RecruitZ (Afterworld Series) (33 page)

Jeffrey Barrell was a good man or as good of a man as could exist in the afterworld. He covered up Marcus’s death in order to protect people he’d just met, which wasn’t what I expected, but I appreciated it. Then again, we armed him with enough information to present to the government so that all of TRAC’s contracts would roll over to his company. He was now going to be a very rich man.

I kept waiting for a release of some sort, like any moment that soul-crushing feeling would just disappear. Finding answers was supposed to have been my release. When that didn’t happen, I assumed destroying the man who ruined Gavin would provide the relief. It didn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. That moment when I pulled the trigger was euphoric. When Marcus gave me an excuse to shoot him, and my finger quickly slipped onto the cold metal and simply pulled the trigger, it was an unexplainable rush. But the moment he dropped, I was left with that same emptiness that had been haunting me since the beginning.

I glanced up at the large stone building in front of us. Preston placed his hand on my shoulder as I took a deep breath in and stared at the entrance to the CCC.

“Controlled Cloning Center,” I whispered.

I wasn’t sure I would ever be ready to enter such a facility but in order to properly turn over everything to Barrell Security, we agreed to check out the facilities that were associated with ML Holdings. Dr. Falino included a list of locations across the country in the briefcase. We all wanted to keep things discreet, Jeffrey included, so we volunteered ourselves to begin with the facilities in this state. Once we found out what was typically at all of these different locations, then would come the hard part—figuring out what to do with what was inside of them.

“Ready?” Preston asked.

I turned to face him and looked into his blue eyes. “Abby was right. You’re eyes really are an interesting color.”

Preston’s eyes locked on mine. “Are you beginning to warm up to me?” he asked, softly sweeping a kiss along my cheek.

I flashed a smile and turned around, climbing the steps of the CCC. I picked the lock and opened the door, noticing the reception desk was empty. Hopefully, the entire building would be vacant. Once word had spread that Marcus had been taken out, many of his supporters vanished. They didn’t want to be connected in any way to the crimes that could be exposed if we were to take anything to the authorities.

The beige industrial carpeting and taupe chairs in the lobby looked like any other type of waiting area with cheap art hung on the walls and a small sculpture stuck in the corner.

We walked past the reception area and down a hallway that led to the research area. I wasn’t sure if we’d actually find various stages of cloning behind the doors or an empty space that had been cleared out. Nothing would compare to what we found underground at the MHA facility. That I was sure of.

Preston pushed open the double doors, and we walked into a large sterile room with microscopes lining one wall and file cabinets on another. Large metal desks were grouped together in the center of the room, and the strong smell of disinfectant stung my nostrils.

There was a large window overlooking another room. My heart began beating rapidly as I spotted incubators like the ones I saw underneath the MHA facility. My eyes briefly scanned the rest of the room, spotting cages and gurneys. But where were the subjects?

We made our way into the other room and the stench was hard to stomach. A mix of bleach and something sour, death maybe?—lingered in the air. I brought my shirt up to cover my mouth and nose while I breathed. I began examining the empty adult-sized incubators as well as the empty cages. They had been used recently so where did the experiments go?

“There’s another door over there,” Preston said, pointing behind me.

I would have missed it. It blended into the wall and a table had been shoved in front of it.

“I don’t have a good feeling about what’s behind there,” I whispered.

Preston was already moving the table aside when I arrived, and I noticed the stench near the door was much worse. I listened carefully but didn’t hear anything on the other side of the wall.

I stood next to Preston as he pushed on the door, and it moved in front of us, letting us slide by the narrow opening. The stale air suddenly hit me, and I began coughing as I looked around the dark space. Preston grabbed the flashlight I had attached to my belt and flipped it on as I tried to calm my lungs.

The narrow spray of light captured something I wasn’t prepared for. He quickly turned around and used the flashlight to find a light switch. I spotted one and flipped it up.

What the light revealed was something I would try to flush from my mind for years to come. Rows of gurneys with the undead in various stages of decomposition were scattered through the room. But beyond those bodies, I saw tables with fresh, newly created undead hooked up to some sort of life-support.

“Why would they need ventilators?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Maybe they’re not infected yet.”

“Just clones?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said, as we snaked along the undead.

I gasped when I saw the bodies strapped down to the gurneys with restraints. None of them looked strong enough to do much of anything. My eyes jumped from one new shell of a body to the next.

“These look like the ones who killed Gavin.”

“But I don’t think these have been turned yet,” he said.

“Maybe that’s what this is,” I said, pointing at the solution bags with the IVs going into their arms.

I continued looking at the faces of the cloned beings. Their eyes were closed, mouths pressed tightly together…most had the same expression. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a peaceful expression—maybe unknowing.

Preston was a few steps ahead of me when I heard him let out an absolutely piercing, guttural sound. He collapsed to his knees, his head falling on the gurney next to him.

I ran up behind him, my eyes running up the body until I reached her face, her eyes.

Oh no…please no!

They were the same greenish-blue as Preston’s. It was Sophie. We were staring at a clone of Sophie.

“We’ve got to save her,” he said, his eyes fierce as he stood up.

“It’s not her,” I said, quietly.

“It’s her and we have to save her before the disease hits.” He grabbed the IV and yanked it out of her arm tossing it onto the ground.

There was nothing I could do or say to stop him. He slid his arms under her back in an attempt to lift her off the gurney, but she shot up and snapped her neck toward Preston, her mouth gaping. She was infected. She lunged at him and he dodged her just in time. The restraints anchored her legs to the gurney, but that didn’t stop the power behind this recreated body that was more like a machine.

Whatever this solution was, it made the undead look like the living, but gave them the power of the undead. The gurney fell on its side, the wheels spinning as the cloned Sophie’s arms waved wildly, reaching for her brother to tear him apart.

Preston was out of her reach, and his eyes connected with mine, desperation and defeat hidden behind his cold exterior. He grabbed his pistol and pointed it toward the imposter writhing on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I clenched my eyes shut as the shot was fired into her body.

When the thrashing stopped, I looked down at the now still body. There was no blood. This body was not human. There was no soul in this body.

Preston fell to his knees and I ran over to him, pulling him into my arms.

“I’m so sorry, babe,” I whispered.

He didn’t shed tears. Instead, he shook free from my arms, stood up, and began walking back through the maze of undead. I followed him back to the lab and watched as he went over to the file cabinets and began opening all the drawers. I ran to his side and began looking through the files as well. I didn’t know what either of us was looking for, but I hoped we’d know it when we saw it.

My hands ran along the files, mostly notes and status reports until a logo caught my eyes. I yanked the piece of paper out of the folder, unveiling the small blue rectangle with sprays of white and on top, three letters.

CDC

It was an email.

“Dr. Falino was wrong. At least one person in the government already knows,” I whispered, handing the piece of paper to Preston. “Someone helped to fund Marcus’s operation.”

Our government was making weapons out of zombies with the help of TRAC.

Preston finished reading the email and shoved it back to me.

“We’ve got to warn Jeffrey,” he muttered, pushing the file cabinet over.

He pushed another one down and another, the papers spilling out all over the floor. I watched his eyes dart around the room until he found what he was looking for—a way to ignite the papers on fire.

His pain guided his choices as I watched the events unfold around us. Small fires erupted around the room, and he shot out the glass separating the rooms. Preston’s anger was directing how this would end, not logic, not intelligence. The very thing that separated us from the undead could be the very undoing of humanity—emotions and rage.

Preston grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room. The shards of glass crunched under my feet, and the smell of smoke replaced the pungent smells of disinfectant. It wouldn’t be long before the flames reached some of the more explosive elements in the building. I ran as fast I could, holding onto Preston until we pushed through the front door and reached the outside.

“I’m sorry,” he said breathless. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“We’re only human,” I whispered, turning away to look at the building one last time.

Preston was already on the phone with Jeffrey, explaining to him what we’d just found out and it sounded like we were in time. He hadn’t contacted the authorities yet.

I leaned against the car, listening to Preston calmly relay the latest information as I allowed myself to listen to my body. I was exhausted from pushing away the truth about Gavin. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to believe it. But the reality—our reality—contained a type of existence that was built on fabrications and half-truths. I could no longer push aside the facts that surrounded me about my husband and our shared past—the strangers that we turned out to be.

But I could change my future and the way our history was shaped and that was what I intended to do.

This was why we needed a different kind of army to fight this war. We needed to fight fire with fire. No matter how much I detested these new creations, I needed them. I needed to use them to destroy them and that was what I intended to do.