by S G D Singh
“Here,” she said, shoving her weapon into Hanna's hands with a knowing smile. “In case yours jams again.” I know you're staying here. I would do the same in your place.
Hanna opened her mouth to say something—thank you?—but Zahi was already back at the van, climbing into the driver's seat and slamming the door. She shouted to Kevin to open the gate, and within seconds, all that was left of the crowd of survivors was a cloud of dust in the gathering heat.
“Where's the butcher?” Nadifa asked, breaking the ensuing silence.
Mike shrugged, and Lukango asked, “Wasn't he in the first van?”
The gate closed and the current started humming through the air once again and Malik nodded once at Lukango. Nothing could get in or out without them seeing it.
“Nope,” Kevin said. “I didn't see him in it.”
Hanna looked around. “Didn't you guys take a head-count?”
“Hey,” Lukango told her. “Anyone still here didn't get into the motherfucking van for a reason.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You, of all people, shouldn't need to be told that.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Nadifa asked, looking from Lukango to Hanna and back.
“She,” Lukango pointed, “doesn't plan on leaving at all.”
Nadifa turned to Hanna. “What?”
Thinking back on her erratic behavior over the last forty-eight hours, Hanna recognized that it was useless to guess how Lukango knew.
She sighed, running a hand over her rough scalp. “The subway gate can be permanently sealed, and the timer turned off, but only from the other side,” she said, her voice carrying in the sudden silence. “We think it was a safeguard built into the system in case of trouble in the prison. Security could come down the tunnel from The Resort and seal everyone off. Obviously, they couldn't risk a prisoner figuring out how to block them from getting in.”
Adam refused to look at her. They'd argued until he'd cried, but there was no other way. She was the only one who deserved to close the gate.
“These people wouldn't build a place like this without a way to close it off,” he said from his spot in the shade, surrounded by laptops and paper. “Their fear and cowardice would never allow that.”
“But you'll die down there!” Nadifa's grief brought tears to Hanna's eyes. It would take years she didn't have left to feel worthy of it. Years she didn't have.
“The world won't miss one more privileged white girl. Especially one with a father like mine.”
“But you can't just… ” Kevin looked like he'd eaten something sour as he flailed an arm toward Adam, who looked up at him with raised eyebrows. “You're leaving him alone? He's… he's… ”
“Survived without her for years,” Adam finished.
“And he's not alone,” Hanna said, pointing at Darnell and Nadifa, then Mike, and even Lukango. They would make sure Adam got safely settled into some kind of assisted living home—probably even argue over who he would live near. Hanna knew each of them would keep in touch with Adam. They accepted him. Accepted his help, his friendship. Adam had suffered as much as they had—and more.
Not like her.
Lukango laughed without humor, startling Hanna from her thoughts.
“This isn't about some fucking white savior bullshit,” she snapped at him, frustrated he refused to understand. “I can't save anyone from what my own family created in the first place.”
Lukango's laughter stopped abruptly, and he fixed her with his familiar glare.
“Oh, I know you can't.” He turned to Nadifa: “I know where the butcher is. He's already at the subway gate.”
That set everyone in motion.
Hanna threw one of her weapons to Nadifa, who promptly handed it over to Malik. Lukango stooped so Adam could grab onto his shoulders, and the eight of them hurried into the putrid mouth of the prison's tunnel once again.
Hanna wasn't sure if it was her imagination playing tricks on her, or if the smell of decay had grown stronger. But then she heard them—zombies at the gate, following the scent of their blood, blood of the living, growing rarer by the hour. They waited behind the gate, their fingers grasping the grated metal between the bars. Groaning.
And then the butcher—Terrance—was there, standing on the platform in the gloom. He looked like a specter of death, his skin lit by the dim blue lights. If Hanna thought the man looked sad before, he looked completely defeated now—blank—more dead than alive.
Terrance focused only on Nadifa as he extended his bloodied and torn arms, as if offering an embrace. “I will go in and close them out.”
Hanna looked behind him to the gate, ignoring her accelerating pulse as she readied her weapon with a click. It was clear they couldn't shoot until the gate opened. Their bolts could easily be stuck within the metal grate between bars, rendering them useless after one shot. The butcher must've pressed his skin against the grate, purposely allowing himself to be bitten by the ravenous horde. Knowing there would be no turning back after his infection. Knowing they would have no choice but to allow him to close the gate. Knowing he would die a gruesome death.
Hanna wasn't sure she would've been able to do that. Did this prove she wanted to live?
Everyone stared at the man in horror—all but Lukango, who watched Hanna instead. His eyes laughed at her. You failed again, Lotie, he seemed to say. So much for your white savior bullshit.
Mike said, “What did you do, man? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
But Terrance didn't respond, his attention still on Nadifa alone.
Nadifa nodded, swallowing. “Show him what to do,” he said to Darnell, who carried a page of instructions he and Adam had worked out. Hanna noticed Adam wouldn't look at her.
“Two minutes,” someone said.
Lukango, Malik, and Kevin readied their weapons, leveling them at the heads of the zombies reaching through the bars. Hanna joined them. She thought she recognized Billy from reception, but his nose and lower jaw were missing, and one shoulder was dislocated at an angle that made Hanna feel suddenly ill.
The smell was definitely worse. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she could see a lot of bodies lying still on the ground, decayed almost completely. The infected still moving were much slower than earlier, like marionettes with too many broken strings. They hardly made any noise now, and Darnell's instructions drowned out their last pathetic gurgles.
Hanna knew closing the gate was a matter of speed, not complexity. Enter the six-digit code to engage the solid doors behind the bars and wire, then slide the three manual locking bars into place, finishing with one last code. The trick was to complete the task while being eaten alive. Their weapons could only cover the butcher until the second set of doors closed. Once three inches of steel slammed down between them, Terrance would be on his own. Without the locking bars securely in place, Adam thought that the code could theoretically be pushed by accident by scrambling zombies.
“I could go with him,” Hanna offered. “Cover him from the other side… ”
Everyone ignored her. She thought they hadn't heard her until she moved forward and Lukango reached his free hand around her arm, yanking her back. “Don't,” he said.
“We'll just have to get all of them when the gate opens,” Mike added, pointing the barrel of his weapon at the grated metal, aiming at one rotting skull and then another. “No sweat, am I right?”
One of the zombies growled at him as if it understood, and Hanna shivered. Darnell finished his instructions, and Nadifa stepped forward. He spoke softly to the butcher, shaking his hand. There was nothing anyone could do now but wait. The man was infected. Even if he stayed, someone would have to shoot him eventually.
The lights flared once, and the gate began to open. Zombies streamed forward in a rush to satiate the hunger of the bacteria eating away at their bodies. They ignored the butcher as he slipped past them to the other side.
Smart. Infect your blood ahead of time and close the doors in peace. So simple.
&n
bsp; Five weapons discharged in unison, bolts meeting rotting skulls.
You hoped to live. That's why you didn't think of it yourself.
The zombies began to fall.
The next instant, solid steel slammed down where the grated bars had been, slicing more than one zombie in half. Even that didn't stop them. Hanna watched as a severed torso dragged itself across the gore-splattered floor toward Malik, entrails spilling from their middles as they struggled forward, still determined to feast.
Malik stared down, horrified into stillness, until Lukango stepped forward and shot it in the skull, just as its rotting hand closed around Malik's ankle.
“Let's get the fuck out of here,” he said, dropping his weapon with a clang next to the tangle of putrid, rotting limbs, and Malik nodded, shaking his leg as if he'd been electrocuted.
“Wait,” Adam said from his back. “The red light should come on above the door when he enters the final code.”
They all stood in silence, staring up at the spot above the tunnel doors until finally, after what felt like hours, a red light appeared.
Nadifa stepped over the carnage and placed a hand on the steel, letting his forehead fall against it as he closed his eyes. “Be at peace,” he said softly, adding something in a language Hanna didn't understand, but knew was a prayer just the same.
Nadifa turned to see Hanna sprinting back up the ramp, still holding her weapon, and he ran to catch up with her. He found her punching in the code to enter the storage room.
“Don't try to stop me,” she called as she started to fill one of The Resort's laundry bags with small bottles of whiskey from a supply shelf. Hurrying down the aisle, she collected napkins, then stopped to hold up a flare gun. “Yes.”
Nadifa watched her, saying nothing.
“I'm going back down there.” She grabbed two bottles of water, jammed them into her sweatshirt pockets, and shouldered her way past Nadifa. “I have to make sure all of them are dead. We can't just leave. What if there are survivors at The Resort who know how to open the tunnel again? What if—”
“Unlikely,” Adam called. The rest of the group had entered the room. “But if there are, they're welcome to wait here for the FBI. We left plenty of provisions.”
Hanna continued to scour the shelves, her movements frantic. “Not good enough,” she snapped. “What if there are people on their way here right now, ready to take up where Dr. Kaiser left off? I can't just leave. I won't.”
Luk lowered Adam into a chair, where his metal hands soon began dancing across the keys of a laptop. “And if you become infected?”
Hanna stopped, turned to look at him, then checked her weapon, continuing toward the door.
“Simple. If I'm infected, I won't come back.”
She slammed into Luk, staggering back, then tried to pass him but he moved to block her path, crossing his arms.
Kevin and Mike joined him, followed by Malik, while Darnell hung back by the door.
“If anyone in The Resort got a call out when shit went down, there would already be people swarming this place,” Adam said. “And if there were survivors, they'd show up on this.” He held the computer screen out to Hanna. “Look. Nothing. There's no one down there.”
Nadifa studied the screen, unsure what he was seeing. Security cameras?
“It's over, Hanna” Adam said.
Hanna shook her head, refusing to look at any of them.
Adam threw the laptop to the floor, hard, the pieces spraying across the floor, and Hanna flinched as he shouted, “What do you think your death will accomplish?”
Hanna paled, running a shaking hand through hair that was no longer on her head, but didn't answer her brother. Nadifa remembered Hanna's father as he'd first seen him, so certain of his own superiority. Smiling. Content. Even as he knew that the people who served his meal would be murdered within days. It was hard for Nadifa to fully grasp how it would feel, how it would fuck with his mind, to have a father like that.
Hanna looked up at Luk, her eyes pleading. “Please,” she whispered. “I need to do this.”
Luk studied her face, and incredibly, his expression softened. “You don't have to be part of the problem anymore, Hanna,” he said softly. “You can be part of the solution now.” But he stepped aside, letting her pass.
“Thank you.” Hanna's expression was fierce, daring Luk to refuse her gratitude yet again.
Instead, he looked as if he might actually smile. “You're welcome.”
Hanna met his gaze, then turned, leaving the room, and Nadifa saw the tears in her eyes as she passed him.
Nadifa looked to Adam in alarm, but Hanna's brother shook his head as if to say don't worry.
They filed out, with Adam on Nadifa's back, and watched Hanna's retreating form. It was unimaginable to Nadifa that after everything, she was still determined to punish herself and to die in that hell, buried under the ground with monsters. But as Hanna left the shadows of the loading dock and entered the blinding morning light, she stopped. She looked up at the sky, and let her bag fall to the filthy cement.
“She's nuts,” Kevin said finally.
Hanna slid to the ground, her head falling to her knees. Nadifa started forward to comfort her, but Luk caught his arm. “It's over, man,” he said, the relief in his voice warm as sunshine. “Let's go.”
Adam cleared his throat. “I should have those prosthetics ready by morning,” he said. “She'll help.”
“And after that?” Nadifa asked. “I hope you know you're always welcome in Minnesota.”
“And New Jersey,” Darnell said.
Luk stepped forward and grasped Adam's shoulder. “L.A, too. You'll like the hood.”
Adam nodded, and for the first time, tears spilled from his eyes as he patted his shirt pocket where he'd stored their addresses. They'd become a family in two days—two horrific, traumatizing days most people would never believe, even if they were told.
There was still one car parked in the warehouse for Hanna and Adam, so the boys loaded up the last van and prepared to leave. As they drove toward the gates, Nadifa looked for Hanna, but saw only her things scattered across the ground at the mouth of the loading ramp. Adam said she would want to grieve alone. Nadifa hoped he was right.
No one spoke as the van rolled through the gates, and Nadifa was sure each of them felt a weight lifted, ten feet making a universe of difference. They parked outside the gate, once again humming with electricity, in the shade of the trees that hid it.
There was one more thing to do before they could go home.
Nadifa looked up at the sky, marveling at the sensation of being truly and finally liberated from captivity. Freedom. He'd never felt anything like it. And he would never take it for granted again, as long as he lived. The feeling of the air, sweet in his lungs, overwhelmed him with joy.
No one spoke as they retrieved tools from the back of the van and moved, single file, along the fence until they came to the tree that held Ray Miller's body.
Luk, Nadifa, and Kevin reached to catch him as Malik cut the ropes that held him, his face set in stone as his butcher knife fell. Darnell reached for the rope, slowing the body's fall.
“For a man's days are numbered,” Mike said softly as he covered Ray's body in a clean sheet. “Only You know the number of his months. He cannot live longer than the time You have set, Lord.”
They carried Ray's body to a clearing in the trees, where wild flowers grew beneath the clear sky. With a nod from Luk, they lowered him gently to the ground in the shade of an apple tree, and began digging.
“Say something,” Luk told Nadifa finally, the sound of crickets filling the warm air.
Nadifa thought it was fitting that Ray be buried like a martyr—in the clothing he died wearing, his body receiving no cleaning, no scented water, no shroud. He deserved a martyr's funeral.
He tried to remember the words of the prayer, but found only pieces of it. “Forgive him,” he said, emotion clouding his ability to translate the Arabi
c. “Send him along the path of great men who came before him, O Lord of the worlds. Allah, build Ray a home with you in paradise… ”
“Amen,” Kevin said, and Nadifa noticed Malik elbow him in the ribs.
The ground was hard beneath their shovels, and it took the six of them two hours to dig the grave. By the time they lowered Ray's body into it, their hands were blistered, their once-clean shirts soaked with sweat.
They stood in silence that felt eternal, staring into the open grave for a long moment as clouds gathered, blocking the sun's heat, covering the empty grave in shadow. Nadifa looked up as rain began to fall, cool water falling into his eyes to mix with his tears.
He looked down at his hands, where the rain washed away the dirt and blood from his skin, and was reminded of the words from James Weldon Johnson's beloved poem.
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.
Luk began filling the grave with earth, and the rest of them joined in, quickening their pace as the rain continued to fall.
When their task was complete, Nadifa dropped his shovel and fell to his knees, just as Hanna had done before him. It was over. He could go home. Back to his parents, back to his home—his life.
His faith.
Hope had almost died. Rage had almost won.
Nadifa turned his face back to the sky, and gratitude threatened to choke him. They had survived.
He thought of Jamal, his body lying alone in the darkness, deep underground in a hospital of horrors, his family never to see him again.
He thought of the hundreds of infected, their hate silenced in death, and knew the struggle was far from over.
He looked to the faces of his brothers, their heads bowed in sadness, and Nadifa felt nothing but love. Love and pride for their strength, their bravery. The six of them had been to hell and they had crawled out whole, stronger, surer—they could face anything. Many more weary years and countless more silent tears may lay in their paths, but Nadifa chose freedom. No man could take it away from him, not now, not ever again. He would fight. He would march on, as long as his weary feet would carry him. He would stand in the light, facing the rising sun until the end.
