The Infected: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (25 page)

They found the great road again and continued to the east. They walked for hours and didn't stop to eat or drink. Artie rode most of the day in the cart, only barking to get out when he had to do his business. She continued until her muscles trembled and shook and felt like they were on fire.

When darkness fell, she set up camp for the evening on the side of the road and lit a fire just large enough to keep her and the dog warm. Artie nuzzled into her arms and Sam stared at the waning fire until sleep overtook her. There was no one to take first watch. No one to keep her safe if she slept. If she died in her sleep, if an infected attacked her in the middle of the night, she would consider herself lucky. She dreamt of Cole and Jordan but neither of them spoke to her. Neither did Rebecca nor Alex or Nick. Neither did David.

In the morning, she silently packed up the campsite and gave Artie a potful of the water. He lapped it up graciously. She didn't drink any herself and chose not to eat the remainder of their food. They got back on the road and continued on their journey.

Less than an hour later, the trees on either side of the horizon disappeared and as they approached the crest of a large hill, the giant concrete wall that surrounded Concordia burst into view and Artie began to bark.

10

Sam reached the clearing and fell to her knees. The giant concrete wall stretched for miles in either direction and within, towers of glass and steel jutted toward the sky. Tears fell from her cheeks as she lifted her head to the sky. She screamed a guttural, primal scream as she raised her hands to the sun. Her throat was raw and sore, but she didn't care. She screamed again and again.

"We did it, Artie. We made it."

The dog put its two front paws on her thigh and barked again. Sam rubbed his head and more tears came. Then she collapsed to her elbows and sobbed. Her stomach contracted so hard that she fought to breathe as emotions overwhelmed her. She cried harder and all of her muscles convulsed and twitched.

Artie gave a low moan and licked her outstretched hand. She tried to calm herself and to pull herself back into a sitting position but couldn't. Her body twitched uncontrollably, and she realized that this wasn't her emotions getting the best of her. This was something else.

She steadied her breath and heard a faint whooping noise coming from somewhere in the distance. Artie growled and Sam shushed him. She tried to sit up again, couldn't and then managed to roll over on her side. Concordia towered in the distance and she gasped as a helicopter ascended from beneath the wall.

She struggled with all of her might to get up and retreat into the forest, but it was as if unseen hands were pinning her to the ground. The whooping of the copter blades grew louder as two more copters emerged. The panic ebbed and a wave of closure washed over her. This was the end. The fur on Artie's neck stood up, and the dog barked wildly.

"It's okay, Artie," Sam said. "It's almost over now."

The copters pitched forward and flew over the walls. They hovered for a moment, the three birds gleaming in the bright blue sky, and then lowered into the field in front of her. She wanted to shield her eyes from the dust as it clouded over her, but she still couldn't move. The little control she had over her muscles had faded. She closed her eyes.

Finally, the blades slowed to a stop and Sam heard doors open and footsteps on the ground. She refused to open her eyes. She couldn't move. It was over. She had fulfilled her promise to Jordan, to herself, but they had won.

"Will someone shut that fucking dog up?"

Sam's heart lurched at the sound of the familiar voice. Her eyes shot open. Prime Minister Troy was leading a group of soldiers along with a handful of men in white lab coats in her direction. Artie continued to bark and growl. Troy paused as one of the men handed him a pistol. He aimed and pulled the trigger. There was a loud yip and Artie fell silent.

"No!" Sam screamed. A surge of adrenaline coursed through her and she forced herself into a sitting position. The invisible hands weighing her down pressed against her, but she continued to move.

"I thought you said she was subdued," Troy said.

"She is, sir," another voice said.

"Does she look subdued, brainiac?"

Sam put her palm in the dirt and pushed herself to her feet. She staggered and dropped to a knee. Artie's small body sprawled across the ground, a puddle of crimson pooled underneath him. "You killed my dog," Sam said. She slid her hand up the cart and found the wooden handle of the hatchet.

Troy's lips peeled back into a wicked smile. "Indeed, Miss Albright."

"You killed my sister." She made it to her feet once more and pulled the hatchet from the cart.

"She was infected," Troy said. "Nothing personal."

"You killed Jordan." She took a labored step towards them.

"That was personal," Troy said and chuckled.

The men in white coats jotted furiously onto their clipboards. Sam picked one at random and lifted the ax into the air.

"Put the weapon down, Miss Albright. You're not going to kill an innocen—"

Sam flung the hatchet as hard as she could and it hummed through the air. The man that she aimed at looked up from his notes and his face screwed up in horror. The blade lodged into his skull and he flew backward, crashing into the ground. His body twitched for a moment and then fell still. The men in white coats gasped.

"Interesting," Troy said and stroked his thin goatee. He dug into his pocket and extracted a silver device that looked oddly like the remote control that had controlled Cole. He aimed it at her and mashed a button.

Sam grabbed for one of the guns in the cart, but Troy mashed a button on the remote before she could pull it from the bag. Sam dropped the weapon and fell to her knees. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and the world blurred.

"Would you like us to start with the assessment?" Sam heard someone ask. The voice was distant.

"No," Troy said. "We need to play it safe. Last thing we need is her burning down another city. Wait until the man gets here. Someone get her off the ground for Christ sake. He won't take kindly if his prized little pet is all banged up." A moment later, she was being lifted in the air. And then she was sat upright.

What man? Sam thought. She tried to open her eyes, tried to move in the slightest, but couldn't. She was helpless.

A few minutes later, another whooping sound cut through the morning air. The world was still dark and blurry and the invisible hands had reclaimed control of every muscle and fiber in her being. Her heart ached for Artie and she cursed herself for not aiming the hatchet at Troy.

The whooping grew louder and the dust and wind picked up again. Then the blades cut out. Then the sounds of doors opening and closing. Then footsteps.

"What happened to Sweeney?" a new voice asked.

"What do you think?" Troy said. "This bitch has bite."

There was a long pause.

"I happened," Sam managed through gritted teeth.

Another long pause.

"Raise cognitive awareness to 50 percent," the new voice said. "Keep physical suppression set to zero."

The world appeared before Sam's eyes again. A new man stood before her. His face was familiar, and it took a moment for her to process it. And then it clicked. It was the man from the monitor. The man who'd activated the self-destruct sequence in Lost Angel. He'd fixed his hair and shaved, but Sam was sure it was him.

"Do you know who I am, Samantha?"

"You're the man from the monitor," Sam said.

He smiled. "And beyond that?"

"No."

He nodded as the men in white coats jotted feverishly on their clipboard. After a moment, he said, "My name is David. David Stanton."

Images of David, her David, flooded through her mind. The boy from the field. Her dead friend. It couldn't be. "You're dead."

David laughed. "I assure you that I'm very much the opposite. The memory you have of me is false. We've never played any games together, and I didn't die in the field. That memory, just like many other memories you possess, was developed in our lab. Think of my younger self, your memories of my younger self, as nothing more than an Easter egg in a very complex computer program." He knelt beside her and ran his fingers through her hair.

"I don't understand," Sam said.

David smiled at her. "Soon."

Sam nodded. She felt oddly at ease.

David rose to his feet. "Let's go ahead and get vitals." This was directed to the men in white. "Run a full diagnostic and begin the download sequence. We'll do a full data dump here. I don't want to bring her in the complex on this run. At least not until we know more. Daniels. Kidwell. Stand her up. Pratt, I want you to keep sights on her at all times."

The two guards lifted Sam to her feet. She wobbled but didn't fall, and then the men in white coats swarmed around her. One of the men forced a thermometer into her mouth and another wrapped a blood pressure sleeve around her arm. Two of the men had sprinted to the helicopter, and returned carrying a square white monitor strapped to metal cart with wheels. It bounced awkwardly over the uneven grass floor.

"What's with the dog?" David asked.

"It was with her," Troy answered.

"She domesticated it?"

"Seems that way."

"Interesting."

"He killed it," Sam said.

David looked down at the dog and then back to her, "Yes. Yes he did. That's very unfortunate, Samantha."

An elastic headband with wires running from it to the monitor rested on the cart. One of the men removed it and placed it around Sam's head. The other one flicked on the unit and the screen filled with a 3D image of a brain.

"I want full stats on hippocampus function and neural activity in the primary somatosensory cortex," David said. "I need a full work-up on hormone levels: serotonin, dopamine, testosterone, estrogen, the works please."

"Download stream is active." the man next to the monitor said.

David focused his attention back to Sam. "I have some questions for you. When you've answered my questions, I will answer all of yours. Does that seem fair?"

"Yes," Sam said.

"We'll start with some easy ones, okay?" His voice was comforting.

"Okay."

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Samantha Albright."

"Good. How old are you?"

"I'm 24."

"Excellent. Do you remember where you're from?"

"New Hope."

"And before that?"

Sam closed her eyes and searched for an answer. "I don't know."

"Increase memory function to five percent," David said.

Sam heard a loud humming between her ears and then a tidal wave of memories crashed into her. Images of a two-story log cabin. A rickety dock. A lake behind her house. They continued to shoot through her brain. Memories of her hometown. The old town square. Ricker's Grocery and Pharmacy.

"Try again, Sam. Where did you live before New Hope?"

"Wellspring, Oregon." The words flew out of her mouth.

"Wonderful. And can you tell me the name of your parents and of any siblings."

She combed through the new memories and then through the older ones, but there was nothing. "No."

"Increase to ten percent."

Another wave crashed into her. An image of her mother working in the flowerbed. Her father sitting at the kitchen table. And her sister. Sitting in the middle of their living room playing with her doll. Rebecca.

"No," Sam said aloud. From the depths of Sam's memory, Rebecca shrieked as she was dragged to her death. "No. This can't be right."

"Stay with me, Samantha," David said.

Image after image of Rebecca flooded her mind. Sam screamed as explosions rocketed through her brain. She snatched the headband and threw it to the ground, but the explosions continued.

"I told you to keep the physical suppression level set to zero," David said.

"It is, sir."

Sam clawed at her head as more and more of the images poured into her. She caught only glimpses, but each one stabbed at her mind. "Make it stop!" Sam shouted. "Please, make it stop. Oh, God! My brain is going to explode."

"Drop memory function back to five percent," David said. "She's overloading. Do it now!"

"The controller isn't working," one of the men in white coats said. "The memory and physical suppression chips are not responding."

"Both chips are offline," another man said. "Readings are off the chart."

The memories stopped coming, and the world slowed to a crawl. The men in white coats all wore panicked expressions, and the soldiers pawed at their holsters and drew their guns. Troy looked dumbfounded by what was going on, and David…David was within arm's reach.

Time sped up as Sam grabbed David by the collar and spun him around. She snatched the sidearm from his holster, a Remington R51 sub-compact pistol with a carbon-fiber magazine extension, and pressed the barrel to the back of his neck. A split-second later, every other pistol was aimed at her. And at David.

"My turn for questions," Sam said.

"Put down your weapon," Troy said, "you filthy little cun—"

The barrel of the gun flew from David's neck and Sam squeezed the trigger. Troy's head exploded in a mist of brain and blood. The thin man fell to his knees and then crashed into the ground. Sam pressed the hot tip of the gun to David's neck.

"Anybody else?" she asked.

No one moved.

"Tell them to lower their weapons."

"You heard her," David said steadily.

One by one the soldiers dropped their aim.

"Now tell me what's going on?" Sam demanded.

"In 2030, a group of very powerful men and women contracted the Flowers Corporation to develop a virus to wipe mankind from the face of the map. On February 19th, 2032 the RIZ-4 virus was released at the international airport in Atlanta, Georgia. It was very successful, but the results yielded more than just death."