by Griffin, Gen
Seth stood over Drake, his sword held firmly in his hand. “Any of this sound familiar to you?”
“It all sounds familiar to me,” Drake replied with a garish, horrible grin. “The Powers That Be are going to create their own army of the changed and take the city.”
“Oh hell.” Seth looked away from Drake and then looked back at him. “No one is going to volunteer to become what you've become.”
“You really think Bud Moon is going to tell them the truth?” Drake laughed. “I was invincible for almost a month before I realized something was wrong. The last trip I took with the Scavengers, nothing could touch me. I'd already changed and you couldn't even tell, Seth.”
“Wait,” I stared hard at him. “You'd already been injected with zombie serum when I left the Cube with you?”
Drake nodded. “It was perfect too. I was changed but not even my closest friends could tell. No physical symptoms at all. Not like Seth here, with his dead eye and that ugly ass hole in his jaw. You screamed the first time you saw him, Pilar. You remember that?”
I nodded reluctantly, hating to recall the night Drake has kissed me on the roof of the Scavengers bus. I'd been so stupidly happy until Seth had walked out of the depths of the woods, scared the hell out of me and then told me that I shouldn't trust Drake.
“You screamed when you saw Seth, but you couldn't tell that I was changed too.” Drake's grin sent chills down my spine.
“You're not the same as him,” I said.
“No. I'm not. Something is wrong with Bud's serum. I'm changing too fast. The zombie virus is taking over me, rotting me from the inside out. You have no idea how bad it hurts. I feel like my stomach is being torn out through my throat. I can't stop bleeding and yet I'm hungry. So hungry. I don't want food but if I could get out of this cage, I'd rip your throat out and drink your blood.” He was looking at Seth now.
“You'd drink my blood?” Seth looked down at his vanquished and ruined rival with disgust.
“Your blood smells the best, Seth.” Drake lifted his head back up so that he could look Seth in the eyes. “I can hear it rushing through your veins. You're scared. I never thought you were capable of feeling fear but I can feel how fast your heart is beating now. I can hear your blood and I'm so hungry. So hungry!”
Drake slammed both his fists into the bars that held him captive. The cage rattled but nothing moved. Drake began pounding frantically against the bars. “I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry.”
“I think we should go,” Lola said.
“I think I should probably kill him before he kills somebody.” Seth readjusted his grip on his sword.
Drake stopped pounding on the bars. His eyes were rolling madly in his head. The blood vessels surrounding his pupils had burst and blood was running down his cheeks like tears. “Do it.”
“What?”
“Do it, Seth. Kill me. Please.” Drake pulled himself back to his full height. “I can't handle the hunger anymore. Can't handle the pain. Show me mercy. Cut my head off while I can still appreciate what you've done for me.”
“Seth?”
“Do it.” Gauge held up his ax. “If you don't, I will.”
“Kill me,” Drake begged from the ground. “If you have any mercy on my soul, kill me now.”
Seth hesitated for a brief moment and then slammed his sword down through the cage bars. He neatly separated Drake's head from his body. It rolled away from his gasping, rattling corpse and landed in a pool of its own blood. I could have sworn his lips formed the words 'thank you' as the last of the life faded from his golden eyes.
Chapter 17
“Can we go home now?”
Lola was hugging herself while standing in a puddle of Drake's dark blood. The puddle was slowly oozing its way across the concrete block floor.
Seth looked up from Drake's disembodied head and frowned at Lola. “We still haven't found Pilar's mother.”
“Do we still want to find Pilar's mother?” Gauge looked questioningly at Seth. “I've been hearing the rumors about Bud's experiments for a few years now. What they did to him was worse than anything I ever imagined.” He pointed down at Drake's corpse.
“I want to leave,” Lola repeated. “Please. Seth, please. Can we go?”
Seth took a deep breath and then shrugged his shoulders. “I told Pilar that we'd find her parents. If you want to go, you can. All you have to is walk down the hallway, step over the corpse and climb the eight foot tall fence.”
“I told you not come.” Gauge shot her an annoyed look.
Lola shuddered. Tears were running down her pale cheeks as she took several steps towards the door. “You didn't tell me that they were torturing people in here.”
“Maybe we didn't know,” Seth snapped. “Do you really think I would have walked in here with you, Pilar and a guy I barely know as my only back up if I'd had any idea that Bud Moon was breeding monsters?”
“You've always been reckless.” Lola hesitated and then shrugged. “You care about Pilar. There's no telling what you would do if she asked you to.”
“I wouldn't have asked him to come here,” I said. “He would have warned me if he'd known what we were walking into. If you ask me, you're putting your blame on the wrong person. Gauge is the one who said he'd heard the rumors about this place.”
All three of our gazes went to Gauge.
Gauge took a deep breath and then looked directly at Seth. “Are you really the high priest of the Church of Chaos?”
“Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?” Seth wiped Drake's blood off his sword with a rag that had been lying on the ground outside of the cage.
“No,” Gauge said. “Maybe if I hadn't seen that dead eye of yours. All the stories say the high priest of the Church of Chaos has one eye that's completely zombified.”
Seth winked his dead eye at Gauge. “I've heard all the stories.”
“You made half of them up yourself.” Lola was still hugging her own arms. “Can we go now? Please?”
Gauge turned to Lola. “And you knew he was the high priest of the Church of Chaos?”
Lola nodded. “Why do you think I asked him to start helping our people after they escape the city?”
Gauge sighed and turned back to Seth. “And you knew nothing about the experiments they've been conducting here?”
“I avoid Ra-Shet at all costs,” Seth explained. “I haven't exactly been keeping up to date on all the gossip.”
Gauge considered Seth's words for a minute and then nodded. “That makes sense considering that you didn't bring nearly enough money to the meat market yesterday. The price for uncontaminated meat has gone sky high during the last few years. They say it's due to a lack of supply. I've heard that the flesh brokers are having a hard time getting their loads of captives through the woods because of interference from the Church of Chaos. Any truth to that?”
Seth halfway smiled. “I don't approve of cannibalism and everyone needs a hobby.”
“Yours just happens to be disabling Cube buses and killing all the passengers?” Gauge asked.
“Killing?” Seth frowned and shook his head. “We set them free. Point them towards the city and tell them to have a nice life.”
“You don't offer them any kind of shelter or food?”
“I don't want them to stay,” Seth said. “I just don't approve of eating them.”
Gauge stood silently for a minute and then shrugged. “You and I are going to have a long talk about morals and responsibility someday.”
“Not today.” Seth was almost smiling. I abruptly realized that he liked Gauge.
“No. Not today. We have more important things to talk about.” Gauge took a deep breath. “Regardless of what you have or have not been doing, the flesh brokers aren't providing nearly the amount of meat they used to. I don't know whether or not the people in the Cube are on the verge of rebellion. I do know that the citizens of Ra-Shet are pretty restless. It wouldn't be all that hard to recruit people who were willing
to fight against the king. Especially if you promised them immunity from zombies as a bonus.”
“Immunity from zombies that turns you into a zombie within a matter of weeks or months.” Seth closed his eyes briefly and then reopened them. “What a nightmare.”
“We have to stop them,” Gauge said.
“What?” Lola blinked up at him.
“We can't just stand around and do nothing while Bud Moon tricks dozens of people into being injected with a serum that turns them into super-zombies. I've seen what one of these things can do when let loose in the city. The one we hunted last year killed over 40 people in the course of two days.” Gauge crossed his arms over his chest. He still had his ax dangling from one hand. “I don't know how many people are in the Cube-.”
“Seven thousand,” I interrupted him.
“Do what?” Gauge stared at me.
“There are just over seven thousand people living in the Cube. Trust me. I spent my whole life working in the hospital ward there. And Bud Moon wouldn't have to ask for volunteers. If he really wanted a zombie army, he could just order everyone be injected.”
“And they'd cooperate?”
“They wouldn't have a choice. Weapons are illegal in the Cube and anyone who speaks out against the Powers That Be disappears. I hate the term 'Sheeple', but it's accurate.”
“Shit.”
“We need to find out when Bud is planning on making his move,” Seth said.
“Somehow I don't think he's going to be nice enough to tell us.”
“We need to search this place.”
“Speaking of searching this place,” Lola ran one hand nervously through her hair. “Does anyone else think it's kind of strange that no one has come in here looking for whoever killed the guard outside?”
“Now that you mention it, yes. We've been in here undisturbed for a lot longer than I thought we'd be.” Seth glanced back towards the door. “None of the rooms we've already looked in appear to have been used recently. I vote we quickly search the last couple of rooms in the building, check to see if Pilar's mother is still being held here and then leave.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Gauge said.
“Not a good one,” Lola muttered under her breath. “We should forget about Pilar's mother and go. Get out of here before someone catches us here and we get killed.”
“I don't break my promises,” Seth said. “I promised Pilar we'd find her parents. Drake said they're holding her mother in one of the other rooms. We haven't come this far to leave now.”
I felt a wash of relief rush over me. I had been afraid he'd back out after everything we'd learned. “I need to go get my mom.”
“I vote we split up,” Seth said. “Lola and Gauge can go search for any records that may have been left behind. Let me go with Pilar to find her mom.”
“You sure that's a good idea?” Gauge asked.
“We need to see what Bud Moon has been doing in here with our own eyes but I don't want to hang around any longer than necessary,” Seth explained. “We've already been down here longer than I wanted to be.”
“You think they guards will be coming for us soon?” Gauge asked.
“I'm surprised that the guards haven't already come for us,” Seth clarified. He stepped closer to me and took my hands into his. “We'll go after your mother, but we've got to make this quick. We can't take any more chances than we already have. We need to find her, save her and get the hell out of here.”
I nodded without speaking. My hands were trembling in his.
“Lola and I can search the rest of the building. Maybe we'll find some more information about what Bud Moon is planning,” Gauge suggested.
Seth nodded. “Meet us back by the front door in 10 minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” Gauge frowned at Seth. “You're only giving your rescue mission a ten minute window?”
“If we're gone for more than ten minutes, I want you to come after us,” Seth said. “Or run away. Depends on whether you hear screaming or not. Make a judgment call.”
“Why would we hear screaming?” Lola asked.
I was glad she had asked the question. I'd wanted to ask but I was afraid of the answer.
“Because every lab needs test animals.” Gauge's dark blue eyes were solemn. “We just saw one super-zombie. I'm willing to bet that your former friend wasn't the only person who Bud Moon injected with his experimental zombie serum.”
“No.” My blood ran cold in my veins. “No. He can't have. Why would he?”
“He's right, Pi.” Seth took a deep breath and squeezed my fingers in his. “You need to prepare yourself. Your mom may not be your mom anymore.”
I pulled my fingers loose of his. “Don't. Please don't say that.”
“I'm hoping I'm wrong, but you need to be ready.” There was pain visible in Seth's blue eye.
I took a deep breath. My chest felt like it was going to explode from the mixture of fear and hope that I was feeling. On one hand, I had found my mother. The hellish and convoluted journey I'd made from the Cube to Ra-Shet was nearly at its conclusion. I'd done at least half of what I had sworn I would do. I closed my eyes and tried to think. “She's going to be okay. She's got to be okay.”
Seth and Gauge exchanged a look that I couldn't quite read. After another moment, Gauge shrugged. “Come on Lola. Let's go see if the bad guys left behind their handbook on how to commit evil crimes against humanity. The sooner Pilar finds her mother, the sooner we can get out of this hellhole.”
Lola nodded and took a deep breath. “Ready when you are.”
Seth looked over at me. “Are you ready?”
“No.” I started walking towards the doors at the very back of the dark hallway. “I'm not ready and I never will be.”
Seth was only a step behind me as I pushed through the doorway. I prayed that everything I'd gone through to be reunited with my parents hadn't been in vain.
Chapter 18
My mom's curly dark hair had tangled into a horribly snarled rat's nest and her clothes were covered in filthy stains. I hesitated at the door to her cage. My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears that I felt like it was going to explode. I reached for the handle that would open my mother's prison cell.
Seth caught my hand before I could turn the key that was resting in the lock. He shook his head at me and jerked his square chin in my mother's direction. “Something's not right.”
“That's my mom,” I said. “It doesn't matter what you think. Gauge is wrong about her being part of Bud's experiment. He has to be wrong. I need to get her out of there. She'll be fine once she sees me.”
Seth's grip was uncomfortably tight on my arm. “Hey!” He called out.
“What are you doing?” I asked. His yell was still echoing through the tiny room. There were only three cages in this second room of holding cells. My mother was the only occupant.
“She didn't move.” Seth pointed to my mother.
“She's alive. I can see her breathing. She might be sick. She needs my help.” I attempted to tug myself loose of his grip with no luck.
“Call to her,” he said.
I frowned at him and then turned my focus back to my mom. She looked so much thinner than she had the last time I'd seen her. “Mom!”
No movement.
“Mom, it's me. Pilar.”
Her shoulders shivered slightly.
“Mom! I'm here to get you out. Please, look at me. It's me. Your daughter.”
She let out a low moan.
I jerked myself free of Seth and wrapped my hands around the bars. “Mom, I know you're scared but we're here to save you. Please, look at me.”
My mother's shoulders moved again and then her head began to turn.
My mother's familiar brown eyes peered out at me through a raw mass of bleeding flesh and open, oozing pus filled sores. Her mouth opened wide as she sprung to her feet and rushed the bars of the cage. All I saw was black tongue and bleeding gums coming for me.
Seth ripped me
away from the cage. He threw me backwards so hard that my spine hit the wall behind me. I landed on my butt in the aisle as my mother flung herself mindlessly against the cage that was holding her captive.
“No. No. Please God, no. I'll do whatever you want, just please no.” I didn't even recognize my own voice or its whispered prayers as the woman who had raised me continued to fling her rotting flesh against the metal cage over and over and over again. “No. Mom, please stop. No. Please no.”
Seth's sword came down through the bars and sunk into my mother's shoulders. She didn't appear to notice the wound. She just kept flinging herself against the cage. A low, keening growl was coming from her bleeding mouth.
“Shit.” Seth pulled a long bladed knife from his pocket and stood in front of the cage with it held towards my mother.
“No, Seth. Don't kill her. Please. We might still be able to save her.”
“Pilar, I'm sorry.” Seth thrust the knife forward right as my mother flung herself into the cage bars again. The knife went straight through her right eye.
She stopped moving abruptly and staggered backwards away from Seth. Her hands clawed at the knife handle that was now sticking out of her face. Shrill shrieks were coming from her oozing lips.
“No. Please. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry,” I couldn't stop the tears that were streaming down my cheeks. “Mommy, no. Please.”
She let out a vicious howl as one of her hands gripped the knife. She yanked it out of her skull. It came loose with her eye still skewered on the blade.
The zombie who had once been my mother stared down at the knife with her remaining eye and then spun the blade around so that the pointed end was facing towards us. This time when she ran towards the cage bars, she was armed.
Seth caught her wrist as it went through the cage. He twisted upwards, breaking her arm with one vicious blow and taking control of the knife in the same gesture. He used the hand that wasn't holding my mother in place to jam the knife through her neck at the base of her spine.