Jonathan Maberry - Patient Zero

“Joe…” she said to herself, then louder, “Joe!” She whirled and pelted down the hallway in the direction of the gunfire. Jackson, Skip, and the remaining Alphas followed. This, at least, was something they could fight; this was something they could understand.

Crisfield, Maryland / Wednesday, July 1; 3:38 A.M.

A SECOND BLAST rocked the whole building, this one ten times louder. Plaster and metal fittings fell from the ceilings and several lights flared white and then exploded in showers of smoky sparks. We all crouched, staring around, waiting for the next shoe to drop, but after a moment the rumblings stopped and the building settled in to an eerie silence.

“The hell was that?” Bunny grumbled.

Top spat out some plaster dust. “Still ain’t the cavalry, farmboy. Wrong blast signature.”

Outside the door the gunfire started up again, but there was no way they were going to shoot their way in. I wondered why they bothered. Then it hit me… gunfire doesn’t always have to be an attack: it could also be a lure.

“Grace!” I said aloud, and that fast there was a fresh burst of gunfire—definitely MP5s this time. I paused and looked at Bunny, who was grinning.

“Now that,” he said, “is the cavalry.”

He took a single step toward the door when the wall blew up. I dove left and pushed Ollie out of the way as the whole door careened inward. Top did a neat little sidestep to avoid a big chunk of twisted metal, but a piece of cinderblock the size of a softball caught Bunny on the helmet and knocked him flat.

Figures began moving through the smoke; Top and I darted to either side, hunkering down behind lab tables, guns held straight and level. Two figures leaped into the room brandishing guns and yelling for us to freeze, to lay down our arms. They yelled in English. The loudest voice belonged to a woman.

Grace.

I started to smile and then I saw the blood on her face and the wild, almost inhuman expression in her eyes and my trigger finger twitched at the same moment my heart slammed against the walls of my chest. God! Is she infected?

“Hold your fire!” I yelled and everybody froze. “Grace! Stand down, stand down!”

She wheeled in my direction, bringing the barrel of her weapon up. Her hair was gray with dust and blood flowed freely from cuts on her forehead and cheek. She was panting—whether from effort, stress, or infection I couldn’t tell. Though it hurt my soul to do it I put the deathly red finger of my laser sight on her chest, right over her heart.

“Grace… stand down!” I shouted.

“J… Joe?” A few other Alpha Team agents clustered around her, all of them bleeding, all of them in torn and dusty uniforms. Their barrels aimed past her toward me. They hadn’t seen Top from his place of concealment. Ollie was with me, down behind the table, unarmed. Bunny hadn’t moved from where he’d fallen.

“Stand down,” I repeated, keeping the edge in my voice. “I won’t tell you again.”

“Joe… are you hurt? The walkers…”

“No one in here is infected, Grace. What about you?”

She took a breath, and then shook her head as she lowered her gun. To her team she said, “Stand down.”

Everyone slowly lowered their weapons except Top and me. He remained where he was, quiet and ready, while I got to my feet and walked toward her, my gun out, the red dot steady on her chest.

“Joe,” she said with evident relief, “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“I’m not looking to take a chance here, Grace. Tell me what happened.”

“There was a team of hostiles holding this end of the hallway, trying to get in.”

I caught that she said “was.” Another figure moved through the dust and as he stepped into the lab I was surprised to see who it was. I lowered my gun and held it down at my side.

“Skip? Where the hell have you been?”

“Sorry, Captain… I got blindsided.”

The young man looked worse than Grace. His eyes were jumpy and darted back and forth and his smile was both brief and tremulous. I gave him a nod and he stayed where he was, looking around uncertainly as if unsure to which team he belonged.

I moved closer to Grace. “Tell me what happened.”

She told me everything in a few terse sentences. The hurt in her face and voice was bottomless. “We saw a group of hostiles trying to shoot their way in,” she concluded. “We took them out. All communications are jammed, so we couldn’t download a keycard code, so I had Jackson blow the door.”

Behind me Bunny swore. I turned to see that Top had helped the big young man to a sitting position. Bunny was groggily shaking his head, blood trickling down the left side of his face. Top removed Bunny’s helmet and examined the bruise, then he turned and gave me a quick nod. “Farmboy here took a blunt-force hit to the head. He’ll be okay.”

“I ain’t a farmboy, you shit-kicker,” Bunny complained. “I’m from Orange County.”

Top patted his shoulder. “Now that the cavalry’s here maybe we should saddle up and ride.”

“The cavalry’s still not here,” Grace said softly. “My team is… Gus Dietrich and the others should be breaching the wall any minute.”

I suddenly felt old and used up. “Well, then we’ll have to make our stand here and wait. No back doors, and I don’t particularly want to go back down that corridor.”

“Sod that,” murmured Grace.

Ollie stood by the table looking as much like an uninvited guest as did Skip. I avoided looking at either of them at the moment. Both of them had gone missing in ways as yet unexplained, both miraculously alive despite the terrorists and the walkers. I was going to have to sit down and have long talks with each of them. It would be better for everyone if they both had nice, clear, and believable stories.

Over by the door Jackson called out sharply. “Major… Captain Ledger… we’re about to have company.”

“What have you got?” I called.

Jackson looked stricken. “Walkers! Hundreds of them.”

“Terrific,” Top said sourly. “I’m down to one magazine, Cap’n.”

“They’re here!”

We all turned to see the shambling mass of walkers round the bend in the hall outside and fill the doorway. Rank upon rank of them.

There was no time to think, just to act.

“Make a barricade!” I grabbed the nearest table to me and heaved. Grace caught the other end and we shoved it forward, the legs screeching on the concrete floor, the vibration sending delicate instruments crashing to the ground, and I hoped we weren’t breaking anything that contained a virus or parasite. The Hammer suits would protect us from skin contact but none of us were wearing masks.

Bunny was sick and dazed from his head injury but he bulled his way through it; he grabbed the corner of one big table and with a grunt of effort heaved it over onto its side then rammed it with a shoulder to drive it into the doorway. Top began tossing chairs over the table to create an obstacle course to slow the walkers down. Ollie rushed to help him. Skip looked around and grabbed another table and hauled on it without much effect; I took the other end and we pushed that against the others.

Then the mass of walkers hit the barrier like a tidal surge. They were only as strong as ordinary humans but there was so many of them that their sheer weight of numbers acted like a battering ram that drove the barricade backward nearly three feet. Jackson reached over the edge of the barricade and opened up into the massed bodies. A few went down, but most of his bullets tore through chests and limbs without doing much to stop them.

“Pick your bleeding targets, Jackson!” Grace snarled. “Shoot for the head.”