Only Love Survives (Love and Zombies)

by Renee Charles

  Someone pulled the fire alarm and the world began to turn again. More guards filled the room and the blaring alarm drowned out her words. Brown uniforms with guns filled the space between her and Sam.

  “Take her to the lab first for blood work, then quarantine.” The doctor shouted orders over the top of the blaring alarm.

  “No stop. I’m here to help. I’m immune.” Megan’s screams brought Sam back to life.

  He threw off one of the guards, who sailed across the room, but the second one cocked his rifle at Sam’s temple. “Get down on the ground.”

  The cold metal dug into the side of his head, and Sam dropped to his knees.

  “Sam.” Megan cried out for him, and he raged inside.

  “On your belly.” The soldier wasn’t taking any chances.

  Sam’s view of Megan disappeared as he complied, obliterated by the white lab coats and brown fatigues that surrounded. They picked her up. Her torso hung as they lifted her, each soldier at a limb. She twisted and struggled.

  “Stop. I’ll come, just let me see him. Please.” She screamed again. “Sam?”

  “Leave her alone.” Sam shouted, but nobody listened.

  When her foot found someone’s jaw, they dropped her on the stone floor. Sam flinched.

  The soldier stepped on the back of Sam’s neck and slid the end of his rifle to Sam’s cheek.

  “Stay put,” he ordered.

  Sam searched for her between the feet and finally found her gaze. The desperation in her face before the boots closed around her again was more than he could bear. He closed his eyes and turned away, listening as they marched her out of the room.

  The grit on the floor bit into Sam’s cheek while the soldier’s boot balanced on the back of his neck. “What about this one, Doc?”

  “Let him go. He has no bite marks.”

  Sam reached up and slapped the guy’s leg off him. The guard lost balance for a second then brought his gun up to his shoulder taking aim.

  “Knock it off, Charlie. You had your foot in his neck.” One of the other soldiers spoke as he reached down and offered Sam a hand up. Sam ignored it. “Just doing our job, brother. You’d best forget her. Nobody with a bite mark leaves this place.”

  Before he pushed up off the floor, Sam sucked in two deep breaths in an effort to control the frenzied urge to knock them all down and go after Megan. Getting them both killed wasn’t going to solve a damn thing.

  One more deep breath cleared his head.

  “My pack.” Sam pointed to Megan’s pack buried in the rubble he’d made of the screens.

  “Get it and get out.” Charlie kept his gun on Sam.

  Sam picked it up and strode out of the building. He marched right up to the Suburban and kicked the back fender.

  “Damn it,” he shouted for the entire world to hear.

  How could he not have seen that coming? Sam opened the door threw the pack in Megan’s seat and slammed the door shut again. He crossed his arms above his head on the door and leaned his forehead against the car.

  “Damn it.” He closed his eyes and saw Megan’s face again, terrified, broken by his reaction.

  Why? Why hadn’t she told him? The alarm switched off in the distance, and Sam looked up. The soldier’s warning to forget about her rang in his ears. Yeah, he might as well forget to breathe or blink while he was at it.

  Sam got in the car and headed back to the hotel to regroup. He’d wait for a change of the guards, go back in and get her and his sister out of there.

  He needed a plan.

  The twisted expression of betrayal on Sam’s face was exactly what Megan had been avoiding. She expected he’d find out eventually, but not like that. If she’d had the courage to tell him herself, at least she could have explained and possibly said good bye. Megan felt a sorrow so deep, her body ached.

  The two soldiers who flanked Megan led her down the unassuming hall behind the doctor.

  “This isn’t necessary. I came to help. I’m immune.”

  The doctor turned and regarded her over his shoulder.

  She lifted her wrist so he could see it had indeed healed.

  He glimpsed at her wrist then her face again. “Yes, well you and about a tenth of the population as we’re finding out.”

  Megan’s feet stalled, but the solider to her right grasped her elbow and nudged her along.

  One tenth?

  “I’m not your first?” It sank in slow. Her grand plan, saving the world, saving Allan’s little girls, shot down by Dr. Evil without even an explanation.

  “Then why haven’t you cured it yet?” She shouted but her accusation bounced off the back of his head.

  He didn’t even turn to face her. “We are doing our best.”

  Everything she’d clung to, hoped for, needed, including Sam had been ripped from her for nothing. Her world caved in on her and, as they walked down the hall in silence, devastation melted her hope like a hot knife through butter.

  It was just like any other hall, in any other hotel, until they turned the corner. Megan gasped. Plastic sheeting hung across the wall on string, apparently for the sole purpose to collect blood splatter. It did its job fine, and every lab coat in the room matched. Each coat with its own blend of new and old stains. Plastic bags hung on one wall with signs hand-written in Sharpie claiming “Caution Bio-Hazard” above them. And right smack in the middle of the room, a bare table reeked of bleach. Even the crackly tissue paper used in doctors’ offices would have added a welcoming touch. The room came straight out a horror flick, the kind Megan didn’t watch because they scared the bejesus out of her.

  “What are we doing?” Megan tried to hide the quiver in her voice.

  “Blood work.” The doctor in charge scribbled notes on a spiral notepad as he explained, if one could call that an explanation.

  Megan hadn’t noticed the restraints until they were right up on the table. She pointed at the leather cuffs. “You won’t need those.”

  “It’s just a precaution. We only use them if we have to.” He finally met her gaze.

  Megan didn’t miss the warning.

  “You won’t.” She hopped up on the table without waiting to be asked to prove this was her choice, not theirs.

  “Are we taking skin samples as well doctor?” A nurse handed him rubber gloves.

  “No, I want blood first. Then we will know what else to look for.” He turned to Megan. “Your arm please.”

  Megan complied.

  He examined the bite mark. “How long ago were you bitten?”

  “Seven months.”

  That got his attention. He looked up at her but continued to hold her arm.

  “The first day of the epidemic.” She hadn’t even stayed up and watched the comet go by. Little did she know how much it was going to affect her life.

  “Infection set in?”

  Megan nodded.

  “Antibiotics?”

  “No. I didn’t go to the doctor. I just poured hydrogen peroxide on it.”

  “Of course you did.” He poked the hard skin of the scar and chuckled.

  Megan wanted to sock him in the jaw. “It worked.”

  “Yes. You didn’t get sick because you are immune to the virus. The infection, however, can be almost as deadly. You were lucky.” He tied a rubber strap on her arm and prepared to draw blood. “We have found it to be antibiotic resistant.”

  “Well, maybe you should have been pouring hydrogen peroxide on it instead.” Megan couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  The doctor looked up at her as if she’d just solved a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. “Perhaps.”

  After he finish stabbing her with the garden hose he called a needle, he untied the strap and put a tissue on the spot. “Close your arm and hold this in place. We’re out of bandages.”

  Megan complied while he signaled for the guards at the door.

  “Take her to the basement for quarantine until I need her again.”

  The “basement” t
urned out to be the old parking garage with wire fencing slapped together to form cages. Zombies in every stage of transformation occupied the cells. The armed guard marched Megan right down the center aisle. Several creatures further along in the decomposition process and far more aggressive, reached for her through the bars growling and moaning, while the overwhelming stench of death gagged her.

  “I don’t belong here.” Megan would have stopped walking, but the guards had a hold of her, and they kept moving. “I was bitten months ago. I’m not going to turn.” She pleaded with them.

  “Shut up, corpse.” They led her to the end of the row where people still occupied the cages, their bodies racked with fever on the verge of death. Megan gasped when she saw one of the victims, who’d not yet turned completely, lying on the floor of her cell unconscious while her neighbor chewed on her hand through the fencing.

  Megan struggled in their grip. “Please, don’t do this.”

  They shoved her in the first empty cell where she fell to her knees. The metal cage rattled when one guard slammed the door closed while the second urged him to hurry with the lock. “Let’s go.”

  The two men scurried out and left her there alone with the monsters. Soon, those around her would finish turning and be reaching through the bars as well.

  Megan gathered her legs in front of her and wrapped her arms around her knees. She wanted to tell Sam he was right. She wanted to tell him she was sorry. And, more than anything else, she wanted to tell him she loved him. But it was over, and with no hope left, she sat balled up in the middle of her cage and wept.

  ****

  The backseat clicked into position as Sam pulled it upright to accommodate a third person. He wasn’t leaving without Megan, whether she liked it or not. Her new messenger bag landed with a thump in the seat next to her trusty pack.

  The car seemed empty without her while Sam drove back to the medical building to wait for the change of guard. He had no idea what time it was, but could tell by the purple hue in the sky the sun had not been up long. The thought of Megan’s ridiculous watch made him shake his head. Should have known.

  Sam guessed about a half hour passed before a military transport pulled up to the entrance full of fresh guards. They unloaded and scurried inside while more than one of them looked up, around, and over their shoulder. The truck waited engine running until the crew from last night filed out, climbed into the back of the same truck, and the last one wasn’t even all the way in before the overanxious driver pulled away. His mates grabbed him to keep him from falling off the back end, and Sam found himself hoping that if it was Charlie, the guard who’d left a size ten boot print on his neck, they’d drop him.

  And what would your school teacher think of that? He asked himself making an effort to stop white knuckling the steering wheel. She’d probably go over and offer to help him up. Sam chuckled and watched the guy grab a seat while the truck pulled out of the lot. Who could help but love her? She was an amazing woman.

  Now, how was he going to convince her that he was half as amazing? That was gonna be the real trick. He intended to let another half-hour pass, then go get her ass and figure it out.

  With no watch, it was hard to judge a half hour. When he thought of Megan trapped inside, time seemed to spin beyond his reason. But when he thought about how long it would take those guards to exchange reports and settle into their stations, it felt like the truck just pulled away. Sam waited until he couldn’t stand it any longer and shoved two small guns in his pants, along with a hunting knife in his boot. Maybe one of those weapons would make it through the medical examination unnoticed, after all they inspected him not his clothes.

  “I’m coming, honey.” Sam opened the car door and took a deep breath.

  Once inside, the guards stopped him just like last time, but a nurse passing through the lobby recognized him and intervened.

  “I’m sorry sir, but your friend’s in quarantine now.”

  “Better for all of us, since she lied about it, don’t you think?” The words tasted like bile. “I’m not here for her. I’m here to see my sister, Dr. Woods.”

  “Oh.” No matter how painful it had been to say, the ploy worked because the tension left her face. The nurse bestowed him with a come-hither smile and her eyes darted from his hair to his boots before she addressed the guards. “He’s fine. He already went through Medical. Dr. Murray examined him.” She batted her eyelashes up at him. “Follow me. Let’s see if we can’t find Summer for you.”

  “Happy to,” he lied.

  “The last time I saw Summer, she was in the lab.”

  The last time Sam saw Summer, she was bitching about the catered Thanksgiving turkey he’d fed her when she came home for break. She’d fully expected a home-cooked meal, and he’d ordered take out. Five-star take out, but still take out. No matter how much he spent on the girl she had a knack for pushing it aside and demanding more of him…more of his heart. Her solution had been baking cookies together. They used every dish he owned. The kitchen had been covered in flour by the time they’d finished, and the pumpkin mousse that came with the catered dinner went untouched.

  “She should be in here. This is where she spends most of her time.” The nurse explained while they turned the corner. “There she is.”

  Sam’s throat tightened at the sight of his baby sister. Blonde hair pulled back, faded jeans, stained lab coat and the ever-present flip-flops. She was too thin, but still managed to stand with her hands on her hips and argue with another doctor with as much vigor as he’d ever seen. “The sample won’t be viable if you leave it out all day to rot.”

  “We can afford real shoes.” Sam opened with his favorite gripe where she was concerned.

  Summer spun on her heal and took a running leap at her brother. He braced himself for impact, as she jumped into his arms and wrapped her limbs around him in a bear hug.

  “Sam.” She sobbed into his chest, and he shifted her weight so as not to drop her while he hugged her back.

  Sam buried his face in her neck and squeezed her like he hadn’t in years. She was alive after all this time, his greatest fear proven wrong. He held on to her, afraid to speak at first. But then he had to ask, “You all right, Baby-Girl?”

  The nickname he’d called her since the day she was born, five years after him, was enough to get her attention. Summer nodded then purposely wiped her nose on his shirt, which made him smile. She was just fine, other than being too damn skinny.

  “We agreed you wouldn’t call me that anymore.” She climbed off him and put her feet on the ground. “Where have you been?”

  “You aren’t exactly where I left you.” Sam took in the room and the other doctors went about their business avoiding his glare. All except for the dimwitted nurse. She stood and gawked.

  “Tell me about it. These assholes won’t let me leave. I’m too valuable to their cause.”

  “Well, we’re leaving now.”

  “That’s not possible. The guards out front won’t allow it.” Ms. Nosey Nurse chimed in, and Sam was about to tell her what’s what when Summer put a small hand on his chest to stall him.

  “I’ll tell him the rules here. Why don’t you take those rags to the laundry?” Ever the back-handed diplomat, his sister. When Nosey Nurse left, Summer turned to Sam. “She’s right. They have orders. We all have free reign of the building, right up until we want to leave.”

  “There is no government here. Who is making all these asinine rules?”

  “The city council took over and started making decisions for everyone. They stay across town in one of the other hotels and run the show from there.”

  “We’ll see about that. But first we have to find…” Sam contemplated what to call her for a moment. Ah, what the hell. “My wife.”

  “Wife?”

  “Yeah, a lot’s happened since I saw you last.” He shrugged.

  “I guess so.” Summer crossed her arms.

  “Where would they take her if she’d been bitten,
but didn’t change?”

  “To quarantine for a month to be sure she wasn’t going to change.”

  “Quarantine?” The conversation he had with the escaped scientist ran through his mind. “With all the other zombies?”

  Summer nodded her blonde ponytail bobbing behind her.

  “But she’s not a zombie. I’ve been traveling with her for over a week and she hasn’t had a fever. Hell, the mark’s even healed over.” Sam followed Summer to the elevator while he spoke. The doors slid open and music drifted out. Sam smiled as a piano version of The Girl From Ipanema greeted them when they stepped inside.

  “What?” His sister never did miss much.

  “Just weird to hear that, after so many months of nothing. I would have preferred Metallica.”

  “Welcome to my world.” Summer shook her head.

  “How did you end up here?”

  “A bunch of us came up from the university after we heard they were going to rebuild here. I thought I would find out what was going on before I headed up to you at the cabin. Once we got here though, the powers that be decided they needed us, doctors being at a shortage and all.”

  The doors slid open and the smell of decay slammed into them like a wrecking ball. Sam pulled his gun, and they stepped out into a nightmare. Zombies in cages tore at their clothes and ran into the walls of their confines.

  Summer checked a register hanging on the wall and looked it up and down twice before turning to Sam. “She was taken last night?”

  “Yeah.” His breathing sped up despite the retched odor. Something was wrong, he could see it in his sister’s face.

  “They moved her to Observation Lab 412. Sam, that’s where they keep the pregnant women. I thought you said you only knew her for a week or so.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Pregnant?” Oh shit.

  “Someone else’s baby?” His sister always did get straight to the point.

  “No way, she’s been on her own too long.” Plus, Sam just couldn’t picture it, not after the way she responded the first time they...

  “A blood test is standard when they pull in women. The elevated hormones are detectable as soon as seven days, but that means you would have had to have sex with her practically the day you met her.” She hung the clipboard back up.