by Megan Berry
“What in the hell are you doing in here?” a female voice demands shrilly, and we all spin to find Dr. Ruppert standing in the doorway. When she sees the expression on our faces, her eyes drop down to the guns in our hands and fear flickers across her face.
“Hold on...” Silas starts to say, but she doesn’t give him a chance to finish as she turns on her heels and starts running out of the room.
“HELP!” her screams are loud and echo down the empty corridor, making us all wince, and her shouts have us all springing into action.
If we can’t catch her and shut her up, we have no hope of finding Jack, and we will probably be arrested, or whatever horrible thing they do to people they don’t like around here.
Chapter Fifteen
She doesn’t get far. Silas catches her in a few short strides. The first thing he manages to snag is the flying end of her ponytail, and he gives it a jerk to stop her in her tracks, making her scream even louder. Silas slaps his hand over her mouth and then lets out a shout of his own when she clamps her teeth down on the soft part of his palm.
He pulls his hand away instinctively, and I’m impressed that he resists slapping her. Dr. Ruppert resumes her screaming, but Silas isn’t allowing it for long. He pulls his handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and jams it into her wide open mouth, making her choke and gag. He then slaps his hand over her mouth again, now that her teeth are harmlessly buried in the cotton.
I don’t want to admire this horrible woman for anything, but it is kind of impressive how hard she fights. It’s all Silas can do to hold her. I run forward with a couple zip ties from my pocket and we secure her with a bit of difficulty. I may or may not take a bit of pleasure in tightening her ties a little tighter than is strictly necessary…
Silas marches her back into the lab and we all follow. “Where is our friend?” I demand once we have her inside and shut the door. Dr. Ruppert narrows her eyes at me in anger and shakes her head. “You know who I’m talking about!” I tell her, but she just shrugs.
“I think you need some help refreshing your memory,” Silas tells her mercilessly as he starts to drag her towards the cage containing the zombies. The little one goes absolutely crazy gnashing and clawing at the bars, and even the larger ones start to get excited.
I watch Dr. Ruppert’s eyes go wide in terror as Silas brings her face just out of reach of their fingers. Silas yanks her back and pulls the gag out of her mouth. “Are you crazy?” she yells, and Silas frowns at her.
“Lower your voice,” he tells her, and Dr. Ruppert glowers at him but does as he says. “Now tell us where Jack is,” he demands, and the doctor takes a deep breath.
“He’s dead,” she tells us, and I feel like someone just punched me in the stomach. Tears prick my eyes, and even Ryan and my dad look sick about it. Silas doesn’t though. He narrows his eyes at the doctor and frowns.
“I was really hoping you weren’t going to make me do this,” he tells her as he starts dragging her back towards the zombies. Dr. Ruppert fights, but Silas is a lot bigger and stronger than she is. “Don’t lie to me,” Silas tells her as he brings her face so close to the zombies that I nearly speak out in protest. If she hadn’t just told us that Jack was dead, I might have actually told Silas he was going too far.
Dr. Ruppert screams as a chipped fingernail barely misses her nose. “Are you crazy?” she screams again, and Silas brings her a little closer. The zombies are wild now, and it makes me feel sick to watch.
“This can end as soon as you tell me the truth,” Silas tells her in a no-nonsense voice, and I’m confused.
“Okay!” Dr. Ruppert screams, and Silas yanks her away from the cage. “I’ll tell you,” she says, her shoulders sagging in defeat. She reaches for her pocket, and Silas has his gun up and in her face in an instant. “I’m just reaching for my keycard,” she tells him, slowing down her actions so that he can see what she’s doing.
She dangles the white laminated card out to him, and Silas snatches it up and looks at it suspiciously. “What is this for?” he presses.
Dr. Ruppert raises a shaking hand and points to a door off the lab. We all stare at it suspiciously. It is a steel-enforced door with a keycard reader. There is a small, skinny rectangular window with a glass insert, but it isn’t big enough for more than an arm to fit through. It’s also pitch black inside. My skin crawls with unease.
“This had better not be a trap,” Silas tells her, and she shakes her head.
“If something bad is in there, you’ll be the first one to get thrown in its path,” I warn her as I move forward and peer in the window. I can’t actually see anything, but there is a disturbing blood smear on the glass.
“It’s red like a human,” Ryan points out, and my heart hammers even louder in my chest. I hold my hand out for the keycard, but Silas shakes his head.
“You’re not going to be the first one through that door, Blondie,” he tells me as he motions me over. “You hold the doc—keep your gun trained on her—and shoot her if she tries to run,” Silas tells me, and I’m honestly not even sure if he’s joking or not.
I move to his side and take up guarding the doctor. I keep my gun held firmly in my left hand and my right hand on the zip ties that hold her immobile.
“Be ready for anything,” Silas warns us, and we all nod, even as we brace ourselves for whatever might come running out of the room.
Silas steps forward, armed with his gun and his flashlight, and swipes the keycard in the reader. I watch as the light turns from red to green and the lock clicks open. Silas doesn’t even hesitate as he swings the door inward and scans his flashlight back and forth.
“Holy shit!” I hear him mutter, and I try to edge closer so I can see, but it’s not good. Ryan and my dad rush forward to get a better look, but I’m stuck back here with Dr. Jerkface.
“What is it?” I call and feel the doctor stiffen beside me.
“It’s Jack,” Silas calls back, and I feel hope swell in my chest.
“Is he okay?” I ask, and Silas pauses a lot longer than it should take to answer the question.
“…He’s in rough shape,” he says at last, and I feel a hot burn of anger race through my body. I use her bound arms to push our captive into the room so I can get a look as well. The doctor resists at first, but once I press the business end of my pistol into her spine, she changes her tune.
I walk into the room. At first the doctor is blocking me, but she soon moves out of the way and I actually gasp. Jack is illuminated in the light of Silas’s flashlight, but it doesn’t really look like Jack. If it wasn’t for the hair, I wouldn’t be able to recognize him. He’s naked except for a pair of thin pajama-like pants, and he’s covered in so much blood that it’s hard to see where it’s coming from.
He’s huddled in the corner with a pool of blood underneath him. “Are you sure he’s alive?” I demand shrilly, and Silas nods.
“I checked his pulse myself,” he tells me, and I turn and look at Dr. Ruppert in anger. She narrows her own eyes and then does something I’m not at all expecting. She uses her body as a battering ram and pushes into me, nearly knocking me over.
She makes a break for the door, but she’s clumsy since her hands are tied behind her back. I manage to get in front of her and raise my gun in her face to make her stop. “You don’t have the balls,” she taunts me, and I frown at her.
“Lady, I’m holding a gun on you,” I remind her, but she just snickers.
“I’m the only hope you have for a vaccine,” she tells me smugly. She’s so sure that her life is guaranteed, even after all the horrible things she’s obviously done to Jack. I let anger get the better of me when she tries to rush me again to get out the door.
“Don’t do it, Jane,” Ryan warns me as my finger twitches towards the trigger.
Instead, I raise my pistol in anger and strike her dead center in the forehead as she’s running up on me. It’s total Silas move, and it is extremely liberating. Her knees crumple underneath her a
nd she collapses on the ground with a loud thunk.
I’m a little stunned at what I just did, and I look up quickly at everyone else that’s staring at me. Ryan and my dad are wearing twin expressions of shock, but not Silas. Silas is grinning from ear to ear. “Blondie, that was badass!” Silas approves as he switches his attention back to Jack, and I rush over to assist him. We all help half-carry, half-drag him, despite his groans of protest, out of the small, dark room so we can get a better look.
I have to resist the urge to vomit when we emerge into the artificial lights of the lab. Jack is worse than we thought. He’s covered in dozens of fresh bites. I can only assume they are zombie… The scar tissue on his back is red and inflamed from various pieces that have been dissected from the old bites, and his arms look like a junkie’s. He has so many needle marks.
“Oh my God,” I whisper in horror as I gently stroke Jack’s thick blonde hair. I’m too scared to touch him anywhere else. “I’m so sorry I asked you to come here,” I tell him and nearly jump out of my skin when he actually replies. I didn’t even know he was conscious.
“Not your fault,” he rasps in a voice that is hoarse from screaming, and my heart breaks. No matter what he says, I know this is on me.
“We have to get him out of here,” I beg the others, and they all nod in agreement.
“Can you stand, buddy?” my dad asks.
Jack slowly nods as he struggles to his feet with the help of Silas and my dad.
“He needs clothes,” I blurt out and then blush when everyone looks at me. “Well he does,” I shrug. “It’s cold outside.”
I look around and spot his coat hanging on the back of the door to the lab. I rush over to grab it for him. There is also a pair of worn work boots that I’ve seen several times before, and I grab them as well and bring them over. Ryan and Silas help get him dressed.
“You can’t do this!” a voice demands from behind us, and I spin around to see Dr. Ruppert standing shakily in the doorway with a scalpel gleaming dangerously in her hand. She starts screaming and rushes towards me like a crazy person, and I dive out of the way.
It’s like it happens in slow motion as she trips and falls forward, pitching towards the zombies in the cage. She must still be disorientated because she doesn’t even put her arms out to catch herself, and her face lands right up against the bars. The small zombie bites viciously into the flesh of her cheek. She screams in agony as the flesh rips and she tries to backpedal away from the bars.
I wince, but none of us make any move to rush forward. She’s been bitten; it’s too late. The little zombie manages to get in one more bite before she scrambles away crying and screaming. The tip of her nose is missing as well as a ragged hole in her cheek and blood runs down her face, soaking her once pristine lab coat.
Jack stares at her for a long minute before reaching out and taking my gun from my hand. It’s like he finds otherworldly strength as he staggers to his feet and stands over her. “It’s called karma, bitch,” he tells her in his raspy voice as he pulls the trigger, and I have to look away.
She deserved what she got, but I didn’t necessarily want to witness it. Jack sinks down to his knees beside her body, and we all rush forward to help pick him up again. I gently take my gun back from where it’s laying on the floor next to Dr. Ruppert’s messy brain matter.
“We really have to get out of here,” I tell them, and none of us are arguing the fact. We all know that we’ve stayed way too long. Ryan and my dad grab onto either side of Jack’s arms and help to keep him upright while Silas leads the way towards the door, leaving me to take up the rear.
I stop for a minute and stare at the small hissing zombie. I’d rather just leave them all, but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. I pull out my knife and head towards the cage. Dr. Ruppert was a horrible, evil woman, but if these things get loose, they could turn the entire city, or kill one of the kids I saw today. I now suspect that this lab is where the two from today came from as well.
The boy zombie hisses at me and practically jitters in excitement as I come closer. I carefully avoid his waving arms and plant my knife through his eye socket. He slumps down, still at last, but my proximity starts to drive the larger zombies crazy. I take them out one by one, avoiding arms and teeth as my knife finds the sweet spot three more times.
I’m a little out of breath by the time I finish, and I stand huffing and puffing as I examine my gory work.
“Come on, Jane!” Dad calls over to me impatiently, and I quickly wipe the blade of my knife off on the closest zombie before thrusting it back into the waistband of my belt. I put it away in favor of my gun and jog to catch up with the others as they disappear out the door and into the hallway.
We don’t encounter anyone else as we run, half-dragging Jack down the hallway and the stairs. “We shouldn’t just go out the front door,” Silas says as we stand in front of it, contemplating doing just that. A shadow of someone walking nearby cements his theory, and we turn and backtrack.
We spy an emergency exit up ahead and go for it. Jack is way too big to shove out the window we came in…maybe under his own steam—but not now—he’s half unconscious!
We burst out the backdoor as quietly as we can and run right into two guards examining the window we broke earlier.
Silas is quicker on the draw and has his gun up before they do. “I don’t want to kill you,” Silas tells them as he keeps his voice calm and his gun pointed steadily at the two men.
“Merle!” the first man starts to shout, and Silas jumps, pistol whipping him in the head and dropping him. It really seems to be the move of the night, but it works when you don’t want to use deadly force. These men never really did anything to us, and as long as they continue to do nothing to us, we don’t want anyone to die.
“Keith?” a third voice calls out from the darkness, and Silas raps his gun across the temple of the second guy.
“We have to get the hell out of here!” Silas whispers, even as Jack’s legs give out beneath him.
“Jack?” I hear my dad whispering as he gently slaps the large army man in the face to try and wake him. It doesn’t work, and I have to swallow the panic that’s bubbling up in my throat as I hear footsteps pounding towards us in the dark.
“Jane, grab his leg,” Silas instructs me as he moves forward to take his own advice, grabbing Jack’s other leg. We carry him, the four of us each carrying a limb as we scurry off into the darkness.
The night is dark and the ground is uneven. We are barely synchronized enough to carry Jack like this—between how much he weighs and how uneven all our heights are—it’s pretty lopsided, but adrenaline fuels us and we somehow make it work.
A flashlight beam catches us and it feels like my heart is going to explode. “Stop right there!” a man’s deep voice yells, and Silas raises his gun and fires at random into the darkness. We hear the man let out a yelp of pain and I think we all wince. This is the part we tried so hard to avoid.
Silas bought us a little time, and we redouble our efforts as we go crashing through the underbrush, dragging poor Jack along with us. In the background we can hear dogs barking and men shouting as they try and organize themselves to perform a manhunt.
My heart feels like it’s going to burst inside my chest, but I keep running on autopilot, expecting at any minute to feel the sharp bite of a bullet piercing my body.
The sounds of the shouting behind us grow louder, but so does another noise that I can’t quite put my finger on right away. It’s a sort of loud rushing sound, and when we pop out on a rocky beach I realize that it’s the river.
We’re trapped. We can’t go back the way we came and we can’t go ahead because the river cuts off our escape to the south. The only thing we can maybe do is run along the edge of the river, but we will be caught doing that in no time. Our energy is flagging and there is nowhere to go.
“We have to jump!” Silas yells, and for a minute I’m confused. Jump where?
My eyes land
on the frothy, dark water of the Ohio River, and I shake my head. “Are you crazy?” I demand, even though there really isn’t time to debate. “We’ll freeze to death.”
Silas lets out an annoyed snort. “It’s forty seven degrees, haven’t you ever heard of a polar bear swim?”
“Jane, honey,” Dad interrupts. “I really think it’s come down to swim or die,” he tells me, and I can tell by the panic in his voice that he isn’t messing around.
The sound of dogs’ and excited voices grows louder behind us, and I know the decision was never mine to make. I try not to think about how cold it’s going to be or the zombies that could be lurking beneath the surface. Just because they avoid the water doesn’t mean some of them didn’t fall in and sink to the bottom.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and jump.
Chapter Sixteen
It’s more horrible than I’d imagined. The water is so cold that it forces all the air from my lungs upon impact. I panic and accidentally swallow a mouthful of disgusting water as I kick my legs in sheer terror and try to fight my way up to the surface. It feels like millions of tiny pins are being drilled into my body. My legs and arms feel heavy with the cold. Even though I only just jumped in, I’m struggling. Screw the polar bear swim—and screw Silas—the jerk. Everybody look at Jane, surviving the zombies just to be taken out by plain old, everyday water. I can’t dial back the monologue in my head, and I’m angry that my last thoughts are going to be so bitter.
I feel a hand latch onto my arm and I panic as I struggle and kick, trying to fight it off. I’m convinced it’s a zombie reaching up from its watery grave to drag me down. The more I struggle, the more the arm tightens its grip. Finally, I’m pulled above the surface of the water where I see it’s actually Silas that has a death grip on me.
He doesn’t speak to me, probably because he can’t while we’re being swept along in the rushing river current. All his focus is being used up on survival. I can’t get over how fast the river is moving. It’s one of those things you never really realize looking down from the bridge, but it’s kind of like a rollercoaster in the worst possible sense of the word.