by COE 3. 1. 0
10
Felicity opened one of the doors very, very softly. She peered outside in the corridor. It was quiet, and there were no fast mutants around. Those who were visible, that was. She pulled in a deep breath. Have courage.
Armed with a tire iron and more secreted weapons within her jacket, she crept out. She walked swiftly to the elevators and pressed the ‘Down’ button. What would she find downstairs? Fast mutants waiting to spring on her as soon as the elevator doors opened?
She closed her eyes as the elevator cab went ‘ping’. The doors slid open and she went in. On the way down, she tried not to think of what she might encounter.
You can’t run forever.
The cab reached the first floor and the doors hissed open. She raised the tire iron fearfully.
There was no one downstairs. No one but moldering dead bodies. She couldn’t remember if they were the same ones she and Oliver had seen when they first arrived. Slowly, she walked to the revolving doors. Maybe the fast mutants had decided to feast elsewhere.
Bethseda was three blocks south. Felicity tucked the jacket around her and walked purposefully in that direction.
The streets were strewn with cars and bodies. Only this time, they were actually rotting in the atmosphere. The stench permeated the air, clogging her nostrils and constricting her airways. She walked faster, wanting to leave this graveyard behind. But she knew now that the entire world was probably a graveyard and this was going to be common sight wherever she went.
No fast mutants were present. Maybe they had joined the rotting corpses. She hoped. How long did their condition last anyway? Her thoughts flung back to Oliver on the bed, and her heart cringed. She hoped he wasn’t going to turn into a fast mutant, like in her nightmare.
She made it to the end of the block. She stopped to look right and left – this time for a different reason. Then she sprinted across the street. Somehow, when she was out in the open, she felt very exposed. She made it to the other side without incident. In the distance, she could see the Red Cross sign of Bethseda looming up.
She hoped they had found a cure. Or something to tide the symptoms. Something like the antivirals for HIV. They didn’t exactly cure you, but they sure made the virus go into dormancy. Maybe this virus was something like that.
The hospital came closer. Shouldn’t there be ambulances roaring to it? Oh right. The streets weren’t exactly navigable anymore. When she came much nearer, her legs started to sprint. Please . . . let someone be there. If her instincts served her right, the hospital would be barricaded like a fortress, which accounted for the silence surrounding it.
Her feet faltered when she came to its Emergency entrance.
Several ambulances had crashed into pillars, and the Emergency doors were thrown wide. There were dead bodies piled around it. Piled. As in someone had put them there in stacks. The stench was worse than anything she had ever encountered.
She had a dreadful feeling about this.
She looked up. The windows of the hospital were dark. No one alive was around. In the parking lot, bodies were strewn everywhere. Carelessly. As if they had fallen when they were trying to get to the hospital.
What if the virus had completely swamped the hospital and all the doctors in it?
Why was she still alive?
She had to try. Perhaps they were still alive in there.
She was tempted to call out “Hello?”, but she didn’t dare for fear of rousing a fast mutant. She weaved her way through the path flanked by the bodies. Her heart was beating painfully, and at any moment, she was afraid that one of them would shoot a hand out and grab her ankle.
Be brave, Felicity. Think of Oliver.
Inside, the lights were still burning. The bodies were stacked on either side of the corridor, and she almost gagged. The reception desk was empty, and when she peered over it, she could see bodies lying on the floor. Bodies in hospital uniforms. Her first instincts were right. The hospital staff had succumbed.
Her spirits sinking, she made her way down the corridor and peered into each individual room. She encountered more bodies. Their clothes betrayed their profession in life. Medical attendants. Nurses. Doctors. Patients. They were all dead. There was no help for Oliver and her anywhere.
Did she dare explore the whole hospital? Was there a medic who had barricaded himself somewhere?
A cart was in the middle of the corridor, and its drawers were open. There were several vials of antibiotics there. As far as she knew, antibiotics didn’t combat viruses. But she grabbed them anyway as well as several syringes and needles. She crammed them all into the deep pockets of her borrowed jacket.
What else did she need?
She gingerly grabbed a bag off the shoulder of a dead body. The rotting arm collapsed with a sigh. She felt a little guilty, but the thought of Oliver waiting back there for her filled her with new resolve. She rifled through the bag. Wallet, the usual paraphernalia. She emptied it on the floor, and then she went back to the cart and took more antibiotics and medications. Never mind what they were – she would sort them out later.
She peered deep into the corridor. Did she really want to wade through more dead bodies?
She turned, heading back the way she came from. That was enough for now. She didn’t know if what she took would save Oliver.
She walked out of Emergency into the street of the dead. She had three blocks to go to reach the apartment building. She walked, keeping her head down. The bag weighed heavily from her shoulder.
That was when she heard the growling behind her.
11
Felicity turned swiftly. Two fast mutants were running towards her through the stalled cars and bodies on the street.
Oh my God.
She didn’t hesitate. She ran.
She ran and ran, her legs pumping in and out, much faster than she had ever done before. She wasn’t exactly a very athletic woman, but she ran this time towards the apartment, which was two blocks away. The brown brick building beckoned enticingly to her. Come home, come home.
That was until she got cut off. A fast mutant appeared in front of her, blocking her path.
Felicity dove to her right. All three mutants gave chase. The tire iron was hot in her hand, and she knew that sooner or later, if she did not find refuge, she would have to turn and fight.
I’m sorry, Oliver. I mightn’t make it back.
She had to drop the bag of medical supplies. It was heavy and it was weighing her down. She ran blindly down an alley, hoping to find a doorway or something she could enter, the way they did the last time. But she stopped short.
Her nightmare was coming true.
Before her stood a tall brick wall, going up until the second storey of the flanking buildings. It had no exit, as far as she could see.
She was trapped.
12
Felicity backed up against the wall. The fast mutants approached, snarling and growling. They were crouched like animals. There were five mutants altogether – four women and a man. Or what used to be four women and a man. The man was in coveralls, so she figured he must have been some municipal worker.
One of the women had only one shoe, and so she walked with a strange gait. From the looks of the shoe, it had once been a stiletto, but it was now mangled. The woman also wore expensive-looking clothes.
Felicity guessed that it didn’t matter what backgrounds you came from – the gods had a way of rolling the dice when it came to mutations.
The first mutant lunged at her, and she struck without thinking twice. The tire iron smashed into the mutant’s face. It did not even cry out, but Felicity heard the bone crack. A depression appeared in the center of the fast mutant’s face, and blood ran out.
Nevertheless, the blood which ran out was not bright and red but sluggish and very dark. She didn’t think it was venous blood either. More like blood which congealed in a body for a long time.
The fast mutants were animated corpses.
But what animated
them? She had to find out quickly or her life (and Oliver’s) would be forfeit.
She smashed the tire iron into the next mutant which lunged at her. The iron took it by the side of the head. Once again, Felicity heard the skull crack. But that didn’t seem to stop them. It slowed them down, but they reanimated again and came for her.
Now she was really scared. She wasn’t going to get out of this alive. How did you fight something which couldn’t stay down, despite being dead?
Desperately, she smashed and slashed her way blindly – all around her. Her blood was beating wildly in her ears and everywhere else. She could hear her heart throbbing quickly . . . ba dup, bad dup, ba dup, like a countdown to what must be her final seconds.
Then –
Shadows sprung from behind the mutants. There was growling, snarling and the gnashing of teeth. Felicity was sure that she was a goner now. More fast mutants, she thought faintly. Goodbye, world. Goodbye, Oliver.
Then she realized that the new beasts which joined them were wolves.
Very large wolves.
Felicity watched, stunned, as the wolves attacked the fast mutants. The wolves went for the jugular in each instance, and although the fast mutants tried to fend them off – biting back and clubbing skulls – the wolves were more cunning and vicious. The fast mutants were mindless, after all, driven by a primal hunger for meat and blood or whatever got them going. The air was permeated with the iron scent of blood and the sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh.
Her feet were rooted to the spot. She could only watch the carnage going on around her. Her own blood was now frozen in her veins.
After a while, it occurred to her that every single mutant was now down. The wolves were staring at her. Like they wanted to eat her.
Or not. She didn’t know. But they all had that watchful hunger on their faces. That predatory hunger which spoke of so many primal needs.
Thank you, she wanted to say, but her vocal chords were frozen. Did one speak to wolves?
The lead wolf was a large grey male with brilliant green eyes. It regarded her with caution. Dark blood dripped from its muzzle.
Run, she told herself, even though she felt like rooting herself to the spot to watch what was unfolding.
Her feet actually obeyed her this time.
She ran.
The wolves did not follow. Which made her think they were more than just pack animals which had wandered into the city once all hell broke loose.
When she turned swiftly to look back, the lead wolf’s eyes were following her.
13
Somehow, Felicity made it back to the penthouse without incident. Maybe the wolves had killed all the fast mutants in the vicinity. Maybe the fast mutants were gathering even as she was thinking such thoughts. She must have taken all of two minutes to sprint down the rest of the two blocks, and somehow, it felt like a lifetime.
She was glad she had managed to secrete some antibiotics into the pockets of her jacket, seeing as she did drop the bag of medicines. The front doors did not appear tampered with, and she was very glad when they opened to her key.
Once inside, she made her way upstairs to where she had left Oliver. Every step she took was cloaked in trepidation. What if he was a corpse where she had left him? What if he had turned into a fast mutant and he was waiting to turn on her even as she walked through the door?
She stopped when she reached the top of the stairs.
“Oliver?” she called.
No answer. There was no sound either. If there was a fast mutant around, he would have probably reacted to the sound of her voice.
More bravely than she felt, she walked into the master bedroom. Oliver was still on the bed, covered by the blanket. He looked so pale than her heart almost stopped.
“Oliver?” she said in a small, frightened voice.
She rushed up to him. He was still breathing, thank goodness, although a fresh trail of blood now oozed out of the left side of his mouth. How long did it take people to die once they reached this state? She didn’t know. Maybe different people reacted differently.
She peeled back his eyelids. To her alarm, his eyes were very red. His body was burning up once again.
“Don’t quit on me yet, Oliver.”
She took out the antibiotics and the syringes. She withdrew the entire vial into a syringe. She didn’t think it would work on the virus, but she had to do something. Throwing back the blanket, she found a vein in his forearm and injected the antibiotic in. Then she sat back to watch him.
She said, “I almost died out there, you know. You didn’t ask me to go out there for you, but I did it anyway. I sort of did it for myself, because it’s only a matter of time before it happens to me too.”
She paused.
“I hope you do wake up, because it’s going to be quiet without you.”
She wondered if she should be taking the antibiotics herself. She was already exposed to the virus, so it had to take seed in her now. But she didn’t feel unwell.
“Oh, what the hell,” she said aloud.
She took off her jacket and lay beside him on the bed. Then she took his hand – his hot, hot hand – and held it in hers. Then she shut her eyes to the horrors of the world and promptly fell asleep.
*
The next day, Oliver’s fever broke.
She didn’t know if it was the antibiotics or his own immune system fighting back. Why him and not the thousands who perished at the hospital, right? It wasn’t exactly as though they ran out of antibiotics. Ran out of people to give them to, more likely.
But when she woke up, the sheets were all stained once more with his sweat. Nevertheless, his skin was much, much cooler. In his illness, his beauty had taken on a gleaming, gaunt quality, and he actually looked ethereal.
So much like an angel, she thought.
She let him sleep all day. And the next. She slept next to him, and each night, his body seemed to mend. His bleeding stopped. She didn’t want to take chances anyway, and every day, she injected him with the antibiotics.
Then finally, his eyes fluttered open one evening.
“What happened?” he said hoarsely when he saw her face.
She smiled down at him. “You died. Sort of.”
“Was it all a bad dream? The deaths. The virus. The mutants.”
“No. It happened. All of it.”
He smiled weakly. “Damn. I was sort of hoping.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
He looked around him. “This is your room.”
“Not really. I borrowed it. I thought you needed a bigger bed to trash in.”
He turned his head and glanced at the indented pillow beside his. If he suspected she had been sleeping next to him, he wisely didn’t say anything.
“I’m still alive,” he marveled.
“So you are.”
“You kept me alive.” He raised his eyes to hers.
She suspected he knew more from his illness than she was letting on.
She smiled again. “So I did.”
“I’m hungry. And thirsty as hell. Say . . . you feel like playing Truth or Dare again?”
She laughed.
He was back all right.
*
Oliver regained his strength over the next few days. There was a gym in the penthouse, and he started to walk on the treadmill and do some weights to speed up his healing process and muscle tone.
She watched him do his push-ups. He was wearing only a sleeveless tee and some gym shorts he had appropriated from the closet, and he really looked nice doing so. His muscles were sleek and sweaty as he pumped them in and out.
Very, very nice. Her mouth went ever slightly so dry.
“Oliver,” she called. “You beat this thing . . . this virus. But I wouldn’t be pushing it so soon after your recovery, if you know what I mean.”
“I feel fine,” he said. His body gleamed with a sheen of sweat. “Why don’t you join me? Come on, I’ll teach you to do some pushups. They’ll be good f
or you.”
“Are you implying I’m fat?” She recoiled in mock horror.
“I’m implying you need exercise to stay healthy.” He got to his feet and clapped his hands together. “Come on, Felicity. What’re you scared of? That you’d collapse after three pushups?”
She was afraid she couldn’t even do one pushup.
“Kind of,” she admitted.
“We all have to start somewhere. Best we stay healthy. Wouldn’t want your wolf friends to make mincemeat out of us that easily.”
She told him everything, of course. Everything about finding everyone dead except for the wolves. (She considered the fast mutants dead.)
She knew he was right.
“Don’t laugh at me,” she warned him.
“I won’t.” He kept his face poker. “Let’s start with something a little lighter, shall we?”
He selected two 5 pound barbells from the rack.
“Let’s see you start with some lunges,” he said.
He showed her how to do a lunge. She had to take one step forward and bend her knee completely to a ninety degree angle, followed by another large step. It wasn’t what she was expecting.
“It’s to strengthen your thigh muscles. You need to strengthen your core,” he explained. “That way, if you have to outrun the mutants again . . . or those wolves, and I’m thinking that would happen pretty soon . . . you need a lot more strength and endurance.”
“And I need to lose weight,” she said.
“That’s a given.” He kept his face straight. “So work with me.”
“Those wolves didn’t chase me.”
“Maybe it’s because they have fresh kills waiting to be eaten. Give them time and they might decide they don’t want the taste of rotting meat.”
She hesitated. “I don’t know. I didn’t think so. Those wolves seemed . . . intelligent.”
“They came from the forest, probably. Smelled the carnage on the wind, and came down to see what they could find. When they run out of fresh meat, they might decide to stake us out.”