* * *
Christopher wandered through the Omni’s crowded lobby. There were people everywhere. Most of them gathered in the candlelit lounge, some having drinks, some playing games, most just socializing. It was like a huge party, as if the growing mass of undead lingering outside their walls of brick, mortar, and steel were figments of their imagination.
He started to understand how they could feel this way. As he progressed through the hall folks on all sides slapped his back and wished him well. The smiles on their faces, the nice words that came from their mouths, were infectious. He stopped at a table where some younger individuals sat. They didn’t seem much older than he, and when he joined them for a drink – his first one ever, because at fourteen the act of drinking liquor hadn’t been exactly commonplace – it felt as if he’d been a part of their group forever. Thoughts of Mister Mathis, who he’d made a point of avoiding, never entered his mind.
One girl at the table drew his eye. Her name was Melissa and she was a short, pretty girl in her early twenties with straight blonde hair that became a few shades darker when it reached the ends. She had a tiny nose and puffy lips. When she smiled her head tilted to the side, as if every grin was in response to the cutest thing she’d ever seen. Her beauty and openness drew him in. His stare never left her, and she kept brushing her hair off her shoulder suggestively. Once she leaned forward while laughing with one of her friends and he was awarded the sight of her ample cleavage. Heat erupted in his abdomen. He blushed. She glanced his way, squeezed her arms together, and winked at him sideways. Christopher just about lost it right then and there.
When things simmered down enough for him to stand up without embarrassment he excused himself from the table. Forrest and a few of his ex-cop buddies ran through the lobby. They looked worried. He heard one of them say something about reinforcing the back door. No one else paid them any mind, however. Christopher fought the urge to follow them, to see what was wrong, to help. He decided it best to stay where he was and forget the whole scene like everyone else. After all, if the zombies get in here we’re all goners. Just don’t think about it.
But think about it he did.
For the first time in a couple days he thought of the teacher upstairs. Whispers of his apparent immunity to the Rodent Flu had made their way through the facility. Most didn’t know who Mr. Mathis was and even fewer knew of the plans for the dying girl upstairs, but Christopher did, and as he sat there mulling over the dangers surrounding them, though he was still angry at the thoughtlessness of Mr. Mathis’ decision, he closed his eyes and whispered a silent thank you to whatever mythical deity had been watching out for the stubborn, brilliant man he called friend.
He wandered through the lobby, weaving through random gatherings of chatting people, and approached the barricaded front entrance. He didn’t know exactly what drew him there – it could’ve been the contemplation of what would happen in the hotel if Forrest and his buddies didn’t succeed in strengthening the rear door – but it didn’t matter. All he knew was that he needed to see. He ducked underneath the ropes that barred folks from getting too close and drew near to the doors.
It was dark outside. Night permeated through the glass with black, haunting fingers. The girders and other riffraff the survivors had stacked outside both kept the beasts out and made it difficult to see. Christopher ducked and straightened, searching for a peephole. Finally he found one – a gap in the center of a concrete block.
The viewing window was small, not much larger than a grapefruit, but as he hunkered down and pressed his face to the glass, witnessing nothing but the bottom halves of those outside, he saw all he needed to see. There were hundreds out there. They pressed their bodies against the barricade, their weight straining the doorframes so much that they creaked at random intervals. This was a much different picture than the one he saw from the balcony. Up there it was distant, an undulating sea of bodies that stretched out as far as he could see. It seemed unreal. But right here, separated from the horde by only ten feet of steel, wood, and concrete, the immediacy of the situation was clear. They were trapped, they were in danger, and there didn’t seem to be a way out of it. He shuddered and backed away from the glass.
“Hey, dude, get away from there,” a male voice reprimanded. Christopher turned around to see a burly man with a goatee glaring at him. The man waved his hand emphatically and Christopher ducked beneath the ropes once more.
“Sorry,” he said as he passed the man by. The guy simply grunted in reply. Christopher made his way down the hall, heading for the stairs.
He opened the door and headed up. Everything made sense to him now, every action, every decision, every word spoken. He recalled a conversation he’d had with Mr. Mathis during one of the many nights they spent in the abandoned department store. He couldn’t remember the precise content of their discussion – it might’ve been about comic books or even film – but the words his friend had spoken towards the end rang true in his head.
The thing about heroism, he’d said, is that it is an individual act. No single person can save the world all at once. It is a small, grueling process, achieved through one act of kindness, one act of self-sacrifice, at a time.
Christopher nodded as he heard these words in his head. He smiled. It was time to go see his friend.
* * *
Even with a glistening layer of moisture covering the exposed areas of her body Marcy was a thing of beauty.
Billy lay on the mat that had been placed on the ground next to her. He couldn’t stop staring. The scar on her neck where she’d been bitten ran red with infection. Her chest hitched each time it rose and he grew afraid that each breath she took would be her last.
He’d spent most of the day in a state of doubt, a product of his nightmares the previous night, nightmares in which everything that could possibly go wrong, did. Time after time he watched Marcy die horrible deaths, all because his assumptions had been faulty. They haunted him, drove him to uncertainty. He suddenly didn’t understand why he cared so much in the first place. This was a woman he knew next to nothing about and yet she’d become the most important thing in his life, an obsession that drove him to consider beliefs and conjecture he would have scoffed at in the past.
Yet all he had to do was look over at her and all that skepticism vanished. Surety presented itself in the curve of her lips, the paleness of her cheekbones, the beating of her pulse. Her being was all the reason he needed. He glanced up at his audience and gave the thumbs-up.
Christopher knelt beside him. Billy clutched the youngster’s hand with his own. Dr. Terry hovered between Billy and the girl, holding out an odd device. It was a syringe, only the bottom was sealed off and two clear tubes dangled from each side of the cylinder. Those tubes ended in needles.
“I put this together yesterday,” said Dr. Terry, “using supplies we took from the hospital when everything quieted down. Things like this were used quite a bit during The Big One for emergency blood transfusions.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“We’re going to have to do this live, person-to-person.”
“Oh.”
Dr. Terry swabbed the crook of Marcy’s elbow while his wife did the same to Billy’s. Mrs. Terry then slid one of the needles into his vein. It felt like someone pinched him, only the sensation trailed all the way up his arm and into his chest. Dr. Terry proceeded to puncture the unconscious girl’s arm with the opposite needle and pull on the syringe’s plunger. Billy’s blood flowed into the tube, gathering in the syringe. When the plunger depressed the red fluid shot down the opposite tube, straight into Marcy’s vein.
“This won’t take long,” the doctor said. “We can only take around two pints at a time. Any more than that could cause…problems.”
Billy nodded. His vision went blurry for a second and he blinked incessantly.
“Starting to get dizzy, William?”
Billy nodded. Despite the chill that lingered in the spacious hall sweat b
eaded on his forehead. “I am sure I will be fine,” he said, trying to ignore it.
Everyone stood around, watching the rather mundane process for the few minutes it took. Dr. Terry approximated the amount of time it took for the job to be completed. He then raised the plunger, removed the needles from both patients, cleaned them off, and slapped bandages over the pinpricks. Billy watched him work, his vision still blurry.
“Son,” said the old doctor, “can you bring the tray in the corner over, please?”
Christopher brought the tray to Billy, who sat up, took the glass of grapefruit juice that sat atop it, and gulped it down. His throat was so dry that he chugged it even though the acidity of the juice stung his mouth.
When he finished he leaned back and crossed his hands over his stomach, the glass clutched lazily in his hands. He closed his eyes. Someone took the glass away from him. The world spun behind his eyelids. He felt like he was about to get sick. I always knew there had to be a reason I never donated blood, he thought.
“Uh, should we move him?” he heard Forrest ask.
“No,” replied Dr. Terry. “I might have taken a bit too much. He just needs rest. We can leave him here.”
“I’ll stay with him,” said Christopher.
“Very well. The boy stays.”
The sound of footfalls leading away from him followed. Billy’s dark, twirling world slowed its revolution until it felt like he was lying on a boat, gently rocking at sea. He felt Christopher grab his hand and he smiled.
“I will be fine,” he whispered, so low he didn’t know if the boy could hear him.
The only other sound in the room was that of Marcy’s shallow breathing. Soon blackness swallowed him and even that disappeared.
ii
He awoke in a room that was dimly lit and very cold. Billy wrapped his arms around his body and shivered. The floor was concrete. The thought occurred to him that everything had been a long dream and he was still in his cell back at SCI Greensburg. When he opened his eyes the fantasy dissolved.
The room was square, no bigger than ten feet across. There were no windows or doors and when he glanced up he saw the walls stretch high above him. He could see no ceiling, however. There was only darkness, as if the room extended upward into infinity. He passed that off to his eyes playing tricks on him.
The only light at his disposal was a single candle, burning in the center of the room. He tilted his head. There was something strange about the sounds he heard and it took him a few seconds to realize what it was. The singing he’d heard for the past two weeks had ceased. He grew nervous, and then angry, as he couldn’t figure out why John Terry had dumped him here.
His eyes adjusted and he noticed a form slumped in one corner of the room. He approached it.
“Don’t come any closer,” the shadow said. He knew that voice.
“Marcy? Is that you?” he asked.
“How do you know my name? Why are you here?”
Billy grinned as wide as he could. “I cannot believe it worked.”
Marcy inched out of her crouch and leaned forward. Shadows danced over her face. Her complexion was pale, her eyes bloodshot.
“What worked?” she grumbled.
“The transfusion. Did Dr. Terry not let you know what happened?”
“Who the fuck is Dr. Terry?” she said. Her voice rose with a forcefulness he didn’t expect. He backed away a few steps.
“I do not understand,” he said. “You…you are awake…I…” He stopped. He couldn’t think of what to say.
Marcy crept closer, entering fully into the flickering light. She wore a pair of jeans and a tank top that he assumed used to be white but now looked a stained shade of yellow. Slowly rising to her feet, with a scowl on her angular face, she moved all the nearer. She was quite tall. He hadn’t realized that when looking at her back in the hotel.
Suddenly her features relaxed.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I know you.”
Billy nodded.
“You’re the one I saw, the one that saved me. Aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
A single tear dribbled along her cheek. “I thought you’d forgotten about me. I didn’t think you’d come back…”
Billy placed a hand on her shoulder. It was solid. He shook the cobwebs from his head and, gaining a more confident tone, he said, “It has not been as long as you think.”
She leaned into him. He smelled the sweat and grime in her hair and as when he’d wandered through the dream world with Bella it amazed him how real everything seemed. He gently moved her away and looked her in the eye.
“Do you remember my name?” he asked.
She nodded sheepishly. “William.”
He smiled. “Yes. But you can call me Billy. It is a title I only allow from those closest to me…and right now, I assume we are as close as two people can get.”
“We are?”
The smile she wore was relieved and infectious, and he couldn’t help but answer it with his own. “I have spent a great deal of time listening to you serenade me, which is about as intimate as anything.” He traced her arm with his finger. “And my blood now flows through your veins. In fact, you might say that as of this moment we are family.”
She hitched, her lips quivered, and she whispered, “Thank you.”
“Believe me,” he replied. “The pleasure is completely mine.”
They embraced. Once they separated Billy turned away from her and walked along the bare walls. He pressed his palm to it. It felt hot, almost blistering, in stark contrast to the chill in the air.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“A safe place.”
“How do you know it is safe?”
“Because Tru…I just know,” she replied.
“Do you also know if there is a way out?”
She shook her head. “The door’s gone. The last one disappeared when you came. I don’t know how to get it back.”
He leaned as close to the wall as the scorching heat would allow and listened. A slight scratching sound emerged, like rats scurrying in the crawlspace.
“What is that?” he asked.
Marcy shuddered. “Percy,” she replied.
“Percy? Who is Percy?”
“The beast.”
The image of himself standing in the middle of a child’s bedroom, covered with the innards of some monstrosity he couldn’t find the words to describe, entered Billy’s head. “I see,” he whispered. “Can he get in here?”
“I don’t think so. Like I said, this is supposed to be a safe place.”
“You keep saying that.” He squatted and held his head in his hands. I do not even know what I am supposed to be doing, he thought. Am I to simply stay here? Are we to wait it out? That does not seem proactive enough, not with the urgency Bella imparted to me.
An idea popped into his head and he glanced up, excited.
“You said this is a safe place, correct?” he asked.
Marcy’s mouth dropped into a frown. “Yeah, why?”
“How do you know it is safe? It does not look that way to me.”
“Well…because…just because.”
He stood up and pointed behind her. “If it is so safe, then how did that get in here?”
Marcy’s eyes bulged and she wheeled around. The four walls surrounding them bulged inward and then outward, as if they were part of a giant lung. She whipped her head way this way and that. The distortion of the walls grew more frantic. Billy rushed to her and held her tight.
“Calm yourself, Marcy. There is nothing here.”
“Then why…” she panted as tears streamed down her face. “How…could you do that? You scared the shit outta me!”
Billy cupped her chin in his palm. “I know. I apologize. I have been thinking of this too logically when logic does not apply. So I had to…think outside of the box.”
“And?”
“This place is safe because you believe it is safe. And yet I appeared here, which
means that you allowed me to be here. So if you can wish me to be by your side you can wish us both out. We can find another safe place, one without such…limitations.”
“But where can we go?” she asked, wiping the last of the tears from her cheek with the back of her hand.
“Anywhere you like, I assume.”
“Okay,” she whispered. She squinted for a few seconds and then looked around. “Nothing changed.”
Another idea entered Billy’s head. “Hold on a minute. I am supposed to help you. That is what she said.”
“That’s what who said?”
“No one important. Listen, come to me.” Marcy did as she was asked. Billy pressed his forehead to hers. “Now close your eyes. Concentrate on me, on how my flesh feels against yours. Do not think of anything else.”
Billy squeezed his eyes shut. A shiver ran up his spine, down his legs, and across his arms. His body felt as if it had lost its consistency and all thoughts left him except for the texture of Marcy’s hands and the allure of her body nestled against his. The world shimmered in darkness and then solidified. He opened his eyes.
“There. That is much better.”
They were in the abandoned fairgrounds where he’d first met Bella. It was in the same state of disarray it had been the last time he saw it, but now there was something added – poppies bloomed in the field on which the discarded tents lay, making them look like rafts floating in a yellow sea.
Marcy whistled. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “I love poppies.”
“As do I,” he replied. “They are quite beautiful.”
She screwed her mouth and glanced at him. “You know, you talk…funny.”
He laughed. “You are not the first to tell me that. I have a young friend back in the real world who is fond of saying the very same thing.”
Dead Of Winter (The Rift Book II) Page 29
