The Z Directive (Book 1): Extraction Point Read online

  An unexpected growl from the side caught Jack off guard. They’d gone past a store room and an infected had lunged out. Smith managed to dart back, but the infected slammed into Jack, knocking him into the wall. It roared, reaching forward with its head and opening its jaws. With all his strength Jack shoved the zombie away, knocking it to the ground. Smith fired the kill shot, blowing the side of its head wide open. Jack turned to the advancing group and resumed firing.

  “Right side!” Smith called out; moments before an explosive salvo of gunshots echoed down the side corridor. Jack barely managed to retreat before the bullets slammed into the wall where he’d been standing just a second earlier. There was no time to deal with that threat as the infected were pushing forward and had all but closed off the avenue - a number peeling away from the main group to advance towards the new signs of life and the meal they were endlessly seeking. Jack hoped they would keep the Bolvinox team busy.

  Suddenly, the building was rocked, shaking and vibrating as the sound of a loud explosion rumbled through it.

  “Someone with a launcher just took out the car!” Cross reported.

  “Why?” Smith asked as she reloaded her own rifle.

  “Don’t know, but the infected that didn’t get toasted are dispersing; some are going inside, some drifting back out into the street.”

  “How many coming inside?” Jack asked as he unloaded the remainder of his current magazine.

  “I want to say half.”

  “Great.” Jack said, ejecting his spent magazine. Though they’d definitely killed a good number of infected, there were still an innumerable amount. The loud gunfire from the hostiles that had attacked them moments before could still be heard, and it was likely that the sound of carnage within the hospital would draw the infected towards them.

  “Ty, how’s that door coming?”

  “We’re going to need to breach it.”

  “Do it!” Jack instructed as he lined up the next series of shots.

  They continued retreating and firing, the gunshots of the others had now ceased, replaced with a crescendoing chorus of growls, moans and baying. Behind them, a loud explosion agitated the infected more, causing them to seemingly find the will to speed forward, their eagerness to eat the living somehow overpowering the stiffness they felt in their limbs.

  “Retreat!” Jack instructed Smith; the pair turned and began to run towards Tyrone’s last known location, putting as much distance between them and the infected horde as possible.

  They soon saw Tyrone and Bridges holding position near the door, the explosive charge they’d used having blown the door off its hinges and dislodged the piled up items that had so effectively blocked it earlier. Without pausing Jack took point, passing through the doorway and starting up the stairs, his eyes scanning the upper part of the stairwell for threats. Fortunately, it seemed to be relatively clear at that point, nevertheless, his weapon was held ready to take any aggressors down - whether they were alive or dead. Smith was just behind him, with Tyrone and Bridges bringing up the rear. The stairwell was plain, with concrete steps, pale green walls and a narrow gap viewable over a railing that allowed someone to see right the way up or down the middle of the staircase. They wound their way up to the second floor as the hungry growls of the dead began to echo into the chamber. Jack tried the door, ensuring that it was secured, as he knew the second floor had been overrun and hoped there wouldn’t be more threats to hit them as they were fleeing up.

  Satisfied it was held in place, Jack continued up the stairs, leading the team to the third floor - where the survivors were supposedly located. He grabbed the handle and tried to open the door, but it too was secured and unyielding. The infected were definitely at the bottom of the stairwell now; fluttering images in the gloom that were barely visible as they attempted to clamber up the stairs. Quickly, Jack decided to continue up the stairs.

  “Where are we going? Isn’t this the floor?” Bridges questioned as the group started to move again.

  “If we breach this door then we’re leading the infected straight to our target!” Jack snapped back as he pounded up the stairs, leading them up past the fourth floor and stopping at the fifth. After the hike to the hospital, the travel through it and now the hurried advance up the stairs, Jack was starting to feel a touch winded. Breathing a little harder, he laid his hand on the handle of the door, twisted it and forced the door inward, finding it blessedly open. Gunfire erupted behind him - close enough to only be coming from his team - as he passed through the doorway; Smith following. Tyrone and Bridges, however, were still in the corridor, firing down through the gap in the stairs to slow the infected.

  “Come on!” Jack called out.

  The duo moved quickly while the loud sounds of the undead reverberating up the stairs. Bridges stopped just shy of the doorway while Tyrone passed through. The former fired down through the gap in the railing at a few zombies that were ahead of the pack, the dull, continuous rhythm of his suppressed weapon thumping out before he too retreated through the doorway and slammed the door shut. Quickly using the ties normally used to secure a prisoner, Bridges and Jack tied the handle of the door to a nearby metal support rail; it would slow the infected down for sure, but with enough of them pressing up against the door, hammering and clawing at it, Jack wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t eventually break down.

  “We need to get across the floor and take another set of stairs down.” Jack announced, his weapon once more held at the ready. “Hopefully that’ll help these infected lose our scent.”

  “It won’t be as easy as that!” Smith announced loudly. “Contact!”

  Jack turned to face the direction Smith was looking in and saw a trio of infected shambling towards them; the central figure was a doctor the others appeared to be nurses or perhaps junior doctors. Jack and Smith worked together and quickly brought them down with headshots.

  “Figures.” Tyrone commented. “I imagine there’s more where these came from.”

  “Makes you wonder if the doc downstairs has really managed to secure her floor or if we’re going to be running into more of these freaks.” Bridges thought aloud.

  “It doesn’t change the plan.” Jack told him firmly, moving to take point. “Ty, with me. Smith, Bridges, watch the rear.”

  The group structured themselves as instructed and began to advance down the corridor, moving right at the elevators until they came upon a turn off to the right that would afford them the ability to begin crossing the floor. Sounds of the infected were rumbling throughout the floor; probably because they had been agitated by the wailing of the car alarm, incited by the explosions and were now enticed by the presence of the living. The foursome moved at a fast walk, striding quickly and carefully, going around the scattered debris on the floor - everything from dropped patient charts and files to severed, skeletonized limbs to corpses of infected that had been brought down by a blunt attack with some improvised weapon that in most cases was still lodged in the forehead, the eye or the crown of the skull. Infected were stirring at the far end of the corridor, advancing towards them in a group of about ten. There was another turn they could make, but Jack wasn’t convinced it would be wise to make too many adjustments. This floor seemed to contain more wards for patients - rooms with a dozen or more beds from what little he could see as they sped past - and if they had all succumbed to the infection, there were going to be a lot of them. Jack took aim, firing at the advancing group; the first shot tore through an infected’s head on the right while Tyrone dropped two in quick succession on the left. They continued firing, advancing towards the oncoming group and passing by turn offs to left and right.

  Gunfire erupted from the rear, causing Jack to glance back to see Smith engaging targets that shuffled out of the rooms they’d passed by while Bridges paused to fire down the side passage, turning to run after a few moments and retaking his place in the group. Jack looked back ahead and finished the remaining targets off; his last shot clicking, telling him his maga
zine was empty. He released it from the weapon and tossed it to the floor, grabbing a replacement and driving it home before chambering the next round - just as an infected emerged from a room ahead, its lower jaw missing. It gurgled at Jack just before he executed it with a single shot.

  With no more targets to the rear Smith and Bridges ceased firing, turned and clambered over the bodies of the infected Jack and Tyrone had gunned down. The passageway split left and right, meaning they needed to take a turn off. Jack wanted to put as much distance between the stairs they’d used to access the floor and the stairwell they would use to descend to the third floor as he could, so with only brief hesitation he chose to go left; having calculated the right path could possibly loop back round the way they had come. Immediately, he saw a wall of about twenty infected passing through double doors, which they kept forcing open with their stumbling movements. It gave him pause to reconsider his choice of direction but glancing right, he saw a pile of overturned beds and wheelchairs forming a hastily built blockade. Deciding that the best way forward was to stay on his chosen path and pass through the moaning, groaning walking corpses - whose jaws snapped and drooled as they attempted to quicken their pace to reach their next meal - Jack began to fire. He maintained as much discipline as he could, firing carefully and precisely to kill an infected with each shot when he could, though some didn’t quite hit their marks and instead blew through the lower section of the face. Tyrone joined him, firing until he depleted his ammunition and needed to reload.

  “Reloading!” Tyrone called out, stepping back and allowing Bridges to take his place. Despite his wiseass nature, Bridges, Jack registered on some subliminal level, was a fine marksman and the two worked effectively in tandem to gun down the approaching infected. With no sense of self preservation the decreasing group was moving forward slowly and stiffly, and he and Bridges were bringing them down with relative ease, right up to the point they heard gunshots from the rear, drawing their attention.

  Jack looked back and saw that a group was shuffling forward towards the barricade. The size was indeterminable but if the barricade didn’t hold and their force was large enough, then they would be pressed from both sides, urging Jack to decide they needed to move faster. He refocused his attention and backed up a couple of paces - the group in front of them having advanced closer to them before Jack and Bridges could finish them off. Each shot’s report was a kill shot, an expulsion of congealing, stodgy blood that spattered onto a wall, floor or a nearby infected. Brains and skulls were devastated by the bullets and, as the last few of the infected group stumbled towards them, losing their footing on the backs of those already fallen, Jack and Bridges worked effectively to finish them off. Bridges’ weapon ran empty so he shifted to his sidearm, the unsuppressed weapon’s sound echoing and blasting down the corridor, causing the infected to groan and roar in return. Jack couldn’t fault him as the infected were too close for him to safely reload his primary weapon. Pressed, they nearly retreated into the backs of Tyrone and Smith who were drilling shots into the infected at their rear before they finally cleared the way.

  “Moving!” Jack announced, leading the way as he reloaded his weapon. Bridges did the same, shifting back to his rifle and returning his pistol to the holster on his thigh.

  “Ramsay,” Cross came over the radio, “we’re taking fire! We’re going to need to reposition!”

  “Understood!” Jack responded. He had always assumed there was a greater number of Bolvinox security in the vicinity than the few they had encountered, but the fact that they had set up the additional team on a rooftop - perhaps to cover their withdrawal - proved they were experienced and more of a danger to their mission than Jack imagined. As they turned the corner into the next corridor, stiff limbed moving figures at the far end caused him to instinctively raise his weapon and begin firing. The range to his target and the speed with which he was forced to take aim and fire caused some of his shots to miss, hitting only the upper chest of the infected or neck at best. Bridges engaged the targets too, bullets slamming into them and dropping one or two of the silhouettes to the floor.

  The growling from the corridor behind was now audible over the gunfire. A quick check revealed that, while Tyrone and Smith were with him, the group assaulting the barricade numbered in the dozens, and it wouldn’t be long before they tore it down.

  “Grenade!” Tyrone yelled, a microsecond after the distinctive metallic ping of the grenade safety popping away. Bridges grunted with exertion as he and Jack started to sprint away; the latter glancing swiftly over his shoulder to confirm Smith and Tyrone had turned and were running with them as they headed towards the next intersection. Jack raised his weapon as they rounded the corner, the immediate lack of infected as they advanced a relief as the corridor was rocked by the shockingly loud sound of the grenade exploding.

  “Keep moving!” Jack called out, leading the way.

  In the dark - facing uniform corridor after uniform corridor - it was difficult to know exactly how far across the hospital they’d travelled. Fortunately there weren’t any threats directly in front of them so they were able to cover some distance, jogging but not sprinting flat out in case they ran into any surprise threats.

  “Cross, report.” Jack said, starting to breathe a little heavier from their exhausting work.

  “We took sniper fire from the same building the rocket attack came from. We couldn’t pinpoint the exact location and there was no cover, so we’re pulling back some.” Cross explained.

  “Injuries?”

  “No, we’re fine. What’s going on in there?”

  “We had to engage the infected and are now hopefully moving towards a stairwell that will bring us to the doctor’s location.”

  “Good luck.” Cross concluded.

  An indeterminate amount of time later, and after rounding another couple of corners, Jack saw another stairwell. Looking up and down the corridor, he couldn’t see any indications of turn offs which would lead them further away from the stairwell they’d used to gain entry, so it seemed as if it was finally time to go down to the third floor. He wrenched open the door and listened carefully for any suggestion that there were infected below. Satisfied it was clear, Jack led the way down the stairs, hearing the door shut heavily as the last of the team came through. Moving down two floors, Jack breathlessly laid his hand on the door handle, twisting and pulling. It gave just a couple of inches so he tried wrenching it harder, yanking with all his strength.

  “It’s stuck.” He declared.

  Tyrone moved around him, trying to get a look at what was binding the door then trying to get his fingers in the gap - but it wasn’t wide enough.

  “What’s it stuck on?”

  “Can’t see; some kind of leather or fabric.” Tyrone responded. He grabbed his knife and pushed it into the gap, working down until it was near the handle. “I’ll try to cut it but there’s not a lot of room to work in.”

  Suddenly, something slammed into the door, though it seemed more for show than in an effort to shut it.

  “Back the hell off!” A female voice roared. “I’ll cut you to shreds before you can get through those restraints!”

  Jack wasn’t sure how she’d accomplish this, but he recognized the voice and pulled the door open as wide as it would go.

  “Doctor Reed? Emma Reed?” He called through the crack. “It’s Major Jack Ramsay, we spoke earlier! Let us in!”

  “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”

  “You spoke with Maxwell, a creepy old guy who tried to convince you to hand over the secrets so he could potentially leave you to die.” Jack told her honestly. Somewhere above, there was groaning from the infected and the certain sound of hammering on doors.

  “There are ten of us here and we’re armed. If you do anything we don’t like, if you move too quickly, we’ll kill you!” Emma threatened.

  “Great, now open the damn door!” Jack shot back.

  “I want to see you first, Ramsay, the others h
ave to back off.”

  “Fine!”

  Emma was quiet. After a few tense moments she spoke again.

  “Let go of the door so we can undo the restraints.”

  Jack complied and the door suddenly shut. Long moments turned to minutes and the sounds of the angry dead became louder; Jack wondered if they were actually going to need to breach the door and deal with the consequences when there was a definite sound of activity on the other side. It opened and light suddenly bloomed in Jacks face, the illumination hurting the eye looking through the monocular. He gasped and raised it up quickly; when he looked back he saw Emma standing there, a fire axe in her hands and a couple of people armed with fire extinguishers on either side, with a few more with flashlights amidst a handful of others.

  “It’s him.” She declared. “Come inside, quickly!”

  Chapter Five

  With the door shut behind Jack and his team, the hospital survivors started to re-secure it, lashing a thick fabric restraint from the door to the metal support rail nearby, and then piling some furniture in front of it to act as a blockade. Jack looked them over and saw there were about ten of them; some were hospital personnel wearing standard scrubs and some appeared to be in regular clothing. All of them were dirty and some were spattered in blood - from the living or the infected, it was impossible to tell.

  “Where are the others?” Jack wanted to know.

  “Others?” Emma questioned back.

  “I was informed there were thirty of you on the second floor.”

  “This is everyone left alive in our group. The only other people in the hospital are those assassin's I told you guys about that you didn’t believe were real.” She declared aggressively.