Free Hero for Hire by Margaret Madigan

back in the top drawer, but it was empty. I checked the rest of the drawers. Nothing.
    The boys came up empty handed, too.
    “Shit,” I said. “Where would Miriam put the rest of them?”
    “How about Gwyn’s office?” Randy asked.
    “Maybe,” I said.
    “How about the lab?” Rufus asked.
    “I guess we’ll have to check both,” I said, stuffing book four into my backpack.
    Back in the hall we checked all the office doors but didn’t see Gwyn’s until we found a door with the original name blacked out with violent permanent marker slashes. Underneath was hand-written, Pain in the Ass. Good riddance .
    “Found it,” I whispered.
    Gwyn’s door was locked too, so I repeated the glass cutting procedure. Inside, her office was a cobwebby mess. I picked up a paper from the desk and blew the dust off, noticing the date on the two-year-old memo. Nothing looked like it had been disturbed since after the zombie apocalypse.
    “You guys see anything?”
    They both shook their heads, so we left the office, closing the door behind us.
    “So where’s the lab?” Randy asked. “We’ve been all over this floor but I haven’t seen anything that looks like a lab.”
    I glanced at my watch, the glowing hands indicating we’d been there over a half hour. Way too long.
    “Must be downstairs,” Rufus said, heading for the stairs.
    Randy and I followed him. One floor down, we exited into a dark empty space. It was impossible to see anything, so I reluctantly flicked my flashlight on again. The light showed a foyer surrounded by an enormous semi-circular glass wall. When I stepped up to shine the light through the glass, I saw a huge lab full of all kinds of workstations. It reminded me of a fancier version of high school science class. Behind the lab, at the other end of the building, were some smaller rooms. I couldn’t see anything beyond that.
    “Okay guys, we have to make this fast. We’ve been here way too long. I want to get out before it’s too late.”
    I found the door in the glass wall was, of course, locked. What was it with these people and their paranoid door locking?
    Once inside, I flipped the light switch, not really expecting anything, but I got a happy surprise when light filled the whole room. Electricity was a rare luxury so these guys must have had a generator somewhere. Wherever the power came from, I didn’t care, I was just glad to have it. At that point I was more interested in speed than stealth. So we spread out, searching workstations, cabinets, cupboards, any drawer we could find.
    I was so lost in the search and how we’d better get the hell out, that I didn’t hear the door open.
    “Hello, there,” a female voice said. “Looking for anything in particular?”
    “Holy shit,” I said, jumping a foot backwards. I pulled my pistol in record speed.
    The woman was tall, maybe a shade heavy. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, making her face look severe. Even worse, although she sounded normal, she looked like she was well on the way to zombie, with lesions all over her skin. She had the telltale rattle when she talked or breathed. To top off the crapfest, she was surrounded by half a dozen more near-zombies just like her, all of them pointing various weapons at us. In the foyer were a handful of full-fledged zombies.
    “What the hell happened to you?” Randy asked, clearly not grasping the severity of our situation, although I wondered the same thing. Must have been some kind of exposure to either zombies or vaccine. Frankly, I didn’t care.
    She glared daggers at him, then returned her attention to me. “You might want to put that down before we kill your little boys.”
    “Who’re you calling little?” Rufus asked. I realized he had his weapon up, so I pointed my muzzle toward the floor, indicating he should do the same. I’d figure some other way out. There was no way I’d risk them getting shot.
    “Good. Now, what are you looking for?” she asked again.
    “Just