Violet stepped closer to him. “Test it. Now.”
He stared at the needle, and then shook his head. “Not that one.”
I knew it!
“Then which?” Violet asked. Doctor Ross filled up a second syringe from the middle vial. He took one last look at Violet and the others before putting it into his arm.
“How long do we have to wait?” Matt asked.
“Not long,” Violet replied. As if on cue, the doctor began to shake. White foam bubbled out of his mouth, and he fell to the floor. He shook, more foam escaping his mouth, this time turning from white, to grey, to black. He writhed in agony, beginning to scream. Then he stopped, his chest still. Violet’s voice was low when she spoke to Matt. “Do it.”
Matt jammed the machete into the doctor’s skull without a second’s pause. He was dead.
“That went well.” Matt sighed. Violet put her head in her hands, leaning on the table. Then she picked up the middle vial and smashed it onto the floor.
“Two left,” she muttered. “And the one the scientist thought was most promising is useless.”
“Which one should we choose?” asked Toby.
“I chose that one,” Joe said, nodding at the left vial. Violet suddenly realized the syringe Doctor Ross had previously filled was gone.
“Joe…did you—”
Joe held up the empty syringe. She could see a pinprick of blood on his arm where he’d just injected himself.
“Why?” Matt asked.
“Why not?”
Matt gestured to the dead doctor on the floor. “I don’t know, because of what we just saw?”
Joe’s voice was casual. “He clearly didn’t know what he was talking about, so I thought I may as well try this one.”
Violet swung her gaze from Matt back to Joe. “How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Kind of tired. A bit hungry maybe?” Joe added.
“Does that mean it worked?” Toby asked.
Violet held up her hands. “I have no idea. It might be slower working than the other one. It could work differently because he’s already infected—”
“Or it might be the cure,” Joe suggested. “Let’s have a little positivity, huh?” He got to his feet. “Shall we go? Or do you want me to roll around a little first?”
They headed into the quiet hallway, Joe already seeming stronger than he was when they walked in. Violet caught Matt’s eye, holding back so she could talk to him.
“What do you think?”
Matt glanced at Joe. “He looks better.”
“It just feels too easy.”
“Let’s just keep our eyes open. For now, this is good.”
He was right. There wasn’t anything they could do except wait. She and Matt hurried to catch up with Joe and Toby. They rounded a corner just in time to see the soldiers getting out of the elevator. Matt grabbed Violet’s arm, pulling her back into a small breakroom. Joe and Toby followed. They closed the door silently, moving to hide behind one of the couches.
“I wish you hadn’t said it was too easy,” Matt whispered. Through the glass door, they could see the soldiers heading past. There had to be at least fifteen of them. They moved toward the room where Doctor Ross was.
“They’re going to be looking for us when they find him,” Violet whispered.
“Maybe they’ll just think he got bitten and was infected?” Toby asked.
“They might, if I hadn’t left my machete in his head,” Matt muttered.
Joe sighed. “Yeah, I doubt we can get away with ‘he tripped and accidentally stabbed himself in the head’.”
“Maybe not,” Matt agreed. “We need to leave. Now.” He crept around to the door, silently pulling it open. Then he gestured to the others to follow. They stayed low, hurrying out into the hallway.
“He’s dead,” came a voice from behind. “Someone’s killed him!”
“Go,” Joe hissed. They ran, stampeding down the hallway toward the stairs. Violet heard feet close behind.
“There,” someone shouted. Gunshots rang out just as they broke through the doors to the stairwell.
“Go, go, go,” Matt yelled, and they ran as fast as they could down the stairs. They were high up, though, and the stairs seemed to go on forever. Violet could hear the soldiers behind them, but didn’t dare look back. The last thing she needed now was to trip and cause herself and her friends to make the last part of the journey backward.
“Violet, if you want to turn into a zombie and kill them right now, that would be fine,” Joe puffed as he jumped three steps at a time.
“Maybe you should do it?” she wheezed as Matt took her hand in an attempt to speed her up.
Finally, they reached the bottom, and burst through the double doors to the ground floor. One lone soldier stood by the elevator, straightening with a surprised expression on his face.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. He wasn’t raising his gun, but he was holding it.
“Oh…uh…we…”
A voice crackled over the soldier’s radio. “…three males, one female….they’ve killed Ross…think one of them might be the girl he was talking about…” The soldier’s eyes widened, and his hand tightened on the gun. Toby was quicker. He grabbed the glass from Violet’s hand and jammed it into the man’s leg. He went down. In the moments before he raised his weapon again, Violet and the others were out the door and into the street.
“Any headaches?”
“No.”
“Double vision?”
“No.”
“Random desire to eat people?”
“Yes… Wait, no.”
Violet frowned, but Joe just smirked. “I’m fine, really. I just feel normal.”
“I wish there was a way to be sure.”
Joe thought for a moment. “You could cut yourself and see if I attack you?”
“I’d rather not,” Matt chimed in, coming into the kitchen from the garden. “Let’s not encourage any zombie behavior until we absolutely have to.”
“Agreed,” Violet said. She studied Joe across the kitchen table. She didn’t think they needed to test it; Joe was like her now. Sure, he hadn’t eaten anyone yet, but he was paler than he’d been before. Grey streaks were beginning to fleck across his eyes, too. Joe knew it, of course—probably Matt and Toby, too—but it didn’t matter, not really. They were alive, and they were together.
They’d found an abandoned car outside the facility, and headed as far away as possible. Violet had almost given Matt a heart attack on the way out, screaming for him to stop the car. But it wasn’t the soldiers or the dead; it was Ben. She’d seen him sniffing around in a pile of garbage, and launched herself out of the still-moving vehicle to get him.
Family complete—complete as it could be without the ones they’d lost—they’d driven for almost six hours until they found the right place to stop. It was a little cottage, right in the middle of nowhere. There was a garden with vegetables, and a huge fireplace in the living room. There were no walls, just a waist-high fence, but Matt said they could build it up. In any case, they hadn’t seen a biter for miles.
“What are you thinking?” Matt asked, and Violet realized she’d not spoken for several minutes.
“Just about us, about how everything has changed,” she began. “It feels like there were so many of us before. Amy, Emily, Maggie, Tom, Zack, Sam…”
“All the people at the house,” Joe added.
“All my friends,” Toby said.
Violet nodded. “So many people are dead.”
“I love where this is going so far,” Joe said sarcastically.
“It’s just strange. Out here, it’s so peaceful. It feels like nothing’s changed,” Violet said. “Do you think things will ever get back to the way they used to be?”
“No,” Joe replied immediately. “But that doesn’t mean they have to be completely terrible.”
Matt agreed. “We’re here, and we made it. That me
ans other people did, too.”
“Good people,” Toby added. “There have to be good people out there.”
“No more mad scientists, please,” Joe said.
“Do you think we did the right thing?” Violet asked. “Not going with Doctor Ross, I mean? My blood saved Joe…maybe—”
“He never would’ve let you go,” Matt said.
“And we’re not one hundred percent sure I’m saved,” Joe added. “Let’s see what happens when one of you gets a nosebleed.”
Matt took Violet’s hand. “No matter what happens, whether the world goes back to how it was, or gets even more screwed up, we’re all in it together. We’re family. If you survived being bitten, maybe other people did, too. Maybe there are others working on a cure right now.”
Violet took his words to heart. He was right. He had to be. Still, she knew that no matter what he said, even if he meant it, Matt couldn’t guarantee they’d be able to stay together. Or keep each other safe. The new world was too cruel and violent to allow that to happen. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy these moments of respite when they came. They were safe right now, and that was the important thing.
She was alive.
Sort of.
Acknowledgments
There are so many people I would like to thank for their role in getting Alive? to where it is now. My husband David, who was never allowed to read the manuscript, but had to pretend to be excited about every new idea that popped into my head - most of which were so terrible they never even made it into the book. Thank you to Lorin and Alice, integral members of my very real zombie survival team, for always being at the end of the phone when I had a living-dead question to discuss in-depth. And to Luke, for all the laughter, terrible documentaries, and second lunches. I couldn’t do it without you, duck.
Thank you to my mum, for always knowing the right thing to say, and for your constant support throughout my life; from school plays, to hideously long university events, to writing a book, you never missed a single thing.
Finally I would like to thank Cynthia for her patience and kindness during the editing process, and the wonderful ladies at Clean Teen for their hard work and dedication. You have made my dream a reality. Now let’s just hope it’s not a nightmare for those who read it!
About the Author
Melissa is a Primary School teacher by day and a writer by night. She grew up in a small town in the UK, and spent of her time with her nose in a book. Her childhood was filled with R.L Stein, Jacqueline Wilson, and J.K Rowling, and they inspired her to begin creating her own worlds. Melissa has always been fascinated with stories about living through an apocalyptic event, and with characters who feel so real that they become part of the reader long after the book was put away. She wrote the first draft of Alive? at sixteen, and has been hooked on writing ever since.
When she’s not writing, Melissa enjoys reading, playing video games, crocheting, and spending time with her two dogs (and occasionally her husband).
melissawoodsauthor.com
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Alive? Page 29