by Brown, TW
“You mind if I ask you a question?” Kevin rolled his sleeve down and shrugged his coat back on.
“Sure,” the woman agreed with a nod.
“Can at least of few of your people lower their weapons?”
“Stand down,” the woman ordered. “Now, perhaps some introductions, my name is Latricia Jones…”
The woman went down the line and gave everybody else’s names. There were three Patricks and two Seans (one male, one female); beyond that, Kevin simply did not bother to commit any of the names to memory. If he had his way, this would not be a lengthy encounter.
“Are we going to stand here and wait to see if that ocean of zombies finally notices us?” Rose blurted after Heather had shot Kevin a dirty look and introduced their group in a return of the extended courtesy.
For the first time since the two groups had met, Latricia’s people seemed to actually notice the seemingly endless stream of undead now pouring through the CTA lot. Another section of the train took that moment to topple and allow for a second tributary of zombies to pour in and add to the horde that was pushing everything forward in the lot, creating a tsunami of derelict vehicles and roadwork equipment.
“Jesus Chri—” one of the men started, but Latricia’s bark cut him off.
“Ramirez! What have I told you about taking the Lord’s name in vain?”
“Sorry, Lattie” The man gave a small bow of the head.
Great, Kevin thought, religious freaks. Anything else to make this just a bit worse?
“You say that there were Guardians up in the Eggers Grove neighborhood.”
“Yeah…they blew up a church for no reason and were really making a lot of racket,” Aleah said when, once again, it looked as if Kevin was going to remain silent.
“Oh…there was a reason,” Latricia muttered. “They were trying to draw me out…get a little payback.”
“By blowing up a church?” Rose asked. “That seems a bit much.”
“Long story,” Latricia waved a hand in dismissal.
“We should get back home,” one of the women suggested as she stared in a mix of horror and amazement at the sheer number of zombies now pouring through the CTA lot. “And if possible, we should probably recall the troops. I think this is a storm that we need to batten down for and just sit out until it is gone.”
“Crap!” Latricia spat. She turned to face Kevin and the others. “We don’t really have time to deal with you folks. You don’t seem like the enemy, so we are going to let you go. You are welcome to return with us, but if you do, there will be protocols and some time in isolation while we assess whether or not you are people that we want in our community.”
Nothing that the woman said held any appeal to Kevin. There was something about these folks that gave Kevin the heebie jeebies. They all had what he would classify as a fanatical look about them. In his mind, it was all about extremes: anything in moderation, be it alcohol, food, or even God, was okay. But anything in the extreme is a recipe for disaster.
“No thanks,” Kevin finally answered with a shake of the head. He thought that he saw a look of disappointment cross the faces of all three females; most noticeable was Rose. “But if any of the others want to stay…well, that is their choice.”
With no more ceremony than a curt nod, Kevin started walking. He did not even bother to look over his shoulder to see if the others would follow. It was Aleah who caught up to him first and grabbed him by the arm, spinning him around.
“Whatever this is…” she threw her hands up in his general direction, “…it has to stop. You have been acting strange for a while. Did I do something?”
By now, Heather and Rose had caught up. The overpass was empty as if Latricia and her people had never even been there. A distant low tone carried from the huge swarm of undead, but other than that, there was nothing. Not for the first time, but certainly it had been a while, Kevin marveled at the fact that they were in what had once been a thriving metropolis that was basically devoid of life. No cars, no planes, no people…just a slow reclamation by Mother Nature as multi-lane highways sprouted foot high weeds that were methodically pushing apart the rivers of asphalt that man had thought to be so permanent.
The world was dead.
“I am a carrier,” Kevin whispered. When nobody spoke, Kevin sighed. It was embarrassing, and deep down, he knew that he was being selfish.
“If everything that we have heard is true, then I could infect you,” he glanced up at Aleah, but quickly found that he could not maintain eye contact. “Perhaps something as simple as a kiss, but there is definitely no way that we could ever become intimate again.”
There was a long silence. Then, Aleah placed her hands on Kevin’s shoulders. When he continued to stare at the ground, she nudged his face up to hers and looked into his eyes with so much love that it made Kevin weak in the knees. Never in his life had anybody, much less a woman as beautiful as Aleah, looked at him in that way.
“For somebody so smart, you can be a real idiot,” she said with a slight hitch in her voice. “And as for the possibility of you infecting me, we can figure something out. There are ways.”
“Ever heard of condoms?” Rose muttered. Heather gave her a sharp elbow to the ribs.
“And now is as good of a time as any to make an announcement,” Aleah said, turning to include the others in the conversation. She pulled Kevin beside her and took his hand, squeezing it gently. “I’m pregnant.”
Those two words hung in the air long enough for Aleah to begin to think that perhaps she had made a mistake in sharing her announcement. Kevin’s hand jerked away sharply from her own and she was about to burst into tears until she realized why.
Kevin had fainted.
***
Kevin awoke with a start. Confusion was the most dominant emotion, but it was quickly replaced with fear when he looked around and discovered that he was in a small room not much larger than a closet. He was on the floor and it was dark; of that much he was certain.
Feeling around, he actually confirmed that his guess had been accurate; this was a supply closet of some sort. There were shelves at about shoulder height and a deep sink against the back wall. He found the doorknob and turned, hardly surprised to discover it locked.
He kicked it a few times and shouted to be let out. When he stopped, he could hear the sound of jangling keys. Doing a quick pat down, he was dismayed but not in the least bit surprised to discover that he had been stripped of all his weapons.
The door opened and Kevin braced himself for what would greet him. It was not what he expected.
“Jeez, do you have to make so much racket?” Rose huffed.
“Where am I…where are the others?” he asked, shoving past the girl to get out of the closet. He looked around and easily recognized the hallways of academia. They had to be inside the college; even more important, that meant they were with Latricia’s people: the immunes.
It took Kevin a few seconds to realize that Rose had not answered his question. When he looked down at her, he saw something that led him to believe that, just perhaps, he might not want that answer.
“It’s Aleah.”
Rose barely spoke the words above a whisper, but they slammed in to Kevin with all the force of a hurricane. The girl actually had tears in her eyes now as she looked up at Kevin with a stricken expression.
“What about her?” Kevin asked. He saw the girl wince and looked down to discover that his hands held her shoulders in a firm grip. When had he done that? Very gingerly, he let go and took a step back.
“Right after you fainted, she let loose with a scream…” Rose drifted back to that memory and shuddered at the sound. Up until that moment, she had thought that the sound of a person dying at the teeth of a zombie was the worst thing that she had ever heard.
“She was bent over at the waist and had her arms tight around her belly. Then…” Rose’s voice faded. She did not want to say what happened next. Swallowing hard, she continued. “Then blood
began to pour from her…from between her legs. She fell to the ground and started screaming and crying and thrashing around.”
Kevin felt sick. His mind was painting a horror far worse even than the actual event. He quickly jumped to the worst possible conclusion. Rose saw the look on his face and guessed at what she had led him to believe.
“It was a miscarriage, Kevin,” she blurted. She grabbed Kevin’s face in her hands and stared into his eyes. “The guess, last I heard, had something to do with whatever toxic stuff we breathed in down by the trains. It was not the baby…it was the poison. The doctor said that it probably prompted a spontaneous abortion. She lost a lot of blood, but they say that she will be okay.”
Kevin felt a wave of relief. His mind had already created the scenario where the undead fetus had clawed its way out…he cursed Zak Snyder and his Dawn of the Dead remake as he allowed himself to breathe. Still, there was something else now trying to rise up in his mind, but he smashed it down. He would not indulge such selfishness.
“Take me to her,” Kevin said with a wavering sigh.
“They won’t let you in to see her yet,” Rose said with a shake of her head. Kevin was about to explode with some angry response, but Rose cut him off. “They want to see you first…the people in charge.”
“Well they can just—” he started, but a voice cut him off.
“Mister Dreon?”
Kevin spun to discover an Asian man standing in the hallway. About ten feet behind him were three others, and everybody was heavily armed like they were heading out to the field. Surely they could not be packing all this firepower because of him.
“Yeah,” Kevin said with a step back.
“If you would come with us,” the man said in a voice that showed no malice or anger. It was simply a request.
Kevin glanced at Rose, who gave him a shrug. A thought came to him and he turned to face the strangers.
“Where is Heather?”
The man looked back at the others who all shrugged or shook their heads. He turned back to Kevin. “I have no idea. If you are referring to the other young lady who arrived with you, the one who is one of the immune, then she is likely in the clinic. We will bring you there after you have been to see Analisa.”
“And you have no idea where she is either?” Kevin turned to Rose. The girl shook her head.
“When we got here, she told me to stay with you until you came to. I followed her until Aleah was taken in to see the doctor, then I came here and have been waiting for you to wake up ever since.”
“About that,” Kevin whispered, “how long was I out?”
“About an hour.”
“Why didn’t anybody try to wake me?”
“When Aleah…” the girl’s voice faded. Kevin understood and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring pat on the arm.
“Okay, let’s go.” Kevin started toward the Asian man and his crew.
He was not surprised when they sort of surrounded him. They moved down the hallway and to a set of doors that opened to the outside. Kevin’s eyes quickly began to scan everything. What he saw was impressive. There were small garden plots everywhere that were already showing signs of growth. In addition, he noticed five trucks parked side by side. They all had various logos that announced their contents: spring water.
He spotted several rain collection devices. These people obviously understood the importance of that commodity. The human body could endure a lot, but deprive it of water and the average life expectancy was reduced to about three days.
On the tops of a few of the buildings he spotted what he had to assume to be solar panels. His question as to whether or not they were actually being used came when his group escorted him inside another large building. Of course the first thing that he noticed was the smell. His eyes tracked to a large, open space that had probably been a student study area. There were rows of open pens as well as several cages.
“Chickens,” Kevin breathed. He saw one area in particular with a series of heat lamps where they were obviously assisting with the incubation process.
They turned down another hallway and Kevin saw that several of the doors had the windows blacked out or covered. They passed just as one opened and a trio of women emerged dressed in scrubs; all with varying degrees of blood smeared on them.
Kevin slowed up. He felt something prod him between the shoulder blades.
“Ease up, Damian,” the Asian man said. He turned to Kevin. “This is our medical wing. We have injured people from the last encounter with The Guardians being tended to right now.”
“You been mixing it up long with these Guardian folks?” Kevin asked, catching just a brief glimpse inside the room that the three women had exited before the door shut with a click. He had seen a lot of beds with bodies in them. The one thing he had not been able to determine was if they were living or…undead.
“For a bit…but it’s a long story and we don’t have time right now. If you’re that interested and hang out a while, I’m sure somebody will gladly spill it to you.”
“How about a name.” Kevin stated as he glanced over his shoulder at the dark skinned man with the police baton in his hand. “I already know Damian here…but what about yours?”
“Ken, Ken Tucker.”
“And what did you do before the world ended?” Kevin asked with what he hoped was a pleasant sounding chuckle in his voice.
Something had his hackles up. He could not place it, and honestly, the thing that kept resonating in his head was that he’d seen something like this in the movies. Everybody seemed pleasant on the outside, but you just knew that there was something dark and cancerous under the surface. But this ain’t the movies, he told himself.
“Piano teacher by day, concert pianist when I could get the booking,” Ken answered wistfully.
“Seriously?”
Kevin gave the man an appraising glance and tried to picture him clean shaven and in a tuxedo, walking out onto a stage with a huge white piano. The vision just refused to come. This man looked like he’d been through a fight with a meat grinder. He had scars on his scars. Plus, he was missing a few fingers.
“We’re here,” Ken announced as they came to a stop in front of a set of double doors. They were opened to reveal an auditorium. “After you.” The man gestured for Kevin to enter. Despite several lanterns, the large room was shrouded in shadows.
Taking a deep breath, Kevin entered and made his way down the center aisle. On the stage was a long table with a dozen or so people seated around it. He could not make out what was being said due to the echoes in the empty cavern of an auditorium, but he knew arguing when he heard it.
At last, they got close enough and he was able to make out a woman speaking.
“And I say that we cease all outside-the-wall activity for at least the next few weeks. The Guardians will have their hands full with that swarm. And we lost contact with that small community just to the northeast of us, so we should consider them to be knocked out.”
“But we are so close to ending this,” a man insisted. “If we can hit them now, I don’t believe that we will have to worry about them any longer!”
Kevin glanced over at Ken. The man gave a grim smile in return. He gestured with an arm for Kevin to lead the way up a small set of steps that would take them to the stage.
“Why is your answer always about attacking?” the woman retorted.
“If you would have done as I suggested six months ago…we would not be dealing with this now.” The man pounded the table for emphasis. “My daughter would still be alive.”
“You won’t blame that on me,” the woman countered.
Somebody at the table cleared their throat to indicate that they had company. There was a sudden and, at least for Kevin, very uncomfortable, silence. Every head turned to regard the new arrival. Kevin saw a mixture of expressions that varied from curiosity to annoyance with a touch of apathy.
“You must be Kevin Dreon,” the woman said as she stood and moved aro
und the table.
“Yeah, and whatever you have to say, make it quick. I want to see Aleah.” A small voice in his head told him to be polite, but he was not in the mood to listen. “And maybe somebody can tell me why I was locked in a closet, as well as where Heather is. Oh…and I want my stuff.”
“Maybe we ought to just toss you over the fence and be rid of you,” the man who’d been arguing with the woman snarled.
“Do what you gotta do,” Kevin shot back. “I didn’t ask to come here.”
“No, your friends called for help when you fainted,” the man retorted with a sarcastic snort. “Otherwise—”
“Otherwise nothing,” Kevin interrupted. “We’ve been doing just fine on our own for quite a while. I’m sure they would have figured something out. Besides, the herd wasn’t heading our way.”
“We will take you to your friend Aleah in just a few minutes,” the woman spoke up, shooting the man a hard look that had him easing back into his chair with a scowl. “But we had a few questions if—”
“I’m not answering a damn thing until you answer some of mine!” Kevin cut the woman off.
“Okay…” She took a deep breath, and Kevin had the feeling that she was not accustomed to being talked to so harshly. He had absolutely noticed the way she was obviously running the conversation between herself and the belligerent man who was now trying to hide an amused smile. “Your one friend, Aleah was it? The pregnant one? She had a miscarriage. That was compounded by some toxic chemicals she inhaled. It caused a violent hemorrhaging, but the last report was that she would recover fully. The other young lady, the one who demonstrates the immunity? Heather? She is simply providing some cultures and blood samples…all of her own free will!” the woman added hurriedly when she saw Kevin’s expression grow darker.
“And as for you, you were placed in that holding room because we did not simply want you wandering our compound. Your weapons were taken because you are a stranger, if you have been out there this past year, then surely you must be aware that there are some…unsavory types wandering the countryside these days. You will be given your equipment if you decide to depart. Otherwise, you might find that it is a bit…” she paused and seemed to be searching for the correct word. “Pedestrian.”