In an instant, all of that was swept away. Fort Knox, once a haven for hundreds of people, was no more, swept away by a plague of flesh-eating locusts. Even worse, she’d had an episode as Tara called it.
Dylan called it insanity. She’d gone insane, berserk, losing all control of her mind and body only to awaken amid a bloodbath. Plus, it could easily happen again. They were in the middle of an apocalypse, which equaled lots of stress. What if I turn on Alex, Saul, or Tara? What if I murder Amy?
The thought was too much to bear, and she shoved it into the back of her mind. “So, what’s next?”
Saul looked at Alex. “Do you have any ammo for those guns?”
Alex shook his head. “I’m out, but I’ve got a knife. Why?”
“I need to open the gate and inspect the property to make sure it’s clear. I could use the back-up.” He reached inside his jacket and produced a flashlight, testing the switch to make sure it worked.
“I’ll do it,” Dylan said, gripping her machete. “They can wait here. Amy’s got her shotgun.”
“I’m armed too,” Tara added.
Saul nodded. “Stick close to me. It should be clear. I’m the only one who comes here, but it pays to be careful.”
“Will do,” Dylan said, climbing out of the Humvee.
Dylan kept watch while Saul opened the gate and slid it open on oiled tracks. He did a quick round of the yard, which was mostly open lawn, the grass yellow and dry beneath their feet in readiness for winter. A couple of garden beds lay dormant, patiently waiting for a spring that was still months away.
It was cold with a touch of ice in the air, and Dylan shivered beneath the thin shirt she wore. Each breath produced a puff of white smoke, and her limbs grew numb within seconds. “It will be dawn soon.”
“Yes,” Saul said. “We’d better hurry. I want us to be locked away before the sun rises.”
After clearing the property, he unlocked the garage and slid it open. His flashlight revealed crates of supplies stacked in the corners and a double-cab truck that looked to be in mint condition. Tanks of fuel lined the far wall, along with camping gear and other equipment.
Dylan whistled. “You’ve been busy.”
“I believe in being prepared. Nothing lasts forever, and I never thought the Fort was as safe as its commanders believed. I’ve seen the virus at work. I know what it can do,” Saul said.
“Tara said you were there at the beginning when it all started,” Dylan said.
“It’s true. We were at the source. We should’ve stopped it then but failed. It spread too fast, and we had no help. No back-up. We are paying for that mistake now.”
“Is that why Tara is so obsessed with the cure?” Dylan asked as understanding dawned.
“She blames herself, even though there was nothing she could’ve done differently. The apocalypse was preordained. Fated.”
Dylan frowned. “You believe in all that? Fate and such? I don’t. I believe our fate is what we make it.”
“For the most part, yes, but there is more to the world than what we can see,” Saul replied. “Come. We need to check the house too.”
Dylan stared at his retreating back with raised eyebrows. He wasn’t quite the black and white character she’d thought him to be. The stoic, humorless soldier who lived for duty alone. “I guess there’s more to you than meets the eye.”
She followed him to the front door, taking in every detail. The house was well-built with a door of solid oak. The windows were covered with black paint, and Dylan pointed at them. “What’s up with that?”
“The zombies respond to sight and sound. Movement, noise, and light draw them in, and we need to minimize that if we want to stay here.”
Dylan nodded. “You’ve thought this through.”
“Somebody had to,” Saul said in a dry tone of voice.
For a brief second, Dylan wanted to take offense, but he was right. If it weren’t for Saul, none of them would be alive right now. “Touché.”
There was no electricity. The struggling grid had failed a couple of days before. Luckily, Saul had foreseen that event and stockpiled an abundant supply of candles and gas lamps inside the house. According to him, there was still running water, but it wouldn’t last for long.
“Enjoy it while you can,” Saul said, before jogging up the stairs.
After checking that the house was clear, they pulled the Humvee into the yard and unloaded their gear. Saul took a hose and sprayed the vehicle down, rinsing away the evidence of the infected they’d run over.
Dylan took a moment to inspect the vehicle. It certainly lived up to its name. To her eyes, it looked like a tank crossed with a 4x4, but one detail bothered her. “Why doesn’t it have one of those big guns on top?”
“It’s an older model that went in for repairs, and they removed some of its equipment,” Saul replied.
“Okay, but a gun would’ve been nice,” Dylan said.
“It’s not like I had time to pick and choose. This one was the closest and had a tank full of gas.”
Dylan raised her hands. “Fair enough. Just saying.”
After cleaning the Humvee, Saul pulled it into the garage and locked it down. Inside the house, Tara lit a couple of candles and placed them around the kitchen, dining, and living room. The place was nice: open and spacious with comfortable furniture and plenty of room, but no electricity.
“What about a generator?” Dylan asked.
“Too noisy,” Saul said. “We’ll have to live without electricity for now.”
“We’ll make do,” Tara said as she checked the cupboards. “Is anyone injured?”
“Not me, but for the rest of you, I got this,” Saul said, removing a first-aid kit from beneath the sink. “It’s all we have in the way of medical supplies. I was able to scrounge up a lot of other stuff, but medicine is at a premium. The Fort had little to spare.”
“How does your knife wound look, Alex?” Tara asked.
He shook his head. “It’s holding. Nothing is torn or bleeding. It just hurts.”
Tara opened the kit and looked through the contents. “Here’s a couple of painkillers, and make sure to disinfect it every day until the stitches come out.”
“I’ll do that,” Alex said, taking the pills. “It’s Amy I’m worried about. She almost got trampled by a mob of panicking people.”
“Did you get hurt badly, Amy?” Tara asked with a frown of concern.
“My hand hurts because somebody stepped on it. I’ve got a bump on my head, and I twisted my ankle,” Amy replied. “My ribs are pretty sore too, but I don’t think it’s serious.”
Tara winced. “It sounds bad enough. Let me take a look.”
After a quick examination, it turned out that Amy was more bruised than anything else. With a couple of painkillers in her system and a bandage around her ankle, she was good to go.
Saul patched up Tara’s wound. Luckily, it was just a bump on the head and a shallow cut. All it needed was a dab of disinfectant cream and a band-aid.
“Dylan? How are you feeling?” Tara asked once she was done. “It’s hard to tell through all that dried blood.”
“I’m alright. Nothing new,” Dylan said. She looked down at her gore-streaked body. “I suppose I should take a bath.”
“That would benefit us all,” Saul answered.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Amy added, wrinkling her nose.
Dylan rolled her eyes. “Okay, guys. I can take a hint.”
“There’s no hot water, but I put toiletries and toilet paper in each bathroom along with a couple of towels.” Saul pointed upstairs. “There’s enough room for all of us. No need to share.”
“Why don’t you all wash up and settle in while I make breakfast?” Tara asked. “I’m starving.”
“Good idea,” Alex said. “Come on, Amy. Let’s put our stuff in our rooms.”
Alex and Amy went upstairs, and Dylan followed, plucking at her matted hair with distaste. There were two bathrooms. A decided bon
us considering she’d be a while. At least the others could tidy up as well while she was busy.
Inside the wall cabinet, she found a tube of toothpaste and a couple of toothbrushes still in the wrapper. After brushing her teeth, she stepped into the shower, nearly jumping out of her skin when the icy stream of water hit her back. “Shit, that’s cold!”
At the speed of light, she soaped her body, scrubbing at the dried blood and gore. The bandage on her arm had to go, exposing her ugly wound to the light, but she ignored it. Vanity was the least of her worries now. Besides, she’d never been one of the pretty girls, preferring to be tough instead.
Her hair came next, and she tried not to gag when her fingers encountered bits of unknown tissue entangled in the locks. The water ran red around her feet, clouds of crimson swirling down the drain.
Now that everything was quiet, and she was no longer in danger, her brain had time to think. Time to look for trouble in places it really shouldn’t. George’s contorted face flashed before her eyes, his hulking torso looming over her like a giant from a storybook. Behind him, the nurse got to her feet with slow deliberation — a double threat.
Red hot rage swirled through Dylan like a vortex, filling her limbs with inhuman strength. She felt no fear, pity, or remorse: nothing but anger.
She swung the ax, sinking the blade deep into George’s forehead. The snarl slipped from his lips, and he looked befuddled as he crashed to his knees. The nurse was next, and her head flopped sideways as the ax chopped through muscle and membrane. A second blow sent it flying.
Dylan didn’t stop there. Her rage wasn’t spent. Instead, it grew stronger, and she hacked at the bodies with all her might. Blood, chips of bone, brain, and innards covered the carpet, a circle of death around her feet. Blood soaked her skin and hair, running in rivulets down her grinning face. It spattered the ceiling, covered the floor, and sprayed across the walls. At last, she stopped from sheer exhaustion.
Her lungs heaved for breath, and her muscles quivered with fatigue. The ax hung from numb fingers, and her mind refused to register what she’d done. What she was capable of doing. As the anger leached from her body, she felt empty. A vast void opened up inside her chest, and nothing could fill it. Not all the blood or corpses in the world could make her feel human again. She was a freak of nature — a monster.
A loud knock on the door tore Dylan back to the present, and she gasped as the awful memories fled back into the recesses of her mind. They left behind the ugly realization of what she’d become. What she was now that the cure ran through her veins.
Her knees wobbled, and she sank to the floor. The water streamed across her face, drowning out the world. She hardly registered when Tara entered the bathroom.
“Dylan? Are you okay?” Tara asked.
Dylan stared at her, and suddenly, her anger returned. It was Tara’s fault. She was to blame. It was her cure that had turned Dylan into a monster. Her lips twisted into a snarl. “What do you want?”
Tara’s eyes widened, and she took a step back. “I…I thought I’d check in on you and see if you needed anything.”
“As you can see, I’m just peachy,” Dylan said, her hands balling into fists.
Tara studied her with a somber gaze. “Are you sure? You don’t look alright to me. Is it the episodes? Are they bothering you?”
“What’s it to you?” Dylan snapped even though she knew she was being unfair. At that moment, she couldn’t help herself or her extreme reaction.
“I do care, Dylan. In a big way, I’m responsible for you, Saul, and that little girl, Mary.” Tara raised her hands, pleading. “You must try to control it. Don’t let the virus have its way with you. You’re not a victim. You’re strong.”
Dylan stared at Tara’s earnest face and made an effort to reign in her anger. She sighed and dropped her gaze to the rusty half-moon stains underneath her nails. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I’m the one who lost control, and it’s still happening. Even now. I seem to lose it for the slightest reason.”
“It gets better with time. Saul took the cure weeks ago, and at first, he struggled a lot. Why don’t you speak to him and ask him how he got it under control?”
“Maybe,” Dylan said with a frown. “We don’t get along that well.”
“You don’t have to. You just need to find out how he did it,” Tara said.
“But you said I’ve got it worse than him. If that’s true, he can’t help me.”
“I only suspect that your episodes are worse, Dylan. It might not be true.” Tara shot her a rueful smile. “Contrary to what everyone thinks, I’m not always right.”
Dylan hugged her knees with her arms. “Well, it’s worth a shot, I guess.”
“It can’t hurt,” Tara agreed, pausing for a second. “How are your injuries?”
“They’re healing. No sign of infection,” Dylan replied, studying the stitches on her forearm. It looked like a crooked line of ants crawling across her raw skin. Ridged scars were already forming, and she’d carry them for life.
“Well, if you need any help ask.”
“Thanks.”
“But the real reason I came here is to tell you that the food is ready. There’s coffee too,” Tara said with a teasing smile.
Dylan’s head bobbed up. “Coffee? I’ll be down in a second.”
Tara laughed. “Oh, and we found some women’s clothes in the master bedroom. You might want to take a look.”
“I’ll do that.”
“See you downstairs.”
Tara left, closing the door with a firm click, and Dylan climbed out of the shower. She dried off and wrapped the towel around her chest. Her dirty shirt went into the clothes hamper, and she tossed the shoes. A quick check revealed that the hallway was empty, and she made her way to the master bedroom on bare feet.
The closets were full of clothes thanks to the previous couple who lived there, and she was able to find something to wear: A sports bra and shorts, a t-shirt, tights, socks, sneakers, and a light-weight jacket that zipped to the chin. She added a belt too and tucked her machete inside. She wasn’t going anywhere without it ever again.
Dylan used the previous lady of the house’s things to trim the blood from her fingernails, comb her hair, and tie it up in a jaunty ponytail. Feeling like a million bucks, she jogged downstairs, amazed at the way her mood kept changing. I’m turning into a real Jekyll and Hyde.
Everyone else was gathered around the dining room table, and she quickly grabbed a chair. “Hey, guys.”
“How do you like your coffee?” Tara asked.
“As sweet as sin and as black as my heart,” Dylan replied with a smirk. Now that the evidence of her episode was gone, and the memories were safely tucked away, she felt a lot better. The clean clothes helped too. She no longer felt so exposed and vulnerable.
Tara passed her a cup of the steaming brew along with a heaping plate of fried spam cut into cubes and mixed with canned spaghetti in tomato sauce. To her starved stomach, it was a feast, and she dug in without hesitation.
“Mm, this is good,” she mumbled half-way through.
Amy nodded with enthusiasm. “I love spaghetti.”
Tara smiled. “I did the best I could on short notice.”
“I’ve eaten a lot worse,” Alex said, smiling back.
“So have I,” Saul agreed.
The rest of the meal passed in silence until only the scrape of cutlery on porcelain could be heard.
Dylan pushed her empty plate away with a sigh of satisfaction and sipped on her coffee. Her eyes passed around the table, and she reflected that things had turned out alright, after all. They were still alive and kicking, together in a safe place. Who could ask for more?
Chapter 7 - Tara
The blacked-out windows, thick curtains, and gas lamps made it feel like it was night outside when, in reality, the sun had risen to greet a new day. Tara doodled with her fork while she listened to the others argue about their next step.
“
We need to find a safe place to hole up,” Dylan said. “A place we can defend against the infected and that has enough food and water to sustain us through the winter.”
“A safe place?” Amy asked. “If Fort Knox wasn’t safe, nowhere is safe.”
“I understand how you feel, sweetie, but we have to try. We can’t just give up,” Dylan said, leaning over to squeeze Amy’s hand.
Amy hung her head. “I know, but it just seems so hopeless.”
“Nothing is ever hopeless, Amy,” Alex said. “Fort Knox was noisy and filled with hundreds of people. It drew the zombies there. That doesn’t mean everywhere will be the same. There has to be a way to outsmart them.”
“It doesn’t matter. Not to me anyway,” Tara said, and a thick silence fell over the table.
“Why doesn’t it matter?” Alex asked. “Don’t you want to live?”
“Yes, I do, but for me, it’s about the big picture.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got several months worth of research in my possession, all stored on a hard drive, plus three vials of the cure. With this, I can still turn the tide in humanity’s favor. We could take back our country. The world even.”
“But how?” Alex asked. “Where would you even begin? You’d need a lab, facilities, electricity, water, and soldiers to protect you. Not to mention manufacturing and distribution.”
“Fort Detrick, my old headquarters, is still standing and operational,” Tara said. “For the past year, I’ve been on loan to the WHO, studying the Vita virus. My real job, however, is as a Research Scientist specializing in virology at USAMRIID.”
“USAMRIID? That’s like the military equivalent of the CDC, right?” Alex said. “I didn’t think of them, to be honest.”
“Where is this Fort Detrick?” Dylan said.
“In Maryland,” Tara said.
Dylan whistled. “Maryland? That’s pretty far away.”
“It’s roughly six hundred miles from here. That’s not an impossible journey to make. Not if we’re careful,” Tara said.
“Careful?” Dylan said with a snort. “I don’t mean to be a downer here, but six-hundred miles might as well be six-thousand. I nearly died several times on the way to Fort Knox.”
Rise of the Undead Box Set | Books 1-3 | Apocalypse Z Page 19