S1E13: Part 1
Somewhere West of the Rockies
They had pulled over a while ago when Cassandra wasn't feeling well, she was now on the side of the road with 10K beside her as she got sick. Doc was on lookout for Z's with Bailey while Warren made the most of their pit stop and contacted Citizen Z.
"Not sure how much longer we can hold it together." Warren was telling Citizen Z on the radio.
"It's only another hundred and fifty miles."
"We have a man down, Cassandra. She's not looking good. And then there's the package."
"Uh, what about the package?"
"Don't know exactly, but Murphy's acting weird. More than usual. Where's this new destination?"
"It's Fort Collins, Colorado."
"What happened to California?"
"Lab's dark again. Maybe for good. You've been redeployed."
"By whose orders?"
"Well, I started picking up a teletype signal on the old civil defense frequency. At first I thought it was a hacker, but turns out its Doctor Merch. Yeah, that Dr. Merch. The one who injected Murphy. So deliver Murphy to Fort Collins. Dr. Merch will be there with her team to meet you."
"No more California?"
"Colorado is the new California."
"Copy." Then they heard Cassandra getting sick again and turned to see 10K rubbing her back.
"Feel better now?" he asked passing her a black bandana to wipe her mouth.
"Yeah, little bit." She replied as he lifted her arm over his shoulders and went to help her up. He barely got her off the ground when she started telling him no and shaking her head. He set her back down and she leaned over the grass again taking deep breaths.
"Try to relax." He said gently rubbing her back again. Bailey toyed with the end of her braid nervously. She'd gotten all the blood out of her hair that she could but in the end just needed it out of her face. She wasn't as good at braiding as Addy had been so she'd made a simple three plait braid and pulled it over her shoulder. It was already falling apart at the top, the hair getting loose and covering her ear. Her fingers picked at the dried blood in the end of it as she watched Cassandra, she needed help, big antibiotic help and fast. Bailey really hoped this lab in Colorado would be their solution, not just for Murphy and the human race but for her friend.
"How much gas do we have left?" Warren asked.
"I don't know, half a tank or so." Doc replied with his shotgun over his shoulder.
"Make it a hundred and fifty miles?"
"Well, if it's mostly downhill." Doc said hopelessly, "We're real low on ammo too."
At that Bailey walked away, if they didn't make this final stretch then it was all over, they'd be out of gas, out of ammo and dangerously low on food. And if by some miracle they did make it. . . well it might still all be over. She thought back to Camp Blue Sky, the Emergency Infection Control HQ, Province Town, the FU-Bar, that reactor in South Dakota, and the Sisters of Mercy Camp. No matter where they ended up trouble either followed or they walked right into it, she had her doubts about this new lab CZ had found too but still she couldn't help but hope for the best, maybe that was a piece of Garnett that had been left behind with her.
When they were finally able to move Cassandra back into the van and got rolling again the small talk turned more positive.
"Doc how much further?" Warren asked.
"Uh, I don't know about sixty five miles or so." He said, it looked like they'd make it, "Anyway, I'm gonna miss you dude." Doc told Murphy, "How bout you Kid? What do you got planned?"
"Uh, I don't know." 10K replied, "Still got 6,998 to go. Might take a break for a while though, head up north somewhere cold. The Z's don't do too well in the cold."
"Yeah, I don't fare too well in the cold myself." Doc replied, "Roberta?"
"Uh, I don't know. Maybe follow the sun west. I've never been to California. How about you Doc?"
"Maybe I'll buy a boat and sail around the world. Find me an island where there's not even a Z in their alphabet." They all laughed. "How about you Hawthorne?"
"Umm. I don't really know. Maybe I'll head back to Utah, see how Addy's doing. Or maybe I'll just walk north until I find Camp Northern Light. Last time I talked to CZ he said something about making a database of all the members of the new Delta X-ray Delta. I could help him out with that. He seems well stocked up there. . . and lonely, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I gate crashed."
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"This must be it. Citizen Z said look for a metal shed with a roll up door." Warren said as they pulled up to what looked like a small warehouse. It seemed odd to Bailey, it was even smaller than the warehouses by the reactor in South Dakota, wouldn't a lab be. . . bigger?
"Like this one?" Murphy asked eyeing the Z's that were standing in front of the door. They weren't clawing to get in, they weren't even moving, just standing still like statues or wax figures.
"What are they all looking at?" 10K asked from Bailey's left as she helped Cassandra sit up so she could see out the front window.
"Our entrance." Warren replied.
"I don't know. You think we're in the right place?" Murphy questioned, "Looks small."
Warren got out and opened Murphy's door. The second he was out of the car she slapped a pair of handcuffs on him.
"What the hell are you doing?" Bailey heard Murphy ask.
"They're looking for a group of civilians transporting a prisoner. I don't want anyone mistaking you as a zombie." Warren explained.
"Bullshit. You don't trust me. After all the times I've saved your ass."
"Trust has got nothing to do with it." She told him, "I don't want anyone piking you after we got you this far."
"Let's just get this over with." He said marching toward the Z's.
"Hey!" Warren shouted after him.
"Murphy!" Doc cried hopping out of the van. Then the Z's turned and snarled at them, Murphy walked right through and turned back one last time to give them a thumbs up as Warren and Doc jumped back into the van as the zombies charged and swarmed their vehicle.
"How much ammo do we got?" Warren asked turning in her seat to look at them.
"Two bullets." 10K replied. Even Bailey's gun was empty, she'd used most of her ammo back in Utah when she'd been practicing with 10K, the rest had been used up in the past couple of days on a Z here and there.
"I got one." Doc said.
"One?" Warren asked.
"I told ya." He said referring to earlier. Having no other option Warren rolled down her window a crack.
"Murphy!" she shouted.
"What?" he called back, "Oh, you want my help?" then he strutted forward moved through the zombies and opened the side door. "Follow me."
"How do you know?" Warren asked looking around at the zombies only inches from them.
"I don't." he said, "Alright quick. Group hug."
"What?"
"Just do it! Do you want to live or not?" they all squished around Murphy as he started walking back to the warehouse. "Maybe someday you'll learn to trust me."
"Man I hope nobody sees us." Doc muttered. The zombies crowded around them but didn't attack. When they made it to the door Warren punched in the code and it opened, when it closed automatically the floor moved and Bailey realized they were in an elevator.
"You know before the apocalypse, I had the same effect on the ladies." Murphy said proudly. They stepped out of the elevator when it reached the basement, there were bodies scattered along the floor but not all of them were zombies, Bailey saw mostly all humans with head injuries - they'd been killed before the virus.
"Sure doesn't look operational." Warren said looking around.
"All those zombies up there must have wanted something down here." Cassandra said as 10K helped her walk through the halls.
"Yeah but what?" Warren asked as Bailey took out her hatchet feeling safer with it in her hand.
"Same thing they always want." Doc said holding his shotgun, "Brains."
"No." Murphy said in a distant tone, "Something different. Something inside is attracting them like a magnet. I can feel it."
Warren took a badge off a worker's body and used it to open the next door. Inside among the desks and filing cabinets and computers looked like a birthday party that had been crashed – hard. The people at the table this time were Z's and not humans and were wearing party hats.
"Well happy damn birthday." Warren muttered.
"Aww reminds me of my fiftieth." Doc said reminiscing.
"Happy birthday Dr. Kur -?" 10K read off the cake.
"Dibs on the last rose." Murphy said digging his fingers into the frosting and eating it, "What I can't help it. Damn vaccine makes me crave sugar." He said licking his fingers.
"Well if you start craving brains, let me know." Doc said.
"Ha-ha." Then there was a clanging sound up ahead and they all jumped to attention.
"Puppies and kittens." Warren said softly as they heard a growling getting closer.
"Here they come." Doc said as he readied the last shot in his gun. 10K passed Cassandra off to Bailey who put her arm around her for support.
"Let's take cover." Warren said ushering them behind a filing cabinet as 10K readied his rifle. He took a shot and they heard a body drop in the distance.
"3,002." 10K said as another figure leapt out and Doc shot it.
"Well I hope that was a zombie." He said.
"Incoming at eleven o'clock." Warren called in warning.
"That's all you Kid, I'm out." Doc said as 10K looked through his scope again and fired. They heard a ping as the bullet ricocheted off something metal.
"Damn." 10K said lowering his weapon, it's last shot used.
"It's okay Kid." Doc said, "Remember that time in Missouri? At the Piggly Wiggly?"
"Frozen food section." He said as he shouldered his gun and walked away, weaving between filing cabinets and machinery.
"Guys zombies." Warren reminded them as Doc took off too. The rest of them stayed hidden and readied their knives and melee weapons as they heard the Z getting closer. There was a squish and Bailey poked her head out to see Doc standing in front of the zombie it's face now covered in cake as 10K came up behind it and whacked it in the head with a wrench.
"3,003." Doc said as the two high fived. Then they heard a light beeping, it was too soft to be an alarm, it sounded like a phone.
"What is that?" Murphy asked as they followed the noise to a desk where a dead worker was with a mercied Z on top of him. In his hand was a phone plugged into his computer so it hadn't run out of battery. Doc grabbed it and looked at the screen.
"There must be twenty text messages here. Looks like this guy was texting his wife or somebody when it went down." Doc said as he started reading the messages off the phone. "Something happened at the lab today. Can't talk now. I'll call you later. . . wont be home till late not telling us why. . . putting us under quarantine. Will update when I know anything. . . Starting to get scared, something very wrong. . . something infecting us. We might not get out of here. Tell the kids I love them." then the phone chimed again, "What? This is a new message here from Citizen Z. Operation Bitemark if you get this message please respond. Hacked and searching lab mainframe. Discovered files you should be aware of. Really weird stuff. Find working computer. Search HZN1 test results backslash backslash code name level nine password red death." Murphy pulled the worker and the Z from the chair and sat down, he typed in what Doc had read and a window popped up with footage of what looked like zombie monkeys. There was a date in the bottom left corner 01/31/2014 but. . . that was before anyone was infected with the Z virus.
"Not surprising they were doing animal testing." Warren said.
"Yeah but what were they testing?" Murphy asked, "Look at the date on these videos. It's the year before anybody was infected. How did they know to be working on a vaccine before anybody was infected?" he clicked a few more things until a doctor profile popped up, "That's her. That's Dr. Merch. That's the bitch that did this to me!"
Then a video played of Merch interrogating a doctor in a sealed room. They were discussing how he'd set of the contamination alarm. He insisted he didn't come in contact with anything unusual, he did nothing out of order, he followed protocol. It reminded Bailey of the man back at the Sisters of Mercy, the one who said he didn't do anything to hurt those girls but Helen didn't believe him and had Addy shoot him anyway. It was like that and Bailey felt just as bad for the man in the video as she did for the man back on the road. The man in the video kept saying the alarm went off for no reason, nothing punctured his suit, he swore it was a false alarm the sensor must have made an error. As he told this again and again to Dr. Merch and she didn't believe him his voice became more desperate and begging.
"Well I'm guessing it didn't end too well for old Doyle here." Murphy said.
"Okay, who's for getting out of here right now? Show of hands." Doc asked raising his hand. 10K raised his hand too and so did Bailey. This place gave her the creeps and she had a bad feeling that if they went in deeper it would only get worse. That's how it always was in videogames, movies, TV, you name it, if you kept walking you only found worse and worse stuff. She'd rather go outside with her hatchet and those Z's and call it a day.
"Okay." Doc said even though they didn't have enough hands raised to win, "Its back out to the apocalypse it is."
"Nobody's going anywhere." Murphy said as he stood and faced them, "This is not a damn democracy. We came here to find Dr. Merch and that is exactly what we are going to do."
"He's right." Warren said after a pause, "If she's down here we can't just leave her. She is still our only chance at a vaccine."
"You're right." Doc said, "I just thought we might want to, I don't know, live."
"Yeah, well quit your dreaming and let's go." Murphy said moving forward. After going down a few more halls and killing a few more rogue Z's the phone in Doc's pocket rang again. With his crowbar in one hand he answered cheerfully.
"Zombie Apocalypse, how may I direct your call?. . . Uh, yeah what's left of us. This is Doc speaking. . . Correctomundo. Nice to hear your sweet voice. So what fresh hell awaits us?. . . Well that sounds great to me cause I ain't had a decent shower since, uh, let's see, New York. . . Defcon One? Well, isn't that some kind of nuclear term?. . . Why am I not surprised?. . . Yeah what's that?"
When he hung up the phone he explained to them what Citizen Z had said as they made their way into the next room that was labeled 'decontamination' which Doc said they had to go through or else the lab would be targeted by an automatic nuclear missile, but that wasn't the one thing that caught Warren's attention. What made her pause was what Doc said next.
"Naked?" she asked once they were sealed in the decontamination room.
"That's what he said." Doc told her, "Naked. And then we got to put all our clothes and stuff in this chute here to get decontaminated with some liquid nitrogen."
"So what are we waiting for?" Murphy said as he started to undo his pants.
"For you all to turn around." Warren said removing her jacket. "And no peeking."
They ended up standing in a circle so only their backs were facing each other.
"Doc we should have gone back into the apocalypse when we had the chance." Bailey said a bit pissed off that they actually had to do this as she threw her yellow jacket and grey tee shirt to the ground in front of her.
"I'm with you there darling." He replied sounding just as bummed about their situation. Once they were all naked they shimmied to the right until everyone had been able to put their stuff in the chute like Doc had told them. Bailey had her arms crossed in front of her while Cassandra rested her hand on Bailey's left shoulder for support. Then she heard fingers snap.
"Eyes up front young man." Warren said and Bailey heard 10K's immediate response.
"Sorry, sorry." He apologized and Bailey didn't realize she'd turned until it was too late, her face got red as she snapped her head back so she was facing forward and her inner voice shouted at her, You did NOT just peek at 10K's – but her inner scolding didn't get to finish as Cassandra's grip on her shoulder tightened and her full attention went to her friend.
"You okay?" Bailey asked.
"I feel like I'm gonna pass out." She said weakly.
"Hang in there." Warren said, "Doc, what now?"
"Oh, we gotta put these on. And then you got to hit that button marked decontamination in front of you, 10K."
"Murphy, your scars." Warren said but Bailey didn't turn to look, she didn't trust herself she just grabbed a pair of goggles when Cassandra passed them to her. "It looks like it's spreading."
"That's what I wanted to talk to Dr. Merch about. Well put your goggles on and quit staring! I'm not the damn Elephant Man! I'm a human being. . .sort of."
"Are you ready?" 10K asked.
"Just do it." Murphy said and 10K hit the button. The room lit up with a bright light and Bailey was grateful for the goggles but got the odd feeling like she was in a microwave.
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Bailey had never been happier to have her worn, ripped and bloodied clothes again but her happiness was short lived when after they got dressed Cassandra hit the wall and slid to the floor.
"Hey, are you okay?" 10K asked immediately kneeling in front of her ready to help.
"I don't think I can go much further." She said as Warren knelt beside her and Bailey leaned over with her hands on her knees. Warren looked over to Doc and 10K saw the look they both had.
"I've got her." He said, "I'll carry her if I have to."
"Okay." Warren said after a slight hesitation, "Sure."
Bailey tapped 10K on the shoulder and he turned to see her outstretched hands. He passed her his rifle and his bag and she slung them over her shoulders along with her own messenger bag so he could carry Cassandra easier. He brought one arm under her knees and the other supporting her back as he lifted her and they continued on with the others.
10K POV
He brought up the rear of the group as he carried Cassandra. He tried to ignore how heavily she was breathing as he stared straight ahead not wanting to see how pale she'd become either.
"I can't do it." She said softly as they turned the next corner. "Stop."
"I can carry you." He told her still looking straight ahead where the others were. "You're gonna be okay."
"I'm gonna get us all killed." She said and he stopped walking and looked at the ground. "Please. . . Tommy."
He took a deep breath and looked at her then he looked away again, she looked even worse than he'd feared.
"Yeah okay." He said defeated before bending down and sitting her on the floor so she could rest against the wall. He stayed crouched in front of her and she stared at him.
"Just don't tell anybody my name all right?" he asked with a small smirk trying to muster a smile. Cassandra closed her eyes then slowly opened them and looked up at him.
"I won't." she whispered then her eyes shut again and her head lolled to the side. He cupped her face in his hands but she didn't respond.