“Yeah, I’m not buying that. Instead, I think I’m going to shoot the nerd in the head, and show you I mean business. How about it?”
I lean from my hiding spot and watch the man with the star grab Danny by the collar and place a gun over his head.
“No! You stop this now!” Mrs. Terrence’s voice echoes on the street. She gets up on the roof and reveals herself. “I know where the Professor is. Just leave him alone.”
The gunman laughs and claps. “Why, hello there, Mrs. Sniper. Two gals, fighting for their town. Thelma and Louise in the flesh.”
With a groan, I move toward the front of the truck, still hidden from view. From this angle I realize the guy holding the chain is gone, instead the infected is tied to the truck’s bumper.
Shit. He was stalling me too. Where is he now?
“Okay, lady. Where’s the professor? I don’t have all night.”
Mrs. Terrence hesitates for too long. The other soldier shows up behind her and tackles her to the ground. Danny grunts below the duct tape covering his mouth. I curse under my breath as he tosses Mrs. Terrence on his back and disappears. One-on-one. This is it. My last chance.
“One down, one left. Still thinking you can fool me?” The leader laughs. “Come at me, girl.”
I get up and raise my gun. “Gladly.” My shot almost hits him, but he rolls over before it does. I jump over the hood of the truck and shoot again. I need him moving, with no time to stop and aim.
He runs and opens one of the truck’s doors for cover, but the vehicle is too high and exposes his feet. I shoot on the ground, almost hitting his right foot. I shoot again. And again.
“Fuck! Tomahawk, get your fat ass here.”
While reloading, I spot the other man carrying Mrs. Terrence, but before I can do anything about that, the guy with the red star starts shooting. But not at me. He shoots at the infected’s chain.
One. Two. Three times. The chain breaks.
I bolt as fast I as can, tossing my body against the man with no arms before he can reach my mother’s kneeling form. We fall on the pavement. The smell of rotten meat and the taste of metallic blood hits me like a thousand bricks. A little dizzy, I get up and aim my gun at the man’s head.
Someone kicks me in the back, pulling me by the hair. “Come here, you,” the leader whispers. “Time to end this bullshit rescue. Damn, you even took the bulletproof vest. You work fast.”
His gun stings the back of my head. On my side, Tomahawk throws Mrs. Terrence on the ground. She has her eyes closed, but quickly blinks at me to show she’s still conscious.
Both men pull me up. I face the leader while the other yanks my gun out of my hands and starts to tie them up with ropes.
“How old are you? Jesus, did you really just kill five of my crew? What are you? College student by day, super spy by night?”
I stare back at him and say nothing.
The infected, still on his back and unable to get up without with his arms, moans and kicks the ground. After finishing tying my hands, Tomahawk yanks him up by what’s left of the chain. I look at the corner of my eyes, searching for Roger and my mother. I hope one of them had enough sense to use all this mess to their advantage. I bet Mom can untie herself, if my own knot is any indication of their ability to restrain hostages. Mrs. Terrence also needs the right opportunity to act.
“I’m twenty one,” I finally answer his question with clenched teeth. Let’s try stalling again, it’s not like I have many options left. Father would be disappointed.
He smiles at me, revealing broken teeth. “Deadly and can drink legally! I hit the jackpot, haven’t I?”
Mrs. Terrence reaches for my ankle. She’s ready.
I head-butt the bastard right in the face, and as he recovers, I jump at him, my weight enough to force him down. Still on top of him, I bite the ropes off, their bitter taste between my teeth. He put his hands on my sides and rolls us over. With my back against the hard pavement, he grabs my neck and starts to squeeze it with his dirty hands. As the air leaves my lungs, everything blurs.
There's no point in struggling. My hands search for my bowie knife, feeling the steel on my belt. I take it out and bury it against his side. He half-screams, half-laughs, but doesn't let go. The knife goes in again and again.
“Fuck, fuck,” he yells, finally letting me go.
I can breathe again. My hands feel my sore neck. He clutches his side, already bleeding. Taking the opportunity, I push him off me. While coughing, I try to get up. I’m too slow.
He points his gun at me. “Bye, bitch.”
I stare at the weapon's dark hole, waiting for the end.
“Stop it. Now.”
My gaze finds Mrs. Terrence with a gun pointed at the man. He turns his head to her.
“Drop the gun, please,” she insists.
“Or what, you’ll shoot me, old lady?” He laughs, coughing up blood.
Mrs. Terrence hits him with the back of her gun. Twice. He falls down, unconscious.
“What a horrid man.” She gives me her hand. I get up. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head, wheezing. Standing, my eyes run over the scene around me. Somehow, Mrs. Terrence managed to knock out Tomahawk and save me.
“What… What just happened?” I ask her, mouth half-open.
“Well….” She places a hand on the back of her neck. “I pushed the big one against the zombie, and the zombie did everything else, really.”
She avoids my eyes, but I’m not sure if it’s because she just helped a man be eaten alive or there’s something else. Together, we toss Tomahawk’s body off the infected. I take out my hunting knife, wet with blood, and sink it into the sick man’s skull. Then we move to the hostages.
I free my mother from her bonds. We stare at each other. She has a black eye and a deep gash on her neck. I know why she's the most hurt. Father always trained us to fight to the death, never let ourselves be captured. Better to die before they can torture us for information. I bet she never thought she could actually be tortured for information.
“Thank you,” Mom says, feeling her reddened wrists.
With all that happened since I last saw her, I can’t find any words. Unable to look at her for long, I nod, and move on to untie Roger. He has a black eye and bruises, but looks fine otherwise. I smile widely, and he does it too. No matter if I'm fifteen or one hundred, I know my heart will always beat faster when he gives me that smile.
“It’s good to see you alive,” I say, my hands lingering on his wrists for maybe too long. “I was worried there for a bit.”
He gets up, his face close to mine.
“Lily… Thank you.” He places his free hand softly on my right shoulder. It doesn’t hurt at all. “You-”
Danny’s voice interrupts us. “You two kicked his butt! Man, that was fucking awesome.” While he celebrates, Mrs. Terrence frees him. “Damn, Lily, you are one tough bad ass. And Ma! What was that? Bam! In his face. Fuck yeah!”
“Danny, please. Watch your language. How many times will I have to ask?”
Mrs. Terrence's voice has no room for real frustration. Her eyes shine, and she looks at her son with an expression I wish my own mother could give me. I'm sure not even all the swearing in the world could make her truly angry right now.
“Sorry, Ma. But, man, this… I can't even begin to describe how awesome this is. You guys just saved us. How cool is that?”
“Yes. Cool,” my mother says, limping away. “I’m going to bed. Wake me up when this mess is cleaned up and the Council has stopped debating over what the hell just happened.”
I wince, remembering all the bodies I left behind inside Old Joe’s. They will finally have proof that I’m a crazy murderer, won’t they? And so do I. I killed all those people easily, and without a second thought.
Father would be proud. I’m not sure I am. Either way, it’s too late.
“Yes… The cleanup,” Mrs. Terrence whispers, gaze falling over the bodies around us. “But… Before t
hat, we need to talk.”
Her tone darkens the mood pretty fast. Roger helps Danny up and we form a circle around her.
“Talk about what?” I ask her.
Mrs. Terrence raises her sleeves, revealing a deep bite on her right arm. My heart beats faster. I take a step back. Danny says nothing.
“When did this—” I start, but she raises a hand.
“It doesn’t matter, dear. Not anymore. It happened, and we need to deal with it.”
This is my fault. I did this to her. “Mrs. Terrence, I’m so—”
“It wasn’t your fault, Lily. I wanted to help. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. This… How are we…?” I turn to face Danny, afraid of speaking anything else. He just stares at his mother.
“We need to deal with this now.” She looks around us. “I won’t endanger anyone.”
It takes me a moment to realize what she wants. Oh no.
Danny shakes his head, taking a few steps back. He says nothing.
She faces her son, face set. “Honey, we need to do this. You know we have to.”
Roger steps closer to his friend and places a hand on his shoulder. “Danny.”
He wrestles his friend off, moving even farther back. “We can fix this, okay? Just, just let me think. It’s… I can fix this. Maybe if we cut your arm off, right? Maybe then you’ll be okay, prevent the infection from spreading.” He runs his fingers through his hair, head shaking. “But then… Then you’ll bleed out. Fuck. I need to go to Whitefield’s hospital. Why didn’t I go a month ago like I wanted? It’s okay. I can do this. The trip isn’t that long.”
“Danny….” Mrs. Terrence grabs his hands. “Please.”
He brushes her off. “Ma, stop. Don’t distract me. I’m thinking. Just don’t talk, all right? I have to fix this.”
Mrs. Terrence eyes me, then Roger. She wants to be left alone with her son. I take Roger’s hand. We give them their privacy.
A few minutes later a shot echoes. Danny comes back. He says nothing and gives Roger the gun.
“Danny….”
“Take care of it for me, will ya?” He whispers, and then passes us by with vacant stare on his face.
The Doctor VII
December 26th, Sunday, 10 am
The Humvee truck inside the base’s garage saves me from the blisters of a long journey by foot. We load the car with all the supplies the base has left. Water, bread, first aid kits, clothes, boots. Anything that Tigh judges useful in the long run goes inside. Our trip to the mysterious secret base will take almost two weeks, if nothing goes wrong. He figures between bad roads filled with abandoned cars and two quarantine checkpoints turned into death traps, we might have to sacrifice speed for safety.
That, and the fact that the miracle base is not exactly in Canada. Instead, it’s located on a remote and unpopulated island named Akimi, twelve miles from the north coast of Ontario, with deep forests and little roads between here and there.
“It’s on the Hudson Bay,” Tigh educates me while packing a military-grade hiking bag. “No one lives there most of the year, so it was easier to set things up. The Army used the cover of building an international bird sanctuary. Canadian authorities didn’t have a clue.”
“Nice going. I mean, international diplomacy and common courtesy… Who needs it?”
“Well, think what you want. If it wasn’t a secret, it probably would have been destroyed like everything else.”
Our conversation lacks the usual annoyance and anger. Probably because we both feel like crap, we aren’t fighting anymore, and are focusing solely on the trip. My bullet wound gets in the way of preparations, but overall I think I’ll live. Or, to be precise, I won’t die because of it. Tigh gives us three days, so I can sleep in a proper bed for a little while longer, but after two nights, I can’t stand it anymore. Everything inside the base torments me. Nightmares of Tom becoming enraged and trying to bite me mixed with the pleas and cries of Victoria’s family haunt my waking hours.
Outside of the base, standing side-by-side, we take a few minutes to stare at what has been our home for a month. Tigh’s eyes linger more on the heavy metal doors, and for once, his shoulders slump, his back arches and a long sigh escapes his lips. My chest feels like it’s being crushed by the weight of a concrete block. The guilt I was trying to bury these past days, comes back in full force.
I wrap my arms around him, hands finding his back. My head can only reach his chest as I close my eyes. “I’m sorry, Tigh.”
“You said that already,” he answers with a low voice. “We need to move out, Doc.”
He doesn’t return the embrace, but he doesn’t push me away. We stay like that for a few more seconds, and then I get inside the truck on the passenger's side. Without another word, we depart, driving toward the main road to reach the highway.
Tigh’s predictions turn out to be spot on. Every hour or so, we encounter an obstacle. Snow covered roads, fallen trees, abandoned frozen cars that won’t turn on, and worse. Before reaching the highway, Tigh stops before a crash site of two cars: a family van turned over, bags scattered over the pavement, and another car with a smashed rear, blocking our way. The second car looks functional, and we might be able to circumvent the van, if we maneuver the other out of the way.
Tigh gets out the car and orders me stay put. As promised, I obey him. My long track record of bad judgment makes heeding his decisions a lot easier. While he surveys the damage, I roll down the window of the car, and look for any signs of danger.
The Sergeant treads carefully between cars, his rifle ready to fire. He kicks the luggage out of the way, and approaches the van. My heart races, a hand on the door’s handle, as his feet pass by the broken windows of the overturned vehicle.
Movement inside the van catches my eyes. “Tigh, below you!”
A bloody and battered hand reaches out of the window, grabbing him by the ankle. Tigh uses his free foot to kick the hand off, crushing the bony fingers until they let go of him. Another pair of hands tries to reach him, this time coming out from the driver’s window. The Sergeant jumps out of the way just in time.
I stare at the van, waiting for the infected passengers to crawl out and attack Tigh, but they must be trapped by seat belts or between the wreckage, because Tigh goes to the other car without another incident. He buries his combat knife insides the still almost-alive driver’s eye, as the man struggles to free himself from a restraining seatbelt. I wince when the Sergeant tosses the body out on the road to make room for himself.
My eyes linger over the driver’s form. This is the first time I see someone infected for what was probably a full month. Victoria’s exposure didn’t last a week. I want to get out and examine it up close, but decide against it. It’s not safe, and I can help Tigh more inside the Humvee by letting him work without having to worry about my safety.
The back of the man’s head is completely covered by black lumps, with no hair left. He’s bitten in the right shoulder, a line of swelling tumors originating from there and spreading over his upper arms and neck. The nails and extremities of his fingers are black, just as his teeth are likely to be. Tigh’s stab resulted in external bleeding, as a pool of blood forms below the face, but the rate and volume of the bleeding intrigues me: slower and less than of a healthy human.
This virus is changing human bodies in a fundamental way, and very quickly. It can’t be a stronger strain of rabies, since it is far too devastating. Could it be multiple viruses mutating at the same time? A cluster of different diseases? Between Victoria’s behavioral pattern—a desperate hunt for meat—and the various extreme versions of different virus symptoms—rabies mania, saliva transmission with smallpox lumps—the more I think about it, the less I’m sure a simple vaccine will solve this. In my desperation to fix things, I became blind to the obvious level of complexity of the virus. Almost like it was manufactured… But that’s impossible. Or not. Three months ago I would never have imagined any of this to be possible. I don�
�t know what to think anymore.
With the other car out of the way, Tigh comes back and starts our truck. I can only stare at the skeletal arms flailing out of the van, and, as we leave them behind, they almost seem to be pleading for help. Help that neither I nor anybody else can give them.
By sunset, Tigh parks our car on the side of the road and we eat canned beans in silence. I half-expect him to tell me to drive, so he can sleep, but he doesn’t.
“You can sleep on the backseat. More room,” he says instead.
“Maybe we should take turns, I could drive while you rest, that way we can cover more ground. What do you think?”
Tigh busies himself throwing the empty can out the window, then rolling the glass up again.
“I’m not tired,” I insist, after his lack of answer. “I can drive just fine.”
He frowns, passing a hand over his face. “That’s not a good idea.”
The lack of trust stings, but he has every right to doubt my judgment. So instead of arguing, I move to the back of the car. I toss and turn at first, looking for a good sleeping position, but apart from the initial discomfort, it’s the first night in a long time without nightmares. Not even Tom and Victoria haunt my dreams.
When Tigh wakes me, the moon’s still up in the starry sky, but the orange on the horizon mixes with the dark hue of the night. My back is killing me, but I hear a crack when Tigh feels his neck muscles. His back must hurt worse than mine. Between driving all day and the constant tension over obstacles, I worry about his health.
After I jump over to the front of the car to sit in the passenger's seat again, he throws some bread and an apple into my lap, “Eat. We have a long day ahead.”
“Before we leave… I think we need to talk.”
“About?” He tears a piece of bread.
“I know I don’t exactly inspire confidence after everything I did, but sooner or later you’re going to need me to help you. And it’s better if we get used to it soon. So….” I take a deep breath. Tigh gazes at the road ahead with a neutral expression. “What I’m saying is that you need to teach me how to shoot and fight for real this time. I need to know how to help you.”
Those Who Remain (Book 2) Page 6
