Designated (Book 2): Designated Quarantined (36 page)

'Thank you.'
 

The officer cracked a small smile. 'No need. I'm still on the clock here, just doing my job; now go on… get going.'
 

Kevin set a hand on the man's shoulder, squeezing as the officer locked eyes with him and nodded the unspoken thanks and acceptance dancing between them.
 

'Take this.' He pushed the recoded key card into Janet's hand; the sliver of plastic felt cool against her fear-heated skin.
 

Kevin pulled Janet down the corridor, the card pressed tightly to her palm. Squaring his shoulders, the Sco19 officer forced himself to stand and staggered through the door, into the centre of the corridor.
 

Slowly, he ejected the magazine and inserted another, slapping the butt of the pistol grip once, making sure the magazine was locked tight. He slid his feet across the grit-coated tiles, the powdered film grinding against the ceramic flooring as he moved into position. Shifting his right foot backwards, he levelled the pistol, locking his arm straight. A soft, comforting voice echoed in the back of his head as he sighted down the gun.
 

'Remember, Jacob, always lock your arm. The Weaver stance can cause you to shake after a while. Locking up your dominant arm counteracts that—and don't forget, squeeze the trigger, never yank it and always slow your breathing.'
 

Locking his eyes on the first target as he slowed down his breathing, the walls of the hospital seemed to fall away as he focused on nothing else. His breathing rasped in his ears as the world stilled, the halls around him devoid of sound as everything slowed to a crawl. As his breathing levelled out, a small measure of peace fell upon him. His lips curled into a smile as he gently squeezed the trigger.
 

'Bullseye.'
 

His world blurred around him as he fired, round after round singing down the corridor, each shot landing perfectly. The corridor ceased to exist, as the walls darkened, his vision tunnelling as he watched one Infected after another tumble and fall, their flailing limbs dancing like afterimages on damaged film; the impact of their broken bodies echoing through his mind like voices in a cavern, their rolling bodies skipping and bouncing across the floor.
 

He snapped his hand down, drawing out another magazine as he dropped target after target with near mechanical precision, the clattering metal ringing in his ears as he slid the last one home, the click of the catch drawing a small smile to his lips as he lifted the weapon back to his eye, the orange flash from the muzzle filling his vision as he finally faded to black.
 

****
 

Kevin stared at the room, dumbfounded; the sheer mass of weaponry was astounding. He idly thought that any Hollywood action film crew would have been green with envy but pushed it aside just as quickly as he listened to the ever-decreasing momentum of the Sco19 officer's shooting. He turned to Janet as she turned to the door, her eyes wide with tension and fear.
 

'You know, I tried to prepare for this, to make myself stronger than the simpering cow everyone always thought I was.'
 

Kevin opened his mouth to protest, Janet's stern ire burning them away before they ever gained flight.
 

'Don't even bother denying it, Kev; I know what they all thought, what you yourself thought at one point.
 

'I have spent my life trying to gain the praise of the men in my family, my father, brothers, and cousins. All of them were strong people, bastions to the weak and feeble, my big strong protectors; not one of them ever allowed me to show them what I knew I could do. And what did their bravery get them? Dead is what it got them, and now another man has just given his life for me, and for what? So you can drag me away to some dark, little hole in the wall to sit and wait for death?
 

'We never knew his name, and yet there he is sixty feet away, dying for two people he knew for all of three minutes. I am fucking sick of it. The only man who has ever looked past the tits and blonde hair is off saving every other fucker while we're trapped here. Well, at least I can prove to myself that his belief in me isn't some fervent waste of energy.'
 

She ran her fingers along the grips of the matte-black pistols, their chequered handles plucking at her fingertips before she curled her hand around one, pulling it from the cold, steel crevice it rested in, expertly disassembling and reassembling the gun before sliding in a magazine.
 

Kevin stuttered through several sentences before Janet deemed it useful to reply. 'You don't spend twelve years as a wife to a black operations soldier without learning a few useful things, Kevin; now stop blubbering and choose a weapon.'
 

Silence descended upon the room; Kevin turned nervously to the window in the door as he spoke. 'Janet I don't hear anything.'
 

She smiled at him, 'I know; nice, isn't it?'
 

Kevin shook his head. '
No,
I mean I don't hear
anything
, not even shooting.'
 

As the words left Kevin's lips, the stillness was shattered by a singular gunshot. 'Janet, we have to go, and now!'
 

Kevin stared out the reinforced wire meshed glass inset into the steel doors of the armoury, the light slowly disappearing behind the crushed faces of the Infected as they piled into the corridor.
 

Blood slowly seeped from the Sco19 officer as he lay on the cold, unforgiving floor of the hospital, his pistol still clutched in his hand, the slide locked open as a small, whispering strand of smoke curled from the open breach.
 

The officer had, in his final seconds, made a promise to himself, his mother, and his god that he would not end up another mindless ghoul and, with what little of himself remained, had used his final round to ensure he never would.
 

Kevin, his face pressed to the glass of the delivery window watched as the pooling blood haloed around their saviour's head.
 

'Thank you,' he quietly whispered before pushing away from the window. His eye caught the blurred passage of pictures as he turned. He stepped towards the photo-lined duty roster. There in the black and white passport-sized photo were the faces of the two Sco19 officers. Tracking his eyes down the pictures, he settled on the block script printed beneath each image.
 

Jeremy Martin Thomas
and
Jacob Dietz
.
 

Reaching out, he pulled the page from the board and carefully folded it, tucking the names of their saviours into his right hip pocket before he snatched up the large disc-shaped riot shield and heavy steel baton from the locker on his right.
 

In five quick strides, they left the hospital and any semblance of normal life behind them forever.

James 'Jimmy' O'Hara stood at the back door to the hospital; his hands trembling as he gingerly lit one of his six remaining cigarettes. The soft paper-coated filter was a familiar comfort for him and one of the few things he found could calm his shattered nerves. Even as he took the first juddering draw from the slimline white column of tobacco, he found himself struggling to shake the images of his brush with death from his mind.
 

His black jaw-length hair hung low over his face as he raised the lighter to relight the half-burnt tip. His hair hung like a curtain, shielding his eyes from the sun's chilled evening glare and the encroaching, slow stalking death that was quietly encircling him.
 

'Fucking, god damned, mother fucking prick-arsed psycho. Try and bite me, will you? You wrinkled old bastard.'
 

The Infected eyed him with a suspicious hunger, wary and nervous for any clue that he was aware of their slow advance. They had seen their brothers and sisters enter the hospital moments before. The way they moved filled them with dread and fear as the Infected slipped away and into the darkened alleys surrounding the building, eagerly seeking out a less energetic meal.
 

Sensing nothing from the slim form now sucking eagerly at the slim white stick clutched between his lips, they moved as one, bodies loose, limbs held light as they began to close their snare.
 

Jimmy's skin prickled, a familiar sensation he had built over the many years of bullying and paranoid suspicion—one that made him aware of people watching him, even if no one really was.
 

Looking up, his eyes went wide with fright as he saw the ring of Infected that had, unbeknownst to him, slowly penned him against the side of the hospital. His head snapped left and right as he desperately searched for a way out as the noose tightened the hungry red eyes boring into him.
 

Backing away slowly, his mind screamed at him to go anywhere but backwards, and yet he kept on moving. A metallic clunking scrape echoed up from the floor as his foot collided with something, its hollow tone tugging at his ears. Darting his gaze downwards he clapped eyes on a piece of scaffold piping. His quick mental evaluation guessed it to be about two feet long. Closing his eyes for a second, he sent a silent prayer of thanks to whatever god was listening, praising them for creating lazy workmen.
 

Clutching the cut off piece of metal in his hands, he squared his shoulders and braced for the onrushing end and the pain that would fill the final moments of his life. A soft clicking caught his attention as a cold rush of air sent a shiver down his spine, closely followed by a set of hands curling themselves into his charcoal grey zip-fronted hoody, their slim, strong grip lifting him off his feet.
 

Slowly, James cracked open his eyes. He had always thought dying by Infected consumption would have hurt more, at least that is the impression Janet had always given him whenever she had stopped to talk with him. He also thought that heaven, or where ever the heck you ended up, would not be so cold or smell like industrial disinfectant.
 

The pungent fumes stung his nostrils and trickled down his throat, leaving a cloying sickly, slightly acidic taste in his mouth. Gingerly, he patted himself down; his fingers danced across the front of his t-shirt, the black cotton felt, somehow, oddly reassuring. Tracing the contours of his own form lower, he ran his hands down the sides of his legs.
 

The denim rasped slightly as he checked by touch alone for any bites, cuts, scrapes or tears, too afraid to do anything more. The thought of staring into the mangled, fleshless, bite-induced void that carried his death on its bloodstained wings, wasn't something he really wanted to have as a final image. A soft sigh of relief escaped him as his fingertips' search found nothing.
 

'Hi!'
 

A cheerful impish face appeared in his vision, drawing from him a less than manly scream of fright. Dragging him to his feet, she propped him against the wall as the rose-tinged face before him smiled. The opalescent white teeth she bared shimmered under the stark-white hospital lighting as Jimmy stood somewhere between hysteria and sheer exhausted panic. His eyes caught on the black printed t-shirt, its cotton and vinyl print stretched to near transparency over her chest. The rhythmic rising and falling mesmerised him, her breathing pushing her ample bosom against the black silk-like fabric of her t-shirt, his eyes shifting ever so slightly as he tracked their rise and fall as she breathed softly.
 

It was something that didn't go unnoticed by Jimmy's unwitting saviour. An impish, playful grin spread across her features as she saw his blatant and unchecked stare. Pushing her shoulders forwards ever so slightly, she bounced on the balls of her feet, making the rise and fall of her chest ever more pronounced, the form fitting t-shirt shifting against her peach-toned skin, her ample swell showing like a golden sand beneath water as it pressed against the sheer cotton.
 

Her top shifted, sliding across the flat, taut, smooth skin of her stomach as she gazed at the man before her. She smiled playfully as she watched Jimmy's eyes follow every movement her ample assets made. Slowly, his eyes rose from their chosen perch as a soft lilting giggle caught his attention; a deep crimson blush stained his features as he locked gazes with her deep-blue, grey, and emerald-flecked eyes. The mirth that danced within them was infectious as he found himself soon hiding a bashful grin from her soul-penetrating gaze.
 

A soft, slim hand shot forth as she reached out, tucking her other hand behind her she slowly curled it around the handle of the heavy bladed carbon steel chef's knife she had tucked between her belt and waistband.
 

'Hi, I'm Millie.'
 

Jimmy's blush faded slightly as he reached out and clasped her slim hand in his. Closing his hand around hers sealed his fate as she moved. Millie moved with the finesse of a dancer as she spun around Jimmy's stunned form, her hand curling round his wrist twisting it, the bones in his hand bending as they were forced back against his side. With a grunt of anger, she drove him forwards, face first into the wall, his move opening in a rush of stale nicotine-tinged air. As his weight sank against his chest, the heavy cold blade of the chef's knife pressed tightly against the side of his neck as its diamond-etched edge began to slowly bite into his skin.
 

'Move and I will fillet you like a fucking fish, you got it?'
 

Jimmy nodded vigorously as he felt the blade ease slightly, his forehead rubbed raw against the concrete wall. He swallowed sharply as he felt the pressure on the blade increase again, his skin itching as it began to bite through his flesh as a thin rivulet of scarlet blood run across the glinting metal.
 

'Good; now that we have that sorted, were you scratched, cut, bit?'
 

Jimmy began to stutter slightly as he tried to articulate his current physical condition.
 

'No, no I wasn't; some crazy bastard tried to but—'
 

He was quickly and harshly cut off midsentence as Millie pressed the blade hard against his pale skin.
 

'I asked a simple question, dipstick, not for a life deposition. Shut the fuck up. Did one of them spit at you, get blood, or anything on you?'
 

Again, Jimmy went mute as he felt her free hand slide over his slim form.
 

'Fucking answer me, you dumb pussy.'
 

Jimmy stuttered and groaned as her hands slid over his jeans, her rampant patting drawing his mind to places he really wished it wouldn't go.
 

'No, nothing. You dragged me in here before they got close enough.'
 

Nodding, she stepped away from him, the chef's knife held in front of her clasped in both hands as she stood with her legs set shoulder width apart.
 

'Okay, move.'
 

Motioning with the knife, Millie watched as Jimmy sedately moved away from her, heading down the bright, sterile corridor. Her head snapped round as the steel door behind the pair rocked in its frame, the dull thud of flesh on metal making both of them jump. Her eyes bulged in her skull as she watched the metal begin to bow under the increasing weight against it.
 

'Okay, uh, we have to, um, we uh, have to…'
 

She began to panic, terror slowly worming up through her, smothering the false bravado she had so eagerly displayed mere moments before. Jimmy spun on the spot, something inside him seeming to click into place as he reached forward and wrapped his hand round her wrist.
 

'We have to bloody well go, is what we have to do; now run!'

Dragging her along behind him, he sprinted for all he was worth; pulling along the stunned and mind-numbed form of his would be captor.
 

'Just my fucking luck, meet the one woman in this whole damned city who seems nice, and is rather good looking to boot, and she pulls a fucking knife on me. My mum was right; I should have stayed in Cardiff.'
 

The words echoed inside his head as he pulled the stumbling and panicked woman through the sub-basement lift's doors and hit the button that would take them down.
 

'Just hope I am doing the right thing here—basements were always a bad move in the movies; then again, this isn't a movie, although I am stuck with the one person who would always be the first to die, man I am screwed.'
 

He turned away from the near hysterical female next to him and stared at the aluminium sidings of the elevator as he decided on his next move.