Surviving The Virus (Book 5): Extermination

by Casey, Ryan

  This was life now.

  This was the life he’d made for himself.

  The cage he’d crafted for himself.

  And it was where he deserved to be.

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath of the suffocating, clammy air, and disappeared into the murky darkness of his mind all over again.

  Chapter Three

  Zelda stood in the middle of the pit and braced herself for another victory.

  The late spring heat was searing, intense. Her face was sunburned from all the time she’d spent outside lately. And she’d spent a lot of time outside. A lot more than in the early days, anyhow. The early days were grim. Locked away in that shipping container, no light, surrounded by other women, mostly pathetic women who cried and moped and cursed their lives even though they couldn’t do a fucking thing to change their situation.

  But then they’d dragged her out. They’d told her she was going to fight for her life. Pumped her full of heroin and all kinds of shit.

  Not that it made a difference. She was made of tougher shit than any drug addiction. When they gave her heroin to take herself, she poured it away as soon as possible.

  She might be hooked chemically, yeah.

  But she wasn’t letting any chemical get the fucking better of her.

  She needed to be strong for what she was planning to do.

  No matter how fucking long it took to get to that stage.

  She stood in the middle of the fighting pit. It was nothing fancy: a hole dug in the ground, full of dirt and sand. Some of the sand stuck in her eyes just walking on it. Her nose was blocked, but she could smell the sweat from the rabid crowd standing around her in a circle.

  She heard the crowd clapping around her. This was her… fuck, she was losing track of how many times she’d fought, but she’d guess it was something like her eighteenth major fight since she’d been here. And the depressing thing about these fights? She swore the crowd was getting larger, every time. The number of men surrounding her, more and more of them. They made her feel sick. The very worst of humanity, all congregated here.

  And some of the children here now, too. The kids they used to lure people like her here. Watching with wide, terrified eyes.

  Kids like Finn.

  She felt a lump swell in her throat when she thought of Finn. That boy who’d made her hope. Who’d made her feel more comfortable being herself than… fuck, maybe anyone in her entire life.

  And then he’d turned around and stabbed her in the back. Lured her here in some vague hope that it might save his family.

  And she knew she should be more understanding. She knew she should emotionally identify, or relate, or whatever fucking hell other bullshit people screamed at her to do.

  But she couldn’t.

  She hated that kid.

  She’d strangle him with her bare hands if she got the chance.

  Because he’d put her in this place. He’d dropped this shit on her.

  And she hated him for it.

  The woman standing opposite in the middle of the fighting pit looked a whole lot like the last however-many she’d faced. Skinny. Bruised face. Bloodshot eyes. And staring at that blue tub filled with heroin and other goodies like it was water in the middle of a desert.

  She looked at this woman, and she pitied her, because she knew what she had to do. She had to kill her to survive. Just like she’d killed the rest.

  And sure. She felt some guilt. Guilt was natural when you were in the killing business.

  But she valued her own survival above anything else.

  She had to be selfish. She had to be totally self-centred. That’s what’d got her this far in life.

  Not this bullshit emotional connection business.

  The only place that got her was in deep, deep shit.

  She heard footsteps, and she saw him emerge to her right.

  Curtis stepped out. Puffed out his big, chunky chest. Yellow-tooth smile beamed across his face. The crowd applauded him. He looked rougher than when she’d first got here. Longer hair. Fuzzier beard.

  But that same maniacal look in his large, googly eyes.

  The look of someone cruel.

  He stopped walking. Stood there for what felt like forever. The crowd quietened. He looked at every member of the crowd. They all looked back at him. Some of them in admiration. Some of them in terror.

  This silent treatment went on for some time. Zelda heard the crows cawing above.

  And then, finally, out of nowhere, Curtis spoke.

  “Now, now, ladies and gents. Or just gents. What am I on about, ladies? They’re in their place, ain’t that right, hmm? Ha!”

  A few laughs. A few eye-rolls. Relief in the voices of the crowd.

  “Anyway. Have we got a fight on our hands today. Legend of Zelda over here, going for her twentieth victory!”

  A few claps. A few laughs. Funny, actually. Zelda was convinced this was only her eighteenth fight. She was getting complacent, losing track. Weird.

  Oh well. Just another body at the end of the day.

  “So,” Curtis said, stepping over to that opposing woman. “Only stands to reason we give our new friend over here a little something extra, hmm? Just so we can see just how invincible our Princess really is, huh?”

  Zelda frowned. She didn’t know what Curtis was talking about.

  Not until she saw him place the blade in her opponent’s hand.

  He heard the laughs. The claps. But more than anything, he looked over at Zelda. Peered at her for a reaction. To see if it shook her. To see if it made her afraid.

  And she felt fear, deep down. Of course, she did. If she didn’t feel any fear, she wouldn’t be alive right now.

  But she wouldn’t show it.

  She wouldn’t give Curtis that kind of pleasure. That kind of luxury.

  She didn’t want that psycho to get what he wanted.

  Even though she could see what was happening.

  Slowly but surely, he was making this more and more difficult for her.

  Arming the other women with weapons.

  It was only heading in one direction.

  A champion who never fell was boring for business.

  Every now and then, there needed to be a dramatic twist.

  And Zelda knew the only twist right now was her demise.

  “So,” Curtis said, slapping his new competitor on her shaking, craving shoulders. “What’re we waitin’ for, huh? Get her! Put her down! You know what you gotta do!”

  A whistle blew. A roar of cheers and applause.

  Zelda saw that woman coming towards her. Blade in hand. Manic look to her eyes.

  She took a deep breath and stepped forward.

  She held up her fists. Zoned totally into the situation, to the fight. She watched that woman approach, concentrating entirely ahead, completely and utterly on the woman. She detached herself from the emotions of what she was going to have to do. She separated herself from the ramifications.

  She distanced herself from it all, and she tensed her fists.

  The woman came at her predictably and expectedly. Battered that knife towards her throat.

  Zelda grabbed her wrist right away.

  Cracked it across her thigh.

  Snapped the bone in two, making the woman shriek, making the knife fall to the ground.

  But then something unexpected happened.

  She fully expected the woman to fall to her knees. To lie on the ground, screaming, ready and waiting for Zelda to put her totally out of her misery.

  But it didn’t exactly happen that way.

  The woman wrapped her teeth around Zelda’s arm.

  Bit down.

  Hard.

  Zelda let out a pained yelp.

  She fell back as the woman clung onto her, biting deeper, so deep she drew blood.

  The woman kept swinging that broken arm at her, against her head, down to the ground.

  Zelda collapsed against the ground when she saw two things in the distan
ce.

  Two things as this woman above her pressed down on her chest, pressed the breath out of her body.

  Two people.

  First, Finn.

  Finn, standing there. Wide-eyed. Paler than she remembered.

  Like a ghost.

  She clenched her fists as the woman smacked her head against the ground even harder.

  And then she saw someone else.

  Standing at the front of the crowd.

  Surrounded by those people.

  Blending in.

  Eddie.

  She tensed her jaw. Felt hate. Total hate.

  She always thought he was a weirdo. She always thought he was a creep.

  But what he’d done to Jane…

  And the guilt she felt for what had happened to Jane…

  She tightened her fists even more and swung at the woman atop her.

  The woman’s teeth came crashing out.

  That’s when Zelda grabbed her by the face.

  Then grabbed that broken arm and dug right in with her other hand, a chunk of flesh yanked from her own skin now, from that woman’s bite.

  She turned on top of her. Pinned herself down onto her.

  Grabbed that knife from the side and pressed it against the woman’s temple.

  “I am sorry about this,” she said. “Truly. I’m sure you’re a lovely person deep down. I’m sure you’re innocent. But it’s you or me. And I’m not quite ready to die yet.”

  She closed her eyes and buried that blade into the woman’s temple.

  First, struggling. Shouting. Punching.

  And then, stillness.

  Zelda looked up.

  Saw the crowd clapping. Cheering. Collecting their winnings.

  She saw Eddie and Finn both staring over at her, that deadness in their eyes.

  She saw Curtis staring right at her.

  Something like disappointment in his eyes.

  “Well, damn,” he said, returning to his theatrical self. “Twenty victories. Twenty-damned-victories. Give a hand to Legend of Zelda!”

  The crowd clapped.

  Cheered.

  Eddie and Finn disappeared behind the mass of bodies.

  But Zelda just kept her gaze on Curtis as she sat there on her knees.

  She stood up.

  No goddamned way was she staying on her knees for his satisfaction.

  She looked at him, narrowed her eyes, and smiled.

  She wasn’t ready to die yet.

  She was going to keep on fighting til she got a chance to get close to Curtis.

  To Eddie.

  To Finn.

  And then she was going to make every one of them pay for what they’d done to her.

  Then she’d be ready to die.

  Chapter Four

  Eddie sipped back a beer and tried to get the image of Zelda stabbing that poor woman to death out of his mind.

  He was in The Watering Hole. One of the larger shipping containers in this place that’d been turned into a pub a while back. They had a shit ton of booze here. One of the perks of finding shipping containers full of alcohol, frozen food, all that kind of shit.

  And the drugs, too. The ones they pumped the women with to keep them subservient.

  Supplies running gradually lower. Dwindling.

  Eddie sipped his slightly warm Corona and felt a little sick.

  He looked around the bar. It was nothing fancy: a wooden table was propped up along the length of the container, which a bartender—Kit—stood behind and served warm booze from large crates behind him. It was sweaty and humid in here. A constant smell of booze, piss, and stale sweat hung heavily in the air, forming a suffocating cloud. He tried not to mix with too many people here. Not if he could help it, anyway. He preferred to keep his head down. Preferred to keep himself to himself. Preferred to keep on being the “funny-man,” which seemed to be the extent of his responsibilities so far.

  It was two months ago that he arrived at this place. He didn’t like to think too much about that fateful day. Every day of his existence was a reminder. Every time he stood in that crowd and watched two women batter the shit out of each other… it just brought it all back to him. Suffocating. Sickening.

  He felt his heart begin to race. He remembered squeezing that trigger. Watching blood spurt from Jane’s neck. Hearing her pained, gargling cries. Seeing the terror, the fear, in her wide, bloodshot eyes.

  Then pulling it again and again to make sure she was dead, to make sure she didn’t suffer.

  But the image that stuck with him most was Noah.

  His old best friend.

  Jane’s blood splattered across his face.

  Eyes wide.

  Peering up at Eddie with such sadness.

  Such anger.

  Such disappointment.

  He’d wanted to help Noah. He’d wanted to keep him alive, just a little longer.

  He was too chickenshit to shoot his best friend.

  Too damned loyal.

  So he’d done the worst damned thing imaginable, and he hated himself for it.

  He sipped back more of that warm beer and tried to force those images from his mind.

  When he lowered his beer, he saw Carlos sitting there beside him, smirking at him.

  “Got any more funny jokes today, Eddie?”

  Carlos was a big guy. Muscular. Grey streaks through his otherwise jet-black hair. A little podgy around the waist. Looked like he might’ve been a boxer once upon a time or something.

  There was this smile to him. This look to him. Eddie wasn’t really sure how to explain it. But ever since he’d got here, he’d felt kind of… well. Kind of like he belonged here. The people were alright with him. They treated him good.

  But there was also a constant fear. A fear they might realise he was useless. A fear they might get bored of him. A fear that his facade as the funny man would wear off. He’d seen Curtis flip on people dozens of times already. Who was to say he wouldn’t just turn around and decide Eddie was surplus to requirements someday? That his jokes just weren’t funny anymore?

  “Huh?” Carlos said.

  Eddie cleared his throat. “What’s the difference between a crusty bus station and a busty crustacean?”

  Carlos smirked, yellow teeth on show. “Go on, funny-man. Tell me.”

  “One’s a… Oh, fuck.”

  “Huh?”

  “The joke. I fucked it up. That was the punchline.”

  Carlos frowned. He looked bemused, but not in the way Eddie was hoping. Looked like he might just reach over this table and bash Eddie’s head against it for his slip-up. He’d seen Carlos do far more violent things to far less deserving people.

  And then this beaming smile crossed his face. “You are the fucking punchline, Eddie. You are the fucking punchline.”

  He smacked him on the back, a little hard for comfort. Then he turned away, grabbed himself a beer, and moved on from Eddie. Clearly bored of him.

  And that was exactly the problem. As Eddie looked around this bar, he saw faces of people who weren’t amused by him. He saw Old Steve in the corner, with his long grey hair, constantly sneering at him. He saw the two lads, early twenties, sitting together discussing whatever violent passions they were indulging in this time, and he didn’t feel one of them. He didn’t identify with them.

  But he was one of them.

  He’d killed Jane. In a moment of heat, sure. A moment to save his own skin, and to save Noah and Zelda’s lives.

  And he regretted it. He lived with the fucking guilt every damned day. He’d lost weight. He could barely sleep a wink. It haunted him. Tortured him.

  Because he saw the life Zelda was living, now. Twenty fights. A solid record, sure.

  But Curtis was growing bored. He wanted a new champion. A new victor to mix things up.

  And then there was Noah.

  He hadn’t seen Noah since that fateful day. He’d heard rumours. Whispers that Curtis was keeping him as some kind of pet. He heard mutterings of be
atings. Of torture. Of breaking him down to a subservient dog.

  And it pained Eddie to even consider it. Because he and Noah had their troubles, sure. He and Noah had their past.

  But this…

  No.

  Noah didn’t deserve this.

  But then what alternative did Eddie have? What alternative had he had at that moment when he’d held that gun?

  He had a choice. Pull that trigger on Noah and end up in the same place. Zelda, the same. Curtis, the same. Jane… well, this is what he’d got.

  Maybe it would’ve been better to pull the trigger on himself after all.

  He sipped more of his beer. Fuck. No chance. Far too cowardly for that.

  He planted the beer down on the bar, head spinning a little, and his thoughts drifted to Kelly.

  Two months. Two months since he’d walked away from her and Sunil.

  And from their son.

  His son.

  He wondered how he was getting on. What they’d called his son. If they were even alive anymore.

  He wondered how different things would be right now if he hadn’t turned his back. If he hadn’t walked away.

  And if he could ever, ever hope to redeem himself for what he’d done.

  He felt doubtful.

  He went to get up off the stool when he heard footsteps outside.

  People running past the container.

  Eddie walked over to the door. Frowned. Peered outside, into the blinding sunlight, the intense spring heat.

  He saw a few people rushing down towards the middle of the container yard. And he felt a twang of fear. Because it meant one of three things. He was pretty sure this wasn’t a fight. It might be an announcement from Curtis, the most preferable of the options.

  Or…

  A push against his back. Someone rushing to get past.

  And before Eddie knew it, before he could resist, he was being ushered along by this crowd of fifty, a hundred—a hundred of the couple of hundred total here now.

  He walked past the containers where they kept the women. The containers where they kept the children.

  The container where he knew they kept Zelda.

  And then he saw the scene up ahead, and he froze.

  There was a mound of rocks right in the middle of this dusty area of their compound.

  Poking out from inside that mound, Eddie saw a man’s head.