by David Tyne
Since the front door was locked, we had to take drastic measures. I picked up one of the wheelie bins outside the building, and began ramming it into the office window. Channelling my inner Harry, it took a few tries before I was able to puncture the glass pane, taking it out quietly enough to avoid a large spectacle.
“Phew. Come on,” I breathed, offering my hand to her as I climbed through the darkened room. I should’ve been more cautious of the former O-Saint... Despite her bad taste in friends, the ex-cultist seemed trustworthy enough after what she’d just helped us with.
Get a hold of yourself, Daniel. I couldn’t think about that Medical School, about Ian. Not yet, there was too much at risk.
Sneaking through the admin office, we came across a cardboard box with all of our confiscated weapons that Burkley forced us to leave behind. Seeing Millie’s realistic BB gun, I decided to grab it just in case. Even if it was technically useless, we might luck out and scare someone off.
I let Serah move in front as she creaked the door open, just by a tiny crack. We could see into the main hall, although the lights were switched off and the residents had been plunged into darkness. I couldn’t believe my own eyes...
Nearly thirty men in red hoodies stood valiantly in the centre of the gymnasium, very few of them women. The O-Saints must’ve been here for a good few hours now, waiting until the elderly-occupied shelter was free from defensive young folk before taking over.
SP. Burkley stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Pastor Mitchell, gazing around at the panic and turmoil they’d caused. Entire families lay petrified on the floor, bound and gagged by their own clothing and sleeping bags.
“Look at you all cowering there,” the ghastly-faced Pastor sneered aloud. “You should be elated! Think of the sacrifice your blood will make, for the greater good. God has invoked the Book of Revelation, and has chosen us, the O-Saints, to act as Noah did! We are his ark, the destined survivors! Praise be to the Great Flood, praise be to the harbingers... praise be to the rising dead, who enact our Lord’s will!”
“This guy is bonkers,” was all I could whisper behind Serah.
Scanning the leader’s disturbed audience for a familiar face, I found my mother in the very front row, shaking her head at him with the same scepticism that I did. As a die-hard Christian, I knew that she was desperate to tell him just how misinformed his gang of religious zealots were on the current state of affairs. Hopefully not enough to risk her life over it.
“Oh. Oh, no.” Serah’s knees buckled, lowering herself to the ground. “Surely he’s not going to—”
“Going to what?”
“The Pastor, he’s always looking for more followers. You saw the way he tests them, to see whether they are ‘worthy’.”
My hand grazed my infected shoulder, still feeling the burn of viral saliva. I was moving on borrowed time, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to lie down and let him get away with doing the same to my own family.
Just as I was preparing to dash out into the main hall, a crashing sound erupted from behind us. Both of our eyes met, gradually panning backwards to see the silhouette descending upon us. The Lost had found their way through our makeshift entrance, clambering through the broken window with aggravated haste.
“Well, shit.” Pushing Serah through the door, I quickly followed in her footsteps as we burst through the middle of the open sermon, interrupting one of Mitchell’s odd little speeches. We were almost instantly leg-swept and floored by the agile O-Saints, crazed young students who had nowhere else to go.
“Boy, you… You live?!” I heard their hideous leader gasp, raising his hands towards the sky. “Another child has been delivered to us, praise—”
“Shut up!! They’re coming inside, we have to leave!” I howled, trying to wrestle myself free as the office door rattled of its own accord. The lone shadow of a former human tumbled out, frantic in its search to satisfy basic urges. Its steel-grey eyes landed upon the captured party of forty-or-so inhabitants, and a glop of hungering drool roped to the ground.
I couldn’t blame the monster… If I saw a full-course meal tied up and cooked in front of me, it would take more than a few scrawny teenagers and a brainless cult to hold me back.
The Lost creature’s pale friends soon followed in its attack, descending on the Pastor’s audience like vultures to a pack of rats. The religious leader extended his arms manically, in hysterics as though this was all part of his plan… God’s plan.
“Yes… Yes!! Consume the impure souls, leave only the righteous! Reveal to me those who carry the flame of our Lord and Saviour!”
Burkley leaned into it as he punched the Pastor across the face, letting out an untamed growl as he did so. “You bloody fool! My evac site has been compromised, there won’t be anyone left to use at this rate! Find the leak, and stop more from coming in!”
Quivering with the fear of God in him, Mitchell scrambled away to locate the mess that Serah and I had created. Meanwhile, the rest of the O-Saints struggled to contain the infection as it spread throughout the restrained audience.
A Lost old woman managed to grab ahold of the hooded grunt who pinned me down, and I had no reservations about kicking him off as he screamed in agony. I could already see Serah breaking free as well, committing herself to stopping the panic as she attacked each rising corpse from behind.
I had other plans, which hadn’t quite formed in my mind until I was already tailing Mitchell back into the office area. Watching him as he slammed filing cabinets in front of the broken window, I waited for him to turn around before speaking.
“You’re fucking insane. You know that, right?” My voice startled him, almost as though he expected his ‘chosen ones’ to be softer-spoken.
“Child, you are mistaken. Is it not the rest of the world, that has lost its way? Surely you have known the same suffering as I, as our many brothers and sisters?”
My muscles tensed when he said that, and I decided to pull out Millie’s fake pistol. Judging from the amount of colour that drained from his blood-soaked face, I’d say that the trick worked.
“Sure, I know suffering… because one of my best friends did, too. I couldn’t do a damn thing to save him. You and your ‘angel’ forced him to die, alone. In the dark.”
“T-That is the fate of pitiful mortals!” Mitchell backed away, his eyes trained on the airsoft barrel. “My angel gave me purpose when I had nothing… Maybe he can help you, too! Join us, and we can—”
“I’m going to count to three. When I do, you’re going to leave this place... with or without a bullet in your head. Understand?” I pressed on the trigger a little tighter, to show that I was serious. “One, two…”
I never got to three. The disfigured Pastor brushed his shoulder past me, muttering something about not seeing the last of him and how we were all doomed anyway. That part was probably true, from what I’d seen in the main hall.
Sighing in relief, I couldn’t help but smirk a little at my childish prank. As it always did though, tension roped me back in with the macabre cries of the centre’s inhabitants, fending off their undead attackers.
By the time I worked up the nerve to go back out there, the front doors were already wide open and there wasn’t a red hoodie in sight. Not even Burkley remained, although the numbers of swirling infected had begun to dwindle.
I supposed that he no longer had any use for the community centre, after the Lost had invaded his private prison. As for why an intelligent man like that was working with the wacky Pastor in the first place, I couldn’t even venture a guess.
I noticed Harry’s presence alongside Serah, both of them back-to-back as they tried to protect the huddle of elderly survivors inside my mum’s medical corner. Speaking of her, I was abruptly embraced from behind by a familiar voice.
“Daniel, sweetheart... You’re okay! I was so scared that you...” My mother choked, shaking her head against me. All I could do was pat her back, trying not to break down and cry myself. It had been a long d
ay, and not every detail had caught up with me yet.
Harry had finished up clearing his side of the hall, his eyes now on the hunt for something else. I knew it had to be Ian's parents. Too far away to stop him, I watched in growing unease as he combed the room’s inhabitants for any sign of them, narrowly tripping over a familiarly-large man that lay stiff on the ground. Dead.
The thug stared blankly at the corpse for a moment, almost as though he was indifferent to the scene. With a single twitch of the brow, I could see his emotions flipping on in an instant. The rage steadily built up in his pained eyes before it erupted out of his mouth, filling the centre of the hall with a deafening roar.
“H-Hey man, calm down! It’s over...” I began sprinting across to try to get him under control, but he reacted like an uncaged animal; his boots stomped forcefully on the corpse, infuriated with a wild look on his face.
“No! It’s not fair!! Get up! Get up, you bastard!!” He screamed between wet-sounding kicks. The community centre was almost devoid of Lost, but even though some of them still lingered in the corners, Harry was the one that everyone was now petrified of.
“Harry, people are looking—”
“Why doesn't he have to face up to what he's done?!? He killed Ian! Fucking! Sick! Bastard!!”
The swift blows must have stirred something within the fat man's body, as his eyes opened to reveal a cold-grey wisp... He was slowly coming back to life as a Lost.
Even with Ian’s dead father trying to regain movement as a mere shell, Harry was still attempting to beat answers out of him. “...Fucking... talk... Tell me why he did that to himself!! We were going to make it work! You're the reason why he gave up on living, damn shitbag!!”
The thug drove his switchblade inside of the Lost's arm, slicing his wrist all the way to his shoulder. The blood didn't spurt out like it would if he was alive; instead oozing out in a gross, congealed manner. Harry was playing with his anatomy, torturing the old man.
He cut off the father’s chubby fingers with ease, almost grinning like a lunatic as he did it. “How do you like that? Huh?! What you did to Ian was a hundred times worse!!”
I couldn't look, much less protest as Harry stuck his knife under the grey-tinted eyeball. Prying it out of its socket, the fat Lost could only wheeze and groan in response, too large to even sit up straight and bite into the enraged mutilator. The onlookers were absolutely petrified, frozen in place as they gazed upon Harry's display of temporary insanity.
There was no telling how long this went on for. Organ by organ, Harry pulled Ian's dad apart and screamed for the still-attached head to bring his best friend back. I tried to attract his attention to the forming crowd, but he couldn't even register my presence. The only sight in his tunnel vision was Ian's death, and how he was unable to avenge him.
It only took one more terrified scream for him to look up and reconnect with reality. It didn’t come from me, nor a concerned citizen. Right behind Harry, clutching onto Millie's hand, stood a little girl. No, Beth...
Those innocent eyes of hers took in the sea of dead bodies, at the centre of which lay the blood-drenched Harry and his dissected toy.
His murderous glare violated the small child for a brief moment, before turning around to take in his 'art’ from a new perspective. Dropping his knife into a congealed pool of bile and gore, he wiped his hands along the floor to try and wash away the red...
Those stains wouldn't be coming out for a long time.
26 | Answers
It took a while for Beth to regain consciousness, fainting after what she'd seen in the community centre. When she finally woke up, she couldn’t stop herself from crying. The girl was convinced that Harry was going to kill her, and wouldn't even say a word until he left the entire building, constantly apologising as he went.
My mum reappeared when the centre was once again secure, but I was too exhausted to run over and hug her. Instead she came to me, with a face of utter sympathy... like she'd just realised that we had returned without Ian. Without a word, I nearly wobbled to my knees as she held me, and I bawled softly into her shoulder. I just wanted this nightmare to be over.
I wanted Ian to be alive again, even if it meant us never crossing paths in that interview room. I wished that the Lost hadn't come in the first place, although that was probably everyone’s wish.
The world we had fallen into was cruel, harsh; the most disgusting parts were the ones that hadn’t changed at all. The worst facets of human nature were now glorified by freedom, the lawlessness that the wandering Lost had brought along with their anarchy.
From where I was standing, we were the only ones who still cared about protecting others. Everyone else just wanted to use us, toy with our safety or eat our flesh. If that was all the new world had to offer, I was growing sick of it already.
I stood alone outside the community centre, bathing in the dawn's orange light as Serah approached from behind. She’d already reunited with her parents, but for some reason she stuck around to make sure that the rest of us were okay. I wished that we could be, if only for her peace of mind.
Every muscle in my body felt exhausted, but not because of fatigue or even the trauma we'd just been through. I was feeling tired for all of the obstacles I would have to overcome, every single day in this bleak future.
Harry had seemingly ran off in the direction we had previously travelled — if I had to guess, he went to see Ian's grave one last time. Maybe disappearing was a good idea... After all, no one really wanted to say goodbye after what he did.
As my thoughts returned to the Medical School, somehow I had pushed the most curious fact of all to the back of my mind. Looking into my steady hands, I tried to imagine what the internal structure would look like; wondering why my veins circulated blood to each of my limbs, without any consent or even awareness.
“I'm... still alive.”
“Yep,” was all my companion said.
“Serah... How did you know? Even back then, just after we got bitten—”
“I'm a medical student, so it probably stood out more to me. In fact, I'm the reason they got their name.”
I was confused by this. “Name... Those red-hoodie guys? The O-something?” Serah smiled to herself, but let it fade when her eyes hit the horizon. They were still out there, somewhere…
“Not what I would have chosen, but yeah. The O-Saints. When some people get bitten, they don't turn. It's all to do with what's in here.” She motioned to her heart, and I immediately got the hint.
“O, as in blood type... People with that certain blood are immune to the infection? Like you and me... Harry as well?” I didn't know what to think, but it must’ve been good luck that we shared the same biology.
Serah looked down at her feet, somewhat distressed by the idea. “Yeah, O-Negative specifically, although don't get your hopes up. Despite all of this lot having it, only 7% of people worldwide have that blood type.”
“Oh.” That was kind of a downer. Something told me that the statistics weren't the only bothersome thing she'd wanted to discuss though, as she started talking science again without missing a beat.
“...And I wouldn't say we were 'immune'. No, by the way the infection spreads, and the way our bodies react to the virus... Of course, I'm only a student, but something this intricate could only be by design.”
I looked at her, almost expecting her to say she was kidding... but her face was solemn and grim. She wasn't one to joke about something like this. “...You think...”
She shook her head. “I don't think, I know. This infection was spread intentionally, even created using our blood type as a template. We aren't just immune; all O-Negatives have some unique bond with the virus..."
I returned my gaze to the ground, starting to feel a little groggy after the day I'd had as she continued on.
"Our genetic makeup instinctively fights back where others fail, until the virus leaves our bloodstream. That's what I discovered when I visited the Medical School, and un
fortunately, that's how the O-Saints found out."
She seemed to feel guilty about her time with the blood gang, as though she was to blame for what happened. I knew it was much deeper than that, though. I tried my best to listen as Serah explained who the O-Saints really were.
"After they'd used me for my research, they began thinking that they were 'chosen by God to lead the new world' and all that crazy talk. They believe that those who can be infected are 'impure', and should be put down like dogs. That's why I had to leave, obviously. Bunch of nut-jobs.”
There wasn't much I could say in response. Honestly, I was still working on the whole 'immune' thing, trying to separate it in my mind from some kind of insane sci-fi superpower.
The idea that I would never turn into a Lost was certainly appealing, but in all truthfulness... it meant nothing, other than the fact that I wouldn't die as easily as most people. I could still starve to death, get shot or stabbed by other assholes, maybe even mauled by the infected.
“They aren’t superior. They’re just scared,” I noted, pinching my brow. “Burkley took advantage of them when they were weak, it’s not their fault.”
Without even looking, I could somehow feel Serah's smile beaming to the back of my head. “Right answer. Good to see you know what you're fighting against.”
Without even acknowledging it, we had both agreed to keep an eye on the O-Saints, and whatever their current game was. The Pastor would continue to 'test' for more people with O-Negative blood, forcibly using them to fulfill his own twisted desires.
From what Mitchell had preached, it seemed as though his group would assert dominance over anyone who wasn't born with the genetics to fend off the Lost. I couldn't have disagreed more with that ideology... No one has the right to look down on a survivor, regardless of what background they came from.
A lone figure emerged from the burning sunlight ahead of us, catching my eye. The shadow shuffled slowly past empty cars, grasping towards the air in front of it. A man. I stood up, almost realising it was calling me.
