V Plague (Book 11): Merciless (20 page)

Looking up as I struggled, the sight of several females nearly on me sent a massive surge of adrenaline through my system.  They were close, and I was in about the worst position I could be in to fend off an attack.  Trying to avoid panic, I twisted and tore at the items that had me hung up.  My efforts succeeded in freeing my upper body, but as it came loose, my feet slipped off the rung I was standing on.

Starting to fall, I arrested the drop at the last second with a death grip on the lip of the hatch opening.  Feet kicking in the air, I was trying to find a rung when a female thrust her head through the opening and screamed.  Her voice was loud in the enclosed space, echoing off hard, concrete walls.

She reached for me as I got one foot onto the ladder.  Her hands locked onto my arm and she leaned farther into the opening, trying to reach my face.  Releasing the hold with my right hand, I grasped a fistful of her hair and pulled.  The female came easily, slipping through the hatch.  She released my arm and slashed at my face as I kept pulling.

Then she was overbalanced.  Gravity took over and she slammed into my body when I released the grip on her hair.  She was turned away, falling headfirst, and there was nothing for her to grab to break her fall.  Then she was gone and I held my breath, hoping she didn’t crash into one of the others and knock them off the ladder.

It seemed to take forever before I heard the sickening impact of a human body on concrete from far below.  Fortunately, I only heard one. 

Pulling myself up, I looked out the opening and saw three more females nearly at the hatch.  They saw me and screamed, leaping forward with hands extended.  Grabbing a small handle on the inside of the iron door, I tugged hard and slammed it shut an instant before the infected arrived.

25

“Everyone OK?” 

I was in complete darkness, clinging to metal rungs set into the concrete walls of the shaft.  The iron door was right in front of my face and I could hear the muted blows of the raging females as they tried to batter their way through.

A chorus of “good” answered me and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief when I heard Rachel’s voice from somewhere below.  A moment later a light came on and I looked past my boots to see it waving around.  Long or Johnson using their weapon light.  I caught a glimpse of Rachel, then the light shifted focus as whoever was using it aimed directly down.

The shaft was deep.  So deep it appeared to narrow as it descended beneath the ground.  I could see that the ladder rungs I was standing on continued all the way to the bottom.

“Who has the light?”  I asked.

“Long,” he answered, swinging it back up and momentarily blinding me.

“Let’s start moving down,” I said.  “And I sure as hell hope there’s a door down there Johnson can open.”

He didn’t answer.  A moment later the light swung crazily for a few seconds as he adjusted the rifle on its sling so it was pointing down.  Then it began moving deeper, jerking slightly from the motion of his body on the rungs.  Johnson clicked his light on and shifted his rifle until it was horizontal across his back.  This gave us enough illumination to see the ladder as we descended.

I gave everyone some time, wanting us spread out and not right on top of each other.  When Johnson was ten feet below my boots, I started climbing down.  The ladder rungs were thick iron set into the concrete wall.  They were just as rusted as the hatch had been, the surface rough to the touch.

The bad thing was the flakes of rust that broke free occasionally and caused me to slip.  Not so much that I couldn’t maintain my footing or grip, but enough to cause my butt to pucker with fear of a long plunge to my death.  From the occasional muttered curses below, I suspected the others were having the same concerns.

It took several minutes of steady climbing before Long called that he had reached the bottom.  Glancing down, I saw him shoving the female’s shattered corpse out of the way before he helped Rachel step off the lowest rung.  She looked around, but couldn’t find any place to step that wasn’t covered by a pool of blood. 

“You should hold up, sir,” he called a moment later.  “It’s kind of tight down here and Johnson and I need to switch places.”

Johnson grunted and I didn’t feel the need to say anything.  Just stopped and hooked an arm through a rung to hold myself in place and give my hands a break.

Looking down, I watched them swap positions, then Johnson began examining what looked like a large slab of steel.  Rachel was pressed against the far wall of the shaft, giving him room.  He checked over the door for several minutes, taking his time to carefully inspect several locations on its surface.

“What’s the verdict?  Can you open it?”  I asked as he began a fresh scrutiny of the portal.

“Maybe,” he said in a distracted voice.  “It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“Thought you’d been trained for this,” I grumbled.

“Trained for modern, high security doors, sir,” he said.  “This thing is ancient.  There’s a small, manufacturer stamp in the steel, near the bottom.  1958.”

“So it’s old.  Is there a way to open it or not?”

“Yes, sir.  I think so.  You were right about there not being any electronics.  There’s a mechanical lock, or at least I think there is.  It’s covered by a hell of a thick plate that has to come off first.  Gonna take some time.  You OK hanging on for a while?”

“Do what you gotta do, Sergeant,” I said.

Shifting arms that were hooked through the rung, I got a better view of where Johnson was working.  He removed the light from his rifle and handed it to Rachel who kept it focused on the door.  Handing his pack to her rather than putting it down on the bloody floor, he retrieved a small set of tools. 

Fifteen or twenty minutes later the final bolt holding the cover came free.  Johnson grunted when he removed the plate, turning slowly and dropping it onto the dead female’s corpse.  Taking the light from Rachel, he pointed it into the new opening and bent to peer inside.

Waving her closer, he handed the light back and positioned her hand so it illuminated the spot he needed to see.  Returning the tools to his pack, he pulled out a hard sided case and opened it.  I got a look at several instruments that were obviously highly specialized before he selected two of them and turned back to the door.  It wasn’t long before a loud click echoed through the shaft and Johnson stepped back. 

“Wait!” 

I shouted as he reached for the door.  He paused with his hand in mid-air and looked up at me.

“We don’t know what’s on the other side,” I explained.  “If there were a bunch of people that took shelter and the virus got to them, there might be infected ready to charge through the instant that door moves.”

“How you want to do this?”  Long asked.

It took a few minutes, and lots of squeezing around each other, but we finally got re-situated.  Long and I had joined Johnson on the floor of the shaft.  Rachel was a few feet up the ladder.  Not that she’d be any safer if we were overwhelmed by a tidal wave of infected, but because there just wasn’t room for all four of us.

I had attached Johnson’s light to her rifle, and since it was the only suppressed weapon we had, I’d be the first, and hopefully only, one to shoot if necessary.  Long stood tight against my right shoulder, rifle ready in case I needed support.  Johnson was waiting, hand deep inside the door on a lever that would free the catch holding it closed. 

When I nodded, he pulled the release and leaned back to pull the heavy slab of steel open.  He grunted, his boots slipping slightly, then the massive door began to move.  Slowly at first, then it rapidly gained momentum and swung open on nearly silent hinges.

It seemed to take forever for a gap to appear.  The door was incredibly thick.  At least six feet, probably more.  But it had been designed to protect the occupants from the blast and radiation of a nuclear war.  I didn’t doubt it was capable of withstanding almost anything short of a direct strike.

When it finally cleared the jam, my finger moved to the trigger.  I was ready to instantly fire if I saw anything that looked like a threat.  Red eyed infected or Russian uniform.  But all that was revealed by the light was a long tunnel with a highly polished concrete floor. 

As the door continued to open, overhead fluorescent lights buzzed to life.  I blinked in surprise.  Hadn’t expected that, but wasn’t going to complain.  Especially since I could now easily see that the tunnel was empty.

“Clear,” I said after a moment, then, “moving.”

I went forward, rifle up and scanning, though there wasn’t much point.  The tunnel in front of me was long, at least fifty yards, and there wasn’t a single door that opened off its sides.  It was nothing more than a blank corridor that ended at a T-intersection, probably only there for access to the shaft we’d come down.

Through the opening, I came to a stop ten feet in, Long stepping up next to me.  Each of us kept our rifles at the ready, aiming at the intersection ahead.  Rachel, then Johnson, came through behind us and they worked together to close the door. 

“Sir, I think we should leave it unlocked in case we need a fast exit,” Johnson said in a low voice.

“Agreed,” I said without taking my attention off the far tunnel.

“Ready,” he said a moment later.

We set off, moving down the hall in a tight, box formation.  Long and I were on opposite sides, shoulders brushing our respective walls.  Rachel was close behind me, Johnson to Long’s rear.  As we walked, I noticed how fresh and clean the air smelled.  The atmospheric control system was definitely up and running.

I halted us a few yards short of the intersection with an upraised, clenched fist.  Stood there for nearly a minute, listening.  Absolute silence.  I could hear my three companions quietly breathing.  Someone’s stomach rumbled slightly.  Wait, that was me.

With a hand signal, I got us moving again, slowly stepping to the end of our corridor.  Approaching the juncture, I put my back against the wall and eased sideways with my rifle up and aimed at the steadily increasing field of view of the cross tunnel.  Long was doing the same thing, the effect being that I was checking the open area to his rear as he checked mine.

Stopping with my shoulder at the corner, I cut my eyes to Long.  He looked at me and nodded his head slightly, letting me know it was clear.  I did the same.  Carefully, we each stepped into the corridor and checked them again.  Still empty.

“Got some kind of plaque on the wall down this way,” Long mumbled to me.  “Maybe it’s a directory of some sort.”

I turned to see what he was talking about, and he turned to watch the area I’d been covering without having to be told.  Damn, but I love working with well trained Soldiers!

The new tunnel stretched out in each direction from the one we’d just left.  There was the occasional door, labeled only with a letter, a hyphen and a number.  The closest door was A-83. 

Knowing the military, that meant we were probably on the first level beneath the surface, and 83 most likely meant there were at least that many rooms on this level.  Farther down, I could see what Long had referred to.  It looked like nothing more than a slight variation in the wall, but on these perfectly smooth surfaces that could only mean something was attached.

Signing again, I got us moving in that direction.  We passed several doors, the numbers incrementing from the 83 I’d already noted.  How damn big was this place?

Passing A-88, I called a halt in front of a large sign.  It declared this was the home of USSTRATCOM.  It also had a directory, but no map.  Lots of Lieutenants and Captains and had offices on the A level.  B was Majors and Lieutenant Colonels.  C was Colonel country, and D housed three Generals and a whole host of meeting rooms.

There were also labels for operations, space command, tactical air, and half a dozen other commands.  Some were on the higher levels, but most were on the E and F levels.  As far as I could tell from the directory, that’s as deep as the bunker went.  But there could be a lot more facility that wasn’t listed.

And I didn’t care about any of it.  I just wanted to find a way to the surface.  We’d spent enough time getting in that it would be dark.  If the Russians hadn’t already departed, we’d be able to move around and find them.  Maybe.  Unless more infected had arrived.

Rachel reached past me and tapped one of the first entries on the directory. 
Armory
.  There were actually three of them.  One on A level, one on C and another on F.  Someone had actually been thinking and spread them out.

“Think they’ll have some suppressed rifles?”  She asked.

“Worth a look,” I nodded, checking the room number for the A level.  “That way.”

I pointed to my left and we began moving again.  We were looking for A-97.  It should be right up ahead, but it took longer than I expected.  As we kept walking, the doors were becoming more widely spaced.  Larger rooms, I imagined, then slowed as I saw a bend in the tunnel.

We approached carefully, pausing at the corner.  A-94 was right behind us, so we had to be close.  Easing my head out, I froze and held up a warning hand for the rest.  This was another long corridor, and only a short distance down its length was a large group of infected, completely filling the tunnel.

26

I pulled my head back and signed for a silent withdraw.  Rachel and Johnson lead the way, slowing when we were a few yards down the corridor.  I waved for them to keep going, wanting us as far away from the infected as possible.  I was moving backwards, rifle trained on the bend in the hall.  Long didn’t need to be told to do the same.

When we were back in the tunnel that ended at the airshaft, I positioned myself so I could see the length of the corridor in the direction of the infected.  Everyone looked worried as they gathered around me.

“Infected,” I said quietly.  “And a shitload of them.  At least a hundred.”

The looks on their faces probably mirrored my own.

“What are they doing?”  Rachel asked.