I didn’t need to feign irritation, and it was a lot easier to concentrate on that over the fright that wanted to close down my throat.
“You should go check on her again. Something’s wrong,” I said, nodding toward Gussy’s cell.
Taggard glanced over his shoulder but that was it. “We just took her vitals. Bitch is still hanging in. Almost a miracle, if you consider it,” he mused, again taunting me.
“But maybe you should check again. She was frothing at the mouth and nose just now. Like she had trouble breathing?” I lied. Heck, if I bit it here, I wanted to make sure to take someone down with me, too. The least I owed her was to give her that chance.
As if on cue, Gussy’s shoulders gave a heave before she sagged back against the glass, her face turned conveniently toward her chest. Taggard hesitated, but then turned from me back to his people. “Go check on her again. If she’s actually biting it, I want that kid out of her before she expires. Can’t use the samples if they’re contaminated.”
That must have been the most fucked-up reasoning ever, and either he said that entirely for my benefit, to further freak me out—or it was fresh on his mind because they’d just been debating that point. Could they really be that inhumanely cruel? But why else keep pregnant women here and treat them in a way that ensured that none of them would carry to term? Because I’d needed one more reason to want to hurl.
No one looked particularly alarmed as they approached Gussy’s cell, likely because it had only been twenty minutes since they’d been in there—and what was more likely, that I offered up something useful, or tried to make a nuisance out of myself?
The glass wasn’t even halfway up yet when Gussy exploded toward the nurses, grabbing the closer one's shoulder and going straight for his neck. Her motions were disjoined and uncoordinated compared to before, but what she was lacking there she obviously made up for in strength. I’d seen that too many times not to expect it, but it still kicked my heart rate up into uncomfortable levels. The nurse started to scream as blood spurted everywhere, a chunk from his throat missing where teeth had shredded skin, muscles, and viscera alike. The other guy tried grabbing Gussy to get her off his colleague, but that only got him a good chunk of his forearm torn out. He staggered back, clutching his injured arm to himself, finally making way for someone competent to take care of the problem, while the second nurse was busy bleeding out on the floor. I expected someone to pull a gun and shoot the zombie straight between the eyes, but instead they gave what used to be Gussy a good shove that sent the body staggering back into the cell, so that when the glass came down again, it was locked in.
“She bit me! She fucking bit me!” the injured guy was screaming, his shouts easily drowning out the hissing and grunting coming from inside the cell. Everyone seemed to be alarmed, and finally someone had the common sense to drop down next to the other nurse and press a hand onto the gaping wound, but he had already stopped kicking. Taggard was the only one not ready to take off running in circles like a headless chicken, which made me guess that he really was one of the old guard—but shit like that wasn’t what they were all used to dealing with. Too bad.
“Don’t you just hate it when that happens?” I asked, forcing levity into my voice that I absolutely didn’t feel. Taggard shot me a bemused look, but the still screaming nurse drew his attention. The guy kept staggering around, looking at his savaged arm as if he still couldn’t believe what had happened. “Don’t worry, you’ll stop feeling anything in a minute from now,” I called out to him, guessing that he would have remained somewhat more composed if he’d known that he couldn’t get infected.
The nurse stopped to stare at me, wide-eyed, before he came toward me, slamming both blood-stained hands against the glass right in front of my face. “You fucking cunt! This is all your fault!”
I blinked innocently at him but made no move to back away.
“So I’m the one who locked her in here and then raped her to within an inch of her life? I think not. But I’d be happy to put you out of your misery. Just open that door and consider it done. I don’t even need a weapon for someone puny like you.” Pausing, I let my grin widen. “Otherwise, settle back for the most excruciatingly painful two days of your life. Been there, done that, can’t really recommend it. Of course I had the advantage of getting up from my deathbed once more. How do you think you will do?”
Sadly, I got no response because two of the guards grabbed the nurse and pulled him away, toward where they all stayed when they weren’t harassing us. Taggard had followed our exchange with a bemused look on his face that was still there when he turned back to me.
“That was downright cruel,” he observed. “You sure you want to keep insisting that you have the moral high ground?”
Leaning close enough that my breath fogged up the glass between us, I let all emotion drain from my face until I was sure that it was just a hard, lifeless mask. “I don’t give a shit about morals.”
Taggard took it with a smile. “We’ll see about that,” he promised me before he turned back to his men. “Take that out back and burn it,” he said, nodding at the dead body on the floor. “And then prep the sample containers. It’s time we harvest them and close up this cycle.”
The guards filed out of the room, with Taggard following them. My stomach sank as I realized what his instructions must have meant. I expected some kind of reaction from the women still alive in the other cells, but deathly quiet settled over the room, only disrupted from time to time when the Gussy zombie pounded against the glass or hissed and gurgled along.
It was only when they returned, wheeling in carts holding surgical tools and shit when something occurred to me. Why had Gussy turned and not just stayed dead? And, even more importantly, why had she known that she would?
Chapter 23
I retreated back to my spot and did my very best to ignore what was going on in the room without appearing like I was fighting hard not to curl in on myself. They didn’t use any anesthetics. Why waste precious medicine? Two of the women weren’t along far enough to more than slightly show so they did the whole thing trans-vaginally. The third they cut open and didn’t bother sewing her up when they were done. She was barely twitching as they dragged her back into her cell, making me pray that she’d already died on that chair and her body hadn’t quite accepted it yet. There were no high-pitched screams, and no one took care cleaning anything. They continued to cut up their “samples” right there on one of the stainless steel carts, dumping small plastic containers into prepped boxes brimming with dry ice.
Not-watching the proceedings made an emotion well up inside of me that I’d never expected to feel, not in my entire life—gratitude. Gratitude that my child had died in what must have been a more humane way when my body had given out. And as much as all the similarities were choking me up, those ill-placed words that Sunny had offered suddenly brought me peace. My child might have ended up in a biohazard waste bag, incinerated until nothing was left rather than getting a real burial, but in the end it amounted to the same—closure. For me, for Nate, and also for that tiny soul that had never had a chance to flare. I doubted that something like this would happen to what ended up embedded in the dry ice. Conservation in formaldehyde it was, if I knew anything about scientists and coroners. To be studied, forever, by generations of curious, misguided minds, for the sake of “science.”
If I’d still been lacking any conviction that I needed to put an end to this, and if it was the last thing I ever did—this did the trick. Not that I was exactly lacking motivation, as such.
It took them forever to be done and clear out of the room, only a few blood stains remaining behind. At least one of the women turned as well, adding to the sounds already coming from across the room. It set my teeth on edge, but in many ways it was a welcome distraction. A real, visceral threat that I could focus on, that I could prepare to fend off. Something to keep my mind from skipping to other things.
There were no patrols, no guards
passing through. Whether it was a trick of my mind or it actually took Taggard a small eternity—much longer than the intervals before—to return I couldn’t say. I wouldn’t have minded at all if he’d taken more time. Of course he wasn’t alone, and they didn’t even bother with the tray this time. So all I had going for me were two empty plastic bottles and what little reserves my starved body still harbored. Just perfect. The only thing I could do was try to find weaknesses where there likely weren’t any. Gussy had mentioned that the father of her child had been acting weird. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I’d singled him out from the pack. He never said anything, never reacted to stimuli, and only did what someone told him to. That still left him capable of doing massive damage to me, but it was my best bet.
Taggard stepped up to my cell while the others remained milling in the background. I debated staying where I was but then came to my feet, doing my very best to face him with ease that I really didn’t feel.
“You know why I’m here?” he asked, very calm, almost jovial.
I gave a shrug, pretending like we were just making pleasant conversation. “Thanks to you giving me ample opportunity to observe, I think I can make an educated guess.”
He nodded, pursing his lips for a second, before a chuckle broke through the facade. “Damn, but you really got a pair of massive balls. Have to hand that to you, cunt.”
I shrugged again. “So I have been told.”
A bemused look crossed his face, but there was too much taunting in his eyes to make it work. “Almost seems like you’re not even afraid. Almost. But not quite.”
I couldn’t hold back a derisive laugh. “Of course I’m afraid. I’m not stupid, just recalcitrant, stubborn, and plain ignorant enough to let me push through that paralyzing dread.” I paused, then crossed my arms over my chest, mimicking his stance. “I’ll let you in on a secret. Fear is a good thing. It keeps me alert. It keeps me ready. Did I almost shit myself right as I drove my car down into the flood plains around Harristown that were teeming with zombies? You bet. But that kept me focused and got me out of there alive, in one piece. Or when I was running through the dark forest at night, climbing icy cliffs, jumping from rooftops. Fear has been a constant in my life since the shit hit the fan, and it has always helped me pull through, whatever happened. And you know what? Today won’t be an exception.”
I would have gotten so disappointed had I told him that to impress him, but thankfully, I was beyond giving a shit about that.
“Big words for such a small, fragile little girl,” he jeered at me, half turning around.
“That the best you can do?” I called out, making him glance back at me. “Seriously. You’re such a one-trick pony, it’s laughable. How is raping me going to give you any power over me? Real power would be getting me to give you, freely, what you’d otherwise just tear from me that which I can’t prevent. Getting raped doesn’t make me weak. But raping me sure makes you look like a dickless, impotent little boy.” I almost laughed at how Nate’s words, spoken to me all those months ago, rolled off my tongue. I was sure that he didn’t mind me stealing from him. He might even have approved.
Something crossed Taggard’s face—could it be a hint of surprise?—and he turned to fully face me once more, making me momentarily ease up.
“My, my, you really have come a long way from being that scared, stumbling little nerd,” he said, making me guess that he’d been with Bucky Hamilton that day when Nate had brought down the building on us all. At least I really hoped that he hadn’t been on what I’d long ago come to see as “our” side. “But brave as those words may sound, they make it plain as day that you’re not speaking from experience.”
He didn’t exactly call my bluff, so I decided to try lying outright. “You so sure about that?” I asked, raising my brows at him. “If you were there that day in Lexington, maybe you remember the bruises on my cheek and those nice strangulation marks around my neck? Have you ever stopped to consider for a second why I chose to go with the people who locked me up and put me through hell that day, as the only scientist not to join you?”
A hint of doubt made him frown for a second, but really, it was a very small victory on my side—and one that did me no good whatsoever. Taggard shook it off quickly, and I really didn’t care for the pensive look that took over his features as he considered.
“So, essentially, what you’re saying is that I’m just wasting my time here,” he stated. “Takes a couple hours for my boys to be done with you, a day or two for you to recover. There’s a chance you won’t break, at least not the first time, and I am somewhat on a schedule here. So why do it at all, right?”
I didn’t answer, because what could I have said to that? Yes, pretty please? And as I watched him watch me I could tell that I wouldn’t like what he came up with instead.
“Right,” he answered his own rhetorical question. “But the problem is, I so do want to break your spirit. I want to see that dead look in your eyes when you realize that there is nothing left for you to live for. That it was all in vain and it would really be the ultimate absolution if finally someone blew your fucking brains out.”
I couldn’t help but scoff. “What the fuck is it with you people and the gigantic chips on your shoulders? I guess that if you’re completely delusional you can blame me for the FUBAR at the factory that cost you, what, a huge part of your men? But it was your damn trap and you were too stupid to set it up in a way that left us no way out, and made sure you wouldn’t risk your people. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He didn’t like me saying that, but I just couldn’t help myself. There was only so much reasoning I could do before fear made me do something stupid. If I got out of this alive—which was still debatable—I should probably work on that.
“It doesn’t really matter, now, does it?” he proposed, not giving me the satisfaction of a real answer. Looking over his shoulder to his men, he clapped his hands, demanding everyone’s attention. “We’re just wasting daylight here. Let’s do something about that.”
I tensed, incapable of keeping up that veneer of calm. Taggard engaged the door control, making the glass pane rise, and I took an involuntary step back. Yet rather than grab me and pull me out, he took a step to the side, probably to make room.
“Get the girl.”
Panic paralyzed me for a second, but then my mind caught on to the fact that no one was moving in my direction. On the contrary. One of the soldiers opened up the cell on the other side of the room and stepped inside, only to return pulling the occupant along. It was the first good look I got at her, and it only took me a few seconds to make the connection. That strawberry-blonde hair, now stringy from weeks without washing but still long and wavy. Those brown, intelligent eyes, now impossibly wide with fear, and a hefty dose of maturity. She’d grown up and filled out somewhat in the year since I’d last seen her, a little more woman now but still so obviously a scared, fifteen-year-old child.
Erica—Madeline’s daughter. Of all the people I’d expected to never see again, she was right on top of that list.
“You recognize her, I see,” Taggard observed, sounding almost pleasant once more. “We only picked her up when we learned that she’d been tagging along with your group. Chances were slim that any of your fine, valiant heroes had fucked her, but it was better than nothing. And let’s not forget that she’s come around quite some since then. I would give you time to catch up, but as I said, I’m on a schedule.” His eyes fastened on mine again. “You think getting raped won’t break you? I think you are right. But being responsible for her taking your place? Let’s see if that does the trick.”
And just like that he’d found the one thing that could make this day suck even worse.
“Don’t!” I cried out, not hesitating for a second. Yup, I was about to doom myself—and if I’d gotten a good read on Taggard, Erica as well—but there were some things I just couldn’t live with. I’d already spent months of my life regretting that I hadn’t spoken up w
hen her mother had left our group in favor of those preppers. If I’d just been a little less judgmental, a little less insecure, or not so plain fucking stupid things might have been different. I couldn’t turn back time. But maybe I could do something now to prevent more unmentionable shit from happening to that girl. Even if that meant I gave Taggard all the power that otherwise he could likely never have wrenched from me. So much for eating my own words.
I could see in his eyes that he knew that he’d won, but he took an agonizing five seconds until he told his men to stand down. I couldn’t keep the venom out of my gaze and didn’t even try to, but that only amused him further.
“What do you want?” I bit out, my throat closing up with hate as much as trepidation.
He kept studying me like you’d look at something unpleasant yet fascinating, like some kind of overgrown insect.
“First, your unconditional full cooperation,” he said, the words dripping like honey over his lips. Oh, he was enjoying this so, so much. “You’ll squat down and piss into that cup and take a dump into that other container, and when I get the syringe out, no one will have to hold you down while I draw blood from your arm.”
I gave a jerky nod, not daring to balk yet. It was, in many ways, an unbelievably small concession. “And then what?”
“Then I’ll think of something else once we’re done,” he promised. At his nod, one of his men brought over a tray, sans the food I would have choked on and the water that was by far not enough to wash away the taste of bile rising in my throat. He held the tray out to Taggard who, in turn, plucked the cup from it and held it out to me. I made sure that my fingers weren’t touching his as I gingerly took it, and with a last, steadying exhale went down to business.
I’d never expected anyone to be that happy to be handed a literal steaming pile of shit, but if that was the worst that would happen today…
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 2 | Books 4-6 Page 59