by Miriam Bell
“He needs to sleep, maybe we can learn more about the cults infrastructure from him tomorrow.” I agree with a clouded mind. “What’s wrong?”
I massage the ache pulsing in my temple.
“Why can’t life be black and white?” I ask.
“It can be,” he replies. I roll my eyes.
“Whatever.”
“No. Listen. You can view what Bryan did as he wronged you and not factor anything else into the equation. Your vision becomes black and white, think of it only as he sinned against you.”
I nod, attempting to follow along with his logic.
“Now, apply his perspective, the way he grew up and experienced life different from you- different points of views, different priorities. When you start to see yourself in his role making the same decisions, you begin to understand the many different shades of grey.”
“You would have done the same thing as him if Evie had been taken,” I accuse.
“I never said I saw only in black and white,” Lonnie whispers.
I close my eyes in confusion.
“He is a Godly man. I thought he would be wiser than us, a better example to others,” I say. Lonnie grips my shoulder with a firm hand.
“At the end of the day, Bryan is a man and we all fall short of the glory of God.”
“You’ve been reading the Bible?” I question.
“Yeah. I found a New Testament Bible a while back during the scouting mission toward Griffin, a city north of Zebulon.”
“You understood it?”
“I did. The book was written differently than the large one in our library.”
“You think it’s true?” I ask, curious of his opinion.
“If I say yes then we’re most likely in the back of the book.”
“What do you mean?”
“Revelations.”
A cold chill sweeps down my spine.
“Lonnie.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t hear Lola’s breathing anymore.”
I spin toward the bed that Lola’s still form had laid only to discover the sheets are twisted in disarray and empty.
“Where is she?” Lonnie hisses.
I race around the room searching the ground for a dazed and fallen figure. Nothing. “I don’t know, I can’t find her. Check the door.”
Lonnie runs to the entry, flinging open the solid door to find the hallway empty.
“Nothing,” he calls out as a gurgling sound catches my attention.
I reach for Bryan’s curtain, hearing the metal clinks of the curtain’s support holders ring as I thrust the fabric to the side. In front of me, a perfectly healthy Lola leans onto Bryan’s bed. Her undecayed face sleek with a layer of warm blood. She bends further biting into an already opened neck. Bryan lays motionless on the bed, eyes still closed as if he was asleep. The blood from his torn neck seeps into the mattress below. I step forward in shock or by reflex, I’m not sure, drawing Tom’s pocket knife from my belt. For the first time since I’d started carrying the blade, the weapon seems small and incapable of killing the infected feasting so calmly.
Lola’s once beautiful and alive body halts. The blood from her lips falling to speckle Bryan’s non beating chest. Her head tilts sizing me up, measuring the situation- showing awareness which no other infected seemed to do. I study her appearance, unlike the other infected, she is freshly dead. Strong. Her muscles are not weakened from decay or weathered by harsh climates. The only difference in her appearance from before is in her eyes. When she was alive, they were brown- large and full of spunk. Now they were clouded with a sheen of yellow.
I shout a warning to Lonnie, still across the room in the open doorway. Panic rushes the beats of my heart. Had I been standing here a moment, a minute, an hour? It didn’t matter. The only thing which mattered was the horror which filled me as Lola’s lips switched into the outline of a creepy smile.
“God, if you exist, protect me now,” I pray as the newly infected rushes toward me.
Chapter Thirty
Lola’s blood is still warm as it splatters onto my face and clothing. I slash again with Tom’s pocket knife as Lonnie rushes toward us. The movement feels slowed even though I know it isn’t. Lola stumbles back from the sudden strike but she corrects her footing quickly. She is fast and unlike any infected we have faced before. Lonnie crashes into her, sending them both to the ground.
“Grab my knife!” Lonnie yells, as he dodges Lola’s snapping mouth.
My stiff fingers clutch onto the blade’s handle as I pull it from its sheath. A question burrows into my mind as reflex takes over. When did I become this person? I raise the sharp blade above my head and allow gravity to help as the gleaming steel travels toward Lola’s twisting neck.
A memory of Connor from so long ago telling me he wasn’t a good person replays as I lift the blade to strike again. Lonnie shifts, locking Lola in a better position for the weapon in my hand to detach her head. Connor’s voice speaks the words again, “I’m not a good person.” Blood splatters once more on my blue jeans. I understand now what he meant.
There is a ringing sound filling my ears as the blade slices through skin and into the floor below. Lonnie sags, releasing Lola’s headless body. I stare into her face, her eyes wide with an infected’s glare. Blood covers her once flushed cheeks and drips from the jagged skin of her neck. I feel the bile rising in my throat.
“Millie?”
Lonnie’s voice is miles away as I drop the blade from my hand.
“I don’t know if I can do this any more,” I whisper.
There is a scream from the doorway as Rebecca enters. The small boxes in her hands fall to the ground, one opening to reveal a syringe and tubing.
“What is it?” Joseph asks as he hurries in the room with Cam following close behind.
“She turned,” I say with a weak voice.
“She was fine when I left,” Rebecca cries, her eyes traveling across the room to the occupied bed. With a gasp, her hands cover her mouth, holding in the frighten sob.
Lonnie reaches for his weapon.
“Bryan needs to be beheaded too,” he states without emotion.
With his cold words, I rush from the room no longer able to look at what I had done. What I was forced to do in order to survive.
“I’m sorry.”
The words leave my lips as I hurry by the three shocked people crowded at the doorway. The urge to flee takes over my rational brain and I slide on the blood still clinging to the soles of my shoes. Madness pushes a little more into my brain with a quiet voice, “You enjoyed killing.” I shake my head in disagreement and think of Katlin’s face as she easily switched from one emotion to another.
I escape from the room right before others come who had heard Rebecca’s scream. In the dim light of the hallways, I witness shadows of the crowd growing larger. They had never witness such a horrible and gory scene. As a whole, our community was innocent, the majority never needing to journey into the red zone. Those who lived the years right after society collapsed were dead, all but Elizabeth. We could never stand against an army of trained men who only knew the horrors spread throughout abandoned buildings and empty fields. We would die within these fences. I focus my eyes ahead not knowing where to go. I think of Connor but I’m sure he is with the crowd now wondering where I am and I don’t want to face the crowd. I don’t want to be the person who is responsible for the nightmarish scene they can’t tear their eyes away from.
Suddenly, my skin is burning hot. Thick panic fills my chest and races in all directions. I take big breaths as I attempt to calm down. I can’t breathe. A thick door to the outside appears in front of me from the darkness. My numbed hands push at it’s metal bar, wanting to escape. I stumble through and feel the cold winter air hit my face. The snow crunches underneath my heavy boots, one foot than another.
When I’m able to process my surroundings, I realize I have found my way to the very back of our perimeter. No one in our community use
s this small piece of property because of the narrow distance from the prison walls to the outer fence. The area would be a great place for raised boxes of vegetables but because of the trees surrounding the fence and the prison walls blocking out the sun, the quiet spot remains forgotten.
The snow covers the unkempt ground providing a peaceful atmosphere. I shiver as the cold finally seeps into my hot skin. I blink and struggle to lift my lids.
“I can’t do this,” I say aloud to myself.
A light breeze brushes my cheeks, turning my nose a slight pink. The cool air touches Lola’s blood still on my clothing and face, bringing a new awareness. I’m covered in her blood, standing in pure white snow. I begin to laugh a crazy tune, one I don’t recognize as my own. I fall to the ground using the snow to wipe away the thick liquid. As the snow around me turns faintly pink, my laugh turns into a sob.
“I like your laugh better,” a mangled voice says from a distance.
I jump to my feet searching for Tom’s pocket knife. I must have dropped it when I grabbed for Lonnie’s weapon.
“What do you want?” I stammer.
From the trees, he appears- the heavy blue cloak a distinct contrast against the snow. I straighten, vulnerable to him except for the metal fence standing between us.
“Just to talk,” he says then coughs as if to clear his voice. The crow mask he wears tilts slightly as if curious. “Is that your blood?”
I shake my head not willing to believe that I’m going to have a conversation with this man, a man who killed my friend.
“Good, Katlin would be pissed and you don’t want to see her when she is pissed.”
Quiet stretches out between us as we stare at one another.
“What do you really want?” I ask again.
The crow mask tilts in the other direction, reminding me of Chevy when I tell him something he doesn’t understand. A low choke of laughter sounds from beneath the worn leather.
“You don’t belong with these people,” he begins, burying his laughter. “At anytime our army can over run these fences and destroy everyone here and you know it. You have seen the manpower we have and that isn’t even the whole army.”
I cringe, understanding that the main commander was out there somewhere with probably even more soldiers and their families.
“Would the actual leader approve of what Katlin is wanting to do here? Why kill our whole community when you could have gained them and their resources into your army?” I ask.
“You have to be in a bad situation to want to join. People as a whole don’t give up a good thing without a fight. You know that,” he responds in his gravel tone.
“Your mission is to kill infected, to cleanse the world for God. Don’t you see the evil you’re doing?” From under his mask, I hear his divert laughter again.
“Am I funny to you?” I ask.
“Don’t you understand after being in what you so nicely name the red zone?” he questions as I glare at his bright eyes peering from within his disguise, the mask partly covered by his heavy hood. “No matter what you do, a person can justify his or her actions so that they’re right in their own eyes. I could murder everyone you love and instead of feeling guilty, tell myself it was in self-defense. Even if it wasn’t.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time. What do you want?”
The man in front of me sighs but with the sound follows a feeling of his amusement. With controlled movements he opens his cloak to reveal two long knives attached to his hips. Slowly, he pulls each one from their concealed locations and throws them a few feet to the snow. I gape at his actions wondering if another knife is hidden behind his back.
“I can read your mind. You should try better to mask your facial features.” He lifts his cloak showing me his empty narrow back.
“Not all of us have useless crow mask,” I state flatly.
“They’re troublesome but they serve a purpose.”
“Like what?”
“Fear. If you were a non infected stranger, would you attack me?”
“You have a point,” I admit.
“You can call me Jamie.”
“I prefer not too,” I acknowledge, judging the distance his weapons are from his reach. I could vanish inside the prison before he scaled the fence. His eyes follow mine to his weapons and then travel to the top of the fence.
With amusement in his damaged voice he says, “I wanted to kill you because of how unpredictable you are. My life is already complicated enough without adding more drama to the mix but I will confess I’m glad I didn’t.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I will go above and beyond to not be the person experiencing my mother’s wrath.” I startle at his words, all thoughts of escaping disappearing from my mind. He was Katlin’s son. “Okay, here is the deal,” he continues ignoring my expression of shock, “If you come with me, Katlin will spare the prison. None of our army has actually seen your supplies or this place, she made sure of that. I’m the only one who has detailed information on how this prison works and to tell you the truth it isn’t enough of a challenge for me.”
“She would forget about her revenge just to have me with her?” I ask, baffled.
“I don’t know if you realize this or not but my mother is literally insane. She will rationalize it just like she does everything else,” he says.
“How do I know she will keep her word with her being crazy and all?” I question.
Jamie shrugs.
“You don’t, but I can guarantee if you don’t come with me she won’t wait for this snow to melt before she kills every last one of those people within those walls.”
“You want me to drop everything and follow you. Someone who burned my friend to death!” I shout.
“I don’t regret killing him. He was bitten,” Jamie states emotionless.
“I don’t regret killing Nicholas,” I snap back, wondering if Connor would have followed the blood trail I’m sure I left behind. Will he be here soon? Is he listening now?
“I don’t regret you doing that either. Nicholas was an idiot who only wore the mask because his father saved the commander’s life years ago.”
A sob escapes my lips but I quickly banish the approaching madness threatening the outer layers of my mind. Slowly, Jamie’s hands caress the edges of his hood, folding the fabric gently away from his mask. The old leather strap pulls tightly around his thick brown hair. He is older than I thought he would be, maybe only a year younger than me, but then again the red zone was not a kind place to grow up.
“What are you doing?” I demand, a little confused.
“I have developed a more selfish reason for you to come back with me,” Jamie admits quietly.
My eyes follow his fingers as he unlatches the straps from his hair. He bows his head letting the mask fall into his hands. I am mesmerized by the site unable to look away, waiting for him to reveal himself without his barrier, waiting to know the face of my concealed enemy.
His bright eyes find mine, revealing his young face. I gasp. Jagged scars stretch across his right cheek and up to his forehead. The injury is old, one occurring maybe when he was just a child. However, it isn’t the old wound that sends me stumbling backwards, it’s the familiar face so similar to my father’s.
“I want to get to know my sister,” he concedes as a twisted smile widens across his face.