Haven (16 page)

I stood as sentry guard until she was finished and then we switched. I was three times as fast, stepping out of the shower in less than ten minutes in comparison to her thirty. She was already in front of the mirrors, and spent more than two hours there before walking out appearing brand new. With our stomachs growling, we ended up in the kitchen where we found Mei and Doc finishing an omelet. They’d made it entirely from the refrigerated food in a smart effort to use up what was available before it spoiled. They’d cooked it on the stovetop, which was still being fed gas from the pipeline, thank God. Mei made the same omelet for Beverly and me and, having neglected dinner last night, I consumed it in three bites. It was incredibly good.

“What did you find out in the library?” I asked as I dropped my paper plate in the trash bin.

“Well,” Mei said, her mouth downturned, “not much yet. We read up on how a virus reproduces…which it does by entering a cell and coercing the cell to code its own DNA as opposed to the cell’s healthy DNA.”

Doc interjected to sum up, “So the virus conquers the healthy cells.”

“We also listed out some of the traits of the virus.”

There was confusion in Beverly’s expression. “Traits? Were you sniffing the whiteboard markers again? Virus’s don’t have traits.”

Doc sighed in annoyance and shook his head, and we all knew it was in reference to the return of Beverly’s attitude.

“Sorry,” she muttered, although she did it with a frown.

That seemed to be good enough for Mei, who went on to say, “Well, for lack of a better word, they do. Maybe you call it something different-”

“Characteristics.”

“Okay…The characteristics we noted were…the virus appears to be transmitted by bodily fluids. It takes mere seconds for the virus to then hijack the body to turn the victim into an aggressively feral cannibal. So I’ll hypothesize that it attacks the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that gives us our personality and moderates social behavior, and it then attacks the nervous system, the part that allows us to register pain.” Looking down, she slowly added, “I’m going to infer that once contaminated, a chemical reaction takes place in their blood stream. Blood is cycled through our entire body on an average of sixty seconds, so there would be little to no hope of avoiding mutation to the rest of it. Once mutation has occurred it stands to reason that the most effective way to stop them is to sever the blood flow to the vital organ that controls the rest of the body.”

“You mean the brain,” Doc concluded.

Unnerved, she could only nod her confirmation.

My mind instantly called up the shots I’d put in the bodies of those trying to attack us when we were running across the parking lot on the first day. They had been perfectly placed within the thoracic cavity, and still they kept coming. They may have bled out later, but for the sake of efficiency, I’d be going for the head from this point forward.

“So basically it takes over the host’s mind and body,” Doc recapped.

“Thanks, Peanut Gallery,” Beverly muttered.

Doc glared at her, but she was too busy fiddling with a chipped nail to notice.

“They don’t seem to be impaired otherwise,” Mei mused. “They can make decisions, are physically able to run, breathe, eat…”

“Clearly.” Beverly said, snickering through her nose.

Mei frowned at her. “If you don’t want to be here for this, you can leave.”

Beverly lifted her eyes to find the rest of us staring at her. Realizing she’d crossed a line, she replied begrudgingly, “No…no, I’ll stay.” She then returned to her nail.

“It’ll take a little time,” I mentioned to Mei and Doc and they both seemed to understand I was explaining Beverly’s behavior to them.

While at first hesitant, Mei ultimately consented, nodding as she continued. “They seem to be alive, but they are showing signs of decomposition…dark, sunken eyes, loss of muscle mass, bloating, which makes me believe that the virus is attempting to mutate the body to its end goal.”

“Which is?”

“What every virus’s goal is,” Mei shrugged. “Domination over its hosts…and by extension the entire human race.”

An uncomfortable silence followed Mei’s unexpected summarization of the end of our existence. Even Beverly glanced up, curiously inspecting each of our faces for our reactions.

Feeling the need for a change of topic, preferably a lighter one, I smiled at Doc and Mei and said, “That was the best omelet I’ve ever had. You’re the chefs from now on.”

This was seconded by Beverly, although I had a feeling she was really trying to avoid being saddled with the cooking chore.

Mei played along, tipping her head toward Beverly. “And you’re our nurse.” Addressing Doc, she said, “You’re our brute muscle. And you two…” she said in my direction. “Are our guards.”

My first instinct was to stiffen at the insinuation that I was a guard. As a learned response, I couldn’t avoid it. But there was no way she knew what I was capable of. She’d only heard about it from the others who’d witnessed me dragging her to safety when the Infected first attacked. But she had referenced ‘you two’ so I automatically turned to see where her eyes had landed; there, I found Harrison standing in the doorway.

He gave me a solid look, which sent my full stomach into chaos. His eyes on me were both pleasant and unsettling, but I tried not to show either. Beverly observed me closely and, unfortunately, I couldn’t be sure I’d pulled it off. Thankfully, she didn’t comment on it.

“Guard B confirms all is well,” Harrison said plainly, moving into the room.

“Omelet?” Mei offered.

“Thanks. Already ate,” Harrison said, using his typical response to an offering of food. He strolled toward us, his eyes darting to me and away, just as they had before this whole mess started. And again, it stirred excitement in me. He seemed set on staying true to his word and keeping his distance from me, though he stopped at the end of the counter I was leaning against and kept his eyes on Doc and Mei. “Since you guys are on the topic…,” he said, “I found some things we might need for meals.”

Doc’s eyebrows shot up in interest. “What?”

“A vegetable garden.”

Mei drew in a breath. “That’s right… They have a nursery here. I was going to take that as extracurricular last year.”

Beverly responded without looking at her. “Of course you were…”

As was rapidly becoming a tradition, Doc shot her a look, which prompted a resistant apology from her.

“And…” Harrison went on, “I’m guessing our school’s head cook liked the outdoors or was a closet prepper, because…” He strolled to Mrs. MacIntyre’s office and opened the door to reveal a plastic and metal box lying on her desk. “I saw it last night.”

“Okay…,” Mei muttered, stepping forward for a better view. “What is it?”

Harrison blinked at us. It seemed like he was realizing something for the very first time. “You guys don’t spend a lot of time camping, do you?”

Beverly scoffed. “Not if there’s a Four Seasons nearby.”

“It’s a solar oven,” I said, and Harrison’s eyes snapped to me, landing there firmly and taking hold. “Harrison’s point,” I said without breaking my own stare, “is that when the gas goes out, we’ll still be able to cook.”

He observed me for a few seconds as an almost undetectable smile rose up. “That’s right,” he said with subtle amazement.

“Well, right on,” Doc muttered, slapping Harrison on the back as he made his way to pull the oven out of the office.

Harrison’s inquisitive eyes remained on me, burning with unabashed curiosity, until Doc passed him again and stopped in between us, having no idea that he’d just disturbed an intensely personal moment.

“How do we use it?”

Knowing that Harrison’s attention was an accidental fluke, I spun around and started for the door while he answered Doc. I flatly refused to be some fragile, lovelorn girl in the middle of a crisis who needed a man to support her.

“Where are you going?” Mei called out after me.

“The lockers.” It was time to start the day’s work.

Over the next few weeks, we fell into a routine. Harrison did as he said he would and avoided me at all costs, spending the majority of his time on the roof, guarding the premises day and night. In the mornings, Doc and Mei dedicated themselves to researching the Infected, who steadily collected outside our school’s gate, and then made breakfast for everyone. Both of them had an unusual flare about it, something that I hadn’t expected from a jock or a brain. They created everything from Eggs Benedict to Belgian Waffles, and presented them in a way that made me feel like we were eating plates of edible artwork. Our meals were far better than what the lunchroom’s original menu called for, something Doc and Mei prided themselves on. Then we’d return to where we’d left off in the row of lockers the day before, stopping only for lunch or bathroom breaks until just before dusk. Beverly’s initial impetus to find a phone charger was gone now, shut off with the electricity, so she worked at a painfully slow pace. However, she did find the energy to pull the best objects from the piles and designate them for herself. At the end of the day, before it became too dark, Doc and Mei would concoct a fantastic dinner from the vegetable garden and pantry and we’d head back to the hallway for sleep. Having pulled towels together from the gym, we formed flat but efficient beds for ourselves. Only Beverly complained. By the end of the third week, we’d finished unloading the lockers and categorizing the resources we pillaged from them. Only one extraneous, non-vital resource was ever removed, at least to my knowledge. It was this journal. I pulled it from Karen Cunningham’s locker, F257. Thank you, Karen. If you should ever want it back, it’s yours. It would be nice to see you again.

In the course of it all, a few things stood out to me, and all of them involved Harrison. His arm healed rapidly, more so than even Beverly expected. He never once slept. And I never saw him eat – even while the meat in the freezer gradually disappeared.

Besides Beverly’s fit after learning the water had gone off and showers would no longer be an option, life began to edge toward a surreal, mundane existence. Doc and Mei spent their time keeping up the garden or researching in the library. Beverly sunbathed on the roof, painted her nails, and generally ignored the rest of us. Harrison and I avoided each other as best we could. Then Harrison found a breach in our security and all hell broke loose.

~ 6 ~

“
T
HERE,”
H
ARRISON SAID, HIS DEEP, RUMBLING
voice markedly tense as he pointed at the car Beverly’s dad had left in the maintenance area. It was still rammed into the fence and the poles were still leaning inward, although I saw what Harrison meant. The poles were dipping closer to the ground.

Before insisting I follow him to the roof, Harrison had found me hauling trash from the bins out to the dumpsters. Not the most attractive thing I could be doing when he finally acknowledged me after weeks of evasion. But the flies had been collecting, and for once I agreed with Beverly. It was disgusting. Now, though, I was glad he’d found me.

“It’s the weight of the Infected, isn’t it?” I asked.

He nodded. “That’s what I think. The force of the impact weakened the structure of those particular bars and they’re continuing to buckle under the pressure of the Infecteds’ weight.”

As he said this, I watched the growing crowd lean on one another, collecting in a mass pressing up against the bumper of the car, attempting to get inside the fence.

Envisioning what would happen when they were ultimately successful, I stated, “The glass doors won’t hold them back.”

As we watched the amount of sheer power they had when combined in one massive moving wall, he agreed, “No, they won’t.”

“Should we tell the others?” I asked, cringing at the thought of Beverly’s reaction to seeing her dad’s vehicle, which wouldn’t be good.

“The only effect it would have is to make them live on edge until it happens.”

“But you told me,” I argued.

“You have better control over your emotions,” he said plainly, as a preconceived notion.

I was flattered until I realized the one exception…Harrison.

The two of us stared down at the bowing mouth of bars, preparing to spill the Infected into our haven.

“How much time do you think we have?”

He slowly shook his head. “Judging by the distance the bars have fallen so far…a few more weeks, maybe.”

The uneasy feeling of being prey locked in a cage that was progressively drawing open washed over me. Mark Manz, a junior who always kept to himself and liked to read sci-fi books at lunch, snarled and snapped at us from the throng below, and my immediate reaction was to start considering our means of defense. We had scissors, metal chairs-

“We don’t have the manpower,” Harrison remarked.

Jostled from my thoughts, I mumbled, “Hmm?”

“You were figuring out what type of defenses we could work with,” he explained, which surprised me. “I know you better than you think I do,” he added before grinning smugly to himself in a breathtakingly gorgeous illustration of pearly teeth and seductive lips. When it slid away I was actually disappointed. But it was his show of arrogance, his open declaration that his attention had been on me long enough to ascertain who I was that made my breath catch. His self-confidence remained as he asserted, “We need a force strong enough to hold them back. Up until now that was our gate. Once they are inside, there will be no stopping them.”