Day 356 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 9.3 - (1,520 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb

Chapter 9.3

The offices and consulting rooms on the ground floor were mostly empty around him and James scouted around looking for a way out through a window or an exit door of some kind. The complex, such as it was seemed overly secure for a hospital of any kind, public or private.

He crossed from room to room in his open back hospital gown and found nothing in the way of exit or egress from his situation. A closet close to the rear corridor next to the stairwell, a door he passed earlier without a second glance, yielded a step closer to freedom, it had a janitorial uniform inside on a hook, and a nametag with an ID attached. A closer inspection would not help him but a casual glance would give a passing resemblance.

He changed in the corridor, no idea why he had been stripped and put naked in a bed, sedated and knocked out with some frequency, but now he was out and in disguise while the rest of the staff all appeared to be in crisis mode out in the foyer.

He had no socks nor shoes but some rubber work boots for wading through spills were in the closet too and he could slip inside them, they were a little big but not so much that he could not walk comfortably in them. He hoped for a hat of some kind, a brimmed baseball or truckers cap he could pull down over his eyes would have been perfect, but not there to use. It was possible of course that a hat pulled sown over the eyes in the dark of night would make less of a disguise and more of a beacon signal to look at him, the man trying to hide in plain sight.

He came back to the main door and looked through the tiny gap once more and the discussion among the people there was agitated and aggressive, he could hear them arguing clearly about some event. There was no context for their discussion but flying accusations about blame and safety, the breach of a wall or perimeter of some kind put the tension high in the air.

At first he recognized no one at all, but then he had to do a double take as he saw his brother in the crowd. He bit back a yell to his brother; the noise dying in his throat and making a small but unheard exclamation that thankfully didn’t carry. That was definitely Derek, but he looked uncomfortable and out of place in this room, the whole situation far too tense and Derek was inching towards the exit, the one on the other side of the Foyer, James had to guess it was a wing similar to the one he was in.

He tried to signal him, catch his eye but he could not be more visible to him without being more visible to everyone. After a while of hoping that he would look this way it was time to look for a way to distract or upset things so that he could get to his brother while everyone else was looking elsewhere.

There was a commotion from the Foyer again, raised voices in anger and shock. The tide had turned somewhat to concern and fear, James could hear it now, the worry, confusion and demands were plain as day, regardless of not having the context of the conversations.

“Everybody just calm down now!” A strong commanding voice cut through the hubbub of the crowd, and that voice drew James back to the door. There was a woman in a white coat that everyone was looking at in silence, when she opened her mouth to speak James knew by the commanding tone that she was either in charge or used to being obeyed.

“These things have happened before and they will happen again.” She lectured them like they were spoiled children crying over the unfairness of life.

“This was sabotage!” An angry voice rose up from the crowd, but James could not see the man speaking.

“You don’t know that.” She countered dismissively.

“You don’t know that it’s not!” came a different voice, this time from a man in front that James could see, his chin stuck out defiantly.

The demeanor of the woman in the lab coat changed and she rounded on the man she could see. “You know nothing Robert. Nothing. Don’t get up on a high horse about security and sabotage when you are just acting out of fear. We contained the problem quickly and got everyone back safe again in minutes. If this was sabotage, and I highly doubt that, it was the work of the most incompetent and ineffective terrorists in the history of sabotage.”

She raised her hands and stepped back, no longer shouting at the man she called Robert and addressing the whole crowd again in a more placating tone. “I don’t believe it was intentional. I believe it to be stupidity. Incompetence. A mistake.”

“Not everyone.” Came another voice, this also in the front row and from a woman more self assured and calm, she looked neither belligerent nor angry, but determined to make a point.

“Excuse me Patricia?” the woman asked back, with more respect than she showed others previous.

“You said, Sarah, that everyone was safe, back safe you said. Everyone.”

Sarah did not reply, but she did look chastised and blushed a little under the unfortunate spotlight she was now in.

Then James saw something wholly unexpected. Derek stepped into the focal point of the group and raised a hand to speak, not waiting for permission but politely gesturing regardless. “That is hardly fair Patricia. Dr Sarah is speaking broadly, the poor …” He looked over at a gurney with a sheet over it and then James knew what they were all talking about, there was a body under a sheet on that gurney. “This was an unfortunate accident and the real person to blame is unfortunately the victim. “

There was a gasp and Derek stared down the crowd as that settled in.

“Who are you?” Robert, the man that Sarah had berated before saw his chance to get some self esteem back by barracking at Derek. Of course he had no idea who he was and that seemed like a good way in.

“Panic.” Derek said to Patricia and then everyone as a group again. “Panic. She froze. Against all training and all common sense, she froze. If she had taken even a few steps more this would have been a different outcome. You need to pay attention to what you have been told to do in these situations.”

James could tell that Derek was bluffing, he recognized in his brother that look when he was pushing beyond what he knew, with guesses and confidence that would bully himself through too many situations before this one. Never one as bizarre and off kilter as this, but there it was.

“Who the fuck are you?” Robert challenged again, his arms crossed in front of his chest he puffed himself up higher, fuller and ignored the conversation started between Sarah and Patricia who were now watching this interchange.

“Robert Pearson! That is enough. Tom here…” Sarah had stepped into the slowly closing gap between the men and jabbed a finger into the man’s chest, sending him back on his heels uncertainly at her sudden aggression. “.. Tom here was the only one reacting like he was trained to. He was the one taking what he had at hand and thinking strategically. He beat off the machines, he stood his ground, and he saved those men’s lives!” Sarah pointed at two bandaged men who were looking less sheepish now at forgetting how to defend themselves and standing in support of what the Doctor was saying.

“I didn’t think that…” Robert started but that was all he got out.

“No you didn’t think Robert. The only one who thought properly and effectively was Tom.”  Sarah rounded on the group now, Robert effectively dismissed and Tom’s hero status assured, even though no one in the crowd knew who he was, the endorsement of their leader effectively sealed the man that never existed into the collective consciousness of the group.

“Tom saved all your lives, if you don’t know him you should get to know him because he is the man that you want at your side when the shit hits the fan like it did tonight. Whoever made the mistake, whoever didn’t do their job? They contributed to the death of this poor … what was her name again?”

There was a mumble and general consensus of ‘Lisa’ from the group.

“Tom?” James whispered to himself and rocked back on his heels, trying to stretch his legs. He had gotten pins and needles in them from staying crouched by the door for so long, but he had been entranced by the drama unfolding beyond the door he was hiding behind, and his brother’s mysterious role in it as this “Tom” person.

What the hell was going on?

Day 355 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 9.2 - (1,199 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb

Chapter 9.2

Ben climbed to the roof of the Cinema, it had a fire escape around the back of it, close to the alley where Derek had hidden earlier, and from the very height of the building he watched the town milling about and recovering from the sudden but easily repelled incursion he had created.

The rooftop had a small ridge of fascia that gave him cover to hide behind and was far above any of the lights or roofs of nearby structures. The theatre was the tallest structure visible except the Hereford clinic and had a good line of sight through the town. Ben was wondering what to do next because he had not really thought this far ahead.

He knew there was something going on and it had kind of come to a head with Angela in the car before arriving here and his good behavior bond was his mother’s protection back wherever she was now. Of course he was less worried about her, she was capable of taking care of herself and would likely be long gone from where it was they had taken her.

If she was still there then it was something for him to be concerned about, because what she could not get herself out of was something akin to a rock and a hard place. She was loud, opinionated and she interfered in things constantly.  She was also a survivor and an aggressive fighter as well. She had taught him everything about who he was and his place in the world.  He pushed for things to go his way and to be in control of the situation because that was the way she had raised him.

To take control of a place and the people, not loudly or obviously like she would often do, but undeniably he was effective at taking control in more subtle and longer lasting ways.

Tom and Linda had seen that in him when he joined the City and he started taking over in little groups, but being an outsider, always hampered the power and influence he gained, while substantial and fast. He knew it from the first minute and he had never broken through the barrier of secrecy to find what was really going on underneath the ideals and goals of the humanitarian City project.

Now here he was in the middle of nowhere in a town that he’d never heard barricaded and secured against the outside world and in possession of the same tech that the City used to corral the zombies that had littered the planet since the GZA.

They had to have had something to do with the current state of the world; it made sense that they knew something. How else would they have this advantage, this setup and be this prepared? It had been less than a year since it had all kicked off and humanity had slipped fast into chaos and death. Each successive slide creating more and more of the living dead to threaten the living, the first year was a living hell.

Then he found the City, and then he found a place to live and a place to fit in. The problem was that he had no idea what was really going on and he could not operate like that for too long. He got on the road, got around and found someone willing to talk to him, to take him into the center of what was going on. The collateral he laid down was his mother, a nightmare handful of a woman who would not be contained for very long and then they were off to find the source of whatever her special knowledge was.

Angela had to be a trap, but what and why he did not know. Derek and James were random elements, they were good to take along as back up on the road. James would be the collateral for Derek and show that Ben was still on board with the City, and no one but Ben and his mother knew where they were headed and what they had in mind.

She would be free already, or would have died trying to escape. Ben was pretty confident that would not have happened though, she was annoying and she was difficult but she was a resource and they would want to keep that in check. There was not so much humanity left in the world that they could afford to indiscriminately throw life away. Not unless they absolutely had to.

The gates were secure again, the townsfolk were still milling about as he watched from his perch on high, and the Clinic was the power center of the town, he could see that from his eagles eye view.

It was late now, well into the dark and close to midnight by his estimates. He had watched Derek going into the hospital with the woman who was carrying the papers, and she had been influential, the way that people deferred to her like that?

He needed to think about what to do next, he needed time and a plan. He was on the roof of the cinema, not visible to anyone and safe for now. He had a long day up until now and it was time for a rest.

He balled up his jacket into a pillow and lay down on the bottom of the sloped roof, all the way back from the edge and near the rear wall of the town. He could easily make his escape from this point if he needed to, jumping the small gap to the wall and then getting down to the ground from there. It may have broken his legs, but it was an option.

He closed his eyes, but could not relax enough to go to sleep. He tossed and turned, tried counting sheep. There was too much tension and too much energy in him to easily rest and relax. He was tired and his eyes were closing of their own accord until he lay down on the surface, then the adrenaline and the fear would keep him awake no matter what his body and his mind wanted.

Ben crawled to the front edge of the building and looked over it again, there were still a bunch of people in the Clinic, they were all the foyer and he could see Derek among them, looking about and seeking a place to escape from.

Movement to the right caught his eye and the start of a plan began in his mind once he realized what he was seeing.

James opened the door to the lobby area and quickly ducked backwards and out of sight. The people who had left all the other floors of the hospital were apparently down here and they were agitated and tense all gathered in such a tight space.  In the short glimpse he had of the foyer he had seen injured people and blood on the floor, smeared red swatches slick on the linoleum.

James was still in the hospital gown and the exit appeared to be via the lobby, which was full of people who he did not know and could not possibly trust.

Day 354 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 9.1 - (2,055 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb

Chapter 9.1

Derek and Sarah had both stopped moving and while Derek felt a cold panic set in, Sarah on the other hand seemed annoyed and irritated by the sudden invasion.

“Who let them in?” She shook her head and pulled a radio from her pocket, clicking the talk button and showing her irritation to the person at the other end. “Hey? Gates! Close the gates!” She put her box of things down and started advancing towards the zombie horde as if they were sheep wandering onto a country road, a harmless obstacle.

“Clear them away! For god’s sake, just shepherd them back to…” She was shouting her orders to the people who were standing around watching the undead make their way towards the main part of the crowd. One of the nearest to the edge of the zombie crowd suddenly jumped backwards and away and started moving the others nearby away.

“Move back, they’re deactivated!”

“Deactivated?” Derek said out loud to himself, there was so much more going on here than he could assimilate or even begin to understand.

Sarah turned to look at Derek and then mouthed the word “Deactivated?” silently with a shoulder shrug, then turned to look at them again. “Jesus! You’re right!” She pulled up the radio again and shouted into it. “Which bright spark turned off the signal? Come on guys! Turn the beacons on!” Sarah took a few steps backwards as the leading edge of the undead got close to a couple of crowd members who were moving too slowly.

Then the screaming started in earnest and the crowd started sprinting for cover and Sarah ran closer shouting for whoever was listening to turn the beacons back on.

Derek had to do something, he was here for his brother but he was hardly going to watch even a couple of innocent people be zombie midnight snacks. One of the people fleeing the zombies had fallen, and was using a walking stick to try and prop herself up again. Derek ran in past Sarah, pulled the stick from the woman, and apologizing while running to the fray he started swinging at the handful of slathering undead that were attacking the screaming woman, and the two men who were trying to pull the zombie off of her, but getting attacked themselves in the process.

Derek swung the stick in a wide arc and knocked two of the undead into each other, causing a small pile up and pushing the rear advancing ones on top of them, giving them a little respite to deal with the biters in the front.

Jabbing, punching and kicking them away Derek cleared a few feet on the ground and the two men, one of which was bleeding profusely from one arm scooped up the fallen woman who was shuddering and convulsing from her wounds on the ground. Sarah made her ground slower than Derek had sprinted the same distance but she got to the woman and the men carrying her as Derek started swinging the stick in a wide arc once more. He was not stopping their advance, but the movement forward was being slowed enough for the people to get away from the imminent attack.

An alarm klaxon sounded through the air and the vibrating noise confused the undead instantly, they lost focus on the screaming woman and started attacking erratically, without direction or focus.  Derek could take a few steps back and ease up on the swinging, just pushing the occasional stray back into the pack when they came on the wrong tangent.

“Turn the beacons back on! Turn them on now!” Sarah was still communicating with the radio and the guards on the watchtowers.

The zombie horde had thinned somewhat and they were leaving from the rear half backwards from what Derek could see, the beacons doing their job on what was in range only.

“They’re out of range! See?” Derek was shouting to Sarah who had left the injured to run into the hospital with the bleeding woman. She ran up to Derek and pulled him back from the random grasping and shuffling of the undead.

“Get the clean up crew, we have stragglers inside.” She said to him as if he knew exactly what to do.

Derek hesitated, he had no idea what that meant. If he admitted he didn’t know and it was something that they all knew, then that would expose him and he would have no chance of getting to James. If he did nothing then he put lives at risk. It was a conundrum.

He was spared the choice though as a number of men with batons and blinking beacon sticks like the ones that Ben had been using in their hometown ran into the group and the behavior of the zombies changed immediately. They pacified and stopped moving about, the klaxon was still sounding and the warping noise it made echoed about the town and created a Doppler effect and directional fade and repeat that wore on his nerves.

Then in the quieter gap left by the klaxon’s absence the undead were contained in the loop arranged by the five men with beacons and batons. No beating or bashing was actually required, and the long batons would probably have been for nothing more than keeping the zombies further away than arm’s length.

The gates were grinding to a close behind them, the noise previously masked by the siren sounds and the yelling of the fleeing citizens. Derek looked about for signs of where they had gone, but they had melted into the shadows and assumably into buildings out of sight from his standpoint.

Sarah was back at her box of papers and sorting them out, her radio left on the ground. Derek snatched it up and pressed ‘talk’ to alert the guards or whoever was on the other end of the radio. “Stop the gates! Open them up!” he said and waited for a response.

“What are you doing?” she asked and tried to take the radio away from him, dropping her papers again.

“Open the gates! Now!” Derek commanded but nothing happened and the gates kept closing.

“Who is this?” came a crackling voice from the box in his hands and Derek sighed, handing the radio to Sarah and pointing to the group of thirty or more undead that were being corralled by the mean with the sonic devices, the beacons that controlled the zombies to some effect.

“If you close the gates?” he said and pointed to the front entrance that was slowly getting smaller and smaller.

“We’re locking them inside. Oh.” Sarah blushed and clicked the radio. “You heard Tom, open the gates you morons.” She was embarrassed she had not thought of it.

“Hey!” Came back the indignant voice. “We are just doing what we’re told to do remember!” Sarah blushed even more, but this time in anger.

“Just open the goddamn gates until the zombies are OUTSIDE the walls again!” She clicked off the talk button and threw the radio to the side, the resulting “Roger that.” which sounded sullen and unhappy thrown in as a politeness, was partly obscured by the speaker rolling onto it’s face on the pavement.

Derek said thanks and then helped her get the papers back in order and started towards the Clinic doors. Sarah looked back at the undead who were being slowly moved towards the now opening main gate and then back at her new helper, whom she did not know but had somehow accepted.

“You know we have a breach right?” Derek said as they walked through the main doors of the clinic, following Sarah to wherever it was she was headed, it was at least in the same building where he had seen his brother being taken.

“You think? I guess it must be right? I mean these guys are not exactly the brain trust but they survived the cull without being picked, that’s got to count for some basic intelligence and survival skills? So…”

Derek nodded though he did not know what he was agreeing to. “So if they didn’t make a huge mistake, twice over then someone opened the gates and someone activated the …” Derek stopped talking and let the silence finish his thoughts in Sarah’s mind. He was trapped by his own words as he realized he had no idea what the people here called Zombies, the undead, the living dead or whatever they referred to them as. That would be a dead giveaway that he was not part of the townsfolk.

“Yes, you’re right, it has to be an inside job. I mean you can’t turn off the beacons form outside the walls, you can only do that from the offices, or one of the gate houses.”

One of the gatehouses? Derek guessed this meant there was at least one more entry and exit to this walled town. That made sense, towns did not exist out here in a cul de sac, it was a line generally around the main road, it ran north to south or east to west most times. So there was another way in and out.

“Should we check the other…” he said and Sarah blushed again at being told the obvious by this random citizen.

“Check all entry exit points! We may have an intruder or a saboteur!” She barked into the radio,

“Roger.”

“Roger that.”

Two distinctly different responses came in to the radio speaker and Derek counted two voices different from the pissed off one they had already conversed with around what he thought was the main gate. In reality he had no idea if it was or was not, it was just the gate he saw first, and the one with enough room around it to land a helicopter.

“The guard towers!” Sarah exclaimed, “They have the switches too.” She barked more orders down the radio but for once was happy she thought of it before someone else did.

“Where you want these?” Derek hefted the box of papers he was carrying and Sarah nodded, and walked off down a corridor, implying she should follow him.

“I’ll just follow you then shall I?” Derek said to himself and did just that.

Ben had been listening to the radio commands that Sarah had been giving and reached similar conclusions about the other entrances that Derek had. He had balked for a second when he heard Derek giving commands over the radio and thought for an insane second that perhaps he was in cahoots with the townsfolk, of whatever crazy experiment this place was. Once the guards admitted to not knowing who this ‘Tom” was he calmed down a little more, Derek was infiltrating and had not given his real name.

He could use that, if he could catch up with him. He had made the right choice in picking him to come with him in search of this place. There were not enough answers and too many questions, even in his own team. They had been handpicked to accompany him, but he was an outsider nonetheless. They were always watching him, he felt that they were on the edge of letting him into the secret club, whatever it was, but never quite crossing that line.

Ben had sent the beacons to off, and had started opening the gate before fleeing and no one had seen him do it, this town was safe, secure and complacent up until this very moment at least. Then from a safe distance he had the purloined radio from Angela in his pocket, the volume turned way down low where only he could hear it.

The casualty of the woman at the front, the one bitten and savaged by the undead disturbed him, but it was an unfortunate accident. He had no intention of hurting anyone, he just wanted to cause a disturbance and unbalance the leaders of the town. Undoubtedly after an incursion or an accident like this they would be meeting to find out what went on and what to do next.

When they did, Ben would be there and then he would figure out what they were up to.

None of this made any sense, the zombies, the devices and what they were doing with the City where he had been living?

Zero sense.