“Kara!” I shouted.
“Joel, where are you?” she shouted back.
“Here!” Then I realized how stupid that was. The way my voice echoed in the hallway, I could be anywhere. “I’m in the main corridor. I think about halfway through the offices. Where are you?”
“I’m back toward the stairwell where Richard and --” she broke off and then screamed. “Don’t come back here.”
The zombie’s moans and grunts swelled to drown out her next scream.
“Kara, I’m coming!”
Gunshots filled the air, one after the other. Muzzle flashes blinked like a strobe light, filling the hallway around the corner with angry yellow light.
I wasn’t sure exactly where she was, but I didn’t let that stop me as I charged down the corridor running full out toward the zombie noises. At the rate I was going, a corner came up quickly, and when I was just about there, Kara stumbled around it, her pistol up and firing. She continued to pull the trigger even after she ran out of bullets.
I slid to a stop about ten feet away and said, “Kara, stop firing. You’re out of bullets.” But she continued to pull the trigger. The metallic clicks of dry firing filled the corridor.
The approaching zombie sounds were growing in volume, telling me they were just around the corner.
“Kara,” I said, “it’s time to pull back.”
She slowly turned toward me, her face looking blank. It was as if it took her two seconds to even recognize me. “Joel, run. Save yourself.” Something must have clicked because she yanked the magazine off her gun, threw it aside, and pulled another one from her jacket pocket. She slammed it in place and started immediately firing again before I could do anything.
“Kara, let’s go,” I said and started toward her.
She ignored me and kept blasting away at the oncoming zombies. By the time I made it to her, I had a clear view of forty or more zombies pressing from wall-to-wall across the corridor, all of them coming toward Kara and me.
Her shots weren’t really targeted as she just fired away. This was totally out of character for her. Unlike me, she was a crack shot.
Some bullets struck torsos, knocking the zombie back. Some hit legs, cracking bones and bringing down the undead thing. The ones behind the newly downed zombies paid it no attention and tried to walk over it, but got tripped up and fell themselves. This worked to our favor, giving us a few extra seconds to turn and run, but she kept firing until her gun ran dry again.
I couldn’t understand what she was doing, so I stepped up next to her, grabbed her by the arm, and spun her toward me. “What are you doing? We’ve got to go.”
That’s when I saw the tears streaming down her face, and an ominous, cold dread slipped into my body.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Her head dropped, but she rallied and looked me in the face. “Joel, it’s too late for me.” She lifted her right arm, and I saw a clear bite mark on her forearm close to her wrist. Blood dotted each place the teeth had penetrated the skin.
The frigid feeling I experienced before turned into alternating waves of cold and hot, washing over my body. My vision blurred, and I stumbled to the left. The only thing that kept me from falling over was the wall. Still, I bounced into it hard.
“Joel, please go,” Kara said as she tossed another magazine aside and replaced it with another one. She fired again, but this time she went for headshots. It was like the old Kara was back for a moment as each shot hit home into the brainpan of an approaching zombie. The trailing zombies tripped over the ones that went down and ended up in a tangled undead mess.
“I’m not going without you,” I said, but my voice sounded far away as if it had been recorded and played back years later.
“I’m lost,” she said, looking my way. “I’m done. Go. Go take care of Naveen. She needs you now that I’m…” She trailed off and returned to shooting zombies.
It could not end like this. We had been through too much. She had just started getting herself back together after the way she had been brutalized down south.
Whatever spell that had swept over me passed, and I ran toward her. She didn’t notice me as she blasted away at the zombies. As soon as I got beside her, I grabbed her arm and said, “Let’s go.”
“No!” She screamed. “It’s over. You’ve got to let me go.”
“Not yet,” I said. “I’m going to save you.”
“What are you talking about?” Her expression was one of total disbelief.
Frankly, I didn’t have any idea of what I was talking about, but I said, “I have a plan.”
This time I wrapped my arm around her waist and forcefully pulled her around the corner. When she tried to resist, I yanked her into the air and pivoted her body in such a way that she fell over my shoulder as I dropped my rifle onto the floor.
I’m not actually sure how I did it, but I started running with her over my shoulder. It had to be pure adrenaline as I powered through the doorways out into the main hallway next to the windows.
“Joel, put me down,” Kara said, but it was hard for her to talk through the tears and my jostling her body.
“Shut up,” I said, and I was close to crying myself. “I have a plan.”
Chapter 8
A Very Bad Plan
It had been a joke between Kara and I. I always said I had a plan. She would ask, ‘A good plan?’
Well, this was my worst ever. The Hail Mary of Hail Mary’s. A real last ditch effort.
It was one in a million, but I had to try it, and it had to work. I could not lose Kara.
I burst through the final set of doors near the stairwell where Alex and I had been positioned. Alex was still there, but Richard was nowhere to be seen. She was halfway out the door, her body was facing away from me and down the stairs. I saw her body jerk and then heard the report of her weapon. She fired off two quick shots, and then I heard something tumble down the stairs.
Alex must have heard my footsteps because she pulled back from the doorway and wore an astonished look on her face. Of course, I couldn’t blame her, I was rushing toward her with Kara draped over my shoulder.
“Joel, let me down,” Kara said, but her voice was weak and thin. I think a part of her had already given up, but not me. I’m stubborn that way.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
I didn’t want to tell her because I had no idea how she would react. Back at the church when we were in the city, anyone who had been bitten and infected was ‘taken care of.’ That or given the choice to leave. Both of which were death sentences.
“Kara’s been hurt,” I said as I pulled to a stop. “We need to get her upstairs.”
Kara started to say something, but I asked Alex, “What’s the status?”
Alex looked back down the stairwell and brought her weapon up and fired at something that was out of my view. I had little doubt that ‘something’ was a zombie. Again, something tumbled down the stairs.
“We’ve got a few coming up the stairs,” Alex said. “Richard is on the other side of the doors going up, ready to help us bar them when you got here. Which, by the way, I was getting ready to leave.”
“Joel, you need to let me go,” Kara said.
Alex looked back at us with a quizzical expression.
“I think she hit her head,” I said.
“Well, this situation is fucked,” Alex said. “We need to get out of here.”
“Let’s go,” I said. “They’ll be coming up from behind me soon.”
“What the hell happened?” Alex said.
“We’ll get into that later,” I said.
Alex nodded her head and stepped fully into the stairs, taking up a firing position aimed down the stairwell. “Get her through the door. I’ll cover your exit.”
“Joel!” Kara yelled, but I rushed past Alex and pushed through the doors to the stairwell up.
Once I was through the door, Richard appeared next to me. “What’s wrong with her?”
<
br /> “She’s hurt,” I said. “I need to get her upstairs. Cover Alex’s exit.”
“Kara, I’m sorry for running, if--” Richard started to say, but I cut him off.
“No time for that,” I said. “I need to get Kara upstairs.”
I made it to the landing just above where Richard stood, and that’s when the adrenaline ran out. My body surrendered to the reality that I was running up a set of stairs with a hundred and twenty-pound woman over my shoulder. I staggered and nearly went down, but just ended up on one knee.
Kara’s body slipped off my shoulder, but I did my best to brace her from getting slammed to the floor. She ended up on all fours but looked up to me. I could see the trail of tears coursing down her cheeks.
“You need to let me go,” she said.
Two reports boomed below us, echoing up the stairwell like cannon shots.
Richard yelled out of the door, “Alex, come on. You can’t kill them all.”
I reached out and cupped Kara’s chin in my hand, lifting her head up to look me directly in the eyes. “Do you trust me?”
She just blinked at me, her eyes brimmed with tears.
“I have an idea,” I said. “I have no idea if it will work, but we have to try it. If it doesn’t, then we can…”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’ll let you know when we get upstairs.”
She didn’t move, but I heard three more shots come up the stairwell.
Richard shouted at Alex. “They’re coming across the floor now. It’s time to go.”
“Do it for Naveen,” I said. “Do it for our baby.”
She let out a long breath and started to push herself to her feet, but I reached out and helped her up. She almost fell into me, her body weak and depleted. We ended up in an awkward embrace.
The doors below us slammed open, and when I looked down, I saw Alex rush into the stairwell. She and Richard went to work, blocking the doors with a metal bar we had put in place to keep them secure.
“Let me try to save you,” I said almost in a whisper. “Please.”
It took her a moment, but she said, “Okay.” There was a lot of resignation in that single word.
Alex and Richard rushed past us and up the stairs. Kara and I took them slowly.
We were barely out the doors when Alex turned and asked, “What the fuck happened down there?” She did nothing to disguise her anger and disgust. “That turned into a real shit show.”
Richard looked shaken as he searched for words, “I don’t know. Kara and I were just starting back for you guys when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. When I looked back, I saw a dark figure cross the floor behind us and open the doors.”
“Who was it?” Alex asked.
“I have no idea,” Richard said. “It was just a dark form. It looked like a man.”
“Kara, what did you see?” Alex asked.
I interrupted her response, “I want to get her upstairs to see...see how badly she’s hurt.”
“Let me take a look,” Richard said.
I knew it was suspicious, but I stepped in front of Kara and said, “Let’s get her to Doctor M.”
Richard let out a half laugh, “Doctor M doesn’t know shit about treating patients. Let me see.”
“No,” I said.
“Joel, what is going on?” Alex said, and I couldn’t help but notice she had tightened her grip on her rifle.
Kara stepped around me and held up her arm, the bite wound visible as little trickles of blood dropped off it onto the floor.
“You were bitten,” Richard said breathlessly, his mouth hanging open.
“This is bad,” Alex said.
“You think we don’t know that!” I said.
“Joel, please,” Kara said. She closed her eyes and looked to the floor for a moment, collecting herself. “I wanted Joel to leave me down there...but he insisted I come up.” She turned and looked at me and said, “He has a plan.”
Richard said, “I think I know what you’re thinking Joel, but Doctor M’s vaccine won’t help. Not if she’s been infected already.”
“Well, we’ve got to try something,” I said, fixing my stare onto Richard.
Alex spoke this time, “We only have three doses left. We can’t just…”
“Just waste it?” I asked. “Is that what you were going to say?”
“It’s pointless,” she said, but I saw the pain in her expression. “We’d be down to two doses, and those could be used on any one of us. Or to create more.”
“Joel, please, they’re right,” Kara said.
“NO,” I said as I felt the heat rise up my neck and face. “No one knows what the vaccine will really do. There are times to throw shit on the wall and see if it sticks. This is one of those times.”
“Joel, I know you don’t want to hear this, but there are times--” Kara said.
I pointed a menacing finger in her direction and said, “Don’t you say it. Don’t you fucking say it.”
“You have to face reality, Joel,” Alex said and her brow furrowed as I watched her finger close on the trigger of her rifle.
“No, wait,” Richard said as he lifted his arms in the air in a gesture of surrender and stepped between Alex and me. “Joel’s right in one way. Three doses don’t do us all that good when it comes to our group and dropping down to two won’t ruin the chances any more than having three.”
“But it will give them false hope,” Alex said nodding at Kara and me.
“I’ll take any hope I can,” I said.
“I don’t want to waste a dose,” Kara said.
“Richard said it won’t make that big of a difference,” I said. “Please.”
Kara once again looked at the floor. I knew and didn’t know what was going through her head. I’d seen my past playing out in my memories and then the projections of the future. This was a fucked up world, but we had each other. And Naveen. And our unborn baby.
“Kara, just give it a chance,” I said. “I’m begging you.”
She looked up, and her face held a tortured expression.
“Okay,” she said in a near whisper.
“It may not be up to you, anyway,” Alex said. “Doctor M will make the final call.”
Chapter 9
The Experiment
“Absolutely not.”
Doctor M stood with his hands on his hips and his chin jutting out. He looked as resolute as any man ever could be. But while those three vaccine doses were crucial for the future of humanity, they could save my woman. I aimed to have one of them, come hell or high water.
It was an all hands on deck meeting in the lab. Everyone was there including Naveen — which was both a good thing and a bad thing. It meant she knew what was going on with Kara. As much as I would want to insulate her from the ugliness of the world — and this was the worst of the worst, she’d know soon enough. So, I told her straight up.
She took it as well as she could, but still clung to Kara’s arm as if she might let go, Kara might just float away.
“You’re not hearing me,” I said. “This is Kara’s only chance.”
“You, apparently, have not been listening,” Doctor M said in obvious exasperation. “This is a vaccine. It is not a cure. It will not help her.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. “Have you tested it? Maybe it will stop the virus until we can come up with something else?”
“I don’t see that happening,” Doctor M said, but the seed of doubt had been planted.
“This could be your grand test?” I said. “If it does work, you will be credited with saving humanity.”
“First, do not try to play to my vanity,” Doctor M said as he wagged a finger at me. “Second, you know nothing about science.”
Lori, who had been standing on the sideline of my debate with the doctor, stepped between the two of us. “Doctor M, we have three doses. We really have no idea what the vaccine will do, but we do know that Kara will be taken down by the viru
s if we do nothing. Yes, the chances of it having any effect are remote, but it is my opinion that we could learn something.”
“For shit’s sake, Doc, just give it a try,” Richard said. “You are a researcher. This is an experiment. It’s right in your wheelhouse.”
Doctor M looked to the ceiling and let out a long stream of air. He started to open his mouth, but Kara cut him off.
“You are treating me like I’m not here,” she replied. “Don’t I have a say in this?”
I slowly turned toward her and said, “Kara, please, we’ve got to try this.”
“I’ve heard what the doctor said,” she said. “I’m going to use up one of three doses in the world that can protect someone and it very well could be wasted on me.” She scanned each one of the faces in the room, then said, “On top of it all, I feel like I’m going to be just another experiment. Do any of you know what that feels like?”
Naveen tugged at her arm, and Kara looked down at Naveen’s face, watching the tears in her eyes. “Please, Kara, I know what it’s like. I want you to try.”
Lori cleared her throat and said, “No matter if it works or not, we will learn something. So, it won’t be wasted. Please don’t get me wrong, I want it to work.”
Doctor M shot her a heated look, then just threw his hands into the air and turned away from the group. “Do whatever you want.”
Kara looked past all of us at the sunlight coming in through the window. The light bathed her face, filling it with a warm and healthy glow. For a brief moment, it was as if she wasn’t in mortal peril.
Kara turned her attention back to Naveen and said, “Okay. I’ll give it a try.” She tried to sell it with a smile, but it was a shaky one. She turned to look at me and said, “I need to talk to you before we go any further. Alone.”
What could I say? I went with it, “Sure. Out in the hall, okay?”
She just nodded, leaned over, and gave Naveen a kiss on the head, then walked out of the lab. I gave the others a weak and broken smile and followed her out.
Books of the Dead (Book 8): The Living Dead Girl Page 5
