Shades of Gray (29 page)

Evelyn nodded reluctantly, then turned and walked curtly from the room, the three goons following her out. David sighed, his eyes roaming the enclosure, making eye contact with each person strapped to a metal table. Their mouths had all been taped shut, a lesson he had learned early on. There’s nothing quite like sticking a person while they scream and rant in your face. He felt guilty enough as it was. Their eyes—they still pleaded with him.

This is for the greater good.

He wondered how his counterparts across the country were managing, how they were coping. He wondered if any of the other facilities were even still up and running.

They have to be. The odds are in our favor.

David walked to his workstation. As he began preparing the IV bags, he felt confident once again that they would beat back this wave of death. He ignored that gnawing voice in the back of his mind that kept insisting the other Centers were dead, the other scientists were dead, and he was nothing but a damned murderer.

No. No. We
will
fix our mistake.

* * *

“Let’s pick it up, people,” Michael said and, indeed, picked up the pace.

The four of us jogged behind Rabbit and Michael, passing car after car and finally realizing there were no zombies inside trapped by seatbelts. I commented on this to Mia, who replied with a shake of her head. I gave Gus an order to scout ahead, and the little beagle darted forward to search and investigate the road fifty yards or so ahead of us.

Thinks he’s hunting.

I guess he was, in a way. The further into town we trotted, the clearer it became that we’d be met with no resistance. It was very odd and something we were absolutely not used to. Most of us had gotten to a point where we couldn’t even remember a time when we
didn’t
have to constantly look over our shoulders. We had trained ourselves to react to every noise, investigate every stink, and this city was devoid of both. It should have eased our minds.

It had not.

“Sure wishin’ we’d brought a vehicle,” Jake panted behind me. I snorted. My legs were beginning to burn, too.

The street Rabbit had led us down looked like a dead end, but the closer we got to “the end,” I could see it continued into the woods.

“Well that’s just great.”

“Huh?” Mia asked. She was panting too. I said nothing and kept jogging.

Sweat was working up on my brow and under my bra, which annoyed the hell out of me. Sweating in November was bullshit. Michael had been in a hurry ever since my epiphany, though I don’t know why. The damage had been done. If the CC had in fact been using folks as guinea pigs to create some sort of army, well, they’d succeeded and we were too late to stop them. Of course I was completely ready to accept I was wrong. I was really hoping I was wrong.

“Almost there. Half a mile,” Rabbit said. I think he was the only one not out of breath.

Did they have any idea what we’d do when we got there? At no point along our trip had we put our heads together and come up with an “endgame” plan. I guess they were all thinking the same thing I had been since leaving the prison: we’ll figure it out when we get there. Except I’d seen a thing or two since then, and as far as I knew I was running on borrowed time. I wasn’t as gung-ho about rushing in blind as I had been before. My legs were wearing out and my sides were hurting a little, so I didn’t have the energy to worry too much about it. When it was all said and done, we’d jogged approximately three miles when the CC finally started coming into view.

“Well,” Jake said. “That’s gonna be fun gettin’ into.”

The six of us stared ahead at two sets of towering fences, both topped with razor-wire. Gus was sitting patiently at the foot of the gate. The second fence had a gate as well, though it looked more complex than the first. Behind the second gate was a brick wall, taller than either fence. It had some sort of large door built into it, with a symbol in the center. It looked like a bird with flames around it, like a Phoenix. The door was also made of brick and blended in almost perfectly with the wall itself. I spotted three guard shacks on this side of the wall. They were empty, though that still added up to around twelve altogether. And the worst part? Everything looked electronic. The gate locks and door lock all took keycards to open.

“Jesus. Why not dig a moat too?” Mia said.

“Someone
please
tell me we’ve got a key.” I slung my rifle and planted my hands on my hips, anger blooming in my chest. All this way, and for what? To be locked out with no way of scaling the ginormous wall. Sure we could cut through the fences, but the wall?

“I suppose we could use our melee weapons. Beat the shit out of the locks. Maybe that would pop the doors,” Jake offered. Rabbit and Michael were talking hurriedly to each other and hadn’t heard his brilliant idea.

“No, Jake. We can’t use our melee weapons.” I enunciated through gritted teeth.

“Why not? Might work.”

“Why not?” I spun on him and threw my hands in the air. “Because we don’t have our goddamn melee weapons! We left them in the
Humvees
!”

“Okay, okay,” Jonah said and stepped between us.

He put his hands on my upper arms and pushed me back lightly. I, in turn, thrust outward, throwing his away, and rammed both my hands against his chest. He stumbled backwards, fell into Jake, and they both hit the ground.

“Easy, girl,” Mia warned and led me away by the hand. That scuffle finally got Michael’s attention and sent Gus after Jonah’s boots.

“Hey, c’mon. Knock it off,” Michael barked.

He threw us all chastising looks before turning back to Rabbit. They were studying something in the corporal’s hands. Something that looked like a credit card smeared with blood. After another minute or so, Rabbit jerked his chin toward the wall.

“Let’s move.”

* * *

“Who the hell is that?” Van asked. He was leaning forward, staring at a small-circuit television screen, studying a shot of the outside. Six people, all armed, were entering the outside gate.

“Move.”

The new guard stepped up and shoved the younger man aside. It didn’t take him long to identify the grainy figures entering first the outside gate, then the inside gate, and finally the wall entrance itself.

How the hell are they still alive?

Back when he escaped from Blueville Correctional, he had made
certain
that the zombies attacking the northern gate would infiltrate the prison walls, and he’d be long gone by the time the dust had settled. He had
assumed
his enemies would be killed.

That bitch Kasey and her gang of trash.

He’d been wrong.

After wandering south-southeast for nearly four weeks afterward, a group of National Guardsmen found him and brought him to the CC, where he’d quickly been employed as a security guard. Seemed they were having trouble keeping their watchmen. He had been living comfortably ever since, right at home with conditions not unlike his former job. The people he was in charge of guarding may have been innocent civilians, but he treated them as prisoners nonetheless. They
were
kept in a cage, after all.

How the
hell
did they make it out of that prison?

He only saw one stranger in the group, though that hardly mattered to him. He didn’t waste any time wondering how they’d gotten their hands on a keycard. They were still breathing and breaking into
his
facility. That was all the information he needed.

Should have killed that Michael when I had the chance.

“That’s trouble. Let’s go welcome them.” He pulled his sidearm and smiled at Van.

“Uh, sure,” the younger man said, following the new guy out and down the hallway toward the main entrance.

The third man of their team was stuck on guard duty, most likely sleeping off his hangover outside one of the observation rooms. Van didn’t want to know who those men were, or why they’d been segregated from the others. The less he knew the better as far as he was concerned. He also didn’t concern himself too much with how the intruders had gained access to the facility. Then again, Van wasn’t the type to concern himself with very much at all.

“Should we let the others know?” he asked.

The new guard snorted. “We can handle this. You wanna pussy out, fine. Stay out of
my
way. I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time.” He paused at the intersection of two hallways. “On second thought, why don’t you head down towards the offices. I’ll go straight to the lab, let the geeks know we have company.”

* * *

“Alright, everyone. Single file, watch me. Switch to shotguns and sidearms,” Rabbit whispered, pulling the sling of his rifle across his chest and un-holstering his pistol.

Some of us switched out for shotguns that had been secured across our backs, some of us opted for sidearms like Rabbit. Myself, I voted 20 gauge. We fell in line behind the corporal: Michael, Mia, myself, Jake, and Jonah. Gus stayed right at my heel, his ears perked and his hair up. The area we had entered was small, like a hotel lobby without the furniture or windows, with a hallway branching off to the left and the right. Rabbit turned on his heel and led us to the right. The rest of us assumed he knew where he was going and followed.

The hallway was lit up as brightly as the “lobby” had been. If it hadn’t been for more pressing issues, I’d liked to have known what supplied electricity to the place. There were no doors along our hallway, just a gray tile floor and gray walls. I glanced up and noticed the ceiling was white. Our boots echoed and our rough appearances definitely looked out of place. It made me feel awkward. A few more feet down and the hallway split again, one left and one right. Rabbit led us down the left this time. I snapped my fingers as lightly as I could to get Gus’ attention. He was still on me like stink on shit.

Good boy.

This hallway turned out to be different. There were doors every so many feet with names etched in the glass. Very official looking names, like David McAlister, Ph.D. and a whole mess of initials I didn’t know anything about.

It was quiet and the air smelled stale and musty. At least it didn’t smell dead.

It didn’t make sense. Where were all the soldiers? Guards? We had been in the facility for over fifteen minutes and had met no resistance whatsoever. I’m sure the others were thinking the same thing; I could tell by the way they kept glancing back at one another, looking for reassurance.

Too easy, too easy.

Rabbit was bringing us up to a door at the end of the hallway, this one also requiring a keycard to open. He fished it out of his vest pocket and made eye contact with each of us.

“Get ready. We’ll be heading into areas designated as storage and holding. I’m hoping those aren’t what they sound like.” He tipped his head and wiggled his eyebrows. “The scientists’ living quarters are on the other side of this door, and lab should be in the back of the complex. If we’re gonna run into other people,” he tipped his head again toward the door, “it will be on the other side of this.” He looked around to all of us, waiting for confirmation.

Then he swiped the card.

The lock beeped, clicked, and the door exploded inward on us. Rabbit and Michael were knocked off their feet. Gus erupted in a volley of bays and barks while the rest of us jumped back out of reflex and raised our weapons, assuming there had been a swarm of deadheads pushing from the other side, just waiting for it to be unlocked. We were so wrong I actually laughed out loud.

“Nobody move!” a skinny guy dressed as a security guard yelled over the sight of his gun. “You just put your hands up right now!”

November 24th: early evening

We were so stunned by the man standing in the doorway that I think it lulled him into a false sense of security, because when Michael kicked him in the knee, the guy hadn’t seen it coming.

The skinny guard screamed in return and instantly fell backwards and to the side, squeezing off rounds as he went. This dude was young and had an anxious trigger finger. While Michael jumped back to avoid being shot, the younger guy opened fire on us. We were in a hallway, there was no cover. Luckily, the kid was a bucket of nerves and his shots went high. We capitalized on this and dropped to our knees.

“Stay down!” I ordered Rabbit before he could climb to his feet. He quickly hugged the wall to my left, right behind the open door. “Jake, Jonah!”

Mia and I fell to the floor, I grabbed my dog and covered him with my body, and the two guys opened fire on the idiot blasting away at the ceiling tiles. I felt a little bad for him, knowing he had been placed into a combat position never having been trained on a weapon. Good for us, not so good for him. Jake and Jonah firing on him proved to be the distraction Michael had been waiting for.

“Hold your fire!” I yelled, getting to my feet.