by Samie Sands
Not Dead Yet
Samie Sands
Copyright © 2017 Samie Sands
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1548162493
ISBN-13: 978-1548162498
DEDICATION
For all the people who volunteered to throw themselves into the crazy world of the zombie apocalypse! I’m sorry you didn’t all make it out alive…
New York
Mumbai
Florida
Perth
Cape Town
Tokyo
Berlin
Amsterdam
Moscow
Salem
Toronto
Venice
Xinjiang
Cornwall
By samie sands
The AM13 Outbreak Series:
Lockdown
Forgotten
Extinct
Available on Wattpad:
Living on Borrowed Time
Lottie Loves
AM13 Shorts
Anthologies with shorts by Samie Sands:
13: An Anthology of Horror and Dark Fiction
13: Deja Vu
Unleash The Undead
Mutate
Electromagnetism
Haunted Tales: Stories from Beyond the Grave
Tales of Horror on Halloween Night
Swallowed by the Beast
A Picture is Worth 1000 Words
Monster Attack
Slice Girls
Thirteen: The Horror Continues…
Holiday Horror
Dark Holidays
Forgotten Places
Find out more at samiesands.com
New York
“Did you really just take that, Amy?” The nurse eyes me suspiciously, wondering if I’m up to my old tricks again. I roll my eyes in an exaggerated manner, proving that I think her untrusting nature of me is ridiculous.
“Yes,” I insist, through a slightly thick tongue. In all honesty, practicing this in my room in front of the mirror was a whole lot easier. Never mind, I’m doing it now. I’ll just have to find a way to make it work. “Haven’t I been a model patient recently? Honestly, it’s as if you don’t think a leopard can change its spots.”
“Hmm, sure.” But she stands up slowly, sending my heart flying with excitement. I’ve done it, I’ve actually pulled it off! “Well, Mr. Baker will be in to see you in a while anyway, so we can go from there.”
Urgh, of all the people I hate at the New York Institute for the Criminally Insane—not that it’s really called that, but I have to make jokes about my situation. If I don’t, I’ll end up crying—Mr. Baker is the worst. He’s the dreaded psychologist, and the methods he uses to try and ‘get me to open up’ make me absolutely shudder.
Maybe I don’t want to talk about the things that brought me here, maybe I don’t find it helpful to dredge up stuff that happened in the past, maybe I personally think it’ll set me back to relive the horrors from before. Maybe...just maybe, it’s up to me what I do. I just wish he’d see it the same way.
As soon as the door clicks closed, I cover my mouth with my hand and feign a cough, all the while spitting the small white pills, that send me into a zombie-like state, into my hand. I know this place well, having been here for years. I know there are cameras everywhere, I had to learn that the hard way when I tried to make my escape last time. The staff knew what I was up to for ages, so however prepared I was they were on top of it and I had no chance. They sedated me for weeks afterwards, it was one of the worst times ever.
I never, ever want to go through anything like that again.
This time though, things will be different, this time I’m more than ready.
I tuck the wet, chalky pills in the waistband of my underwear as discretely as I can, praising myself for being such a smart ass, they’ll never think to look there, no matter how little they trust me. I’m pretty sure people forget that before all of this happened, I was a serious clever person. They can drug me up to the eyeballs and try to take that away from me, but it’ll always be there, deep down. And the less of the pills I take, the clearer my mind will become.
Oh, God...I can already feel a chill running through my body, which means he’s here. The Devil in disguise. It’s time.
“Hello there, Miss Rowles,” Mr. Baker sneers at me, causing my whole body to tense up. My stomach coils like a metal spring and I can feel my lip desperate to curl up in a snarl, but I don’t let it. I’m trying to play the role of ‘model patient’ here, I need to stick to that even when dealing with this. “Now, I hear you’ve been more cooperative recently, so let’s see what we can do for you today.”
I watch intently as he flicks through the papers attached to a clipboard in front of him. He might put on that caring expression, which I’m sure has everyone else fooled, but I know he doesn’t care. Not really, we’re all just paychecks to him, he’d probably prefer it if we never healed!
I attempt to remain composed around him, but after a few moments of silence, my body starts freaking out all by itself. I tap my foot, shift my butt about, and eventually sit on my hands just to prevent me from flapping them about like a mad person. Since he already thinks I’m mental that’s one thing I desperately need to play down.
“So, I know that you’ve been trying to avoid talking about it, but maybe it’s time that we discuss the day you were brought in here?”
My blood runs icy cold, nausea rises up into my throat. “I...I just don’t remember it,” I lie. “It’s so long ago. And it doesn’t matter now anyway, I’m so far past it.”
Leave me alone...let it go...
But of course, he won’t. “You screamed ‘monsters’, you were afraid that someone was out to get you. Can you recall what caused you to start feeling so trapped?”
He knows this, I’m sure he does. He’s only bringing it up to torture me. Maybe this isn’t a psychiatric hospital after all, maybe it’s a prisoner of war camp. It sure feels that way sometimes. “Look,” I sigh, flickering my eyes down to the ground. “Things had been...tough,” massive understatement. “I didn’t cope too well,” again, talk about playing things down. “And my mind started playing tricks on me. I still don’t believe that I should’ve been brought here, and I don’t think I need to remain here now.”
“Amy, you were found at Grand Central Station, freaking out about monsters. When you were brought in and we suggested you go back to Kansas, you literally curled up into a ball and screamed.”
I shrug and roll my eyes, acting like I think he’s the nutty one, but we both know he’s right. I didn’t want to go back, I still don’t, but I really don’t want to be here either. That’s all in the past now, I’m totally beyond any of it. It’s time to move on, I don’t even need to think about it anymore...
Okay, so maybe I did freak out, maybe I did take things really badly, but when you live a life filled with stress, when you’re constantly at the brink of what you can handle, one additional problem can send you over the edge, never mind the entire foundation blocks that your life is built upon tumbling down around you. I think anyone would have reacted the way I did.
First, I started to feel sick. Everything became that little bit harder to do, things wore me out a whole lot quicker, I couldn’t quite fit as many activities into an hour that I once did. I assumed it was exhaustion, so I popped to the doctors for some tests, basically to grab some rejuvenating pills, but what I ended up with was something much more horrifying. The doctor spouted terrifying words, sentences I can barely remember now, the gist of them being that I actually had something wrong. Something potentially serious. He couldn’t tell me what though, just that I needed to wait patie
ntly for the results.
I don’t think anyone can wait for potentially life-changing health results ‘patiently’.
That caused everything within me to crumble. As I staggered home, gutted and heartbroken from the news, I couldn’t wait to unload. I needed the positive outlook of my long-term boyfriend, Jack. He always had a way of seeing the silver lining around the big, black cloud, and I relied on him for that. I always got lost in the mist instead, unable to see anything positive.
But he wasn’t home.
In fact, as I slowly drifted from room-to-room, my heart sunk lower in my chest until it had settled like a big, thick, weighty block in my stomach. Jack wasn’t there, and neither was his stuff. Something had happened, something bad, and as my brain darted from one side of my head to the other, I couldn’t quite work out what it was.
Until I spotted the note.
‘Amy’, it said on the envelope, written in his beautiful, cursive handwriting. Despite knowing that the contents of the paper would shatter my heart, I traced my finger along the letters, just enjoying that one last moment of ignorance.
Then I tore the envelope open and felt the rug ripped from beneath me.
‘Amy,
I’m so sorry to do this to you, in fact, I hate myself because of it, but I’m sure you’ve been expecting it for a while now. I’m not happy, and I’m sure you aren’t either. If we look back at it, maybe we never were, maybe we just settled for one another.’
I crumpled up the paper a little with my trembling fingers, my whole body perspiring with fear. Not happy? I’d always been happy! I assumed he was too, didn’t we have fun? Didn’t we laugh? Weren’t things easy and carefree between us? How had I managed to read things so wrong, for so many years? And what the hell did he mean, never happy?
How the hell could he do this to me?
Was it some sort of sick prank?
I read on, desperate to know, but also wishing I didn’t have to learn more at the same time.
‘Me and Kate didn’t mean for this to happen, we never planned on it, we never went looking for it. Sometimes, the right person is just under your nose and you can’t help falling for them.
I’m sorry again, please know I never wanted to hurt you, neither of us did.
Jack.’
I froze, unable to even react to that news. Kate...Kate Milton, my absolute best friend in the whole wide world. It had to be her, she was the only person he could’ve meant by ‘Kate’. She’d been my rock ever since middle school when she decided to make friends with me because the popular clique had turned their backs on her. I hadn’t cared what brought her into my life at the time, I was shyer, quieter and desperate for friendship—especially with someone so cool! It didn’t matter how we became friends anyway, it stuck and we adored one another.
I knew she was friends with Jack, through me at first, then I suggested she work at his firm when she was made unexpectedly redundant. They got along, shared a lot of time together, but I didn’t ever notice a closeness growing between them. How long had this been going on? Had their coolness around one another been a cover up? Was I actually the blindest person alive?
As I slumped onto the cold, tiled kitchen floor, the worst of it hit me. I was suffering the most horrific time of my life, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. The two people I spoke to about absolutely everything were the ones who’d betrayed me.
Now they were together, probably in her immaculate house that she inherited from her grandmother. He would be running his hands through her smooth black hair, touching the curves that I’d always been jealous of, kissing the lips that no one but me knew she’d had fixed at eighteen-years-old...
Something snapped, I couldn’t take it. If I didn’t take some sort of action, I felt like I might march round to her house and smash her windows in. I wasn’t usually a confrontational person but I could feel this bringing it out of me. The only problem was I also wanted to try and survive it with just a shred of dignity intact, and I didn’t want to blow that in a rage. So I did the only thing I could, and I picked up the phone to call my mom.
I didn’t dislike my mom or anything, we just never had that close a relationship. I wasn’t sure why, we were just two very different people, but since I had no one else to talk to I had to resort to her.
“He...hello?”
I instantly recognized my mistake as she stammered through the tears, but I couldn’t exactly hang up now. How cold-hearted would that be? “Mom, are you okay?”
As she rambled on about some, quite frankly petty, problems, I felt the intensity within me boiling. I was like a pressure cooker, about to explode. I needed to unload, I was screaming out for someone to talk to, but instead, I was taking more problems on my shoulders.
The weights were getting heavier...and heavier...
I don’t really know what happened next, everything after that moment is a blur. All I know is what I’ve been told; apparently I screamed like a banshee at my mom, I raced out the front door rubbing the top of my head hard until my hair burst from a bun into a frizzy mess, and I ran, sprinted, to Kate’s home where I punched her in the face. Actually, that’s the one part of the story I’m proud of, she deserved that smack. Then I got on a train, started yelling about monsters, and ended up here.
It’s embarrassing, maybe that’s why I don’t like talking about it. Before that moment I was always so together, but it doesn’t matter now. I just want off the meds and out.
“I think that was quite successful!” Mr. Baker stands, looking mightily pleased with himself before exiting the room and leaving me dumbfounded. Did I really just talk about all of that, out loud, without even meaning to? I’ve been so pointedly tight-lipped, how did I allow that to happen?
Anyway, never mind now, I can’t get distracted because tonight is the night. I could wait for a few more med-free days, to let my brain really clear, but I don’t really want to leave more time for suspicion to arise. I need to get out now, and get out quick. The world outside awaits, a whole new positive future is out there. I just need to reach out and grab it with both hands.
***
I know the routine well now, all I have to do is stay awake long enough until there’s a gap. We’ve had dinner, they’ve brought around the sleeping pills—which I’m going to have to remove from my underwear soon—then it’ll be lights out. After that, we’ll have a gap, but not a long enough one. A few hours after they’ll do the ‘sleep checks’, possibly incorporating in a round of blood pressure examinations if I’m really unlucky, then that’s it for a while. There will be spot checks, but it’s skeleton staff at that point, so that won’t be an issue for me when I run. I know every nook and cranny of the place, if I need to hide somewhere I can.
My plan is perfect, now it’s all about execution.
This could have been a whole lot easier really, if they’d just let me go when I asked, but they mumbled something about ‘regulations’, ‘rules’, and how ‘I haven’t yet completed the program’. I feel ready though, better than I ever have done before, surely that’s all that counts?
Anyway, now it’s time to just wait...
As the clock ticks nosily, an excited anticipation courses through my veins, sending my heart rate running faster than it’s ever gone before. At least I don’t have to worry about falling asleep by accident, I’m far too wired for that. I listen carefully, hearing everyone going about their business in the exact way I knew they would like clockwork, and before I know it the time has come. The clock has ticked past enough for me to make my move.
Oh God, am I really ready for this?
I shake my head sharply, ridding my brain of any scrap of doubt. Of course I’m ready, I’ve been ready forever, I’d already be out if I hadn’t screwed things up last time. I’m totally prepared. This is exactly what I need to do.
I slide slowly out from under my bedsheets, hating the rustle they make as I go. My heartbeat has made it’s way up into my ears, and it’s thundering so loudly I ca
n barely hear myself think never mind anything else. I scold my body, begging it to behave, but as normal it just does what it wants regardless of my demands.
Then, I begin to move. I grab my shoes but remain only in my socks as I tiptoe down the hallway, the whole time everything is trembling. This is madness, last time I was totally cocky, totally confident, and now...well, I’m a mess. I keep darting my eyes everywhere, convinced that I can hear things that aren’t there.
Not in a ‘monsters’ way, just in a ‘I’m freaking scared’ way!
As I make my way through the very familiar maze, that fear turns into something else. I become happy, excited, I feel the same sense of freedom a bird does when it escapes a cage. Finally, I can do what I want. Finally, my life is my own again...
I tap the fire door slowly, hoping the connection is still faulty. It’s been that way for years, which gave me the idea to escape in the first place, but knowing my luck today will be the day all the alarms started ringing out.
Nothing.
I’m safe.
No one is even behind me, this is really happening!
I slip my shoes on and practically skip outside, pride swelling in my chest. This is it, my real life beginning, and it feels really good. Actually, it feels kinda cold, I probably should have brought a jumper with me. Being locked away in that hellhole makes me forget time, never mind seasons. For half a second, I actually debate going back in there to grab a sweater before discarding that idea just as rapidly. I’m out now, I can get something warm to wear later on. The main thing I need to do is get away.
I race from the grounds, preparing myself to jump the wall to freedom. I might be caught on CCTV, that could happen, but the cameras aren’t manned at night anymore due to budget cuts so by the time someone sees I can be miles away from here.
I have to be, if I’m caught this time they’ll strap me to a bed and never let me go.