This is the End 2: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (9 Book Collection)

by J. Thorn

  “Right this moment?” I turned to face her. “No.”

  “Ain’t this some shit,” Lee said sarcastically.

  “You want to leave with these three?” I challenged. “Let me make this clear.” I stepped up on the porch so I could see everybody. “This is a very limited democracy. That means I’ll leave certain things to the group, but some decisions will be mine alone. My priority is to take care of Thalia and Emily. To that end, I will do whatever it takes to ensure their safety to the best of my ability. None of you are required to stay here. But…if you do, you’ll work, you’ll contribute, and you stay with the understanding that if you are bitten…I will be the one to put you down. If you have a problem with any of that…you can leave. Now.”

  Silence.

  I scanned everybody. I saw the nods of support and approval from Barry, Randi, Teresa…all my original group. Sunshine and Chloe were communicating through sign, but once they were done, Chloe turned to me and nodded. Sunshine gave me a long stare, but she didn’t look like she’d be leaving. Fiona and her group clustered together, and I could see Lee gesturing wildly, but in the end, she turned and nodded. That left Stephen and his newcomers.

  They were whispering quietly, amongst themselves. I saw a show of hands, but didn’t know what they were voting on. Finally, Jason turned.

  “We’ll stay. My brother, Annie, and Greg will leave.” Stephen nudged his brother. “But my little brother wants a brief, private meeting between him and you.”

  “Done.” I nodded.

  I stepped down and motioned for Stephen to follow me. I walked to the picnic area and sat down at a table. The other man sat across from me. I was a bit sad that the man couldn’t join us. He was about my height, five-nine-ish, but easily two-fifty. His arms were huge, and he looked like he could bench press a Volkswagen.

  “If I tell you which direction we’re gonna go, where we’ll be headed…will you follow us?”

  “Why?”

  “Put us down.”

  “What?”

  “Listen,” the man put up his hands, gesturing for me to calm down, “those things…I’ve been payin’ attention. Sometimes, they do stuff. I can’t really explain it good, but my worry is that when I die and turn, I’ll come back here. And I might have a bunch with me.”

  “You think those things communicate?” I asked.

  “I don’t know about that, but if I turn and head back here, no tellin’ how many will follow.”

  “How long do you reckon ya got until you turn?” I asked.

  “I’d be surprised if we made it to nightfall.”

  “Listen, Mister Johnson—”

  “You can call me, Stephen, I think since I’m asking you to kill me and two friends that we can be on a first-name basis with one another.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t want to be one of…those things. And, I don’t want to bring a mob of ‘em back here, ruinin’ your set-up,” Stephen explained. “Also, I don’t want Jason to see you put a bullet in my head. No matter the reason…it’ll never settle right with him. You got your hands full enough with that Lee character. Difference between him and my brother, Jason isn’t just a buncha talk. He gets hot and it’ll turn to bullets.”

  “You ain’t exactly inspiring me to keep him around,” I said.

  “Right now…he sees that he owes you.” Stephen folded his big hands on the table. I looked him in the eyes and was struck by something.

  No black tracers.

  His eyes were dark brown. The whites were clear of any sign of the infection, unlike the woman. I guess it’s like any other illness. Some go down quicker than others. I wondered if his being so big, and obviously in shape, had anything to do with his slower rate of deterioration.

  “Owes me for what?” I asked, forcing myself back to the conversation.

  “Takin’ our folks in like you are,” Stephen explained. “Jason used to run with a bit of a gang. He still holds some of their ideas in his head. Mostly about loyalty and stuff.”

  “Again,” I shook my head, “not really inspiring me with the whole letting-him-stay plan.”

  “I’m being honest with you.”

  “Which is great, but telling me that your brother is a hot-headed gang-banger—”

  “Former gang member,” Stephen corrected me. “Look, you and I know that there is strength in numbers. And believe it or not we’re a lot alike. We both got people we need to take care of. And we’ll do whatever it takes to see it through. I’m asking you to follow me out and put me down so I don’t endanger your people.”

  “Why don’t you do it yourself once you’ve gotten away from here?”

  “Truth?”

  “You’ve been free with it up to now. No sense stopping.”

  “The girl that’s hurt…Annie…she’s our sister. If it was just me and Greg, I wouldn’t blink,” the man’s voice had quieted to a whisper, “but I already had to put my folks down…and a son…and a wife. I can’t do it again. And if I just off myself, I know me…I’ll tell myself that I can beat it all the way to the point where I turn.”

  I considered his answer. There wasn’t anything he said that I couldn’t totally understand. I nodded my head.

  “One last favor,” he said, bringing his eyes up and locking on mine.

  “Why not?” I shrugged.

  “Do Annie first.” He placed a gun on the table. It had a silencer! Well, that took care of my last concern, which was how far the sounds of gunfire carried these days.

  We shook hands.

  ***

  I saw them up ahead, sitting on a downed log. Their backs were to me. Stephen was handing a water bottle to Annie. Both she and Greg looked horrible. Even from here I could see the sickly hue of their skin. But Stephen still looked fine.

  Taking a look around, I smiled. He’d led his group to a small clearing by a stream. I could walk almost all the way up to them and remain hidden. That stream would allow me to move without worrying about every single noise. Plus, Stephen was talking…although I doubt those two were hearing much. They both looked completely out of it.

  About ten feet away, I stopped. Pulling the gun he’d given me, I habitually checked the safety. I lined up on the back of the woman’s head—there was no way I could miss from here—took a deep breath, held it for a second, then, after a slow exhale, I fired. Let me just say that ‘silencer’ is a misnomer. She slumped forward and collapsed. Greg fell over to his side, out of surprise I imagine, but he could barely move. I got up and before he could manage to put words to the pleading I saw in his eyes—full of black tendrils confirming his infection—I fired again.

  All that remained was Stephen. He sat silently on the log, just watching. I saw a tear in his eye as it welled up past the point of containment and trickled down his cheek.

  “Steve,” he said to me calmly in greeting with a nod.

  “Steve,” I echoed. By the shakiness in my voice, you’d think I was the one facing execution.

  “I appreciate it,” the larger man said.

  “Mind if I ask you one question?” I said hesitantly.

  “Go ahead.”

  “What’s it feel like?”

  “That’s the bitch of it,” he sighed. “I guess in the end you feel like you’re burning up. But just now, other than the pain in my arm where the chunk of meat is missing…I feel fine.”

  “Okay,” I said. This was the hard part. “Close your eyes and count back from five.”

  “Just one last thing,” the man said, eyes already closed.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Welcome.”

  “Five…four…three…t—”

  BLAM.

  I tossed the gun aside and headed back to camp. The hour journey out took almost twice that coming back. The sun was on its way down past its midday apex. I reached the outer-most campsite and sat on a pine-needle strewn picnic table for a bit. If killing Jack was difficult, this was eating me from the inside out more s
o than any zombie.

  My throat tightened for the zillionth time at the image of that man sitting with his eyes closed, totally at peace, waiting for the executioner’s bullet. In just a few days, I’d shot and killed four living, breathing persons. I tried to remind myself why. I tried to remember that night in camp…Thalia’s scream…but it didn’t help.

  No, I insisted, it has to be done. I was responsible for not only Thalia and Emily, but…in a way…each of those people. They relied on me to make the tough decisions that nobody wanted to make. Of everybody, I think Dr. Zahn is the only one who really understands.

  “Man up,” I said out loud, like hearing the words would help. I took a few deep breaths to ensure I’d either suppressed everything, or pushed it out of my system. Walking down the overgrown, but still easily followable ‘road’ that wound through the twenty-four campsites—each nothing more than a fire pit, picnic table, and post with a water spigot and power outlet—I felt the tension and pain condense to a nicely manageable ball that I could stuff into a dark corner of my mind.

  I reached the edge of the clearing and froze. Four people were on their knees, hands behind their heads in the middle of the softball field. Aaron, Billy, and Randi had them at gun point. I spotted Teresa up at the house, standing in front of the door; no doubt keeping Thalia and Emily inside. Barry was up in the watch tower. Everybody else was standing in or near the trench.

  As I crossed the ball field, Dr. Zahn came down the hill, cutting me off or wanting to fill me in as I went to see what exactly was happening. I noticed Jason and one of the women from his group coming out of the woods opposite from where I’d come. They were carrying weapons in hand.

  What the hell had happened?

  “Steve?” Dr. Zahn actually started to jog. Now I knew something was up.

  I kept walking, allowing her to intercept me as I crossed the entry road that divided the softball field from the big expanse of open grass. The whole place had a vibe to it that was more than just a little unsettling. It was made just a bit worse by all the unfamiliar faces looking at me like I was Moses coming down from The Mount with the two tablets. Didn’t they know that I didn’t have all the answers? I was flying blind by the seat of my pants. Not much more reliable than a Magic 8 Ball.

  “What’s up, Doc?” Did I just say that? Only, Dr. Zahn didn’t react.

  “You need to come look at this,” she said sternly.

  “What?” I asked, as she fell in beside me, leading me to the four individuals kneeling in the grass at gunpoint.

  “Just come.”

  Fine. I walked across the suddenly much larger seeming field. I became aware with each step that all eyes were on me. Even Lee? And he was…smirking? We reached the cluster and four sets of frightened eyes looked up at me.

  “You,” Dr. Zahn walked up to a man about my age, “show him your arm.”

  The man glanced at his friends who all shrugged or nodded nervously. He unbuttoned the long-sleeved cuff and pulled it up revealing a forearm. I moved closer, a loud pounding ring gaining force in my head.

  The arm was mostly unremarkable. It’s only really outstanding quality was the huge bite. Or, rather, the huge mostly-healed bite. There was no mistaking what it was. But a bite turns victims within seventy-two hours. This one—

  “How long ago?” I forced myself to ask.

  “Just over four weeks,” the man said quietly, obviously afraid.

  Impossible.

  12

  Breaking Point

  “No,” Dr. Zahn insisted, “I haven’t heard even a slight whisper or rumor.”

  “None of the outposts we were in touch with at Serenity reported any instances of immunity?” I tossed the rock I’d picked up at some point into the stream.

  I’d left Jamie and Barry in charge of dealing with the four new arrivals and ‘escorted’ Dr. Zahn away from the cluster of people and across the field to the picnic area. My head was spinning at this new and unsettling revelation. That was clearly a bite on the man’s arm. And it was healed…mostly.

  “Not once have I seen or heard of anybody bitten by one of those things who didn’t turn within seventy-two hours,” Dr. Zahn repeated for the…was this the fifth time or the sixth?

  “But you would agree that is a bite?”

  “Why would the person lie about being bitten? Most people lie about not being bitten.”

  “That would mean this stuff isn’t a hundred percent communicable.” I slumped down on one of the bench seats at a faded red picnic table. “Jesus…it’s like The Stand.”

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Zahn gave me that puzzled, slightly annoyed look. The annoyed part was simply because I’d used a reference and she didn’t get it. Smart people hate it when you have to explain something to them.

  “A Stephen King book. Best thing he ever wrote,” I started. “It was about a government bio-weapon that gets loose from a facility and kills off almost everybody. But it’s only like ninety-nine percent communicable. Anyways, some folks have a dream about an old black woman, the good guys. The others dream about the man without a face, the bad. The survivors clique up and there’s a big good versus evil thing at the end.”

  “And good won?” Dr. Zahn raised an eyebrow.

  “Pretty much,” I nodded. “Look, it’s way more than that, but I’m just sayin’ that the zombie bite isn’t a definite…like we thought.”

  Something dark and unpleasant was trying to build in the back of my mind. It was a pressure that I could physically feel.

  “That means we might have to reconsider our policy on people who’ve been bitten,” Dr. Zahn said.

  And with those words, the dam burst. It came in a flood. That girl on the first night at the gas station, the nameless, faceless, men, women, and children I’d seen taken to the tent to be put down back in Serenity, Jack, and that man yesterday …Stephen—the man who, after several hours, had shown no symptoms…unlike his two companions. The ones at Serenity I couldn’t really do anything about, but as far as the three individuals I’d killed (Dave didn’t count, the reasons were different as was the guilt)…

  No, I thought, I hadn’t killed those three. I murdered them. And even if I could talk myself down from the girl, from Jack…even if I could distance myself from what I’d witnessed at Serenity…there was the man, Stephen, whom I’d shot. The man was bitten at the same time as his two companions—that I’d also killed while they were still alive—but he showed no symptoms. The girl definitely had, even before they left us, I’d seen her eyes.

  “The eyes!” I blurted.

  “What?” Dr. Zahn jumped. I think she’d been saying something.

  “The eyes,” I repeated. “The way they look all bloodshot, but in black. That’s the key.”

  “How do you know?” Dr. Zahn was asking, but I could tell she was actually listening to me rather than looking for a way to challenge or debunk my hypothesis.

  I explained what I’d observed both in the girl, as well as Stephen. Then, I told her where I’d been yesterday. I made certain to include that what I did, I did at the request of Stephen. I may have been hazy on the willingness or compliance of the other two.

  “So, what do we do?” Dr. Zahn asked.

  “We give these people the option to stay,” I said with a shrug.

  “I’m not talking about just them.”

  “Come up with a way to isolate people if they get bit, until we know.”

  “I’m talking about Jason and the rest of Stephen’s group,” Dr. Zahn said, her voice quiet, but very firm. “We can’t keep this a secret. If they find out later, it could get ugly.”

  “It might anyways.” I slouched over, feeling a little sick.

  “We need to pull Barry, Aaron, Jamie, and Teresa aside. They should be ready in case things suddenly go bad.”

  “And kill more innocent people?” I asked. Now I could taste stomach acid in the back of my throat. Hot…burning.

  “Is there such a thing anymore, Steve?” Dr. Zahn sat besi
de me and took my hand. “We’ve all had to do things. Sometimes they might not have been the right thing.”

  “I’ve murdered people,” I insisted. “This isn’t just raiding or looting. This isn’t abandoning people because they wouldn’t agree to my rules. And when the hell did that happen?”

  “What?”

  “When did I become the leader? When did it become my responsibility to say who stays, who goes, and who lives or dies?” I felt the rest of the dam crumble. The past four months washed over me. Every wrong choice. Every person I’d killed or left to die.

  “You became the leader because nobody else had the guts to step forward and make decisions,” Dr. Zahn said, the iciness in her voice turning to anger. Anger? At what?

  “Like who to murder?”

  “That’s enough, Steve!” Dr. Zahn snapped. “You’ve kept these people alive.”

  “Not all of them,” I countered.

  “And what’s wrong with that? Are you perfect? Are you God?” Dr. Zahn fired the questions, leaving no room for me to get a word in edgewise. “You aren’t the only one here who’s had to make tough choices. You aren’t the only one with blood on your hands. I’ve done more than my share—”

  “Under orders!” I pointed out.

  “How does that make it different?” Dr. Zahn stood and turned to face me, looking down, the anger etched clearly. “I’ve put down more people in a day. Am I a murderer? And when you thought Thalia was infected…who took her into the back of the car with a lethal dose of morphine?”

  “But—”

  “No, Steven,” Dr. Zahn held up a finger, “there are no ‘buts’ here. We have all done what had to be done when it had to be done. There will be more choices to make ahead. And people here will turn to you to make them. Some will agree, others won’t. Sometimes it will be the right decision and sometimes it won’t. If you don’t make them…who will?

  “When I came with your group, I was the one who told Wimmer that you were the best hope for survival. And you’ve proved it. The thought never occurred to me to find a place to make camp for the winter. I was thinking day-to-day. And I’d venture to guess nobody else was thinking it either.”