by James Harden
“They must’ve heard us,” she says. “They must’ve…”
“The virus is designed to find life,” I say.
“We’ll have to take the long way back.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We can’t go back out there, we can’t cross the mall. We can’t move out into the open.”
“So what do we do?”
“Follow me.”
We move back into the maintenance corridor.
“We have to move to the very end of this hall way,” Sarah explains. “And then circle back around.”
I nod. “How long do we have?”
“Three minutes.”
We are taking a detour. But it shouldn’t be too bad because we’ll be hidden in the maintenance corridor. I guess the only drawback is it will take a lot longer to get back. And this hallway is long and dark and narrow. If we get trapped in here, if we get ambushed or attacked, we are in big trouble.
But before we can make our way back to the others we need to make one more stop.
Sarah leads me to a store in the entertainment area.
It is an old school video game arcade. It is wall to wall with video games and carnival games. I’m starting to realize that this place, this underground facility, had everything a person could ever want, or ever need.
Again we make our way through the back entrance. We move into the office. I stay in the doorway, keeping an eye out for the infected.
But something is wrong.
Sarah becomes frantic. She opens a few desk draws and then closes them immediately. She makes more noise than she has made since I first met her. Too much noise.
“What is it?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re gone. They’re not here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had hidden a whole bunch of supplies here. Not just gas masks. I had air filters. Bottles of water. I had canned food.”
“And it’s all gone?”
“Yeah.”
Movement catches my eye through the front windows of the arcade.
I see a group of people. They are wearing raincoats and gas masks. They move through the mall quickly and quietly.
They are organized and methodical.
They move like soldiers. But I don’t think they are.
“There’s someone out there,” I whisper.
Sarah immediately grabs me and pulls me to the ground. We take cover behind a large arcade machine.
“Who are they?” I ask.
Sarah just shakes her head.
I get the feeling that they are some not very nice people.
They continue on their way, moving silently. The thick, poisonous air billowing around them as they walk on by.
They eventually disappear from view.
Sarah taps me on the shoulder. “Your filter is about to run out.”
“What do I do?”
“It’s easy. Twist. Remove. Discard. Get the new filter. Insert. Twist. Secure.”
I do as she says. It’s easy enough.
Twist.
Remove.
Discard.
Get the new filter.
Insert.
Twist.
Secure.
I’ve got another five minutes on the clock.
“Got it?” she asks.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Just breathe normally,” she says. “But whatever you do, don’t take your mask off when you’re changing the air filter. Better to suffocate then to get infected. Understand?”
“Yeah. Totally.” I check my mask again, making sure it is secure against my face. “So what were those people doing?” I ask. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know what they were doing,” she answers. “Looking for supplies, I guess. Same thing we’re doing.”
“Maybe that’s why the infected are so agitated.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
She thinks this over for a second.
“We should get back,” she says. “We can get the other gas masks from the sporting goods store.”
“What about leaving some behind as a precaution, in case of an emergency?”
“Trust me, this classifies as an emergency.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing good ever happens when I see those people. Nothing. We need to go. We need to get back. And then we need to get the hell out of here.”
Chapter 21
We move back into the shopping district, back to the sporting goods store. It’s not until Sarah has collected the two remaining gas masks and the other air filters that she remembers to take off her mask.
She tells me to do the same.
I store it in my backpack.
Sarah moves to the front of the store to check if she can see the infected.
This area of the mall is clear.
“They must still be up the other end,” Sarah says, thinking aloud to herself. “Probably followed the others.”
This was good news for us. It means we could move back into the subway station unseen.
“Let’s go,” she says.
We move quickly back the way we came. We are making more noise now. Our breathing is getting louder and louder.
I don’t know why seeing those people has spooked Sarah so much. But whatever the reason, it can’t be good.
We make our way through the subway station and into the subway maintenance passage.
It took us about ten minutes to reach the station from the supply closet. But on our return trip it only takes about five.
Sarah is power walking. She is practically running.
I follow close behind. I’m trying to move as quietly as possible, I’m trying not to make noise, but I am failing.
We approach the door to the supply closet, it is open.
Something is wrong.
We can hear a moaning noise. A howl. The sounds of the infected.
The noises are coming from inside the room.
Are we too late? Were we too slow?
Sarah takes out her knife. She pushes the door open.
And all hell has broken loose.
I’m standing behind Sarah. I take in the scene before me in an instant.
Daniel is tied up with rope. Tied to the shelves.
So is Parker.
And Scott.
So is Jack.
Why the hell are they tied up? Who tied them up?
I can’t think straight. I can’t figure it out.
Maria, Kenji and Kim are nowhere to be seen.
They are gone.
I can’t figure it out. My worst fears have been realized.
Those people, I think. They had something to do with this.
Sarah said they had turned wild.
Scott is infected. He has turned. He is thrashing madly about. He is moaning in what sounds like pain. He is howling in what sounds like rage. In a second he will snap the rope that has been used to tie him to the shelf. In a second, he will pull the shelf out of the wall.
And once he is free, he will attack anyone and everyone.
But he doesn’t get the chance.
Sarah kills Scott with her knife. She slides it right through his head. She is an expert at this.
She turns to me. “Close the goddamn door. Slide that shelf up against it.”
I do as she says. I take a look out the door before I close it though. I need to be sure we are alone. That we won’t be trapped in a tomb.
The passageway appears to be clear. I close the door. I slide the shelf in front of it. I put my weight against the shelf and the door.
I turn around and face the others. Jack. Daniel. Parker. “What the hell happened?” I ask. “Where are the others?”
No one answers me. They are all in shock.
Daniel is staring at Parker. Tears in his eyes.
Parker is sitting, slumped in the corner. He is holding his arm. He is covered in blood.
His own blood.
Scott’s blood.
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He is covered in the Oz virus.
Sarah walks toward him. Knife in hand. She grips it tight.
The room has fallen silent. No one says a word. No one needs to.
Her knuckles are white.
Parker holds his bloodied hands up. He is shaking. His whole body is shaking. His skin is a weird grey color. The color of death. He is already starting to turn. “No,” he whispers, he begs. “Please. Please…”
He begs for his life.
It is the last thing he says. It is the last thing he does.
Sarah steps on him. Literally steps on his arms, his chest. She pins him down.
He doesn’t fight back.
He knows it has to be done.
She drives the knife through his temple, through his skull, into his brain.
He convulses. He goes limp.
Sarah stands over him. Breathing hard.
She wipes the blade of the knife on Parker’s shirt. She looks at me. At Daniel and Jack. The room has once again fallen silent.
“It had to be done,” she says. “You all know it had to be done.”
And still, no one says a word.
Daniel is on his knees and lowers his head. He can’t believe it. His team. His men. His brothers.
Dead.
He is once again the only survivor.
He is blessed.
And cursed.
On the one hand it looks as if he is immune to death. And on the other hand, it looks as if he causes it, that he is surrounded by it.
He has a power.
A wretched, horrible power.
For a second my mind leaves the room and imagines Daniel as the Angel of Death. An unknowing, unwitting Angel of Death.
“What the hell happened?” I ask again, my mind returning to the room and this messed up situation. “Why are you all tied up? Where the hell are the others?”
Again, no one answers me.
They are definitely in shock.
I try reading their faces, their body language. I try reading their minds.
Where are the others?
Kenji.
Maria.
Kim.
Are they dead?
Sarah moves from person to person, cutting the rope that has been used to tie them to the shelves. As she leans over them, she quickly scans their bodies, their arms and legs for bite marks.
“Was it the Death Squad?” I ask.
“No,” Sarah says. “It wasn’t the Death Squad.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Trust me. I know.”
“It wasn’t the Death Squad,” Daniel says. “People. Their faces were covered. They were quick. Organized. Ruthless. They took the others. Tied them up. Blindfolded them. Took them prisoner.”
Daniel is staring at the ground as he says this. As he talks in incomplete sentences. As he tells us what happened.
“Where did they take them?”
Daniel shakes his head. He doesn’t know. He can’t work it out. Can’t think…
I look at Sarah. “Friends of yours?”
She shakes her head. “No friends of mine. I told you. They’ve gone wild. They’ve changed.”
Nothing good ever happens when I see these people.
“What do you mean by wild? What do you mean they’ve changed? Changed into what?”
Sarah shrugs her shoulders. “Survivors.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means they survived the massacre. It means they survived the wrath of the Death Squad. Physically they survived. But…”
She takes a deep breath. “They saw… they witnessed their friends, their loved ones, other innocent civilians… they witnessed…”
She can’t say it.
She can’t say that these people down here, the wild ones, she can’t say that they witnessed the massacre. That they witnessed their loved ones torn up and ripped to shreds by machine gun fire. They saw it up close and personal.
I am reminded of what the old man on the boat told me. He said he had hid behind the bodies, underneath the bodies. Using the dead as a shield.
He had turned into a cannibal to survive.
What have these people turned into?
What the hell are they going to do to my friends?
“Are they dead?” I ask. “Would they have killed them?”
“No,” Sarah answers. “Not at first. Not if they cooperate.”
“We have to go,” I say. “We have to find them, we have to...”
“But I just don’t get it,” Daniel says, interrupting me. “Scott. He hadn’t been bitten.”
Sarah points to his hand. “Wait, what happened to his hand? He has an open wound.”
“I told you. He was shot with an arrow. He wasn’t bitten.”
“An arrow,” I whisper.
“What?”
“The arrow,” I say. “The Death Squad, they’re using stealth weapons. Like the bow and arrow. Like the crossbow.”
Daniel is not following. “Yeah, so?”
“They’re reusing the arrows. Over and over. Who knows how many infected people they’ve killed with those arrows.”
Sarah catches on. “So the arrow was covered in infected blood. It got into his bloodstream. Game over.”
I nod slowly, understanding completely but not wanting to admit what this means for Jack, for the wound he suffered.
And Jack says, “So I’m a dead man?”
No one says a word. No one is brave enough.
Sarah takes out her knife again, and moves towards Jack. He doesn’t fight. He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t even lift his head. He is staring at the ground. Or staring at his leg. I can’t tell.
Sarah is so cold. She has to be. To have survived this long.
She has turned her heart to stone.
She raises the knife, she grips it tight. She holds it exactly the way Kenji told me to hold it.
Make a fist. Bring it down in a stabbing motion.
This makes it easier to drive the knife through the skull, into the brain. There’s no point in cutting an infected person. You need to stab them in the brain. You need to destroy the brain.
Jack has been shot with an arrow in the leg.
An arrow that has been used and reused. An arrow that has killed a countless number of zombies. An arrow that was probably covered in infected blood.
Blood containing a mutating super-virus.
Sarah is about to bring the knife down, through his skull, into his brain.
Jack continues to do nothing.
Everyone is silent.
It has to be done.
It has to be done.
He has to die. Before he turns. Before he becomes a threat to the rest of us.
Sooner or later you will lose someone close to you.
I close my eyes because I can’t watch. Because I am not strong enough.
Because I can’t accept it.
Chapter 22
No. I can’t accept it. I won’t accept it.
I lunge forward and grab Sarah’s forearm. I stop her from bringing the knife down. I stop her from killing Jack.
I do this even though Jack could be about to turn. Even though Jack is a threat to the rest of us. I actually trip over Jack’s wounded leg. And as a result I end up tackling Sarah into the shelf built into the far wall. She hits the shelf awkwardly and we both fall to the ground.
She still has a hold of the knife and I still have a hold of her forearm.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asks.
“I can’t,” I say. “I just… I can’t.”
“I have to do this. We have to do this. You know we do.”
“He saved me…”
I’m not making any sense. I can’t form whole sentences. But I don’t care. Because I can’t accept this. I can’t let her kill Jack. I won’t let her.
I look over at Jack. His head is still lowered. He is lost in his own mind, his own thoughts.
H
is face is blank. But I know what he is thinking about.
Maria.
He has let her down.
Kim. His sister.
His family.
I keep my weight on top of Sarah. I keep a firm grip of her forearm. If I let go, she’ll probably kill me.
I couldn’t blame her.
“You’re too close to him,” she says. “I know this hurts. I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. We’ve all lost.”
And Daniel says, “She’s right.”
You have been lucky. But sooner or later….
“No,” I say. “No!”
I’m saying NO out loud. I’m saying it over and over. But in my head I’m saying ‘yes’. Yes, he has to die. Yes, he is already dead.
He is infected.
It’s only a matter of time.
How much time?
Minutes.
Seconds.
He could be about to turn. He could turn right now.
I know this. Deep down, I know. But I don’t care. I don’t care because I’m not going to kill him. And I’m not letting Sarah kill him.
I slam Sarah’s arm against the concrete floor.
Repeatedly.
I hear a crack. Her wrist. Her forearm.
Something has broken.
She muffles a scream. She clenches her jaw. She is so strong. She is a survivor. She still has a hold of the knife. I slam her arm down one more time.
The knife finally comes loose.
I pick it up and I move away from her so my back is against the wall. I hold onto the knife. I point it at Sarah. At Daniel. I am a wild animal. I am cornered. I am lashing out. I am not thinking straight. Rational thought has gone out the window. I am thinking with my heart, with my emotions. I am fighting with all of my might and strength, with all of my soul, to save my friend. To save a guy who saved my life. To save a guy who is already dead.
I know it doesn’t make any sense.
I know he is infected.
I know he needs to die.
I know he is already dead.
But I can’t accept it. And I won’t kill him.
Sarah sits down, she is holding her wrist. Her hand is shaking. She motions with her head towards Jack. “He knows. He knows it better than anyone.”
And Jack nods his head. “Give me the knife. I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do it?” I say. “You’ll drive the knife into your head, through your goddamn skull, into your brain?”