by A. R. Wise
We filed into the room avoiding the blood, and I heard one of the girls say, “I recognize her. Don’t you? I know her,” as they studied the dead girl. I recalled how it had been a revelation to Hailey and me when we saw our first real Administrator instead of just seeing them on our screens.
“We need to go up these stairs over here…” I started to head to the door that led to the stairs when I heard something thud against it. I paused, and aimed at the door, ready to obliterate any guard that dared stand in my way.
The door didn’t open, but the thudding continued.
“Open it,” said Elise, prompting me eagerly, her ignorance of the real world showing through.
I took the handle, and pulled the door open.
A grey man fell through, pushing the door wide and issuing forth a chorus of hungry moans. The staircase was filled with the dead, and they were falling over themselves in a rush to get to fresh meat. Our room was invaded in moments, even as I blasted the creatures that stormed through. The Dawns were crying out in horror and fear as the faces of the dead exploded into bits of bone and blood, their rotted brains and milky eyes splattering against the walls as I demolished them.
“Go back to the rooms,” said one of the girls.
“No,” I yelled, certain they would be caught. I knew my ruse wasn’t going to last long, and that we only had a limited time to get out of this place. We had to take our opportunity now. “Find another way. Don’t go back in the cells.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” asked one of the girls in a panic. I pointed in a direction that wasn’t backward, and told them to go that way. I had no idea where I was leading them, but I knew we couldn’t go back.
The surge of dead never stopped, and I was forced to retreat. Even as the bodies piled up, they continued to come, climbing over one another and reaching out at us in desperation.
Computers filled this room, each of them hidden inside of partitioned cubicles, as if this was a graveyard of sorts where electronics rotted. It was a dreary place, even worse than the Dawn’s cells. Only the pictures of loved ones on the desks provided any sense of individuality.
“Through there?” asked Elise as she pointed at a door ahead of us.
“Sure,” I said. “That’s fine.” I had no idea where we were headed.
I stayed at the back of the Dawns as they went, and fired at the zombies that were now coming into the room. I followed the girls through the door and found a sprawling room that was well lit, with long tables that had benches attached to them.
“Drag one of those tables over here,” I said as I stayed at the door, my foot propping it open as I fired into the approaching crowd of undead. The Dawns did as I asked, and the metal legs squealed on the floor as they brought the table over. When they were close, I slammed the door shut and then we pushed the table into place, blocking the entrance.
“What were those things?” asked one of the girls, and others asked similarly.
“They’re zombies,” I said. “Or Undying. Or Greys. They have different names for them. They’re dead people that have come back to life and will kill you if they get the chance.”
“Is that what’s on the surface?” asked one of the frightened Dawns.
I didn’t know whether to be honest or lie about it. I decided to make it as simple as possible, while keeping the girls certain that they needed to escape. “The Administrators are the ones responsible for them. They did this to the world, and we have to stop them.”
“Those things are on the surface?” asked Elise, and I sensed her fear and uncertainty.
“Yes, but the people out there have learned how to deal with them, and so can we.”
“I don’t want to go,” said one of the girls just as the bodies of the dead slammed against the blockaded door. Other Dawns mimicked her apprehension, requesting that they be locked back in their cells where it was safe.
“You can stay here, locked away in this dungeon, and you can waste away like them.” I pointed out at the creatures in the computer room behind us. “You can live in these white walls, with your lives regimented, with the Administrators telling you when to wake, and when to sleep. But not me. Never me. Never again. I’m going to the surface, where I can feel the sun on my skin, and choose how I live each and every one of my days; where I can make mistakes, because they’re mine to make! I’m not going to be controlled ever again.” I was panting now, and the Dawns had quieted to listen as I yelled at them. “If you want back in your cells, then go ahead.” I pointed back at the door we’d just blockaded. “They’re that way.”
I walked through the girls, parting them as if treading through a field of wheat. They never questioned me, and silently followed.
We went through the kitchen, and were about to go into to a hallway beyond when I heard the clatter of footsteps. I motioned for the girls to stop, and then eased the door open to spy on who was outside.
A man in a thin, white coat was holding a woman’s hand as they ran in my direction. They looked panicked. They screamed out in shock as I aimed the rifle at them and commanded them to get on their knees.
“What are you doing?” asked the woman
“We’re doctors,” said a man. “We’re not soldiers.”
“I don’t care who you are,” I said. “You’re going to help us get out of here.”
“There’s no way out,” said a terrified woman. “The Undying got out. They got out and all the doors opened.”
“The Sons of Reagan are getting in. They’re attacking,” said the man on his knees in front of me. “They must’ve figured out a way to open all the doors. We’re going to die, you stupid girl. Give the gun to one of the guards. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
I kicked him square in the face. He fell backward, grasping his jaw as he went, and then he started cursing me.
“Shut up!” I yelled down at the pitiful little man. “Who are the Sons of Reagan?”
“The terrorists,” said a woman. “They came for the one that we captured. Levon.”
“Hero?” I asked, astounded and joyful. “He’s alive?”
“The black one,” said the woman, uncertain about his nickname.
I laughed jubilantly, and then turned to Elise and said, “He’s a friend of mine.” Then I looked back down at the woman and asked, “Where is he.”
“Why would I tell you where…”
I pointed the gun at her.
“He’s on the bottom floor,” she answered swiftly. “There’s only a few rooms down there. He’s in one of them, but you can’t take him out of there. He’ll die.”
“Why?”
“He’s…” She paused and looked at the man beside her. “He’s infected. They’ve got him hooked up to a LiMM chair. If he’s taken out of it, he’ll die in a day or two at most.”
“What’s a lim chair?” I asked.
“It’s keeping him alive by cleansing his blood,” said the doctor. “He was given a cure to the infection, but his body reacted poorly to it. It’s tearing him apart, and as soon as he leaves that chair the infection will spread. It’ll happen slower than in other victims, but it will still happen. He’ll die, and then within a week or two the infection will turn him into one of the Undying. The cure is poisoning him, but it halts the infection too.”
“You’re pumping him full of poison to keep him alive?” I asked, trying to grasp his meaning.
“It’s the only thing that works,” said the doctor. “It kills the infection, but also kills the patient if they’re not hooked up to the chair. He’s still alive because of what we did for him.”
“A life stuck down here isn’t the same thing as being alive,” I said, certain of that now. “Now get up, you’re going to lead us to the surface, and then you and I are going back down to get Hero.”
35 - The Definition of a Hero
Levon Kline
The tubes pumped their toxic concoction into me, the fluid burning its way through my veins. I could feel it searing me, scar
ring me from the inside out. Every time I moved I got nauseous, and my skin felt endlessly hot, despite how I shivered when I pulled my blanket aside. It was impossible to get comfortable, no matter what I did. This was the only life I had left; a prisoner in my own skin.
And alone.
That was the worst part. It was awful to be laying here wasting away, with this poison coursing through me, but pain was something I could deal with. Loneliness, on the other hand, was something that I couldn’t handle anymore.
I spent my days dreaming of my brother, and the times we shared before the apocalypse began. Those hot Georgia summers, back when the two of us would sneak off to the gas station with change we’d stolen from wherever we could find it, and how good the Coke tasted. It didn’t matter what drink it was, we always called it ‘Coke’, as if that were the proper name for anything carbonated.
It’s inexplicable why some memories stick with you while others drift away. For the life of me I have no idea why I never wore shoes back then. I don’t remember if it was because we had no money, or if I just never bothered putting them on, but I could describe in detail how we would stay in the grass where we could, and then run as fast as possible across the hot asphalt to get into the gas station where the cool tile soothed our blistered toes. The Korean shop keeper would chastise us, but he never refused our money.
Fuck, there’s nothing better than a Coke on a hot Georgia day. I could almost taste the sweet flavor on my tongue, the bubbles snapping at my lips as sweat ran rivers down my cheeks.
I smacked my lips at the memory, and felt the dry, chapped skin rub together. I licked at my cracked lips, and tasted the metallic flavor of blood.
How had it come to this? I was supposed to die like a hero, like Mark did, fighting to save my friends or taking down a horde of zombies as I screamed out at them. I wasn’t supposed to go out like this, laying on a bed until I wasted away into a skeleton. I looked at my arms, pale and weak, so much thinner than they were just months earlier.
Real life doesn’t admire heroes. It’ll burn them down with all the others, with no sense of poetic justice, or entitlement, or reward.
‘You lived a good life? You were nice to folks? You were charitable, and kind, and an all-around decent fellow? Congratulations, and by the way, fuck you, I’m giving you a fatal disease.’
I couldn’t help but shake my head and laugh wearily. Laying in this bed was turning me into a bitter shell of who I’d once been. I gripped those tubes at my side and felt the rush of fluids pouring in and out of me, poisoning me, and knew that they were transforming me too. This wasn’t how I wanted to go out, but I didn’t have any other choice…
Until now.
The key was beneath my leg, hidden there since Beatrice’s last visit. She’d revealed how some of the doctors here had been working secretly with The Electorate, and had been inoculating me with the disease each night to provide false positives. As it turned out, Jerald and Covington had known for a long time that the LiMM chairs could eradicate the disease, but the side effects were fatal. Patients of African ancestry reacted differently to the cure, and could survive it with the use of the chairs, which was why we kept running into facilities with black patients all those years earlier. She’d concocted a plan at the transfer facility to get me into this building while carrying the infection that Jerald and his men had no immunity to. She wanted me to become a biological weapon, but hadn’t counted on them having the ability to kill the virus with the contraption I was hooked up to.
I remembered something similar to this in the facility in Nederland, where we lost Reagan. They’d been doing experiments there, and Beatrice said that they’d brought that equipment here to help keep Richard Covington alive. This chair had put an end to her plans to exterminate Jerald and his men. She’d hoped to spread the Tempest Strain through the facility, which would leave only her and the Dawns alive afterward. The appearance of Covington and these chairs had ruined her plan, but that bitch never quit scheming.
Beatrice had given me the key that could disconnect me from these tubes, promising the chance to finally get revenge on the person responsible for the death of so many people that I loved. Richard Covington was down the hall from me, and all of the doors on this level would automatically unlock once a purge was activated. She’d told me that it was set up that way so that Covington’s doctors could reach him in the event of an emergency, but it also meant that I could get to him as well. All I had to do was push myself up and out of this bed, rip away the tubes that kept me alive, and go finish him off. She told me that he was a weak husk of the man he’d once been, and that it would be easy, as if murder ever was.
I knew that pulling these tubes out of my side would ultimately mean my own death, but that didn’t scare me anymore. As I pulled the key out from beneath my leg, I wasn’t pondering my own demise. Instead, I was wondering if I would let my final moments be defined by revenge.
Was that how I wanted to spend my final minutes in this world?
I thought of Jill, and her boisterous laugh. I used to always give her grief about that laugh, and how it would shake the walls when she really got going. I would cover my ears and cringe playfully, and she would punch me on the arm while telling me to shut up. Despite how much I would tease her, there wasn’t a sound I loved more. I always tried to get her to laugh, and I’d give anything to have gotten the chance to hear it one last time.
I slipped the key into the cuff of the first tube and unlocked it. That allowed me to spin the metal ring, which activated a valve that prevented the fluid within the tube from spilling when it was ejected. I pulled the tube out and let it dangle from the ceiling.
As I continued to disconnect myself from the machines that were keeping me alive, I thought about Laura, Kim, and Annie. I’d always wanted to be a father, if for no other reason than to prove I was a better person than my own dad. Laura gave me the chance to act like a father, and I loved those girls as much as any daddy ever could. I watched them grow up into two of the most beautiful, confident, strong young women that I’d ever had the pleasure of knowing. I’d always thought that being a father meant teaching your kids about life, and introducing them to the things you loved, but I discovered that it’s the kids who teach their parents the most important lessons of all. Getting the chance to be a father to those girls taught me what life’s really about, and I’ll be eternally grateful to them for that.
The last of those tubes snapped free from the holes drilled into me. It fell away, its metal cap clanking against the others as the ropes swung beside me. I was no longer tethered to this bed, and was free to die as I chose to. I forced myself up, and pain shot up through my body, rattling me all the way to my bones. I grit my teeth and groaned, but tried to ignore the agony. I got inspiration from thinking of Laura, and the trials she’d survived to get back to her children.
My feet swung off the bed and hit the floor with a thud. My dexterity was sapped, and I could barely tell where my feet were landing. I’d lost sensation in my feet and, except for the pin pricks of a million needles, in my fingers as well. I had to stare down to make sure I was standing on the floor as I forced myself up.
My legs wobbled, but I didn’t fall. Each step sent shocks of pain surging up through me, like lighting through a tree, but I forced myself to continue forward. I left the quarantined room, and went out into the stale air of the hallway beyond. Ahead was an elevator, although the doors were open and there was no elevator within. To the left, just like Beatrice had said, was a short hall that ended in a circular door. According to her, Covington was there, waiting for me to exact the revenge she was certain I craved.
I turned left, and walked slowly to his door, supporting myself against the wall to my left. Each step was misery, but I soldiered on with strength born of the knowledge that I would die the way that I chose, and not the way anyone else had planned for me.
It seemed that all of the doors in the facility had been opened, and Covington’s was no exception.
I could see through the circular door and through a sterilization chamber that was the same as the one that preceded my room. The door was open as well, and I could see an empty chair beyond, with familiar tubes of green and blue hanging down, just like the ones that had been attached to me for these past few months.
When I entered the room, I found it empty. The throne had no king.
A door off to the side was open, and I heard a muffled voice cooing within. I inched along the wall and eavesdropped.
“Go to sleep,” said a weary voice. “It’s all okay. Just close your eyes and go to sleep.”
I reached the threshold and stared in at the bizarre scene. The room was stark white, as if plucked from a Kubrickian space ship, with a shower and toilet in one corner, separated by a glass wall, and a bed in the other. A young, nude man was laying on the bed, and another man was standing beside him, stroking the sleeper’s supple skin. The one standing was dressed in plain, grey clothes, but his skin was dark and raw. His entire body was scarred, and it looked like his skin threatened to tear with every move he made. He was looking down at the young man on the bed, but he heard me coming and turned suddenly to face me. His beady, black eyes stared out at me, and I was silenced by the horror of the moment.
Then he grinned and said, “Levon, so glad you could make it.”
I saw the glint of steel in his hand, and he followed my gaze. He was holding a cylindrical tube that was sharp on one end and flat on the other. It looked like an enlarged version of a needle, but without a canister or plunger.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked as he lifted the odd weapon. He didn’t wait for me to answer before explaining. “This is what they used to drill those holes in your side.” Then he turned slightly to show me a flap in his shirt that revealed ports in his side that were identical to mine. “And in me as well.”
“What are you planning on doing with it?”