Plague Nation (16 page)

Like Simone.

* * *

Panic broke out. Most of the soldiers and civilians ran for the exit, dropping whatever they were carrying. One soldier gestured toward the forms still strapped to the cots, and two others immediately started up the rows, systematically putting bullets in the heads of each of the infected patients, moving down the line with a calm efficiency a robot would envy.

Two others held their positions and began shooting at the approaching zombies.

My grip loosened as I stared in horrified disbelief. The soldier took advantage of my lapse in attention and pulled away, dashing out the doors before I could stop him.

Two more bullets, two more dead patients. The lucky ones were too far gone to realize what was happening, but those close to me strained against the straps holding them to the cots, shrieking as they realized what was being done.

I couldn’t let this happen. It was murder—a cold, calculated death squad in action. I started to unsling my M4, only to have someone grab my wrist from behind in a grip stronger than my own. I turned, ready to go medieval on the person’s ass.

“Don’t,” Nathan said. “You can’t stop it.”

His voice was oddly muffled, and I stopped fighting. He was wearing one of the fire-evac hoods or masks or whatever they were called, the upper half of his face visible through clear plastic. He had a bulging duffle bag slung over one shoulder.

“It’s wrong.”

“I know,” he replied. “But it’s either that, or leave them here to burn to death. They’re going to die no matter what. You know that.”

“But these ones.” I gestured to the three patients closest to us. A little boy no more than six years old, a girl barely into her teens, and a heavy-set man in his forties, all hellishly aware of the situation. “They might make it. They could be wild cards, right?”

Nathan shook his head.

“They’re past that point.” He handed me a smoke hood. “Here, put this on.” I didn’t ask where he got it. Nathan and his seemingly endless bag of tricks and supplies were like Mary Poppins and her carpetbag.

I took the hood and put it over my head. Nathan made a few adjustments and suddenly I could breathe freely again.

“Come on,” he said.

I hesitated as through the clear plastic of the hood, I locked eyes with the little boy lying on the cot. His expression was pleading with me to do something.

“I—”

I heard a loud crack and a small hole punctured the boy’s forehead. His eyes glazed over even as his expression still begged me to save him.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, even though he could no longer hear me. A sob wrenched through me, and my eyes burned with unshed tears and residual smoke. I looked up and saw the soldier who’d fired the shot, walking slowly toward the little boy he’d just killed. He lifted his head, and even through the protective mask I could see horror and grief in his eyes. I wondered if he’d ever be able to come back from this night as a sane and functional human being.

I knew I’d never forget, and I wasn’t the one who’d had to pull the trigger.

“Come on.” Nathan grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the far door. With his other hand he hefted some fancy handgun from his personal armory. Part of me appreciated the fact that he didn’t ask what I was doing there, or tell me to evacuate. He knew why I was there, because he was on the same mission—find Simone and get her to safety.

As we walked, he coolly shot at the oncoming zombies, each shot finding its way into the skull of a walking corpse. I followed, happy to have someone else take the lead about now. I unsheathed my katana, reasoning that I could clean up anything Nathan missed.

Not that Nathan missed much.

Charred, blackened corpses continued to stumble through the door as he and I reached it, dodging the last few fleeing civilians as we did so. The smell of burnt flesh mixed with decay, as if someone had tossed rotting meat onto a BBQ. Cooking didn’t make zombies smell any better, and not even the chemical stench in the air could mask it.

Nathan capped the two lead zombies in their heads. They fell to the ground, creating a stumbling block for the ones behind them. I could see more through the gap in the door, at least half a dozen in the hallway beyond. I wondered how many had been in the lab when the fire broke out, and how many of those had managed to make their way up a level, much less any further.

“How the hell did they get out of the lab?” Nathan growled, echoing my line of thought. We didn’t have time for speculation, though, as an extra crispy zombie pushed its way through the door. Nathan didn’t waste a round on it, instead bashing in its Kentucky Fried head with the stock of his rifle.

I dodged past him into the hallway and decapitated another smoked ghoul, so charred that its original sex was unidentifiable. Several more trailed behind it, each one more burned than the last. Nathan and I dispatched them quickly, heading down the hallway toward a door on the left that should have been shut, but was now standing wide open.

What the fuck?
I thought.
The door’s been wedged open.
Sure enough, a small piece of metal kept it from swinging shut on its own.

Smoke poured out of the stairwell that led to the floor below. Flames were visible now, far below, moving up the stairs—along with more zombies, each one looking sorrier than the one before it. All I could think was that if the zombies were this badly damaged, could any humans have survived?

“We have to hurry,” Nathan said, and he pushed past me, bashing another zombie’s skull in with one thwack of his rifle stock. “If anyone’s still alive down there, they don’t have much time left.”

I nodded, and the two of us transformed into whirlwinds of zombie destruction, making our way down the stairwell. I hoped Nathan had an access badge or the security code for the door that led into the lab. Otherwise we were shit out of luck.

The formerly sterile antechamber was filled with smoke, its white walls smeared with blood and bits of flesh. Several lab techs sprawled on the floor, their HAZMAT suits shredded along with their bodies. A discarded fire extinguisher lay next to one of them. Nathan scooped it up just as that particular corpse started to stir. Without missing a beat, he smashed the tech in the head, but the force of the blow was cushioned by the HAZMAT hood.

Nathan jerked his head at me.

“Take care of this, would you?”

I stabbed down with my blade, using extra force to penetrate the hood and the zombie’s skull. I did the same thing—preemptively—to the other fallen techs, knowing it was just a matter of time before they got back up, too.

Nathan, in the meantime, used the fire extinguisher on the flames that were licking at the edges of the wide-open double doors, also wedged open with hunks of metal. Someone wanted this fire to spread, which meant that someone had set it on purpose.
Great.
As if zombies weren’t enough, we had a frickin’ arsonist on the loose— and on the payroll.

Through the double doors it was a hell of flame and smoke. I could see several figures staggering around, whatever clothing they had long since burned off. The metal tables were all empty, the restraining straps no doubt burned into ash. Even through the smoke I could see that the holding pens in the back of the room were empty, their metal doors slung open.

Fire burned in places I wouldn’t have thought could catch, like the metal tables and cement floor. It licked up the walls, reaching hungrily for the ceiling. The smell of melted plastic, chemicals, and what smelled like gasoline seeped through the mask’s protective filter, and the heat from the fire was nearly unbearable.

We didn’t have much time.

“Simone!” Even muffled by the mask, Nathan’s voice rang out over the low roar of the flames.

Was it my imagination, or did someone answer? Even with my enhanced hearing, I couldn’t be certain.

“Did you hear that?” I said.

Nathan shook his head.

“Not sure.” He yelled Simone’s name again, the word ending in a series of rattling coughs that sounded like they hurt. The masks weren’t meant for this sort of exposure—they were designed to get someone to safety, and quickly.

Why isn’t the sprinkler system kicking in?

I was ready to go back the way we came and get the hell out of there when I heard, very faintly, someone call for help, followed by a dull thumping on a hard surface.

“Someone’s alive in there,” I said.

But I needn’t have bothered saying anything; Nathan had heard it, too, and was already spraying foam from the extinguisher to clear a path through the flames. I took the initiative and ran ahead, silently praying that we weren’t collectively hallucinating.

Two flaming zombies staggered toward me, and even as I dispatched them with my katana, I found myself giggling. The phrase “flaming zombies” conjured some very politically incorrect images in my mind. I blamed the smoke inhalation and kept moving, honing in on a closed door to the left, in between the dissection tables and the holding pens. Melted paint bubbled on its surface.

A lone zombie clawed at the door, slowly sinking to the ground as the flames that engulfed it finally ate through its connective tissue. Nathan sprayed more foam, clearing a path for me to reach the door. I pistoned the heel of one foot into the foot of the zombie’s skull, then kicked it out of the way.

Without bothering to do the “is it hot?” test, I just grabbed the handle.

Shit!

Yes, it was hot, and I’d have blisters. The door also didn’t budge. I looked up and noticed a lock and hasp on it. The lock was engaged, and there was no key in sight.

“Nathan, it’s locked!”

“Stand out of the way.”

I did, and Nathan charged the door, hitting it dead center with his right shoulder. The wood shuddered, but didn’t give way.

“My turn,” I said, then sent my right heel into the door with a side kick. Nathan followed up with a kick of his own.

The wood began to give way.

We kept kicking until we’d cleared a hole large enough to reveal a fairly roomy supply closet. Lying on the floor, with a cloth pressed over her face was Simone, coughs wracking her body as more smoke poured into the space. Her white lab coat was spattered with gore, blood oozing from what looked like a bullet hole in her right arm.

Nathan immediately pushed past me, impatiently yanking large chunks of wood out of his way, clearing enough space for us to get inside. He dumped his duffel bag on the floor and extracted another evac hood. Pulling the cloth out of Simone’s hands, he started to tug the hood over her head, but she resisted, pulling it away as another coughing fit wracked her body.

Nathan held her until it passed, then spoke to her.

“Simone, can you hear me?”

She nodded weakly.

“You have to put this on,” he said. “There’s too much smoke and shit in the air here for us to get you out without it.”

“These...” Simone pulled a blue bag from behind her, one of those soft insulated coolers. What sounded like bits of glass were clinking together inside of it. “Take—”

“I have it.” Nathan took the bag from her and set it off to one side. “Now put this on.” Simone reached for the mask, trying to help pull it on with fingers unable to complete the motion. Her eyes rolled up in her head.

“Shit,” he said. “Help me, Ash.”

“What about that?” I nodded at the wound on her arm.

“It’ll wait. We have to get her out of here before she asphyxiates.”

I held Simone steady as Nathan pulled the evac hood over her head as gently as possible. I snuck a quick look at his expression. If ever a man’s feelings for a woman were evident, it was at that moment.

Blazing heat beat against my back as ribbons of flame dripped from the ceiling, which in turn started to melt like wax from a candle. The walls may have been cement, but the ceiling was made of acoustical tiles, probably with a crawl space up above. I saw sprinkler heads up there. Why the hell didn’t they activate?

Another chunk of tile fell onto the floor, hitting a patch of liquid that immediately flared into a wall of fire in between two metal tables and the path leading out of the lab.

“Nathan...”

“Here.” He shoved the fire extinguisher at me, hoisting a now unconscious Simone in the classic fireman’s carry, duffle bag once more slung over his shoulder. “Clear us a path.”

Sweat poured down my face under my mask as I shoved my katana into its sheath so I could handle the extinguisher and pointed the nozzle at the base of the flames. Squeezing the lever, I swept the nozzle from side to side... but nothing came out. The damn thing was empty.

We are so screwed.

As if to emphasize how screwed we were, another section of ceiling plummeted to the ground near the exit, connecting with another wide ribbon of flame and creating a nice little ring of fire. I consciously willed Johnny Cash to get the hell out of my brain as it wilted from the heat. The double doors to the antechamber were now completely blocked, the air shimmering like a desert mirage.

“Can we make it?” I looked at Nathan, who didn’t appear to feel the weight that was draped over his shoulders. My eyes and lungs burned, even with the protection. If we didn’t get Simone out of here immediately, she would die.

“We have to try.”

“Wait.” I dashed into the closet and grabbed a couple bottles of water. The plastic was tacky to the touch. Unscrewing the lids, I dumped the contents over him and Simone.

“Let’s go,” I said, tossing the bottles aside.

Nathan sprinted into the flames, vanishing through them into the antechamber. I heard the thud of his footsteps on the metal stairs. They’d make it.

Good.

I started after them, then noticed the bag Simone had pushed at us, still sitting on the floor. If it was important enough for her to protect, I’d bring it out. Slinging it over my shoulder, I took a couple of steps, only to have a blast of heat send me scuttling back into the closet for momentary refuge. I needed another bottle of water to give me some degree of protection. I grabbed for one, but my fingers sunk into the plastic, the water pouring out and evaporating onto the floor.