Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [59]
Before today, dead people didn't get up and walk around.
He wasn't sure how it got so bad so fast. One second he was standing with J.D., Rain, Alice, Spence, and that Addison guy, the next they were surrounded. After the tank exploded, he was knocked to the floor, but he got up quickly and started unloading his Beretta into the walking corpses that simply would not stop for anything. His ears were ringing.
Somehow he and J.D. wound up back to back. They were just around the corner from the door that would take them back to the hallway where the offices and labs were. "We lost the others."
"Keep moving!" J.D. said as he fired his rifle into the crowd.
They inched closer, finally reaching the door. Kaplan thought his head was going to explode from the noise of the gunfire, the explosion, and the screaming.
Not to mention the image of his four comrades being killed while he was helpless to do anything about it.
Spence was standing there as Kaplan holstered his pistol and approached the keypad.
Surprised, Kaplan asked, "You waited?" Leaving aside the fact that he was unarmed, this particular iteration of Spence Parks didn't strike Kaplan as the gung-ho, take-one-for-the-team type. More like the run-away-and-save-his-own-ass type.
"Didn't know the code."
Run-away-and-save-his-own-ass it was, then. Luckily, Kaplan did know the code. All he had to do was summon it from the recesses of his brain. The problem was doing it through the pounding headache.
He entered 0431961.
Nothing happened.
"Shit!"
"Come on," Spence said.
He entered the code again.
Again, nothing.
"Shit!"
He didn't get it. That was the code, he was sure of it.
If only the noise would stop…
Spence, still being his usual useful self, said, "Hurry up."
As if it would make a difference, he entered 0431961 more slowly.
Yet again, nothing.
"Shit!"
J.D. ran up to the door, grabbed Kaplan and shoved him out of the way. "Move! What's the code?"
Under other circumstances, Kaplan would have objected to this course of action. But maybe there was something wrong with the way he was entering it. Not that there was any trick to it, really, you just entered the eight numbers.
"Move!" J.D. said. "What's the code?"
"Hurry up!" Rain called from a few feet off. "I'm runnin' out of ammo!"
Pulling out his Beretta and shooting into the ever-nearer crowd, Kaplan yelled out, "Zero, four, three—"
Then it hit him. Eight numbers. He'd left out a digit. "No, fuck!"
Spence walked up to Kaplan and got right in his face. Kaplan was tempted to turn his pistol on the arrogant prick. "What is the code?"
Kaplan took a breath. "Zero, four, zero, three, one, nine, six, one."
"Got it." J.D. entered the code. Then he turned to look at Kaplan as the door slid open. "See how easy that was?"
Behind the door was a sea of former Hive workers.
Kaplan didn't know what the look on his own face was, but he imagined it was very similar to the look of abject shock on J.D.'s as dozens of hands grabbed him and pulled him into the hallway. A second later, and Kaplan couldn't even see J.D. anymore.
"J.D.!"
Rain came out of nowhere and dove in after him. Was she out of her fucking mind?
Kaplan ran up to her and grabbed her arm. To his shock, Spence helped. No sense in losing both of them.
One of them bit Rain in the neck even as Kaplan and Spence yanked her out. Kaplan quickly slammed his hand on the switch that would shut the door after shooting one in the face.
Again, Rain screamed, "J.D.!"
"Forget it," Spence said. "He's gone."
Pounding her fist on the door, Rain screamed, "Goddammit!"
The sweat beaded on Kaplan's brow. This wasn't supposed to be happening.
One. Warner. Drew. Olga. And now J.D.
They weren't supposed to die. Shit, J.D. and Rain were the toughest badasses on two legs—all you had to do to know that was to watch them for five minutes.
And One, well, One was just the best.
If even J.D. couldn't survive this, if even One couldn't survive this, what the fuck chance did some computer geek like Kaplan have?
"Come on," Spence said, pointing across the hall.