Chapter 36: What Dwells Beneath

Rebecca felt a dry warmth come over her shoulders and wrap her up. It was a lab coat. She covered her body with it and turned around to see Ansem standing there, docile.

“What?”

Bullets fired out into his back and Ansem turned on the soldiers standing in the doorway with their rifles. They unload their clips intohim, but he still grabbed them and brought them down, clearing a path for Rebecca to escape. Ansem disappeared into the flashing darkness and was not seen again. Rebecca picked up a rifle and tried shooting the bodies around her, but it was empty. She slung it over her shoulder, pulled a pistol from a dead soldier’s belt and used it to put a bullet in the head of each fallen soldier she came across on her search for Atticus.

The base was far bigger than Rebecca could’ve predicted. Stainless steel door after door was empty behind it. Rebecca was starting to lose hope. The screams were getting louder in the intermittent red lighted hallways. With no sign of Atticus or an exit all Rebecca could do was keep looking and try not to get turned around. This was an arduous process but after a while she was finding ample supplies including food, more clothes, a couple scalpels, and ammo for the rifle.

In one room there was a mirror. She had a look at herself and saw something primal. Standing there in the flashing red, painted red from neck to toe, holding a gun with nothing but a labcoat on. This was a version of her she never thought she could be. It was more than being a warrior. It was being a survivor. But no, there had to be more.

There had to be civilized life. She barred the door and used a sink and anything she could get her hands on, like paper towels, gauze pads, and wash clothes, to wash the contaminated blood off of her. Woman’s clothing was scarce, even for doctors or nurses, but Rebecca made do with what she had, wearing troops’ cargo pants and a bullet proof vest under her lab coat in place of a brassiere. Rebecca kept the lab coat on for cover but really to her it was evidence her long lost love was something more.

“Atticus!” she started yelling recklessly.

That drew the rats from the maze, and they quickly found Rebecca. Around a corner there were four. Two more joined moments later, Rebecca had to fight. She let them get close, military officers and scientists freshly turned. Rebecca made quick work of them. One corner she came at too hard. The ghouls took up the entire rifle magazine and still grabbed at her while she tried to reload. Rebecca abandoned the rifle and went for her sidearm, but it was too late.

Shots being fired from behind her brought the bodies down, unfortunately for Rebecca they fell right on top of her. Once they were all dead for good they were pulled off and Rebecca was helped up and immediately retained by zip-ties. The guards took her into a room and closed the door behind them. This was immediately followed by her lab coat and cargo pants getting pulled off. Because what else would two soldiers want to do when the world was burning around them. Rebecca felt so defeated. She wondered why more people didn’t find Jesus at the end of the world. Was humanity truly as debased as the examples brought before her of late? Perhaps she should have remained covered in blood. One guard pushed the other for first dibs, and after that and they tossed each other around like mongoloids. Rebecca got to the floor and pulled the scalpels out of her lab coat.

When they finally decided to work together and picked her back up she caught the bigger one in the jugular. The other punched her in the face and they both went for the dying soldier’s gun. Rebecca bailed on the attempt and stabbed him in the heel, leaving it in. She picked up the gun as they both squirmed on the ground ready to finish him off. Rebecca held the gun up with tears running down her face, once again dirty from all the bloodshed, wiping stripes of clarity away from all the blood and sweat on her cheeks.

“REBECCA!” she heard from outside in the hall.

Rebecca did not shoot them. She pulled her clothes back on and left with the door open.

“REBECCA!” the call got louder as she ran through the flashing red hallway.

“Atticus!” Rebecca availed as they met around a corner. “I’m so fuckin’ scared.”

Atticus had also recovered a gun. “It’s Saarsgard’s base. If we let him catch us we’re dead.”

“There has to be a way out of here!” Rebecca panicked.

“Rebecca, there’s something I have to tell you.”

“What?”

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“They have your husband here.”

“It’s okay, Atticus. I already saw him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. He saved my life.”

“But I thought he was turned.”

“He was.”

Atticus brought her to a stairwell that led up to the top of the facility. When they got to the top and opened the door they were hit by daylight. The sun never felt so good on her face. After her eyes adjusted to the brightness she realized they were on a dock. Evacuating soldiers prepped boats to depart.

Atticus jumped into the water and snuck onto one of two scout boats docked. Rebecca followed after him as she waited patiently to contribute. He fought a soldier with a grenade on his belt. When the moron reached for it Atticus snapped his neck. He pulled the pin on the grenade and threw the body onto another guard prepping the other boat. Rebecca helped push off while Atticus manned the wheel.

Their boat gained as much distance as possible in four seconds and the grenade’s explosion ignited the other boats fuel tank causing the whole thing to go up in flames. The evacuation team ran out of the facility heavily armed and led by Saarsgard. They blew the starboard side of the boat to pieces, sinking it within minutes. “God, not again!” Rebbeca cried out. Atticus told her to stay in the water as he dove under back towards the shore.

Focused on surrounding the wreckage they did not see Atticus sneak onto the beach. He popped the water-logged bullet out of the chamber and reloaded before he stood up. Atticus used a 9mm pistol to put down a go-team wearing heavy armor, carrying assault rifles and machine guns. He knew right where to hit them, where their armor was weakest. He now stood on the beach with General Saarsgard. That’s when Atticus saw it.

Atticus felt everything shift around him. He suddenly knew why this all was happening. Something clicked inside of him, and he asked the obvious question. “After you kill us, how are you getting out of here?”

“Why would I tell you that?”

“Because I’m out of bullets.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I am.”

“Drop the gun then.”

Atticus looked over at Rebecca, they both shared a worried look. He dropped his gun.

“Now she drops hers,” Saarsgard demanded.

The jig was up. They did not have the upper hand. Rebecca walked out from behind Saarsgard with her gun and threw it into the sand. Saarsgard laughed and reloaded his rifle.

“There’s a pontoon boat at the auxiliary LZ. You would have known that if you remembered your training.” The general pulled the trigger, and the rifle was empty.

“I was too busy counting your shots!”

Atticus tackled Saarsgard and Rebecca picked her pistol back up. They punched each other in the sand. Atticus slipped the duffle-bag Saarsgard had, and it fell to the ground. Saarsgard got his boot under Atticus and kicked him over onto his back. He stumbled to his feet and Rebecca took this as an opportunity to toss her gun over to Atticus. The General stepped in between Rebecca and Atticus and intercepted the gun. He aimed it at Rebecca.

The horde poured out of the door led by the Lord of Undead Ansem Weathers and caught General Saarsgard off-guard. He tried emptying all the rounds of the pistol into the horde as it approached him. Zombies jumped in the way of the bullets about to hit Ansem as he grabbed the general and bit into his neck, popping the stars off his collar, while the other zombies pulled his arms down. In one last scream the General was torn apart. Ansem lifted his head like a trophy.

Atticus picked up the General’s duffle-bag and took Rebecca to auxiliary LZ where there was the pontoon boat. Rebecca looked back while they scurried off. She wanted to see her husband one more time. The rest of the undead feasted while Ansem just stood there, holding the general’s head, watching Rebecca get whisked away. Part of her wanted to stop. For some strange reason Rebecca still felt compelled to be with her husband, even in his current undead condition. Was it for research or for love?

What the hell was going on here?

Atticus forced her away from the beach and before long Rebecca could not see the horde anymore. With that her twisted feelings subsided. Rebecca wanted to live. She still felt hope again, like the wind in her hair. Rebecca knew they could get out of this alive.

“What are we going to do now?”

Atticus clutched the General’s duffle-bag hanging on his side as he drove the boat southwest.

“We’re going to meet Samuel in Savannah.”

End of Saga Two