by Brown, TW
“For the most part,” Analisa said with a nod.
Kevin saw something flicker across her face for just a second. Had he not been staring at her, he would have missed it.
“Okay…what is the catch?”
“The woman Aleah…she is not immune, neither is the girl…Rose I believe is her name. We have a policy here that forbids any who are not immune from staying for longer than ten days. We considered adding people like them to a work pool, but it was eventually decided that they were a bigger draw on resources than they were worth.”
Kevin could not believe what he was hearing. He had to think that maybe The Guardians had the right idea in trying to wipe these people out. He glanced over at Jordan and his crew as they made their way to the ground and fanned out around him, weapons still aimed. He marveled at how much larger the barrel of a gun looked when you were staring down it from the wrong end.
“So what happens to them?” Kevin asked.
“They will be taken to a site where we know the area to be clean, and the two will be sent on their way. Seriously, Kevin, we are not monsters. Did you think we would do something horrible like kill them or use them in some evil experiment?” Analisa said with what he imagined she considered to be a charming laugh. However, it was the next words from her mouth that left him with a chill. “After all…this isn’t some weird horror movie.”
“Fine.” Kevin threw up his hands in surrender. “I give, but I want to see my people…all of them. And if Aleah and Rose are going to be taken out of here…I will be the one to do it.”
“Sure.” Jordan made a rude snorting sound again. “But me and some of the boys will be going along as well. And the young gal, Heather…she stays here. You honestly don’t think we will be taking you at your word, do ya?”
“Not if you had a brain in your head.” Kevin turned to face the man. He knew from experience what a bully was like. And he had learned that there was only one way to deal with them; you could not show any signs of fear or intimidation.
Yes, this had totally thrown off his plans, but it had also helped him figure something out. He had been so overwhelmed by self-pity that he had forgotten what was important. He had begun to separate himself from the group. That had been a mistake.
Of course, now he at least had something to help take his mind off of his situation. There was no way he would consent to living out his existence here.
He had a lot to think about. Obviously there was some shady stuff going on. But how much did the general population know about what was taking place? Surely not everybody could be on board. Who would think it is okay to inject their newborn baby with zombie blood?
He would root out the chink in the armor of these freaks and use that to gain the freedom of he and the others.
However, all of that would have to wait for a little while. He needed to see Aleah for himself and know that she was okay.
He was a little surprised when Analisa dismissed Jordan and his band. He expected to be under armed escort every step of the way. Apparently his feelings showed clearly on his face.
“Where would you go?” Analisa said flatly. “Let’s say that you overpower me, take my gun, and then kill me. What would you do next? How would you find your friends and get them out of here? The need to keep you at gunpoint is moot now that you know the whole situation.”
Kevin could not exactly argue with the sentiment. He had a threatening retort on the tip of his tongue, but his emotions were finally settling to the point where he could push them down and not speak it out loud.
The rest of the walk was in silence. Kevin’s mind churned with a million thoughts, but none of them revealed a solution to his situation. Still, he had learned that there was no such thing as a perfect situation; if he was going to do anything, he was going to have to understand that it would come with risks. The one thing he was certain of was that he would not spend whatever was left of his life in this place.
A small voice tried to speak up; ask him if it would be so horrible. After all, this place was almost exactly what he was hoping to create—minus the creepy and dark undertones. But was it so creepy? Was there no way that he could appreciate their point of view?
He walked into the room and saw Aleah on the bed, covered with a white sheet. In that moment, he dismissed the ludicrous idea of staying here of his own free will. He would find a way out; and if it brought this place down in the process, so much the better.
“Aleah?” Kevin whispered as he walked in the room.
His eyes flicked to a tray sitting on the table beside her. A half-eaten baked potato, some tomatoes, and the crust of an unidentifiable sandwich remained. He begrudgingly admitted that it was probably the best meal she’d had in weeks…if not months.
“Kevin?” Her eyes flickered open and seemed to struggle in their ability to focus.
Hurrying to her bedside, Kevin grabbed the cup of water sitting on the table with the tray of partially finished food. He brought it to her lips and helped her drink. He could sense Analisa standing close behind him.
“I don’t imagine you would feel like waiting outside?” Kevin called over his shoulder.
“We are confident…not stupid,” Analisa replied. “While you may find this hard to believe, we don’t have every room bugged or anything like that…actually, we are not this evil entity that you are painting us to be. We simply want to be left alone and at the same time, do our best to create a new society. We don’t want to see the end of humanity.”
“Yeah, you guys are a bunch of Boy and Girl Scouts,” Kevin scoffed.
“We simply want to take care of ourselves. Believe it or not, we are pulling away from the people who are not immune as much for their protection as for any other reason.”
“Well y’all are just a bunch of misunderstood good Samaritans,” Kevin said with a wry laugh.
He wanted to give Aleah his full attention, but clearly this woman was not going to back off, and he truly did not believe that he could make his own situation any worse. He clasped Aleah’s hand in his and kissed it before turning to face this woman and give her what he considered to be a solid dose of reality.
“Maybe you have been behind these walls a little too long…and I think you have been drinking too much of the Kool-Aid. I’ve been out there in the thick of this insanity since the beginning, and I have come to the conclusion that maybe we are not fit to continue as a species.
“I have seen the most abominable sides of humanity, and every single time I think the bottom has been hit…people like you and yours come along and show me that it was simply a rock layer. And we break through that and just continue to spiral. You are justifying the equivalent of genocide. I am certain that you know who Adolph Hitler was, so I will save you the history primer, but you are condemning people to death and trying to create a Master Race. Put flowers and bows on it if you like, but that is what you are doing here.
“You want to toss out any who are not like you, and you have the audacity to say that you are doing people a favor? Wake the fuck up, sister. You people are killers and bad guys…you are no different from those Guardians…and you may actually be worse.
“You inject newborn babies with zombie blood! How can you not see the absolute evil in that? And you don’t tell the parents? If they ever find out—”
“We didn’t at first,” Analisa cut Kevin off.
Despite her attempt to defend the actions she was a part of, Kevin thought he could sense something under the surface. For one, she was not keeping eye contact. Her head had been down the entire time he’d been laying in to her until he got to the part about the babies.
“But now, it is standard protocol…and we even made sure to hold a public meeting and tell everybody.”
“And everybody just agreed to your little idea?” Kevin challenged.
Analisa’s head dropped and Kevin knew right then what the answer was to that question. He glanced down at Aleah who was looking up at him in total confusion. He patted her hand and gave her what he hop
ed was a reassuring smile.
He suddenly felt ashamed of his actions the past several days. He had been wallowing in self-pity. He had started to distance himself from those he cared about. Even worse, he had superimposed his own thoughts and feelings on Aleah. He had decided for her that he was no longer worthy of her love, despite the fact that she had insisted otherwise.
Now that he was faced with actually losing her for good, he realized that it was better to have her in his life in any facet than none at all. He realized how cliché the whole ‘you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone’ thing might be; however, it turned out to be true—once again. Memories of his little sister threatened to surface, and he shoved them down. That would be for later.
“You can still redeem yourself,” Kevin dared to whisper after considering his next action. It was a risk, but he would not let the sun set on the idea of “what if”. He kept his gaze as unemotional as he could. When Analisa looked up at him, Kevin saw that thing under the surface in a struggle to break through.
“You don’t understand,” Analisa whispered with a shake of her head.
“No,” Kevin disagreed as softly and gently as he could manage. “It is you who does not understand. You are never too far gone for redemption. Trust me…if you knew the mistakes that I have made in the last year—”
“It isn’t about mistakes. I can’t leave here.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t leave my baby daughter.”
That simple sentence landed with a mental clang that reverberated through the space between them. Analisa had a child? That changed everything. He felt his mouth try to spit out the invitation for her to bring the child as well, but he knew that would not work. If he and his friends were to have any chance of escaping these people, they needed to be able to move fast and light. A baby was a drain on resources and did not understand things like how they needed to be quiet at a certain time. If they brought an infant along, as harsh as the reality was to even think—especially considering that until just recently, he and Aleah were expecting a child of their own—it would end in disaster. Kevin was really hating where his mind was going. Was he any better than these people? Was it really just a simple matter of perspective? As long as he was making choices for his group, he was the “good” guy?
He brushed the attempted rise of his conscience. Now was just not the time. He could sift through all his own crap and baggage later.
“Fine, but you can’t be okay what is happening here? And you surely can’t be okay with all that garbage you were laying on me about keeping me here to add to your gene pool whether I wanted to or not.”
“Excuse me…what?” Aleah said weakly.
“Not now,” Kevin said with a pat of her hand. He shouldn’t have been surprised when she yanked it away.
“What the hell is going on, Kevin?” Aleah insisted.
“I can’t begin to tell you half of it.” Kevin turned to face the woman he loved. Seeing her face as she looked up at him only strengthened his resolve to get all of them out of this nightmare.
“But—” Aleah began; Kevin cut her off.
“Now is really not the time.” He turned back to Analisa. “Okay, I can see it all over your face. You are conflicted about what to do. Just let us go. If we slip out tonight—” Now it was Kevin’s turn to be cut off.
“That’s not possible.” Analisa gave a curt shake of her head. “If I let you escape, the consequences would be more than I am willing to pay.”
“I could make it look like I overpowered you,” Kevin pressed.
“Okay!” a voice said with a sardonic laugh from outside the door, causing everybody in the room to jump. “That’s about enough.”
Jordan entered with three men behind him. They had their weapons drawn.
“All deals are off the table. You keep your hands up where we can see ‘em.” Jordan waved his gun at Kevin. “You will be put in the tank and dealt with just how I said we should have in the first place. Dead woman walking over there,” he indicated Aleah with his handgun, “is out of here first thing in the morning, along with that kid.” He turned to one of the men. “Go find that little black girl that come in with these folks and tell her that her friends want to meet her here. We can keep her under guard overnight and toss them both out together. As for that fine little immune philly that came in, send her to my room. I am going to fill her in on her new living arrangements.”
“Don’t you dare!” Kevin hissed, lunging forward. The sound of every gun in the room having its hammer cocked made him stop short.
“It ain’t what you think, fella” Jordan shook his head. “I won’t lay a hand on her. Despite almost everything you have in your head about us, that girl is safe. She simply won’t be allowed to leave. Eventually she will get used to her situation and probably find herself a boy she likes…settle down…make babies…”
“What about all that talk about sending her in and forcing me to get her pregnant?” Kevin asked.
“Just words.” Jordan laughed. “Not about the part where you become a living sperm bank…sorry to say that part is real, but we got plenty of women on the sign-up sheet who are wanting to get pregnant.”
“And they will be okay with forcing me to have sex against my will?” Kevin challenged.
“Nope, but they will be okay with having sex with the poor man in the coma.” Jordan plucked his baseball hat from his head and affected a sorrowful expression. “He tried to hang in there, but in the end, we simply could not do anything more for the man. His last wishes were that he help us anyway he could. They say that folks in a coma can feel and hear. Let’s send him to Heaven with a smile ladies.”
“Kevin?” For the first time in a long time, Kevin heard fear in Aleah’s voice. “What is going on?”
Kevin turned to the woman he loved, his mind racing with bits and pieces of ideas; none of them solid enough to base a plan on how to help them escape.
“Remember when I said that things ain’t like in the movies?” his voice just above a whisper. Aleah nodded, tears starting to well in her eyes. “Well…I was right. It’s worse.”
2
New Friends, New Enemies
“This sucks,” I whispered.
Looking around the landing, zombies were pouring out from a pair of long, dark corridors. The walking dead were packed in pretty tight and there was zero chance that I could make it through; plus, I had no idea where those corridors went…if they actually went anywhere.
Spinning around, I saw something that had me positive that child zombies were something to be worried about. The children had lagged to the rear of the swarm that was now making its way up the stairs towards me. Another cluster had moved to the doors that I had come through when I first entered this building.
I let the magazine drop to the ground with a clatter as I pulled out a fresh one and slammed it into place. If I was to die right here in this spot, I wanted a damned statue built of me standing atop a pile of zombies.
“Billy died, but he took a shitload with him,” people would say. Hell, maybe they would put that on the plaque at the base of my monument.
Taking the last two steps so that I was now standing flat, I took aim at head level and fired a few short bursts. Zombies were dropping, but that didn’t mean much when looking at the big picture. It really seemed that for every one that fell, two more emerged from those gaping black maws from Hell.
“Fuck you all!” I screamed, but nobody would have heard it over the sound of my M4. Another magazine dropped and I knew that I had two left after the one that I was swapping in. I had not even realized it, but I had taken at least a dozen steps away from the defunct escalators. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the first of the ones from below come into view.
I fired another burst at the closest group and then made sure my pistol would come clean from the holster in a hurry. I wonder if I will feel anything? That morbid thought was shoved down, but the same voice was also now reminding me to make sure th
at I aim the weapon up instead of back. More than one attempted suicide had failed because the person simply shoved the barrel into the back of their mouth and fired. I wanted to be certain that I blew my brains out.
My M4 dry fired and I went to swap out magazines again. There were bodies littering the floor, but there was still way too many of them coming for me. A few were close enough that it was a race to reload in time. I kicked one back just as I brought the weapon up and fired a round into its head.
I was not going to get to that fifth mag. The walkers from below were now pouring out into the open balcony area and had effectively boxed me in between themselves and their brethren. Death was now just a moment or two away.
An explosion sounded and was amplified to painful, eardrum-splitting levels by the vast open space of the enormous entryway of this cursed building. Another followed almost immediately, but since my ears were still ringing from the first blast, it did not seem quite as loud.
Thank God for zombies being stupid; or, at the very least, easily distracted. Most of them turned at the sudden and new sound. The ones closest to me had a mixture of reactions. Only one, a female that had been in the act of reaching for me when the explosion sounded, still kept its focus on me. I was able to shove her back and draw my KA-BAR as she regained her footing and took a deliberate step forward. Driving the blade into her forehead, I gave another shove and snapped my arm back so that she slid off the blade.
Seeing my chance, slim though it was, I made a dash for the far stairwell. I knew that it had been almost totally free of zombies. If I was going to make it back down to the lower level and out of this place, that was my best option. My brain tried to scream warnings about the odd child zombies and their peculiar behavior, but I was at a “one thing at a time” point in my plan. Shoving aside a few of the undead that had turned towards the new sound, I was just reaching a point where my ears were not ringing.
“Billy!” a female voice called. It sounded tinny and distant, but it was the sweetest sound I could imagine. It was Jessie, the lady that I had figured to be the leader of this expedition. She was the one who had been giving the orders; she was the one who had sent me and Frank here.