Edge of Survival Box Set 1

by William Oday

  She continued on with all of her senses attuned, listening for anything beyond the growl of her bike. She passed a concessions stand. The windows were closed. No customers were seated at the round tables or lined up at the windows complaining about how long it took to get a basket of fries and a soda. No children ran between the tables screaming with glee while parents relished being off their feet for a few minutes and so did nothing to rein them in.

  For some reason, that vacant scene seemed sadder than the rest. And it was all sad.

  The zoo had been Beth’s life for over a decade. Many of the animals were as dear to her as her own family. The events that occurred the last time she was here flooded into her mind. How dear Jane, the Bili chimp she’d raised from an infant, had died on the operating table giving birth to her twins. One hadn’t made it and the other was the reason she’d returned. As Jane died on the operating table, Beth had promised to take care of her surviving baby. Clyde would get the medicine he needed. Beth had bet her life on it.

  A cacophony of clicking and stamping sounds caused her to hit the brakes. The sound thundered around the bend up ahead. The noise grew louder as she waited.

  What could it be?

  A large African Impala antelope raced around the curve. Its head dropped and it almost wiped out as its front hooves slipped on the pavement. Its back legs adjusted and the torso twisted to somehow right itself and continue on. A herd of a dozen or more followed behind the alpha. They rounded the curve and thundered toward her. They jostled shoulder to shoulder filling the width of the path completely.

  For a second, Beth sat there confused by the spectacle. There just wasn’t any reference for it. There was never a herd of anything sprinting along the circuitous paths that wound around the zoo. Well, there were herds of people. But they didn’t run forty miles per hour and sport three foot, twisting horns on top of their heads.

  The antelopes raced toward her.

  She looked around for an escape, but it was too late. The herd was closing in fast. A blur of horns and hooves came at her. She dropped down low in her seat so that the bike would hopefully take the brunt of the impact.

  The scraping and sliding and clicking of their hooves drowned out everything. The big male rushed by her on the right side. Another ripped off a side mirror as it passed. The mass of tan fur and taut muscles jostled her on both sides. A hoof stamped on her bare right foot and she screamed in pain.

  And then they were gone.

  Beth sucked in a slow breath and tried to swallow her heart back down into her chest. She checked her foot and was relieved to find a superficial cut that shouldn’t require stitches. Now that her prefrontal cortex emerged from the primal ooze of the flight or fight response, she had one question about what just happened.

  What were they running from?

  She stared at the bend ahead. Her hands gripped the handlebars tightly, ready to whip the bike around and make for a quick escape. She waited. Nothing happened. Almost disappointed, she blew out a slow breath and then continued on to the medical buildings.

  Maybe the herd got spooked by something silly like a branch creaking in the wind or one of the others in the herd passing gas. They were twitchy creatures and Beth couldn’t blame them for it. In their natural habitat, they were always on the menu and that made for a necessarily nervous disposition.

  38

  The growl of the Vulcan couldn’t die fast enough. Beth shut it off and coasted to a stop in front of the medical center. She stayed put for a minute, listening, waiting. For what exactly, she didn’t know.

  Nothing appeared.

  She tried the front door and it silently swung open. The front gate open. Now this door unlocked, too. She wondered what it must’ve been like in the first few days of the outbreak. It would’ve begun in a sane and organized way. The security guys would’ve swept through the corridors and pathways to ensure that no customers remained inside. They would’ve gone through all the structures and facilities to verify everything was secured. They would’ve left a skeleton crew overnight to keep an eye on things until normal operations could resume.

  It probably started that way.

  But what happened on day two or three when people didn’t show up? When no one arrived for the next shift rotation? What happened when whoever was left realized no one was coming back? What happened in the days after that, when the entire complex was completely abandoned? And finally, what happened when people living in surrounding areas started thinking of the animals not as entertainment and education, but as calories and nutrition?

  And if they did, was it wrong?

  Her heart said it was, but the grumble in her half-empty belly told it where to go. Maybe when she was finished here, she should track down those impalas and try to take one home. Surely a Glock with seventeen rounds of ammo could take one down. Couldn’t it? But even if it could, could she? For her family?

  Beth resolved to answer the question later. She’d come for medicine first. That was the most important thing. The thought of killing one of those beautiful animals could wait. Besides, she wasn’t even sure she could safely strap a one hundred and fifty pound antelope to her bike and make it home.

  Then again, the zoo had smaller animals. Some that weren’t nearly as fast either.

  Beth shuddered. It sickened her how quickly such insanity could become so sensible. It was her job to care for these animals and keep them alive. And now she was considering putting a bullet in their heads so her family could consume their calories. She shook her head.

  Talk about messed up.

  She clicked on her headlamp and entered the dark interior of the building. She tried the lights but there didn’t seem to be any power. The interior security door was also unlocked. She followed the interior corridors—and they were creepy—and then took a left toward her old office and the lab. She arrived at the door to that wing and tried the handle. It jiggled but didn’t open.

  Locked. Thank God. She pulled the keys out of her pocket and found the right one. The door opened like normal, just as it had thousands of times over the last decade.

  She passed her old office and then arrived at the door to the lab. She almost snarled as she touched the door. The memory of Diana Richston firing her burned in her gut. She’d tried to stop Beth from taking Clyde home to care for him. She’d even tried to force a security guard to physically stop her.

  Of course, Beth had then threatened to kill them both with a dart full of Etorphine, a synthetic opioid powerful enough to kill a human with a single drop. So, the hatred probably went both ways.

  She entered the lab turning her head this way and that to illuminate portions of the expansive room. There in the center was the operating table where she’d lost Jane and saved Clyde. She’d occupied this room the day the world outside decided to stop making sense. The simple steel operating table was now empty. Jane’s body had been removed and every surface sanitized.

  Beth hurried to the security cabinet and rifled through her keys to find the right one. There. She rotated the handle and pulled the door open.

  Yes!

  Inside was a trove of priceless medicine. She quickly located several bottles of Cephalexin and Doxycycline capsules. Kept in a dual cool dark place, the antibiotics were known to store for up to a decade while retaining their efficacy. She shoved the bottles into a bag and then grabbed additional meds for other uses. She shuffled through the remaining bottles, ampules, and boxes determining which might prove useful.

  “Take me with you.”

  Beth spun around ready to scream. The light of the headlamp came to rest on a disheveled, unrecognizable form. Tattered rags hung from limbs streaked with grime. A tangled mop of long black hair showed gray at the roots. The visual was bad but the smell was worse. The apparition reeked of feces and decay.

  It took a minute before Beth recognized the revolting orange hue of her artificially-tanned skin.

  “Diana?”

  39

  “Please take me wit
h you,” Diana said as she grasped Beth’s arm. The days since their last encounter had not been kind. What may have once been a nice blouse was now little more than a tattered brown rag. The sleek material that was once suit pants now hung in patches that revealed more skin than it covered.

  “Please Elizabeth,” she said, “help me.”

  Despite never liking the woman, and at the end absolutely hating her, Beth was not the type to turn away another in need.

  Diana faltered and Beth caught her hands before she collapsed.

  “Come sit down.” Beth led her to a chair and then helped her take a seat. “What happened to you?”

  Diana stared at her hands as she rubbed at the coating of filth. She pinched her lips together and shook her head.

  “Diana, tell me. How did you end up here, like this?”

  She looked back up at Beth. Her eyes glistened with tears. “He left me here.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Anton Reshenko.” Her jaw twitched and her eyes grew hard. “After all I did for him! He left me to die!” Her back straightened as anger burned the tears away.

  “Reshenko?” Beth said aloud even though she wasn’t asking a question. That was Iridia’s last name. Had Mason ever mentioned her father’s name? She couldn’t remember for certain. She just knew that he was some kind of high-level scientist working for the government.

  “Yes, he’s the Chief Virologist for Milagro Corporation. He’s the reason we needed the Bili chimpanzees.”

  Beth froze. Her heart stopped. The blood in her veins turned to ice. The compassion she’d felt at Diana’s condition vanished.

  “What did you just say?”

  “I don’t care if you know. What does it matter now? Nothing matters now. Look at me! I may as well be dead!”

  Beth grabbed her shoulders and would’ve been shocked by how bony they felt were it not for the crashing wave of fury in her gut. “What do you mean? Why did he want the chimps?”

  Diana’s eyes opened wide and she stared up at Beth, apparently realizing that maybe it did still matter to someone else. She sat there with her mouth hanging open.

  Beth shook her violently. She wanted to wrap her hands around Diana’s throat and choke the life out of her. Sadly, Diana was in no condition to resist for long so the pleasure wouldn’t last.

  “Don’t hurt me! Please! It’s not my fault!”

  “Tell me what happened to the Bili chimps. You told me they were going to zoos in other countries. I wondered why I could never get ahold of them. That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  Diana nodded her head.

  Yes. Death by strangulation was the best this criminal could hope for.

  “Then what actually happened to the chimps?” Beth leveled Arctic-cold eyes at Diana. They silently promised unspeakable violence if she refused to answer.

  Diana crumbled to the concrete floor. “He demanded it. I couldn’t say no. I wasn’t involved in that part of the company, but I heard it was supposed to be a super vaccine. The last flu vaccine you’d ever need. I was never told what he needed the chimps for. I swear it!”

  Beth’s hand moved before she could stop it. Her closed fist hit Diana’s mouth with a sickening crunch. Her old boss’s lip split open and blood trickled down her chin.

  “You stole animals from this zoo and illegally and immorally used them for medical research!” Beth hit her in the face again. She was going to beat her to death. Strangulation would’ve been too kind.

  Diana cupped her mouth, watching the blood spill into her hand. “I had no choice. I was just following orders. I’m sorry it happened. Please, believe me. It was an impossible situation. One I couldn’t escape.”

  As much as Beth wanted to hurt Diana, she wanted to hurt Anton more. “Why are you here now?”

  Diana broke into tears. The moisture from her eyes mixed with the saliva and blood from her mouth. “Anton ordered me to stay here until an evacuation team could retrieve Jack. When they finally arrived, they took him but left me behind. They rescued an ape and left me to die!”

  The pounding in Beth’s ears urged her to finish Diana’s misery. Her brain screamed for violent action. And yet, the boiling rage struggled against another part of her. A core much deeper. A quiet serenity and faith in greater things. Just as she was about to do something she’d never be able to take back, that core swept over the fury as the ocean swallows a lava flow.

  This pathetic woman was no saint. She wasn’t even a good person. Yet, she was a victim. Not in the way the chimps were, but a victim nonetheless. She was in desperate need and who was Beth to turn her away? Worse, who was she to judge and execute this woman?

  The choice tasted foul in her mouth.

  “Get up,” Beth said as she helped her to her feet.

  “You’re taking me with you?”

  Beth walked away before rage blackened the good deed. Before the dark thoughts defeated the light. She retrieved the bag of medicine on the counter.

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  40

  With the remaining stock of bandages, gauze pads, and other supplies stuffed into her bag, Beth turned and shined the headlamp at Diana. The rail thin woman stood there shaking like a leaf. As if an imaginary breeze would be enough to blow her over.

  “When did you eat last?” Beth asked.

  “I don’t know… maybe two days ago.”

  “I’ve got some food for you. A few bags of nuts and dried fruit.”

  Diana nodded eagerly and then swallowed hard as her body reacted to the anticipated meal. The desperation nearly made Beth want to forgive her.

  Nearly.

  Beth led the way back outside. She secured the bag of precious supplies and then dug out a snack for Diana. The woman’s hands shook as she reached for the Ziplock bag of almonds. In a rush to get it open, she ripped the plastic and nuts spilled out. The old Diana never would’ve touched a scrap of food off the ground. She would’ve yelled at the grounds crew to clean it up before a customer slipped and fell potentially causing a lawsuit.

  This was not the old Diana.

  The gaunt, haggard woman dropped to her knees and swept up the nuts along with a good amount of dirt. She shoved the handful into her mouth as quickly as she could.

  Beth cracked open a water bottle and put it on the ground next to her. “Slow down. And drink some water as you go.”

  Diana nodded as she popped more nuts and dirt into her mouth. Wads of saliva and almond fragments clung to her chin.

  Beth watched her in silence.

  Was she really going to take this woman home? Going to give her food that would’ve otherwise contributed to keeping her family alive?

  Insane.

  Diana had made her choices and now she was paying for them. Beth couldn’t save every sorry soul that suffered in the new world. Diana should be left to meet her own destiny. She should leave her boss to whatever fate she’d earned.

  But she couldn’t.

  It had nothing to do with the resurgence of Catholic faith that she’d been noticing of late. It had nothing to do with a conscience that would feel guilty knowing it had chosen to leave Diana to die.

  It was more direct than that. More positive.

  It was seeing another human being suffering and simply wanting to help.

  “You can go with me back to my house. We have shelter, food, and water. You’ll be safe there.”

  Diana stopped scrambling for the fallen nuts and looked up at Beth. Tears welled from her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Thank you… Thank you so much.”

  “Yeah.”

  She’d help her, but she still hated her. Beth waited as Diana gathered up the last of the almonds. She wasn’t going to stop her from eating off the ground. Aside from enjoying the twisted spectacle, those really were valuable calories that something like a little dirt wasn’t going to ruin. They were too precious now. You couldn’t walk into a store and slurp down a Coca-Cola along with a pint of ice cream. The effects of consuming exces
sive calories were no longer a major public health crisis.

  The world had changed.

  Sustenance was no longer perpetually available and within reach. It was again arduous to obtain and quick to consume, as it had been for tens of thousands of years in the past. Beth tapped her big toe by one that had fallen out of Diana’s search zone. “Missed one.”

  Diana snapped it up. She chewed and swallowed and then stared up at Beth. “Why are you only wearing one boot?”

  “It’s a long story. Get up. We have to go.” She’d do the right thing, but she didn’t have to be nice about it. She pulled Diana to her feet and then helped her settle onto the back portion of the seat. “Have you ever ridden a motorcycle?”

  Diana shook her head. “No.”

  “Great. Just don’t lean out to the sides or make any sudden movements. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  Beth checked all the straps and made sure everything was tightened down. She swung her leg over and fired up Spock. She eased on the throttle waiting to see if her passenger would do something stupid. After coasting a while without incident, she opened it up a little. They rode down the meandering path heading toward the exit. Beth did a double take at the empty elephant paddock as they passed. They were gone. It was impossible for the four thousand pound animals to hide. So where did they go?

  The path curved around toward the administration building on the right.

  “Wait! Please stop! Can I gather a few things? Personal things.”

  The absolute very last thing in the universe that Beth wanted to do for this woman was a favor. And a favor included anything not immediately related to her survival. Personal things fell very much inside the realm of favor.

  “Please,” Diana said.

  Beth bit her lip and groaned.

  “Fine.”