Matthew shot him a look.
“Like with a gun or a knife,” he added. “This is a little different.”
“I want to explain myself,” she said.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Matthew said dryly.
“I want to hear it,” Carl said. “Go on.”
She cleared her throat and wiped her nose on the edge of her sleeve. “When I get these projects, I don’t know what they’re used for. As far as I know, they’re kept in a safe and never see the light of day.”
“But you knew it was a weapon,” Matthew said.
“To me, they’re just critters in a Petri dish,” she sniffed.
“You could have said no when you knew it was going to be a weapon,” Matthew countered.
“If she didn’t do it, someone else would have,” Sergio said, trying to be the voice of reason. “Isn’t that right?”
She nodded, appreciative of the backup. “That’s true. If anything, I thought it would be used for defense—something that keeps an enemy from killing us all. I had no reason to think it would be used on our own people. I’m still in disbelief about that.”
“So, where do we go from here?” Lucas asked. “In terms of the virus, I mean. If you created it, can’t you easily make a vaccine? Can you make a cure?”
She shook her head. “Like I said, it’s very complicated. That’s why there’s a team of people who work on it. Once I finished it, it was sent to the immunology lab. They made the vaccine. I—I hate to admit it, but I was given a shot of the vaccine.”
“What?” Matthew shouted. “All this time, I was protecting your ass and you were immune to the virus? Why did we waste our time on you?”
“The zombies can still kill,” she said darkly. “Even immune, I’m still at risk. But I didn’t know what immunity meant until I got out into the streets. It’s the strangest thing—I’ve noticed that the zombies act differently around me.”
“How so?” Matthew asked, his stomach sinking.
“When I’m with a group, I feel like they are after me. But if I separate myself a little bit, it’s almost as though they can’t see me as well. See is probably the wrong word. They can’t smell me like they smell other people. Whatever it is that attracts them to humans is gone. That’s why I’m so interested in studying my blood—if I can figure out what’s in there, maybe I can replicate it.”
“Where are the others who worked on it?” Lucas asked. “Can we just find them and have them help us?”
“I’m not sure who worked on it,” Ellie replied. “Part of the secrecy of it all includes anonymity. I couldn’t tell you who made the vaccine. But I have a good feeling that if they’re still alive, they’ve fled. People clearly don’t take kindly to us now.”
“For good reason,” Matthew said. “So, if you can figure out how to replicate the vaccine, you can keep the zombies from attacking?”
“If everyone in the area is vaccinated, yes. But as long as there are unvaccinated people, they will continue to thrive.”
“Then I guess it’s good news that a vaccine is possible,” Carl said. “Though, I’m not very happy about how we’ve received this information.”
“I know,” Ellie said sheepishly. “I’m truly sorry and horrified that it’s occurred this way.”
This wasn’t good enough for Matthew. He still couldn’t get his mind around her secrecy. Now, he was angry for her involvement but also hurt that they had been friends and she had hidden these secrets from him.
Tears welled up in Matthew’s eyes and he made no effort to blink them back. He began to cry, bowing his head as low as it could go. He heard Ellie sniffling even more.
“I’m so sorry, Matthew,” she said. “If I had any idea any of this would have happened, I wouldn’t have gotten involved.”
Matthew shook his head, looking up at her through blurry eyes. “You were the first person I got close to after the epidemic began,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You were the first person I ever opened up to. I know we never had really deep talks, but just the fact that I spoke to you at all really says how I thought of you. You were kind and understanding when I was too upset to get up in the morning. You were understanding when I woke everyone up with my nightmares. You never made me feel like I was a walking disaster, which I kind of was in those early days. You and Genevieve were my first friends.”
“And you were so kind and patient with me,” she sobbed. “You don’t know how grateful I am that you came into my life.”
“But that’s changed now,” Matthew said, taking a deep breath to steady himself. “I want to move on, but there’s no coming back from this. How am I supposed to stay in this hotel when you’re here? When I see your face, I just think about how your creation killed my wife. You killed my wife. How do I move on from that?”
“I—I don’t know,” she sputtered. “I don’t know how to make things better.”
“I don’t think you can,” he said sadly. “Even if you created the vaccine right now and saved the world, I would still remember you as the one who caused my wife’s death.”
“She didn’t mean to,” Carl said. “She was only doing what she was told. Why don’t we figure out who was at the top of this conspiracy and take them down? In the meantime, the girls can work on the vaccine and we can rescue more people. We can still do good here.”
“I want to make up for this,” she said. “I don’t know if I can, but I want to try. The only problem is, I still need your help.”
“My help?” Matthew asked. “I don’t think you want to work with me. Why don’t you ask any of the others to assist you? They’ll be much more helpful than I could ever be.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, sending tears flying to the table in front of her. “It has to be you.”
“Why?”
Ellie took a deep breath. “There’s something different about you that the others don’t have. I noticed it after you told me about the scratch on your face. I think you’re like me. I think you could be immune.”
“No—” he started to say before he shut his mouth. He wondered if she could possibly be right about that. It was likely that he was introduced to some sort of pathogens when he was scratched by the zombie. But he didn’t get sick. So, maybe it was just enough virus to introduce his body to the invader but not enough to cause illness.
That would explain why the zombie at the hospital treated him differently while he was alone at the gate. It acted as though he wasn’t there or like it wasn’t interested in infecting him. That sounded similar to the way Ellie described her immunity.
It would be a huge relief if he were immune. Though he was still at risk, at least he could fight without being directly targeted. Then, even if he received a non-lethal bite, he could recover from it.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked softly.
“I need a sample of your blood,” she responded nervously. “I’ll just draw a small sample through the crook of your elbow. Then, I’ll look at it under the microscope, just as I looked at mine. If you’re immune, despite not receiving a shot of the vaccine, then there might be more information that can help us make a new vaccine. It could be risky, but if you have a weakened or dead form of the virus in your system, we might even be able to use your blood as the vaccine.”
“Is that possible?” Lucas asked. He quickly tried to explain Ellie’s words to Genevieve, who watched in horror.
“I don’t know, but it could be worth a try,” she answered. “But we’ll never know until we look at your blood under the microscope. What do you say? Are you willing to let me examine you?”
Matthew hesitated. He didn’t want to help Ellie with anything. He didn’t even want to be in the same room as her, let alone assist her with her experiments. Part of him wanted to run as far away as he could. That way, he wouldn’t have to be around anyone who had hurt him or his family.
But at the same time, if she was right about his immunity, he could do a lot of good by letting her examine him. A
t the end of the day, he cared much more about a cure than he cared about his pride. He stood up from his seat and approached her table.
Carl and Sergio bolted up, ready to hold him back, but once they realized that he was participating in the experiment, they sat back down.
“This isn’t for you,” he said, as he sat down across from her and rolled up his sleeve. “I’m doing this for the others out there who can’t protect themselves.”
Ellie leaned forward to tie a strip of fabric around his bicep.
“I’ll never forgive you,” he hissed in her ear.
She looked like she was going to start crying again, but she kept her composure. She attached the sterile needle to the syringe and set it on the table. Then, she wiped his arm with a bit of tissue with alcohol on it.
“Ready?” she asked, holding the needle just inches from his skin. His skin tingled at the thought of being punctured, but he wasn’t about to show weakness in front of Ellie. He wanted to be as intimidating as possible.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he grumbled. She inserted the needle under his skin, hitting the blue vein underneath. Then she pulled the plunger.
As he watched her remove his blood, Matthew thought that he was about to faint. He had occasionally been squeamish around needles, but never so bad that he hallucinated. But when he saw Ellie’s horrified reaction, he knew that he was seeing what she was seeing. The blood from Matthew’s body was much darker than Ellie’s blood on the slide. In fact, his was completely black.
When she completed taking the specimen, she set the syringe back on a table without creating a new slide. She didn’t need to examine it under the microscope to know what it would show. She bit her lip and looked at the table, trying to avoid Matthew’s gaze.
He didn’t need to know what she wanted to say. It was the thing he feared the most, but he did his best to convince himself it was a silly worry. But proof was proof. He was infected with the virus but symptom-free. It was only a matter of time before the confusion, rage, and subsequent hunger for human flesh plagued him. Eventually, he would become the thing he feared most. He just didn’t know what would take him out first—the virus or the people he’d come to know as his friends.
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About Max Lockwood
Max Lockwood writes suspenseful, post-apocalyptic thriller and dystopian fiction while living in New York.
Growing up with parents who were preppers and always planning for the worst, but hoping for the best, got him interested in writing in the first place. “What would happen if the world were to change?” is something he asked himself his whole life. Until one day he decided to put it down on paper.
His stories will have you reading on the edge of your seats…you have been warned!
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Also by Max Lockwood
Last Man Standing Series
Zombie Apocalypse (Book 0—Prequel)
Zombie Armageddon (Book 1)
Zombie Annihilation (Book 2)
The Morgan Strain Series
Point Of Transmission (Book 1)
Point Of Proximity (Book 2)
Point Of Destruction (Book 3)
Zero Power Series
It Began (Book 1)
Trying To Survive (Book 2)
They Invaded (Book 3)
Fending Them Off (Book 4)
Excerpt From Point Of Transmission
1
The cold mist fell in tiny specks on the diner’s windows, forming tiny rivers as they fell down the glass. Elaina breathed hot air on the pane and traced doodles in the condensation. To the average eye, it looked like geometric nonsense—just hexagons with straight lines shooting off into other shapes. Only Elaina understood the intricacies of the chemical formulas she designed.
When it comes to art, most people appreciate paintings, literature, or music. Though culture frequently shifts, people tend to find beauty in works created by others. No one catches a cold and marvels at the nasty little virus that causes their suffering. No one except, perhaps, for Elaina Morgan.
After a particularly bad stomach virus at the age of three, a precocious Elaina asked her mom why she was sick. At that age, all children are full of questions, but they never think too much about the answers. When her mom explained that tiny creatures had entered her body and made her sick, this small nugget of knowledge didn’t disappear like other childhood musings. Instead, she begged her parents to buy her books about viruses.
Already used to her strange requests at this age, her parents read her short sections of completely age-inappropriate books every night. As a middle school English teacher and a mechanical engineer, her father and mother knew little of the subject matter as they read to their daughter. Within a few years, their services were no longer needed, and a bike ride to the library took Elaina to a new world of discoveries.
It was no surprise, then, that by the age of fifteen, Elaina had completed her high school courses while she took college prerequisites at the local community college at night. When most students wrote their college application essay on why they wanted to attend their school of choice, Elaina attached a copy of her study on the Ebola virus to her Princeton application. She was awarded a full scholarship the very next day.
Elaina nervously tapped her fingertips on the slightly sticky table as she waited for her coffee refill to arrive. She picked at a cheese Danish, knowing that she should eat but not really tasting anything. Sleep hadn’t come easily for Elaina in the past few days. She had never been a particularly good sleeper. There was always too much work to be done, too many ideas floating around her head. But, recent events had made it impossible to quiet her mind for long enough to make it through a few REM cycles.
“Thank you,” Elaina muttered as the waitress came around with the steaming hot carafe of coffee for the second time. During her high school years, Elaina had frequented that diner, becoming a bit of a regular. Now, with her very own office, she didn’t have to leave the privacy of her laboratory to get her fix. When she arrived, she was mildly concerned that an old waitress or cook would remember one of their most loyal patrons, but in a college town, she was just one face out of many.
She greedily gulped down her coffee after stirring a splash of milk and an artificial sweetener into the cup of dark liquid. In a few minutes, she would have to pack up her things and go, but she knew to savor the moment in the warm café.
Drops of rainwater dripped from her baseball cap onto the counter, leaving small puddles that she wiped away with the sleeve of her baggy sweatshirt. Never much of a sports fan, she still loved to wear her old Mariners hat that her dad bought her years ago. She wore it like camouflage, blending in with the other caffeine addicts in the diner.
Elaina made tight fists, trying to stop her hands from shaking. Too little food and too many stimulants made her heart race and her extremities quiver. A grandfatherly man two seats away offered her a small smile.
“When you’re old like me,” he said in his pack-a-day voice, “just half a cup will do that to you. You’re too young to be so tired,” he said, noticing the dark circles around the eyes she tried to hide from the public. “I’m sure whatever you’re staying awake for isn’t as important as you think it is. I remember when my son was in college. He’d stay up all night studying for tests, only to fall asleep halfway through.”
She nodded, covering her face with her cup. Appearing unfriendly was never really a concern of hers. Making friends with old men was very low on her list of current priorities. In fact, making friends was never on any list of priorities.
“Can you believe it?” he
muttered, nodding at the old television mounted on the wall.
She turned to look and gritted her teeth at what she saw.
Elaina had watched more news broadcasts in the past week than she had in all twenty-three years of her life. The information it presented never really had much to do with her life or her own concerns. Therefore, any time consuming that kind of information would be a waste, in the scheme of things. Time was best spent working on new discoveries in her field.
“We’ve now received reports from the CDC that the virus is beginning to mutate as more people become infected,” an anchorwoman spoke in an unnatural rhythm that Elaina found grating.
“It’s scary, that,” the man said, pointing at the screen, speaking to no one in particular. “I’m just lucky I live alone and don’t go out much. I heard they had to close down every school in the county to keep this thing from spreading.”
“Hmm,” Elaina hummed, hoping he’d change the subject.
“New guidelines for avoiding the spread of this infection have been put into place and are being strongly enforced at all government agencies. The Morgan Virus is spread through the contact of bodily fluids, which can even include sneezes and coughs if the microscopic droplets enter the body.”
“I heard there were a few cases being treated in the hospital on Maple Street,” a cook said from the other side of the counter. “It’s scary to think of how close it is to us. You just never know, one of these customers might be a few hours away from losing their minds and infecting someone. It’s like people are turning into zombies out there.”
Elaina sighed, louder than she intended. This was how misinformation was spread. The fear of the unknown always opened up opportunities for rumors to fly. If any of these people had just a working knowledge of how viruses worked, this wouldn’t even be news.
Last Man Standing (Book 2): Zombie Annihilation Page 22
