Deadlocked 4 Read online

  "Now you see." Richard settled back into his chair and morosely smirked. "Now you see what I've been dealing with for the past few decades. It's been a hell of a burden, and I hate that it came to this, but I know what I'm doing is right. Nature has done a damn fine job of thinning our ranks when they got out of hand in the past, but science moved too fast. Population got out of control, and if nature couldn't step in and make things right again, then the job fell to us."

  "Forgive me if I don't get up and applaud your efforts."

  "You're right," said Richard as he stood up. "It was silly for me to think you'd understand. I never brought you in on this because I knew you'd react this way." He walked around the desk and sat on the edge to Reagan's left with the gun draped over his lap, the barrel still pointed at the Captain's head. "I just wanted you to know that I always planned on saving you and your family. That's why I convinced you to buy that vacation house up in the mountains next to mine. It's in a safe zone, and if your wife and son were there now…" He shook his head and took a deep breath. "And that's why I assigned you to Alpha Squad, but you went and fucked up that too. You almost got yourself killed by switching out to Bravo."

  Reagan was confused by Richard's revelation. "I switched because the boys that were in my unit were assigned to Bravo. What did it matter which team I was on?"

  "Alpha Squad was the only group that was given the drug before they went out into the city. They were immune to the disease, but Bravo wasn't. You got damn lucky things didn't turn out worse for you."

  "Don't kid yourself, Dick. Things turned out pretty fucking bad for me if you hadn't noticed."

  "Only because you didn't listen to me, Charles. For fuck's sake, don't you see what I'm trying to tell you? I was trying to protect you."

  "Is that why you've got a Desert Eagle pointed at me?"

  Covington glanced down at the gun on his lap and kept it pointed at Reagan. He snickered and the gun jostled in his grip. "No. This is for my protection. Lord only knows what you'd do to me if I didn't have this gun."

  "Sure would be fun to find out."

  * * *

  "Annie."

  It was cold and a heart monitor chirped nearby.

  "Is she awake?" asked a man's voice.

  Laura thought she was dead, but the realization that she'd been dreaming came slowly into focus. She said her daughter's name again in longing.

  "Who's Annie?" asked someone else. "She keeps saying that name."

  "It's her daughter. They've got her over in Blue Med."

  "Really?"

  Laura listened to them and pretended to be unconscious. It wasn't hard to do as reality slipped so easily in and out of her grasp.

  "Yep. They're testing her to see if she's making the antibodies."

  "Any luck?"

  "No. They got some Seventy-Seven in her already, so they have to wait until it washes out before they can start another round of tests."

  "Why'd they give her the Seventy-Seven if they were just planning on using her as a test subject? Why didn't they just let her turn in the first place?"

  "It wasn't our guys that gave her the shot. This chick must've heard the radio broadcast about Doripenem and got some. The guys from Alpha found it down at the dock."

  "Is she someone important?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Why are we keeping her alive?"

  The other man chuckled. "Because her boyfriend kidnapped the Senator's son." They shared a laugh and one of them moved to stand beside Laura's bed. "Go to the other side and help me move her onto the gurney. They're shutting the power off to this section in the next hour. She's stabilized now anyway."

  They started to undo her restraints and Laura continued to feign unconsciousness. The two men prepared to move her as they discussed the awful food that they were being served in the prison's cafeteria. She kept her eyes closed as they jostled her back and forth in preparation for the move.

  "Ready?" asked one of them.

  Laura listened as they counted down and then transferred her to a new bed. They slipped her across using the sheet she was laying on and the mattress on the gurney was more unforgiving than the bed. It was cold and caused the laceration on her side to sting as her skin flowered with goose bumps. The painful sensation reminded her that she'd been horribly beaten and battered.

  What injuries had she sustained? She ran through a list in her head: The shark bite on her foot, the gash on her side, another cut on her head from when the bridge was bombed, and her left eye was swollen shut. She explored the back of her teeth with her tongue and found the empty space on the bottom left where a molar used to be. The cop in the pharmacy had knocked it out and she was fascinated by the sensation of slipping the tip of her tongue in and out of the hole left behind.

  Did they pump her stomach? There was a flood of Oxycontin in her body from her trip to find the antibiotic to save Annie and she knew it should've killed her. She had no right to be alive, and the sight of Annie standing at the top of the stairs in her dream suddenly felt abysmally comforting.

  "Annie." She said her daughter's name without meaning to.

  "She's awake again," said one of the surgeons.

  "Yeah. This is one tough chick, for sure. I'd hate to get on her shit list."

  * * *

  "I never knew he was a pederass," said Graves as they walked into the hallway and shut the door to Trev's room. Courtland, Jason, and Louis stood over the little girl that had stabbed the redneck's eye out.

  "A what?" asked Jason.

  "A pederass. You know, a pedophile."

  Courtland wouldn't stop staring at the little girl. He clenched his jaw and released it over and over as if he were chewing gum as he thought about what to do with her. "You have no idea how bad this could've been. I need this girl healthy and free of any STDs. How did a guy like him end up in the Blue Yards?"

  Jason shrugged and looked at the closed door beside them that led to Trev's room. "They never asked us what we did. And if you asked the dudes in the jail, just about all of us would've told you we were innocent anyways."

  "But the Green Yards were supposed to be the disposable ones. That's why they were put on the Strike Team and the Blues were given to me." Courtland finally looked away from Kim and up at Jason. "How do I know I'm not surrounded by a bunch of other fucking degenerates?"

  Jason scowled and his posture stiffened. "I'm no pedophile, if that's what you're saying."

  "How do I know?"

  "You were running the fucking program." Jason pointed at Courtland and spittle flew off his lips as he spoke. "You should've had rap sheets on all of us."

  "RC handled that shit. Get your finger out of my face." Courtland pushed Jason's hand away, but he wasn't strong enough to do much more than jostle the big man's arm.

  "I don't fuck kids, and I don't like being accused of it."

  Kim was caught between the two but was pushed aside as Graves stepped in. "All right you two, that's enough. I shouldn't be the voice of reason here." He set his hand on Jason's chest and tapped it as he looked up at the behemoth. "Cool your jets, bro." Then he looked at Courtland and said, "None of us knew Trev was a pedophile, and for all we know neither did RC."

  "From now on, I'm the only one that touches the kids." Courtland pointed at himself as he walked away from them. "I'm the only one that goes in the basement." He held his hand out for the girl. "Come on, kid. Let's go."

  "What are we supposed to do with him?" Louis looked at the closed door to Trev's room.

  Courtland stepped forward and grabbed onto Kim's wrist after she didn't follow him. "I don't give a fuck. Let him bleed to death in there for all I care. He's a pedophile. I don't have any use for people like that." He pulled Kim along as she whimpered from his tight grip. "Stop fighting with me, kid. I'm one of the good guys."

  CHAPTER SEVEN - RETALIATION

  "Ben?" Annie watched the older boy sleeping on the bed next to hers. The room was nearly dark except for the light coming from t
he office where the two scientists were working.

  Ben rolled to his side to look at his new friend. "What is it?"

  "I can't sleep."

  "Me neither."

  She held her arm out and looked at the cotton swab that was taped over the spot where they'd given her a shot. "This hurts."

  "I got one too." Ben showed her his arm and pointed at a purple mark in the crook of his elbow. "It stops hurting after a little while."

  "I'm scared."

  "Me too, but I'll tell you a secret."

  Annie liked secrets and she scooted closer to the edge of her bed. "Okay. What is it?"

  Ben looked over her at the office where the scientists were working. When he was certain they couldn't hear, he moved to the edge of his bed to tell Annie his secret. "I'm going to kill them."

  Annie scowled at the admission. She didn't like to hear those types of secrets. "You shouldn't kill anyone." She spoke louder than Ben wanted her to and he shushed her while looking up to make sure the scientists hadn't heard.

  "They're trying to hurt us, Annie. You have to trust me on this."

  "I don't want to see anyone else get hurt. I don't like seeing that."

  "Well, you can close your eyes then, but I'm still going to kill them. I have to do it before they kill us."

  "How are you going to do it?"

  "My dad taught me how to kill things. I'm pretty good at it. He was trying to stop this plague from being released, and he trained me to help. He taught me how to kill people."

  "That's gross. My dad never taught me anything like that. He used to show my sister how to fight, but he said I was too young. All he ever told me to do was scream for help."

  "Yeah well, my dad was a dangerous guy. He was a super secret agent."

  Annie smirked in disbelief. "You're lying."

  Ben shook his head. "Oh no I'm not." He pulled a wicked looking knife out from under his pillow. It was as long as Annie's arm and three times as thick. The entire thing was made of steel and the handle looked like it belonged on a gun instead of a knife. "Do you know what this is?"

  "No."

  "It's a bone saw. Do you know why they call it that?"

  "Because it can saw through bones?" asked Annie as her lip curled in disgust.

  Ben nodded.

  "You're just trying to scare me." Annie was familiar with how boys played. Even though she didn't have a brother, some of Kim's male friends would come over and she learned very quickly that they weren't interested in playing with dolls or stuffed cats. Boys liked to lie and do dangerous things.

  Ben shook his head and looked up at the scientists. "I don't want to scare you, Annie." Then he looked back down at her. "But I might have to."

  * * *

  Billy climbed over the railing of the barge after ascending the barnacle-crusted ladder that hung down into the bay. Levon and Clyde were beneath him as he tried to silently step onto the deck.

  He spit out the vials of the Alpha-77 and then checked to make sure the syringes were still snuggly tucked into the waistband of his boxers. From what Clyde had said, these could help prevent the zombie disease from setting in, but Billy had developed a different hypothesis. He thought the vials of Alpha-77 were Doripenem, the cure that had been leaked on the radio. Clyde said the Alpha unit was made up of the children of government officials, and Reagan never mentioned being given a shot to help prevent the plague. Reagan could've been lying, but Billy dismissed that thought as soon as it came to him. The Captain had proved himself far more than he had to.

  The fall night air carried a winter chill that gusted over the deck of the barge and tried to freeze him as he vigorously rubbed his hands over his naked arms. They had disrobed to their underwear to make swimming to the surface easier, and now they would pay the price in the frigid night air.

  Billy tried to warm himself as he stared at the horrific image of more stacked coffins that covered the length of the 100-foot barge. They were quiet for now, but it would only be a matter of time before the dead inside came back to life.

  "Fuck me," said Levon as he hoisted himself over the railing and saw the extent of the graveyard on the barge.

  Billy shushed his friend. "Not so loud. These ones aren't awake yet."

  Levon started to shake his pistol off as Clyde pulled himself up over the railing.

  "What now?" Clyde was wearing a pair of tight white briefs and looked infinitely colder than either Billy or Levon. "Are we just going to sit here and wait for help?" His teeth chattered as his lips took on a blue hue.

  "What help?" asked Levon.

  Clyde looked away quickly and shrugged. "I don't know."

  Billy recognized nervousness in the paramedic's answer and he deduced the reason. "He's hoping they're able to track the truck. If we stay here, they'll come and find us because the truck is right underneath us."

  "Is he right?" asked Levon. "Are you trying to fuck us?"

  Clyde's pistol trembled in his hand as he clasped his arms over his chest in the cold. "No. I don't know anything about a tracking device on the truck. You two are paranoid."

  Levon pointed his pistol at Clyde with one hand and held out his other. "Give me your gun."

  "Are you serious?" Clyde looked back and forth between them.

  "Give it to me," said Levon again.

  Billy wasn't sure if it was because Levon was a black man, or if he was just naturally a badass, but the way he held the pistol looked even more menacing than he would've expected. Clyde relented almost immediately.

  "Fine. Take it, asshole. I saved your life down there."

  Levon took the other pistol and lowered them both down to his side. "You saved your own ass. You've got to earn my respect, kid. And all you've earned is a spot in the teeny-weenie club."

  "Fuck you," said Clyde as he pulled at his sopping wet briefs to get them to stop clinging to his skin. "It's cold as hell out here."

  "Shut up," said Billy. "Both of you. You're liable to wake the dead." He smiled and held his hand out in reference to the stacks of coffins that filled the barge.

  "Well, what's the plan?" asked Levon impatiently. "I ain't staying here all night."

  "They've got to have a few life boats on this thing." Billy started walking toward the cabin on the other end of the long barge. He looked over the side for any sign of a lifeboat.

  "I know some of them were stolen," said Clyde as he followed behind Billy with Levon in back.

  "What?"

  "When the riot started, a bunch of civies hopped up here and stole some inflatable boats with power motors on them. We can check and see if there're any more, but I don't know if they got to all of them or not."

  "What the fuck did you dildos do to piss them off so bad?" Levon continued to try and shake the water out of his pistols as he walked behind Clyde and Billy.

  "Right after the first bridge got bombed, people went ballistic. The riot started out by the trains, where people were getting loaded in, and it spread like wildfire."

  "I wonder why," said Billy.

  "What do you mean?"

  Billy glanced back at Clyde, surprised that the paramedic couldn't decipher why people got scared. "People don't generally like getting loaded onto a train to get transported to a prison while their friends and families are being bombed. How is that hard to fathom?"

  "We were trying to help."

  Levon spit on one of the plastic coffins that they walked beside. "We saw how you helped. We saw it on film."

  "What are you talking about? What new conspiracy have you cooked up this time?"

  "It's not a conspiracy," said Billy. "We watched a video of a kid getting shot dead at a mall. Your guys busted in and killed everyone in sight. They were dressed in black armor, like your team was, and not in the white hazmat suits that the Bravo team had." He turned and walked backward a few steps as he pointed at Clyde. "That was your team."

  "You must've seen it wrong. That mall was probably infected."

  "Don't tell me what I
did and didn't see, man," said Levon. "We watched that shit happen and we walked through the fucking aftermath. Your crew busted in and shot up a bunch of people before covering the place in that fucking white powder."

  "The lye?" asked Clyde in disbelief.

  "Yeah, I guess. Same shit they put all over the dead bodies in those crates."

  "Bullshit. If they covered the mall in lye, you would've known it. That shit will burn the fuck out of you if it gets wet, or gets in your eyes, or if you breath it in. Trust me, if you were walking through lye, you'd know it." Clyde dismissed their story with a wave of his hand.

  "Doesn't change what we saw," said Billy. "We watched a video of a mother and her son getting shot. Then, when we got there, the bodies were gone. Whoever got killed in that place turned into a zombie. We saw a fucking zombie that hanged himself."

  Billy stopped and Clyde bumped into him from behind. Billy turned to look at the others as he scrambled to make sense of his suspicions. "Why'd they turn into zombies?" he asked Levon.

  "How should I know? Everyone's turning into zombies these days."

  "Not unless you get bit or eat something that's been infected. Right?"

  "Who knows?" Levon shrugged. "What're you getting at?"

  "Why did the people that were killed at the mall turn into zombies, but none of these people?" He looked at the crates beside them.

  "Let's not stand around and give them time to answer your question." Clyde grimaced at the coffins as the moans of the zombies on the shore carried out over the bay.

  "No," said Billy as his eyes darted between them. "Think about it. Out on 13th Avenue, there were bodies in the street. Remember?"

  Levon nodded, "Yeah."

  "Why didn't they turn into zombies?"

  "Stop with the twenty questions, man." Levon was anxious to hear what Billy was thinking.

  "It's the powder that turns them. You have to get infected with the disease. You can catch it by eating food that's been poisoned, by getting bit or clawed up by a zombie, or by getting some of that powder put on you." He looked up at the top of the stack of coffins beside them and pointed at it. "I'd bet damn good money that these bodies don't have that fucking powder on them. That's why they're not changing."