The Becoming

by Jessica Meigs

  Gray nodded and climbed into the back of the Jeep, maneuvering carefully around the young woman’s unconscious body. He retrieved a handgun from the large black duffel bag Cade had left in the back, and he loaded the weapon mechanically as he kept his eyes on the scene of the fire before them.

  Ten minutes ticked by. Remy stirred with a soft groan, and her return to consciousness gave Theo a distraction from his own hurting head as he tended to her wounds. Gray stood guard outside the driver’s door of the Jeep, silent and tense. The ten minutes they had allotted to wait for Cade and Brandt’s arrival slid by faster than Gray would have liked.

  Ten minutes passed, and still they did not come.

  Chapter 28

  Ethan let the motorcycle roll to a slow stop, his hands working the brakes with practiced smoothness. He braced a foot against the cracked pavement and cut the engine; it shuddered and died in the otherwise quiet parking lot. Ethan shifted on his seat and looked over his shoulder at Nikola. The teenager had his waist in a vice-like grip, and her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, even though the motorcycle had stopped. Ethan smiled at the girl’s nervousness.

  “Hey, Nikola?” Ethan said. He patted his fingers against the back of her hand, and she hesitantly opened her eyes. “It’s okay if you let go of me now, you know. We’ve stopped.”

  Nikola glanced around them and then reluctantly released her grip from Ethan’s waist. She laughed, though her voice still shook. “Where are we?” she asked as she dislodged Ethan’s helmet from her head.

  “Methodist University Hospital,” Ethan explained. “Or what’s left of it.” He waited for Nikola to slide off the back of the motorcycle before he dismounted. “My wife works here. Worked here. I wanted to check and see…” He trailed off as he reached underneath his leather jacket for his handgun. Even Ethan realized just how stupid the idea was. What in the hell was he doing here? It was not a safe place to be. He began to wonder if Cade was right; maybe he’d have been better off sticking with the others. But as this idea crossed his mind, Nikola’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

  “You want to see if she’s still here, don’t you?” Nikola bit her lip and studied the dark parking lot around them.

  Ethan watched silently as she pulled her baseball bat from the bag strapped to the side of the motorcycle. Nikola was why he was here. If he hadn’t decided to come back to Memphis, even for the few days he’d promised Cade he would take, then there was no telling where Nikola would have been at that moment. Still struggling along on her own at best. Dead at worst. The thought didn’t sit well with him.

  Ethan didn’t bother to reply to Nikola’s question. He simply said, “Just stick close to me.”

  Nikola blew out a breath and nodded. Ethan could tell that it was a struggle for her not to grab him by the back of his jacket and dig her fingers in. Ethan chose to not mention her obvious nervousness. Instead, he looked at the burned-out husk of the emergency room where Anna had once worked. He couldn’t see much in the falling evening, so he went back to the bike and grabbed a flashlight from his bag.

  “Keep your noise down as much as possible,” Ethan instructed Nikola as he returned. “We don’t know what we’ll find. We don’t know what might be here.”

  Nikola nodded obediently and mimed zipping her lips shut. Ethan gave her a small, reluctant smile. But as he turned his eyes back onto the remains of the emergency room, the expression disappeared from his face. He couldn’t believe Anna might have been in there. He couldn’t reconcile the memory of her beautiful smile with the prospect of never seeing it again.

  Ethan swallowed hard and shoved back his feelings. He couldn’t let his emotions take control of him. They would distract him from any approaching dangers, and a mere moment’s distraction could cost him and Nikola their lives. He strode forward, steadily and with purpose, straight to the emergency doors. The remnants of the entrance loomed over him, and his shoes crunched over blackened tiles and broken glass on the floor. Nikola followed him, sticking close, her bat raised and prepared to hit anything that might come at her. Ethan patted Nikola on the shoulder reassuringly before he continued inside.

  The emergency room was the very image of chaos. Stretchers lay overturned and burned, and the nurses’ station was cluttered with leftover emergency supplies. As Ethan gawked at the blackened scene before him, he tripped over an IV stand on the floor. He stumbled and caught himself against the husk of the station counter. Chunks of it crumbled and flaked under his palms.

  It was as he straightened that Ethan caught sight of her. She lay slumped against a wall, directly below the main oxygen shut-off valves outside one of the major trauma rooms. Her head was bowed low, her shoulders rolled forward as if she’d hunched over to protect herself from the flames. Her clothes and skin were blackened and cracked, and her dark hair was gone, but Ethan knew—he wasn’t sure how, but he was absolutely certain—that it was her. It had to be her.

  “Anna?” Ethan whispered.

  He pushed away from the counter and slowly moved toward the damaged body. His feet felt as if they were dragging along the tiles, scraping forward with all the reluctance he felt in his body. He completely forgot about Nikola’s presence as he reached the woman. He dropped heavily to his knees, eyes wide, and his gun clattered to the tiles as he tilted his head to look into the woman’s face.

  Ethan wasn’t one hundred percent positive that it was her. Not at first. Not from this angle and not with her skin so blackened and burned. He leaned farther down and braced his hand against the charred tile. Then he saw it. From this vantage point, there was no doubt in his mind that it was her.

  “Oh fuck, Anna,” Ethan whispered, heartbroken. He closed his eyes as the pain of certainty washed over him. He reached out as if to touch her face, but his hand stopped inches away from her and dropped to the tile floor. “Jesus, why couldn’t you have just stayed home?” he asked, though he knew he wouldn’t get an answer.

  “Is this … this is Anna?” Nikola asked softly. Ethan opened his eyes but didn’t look at the girl as she knelt on the other side of Anna. Her blue eyes were on him, and he could feel the worry and concern in them. He drew in a breath, coughing as soot tried to choke him. Then he nodded and rubbed his face.

  “Yeah. Yeah, it’s her,” he confirmed.

  “How can you tell?”

  Ethan gave a helpless shrug. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “I just know. I’m absolutely positive. It’s her.”

  Nikola fell blessedly silent after that, and Ethan shot her a quick grateful look before he turned his attention back to Anna. He wasn’t sure what to do. He and Anna had discussed their final wishes with each other a year after they had married. Anna had told him at the time that she wanted to be cremated. Ethan had been against it; his upbringing had always dictated a gravesite and monument, and the thought of his beautiful wife burned to ashes had always disturbed him. It had been a small source of contention between them for the better part of a week. How odd, Ethan reflected, that in death, Anna had gotten almost exactly what she’d wanted.

  “Maybe we should find something to cover her with,” Nikola suggested. Ethan didn’t answer her right away. Instead, he forced himself to shift, to put one foot against the ground in preparation to stand.

  As Ethan rose, a faint glimpse of gold around Anna’s neck shone in the light from his flashlight. Ethan leaned in to get a closer look and realized that it was the locket that he’d given her for Christmas. It was partially melted and covered in soot and other things that Ethan didn’t want to consider. But as his eyes landed on it, he decided right then that he had to take it with him. He glanced at Nikola as she started into the major trauma room next to them.

  “Be careful,” Ethan warned her. She nodded and waved a hand at him, and he leaned farther over Anna’s body.

  The locket’s chain was partially melted, and Ethan was forced to break it to get the jewelry off of Anna’s body. Once the locket was in his palm, he turned it over and studied it. He remem
bered the expression on his wife’s face when she’d opened the box on Christmas morning. He blinked rapidly to clear his eyes of tears and used his thumb to wipe the dirt and ashes from the damaged gold before he gripped it tightly in his fist.

  “Here.” Nikola reappeared at Ethan’s elbow and offered him the edge of a torn white sheet that wasn’t too badly burned. He accepted it with a grateful smile. Together, they shook the sheet out and laid it over Anna’s remains.

  Nikola stood beside Ethan in silence as they stared at the white-shrouded figure lying against the wall. Ethan gripped the flashlight tighter and rubbed his fingers over the locket in his hand. Everything was quiet and still. Thankfully, there were no signs of any of the infected nearby. Perhaps they had moved on to other areas with more potential for prey.

  Ethan startled as a hand touched his arm. He looked over wildly before he realized that it was just Nikola. The young girl gave his arm a light squeeze and asked, “Should we get out of here?”

  “Yeah,” Ethan said. His voice choked as he spoke, and he cleared his throat before he continued. “Yeah, we should. I told my friends that I would track them down in Biloxi before four days were up. They’ve been instructed not to wait for me if I’m not there by then.” He tucked the locket into his pocket, securing it as best as he could to one of his belt loops. “You’re not planning on staying here in Memphis, are you?” he asked Nikola.

  Nikola hoisted her backpack up higher on her shoulder. “Depends. Are you willing to let me come along with you?”

  “No, I figure I’ll just leave you here,” Ethan said sarcastically. The conversation was doing wonders to distract him from his grief. He plunged headlong into it with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “Seems like a good idea, you know? I mean, you’re fourteen. It’s about time you went out and took care of yourself.”

  Nikola looked at Ethan with wide blue eyes, blinking in surprise as she examined his face. Ethan couldn’t believe that she was taking him seriously, but before he could express that, she let out a merry laugh. The sound was horribly out of place in the charred remains of the emergency room. An involuntary smile spread across Ethan’s face at the sound.

  “That’s just wrong,” Nikola said. She gave him a light punch in the bicep. “Come on, can we get out of here?” she asked. “This place is starting to really creep me out.”

  Ethan chuckled softly and nodded. He offered Nikola his hand, and she took it. “Place feels like a tomb,” he agreed. With one more backwards glance at Anna’s shrouded body, he led Nikola back out into the parking lot where the motorcycle waited.

  “Do we really have to take the bike?” Nikola asked. She stopped beside the red-and-black bike and eyed it warily, twirling her bat in her hand.

  “What, you don’t want to ride on it?” Ethan teased. He straddled the bike and kicked the kickstand up with his foot. Then he turned and patted the seat behind him.

  “That thing scares the shit out of me,” she complained. She shifted from one foot to the other and continued to make faces at the bike, obviously stalling. “Can we find a car or a truck or a … a tank? Anything? It might be more comfortable or something.”

  “Nikola, the roads between here and Biloxi are probably bad,” he explained. “And if they are, it’ll be easier to get a motorcycle through whatever we come across than it will be to get a car through. I don’t want to have to abandon whatever vehicle we’re driving in that case, because I seriously don’t want to walk.” He smirked. “Besides, I don’t know how to drive a tank.”

  Nikola giggled and visibly caved. “Fine, fine,” she said. She sighed in resignation, stuffed her bat into her backpack, and slid onto the bike behind Ethan. After jamming Ethan’s helmet back onto her head, she locked her arms securely around his waist, grasping her left wrist with her right hand, and shifted to make sure her position on the bike was secure. “No complaining if I squeeze your guts out through your mouth, okay?” she said once she was settled.

  “The mental image that gives me is disgusting,” Ethan informed her. “Makes me think of toothpaste tubes.” He turned the key in the bike’s ignition, and the roar of the bike’s engine as he revved it drowned out Nikola’s laughter.

  Chapter 29

  The blast from the RV slammed Brandt to the ground even as he pulled Cade with him. He hit the pavement hard, and his breath rushed out of his lungs with the impact. His handgun skittered away, and he gripped Cade tightly and attempted to shield her body with his own. A tremendous roar filled his ears, and he glanced back behind him. Burning propane rushed out of the remains of the tank, the flames fueled even further by the gas from the RV’s punctured fuel line and the alcohol that had ignited it all. Above it all, though, he could hear the screams of the infected as they burned. The awful sound sent chills down his spine. He gripped Cade tighter to him and wheezed for air, waiting for the debris to quit falling around them. He staggered to his feet. Danger still mounted around them, but he wasn’t willing to wait any longer.

  “Come on!” Brandt shouted. The loud roar drowned out his words, and he had to repeat himself twice before Cade responded. Cade pushed up onto her hands and scrambled forward a couple of feet in an odd crab-like walk to retrieve her rifle. Brandt groaned in impatience and grabbed Cade by a fistful of her jacket. He hauled her upright onto her feet. Several of the infected—some moderately injured but others without any visible wounds—had taken notice of the prey nearby and, despite the chaos of the explosion and their compatriots burning in the street, began to give chase. “Fuck, Cade, let’s go, let’s go!” Brandt yelled.

  Cade gained her feet easily enough. But as she took a step forward to run, her right leg gave out underneath her. She nearly toppled to the pavement again with a pained cry. Brandt caught her around the waist to stop her fall. “You okay?” he asked.

  “It’s my knee!” Cade called over the noise. “I think I hurt it!”

  Brandt didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Cade’s arm and slung it over his shoulder, then pulled her close and hooked his arm around her waist more securely. “Come on! Lean against me and run as well as you can.”

  Brandt helped her along the street, her body heavy against his. Her gasps of pain with every step stirred up guilt in Brandt’s gut. He shouldn’t have thrown her down on the ground like he had. But what was a painful knee compared to getting hit in the face with flying debris? It was no contest, really.

  As they hobbled along, Brandt slowed by Cade’s limping progress but never once thinking that he should ditch her to save his own skin, he came to the sobering realization that there was no way they would make it the two blocks to the Jeep. Cade slowed down as she slung her rifle over her shoulder. She drew her handgun instead and gripped it tightly, scanning the street again.

  “We aren’t going to make it that far,” Cade said, breathless from the effort of trying to run on her injured limb. “Not with my knee fucked up like it is. We’ve got to find some place to hole up.”

  “Yeah, we can catch up with the others soon. I know where they’re planning to go,” Brandt said. He turned his eyes onto the buildings nearby, but gunshots suddenly rang out beside him. He saw several of the infected draw closer to them—too close. He swore and grabbed for his own gun. He kept his grip tight on Cade as he too opened fire. He carefully lined up his shots even as he pulled Cade backwards farther down the street. “Come on!”

  Cade staggered after him, her grip on his shoulder tightening, her nails digging painfully into the muscles and tendons where his neck met his shoulder. Brandt ignored the pain; the pain of being caught by the infected would be worse than anything Cade could inflict on him.

  As they ran, Cade twisted around and fired into the mass of infected following them. Bullets slammed into shoulders and arms and torsos and whizzed past harmlessly. Brandt breathed out a curse as he scanned the street and the buildings around them. There weren’t many options available to them. Most of the buildings were one- and two-story affairs, and a large portion of their win
dows were broken. Those would do them no good; they could barricade the doors, but if the windows were broken, the attempt would be futile. Instead, Brandt looked higher. His eyes landed on a five-story building that might have been an office complex before the world went to hell. Many of the first-floor windows were broken, but everything on the top four floors looked secure enough for their use.

  “This way!” Brandt shouted.

  Cade followed without question, leaning against him more heavily than before. They veered to the right to cross the street, dodging and weaving between cars and bicycles and other debris blocking the roadway. Brandt tripped over the edge of the curb when they got to the other side of the street, but he managed to recover with Cade’s help. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks as he reached the front door of the office complex. He grasped the handle on the front door and pulled.

  It didn’t budge.

  “Shit!” Brandt yelled. He slapped his hand against the glass inset in the door. Cade pressed herself back against the wall beside the door and fired twice more before she shot him a questioning glance. She sucked in a breath and ejected the magazine to reload. “It’s locked,” Brandt explained. He pulled on the door again uselessly.

  “Move!” Cade ordered. She slammed the fresh magazine into her handgun. Brandt backpedaled as she aimed the gun at the door’s lock, and she fired three quick shots into it. The lock shattered, and Brandt planted his boot against the door in a hard kick. It swung open, and as Cade turned her attention back to the mass of infected racing toward them, Brandt grabbed her by the arm and hauled her inside the darkened office building.

  Their footsteps echoed on the tile floor as they stumbled inside. Brandt took a moment to push the door shut behind them. It wasn’t going to hold for more than a moment or two, especially since Cade had done such a thorough job of breaking the door’s lock. But even the false sense of momentary security it gave him was enough. He swept the lobby of the building with his gun, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cade do the same. When both of them were passably satisfied that the lobby was clear, Brandt grabbed Cade’s arm again and pulled her to a door labeled in bold capital letters, “STAIRS.”