That last part got me. I couldn’t believe that. That the government I had worked for, given my life to, that I had watched my buddies die for, knew about this and didn’t tell its people. Then again, as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I dismissed it as naïve like any other normal adult would. Didn’t make me any less pissed off, though.
“Look, this is all really preliminary stuff. I need to go through what I’ve got here. I’ll worry about the computer data later. Can you see if there are any other charts around? Maybe on one of the other floors? I don’t want to risk a run in with those people again, but I really need more to go on.”
“No sweat. I’m going to leave a couple of guys here with you. I’ll take Ranger and scout out the other floors. I think I still remember my way around. Radio if there’s trouble.”
Ken had already waved me off and had his face stuck in another chart. I guess this wasn’t an entire waste after all.
23
Ken
I really had no idea what to make of most of what I found in those charts. A ton of inconsistent test results, they weren’t even running the same panels on every patient. With no context, graphing titers and chem series were more than pointless, it was frustrating. The only thing I knew for sure is that the CDC had been running tests on infected patients since at least a year before the outbreak. If the notes I found were at all accurate, Patient Zero was sent to them from a hospital in Georgia. He was a John Doe that had been brought in by local police after he went insane and attacked a group of high school students on a field trip in the woods. The police that arrived on scene each emptied their service revolvers into the assailant and only succeeded in subduing him when all four grabbed and handcuffed him.
The attending physician at Georgia Methodist pronounced the patient dead after physical examination of his extensive wounds and a complete lack of any discernable vital signs. I imagine the fact that, though deceased, the man remained aggressive and violent, was why the CDC was contacted. I still haven’t located John Doe’s chart, but I’m not sure it will hold any magical keys anyway.
Out of the hundred or so charts I have been poring through, I have located Ian’s as well as the charts of four other individuals who seemed to share his immunity. The research team here was no closer to an understanding of what caused the infection, let alone why certain people were immune, than when they first brought Patient Zero/John Doe through their basement doors. Each research lead kept their own notes, some extensively so, and none of them could agree on anything. That’s part of the problem that existed, I’d seen it a hundred times myself. Virologist always see viruses, microbiologists see bacteria, mycologists see fungus. Sort of like what Ian calls training scars, only for scientists.
There were still too many missing pieces for me to make any conjecture, but this was at least a starting point. The two big questions were what had caused all this, and what the cure could be. Figuring out why Ian and, apparently, so many others were immune would go a long way to answering the second question, provided we could also answer the first. That would likely take a lot more data than what I had here. Even then, I could spend the rest of my life sifting through old charts and research notes and still not make any headway. I decided against getting pessimistic too early. Best just to focus on what was in front of me and let the big shit take care of itself.
24
Amy
The sound of Mick being attacked will haunt me for the rest of my life, however long that life ends up being. The horde engulfed the truck as soon as we crashed. Wedging myself between the seats and pulling all of our gear over myself and Zoe worked to save the two of us, but Mick had been left out in the open as they burst through the passenger window. He let out a single, panicked scream and then it was over. It wasn’t his death howl that got to me, it was the never-ending feasting on his body with nowhere to escape to. Time stopped having meaning as an eternity of carnage rolled in.
Thank God that Zoe remained unconscious for it. It was my burden to carry. I was the one that left him to the wolves, and I would have to be the one to relive that moment many times in my mind. That is not the kind of memory a young girl should have burned into her psyche. The feast lasted longer than any nightmare should, and then it went quiet. The wave of dead had receded and was back to rolling across the landscape, destroying everything in its path.
The tears flowed hot and salty down my cheeks, until I finally fell into the deep sleep that I had prayed so hard for hours before. There was no sense of urgency to see if Mick had reanimated or been devoured whole. There would be no rush to do anything, even chase after Garett and Emma. I was desperate for them to be alive, but losing Mick had pulled a dark veil over my eyes, one which was strangely familiar and oddly comfortable. This time, finding my way back to the place where hope lived seemed impossible. I could put one foot in front of another for Zoe, but she was right. What was the point?
When I awoke, I realized that my worst fear had begun loudly announcing itself. Mick was struggling to get out of the truck, but being a mindless eating machine had left him unable to think his way out of a wet paper bag, let alone a metal and glass prison. I was hoping that something would draw his attention in the direction of whatever opening the zombies had used to get to him and he would follow it right out of our lives forever. Instead, our long string of bad luck continued and I was forced to find a weapon with which to end Mick’s zombie afterlife.
I was wedged so tightly between the seats that it would take a fair amount of movement just to get my hands free to explore the area around me. I worried that would alert Mick to our hiding spot and end with all three of us joining the ranks of the undead. Every movement was executed with bated breath and slow precision. My fingers crawled along the zippers of the bags that acted as the only barrier between us and a gruesome death. Without the luxury of sight, I had to unzip each bag and blindly feel my way around the contents. Three down and I had found nothing of any value. Just as I was about to give up and accept that we were all meant to die here, my hand landed on a cold, metal savior.
Metal fabric shears had just the right weight and overall size to crack through the skull without all the extra swing and effort that so many of our other weapons required. My mind walked through the steps I would need to take to uncover myself and spring forward with enough momentum to bury the shears in their intended target. Like a jack in box, I sprung, and while I had been poised to land the perfect kill shot, I hadn’t anticipated another zombie being in Mick’s place.
I was so startled that I almost missed my chance. I had forgotten that Mick was immune, like myself. So much time had passed and so many people had turned in front of our eyes that I had missed the most obvious outcome. Mick wouldn’t be cursed with transformation, and neither would I. Our deaths would likely be messy and horrible, but they would be final, and there was a certain comfort in that.
With renewed hope, I buried the shears deep into the head of the zombie that was still feasting on Mick’s lifeless body. I reached up, opened the door, and rolled them both out onto the ground. I kicked the zombie’s still body until my foot ached, then slumped over Mick’s body and had one final cry. I had loved him. We may only have been brought together because of the end of the world, and he may have not been my type before, but he was a good man and he didn’t deserve to die like that.
I pulled a sheet out of the cab and covered his body. There was no way I would be able to give him a proper burial but I could still show him some respect. It was time to move out and see if Zoe and I could find the teenagers. With a little bit of searching, I was able to find a hatchback that had a half a tank of gas and no significant damage. It was ugly as sin, however, and looked like hitting a pebble might cause it to collapse into a pile of rust.
Within an hour, all of our supplies had been transferred to the passenger seat of the hatchback, which left room for a makeshift sleeping area in the back. I piled pillows and blankets in to make Zoe as comfortable as possible as she
rested off her injuries. I wasn’t ready to face the possibility that she may never wake up again. For that moment, I needed to continue to act as if she was going to be fine. When I moved her from the truck to the hatchback, I was sure I heard her groan. Maybe that meant something. Maybe it didn’t.
I took it slow as I made my way out of town. As I rounded the corner back towards the highway we had come in on, I got a clear look at the damage the horde had caused to our caravan. Most of the vehicles that were in front of our truck had stayed right in their original place in the line, unable to break free once they were overtaken. Some had opted for staying in their cars and died in their hiding places. Others had taken the more proactive approach, and had tried to make a stand against the undead.
They never stood a chance, and their mangled bodies littered the ground as evidence. I felt nothing as I drove past, nothing except pity. They never really stood a chance against the reality of this new world. As a group, they had failed to elect a leader that they could put their trust in. By putting off the simple task of choosing someone to lead, something most groups had established in the very beginning, they had sealed their fate. Mick had died because of their incompetence. I lost the one person I had felt safe with, and for that I was unable to forgive their mistakes.
Zoe rolled over and let out a deep sigh. The bottle neck opened back up and I was able to get the hatchback out on the open road. I drove for hours hoping to see a sign or anything that would lead me to the teenagers, but the world was a chaotic place and I had no way of contacting them. Eventually, after driving around for hours and seeing no signs of life anywhere, I made the decision that we needed to head towards the sanctuary on the flyer. If they were still alive, that’s where they would go.
I turned the rusty little car around and hit the gas with a bit more enthusiasm. With minimal breaks and, hopefully, some better luck than we’d had in the past few days, we could reach the sanctuary in a little over a week. It would just be a matter of pushing the gas pedal down more often than the brake and, once there, waiting patiently for Garett and Emma. Last time I saw them, they were alive and driving away. Mick and I taught them well, so I had to hope that they were capable of making it there on their own.
25
Garett
Emma and I waited on the rooftop for a week. Twice, we saw cars in the distance, but one quick look through our binoculars took away any hope that it was Aunt Amy, Mick and Zoe. The air was crisp at night and it was getting colder much too quickly to wait much longer for them. While I enjoyed the alone time with Emma, I missed my sister. Since we lost Hannah, I made sure to check in with Zoe every few hours. This separation was the longest we’d had since the outbreak, and each hour made me more antsy to find them.
“They may still be with the group,” Emma said when she realized that I had been staring off into nothing again.
“Maybe, but I really hope not. I mean,” I stumbled across my words. “Of course, I hope they’re alive, just not with that group. They managed to kill a bunch of their own people in that last disastrous maneuver. Everyone knows that you always leave a way out. They were so hell bent on stopping in every town to grab as much as they could that they forgot what we were supposed to be doing.”
“That’s why greed is one of the sins. My mom always said that the deadly sins would get you every time. My uncle was a gambler and he lost everything. Eventually, he lost his life, too. He lost money that he couldn’t pay back to the wrong kind of guys. They just threw his body out in the desert.” She had only started to share about her family this last week.
“I had a great aunt that had to be taken out of her house with a forklift after she died, so I think your mom was on to something. People think stuff like that’s funny, but in the end, it’s really just sad,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said, her face turning serious. “People can be cruel.”
I cupped her face with my hands as I spoke, “I will never be cruel to you, Emma. I’ll spend my whole life trying to make you happy in this fucked up world. You can always count on me to be there for you. I would die for you. You know that, right?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Don’t you do that. I don’t want you to die for me. If it comes down to it, I want you to live for me. Our time here is short, no matter what. There’s no way we get to grow old together anymore. But we can be together now. We can live every moment like some old ridiculous cliché. We can live like there’s no tomorrow.”
“I love you, Emma,” I said as I pulled her body close to mine.
She fit me like we were two pieces carved out of the same chunk of wood. Her breath raised her chest against mine, and my entire body went hot. “I love you, too.” She mouthed into my chest.
“Tomorrow, we leave. Okay?” She nodded against my chest. “It would be too easy to get lazy and stay here until we’re forced to run. I would like to leave a place because it’s our own choice for once. Sound alright to you?”
“What about your family?” She asked.
“Our family,” I corrected her. “They’ll probably spend some time looking for us, but eventually they’ll head for the place in New Jersey. We’re very close now. I think it’s time to just head there and wait for them to show up. Aunt Amy’s right about one thing. The cold is coming, and you and I are not ready for that. We need to get to where there are other people and shelter.”
“I wish we could stay here forever, just you and me,” she sighed.
“I know. Me, too.” But we both knew there were a million reasons why that was a bad idea, so there was no point patronizing her by explaining them. Everyone thought Emma was dumb, but she was actually very intelligent. She was also painfully shy and only opened up to people when she felt safe. Lately, she was having a difficult time feeling safe.
“I want to sleep out under the stars tonight. We won’t be able to do that for much longer. You want to help me drag out the air mattress?” She asked, breaking the silence.
“In a few minutes. I just want to sit here for another minute or two. Hopefully, we won’t be alone much longer. This may be the last time we get to do this.”
“You know we can do so much more since we’re alone.” She ran her hand up my thigh as she gently kissed my ear. “You know, since this might be our last chance.”
The last sentence was a hot whisper in my ear that sent electric shockwaves through my body. How I could have been so dense as to have missed that she was ready to be with me was one of the great mysteries of life. The air mattress seemed to appear out of thin air, but it more likely was moved with the enthusiasm only a teenage virgin can muster.
Before I knew it, we were stripped bare and tangled under the night sky. We were surrounded by death and fear. Hate ruled the day, and bullies tried to take things that weren’t theirs. But there, under the moon, we lay exposed to the world, safe for the moment and in love. It was a moment that wouldn’t last but, while it did, it was perfection. Afterwards, as she lay in my arms, sleeping from exhaustion, I swore I would die for her regardless of what she said.
26
Reverend Mathis
After crossing the bridge and returning to level ground, I was elated, as was the rest of the group. We reveled in that victory for the next few miles. It seemed that our pace had even quickened despite the hunger and fatigue. Daniel said we should start looking for more vehicles and some of the hardier men headed off to find them. I saw some of them even clapping each other on the back and laughing as they went. The women crowded around the children as they usually did, preening and protective. They spit cleaned foreheads and smoothed mussed hair as best they could. They smiled genuinely as they told the children that it wouldn’t be much farther now.
Someone rummaged through a discarded knapsack a produced a few chocolate bars. These were passed around the group and it seemed that everyone got at least a small square of the treat.
“Not quite loaves and fishes, but I’ll take it,” one of the men said as he handed me my share.<
br />
I laughed and nodded, “I could go for something a little closer to the wedding at Cana myself.”
He returned my laugh. “Water into wine, right?”
I nodded again and smiled what was probably my first genuine smile in a long time. Daniel had moved off away from the group again, but I didn’t want to bother him and risk destroying the lightened mood of the group. So instead, I sat down on the curb next to a gutter and savored my morsel of chocolate. The town around us looked almost peaceful, as if an apocalypse hadn’t befallen the world. I wondered just then, if it was the whole world. I had been so insulated in my church, that I rarely ever watched the news. I had no idea if this plague was localized to North America, the United States, or even just the East Coast. I chuckled at my own foolishness.
Daniel eventually came around to where I was and hunkered next to me.
“This place is quiet, Rev. I’ve had some guys poking around here and there while we’ve been resting and they tell me the place is empty.”
“Safe?” I asked.
Aftershock Zombie Series (Book 2): Breakdown (A Collection of Survivors Tales) Page 12
