by Angel Lawson
The Girl Who Punched Back
The Death Fields
Book 2
By
Angel Lawson
Chapter 1
The blade, slick with blood, is the only thing separating me from the drooling, oozing, smelly human trying to spread the infection that ravaged his brain to me.
God, I hate Eaters.
I hate their black, veiny eyes. I hate their rabid aggression. I hate their addiction-like need to sink their teeth into my skin. I hate what they’ve done to my family, our society, and I hate the fact I can’t just go on a simple mission to help other people without getting covered in their foul blood.
I hate that they took my life and future away.
“Get. Off.” I mutter more to myself than him. The Eater certainly doesn’t care about my wants and chomps his rotten teeth in reply. My arms shake from the weight and I know he’s going to drop. I really, really don’t want that to happen.
A second howling Eater stumbles near me, followed by the sickening thwack of metal slicing through tendons and flesh. Turning to the side, I see the body on the ground. The head rolls lazily in my direction until I’ve got one disgusting Eater face hovering over me and one inches to my left. The decapitated head is so close I can see the stupid hoop ring she thought was a good idea to insert in her nose back in her former life.
“A little help? Wyatt? Walker?” My elbows wobble. A stream of sticky spit lands on my cheek. A little louder I shout, “Wyatt!”
A streak of black flashes behind the Eater and I close my eyes as my arms collapse. I flinch, expecting the weight of the body to fall on mine. It never comes. Grunts and howling cries fill the air and I blink, seeing the fight above me. Well, not a fight. Wyatt is merely showing off.
From the ground, I watch as he punches the Eater in the jaw twice before grabbing his head and snapping it with a powerful twist. Standing over the dead body, Wyatt adjusts his black gloves and glances down at me.
I glare at him and say, “Took you long enough.”
“I thought you had him.” He walks over and offers me a hand. I take it, feeling the ache in my muscles with every move. Back on my feet, I look down at my uniform. Even though it’s black you can see the blood and guts seeping into the fabric.
“Is that what winning looks like to you?” It’s an honest question. I never have any idea what he’s thinking, not since the night we met, back on a farm in North Carolina. Not even when he saves my life—repeatedly.
He narrows his eyes, like he’s truly assessing me, and I wait for the reply. For some reason I always want to know how his brain works, why he does the things he does. Instead of an answer, he clenches his jaw and looks toward our vehicle. Walker, the leader of our mission, reloads her gun.
“We should go, Alex,” he says. “We’re losing daylight.”
He walks off, leaving me in the street, surrounded by bodies.
I exhale and follow him, thinking how lucky we are to live another day in the apocalypse.
*
“Dead.”
“Hiding.”
“Negative. Dead.”
“They’re educated. They’re smart enough to have gotten away.” I have my own logic. It’s the only thing that keeps me going right now.
Wyatt glares at me. “Then infected.”
I glance out the window at the house. Two stories, but modest. Built in the ‘70s or ‘80s. The three Volvos with bumper stickers that proclaim the colleges where they or their children all went. Yes, ‘went’. They certainly no longer go.
I sigh. “Fine. Infected.”
He doesn’t smile, more like a smug smirk. It takes everything not to smack it off his face, but that seems like an extreme emotion for losing a game. The expression slips and he nods at the next house we pass.
“Hiding,” he states.
“Shut up, both of you,” Walker says from the driver’s seat. “I can’t believe you made a game out of this God-forsaken situation.”
Wyatt and I both shrug. Dead, Hiding, or Infected is how we pass the time on patrol. We have to do something while we sweep the streets for survivors and wait for my megalomaniac sister, Jane, to unveil the entirety of whatever delusional plan she’s cooked up.
The truck bounces in a large pot hole and I brace myself against the seat against the impact. There’s certainly no government left to repair the roads now, and it’s increasingly obvious how fast everything has eroded. I don’t just mean the road conditions.
It’s been three months since Wyatt, Cole, Chloe, and I arrived at my sister’s lair, the southern headquarters for PharmaCorp. We came in a blaze of gunfire, after unknowingly traveling with a mercenary for five hundred miles, fighting off the remaining vestiges of the US government, and hand-delivering information my father needed to create a vaccine for the E-TR virus. Unfortunately, I still haven’t decided if my father, the renowned Dr. Ramsey, and sister, Jane Ramsey (or as she likes to be called, “The Director”) have clear motives. I know my sister doesn’t. The problem is I’m not sure how nefarious her plans actually are.
Sure, that may sound overly-dramatic, but in a post-apocalyptic world who’s going to stop me?
“Walker,” Wyatt says, nodding to a house at the end of the street. The windows are boarded over, the garage marked with a huge black X. Everything about the home screams abandoned. But not to Wyatt. He’s got some sort of spidey-sense.
“What?” I ask.
“Let’s check it out.” She stops the Humvee with a lurch and we exit the vehicle. I try not to stare at the blood stains in the driveway next door.
“Alex, stay with me,” he instructs, giving me an annoyed-but-knowing look. He feels like he’s babysitting me, I know. I heard him shout those very words, “I’m not The Director’s freaking babysitter!” back at the fort. Except he didn’t say “freaking.” I was assigned to go with him anyway, and when he’s not off on super-top-secret Freedom Fighter missions we do this, patrol the suburbs of Augusta, Georgia for signs of life and death.
The weird thing is that it’s mostly a dead-zone. Little life and not even that much “death.” Either everyone scattered months ago, or this segment of the city has already been cleaned up by an earlier team, or the people here are really good at hiding.
“Exactly what are we stopping for?” I’m not arguing. I just want to understand.
He puts his finger to his lips and he and Walker exchange complicated hand gestures. They split up and I stick to his side like a shadow. After the fight earlier today I have little desire to be on my own again.
I notice the difference in this house from the others as soon as I get closer. The plywood tacked over the windows has holes drilled through it like Swiss cheese. My first thought is that they’re to allow in light, but then I notice the short spikes poking through each one.
“What good is that?” I ask, because the spikes are too short to do any real damage. I reach my glove-covered finger up and touch the tip. A coil winds and I cock my head just before I hear a loud click.
“Oh shit!” I cry, flying through the air, landing hard on my back. I stare up at the sky, my lungs gasping for air, after mentally assessing that I was not injured. Wyatt saved my butt with his quick reflexes. “Jesus, dude.”
He stands over me, weapon drawn, the spike elongated and inches from his face.
“Clever,” he says, touching the tip of one of the spikes with his own gloved hand.
I scramble to my feet, hatchet secure in my hand. I haven’t quite caught my breath. “Who the heck are these people?”
“I don’t know, Alex” he says with a flash in his eyes. “But I plan on finding out.”
There are eleven of them, the youngest only seven years old. The oldest is their leader—a woman named Caroline—who explains they are a group of neighbors from the subdivision that banded together several months ago to ride out the E-TR virus and its aftermath. They’ve been waiting for help.
“You’ve found it,” Walker says. Her firearm is in the holster strapped to her hip, but that doesn’t keep Caroline and a guy introduced as Jude from staring at her nervously. I’m sure the fact we’re covered in fresh Eater guts isn’t helping.
Nothing about the world today is the same as it was before the virus spread. Even eleven people holed up should know that.
“We’ve got food, medicine, and shelter,” Walker explains. “It’s a secure fort in Augusta, and we’re looking for strong men and women to help us get back on track.”
Jude looks over at the boy playing on the ground with a small train. “And the kids? We won’t leave them.” When he speaks, it’s clear he’s not much older than Wyatt—so I’m guessing early twenties. His accent is southern—thick like honey. He’s got on camo pants, a matching shirt, and a trucker-style baseball cap with the image of a deer leaping stitched on the bill.
“Kids are an automatic in,” Wyatt says. All eyes shift to him. It’s the first time he’s spoken since Walker convinced them to open the door. That move alone proves their naiveté. Walker may technically be in charge, but Wyatt is the Alpha here. “It’s the adults that have to qualify.”
He says this in an aloof voice, like he doesn’t care if they come or not. Wyatt probably doesn’t give a crap. That’s one thing I learned about him on our journey from Durham. He cares about two things: 1. Himself, and 2. His job. Unfortunately for him, my sister has given him the task of bringing back able-bodied survivors, so he needs to sound a little more convincing.
I sigh, getting Caroline’s attention. She’s in her forties and if I had to guess, one of the Volvo drivers. She also looks tired and thin. “Look, there’s a stronghold at the PharmaCorp facility downtown. The president was something of a doomsday prepper—to the extreme—with millions of dollars to support her paranoia. The building is secure, fully functional, and has an entire lab working on a vaccine. As you’ve probably seen, not everyone is handling the current world situation well, and PharmaCorp needs people to maintain and defend the facility.”
Walker, who barely ever acknowledges me, seems impressed by my speech.
“You have running water?” Caroline asks, her voice a mixture of curious and incredulous.
I nod. “Yes and solar powered electricity.”
Wyatt from behind me. “It’s your choice. We’re not in the business of making anyone go anywhere they don’t want to.”
Two younger women behind Jude perk up when Wyatt speaks. He’s probably smiling. Yeah, they’ll come, just to try to unravel that mystery. Good luck, ladies.
“What do you mean by ‘qualify’?” Caroline asks.
Walker reaches into the pocket of her tactical vest and pulls out the color brochure my sister had printed. Jane isn’t going to let something like the end of civilized society ruin her marketing abilities. Caroline takes the brochure and skims the information. Everything is laid out in clean bullet points.
For shelter, food, and medical at PharmaCorp residents must:
• Pass a Health Exam
• Pass a Mental Evaluation
• Participate in Medical Trials
• Follow Rules and Regulations of the Fort (*described on the following page)
• Volunteer for Appropriate Work Detail (*described on the following page)
The rules aren’t complicated. Mostly behaving like a civilized person while walking around fully armed. The worst part is attending Jane’s meetings, where she attempts to motivate everyone to her vague and undefined cause. Jane doesn’t have the self-actualization to realize that she is, in fact, bat-shit crazy. But she’s a genius, and if anyone can stabilize and mass produce a vaccine my father created right before shit hit the fan, it’s her.
The group takes a minute to talk it over but we already know they’ll come. Who wouldn’t? They can’t have much food left, and blood stains on the street outside tell the other side of the story. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets infected. Or worse, other survivors show up.
Plus, I think, as Caroline comes back and nods at Walker, if they don’t come with us Erwin will find them. Even though I’m not on Jane’s side, I’m definitely not on his.
Chapter 2
If and when the history books tell the story about the E-TR virus the scholars will surely only tell one version—the not-exactly-true-version.
The historians will tell future generations that people started behaving oddly. Ground-zero picked Florida, which is one reason no one paid much attention at first—people were always doing bizarre, crazy things in Florida. The talking heads on the news speculated that it looked like some kind of tainted drug or possibly an environmental effect that caused the user to turn erratic and violent. People were violent every day in America. People inhaled, snorted, and injected all kinds of garbage in their systems. That alone wasn’t a big deal—the big deal was when people started eating other people.
Right. Cannibalism. The real sign of the apocalypse.
A top epidemiologist, my father, Dr. Arthur Ramsey, was called in to stop the crisis. The CDC and every specialist in the country worked overtime to figure out what this was and why it was spreading. What they realized is that a parasite, identified as the E-TR Parasite, was being passed from person to person, burrowing into their skulls, igniting a virus that inflamed the brain. The infection triggered extreme rage and the urge to kill. The onset was slow, but eventually the infected lost control of their bodies and minds, using their hands and teeth to kill anyone that crossed their paths.
They aren’t zombies—not in that Walking Dead, World War Z kind of way. The people are still alive, although their brains are basically on fire. Their bodies deteriorate, just slower than normal. The Eaters are consumed with the need to spread the infection and act out with extreme aggression, but they don’t take care of themselves and have lost all ability to communicate. Oh, and they smell. Awful. Like rotten, spoiled flesh. Thank God, it takes little more than a solid blow to the head, heart, or decapitation to kill them. Unfortunately they’re also strong as hell with amped-up strength which makes it hard to land a shot.
At the beginning, before anyone knew what was really going on, we all went under quarantine. The military took control. My father went into final stages testing a vaccine on me, hoping to save humanity. I am not a cure. I am not immune, but my blood and his science started the process for the only known vaccine. Unfortunately, he disappeared before he finished, leaving me and my mother a pouch of information and directions to find my sister, three states away. We traveled on foot. She died.
No.
I killed her.
I shot her in the heart before the parasite could get in her brain and change her from the mother I loved into a human I couldn’t recognize. It was a promise we made. It was one I kept, and it was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do.
I also promised I would keep going and find my dad and sister. Along the way I met Wyatt, Cole, and his twin sister, Chloe, on the road.
And that was when I got to the real truth behind the E-TR virus.
My sister was involved. Of course she was. Someone with her drive and ego wouldn’t be on the sidelines of humanity falling. Her name is Jane Ramsey, and at the time, a brilliant student with a bright future in our father’s footsteps, epidemiology. She wanted a career in academia—researching for the University, esteem from writing papers, and testing on lab rats and monkeys. That was her plan until right before her graduation, when she was approached by PharamCorp and asked to work for them in their research department. They had the funding, the equipment and the desire to change the world—in ways no one realized. The other thing no one realized was that the founders of Ph
armaCorp had some radical views on humanity and the state of society.
See, the summer before the E-TR virus popped up in Florida, two major events happened on the other side of the world. First, ISIS was formed. Our first view of them was a caravan of trucks and Jeeps blazing through the desert. The talking heads showed footage of dust trailing their vehicles—discussing how this couldn’t be good, that they were headed straight toward civilians.
Second, was Boko Haram kidnapping and enslaving three hundred school girls in Liberia.
These two events, along with dozens of other human rights atrocities, spurred Jane to develop a super bug to use as biological warfare on the enemies of mankind. Using their unlimited cash, PC hired mercenaries to track down terrorist groups and infect them with the virus with the intent of having them eliminate themselves. Ultimately, PharmaCorp planned to do what official, bureaucratic organizations couldn’t.
The targets were to take place in isolated locations. AKA: the middle of nowhere. They were to infect the leaders and bring down the followers. But like all warfare, there were civilian casualties. Long story short; an infected person reentered society and the virus spread.
So the part of history you won’t read one day (if there is a one day) is that my sister, Jane Ramsey, helped created the E-TR virus and PharmaCorp let it loose on the world.
It should come as no surprise that they are the only ones that can save humanity by creating a vaccine. They, along with my father, and their state-of-the-art facility we now use as a bunker to protect us from the Eaters outside.
The big question is; can we trust them?
Chapter 3
The ride back to the Fort is uneventful, passing only a handful of wandering Eaters. Once we enter the fortified gates, the people we brought with us head to quarantine while we enter decontamination. I’ve never been in the quarantine unit due to the fact we basically ambushed the place, but typically, most new people head there for a day or so and eventually end up in the general population of the fort.
