Turning

by Melinda Chapman

  The truck door slammed so hard that it shocked her spine almost straight. Her vision swayed more than the movement of her head, but she blinked to see if Gordon’s seat was empty. The door on her side clunked open, and the cool night air breathed through the back of her hair.

  “Come on, Mari,” he ordered from outside, holding the door. “How many people have had to accept this fate before you?”

  He watched her body swing in its own tiny circle as she tried to find anything she could use to defend herself. Gordon leaned in and gripped her collar at the back of her neck. He yanked hard, holding her away from himself as if she were a split bag of garbage. Her torso went with him, but her right arm shot out and clamped on the doorframe.

  “No!”

  Mari rubbed her bloodied bandage across his face. With a petrified wail, he stumbled backward, snorting the blood from his nose and wiping his lips in frenzy.

  By the time Gordon collected himself, Mari had grabbed the truck door and almost shut it. He lunged toward the handle, but she kicked the door open, and the panel smashed into his face. Blood poured from his nose, and he looked disoriented. He shuffled back toward her with his fingers scouring across his bleeding face.

  “Murderer!” Mari’s howl cramped her ribcage.

  Kicking the door with force, she sent him flying off his feet. He fell straight-backed and hit his head on the curb of the road. He landed facing up at the stars. His eyes stared blankly as the blood oozed across the fine grey concrete of the gutter.

  Mari sat upright in mute shock until her body deflated against the seat. The clear moonlight shone on her face through the windscreen and coaxed her tired eyelids to close. No undead, no humans. There was not a sound except for the air blowing through the hollow buildings, matching the air puffing in and out of her lungs. It was the same air that human and zombie breathed; yet neither refused to keep breathing it.

  The road extended far into the darkness ahead. Mari's vision came in and out of focus, but she could see well enough to drive. Sliding over to the driver’s seat, she cranked up the engine and pressed her foot on the accelerator. The truck rolled away slowly at first, gradually gaining speed.

  What time was it when Gordon stopped the truck? How long had she been asleep before he woke her? It was impossible to gauge. Her life was becoming a blur. Moments and events stacked on top of each other, too heavy to carry all at once. As she drove, snapshots rushed to her mind, from the last few days to the last year with no logical connection or timeline. Only the emotional charge linked them together in their new, more meaningful order.

  Slowing down, she noticed a small airfield and a racecourse. Soon, the farms dotting the highway were replaced with tight rows of houses. A sign welcomed her to Ararat, and her stomach churned. Perusing the buildings and factories, she didn’t see any high fences, lights, or any trace of a camp. She wasn’t even sure if it was located within the town.

  Who was she fooling? What if Gordon was right and she was too far-gone? Mari thought of him, and what she did out of desperation. And Andy. How cruelly she put her life before his and left him to a horrible fate. She cut their lives short, and for what?

  Mari looked at her reflection in the rear view mirror and found something frightening. The little plastic jumbo jet perpetually swung below. She growled as she ripped it down.

  It was time to check her body for evidence of where the warm colour of her humanity had drained from the skin. Her good arm was on the steering wheel. She wasn’t going to stop the truck and waste precious minutes, not knowing how much longer she could handle driving. She unzipped her jacket and tugged down the neck of her singlet, juggling the wheel with one knee.

  Pointing the rear view mirror downward to examine her chest, she caught some movement just ahead of the truck. It wasn’t the movement of shadows that she was accustomed to but a movement of light. It looked like torchlight far off in the distance, flashing across the road.

  Heart racing, Mari put all her weight on the accelerator. The light disappeared and flashed again. Please don’t go. Please don’t go! It was much farther away and larger than she first estimated. The pattern of light repeated rhythmically. It was a spotlight!

  The truck came to a slight downhill, picking up speed. This gave her a a brief moment to rest the fatigued muscles in her leg. It worried her that she might not have the strength to slam on the brake, but she couldn’t hold back now. The only thing that mattered was the light growing in the distance and the invisible line that connected her to it.

  When the truck drew near, the spotlight reappeared, lighting up a right side exit. It was cradled with high wire fences, and more light spilled from points farther down the narrow road. Mari took her foot off the accelerator to allow the truck to slow down, but without the brake it cornered widely. She scrambled to pull down on the steering. The truck made the turn but slowed to a complete stop. The broad flash of light beamed across the windscreen, searing her eyes. In the overt blackness of its wake, she could just make out what lay ahead at the end of the road. She squinted to confirm.

  A prison. The camp was a converted prison with huge concrete walls and spotlight towers. High in the towers, she could see silhouettes of people. People. Mari felt a surge of resistance. This was it. This is what she was fighting for. With little strength to stop herself, she began to cry. Through tears, she struggled to look down at her foot fumbling on the accelerator. Her leg trembled violently up to her hip.

  “Come on!” Mari pleaded.

  If she could drive as far as the gate, someone would help her. She tried the other foot. Her whole body quivered from the exertion and was on the edge of collapse. She had barely moved the pedal.

  The inside of the truck was now painted with a glacier of blood. All Mari could think of was that someone would have to wash that. No, it won’t be enough. They’ll have to get seat covers. What was it she needed? Something small, hard, and heavy. There was nothing useful lying around the truck, and it was physically impossible to climb into the back and check. She finally saw the broken stereo hanging under the dash and pulled it out. It doesn’t work…what do I need this for?

  Her mind pulsed with inaudible gibberish and cleared again. Bending down to the floor, she leaned the stereo on the accelerator and held it there with her right arm. The truck started to move forward, not fast but forward. Her head pressed awkwardly against the steering wheel and kept it steady while she stretched to hold the stereo in place. Mari held her breath and listened to the slow crunch of the bitumen under the tires. Praying the truck would go faster, she let her eyes close.

  Chapter 5

  “Marietta?”

  Someone knew her name. She couldn’t work out where their voice was coming from, but they knew her name. Mari wanted to sit up on the bed, but she was shivering. Her muscles felt as if they were embedded in the mattress.

  Wincing under the brightness, she realised the room had electricity. Three of the walls were plain and unadorned. Their fresh white paint glared under the sterile fluorescent lights. Her only relief was the wall opposite her bed, which contained a large tinted mirror set into the plaster. Without a window in the room, the only exit was the steel door to the left of her. Medical equipment towered to the right of her bed, sending tubes into her arm and her nose.

  “Marietta, can you speak?”

  He was a doctor of some kind. His coat was long and green, and he had gloves but no surgical hat. The doctor walked over from a bench lined with instruments as if he were surprised to see her awake. Under his coat, he wore jeans and thick-soled army boots.

  “It's just Mari,” she replied quietly. “Did I smash your gate?”

  The doctor chuckled. He was young, but his smile revealed deep lines of exhaustion. “Not at that speed. You swerved and bent the wire fence about halfway down the road. A spotlight drew attention to you, and I sent a team out to investigate.”

  Mari nodded. “Are you in charge here?”

  His eyebrow twitched. “I’m one
of the people in charge, yes. I’m Dr. Vaughn.” His lips raised a smile again, but there was a sense of urgency in his expression.

  Mari tried to lift her head, but it thudded back to the pillow. Overcome with drowsiness, she rubbed her eyes. Oddly, she could feel her hand and fingers moving, but her eyelids couldn’t feel anything scratching them. Where’s my hand? Mari blinked hard, only to discover that her left arm ended at the elbow with a perfect ball of clean, white bandage. It wasn’t her hand that she felt; it was only a phantom limb sensation.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn't expect you to wake up so soon. I was going to cover you with a blanket and let you know in a more sensitive manner.”

  Mari looked down her body. She was still in her jeans and singlet with no hospital gown covering her. Only her jacket, socks, and boots had been removed. On the small table beside the bed, there was her card with her full name, emergency details, and the list of virus symptoms. The hope that a friend had given the doctor her name disintegrated.

  “That’s okay,” Mari said politely.

  Her gaze kept returning to the white ball. There was no way her arm could be salvaged. She just hadn’t considered any aspect of her survival beyond getting the vaccine. Her eyes widened, and she clutched the doctor’s coat.

  “The vaccine! Did you give it to me?”

  Dr. Vaughn calmly removed her hand and placed it on the bed. “No.”

  “But I've been bitten! Did you know that? Did I not make it in time?”

  He tilted his head.

  Mari stammered. “You don’t understand. I’m extremely dangerous! Is it too late?”

  She wanted to tell him everything in all its gruesome detail, so he could see what a mistake it was to be alone with her, but her mind refused to form the sentences. All she could think was that he’d wasted precious medical supplies amputating her arm.

  Dr. Vaughn paused and studied her expression. “You do realise you’re not infected?”

  The air escaped her lungs. The galloping thoughts disappeared into the distance, leaving nothing but haze over an empty space. Mari looked around the room, suddenly questioning where she really was. She waited to hear the words that she thought she heard, again.

  “You’re immune, Mari.” Dr. Vaughn ran his hand through his hair. “Isn’t that one of the reasons you've come to us? You’re aware of your condition, aren’t you? We only have a vaccine because we can develop it from the blood of immune people like you.”

  Mari shook her head continuously and found it hard to stop. She remembered the incalculable rage that invaded her mind and animated her body. Mari’s face was agonised, but she spoke with absolute gravity. “No, you don’t understand. There’s been a mistake!”

  The doctor paused to remove her hand from his sleeve again. He dragged a chair across the linoleum floor and sat at Mari’s bedside. Drawing his eyebrows together with his fingers, he glanced toward the mirror before returning his attention to her.

  “It’s not a mistake, Mari. When we found you, you had lost an incredible amount of blood. It was critical that we got you on the table immediately in order to save your life. Because of the age of the wound and your fully human condition, we conducted the tests at the same time.”

  Fully human condition. The words circled until they lost all familiarity, and the letters simply became shapes in her head.

  Dr. Vaughn looked at her with a hint of frustration. “Mari, you've lasted out in the field for a solid year, and you have all this experience with the infected. How could you not find your condition abnormal? You were almost 21 hours when we found you with no symptoms of transformation.”

  Mari frowned. “I've heard of people lasting for longer than that. I thought I was one of them.”

  “If that’s true, they were probably immune too. This is the struggle I have as a researcher. There's not enough accurate information in the field. Most of the immune get killed by other humans - just like any other infected - or they’re left to bleed out and die naturally from their wounds. This almost happened to you. Everything you experienced in terms of symptoms is completely typical for someone with your injury and severe loss of blood.”

  Mari shook her head again, knowing she didn’t feel typical at all. “But I got so mad…so mad…like you wouldn’t believe any human could. My anger, the rage…the strength that came from it…I could smash down every wall, every tree, every building, anything upright, and slam it all down into the core of the earth!”

  The doctor shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “How long have you been fighting, Mari?”

  She was too exhausted to think of it in numbers. “Since the start.”

  “Who have you lost?”

  Everyone.

  Her heart beat fast, and she teetered between panic and rage. Her mind flared painfully bright with imagery, fully lighting a dark place she thought she’d never return to. Resisting the horrible images, she carefully extracted their names.

  “Beni.” Mari spoke his name for the first time in a year. The sound warped through the room and changed the atmosphere. Her neck locked up, and she could no longer face Dr. Vaughn. “I lost my husband, Beni. And also my parents. My sisters, Sofia and Alex. Back home, I lost my best friend, Josephine, as well as her family. My nieces and nephews. And every single person I've ever known before and over the last year.”

  Dr. Vaughn nodded as he listened. “Did you spend any time in other camps?”

  “What camps?” Mari snapped, immediately glancing into his eyes apologetically.

  Instead of responding, he observed the light shaking of her body. A moment passed until he opened up again.

  “Look, Mari, you haven’t stopped since this whole thing happened. The last time you felt anything was probably the day you lost your loved ones. Believe me, you’re not the only one. People show up at our door, hard as nails from months of survival. We give them food. Give them a bed behind stone walls and barbed wire. And they finally feel safe. They let go of the fight, and they have an emotional breakdown. A lot of the work we do in the hospital is related to post-traumatic stress.”

  “Dr. Vaughn, I'm not like those people. I got infected.”

  “You’re no different, Mari. You just let go for a different reason. You thought you were dying. Even worse, turning. It would be devastating to know that your brain and body will continue to exist but without any control over what they do.”

  None of these words were what she wanted to hear. “You’re wrong. The test is wrong! I’m a monster. You don’t know the terrible things I've done!”

  “Please, Mari. Stop this. Think of all the lives you can save!” Dr. Vaughn quickly moved forward in his chair and leaned close to her face. His words became rapid and quiet. “Frankly, I don’t care what you've done. You will be looked after. You will be fed better than anyone else here including me. The immune are absolutely critical to our future. Not only do we create the vaccine from your blood, you carry the virus in your body and it doesn’t affect you. Do you know what this means?”

  Mari shook her head and turned her face as he continued.

  “It means once the virus is through your system, the undead recognise you as one of them. They won’t attack you. Even with the vaccination, people still attract zombies. It just means their bodies can kill the virus if they get contaminated.”

  Mari remembered Andy at the petrol station, and the zombies who ignored her to get to him. The doctor watched her as she processed the information.

  “Think about what that means for protecting humanity,” he said. “Eventually, if we have enough immune people, you'll be allowed back in the field. We'll be able to send you into dangerous situations we’d never send anyone else. You could, potentially, be fighting for the rest of your natural life without the threat of the undead. We need you out there, and we need your blood for the vaccine.”

  Mari started to feel just how small the room was. “Is there somewhere with an open window? Can we go outside?”

  “No, Ma
ri, not for a while. We need to ensure your full recovery, both physically and mentally. After that, you will begin the initial program for immune patients.”

  “If I recover, wouldn't that mean I'm no longer a patient?”

  Dr. Vaughn crossed his legs awkwardly. “Yes, of course. Unfortunately, we only have two immune people here, apart from you. Another two have already died from bacterial infection. Until we find more of you, there are necessary procedures to follow.”

  He toughened his tone. “Life is safer in the camp, but it's not easy. There’s a lot of pain and not much to replace it. But we’re here to continue the human race, and we each have a role to fulfil. You included.”

  It was selfish, but she didn’t want to be needed by these people. She didn't want to risk her life for them or put their needs before hers. Selfish is what she had become over the last 24 hours, and selfish is what she would remain until she got what she wanted.

  Mari didn't want to fight anymore. Her edge was gone. When she used to confront a zombie, her body and mind would be primed for the single action of destroying it. Now when she came across one, her senses turned inward, and her instincts became lulled by a swell of unanswerable questions.

  The doctor could never understand this. Chemical or otherwise, Mari had seen the part of them that was in her. Fear was the only thing that had shut her feelings down and kept her fighting all this time. It was the fear of becoming one of them.

  An incredible calmness overcame her, so perfect, so rich in contrast to the fraught stillness she could only achieve before. She pulled herself up and sat for a moment, breathing the euphoria through her body under the alert gaze of Dr. Vaughn. Using her teeth, she yanked the drip from her arm. She pulled the tube from her nose and slid off the bed.

  Dr. Vaughn stood abruptly but failed to catch her by the shoulder. “Mari! Please lie down. You’re not ready to get up yet!”

  Mari walked a few aimless steps around the room on shaky legs, watching the white ball of bandage swing like a pendulum. Nearby stood the bench lined with surgical instruments. She could barely discern what each of them was in the spread of glinting chrome.