Beverly made a retching sound and I realized this was the first time she’d seen or understood the impact of what had taken place. “What…what happened here?”
Harrison rounded a Toyota truck with gardening equipment in the back and a logo on the door promoting Mikey’s Mowing. “They were caught in rush hour traffic,” he said plainly, leaving her to deduce the rest on her own.
I saw it on her face when she did. The wakeup call hit her hard. Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared, and the general appearance of panic in her was enough to tell me what was going through her mind. While she’d been painting her nails and getting a tan, and living a semi-comfortable existence within the confines of the school, others had been fighting for their lives. Now it was us out in the open facing the same evils they had. A new life had begun, a new beginning, and it wouldn’t be as posh as our previous ones, not even close.
“Beverly,” I said, passing her. “You need to keep moving. You don’t want to be left behind.”
Her body sprang into action, fear now spurring her forward, and I doubted that she’d hold us up again.
We reached the concrete median and hurdled it. We then helped Beverly over and continued on through the fence on the opposite side of the highway. Beyond, stood a cluster of high-rises, some twenty stories tall, still smoldering and with a good number of broken windows. Unfortunately, we were headed right for these buildings and we would need to successfully navigate the side streets surrounding them first. There, smaller, older buildings made of brick taunted us with dark shadows and an unnatural quietness. Only bird calls, the whistling breeze, and the occasional scuff of our feet broke the silence.
Harrison and Doc went first, pausing at the corners to confirm it was clear. When it seemed to be, they waved us forward. And this was the rhythm we fell into. They went ahead, performing surveillance of the area and waving us in before we advanced. Harrison stopped us every once in a while. His back would straighten as he listened and he’d either have us retrace our steps or take a detour down another street. Each time, I marveled at him, and was consumed by a need to move closer until I found myself directly behind him, subsequently taking Doc’s place. Harrison noticed my repositioning. I knew from the glance he gave me as we came up to a corner of the street we were on. I also knew he was pleased by it when one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile.
We ran across Infecteds three times; once when a group of them were heading in the other direction; once when a woman in a printed dress and missing one heel wobbled by without noticing us through the tinted entryway doors we hid behind. She may have been preoccupied with the bottom half of her face, which had entirely decomposed or was eaten off until nothing existed below her nose; and once more when we were halfway down a side street. We were a block from Ezekiel Labs, passing the bottom level of that building’s parking structure when something stirred across the street. When the soggy leaves piled at the corner of a building were mysteriously disturbed, each one of us nervously turned to investigate. Almost certain that at least one Infected would be coming into view, we stopped and remained motionless. When the rat peeked out from beneath the mound and twitched its nose in the air before darting back under, we released a collective sigh. In hindsight, we should have noted its behavior, and the fact that it departed quickly for no apparent reason. If we had, we might have been more diligent, more aware of the Infected wandering out from the parking structure’s stairwell.
We were attempting to stifle our laughter when we heard the footsteps on the pavement. When we looked up, in the direction we were headed, a guy in his twenties with a missing nose and dark, sunken eyes was barreling down on us. He looked starved and bore a striking resemblance to the Chicago Bulls caricature on the jersey he wore, which violently flapped in the wind as he sped towards us. The only difference was that he had a mixture of spit and blood flying from his mouth and the caricature didn’t.
“Kennedy?” Harrison said, stepping aside.
I was already leveling the rifle at him. He made it three more steps before I pulled the trigger and he went down, suddenly, as if he’d hit a glass wall. After he landed with a slam to the pavement, he laid there, motionless.
Stunned, none of us spoke for several seconds. It had taken place so fast – his emergence, his sprint, and his demise – that we were stuck processing all that had happened. Then I exhaled, loudly, and the rest of them broke out in relieved laughter. We turned to each other, smiling and shaking our heads at such a close call. But our moment of revelry was cut short. Harrison said my name again, this time with trepidation in his voice.
I found him staring past my shoulder, his smile having fallen away, and instinctively I turned. But there was nothing, no one, not a single Infected in sight. By then, the laughter from the others had faded, and I began to hear what Harrison could so clearly. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, the noise echoed too efficiently off the concrete surrounding us on all sides, but I felt it. The thunder rumbled along the pavement, up my legs, and through my chest.
“The gunshot,” Mei reasoned. “It told them where to find us.”
“They’re…coming…?” Beverly uttered meekly, as if she didn’t want to believe it.
“It’s time to run,” Harrison said, loudly, firmly, and throwing caution aside to stress the need for urgency.
Then it was our feet hitting the pavement as we raced for Ezekiel Labs. Knowing I was familiar with its location, Harrison fell back to the rear. This was a clear indication to me that the Infected were coming up from behind us.
As I reached the building Ezekiel Labs owned, I took a carefully calculated step and turned to the left. In my peripheral vision, I learned that Beverly, Mei, and Doc were directly behind me, in that order. Harrison trailed them by several strides. And behind him, the Infected flowed in from every street and around every corner, joining the single massive line coming down the middle of the street toward us.
“Fifteenth floor!” I shouted. “Fifteenth floor!”
I was at the door first, yanking it open in time for Beverly, Mei, and Doc to slip inside. I followed them, keeping the door ajar for Harrison. Then I saw something that struck greater fear in me than the sight of the swarm of Infected coming for us. It was so great, in fact, that it took my breath away and locked my thoughts until I was no longer able to comprehend it.
Harrison hadn’t fallen back simply to make sure we got inside first. He’d done it to lead them astray. I knew this as he passed the building where we were now hiding, gave us a fleeting glance, and raced on down the street. The Infected weren’t deterred up the steps to the building we were now in; Harrison was too big a piece of bait. They continued down the street, hundreds of them, all in pursuit of Harrison. And then it became clear to me exactly what he was doing…He was sacrificing himself so that we could live.
“No…,” I whispered and began to step outside.
In that moment, I firmly believe I lost my mind. I was no longer the rational girl my dad had raised me to be. The logical steps he’d ingrained in me for self-preservation were gone. I had every intention of leaving that building, raising my rifle and taking down as many Infected as I could before they got to me. One less was one less who could get to Harrison.
Suddenly, someone’s arms were around me and I was being pulled back. I struggled to get to Harrison, flailing my arms and legs, but the hold on me got even tighter. I was being dragged away; away from the door, away from Harrison and away from the Infected that were chasing him. The door grew smaller as my distance from Harrison increased, and all I could do now was fight the way I’d been taught. I positioned myself to pivot the body behind me over my shoulder when Doc called out and I realized who was holding me.
“Kennedy,” he said.
“Let me go!”
“Kennedy, he’s gone.”
“No!”
Even as I said this, I watched the swarm of Infected pass by on the street below us.
“No…” I cried again, ren
ewing my struggle.
Doc reiterated the words I didn’t want to believe, with force this time. “He’s gone. He’s…gone.”
And the stream of Infected continued.
“We need to get to the fifteenth floor,” Doc said, his voice directed away from me in an effort to talk to someone else.
From my right side, Mei asked, “Can she walk?”
“Kennedy, can you walk?” He asked this with his arms locked around me and with my body now slumped against his. “Can you walk, Kennedy?” In an attempt to adjust my attitude, he warned, “You need to get yourself under control, because we need you. You got that, Kennedy? We need you. I know he’s gone, but we’re not. And we need you.”
I swallowed back the pain as best I could and somehow planted my legs underneath me. When I straightened them, I felt some strength and stability return. Drifting through a haze, I managed to nod to Doc. He released me and kept me steady until I raised my head.
“Should I take that?” he asked, motioning to the rifle.
“Can you shoot?” I asked.
“I can try.”
That was too vague. “Then no,” I replied flatly.
The hint of a grin appeared on his face as he muttered, “All right then.” He seemed pleased by my demonstration of spirit. “Fifteenth floor.”
It was a long trek up, but the majority of it didn’t feel real so…I worked through my initial shock and didn’t allow my mind to grasp yet what had just happened to Harrison; I couldn’t until Doc, Mei, and Beverly were safe. Harrison had given his life for us and I wasn’t going to squander it.
In the stairwell, we ran across two groups of Infected. I hit every target before they were close enough to endanger us. Oddly, my anguish was preventing me from feeling any pain, so I was the only one who didn’t plug my ears against the echo of gunfire or cough when inhaling the smoky residue it left behind in the air. In this way, I felt like Harrison, immune to changes in volume or temperature fluctuations around me. And somehow, this made me feel closer to him.
Eventually, Doc announced that we’d arrived and cautiously tried the door. It didn’t move. He tried it again, rattling it harshly, grinding metal against metal. In the back of my mind, I reasoned that if any Infected had been wondering if anyone existed on our side, Doc’s actions would have confirmed it.
He rotated to face the rest of us before proclaiming something we’d already figured out. “It’s locked.”
“I thought you said she…that lady…was here,” Beverly demanded, as if that would help any.
Doc didn’t bother responding, because there wasn’t really any good answer to offer. She was supposed to be there. She had given the address and pleaded for help. Instead, Doc’s head fell as he released a heavy sigh. “What…What do we do now?”
Silence settled over us, the hopeless kind that takes your breath away and makes your throat constrict.
We had come for Marion Kremil, had lost Harrison in the process, and she wasn’t even here. It made me sick.
The grating metal noise broke the quiet and I instantly braced myself to see an Infected coming through the door. Doc even stepped back, clearing the way for my muzzle. But when it opened, there was no decomposing, sunken-eyed, famished cannibal on the other side. Our greeter stood four feet tall, with sharp, perceptive eyes, and lips wrinkled from years of smoking. She was nearly emaciated, but her frame was petite naturally: small enough to have looked that way before she was forced into starvation by the outbreak.
Ignoring the gun pointed at her face with a poise that showed me she was familiar with death, the woman asked firmly, “Are you bit?”
“No,” Doc uttered and then paused to look at Mei for assistance.
“None of us are,” she confirmed.
The woman performed a cursory visual inspection and then stepped aside to let us in the door. After locking it behind us, she spun around and folded her arms across her chest. “I have to be sure,” she said unexpectedly. “Lift your shirts, drop your pants and turn around.”
I hadn’t been sure what kind of reception we’d receive, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Regardless, it seemed less harmful than being thrown out with the Infected. And to be perfectly honest I couldn’t have cared less what some woman saw of my body when Harrison’s was probably laying somewhere with the Infected crouched over it. So, I did as she asked. Once Doc, Mei, and Beverly – who turned her lip up at the woman – was finished, our host finally showed some concern for our well-being. “Are you hurt?”
Our answers were a unified “no”.
“Good,” she said, her demeanor finally softening, somewhat. She shrugged before admitting, “I’m not sure we could have helped you if you were.”
“We?” Mei repeated, astutely.
She nodded. “Follow me.”
We were now inside Ezekiel Labs, or at least one of its five buildings that shared the same parcel of land. The one where we found ourselves held the majority of their offices. I had walked through it a few times with my dad. I’d needed a badge back then, but no one was concerned about that kind of security anymore.
“Are you the woman on the recording?” Mei asked as she led us down a long, dim hallway. It was lit only by the windows of vacant offices lining the right-hand side.
“I am,” she replied simply, showing no sign of surprise that it was what led us to the building.
“You’re Marion Kremil?”
“I am.”
As Mei continued her questions, I assessed the woman from behind. Her walk reminded me of a sergeant major and if attitude conveyed seniority, I figured she was in the upper level at the CDC. This was the one who had been searching for Harrison…and had nearly found him. She’d missed him by just a few hundred feet. I had no idea what purpose this high-ranking official had with Harrison, but the fact that she had needed him so desperately that she’d risked her own life searching for him roused in me a nervous feeling. Now, she would never see this come to fruition and this realization awakened emotions in me that had automatically shut down when Harrison sacrificed himself for us all.
“So you’re from the CDC?” Mei pressed.
“I am.”
“Can you tell us what happened?”
“I can.” But she didn’t bother to do it because we’d just entered a boardroom and found ten other sets of eyes staring back at us. They were of varying ages, as young as five and as old as ninety. Several appeared to be employees, still dressed in their business suits. One seemed to be a college intern. A mother and her child were huddled together, holding hands. An elderly woman was sitting in an executive chair, but she didn’t strike me as part of their family. They all had one element in common. They were all gaunt.
Food was scarce here.
A large Hispanic man stood up and crossed the room. The boardroom table had been turned on its side and leaned against the wall so it was a clear shot to us. He stopped a foot away to ask, “What’s it like out there?”
Mei blinked. “You…You haven’t been outside?”
“We’ve gone as far down as the third floor,” Ms. Kremil explained from the room’s entrance. “It houses the cafeteria and we needed food, but we ran into…” Her eyes skipped to the little boy tucked beneath his mother’s comforting arm. “…obstacles.”
“We’ve taken care of those,” I said, plainly.
It was such an understatement they didn’t appear to believe me.
“Manuel, let’s give them some space,” Ms. Kremil suggested, but the Hispanic man didn’t move.
“Did you see anyone else out there?” he persisted.
“Yes,” Beverly replied. “Plenty.”
She was being sarcastic, referring to the Infected, but Manuel didn’t know Beverly or her penchant for mockery.
“See?” he snapped at Ms. Kremil. “You keep us here, make us believe there are no survivors. But our families, they’re waiting for us!”
Ms. Kremil stepped up, tired and uninterested in dealing wi
th Manuel and what seemed to be another outburst of rebellion. They launched into an argument that gave me the impression this had all been played out before, but I didn’t bother staying to listen to it. In the midst of the shouting, I left the room and made my way down the hall to a private office. Inside sat a desk, a chair, a few whiteboards mounted to the walls, and stacks of papers strewn across the desk. It was a cold, unwelcoming office, designed to appeal to its owner, who surely had lost his or her humanity during the pursuit of scientific research. In short, it felt insensitive, and it perfectly suited my current state of being.
I collapsed against the wall beneath the window and laid the rifle across my lap, ignoring the argument still raging in the boardroom. That’s when it began, the silent, invisible ripping across my chest, the gutting of my heart. Harrison is gone, my mind told me, attempting to work through this concept. Harrison is gone. I caved against the void it created, folding my body over to keep the emptiness from spreading, but it was too late. It crept up my neck, down my shoulders and along my arms, finding its way to my legs and leaving them worn and lifeless. I couldn’t have moved if I wanted. The weight of Harrison’s loss left me motionless, speechless, dead.
I had felt numbness before, when my dad didn’t come home. And once again, I was consumed by the injustice of loss, a sense that time had been cut too short, and the sensation of isolation. But this time was different, it carved a special wound, one that badgered me as I sat there against the wall…
I’d never told Harrison that I loved him.
He had told me. He’d found the courage. He’d handed over his heart to me. He’d made himself vulnerable and exposed. He’d fought through, and defeated, that icy protection he’d formed around himself. Why hadn’t I?
WHY HADN’T I?
He had deserved to know the truth…That my heart ached for him, that without him it was hard to breath, that my soul felt whole with him near and incomplete with him gone, that within a world filled with unjust circumstances and dark, desolate futures, he had become all I needed to survive.
Haven (Apocalypse Chronicles Part 1) Page 23
