his grip, and even more so, his resolve. In a blind fury, a tunnel vision rage that concentrated his every molecule onto a single task, he held onto that ladder as if it were nothing less than life itself.
The aircraft drew out the remaining length of ladder until Whittaker and Malcolm were lifted along with it. The captain could see but not hear the pilot screaming at him to do something while he pointed down at Malcolm. But there was nothing the captain could do. He was worried enough about his own life at the moment, for below, the horde had arrived. As they waited for the ship to crunch into the pier, which was only seconds away, they looked up, hungrily, hoping maybe that Malcolm would shake the ladder loose and drop Whittaker into their midst.
The chopper dipped with the weight, then flew sideways along with the tanker’s motion.
The first zombies, arms outstretched in eager anticipation of a long overdue feeding, crowded under Malcolm, who was now suspended a few feet in the air on the ladder. The helicopter stuttered then dropped when a zombie leapt high, grabbed Malcolm’s ankle and hung on. Whittaker screamed as he looked down and saw the impossible: not only had Malcolm locked on, climbing even, but another zombie had jumped and caught Malcolm’s ankle, and then—others were leaping, connecting, and holding.
They’re making their own goddamned ladder!
Whittaker yelled to the pilot and climbed faster. Got to get inside, kick off the ladder and all this weight and fly off to safe—
Unfortunately, the pilot and the other crewman had reached the same conclusion, along with the certainty that they wouldn’t last the five seconds it would take for Whittaker to finish his ascent.
“Sorry!” the crewman inside the chopper called out as he worked the ladder’s fastening mechanism.
“No, wait!” Whittaker climbed, reaching for the top, for the crewman, even as he mistakenly took a precious second away from his task to look down. He saw the makeshift zombie ladder, and Malcolm’s grinning eyes as he served as the anchor—and two crazy-fast corpses scampering up the bodies of the others, stepping on Malcolm’s head, then leaping up the rungs. They closed the distance fast to Whittaker, who only had an instant to scream before he felt weightless.
The ladder split and fell free from the chopper, which ascended in a rush of wind and mercifully loud rotor noise.
Loud enough even to drown out his screams as he fell thirty feet to just miss the edge of the deck, to land on his back on the choppy, frothy water.
But the soft landing didn’t matter. Seven zombies, including Malcolm, fell with him. On top of him, under him. They landed and sunk, all in one roiling pile, all of them biting and chomping and rending like sharks to a bleeding, helpless, drowning prey.
The last thing he heard, muffled and echoing in the underwater depths, was the sound of his former vessel crunching into the pier, where the rest of the zombie army—and the monstrous dreadnought—would be released onto the mainland.
Part 2: Patient 0
13.
Langley, Virginia
The fact that the CDC maintained an outpost inside the CIA’s headquarters was one that was little known, and yet, it made great sense. With the advent of bio-weapons, and with biological warfare on the rise, coordination between the two agencies had been increasingly necessary.
Alex and Elsa Ramirez found themselves escorted by a pair of armed U.S. soldiers along with a contingent of hazmat specialists into a windowless conference room. Ergonomic chairs surrounded a wooden table wired for communications over a slate gray, thin carpet.
A trio of upper echelon CDC division managers were already seated at the table, a battery of electronic devices spread out before them including smartphones, tablets and notebook computers. Alex didn’t care. What mattered now was that his mom was finally okay. After all these years of suffering, the uncertainty, the stress of
The aircraft drew out the remaining length of ladder until Whittaker and Malcolm were lifted along with it. The captain could see but not hear the pilot screaming at him to do something while he pointed down at Malcolm. But there was nothing the captain could do. He was worried enough about his own life at the moment, for below, the horde had arrived. As they waited for the ship to crunch into the pier, which was only seconds away, they looked up, hungrily, hoping maybe that Malcolm would shake the ladder loose and drop Whittaker into their midst.
The chopper dipped with the weight, then flew sideways along with the tanker’s motion.
The first zombies, arms outstretched in eager anticipation of a long overdue feeding, crowded under Malcolm, who was now suspended a few feet in the air on the ladder. The helicopter stuttered then dropped when a zombie leapt high, grabbed Malcolm’s ankle and hung on. Whittaker screamed as he looked down and saw the impossible: not only had Malcolm locked on, climbing even, but another zombie had jumped and caught Malcolm’s ankle, and then—others were leaping, connecting, and holding.
They’re making their own goddamned ladder!
Whittaker yelled to the pilot and climbed faster. Got to get inside, kick off the ladder and all this weight and fly off to safe—
Unfortunately, the pilot and the other crewman had reached the same conclusion, along with the certainty that they wouldn’t last the five seconds it would take for Whittaker to finish his ascent.
“Sorry!” the crewman inside the chopper called out as he worked the ladder’s fastening mechanism.
“No, wait!” Whittaker climbed, reaching for the top, for the crewman, even as he mistakenly took a precious second away from his task to look down. He saw the makeshift zombie ladder, and Malcolm’s grinning eyes as he served as the anchor—and two crazy-fast corpses scampering up the bodies of the others, stepping on Malcolm’s head, then leaping up the rungs. They closed the distance fast to Whittaker, who only had an instant to scream before he felt weightless.
The ladder split and fell free from the chopper, which ascended in a rush of wind and mercifully loud rotor noise.
Loud enough even to drown out his screams as he fell thirty feet to just miss the edge of the deck, to land on his back on the choppy, frothy water.
But the soft landing didn’t matter. Seven zombies, including Malcolm, fell with him. On top of him, under him. They landed and sunk, all in one roiling pile, all of them biting and chomping and rending like sharks to a bleeding, helpless, drowning prey.
The last thing he heard, muffled and echoing in the underwater depths, was the sound of his former vessel crunching into the pier, where the rest of the zombie army—and the monstrous dreadnought—would be released onto the mainland.
Part 2: Patient 0
13.
Langley, Virginia
The fact that the CDC maintained an outpost inside the CIA’s headquarters was one that was little known, and yet, it made great sense. With the advent of bio-weapons, and with biological warfare on the rise, coordination between the two agencies had been increasingly necessary.
Alex and Elsa Ramirez found themselves escorted by a pair of armed U.S. soldiers along with a contingent of hazmat specialists into a windowless conference room. Ergonomic chairs surrounded a wooden table wired for communications over a slate gray, thin carpet.
A trio of upper echelon CDC division managers were already seated at the table, a battery of electronic devices spread out before them including smartphones, tablets and notebook computers. Alex didn’t care. What mattered now was that his mom was finally okay. After all these years of suffering, the uncertainty, the stress of
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