Preventasis Labs, there’s the driveway, the main entrance. Is this really where it all started? I don’t get it, how would it be created here but not infect anyone until it hit Leyland? That doesn’t even make sense. Why would they make something like this in the first place? It’s clearly some kind of biochemical weapon and Preventasis is all about drug treatment and alternative medicine. I highly doubt Kristen’s mom went from curing cancer to turning our nation’s enemies into zombies.
Then again, this is a new site off in the middle of nowhere and dear god is that a lot of black SUVs. They’re lining both sides of the access road to the lab, government plates. Something definitely went down here. Those are SWAT vans parked in the middle of the road, doors open, as they’ve been for days now. They jumped out with guns and shields and no clue what they were facing.
“Kristen, your mother works here, doesn’t she?” Dr Hopkins asks, bandaging his arm to cover the boy’s bite marks.
“No, she’s at the Leyland branch. When I head off to college, or, well, you know, was, she was gonna transfer here. Sell the house, move to Sonny Valley.”
“Huh,” he grunts, crinkling his eyebrows. “She wasn’t heading up the drug treatment program here? I bumped into her last week at the lab, carried a file box to the car for her. She said she was clearing out her office.”
“What? No. I mean, I haven’t really spoken to her since Jeremy left rehab but… Shit, she was doing it. Oh my god, she was leaving. Dad didn’t want him in the house. She was taking the apartment here, in the Valley, just so that piece of shit would have somewhere to go.”
“You haven’t talked to her since this all began?”
“Not since the stay inside text that morning. The night before, she messaged me, looking for Jeremy. I’m not like a bitch or anything, I tried, as soon as the phones were working again. She wasn’t behind this. I know Shane and all of his stupid theories but she doesn’t make weapons, of any kind, I’m telling you, it’s just medicine. Do you think she might be in there? Could she still be inside? What if she’s here?”
“Kristen,” I whisper, knowing she knows what I’m going to say but that doesn’t make it any less painful. “You haven’t heard from her this whole time. I know your mom, even if you guys weren’t speaking, the first thing she would have done is call you, and keep calling until she got through.”
“Well then fine, stop and let me off here. I’ll find her myself.” She shrugs away from my touch, turning her back to me. “I’ll meet you guys up there.”
“You know we can’t do that,” I say softly. “When we get to that dam, we have maybe ten minutes to fuel the chopper, get everything transferred and find those scientists. Ten minutes, if that, we need at least twenty. Kristen, I am so sorry, but we can’t go into that lab looking for her. We can’t. You know how many of those things we have behind us.”
“So I just lose everyone? My mom, my dad, my brother, my boyfriend, my friends, Jenny, Doug, Paul too? I have nothing left. Why are we even fighting to live?”
“You got us sweetie,” Felecia says, resting a hand on Kristen’s shoulder. “We’re all any of us have left. If I thought there was a chance your mother was in there, I’d be standing by your side, searching every room of that building. So would Noah.”
“You’re supposed to be a super mega bitch,” Kristen chokes out between sniffles. “What is wrong with you? Why are you so nice to me? After what my boyfriend did to you?”
“Because in that world, it didn’t matter how nice you were, you’d still get shat on. Super mega bitches got shat on less. This new world, it’s not gonna work like that, we’ll see to it that it doesn’t. I can be whoever I wanna be. So can you. We get to start over. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather do it with the friends I didn’t get to have in my old life.”
Kristen turns to face me, flashing a defeated smile. “I don’t know where you found this girl who thinks she’s Felecia, but she’s awesome. And so is she,” she says pointing at Caylee. “You guys are gonna make some beautiful, amazing thrupple babies.”
“Oh my god,” Caylee mutters, turning nine shades of red before hiding her face in her hands.
“Yeah we are,” Felecia boasts with a grin and a wink.
Is she joking? She’s just kidding right? Why does everyone think the three of us are a thing? Are the three of us a thing? I mean, there are worse things in the world.
“He’s under,” Dr Hopkins says out of the blue, interrupting the magnificent image I had going on in my head. At least I think it came from out of the blue, it’s entirely possible he’s been talking for a while and I was too distracted to hear him. “I don’t know how long he’s going to be out, or if we have enough to get him to the airfield. I still don’t think we should be using all the anesthesia for this. We don’t have much.”
“That girl is way too strong,” I say quietly, trying not to make a spectacle out of this again, “and she’s been through way too much. She’s getting on that helicopter, so if that means we need to keep him unconscious, then that’s what we have to do.”
“Agreed,” he nods, despite his doubts. “But if we run out, and he has another episode…”
“We’ll figure it out then.”
“Half a mile,” Maxwell calls from the front. “That means less than a minute. The few glimpses I got, I’m gonna say about fifty to a hundred infects. They’ve got the chopper surrounded. What I wanna do is disconnect the fuel truck, circle around and get the majority to follow us away from our bird. But I don’t trust the good doctor’s weasel of a son, sorry Doc, so we’re leaving it hooked up. Explosions are out of the question, we can’t risk damaging anything. You guys are good but you can’t take out that many in the small window we have. Someone’s gonna have to go out there and lure them away from the heli so we can get a clear shot.”
“I’ll do it,” Neil proclaims proudly, not looking up from his feet.
“Neil, you can barely move.” I have more to say but stop, going back to the day this all started, when we went into that house for supplies. How much has he changed since then? Since his little brother stepped up and Neil begrudgingly took his place. Here we are, just a few days later, but somehow a lifetime has gone by.
“I got this Neil,” Scott says, resting his hand on his brother’s knee. “I promise, I’ll be fine.”
“I’m going too,” Norwood adds from his spot under the hatch. “He goes one way, I go the other. Divide and conquer. Soon as we’re at a safe distance, Caylee, Marty, you blast these cocksuckers with as many missiles up the ass as it takes to get them off. Nolecia, you guys clear the rest away from our god damn whirly bird, soldiers gas it up, sound like a plan? Don’t worry girl,” he says, tapping Caylee on the arm with his fist. “The three of you are Nolecialee. Soon as we re-kill these undead fuckers, we gotta load everything up and get in that dam. Oh and someone’s gotta kick those two turd nuggets from the fuel truck in the balls. I’ll let you decide that amongst yourselves.”
“This is my son we’re talking about here.”
“Well, sir, your son is a bitch who’s about to get kicked in his girly-boy balls. If I were you, I’d learn to deal with it. Now let’s kill some fucking zombies. You ready kid?” he shouts, slamming his hands off Scott’s chest.
“I’m ready.”
“You’re what? Oh hell no, fuck that. I’ve had to squeeze bricks out of my ass that were more ready to go than that. You gotta be freakin’ prairie dog ready, I’m talking sweat beading up on your forehead, butthole puckered, ready to rip a grumpy that the whole neighborhood’s gonna hear. That’s the kind of ready you need to be. Now are you fucking ready or not?”
“I’m fucking ready!”
“Wooooo! That’s what I’m talking about. Now slap me in the face and call me Bethany you little piece of shit Buckley!”
“Let’s fucking do this Bethany,” Scott roars, slapping Norwood’s crazy ass across the face with everything he has.
“Raaaa, hell yeah! Max
, open the damn door.” He bounces off it like a caged animal, fighting for freedom. The second the tiniest stream of light penetrates the growing crack, he growls even harder, slamming himself against the door until the gap is large enough for him to squeeze through. “Big Poppa Dusty’s back! Now which one of you little shit stains wants a hug from daddy?”
“Is uh, is Bethany okay?” Caylee asks as Scott follows Norwood through the still opening door. “I feel like the elevator stops a few floors shy of the roof.”
“Oh the elevator goes nowhere near the top floor,” Felecia says with a smile. “But that’s exactly what it takes for us to win this war. Now get that sexy little ass in position,” she shouts, spanking Caylee’s plump rump along until her hand can no longer reach. “We got this,” she growls, pressing her forehead against mine, tapping her foot wildly to a song that isn’t playing. “We’re there. The helicopter’s right outside. We did it Noah. We made it. Let’s get the hell out of this shithole and never look back.”
“A hundred years from now, they’ll hear the name Nolecia whispered in the streets of Zombieopolis and shit their pants in fear. Let’s give these hungry hippos a dance they’ll never forget.”
We pry our sweaty foreheads apart, sick grins plastered on both our faces because that’s what it takes to survive. And we’re survivors who became warriors who survived the war because we’re not going down now. The second our feet touch the asphalt, it’s over.
I hold my sword in one hand, morningstar in the other, for old time’s sake.
The door touches down, letting the sunlight of the outside world flood the darkness we’ve been trapped in. It’s finally time to say goodbye.
We step out of the safety of our armored transport vehicle, ready to bring death and destruction to anyone who blocks our path.
CHAPTER 32
It takes my eyes a second to adjust. The sun somehow seems brighter up here on top of the world. A small lake, that was probably a river before they decided to turn Sonny Valley into a planned community, glistens beneath the crystal blue sky. It confuses the senses to see something so beautiful destroyed by this undeath that’s swept over the land.
Under the cover of dark and ominous clouds, it almost made sense to see the savage beasts mankind have become, destroying our world. At night, it was understandable in a way, that’s when monsters typically make their presence known. Even against the backdrop of a raging inferno, in my mind, it worked. When we passed through residential areas that had already been infected and destroyed by those who once called them home, that was something my mind could grasp.
But this is something different. The lake, the trees, the mountains, they feel like they should remain unscathed by this epidemic. It confuses my senses that they aren’t.
Infects float through ponds like driftwood, slowly washing ashore. They terrorize forests and farmlands. Nowhere is off limits to them. Even the ocean, they stalk the beaches as if its water isn’t detrimental to their wellbeing.
Now that their primary source of food has been depleted, I suppose they’ll scavenge the land, picking off wild animals and lone survivors. The safety we assumed wilderness would provide when this all began has been ripped away from us. They’ve come to claim the land, all of it.
Norwood’s racing towards the edge of the earth, drawing a pack of our new world leaders away from the helicopter. Understandable, that was part of the plan, but where the hell does he think he’s going?
This psychopath is full on sprinting towards the little metal railing at the edge of the viewing platform. I’m not close enough to confirm that it is indeed the edge of the world but I think it’s safe to say there is a bottomless pit on the other side of it. How do I know? Because there’s one of those binocular machines you have to dump quarters in to see through for like thirty seconds. If it’s there, it’s because we’re up high enough for people to say well I have to see what’s way down there, honey, give me a quarter.
He breaks into a baseball slide a few feet from the edge, skidding across the blacktop because he’s nuts. What is he doing? There are twenty zombies half an arm’s length behind him and he wants to slide into home plate, which is most certainly not home plate because if it was, there wouldn’t be a bottomless pit on the other side of it. Not a baseball fan but I’m pretty sure that would change the whole dynamic of the game.
Let’s assume there’s water and not a bottomless pit on the other side of that guardrail. From this height, if he hits the still surface of the reservoir, it’ll be the equivalent of jumping off a skyscraper. Not that it ever stopped us on the trestle, but that was into a river and not nearly this high. Fine, okay, so I didn’t jump off the trestle, it was scary and I didn’t exactly have a death wish, but I did jump off the ledges below it. It was like ten feet but still.
Oh my god he’s going over the edge!
Norwood slips below the bottom rung of the railing, catching himself on the support beam. My heart drops out of my body, exiting through my butthole before prairie dogging its way back in.
In the most ungraceful pole dancer move ever, his body sails out over the dam, legs flapping in the breeze before coming back and crashing into the cement wall.
His long line of gentlemen’s club patrons don’t realize what’s going on before it’s too late. The front row slam into the waist high railing, toppling over the edge as Norwood pulls himself up beside the pig pile. They’re too busy untangling themselves and knocking each other over to grab my friend who everyone said was more hassle than he was worth. How stupid must they feel now?
I’m not convinced his feet are actually touching the ground as he sprints back in our direction, waving his hands in the air, signaling for them to fire.
Marty must receive the message loud and clear because the Stryker rocks back and forth, dumping an empty shell, smoke emitting from the metal canister. I know because it lands a few feet beside us.
The explosion rocks the very foundation of the concrete platform we’re standing on.
Direct hit.
Norwood leaps into the air, not sure if he was thrown from the blast or if he just thought it would look cool and decided to jump. He lands on his side and rolls a few times before springing to his feet as bodies burst from the explosion. Cement spews everywhere, leaving rods of mangled rebar protruding from the edge of the platform, right where the clusterfuck of zombies once stood.
The sightseeing binocular machine teeters at the edge before tumbling over, exposing a woman caught on a piece of the corrugated metal piping. Her arms and legs flail wildly, slowly slipping from her dangling position over the edge. She claws at her chest, barking at the twisted piece of steel sticking out of her shoulder blade, as if yelling at it for having the nerve to dare impale her.
A series of smaller explosions rock the giant structure overlooking the reservoir. Caylee must be shooting grenades in Scott’s direction, leaving us the fifteen or so still surrounding the helicopter. They’re banging on its walls with a ruthless tenacity, somehow not realizing we’re approaching them. Have they been doing this so long they’re just pounding out of habit now? Stuck in a repetitive cycle their simple brains can’t break?
One head whips around to face us, followed in quick succession by fourteen others. Well, that answers that, cycle broken. Make that seventeen, two duck down and peer at us from under the tail. Military uniforms. They must be from the rescue team sent to extract the scientists.
I know why they failed, they couldn’t find their way inside. How the hell do we get in this damn dam in the first place? I envisioned a building with a door leading into the massive structure, and a hundred corpses trying to knock it down. I see no door. But I do see a hundred corpses.
One problem at a time. We’ll find the entrance later. Right now, we have a herd of underfed carnivores on our hands. Emaciated wails escape their bullet battered bodies.
For so long now, guns have been the deciding factor. Firepower ruled the world. Who had more guns. Whose were bigger.
Guns turned into bombs and it became all about who could blow who up. We’ve known since the second World War that firepower would be the death of mankind, whether we all shot each other, blew ourselves up with bombs or cast the world into nuclear winter with atomic missiles.
We knew we’d go out with a bang. But I don’t think anyone realized this is how guns and weapons of mass destruction would end us. We put too much faith in them. They were our be-all, end-all.
And they failed us.
Bullets did nothing but mark their bodies with holes. Bombs and missiles, grenades, who are we kidding? That explosion didn’t take care of them. They may have disappeared from sight, but every single one of those infects who wasn’t hit directly and blown to bits, they’re down there in the water, splashing around, limbs missing, trying to find a way to get back up here and devour us.
We fell because we relied on guns to save us.
I swing my morningstar through some poor soul’s face. I can’t bring myself to look directly at them anymore. Not since we’ve known. He didn’t have to become this. It could have been prevented. All these lives, lost, for nothing.
We fought our way through Bayport, a seaside town, it’s named after a freakin’ port on a bay, you don’t get much more oceany than that. And still, a place that should have been spared due to proximity alone, even if by accident, gone. Everyone was too busy trying to shoot them.
With his jaw dismantled, I swipe my katana across his throat, putting him out of his infernal misery. I can’t wait for the day I no longer have to do this.
But a part of me is terrified. Am I too damaged to go back to normal? The things I’ve seen, and done, is it too late for me? Can you go back to being a functioning member of society? Next week, am I studying for final exams at some British high school academy, or whatever they call high schools there? Is there a normal after this? Or is this my normal and everything else is foreign now?
Blood Type Infected (Book 4): Betrayal of Hope Page 21