The Human Race (Book 2): The Fighting Chance

by Tahnee Fritz

  The vamp looks me up and down before taking a step back. Just as I figured, she wants nothing to do with me and can most likely detect I’m not human. That’s one of the few problems with this cure of mine. I’ll have to do a lot of work in order to get close to anything without having a human nearby to trick them.

  “I...don’t want...you.” she says, her voice raspy just like any other vamp.

  “I...don’t...care.” I say, mocking her.

  “Not...alive.” she says and backs further away from the bars, out of my reach.

  This is going to be difficult. I look around the bars, searching for the handle to get inside. There’s no handle, just a metal chain wrapped around two of the bars with a padlock to keep it closed.

  I turn to Adam and say, “Do you have a key?”

  Michael’s the one who reaches into his pocket and fishes for the key. He tosses it to me and I quickly go to work on unlocking the padlock. The vampire, Katie, moves even further away from me until she’s pinned herself against the opposite wall.

  “Bridget.” Ryder calls when I let the chain and lock fall to the floor.

  I look over my shoulder, seeing the concern on his face, and say, “It’s okay.”

  I pull the metal door open and step inside the cage, letting the door close a little. The vamp glares at me and moves into the corner. If this cure ever goes global, these people are really going to have to put it some kind of dart gun or something. I can’t put myself into situations like this anymore, hoping things will turn out okay. A dart gun would be much faster and safer for me. If this works today, I’ll be sure to suggest it.

  I move toward Katie, making sure I block her from getting to the door. If she gets out, she’ll be shot and I can’t be responsible for that. Adam would kill me just for letting it happen. She has nowhere to go in here. If she tries to lunge at me, I can take her down. I’m not sure how strong I am against a vamp so this will be a learning experience.

  “I...don’t want.” She seethes as I stand less than a foot from her.

  “I might be able to cure you. Why wouldn’t you want that?” I ask.

  Her response to my question burns a little bit. She raised her hand so quick, I didn’t see it coming. Her fingers scratched my face and I can feel a slight burning sensation in each cut. I stumble away from her and hold my face for a second. I don’t really like how this is going so far. I wipe the blood from my face and glare at her. The burning in my cheek isn’t enough to keep the anger from sending a frenzy of hunger through my body. Anger seems to make it worse and I tend to get stronger right along with it.

  Katie tries clawing at me again, but this time I’m prepared for it. I reach up before her nails can connect with my skin and grab her arm. She screams and I pull her closer. With her free hand, she digs her nails into my shoulder. More burning pain soars through my body and I let out a grunt. I grab her hair and slam her against the wall. Another wail comes out of her mouth and she digs her nails deeper into my skin. I quickly tilt her head to the side until her bare neck comes to view and I lean in for the bite.

  She’s a lot stronger than I thought she would be. She lifts her leg and jabs it into my stomach, sending me across the cage until I meet with the bars. I catch myself before I fall to the floor and stare at her. She hops onto the bed and is making her way to the door. I hear the metal of the guns behind me getting ready to take aim and it’s now or never for me to make this happen.

  I push through the pain in my shoulder and lunge at her before she’s able to get the door open. I slam her against the wall and don’t give her the chance to push me away this time. With a mouthful of her blonde hair, I clamp my teeth against her neck, right above her shoulder. I pin her against the wall with one hand keeping her head in place and another holding back an arm. She’s too busy screaming and shouting and banging her fist against the wall to fight back anyway.

  Her blood tastes different than the zombies. Bad different. It’s like when you drink cough syrup that’s way past the expiration date. Cough syrup is disgusting on its own, but expired, it’s much worse. Her blood burns my tongue and the back of my throat and I can feel a dizziness taking over. My head is spinning and begging me to stop, trying to get me to let go. I can’t, not until she stops moving and the screaming grows quiet. Only then will I know the vamp inside her has died and there might be a chance for her human form to come back.

  Although, it seems to be taking too long for her to stop moving. Her body isn’t going limp and it doesn’t appear like she’s going to fall from my grasp. The painful shouting still fills the air. It sounds different, but it’s not going away. I try holding on a bit longer, letting this poison fill my throat. I just can’t take it anymore and I’m forced to let go. The taste is too much for me.

  I pull myself away from her and spit out what’s left of the blood in my mouth. The burning only seems to get worse and the room is spinning violently. I grab onto the bars closest to me to keep myself from falling over, but fail when I realize I’ve grabbed the door of the cage. It swings open and I fall backwards to the floor outside. Katie is still pinned against the wall, her head shaking back and forth, screams escaping her throat. We’re both having a bad reaction to this.

  “Bridge!” Ryder’s voice sounds distorted and his face is spinning as he kneels beside me.

  I feel his hand on the back of my head and he cradles me in his arms. I can’t keep the pain from coursing through my veins and squeeze my fists so tight I can feel my nails cutting into the palms of my hands. I grab Ryder’s hoodie and hold on tight while the pain takes over and the world spins. He lifts me off the ground a little and I can see Katie slowly sliding to the floor as well. Her screaming has ceased and her eyes are closed.

  Another shot of pain flows through me and I can feel it in my gut, like someone stabbed me with dry ice. The spinning world is growing faint with every passing second or minute or hour. I can’t tell how fast time is moving. My mind is shutting down. I can feel it. The pain is too much for me to tolerate, even the muscles in my hands start to relax.

  “No, Bridge, you have to stay with me. Keep your eyes open.” Ryder’s voice doesn’t even seem real.

  I can’t tell if it’s real or if it’s just a tape recording playing over and over in my head. His face is distorted and I can’t really see him all that well. The spinning is too much and my head is pounding from the pain. If I close my eyes, it will stop. It’s the only thing to ease the pain enough for my mind to take me elsewhere.

  I let them fall shut and the blackness of my mind consumes me.

  * * *

  I don’t recognize anything when I finally open my eyes again. There are flowers all around me in fields as far as I can see. The sun is shining in a bright blue sky over my head and it’s not burning the hell out of my eyes. I don’t even have the sunglasses on and I’m fine. I guess I must really be dead this time. You know, the kind of dead that doesn’t come back to haunt the world.

  I can’t believe I failed so soon after something amazing happened. The world was given another chance of keeping the human race alive and, because I chose to risk it all by saving one young vampire, more humans will die. I might be in an extremely beautiful place right now, this has to be heaven, but I feel like I’m in hell for failing the world. It was my responsibility to keep the cure safe and it’s dead right along with me.

  “You’re not dead, Bridget.” I hear a woman’s voice coming from behind me.

  I don’t want to turn around though. I know that voice and it kind of scares me to face her. I’m afraid to see the look on her face after she witnessed me turning into something she would be afraid of. She took herself away from my world so she wouldn’t have to face the monsters anymore.

  “I’m not upset with you, sweetie.” Her voice is heartbreaking just to hear it, “You can turn around and look at your mother.”

  I bite my bottom lip and hold my breath as I allow my feet to spin around in the grass. The last time I saw this woman was
a lifetime ago. She was unhappy and depressed over losing Maggie. We all were, but she took it harder than dad and I. She couldn’t eat or drink anything and she looked like she had aged ten years in just one night. But here she stands, a few feet in front of me, looking as beautiful as ever. Her hair is perfectly curled, just like mine, and she’s even wearing a bright pink sundress that matches her fluffy personality.

  “Mom?” I whisper.

  She nods, “It’s me. I’m here for you.”

  “Where am I?” I ask.

  She smiles, “Someplace your mind wants you to be right now. A safe place with someone who cares about you.”

  “That’s a good place to be.” I reply, my eyes are starting to water.

  She moves closer, floating on the air under her feet. Everything about her is exactly what she would want. This flower-filled place in the middle of nowhere, the bright sun in the sky, she loves this sort of thing. Her dress is clean and even brighter in the sunlight. The exact opposite of me. My clothes are holey and stained and I’m sure I’m a little ripe by now. Being dead probably isn’t the best smell in the world.

  “My little Bridget, you are so grown up.” She says.

  “This life was sort of thrown at me, so I had to grow up.” I reply.

  “It’s okay if that happens once in a while. It’s how we know we’re doing the right thing.” mom states, “and you, my little Bridge, are doing the best thing.”

  I shake my head, “It doesn’t seem like it. Not after changing into whatever this is that I am now.”

  “You are.” She reassures me, “You always have done the right thing. Whether that was ignoring your chores or helping your father fight off the monsters out there. You have never done anything to make me see you as a bad person.”

  “So you’re proud of me?” I ask, feeling the sudden longing to know the answer.

  “I’ve always been proud of you. Why would you ever ask such a thing?”

  I shrug, “It just never seemed like you noticed me as much as you noticed Maggie. You always loved what she wanted to do with her life and didn’t seem like I could ever measure up. I know I’m a tomboy at times and can be a smart ass all the time, but I never thought you were ever proud of anything I’ve done. Maggie always seemed like your favorite.”

  A tear falls from her eyes and she says, “No, all of you kids are my favorite. I love each and every little thing about all of you. Your perks, your faults, all of your abilities. I don’t have a favorite, Bridget.”

  “Then why did you kill yourself? Why would you leave us like that?” I can feel the lump forming in my throat and the tears in my eyes.

  “I had to. It was best for you and your father. Leaving you was the hardest thing I could have ever done, but I would’ve slowed you down.” She says.

  I shake my head, “We would have waited for you. You didn’t need to go. I didn’t want you to go.”

  Her eyes are bloodshot as more tears fall from them, “You might not understand things now, but you have to know I did what I knew was right. I miss you more than anything else in the world, but I’m able to see you in a way I’ve never been able to before. After watching you all this time, I was finally able to prove myself right.”

  I raise an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

  She smiles, “The day you were born, you were unlike any other baby in the nursery. You refused to cry, even when the doctor gave you a little tap. You sniffled and whined, but never cried. When I held you in my arms, you smiled at me and I knew you were going to be something great. Something that would make you the best person you could ever be.”

  “You never told me that before.”

  “I never thought I’d have to.” She replies, “Bridget, from the moment you knew what you wanted to do with your life, you have always been the best. I’m not talking about when you were in school and wanted to travel the world collecting stories. I’m talking about from the moment you killed your first zombie with dad and I saw something change inside of you. Something that told me you were going to do something good for this world. It’s what you were destined for.”

  I take a deep breath, letting the smell of flowers fill my nose. The lump is still sitting in my throat as I stare at my mother. She’s never once told me how she thought I was destined for anything other than being another part of society. She would tell me how I could do whatever I wanted, but never be the one thing that would change the world.

  “Bridget, you need to know that what you’re giving to the world is the best thing it could ever receive. The fighting chance it didn’t know it could ever have. I’m glad I get to watch you through all of this and see how well you’ll do with the gift you’ve been given.” She says.

  I wipe the tears from under my eyes and say, “I’m really glad to hear you say that.”

  She smiles, “I know, sweetie.”

  Her feet slowly move away from me and I know it’s her time to leave. I hate seeing her go, but my mind has reached a point of serenity to allow it. Just seeing her and knowing she cares about me and what I can do for the world, is all I need to keep going. To push through whatever hardships I know I’ll come across. I know I’ll be the best damn fighting chance the world has ever seen. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure she’s always going to be proud of me.

  Curing a lot of people seems like a great start.

  * * *

  I open my eyes to stare at a white ceiling above my head. The fan is covered in dust and there are chips in the paint around it. My body is stiff, once again. Not as bad as the first time, but my bones crack the same when I move my arms and bend my knees. I’m lying on a couch in some old living room. Good to know I’m not lying dead in that basement like I thought was going to happen.

  I sit up on the couch and look around. The flat screen in front of me has a nice crack down the middle of it. There’s a sliver of sunlight drifting in through one of the windows that wasn’t boarded up properly. That tells me I’ve been unconscious for at least one night. I spot Ryder asleep on the love seat with a heavy blanket draped over him. He looks so peaceful. I wish I could cuddle with him. There’s not much room for me and I really don’t want to wake him since he looks so cute being asleep like that.

  Above him, hanging on the wall, is an old photograph of the family who used to live here. There’s the mom and dad, both wearing matching Christmas sweaters, three kids, two boys and a girl, each with identical, ugly sweaters. A Christmas tree is in the background of the photo with a bunch of presents underneath. All of them look so happy, regardless of how cheesy the picture looks. Seeing it makes me wish I had my photo album with me. I don’t think I’d look at it right now, but it would bring comfort just knowing it was nearby.

  I hear footsteps walking this way and I instantly get to my feet. Feels like some protective instinct is taking over because I thought Ryder and I were the only two people in the house. I turn my head toward the footsteps. There’s a dark hallway leading to another part of the house. Carter stops walking and sees me staring at him. He’s holding a small bottle of water and motions for me to follow him. I run my fingers through my hair, thankful there wasn’t anything hiding in this house.

  He leads me to the kitchen to a breakfast nook at the back of the house. These windows are boarded up as well with two peepholes carefully placed for someone to look out. They don’t let enough light in to hurt my eyes since I don’t have my sunglasses on. Not sure where those things are exactly. They were still hanging over the collar of my shirt the last time I saw them and they aren’t there anymore. Hopefully, Ryder has them somewhere.

  “Glad you’re awake, Bridget.” Carter says as we sit across from each other. “We weren’t sure if you were alive or not.”

  “Yeah, hard to tell without a heartbeat.” I reply.

  He smiles, “You don’t breathe very much either.”

  “All part of the package.”

  He takes a drink of the water and sets the bottle on the table. By the look on his fa
ce, I can tell he’s distraught. I would be too if I just saw a good friend of mine tear into a few zombies and a vamp in one night. Probably freak me out for a few days.

  “You probably want to know what happened last night.” He suggests.

  I nod, “A little bit, yeah.”

  “First you should know, that this last week has been hell for Ryder. Last night is the first time he’s slept since you ran away from him at the overpass.” Carter says.

  “It’s been a week since that happened?” no wonder I was so stiff when I woke up the other morning, I was lying dead for a few days.

  He nods, “Yeah, a week.”

  “What happened?”

  “Dwayne got nervous and didn’t want to go any further. He was worried about what happened to you and didn’t want to lose anyone else. So, we found a different way back to the city and called it a day. It took a lot, but I managed to get Ryder all the way to the gate.” He says, then takes another sip of water, “Right after they scanned him, he took off running back the way we came. I had no choice but to follow him. He’s one of the only good people I know in this world and I wasn’t about to lose him because he couldn’t accept what happened to you.”

  “He wanted to find me, didn’t he?” I ask.

  Carter nods, “Yeah, he told me he just needed to see what happened to you, to get some closure. Once he got that, he’d let me take him back to the city and he’d go on with his life. We searched for the last couple of days until we ran into those zombies last night. Ran out of ammo and had to run away. I spotted the smoke from the bonfire here and we ran like hell hoping someone would help us.”

  “Then I came along.”

  “Exactly.” He says, “I didn’t want to think it was you at first. It would’ve been horrible to see Ryder get killed at the hands of his girlfriend. Then I saw how you took out the zombies with no intention of going for any of the humans around. Made it even better when those three came back to life. You have no idea what that means for the world.”