Necropolis (20 page)

They passed through a broad, low transitional chamber where a trio of soldiers faced off with a Berserker that had to duck to fit in the room. Greg and the others left them to it, hoping they would kill each other off. The squad moved through a door at the far right corner of the room and navigated a series of ruined, flickering passageways. They made their way for the motor pool, eager to escape back into the wastelands.

The thing from before roared again, whatever it was, and froze Greg's marrow. It sounded much too close for comfort. They hurried along, keeping low and out of sight, trying to make it out of the facility without any more firefights.

“
Here,” Cage murmured after another long moment.

He opened a door and someone ran screaming out of it on fire. Greg peered into the room beyond, a garage. It might as well have been the door to Hell. There were a couple of dozen Dark Ops soldiers barely holding their own against nearly twice their number in zombies, Stalkers, and a handful of Berserkers. Greg sought out vehicles. There were only a few black, four-door jeeps with tinted windows left.

“Follow me,” Cage said.

They slipped into the garage, hoping against hope they would go unnoticed amidst the chaos. They had made it about halfway, dodging the occasional bullet, when a general sound of alarm went up and they were noticed.

“Don't hit Bishop,” someone shouted. “Kill the rest.”

“
Go fuck yourself,” Greg called back.

Cage produced a grenade from somewhere, primed it, and tossed it in the general collection of troops. They scattered, and the break in gunfire allowed the Undead to surge forward, overrunning their position.

“Go!” Cage screamed.

They bolted, sprinting full tilt.

The next series of events were a blur to Greg. He ran, slammed into the side of a jeep, and fumbled with the door. It popped open and he climbed in, Kyra right behind him, Cage taking up the front seat. The engine revved to life and within seconds they raced across the battlefield raging in the motor pool.

Cage ran a few uncertain figures down as Greg and Kyra buckled in. Through the tinted windows Greg could see a second jeep beside and somewhat behind them. Billings, Powell, and Kauffman.

They'd made it.

Greg caught his breath. “Where can we go?”

“I know a place,” Cage replied.

Chapter 22

–
Peace
–

“There's an isolated storage complex, built into the bottom of a valley, up ahead. That's where we're going.”

It was the first thing anyone had said in what must have been an hour. Greg was barely awake in the backseat. Kyra lay against him, and eventually she'd disengaged the seatbelt, stretched out and rested her head in his lap. She was still asleep. Greg had drifted between the borders of fitful slumber and stark reality, but now he was awake. Cage must have sensed it. Greg shifted, and looked down at Kyra.

“What will we do there?” He brushed some of Kyra's brunette hair back, and tucked it behind her ear. She looked so...peaceful as she slept.

“
Hope it's empty, hole up for a little while. We need a plan. We might get lucky and they'll have their hands full with the Undead, but they'll be coming for you. You're too important to them.”

Greg sighed. “I don't see why.”

“They might already have their cure, but having Patient Zero on standby is a safer bet than having him dead or missing.”

There wasn’t much to say to that. Greg knew it was true, so he opted to turn and stare out the window. A twin jeep rode silently alongside them. Billings and the others. Beyond it, miles and miles of bleak wasteland. Darkness approached, the sun headed for the far horizon, and the rain had finally let up.

“How long have we been driving?”

“
Almost an hour and a half,” Cage replied.

Greg realized the man was smoking a cigarette. He suddenly
ached for a cig, but didn't want to wake Kyra. He wondered how she looked at smoking, and then remembered she talked about toking up every now and then. The jeep descended, heading down into a canyon.

Kyra shifted and sat up. “What's happening?”

“We're almost there,” Cage replied.

She relaxed and settled back against Greg. Resting her head on his shoulder, she let out a long, contented sounding sigh.

“Thanks for being a pillow,” she murmured.

“
Happy to do it.”

Kyra laughed and nudged him. “Yeah, I bet you were.”

Cage sighed. Greg put an arm around Kyra, still uncertain if this might be too far, but she settled further against him. As they made their final approach to the outpost, Greg thought about his relationship with Kyra. It was obvious that there was something there. They'd kissed several times at this point...but it seemed that each kiss had been in a moment of heated passion or near-death experiences.

What did that mean? They hadn't really had a moment alone, although when they had, they'd nearly gone all the way. Did that mean anything? Or was it just another extended moment of passion? Kyra seemed like the kind of girl who could shrug off a one-night stand. Greg wondered if he could do it as well.

The ground started to even out. They came to the bottom of the canyon. Ahead of them, it seemed to stretch into infinity, branching off into no doubt a broad network of valleys and trenches in the earth.

Ahead, he spied a single vehicle. For a moment, Greg felt panic rise in his chest, but he relaxed as he realized it was long abandoned. As they drew even closer, he spied structures, windows and doors built into the side of the canyon walls. There didn't seem to be any activity.

“I don't see any Banshees out here,” Kyra murmured.

“
I don't think they've come this far. They only seem to hang around outposts or cities,” Cage replied.

“
Have there been any new mutations?” Greg asked as Cage parked the jeep and killed the engine. The sudden quiet was deafening.

“
List off the ones you've seen so far,” Cage replied.

Greg did. The zombies, the Stalkers, the Berserkers, the Spiders, the Banshees. When he was finished, Cage shook his head.

“No, that's all that I've seen or heard about, but that doesn't mean there won't be more.”

They left the jeeps, stepping out into the twilit canyon. The area was wet, glistening from the recent rainfall, but there was no rain, and the skies seemed to be clearing up. Greg thought he might miss the rain...but there had been so much of it lately.

The squad spread out across the area, securing it. Greg peered into the ruined vehicle. Some of the windows were broken and a corpse with an ugly hole in its head occupied the driver's seat. Two of the tires were missing, a third shot out. He turned his attention to the outpost. It occupied both sides of the canyon.

To the left, he spied three huge garage-style doors built into the rock wall. All three of them were shuttered and closed against the world, but there were a pair of secondary entrances. Billings went with Kyra and Greg into the garage area while Cage, Kauffman, and Powell began cleared out the opposite side.

Greg went first, opening the nearest door and peering down the length of a darkened corridor. He activated the flashlight mounted on the muzzle of his rifle. A pale beam of light cut a bright swatch through the immense darkness. A pair of pallid, decaying corpses resided within, but there was nothing moving.

“
We'll need to restore power.”
Kauffman’s quiet, tense voice came over the radio link.

“
We will.”
Cage’s cool voice soothed Greg.

He led the way down the corridor. Halfway down the passageway was a side entrance into one of the garages. He glanced through a broken window built into the door and spotted a few shambling horrors within the broad, tall room.

“Contacts,” he murmured.

Kyra and Billings readied themselves. Greg opened the door and sighted the targets, flicking his rifle to single-shot. He took down the first two before Kyra or Billings eliminated the rest. Silence fell and Greg waited, holding his breath, straining his ears against the silence. He heard nothing else. Wordlessly, he, Kyra, and Billings split up to investigate the broad garage. They moved in the darkness among the silent metal hulks of broken down mining vehicles in varying states of repair. Tools and parts were scattered across the floor.

They spent the next twenty minutes clearing out the trio of garages, as well as the corridor that ran in a ring outside them, providing access to deeper parts of the base. Greg imagined vast storage warehouses beyond the corridor and the garages, and images of webs and spiders rose, unbidden, in his mind.

“
Found the generator. It's dead, out of juice. So is the backup,”
Powell reported.
“We'll need power packs. There should be some in the generator room, but it's been cleared out. There may be some in the garages, or in storage.”

Greg was impressed. It was the most he'd heard the tech say in one go. Billings reported back that they would look. They spent another half an hour hunting across the garages again, but found nothing worth mentioning. When they were finished, the trio gathered at the only door that led deeper into the base.

Greg went first. He didn't relish the idea of hunting in the pitch-black of storage. At least in the garages the dying twilight beyond the windows provided a thin light. Here, they were fully encased in the rock and metal. The room beyond the door was an antechamber meant to provide access to the rest of the structure. There were three other doors, each marked with a sign.

The doors to the left and the right both led to storage, the third to the landing pad. They might not be able to get off this gray rock, because of the orbital blockade, but having a ship would make things a hell of a lot easier if they were found out.

The door to the landing pad was locked and they couldn't make it open, but it didn't matter for the moment. They went left first, coming to a lengthy corridor, the walls studded periodically with doors. A pair of zombies occupied the passageway. Greg put them both down before they had much chance to react.

“
This is going to suck,” Kyra muttered.

“
I agree. Sooner we can get out of here the better. Do either of you have
any
idea of a way to hunt down this thing beyond just randomly guessing?” Greg replied.

“
When I first started out in the Marines, I pissed off my Sergeant a lot. Pulled a lot of warehouse duty. Highest chance will be one of these first two storerooms,” Billings said.

Greg felt a little better about their chances. They decided not to split up and broke into the right storage room. Greg was relieved to find that these weren’t cavernous storage areas, but smaller with less chance that something hid within. The walls were lined with shelving units, while even more lay in rows across the floor space.

Crates of varying sizes occupied the shelves. It seemed as if the room hadn't been touched by all the chaos that plagued the planet. They played their flashlights across the metal crates after making sure nothing undead occupied the room. Greg’s hopes rose, most of them were labeled as spare parts for machine components that helped run an average outpost. After five minutes in the dark, Kyra called out.

“
Found it.”

Billings and Greg converged on her location. She pulled out a crate that rested on the lower-most shelf.

“Damn, it's heavy.”

“
It holds three power cells,” Billings said.

“
That'll do fine. Bring it over,”
Powell responded.

Greg and Kyra both grabbed the crate, which took a serious effort to lift, and Billings escorted them out. They worked their way back outside, going as quickly as they could through the base. Greg wanted light. By the time they came back outside, crossing the rocky canyon, the sun had completely disappeared.

Cage met them at the entryway to the other side of the outpost. He led them through the darkened interior of the service station. They moved through bleak corridors, past an abandoned mess hall, through a bloody infirmary. They finally came to a stairwell that led down. By the time they reached the generator room where Powell and Kauffman waited, Greg's muscles were screaming in protest. He and Kyra set the crate down on the floor with explosive sighs.

Powell knelt and opened the crate. He stared into it at three silver boxes fitted neatly into the casing.

“Excellent.” He pulled one out.

Greg watched him work. Powell seemed incredibly efficient, no movement wasted as he placed the power cell on a nearby table, hooked up a device to it and stared into a tiny screen. A few seconds later, there was a soft chime. Powell disengaged the device, picked up the cell and slid it into a receptacle in the wall.

“And there...we...go.” He locked it into place and pressed one of the buttons on a panel alongside it.

There was a sharp
pop
followed by a series of rapid clicks and then the hum of energy. Greg didn't realize how comforting that white noise was as the machinery whirled to life. The lights flickered, dimmed, and then surged into full existence. Everyone seemed to breathe a long sigh of relief and Kauffman laughed nervously.

Cage shifted uneasily. “All right, let's finish clearing this place out...then we should seriously consider taking a break.” He turned to stare at Greg for a long moment, then turned and left the room. A subconscious signal seemed to pass between them and Greg realized that Cage had relinquished control of the group back to him.

As if to punctuate this, Billings, Kyra, Powell, and Kauffman looked to him, as though awaiting orders.

“
So, now what?” Greg stared at Billings. The Sergeant smiled and a tired look crossed his face. He regarded Greg with bloodshot eyes.

“
To be honest, kid, I'm beat. It's obvious to me that Cage knows what he's doing more than any of us...and it's also obvious to me that he just passed the torch to someone he feels can get us through the night safely.”

So it hadn't been Greg's imagination. He sighed. He didn't like being in charge.

“All right. Billings, Powell, Kauffman clear out the storage areas. Make sure the garage is secure, then lock it down for the night and come back over here. We'll get showers, food, and sleep. Rotate the guard,” Greg replied.

The trio nodded, turned and filed out of the room. Greg realized he was alone with Kyra for the first time in days.

“So...you were pretty happy to see me back there.”

Kyra smiled and...was she blushing again? “Yes, damnit.” She poked him in the chest. “
You
are a jerk.” She said this without malice, still smiling.

A playful mood washed over Greg. “Oh?”

“Yeah. You...make me feel weird. And you
know
it. And you're doing it on purpose.”

“
Is feeling weird so bad?” He smiled wider at this.

“
Want to sneak off to one of the bedrooms?” She gazed into his eyes.

“
We should...we should at least finish clearing out the base.” Greg hesitated, finding it suddenly difficult to concentrate.

“
Oh, for fuck's sake, just go. I've already cleared out this side. We're the only ones here.” Cage’s voice came from the doorway.