The Zombie Letters (38 page)

              Men were yelling incoherent orders over the radio. Nothing was decipherable. They kept talking over each other. A siren blared right above Teel’s head and he screamed, accidently shooting a hole in the wall in front of him. Powers . . . that little shit. He had clearance for the loading areas. It seems the young man was far more resourceful than realized before . . . and with more of a moral compass than the President had thought. Teel protested his inclusion as an officer training the other survivors. It was good to gain their trust, yes, but now it had backfired.
They
were inside. Teel might have just as well painted targets on the blast doors.

              General William Teel heard a scream. It was bloodcurdling. Such an awful scream, like someone being tortured. It echoed through the hallway that lead to the medical hub. Each hub, all four of them, were spider-webbed with hallways that lead to other hubs and certain areas. He was wandering the medical one now with an old Gulf-era service pistol in his hands. At the end of the hall, he entered the medical hub and saw his President sprawled out on the floor with a dripping syringe in his hand. Teel ran up to him and felt for a pulse. Nothing. He was dead. Teel searched the small lump in his former superior’s jacket pocket and found one of the glass vials from Holding Area A7. This area wasn’t used for anything medical at all. It was where all the cleaning chemicals were kept. Willis had injected himself with a mixture of drain cleaner and bleach. “Coward . . .”

              From the medical hub, Teel ran with his weapon through another hallway nearly a mile long. It lead to the main area. The place where the shuttle driver docks were, two of the greenhouses and a training area. The second he ran into the large hub, he saw the infected crawling on their stomachs to get into the small crack made by an open cargo blast door. From the outside, it looked like just a loading area for a big truck. Just like anywhere else where freight would be loaded. However, instead of a storeroom or warehouse, the tunnel ramped down deep underground. Right into what was once the most classified bunker in the world. Now, the things were swarming in like flies. They crowded around each other, shoving their way in. The others that came inside immediately ran down one of the hallways, seemingly at random. They all just took off in every direction. They weren’t just running everywhere. They could hear everything. There were already about fifty of them inside the building. The entire team stationed at the front of the facility were already taken out. Spent ammunition was everywhere. Bullet holes dotted the walls . . . there were dents in the slightly open blast door that lead to the tunnel outside. Four bodies in their military gear were on the floor, missing their heads. There were
seven
men station to the area. They were no doubt part of the crowd now.

              Teel raised his weapon and fired it into the air. They all shot their heads in his direction. They stared at him . . . their bleeding eyes wide. They barred their teeth at him . . . yellow and
black with rot and decay
.
Teel tossed the useless gun across the room. It loudly
clanked
against a far wall and spun on its side. “Well . . . come on, then.”

The General stood at-ease as all of the intruders ran to him.

IV

              “Back so soon? Taken care of our little problem, Powers?” One of the Japanese officers said. He had surprisingly very good English. Not too hard to understand. Still had a bit of Engrish to it, but the guy sounded like any other officer anywhere.

              “Quiet as a fart in the wind.”

              “Good.” A group of men, mostly American, joined Powers and what appeared to be a high-up Japanese officer. He was just barely an officer in his
own
military. Other countries were not his forte yet. The guy could be the goddamn prime minister for all Powers knew. Shit, just a few months ago, he was still a sergeant. “We were just about to head to the area where the Archaeamphora are being prepped for extraction. We are nearly ready to go. Would you like to join us?” One of his own men asked.

              “Sure. Yes I would. Thank you.”

              They walked through the large inflatable facility. It looked like they had just put tracks into the ground to place doorways and walls, laid concrete down everywhere except where the plants were housed, and put this huge inflatable structure over it. Massive fans were installed in the ceiling to circulate the humid air. It was cool inside . . . but it still smelled like a forest. “This facility is impressive,” Powers said. “Never seen anything quite like this.”

              “We got the idea from
your
military, you know,” the Japanese officer said with a sneer. He didn’t seem to like Powers much. Or any of the other Americans there, for that matter. His hand was resting on the butt of his sidearm the whole time. His eyes jerked around. He was nervous.
No . . . that’s not the word
, Alexander thought.
He hates us. We bring nothing but trouble with us wherever we go. He wants us in and out.
They all entered an air-sealed door that hissed when they walked inside. A warm waft of air hit them in the face as they entered. The ground here had been untouched. The forest floor was uncovered and unaltered for about fifty feet around. Powers could see the base of the mountain start to rise up out of the level, flat earth. The Archies were clustered together in a group . . . the trees around them cut down. There were strange, overhead metal cylinders that looked like heat lamps over the plants. The roof of the base was completely open. The blue sky overhead through that little window was surreal. It played tricks on his mind . . . making him think he wasn’t quite where he was. Alexander looked around the room . . . noticing that the facility had a HALON system. There was a glass box on the wall that housed some gas masks. He needed to do something . . . and fast. He was supposed to die with the others. Alexander Powers had no illusions about making it out of the forest alive.

              Alexander opened his mouth to speak when a man burst into the room with a large rifle in his hands. “Stay in here! Front gate, sir! They’re attacking us with those smoke bombs! All my men up front are dead!” The second he said it, Powers lifted the canister out of his pocket and threw it against the wall. Before the two men at his side could react, he used a scalpel he found in one of the examination rooms to slice open the neck of the Japanese officer at his left. He snatched the gun off of him and quickly put a bullet in the other’s left eye. The man at the door raised his gun as Powers broke the glass case on the wall with his elbow and placed the mask onto his face. The guy at the door didn’t even have time to aim the weapon when the tuft of white smoke coming from the cracked canister caused his whole body to turn him inside out. Everything that was beneath the skin exploded outward, spraying the walls around him with a dark, red chunky soup. The guy probably didn’t feel any pain at all. He may not even know what the hell happened to him until he watches Heaven’s judgment court replay the footage.

              Powers didn’t want to pick up the other gun on the floor. It had blood all over it. He always had a habit of biting his fingernails. God knew what kind of little open areas he had on his hands. Before the smoke reached him, he put on his gloves. The Japanese officer at his feet gurgled and grabbed onto is throat. The thick, cloudy vapor covered him as he attempted to get to his feet. He popped like a balloon, as did the other American officer on Teel’s team. There were red lights mounted on the ceiling of the facility, even in the next room outside of where the plants were being held. There was no alarm, no base-wide intercom. Just the lights. All flashing red. The echo of gunshots rang out in the deathly silent room . . . the only accompanying sound the hissing of the Lynn bomb. From inside the mask, it sounded like someone humming. His breath was fogging up the eye piece, making it difficult to see. When he stepped out of the room, his foot snagged something and he fell to the floor, nearly knocking the mask off of his face. One of the men who no doubt worked at the base . . . an older man, what looked like an American, lie on is back with a gun at his side. The veins on his face were a bright purple and he was shaking horribly. The veins under his skin bulged and began to take on a sickly, horrible black color. The man screamed and clenched his teeth together so hard that he broke one of them. A thin stream of blood rocketed out of his mouth and sprayed the goggles of the mask Powers was wearing.

              Two hands grabbed Alexander Powers by the back of his pants and yanked him up. The person who lifted him took his arm and threw him to the side, spinning him on his feet like a top. He drew his gun and aimed it, the world spinning around him. His finger found the trigger and began to squeeze.

              “Lieutenant! Alexander! We’re inside!” the muffled voice of Dennis Jackson said.

              Powers nearly dropped his gun when he heard it. “Jesus Christ! I almost shot you! Where is everybody?”

              “They’re making their way in.” Dennis’ voice behind that gas mask sounded robotic and disjointed. For a second, it almost didn’t sound like him at all. He would never have any idea just how close he came to getting killed. Even if Alexander told him, he would never believe it. Dennis held up a radio and pressed it to Alexander’s ear. “Listen.”

              Garbled shouting in Japanese careened through the radio. Sounds of hissing, shouting and loud pops could be heard in the background. Then, a voice in English interrupted.
We have a security breach . . . all sections of the base are under alert. We have six intruders on the base . . . I repeat, we have six on the base that must be shot on sight. Take all measures necessary to contain sections A and D-1. The area is NOT on lockdown. Main security terminal destroyed. If anyone can hear me, please . . .
The radio went dead.

              “Six . . . there are only five of us,” another voice echoed behind them. Victoria Rains walked into the hallway. The American military uniform she had on was sprayed with blood. She held a Lynn canister in each of her hands.

              “Six . . .” Powers whispered.

              “Maybe they counted wrong,” Dennis said. “This place is in chaos. We are all wearing masks, dressed like military. No one knows who the hell we are. Four of the men stationed here ran right by me a second ago. One of the Japanese officers tried to snatch the mask off my face because he was breathing the gas. Exploded from head to toe. If they don’t even know who the hell we are, how do they know there’s six of us here?”

              “Places like these have security devices you’d think are science fiction, Dennis,” Powers said. “We can’t worry about this right now. We need to destroy those plants. Have you seen anything here we can use? Guns will work, but anything we can use to burn with?”

              “I saw some of those incinerators in the main security area. When Darin and I tossed one of the canisters inside, we smashed up the console all to hell. We didn’t know what every button on that thing did, so we destroyed it. Apparently, they can’t lock the base down now. Ana is out at the entrance. No one has made it out . . . or
in
as far as we know.”

              “Go back in there, get Darin and grab one of those incinerators. The Archies are down this hall and at the very end. Looked for a door marked D-1. Get in there and burn everything down.
EVERYTHING
.” Powers patted Dennis on the shoulder and ran to the end of the hallway.

              Vic shouted at him when he was nearly out of sight. “Where the hell you goin’!?”

              “We need to get out of here, right? I’m going to steal me a helicopter. When I see smoke, your asses better be out of that main gate or I’m leaving you behind. If we leave in a fucking hurry, no one will know what happened here and who did this until we’re back home. I sent word to all the strike teams deployed by our military. Told them that the bunker in Virginia had been overrun. Everyone left there is dead. Every high-ranking officer. That’s where they fucked up, you see? I’m the ranking officer in charge at that bunker now. Hurry up!”

V

              Ana Garner stood by the front entrance of the facility. The white cloudy gas was so thick around the area, she could hardly see in front of her. On occasion, someone tried to run out. They didn’t make it three steps past the door. She stood with the stolen radio at her side. For a second, she thought she could see someone at the outer perimeter of the base about fifty feet from the entrance, hopping a fence. Through the fog, it could have been her eyes playing tricks on her, but when she saw the mask on the man’s face, she ran toward the fence with a pistol drawn, shouting at him to stop where he was. He was dressed in a white lab coat . . . the same ones that those Japs in the base wore. Something was off about it, though. It didn’t fit him quite right. The coat was too small. An ID badge was hanging from a lanyard around his neck. The picture on the lanyard was of a bald, older Japanese man. The one Ana saw hopping the fence looked nothing like him, from what she could see. The man turned around and stared at her. Her running slowed down to a walk as she approached him. She lowered the gun in her hands when the man removed his mask and smiled.