We Are Still Here

by Jimmy Bird

  I looked over towards Beth, who was still trying to reach me, “Look Beth, we made it. Be patient. We’ll get you some help soon.”

  We pulled into the parking lot and noticed that a few cars were around, but I didn’t see any signs that anyone was around.

  Without thinking, I spoke out loud, “I hope that Serina’s still here.”

  I looked over at Beth, waiting for response. None came. Instead, the only response I got from her was that she was still trying to reach me.

  We got about halfway through the parking lot when I heard a gunshot ring out. Instinctively, I dropped to me side. That was a mistake. I felt Beth touch my left shoulder with her hand. It caused me to sit directly back up and lean against the door.

  A man’s voice out of nowhere, “Listen. That was a warning shot. I have multiple guns aimed at you right now, so don’t try anything. We don’t want any trouble, so if you do what I tell you then there won’t be any. Understand? If you understand, honk twice.”

  I understood but wasn’t sure what I should do. I needed to get Beth some help and I was pretty sure that this is where my brother told me to go if I ever needed help.

  The man’s voice rang out again, “Do you understand? I need you to honk twice if you understand. Look, I can’t help you if you don’t cooperate.”

  Help? This person’s offering help? But, why did he shoot? Maybe, it was a warning shot of some kind? Do I trust him? I’m not sure what I should do.

  I looked over at Beth. The right of her face was still bloody. Except for her not using her right arm, she didn’t seem to be bothered by her injury. She was still trying to reach out to me with her left hand.

  Seeing her immediately made my mind up. Whether, I trusted this guy or not wasn’t the issue. Beth needed help and this stranger was offering it.

  My right hand was still hurting, so I reached my left hand out and pushed on the steering wheel where the symbol for the horn was. It honked out. The guy said to honk twice so I pushed on the symbol for a second time. It honked out again.

  The noise must have upset Beth because she began to frantically move around. It looked like she was having a seizure. She went from reaching for me, to hitting her head on the window next to her, to reaching out for me again.

  I tried to calm her down, “Beth! Beth. Calm down. It’s going to be alright. I’m going to get you some help.”

  Outside, the guy yelled, “Turn off the truck. Open the door slowly. Lift both hands into the air and step out of the truck.”

  I did what I was told.

  The guy commented, “Good. Good. Now walk around to the hood and stand there. Hey, why isn’t your friend doing the same thing?”

  I looked around for the face to go with the voice. It took me a few seconds to find him, but there he was. His head was just above the corner of the stockade gate. His head kind of blended into the trees behind him.

  I spoke out, “My friend is sick and needs help. That’s why we’re here. We need your help.”

  “Is it a guy or girl?”

  Confused, I asked, “What difference does that make?”

  “It doesn’t. I just want to know who I’m talking about.”

  I informed him, “It’s a girl and she’s my friend.”

  The guy seemed to have genuine concern in her voice, “Thank you. So, what’s wrong with her?”

  I shook my head, “I’m not entirely sure. I was told that Serina, Serina Steph, works here and that she could help us.”

  At the mention of Serina’s name, the guy turned his head and whispered something behind the gate.

  After a few seconds, he looked back towards me, “Serina? Haven’t heard of her.”

  “Are you sure? I was told that she worked here.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My brother.”

  “And who’s your brother?”

  “Justin Hill.”

  Before I could go any further, one side of the doubled door gate opened, and a middle-aged white person began walking towards me. The person must have been important because whoever it was had two armed bodyguards with them. From where I was at, I couldn’t tell if the person was a guy or girl, but the two guards were men. They were kind of tall and lanky.

  The two guards wore hunter camouflage type of clothing with something that looked like hiking boots. The person they were escorting was wearing a dark bluish color shirt and light khaki pants. She also had boots, but they reminded me that type of boots my brother used to wear.

  The person’s hair was short, but not as short as the two guards. The person didn’t look very tall, especially next to the two guards, maybe a little over 5 feet. I’m around 5 feet, eight inches tall and the person looked a lot shorter than me. No one said a word as they walked towards me.

  The closer they got, the more I noticed that the person being escorted looked female. With the clothes she wore, it made it difficult to tell. Maybe, it was the color, or the fact that they were a little on the baggy side. The telltale sign for me that she was a girl was her lips. They kind of reminded me of Angelina Jolie’s lips.

  They stopped a few feet away. She wore thin framed glasses and just looked at me. Her eyes darted towards Beth, who was moving around and hitting her head on the window.

  She looked back at me, “Did you say that your brother’s name is Justin Hill?”

  Hearing her speak confirmed that she was female, “Yes. Are......are you Serina Steph?”

  She ignored my question, “Who’s asking?”

  She had a strong presence about her, causing me to answer quickly, “My name’s Makalyn Herring. My brother told me that if I was ever in this area and needed help, that you would help me.”

  She looked in deep thought, “Makalyn Herring. I think I remember hearing the name. Why’s your brother’s last name different than yours?”

  It seemed like a pointless question, but I answered, “We had different dads.”

  She looked thoughtful, “Oh, I see. Well, to answer your question.”

  She stepped forward and extended her hand towards me, “I am Serina Steph. Nice to meet you. Any sister of Justin is a sister of mine. By the way, how is your brother?”

  My eyes began to water, “Well. He…...He was fine when I left the house this morning.”

  She returned to in control, “I don’t want to sound unsympathetic and get off topic here, but what’s wrong with your friend?

  I glanced over at Beth, “Actually, that’s why we’re here. She needs help.”

  Serina raised her eyebrows in a questioning type of manner, “What kind of help?”

  I shook my head, “I’m not entirely sure. One minute we were playing in a softball tournament and the next thing we knew things went crazy. People began attacking each other.”

  “Did you get bit or scratched?”

  Confused, I asked, “No. Why?”

  She ignored my question, “What about your friend?”

  I looked back at Serina, “Kind of.”

  Her voice became stern, “What do you mean by ‘kind of’?”

  I felt like a little girl answering to my dad, “Our coach had kind of bitten her hand as we tried to escape.”

  “Your coach? Was your coach ‘turned’?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She directly asked, “Was your coach a zombie?”

  “Is that what these things are? Zombies?”

  “Your brother didn’t tell you?”

  My mouth dropped, “Tell me what?”

  She reached her arm across my shoulder, “Come on and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  I glanced over at Beth, “Okay. But, what about Beth? Are you able to help her?”

  I allowed her to lead me away and noticed that she was looking up at me, “Yes. We can help her.”

  Relief rushed over me, “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

  I looked back over my shoulder and noticed that the two men were walking towards the passenger side of the tr
uck, “You don’t mind if I go help them, do you? Beth’s in really bad shape and seeing two strangers might upset her.”

  Serina continued to lead me away, “Don’t worry. My guys are professionals. They’ll take real good care of your friend.”

  Serina led me through the gate and towards a building. It looked amazing. I made a mental note that the part of the building was outside of the gate. It wasn’t anything spectacular. It looked kind of like a normal building. It looked a darkish gray color with tinted windows. Let’s just put it this way, if you had walked by and saw the building, you wouldn’t have known that it was a Wolf Reserve.

  The part of the building located inside the gate, was something else. Someone had taken the time to draw a wolf mural on the walls and windows. Besides that, it had neatly trimmed trees and bushes that had stone walk paths littered throughout. At the very center of the bushes was a small pond/ fountain combo surrounded by some picnic tables. It looked nice and peaceful. I guess it was so people could go outside and relax or smoke while on break.

  Serina led me down a path that led to two double doors. Once we got within a few feet, both doors open towards us. To my surprise, two more guards were standing there with guns in their hands. Just past them on the inside of the building were even more people moving around. It was hard to tell exactly how many people were at the Reserve but seeing that many people made me feel safe.

  We stopped by the nearest guard and Serina whispered something into her ear. The guard saluted at Serina and motioned towards a young-looking guy with a shaved head and goatee sitting at the front building desk.

  Once we entered the building, the guy who had been sitting at the desk rushed towards us, stopped and tilted his head towards Serina before continuing towards the guard.

  I watched in awe as people stopped what they were doing to acknowledge Serina with a tilt of their heads. Men, women, and children alike. All I kept thinking was, who is this woman to command such respect?

  She walked me around the entrance for a second before leading me towards a hallway on the left side of the building. We were walking towards a door with a sign above it that read ‘Employees Only’. I assumed that it was an employee break area.

  Before we got to the door, Serina smiled as she asked, “Are you hungry Mak....Makelon, was it?”

  Trying to keep my cool, I told her, “My name’s actually pronounced Ma-ka-lyn and yeah, I didn’t realize it before, but I’m pretty hungry.”

  She smiled at me, “It doesn’t surprise me. I learned during my time in the military that when faced with combat or death, your adrenaline goes into overtime. Your mind forgets about everything else except for surviving. Your body burns so much energy that when your adrenaline finally stops, your body needs to refuel itself.”

  It made sense. My adrenaline had been running since the start of the game. But...But that was hours ago. I guess the thought of me feeling safe inside the gate probably subsided my adrenaline.

  She reached out and grabbed the door handle. She opened the door and stepped aside like a gracious host, so I could walk through the doorway first.

  The inside of the room looked like it had been altered. It seemed that one of the walls was mostly removed, which opened into an even bigger room. The first room looked big enough to hold a little table and maybe some chairs, but that was it. It had a small oven and a sink next to it. A small storage pantry on the furthest wall that was full of food. It had cabinets, a microwave oven, and a full-size fridge. It reminded me of a teacher’s lounge.

  Serina led me through the open wall where multiple tables were laid out in a pattern that led to a table at the end of the room. Four straight lines all heading towards the table at the end. Maybe it was the head table.

  Plates, among other things were being placed at the tables. The guy with the goatee, along with others, were setting everything up. I noticed that the head table had three plates on it.

  Serina led me towards the head table and smiled, “What do you think?”

  I looked around the great room, “I’m not sure what to think. Are you the ruler here or something?”

  She smirked, “Something like that. Please sit and we can talk while they finish setting the tables up.”

  “For what?”

  She gave a seductive smile, “For you, of course. You’re our guest of honor.”

  “What about Beth? Isn’t she supposed to be a guest of honor too?”

  Her smile slightly faded, “Of course, she is. But with her being sick, it’s just you for right now.”

  That made sense. With her being sick, there was no way to know how long it would take her to heal.

  “When can I see her?”

  Her warm smile returned, “Soon. Our doctors need time to help her and you could do more damage then good for her right now. Especially, if you’re in the way.”

  I nodded, “I.....I understand. Thank you.”

  She grabbed my hand, “You never have to thank me sweetie. We’re family. Can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah. Ask me anything.”

  She seemed genuinely curious, “What all did your brother tell you about me and our training?”

  I absentmindedly shook my head, “Nothing really. He said that y’all were on a training exercise and there was an accident. That you and a few other people got hurt. He said that the accident really affected you both, physically and mentally. He said that you had to have multiple surgeries and that it gave you a severe case of…...What’s the thing that military soldiers sometimes get when they are in battle? P…. PT…. PTD…... Something like that.”

  She raised her eyebrows, “You mean ‘PTSD’?”

  “Yes. That’s it! PTSD! Anyways, he said that the accident gave you PTSD bad, so bad that normal Physical Therapy on base wouldn’t even work for you. Instead, you came home to Oklahoma to rehab and ended up working here at this Wolf Reserve and that it’s been helping you cope with your PTSD.”

  Serina looked kind of shocked as she responded, “Well, I guess you can say that is the short, very edited version. “

  “What do you mean?”

  She gave a sad look, “Sweetie! That’s not the whole story.”

  Without realizing it, I had just copied her, “That’s not the whole story?”

  She shook her head, “No, it’s not. While your brother was basically correct about everything, he left out lots of details. Would you like to hear the whole story?”

  I just stared at her, “Yeah. Sure.”

  She looked into my eyes, “Okay. Your brother was correct about what happened and must have took his oath of secrecy seriously.”

  “What oath of secrecy?”

  She had a wicked smile on her face, “What I’m about to tell you is top secret. Very few people even know about it. Your brother was one of the lucky few who knew what our training was about. If the military was still around, I would be court martialed for even telling you this much.”

  “What do you mean ‘IF’ the military was still around?”

  Chapter 10: Captain Serina Steph

  You see, we were out doing training exercises, but it wasn’t the standard military exercises that most people know about. We were told to practice in a certain area, so we could stop a individual, a person that could be infected with an experimental virus. Atleast, that’s what I was told during my briefing. Before you ask any questions, please let me finish.

  Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. We were training to stop a possible infected person. We didn’t know if it was going to be a male or female. I didn’t even know if there was any infected person. We were training for the ‘just in case’ worst type of scenario. All I knew was that those in the briefing were told that ‘intelligence’ warned of an imminent biological threat from ISIS. They were supposed to be working on something similar to the black plaque. Our own governmental run CDC was working on a cure for the biological threat. Since they had no idea what ISIS was truly working on, the CDC was trying to cover all possibilities. To do
that, they used human volunteers to experiment on.

  I do remember in a previous private meeting that my superiors did say that the Russians and Chinese were working on a formula to make a type of ‘super’ soldier. Even our own governmental scientists were supposed to be working on their own version of a ‘super’ soldier that was immune to any type of biological weapons.

  I often wonder if the two events ran hand in hand, but I’m not sure. Anyway, we were told that one of their test subjects managed to escape from a government facility. Since my squadron had a reputation for getting things done quickly, we were the ones brought in to take down the test subject.

  Before we could do that however, we had to train for this new ‘super’ soldier type of threat. All we were told was that the subject didn’t feel pain and was very hard to kill. The individual didn’t show fear, recognition of others, or remorse. We were also told not to let the test subject bit us. If he did, then we would become infected.

  Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Sort of like what’s happening now, but I’m not sure how because we ultimately took the test subject down.

  We were in the middle of a training session when report came through channels claiming that the test subject was seen in our vicinity and headed our way. They were coming from the East. We immediately stopped training and got in our defensive positions around thirty yards from the tree line. We were facing the direction they were coming from.

  I had my men line up in a double formed line, sort of like the old military militia style used in the early 1800’s. I figured if it was just one person then we could easily take them down with this formation. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just one man. More test subjects must have escaped then what we were originally told. A lot more.

  Sweetie, I’m not sure if your brother told you this, but he was my squad leader and was good at it. He was squad leader because all the men respected him. He had earned his position.

  Test subjects began walking through the tree lines. Men, women, and children. It was hard to tell how many at first, but I think that it ended up being around fifty of them.