Pulse: Retaliation (Anisakis Nova Book 2) (8 page)

17 – The Infected

Washington State: 47% Infected

As Bill Valenzuela stared at the lifeless MAC distribution center, he thought of what he'd seen on the news about infecteds snatching people up and carting them away to some terrible secret place.

Well, he didn't know for sure if it was terrible since it was secret. He assumed it was. There was no way those crazy sick people were taking them to Disneyland. Based on what he'd seen on TV, they were torturing them, raping them, and killing them. Any bad thing he could imagine, they were doing. It sickened him.

There was no one looking out for him but him. He grew up thinking that and it helped get him through. But once he got married to the love of his life, things shifted. Then, when he started having children, and his kids had children, everything changed. He had to look out for his whole family. He'd do anything for them.

That was why they all lived on Bainbridge Island in Washington. It was just isolated enough to be a comfortable, safe place to live, but they could visit the cities if they had any desire to. They had a lot of property their grandkids could roam and be free on. They grew most of their own food, including chickens and goats. They could provide for themselves most everything they needed.

The only thing they didn't have was MAC.

Just thinking of it made his heart knot up and tears well in his eyes. His son-in-law Eugene went to get much needed medical supplies from the mainland. It was there he was infected. He returned to the island sick before falling into a coma. When he woke up, he had the intent to kill every last one of the Valenzuela family. Bill put Eugene down himself after that. One clean shot to the head after his grandsons knocked him to the ground and held him there.

The ordeal was taxing for everyone. It'd been five months since it happened and Kacy, his daughter, still hadn't spoken to him. Bill's wife explained that Kacy knew Bill did what he had to, but it was still too heartbreaking.

Daddy killed her husband. It would take a lot to get over that.

Despite his family's protest, Bill decided to go to Seattle where the nearest MAC distribution center was and get as much of the stuff as he could. His family's life depended on it. He wasn't going to put down another son or daughter-in-law, let alone one of his own flesh and blood. If they'd had MAC when Eugene came back, he wouldn't have died.

Bill just arrived in north Seattle when the first infected terrorist attack occurred. Even with his own boat, it was difficult to get to the mainland. Situations had improved, but there was tight security at the marinas that took hours to pass. The wait to get the vaccine was worse. He'd been waiting in line for four hours when the hospital down the street broke into total chaos. It sent everyone into a mad panic.

He ran for his life and found a safe spot to hide in a chiropractor's office in the second story of an old office building. No one even came close to the spot; why would they? It was a nondescript place. The other offices were a naturopath and lawyer. Nothing to loot, nothing to gain. It was a piss poor place for him to hide, too, for the same reasons.

There was a candy machine in the chiropractor's office. It had peanut M&Ms, cinnamon candies, and Skittles. The stuff made him sick, but after a day of starving he had to do something. There was still running water which he drank plentifully. In the lawyer's office he found a dusty box of granola bars sitting on the receptionist desk. The naturopath had nothing but vitamins, which were useless.

Outside, a mix of infected, military, and uninfected roamed the streets. There was never a good time to make a run for it. The hospital was still too close and infected were constantly trying to claim the area. Bill had also seen uninfected people try to flag down help from the military, only to be ignored. After giving up their hiding spot, most of them were murdered the second the convoys cleared the area.

On the fourth day of nothing but water and candy, Bill decided he had to get what he came for and make a run for it. His family needed him. He needed to survive. With a 9mm handgun and three extra mags he brought, he slipped out into the night to the MAC distribution center.

It was dusk. Overhead, the sky was a brilliant shade of deep orange. Most buildings around him still had power, but this one was dark inside. He figured the infected cut power to it somehow to make it discouraging to anyone hoping to enter. That's something they'd do, Bill figured, since MAC was going to put an end to them.

Now in front of the building, he was almost reconsidering his idea. He had a bad feeling in his gut, but his will to get any of the vaccine overpowered it.

He couldn't stay out in the open to think about it. He entered the front doors, keeping his eyes peeled and ears open for anything off. The place seemed to be a women's clinic. There were posters on the wall about pregnancy and women's health. Nylon ropes on posts once formed long winding lines, but were now overturned and a tangled mess. A handful of bodies littered the area. They stank.

There was a reception space enclosed with glass.  One pane was shattered, the fragments of glass covered in old blood on the counter and floor. There was a single door, slightly ajar, on the wall farthest from him.

Bill moved towards the reception area, carefully stepping around the bodies. Maybe that's where they kept the MAC and handed it out. It was a good first bet. He avoided the blood and leaned over the counter to take a look.

Nothing but a corpse hunched over the desk. There were empty cardboard boxes scattered about, but no MAC. Inside the little room was an open area with file shelves shoved to the side walls. There were more boxes back there. Some of them appeared unopened.

He was in the middle of considering whether to climb over the bloody counter or try to find a back way in when he heard voices outside.

That made the decision for him. Whether they were infected or not, he wasn't going to risk it. Bill hauled himself over the counter, feeling every bit of his fifty-two years, and landed on the other side.

Bill looked around. There weren't many places to hide. The best place was right where he was, under the desk by the dead body. No one would see him even if they were looking right into the office. He crammed himself under it and held his breath.

"You're sssssure they're coming thissss way?"

"Oh, yes," a second voice responded. "We're all waiting. Mr. Henderson told us to hide, hidey-hide and wait for the army dudes to come. Then we rip them apart. Fucking shred them. Do whatever we want with them."

"When are the rest us coming? Are there more?"

A third voice, female, groaned. "You keep asking that. They'll show up when they show up."

Infected. Definitely infected. Besides Eugene, Bill hadn't encountered any of them. By the sound of it, they had an ambush planned. He was glad he didn't go farther into the building. Otherwise he'd find out just how sadistic those monsters were.

Footsteps came closer to his hiding spot. Breath. He heard someone breathing. It was ragged and wet.

"Anybody in the trappy-trap?"

"You sound like a fucking idiot talking like that," a male said from right above him.

Bill bit his lip. He held his breath, felt his lungs burn from the strain. A fierce cramp was building in his right quad.

After a moment, the infected said, "Nothin'. They don't take the bait. Dumb cows may be smarter than we think."

"They aren't," the woman said. "They're dumb little shits. Trust me, one of them will eventually. Now get in the back. We need to be ready."

Scuffling. A door shut. Bill listened and waited for ten minutes according to his watch. There was nothing.

He'd come this far. He wasn't going home empty handed. Mindful of every move, Bill crawled to the boxes. They were big, too big to carry through the city back to the marina. He sliced one open with his pocketknife and looked inside.

At least a hundred shiny metal cases stared back at him. He popped one open and saw a vial and syringes. Bill stashed twenty of them in his backpack.

No one ambushed him when he climbed back over the counter and exited the building. No wave of worms came out of nowhere to infect him. As he stuck to arterial streets to get back to the marina, he saw a military convoy headed the way he came. Bill didn't try to stop them and warn them. He knew they wouldn't listen. He knew the infected would make easy work of him if they saw him.

He would do anything for his family. Part of that was making sure he survived.

With his backpack full of MAC, Bill finished his trek back to the marina after two hours of walking. The docks were untouched, the military presence gone. He boarded his boat without difficulty. There wasn’t a guard to stop him or direct him out.

With the wind against his face and the infected city behind him, Bill began his journey home.

18 – Mandy Sillvers

The rhododendron in front of their house was in full bloom, its red petals sticky and velvety. A day of rain made evergreen pine needles smell fresh and crisp, carried in the spring breeze. Matthias picked up yesterday's newspaper, soggy despite being in a plastic sleeve. He turned to Mandy and they shared a laugh. It was one of those rare moments where every fiber of your being is buzzing with happiness. Where everything is perfect.

The memory hit her hard. So hard it made her sick with sorrow and loneliness. It only took that one memory to send her into a downward spiral, one she'd known well since Matthias died. Normally she'd go out with a friend or take up an old hobby to combat the depression. Down in the bunker, it was just her and her demons and there was no escape. She finally had to face them, and what she saw was bleak and heartbreaking.

Mandy suffered from debilitating bouts of depression since she was seven, when she had found her uncle's dead body in his basement. He shot himself in the mouth. His teeth were shattered and bloody. At her angle, she saw straight through his mouth to the gaping exit wound where light shone through. Nothing was the same after that. A darkness came over her that day.

Besides her family, only Matthias knew about it. Her friends thought she was a regular old superwoman, what with her numerous hobbies and incessantly positive attitude. Even when Matthias got sick, they admired how she worked and managed to take care of him. Really, it was just her way of staving off that part of her that wanted her to be joyless and diminished.

Down in the bunker, the usual barriers between her and depression were gone. Time crawled by, allowing her to fixate on every good memory she had of her late husband. It was the good memories that upset her. Not the ones of him during chemo or once he decided to let the cancer take him. None of that, but the ones of small happy moments that made their relationship perfect and beautiful. That's what her depression wanted her to fixate on; the good things she'd never have again.

Mandy couldn't imagine life without Matthias. She couldn't imagine life at all anymore. She was going to do what she'd been meaning to since he died. Before then even, when she felt dark and hopeless.

To whom it may concern...

She stared at the suicide note. It sounded too formal, not to mention she hadn't written anything past that. It was unlikely anyone would ever find her. She picked up the pencil.

If you’re reading this, I congratulate you on finding the bunker.

Mandy immediately erased the sentence. Damn, she was making her own suicide note about someone other than herself. Even her pencil showed the noncommittal nature of it. She rifled through the jar of writing utensils in front of her and retrieved a pen. She thought of Uncle Marshall's note, how it simply read, "
I couldn't do this. Sorry."

In front of her, she'd laid out the handgun she'd use to kill herself. On a previous attempt, she backed out because she was afraid to cut her wrists. On another she took a bottle of anxiety medication, but she vomited it up while she was incoherent. To truly kill herself, she had to use a gun. She knew it.

The magazine was loaded. There was one in the chamber. Glocks didn't have a safety. All she had to do was pick it up, put it to her temple, and pull the trigger. She played the action repeatedly in her mind as she brought her pen back to the paper.

To whom it may concern, which is probably no one, I have killed myself. This world sucks and I am alone.

"That's better," Mandy said aloud. "That hits the right tone."

I thought I could stay down here by myself, tough it out until it was safe to go back out, but I can't. I don't know what the world is like up there, but even if it is like the one I left I don't think I want to be there. The only thing I ever cared about is gone anyway.

Matthias standing outside talking to a contractor on a chilly fall day, wearing a navy blue scarf Mandy knit him, that boyish grin on his face as the contractor installed a water catchment system on the shed for the bunker. Matthias surprising her with a stack of pancakes in bed for her birthday, the single candle flickering happily as it dribbled wax onto the maple syrup.

A knot formed in her gut. Dizziness swept over her as one small thought, different from the others, came to mind.

Mandy set down the pen. She went to the bottom bookshelf and rifled through a stack of DVDs until she found one marked
When You're Feeling Down.
She popped it into the DVD player in the computer and her husband's face—the sick one, ashen and papery—came up.

Even at the end, Matthias was smiling. He always said he loved every moment of his time on earth, and while it was sad he was leaving it, he had not a single regret.

"Mandy," he started. His voice a shadow of what it used to be, but still vibrant in its own way. Caring. "Sweetheart, we both know why you're watching this. I want you to take a deep breath with me. Okay, let it out really slow. One more time. Smile."

Mandy did as the video asked. Even as tears formed in her eyes, she smiled.

"You are brave. You are in control of your feelings, and right now you can choose happiness. You can choose peace. Calm. Joy. One day at a time. I love you, Mandy."

There was a brief second of a nurse saying, “that was wonderful” before the video ended. Mandy used to wish there was more, but over the years she realized Matthias recorded exactly what she needed for moments like this.

With newfound courage, Mandy placed the Glock deep in the closet with the rest of her gear before an inkling of hesitation stopped her. She took the suicide note and tore it into small pieces, vowing to herself for the umpteenth time she'd never write one again. That she could fight the disease plaguing her mind that made her
not
her, that wanted to snuff out her spirit.

The parasite might've been outside, but Mandy fought her own darkness inside the bunker.