Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (20 page)

In an incredible display of power, the mound of Infected over him suddenly exploded outward, their bodies flailing as if a roadside bomb had been detonated beneath them. But it wasn’t some rudimentary piece of metal and twisted wires that did this, it was Harrison.

He emerged roaring, his guttural voice rumbling off the concrete and metal that surrounded us, his arms bowing and flying outward as he cast them from his body. His clothing was torn, shredded to the surface of his skin where large portions of flesh had been eaten away. He was dripping in blood, but didn’t seem to notice in his fit of wild hysteria.

I was momentarily stricken by what I saw, becoming immobile for a fleeting second, just long enough for me to see Harrison’s wild eyes land on me and come back to reality.

I didn’t catch it then, it didn’t come to the top of my consciousness, but I know without a doubt in my mind that he did do it. Harrison checked the weapons in each of our team’s hands and only once it was confirmed we held them did he relax. There was no time to consider why because that was when the rest of us
really
went to work.

Our team took down the Infected easily, each of us working on one target until he or she no longer moved. We were focused, exact, and determined, so much so that none of us realized that one got out from under us.

A woman in a pants suit with one earring still dangling from one ear, rolled toward Rajan and Ian huddled near the wall. She snapped to her feet in a crouch and would have returned to us if she hadn’t seen Ian jerk away from her. That slight movement caught her eye and drew her in. She made it to them in the length of time it took Ian to scream.

In his panic, he did what came naturally to him. He shoved Rajan in front of him. The woman landed on Rajan eagerly tearing away, not caring who it was that would fill her stomach, as Ian slipped to safety, slithering along the wall toward the exit.

I almost shouted as the woman sank her teeth into Rajan, who had been our only hope for developing a cure, but instinct took over and I swung my rifle, aimed and fired.

Her head sprayed, her body shuddered, and she collapsed into the curve of Rajan’s neck, her teeth remaining embedded in him.

The noise in the warehouse had died down, yet I kept the rifle at my shoulder as I cleared the room. The others in our team were doing the same, slowly rotating entirely around to ensure no Infected remained alive. Seeing no movement, my shoulders dropped and I lowered my weapon.

Harrison was evaluating me from where he stood, a few yards away.

“I’m fine,” I said. “You?”

His lips pinched into a thin line resembling a smile and I knew he wasn’t thinking about himself. He was looking beyond me to where Rajan lay, and I could see his thoughts clearly in his expression…
we were
close, so damn close
.

We had been. I would agree.

I was wondering how likely it was going to be to find another surgeon, especially one whose specialty was the brain, in this war-torn world, when Harrison’s mouth fell open and he began a rapid march in my direction.

It was the shuffling behind me, as the woman was rolled aside and Rajan stood, that caught my attention. In less than sixty seconds, the length of time it took for the T1L2 virus to infiltrate the body, the person who would be our savior had become our enemy.

Ian and I witnessed it at precisely the same moment, being exactly the same distance from Rajan. Because of it, who Rajan would target was an even toss up…until Ian screamed.

Rajan ran for him, landing on his chest before I could raise my rifle and get off a shot. Ian’s screams worsened, growing raspy as Rajan latched on to his throat. It was too late for either of them at that point, so I sent a bullet into Rajan’s head and waited for Ian to turn before sinking one into him.

I had the feeling that I was being watched and turned to find Harrison’s eyes on me.

“What?” I asked, still absorbing all that had just happened. Harrison didn’t seem to be nearly as upset. In fact, the chaos seemed to be the farthest thing from his mind.

He let me in on his thoughts when he said, “You continually amaze me, Kennedy.”

I stared back for a moment. Then I rolled my eyes and laughed, which unfortunately came out more like a snort. “Coming from someone who just tossed seven Infected aside, I’d consider that the ultimate compliment.”

“You should,” he replied bluntly as he turned to find those who hadn’t gotten through the door staring back.

We had been so consumed with securing the area that we had forgotten about those fleeing. When they did, the exit became a funnel, bottlenecking at the door as the crowd rushed for it, leaving the majority inside. If we hadn’t been here, if we hadn’t been prepared to handle what happened… There was no need to tell them. It was visible on their faces.

We moved back to our fires as they watched, sitting again in front of the flames because there was nothing more we could do. The threat was eliminated, what was left of it were now piles on the floor.

“They’re watching you,” Mei whispered, and we looked up to find her staring at Harrison.

“They’re scared,” Doc said.

Christina scoffed. “Who wouldn’t be, after seeing someone throw seven Skin Eaters off them in a single blow?”

The term “sense of humor” was foreign to Beverly but she happened to find Christina’s understatement hilarious. Beginning with a faint giggle, her laughter grew quickly until she was leaning forward, struggling to catch her breath. When she was done, she and Christina were the only ones left smiling, sharing a unique bond that the rest of us who lacked sarcasm didn’t entirely understand.

Harrison inconspicuously checked on the crowd, who remained suspicious and in place, before leveling his hands over the heat. It was a brilliant maneuver. He didn’t need the heat; Harrison didn’t feel cold. It was designed to send a message that said, “I’m human, uninfected, and nothing to fear.”

They understood and steadily trickled back, slowly, but with enough caution and reservation that they chose fires farthest from us, leaving the two closest to us unattended. There was conversation in the crowd about Harrison’s continued existence after the attack and I was happy to hear the word “immune” intermingling with it.

“Should we move the bodies outside?” Christina asked, swaying her eyes from Harrison and me to Beverly.

Mei answered, already knowing the plan without it having to be discussed. “We’ll be leaving at dawn, in an hour or two.”

Showing their resilience, she and Beverly shrugged and together dragged chairs toward our fire, their metal underbellies scraping loudly along the concrete. Doc and Mei did the same, and eventually Harrison reclaimed one for me. Before long, snores rattled across the warehouse.

After Harrison cleaned his wounds he surprised me by climbing into my chair, sharing the narrow space so closely that I curled along his side and slid one leg over his thighs. My rifle lay lengthwise over my other side, the sling wrapped around my hand.

“I thought you’d appreciate the warmth,” he muttered.

“I do, and you’re more comfortable than plastic and metal,” I said, referring to my firearm.

My forehead was resting on his cheek, which told me when his face lifted into a smile. When it fell away, I dared to ask the question haunting both of us.

“Do you think we have a chance?”

“At finding someone like Rajan? All we can do is try.” His chest expanded, stopped for a second, and expanded more as he hesitated in admitting what was on his mind. “If this is the end of the world, Kennedy, if we don’t make it, if the human race fails, I’m glad I’ll be with you as it does.”

Whispering, I admitted, “I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else either.”

His body stiffened as his apprehension returned, which I decided to face head on.

“It won’t end with you eating me, Harrison.”

He sighed, the undertone being that I couldn’t be certain of it one way or another.

“I’m not very enticing anyways. Clearly. If there’s an option between you and me, they always try for you.”

“Which gives me some relief,” he added.

Ignoring his self-deprecation, I asked, “Why do you think that is?”

He shrugged, rolling my head and then placed his hand on my forehead to steady it as he relaxed back into the chair.

“I wonder…,” I whispered, my eyelids feeling heavy.

There was no intuition on my part, no assumption, no foretelling of that seemingly insignificant fact being the pinnacle of our cure. It simply never crossed my mind as I fell asleep to the rhythm of Harrison’s breathing, a smile curving across my face, having no idea how close we were to understanding the virus.

I slept soundly, without dreams, without any awareness of where I was other than safely wrapped against Harrison’s body. Movement and noise did not penetrate my sleep until later when metal clanged across the concrete floor. And that sound turned out to be loud enough to wake everyone.

Lurching up and out of the chair, I searched for the cause, lifting my rifle to the ready position and releasing the safety before I was even fully standing.

“Sorry, sorry,” Christina’s voice rose up as the shrill noise died down. She stood at the end of an aisle, steel rods in a chaotic pile at her feet, sheepish until she remembered her ego. “Well, it’s about time you all woke up anyways. Lazy, good for nothing, little twer…” Her voice trailed away as she bent to collect the rods.

Harrison stepped up beside me, lowering my rifle to my side.

“They’ve been at it for hours,” he remarked casually.

“At what? Stripping this place of metal?” Lou asked, watching speculatively from the next fire over.

“No…,” Mei replied, stepping forward to greet Christina and Beverly. “At making weapons.”

The metal rods Christina was gathering resembled Beverly’s makeshift sword, naturally sharp edged and with duct tape wound around one end for an improved grip. The two of them began proudly handing these to the sleepy group, openly marveling at their own work. Those who didn’t immediately accept one found narrowed eyes staring back until they did. Beverly and Christina were in the middle of instructing them on their uses when a few of those who had been surviving at the warehouse distributed oatmeal, which everyone but Harrison consumed.

Our team then gathered our backpacks and the sparse supplies that remained and headed out, getting no farther than the door before we were stopped by a woman dressed in jeans and a button-down blouse. Being unassuming in her manners, but firm and balanced when she spoke, I was instantly convinced that she had addressed a boardroom before all this started.

“Some of us would like to join you, wherever you’re going.”

“No, you don’t,” Beverly replied.

“Yes, I believe we do.”

“No,” Beverly persisted. “You really don’t.”

“Yes,” the woman replied rigidly, “we really do.”

Beverly had never worried about authority, having always considered herself the authority on just about everything, and this woman left no chink in that armor.

“We don’t need chaperones,” Beverly blurted, her sarcasm surfacing quickly in her automatic assumption that the woman was trying to protect us.

The woman’s eyebrows drew together curiously. It left me with a different impression of her. She wasn’t interested in saving our skins, being too concerned with her own.

“I agree,” she replied, diffusing Beverly. “There’s nothing here for us…except bad memories.” Hesitating, she glanced at Harrison, before admitting, “And we saw what you did last night with The Sick. We know that any chance of survival will increase with you.”

It was then that a slow realization dawned on us. Standing there in the open warehouse, the entryway filled with sleepy, weary strangers, we had come to a crossroad. It was probably one that surfaced before in survival situations, but up until then we’d never encountered it. No one had a choice whether to survive as a collective unit. We’d always been thrown together by external forces. This woman was introducing us to a new concept…that we had an option.

In the back of my mind, and to my shame, I surmised that only one obvious benefit existed in taking them. Numbers equaled safety, but only because they offered a buffer to whatever we encountered out there. They would, intentionally or by sheer coincidence, likely end up being our cushion against the Infected. But we could save our own skins. We didn’t need numbers. We needed a scientist and he was no longer a part of the group. There were plenty of downsides, though. More people meant more noise, a bigger target, more mouths to feed, a larger place to hide, more people to save when, not if, we should be attacked.

Mei summed all this up nicely for us without sounding overtly rude. “We’re on a mission that will take us into the cities, and trust me you don’t want to go into the city.”

“We’ll accept that risk,” she replied, apparently having been given authority to answer for the group.

“What’s your name?” Harrison asked, speaking for the first time.

“Caroline…Cantrell.” She extended a hand, which Harrison shook.

“We can’t guarantee your safety, Caroline, but you’re welcome to come with us.”