Outbreak (Book 2): The Mutation (13 page)

Joe’s momentum prevented Walt from stopping, and the two men slammed into the first two zombies and knocked them to the floor.

Joe looked to his right and saw David, Jonas, and Samantha standing there, their mouths open in surprise.

“Get these fucking things away from me!
”
Walt shouted.

David quickly jumped over the counter, swung the axe into the top of a zombie’s head, and cleaved it in two.

Samantha ran to the other zombie that Walt had pinned under the door and pounded on its face and head with the meat mallet.

Jonas charged after the final zombie and thrusted one of the hedge clipper blades into its throat. Before the zombie could react, Jonas rammed his other blade into its left eye socket. Without hesitating, David took advantage of the monster’s immobility and buried his axe into its chest.

The zombie staggered back and then reached for David.

To David’s left was an ear-piercing shriek. Everyone turned to see Samantha’s face bright red. Her jaw tightened as she gripped the mallet and charged towards the zombie,

This was an experience Samantha never felt before. All her life Samantha was made to feel weak. From abusive parents to violent ex-boyfriends, Samantha never felt strong or empowered. But now, the anger that built inside her grew to the point she thought she would explode. She was in a rage and never felt anything like it before. She looked at the zombie with the axe in its chest as it reached for David, and all Samantha saw was her ex-boyfriend Brad’s face. She saw the face of that abusive asshole’s cruel smirk as he beat her. Samantha even heard Brad’s evil laughter as he belittled her.

Brad’s violence and cruelty went beyond him just beating her. Images of Brad flashed in her mind as she imagined the sadistic look on his face as he shook her one-year-old baby boy to death. Samantha charged after the zombie and tackled it to the ground before it reached David. She raised herself over the creature and with all her anger, rage, and past trauma, brought the meat mallet down on the back of the creature’s head. The sound of a dozen eggs cracking at once filled the room.

Samantha straddled the dead zombie as she tried to catch her breath. She looked down at the creature and began to laugh.

Walt was the first one who approached her.

“Come on, Samantha,
”
said Walt as he helped her stand up. “It’s going to be okay.”

Samantha laughed as she replied, “I know it will, Walt. I’ve never felt better in my life.”

“Samantha, I think—
”
Walt started to say, but Samantha cut him off.

“I’m okay, Walt,
”
she said after she took a deep breath. “Really, I am. I’ve finally done what we’ve talked about in therapy all those times.
”
Samantha turned and addressed everyone who stood around her. “I’m not afraid anymore. I’ve found my strength and my confidence, and I’m never going back to the way I was before.”

Walt hugged Samantha’s shoulders tight.

“I’m the last one to try and gloss over a breakthrough, everyone,
”
said Joe, “but at any moment there’s gonna be a bunch of zombies running out of the corridor Walt and I just burst through.”

As if on cue, they all heard the noise as the advancing zombies scratched and clawed against the walls. The zombies had found their way through the previously hidden corridor.

“Let’s go!
”
shouted Walt.

“Go where?
”
asked Jonas. “Those things are everywhere.”

“Anywhere but here,
”
said Joe as he started toward the dining room door.

“Wait,
”
urged Jonas. “You don’t understand. One of the infected opened the front door and let in a shitload of them. They are everywhere.”

The hidden corridor that Walt and Joe had come out of a few minutes ago was spitting out zombies. The zombies slammed out of the opening Walt had made with his shoulder and immediately focused on them.

“Let’s go!
”
David screamed.

The group ran toward the dining room door and down the wide hallway toward the gym. Walt remembered that during the gym’s renovation a new door had been installed that could be locked. More importantly, though, the door was sturdy.

“Run to the gym!
”
Walt yelled to the others as he led the way.

“They’re on us, guys!
”
yelled Joe.

They turned a corner and Walt found himself face-to-face with a zombie. It was covered in fresh blood, and Walt was so close to it he could see human flesh stuck between its teeth.

Before the zombie made a move, Walt swung Stevie and hit the creature in the side of the head. Walt had put so much force behind the swing that the nails penetrated the zombie’s skull and shattered its cheekbone. Blood oozed out of the monster as it fell to the ground. Walt placed his boot on the zombie’s chin and pulled Stevie out of the thing’s crushed cranium.

Everyone hurdled over the dead creature and in a few moments were safely in the gym. Joe was the last one in, and he slammed and locked the doors behind him.

Everyone hid beneath the portholes as they listened to the infected run by the gym. There was a hesitant, collective sigh of relief as the group began to relax.

“I’d watch where you step or where you sit down,
”
said a voice from the far end of the gym.

They all looked to see Dennis and Cheryl hiding behind the exercise equipment and free weights. On the floor in the middle of the room was Harley’s body. She had large chucks of flesh removed from her legs and arms, but what was most disturbing was that, in place of her head, there was a fifty-pound weight. Blood and bits of brain oozed out beneath it.

Next to Harley’s body were two dead zombies, also with their heads caved in. Another zombie lay lifeless on the shoulder press machine, its head crushed. A last creature was hanging from the squat rack, a jump rope snug around its neck. Whatever Cheryl and Dennis had done to the creature after it had been hanged was unknown, but the monster’s head was barely still attached.

“What the fuck happened here?
”
asked David, wide-eyed, as he looked around the room.

“Four of these fuckers chased us in here,
”
whispered Cheryl. “They thought they outnumbered us, but we showed them.”

“Fucking right we did,
”
Dennis added.

“I hope somebody has a plan,
”
Cheryl said. “It won’t take those bastards long to figure out we’re in here.”

They all scanned the room. Over by where Cheryl and Dennis were hidden was a boarded up window. Other than that, it was a typical exercise room. There was a wall-sized mirror, a few stationary bikes and treadmills, a few weight benches, and racks full of weights.

“Hey Walt. Is there any chance there’s a hidden corridor in here?
”
Joe asked.

The look on Walt’s face told them all the answer was no.

“What the fuck are we going to do?
”
asked Samantha.

“Whatever it is,
”
said Dennis, “we better do it soon.”

Everyone jumped as they heard the gym door begin to shake.

5

Lago Vista Golf Course

Lago Vista, Texas

Everyone looked at Melvin like he was crazy.

“You really think those things are out there right now watching us?
”
Wilder asked.

“I absolutely do,
”
answered Melvin. “We need to stop thinking of these creatures as the zombies found in the movies,
”
he continued. “They are smart and getting smarter.”

“That’s impossible,
”
Fisher said. “They’re reanimated corpses. There’s no way they can have any kind of brain functions.”

“No,
”
Butsko interrupted Fisher. “Melvin is right. This is not some nature-made virus we’re dealing with.”

“No shit,
”
Trunst said. “We all know it’s a man-made
super
virus.”

“No,
”
Butsko shot back at Trunst and the others. “It’s not a virus at all. It has a viral component to it, but what’s doing the damage is something much worse.”

The group stood silently.

“George,
”
Wilder said to Butsko, “I think it is time we told everyone what we’re really dealing with.”

Butsko nodded in agreement and proceeded to tell them everything. He told them about the research to save soldier’s lives, the hibernation component, and how that ultimately led to the experiments with bio-nanotechnology.

No one said a word the entire time Butsko was talking.

“Holy fuck,
”
Fisher said. “Holy fuck.”

“No wonder those bastards are so hard to kill,
”
said Steele. “We knock ‘em down and they repair themselves.”

“That’s why fire is the only sure way of killing them,
”
Wilder added.

“It also explains why they’re so smart and getting smarter,
”
Melvin said.

“Explain something to me, Melvin,
”
Wilder said. “At the Eglin base, the infected seemed to set up an ambush, almost like they knew what was going to happen during that first running mission.  How is that possible? They had never done a running mission there before. How could the infected have learned something they hadn’t experienced yet?”

“Hmm,
”
Melvin sighed. “This is a total guess, mind you, but what if they evolved a kind of hive mentality?”

Melvin saw the looks on everyone’s faces and continued before they could interrupt. “Since the cause of the infection is a merging of flesh and machine, what if the machine part could relay, or upload, its experiences and memories to the other infected individuals in the group?”

“That sounds pretty far out there,
”
Vasquez said.

“It is out there,
”
Melvin said. “I’m talking in terms of science fiction right now. Nothing like this has ever existed before. All I’m saying is: what if these things had the ability to not only learn, but to forward their knowledge to others infected with the bio-nanotechnology?”

“So what you’ve suggested,
”
Wilder said, “is that the zombies have learned that the running missions were traps from the ones we conducted around Fort Hood and somehow relayed that info to the zombies in Eglin?
”

“Yes,
”
said Melvin. “But think bigger. They wouldn’t only pass that knowledge onto the infected in Eglin. They hadn’t known we’d talked with the people in Eglin and that they were going to carry out their first running mission.”

“So,
”
Wilder began, but was cut off by Melvin.

“They would pass along the info of the running missions to
all
the infected everywhere,
”
said Melvin.

Everyone stared at Melvin.

“Now keep in mind,
”
Melvin continued, “that this is pure speculation on my part. I just found out about this bio-nanotechnology a few minutes ago.”

“Understood,
”
Butsko replied. “The problem is, your theory explains a lot, and that scares the shit out of me.”

Off in the distance they heard a tree branch snap and everyone grabbed and readied their weapons.

“Mears! Jones! Hall!
”
barked Wilder.  “Go check out what that noise was.”

“Yes, Sir!
”
they shouted as they headed out.

“Everyone else,
”
said Wilder, “grab the equipment and get into the clubhouse. Only go into the section we swept through and cleared.”

As the others grabbed the backup ammo, MREs, and other equipment, Wilder couldn’t help but think about what Melvin had said.

“If one knew, they all knew,
”
Wilder said to no one in particular.

“I know what you’re thinking,
”
Butsko, who’d apparently been standing right behind Wilder, said. “If even one of those bastards saw us driving out of Fort Hood, they all know that we’re trained and armed.”

“Yeah,
”
Wilder said as his thoughts drifted.

“I’m going inside with the others,
”
said Butsko, slapping Wilder on the shoulder. “Make sure those three come back alive,
”
he continued as he nodded out to where Vasquez, Mears, and Jones ran.