Free The Demented Z (Book 3): Contagion by Derek J Thomas Page A

Bear
asked.
    “We’ll be spread thin.”  
Hannah said.
    Tom nodded his head, “Let’s fix both.
  One of us stays down here.”
  He pointed back to the double doors they
entered through and said, “One of us hunkers down by the open doors and covers
the hall. Axel‘s in covering their
back. Team of three moves upstairs.”
    Everyone nodded their head in agreement.
    “Who stays?” Hannah
asked.
    Hank was the first to respond.
  “I’m not built for this room to room
crap. I’ll hunker down.”
    Tom nodded his head and looked to the others.
  “You two good with that?”
    Hannah issued a grin.  
     “Rock and roll baby, rock and roll.”
    They watched Hank get in place, tucking down in the corner
with his rifle resting on a bent knee.  
Once he gave a thumbs up, they turned and started
up the stairway. Bear led the way with
his AR15 aimed up into the darkness. He
clicked on an under-mount flashlight, painting the area in bright light.
  Ahead, the steps spun a tight U-turn as they
continued their ascent.
    The hall at the top looked nearly identical to the one below
– long and full of doors. Tom was glad
to see that the only noticeable difference was the lack of blood on the floor.
    “Wish someone would leave doors open.”
  Bear grumbled.
    “No doubt.”
  Hannah replied while stepping up to the
nearest door. She tucked back to the
side and gave the doorknob a slow twist and shove.
    As she slid to the side Tom and Bear stepped in, guns
raised. The room was larger than those
below and lacked the gore and chaos.  
Instead it was a fairly tidy office with bookshelves, file cabinets, and
a large metal desk. While Hannah watched
the hall, both men swept the room, checking in and around the desk to be sure
there were no surprises.
    Tom stood next to the desk, looking down at the papers
spread across the top. “I want to go
through these, but we clear the building first.”
    Bear nodded. “Find
our ghost.”
    Tom gave him a fist-bump on the shoulder.
  “That’s right.”
    They moved across the hall to the next door and used the
same technique for entrance. Tom’s heart
jumped when he saw a pair of eyes staring at him from across the short room.
  His muscles tensed, finger tightening on the
trigger. Just before the finger pressure
was enough to fire a shot, he let off, realizing they
were the cold, sightless eyes of a dead man.
    “Check corners.” Tom
said while sweeping around to the right.
    Bear quickly followed to the left, scanning for
threats. The two of them met at a large
desk that served as the tombstone for a corpse dressed in worn military fatigues.
  A small first aid kit lay open on the
desk. Surrounding it were unopened gauze
pads, pain killer packets, and a variety of other medicinal products.
  Dried blood caked the side of the man’s head
from a wicked gunshot wound.
    “Couldn’t take it anymore.”
  Bear said.  
He leaned over, looking at the man’s head.
  “Small caliber…no exit wound.
  Bet it rattled around in there like a trapped
squirrel.”
    “Thanks for that image.”  
Tom said.
    “Come on guys, you about done?”
  Hannah said from the hallway.
    Tom noticed a thermometer lying on the desk directly in
front of the dead man, like it had been carefully laid there.
  It was the type of thermometer that moms’
used on their children to check for a fever.  
Tom took a couple slow steps back.  
“See the thermometer…maybe he found out he was infected?”
  Tom said with a shrug of his shoulders.
    Bear rapidly started backpedalling away from the desk.
  He raised a sleeve over his mouth.
  “Ahh
man, nasty.”
    Tom was just starting to turn around when a shrill scream
sounded. His mind flashed to Hannah in
the hall, but he quickly realized this came from further away, deeper in the
building. April.
  There was a loud boom, shattering glass, and then another boom . As fast as the
gunfire erupted it