by A. Giacomi
With disgust rising through me, I decide it’s time to pay Marcus a little visit, but first I had something pressing to attend to.
“Dr. August, I will need one last favour from you, then I promise I will never ask another thing of you again. I need you to bandage me up as best you can. I can’t freak out about what I can’t see. Just cover the peeling skin and I’ll be on my way.”
He nods, and I can see the pity in his eyes. He knew as well as I did that taking on Marcus would entail my demise. If I won I would perish, if I lost I would perish. There was no victory lap for me; I just had to finish this once and for all.
When my bandages are in place I can’t help but think I look part mummy. I keep the joke to myself; it just didn’t seem the proper time. I hug Dr. August before leaving the lab, we don’t exchange any words, but he does give me a hopeful smile, gripping my hands in support of my mission.
I didn’t want to say goodbye, I still had faith I would see him one last time before my final end.
As I race toward Marcus’ office I decide to make a detour. If I was to execute Marcus, I first had some unfinished business to tend to. I needed to ask my friends for their forgiveness.
When I reach the glass case I find only Alex sitting there on the one lonely plastic bench that occupies the room. There is a guard standing next to her with his hand on his gun ready to punish any sort of action. Alex’s eyes are swollen from tears.
I know I should turn back, everything about this screamed that it was a trap, but I can’t leave. I needed to know where Cam was. I needed to apologize and die with a clear conscience.
Alex looks up and smiles weakly when she sees me; a giant purple bruise covers her jaw. They had hurt her, those bastards had hurt her, I think in wild fury. They would all have to pay for this.
“Alex, I am so sorry,” I say clawing at the glass that divides us.
“Eve, it’s okay, I forgive you. I’m just glad you came back to us, I thought we had lost you forever.”
Hearing that felt like a breath of fresh air, but the next question would be heavier. “Alex, where’s Cam?” I ask in a shaky voice.
“Eve, Agent Williams took him. You have to stop him! They are going to take his heart and offer it as a sacrifice.” Alex begins her tears again and the guard hits her with his gun to shut her up.
“Hey! You don’t touch her! You don’t ever touch her!”’ I scream. “If you’re the one that gave her that bruise, I am going to kill you!” I pound on the glass praying I could shatter it.
The guard shakes his head in response. “No not me, ma’am, it was Agent Williams’ parting gift he called it.”
“Parting gift? Where did he go?” I was now beginning to panic. If they were already gone my chances of retrieving Cam had been greatly reduced.
Alex speaks next; she looks as though she had seen a ghost. “Eve be careful!” she says as she points to something behind me, when I turn to look, I see Marcus standing there. The air around him felt sinister. I press my back against the glass wall as if trying to shield Alex, but truly the only one needing shielding would be me.
I gather my courage and ask “Where is he? What have you done with him?”
My questions leave him with a wounded look, this would not end well.
“Why do you care?” he spits at me. “If I’m the one you love, what do you care what happens to Cam? You told me you were finished with him!”
I nod cautiously raising my hands trying to quiet him down. “And I meant that. I don’t want to be with him anymore, but that doesn’t mean I want him dead.”
A snarky grin forms at the corner of Marcus’ mouth. “Funny, for me not loving someone and wanting them dead go hand and hand, and there are a great many people I don’t love. They’re disposable, just like Alex here.”
He points beyond me at Alex who is trembling.
“You don’t touch her! Don’t you even dare look at her!” I hiss through gritted teeth.
“You know, Eve, I thought you were different. I thought you and I were alike and that we wanted the same things. I thought we were done being humans. I thought after we saved the world we could be together.”
It would have almost been sweet if Marcus hadn’t had that crazy look on his face.
“Marcus, how can we be together when you are the most dishonest thing I’ve ever met? You’ve been lying to me since you met me. Do I seem like the type of girl that appreciates that? No…you don’t know me very well at all. Lies agitate me, anger me…lies kill people, Marcus. That’s what I’ll have written on your tombstone.”
He grins again in that evil way. “Promise?” he says as he pulls out his gun and aims it at me. This man went from hot to cold so easily it would make your head spin.
I pray the virus will help me one last time. “Make me strong,” I whisper under my breath as I race toward Marcus. He braces his gun and fires, the shot echoes through the hall as I stumble backward. He had shot me right through my chest. If my heart had been beating it would have surely stopped the moment the bullet made contact. Luckily for me, zombies didn’t need working hearts.
Laughter fills the air as I poke a finger through the newly formed hole in my chest. It didn’t hurt, but the blood comes anyway. It takes me a moment to realize that the laughter was coming from me. I felt more like myself than I had in years. It seems that it took death’s calling to cure me. In this one instance, everything felt clear. Whatever happened to me didn’t matter. I just needed to make sure I took out this son of a bitch before he hurt all the ones I loved and the rest of the world. He couldn’t be trusted. Why hadn’t I seen that?
When I’m done inspecting my wound, I blow Marcus a kiss. “Is this a sign, sugar lips? Do you want to end things? I think the feeling is mutual.” I grin menacingly at him as he throws his gun to the floor and sprints toward me.
We collide like two steel beams and it knocks both of us backward. I get back to my feet quickly and Marcus doesn’t have time to back away before I fly at him with a fist straight to his nose, caving it in instantly. It wasn’t the same as having a broken nose that bent the wrong way, it looked as though his nose had never been there, to begin with.
He feels the space where his nose used to be and his eyes grow wide.
“You will pay for that!” he says in a new voice. It sounded deeper and muffled and demonic. The voice added to his terrifying new look. He wasn’t Agent Williams anymore, or Marcus, he was something other. His skin had been changing, I thought it was decay like my own skin, but it was something more powerful. I understood it now as I looked into his black eyes; The Dark King had taken over.
“Marcus?” I say in a panic.
He shakes his head. “Try again,” the deep voice says in a playful way.
“Leave Marcus’s body now!” I demand.
The Dark King approaches slowly, laughing, ingesting my fear with his eyes. He pushes me up against the glass wall with his hand at my throat raising me off the floor. I can hear Alex screaming from the other side of the wall.
I try to break free from his clutches, but under the Dark King’s control, Marcus’ body had become too powerful. The King glares at me through Marcus’ eyes, he was pleased with himself.
“Your friend will die. I need his heart to settle my debt with The Devil. You should be grateful. He will free your lands from the clutches of an undead army,” he says with his thunderous voice.
If I were to have any hope of saving myself or Cam, I had to get down. I look around for a solution, but when I find none I had to resolve to do something slightly more acrobatic. I hold onto the hand clutched around my throat and pull my knees to my chest. When I push my feet out toward his chest, he flies backward a few feet, giving me a moment to grab the gun that Marcus had dropped earlier. I unload the entire clip in The Dark King’s direction, the holes stall him momentarily, but the speed healing is faster than
anything I had ever experienced.
He stands there triumphantly, but he’s not looking at me.
I look back to find that he is looking directly at Alex. Before I can say anything, he has his hand on my head and slams my face into the floor with such force that I fear a few teeth may have come loose. I spit them out along with some blood. Once again I force myself to my feet and run at the beast formerly known as Marcus. He catches me in midair and throws me once more to the ground. It feels as though bones are broken this time, and it is incredibly difficult to stand. As I look toward him, he is smiling standing in front of the glass wall that separates us from Alex.
His grin stays in place as he gives the order. “Shoot her!” he says to the guard on the other side. I stumble to my feet awkwardly trying to reach him and beg him to retract the order.
“No!” I call out to him, but when the order is given the guards don’t hesitate. I had learned that in my training here.
I stare into Alex’s glossy eyes unable to say or do anything. The blow hits her straight in the temple and she falls sideways to the ground. Her eyes holding their stunned silence as red pours from her precious head surrounding her like a halo.
The Dark King walks over to me as I sob and scream uncontrollably. He pets my head and I flinch away. He crouches down to my level and whispers in my ear, “I took her from you, yes, perhaps next time you won’t be so weak.” He laughs as I try to punch and kick at him.
I could not damage him, and he had already hit the hardest blow. Alex’s death was victory enough, and my pain was simply added pleasure for him.
He drags me down the hall by my hair. I scream like a lunatic the entire way. I had lost everything including what was left of my mind. The Dark King throws me into a dark room with many blue blinking lights and two men in lab coats appear.
The first man in a lab coat asks, “Sir, what setting would you like us to place it on?”
Marcus grins as the other man in a lab coat asks me to lay down on a metal table surrounded by wires. “Set it to deep freeze. I don’t want her to move or speak. She is to remain here until further notice.”
Wires are hooked up to my head and I am strapped down to prevent my escape. I no longer dreamed of escape. I would gladly rest here forever with Alex. I had failed her and deserved the same fate.
The hum of machines being turned on brings delight to Marcus, he claps and looks pleased as he walks over toward me.
“Little girl, you should have listened to Dr. August and stayed out of those tombs. I will come back for you when all this is done. It’s my blood that rushes through your veins, and I will need it to raise my love once my debt has been paid. Rest dear girl, I will take care of Cameron’s heart for you,” he says winking at me.
With that, he is gone. I struggle against my restraints, but my body grows rigid as a blue mist surrounds it. My eyes stiffen so that I may only look up at the black ceiling that resembles the night sky. A glass casing seals over me and the two men in lab coats quickly leave. I was going to be left here frozen and alone with my thoughts, screaming on the inside for all eternity with no one to hear it. This must be what hell feels like.
PART 3: THE BELL TOLLS
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ALEX
As he holds the gun up to my head, I realize that this would be it. There would be no escape, this time, Eve would not save me and Cam might have been dissected already. I regretted all the horrible things I had said to Cam in our final days. He had been through so much in his life and still found reasons to smile. What had been my excuse all these years? Cynical to the last drop, I suppose that was just my personality. I grew up in a home where positivity was a craft, something you learned to use in order to survive, not because you believed in it.
My parents had not been the best role models, but I still loved them and was looking forward to seeing them again. This would not be the end for me, I force myself to believe as I think of Jana’s beautiful face. I don’t think about how my family died as I hear the gun click, readying itself for the blow. I wanted to think about their smiles, their warmth, the possibility of forever.
I look out the large glass window to my cell and view Eve a final time, but that woman dragging herself along the floor trying to get to me wasn’t Eve. It was a stranger. I didn’t know that zombie. Before the zombie, there was this girl and she was honest, and kind, and carefree. The miserable girl begging for my life was not her. I refused to believe it. Instead, I close my eyes and think of Cam, Eve, and I back in High School. There they were, my friends, the familiar faces I longed to see were finally here to greet me.
There is a loud bang and a spark inside my head ignites and then goes dim. When the darkness clears, there is light, and there I am again with everyone. They embrace me, holding me tight, carrying me along to something brighter, somewhere safe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CAM
Shots are fired. I bolt to my feet, but have no way of knowing who had fired them or why. Part of me wanted it to be Eve, shooting her way through guards to get to me. I wanted her to come save my ass, but that wasn’t going to happen. She had made it very clear by keeping her distance that she didn’t love me anymore. The only problem was that I couldn’t detach quite as easily. Even now when I should be thinking about saving myself, the only thing I can think about is if Eve is okay.
Agent Williams had dragged me away from Alex and into this room. He didn’t exactly explain why, I could only assume jealousy, but I fully didn’t understand that either. He already had Eve, she wanted nothing to do with me, and so what would killing me provide him with? A cheap thrill? A fun activity for sport? Maybe he would set me free into a forest and then hunt me down as some sort of sick game? “Oh shut up,” I tell myself. I was making myself more nervous than I was before.
Just then more shots are fired and screaming is heard through the halls. Something was very wrong and I had to get the hell out of this room before Agent Williams decided to retrieve me. Wherever he wanted to take me couldn’t be good, I needed to use the current distraction in the facility to my advantage.
I move toward the door and press my ear up against it. It has become oddly quiet now. I decide to knock lightly on the door and a guard opens it slightly.
“What do you want?” the guard asks peering through the small crack in the door.
“I just want to know what’s going on? What were those gunshots about?”
“None of your fucking business,” the other guard around the corner replies angrily.
“Oh, but I think it is my business and it should be yours too. Shouldn’t we move to a safer area? Agent Williams specifically said to keep me safe, and those gun shots sounded pretty close to our current location.”
I shut my mouth after that, not even a smart ass remark; I simply prayed they would let me out. The guard at the door shrugs at his partner and whispers something. After much whispering, he opens the door all the way and motions for me to exit. I follow them out of the high-security clearance area. Although I wasn’t at the surface yet, I did feel much better leaving that glass cell further and further behind me. I wasn’t even sure how long I had been there, it had felt like years.
As we move quickly through the halls, a man appears in a white lab coat holding a gun. He bumps into one of the security guards and then spins around to greet us fearfully. He points the gun, but once he spots me he lowers it.
Dr. August looks paler than usual and a whole lot older. I’m so glad to see him I smile so big I fear my face may crack.
“Oh my, you both scared me! I’m so glad I hadn’t fired. I would have felt terribly,” Dr. August says apologetically.
“Not a problem, Doctor,” one of the guards reassures. “Can you enlighten us as to what’s going on in the facility? You seem to have quite a bit of blood on the front of your lab coat, are you alright?”
Dr. August looks at the blood nervously. “Um, one of my test guinea pigs exploded.”
I want to slap my forehead. Lying was not Dr. August’s forte.
They both cross their arms, clearly not convinced by the whole exploding guinea pig story.
Instead of searching his mind for a better lie or cover up, Dr. August simply says, “Oh fuck it,” and raises his gun, shooting both of them until they drop to the ground.
I was more shocked by the swearing rather than the killing. Dr. August was usually the most well-mannered person you’d ever meet.
“Dr. August that was pretty badass of you.”
He squirms in his own skin, but gives a brief smile and hands me the gun as if it were a snotty tissue. “I’m not proud of that moment, Cameron, I simply had to do it.” He grows more serious before speaking again. “Cam, do you know what Agent Williams wishes to do with you?”
I shake my head, “Nah, I don’t know anything. I assumed he wanted to duel or something fancy like that for Eve’s hand.” I roll my eyes.
Just then we hear footsteps coming toward us and bolt down a dimly lit hallway to hide. Several guards pass by with guns raised; they were looking for someone, most likely us.
“Dr. August are you going to bring me up to speed or is this going to be a guessing game? Hate to break it to you, but it looks like we don’t have time for that sort of fun right now!”
“Cameron, I’m not sure how to break this to you, but your heart. Agent Williams is hoping to offer it up to appease an evil force. Your heart,” he says as he pokes me in the chest, “could save us all, or so Agent Williams believes.”