Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (141 page)

She struggled against him and he
opened his mouth over her neck. “Stop struggling or I will bite
you.” The horror in her eyes told me that was the last thing she
wanted him to do. I plunged the needle into the nurses’ neck and
pushed the dose in. She crumbled to the ground almost instantly,
her body making a thud as it struck. The other nurse took this
brief distraction to kick her foot up behind her and directly into
Cage’s manhood. He made a high-pitched noise as she ran out the
door and sped off down the hall.

“
We have to
go!”

I pulled him with me as he hobbled
behind, holding himself. I didn’t know how we were going to get out
of there. I pulled him with me as I headed back the way we came in.
I should have known it wouldn’t be that simple, but I was hoping we
could run out the front door. The sirens and red lights started
going off all around me.

The footfalls of several people were
coming toward us. In a panic, seeing a door to our right, I slung
it open and pulled Cage in with me. I, somehow, managed to slam the
door shut and we nearly tumbled down a flight of stairs, but caught
ourselves on the railing.

It was dark. It was creepy. We stood
up and attempted to feel our way along the wall. I was looking for
a light switch or another door. I needed to shed some light on the
situation. I kept feeling around in the dark until I got to a door
handle. I opened it and pulled Cage inside. He had gained his
ability to walk again.

Oh, how I wish we wouldn’t have gone
through that door.

The light was on where we were,
because we were in a freezer. The cold was a shock to me after
running around in the hot air for three days. The cold air was the
least of my shock, because I was looking at rows of bodies. They
were zombie bodies because they had the telling gray skin. These
bodies were strapped to gurneys all laid out in rows. There were
dozens of them. Some had their mouths open; some had their eyes
open, but they weren’t moving. Another thing they all had in common
was that they were missing their hearts. They were missing a lot of
parts. These zombies had had their organs surgically
removed.

I backed into Cage and looked over my
shoulder. “They haven’t found the cure yet, but they think they can
find it. This is what they want to do to us. We have to get out of
here.”

Why we couldn’t find a Good
Samaritan, I didn’t know. The reality was that there was no one
willing to help us out there. Trent had a good plan, but he had
been wrong. There was no cure, and we would turn soon. The sad
reality was hard to swallow, but I didn’t want to be taken out by
these people. I wanted to go out on my own.

The first thing we did was get the
hell out of the freezer of death. We searched every inch of the
room we were in for a way out. We were going to have to go back out
the way we came in. The first thing to do was get back up the
stairs. This was easy; it was what waited for us at the top of the
stairs that was hard. When we first opened the door, it looked like
we were safe. We edged out of the room, into the hallway again. I
felt extremely vulnerable. We begin to creep along the wall towards
the lobby.

Out of nowhere, a net flew through
the air and trapped Cage. He struggled against it as I looked
around to see where it came from. It was just one guy and he had
the edges of the net gathered to him. In his hand he was holding
what looked like a small Walkman, and he had it pressed to Cage’s
side.

“
I will shock him,
unconscious, if you don’t calm down and do what we say.”

Not a Walkman. That is a Taser. Good
to know.

He was edging to the alarm button on
the wall with Cage in tow. I didn’t think I had anything left to
lose. Our only chance of getting out of this building with our
hearts was overpowering this one guy. I went for it. I lunged at
the guy, with my mouth open, and bit into his neck. The blood
gushed into my mouth and I latched on. He screamed and let the
edges of the net go. Cage tripped to the floor and I pushed the guy
as hard as I could. I helped Cage out of the net so we could take
off running again. I heard people screaming at us from behind, but
I didn’t turn around. We were going to make it. As we reached the
glass doors, I realized that they had been locked down tight. We
tried to push them open, but even with both of us pushing, we were
not strong enough.

The group of white-covered maniacs
was advancing on us now. They were waving needles and Tasers. We
were trapped. Cage backed up as far as he could and took a running
leap, going feet- first into the glass on the side of the doors. He
broke through it with a triumphant yell. When he landed on the
other side, he jumped up to help me through.

I couldn’t help thinking that was the
coolest thing I had ever seen, but I didn’t have time to marvel at
how awesome he was. We ran like our lives depended on it, because
they did. Someone in the center had found a gun so we were getting
shot at again.

I had never been so pleased to see
the pickup truck in my life when we finally got back to it. Cage
cranked it up and off we went. Rose let out a yell as he pulled off
into the road, letting us know she was still in the
back.

Now we really had no direction. Cage
decided we would drive to the ocean and await our transformation
there. I couldn’t see anything wrong with this plan so I settled in
for a long drive. I had noticed that the wound had spread all the
way down his arm.

I didn’t mention it because I thought
it would be rude, but it looked awful.

Surprisingly, as we drove, we didn’t
see any more roadblocks.

There were abandoned towns to drive
through and you could see the destruction from looters. It was
obvious that chaos had taken over once people started to get
infected. It was sad to see the breakdown everywhere we went. I
figured there was probably not one city where they were still
carrying on as usual.

We needed to stop for gas, but we had
been to a few gas stations along the way and there wasn’t anything
in the tanks. The last time we had filled up, Trent had still been
alive. We stopped at a BP that looked promising and, finally, found
some gas. They had left the pumps on and I wondered if there were
people inside. I flashed back briefly to the first gas station that
had been occupied and decided we should not try to find
out.

After he pumped the gas, Cage climbed
back into the truck.

“
I’m sorry,
Cassie.”

I was taken aback. “Why are you
sorry? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“
I just really thought Dad
was right. I just really thought we would find the cure. It didn’t
work out that way.” He hit the steering wheel. “It’s not
fair!”

“
I know.” It really wasn’t
fair, but there was nothing that we could do about it. “Let’s just
go sit by the ocean.”

The only thing that we could do was
enjoy the last little bit of normal that we had before we turned
into monsters.

“
Okay.” He smiled. “Let’s
hit the sand.” He pulled out of the gas station and we drove
forward to a very uncertain fate.

Chapter 21

So Much for That

We had driven for about three hours
when I heard Cage’s stomach start to rumble. “Hungry?” I grinned at
him because I was hungry, too. We had left Atlanta and the horror
of the CDC behind us. Our decision to go to the beach meant we
would just drive from Georgia to North Carolina and not stop until
we hit the shoreline.

There weren’t many towns on the way
back from Atlanta, but we were in the middle of one now. The
stoplights were out; there didn’t appear to be anyone living or
dead anywhere. Looks can be deceiving. As we drove through the
little town, we passed a bank and a gas station. Finally, we saw a
local grocery that looked promising.

There weren’t any restaurants we
could go to. Fast food was out of the question. The best we could
hope for was to find a grocery store that hadn’t been completely
wiped out. The food would be slim pickings, but at least we
wouldn’t be hungry anymore. The town looked to have once had a lot
of happy people. There was a little park, beside the grocery store,
with a carousel and lots of swings. I could picture children
playing, while their parents shopped.

Cage pulled into the parking lot and
hopped out. He poked at Rose, who growled at him from beneath her
cinder block.

“
Would you like some
cheese balls, Rose?” He smiled at me, knowing the only thing that
she wanted to eat was not made of cheese.

We made our way inside the grocery
store. It was obvious it had been through the initial panic, with
all the food and items strewn throughout the store. We made our way
to the frozen section first, but the power was off. None of the
food in the coolers would be fit to eat, so we had to move
on.

I went down the chip aisle, seeing if
I could find a bag that hadn’t been ripped open or crunched to
crumbs. Cage said that he was going to see if he could find some
peanut butter and jelly. He was craving something, he said, but he
couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

I found a bag of Cool Ranch chips, on
the bottom shelf, that hadn’t been touched. I was very happy with
my victory and opened them immediately. They were the generic
brand, but they were heavenly. I sat down right there in the middle
of the aisle and started eating them. The little things in life
were important to me now.

I didn’t hear Cage, so I ate a few
more chips before I stood up and went to find him. I rolled the
chip bag down to take with me. Walking with it behind my back, my
plan was to surprise him with them. I didn’t even know if he liked
those types of chips or not. When I didn’t see him, I assumed he
had moved from the peanut butter and jelly aisle.

I smelled them before I heard them.
There were people in the store. They smelled mouth-watering. This
was a very bad sign. An even worse sign, I had no idea where Cage
was.

I called his name around the store,
as I got closer to the smell of people. I heard them in the back.
They must have been hiding in the storage area. I walked through
the little plastic doorway. I had never understood the point of
those in stores. This was the thought I had as I rounded the
corner. The next thought I had was a panicked one. There were
people there, and Cage had them cornered. They were scared. I knew
from experience that this could end very badly.

“
Cage, what are you
doing?” I was approaching him, slowly, not wanting to make any
sudden movements.

He had a strange look in his eyes. I
didn’t know what to do with him. I looked between Cage and the
people he had trapped in the storage room. There was an older woman
with a long sundress on that was torn on the side. An older
gentleman was shielding her with his body and holding onto a
baseball bat. His clothes were torn as well, which led me to
believe they had already had to fight for their lives.

There was a younger guy standing
beside them with anger in his eyes. I had a feeling if he would
have been the one holding onto the baseball bat, he would have
already swung at Cage.

The air was heavy with tension. I
knew he was barely hanging on to what little control he had left.
The man wasn’t trying to talk to him, he was just preparing for
battle. His grip on the baseball bat showed me that.

He attacked swiftly. Cage pulled the
baseball bat from the man the second he swung. He was on top of him
in the next second.

His teeth were ripping pieces from
the man’s face and the growl that was coming from him was unlike
anything I had ever heard. The woman was screaming at me, and the
guy’s son had taken up the bat and was beating Cage. He wasn’t
stopping.

“
Do something.” The lady
was frantic; I didn’t know what she wanted me to do about him. He
was like a rabid dog. This was the most violent takedown I had
seen. He stopped eating long enough to turn around and look at
me.

“
Cassie, go!” His voice
was much deeper and his eyes were glazed over. The fact that he
could even think to tell me to run was beyond me.

I said silent apologies to the family
as I ran out of the storage area. I clutched the chips to me and
grabbed a bottle of water on my way out. I ran out of the store and
didn’t stop until I was in the truck. I could still hear the poor
girl’s desperate screams as I pulled out and drove away.

I yelled back at Rose, “So much for
that beach plan, buddy.” She didn’t respond, and I didn’t expect
her to.

Chapter 22

The End of the Normal
Cassie

How did I end up like this? I was the
only survivor, driving around with a grown woman chained in the
back of my pickup truck. I didn’t know where the hell I was going;
I just knew I would drive until the truck ran out of gas. This was
not even close to how I thought I would be spending my senior
year.

I drove for a long time with no
destination. It was kind of peaceful and gave me a lot of time to
think. I was thinking about Cage, and how I missed him. I was
thinking about Trent and how brave he was. I laughed when I
remembered him pulling the wasp spray can out on Rose and I. I
remembered Brett and how he had taken me to his secret lair. I felt
sad and the weight of the losses I had suffered in a few short days
was monumental. I had lost my family, too. I would never see my
mother again or anyone. I was all alone, except for a one-armed
zombie that would eat me if she could catch me. I guess it could
have been worse. Rose could have had both her arms.