by Stevie Kopas
“We’ll take the stairs.” He called out behind him.
The pair had barely made it up the first flight of steps when an alarm erupted and the previously comforting lights turned a harsh, flashing red.
“They know I’m gone.” She whimpered.
“That means they’re right behind us. Keep moving.” He encouraged her as best he could, never letting go of her hand.
Out of breath, they’d arrived at the ground floor landing. Patience was out of shape. After months of being confined to the room and tolerating regular bloodletting sessions, she was easily fatigued. She grabbed hold of Graham’s shoulder.
“I don’t know how much farther I can go,” she said between breaths.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He grabbed her and threw her light frame over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
He held his own badge up to the sensor and the stairway door unlocked. The alarm blared in his ears, making it hard to concentrate. He scanned the halls and thanked his lucky stars that everyone was too preoccupied on the lower levels to be roaming the upper sectors. He made a mad dash for the parking garage. His footfalls went unnoticed under cover of the deafening alarms and he crashed through the emergency exit doors into the crisp, cool air of night.
He returned Patience to her feet. “Come on, my car is just this way.”
She took his hand again and they made their way toward his vehicle. Her heart thumped loudly and her head swam. She attempted to wrap her mind around the sudden turn of events but all she could come back to was Graham. He was risking his own life to save hers. Even if they didn’t make it out of here, there was no one she would rather be with.
Up ahead, Patience saw taillights flash and Graham pointed to the car.
“It’s unlocked, get in the back,” he instructed.
She climbed into the cluttered backseat and began moving things out of the way so she could sit.
“No, leave it,” Graham said as he settled into the driver’s seat. He started the car. “Get on the floorboards and cover yourself up with as much as you can. We still have to get through the gate.”
Patience did as she was told and when Graham was satisfied that she was completely hidden, she felt the car back out of the spot and speed toward the exit.
***
Graham slowed the car as he approached the guard house.
“The facility is on lockdown. Nobody in or out. Turn your car around,” the armed guard barked at him.
Time to put those acting classes to use.
Graham steadied his hand as he rolled down the window.
“Yeah it’s pretty obvious with all the alarms. You think I didn’t know that?”
“Then why the fuck did you bother driving all the way down here, smartass? Turn your car around and return to your station.”
“Station? Dude, I’m a janitor.” Graham grabbed his badge and waved it out the window.
“Well then get back to your closet. Nobody in or out.”
Graham noticed the mark on the guard’s wrist and an idea popped into his head.
“Listen man,” Graham took his right hand off the wheel and stuck it out the window. “I’m a Removed.”
“Yeah, everybody’s something. I’m not gonna tell you again, turn—“
“You know how it is, man. I saw your mark. There’s this girl, and she could change my life. Ever since the end, I thought that was it. No more love, no more anything for me. But she’s a Removed too. Good things can still happen to us, man. But if I stand her up tonight, that’s it, I might never get another chance.”
The guard scowled. He grabbed a flashlight from his hip and flicked it on, pointing it in Graham’s face. He approached the vehicle with caution and shined the light inside. The beam darted around the front seat and then the back.
The guard’s face softened, “Jesus Christ, you’re a mess. Looks like my son’s car used to.” The scowl returned to the man’s face, the sour memory of his lost son no doubt causing it. “Get out of here, kid. And you tell anybody I let you go, I’ll see to it that you don’t have a job to come back to.”
With the press of a button, the gates began to part. Graham tried to hide his excitement. Simply appealing to the guy’s unfortunately lonely existence was all it took, and Graham knew all about that.
Graham gave a short wave as he drove through the gates. As soon as he was out of ear shot, he sped the car up and let out a loud “Woohoo!”
***
Patience climbed to the front seat and her eyes went wide. She was seeing the world for the first time. As they approached Denver, Patience could see that the majority of the city had fallen during The End, but The Reconstruction had done wonders. The bright lights made the buildings shimmer in the distance and this elicited yet another wide smile.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
Graham laughed. “From afar. There’s still a lot of work to do, I wish you could remember what it looked like before. But it doesn’t matter.” He put his hand on hers. “Those city lights dim in comparison to you.”
Her smile, if possible, grew even larger; she rolled down the window.
Patience screamed with joy into the night sky, letting the wind flow through her hair for the first time in her life that she could remember.
***
They made haste up Graham’s walkway. He fidgeted with his keys and finally fit the right one in, clicking the lock to the side. He held the door open for Patience and did a quick scan back into the parking lot. There was no one there aside from the typically drunk Removed wandering around or passed out in the grass. He closed the door and locked it behind him. He ushered Patience up the stairs and led the way to his tiny apartment on the fifth floor.
Graham felt a twinge of embarrassment; the building was dilapidated and quite frankly, disgusting. The majority of pests had been exterminated but the mold was out of control. He knew Patience didn’t know any better, but he still wished he’d had a better place of refuge to offer her. As he unlocked the door to his apartment, Patience squirmed beside him with excitement.
“What are you so happy about?” He smiled coyly at her. “Your life is in danger.”
She giggled, biting her lip. “We get to play neighbor.”
***
Patience took her time with the shower. She washed her hair five times, used almost an entire bottle of Graham’s body wash, and just let the water cascade over her body until it ran cold. She took her towel and wiped it over the steamy mirror. Patience couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked at herself naked. She suddenly felt ashamed.
She remembered the first time she’d seen herself. She’d recoiled at her own reflection. Those eyes, borderline demonic, frightened her. Although she’d grown used to the eyes, it was her flesh that still disgusted her. Scars from wounds whose she’d never know the origins of decorated her torso. Bullet holes, stab wounds, teeth marks, and God knows what other damage could be found every few inches along her body. The most peculiar was a long, deep gash that ran from her right shoulder across her chest, ending just over her left breast. She wondered the most about that one.
Patience wished she knew what she had done to deserve such a scar. Whoever gave it to her, they’d gone down with a fight, that was certain. She shuddered to think of herself as an Infected, of the atrocities she’d committed during that time.
She quickly dressed and combed the tangles from her long hair. She brushed her teeth and smiled at herself in the mirror… a true, genuine smile.
Graham had given her the chance she’d dreamt of from the moment of her Reawakening. She couldn’t wait to start her new life with him.
***
Patience had her first sip of wine. She grimaced the moment the cheap, dry red touched her tongue. She puckered her lips and squinted her eyes, wiggling her mouth and stifling a laugh. Graham tried not to join in, but there was something about her laugh that was just so infectious.
They discussed their morning plans. They wou
ld pack up and head for the mountains by no later than noon. The Facility would notice Graham’s absence and eventually put two and two together. He reiterated that he would let nothing bad happen to her, and when she asked him why he did what he did, he told her he loved her.
Patience’s face grew hot and she felt the butterflies in her stomach begin to flutter. She gazed at him, sitting on the other end of the couch, and wished in that moment that he were not being such a gentleman.
She crawled across the couch to him and brought her lips to his ear, “I love you, too.”
Graham turned his face to hers, his breathing getting harder to control.
The moment their lips met, fireworks exploded through his veins. He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her onto him. She wrapped her legs around him and he lifted her up, gently, carrying her to the bedroom. All the while their tongues danced, a fever spreading through both of their bodies as passion overcame them.
He lowered her to the mattress and began to remove her clothing, but she grew tense.
“My scars,” she whispered.
“That’s all they are.” He kissed her softly on her forehead and she smiled, urging him to continue.
Adoring hands explored wanting bodies, and finally, in absolute harmony, their love making reached its crescendo.
***
Patience disappeared to the bathroom and Graham lay in a heap on the bed, breathless and overwhelmed. In the most hopeless of earthly scenarios, they had somehow found each other and found love.
Graham’s head spun. It had been longer than he cared to admit since he’d been with a woman, but he wouldn’t have thought it would take such a toll on him. He inhaled deeply, trying to catch his breath but his heart rate only increased. He sat up and the room seemed to tilt; he shook his head and rubbed his eyes. When his surroundings finally balanced out, he stood up and pulled on a pair of pants, nearly falling over. The simple task had exhausted him.
His body grew hot and he urged himself to go to the kitchen and get a bottle of water. Alarmed, he wondered what in the world could be causing the symptoms he was experiencing.
A panic attack, that could be the only reasonable explanation.
He’d had tons of them before, but never like this. As Graham took a few steps forward, a sudden and unbearable pain shot through his chest. Graham gasped for air in big gulps and held onto the door frame. He collapsed to the ground and began to shiver. The searing chest pain spread across his abdomen and down into his loins. He cried out, forming his hands into tight fists. The pain turned into pressure, as if something were on the inside pushing to get out. His head felt like a house had been dropped on it, and his temperature continued to rise. He could feel blood vessels bursting in his eyes; he slammed them shut, still gasping for air. The tremors morphed into uncontrollable shaking, then into a full blown seizure.
Thick, bloody saliva dribbled from his mouth and his ears began to bleed. The seizure subsided, and Graham lay on his bedroom floor, intermittent spasms jerking his limbs. His rasping breath evolved into animalistic grunts and his eyes shot open.
The once placid whites of his sclera were now blood red.
***
Patience heard a loud thud from the bedroom. Grabbing a hand towel and turning off the sink, she approached the bathroom door.
“Graham?” As she reached a hand out toward the knob, she heard a gag-like hacking followed by low grunts. She pulled on Graham’s bathrobe, opened the door, and stepped into the room. Her hands flew to her mouth and her eyes widened in horror.
Graham, crouched like a predator, stared up at her with eyes that matched her own. His lips pulled back into a snarl and, with a ferocious cry, he launched himself from the floor.
Patience screamed and stumbled out of the way. Terrified of him, she fled from the room and slammed the door behind her. Tears streamed from her face as she tried to comprehend what was happening. Dr. Kennedy had told her that all traces of the virus had been eliminated from her blood. Patience didn’t understand why her lover was now a vicious monster.
What have I done?
She screamed again as Graham slammed his body into the frail bedroom door. She scanned the tiny apartment, hoping to find some means of defense, but knew it was pointless. She remembered Graham telling her that once The Reconstruction began, the government deemed illegal the possession of all firearms or knives with a blade longer than three inches.
The bedroom door flew open, Graham had finally figured out how to use the doorknob. Patience’s terrified howls filled the small room and she sprinted for the door. Entering the dingy hallway, she cried for help.
She ran from one apartment door to the next, trying the knobs and banging on the doors.
“Please! Somebody, you have to help me!”
A door to her right flew open and a stout, balding man appeared. “What the fuck’s with all the noise? I’m tryin’ to sleep!” He hollered at her.
Before Patience had a chance to answer, Graham shoved past her and leapt onto the screaming man. Graham had him pinned; he punched and clawed at the man, his rage increasing with each passing second. Graham brought his face closer to the man’s as he roared, spittle and blood drooling from his mouth and into the man’s open wounds.
Patience turned and fled as the man beneath Graham began to seize. Her pleas for help rang through the halls and one by one, the commotion had brought the lonely and bored Removed from their apartments. Screams erupted as now not one, but two savage beasts attacked and infected the closest living things to them.
Patience took the stairs two at a time, her bare soles stinging with each footfall. The inhabitants of the fifth floor had now succumbed to the rapidly spreading infection. Dozens of stampeding feet sounded behind her. As she made it to the fourth floor landing, the residents there stood outside their homes, their faces etched with confusion.
“Get out of the building!” Patience tried to warn them, snot and tears smeared across her face. Her robe hung open, revealing her scarred, naked body.
“What happened to you? Are you okay?” A concerned woman asked, immediately assuming one of her upstairs neighbors had attacked and harmed the sobbing woman.
The alarm spread throughout the fourth floor crowd, clouding their better judgment, and leaving them no time to act as the Infected from the fifth floor swarmed them.
Patience could take no more. Rather than attempting to warn any of the other doomed souls, she raced to the ground floor, trying not to listen as wave after wave of the newly Infected ravaged the building. She burst onto the street, screaming into the night. The drunken bums roaming the parking lot squinted at her, muttering to themselves and waving her off.
Flashing lights raced down the street, sirens blaring. One of the Removed had enough sense to alert the authorities of a disturbance before they were inevitably turned. Tires screeched as two police cruisers came to a stop. Four officers exited the vehicles, Tasers drawn.
Patience ran to them, hiding her eyes for fear of being mistaken as one of the Infected. A female officer grabbed Patience in her arms, pulling the robe tightly around her exposed frame. The officer shook her, demanding to know what happened as the other cops moved toward the building.
“We have to get out of here, please,” Patience sobbed, “you have to get me back to Dr. Kennedy.” She looked up at the officer, eliciting a scream once her eyes were revealed.
“Infected!” The officer shouted to the others, pointing her Taser at Patience.
Just as it was understood that Patience was indeed, one of the Infected, the products of her love affair with Graham burst through the apartment building’s door. The flood of infected broke apart; some went after the fleeing bums while others disappeared into the night, dead set on destroying the city. Those that remained attacked the officers. The Tasers did nothing to protect them, the Infected were completely unfazed by the low voltage weapons.
Patience curled herself into a ball and lay still on the asphalt, she sobbed into
her hands, terrified and remorseful. There was obviously more than one reason she’d been locked away in that room.
A pair of strong hands gripped her shoulders and lifted her from the ground. Patience neither kicked nor screamed. She was ready for death.
Graham stood before her, bloodied and breathless. His eyes bore into hers and in an instant, Patience’s fears disappeared. She saw within those eyes a glimpse of Graham hidden behind the monster she had turned him into. He wasn’t going to harm her. None of them were.
She looked around in awe, and watched as the infected helped one another from the ground. Her original assumption that they ran wildly in different directions was incorrect. She now observed the Infected moving about in pairs, skillfully planning their next move. She furrowed her brow as she realized they were somehow communicating with each other.
“Graham?” She choked out, returning her eyes to his.
He nodded, though his face remained expressionless.
Tears streamed down her face as she realized he could understand her.
“Take me to Dr. Kennedy.”
***
Graham’s vehicle raced from the city, back toward The Facility. Patience pushed buttons on the radio, listening with wild eyes at the reports of the Infected tearing through the city. Helicopters flew overhead, undoubtedly heading in to evacuate citizens… or destroy them.
As the car neared the gates of the facility, Graham didn’t slow down. The guard that had made the mistake of letting him go earlier stepped from his post and drew his weapon, a fully loaded Glock 35. Graham’s foot slammed down on the accelerator and the car rammed through the gates, plowing into the guard and sending him flying over the roof.
Patience whimpered, checking the mirror. The guard’s body lay still in the road behind them.
Graham returned his car to its assigned parking space and Patience grabbed Graham’s ID badge from the console. As soon as the pair left the vehicle, Graham was off running toward some unknown destination.
“Graham!” Patience cried out. “Graham, come back!”
He ignored her, disappearing around a corner in the parking garage.