“The President!” I hear a voice yell down the hall. At
least I think they’re yelling.
“Katelyn.” I try to yell. But all that comes out is a garbled mess as I realize I’m choking on something. I wipe my mouth with my hand and see the blood smeared across the back of it.
All this time Mallory just watches me with joy in her eyes.
“Why?” I ask.
“I’m sorry dear, are you trying to say something? Not like you ever said anything that important anyway.” She laughs as her wrist grips my neck tightly, cutting off my air supply.
I can’t understand why or how she’s able to do this to me. Where is my protection? Mallory moves incredibly quickly and wraps her arm around my neck from behind holding her hand against my chin.
“I’ll make this quick sweetie,” she whispers in my ear.
Sixteen
Mallory
November 5th, 2021
“What are you looking at?” I hoped my annoyance was clear. It had taken him long enough to get here. I found the rest of them in the lounge. The Russian President, Christoph, and Frank had watched the whole thing on the monitors. For some reason, they decided to leave the Russian President alive.
“You, after a kill,” Frank said.
I laughed humorlessly at his response. “This is what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
He smiled and his eyes sparkled in delight. It was answer enough. He took a step toward me, ignoring the rest of the individuals in the room with us. They watched us with a mix of horror, trepidation, and awe. He ran his thumb along my jaw. “You did good, Mallory.”
I turned toward Patrick and smiled largely at him. “He didn’t suspect a thing.”
He returned the smile and nodded. “No, he didn’t.” “What are we doing about your daughter?” Frank asked.
Just as he asked the question I heard the sound of a chopper overhead. “Sounds like we don’t need to do anything.”
Christoph tilted his head and listened to the sound. “Your senses are still slow,” I explained. “Give it a few
days and you’ll catch up.” “It’s like I’m a vampire.”
I laughed for real this time. “No, far from it -- you’re not immortal and you don’t drink blood.”
“Zombie is the best comparison,” Frank said.
Christoph frowned and I laughed again. I wondered how long Frank would keep him around before growing tired of him. I then turned toward Uri, the Russian President, who stood there watching us curiously. It was an unusual response that I didn’t understand. Frank took notice as well.
“You’re a curious fellow, aren’t you,” Frank said – more as a statement than a question. He took several steps toward the foolhardy man. Yet, he didn’t retreat as expected. He should have been afraid of us, but for some reason, my instincts warned me he was not.
“I’d like to strike a deal,” Uri stated confidently, causing Frank to stop in his tracks. He tilted his head and looked at Uri like an animal deciding if his prey is worthy of killing or not. My curiosity got the best of me, and I wanted this man alive.
“Oh? What makes you think you have anything we want?”
Uri maintained eye contact with Frank, never wavering. “It’s obvious by your being here that you do.”
“You’re not infected,” Frank continued.
Uri Ilyushkin shook his head and smiled, his eyes narrowing. In that moment I saw why this man was a world leader – he had an air to him I’d never seen in my late husband, unless he had been playing it up for television. No, Uri had an air about him that was natural, where my husband used it as an act to get votes. If I were still human, I might be afraid of this man.
“But I am connected with humans in a way you can never be again,” he continued in his heavily accented English. “I am the doorway you need.”
“All so you can live?”
“I don’t care about living if I’m on the losing side.”
I took four quick strides and was quickly pressed against the President. He didn’t even flinch. I was barely an inch from him and couldn’t sense the fear in him that I had with every other human that came in contact with us. I wrapped my hands around his neck and still sensed nothing. It was then that I realized that he spoke the truth. If he were on the losing side, the side of the humans, he didn’t want to live anyway. If he could be our liaison, then he could have a power no other human would have. Either way, he won. I felt something I hadn’t felt since the change; admiration.
“I like you, Mr. Ilyushkin, and will keep you around for now. But our plans are much different than that.”
He turned to face me, making eye contact.
From behind me I heard the low growl emanating from Frank.
“We have no use for him.”
Uri maintained eye contact with me and I winked. He tilted his head curiously, not reading the message I was sending him. I didn’t think he would. I rested my hand on his hip and slowly ran my hand under the hem of his shirt. Uri frowned and I’m sure he understood what I was about to do. There was a trust in his eyes that shouldn’t be there. Nobody should trust me.
At the same moment my hand gripped the handle of the knife in the holster on Uri’s belt. I spun. There was a fraction of a second where Frank’s expression wavered from confusion to understanding. It was in that same fraction of a second that the beads of blood formed a perfect horizontal line along his neck. He collapsed to the floor and I pulled the gun that had always been strapped to my leg and shot him once in the temple. I turned back to Uri who still watched me with unguarded cynicism.
“You’re mine now,” I said. “I belong to no one.” “We’ll see.”
He took the gun from my hand gently and put it against his own temple and I felt my heart thump in my chest. This man was bringing out emotions in me that I didn’t think existed anymore. It wasn’t a feeling of loss or heartache that I used to know, but more of a loss of a possession or a hunt I worked hard to get. My instincts were kicking into overdrive as I felt the adrenaline rush through my blood.
“I said I belong to no one. That--would be the losing side.”
Seventeen
Bridge Marx
Pioche, Nevada
October 31st, 2021
The fluttering wings of the butterfly tapped against the window and I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by it. Seeing a butterfly out in the blistering dry desert was strange. While some of the rest of the country was experiencing their first drifts of snow and cold, I was in a sleeveless shirt with my face pressed against the breeze of the fan. I watched the butterfly and wondered what it was doing out here and why the fuck I was in the transition. I felt my hair plastered against my neck and the beads of sweat forming along my hairline. No one had stepped foot in the shop in weeks. Who could blame them? The radio crackled in the background -- an incessant sound of static, a reminder of the world having gone dead ten days prior. Yet, the first of any life was just about to make an interesting appearance. The Ford truck pulled off
the road, kicking up a trail of dust half a mile long.
The lanky blonde stepped out of the truck and I watched her with disinterest -- even when she pulled two shotguns from the back of her truck. I didn’t move. Her clothes were stained with blood and grime, and a white, blood-stained bandage was tied around her wrist tightly. Attempted suicide? She walked with confidence, despite what I knew she’d witnessed in recent events – what she’d gone through.
The screen door creaked as she stepped in and looked at me. It took her only a few seconds and she cocked the shotgun over her right shoulder and pointed it right at me. I didn’t even flinch and enjoyed that fact.
“You’re infected,” she stated.
I took a deep breath and inhaled her grimy scent. “Last I checked, yeah.”
She raised her gun higher, aiming it more precisely. “How many people have you killed?”
“That’s a great opening line.”
“How many people have y
ou killed?” she asked again, enunciating each word.
“Why? Does it matter? You’re going to blast my head off anyway.”
“You don’t seem to care,” she remarked. I shrugged.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked. “I don’t feel like it at this moment.”
“I guess that will just have to work for now.” She quickly slipped the gun back over her shoulder and looked around, turning her back on me. I cocked my head to the side. She suddenly became interesting. She pulled the last of the gallon water jugs from the shelf and stacked them on the counter. She reached over the counter and grabbed two empty grocery bags. I watched her stuff the bags with snacks and toiletries from the shelves.
“You turned your back on me.”
She kept rummaging through the shelves, ignoring me. “And now you’re ignoring me.”
“You’re awfully needy for a zombie.”
I cringed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh? What did you mean then? Enlighten me, oh dark one.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “I could kill you.” “I know.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
In a blink of an eye she had somehow dropped the full grocery bags and slung the shotgun back around from her shoulder. The impact of the bullet threw me back several feet. Not because I couldn’t withstand the hit, but because it took me by surprise.
She cocked the gun again and aimed. I found myself staring down the barrel of her gun and instead of being angry, I was fascinated.
“Why aren’t you attacking me?” she asked.
“You’re too interesting.” I huffed. I felt my shirt begin to dampen with the blood and wondered if an entire section of my shoulder was missing. I didn’t want to look. Her brows came together and I know I confused her just as much as she confused me. She wasn’t reacting typically – but then again, neither was I. I knew any one of the other zombies would have devoured her by now.
I looked out the window to her car outside and then back to her. She watched me carefully and I took a step back toward the counter and she raised an eyebrow.
“I need to lean, since you kind of disabled me here for a bit.”
“I’ve seen you guys recover. It doesn’t take much.” “I’m not completely infected,” I lied.
She got a few more supplies.
“Where do you think you’re going to go?” I asked. “You can’t survive on your own.”
“I’ve managed so far.”
“Not much time has gone by. There could be months, years, decades of this.” I hopped up on the counter and she froze.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m surprised you made it this far, actually. You must have gotten lucky.”
She frowned. “Luck had nothing to do with it.” “Sure it did.”
I slipped behind the counter and crouched down low before she reacted. I could distinctly hear her slip the gun off her shoulder and cock it. It was a beautiful sound.
“I’ll blast through the counter.”
She spoke with bravado but I could hear the fear in her voice; I could smell it and it ignited my senses. I pulled the blade from my back pocket quietly and felt the sturdiness of the cold steel.
The blast went right through the counter and wood and pieces of debris exploded in the air. I felt several shards pierce my skin and the sting lit my fury. It was exactly what I needed. Before her gun even finished recoiling I had stood up and slung the blade, listening to it whistle through the air just before making its mark deep in her throat.
She collapsed onto herself before the shock even registered on her face. Damn, that was disappointing. I walked over and pulled the keys from her back pocket just before patting her on the butt.
“Nice ass.”
I whistled on the way to her car and celebrated my good mood. Finally, I could be on the road to explore this new world.
Eighteen
Katarina Ruiz
N2S2 - Nye County, Nevada
about sixty-five miles north-west of Las Vegas
November 3rd, 2021
We watched the numbers jump across the screen like it was its own plague. I felt the single tear fall of its own accord when the reports of my family’s cruise ship flashed on the panel. My mother, my brother and my two sisters. My entire family gone, just like that. Maybe it was because I had been awake for over thirty-three hours straight, or maybe it was because I was the one that had ordered the blast, but I had very little emotion over the event. The twenty-seventh blast today.
“Dr. Ruiz? Dr. McKinley is on the phone, Russian camp, he wishes to speak to you immediately.”
I reached my hand out without looking at Lydia. She knew what I had just ordered and I couldn’t face her right now. She handed the satellite phone to me and I waited until I heard the whisper of the door seal shut when she left the room.
“Patrick, tell me you guys have good news?”
“Sorry Kat, not yet. We’re waiting for the last of the refugees from the states. You guys need to start your sequence soon too, you know that, don’t you?” I could hear the worry in his voice.
“I don’t know if I will.” Another tear betrayed me and the silence over the phone was deafening.
“Kat? That’s not funny.” “I’m not joking, Pat.”
“Kat, I know that what you just did was hard, but you did the right thing. Your family would want you to do this, they’d want you safe.”
He was probably right, I knew. Yet, I just couldn’t imagine living the future with the way it was becoming. I didn’t know if I wanted to be part of this new world.
“Have you heard from Marcus?” I waited for him to answer my question and the longer the silence dragged on, the more I realized I never would get my answers. Each moment of my life had become this; the wrong answers to all the right questions.
“Kat.”
“Forget it Patrick. What did we expect?”
I didn’t give him a chance to answer before I disconnected the line. I know he deserved more than that from me but I didn’t care anymore. I had gone past numbness. I continued watching the panels and all the while, the sequence orders ran through my mind. The orders I knew I’d never give.
The panel of screens danced with flashes of black, gray, and white. I couldn’t make sense of any of it and just stared in confusion. I could see glimpses of people running in the lobby but -
Code Red - Please remain in your sector - Code Red - Please remain in your sector
What the hell was going on?
The ringing of my phone startled me. Which was good, because I needed to be doing something instead of staring at screens like a complete ditz. When I picked it up I half- expected Patrick, or my assistant, or anyone really. What I didn’t expect was to be on the phone with an Undead. An Undead who was currently laughing. How did I know it was the Undead?
“You made a very, very bad mistake, sister.”
I couldn’t respond. I kept looking at the phone in disbelief, as if the answers lied in the plastic contraption.
“Who is this?” Dumb question, I know.
His laugh still sounded like his old laugh, but there was something else there. I don’t know how else to describe it except that it sounded dead.
“Kat, did you even think twice about what you did? Or did you actually enjoy blowing up our ship?”
“Danny, I don’t understand. How -”
“Stop asking questions, stupid sister. You didn’t ask questions before you gave me my death sentence, so don’t ask now. Just like, I’m not going to ask any questions after you die, which will be in forty-two minutes and sixteen seconds. Adios, Hermana Hermosa!”
I held the phone long after the dial tone came back on. What the hell had happened? I continued to watch the screens in front of me when I suddenly realized what I was looking at. The Undead had infiltrated N2S2. As if on cue, something large and hard slammed against the sealed door to the room I was in. I now wondered if the forty-
two minutes that my brother had given me was a lot more than I would get. I grabbed the gun from the top drawer even though I knew it would do very little to protect me.
I knew my best bet would probably be to stay in this room because of the steel doors, but my unanticipated and sudden case of claustrophobia made me think otherwise. That and the fact that I wasn’t sure exactly what my doctor brother turned killing Undead brother had up his sleeves.
It only took me a few minutes to remove the ceiling panels and hoist myself up and only about twenty-five more minutes to navigate myself to the front of the building. The sounds I heard below me in the rooms I passed should have been enough to deter me from moving forward, but a part of me wondered if I had already gone too far. When I lifted up the ceiling panel and peered into the front lobby, I expected to find nothing but carnage and destruction there. Instead, there was absolutely nothing. It was stone silent and not a sign of a human, dead or alive or semi-alive, or even semi- dead around.
I sat there for a moment longer when I heard a soft click near the front doors. The only way to see what was happening was to actually jump down into the lobby.
Ah hell, what did I have to lose?
I knew the jump would hurt, bad. But I did it before I could change my mind and I’m not sure if that was a good thing or not. I was pretty confident that I broke an ankle. The searing pain traveled through my body, nauseating me. I could taste the bile in my mouth and bit down on my tongue to keep from screaming.
Holy hell that hurt.
I looked around quickly before hobbling near the front doors, just in time to see an Undead standing on the other side of the glass doors, smiling at me. The black, tiny beady eyes watched me with clear delight. When he lifted his wrist and tapped his watch I became confused. I don’t know why the idea of the Undead telling time, let alone wearing a watch confused me so much, but it did. After everything our race had gone through in the last few weeks, nothing should surprise me.
The Apocalypse Page 6