by Thomas, Jack
“Kid, why are you still here? You should have made a run for your life when the chance was presented,” he said and kicked me one more time. “I watched you take David’s life. I found it rather amusing. It was coming to him. He wasn’t ordered to free you in the first place. But he did free you as Richard predicted.”
And another kick to the stomach before he continued to gloat like a psychopath’s pet.
“I wouldn’t go to the infirmary if I were you. It’s infested with these diseased and monstrous infectees. I made it my personal duty to lay two shots in the head of anyone useless anyways, so there are just a lot of dead bodies over there. No survivors. They were caught off guard. Your only chance to survive is to come with us. I was instructed, by Richard, to inform you of this, as he says ‘lucrative opportunity’, in case you wish to take it.
I screamed in endless agony and confusion in that moment. I didn’t know what to do, think or say. My brother along with everyone else was dead as said by the crazed maniac who killed them under Richard’s orders. I wondered if Marcus died too.
Richard was my only hope left for survival. But I was sooner ready to die than follow the lead of the man who killed my brother, or set the plague that killed him loose. “Better find someone else to recruit, because I am not going to join your desperate search for someone to protect you all when you can no longer do it. Just because a bunch of brain washed idiots joined him, including you, doesn’t mean I’ll follow too. You will be just as screwed as everyone else when you become irrelevant. You might as well kill me too.” My response was filled with anger and hate for Richard. I developed the same hate for him that Marcus already had.
“Guess you’ll need to be convinced,” were the last words I remembered before his boot met my face and complete darkness followed. I instantly knew what my brother felt before he blacked out. Just hoped I’d wake up to something pleasant.
Day 4
The Villain
“Marcus! He’s waking up.”
I barely opened my eyes to the blinding illumination of the lantern.
“Where am I?” I whispered in an attempt to speak out loud, but I was met with nothing but failure.
“Dim the light!”
The light that shined on my face moved away and everything plunged into darkness. My eyes began to adjust to the little bit of light that remained.
“Do you know where you are?” a familiar voice asked.
“Either the base or a sad part of heaven, which is it?”
“The base,” he walked around the medical bed, into view. It was Marcus. “We brought you to the infirmary two days ago and you’ve been out ever since.”
John checked my eyes and my reflexes by moving his finger in front of my face so that my eyes would follow. He didn’t panic which I took as a sign that I was fine.
“How’d I get here? I don’t remember having made it. The last thing I can recall was when we left the building in Morristown to come here.” My voice was still weak from its relaxed state. I started to talk instead of whisper.
“You were attacked on the way here. You took a serious hit to the head. Not enough to kill you but just enough to make you lose consciousness for two days. We’ve waited for you to regain consciousness so we can safely evacuate.”
“Uhh… Why exactly do we need to evacuate?” My hearing came back to normal volume and my eyes were fully adjusting to the level of light. I sat up to some people crying on the floor while others paced around the infirmary nervously. Everyone looked sad, scared and stressed.
“Hey, hey, take it easy. Don’t be in such a rush to get up. You need to take your time. We don’t know how much damage you’ve taken,” John said with his hand on my chest to make sure I didn’t get off of the bed.
“It’s alright, John. He can handle it. Let him sit up.” Marcus said. John didn’t give it a second thought and did as Marcus asked. He took his hand off of my chest and allowed me to fully sit up. “The base has been compromised. There are large numbers of infected outside of the infirmary.”
“What? I thought it was safe here…” It’s easy to understand my confusion.
“It was,” Marcus said.
“And then?”
“Then it wasn’t.”
“Then is now?”
“Yes?” Now Marcus was confused.
“Why’d you say that like a question?”
“I don’t know. Your question was strange.”
“Okay, keep going.”
“Right,” Marcus continued. “We created a barricade with the use of the medical beds and tables and we’ve managed to keep the windows blocked and the door shut. But it won’t hold up for long. We couldn’t leave you here or take you outside without having to risk you and the group by trying to protect you.”
“So you were forced to wait it out here; understood. I’m up now, so what’s the next plan of action?” I asked.
Marcus took a chair and sat next to the bed, “Listen... We couldn’t find your brother.”
I tried to get off of the bed and Marcus stood up and pressed me against it to make sure I wouldn’t. “Where is he? What happened?” I frantically asked.
“Calm down!” The force he held me to the bed with gave me no option but to wait for him to explain. “We were split off from another group of survivors yesterday; they were led by a man named Richard. They came here to the base, they captured me, your brother and some soldiers that were already here at the base. On the way back to the infirmary I went too far ahead and when I looked behind me I notice the people who captured us caught up and cut me off from your brother and the other captives. I weighted the option of either turning back to help them or come here to help these people stay alive against the infected. The life of the many outweighed the life of the few, so I came here. I believe Richard might have captured them again since they haven’t arrived.”
Guilt dragged his face down and he sat back on the chair to stare at me with sorry eyes. “They aren’t good people, and they are the same that compromised the base.”
“So how do we plan to get my brother back?” I swung my legs over the side of the bed and let them hang.
“My best guess: It’ll be difficult to get close to them. They have control of the food supply and the weaponry. They managed to clean out the base of all necessities before we were even in the area. To make things worse, I don’t know how far Richard is willing to go if he is cornered. He might use your brother to keep us at arm’s length. At the same time, he claimed that he would come this way to exterminate the infected and anyone who endangers his chances of a longer survival here at the base. That includes us.”
“Okay, so he has the supplies and my brother to assure himself we won’t get close; he has the guns and manpower to make quick work of us, and he plans to head this way regardless of all that. So we’re screwed. What are we going to do?”
“We need to get to Richard before he gets to us.”
“That’s not a plan, that’s the goal. How will we accomplish that goal?”
“We do the opposite of what he expects us to do.”
“And that would be?”
“If he is in fact going to use the supplies and your brother as insurance that we won’t get close, we will get close. We have the element of surprise on our side. He won’t expect us… I hope.”
“How reassuring!”
“No need for the sarcasm. It’s all we have for now, unless you can generate something better?”
“Sadly, I’ve recently faced a period in time in which I was unconscious. So I didn’t have the time to come up with a plan. I’ll leave myself a memo next time.”
“Is there a reason for the sarcasm?” Marcus was getting annoyed.
“I can’t help it,” I let him know early so he wouldn’t think that I have a problem with him in the future.
“I can tell.”
“No seriously, I do it involuntarily. It’s just my general personality, I suppose. I mean nothing by it. It might be a method t
o cope or a defense mechanism or some sort, I just know I do it.”
“Well, work on that.” Marcus stood up and walked away to another part of the infirmary. “Considering your brother is captive, I figured that you wanted to aid in his rescue. Based on this conversation, is it safe to assume you plan to come with me?”
“Yes sir!” I stood off of the bed and saluted him. He stared blankly at me. “How do we start?”
Marcus pointed to the door in a corner in the infirmary. “There is a shower in there. Get clean,” he said. “There are some clean clothes laid out for you in there. We’ll figure out how to leave this place when you’re done. There’ll be some food ready when you’re done, too.”
A lantern was set on the bathroom floor to reflect its light off of the white walls.
I cleaned off and when I finished I remained in the shower. I stood there and let the water pour over my head and shoulders (Shampoo). I spaced out. It relaxed me to stand there. I’m not even sure that thoughts ran through my head when I was there. My eyes were closed but no images or thoughts occupied my mind. Nothing but the sound of the water and the sensation of it rained over me. A rainstorm just for me; my personal waterfall; my temple of serene water; it was tranquil, amazing.
What a familiar void.
I stood there till the hot water cooled down. Slowly but surely, my waterfall ran cold, but it didn’t bother, nothing could bother me at that moment; the water felt as good cold as it did hot. The gradual cool down brought me out of my peaceful abyss and into some lame ass military bathroom.
The water jumped from cool to frozen. It could have shot ice at me for all I knew. I backed out of the stream and turned the knob to shut off the water, got out, and redressed with the fresh clothes left for me.
I walked closer to the lantern to see what I was going to wear. It was a military, camouflage uniform. Random patches of green and brown everywhere on the pants and shirt. Brown boots finished the cliché uniform. Basic underwear: gray boxers, and gray socks. I threw all the clothes I took off in a corner of the bathroom and walked out. I realized all the other survivors took a shower too; everyone that could fit the uniform wore them while everyone who couldn’t just wore the same thing they did when I last saw them.
I left the bathroom to join Marcus and John who were deep in conversation at a desk across the room.
“It’s entirely possible they would mutate and become more lethal, the way the human infected do,” John said.
“Lethal, in what way do you mean?” Marcus asked. He looked concerned about what John spoke of.
“The nature of the infection has caused rapid mutation in organisms with an extremely complicated cell makeup. If plants can become infected, it is possible they will undergo their own type of mutation. Without a lab and a sample of the infection all we can do is speculate the dramatic change they might go through.”
“Then speculate!”
“Well, we can safely say the mind and body of the infected human host goes through a dramatic change. Their mind flips from a conscious, civil person to a vicious and primal monster. If we assume their bodies do a similar one eighty, we could say the reason they feel no pain or fatigue is because their body has detached them from their nerves. If this is the case, it might be a possibility that the body has mutated into a state in which it could survive without the use of many of the organs. Now it would make no logical sense to say that is the case without proof, but it would stay consistent with a theory of full biological reversal.”
“So what does this mean for the plants?”
“If they undergo the same one eighty the human host does, they might stop spitting out oxygen and begin inhaling it.”
“So they’ll replace the oxygen with carbon monoxide?”
“That or something else…” John finished.
They both paused and went into deep thought. I took that as my cue to go over to the desk and join in.
Marcus and John stared at me for a prolonged period before John raised the lantern he held to illuminate a paper on the desk. The paper was a hand drawn map of the path that Marcus already took, and how much was left to be traveled. There were two outlined routes.
“Why are there two? Is one an emergency option?” I asked.
“The second route is the one you and I will use,” Marcus answered, but by doing so he raised more questions.
“Why are we going to take a different route?”
“The collective of infected outside is overwhelming, to say the least,” John explained. “In order to get the people out of here safely we will need a way to distract the infected.”
“That’s where we come in,” Marcus said. “With this alternate route, we will be able to split off from everyone else to distract the infected and find your brother, and that alternate route will catch us up to John.”
“And I will lead the group through a wider area for more mobility,” John said.
“Our route will be shorter but more narrow, which is why it is preferred as a catch up route rather than the main path,” Marcus finished.
“Okay, it makes sense. If John and the rest took the narrower route and came across infected, it will be more difficult to keep everyone unharmed if they are restricted,” I assured them that I understood the plan and the reasons for it.
“Precisely,” John agreed.
“Destination?” I asked.
“We are going straight to The Hills quarantine zone,” John pointed on the map to where he thought the school would be. “A state map would be great help. We’ll keep our eyes open for one. You should do the same.”
“Will do,” Marcus said. He focused on the map, the paths we were going to take and the time it would take to cross paths with each other again.”
“Alright, what are the steps?” I asked. I was informed enough to move into the process details. I understood the basics of what was going to be done.
“First, Marcus and you will head out. This should get the attention of the infected and draw them away from the infirmary,” John began.
“Once it’s clear, John will evacuate the people out of the base,” Marcus continued. “We’ll find your brother; leave the base…”
“Then meet back up where we discussed,” John finished for Marcus.
Now this plan wasn’t the most complicated one in the world, but it was definitely a risky one. Danger would surround Marcus and me the entire time we were in the base and probably after we left too. But I was comfortable with danger by default. Day one began the conditioning so danger would appear less… dangerous? After all, danger was my middle name. Maybe not legally, but after everything was done, I would go wherever the infected went to change their name from Mr. Smith to Mr. Zombieface, and I would legally make Danger my middle name.
“We’ll leave whenever you’re ready. First, you eat!” Marcus took the map and folded it into a neat little square that he put in his pocket. “See that table over there?” Marcus asked me.
“Yeah…”
“It’s not much, but there is some food in the plate that’s on it. It’s yours.”
“Oh, thanks!” I said and went over to the table to look at the plate. It was filled with soup and on the side of the plate were two slices of bread. Now, although I personally didn’t know the logistics of a soup sandwich, their intention wasn’t for me to combine the two but rather just eat them as two dishes. I think the soup sandwich appealed more to me, but any food was better than no food.
Once I finished Marcus and I equipped with the minimum of what we needed. As I stood in front of the equipment table I became extremely aware that I had a headache and a bit of dizziness; it was likely due to the blow I took to the head. It wasn’t the time for me to worry over it, though. It was time to find out if my brother was being held captive or if he fought for his life somewhere in the base.
Marcus put his hand on a gun that was on the table and slid it over to my side. “Take it,” he said and took one of the guns on the table for himself. The idea w
as to travel light so that our movements would be swift. The plan was simple… right? We go in, find the other survivors and catch up with John. Not much to it.
Two of the survivors were ready at the door to open it for us to leave, and close it behind us so the infected would not get inside. Marcus stood in front of the door for a moment, and because I followed him, so did I. He took a deep breath and gave the two guys a nod. The doors flew open and Marcus and I ran outside. The sudden burst of light gave me the feeling that the sun came down and slapped me a few times, but only to make sure I was wide awake and fine. The sun wasn’t the violent type with me.
The doors shut behind us and the infected gathered around us. We moved fast to avoid them and headed to the location where the other survivors were last seen. At a distance it might have looked like Marcus and I were celebrities being followed by a large mob of paparazzi. In this case the paparazzi weren’t fans of our work but rather fans of our designer fleshy bodies. Like edible supermodels.
As my eyes resolved their issues with the sun and become friends with it again, structures achieved more defined forms but I became increasingly dizzier. I kept up with Marcus which was no easy task on its own, but now I had to keep up with him while I stumbled around. I glanced back at all of the infected focusing entirely on us and leaving the infirmary alone. The first mission was now complete, but we still needed to get the other survivors, which meant I needed to reach them first. I wasn’t sure how far we needed to go but was sure I couldn’t make it too much further. I was weaker, dizzier. I didn’t think much of it. It must have been related to the injury to the head I took, and whatever was going to happen to me probably already did when I was unconscious. I figured that it would pass and internalize with time. Safe survivors were more important than a break for a bit of dizziness that would fade eventually. And everything went dark… again.
