Whimper (28 page)

“Hey, Zoe, it’s me. It’s okay. Let’s drink something, huh?” she cooed at me as she pushed a mug of steaming tea to my lips.

I stared through her, in no way interested in the tea. Maybe I could simply go to sleep. If I went to sleep now, maybe I’d never wake up. Brianna bumped my lips with the hot mug again. “Come on, take a few sips and I’ll leave you alone. Just drink a little.”

The cup remained there, hot against my chin. Slowly, I brought my eyes down to flit over Brianna. It hurt to look at her for some reason. I took a hesitant sip of the tea, raising my head enough to keep it from running down my face. The hot liquid burned on my tongue and warmed a path down my throat. “I hate tea,” I croaked as I struggled to sit up. “It tastes like dead grass.”

Brianna smiled and set the mug over to the side, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders. “Maybe so, but it’s hot and you were so clammy. I thought you were going into shock. Why don’t we move over to the couch? You’ll be a lot more comfortable.”

I looked around, realizing that I was laying in the middle of the foyer on the hardwood floor, still clutching Elliott’s bag to my chest and my handgun in one hand. I forced my tense fingers to slowly let go of the grip until it dropped to the wooden boards with a heavy clunk. “I’m sorry,” I murmured to Brianna. “I don’t know…” My voice trailed off. I had no idea what I was going to say.

Brianna lightly touched the bag I still held in a death grip. “Can you tell me if Elliott is somewhere safe? Or is he…is he gone?”

Adrenaline hit me like a lightning bolt from a clear sky. Suddenly I was on my feet, heart racing, pushing Brianna along with me as I dashed for the basement. “Elliott is in the bar. He’s safe, but in a coma. Well, a coma from his shot. Amie’s there too, but I have her locked in the cooler.” I stopped babbling when I realized Brianna had no idea what I was talking about. I’d have to start at the beginning. I’d have to tell her. She didn’t know. I gasped like a goldfish, fumbling around inside my over wrought brain as I tried to find the right words to tell her what had happened.

“Zoe, give it a few minutes. You’re going into shock. You’ve obviously been through hell. Let’s leave the details out for now. What needs to be done? Can you tell me that?” Brianna soothed, her voice an oasis of calm. ‘Cause she didn’t know.

I’d have to tell her and I’d have to relive it, and feel it. Oh, God. “Stop it!” I snapped at myself. “Focus!” I looked Brianna straight in the eye, squashing the pain and discomfort as it tried to force me to look away. I didn’t have time to fall apart. Elliott didn’t have time for me to fall apart.

“Elliott needs meds. He’s pretty much out. There’s also a serum he was working on. We need to find it and get it to him. He gave the only dose he had ready to Amie. Do you have any idea how long he’ll be out after he took that injection?” I sucked in air, oxygen depleted after spewing so much information at once.

Brianna reached out to take the messenger bag from me. I had to fight the urge to snatch it away from her, but I managed to release it slowly. “Let’s see what’s left in the basement. I’m sure he has a med stash here. I don’t know about the serum, but if he was working on it when he left with you then it has to be down here.”

We clomped down the basement stairs. I’d spent more time in this basement over the last few days than I had over the last ten years combined. It didn’t even feel like the same place. Somehow it was transformed. It felt like Elliott’s now and I was the trespasser.

“He keeps the meds in sealed plastic containers to keep out moisture. They’re clear and light blue,” Brianna explained as we flipped on the lights to search. Brianna went straight to the makeshift desk, looking over the equipment. She picked up an envelope with her name scrawled across the face of it and held it up for me to see. “This might answer some questions.”

I searched for the plastic bins while Brianna read through the contents of the envelope. “Zoe, we need to get this serum to Elliott. Right away,” she urged excitedly.

I rolled my eyes with my back turned. Isn’t that what I said a few minutes ago? Or maybe I hadn’t. My brain felt like it was glitching. “Yeah. The sooner we can get back, the better,” I agreed distractedly.

I finally found a small bin about the size of a shoebox shoved inside a duffel bag near the bed. “Is this it?” I asked Brianna. I’d expected something bigger. This thing couldn’t hold all that much.

Brianna glanced up from the papers. “Yeah. There should be two more though.”

I pulled everything out of the bag, but came up empty. “Well, I’m running out of places to search,” I replied, tension creeping back into my voice.

Brianna flipped the paper down and looked me over, probably waiting for me to melt down again. “I’m fine. Help me find these meds so we can get back there. I don’t like him being there alone,” I sniped.

“I have to prepare the injection. I’m reading his instructions,” Brianna explained, a little of the patience gone from her voice. “I’m anxious to help him too. He’s my
brother
.”

The hole in my heart tore open a little bit when I heard the word, but I dashed the tears from my cheeks and kept searching. My brother would want me to keep moving. The pain I felt was a palpable thing. I could poke at it and pick at the jagged edges if I let my mind wander too close to it. Zack’s absence was an elephant in the basement. I could tell from the sidelong glances and pursed lips that Brianna wanted to question me about him, but she either hadn’t figured out how to ask or she was afraid to hear my answer. I wasn’t sure I could force my tongue to form his name without having another breakdown.

“Before we leave, I need to grab every memory card and flash drive we can find. I need to get some information and supplies to a group of survivors. They’re making a run for the quarantine roadblock to try to get through. I promised I’d help them,” I said. I hated the flat, hollow sound of my voice. It gave so much away.

“Oh! You did it then? You were actually able to hack the CDC servers? That’s awesome!”Bri bubbled as she messed with a piece of equipment I didn’t know anything about.

“No,” I said simply, “I didn’t.” I kept moving things, going through every single box or bag in the immediate area. Taut, uncomfortable silence stretched between us as Brianna struggled not to push me for information and I wrestled with my inability to explain what had happened. She deserved to know. I knew that. I should have shared the entire story already. I would. I’d tell her soon.

I lifted the white bed sheet draped over the lab table and found the two missing boxes. On hands and knees, I pulled them out and lifted them up for Brianna’s inspection. “They’re empty,” I pointed out, even though she could clearly see that for herself.

Brianna bit her lip and set down what she was working on to inspect one of the boxes herself. “He shouldn’t be this low. It doesn’t make sense. Are you sure he didn’t have more in his bag?”

I rubbed my face, strangely glad that I hadn’t been the only one to miss Elliott’s worsening condition. “He told me they weren’t working as well anymore. He had to take more to get the same effect.”

“Oh,” Brianna replied, turning quickly away to return to the detailed process she was following.

“I didn’t know until today either,” I said, feeling the need to comfort her.

“Why don’t you grab the other stuff you need while I finish this up?” Brianna suggested stiffly. I wanted a chance to walk through my house again, in case it was my last day here. I stuffed Elliott’s meds and some clean clothes in his bag and left a sniffling Brianna behind in the basement.

On the main level, I poured myself a small glass of water as I looked through drawers for spare SD cards. As I passed the foyer, the infected woman outside caught a glimpse of me through the slats on the door. She screamed and bashed her face against the metal. I jumped, my glass slipped from my hand onto the floor, splintering it into a million tiny shards. “Fuck you! You fucking bitch!” I snarled back at her. “When I open that door, I’m going to fucking kill you too!” Stupid tears leaked from my eyes again, so I slammed my way up the stairs. I passed Zack’s open door without looking at it. He probably had a flash drive I could use, but I couldn’t go there.

I tore apart my room, looking for any old cell phone or cheap advertising drive I might have stashed away. I found six in total. That would have to be enough. Six chances to get information outside. Hopefully there’d be something good on there. As I left my room, I forced myself to face Zack’s open doorway. It looked the same. His wallet lay on his bed, a pair of dirty jeans and some socks rolled up into balls littered the floor. The longer I looked at the empty space the harder it was to breath. I gently pulled the door closed and pushed out a long breath. “I’ll try to make you proud. I’ll try to be worthy.” I choked, unable to finish. I patted the closed door instead and kept walking.

Brianna was cleaning up the wet glass mess when I came back downstairs. “I’m ready to go when you are,” she said, glancing at the snarling mess outside the door. “But what are we going to do about her?”

“We’re going to shoot her in the head,” I replied coldly. “It seems to work pretty well.”

Brianna stared at me, her mouth open to gasp. She could judge me all she wanted, but she was about to step outside the walls of this castle and then her tune would change. She may have been on the front with Elliott, but this outbreak was light years beyond the cases she’d seen and there was no way for her to prepare her for it adequately.

“Have you been watching the TV coverage at all?” I asked, wondering if she’d at least seen the footage they’d been showing.

Brianna glanced towards the TV in the living room and froze. “What?” she gasped and darted towards the set. I guess she hadn’t seen any of it. I’d been shocked too, but Bri looked absolutely terrified.

“Maybe you should stay here,” I suggested weakly. I didn’t want to go back out there alone. I didn’t want to go out there at all, but I had to. If she fell apart after seeing video of a few attacks, she’d never—

“You knew about this and didn’t say anything?” Brianna demanded angrily. Puzzled, I moved to see the full screen. Elliott’s picture took up most of the right corner of the news report with the word “SUSPECT” emblazoned beneath.

“What is this?” I gasped. Brianna cranked the volume up on the television as we read the crawling news ticker at the bottom of the screen in horror.
CDC releases photos of possible suspect in release of viral contagion on university campus. Elliott Carter, member of militant students’ rights faction, accused of infecting hundreds of students on campuses around the country. Carter is considered extremely dangerous. Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts is urged to contact the CDC
. An 800 number was tagged on the end and a website address, as if anyone here could use either.

“We need to get to him before they do.” I sighed, pulling the bag back across my body and loading up my handgun. “Do you know how to shoot?”

I gave Bri a quick lesson on firearm safety when she revealed that she’d never held a gun before. Her aim would be shit, but if it came down to it, she needed to be armed. As I ran through the basics one last time, we heard vehicles outside.

Brianna grabbed my arm in panic. “Zoe, they found us!” she gasped. We ran to the front windows and peered through the tiny slit between the metal slats. I could barely see anything beyond movement. “Are they white vans?” I asked breathlessly. If they surrounded us now, we’d never get back to Elliott in time.

“I think so,” Brianna whispered, as though they could hear us. Hell, maybe they could. I listened for the crunch of tires on gravel, waiting for them to pull into the driveway and block our exits from the porch. It never happened. “They just drove by,” Brianna said incredulously. “Where are they all going? There had to be at least six vans.”

“Elliott!” we both cried. “Come on, we have to go now. We’ll take the van. It’ll be faster and maybe we’ll blend in,” I said as I grabbed my stuff. I paused to grab the poker from the fireplace in the front room.

“What’s that for?” Brianna asked innocently.

I swung the front door open, leaving the outside metal grating in place. The infected woman had been at the front of the porch, no doubt drawn by the sound of the vehicles racing past, but upon hearing the door open, she turned and raced back towards us. Her filthy tennis shoes made hollow slapping noises as she stormed towards the door, so eager to attack us that she leaned into it. As she was about to slam into the metal grating, I shoved the poker through one of the holes with all the strength I could muster. There was a sickening wet crunch, then the woman fell backwards onto the porch, twitching.

Brianna swallowed hard a few times, but she didn’t throw up. I didn’t even feel sick to my stomach this time. Either I was becoming emotionally numb, or my humanity was wearing away. “How will we get back in if the house is locked down?” Brianna asked me, looking at the control panel.

“We’re going to have to put the stairs back down and release the doors. There isn’t a remote. No one ever updated the system for that kind of thing. Who knew we’d ever need it?” I shrugged. I hated leaving the house exposed, but hopefully it would be okay. If nothing was moving inside, maybe it would be left alone. We took deep breaths and hit the buttons to release the stairs. “I’m hoping anything that was still out there is chasing those vans right now,” I reassured Brianna. “But we still need to get to the van as fast as possible. Don’t forget to watch for the one caught in the steps. We need to make sure he’s actually dead, don’t assume.”

Brianna stared straight ahead, barely nodding her head to show me that she’d heard. I grabbed her hand and squeezed hard as I hit the button to release the stairs. “As soon as they’re close to the ground, I’m going to release the door and we’re going to run. Unless something ugly shows up first.”

The mechanism started grinding away, but when it hit about halfway down it started to catch, clanking up and down slightly. It was stuck. Brianna’s grip tightened on mine. “Now what?” she whispered. We could go over the railing, but no one would be here to let us back in.