Whimper (16 page)

There weren’t many places to hide and even fewer exits in this stretch of tunnel. We ducked down beside a set of laundry carts, hoping that whoever was coming would be in too big of a hurry to notice. If we were really unlucky they’d want to sort laundry at 5 a.m. Or, you know, mindlessly attack anything that moved.

I pulled my gun free as the footsteps sped up and got closer, peeking between the wall and the laundry cart to see who was charging down the hallway. Suddenly, Elliott jumped to his feet beside me!

I spun to pull him back down, but he dodged my arm and pulled away. I popped up, ready to fight and looked right into the surprised face of my brother.

“Zoe! Where the hell have you been? Do you know how worried we’ve been about you both?” he bitched, grabbing me into a rough hug.

“It’s not even our deadline yet,” I mumbled into his shoulder, trying not to show how happy I was to see him.

“Where’s Brianna?” Elliott asked worriedly.

“She’s back at the house keeping watch for us. Things are getting a lot more active since you left. This shit keeps up, we may need those grenades after all.”

“Tell me you didn’t bring grenades,” I sighed.

“Nope. I packed light, just a .45 caliber and a really big knife,” he said and grinned.

“That’s not a knife, this is a knife!” we both recited in terrible Aussie accents. Elliott stood in confused silence. Evidently his parents didn’t let him watch
Crocodile Dundee
non-stop when he was a kid. Poor guy.

“Come on, let’s go home,” Zack encouraged, giving me a light shove. My eyes itched, I wanted to spill everything about Elliott and his lab coat wearing ex and let my brother throw one of his legendary temper tantrums on my behalf. “Suck it up, Zoe,” I told myself. “Pull up your big girl panties and keep moving. You’ll have time to wallow when people aren’t dying en masse.”

I allowed myself the luxury of grabbing Zack’s arm, giving it a squeeze and bumping shoulders with him. Sometimes I needed my brother, even though it was really easy to forget that. He was all the family I had left. Most girls probably would have gone for a hug, but growing up with tough guys hadn’t turned me into much of a hugger.

I could feel Elliott’s eyes on me, it was obvious he wanted to talk. Did I want to listen?

We made it to the stairs leading back up to the outside. Zack had wedged a chair under the door. The handle dangled crookedly above it.

“I had to improvise,” he smirked, “since I didn’t have a key or any of my inside connections.”

“Funny, I improvised without breaking a thing,” Elliott drawled.

“You got lucky,” I snapped. “It isn’t likely to happen again tonight.”

“What? You aren’t doing this again!” Zack protested as he slid the chair to the side. “It’s too dangerous. You were gone for hours, how did you not get everything done?”

“We ran into some complications,” Elliott answered, glancing at me. Ha. Way to downplay the fact that I had to hold his ex at gunpoint while he buttered her back up.

Zack looked back at me, inspecting my face. He knew something was up, but wisely decided not to push. “I don’t know how many are out there. I spotted two before I got in here. Hopefully they’ve moved on. They were pretty worked up,” he whispered as he pushed the door open to peer outside.

“They who? Campus police? Security?” I asked in a hushed tone.

Zack’s eyes cut to mine, the look on his face clearly saying, “What? Are you stupid?” He motioned for us to follow him outside quietly. We emerged as the earliest light of dawn started to seep from the eastern horizon. Zack moved quickly but cautiously, one hand resting on the butt of the gun holstered at his waist. “Not security, the zombies. Infected people, whatever.”

A car alarm blared in the distance, followed by the harsh tinkling of broken glass.

“They’re scarier than they seemed on TV,” he admitted with a shrug. “This shit is plain wrong.” I couldn’t agree more. We scurried across the open parking lot and back into the shrubbery along the street. Home never seemed so close and so very far away before.

Elliott took another drag off his inhaler. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead. How long would he be able to keep up this kind of pace? Shouts and the slap of boots against pavement came from somewhere behind my left shoulder. Elliott and Zack surged closer to me, pressing me between the two of them as we pushed through the bushes along the roadway.

“Shit, I can’t see a damn thing through all this branches,” my brother swore, swatting foliage out of his way.

“Be grateful. Hopefully it means no one can see us either,” I reminded him, placing a calming hand on his shoulder. The bushes certainly weren’t at fault for our predicament and all that thrashing might draw unwanted attention. The three of us froze as branches a few feet ahead of us snapped and splintered, raining bits of debris through the air. Snarls blended with angry screams, limbs grasping and tearing at each other. The street light glinting off of silver buttons and badge as one of the campus police officers grappled with a crazed looking little blonde girl. She wore a pink short sleeved t-shirt and flannel pajama shorts, a smear of blood marring the glittery campus logo stretched across her chest. My breath hitched, freezing in my throat. Her red, bleary eyes flicked past us, searching. The officer scrambled backwards like a crab, blood soaking the front of his uniform as he frantically tried to get away. “Help,” he rasped, reaching into the branches as he tried to find a way to pull himself back to his feet. He hadn’t seen us, probably didn’t even know we were there. Elliott and Zack held me back, pushing me into the concealing brush. If we helped him, we’d attract her attention. This little sliver of a girl probably wouldn’t tip the scales past 100 pounds even if she was soaking wet, yet the ferocity of her attack held us all back. She lunged again, grabbing the officer by his vest and hauling him up to his feet. His arms jerked, trying to force himself free, but he was growing weaker. “Help!” he gurgled again, his head lolling to the side so that I could see his face.

Josh. Blood streaked his face, his cheek mottled and torn, but I knew it was him. Josh, who had gone out of his way so many times to make sure I was safe. “No!” I choked out, shoving my brother hard enough that I was able to slip past him and lunge towards my friend. I snatched a branch off the ground and swung at the blonde’s head, but the leaves slowed the stick’s momentum so much that I only succeeded in pissing her off even more. She dropped Josh at my feet with a sickening thunk, his belt and gear jangling. I dropped with him, frantically checking his belt for weapons. I didn’t want to shoot this girl for so many reasons, but I couldn’t let her snack on my friends like they were walking buffalo wings either. Josh’s holster was empty, but the bright yellow butt of his taser stuck out from his hip, partially unclipped. The blonde screamed, tearing at her t-shirt and staggering in a circle as she tried to refocus. I fumbled, pulling the taser free and aiming as she turned on me. Only three feet separated us. The silver wire prongs shot free and buried themselves in her torso as I squeezed the trigger. Loud metallic buzzing exploded outward as the diseased girl’s muscles locked, turning her into a rigid, grotesque statue for five seconds. The guys rushed out behind me. Zack bent, scooped up Josh’s radio from the ground, and pressed a little red button on its side. I stared at the girl as she tumbled to the ground. The wires dangling from the tip of the taser stretched between us, dancing as my hands shook. Elliott grabbed the taser and dropped it on the ground next to Josh, pushing me in front of him as he ducked into the bushes. “Move, fast!” he hissed. “He’s got backup coming and we need to not be here when they show up.”

“But, Josh!” I protested, even as I allowed myself to be propelled along. “What if she goes after him again?”

“He’s not moving anymore. She’ll forget all about him and turn on the next thing that catches her attention. That could very easily be us if we don’t get the hell out of here,” he panted, wiping his brow.

Zack moved along ahead of us as we reached the street. There seemed to be sirens and noise coming from every corner of campus. My God, Zack really hadn’t been exaggerating. We darted across the street immediately after a squad car screamed past. Our pounding footsteps sounded like a drum, announcing our location to everyone and anyone nearby, but we couldn’t afford to slow down.

Our house’s tall roofline was already in view between the trees, giving me hope and extra speed. I really wanted to be safely locked inside, away from all this insanity. I wanted to crawl into my bed and pretend all of this had been a really bad dream.

“I sure hope Brianna’s watching for us,” Zack huffed as we cut through yards and gardens.

“She will be,” Elliott promised.

Our porch had never looked as beautiful as it did now, a symbol of safety bathed in porch light and the earliest pink rays of dawn. Crashing footsteps behind us forced me to pick up speed, I prayed the steps would come grinding down any second. I didn’t dare turn to see who or what was behind me, I might slip on the dew damp grass.

Grinding gears and clanking drifted from the steps as they creaked to life, slowly unrolling towards the ground. Zack was the first to reach the steps, he grasped the base and pulled them, speeding up the process. “Come on!” he yelled, gesturing wildly for me to hurry. My chest felt like it was on fire, and my legs were getting heavy, but I refused to slow down. Elliott had been right by my side, but he was starting to drop behind me. I reached back, grabbing his arm and pulling him with me as we closed in the last few feet. As soon as our feet hit the metal steps, Zack started yelling for Brianna to pull them back up. She smashed the button and unlocked the front door. As she struggled with the locks, I finally looked back to see what we’d been running from. The blonde I’d tased staggered after us, the taser prongs still dangling from her bloodied chest, but she’d picked up some friends along the way. A young black guy sporting dreads and a bloodied face trailed after her, his torn pants tripping him up. A tall, thin young man wearing a campus cafeteria uniform straggled along, screaming like a wounded animal even though he didn’t have any obvious injuries.

It was horrifying and fascinating. I couldn’t stop staring at them. My brain simply refused to process any of this as reality. My brother roughly grabbed my shoulder and pulled me inside, away from the macabre sight.

Zack locked everything behind us, watching to make certain that no one made it onto the porch while Brianna rushed to help her brother. Now that I could actually see him, it was even more obvious that he was in bad shape.

“I need to get him cooled down and get his injections done as soon as possible. Can you help please?” she asked me, a tinge of anger to her voice. She blamed me for not taking care of her brother. She was right, I hadn’t. I’d been so angry about the whole “friend” disaster that I hadn’t kept track of how long it had been since he’d taken meds or even thought to check his temperature, even though Bri had asked me to and had said that Elliott would lose track while he was working.

I didn’t bother making any excuses, instead I grabbed an arm and helped take him downstairs. He kept feebly trying to refuse my assistance, but we girls ignored him. Maybe he didn’t want my help any more. That was his own problem. We’d hash it out when he wasn’t knocking on Death’s door.

I really pushed myself too far this time. My muscles ached, my head throbbed, and I felt like I was either going to throw up, pass out, or both. Worse yet, Zoe knew. She knew how far I’d gone to get information, that I’d used a woman in the most base and callous way to do it. She didn’t know all the details, but I could tell she’d filled in the blanks anyway. If I died now, not only would I never succeed in stopping this virus, I’d also never redeem myself in her eyes.

I couldn’t live with that. Ha! I guess I wouldn’t have to. My thoughts were jumbling together, the results of the test intertwining with the annoying quality of Amie’s voice, the flushed anger on Zoe’s face, the bloodied police officer. The girls drug me into a lower room in the basement where it was cold and damp and lovely. Bri steadied me against the chilled wall and the slimy moisture felt wonderful against my skin. I was so warm. I watched as Zoe grabbed an old camp cot and covered it with trash bags before they lowered me down on top of it. My eyes drifted closed as I felt the sting of a needle bite into my arm. My body ached so much already that I didn’t even care. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I passed out.

My eyes felt gritty when I tried to open them. I lay in a puddle of wet trash bags, my clothes soaked through with melted ice cubes. The water was already tepid, and in this windowless hole in the ground there was no way of knowing how long I’d been out. I struggled to sit up, the plastic sticking to me and my muscles screaming in protest. My God I was stiff. My joints crackled and popped as I slowly forced myself upright. “Hello?” I croaked. Surely Brianna or Zoe were hovering nearby waiting for me to regain consciousness. The room was lit by a single bare bulb which swayed ever so slightly on its wire, throwing shadows against the mossy stone walls. The only response I heard was the slow drip of water. I felt my stomach clench up, fear twisting and writhing in my guts. What had happened while I was out? One of the infected students could have found a way in. The house might not be as secure as they thought. Shit. The CDC could have shown up, they would have had no choice but to cooperate…