Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 116

30 Minute Plan - 10

Danton planted his foot on Ziggy's face and slid his machete out of its skull. Some poor sap who'd been a hobo in the before; life hadn't dealt him a heavy enough blow—no, he had to come back as a flesh-eater.

 

It was unusually quiet. Danton hadn't even so much as run into a straggler. Stragglers were ziggies that had fallen away from their pack. They didn't last too long. A pack had a collective intelligence. They tended to avoid things like large bodies of water or buildings on the verge of collapse. A straggler would walk right into an open manhole. Or maybe it would run into a single.

 

Danton was amazed to learn the brutal hierarchy in the Ziggy community. Singles wouldn't bother packs, wouldn't bother other singles, but if they found a straggler… Danton's mind floated back to the ziggy he just slayed. A straggler. Either he'd gotten separated from his pack or maybe something Cargill had said rang true.

 

The smell of burning wood chips was still in the air, but more faint. If there was this new pack that had been scent-marked by someone could it be attacking other packs? What if someone had figured a way to put these higher-thinking ziggies into packs?

 

He shuddered at the thought. A pack that had the mental capacity to problem solve might be just this side of unstoppable.

 

Danton hoped Cargill wasn't in his right mind. That maybe he could just put the man down and find safety again.

 

"Cargill, you there?" Danton said into his com. After a moment he heard a few clicks. Morse code.

 

"T-A-L-K-L-A-T-E-R," came the reply. He wondered if that pack was close by.

 

"P-O-S-I-T-I-O-N?" he signaled back to him.

 

He knew the base could hear, that there were at least a dozen dogs who knew Morse code, but he had to try.

 

"U-N-V-R-S-T-Y-A-N-D-D-A-L-E."

 

"University and Dale," Danton said. That was less than a half mile from here. Less than two hours he could be there. But how far would they have traveled by then?

 

And would he run into whatever hobo-man's pack had run into?

30 Minute Plan - 9

He was risking his neck to save one of his own. No way had he gone this far just to draw down on another dog. He had to get away quick before someone came after him and started shooting.

 

Danton could feel their eyes on him. Someone whisper-shouted and he turned and waved them off. A few more feet and he would be clear.

 

"Danton! It was Danton!"

 

Boyle. Dammit.

 

He took off running and a moment later heard a bullet whiz off somewhere in the distance. He rounded the corner and was clear momentarily. His camo was bright enough to make out in the weak moonlight, but he gambled that if he got at least fifty yards away they wouldn't pursue.

 

The bag!

Dammit!

 

There was no turning back now. If they wouldn't have executed him before, they certainly would now. Danton was AWOL and the first rule after the dogs had organized after the apocalypse was deserters got shot in the face. There was no explaining that he just wanted to see Cargill put down right, that he wasn't really abandoning the base.

 

He was as dead as if Ziggy was chomping on his arm right now.

 

If he'd actually thought about what he was doing he probably wouldn't have gotten into this mess. His superior officers had often told him he was a good soldier, but he needed to use his head more. Maybe if he'd tried he could have convinced them to send him out to find Cargill. Hell, maybe they would have sent him with someone. Who knew what scientific data could have been gathered?

 

All that made perfect sense. Now.

 

"Might as well finish this mistake."

 

He turned in the direction where Cargill's lemony ziggies had been circling for the last three weeks. That was the thing about packs. They tended to circle several times before changing direction and circling elsewhere. He hoped they hadn't changed yet.

Keeping low, Danton started a light jog with a machete in his hand, wondering where the smell of burning wood was coming from.

30 Minute Plan - 8

He got his clothes back on and was washing his hands before he'd even thought about it. In a few moments he'd be running for cover from Ziggy if not battling him outright. He doubted Ziggy would point him for poor hygiene.

 

Danton opened the door and was surprised to see the back of Boyle's bald head. The head brain spun around and stared at him with a dumbfounded look.

 

"I think someone broke in," the old man said. Danton wanted to burst his bubble so badly, but he felt an equal amount of panic. He was caught, but he was the only one who knew it. Danton was the only one who knew about that pane, so they were thinking someone had broken in. No one had thought yet somebody was trying to break out.

 

"What?" Danton fixed a worried expression on his face. He was worried too; afraid he was about to be caught. He wanted to run back to his room and hide. Forget about Cargill, forget about the big bag of guns, he just wanted to be safe. But he knew he was past the point of no return. As soon as Boyle had gotten over his own fear he'd analyze the situation. Like one of his experiments, he would take the known facts and apply them to several theories. Which over one filtered true would be the one he'd believe.

 

Those eyes had contained nothing but fear, but they were constantly recording. He'd seen everything Danton had had on and upon future reflection would know it was him and not some straggler who'd found a way inside.

 

Danton brushed past the brain and went into the room. The light was on and a half dozen dogs were standing around apprizing the situation.

 

"What are you doing?" Eddies asked as he stood up on the copier and peeked out the window.

 

"Looking to see if Ziggy's around."

 

"We need to figure out how to patch this window up. Whoever broke in here, if he's still here, dropped it on the floor. Woke the whole place up. I see you came ready."

 

Danton looked down and saw the plexi-glass section split in two jagged halves. That would have made a loud sound. He gave his forehead a mental slap. The restroom was soundproofed—of course he wouldn't have heard it.

 

"Hey, why are you wearing all that stuff?" Groome asked. "I only brought my sidearm."

 

"I was already awake." Danton shimmied his way up. He was going to have to play this fast. Any minute it was going to start clicking what he was really up to. "I'm just going to see if anyone is around."

 

"Danton, get back here," Eddies said, but his legs slipped out after him and he planted his feet on the ground and stood.

 

"I'll be right back. Don't worry."

30 Minute Plan - 7

Danton made his way down the hall to the storage room. He felt giddy for just a moment—he was actually going to make it. He slid into the dark room and zigzagged around bulky sheet-covered pieces of equipment and furniture, heading for the loose panel. A slice of moon shone through and at first it wouldn't budge. Panic clenched his gut, but then the window slid and inch, then another. A thin column of cool air lapped his face and he pulled the pane the rest of the way out, resting it in the opening.

 

It was a tight fit at first, but he finally managed to shove the duffel outside. He was about to climb on top of whatever machine was pushed against the wall when he felt pressure in his bowels.

 

Uh-oh.

 

"Of all the times—"

 

Danton knew he shouldn't complain. It would be far better for him to go now than after he got outside. Number One and number Two attracted Ziggy. Big time. He didn't know if it was because on some instinctual level Ziggy knew living things needed to do that or if that were literally attracted to urine and feces. Sure he'd never seen one eat a deuce before, but…

 

He drummed his fingers on the wall, wondering if he should go through all the trouble of putting the pane back just to remove it again. Danton doubted he could pull the duffel back inside and it would be risky leaving it out there. Now he'd have to worry about a scavenger.

He checked his watch. It was a little after three. Grant would be up in a half hour. Had to hurry. Danton made his way back to the door, peaked out and crossed the hall to the restroom. He went into the stall, not bothering to lock it and quickly removed several weapons from his belt so he could get his pants down.

 

Shouldn't have messed with that chili, he thought.

 

When he finished he reached back and flushed.

 

"Dammit!" he whispered. That would have been just enough noise to wake somebody. He stood as quietly as he could and listened. There wasn't anyone out there so far as he could hear.

30 Minute Plan - 6

***

When Danton felt stubborn enough he moved fast. At two the next morning he was in the arsenal, zipping up a duffelful of weapons. It was about to be shock and awe time. He had his sidearm in his hip and a half dozen magazines in his belt and twin machetes crisscrossed on his back for when the guns went out. He even had a grenade on his belt loop. If he ever had to go on the thirty minute plan he would take a hell of a lot ziggies down first.

 

Now came the hard part: getting out of here with all this.

 

Danton peaked out into the hall. Nelson was on patrol tonight and likely half inside a bottle and/or asleep. But the doors were all alarmed now that Ziggy had successfully broken inside. Danton had to find a way out without setting off the alarm and without leaving an opening for Ziggy to get in. Despite all the lemon and strawberry-scented zombies that weren't eating people anymore there were singles about and they were more dangerous than a single zig from a pack in close quarters. Singles were smarter and more adept at catching people. Danton would be outside in the dark, meaning he'd have to use a flashlight. Singles were zoom in on the light.

 

He was past the mess hall when he heard someone's slippered feet slapping on the linoleum floor. Danton ducked around a corner and held his breath as Hargrove, another brain, yawned and came out with a fruit cup. Hargrove was a sleepeater. The pudgy man shambled right past him like he was invisible.

 

Packs were like that sometimes. That's why they were easy to avoid. It's the singles you had to worry about. They wouldn't just shuffle past. If you hid behind a car they tended to look around. A lot of them could even open doors. Danton would rather come up against a pack any day.

 

There was a row of plexi-glass windows in a room they'd converted to storage not long after they'd moved everyone in this building. In the early days there was a tremendous amount of shelling going on in every major city. Humans had probably killed more of their own than Ziggy did. Danton had noticed one of the panes was a little loose. It'd be a tight fit, but he could manage his way through. Unlike a lot of the other dogs, he'd maintained himself and he should be able to shimmy his hundred sixty-two pound frame through.

 

The tricky part would be when he removed the pane. He'd have to do everything in the dark and if Ziggy was right there he and everyone else would be done for. The storage room locked, but from the inside. There'd be no problem with them getting in the main corridor and once that happened everyone would be dead.

30 Minute Plan - 5

"What?" Boyle said, addressing Danton directly. "The rain? It hasn't done that in well over a month—well before we began our own experiment. And if it were any other natural phenomena I imagine it would have manifested well before now. There is no legitimate explanation for this, Danton. There is no 'something else' unless you have some factor none of our dwindling scientific community has considered and would like to posit that theory now."

 

Danton didn't. Mary coughed behind him. Like she was covering up a laugh. His cheeks burned.

 

"I know what it is." Kenton stood up and stretched his long body. Everyone turned to him. He was a civvie too, but most people thought he was pretty smart. "Cargill's wrong. Whatever he's smellin' is wrong. Hell, how do we know that lemon stuff he got on him didn't affect his brain?  How do we know the zigs didn't turn him and that stuff somehow preserve his brain and he's trying to lure us out or something?"

 

Boyle nodded. Danton looked around, everyone seemed to agree.

 

"Cargill," Boyle said into the com. "Have you noticed any changes with your own body?"

 

"You mean other than being tired as hell? I haven't slept in four days. This other

pack—"

 

"Yes-yes, Cargill, we'll come to that in a moment, but about you…" Boyle looked around as if trying to pull his question from the air. "Have you had any scratches, bites, cuts, scrapes—anything?"

 

"No, man, I'm fine except for my aching tootsies."

 

More nervous laughter.

 

"I think Kenton has a point. We can't trust anything Cargill says. But I don't think we can disregard it on the off-chance he isn't infected. For now he's considered compromised."

People were nodding. What was worse was other dogs were nodding too. This wasn't right. If Cargill was got—and that was a big if—then they owed it to him to put him down. Maybe he hadn't been able to go on the 30 minute plan, but that didn't mean they could just leave him that way. If Boyle thought he was an idiot, fine, but he was an idiot who wasn't about to let a brother be lumped in with Ziggy.

 

If Cargill was got he would do him himself. That probably meant sneaking out and never making it back. Danton knew that wasn't smart, but his mind was set. Besides, he was pissed Boyle had embarrassed him. Danton didn't know anything about calculated threats, and risk assessments, but he was going to go out there and find Cargill. It would be worth it to prove that brain wrong.

 

Unless Boyle called him 'compromised' too.

 

For half a second Danton thought he was fixing to make a mistake.

 

Then he imagined he was stomping on that lizard part of his brain, the coward part of him would never win. Never. He was going.

30 Minute Plan - 4

"Can you make it back to base?"

 

"Uh, that's a negative, sir."

 

"You said you are in a pack. Just to be specific—are you in a pack of zombies?"

 

"That's affirmative, sir. Ziggy is in the house."

 

Danton chuckled. He heard a couple others.

 

"Cargill—tell me, other than accepting you into the group, have you noticed any other altered behaviors?"

 

There was patch of static and when it cleared he was saying, "—over on the hill. They've been following us."

 

"I'm sorry, Cargill, you broke up a moment. Who's following your group?"

 

"Another pack. A large one. They smell like—"

 

"Come again. They smell like what?"

 

"Wood chips. Dammit, they smell like wood chips."

 

Boyle fixed his mouth as if he were about to repeat what Cargill had said. He was confused.

 

"I don't understand," he said to himself.

 

"What's not to understand?" Klingerman said. He was a civilian. Could run like hell and cleave the hell out of a ziggy skull. "He said they smelled like wood chips. So what?"

 

"Well, none of our boys was equipped with a spray with that scent."

 

"So somebody else is doing it," someone Danton couldn't see chimed in.

 

"Some other group of scientists," Mary said. She was seated next to him. Danton used to dig her until he found out she was into chicks. Now he was just about ravenous when he looked at her. He forced himself to keep facing forward.

 

"No," Boyle said. "Not possible. We're the only facility capable of any such things in at least a hundred mile radius. Any scientist wouldn't have ventured this far to experiment. The danger from traveling all the way here and traveling all the way back to their lab to monitor their subjects would have been too great.

 

"So it was something else." Danton made it sound like a statement, hoping he sounded smart for Mary. The chick she got down with was one of the brains.

Part 3

The idea popped into my head not that long ago for the opening page to the third story in the TGT series.  I already had the vaguest of ideas, but my intention had always been to keep it that way until I'd finished TGO (The Golden Ones).  I just had to write this, though.  I'm not going to try to write both at the same time, that would just be insane, but I had to capture at least this part.

30 Minute Plan - 3

Ziggy was knocking at the door less than five minutes after he and Danton had made it back. Except this time they were more insistent. Much more. Like they knew these people had something that belonged to them. And they wanted it really bad.

 

Cargill had taken point when they burst through. He'd taken down four or five when the first set of hands had grabbed him. He could have fallen back, but Danton had seen it in his eyes before they came back in. He was dull too. That was the real reason he'd gotten that lemon crap on himself.

 

But another odd thing happened: they took him. Not took him and ate him, but took him. Dragged him outside and went about their business. Cargill had fought all the way, but with only his fists and that big knife of his there was only so much he could do to Ziggy.

 

First order of business had not been to pursue and recover. First order of business was to secure the perimeter. The risk of leaving those doors open and another pack of ziggies waltzing in was too great. God be with Cargill, but he was on his own. Danton hoped he was big enough to slit his own throat or punch that blade into his own heart.

 

Danton chuckled when his com squawked and Cargill's voice whispered, "I'm still alive."

He couldn't have been. Ziggy could have eaten him ten times over in the two weeks he was gone. They had him. Even if he could have fought his way free he would have been bitten at least a dozen times. There was no way he was upright still.

 

"Who is this?" Kent barked.

 

"It's me, sir. Cargill."

 

"Cargill's dead, son. If this is some kind of joke I don't find it—"

 

"No joke." The man claiming to be Cargill rattled off a series of identification numbers. It really was him. Danton smirked. Maybe Ziggy had learned to speak.

 

"H-how are you…"

 

"I don't know, but Ziggy hasn't made a move on me. At least the ones in my pack."

The lemon-scented ones, Danton thought.

 

"They smashed my com when they took me, but other than a few bumps and scrapes I'm still upright. I found another soldier. Not sure who—there wasn't that much left of him. But I took his com."

 

"What have you been eating?" Dr. Boyle asked into Kent's com.

 

"You don't wanna know, sir."

30 Minute Plan - 2

Even without a face, Danton could identify him. The body had that stupid engagement ring on the pinky finger. Danton had told him several times there was no point in him carrying that flame. Either his girl was leftovers or she was boning some other studly who was keeping her safe.

 

The canister was by his side still, unused. Like he'd just stood there and let them take him.

Except, they hadn't eaten anything BUT his brain. Ziggy was weird like that sometimes. Despite the thickness of the skull they really could get to your brain. Bones in the face were thinner, more fragile. If a particular ziggy had enough think left in him he could stomp your face in just the right way to lift it right off your head. And then it was hors d'oeuvres for everybody.

 

Danton scooped up the canister and drew his weapon. A pack was just up the street.

 

"Hey!" he called. They all turned with the exact same stupid look on their faces. Ziggy's version of surprise. Danton walked up to them and had gotten within ten feet before he started spraying. He noticed one of them had red-tipped fingers and shot it in the head. It fell to its knees like a whore with a new twenty dollar bill and slumped over.

 

"What was that?" somebody said over the com. "Dammit, I said not to destroy any of them."

 

"It's Tookes," Danton said. "They got him." He tossed his glock aside. They were given only one bullet for themselves in case they needed it.

 

"Well you still shouldn't be shooting. You could simply spray Lieutenant Tookes as well."

 

"No can do, sir." The dogs had all made a vow amongst each other that if Ziggy took them down someone would take one of them down to even the score. Officially, Danton knew another dog was explaining to the brain on the com that a dog wouldn't abide his brother being turned.

 

"Just get back here as soon as you can."

 

It sounded like Boyle himself.

 

This pack did the same thing as the last when he finished the canister. They turned and headed in the direction they'd been going before he came. Was this stuff Ziggy repellent?

He'd met up with Cargill just before they made it back to base. They nodded to each other.

 

Cargill stunk of lemon.

 

"I slipped on some kid's skull," he'd said, looking at his yellow-tinged hands.