The quiet enveloped us as we sat there, listening for any sounds of impending doom.
“I think it’s clear,” Harrison said, shifting to talk to us over his shoulder. “How many bullets do you have in that gun?”
I released the magazine, pushed my finger down into it, and replied, “Not many. Three, maybe four.”
He nodded stiffly and heaved a sigh filled with enough tension for all of us. “It’s probably better if you stay here.” He was still talking directly to me. “If you see trouble…just leave.”
Before I let my jaw fall, displaying my opposition, I decided to show it in another way. There was no chance I was going to make him do this alone. Pushing open the door, I headed for the stairs, giving him my answer. I think he groaned in irritation at me as I left the car. Doc and Mei elected to stay in their seats, a wise choice, as Harrison trailed me up the stairs.
“Which floor?” I asked, my voice echoing off the walls of the narrow stair shaft.
“Twentieth.”
The elevator would have been nice, I thought, if we could be assured it wouldn’t open on a floor full of danger or fail entirely and leave us stranded. No, better to use our feet.
It wasn’t the easiest trek, but at least we didn’t run into anyone bloodied and snarling. Still, once we arrived on the twentieth floor, we cautiously opened the door leading into the hallway. Harrison made sure it was clear, we entered it and stopped three doors down on the right where he inserted a key. As he opened the door, a blast of frigid air hit me like a bulldozer, actually making me step back until I realized how refreshing it was after the long climb up.
“Eve must have forgotten to turn the air off,” he said to himself, entering and tapping the air conditioner’s electronic panel.
“Off?” I muttered. “You mean you keep it this cold intentionally?”
“Eve, my aunt, works in the lab, which they maintain at a cool 54 degrees.”
“You’re kidding. How does she work in that environment?”
He chuckled under his breath at what seemed to be a private joke. “You’d be amazed at what your body can adapt to.”
“Is that how you’ve survived living here?” I asked, only half-joking.
Again he laughed, although it was more to himself. “I don’t get cold,” he muttered, moving cautiously down the hall while keeping his eyes alert and focused on the corners.
“Ever?” I asked.
“No.”
We reached the heart of the apartment, a sparsely decorated living room and dining area with high-end, contemporary furniture in grey hues. Everything was in its place. There were no random coffee mugs left on the table, no magazines strewn across the couch, not even a remote control for the television was left out. It was as cold and unwelcoming as the air.
Harrison tapped on a door down a short hallway and then opened it.
“Eve?”
Inside, the room resembled the rest of the apartment, distant, chilly, controlled. He stepped inside and checked the bathroom.
He returned shaking his head. “She’s not…,” he said, letting his voice trail off. “Must still be at the lab. They were starting the third phase of clinical trials today.”
“Do you want to try her there?” I offered.
He stared past me, appearing dazed as he looked over my shoulder. “We’d never get in. They’ll be in lockdown right now.”
Where we’re supposed to be, I thought with a bit of irony.
“I need to get some things from my room.”
I realized I was blocking the door and stepped backwards into the hallway, but my body didn’t clear the door entirely and as Harrison passed our arms brushed. And there was a subtle, but unavoidably evident, adjustment to his posture. Amused, I watched him enter the room across the hall, his broad shoulders squared and stiffened.
He was shoving clothes, deodorant, and a toothbrush inside a canvas duffel bag when I walked in and surveyed his bedroom. While I didn’t expect posters of nude women or hard rock bands, I also wasn’t expecting what I did find. A small bed had been shoved against the wall with an opened suitcase of clothes lying next to it. Other than those two items, there wasn’t a single sign that this was his room. It was an office where he’d been allowed to sleep. He’d crammed his belongings into one corner, and I noted with sadness that he took up as little space in this world as I did. In fact, there was only one item not in that corner that didn’t look like it belonged to his aunt. It was a book splayed open to a specific page on the desk beneath the window, and when I moved close enough to it my breath caught. Woodrow Wilson High School was printed at the top of the page and below it, on both pages, were rows of class pictures. It was opened to the S’s, and my picture was in the top right corner.
“I need to pick up something else before we leave,” Harrison said from the door, purposely drawing my attention back to him.
“Okay.”
“And I need to leave a note for Eve.”
“Okay.” Why couldn’t I think of something else to say? Oh, that’s right, because half my mind was back on the yearbook wondering why it was opened to my picture.
I wasn’t sure if he saw me notice it or not but he strolled to the desk, lightly flipped the yearbook closed, and pulled out a piece of paper. Without either of us acknowledging what I’d seen, he scribbled something rapidly and then looked up as if he was wondering where to put it. He wandered out, I followed, and we stopped in the kitchen, where he slid the note under a long-dead potted plant. The sight of it pulled me from my pleasant daydream that Harrison might have opened that yearbook to my page for a reason. The plant seemed ghostly to me, sending an understated message that the person who tended that plant had also tended to Harrison, and her lack of care meant she probably wouldn’t be coming back for any of them…Harrison, the note he was leaving, or the plant. I turned away, reminding myself to stop being so melodramatic. The aunt must have a heart. She let Harrison stay with her. And to convince myself of this stranger’s ethics, I studied the kitchen, carefully avoiding the plant since it would only prove my point.
There were no pictures of Harrison, not even of when he was young, and no family snapshots. The only items hanging on the refrigerator were pieces of paper that looked to be lab notes. I recognized lots of the symbols from Chemistry class, but these were far more complex than I could comprehend. They seemed to be reminders intended to catch the owner’s attention as she went out the door. Basically, this was not a home, and it was clear to me that his aunt had forgotten the humanity behind science.
I had become so focused on my surroundings, so lost in thought, that the question that had been hovering just beneath my consciousness finally burst forth. “Why will getting to know you change my opinion of you?” I paused, realizing what I’d just said, as surprised by them as Harrison.
“Huh?” he asked, tilting his head down and around to peer at me over his shoulder.
I had the feeling I might not like the answer but having already come this far I gave in and pressed, “You said back at Mei’s house that I would change my opinion of you once I got to know you. Why?”
He turned to face me, crossing his arms in front of his chest. It made his muscles push forward, which I tried my best to ignore.
“Why do you think I never asked you out?”
It was a bold question, peeling back the tense innuendos and subliminal messages we’d been sending to each other over the last year to expose the true, unrestrained interest we had for each other simmering beneath the surface.
It left me momentarily speechless.
Stumbling through an answer, I said, “You wanted to ask…?” But I paused, realizing that something else was far more important. “I don’t know why.”
When he didn’t immediately answer, I wondered if it was because he was taking his time formulating one.
“Why?” I persisted.
His stunningly handsome face appeared strained from the complex mixture of emotions that had become visib
le in his expression. He seemed frustrated and passionate, yet angry and disappointed at the same time. I had an urge to go to him, but having grown up around men like him, self-sufficient and disciplined men, I knew this was the last thing he’d want.
“I’m different, Kennedy.” Those words seemed to sting as they left his beautiful lips.
“We’re all different, Harrison. I have steel throwing stars in my pocket, and I know how to use them. Do you know any other eighteen-year-olds who do that? You asked that same question this morning, remember? Not one. Not a single one.” I paused to meet his stare directly, ensuring my last point was heard. “I don’t think you’re any more different than the rest of us.”
He laughed under his breath. “You don’t now, but you will eventually.”
In a way that made me think he was trying to prove his point, he opened the refrigerator door wide, so that I could clearly see inside. It was stocked, but not with fruit, vegetables, and Yoo-Hoo drinks. Bags of raw meat were crammed into every shelf and drawer available. That was it, just bags of raw meat. He began shoving as many of them as he could fit into his duffel bag, stuffing it so tightly it couldn’t zip closed. When he straightened up and turned, he discovered that I hadn’t moved.
“You underestimate me,” I said.
He seemed surprised that I wasn’t bowled over by his brazen display of how odd he was. “Why are you so determined to like me?” he countered.
“Why are you so determined to push me away?”
“Like you do with others?” he retorted, striking at the one thing he knew I couldn’t deny.
My only response was to press my lips together as the uncomfortable silence stretched between us.
Obviously, he’d seen me sitting alone in the library during lunch and he knew that I was short on friends. I was also pretty sure he’d heard my story through one of the many strings of gossip that seemed to surround me. He laughed under his breath again, this time with thick sarcasm. “We are similar, Kennedy. We keep to ourselves, preserving that preciously safe space around us, denying others entry. We make it painful for others so they won’t think about invading it. We make ourselves invisible or unreceptive so they won’t consider trying. I’ve watched you do it for a year. But we do this for different reasons. You do it so that others can’t hurt you. I do it so that I can’t hurt others.” He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder effortlessly despite the weight it held.
“So that’s it?” I said, causing him to halt. He kept his back to me as I asked, “That’s why you never asked me out, why you’re being…reticent now? You think you can hurt me.”
His shoulders lifted as he drew in a deep breath. “Kennedy,” he exhaled wearily, “it’s the only reason that could keep me from you.”
He deliberately walked by me, slowly and cautiously, with his head up and his eyes focused on the door behind me. I was pretty certain he was making a conscious effort to ensure our arms didn’t come in contact this time around. That was more upsetting than I cared to admit.
I still hadn’t moved by the time he opened the door and took a step into the hall without even glancing back. Now that I think about it, I realize he was just as disturbed by our conversation as I was or he would have paid closer attention, listening for signs of anyone who might be on the other side. Because he was deep in thought about me, about us, he ended up not realizing that someone actually was there.
The woman’s movement was quick; making me think she had been waiting for us while listening through the door. When it opened, she didn’t vacillate, lunging at Harrison full force. Harrison is big, stocky, but he’d met his match. When the 300-pound woman barreled into him, he was forced backwards, back inside of his aunt’s apartment, knocking him into the door. With one arm weighed down by the duffel bag, he swung his free arm up and pinned her to the wall, letting out a loud grunt. His arm landed perfectly, firmly pressed across her immense chest. The only parts of her capable of reaching him now were her bloody, glistening hair and the spittle of red drops that flew from her nose as she snorted in frustration. Harrison had her. She wasn’t going anywhere. There was no possible way she could move. His strength had once again saved him.
I swung the gun up, steadied my alignment, settled her into my sight picture, and pressed the trigger with a controlled squeeze. It was a perfect shot, landing right where I intended. And if her head had still been there, it would have stopped her. But she had moved just in time, thrusting her head forward with her teeth extended, embedding them perfectly in Harrison’s forearm.
~ 3 ~
HARRISON RELEASED A GROWL AND SLAMMED her back against the wall as she gnawed her way through his muscles.
“Back up!” I shouted.
“No!”
“BACK UP!”
“No!” he shouted, gritting his teeth and straining as he tried to pry her head back, the duffel bag slapping into them both in his attempt. “She’ll release me and go after you.”
“Damn it, Harrison! Back the f-”
He suddenly leaned backward keeping his arm in place, so that she’d be immobilized. “Do it,” he commanded, turning his head toward me, not away as most would. He was serious, gravely serious.
So I realigned my shot and pulled the trigger. The blast vibrated the hallway as the bullet sent the back part of her head splattering along the wall in a trail toward the door. Her knees caved in and she went down, dragging Harrison with her, because her teeth were still lodged in his flesh. Using his other hand, he pried himself loose with a push to her forehead. I was already at his side by the time he was standing upright again. Blood was seeping from the large gash the woman had left.
“We need to wrap that,” I said, thinking he’d agree since he had some first aid background.
“We need to get out of here,” he replied, ignoring the searing pain that must have been running the length of his forearm. I remember believing at the time that it was adrenaline keeping him going. “They’ll have heard that.”
“Who?” I blurted, even though I already knew the answer.
One of them showed up in the doorway, a man hunched, arms spread, fingers bent into claws, snarling like a rabid dog. He looked to be eighty, still dressed in his nightgown and slippers. He was missing an ear, but the blood had hardened against his neck. His face was clean, which surprised me.
He hasn’t bitten anyone yet, I thought, but he looks damn ready for it.
As he took a lunging step at Harrison, I drew the gun up and pulled the trigger. The man fell back into the hallway outside the apartment door and slumped to the ground.
The only thing to break the silence that followed was my distressed heavy breathing. “They always…always seem to go for you.”
“I’m meatier,” he said, grabbing my arm and hauling me out the door.
We sprinted back to the stairs, opening the door as another three of them appeared down the long hallway past his aunt’s apartment. They immediately leaned forward, reminding me of runners at the starting line waiting for the gun to go off. Although, unlike the races I’d been in, they didn’t wait for an official to pull a trigger.
“Three more back there,” I muttered, my voice oscillating as we ran down the stairs. “Think they can open doors?”
As it turned out, they didn’t need to. The doors had already been opened by everyone who was panicking. A scream, an unmistakably human one, echoed through the stairwell. Both of us angled our heads to locate its source. That is when I caught sight of movement two floors up, where I briefly saw the face of a woman who was about fifty years old, stricken with terror, before she fell back and out of sight. She had made it into the stairwell, but someone caught her.
Instantly, Harrison and I turned.
“Stay here, Kennedy,” he demanded, while rushing back up the flight we’d come down.
I wasn’t sure if it was my footsteps that gave me away, but I figured he realized I hadn’t listened when his mouth twisted down in a frown.
By the time we r
eached that floor where we’d seen the woman, two of them were bent over, eating through her stomach. She was no longer struggling. Again, the term ‘chowing down’ slipped into my mind, which I erased by raising my gun at them. Neither of them looked up from their meal, even when I planted a bullet in the head of the one closest to us. The one still moving only realized we where there when his partner slumped into his angle of eating.
That was when I noticed it. My ears were ringing. In the narrow corridor, the shot blast tore through my eardrums, telling me with agonizing clarity that those sensitive membranes had been injured. Yet neither the man chowing down on the woman nor Harrison showed any sign of it. They didn’t clap their hands to their ears, move back, or even make a gratuitous shake of their head. In fact, they appeared immune to the throbbing pain I was feeling. In the frenzy of the moment, I didn’t have time to consider it further. Instead, I focused on stopping the man from coming at us. When he went down, Harrison again showed no reaction to the blast, even though my ears were still suffering from the piercing sounds.
Harrison took the two remaining steps to the landing and knelt down in front of the woman, placing his index finger against her neck to check for a pulse. With his back to me, the shake of his head confirmed he felt no sign of life. She was the first one we had come across outside our school showing any evidence of still being human, and her death caused both of us to pause.
It wasn’t as if we knew the woman. We had witnessed her life at the very end – one terrifying, miserable end that lasted less than a minute. But it didn’t keep the remorse from hitting us. To be honest, that reaction was twofold. First, it was hard to see someone lose their life, even a stranger, like a void had opened in the world leaving a sad emptiness behind. Second, there was in me, and I’d guess in Harrison too, a withering hope that we’d find anyone else alive…and not trying to eat others.
Haven (Apocalypse Chronicles Part 1) Page 5
