by TJ Forester
“I would have done the same thing I suppose. In fact, I used my untested vaccine on you—” he laughed “—I guess you’re the hamster this week.”
“Logan was that a joke? I think you’ve been hanging around me too long—” she got serious and looked him in the eye “—I’ve been meaning to ask you a question and I want the truth.”
“Okay,” he said uncertainly.
“Was our meeting at the airport really an accident?”
“Uh—” he hesitated “—no. Actually, Dr. Soranto sent me to watch you. He does that with all new employees. I always thought he was paranoid, now I know he had a reason to be worried. Trying to hide murder would make anyone nervous.”
She didn’t say anything; she just turned back to her work.
“I would have tried to meet you anyway if I had known how beautiful you are.”
Sherena rolled her eyes at him. “Timing Logan, this isn’t it.”
“A guy’s got to try.”
She took a deep breath. “And you thought my joking was out of place. Do try to remember we are trying to kill a zombie to save this little town.”
They were over tired and it was affecting them both. The stress was nearly enough to kill them all by itself. The whole situation was so surreal that neither of them could come to grips with reality—they had to stop a monster while Dr. Soranto was trying to kill them, or would be as soon as he found out Sherena was alive and Logan was helping her.
“So what was it you found last night?” Logan asked, changing the subject back to what was important.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you found something important on the computer—” he eyed her strangely “—you wouldn’t even stop reading when Mr. Z was about to attack you.”
She thought about it. Her memory of the events of the night before was fuzzy. Either being a zombie for a while or the injection of Logan’s vaccine had messed up her memory.
“I have no idea,” she answered honestly.
He stared at her. “Seriously, you mean we broke into that room and Mr. Z bit you just so you could get information that you can’t remember now—” he let out a breath “—you said it was really important. Try harder to remember it. I don’t think we will get away with breaking in again.”
She stopped working and sat down to think. Too little sleep hadn’t helped. Logan watched her anxiously. Nothing came. After nearly thirty minutes of thinking, she came up with one word.
“Deleterium,” she said triumphantly.
“What’s that,” he asked lost.
She tilted her head and pursed her lips. “I have no idea, but it was what I was reading about on the computer. All I can pull out of my memory is the Deleterium. It was the title of something but…” She shook her head. “I remember that right after I was bitten my brain felt like it was clouding over. I got very confused. It must be part of the process. The last memories I had before the attack are just gone. A few more minutes and I may have lost all of them. Thank goodness you acted so fast with that vaccine.”
“I honestly had no idea if it would work—” he looked away “—all I could think of is that I couldn’t lose you again.”
She didn’t know what to say. She knew Logan had feelings for her but she was still recovering from her divorce and didn’t want a relationship with anyone. At least they could be friends, if he could settle for that.
They finally finished preparing what they hoped would work to stop Mr. Z. Now they had to find him. It was still early, but the diner would be open. It was as good a place as any other was. If they were lucky, they might get to eat something while they were looking for him.
They walked out onto the empty street and the few blocks to the diner. Even the events of the night before couldn’t have prepared them for what they saw. The zombie had already been there. Luckily, there had only been a few people at the diner. Not lucky for those who had been there though, they were in the process of turning.
Logan and Sherena only had a little serum—enough for a few shots at patient zero. They knew it wouldn’t cure him, they only hoped to stop him. However, these people might benefit from the concoction. They couldn’t make more, not fast enough to stop him anyway.
One of the newly created zombie creatures started stumbling toward them. Sherena and Logan looked at each other and without words made a decision. They decided to run. They couldn’t possibly help those people and it took a while fully to turn. They had to stop the alpha—Mr. Z was the most dangerous. If they didn’t stop him, the whole town would be lost.
They decided to stay together but the direction they chose led them directly into the Triogenix van. They nearly collided with it when they turned the corner. It was half way on the sidewalk between distant buildings and a vacant lot. Sherena wanted to run the other direction but Logan wanted to look in the van. He won the argument and when they looked inside, they saw both Able Ashyr and John Kroger lying there half-turned—too late for them.
“We need to find Dr. Soranto,” Logan said.
“Are you crazy?” She yelled at him.
He turned to face her. “Look, I know he is a bad man, a murderer even, but what if he knows how to stop this? You said yourself that he had important information about this on his computer.”
“I never said it was about the zombies.”
“Well, you didn’t say that but it must have been. You wouldn’t have been so engrossed in what you were reading if it didn’t have anything to do with this.”
She thought about it for a minute. “All right, we can try but take my word for it, it hurts getting killed.”
“Maybe when he sees that you’re alive he will want your help with the cure. That must have been the reason for infecting more patients—if he did it—so he could find a cure faster.”
“What do you mean, if he did it?”
“Well, they were bitten—” he shot her a conceding look “—I’m not saying he’s innocent, but we do have a lot of unanswered questions. They only thing that we know for sure is that the victims were all infected on a schedule. That can’t be a coincidence but…,” he trailed off. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
“I don’t know either—” she hesitated “—but I’m willing to try.”
It didn’t take long to find Dr. Soranto, he was in his office, rifling through papers on his desk. Initially, he looked startled by the intrusion, but that quickly turned to shock when he saw Sherena. His mouth dropped but he said nothing.
“Doctor—” Logan pressed “—have you seen what’s happening out there?”
After a moment, he answered, “How could I not?” Then he eyed Logan severely. “Do you know how patient zero got loose?”
“I think—” Logan hesitated “—there was a power outage and he was able to open his tube.”
Dr. Soranto shook his head. “There’s no way out of this, we will have to go to the emergency contingency plan.”
“What’s that?” Logan asked.
“The entire town is set to blow at the push of a button.”
“What?—” Logan screamed at him “—you’ll kill everyone!”
“They’re already dead,” Dr. Soranto said flatly. Then he turned to Sherena. “How is it that you’re alive? Don’t take that wrong, I’m glad you are, but…weren’t you dead?” He turned to Logan. “I thought you told me she was found dead, and you thought it had been murder?”
Logan let out a breath. “That’s a long story; the important thing is that we have to stop this outbreak. We—” he motioned to Sherena “—have a plan, but if you have information that would help we might be able to save these people.”
Dr. Soranto narrowed his eyes. “Someone broke into my computer last night and I’m guessing it was you.” He pointed right at her.
Sherena’s heart was pounding, this was not going well, and she had told Logan as much before they went.
“It was me but—”
Dr. Soranto cut her off, “It’s not polite to bre
ak into other people’s computers. It was you in medical records too.” It wasn’t a question. He pulled out a gun and pointed it at them.
Not again, she thought. Logan turned to her and they both made the unspoken decision to run, for a second time.
Dr. Soranto fired the gun at them wildly. Luckily, he wasn’t a good shot and they got away.
When they got to a safe stopping place behind the building in some trees Logan said, “Listen, I have an idea.”
“Okay, what is it?”
“He’s planning to kill everyone in the town, so we have to kill him first.”
“Are you serious?” she asked. “Logan, even if we knew how, we can’t just go around killing people. We got away, we should just hide.”
“You want to let him blow up the town?”
“Maybe he’s right, maybe there is no town left. Were you seeing the same things I was this morning.”
He shook his head. “The whole town can’t be infected yet.”
She just stared at him.
“Maybe it isn’t, we have to try to save these people from Dr. Insane back there. Did you hear him; he already had the town prepped to blow up. He clearly had always planned on killing everyone if the disease got out of control.”
She rubbed her eyes. “I can’t make sense of anything, I’m too—” she opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Finally, she said “—you decide.”
“Look—” he took her gently by the shoulders “—you stay right here, where it’s safe and I’ll go take care of it.”
She was in shock and she knew it. She couldn’t do anything, especially make a life or death decision and that was something she did every day in her profession—she had simply been through too much. She didn’t know what he planned but he was right about one thing, she should just stay where she was.
He was gone for what seemed an eternity and then he said, “Get down.”
Then there was an enormous explosion. It was the building of horrors. It blew up—Logan must have somehow set it to blow.
“Was Dr. Soranto in there?” she heard herself asking.
“Yes,” Logan said flatly. “He was about to blow the town and the building was always wired with an autodestruct in case we lost control of the zom…victims. I had to stop him from killing the entire town,” he defended his actions.
Just as Logan said that, another explosion rocked the air, then another, and another.
She stared at him for a long moment wondering if Logan had blown the whole town or if Dr. Soranto had set it on a timer. Either way, she and Logan stood there and watched the entire town blow up. From where they were standing, it was unlikely that anyone could have survived.
Chapter 14
“Even in the deepest sinking there is the hidden purpose
of an ultimate rising." Hasidic saying
~
They ran through the town to find out if there was a car still available to get out of the devastated town. That’s when they saw him—patient zero hadn’t been killed—he was headed straight for Sherena and Logan. They quickly changed direction. Most of the vehicles seemed to have been taken out in the blasts.
When they turned the corner, hordes of the newly dead zombies saw them and began to chase them.
“How are they still alive?” she screamed as they turned down yet another street.”
“I don’t know—” he said panting as they ran “—in my experience, they are hard to kill because they’re already dead but I thought the explosions would do it.”
They hid in the rubble of one of the buildings they had passed only a few hours before. There were bodies; obviously, the uninfected people were the only ones the blasts had killed.
Sherena vomited—she had seen death before but never this kind of carnage.
“We have to find a car that’s still intact and get out of here,” Logan pulled her away from the scene.
A group of zombies found them and seemed intent on catching them. They almost seemed to be working together, but that made no sense.
“I’ve got a jeep—” Logan said and grabbed her hand to pull her along “—it was parked away from the buildings. Let’s see if it’s still drivable.”
They ran as fast as they could to where his jeep had been parked. It was gone!
“It was right here—” he shook his head and looked behind them “—where’s your car?”
The group of zombies following them was closing in.
“Watch out!” she screamed at him as a zombie came from the other direction.
It jumped on Logan and he was knocked to the frozen ground. He fought to keep it from biting him. Suddenly, it fell limp on his body. He pushed it off him, confused until he saw Sherena, tranquilizer gun still pointed at it. Clearly, the cocktail of drugs did something but they weren’t going to wait around to find out. They hid in the trees.
“How many rounds did we make?” he asked when they finally stopped.
“Six, I think—” she checked the gun she held “—but there are way more than five more of them out there.”
“Besides that—” he eyed her gravely “—we can’t use them.”
“What do you mean”— she panicked —“we can’t use them? Why?”
“Sherena—” he took her by the shoulders and met her eyes “—all of our research is gone. We can’t make more. Think about it. We have to save what we have so that we can duplicate the formula.”
She thought about that.
“We don’t know if it will last—” he hesitated “—what the long term effect will be, but right now, this stuff is the only thing standing between us and a pandemic if they get out.”
She swallowed hard and looked through the trees at the group of zombies searching for them.
“They’re acting as if it’s a coordinated search—” she met his eyes “—does that make sense to you?”
“I—” Logan let out a breath “—no, it doesn’t make sense to me but none of it does. I’m a pathologist and a researcher and this is still way out of my element. The fact that a virus of any kind, could take over a dead body, reanimate it, and use the flesh of its victims to feed—none of it makes any sense.”
She stood there, still as a statue. “You’re right—” she groaned “—we have to save the serum, but if I hadn’t shot that one back there you would be one of them by now.”
“Okay—” he agreed “—we may have to use one or two shots but it can’t be more than that. We have to get out of this town and call the CDC. This is way too big for us to handle.”
“What do you think they will do?—” She asked seriously “—I mean, blowing the whole town didn’t kill them.”
“I doubt they would be able to drive a vehicle—” he looked back to where his jeep had been “—then again…Let’s just say; I hope they can’t drive. If not, they will be stuck in this area…maybe a small nuclear device of some sort.”
“A nuclear bomb—” she scowled “—Logan, do you know what even a small one would do to the environment.”
“Look, it’s not my call but—” he said hesitantly “—can you think of another solution?”
She shook her head. “Maybe they’ll freeze.”
He hadn’t thought about that before, they both had heavy coats on. “Sherena, if we don’t get out of here—” he grabbed her arm almost forcefully “—I don’t know if the zombies will freeze, but we certainly will. There isn’t a building left with any real shelter and the electricity is gone. We have to get out of here before dark.”
They made their way through the trees, trying to avoid the ever-growing number of zombies chasing them. She was right; they were acting as an organized group. She stopped and rubbed her head.
“What’s wrong?” Logan asked.
“I’m not sure—” she shook her head hard “—I feel confused—noises in my head or something.”
“Do you think it’s a side effect of the drugs maybe?” he asked, grasping at straws.
Now was not a good time fo
r her to die on him, again. He wouldn’t have admitted it aloud, but he was scared. That animal had nearly gotten him. If she hadn’t shot it, Logan would be a zombie now, chasing her. He didn’t want to be alone any more than she did.
“I have no idea—” she tried to push off the feeling “—let’s get out of here and get my car, if it wasn’t blown up.”
“Where was it parked?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“In the parking garage under my building,” she said. No doubt, they were thinking the same thing.
There was no way that it had survived the blasts. Still they ran for it. When they found the parking garage, it was, as they had feared. While some of the cars may have survived, the underground entrance had completely caved in.
Besides there lack of transportation, neither had eaten anything and the running was taking its toll. They ran from street to street, looking for a usable vehicle.
Logan stopped so suddenly that Sherena nearly plowed into him. “What is it?” she asked.
He turned to her. “The van!”
She blinked, confused. “What van?”
“The Triogenix van, remember. It was away from the buildings quite far.”
They ran quickly to where it had been. It was intact, and it had keys in the ignition. However, it had been running when they were attacked and it was now completely out of gas.
When she realized that, she said woefully, “What good is a van with no gas?”
“We can’t give up—” he spoke earnestly “—we have a workable vehicle. Maybe the gas station has some…” He stopped when he saw her expression.
“The gas station would be the first to go. Logan, I don’t think we are going to find any gas.” Tears ran down her face.
He pulled the keys from the ignition, on the off chance that the zombies could drive and could find gas. They did seem to be acting in an abnormally organized fashion.
