“I don’t understand why this upsets you.”
“It’s just… All of this…” I shook my head. “Once you hear everything I have to say, I want you to imagine being in my shoes.”
“Okay. Where would you like to go first?”
“Let’s start on the third floor.”
“Why there?”
I shrugged. “It just feels like a good place to begin.”
“All right,” she murmured, wheeling me to the elevator.
I leaned forward and pressed the button. There was a brief moment of worry, my heart leaping into my throat as I wondered if someone would be standing in the car when the door opened.
The chime, the door slid open…
Empty.
I breathed a sigh of relief. If Dr. Barter saw us in this position, he would surely do something drastic, and I wasn’t strong enough to defend myself. Then there was Erik. The already stressed, sickly-looking motherfucker would stroke out on us.
Michelle wheeled me inside the car and turned so I faced the door. I reached out and pressed the button for the third floor.
As the door eased shut, she asked, “Are you ready for this adventure?”
“I’m not sure if I’m ready, but this has been a long time coming for me.”
It was simple. I wanted peace of mind, closure, but I wasn’t sure if it would ever come for me. I had to give it one last shot because if I died tomorrow, I wanted one final “fuck you” to the program.
The elevator stopped, the moment of weightlessness making me a bit woozy. When the door slid open, I sucked back a gulp, the hair on my body standing on end.
I picked up the camera and turned it on myself, pushing the record button.
“Hey, love. Michelle snuck me out of my room. She’s such a rebel.” We both chuckled. “We’re going on a little adventure through the facility. Thought I would film it so you could be witness to our shenanigans. Plus, I would like you to see it.”
“I have no idea how much trouble we can get in, but we started off right by breaking all the rules.” Michelle laughed again and continued forward.
As we rolled past the numbered doors, I called out, “Three-twelve.”
“Why three-twelve?”
Annnd here we go…
“Because that’s where I used to live.”
The wheelchair stopped so abruptly, I almost toppled out of it. She ran around to help me sit properly again. Luckily for me, the camera caught everything.
Once I was up, she growled, “Are you out of your bloody mind?”
“No more than you,” I bit back.
“What the fuck do you mean ‘used to live’?”
“Most of the horrific things that plague me happened right in this building.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you messing with me?”
“Just open the door, ’Chelle.”
She let out a heavy sigh and pushed the door open. When she flicked on the lights, seeing the room again made me shudder. She pushed me in and parked the chair, setting the brake. I wrapped my free hand around the armrest and stood, Michelle supporting me around my waist.
Panning the camera around the room, I said, “This was my dorm room. I spent many nights pacing these floors.”
Making sure I wouldn’t topple over, Michelle let go of me and crossed her arms. “I need some explanations, Luke. Now.”
I hope she’s ready for the ugly truth.
I turned to her, meeting her pissed-off gaze. “I, along with the rest who lived here, was handpicked for a government program.”
“How many?”
“More than there should’ve been.” I shook my head. How many had died from sickness? How many did I kill with my bare hands?
“Is this where you became sick?”
“I was born ruined, Michelle. But yes, I was infected here.”
“Tell me about it. I want all the details.”
Swallowing hard, I knew the truth may never set me free, but I had to try. “What I am about to say is detrimental to my being and your welfare.”
“How so?”
“It’s a government cover-up.”
Her fists balled at her sides. “Tell me!”
“I have the virus.”
She stared at me blankly. “I know you have a virus. That’s why we’re all here.”
“No. I have the virus.”
“What does that mean? The virus?”
“You know… The one that turns folks into people-eating monsters. The one that was dreamt of and featured in many horror films and novels.” Michelle staggered back and hit the wall. “The walking corpses? The undead? You know those, right?” She nodded. “That’s what I’m infected with.” She stared at me, her mouth hanging open. “Say something, ’Chelle.”
“D-did you get bit?”
“No. Guess again.”
“Scratched?”
“No, and it doesn’t work that way. Try again.”
“Did you…” She stopped and closed her eyes, a shudder wracking her frame. “Did you eat or drink from one of them?”
I chuckled. “Nope.”
Her eyes flew open, narrowing at me. “This is not funny. I give up.”
“They injected me with it. You, my friend, are looking at a bona fide guinea pig.”
“Fucking hell,” she whispered.
When I stepped toward her, she skirted along the wall, trying to get away. “’Chelle…” I reached for her, but she shied away from me. The sheer look of terror in her eyes broke my fucking heart. “Listen to me. I won’t hurt you. The only way to get infected is through an exchange of blood and saliva, you get the virus injected into you, or I bite you…” I trailed off, thinking about Nick, Elaina’s brother.
As my words sank in, her brows lifted and her eyes widened. “Are you telling me the government injected you?”
“Well, sort of. It’s kind of a ‘six degrees of separation’ thing. The government had a program Roger Alaric, who I didn’t know was my father until recently, secretly ran. They ran tests on animals, trying out the virus to see the infection rate. Then Roger had a brilliant idea to set up his own army, of sorts. Once they had all the details hashed out, they began recruiting. There is a lot of stuff surrounding the program that I don’t know or cannot understand, but I’m doing my best.”
“So you were a recruit?”
“Yes. They injected us with a small amount—except for me. I got a higher, more concentrated dose. They hoped we would become immune, a breed of our own. Then we could dominate the world.”
“Are you being serious?”
I tilted my head. “Do you think I would be here under such secrecy if I weren’t?”
“Probably not. Was Erik involved?”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t seem the sort,” she said, shaking her head.
I laughed. “If you only knew. He’s pure evil and a manipulative, rat-faced dick. I’ll admit, though, he’s changed a little.” I slowly shuffled to the bunks. It was a small victory, but she squashed it when I realized she was close behind me. “Erik contacted me and asked if I wanted to try this trial procedure, but the risks were great and he wasn’t sure I would come out alive, as you know. So, as a precautionary measure, we faked my suicide. My wife, mum, and friends think I’m dead. My son’s too young to understand what happened.”
“But why fake your death? You could’ve just left or explained it to your wife.”
I smirked. “She would have stood in front of the plane in an effort to keep me from coming here. I had to try to rid myself of this bullshit. I want a normal life. I want to live like everyone else and not be reminded on a daily basis that I’m a sick freak who, without proper provisions, would kill someone I love. I couldn’t bear that another moment. If I can fix myself, my family can be whole, never to be broken again. I need that.”
“Back up just a sec… What do you mean by ‘proper provisions’?”
“Blood. I have to drink clean blood. After the injec
tion, some of us turned quicker than expected. Trying to find a way to tame it, Erik discovered clean blood would sate the virus for a short period of time, keeping us from turning into undeads.”
“A zombie, yeah?”
I shook my head, frowning. “No. An undead. I hate the term zombie. Unfortunately, it’s what people know and understand.”
She let out a loud sigh and rested her hands on her hips. “This is so—”
“Ludicrous? Demented? Preposterous? Fucked-up? Exactly.” I sighed. “I just want to be normal. I want a life. I don’t want to live in fear anymore. But I have no idea how to live. I feel like this is the first step to get me there. If I’m cured, I can go back to my wife and beg her forgiveness for the faked suicide.”
“I’m assuming she knows of your condition.”
“Yes. Except when she was pregnant, she was my source of clean blood.”
“Are there more of you around?”
“I only know of one other, but there may be more across the States or even here in the UK. All I know is I killed a bunch of them.”
She stepped away from me again. “Y-you… You killed people? I-I mean, Erik said you were dangerous, but I didn’t expect murder.” She shook her head, continuing to back away.
“Please, ’Chelle. I have no intention of harming you.”
Tears tracked down her cheeks. “I want to know everything about you and this…” She threw her hand up, “fucked-up program!”
“Like I said, I’m a bona fide guinea pig…and a murderer.”
“But how? How do you murder another human being? I could understand if it happened accidentally, but it sounds like you killed more than one.”
“Yeah. It’s not something I’m proud of. I hate everything about myself.”
“Tell me how.”
I held my hand in the air, turning it. “Bare hands, guns, knives…et cetera.” I shrugged, then patted the mattress of the upper bunk. “I killed him.”
“What?”
I opened the drawer to the nightstand and focused the camera on a forgotten rigging book. Flipping it open, I ran my finger over the still crisp pages, as if he’d never read it.
“The nameplate states ‘Property of Gabriel Reeves’.” I turned and faced Michelle. “I killed him.”
“Why?”
“I thought he was my friend. An ally in this godforsaken place. He had helped me many times when I needed it. But he turned on me while under the pressure of Roger’s coerciveness.” Winded, I sat on my old bed. “That day ranks right up there with the worst days of my life.”
“Tell me.”
Gazing up at her, I wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know all the dirty details. “You will hate me before I finish.”
“No, I won’t.”
“You don’t want to know what I’ve done.”
“Why don’t you let me decide that.”
“I warned you.” I sighed and shook my head. “Shortly after the virus struck, Elaina, I, and a few others fled to North Carolina. We stayed there for a while…until undeads started showing up. After we killed them, we realized they were recruits due to their size and attire. One day, several recruits showed up, catching my best mate outside of the building, unarmed. He lost his wife and unborn child. They beat him so badly, we weren’t certain he would survive.”
I took a deep breath, the images from that day and those that followed still bringing me to my knees.
“Then what?” she asked, lowering herself to the mattress.
“Once we figured out what was happening, we established a guard routine. Late one evening, Roger and a few recruits showed up.”
“Wait… How did they know where you were?”
I showed her my forearm, then tapped my head. “Tracking devices.”
She gasped.
“Michelle, are you certain you’re ready for this?” She nodded. “I just happened to be on guard duty when they came to flush us out and bring me and my mate back here for punishment for failing to do our job. Several of them attacked us.”
The vision of Thomas’s body under the bloody sheet was my downfall. My hands shook so badly, I had to lay the camera in my lap. Sweat beaded up on my forehead and, fucking hell, I wanted to vomit again.
“Luke…” She touched my arm, startling me.
“I’m sorry. Some of this is still difficult.” She took my hand, interlacing her fingers with mine. I needed the simple comfort. It made me feel like she truly cared about what I was saying. “I fought hard that night, even with my arm sliced wide open. Next thing I knew, he took my wife.”
“Who did?”
“Roger. He took her and went back to the ship he was going to take us back on.” I sat quietly for a moment, still unable to get the image of Thomas under the sheet out of my mind. “I lost someone very close to me that day. He was like a little brother.” I turned and gazed at Michelle. “He saved my life.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” I cleared my throat. “After Roger took my wife, I killed Gabriel and a couple others. As one of the women in our community stitched up my arm, I gathered some volunteers. We stormed the ship. My mates killed everyone while I searched for Elaina.”
“And you found her.”
“Just in the nick of time. The motherfucker had stripped her out of her clothing, had cut her perfect face with a knife, and was moments from raping her. When I walked in and saw everything, I wanted to give him a slow, painful death. I wanted to cut him into tiny pieces and feed him to the sharks for everyone he wronged and everything he did to me. I would’ve loved to watch an undead tear him up.”
“Wow. That’s, umm… How did you end up doing it?”
“I put a bullet between his eyes, showing him he wasn’t God, even though he liked to think he was.” I paused again. “We found my mother that day. I thought she had been raped and killed in front of me on my fifth birthday.”
“Oh god…”
“When I first saw her, I wanted her to die because of some lies the program leaders had told me about her. Fortunately, before I could do anything crazy, Elaina told me the truth. She didn’t throw me away like trash. She did what she could to try to protect me.”
Michelle wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me to her. “Don’t let these horrid memories plague you another moment. It sounds to me like you’re a hero. You stopped Roger. You saved people.”
“Due to my actions, I lost many more.”
“It’s not tit-for-tat, Luke. It’s what you’ve done to right it.”
I laughed, pulling away. “You don’t even know the half of it.”
“I want to know everything.”
“Let’s go to a different area and I will tell you more.”
She helped me stand, then assisted me to the chair. She pushed me to the door and I turned off the light, effectively disconnecting myself from that room forever.
“Where to next?”
I pointed down the hall to Sophie’s room. When Michelle wheeled me in front of the door, I held up my hand for her to stop.
“Do you want to go in?”
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“I think it may be a good idea to close another door to your past.”
I nodded, blowing out a breath. “Yeah… Okay.”
Michelle moved ahead of me and opened the door. I held my hands over my face, hoping the memories wouldn’t storm in.
“We’re going in,” Michelle whispered, pushing me through the door.
When we stopped, I felt her hands cover mine.
I shook my head. “I can’t,” I said faintly.
“You can.”
Gently, she tugged, my hands dropping to my lap. She flicked on the light.
I gazed around the room, panning the camera. “Nothing. The room’s empty.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Her name was Sophie. She was my best friend and lover for years. I protected her while we were here. When she died in my arms in the States, it
sent me into a life of binge drinking. I only cared about alcohol. I only wanted to quiet everything in my head. When I found out she betrayed me, lied to me, it hurt beyond measure. When my mum told me everything she said was a lie, it devastated me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I need to leave this room.”
“On it.” She turned me around and pushed me into the hall. She turned the lights off and closed the door. “It’s done and gone. You did well.”
“Thank you. Let’s go to the first floor.”
After the elevator dropped us at the main level, I had her push me to the gun range. The scent of gunpowder was faint, but still there, tickling my nose. I gestured down to the third range—the one where I almost ate lead.
“So…aren’t guns illegal?” she asked, wheeling me forward.
“Yeah, but when the government backs you, they’re very easy to come by.”
“Why did you want to come here?”
I zoomed the camera in on the very spot I sat with the Sig in my mouth. “This is where I came to die.”
Michelle gasped. “What? Why?”
“I sat right there with a gun in my mouth.” I pointed at the spot. “Believe it or not, Sophie saved me. That was when we were close, though.”
“What happened that was so awful you wanted to die?”
“I hope you don’t look at me any differently. Please know that it was out of my control.” She nodded. “I raped a girl.”
Silence. I couldn’t even hear her breathing.
“They held a gun on me and a knife to Sophie’s throat. The girl was younger than we were. Roger forced me to have sex with her as she turned into an undead.”
“Oh god…”
Hanging my head, I mumbled, “I don’t blame you if you see me differently.”
“I don’t.”
“I consider myself sexually abused.” If I was going to feel forgiveness for myself, I knew I needed to come clean about everything. “I sexually assaulted my wife shortly before I came here.”
Once more, the silence grew between us.
“I never intended to do such a terrible thing to her. We had been fighting about my behavior. My anger spiraled out of control.” I looked up at Michelle. “I’m not excusing it. It was a while before I could get her to talk to me. I begged and pleaded. Finally, she relented and listened to what I had to say. I knew how Elaina felt. The shame, the guilt. My mother, too. She was raped by my father for years.”
Full Circle (Shattered Lives, Book Five) Page 27