A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (28 page)

“Were you able to find a suitable syringe and
the water?”

“Oh. Sorry Dr. Keller.” Davis handed over the
syringe which had been in his shirt pocket, then pulled the
unopened bottle of water from a side cargo pocket.

With his back to the prisoner, Ted opened the
box of medicine and retrieved one of the glass twenty-milligram
vials and set it aside. Next he cracked the seal on the bottled
water and set it on the floor between his knees. He then ripped the
syringe from its sterile packaging and drew the proper amount of
water which he injected into the Ziprasidone vial, then shook it
vigorously in order to reconstitute the powdered medicine.

“I need a hand in here,” Ted said in a low
voice.

Pug shifted in his seat. Manacles rattled
metal on metal. “What are you doing Dad?”

“It’s OK son... I will
never
hurt you
again,” Ted said, playing along.

Davis and Croswell entered the room while Ted
readied the injection; after withdrawing the proper dose he said,
“This has to go into muscle... hold him tightly.”

With the two men pressing Pug firmly into the
chair Ted hiked down the man’s pants and jabbed the thirty gauge
needle into his right butt cheek.

Pug didn’t have much fight left in him yet he
still cried out.

“Thanks gentlemen... that went better than I
thought,” Ted said as he policed up the medicine, water and used
syringe and tossed them back into the bag which he handed over to
Croswell.

One at a time Ted, Croswell and Davis stepped
from the room and formed up in front of the one-way glass.

“So one shot and he’s just like new?” Shrill
asked as he stared at the pathetic looking figure through the
glass.

“Just like that?” Davis said
incredulously.

“He’s suffering from DID.”

Nash tore her eyes from the prisoner and
spoke up, “In layman’s terms, Dr. Keller.”

“DID... Dual Identity Disorder. This man is a
survivor alright. He survived childhood horrors, probably sexual in
nature, that caused him to make up an alter personality... kind of
like an internal bad cop/good cop type of scenario. Sometimes the
alter identity will go away after the trauma ceases. Other times
new episodes of extreme violence or trauma—for instance the dead
tearing someone limb from limb. Something like that can trigger an
episode.”

“When does the identity switch back?” Shrill
asked.

“Since someone has recently beaten the hell
out of him... I suspect it may not. I have a feeling he has been
either off of his meds—probably some kind of an oral
antipsychotic—or he has been under-medicating for quite some time.
All very plausible because I know I haven’t seen an open Rite Aid
for a couple of weeks. At any rate his demons were let loose—so to
speak. You’ll have to give him the same dose after four hours,” Ted
said, shrugging his shoulders while making a face that said he had
given it his best shot.

Shrill held open the exterior door. “Davis...
Croswell... we need a moment alone with the doctor.”

Nash turned from the glass and took a seat at
the end of the long table, then cleared her throat and said in a
soft voice, “Ted... I owe you an amends. I am
so
sorry for
your loss. What I’m about to tell you is going to be very hard for
you to accept—we had to make a snap decision.”

“Who is
we
, and why are you
apologizing?” Ted asked as a confused look crossed his face.

Nash went on, “William is dead... there’s no
changing that.” She paused as Ted pulled a chair and sat down
heavily. “Since there is no delicate way to say this, I’m going to
lay it all out on the table. William was
murdered,
along
with six other people.”

After an audible gasp Ted slapped the table
with both palms. “All I did was give William his drug cocktail and
something to help him sleep—for two days you let me believe the
sedatives I gave him caused his death. How-fucking-dare-you!”

Shrill maneuvered between Ted and the much
smaller major, remained on his feet and said, “It had to be done—he
had one or more people helping him—and they are still on the loose.
We looked at the kid Wilson and his sister... hell, we even thought
you
were involved. We checked a Denver phone book and sure
enough what you told the soldiers at intake checked out.” The
colonel took a deep cleansing breath then wagged a finger at Ted.
“One... according to the Yellow Pages you all lived in the same
building—except for Sasha—her name didn’t show up but she’s a minor
so that didn’t seem so unusual. And two... evidence led us from the
crime scene right to Pug’s doorstep—literally. He was shutdown...
withdrawn. He gave up without a fight.”

Ted emitted a drawn out chuckle and then
said, “Wouldn’t know it by looking at his broken nose.”

“About all I can offer is a sincere apology.
I am
deeply
sorry for your loss Ted. You know in a
roundabout way that monster in there killed an American hero—a
general, who just saved us from the horde that
you
saw
firsthand.
Pug
or
Francis
... whatever person he
really is... he also killed the two scientists who were working to
cure Omega. So you see... you’re not the only one who has lost
someone.”

“Doesn’t bring William back,” Ted said as he
stood up and pushed his chair back forcefully, suppressing the urge
to throw it through the one-way glass. He glared at the two Air
Force officers and rushed from the room, slamming the metal door
behind him.

Nash stood and made a move to follow. “Let
him go,” Shrill said. “That is an order.”

***

After the long lonely walk fraught with more
than one wrong turn, Ted found himself back at the
cave
.
Scaling the two wooden steps seemed like summiting K2. The wood
slat door banged behind him with a resonance seemingly signaling an
end—only there was no director standing in the wings waiting to
yell, “
That’s a wrap
.” The decision was his to make and came
easier than he would have ever imagined.

The happiest chapter in his life had ended
violently—cut short by a little bug and a little madman—sadly both
manmade. Ted didn’t have the energy to turn another page nor trudge
through a fitting epilogue.

Right where he had left it when Airman Davis
came a knocking, the folding chair beckoned. And no doubt Miss Nosy
would also be knocking in due time. As if on autopilot he stepped
up onto the chair and pulled the noose from its perch on the
rafter. Standing on the chair left him very little head room and a
smaller margin for error. He eyeballed the length of rope between
the noose and the point where he had secured the other end, then
guessed the distance of the chair seat to the floor. After a quick
calculation he muttered to himself, “Six more inches.” Then he
looped the noose end twice more around the two-by-four support
beams.
That oughta do it
.

Ted gazed at the small photo he held in his
hand and said in a low voice, “Here I come William.”

In order to drown out the rational head
shrinker part of his brain chanting,
Don’t do it, don’t do it,
don’t do it
, he began singing his favorite Rolling Stones tune,
and with
Sympathy For The Devil
echoing from the canvas
walls he stepped off into the unknown.

Chapter 29

Outbreak - Day 11

Utah/Wyoming Border

Flaming Gorge Recreation Area, Green
River

The fuel-laden Ghost Hawk pushed along mere
feet above the deck at a conservative one hundred knots.

Red rock cliffs, with green firs clutching
their flanks with gnarled roots, rose from the desert floor.

Up ahead a snaking stripe of water blazed
silver in the afternoon sun.

“Flaming Gorge Dam,” Ari said, indicating the
cement monolith rising above the trickle of a river. Dark streaks
painted the dam face from top to bottom where water continuously
spilled through the overflow sluice gates.

Continuing the impromptu geography lesson he
added, “That’s what is left of the Green River. The rest is
contained behind that thing.”

Slowing the helicopter considerably, Ari
popped them over the lip of the dam. “Durant... are you seeing what
I’m seeing?” he spouted over the shared shipboard comms.

Simultaneously, every operator in the back of
the chopper pressed a face against the nearest window to take in
whatever sight had gotten the usually unflappable aviator so worked
up.

Durant slowly and deliberately panned his
head towards Ari, flashing him a look of disbelief from behind the
impenetrable smoked glass visor.
Ari had said some dumb things
over the years but nothing came close to this
, Durant thought
to himself. He held his gaze steady and finally answered deadpan,
“Seriously Ari. How could
anyone
miss that
thing
? It
looks like Lake Havasu during Spring Break down there.”

“Minus the college co-eds of course,” Ari
quipped, reining in airspeed and bringing the Ghost Hawk into a
steady hover thirty feet above the blue-green wind whipped
chop.

“Holy hell,” Tice blurted over the comms.

“I second that emotion,” Sergeant Lopez
intoned as he performed a quick sign of the cross. “Only there
ain’t
nothing
holy down there.”

Directly off the nose of the Ghost Hawk, in
the center of the reservoir, floated no less than a hundred vessels
clustered together. Open bowed runabouts, high performance ski
boats, and aluminum party barges interspersed with multi-colored
personal water craft rode the swells like an immense technicolor
lily pad. Suddenly aware of their chance at salvation, several
dozen people competed, all trying to win the chopper’s attention.
Arms aflutter and gesticulating wildly, the sunburned survivors
appeared giddy at the prospect of escaping the fate that most of
them had undoubtedly resigned themselves to.

“With that many boats down there, shouldn’t
we be seeing a lot more people?” Maddox asked.

Craning his head to get a better look Lopez
added, “Where do you think the rest of them went?”

Tapping a finger on the window, Cade
answered, “Most of them are on the beach on the port side.”

Hundreds of weathered zombies dotted the
water’s edge. The largest concentration, a putrefying cluster of
living dead, stood huddled on the algae mottled boat ramp nearest
the fleet, patiently awaiting the next shore excursion of fresh
meat.

Smaller packs of zombies staggered about the
debris strewn campgrounds while others loitered near the general
store/gas station—undead patrols in search of easier prey.

“
Madre
... it must have gotten too hot
out there on the boats for some of them,” Lopez supposed,
indicating the numerous grounded boats and the bodies, splayed out
in death poses, scattered around them.

“Yeah buddy. What a
motherfucker
...
having to choose from dying of exposure... or facing that
shit
on shore. But you know what?”

“No Tice... but I have a strong feeling
you’re going to
enlighten
us,” Cade said to the CIA
spook/nuke specialist who had proven to be more than worth his
weight in gold during the recent Castle Rock mission.

“Those dead bodies... the ones that are truly
dead
and gone, the ones baking in the sun down there...
they were the lucky ones
. If I ever fuck up and get caught
by a swarm... and one of you doesn’t off me...then
I hope and
pray to God
those things eat enough of my ass so I can’t come
back as one of them,” Tice said as he nervously adjusted his
ballistic vest. The mere thought of being overcome by a swarm of
zombies took him to a dark terrifying place he didn’t want to
visit. He closed his eyes and thought of puppies and other gentle
harmless creatures—anything but the voracious living dead.

East of the main flotilla, Jedi One-One
overflew about two dozen sailboats. The vessels, arranged side by
side roughly a hundred yards from shore, formed a small floating
white island—but strangely there wasn’t a soul moving above deck on
any of them.

Cade sensed the helicopter nose down and then
begin a steady descent before Ari leveled off at about twenty-five
feet above the water.

“God damn,” Hicks said, training the mini-gun
on the undead mass below. He silently longed for permission to
light the fuckers up, but knowing full well the ammunition had to
be conserved he shelved the urge.

“
God
didn’t damn nothin,” said Tice,
pointing through the port side window behind the co-pilot’s seat.
“Lookie there... that’s the rest of them.”

Cade shook his head in disbelief. The series
of sluices on the back side of the dam which could be opened or
closed when excess rainwater runoff made it necessary was choked
with hundreds of floating zombies. The monsters, most wearing life
vests, beat the water to a white froth flailing their arms.
“Fuckin’ great, now I’m going to have the same kind of nightmares
as Ed from
Deliverance
... only minus the Dueling Banjos
soundtrack,” Cade said. “And
that,
Lopez...” he added,
pointing at the unsynchronized swimmers, “explains why the majority
of the boats are empty.” Cade closed his eyes, imagining how the
flotilla formed: first a few boats congregated to escape the dead,
then more followed their lead, unwittingly bringing their infected
loved ones along for the ride. It was a sure recipe for disaster
that quickly turned into a floating microcosm of the reality on
land that the survivors had been trying to escape.

Ari broke in on the comms, “I thought Ed was
the one who had to squeal like a pig.”

“
No way
,” Durant chimed in. “That was
Bobby... he was squealin’.”