Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (99 page)

“You must be if you can call her Riley and live,” Cender answered him.  “Where is she?  Is she here?”

“She is, although we’re trying to find a way out,” Mathias told him.

“Join the club,” Tobias spoke up.

“Friend of yours?” Mathias asked Cender without turning.

“Yeah.  How did you know I was in here?” Cender wondered.

“Riley spotted you being hustled along by some guards,” Mathias explained.  “The crutches made you stand out.”

“Better question,” Misha drew attention to himself, “how did you get in here?  In this room?”

“I look the part.”  Mathias gestured to his merc clothes.  “There’s a lot of them walking around here and they don’t all know each other.  This was a hastily put-together operation.  I literally just walked up to the guy with the keys and asked for them.”

“You have the keys?” Abby asked, trying to restrain her excitement.  That question had undoubtedly sprung to everyone’s minds.

“Yeah.”  Mathias held up his hand, revealing the keys dangling from them.

“Well come on, let’s go, hurry up.”  Cender stuck his arms through the bars to try to reach the keys.

“Whoa, hold on a minute, sparky.”  Mathias held the keys out of reach.  “There’s no point in letting you out until we know what to do
once
you’re out.”

“We leave this place,” Tobias said it like it should be obvious.

“And how do we do that, smart one?”  Mathias turned to him.  “There are guards walking around all over the place.  Not to mention the big walls with all the zombies pressed up against them.”

“Did you see what they were welding to the walls?”  Misha didn’t know why, but the welding irked him.  Something about it didn’t seem right, but he didn’t get a good enough look.

“No,” Mathias shook his head.

“Can you see out that window?” Misha pointed to the window even though it was obviously the only one in the room.

Mathias shrugged and went over to it.  It was set high and he had to pull himself up on the bars to see.  “Too hard to tell.  The window isn’t exactly clean and they’re far away.  Why?”

“Just a bad feeling is all.  Hey, if you work for them, why do you want out of here?”  Misha suddenly realized that this could be some sort of trick.

“I don’t work for them, not anymore, not since they tried to kill me.”  Mathias walked to where Misha could easily see him and showed him a hole in his shirt right over his heart.  There was a bulletproof vest under the shirt.  “Apparently I was creating too much of a fuss, so they cut me loose.  If it weren’t for Chant, the woman on the radio, if you guys heard it, I’d be dead.”

“Can’t you just commandeer one of the trucks?” Tobias asked.  “We can just drive out.”

“No,” Mathias shook his head.  “The trucks come and go constantly, they don’t stop.  I don’t even know where they stop for gas.”

“Can’t you at least let us out of the cells, so we can look around?” Cender sighed.

“Like I said, your crutches stand out,” Mathias shrugged.  “You might be spotted by someone who knows you should be in here.”

“Look, can you at least let me take a look out the window?” Misha asked.  “I know a thing or two about welding, and I may be able to spot something you can’t.”

“Actually, here.”  Tobias took the camera off from around his neck.  “Zoom in and film it.  Then you can show it to Misha.”

Mathias took the camera and did just that.  He managed to hold himself up with one arm while he used the other to film.  Misha had to admit the guy was strong and could pummel him to pieces if he wanted.  He filmed as long as he could and then dropped down again.  Once Misha was given the camera, he worked the buttons through the bars.  It took him a moment to figure out where the play back button was, but he managed.  He peered closely at what Mathias had filmed.

“See anything?” Mathias asked.

“Looks like a large metal plating,” Misha commented.  “Like they’re trying to keep something from climbing over the wall.”

“Like the zombies?  Some can climb, you know.”  Tobias sounded like he spoke from experience.

“Then why are they welding it on the inside of the wall?”  Misha had thought the same thing, but the plates pointed inward, not outward.

“They want to keep us in,” Mathias frowned and looked at the film himself.  He then handed the camera back to Tobias.

“So you have no idea what they’re planning?” Misha asked.

“No,” Mathias shook his head, his face clearly in concerned thought.  “I do know they like their experiments though.  When I got out of the main facility, I had to escort these scientists to a school.  They had all this equipment with them but I had no idea what any of it was for.  At the time, I didn’t care because I was getting out, but now that I think about it, it had to be something strange.”

“What if this is another experiment?” Abby worried.

“Oh God.”  Mathias clearly had a thought.  “It is.  It’s definitely an experiment.”

“For what?” Tobias and Cender spoke at the same time.

“Chant.  Chant said they did it deliberately to cleanse the world, or whatever, to make the world their own,” Mathias was thinking out loud.  “But the zombies aren’t going to just go away.  They would know that.  They would need to stay locked up in the White Box, hidden for quite some time, right?  Well what if a zombie got in?  One experiment they’ve never been able to run, is a zombie getting into an enclosed space full of non-infected.  Their computer simulations couldn’t figure out how the non-infected humans would react.  What they do about the zombie and what they might do to each other.”

“Oh, my
God,” Abby gasped.  “You mean…” she trailed off.

Mathias nodded.  “I think they plan on locking everybody in here, then letting the zombies in.”

“That’s insane,” Cender cried out.

“You haven’t been out there.”  Mathias gestured to the rest of the prison.  “Riley noticed something out there.  There are cameras, discrete cameras, but cameras none-the-less.  They aren’t prison cameras, either; the prison cameras are obvious.”  He gestured to one up against the roof as an example.  “These new cameras are running as well.  At least on one of them we were able to spot a small LED light that was on.  If they
are
running an experiment, then they would want to see the results.”

“It’s still insane,” Cender said again.  “You’re just guessing.”

“Look, just let us out of the cells,” Tobias brought it up again.  “It would be better if we could all work on this together and when we do think up a plan, you won’t have to come back for us.”

“Technically, I’m only here for him.”  Mathias pointed to Cender.  “But I guess you’ll want them along.”

“I do,” Cender told him.

“What about this one?”  Mathias gestured to Misha.  “He doesn’t seem to have the same stuff you guys do.  He with you?”

“He is now,” Cender said.

Misha was touched to hear that, especially considering he hadn’t been the friendliest or most grateful of people.  They could have left him in the cell to suffer whatever fate was coming, but they weren’t going to.  He quickly stuck his feet into the boots and put his coat back on.  Rifle, who had been standing and silently watching the conversation, went and picked up his skunk toy.  He seemed to realize they were on the move again.

Mathias went from cell to cell and unlocked the doors.  Thankfully, the same key unlocked each door, so he didn’t have to search through them every time.  Grouped together, the freed prisoners headed for the outer door.  Mathias told them to wait there while he checked that the coast was clear.  He was back in a moment and gestured for them to follow him.

Misha actually felt slightly uncomfortable walking with so many people, but he dealt with it.  They had helped him so far, and he could always separate from them once they were outside if he felt he needed to.

Mathias led them through the prison to a large cellblock.  There were a lot of people milling about in the open cells.  Light was provided by a string of small bulbs along the floor.  Misha figured they must be hooked up to a generator; they flickered a lot.  Some of the other people also had their own lights for added illumination.  All of them looked like refugees: frightened and huddling together in small groups.

They passed by one particular cell where a boy, a woman, and a man in a wheelchair were sitting.  Rifle surprised Misha when he dashed straight to the man in the chair, put his paws on his lap and licked his face, whining with joy.

“Rifle!” the man cried out, overcome with emotion.  “Oh, Rifle, my boy!  What a good boy you are!  Hello!  How did you get here?”

“He was in a cell with him.”  Mathias singled out Misha.

Misha didn’t know what to say when everybody looked at him.  He actually felt like running, but the idea of running without his furry brother was sickening.

The man in the wheelchair rolled over to him.  “I’m Alec McGregor.”  He held out his hand.

“Misha Jovovich.”  Misha shook the offered hand.

“You took care of my dog.  I don’t know how to thank you.”  His sincerity was overwhelming.

“Well, he helped take care of me, so I guess we’re even,” Misha said awkwardly and looked at his feet.

“All right, so you’re Misha.”  Mathias turned to the others.  “Joshua I figured out.  What are your names?”

“I’m Tobias.”  He shook his hand.

“Abby.”  She shook it as well.

“Well, like he said, that’s Alec.  That’s my brother, Danny.”  Mathias gestured to the kid.  “And Josh, I guess you already know Riley.”

Cender was grinning at the woman.  “He calls you
Riley and you haven’t ripped his balls off yet?”

“It’s a long story,” the woman sighed.  “What happened to your leg?”

“Also a long story.”  Cender, or Joshua, or whatever, crutched his way to the bed and sat down next to Riley.

The cell was very cramped with all of them in there, but it seemed like the safest place to talk about escape plans.  Those with large bags placed them on the top bunk to make space.

Misha jumped when something brushed past his leg.  He looked down to see a squat little dog with big floppy ears.  The two dogs started sniffing all over one another.

“That’s Shoes,” Alec told him.  “Don’t mind him, he’s harmless.  Just a ball of skin really.”

Misha nodded, but internally, he thought the ball of skin remark was kind of disgusting.  Rifle seemed to have an all right opinion of the other dog though, so he relaxed somewhat.  One of the last things he wanted to do was separate a dogfight.

“So there’s bad news.”  Mathias went on to tell them about the experiment theory.  They all seemed to take it very seriously, clearly trusting this Mathias guy.

“You have it wrong.”  Everyone in the cell jumped when a voice came from the door.  They all turned to see a Keystone merc standing there, listening in on Mathias’s theory.

“James,” Mathias frowned.  He clearly had met the man once before.  Misha thought that maybe they had worked together at some point.  Whatever it was, hands tightened on weapons around the cell, but he had nothing with which to defend himself.

The merc, James, put his hands up in a defensive posture.  He looked around nervously; making sure no one else could hear him.  “Look, you have it wrong.  They don’t plan on killing everyone here.”

Mathias raised his gun, levelling it at James’s chest.  “Why should I believe you?”

“’Cause I know more than you,” James scowled.  He stepped closer to the group and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.  “I don’t have long, so I suggest you shut up and listen.  We ran into you in the woods because we’ve been tracking you.  There’s a tracer built into your gun.  I’m not sure which one, just finding that out was hard enough, but it’s there.  They have no plans to kill the people here, more like turn them into slaves.  They’ll need people to work in their new order.  For now though, everyone here will be kept safe. Except you, Cole.  They still plan on killing you.  You’re to be the example of what happens to traitors.”

“Why are you telling us this?”  It was obvious Mathias still didn’t trust him.

“Because I knew Chant too.”  James looked around again.  “That split faction thing I mentioned wasn’t complete bullshit.  Some of us
do
disagree with what’s happened, and what’s still happening, just none of us are in a position of power.  I don’t care what you do with this information.  I just thought you should have a fighting chance.  I would have said something earlier, but there was always someone else around, someone watching.  I can’t help you get out of here; I won’t put myself at risk.  I need to stay here if I hope to find a way of getting the rest of these people out.  Me and the others working with me have been turning a blind eye to your group.  You don’t have that much time.  They plan on killing you some time tonight.  Find your own way out, and ditch the rifle.”

James suddenly turned and left before anyone could say anything more.  Misha glanced out of the cell and saw another merc walking down the hall.  He ducked his head back inside and hid behind the others, just in case they might recognise him.

The other merc walked by without even glancing at them.