Quarantined (Book 2): In the End

by Tracey Ward

  A rushing fills my ears. I think it’s the river beside us until I realize my left hand is white knuckled on the arm of my chair. That my eyes are stinging and it’s not from the campfire smoke.

  “You don’t like to talk about her,” Syd observes calmly.

  I can feel his eyes on me.

  “No,” I croak out, my throat tightening around the words.

  “Not even to your parents.”

  “That’s not your business. Ali’s either.”

  “Do you wanna know why she told me about Beth?”

  Hearing her name hurts. It’s too personal, too real. It conjures Christmases and birthdays. Family vacations and riding our bikes to school. Beth with her big eyes and bright smile. Beth in my nightmares with her rotted flesh and hateful stare.

  “No,” I reply roughly.

  He ignores me. “Because of your nightmares. You moan in your sleep like you’re crying but you’re not. You’re just hurting. You’re scared. That’s something Al can understand, only her nightmares come for her when she’s awake. Can you imagine? She’s my daughter and I can’t protect her from this stuff. I can’t protect her from herself. That’s my nightmare. Can you imagine the nightmares your parents are having? They think you’re both dead. What kind of thing is that to do to people you love?”

  I don’t answer. I only glare at him with all the hate and anger I can muster to cover the fear and hurt lying just below the surface.

  “You need to tell your parents she’s gone.”

  I shake my head, unable to speak.

  “The only thing in this world worse than knowing,” Syd continues, his voice becoming gentle, “is not knowing. They need to know your sister is gone and they need to know they still have you.”

  I laugh shakily. “I’m no use to them.” I pause, trying to keep my voice steady, but when I speak next, it’s trembling. “I was no use to her.”

  “You can be of use to both of them right now. Your sister, she still needs you and you’re ignoring her. It’s not right, kiddo.”

  For some reason his ‘kiddo’ doesn’t bother me this time. It sounds like my dad. Like the way he would tell me some simple everyday thing and end it with that word, like no matter how grown I was I was always his kid. To a guy on his way out of the house and headed to college, that seemed annoying. To a guy trying to stay alive in the zombie apocalypse while coping with the death of his sister, the loss of his hand and a growing love for a girl with serious mental health issues that he can’t begin to understand, being called ‘kiddo’ feels pretty damn good. Like maybe I’m doing alright, all things considered. Maybe the weight of this world on my young shoulders is too much to bear and I’m allowed to make mistakes sometimes.

  “How?” I ask him. “How can I help her now?”

  “By being the messenger. Letting your parents know she’s gone. All of you need to lay her to rest, let her find her peace on the other side. No more wondering, no more worrying, no more guilt. You’ve carried her with you too far now. Put her down. Let her be.”

  I wipe quickly at my leaking eyes. Syd pretends not to notice.

  “So you believe in the after-life?” I ask him roughly.

  “The after-life, heaven, hell, angels, demons, hemorrhoids, Santa, batteries. You name it.”

  I chuckle, glancing across the fire at him. “It was the Easter Bunny.”

  He nods solemnly. “Him too.”

  “Why doesn’t Ali believe?”

  “Because she has guilt and ghosts, just like you,” he replies quietly, his eyes in the fire. “She thinks they have nowhere to go but to haunt her.”

  “When she told me she could believe if I did…”

  “It was a lot of pressure.”

  I nod, also staring into the fire, becoming hypnotized by the flames as they dance and wave through the air.

  “It also shows a lot of faith,” he adds.

  “Isn’t that the problem though? She doesn’t have faith.”

  “I meant faith in you.”

  My eyes flick to his but he’s not looking at me. He’s not expecting anything.

  “Lot of pressure,” I repeat.

  “Anything worth having comes with pressure. Expectations. Responsibilities. You gotta work for the things you want. You’ve gotta work to get ‘em and you’ve gotta work to keep ‘em. Anything that falls into your lap no trouble, it’s never gonna mean anything to you. Not anything real.” He stands abruptly. “I’m going to make myself something to eat and then I’m going to bed. I’m done playing Yoda for the night. You want to eat with me or do you have somewhere else you need to be?”

  I stand as well, my legs feeling shaky like they’ve been tensed doing wall sits for too long.

  “I’m going to head out. Thanks, though,” I say casually even though my heart is hammering in my chest.

  Syd disappears into the trailer without a word.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  I think about going to the hospital to visit Ali. I’m still aching to see her if not just to verify with my own eyes that she’s still alive and intact, but my visit with Syd has me feeling drained, tense and all around messed up in the head. I decide I’m better off being alone for a bit.

  When I get back to the plateau, I discover solitude is not in the cards. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe now is a great time to not be all up in my own head digging around and poking at things to see if they still hurt. Maybe now is a great time to lay low, hang out and feel normal for a minute. So that’s what I do. I spend hours sitting around in the main tent observing the changing of the shifts and saying goodnight and good morning to all of the people I’m living with now. It’s a solid group, one I feel instantly comfortable in. It might be the simple fact that none of them express a desire to see me dead, but I like to think it’s because they’re all just a good hang.

  All but Simmons. I hate that guy. And I’m not alone.

  “You are such a douche!” Billings groans loudly as he leans back in his chair, his hands thrown over his eyes like he’s trying to dig them from the sockets.

  “What?!”

  “Of all the things you could have asked your family to send you, you chose this?” Billings asks, pointing at the laptop in front of Simmons. “A porn?”

  “My brother sent it! It’s not like I asked my mom for it. And he hid it in the care package. It was in the case for Avatar.”

  “Why did you even own Avatar to steal the case from?” I ask.

  Simmons looks at me like I’m the idiot here. “Are you serious? That movie is the tits!”

  “I hate my life,” Alvarez chimes in quietly from the end of the table.

  He’s holding an ereader, something he got from his family in a care package. It’s loaded with over a hundred books and came with a note from his sister saying she expects him out of here before he can finish them all. Alvarez is stoic, playing all of his hands close to the chest, but when he got that note from his sister tonight his face fell. I was never worried he would cry, but he was obviously hurting.

  “The only place you have to watch this thing is here on the laptop,” Billings says hotly. “The same laptop we all use. The one we work on.”

  “So?” Simmons asks dumbly.

  “So! I’d rather not come over there to find the keys sticky and a skin flick on pause on the screen!”

  “I’ll put it away when I’m finished.”

  “I think you finishing,” I tell him, “is what Billings is worried about.”

  “My hands are on the table. I’m not doing anything.”

  “I would hope not.”

  “Get rid of it,” Billings insists.

  “No.”

  “Get rid o—“

  There’s the crack of rifle shot. We all freeze, everyone statue still and staring at Simmons’ walkie sitting in the middle of the table. Tense seconds go by but everything is pure silence. There should be the call of all clear on the walkie or something signifying the threat is down, but there’s nothing.

/>   Suddenly another crack, followed by two more. Another sounds but this one is farther away. It’s coming from the north, up near the resort. The men around me leap out of their chairs. They run for the door, each of them grabbing a rifle from a gun locker in the corner. I stay where I’m at, feeling awkward and useless.

  “Come on, Laz,” Billings yells at me as he rushes past. He slaps me on the shoulder, nearly knocking me out of my chair.

  I don’t have to be told twice.

  We rush out into the dark. It’s well past midnight at this point. I should be asleep. I should be tired at the very least but what I am is jazzed up, adrenaline coursing through me and pumping hard in my heart with each step I run. We head for the western edge of the plateau that looks out over the gently rolling landscape toward the mountains. They’re the same mountains I was living in just a week ago, back when I still had my hand, but even with that I couldn’t honestly say I was happier. I wouldn’t pay for the life I have here and now with that hand, but since I’m already here I’m not going to say it isn’t better. It’s definitely more exciting and much less terrifying. I know we’re running out here because there are zombies on the horizon, but that threat packs less of a punch when you know that between you and them there’s a sturdy fence and at least ten well trained people with guns.

  “How many?” Alvarez demands.

  There’s a muffled answer from a woman with a rifle sighted.

  “What?” he asks, his tone sharpening.

  She breathes out loudly, pauses, then takes the shot. I can’t see out there in the darkness. Past the dull lights of the town there’s only faint moonlight that does little to illuminate the uneven landscape.

  “Hit. Nice,” someone calls out to the woman.

  I look over to see a guy I can’t recognize in the dark scanning the distance with what must be night vision binoculars.

  “I said,” the woman answers as she turns to face Alvarez, “there’s too many.”

  I’m shocked to find it’s Gabrielle, the same woman I saw only yesterday lounging with a romance novel. Now here she stands with a rifle in her hand and an infected dead on the ground with her bullet in its eye.

  “Too many for what?”

  “For dinner. Where will we find the extra place settings?”

  “Come on,” he mutters in irritation.

  “Too many for us to shoot. We’d be here all night and they’d still keep coming. They’ll press the fences.”

  “She’s right,” Billings grumbles, a pair of binoculars at his eyes. “It’s a swarm. Even with the daylight we’d be screwed.”

  “Great,” Alvarez mutters.

  More gunfire erupts in the night around us. I hear walkies crackle to life as the same conclusion they’ve reached here comes over the line from the resort. A swarm is advancing. There are too many to handle.

  Billings lowers his binoculars to look at Alvarez. Based on the grim tone he took a moment ago, I’m surprised to his face bright with excitement.

  “We’ve gotta call it in, right? This is it.”

  Alvarez stares at him blankly for five long seconds. During that time, Billings never stops looking like a kid on Christmas morning. Finally Alvarez sighs lightly and nods once.

  “Call it in.”

  “Hell yeah!” Billings shouts, reaching for his walkie.

  “What’s happening?” I ask.

  Gabrielle grins at me. “We’re going to see some fireworks.”

  Billings speaks to whoever is in the radio room and it’s not long before we hear a loud cheer erupt over the walkies. Apparently everyone is excited for whatever is coming.

  Ten minutes pass during which time more and more infected head our way. They aren’t at the fences, not yet, but it’s getting a little close for comfort. Eventually Billings walks back over, but his excitement is dying out. He actually looks a little angry.

  “They have a condition,” he tells Alvarez.

  “I can imagine what that would be.”

  “Want to wager a guess?”

  “How many?”

  “At least three. More if we can.”

  Alvarez shakes his head with annoyance. “It’s not a lot but it’s more than I like letting get that close.”

  “They want to do pick up at first light.”

  “Son of a—“ Alvarez runs his hand over his mouth. “Sorry, Matheson.”

  She shrugs. “You don’t have to be a gentleman on my account. It’s crap. I know it.”

  “Is this about the live zombie they want?” I ask.

  “Plural. Z’s,” Alvarez explains calmly, his composure back in place. “The docs want three right now. We’re supposed to let that many in up against the fences and they’ll take care of the rest.”

  “The fireworks?”

  “Boom,” Billings says quietly, mimicking an explosion with his hands over the western horizon. “Problem solved.”

  “But we have to let three get in close first?”

  Alvarez nods. “Right up against the fence.”

  “I’ve got two now!” someone calls out.

  “Do you have genders?”

  “Two females. One’s a kid.”

  “We’ve gotta wait for a male. If you get any more women, shoot them.”

  “You got it.”

  Billings gets on his walkie. “Day Spa, whatcha got?”

  “No one on the fence yet. Over,” the response crackles over. The professionalism of the answer makes me certain this is a different crew than I heard before.

  More minutes tick by. As they do, more infected creep closer. I can hear the sounds. They’re carrying up over the barren landscape uninterrupted. It’s like a low hum that vibrates to my core. I hate it.

  Gun fire sounds from up north. A few people from the plateau fire as well but no one speaks. There’s no point.

  Suddenly the walkies explode to life.

  “Day Spa to Crow’s Nest! We’ve got a male. Repeat, we have a male Z on the fence!”

  “Billings!” Alvarez calls.

  “Already on it.”

  There’s a brief exchange from Billings on a private channel on the walkie, then silence. Everything is quiet except for the occasional chirp of a cricket from far off and the relentless hum drawing nearer. A gunshot cracks the night nearby.

  “Save it!” Alvarez calls out. “They’re coming.”

  Suddenly I near a new hum. This one is more rhythmic. More of a thumping. It starts from the southeast. Thump. Thump. Thump. The undeniable beating of a choppers prop can mean only one thing.

  The Calvary has been called.

  I don’t see it in the air but I track it anyway, somehow able to feel it as it moves. In this dead silence in the deep darkness, my hearing is my best friend and it pulls me toward the sound of the helicopter with intense eagerness. I’m holding my breath as it approaches the west side of the plateau where the swarm is approaching. I can feel tension and anticipation rolling off everyone around me. My heart is slamming wildly in my chest, my pulse is out of control, my right arm aching in time with the beat.

  Then the night explodes. Fire erupts in the distance and we watch in awe as it branches out, engulfing everything it can get its long, leaching tendrils on. It breathes in the dark, pulling the night inside of itself to consume it and burn brighter and hotter. It feels like the air is sucked from the world for one long moment as the fire breathes it in to expand its chest wide over the plains. For a second, I wonder if I see them. The infected. I wonder if I can make out the swarm as the light of the fire races toward each of them to devour them. The night explodes in a cacophony of sound, sight and smell.

  The smoke hits us first from this bird’s eye view high up on the hill. Then the rising heat. The boom of the explosives, the crackle of the flames. Then the smell. The god-awful, gut wrenching smell wafts up over us in a cloud of visible horror. I’m reminded immediately of the day Ali Tasered the infected and the horrible stench that burned my nose and memory for days. This is that a thou
sand fold. I would take the Taser smell over this. I’d happily relive the Taser moment every day for the rest of my life if I could avoid ever smelling the scent I’m ingesting now. It enters my nose and I can taste it on my tongue and before I can stop it I’m vomiting. My meager dinner is at my feet and I’d love to say I feel better but I don’t. I’m heaving, pulling in deep breathes that smell, taste and feel like rotting, burning death.

  Everyone around me begins to cough. I hear more vomiting and I’m glad I’m not alone. I don’t hear any cheering now. No jubilation, no demands for an encore. It’s not what they thought it would be, but revenge seldom is. More often than not, it’s exactly this; ugly.

  There’s gagging going on everywhere and still the fire burns. It consumes what’s left of the dead. Of the undead. Of the second dead. This is what wrong smells like. This is what unholy, unnatural, impossible second life burning to ash on the dust of the earth smells like. My eyes water as I listen to the new rushing hum of flames at work in the distance and I wonder when it will end.

  When dawn arrives we see the aftermath. Our own vomit on the ground. The black smoke curling lazily into the amber glowing sky. The brush fires still burning low and slow. Black, charred remains shriveled to nearly nothing, certainly nothing human, burn with red embers like coals in a fireplace. There’s no one left to stoke them to flames, to urge them to burn. Everyone’s capacity for the macabre has been met and exceeded for the day. Maybe for forever.

  We receive news from all over the town and resort that people on the ground were engulfed in a black cloud of smothering smoke from the explosion. The smell had the same effect on everyone down below only far worse. Some people are still sick from it and probably will be for quite a while. Buildings are being opened up to air out, people are flocking to far corners of the fences to try and escape the smell and the hospital is being swarmed because of its high quality, medical grade air filtration system. The smell is there but it’s not nearly as bad.

  “It’s a hell of a way to wake up,” Kyle tells me.

  He’s rubbing his bleary, red eyes as we stand in line for breakfast. I don’t go down here without him or one of the other armed members of the plateau. The gym is one thing, I’m alone and I’m pretty sure I’m strong enough and fast enough to out maneuver someone who jumps me. But these crowded areas are trouble. It’s easy to get shanked by someone in these close quarters. I’m starting to wonder if life actually is easier here on the inside or if I simply traded one enemy for another. At least with zombies I knew they wanted to kill me and I was allowed to kill them first. In here I’m hamstringed by morality. I’m not allowed to stab that woman in the eye just because she glared at me. I can’t take a crowbar to that guy’s temple for muttering that I’m a freak as he walked past. Is it wrong that that’s my first instinct? Slaughter? Probably, but we are products of our environment and lately mine has been markedly murderous.