Plagued: The Ironville Zombie Quarantine Retraction Experiment (Plagued States of America Book 3) (16 page)

Thirty-One

“
Are you crazy?” O’Farrell asked in disbelief.

“You too,
Wendy. Back off,” Kennedy said, shooing her with a wave of the pistol.

The snow on the rooftop was up to their knees. Penelope
tugged O’Farrell out the door, backing away from Kennedy and the pistol she pointed dangerously in their direction. There didn’t seem to be anyplace to run. The round glass ceiling of the terminal building rose above them only forty feet away. To one side was a wall and a ladder going up. The only other way led toward the roof’s edge, the way Kennedy corralled them.

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this, Wendy. I thought you were part of the team!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You! Why are you suddenly so goddamned curious about the half-breed program? And Jones?”

“Jones?”

“Stop acting stupid,” Kennedy snarled, stepping onto the roof and pushing the door closed behind her with her back. “What did he tell you
about me?”

“He hasn’t told me
anything
about you I didn’t already know. I was there, remember?”

Kennedy laughed. “So he really did lose it all? What did he say about the Senator?”

“Why would he—”

O’Farrell closed her mouth,
backing up now a little quicker, pushing Penelope with her.

“Oh, so he
did
talk,” Kennedy said wickedly. She took steps forward to match the distance O’Farrell was trying to put between them. “I knew that photographic memory of his was going to be trouble. Speaking of photos, hand over the camera.”

“What? Why?”

“Why do you question everything? Give me the camera.”

“What’s so important about
pictures of Larissa?”

“Oh, God, you still think this is just about the little girl! You took pictures of the
half-breeds
, of the extras.”

“Extras?”
O’Farrell asked.

“
Extras! Extras! Jesus, the extra half-breeds. Did you honestly think the original forty were enough to devise a cure? Damn it, Wendy, for a scientist you’re so dense sometimes.”

O’Farrell’s eyes narrowed.
“So that half-breed in the woods today. He was an extra. How many are there?”

“Questions, questions, questions. I suppose it doesn’t matter if you know. There’s no evidence of it anymore. Your boyfriend helped us see to that.”

“But I don’t have a—”

“Jones, you thick-headed ditz.
When he went commando on Rock Island.”

“He didn’t do that. You know he didn’t.”

“Me? I was off the island looking for the Warden to file a report. Thank goodness, too, or I’d have gone up with all that research.”

“You’re joking.
You administered the cure. I was right there with you. Jones didn’t do anything. And how could you have lost all the research? Didn’t we have off-site backups of everything?”

“What, with those
Skywatch bloggers out there tapped into everything? No way. Four years of research went up in flames thanks to your friend, and that’s the
official
version, not to mention how many soldiers and civilians he murdered.”

Penelope stopped backing up and nudged O’Farrell to look behind them. They had run out of roof top.
They both looked down the long drop, watching thick dollops of snow plummet down the dizzying height. Penelope wondered if they could survive a fall like that. She preferred the idea of using the enclosed ladder bolted to the outside of the building, but Kennedy side-stepped to the edge, cutting off any way of reaching it.

Kennedy
kept her distance as she looked over the edge. “That’s a hell of a fall.” She sighed. “You know, I probably wouldn’t have done any of this if you hadn’t taken the vial.”

O’Farrell wore a look of innocent
shock.

“
This isn’t exactly the time for theatrics, Wendy. I saw you take the curative—the vial we used on the Senator’s little girl. Who were you planning on selling it to?”

“Selling it? No, I was going to use it
.”

“On who? Jones? He’s already been cured.”

O’Farrell glanced at Penelope.

“
On twenty-two?” Kennedy laughed. “Oh, Wendy, the things you don’t know about this girl. I already offered to cure her, and that bottle won’t do the trick. Not with her. She’s special. She was part of the
vaccine
study. Her body will just reject the curative.”

“So how were you going to cure her?”

“I’ve got my ways. Now, the Q&A is over. Give me the camera and the vial.”

“Or what?” O’Farrell asked.

Blam!

The noise of the pistol hit Penelope as hard as
a bullet. For a second, she stood as stunned as O’Farrell, unsure who the bullet hit, or if Kennedy missed when she pulled the trigger. The pistol pointed between them, giving no indication of whom Kennedy shot. Penelope waited for any sign of pain, expecting a fire to rise up from her chest and spread throughout her body, like it did in her nightmares.

O’Farrell put a hand
against her own chest as she collapsed, slumping into the snow at the edge of the roof. Penelope followed her down, grabbing her arm to keep her from sliding off the roof, yanking her away from the edge even as she began to topple over.

“No,” Penelope shouted. Her voice wavered, breaking from a whisper to a scream, frightening even herself.

O’Farrell’s breathing came in quick, shallow gasps. Penelope tugged her away from the roof a second time. She grabbed Penelope by the arm with one hand, clutching her fiercely. Her eyes bulged with fright. A hissing noise from O’Farrell’s throat came with each desperate breath.

“Get the camera off her,” Kennedy snapped.

O’Farrell’s eyes looked down at her chest to where the camera still hung from the strap slung over her shoulder. Penelope looked at it too, and then at O’Farrell. O’Farrell nodded quickly as though saying
take it
. Penelope lifted the strap over her head and stood with the camera in her hand.

Seeing Kennedy
’s impassiveness brought back haunting memories. All the terrible things this woman had done to Penelope squeezed into a pinpoint of unadulterated hate. It swelled in her chest, suddenly bursting, unleashing the darkest rage Penelope ever knew. The camera, her only weapon, sailed through the air between them, flung with such force that Kennedy threw up both hands to block it.

Penelope lunged as she threw the camera, taking the three steps between them quicker than Kennedy imagined possible in such heavy snow.

“Jesus,” Kennedy said just before Penelope tackled her. Penelope hit with such force that Kennedy’s breath let out a resounding
whumpf
. She fell backward under Penelope’s weight. They hit the rooftop and Penelope rolled, gripping Kennedy’s jacket as her own body weight toppled her over the edge of the roof. She felt herself drop off the edge. Her arms straightened, her hands still latched to Kennedy’s jacket.

T
he force of Penelope’s weight yanked Kennedy over the edge with her. Everything around them slowed. The air grew heavier. Penelope felt weightless, but managed to roll on top of Kennedy as they fell. Kennedy’s outstretched arms flailed and swung in the empty air as though she thought there might be some kind of substance to it that would help her regain her lost balance.

The world stopped suddenly with a
n abrupt
Phoom!

Penelope
felt herself slam into Kennedy’s chest. For what seemed like minutes, the world consisted of nothing but darkness. She couldn’t feel her own body to know whether she was alive or dead, or worse.

Even though her eyes were wide open—she could feel herself blinking—everything was black. A high pitch rang in her ears, erasing all other sound, piercing so sharply it stung her very thoughts. She felt the weigh
t of her body as though her blood was made of both lead and helium at the same time, buoyant but impossibly heavy to lift or move.

Her head rolled to the side. A wave of pain rolled
with it, rushing from her head to toes, stinging like tiny ants while at the same time stabbing with enormous knives. Her vision came on like a light switch and she found herself ringed by white snow. The only thing she could see that wasn’t white was her outstretched arm and the body beneath her.

Penelope lifted her head to stare at Kennedy. The woman’s eyes were closed, her mouth wide open, her head tilted sideways. She hardly stirred. Even her chest only rose once to take in a small breath that
died out with a soft
ungh
.

Penelope’s
eyes faltered and she blinked to try to recover her quickly fading vision. Dots of blackness swam at the edges, filling in every point of vision. Her head sank down, suddenly very heavy.

Thirty-Two

“Up, up,”
Penelope heard a demanding voice say.

She
groaned in protest even as she lifted herself out of the snow with the help of something pulling the back of her jacket. It was a hand attached to the soldier, Jones, and he hauled her onto her knees. Her head swam, delirium mixed with dizziness that made her eyes jump sideways and then roll the other direction over and over again, expecting the world beneath her hands to slide away.

“Is she alright?” another voice called from somewhere distant, a woman’s voice that
Penelope recognized as well—O’Farrell.

“A little woozy,” Jones shouted. “I’ll carry her.”

“Did you find the camera?”

Penelope
turned her head in the direction of O’Farrell’s voice. The red-headed woman was climbing down the outside of the enclosed ladder. Had she dreamt O’Farrell being shot?

“No,”
Jones called back, answering both of them.

“Look around,” O’Farrell said. “We don’t have much time.”

A moan rose nearby and Jones lifted his pistol, turning in every direction to find its source. There were still zombies out there. That thought helped Penelope focus on breathing. She inhaled the air, which carried a fresh emptiness, a complete absence of anything except the tinny scent of blood. Her own, she realized as she wiped her nose with the back of her glove. A smear of darkness stained the white and blue fabric. The moan rose again, and both Penelope and Jones realized it came from the crater made when Penelope and Kennedy finally hit the ground. Jones’ pistol turned down.

Kennedy
groaned, her loose lips slurring a curse as she lifted an unsteady hand to point the pistol toward Penelope. The woman’s head tilted sideways as she tried to focus one partly open eye at her target.

Penelope’s heart stopped. She tried to move, but her mind and body were still numb from the fall.

“I’ll take that,” Jones said, pushing the pistol aside with his boot as he stepped across Kennedy’s body to straddle her. He pried the gun from her fingers.

“Jones,”
Kennedy wheezed, her voice accusing.

“Doctor,”
he replied mockingly, slipping his own pistol into his holster. He turned sideways and reached the other pistol out to Penelope. “Hold this a minute.”

Penelope took the gun gingerly. It was heavier than she expected. A cold, solid piece of metal that resonated with power. She hardly knew how to use it except to point it like Jones and the others did.

“Jones,” Kennedy gasped.

“
Shhh,” Jones said, putting a finger to his lips as he unzipped his jacket. He took out his radio and held it to his mouth. “This is Jones. I’ve got Wendy and Penny. Penny and Kennedy fell off the roof.”

“Jones,” Kennedy gasped again, interrupting him.

He let his hand off the mic button as he leaned down to put a hand over her mouth.

“Kennedy’s dead,” he said. “Penny and Wendy are hurt. I have to leave the body.”

Jones let the mic button go and took his hand from Kennedy’s mouth at the same time.

“Jones,” she hissed
, her one working eye narrowing.

“
Jones, we made it out!” Hank’s voice called over the radio. “We’re outside. Where are you? I’ll come to you.”

“Jones, you—”

Jones put his hand over Kennedy’s mouth again. This time she grabbed at it and tried to bite him, but he just leaned forward and pressed her head deeper in the snow.

“No time. Biters everywhere. Fall back to the snowmobiles. I found the keys.”

“You’ve got the keys?” Hank asked as soon as Jones squawked off.

“Yes. Rendezvous at snowmobiles. Out.”

Jones let Kennedy go.

“God damn you,” Kennedy
growled.

O’Farrell’s feet crunched through the deep snow until she stood beside Penelope. She fell to her knees as well, gasping for air, wheezing with each breath.

“Oh my God, that hurt,” O’Farrell complained, holding a hand to her chest where Kennedy shot her.

“Bullet proof, not pain proof,” Jones said.
He turned off his radio and clipped it back into the inside of his jacket. “You want to shoot her back?”

“What?” O’Farrell asked in disbelief.

“God damn you,” Kennedy snarled.

“You know, an eye for an eye,” Jones went on, ignoring Kennedy.

“Fuck all of you,” Kennedy spat.

“
We’ll do the fucking from now on, if you don’t mind,” Jones told her. He reached down and unzipped her jacket.

“What are you doing?” Kennedy asked
, her words slurred. She squirmed to free herself from his weight. Only one side of her body seemed under control. She couldn’t move her left arm or leg, so Jones had no trouble pinning her one good arm and pulling open her jacket. He reached into her inner pocket and took out the box with the curative.

“You won’t be needing this,” Jones told her.

“God damn you, Jones.”

“Mason,” Wendy said softly. “I—”

“She’s not going to make it, Wendy,” Jones said. He reached down and turned Kennedy’s head to reveal the blood red snow beneath the woman. Blood drooled from a puncture wound behind Kennedy’s ear where a fragment of her skull pierced the skin.

O’Farrell said nothing.

Kennedy gurgled and rasped, trying to curse, but with blood in her throat. Jones turned her head again to cover the gruesome scene.

“Biters coming,” Jones said as he stood up. “We need to go.”

“But what about her?” O’Farrell asked.

“She’s dead.”
He reached over to take the pistol from Penelope and handed it to O’Farrell. “That way.” He pointed the direction of the snowmobiles. “Get up. I can’t carry you both.”

Penelope tried to rise
, but fell sideways. Jones grabbed her.

“Not you,” he told
Penelope. “Wendy, let’s go.”

“Jones,” Kennedy rasped.

O’Farrell didn’t move. She stared with shock down at Kennedy. The bottom of the crater looked more like a shallow grave with Kennedy in it.

“Why?” O’Farrell asked her. “Why’d you do this?”

Kennedy smiled, showing blood stained teeth, but didn’t answer. Her open eye rolled back as though latching onto a dream.

“Because sh
e could,” Jones answered, lifting O’Farrell by her armpit. “Go. Now.”

O’Farrell pushed herself through the snow past Kennedy’s
dying body, looking down at it until she couldn’t see it anymore. Jones hoisted Penelope to his shoulder and carried her easily as he stepped into O’Farrell’s tracks. He turned to keep a watchful eye on the approaching zombies. Several figures manifested from the back of the building, coming around in search of food and shelter.

Several more loomed ahead.