Those Who Remain (Book 2)

by Priscila Santa Rosa

  “We… We are going to a CDC facility,” she says, hesitating for a while. “It’s… We believe it’s still functional and has people working on a solution for this disease.”

  Oh great. They lost their minds on the road. “So you two are crazy.” I roll my eyes. “I mean, where’s this supposed miraculous facility? China?”

  “Canada.”

  “…Maybe someone to accompany me for a few days? Not for long, of course, just until I reach Canada's border... I do need some sort of guarantee you will help me. I’m on my way to Canada, and need supplies…”

  I don’t know why my mind flashes to the bald Professor’s requests. This is the second time he invades my thoughts today. First with that briefcase in the car and now this…

  “I’m not sure going to Canada in the middle of a winter as bad as this one is a good idea. The roads are terrible, and—” Roger attempts at reasoning with them falls on deaf ears.

  “We know. But if there’s a chance of fixing this disease, of working on a cure, I have to take it,” the Doctor argues with us. “Is that not worth the risk?”

  Her little speech brings out a surge of unexplainable anger. Even the suggestion of a cure being possible rises my blood pressure and fill my veins with hot white fury, and I’m not even sure why.

  “No. That’s ridiculous. There’s no cure. There can’t be any cure. It doesn’t exist.” I march right to her face. “You are crazy. Both of you.”

  The Doctor face is set. “It already exists. Right here. We found a briefcase that belonged to Alistair Spencer. He won two Nobel prizes for his virology work. He was a genius specialized on virus mutations and bio-weapons. Inside the briefcase we found a vial with a cure.”

  I know her mouth is still moving, but no sounds registers in my mind. A cure. In a briefcase. A cure for being a zombie. A cure for the bite. Inside a briefcase some Spencer guy carried.

  “Do you have any proof of this?” Roger announces with a frown. “If this is real… We can’t let you two go alone. We’ll help.”

  I jerk my head in his direction, shocked. “Roger, you can’t be serious—”

  He stares back at me, expression as neutral as it can be. “I am.” He turns to the Doctor. “Show me this briefcase.”

  The Sergeant and the Doctor share a nod and he gets up, leaving the office.

  I cross my arms and shake my head. “This is all bullshit and you’re falling for it. You are not leaving the town in search of a cure that doesn’t exist and will never exist.”

  “It’s the truth,” she spats back, staring daggers at me.

  After some tense minutes, the Sergeant comes in with the briefcase in hands. He places it on the counter and opens it. Roger takes out a notebook and reads it with a frown. Then he passes it to me.

  “This is the vial that contains the cure,” the Doctor says while taking it carefully out of the case. “It’s very fragile, so please be careful.”

  While they talk I flip through the pages of messy handwriting and drawings of formulas I’ve never seen before. With each page, something presses harder against my chest.

  Alistair Spencer… I know that name. I saw it online. I know this guy, I know he was involved with creating mutated virus that killed loads of people… Most governments considered him responsible for the bio-terrorism during the Pan-African War. But he managed to cure HIV. If anyone would make a cure for zombies, it would be him… They might be right… There might be a cure.

  Roger takes the vial and raises it up in the light to see it better. “That’s it? This is it? Wouldn’t it be, I don’t know, more protected?”

  And that name Spencer… That bald professor was a Spencer. He carried around a briefcase just like this one; that means we… The cure was… He had the cure with him all along. We could’ve saved my Ma. We could have cured her. It was so close… If I ignored her pleas and took her home, she would be still alive and cured now.

  “From Spencer’s notes, I don’t think he had the time to prepare a proper container. I think he barely got out of the Free Republic alive.”

  He gives it back to the Doctor. “What are the chances of this working?”

  “We don’t know, but I know I can’t live with myself if I don’t at least try to fix this disease.”

  Roger gives her a firm nod. “We are coming with you. Lily and I.”

  I’m vaguely aware my heart is racing and there’s a ringing inside my ear that won’t stop. When the Roger speaks again, my head feels like is being pierced by sharp spikes.

  “We won’t have to take the roads. Between the bad weather, the quarantine zones and wandering infected, it’s far too dangerous. We can go by the woods. With the right guide and enough supplies, you can reach this facility faster.”

  “He’s right,” Lily says in a low voice. “It’s safer. I could guide you.”

  I want to scream for them not to go. Plead them not leave me alone. But no words come out of my mouth. My head is about to explode, and my heart is breaking in half. Everything is falling to pieces and I can’t stop it. I can’t do anything to stop it.

  My eyes run around the room, from Roger to Lily, from Lily to Roger. I can’t breathe. I bolt out of the office and run with no real destination. I hear Roger’s voice calling me, so I get in the first empty classroom I find in hopes he won’t spot me.

  I support myself against a professor’s desk, both hands on wooden table. My heart is screaming, swelling inside my chest like a time bomb. A tsunami of everything shitty I ever felt floods my whole body.

  This has to be a lie. It has to be. It can’t be true. No zombie movie ever has a cure. At least no good proper zombie movie. That’s not the point. That’s not how it works. Deux Ex Machina, Happy Ever Afters, they don’t exist in real life, they don’t happen in zombie movies either. So what gives? How this can be true?

  No. It can’t be true.

  “Danny,” Roger’s voice is loud and clear. He’s standing right beside me. “Please talk to us.”

  He tries to place a hand on my shoulder, but I move away, hurt and scared. “Don’t touch me. Don’t… Don’t talk to me.”

  “Danny… I think we should help them. We need to take them to Canada. I’m going to need you to be strong and protect the town while I do this. Please. I need your help on this.”

  I can’t look at him, I can’t face him. My eyes stay on the wood of the desk, the brown mixing with black and I feel dizzy.

  “This is good news, Danny. This is going to fix everything. We won’t have to worry about the town’s safety anymore. We won’t have to make so many sacrifices… Why are you so against this? Don’t you want to go back how things were? Don’t you want a normal life again?”

  “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!”

  “Danny—”

  Somehow, I have enough strength to turn to him. Cold runs through my veins, spreading shivers everywhere. I feel stiff and out of my own body. “Don’t you see? Don’t get it? I… I… We… Everything we did was wrong. We shot Louis. We made Margaret shoot Paul. We forced families to kill sick, curable loved ones. I shot my mother. I shot my mother! I killed her. And for what? Nothing. Nothing.”

  Roger’s eyes widen, and then he frowns and closes his fists. There it is. There’s the hate I want.

  “Yeah. Now you get it, right? All those people. We killed them when there was a cure all along. We are murderers. I made you a murderer. Best friends for life!”

  He punches me on the face. My teeth rattle and my brain blacks out for a second, but the pain feels good. Deserved. Neither of us speaks. Roger’s expression holds anger and hurt. He won’t ever look at me in the same way. Nobody will.

  I led them to a path of misery for nothing. I forced them to ignore the goodness inside them and squash it to oblivion, and for what? Nothing. We treated people like monsters when we could’ve found a way to keep them safe until a cure came. We had the resources, we had ways to do it. I didn’t let them. I convinced even my own mother that she was better off d
ead than a burden.

  She’s dead because of me.

  “I can never go back, Roger. There’s no normal life with a white picket fence to look forward to. There’s nothing left for me. If you want to risk your life for this cure… Go ahead. It has nothing to do with me anymore. I fucked up too much.”

  Roger’s lack of response doesn’t bother me. His hatred, his disappointment, his anger, it all feeds the black hole inside me. He leaves the classroom without looking back.

  At the door, Lily’s eyes meet mine. I fall on the nearest chair, waiting for her to come to me. I know she will. She sits next to me and takes my hands into hers. We are both cold, and can’t share any real warmth.

  “You did the best you could with the information you had. You wouldn’t have known a cure was possible.”

  I don’t look at her.

  “Danny… You didn’t know about the cure. It’s all right. You couldn’t have known.”

  She wants me to confirm it. She wants me to pretend this isn’t my fault. I don’t have the strength to do that anymore.

  “I…knew it was possible, Lily. Everything is possible if zombies are possible. I’m not an idiot.”

  “I’m not saying that….” She sighs. “But the chances of a cure reaching us before we all got infected were slim. Too slim to risk considering it. We all know this. Even Roger.”

  “Can’t you leave me alone? Slim or not, does it matter? My mother… Ma… I could’ve saved her. Nothing else matters.”

  “You still have a future, Danny. We are here for you. Roger’ll come around. He always does. He always forgives you. I already did. You just need to forgive yourself too. If you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for your mother. She would want you to be happy.”

  “Well she’s dead, so who cares what she wanted now? And why do you even care? You are leaving, aren’t you? Saving the world and all that? Just leave me the fuck alone, Lily.”

  She does, just like I wanted. Nobody will try to cheer me up now. Good. That’s for the best.

  My hand finds Lily’s gun still tucked away on my belt, stinging my back. I take the weapon out, feeling its black surface.

  Forgive myself? I let out a bitter and long laugh. Why? What for?

  In the distance, I hear muffled voices and laughs. Oh, right. Movie Night. The basketball court is just around the corner, isn’t it?

  I miss watching movies. I miss losing myself in fantastical worlds and following adventures of more interesting and better people that I ever could be. For the longest time, I watched as life happened to everyone else. I hated life. Life was something to be avoided. Life was being bullied and laughed at. Life was watching my father waste away on a bed, while Ma hid her crying on the other side of the bathroom door. Life was seeing Roger get beaten around by his drunk mother and Lily become colder and colder as the years went by.

  I hated life. I preferred movies. I liked movies where everything went to shit, because everything does goes to shit. I liked happy sugary endings too, but always knew they were never going be real to me. I liked Zombies movies better because it showed how horrible people could be. How crappy their lives were. It validated my hatred of life.

  When I found out about the disease, I felt scared but also excited. Something woke up inside me. I could see myself triumphing over all those petty people who tormented me. I was going to finally star in my own life and take charge. I was going to win and be the hero I always wanted to be for Ma. Everyone would look at me and see someone to be respected and admired.

  Look at me now.

  The gun’s barrel tastes bitter and cold. I want to throw up, but that would just make things worse.

  Ma would hate me now. She would give me her trademark annoyed look and scold me for giving up on life. She wanted grandchildren. Too bad I hate kids and I’m incapable of love. There’s something really broken and wrong inside me and no one can fix it.

  The sounds of the movie audience echo around the corridor and reach me again. From the muffled dialog, I can see the scene playing in my mind. Betty just confessed her love for Ethan, only to be rejected by the handsome, but silent and mysterious, teen wolf.

  Next there’s a really cool fight scene involving an enormous alpha wolf and a group of dumb teens stuck in a dark cave. Great gore effects and editing. Really gave me chills the first time I saw it.

  Maybe I should see it before… Well, why not? The gun isn’t going anywhere and neither is my brain. I can kill myself whenever I want. I place the gun on the desk and drag my feet to the basketball court.

  The energy inside is almost contagious. People clap, laugh, cheer and gasp at the same time. They are sharing the delicious cheese pizza that Old Joe prepared earlier. Everyone has a blanket, and some even hug under them. Happy families and couples enjoying a fun movie together. After a long time of being alone in the dark with my own thoughts, this feels like a punch in the stomach. I miss watching movies with Ma and Dad. I miss feeling happy. Will I ever be able to do that again? Just sit and enjoy a movie without the guilt of everything I did haunting me all the time? Should I?

  “Hey, Danny! Sit with us!” Carl, the Final Fantasy eight-year-old fan waves at me with a smile. Someone sitting above him silences the poor kid.

  I shake my head at him, staying next to the exit door. I wasn’t planning on being noticed. The kid whispers to his mother and gets up, bringing a slice of pizza to me.

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” he whispers with a hand covering half his mouth. “She was nice. You should come to my place and help me beat that boss again. Okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  He skips back to the stands, hiding against his father’s chest when the werewolf villain sniffs around in the dark, looking for another teen to kill.

  I eat my slice of greasy pizza. It’s cold and mushy. I know I’m crying and can only hope the darkness hides the tears. I made so many mistakes. How can I fix them if I’m dead? How can I face her in the other side or whatever, if I don’t fix them and receive true forgiveness from the people I care about?

  All I wanted was to make Ma proud of me and I can’t do that dead.

  With a last bite of pizza, I turn around and leave the basketball court and the movie behind. I’m not sure what I should do next, but I know it involves Roger. I have to apologize, beg and ask for forgiveness. He should know what I said was bullshit, he isn’t a murderer. He’s a hero. I’m the one responsible for all those deaths, not him. And if he wants to save the world in a crazy quest for a cure, then he has my full support.

  I leave the court behind, the sounds of the movie still echoing through the corridor. I’m halfway back to the classroom when a squeak of surprise stops me.

  In front of me is the feral girl from earlier in the morning. She looks scared out of her mind. Worse, she’s pointing a gun at me.

  “Hey there,” I say with a smile and a step back. “You woke up, huh?”

  The Doctor X

  January 8th, Friday, 4 pm

  Light fades from between the window’s blinds, and the humming of a generator kicks in, lighting the office by turning on the fluorescent lamps hanging from the ceiling. I check on Billy’s and the girl’s pulse and temperature. They show no signs of change. It’s too soon to know if that’s good or bad news. Without proper equipment for blood analysis, I can only rely on their bodies’ responses. At least the girl isn’t squirming on the bed again.

  “That went well,” Tigh says with half a smile.

  While I appreciate his attempt at humor, adrenaline still fills my veins. My heart pounds against my chest and my hands tremble. I still can’t believe I told them about the cure and the briefcase. When the young man, named Danny, doubted me at every turn, something snapped inside me.

  It was like I was witnessing my darkest thoughts become reality right in front of me. He voiced all of them. It was hard enough to push them back during the night, hearing it made them seem even more likely.

  To silence every doubt I had, I
told them everything. If I wasn’t going to stay and help these people, the least I could do was give them the truth.

  “You think I made a mistake? What if they tell everyone about this? People will… I don’t know. Panic or try to rob us. Did I make a mistake?”

  Tigh gets up and places a hand on my upper right arm. “You did the right thing. I think we can trust these people. And the Sheriff is right, going through the woods is a better option for us. With a guide and enough supplies, that is. Our chances just went from terrible to okay.”

  I’m grateful that he’s trying to make me feel better. We have known each other for a short time, but Tigh’s support gives me courage. If this man, who saw me make terrible choices and countless mistakes… If this man can trust me with this, then I’m okay. I can feel confident.

  “Tigh… We really are going to do this, aren’t we? We are going to save everyone. Everything will be fine, right?”

  With a hand on my shoulder, he nods. “Yes.”

  I’m not sure if he’s saying that only for my benefit or if he truly believes it, but it works nevertheless. I smile, feeling my heart swell with hope.

  “But before we save the world, let’s go and watch teen werewolves kill each other,” I say to him, receiving a short laugh in return.

  Tigh takes me to the school’s basketball court, it’s already filled with people eating pizza and sitting on the bleachers. A makeshift cinema screen hangs on the opposite wall, and a projector in the middle of the court shows the start of the movie. We grab two slices of homemade cheese pizza and sit on the floor.

  Hours fly past between teen angst and cringe-worthy confessions of eternal love. The crowd cheers at the fight scenes, gasps at the right times and screams at the scary moments. It feels like a huge family, enjoying their time together with no worries or fears.

  Whatever fate awaits me in a few days, it can’t reach me in here, not yet. Tigh and I share a smile.

  And then the doors open, the sound echoing over the screams on screen. Lily, the young woman from earlier, runs inside the court, blood on her shirt and face. I get up and meet her halfway. Instinct tells me I’m the one she wants.