The Zombie Whisperer (Living With the Dead) (16 page)

“I dropped and everything was blurry for a long time. I kept fighting the tranquilizer and managed to wake up. Nadia wasn’t alone anymore, there were guys dressed in full black, military gear, high level. Sarah was unconscious, I assume from the same tranquilizer. They were loading her onto a cart of some kind. I got up to try to fight them off, but one of the men turned and saw me. He hit me. I tried to fight him off, but he was stronger.”

She flinched and Dave saw in that instant that she was being utterly truthful. She was afraid. She felt guilty. She had tried, very bravely, to fight off whoever had taken Sarah.

Fenton reached over and touched her hand. A brief moment of comfort, but Lisa seemed to relax with it.

“Then what happened?” he encouraged her gently.

She shifted. “I kept trying to get up, but he was too big and I was too groggy. Nadia shot me with the tranquilizer again and I faded out.”

“How did you end up back in the fence line?” Dave asked.

She shrugged. “I vaguely recall being moved. And Nadia’s voice saying
sorry
. Maybe she moved me back into the fenced area.”

“But why?” Fenton asked, pacing the room slowly. “Why wouldn’t she leave you for the zombies? It would have taken us far longer to determine that Sarah had been taken if you’d been ripped to shreds. Why leave a witness?”

“Who cares?” Dave snapped. “I need to leave and go look for my wife. I need to find whoever took her and get her back.”

He stood up, but Fenton sidestepped in his path. “You go off half-cocked and you’ll get nothing from this but probably shot and that won’t help Sarah. What is important now is to know who Nadia was working for. Who took Sarah and where? Then we can figure out a plan of action to save her.”

“You really have some intention to save her?” Dave asked, his jaw so tight that he could hardly speak.

Fenton nodded once. “No man left behind, David. No man. We’ll get her back. Trust me.”

And for the first time since their arrival, Dave actually did.

Chapter Fifteen

Baby-proofing is about more than covering your outlets, it’s about changing your lifestyle and making your child’s safety your top priority. Check everything… can your child get to that fixture? That breakable or heavy item? The zombie you keep chained in the backyard?

My whole concept of consciousness was not right. I kept trying to wake up, but I felt like I was watching television and the signal kept coming in and out. God, I missed television.

There were moments I was in what
seemed
like reality. Moments of Lisa swinging at some guys in weird, black uniforms. The next moment she was gone and I was racing along back streets in a golf cart.

Next, the men in black were firing at a pod of zombies, throwing grenades and generally acting like something out of one of Dave’s old video games. Finally, I remembered a helicopter, a gurney, and the feeling of lifting away toward… well, who knew where?

And now I sat in a very dark room, tied to a chair. My head hurt, but at least I could stay conscious for more than ten seconds at a time. I tugged against my ropes, but they didn’t budge. Military knots, no doubt. I thrashed a little harder, but still nothing.

“Okay, calm down,” I said out loud, so that I’d hear my voice saying it.

Freaking out wasn’t going to help. I couldn’t escape right now, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be opportunities later. At this moment, I had to try to figure out all the details of where I was being held so that I could.

First off, I’d been taken. That part was crystal clear. Worse was that Nadia, who I’d actually liked and trusted, had been involved and poor Lisa, who I’d given eight tons of shit to, had tried to save me. If she’d been left outside the fence line, she was probably dead. Even if the serum in her blood kept her from getting zombiefied, it wouldn’t keep her from getting torn from limb to limb by any hungry zombies who stumbled upon her.

I shivered, but pushed the thought away. I couldn’t think of that now if I wanted to escape. I had to be in this moment, wherever I was, really focusing on what was around me. Later I could freak out about poor Lisa. And that bitch Nadia.

There was a steady drip, drip, drip in the room, meaning there was a leak that let the rain inside. And the sound echoed massively, so the room was large, maybe a warehouse type set-up. Okay, good. I was getting recon, as Lisa had called it, from this. What else?

There were other sounds. Swishing sounds… but I couldn’t place them. What were they? What were they? And then it struck me.

Waves.

Were we moving? Were we on a ship? No… not moving. So I was in a warehouse by the waterfront. Since we’d taken a helicopter, I had to assume we hadn’t gone far. In fact, we were probably still in the city itself. So if I got out, and if I wasn’t completely guessing as opposed to really gleaning facts, I could, in theory, get back to University of Washington and to Dave.

Poor Dave who might or might not even know I had been taken. If Lisa was dead, they could just assume I’d encountered the same fate. In fact, since I hadn’t gotten any serum, they might even assume I was a zombie. God, he would torture himself over that. But if he thought I’d been taken…

Well, I knew the guy. He’d stop at nothing to get to me, just like I’d stopped at nothing when he’d been taken from me. If he managed it, I guessed it would make us even.

Or just two idiots who kept getting caught by cult leaders, separatists, government operatives, bitchy Judas-like nurses… the usual in a zombie reality.

Now… how to get out.

The door to the warehouse opened, sending a bright column of light from the outside into my eyes. I turned my face, squinting as they adjusted. In a second, a figure blocked the light and entered the room. He was carrying a couple of lanterns and soon the room was bright with the false light as the door was shut behind him.

I straightened up, staring at my captor as he got close enough to really examine. He was one of the same guys who had taken me, all dressed in snazzy black uniforms, armed to the hilt with every weapon imaginable.

“Hello, Sarah,” he said as he stepped forward.

He did not take a seat, he just stared down at me, enjoying his position towering over me. I guess it was meant to intimidate, mostly I just wanted to sucker punch him in the nuts.

Since I couldn’t, I looked at him instead. He was a middle-aged man. Probably in his late forties, though in the apocalypse, who knew? He could have been twenty-five and just fucked up by whatever he’d seen. Not that I felt sorry for the guy.

I didn’t respond either way, just stared at him. He smiled at my silence.

“Ah, I see. Well, let me speak then if you won’t.”

I turned my face to indicate I wasn’t listening, but of course I was. I needed intel if I was going to get out of this. Plus, maybe he was going to tell me this was just an elaborate prank, like in summer camp. They were the camp from the other side of the lake and they’d kidnapped me but would return me after a rousing game of inter-camp dodge ball or something.

Yeah, not likely.

“My name is Major Roger Keel. I’ve been sent in by the government forces on the other side of the wall.”

I jerked at that and couldn’t help but look at him. That explained the real uniforms, rather than the hodgepodge our guys in the lab wore.

“I see you remember encountering our forces not that long ago,” Keel continued with a thin, very humorless smile. “As do I. I believe you and your husband killed eight of my men in your escape from our temporary holding area.”

I stiffened. “You were responsible for Dave’s kidnapping?.”

His smile broadened. “She speaks. Excellent.”

“Were you?” I pressed, less interested in playing mind games than in getting at the truth.

He nodded once. “Our division is a tactical squad and we acquired our target, your husband. Your escape plot counts as treason.”

“So kidnapping an innocent American citizen is cool, but trying to get away is actionable.” I spit on the ground. “Great. Glad to see government hard at work on the important stuff.”

His lips pursed. “Your husband is hardly an innocent citizen. He is a thing, unnatural and disgusting.” He hesitated. “But ultimately useful.”

“I bet.”

I stared at him in the weird glow of the lantern. His face was almost twisted, deformed by hateful anger. To him we weren’t people, we were targets, weapons, acquisitions.

“How long have you been Westside?” I asked.

His eyebrows lifted. “You mean on this side of the wall?”

I nodded once, not expecting an answer. But to my surprise, he actually seemed to ponder what I’d asked.

“Right after your escape I was… demoted to this duty,” he said.

“So, a couple of months,” I pressed. “Same for the rest of your group?”

He nodded.

I shook my head. “No wonder you aren’t impressed by what you see here, by what we’ve done here, no wonder you don’t get it. You’re just a tourist.”

His lip twitched. I’d pissed him off, which maybe wasn’t smart, but it was pretty damned satisfying.

“So why are you taking me?” I asked. “Plot to lure my husband in?”

Smug pleasure spread across his face and the look sent away any satisfaction I’d been feeling.

“Your husband is an interesting target to us, certainly,” he conceded. “If it appears that we can obtain him, I will make the order to do so. But no, my dear, you are what we want. Or rather… that
thing
you carry inside of you.”

“What thing?” I managed to say in a pretty normal tone, considering how loud my heartbeat suddenly was in my ears.

He arched a brow. “Come, come, Sarah. Your…
child
.”

The way he emphasized the word, heavy with sarcasm, made me want to punch him. But now was not the time, even if I could get my arms free. I drew in a deep breath and considered my options carefully before I spoke.

“I guess you hadn’t heard,” I said, willing a few tears to well in my eyes. It wasn’t hard. “I lost the baby. A few days ago.”

There was a moment’s flash of uncertainty on his face and he reached into a pocket on his belt to withdraw a radio.

“Send in Nadia,” he ordered over the crackling emptiness, then quickly shut the radio off. Probably so their frequency wasn’t picked up. Which meant we likely were close to the campus.

In a moment, the warehouse door opened again and another figure was shoved into the column of light. As they slammed the door behind her, I heard her approach rather than saw it, the thump of boots on concrete, the swish of pant legs rubbing together.

When she reached us, she sent me a quick, guilty look.

“Bitch,” I said as a welcome and she flinched.

“Shut up,” Keel said, then turned his attention to Nadia. “Sarah says she lost her child a few days ago.”

I stared at her, willing her to keep quiet, willing her to help me even though she was nothing short of a betrayer. Maybe I had ‘bitched’ too soon… Dave would tell me I had. Stupid boy, always being right at the most inopportune moments.

“I examined her more recently than that and she remains pregnant,” Nadia said, shooting me another apologetic look.

He nodded. “As I suspected.” His attention returned to me. “You’ll carry that baby to term, which I’m told could be a very short wait. Then it becomes property of the government. We will learn a great deal from its dissection.”

He turned on his heel as those words sunk in.

“No!” I screamed after him as he disappeared into the dark, his boot falls echoing away. “Stop!”

He didn’t, of course. He had the upper hand. All the blood seemed to leave my brain in the same moment, making me lightheaded even though I was sitting. I tried very hard to keep my reaction from my face, but I wanted to weep, to kill every one of these bastards who were threatening my son.

Instead, I sat there, utterly helpless as he opened and slammed the door behind him, leaving me with Nadia.

“Fuck you,” I screamed at her, thrashing in my chair. “We trusted you!”

She flinched at every word. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she responded, turning her back on me. “You think this is what I want?”

“Considering all of it is your fault, yeah, I think it’s exactly what you want.”

She shook her head, hands raised in some kind of entreaty. “It’s not. Look, I just want to go home. I just want to get back to West Virginia and my parents.”

I stared at her. “So you are willing to sacrifice me and my baby so that you can go see your Mommy? Shit, don’t you think all of us want that? But I don’t go throwing people under the bus so that I can get a hot shower and watch a little Mad Men, you stupid cow.”

“You don’t know what I’ve lost,” she whimpered.

And you know what? She was right. I had no clue. More to the point, I didn’t really care. Because her story, while likely very sad and highly compelling, was just like the story of a ton of people who had never arranged my kidnapping at the hands of military goons and handed over my baby to them for ‘dissection’.

“Maybe I don’t, but you
know
what I’m going to lose, don’t you?” I said softly. “How’s that sitting on your conscious Miss First Do No Harm?”

I could see the answer in her eyes. She was wracked with guilt. Truly sorry for the consequences she had reaped on me.