by A J Donovan
Eliza is Diana’s aunt. She was Reggie’s right hand before the end of the world, so it shouldn’t be surprising that she continued on in an almost identical role now. Leo was happy to help and Reggie jumped at another chance to keep Leo away from the fighting. If he’s busy planning with Eliza, he’s nowhere near the walkers.
Eliza is extremely intelligent and she has a mind for numbers that borders on genius. I don’t think Diana inherited her skills. I’ve seen Diana struggle with maths for years throughout school. I was just as bad as her but at least I don’t have a genius family member to live up to.
She handled Reggie’s affairs and meetings and every plan he made had to go through her before he would carry it out. If she didn’t approve of a plan, it didn’t happen. Her brain is the main reason he was so successful over the last few years. She’s also the main reason he hasn’t spent much time in prison recently. She’s so good that he’s become almost dependent on her.
I was surprised when I found out that she was such a core part of his operation. She always seemed so innocent and nice, I never imagined she actually knew what Reggie was involved in.
I stop outside the shop. The ground here is slightly dusty. To be honest, the whole town reminds me of the set of an Old Western movies. The kind I used to watch with my dad when I was younger. Before Mom died and he started spending too much time away from us. Before our family went from four to two in the space of just a few weeks.
I shake my head to clear out the dark memories and look up and down the street for danger. There are a couple of walkers milling around but they aren’t close enough to be a threat. I’ll keep them in mind but I won’t bother taking care of them now, killing them could make noise that might attract others.
Footsteps approach from behind and I turn to find Diana, Rafael and a few other men approaching. Dominic must have told Reggie about the shop.
“We don’t know for sure that there’s anything good in there,” I told them. “Be careful. This might not be worth risking your lives.”
I reached out and tapped the door softly. If there are any walkers inside, they should hear it and start searching for the noise. If we know where they are, it’s a lot easier to handle them.
I hear nothing, so I tap again. Still nothing.
“Must be empty,” Maurice says, walking past me and pushing through the door.
“Wait,” Rafael says quickly, but his voice is low. He can’t say it any louder without drawing too much attention.
Maurice ignores him so Rafael sighs and leads the rest of us inside.
The shop is bigger than I was expecting. There are also three dead biters on the floor. I give Diana a knowing look and she returns it. If they’re dead, someone has probably already been here and the place could be wiped clean. On the bright side, it’s three less walkers to deal with.
There’s a crash and a yelp and we all rush towards the noise. Rafael is on the ground with a dead walker on top of him. Maurice is kneeling beside him, a bloody knife in his hand and an expression of shock on his face. Rafael’s arm is a mess. The walker got a good bite in before they took him out. We all rush forward to help.
“Keep a look out for more of them,” Diana orders. “We don’t know that this was the only one.”
The men are halfway to Rafael already but they do as she says and take up positions around the rest of us instead. They know she’s right. Walkers are stupid and slow, there could be ten more of them in here with us and they just haven’t realised yet that we walked in.
I crouch beside Rafael and pull a piece of ripped up towel from my pocket. We had to become creative when we ran out of bandages a few days ago. I press it against his arm to stop the bleeding.
“Thank you so much, Rafael, thank you, thank you.” Maurice is staring at Rafael with a mixed expression, somewhere between shock and awe.
“What happened?”
“This idiot walked right under a walker,” Rafael says, gritting his teeth against the pain. “He was about to get bit.”
“Rafael threw himself in front of me,” Maurice says. “She was lying on top of the shelves so I didn’t see her. I have no idea how she got up there in the first place, but it doesn’t matter. As soon as she saw me walking down the aisle she came crashing down on top of me.” He looks at Rafael again. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be infected or dead.”
Maurice starts thanking him again and telling him he owes him his life and Rafael is shaking his head and replying, but my mind has completely lost focus.
We’re not alone.
I look to my left. There’s nothing but more shelves and a solid wall, but my heart is pounding and fear is crawling up the back of my neck.
“Jake, are you alright?”
I blink and return to the present. Diana is frowning up at me.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. You know Rafael will be fine, right? The bite is just a surface wound.”
“Easy for you to say,” Rafael mutters.
“Something is... Something’s back there,” I say.
“Behind the shelves?” Diana asks.
“Behind the wall.”
“A walker?”
“No.” I don’t know why I say that, but I feel the truth of it in my gut. “It’s something else.” Almost in a trance, I start walking towards it.
“Jake, wait.”
I step up to the wall and I feel it resonate with me. Something is different. We are the same in so many ways but there’s something wrong with it. It hasn’t turned, but it is infected. That should mean that it’s immune. So why don’t I feel like that’s true?
“There’s a door over here,” Diana says. “But let me go first. You’re acting strange and I won’t let you get killed because you’re distracted.”
The door is around to the right and it looks like the entrance to a storeroom. There are streaks of blood on the door and a bloody handprint around the door handle.
“Looks like there was a struggle,” Diana says. “Get ready.” She reaches out for the handle.
The handle pulls down and my heart leaps in my chest. Whatever connection I have with the thing in that room pulses with energy and I gasp.
It’s waiting for us.
It’s too late to grab the handle. The door swings open and we have a fraction of a second to process what we’re seeing before the beast lunges forward.
***
Chapter 12
Jennifer
Darren Tulley wakes up strapped to a cold metal table. He sighs.
“Again? Come on, man, this is like the fifth time this week.”
The doctor ignores him, as he often does. Darren doesn’t blame him. He’s sure that a man as intelligent as the doctor has far more interesting things to do with his time instead of spending it chatting to him.
Doctor Forester is an old man and he has seen many things throughout his life, but this epidemic is by far the strangest and most shocking. A mutated virus that apparently appeared out of nowhere and spread like wildfire almost overnight. It is unstoppable and, so far, untreatable. And the worst part is that it doesn’t just kill its victims, it turns them into these violent creatures obsessed with spreading the disease.
The Doctor is at the top of his field but even he can only guess at the full scope of this plague.
Darren jerks around when the door to the lab opens. That doesn’t usually happen. Usually it’s just him and the Doctor for an hour or two, and then the Doc puts him under for the rest.
A tall woman with striking blue eyes walks inside. She is flanked by a burly man in a suit. Strange, in Darren’s opinion, to be wearing a suit during the zombie apocalypse, but he doesn’t comment. He’s far too captivated by the woman to comment on anything. There are also several different drugs running through his veins right now.
She has thick blonde hair falling in waves past her shoulders, and it frames her beautiful face perfectly. She looks ageless, but Darren would guess she’s in her late forties. She’s so beautiful
that Darren finds himself at a loss for words.
“Your report, Doctor?” she asks, and there’s something in her voice that tells Darren she’s used to being listened to, even obeyed. She’s someone important, that’s for sure.
Doctor Forester smiles grimly. “No good news.”
The woman waits patiently for him to continue and Darren keeps staring. If he were anywhere else, he’d probably avert his gaze, but something - probably the drug cocktail - has thrown away his inhibitions.
“He’s the same as the others we’ve collected. A single power, in his case the ability to make things vibrate - only very slightly, I might add - and a certain amount of extra... psychic abilities.” The doctor grimaces, obviously uncomfortable with using these terms. He is a man of science, not myths. “Most of the psychic activity is at a subconscious level, and none of the subjects I’ve examined have been able to harness any level of control over it.”
The woman nods. She shares a glance with her bodyguard, but Darren can’t imagine what message might be passing between them.
“None of our subjects have expressed any kind of impressive power, but the research department has been detecting random bursts of psychic energy, for lack of a better term, around the country. We haven’t yet been able to ascertain whether or not these individuals are present in other parts of the world. Global communication has been lacking since the outbreak began.”
“Anything of note in the research department’s findings?” the woman asks. She pretends not to notice Darren’s staring. He knows she knows but he can’t stop himself.
“Nothing of note.”
She must notice something in his voice or his face, because she presses him. “Anything at all? Doctor, even the most seemingly insignificant detail could be vital.”
“There was one thing,” he says.
“Go on.”
“It appears that there are several high powered individuals close together.”
The woman’s face shows something other than calm attentiveness for the first time since she entered the room. “What?” she asks. Darren decides that panic doesn’t suit her beautiful features.
“A gathering of these individuals,” the doctor says. “Near the city you asked us to focus on, as it turns out.” He waits a moment, obviously hoping that the woman will explain how she knew where to focus their attention. She doesn’t. “For some reason, there are a number of Unturned individuals in close proximity to each other. We don’t know why they have been coming together.”
The woman looks troubled. “Unexpected. Not a problem, but unexpected. We will just have to tread carefully. It means I’ve underestimated a few things.” She speaks aloud but it feels like she’s talking to herself.
The doctor doesn’t reply, probably because it’s not his job to discuss her activities. He continues with his report. “Two of the Unturned are off the charts, in relation to their energy levels. They seem to be incredibly powerful. It’s not my place, but I think they should be our priority.”
“Are they together?” she asks.
“No,” he replies. She frowns, clearly not expecting this answer either. Darren wonders how this woman knows so much. “Though they came very close a few days ago.”
“They’re searching for each other,” she whispers, probably to herself.
The doctor shrugs. “It would make sense, in a way. If we theorise that those two Unturned are acting like magnets for the others, any lesser Unturned in the area would be subconsciously drawn to them. Hypothetically, the stronger they are, the stronger the pull would be, if it acts in a similar manner to magnetism. Only the very weak Unturned would be unaffected.”
The woman nods. “And they don’t even know that they’re doing it. They have no idea how their powers work. Any energy spikes? Did the equipment record anything?”
Darren wonders about the two Unturned, the powerful ones. Would they be here, in this position? He doubts it. They wouldn’t let themselves be captured by some government brutes with guns. They would’ve just used their powers to melt the soldiers’ brains or drop a building on them or something.
Darren resigns himself to the fact that even among the Unturned, he’s a nobody. All his life he’s been average, uninteresting. He got bitten and he thought he was special. Maybe he had the cure to the apocalypse because he didn’t turn. But no, he’s just one out of many. And he’s not even a particularly talented one.
“Two power spikes since the initial outbreak. Surprisingly, one of these two Unturned was among the first to be bitten, almost two days before the first wave hit the world. But the other one, the one who was bitten after the outbreak, had the power spikes.”
“Do you think there’s a reason that one of these two was bitten so early?” she asks. “Is there a connection between the timing and their power level?”
“There is no data to support that idea,” he says.
The woman glances at Darren for the first time, and his pulse quickens, but she looks away again just as quickly. “These power surges,” she says. “Any correlating events?”
The doctor nods. “The largest spike happened outside the city, we think it originated in an industrial park. Do you remember the hurricane? The one that destroyed everything in its path and almost took out half the city?”
The woman’s eyes widen. “You think one of them caused that. You can’t be serious.”
“I am. It’s possible that this Unturned was responsible for that hurricane. We already knew that the weather phenomenon was unnatural. This is the only explanation that makes sense.”
Darren barely notices the silence in the room because he is feeling exactly the same thing as everyone else. Shock. There is an immune out there that can conjure hurricanes.
“You mentioned a second spike in power,” she says quietly.
“The second spike was similar. Not as powerful as the first, but still far above any other Unturned we have observed. It wasn’t as powerful as the hurricane event, but it was still off the charts in comparison to any other readings we’ve seen. However, there were no notable changes in weather patterns.”
“Why isn’t the second Unturned having power spikes?”
The doctor shrugs, turning back to his machines, most of which measure some part of Darren’s vital signs. “I can’t tell you why, Jennifer. We don’t know.” His tone makes it clear that the conversation is over and Darren frowns. This conversation was the most interesting thing to happen to him in a while.
“Thank you, Doctor.” The woman walks to the door, her bodyguard following close behind.
The door closes behind them with a soft click, followed by the hiss of compressed air being released, and the doctor turns to Darren. “It’s just you and me again, my friend.”
Darren sighs.
Chapter 13 - Soldiers
Kim
I wake a few hours later and I’m almost surprised to find the dog in my arms. Rex. I put my hand to his neck and tears spill onto my cheeks. He’s alive. His wound healed. He’s not going to die.
I can’t believe that it worked. Giving him my blood saved his life, somehow. I lift Rex and step over the infected woman’s body. I’m shocked that I was able to fall asleep with her body only a few feet away. It must be a sign of how much blood I lost.
I put Rex onto the bed in the master bedroom. “I’ll be back soon,” I whisper.
He doesn’t react but his chest is moving with shallow breaths. I can only hope he doesn’t wake up before I get back. I don’t want him to wander off before he fully recovers.
I pass the fireplace downstairs and stop to grab the metal poker. I finally have a weapon. I take a bottle of water with me too.
The street is barren and empty. There is not a single infected or human in sight. I start walking towards what I hope is an area with shops. I need dog food and clothes and about a million other things. I doubt I’ll find them in any of these houses. I keep an eye on the street names as I walk, I need to be able to find my way back to Rex
.
I glance at a few of the houses I pass. Most look untouched and I know I should check them for supplies but something keeps me moving. I just have a feeling that this is the right way to go. It sounds insane but it’s far more believable than most of the events of the last few days. After everything I’ve seen and been through, I’m not going to question anything. Nothing makes sense so there’s no point trying to explain it.
The sound of an engine drags me out of my own thoughts and I stop walking. I should hide. I stand in the middle of the street as a red truck speeds towards me. It kicks up dust behind it and within moments I can see the faces of the men driving it. There is one inside driving and two more standing in the bed, howling and jeering and waving their guns in the air. I know exactly what kind of danger I’m in.
I grin.
The truck pulls up beside me and one of the guys jumps off. He lands heavily and almost stumbles. I’m not surprised when the smell of alcohol hits me. He is wearing dungarees and boots and there’s a toothpick sticking out of his mouth. He looks like Tom Sawyer.
I force myself not to laugh at him and turn my head to look into the cab of the truck. I look past Tom, into the cab of the truck, and disgust rises in the back of my throat. There is chubby guy in a baseball cap watching me with greedy eyes. What he wants from me is written all over his face. The third guy is still standing in the bed of the truck. He is shirtless, so I can see that he’s covered in stupid tattoos. He winks and smiles menacingly at me.
I look forward to teaching these idiots a lesson they won’t forget.
Tom Sawyer steps closer to me and his stench almost makes me gag. He swings his shotgun up and rests it on his shoulder, grinning down at me. He is easily a foot taller than me. Even if I didn’t have my new abilities, I know from self defence classes that height is rarely a determining factor in a fight if you know how to handle yourself. I have no doubt I could take this idiot in a fair fight.
