“
Hit the trucks!” I shouted. “They got sixties on the roofs of the trailers!”
I heard curses on the comm-link. The last three limping trucks moved in behind us, trying to box us in.
"Private Kelli's hit!" I heard from the Rhino. "O’Shea's working on her!"
The Marine in Cody’s rig was dead. The bullet hit him square in the face.
Zeds swarmed toward us. I couldn’t see a way through this roadblock. One of the cattle trucks took two grenades. The trailer erupted into a fireball. I stopped the Humvee.
“
Jinks, get out here with that popgun!” I shouted as I swung open the door. “Throw some WP into these deaders!”
I had the angle on one of the trucks to pop the gas tank. I counted my shots. Two went into the oncoming Zeds, and the next two went into the tank to make it nice and messy. The fifth, a tracer, went right into the diesel. The rig went up in a nice, slow ball of fire. Shots still rang out from behind us. We were in a nasty crossfire.
“
We gotta get outta here, Boss!” Jinks shouted.
I jumped inside and slammed the door as a Zed reached for me. The rotted bastards were among us now. Return fire from the scavengers faded out. Deaders pounded on the side of my rig. Above me, Bill popped away at them with his pistols.
I saw a way out. “Raiders, single file. Follow me. Stay on the guns.”
I received radio confirmation as I dropped my rig into gear. Two hundred yards up the road, the scavengers fired on us. My troops concentrated on the men on top of the trailers. Incoming fire died away. I plowed through a wall of rotted bodies, headed into the brush, and put the Humvee’s off-roading abilities to the test.
We dozed our way through deep weeds clogging what had once been a cornfield. Engines snarled. Sod flew up and rained down as we tore through the turf. I ripped through the fence, and my troops followed. We swung as wide as we could, found a low rise for the county road that crossed the Interstate, climbed over, and headed out the other side.
As we emerged from the weeds on the other side, my troops opened up on the wrecked rigs from the west. Zombies swarmed around those trucks now, and our shots added to the scavenger’s misery. Served them right.
I hit pavement on the Interstate, mashed the throttle, and we were gone. All my troops' rigs made it through.
“
I hope this little trip is worth it,” I muttered. Behind me, Jinks tended to a bullet wound in Bill's forearm. Nothing serious, but the round left a bloody crease as it passed.
I glanced at Tess. Her eyes still showed wide and white as she tried to calm Trevor. A bullet had found its way inside and blasted through the top of her seat.
The comm-link crackled. “Captain Death, this’s Sergeant Devon at tail-end Charlie.”
“
Go, Gunny.”
“
Sir, we acquired two intelligent assets when we stopped back there.”
“
Acquired?”
“
Yessir. We advanced on their truck when we stopped and convinced them to come with us.”
I could just about imagine Gunny’s version of the event. “Where are they now?”
“
Flex-cuffed and stuffed in back of the Humvee, sir.”
“
They can make the rest of the trip there, then. Be sure they can’t see where we’re going.”
“
Already covered, Captain Death. Gunny out.”
I grinned. Good crew I had. I turned to Tess. “You okay?”
She nodded. Trevor was starting to calm down now that the shooting was over. I knew just how the kid felt. But I was supposed to be a tough grown-up; we’re not allowed to cry at all the noise.
Radio reports came in. From the Rhino, we heard Kelli would survive. She took a round through the shoulder, but she’d make it. Over in Cody's rig, we’d lost Private Mike Adams. Bill would heal. Four others had minor wounds. Not bad. Training and luck paid off again.
Thirty more miles rolled away under our tires. The off-ramps were clogged coming out of the cities. We took the median in more than one place. At the Andalusia exit, the road was clear. Apparently, traffic flowed better here. We got off the Interstate and swung onto the four-lane into town. I didn’t want to think about going into Rock Island. Not yet, anyway. We could worry about that tonight, if we decided we wanted to stay on the Arsenal.
At the main intersection, Tom’s men had been at work. Rows of cars lined the ditch. A huge jam had bottlenecked here after the outbreak. Andalusia and the western towns around the Quad Cities had been at the epicenter. After what Tess told us, I knew why.
We turned right at the light and rolled the two last miles to Andalusia. It never was much of a town before all this. When I was in high school, I had a girlfriend once who lived here. For a weird moment, I wondered what ever happened to Julie, then I shook my head. Probably what happened to most of the rest.
We passed the Casey’s convenience store. I saw windows busted out and glass covering the parking lot. One of the pumps had been plowed over. A rattle-trap pickup was buried in the wall. An empty restaurant overlooked the river to our right. The grade school sat silent on our left. Tom told me the survivors took to their boats and anchored off an island a couple hundred yards out in the river. They only came in to forage and trade.
We passed through town.
“
Where?” I asked Tess.
“
Keep going. About a mile out.”
“
You better remember how to get there, lady,” Jinks said. “It’s been a long trip.”
Tess frowned and said nothing. She watched the south side of the road.
“
There," she spoke up a minute later, pointing out my side of the windshield. "Up there, where that old windmill is.”
I slowed the truck. An ancient farm poked from the weeds and timber beside the road. Wild grapevines climbed the struts of the windmill. Grass as tall as the hood of my rig tangled the driveway. I turned in.
“
Stop in front of the barn,” Tess said. “We should be able to get them all inside.”
I parked. She opened the door and stepped out.
“
Guns, cover,” I said into the comm-link. I pulled a pistol and followed Tess.
The metal barn stood massive—a newer building, what the farmers called a machine shed, big enough to contain all their equipment. Dents ran along one wall. Vines grew up one corner and covered a window on another wall. The paint had faded. We stood in front of a set of double doors, at least twelve feet tall and eighteen wide. Typical barn. Nothing anyone would likely look at twice. A perfect cover for folks doing something they shouldn’t be doing.
“
Door’s locked,” I noted. “How do you plan to get in?”
Tess pulled an ID badge from her pocket. It had a black strip on the back like a credit card. Trevor rode her hip.
“
The electricity should still be on," she said. "The windmill’s a generator, and there are solar panels on the roof. Everything should be good.”
She slid the key into a slot beside the door. I heard a high-pitched beep, then a buzz, and the doors started to hum. They pulled in opposite directions as bright, florescent lights came on inside. I saw one side of the building lined with private cars and white vans with signage for a lawn-care company. The polished, concrete floors held a thin layer of dust. Not even mouse tracks disturbed that film. Solid, reinforced walls stretched to the far end of the building, where another door waited.
I stepped just inside. “Bravo squad, let’s clear this building.”
I heard Corporal Cody’s rig empty out. I had five Marines behind me as we searched the barn. Nothing. Still, I felt uneasy as we pulled all the Humvees and the Rhino inside. The doors rolled closed behind us. I heard the final clang as the locks fell into place.
I followed Tess to a small keypad in front of the inner door. She paused beside me. Her fingers trembled. Cindy, the blonde, looked jumpy.
“
No-no-no, Tess," she mumbled. "We can’t go back. We got out. We left. Can’t go back.”
As Doctor O'Shea came up behind the two of them, Tess took Cindy in her free arm and gave her a brief hug. “It’s okay, sis. We have to do this. We’re home.”
She swiped the card, the electronic lock accepted it, and the door clicked open.
“
We’re home,” Tess said again. Cindy broke into incoherent gibberish.
Danny stepped forward with four Raiders. An empty hall lit up as they entered. Motion sensors on the overhead lights assured they'd be able to see as they moved inward. A blast of cool air washed over them before they came to the next door.
“
Filters are still in place,” Tess noted. She stepped between the Marines and met Danny at the closed door. “Good sign. Means the systems are still working. We oughtta be able to retrieve all the data.”
“
What’s behind these doors?” Danny asked. “This first room… what is it?”
“
Main entrance and security. When Cindy and I left, there were two dead guards behind the desk.”
Danny muttered a curse. “Dead how?”
“
Gunshot. From the looks of things, Doctor Johnson cleaned house before she got to me and Cindy.”
Danny stopped asking questions. Tess slid her key through the slot. The door hummed open. Danny moved in, four-stacked with his troops. Lights flickered on as they entered. Nothing moved in the small, white room. To their left stood the desk. Behind it sprawled the two corpses. He recognized the close-range damage from a shotgun. Both chests lay blown open. Dried blood stained the chairs and floor around them. The skin of the guards' faces had drawn back, shriveled and parchment-dry.
“
They don’t stink. How long ago did you leave?”
“
Year and a half ago,” Tess said. “Air’s self contained and filtered, from what Johnson told me. The place is a level-four bio-hazard lab. They didn’t want stray bugs getting out, and they sure didn’t want any bugs getting in to fuck with their little lab of horrors.”
“
What about when we came in?”
“
The whole hall is for decontamination, I would guess. I’m not up on the specs.”
“
Great,” Danny said. His troops gathered in the small room. Three halls branched away from the entrance. “We need to clear this building. Every room, even if it looks like a closet. I don’t want any nasty surprises. Don’t fuck with any machines or computers. We don’t know what any of it does. We’re looking for long-lost Zeds, and that’s all. Ten minutes, we meet back here.”
He divided his unit and sent them off to check the complex. Danny took the first corridor leading away from the entrance. The first door on the right of the white hall
was
a closet. Nothing but cleaning supplies. The first room on the left opened onto an empty dorm room containing a large observation window. Tess hit a button on the keypad, and lights flickered on. Danny saw a speaker box mounted next to the panel at the front and a toilet without a door at the back. Nothing else but a TV mounted to the ceiling and a bed bolted to the floor. White wall, white tile. The place could blind a guy. Only the shackles mounted to the wall served to break up the monotone.
The second room on the left boasted a similar set-up. However, three corpses occupied this one. Two sprawled on the floor, belts still tight around their necks, while the third dangled from the TV mount, her feet just brushing the floor.
“
Johnson’s research team,” Tess said. “They were infected. I guess they didn’t want to see which one of them would be the first to turn.”
“
Shit,” Danny muttered.
“
Oh, I’m sure it’ll get better.”
The next room on the left contained a shower attached to a small locker room. It was empty except for the staff members' personal items. Across the hall lay a small room full of filing cabinets.
Tess led on. Danny paused to glance back at Cindy, lingering with O’Shea and Crystal, the Asian girl, near the entrance.
“
This was my room,” Tess mentioned as she flicked on the lights to the next room. “Looks like it’s occupied.”
“
Jesus,” Danny whispered.
Jinks crossed herself as Bill took a step back.
“
May I present Doctor Carla Johnson, late of the University of Illinois. Fucking terrorists didn’t know what they were getting into. Any bets they’re wandering around now, eating each other somewhere in the name of Allah?”
Danny gazed upon the worst-looking Zed he'd ever seen—and he'd seen a lot in the last eighteen months. His stomach rolled, and he fought the urge to vomit right there on the floor. Bill felt no such compunction; he raced to the locker room they'd just cleared. Danny heard him retch.
Johnson lay stretched out on the floor, shackled to the wall. She'd turned zombie and, with no food source at hand, turned to herself. One ear, one eye, and her lips were gone. Bloody teeth grinned out of her pale, skeletal face. She'd chewed her fingers off to the second knuckle on each hand. Whole chunks of meat were gone from her legs, but perhaps most disturbing were the loops of intestine that hung from her open belly.
Blobs of black matter lay scattered around the room. Congealed blood or partially digested zombie meat, Danny didn’t know. None of them could turn from the spectacle, until a finger twitched.