Dying to Live

by Roxy De Winter

  Andy did as he was told and then took off his jacket and laid it over her, barely registering the chill that swept over him despite only having a thin t-shirt on.

  “Buckle up, it could be rough,” Pete called back to them as he hauled the rickety bus around and made a beeline for the gate leading off the base. “Keep your heads down too, they’ve got guns.”

  Andy sat sideways on a seat in front of Rebel and tried to keep her steady and keep his head ducked down.

  “What’s going on?” Rebel moaned groggily, trying to turn and get up.

  “Now’s probably not the best time to get into it,” Andy explained. “Just hold on tight, stay down and I’ll explain it when we’re safely out of here.”

  “Hold on!” Pete bellowed as gun shots rang out and shattered the glass in a couple of the windows. Moments later, there was a jolt of impact as they smashed through the locked and guarded gates.

  Around them, zombie heads turned, noticing the disturbance. Luckily for the group, they were more interested by the appearance of soldiers than the escaping vehicle. Gunshots rang out again, but this time they were fired into the hordes that charged towards the open gates.

  Steely, icy wind tore through the broken windows as they sped away. The ragged breaths of the vehicles occupants clouded in front of their faces, small and rapid puffs that came as the exertion caught up with them.

  The minibus made its escape as the guards were forced to deal with the new threat, leaving the group free to sail down the road and away from the safety of the naval base.

  9.

  ‘Allmendinger, he not say they have guns. Now Petrov dead. When I sign to him, he is not understanding. I write now, so one day he knows; this his fault. He tell us we take girl, so we are taking her. He tell commander, it is being our fault and he try to stop us! These lies, we act under his instruction! Dr Petrov gone and nobody else understanding my signs. I protest but nobody care.’

  In the wake of the group’s departure, the priority was getting the gates back up. The Commander ordered the remaining troops to protect the access point whilst repairs were made. Then he ordered Professor Allmendinger and Professor Novikoff to meet him in his office.

  “What on God’s green earth happened back there?” He asked angrily. “I have three men dead from the breach and a Doctor lying dead from a gunshot in your lab!”

  “Commodore, it was the newcomers.” Professor Allmendinger shook his head sadly. “They killed Dr Petrov.”

  “...And what provoked this attack? Those people would not have simply snapped. They came here at great risk to assist us!” The Commander spat.

  “The Russians took the girl, the one who survived testing in America,” Professor Allmendinger simpered. “I was checking in on some of the samples when they came into the lab with her. I tried to tell them that they shouldn’t be doing it, but they wanted to perform a spinal tap.”

  Professor Novikoff watched the Professor’s lips and his expression turned to outrage. He shook his head furiously and started to gesture his hands in an effort to explain his side of the tale.

  “Professor, I don’t understand what your waving means,” The Commander said bluntly. “Are you denying that Dr Petrov and yourself took the girl?”

  Novikoff looked frustrated and reluctantly shook his head and then pointed to Professor Allmendinger.

  “What is he trying to say?” The commander demanded of Allmendinger.

  “I have no idea,” the professor shrugged with convincing innocence. “I have told you all that I know.”

  “I don’t have time for this.” The Commodore threw up his hands.

  “Commodore, we can still make this right,” Professor Allmendinger said. “All we need is the girl.”

  “What do you suggest?” The Commodore simmered. “That I send my few remaining men out after them? That I allow this place to be undefended so that we can bring back one lass?”

  “If we had her, I would be capable of bringing an end to all of this madness. Then we won’t need defences,” Professor Allmendinger persuaded.

  The Commodore paced his office, thinking hard. “How confident are you about that?” He asked.

  “Her blood shows signs of being able to kill every infection I have tested it against,” Allmendinger explained. “I believe one hundred percent that this is something that can be harnessed into a cure. I also believe that that is the reason Professor Novikoff and Dr Petrov were trying to obtain their sample.”

  The Commodore paced some more, unspeaking, back and forth, back and forth.

  Eventually, he spoke. “Very well. I will order my men the go after them and bring her back.”

  Professor Allmendinger was smug as he left the office and heard The Commander speaking into a radio.

  “Commodore speaking. I need all men fully armed and in pursuit of the group that broke through the gates.” He paused and added, “You are to see to it that the young girl, Rebel Young, gets back here safely. The others are no longer of issue. Your priority is extricating the lass and making it back here with her.”

  10.

  ‘Whilst I drove, all I could think about was the man that I had killed, Dr Petrov. Would he have hurt Xin? Did I have to kill him? Ever since this whole thing began, we’d been killing to survive. Had we somehow forgotten that the people we killed were just that? People. Or did the fact that they were now savage and deadly excuse our own violence? If that was the case, then what about Dr Petrov? He wasn’t one of them, he was just a man. Could that violence also be excused?

  The thing that upset me the most was the fact that I hadn’t even thought twice about it. I’d seen him become a threat towards Xin and just fired. I couldn’t bear to think of her in danger. We had been through all of this together from day one, and I wasn’t about to let anything happen to her now.

  Still, I felt like a monster. This was not who I was. It wasn’t someone I had ever been or someone who I’d ever wanted to become. I guess this world was changing us all and, although it had made us stronger, not all of the changes were good. I wondered what my wife, Marie, and my little girl, Jessica, would have made of this man. Would they have still wanted to call me a husband or father if they had seen me back there?

  For so long I’d managed to keep some sense of normalcy, some modicum of control over my life. Was that gone now? There was no plan left. We were in a different country and our only options seemed to have been exhausted.

  I tried to fight through the doubt, the questions and the self-loathing for my friends. The only thing that brought a purpose to my world anymore seemed to be them.

  There was the amazing girl that I had grown to love. I hadn’t thought it could even happen again until I’d met Xin.

  Then there was the sweet and genuine couple who were my best friends, Lucy and Frank.

  There were the two kids who might not have been my own, but who I would protect as though they were.

  But now I was even worried what they would think of me.

  We may as well have all been family. If I didn’t have them, then I didn’t have anything. The rest of my world had been blown to pieces and turned into dust. If not for them, I probably wouldn’t have been upset to see it all end tomorrow.’

  11.

  ‘Andy and Xin explained what had happened once we were out of sight of the base. I tried not to cry as they did, but I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t fair and I felt so violated. How dare they think that it was okay to abduct me as I slept, take me against my will and force me into the lab to poke needles into my spine.

  I sat up in the minibus, against Xin’s advice, my back pain no more than a twinge as I hugged Andy’s jacket tightly around me against the cold. I could still taste the sickly sweet chloroform in my throat and feel it burning in my nose like acetone.

  Andy rubbed my knee as I cried. His touch was a small comfort but I was too preoccupied with my thoughts.

  Was this my life now? Was I going to be hunted forever so that people could use me like
this? The people with me on that bus had proven their friendship but how long could they protect me for? And how long before it got them killed?

  I wished that I had never been dragged into it all. I would rather have died, torn to pieces by zombies, than become this thing that was seemingly immune to it all. I was the one who had to bear all of the memories, as I watched everyone around me die, one by one. I could still remember every ounce of pain that I’d suffered back in Nevada. I could even remember the astonished looks they’d given me when they’d first injected this shit into my veins. Astonished because I didn’t die like they had expected. Because I’d continued to breathe and live when nobody else had. They’d looked at me as though I was some intriguing chemical that they had coaxed a reaction from. Was it so easy to stop viewing someone as a person just because you had your own curiosities?

  The one thing I was sure of was that I didn’t want to be incapable of death. I needed the comfort of knowing that one-day, somehow, this could all end for me. The only thing worse than having to be a guinea pig or having to live in this world at all, was the thought of having to do it forever.’

  12.

  ‘As I sat there, rubbing Rebel’s knee, I could feel the anger still clawing inside me. I’d never felt as angry as I had been when I saw that they were doing to her. The parents I had tried not to think about since their deaths had raised me not to be violent, but to be the bigger man. I had been the one to break up bar fights, not start them. I could hold my own in any disagreement without the need to raise my fists.

  Pain was washing over me and dampening the anger, as I thought about how disappointed my mom would have been to see me holding a gun to the deaf man’s head. I felt as if I had disrespected their memory and let them down.

  I had gotten through life with intelligence and patience, never quick to anger. My dad would often joke that I was so laid back, I was almost horizontal. For the first time since losing them, I was glad that neither of them were there to witness what the world was turning me into, relieved that they didn’t have to change in this world too, and become people who would happily accept such violence from their son.

  How many zombies had I killed? They had never elicited such rage from me, though. I had never killed them with malice. Would I have killed an ordinary man in that rage? I knew in my heart that everything I had done before had been to survive, but was survival at stake when I’d had a gun aimed at him?

  The more I raced through these thoughts, the more all-encompassing they became. I remembered the scene I had left behind in my hometown and the faces that I knew but had deserted. How many of my friends and neighbours had died? How many staggered around in a state beyond death? But more importantly, how many could I have helped by staying behind?

  The only salve I had for this was the people I was surrounded by. Would they be alive without me? Maybe we could have found a cure together, but did that possibility make my journey worthy? Even if it turned out to be futile? Or was everything I had done all for nothing? Was it all just a big mess that had turned me into something I wasn’t?’

  13.

  ‘Lucy nuzzled into my side. Apart from Rebel’s gentle sobs and the whistle of the wind, the whole interior of the minibus was silent. Lucy was trembling slightly and I knew that she was lost in thoughts of her own. I kissed the top of her head and tightened my arm around her.

  I couldn’t believe that we were back out here again. Every time we found shelter, or somewhere to see our days in relative safety, we ended up with a reason to be back on the move again. Nothing seemed to work out but I really wanted to be able to find that place where we could build some kind of life for ourselves. I wanted to be able to give Lucy some sort of stability. I wanted my friends to be able to stop fighting. Instead, we didn’t know what to do, or where to go. How long would we drive for and where would we end up? Who could say?

  We’d often discussed how lucky we had been. Of the masses and swarms of zombies out there, we had managed to avoid situations that were more than we could handle. We had never been so badly overrun, or backed into a corner, that we had been inches from watching each other die.

  I was beginning to think that it wasn’t luck after all. Luck was having healthy children and a loving wife. Luck was finding money in the street or getting to the bus stop just as the bus showed up. Luck was ordering the last donut on the shelf or finding just the right change in your pocket for a coffee. Were we really lucky? Just because so far we had fought off every attack and escaped with our lives, at least until the next time? If that was all the luck we were going to have, I didn’t want it.

  I wanted peace and happiness for me and my friends. It was becoming more apparent that those things wouldn’t exist anymore, aside from managing to laugh here and there, and occasionally chancing upon a sanctuary where we could escape hardship. At what point could we just give up and say that it wasn’t enough?’

  14.

  ‘Frank was, as always, a comforting presence. However, even he couldn’t take away my fear. I was scared. I’d thought that the base was our final destination. Maybe I was naïve but I didn’t think we’d have to run again. It wasn’t a palace but it was safe. If navy families had lived and grown there, then mine could have too. But now we were back outside and in danger again. We were on guard again, knowing that we weren’t safe. It made me remember the feelings when I had fled the Nevada base and collapsed beside the road, helpless and vulnerable. And then there was the terror at being taken back there, where I had already seen what was waiting.

  I trusted in the incredible friends I had made. We would look after each other until the end. But how far away was that? We didn’t even have all of our weapons anymore. How were we going to defend ourselves if we were attacked now? At least at Area 51 we had had a plethora of resources and an arsenal of weapons, ammunition and armour, not to mention the vehicles and the sanctuary of our cabin.

  I thought of my sister too. I should have gone to her. Where was she now? Did she survive, or was she dead? I didn’t want to picture her stumbling around as one of those god damned things, but the images came unwilled into my mind. I should have protected her. A heavy weight of loss sat in my stomach like a rock.

  I’d given all of that up and we’d all sacrificed so much more, to come here and save the world. Now these assholes had driven us out and it seemed like any chances of that happening were gone. So, what was next? What were we going to do now? What was the plan? Was it even worth fighting anymore?’

  15.

  ‘I looked around at all of my friends. All of them were there because of me and each one was lost, silently, in thoughts of their own. This was entirely my fault. How could I have brought them here? Why had I dragged them through so much danger and let them do it all for me? The whole thing had proved to be one big waste of time and God only knew what had happened to the people that I had asked each of them to abandon in order to contribute towards my efforts.

  I thought of my dear old friend, Bao. Who had laid his life down in the course of this mission. Bao, who had crossed continents to aid our cause and then died in a strange country trying to prove himself and save others. I felt like I had failed him and let him down. I felt as though I had rendered his sacrifice meaningless.

  Then, back on the road I felt like it was down to me to suggest some new idea, to come up with something or somewhere for us to go. Thoughts of my old university and Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre ran across my mind but I looked over at where Rebel sat, now cradled and weeping in Andy’s arms. There was no way I could ask for any more from her. Even if she’d offered, I could accept no more from her, or from any of them. They’d been through enough and I wasn’t sure I could any more myself. Thoughts of curing this pandemic were ebbing further from my mind, almost as though they were leaking from my ears.

  There was no point anymore and it wasn’t worth it. There are people who say that we are obligated to think for the greater good, the needs of the few versus the needs of the man
y. However, when I looked at these truly astounding and remarkable people that sat around me, I decided that the world would just have to see to itself. There was a time when it had been important to me, but now all that was important were the people before me. Most of my interactions with the rest of the world had proven how shitty it truly was and how mercenary people could be. Not these guys, though. Pete, Frank, Lucy, Andy and Rebel, each of whom had come from their own lives and placed trust in me. Who had never let me down or stabbed me in the back. They are the only ones who I owe my loyalty to. Pursuing a cure was no longer in their best interests and could likely get someone or all of them killed.

  So I finally let it all drift out of my hands and accepted that I had nothing. There was no new plan. I let the silence continue to stretch out before us. None of us had anything, but we did have each other. So we just kept driving and hoping that we would stumble across the answer. Perhaps there was no answer, but that didn’t bother me anymore. Maybe we could just keep driving and never stop. The idea didn’t seem so bad. I just wanted to get lost in the distance and not have to think anymore.

  16.

  After a while, the trees that lined the road trailed away. The group were fast approaching the outskirts of a town. Pete barely noticed, his head was heavy with the weight of his grief and guilt. Without a map, he was hard pressed to find them an alternate route so he simply slowed down.

  “I know it’s not a good time for us,” Pete broke the silence with a resigned and deadened voice. “But I don’t know where to go and there’s a town ahead.”

  Nobody had an answer, each as lost as the other.

  The minibus crawled lazily nearer to the town, no turn offs or junctions appeared offering them an alternate route.