by A. Giacomi
“What is it, Cameron? What has you so wound up?”
He shakes his head as if trying to shake a memory loose. “I’m not sure, I just feel…sad. I don’t feel an ounce of happiness in these walls. My father, you said losing him was no great loss. Why was that?”
I turn away from Cameron, unsure if my honesty would help or hinder his memory recall. I decide it couldn’t hurt and begin to explain how his father became quite the disappointment after Cam’s mother died. Henry had stopped functioning, had started drinking, and basically had stopped living. It was a sad tale to tell, but it was his to know. Cameron finds an armchair in the living room to rest in. He stares out the window as he tries to absorb the information, with the wheels in his head turning, I take the opportunity to seek out some family photos; pictures would surely help bring his memory back full force. I check the bedrooms first and find a few small family photos, but the one that strikes me as the most beautiful is one of Cameron’s mother holding small Cameron. She looked so angelic as she looked down at her new baby boy, almost as if she was protecting him with an aura of light that beamed from her grin. This picture would surely work, I thought to myself, mother’s had a way of making people emotional, and if I was right about my instincts, emotions were what Cameron’s lost memories were tied to.
“I remember her,” he says, choking the words out. “I think I remember her voice. She died in a car accident…I remember that.”
Nodding, I place my hand on the clearly distraught Cameron’s shoulder. His mother had been the ticket; he wouldn’t have forgotten her, who could forget their mother of all people? There was this innate connection with the woman who bore you, a connection that would never leave us.
“Do you remember anything else, Cameron?” I wait patiently as I watch Cameron search his thoughts.
“A girl…a blonde, she’s with Eve. I can’t recall her name.”
I tell Cameron not to push it, the memories would come back on their own, and right now we needed to get to Eve’s house. The only way I would get him to agree to be sacrificed would be if he remembered Eve, true love always made men noble, and Cam was just that, or at least he wanted to be that knight in shining armor who saved the day. He was such a sweet innocent man, so unlike myself that it made me feel guilty for ever thinking I could take his place in Eve’s life. Clearly he was the better choice, but there was no choice to be had, was there? We would all be dead soon enough. No happily ever after’s here.
***
When we arrive at Eve’s house, the voices begin again in my head. One of them belonging to the Dark King who wanted me to clinch the deal already. Cam notices my lack of focus, it begins to make him uneasy which is the last thing I needed. I tell the voices to “shut up” as Cameron decides to take a tour of the house. He stops at the top of the stairs, frozen in what looks like grief. He stares down from the top of the stairs to where I stand in the living room.
“We were taken from here. That was the last place I saw Mr. Brenner, right there in that living room.”
His melancholy glance quickly becomes a scowl as he looks upon my face.
“You did this, you had him killed and took us hostage.”
The anger in him is rising, making me hungry as a result. Fear and rage made zombies’ cravings heighten and right now Cameron looked like a bacon wrapped steak. I had to talk him down, if I were to get anywhere with him he would need to be calm.
It took much control to carry on without attacking him. “Cameron, I had nothing to do with this incident. It was CSIS, they had orders to take Eve in, and anyone who got in their way would be eliminated, simple as that, nothing personal.”
“It felt personal,” Cameron says bitterly. “I may not remember everything, but I know in my gut you’re not innocent in all of this!”
I hang my head. “No I’m not, you’re very right. I have done things I regret, but we do have one thing in common that is more pressing than you pointing fingers, Cameron. You see Eve is someone I care very deeply for…as do you I presume. Do you remember her now?”
Cameron makes his way back down the stairs. “Yes of course I do. I remember our first kiss, the first day I met her. I remember her quirks, how she took care of me, and I remember when I lost her to that virus.”
I could tell that this memory wounded him more than that of his mother’s passing. Eve had been present if he had needed her and for that Cameron would always be grateful.
“Cameron, I need you to listen to me. If you truly care about her, you’ll stop her from trying to save you. She can’t help herself, she wants to keep you alive, and who wouldn’t want to keep their loved ones alive? It’s only logical, but in this case, her love for you makes her weak. If she saves you, everyone else dies, but if you die, everyone else lives.”
Cameron stares at me in deep confusion. “I need to die?” he says in a puzzled tone. “But why? How the hell is that going to help anyone?”
Now was the time to sell my pitch, it was now or never I suppose. “Listen, Cameron, you are a sort of key to breaking the spell. The zombies are here because the Dark King screwed up so many years ago, the only way to end his curse is to spill the blood of the innocent, and it has to be voluntary.”
Cam holds his thoughts as I ramble on about the Dark King’s poor choice to make a deal with the devil. The deal resulted in many years of safety for his people, but it was short lived once people became jealous and fearful of his power. Surrounding cities decided to attack, and they were able to shatter the Eye of Ra, the source of all the King’s power. The stones traveled from there via the thieves hands, but what was worse was the carnage. The Dark King lost an entire city, all his people dead, and who comes to call then when all hope is lost? Satan himself ready to collect his stone, a stone that the Dark King no longer possessed. Of course, the devil knew this and found this to be the best time to act, for he was a tricky bastard. When the Dark King could not provide the stone, the devil turned him into a monster, the living dead, and he fed upon his true love’s heart.
I feel a twinge in my chest as the Dark King recalls the awful memory, he was a part of me now and I suppose I could even feel his pain. He just wanted to end this. A heart was all it took to silence the Lord of the Underworld, but it had to be a pure heart, a willing heart.
“Cameron your sacrifice would silence him once more. He doesn’t want us to succeed, as you can see, Satan enjoys a little chaos and he won’t give that up freely. You could save so many, the dead would rest again. Think about it, Cameron, it’s not a virus at all, it’s a curse! This damn curse would be lifted if you would only save us!”
Cam looks at me in a stunned fashion. He had not expected to be anyone’s savior, but being presented with this new role definitely appealed to him since he hesitated to simply say, “No.”
After a few more thought filled moments Cam finally replies, “What if Eve shows up and tries to stop us? Then what?”
A smirk that can’t be viewed comes across my face, under my surgical mask. He was, in a way, saying yes to my proposition.
“If Eve comes, you need to tell her the truth, that this is the only way to stop him. If you don’t do this, so many others will die, so many others will suffer.”
Cam closes his eyes and nods. “Okay then, I don’t need much more convincing. I do hate that I will never see her again. I just wish I had a way to say goodbye.”
Picking up a pen and piece of paper from the kitchen counter I ask him to write his farewell’s and I promise to get the letter to Eve after his passing. This was the only way Cameron could have some closure. He needed to get his head on straight before our mission, and writing was always known to be great therapy.
Cameron disappears into another room with pen and paper in hand, now was not the time to relax, soon there would be plenty of time to rest, an eternal rest that is.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DR.
AUGUST
“Agent Murray, what brings you here?”
I address her formally which immediately has her raising an eyebrow. We had been casual until now, I would even feign to say friendly, but that was clearly over now. It might have all been a ruse to have me follow her here with the child in tow. As she draws nearer I can feel the ice between us. Rachel glares at her as she holds Abeni tight to her.
Mina clears her throat. “I’m here to bring you to a requested meeting. The Prime Minister has some important information to share.”
Her tone betrays her, it barely seems as though she believed it. It was as though she were reading a script or being fed her words.
Glancing nervously at Rachel who shakes her head in disapproval I decide to have us follow Mina. I knew this was a poor choice, but which other did I have? If we refused she would become aware of our distrust of her and our dear Prime Minister, or perhaps we would have been forced to move against our will. Preferring to play it safe I follow her out the door, signaling that Rachel should do the same. She continues to shake her head, this time in a more furious fashion mouthing the words, “No!”
Mina notices her hesitation, asking, “What’s wrong, dear?”
“Oh nothing, we were just saying goodbye to Dr. August for now. You see it’s time for Abeni’s nap.”
It’s now Mina’s turn to shake her head. “No dear, that’s fine, she can sleep during the meeting. The Prime Minister requested both of you to be present.”
How convenient, I thought to myself. Of course this all meant we were to be separated. I could see the glare becoming more and more heated between Mina and Rachel.
The tension is broken when Rachel utters, “Fine! Just let me gather a few of Abeni’s things and we’ll be off.” Rachel even manages to muster a smile.
Slowly she places Abeni on the bed and begins to dig into one of her night table’s drawers for a few things. She grabs some diapers, some cream, some wipes, and places them on the bed next to Abeni. She continues to rummage around some more and when she finally turns a gun can be seen pointing directly at Mina, where she had found the darn thing, I had no idea. Rachel holds it firmly, not a single tremble in her able hands. Before Mina can talk her down a bullet blasts through her left eye and exits the back of her skull leaving a large spattering of brains and blood on the wall behind her.
Mina drops to the ground. I watch as the blood pools, lost in its flowing river. I could barely register what had just happened when Rachel throws a bag over my shoulder and Abeni into my arms. She continues to hold the gun as she pushes me out the door.
“Run!” she yells at me who still stares stunned in the halls.
“We need to move, Dr. August. It won’t take them long to come looking for her, so think, where do we go next?”
Trying to snap out of my stupor I stumble as I try to jog in a straight line. Think, think Walther, I say to myself as I scan my mind for blueprints of the last facility I was in. This one couldn’t be too different. Rapidly trying to trace my steps, I stumble at each turn, Rachel tries to keep up, gun pointed and eyes peeled for any unwanted company. To our advantage, the halls were fairly empty around dinner time.
The route I had planned in my mind took me to a very familiar place, elevators to the entry pad. The only difference was that these elevators needed a security code to function. Rather than attempt a code, Rachel asks me to “stand back” as she fires a shot at one of the control panels. The elevator doors slide open as Rachel takes a brief bow.
“Well done, my dear,” I say with a grin. She had proven to be a most useful companion in all of this.
Glancing at the floors, I notice that there are a few levels above the entry pad. The top one said, “Outer Gates”. My instincts tell me to go with it, the entry pad would be heavily guarded since it held a number of expensive cars for Agent use, so the Outer Gates had to be our best bet. Sweat begins to bead at my hairline as Abeni begins to whine, she was clearly hungry and unaware of our current dilemma. I try to shush her as we begin to rise, but she only grows more furious.
When the elevator doors open, I can smell the fresh night air. To my relief, we were above ground, but surely there would be guards? Rachel asks me to stay behind her as she scans the area for military, or any other personnel that may be watching this post.
We see no one, we hear no one, but how could such a grand facility remain unprotected? The answer comes quickly as I listen through the blowing breeze. The dead moaned nearby. It wasn’t safe to be outside anymore. It seems the zombies had found their way to Ottawa and the only safe place had been underground.
Rachel’s eyes grow wide as she looks down at her gun. “I’m afraid I don’t have enough ammo for that that, Dr. August.”
“Don’t worry about that, let’s just keep moving.”
It didn’t matter, we would still need to make a break for it. What choice did we have? There was no going back into the facility, so taking our chances amongst the dead was the only option left to us. I start to rush off ahead but halt when a shot fills the air. Thinking it’s Rachel firing at guards that had caught up with us, I begin to sprint away from the sound, but I soon understand that Rachel isn’t following behind us.
When I turn to look, I see Rachel collapse to the ground onto her knees, she’s still alive but immobile. “Go!” she gurgles to me. It’s all she has time to say before the second blast takes her down for good. Rachel lays still in the grass, I know then that it’s over, we would never see one another again. Abeni had lost a guardian and I was all that was left to her once more. Pushing back my sorrow I continue to race forward as fast as my legs will carry me. I needed to put some distance between myself and the facility. The guards would check Rachel’s body first, they might not even have known that we were with her.
I utter one last, “Thank you,” to Rachel under my breath as I continue my labored jog. She had truly saved us both and I would never have a chance to officially thank her now. I could only pray that she could hear me wherever her soul went next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CAM
Trying to write a goodbye note to Eve seemed like a good idea, but in reality, it had proven to be more difficult than I had imagined. It was sort of like writing a suicide note— that was pretty much what I had agreed to, although I was supposed to see it as a heroic act. Giving my life so that others may live, it was supposed to be an act of valor, but Eve wouldn’t see it that way or appreciate it. She would see it as the easy way out, she would try to tell me that there had to be another way. She was the dreamer in our relationship and I was ever the realist. I suppose that’s why I loved her so much, I wanted to be more of the dreamer, I admired her dreams, envied them. It was difficult for me to see past my own nose, but not her, she could plan a future in an instant and change it all the next day. She wasn’t tied down to reality, her dreams made her free, she could have been anything.
That final thought leaves a bad taste in my mouth, she didn’t exactly get a chance to spread her wings. She was robbed of a great life. We all were.
I click the pen in my hand over and over again nervously. The only words on the paper read, “I’m sorry”. I was sorry for so many things that it was hard to put into words. I was sorry for not protecting her, not saving her from being bitten. I was sorry for being a coward and never asking her out in high school, and I was sorry for allowing her to think I had given up on her or stopped loving her. Maybe there was something wrong with me, but she could very well jab me with a thousand knives and I still wouldn’t hate her. Something about her took hold of my soul a long time ago, and ever since then, I knew I would never be free of her, nor did I want to be.
Inspiration finds me and I follow “I’m sorry” with, “I just wish we had more time. Maybe in another life we’ll get another chance at being happy. Right now I have a chance to fix things for so many people, and it would be selfish of me
to step away from that. I know you would do it if your heart could save the world, but unfortunately, yours stopped beating quite some time ago, so now it’s on me to save some people. I wish I could have saved you and I wish I could have saved Alex. It hurts to live with so much regret, but I’ll be free soon. I just want you to know that even though I’m going to offer my heart up for universal salvation, it still will always belong to you. It always has. I love you, Eve. Always.”
I read the note back to myself a few times before I feel satisfied in its completion. It would have to do; those were all the words I had to give. Kissing the paper after folding it in half I place it to the side and begin to pen another note. This one for myself, it would take me quite a bit to prepare myself mentally for my death, so I thought a poem appropriate.
Evil lurking in dead eyes,
Cold touch, cold journey,
Reconciles.
Bitter death allows but little time
To wish, to love,
to know one’s mind.
A beat, a pulse,
Is wasted.
But release it from its chest
And let it rest.
I read it once more and then begin to rip it to shreds, allowing it to fly through the air like flakes of snow. If writing was therapy I had been cleansed, I was ready to accept my fate. I was ready to die with a clean conscience. Knowing that my death would actually mean something made it all the more acceptable. Amongst all the corpses I would be the only one that counted, the only one that offered them salvation, and although I wouldn’t be remembered by any, it still felt good knowing I would die making a difference. Perhaps this whole nightmare would finally be over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
