Running With The Horde (Book 2): Delusions of Monsters (32 page)

“Maybe it’s not a trap and everyone is dead or gone,” I suggested as we jogged through the skyway level of the Auriga Tower.

“From my experience with the Syndicate I am still betting it’s a trap.” Richard said over his shoulder. I stopped in my tracks. Richard jogged another dozens steps before he realized I wasn’t with him. He spun around with an anxious look in his eyes. His gun at the ready. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?” he asked.

“The Syndicate?” I asked.

“What about them?”

“What is it? I’ve never heard that before. Is that a special group or something? The soldiers work for them?”

“Shit, I don’t know, George, when I was running around in the sewers with Donny and the others we captured one of the soldiers from up here. That’s what he called them. If you have another name for them we can start using it.”

“No,” I said absentmindedly. “Syndicate is as good of a name as any.”

We resumed our jog but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Was my father the leader of this group? Why the Syndicate? Sounded like a mafia outfit. I tried to remember any detail from my childhood that would connect my dad to something as global as the Sickness or a large syndicate. He had kept odd hours. He was gone for weeks at a time. He also seemed angry a lot but I was young so my memories could have been clouded with the bias of hindsight. But I did know one thing; when it came to my father anything was possible.

There had been no bodies in the tower or the bank building but the smell of decay was heavy. We had no desire to explore the main floors. They were likely just as full as the Northpoint had been. We stopped just before the entrance to the Government Center to regroup. The large open space was empty. The kiosks and the tiny food alcoves were all closed. The floor was dark with the exception of one of the information desks. Behind the desk a stocky man in a flowing blue shirt stood waiting. He was leaning on the desk with both elbows, striking a pose that screamed of endless boredom. When he saw us coming he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Ar-are you George McCloud?” he stammered.

“Who’s asking?” I said as I strode up to the desk with Richard in tow.

“It’s Brenden!” he said quickly. “I mean, my name is Brenden Hiatt. Please don’t kill me.” He started squirming like he had to use the restroom. He wiped his sweaty brow and kept stealing nervous glances from me to Richard.

“Hyatt like the hotel?” I asked.

“No, um, Hiatt like h-i-a-t-t. No association with the hotel.”

“How did you know my name?”

“I have this,” he said as he slid a flier across the desk. “That looks like you so I just assumed.”

“Let me guess. You were told to wait for me?”

“How did you know?”

“We ran into a guy named Parker a few buildings back. He ran it down for me.”

“Oh yeah, Parker, good dude. A little fussy sometimes. We used to work together. Then we were in the same holding cell for quite a while. Even had our own fake radio show.”

“Fake?”

He giggled, “It was just a silly thing we did to kill time. Sorry. I’m rambling. I do that when I get upset. It’s just that I saw your guns and they make me really nervous.”

“You must be nervous a lot these days,” I said.

“You don’t know the half of it! Well anyway I am to tell you to take the elevator to the fourth floor. You will find what you’re looking for up there,” Brenden said.

“Then what were you supposed to do?” I asked.

He looked confused for a moment. “I don’t really know. She didn’t give us any further instruction. Her men stopped checking in on me a few days ago. Kind of a bummer really. I’m almost out of food. It was terrible here. I had to hide under the desk a lot because someone was killing the soldiers whenever they came down. I kept waiting for them to kill me too but they never did. Like I said that ended a few days ago, I haven’t seen anyone since.”

That was strange. I wondered who it was but Brenden claimed he never saw anyone, just heard the shooting. I watched him for a long moment as he tried to calm himself down. I decided I trusted him. He seemed as guileless as a large puppy. “My advice would be for you to head over to the Cooke Building. Parker is still there with some survivors. You could throw in with them. I’m pretty sure those soldiers aren’t coming back.”

“I think I will do that,” he said with a vigorous nod. “Parker is always good for a laugh.”

“Any idea what we’re walking into up there?” I asked.

“No clue, George, sorry I couldn’t be more help. I would just caution you to be careful if you run into a pretty blonde woman. I swear she might be the devil.”

“Thanks for the advice, Brenden Hiatt but not the hotel Hyatt,” I said.

“Ha-ha, thanks,” he said as he shoved a few things into a backpack and prepared to leave.

I glanced at Richard. He had been very quiet during my conversation with Brenden. “What’s with you?” I asked as we watched Brenden hustle out of the Government Center.

“Nothing,” he said. Then after a moment of silence. “Something stinks about this whole set up. You really want to walk into your own funeral?”

“That wasn’t my original plan but things have obviously changed. This is the only way to save Dai-“

“Save your girlfriend,” he interrupted. “Yes, I know, but do you have a plan? You just gonna head up there and hope for the best?”

I looked at him with what was probably a dopey expression on my face. The sad truth was I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I had no zombies to help me in the city. Aside from Richard I was on my own.

“Stop staring at me like a dumb fuck and talk to me,” he snapped.

“Whoa there. Back down, tiger. I have a plan,” I said and turned toward the elevator.

“What’s the plan, George?” he said and grabbed my shoulder. He was stronger than he looked and stopped me in my tracks.

I removed his hand in an effort to regain my masculinity but it wasn’t easy. “If my dad and this woman won’t release Daisy and whoever they are holding up there, I will shoot myself in the head. I know they want me in a bad way so I’m sure they’ll release her.”

“You never told me what they want you for, George. Why are you so special?”

“I think my dad just wants me with him,” I lied. “You know, before I get the Sickness or get bit. I’m his only kid and he’s always been kind of controlling.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for one person, even your own kid, with all those fliers and whatnot,” Richard said as though he knew I was holding out on him.

“What can I say? A father’s love is boundless I suppose. Anyway, I can give him your feedback when I see him,” I said hastily. “In the meantime we need to do this trade. When they release Daisy I need you to escort her back to Parker if you’d be so kind and I will go with my dad and the woman.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. I will wait ten minutes for you guys to get a head start and then let them take me. Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure something out down the road. You can come back here later and take their supplies. I’m sure they have enough food and weapons to keep you all stocked for years.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. But I’m gonna need the pistol back.” With that we headed to the elevator, a moment later it arrived and we got on. Richard pushed the button for the fourth floor and the car started to rise.

“I hope you know what you’re doing George,” Richard said. That made two of us.

The Past

The gloom of the dark skyway was depressing but Bill was used to it. The cold though, that he couldn’t seem to get used to. The Syndicate controlled the power in the city but even that had its limits. There weren’t enough resources to heat everything.

“You’re absolutely certain of their numbers? If you’re wrong we will all be dead before we even get started,” Derrick whispered harshly across the skyway to Vicki who was hunkered next to Bill in the tiny alcove.

A bullet shattered the window behind him and he ducked under the falling glass.

“Yes, I am certain! I was stuck there for almost four months,” she called back urgently. “You have to hurry! They know we’re here and would have radioed for backup by now.”

“Okay,” Derrick said into his radio, “B squad you’re up.”

Bill watched the big man ready his rifle and rise from the floor to his haunches in one fluid motion. The five men behind him were also preparing for the assault. Getting ready to execute their end of the plan on Derrick’s command. The building shuddered under a series of small explosions as the B squad created their distraction on the other side of the Government Center. Derrick and his men were up and running before the echoes of the grenades fully abated. Bill and Vicki were left alone in their hideout where they were to stay until Derrick radioed the all clear. Bill kept his pistol aimed at the dark empty skyway behind him fully expecting to get rushed from that position any moment. Vicki mumbled something Bill couldn’t hear because his ears were still ringing. “What?” he asked a bit louder than he realized.

She shushed him with her finger just in time for his hearing to come back. “I asked how your arm was,” she said.

“Oh, it’s fine,” he lied. He stifled a grunt as he adjusted his sling. It actually hurt like the devil. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot but it was the first time in a few decades. He knew it was stupid but he didn’t want to appear weak in front of her. He was chagrined to realize he had developed an old man crush on Vicki. It was bad enough she had to see him sit out the raid on the Syndicate operations center.

It was their most critical move so far in the bizarre urban struggle they were embroiled in. The Syndicate had come in small numbers at first as they pursued Andrew and their man, Dick, who had thrown a massive wrench into their entire plot. Then the Sickness hit and the government response was Martial Law and quarantine. It didn’t take long for the Syndicate to reveal itself. They were in control of everything and there was no longer a need for pretense. They descended on Downtown, Minneapolis like a dark cloud bringing in an endless stream of soldiers from all branches of the military to maintain control.

Bill almost admired how efficiently they had executed a chokehold on a major metropolitan area. It was clear they were preparing for something even worse than just a terrible disease. People by the thousands were forced to complete the walls and other measures used to secure the city. When the construction was completed most of the laborers were made to leave the city under threat of death.

Except for the soldiers, only those with critical infrastructure skills and a small manual labor force were allowed to stay. The only other people still in the city were several thousand citizens who had hidden in their homes or offices. The Syndicate troops had just started rooting them out when Bill, Derrick and their small team of operators started their surgical assault campaign against the occupying forces.

It hadn’t been easy. They’d lost almost as many fights as they’d won. Shipman had disappeared with the failsafe vial almost immediately after Bill and Derrick had left the new lab. The lab had been attacked by the Syndicate shortly after shipman escaped. John had been captured but Derrick and his team had managed to escape with Andrew. Bill would have bet the house that Shipman had sold out their location. It was fortunate that Derrick had been able to burn the lab down with all the Project Simon research still inside. At least the Syndicate had nothing to work with unless they captured George.

After months of fighting inside the walled city they met Vicki. They’d rescued her from a tiny police station just seven weeks prior. Now they were putting a lot of faith in her knowledge of the Syndicate. If she was wrong they were all going to die. He watched her scan the skyway level of the Government Center with intense scrutiny, hands on her rifle. She must have felt him staring at her. She glanced at him with a nervous smile while pushing a strand of golden hair back behind her ear. She was pretty even in her disheveled state. “What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Bill said, “I was just thinking how lucky it was we found you.”

Her eyes welled up and she patted the hand on his good arm, “I’m so grateful you did. I think a few more minutes and they would have killed me.”

“You’ve paid us back and more. You know that,” he said squeezing her hand gently in return. She jumped when a muffled shot rang out and curled into a ball until all Bill could see was her fashionable knee-high boots and her face. She wasn’t usually so nervous even though she had every right to be. The soldiers had been ready to kill her when Bill and Derrick crashed the party.

They had been on a scouting mission. Prepping for a full scale assault on the basketball arena the Syndicate was using to house most of their troops. Up until then they’d had marginal success with guerrilla tactics throughout the city but were looking to take it up a notch. Bill knew it was only a matter of time before someone on the outside captured George and brought him in. He had seen the fliers. He had one folded into his shirt pocket as a constant reminder.

His son was alive and the control dose had obviously worked. He knew that much was certain from a few of the soldiers they had captured. Urban legends of a man who could control the zombies were all they talked about. If the Syndicate got to him it would be game over for any survivors. He could only assume that was the Syndicate’s reason for such a heavy presence in Minnesota with winter getting ready to descend in full force.

They were trekking back from their scouting mission to one of their safe houses in the warehouse district when they heard the screaming and gunfire just around the next corner on 4
th
Street. There was no time for recon. It seemed clear enough what was happening. They had seen it before, the buildings within the city were filled with bodies from these types of massacres. The gunshots were evenly spaced about a minute apart and the screaming was constant but dwindling with each shot. People were being executed. They knew it could be a trap but threw together a hasty strategy and charged in guns blazing. Bill and his team surprised the soldiers but they were too late to save all but one of the civilians. That was how they’d found Vicki.

She told them later that the soldiers routinely captured Syndicate deserters or civilians they found foraging in the city. They would bring them to the jail for processing. Those with special skills were sent to the Government Center for assignment. Everyone else was kept in the cells until they filled up every few weeks. At that point the soldiers would clean house. Attractive women were generally spared for longer periods of time. That’s how she managed to stay alive so long. Unfortunately, the soldiers had decided she had outlived her usefulness that very evening. Bill and his people had saved her life.

That part had been very clear to Bill. Nine dead bodies lined up in a row and shot in the back of the head. Vicki would’ve been next. “You’re with us now,” Bill had told her that night after covering her with a wool blanket. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“No!” she wailed. “Nothing is ever going to be okay again.”

Bill wished he could somehow breathe life back into her captors just so she could get a little revenge. She was a damaged person but Vicki was a fighter all the same. From the police station they brought her to the safe house. They hunkered down for the night and discussed what to do with her including offering to find her someplace she could hide with supplies and ride out the storm. But she begged them to come along swearing she could use a gun and promising to follow orders and do whatever was necessary to do her part. Derrick was adamantly against bringing her along. He and Bill had a rather tense but quiet argument about it as the others looked on.

“I didn’t tell you everything,” she said, breaking up the discussion. “I guess because I was ashamed. I used to help them but when I got the chance I ran. There are things I know that could help you. Things about their operations.”

“Tell us more,” Bill said after a nod from Derrick. That’s when they learned they’d hit the jackpot with Vicki.

“They told me they’d kill me if I didn’t help them. I was a chef at a local restaurant. They decided to put my skills to use cooking for their leaders in the Government Center.”

Bill understood, many of the city’s residents had to make the same choice, death or compliance. She confirmed that the Syndicate leadership team would be found at the Government Center. They were using it to run their operations. It was a squat four story building almost dead center in the middle of downtown. It had a perfect roof surface to house several helicopters. Bill and Derrick had assumed that was where they were headquartered since they had been questioned in the dungeon but what they didn’t know was the layout and the troop numbers. Without someone on the inside they had no way of knowing where in the building the leaders operated. All of this they got from Vicki.

She also turned out to be a devil with an assault rifle. She held up her end of the bargain and then some, killing Syndicate soldiers with such precision and intensity it was almost scary. Vicki took her pound of flesh without needing anyone’s help or encouragement. Bill had no idea what she was like before the world went crazy but she had adapted quickly and without complaint. Watching her work during their operations was when Bill started falling for her.

“What are you thinking about, Bill?” Vicki whispered into the chilly gloom.

“Still thinking about the day we found you,” he said, meeting her eyes.

“My lucky day,” she said.

It seemed to Bill that they were having a moment but then Derrick broke it up calling out over the radio. They had taken the fourth floor. The Government Center was theirs.

…

“Seems too easy,” Derrick said, “The soldiers practically invited us in.”

Bill was examining the equipment. A number of high tech radios and computers arranged into a control room.

“Hey, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth,” Vicki said. “We’ve been draining their manpower for weeks. Things are shit beyond the walls so you have to believe they are like that everywhere. They are probably running out of soldiers.”

              “We also have to keep in mind they have a lot of people around the perimeter of the city watching for intruders and keeping an eye on the dead,” Bill said as he played with one of the radios.

              “Plus they’ve been sending searching parties looking for your son. According to their leaders that’s been upwards of two hundred people at a time. All of that is going to take a toll on their numbers,” Vicki said.

              “Those people don’t seem like leaders. More like half-hearted middle management. I don’t even think they really know anything,” Derrick said.

              “You are tired and clearly over thinking this whole situation. They are the last tired remnant of a group of soldiers forced into service. They didn’t want to be here in the first place and now they just want to stay alive,” Vicki said.

              “They all seem real terrified of you,” Derrick said.

              Bill chuckled, “She is the avenging angel of the 4
th
Street Massacre and it seems her reputation has preceded her.”

              Vicki smiled at him fondly. “Just doing my part to retake the city,” she said.

              “Okay, if you two say so,” Derrick said.

Bill could tell by his tone that he wasn’t convinced and still thought this was a trap of some kind. “Listen, Derrick, I agree with you we need to be cautious. We will move all of our people here. I also think those soldiers will turn rather easily. I don’t sense a deep sea of loyalty to the Syndicate,” Bill said.

              “That’s what happens when you treat your people like cannon fodder,” Vicki said. “So unless they have another few planes full of troops I think we will be able to hold this building until someone finds George for real or he makes contact himself.”

              “I still want to have a few contingency plans just in case,” Derrick said.

              “Just don’t keep us in the dark on those, Derrick,” Vicki said. “We all need to be prepared in case this goes to shit.”

              Derrick looked at them and grunted. He told them he was going back downstairs to question the prisoners. Bill knew Derrick didn’t think too highly of Vicki. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why. He returned his attention to the radio and tried to get a better handle on how it worked.

“What do we do now?” Vicki asked.

              “Now we wait. Take turns babysitting the radio. See what the Syndicate tries next.”

              “Hmm, sounds like we are going to have some downtime. I wish I could think of some things we could do,” Vicki said.

              “If I didn’t know better I would think you were making a move on me,” Bill said. “You know I’m old enough to be your father.”