Season of Rot

One

Warren snuck a glance through the boards covering the living room window. The dead were everywhere, at least three dozen of them wandering up and down the street in search of their next meal. He doubted very much that they would find one. They didn’t seem intelligent enough to search the houses on their own, and the monster wasn’t here to lead them anymore.

The thing had just up and left an hour ago after it had guided the dead into the Petersons’ home. Warren supposed it had thought they were the last ones hiding on this street, and he was glad the thing was gone. The dead he could deal with, but that monster had been something beyond his comprehension.

It was what they called a demon, and it looked like a rat, with four razor-sharp primary teeth and beady black eyes that reflected moonlight, only the thing stood on two legs, seven feet tall. Just like a man, though there was nothing human about it. It reminded him of some kind of fairy-tale demon. He could’ve sworn it had hissed in frustration when it left the neighborhood without prey.

“Daddy,” Emily said, placing her tiny hand on Warren’s hip.

He looked down into her sad blue eyes. “What is it, honey?”

“Mommy wants you to come back to the basement.”

Warren nodded. He picked up his P-90 from where he’d propped it near the window and followed his daughter downstairs into the candlelit room. As he entered, he made sure to shut and lock the heavy door behind him.

Jessica was staring at him, her green eyes bloodshot from a seemingly endless flood of tears that she cried every time they managed to get Emily asleep.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Warren said. “The dead can’t get in here and that thing is gone. It’s not up there now. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Emily wandered over to Jessica, who scooped her up. Warren could tell Jessica wanted to scream at him for locking them into this tiny basement to die, but she was holding her tongue for their daughter’s sake.

“The worst of it’s over,” Warren tried to assure her. “It’s just a matter of time until the dead wander off and we can make a break for it.”

Jessica nodded, trying to force a smile.

A scratching sound filled the room.

Warren frowned. “What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know,” Jessica said. “It started while you were upstairs. It starts up and then dies down every few minutes.”

“Why didn’t you come and get me before now?” Warren asked, holding in his rage.

“I… I think it’s coming from behind the washer,” Emily said. “It’s not the monsters trying to get in, is it, daddy?”

“No, I don’t think so. The monsters are all up on the street.” Warren moved over to the washing machine and slid it away from the wall. The second he did, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. The whole section of wall behind it had been scratched away, and a mass of rats came pouring into the basement.

“Oh God!” Jessica yelled.

Warren sprayed the rats with his P-90 on instinct, and the gun boomed in the small space. He fought helplessly to stop the rodents, realizing that he was the only thing standing between them and his family. Trying to get a better aim at their center mass, he backed away from the wall and smashed one of the rats beneath his heavy boot. Emily squealed behind him and Jessica cried out in pain as the rats raced their way up her legs, eating holes into her flesh as they went.

“No!” Warren screamed.

And then the walls gave way and the entire room flooded with rats, so many that he drowned in them as their teeth ripped and tore into his skin.

Warren awoke in a shower of glass as a bullet blew out the window above his head. At first he could feel the rats all around him, but he managed to shake off the nightmare as he rolled from the car’s backseat onto the floorboard, taking his M-16 with him. His family had died long ago, but he was still alive and wasn’t going to die if he could help it.

“What the hell is going on?” he shouted, not quite ready to hazard a look outside.

Matt slammed into the side of the car near the shattered window. He was panting and nearly out of breath. Warren glared up at him, silently demanding an explanation. Outside the car, the gunfire had stopped.

“Are you okay, sir?” Matt managed to ask.

Warren stepped out of the car and, brushing chunks of glass off his clothing, took a look around. The sun was just beginning to stir in the morning clouds. Jenkins and Scott stood out in the field, well beyond the camp perimeter. Behind Warren, inside the large circle of vehicles which made up the convoy, the camp was a flurry of activity as people started their day. Clearly, they weren’t under attack, which left Warren more than a bit pissed off at the rude awakening. Only a single body lay between him and his men in the field.

“Jenkins didn’t mean to, sir,” Matt said, sensing Warren’s anger. “I was relieving them from their watch and somehow one of the dead slipped—”

Warren started marching towards the two men in the field, and Matt fell in behind him without another word.

“Mornin’, boss,” Jenkins said, grinning. Scott stood at his side, looking like a child who knew he was about to be dragged to the principal’s office for a spanking. “You sleep well?”

Warren punched him, and Jenkins staggered backwards, spitting out a bloody tooth. He recovered quickly, but not fast enough to dodge the butt of Warren’s rifle; it hammered his stomach, and he collapsed to his knees.

Warren shoved the barrel of his M-16 into Jenkins’s face. “I’m only going to ask you once. What the fuck happened?”

Before Jenkins could reply, Scott said, “One of the dead was headed into camp. We didn’t see it until it was long past us. Jenkins took it out, but he missed with his first shot. It took two to hit it.”

Warren gritted his teeth. He had lost count of how many times he’d given this same talk to the sentries. “Didn’t I teach you that if it was only one or two or a handful, you reposition yourself between them and the convoy before you start shooting? The things are too damn slow to be a threat in small numbers.”

Scott and Matt nodded, but Jenkins spit another mouthful of blood onto the ground and looked up at Warren as if ready to tear out the man’s throat with his bare hands. “I got the fucker, didn’t I? Isn’t that what counts?”

“And you nearly got me in the process. If your shot had been a bit lower, we would not be having this conservation and the convoy would be another man down. There are so few of us left already, do you really want to see somebody else die from you being stupid? I, for one, have seen enough death to last me a lifetime.”

Jenkins didn’t answer. He got to his feet and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You’ll be more careful next time,” Warren informed him, then glanced at Matt. “You sure that corpse is the only one?”

“Pretty sure. The gunfire will draw any more in the area to us, but I don’t think we’re in any danger. This area was mostly deserted even before the rats.”

“Jenkins, stay with him. You’re going to be pulling double duty today. Scott, go and get some rest. If any of you need me, I’ll be trying to find some damn breakfast before the next round of shit hits the fan.” Warren turned to look toward camp.

Almost fifty vehicles, ranging from a beat-up Dodge Shadow to a tank and two APCs, formed the defensive circle around what could be the last of the human race. There were less than one hundred and fifty people in the convoy, but right now that small number seemed like a whole city to him. Every one of them had their own tales of loss and grief. No one had escaped the horror that had swept over the world like wildfire, and yet they continued on. Just like him, he guessed, they were too stubborn to die. Maybe it was just the survival instinct, or maybe it was some last spark of hope that kept them going.

Warren had lost everything he’d ever cared about, and he would never find a new life for himself—he accepted that. He had been a solider before Hell rose up and spilled out over the earth, and he was still a soldier now. He had a job to do, and he was damn well determined to keep these folks alive for a shot at the future.

Inside the camp, families were eating breakfast together. People were trading goods and services. Gerald and his crew were working on one of the older trucks in an attempt to keep it viable. Not a single person appeared to have been bothered by Jenkins’s shots. And why would they be? Warren wondered. The roaming dead were as much a part of everyday life as living on the run. It was simply safer to be on the road and moving. The convoy had the arms and manpower to handle any number of the dead or rats short of a massive wave, and that was an unlikely thing to encounter here in the middle of nowhere. The rats were the real danger, and because of them, putting down roots was like signing your own death warrant. The rodents had a tendency to show up on your doorstep, and they always found a way to get inside. They liked enclosed places where their prey had nowhere to run.

“Boss?” Scott asked.

Warren tore himself from his thoughts. “What?”

“Are we moving out today?”

Warren forced a smile, trying to make a joke of his answer. “Don’t know. I would guess so. We’ve been here too long already. We stay much longer and the rats may try to make a go for it.”

Scott laughed.

Warren shook his head, wishing he were joking, then made his way toward camp.

Sitting in the command APC, Mike took a sip of the instant coffee in his cup, essentially swill warmed by one of the campfires. People these days loved fires. He imagined they thought the flames might keep the rats away—they just didn’t or couldn’t understand how intelligent the pests had become.

No one knew how or why it happened. In the beginning, there were only a few scattered reports of rats attacking people, lost in the whirlwind of disasters on the nightly news. It wasn’t until a massive swarm of rats consumed every tenant living in a large apartment building in New York that people started to notice. Even then, the changes in the rat species were far overshadowed by the walking dead. As the corpses swept across the nation, eating everyone in their path, the authorities told people either to stay in their homes and wait for help or travel to one of the safe houses set up by FEMA and their ilk; the general population followed the advice and unwittingly gift-wrapped themselves for the rats. Rising up from the cellars and basements, or in some cases just pouring through windows, the rats devoured everyone they found. Humanity had lost the war before it ever began.

It wasn’t at all like the movies. If you were bitten by a dead person, you didn’t contract some virus or disease and become one of them. The dead were merely the tools of their rodent masters, foot soldiers to a greater power. However, if a rat bit you, you did rise again when you died. The disease gestated until the death of its host, after which it rewired the host’s brain to carry out the will of the rats. Scientists suspected it was some kind of evolutionary glitch, something new the rats secreted when they bit someone, something that acted like a virus but wasn’t. It made the dead into cattle for the rats, both a food supply and a mindless herd. The scientists theorized endlessly on the cause—at least until the demons showed up.

Mike shuddered as he thought about it and thanked God the demons were small in number, even now, five months after the world had crumbled into Hell.

Mike set down his coffee on the APC’s dashboard and started crunching the numbers in his head again. Any way he looked at it, they were pretty much screwed if they didn’t reach the base soon, and they would need to raid another town if they were going to keep going at all.

Mike turned and gazed out the passenger window to see Warren staring back at him. “How long have you been standing there?” Mike asked as he climbed out of the vehicle.

Warren showed him two rows of tobacco-stained teeth. “Long enough to see from the look on your face things are worse than I thought.”

“You’re too good at your job, Warren.”

“How’s that?”

“We have too many people and not nearly the food or fuel we need to keep moving. If it hadn’t been for you and your men, most of us would be dead by now.”

Warren grunted. “I could go shoot some people at random if you like.”

Mike chuckled, though a part of him wondered if Warren was serious. “No, really. We need fuel, Warren. Most of the vehicles are running on fumes.”

“You sure this place we’re headed to is worth all the trouble, Mike?”

“I’m sure. With a few modifications, the rats will never be able to get inside unless we let them in. This place is solid. I only hope the military isn’t waiting on us there. They may not be too friendly, but I can tell you, the place should be stockpiled with enough supplies to keep us alive and safe for years. It’ll give us time to figure out how to beat the little bastards once and for all.” After a short pause, he said, “But in order to get there, we’ll have to make another raid. It’s the only option.”

“We lost a hell of a lot of good men last time, boss.”

“I know.” Mike grabbed his map from the APC and rolled it out on the hood. He pointed out three hand-drawn circles. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought during the four days we’ve been camped, and these, I think, are our safest targets.”

Warren studied the map. “Jericho is out. That place is overrun, you can bet on it. And Livingston… I wouldn’t want to take a team that far from the convoy.”

“Well then, I guess Greensburg is the target,” Mike conceded.

“Yep, but the convoy’s been here too long. We’ll have to risk moving as we hit it. Divide up what fuel is left so you guys can get on the road while my team is gone.” Warren placed a finger on the map. “I say we move the whole convoy here, somewhere closer to Greensburg but not too close, maybe around the Jones Creek area. I want to be able to hightail it back to you as quick as possible if there’s trouble on either end.”

“Okay. That’s settled. I’ll make the announcement and we should be able to make Jones Creek by nightfall if we hurry… But you should know there’s no room for failure in Greensburg. If you return without the fuel, it’s over.”

Warren nodded and went off to gather his team for the job.

Michelle sat up, pushing the sleeping bag off her. She clasped her hands and stretched them high above her head as her long blond hair spilled over her shoulders.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” Benji said. He handed her a bowl of oatmeal, which he had just taken off the fire. “Looks like we’re having your favorite again.”

Michelle made a disgusted face and reluctantly took the bowl. “It stopped being my favorite a long time ago. Any chance you have some eggs and bacon?”

“We might if you started sleeping around for it,” he joked. She was his sister, but he wasn’t blind to the fact that most men in the convoy would give almost anything to wake up beside her. Michelle wasn’t thin but she wasn’t chubby either, one of those biological marvels that filled out perfectly in all the right places. Her blond hair and blue eyes were an added bonus.

Unfortunately for the men of the convoy and Benji’s stomach, she was also a tomboy, if that term could be applied to someone slightly past twenty-five years old; she had fought more than her fair share of the dead, and had kept her brother on this side of the grave all by herself until they’d stumbled upon the convoy. But even then, she wasn’t content to just sit back. She’d joined Warren’s team of soldiers as fast as she could and began to train under Warren himself.

“Don’t mess with me this early in the morning, little brother, or I might have to beat the shit out of you,” she said.

Benji feigned shock. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Just because you’re gay doesn’t make you a lady, Benji, and the glasses aren’t going to save you either if you keep screwing around with me.” Michelle laughed and plunged a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth.

Benji fished a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lit up.

Michelle waved angrily at the cloud of secondhand smoke. “I thought you didn’t have any of those left.”

“So did I,” Benji replied. “I had some luck last night and won nearly a full pack off that redneck you work with.”

“Jenkins? How the hell did you end up playing cards with him?”

“Don’t know. He just decided to join the game last night at Mike’s. Had a run of bad luck and kept going like he couldn’t stand to lose to the little queer guy.”

“Don’t fuck around with him, Benji, I mean it. The guy’s on the edge.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “He’s harmless. It’s your damn boss that gives me the creeps. That guy not only redefines the term bad ass, but the word cold too.”

“Warren’s okay.”

“How would you know, sis?” Benji grinned. “I haven’t met anyone in this convoy who knows anything about the man other than he was some kind of elite soldier or something. So is there something you’d like to share with me, or…?”

Michelle shrugged. “He’s okay, Benji. He’s the kind of guy you trust. That’s all I know.”

“Better you than me, I guess.” Benji set down his already empty bowl. “It’s going to be a busy day, sis. They just finished making the announcement that we’re moving out.”

“Shit.” Michelle laughed. “I was just beginning to break in the patch of dirt I’ve been sleeping on.”

After the announcement that the convoy was moving out and people began to pack, Mike saw Gerald storming across the camp towards him. He wished he could avoid the man, but the camp simply wasn’t that big.

“We’re not ready,” Gerald told him. “I got one truck half torn apart that we’re still trying to fix, at least four cars need work on their tires, and there’s—”

Mike cut him off. “Look, Gerald, I’m sorry. I didn’t ask for all this anymore than you did, but we have to move and we have to move now. Staying is too great a risk. We’ll leave the truck if we have to. Just do the best you can.”

“Just give me one more day,” Gerald pleaded. “We can’t keep leaving vehicles behind. Pretty soon we’re not going to have room for everyone if we do.”

“What do you want me to do, Gerald? I know you’re working your ass off—we all are—but if we don’t reach the base, and soon, we may never make it.”

Gerald sighed, knowing he’d lost the argument. “All right. But please tell me we’re not moving far. Some of the cars can’t handle much more yet.”

Mike shook his head. “We’re just headed up the road to Jones Creek, far enough to buy us some time and get closer to Warren’s next raid.”

“Can I go with them this time?” Gerald asked. “Those guys don’t know crap about what parts we need to keep going in the long run. I swear they must never read the lists I give to Warren.”

“Gerald…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m too important and all that crap. You’d think the apocalypse would’ve spared more than one engineer, eh?”

“Oh, I think one’s quite enough if they’re all like you, Gerald.”

He let Mike’s remark slide and changed the subject. “Guess I better go give Warren’s jeeps a once-over before his team heads out, huh?”

“I think that would be a good idea.”

Mike smiled as the engineer hurried off, leaving him alone with his thoughts. The man could be a damn pain in the ass, but Mike needed him—the whole convoy did—so there was no choice but to endure his constant whining about the state of their equipment. Besides, he was right: everything was falling quickly into disrepair.

“Good luck,” Mike said as Warren slid into the passenger seat of one of the convoy’s three military jeeps.

“You too,” Warren said. He glanced at the madhouse around them, people loading up the last of their things and making sure nothing was left behind for the rats to find. He didn’t like leaving the main group with less than half of its trained defenders, but he had no choice if they were to survive long term.

Raising his hand over his head, Warren gave the rest of his team the signal to roll out. His driver, Matt, fired up the jeep’s engine and led the others onto the road towards Greensburg.

“Let’s hope they make it back,” Benji said, walking up to Mike.

“Warren always comes back.” Mike placed an arm around the younger man’s shoulder. Though many in the convoy didn’t approve of their relationship, Mike had stopped trying to hide it. Some secrets couldn’t be kept in such close quarters. “Let’s get to the command vehicle and get this show on the road.”

Two

Warren flicked the lighter, taking a deep drag off what might be his last cigarette as the sun sank in the sky. He stood on the hilltop above Greensburg, looking into the remains of the town, and Michelle and Matt stood at his side. Behind them, the three combat jeeps were parked in a row; Jenkins and Daniel leaned against one, inspecting their weapons.

Scott had gone ahead on foot to recon the outskirts of the town and should have been back by now. The team hadn’t seen or heard any signs of trouble from below, but Warren could feel tension in the air, the fear and dread that gripped soldiers just before the shooting started. “How long?” he asked.

“He’s been gone nearly two hours,” Michelle said, and Warren grunted in reply.

“We got a plan, chief?” Jenkins taunted him from behind.

“How about you drink a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up?” Matt said, quoting one of his favorite films.

Jenkins pushed away from the jeep and stood up straight, his cheeks red with anger.

“Enough,” Warren said. “My guts tell me there’s a demon behind Scott being late. Maybe more than one.”

The others fell silent. Even Jenkins settled back against the side of a jeep, keeping his mouth shut for once.

“Scott’s never late,” Warren continued. “He’s too damn good for the dead or the vermin to take him down without him getting off a couple shots.”

“Where does that leave us?” Matt asked, looking to Warren for direction.

“We’re going into Greensburg and we’re going to take what we need, demons or not.” Warren tossed his smoke aside and walked past Matt to the jeeps.

“Whoa, hold up!” Daniel cut in. The hulking mass of muscle that he was, he still managed to sound like a frightened child. “Didn’t you just say there may be demons down there?”

Warren climbed into the driver seat of the closest jeep and turned its key, revving the engine. Only then did he speak. “We have to get those supplies or everyone in the convoy is dead, not just us.”

“You heard the man,” Michelle barked. “Daniel, you can ride with me and Jenkins. I don’t want you stuck alone with Scott gone.”

The big man scrambled over to join them as Warren peeled out down the hill, barely giving Matt time to hop in the jeep.

The road into Greensburg was filled with abandoned cars. There was no sign of the dead—even the true dead. It was odd not to see picked-over skeletons littering the street. Clearly the rats had swept through this area some time ago.

The wreckage filling the roadway forced the team to slow down so much that Warren almost wished he’d brought the tank to clear a path. As the team finally rolled into town, the dying sunlight vanished from the sky, and night fell over them.

Warren scrapped the lists of needed supplies in his head, focusing solely on fuel. Something wasn’t right here, and the sooner he could get his team in and out the better. He ordered the jeeps to a halt at the first gas station and dispatched Michelle and her crew to find a tanker truck, which they would use to haul the fuel. He and Matt secured the station and went to work on getting the pumps operational; luckily most stations had a backup generator, and it was just a matter of getting it running.

By the time the tanker drove up with Michelle at the wheel and Daniel and Jenkins following her in the jeep, the lights were on at the station. Warren said a quiet prayer of thanks that his information about the town had been correct. There weren’t many places left with easily accessible fuel tankers. Daniel and Matt leapt into action and began filling the massive tanker to its brim.

Michelle approached Warren, and his eyes lingered on her long legs for a moment before he realized he was staring. He cursed himself for his weakness and got to business. “Well?”

“No sign of Scott. We haven’t seen a single rat or walking corpse either. It’s as if this whole town is just empty.”

“Shit.” Warren grimaced. “It’s a trap. The rats must have been watching the convoy.”

Michelle retreated a step, as if afraid he might lose it. “But if it’s a trap, why aren’t we dead yet?”

“It’s not that kind of trap,” Warren explained, springing into movement. “Finish filling her up, then get the hell out of here!” he told Daniel and Matt. “I don’t care where you go, but don’t head to the rally point—no matter what happens. Understood?”

Both men nodded.

“Keep your radios on and stay sharp. We’ll be in touch as soon as we can.” Warren sprinted to his jeep, motioning for Michelle and Jenkins to follow him. “The fucking demons are making a move on the convoy. We’ve got to get back there—now!”

The dead came out of nowhere and the rats followed in their wake. The convoy had been in the process of setting up a new camp, and the handful of trained fighters Warren left behind simply weren’t enough to organize the would-be defenders. Hundreds upon hundreds of the dead surrounded the camp’s perimeter as nearly everyone with a weapon opened fire. Most of the bullets struck rotting chests and arms without real effect; worse, some of them struck legs and kneecaps, creating crawlers who wormed their way beneath the protective line of vehicles into the already terrified mob of civilians. Only a headshot stopped the dead.

One woman, in her attempt to flee, ran in front of the M-60 mounted on the command APC, and Mike, unable to turn the heavy gun away in time, watched her body splatter into a bloody pulp.

Benji sat behind him atop the APC, spraying the dead with an AK-47 cranked up to full auto.

Waves of rats poured beneath the shambling legs of the dead, using the corpses as cover as they raced towards camp. The convoy’s flamethrowers were the only defense against the vermin, but if Mike ordered them to be employed now, with the rats under cover the way they were, the whole convoy would be overwhelmed by a sea of flaming corpses. Somewhere in the battle a man howled as the rats washed over him, pulling him to the ground as their teeth tore into his skin.

Mike watched as Gerald and two of his mechanics struggled to load a group of children into an escape van. The engineer blasted a dozen rats into blood and bone with his shotgun. As he went to pump another round into the chamber, a cold gray hand latched onto his weapon and pulled him face to face with one of the dead.

At that moment, the ground itself seemed to shake, nearly blowing out Mike’s eardrums. He lost his balance and fell from the top of the command car, but Benji grabbed him by the shirt at the last possible second and kept him from falling off completely. He helped Mike climb back up, and they looked around for the source of the quake.

Some idiot had tried to fire the tank’s main gun, but the shell had detonated against a clog of rats that had been searching the barrel for a way in. The combat vehicle was now a flaming mass of wreckage and secondary explosions as its remaining ammo expended itself in the blaze.

Mike could see Benji shouting something at him but couldn’t make out the words over the ringing in his ears. A dead hand reached up from below and took hold of his ankle, trying to pull him from the vehicle. Benji slid to Mike’s side, pressed his 9mm sidearm against the creature’s head and pulled the trigger. Mike jerked free as the thing toppled backwards to the ground.

More explosions rippled through the convoy, lighting up the night like flares. Many of the cars and trucks were engulfed in flames.

Mike heard the bullet before it slapped against his skull. As Benji leaned over him and the darkness swooped down over his vision, Mike realized too late that he hadn’t been able to alert Warren and his team to the attack.

Michelle could see the fires raging where the convoy was supposed to be camped, red and orange flames leaping up into the darkness.

Warren slammed on the brakes and the jeep came to a screeching halt on the road.

“What the hell are you doing?” she screamed.

“We’re too late,” he said; he sounded hollow. He went to slam the gearshift into reverse, but Michelle bolted from her seat. Warren turned to Jenkins. “Why the hell didn’t you stop her?”

Jenkins didn’t answer. He was frozen as if in some kind of shock, his eyes transfixed on the carnage in the distance.

“Shit.” Warren jerked the gearshift into park, then swung his feet onto the asphalt and ran after Michelle.

She was tall and fast, made even faster by the adrenaline pumping through her veins, but Warren managed to grab her from behind and bring her to a halt. “Michelle, it’s over.”

“No!” She tried to shove Warren off of her. “My brother’s there—we have to help them!”

“Michelle—”

She elbowed him hard in the stomach. Any other man might have fallen from the blow, but Warren’s training took over; he spun her around and smashed his fist into her cheek.

Michelle toppled to the road. She got on her knees and looked up at Warren with a burning rage in her eyes. He didn’t have time to argue with her. They had to get out of the area before the rats from the convoy discovered they were there.

He kicked Michelle in the head, and she fell over, eyes rolling up to the whites. Then Warren picked her up and tossed her into the jeep’s passenger seat.

Jenkins was beginning to come around. “What… what are we going to do?” he asked.

“Survive.” Warren gunned the engine, and the wheels spun out as he doubled back the way they had come. “Mike!” he said into his radio. “Mike, if you’re out there, bring anyone you can to the second rally point. Mike!”

The radio remained silent.

“It’s like you said,” Jenkins reminded him. “We were too late. They’re all dead.”

Warren tossed the radio aside and focused on the road in front of him.

“Hey there, sis.” Benji smiled as Michelle opened her eyes. At first she thought she was dreaming, until she tried to sit up and a sharp pain stabbed through her head.

“Whoa.” Benji gently pushed her back down. “You had a pretty rough knock to the head.” He laughed. “I told you that Warren guy was a psycho. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me.”

Michelle looked around at her surroundings. She was lying on a makeshift pile of bedding stretched out on the dirt. The sun was high in the sky, and she could hear people talking in the distance.

“The convoy was burning.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I… I thought you were dead.”

“I almost was,” Benji replied. “Less than twenty of us made it out of there alive.”

“Mike?” she asked.

“Mike’s fine. A bullet grazed his head, but he’s fine.”

Michelle squeezed Benji’s hand and smiled. He nodded and smiled back.

“Where are we?”

“About seventy miles closer to the base Mike’s been leading us to.” Benji shook his head. “We’re down to one overcrowded van, a pickup truck that’s nearly falling apart, and the tanker and jeeps you guys brought with you from Greensburg.”

“That doesn’t sound too hopeful.”

“Actually, in a kind of sad and sick way, Mike says we’re better off. We can move faster now and we’re a smaller target. Mike said the rats may even think they got us all and leave us alone if we’re lucky.”

“I doubt that.”

Benji gave her a funny look. “Warren said the exact same thing.”

“Where is that bastard?”

“He’s off with Mike. I think they’re discussing a faster route to the base since we don’t have as many people to worry about now. Mike talks like we might be able to reach the base in just over a day if we keep pushing straight when we roll out.” Benji paused, “A day, Michelle, can you believe it? A single day.”

“Good.” She tried to sound cheerful. “Then maybe I won’t have to eat your burnt oatmeal anymore.”

Benji shot her a playful injured look. “Just get some rest, okay? We’ll be moving soon.”

She promised she would, and he scurried off to where the others were. Michelle closed her eyes and tried to think of the future, but all she could see were the flames of the convoy burning in the night.

Hours later, the convoy ventured on toward the base. Michelle found herself riding shotgun next to Warren in one of the combat jeeps, with Benji in the seat behind them. She understood why Warren had knocked her out and she tried to forgive him for it. Benji wasn’t happy about sharing a jeep with the guy who had punched out his sister, and he wasn’t happy about being separated from Mike either, but he’d promised to stay with Michelle this time.

Their jeep was in the lead, followed by the pickup and the van, both crammed full of the remaining survivors. The tanker truck was next in line, with Daniel and Jenkins’s jeep bringing up the rear.

The scenery left much to be desired. Barren sand sprawled out around them on all sides.

“We’ll be there soon,” Benji tried to assure Michelle. She wondered if he was actually trying to convince himself.

“Has Mike told you what this base is?” Warren asked, taking them both off-guard.

“It’s a bomb shelter,” Benji answered. “Like the kind they took the President to when all this started happening.”

“No. No it’s not,” Warren said. “But you’re right, they did take the President to a place like what you’re talking about. Him, the other VIPs, and the men assigned to protect them all died horribly. The rats were waiting for them underground.”

“Warren, stop it. There’s no way you could know that,” Michelle said.

Warren ignored her. “Where we’re going isn’t a bomb shelter or some kind of bunker, though they did gut one and build the base inside of it. It’s a research facility, a state-of-the-art, self-contained place of nightmares. It’s one of the most sterile and impenetrable places on Earth. The base was designed to keep the government’s worst experiments contained should something go wrong, but I think it will keep the rats out as well… As long as it hasn’t been breached by someone else before we get there.”

“What were they working on in the base?” Benji asked, hating himself for believing Warren but realizing it was just the kind of place Mike would lead them to.

“Bio-weapons, viruses, new types of killer radiation—how the hell should I know? I doubt if Mike even knows for sure. Regardless, it will keep us alive and we’ll be a hell of a lot better off than we are outside.”

After that, the three of them rode on in silence. Benji leaned into his seat and stared up at the sky. He knew Mike had been some sort of high-ranking scientist before the world ended. Everything Warren had just told them made perfect sense, but what bothered Benji was how much Warren knew. Why hadn’t Mike told him more about the base if he’d shared this much with Warren? And was what Warren said about the President true? Warren didn’t come across as a guy who made shit up, so just who the hell was he? Benji promised himself to confront Mike about Warren when they were all safe.

He closed his eyes, tired of staring at the clouds and the sand, and dozed off to sleep.

The small chain of vehicles came to a stop outside the massive steel fence encircling the base.

The group got out of their vehicles like expectant kids on Christmas morning and gathered at the gate, filled with new hope and relief to have finally arrived. A sign hung on the fence, proclaiming that this place was government property and off-limits to the public. It warned civilians to stay away and also boasted that intruders would be shot, but Mike explained that it was just a ruse to help keep the base secret.

“The gate’s locked. That’s a good sign,” Warren said to Mike. “But how do we open it?”

“Just shoot the lock off. The defenses up top don’t really matter. It’s what’s under the sand that’s going to keep us alive.” Mike could see Warren’s military mind unwilling to sacrifice something as small in the grand scheme of things as a locked gate, so he added, “We can use one of the cars to brace it or maybe find a way to chain it back ourselves if we need to.”

Warren called for Daniel to bring him his weapon and used the high-powered rifle to destroy the lock. A cheer rose from the survivors of the convoy and people rushed through the gate as it swung open.

“Wait!” Warren screamed, but no one listened.

Mike put a hand on his shoulder. “Let them have this moment. I doubt there’s any need to worry until we actually get inside the complex proper. If there was still a military presence here, we’d already be dead or under fire. We’ll take it slower then. I promise.”

Warren reluctantly agreed, but moved the lever of the rifle to load another round into the chamber.

Three

Mike sipped at his cup of coffee, savoring the flavor as he flipped through the stack of paperwork on his desk. He and the others had been living in the base for a week and it still seemed like a dream. They were as safe as they could be in a world gone to hell. They had food, running water, electricity—he even had a damn office again.

There was so much to do ahead of them. They had yet to finish a full inventory of the base’s massive stockpiles, and they hadn’t even begun to explore the research that had been conducted there before the rats came. Maybe there was something they could use as a weapon against the creatures. Anything seemed possible.

The first things they had done after moving in were simply the basics: getting the place as operational as they could, assigning everyone living quarters, and setting up a watch shift for the base’s security room; they had also assigned a team to make contact with other survivors via the base’s communications array.

Everyone was happy and finding a way to contribute—everyone except Warren. The man had become withdrawn now that he had accomplished his mission. He was a soldier by blood, and damn good at his job too, but it appeared that after he’d gotten everyone to the base, his job was at an end, at least for the foreseeable future; while Mike hated to think that the man felt useless, he had to confess he was thankful they had no reason for his protection.

The base also had an armory, so he’d assigned Warren the task of inventorying the weaponry and devising the best plan to defend the base, should the rats breach the compound. He knew Warren took the task seriously, but he also understood it wasn’t what Warren was really trained to do.

Someone knocked on the door to his office. Mike placed his coffee beside the paperwork on his desk as Benji let himself in. Mike instantly saw the mischievous look on Benji’s face and knew that his plans of working through the morning were pretty much shot to hell. He smiled as the younger man entered and shut the door behind him.

A classic Beach Boys tune echoed in the hallway as Brent sped along on a skateboard. He let out a scream of pure joy as he reached the hall’s end and jumped into the air, pulling off a Tony Hawk-style stunt. He landed and, keeping his momentum, turned to head back the way he’d come.

He nearly lost his balance and barely managed to stop when he saw Warren standing in his path. He grabbed up the board and snapped to attention. “Sir,” he bellowed over the Beach Boys.

“Music’s a bit loud, isn’t it, Private?”

Brent rushed over to the portable stereo he’d looted from one of the base’s work areas and shut off the song halfway through. “Sorry, sir, won’t happen again.”

Warren hid a smile. He wondered if he was ever as young as Brent was. “It’s okay, Private, and please stop calling me sir.” Warren nodded at the skateboard. “Looks like fun.”

“Yes…” Brent caught himself before he ended with the word sir. “It is.”

“At ease, soldier. I didn’t come by to give you hell. I’m working on a list of the stuff in the armory for Mike and just thought you might want to help me finish it.”

Brent visibly relaxed. “Love to, sir.”

Warren shot him a look. “Call me Warren, damn it, or I will end up kicking your ass after all, got it?”

Brent nodded and started to collect his stuff from the hallway.

“Leave it,” Warren ordered. “It shouldn’t take us long. You’ll be surfing the corridors again before you know it.”

The base consisted of four levels. The top held the administrative areas, and the second floor housed a mixture of supply storage, generators, the armory, and things of that nature. Both the third and fourth story contained a mixture of quarters, labs and the like, but unique to the third were the communications room and security area.

Warren and Brent got into the elevator, and Warren hit the button for the second floor. As the doors closed, he spoke up. “I’ve been meaning to ask how you got out of the attack on the convoy alive. Most everyone credits you with saving their lives, but I wanted to hear from you what really went down out there.”

Brent shifted uncomfortably. “I just did what I had to do.”

“I know that, soldier. I’m not looking to place judgment. It’s a miracle any of you got out. I just want to hear how you pulled it off.”

Brent took in a deep breath and started his explanation. “We were all tired and hungry. You know how tough life on the road could be, and that was an especially bad day after you guys left. We had a hell of time getting to the rally point. Gerald was raging worse than usual, and we were forced several times to stop just so he and his crew could jury-rig some of the vehicles to keep them rolling. When we finally made it there, all anyone wanted to do was rest. There were more of the wandering dead around than usual, so Mike ordered me to round up some volunteers to help deal with them. None of us were concerned… well, not really. We just figured the slightly higher number of the dead came from being closer to a formerly populated area. I sent the regulars to their posts and was still trying to get some people to help us out when all hell broke loose.

“Suddenly the dead were pouring like rivers out of the hills all around us. I’d never seen anything like it. They just kept coming, wave after wave of them, staggering towards the convoy. I rushed to the perimeter to try to take command of the convoy’s watchers, but the panic in the camp was too great. Almost everybody with a gun started shooting. We started having our own people caught in the crossfire…” Brent paused; crossfire wasn’t the correct word, but he couldn’t think of another one. “Some idiots were trying to shoot at the dead all the way on the other side of the camp from them. Then things got worse.

“The rats came in, using the dead as cover. I saw Mike on top of the command car with that little guy he spends so much time with. Mike himself was using the car’s mounted weapon. I knew I couldn’t reach them, so I couldn’t ask him what to do. Rationally I guess I knew we couldn’t use the flamethrowers against the rats with so many of the dead around, but I went for them anyway. My mind kept screaming that they were our only hope against the rats. Even an automatic rifle is nearly useless if you’re facing a swarm of them.

“I made it to the supply truck, grabbed the closest flamethrower and lit it up. Something must have snapped in me because I just let go with it. I started torching everything that moved. The rats began to keep away from the area I was in, and I realized most of the camp was already on fire. Somehow the tank had exploded.”

“The tank exploded?” Warren asked.

“Yeah, it was a nightmare. Anyway, a few others flocked to my position to keep the dead off me, and suddenly my little burning patch of the camp became an island of safety from the rats. We held off the dead long enough to load up anyone we could in the closest vehicles that weren’t on fire, and then we rolled out. We had to leave the truck with the flamethrowers, and it blew just as we made it out. We lost a car from the blast. I will never forget seeing those poor people being burnt alive, but I think it’s what saved us and let us get away. We tore a streak out of there and just kept running until Mike’s little buddy heard you on the radio and we were able to meet up.”

“Stop blaming yourself,” Warren told him. “It sounds to me like you’re the only reason anyone’s alive from the convoy. I would have done the same things you did. Guess I should be glad I left you behind.”

Brent tried to smile.

“Well, soldier, let’s go see what we’ve got on hand in case the rats come calling.”

“Yes, sir,” Brent said, and Warren let the “S” word slide as they entered the armory.

At 1600 hours on their seventh day at the base, the survivors assembled for the first time to discuss their plans for the future. Mike had organized the meeting and had chosen the mess hall for the location.

By the time he and Benji entered the room, everyone except for Darren, who was working on the base’s systems while on watch in the command room, were already waiting on them. Benji broke away from Mike’s side and took a seat at the front of the small group near Michelle, Warren, and Brent.

“Good afternoon,” Mike began, looking out into the faces before him. “I know you’re all as glad to be here as I am, so let’s start with a bit about where we’re staying. Long before the world fell apart, the government and the military were experimenting with ways of waging war that, if unleashed, could have brought about a hell similar to what we live in today. There are bases like this scattered across the U.S., but this base… this base isn’t like any of the others. It’s beyond them.

“The most deadly bio-weapons man ever conceived were being designed here. Only a select few in the government knew this place existed. During your stay here, you have likely noticed some of the rooms are sealed off. I don’t have the codes to access those doors, and I am not certain we should open them even if we could. From top to bottom, this base was built not only to keep unauthorized personnel out, but to contain the things that were being created here if something went wrong. This base is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the safest place in the western world—maybe the whole world. In short, I believe we are as safe here as we’re ever going to be.”

Mike paused, letting his words sink in. “So that brings us to the issues of actually living here. Most of you in at least some sort of fashion have helped take stock of the useful things this base contains. We have running water, an unlimited, shielded supply of it, so thank God for that. There’s enough food to keep us from starving for years without rationing. And Warren was quite pleased with what we found in the armory. He believes we have the firepower to make a stand if the rats find this place. The sole real concern of the base is power.

“Though it’s partially solar powered and has a wide array of batteries and generators to help recharge them, our fuel supply is limited. Eventually some of us may be forced to venture out to obtain more, but for now we’re okay. I don’t see the need for an expedition aboveground at least for a month or two. Thus, I suggest we enjoy what we’ve been blessed with. We have plenty of time to come up with viable solutions to the fuel issue. It’s time for us to rest and live a little again in a world where so many others don’t have the luxury.”

Benji cleared his throat and got up to stand beside Mike. “We may have everything we need, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. We need people to cook, clean, pull watch shifts, and people to try to make contact with other survivors. And people to plan for what the future may bring. The world may be dead, but life goes on and so does work.

“Now that we’re not on the run anymore, we need a better assessment of just what everyone is capable of and what duties they would like to take on in our new home. I’ll be meeting with each one of you over the next day or so to see where everyone can be the greatest help, then we’ll come up with a duty roster so everyone knows where they stand and exactly what they’re responsible for. Each of us will pull our own weight from now on.”

Mike motioned Benji to silence. “With that said, if you have any questions, you’re welcome to approach Benji or myself at anytime, and we’ll do our best to address them.”

As the meeting broke up, Mike judged that most people seemed not just hopeful but happy. He was sure eventually there would be complaints and disputes over everything from assignments to living quarters, but as a whole, things were going well and the group was on its way to a real future.

Mike followed Benji out of the breaking crowd and into the base’s control center, where Darren was working in one of the terminals.

“How did the meeting go?” he asked.

Mike smiled. “As well as could be hoped for. How are things going here?”

Darren shrugged. “I know you picked me to help out with this because, other than you, I’m the only person in this group with any computer skills…” he smiled and shook his head, “but I just ran a geek squad for an electronics store. This shit here…” he gestured at the room around them, “this is some hardcore stuff. I’m doing the best I can, but it’s way beyond me. Without the pass codes you had, I doubt I’d even be in the system yet.”

Mike nodded. “I know what you mean. Computers were never my specialty either. I used to just take this stuff for granted when I was a researcher, and when I took over as an administrator…” Mike sighed. “Well, let’s just say delegation is a wonderful thing.” He slid a chair over to where Darren was working and sat down. “I think between my casual understanding of the system here and your knowledge of hardware, we should be able to get everything online, given time. We did get the lights on,” he said, trying to ease the tension with a joke. “So what’s still not operational at this point?”

“Most of the internal and external security measures. I haven’t been able to gain access to the security camera feeds, or whatever the hell the more advanced system is that overlaps them in the programming.”

“That would be the base’s bio-scanners, I think.”

“Bio-scanners, right. This whole damn base is like something out of Torchwood.”

“What?”

“Torchwood? You didn’t watch a lot of sci-fi, did you?” Darren laughed. “Forget it. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, we do have power. I have control over all of the base’s doors except the ones that I think lead into the high-clearance labs and a few of the more scientific supply areas. I have gotten the communications array working, including the intercom system. One thing scares me though. If this base’s bio-scanners, or whatever you called them, were ever triggered to a threat, there’s no way in hell I’d be able to override them. We’d be trapped down here.”

“I don’t see how that’s a problem,” Benji chimed in. “Have you read Warren’s report on the armory? We could just blast our way out if it came to that.”

Mike and Darren looked at him as if he were an idiot.

“Benji, do you really think they’d build this place to where someone down here could get out if something went wrong inside of it?”

“Darren’s right,” Mike agreed. “I doubt a point-blank nuke could rupture this structure. If it goes into lockdown, we’re finished… but at least it won’t be the rats that get us.”

“You got that right,” Warren said, making them all jump as he appeared in the doorway.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Mike asked.

“Not much to do around here, in case you hadn’t noticed. Besides, I had something I wanted to ask you. But if you’re busy, I can come back.”

“No. No, not really. We’re still just trying to figure things out in here. What was it you wanted to ask?”

“Just something I’ve been wondering about since we got here and found the main outer doors open. I can’t believe no else has asked it yet.”

“Well?” Mike prompted.

“Where the hell is everyone, Mike? You don’t build something like this and leave it unmanned. I don’t care if the F-ing world is falling into Hell; even if people were called out and some abandoned their duties to try to reach their families, someone would have stayed. Shit, Mike, we haven’t found a single corpse.”

Mike stared at Warren as the soldier’s words sank in. “My God… You’re right. How in the hell have we been so stupid? There should have been a skeleton crew at least to keep the base operational. This place is too much for the government to just write off.” Mike whirled on Darren. “We need the security systems online now! We have to know if we’re alone, or if there are others in the base with us.”

“Be my guest,” Darren said, getting up and offering his tools to Mike.

“Shit!” Mike plopped into Darren’s seat and ripped open a panel on the console. Darren moved out of his way. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Mike snapped at him. “Get back here and help me!”

Benji glanced at Warren and caught what appeared to be a quick smile pass over the man’s rough features. “I’ll get us some coffee,” Warren said and turned to leave the room.

As Warren left, Benji found the nerve to speak up again. “But wouldn’t we have seen anyone by now if they were here?”

“This base is huge, Benji,” Mike answered without looking up from his work. “And they’d know it better than we do. For all we know, they could be holed up in a safe room somewhere, biding their time.”

“Biding their time for what?”

“A chance to take back the base,” Mike said.

Warren returned minutes later with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. He took a sip as he watched Darren and Mike fighting with the base’s systems. They’d long since given up any fix short of manually bypassing the security protocols.

“Damn it!” Mike shouted. “This is taking too long!”

“Uhh… Mike,” Warren said, trying to get his attention. He didn’t look up. “Mike.”

“What?”

“There’s no army hidden in the base to try to kill us,” Warren said calmly.

Mike almost ignored Warren and went to throw himself back into his work, but he caught a glint of humor on Warren’s face. He stopped and glared at him. “How can you know that?” he asked carefully.

“The armory,” Warren informed him. “When Brent and I were cataloging it, we noticed a few things missing from what should have been there. Two rifles, a handful of pistols, some ammo. Just a bit here and there. The other inventory reports you had for the meeting showed similar things, just a bit missing here and there. The way I see it, there were likely one or two people living in this place when got here—maybe three if someone was injured. They likely saw us coming but for some reason couldn’t close the main doors in time, so they grabbed what they could, locked down the labs, and tucked themselves away when they realized there were too many of us for them to fight. Right now, I bet they’re tucked away, scared shitless, waiting on us to leave.”

“You knew there was someone else here this whole time and you’re just now telling me a week later?”

“No, I suspected. When I overheard about the problems you were having with the security systems, that confirmed it for me. You’ve been able to get the ones outside working just fine, but the internal ones… That’s because they shut them down hard to protect themselves. It’s what I would’ve done in their place. Though if these people were anything like me, most of us would be dead, picked off one or two at a time to even the odds, which makes me think these people, whoever they are, aren’t looking for a fight. They’ve had their chance to strike first and they let it slip by.”

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t be worried?” Darren asked.

“No, I didn’t say that. We need to find them. We need to let them know we’re not a threat before they get so desperate they do something stupid.”

“I’ve got it!” Mike shouted. The security console came to life. Not just a random screen here and there but the whole board of monitors, showing eight of the interior rooms, including the one they were in. They could now cycle through the cameras and, in theory, see most of the base, but more importantly the bio-scanners were online too.

Darren double-checked Mike’s work. The last thing they needed was for the system to short out or blow.

Mike clicked on the bio-scanner screen and a two-dimensional map of the base appeared. Little green dots spotted the map, most of them moving.

“Those dots represent everyone alive in the complex. See how there are four dots here?” Mike pointed at the room they were in. “That’s us. So five of you came back from the fuel run and eighteen of us escaped the attack on the convoy, so how many dots do we have?”

“Twenty-four,” Warren answered. “One person too many.”

“But how do we know which dot isn’t one of us?” Darren asked.

“Normally, I would say we couldn’t,” Mike said, “but luck has made it easy for us.” He pointed at the screen again. “He or she is camped out in the number-four lab. We haven’t been able to get into the high-security labs yet, so there’s no way that’s one of us.”

“I think it’s time we paid them a visit,” Warren said, ready to get down to business.

“Hold on,” Mike urged. “We may have gotten these systems online, but we still can’t open those doors. I don’t think going down there and banging on them is a good idea for any of us.”

“So what do we do, Mike?” Warren asked, clearly annoyed. “Station a guard by them twenty-four seven and wait for whoever it is to get desperate enough to come out on their own?”

“Actually, I was just thinking we’d use the base’s intercom. We can talk to whoever it is in there without putting any of our people at risk.”

Warren thought it over and nodded. “Agreed. But I’m still going down there, just in case whoever’s in there gets spooked and comes out, guns blazing.”

“Take Brent and Michelle with you. No sense in taking unneeded chances; besides, Michelle’s a hell of a lot more diplomatic than you are.”

Warren scowled. “Give me ten minutes to round them up and get in position.” With that said, he stormed out of the room.

“Damn,” Darren commented. “That man is ready to kick some ass.”

“He’s always ready,” Mike said. “I’m just glad it’s not ours.”

Four

Kyle stirred on his makeshift bed. His dreams had not been pleasant, hadn’t been since the darkness came. Hell, they never had been pleasant, he admitted to himself. He wasn’t the kind of person who had nice dreams.

He sat up, dropping his bare feet onto the metal floor of the lab and scratching his eyebrow. His back ached from using a lab table as a mattress.

Ever since he had gone into hiding a week ago, he hadn’t been able to shower or shave properly. It bothered him more than the dregs of shit food he’d been living on since he’d locked himself in the lab.

When the intruders first broke in, he had cursed himself for not repairing the outer doors. He should have done it as soon as he arrived, even before he brought the base’s systems online. But he’d thought the world was dead, and to save time and energy he’d decided to turn on systems as needed. The intruders had taken him so off-guard, there was no way he could’ve sealed them out. So he’d taken what precautions he was able to, locking down security systems, disabling a few key systems—or at least turning them off again—and grabbing what he thought he’d need to survive until they were gone. Kyle had never imagined they would take up residence in the base. In the heat of the moment, he’d only seen them as looters, not refugees, and now he was paying the price.

He dressed and began to search through his dwindling rations for something he’d be able to stomach for breakfast.

Suddenly a voice filled the room, startling him so bad he dropped the granola bar he’d just dug out of the pile.

“Hello,” the voice said. “My name is Michael Stevenson. We mean you no harm. Please use the base’s intercom to respond if you can hear me.”

Kyle raced to the lab’s door and snatched up one of the two M-16 rifles propped against the wall.

They’d found him. Though he had hoped he wouldn’t be discovered, some small rational part of his brain knew this would happen.

“Hello. Please respond if you can hear me,” the voice continued. “My name is Michael Stevenson. I am a former director of this facility. Please, we mean you no harm.”

Kyle stood by the lab’s door, knuckles white from his tightening grip on the rifle. His eyes darted to the intercom panel on the far wall.

Had they been able to access the base’s security measures despite his efforts, or were they merely guessing that someone else was here with them? Were they military or civilian? From the glimpses he’d caught of them on the exterior cameras, he was inclined to guess the latter, but if so, why would they have a former director with them? Was the voice lying about who he was? If not, then Kyle knew he was screwed. If the man was who he claimed to be, then surely they’d repaired the scanners and would know exactly where he was at all times, even if he made a run for it. Worse, they would know he was alone. Likely there were armed men already waiting on the other side of the door.

Guessing he had no other option, Kyle set aside his rifle and walked towards the intercom panel.

“Still nothing?” Darren asked.

Mike scowled at him. “You’re sitting right here. Have you heard anyone?”

“Maybe the intercom in that lab just isn’t working,” Benji said.

“I very much doubt it.” Mike pressed the intercom button again and started to repeat his message. “Hello,” was the only word he got out before another voice came over the comm.

“I heard you the first few times. What do you want?”

Mike blinked, taken aback by the eerie, calm sound of the voice. “Well, for starters we’d like you to come out and talk with us face to face.”

“I’m sure you would,” the voice answered. “The question is, if I open the door to this lab, are we going to talk, or are your men going to put a bullet in my head?”

“We mean you no harm.” Mike tried to sound reassuring.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t take your word on that.”

“What’s your name?” Mike asked.

“Kyle.”

“Okay, Kyle. If you don’t come out, we will eventually find a way to open the door or cut through it. Things could go badly for both of us if it comes to that. If you’re afraid we’re military or raiders, we’re not. We’re just people who need a place to stay. We’re simply trying to stay alive like you are.”

“Answer me one thing, Michael Stevenson: have the rats won?”

Mike looked at Benji and Darren, then turned back to the intercom. “Yes, the rats won. We haven’t seen any other survivors or heard any comm. traffic in a long time. I believe the human race is nearly extinct.”

Kyle’s laughter echoed through the intercom’s speakers. “That’s not what I meant. I meant did they win the war?”

Mike glanced at Darren for help, but Darren shrugged.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Mike asked Kyle. “The human race is almost wiped out. I’d call that a victory.”

“Okay,” Kyle said suddenly, struggling to control his amusement. “You’ve convinced me. Tell your people to stand down. I’m coming out.”

In the corridor outside of the lab, Warren, Brent, and Michelle watched as the heavy metal door parted from the wall and slid open. Behind it stood a man who appeared to be in his early thirties. He was thin, and unwashed brown hair topped his head. His features, accentuated by glasses, were narrow and bird–like, yet attractive in a geekish sort of way. He carried himself with an air of confidence that usually came from military training, but his clothes were civilian and dirty, as if they hadn’t been changed in a while.

The man held out his empty hands in front of him. “I come in peace,” he said, grinning. “Take me to your leader.”

Brent and Michelle couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of his statement.

Warren, however, didn’t laugh. “Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot me? My name is Kyle, by the way. Nice to meet you too, though I didn’t catch your name.”

“It’s Warren. Now I suggest you do as I say before you start to piss me off more than you already have.”

“It figures people like you would survive,” Kyle said, appraising Warren. “You’re a hardcore soldier and trained killer, aren’t you, sport? I know your type.”

Warren gritted his teeth. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

“No, I imagine not.” Kyle turned and placed his hands on the walls, legs spread.

Warren moved in and patted him down for concealed weapons. When he saw that Kyle was clean, he stepped back.

Kyle turned around, looking over Michelle’s body and drinking it in. He bowed to her. “My dear lady, perhaps after the guns are put away I might learn your name.”

Michelle noticed she was still pointing her gun at him and lowered it. “Michelle,” she said apologetically.

Kyle shot a parody of a salute at Warren and said, “If you would be so kind as to lead the way, I believe your boss is waiting on me.”

Warren led Kyle through the complex, leaving Brent and Michelle behind in an attempt to draw attention away from what was going on. So far only a few people knew about Kyle’s presence and Warren wanted to keep it that way until they knew for sure how things would play out. Luckily most people in the group kept to themselves or at least to certain cliques. Originally the convoy group had been so large and so hectically nomadic it was nearly impossible to get to know everyone. People were beginning to loosen up now inside the safety of the base, but still the odds were in Warren’s favor.

He and Kyle only passed a handful of people on their way to the control room, and no one seemed to notice anything out of place. Warren had left his rifle with Michelle, and his sidearm was nothing out of the ordinary; the group was used to him storming around the base with a gun.

Mike, Darren, and Benji were waiting on them as they entered. Mike stood up from his seat at one of the security consoles and extended his hand to Kyle. “I’m Doctor Michael Stevenson, but please call me Mike.”

Kyle took his hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you, Mike. And who might these gentlemen be?”

Mike introduced Benji as his aide and Darren as the group’s computer specialist, though the title was a bit of an exaggeration. “And you’ve already met Warren,” Mike concluded. “He’s our head of security.”

Kyle chuckled. “I gathered as much.”

Mike offered Kyle a seat and sat down near him. “We’ve got a lot of questions for you, Kyle. How about we start with why you’re here? As far as I know, this base was officially decommissioned when the plague hit, and the operating personnel relocated or were sent out into the field. A single person being left here just doesn’t make sense. A skeleton crew or the sort I could believe, but not one person. Were you stationed here, or did you come here after things went to hell like we did?”

“Or we could start by asking who the hell you are?” Warren butted in. “Your accent doesn’t sound like someone who’s spent a long time in the U.S.”

“Kyle Weathersby,” Kyle said to Warren. He sighed and turned back to Mike. “I imagine you want the long answer. Okay. I am, or rather was, a representative, shall we say, of the British government, dispatched by the United Nations in attempt to discover the fate of the United States. The U.S. was one of the first countries to ‘go silent’ as all hell broke loose around the globe. I set foot upon American soil for the first time twenty-four hours after my government lost contact. I, along with my similarly well-armed associates, quickly found ourselves on the run, fighting for survival, with no way home. Most of the members of my team died in New York. Those of us who made it out lost contact with home.

“We set out for your capital and reached it to join forces with the remains of your leadership, at least those who weren’t already dead or whisked away to a shelter somewhere. One of those survivors was a person of some importance in your C.I.A. He knew of this facility, and a small group of us decided to head for here since home was unreachable and your nation had crumpled. I was the only one to make it here still breathing. I’ve been here ever since, staying alive and using the comm. channels to listen to the fate of the world above.

“I honestly thought I would die down here alone before your group showed up. I had gotten so used to the idea, I hid rather than chance dying at your hands. I couldn’t bring myself to make a stand against you, knowing how rare human life is becoming in the world.” Kyle stopped. “Is that enough of an answer for you or do I need to elaborate?”

“So you’re military?” Warren asked.

Kyle shook his head. “No, I was a field operative. There’s a difference. I was an agent, not a soldier.”

Warren glowered at him.

“Does it really matter?” Mike asked them, taking control of the situation again. “Kyle, you said you had been listening to what was going on out there. Is the rest of the world as bad off as we are here?”

“Do you even know what’s happening?” Kyle asked.

“Are there people still broadcasting?” Darren interrupted.

“No.” Kyle’s voice became flat and cold. “I hadn’t heard anything for a few days before you arrived.”

“So the rats rule everything now?” Mike asked, praying he was wrong about the answer he expected to get.

“No. They’re at war with the other factions of Hell.”

The room fell silent. Kyle felt their eyes burning into him, and finally he continued. “The wolves are still trying to complete their hold of Canada. The squids rule the seas and most of the islands. The bats are facing pockets of human resistance in Russia. The snakes have pacified Asia and are already making strikes against the bats, which hasn’t gone well for them if the human accounts are to be believed. I haven’t heard anything about Australia, and South America has been silent since days after the U.S. fell apart. As to my home, it was holding out against the dead, but the last word I got were my orders to come here.

“The only constant in all of it is the dead. Each group of demons, or whatever one chooses to call them, seems to use the dead as their primary foot soldiers in their secondary war against us. So with the demons at war and humanity nearly gone, I would be forced to say that if anyone ‘rules the world,’ as you put it, it would be the dead.”

Mike leaned close to Kyle. “Stop it. I am sorry for whatever happened to you, but there are no such things as demons. Hell doesn’t exist. Everything that’s happening out there is the combined result of a virus and an aberrant evolutionary spike in the rodent species.”

Kyle held his ground. “Believe what you wish. I don’t care. I’m just telling you what I’ve seen and heard. Hell has been loosed upon the earth, and because of where we are, we are going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not even for a year or two in this base, but we are going to die. Unlike most of the other factions, the rats just want us gone and they’ll stop at nothing until their borders are clear of our infestation.”

“Mike, we’ve all seen those creatures with the rats,” Darren argued. “Warren and some of his crew even nicknamed them demons. He may be telling the truth.”

“Or he may be completely crazy! We have no way to verify who he is or any of his claims.”

Kyle reached into his pocket and slapped down his U.N. identification card in front of Mike. “And I recorded some of the transmissions I spoke of. If you haven’t fired them while jury-rigging the base’s systems, I suggest you listen to them yourselves.”

Warren watched Mike closely. He could see that the man refused to accept anything Kyle had told them, but as much as his own instincts told him not to trust the U.N. agent, Warren had to admit his story had the ring of truth about it. “What do we do, Mike?”

“Lock him up until we figure out what’s really going on.”

“Mike,” Benji interjected, “we can’t do that. He has rights.”

“I’m not suggesting we kill him! I just think we should keep an eye on him until we know he’s not crazy. For his sake and our own.”

Kyle said nothing, resigning himself to the group’s judgment.

“I agree with Benji,” Darren spoke up. “This guy knows this place better than we do. Frankly, we could use his help, and he hasn’t done anything.”

Mike turned to Warren. “I want you to find somewhere to lock this man up and make sure he stays there.”

“Sorry, Mike, they’re right. We need him. If there’s a chance he can get this base fully online and the main doors locked down, he’s a hell of a lot more use to us here than tucked away somewhere. Everyone else deserves to know he’s here as well, and what he knows too. We’re all in this together.”

“Did any of you listen to the crap he claimed was happening? Demons, Hell on Earth—I mean, my God, come on.” He slammed his fist into the console beside him. “He needs to be locked up.”

“Benji,” Warren said, “get the group together for another meeting. I want all of us there, understand?”

Benji nodded, though it pained him to go against Mike.

“And Mr. Higgins, you’re going to stay right here for the moment and help Darren with his work. If you so much as think of doing anything that would put us at risk, I will personally put a bullet through your damn skull.”

Mike threw up his hands. “So that’s it then? I’m out just like that, and you’re all listening to Warren instead of me?”

“Mike, we’re grateful you got us here,” Warren said, stepping closer to him. “No one’s saying we don’t respect you, but rats or no rats, this is still a free country where people get to decide what’s best for them. None of us has the right to decide things for this group alone.”

Mike rocked back in his chair. “Fine. Fine. Do what you think you need to do. I won’t stand in your way.”

Warren nodded. “Benji, the meeting…”

Benji leapt up and scurried out of the room, glancing back at Mike as if to say he was sorry.

“Do things always work so smoothly for you guys?” Kyle asked, unable to resist his tendency for dark humor.

Two hours later, the survivors of the convoy gathered into the mess hall. Mike, Warren, and Kyle sat at a table facing the rest of the group. Warren finished explaining who Kyle was, how they’d found him, and what Kyle had told them about the state of the world. “So that’s what we know. Darren has spent the last few hours working on retrieving some of the transmissions Mr. Higgins spoke of. Darren?” Warren motioned for him to start.

“I have rigged the transmissions to play into the room for all of us to hear at the same time,” Darren said, walking over to the room’s intercom panel. “They’re random, and most likely some of them will be garbled, but the base’s computers have translated them into English where needed; this was the best I could do.” Darren punched a button on the intercom and the transmissions began to play.

“To anyone who can hear me, this is Captain Vladimir Nabov of the Soviet Home Guard. Please send assistance. We are cut off and running out of ammunition. The push to free the capital has failed. The main force is broken and shattered. My men and myself have taken shelter inside a cathedral outside of Moscow. Conventional weapons seem to have little effect on the enemy beyond slowing them down. Three of them alone decimated my entire unit with their bare hands, without a single loss to their forces.

“For whatever reason, the creatures themselves will not attack us inside these walls; however, we are far from safe. The bats… the bats come in waves, hundreds at a time, pouring through the shattered windows. So far, we have beaten them each time they’ve tried to overrun us, but we cannot hold on much longer. Please, in the name of God, if you can hear us, we need assistance.”

The intercom crackled and the broadcast changed to a voice with a heavy French accent. “So it’s me again. I’m still on the air as of now. I think I have enough fuel to keep the generator running and the heat on for another day or two. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I doubt actual people are listening to this anymore, but it helps me stay sane. Once a radio geek, always a radio geek,” the voice joked, then turned sad.

“They took my wife yesterday. We left the station to see if we could find some food. We’d used up the stuff from the vending machines and the stuff for the lounge fridge, despite careful rationing. We snuck out the rear entrance and were heading for Baker Street because we knew there was a grocery on that block. The thing must have caught our scent or something, because we were being quiet and as careful as possible. It came tearing out of an abandoned car it must have been sleeping in. It wasn’t a wolf either. We didn’t see any of those.

“This thing was one of their leaders, a full-on monster in the flesh. Must’ve stood eight feet tall. It went straight for Margaret, tossing me aside like trash.” The voice had become heartbroken and on the verge of tears. “When I got to my feet again, she was screaming and it had her skirt torn open, just… just taking her right there in the street.

“I lost it, I guess. I had a metal bat with me that one of my friends had kept in his office, and I started beating the hell out of the thing’s head. At first, it grunted like I was a mere annoyance, and it kept rutting away. Finally, it turned and I caught a glimpse of its yellow eyes before it backhanded me. When I came to, they were gone. Margaret’s blood was smeared onto the street where she had lain, but I don’t think she’s dead.”

The voice cracked, as if trying to hold back tears, and the speaker paused before continuing. “I think I’ll be seeing her again soon,” the man said with heavy sadness and an edge of fear. “She’ll change if she’s alive, then she’ll remember me. If the male of her pack allows it, she’ll be coming. I spent most of last night, before I got too drunk to stand, strengthening up the barricades on the doors and windows downstairs, but I’ve heard tell of those things tossing around cars. When she comes, she will get in.”

The transmission ended and a new one started up, but this time there was only the sound of men and women screaming in the distance, as if they weren’t at their equipment and had merely left it on. When the screaming stopped, a chorus of hissing noises could be heard before the transmission ended and the next began.

“Mayday! Mayday! This is the USS McDaniel. We are under attack! I repeat: we are under attack!” The sound of small arms fire and ripping metal could be heard loudly in the background. “The squids are everywhere! The bigger ones have breached the hull in several places, and the smaller mutated ones are climbing onto the deck. We’re being boarded. Help us! Help…” The transmission became static and cut off.

“That’s all I have been able to piece together so far,” Darren informed the group. “We have been getting a constant live broadcast from Mexico, but it’s just a constant buzzing noise now. I swear it sounds like a swarm of insects talking.”

Warren stood up behind the table he was at. “Thank you, Darren. As you’ve heard, the transmissions do confirm Mr. Higgins’ stories about what has happened to our world. He has also presented us with proof that he was indeed working as a British operative as part of a joint U.N. taskforce sent to the U.S. days after our country fell into complete collapse. None of this information directly changes our situation, but we are left with the question of what to do with Mr. Higgins himself. He has extensive knowledge in many fields that could be of use to us, and his presence will not adversely affect our resources. I would like to ask if he might be allowed to stay.”

Murmurs of shock ran through the group. Michelle spoke up first. “Are you suggesting that you and Mike have actually thought of kicking him out? I mean just sending him out there to die?”

Mike stood up beside Warren. “Transmissions and IDs can be faked. We don’t really know who this man is. I believe he may be unstable and a threat to our continued security. There are no such things as demons, yet Mr. Higgins firmly states that multiple factions of Hell have somehow been loosed upon our world. He believes these factions are at war with one another for the control of our planet. Does that sound remotely sane to any of you? Our problems come from the rats and a mutated viral strand, which has somehow caused an evolutionary jump in the rodent species.”

Darren looked Mike in the eye. “I think believing something different than what you do is not cause to sentence a man to death. As far as I’m concerned, he’s already a part of our group by being human and alive.”

“Those transmissions sounded pretty real to me,” Daniel chimed in. Words of agreement spread through the small crowd.

Seeing he was defeated, Mike sat down and left Warren with the floor.

Kyle, who had been smiling the whole time, suddenly jumped out of his seat like a lunatic. He pointed at something behind the group, and heads turned to the back of the mess hall where Jenkins was leaping to his feet, trying to claw his .45 free from its holster.

A rat sat beside him, sniffing the air. With its blazing red eyes fixed on Warren, Mike and Kyle, it screeched and charged at them, baring its large primary teeth. Its screech quickly turned into a hiss of anger and superiority.

As it made a path towards them, Michelle jumped out of her chair and crushed its skull underneath the heel of her right boot. Warm blood leaked from its eyes as she picked up its corpse by the tail and tossed it towards the back of the room. The group quickly spiraled into panic.

“Hold on!” Warren ordered. “Everybody settle down—now!” The room fell silent at the fury in his voice. “If there were more of them in the room, they’d be attacking us already. Darren, get up to the control center and run a scan. Jenkins, Michelle, go with him! Everyone else, stay the fuck where you are. If they have made it in, the last thing we need to do is split up and take off running through the halls.”

Darren, with Jenkins and Michelle in tow, had already sprinted out of the mess hall. Warren grabbed Kyle up by the front of his shirt. “Are there rats in this base? Have you seen any before?”

Kyle knocked Warren’s hand away from him. “No. If they’re here, they must have followed you. How did all of you get here?”

“The damn cars,” Warren said, realizing what Kyle was suggesting. He turned back to the crowd as the intercom blared to life and Darren’s voice flooded the room.

“The base is clear. That thing must’ve been alone. But Warren, you and Mike need to get up here as fast as you can.”

“Everybody stay calm!” Warren barked. “Go to your quarters, seal the doors, and we’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as possible. Now go!” Warren looked over the crowd as they poured out of the room. Mike and Kyle were running side by side for the control room and Warren cursed as he took off after them.

Warren was the last one to make it. He looked at the external camera screens the others were staring at and simply breathed the words, “Oh shit.”

Darren nodded gravely. “Yeah, it looks pretty bad.” Rows upon rows of rotting bodies stumbled around above the base, and literally thousands of rats skittered about beneath the corpses’ feet.

“My lord,” Mike whispered and pointed at one of the screens showing the main doors. “Are those the things you’re calling demons?” he asked Kyle.

Two massive creatures were looking down the shaft that led to the complex’s inner doors. They stood seven feet tall like humanoid rat monsters from a child’s nightmare. As Kyle spoke, a clawed hand fell over the camera’s lens and the screen went black.

“Yep, those would be them,” Kyle confirmed smugly.

“How the hell did they find us?” Mike wondered.

“They followed us.” Warren drew his sidearm and checked its magazine. “Kyle said the rats want all of us dead and their borders clear before they launch into the war he’s told us about. Think about what our convoy must have looked like to them. It was likely one of the last large gatherings of us anywhere in the U.S. They planned the attack on it and they’ve come to finish what they started.”

“Yeah, but how did they know where to follow us?” Jenkins asked.

“We had to leave the vehicles up top. They must have recognized them by our scent, then all they had to do was look around. With those damn huge open doors, where the hell else could they think we’ve gone to?”

“The bio-scanners are still showing we’re clean so far,” Darren said with a shrug. “But if one got in, others probably will. It’s just a matter of time.”

“The rat was a scout,” Warren and Kyle said almost at the same time. Warren snarled and Kyle gestured at the blank screen. “I’d be worried about the demons. Who knows how many are up there? The two we saw are enough to tear apart the inner doors alone, given time.” Kyle plopped down in a chair. “This is your base now, your group. You guys make the call. Are we going to fight or run?”

“Where could we run to?” Mike fumed. “If this place isn’t safe, where the hell is?”

“My home was still standing when I left. We could try for there,” Kyle offered.

“You’re forgetting something.” Warren slid his gun into the holster on his belt. “In order to get out, we’re going to have to go past them… And on foot. They’ve torn the vehicles to shreds, you can bet on it.”

“So there’s no other option?” Michelle asked. “We make a stand or die?”

“Looks that way,” Daniel answered.

“Great,” Michelle said bitterly. “Anybody got a plan as to how we do that?”

“We could lock down the upper levels. Buy ourselves some time to think,” Darren suggested.

“Are you insane?” Michelle appeared on the edge of exploding in his direction.

“No, wait.” Warren gave her a stern glance. “He may be onto something. Kyle, can you control the lockdown? Choose which doors to seal?”

“Yeah, sure. You want to lead them down a path, keep them from spreading out and using their numbers against us? I can do that, but remember, we don’t know how the lone rat got in. There’s no guarantee we won’t be facing them from two or more places regardless.”

“If we’re going to make a stand, doing it gives us more of a chance than not trying it.” Warren pointed at the layout of the base on the scanner screen. “Try to force them through here.”

Kyle spun around in his chair and went to work laying his preparations.

“Daniel.” Warren laid a hand on the hulking man’s shoulder. “Go round up everyone you can who knows how to use a weapon in close quarters. Michelle, Jenkins, go break out the flamethrowers.” Warren placed a finger on the screen. “We’ll meet them here in the main corridor, two doors in from the main ones. They shouldn’t have time to break in any more than that before we’re in place.”

“What about everyone else?” Darren asked.

“Arm them and send them back to the mess hall until we see how this goes on the upper levels. If it goes well, the rats may cut their losses and bug out.”

“I doubt that,” Kyle said, looking over his shoulder at Warren as he worked.

“Me too, but if they do, it’ll be our window to make a run for it. If not, taking us out is going to cost them. They’ll have to pay heavily for every foot they make it inside.”

Five

By the time Warren reached the spot on the upper level where the group had opted to make their stand, the others were waiting. Daniel and Jenkins wore the flamethrower units, which would be the group’s core defense. Michelle and Brent, being better marksmen, carried assault rifles; it would be primarily up to them to hold off the burning dead. Mike and a young woman named Brook stood behind them, armed with scattershot shotguns to deal with whatever rats made it through the flames and to cover the group’s retreat, if it came to that.

Warren had arrived late because he’d stopped to place several charges on the corridor walls farther down in order to slow the enemy if they were forced to bug out faster than they planned. Already, the demons were pounding away at the last inner door.

“Looks like you made it here in the nick of time, boss,” Michelle said, smiling.

Warren returned her smile and readied the bulky, eight-shot grenade launcher in his hands, taking aim as the door fell inward and an angry demon met them with a half-surprised screech.

“Light ‘em up!” Warren yelled and pulled the trigger of his weapon. The grenade caught the monster in the chest, knocking it backwards in a mass of blood and bone.

The defenders rose up from their makeshift cover as rats came pouring towards them. Twin jets of flame streaked into the passageway, frying the lead rats as they ran headlong into the blazing streams. The rodents began to realize they were not gaining ground and withdrew as the dead came staggering in.

Daniel and Jenkins fell back, and Warren, tossing aside his launcher in favor of an AK-47, joined Michelle and Jenkins as they opened up on full auto, spraying the dead in the confined space. Warren and Jenkins quickly switched to placing their rounds for more effect as Michelle kept up the onslaught, pushing the corpses back as best she could. Despite their efforts, the dead gained ground.

Mike stepped up and fired around Michelle as she paused to reload. Brook stayed in the rear, and she was the one to notice the rats using the dead for cover. “They’re coming back!” she screamed, unable to fire with her friends in front of her.

Pressing themselves against the walls, Warren and Brent reloaded, then resumed firing as Jenkins and Daniel took the center, smothering the floor of the corridor in flame. More rats squealed, dying as they were cooked alive, but the dead paid no attention to the fires swirling about their waists; they continued to press forward. The base’s defenders were ever so slowly being forced to retreat.

Then Daniel’s flamethrower ran dry. “Incoming!” he shouted and ran behind the others as the rats made a renewed push forward. Jenkins cranked up his flame and engulfed the whole corridor in a sea of fire.

“Fall back!” Warren ordered.

Kyle, who was watching the battle from the control room, sealed a door behind them as they retreated deeper into the complex. When the door slammed shut, the defenders paused to regroup. Benji came running up to them with a new flamethrower in his hands. Daniel grabbed it and began to strap it onto his back.

“Thank you,” Warren told Benji. “Now get the hell out of here!”

Benji turned and fled as the pounding on the door started.

“Grenade again?” Daniel asked.

“Can’t,” Warren replied. “Not enough cover this time.”

“What about the demon?” someone shrieked.

“We’re going to have to shoot the fucker!”

The monsters bashed through the door, and it flew inward, slamming Brent into the wall and cutting his body nearly in half. Blood and intestines spilled from the long gash across his stomach.

The demon sprang at them like a force of nature. Michelle and Warren blasted it, and spent round casings clattered to the floor around them. It howled in pain but kept moving straight into the heart of the group, clawing away most of Jenkins’s face. His finger tightened on the trigger of his flamethrower, hosing Daniel and Mike. Daniel’s flamethrower exploded, and Jenkins’s erupted soon after.

Michelle and Brook managed to evade the blasts, ducking away around a corner. They got to their feet as the demon came around the bend, stumbling, its whole body ablaze.

Brook watched in horror as Michelle stepped up to it and stuck the barrel of her rifle against its face. She pulled the trigger, and its head splattered from a point-blank, three-round burst. “That’s for Warren,” she whispered as its body toppled over with a thud. Michelle stared at the burning thing with tears welling up in her eyes until Brook yanked her backwards by her shoulder, screaming for her to come on.

Kyle’s voice boomed over the intercom. “Run! Get to the lower levels! I’m locking down the top completely—run!”

Brook dragged Michelle into a lift and didn’t let go until its doors sealed behind them. Michelle slumped to the floor, shaking with sobs. Brook kneeled beside her and took her in her arms.

The lift didn’t stop until it reached the bottom level. Darren met them and helped Michelle to her feet. “Kyle’s on his way here, sealing the last of the doors manually behind him.”

Michelle took a deep breath, steadying herself. “How long?” she asked.

“Kyle said he didn’t know. If they work their way to a lift and come down its shaft, less than an hour, tops.” Darren reached out and put a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry about Warren.”

She slapped his hand off her. “We don’t have time for this. I’m the only one left who has real training in fighting the rats. I’ve got to do something to try and stop them.” She marched off towards the mess hall with Brook and Darren reluctantly following her. “These people need to know what’s coming,” she said without looking back.

Benji was standing inside the doorway to the mess hall as Michelle entered. She shoved him aside before he could ask where Mike was, and every pair of eyes in the room turned towards her.

“Warren’s dead,” she stated in a hollow voice. “So are Mike and the others.”

The news hit Benji like a fist to the gut. He fell to his knees with tears flowing down his cheeks.

“The rats are inside the base and coming for us. We have less than an hour.”

The other survivors remained silent, stricken with terror.

“There’s no way out,” Michelle informed them. “I know none of you are soldiers. Most of you never used a gun before the rats came, and some of you probably don’t think you can, but we’re it. What we do in the next few minutes will determine who we are and what our lives meant. We can sit and wait for the rats to gnaw us into bits, or we can go fighting like Warren and the others did. It’s up to you, but I need to know this instant where we stand.”

“Haven’t been too keen on waiting around my whole life,” a big man named Paul said.

A redheaded woman in her early thirties spoke up next. “Those things took my husband when the convoy was attacked. I say we kill as many of those little pieces of shit as we can.”

Corrie, who’d been serving as the group’s main cook, pushed herself to her feet; she was in her forties, overweight, and she had a horrible complexion. “You point me at ‘em, honey, and I’ll blow the bastards to pulp,” she said, pumping a round into the chamber of the 12-gauge she carried.

“Are we all in agreement then?” Michelle challenged them, slinging her rifle onto her shoulder so that it pointed at the ceiling. A chorus of approval echoed in the mess hall as Kyle entered behind Michelle.

“Rallying the troops, I see,” he said, laughing.

Michelle spun around, taking a swing at his face. He caught her by the wrist and twisted her in front of him, pinning her arm against her own back.

“That’s cute. It really is.” Kyle gave her a kiss on the cheek as she broke his hold and bolted from him. “Whoa, beautiful. We don’t have to die today. There is another way out of the compound without going through the bulk of the rats.”

“What?” Michelle asked, struggling to keep her anger in check.

“The rat,” Kyle said, “the one that got in alone. It used the back door. There’s an old part of the base that doesn’t show on the scanners. It isn’t part of the base proper, so to speak. It was part of the original bomb shelter built on this spot before your government remodeled this place into a high-tech death factory.”

Darren was stunned. “If that’s true, why didn’t you tell us about it before?”

“Didn’t know about it myself until a few minutes ago. I know this place went on beyond the steel walls we called the base, but I didn’t know they were still accessible until I saw a demon just appear on the bio-scanners as I was running for my life. Since as far as I know they can’t walk through rock, I figure it came from a tunnel in the old base and ripped its way into this one.”

“What does all that mean?” Paul asked, trying to keep up.

“It means if we can take out a single demon and maybe a much smaller force of the rats and the dead than the one up top, we can get the hell out of here and have a shot at staying alive.”

“Where’s the tunnel?” someone called out.

Kyle kept his eyes on Michelle. “It’s in the emergency stairwell between this level and the one above it, only on the other side of the complex. If we’re lucky, the rats will spread their numbers thin on the level above us, thinking some of us are hiding on that floor. We’ll hopefully have even less of them to fight through.”

“Michelle,” Darren said, “could we really do what he’s saying?”

“Maybe. If we had more weapons.”

“We don’t and we’re wasting time,” Kyle spat. “I can’t do this on my own, or I’d be gone already. We go now with what we have, or we die here without question. It’s as simple as that.”

Paul motioned for Michelle to go. “Get going. I can’t do what he’s asking, or I’d go myself.” He thumped his chest. “Heart condition. I wouldn’t survive the running.”

Corrie moved to stand beside him. “I’m staying too.” She gestured to a group of people keeping to themselves at the rear of the mess hall. “Most of us would stay and hope the rats pass us by or overlook us. Some of us are too scared to go out there if there’s the slightest chance we’ll be safe where we are. Take who you can and go. If the rats do find us, we’ll buy you some time.”

Michelle was shocked by Corrie’s offer and the bulk of the group’s refusal to go. She didn’t know what to do. These folk were her responsibility.

Benji stood up, sniffing and wiping at his cheeks. “You go on, sis. I’ll look after them. Mike and Warren both would’ve wanted someone to survive.”

“Benji…” she started in a quivering voice, but he grabbed her and shoved her at Kyle.

“Get the hell out of here, sis, before I kick your ass for once.”

Kyle winked at Benji. “Thanks,” he said as he darted for the door. Darren, Brook, and a redheaded woman named Anne raced after him. Michelle hesitated long enough to hug Benji and give him a peck on the nose, and then she followed Kyle’s group.

The others watched them go, then closed the mess hall doors and started barricading them with tables, chairs, and whatever else they could find inside the room.

Six

“This way!” Kyle led his small band of escapees around a bend in the corridor. They ran, making it across the lower level to the stairwell door without any unwelcome encounters. They stopped at the entryway. They could hear the shuffling feet of the dead above them on the other side.

“What the fuck?” Darren whispered to Kyle. “Shouldn’t they be pouring in here already?”

Kyle smiled darkly, as if he knew something the others didn’t. “Never question a good thing,” he said, then he swung the door open before anyone could move. Two corpses turned to face them, totally taken off-guard. Kyle dispatched them both with his pistols, then dove up the stairs.

“Shit!” Michelle leapt after him, trying to cover him as best she could with her rifle.

Minutes before Kyle entered the stairwell, the head Rat King had stood at the hole he and his three brothers had torn through the base’s metal wall, communing with his children deeper in the base. His instincts had told him to head to the lowest level, but his children had found a trail of blood on the floor they were currently on. He could feel their joy as they tasted it. It led them to a series of doors that appeared to have been left open just for them. The trail ended in a great red pool at the second stairwell leading down.

The fastest of his children detected noises and smells behind the door, and they informed him that there were humans hiding down there, preparing to face them. This is the place where we’ll feast, the rats told him.

Sympathetic to his children’s eager pleas, the Rat King dispatched them and his brothers to enjoy their prize. He kept a contingent of the dead with him, however, totaling nearly three dozen in number. He was relishing the taste of flesh via his children’s senses when the sound of gunshots below snapped his psychic link. He half-howled, half-screeched as the flavors faded from his mouth, then, snarling, he moved to deal with the man who’d taken such pleasure from him.

As Kyle reached the second level, he skidded to a halt, staring straight into the face of the largest rat demon he’d ever encountered. It looked pissed off, and it threw itself at him. Kyle barely avoided its claws by hurling himself over the stairway’s railing. He toppled over the side, grabbing the base of the rails so fast and so hard the impact broke one of his fingers. He screamed but didn’t let go.

The Rat King moved towards him like a cat playing with its victim as Michelle reached the second level with Darren and Brook at her side. Brook blasted the creature with her shotgun, and the scattershot tore tiny holes across its skin.

Michelle’s rifle clicked empty as she jerked the trigger back. She cursed, tossing it aside.

Moving in front of her, Darren fired a trio of rounds from his .45 into the monster as it spun to face them.

After Michelle left, the people in the mess hall barely had time to barricade the double doors before they heard noises in the corridor outside. Something struck the doors so hard the whole barricade shook, and Benji watched in horror as monsters slowly pushed their way in. Chairs and tables clattered to the floor as the doors swung inward.

“Fire!” Paul roared.

Rats streamed through the debris of the barricade, but the two massive demons held everyone’s attention.

Benji was closest to the entrance, and, unleashing a battle cry his sister would have been proud of, he ran straight at the lead demon, firing his 9mm over and over into its chest. The demon grimaced and snarled in pain, but kept walking and swatted Benji across the room with a wave of its hand; he struck the far wall and landed in a mass of broken bones, and as the darkness took him, his last thoughts were of Michelle.

People screamed all around the room, some dying at the hands of the demons, others falling under a whirlwind of hungry rodents. Soon, only Corrie and Paul were left alive.

They fought their way into a corner of the room and kept shooting. Paul was pale and sweating, barely standing as he ripped a rat off his arm where it wiggled, gnawing deeply into his biceps. Corrie was covered head to toe with small bleeding bite marks. She took aim and blew half a dozen rats to pieces with a well-placed blast from her shotgun.

Paul’s eyes rolled up in his head as he cried out in pain and collapsed. The rats covered him almost instantly.

“Oh God, please,” Corrie wept, flinging a rat from her hair and bringing her shotgun up to face the demon walking towards her.

“God is dead,” it said in broken English. “This land is ours now.”

The small rats backed off as the thing leaned in to lick the blood off Corrie’s face with its long black tongue. Its breath stank of death and decay.

Corrie’s shotgun fell from her trembling hands as the rat demon placed a claw between her legs. Her eyes bulged as its finger poked inside of her through her clothes. The creature mimicked a human smile as best it could and jerked upwards, gutting her from groin to neck before she even had time to scream.

The Rat King laughed as it lifted Darren with a single hand and threw him against the stairwell wall so hard the sound of breaking bones echoed above the chaos of the battle.

Realizing the scattershot in her weapon was useless against the monster, Brook took advantage of the distraction and slipped past the beast into the hole that led to the tunnels beyond, leaving Michelle and Kyle on the stairs. A dead man dressed in a blood-covered police uniform stumbled toward her. Brook shoved the barrel of the shotgun into the corpse’s mouth and blew the man to hell.

Back in the stairwell, Michelle drew her sidearm as Kyle struggled to climb over the railing back onto the platform. Anne knocked Michelle aside and let loose on full auto, her AK-47 chattering, spraying a stream of bullets into the Rat King’s stomach at pointblank range. The monster retreated, leaving a pool of blood where it had stood.

Kyle swung himself onto the platform, cradling his broken hand in pain. “Don’t let up!” he yelled. “Kill the damn thing!”

The Rat King lashed out at Anne with a long arm, and her head disappeared from sight as it bounced down the stairs.

“No!” Michelle screamed and launched herself at the monster. It gawked in surprise as she crashed into it and sent it careening over the side of the stairs. Even before its body had crashed into the floor below, Kyle was dragging Michelle toward the hole in the wall. “Run!”

As he darted into the tunnel and saw Brook sprinting down the passageway into the distance, he dropped a time-delayed grenade onto the ground behind him. He ran on at full speed, dragging Michelle by the hand until the force of the blast hit them and sent them rolling into the dirt. When the dust cleared, they saw that the hole into the stairwell had collapsed, but they could hear the Rat King clawing at the pile of debris that separated them. Kyle got up and yanked Michelle to her feet.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“We keep running.” Kyle smiled and sprinted after Brook.

Epilogue

Kyle sat at his desk. The world had ended but the paperwork went on. His superiors wanted a full report on his trip to America.

He sighed and got up, letting the work wait. He poured himself a glass of wine from the office’s bar and looked out his window into the streets of London. War raged between the military and the dead, but Britain was holding. A tank made its way down the street, surrounded by a squad of heavily armed men in black, and he watched absentmindedly, reaching up to trace the scar on his cheek that Michelle had given him. He regretted that he’d been forced to put a bullet in her skull when she’d learned of the steps he’d taken to ensure their escape from the base. He’d longed to feel her wet lips around him at least once, but Brook’s lean, tan body had charms of its own, and Brook, unlike Michelle, had been able to grasp that sometimes sacrifices needed to be made for the greater good.

And she was grateful, very grateful in fact, to have a roof over her head and a warm bed to sleep in. He smirked. His job did have its perks.

He returned to his desk and picked up his pen. He’d stood face to face with the new ruler of America and had seen him badly wounded. The demons could be hurt. They weren’t immortal like the legends had hinted at. They bled and could be taken out like any mortal foe.

There was hope in the world as long as Britain stood, and when it finished securing its borders and rose up from the ashes of the dead, it would be men like Kyle who would show the evil unleashed upon the earth that mankind could fight dirty too.