Shaun Harbinger - Survival - Revenge of the Living Dead

A male voice came from the console. “Yes?”

Hart leaned closer to the console and spoke. “Ian Hart. Site Bravo One. You spoke to my superior Marilyn MacDonald regarding the delivery of a package.”

“Hold on.”

There was a tense few minutes of silence during which we all trained our attention and guns on the cage. This was the worst possible place for Vess to escape. If he got out here and we didn’t stop him, he’d be free to go anywhere, do anything. We should have left him in the Chinook until we knew the people in the bunker were going to let us inside.

Finally, there was a buzz and the clanking noise of disengaging locks. The door swung inward slowly, revealing a wide cement corridor that ran into the earth, sloping slightly downwards.

There was no one there to greet us. We proceeded through the door and it swung shut behind us, the heavy locks engaging again. The corridor was lit by pale yellow lights set into the ceiling.

The same male voice that had spoken to Hart through the console now came out of a tinny speaker on the wall. “Continue individually to the green line.”

I noticed a green line painted on the floor twenty feet ahead of us. Beyond that was a second door identical to the one we’d just passed through.

“You first, Alex,” Sam said, pushing me forward.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, dude. If they kill you, we’ll avenge your death.”

“That’s hardly comforting,” I said. I stepped up to the green line and stopped. I noticed a couple of cameras on the walls beside me. Scanners?

“There are no weapons allowed in the bunker,” the tinny voice said. “Please place your weapon in the bin to your left.”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “You know what’s in that crate, right?”

“The crate will be dealt with presently. Please place your weapon in the bin provided.”

I turned to Hart with a questioning look on my face.

He shrugged. “I assume that as soon as they open the next door, their own security team will guard the cage. The quicker we get through this, the quicker their security will come out here.”

Feeling as if I was making a terrible mistake, I placed the CQB rifle into the large plastic bin and waited.

“Step forward to the white line,” the voice told me. The white line was painted just in front of the second door. I moved to it and waited while the others went through a similar process and joined me one by one.

Finally, we all stood before the second door. I found it ironic that they weren’t letting us inside with weapons but they were allowing Patient Zero into their precious bunker.

The door clanked and slid open. I’d expected to see the interior of the bunker beyond but the cement corridor simply continued downward at a slight angle.

“Let’s move!” Hart said. “We need to hand over the cargo ASAP.”

We all took hold of the cage—four people on each side—and jogged along the corridor. We were totally unarmed now thanks to the bunker’s security system and if Vess got out, we had no way to stop him.

I finally saw something ahead. Another door. But beside this one, a lighted booth was set into the wall and behind its Plexiglass window sat a large man with receding hair. He was surrounded by computer consoles that showed the view from each of the cameras in the quarry and the corridor and a microphone through which he’d been speaking to us.

“Welcome to Bunker 53,” he said. “As you requested, Dr Sarah Ives will be along shortly, as well as Charles Hines, the head of our little community.”

He pressed a button and the door opened. Muzak floated out through the opening, as if we were about to enter an elevator. But instead of an elevator, the door opened onto a large blue-carpeted waiting room, complete with chairs whose upholstery matched the colour of the carpet and low tables upon which sat small stacks of magazines.

It seemed like the people in this bunker were trying to pretend the world wasn’t going to hell. Knowing what I knew about the world outside made the waiting room seem surreal.

A door opened and a man and woman entered. He had collar-length black hair and wore a shirt and tie. I placed him in his forties.

The woman was much younger, probably early twenties. She had shoulder-length red hair and wore glasses. She also wore a white lab coat, which was encouraging at least.

“Dr Ives?” Hart asked.

She nodded. “Yes, I’m Dr Ives. I understand you wanted to see me. Something important, I was told.”

“Perhaps we could conduct this conversation somewhere else,” Hart suggested. “After you get your security team to lock the package securely away.” He indicated the cage on the blue-carpeted floor.

“We’ll get right on that,” the man said. He held out his hand to Hart. “Charles Hines. I’m in charge here.”

“There’s no time for pleasantries,” Hart said, ignoring the proffered hand. “We need to get this locked up now.”

Hines frowned. “I was told it’s a dead body.”

“It’s dead at the moment,” Hart said. “There are no guarantees it’s going to stay that way.”

Hines’s face paled. “And you brought it here? There’s been some mistake. You can’t bring a...whatever that is...in here.”

To his credit, Hart stayed calm when, through gritted teeth, he said, “Get your fucking security team in here now and tell them to lock this up immediately.”

I looked down at the crate. Was I imagining things or had I heard a noise coming from within the metal walls? It had sounded like a soft bump but it had been so low that I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard anything at all.

“All right, all right,” Hines said. He went to a console on the wall that matched the one on the outer door and pressed the button. “Sam, can you get a couple of security guys to the reception room, please? And get them to find a room they can lock. One of those old offices on level 3 will be great.”

“Don’t you have any cells?” Hart asked.

Hines scoffed. “Why would we need cells?”

“In case you need to lock someone up.”

Hines looked at him askance. “I can assure you that we don’t lock people up here. We are a peaceful community of survivors. The future of the human race, in fact. When the new world emerges from this current situation, there will be peace for the first time since mankind began.”

He opened the door by which they’d entered. “Now, if you follow me, we can sort out this mess.”

“The cage,” Hart said.

Hines rolled his eyes. “Will be picked up shortly. You heard me call for security. Now come with me, please.”

Hart turned to us. “I’ll go with Hines and Ives. Stay here and make sure his security put the body somewhere safe.”

“There’s no need for that,” Hines said from the corridor beyond the door. “My men are quite capable. Now follow me. All of you.”

I looked at Hart. If I was going to take orders from anyone, it was him and not Charles Hines. Hart simply shrugged and said, “Hopefully they’ll get the crate locked away quickly.”

We followed Hines and Ives along a carpeted corridor that looked like it belonged in an office block rather than a secret bunker beneath a quarry and through a door into a small room that housed an oval conference table and a dozen chairs.

“Take a seat,” Hines instructed, speaking as if we were a group of accountants about to discuss a quarterly budget and not survivors of the most horrendous apocalypse to affect the human race.

“Can I get anyone anything?” he asked when we were all seated. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”

“I’d love a coffee,” Doctor Ives said.

“Coming right up, Sarah.” He went to a coffee machine and began to fill it.