Here they had been relatively stopped in their progress. Between leaving the apartment complex and arriving in this town, they had run into relatively few zombies. Mostly they found themselves dealing with the occasional straggler, but never large groups like they had seen at the apartment complex. Not until they got to the town.At that point they were forced into a dilemma. They needed food and ammunition to keep going, and maybe a map if they could find one, and the town was their first chance for such a resupply that they had come across in a while. However, the high volume of zombies in the town had certainly made the prospect of going in seem more like suicide than salvation. After watching the town for only a little while, though, they noticed that the zombies seemed to be generally moving in one direction: north. So they decided that if they mostly kept behind the zombies, moving quickly and quietly, drawing as little attention to themselves as they could, then they might just
He did not have much success.Bright morning sunlight fell over the prone form, coaxing it back into the waking world. The figure, Gabriel , stirred and, with great resentment, opened his eyes.His entire body hurt. His head hurt, his throat hurt, his back hurt. His hands felt a little like they were on fire. He tried to wiggle his toes and immediately winced. Even his toes hurt. With immense effort he rolled over, and to his surprise found himself on the floor. He pushed himself up and glanced around. For a moment his heart seemed to stop. He did not recognize his surroundings in the slightest. He was in a small, square room. About halfway up all four of the walls they turned into windows that stretched to the ceiling. On one wall there was a door, and on the wall opposite there was a console with various monitors and switches and other controls. There were two chairs below the console.On the floor was a mattress – the one he must have slept on – and it was tied up in a thick rope.
Gabriel opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it again. Jay was right, that was how it had happened, basically. “Yes, but they…” he started, but realized it was pointless and stopped. He let out a sigh of defeat. “Fine,” he consented, “I’ll do it. I’ll wait for your prison sentence. Where’s Robert now?”Jay tapped on the wall next to them. “Inside. But he won’t be for long. If you’re gonna do something, do it quickly.”“Yes, mother,” Gabriel muttered. He turned and hurried off around the back of the building, and then broke into a slow run across the field. His body immediately began protesting the exertion and he dropped back to a quick walk. Once he reached the dormitory he hurried inside. The rGabriel ever himself and used the sinks to freshen up a bit, even though in his heart he felt that nothing short of full immersion could possibly hope to wash away the grime of the past few days. On his way out, almost as an afterthought, he grabbed his bag of supplies and weapons. H
When he reached the top he burst through the door and into the room. Gabriel was standing, leaning against the console, looking through binoculars at the tree line across the street from the base. He barely glanced at them as they entered.“Okay, Gabriel , what the hell is so important?”Gabriel finally stepped back and held out the binoculars. “Take a look for yourself.” Gabriel made room for Robert as the older man grabbed the binoculars and took up the lookout position. “Sorry, I only have one pair of binoculars. I did only invite one person up here though.” Jake shot Gabriel a vicious look. He coughed and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “However, you can basically see it all well enough with just your eyes. Just take a look out along the tree line.”Jake and Aliyah lined up next to Robert and peered out. At first, Jake saw nothing, and then after a moment she saw what looked like movement. She thought it might just be her eyes playing tricks on her.Then, fin
Before him was a wall lined with computers.“So, these all work?” he asked. The excitement tightened his chest so much he was barely able to get the words out.Paul was busy messing around behind one of the computers. “No, just this one,” he answered, nonchalant, completely oblivious to Gabriel ’s demeanor.“Oh,” responded Gabriel , his heart and shoulders immediately sinking.With a flicker and hum the screen to the computer Paul had been working on sprang to life. “Excellent,” he muttered to himself as he sat down in the nearest chair. Then, to Gabriel , he said, “I didn’t want to use up too much power at once by letting a bunch of computers I didn’t need run all at once.”“Yes, that would be awful.” Gabriel ’s voice was flat and emotionless, as though he were no longer able to work up the energy to be expressive.Paul’s fingers blazed across the keyboard in clearly familiar patterns. The computer beeped some noises as it loaded up the operating system. “Here, come take a look at th
The door had a thick metal handle and no lock. It had no window or door jam, but instead smoothly slid into the wall with only the slightest of seams to give away that it was even there at all. Even with the metal handle, it was almost invisible.Jay pulled on the handle, but the door did not budge. On the wall next to the door was a panel that looked like a key card reader. On the reader was a small, red light. It was dim, almost imperceptible, but it was definitely glowing. Jay rubbed his finger across its surface. The light being on meant there was power running to the door. Which meant whatever was beyond the door Paul had considered important enough to make sure he would continue to have access to it. He also considered it important enough to block access to everyone else, since he could’ve left the power off and the door open or at least unlocked. This, he knew instinctively, was the secret Paul was hiding. This was the mystery Jay had sensed since they first arrived.If only he
With a new wave of excitement he began running around back to the locked rooms, peering inside through any windows, hoping to see if there was some indication of a devastating secret. Something, anything, that would make Paul’s warning seem rational. Most of the rooms were still dark. Of the ones he could see inside, all the rooms were empty. A couple looked badly trashed, with some dried blood splatters on the walls and chairs and tables upturned. One had a light fixture hanging loose from the ceiling on a single cable, its light occasionally flickering like lightning. But nothing good, nothing he had not really already seen upstairs.His fear of disappointment washed over him again. It didn’t make much sense to him that Paul would go through all this effort to keep these secrets, and then there would be nothing to him. Maybe he had been telling the truth. Maybe behind these locked doors, there were only dangerous diseases that Jay had risked letting loose on the world. Maybe Gabriel
“It’s bullshit!” Jay shot back, finally recovered enough to speak properly. “It’s all bullshit. Everything Paul said. He’s a lying, backstabbing, no-good son of a…”Jay stopped himself and glanced around, seeming to realize for the first time that there were other people there.“Look, just come with me,” he finished, almost meekly.“Fine,” Robert agreed, just wanting to get this over with. “Lead the way.”Jay had not intended for anyone other than Robert to come, but the whole group, enveloped by their own curiosity, decided to follow along. As they traveled, they passed Matthew, Donald, and Gabriel, who took note of the procession and decided that they, too, belonged in this group and fell into step behind them.They entered the office buildings and followed Jay down a maze of corridors until they came across a door none of them had noticed before. It was propped open only thanks to Jay’s shirt, which Robert figured to be a much more reasonable explanation for where the item of cloth
At the end of the line Gabriel found another big building, which he knew the moment he stepped inside had to be a barracks. It was like a much larger version of the living quarters at the compound they had found in Texas. Just four long lines of beds stretching across the length of the room, with no care shown for privacy or individuality. All part of the process of breaking the spirit.“Newbie.”Gabriel turned toward the sound of the voice, to see someone, a prisoner, not a guard, judging from his clothes, staring at him. The stranger pointed toward the far wall and said, “You’ll want to see the manager. Hurry up.”Following with his eyes to where the man was pointing, Gabriel could see a window set into the wall, and realized there was probably some kind of office over there. He nodded a quick thanks to the man, only to discover he had already walked away, and then headed down the lines of beds toward the office.The door to the small room was open, and inside he found a woman se
“Uh… no,” replied Gabriel , noting strong hints of what seemed like a British accent in the creatures voice. “It’s an old term for a creature that slowly spreads through a village like a plague.”“Ah, such as the Vourdalak.”Gabriel blinked in surprise at this comment, stunned into silence.“Yes, well,” the creature continued, “it has long been the modus operandi of your kind to blame others for your own wrong doings. Judging from the state of things, I would say you plagued yourselves plenty well enough on your own without any help from me or mine. No doubt you still think yourself clever for the snide comment, however.”Gabriel had felt clever for the remark, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit that now.The vampire placed his cane on the ground and leaned on it with both hands, bending down to stare at Gabriel from a smaller distance.“Where are your others?” he asked.Gabriel ’s eyes widened, but he just shook his head. “What others?”“Don’t lie to me. We returned to the
“Turn out all your pockets, then,” said the big man. Gabriel did as he was told, or at least as well as he could seeing as most of the pockets in his cargo pants weren’t really designed for being turned out.When the others were satisfied he wasn’t carrying anything, the man tipped his head up to indicate Gabriel should move through the turnstile.Once through, the first figure motioned for him to stand on a line taped to the floor. She was holding one of the devices from the table in her right hand, a weird thing that looked a little like an electric razor only with a sharp point at the end instead of round blades. Once he was in place she said, “Roll up your sleeve and place your left arm on the table.”“What?” he asked stupidly. “Left sleeve. Arm. Table,” she answered, pointing at each thing in turn as she said it.Gabriel stared at the device in her hands but otherwise did not move. “What are you going to do with that?” he asked.Hands grabbed him from behind, pulling at his
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Gabriel asked, annoyed. He blinked rapidly, clearing away more of the blurriness, until he could see that this wasn’t Joe and the others. He was surrounded by zombies. Gabriel let out a yelp and fell backwards, only to be shoved again from that side. This time the shove balanced him onto his feet, and he turned around to find that there were more zombies back in that direction, cutting off his path to the inside of the hospital. He turned toward the parking lot, only to see zombies had moved into position there, as well. He continued circling and found that he was surrounded on all sides by the undead. They had trapped him in, with nowhere to run. He felt like crying. He felt like panicking. But neither would help him then. So he closed his eyes, tucked his chin into his shoulder, and waited for the end. But nothing happened. Gabriel could hear some shuffling of feet, some of the eerie, inhuman moans that seemed to be an involuntary sound that the
Gabriel was fairly confident he couldn’t be seen from his position, since the doctor hadn’t noticed him yet. But undoubtedly the doctor was finally taking note of the rearranged equipment in the room. The beds moved out of place, the random cart just visible over the top of the halfway wall. At first glance it all might have looked normal enough, but the closer scrutiny he gave it as he stood there talking was enough to finally make him realize the difference. Bennet stopped talking and began walking, straight down the hallway toward the room. He moved cautiously, as though expecting at any moment to step on a landmine, but he continued on regardless. He reached the door, opening it with the same level of caution, peering around one last time before finally stepping into the room. After a moment he stumbled, one leg catching on a strip of cloth that tore away. A shelf of equipment came crashing down, slamming the door shut and barring across it as various items smashed against the
Horror movies told him that he should be looking at somebody horribly deformed, or wearing the skin of another person, or with a head full of small, scary spikes. Something. This guy could have been his doctor in the days before and Gabriel would’ve thought nothing of it. This man could’ve walked up to the gates of Joe’s little bunker community and they would’ve let him in and never thought twice about it. It was terrifying to contemplate. “Hello?” the man called, and just the sound of that simple word, muted and muffled as it was coming through the wall, turned Gabriel ’s blood to ice.The stranger started to turn away from the room, but then something made him stop and turn back.“Are you there?” the man continued calling out as he surveyed the room through the window with what looked like, at least in Gabriel ’s opinion, a sadistic grin. “That wasn’t what it looked like. I was trying to help that man.”Yeah, real convincing, thought Gabriel , but he remained silent as he crawled
He considered his options, favoring the one that said he could just wait there for the others to show up. But he didn’t know how long that would be and there was some good he could do inside the building while there.So taking a deep, steadying breath he pushed his way through the nearest doorway and headed deeper into the hospital.The hallways were dark, which was expected, but that expectation didn’t stop them from being especially eerie. Somehow, here and there, some emergency lights still clung desperately to life, flickering on and off at random times, throwing long, twisted shadows where they could span across the walls and floors, and leap out from around corners. The daylight provided sufficient illumination to counteract the lack of interior lighting, but as all the windows on the ground floor seemed to be either heavily tinted or located where the light bounced first off of walls before entering the rooms, the bluish glow it created only added to the ominous mood of the hos
“Gabriel !”Sturdy hands wrapped around his upper arms and shook him. He turned his head and his clearing vision made out the image of Joe standing in front of him. “Gabriel , get it together. We have to go. Now!”Gabriel nodded his head and tried to take a deep breath, and then found himself taking several quick gasping breaths. Was he panicking? He didn’t have time to panic.With as much certainty as he could manage he nodded his head. “Right,” he agreed, “let’s go.”They each turned and ran off in separate directions.This had all been worked out in advance, each person memorizing a map of the town, studying it, learning each street and alleyway. They’d all settled on a divided running path before they ever stepped foot outside of the base. So Gabriel knew where to go.Or he thought he did.Though he hadn’t been willing to admit it with the others, he had never been particularly good with maps, not great at visualizing the 2D images with 3D spaces. So it wasn’t that surprising w
“I’m telling you, you go to that place, the only thing you have to look forward to is death. You’re better off here. Just keep your heads down, hide out, and maybe they’ll never come for you. That’s the best thing to hope for.”There was a long silence marked only by the sound of some uncomfortable shuffling. Claire stepped forward so she could get a better look at him. “But… Gabriel … you went into the caves. You tried to make a difference.”“I was wrong, okay?”Gabriel shouted the words so loud that Claire took a step back.“I was wrong. I was an idiot and I was wrong and people suffered because I was wrong. I suffered because I was wrong. The world is worse off now than it was before, all because I had to go play hero. Well there are no heroes. There’s only the living and the dead and you’re either one or the other. You can stay here and stay alive or you can go out there and join the ranks of the dead. Those are your options. I don’t care which you choose, but if you choose deat