“
Y
ou’re not going
to do it, are you?” Brolin asked.
“I don’t have a choice. I saw him kill Rowan without even flinching. He’ll kill them.”
“You can’t,” Axel said. “I know you care about your friends but think about this. This isn’t just about you handing yourself in. It’s about the lives of thousands. Those who he will force his will upon.”
“I didn’t say all of us were going to hand ourselves in. Brolin, get me Lincoln on the radio.”
While he was pulling out the radio that he’d brought with him to communicate with the others outside the gate, some of the folks in the back had come around to find out what was going on. Axel hopped out to keep them calm.
“Lincoln,” I spoke into the mic and waited for him to reply.
The radio crackled. He came on the line.
“Put Wren on please.”
A few seconds later Wren got on the line.
I brought her up to speed on what Fritz had said.
“No, Johnny, he’ll kill you and probably everyone that assisted.”
“I need you guys to meet up with us. Before I hand myself in. Fritz doesn’t know that we are handing out weapons to the community. We need to keep doing it. I’ll bring in one of the trucks with some of the weapons. The rest of you are going to have to rally up anyone and everyone that will help.”
“But...”
I cut her off before she could go any further. I gave her the location where we would meet and then turned off the radio. I sat there for a few minutes staring out into the darkness of the night. We were parked down some deserted road. The night was warm and the sound of the ocean brought little peace to the turmoil I was feeling inside.
M
y stomach was reeling
with fear.
“What the hell is going on?” I muttered to Elijah before we were dragged out.
One moment we had been sitting quietly inside the trailer, the next all hell broke loose and we heard gunfire and explosions. Twenty minutes later Jess was dragged out of the trailer and then we heard her screaming. It was so bad I wanted to throw up. When they finally dragged us out I saw what they had done to her. They had sliced her with a knife down her back multiple times. She was laid on the floor sobbing and cowering below them. She looked as if she had pissed herself with fright.
They tossed us to the ground like rag dolls. Our hands were still bound. Anyone who spoke up was immediately slammed in the face with the butt end of a rifle.
“What’s going on?” I asked as we could hear the sound of gunfire erupting from behind the walls. One of Fritz’s men stepped forward and went to jam his gun in my face when he was stopped by Fritz.
“Enough.” He stepped in front of us and walked up and down before being called back to his trailer. I had no idea what game he was playing. Was this some mental form of torture? Had Johnny managed to rally some people together to fight back?
My knees were beginning to ache from kneeling on stone. Ten minutes must have passed before a light swept over us from an approaching truck. I squinted to shield my eyes from the glare. My eyes darted between the men who were holding their assault rifles at the vehicle. When it finally came into view, I saw who was inside.
Johnny.
I
let
the truck idle there for a minute or two while I mustered up the courage to get out. My stomach churned inside of me, adrenaline kicked into overdrive.
“Get out of the vehicle,” one of the men said.
I saw several of the men go around the back of the truck and look inside. There was no one in there. They had all left with Wren and Lincoln. The risk factor just went up but I knew if we pulled this off we’d be able to regain control of the community.
Finally, Fritz and Steadman came into view at the front, their faces lit up by the headlights.
“Don’t do anything stupid. Come on now.”
Maybe it was because I was hesitating too long but Fritz motioned to Steadman and he went over to Jess and picked her up by her hair. When I saw what they had done to her the world around me came caving in. My chest tightened and I clenched my hands.
I pushed open the door and slowly slipped down.
One of his men cautiously approached and began to pat me down; when he made it to my jacket he ripped it open and saw what I had done. Wrapped around my body was a belt of twenty grenades. I didn’t have wire going through the pins or any kind of device that would allow me to explode all of them. All I needed was one grenade and that one was in my right hand. The pin had already been pulled. If it went off, so would all the others. The men jumped back and started placing distance between us. I knew he wouldn’t shoot me. He needed me. I held up the grenade in my hand.
“Now let her go.”
Steadman raised his gun.
“Don’t shoot, you idiot, we need him.”
“That’s right. You need me. But I don’t need you.”
“You wouldn’t dare. You’d be killing yourself and your friends.”
I chuckled like a man drunk. “Fritz, the fact that any of us are still alive is a miracle. We should have died back in my old town but we didn’t. Now I for one have lost more than enough people to push me over the edge. And believe me. I am at the edge. I have been standing at the edge for over a year just waiting for the one moment to end it.” I turned around taking in the view of all his men. “And I can’t see a better time to end it, than here with you fuckers.”
“You don’t want to do that.”
“Don’t I?”
Jess stared on with a blood-soaked shirt and jeans. Fritz studied my face as if trying to see if I was bluffing.
“So this is how it’s going to go. You are going to let them go, and then you are going to turn around and head out the gate. Do you understand?”
Baja broke into a grin that turned into laughter. He went to get up but Steadman smacked him back down.
“Hey!” I shouted. “You do that again, and it will be the last thing you do.”
“You’re bluffing,” Fritz said.
“Are you willing to take that risk?” I began walking closer to him and he started backing up. I heard the sound of guns cocking.
“Don’t shoot him.” The expression on his face was full of frustration. “You’re not helping anyone here, Johnny. What I’m trying to do…”
“… is save humanity?” I finished off what he was about to say. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard that line countless times. If that’s the case, where are the other five immunes?”
“They’re dead,” Annora said.
“That was unavoidable.”
“Really, five times?” Baja said. “I don’t call that unavoidable. I call that a fuckup. You might want to quit your job as a brain surgeon because you suck.”
In the quiet tension, the truck with Wren and the others in pulled up near mine. Everyone in the back jumped out including the people they had collected. All of them were armed. They began fanning out with weapons aimed at Fritz’s men. Three more trucks arrived with even more of the community. Each of them were ready to fight.
Fritz started nodding slowly. In his hand he held a Glock. He began walking around taking in the sight of everyone.
“Are you going to allow one person to determine if humanity gets the cure or not?”
“Don’t listen to him, the last five immunes he operated on died,” Annora said.
“What happens if your son, daughter or spouse is bitten? What then? Are you going to keep getting injections that last a month or two at most? Are you going to have your loved one suffer? Are you ready to put a bullet in their head?”
“Don’t listen to him,” I said.
I motioned for our group to get up off their knees and come towards us. I kept a close eye on Steadman. He looked agitated and jumpy with his rifle aimed at me. One by one they got up cautiously looking at Steadman and those who had weapons on them. They moved forward to join the others. Just as Jess began to shuffle towards me, Fritz grabbed her by the back of the collar. He pushed a gun up against the side of her head.
“I can’t let you do this. I won’t let you do this.”
“It’s over, Fritz.” I paused. “You’re over.”
“No. No.”
I stepped forward. “Just put the gun down.”
Jess was no longer sobbing. She stared intently at me as if coming to some realization.
Fritz had this look in his eyes like a wild animal that had been cornered and knew it was only a matter of time before sedation. Keeping a firm grip on the back of her collar he leveled the gun out at me. Immediately everyone began to run back, expecting him to shoot.
“I just needed to see. I just needed to see if I could do it.”
Annora came up alongside me. “Dad, put it down. You can still be of use.”
“How? Tell me how?”
“Just let her go, Dad, she’s suffered enough,” she said.
There was a long pause as if he was contemplating the situation.
His eyes became downcast as Annora continued speaking to him. Telling him that she loved him. She was getting through to him. He wouldn’t listen to me but to his own daughter, his flesh and blood — that was working. Slowly but surely he began to release his grip on Jess. When his grip was released, Jess glanced at him before slowly moving away. I put my hand out to her and she was only a few steps away from me when I heard the gunshot. Jess’s hands started trembling. A look of shock spread across her face. Her eyes drifted downward then she collapsed.
“No!”
My eyes darted to Steadman who had taken the shot. I didn’t even think twice, I threw the grenade clutched in my hand towards him. A sudden explosion and all hell broke loose in the camp.
I fell down by Jess and flipped her over.
Bullets snapped in the air as rounds were being fired in every direction. Elijah and Ben dragged me back out of the line of fire along with Jess who wasn’t moving. Once behind a vehicle, I tried to get Jess to respond.
“Come on, don’t you die on me.”
My eyes welled up with tears as I removed the grenade belt and Elijah took it. I pushed up her eyelids and then lowered my ear to her mouth. I could hear breathing. Shallow. Faint.
“That’s it. Stay with me. Stay with me.”
I ripped open her shirt to get a better look at where the bullet had gone in. Blood was pouring fast from her chest. My pulse began racing even faster.
“Annora!” I yelled. She came rushing over and started shouting to a couple of other people to grab a medic kit from the trailer. People raced around us firing rounds as Fritz’s men returned fire.
Both my hands were gripped tightly over one of Jess’s. “You’re going to be okay. The doc, she’s going to…” I sniffed hard knowing full well that she wasn’t going to be okay. It was wishful thinking. Denial perhaps. Blood trickled out the corner of her mouth. Jess looked as if she was trying to say something but nothing came out. “Jess,” I gripped her hand hard. Then, Annora looked at me. Slowly her head shook. “No. No!” I looked down at Jess, she was gulping as if trying to get air in.
Then, the life in her eyes vanished and her hand went limp. “No. No. NO!” I screamed. I pulled her up into my arms. Rocking back and forth, tears streaked my cheeks as I held her.
Though the world around me had fallen into chaos, my mind became strangely still and quiet.
W
hen dawn came
, and a deep orange sun burned across the horizon, I was still holding Jess. The smell of gun smoke lingered in the air. I can’t say that I noticed what took place around me for the better part of the night. All I saw was Jess. She was gone, ripped from my world. My mind circled back and forth between what I could have done differently.
Guilt, anguish and an utter emptiness washed over me. Like nails being raked down a blackboard they tortured my mind. Eventually Wren and Ben came over and tried to convince me to let go of her so that someone could finish what needed to be done before she turned.
I refused. If anyone was going to do it, it was me. I wouldn’t let anyone carry that burden. It was mine. Ben placed a Glock in my free hand.
Pale, drained, tired and still in shock I waited there until her eyelids fluttered and milky eyes stared back at me. She gurgled some inhuman sound. I hesitated for a moment then placed the gun to the side of her temple.
Tears that streaked my face dripped down onto hers as I pulled the trigger.
My body jerked as it went off. Ben waited for another hour before he came and convinced me to let her go. Covered in blood and grime I walked away completely numb and paying no attention to what was going on around me. Baja took me back home and waited downstairs while I stepped into a shower. I crouched on the floor with my arms wrapped tight around my knees. As warm water rushed over me, I became mesmerized by the black and red colors that twisted and turned before disappearing down the drain.
In that shower, I broke down. All the pain I had carried for so long. All the loss. Everything that had been bottled up spilled out. When I stepped out on to the cold tiled floor and dried my body, my eyes were swollen and red.
The sound of gunfire was still ringing in my ears. The image of Jess and the way she looked at me was forever burned in my memory.
Later, I soon learned what had taken place in the hours that I sat with Jess. The community fought back, many died taking back control of what most had come to call home. Among the dead was Fritz. It was unknown who shot him. Though some believe it was Annora.
Over the following week, Ben, Elijah, Baja and Wren moved into the same house that I was holed up in. I hadn’t been out except in the yard to get some fresh air. Despite me telling them I would be fine, they didn’t believe it. Even at night I found at least one of them awake. They said they couldn’t sleep but I knew that wasn’t true. They were concerned for Wren and me. Both of us had lost people close to us.
Two weeks passed and I knew they wouldn’t leave if I didn’t get back to normal living. Whatever that was now.
A few weeks later, Sebastian was found murdered in his bed. His throat slashed. No one knew who did it. And quite frankly, no one seemed to care that he was gone. Everyone had a reason to want him dead. How he had managed to survive for as long as he had was still a mystery but I think Ethan wasn’t done with him.
Lukas and Kiera were eventually reunited with their sister, Jade. They had been through a lot for their young age, and as tough as it was to lose their parents, they now had a strong community of people around them to help.
I sat outside in one of the deck chairs staring at the empty pool. As hard as I tried to block out the pain I felt, I couldn’t. How would anyone understand? I didn’t expect anyone to. I certainly didn’t want to become a burden to anyone.
It was the same when anyone died. But the truth was, I wasn’t the only one who lost a loved one that night. We all did. Wren had lost her brother, the others a friend.
“Are you going to be alright?” Wren asked. She was seated across from me.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
She nodded. In all honesty I wasn’t sure. What was she hoping to hear? It wasn’t like we were any different in our loss. Somehow she seemed to be coping better. How was that? How did she do it?
Death was strange. It always would be. Everyone carried his or her own beliefs about it. Some could bounce back within a matter of days, others months, and some would never truly recover. They would become a shell of their former self. Of course they would get up and smile and do all the things that had to be done. Life would continue. You couldn’t wallow forever but when did the grief stop? When should a person reopen the curtains and smile again without guilt? No one could say when, it was different for each person.
Nights were the hardest. In the silence of the evening, when I was alone with my thoughts, I struggled. I drank to block out the memory of Jess.
Eventually no more tears fell; instead I was left feeling numb.
As summer turned into fall, and the leaves began to change into a gold brown, the community slowly returned to normal. A stone was erected in section A in memory of the fallen. But I didn’t need to see it to remember. I still remained back there, lost in that moment. Of course I got up every day, I went through the motions and pulled my weight but a part of me had died that night.
I was unsure if I would ever fully feel the way I had for Jess.
As more immunes were discovered and Annora continued to run tests, the number of months that a person could live after a bite got longer and longer. Annora believed it was only a matter of time before she would successfully create the first antibody that would ensure people could survive.
Lincoln’s crew never joined our camp but we saw them often. We would go up to Orient; they would come down to us. We combined our resources and expanded the walls together. It would be a slow process but humanity would eventually stand again, infection free.
It was a hope we all shared.
And one that we all believed we would see.
A day when life would return to normal, if only through trial and error.
But then again, had humanity ever survived any other way?