Free Thirteen Roses Book Three: Beyond: A Paranormal Zombie Saga by Michael Cairns

well.’
    Luke pulled the device from his pocket and studied it. ‘It’s gone cold, like the power’s run out. Any ideas?’
    Alex pored over it as they strode down the corridor. He almost missed the next attack, Luke putting his blade through the zombie’s face before it came out through one of the side doors. It was quieter down here and Luke dealt easily with their attackers while he examined the tiny machine.  
    They reached the garage and Luke pushed through the door into the dark subterranean car park. There were still cars in here, the keys for which would be littering the hospital. It was an opportunity, if they got the chance to take it. Luke hauled open the garage door to the secret tunnel and hunkered down, stretching his back and sitting on the concrete.  
    ‘There’s a port in this thing.’ Alex said. ‘It’s like USB but smaller, iphone 5 maybe. I guess you could charge it through that.’
    ‘So we need an iphone 5 charger?’
    He shook his head. ‘Not quite. It’s not exactly the same. I’m guessing it does more than that as well. It’s like one of the older ones, with different size pins in it. It’ll be specific to the device.’
    ‘So we have to go back in there to charge it.’
    Alex groaned and joined him on the concrete. ‘It appears that way. But aren’t we going in there anyway, to rescue all those women?’
    Luke rested his back against the wall beside the garage door and let out a long breath. ‘How do you do it, needing all the sleep and the rest?’
    ‘We make our beds the most comfortable place to be. So you look forward to lying down.’
    ‘But there’s so much to do. We don’t have time to sleep.’
    ‘Funny, I thought that when I was doing my end of year exams. Collapsed halfway through a chem final and woke up on the floor. There’s always time to sleep.’
    ‘Why did you become a scientist?’
    Alex raised an eyebrow and examined the man next to him. Had he really just asked a personal question? He’d got nothing but boredom and contempt from him so far, but this felt half genuine.
    ‘Um, don’t know, really. I was good at it at school. That’s as far as my career guidance went. What are you good at? Okay, do that then.’
    ‘So you didn’t have some burning passion to create a plague or anything?’
    ‘I’ve always been interested in warfare. No, that’s not true. I’ve always been scared by warfare, by where it’s going. I read comics when I was a kid about guys with guns, but these days it all about drone strikes and gas attacks and bombs and stuff. It hasn’t been about guns for a long time. So then I watched Iron Man and saw his crazy rocket-bomb thing and that got me thinking.’
    ‘Hang on. You created a plague because you watched a movie?’
    ‘Not exactly. But the idea of it, the weapon you only needed to fire once. I just thought if you could create something so frightening—’
    ‘Frightening’s right. Didn’t it occur to you that using it once would still be too much?’
    ‘I didn’t… I just…’ He shook his head, cheeks heating up. Luke sighed and turned away, looking into the darkness. The silence felt awkward and Alex cast around for something to say.  
    ‘So, what did it feel like being cast down?’
    Luke turned back, one eyebrow raised like Spock. ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘Uh, nothing, don’t worry about it, sorry I—’
    ‘No, it’s alright. Being asked that where I come from is like being asked how it felt when your mother died or your sister was raped. It just doesn’t happen. But why not?’
    Alex turned away, face burning.
    ‘It was like going deaf and blind at the same time. Everything I knew was taken away. At the same time I was put in this place that was grotesque and violently against everything I’d spent most of my existence fighting for.’
    ‘Most of?’
    ‘There was a reason I was cast down. But it was rebellion, like you might expect from any wayward son. Just punishment might have been banishing me