I shook hands with him and then turned to the door.
“Good luck, Carter,” I murmured as I left the room while the coast was clear.
Time to get this over with.
Chapter Thirty-One
Promises, Promises
I watched Warren enter his room. I purposely waited until I knew he’d be asleep. I waited until most of the school camp was asleep. And I waited until I couldn’t wait anymore. My body was starting to feel too heavy, my eyes too hard to keep open. I couldn’t wait much longer.
Dawn was rapidly approaching and I planned to see one more sunrise before I died.
I entered Warren’s room quietly, fighting off the waves of dizziness that had become my constant companions. It didn’t matter though. Warren was snoring so loud, I could have tripped and come through the doors playing a trumpet and it wouldn’t have woken him.
He had passed out, fully clothed, on top of his bed.
For some reason the ease in which he slept, the way he was so clearly free of any sort of nagging of conscience, ate at me more than anything else. I had planned to just shoot him in the head and leave the way I’d come in through the fence.
Instead I found myself pointing my gun in his face and kicking his booted foot with my own.
“Get up, you piece of shit,” I hissed.
Warren, moved once, but didn’t wake up fully until I kicked him again, harder than before and calling him all kinds of names my mama would’ve been scandalized to hear. Or maybe she woulda been proud… I couldn’t be too sure.
It was a toss-up with southern mamas sometimes.
He jerked awake, his eyes widening once he realized he had a gun inches from his face.
When he finally realized who was holding the gun, there was a moment of pure shock and disbelief that I found quite satisfying.
“Bet you didn’t think you’d see me gain, huh?”
“How…?”
“Am I still alive?” I finished for him. He nodded. “I’m not.”
“How…?”
“How did I get in your little camp?” I completed his question once again.
“Easily enough.”
He held up a hand, but immediately put it back down when I shoved my gun even closer to his face. He knew I’d blow a hole in his face without the slightest provocation.
“Tex, we can—”
“Work this out?” I suggested. He nodded his head, swallowing the lump that had surely formed in his throat. “Naw. We can’t.”
Warren looked ready to argue. I didn’t give him a chance.
“Stand up,” I ordered. “Slowly.”
He moved cautiously, sliding off his bed and standing a foot in front of me. I held my gun to his back and shoved him toward the door.
“We’re going on a little trip,” I said cheerfully, hiding the pain I felt behind gritted teeth.
“Where?”
“Oh, you’ll love this place, don’t you worry your little heart about it,” I answered with a smile. I cracked the door open and glanced up and down the hallway.
“You make one wrong move, one noise outside of your feet walking on the ground, and I’ll put a bullet in your head so fast you’ll be dead before you hit the ground. And don’t think otherwise. I’ve nothing left to lose, you understand?” I asked.
Warren’s eyes searched mine and he found exactly what I wanted him to find there.
The absolute truth of my words.
I stood behind him as we left the room. My gun was pressed between us, pointed directly at his heart. The hallways were empty and we easily slipped out into the schoolyard. If I was lucky, there would only be two lookouts on the roof still.
I grabbed Warren by the shirt and pulled him into the shadow of a building. We were only a few yards away from the fence. I stood there trying to decide what to do. The kid that was posted would see us and I’d have to kill him to keep him quiet.
Was I willing to do that just to make sure Warren got what I promised him?
“Hey, John!” I heard the shout right as I was ready to make my decision.
I pulled back further into the building.
“Hey. What are you doing up here? I thought I had a few more hours until someone came up to relieve me.”
“I couldn’t sleep, man. I figured I’d go ahead and do something instead of just staring up at the bunk above me, ya know?”
A smile spread across my face.
“That’s really cool of you. There’s nothing going on out here anyway. I’d love to catch some extra z’s,” John replied to the unseen newcomer.
“No problem. Make sure you check out on the chart and grab some food.”
“Will do. Thanks, man.
“No problem.”
I waited a few minutes until I was sure that John had plenty of time to get back to the main building before I gave Warren a shove. We moved quickly, but not before a light shone down on us from the roof above.
We both stopped dead in our tracks. I saw Warren’s grin from the corner of my eye.
I raised a hand and gave a short wave and the light blinked a few times before going out.
Thank you, Carter, I thought.
Warren’s look of absolute astonishment hadn’t faded even after we pushed our way through the fence line and secured the opening behind us. We reached the truck a few minutes later.
“Where are we going?” Warren asked as he drove us through the dark streets. I could tell he was already getting nervous. I would be too, considering we were heading toward the high school in town.
“A little place I found the other day,” I answered.
The pain in my body had reached a level that I didn’t think possible and I thought for a moment I might black out. Sheer force of will and anger made me push myself back from the brink. When we were a street over from Buck, I had Warren pull off the side of the road and kill the engine.
“So, what? You going to drive me out here and put a bullet in my head?” Warren snarled.
“You could’ve done that back at the elementary school.”
“Yeah, I could’ve,” I agreed.
“And I’d actually planned to, but then I changed my mind at the last minute.”
“So what are you going to do then?” he asked, his eyes wandering around the darkness. I was sure he knew about where we were. He had had his boys and girls scout this area previously, trying to find a way to get to the high school.
Without success, of course.
He knew the area was crawling with the undead.
“I’m going to give you the same chance you gave me,” I said after we’d sat there in silence so long that I could see the area around us begin to gradually lighten in preparation for the sunrise. Long enough that zombies had spotted us and were headed our way.
Oh, there were still a lot of them. Not as many as what were there when Maria and I had been here, but enough to make my point.
“What do you mean?” Warren asked gruffly, watching the dark figures shambling in our direction.
“I mean exactly what I said. I’m going to give you the same chance you gave me and Maria. A knife and your survival skills. If you can make it on that alone, you’ll live,” I said conversationally.
“Now start the truck back up and slam on the gas,” I ordered.
Warren’s face swung around to mine, his eyes panicked.
“You don’t want me to do that!” he shouted.
“It will mean your death too.”
I smiled widely and the truth hit him in the face.
“That’s right, Warren, old pal, I couldn’t give two shits whether or not I survive this little field trip of ours.” His hand tightened on the steering wheel.
“But if you don’t do what I say right this second, I will put a bullet in both your kneecaps and then push you out onto the pavement.” I promised.
Whatever he saw on my face convinced him that I meant business and he turned the truck on.
I reached into my bag and pulled out
the same knife that had been given to me by Nick. Warren took two deep breaths before gathering the courage to put the truck into gear and gun the gas. We flew through the street, hitting at least a dozen overripe zombies before the truck sideswiped another vehicle and we flew up and over a sidewalk and into the same balustrade that led up to the church that Maria and I had been trapped on.
The truck was totaled.
Warren had hit his head on the steering wheel and was bleeding from a gash on his forehead. The back of my head had bounced off of my window, but the pounding and stickiness that I found there was nothing to alarm me. I didn’t have a lot of time left anyway.
I pointed my gun at Warren and held out the handle of the knife toward him with a huge smile. The zombies were already closing in and if the sounds echoing all around us were any indication, there were still a shit-ton of them.
“Better make a run for it,” I said with a deep chuckle.
Warren snatched the knife from me, rammed his shoulder into the truck door to jump out, and took off. I opened my own door and pointed my gun at Warren’s back. He didn’t get far before he had to fight and fall back.
Zombies were already swarming him when I abandoned my backpack in the truck and walked away. Armed with a single gun and ammo, I headed across the street.
Warren was yelling like a crazed maniac, drawing the dead toward himself like a meat magnet. I kept moving, cutting down every zombie that hadn’t already headed toward Warren, every zombie that was standing in between me and my goal.
A silencer was a beautiful thing.
By the time I made it across what felt like a never ending street and was standing beneath the street sign I was looking for, I could hear Warren’s screams echoing throughout the entire town.
Seems old Warren hadn’t been much of a survivor after all.
I turned and walked toward my destination.
There wasn’t a single zombie on Buck Street.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Texas Pink, Texas Tough
I stumbled into the house, closed the door behind me, and then trudged up the stairs. My feet felt like lead and my body felt a hundred years old. I walked into the pink bedroom and sat down roughly on the floor next to the window.
My heart was racing so fast, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the parasites that turned people into walking corpses first attacked the heart, causing cardiac arrest and then eventually death.
I sure felt like my heart was working in maximum overdrive.
It felt like it was about to burst right out of my chest. I set my knife and gun on the floor next to me and worked for a while trying to get my boots and socks off.
If I was gonna die, I was going to be comfortable, by God.
Michael Hatten was dead.
Warren was dead.
Rose was with Melody and Jude at the Army base.
Everything was in place. Everything was taken care of. I had nothing left to accomplish before I died. No one left to get to safety. Nothing left to prove.
I sat there with my bare feet buried in the dusty tan carpet and thought back over the past two years.
I’d lost just about everyone I loved.
I’d had to kill people I’d loved after they’d turned. I’d lost all hope at one point.
I’d lost the will to live more times than I could count. I’d kept fighting despite everything and as a result I’d met Maria. I was glad I’d met her and Rose.
Even knowing how everything had turned out with Maria dying and having to say goodbye to Rose for good… I still would have made the same choices.
I’d like to say I would have made different choices, especially knowing what I knew now, what was going to happen and all that, but I’d be lying.
And if there was one thing I wasn’t, that was a liar.
Even knowing the sacrifices that were going to be made, even knowing both Maria and I would lose our lives, still I would have helped Maria take Rose out of that camp.
I would have cherished all those moments, as short as they were, that I’d had with Rose.
I would have wanted her anywhere but at that camp and with the likes of Michael Hatten and his cult-like teachings.
Death was the only thing any of us were certain of.
Death was the only thing any of us were promised after we were born.
It was just a matter of when, where, and how.
In my opinion, the how wasn’t so important. Not anymore.
The when was a surprise to most of us, but the why… the why was what had kept me from giving up long ago.
The why had to matter didn’t it?
Had to mean something?
I’d like to think the reason I was about to put a bullet in my own head so I wouldn’t turn meant something. That because of mine and Maria’s sacrifices, Rose would have a real chance at a life that was worth living.
I was going to cling to that.
In my final moments, I was going to cling to the thought that my death meant life for a little girl.
That little girl was the future.
Life was the future.
Hope was the future.
And for the first time since the fall of the human race, I had true and unwavering hope for the future of mankind. I was going to die in peace.
It’s all any of us could wish for.
My wish was going to come true.
Everything around me became fuzzy as I wavered in and out of consciousness.
Pink walls.
At least I thought they were pink walls. I couldn’t be sure.
My body felt like it was on fire.
I glanced around the room, at the walls, the girly toys and baby clothes. No flames. Then I remembered. I was in a baby’s room in a house on Buck Street.
Not Rose’s room though.
She was safe with Melody and Jude back at the Army base. Is it odd that on the brink of death, I took comfort in a pink baby’s room? That I wanted my final moments to be surrounded by the things that reminded me of little Rose and what she meant to me and to… the world?
If it was, I could care less.
I’d gladly die here in this room being reminded of everything I held dear.
Reminded of Melody and Jude.
Of Maria and her sacrifice.
Of Rose and the hope she embodied.
Of the world, though overflowing with death and violence, of the promise it still held. Of hope. Just an insignificant little word, and yet so powerful an emotion.
Yeah, I’m happy in my pink room with everything it reminds me of.
I doubled over in pain, unable to stop the moan that left my lips.
My body knows it’s time.
My mind knows.
My heart knows.
It’s time.
Suddenly I felt… alive.
Truly alive, and not waiting for death to knock at my door.
No flames were licking at my body. No pain was shooting through my skull, bones, or joints. No fevered delirium made me second guess everything I saw and thought.
No thoughts of becoming one of the undead if I misjudged how much time I had left weighed down my mind.
Just peace.
Peace isn’t something I’ve felt in so long that it took me a moment to adjust to the feeling.
My shoulders felt unencumbered.
There were no weights there anymore.
How many had I been carrying all this time to feel so… free?
I remembered then.
The pink room.
The pain.
The gun in my hand.
The moment of absolute clarity... and the moment I pulled the trigger.
Living in the world after the dead began to walk the Earth had been hard.
Death… death had been easy.
Epilogue
Eight Weeks Later
Exactly eight weeks ago, the undead corpses that had overrun the entire globe simply collapsed to the ground in droves, finally and truly dea
d in the most literal interpretation of the word.
Many of them not only dropped, but their corpses, unable to contain all the putrid fluid their bodies had been hauling around, just exploded.
We’re still trying to figure out what happened.
I’m sure that there will be a more scientific explanation provided at some point, and by smarter people than I.
Simply put, however, after exactly three hundred and twenty-six days, the earliest parasite-infested zombies, who had not fed on enough humans after that first, horrific day, could no longer support the ever-multiplying and ever-feeding parasites inside of their corpses.
The result was an unbelievably messy demise.
For four weeks we went topside to scout out all the surrounding areas and to keep an eye on what was happening. We were wary and concerned by what was occurring, scared that somehow the parasites would be able to survive on the outside of the bodies, or had even evolved, making it possible to take on a new, living host by means that were new and unknown to us.
We wore face masks for the first time since the outbreak, hoping we hadn’t been dealt an even shittier hand than before.
The fifth week, we decided to take our chances by collecting and burning a large number of the corpses in our area. We took precautions for our group, though, and stayed away from the base for days while we did so, just in case any of us became infected.
When it was clear that none of us had contracted anything by coming in contact with the bloated corpses, we initiated the long and exhausting cleanup process in our area. The cleanup was not without its risks.
The world was not zombie-free by any stretch of the imagination.
From everything we knew, we could only deduce that those zombies who were first infected had been the ones to drop off in scores in the previous weeks. But if the zombies had fed often or if they’d had been turned later, those were all still shambling around in search of their next happy meal, the next human they could sink their teeth into.
The population of the living was still devastated by the sheer numbers of dead and undead. The living were still in the minority. But I could feel it in my bones that we wouldn’t be for long. Maybe I wouldn’t see the day that we were once again the majority.
State of | Book 2 | State of Ruin Page 18