Zombie Theorem (Book 2): The Siege (28 page)
I checked the signs on the wall and noted the security room was in the basement. “We need to get to the basement. I have a feeling we might be up against someone or something. Wait, did you guys come across any bodies or trouble?”
Apache answered, “The Emergency Room beds were all occupied with bodies showing bullet holes to their heads. Not one was spared, children, elderly, woman, or man. We stocked up on plenty of supplies and even some medicines I got out of the pharmacy. I could perform a full-blown surgery with what I have.”
“Good. Hase, how do you want to handle this?” I inquired, giving him the tactical planning that was beyond me.
“Heaven and I will take point. You and Julie behind us, with Vic and Apache next, and Brian and Doc taking rear. We will decide our next moves when we reach our destination. If anyone has their NVGs, put them on,” Hase ordered.
I looked at him blandly for a minute. Brian reached into my bag and pulled out my night vision gear and attached it to my helmet. “Oh, NVG, Night Vision Googles. Got it.”
Julie punched me in the shoulder. “Are you really that daft? Didn’t you watch action movies?”
Brian answered for me, “No, he pretty much lived in the office, consuming data and writing reports.” He sighed audibly, “We need to spoon feed him sometimes.”
They all had a good laugh at my discomfort. Hase then held up a hand and moved to the stairway. He opened the door, and he and Heaven slipped through. We followed in our assigned positions and were soon in the basement. Heaven used my little trick and read the office numbers on the wall. He pointed down the hallway, and he and Hase moved off. We hadn’t gone more than two steps when the lights above turned off. The Delta guys didn’t miss a step. They turned on their NVGs and kept moving. I brought mine down, covering my eyes, and was taken back at the green image in front of me. It was amazing what I could see wearing them. I did feel a little off, though. It was hard gauging distances. I kept moving, following behind Heaven. We turned at the end of the hallway and came to a set of metal doors. Hase and Heaven spoke through hand signals. Heaven took my arm and moved me to a new spot further away, along with Julie. He mimed aiming a gun at the doors, then threw a thumbs up. Julie and I returned his thumbs up, and we raised our guns directing them at the door. Behind us, the rest of the team took up positions covering down the hallway.
Heaven removed something long from Hase’s pack and put the pointy end against the doors. Hase counted three down on his fingers, and Heaven yanked back hard, popping the doors open. Hase rolled a small canister in, and they turned their heads. A very bright light exploded from the room, instantly blinding me for a moment. The sound is what almost killed me, though. After all that silence, to have intense light and sound roll through me knocked me off my game. I shook my head until I could see clearly again. I looked over and saw Julie doing the same thing. We both took two steps forward, keeping our barrels on the door.
Hase came out and held up a hand, “The lights will be coming on in a second. Raise your NVG. We found a subject inside. She seems a little wild. Vic, you want to deal with this, since you’re a cop?”
I raised my NVGs, and they powered down. The lights flicked on, shining bright off the white walls. I felt slightly blind and frazzled. Vic walked past and made his way into the room. I came to the door and snuck a peak in. Heaven waved me over to a monitor station and a wall full of screens. I sat down next to him and, after a bit, found the DVR program. I called up the date for after Fairchild had been evacuated.
The recording showed a group of military guys escorting the hospital personnel out of the hospital. Then they came back in and went from room to room, department to department, and shot everyone that was ill in the head. Then they left. I fast forwarded a bit and found a door open and a woman coming out. She looked around and paced quietly. She checked the nurse stations and then went from room to room, only to come out shaking and what appeared to be screaming. She pulled at her hair and started running through the hallways and floors. I turned off the video at that point. Using the program, I recorded the video onto a USB drive Heaven had produced. I gave it back to him when it was done.
Vic had taken the woman to a different room while we were watching the video. I heard a woman scream and then a man yell “No!” Heaven and I made it to the door at the same time, and I relented to let him go out first. I pulled my shotgun to my shoulder, and we entered the room Vic had occupied for his interrogation. He had his hand pressed to his arm and the woman was lying on the ground, bleeding heavily from a puncture wound in her neck. A scalpel was held tightly in her left hand. Her eyes glazed over, and she smiled as her life force left her quickly. I turned to check on Vic and found Apache already tending to his wound.
Vic looked up at me, “I was asking her for her name when she said I was not going to kill her like I did the rest. She then pulled this scalpel out and sliced my arm. Before I could do anything more, she shoved it into her neck and screamed.”
“Brian and Julie, why don’t you come with me to find the room she came out of? The rest of you meet us in the lobby. Heaven, can you unlock the elevators?”
“Of course, Dan. I’ll watch you guys from the video feed, just in case.”
“Perfect, thank you.” Julie and Brian followed me out to the elevator banks, and we boarded one.
“What floor, Dan?”
“She came out of a room by the nursing desk on the third floor. Julie punched the button to that floor. We rode in silence and got off when the doors slid open. I moved quickly to the room opposite the nursing station. We entered and were almost knocked on our asses with what we found.
On the bed lay a small little boy. He had no hair but had a bullet hole between his eyes. Around him were easily thirty stuffed animals. I walked over to the side and found a bed made of blankets on the floor next to his bed. I figured she must’ve been asleep when the soldiers came in and shot her son. I read his medical bracelet. His name was Chris Williams, and his mother’s name Lisa Williams. I leaned heavily on the wall and closed my eyes momentarily. Tears unabashedly broke through my closed eyelids and poured down my cheeks onto my armored chest. I heard Julie gasp, then she was in my arms crying.
In a minute, Brian wrapped his mighty arms around us and guided us from the room. He held onto us in the hallway until our tears dried up. He let go and made his way over to the nursing station. He came back with a box of Kleenex and handed them to us. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he was holding back tears of his own. I grabbed a sheet off of a cart near the nurse’s station and went back into Chris’ room. I said a little prayer I recalled from when I was a kid and covered his little form under the sheet. I apologized to him for what happened and left the room.
We left the floor without another word and entered the elevator. An instrumental came over the speakers. The song almost brought back the tears. It was Eric Clapton’s “
Tears in Heaven
.” I looked up at the ceiling and just had to smile. The doors slid open, and we disembarked. Heaven was standing in the hallway. “Everything ok?” I motioned for Julie and Brian to go ahead. I stayed back with Heaven and emptied my soul of what I found upstairs.
He listened without interrupting. He then reached out and took my hands. “That child is in God’s good graces and has a place behind the heavenly gates. Don’t worry about him anymore. God wants his warriors to keep fighting his fight here on Earth. Be strong, my friend.” He gave me a hug and said something under his breath. All I could make out was the last word, “Amen”
Heaven let me go, and we proceeded outside and back to our Humvees. Kuppers had gotten the story from Vic and Brian and had already had the convoy ready to go. I got in behind the wheel and followed Delta’s Humvee as they navigated through the parking lot. We rode back out onto North Division Road and continued as its name changed to Highway 2 and then headed northeast. The lead Humvee pulled off into a McDonalds parking lot near the town of Colbert. Hase climbed out and walked back toward our Humvee. I opened the door and pulled myself out, “What’s up?”
“Got a message from Harry. Let’s wait for Kuppers, Vic, and Apache. Then I’ll lay it out.”
I jumped up onto the warm hood and looked around the area we parked. There were a couple of trucks in the small grocery store behind us. I motioned for Brian to join us. Julie opened her door, and I could hear her talking to Angel. Brian came around the hood and gave me the ‘what’s up’ look. “Do you mind grabbing Doc and Senshi and checking out the area?”
“Yeah, boss,” he spoke into his radio, and Senshi and Doc climbed out of their positions and trotted up. Brian explained the request, and they spoke about a plan then disappeared around the McDonalds.
I turned my attention back to the group. “Harry just radioed. He said he has not seen any movement on our route. He has even switched to thermal and infrared and neither shows anything. No movement, no animals. Says it’s eerie. The pilots and troops the General is sending just entered Washington and should be landing within the hour. Our escorts are ranging out further to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho and other small towns. They also report seeing nothing. Philips is requesting that one of them head over to Seattle, or one of the other large cities, and check them out.
“I wonder if all of Washington is empty? Could this have something to do with Ridder or the Initiative?” I wondered out loud.
“When we left, the General said that the northwest was a giant black hole. We are the first to travel this far north. Maybe the Initiative is testing their cure here,” Vic threw in.
“I think we should continue on and get to our objective. Feels like there is a giant sword hanging over our heads and is about to drop any second now,” I added.
Kuppers clicked on his radio, “Brian, Senshi, and Doc report. Over.”
“There ain’t shit out here. Weird thing is, there’s power. We were about to break into the small store and grab a few things. Over,” Doc’s voice came over the radio.
“Negative. We are about to move out, so get your asses back here. Over.”
“Roger. Over.”
I climbed back into the Humvee and stole a kiss from Julie. As I pulled back, Angel reached out and encircled my shoulders in her arms. She then rested her head against mine. She whispered into my ear, “I don’t think the quietness is gonna last.”
I turned my head to face her. I looked into her eyes and felt the despair and fear she emitted toward me. This girl, since I found her in San Francisco, had never showed these emotions. There was always an underlying message of happiness, love, and strength. Now, I felt the exact opposite.
I kissed her forehead and gave her my best smile. “We are gonna get going the minute Brian gets back. I promise everything will be ok when we get to the ranch.” She gave me a forced smile, then sat back in her chair, and nibbled on a cookie she got this morning from Brian’s MRE.
Brian and his team came around the corner of the McDonalds and climbed into their assigned Humvees. Once Brian was in, Hase pulled back onto the road, and we followed. A mile down the highway, we turned and continued down some smaller streets until we came up East Woolard Road. I continued to watch the lead Humvee and let Julie and Brian do their jobs of scanning the houses and fields to our sides.
We slowed our speed and continued down the road. Brian unfastened the hatch and popped out the cupola with his M4 at the ready. A feeling of dread started to emanate its way through all of us. I can’t explain why. The stillness just now started to push its way deeper into us. We had just driven through an empty city devoid of any life, except one woman driven crazy by her son’s death. Yet here it was.
We continued deeper into the country and passed farms, overgrown fields, and orchards. At the end of the street, Hase’s Humvee came to a stop. I pulled past him, and he followed me down a dirt road. This was the back way onto my father’s ranch. I had only been here five times, but I remembered the way with surprising clarity. Forty minutes passed as we came out on an open field, with a large ranch house with a wooded copse next to it. A large fence with a small gate sat in front of us, blocking our way. I got out and walked up to the gate. A simple combination lock kept the gate secured. I studied it for a bit, and then an old memory came back. My dad was a superstitious man and had a set of numbers that he used for good luck. I spun the combo face and input the numbers three, seven, and twenty-one. The lock clicked, and I pulled it free of the gate. I swung it open and motioned for Julie to take the driver’s seat and proceed. I waited for the convoy to finish rolling through, then I secured the gate and lock back into place. I took my seat and continued leading the convoy up to the house. I was becoming excited, yet my heart started feeling heavy with worry. We circled to the front of the house and turned off the engines.
I had to fight with myself to be slow and take my time, instead of rushing into the house. Kuppers sent Doc and Senshi to the far side of the house on a recon mission. Hase made some hand signals, and Helmut and Howser trotted off into the forest on their own mission. I walked slowly up to Kuppers who had an intense look on his face. “Dan, the drone and escorts say that they are having sensor issues. I don’t understand it, but the drone’s infrared and thermal cameras are being blinded.”
“Wait, what? Are there ways to actually do that?” I asked, bewildered.
