Chapter Nineteen

Our next primary objective was to hunt down a set of apes who'd been tracked to an artisan brewery. I didn't think anything about it as we set down in front of an old brick building—not until I heard a gunshot that didn't come from any of us.

"White to Overwatch. Contact. Over."

"D-Nav to White. We have a number of heat signatures inside. Looks like you found a honey hole of survivors. They're located in a cellar, which is why wider scans didn't pick them up. Too much interference. Over."

"Overwatch to White. You're clear to disembark. Secure those survivors. Over."

"Look alive," White barked as we jumped off the bikes. "Crazy, Sleepy, double up and clear the perimeter by air. Prepare the roof for emergency evac. Doc, Grumpy, you're with me. Grumpy, when we come in contact with the survivors, I want you to remember to speak with authority, keep your chin up and your chest out. As long as you act confident, most of them won't look past the uniform long enough to question whether you're old enough to know what the fuck you're doing."

I kept her words in mind, although I wasn't planning on doing any talking.

Once we cleared the front door of shufflers and realized it was barricaded from the inside, we had no choice but to enter through a broken window. They were too high off the ground for shufflers to get in, so we assumed the survivors themselves had used it as their point of entry. White and Doc only managed to climb through it by using me as a step-stool, then reaching down to pull me up.

I immediately pointed my gun upward toward the rafters inside, knowing the ceiling was the source of ninety percent of jump-scares in movies. Instinct made me fire before I consciously identified the ape standing on the catwalk over the brewery's collection of large metal vats. It died and fell, hitting the ground with a wet splat with a bullet hole in its head.

Both White and Doc turned to stare at me with raised eyebrows for my seemingly quick reflexes. I gave them a shrug. Killing the zombie had been mostly luck. I could have just as easily looked stupid for aiming at nothing.

We dropped to the floor inside and White led the way over so we could fill the fallen zombie with a load of shotgun pellets. A double-tap to its head ensured it'd be a shuffler when it rose again. Then we continued forward, scouring the building for other apes and the cellar door.

Although the exterior was old brick, the interior was full of shiny, stainless steel equipment and clean surfaces that reflected the light from the windows like mirrors. It made it easy to move around and see where we were going. We found the door to the cellar and a second ape in the same place. The ape was already dead from the gunshot we'd heard earlier and a handful of other incapacitated zombies were scattered around it. The cellar door itself was still intact, although it was riddled with bullet holes. Someone had chosen to shoot through the door rather than try to open it, which must have been risky. I hoped no one had been hit with a ricochet.

I fed a bullet into each of the fallen to ensure they'd stay down and the sound of my gunfire attracted attention.

"Is someone there?" a woman called through the closed door.

"United States Armed Forces, ma'am," White said, projecting her voice with authority. "If you can give me a tally of how many people are with you, we can get choppers here for immediate evacuation. Has anyone been hurt?"

The sound of a quiet, whispered argument filtered through the door, too low for us to make out individual words.

"No," she replied. "No one!"

"Has it been more than an hour since they were attacked?" Doc asked, seeing through the lie. "If so, you're correct. No one was hurt in a way we need to be concerned about. However, anyone who has come in contact with the blood of the infected is at risk."

"We have two people in a coma," she said quietly, making all of us wince. If there were any uninfected people inside, it'd be a miracle. "But it's been a few days. Maybe they're fighting it off."

Someone inside barked at her, calling her an idiot, but Doc snapped before it could go too far. "You're right," he shouted. "They are fighting it off. The incubation period is an hour. Anyone who doesn't immediately turn into a zombie after an hour ends, won't. But we need you to let us in so we can assess the situation."

When they didn't immediately respond, White changed tactics. "We're coming in no matter what. Whether we blow the door of its hinges with a directional charge or you unlock it won't change the outcome. We have orders to evacuate all survivors and that's exactly what we're going to do. The longer you stall, the higher the chances other apes will find their way inside. If you'll listen closely, you can hear the rest of my team clearing the perimeter. We don't have unlimited ammunition, so stop wasting our fucking time and open the door."

There was another minute of quiet arguing, then we heard the unmistakable sound of a deadbolt sliding free. The door creaked open.

"I'm coming in," White called through the crack. "I'm aware the situation is tense, but anyone who raises a weapon will be viewed as a threat and dealt with, so keep your weapons aimed at the floor." With that, she pushed the door open wider and we were given our first view of the interior. It was a brick-lined stairwell with a woman and two men blocking the way down. The men had shotguns. The woman had a Glock pointed at her feet. White gave a nod of approval, seeing none of the weapons were pointed our way, and led the way inside.

Once White, Doc, and I were in the stairwell, I turned around and bolted the door closed behind us.

"White to Overwatch." White pressed her finger to her ear in an unnecessary gesture—one she did for the benefit of the civilians. "We're at the entrance to the cellar. At least five survivors so far. Two lich, confirmation pending. We might lose the signal once we go down. We'll report back in five minutes with a full assessment. How copy? Over."

"Overwatch to White. Five minutes. Solid copy. Over."

"What's wrong with your eyes?" one of the men asked, his hands tightening around his shotgun. I tightened my hands around mine, preparing to respond if he tried to raise it.

"That's classified," White replied.

"I'm a doctor," Doc interjected before the mood in the stairwell could degrade. "Please, show me to the coma patients. Do you have any other injured in need of medical assistance?"

The woman with the Glock immediately stepped in, offering to show him the way. The rest of us followed and, thankfully, none of the survivors tried to make me go head of them. I didn't trust any of these people to have my back.