“This!” she pointed at one of the glass-walled cells that we used to keep the Reapers and I took a few steps forward to see what had her so riled up.
Ah.
“That silly little man you have in charge here,” Vanessa said, anger lacing every word. “He did this!”
I could understand why. We had four of the cells and each of them had contained a Reaper. The most dangerous of the undead that we had encountered. One of the researchers that Ryan and Gregg had rescued had arrived, one of those Reapers had been removed and the space occupied by something else entirely.
“What would you have us do?”
“Treat her with the dignity and respect she deserves!” Vanessa snapped as she looked over to where her friend crouched in the corner of the cell. “As a person.”
That would be a problem as the young woman in the cell was no longer just a person. She had been the first to take the experimental vaccine they had been working on and the results had been both unexpected and unpleasant.
Caught somewhere between alive and undead, she was no longer the person she was but she wasn’t a zombie either. Her skin had taken on the grey tinge of the zombies and there was an undeniable stench of death and decay about her, but her mind remained seemingly intact.
It was just her body that wasn’t. Her movements were stiff and jerky, while her eyes had begun to weaken, the light paining her. They had the beginnings of the white film that coated the eyes of the zombies.
She struggled to speak and her diet consisted of live creatures. In the research bunker, they had been in, that had meant rats and other vermin. I couldn’t allow her freedom, not with so many unknowns about her condition.
“No.” Just that. No explanation and no hand-wringing. Just a simple declaration.
“This is not acceptable.”
“It is the only way she will be allowed to remain here,” I said, perhaps a little coldly. I was grateful to the woman for stitching together Ryan’s wounds when he’d been hurt, but I would not brook such insolence. “She will be cared for but we cannot risk everyone else.”
“She harmed no one in the bunker!”
“There were five of you then and she had a captive source of rats to feed on. Here, there are twenty-four thousand and odd people. I cannot risk them.”
“Pah! She is still a person and deserving of some basic human dignity. This is not civilised”
“No. It’s not but if you haven’t noticed, we are no longer a civilisation. We are refugees, survivors, of an apocalypse that still might wipe us all out. Later, we are trying to build a civilisation but it will take time. Until then, we will do what we must to survive.”
I looked away from the poor woman in the cell and directly at Vanessa. Her scowl was fixed in place but she seemed to understand that I would not be budged from my decision. Still, she was important to us and I wanted to keep her on side.
“You have my permission to do what you can to keep her comfortable in the cell, but that is where she remains.”
Vanessa gave a curt nod and uncrossed her arms before spinning on her heel and walking away without another word. I shared a look with Gregg who grinned.
“Give her time. She’s actually a nice person and I think you’ll like her.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s stressful for everyone.”
The small group of researchers had been hidden away in a tiny bunker since before the world collapsed around us. They hadn’t had to face hordes of undead or see their loved ones torn apart and devoured.
While they understood what had happened on an intellectual level, they hadn’t had that visceral experience the rest of us had. They hadn’t been forced to run from one safe place to another as they became not so safe. They hadn’t had to scavenge for food and supplies.
None of them had needed to fight for every new day of life and I doubted that they could really grasp how that affected the rest of us. I still had nightmares and I saw the face of every person I had killed when I closed my eyes.
Gregg gave my arm a squeeze and I looked at him, seeing the concern in his face. I flashed him a quick smile and moved on.
I ignored the Reapers in their cages. I’d seen enough of them to give me nightmares for a lifetime. At the end of the corridor was a door that one of the bodyguards opened for me. I stepped through and could practically feel the shudder that ran through Gregg.
There was a wide open space with steel barred cages off to one side and before them, a number of tables where the prisoners, of which Gregg had been one, had been dismembered before being fed to the zombies that Minister Shahid had been keeping.
Those cages were empty now, of course, but to my surprise, one of the tables was not. A Reaper lay upon it, limbs splayed and blackened tongue protruding grotesquely from its mouth. It had been opened up from throat to crotch and four people crowded around it.
I recognised Darren. The small man with the thick glasses and the constantly confused expression on his face. He was a brilliant scientist and had been leading the research into the undead. The other three, two men and one woman, were the researchers from the same bunker as Vanessa.
“Ah, Lily,” Darren said as he noted my approach. The other scientists looked up and swapped glances with one another. “How can I help you today?”
“You’re dissecting one?”
He glanced back at the body and then nodded cheerfully.
“Yes, yes we are.”
There was something wrong about that. Perhaps because they were once people or, more likely because they would have had to kill it to be able to do the dissection. But, as I kept reminding myself, the world had changed and we did what we must.
I exhaled a soft sigh. “What have you found?”
“It’s quite fascinating. I shall have a full report for you.”
“That’s not what she asked,” Gregg said sourly.
“Oh.” He blinked and looked from Gregg to me then smiled weakly. “Ah, well, you see…”
“What is it?”
“We’re not quite sure what we’ve found. It will require a great deal of study.”
Which was his way of saying they had learnt nothing new. I could have pushed it and asked more questions but I had other matters to attend.
“Very well. I shall expect your report shortly.”
“Of course.”
“Now, about this vaccine.”
The other researchers looked up at that, gazes focusing on me and a voice came from behind me as Vanessa joined us.
“What do you want to know about it?”
“I want to know what Professor Ashworth thinks,” I said without bothering to turn around.
The short man blinked rapidly and lifted his shoulders in a shrug.
“I don’t have the equipment here to make a thorough examination of the vaccine. From the data provided, it looks promising.”
“But?”
“Well, the young lady.”
“Briony,” Vanessa said. “My friend and colleague.”
“Y-yes, yes. Briony. Well, she is the only one who has taken the vaccine and…”
“What! I thought you had all taken it?”
“No. We adjusted it after Briony’s reaction, but we have not yet tested it,” Vanessa said. “No one wanted to risk it.”
Well, that was just great, I thought as I glared at the researchers. People had died and people I cared about had put themselves at risk to rescue the researchers and their vaccine in the belief that it worked.
“We’re sure it will work,” Vanessa said as though reading my mind. “But we need to test it and if we were wrong, we couldn’t risk any of us as then there would be no one to adjust the formula once more.”
“So,” I said, voice cold. “What you are saying is that you need volunteers?”
“Yes.”
“Just bloody great.”
Chapter 3
My family members had been provided with a house not far from the sports centre that had become the home to myself, Lily and the Dead
. It was a small house, mid-terrace, with just the one bedroom but that seemed to be enough for my mother, sister and nephew.
Of course, the nephew was a child which meant he had little say in the matter, but the other two seemed happy enough with the building. Their attitude towards me was somewhat cooler.
I sat on the upholstered chair in the living room with my hands in my lap as I waited for one of them to speak. At their insistence, my minions had remained outside and the longer I waited, the more I realised that might have been a mistake.
They were definitely unhappy for some reason and I wasn’t entirely sure why. Since neither of them seemed inclined to be the first to speak, I wasn’t sure if I would ever find out either.
My mother pursed her lips as she watched me. There was a little more grey in her hair than there had been the last time I had seen her. It needed a cut too, hanging down around her shoulders in a length she hadn’t worn in decades.
She was as slim as my sister and I had no doubt that was due to the lack of food that most of the survivors we found seemed to struggle with. Her face showed determination though and she had set her jaw in that manner I recognised from when I was younger.
It meant I was in trouble.
My sister, meanwhile, had her head tilted to one side as she watched me much as one would study an interesting insect. Her eyes narrowed whenever I looked her way and her mouth was set in a firm line.
She wore her dark hair up in a pony-tail and kept her hands clasped together before her as though fighting the urge to reach for a pen and pad to take notes. That was no doubt the psychiatrist in her.
I arched one eyebrow at her and grinned at her brief look of annoyance before returning to stoic silence as I waited for someone to speak. Finally, it was my mother who did.
“Have you nothing to say?”
“About what?” It was a genuine question as I had no real idea of what they expected from me, though clearly, they wanted something.
“I told you,” Evelyn, my sister, said.
“Told her what?”
“Dad’s okay,” she said by way of reply. “He’ll be here on the next boat.”
“Okay?”
“See!”
Evelyn leant back and shook her head, seemingly more upset than she had been before.
“You are going to have to be direct,” I said, tiring of the confusion I was feeling. “I really don’t have time to guess.”
“Are you at all interested in what has been happening with us since you left?”
“No.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Evie, dear, enough.”
I looked over at my mother as my sister sneered and shook her head, body tense with the anger she was holding on to.
“Your… your, brother, he told us you had died.”
“Okay.”
“That does not surprise you?” Mother asked and I had no way to respond. Why would it surprise me? I hadn’t even thought about him since the night I’d killed him.
“No.”
“Shortly after he arrived home, someone came into the sanctuary and killed everyone who had just returned.” There was pain in her voice and I wondered at that. I could only assume she was upset about my brother dying. “There have been accusations.”
“About me?” I asked and she nodded as Evelyn leant forward once more. “What accusations?”
“That you killed them all,” my sister snapped. “Gabriel and the others.”
“Oh.”
“Please, Ryan, tell me the truth now.”
My mother looked so very old just then. There was a frailty to her that hadn’t been there before and I was pretty sure that the apocalypse had taken a toll on her. I might not understand why, but I was smart enough to realise that Gabriel’s death had probably been a part of that too.
I didn’t really care if she knew or not but I was pretty sure Lily would want me to keep things peaceful and to play nice. It was odd after such a long time of just being me, to have to go back to that old game of pretend once more.
“Okay. I killed him.”
There was a wordless sound of anger from Evelyn who slammed back into her seat and crossed her arms, turning her face from me with unshed tears in her eyes. My mother, however, seemed a little relieved.
Anger was fine. I could deal with that. It was all the tears and wailing that irritated me and I just couldn’t be bothered with that.
“Why?” Mother asked, voice thick with some emotion that I couldn’t recognise. “Why would you do that?”
“He was the reason Lily and the others almost died. His cowardice, his actions, and those of the people with him, were why my friend died.”
I was surprised by the raw emotion in my voice. Evelyn was too by the way she looked at me with her eyes widening. My mother though, just stared, eyes brimming with tears and then she seemed to crumble.
Evelyn had her arms around her in a moment and held her as my mother cried, body shaking. All the while she held her, she stared at me, a mixture of emotions crossing her face. I unclenched my hands and forced myself to stillness.
I had killed my brother and if they wanted to take out their grief on me, then I could allow them that at least. I waited patiently for the weeping to stop.
It seemed to take forever.
Perhaps I should have lied, but I liked being me. For such a long time I had needed to pretend to be something else just to fit in and avoid notice and despite that, it seemed I hadn’t succeeded. Not going by the information that Smythe had shown he possessed in the bunker.
If not for the apocalypse, it may well have been that I would have been arrested and my family would have known the truth anyway.
“How could you do it?” Evelyn asked and I gave a half-shrug.
“Easily enough. He meant nothing to me.”
“Do we?”
I considered that, studying my sister and the weeping form of my mother as I searched for something inside of me that said they mattered. Since meeting Lily I had found that I could feel things for other people. She and my friends were a testament to that.
When Pat had died, I had felt grief which had manifested as murderous anger, admittedly, but it was still grief. I knew that now. I had felt much the same when I thought Lily was lost to me. I was genuinely glad when I had found Gregg and Cass once more.
Lily, well, I loved her. I could admit that, even though I was not entirely sure of what that even meant. I still knew it to be true. As for the children she carried. Our children. There was a feeling inside of me that I had never realised I could feel.
It was hope.
Hope that my children would not be like me. That they would not struggle as I had. That they would be better people, able to fit into the world in a way I could not. To do that, they would need things that I could not supply.
They would need their mother and our friends. They would need grandparents, an aunt and cousins. People who could take up the slack and provide everything I could not because I was not built like everyone else.
That made my answer simple and the truth.
“Yes.”
Though maybe not for the reasons they wanted.
“I-I’m not so sure I can forgive this sin,” my mother said and I shrugged. So be it. “I will need time.”
“Sure. Take whatever time you need.” Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too long. I had things to do. “Anything else?”
“We know Lily is pregnant,” Evelyn said and I shrugged once more. I didn’t think it was a secret. “Do you understand what that means?”
“She’ll have babies?”
“No! that there’ll be two lives in this world utterly dependent on you and her. Do you think you can even love them?”
“They will be mine,” I said, slowly. “I shall kill anyone who threatens them. I’ll make this world safe for them to live in.”
“You’ll kill for them, sure,” Evelyn said with a sneer. “That would be easy enough for you. Could you die
for them though?”
Well, that was an interesting question and one that would require some consideration. I couldn’t say I would die for anyone. Not intentionally at least. I would fight and kill for them and if I died, well, that wouldn’t matter so much to me because I’d be dead.
She was talking of something else though. I was sure of that. She was speaking of sacrifice. That was something entirely different.
“Yeah, I thought so.”
There was no mistaking the sneer in her voice and I sat in silent thought for some time as she comforted my mother. There was much about the pregnancy that had given me pause. There was no denying I was not the sort of person that came to mind when you thought of potential fathers, but I was not worried.
I wasn’t sure why. In fact, I was pretty sure that I should be worried. I was a poor excuse for a person and with children to teach, to guide, I would likely be an abject failure. My moral and ethical compasses were way off the mark, after all.
My view of the world was skewed, I knew that. It wasn’t normal and while it could be debated that just because it was different, it wasn’t any less valid, the general horror at the casual ease with which I took life and more so at the enjoyment it brought me, was enough to make me suspect my view of the world wasn’t the right one.
I was an aberration. A throwback to an earlier time when humanity needed to be as I was to survive. No one would deny I wasn’t thriving in the apocalypse because it was exactly the kind of environment for someone like me.
What came after though? I wouldn’t fit in and I knew that. The best I could hope for would be an exile of sorts, away from the Living, where I couldn’t hurt them. Away from my children.
Perhaps that was the sacrifice I could make for them. Create a world that they could live in and I could not. Then remove myself from it and them to give them the best chance of succeeding in that new world. Of thriving.
To do that they would definitely need their family.
“Yes,” I said, so softly I wasn’t sure I could be heard. “I can and I will.”
Evelyn looked over at me, arms still wrapped around our mother as she wept. Her own eyes were red and tears streaked her cheeks. She stared at me for what seemed a long time before she nodded once.
Killing The Dead (Book 16): Infected Page 2
