The infected dead book 8.., p.18
The Infected Dead | Book 8 | Returned For Now, page 18
part #8 of The Infected Dead Series
“Why do I feel like this thing was expensive to build when I haven’t even gone inside yet?” asked Gentry.
MC answered, “It’s not military.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It practically screams quality over functionality. Does that make sense?”
The row of steps that went downward wasn’t steep, and there were only eight of them. They were wide and a bit broad, but everything was so black and smooth. The sharp angles were precise, and the flat spaces were reflective like glass or obsidian, but they were so black it felt like the four newcomers would fall into them instead of walk onto them.
Karen went down the steps ahead of the others and put a hand on the cool surface of the wall. She said, “Not entirely, but I don’t disagree with that feeling of quality. These walls are so perfect.”
It had been a long day, and it had taken hours for them to reach the hallway outside the planetarium, but none of them were ready to spend the night in the hallway at the last door. Even though they couldn’t see anything beyond the bottom of the stairs, there was no way that they weren’t going inside. Gentry, Wanda, and MC followed Karen.
“My flashlight still works,” said MC. “Maybe I can find a light switch.”
“I found something,” said Karen. She had continued to run her fingers over the smooth walls and had almost disappeared in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. “It’s strange the way it feels so warm to the touch, but it doesn’t feel hot in here.”
MC aimed the beam of his flashlight at her. She still had her left arm extended, and her fingertips were lightly playing over the shape as if she was blind and was forming a picture in her mind.
“What is that?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, but it’s like a calculator or a keypad of some sort.”
Before he could stop her, she depressed several buttons. They all froze where they were and listened to the whirring sound of hidden machinery. Somewhere inside the darkness there was movement. They could hear something moving, and whatever it was, it was getting closer.
Because of the absolute blackness of the walls and the low lighting of the planetarium, it was difficult to see movement, but they could feel it under their feet. The vibrations increased gradually and the stairs melted into the smooth walls. The area at the bottom of the stairs was like an open mouth, and they were being forced inside. The floor under them was solid, but there appeared to be less room to stand as the walls grew higher until they could no longer see the auditorium beyond them. For a few moments longer they could see the stars on the ceiling above them, but then they too disappeared as the walls arched inward to form a new ceiling. It was all an illusion because everything moved so seamlessly. The walls didn’t grow. They only appeared to grow because the floor had descended like an elevator without a ceiling. When the floor slid into place above them, it was so far away that the stars just seemed to disappear.
They were swallowed by the entrance to the new shelter, and although they couldn’t see it happening, they wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the appearance of the planetarium had returned to the way they had found it. The rows of seats rotated, the doors reappeared, the light show on the ceiling ended, and the overhead lights came on. The projector retracted into its protective casing, the data in the control panels reset to all zeroes, and the power at the control console switched off. If someone walked into the room, they would see nothing more than an empty planetarium waiting for the next show to begin.
Inside the entrance the four new occupants of one of the most sophisticated shelters ever built stood rooted to one spot. They had opened the entrance because they were trying to, but closing the entrance was an accident. It wasn’t even really obvious to them that there was still enough light to see each other, but the light wasn’t coming from anywhere in particular. It was coming out of the walls themselves.
Gentry said in a low voice, “Don’t press buttons, Karen. If we come across more buttons, don’t even touch them.”
Karen mumbled an apology, but even though it was barely audible, they could still hear her voice shaking. They also heard Wanda whimpering softly. There was enough light to see, but they were still having to adjust. Nothing was clear enough for them to know where it was close or far away, only that some places were darker than others. MC took a tentative step toward a darker area, and the light smoothly increased in front of him. He took another step, and the passageway became visible.
He sounded far away when he said, “I think we have to go this way whether we want to or not.”
“Why is everything different here,” asked Gentry. “The lights, the sounds. It feels different. It looks different. It’s like they come from every direction instead of directly from a source. The light is everywhere yet it’s nowhere specific.”
“I know what you mean,” said MC. “Is it because everything is so perfect and smooth?”
“Science,” said Gentry, “tends to remind us that the properties of something might all be properties, but they might not have anything to do with each other.”
MC regarded Gentry as if she had spoken in a foreign language that he had never even heard before.
“I remember that from a nursing class,” said Karen.
Wanda had gotten over her fear when the lights had become a bit brighter. A zombie outbreak had done very little to help her get over her fear of the dark. Now that she could see everyone, she was also feeling more like they were safe.
She added, “I remember that class too. It was the one where we studied symptoms and how not to necessarily associate them with each other. What Gentry is saying is that the light is strange because we can’t see its source, the sound of our voices is strange, and the walls are incredibly smooth and warm to the touch. Those things are all strange, but they might not be directly related to each other.”
That moment made them all feel another new sensation. They all felt more like a team that was determined to survive and less like fugitives from the chaos happening outside. Gentry felt a new measure of respect for the nurses who seemed like they were just tagging along with her and MC.
“You’re right,” she said. “Whatever it is about this place, so far it’s just different. It’s cool the way the lights work, but in the end it’s just technology. My guess is that the really cool stuff is somewhere up ahead.”
Even Gentry was surprised by the extent of her understatement. Walking through the obsidian tunnel with the smooth walls and comfortable lighting was close to her daydream about doing an EVA outside the International Space Station. Ever since she was a little girl and had seen her first videos of astronauts floating in space, she had wanted to someday experience the thrill of floating weightless outside the protective environment of a shuttle or walking on the moon. She hadn’t made it into the astronaut program, so she went for the jobs that would get her as close to it as possible. That job had led her to this tunnel, and if she closed her eyes just a little, she could imagine herself walking on the hull of a spaceship in the emptiness of space.
Her spaceship was suddenly thrust into the sunlight, and when she opened her eyes, she was amazed to see where the tunnel had ended. The walls had changed from black to a shining, creamy white. They were incredibly brilliant without being blinding.
“How deep underground should we be by now, MC?” she asked.
“Several hundred feet at least. Maybe a thousand,” he answered.
The room resembled launch control. There were rows of computer stations set up with three screens at each station. They were arranged facing in one direction where giant displays dominated the view. The only difference between this launch control center and her own was that this one appeared to be untouched. Every chair was perfectly straight. Every desk had the appearance of just being cleaned. There was no dust or scrap of paper on anything.
“Don’t tell me there was a second version of Operation Paperclip,” said MC. He studied Gentry’s face for any reaction that would give away the fact that she knew this was here all along, but he could see she was as surprised as he was.
“Is this NASA?” asked Wanda. “Is this part of the Marshall Space Flight Center?”
Gentry just shook her head. She didn’t know what the others expected her to say because this was a total surprise to her. She didn’t think about where she was going until she had walked almost to the center of the room, through the computer stations, and to an elevated back row. When she saw the sign that said Flight Director, she knew what she was hoping to find.
The screens were all blank, but they gave the appearance of a flight control center that was waiting for the people who would light it up. Gentry reached toward different panels of switches that lined the back wall and located anything to do with power. There was no delay as one by one the giant screens at the front of the room lit up and displayed their incredible images. Satellite views from around the world filled the room as computer stations blazed with color.
MC immediately walked to a series of terminals and sat down. Karen and Wanda saw what had drawn his attention and followed his lead. They pulled rolling chairs over to his, not distracted by the images at the other stations. On his three screens were the recognizable images of their own shelter. To Gentry it could have been any of the three hundred shelters, but the others recognized the hospital level, and captions on the monitors identified it as the shelter they had escaped.
The chaos and destruction of human life were far too apparent. If anyone remained alive in the shelter, their only hope would be to reach the outside above ground without being detected. Judging by the number of stumbling dead in every corner of the hospital, escaping from the shelter wasn’t likely.
MC located the menu options on the main display and changed the views to other sections of the shelter. The mess hall was displayed on one screen, and they watched as the dead wandered between upturned tables and chairs, coming and going through one open door. Another monitor showed what must have been a recreation center for the children in the shelter. Karen and Wanda both openly sobbed when they saw the number of small victims in the room. Some had been older than the others, but they had been victims just as quickly as the youngest of them. MC switched the view off as quickly as he could. They all knew what had happed in the shelter without having to confirm it.
“Here’s what I was looking for,” said MC.
The view on the screen was a tunnel that connected their shelter with another. If it had been closed, MC would have held out some hope that there would be survivors, but the security door at the checkpoint was wide open. Even as they watched, the dead walked clumsily through in both directions.
He stood up from his chair and walked the length of the row, stopping only for a moment to check the monitors. Each station was tuned to a different shelter, and the loss of life was complete. He didn’t see a single view where a living person was trying to escape.
Karen had taken over the search menu when MC left, and she called him back to see what she had found. When he saw the screen he was surprised that he hadn’t been curious enough to find a view of the planetarium.
On the screen there were several men and women, all alive. They had apparently gotten the doors open in the area outside the main entrance but hadn’t secured them well enough to keep the dead out. There were dozens of zombies filling the auditorium as if someone was about to start a new show. They entered the rows from both ends as the living people dodged left and right. Fleeing people climbed across the tops of the chairs, and one man had even reached the ladder at the back of the room. He had only managed to climb a couple of feet before being dragged down. He kicked and fought furiously, but eventually the fighting stopped as more and more blood soaked into his clothes.
It was hard not to feel guilty knowing that people were dying in the place they had just left. It was also hard not to feel guilty about watching them die and not turning on the sound. One woman successfully dodged her attackers so many times that it seemed like she would survive if she could only find a way to reach the ladder, but every close call took just a little more out of her. She eventually became resigned to her fate. She sat down in the center of a row, put her elbows on her knees with her hands covering her face, and waited for her fate.
They watched the monitors until it was over. They saw people die in the same seats that were directly above the entrance to the escape route. Above them people didn’t know how close they were to complete safety.
Karen switched off her monitor, and MC did the same to the ones that showed other shelters. Gentry turned to the rows of power switches and turned off the rest of the computer stations. Then she turned her attention to the theater sized screens at the front of the room. Satellite views of metropolitan areas around the world showed the horror. Fires burned out of control in every city. Swarms of people moved through the streets, and they could tell the living from the dead only by how they moved. Great hordes of the dead moved like the slowly moving lava flows from volcanoes. Smaller groups of living people ran ahead of the hordes, and far too many ran straight into the dead as they came from the other direction.
Familiar landmarks made it easy to identify cities. Rooftops of buildings in Manhattan were jammed with people who waved frantically at helicopters that hovered above landing pads or roofs with wide enough spaces. All of them were having the same problem. They wanted to land and rescue as many people as they could, but every group of frantic people was too large, and any helicopter that landed would be swarmed. They had weight limits, and there was no one on the landing areas who could organize the rescues.
One helicopter lowered a chain ladder so only one person could climb at a time. At least that was what they hoped to accomplish, but as soon as one climber was high enough for a second climber to follow, the spot was filled with several people fighting to be next. With two sides to a ladder, they quickly found themselves with five people climbing at the same time, and when the helicopter dipped lower under the weight, the pilot got too close to the building, and several men jumped high enough to grasp the strut on the right side. The helicopter tilted further to the right, and the pilot wasn’t able to get control soon enough. The spinning rotors cut a deep swath in the crowd, sending people flying over the edges of the building. Living people and body parts rained down the side of the building to the street as the helicopter slipped to the left, dragging the chain ladder across the rooftop with people still clinging to it. Somehow it cleared the end of the building and ascended as it disappeared into the distance.
Helicopters attempting rescues over other buildings had seen the events as they happened. Others undoubtedly were in radio contact with each other because one by one they lifted away from the buildings. There was no way to rescue anyone if it meant risking the lives of the flight crews. As they lifted higher and all flew generally to the west, people rushed toward the western ends of the rooftops and literally poured over the sides.
On the next large screen there was also a helicopter hovering over the White House. MC had already told Gentry two days earlier that the Army had been kept informed about the President and his whereabouts. As far as they knew, he had made it safely to a shelter, but they didn’t know the exact location. The helicopter over the White House was military, and it appeared to be dropping heavily armed Marines by ropes.
“It makes sense,” said MC. “They would want a squad to protect the White House until this is over. There’s probably a squad in every major government building.”
“You think this will be over?” asked Wanda.
MC acted like he was surprised by the question, but neither Gentry nor Karen appeared to be fazed by it. They regarded MC with dulled expressions as if waiting for an answer either way. If he said it would be over the reaction would be the same as if he said it wouldn’t end.
“Of course I do. We have a good military, and they’re probably in control in some cities, especially the ones with big bases.”
They didn’t react. They simply turned their attention back to the huge screens.
There was more military activity at other historic landmarks, but there were also the fires and the huge crowds of the dead. Troops who were either National Guard or Army were pouring a withering rain of bullets into the advancing hordes, and in some places they were actually making a difference. Survivors were being carried from the buildings and loaded into trucks that drove away in the opposite direction.
“They’re transporting the wounded out with the healthy people, but it doesn’t appear that they’re doing any better than we did,” said Wanda.
Karen disagreed.
“You can tell that from these satellite views. By now they have to know they can’t save bite victims.”
Gentry backed Wanda with a sarcastic answer. “Oh yeah, I’m sure all those people with bandaged arms and legs on stretchers were just injured. They’re probably leaving the bite victims to fend for themselves.”
Karen felt stung by the answer, but the fact that she couldn’t make eye contact with Gentry told everyone that she was just doing some wishful thinking.
London was on a big screen, and it was in the middle of a heavy storm. The gray clouds blocked the view in many places, but they could see well enough to know that it was similar to Manhattan. The Thames River was jammed with boats of all kinds as people escaped the carnage in the streets by water. The problem was that the bridges were also jammed, but the crowd was moving too slowly to be living people. The people in the boats fought desperately to keep from being pushed under the bridge, but the river was so crowded, and the current pulled at them.
