All Our Tomorrows (17 page)

The soldier in the doorway has a silver star next to his name: Doyle. There are silver stars on his shoulder boards. I’m not sure if that designates him as a captain, colonel or general, but he’s clearly in charge. He pulls his gun from his holster, and I push mine hard into Elizabeth’s head, saying, “Drop it, general.”

He hesitates.

“Don’t think I won’t do it,” I say, with a good grip around Elizabeth’s shoulder. My arm is across her chest, while the barrel of my gun pushes her head to one side. She’s shaking like a leaf. “I have no problem watching someone’s brains splatter across the floor. Done it plenty of times.”

The other fake soldier puts his rifle gently on the floor before standing up right with his arms raised in surrender.

Doyle edges back toward the door. He’s about to make a run for it.

“Don’t,” Steve says, clearly thinking the same thing. He has his gun pointed squarely at Doyle’s chest. “Drop the gun.”

Doyle drops his gun. I didn’t expect him to take Steve so literally. I thought he’d bend down and place it gently on the tiles like the others, but he lets his pistol clatter to the floor.

Steve limps forward, moving around behind Doyle and pushing him well into the room, away from the guns and rifles lying on the tiles.

“You will not make it out of here alive,” Doyle says as Steve locks the door.

“Neither will you,” I say coldly.

I take the gun from the other fake soldier. He has to be fake. He didn’t even think about drawing his gun.

Steve and I herd everyone around two tables at the back of the cafeteria near the kitchen. I’m not sure what Steve’s thinking, but I’m thinking that’s the only other way in here, so if anyone else was to sneak in, we’ll see them come through the rear swinging door.

I push Elizabeth over with the others. Having been shoved around, it feels good to be in control and yet I’m not vindictive. I can’t bring myself to shove Elizabeth or to strike her the way I was hit on the back of the head. My push is more of a nudge, directing her to join the others.

“I don’t know what you think you’ve accomplished,” Doyle says. “You won’t escape from here.”

His eyes turn to Elizabeth. He is pissed.

“I’m going to make this really simple,” I say. “No one needs to die. What needs to happen is this—you are going to give us some answers. Who the hell are you? How have you survived so long here in the heart of the city without anyone knowing?”

Steve keeps his gun trained on Doyle. He doesn’t seem too worried about the others. I swear, if Doyle blinks the wrong way, Steve will kill him.

Chapter 09: Lab Rats
  

“First of all,” I say, directing a question to Elizabeth Bennet. “What’s your real name?”

“Elizabeth O’Connor. You were right about the first name.” She touches at the name embroidered on a small patch on her army fatigues. “Bennet was one of the original team, but she died almost five years ago.”

“What is this place, Elizabeth?”

To my surprise, Elizabeth relaxes, leaning back on one of the tables. She looks more relieved than scared.

“It’s a research facility,” she says.

A man of Indian descent speaks from the back of the group. He looks and sounds like the counterpoint to Doyle. If I’m not mistaken, he’s their version of Marge. Even after all these years, his accent sounds as though he’s only just stepped off a plane from India.

“At the close of the war, when it became apparent we couldn’t win, the army took control of the research facilities in Huntsville, Birmingham, and Atlanta. Buildings that had been used for scientific research into zombies suddenly became command and control facilities, only there was so much chaos in those final days there was nothing left to control.”

He stops for a moment, and I can see his eyes gazing up at the ceiling as he picks between dozens of thoughts explaining what happened.

“We were trying to find a cure. We weren’t set up to care for survivors. We were quickly swamped, and like everywhere else, we were overrun.”

“And you are?” I ask.

“Ash Ajeet,” he says, with a regal accent. There’s pride in his voice, but not the bullish, pigheaded sense of privilege I’ve seen in others. Ajeet carries himself with an air of dignity and kindness. “Geneticist and chemist. Prior to the outbreak, I had twenty years in medical research at Johns Hopkins.”

“We’re scientists,” another man says, waving his hand and introducing himself. “David Jameson, anthropologist. I’ve been studying their behavior, finding parallels with prehistoric species extending back as far as
Homo habilis
.”

Doyle interrupts, barking at the others as he says, “You need to shut up. Don’t tell them anything.”

“How many?” I ask, knowing this is a direct challenge to Doyle’s authority over the group.

“Don’t—” Doyle says, but Elizabeth cuts him off.

“Seventeen.”

“And soldiers?” Steve asks, picking up on an important distinction in their group dynamic.

“Three,” Ajeet says

That’s good to know. It means there’s only two other people out there that could realistically take us on.

Doyle’s face is flushed with anger. Ajeet is no fool. He and Elizabeth seem to have a better read of the situation than Doyle, realizing we’re no real threat.

Ajeet says, “Doyle’s afraid we’ll lose our supplies. He thinks you’ll come in here and steal our stuff.”

It’s interesting to hear Ajeet volunteer this perspective. I get the feeling there’s some deep-seated resentment between him and Doyle. I cannot imagine how they’re going to function once we’re gone. Ajeet is burning bridges. There’s no going back to the status quo for him or Elizabeth after this. They’ve collaborated with the enemy, only we’re not the enemy. The only enemy is Zee. But they’ve betrayed Doyle, or at least that’s the way Doyle must see this. Ajeet must know. Somehow, he’s read the situation. He understands our motives and he’s banking on the decisions we’re about to make being the right ones. It’s a huge risk, and I can see that in his eyes, but he keeps his nerve.

“We don’t take from the living,” I say, and it’s true. And yet I understand Doyle’s concerns. There are plenty that would kill just for that first aid kit, but not Marge, not Ferguson. They play the long game, knowing rash choices have a way of backfiring in the apocalypse.

I miss Ferguson.

Now, there’s a thought I never considered possible. I wish he were here. Ferguson would know what we should do next. As for me, I’m tired of running. I’m tired of fighting. A glance at Steve suggests he’s not sure of the next step either. But as for me, I know what needs to be done.

I raise my gun so it points harmlessly at the ceiling and hit the magazine release on the side of the pistol. A black magazine pops out and drops into my hand.

“I’d like to think neither of us need these,” I say, looking at Ajeet. I pull back on the slide and eject a lone bullet from the chamber.

Ajeet lets a slight smile slip from his lips. He’s outplayed Doyle. Ajeet took a gamble, and it paid dividends. I’m sure this won’t be lost on the other scientists.

I place the now defunct, empty gun on the table. Steve follows suit, emptying his gun and placing it on a counter by the door.

“Don’t,” Ajeet says, looking at Doyle with eyes that pierce the soul.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” Doyle cries, gesturing toward his pistol still lying on the floor. He desperately wants to grab it, and yet some indistinct social norm, perhaps a vague notion of group acceptance, paralyzes even this fearless warrior. “What? You think just because they’re nice and polite they won’t slit your throat in the middle of the night?”

“We have talked about this day,” Ajeet says. Again, his voice resonates with compassion. “Our fight is with zombies, not survivors.”

“Damn you!” Doyle yells, trying to stare down Ajeet. But Ajeet is not intimidated. The veins on Doyle’s neck budge. His face is red with anger. Ajeet remains calm regardless.

And I thought Ferguson was a handful.

“Listen,” I say. “We can help you.”

“You?” Doyle replies as though I’m being rude. Apparently, I’ve interrupted a serious conversation between the adults. “We still don’t know whether you’ll turn. Perhaps there’s some delayed progression we don’t know about, something that will kick in when we least expect it. And besides, you’re just kids. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

Johnson says, “Wait a minute. You saw the way those zombies acted around the two of them. Those zombies in the mall displayed a level of cognitive behavior we’ve only guessed at before. They dumped Steve in the heart of a hive without tearing him limb from limb, and then they herded Hazel toward him. We have no idea what this means. But if we can work with these kids to better understand this phenomena, it could be a turning point.”

Kids. When Johnson uses that word it’s measured and appropriate, unlike Doyle.

“We need to help them,” Elizabeth says. “They’re not criminals.”

I like Elizabeth.

I relax, sitting back on a table in the cafeteria. I’m glad we surrendered the guns. With the exception of Doyle, this is a discussion between peers. Steve joins me, sitting up on the table beside me. His hand rests gently on mine, signaling his support.

The most fascinating aspect of the last few minutes is that no one, absolutely no one, is interested in picking up the guns we surrendered. They’re still sitting on the table just a few inches from my hand. Even Doyle only has eyes for his own gun. No one seems to realize we could rearm as quickly as we took over the first time, but this tells me something important about the scientists. Theirs is a world ruled by reason, not the threat of violence. It’s no wonder they’ve kept themselves isolated.

Ajeet says, “I mean, look at them. This is a gift. We have two people who are not affected by zombie bites. That is astonishing! We need to analyze what’s happening in their bodies at a cellular level. We need to see if we can replicate this in others.”

I’m on the verge of mentioning the anti-parasite tablets, but I suspect that would lead the conversation off on a tangent. At the moment, it’s Doyle we need to win over.

Doyle isn’t buying it.

“So ya’ll just want to sit around the campfire singing songs and holding hands and making smores and shit? Is that it?”

“We’re scientists, Rob,” Ajeet says, and I note how he’s appealing to Doyle on a personal level—with Doyle’s first name being added in a soft, considerate tone. “We were never going to win this war with bullets and grenades. If we are to defeat these monsters, we need to approach the problem from a scientific perspective.”

Doyle slams his fist into a table. The dynamic within the room has shifted, and he doesn’t like it. Force is all he understands, and it’s failing him. When Doyle first burst into the cafeteria, he was in charge. We grabbed the guns and stole the focus, but since we’ve surrendered, it’s Ajeet that’s in control. I guess, technically, we surrendered to Ajeet, not Doyle, and that’s given Ajeet authority over him. It’s strange how human behavior can be so intricate and nuanced.

Elizabeth says, “You’ve got to let us do our job.”

Doyle turns on us, crying, “They’re goddamn scavengers! Vultures!”

I shake my head. There are times in life where words cannot express the lunacy people cling to in their mistaken ideals. He’s beyond reason, so I keep my mouth shut. Words would only inflame things further. It’s not easy, but I grit my teeth.

Doyle isn’t satisfied with that. He reacts as though I’ve said something aggressive, perhaps even offensive with my silence.

“So what? I should have a bleeding heart because people are dying out there?”

“No,” I snap, unable to let his pigheaded stupidity pass me by. “You don’t get it, do you? It’s over. The war is over! People aren’t dying out there. They’re living out there. They’re living their lives and they’ve left you behind.”

The veins on his neck bulge and I’m glad he doesn’t have a firearm, but this time, I’m the one that’s enraged. I point at him, yelling, “You think you’re so damn important? Outside these walls, no one cares. NO ONE! You hide in your rabbit hole protecting a way of life that died long ago. No one cares about your medals or your uniform. We’ve moved on!”

Doyle steps toward me and I’m suddenly acutely aware he was the one that struck me with the rifle butt in the simulation room. It’s the way his boots stomp on the ground that gives it away. Steve isn’t having any of this. Gun or no gun, he’s ready to kill this guy if he so much as lays a finger on me. I can see that in the tense muscles lining his jaw. Doyle might be physically bigger and stronger than Steve, but I doubt that will matter. Steve is about to explode. I put my hand on his, gently holding him back. If these two start throwing punches, it won’t end until there’s only one of them still breathing.

“I am a brigadier general in the United States Army,” Doyle yells, bellowing like a drill sergeant. “I will not be lectured by a
goddamn
child.”

“United?” I reply, letting the child bit go but latching onto something I think is important to highlight. I feel terrible, but I cannot help but laugh at the notion of our country being united. The concept is absurd in the apocalypse. Doyle is such a pompous ass. “United States? Have you looked around lately, general? There’s no army. There’s no U.S. There aren’t even any states any more. And even if there were, they certainly aren’t united. The only thing that’s united is Zee.”

“She’s right,” Ajeet says, stepping between Doyle and us. I’m guessing he saw Steve’s white knuckles and clenched fists.

I know I should be intimidated by Doyle, but I’m not and I can’t explain why. When it came to Ferguson yelling at me, I almost wet my pants, but for all his faults, Ferguson was fair. Perhaps that’s what irks me about Doyle. He’s not honest. Not with himself. Not with us or with the scientists. He’s got his world view and that’s it. Nothing and no one is going to talk him out of what he’s already decided.

Ajeet addresses Doyle, saying, “I appreciate your security concerns, general, but everything is okay. We’re fine.”