by Rosaria, A.
Sarah crept up to the guard, raised her hand, and swung, not too hard not wanting a repeat of what had happened to Richard. The candlestick hit the guard with a wet thud, but he didn’t go down. The guard moaned. Her hand froze, as a chill ran up Sarah’s spine. Slowly, the guard turned around as she backed away from him. Dead eyes looked at her as the zombie moaned again. Sarah’s face turned ashen. She shook her head, unable to move.
It shuffled a step forward. What had happened? She didn’t have time to think about it. In an explosion of movement, the zombie launched itself at her. Caught by surprise, she gasped as it tackled her. Sarah cried out as she hit the floor and the zombie pinned her down. The thing thrashed at her, hitting her in the face, bloodying her nose and lip. She was still hurting from the beating the guards had given her and felt her strength drain away.
The zombie clawed its way up, biting at her. Thanks to her thick woolen coat, its teeth didn’t get to her flesh. The zombie reached for her exposed throat. Sarah pushed at it, trying to keep it away. Her muscles burned with the effort. It got closer. She pulled her right hand away, and with her left pushed with all her force to keep the monster away as she tapped the floor next to her. Her strength faltered, she pushed harder, and the zombie inched closer each second that went by. Her right hand touched something hard and cold. Her fingers curled around the candlestick’s handle. As her left arm buckled, she swung the candlestick against the zombie’s head. Its head rocked to the side. Sarah pushed away from under it. The zombie lurched its head up and grabbed onto her again. She swung, hitting its jaw, crushing bone. The zombie’s jaw slacked open. Sarah pushed, wedged a foot against the zombie’s chest, and kicked it off. She crawled up and steadied herself with her left hand against the wall.
Sarah took an unsteady step toward the zombie as it tried to get up. She lifted the candlestick high above her head, gripped it with both hands, inhaled deeply, and with a cry, smashed the candlestick against the zombie’s head. Its skull cracked open, blood and brains spilled out, and the zombie slumped down motionless.
Zombies long dead didn’t bleed. Only a dark almost black muck came out of those when you hit them. Not this one. It bled and she was covered in its blood. It must have turned recently. Sarah kicked the zombie to turn it on its back. She recognized the face. It was the guard at the protest outside Mr. Ward’s house.
Sarah swiped the card over the keypad and the door buzzed open. Light washed over her. The room was larger than she expected. Rows of shelves ran the length of the walls. In the center was a huge table, and at its end, sat a man holding a gun aimed at her.
He pointed the gun at a chair. “Sit down,” he said in a calm, calculated voice.
Sarah sat down. She had not seen him before, a middle-aged man with a tired, droopy face, eyes hollow in his sockets, his skin pale, and there were sweat beads on his forehead.
“I see you took care of Bob.”
“What’s going on?”
The man pulled at his collar, exposing a nasty bite mark, puss oozing out of it. “Did he bite you too?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Had he got me a little to the left, I would have bled to death. Does that answer your question about what’s going on? Now tell me what you are doing here, if you’re not bitten.”
Sarah looked over the man’s shoulder at the back of the storage room where the cure should be. The cooler stood open, empty syringes and saline bags thrown on the floor. A single container stood on its side in the cooler. Empty. The man followed her gaze.
“Ah, I see. Someone you know has been bitten. Well, lady, let me tell you something,” the man said as he pulled a syringe with a clear green liquid. He put his gun on the table and tapped against the syringe. “I have the last one.”
Sarah looked shock as he plunged the needle in his arm and pressed the liquid inside him. “Guess you are out of luck.”
Sarah jumped from her chair and ran for the gun. In one motion, the man grabbed the gun, aimed, and fired. Heat tore Sarah’s cheek. She stood nailed to the ground. Blood trickling to her lips tasted iron. She whiffed the odor of burned skin. Her skin.
“Oh, I missed, or did I? Sit.”
Sarah stared at the gun, willed it to point away, but instead, it trailed an inch to the side, aimed square between her eyes.
“Sit down,” the man said, his face reddening.
Sarah did as she was told.
“Damn this thing really bites.”
Worried, Sarah watched as the man started shaking, though his gun hand stayed steady on her.
“Look, girl, whoever you are, I—”
“I’m Sarah.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Rick, and the next time you interrupt me, I’ll rip your tongue out. Look, Sarah, the cure is gone.” The man chuckled. “Whatever that thing is, it’s not really a cure. You need to keep injecting yourself with it, or you’ll die anyway. I did you a favor. It’s just a delayed death sentence. Whomever you planned to give it to will die anyway, because there is no more left.”
Sarah had nothing to say to that. The man was right; she was too late. If she got it, all Priss would have had was six more months to live.
“You sure there is no more?”
Rick shook his head. “Me and my buddy, Bob, came down together for the last one. The others already got theirs. Bob and I took a wager who would get the last one and he won.” Rick spread his hands out like in an apology. “He was beyond help, been off the cure for days.”
Sarah raised her brow. “You both were already infected?”
“Ever wonder why people work these shitty jobs?”
Sarah felt her stomach clench.
Rick smiled. “Don’t be that shocked. The government never had a clean sheet to begin with. They knew this would happen. They saved a few to have indentured servants, so the privileged could keep living the way they always did.”
“Why tell me this?”
“Because you are not one of them.” Rick’s eyes hardened. “We’ve seen you go in and out of Mr. Ward’s house, but we know you came from the outside. Unlucky, like that other one they brought in. But unlike her, you did not have in you what they were looking for, or we would not be having this conversation right now.”
“What about the other girl?”
“A redhead, a pretty thing, heard she survived the flu. The perfect candidate. Draining her will give them enough to keep things stable for another month, but what will they do after that? No, it’s over. They failed at synthesizing the drug, and now the few who are still living outside don’t have what they need. We are all doomed and the time for payback has come.”
Sarah steadied herself. He was going to kill her. She gritted her teeth. Rick stood up. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut. Waited. She jumped when a hand tapped her shoulder.
“I’m not going to kill you. Go back to Ward and let him the jig is up.” Before exiting the room, Rick turned a last time to her. “Check the second floor, Bob’s stuff may still be up there. It’s all yours. He won’t be needing it anymore.”
Sarah stayed in her seat, staring at the empty syringe on the table as she heard his boots plod up the stairs. She had failed, and wasn’t feeling much for plan B.
Sarah sighed and stood up. There was nothing else left for her to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sarah pushed Bob’s backpack into the shrubbery next to the back door. Rick did her at least one solid by telling her about the backpack. Bob must have been a prepper. The bag contained everything she needed to be out for a long time in the wild. Cans of food, MREs, med kit, a knife, a compass, a bedroll, and many more useful things. It was heavy and bulky, but she managed to hide it away good enough that at first glance it wasn’t seen.
She knocked on the door. After half a minute waiting, Mr. Ward opened it. Weary eyed, he looked at her, hiding the hope behind his tired look. “And? You got it?”
Sarah shook her head as she brushed past him inside. “They took it. Some Rick guy took the last
one.”
“The bastard.” Mr. Ward’s hands trembled as he walked over to his study, and sat behind his desk. Sarah had followed him, not sure what to expect.
“Tell me everything,” Mr. Ward said.
“Not much to tell. The building isn’t occupied anymore. They took and used the cure.”
Mr. Ward slumped in his chair. “It was to be expected. Rick was head of security. He had access.”
He sent her on a fool’s errand. Not that she would have refused to go if he had told her, but still. She really didn’t want to stand here and face him. It was Priss she wanted to talk to. The little time they had left together, she wanted to spend with her. The only way to extend Priss’s life was to sacrifice another. She had to tell Priss before she did anything.
“We have no choice than to wait for Terry to come through.” A wry smile formed on his lips. “I’m tired. Leave me.”
Sarah stood up to go and then remembered something. “I killed a zombie today.”
Mr. Ward visibly twitched. He stared long at her. “Only one?”
Sarah nodded.
He waved her away. “Leave me.”
She left the study, leaving a sickly pale Mr. Ward behind his desk. By now he must have come to the same conclusion Rick had. They were all doomed.
Sarah didn’t knock to enter Priss’s room. As she stepped in, she was greeted with Priss sitting upright in her bed, her big eyes wide on Sarah.
“You are awake?”
The girl nodded, coughed, and spat blood. “I’m okay.”
She didn’t look okay. She looked closer to death. Sarah rushed to Priss’s side and hugged her. Tears rolled over her cheek. Tears she didn’t expect. Seeing the girl fragile stirred loose the peg holding together the dam of emotions inside of her. It flowed now. Sarah sobbed, unable to control it. Priss’s arms fell comfortably around her. She felt the girl’s warmth.
“It will be all right,” Priss whispered in her ear.
Sarah choked in a sob. Nothing would be all right. Sarah pushed herself out of the embrace to check on Priss. Her hand went for Priss’s forehead, but Priss swatted her away.
“Don’t do that. I can tell you the fever is still there. I feel like critters digging inside me.” Priss smiled. “But you are here now and that makes me feel much better.”
“Oh, Priss, things are going to hell.”
With a feeble hand, Priss touched hers. “It will turn out all right. You’ll see.”
Sarah held a sob back. “No, it won’t. I couldn’t get the cure. Everything I try turns to shit. I took you along with me, got you ill. I messed everything up.”
Priss’s trembling hand went up to Sarah’s cheek. “Only one mistake. I forgive you.”
“Oh, Priss don’t say that. I messed up before I arrived here. I pushed Ralph away in high school. I was a real airhead then, and when things turned bad, I made the worst choices.”
Sarah couldn’t look into Priss’s feverish eyes. The compassion in them drowned her. Every past thing that went wrong surfaced, and she couldn’t keep in the one secret that had been eating at her for so long. It ached deep within her, and now it came out like hot coal traveling up her digestive system.
“I killed a man.”
Priss let her hand go. There it was. Finally, condemnation for what she had done. There was no way Priss would forgive her now.
“Something horrible must have happened for you to do something like that,” Priss said, and she put her hand back on Sarah. “You caught me off guard with that.”
Sarah smiled a weak smile. No one would have suspected that she killed someone. She barely believed it herself. But she had, and she had done it in a bad way. “I killed him in cold blood.”
“That’s not good.”
“At first it felt good, but later I…” Sarah sighed as she remembered how Anton fell face-first in the dirt, dead. “I felt remorse, I guess. He did deserve to die, but not the way I did it. I wanted payback for what he had done to me and others. Killing people, taking body parts for research, keeping me hostage to take me to Haven. In the end, I still ended up here and experimented on.”
Priss kept quiet, listening, sweat drops forming on her forehead, but she kept her focus on Sarah.
“And you know what makes it worse?” Sarah said.
Priss shook her head.
“It was Terry’s brother.”
Priss gasped. “Oh no, Sarah, you can’t tell him that ever.”
“I like him, I really do, but Terry has been acting strange lately. I fear the stress is finally getting to him, and it doesn’t help he found someone to make a cure from. I’m afraid of what he is going to do.”
“You can’t tell him.”
“He’s been looking for his brother since. I see the hurt in his eyes every time he looks at me.”
“Just promise me, you won’t tell him.”
Priss moaned as she shifted in her bed. Sarah noticed her paling. This conversation was tiring the girl. “You should rest.”
“No. Promise me. Terry, he is not right. You can’t tell him.”
Sarah nodded. “Okay, I won’t tell him.”
Priss smiled. “Will you stay with me? With you by my side, I feel like everything will turn out all right.”
“I’ll stay.”
Priss shut her eyes and soon Sarah heard the girl snore. Sarah lay next to her and closed her eyes. If there was a tomorrow, it didn’t matter. She’d be together with Priss.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ralph leaned his back against a tree as he sat on a hill overseeing the compound. No, not just a compound. It didn’t do the enemy base justice. It was a small town surrounded by a huge wall. Ralph wondered how it was possible they could hide a whole town surrounded by a hundred-foot high wall from the public. Then again, who would have believed it? The whole area had been private property, and if this group were government, they would have the means to keep people away or silenced. And before the flu, any claim of such would have branded you a conspiracy tinfoil hat nut and no one would have listened.
“Come in, Brenda,” Ralph said, bringing the satellite phone closer to his mouth.
He heard static again. He couldn’t remember showing Brenda how to use the damn thing. What if she heard him, but didn’t know how to answer? That would be the stupidest thing to happen to him after getting so far.
“Brenda, you there?” Static buzzed back. Below him, within the walls, he saw smoke rise up from houses on fire. People roamed the streets, converging on a building like ants on a sugar cube. Something was going on. Something bad.
“Brenda!”
From the speaker, a small voice squeaked, distorted and breaking up. “Ralph, you are alive,” Brenda said.
“You expected otherwise? Over.”
“No, not really.”
Ralph waited for what she would say after but she kept silent. “You done?” Ralph asked.
“Oh yes. Over.” Brenda chuckled from the other side, still keeping the talk button pressed for a while before releasing it.
“I found their base.” Ralph relayed the coordinates of the base twice to be sure she got them and the coordinates of their rendezvous spot about two miles from the base. “I need you guys here as soon as possible. Something is going down that we could use to our advantage. Take the truck and anyone willing. We’ll be going in hot. Over.”
“We are already set to go. Give us half a day to get to you. Over.”
“Can’t you be here sooner?”
“The truck doesn’t go that fast.”
From the walled town, shots sounded. Ralph squinted to see better. Two groups were going at each other. People were falling and standing back up, attacking their own. Not good.
“Okay, hurry up. The place is already going down without our help. We need to get in to get Lauryn out safe and make sure they can’t bother us anymore. Over.”
From his vantage point, he could see five choppers parked on a field. They had to be destroyed. He had
a grenade for each, and Brenda would bring more explosives with her. The bastards wouldn’t know what hit them.
The wait for Brenda to arrive was grueling. Ten hours had passed. Powerless, he had seen the town burn, and the fights increased the numbers of the walking dead. The survivors had retreated to their houses. Buildings build to withstand an attack. There were no windows he could see, and the more official buildings that had windows at the base level were probably the armored kind. No zombie would thrash its way inside. The defense was impeccable. From the second story, the people were downing the zombies. They would be busy for a long time before getting rid of the zombies and won’t notice a few living humans slipping inside.
The loud engine noise and tires rumbling in the dirt announced the truck before it crested the hill. An old familiar face sat behind the steering wheel. Albert. The old geezer had come. Ralph smiled as he left the cover of the trees and waved them closer.
Before the truck stopped, Brenda jumped from the back, running toward him and hugging him. “I really thought I would never see you again.”
“You keep hugging me like that and I won’t survive.”
Brenda let go of him as the others surrounded them. She went over to Derrick, who held her hand tight. Ralph couldn’t help grinning at them. Ten men and three women. Fourteen to assault the base. It would be enough; it had to be.
Albert shook his hand, face serious. “Brenda told me what happened. Too bad about Ethan. He was a good man.”
All mirth left Ralph’s face, remembering what happened and why they were here. “He fought to the end, but they got him. The zombies somehow evolved. More cunning, quicker, and stronger. We had no chance out in the open.”