Dying to Live

by Roxy De Winter

  Harry and Frank rolled their eyes at each other. They couldn’t understand the fuss; to them it was just hair. It would grow back in time and, at the moment, getting it cut could save her life. The two of them settled down in front of the monitors, Frank shuffled a shabby pack of playing cards and dealt out two hands.

  Pete understood a little better. He himself was reluctant to see Xin’s hair fall to the ground around her. He looked at her and the waterfall of hair that was such a dark shade of brown it was almost black. Her chocolate coloured eyes still shone with sorrow, but also determination.

  “Just do it, please.” Xin told Lucy with her eyes screwed shut. “It’s for the best.”

  “Okay, stay still then. Here goes.” Lucy took a deep breath and made the first snip along the edge of a comb. The sound of the scissor blades cutting through the hair she had been growing for years, made Xin flinch. When she finally opened her eyes, she caught Pete watching her intently.

  Thankfully it didn’t take too long. Xin managed to brave it out and Lucy did a pretty good job. After she removed the towel from Xin’s shoulders and set about with the dustpan, Xin tried not to look at the mounds of hair she was sweeping from the floor. She made her way to the small bathroom to check the mirror mounted over the sink. To her surprise, she found that she didn’t completely hate the new look. She had given Lucy the freedom to decide exactly how short it should be, seeing as she couldn’t make the decision herself. Her hair now hung just above her shoulders, and although she missed the familiar swish when she shook her head, she found that the new cut didn’t feel so bad.

  “It looks nice...” Pete said from behind her. Xin looked into the face reflected behind her, and returned his smile.

  “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” She said, and turned to face him. She found that when she turned, she was stood much closer to him than she had expected. Pete didn’t seem to notice.

  “It doesn’t hide your face so much anymore. I like that,” He told her. He meant it too. How had he not noticed the sharp angles of her face before? And how high her cheekbones rose? She really was quite beautiful. He absently reached out and tucked some hair behind her ear, allowing his finger to brush over her cheek.

  “Um...” Xin looked embarrassed.

  “Oh...” Pete flustered and took an uneasy step backwards. “I’m sorry, I... aha,” he laughed nervously. Xin laughed too.

  “Don’t worry about it,” She told him. She didn’t particularly mind his touch, but his unreadable face made her feel awkward. His mind seemed to be elsewhere today. “Are you alright?” She asked him, cocking her head and scrutinising his face.

  “What? Me? Oh, yeah, of course,” he smiled unconvincingly. Xin frowned at him. “I didn’t sleep well, that’s all,” he added.

  “Yeah, me either,” she told him. “I had the strangest dream.”

  “Oh, want to talk about it?” He probed.

  “Well... I don’t know. I can’t really explain it. There was something wrong with the sky. I woke up feeling as though everything was over and there was nothing I could do. It probably sounds silly when I say it out loud.”

  “No, not at all. I think we’re all just stressed and tired, and the drama of last night probably didn’t help,” he reassured her. “I’m sure it didn’t mean anything,” he added. “I’m going to let you finish up in here anyway.”

  Xin caught the frown on his face as he turned and walked out. She decided that there was something that he wasn’t telling her, but decided to leave it for now. He would tell her when he was ready. Xin turned and took one final look in the mirror. She ran her fingers through her new hair and then shook it out again. When she was satisfied, she turned to follow Pete. Xin forced her face into a smile and pushed the strange interaction to the back of her mind.

  “So, what’s the plan then?” Frank asked nobody in particular.

  When Xin had re-entered the room, she had thanked Lucy for doing a good job and they had joined Pete in the seating area. Harry and Frank had spun their chairs to face them and it seemed that everyone was waiting to find out what to do next.

  Nobody hurried to answer Franks question.

  “Great... Well the good news is it seems like the dead guys who were banging on the door last night have wandered back up the track,” he offered, trying to kick-start the discussion.

  “That might not be as useful as it sounds,” Lucy replied.

  “What do you mean?” Frank puzzled. “At least we can step out of the door without getting munched on.”

  “That’s true enough, but we’re going to have to go back up the track ourselves,” Lucy pointed out.

  “We are?” Frank asked.

  “Yeah, I was thinking that too,” Pete agreed. Xin wondered if that had been what was bugging him. “We need to get more provisions to take with us and we need to get a better vehicle. I’m sure there’ll be other things we need to take, right?” He asked, looking to Xin for the answer.

  “I’m not sure,” Xin admitted. “I was thinking it was probably time to rifle through the rest of the things that Bao brought.” She gestured to the boxes that he had flown over with. They had been abandoned in a corner after the radio had been set up. “If I remember correctly, all the basics will be in there. But I really don’t know. I have no idea what to take because none of us know where we’re going to end up. It seems pointless to take too much. Wherever this mystery transport takes us –if we can even use it of course, I mean it could be anything- there’s a good chance there will be a lab. They evacuated the patient presumably to develop another serum. They would need the same things that we would in order to do that.”

  “Well, maybe we shouldn’t bog ourselves down with a lot of extra baggage then,” Pete suggested. “If we don’t have what we need, we’ll just have to find it. It can’t be that difficult. In a worst case scenario we could even drive back here, it’s only a couple of days to drive.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Xin said. “We could even bring the patient back here with us if everything has turned to chaos wherever they are. Lucy, do you have any ideas about where the transport from Washington may take us?”

  “No, not really. My worry is that it probably isn’t conventional travel, which makes the destination hard to guess. It could be anywhere. The more I think about it, the surer I am that they told me it had taken years just to get to the point they were at when they asked me about it. Who knows how long it took after that.” Lucy looked thoughtful.

  “What do you mean about it not being conventional travel? It’s not likely to be something crazy, is it?” Harry queried.

  “Well, it’s not going to be just a plane or some kind of car or truck. Nothing like that would take so long to produce. It’s likely to be a more advanced technology. It may be one that’s not even in use anywhere else at the moment.”

  “I’m not even going to ask what that means it could be, but if it’s that advanced won’t we struggle to operate it?” Frank asked.

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Lucy chuckled. “I’m sure it won’t be that complicated. If it’s for emergencies then they’ll keep it simple. It’d be no use creating an emergency transport that it took months of training to operate. Plus, they’d have to train everyone because there’s no guarantee that certain individuals would be the ones left to use it. Training everyone wouldn’t be cost effective, so I would imagine if isn’t simple then there will be simple instructions.” Lucy shrugged as if to say, ‘who knows?’.

  “But back to where it could take us...” Xin tried to guide the conversation back. “Where else in the country would they take important people? Where is there that would be safe?”

  “...Maybe it’s not in the country?” Harry suggested. “Surely it would make more sense for the escape plan to get the president out of the country? I mean, if there was a nuclear attack or something...” Everyone was silent as he let his sentence trail off.

  Eventually Xin spoke again. “I hadn’t considered that we could
be leaving the country.”

  “It would make a lot of sense...” Lucy said ponderously.

  “Maybe that’s another reason not to fuss about equipment to take with us,” Pete offered. He went on to explain, “If that’s the kind of emergency this transport was created for, it probably isn’t designed to carry much. It may even already be packed with supplies. Besides, if it goes to another country it might not be quite as bad there yet. Hoping it could be completely safe would probably be wishful thinking, but it’s a slim possibility.”

  “Alright, so there isn’t any point,” Xin stated bluntly, “Wherever we end up, we’ll just have to find what we need. It seems stupid to try and think of all the instruments and tools that it would take, and then cart them about when so much is unsure.” Without being sure why, Xin’s mind flashed back to the hopeless doomed feeling that her dream had left her with.

  “So what should we take then?” Harry asked. “Food? Water?”

  “Yes, but we needn’t take that much. Once we’re out of the desert there’ll be places we can raid and pick things up. It would probably be a good idea to avoid busy shopping malls, but we could do with finding a sporting goods store and maybe a pharmacy anyway. We should gather up some basic survival items, for instance: a camping stove, torches, first aid and such,” Pete shared his thoughts. “They probably have all of that here on the base somewhere, but this place is so big that it could take forever to find it all.”

  “Moving on from all of this depressing uncertainty...” Lucy happily butted in. “I have an idea that will probably make us some of the best prepared people to face this zombie infested mission of ours.”

  Lucy looked smug and pleased with herself, whilst the others raised their eyebrows and looked questioningly at each other.

  “One of the perks of being on a military base,” she emphasised the words. “Is the access you have to a whole arsenal of weapons and vehicles that you would otherwise never get hold of. We haven’t had much need for them up until this point, but we are going to need to be kitted out and ready to kick ass!”

  Slow smiles crept over everyone’s faces. Xin’s mind conjured up an image of herself wearing a soldier’s khaki’s and toting a machine gun from the turret of an enormous tank. She couldn’t hold back a burst of laughter. Frank, Harry and Pete looked at her in confusion for a moment, but Lucy was excited and joined in her amusement. Frank shook his head at them both and let out an exasperated chuckle that turned into gales of carefree laughter. Soon enough, they were all at it. It was a beautiful moment. After so much misery and gloomy, serious conversations, it was blissful for them all to let loose and enjoy a simple moment of happiness. The sound of their mingled laughter gave them a boost, and when the noise finally died down they were wiping their eyes and grinning like fools.

  The gang decided not to wait. If they got everything sorted they could set off on their drive immediately. Consequently, they found themselves amongst the hulking buildings of the main base yet again. The ride down had been relatively easy. The hordes of zombies had grown to staggering proportions but due to their clustering they were easy to spot and that made it easy to drive wide of them. They didn’t stick to the track, in order to keep a wide berth they rode across the dirt. The small groups of dead that had straggled away from the others caused them no problems.

  When Lucy pulled the car to a halt they were parked between four enormous hangars, two on their left and two to the right. Lucy turned in the driver’s seat to explain.

  “Alright, we can ignore those hangars there,” she said, gesturing at the ones on the right hand side of the car. “These two...” This time she gestured to the left hand side. “...Contain the vehicles. We’re going to be going into the first one. The second one just has the smaller land vehicles and I think we’ll be better off with an armoured personnel carrier. There are some pretty awesome custom vehicles. In fact, I’m thinking that we should take a Cyclone.” Lucy drifted off into her own thoughts briefly. She shook her head and snapped herself out of it, then looked at the rest of them. “We don’t know if there will be any of those things in there, so I’m sure I don’t need to remind you to be careful. When we get out, I’m going to have to key in the access code. Good job most of my work was done in these hangars. I know them like the back of my hand. Are we ready?”

  “Let’s do this,” Frank said enthusiastically. He had barely been containing his excitement ever since Lucy had started the conversation about military vehicles.

  “We get the vehicle, go to the armoury, stop off for food supplies at the canteen and then head back,” Pete nodded.

  The moment they stepped out of the car they were on guard, weapons drawn and watching all directions. Pete held his favoured machete at his side, ready to swing it on a moment’s notice. Xin and Lucy had their handguns hung at their hips. Frank brandished a shotgun, as did Harry, although he preferred to use his own police issue shotgun.

  Lucy made straight for the keypad that operated the giant mechanical doors. She had been explaining to them earlier how the power cut wouldn’t affect certain systems within the compound. The most important electrical systems had backup generators and some of the power sources were solar powered. Access to the buildings was vital at all times and as such was powered separately.

  “Okay, 1... 4... 2... 6,” Lucy muttered under her breath as she tapped at the keys. There was a mechanical groan and the sliding doors squealed open.

  “Eugene was always saying he’d get round to fixing that...” she said, rolling her eyes at the sound. “Keep an eye out, the zombies could have heard that.”

  Inside were row upon row of armoured cars and vans. They varied in size, getting larger and larger the further back they went. Right at the back of the hangar were colossal shapes that towered over the smaller vehicles. The small windows in the top of the building let in just enough light for them to see by. Thankfully, it appeared that the building was devoid of life but the group kept their guard up just in case. Lucy walked past the smaller vehicles that looked just like sandy coloured jeeps. She carried on past the bulkier four wheel drive types and right to the back of the hangar.

  “Oh please, tell me we’re taking this?” Frank pleaded, his eyes lingering lustfully on the immense tank that stood beside them. The tread of its tracks came up to his chest and he reached up to touch the avocado coloured metal of its body.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lucy laughed. “We can’t drive that thing around.”

  “But why?” Frank whined.

  “Because they’re difficult to manoeuvre and they’re insanely slow,” Lucy told him firmly. “Don’t worry, you’ll like what I have in mind.”

  She led them along the row and stopped in front of two quite similar vehicles.

  “These are a couple of the custom vehicles I mentioned. They’re both great. This one here...” She patted a jet black 4x4 with giant tyres and a gun turret. In all it stood about 10 feet tall. “This is the cyclone. It’s built to withstand ballistic assault, light mines and grenades. It’s actually a 2011 Ford F550 but trust me, with the work this baby’s had, its 9 tonnes of pure perfection.”

  Pete breathed out a whistle of admiration and Harry nodded approvingly. Frank glanced back to the tank longingly.

  “...Or there’s the Typhoon,” Lucy told them, moving to lean on another black 4x4. “This one is an F350, 16 tonnes; it has similar armouring but has the perk of being able to run over six hundred and twenty-some miles without refuelling. Considering we have over two thousand miles to drive, that could be useful.”

  “But so could a gun turret...” Frank put in.

  “It’s armoured up to the eyeballs, what are the changes of needing to shoot from it?” Pete asked. “It would be easy enough to just run over almost anything.”

  “Not to mention that there is a sun roof on the other one and it’s possible to shoot from that, or the windows,” Harry added. Xin didn’t say a word, she was happy to let the guys argue this one out. To her bot
h of the vehicles looked pretty hardy and she would have felt safe in either one of them.

  “I think the mileage is most important,” Pete said.

  “You’re probably right,” Frank nodded. “Hey, Luce, earlier on you said you’d pick the cyclone. What was your reasoning?”

  Lucy blushed. “It just... looks better. Oh, Don’t look at me like that! I am still a woman!”

  “Oh my god,” Harry sighed, shaking his head.

  “Well it looks like neither of us will be getting the ride we wanted,” Frank winked at her. “The Typhoon it is.”

  Lucy rolled her eyes when she thought he couldn’t see her. He did and it made him chuckle as she walked to the driver side door of the Typhoon, opened it and leaned in to pull the keys from the ignition.

  “Here, smart ass, catch,” she said, and threw the keys to him. Frank caught them nimbly and looked to the other guys, silently asking if they minded him driving.

  “Go on,” Pete nodded.

  Frank jumped into the driver’s seat like a kid at Christmas. Lucy climbed into the passenger side, leaving her door open. She leaned over and pressed a button which dropped a hydraulic ramp from the rear.

  “Hop in guys,” she hung out of the open door to tell Xin, Harry and Pete. The three of them clambered in and the ramp silently rose back up and sealed shut behind them. The back was spacious, probably able to comfortably seat eight people but at a push it could no doubt handle more. The seats were padded and comfortable and ran like benches along either side. Lucy looked back from her seat in the front to check they were ready, and then gave Frank a nod.

  The engine roared into life and then settled at a low purr. Frank manoeuvred the massive car out of the row and down the main isle with impressive ease. The vehicle was larger than any he had ever driven before, but he was used to flying much bigger planes and maybe that helped him somewhat. He pulled clear of the hangar doors and found that he was actually enjoying driving the thing already.

  “Weapons next?” Frank asked.

  “This could be interesting,” Harry said sarcastically, raising his eyebrows. “Frank, if you so much as look at a rocket launcher, I’m going to shoot you.”