The Survivalist: Madness Rules Part 34

"Well?"

She shrugged. "Can't tell. The metal is too cold."

They both chuckled.

"Come on, let's go this way," he said, turning to the left.

"Are you sure?"

"No, but you got to decide on the blue door, so I get to pick the tunnel."

"Wait a minute. I didn't pick anything," she said, hurrying after him.

They walked for ten long minutes without hearing or seeing anything more than the black tunnel walls. It felt as if they were descending deep into an abandoned coal mine.

"Maybe we-" she started.

Someone screamed further up the tunnel. The cry was followed by several short bursts of automatic gunfire.

Tanner slipped his arm around Samantha and shut off the headlamp.

More gunfire and more screams sounded.

"Do you see anything?" she whispered.

"No, but they must be around the next bend."

"Who do you think it is?"

"The military."

"How do you know?"

"Listen to the gunfire. The bursts are controlled. Three rounds with each pull of the trigger. Two, maybe three soldiers firing."

"Soldiers are good, right? They can get us out of here."

Tanner didn't answer.

"Right?" she repeated.

"Let's just be careful."

Once the gunfire subsided, they waited a couple of minutes before continuing down the tunnel. Despite broadcasting their position, Tanner had no choice but to turn the headlamp back on. Without it, they were completely blind. They traveled another hundred yards before coming across a second raised landing. The unmistakable stink of human decomposition filled the air.

He s.h.i.+ned the light onto the landing and saw a set of stairs on the far wall.

Samantha saw them too. "Stairs," she said, pointing.

"Let's see if they'll lead us out of this pit."

Tanner hauled himself up onto the landing, and as soon as he did, he saw the source of the awful stench. Twenty or thirty bodies lay scattered across the floor. Another dozen were piled at the base of the stairs. A sign on the wall read "Eisenhower Executive Office Building."

"Lots of dead up here," he warned.

"It's okay," she said, extending her arms.

As he pulled her up onto the landing, they heard another long series of screams from further down the tunnel. Without saying a word, they hurried toward the stairwell, occasionally having to step from body to body like stones in a river. The bottom stairs were completely covered, piled two or three bodies deep. It looked like people had died fighting to escape. Tanner used his light to flood the stairs, and both he and Samantha groaned in unison.

A hundred tons of rubble blocked their way out.

"Why would anyone do that?"

It took Tanner a moment to come up with the answer.

"Look," he said, s.h.i.+ning the light on the bodies nearest them.

"What?" Before he could answer, she saw it. "They're all zombies."

"Someone blew the exit to keep the infected in here."

"That means there are more of them down here," she said, looking back toward the tunnel. "Maybe thousands of them. What are we going to do?"

"We do the only thing we can. We continue to the next exit."

"But what if that one's blown up too? What if they're all blown up?" She started to sound a little panicked.

Tanner looked at her and frowned.

"Really? After all we've been through, you're going to let a dark tunnel and a few dead bodies scare you?"

She took a moment to calm herself.

"Sorry."

"What was that?"

"I said sorry. It's just that the last time we were in a tunnel, you nearly got killed."

"But I didn't."

"No, but you almost did. You don't think..."

"What?"

"You don't think there are any Backsons down here, do you?" she asked, using the term she had coined to describe the huge mutated creature in the East River Mountain Tunnel.

"I'm sure we can deal with whatever's down here. Right now, let's focus on getting to the next exit."

"One fight at a time, right?"

Tanner smiled. Some fathers hoped their kids would hit the game-winning home run. He would settle for one who understood what it took to stay alive.

The hike to the next landing was another quarter of a mile up the tunnel. What would normally have taken five minutes took three times that due to constantly searching the darkness to ensure they hadn't missed a secret alcove that might lead them out. In front of the second landing, they found a dead army soldier. His head had been torn completely off, or perhaps chewed from his body. His rifle was smashed, and what was left of his body looked like a mound of mashed meat byproducts.

"They sure got him good," Samantha said, unable to look away.

Before he could reply, a glowing light appeared from further up the tunnel. At first it was indirect, lights reflecting against the s.h.i.+ny black walls. But as it drew closer, they made out two bright headlights piercing the darkness. Tanner hoisted Samantha up onto the landing and quickly followed behind her. If they had to fight, doing so from the bottom of an open tunnel was about the worst possible choice.

The landing was much like the previous one, bodies lying everywhere. Most of them were of the infected, but there were also soldiers in the mix. The sign on the wall read "N.E.O.B.," which meant absolutely nothing to either of them. They hustled to the stairway but found that it too had been sealed off with an explosion.

The headlights were starting to light the edge of the landing.

He turned to Samantha. "Lie down on the floor."

"But there's blood everywhere."

"Good. The more you look like a corpse, the better."

She looked around for a clean spot. When she didn't find one, she flopped down next to an infected man who had been shot several times in the face.

Tanner hurried over to stand at the edge of the landing. He set his shotgun down by his feet and kept his hands where they could easily be seen. Whoever was coming was almost certainly better armed than he was. Better to try to talk things out.

A military vehicle that looked like an armored golf cart wheeled up. Two men wearing uniforms rode in the front, and an injured soldier lay draped across the back. As soon as they saw Tanner, they stopped and dismounted with a.s.sault rifles in hand.

"Get your hands up!" one of them shouted.

Tanner raised his hands.

The two men split up, one hurrying toward him from the bottom of the landing and the other staying with the vehicle. When the approaching soldier saw the man who had been decapitated, his face twisted in agony.

"Did you do that?" he said, looking up at Tanner.

"I found him that way. But you knew that already."

The man lowered his rifle. "I'm Captain Hastings. That's Corporal Dix."

"Tanner Raines."

"How the h.e.l.l did you get down here?"

"I came through the Oval Office."

He shook his head. "That entrance was locked up tight."

"Not anymore it isn't."

"s.h.i.+t." He scanned the landing. "You alone?"

After a quick debate, Tanner turned and hollered over his shoulder.

"Sam, you can come out."

Samantha stood up and brushed herself off before walking over to them.

"You've got a kid with you? Jeezus, man!"

"My daughter."

"Are you crazy bringing her down here?"

"We were being chased by a gang up top. It was either come down here or die in the White House."

"You'd have been better to stay up there and take your chances. You're dead for sure down here. And not in a good way," he added, looking down at the dead soldier.

"You and Dix look to be doing okay."

"Hardly. We're trying to escape this h.e.l.l hole before we're completely overrun."

"Where do the tunnels go?"

"d.a.m.n near everywhere, the bunker under the Blair House, the US Capitol, the Pentagon, the State Department, and a half dozen other federal buildings. h.e.l.l, one line even runs from under Union Station all the way out to Mount Weather."

Samantha instinctively perked up when she heard the last part. Before she could say anything, a faint buzzing noise sounded from down the tunnel.

"What's that?"

"That, my friend, is h.e.l.l coming for us all."

Corporal Dix shouted from the vehicle as he climbed back in.

"Captain, we gotta move!"

Hastings turned his head and shouted, "Thirty seconds!" He turned back to Tanner. "Your only chance is to go back the way you came."

The military vehicle wheeled up closer to them. Tanner saw that the man riding across the back was badly injured, blood soaking through the front of his uniform.

"Go back the way you came," Hastings repeated, turning back to the cart. "And hurry."

"Take us with you," blurted Tanner.

"Not enough room."

The noises grew louder. It sounded as if a million locusts were coming their way.

"Dump him," he said, pointing to the dying man. "He's not going to make it anyway."

"I'd rather leave my own mother."