Dying to Live

by Roxy De Winter

  Comforted by the thought of having some kind of protection, everyone nodded. Except Bao that was. Instead, he snorted derisively.

  “Some of us came prepared,” he said, drawing out his own hand gun from under his jacket.

  “Yes, well some of us didn’t know we’d need to be prepared,” Xin retorted before Pete could respond. Pete was sure the dig had been aimed at him, but Xin was right. Bao put away his gun and went quiet again, having inadvertently angered Xin. She vowed that she would have to have a quiet word with him when there was a moment.

  Frank finished handing out the hand guns and sharing out sufficient ammunition for each of them. He himself was familiar with handling small arms, as was Bao; even Xin had a small amount of experience to fall back on. However, Pete and Lucy were both somewhat awkward and uncomfortable in the way they held them. Whilst the others stashed their guns in their waistline, Pete and Lucy merely placed theirs down close to hand.

  “May I take the floor for a moment now?” Bao asked, raising an eyebrow in Pete’s direction.

  “Of course, go ahead,” Pete said, tipping his head to him and not acknowledging the sarcasm.

  “Well, when I dropped everything and travelled thousands of miles to come and help, I didn’t come empty handed.” Bao sighed. He couldn’t carry on with the digs for much longer, it wasn’t in his nature. His nose was somewhat out of joint over the whole situation but this man, Pete, was very hard to hate. “If someone wouldn’t mind giving me a hand bringing it inside, I have some boxes loaded in the van. They contain some things that I think may be of use to us.” Saving the best for last, he continued. “And if that computer works, I may also have a USB device containing all of Beijing’s files relating to the ALS and the Nevada project.”

  “Oh, Bao. You sly old dog, you!” Xin laughed and got up to offer him a quick hug. “Let’s get this stuff unloaded and see what we have to work with.”

  “Yes, I’ll go get it now,” Bao smiled, softened by Xin’s moment of warmth.

  “I’ll come and help you,” Pete offered kindly.

  “Thank you,” Bao responded, with as much civility as he could muster.

  6.

  ‘We were amongst the first to hear the radio transmission. It was just the two of us; Myself, Joshua Peterson and Martha Grant, my girlfriend. Martha was pregnant with our first child. We were going to have a daughter and she would be named Ella. We were in Arizona at the time, taking a vacation before the birth. There had been a lot of mixed up reports and stories on the news about strange things happening in the next state over. We had been following them but the details were getting vaguer. Eventually, they’d stopped altogether and a full evacuation was ordered. That was when we started to get scared.’

  The traffic was crazy. The evacuation was making people panic. Joshua and Martha were trying to leave along with everyone else but were caught up in the gridlock of cars. The heat was stifling; the midday august sun was really beating down on the shining metal and the scorched asphalt. They were moving no more than a few inches at a time and Joshua glanced at his beautiful girlfriend, fanning herself with a newspaper. She was really suffering, being so pregnant and so warm. Her mahogany skin glistened with a thin sheen of perspiration and her high cheekbones were visibly flushed.

  “How are you holding up, hon?” Joshua asked her, removing his hand from the gearstick to give hers a quick squeeze.

  “I’m fine. It’s just so hot. I feel like I’m melting and it’s making Ella wriggle even more than usual.” Martha sounded fed up. “Will the air con go up any higher?”

  “It’s as high as it will go. I’m sorry,” Joshua informed her, his lips forming a pout in his frustration at not being able to help the woman he cared for.

  “Well, can we have the radio on or something? It might take my mind off this damned heat,” She sighed.

  Joshua flicked it on and it buzzed with static. He flicked from station to station, finding only more static. His fingers were ready to turn the radio off altogether, when a voice spoke out of the crackle.

  “...Evacuation of Nevada and bordering states; California, Utah, Arizona, Oregon and Idaho. Do not place your safety in the hands of those who seek to hide what is happening from you. Our group is willing to help any and all through this growing crisis. Please do not dismiss this broadcast, we are not crazy. We know what is really going on and are actively working to do what we can to keep people safe. You will be no safer following the instructions you are being given. If anyone listening wishes to join us, travel to Nevada, highway 375 and look for our signs.”

  The male voice began again repeating the message on a loop. Joshua turned the radio off.

  Martha looked at him.

  “What’s going on, Josh?” She asked him. “What are they keeping from us?”

  “I wish I knew,” He frowned. “What do we do? Do you want to evacuate and get as far from here as we can?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I can manage a whole lot longer cooped up in this car. Besides, what if they’re right? What if we won’t be safe from it, no matter how far we travel? We have no idea what’s going on and nobody seems to want to release those details to the public.” Martha was thinking hard. Josh knew that look of concentration, the same one that she had worn when trying to find a way to tell him that she was pregnant. The same one that she had worn when he’d asked her if she wanted to get married before the baby came.

  “What if it’s some kind of disease?” She asked. Josh had the feeling that she didn’t want a response though, that she just wanted to get the thoughts out of her head and into the open. “If it’s, like, some super flu. It could spread like wildfire regardless of the evacuation. Say we catch it. Say the baby gets it. Won’t all the people working on fixing it, start at its source?” Martha didn’t know if this was true or not. She didn’t know how situations like that were handled. Her thoughts were leading her to a conclusion; she felt that the best place to be was where the whole thing seemed to have emanated from. Her unwillingness to travel so many more miles had probably influenced her heavily. It made her think up reasons to stay. However, another key influence was that these people were offering an explanation. Some piece of truth that they weren’t finding anywhere else.

  “I don’t know. I think we should find them,” She finished, laying out her conclusion for Joshua.

  “Are you sure? We don’t know who these people are, whether they can be trusted or even how they know what they say they know. Hell, we don’t know anything...” Joshua didn’t continue. He just let his statement hang.

  “I think that either decision we make could have bad consequences, but why put the message out at all if they had nothing concrete to go on? What purpose would it serve? I think we need to take the chance.” Martha sighed and absently stroked her protruding stomach.

  “Okay then. Here we go.”

  Joshua managed to piss off a high proportion of the other drivers stuck in the jam. He manoeuvred a U-turn, getting their vehicle out of the queue waiting to move forwards, and then headed back along the road they had painstakingly inched along for the past few hours. The fact that he even managed it at all seemed like a sign that it was the right choice. Horns barked at them and angry drivers shouted abuse and made rude gestures, but Josh ignored it all and focused fully until they made it to more open road.

  Martha was looking tired, but the breeze from the open windows was helping her now that they were moving at a decent speed. Josh could tell that it wouldn’t be long until she fell asleep. He couldn’t blame her, he had been trying to encourage her to rest and take a nap for a while. As she settled down more comfortably in the seat and tilted it back a little, josh dug around in the glove compartment for his map. It was going to be a long drive. It was over four hundred miles from Phoenix, across Arizona and out into the middle of the desert in Nevada. With Martha out for the count, it looked like his navigation skills would be put to the test. Why had he not just bought a satnav?

  The
journey had been passing uneventfully. Occasionally, Martha would groan in her sleep or her breath would catch in one quiet snore. Now and again a bump in the road would rock her head into the car door, causing her to half wake up. A few hours passed this way, with Joshua checking the map periodically to make sure they were on the right track.

  Martha let out a long sigh and stretched as she woke from her disturbed sleep. The movement gave her a very sudden urge to void her bladder.

  “Hey, is there a gas station we can pull in at? I really need a rest stop,” She said, her voice thick with sleep.

  “Sure. There should be one not too far from here,” Joshua said, consulting the map. “Are you good to wait for ten minutes?”

  “I hope so,” Martha said, rubbing her eyes. She looked over at Joshua. He had bags under his eyes and looked pretty tired. “Should I drive for a while after this stop?” She asked.

  “I’m good, don’t worry about me,” He replied casually.

  “Don’t give me that, Joshua. You can’t drive while you’re exhausted and an hour or two driving won’t hurt me,” Martha said firmly. She loved him greatly, but she wasn’t about to let him argue this one.

  Josh sighed and slowed down as they drew closer to a run down garage. Out in the middle of nowhere, it was the only place for another few miles.

  Martha stepped out of the car, thankful of the chance to stretch her legs.

  “I’ll wait here. Don’t be too long, I want to make good time so we can catch these guys before it gets dark.”

  Martha nodded in response. When she shut the car door he attracted her attention again.

  “Hey, Martha?” He called, leaning through the open window. She turned back to him.

  “Yes?” She asked.

  “I love you,” He beamed at her.

  “I love you too,” Martha laughed, shaking her head. Then she turned around to make her way to the building and hunt down the ladies room.

  Josh watched her disappear inside before letting out the yawn that had been waiting to escape his lips. She was right, of course. She always was. He had been tired for the last hour or so. He was hesitant to let her take the wheel in her condition though. He didn’t know why, but the thought of allowing her to control such a big and dangerous machine while six months pregnant seemed to be tempting fate.

  As he waited, he checked the map again and made sure he knew exactly where they were headed. They shouldn’t be too much longer from here. He decided that maybe he would just nip into the gas station after all and get himself a caffeinated drink.

  He climbed out of the restrictive confines of the beaten up old Chevy and checked that he had his wallet tucked in his pocket.

  He didn’t have much time to contemplate how long Martha was taking, because a blood-curdling howl tore through the silence.

  “MARTHA!” He yelled and pelted across the lot. As he flung open the door, the unassuming tinkle of its bell seemed perverse.

  He halted in his tracks, just in time to avoid slipping in the rapidly pooling blood that was oozing towards him.

  “Oh my god! MARTHA!” Josh roared. Then he looked up from the ground and saw it.

  There was a dog, it looked like a Doberman, and it was tearing into Martha’s leg. Leaping into action, he wrestled the dog into a headlock and tried desperately to get it to unclench its jaw from the flesh it wanted so badly. The dog was having none of it, but Josh was not going to let this beast maim his soul mate. He smashed his fist into the side of its head. It didn’t seem to hurt the dog, but it sure as hell pissed it off. The dog let go and spun around to face Josh, who had tumbled backwards.

  He let out a shriek of horror. The dog was missing most of it chest cavity. Shards of broken rib jutted from the gaping hole where, surely, its lungs should have been. The area surrounding the gaping wound was completely devoid of skin and fur, there was just exposed muscle and sinews.

  Josh may have been sick at the sight of it, but he didn’t get to take it in for too long before the dog was on him. It took all of his strength to hold the dogs gnashing muzzle away from his neck. It was much stronger than he would have expected any dog could be, but then again it was alive without it lungs, so that was the least of his surprise.

  Grappling furiously with the dog, Josh was incapable of reacting to the grotesque, male monster clawing its way over to his wailing, bleeding girlfriend. The thing was missing a leg but sliding easily along the slippery, bloodied floor.

  He fought hard against the writhing weight of the dog and screamed in agony when, distracted by Martha’s predicament, the dog managed to latch its teeth into his bulging bicep. It bit down hard and Josh was rendered helpless against its sheer power and the overriding pain flooding his system.

  He watched. It was all he could do. Martha convulsed and screeched the most awful sounds of pain and helplessness. The dead man tore open her stomach with one ripping bite.

  Josh struggled again to save her, to save their child, but the dog shook its head savagely and broke his bone clean in half. The pain was so intense that when the weight that had been his arm disconnected from his body, he felt a wave of faintness ripple through him and his consciousness threatened to leave completely.

  Martha was barely comprehendible as she screamed and pleaded for their baby’s life. The monster didn’t even take a pause. It propped itself into a sitting position and tore with its hands, ripping the hole in Martha’s stomach wider still. All manner of fluids spilled from inside of her and that was the last she could take. Her eyes rolled and her head drooped over to one side.

  “NO!” Josh shouted, tears streaming down his cheeks. He lashed out wildly with his remaining limbs. Droplets and sprays of blood arched out around him. The dog sank its foul teeth into his stomach, tearing a hunk of flesh clean away. Joshua vomited freely, losing control of his own body. As he slumped sideways, he could only watch the scene unfolding.

  The undead attendant was delving its hands into Martha, splashing amniotic fluid and blood everywhere. It was like watching a crazed psychopath carry out a C-section. It pulled the foetus, Joshua’s little girl, Ella, from Martha’s womb and snarled hungrily. The tiny baby girl had no chance to even register that she had been pulled from her safe, warm cocoon and into this cold, new world. Her new-born body was dripping with blood but pink and living. The thing just let out one guttural growl of triumph, before gnashing its teeth down into the little body of the baby girl.

  At that point, Joshua’s fight left him completely. Martha was gone, their baby was gone and there was nothing left for him. He didn’t need this world anymore.

  “COME ON YOU BASTARD, TAKE ME!” He roared, letting the last of his strength out in one mighty punch to the dog’s nose. It crunched inwards on itself, but the dog did not flinch. It attacked with renewed vitality, taking the last of Josh’s life force away with a colossal attack on his throat. In that moment, Martha rose upwards, filled with the restorative vigour that now came hand in hand with death.

  7.

  ‘We didn’t know how long we would be holing up in the guard station for, but the general consensus was that it couldn’t hurt to take some measures that would help others to find us. We wanted to offer people a chance to be informed at the very least. The first steps we took were towards getting the radio and broadcasting system that Bao had brought set up. Lucy’s engineering skills were put to use as she guided Frank through what needed doing. Together they got to work on that. Whilst they did that, Pete and I drove out to the road with some paint from a maintenance shed. We painted the road with directions that led back to us.

  When we got back, Bao had recorded a broadcast and set it to a continual loop. Lucy informed us of the bad news, the old computer didn’t work.’

  “It didn’t turn on when I tried it,” Frank explained, gesturing to the computer tower that was in pieces on the floor. “Once the radio was sorted Lucy said she’d look at it and, well...”

  “It’s not my fault that it won’t work!” Lucy sai
d indignantly. “I told you that computers weren’t my forte. I’m used to working on the massive generators over in the hangars. I’ve worked on the trucks and even the small aircrafts. I use computers every day, but I don’t fix them. That’s what the tech guys do. As near as I can tell, a power surge has blown the motherboard,” She finished, throwing her arms up in exasperation.

  “It’s okay. I have my laptop bag in the car with the rest of my luggage,” Xin said. She smiled to herself at the way Lucy and Frank had known each other for a maximum of five hours, and already they interacted like an old married couple. It reminded her of happier times, when she had been a young girl watching her parents together. They had both been obviously in love, but constantly bickering. Still lost in her memories, she headed outside to retrieve her things. Since she and Pete were the only ones who had any belongings with them, she intended to mention to Lucy that should she need anything, she was free to take what she wanted.

  Xin walked around the car. Having been in such a rush, they had flung their baggage onto the back seats rather than into the boot. She opened the door; two cases, two hold alls, her handbag and her laptop bag, were all somehow crammed into the limited space. She took the laptop bag and pulled the strap over her head, letting its weight rest against her hip.

  She thought that she may as well take the rest inside too, just in case. Besides which, she could do with freshening up a little and Lucy probably would appreciate the chance to do the same.

  It was a struggle to get the two cases out by herself, but once she had them stood beside the car, all he had to do was pull the handles out and sit the hold alls on top. Hurriedly, she grabbed her handbag, flung that over her shoulder too and slammed the car door.

  The cases, although on wheels, were still very heavy. Thankfully, Bao came out to make sure she was alright and see what was taking her so long. He offered to take one of the cases and Xin handed Pete’s over willingly.

  “I’m glad we have a moment alone to talk Bao...” Xin started. Her case was protesting against the gravelly ground that she was dragging it over. This distracted her train of thought momentarily as she stopped to give it a tug.