Zombie Rules | Book 8 | Who The Hell Is That? Achord, David (most popular novels of all time .txt) 📖

in one place, but he’d be under the thumb and scrutiny of VanAllen and all the other petty people who believed they knew the proper way to run Mount Weather and the surrounding communities. The truth was, there were only a couple of people who ran things. Abe Stark was the main one, Parvis when he was alive, his kids, and Zach. The rest of them were merely mouthpieces. Figureheads. They did a lot of talking but little else.

Zach had helped appease them somewhat. He’d appoint senators as liaisons. For instance, Bob was the Fort Detrick and Marcus Hook liaison. Connie was the Roanoke liaison. It worked out, for the most part. His thoughts were interrupted when Shooter came running down the hall.

“We’ve got problems!” he yelled.

Justin stood and faced him. Shooter was sometimes known for being melodramatic, but he seemed genuinely alarmed. Shooter answered the question before it was asked.

“We got zeds everywhere!”

Justin was about to go to the exit doors and have a look, but a sudden slamming of doors and the sounds of a lot of people coming down the corridor caused him to change his line of thinking.

“Here they come!” Shooter shouted.

“Let’s go!” Justin urged and led the way.

The other two followed Justin as he ran toward the opposite exit. Before they made it more than a couple of steps, the door opened, and zeds started crowding through the doorway. He turned toward the inner doors, which led to another hallway, some empty offices, and the stairs leading to the upper three floors.

The stairs were their only option.

They scrambled to the top floor. It was the only way to get enough distance from the onslaught of zeds. Thankfully, these were once the offices of higher echelon personnel, back before. They were designated secure rooms with heavy steel doors and oversized deadbolts. In addition, the rooms had firewalls, that is, the walls were not drywall that stopped at the drop ceiling. They were thick, composite wood that went all the way to the bottom of the next floor.

Justin practically pushed them in and closed the door, locking the deadbolt behind him. He didn’t remember how he did it, but he had apparently bumped his injured arm. Although it was healing, it was still tender and now throbbed.

“I think we need to barricade the door,” Stretch suggested.

The two men agreed and moved the receptionist’s heavy desk in front of the door.

“It’ll have to do for now,” Justin said.

“That’s great, sir, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, we’re trapped. We don’t have any rations, no water, and only our sidearms with a limited number of bullets,” Stretch said.

“Your grasp of the obvious is what makes you so valuable to have around,” Justin said, which got a snort from Shooter.

Justin walked to the far wall where the room’s only window was located and looked out. The once vacant parking lot was now full of zeds.

“How many, do you think, Miss Keen Observer?” Justin asked.

She and Shooter had joined him and stared out the window. She was silent for a couple of minutes, counting silently to herself. When she finally responded, she was pale.

“Over three hundred that I can see. If I were to guess, there are most likely twice that number out there where we can’t see.”

“Or more,” Shooter muttered. “Game over, man.”

“Alright, let’s not be fatalistic. We’re expected back at Mount Weather in the morning. When we’re overdue, they’ll try to raise us on the radio. When we don’t answer, they’ll send someone up here to check on us. That’s the protocol and we all know the First Sergeant is a stickler for protocol. We’ll be stuck here for two days, tops. All we need to do is conserve our energy. It’ll work out.”

Stretch and Shooter stared at Justin before swapping a glance at each other. They both wanted to believe Justin was right, but the incessant banging on the outer doors did not make them any less anxious. They turned back toward the window and stared. They stared in silence for the next hour while the banging on the door continued. Finally, Stretch spoke.

“There’s something weird going on,” she said.

“What’s that?” Shooter asked her.

“The ones at the door. They’re banging on the door and carrying on like nobody’s business, but the ones out in the parking lot haven’t moved an inch this whole time. All they’re doing is standing there and staring up at us.”

“You know what I think?” Shooter asked. “I think that…”

He didn’t finish his sentence. The three of them saw her at the same time.

“Holy shit,” Stretch muttered.

The massive horde parted in tandem as one zed made its way to the front. It did not take long to recognize the identity of the zed. It was Patient Eve.

She walked to the front of the pack and then stood there, almost like a statue, fixating them with a malevolent stare.

“Holy shit,” Stretch muttered again. “Something tells me she’s not paying us a social call.”

Chapter 53 – Who the Hell is That? (Part 2)

The three of them had been trapped in the room for several hours now. Justin had been pacing for the last hour. He then tried sitting and willing himself to relax, but that did not work. His arm was hurting, and the pain had caused a headache. He glanced over at Stretch and Shooter. They were sitting on the floor on the opposite side of the room, whispering to each other. Stretch seemed to sense they were being stared at and glanced over. She looked scared.

“What’s up, guys?” he asked.

“We’re going to die in here, aren’t we?” she said.

“I don’t want to starve to death,” Shooter said. “It’s just a matter of time before we become so hungry that we’ll turn on each other.”

“Don’t worry,” Justin said. “We’ll die of thirst before we die of starvation.”

“Oh, well, that’s good news,” Shooter grumbled.

The three were silent now. Stretch and Shooter sat on the floor, brooding. Justin felt no better, and he racked