Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (19 page)

“MOVE,” Ian bellowed, only to trail it with a softer, patient tone, “to the fire.”

Christina had reached Lou and taken his arm to bring him to his feet, smartly directing her scowl downward and out of Ian’s sight. She led him to the flames where Doc, Mei, and Beverly had collected, taking a seat with them.

Harrison and I ended up, by pure luck, at Surge’s small fire, which left no room for anyone else. While a tense silence followed, Ian watched over his flock.

“You may speak,” Ian said.

When no one followed this command, he shouted, “SPEAK!”

And I wondered if the end of the world had been a good thing for him.

Harrison realized there was no sense in not holding a conversation and asked the man’s name. Surge replied tiredly, not bothering to look up. “Rajan Dutta.”

“Not Surge?” Harrison asked, confused.

“Only Ian calls me by that name.”

“Why?”

“I was a surgeon,” he stated simply, “once upon a time.”

My heart leapt as Harrison and I shared a glance.

“What kind of surgeon?” Harrison asked.

“Neuro,” he said plainly, inconsequentially, having no idea of the excitement building in us.

Harrison, remaining cautiously optimistic, asked, “So you understand what’s happening?”

“Out there?” Rajan asked, finally lifting his head to gesture to the exit. “I have a pretty good idea. I watched it attack my hospital.”

I liked that he called the virus “It” and didn’t refer to “them”. He understood it wasn’t the people, but the virus, that attacked. And if he understood that, maybe he could believe in Harrison.

“Of course, its victims are changing now,” he went on to say, “so we’re seeing what the virus is truly capable of.” The fire cracked and spit an ember at us. We dodged it and settled back into our spot. “You’ve been out there so you must have run across it. You must have seen it…how the blood no longer flows from their wounds…how dismemberment, if not done properly, is no longer a mortal wound to them.”

“You think the virus can learn?” Harrison asked, tensely.

“I think it’s regenerating the tissue in localized areas so that its host can survive longer.” His attention became consumed by the fire then. “Regeneration…that’s the key. It’s what keeps them moving, functioning, after their heart stops, their blood coagulates, their…”

Ian stood and the murmuring around us quieted down. He strolled, like a king through his castle, to the manager’s office and closed the door.

I kept my voice low anyways. “I’ve seen a woman with her head almost decapitated, once at a house and again several miles away. A few months ago, she wouldn’t have survived that walk, much less the severing of her head.”

Rajan ignored my last comment to ask, “The same woman?”

“Yes.”

He settled back to consider this, eventually coming to the same conclusion I had: She must have wandered back into our path by coincidence.

“Rajan,” Harrison leaned in, “what would you say if I told you that we have the antibodies to kill the virus?”

After months surviving, hopelessness had set in and it came through in his answer. “I’d say that you’ve lost sight of reality. That happens you know. I watched one woman walk down a street and directly into the oncoming Sick.” He laughed sadly to himself. “She thought they were the armed forces coming to rescue her. There’s a name for that kind of break from the consciousness. It starts with…” His eyes rolled to the ceiling trying to trigger his memory of it. Giving up, he said, “It’s a psychosomatic term and I only took one rotation in psychology.”

“Right,” Harrison said, “you’re a neurosurgeon.”

“Yes,” Rajan muttered, “a neurosurgeon.”

“Which means you understand molecular biology, physiology, virology.”

“Not virology,” he corrected, but Harrison was quickly becoming undeterred.

“You understand the human brain.”

“I do.”

Harrison shifted his weight, edging closer to Rajan. What he was about to say he didn’t want anyone else to overhear.

“My name is Harrison Hutchinson. This is Kennedy Shaw. We have the antibodies and we are searching for someone who can develop a cure.”

Rajan stared at us, trying to decide whether we had encountered that psychosomatic break or not. “You’ll need a lab,” he said.

“Yes,” Harrison agreed.

“And equipment…a centrifuge, differential blood cell counter, a scope, a cell imaging station would be helpful…”

“Right.”

“And make sure your environment is sterile.”

“Absolutely.”

Suddenly, Rajan burst into laughter, his entire body shaking with its force as we and the rest of the warehouse watched. It took him over a minute to contain himself.

“Oh,” he said, sniffing and placing a hand to his chest, “thank you, my friend. I haven’t laughed that hard in much too long.”

“We are being serious.”

He wiped the tears from his eyes. “I have no doubt that you are.”

I was stunned, never once considering that when we finally located someone with the ability to do what was needed that we would first need to convince them of its truthfulness.

“And where are the antibodies? Do you keep them in your pocket?” he said, still finding humor in our topic.

Harrison replied, unsmiling, his words delivered calmly. “They’re in my blood stream, Rajan.”

Rajan observed Harrison, apparently speculating about Harrison’s intent in this conversation. Sensing this too, Harrison pulled aside his blood-stained jacket, lifted the single shirt beneath it, and exposed the true gravity of his sincerity.

Rajan hadn’t seen it earlier, believing that Ian was too paranoid to have made an accurate judgment about Harrison.

He saw it now.

Slowly, he backed away, his eyes sliding from the mark, where the clear and obvious line of teeth had sunk through the flesh, to Harrison’s face, where he saw no sign of sickness.

It was interesting to me that a man, who had spent his career surrounded by the sick, who had healed the injured, who had probably seen a myriad of physical incapacities and knew the names of countless diseases that could inflict the human body, was stricken with such fear over this virus that even he was terrified of it.

“We told others that I’m immune. I’m not. I carry the antibodies, Rajan. In my bloodstream.”

Some sense of control swept over Rajan, the kind necessary in the makeup of a surgeon to do what was needed in the operating room. He ended his retreat and even came back to an upright position, although his eyes never left Harrison. He opened his mouth to speak when a commotion at the door caused us to pause our conversation as Ian rejoined us.

Rajan watched Ian stride toward the door, motioning for others with guns to follow. As this happened, Rajan inconspicuously reached out and lowered Harrison’s hand away from his wound, allowing the clothes to conceal it again.

When the door was unlocked, several more men entered, proudly carrying a half-eaten deer carcass, which they deposited next to the closest fire. As they stood, chests expanded, chins lifted, Ian held a quiet conversation with them. Each was several pounds heavier than their frame could support, which meant they had been significantly overweight when the outbreak had occurred. The one carrying a hunting rifle leaned it against his shoulder while tucking one thumb between his belt and sagging belly, nodding to Ian and grinning. The others began carving and roasting the meat.

Ian addressed the group and smugly announced, “You’ll be having deer tonight for dinner.” He waited and found no excitement from us. “You’ll be thanking me later for it, after you’ve eaten what we provided.”

“No, I won’t,” I muttered.

Rajan seemed disturbed by my opposition, his lips pinching in disapproval. “Ian wants to keep us strong…to fight off The Sick, so you won’t have a choice. None of us do. Not anymore.” He laughed to himself. “If we did, do you think we’d be here?”

Harrison’s eyebrows lifted. “Ian took and held you here too?”

Rajan stretched his neck until the half-moon scar was visible, a curve of white across his dark skin, and his demeanor cooled. “Do you think I’d stay after this? Think any of us with any sense would? Maybe his brother Keith, the kid’s intelligence quotient has to hover in the 60’s.”

“Where did you get it?” Harrison asked cautiously.

“What do you think the spoon around Ian’s neck is intended for? There isn’t much to eat around here,” he insinuated. His eyes darkened before he added, “And it seems you’re turn is coming up.”

I was about to reject that notion, to tell him that wasn’t going to happen when my arms were violently yanked upward. Harrison heard Ian approaching and had already leapt to his feet.

In a standard defensive move, I let my knees go and collapsed to the ground, throwing Ian off balance and giving Harrison the ability to strike at him without my head being in the way.

By the time I had spun to face Ian he was stumbling back, one hand touching his split lip, the other holding the steaming spoon. Rage filled Ian, shuddering across his face, as he grasped what had just happened. Then he came after Harrison with the vehemence and determination of an Infected.

Harrison and I didn’t allow him to gain speed, cutting the distance in half and charging Ian in return. Harrison reached him first, slamming his fist into Ian’s jaw. I took Ian’s legs, sideswiping him with enough force to sweep him off the ground. He fell but rose, too angry to understand what had happened to his knee and why it was no longer working.

“You will…,” Ian seethed.

Harrison stood over him as our “host” bent to cradle his knee, moving no farther toward him, realizing the threat had ended.

Rajan was now standing, staring in the direction of the deer, apprehension clearly present on his face. “Ian, where did your men find the carcass?”

Ian curled his lip and began again, “You will regret-”

“IAN,” Rajan screamed, his voice rattling in his throat, “WHERE DID YOUR MEN FIND THE CARCASS?”

Harrison’s shoulders straightened, his head lifted and his forehead creased with concern. He sensed something but didn’t know what it was yet. As I watched this happen, instinct made me pivot in the direction of the deer.

The men, who had carried it through the doors a few minutes earlier, were lying on the concrete beside the flames and the hacked deer remains, their heads repeatedly slamming into the ground, their arms jerking uncontrollably.

I knew instantly what they had done.

Having been too hungry to wait for the meat to cook fully, they gambled with an undercooked piece, and they had lost.

The truth was, even if they had charred the deer, I’m not sure they would have survived the virus-tinged flesh.

Screams erupted, filling the warehouse, and the survivors, nearly fifty of them, stampeded for the door, their frantic footsteps echoing off the concrete walls. Forgotten in the panic, guns slipped from the hands of several men and slid across the floor. I knew inherently which one was mine, having watched its thief flee. I ran for it, vaguely conscious of Harrison screaming my name. The problem he foresaw was that my rifle landed on the opposite side of the Infected; I needed to get around them.

Pushing back my fear, and questioning my own sanity, I ran for it, sensing that Harrison was in pursuit.

One Infected crawled to his feet and stood hunched, fingers curled into claws, surveying the situation with his new eyes. To his left were a flock of possible victims. Coming right at him was a solitary psychotic girl. Directly beyond her were several men, two of whom were meatier alternatives. He never got the chance to choose.

As I approached, a shiny piece of metal landed in his forehead, the jagged edges of it protruding outward in a ring. He never knew, or particularly cared, what hit him, falling backward and landing in a jiggling collapse, his growl dissipating until he was silent.

Thank you, Mei.

The next two had converted by then, and started charging. Doc took care of them, sending blades one right after another into their foreheads.

I never saw the remaining men, seven in all, head for those behind me. My rifle was in sight. I did hear their fight though, their grunts as blades were launched and the clatter of the metal as they missed.

I scooped up my rifle and slid around, my heels catching the concrete and slowing me to a stop. I expected to see an all out battle with the bodies of the Infected fused with our team, but Beverly, Doc, Mei, and Christina were unencumbered, rushing to where the others had collected.

Even Rajan and Ian were untouched, having backed away, becoming barely visible in the darkness where the firelight didn’t reach. They watched, terrified and in awe, witnessing what I saw next.

The Infected swarmed Harrison, reaching him two at a time until there was no sight of him, just the writhing bodies piled above him.

CHAPTER 11

W
E ATTACKED FROM ALL SIDES.
D
OC
slammed his fist down repeatedly, a single blade protruding from it. Beverly hacked away with her sword. Mei sent saw blades into their heads. Christina swayed in place, searching for an opening, until Beverly elbowed her backwards to a safer distance. I had my rifle at the ready, but when they piled on Harrison the way they were prone to, I never had a clear shot. So I stepped back and sunk my boot into their heads, one after the other. But in the end, it was none of us who freed Harrison.