I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]
Page 42
“Bethany is right,” Jean said, kneeling down beside me to offer a hand in getting Mikka to a room and onto a bed.
“What the fuck is going on? That man is infected – he’ll turn into one of them any time. We have to kill him before it’s too late.” Zander was standing in the hall, gun in hand, yelling angrily at me.
“I’m assuming you didn’t read Jacob’s book. No? I thought not. Jacob was infected just like so many millions of people on the planet, only Jacob didn’t immediately turn into a zombie, he flipped back and forth. He did this for a couple of weeks until he finally transformed and…well…that’s enough of that.” I had to choke back the tears that threatened to break the dams of my tear ducts.
“What does that have to do with this thing?” Zander hissed.
“This thing has a name. Mikka is showing the same signs as Jacob, which means we can treat him with the vaccination at the earliest stages.
Jean and I managed to get Mikka into a bed, and Jean returned to my side with the vaccination.
“Mikka, can you hear me? It’s Jean. You’ve been infected, but I’m going to give you a vaccination that should stop the amplification,” Jean said ever so softly, his hand cradling Mikka’s head for added comfort. “This might hurt a bit. The vaccination must be given fairly deeply,” Jean warned Mikka just before plunging the needle to the hilt.
Mikka’s head jerked back and forth as he gnashed his teeth to near shattering. When Jean pulled out the needle, everything instantly dropped to a calm that hopefully didn’t signal an undead storm.
“Doctor…I feel –” Mikka tried to speak, but the effect of the sedative within the vaccination was already hitting him like the softest pillow and warmest bed.
It was obvious what had happened to Mikka and Michelle’s wailing made me well aware she knew what it all meant. But hopefully what it meant was the vaccine now had the perfect opportunity to prove itself. It would take some time, but fortunately time was not in short supply. Food, on the other hand…
I hesitated briefly, wondering if we should strap Mikka to the bed. Ultimately I realized it would do more harm to Michelle’s morale, so I decided against it. I turned to Michelle, whose hands were covering her mouth to hold back the onslaught of sobs that threatened to break through. There is no quicker route to madness than seeing a loved one near death. That moment of feeling left behind, alone, stops your heart and caves in your soul. I ran to Michelle, wrapped my arms around her, and held her until her sobs subsided.
When the woman pulled away our eyes met and shared something I had never shared with anyone before – a mutual understanding of loss. It was like every emotion seeped out of my skin and intermingled with Michelle’s. The end result of that emotional mingling was a connection I had never shared with another human female. I now felt I had a sister of the soul. I felt, for just a moment, whole. I know I wouldn’t feel this way had it not been for Sally. Her life, and ultimately her death, made me realize how important real connection was.
After the moment finally passed, it was time to drag Zander to wherever his sanctuary was and raid the pantry. Zander was hesitant at first, but eventually warmed up to the idea of saving our asses. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the why Zander was so hesitant to share his stash. What purpose would it serve, unless he planned on someday soon being alone again? As the thought crossed my mind, I looked over to the ragged man. He looked like he belonged on the streets of New York – homeless and dirty. If you allowed your eyes to linger long enough, a cold fear settled over your mind, making you want to turn and run. There was just something about the man…
Zander stopped in front of a door and hesitated – almost as if trying to remember if he’d tidied up when he last left, not wanting to embarrass himself in front of a strange woman.
“Well? What’s the holdup?” I urged the hesitant man on, trying to add a bit of playfulness into the mix. From the look on Zander’s face, it didn’t work; he just continued staring ahead at a door standing sentinel between me and my next meal.
I reached out to grab the door handle and my accomplice took my wrist in his hand. Very slowly and gently Zander lowered my hand back down to my side and held it there for a moment. Things were taking a turn for the creepy.
As if living among a world of zombies could get any creepier.
Finally Zander reached out, grabbed the door handle, and slowly depressed the button. The click of the latch seemed to echo through the hall as if this were the last moment before the horror-movie starlets were about to either get axed, knifed, or sucked into a nightmare full of hate. The final scene. The final countdown.
The door creaked open and we were surprisingly met with…nothing. All of that build-up and no climax. What a shame. Reminds me of a few dates I’ve had.
“Why are you being so odd about this?” I turned to the creepster looming behind me and spoke my mind.
Instead of answering me, Zander turned and gave me the international sign for ‘shhh’. I felt like a misbehaving child. And then, without words, he indicated for me to stay put. I started to protest but he quickly silenced me with a hand to my mouth that was a bit too aggressive. I let him go into the room alone, without further complaint. At some point the man will have to explain himself. Whatever was on the other side of this secret door would, at some point, be revealed.
And just then, before I could speculate further, the door swung open and Zander looked at me as if I were crazy.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” Mr. Creeps said with an incredulity that made me want slap the skin off his face.
“For you to invite me in.” My reply carried only a fraction of the frustration I was feeling.
“What, are you a vampire now? I thought we were dealing with zombies,” Zander laughed. So now it was fun time? Mr. Creepy safely tucked away the remains of his last victims and his copies of Serial Killer Weekly and he was ready to entertain?
All I wanted was a fragment of the time that resembled normalcy. That wish, it seemed, would forever go unanswered. So, instead of bitch-slapping him, I decided to let it all slide. This incident would not be forgotten. At some point this man’s testicles would be under my shoe and he would answer my questions. All of them.
Note to self: Locate a pair of three-inch stilettos asap.
“Where’s the food?” I swung the backpack around my shoulder in preparation for the loading.
“You can forget the backpack,” Zander said as he exited the room. This was the moment of truth. Any second Zander would do his best Ed Gien, Jr. impersonation and swing around the door frame with a garrote or K-Bar to snuff out my life. What despicable act would follow? Thankfully, I wouldn’t be alive to know.
“I have everything taken care of.” My disembodied killer’s voice had a strange squeaking undertone. Before my mind could wrap itself around the strangest of possibilities, Zander came back into the room pushing a hand truck loaded with boxes. In the boxes? Food of all sorts. At that instant I forgot every creepy second prior. All I could think about was digging into the boxes of delights. I wanted to fall face-first into the stacked boxes and eat myself directly into a food-induced coma – consequences and fat intake be damned! And just when I thought everything was about to look up, I realized there was something about the room that begged me to give it pause. This something would have gone totally unnoticed by the casual eye. But to someone well acquainted with all matters security and paranoia, not all was as it seemed.
The first tip-off was the surveillance gear. Taken as individual pieces (as they were scattered about the room) they meant little. But as a whole they combined to serve a complete government-issue surveillance kit. Shotgun mics, flexible telescopic cameras, night-vision goggles, monitors, a laptop running fairly sophisticated sniffing tools, lock picks, goggles, you name it. Zander had a full arsenal of equipment with one purpose – spying.
“What’s going on here?” The words tripped out from my mouth before I could prevent them from blowing my cover of i
gnorance.
“I don’t understand. What’s going on where?”
What else could I expect, but the innocence card lamely played by a man most willing to snap my spine – and with the knowledge to do just that.
“The equipment. Who were you spying on? Us?” I dove into unknown, frighteningly cold waters. This confrontation probably should have been postponed until I had some sort of backup, like Gunther and Jean, or at least a weapon.
“All of this was here when I arrived,” Zander said, really working the ignorance angle. He was trying hard, but I wasn’t buying it.
“None of this equipment would be found in a hospital, not even an Army hospital. Not like this.” I stood my ground as well. “Besides, this room is a standard hospital bedroom, not an official government intelligence hub.”
All of a sudden it seemed the air was removed from the room. Zander stood, motionless, not even breathing. This could easily turn inside out on me. Whatever was going on, I had to make sure this man remained on our side. My instincts were insisting I be afraid, my brain and body refusing to comply.
“I can see the sweat on your lip. You’re afraid of me? Of what you see here? Are you starting to think it was a mistake trusting me in the first place?” Zander remained motionless, showing no emotion, no fear. “Here’s what we’re going to do; we’re going to take these supplies to the group and you are going to forget what you saw in here.”
“And if I refuse to forget?”
That was not a question Zander was prepared to answer…at least not with words. Instead, I heard the familiar warning of a gun hammer being cocked.
“What do you want?” I asked shakily. This is not the sort of situation I thrived in.
“I just told you what I wanted. I want you to forget what you have seen here. Trust me, it’s for your own good.”
“Just tell me what is going on!” I screamed. I hadn’t intended to do so, but fear had a grip on my heart so tight I thought I would stroke-out at any moment.
Another stiff silence blanketed the room. Air was forced out of my lungs as I held back frightened sobs. I refused to let this man know just how scared I really was. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of knowing he might well have the upper hand on me.
“The government agency that funded the virus has been tracking you. I discovered this room when I first hid from the zombies. I listened to every word that came across that equipment. Echo Beta was the name you were given to keep anyone from knowing what was going on. It took a while to figure that one out.” Zander took in a deep breath before continuing on, “They know you are in Paris and I’m sure they know you are in this hospital.”
Zander’s words hit me in the gut. As if it weren’t bad enough to be living in fear of the undead, now we have a rogue government agency after us. But why?
“Why do they care about us?”
“They know you are close to creating a vaccine and want to make sure you don’t succeed.”
I couldn’t believe the words, much less the very idea of the words. Why would anyone want to prevent this virus from being cured?
“You have no idea what’s going on do you?” The realization washed over both Zander and myself at the same time. What should have been glaringly obvious had completely passed me by. I had been so busy keeping a small group of innocent bystanders safe that I had missed one very crucial fact – a governing body, powerful enough to bring about a near cataclysmic end to the word was still in power and, most likely, hunting us down.
We were in far more danger than we thought. And the most horrific reality was that we had to leave this hospital.
“Come on,” I grabbed Zander and started to take off.
“What are you doing?” Zander stopped me from bolting the room.
“We have to find somewhere else, somewhere safe. Whoever they are, they’re probably planning on bringing us in, taking us down, or whatever people with that much power do.” Panic was flooding my system. This moment had haunted my dreams for years – being discovered by the wrong people, being brought down by a system I tried so hard to fight for so long.
Zander held my arm tight, concern spreading over his face, his eyes narrowed slightly and his lips pursed. “Bethany, it’s too late. There’s no way out of here.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve already initiated their plan. They’ve been somehow corralling zombies into Paris with the intention of surrounding this hospital. You wouldn’t have even known it was a planned, directed attack. We would be overrun with the undead and eventually fall victim to their sheer numbers. There is nothing we can do,” Zander said with a too-quiet confidence.
“You’re wrong. There is always something we can do. There is always a solution that goes overlooked. And if Occam’s Razor has anything to do with it, the solution will be a simple one.” My voice was firm, resolute. “Are you with me, or not?”
I hoped Zander’s answer would be ‘yes’. We needed every able body we could get. The thinner our numbers, the less likely our survival.
“Yes. I am, Bethany.” Zander flashed the subtlest of smiles. “Now, let’s get this food to the group and come up with a plan.”
When we arrived back at Susan’s room, I was surprised to find everyone but Jean asleep. It seemed Mikka was okay…for the moment. Jean had given him the vaccination earlier and the effects of the sedative were in full force. Susan was sleeping peacefully in the bed next to Mikka, and was doing well. How well we didn’t know, but there had been no sign of amplification. Dare we hope that the vaccination was a success?
Michelle was attempting to sleep in a chair that was pressed up against the side of Mikka’s bed. Her attempt to sleep was in vain, a common thread among the chaos of the day. Sleep was as elusive as food.
I decided it would be best to share the news in the morning. It had been one hell of a rough day and we all needed the rest. It looks like tomorrow would be a new, yet frighteningly familiar day.
I realized, at this point, the group hoping to circumvent our attempts at curing the world was probably clinging to my every word. That being the case, know this:
You will not succeed.
If you find us, we will fight you.
Blog Entry 12/12/2015 9:11 a.m
Sleep was a commodity I couldn’t seem to purchase last night. I wasn’t one hundred percent positive, but it seems there was something not to trust about the moment shared with Zander. Yes, he gave me a reasonable explanation…but something about it didn’t feel right. Can the man be trusted? Is it possible his story was a lie and there is some other motive for getting us out of the hospital?
Yes, it is possible. However, as in every scenario, there are always multiple angles from which to view the same situation. And ultimately, the single most important angle is the safety of the group for which fate (or happenstance, I really can’t be sure) has deemed me leader.
And with that in mind, I woke knowing, with ninety or so percent assurance, that we have to abandon the hospital. The thought makes me want to race to the nearest bathroom, stick my head in an empty toilet, and vomit up every last ounce of hope I have. After all, this hospital was the first safe haven I’ve had since the installation in Munich. Unfortunately it seems this story is playing out in a similar fashion.
That is, of course, superfluous at the moment. What is immediate (and somewhat overwhelming) is the necessity to prepare everyone for travel. That necessity has a further question – Where will we go? What is safe? If Zander’s story is true (and we currently have no reason to believe otherwise) the city should now be swarming with zombies, so the streets are no longer an option. That leaves but one other route – the sewers.
Our immediate evacuation is further complicated by one small issue…we have two patients, neither of which are in the best shape for travel. We can get a gurney down into the sewers, but at what cost? Silence? Mobility?
I had to let everyone know and get a full assessment of our ability to bug the fuck out.
“Yes, Bethany? What is it?”
I glanced over in Zander’s direction and saw he was still sound asleep, his rumbling snore a dead giveaway. I motioned for the doctor to follow me into the hall. Jean’s eyes bore a look of concern as he silently nodded. Secrecy wasn’t the norm among our little group of weary travellers.
The door whispered shut behind us.
“What is it, Bethany?” Jean’s voice rose just above barely audible.
“We have to leave the hospital and I need to know if both Susan and Mikka can be moved.” I knew a full explanation was forthcoming, but I wanted the most important question out in the open right away.
“What’s going on? Why do we have to leave? You know we wouldn’t stand a chance on the street…it practically beckons for our deaths. We would –”
“Jean, I have reason to believe the group that set this virus loose knows we may have found a cure and wants to stop us.” I hated to interrupt Jean, but our situation called for efficiency and a swift change of plans. Judging by the look on Jean’s face he understood full well the gravity of the situation.
“If we can make it into the sewers we can travel through the city and locate a safe location where they can’t find us.” I cradled Jean’s face in my hands to make sure he was still with me and receiving my instructions.
“Sewers? How are we to travel the sewers?” I wasn’t sure if Jean was perplexed or disgusted with the idea.
“That’s how Michelle, Gunther, and I returned. It’s our only chance of traveling safely. The zombies have yet to figure out there is an entire grid of tunnels underground that traverse the city. It stinks of shit, it’s damp, and it’s cold, but it’s free of moaners and screamers. The big question is, can Susan and Mikka travel?”