by Max Lockwood
Will thought back to the horrible deaths he had seen since his parents died. It was hard to rank the horror he’d seen. Burned flesh, decapitations, extreme blood loss, and gunshot wounds were part of the normal scenery. It was so much more grotesque if he knew the person who perished, though.
He stood transfixed, staring at the blackened remains of the cottage he’d watched burn to the ground. He didn’t know why he couldn’t stop looking at the wreckage. It was as if a piece of his soul was burned away in the explosion.
“Domenica,” a soldier shouted as they all piled into the military vehicle. “Are you coming?”
He broke his trance, looking up at the others. They all looked tired, like they wanted to return to base and take their daily hot shower. The base offered simple luxuries Will hadn’t seen in quite some time.
“Yeah,” he said, running to catch up with the others. He took one last look at the house where his former companions had briefly resided before getting into the vehicle. He hoped that by leaving the bodies of Melissa and Thomas, he could leave the rest of his former life behind.
But in the age of the epidemic, there were few witnesses to remember what had happened. The military organizations knew that they could kill with little regard to the lives of the people they slaughtered because no one would notice if they were missing. Few people from the west had surviving family or friends. If they needed to permanently remove a potential threat to their mission, they could do so with ease.
People like Melissa would be left in the dust. No one would notice she was missing, nor mourn her loss. People like Will could easily get away with being part of a conspiracy to murder innocent civilians. There would be no justice as long as those with power lorded over healthy citizens with no means to escape the virus. In a moment of desperation, Will had switched sides. He became a part of everything he despised in a person, but at least he would be taken care of.
Chapter Twenty-One
His name sent shockwaves through her system. For a second, Melissa thought she was certainly dead.
“Domenica,” a disembodied voice called.
She tried to be silent, but she so badly needed to cough and expel all of the black soot from her lungs and throat. She quietly choked, depending on the background noises to keep her hidden.
She felt pain in her body that made her gunshot wound feel like a paper cut in comparison. She couldn’t quite pinpoint what was wrong with her, besides the fact that most of her body was suffering searing pain.
Then there was the smell. From her hiding place under the floor, it smelled like barbeque meats covered in mold. Something hot and greasy was dripping through the damaged floor onto Melissa’s skin. Every drop stung her tender flesh.
“Yeah,” a too-familiar voice said. Footsteps came closer until she was certain that Will was standing directly over her. The floor creaked menacingly, threatening to expose her at any second.
Melissa gritted her teeth. She couldn’t make a sound or she would give away her location. She had no idea how Will came to appear at the cabin, but she knew it wasn’t good that he was there. She’d suspected that he was still alive. He was too spiteful to die.
It was a miracle that Melissa was still alive. After the ambush, she tried to escape through the window, but it was sealed shut. The infected that were attacking her caught fire and became too distracted to fight her. The only reason she found the door to the storm cellar was because she had fallen on the ground when the smoke rose.
While on the floor, gasping for breath, Melissa’s hand came into contact with a small metal handle. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she had also been unconscious for most of the time they had spent there. She managed to lift the hinged door with one arm and jumped inside the dark hole in the ground.
The walls of the cellar were hard and stony. It felt like it had been paved with bricks or concrete. She felt around the floor, trying to make sense of her surroundings in the dark. Beside her, she felt notches in the wall, as if the builder had created steps to get in and out of the hole. Cans and bottles lined one wall, and she even found a waterproof container with matches and candles and a lone flashlight. It was so hot in the cabin from the fire that the candle wax stuck to her hand.
Will stood above her for a long time. Why wouldn’t he move?
Finally, she heard the sound of footsteps. Then, the sound of a truck starting up. People piled into a vehicle and eventually drove away.
Silence.
Not trusting the sudden quiet, she stayed fixed to her spot in the cellar. It had been perfectly still when the infected interrupted her moment with Thomas, so she wasn’t about to be tricked again.
Thomas. He was in the house, fighting the infected, but she’d lost sight of him. She didn’t hear his voice in the aftermath. If Will and other men were in the house, wouldn’t someone say something?
Melissa needed answers, but she was too afraid to go back to the cabin. She sat on the damp ground, her arms wrapped around her knees. She had a terrible feeling that whatever she would find above her would be horrifying. Perhaps she could suspend reality for just a little while longer if she remained in the bunker.
But curiosity and the sweltering heat got to her first. She climbed up the side of the stone wall and carefully lifted the cellar door, which nearly crumbled in her hand. She gasped when she saw what was left of the cottage.
She flicked on the flashlight, careful not to shine too much light outside just in case someone was lurking nearby. She was shocked to find how much structural damage had been done and marveled at how lucky she was to be alive.
The roof was almost completely gone and the walls looked like they could be brought down with a strong wind. Everything was black with soot, and whenever the wind blew, ash swirled in the air.
Then, there were the bodies. Some were badly damaged, but some still looked recognizable as people. One reminded her of her high school science teacher so much that she had to cover his face with the rug. Another looked like someone her mom might have been friends with back in the suburbs. Melissa had feared these people more than anything, but when it came down to it, they were just people.
She didn’t want to continue examining the corpses, but she needed to ensure that Thomas got away. There were several men about his height and weight, but none looked quite like him.
While in the bunker, she heard muffled voices talk about collecting bodies. For what purpose, Melissa had no idea. They wouldn’t have taken Thomas, would they?
She shone the flashlight on her body, trying to find a source for the pain she felt. The backs of her hands were red and shiny, and a blister was starting to form on her bicep. She gently touched her neck and winced—small bubbles had cropped up on her neck and chest.
The remains of the first aid kit had melted. She pried the top of the kit off and tried to distinguish one medical supply from the other. A small tube of burn ointment was twisted and mangled from the heat—completely unusable. She tossed it back in with the rest of the ruined items.
So much for taking the remaining doses of her antibiotic. However, she was feeling well enough that this didn’t concern her. She just hoped she could keep her new wounds clean. At this rate, Melissa didn’t know if she would ever be truly healthy again.
Outside the cabin, it was dark and still. Melissa shivered when the cold breeze made contact with her clammy skin. She thought she heard someone coming toward her, but it just turned out to be a fox, who scurried by without giving her a second look.
She was truly alone.
As long as the virus had left her without family or friends, she had clung to whomever she could find. Many of the characters she encountered were shady, but for the most part, they had a common goal of avoiding contamination by any means necessary. So when creepy men made comments about her figure, she pretended not to hear them. When the infected came after them, they blew them away in a blaze of gunfire.
Some, she found, were possibly more dangerous than the infected. It did
n’t take long before she knew she was in big trouble for being a part of whatever Dr. Vincent called his cronies. Luckily, she met up with people who shared her same concerns and had similar values.
But like everything else, that group had dissolved as quickly as it formed. Victoria, Natalia, and Derek died way before their time. Will turned out to be a complete psychopath. Alec and Elaina were cliquey, Melissa thought, but they were still good people who seemed to at least show a little concern for others. Thomas was the best of them all, though. He was the most thoughtful one in that group.
Melissa knew that she would never find a travel companion like Thomas again. He was one in a million, a light in an otherwise dark place. Few good people had survived the virus at this point.
There was no point in sticking around the cabin. There was nothing left to shelter. If anything, being in an exposed area made her more vulnerable to attack. If more infected saw the smoke, they’d come running. It just wasn’t safe to stay.
Melissa gathered as much as she could from the cabin, which was far less than she was comfortable with having on hand. She needed weapons, food, and first aid kits. She returned to the cellar, carefully climbing down the steps into the hole in the ground. She tossed cans of food and bottles of water to the main floor and pocketed other small items like the hand-powered flashlight.
In the kitchen, Melissa sifted through the silverware to find something she could use as a weapon in case of emergency. She found a paring knife with a partially-melted handle and added it to her stash. She would have preferred Thomas’s shotgun, but that was nowhere to be found.
Since she didn’t think Alec and Elaina were planning on returning, she didn’t feel the need to stay on the trail like Alec ordered. She wasn’t about to wait around like a duck in a pond, ready to be targeted. She was going to stick to her original plan—Oklahoma.
Melissa thought of very little else when it came to future goals. Her grandparents’ house was her end game since her brother had died. She had spoken to them over the phone after her mother left and they were very understanding. They didn’t blame Melissa for what had happened to Samuel and they wanted her to be safe with them.
Along with wanting to be with her grandparents, Melissa also envisioned herself as a savior, giving displaced survivors a place to stay. She felt as if by helping others, she would be able to cancel out her misdeeds against her own family by providing an opportunity for the virus to attack her loved ones. But since Will lost his mind, she’d changed her stance on that issue. She would go alone.
There was a small part of her that was worried that Alec would come back for her and she wouldn’t be there. Best-case scenario, she could continue travelling with them until she split off from the group to live with her family. If there was any chance they cared about her wellbeing and wanted to come back for her, she wanted them to know she had survived the fire and was receptive to being found if such a situation were in the cards.
Before she left, Melissa got out the knife and started hacking away at a tree trunk. She carved rough letters into the bark until the melted handle caused her hand to blister. When she finished, she stood back and looked at her handiwork.
MEL—OK
Melissa hoped that her secret message would tell her former companions two things—that she was okay and she would continue traveling to Oklahoma without them. She hoped that her markings would last until they returned and that it wasn’t an open invitation for sinister people to start looking for her.
With that, she made her way down the trail, careful to walk near the trees so she could hide at a moment’s notice. The tire treads on the ground were still fresh.
For a split second, Melissa thought about following the markings, just to see if she could find Thomas. She even wanted to find Will and punch him straight in the face, but she knew he could quickly overpower her, and the thought of being in contact with him again made her skin crawl.
She trudged through the woods, even though every inch of her ached and burned. She was absolutely exhausted, but she willed herself to continue for as long as her legs would hold up. It was possible that there were more cabins along the way, but they were probably raided too. Perhaps once the sun came up, it would be safe to rummage for supplies. Until then, Melissa had to keep moving toward the east.
Sweat stung every damaged skin cell and Melissa was out of pain medication. Gritting her teeth, she kept walking, though she was weak and in pain. She was tough, though, and never stopped betting on herself to survive.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Are you there, Dr. Himmler?” Elaina asked. He didn’t respond after she said her name.
“Yes, Morgan, I’m here,” he said, his voice sounding weary.
“I need to explain what’s going on,” Elaina said quickly before he had the chance to hang up on her. “There is a lot of false information being spread about me.”
Dr. Himmler was quiet again for a moment before speaking. “I’m listening.”
Elaina didn’t know where to start. She felt like she had told her story so many times and practiced it in her mind for these types of situations. But she was finally in the position to speak to someone who actually knew the ins and outs of what was going on and she froze.
“I didn’t do this. You know that, right?” she stammered.
“Dr. Morgan, I thought you were going to present your argument to me.” This sounded like the professor she knew. He was tough, but fair.
“Yes, I know,” she said, gathering her thoughts. “We spoke not that long ago. You gave me suggestions about my work and how I could make my virus more effective in fighting cancer cells.”
“Yes, I recall,” he said. “I may be an old man, but my mind is as sharp as ever.”
“Good. Then you know that I wouldn’t use my work for malevolent purposes. I only ever wanted to create a side-effect-free cure for the disease. I’ve been working on it in theory ever since my sister died of cancer.”
“It was a remarkable idea,” he mused. “So many scientists turn to pharmacology when there are better answers right in front of our faces.”
“I only ask because I want to ensure that someone who met me before the epidemic occurred can vouch for my intentions and my research.”
“I understand, but emotional appeals are a rhetorical fallacy,” he said. “Tell me the facts.”
Elaina nodded to herself. She was much more comfortable with facts than feelings anyway.
“I mostly work alone, but the other people in my lab obviously know what I’m working on. Bretton Vincent liked to point out reasons for why I was working on a futile task while simultaneously working on something top-secret of his own. I never quite trusted him when I worked with him. Now, I definitely don’t. I know that he created a copycat virus and released it in Seattle. Then, he pinned the blame on me. This is his virus, not mine.”
“These accusations are very serious. If what you’re saying is true, there will be complications.”
“I’m certain that I’m correct,” Elaina said. “I’ve never been more certain than anything in my life. My innocence means nothing, though, if I can’t prove it. The problem is, everyone is too brainwashed by the media to see any other explanation for this epidemic.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“I don’t exactly know. That’s why I travelled to an area with working phones so I could contact you. I’ve been working on a cure, but without a proper lab, I don’t have the means to mass-produce it.”
“Does it work?” he asked. He sounded more interested in what she had to say.
“I believe so—to a certain extent, anyway. I haven’t been able to do many trials, but it’s worked in one case.”
“You’ve created a working cure for the virus?”
“Yeah,” she said, confused. “But I haven’t conducted the trials I usually like to do.”
“Dr. Morgan, I have been called by the military to work on a cure. I haven’t even come close in my two weeks workin
g on it. The government can’t find anyone who can get a cure quite right. Are you saying that you think you have something that will work?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling confident.
Dr. Himmler sighed. “This is incredible news. I caught word that Dr. Vincent was called in to work on a cure for the so-called “Morgan Strain”. He couldn’t even undo his own creation. They sacked him and called other experts to chip away at the mystery.”
“I know,” Elaina said. “I’ve seen him since the virus broke out. I wonder if the military knows what he’s up to now.”
“Do tell.”
Elaina explained her run-in with Dr. Vincent where he injected her with his virus. Then, she told him the information she got from Natalia about the new army before her death. She told him about how it was possible that he was working on a way to militarize his virus instead of working on a cure.
“I’m quite stunned by your accusations,” Dr. Himmler said. “If what you’re saying is true, this sounds like treason. It sounds like Dr. Vincent is committing a war crime. The very thought that he would give up his duty to do good is absolutely despicable. Alas, I am not surprised at all to hear this.”
“Why?” Elaina asked, worry in her eyes. Alec stood nearby, trying to figure out why she was so concerned.
“Frankly, the United States has all but given up on saving anyone from this horrible disease. There is a border in place that has become virtually impenetrable. There is a lot of controversy in the east right now. Some are motivated by fear and refuse to help those in infected areas. Others think it’s a disgrace that the country would turn its back on its own people.”
Elaina’s face fell. “Where do you stand?”
“It’s complicated. People like us know that viruses are transmitted at alarming rates. But we also know that cures exist for these viruses. I firmly believe that we must contain the disease as well as we can, but we need to quickly work on a vaccine as well. I would hate it to get to the point where the military is wiping out healthy people just because they come from an infected area.”
