Primus Unleashed

by Amber Wyatt

  But what had caught Gina’s attention was another word, a nickname given to a class of victims who existed both inside and out of the quarantine zone. ‘Jills’. Short for ‘just ill’. The authorities called them FIIs, or Falsely Identified Infected, but everyone else called them Jills. They were people who had simply become sick, whether from a common cold or some other infection, and people incorrectly assumed that they had contracted the Lyssavirus, usually with violent and often fatal consequences. The news was full of recent cases around southern Florida, of Jills tragically being killed by their own family members or panicked passers-by, only for it later to be determined that they had never been infected at all.

  Deep inside Gina’s dark and broken heart, a tiny glimmer of suspicion flickered, which quickly blazed into an uncontrollable firestorm of anger. Had Allan panicked and falsely identified Bella? Had she simply been sick with a head cold? Finding out the truth about what had really happened to her daughter became Gina’s number one priority. Had Bella really become a zombie and been shot by hunters? Or had she died still human, locked out from a place of safety by her bastard, cowardly step-father?

  No matter how many private investigators she found and hired within the quarantine zone, all of them to a man, refused to go to the farm and examine the bodies. No amount of money had been enough to persuade them to make the trip out to Fairweather Ranch. It seems that there are limits to what even money can buy. Having said that, now that I am here, I can see why none of my agents would come up to the ranch, Gina thought. I had no idea that there were so many zombies wandering around freely. The authorities certainly don’t publicize that fact. She wondered how many other uninhabited parts of the quarantine zone were actually danger areas full of zombies.

  Then they turned the last corner and her breath caught in her throat. Returning to the farm and walking around the main building had been an awful, heart-wrenching trip through countless happy memories of her and Bella exploring the farm together. But this, this was almost too much to bear. Bella’s favorite garden and her favorite tree. Where she had chased butterflies, built (with a great deal of help, admittedly) her first tree house, spent hours on her favorite swing, singing to Gina whatever new nursery rhymes she had learned since her last visit.

  She stumbled slightly and her vision blurred with tears. Hana almost reached out a hand to steady her but stopped. Gina took a deep breath and kept walking towards the tree where a rope swing still hung from a sturdy branch. From the same branch hung a rope and noose, and on the ground underneath it a skeleton piled up in a heap. It had obviously been hanging from the noose before the neck rotted through and it fell down. Gina did not even notice it. Her eyes were riveted to the two straight mounds of earth next to the swing. Graves. Each with a makeshift cross at its head. One of the graves was tiny. It seemed impossibly small to hold an angel with such a large heart and a huge smile.

  Gina fell to her knees next to the grave. Her body was wracked with dry, silent sobs. Oh Bella! I’m so sorry. Mommy is so sorry. She had thought her heart had broken before, but it was nothing compared to the pain in her chest that she felt now. Her hands gripped the dirt covering her daughter and clenched into white fists.

  She did not know how long she was there, but she became aware that Hana was shaking her gently by the shoulder. The other woman must have been gone for a while because she had returned with a large shovel. Behind them, there came the occasional crackle of muted gunfire from inside the farmhouse as Behnke filmed his heroic battle against imaginary enemies.

  “Sit over there. I’ll dig.” Hana said softly.

  The Japanese woman checked her safety catch was on and slung her rifle on her back. Then she dug quickly and efficiently, pausing every two or three strokes to look around for approaching zombies. Hana did not bother to dig out the whole length of the grave, just the top half towards the crosses, where she guessed the heads would have been laid down. It did not take long. Allan had not bothered to dig the graves very deep.

  The longer grave held the unspoiled body of Sue, Bella’s stepmother. Staying warily away from the mouth and partially visible teeth Hana cleared the dirt off Sue’s face and neck with her gloved hand. Even after three years, there was no decomposition at all. If it were not for the gaping gunshot wound in the side of the temple, Sue looked as if she might have been asleep. Neither of the two women said anything. There was no need. Clearly Sue had been a zombie when she was shot and killed.

  The smaller grave was different. Allan’s skeleton, exposed on the surface, had long since been picked clean by scavengers and insects, and had fallen to pieces. But under the dirt, Bella was still rotting. Scraps of black hair and unrecognizable slimy fragments draped the skull. A teddy bear, placed on the little girl’s chest, had sunken halfway in and had merged with the decomposing cadaver underneath. Hana gagged and nearly threw up, but heroically controlled her bucking stomach and stepped back, scanning their surroundings for danger. Gina had shown her a photo of her daughter before they had arrived at the farm. Hana looked away and tried to remember that happier, smiling little girl.

  Gina covered her mouth and looked at what was left of her daughter. She knew that she would remember this awful sight until the day she died. But at least now she knew. After all these years, she finally knew. Bella had still been human; she had not turned into a zombie. Her eyes narrowed as she noted the shattered skull, cheekbones and jaw.

  Gina could picture what had happened with perfect clarity. An unknown number of zombies had attacked the farm. That piece of shit Allan had locked himself in a safe room. Sue had turned into a zombie and joined the rest of the monsters hunting for Bella. And her brave, clever little angel had managed to find a secret hole in which to hide herself safely. You must have been so scared, baby, Gina shook with an almost unbearable pain deep in her chest, tears spilling unheeded down her cheeks. And so alone.

  Maybe she had seen the hunters coming in, killing the zombies, and run to them, thinking they were there to rescue her, like in the fairy tales. Or maybe as they cleared through the house, they had found her hiding place. Either way the end result had been the same. Some ignorant hunter had put a gun in her baby’s face and pulled the trigger several times. A rage swept through her body like a storm. Then it crystallized into a pitch-black ball of hate in her stomach. An emotion so strong that Gina had never felt anything like it before.

  “Cover them,” she grunted through a jaw clenched as tight as a vice. “Cover them back up.”

  “What?” Hana asked. She could not make out what Gina had said. The noises coming out of the other woman’s mouth had not even sounded human.

  “Cover them up. I’ve seen enough.”

  Hana grabbed the shovel and spooned dirt back in quickly over Sue, and then more gently over Bella. Gina sat with her back against the tree and drew in deep, slow breaths, trying to calm herself down. In the background the crackle and thump of gunfire from inside the house still continued. It sounded as if they had reached the second floor.

  “Are you okay to move back to the trucks?” Hana asked. She had finished patting down the dirt over the bodies again. “Gina? Are you ok? Or do you want to take a few more minutes here?”

  “Just a minute,” Gina said. “I’m ready but give me just a minute.” Then she knelt at the head of Bella’s grave and laid a gentle hand on the dirt hiding her daughter’s mutilated head. I’m sorry, baby. I should never have sent you here in the first place. I should have never listened to my mother. I should have just kept you with me and looked after you at home. And if it affected my career, then so what. We would still be together. We would have been happy. I am so sorry. Then she stood up and walked back towards the front of the house without saying a word. Hana’s eyes lingered on the graves for a second or two, and then with one last look around for zombies, she followed the other woman.

  A thought struck Gina and she paused for a moment to let Hana catch up to her.

  “I’m not going back with Behnke.”


  “Sorry, what? What do you mean?”

  “I am going to stay in the zone,” Gina looked at Hana with hot eyes, enunciating her words clearly and slowly. “I am going to track down every single one of those fucking bastards that came to this farm and shot my baby in the face, and I am going to kill them myself. And I want you to help me.”

  “I will. I promise.” Hana’s voice was hoarse with emotion, and she took a moment to swallow. Then a thought occurred to her. “Gina, do you want to head back into central Fort Lauderdale and just wait the next part out? There is no need for you to come to the plane with us.”

  “What? No, I am all in. One hundred per cent. Behnke said something earlier in the car about finding the cause of the Lyssavirus at the plane, right? If that is what you’re going to do, then I want to be there. If this zombie shit had never happened then my daughter would still be alive. If I can help stop this ever happening to another child again, then I am on board right till the end.”

  “Okay then,” Hana nodded, putting a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Let’s get back to the trucks.”

  As they came around the corner Hugh saw Gina’s puffy, red eyes and looked at Hana questioningly, but she shook her head, gesturing him to keep quiet. With a dark expression on her face that clearly showed she did not want any company, Gina went and sat in the back of Behnke’s truck and closed the door behind her. Hana walked over to Hugh and Wilkins.

  “How are you doing?” Hana asked Wilkins, sitting in the back of the truck.

  “Still human,” he replied grumpily. “Actually, I need to pee. Is it alright if I get out and have a pee? I promise not to bite anyone.”

  “Sure,” Hugh said, looking around. “Go over there by that big tree, so we can still cover you.” The Englishman slid out of the seat and stretched out his back with a groan, before shuffling off gracelessly towards the tree Hugh had pointed at, leaving the two guides alone together.

  “At last, just the two of us,” Hugh smiled at Hana and leaned towards her. “I haven’t thanked you properly for saving my life back there, when you pushed me out of the way of the truck.”

  Hana stood paralyzed in shock as Hugh leaned in right next to her. He was so close that she could see every individual stubble on his manly chin. She could smell the smooth clean scent of his skin against the background smell of the grass in the breeze. Oh my God is he going to kiss me? Should I tell him to stop? I’ll look so stupid staying ‘Stop’ if he wasn’t going to kiss me. Do I want him to stop?

  At that moment Behnke and the others came out of the front door of the house. “Oh yeah!” Behnke’s face was flushed and sweaty, and he had a huge grin on his face. “Pity you guys weren’t there to see me in there. We got some amazing footage.” He looked over at Tristan. “Remember that mag change, bro? How fucking cool was that?” He and Tristan whooped and high-fived each other. Rob ignored the byplay and walked off to film close-ups of the piles of dead zombie bodies scattered around the front drive. The footage would be useful for editing later.

  “So,” Behnke asked, turning back to a clearly flustered Hana. “What’s the plan now?”

  Hana could barely think straight and her heart was hammering like a train. She took a deliberate step away from Hugh and took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly through pursed lips.

  “Now we head back to a motel about twenty minutes from here, have dinner and spend the night.” She looked at her watch. “and I suggest you all get an early night and plenty of sleep because tomorrow is going to be a long day. First thing in the morning, we head out to the crash site of Columbus 754.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Columbus 754

  THREE YEARS EARLIER.

  Fort Lauderdale: September 30th. Early morning.

  “Jesus Christ,” moaned Caroline, swiping blindly across her bedside table, looking for her phone. Who the hell is calling me at, she finally found it and squinted at the display through gritty eyelids, four-fifteen in the goddamn morning! Caller ID said it was Joe. She nearly cancelled the call and then thought about it for a second. What the hell, she was already awake.

  “Hi Joe, this better be good.” Caroline had been having an affair with Joe for two years now. They both worked for Columbus Airlines out of Fort Lauderdale, and even she appreciated the irony of their clichéd relationship. Caroline was a stewardess; he was the married pilot.

  “Don’t worry, babe, it’s important. Did you see the news footage of that shit at the Galleria yesterday? The zombies?” Joe sounded wide awake and she felt a stab of jealousy as she yawned long and hard.

  “Are you kidding? Yeah I saw it.” She had been up all night watching it. It was practically on a loop on every channel. In fact, she had only fallen asleep just over an hour ago. The news had also shown what looked like thousands of cars jammed up on the I-95 trying to get out of town. The reporter had been telling people to remain calm and return to their homes. The quarantine zone imposed that afternoon was just a temporary, emergency measure, and was not anticipated to last for more than a few days at most. Caroline stifled another yawn and continued. “I also saw that now there’s a fucking quarantine zone around Fort Lauderdale. If it’s going to last more than a couple of weeks do you think Columbus is going to dock our pay?

  “Forget about that. Here’s the deal. Remember my cousin, Rick? I’ve been on the phone to him most of the night. He works in the Governor’s office up in Tallahassee, and he told me they are planning for the quarantine to last not just years, but decades. They cut off all roads and highways at 9pm last night, and army engineers have been flown in and spent the whole night erecting fences.” Joe did not sound that awake, she realized as she woke up a little more herself. He sounded exhausted. “There’s already some ships, I think at least one coast guard cutter and a navy minesweeper offshore, ready to use lethal force to stop any vessels that try to leave by sea, and seven people got shot by the national guard last night after they tried to ram through a road-block, trying to get north.”

  “Yeah, I saw that on the news. What about flights?” Caroline was struggling to absorb all the information. She yawned widely again. God I’m so tired.

  “That’s why I’m calling. All flights have been grounded, but my chief engineer, Moses, told me that my first flight today, due at 0945, was a quarter-fueled up before they cancelled the flight and stopped re-fueling. It won’t get us to Frankfurt, but it’s certainly enough to get us out of town. We’re going to commandeer the plane and fly it out this morning. Moses is selling tickets by auction. The website practically melted down with people wanting to get out. At the moment it’s up to fifty-thousand dollars a ticket.”

  “There’s no other flights?” Why is he telling me all this? Caroline thought. Is he offering me a ticket?

  “No. No other flights. The airport is on total lockdown. There’s cops all over the terminal building and hangars. Columbus 754 was left parked up at the terminal because it was the first flight out in the morning.”

  “So how do we get out if the airport is on lockdown?” She hoped that her ‘we’ had not gone unnoticed. “I don’t have fifty grand by the way.”

  “You don’t have to pay, baby. You’re with me.” She could hear the grin in his voice and felt an answering warmth deep inside. “Here’s the deal. All the security is focused on the terminal, so we are going to bust through one of the access gates on the far side of the perimeter and just drive across the runways right up to the plane. Moses will have the plane ready to go, with stairs rolled up at the door for people to board. Just get to the south gate by 0500, ok? You know the one I mean. I gotta go now, honey. I’m busy texting the same time and location to everyone who paid for a ticket. See you there. Love you.”

  “Love you too,” Caroline replied, but the line was already dead.

  She had been thinking about dumping Joe the last month or so, because it seemed that he was never going to leave his wife. Although I didn’t hear any mention of Andrea in his escape plan just
now. And as her safety net, she had also been dating Jeremy, a millionaire, tech entrepreneur who was totally wrapped around her finger, but who was a tragic failure in bed. Caroline figured that she could choose between the two men later. First things first. She had to get out of the zone.

  Fuck being stuck in this town for the rest of my life. She quickly slipped into her Columbus cabin crew uniform and slipped her ID card holder over her neck. If I look like staff, it might stop the cops shooting for a couple of seconds. But instead of the standard crew dress shoes, she chose to wear tightly laced track shoes. Just one bag. Something I can run with. She grabbed a rugged duffle that she could sling over one shoulder, and put in her laptop, two hard drives, and phone charger before throwing open her closet and casting a ruthless eye over its contents. Moving quickly, Caroline grabbed her three most expensive dresses, two designer handbags and three favorite pairs of high heels. That would have to do.

  Conscious that she only had a limited amount of time, she slammed the closet shut and moved to the dresser. What the fuck am I doing? It’s not the end of the civilization here. I can just get all this shit packed and shipped out to me later. I need to get my ass on that plane. Years of flying as a stewardess had honed her ability to quickly pack her usual essentials and travel light. But the thought that she might never come back was throwing off her usual efficiency. Caroline wavered over her travel bag of cosmetics. Fuck the makeup, you can buy new makeup! It’s just extra weight. Ok just the eyeliner, mascara, concealer and my foundation. And highlighter. And lip gloss. And that cute blusher. She quickly stuffed these last items into her bag and slung it across her back. Then she buckled a fanny pack around her waist and stuck her passport, keys, purse and jewelry into it.

  Caroline bolted towards the door before stopping in her tracks and wheeling back towards the dresser. There in the bottom drawer was the box her father had given her when she had moved out on her own. She pulled the drawer open, and the ugly angles of the compact Chiappa revolver looked back up at her. She never carried it, but she went to the range regularly, and always kept it clean and oiled. I don’t think there’s going to be any security check before this flight. And you look useful. Caroline quickly checked the pistol was loaded and stuffed it into her fanny pack.