The Infected: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (10 page)

"I'm sorry," Sam said. The pathetic apology was all she could manage. She wanted to tell the girl that everything would be alright. But she wouldn't do that. Sam had first-hand experience that sometimes things didn't work out that way. Sometimes things would never be okay again.

A feeble smile appeared on the young girl's face and she held out the sleeve of the coveralls. Sam turned her body as far as she could and forced a trembling arm into the sleeve.

"Will you take me with you?" Alex asked.

"What?" Sam asked. She barely remembered where she was heading to begin with. The original quest seemed so far removed and the loss of Jordan had buried almost every intention of completing it.

"If I help you escape, you and your friend, will you take me with you?"

"You don't even know where we're going," Sam said as she slipped her other arm through. "Hell, I don't even know where we're going. Plus, it's dangerous out there. There's more than the infec—halfways we're running from. Worse things."

"There can't be anything worse."

"You'd be surprised."

"Please," the girl pleaded, "I won't slow you down."

Alex's voice was thick with desperation. Images surfaced of Prime Minister Troy trying to force himself on her, shoving his repulsive tongue down her throat, and pressing his ancient boner against her. Even now, miles away from New Hope, she could still smell his rotten breath. And then she thought of Alex and how she dealt with worse every day. Some old man having his way with her.
Raping her.
The words forced Sam back to the present.

"Okay," Sam said.

"Really?" Alex asked.

"Really."

"What about my brother?" Alex asked.

"You didn't say anything about a brother."

"I'm saying it now."

"Alex—"

"He's 18 and strong and smart. He'll be useful."

Sam's face screwed up as if this request was more torturous than the pain wreaking havoc with her body.

"Please," Alex said.

Sam sighed but her lips curled upward. "Anyone else?"

The girl shook her head from side to side.

"Fine."

Alex's cheeks reddened and her eyes darted to the floor. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," Sam said. "We're not out of here yet."

Alex nodded and knelt down. Sam placed her weight on Alex's back and lifted her bruised leg. Tears gathered in her eyes and her muscles trembled as she slipped her leg through the cuff of the coverall. Alex guided Sam's foot back to the ground, and the tears spilled down her cheeks.

"One more, okay?" Alex asked.

Sam nodded but didn't answer. It hurt too much.

She zipped up the coveralls by herself and then slumped back into the seat. She had no idea how they would escape this place, when the simple action of getting dressed had exhausted nearly all of her energy.

"You are very beautiful," Alex whispered as she placed the old sneaker on Sam's foot.

Sam's cheeks flushed at the offhanded compliment.

"I used to be beautiful once…before the surgeries," Alex continued. "There aren't any women you're age that haven't been altered."

"You are beautiful." Another wave of tears threatened, and she cursed herself for being so emotional. This was something new to her. She had grown used to Jordan's criticisms that she wasn't emotional enough. Silently, she blamed the morphine.

"I will be," Alex said and slipped on Sam's other shoe. "One day, I will be beautiful again. Somewhere out there, out in the up-top, I'll find someone to reverse what they've done to me." The young girl paused for a long moment while she finished tying Sam's shoes. When she pulled the knot tight, she looked up at Sam and asked, "Do you think there's a doctor out there? Someone who can make me beautiful again?"

Sam nodded. Holden had mentioned multiple cities operating through the United States. At least one of them had to possess some sane, upstanding citizens. The answer brought a coy smile to Alex's face and her puffy lips curled upward as far as they could.

"Are you ready?" Alex asked.

Sam nodded.

Alex stood and helped Sam out of her chair.

"I can't go fast," Sam said.

"Don't worry." Alex took her place in the crux of Sam's arm. "I know all the secret hiding places. I can keep us from us being seen."

"Okay." Sam took a deep, painful breath. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Good," Alex said, and twisted the doorknob. "Everyone should be asleep. We'll find your friend first, and—"

Alex pulled the door open and took a quick step back. A man stood in the doorway, towering over the girls. He wore an olive-green military uniform that sported dozens of medals and ribbons. Sam's breath caught in her throat as the tall man flashed a set of pearly whites and took a step into the room. She didn't need Alex to tell her that this was the General.

"Ladies," the General said, "where might you be going at this time of night?" His features weren't deformed like Doc's or Alex's. But his olive skin didn't have a single wrinkle or blemish either. He lifted the military cover revealing a thick mane of perfectly styled jet-black hair. It matched the neatly trimmed mustache and bushy eyebrows.

Sam didn't care about the man's flawless skin or perfect hair. The dread filling Alex's eyes told her everything she needed to care about. The General was bad news. She wanted to run, but the pain prevented her from even moving. Panicked, she did the only thing she could think of and screamed as loud as she could, "Cole!"

The General's smile screwed into a frown. "That's a poor way to introduce yourself."

Sam opened her mouth to scream again but the General, with his perfect hair and perfect skin, threw a perfect jab and caught her right between the eyes. Sam's knees turned to rubber. A sharp pain rocketed through her as the back of her skull bounced off of the tile floor.

Far away, Alex's helpless screams grew fuzzy and distorted. The fluorescent light flickered and faded. Sam closed her eyes, but this time the dark nightmares didn't find her. This time, she didn't dream at all.

4

Sam woke from the dreamless slumber, not in the hospital bed, but rather one of incredible extravagance. A four poster bed draped in a sheer white canopy, the posts made of a rich, dark wood, each engraved in complicated patterns of shapes and lines. The mattress was soft and conformed to her body. It was a definite upgrade from the flimsy cot that she had slept on for so many years in New Hope.

White satin sheets, the kind reserved for government officials in New Hope, covered her naked body. The thought of the creepy doctor or the General undressing her made her skin crawl.

The room surrounding her echoed the same luxurious taste as the extravagant bed. The owner had hung elaborate are all over the walls. Everything from extravagant portraits of people Sam did not recognize, to more eccentric pieces like a statuette of two copper hands, palms facing the ceiling, which balanced a stainless steel heart wrapped in barbwire.

A six-foot tall armoire stood to her right. It looked like the best place to start the search for her belongings and Sam took a deep breath as she prepared for the hunt. She was almost too terrified to move. Afraid that the pain of being thrown from the truck was lying in wait and would pounce on her the moment she shifted the slightest inch.

She exhaled, expecting the shooting pangs from the self-diagnosed broken ribs and punctured lungs to wreak their havoc, but instead she was met with nothing more than a dull ache. She reached her arms under the covers and placed them on her ribcage and received the same result. Hesitantly, she slid through the sheets toward the edge of the bed. The intense agony that she expected never came, which led her to wonder how long she had been unconscious. The fresh track mark in her arm suggested another I.V. It could have been hours or days.

The sheets were smooth against her legs as she slipped through the bedding and her heart sank. Her hands darted to the appendages once covered in fine dark hair and found they had been replaced by hairless ones. They felt foreign to her. Her fingers ran up and down her calves searching for one iota of proof that these were her legs but they couldn't find a single follicle.

Sam hadn't shaved her legs in over a decade. She remembered that it always seemed like a chore and her mother had encouraged her to wait—

Her thoughts shifted.

Her mother.

It had been eons since she was able to dredge a memory of her mother out from the dark shadows of her brain. She focused, grasping for a detail, something specific that would bring the woman out of hiding, but the memory faded as quickly as it had resurfaced. Sam sighed, disappointed that the elusive thought wouldn't become something more substantial and continued toward the armoire.

She reached the edge of the giant bed, sat up and draped her legs over. Below her dangling feet was a Persian rug that spread out the entirety of the bed and a bit more.

Persian rug…Mahogany…Four poster bed.
The words bounced around her head. Remnants of her past life. Echoes of buried memories.

She shook her head.

She had no idea at this point if these were things from a previous time in her life or rather manufactured memories implanted for some unknown reason. Either way, she didn't care. The only thing she cared about was getting out of this freak show. Her mission was to rescue Cole and Alex. Find the brother. And then get the hell out of Dodge. Everything else wou—

"I'm glad to see you're awake."

Sam's heart jumped into her throat and she spun to see a small woman standing in the doorway. The pain resurfaced and rocketed through her abdomen. Sam pushed it aside and dove back under the covers.

"Oh, don't be modest, darling," the woman called out to her. "I've seen all your bits and pieces. I mean honestly, who do you think shaved those two bushy cacti you call legs? Or that shrub between your legs?"

Sam swallowed hard as her fingers reached down and touched smooth skin. Her throat tightened and the nausea returned. Sam sunk lower in-between the covers. Her mind raced as she clutched the bottom sheet.

Why had they done this to her?

What else had they done to her?

Where was Cole?

"Are you still there, dearie?"

Sam peeked out from the safety of the sheets.

The woman in the doorway took a small step forward and her face emerged from the shadowed doorway. She had suffered the same fate as the doctor and Alex. Her face stretched upward, making her eyes wide in appearance like she was in a state of permanent surprise. A thick sheet of lip gloss covered her ballooned lips and dark shades of pinks and purples plastered her eyes and cheeks. The makeup clashed with the pale skin and made her look more like a crazed clown than a woman.

The woman's figure had been altered much like Alex's had. Humongous round breasts and a butt that stuck out way too far. A pencil thin waist and two thin sticks for legs. In contrast, the woman dressed in more moderate clothing than the young girl. The green dress she wore was form fitting, but not an inappropriate length or cut.

"If you keep staring at me like that, I'm going to charge admission." The woman's sing-song voice had the same southern drawl as Cole's.

"I'm sorry," Sam whispered.

"Oh, you don't have to be sorry, hun," the woman said, "not unless you plan on staying in bed much longer. Then you're going to have something to be sorry about."

Sam removed her head from the sheets.

"That's better," the woman cooed. "We've got a lot to do to get you ready for the General's dinner tonight. Hop up out of that bed and get your skinny little behind into the shower. Chop chop."

Sam didn't budge from the protection of the covers. "Who are you?"

The woman moved closer and into the soft glow of the room. Her light accentuated her facial features, revealing deep wrinkles despite being pulled to what looked to be its maximum tautness. Heavy bags loomed under the layers of makeup and the neon pink hairdo looked much thinner than it did in the dark.

"My name is Gretaleene Rivers, General Soto's Chief Fashion and Beauty adviser, at your service, darling. But you can call me Greta."

Sam said nothing.

The old woman frowned. "I also do a little interior design, do you like the room?"

"Where's Cole?"

"The big ape with the giant hands and hairy back?" Greta asked, a playful tone in her voice. "He's getting ready himself."

Sam couldn't help but smile, just a little. Not only at her friend being okay—alive at the very least—but also at the comparison. It fit and it made her miss him even more.

"Now, Ms.…"

"Samantha. Samantha Albright," then added, "but you can call me Sam."

Greta smiled at this. "Well, Sam, it's such a pleasure to meet you. And now that we've gotten the rigmarole of all these pleasantries out of the way, how about you be so kind as to march your little fanny into the restroom and get in the shower. If we don't get a move on, you'll be late for supper. And one thing the General does not tolerate is tardiness."

Greta took a step toward the restroom and then paused. "Well two things, tardiness and insubordination. Make a note, dear." She walked the rest of the way to the restroom and stopped in the doorway. She raised an eyebrow, "Are you coming?"

"The girl," Sam said. "What happened to her?"

"What girl?"

"Alex." Sam watched as the polite smile faded from Greta's mouth.

"What about her, dear?" Her voice was cold and the words bitter.

"Will she be joining us at dinner?"

There was a long pause as Greta seemed to mull the question over. "No," she said. She didn't wait for Sam to ask any more questions and entered the restroom.

"Can I at least get a bathrobe?" Sam called out.

"I've already told you," Greta called from the restroom, the cheery tone resumed. "I've seen the goods. Now, hurry and get in here. We've got a lot to do to make you fabulous and I don't like working against the clock."

A couple minutes later, Sam reveled in the hot water as steam fogged the frosted glass door. This wasn't the two minute shower she had grown accustomed. The stone-inlayed shower was far removed from the New Hope models with the piss-poor showerhead shooting sporadic bursts of freezing water. Instead, she stood under a gold-plated showerhead and the water was as hot as she could stand it. It rained down, turning her olive-colored skin pink, and Sam wished it would wash away all the pain and horrible memories. She wished it over and over until Greta knocked on the glass door and demanded her to hurry.

After the shower, Sam wrapped herself in a cotton towel, perhaps the softest that she had ever felt, and took a seat at the vanity. In the mirror, she stared at a stranger. The bruises on her face were an ugly shade of yellowish-purple and the spot where the General had hit her was still swollen. The memory of the General's giant fist colliding with her face replayed in her mind. Sam gritted her teeth and ran her fingers over the bruise.

"I swear, dear," Greta said, as she combed the tangles out of Sam's hair, "it's like you've never even heard of a brush."

"It's not a priority where I'm from."

"And where is that? Where did you and the Neanderthal come from?"

"New Hope," Sam whispered as the image of the burning city flashed in her mind.

"Is that the name of the bunker your people are in?"

"We're not from a bunker," Sam said. "We're from the up-top."

Greta stopped brushing and looked at Sam through the reflection of the mirror. The woman's lips sunk into a frown. "Don't be silly, dear," she whispered. "No one's from the up-top. Not anymore."

"I'm not being silly. We're from a town, one not too far from here. It's surrounded by concrete walls and no one's allowed to go in or out because of the—"

"The halfways?" Greta interrupted.

Sam remembered Alex calling them that…the infected. She nodded her head.

"Well, I never."

Sam swallowed and asked a question that she was only half ready to hear the answer to, "How long have you been here, Greta?" She held her breath and waited for the answer. Before Holden Deckard and Jeanette Robertson, before the mass execution in New Hope, she would have thought the number to be around 10 years, the underground bunker a result of pre-planning. She hoped it would be close to a decade. Hoped this was all just a misunderstanding.

"All my life, dearie," Greta chuckled.

Sam's heart dropped. She bit her lip, terrified to ask the next question, still wanting this to all be a horrible nightmare. "How long has this bunker been here?"

Holden had told them it had been 300 years since the RIZ-4 weapon detonated and the burning city and David were just implanted memories. She knew, deep down, that Holden hadn't lied. But still, in that moment she held hope for something, anything, less than three centuries.

"Oh, your guess is as good as mine." Greta ran the brush through Sam's hair and then paused, the bristles still intertwined. "It all depends on who you ask, I suppose. The General says a thousand years or so. But when I was young, my folks led me to believe that it was much, much longer than that."

The world seemed to disappear from underneath and Sam gripped ahold of either side of the chair to keep from dissolving with it.

A thousand years.

Perhaps, much, much longer.

"Are you okay, dear?" Greta asked. "You've gone pale."

"I think…I think…" Sam's voice trailed off and her eyes grew blurry.

Greta yanked the brush down and Sam snapped back to reality. Tears swelled in her eyes. It was less the pain of the brush and more that she had no clue about the world around her. Greta had pulled hard and it hurt.

"Sorry, dear." She ran the brush through the same spot. "A little tangle was all."

"It's okay," Sam heard herself say. Her voice sounded as vacant as the two glassy eyes staring back at her in the mirror.

Greta didn't say another word. Instead, she worked the brush furiously through Sam's thick brown hair. Sam's head yanked back hard with each brush-stroke and she wondered if she had angered Greta talking about the up-top.

Greta brushed and trimmed Sam's hair. Then she wrapped pieces of it in aluminum foil coated in some sort of creamy substance that smelled like cat piss and dried it with a hair dryer. It burned, but Sam didn't complain.

Her eyebrows were waxed along with her underarms and a subtle layer of makeup was applied. Sam didn't protest, but she was terrified that the result would be clown-like—or worse Greta-like. But the final result wasn't bad at all. Sam stared at herself in the mirror, the bruises under her eyes were invisible, the swelling barely noticeable.

Greta removed the foil pieces and revealed subtle strands of crimson intertwined with her normal brown. It was like she was staring into the eyes of a stranger and as much as she hated to admit it…she looked beautiful.

Her heart sank at the thought. She was supposed to be heading to Concordia, supposed to be rescuing her friend, not playing dress up, and every passing moment was an injustice to both Jordan and Cole.