Those Who Remain (Book 3)

by Priscila Santa Rosa

  We move away from the dense forest, reaching the frozen tundra and marshes, where there’s nothing but strong winds and a desolate horizon. I feel exposed and small against the vastness of rocks and ice, but at least here nobody can hide from me. Still, I’m tense and constantly worried, eyes and lips dry, fingertips stiff.

  Nobody talks. The cold, the hunger, and our tired muscles aren’t chitchat material. Roger goes back to avoiding me, but this time I don’t mind it. Neither of us mentions the conversation. We don’t have to; my promise feeds the silence and space between us.

  Two weeks after leaving Redwood, we reach the frozen Hudson Bay. The ice is so thick, we can walk on it, but fear of falling into its dark water never quite leaves me. Lips cracking, fingers almost blue, and every single part of my body hurting, I tell everyone to keep going. My map and battery-powered GPS guides us through a whiteout.

  Twice I need to stop and wait for the rest of the group. The second time, Mouse slips on the ice and breaks his right wrist trying to break the fall. Danny almost goes with him, but Roger holds him by the waist to keep him standing. The doctor moves to fix the wrist, but I stop her.

  “We need to keep moving,” I shout, trying to win the fight against the howling wind. “No time for that.”

  “We can’t go on in this weather,” Tigh yells, striding toward me with his face red from the cold. “We need to stop and make shelter.”

  “We keep going. No stopping.” I face upward to stare directly at him. I hate that he’s taller than me.

  Tigh’s about to argue again when we hear it: a car. I turn north, squinting to catch any clue of where it’s coming from. I hear Tigh clicking his magazine in and pulling the barrel. A second later Roger does the same. I raise my rifle, ignoring the pain in my shoulder that shakes my whole arm. Damn it, I miss my SIG; so much lighter.

  Headlights blind me for a second and a military truck brakes, drifting slightly on the ice. The vehicle stops ten feet from us and five men quickly jump out with guns raised. They wear white winter gear and protective goggles.

  “Lower your weapons! You have ten seconds to tell me who you are and what you want,” a yell rises over the wind, coming from a loudspeaker inside one of the trucks.

  Tigh steps in front of me. “I’m Sergeant Tigh with the 34th Unit, US Army.” He points at the insignia on his shoulder, although I think we’re too far for them to see it properly. “My SO was Major Anderson Phillips, and I’m following his last orders to protect and deliver useful personnel to the Army. I’m escorting these three to Akimi Island’s CDC facility.”

  The following pause gives me enough time to adjust my grip, forcing the arm to stand still. So this was Tigh’s plan: use the Army’s plan. Not very original, but hopefully enough for us to get inside alive.

  “What about those two behind you? Why are you wandering around with infected on a leash?”

  I trade a quick glance with Roger as my muscles tighten with tension. I’m not letting them kill Danny.

  The Doctor takes a step forward and raises the briefcase. “Because you’re going to need subjects to test the cure. We have Alistair Spencer’s briefcase.”

  Shocked, I resist the urge to turn to the Doctor, not sure if I want to thank her or curse at her. What she just revealed might save us or doom us. Father’s voice rings in my head: “Now they are going to shoot you and take the cure by force.” I narrow my eyes at the nearest soldier, gun still raised and pointed at us. If this turns out to be a shootout, I’m not going down easy.

  My finger moves slowly to the trigger. Nobody moves. The wind howls and Danny snarls as he wrestles against his bonds. One of the soldiers, the one addressing us, slowly moves his hands to his backpack and takes out a radio. He whispers something into it, waiting for a response. With the wind still howling, I read his lips and catch the word “Spencer.”

  He gives a nod to the others, and they lower their guns. Beside me, Roger relaxes. I don’t. Not yet.

  “Hop in. Before we all freeze to death,” the guy orders us while his men follow suit. “There’s room for the infected on the back.”

  We all hesitate, standing still in the same spot. It seems too easy, but the Doc makes the first move with Tigh following her. My gaze travels from the truck to the driver, trying to decide if I can trust him. The vehicle has a faint CDC logo on it.

  Roger moves past me, and I make my decision. They didn’t force us to give up our guns, and as long I have a gun, I’m not afraid of anything. Trap or not, I’m going to be ready.

  We herd Danny and Mouse inside, using the last piece of rabbit I had to distract them from the other very-much-alive meat bags sitting near them. Then, Roger sticks more duct tape on their mouths, so there’s no risk of them biting anyone. His hands shake somewhat while doing this. I pretend not to notice.

  The soldiers don’t seem to be all that bothered by the zombies’ presence. I suppose when you’re well equipped and trained, and you’ve spent months fighting the same predictable enemy, there’s little to fear.

  Drifting on the frozen lake, the truck tosses us from one side to the other as I glare at our company: three men and two women, plus the driver who I can’t see from my seat. They all look younger than Tigh, maybe older than me. From this close, I can see the CDC logo on their clothing and the words “Security Staff” embroidered below it.

  They look well fed and calm. So this wasn’t a high-stress task. Maybe perimeter patrol. Routine. They also don’t seem too surprised at us. Maybe they found other survivors already, or were at least expecting survivors to show up eventually.

  One of the soldiers stares directly at the briefcase Tigh holds, not with curiosity or doubt, but excitement.

  No. Not survivors. They were expecting the cure.

  “That was crazy, you know,” the one who talked to us earlier says, loud enough to be heard over the sound of the car and bad weather. “Traveling in the middle of the winter.”

  He has a slight accent I can’t quite place, a buzz cut, and a sharp smirk.

  “What? You wanted us to wait till spring to deliver humanity’s only chance of survival?” I say with sarcasm, fingers still very much around my gun’s handle.

  He laughs a little. “Guess not.”

  “So, you’re part of the security detail here?” Tigh asks.

  “That’s right. Privately contracted by the CDC.” He offers his hand to Tigh. “I’m the squad leader. Name’s Simon.”

  “Where’s the Army?” Tigh asks as he shakes Simon’s hand.

  “No Army here. We got a few messages about the disease, but you’re the first ones to get this far.”

  I narrow my eyes, but keep quiet. The other soldiers trade looks and half smiles.

  “Nobody came here?” The Doctor frowns. “All this time?”

  Simon shakes his head. “Afraid not. You can try asking the Captain for more information on that. She’s the head of security— we’re here.”

  The truck brakes and slides with a whine, then stops. From the window, I can see a metal gate opening and we move into a badly lit tunnel. Finally, the driver parks the truck. Someone opens the back doors, and we’re in, for how long, I don’t know.

  THE ROTTING ZOMBIE I

  I want to eat. Feed me. I want to bite. I want to taste meat. They are walking around me, laughing. I’m so hungry. I want to kill them all.

  Stop. Stop. Stop!

  Let me eat. Let me sink my teeth into meat. I want it. I want it! They poke me. They blind me. I want out. I want to run. I want to eat.

  Meat. I want meat. The smell is everything. I can see it. They dangle it in front of me. Raw and red. Juicy and bloody. It’s mine. Give it to me. Let me sink my teeth into it.

  Why? Stop it. Stop it!

  I sleep with my eyes open. I dream of an old lady with a hole in her face.

  A face comes closer. I want to rip it open, destroy it, shred it into tiny pieces. Dark lumps deform it. In the place of a nose, a mass of tumors. Small eyes barely appear be
low the swollen forehead. There are no lips, only black teeth. A bald, disfigured monster stares back at me, then disappears.

  Instead, a masked man greets me with a muffled voice. “Hello, Danny. How are you feeling?”

  I scream. Warm hands hold me down, but I shake them off, get up from the slab, and fall flat on my face and onto the cold floor. My butt is freezing and so are my bare feet. I’m wearing a hospital gown.

  “Now, calm down. You’re sedated and won’t be able to move properly for a while, so how about you don’t hurt yourself and make everyone’s job easier?”

  I lift my head at the person speaking. He wears a white coat, gloves past his elbows, a pair of protective glasses, and a white mask that covers most of his face. I open my mouth to answer but the only thing that comes out is black goo. The vile substance burns my throat on its way out. I cough hard and retch some more.

  “Help him up. And clean this,” the same man orders.

  Two figures clad in bright yellow protective gear put me back on the slab. My feet hang above the dirty floor. I clean my mouth with a hand and what I see almost has me vomiting again: my fingers are pitch black and without any nails. I can’t flex them since the skin around the joints is full of small lumps. I bury my hands below my legs, afraid what the man might do if he saw them.

  “Danny, look at me, please.” He waves his gloved hand in front of my face. “Do you know where you are?”

  I shake my head slowly; it feels heavy, almost like I’m underwater. I want to move, but my body is too stupid to obey.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  I shake my head again, nausea still present in the pit of my stomach. I don’t want to open my mouth and spill black goo again.

  “Don’t worry about the vomit. We’ll clean it up. Just try to say something. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  A strange question. Blinking, I try to make sense of it, my brain slowly processing every word. I feel lethargic, my body’s reactions delayed from lack of use. “Being hungry.” My voice is scratchy, like it doesn’t belong to me. “Cold.”

  The man barely nods. “Can you tell me your full name and age?”

  A splitting headache clouds my vision. I place my hands against my ears to stop the loud ringing, but it doesn’t work. At all. I groan and vomit again. Shivers spread over my arms and legs.

  “Is he okay?”

  The voice is distant and new. I try to see who’s talking, but my eyes refuse to show me anything but blurry blotches of color.

  “He’s adapting to it. Let’s just wait.”

  I black out. My dreams are confusing shapes in red. Moving blotches are everywhere, touching and pushing. They cling to me like overly attached, haunted teddy bears.

  Roger’s voice wakes me up. He’s nowhere to be seen. I’m alone in a soft-padded room with only a cold bed for company. There are no windows and only one door, a thick metal barrier between me and the rest of the world. I look up and find a camera in a corner. I’m still in a hospital gown, pitch-black feet and lumpy legs exposed. My ankle is purplish and swollen. I’m glad there are no mirrors around because I’d bet anything the rest of me is even worse.

  “Danny? Can you hear me?” Roger’s electronic voice repeats.

  I manage to sit up on the bed, finding support for my back against the soft wall behind it. My head feels lighter, and the nausea is gone. “Yeah, I hear you.”

  There’s a long pause. Maybe I’m going crazy and talking to myself. Maybe this is some sort of hell or a coma dream. That would be better than what I suspect is really going on.

  After swallowing to clear my sore throat, I raise my still raspy voice. “Roger? Are you there?”

  “I’m... Yeah, I’m here.” He sounds choked up. Is he disgusted by how I look now? Because I am. “Are you all right? Did it... How do you feel?”

  Another weird question. I’m a disfigured monster that vomits black goo; is there any doubt that I feel like crap? “Where are we?”

  “Safe. In a CDC underground base.”

  The realization comes like a punch in my stomach followed by a slap in the face. Also a kick in the nuts. The cure, the girl, the gun. Me. But...

  “Roger? I was shot, not bitten. I was...” I place a hand on my chest, but it just makes things worse as my fingers touch one of the many disgusting bumps covering most of my body. “I’m a zombie, right? But how? Was the town attacked? I don’t remember zombies attacking. What happened?”

  This time the pause lasts even longer. My heart beats fast... Or maybe I’m imagining it. Can a zombie heart still beat? Either way, Roger’s silence scares the crap out of me.

  “That cure, that doctor you found—you cured me, right? But if you did, why am I... Why do I look like this?”

  I panic at his lack of response. He’s feeling guilty. He’s hiding something. Maybe I’m not cured; maybe he’s going to kill me and doesn’t want me to know. Maybe this is Roger saying goodbye.

  “Did I...? Is... Is everyone all right?” I ask with a trembling voice and close my eyes tight. “I didn’t... eat anybody, did I?”

  Those dreams, the hunger... Even now, my stomach is empty, hollow and demanding nutrition. If I’m not cured, if I’m still a zombie, does that mean I’m going to have to eat people?

  “No! We didn’t let you. We could never let you do that, Danny. You ate regular stuff. What we ate.”

  For some reason, that sounds incredibly funny to me, and I cackle. Like my voice, my laughter sounds different, rougher and crazier. Afraid of what that means, I stop myself. “Who is ‘we’?”

  “Lily and I… Maria and Tigh too—the doctor and the sergeant, from town, remember? They came too, to help us.”

  Last I remember it was supposed to be the other way around: Roger and Lily would help them. I guess my little problem changed things. Being a zombie has its drawbacks.

  I’m a zombie. I’m a freaking fucking zombie that can think and remember stuff. That’s the worst type of zombie. I’m rotting outside, inside, everywhere, and I’m aware of all of it. This is a fate worse than death.

  And the thing is, I was okay. I was dying, but I was okay with it. I remember thinking about my Ma, how maybe I deserved to die, and the girl had done me a favor. Now? I don’t even know what to do with myself.

  “Roger, what happened to the girl?”

  “We didn’t find her. She got away. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.” Why is he apologizing? Even if she shot me on purpose, I wouldn’t want Roger to kill a preteen girl for revenge. Does he think I would? “It was an accident. You know that, right? She didn’t mean to. I hope she’s okay.”

  “Maybe she is.”

  Another one of those many awkward pauses. I want to ask for more, but his hesitation stops me.

  “Do I get real clothes? I’m kind of cold.” Roger doesn’t answer for a few seconds. He probably can’t come closer. Or doesn’t want to. I sure as hell wouldn’t want be near me if I were him. “Just toss them on the floor and close the door after.”

  “I’ll ask Maria.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  I guess we’re both delaying saying whatever this conversation is really about, but I think it’s time to get it over with already. I’m rotting here. I haven’t got much time.

  “Roger, what’s going on?”

  “We—I’m sorry, Danny. We didn’t mean for things to be this way. We were just trying to save you. They told me they could cure you. They swore you would be okay. You were dying. I couldn’t... This is my fault.”

  I blink, confused by his speech. “This isn’t your fault. Why do you always do this? I was shot. And some zombie bit me. That isn’t your fault. Stop apologizing. Also, where’s Lily?”

  “Danny, we... What happened was...” A pause. “Just do everything Maria tells you to do. You know who she is, right?”

  I nod. “Yeah. The doctor. I remember.”

  “She’s part of the research team. You c
an trust her.”

  I raise my head toward the camera. “We’re not going back to Redwood?”

  “Please, just listen to me. She wants to help you, okay?”

  He’s treating me like a little kid again. After Ma died, he went from my best friend to an overprotective older brother, afraid I was going to break at any moment. Technically, that’s probably right now since zombies do have a tendency to break limbs easily.

  With a sigh, I relent. Whatever is going on, it doesn’t matter to me. Not really. “Okay.”

  I’m alone again. Silence, as it turns out, is not good company. Without anything to do but to memorize each small mark on the ceiling and avoid thinking how rotten my body is, I close my eyes and try to think of happy things: a good movie or a sweet, juicy steak; a bloody, almost-raw hamburger dripping oil and blood all over my face. I can almost taste it.

  Saliva flows from the corner of my mouth, soaking the pillow. I feel like an old dog, too excited at the mere thought of food to even manage closing its mouth, because I can’t close it.

  Hunger twists my stomach, becoming real pain soon enough. I press my scarred hands against my abdomen, but it does nothing. I get up from the bed and walk from one side of the room to the other, shaking my hands to distract myself from the pain.

  It doesn’t work.

  I smash my fists against the door, calling for food. Nobody comes. I let out a growl.

  A growl.

  Zombie, remember? You’re a zombie.

  “I want to eat something. Please!” Nothing. I wipe my mouth again as saliva continue to drip freely from it. “Come on! I want to eat!”

  I kick the wall, then the bed. I toss the sheets onto the floor and try to rip the pillow into little pieces. Suddenly, my body decides it’s a good idea to pound the door with full force. I fling myself against the door again and again until I hear a crack.

  The sound stops me, and I wait for the door to open, but it doesn’t. I frown, then continue my violent, but ineffective escape attempt. As my right shoulder hits the door, I finally notice the obvious: it’s dislocated now, dangling dumbly at a weird angle.