Within These Walls: Series Box Set
Page 44
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I’m sitting beside her in her room (technically our room) at the hospital, watching the most boring TV show I’ve ever seen. Two girls who sell cupcakes and keep running out of money because they’re vapid whores. That’s all I’ve gotten from it so far.
Ali looks over at me slowly, cautiously. “About what exactly?”
“About the baby.”
“Oh, that,” she says with false levity.
“Yeah. That. Can we talk about it?”
She grins slightly. “Jordan, we can talk about anything. Communication is very important.”
“Are you trying to shrink me again?”
“Maybe.”
I lean forward, resting my arms on my thighs. “I think you’re evading the question.”
“Ooh, who’s shrinking who now?”
“Are you scared to talk about this?”
“Question with a question. You get bonus points for that one.”
“Ali,” I say firmly.
The second I say her name that way, I realize I sound like Syd. She must hear it too because her entire demeanor changes instantly.
“Yes, I’m scared,” she says quietly. She moves to sit with her legs crisscrossed on the bed, her fingers playing nervously with the edge of the blanket in her lap. “Of course I’m scared. What if I end up like my mom? How can I do that to a child?”
“We need to find out for sure. There’s no sense in worrying about something if it isn’t even an issue.”
“I know for sure,” she whispers.
I sit back, shocked. “You’ve taken the test already?”
She nods.
“And it came back positive?”
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean?”
She looks at me with pure resign. “I mean that I know, Jordan. I know I’m pregnant. I let Leah take the blood sample to send to the base two days ago but it doesn’t matter because I already know.”
I swallow hard. “You could be wrong.”
“But I’m not.”
I go to rub my right hand over the back of my neck the way I always do when I’m nervous, but it’s not there. That missing part of me leaves me feeling disoriented. Lost. Empty.
“But you have an IED,” I insist.
Alissa grins. “I have an IUD.”
I frown. “What’d I say?”
“IED. Like a terrorist.”
“God, I’m sorry,” I tell her, feeling like an overwhelmed idiot.
“It’s okay.”
“What’s the failure rate on one of those, though? 5%? 4?”
“1.”
I curse under my breath as I lower my head into my good hand. “How much does the universe hate us?” I groan.
Alissa doesn’t answer. I look up to find her watching me calmly.
“Ali, look, I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t mean that a baby would be a punishment.” I grimace. “Not exactly.”
She waves away my apology. “No, it’s fine. Between your hand and everything else we’re going through, me getting pregnant at a time like this makes that a pretty valid question.”
“No offense to your intuition, but I’m going to wait for the test results to come back before I completely freak out.”
She raises her eyebrows. “This is not you freaking out?”
“Oh no,” I tell her, falling back into my seat. “This is a warm up for my complete and utter meltdown.”
“What’s that going to look like?” she asks, sitting back as well, looking for more at ease than she did just minutes ago.
“Do you remember when Britney Spears had her meltdown?”
“Whoa, is that what I’ve got to look forward to? You’re going to shave your head? Get married for 10 hours in Vegas?”
“No, no. I’m thinking of the guy who went online with a video of himself crying uncontrollably, screaming, ‘Leave Britney Alone!’”
Alissa scrunches up her nose. “I think I’d rather you shaved your head.”
I shrug. “You can’t pick and choose your crazy. You’ve gotta roll with the one you’ve got.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” she mutters, turning back to the TV.
We watch the show for awhile, both of us lost in our own heads. I glance over at her at one point to find her dozing off. She looks calm, peaceful. Beautiful. Despite the series of axes always hanging over our heads, the sight of her like this puts me at ease.
“Alissa! Jordan!” Leah calls from down the hall.
Ali jumps up straight in the bed as I leap to my feet.
Leah appears in the doorway, her face flushed pink and a smile stretched wide across her face. She’s absolutely beaming.
“They found it,” she breathes.
Alissa and I glance at each other, confused.
“The baby?” Alissa asks. “Are you talking about the results for my test?”
“No, I haven’t heard back about that. They’ve been too crazy. Too busy. Everyone is going insane because they found it.”
“Found what?”
She laughs in disbelief. “A cure.”
I shake my head, still not understanding. “There is no cure. You can’t cure this.”
“They’ve made a vaccine that’s resistant to the virus. Once you’re inoculated, even if you’re bitten, you won’t get The Fever. They took the virus, mutated it and made a cure.”
“What does this mean?” Alissa asks.
“It means we’re getting out of here!” Leah exclaims, her smile growing impossibly bigger. “They’re going to start vaccinating us immediately and evacuating people not long after. We’re not going to die in this place, that’s what it means.”
“Leah!” a voice calls from down the hall.
“I’m coming!” she calls back. “I have a drink, a real alcoholic drink, waiting for me. I gotta go. You guys let this sink in, wipe the confused, sad looks off your faces and come out here to celebrate with us.”
“Leah, wait!” Alissa cries. “The vaccine. What about the baby? Can I…”
Leah pauses, her face falling serious. “No, hon. We’ll wait for the results to make that decision, but if you are pregnant, you won’t be able to take the vaccine. Not until the baby is born.”
“Leah!” more impatient voices cry out.
“I’m coming,” she calls softly, her eyes still on Alissa. She opens her mouth to say something, but thinks better of it. Instead, she slaps her hand on the doorframe once lightly, then disappears out into the hall.
I look down at Ali sitting on the bed, stunned. Her eyes are wide with shock, her mouth slightly open and her hand is pressed firmly on her flat stomach. There’s still a chance that she’s not pregnant. That we’ll take the vaccine together and walk out of this place side by side, out into the world waiting for us to rejoin it with horror stories and battle scars. I want to hold out for that the way I know Alissa would, ever the optimist despite the horrifying hand she’s been dealt. But I don’t think that’s how it works, not for me. I think hope is a fickle, fragile thing, like blown glass. It’s beautiful in theory but a bitch to maintain. I’ll hold onto it as best I can, but in the end I know I’ll need her to help me keep it alive.
I lay my hand on top of hers, leaning over to kiss the top of her head lightly. She looks up at me with a small smile, hesitant but strong. I thread our fingers together and enjoy the warmth of her skin under mine. The solid, sturdy feel of her hand. It’s unflinching and brave, more loyal than a man deserves, and as I look down at her, I can imagine it building a world around a tiny spark of brilliance and light with my eyes and her hair. A world that will never fall, never fail and be all the things that we’ve lost that were ever truly worth a damn.
Epilogue – 9 Years Later
Beth
The cart that I’m hiding in is wheeled into another room farther down the hall. I can feel the wheels struggle and squeak over the uneven stone floor. My over-excited heart is in my throat as we turn a corner
, heading into a room that I think, I hope, I know. I clutch my baby close to me, caressing her hair gently to sooth her. If she makes a sound, we’re dead. They’ll know we’re here and all will be lost.
Light glares in through a small gap between the doors of the cart, hurting my eyes that had adjusted to the darkness. There’s supposed to be drawers and drawers, boxes and boxes of medical supplies stowed in here, but I cleared them to make room for baby and I. It was the only place to hide. It was our only choice.
For 6 years I’ve been trapped inside this prison. During that time I’ve never seen anything other than this island and the people on it. Never a foreigner. Never a zombie.
Today, I’m hoping to see both. I’m hoping to be liberated. I’m praying for freedom.
“We’ll just take some measurements on you,” Taylor’s familiar voice says. “Do a few tests, if you don’t mind.”
“And if we do?” a young man’s voice challenges.
“Then you can leave right now.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Lies. If leaving were so easy, baby and I would have done it a long time ago.
“Do your tests,” a girl says defiantly. “We’re not infected. We have nothing to hide.”
“Not that you know of. But the infection rate isn’t what it used to be, not since The Cure,” he says sarcastically. “Thanks to that little beauty of a failure, the last we checked, incubation took over a week before a person fully turned, meaning you’ll be locked in here for more than two. Are you prepared for that?”
“We don’t want to move in,” the boy complained. “We just need to speak to someone. Someone who makes decisions for the group.”
“How do you know you’re not talking to him? How do you know I’m not the Grand Poobah? The king of the island?”
I giggle before I can stop myself. The word Poobah and the idea of Taylor with a crown on his head are too funny to me. He’d probably wear it backwards like his baseball caps.
My giggle must give me away because the doors to the cart are suddenly flung open. Light blazes in, burning my eyes. I blink rapidly out at the dark figures slowly taking shape in front of me. In the cage I can see two boys, one very tall with blond hair and nice eyes, the other a little shorter with dark hair and laughing brown eyes, and a pretty girl with long, red hair and sad eyes.
“Beth, what the hell?” Taylor asks, exasperated.
I frown at the scolding. “I’m sorry, Taylor.”
“What are you doing in there?”
“Playing hide and seek with daddy.”
He raises his eyebrows suspiciously. “Does he know he’s playing this game with you?”
“No,” I admit reluctantly.
“Cheater. Get out of here. You’re not supposed to be in here, you know that. It’s dangerous.”
I go to climb out of the cart, stumbling slightly. One of the guards in the room with Taylor reaches down to help me out until I’m standing, sullen and embarrassed in front of everyone.
“My mom lets me in here all the time.”
“Yeah, when it’s empty and it’s just you and her. Seriously, sweetie, scram. Your dad will kill—“
The door behind me swings open, my daddy standing in the entrance.
“Taylor, have you seen Beth?”
Taylor silently rats me out with one stern finger pointed at my face.
Daddy sighs in relief and annoyance. “Come on, let’s go.”
“But I was going to help Taylor with the prisoners.” I whine, trudging toward him.
“You’re 8 years old, baby. Let’s worry more about taking your bath and less about becoming a warden.”
“Hey, brat,” Taylor calls after me. I turn to find him holding up my baby doll, the one my mom sewed for me on my birthday this year. “Don’t forget Little Miss, Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong here.”
I giggle, running back to take the doll from him. “Why do you call her that?”
“You don’t know that song?”
I shake my head, hugging my doll close.
“Come on, man,” Taylor says to my daddy. “You aren’t even raising her right.”
“Blow me,” daddy tells him.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means don’t ever repeat it,” Taylor tells me. “It also means Music Education in the rec room in an hour, you hear me?”
I smile at him happily. “Yes!”
“Alright, beat it.”
I go to leave with my daddy, careful to get on his right side because he doesn’t have a hand there. He likes to have his left side, his Fighting Side, free to keep me safe. Before we pass through the door, I look over my shoulder longingly at the prisoners I’m leaving behind. At the adventures we could have had together in the outside world. The blond boy smiles and waves at me, but when I go to wave back, I stop. My eyes meet with the pretty girl with the red hair and I want to run up to hug her.
“Joss, what’s wrong?” the brown eyed boy asks her.
Her eyes are watching me, following me as I leave the room with my daddy and my doll. And she’s crying.
This is the end of the Quarantined series.
Following is it’s sister series, Survival,
set in the same world 10 years deep into the end.
Writing on the Wall
Survival Series
Book One
By Tracey Ward
Writing on the Wall
Survival Series
Book One
By Tracey Ward
Text Copyright © 2013 Tracey Ward
All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in book review.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, events or incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to places or incidents is purely coincidental.
For anyone who refuses to be a Wendy.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Map
Chapter One
It happened at Christmas. Quite a time for the world to end but if we could pick and choose when Hell unhinged its jaw and tried to swallow us whole we’d probably pick never.
As it is, I suppose it could have been worse. Being eight years old and watching your neighbor break through the sliding glass door like it was made of paper isn’t the most traumatizing thing ever. His blood spurting from shredded wounds and dead vacant eyes that somehow still see you, really see you? You can come back from that. After a few weeks I’d even get over the black blood that dripped onto my brand new Cabbage Patch Doll with the blond hair and pretty, smiling eyes. It’s fine. That’s all fine.
What you don’t come back from is watching him eat your parents. Literally, honestly, violently eat your parents. I saw it. All of it. Huddled behind the Christmas tree, peaking out through the fragrant green needles and soft glow of the multicolored lights, I watched it happen. And I remember. The sounds, the sight, the smell. I’ll never forget. Nearly ten years later I can relive it with perfect clarity but I seriously try not to. Life is horrifying enough. I don’t need to borrow on past troubles.
Today my trouble is a wolf. Have wolves ever really been an issue in downtown Seattle before? I don’t know. I was just a kid when crazy came to town but I’m willing to bet not. They’re everywhere now. A lot of animals are. The city has become a wilderness in a who
le new way. Used to be you had to worry about walking alone at night because you might get jumped by a member of a gang or a desperate soul pushed to the limit. Now you have to worry about getting jumped by an animal in a pack or a starving zombie desperate for your brain, not your wallet. There really aren’t that many of them left anymore, though. I mean, they’re around, don’t be fooled and don’t be stupid. I’m just saying it’s not like it was. Not like in the beginning. But right now I’m pretty sure the wolves outnumber the dead.
This one is a dark gray color, long and lithe. He’d be pretty if he weren’t so deadly. Also if he weren’t in my way. I need to go out to get fresh water from one of the rain traps I’ve set up on other buildings farther out. I make sure to never do it on my own building aside from one small hidden bucket for emergencies. It’s about half full but I’m thirsty and it’s getting late.
I’m standing in the dark entryway of my building watching the animal wander the street, sniffing the knee high grass growing through cracks in the asphalt. The roads are a mess these days. Really makes me wonder where our tax dollars are going. I’m just about to make a break for it when I catch movement in another doorway farther down the street. I freeze, waiting and watching, barely breathing. It moves again, too tall to be an animal and too precise to be a zombie. It’s another person. This bothers me more than anything else. I shrink back farther into the shadows, making sure I’m completely hidden, and I watch to see what the guy’s plan is.
I know it’s a man. Not from any details of his outline or instinct or scent on the wind. I know it because statistically it’s probably true. There aren’t many women out here in the wild, not anymore. Most of us either died or entered the Colonies, of which there are too many if you ask me. There are several spread all over the city with hundreds of people in each one. It sounds like a great way to spread the virus some more. Really bring on the second coming. I’m one of the few people, male or female, doing it alone and being a woman on the outside is not ideal. In fact it’s downright dangerous. Some of us can’t make it. There are a lot of predators out here and odds are one of them will get you eventually.