The Chronos Plague (Book 1): No Time Left Read online

  “Not enough ammo for them all,” I said. It was true. I was running low on rifle ammo. I was okay with pistol ammo, but that wouldn’t finish these guys off. If I used every bullet I had, we would still have a fight.

  I pulled another dresser out and added it to the other one. I could hear the feet slapping around as the zombies who had made it inside walked the hallway and kitchen. They would get up here eventually, but I had the inkling of an idea, and we might actually survive.

  The mattresses came next, and we avoided the master bedroom. Andrea took a single look and her face was enough to let me know that it wasn’t worth the time.

  The zombies finally made it to the front of the house and they looked up to see Andrea and I on the balcony of the hallway. The mass of them surged toward the stairs and I waited until they were halfway up before I pushed a desk down at them. It knocked over the first row and sent them tumbling into the ones behind them. I didn’t wait for them to get set, I pushed a dresser next, and Andrea shoved hers down, too. The pile of zombies grew and I tumbled the mattresses next.

  “Come on, let’s go!” I pulled Andrea along and we went into the bedroom next to the master bedroom. It was on the back end of the house, and I was hoping we had a break waiting for us.

  I opened the window and directed Andrea to grab a comforter. I tied one end to the bed frame and pulled it over to the window.

  “Maybe this works, maybe it doesn’t. I’ll go first,” I said. I dropped the supply sacks out the window and fairly leaped after them, breaking my fall just before I hit the ground. I recalled briefly a similar exercise in Italy a few years back chasing a Pakistani who was trying to sell uranium to the highest bidder. Caught the little son of a bitch, too. I managed to cut his rope right before he leaped out the window. You can survive a two story fall and a three story fall, but not a six story fall.

  I stepped back from the rope and Andrea practically fell out of the window with speed only surpassed by a paratrooper. She landed with practiced ease, and together we ran around to the side of the house. I noticed in our flight that one of the men I had shot the other night was lying at the threshold of the patio door on the ground floor. He must have escaped the car and led the zombies here. Given the fact that his guts were all over the patio, he never stood a chance. But he did lead the zombies to our door, so his revenge might be complete.

  Around the corner, we ran into a single zombie who apparently couldn’t keep up with the others. He was a large, fat man with no hair and missing an eye. The messy socket was black with rot, which told me he lost it when he lost his fight with the zombie who took it.

  I didn’t want to shoot him. I’d rather the zombies who were in the house stay there for just a little while longer. I drew my long blade from its sheath and without much in the way of introduction, stepped between the zombie’s arms and stabbed him in the functioning eye. The sharpened point of the medieval blade made easy work of the zombie and I let his own significant weight pull him off my blade.

  “Christ, what the hell is that thing?” Andrea said.

  “Italian dagger,” I said.

  “What?”

  “That’s what it said on the box. Works pretty well, I think. Took a zombie’s head off with it once,” I said.

  “I believe it. Beats my knife all to hell,” Andrea said.

  “I need a longer weapon to kill quietly with,” I replied, looking around the corner to the front of the house. “Coast is…whoa!”

  I fell back, escaping the hands and arms that followed me. Three zombies were coming to investigate the noise and found us. I backed away, cursing our luck. I wanted my car back.

  “Come on, we have another ride!” Andrea yelled, pulling me back.

  I followed her to the backyard and we ran through the high grass around the lake. The grass was well trampled, making it easy to get around the water. On the other side, we saw that the other men did not make it through the night. Two of them were piles of meat outside the cars and another car was covered in blood.

  Three zombies were still at the cars feeding, and they looked up when we reached the other car. I swung up my carbine and fired three quick shots, sending them off to the other side without last rites.

  Andrea fired up the car and we pulled away from the scene. We both breathed long sighs of relief.

  “Where are we headed?” Andrea asked.

  “You can drop me off wherever there aren’t any zombies, I don’t want to get in your way,” I replied.

  Andrea shook her head. “No way to get into. I wasn’t going anywhere. You got a place to get to?”

  I nodded. “I do have a mission.”

  Andrea shared the nod. “Need backup? I do know how to shoot, I’ll have you know.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. All right, come along. We’ll see where it gets us.”

  And just like that, I had a partner again.

  Chapter 8 – 7 Weeks BTEOTW

  We’d been back in Virginia for all of a day before we had the director of Clandestine Services calling for us in his office. I’d not had the pleasure of his company before, having been out in the field so much, but I guess I’d have to eventually meet him, since technically he was my boss. I’d rather deal with Rodrigo.

  Conner and I had spent the better part of the last twelve days cleaning up the mess at the facility we found. There wasn’t much we could do besides go over the place with a fine-tooth comb, grab what we could, and get everything tied down. We stayed in the farmhouse to keep things simple, and when we left, we made sure no one was ever going down that hole again.

  But we needed answers as to what the hell we saw and what that company was working on. From where I stood, I couldn’t tell if they had a success or a failure. And it still didn’t answer the question as to why the Jester group was killing people related to it. I had a theory on it, but it was pretty far-fetched.

  “Joe MacCullen?”

  I raised a hand since the director was looking at Conner.

  “Right here,” I said.

  “You, um, have any real explanation for what happened in Canada?” The director was a younger guy, middle thirties, with very nice hair and an expensive suit. His voice was pitched to sound deeper than it probably was.

  “Since we’re here, and I’m figuring you read my report, I don’t think I need to add anything to it,” I said.

  That apparently didn’t go over well. The director stood up and walked back toward the window that looked out over the woods. He turned around and his face wasn’t happy.

  “I read the report, and it’s probably the biggest load of crap I have seen in a long time. I mean, seriously? Dead people walking? People eating other people? International conspiracy involving eco-terrorists? What the hell? I would have thought a man with your…ah…considerable experience would have an easier time handling reality.” The director walked back to his desk and sat down with an exaggerated sigh.

  It was my turn to sigh. “I know what I saw, and it’s in the report. Conner was there, and I am sure his report matches mine.”

  The director shook his head. “I would expect his report to match yours especially when you had nearly ten days to get your story into his head.”

  “What? That’s a load of bullshit and you know it,” I said, probably louder than I intended.

  “Watch your mouth. You still work for this agency, remember?” the director said quietly.

  It was right there, right with the little light in his eye that I knew I wasn’t going to win this argument. I wasn’t even going to call it a draw. I could tell the director lived for these kinds of moments, that he was one of those guys who didn’t get any real satisfaction out of life except for ruining the lives of those who worked under them. We used to call them ambitious and driven, but truth be known, they were just pricks.

  That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get my licks in. “I do work for this agency and I have put a number of years in the field protecting this agency and the country it is su
pposed to represent. I’m sure your years in the field taught you that.”

  That one hurt, and I knew it. Our current director of Clandestine Services had spent exactly one week in the field before his political connections flew in to save the day. All he had to do was be a courier, and he managed to get followed, jumped, and his files stolen. The funny part was the people who jumped him were just a group of local teenagers looking for an easy mark. He was in his position because he was useless anywhere else. God alone knew why the hell they put him in charge. But he wasn’t going to show his hand here. That much I could see in the way his eyes changed from anger to the cold, bloodless look of a predator. I just signed the death warrant on my career, but I really didn’t care. I was on the evening shade of my job anyway. I could retire tomorrow, but we had bigger things to worry about.

  “Look, Director, we can shout about this all we want, but the fact remains that something unholy bad went down in that lab. No one can argue that. And your geeks have had a decent amount of time to look over what we sent in,” Conner said, trying to smooth the tension in the air.

  “You realize that you are asking me to believe that you two fought and re-killed people who were already dead. Believe in zombies? Real-life, walking dead?” the director asked.

  “Well, say it using that tone, and sure it sounds bad,” I said.

  “I think this meeting is over, and I think you know what your next step is,” the director said, smiling a little.

  Conner slapped me on the chest before I had a chance to reply with a really juicy retort.

  “Yes, sir. We’ll head back to our desks,” Conner said. “Come on, Joe.”

  I stood up, not breaking eye contact with the director. His eyes told me he would not forget me and mine told him that fucking with me meant a whole world of shit he was completely unprepared for. Mine won.

  We made our way back to our desks, and I knew that little shrimp was making phone calls all over the place. The good news was my record spoke for itself and they would let him rant and rave but I wasn’t in any real danger. The more I thought about it, the better I liked all my odds. He could assign me to a desk and I would have normal hours for once and I could actually sleep in a place where I didn’t have to booby trap the doorway.

  I wasn’t at my desk for more than ten minutes when my phone rang.

  “MacCullen,” I said, half-expecting to be called back to the director’s office.

  “Mac! It’s Steve! My office, now!” the voice on the other end of the phone bellowed before cutting off.

  Ouch. My ear actually rang. The caller was Steve Castle, an old friend. We’d gone through the academy together, splitting off into our respective fields. I’d gone out and he’d gone in. He was a bear of a man, easily over six and a half feet tall, weighing in at about three hundred pounds. Most people underestimated him, not realizing he held three PhDs, and could easily lecture professors from around the world on microbiology and genetics and barely break a sweat. I broke a sweat trying to pronounce the fields he held degrees in.

  I pulled Conner away from his desk and we walked across the building, through the parking garage, and down toward an innocuous-looking door. The door led down a filthy stairwell, and at the end was another door. I knocked three times and the deep baritone of Steve Castle shook the steel frame.

  “Enter, damn your eyes!”

  I paused. “I should warn you about Steve,” I said to Conner.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s a hugger,” I said, opening the door.

  The lab was a beehive of activity, with interns and doctors running around, throwing lab samples at each other, arguing over data sheets, and generally sending what normally would be an orderly place into an amazing display of nerdy chaos.

  As Conner and I started walking over to Steve, activity stopped around us as people became aware of us. Groups of whispers formed in our wake, and I was sure there was open pointing.

  I approached one of the walls on the other side of the room and tapped on its shoulder.

  “You called. What the hell do you want? I’m busy,” I said loudly, effectively silencing the rest of the room.

  The wall turned around, eventually growing a painting that contained a large frame consisting of a mass of red hair encircling a large angry face.

  “Mac! You son of a bitch! You did this to me! You!” Steve Castle literally roared in my face.

  “Blame the secretive organization that made it,” I said, unfazed. “How’s Sue and Dawn?” Sue was his devoted wife and Dawn was his twelve-year-old daughter and the center of his universe.

  “They’re great! Thanks for asking!” Steve yelled again. “Get into my office!” He pointed at a small room across the lab.

  Conner stayed where he was. “You need to stop shouting.”

  Steve turned his considerable bulk toward Conner. His voice became soft, almost a whisper. “I am shouting because I am greatly agitated. Stay out here.” Steve turned his back on Conner and led the way to his office.

  I looked at Conner and shook my head. I didn’t say anything, but the look I gave Conner made it loud and clear he’d made a mistake challenging the king in his own kingdom.

  Steve closed the door to his office and creaked into his desk chair. He ran a hand over his face and beard. He heaved a big sigh and then said the one thing that scared the living shit out of me.

  “I have no idea what the hell it was you discovered up there in Canada, Mac. I really don’t,” Steve said quietly.

  “As much as that amuses me, I know that isn’t really true,” I said.

  Steve sighed. “Let’s just say I know what they were looking for, and I know what they found. But I am at a loss as to why it works at all. I wish you had brought out one of those test subjects. That would have helped.”

  “Sorry, I was more interested in trying to make sure they stayed dead,” I replied.

  “Right, you’re the one they send in when the problem can shoot back.”

  “Or rip your throat out,” I said, defensively. “So tell me what you know.”

  “Okay. I’ll give you the short version. You know what DNA replication is?” Steve asked.

  “I’ve heard of it,” I said. “That’s where you make extra DVDs, right?”

  Steve ignored that. “Essentially, your cells replicate themselves. The DNA splits in half, and then recombines,” Steve said. “Most of the time, it works just fine. But sometimes it gets messed up, and then mutations occur.”

  “Mutations.”

  “Right. Things don’t line up right, and then you get problems like cancer and such,” Steve said.

  “Okay, so what was going on at this facility?” I asked.

  “Based on what you saw, and what you gathered in intelligence, they were looking for the holy grail of science,” Steve said.

  “What’s that? Proof of God? An eternal source of bacon? What?” I asked.

  Steve shook his head. “I wish. No, think bigger.”

  I tried and came up with nothing that didn’t involve bacon. “I got nothing.”

  “Immortality,” he said simply.

  “Immortality. You serious?” I asked, not really believing my ears.

  “Deadly. It’s been a will o’ the wisp for centuries. We’ve studied the immortal jellyfish, the axolotl, and hundreds of herbs and potions. Rich men have paid millions to prolong their lives, freezing themselves and hoping for cures. In the end, however…” Steve trailed off.

  “In the end, we all die anyway,” I said.

  “Pretty much. But up until now, we only looked outside ourselves. Your little corporation went inside, and played with things better left to greater minds,” Steve said.

  “Whose mind?” I asked.

  “God’s. He knew what He was doing when He made DNA, and we should leave well enough alone.”

  “Okay, so what happened? I’m assuming you read all the files and things. The people we found were definitely not alive. I put several .45 rounds in
to them and they still got up,” I said.

  “Well, we didn’t find anything when we went through the crap you brought back from the lab,” Steve said, wagging his finger at me.

  “So I am gathering from the gaggle of failure you’re calling a lab out there,” I said.

  “Don’t be petulant. You did deliver a set of notes that were absolutely fascinating. They talked about mating DNA to a virus, thereby creating a delivery system that affected the entire body at once. Problem was, it didn’t work the way they wanted it to. It gave life, but only after death. Brain cells apparently are not compatible with the virus and restructured DNA. The side effect they weren’t counting on was the brain coming back to half-life, reanimating the rest of the body and essentially creating actual zombies,” Steve concluded.

  “I don’t know why, but that still scares me,” I said. “How is it transferred? I saw a guy get his throat ripped out and yet he stood up afterward.”

  “Just like any virus. It’s transferred by bodily fluid—saliva, blood, you get the picture.”

  “So don’t get bit?” I asked.

  “Don’t get splattered on any mucous membranes,” Steve said.

  “Right. So what are you trying to do now?” I asked.

  “You’re not seeing the bigger picture. This lab was shut down, but the people who knew about what happened there are dying. You ever figure out why?” Steve asked.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “I think you’d better.”

  “Why?”

  “Mac, this is real-life zombies here. If this ever got out, we’re talking actual pandemic. It’s a highly contagious, fast-acting virus with no cure in sight. You think your feeble brain can manage the math on that?” Steve asked.

  “Fuck me,” I said.

  Steve’s response was interrupted by Conner knocking on the door. He poked his head in for a second, ignoring Steve’s pending eruption.

  “We have to go. There’s a situation,” Conner said.