Troy shielded his eyes as he stepped out of the shed onto the main grounds of the base. The cacophony of the maddened creatures washed over him like a tide. “Jeez, Geoff, where the hell did you learn how to count?”
Geoff stepped out behind him and followed Troy’s gaze. There weren’t forty creatures outside the fence. They numbered closer to a hundred or more. The heavy, reinforced poles that held the fence in place swayed under the massive force.
“Got some gas no one seems to be usin’ over in the garage,” Wade offered.
Within minutes, Wade had a jury-rigged hose running from the large fuel tanks. Troy and Geoff helped him drag it out and turn it on.
“Yee-freakin’-hah!” Troy bellowed as he held the hose’s nozzle, spraying down the creatures and the fence alike. “Anybody got a match?”
Wade shook his head and held up a silver Zippo. “This was my favorite lighter,” he said, looking at it sadly. Then he lit it with a flick and tossed it at the fence.
Howls and screams rose up as a burst of blue flame swept through the ranks of the infected. Geoff shut off the hose, and the three of them stood in silence. Black smoke drifted into the heavens, and it was all Troy could do not to vomit from the odor of burning flesh.
“I don’t believe it.” Nathanial slumped over his computer screen. “What the hell does it mean?”
He and Toni had been able to trace the source of the message supposedly from Freedom II. It hadn’t come from orbit at all but rather somewhere in South Carolina—only a few hundred miles away from the complex.
“It means Ian was right,” Jeremy said. “Someone out there, whether it’s those creatures or not, knows we’re here now. They know we’re alive and sane. Worse, they know how many of us there are.”
“Oh God,” Toni said, suddenly sobbing, “I am so sorry.”
“Hey.” Jeremy took her in his arms, and she nestled her face deeper into his shoulder, wetting his shirt. “It’s all right. You didn’t know.”
“So what do we do now?” Nathanial asked.
Jeremy gritted his teeth. “We get ready. We get ready for whoever or whatever’s coming.”
17
The doors of the lift opened onto the armory level. Jeremy had never been to this part of the base before and was taken aback by the condition of the hallway. Unlike the rest of Def Con, this area hadn’t been repaired since the battle after the wave. The lighting was poor, as many of the lights had been shot out or were flickering badly, casting eerie strobes along the corridor. The metal walls themselves were scarred by some kind of explosion, as if someone had set off a grenade. Spent shell casings littered the floor as Jeremy made his way to the end of the hall. The entrance to the armory was open. Ian emerged from an unnoticed side corridor behind Jeremy.
“How the mighty have fallen,” said the agent.
Jeremy whirled around at the sound of his voice.
“Calm down, young man. I’m not some monster come to end your life.”
“Ian, you were right about the Freedom II.”
“I know.” He walked past Jeremy into the armory. “Would you care for some music? I find Wagner particularly relaxing in times like these.”
“How did you know so quickly about the Freedom, I mean?”
Ian took a seat in a folding chair between the racks of weapons, which lined the walls of the vault-like room. “Their shielding,” Ian said. He picked up a cold cup of tea sitting beside the chair and sipped at it. “There was a project like what they described, but it never got off the ground. The energy expenditure to generate the kind of field they mentioned was impossible. The project was scrapped because of it.”
Jeremy took a seat on the floor in front of Ian. “Why do you stay down here so much?”
Ian laughed. “I’m not immune to the radiation like the rest of you seem to be.”
Jeremy’s mouth dropped open.
“This is the most shielded part of the complex. I choose to stay here because I value my life. Even so, I am finding it harder each day to resist the urges rising inside of me. Very soon I think you may find yourself in a position where my disposal will become vital to your own survival.”
Jeremy shifted uncomfortably.
“I assure you,” Ian said, “you will have to do it. None of the others, not even our good doctor, even suspect that I am unwell.”
He paused and set down his tea. “I don’t have any magical answers about who the people onboard the fictional Freedom II might be. I’m not God, Jeremy. But whether they are looters, survivors like us, or reasoning versions of the creatures outside, they will be coming. Will they bring death or hope? I don’t know. Personally, I believe hope died the second the wave touched our world.”
“Will you help us get ready for them?”
“There’s nothing I can do, Jeremy. I’m certainly not about to go up top again, and I don’t think you can really ask that of me. Geoff is the military expert. He can handle it.”
“And that’s it? That’s all you have to offer?” Jeremy shook his head. “Don’t you care about anyone?”
“Yes,” Ian answered, “I care about me, and either way, I am dying. Now good day.”
Ian picked up a book and opened it to the chapter marked with a piece of ribbon. Jeremy didn’t argue. He got to his feet and went in search of Geoff.
Something had to be done, and it looked like it was up to them to do it. His life and the world he knew had been taken from him once; he wasn’t going to give up this place too—not without a fight.
18
“It can’t be done,” Geoff slurred, dropping the empty jug to the garage floor. “This base was never designed to be a defensible position out here. It’s a damn bomb shelter, kid, a really high-tech one, but still just a shelter.”
Jeremy grabbed Geoff by the front of his uniform and tried to yank him to his feet. As drunk as Geoff was, he pulled Jeremy’s arm behind his back with incredible ease as he stood. “Kid, it’s all open space and fields up here. The fence is the only real obstacle to anyone who wants onto the grounds. If these things show up with welding torches and burn through the perimeter and the outer seal in the shed, then maybe they deserve to have us for dinner.” Geoff released his hold on Jeremy and staggered out into the sunlight. “Jesus, kid, I just roasted a mob of people alive to save your ass. What more do you want from me?”
“Where are Troy and Wade? Maybe they’ll listen to reason.”
“Reason!” Geoff spun around to face Jeremy. “There ain’t no reason left anymore, kid. Just death, death and the dying.”
Jeremy drew the .45 from the holster on his belt and leveled it at Geoff. “Do you want to die so badly, Geoff?” He shook the gun. “I can make it happen, right here, right now.”
Geoff’s eyes narrowed, and he finally nodded. “Okay. We’ll play it your way, Jeremy. We might as well go out fighting.” He stumbled over and threw an arm around Jeremy’s shoulders. “I just hope to God you or Wade can come up with a way to make a stand up here. I’m shit out of ideas.”
Outside the fence, three new infected knelt, gnawing on the charred remains of their less fortunate brethren.
Nathanial Richards sat alone in the control room. He looked at his watch; two hours until the next message from the Freedom was due. It was far more than enough time for what he had in mind. His fingers danced over the keys of his computer and the complex was his.
He was not a man given to worry. Born to the CEO of one of America’s leading pharmaceutical corporations and to a mother whose life revolved around him due to the constant absence of his father, he considered himself blessed. Nathanial never wanted for anything. Even in college, when the police had raided his dorm room and found his stash of narcotics, his father had swept in and made it all go away. What was a petty possession charge to a man who carried senators, bought and paid for, in his pocket? His parents had always been there to save him, and he had never doubted that they would come. But they were gone now. No more bailouts. Political power and money meant nothing these days.