Deadlocked 8 (42 page)

Computers filled this room, each of them
hidden inside of partitioned cubicles, as if this was a graveyard
of sorts where electronics rotted. It was a dreary place, even
worse than the Dawn’s cells. Only the pictures of loved ones on the
desks provided any sense of individuality.

“Through there?” asked Elise as she pointed
at a door ahead of us.

“Sure,” I said. “That’s fine.” I had no idea
where we were headed.

I stayed at the back of the Dawns as they
went, and fired at the zombies that were now coming into the room.
I followed the girls through the door and found a sprawling room
that was well lit, with long tables that had benches attached to
them.

“Drag one of those tables over here,” I said
as I stayed at the door, my foot propping it open as I fired into
the approaching crowd of undead. The Dawns did as I asked, and the
metal legs squealed on the floor as they brought the table over.
When they were close, I slammed the door shut and then we pushed
the table into place, blocking the entrance.

“What were those things?” asked one of the
girls, and others asked similarly.

“They’re zombies,” I said. “Or Undying. Or
Greys. They have different names for them. They’re dead people that
have come back to life and will kill you if they get the
chance.”

“Is that what’s on the surface?” asked one of
the frightened Dawns.

I didn’t know whether to be honest or lie
about it. I decided to make it as simple as possible, while keeping
the girls certain that they needed to escape. “The Administrators
are the ones responsible for them. They did this to the world, and
we have to stop them.”

“Those things are on the surface?” asked
Elise, and I sensed her fear and uncertainty.

“Yes, but the people out there have learned
how to deal with them, and so can we.”

“I don’t want to go,” said one of the girls
just as the bodies of the dead slammed against the blockaded door.
Other Dawns mimicked her apprehension, requesting that they be
locked back in their cells where it was safe.

“You can stay here, locked away in this
dungeon, and you can waste away like them.” I pointed out at the
creatures in the computer room behind us. “You can live in these
white walls, with your lives regimented, with the Administrators
telling you when to wake, and when to sleep. But not me. Never me.
Never again. I’m going to the surface, where I can feel the sun on
my skin, and choose how I live each and every one of my days; where
I can make mistakes, because they’re mine to make! I’m not going to
be controlled ever again.” I was panting now, and the Dawns had
quieted to listen as I yelled at them. “If you want back in your
cells, then go ahead.” I pointed back at the door we’d just
blockaded. “They’re that way.”

I walked through the girls, parting them as
if treading through a field of wheat. They never questioned me, and
silently followed.

We went through the kitchen, and were about
to go into to a hallway beyond when I heard the clatter of
footsteps. I motioned for the girls to stop, and then eased the
door open to spy on who was outside.

A man in a thin, white coat was holding a
woman’s hand as they ran in my direction. They looked panicked.
They screamed out in shock as I aimed the rifle at them and
commanded them to get on their knees.

“What are you doing?” asked the woman

“We’re doctors,” said a man. “We’re not
soldiers.”

“I don’t care who you are,” I said. “You’re
going to help us get out of here.”

“There’s no way out,” said a terrified woman.
“The Undying got out. They got out and all the doors opened.”

“The Sons of Reagan are getting in. They’re
attacking,” said the man on his knees in front of me. “They must’ve
figured out a way to open all the doors. We’re going to die, you
stupid girl. Give the gun to one of the guards. You don’t know what
you’re doing.”

I kicked him square in the face. He fell
backward, grasping his jaw as he went, and then he started cursing
me.

“Shut up!” I yelled down at the pitiful
little man. “Who are the Sons of Reagan?”

“The terrorists,” said a woman. “They came
for the one that we captured. Levon.”

“Hero?” I asked, astounded and joyful. “He’s
alive?”

“The black one,” said the woman, uncertain
about his nickname.

I laughed jubilantly, and then turned to
Elise and said, “He’s a friend of mine.” Then I looked back down at
the woman and asked, “Where is he.”

“Why would I tell you where…”

I pointed the gun at her.

“He’s on the bottom floor,” she answered
swiftly. “There’s only a few rooms down there. He’s in one of them,
but you can’t take him out of there. He’ll die.”

“Why?”

“He’s…” She paused and looked at the man
beside her. “He’s infected. They’ve got him hooked up to a LiMM
chair. If he’s taken out of it, he’ll die in a day or two at
most.”

“What’s a lim chair?” I asked.

“It’s keeping him alive by cleansing his
blood,” said the doctor. “He was given a cure to the infection, but
his body reacted poorly to it. It’s tearing him apart, and as soon
as he leaves that chair the infection will spread. It’ll happen
slower than in other victims, but it will still happen. He’ll die,
and then within a week or two the infection will turn him into one
of the Undying. The cure is poisoning him, but it halts the
infection too.”

“You’re pumping him full of poison to keep
him alive?” I asked, trying to grasp his meaning.

“It’s the only thing that works,” said the
doctor. “It kills the infection, but also kills the patient if
they’re not hooked up to the chair. He’s still alive because of
what we did for him.”

“A life stuck down here isn’t the same thing
as being alive,” I said, certain of that now. “Now get up, you’re
going to lead us to the surface, and then you and I are going back
down to get Hero.”

Levon Kline

The tubes pumped their toxic concoction into
me, the fluid burning its way through my veins. I could feel it
searing me, scarring me from the inside out. Every time I moved I
got nauseous, and my skin felt endlessly hot, despite how I
shivered when I pulled my blanket aside. It was impossible to get
comfortable, no matter what I did. This was the only life I had
left; a prisoner in my own skin.

And alone.

That was the worst part. It was awful to be
laying here wasting away, with this poison coursing through me, but
pain was something I could deal with. Loneliness, on the other
hand, was something that I couldn’t handle anymore.

I spent my days dreaming of my brother, and
the times we shared before the apocalypse began. Those hot Georgia
summers, back when the two of us would sneak off to the gas station
with change we’d stolen from wherever we could find it, and how
good the Coke tasted. It didn’t matter what drink it was, we always
called it ‘Coke’, as if that were the proper name for anything
carbonated.

It’s inexplicable why some memories stick
with you while others drift away. For the life of me I have no idea
why I never wore shoes back then. I don’t remember if it was
because we had no money, or if I just never bothered putting them
on, but I could describe in detail how we would stay in the grass
where we could, and then run as fast as possible across the hot
asphalt to get into the gas station where the cool tile soothed our
blistered toes. The Korean shop keeper would chastise us, but he
never refused our money.

Fuck, there’s nothing better than a Coke on a
hot Georgia day. I could almost taste the sweet flavor on my
tongue, the bubbles snapping at my lips as sweat ran rivers down my
cheeks.

I smacked my lips at the memory, and felt the
dry, chapped skin rub together. I licked at my cracked lips, and
tasted the metallic flavor of blood.

How had it come to this? I was supposed to
die like a hero, like Mark did, fighting to save my friends or
taking down a horde of zombies as I screamed out at them. I wasn’t
supposed to go out like this, laying on a bed until I wasted away
into a skeleton. I looked at my arms, pale and weak, so much
thinner than they were just months earlier.

Real life doesn’t admire heroes. It’ll burn
them down with all the others, with no sense of poetic justice, or
entitlement, or reward.

‘You lived a good life? You were nice to
folks? You were charitable, and kind, and an all-around decent
fellow? Congratulations, and by the way, fuck you, I’m giving you a
fatal disease.’

I couldn’t help but shake my head and laugh
wearily. Laying in this bed was turning me into a bitter shell of
who I’d once been. I gripped those tubes at my side and felt the
rush of fluids pouring in and out of me, poisoning me, and knew
that they were transforming me too. This wasn’t how I wanted to go
out, but I didn’t have any other choice…

Until now.

The key was beneath my leg, hidden there
since Beatrice’s last visit. She’d revealed how some of the doctors
here had been working secretly with The Electorate, and had been
inoculating me with the disease each night to provide false
positives. As it turned out, Jerald and Covington had known for a
long time that the LiMM chairs could eradicate the disease, but the
side effects were fatal. Patients of African ancestry reacted
differently to the cure, and could survive it with the use of the
chairs, which was why we kept running into facilities with black
patients all those years earlier. She’d concocted a plan at the
transfer facility to get me into this building while carrying the
infection that Jerald and his men had no immunity to. She wanted me
to become a biological weapon, but hadn’t counted on them having
the ability to kill the virus with the contraption I was hooked up
to.

I remembered something similar to this in the
facility in Nederland, where we lost Reagan. They’d been doing
experiments there, and Beatrice said that they’d brought that
equipment here to help keep Richard Covington alive. This chair had
put an end to her plans to exterminate Jerald and his men. She’d
hoped to spread the Tempest Strain through the facility, which
would leave only her and the Dawns alive afterward. The appearance
of Covington and these chairs had ruined her plan, but that bitch
never quit scheming.

Beatrice had given me the key that could
disconnect me from these tubes, promising the chance to finally get
revenge on the person responsible for the death of so many people
that I loved. Richard Covington was down the hall from me, and all
of the doors on this level would automatically unlock once a purge
was activated. She’d told me that it was set up that way so that
Covington’s doctors could reach him in the event of an emergency,
but it also meant that I could get to him as well. All I had to do
was push myself up and out of this bed, rip away the tubes that
kept me alive, and go finish him off. She told me that he was a
weak husk of the man he’d once been, and that it would be easy, as
if murder ever was.

I knew that pulling these tubes out of my
side would ultimately mean my own death, but that didn’t scare me
anymore. As I pulled the key out from beneath my leg, I wasn’t
pondering my own demise. Instead, I was wondering if I would let my
final moments be defined by revenge.

Was that how I wanted to spend my final
minutes in this world?

I thought of Jill, and her boisterous laugh.
I used to always give her grief about that laugh, and how it would
shake the walls when she really got going. I would cover my ears
and cringe playfully, and she would punch me on the arm while
telling me to shut up. Despite how much I would tease her, there
wasn’t a sound I loved more. I always tried to get her to laugh,
and I’d give anything to have gotten the chance to hear it one last
time.

I slipped the key into the cuff of the first
tube and unlocked it. That allowed me to spin the metal ring, which
activated a valve that prevented the fluid within the tube from
spilling when it was ejected. I pulled the tube out and let it
dangle from the ceiling.

As I continued to disconnect myself from the
machines that were keeping me alive, I thought about Laura, Kim,
and Annie. I’d always wanted to be a father, if for no other reason
than to prove I was a better person than my own dad. Laura gave me
the chance to act like a father, and I loved those girls as much as
any daddy ever could. I watched them grow up into two of the most
beautiful, confident, strong young women that I’d ever had the
pleasure of knowing. I’d always thought that being a father meant
teaching your kids about life, and introducing them to the things
you loved, but I discovered that it’s the kids who teach their
parents the most important lessons of all. Getting the chance to be
a father to those girls taught me what life’s really about, and
I’ll be eternally grateful to them for that.

The last of those tubes snapped free from the
holes drilled into me. It fell away, its metal cap clanking against
the others as the ropes swung beside me. I was no longer tethered
to this bed, and was free to die as I chose to. I forced myself up,
and pain shot up through my body, rattling me all the way to my
bones. I grit my teeth and groaned, but tried to ignore the agony.
I got inspiration from thinking of Laura, and the trials she’d
survived to get back to her children.

My feet swung off the bed and hit the floor
with a thud. My dexterity was sapped, and I could barely tell where
my feet were landing. I’d lost sensation in my feet and, except for
the pin pricks of a million needles, in my fingers as well. I had
to stare down to make sure I was standing on the floor as I forced
myself up.

My legs wobbled, but I didn’t fall. Each step
sent shocks of pain surging up through me, like lighting through a
tree, but I forced myself to continue forward. I left the
quarantined room, and went out into the stale air of the hallway
beyond. Ahead was an elevator, although the doors were open and
there was no elevator within. To the left, just like Beatrice had
said, was a short hall that ended in a circular door. According to
her, Covington was there, waiting for me to exact the revenge she
was certain I craved.