by A. Giacomi
I continue to crawl toward Cameron, struggling as I gain each inch. When I reach him, I simply lay beside him and stroke his hair. I had always loved this man, but perhaps I had never known quite how much I did until this very moment. I had lost a friend, I had lost a future, I had lost everything. All I could hope for now was that The Dark King and Cameron were right, that this was my destiny and all this would die with me.
It had been a long enough battle with this virus, curse, whatever you wanted to call it, and I was tired now. I wanted it all to be over and the best place I could think of to die would be next to the man I love. I kiss his lips a final time, they’re still slightly warm.
“I hope you’re right, Cameron, I hope to see you again somewhere, but in case I don’t I hope you know that I’m here with you now and I’ll never leave you again.”
I sob as I hold the gun up to my temple and clutch Cameron’s hand. I didn’t sob for my ending, I sobbed for oblivion. Not knowing what came next terrified me, but it couldn’t be much worse than this.
Squeezing Cam’s hand as I squeeze the trigger, I sigh a final, “Goodbye.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DR. AUGUST
Driving up to the welcome sign for Little Lake, I notice a military vehicle parked and left behind. “It has to be her,” I say to myself. I stare over a little Abeni who is tucked in the passenger seat as best as I could manage. I prayed that Eve would still be here, something told me she would be, something told me that this story would somehow come full circle.
“Abeni, I hope I can find your mommy, I hope we’re not too late. She would love to meet you. She doesn’t even know you’re still alive, but if she had, I assure you, she would be right here right now,” I say as I stroke her hair.
We continue to drive through the abandoned town. Not a soul remained, not even a zombie seemed to lurk anywhere. The vehicle crawls until I reach Eve’s home. Racing up the driveway I knock on the door only to find it’s open. Screaming for Eve brings no reply, she isn’t here, but where is she?
Getting back into the car I patrol the area once more, none of the houses seemed disturbed and the only other place I hadn’t checked was a park. As I sit in its parking lot, I don’t see a sign of anyone at all. I’m about to drive off when I hear a gunshot. I put the car in park and strap Abeni to me. Racing toward to the sound, I pray it’s not Eve’s body I find laying on the ground. “For god sakes,” I say out loud, “just let her meet her daughter!”
Abeni barely stirs as I continue to move as quickly as an old man could toward what could only be her mother. When I find myself at a bridge I notice a few bodies on the ground at the other end. My heart nearly escapes my chest as I pray they might still live. What I find on the other side of the bridge is Agent Williams with his brains blown out and Eve ready to do just the same.
“Stop!” I yell out desperately.
Eve opens her eyes and releases her finger from the trigger. She is both distraught and happy. “Dr. August? How did you find me? ” She grins through her sobs.
That’s when I notice Cameron’s lifeless body lying next to her, I suppose the ritual had been completed and Eve had nothing left to lose now.
Racing over to her and embracing her, I think not about the possibility of her turning, but clearly she looked ill, she had but moments left to her.
It takes her only a moment to notice little Abeni who was now wide awake. As she stares at the child, a realization strikes her, every mother knows her own child. It is something innate and magical. Eve doesn’t ask who the child is, she simply asks, “How?”
“It’s simple, Marcus and the Doctor lied to you. She hadn’t died, she had been stored in a sense. They had her frozen like Vincent when we found her.”
The mention of his name makes Eve wince. “He didn’t make it Doc. I’m sorry.”
I had assumed as much. “I’m sorry too, he was a great man, and thankfully a great help to you. I’m just sorry I couldn’t save you both.”
Eve shushes me, “You weren’t meant to. This is all part of a bigger plan apparently, and I think I get it now,” she says as she beams over Abeni. “May I hold her?”
I hesitate, but then hand her the child, how could I deny her that?
Eve understands my hesitation and hands me the gun. “Just as a precaution, Doc,” she says with a familiar smirk.
Eve holds her tightly to her and Abeni takes to her instantly. Perhaps she knew it was her mother, perhaps that sense of knowing occurred at both ends.
“Eve there’s one more thing I must tell you. We ran a few DNA tests on her back in Ottawa…and although Agent Williams insisted the child was his, there is no possible way that dead DNA and dead DNA can survive. However, there is a slight chance of mixing live DNA with dead DNA.”
“Cut to the chase, Doc. I don’t have long,” Eve says impatiently.
“Well you see, Cameron is her father. Her DNA matches his. They must have extracted his DNA to finish the experiment. They must have realized it was the only way.”
Eve clutches Cam’s dead hand and squeezes her eyes shut. I could only imagine the pain she feels as she stares at the last bit of Cameron that was left.
“I guess it’s a blessing then, Doc. She’s a tiny miracle you could say. It’s sort of nice thinking I’m leaving something good behind, you know?”
Eve begins to look dizzy, and she hands the child back to me knowing full well she wouldn’t have full control of her body soon. I try to give her back her gun, but she asks me to hold it a moment longer as she reaches behind her neck for something, a clasp to a necklace that she releases from her neck and hands to me.
“Give this to her when she’s older, please. It’s not the original locket, I had lost my faith in it and left it behind. I realize now that faith is very important, and ritual even more so since it gets passed down through generations. When you leave here, I want you to go back to my house and grab a few photos for her, place one of Cam and one of myself in the locket, I want her to know her parents cared about her, even though they couldn’t be with her.”
Eve looks at Abeni tragically, it wasn’t fair to stare at a future you couldn’t have, but circumstance can’t be helped sometimes, so we greet it with acceptance, which was what Eve was trying to muster.
“What do you call her?” Eve asks looking much less like herself, she was fading fast.
“I named her Abeni. It means ‘the girl we prayed for’ I call her Beni for short. I think she likes it too,” I say with a wistful grin.
Eve smiles lightly. “I really like it, it’s a great name, Dr. August. Promise me you’ll take care of her, please. I wish I had more time, but I have to go now.”
Eve’s eyes roll to the back of her head, the turn was happening, I pass her the gun which she fumbles for at first, but finds herself once more. She lays next to Cameron and places the gun to her temple once more. “Doc, take care of her. Abeni, I love you, I hope you know that!” She forces through her mouth before pulling the trigger.
The sound echoes over the lake. I hold Abeni tightly to me, I didn’t want her to see what lay before me. Two corpses, both alike in honor and dignity, laying side by side where they belonged, heroes in their own right. Two people little Abeni would never have the pleasure to meet, but I think she would always know them in her heart.
My legs betray me slightly as I turn to leave my friends. It was almost impossible to walk away from them, but I had a promise to keep. I was a guardian now, and I had to stay two steps ahead of everyone in order to keep the child safe.
With every step away from them, I feel a tear in my heart, I would never see them again, but at least they were at peace now.
***
When I return to Eve’s house, I take Abeni inside with me. She needed to see this place, even if she would never remember it. It was her right to experience the home in which her mother
grew up, where her father hung out, and her Aunt Alex’s sanctuary. I could almost hear the three of them in here, still alive with the thrill of adventure on their mind, but they were ghosts now, ghosts of a better time.
Heading upstairs, I stop in Eve’s room and place Abeni on Eve’s rather large bed. Beni begins to play with her feet as I begin looking for photos. A few rest along the mirror of her dresser. There is one of her family, and a few of her with Cameron and Alex. I take them all, each photo was proof of their existence and I refused to have them all disappear. They deserved to be remembered, mourned, and honored.
Abeni giggles at the poster on the ceiling. When I look up I spy a poster of Spider-Man looking down at her. “You like the poster, don’t you, sweetie?” I say with a grin. “Mommy liked it too, I think we’ll take it with us.”
Heroes were important, I’m not sure Eve ever expected to be one, but it became clear as we drove through many other towns and cities that the zombies were just dropping dead, and they didn’t rise again. With her sacrificing her own life, the curse had been lifted and Abeni and I were free to rebuild some sort of a life. I could only hope I would live long enough to usher her into adulthood and prepare her for a world after the war with the undead.
It was sure to be a new world after this…how could it not be?
PART 3: THE FUTURE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BENI
As I finish my chores for the day, I hear Dad yelling for me. Although I answered back, he couldn’t quite hear me as well these days. I drop my trowel and head in to greet him. I could always finish cleaning up my planting gear later. Brushing off my dirty jeans, I head inside to see what he wanted. I am shocked to find two other men with him when I enter the house.
“Who are you?” I yell out.
One man is dressed quite fancy in a suit while the other wears military gear and carries a gun. These are the sort of men Dad had warned me about all these years. He told me if these men ever appeared, that I should attack them without mercy and run away. I had not forgotten my training, but my father was now too frail to move, and I wouldn’t leave him.
“You best tell me who you are quickly, or I’ll slaughter you both.”
They chuckle, clearly unafraid of death; clearly, they didn’t know what I was capable of. I suppose it was time I showed them, but as I approach, my father holds his hand up to halt me.
“Daughter,” he says weakly, “let us hear what they have to say first, let’s not make rash decisions…remember rash decisions lead to…”
“Lead to reckless actions…yes, yes, Father, I know that,” I say rolling my eyes. It was his favorite saying since I could remember. Apparently, I had a bit of a temper, so it had become my mantra to help control myself. I didn’t agree that I had a temper, but I suppose anyone with a temper would say that. “So why are you men here? Start talking,” I say impatiently.
“Oh my, is she ever just like her mother,” the man in the fancy suit says with a grin.
“Mother?” I say puzzled.
Father looks uncomfortable as he responds to the man in the fancy suit, “I haven’t told her about her mother yet. She’s not quite sixteen, and that was our deal. We were going to wait until she turned sixteen to tell her everything.”
The man in the fancy suit then turns to me. “When are you sixteen, dear?”
“I’ll be sixteen in two days,” I say as I cross my arms.
“Two days? You hear that, Walther? We’re not all that early.” The well-dressed man chuckles.
“Early is early,” Father says sternly. “I want some time with her. I need to tell her everything before you take her with you.”
“Any chance you could make it a day sooner? Things are growing quite dire and we need the girl,” the man says while slicking back his salt and pepper hair.
“Fine, one more day, see you in twenty- four hours,” my father says as he points to the door.
The two men leave looking rather disappointed, but they don’t put up a fight.
“Father, who were those men?” I ask, curiosity getting the best of me. I was happy they were gone, but they wouldn’t be gone for long.
“Beni, you should sit down, dear. There’s much to tell you and not much time,” he says as he points a shaky finger toward a nearby chair.
“Beni, I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to begin this story. So instead I think I’ll show you something first.”
My father reaches behind his neck and unclasps a necklace that had been hiding under his sweater. He hands it to me ever so delicately, almost as if it were a living creature. The necklace is gold with an oval pendant hanging from it, I realize quickly that the pendant opens. Inside lies a lock of hair, a picture of a lovely woman, and a man with a large smile.
“Who are these people, Father?” I ask unable to put the pieces together.
“I am not your father, dear,” he says sorrowfully as he points to the images in the locket. “Those were your rightful parents. I have been merely a guardian ensuring your safety.”
“Where are they now?”
He does not reply.
“They’re dead aren’t they?”
He nods, taking one of my hands into his and squeezing it gently.
“I’m sorry, Beni. The rest of the tale does not get much better. Your mother, Eve, she was a very strong woman, just as you are. She incurred a terrible curse while on an adventure with me in Egypt. Your father was there as well, as was your Aunt Alex.”
He then hands me a photo of the three of them, they looked so happy, so carefree and so young. What curse could have befallen them?
“Your mother became one of the undead.”
I gasp, “You mean like one of those monsters you’ve been telling me about for years?” I had never seen one, from what I had heard, they had all become extinct anyway.
“Yes, like those, but unique. Although she was cursed with the same illness, she was stronger than the others, she gained abilities along with her hunger for human flesh. She had been chosen, although she didn’t know it then.”
“Chosen,” I repeat. “Well, what does chosen entail?”
“Chosen meant that she would live, she would suffer, and she would die for us. Your mother was the world’s savior.”
A sense of pride beamed over me, my mother had been a hero, perhaps some of her lived inside of me. I could only hope to be as brave. “And what of my father?” I ask impatiently.
“Sadly, he died before he had a chance to meet you, my dear, but he would have loved you. He would have been a great father, done everything better than his own father. For his father was quite the failure at that and your father, Cameron, would never repeat those flaws with you… Your father sacrificed his heart to settle a debt that was incurred many centuries before he was even born.”
“Who was he indebted to?” I ask still confused by the entire idea of donating a heart to save the world instead of a single human being.
“I’m not sure you’ll believe it when I tell you, but the heart was sacrificed to the devil himself. The sacrifice of a pure heart silenced him and cleansed the Earth of his evil powers. The zombies grew weak, and your mother was the key to their extinction, when she gave her life…all the dead that walked the Earth died with her. So you see, they saved us.”
I wanted to know so much more about them, but I knew that I could only ever understand glimpses of who they were, I would have to borrow Walther’s brain in order to see his memories in order to fully understand who my parents had been before the devastation.
“So what of me, Father? Why is it I must leave our home?” I ask as I put on the locket.
“This was always meant to be a temporary home. I just wanted to give you a normal life for as long as I could. I knew one day I would grow too old to care for you, so I made a deal with the man you met today. He will take
over guardianship tomorrow.”
I rise from my chair irritated by his response. “I don’t want to go with him, I want to stay with you!”
“Beni, sit dear, sit and be reasonable. I won’t be here much longer. I have grown ill and you would be left here alone. I can’t have that. I had promised your mother I would take care of you and that’s what I’ve done and will continue to do, I have your best interests at heart so don’t fret please, trust me. You will like your new surroundings. This place we call home is but a hidden space, the world has advanced and become more amazing than you can imagine. You need to be a part of that, meet people your age, enjoy your life…for I cannot follow you.”
“Father please, don’t speak like this. You’re not dying!”
He looks at me more seriously now. “Daughter, my heart has grown weak. It is a fact. I will not last more than a few weeks.”
“No,” I gasp sitting down once more. “I can’t leave you then, I must stay. When you pass I will leave, but don’t let me leave you like this, who will stay with you?”
“No one, my dear, I wish to be alone. It’s what I want, to be alone with my thoughts and try to forgive myself for my many wrongs. I will spend my final days cleansing my soul. There is nothing here for you, my dear.”
I hug him as my tears begin to fall, careful not to squeeze him too hard. “But Father, why have you hidden me so long only to send me away?”
“It was necessary. You are special as you know. You carry great power within your heart. It makes you stronger than any human, faster than any animal, and also makes you terribly dangerous. Control your temper as I’ve always told you, you have great power within you…but channeling it will be your challenge. Remember to always use it for good.”