Beyond Green Fields #5 - Survive: A post-apocalyptic anthology Read online

  Beyond Green Fields #5: Survive

  A post-apocalyptic anthology

  Adrienne Lecter

  Contents

  Introduction

  Surprise

  Surprise

  Run!

  Run!

  Hero

  Hero

  Dispatch

  Dispatch

  Patreon

  About the Author

  Books published

  Beyond Green Fields #5: Survive

  A post-apocalyptic anthology

  by Adrienne Lecter

  Copyright © 2021 by Adrienne Lecter. All rights reserved.

  http://adriennelecter.com

  Produced and published by Barbara Klein, Vienna, Austria

  Edited by Marti Lynch

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read her work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about it, to help spread the word.

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  To my supporters on Patreon.

  Without you, none of these stories would exist. You made this possible.

  Thank you!

  Introduction

  Round Five: Survive

  Back to the very roots of the Green Fields short stories: Nate’s view of the world!

  Please enjoy Surprise, a selection of the musings of Dear Mr. Miller when he first set Bree’s resilience to the rest.

  Run takes us right back to the beginning of the zombie apocalypse—when all they could do was run.

  As much as Nate has always admired Bree’s courage, sometimes that wasn’t the easiest to deal with—as Hero proves.

  And don’t we all need some R&R from time to time? Dispatch is the place to go.

  Please enjoy this romp through Nate’s mind!

  Surprise

  Surprise: Nate's POV of a few things that happened during GF#1: Incubation

  I did not expect that watching a naked, bruised, and battered woman wash feces out of her hair would be the highlight of my day, but that’s my life now. And I can’t even bring myself to regret putting her in this situation.

  Surprise

  Everything is going smoothly so far—as is to be expected when you spend months on planning and manage no less than sixty-seven operatives, me included. Some of them have been undercover for months at a time, if you can call cleaning and maintenance duties such. Just thinking of Romanoff spending the last five months doing twelve-hour guard shifts here makes me want to crack up. He, Baker, and Young have certainly been the most overqualified guards this company has ever employed. I have all their records—I know that for a fact. Since the workforce coordinator is also one of ours, it was easy to make sure that virtually all remaining support staff in the building was working for me. The few others that couldn’t have been avoided are right now exiting the building with the scientists and office staff that is useless to us. The single part about this operation that I couldn’t control was how the people not designated as hostages would react, but having a fake team of EMTs and police at the single exit we haven’t blown up is working well. Wouldn’t you know it—most people directly involved in a crisis are very susceptible to believing positive and plausible lies—you are safe! It was an accident, not a planned attack! It’s the fucking basement dwellers who haven’t lived through a single moment of trauma in their lives who develop all those inane conspiracy theories.

  As I watch the last of the civilians get shuffled outside, I idly wonder where Bree is now. If I’m not mistaken, it was her who Romanoff rounded up and consequently lost earlier. As annoyed as I am by his incompetence, the idea that she managed to escape greatly amuses me. She must have gotten into the ventilation ducts somehow, or hidden behind a door and snuck out while he was looking the other way. Very Loony Toons, but I like the resourceful thinking. I know she’s still somewhere in the building since I diligently had my team check the civilians. Turns out, bright red hair easily sets you apart from a crowd of otherwise bland, nearly identical lab rats.

  As if thinking about the crafty little minx has conjured her, I glance up and find her staring down at me from one of the upper levels of the atrium balconies. Our gazes connect for just a second, and she’s gone a moment later, missing the smile I can’t quite hide. Zilinsky frowns at me as I holler at Romanoff—he lost her the first time around; now it’s his turn to vault up the stairs and bring her back for good.

  “Didn't you accidentally lose someone up on the third floor?” I ask, letting the smile fade into a much less friendly expression.

  “Uh, yes,” Romanoff admits, much to the amusement of several of the other guards that are loitering around the atrium. They stop as soon as Zilinsky rounds on them and starts giving them something more useful to do.

  “And didn't you repeatedly reassure me that you'd searched every nook and cranny up there to find her again?” I continue the conversation, mostly for Bree’s benefit since I’m sure she’s still listening. Curiosity will definitely kill this cat—or, rather, get her caught.

  “Yes,” Romanoff responds, giving me the “get on with it” look I deserve.

  “Then can you explain what Miss Brianna Lewis, PhD, is doing up on the third level gallery, watching our industrious little operation unfold?” I consider for a moment, then signal him that I’m coming along for the chase. “Why don't you go get her right fucking now? The positive outcome of our mission likely depends on her cooperation, willing or not.” A little bit dramatic, but maybe that sense of importance will make her feel slightly less panicky. I want her caught, and I want her cooperation, but I don’t want her scared out of her wits. People do fucked-up things when they feel cornered, just like the fucking animals they are.

  “Yes, boss,” Romanoff acknowledges, heading for one stairwell while I take the other.

  While I’m running up to the third level, I quickly map all the possible routes Bree could be taking. I’ve had months to study the blueprints of the building, so I’m familiar enough with them to pick out which way she’s likely heading. She’s been working here long enough that her subconscious must feel like she has the home advantage, so it’s likely that she will instinctively turn to paths that are the most familiar to her—the two shortest routes from the elevator to her lab; the corridor to the cell culture lab and assorted other rooms; cold storage. I switch to the rabbit warren of the labs on the level below her and head to some much-neglected, smaller stairs—and that way she finds me already waiting for her when she comes running around the intersection that leads into the main corridor right off the labs, the late afternoon sun streaming through the open doors, lighting her red hair on fire.

  I can’t help myself—the look of panic in her eyes makes me laugh. Not just because I’m a bastard—which I am—but because it’s another facet about her emotional spectrum that I’m only now discovering. I’ve come to be familiar with her annoyance, anxiety, ease and laughter, but mostly need and lust. Adding bone-deep fright to that shouldn’t be satisfying, but it kind of is. It completes the picture—and above all else, it makes me feel like, finally, I can drop the mask and stop all the lies I’ve been telling her, if mostly by omission. She really sees me now as I am—or is starting to; and while she should be just a ma
rk, just a free agent that might be useful to me, she’s more than that, and I feel the strange urge to make her see, all at once, what she’s been missing so far. Realistically, I know this will be the stark end of everything that’s been going on between us, but if the time we’ve spent together has taught me one thing, it’s that I’d rather be myself than the perfectly molded, watered-down version I’ve been feeding her for weeks.

  Bree’s real problem in her life is that she’s always molded herself to expectations. If this ends with her finally seeing who she really is—even if that excludes me from her life—I’ve done one thing right.

  The moment passes, and of course she runs away from me. Grinning to myself, I set out on this merry chase, feeling a little like a bloodhound that finally caught a lead. I even give her a bit of a head start, curious as to what she will choose to do. She tries to use the layout of the building against us, and eventually goes for the ventilation system again. Wrong move, since my people all subscribe to the “fool me once” mentality that works against Bree now. Zilinsky finally gets her out of there with some—very calculated—shots. I should not have this much fun calling shit like “Don't kill her yet, we might still need her!” after Bree, but since we’re already putting an effort into scaring her, I might as well make sure it works.

  And it does; panic makes her take wrong turns at every possible intersection, culminating with her trapping herself on the roof, of all the impossible ways out. All that remains for me to do is follow her—at a much more sedate pace than she’s been going—and collect her. I even get a chance to personally check in with one of our lookouts. The only thing I hate about it is feeling her shoulders slump with defeat as I drag her back into the stairwell and on to the atrium and its cozy glass cube. I want to tell her that she massively outperformed any expectations I’ve had for her—and while she’s turned into a bit of a nuisance, I’m actually proud of her. She didn’t give up when virtually everyone else folded, and she fought to her very last breath.

  I knew there was a reason why I like her, and she’s confirmed that all the way.

  I have a feeling that the night will hold a few more surprises for me, and not all of them will be unpleasant.

  The night is full of surprises, yes, but not all of them are pleasant.

  The fact that it’s me who fucks up just makes it perfect—in the worst kind of way.

  The first phase of the mission going off without a hitch makes me cocky. That I have Bree exactly where I want her only adds to that. Dolores seems to be satisfied with the data she finds behind the not-so-secure firewalls of the servers, easily accessible to her now that she can connect directly to them—or some shit like that. I hate having to admit it, but computers are not my strong suit. I know how to blow shit up, and I know how to kill people or extract them—but I don’t have the first clue about hacking. That’s why I have one of the brightest minds on the planet doing it for me; that she also was the one who managed to fund my mission because of what that data is worth to others is just the icing on the cake.

  To say I’m bored is an understatement, but I’m glad when she signals to me that the initial shit is done. My task list for the remainder of the mission is a long one, and I don’t have much time for idleness, which further grates on my nerves. I’m all the more happy that now I finally get to do something I’ve been looking forward to for ages—I get to interrogate the woman who murdered my brother.

  I don’t plan on killing her. That’s a more recent development; in the first year after Raleigh’s funeral, I spent quite some time picturing in excruciating detail what I would do to his killer—particularly after I found out who was to blame. If I hadn’t been tied down with other obligations at the time, she would have found a very painful, very slow end. Yet while time has done nothing to heal that wound, I have come to realize one thing above all else: it couldn’t have been personal, and thus I won’t get any satisfaction out of torturing and killing that bitch. I still want to, but she’s the one who can tell me what I still haven’t found out: who set her to murdering my brother, and why. All I have is speculation. I want the truth.

  Just how much of a coward Thecla Soudekis is becomes obvious when I tell her to follow me out of the cube, and that sorry excuse for a human being instead clings to Bree, as if that would help save her. Only when I taunt her does she let go, leaving Bree looking more confused than scared. I’m not fooled by the regal manner she puts on—she’s scared shitless. She couldn’t have known what our reason for invading the building was, but she put up absolutely no resistance when we rounded her up—unlike Bree, who didn’t even have a reason to hide but still gave us as much of a run for our money as she was capable of.

  In an almost haughty tone, Soudekis asks, “Very well. What would you have me do?”

  It’s hard for me to keep my expression animated as I pretend to be civil. “I’d like to have a chat with you, nothing more.”

  “I think I can manage that,” the bitch mumbles, and has the audacity to turn to Bree once more. “Be brave.” I almost laugh at the utterance—and the implication. Bree is not the one who has a reason to be afraid of me. Before I do something incredibly stupid, I shoo Soudekis out of the cube and over to the screens. Her eyes barely skip to the information displayed—making it quite plain that I know what she’s been working on—and instead remain glued to the gun still in my hand. The smart thing would be to put it away, but since she’s playing meek, I’m not beyond giving her a very good reason to keep up the spiel. Whether she’s more afraid of me or whoever gave her orders, I don’t really care. The sooner she talks, the sooner I can get her out of my sight—and while my conviction not to tear her apart limb from limb right in front of everyone is strong, there’s still temptation lurking underneath the iron grip of control that I’m trying to keep on myself.

  “I presume you have an idea what this is all about?” I ask, not caring about niceties.

  She tenses, and her voice is thin as she responds with an absolutely unconvincing, “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” I repeat, incapable of keeping the boiling hostility raging inside of me in check. So maybe this wasn’t the brightest idea I’ve had all day. I thought I could do a good job facing her, but clearly, that was a miscalculation.

  But at least the anger in my voice does the trick, and after swallowing thickly, she admits, “Probably.” Her gaze flickers to the slide, then goes back to where her hands are convulsing around each other. I wonder—does she remember plunging the syringe into Raleigh’s neck, knowing exactly what she was subjecting him to?

  “Take a good long look at me,” I tell her, staring straight into her eyes when they fall on my face. Oh yes—she recognizes me. She knows who I am—and why I’m here. “Maybe that will help turn that ‘probably’ into a ‘definitively’?”

  I let her stew for an entire minute. Her thoughts are written plainly on her face—she’s scared, but there’s also a hint of relief there. I’ve seen it before—even if it doesn’t save you, confessing your sins will set you free. If she’d been acting out of her own volition, there would be confidence there instead, and lots of defiance. I’m not sure why she even hesitates—she looks ready to spill her guts. Maybe she thinks that if she stalls, I will lose patience and kill her before she needs to admit what she has done?

  Or maybe it’s as simple as her needing another nudge. I’m more than happy to oblige her there. “Let’s talk about your research,” I prompt.

  She’s not done playing dumb, incredulity in her voice as she asks, “My research?”

  “All of it. Not just the part in the official documentation.” I can’t take my attention away from her but I really want to; part of me needs to see the surprise on Bree’s face. We have cameras trained on the cube, so I can review the recordings later.

  Soudekis licks her lips, her nervousness a reality now. Is it possible she still thinks I don’t know exactly what happened to Raleigh? She must be lying when she insists that she has no idea what I’m talk
ing about. Can’t have that, now, can I? “Now that is something I cannot believe. You killed, what was it? Fourteen people in cold blood?” I ask, then quickly amend that to “No, fifteen, right?”

  She doesn’t react, which is a surprise. I’m damn good at reading people, particularly people under pressure. Someone has been coaching her, and doing a good job at it. I could pull a stunt like that, but I’ve had to pay a hefty price to get to this point. This lack of a reaction from someone who has spent years in academia and virology is unusual. It underlines so many of my guesses about her, but at the same time is utterly frustrating. It also means I will likely have to change tactics—it’s easy to play dumb when all you’re confronted with is empty threats. It gets much harder when you’re in incredible pain, and any way to alleviate it suddenly sounds like the thing to do. I’m sure I’ll find some pliers somewhere in this building…

  I can tell that she picks up on my change in mood, but still she doesn’t give me anything. More to keep building tension than because I think she will miraculously crack, I turn to Dolores and ask her whether she has looked through Soudekis’s files yet. Knowing what her job is in this interrogation, she quickly hurls the ball back to me when she loudly concludes, “…but nothing looks suspicious. She must have stored the interesting stuff somewhere else.”

  The bitch is stupid, all right. She goes so far as to smirk at me for a second, as if I don’t stand a chance of finding what I’m looking for. The joke’s on her—that’s not the information I’m interested in. I’m not even sure I want to see that video after reading the transcript a million times.