Vince waited as long as he felt comfortable for the group to gather in the cafeteria. Almost everyone was there and settled in by now. Only Laura, Jack, and a few of the man’s cronies were absent.
When the room finally grew quiet, Vince spoke. “As you all know, the man beside me is Martin Kier. He’s the person we made radio contact with recently. And yes, his story is real. He arrived this morning by helicopter and brought us a delivery of supplies from the military installation he’s been surviving in since the plague started.”
Murmurs of excitement rippled through the crowd.
“There are a few things you need to know. The base may not be a viable spot for us to relocate to. We are making plans to send a small task force to ensure it will be safe for all of us.” Vince could see the hope dying in the crowd. “Please, don’t be discouraged. It’s just a precautionary measure, nothing more. We have every reason to believe the base will be suitable for our needs.”
Voices erupted from the crowd. Who goes first? How will we know the base is safe? How soon does the task force leave?
Vince struggled to regain control. “Four people including the doctor will go with Martin on his way home. They’ll stay in complete and constant radio contact with us, and we should know if the base is all right in a matter of days. As to when they will be leaving, that hasn’t been established yet. We need a bit more time to prepare.”
“What is it we should know about Martin?” Chris asked, his tone so hostile and unforgiving it cut clearly through the others. If he was supposed to trust this stranger with his daughter’s life, he damned sure wanted to know everything about him. Especially with the way the man had stared at her when they’d first met.
Vince didn’t want to answer Chris’s question, considering the way the informal meeting was headed. Disclosing the problems with Martin’s installation had changed the mood of the crowd from hope to something approaching heartbreak and anger. But Vince knew he had little choice now. Chris had put him on the spot, and there was no way to back out.
He shot Martin a troubled glance, but the man—or whatever he was—was too new to such subtle human warnings to catch it.
Martin stepped forward boldly, looking out into the sea of faces. “My name is Martin Kier. I have come to help you in any way that I can. However, you should know I am not human in the normal use of the word.”
A new wave of murmurs ran through the gathering, and everyone looked to Vince to see his reaction. He nodded, and shouts filled the room, ranging in tone from anger to utter confusion.
“Wait!” Vince yelled. “Wait! Just hear him out, okay? He’s not crazy.”
“No,” Martin said as the room fell quiet. “I am a biogenetically-created weapon, created by your own government in secret. I am the prototype for what was to be a new breed of soldier, which would end the need for this country’s men and women to die in battle. I have survived the undead nightmare we live in just as you have, though I was left alone. Everyone from my creators to my guards perished. Until your Daniel contacted me, I believed the human race to be extinct. I was made to serve you, and now I can do my duty. I will see you all safely from this place, this I swear.”
At that precise moment, the doorway to the cafeteria crashed open, and Jack, Mitchell and their small band of cronies entered. All of them were armed. “Cut the shit, Mr. Kier,” Jack said. “Don’t believe a word he says. He’s either insane, or worse, the first of a military assault on this building.”
“Jack…” Vince held up a hand and tried to reason with him, but Jack hit him in the face with a loaded revolver. The blow knocked Vince to the floor.
“That’ll be quite enough from you today, Vince. You and Laura may buy into his crap, but not me. I’m not going to stand by and let him destroy everything we’ve worked for.”
Martin seemed to vanish. One second he was standing beside Vince, the next he was twisting Jack’s arm behind his back. The gun clattered from Jack’s grasp and his arm snapped as Martin turned him like a shield toward Mitchell and the others. Jack cried out until Martin slapped a palm over his mouth.
“Stop this madness!” Martin shouted. “I have no wish to harm any of you, but I will if you force my hand.”
Mitchell blinked, trying to process what had just happened. He motioned to the rest of the men to hold their fire.
Jack managed to shake off the effects of the pain. He turned his head to look at Martin, who removed his hand from Jack’s mouth.
“How did you…” Jack began.
“I am what I say I am,” Martin replied. “Do you yield?”
Jack nodded and Martin released him as Vince fought to calm everyone down. Jack’s betrayal he could deal with later; right now, he had a riot to prevent.
Hours later, Jack sat with his arm in a cast, facing Laura and Vince. His men had been disarmed and confined to their quarters.
“Where do we go from here, Jack?” Laura asked, shaking her head in disappointment.
Jack didn’t even bother to look at her. He stared off into space.
“How could you do this to us, Jack, and at such a critical time for us all?”
“Forget him, Laura,” Vince said. “We’ll confine him like the others.”
“And how do we do that?” Laura snapped. “His goon squad represents about half of the men defending this place. The other half is busy watching them, except for Daniel and Gregory. Who’s going to keep an eye on those things outside? Much less make up the team to go check out Martin’s base.”
“Take it easy, Laura.” Vince laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her as she doubled over into a coughing fit. “Hey, are you okay?”
In a voice devoid of compassion, Jack said, “She needs her medicine. She’s dying of lung cancer, you idiot.”
Vince saw Laura’s surprise, as if she believed no one knew her secret; she couldn’t deny it though, couldn’t even speak she was too busy wheezing. Vince wanted to believe Jack was lying, but Laura’s shock told him otherwise. “Where is it, Jack? Where’s her medicine?”
“She keeps it hidden all over the place. Try the back of the cabinet over there.”
Vince darted to the cabinet, jerked it open and began throwing its contents onto the floor in a desperate search for the meds. He found an inhaler and helped Laura use it.
“How did you know?” she asked Jack as her breathing began to stabilize.
“I know a lot of things, Laura. For example, I know you’re going to kill us all if you don’t deal with our new guest. Even if he is what he claims to be, that just makes him more dangerous. We have to kill him now before it’s too late.”
“Vince, would you please see to it that Jack gets locked away like his men?”
Vince smiled, leveling the barrel of his .38 at Jack. “It’ll be my pleasure.”
With the help of Martin and one of the hospital’s remaining defenders, Vince escorted Jack and his goons to one of the hospital’s larger waiting rooms and locked them inside. The room made a poor makeshift jail, but at least it only had one way in and out. The guard sat in a chair facing the door, a fully loaded AK-47 in his hands.
With the matter of the prisoners settled, Vince refocused on assembling a team to escort Martin to his base in the morning, and Laura held a second meeting to restore some order and sense of peace to the hospital. Jack’s treason—and it couldn’t be called anything less—had woken everyone up to how quickly things were falling apart.
On the roof of the hospital, Alyson stood with an empty syringe at her bare feet. She had finally found her way out. Martin couldn’t save them. No one could. The world was dead and the only thing left to do was die. At least she would be going out happy. She giggled and danced as the night wind caressed her naked flesh. She could feel them already, the fingers of the dead running over her skin, the teeth of the dead taking chunks of her into their mouths. She spun on the roof’s edge like a ballerina and raised her face as rain began to fall and wash over her. The water trickled between her breasts and slid off her shapely thighs. The end, the real end, was finally here. She hoped Mitchell had found peace with it as she had, then dove off the roof, gliding like a wounded bird toward the street below.