CURE (A Strandville Zombie Novel)

by Frisch, Belinda

  Scott’s eyes went wide as Foster explained the infection, the hybrids, and cure in the briefest terms and to the best of his knowledge. “No one knows everything,” he said.

  Miranda couldn’t believe her ears. This is impossible. She grunted and crossed her arms over her stomach, starting to cry. The black amniotic fluid she’d seen with Annie was finally explained. She was carrying a monster.

  Scott caught her before she crashed to her knees. “There are options, Miranda. As soon as we’re out of here, we’ll take care of this.”

  She pushed him away, searching her mind for a reasonable excuse. The raw emotion from losing their daughter made the idea of having an abortion inconceivable, under any circumstances. What if this baby was healthy and normal? She put the thoughts away to focus on escaping. “The smell is getting to me,” she said. “I need out of this room.”

  “Miranda, I’m sorry.” Scott tried to talk to her about the pregnancy and she held up her hand.

  “Not now. Please.” She shook her head. “Just leave it alone.”

  Scott sniffled and steadied his crooked frown. “The elevator isn’t far. Stay behind me.”

  Miranda tucked a tangle of unwashed hair behind her ear. “Either you two help me get the others or I’ll get them myself.” The odds of them coming back once she was safe were slim. The thought of Penny’s grieving mother wouldn’t let her go. “I mean it.” Sadness softened her anger.

  Scott sighed. “When have I ever said ‘no’ to you?” He took Miranda’s arm, despite her previous protest and shunned Foster’s attempt at helping him support her. “I have her. Get the door.”

  Foster opened it a little, at first, and listened.

  “You hear anything?” Scott whispered.

  “Nothing close by.” Foster went into the hall.

  Miranda took a deep breath and leaned on Scott when the cramps returned. You are going to be fine, she told herself, even if she didn’t believe it. There were worse things than Nixon and if she wasn’t careful, she could become, or give birth to, one of them. She focused on Scott and tried to match his calm breaths.

  “The ward’s this way.” Foster pointed.

  Miranda looked left then right, afraid to turn her back on either direction now that she knew what she was up against.

  Scott nudged her along, but she couldn’t take her eye off of something down the hall.

  “What are you looking at?” Foster’s glasses were clearly not strong enough.

  Scott squinted.

  “You see it?” The cramping settled down and she pulled away from Scott, standing on her own.

  “I’ll go see what it is.” Scott said.

  Miranda followed. “Oh my God.” She covered her mouth.

  Bloody shoeprints lined the floor in an awkward drag-step pattern that wound in circles and faded into a closed lab door. A distinct separate trail led to the elevator.

  “Shit.” Scott lifted his foot and studied the tread. He turned to Foster. “The only other person wearing boots that match those prints,” he pointed at the ones leading to the lab, “is Mark.” He reached for his walkie-talkie.

  Foster stopped his hand. “What if Nixon intercepts, or Reid? There’s no guaranteeing they won’t pick up this frequency. I’d save the radios for emergencies.”

  “And this doesn’t qualify?”

  Foster shook his head. “Whatever happened here, we’ll find out soon enough. Before we alert the hounds, we have to rescue the others.”

  37.

  A low, rumbling growl echoed up the elevator shaft. Billy pointed the knife at John and snarled. “Get in.”

  Clarence’s body lay at Billy’s feet. His head was nearly off and the frayed ends of muscle and tendon hung between the pieces.

  John stepped back. “I don’t want to. What if it isn’t dead?”

  Billy delivered a sharp kick to complete the decapitation. Clarence’s head hit the metal with a clang. “How ‘bout now?”

  John clamped his hands over his mouth to stifle the climbing scream.

  “I’m not gonna tell you again.” Billy stepped forward, slipped on a used syringe, and rolled his ankle. He slammed his hand into the wall to keep from falling. “Dammit.” He limped and walked off the pain, leaving bloody footprints on the tile.

  John’s whole body shook. He wanted to go to the basement even less. He stared at Clarence’s remains and the syringe jutting from his bicep.

  Billy plucked the needle out, careful to avoid the tip.

  John moved back another foot, noting a shift in Billy’s demeanor.

  “Looks like he was tryin’ to hold off gettin’ sick.” Billy kicked the empties. “It didn’t work.”

  “The guard said it was temporary.” John swallowed the bitterness in his throat and tried not to vomit.

  Billy held out his hand. “Maybe I should hold the rest of ‘em.”

  John cowered and a door slammed, breaking the tension. He whipped his head around at the noise.

  “Hey, you two, get away from that elevator!” A broad-chested, armed security guard ran toward them.

  Billy grabbed John’s sleeve, but promptly lost his grip. “Get in!”

  John was barely breathing enough to speak. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” Frantic, he took off in the opposite direction of the guard who seemed more focused on Billy.

  Billy released the elevator hold and the doors closed.

  * * * * *

  Billy paced, taking shallow breaths through his mouth to avoid the spoiled meat smell of Clarence’s rotten corpse. “Goddamned coward.” He should’ve known better than to expect back up from John, a man too weak and scared to protect his own fiancé.

  The elevator descended and the brief pause that followed put Billy on-edge. He adjusted his grip on the knife handle, but the slippery sweat making it hard to get a hold.

  A growl came from the other side of the door and regret set in that he’d come down alone.

  The doors parted and shock drew out time. Mark was on him before he could even think to get away. Please, God, no. The angry bite wound on Mark’s bicep festered, yellow pus coloring the muscle.

  Billy pushed Mark backward and tried to clear the doorway. Mark knocked the knife from his hand before he had a chance to use it. Billy kicked and punched, clawing to get free, but the infection made Mark incredibly strong and he was undeterred by repeated punches to his head and neck.

  “Get off o’ me!” Billy shouted.

  Mark stepped forward and his boot cleared the track. The door closed and they were trapped. He quickly pinned Billy and attempted to bite.

  “You ain’t gonna get me.” Billy dug his thumb into Mark’s left eye socket, pushing until he heard a pop. Warm vitreous fluid spilled over his hand. Mark howled and thrashed, groping the certain blind spot.

  They feel pain. If there were rules, Billy didn’t know them.

  Billy kicked Mark, sending him tumbling into Clarence’s corpse. Mark faltered and the split-second shift allowed an advantage. Billy grabbed for his knife, mistakenly gripping the blade end first and tearing through four of his fingers. Aaaggghh. The blood smear sent Mark into a frenzy. Billy fought the dizziness long enough to flip it around. He lodged the knife deep in Mark’s chest but Mark drove into it, impaling himself and sinking his teeth into Billy’s clavicle. Billy screamed and pounded the first floor button. He had to find John and the shots. The wound burned and the pain continued long after. Billy tried to recover his weapon, but Mark bit into his arm. Billy’s skin broke under the pressure and his muscle crunched as it was torn.

  When the elevator door opened, Mark rushed into the lobby. Billy inventoried the damage. His clavicle wound was bone-deep and the flap of skin barely held on. Blood ran from his wounds and he was feverish, sweating, but freezing. Changing. Instinctively, he knew it. He struggled to get a hold of himself, wanting to believe he could overcome the transformation, but knowing it was unlikely.

  He patted down Clarence’s body, checking for unused syri
nges. Neither the gore nor the smell could dissuade him. He foraged through the snug pants pockets with unsteady hands, fighting the marionette he’d become with the infection pulling his strings. His life seemed all but over when he found the lump in the shirt’s breast pocket. A single syringe wedged sideways. Hallelujah. He uncapped the needle, stabbed it into his left arm and wondered just how much time constituted ‘temporary.’

  38.

  Miranda shivered as she walked into the ward, the memory of her insemination like an icy finger up her spine. Even free, with Scott and Foster by her side, she felt trapped and helpless. What happened in that room would never leave her.

  The women looked worse than when she left, Annie’s absence forming a palpable hole in their world.

  Penny, the youngest and most resilient among them, was the least affected.

  “Miranda.” Penny smiled vibrantly. Her bobbed, black hair shimmered with the grease of having gone weeks without being washed. Still, there was radiant life in her blue eyes and her innocence was unspoiled by the hybrid fetus growing inside of her.

  Miranda unfastened Penny’s wrist and ankle restraints, fighting with the coat sleeves falling in her way. “Can you walk?”

  Penny rubbed her wrists and stretched, standing for the first time in so long that her knees buckled. Miranda caught her arm and steadied her. “I’m fine,” Penny said and hugged her.

  The brief contact affirmed she made the right choice saving them.

  Miranda smiled and set her hand on Penny’s shoulder. “We have to get out of here before Reid or Nixon comes back.”

  “Hey, hello.” Foster unfastened one of the patient’s restraints and stood at her bedside, shaking her. “She’s not waking up.”

  “Nixon keeps Holly and Amy sedated,” Carlene said. “So they don’t pull their stitches.”

  Both women were postpartum and had cesarean wounds at different stages of healing.

  “What do we do with them?” Scott asked, having set Carlene free.

  Carlene limped to a wheelchair in the corner. “We can wheel them out.” Her gait evened out as she moved to Holly’s bedside and lowered the railing.

  Miranda went over to help and a sour odor hit her. “What is that smell?”

  Carlene peeled back Holly’s white blanket and exposed the blood-caked sheet beneath it.

  Miranda coughed and wrinkled her face. The skin on Holly’s heels had degraded and turned black. Thick pus leaked from the bone-deep wounds.

  “Pressure ulcers,” Carlene said. “From lying down. I used to work in a nursing home. Saw them all the time.” She pulled a pair of blue fuzzy socks over Holly’s feet and Foster helped Carlene ease her into the wheelchair. “I can’t imagine anything worse than this.”

  Miranda looked at Carlene’s swollen belly. There were more terrible things. She pushed the other wheelchair to Amy. Scott, always knowing what she was thinking, stared. “We have to tell them.”

  Foster lowered his head.

  Scott, never one for confrontation, handed out scrubs for the women to change into.

  Penny changed behind one of the hanging curtains, the clothes on her full figure tighter than it was on the others. “Tell us what?”

  Scott closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know that now is the best time for this.”

  “When would be better? When they stumble on that mess in the hallway?” Scott backed down. “What do you know about the babies?” Miranda asked.

  Penny lowered her eyebrows and wrinkled her forehead. “Nothing, I guess.”

  “We can’t draw this out,” Foster said.

  “The fathers, well…” Miranda weighed her words.

  “For God’s sake, they’re zombies,” Scott said. “They’re out in the hall, waiting to eat and infect us.”

  The room fell silent, the women visibly registering what he’d said.

  Penny’s lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. “What does that mean for my baby?”

  “We don’t know.” Miranda held Penny’s shoulder. “But there’s nothing we can do until we’re out of here.”

  “Come on. We have to go.” Foster leaned on the handles of Holly’s wheelchair.

  “What do you mean do?” Penny cried harder. “I’m not a murderer!”

  Miranda moved her hand to her stomach. “You don’t have to be.”

  “We’re wasting time. We need to leave, now.” Scott used the blunt end of a fire extinguisher he took down from the wall to smash the locked case. The sound of shattering glass broke Penny’s hysteria. Scott cleared the jagged teeth and withdrew the ax. “Miranda, you and Carlene push the wheelchairs. Foster, you stay close to Penny.” Scott took Miranda’s hand. “If there’s trouble-,” he said his eyes soft and pleading. “I mean the no way out kind--I need you to promise me that you’ll take care of yourself first.”

  “Yeah, sure I will,” Miranda said sarcastically.

  Having been married, she would’ve thought he knew better.

  39.

  The change came on fast and hit Billy’s system hard. Fluids swished in his stomach, swishing like a shaken water balloon. A stabbing pain pierced his side and brought him to his knees.

  Ohhhhhh.

  Another wave of cramps and his bowels let go. Warm, liquid stool ran down the inside of his pant legs and dripped a trail to the nearest bathroom.

  He picked up his two-way and sent out a distress call. “This is Billy, anyone, do you hear me?”

  No one answered.

  “John.” He grunted and breathed through the pain. “Please, answer.”

  Where was he?

  Sick of being bullied, probably.

  Billy had gone too far.

  Pull a knife on the kid, what did you think?

  He thrust the heel of his palm repeatedly into the side of his sweaty head.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  The fever made him shiver and he lumbered to the sink. He turned on the cold water and splashed handfuls on his face. The sweat washed away, but he still stunk like shit. He stared into the mirror, at the stranger’s reflection. His complexion blanched to chalk white. Even his acne, normally red and irritated, was a ridge of ghostly lumps. Dark circles rimmed his bloodshot eyes and his lips were cracked and bleeding.

  He fished in his pocket for his cell phone and went inside one of the two bathroom stalls. He pushed the door closed and when it stuck, saw no reason to lock it. He slipped out of his soiled pants, careful not to drop his phone in the toilet, and sat down.

  This is so goddamned undignified.

  The cramps returned, but his bowels were empty. The pain was almost worse.

  He dialed John, his shaking hands making it hard to hit the numbers, and closed his eyes when it started ringing.

  Without the shots, he was as good as dead.

  Come on. Please, answer.

  One. Two. Three. Billy counted the rings.

  Voicemail.

  “This is John, leave a message.”

  “John, it’s Billy. I’m sorry, man. I’m really fucking sorry.” Tears came, the last sign of his waning humanity. “I need those shots. I’m so sick. Please, I’m on the first floor in the bathroom off the lobby. Hurry.”

  Billy’s vision blurred. Dizziness had him teetering on the loose toilet seat.

  “I don’t have much time,” he whispered and waited for the virus to claim him.

  * * * * *

  John ignored the stitch in his side and the shooting pains, like spears, through the non-existent arches of his flat feet as he ran across the Nixon Center parking lot. He wasn’t made for speed or endurance, but fear was a powerful motivator. Just being in open space was more relief than John would’ve imagined.

  He hurried between the rows of remaining vehicles and saw the old van nestled among them. Frank sat in the driver’s seat, the window rolled down. He stared straight ahead, preoccupied.

  John slammed his hand into the door and startled him.

  “Jesus, Joh
n. What the hell is going on in there? No one’s answering their phones or radios.”

  John held up a finger, needing to catch his breath. His lungs burned to the point of coughing. He climbed into the passenger’s side and waited until he could speak clearly.

  The van smelled of gasoline fumes and country music played through the worn speakers. The spoils of the morning littered the floor and reminded John of a not too distant past when all of them believed they had the upper hand. After what had happened, the notion seemed naïve and outright stupid.

  He couldn’t escape the image of Billy decapitating the monster in the elevator.

  Frank leaned forward, looking out the top of the windshield. A helicopter descending on the landing pad drowned out an old George Jones tune. Frank sighed. “Nixon’s up to something.”

  John uncapped the half-empty bottle of warm water in the center console and took a small sip. Careful to avoid the swill at the bottom, he wished he had more. “I don’t doubt that he is.” He leaned over and put the syringes into the cup holder.

  “What are these?” Frank picked one up and turned it over in his hands.

  “It’s supposed to slow down the infection,” John said between huffs. “I got them from one of the guards.”

  Frank collected the stack and put them in the small, black medical bag. “For safe keeping,” he said. “Where’s Billy?”

  John chewed his chapped lower lip. “We got separated at the elevator.”

  “And the others? Holly? Any word?”

  John shook his head. “Nothin’ yet.”

  Frank reached for the pack of Pall Malls Lenny left in the back. He pushed in the lighter and tapped his yellowed fingernails impatiently on the console.

  “Thought you quit,” John said.

  The lighter popped out, the center coils glowing red and igniting the cigarette with just a quick touch to its tip.

  “I did. I knew I’d never live to see Holly come home otherwise.”

  “And now?” John took a crumpled wad of fast food napkins from the glove compartment, dampened one with the last of the bottled water, and wiped the blood spatter from his face.