Chapter 10

We crept back the way we'd come into the compound, splitting up to take separate rooms. According to Ash, we were mostly in the whores' living quarters now. From the look of things, the young girls stayed with them too since every child's bed was decked out in pink sheets with girls' clothes left out for them. That meant they stayed there, probably awaiting the same fate as the women who'd given birth to them. Part of me wondered whether Clive would have let them find other partners or whether he'd want to control them all despite being the reason they were alive at all. The rest of me didn't want to know.

The next person who said they were disgusted by the nature of Shaun's relationship with me, I'd tell them about this place. In fact, screw that. They weren't worth the individual words. This called for an article. One with the recordings my cameras were taking even at this moment. In the moment I resolved to write that piece, I was certain they'd shut the fuck up next time.

As I entered one of the whore rooms as quietly as I could for fear of alerting the mob a few corridors away, I dropped down on my hands and knees to begin searching under the beds. The mother's bed turned up nothing, but then I found something under the daughter's bed. Sure enough, it was a disposable gun in that garish bright pink that made you just want to empty it and throw it away as fast as possible. Did her mother hide it there? Did she find it and take it because it was pink, thinking it was a toy? It made no difference. It was mine now.

A quick glance at the slit in the side of the integrated magazine showed that it was fully loaded. Paydirt! I couldn't have asked for better. I ditched the useless SMG and holstered the disposable, drawing my .40 as I turned around to leave and had to stifle a shriek as I saw Tara standing behind me. I'd been expecting Foxy or Audrey since they were stealthy enough. Maybe Ash or Shaun if I hadn't been paying attention. But not Tara.

"What are you doing here?" I hissed. Fortunately she got the message and also lowered her voice.

"Why are we whispering?" I was glad for her perception. The tact was spot-on and it might have saved our lives.

"There's a mob a few corridors away and we're mostly out of ammo now." I told her. "We're looking for any guns these people might have had. We're thinking they're mostly disposables in this area but we'll take what we can get."

"Say no more." Tara took a backpack off her back and set it down, opening it up to reveal a whole bunch of grenades and laser trip mines. I'd barely even tapped my ear cuff before everyone was reconvened. Foxy was the first one into the bag, diving in so eagerly that I thought it would swallow her small frame whole. Eventually she settled on a laser trip mine and three grenades. I just grabbed a couple of grenades while Ash and Audrey got busy with laser trip mines. Shaun took what was left, adding up to two of each for him. We set off back towards the mob, our confidence reignited.

"So what are you doing here?" I asked Tara, keeping my voice low as we moved. "I thought you came from what you said out there, I thought you came for the rest of the ordinance."

"Actually, we were on a mission nearby." Tara replied. "But Audrey saved my life before she changed her name and I wanted to see if I could return the favour now. Especially after she called for backup. Also if I can find the keys to some of his vehicles, the others at the EIS will be acting like it's Christmas come early."

"So Audrey and vehicles." I nodded. "Got it." Despite my cynicism, I understood. Clive had amassed so much firepower and even now there was still no easy way to get to it. It only made sense that she wanted to capitalise on this and grab what she could now to potentially earn a promotion while no one else had the balls.

We arrived back at the mob, who were still unaware of our presence as they milled about in the corridor aimlessly. It was unusual. Normally they'd be patrolling when they were a thinking mob. They'd have worked out set walking routes to cover ground on routine and alert the others if they spotted something. Their routes would be quite symmetrical where possible and would allow them to stay within range of each other so as not to break whatever connection they shared. It was one of the weirder aspects of them that no amount of research had been able to figure out. But these weren't moving. They stood in place, shaking in a way that you'd only spot by watching very carefully. They'd been at least walking around within their group earlier. I'd thought their activity would only increase as time went on, but waiting seemed to be having the opposite effect. Then again, we knew already that these zombies were far from normal.

"Hey George, see how many you can take out before they notice you." Shaun said, nudging me. Clearly he'd noticed the same thing because he didn't bother keeping his voice down. Despite his jovial tone, I knew he was being serious because Ash and Foxy were busy setting their trip mines up at the mouth of the corridor. I saw what they were up to instantly. I was now the one with the most ammo. He wanted me to use it to trigger a chase and lead the mob into the mines. We could lead the survivors through the halls picking them off with the explosives. It would scatter potentially hazardous materials over a large area, but we didn't have the bullets to do this in a stand-up fight.

Nodding to him, I moved opposite the entrance and crouched down, raising the disposable. Since I was just trying to incite a chase I wasn't worried about the low accuracy rating on these things. The sites were moulded into the body which was made of two cast halves and solvent welded together. It meant they were almost always off-kilter and made the gun useless at significant range. Still, it was a thirty dollar piece that was meant to primarily deal with potential home invaders or that newly amplified grandparent. Literally no one had grounds to complain because no one needed that as much range as I did now. But while I needed the range, I didn't need accuracy. I wanted to save my .40 for when I really needed it.

I took a second to steady my aim before letting the first round off. Despite the poor accuracy on a disposable gun, the tightly clustered mob made a miss virtually impossible. That said, I definitely wasn't expecting a headshot. What no one expected, however, was what came next. The zombie convulsed as the hole in her head started pouring a cloud of greenish spores. As she went down, the cloud became a fountain. It filled the air around them and really obscured our visibility. I fired a few more times, trying to get their attention. Nothing. They were just content to stand there twitching sporadically and each hit caused them to start pouring more spores.

"Fuck this!" Ash snapped. "Get a frag in there!" Shaun was one step ahead, however. He pulled the pin and threw it as we retreated backwards to avoid coming into contact with the cloud. We had no clue what it was but since it was coming from zombies infected with bubonic plague we weren't keen on touching it. The grenade exploded, igniting the cloud and causing a chain reaction that caused the whole thing to go up in a bright flash. The heat was immense but I couldn't see if there were flames. As soon as the light erupted, my visor polarised to the degree that it blacked out completely. I stumbled backwards, floundering uselessly as I crashed into something rather soft yet somewhat hard at the same time.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Shaun demanded. Clearly it was him.

"My visor blacked out from the light! I can't see!" I instantly felt Shaun's hands around me, steadying me. I took a few breaths, the waves of panic subsiding slowly. It was new equipment. It was only natural that there would be a few technical glitches I had to work through. As I stayed still, I listened for any sign that anything had survived. There was nothing. No gunfire from the people around me, no yelling or zombie noises. It was totally quiet. After about a minute, the visor reset and I was able to see again. The first thing I saw was Shaun looking at me with concern. I quickly flashed him a thumbs-up and he returned the gesture before pointing behind him. I cautiously advanced back to the mouth of the corridor and looked in at where the mob had been. We'd got them all. They were now lying dead and burning in a heap that covered the floor.

"Looks like that cloud can't handle heat." Audrey muttered as Ash and Foxy disarmed the trip mines and retrieved them for possible use later. "It must have roughly the same flash point as gasoline."

"All of this came from one grenade?" I asked, looking numbly at the bodies. The stench made me want to vomit but I was too shocked by the sight of the burning corpses, their buboes shrivelling and rupturing in the heat and leaking foul-smelling yellow liquid.

"Sure as shit didn't come from the trip mines." Ash grinned as she tossed hers in the air casually like a baseball.

"Come on, we need to keep moving." Tara said as she pushed on. We followed suit. I still wasn't sure what to make of her, but Audrey hadn't shot her yet so clearly she was prepared to trust her. If she knew this woman and was okay with her, that meant we didn't have to waste bullets on her just yet.

W carried on walking through the whores' quarters and through the cafeteria until Audrey took the lead as we neared the medical area. She'd been working there, so it made sense for her to take lead here. With her in front, we moved smoothly through the halls as though we all worked there. That very thought made me want to vomit. But what was surprising was the lack of resistance we encountered. Another thing that disturbed me was something else we hadn't seen so far: children. Ash had mentioned something about there being eight schools' worth of bastards in the Maze. Where? So far all we'd dealt with were the adults.

Unfortunately, we didn't have to wait long to find out. Soon, we passed the morgue. I would have carried on without giving it a backwards glance, but Shaun kicked the door open to check if there were any zombies in there he could shoot. What he found instead made my blood run cold.

We'd found the kids.

"I reconciled with Jake today. I know. I wasn't expecting to ever say that either. Turns out our entire feud was based off a misunderstanding. They often are, right? Note to self: don't use active camo earbuds. They lose you friends. I know he couldn't believe it when I showed them to him. Also since he won't be able to update his own blog for a while, I will be posting updates on his condition as he recovers. Everyone can follow his progress here.

For those who don't know, Jake Townsend was injured when our Bridge Supporters HQ in Detroit was hacked and a computer virus placed in our system. More detailed reports can be accessed below but the general picture is that it caused those affected to suffer a mental breakdown and commit suicide in ways that cause amplification. The newly risen would then go on to spread until law enforcement, including the bastard among them that created it, would swoop in, save the day and be hailed heroes. His injuries weren't caused in the initial outbreak. Quite the opposite. I heard from George and Shaun's accounts that he was totally epic there. Instead they came from the mental breakdowns suffered by two of our team after they were exposed to the virus as he worked to keep them safe.

See? I told you he was an idiot."

From The Sounding Sea, the blog of Georgette Meissonier.

September 2 2039.