Dead: Winter (16 page)

Squirting saline to clean the exposed brain, Lena traced the thick black tracers that she knew would be found all the way to the core of this brain. Still, the thick fluid was something new. She would have something different to run tests on at the very least.

Peeking over the screen, she stared down into the milky eyes of her current research specimen. She had placed a gag in its mouth to keep it quiet. This one was one of the criers. They were the worst. That sound was so unnerving. The first time they’d heard one of the specimens make that noise, all three do
c
tors agreed to close the lab early and retire to their rooms to drink alone.

Darlene had slipped out a couple hours later and returned to the lab. It was still on the table exac
t
ly as they’d left it. When she entered the room, it was already straining against the straps that held it in place. Its head twisted back and forth violently, which she found to be odd considering how slow the creatures moved when they walked. She had made a ball from a towel and gagged the thing. It still made muffled noises, but at least that crying was silenced.

Since then, two more of their test subjects had demonstrated that trait. They were of both genders, so that was ruled out. S
a
mantha had done extensive exploration of their mouths, throats, and lungs, but nothing stood out as what could cause some of them to make that awful noise. From that day fo
r
ward, the stan
d
ing rule was to gag all specimens.

This one was staring up at her. Darlene shuddered when she realized that she had been daydrea
m
ing. That sort of careles
s
ness would get you killed. Returning her attentions to the exposed brain, she deftly began removing small samples of the ruined gray matter with her scalpel. She marveled at how the creature expressed little or no reaction to having bits of the brain cut away. They had learned early on that damage to the
Pons
and
Medulla
would render the specimen
useless—in other words, abs
o
lutely dead. Of course, enough overall damage would also accomplish the same thing, but they had not actually discovered a specific “breaking point” where the cumulative damage would cause a shu
t
down. So far, results had varied according to the subject.

Since this one was fresh, Darlene could almost have her way with it. The others, Lena and S
a
mantha, were more interested in working with chemical compounds. That meant they would be thrilled about playing with this syrupy stuff.

On the next table, one of the oldest test subjects made a soft, muffled moan. Glancing over, Da
r
lene felt a chill work its way down her spine. This particular specimen had been worked e
x
tensively. Its arms and legs were gone. The entire body cavity had been hollowed out. The entire top of the skull had been r
e
moved and several samples of the brain had been taken.

None of them had used that subject in weeks. It was like some sort of unofficial mascot now. At one point, they’d wanted to see how long it would last before starvation took its toll. They had given up on that idea weeks ago. Now it simply lay there watching. They were positive it watched; the ey
e
balls tracked movement.

At the moment, its gaze was fixed on her! It wasn’t agitated or making any attempt to pull against the restraints that kept it strapped to the table. It was just watching.

Setting down her scalpel, Darlene walked over to the table. Sure enough, its eyes followed. Since it was in no way ambul
a
tory beyond turning its head, she decided to remove the harness that kept it on the table. It continued to remain still even after the last strap was taken off.

“What’s your game, Stumpy?” Darlene whispered. She unhooked the gag after putting on the heavy leather gloves. A bite would cause a nasty bruise through those gloves, but they couldn’t chew through them. At first she let her hand hover over the thing’s mouth for a moment.

Nothing.

She grabbed the thing’s face just under the chin and moved the head side to side. It didn’t resist, and the only reaction she noticed were the eyes trying to keep her in its sights. She didn’t relish the next part, but she was too curious to pass it up. Darlene lowered her gloved hand slowly to the open mouth.

Still nothing.

“And now Darlene the Daring will stick her hand inside the lion’s mouth,” she barked like a ci
r
cus ring master. She used her free hand to grip the thing’s cheeks like a sadistic aunt on an Easter visit and dipped two fingers of her gloved hand into its mouth.

It clamped down hard, causing her to hiss through her teeth. She squeezed with her free hand and forced the mouth open. She withdrew her fingers flexing them to test for anything more ser
i
ous than a bruise.

“So much for that,” she sighed, replacing the gag.



“Fall back!” Jody screamed over the roar of shotguns and automatic weapons.

He didn’t know where they’d come from, but there had to be at least five thousand meat sacks headed their way. The radio was buzzing with reports coming in from each of the patrols. The mob was stretched out over a half mile if what he was hea
r
ing could be believed.

“No word from Alpha team and Charlie is calling for support,” Danny relayed, covering his co
m
link.

“Tell Charlie to sit tight,” Jody said. He scanned the scene through his binoculars. From his team’s position on the second floor of a dilapidated farm house, he looked down into the bowl-shaped valley where the unnamed town they’d been searc
h
ing rested.

Charlie was in an elementary school on the south end of the town. He already knew the fate of Alpha. They had been doing a unit by unit search of a small trailer park. The location, just on the other side of a small ridge, hadn’t allowed anybody to see the mob until it was right on top of them. To make it worse, the ridge was horseshoe-shaped. They were surrounded before an
y
body could sound the alarm. That was a loss he couldn’t afford. It didn’t do anything to inspire confidence in his ability as the new sergeant.

His team, Bravo, had drawn the task of searching the houses that sat on the eastern edge of town. That had been luck of the draw and nothing more. They were the farthest from the danger and had the best route to bug out.

“Delta is requesting instructions,” Danny announced.

“Tell them to try and draw that cluster away from the school so that Charlie can make a break,” Jody ordered.

“Also, Slider says that they have two civilians, and you’re gonna want to talk to them.”

Slider was Delta’s radioman. He was a recalled vet, which meant Jody trusted anything that came out of that man’s mouth. He’d done five tours in hostile environments, including the ori
g
inal Desert Storm and twice in Afghanistan. He’d only been out for three months when all Hell broke loose and the meat bags wiped out humanity. Chuck “Slider” Monterro had fought his way to his old company on his own. He’d refused any sort of rank and simply wanted to be with his old unit.

“Give everybody the word to fall back to the secondary rally point,” Jody said. He was still watching the mob of undead sur
g
ing into the heart of town. He was in awe of their sheer power. Due to their numbers, the trailers in the mobile home park were being tipped over and broken open. It was like watching the footage of the tsunami that wiped out Banda Aceh back in 2004. The only difference was that, instead of a wall of brown water, it was a wall of grey-green meat.

Drawing his own sidearm, Jody shouldered his pack and was the last man down the stairs and out the door. Two of his five-man units were already engaged with at least a dozen u
n
dead. He hadn’t had time to do his topographic homework for this trip, and it was biting him in the ass. There were too many blind spots. A dry river bed that he didn’t even recall seeing had acted as a funnel for the meat bags.

One thing that Jody was going to bring up at the debrief was the fact that they were wasting bu
l
lets and making unnecessary noise shooting singles. In fact, unless there was an imminent danger, he was going to suggest that firearms not be used in the field. The sound was nothing more than a dinner bell.

“Jody…I mean, Sarge,” Danny yelled, “we have a second group coming from our three o’clock.”

Jody Rafe turned in time to see the leading edge of another mob larger than the one down in the town push through the barbed wire fence that ran along the mostly overgrown dirt road bordering the front of this former dairy farm.

“Send the word,” Jody said once he found his voice. “Tell all teams to scratch secondary rally point. Find a way home, and use extreme caution.”

“All teams,” Danny relayed, “scratch secondary. All hogs are to head home. Be advised, cover your tracks and keep the meat sacks away from the pen.”

Bravo Team retreated to a copse of trees on the far side of the farm from the approaching wave. As he ducked into the brush, Jody stopped and watched as the undead began flooding into the open and recently abandoned farm house.

“Throw the switch,” Jody ordered.

One of the men pulled out a small remote with one button. The device had a red light and a green light. The green light was currently flashing. The soldier pressed the button and the red light came on solid. There was a pause, and then a ground-shaking explosion.

“That ought to draw some attention,” Danny said with a smirk.

“Let’s hope so,” Jody sighed. “Keep me posted on the status of Charlie and tell Slider I will meet him in my tent as soon as he gets back to base.”

His very first mission as the company’s sergeant and he’d lost at least twenty percent of his men. Maybe he would be able to convince Slider to step in. Probably not, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“Two on the left and one on the right,” Kevin whispered, pointing out the
zombies pulling the
m
selves through the tall brush.

“Is it normal to see so many without their lower parts?” Sh
a
ri asked.

“Actually,” Kevin turned to her, “that is a very good que
s
tion. No, it’s not normal at all.”

“So why have all the ones we’ve seen for the past hour been missing their legs?”

“I guess we should take these three out and have a closer look,” Kevin said.

Up to that point, they’d simply skirted all the zombies because, without having legs, it was u
n
likely that they would be a threat. However, as they moved further into the small rural town where Sage Farms was located, they began to notice that not one zombie had its legs intact.

“You take the single and I will take the pair,” Kevin instructed. He stepped out from behind the car they’d used as cover and made his way across the debris-strewn street towards the two mewling creatures. Shari followed, just a bit more hesitantly. It took no time and minimal effort to dispatch them, but Kevin was already looking around with a concerned expression on his face. Shari knew that look and it made her uneasy. If Kevin was wo
r
ried or confused, then it didn’t mean anything good.