The Great War (Surviving the Zombie Nightmare Book 5) (9 page)

Mandy shook her head at the very fact that an actual demon had just told her to trust him. What the hell had she done in her life to deserve this? “Whatever you say Bullosky. If you think anything you can do will ever put Eric Bayne on his knees, you're the craziest son-of-a-bitch I've ever seen.”

Bullosky smiled a knowing smile and said, “I guarantee it.”

Tired of looking at a laboratory that she really didn't want to believe existed, Mandy led the way back out the door and down the corridor. She kept her head down refusing to look into any windows until she got back to the main hallway door. It was then that she saw that she had no way to open the door. Bullosky stepped passed her and the door opened. Mandy said, “Good god, you just open doors with your mind now?”

Bullosky shook his head, “Not quite.”

The door opened and Dr. Isaiah Neal walked through with his head down. He was going so fast and was so distracted that he walked right into Bullosky and almost fell down from the recoil. He looked at the demonic admiral, then to Mandy and back with a shocked expression on his face. “What in the fuck is she doing here?”

Bullosky grinned, “Relax doctor. She needed to be shown something that would give her some confidence in our plans.”

“If you...”

“I did not show her anything of consequence Dr. Isaiah; only experiments,” Bullosky said, “Relax for once.”

Nothing else was said and Dr. Isaiah stormed down the corridor for reasons Mandy was extremely glad she did not know. All she wanted to do was get out of this area of the facility, get back to her nice quarters and completely forget everything she had just seen. She left Bullosky behind, finding her own way back, stepped into her quarters and got started doing just that.

“What in the fuck is wrong with you?” Eric asked as he walked towards the large facility.  From the looks of it close up, it might have been a successful sawmill at one point in time. Nothing inside of Eric, absolutely nothing, wanted to open any of the doors to the inside of the warehouse and walk in. Finishing taking his irritation out on Destiny, he said, “You drove us through the woods to escape O.A. soldiers and we find ourselves stranded at the end of the road with a big ass sawmill the only thing to keep us company. Well,” he glanced at the O.A. soldier who was bound tightly, gagged and sitting on the ground in front of the truck, “And him.”

Destiny sighed, “It beats ha
ving to take on another bunch of them doesn't it? Especially when you consider this last one we took down is about the only one out without a demonic and zombie escort.” She looked back at the bound soldier as well, “Dumbass.”

Eric was now walking around the side of the warehouse looking for the same thing that Destiny was looking for at the front and on the other side. He sighed and yelled so she could hear him, “I guess so unless you count the part where we have to find a way inside of this fucking place. For my money, we can send the O.A. lackey and check for signs of life after a few minutes. If he lives that long then we assume it is safe for us to go inside too.”

“Eric,” Destiny yelled, “Are you actually afraid of old warehouses or something? You've killed more than one demon and yet you are afraid to open this place. That makes no sense.” She paused briefly, “I think I have something.”

Eric's memory flashed back to the group of cannibals that he had wound up staying with. Their large barn had something of the same look as this large warehouse if you tripled the size. He shook his head, “You don't know what I've seen or you'd pause before walking in too. What do you have?”

“I've seen plenty but nothing that made me scared of opening a building,” Destiny said. “After clearing the weeds off it looks to be a big bay door. If we can get the thing to raise up far enough, we could slip inside, wait for the group of attackers we expect are on our heels to leave and then check out ourselves.”

With a sigh Eric said, “That sounds as good as anything. I'll circle back around and bring the truck and the O.A. bastard around to where you are.” He didn't hear her reply but didn't need to in order to know that was what he needed to do. Within a few moments he was walking towards the truck. Motioning towards the soldier he said, “Get in unless you need my help like last time.”

Despite his general irritation, Eric found the quick way the soldier worked towards his feet and rushed to the open side door absolutely hilarious. With a quick laugh he jumped into the driver’s seat and began the slow but steady drive around the side of the building. At one time this would have been a smooth concrete drive around the building but now it was littered with busted concrete and potholes. It took a full three minutes before he could see Destiny tearing the weeds off of the door with her sword.

When he pulled up he took notice of the icky look on her face. After getting out he grabbed some of the weeds with his bare hand and threw them off the door. Then he said, “Wow, after all you have done in your amazing life, I cannot believe you are afraid of a few weeds.”

“Okay,” Destiny said with a smile.

“No, I mean really,” Eric said with a shrug, “You're so courageous and nothing scares you but you're all icky when it comes to tall grass. I just don't get it. It makes no sense.”

“Okay, Eric,” Destiny sighed, “You made your point. I get it; you're an ass.”

Eric looked at the right and left sides of the door and then at the top. After a glance at the top as well, he took his sword in his left hand and sliced through the metal on one side of the door. The sharp sword only hesitated for a slight moment through the cut. Eric kicked at the bottom of the door and saw it give a little. He stabbed the door with his sword and opened it quickly with a heave upward. With the door opened he addressed Destiny's snide little comment, “Yes, I am and don't forget it.” He led the way into the warehouse.

He heard Destiny and the soldier walk in behind him. From the silence he might assume they were stunned by how well the place looked as much as he was. As he stared at it and walked around a little bit, he saw that it was basically like a huge assembly line. On one side of the facility a tree would be brought in, from the looks of the one still on there it was brought in with the limbs clipped off, and the bark was shaved off. It was moved from there to a machine with a huge belt system that would throw it through a few blades so that the tree was sliced into several sections. On it went from there until they could make the tree into pieces of lumber to be trucked way and sold to a retailer or someone who wanted it.

It was about that time that he noticed their prisoner was moaning loudly into his gag. Destiny cut him a glance and Eric was about to tell him to shut his mouth before he heard something. With a knowing look on his face, Eric walked out to the truck, hopped in the driver’s seat and drove it inside. He got out and shut the bay door and on his way back passed the truck, reached in to grab one of their mobile comm devices. He turned it on and stood near Destiny, “This should be interesting. Oh and you,” he said to the soldier, “Don't assume I need you alive and well. I just need your face.” Eric placed the point of his sword directly at the O.A. soldier's throat, “I have no problem giving you a terrible war wound before we get back to your home base, so you might want to shut the fuck up.”

The young fellow became as quiet as death itself as Eric held the comm device out between the three of them. Once the switch on the side was flipped to the on position, voices could be heard immediately.

“You know they had to come through here,” one scratchy voice said. “It was the only direction they could have gone based on the tracks we saw.”

“Yeah but that doesn't mean they're here Johnny,” a high-pitched male voice said.

“Billy,” a third and deeper voice said, “Just because you don't want to go inside this place doesn't mean they aren't here.”

The high-pitched voice said, “It doesn't mean they are!”

“Look,” the scratchy voice came through, “The tracks lead right up to the pavement.”

“And disappear within a few yards,” high-pitched voice finished the thought.

“Billy, man you're embarrassing yourself. We work with these things now you know? You don't have to be scared of them anymore.”

“I'm not afraid,” the high-pitched voice said, “They just freak me out man. Goddamn things crawling all over the place.”

Scratchy voice soldier said, “I'll say this for them; the new smarter ones definitely freak me out a whole lot less than the original ones did. That's not just because the new ones work with us either.” After a pause he said, “I'll tell you what Billy. We'll drive around the place and see if we come across something suspicious. If we don't then we'll just leave.”

“If we do,” the deeper voice added, “We'll have to go inside and check it out even if it means Billy has to piss his pants.” Laughter rose from the device as the sound of a truck could be heard coming towards the door they had used to gain entry into the building. Eric began thinking that they would notice the weeds being gone from that door and they'd have a fight on their hands after all. From the way it sounded they probably did not have zombies or demons with them but he still did not want to have to deal with it.

Just then the high-pitched voice said, “Hey look that way! There's like four different roads out of here. There are tracks everywhere in that direction so you know we wouldn’t be able to tell one way or the other if they went that way or not.”

“That doesn't mean they went damn-it,” the low voice said. “We should just walk inside and have a look around.”

As they were discussing the point, Eric heard the truck drive passed the door they were standing just on the other side of. He saw the expression of their captive turn to disappointment and watched his head drop. Apparently the young soldier had figured out the same thing that Eric had. The boys in the truck were so busy looking at the roads out of the area that they argued right passed the door that might have given away their hiding place. Now whether or not Eric and Destiny would have a fight on their hands would come down to who won the argument.

The truck could barely be heard as it drove around the far side of the facility but the conversation was ongoing. The scratchy voice said, “We could take a look inside but what's the point? Billy put the zombie dampening device on like a mile radius or something. Let's just turn the fucking thing off.”

“You know what? I like it,” the deep voice commented, “If they left via one of those other exit roads, we'll find them eventually. If they happen to be inside that building, they'll be sorry in about one minute.” There was a small pause before he added, “There we go.”

“Oh holy shit,” Destiny said as she started to look around. “Do they mean what I think they mean?”

Eric knew exactly what it meant as he looked towards the O.A. soldier again and noticed his face looked even more worried and upset than before. The young man jerked at his bonds as if he wanted to be untied. Eric smirked, “You want to be untied so you can fight off zombies or find a gun and kill the two of us?” The man was only able to mumble into the gag that he had stuffed into his mouth so Eric shrugged, “Well, I can't understand you so I guess you'll have to fend for yourself. Good luck staying alive. Don't worry about us though; we were looking for an O.A. soldier to keep prisoner when we found you.”

“Um, Eric,” Destiny said.

Eric looked around, “Yes dear?”

“No time for joking Eric. If you're finished playing with our toy soldier, you might want to look at them.”

Destiny's attention was on the higher sections of the facility. Eric started looking quickly but saw nothing, “Look at who?”

“All of them Eric!” Destiny said as she pulled her sword and took on a fighting stance. Eric was about to call her crazy and then he looked closer. There were so many of them that he failed to honestly take in the situation for a few seconds. Destiny said, “Zombies!”

His own sword now held tightly in his hand, Eric saw them clearly. “It appears to be the original zombies. There aren't demons or cross-breeds in there from what I see. They’re just pouring out of the cracks and shadows like they used to. I guess at least it’s the old kind.”

“Yeah,” Destiny said with a bit of a worried sound to her voice, “I've never fought this many in one place before.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Eric said in a masterful way to mask the concern he felt inside, “You just stand and let them come at you then fight them off before they kill you.”

“Not helping Eric.”

“Really,” Eric said again with a playful tone to his voice, “You'll be fine. It’s nowhere nearly as difficult as some of the things you've done. Just keep their heads rolling. If they get too close, give a nice hefty telepathic shove. You'll get the hang of it before they kill you.” A slight whimper sounded from one side as their prisoner crumpled to the floor nearly crying. Eric looked down at him, “Not you though. You're as good as dead.”

It was about time to stop talking big and start getting serious as the mindless zombies were closing in as a group from all sides. Truth be known, Eric couldn't remember a situation with the mindless variety of zombies any worse than this. He wondered briefly why they were all locked in here. Was it like a storage facility for them? What the hell had they stumbled onto? It didn't matter what the facility was supposed to be for the zombies before; it was about to be their coffin.