“Are they okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, mostly. There’s a few people with some minor scratches and bruises. Debbie bonked her head pretty good during the evacuation. Might have a concussion, poor gal. She’ll be okay, though.” Scarlett stopped and turned to Eleanor. “We missed you, Ell. Really needed your medical expertise.”
The invisible hand around my throat relaxed.
Ell’s forehead wrinkled. “What? Nina and Sharon are the ones—”
Scarlett stopped. Her shoulders slouched, and her head tilted downward at the floor.
“Scar?” Chad said. “You okay there?”
I shined my light in front of her. There was nothing.
George reached out and put a hand on her arm. “Scarlett?”
“I think she’s the one who bumped her head,” Zoe whispered, widening her eyes and spinning an index finger by her temple.
“Scarlett,” Ell began in a concerned voice, “are you—”
Scarlett looked at us. She winced at the flashlights in her face. “I’m okay. Zoe’s right, I bumped my head too. But I’ll live.”
I studied her face. Her knitted beanie hung low on her brow. Her skin seemed paler than usual. I mean, we were all pale without the sun, but Scarlett was sickly-looking, and that wasn’t normal. Her eyes were no longer lively. I just figured stress and fear were to blame.
Then Scarlett flashed us a reassuring smile. It was anything but, however.
Ell and I exchanged a concerned glance while Zoe repeated her cuckoo gesture, but George and Chad didn’t seem too bothered by this sudden display of odd behavior.
“Who was it? Was it more of those crazy assholes that were chasing the new girl? What’s her name? It’s a fuckin’ weird one, I know, but I can’t remember,” Chad said.
“Credence,” I answered.
“Yeah,” Scarlett said. “Yeah, it was them.” There wasn’t much conviction in her voice.
I thought she sounded different. The usual inflection, the giddiness, the buoyancy, was gone. Now she sounded flat.
Reasoning, I kept telling myself she was in shock over whatever it was that happened while we were gone. But then wouldn’t she have sounded scared? Distressed? If she was human, yeah, I believe so. Then again, everyone was different.
I don’t know. In hindsight, it’s hard to say exactly what was going through my head. All I really cared about at that point was getting to Mia, Monica, Stone, and Chewy, and making sure they were okay.
“Are they dead, those bastards that attacked?” Chad continued. He slapped the side of his rifle. “Please tell me you lit those motherfuckers up.”
“Dead. Yeah,” Scarlett said. Monotone.
We were coming upon the cafeteria’s entrance. It was silent, and I also found that odd. If they were watching a movie, shouldn’t there have been sound?
Scarlett grabbed the door’s handle “All right, here we are.”
I heard nothing, nothing at all. Where was everyone?
As if reading my mind, Scarlett said, “Must’ve relocated. No problem, we’ll find them. Probably felt safe enough to cross back to the hub’s entertainment rooms.”
“Nothing like a Disney movie to get ya in a better mood,” Chad said.
Scarlett pulled open the door. “After you.”
The inside was dark. Pitch-black. We had our flashlights, and I saw something on the floor, but what the puddles and smears were didn’t register until it was too late.
Ell, George, and I went through first. Chad and Zoe followed. If the three of us hadn’t led, I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened, but what did happen occurred in a blur.
The puddles and smears on the floor were red, I saw as we entered. Some part of me knew it was blood. I felt like I could almost smell it, that coppery scent; but another part of my brain couldn’t reason with the fact that it actually could be blood. Whose blood? That was the question. The people who'd attacked? My friends and family?
I was staring down at it when Zoe said, “Whoa, what the fuck are you doing—?” But, like the blood, her voice didn’t register until it was too late.
Two concussive bangs went off behind us. They were immediately followed by two bright flashes that lit up the entire cafeteria, confirming my theory.
Blood. Blood everywhere.
I spun around and put my body between Ell and the gunshots, and somehow kept my grip on the flashlight. Eleanor had dropped hers. It clattered off the floor, but after the thumping against my eardrums, I barely heard it. My beam lit Scarlett. She was standing there with a raised pistol.
Chad had collapsed on the floor in a heap, blood spreading around him. Still up in front of Scarlett stood Zoe with a hole in the right side of her face. From her right eyebrow to the middle of her cheek was nothing but gristle and gore. Her left eye rolled without direction, and then she fell forward, landing next to Chad, both of them dead.
I wish I could say I acted fast, but I can’t. I didn’t act at all. Neither did George.
Luckily for us, Eleanor did. She started shooting her rifle before she had it up all the way. Chunks of the floor exploded and sprayed linoleum in all directions. The pieces burrowed into my shins like bee stings. The rifle’s recoil forced Ell’s aim up and to the left. She missed most of her shots, but all it took was one bullet in the right place.
Poor aim or not, the automatic fire and close range performed their jobs, and a line of rounds slashed Scarlett across the chest.
She screamed in pain and stumbled backwards, her arms pinwheeling, her hat flying off, and then she thudded against the door frame before collapsing on her side.
Ell threw her rifle away in disgust and erupted into gasping sobs.
The gun also clattered off the floor, but at this point my ears were finished. I couldn’t hear anything, not even my own thoughts.
We stood there in shock for a long moment before any of us spoke, and although I couldn’t hear him, I read George’s lips.
Why? he mouthed. Why?
That was a good question.
It took sixty seconds for any of us to move from our spots. I was the one who did first. I went over to Scarlett and examined her. The answer to her odd behavior was evident when I reached her corpse. On her forehead, which had been previously hidden by the knitted hat, was a black mark. A deep etching, as if scratched by a diseased fingernail which left in its wake a toxic residue. Scarlett had been touched by one of the monsters. Really, there was no other explanation for her murdering Zoe and Chad in cold blood.
I knelt and pointed my flashlight at her face, tears welling in my eyes. They were a result of the terrible fear I felt then. Fear of the unknown, of what lay before us in this supposed place of safety. I noticed now that Scarlett’s eyes were back to normal, no longer dull and alien. They were hers.
It was a shame. I had really liked her during the brief time we spent together. She was funny, whimsical, and not afraid to call you out on your crap—and anyone who did that earned my respect. But I was ashamed of how numbed I felt when I looked down at her. It was as if my brain told me I should be sad, but I’d seen death so much that it didn’t matter anymore. A dead body was nothing new. It was just a fact of life. Maybe that, or her death, along with two others I called friends, Chad and Zoe, hadn’t completely sunken in yet at the time.
George spoke up, and I heard him this time—albeit faintly. “We have to go,” he said. Large tears were rolling down his cheeks and into his beard. He was on the floor, cradling Zoe’s head against his chest.
I turned to Eleanor. She was sitting on the floor, close to a pool of blood, clutching her knees to her chest. Her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders hitched with each convulsing cry. I dropped next to her, put an arm around her waist, and kissed the backs of her fingers.
“You saved our lives, Ell.”
She said nothing in return. I mean, what could she say? I helped her up, and she instantly buried herself into my sternum. Over her head, I caught George’
s eyes and said, “We can’t leave yet. We still have to fight. If there’s anyone here we can save or help, we have to do it.” I imagine it was the same thing Ell would’ve said, had she been able to speak in the moment.
Judging by the fear on George’s face, my words hit him like a barrage of stray bullets—but, frightened or not, he nodded. Only a minute or two had passed since the gunfight. The City was big compared to the dentist’s offices and old-school annexes we stayed at during our trek south, but it wasn’t that big. Someone (or something) would’ve heard us by now. Human or wraith, I doubted whoever it was would be friendly.
“You okay?” I asked Ell, pressing my forehead against her damp cheek. Stupid question, I know. Of course she wasn’t okay. Taking a life is never easy, and I say that from experience. Know I’m not proud of it either.
She craned her head up at me. The white glow from the flashlight lent a corpse-like hue to her flesh. Pallid. Cold. I shuddered upon noticing this—mostly because my train of thought had gone down such a dark path. I couldn’t help that, though you would’ve probably thought the same.
Now on his feet, George said, “If Nick’s still alive, he would’ve taken any survivors to his panic room.”
“Panic room?” I repeated.
He nodded. “Yeah. It’s not far. Near his office.”
Not far under normal circumstances, but in this darkness with possible wraiths lurking nearby, even two feet away was two feet too many.
Ell stifled another sob, and that almost sent me over the edge. The thought of having to shoot my friends and family because some monster had turned them into killing machines filled me with nausea. But I knew having to do that was a real possibility.
George led the way out of the cafeteria. He took us on a path that passed near our barracks. Two of the windows were broken open, the barricade smashed. George squeezed through it, then Ell, and then me.
Outside, the wind wailed. Swirls of white were blinding. The flakes stung the exposed parts of my flesh as the snow crunched beneath our feet.
There was no cleared path. Getting through it was hard. The few minutes we spent outside were like an eternity. I became so stiff and frozen, I thought my arms and legs had turned to glass.
From this spot, I could see where we drove the tank through and where we entered. So far there was no one out there patrolling. I wondered if those infected could even do such a thing. From my experiences, their brains turned animalistic. All they cared about was killing, inflicting pain, and feeding their shadowy overlords.
Scarlett was a different story, however. I don’t know why she remained functional or how she managed to hide so well the fact that she’d been touched.
Of course, her true nature showed through eventually, but still. My theory was that she’d been newly infected. She hadn’t completely turned into whatever monster she might’ve become. Or perhaps she was somewhat numbed to the effects, like Robert Ballard of Woodhaven had been.
I don’t know. It didn’t matter. She was dead now.
A burst of wind pummeled our backs. I lost my footing, and Ell grabbed me before I pitched over in the snow. George entered the corridor leading to the hub and a mini-avalanche followed us. Closing the door was more than a one-person job. Hell, it might’ve been more than a three-person job. Grunting, we closed it against the wind.
Snow crusted George’s beard. Little crystals of ice hung from his mustache. He scanned the surroundings with his flashlight. Nothing. No monsters, no people, marked or otherwise.
Passing by the entrance to another set of personal barracks in the near complete darkness, a hand shot out of the shadows and grabbed my shoulder.
I spun around, my weapon and flashlight aimed high. My finger was on the trigger—I was a fraction of a second away from pulling it and blowing off the person’s head.
Thank God I didn’t, because it was Stone. He stumbled backwards and lost his balance, taking a seat hard on the floor.
I immediately lowered the gun and dropped to help him to his feet. George, however, kept his rifle in Stone’s face. Couldn’t blame him for that. There was a chance Stone was infected like Scarlett had been, but I was blinded by our friendship.
Clutching his wounded shoulder, Stone said, “Jesus Christ.”
“Stone?” I whispered, not believing my eyes.
“Oh my God,” Ell scrambled to help me get him to his feet. George, never lowering his rifle, found the discarded crutch and offered it to Stone, who took it with a grimace on his face.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“My ass is sore, but yeah, I guess so.” He was still holding his shoulder.
“What happened?” Ell burst out. “Are Mia and Monica okay? Where’s Chewy? What about Nick? Debbie?” She leaned forward, inches away from Stone’s face. He backed up and widened his eyes.
“Relax, relax,” Stone answered, one hand out, “I heard the tank’s engine and knew it was you guys. I had to see if I could get to you before they did.”
I didn’t like how he wouldn’t answer Ell’s questions.
“Hold on a minute,” George warned. “We need to examine him. Scarlett seemed fine too.”
“I’m not infected…” Stone furrowed his brow and continued, “…Which is exactly what a person who was touched would say, isn’t it?” He sighed. “All right, do your worst.”
George ran his light over every inch of Stone’s face and neck. He made him remove his jacket and lift up his shirt. After George finished scanning there, Stone pulled down his pants, and, without shame, his blue and black checkered boxers.
Red-faced, Eleanor turned away.
“Satisfied?” Stone said, yanking his jeans back on with one hand. “Because I’m not. You do that to a dude, you gotta at least buy him a drink first.”
“Okay, now I know he’s one-hundred percent himself,” I said. “Only Stone cracks lame-ass jokes like that.”
Ell nodded and said, “It’s true.”
George arched a brow. “Fine, I believe you all. Now get on with it. What the hell happened?”
“Scarlett said something about more of those marked people. They came back for revenge,” Ell said.
“Bullshit,” Stone said. “It was a stranger, yeah, but she had help.”
“Berretti,” I whispered.
Stone snapped his fingers. “Bingo. Him and Credence started another massacre, and the Two Stooges helped ‘em. We weren’t prepared for it.” He bowed his head, and his voice was strained when he spoke next. “I saw Debbie get her skull bashed in. Jesus Christ, Grady, it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. It was Larry. He did it with a crowbar. Ray took a swing at me, but he missed. I don’t know how I got away. Forgotten instincts kicked in and I moved like I never got in that car accident all those years ago. Guess all that working out was worth it.”
My stomach cramped. Bolts of pain shot through my chest. Debbie? No, not her.
I swallowed with a dry throat and almost choked. There were more questions on my mind, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to them.
“Where’s the others?” Ell asked.
“Nick’s got a room—” Stone answered.
“Panic room,” George said. “Told you. He’s a sly son of a gun.”
“Bingo again,” Stone said. “They’re in there, just the few of us who got out when the shit started to hit the fan.”
“Who?” I asked, almost not wanting to know.
“Mia, the baby, and Chewy are there, believe that, but other than them, it’s just Wendy and Nick and about half a dozen other people.”
“Where’s everyone else?” Another question I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to. My gut told me they’d been murdered, but my heart hoped that wasn’t the case and maybe there was still a chance.
Stone set his jaw and shrugged. “I-I don’t know.”
“Dead?” George asked.
“I don’t know,” Stone repeated. “I don’t think so. I think B
erretti and the crazy chick need them. I think we have another Woodhaven situation here.”
“A feeding?” Ell whispered.
“Something like it, yeah,” Stone agreed.
But I felt differently. This was bigger than that.
So much bigger.
“What the hell do we do now?” Ell said. Her determination had wavered since we first got here. I didn’t blame her for that. I felt aimless, lost, but since George wasn’t leading, I had to step into that role. Someone did, right?
“Plans haven’t changed,” I said. Now that the shock had passed, a rage was growing inside of me. I wanted revenge. “We don’t back down. We fight.”
I imagined the others still felt the same way. The City was ours.
“What exactly happened?” Ell asked as we moved. “Why did they start killing people?”
Stone shook his head. “I don’t know, I’m not sure. I think it’s some sort of fucked-up ritual.”
“A ritual?” I said.
Stone was squinting, snapping his fingers. “They said something about a mother or a mom or—”
Snippets of the journal Ell found a while back went through my head. Enlightened written over and over. The Matron written the same way on the other pages. Was that Credence’s? Had she left it behind?
“The Matron,” I said.
Ell gasped. She had seen the notebook too.
Stone nearly jumped. “That’s it! Whoa, wait. How do you know, Grady?”
I filled him in. “I had no idea what it meant. I still don’t. I’d forgotten about it until you mentioned something about a mother.”
“What do you think it means?” George asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but whatever the hell it is, it’s not good.”
“Are they trying to bring the Matron—that thing—here?” Ell whispered.
No answer from any of us, but I thought so.
“It must be the queen fucking bee,” Stone said. “The mother of the monsters.”
Whiteout (Book 5): The Feeding Page 11
