by Gen Griffin
My heart was pounding in my chest as I swung blindly into the churning mass of rotting humanity. I couldn't see Seth at all now. I could hear people yelling, cussing and screaming but I couldn't match faces to voices. Maybe some of the screams were coming from my people, but the zombies were screaming too.
“Pilar?” A rotting, swollen face appeared just inches from the end of my nose. I screamed out of reflex.
The zombie grabbed my arm. “Pilar, stop! It's me.”
“Me?” I couldn't see past the filthy, tangled blonde hair or the layers of flesh that were peeling off the zombie's face. It's fingers were all swollen to triple the size of normal digits.
Maybe this thing did know my name, but I couldn't even tell whether it was male or female.
I tried to yank away but the zombie didn't release me. “You're going to get yourself killed,” it hissed at me. “Stop fighting.”
“If I stop fighting, I'll die.” I raised my knife up a second time, poised to strike the zombie's hand. If I stabbed through it's flesh, the monster might let go.
“Pilar, it's me. Carla.” The thing hissed through it's loose, mangled teeth.
I froze in place. I did know Carla. She'd lived in Block D. We'd been friendly, if not truly friends. Our mothers knew one another from before the apocalypse. Was it really Carla under the filth and rotting flesh?
“Carla?”
The zombie nodded her swollen head as two more zombies came crashing past us. These two had forgotten to attack us humans and turned on one another, ripping each other's flesh to shreds. “Come on, Pilar. You have run.”
“I can't-.”
“Our orders are to bring him back alive. It doesn't matter who else lives or dies.” Carla was towing me towards the tunnel that would lead deeper into the Cube.
“Him?”
“The boy with the ruined eye. The half-zombie.”
“Seth.” His named came to my lips without conscious thought. I'd quit struggling now. Standing near the edge of the room, I could see now that we weren't going to win this battle. We were outnumbered by more than a dozen to one. Gauge and Seth were no longer side-by -side. They had been separated by a horde of biting, clawing undead. Zombies stood three or four deep inside the tunnel that we'd come from. They were still watching from the ceiling above too. Ready to jump down should there be any floor space for them to occupy. Every time a zombie fell, a new one appeared to take its place. The wounded zombies were falling so fast that we were now standing on top of what was essentially a carpet of dead body parts. No one seemed to notice except for me.
Vera was screaming as she decapitated an old, fat man, only to have a second zombie knock her off of her feet. She disappeared into the rapidly moving, churning horde. Her screams cut off abruptly as three zombies fell on her.
“Run, Pilar. You can still save yourself.” The thing that had once been Carla shoved me towards the empty tunnel.
“I can't leave-.” I looked for Seth again. I couldn't see him now. Too many zombies were in the way. Gauge was trying to peel the zombies away from where Vera had fallen. Liam and several of the others had disappeared completely. One of the Church members, a blonde boy whose name was something that started with a C-, was dead on the floor. His throat had been ripped out. A zombie had her face buried in the soft, meaty part of his stomach. She was devouring his entrails.
“You can't save him.”” Carla shoved me again. Harder this time. “Not if you want to see your father again.”
I froze on my feet. My breath caught in my chest. “Dad's still alive?”
“Bud left him here for you. He's chained up in the hospital ward. You could save him.” Carla smiled. It was an absolutely terrifying expression. “Unless the high priest means more to you than your father does?”
My Dad or Seth. It was a choice I'd never imagined I'd have to make.
I looked to the nightmare in the center of the room again. Seth had disappeared into the horde. If Gauge and Vera couldn't make through the room and out the tunnel then I didn't stand a prayer. I'd be of absolutely no use to anyone if I died. Besides, my Dad might still be alive. I couldn't come this far and then leave without knowing what happened to him. I needed to know that I'd done all I could to save him. Even if the tunnel that lead to the outside of the Cube had been completely clear, I couldn't leave now. I had to try to save Dad.
“The hospital ward?” I repeated the words back to Carla.
“He's waiting on you,” she confirmed.
With one last look back over my shoulder and a silent prayer, I ran into the tunnel that would take me into the depths of the Cube.
Chapter 8
The tunnel was dark, dank and it stank of rotting flesh but nothing attacked me as I ran away from the fight that was raging behind me. I ran as fast as my booted feet would carry me. My backpack of supplies was thumping hard against my spine and my lungs ached from the effort of drawing enough air in.
I didn't dare stop to see if Carla or anyone else had followed me, though I prayed that everyone had been too busy to notice I was gone. Or at least, that they wouldn't follow me.
Maybe it was stupid to keep trying to save my Dad when the logical part of my brain kept telling me that he was probably either dead or a zombie by now. Maybe I was a fool for hanging onto the thinnest shred of hope. Maybe I'd always been a fool and death was the inevitable outcome regardless of what had happened to my Dad. Regardless of what the truth was, I didn't want anyone else to die because of my decisions.
The tunnel took a sharp curve and I nearly fell, scraping my arm on the rough wall as I hit it too hard. Momentarily stunned, I leaned against the familiar concrete block. Someone or something was running down the tunnel, their loud footfalls coming from the same direction I had just come from. I was being chased. Shit.
The muscles in my legs and back burned with exertion as I sprinted through dark corridor after dark corridor. The only light came from sparsely placed emergency lamps. Half of those had burned out long ago. I focused all my energy in putting one foot in front of the other. Just one foot in front of the other. Just one foot in front of the other and sooner or later, this nightmare would be over.
A door loomed ahead of me in the darkness. It was thick and metal. There was no window or sign posted on it to indicate what I would find on the other side. I pushed it open with little hesitation and spilled out into a room that was all too familiar. I shoved the door closed behind me and slipped a heavy locking bolt into place just as the zombie that had been chasing me smashed into the door.
A raspy voice screamed with fury and pounded against the metal as my exhausted, burning legs gave out and I fell to the floor with my back against the door.
Zombie infested or not, I was finally home. Or, at least, I was back where my home had once been.
Chapter 9
The Cube's massive cafeteria was filthy and covered in bloody little zombie pieces. The walls and floors were smeared with dried blood and hardened gristle. Every so often I spotted a smashed or crushed metal can. The smell was so godawful bad that I had to pinch my nose shut as I stumbled my way through the massive room. There had been a battle of some kind here, in this room that had served 14,000 meals daily for the last 28 years. I wondered if many of my friends and neighbors had put up a fight or if they had simply allowed themselves to be torn to pieces?
Some had put up a fight, certainly. Brave of them, considering that weapons were illegal in the Cube. The Powers That Be had confiscated every knife and gun years ago. Disarming the people had undoubtedly made it much easier to kidnap them from their beds and sell them at the meat market in Ra Shet.
I sighed as a wave of exhaustion crashed over me. What I would give to be able to turn back the clock by six months. To see my mother's gently smiling face as she kissed me on the cheek before I headed off to my shift in the hospital ward. To feel my dad's thick arms around me as he hugged me. To hear my best friend Julienne's laughter echoing through the concrete block halls one last ti
me. Of course, Julienne had been dead for a lot longer than six months. Maybe I needed to turn the clock back by a few years. Back to when Drake Bledsoe had still been my ideal hero and the decisions made by Powers That Be had seemed harsh but fair.
Something crashed in the kitchen and I jumped. The silence around me was suddenly too loud, almost deafening. The zombie that had been hitting the door I'd locked had stopped banging on it.
I took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together. I couldn't afford to lose myself in the memories of what my life had once been. Not if I wanted to find Dad. I owed it to him to find him. And maybe, just maybe, if he wasn't a zombie yet, then we could be a family again.
I barely dared to hope as I pushed open the main doors on the far end of the cafeteria from where I had entered. The heavy double doors opened easily and I found myself standing in a hallway that I'd stood in a thousand times before. Three more flights of stairs and I could be home. The thought sent a fresh wave of heartbreak through my already battered soul.
For the briefest of moments, I was tempted to forget about the zombies, my Dad and the Church of Chaos. I wanted nothing more than to lay down in my own bed, pull my familiar blue comforter over my head and wait to wake up from this nightmare.
Except that the Powers That Be had made me clean out our apartment before I'd left for my first mission with the the Scavengers. Even if I went home now, it wouldn't really be my home. Some other girl had been sleeping in my bed. Her clothes were filling the chest of drawers where mine had once bed.
My heart ached as I mentally prepared myself for the worst. Carla had said that Dad was in the hospital ward. If I were my Dad, or any survivor, where would I be? The hospital ward was a logical enough choice, but it also seemed too easy.
Way too easy. I could almost hear Seth's skeptical voice in my head. Sure thing, Pi. Run as fast as you can for the hospital ward. That's where the zombie says your Dad is waiting for you. The zombie would never lie, would she? I voiced the words out loud and then swallowed unhappily as they echoed off the blood spattered walls around me.
How had Carla known that I was looking for my Dad?
Why had she been so eager to tell me where he was?
Seth had once told me that if victory came to easy then it was probably some sort of trap. Crap. I'd let my emotions get the best of me once again. All Carla had to do was mention my father might still be alive and I'd abandoned all thoughts of escaping the Cube.
I'd reacted with my gut instead of my head. Now I was alone inside the Cube. I crossed my fingers and sent up a prayer that Carla was still the a well-meaning friend that she had once been to me. It was too late for me to turn back now. I'd never get back down the tunnel and, even if I made it to where Seth and others had been, the fight was probably over.
Carla had said Bud wanted Seth alive. I hoped alive meant unhurt.
I decided to head for the hospital ward on the second floor. Even if Dad wasn't up there, Bud Moon's zombie serum had been injected into all his test victims. Chances were pretty high that he'd infected the Cube's entire population using the same method. If there were any survivors, maybe they'd decided to try seek medical treatment. Maybe Dr. Zeb had been able to find a cure. Unlikely, but I clung to the faint hope that maybe all wasn't lost as I headed towards the stairs.
I was on the fourth step when I heard a familiar voice calling my name.
Chapter 10
“Pilar.” His voice was a deep baritone that didn't match his slender shoulders and boyish good looks. “Is that really you?”
All my faint hopes that I wasn't walking into a trap dissolved in an instant. I swallowed nervously and debated whether I could get back down to the main floor faster than Jeb Moon could get from the second floor landing to me. Gravity was in my favor, but my balance wasn't. If I tried to sprint down the stairs, I would likely break my neck.
“Jeb?”
“I thought you were dead. I can't believe you're here.” Jeb Moon took two clumsy steps towards me. His thin green pants were crusty and dark with dried blood. His once boyishly handsome face was filthy with dried dirt and god only knew what else.
“I had to come back.” I took a single step backwards. I didn't owe Jeb any explanations.
“You're not running from me, are you Pi?” Jeb appeared strangely disappointed in me. “Don't you know there are zombies everywhere?”
“Are you a zombie?” It probably wasn't the most clever thing I'd ever said, but I didn't see any point in skating around the question.
“Am I a zombie?” Jeb threw back his head and laughed. The echoes boomed through the narrow staircase. He sounded like a donkey braying. “Am I a zombie?”
“Well, are you?” I snapped. Jeb had joined the Scavengers shortly before I had. He'd made the choice to come back the Cube with Drake when I had fled. His brother was the person responsible for the newly modified zombie virus.
“Would I tell you if I were?” Jeb countered.
“I don't know. Would you?” I took another step backwards as Jeb took another step towards me.
“Depends. Would you abandon me the way my brother did?” Jeb let out another braying laugh. “Be grateful you ran away when you did, Pilar. Be grateful that you weren't in the Cube when people started getting sick and turning into zombies. Be grateful that you didn't have to spend weeks of your life scrubbing bloody puke off the hallways until everyone got too sick. The Powers That Be fled for the city of Ra Shet. Most of the survivors fled with them. There's been some talk about taking over the city. I guess that was Bud's plan all along.”
“Bud is invading the city?” The news wasn't exactly a surprise.
“Maybe. Who knows.” Jeb shrugged his bulky shoulders. “All I know is that he took all the people who were still healthy out of the Cube. Bud said I could go with them too, but when the time came, Bud screwed me over. He asked me to stay with the second group of healthy survivors until he came back for us with the buses. You see, we had too many survivors for one trip. We waited by the garage bays for days. Me and a bunch of people from blocks E and F.”
“Bud abandoned you?” I didn't believe that lie for a minute. Bud and Jeb had been close. If Bud had left his beloved kid brother behind then there was a reason for it.
Trap, Seth's voice said in my head. You've walked into a trap. Get out now.
Except there was no exit.
“No one ever came back for us,” Jeb rambled on. “The first group of survivors got to escape but they never came with the buses to get the rest of us. We tried to open the doors ourselves, but by that point it was too late. They'd locked the garage bays from the outside. We're trapped in here. Trapped with all the zombies.”
Jeb finished closing the distance between us. His familiar eyes looked just as human as they ever had. I couldn't see any open wounds on his bare arms. His breath was rancid when he smiled at me, but that wasn't proof that he was a zombie. Just proof that his hygiene wasn't what it had once been.
“You're still human.” I barely realized I had said the words out loud.
“Weird, isn't it?” Jeb was still smiling. “I guess I was one of the few who got a good vaccine. Lucky me.”
“A good vaccine?” I asked.
Jeb nodded. “That's how all this started, don't you know?”
“I haven't-.”
“Oh right, you wouldn't know.” His eyes flickered strangely in the dim light. “Bud created a vaccine that was supposed to make us all immune to the zombie virus. He said we would be able to leave the Cube. He promised we could all be free and we wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.”
“He injected everyone in the Cube with his modified zombie virus.” The true horror of it hit me full force.
“Not a zombie virus. A vaccine against the zombie virus. Aren't you listening at all?” Jeb seemed far too amused for someone who was supposedly trapped and abandoned in a decaying prison full of zombies. “At any rate, everyone took it. We were all really happy, you know?”
“I can imagine.” It was a lie. I couldn't imagine. “Wasn't there anyone who didn't want to take the shot?”
“Oh, sure there were a few doubters. People who didn't believe the vaccine was going to work. Dr. Zeb was one of them. He refused to give people the vaccine, so Bud had him executed.”
“Dr. Zeb is dead?” The horrors kept mounting.
“He destroyed an entire batch of vaccines by throwing them off the fourth floor balcony. The Powers That Be charged him with treason and executed him.”
“Oh god. Poor Dr. Zeb.” I immediately mourned the man who had been both a boss and mentor to me. Another person I had trusted, slaughtered by the Powers That Be.
“He deserved it,” Jeb said. “But then again, maybe he was right because people started getting sick a week or so after the vaccines were given.”
“Getting sick?”
“Uh huh. Bad sick. Throwing up blood. Screaming. Bleeding from their eyeballs. And no one could do anything for them because the only real doctor we had was Dr. Zeb and he was already dead.”
“The sick people turned into zombies, didn't they?” I considered telling Jeb that the vaccine they had taken was actually the zombie virus itself in a modified injectable version but it seemed like a waste of time. If he was working with Bud then he already knew the truth. If he was already telling the truth then he most likely wouldn't believe me if I told him that his brother had intentionally infected everyone with the zombie virus.
“A lot of people got sick and turned, but the vaccine did work. Some of us are fine. I'm fine.” Jeb held out his arms in a broad sweep.
I very much doubted that he was fine. I'd read Bud Moon's notebooks and his notes on the modified virus had stated that some subjects hadn't shown signs of infection for months after injection. Jeb was most likely a zombie and just didn't know it yet. I briefly debated sharing this knowledge and then stopped myself. I had more important things to worry about than the state of Jeb's mortality. “If everyone turned into zombies, then why haven't I seen more zombies?”