The Dead Saga: Odium 0.5 (Nina's Story)

by Riley, Claire C.

  You can’t run from death, and you can’t hide from it either. It’s coming for us; it’s just a waiting game. It’s all just a matter of time.

  Chapter Twelve.

  “Nina. You have to run!”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Go, go now!”

  I stir, my moans from my nightmare becoming vocalized into reality and making my eyes open abruptly and my body jerk awake. I yelp, I definitely yelp, and the crazy old coot from last night mutters something that sounds like fucking idiot under his breath at me—which is insulting, considering I had been awake for most of the night listening to gunfire outside and him muttering on about conspiracy theories. I sit up, staring into the darkness and trying to determine roughly what time it might be.

  It’s all quiet outside—no groans, no gunshots, no yelling, no heavy stomping, no klaxon, nothing. Just bittersweet silence. I figure that is either a good sign or a bad one. A sliver of light filters from under the doorway on the far side of the room, and I feel better knowing that it’s daytime. I hate the nighttime; things are always much scarier at night.

  My eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the room and I can make out the shapes of bodies surrounding me on the floor. It’s eerie, being trapped in a room with so many unmoving people, the room practically silent and the stench of sweaty bodies almost unbearable. Any one of them could be infected, and we would all be trapped in there with them. We would all be eaten, killed, and reborn anew. It’s a mistake waiting to happen. And yet deep down I know that the soldiers do it for a reason.

  My dream touched on the outer perimeters of my memories, and I recall Ben’s face. I allow myself a brief moment to think of him, and to mourn him, as I do every morning. His smile, his eyes, the feel of his hand on my skin—it’s all soothing, at least until the memory changes, morphing Ben into something else, into someone else. I press the palms of my hands into my eyes, pushing and pushing as I force myself to banish the sight of Ben’s face far from my mind. My throat feels tight, my body cold, and all I can see is his body being torn apart by that deader. It was my fault. The reason he died was my fault, and his haunting memory and the fact that I have to live with it, that is my punishment.

  I open my eyes, colors flashing in front of my pupils for a brief moment until everything is back as it had been. Everything is dark. Everything is still. And my heart settles back into its normal rhythm once more. I swallow down the bile in my throat and pinch the skin at the crook of my arm until the tears and sadness that want to engulf me disappear and I am only left with the stinging pain where my nails have broken the skin.

  Footsteps sound outside, the rhythmic marching of army men coming to open the doors and let us out. We have survived another night, another attack, but how many more can we truly endure? This isn’t living, this is existing. And it’s a shitty existence. One only pigs could thoroughly respect.

  The door swings open and the room was filled with light so blinding that people gasp and yell. It’s ironic, really, as we all slowly stand, gathering our limited belongings and heading toward the light. We aren’t going toward heaven, we’re heading straight back into hell.

  As we step outside we are assigned new rooms and informed to go straight there, set up our beds, and then head to our jobs. Because yes, people, even at the end of days there is no rest for the wicked. We still have jobs to do to keep this shithole running, and the higher up the rank you are, the better your damned job.

  It’s like life inside the walls has carried on much like it had outside of them. Kids are sent to school, if it can really be called that, parents are sent to work, and the rest of us are distributed around the compound depending upon our circumstances, what we own, and what we know.

  Since I had arrived with limited provisions and I have some skills under my belt, I’m not doing so badly. But others had arrived with nothing but the blood pumping through their veins and a bag full of misery. This place has no use for misery. You can’t trade it or barter with it, and I dreaded to think what those people had to do to survive.

  I make my way over to my new housing, glad to be further away from the pig sties but still wishing I could go back to where I had been previously. It doesn’t matter, though—not really. It is what it is.

  The door is already open, and I’m surprised to see that we actually have a mix of beds and cots in here. I mean, neither option looks comfy, at all; the cots are military grade and simplistic and the beds have the most vulgar mattresses I think I had ever seen. But they are much better than a piece of cardboard on the floor. I haven’t slept on a real bed for a year. A small smile rises to my cheeks. The muscles are so unused to the action that it makes my face ache.

  The room is small. I couldn’t give you measurements of it, since I know nothing about that sort of thing, but there are around ten beds in the small space and an open archway leading into another similar style room which looks to have the same setup in it, barring in that room there are green cots. We each get something better to sleep on than the floor, nothing more, nothing less, but as I make my way over to my assigned one, it feels like I have won the lottery. I had been beginning to believe these things were just a myth and not rotated around.

  I stand before my bed with my pillow, blanket, and square of cardboard under one arm, and I stare down at it—almost frightened that if I touch it the illusion might be broken.

  “Amazing, right?”

  I glance over at the opposite bed, and to the dark-haired woman standing in front of what I assume to be her bed. I nod once, the small smile still on my face.

  She slowly reaches her hand out and touches the mattress, and I watch her in eager anticipation. Her fingers graze the top before pressing down a little to test its bounce-ability.

  She groans, a throaty, needy sound that makes me want to laugh. “My back is going to thank me for this.” All at once she sits on it, before shuffling her body so that she’s lying down. She closes her eyes and sighs, and I finally breathe.

  I stay where I am, staring at her, until she cracks an eye open and looks in my direction.

  “This is better than sex, girl, you really need to try it out.”

  I don’t reply, but instead climb on my bunk, my arms still wrapped tightly around my belongings, and I lie back. The smell of sweat and mustiness escapes all around me, and the dip of the filthy mattress that is clearly way too old to be still being used cocoons my body. I stare up at the ceiling, noticing the small spray of brown above my bunk. I should be frightened, scared, worried. I should be a lot of things as I stare at what are more than likely dried blood stains, but I’m not anything. I let myself escape in the moment to somewhere else, and I relish in the simple comfort that a shitty mattress can bring.

  *

  Since I’m good with numbers, I work in one of the offices along with a handful of others that are privy to the same sensitive knowledge as me. We get to keep track of the ammo and food rations. I spend my days counting—counting bullets, counting grenades, counting cans of corn, counting pasta shells. It doesn’t really matter what I’m counting, and in truth I barely see what it is anymore. I just do it. I count all day and I hate it, but at least the counting takes my mind off the other things going on in the world, and it’s definitely preferable to some of the other jobs people have.

  Ben would have been great at the compound. He was a mechanic and could fix just about any vehicle. They could have really used a man like him.

  I mark down on the label how many rounds are left in the box and shake my head. It isn’t good; we’re getting dangerously low on pretty much everything, but the people running the city are reluctant to send anyone out for hand-to-hand combat with those monsters. Instead they choose to rely on the airdrops that we are still getting from the army. I get it, I really do. But by my reckoning, in another month, give or take, they will be heading out into that scary world in search of provisions anyway. The airdrops are getting less and less frequent and what’s in them is getti
ng less and less useful.

  I stand up, stretching out my back and flexing my fingers. It’s an unforgiving job, but one I won’t ever complain about since there are far worse ones out there. Nomi, one of the other girls working alongside me, looks up as I stand. She doesn’t speak much, or at all, and hasn’t since she arrived. She, like me, came alone, having lost her family along the way. But that’s where our similarities end. She is short with curly hair, and I’m tall with long, straight hair. She still has compassion ingrained in her, while I can’t remember if I’d ever even had it before all of this. That was another life, and one I try to forget about.

  We never talk, but we occasionally make eye contact with one another. Like now. Sometimes we hold entire conversations just with looks, and other times both she and I are fortresses and we won’t let anyone in.

  Nomi looks away again and continues counting the army ration packs, and I bend over and retrieve another large tray of boxed bullets. Colonel Smith chooses that moment to come into the room, and his eyes graze over our group before landing on me.

  “Sir, we have everything set up.” One of the young sergeants stands by his side, gesturing for the colonel to follow him through into the map room. The colonel’s gaze stays on mine for another moment before he turns and follows the sergeant, and I swallow down the ache in my stomach.

  I tend to keep to myself, but the odd time that I do have to speak to any of the civilians, well, let’s just say that they listen to what I have to say. I’m not sure why, though I suspect it’s my no-nonsense attitude and flippant disregard for the rules. People seem to think I’ll stand up for them if the time comes, but clearly they’re batshit crazy because I only care about keeping myself alive.

  So far we have been safe behind the walls, the army has protected us well, but as we get down to the bone of supplies, I wonder how much longer that will fare. Sure it has been shitty, rationed food, awful sleeping conditions, harsh working conditions, and even worse bathing conditions, but it has been safe at least. But by now this place should be getting more secure, the walls higher, and everything more organized. Not to mention that the government should be able to at least contain the outbreak.

  But instead, the deader attacks have become more frequent and we supposedly haven’t heard a thing from the main control center since a bomb had been dropped on one of the larger cities, so the entire place now feels unsteady, ready to topple over and crush us all beneath its weight at any time. Barring the odd ration drops here and there, we are on our own in this mess.

  I don’t trust the colonel; I never trust anyone that can keep that calm in the midst of a crisis, though I know that’s the sort of quality that should relax me somewhat.

  I look down at my hands, seeing the tray they’re holding shaking slightly, and I quickly place the tray on the large table in the middle of the room. I sit down and hunch over it as I begin grabbing each small box and opening it, counting how many bullets were inside and then making a note of it.

  By the time I get to the end of my tray I’m more than certain that my month estimation was vastly exaggerated. If we have many more attacks like the one last night, we won’t make it through the next fortnight.

  Chapter Thirteen.

  Dinner is, in a word, simple. It always is.

  Plain pasta with some canned tomatoes mixed in. It isn’t bad, not really, not when I think of all the people starving out there in the real world—if there was anyone left alive out there. I feel guilty for even internally complaining, but I guess as humans it’s inbred in us to complain. And though I haven’t voiced my concerns or my complaints, I can’t hide the truth from my face. The pasta is undercooked and the tomatoes are cold, and the portion size is that of a child’s.

  I scoop another forkful of pasta into my mouth and begin the process of chewing it. It isn’t just bland, it’s undercooked to the point of being almost sticky. It clings to my teeth and gets stuck in my throat. I take a small sip of my rationed water—one small glass per meal is all we are allowed a day—and I frown even harder, though I keep my gaze downwards.

  At my average there are a little over four hundred civilians, and around forty soldiers of whatever rank they might be. We have boxes and boxes of ration packs, more than enough to feed us all for a couple of days if we were careful, and yet those haven’t been handed out yet. The sinking feeling in my gut isn’t just because of the bland food and lack of fiber in my diet; I have a bad feeling that the ration packs are being saved for something, or someone more important than us.

  Many people hadn’t made it to a safe zone, they had perished in their attempt to, and many people are still out there trying to survive, and they are doing so on much less than uncomfortable bedding and bland food. Yet I can’t stop being irritated by our circumstances. And by the looks of some of the people around the table, neither can they.

  “This is bullshit.”

  I look across the table toward the voice. An older man is pushing his food around his plate with his fork while simultaneously snarling at it like he wants to attack it. I roll my eyes and return to my food. He sounds like the man from last night, but I can’t be certain since I did everything in my power to block out both him and his incessant ramblings.

  The mess hall is quiet; murmurings and scraping forks are pretty much it. The walled city always tends to be kept pretty quiet, since noise and smell attract the deaders. Plans are in place to build the walls even higher to help block out more of the noise from the day-to-day running of this place; you’d be surprised how noisy people can be, but supplies and the people to build it are obviously lacking. I had overheard Colonel Smith saying that they are always searching for more people, people that could assist in making this place more secure, but as of yet it’s mainly just your run-of-the-mill paper pusher or stay-at-home mom that has made it to the walls.

  I’m still shocked by how many moms had made it. That sounds sexist, and I guess it is, but whatever, they’re my thoughts and I won’t be ashamed of them. Okay, maybe I am a little ashamed of them.

  “Fucking bullshit.”

  I glance over at the man again just as he looks up. Our eyes connect and it’s like a red rag to a bull.

  “Can you believe this bullcrap? The stuff they’re feeding us when you know they’ve got something delicious back there.”

  I look back down, not wanting to engage with him in any way.

  “Did you hear me? Hey. Hey!”

  I grit my teeth and glance up again, seeing that most of the room is now staring between this man and me.

  Fan-freaking-tastic. I roll my eyes and raise my fork to my mouth, emphasizing the bite I take, and I begin chewing it loudly, forcing a smile to my face. It’s my way of showing him, and everyone else, that I’m just glad to have food in my stomach and I don’t care for what he has to say.

  “Oh, you think that’s funny do you? You little whore.”

  I stop chewing and drop my fork, the clatter sounding obnoxiously loud against the backdrop of silence he just created. I swallow down the unchewed food still in my mouth. Mumbles and whispers creep across the tables as more and more people turn to stare at the spectacle, and I feel my cheeks grow hot with both embarrassment and anger.

  “Excuse me. What did you just call me?” I stare at him, willing him to flinch under my impervious glare, but he doesn’t. He snarls right back, picks up his plate, and launches it against the wall behind my head, making me jump. Yet all I’m really bothered about is the waste of food.

  The woman next to me gasps right before tutting as if this is all my fault, and I turn to her, offering a hard enough glare to stop a rabid dog in its tracks.

  “Lady, don’t even start with me!” I snap, staring her down until she looks away.

  “Someone is in on this, I know it, and you won’t get away with it!” the man yells.

  This is definitely the same man from last night, I decide. Crazy cuckoo Charlie and his ramblings are off again. I don’t know why, but I always seem to attr
act the crazies. I’d like to think it’s because of my glowing personality, but I know that isn’t true.

  “Sir, I think you should shut the hell up and calm the fuck down,” I reply, in response to his rant. His nostrils flare and I continue: “Before they put you down.” I nod toward the guards heading his way, but he continues to stare at me like I’m the damned devil. At least everyone else has decided to look away, staring back down into their plates and continuing to eat like this is all perfectly normal.

  “Fucking whore. You’re probably in on all of this. I bet you get extra portions because of your extracurricular activities—” His words are cut off as a guard comes up behind him and slams the butt of his pistol into the base of his skull—which is good, really, since I’m already pushing my chair back and am ready to pounce on this asshole for making such a vulgar statement.

  Two other guards grip him by the shoulders and begin dragging his limp body away. And me, I stare on at the entire scene in shock. A nervous and slightly fearful laugh is stuck in my throat, just begging to be let out. My hands are still curled into fists, my blunt nails digging into the palms of my hands.

  What the hell just happened?

  Miss Judgmental next to me is whispering to someone, and I turn and stare at the side of her face until she hushes up.