Is this really it? Have we given up? Because I don’t think I can accept that. Not for me. And not for Felecia. We have an island to get to. I don’t care what we have to do to get out of here, we’re doing it.
“So that’s it?” Sami asks in a panic. “They’re just, they’re gone? They left us here and we die? Guys, no. My brother’s on there. Neil, your brother. Caylee. And Max. We never get to see them again? It’s just over? What’s gonna happen to them? There’s bad people on that helicopter, what are they gonna do?”
I don’t think anyone wants to say it out loud, but we all know what’s going to happen. Buckley will get rid of anyone he doesn’t feel is essential. Caylee. Her leg. My blood boils at the thought of it, she’s probably already gone. He’ll have no use for the injured, or anyone born with a different skin tone than his.
Shit. Tyrone. He’s probably already tossed the deadweight. They’re weighed down as it is, the last thing he’s going to do is keep an unconscious black kid in the cabin. After everything he’s sacrificed to get us here, to be tossed aside like trash.
I don’t have the heart to tell Sami that her brother was probably the first passenger Buckley dismissed. He doesn’t like weak, and not being able to care for yourself places someone like that at the bottom of the food chain. He’s got no need to keep him around.
He’ll let Maxwell stay, despite the color of her skin, until he doesn’t need her anymore. Someone’s got to clear the runways for them to gas up the chopper. After their last fill up, she’s as good as dead.
They’d have been better off if they were left behind as well. I don’t even want to think about what they’re going to do to Kristen. We know what Shane is capable of, Paul as well. Thinking about it makes my heart sink. All I want to do is protect them, but I can’t even protect myself.
Seeing Caylee hanging out of the open door of the chopper, reaching for us, screaming our names as they flew away, that’s the last time we’ll ever see her. Noleacialee. She’s the most amazing third wheel anyone could ever ask for. How was it never awkward? I don’t know what would have happened, but I want the opportunity to find out. I hate Buckley for ripping that away from us. He gets to live the life we fought for.
The Stryker lets off a blast that rocks it back and forth, piercing the silence we’re all too scared to interrupt.
What the hell just happened? Who fired the cannon? All six of us are standing right here, the last survivors in this apocalyptic wasteland we’re going to die in. It becomes clearer with every second that passes, the low rumble ascending the winding mountain road is drawing closer, we’re not getting out of this alive.
CHAPTER 5
An explosion rocks the mountainside, uncomfortably close to our position. I don’t know who fired it, but if they’re aiming that close, it means the ever expanding horde of vampire zombies is at our doorstep.
“There’s too many!” Maxwell screams, popping out of the hatch in the Stryker. She’s not on the chopper either? “That won’t hold them off for long. They’re too close. Run!”
“What are you still doing in there?” Norwood races to her side as she hops down with an overstuffed duffel bag in her hand. “You were supposed to be getting on the helicopter. You promised me you were getting on.”
“I couldn’t. After you guys went in, there were too many sprinters approaching. There was no way we could hold them off.” She wipes her eyes discreetly with the back of her hand but it’s clear what she was doing in there. “There’s too many to drive over. I can’t even see the end of the line.”
“There’s no way we can blow through them and clear a path?” Norwood asks, showing more concern than I’ve ever seen before. He’s not concerned for himself, this is about her.
She shakes her head, rubbing her knuckles across her cheeks again. “Besides, we’d need at least five minutes to gas it up. We’ve got maybe one. They made it around the roadblock I blew in the pavement. We’ve got weapons and supplies, for whatever we decide to do.” She pats the duffel bag hanging from her shoulder, but her eyes are full of a doubt that her calm demeanor can’t hide. “Or, we can try to wait it out inside the Stryker.”
“If we go in there, there’s a good chance we ain’t coming back out.” Marty pounds his fist off his forehead like he’s trying to knock some sense into himself.
“If we wait it out,” Felecia wails in a strained tone that I wouldn’t believe was her if I didn’t see it with my own two eyes, “we die in there. We don’t get off this continent, period.”
“That flight is gone,” Neil cries, sitting on his ass, rocking back and forth. “It’s gone, Felecia, forget about it. Okay? My dad’s not coming back for us. We’re trapped, he made sure of it. Trust me, he’s leaving. We’re not.”
“Look,” I shout, interrupting his temper tantrum, “we may not be able to make it to England, but we can still leave here. If we can just get to the coast, to an island, if we leave the mainland we can escape this.”
“And do what Noah?” Neil says, finally getting to his feet. “What do we do, cram us all on some desert island and eat crabs and coconuts until we die of dehydration?”
“You know what,” I say sternly, my gaze focused on the ground because every time I look up, I cry a little and I don’t want to cry right now. “You guys can do whatever you want. But we’re leaving this shithole, one way or the other. Nothing’s changed. We’re gonna find an island to call home. We didn’t make it this far to die now.”
I turn and make my way towards the underground stairway that leads into the dam.
Nothing’s changed? I know that couldn’t be further from the truth. Everything’s changed. But I can’t look at it like that because if I do, I cry, and everything around me fades to black. And I’m not ready for that yet. I know we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but the second I admit that, it’s over.
Felecia keeps in stride beside me. Maybe it’s because we have more to fight for than they do. We have more of a reason to live, even if the only reason we have is each other, and this foolish notion that things can go back to the way they were before. We want our damn redo, whether it’s in Europe or on an island off the coast of California. It’s stupid, I know, but it’s gotten us this far.
“You guys really are crazy,” Sami says, wedging her way between us as we race down the stairs into the subterranean hallway. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m doing it too.”
Blood and body parts. Severed limbs, everywhere. We step over them like they’re sticks in a forest but they’re not. These were humans. Last week, this was unimaginable. How did a cure for addiction lead to this? It was just one accident followed by a stupid decision followed by another accident, until the world we knew turned into our worst nightmare.
It wasn’t a bomb or something designed to end human life. It was meant to save it. The government shouldn’t have pushed them into animal testing prematurely. Kristen’s mother shouldn’t have told her son what she was working on. He shouldn’t have broken into the lab and stolen a highly experimental serum.
But desperation drives us to do stupid things. I know, I’m doing it right now. But I’m doing it for that sliver of hope. And no amount of reason in this world is going to stop me.
“Where do we go now?” Sami asks, looking around frantically at the room full of desperate corpses below, where there should be a catwalk to take us to the other side. She must follow my eyes because she does not look impressed. “That? We’re supposed to swing across those beams? Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”
“Noah, are you freakin’ insane?” Neil hisses, looking over the edge where the rickety bridge collapsed. Have to admit, I did not expect him to follow us. “We can’t cross that. We gotta find another way.”
“The other way’s down there.” I point a stern finger at the ravenous infects three stories below, throwing themselves against the wall, jumping like ravers on molly, trying desperately to reach us.
“Oh,” Norwood laughs, “ther
e’s also a Grizzly somewhere down there.” My man Dustin, I knew he wouldn’t let us down, not him. “Trust me when I tell you, hanging from the rafters, safest place you’re gonna find.” He snatches the duffle bag from Maxwell and throws it over his neck, refusing to take no for an answer.
Marty’s right beside them.
We’re all here. The gang’s still together.
“You got this Neil,” Norwood says, lightly bumping our former rival’s arm, “just pretend they’re Blake’s testicles. You’re used to swinging from those.”
“Fuck you Norwood.”
These two definitely have a ways to go before they’re holding hands and skipping through a flowery meadow humming showtunes.
Norwood leaps through the doorway, grabbing onto a crossbeam, duffel bag bouncing off him. It rests against his side rather quickly which means it’s gotta be pretty freakin’ heavy. Unfortunately, I don’t think anything less than a tank is going to be much help. He swings there, dangling by one arm just so he can give Neil the finger.
“Marty,” I whisper as he comes to a halt beside me, “can you do this, with your shoulder?”
“Do I got a choice?”
He lets out a dragon’s exhale before jumping up and grabbing hold of the dusty beams. Maxwell follows, barely grunting when her hands slam against the flat pieces of metal, I get the impression she trains for fun doing stuff just like this, minus the zombies and infected Grizzly bear of course.
I grab Sami by the waist and hoist her up to the rafters. Neil’s too busy looking back and forth between the way we’re going, and the way we came to be any help. Had he not betrayed his father, he’d be on that helicopter right now.
As much as I like to believe I was right, so was he. His father was the one to get them out of this mess. He knew all along his dad would do it, and in the end, he did. Yes, he had to steal his victory from someone else, but that’s the Buckley way. It’s never stopped him before, his entire company’s built on it.
I can feel his regret weighing heavy in the air. This is what Neil gets for doing what’s right. For having morals. Morals he didn’t have before. He found them at the most inopportune time. If only he’d stuck by his father, and his friends, his followers, he’d be safe and sound right now, letting someone else do the fighting for him.
And maybe he’d have been right. Look where siding with us got him. All our lives we were taught to be good people, because good things happen to good people. But they don’t. Good things happen to people who take good things. As much as I hate to admit it, Buckley’s living proof of that.
Morals aren’t an advantage, they’re a hindrance. But what kind of life lesson is that to teach someone? It sickens me that Buckley was right. He taught his kids how to survive in the world that really exists, the rest of us learned how to be good people in a world that really doesn’t.
“We can make this right,” I say, resting my hand on Neil’s shoulder. “He doesn’t have to win.”
“He already did.”
“Only if we let him. We don’t need to die here, not when we know their weakness. We’ll find an island, make it whatever we want it to be. Hell, we’ll colonize a whole archipelago and give you your own island, we can call it Douchelandia.”
He shakes his head, trying not to laugh as much as he’s trying to find the courage to carry on.
“Guys,” Felecia urges softly, nodding at the roar of humanity drawing closer, “it’s now or never. I don’t wanna leave you here Neil, neither of us do, but if we have to, we will. You don’t need to pay for the sins of your father.”
“You’re a lot smarter than you pretend to be, aren’t you?” Neil’s just starting to figure out what I’ve seen in her all this time. “I’ve been in love with you for years, but I feel like I never even knew you.”
“Because you didn’t. Neil, I’m a science nerd who loves dinosaurs. I hike and sail boats in my spare time. I have a feelings journal that I write poems in. No one really knows anyone else, so stop beating yourself up over your dad, quit being a pussy, jump onto those fucking rafters and climb.”
Her words push him over the edge.
The girl he’s been in love with, for even longer than I have, never actually existed. I don’t know if he’d be in love with this version of her. The one who isn’t a raging bitch. The one who walks trails and not runways. The one who’d rather be sailing than shopping the sales. The one who bails on parties to go to dinosaur exhibits. Would he have loved her then, the way I would have? The way I do? Does the girl he’s been chasing all these years even exist? Because the girl standing in front of us, that’s not her.
What does he have left? After turning on his father, it was her that kept him going. It was the hope that he could win her heart. He wasn’t fighting for his friends or his brother. He wasn’t fighting for us. He was fighting for her. Hoping he could win.
He’s not grabbing onto those rafters, is he?
I throw my hand out to grab his shirt but it’s too late to stop him.
CHAPTER 6
We were supposed to be best friends. Our moms were close. Our dads worked together. Playdates, track meets and hunting trips. You just can’t force two people to get along.
To be fair, I don’t think he ever really hated me. Neil’s always been a leader, but in most leaders is a follower. He followed the guys. His dad and his hunting buddies. It was easier to make fun of me than to defend me. He saw his way in, and he took it.
Now he sees his way out, and like the coward he’s always been, he’s taking it. I don’t have to agree, but I understand. It’s easier.
He doesn’t reach out his hands. He never planned on holding on.
This is the end for Neil Buckley.
I tried, but my hand is nowhere near him. I can’t pull him back from the edge this time.
Norwood lets go of the rafters, launching himself into Neil’s stomach in a flying midair tackle.
They crash into our feet, barely clearing the doorway, taking us all down in an awkward heap.
I don’t remember doing it but my hands are holding onto Norwood’s arm. Felecia’s got the strap of his duffel bag. It’s all that’s holding him up. His feet are dangling over the edge of oblivion.
This crazy son of a bitch just risked his life to save Neil’s, and if we weren’t holding onto him, he would have sacrificed it. I can feel his heartbeat pulsing through his elbow. When his eyes meet mine, I can see it, he knows he screwed up.
He shakes the fear from his face and kicks his way onto solid ground before springing to his feet.
“What the fuck was that Neil?” he screams at the top of his lungs, a string of saliva hanging from his lower lip.
“I, I, I missed,” Neil stutters, barely holding himself together. I don’t think he’s even breathing yet. He’s still staring death in the face, wondering why he’s not splattered on the turbines below.
“Bullshit you missed!”
“I, I didn’t, I did, I missed. I’m sorry. You, you…”
“Don’t you ever make me do that shit again. Because I won’t. I swear to god Neil, next time, I won’t do it.” He reaches down, gripping the kid he supposedly hates by the shirt and pulling him to his feet. “Grab onto the fucking rafters, and climb.”
He waits for Neil to do as instructed before reaching back down to give us each a hand, shaking his head, ashamed, grateful, and scared. “Don’t say anything, I know. Thank you for holding on. I’d be dead if you didn’t. And for trying to stop him, I saw you reach out. That’s how I knew.” His eyes grow three sizes, and possibly his heart as well, as his gaze shifts behind us. “Fuck, they’re coming down the stairs! Hurry.”
A quick glance over my shoulder confirms it. They’re trampling each other, pouring out of the narrow maintenance staircase in droves, throwing themselves down the steps to reach us quicker.
“Go, go!” he shouts, stepping aside to let me and Felecia jump first, his show of gratitude for saving his life.
The regret
is plastered all over his face. He didn’t think about what he was doing, he just did it, Norwood style. Only, that careless Norwood style he’s always lived by, it’s not so carefree anymore. Every decision we make is life or death, and without thinking about it, he made the wrong one.
Felecia and I jump at the same time, grabbing onto the metal beams that already saved our lives once. You know when you first ride a roller coaster, how you’re gripping the handlebar so hard you’re afraid you might break it, but the next time around you’ve got your hands in the air? Yeah, this is nothing like that. It’s no less terrifying the second time around.
One hand in front of the other as fast as you can, which isn’t fast at all because if you miss, you go where Neil was about to go. I don’t know what he was thinking. I can try to put myself in his shoes all I want, but the truth is, I can’t say why he gave up. I don’t know if he changed his mind but it was too late, or if he’s mad at Norwood for stopping him. All I know is that if he wanted to let go, he would have by now. But he’s not. He’s going one hand in front of the other, just like the rest of us. Struggling with every swing. But he’s holding on. He’s taking his second chance.
I look back in time to see Norwood leap off the edge. A downpour of sweat rains from his forehead when his palms meet the support beams, drenching anyone who happens to be standing below.
His body swings like a gymnast mounting the uneven bars, his feet practically hitting the rafters. Two bloodied bodies leap from the bridgeless doorway, barely missing Norwood’s legs. I don’t take the time to look but I can hear them splatter three stories down. If Neil had his way, that would have been him.
“Quick question,” Marty groans, “how do we get around the ventilation shaft?”
Felecia’s eyes grow wide beside me as we turn to face each other. Fuck! We forgot about that. That’s the reason we had to turn around and go through the tunnel in the first place. I completely forgot, and judging by the guilt in her eyes, so did she.
Blood Type Infected (Book 5): The Departed Page 3
