Chapter 35
“Listen,” Billy said, “I don’t care who or what that was. It’s gone now, so there’s no reason to run away.”
“It’s not safe here,” Rebecca insisted. “We have to get out of here while we still can.”
“It’s outside and we’re inside,” Billy said. “And you want to go outside and join it?”
Rebecca pointed at the ragged whole in the wall where the creature had entered from. The entire hall was now littered with shattered wood, broken glass, and other debris. “It was outside before, and that didn’t seem to protect us, now did it? I’m telling you that we are not safe here!”
“And where do you suggest we go? Who knows what else is waiting for us.”
“If we stay here, we’re just going to get lost. And then we’ll be stuck here. Pretty soon we’re going to get hungry and tired, and before that happens, I want to be somewhere safe. If you want to stay here in this death trap, be my guest,” she said, mocking what Billy had said to her earlier. “But I’m getting out of here.”
She stormed off back down the hall toward the main lobby. Billy watched her go and clenched his teeth in frustration. Didn’t she understand that at this point, nowhere was safe? This mansion was the safest place they could possibly be. All they had to do was do some exploring until they found a secluded room without any windows, where they could barricade the door and wait out the storm. If they got tired, they could sleep in shifts. They were bound to get hungry, but what did she expect to find, a fast food restaurant next door? They were stuck here no matter what they did, because the only alternative was to go back outside, and that would be sheer stupidity. Why didn’t she understand that?
He gripped his shotgun tighter, expecting to use it very soon. As much as he wanted to just go his own way, he couldn’t let Rebecca go off on her own. It was not that he owed her anything; he had saved her life earlier and now she had saved his, so they were even. But to let her go off alone would be to let her go to her death, and he couldn’t live with that. He wondered if he could just knock her out and carry her to safety. It would be easier than arguing every step of the way. Quieter too.
By the time he followed her to the lobby, she had already climbed up the stairs and was standing by the doors directly under the huge portrait of Dr. Marcus. She gave him an annoyed look when she saw him.
“Well, are you coming?” she asked.
He trudged up the stairs and stood on the other side of the doors. “You’re impossible,” he said, racking a shell into the shotgun.
“You just don’t want to admit that I’m right.”
“Whatever. Let’s just do this.”
Rebecca opened the door and they eased their way through, finding themselves in a large room lines with rows of computer desks. At the front of the room was a projector screen and a lectern. There were no zombies inside, and they both breathed quiet sighs of relief. Rebecca led the way through the room toward the doors in the back.
Despite herself, she was glad that Billy chose to join her. There was no way she was staying in this mansion, but she didn’t really want to leave by herself. Their chances of survival increased as long as they stayed together. But she would have left even if he didn’t come with her. If faced with two bad alternatives, she would rather leave and take her chances alone than stay in this mansion and face certain death.
Didn’t Billy understand that staying here would do nothing but get them killed? Barricading themselves in some room would only turn them into sitting ducks. The zombies could just keep coming and congregate outside the door to keep them from leaving. They took plenty of ammo from the office, but it wouldn’t last forever. For all they knew, the zombies could follow them by scent. They would be trapped in a room with no food or water while anything could wait outside the door for them to come out. And the zombies could wait forever, while they could not. Why couldn’t he see that? The only way they were going to stay alive would be to keep moving. If they stopped to rest, it had to be a location with more than one entrance, so they would not be trapped there. And it had to have thick walls.
The doors at the other end of the room were already open. The lock was broken as if smashed with a hammer, but the doors themselves were undamaged. Rebecca bent down to examine part of the broken lock that had fallen to the floor, and noticed the footprints. Billy, noticing them as well, stepped back and followed the path around the room. The footprints were of bare feet, with bits of dirt and wet grass tracked across the room. They went from the door to the lectern at the front of the room, around the rows of desks to the door leading to the lobby, and then back to the rear door. They were still wet; whoever made them had just been in the room moments ago.
“It has to be the same guy,” Rebecca whispered, still kneeling on the floor.
“The one that just attacked us?”
“He had bare feet. I noticed it when he jumped off the train.”
Billy looked back at the door to the lobby. “He walked right over there. He must have heard us shooting those dogs.”
“But then he went back outside. Why would he do that? He could have just gone through the lobby if he wanted to attack us.”
Billy shook his head. “I don’t really care what his motives are. I don’t care who or what he is.”
“He didn’t attack us, Billy. He only attacked you. I was in the bathroom.”
“He must not have known you were there.”
“He didn’t attack me on the train either, and he easily could have.”
“Maybe he was too busy getting off the train to worry about you. He probably figured you would die in the crash anyway. If we had both been in that hallway, he would have attacked both of us, I’m sure of it.”
Rebecca stood back up. “I wish I knew who he was. He’s not a zombie like the others. He’s not mindless, he smashed the train’s controls on purpose.”
“He’s not a zombie, he’s something worse. You saw what he did to the walls, he practically knocked them down with his arms. And he might not be mindless, but he isn’t exactly in control of himself. He behaved like a wild animal.”
“I know, but I can’t help but wonder what made him that way.”
Rebecca opened the door and crept through, looking around outside before letting Billy follow behind her. He held the shotgun up and braced it against his shoulder, ready to pull the trigger right away. It was still dark and gloomy outside, but the moon filtering through the clouds gave just enough light to make out their surroundings. A large cement patio with a fountain in the center, and paths, now overgrown with weeds, leading into the trees in distance.
From their new vantage point, they could see that the mansion was in the shape of an L. To their left, they could see how it extended at a right angle farther to the back of the property, and to their right it seemed to end a hundred feet down. But what they noticed first was the large tower off to their right.
“What is that, a grain silo?” Billy asked.
Rebecca took a few steps so she could get a better view. “No, there’s something jutting out the top. I think it’s a big telescope.”
The tower was over two stories tall with a door on the second level leading to a balcony on the second floor of the mansion via a narrow walkway. The entrance on the ground floor was two solid metal doors lined with rust. The tower itself appeared to be built of solid cement blocks mortared in place. The structure looked curiously out of place next to the mansion, and not just because of its appearance.
“Umbrella is a pharmaceutical company,” Billy said. “Why would they have a telescope at their training center?”
“I don’t know, maybe just for their employees’ recreational use.”
Billy shook his head and went toward the tower. “If your employees want some recreation, you give them some pool tables or video games. The only people who would use a place like this would be astronomers.”
They
went to the doors and Billy slung the shotgun over his shoulder. Rebecca kept on the look out for zombies as he braced himself and pulled on the doors. The rusted edges crumbled and creaked much louder than Billy would have preferred.
“They’re stuck. They probably haven’t been opened in years.”
“Are they locked?” Rebecca asked.
“No, they give about an inch. I think they’re just stuck. Give me a hand.”
Rebecca hesitantly slid her pistol into her belt, half-expecting zombies to jump out of the bushes as soon as she did so. None did, so she gripped one door handle while Billy grabbed the other. They pulled at the same time and the doors opened a few more inches, enough for them to squeeze in between.
The interior was as dark and cold as a tomb. Billy felt along the wall for a light switch but only discovered spider webs. What little light remained outside did not filter in through the crack in the doors, and the two of them were completely blind in the pitch darkness. Rebecca slid her feet along the dusty floor and hit something. When she bent down to investigate, she found what felt like stairs. They led up to the second floor.
“I can’t find any lights,” Billy said quietly.
“I wish I hadn’t broken my flashlight,” Rebecca muttered.
“Do you have a lighter?”
“No, I don’t smoke. Actually, I just remembered that I have some flares.”
“That would work fine,” Billy said.
Rebecca knelt down and opened a small pants pouch down by her ankle. Inside were three flares about the size of a pencil. She pulled the cap off one and the tip burst into bright blue and yellow light. Rebecca and Billy both had to cover their eyes against the shining glare, and Rebecca held it above her head like a torch.
The inside of the tower was mostly featureless. A plain cement staircase with a black metal railing curved up to the second level. There were a few moldy cardboard boxes on the floor next to some old bags of fertilizer and empty metal pails, leftover gardening supplies stored here for some reason. The big surprise was the elevator in the center of the tower. There were no buttons, but there was a metal panel covering what might have been a button pad.
Worried that the light and noise might attract unwanted undead visitors, they took a moment to pull the doors closed. They took an old metal rake and slid it through the door handles, even though they doubted that the rake would really slow anyone down if they wanted to get inside.
“I think we might be safe here,” Rebecca said. “At least for now.”
Billy looked at her incredulously. “Five minutes ago, you kept going on about how we had to keep moving. And now you think it’s safe inside here?”
“We weren’t safe in the mansion, Billy,” Rebecca said, holding the flare up high and looking up the staircase. She had returned her pistol to her other hand. “I’d rather be in here than stuck in there.”
Billy looked back at the doors and for the moment, he had to agree with her. The doors were heavy and solid and opened outward, assuring them that zombies would not easily break them down. And the walls were solid cement instead of wood, so even the maniac they had fought would find it hard to break them down. And in an emergency, they could escape through the walkway upstairs back to the mansion. Billy, almost involuntarily, began coming up with plans of action based around the tower as their focal point.
Meanwhile, Rebecca headed up the stairs, leaving Billy in the dark. The second level of the tower had a tilted seat for someone to look through the telescope, which went right through an opening in the ceiling. There didn’t seem to be any way to retract the lens, and Rebecca wondered how they kept it safe from the elements. Just out of curiosity, she tried to look through it but saw nothing but black. Maybe it wasn’t turned on.
A thin glass door led outside to the walkway. Rebecca opened it and looked around. Two doors led from the mansion balcony to rooms within, but there was no other way up there. She closed it after her and went back downstairs.
“Anything useful up there?” Billy asked.
“Not really, just the telescope. Some controls and things. The door to that balcony wouldn’t be hard to break down, though.”
“Could a zombie climb up there?”
“No way. The only way to get there would be from the mansion.”
“That’s not too bad. It would be easy to defend if we had to.”
“Yeah,” Rebecca said, turning her flare away from Billy to look at the elevator behind him. “That’s funny. This elevator doesn’t go up to the second floor.” She walked past him and touched the metal panel. On the underside, she noticed a small keyhole.
“You mean this goes underground?” Billy asked.
“I guess so. I wonder why.” Rebecca handed Billy the flare, which by now had burned halfway down. She fished her pocket knife out of a supply pouch and extended the blade. Sticking it up under the panel, it did not take long to pry it back enough to bend it out of the way with her hand. Underneath was a number pad, dust free thanks to the panel.
“Well, that rules out that idea,” Billy said, disappointed. “Unless you magically know the code to get inside.”
“I could probably figure it out. Do you want me to try?” Rebecca asked.
“How could you figure it out?”
Rebecca went back to her supply pouch and took out a small plastic case. Inside was fine black powder and a tiny brush. Rebecca wiped the number pad with the brush. The powder stuck to five of the numbers.
“I thought you were a medic,” Billy said. “Why do you have a fingerprint case?”
Rebecca shrugged and stuck the case back in the pouch. “I guess I like to be prepared.”
“Got any zombie repellent in that supply belt of yours?”
“Very funny.”
The fingerprint powder stuck to the numbers five through nine. Since the keypad had been covered and protected from dust and the elements, the numbers still held the residue from the last time they had been pressed, years before. Rebecca wasn’t interested in the fingerprints themselves, she just wanted to know which ones had been pressed.
“Five, six, seven, eight, nine?” Billy suggested with a smile.
If for no other reason than to annoy Billy, Rebecca pressed them in the opposite order, and the elevator beeped satisfactorily. The doors slid open, ripping apart the cobwebs that covered them, and the light in the elevator compartment turned on.
“Well?” Rebecca asked. “That was simple enough.”
“Do you want to go down to wherever this leads?” Billy asked.
“Sure, do you?”
Billy thought about it for a moment. “The way I look at it, if this is some special entrance to an underground lab or something, how could any zombies make their way down there? It’s probably safer down there than it is up here.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rebecca said, and with that she walked inside.
Billy followed her inside. As the elevator doors closed, he looked at her and said, “You know, I was just being sarcastic.”