by Perrin Briar
It was a rectangle, longer along the bottom and sides, with a red outline. There was a smaller rectangle contained within it. And there, hanging from the bottom like a protruding lip, was a small hoop.
She looked down and saw a white line. Her eyes moved to the side and she cocked her head. Is this a basketball court? Dana followed the white line around the corner, toward where she would find the bleachers. Her heart leapt into her throat when she was proven right.
They rose out of the light like demons from a mist. Row upon row of empty seats greeted her. Most of the current inhabitants of the basketball court were too far gone to have much use for seats, as they seemed unable to sit down for even a moment, preferring instead to wander round in circles.
And yet, not all of them were like that.
Some stood in place, unmoving, their fingers twitching, the only sign they were still alive. Their white eyes followed Dana on jerking necks as she passed.
The hairs on the back of Dana’s neck stood on end. They hadn’t moved toward her yet, but she expected them to. Maybe she really wasn’t infected. Maybe these people would soon turn, and once they did, they would go for those who weren’t infected.
For the sheep among the wolves.
But the soldiers, Dana thought. They would do something. They would stop an innocent girl from getting ripped apart…
That was hope talking. She thought back to the man who had lost all faith and raced for the guard rails, scaling the fence. The soldiers had lifted a finger. It had been placed on the trigger of their guns. Dana was on her own.
First thing was first, she needed to get away from the them as far as she could. With the bright lights beaming down, she could hide from them for a while. They would be blind to her.
The lights were beginning to give Dana a headache. She could feel the pulsing rhythm of her heart in her head and shoulder where she’d been bitten. They were parasites leeching her strength. She stepped onto the first row of bleachers and scaled to the top.
Her feet were heavy and her bones ached. It’d been a long day and she had hardly eaten. She wobbled slightly halfway up the benches, but caught herself and continued to the top. She was panting like an old draft horse by the time she got there. She took a moment to collect herself.
She would have had a view over the entire court if the lights weren’t so bright. She could make out shuffling shadows on the court, moving in and out of the giant cloud.
Would she become one of them? Was she doomed just as they were? Would her mind become as foggy as the mist down there? And then she realized that perhaps it wasn’t the mist at all, but the latest development of her condition.
Perhaps this was what happened when your eyes turned milky white and you were going blind. Maybe the lights were normal and it was her eyes that were the problem.
Dana began to panic, hyperventilating, pulling great lungfuls of oxygen into her body. It was too much to take. She was going to turn into one of them, all because the lying cheater Darren couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.
If there was an afterlife and there was any justice at all, she would confront him and wring his scrawny neck. She didn’t care if it meant spending an eternity in the burning cauldron of hell. It would be worth it. Just to see the look on his dirty little face-
“Hey. Mind if I join you?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
DANA NEAR jumped out of her skin, leaping to one side and smacking the bench. She raised her hands and feet to strike back and defend herself. But no attack came.
She was looking up into a guy’s round face. He was about her age, rotund and didn’t carry himself well. His light brown hair flopped in his eyes, made huge by his wire rim glasses. His blue jeans were torn and splattered with blood. There was a gaping hole in his sweater on the right shoulder. He was holding two bottles of water, one in each hand. He held out one to her.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked.
“Are you serious?” Dana said. “There’s no one else here. No one cares.”
Taking that as affirmation, the boy sat down. The bench juddered under his weight. Dana was already beginning to regret allowing him to sit with her. Silence was better than annoying chat.
The boy cracked open his bottle and took a big gulp. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and extended his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he said.
Dana looked at his proffered hand with distaste, and then finally, after deciding she needed all the friends she could get, no matter how pathetic, she shook his hand. To call it a shake was something of an overstatement. It was limp and weak. Just like its owner.
“I’m Hugo,” the boy said.
He waited for Dana to tell him her name, but she didn’t.
“So…” Hugo said slowly. “What are you in for?”
“Same as you, I guess,” Dana said. “Wrongly identified as being infected.”
“Wrongly?” Hugo said with a frown. “You mean, you weren’t bitten?”
“No,” Dana said. “I was bitten.”
“Then in what way aren’t you infected?” Hugo said.
“I don’t know,” Dana said. “I assumed I got lucky.”
Hugo beamed.
“Yes,” he said. “You did. You are. I mean, we are.”
“What are you talking about?” Dana said.
“That’s why the lights seem so bright to us,” Hugo said. “They’re not really bright. They’re normal. But to us and our dilated pupils they’re nigh-on unbearable. They keep the infected calm. With less to see, less to stimulate them, they’re less prone to aggression.”
So the colonel outside had been right. Dana was infected.
“Who bit you?” Hugo said. “A family member? A friend?”
“My boyfriend,” Dana said.
“Charming,” Hugo said. “What happened to him after that?”
“Oh, I beat his brains in,” Dana said.
Hugo burst out laughing, getting the attention of a handful of the wandering creatures below. He didn’t seem to notice the attention he was garnering. Dana glared at him. Seeing the look on her face, Hugo stopped laughing.
“You’re not kidding?” he said.
“No,” Dana said. “Definitely not kidding.”
“What did it feel like killing one of those things?” Hugo said.
“About the same as killing a lump of wood,” Dana said.
“Really?” Hugo said. “You felt nothing? Nothing at all?”
“You haven’t had to kill anything since this shit storm kicked off?” Dana said.
“No,” Hugo said. “I came fairly late into the game. I was well protected before I came here.”
Dana was astounded that the only guy who could speak with her turned out to also be the guy least likely to survive in the new world order. What were the odds?
“You never asked how I got my bite,” Hugo said.
“Nope,” Dana said.
She could care less. It was of little interest to her and it would hardly help their current situation.
“My grandma was hugging me one minute and the next she took a chunk out of my shoulder,” Hugo said, as if Dana had asked. “I ran, managed to get away, and never looked back.”
“Fascinating,” Dana said. “What is even going on here?”
“It’s a virus,” Hugo said. “Kicked off somewhere in the world and spread. No one knows for sure where. No one’s owning up. But it spread fast and we didn’t see it coming.”
“Yeah,” Dana said. “I saw it on the news. It took out London.”
“And the Middle East.” Hugo said. “India’s almost gone completely, it’s just burning now. Too many people packed in too closely together. Experts say it was a recipe for disaster. We’ve been flocking to cities for centuries. We always knew it was bad for our health. But not like this.”
“Then how come we’re not dead?” Dana said.
The question had been doing the rounds in her skull ever since she’d seen Janice turn. She was
afraid of the answer, in case she too would eventually turn like all the other infected.
Every second that passed, every time the figures below made a round of the court, they seemed to take another step back in the evolutionary chain, or else another step in the direction of whichever new trail they were blazing.
“Everyone I’ve seen who gets infected starts trying to kill everyone in sight soon after,” Dana said. “Usually it’s just a matter of hours. But I’m not like that. You’re not like that. Why?”
“Genetics,” Hugo said. “It’s a biological lottery, and we had winning tickets. It won’t just be us. There will be others. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but some people turn much faster than others. It’s almost like we each have a different level of defense against it. Some of us just suffer fevers, itching skin and aches and pains. You’ve had the aches right?”
He massaged his shoulders and looked Dana over. Yes, she had, and she couldn’t keep the truth out of her eyes.
“That’s the infection settling in,” Hugo said. “It’s like when you get a cold or something. You feel awful while your body’s fighting it but you’re fine within a few days. We’ve got antibodies that won’t let the virus take hold. At least, not yet.”
“So we’re immune?” Dana said. “We’ll survive no matter what?”
“We’re carriers,” Hugo said. “The virus is inside us, but it can’t take over. Not yet. We can still pass it on though, if we bite someone or share our blood. That’s why we’re here, quarantined from everyone else so we can’t pass it on. But the scientists… they might be able to use our blood to find a cure. We’re like a walking science lab.”
“How do you know all this?” Dana said.
“I keep up with the revelations on the net,” Hugo said.
He gave a wide smile and his eyes practically sparkled with joy.
“Roswell, Area 51, the Black Death, you name it,” he said. “There are websites for them all. I like to study them.”
So he is a freak, Dana thought.
“Right before the virus appeared dozens of articles turned up on the net,” Hugo said. “I devoured them all. And the more I read, the more obvious it became that something unprecedented was happening.”
Hugo was too excited by half, finding too much macabre enjoyment in their current situation. Dana leaned away from him. The last thing she needed was an infected nut sat beside her. She took a sip of the water he had given her.
Her bracelet rattled against the bottle. She played with the beads, rolling them around the elastic.
Dana’s eyes perked up.
“You said you were looking at data, reports,” Dana said, cutting through whatever Hugo had been saying.
“Yes,” Hugo said.
“Do you know where they might have taken anyone not infected?” Dana said.
“Not infected?” Hugo said with a frown. “I assume they would just let them go. Why?”
“But if they didn’t,” Dana said. “If they took them somewhere. Where would they take them?”
“Probably to a facility somewhere,” Hugo said, shrugging.
“A facility?” Dana said, leaning closer and gripping Hugo’s forearm tight. “Where?”
Hugo screwed up his face in pain.
“I don’t know!” he said. “Let go!”
Dana was consumed by anger and frustration at having hit yet another brick wall, another dead end. She released her grip on Hugo. He massaged the blood back into his arm. His expression was one of dislike, but it melted when he saw the frantic look on Dana’s face.
“It’s really that important to you, huh?” Hugo said.
Dana gritted her teeth and turned away. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. He didn’t have any passion in his little life, didn’t care about anything beyond his computer monitor and the nonsense he read on it. He didn’t know what it was like to love something more than himself, to gladly give his life if it meant she was safe.
And she had failed her, failed her more than anyone had ever failed her before. Even more than their good-for-nothing father.
Dana thumbed a tear she didn’t even know was there out the corner of her eye. She sniffed and tilted her head back.
“I’m sorry,” Hugo said. “I don’t have a clue. There are so many facilities, so many bases. And they’ll be extending them as we speak, taking over public buildings—like this one. The best hackers took off for their hideouts the moment the shit hit the fan. They were ready for this.”
“Will they have any information?” Dana said. “Anything at all?”
“Sure,” Hugo said. “If it’s information you want, there’s always plenty of it. But evidence and proof is something else entirely. There are dozens of theories out there, but that’s all they are. Theories. Someone might find a fragment of proof, and then it disappears, slipping through their fingers like smoke.”
Dana had underestimated Hugo. She’d taken him for a frizzy long-haired freak happy with unsubstantiated theories. He was still rubbing the soft flesh she’d gripped just a moment earlier. He had bruises from her fingertips.
“Sorry,” Dana said.
The word was harder to wring from her tongue than she cared to admit, but she disliked hurting people—especially those who had done her no harm.
“If I hurt your arm,” she said.
“It’s all right,” Hugo said. “I’m stronger than I look.”
It’d be harder to look any weaker, Dana thought, but she didn’t say it.
“You think there might be a secret facility somewhere ?” Dana said.
“There’s always a secret facility somewhere,” Hugo said. “The government keeps trying to keep its secrets, and we keep trying to uncover them. An endless ferris wheel, a dog constantly chasing its tail.”
“They took my sister,” Dana said. “She’s all I have. I promised I’d protect her, but they took her from me.”
The statement would have brought tears out in a weaker person. Dana had already had her moment of weakness. Now, her confession only added steel to her heart.
“I’m sorry,” Hugo said, and damn him, he sounded like he meant it. “I hope you find her, your sister.”
He had a small comforting smile painted on his lips.
“What does this virus do anyway?” Dana said. “Biologically. I mean apart from the obvious need to eat everyone in sight.”
Hugo frowned, putting everything he knew about the subject together in a form Dana might understand.
“It’s like the flu and rabies combined,” he finally said. “At least that’s what a guy inside the CDC was saying. He thought the greater public and foreign nations ought to know more about what they were facing. It causes nerve damage, retardation. It’s like the fever burns away the frontal lobe and takes away everything that makes us human. It ups our aggression and forces us into a frenzy.”
“But not everyone,” Dana said.
She nodded at a string of bodies lying at the base of the bleachers. They hadn’t moved in some time.
“Some get it and just die,” Dana said.
“But they will come back, if they’re not too badly harmed,” Hugo said, following her gaze. “That’s what makes it like the flu. Some get it worse than others. Some have it really bad and go full-out cannibal crazy.”
“Then we’re lucky,” Dana said. “We have some resistance.”
“Yes,” Hugo said.
He sighed, a lethargy and tiredness striking him to the bone.
“What is it?” Dana said.
“No matter how resistant we are, soon it won’t make any difference,” Hugo said.
“What do you mean?” Dana said. “We won’t turn into those things right now.”
“It’s the end,” Hugo said. “Or the beginning. Depending on your point of view. Look at them. Look how they’re circling. Like a flock of scavenging vultures. Look how they’re watching us.”
“Yeah, so?” Dana said.
Hugo gave her a look, surpris
ed she still wasn’t getting it.
“They’re going to eat us,” he said.
“What?” Dana said. “Why? We’re as infected as they are. They don’t eat each other. At least, I’ve not seen them cannibalize each other yet.”
“Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” Hugo said. “It will. When the hunger grows too strong and they can’t suppress it any longer. When they need to feed.”
The penny dropped.
“The rest are infected and don’t taste good,” Dana said. “We’re infected, but less infected than the others. We taste better.”
“We’re frickin’ Michelin star meals,” Hugo said. “They’re turkey twizzlers.”
Dana shook her head and ran her hands through her hair. This was a total nightmare. How were they ever going to get out of here?
“You know, it’s funny,” Hugo said. “On the outside, juvie always looked like a kind of prison. But now I’m inside it, it doesn’t look any different to high school. Go figure.”
Dana sat in silence, not moving a muscle.
An important piece of the puzzle had just clicked into place.
Dana knew where she was.
The wide outside area the truck had dumped her was the front car park. The arched doorway was the entrance to the sports hall. And right now, she stood at one end of the basketball court inside the juvenile detention center.
She was right back where she started.
In truth, she felt relieved to be somewhere she knew, a piece of her past that no one could ever take away from her. And with it came a blemish of warmth. Not much, but enough to kindle a spark of hope.
“This meal is to go,” Dana said, getting to her feet.
“What are you doing?” Hugo said. “If they see us when they’re hungry, we’ll drive them into a frenzy.”
“I’m getting out of here,” Dana said. “I just remembered a way out.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
DANA DESCENDED the bleachers one bench at a time, careful to keep an eye out for the infected who made slow circles of the gym. They were circling like sharks, operating on impulse, letting their newly deformed brains do the thinking, or lack thereof, for them.
