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“By the time I tracked down my mother,” he said. “She had already attacked several people, people that were out of my reach because they were taken to the hospital.”
“What did you do when you found her?” Lauren asked.
“She tried to attack me, so I shot her in the leg, but she kept coming,” John struggled to say. “I shot her other leg, but she wouldn’t stop, she was rabid. I had no choice, so I shot her in the chest. She fell and I couldn’t believe it when she got back up. I had to shoot her in the head and then I burned the body.”
“And your brother?” asked Ardent.
“I killed him too.”
“You created this shit?” Derek said. “I—we,” he pointed to Mila. “We’ve lost everyone that we ever loved and you’re the one that created it!”
“Calm down, baby, it wasn’t him,” Milla said, her eyes filled with revulsion for John.
“Yeah, all of you keep that in mind,” John said in a hard tone. “My father is responsible for the death of the world. I’ll give you his address and you can go take it up with him. I’m sure he’s right where I left him, but if any of you fuck with me, you’ll regret it.”
“No one’s gonna mess with you, John,” Ardent assured him.
“You better hope so. Let’s get something straight . . . Tomorrow morning we leave here; once we’re clear of the dead pieces of shit, I’m going my own way,” John said and left the cafeteria.
“That guy’s dangerous,” Milla said.
“How did you expect him to react?” Lauren said. “He didn’t have to tell us about his father and you treated him like he did this to the world. You all made him guilty by association.”
Lauren walked off after John.
“I don’t blame him, Lauren,” Anthony said, but she ignored him.
John was outside, in front of the hospital checking on the condition of the sinkhole. It looked okay to him; no movement from any undead trying to dig their way up. Besides, there were four claymore mines planted around it. If anything moved, they would know it. Still, he wanted to be sure as he scanned it again with a flashlight.
Lauren approached.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey back.”
“Don’t worry about Derek. He can be a dick sometimes, but he’s harmless.”
“He has a right to be angry.”
“Yeah, but not at you. You didn’t do anything wrong. I think you’re a good man.”
“I’m no prince, Lauren.”
“But you’re nice to me . . . Kinda, anyway,” she chuckled.
“Well, I’m sorry about before. I can be a hard ass, but I promise to be nice to you from this moment forward,” John said with a slight smile. “I mean, how can I not be nice to you on a night like this? The moon is out and we’re being serenaded,” he gestured to the din of the dead beyond the wall on the street. “It’s romantic.”
Lauren smiled, “You see, you are a good man.”
“You’re a sweet girl, but don’t be fooled. I still only care about one survivor.”
“Really, John?”
“Really. I’m gonna get some sleep, you should too. See you in the morning.”
John went back to the hospital as Lauren watched him thoughtfully.
As he walked away, he had a feeling—something he didn’t want to feel—but he couldn’t help it. He got to the doors of the hospital and stopped shortly, wanting to look back at her because he knew she was looking at him. He wanted to, but didn’t. He turned his head slightly in her direction, then looked away and went inside.
“Really, John?” she said to herself.
One by one, everyone called it night and headed to sleep. Joe and Maggie went to the office that was their room. Inside, they closed the door and Maggie knelt down next to her daughter. Corina was lying down on a makeshift bed of a futon mattress on top of couch pillows. She was covered up to her neck with a blanket, and she didn’t look very well. She was shivering and her tiny face was covered in sweat. Her sleep wasn’t sound as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
Maggie grabbed a nearby hand towel and wiped her daughter’s forehead.
“How is she?” asked Joe.
Maggie felt her forehead, “The fever’s about the same, hopefully it’ll break soon.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine by morning.”
“I hope so.”
• • •
A hard wind howled down the long corridors of John’s mind. He didn’t know where he was, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t scared because he didn’t care. There were echoes that plagued him in the very fabric of the walls that surrounded him. He couldn’t pinpoint the people speaking from the shadows, but he knew the voices—they swept down on him like birds of prey—
“—Is this really what you want to do, son?—” his mother’s voice said.
“—Don’t you dare give up on me, soldier! —” a drill sergeant shouted.
“—Do you love me, John?—” a young girl said.
“No, I can’t, I’m sorry,” John answered.
“—You don’t have to go, John.—” the faceless girl said.
“Yes, I do.”
Then he heard a voice he didn’t want to hear, a voice he wanted to forget, but it was impossible. The voice came at him as a whisper and then increased until it filled his ears.
“—You can’t change who you are!—”
His father’s voice was powerful—
John awoke abruptly in the chair he had slept in and sat up quickly with his assault rifle at the ready. His nightmares haunted him and they were a nightly reminder of just how human he really was. He was alone in an office on the fourth floor of the hospital. The door was closed, locked, and reinforced with a chair jammed under the doorknob. The office had no windows, so it was hot. He lowered his weapon and wiped the sweat off his face.
He checked his watch:
0427.
The others wouldn’t be up for a couple hours.
It had taken him three hours just to close his eyes, so he’d had about six hours of sleep; The most he’d had in weeks. He wished for a little more, but that wasn’t possible with the lingering apparition of his father—
“You can’t change who you are.”
John rubbed his forehead and his sleep-webbed eyes.
“Fuck you,” he answered.
He quietly removed the chair from under the doorknob and opened it. His eyes peered through the crack and scanned the corridor—it was clear—John stepped out. He didn’t have a specific place to go and just wandered aimlessly—kind of like the dead, which he could hear outside. They weren’t as loud as they were before he went to sleep, but they were still out there—maybe three thousand out front and a couple hundred in the back of the hospital. Out by the channel they were going to use today.
Hopefully.
He thought about the word, but hadn’t actually spoken it in years.
As quiet as a cat, he descended the stairwell.
Lauren was standing watch for the entire group. She didn’t like to sleep at night, so she had no problem staying up and keeping an eye out. She used to sleep fine during the night but—after the infection hit—she was terrified of being woken up by a decaying face, which had actually happened to someone next to her in another group’s camp a few months back. Her steps were at a steady, slow pace in the hospital’s lobby. Joe, Maggie, and their daughter, Corina, were asleep in their office. Alan preferred to sleep in his machine shop than anywhere else in the building. Tom and Anthony were locked in Tom’s trailer. Lauren didn’t know where Donnie slept and she didn’t care; the guy was creepier than Alan. Her group was asleep in the cafeteria.
John’s location eluded her, but she wanted to know. She wanted to know everything about him, but that was proving more than difficult. His guard was up and it was thick. She didn’t know what she was thinking anyway; being attracted to some guy she hardly knew was insane right now. Nevertheless, that was love. It didn’t care what went on, it only knew one thing—the heart wants what the heart wants, and it didn’t care who it hurt to get it. Lauren realized this and still thought the idea was insane—but she wanted him. She didn’t need a man to survive, but she wanted someone’s hand to hold, someone who would embrace her when she needed it, someone who would listen to her babble. That wasn’t too much to ask for, even if it didn’t last very long. She just wanted him so she could be reminded what it was once like to be a normal human being and not the cold-hearted killer that she was now.
John was a sliver peering from behind the doorframe of the stairwell. He saw Lauren on the other side of the hospital by way of her flashlight beam scanning back and forth. He waited there as she turned around and came back in the cafeteria’s direction. He didn’t know what he was doing there, spying on Lauren . . . but he did know. He just didn’t want to accept the fact that he was seriously attracted to her, because he couldn’t be with her right now. Why would he? If he developed feelings for her, even in the slightest, that would unknowingly cause him to make mistakes and, in these times, mistakes get you killed or even worse, bit. That would mean a slow death. Still, he couldn’t help what went through his mind, besides the dark memories—this girl had invaded his thoughts.
She had made her way back to the cafeteria and John hid. She walked into his vision and, although he couldn’t see her clearly in the dark, even in outline, Lauren was beautiful. Any fool could see that.
John yearned for her, “She’s gonna get you killed, John,” he whispered.
Lauren thought she heard something and pointed her flashlight at the stairwell, but no one was there.
John was on the front corridor of the second floor. He looked at the sinkhole in the courtyard; there was no change in its condition. He turned down the central corridor and headed to the back of the building. At the plate-glass, he looked at the employee parking lot. Everything was quiet and no one was around, especially none of the walking corpses. He stood there and looked at the boat they would use in a few hours, wondering if their crazy idea would actually work? It was well thought out and they were prepared, but he’d been in these situations before. Places he thought were safe, fell. He recalled the camp at the peninsula. It was a fortress, yet they got in.
They always got in.
He looked at the thin walls surrounding this place, which seemed so insignificant, compared to the shipping container walls from the peninsula. A good wind could blow them down.
He wondered when that wind would come.
John studied the parking lot; something about it bugged him. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something down there had piqued his curiosity. He looked carefully until he saw what was staring back up at him—the abandoned employee vehicles—there were twelve of them. From compact cars, to sedans, SUVs, and a couple of expensive, full-size trucks. Most were the type of vehicles that people would want so they could survive the apocalypse, but there they were. John realized that their owners must have left them behind when it became impossible to leave the city by car but, then, what happened to the owners? They probably left on foot and are dead by now—most likely. Still, he couldn’t stop looking at the cars and he wondered.
Something clicked in his mind…
DAY 23:
THE HANGING MAN
INSIDE THE AIRBUS WRECKAGE OF THE FLIGHT FROM LOS ANGELES TO LONDON, Paul Hubber was still strapped in his seat and alive. He was unconscious, but still alive and not infected. There was a three-inch gash on his forehead that bled mildly, but it was a shallow, cleanly cut wound from a piece of flying debris—not a bite. Consciousness whispered to him and he began to rise. He moaned from pain and slowly opened his eyes, but his vision was extremely impaired from the crash and his hearing was nothing but a deep
ringing
that distorted his equilibrium. He felt a strong pressure at his waist, but wasn’t concerned with that as much as he was with his sight . . . everything was a blur.
He looked up and saw what had to be the sky, because it moved. The top of the fuselage was ripped open and dark clouds churned overhead. The ringing in his ears subsided some and he could hear faint thunder from the skies above. It was too dark so he wiped his eyes and looked again—he saw dark patches of clouds, but they were moving too fast. His hearing improved and the thunder turned to
growling
. His head throbbed. He touched it and saw blood on his fingertips, which explained why his head hurt so badly. All the blood had rushed to his head and the pressure wouldn’t go away. He rubbed his eyes again and they finally focused.
He looked up at the sky once more—
The clouds were the undead.
Over thirty of them were gathered, reaching down trying to get at him and he thought,
“How are they standing up there?”
His mind cleared and he realized that
he
was upside-down and being held in place by the seatbelt, which explained the pressure on his waist and his throbbing head. The dead wanted Paul badly and the blood dripping from his forehead agitated them. They jumped and clawed at the air because he was out of their reach, but it was a short reach of only four feet or so. Paul saw that the dead man next to him was still strapped to his seat; his dead face dangling and looking at him with a twisted grin. The head was still attached to the body, but only by a couple threads of flesh. The spinal cord was severed so it wouldn’t have use of its limbs if it reanimated.