by Adams, Taeya
Sargent nudged her a bit on the couch. She looked at him. His face looked weak but well enough to survive. “Have hope. If we don’t have faith then we shouldn’t alive. We need to have faith that the future will be okay and that your mother will live.”
Chyler’s blue eyes searched Sargent’s pale Latino face. She then nodded and whispered, “Okay.”
*****
Day Two: March 29th, 2020; 2:27pm
Andrew patrolled the halls with a huge machine gun.
He let out a tiring yawn, getting tired of pacing. He foot kicked something, sending the small thing flying across the hall. He looked around and jogged after it. He picked it up and unscrewed the rectangular canister lid and smelt what was inside.
Whiskey burned his nostrils and watered his mouth. He put the canister to his lips and took a long sip. The strong whiskey burned its way down his throat.
He coughed a bit, spitting out some of the whiskey. After a small coughing fit, he drank more.
The drink seems to have gone more to his head then his stomach.
“Dumb Felix,” He muttered, throwing down the empty canister. He was lightweight and never took alcohol well. “Makin’ me wait ‘til they come back. You know what?” He stopped in the middle of the hall – he was near the elevators. “Felix can kiss my a-,”
He was interrupted by a small and muffled moan. It sounded as if someone covered someone else’s mouth when they were talking.
Instantly and almost naturally, Andrew raised his gun and searched the hall he was in. Nothing was there but he waits. When the noise doesn’t come again, he began pacing the halls again, talking to himself. For some reason, Andrew didn’t hear the soft moans and groans or the elevator doors slowly being forced open.
Andrew turned around and stopped. He was face-to-face with an ugly zombie girl his height. The skin around her nose and mouth was ripped off and showing her muscles and blood. The foul smell of rotting flesh filled his nostrils, suddenly wishing it was the whiskey instead or something alive. Behind the girl was an army of undead, still getting out of the elevator – that was being held open but two undead guys.
Andrew swallowed hard as the undead girl sniffed the air, making the Adam’s apple on his neck bob. He didn’t dare to move a muscle. The undead girl seemed to be a bit blind but she saw his Adam’s apple move.
She let a high pitched scream, spiting blood on his face.
“Oh sh-,” Andrew started but doesn’t finish. The zombie lunged for him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Day Two: March 29th, 2020; 2:28pm
Max scowled as Forres pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket.
“What’s that?” He squinted to see the writing that was barely legible.
Forres stuffed the paper back in her pocket “Do you really want to know?” She asked raising a brow.
Max held up his hands. “Nope.”
Jackus and Felix led the group into Walmart. “Jackus and I’ll check if it’s clear,” Felix said. “Stay put,” He looked more at Forres then anyone.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Forres justified herself and threw up her hands.
“Okay,” Felix said and left with Jackus to check the place out.
It was silent between Buzz, Forres and Max. Max kept looking over to Forres out of the corner of his eyes. She was stealing from a stuff animal machine. How could she ever be-?
He started to think but got cut off by Forres. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Max doesn’t know she was taking to him until she looked over at him. He pointed to himself and she gave a small nod. “Oh?” He raised a brow. She’s onto you! The voice in his head sung like a bird.
“Yeah. You’re wondering how someone like me survived this long,” She stated and jumped from the machine with a stuff dog in her hands. “I’m bound to die soon and everyone knows it.”
“That’s not at all what I‘m thinking about you,” Max shook his head.
“Yeah, right.”
*****
Day Two: March 29th, 2020; 2:32pm
Felix came back and they all split up.
Forres goes with Buzz and Felix.
“Why are we doing this?” Buzz asked out of the blue as they were walking to the tanks; Felix leading the way.
That snapped Forres out of the daze. “What?”
Before Forres could say anymore, Buzz turned to her and hit her with the back of his riffle. Buzz turned to Felix as Forres fell to the ground, unconscious a bit. “I hate her,” Buzz simply explained. Felix stared at him like he was crazy which Buzz looked a bit of. “The battle isn’t over. We still have a chance out of the dome but what we are doing for these people is suicide.”
“No one is holding you back. You can leave,” Felix said, not daring to move. “But I’m staying. Do you know what would happen to these people if we don’t help? She,” he pointed to the girl on the floor. “Will die and her blood will be on our hands if we don’t help.”
“Shut up!” Buzz yelled. “You’re one of the people who could help me get out of the dome. You will help.”
Felix raised his hands in the air. “Nope you’ll have to kill me.”
Buzz growled and pointed the gun at Forres. “I’ll just kill her…,” Felix bit his lip and reluctantly agrees. Buzz smirked. “Now let’s leave before Max and Jackus comes.”
“We can’t leave her. It’ll be like killing her,” Felix said.
Buzz sighed and turned to Forres.
She was gone.
“Where did-?” Buzz started but Felix swung at him. His fist almost hit him but Buzz was faster than him. Buzz grabbed Felix’s hand and twisted it around Felix’s own neck and held it. “You should have obeyed me. Now I’ll kill Forres and the others. I’ll make sure they die slowly because of you.”
“Your mother must be proud of what you are doing right now. Killing innocent people,” Felix said. He had to bend backwards because Buzz was a bit short.
“Shut up,” Buzz growled.
“Your momma’s so fat,” Buzz tightened Felix’s arm around his neck. Felix choked a bit and laughed. “Too soon?”
Buzz kicked Felix in the back of the knee putting his down to them. He then put the gun to Felix’s head. “That’s it,” Buzz said. “You just cost you your life!”
Before Buzz could pull the trigger, Felix said, “Wait don’t I get any last words or something?”
Buzz rolled his eyes. “What is it?”
“Just tell the others…,” Felix started, looking over. “To shoot you in the face because you’re lucky I couldn’t.”
Buzz put his finger back on the trigger. “Have fun in hell.”
“Oh will do. I’ll tell your mom you said hi.” Felix smirked.
Buzz tightened his jaw and squeezed the trigger.
Bang!
Chapter Thirty-Five
Day Two: March 29th, 2020; 2:30 pm
Chyler shot up, hearing bangs and screams then silence.
She looked over at Sargent. Fear filled Sargent’s eyes as she crept to the door. He silently tried to stop her but it was too late.
Chyler slowly walked to the close door then got on her knees. She peered under the door.
“See anything?” Thaddeus whispered to her.
“No…,” She whispered back.
“Then get back over here. Stay quiet; they don’t know we are in here,” Sargent stated, motioning for her to come over to him.
She was about to pull back, away from the door.
A bloody face popped out from under the crack of the door.
Chyler opened her mouth to gasp but froze.
White pure eyes, as white as snow in winter, stared into Chyler sky blue eyes. She couldn’t tell if the white eyes were staring at her; they had no pupils, yet she doesn’t dare to move.
“Chyler,” Sargent whispered as the door handle started to jiggle. “Get back here,” But Chyler was still as if she was a status. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t think; she couldn’t b
reathe.
The door opened with a small pop.
Chyler slowly backed up to avoid getting hit by the door or to get away from it.
It was silent; no one breathes. So silent that if a pin was to drop, you would hear it, loud and clear. Slowly the door opened to show a pale, bloody figure with an army of undead, staring at them.
Sargent swallowed hard as he whispered, barley moving his lip. “Chyler, Bowie… run to the other room… One…”
The “head” zombie tilted her head to the side like a lost dog.
“Two…”
She snapped her eyes to Sargent as if she heard him. Her pure white eyes stopped his heart for a second. They seem to see him inside out, into his heart really as if she could hear it.
“THREE!” Sargent screamed as the “head” zombie let out a battle cry. Chyler scrambled to her feet with the help of Sargent. Chyler led the group into the hall of the suite and Sargent and Thaddeus scrambled behind him. The army of undead close behind them.
Chyler and Sargent entered the room that Felix slept in.
Just as Thaddeus crossed the threshold of the room, a zombie grabbed his dark skinned arm and stuck its rotten teeth into it.
Thaddeus’s pained scream shuttered through Sargent’s body. Sargent broke as if he was glass and Thaddeus put his fist or foot through him. Sargent took out a gun and shot the zombie that had Thaddeus’s arm and killed a row so he and Chyler could close the door. Every bullet Sargent shot at hit the zombies’ right between the eyes. Chyler locked the door as if that would help and helped him push a dress in front of the door.
Thaddeus stared at his wound as the zombie’s blood oozes with his. He felt weak, dirty and he had to clean the wound. He rushed to the bathroom in the room and started scrubbing the blood out of his wound.
Sargent leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom. He could see terror in Thaddeus’s eyes, something he grown to get used to over his lifetime.
Thaddeus gave up facing the facts. He sat on the toilet, drying his wound. “I’m going to turn… turn into one of those things, aren’t I?”
Sargent looked away when Thaddeus looked at him. Tears fill the guy’s eyes and Sargent cursed himself for having so much emotions.
Chyler stepped in. “Not if we could help it… Where’s Rayne?”
“Probably dead like I’ll be…,” Thaddeus cried.
“Shut up!” Chyler barked. “You aren’t going to die. We can give you medication for that wound and we’ll clean it.”
Thaddeus laughed. “I wish it was that simple…”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Day Two: March 29th, 2020; 2:35 pm
Buzz’s body fell limp to the ground.
But before he did; he turned half way – following the sound of were the bullet came from – and shot, blindly. Buzz goes down; a bullet had pierced his cold heart.
Zander came over, stepping over Buzz’s lifeless body. “You okay, Felix?” He held open his hand for Felix.
Felix patted down his body to make sure he wasn’t dead. He nodded, exhaled and took Zander’s open hand and got up.
“Guys?” Bex – who looked down ever isle with a long sword she had found – said to the others.
Felix frowned looking at knocked out Dean who was on Austin’s shoulders.
“Guys!?” Bex said a little bit louder.
Felix led the way over and saw what Bex was talking about.
Jackus was lying in a pool of her own blood. Her green eyes were closed and her rusty colored hair wild with dark blood in it. Her chest was still.
“Buzz’s bullet hit her,” Forres sniffed. She was kneeling in the puddle of blood. “She took a bullet for me…,” Max was behind her not looking at the sight of Jackus. Forres stood with a red blood stuck on her knees. “Such a stupid thing to do for me…” She muttered not looking at the others. “I should be the one dead, not her.”
Felix knelt down next to Jackus’s lifeless body. He just now noticed something and wonders why he didn’t notice before. A small diamond ring sat a necklace around her neck, proudly. “You were married? To who?” Felix muttered to himself. He reached, slowly, into Jackus’s pocket and pulled out her wallet. Ignoring the cash and credit cards, he found a picture of Jackus with a brown haired guy, both smiling and holding hands. Felix flipped to the next picture in the wallet and saw the guy walking on the beach, hand up as if he didn’t want a picture, yet he had a smile. The next picture made Felix scowl. “Eleanor, what is this?”
Eleanor looked at the picture. “An ultra sound of a baby. A month or so… Why? Where’d you get that?”
“It’s Jackus’s… She was pregnant…”
Forres breathed in through her clutched teeth. She felt sick.
“Why would she get an ultra-sound this early? Doesn’t the baby have to be ten weeks to 13 weeks or something?” Felix asked.
“It depends on how your pregnancy is going. If the mother had previous bleedings or miscarriages, the doctor will recommend an early ultra sound,” Eleanor explained. “Why are you so interested?”
“See this man?” Felix showed her the picture of Jackus’s husband. “He was married to Jackus and he has the right to know his wife is dead. I am going to find him even if it kills me.”
Just as Felix finished his sentence, a low growl came and the group turned to the noise. Buzz had rose and was hungry.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Day Two: March 29th, 2020; 2:33 pm
“What do you mean?” Sargent asked.
Thaddeus took a deep breath before talking again. “My friend was one of the doctors that were on call on the day that earth went to crap. He called me when he was bit and told me there was no cure. No mattered what they did, the infect spread. No medication, no amputations were going to work. The sad part is I believed I could find a cure,” Thaddeus looked down.
Sargent pat his friend’s back. “We need to go.”
“No, I’m going to turn. I’ll slow you down; you guys can go.”
“No man gets left behind,” Sargent stated. He wasn’t going to leave wounded Thaddeus here alone. “Just come until you…,” his voice broke off. “Let’s just go…”
“Where to?” Chyler asked just as the top of the door starts to break.
Sargent goes out of the bathroom and looked around the bathroom. He lisped, “The windows.”
*****
Day Two: March 29th, 2020; 2:35 pm
“This not how I pictured I would die.” Chyler said.
She climbed onto the ledge after Thaddeus. Sargent was last and he closed the window, like it would help. “Same,” Thaddeus agreed as he inched across the ledge.
“Oh Dear God,” Chyler started to pray. “Please don’t let us die…,”
“Shut up!” Sargent barked, afraid of heights himself. “No one is going to die, today!!”
Thaddeus interrupted the agreement. “Except for me. I’m the one who will turn, not you guys. I should be scared, not you guys.”
“You’re not scared?”
“No. Everyone dies at one point,” Thaddeus lied. “I just am going to die and then come back in a few minutes.” Thaddeus stopped, thinking.
Chyler stopped beside him. “Why did you stop?”
“All my life, I was perfect. Went to school and got good grades, barely had friends,” Thaddeus started. “As a doctor, we could barely have fun. We could have but I had to work a lot: learn new surgeries, fill out papers…”
“What are you talking about Thaddeus,” Sargent asked sounded a bit of a muffled snake. His chest was heaving pretty fast. Sweat pouring from his forehead.
“I regret my life,” Thaddeus explained. “I regret not telling my crush that I like her even though she had a boyfriend. I regret not having fun. I regret not telling my parents I loved them instead of telling them I was too busy. I regret it all. And right now with my last few breaths, that’s it all I can think about. I was so obsessed with being perfect that I forgot to have fun… I hated my lif
e. I hated being a doctor. It’s not the type of job for me. I wanted to be a professional coach for NBA or NFL, not a freaking surgeon.”
“Then why did you do it?” Chyler asked.
“To make my parents proud to call me their son. I did it for them not me. I thought I could please them while I had fun but I never had fun. I always was unhappy and had a lot of thoughts.”
Chyler swallowed, scared to ask what kind of thoughts. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Life is stupid. Living was already heavy and God had to add more weight to it,” Thaddeus looked up to the sky. “What? Hell didn’t have enough room?”
“Thaddeus think about this,” Sargent suggested.
Thaddeus chuckled. “I have. All my life. It was hard and the pain was infinite. So now I’ll let go,” He stepped off the ledge.
Chyler reached after him but Sargent grabbed her before they both would go off the ledge. Her sky blue eyes widen as Thaddeus’s body hit a car below, setting off the alarm.
“Go in the next window,” Sargent choked out.
Chyler listened and climbed into the next window, carefully. A gun was put to their heads as they got in the window.
Sargent let out a dirty curse word…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Day Two: March 29th, 2020; 2:38 pm
A sword – Bex’s sword – flew past all their heads and into undead Buzz’s head.
As the sword went into Buzz’s head, it made horrible, wicked cracking noise. His head whipped back, snapping his spine at the speed the sword was going, which also made a wicked cracking noise. Blood and brains flew.
Forres’s weak stomach churn and she almost vomited. The others run over to Buzz as Forres tries to hold her breakfast down. She bends over a bit and takes deep breaths.
Undead Jackus opened her pure white eyes and quickly grabbed Forres.
Forres let out a scream as she fell near Jackus, in the pool of blood.
Jackus gripped the fighting sick girl and somehow managed to strangle on top of her. Jackus let out a loud growl as she began to snap at Forres.
