Zocopalypse (Death Fields 1)

While Walker latches the viewing room door back to the lab from the inside, Richardson removes the shade on the window. Wyatt and Chloe are both sitting silently in their clear cages. A Drone hovers around his station. The dark rings under her eyes make it clear she hasn’t slept. Similar signs point to Wyatt being exhausted as well, but he’s also hyper alert. There’s no way he won’t get out of this without a fight.

“Have they been injected yet?” Cole asks.

“We won’t know until we’ve got them out of there,” Walker replies. She moves to the opposite door and punches in a code as well as scans her fingerprints.

“So we’re just going to take a liability out of here?” I ask. “What if they infect us all before we figure it out? Wyatt is lethal without the amped up Eater juice.”

“The risk will be worth the reward, Ramsey,” Richardson says before turning on his heel. “Follow me.”

We file through the door into a narrow hallway. Richardson leads this time, motioning for us to follow. Three doorways line the wall and he stops in front of them. They’re marked A, B and Tech Only: Do Not Enter.

“Obviously we aren’t following these rules?” Cole asks.

“A and B lead to the confinement area Wyatt and Chloe are being held. The Tech room is our problem. If they’re alerted that this is going on they’ll call down to security.”

“So how do we deal with that?” I ask. “Zip tie him too?”

A door opens further down the hall. My hand reaches instinctively for my gun and I see the others have also moved to a defensive position. The person has the slender build of a woman, dressed head to toe in the standard blue lab outfit. A black backpack hangs off her shoulder. I’m still concerned until she says, “You bitches ready?”

Walker’s shoulders relax and she reaches for the bag, looping it over her shoulders. “This is how we deal with it. Meet Miranda. Our undercover tech.”

“Our?” Cole asks incredulously. “Who exactly do you all work for?”

“Not Erwin,” Walker says, again checking her watch. “Ten minutes.”

“

The truck is ready,” Miranda says slipping past us. She signs in her code to enter the tech room and disappears without another word.

Walker turns to face us. “She’s going to manage the room from the inside. If necessary she’ll overpower the other tech. We have to get those two out while we can.”

I’m more anxious than I’ve been in months—even before the whole world-falling-apart thing started. How did I get to this place? I’ve got a gun in my hand and I’m rescuing people I don’t know very well along with people I don’t trust at all. Oh, and we’re trying to escape the relative safety of the base to go back out into a world filled with cannibalistic monsters.

Nothing about this life makes sense.

“Ramsey, you’re with me,” Richardson says. He nods at Cole. “You go with Walker.”

“Got it.”

Richardson opens door A and we duck inside. It’s really just the back of the cage. Wyatt jumps to his feet when he spies Richardson, hands and feet poised to fight.

“Thank God,” he says, relief washing over his features. He quickly performs some sort of complicated bro-handshake with Richardson. “I thought I was going to have to break out of here on my own.”

I peek out from behind the soldiers hulking frame. “You know each other?”

Wyatt breaks out a wide smile when he sees me, eyes roaming over my body, like he’s checking me out. I squirm but notice he stops on the bruised insides of my arms. He takes my hand and rubs his fingers over the swollen flesh. With a sharp shake of his head he mutters, “Assholes. Using you as their personal pin cushion.”

Movement behind Wyatt catches my eye and through the clear box I spot Miranda. She shouts at the Drone—her words indistinguishable through the thick plastic cage. He makes a move, tipping over a tray of instruments blocking Miranda’s path. Diving over the mess, she races across the room, chasing the Drone. She’s not fast enough and he manages to pull a lever near the door. A shrill alarm tears through the base.

“Holy shit,” I cry covering my ears. The sound echoes off the cinderblock walls.

“Run!” Richardson yells and we all rush out the door and back into the hallway. The twins and Walker are impatiently waiting but break into a run when they spot us. Everyone quickly outpaces me and I feel Walker’s hand on my back, shoving me along.

“The Drone pulled the alarm,” I shout to Walker trying to keep up. The days of blood loss have depleted my energy, but one look at Chloe’s thin arms and legs tells me they were at least feeding me better.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Walker yells over the alarm. She glances over my shoulder and curses under her breath. I start to look back but it’s not necessary. I hear the heavy boots, scuffling against the cement floor. Security has arrived.

Richardson gets us through the next door, which leads directly into a narrow stairwell—the only direction is up. My suspicions about being underground this whole time hit home. Of course with the world falling apart underground may be the safest place to be.