Dead soil box set books.., p.72
Dead Soil Box Set | Books 1-3, page 72
part #1 of Dead Soil Box Set Series
Bodies clashed together, weapons sliced through the air. There was a shriek but Zack couldn't take the time to scan the crowd to see if it was one of his own or not. He had to keep going. Sir was relentless with his large wrench, advancing on Zack so he had to keep backing away, using his sword more as a shield than a weapon to block the deadly blows.
Christine stood on the edge of the melee with her bow, trying to find a clean shot to take on one of the opposing people but it was hard to catch one. Both sides were on top of each other, moving too quickly to get a clean shot. She threw her bow back over her shoulder and pulled out her Bowie knife from the back pocket of her jeans instead. Her stomach clenched together as she held it tightly. She didn't want to have to do this. There was something about trying to kill someone up close that set her nerves afire. With her bow, she could aim and shoot from dozens of feet away, never seeing the details of their eyes, but here? Here she could see everything, including the fear etched onto some of their faces, especially the younger ones. "Aim to wound, not kill!" she yelled out, hoping her friends had heard her. It had just occurred to her what they'd be dealing with if they did end up killing any of them.
A gunshot echoed off the trees and everyone seemed to stop and look around for the briefest of seconds. Luke stood there, elbows locked, arms extended, holding his handgun in both hands as the tip let off a wisp of steam. His eyes bulged from their sockets as he looked at the man he just shot lay writhing on the grass. He'd been aiming for his head but instead he got him right in the gut. Blood streamed from the wound but no one stopped to help him as the battle continued on. Luke ran over to the downed man and grabbed his machete. He ran back a few paces, scared if he looked in the man's dying eyes that he would not be able to live with himself.
Another attacker went down, his throat sliced open, a waterfall of red pouring out. He gagged on the warm liquid in his throat and dropped to his knees, wrapping his hands around the wound to try to staunch it. Within seconds he was still on the ground, his lifeless eyes staring up at the golden sky. The fight continued around him as if it'd never happened, as if his life meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
"Get away from him!" Zack shouted as he saw his people fighting nearby. "He's going to turn!" He ran over, leaving Sir mid-attack. With his sword raised high above his head, he brought it down and drove the tip between the dead man's eyes. "Anyone who dies comes back!" he yelled to anyone who could hear him.
"What?!" Olivia asked over her shoulder as she swung at a middle-aged feral woman about the same size as her. The woman was rounder and was practically foaming at the mouth as she tried to sink her knife into Olivia's soft flesh. Her bat did great work keeping the woman a safe distance away. "They're not bit!" she added.
"It doesn't matter," Zack said as he pulled his sword free and ran to return to his attack on their leader. "Trust me! If you kill, kill twice!"
Svend was close by, working in tandem with Zack, their backs to each other as they skillfully fought off any attack that came their way. Somehow Sir had escaped their blows and retreated to the outer circle of the fighting. No one seemed to notice through all the arms flailing and screaming, the grunting, groaning, and the blood. As Zack took down the man in front of him, the last to stand in his way for the moment, he smiled while surveying the field. The bunker dwellers were going to win this! The fight started to slow as only a handful of attackers remained standing on their feet, as living beings. Several were getting up, their mouths masticating ceaselessly as they struggled to their feet, moaning all the while. The zombies were easy enough. Olivia and Imani made quick work of them with their trusty bats. Nothing stood in their way for very long. As the last zombie hit the ground with a thud the two girls cheered and high-fived each other. But Zack noticed something strange.
Sir stood outside the fight, a bow back in his hands and an arrow knocked back to his cheek. He had one eye closed to take aim. Zack followed his gaze as it locked onto Imani. "No!" Zack yelled but he was too far away to stop it. Imani and Olivia stopped hopping around in victory and stared in the direction of the shout, but it was too late. The arrow had been released. It soared at top speed through the people left standing and headed straight for Imani's chest as she watched in terror. Olivia went to grab Imani and pull her out of the way but she was knocked down by a brute force. Imani lay on the ground, her dad next to her.
"Imani!" Olivia yelled as she pushed herself up and crawled over to her friend. Imani groaned and blinked her eyes open slowly, her face scrunched in pain. Olivia's eyes and hands searched her friend's body but there was no arrow, no wound, no blood. She was fine. "I think I just hit my head," Imani said in a strained voice. "What happened?" That's when they realized Luke lay still at their feet.
"Dad!" Imani screamed as she rushed to her dad's side. The arrow was sticking straight up out of the left side of his chest. He clutched at it weakly with both hands, a small trickle of blood escaping from between his fingers. The sound of another arrow releasing echoed across the bloody battlefield and everyone flinched. Sir hit the ground in a heap and didn't get back up, an arrow between his eyes.
"Dad!" Imani cried again as her eyes were overcome with tears. "Imani," he whispered back, drops of blood flecking his lips. "Imani, I'm sorry."
"For what? You saved my life. Dad, I can't believe you did that. Why'd you do that?"
"I'm sorry...I couldn't...save...your mom," Luke struggled to say as his breath wheezed from his punctured lung. Imani moved to take her dad's head in her lap. She brushed her fingertips across the side of his face. "I know you would have...rather had her...than me." He attempted a laugh but it finished in a violent cough that sprayed blood into the air around them. Imani opened her mouth to protest but he held his hand up weakly to stop her. "I just hope you know...despite all my shortcomings...despite all I've said and how I've acted...despite being a coward...I always loved you more than anything in this world."
Imani let her tears stream from her eyes to fall to her dad's face. "Oh, dad," was all she could say through her sobs.
"I am so proud...of the woman...you've become."
Imani lowered her head onto her dad's shoulder and gripped his shirt in her fist, letting her tears soak the cloth through. Luke gave a soft sigh and the tension in his body slowly relaxed. By now everyone had gathered around to witness the tragedy this war had brought. Olivia tried to help Imani up by the arm but she shook her friend off and buried her face even deeper into her dad's body. "No!" she cried over and over again. "I love you, dad, I love you!" she repeated, knowing it was too late. He would never hear the words he'd always longed to hear from her. "You're not a coward, dad. You're brave. Please, don't go, dad. Don't leave me."
As she tried to catch her breath in her father's scent one last time, his arm twitched, sending her head bobbing on his shoulder. "Dad?" she asked, hope creeping across her face and lighting up her eyes. Luke's eyes shot open. "Dad?" she said again, the hope waning as she realized what was happening. Luke's mouth opened and released a hiss before he clacked his teeth shut. He did this over and over again as his daughter looked down at him in horror. He moved his arms to reach for her throat but Olivia pulled her back just in time. She threw her friend behind her and brought her bat down on the top of Luke's head without hesitation. He slumped back down to the ground, his neck bent in an awkward position as his head lolled to the side. He didn't move again.
Zack watched all this as if it were a movie, something far off and not real happening to people he didn't know. He took in a deep breath and held it in his lungs until it stung just so he could feel something. His arms ached from wielding his heavy sword. With a dull thud, he dropped it to the grass. He searched the field but couldn't see anyone standing that wasn't his own group. "This didn't need to happen," he whispered to Christine who stood at his side. She reached for his arm and gave it a squeeze. Luke was the only one from their group not to return to the bunker afterwards. Many limped back, staunching bloody wounds and cradling broken arms and ribs. The ground was littered with more than a dozen bodies, encircled in their own blood stains; men, women, teenagers, Luke. It was a tragedy when they would have happily tried to make more room for more people in their home. After all, Mac had welcomed Zack and his friends with open arms, giving them the benefit of the doubt and trusting them to sleep next to him at night. There was no reason they couldn't have done that again with this group had they just asked. But things don't always turn out how we think they should.
Olivia scanned the bodies on the ground, looking into their faces if they still had faces to look into. She stopped in front of a boy not much older than herself. The smooth skin of his face was untouched but she saw the ring of blood around his head. He took a hard blow and she couldn't help wondering if it was her bat that did it. She knelt down and brushed the kid's long brown hair from his face. "I'm sorry," she whispered. When she closed her eyes a single tear ran down her cheek. "I didn't want this to happen."
X
Back inside the bunker, everyone sat down, whether it was in a chair, on the couch, or on the floor. They moaned and winced as they tried to tend to their wounds. Imani had to be practically carried down as her legs were too weak with grief to support her. She had moved past her phase of hysteria and had now entered into a quiet numbness. She didn't speak, she didn't blink. She just stared ahead as if she were looking into the face of her dad one last time. Svend was still up there after having grabbed a shovel. He started with Luke's grave and decided he wasn't going to stop until each body lay in peace under the earth's dirt. He waited to cover Imani's father in case she wanted to say goodbye one last time.
The bunker’s population was in shambles. So many went straight to their rooms to collapse onto their beds, others couldn’t make it as far so they fell to the floor or on the couches in the common area. The elderly who were not able to fight, the handful that they were, tried to tend to the wounds of those who fought. Zack and Christine were the last two down. They locked the hatch behind them and placed a young man at the bottom to open it again when Svend was done with the job.
“We’ll all go up and pay our respects together,” Christine assured Imani. Olivia walked her back to her room to console her. Her face was a blank slate, her eyes unblinking as she saw her dad felled by the arrow over and over again in her mind.
“Thanks,” Olivia said as she sat Imani down on her bed and wrapped her arm around the young teen’s shoulder. Olivia herself was still a minor according to the old laws of their country but she hadn’t felt like a kid in over a year, since before this all started. But Imani was only fourteen…fifteen? It was hard to tell the passage of time anymore. If it weren’t for the seasons Olivia might not even know what month it was. They no longer kept track of the days. Why would they? She was sure there was some anal person who marked off the days on a homemade calendar, their hopes high of the world returning to what it once was, but that wasn’t Olivia. In all honesty, that seemed more like something Imani’s dad would do. He really was never meant for this new world, but she didn’t have the heart to tell her friend that as she sobbed in her lap again. Olivia stroked her hair and kept her thoughts to herself.
Together, Zack and Christine went to the door Gretchen had locked herself behind. They paused, listening, but all was quiet.
“I’m sure she’s sleeping,” Zack said low. “She’s been through so much.” Christine gave him a weak grin in return, feeling the effects of the day wearing her down already. It hadn’t fully sunk in what they had to do to save the bunker. There was no doubt it would later as she lie down and close her eyes. She’d see their faces. She’d always see all their faces, alive and dead. That wasn’t something she’d ever get over or be able to let go. It was one thing to put to rest something that never should have been in the first place but to take the life of a living human being was entirely another thing.
Zack knocked on the door, his bruised and beaten knuckle leaving a small smear of blood on the thick steel door. “Gretch, it’s up. Are you awake?”
The door wrenched open almost immediately. The two friends jumped back at the unexpected sound of the hinges squealing. The light had been extinguished and the room was nothing more than a black hole. Gretchen stood with her hand clenching the doorknob, her chest rising and falling in great heaves.
“What is it?” Christine asked as panic quickly overtook her.
“I think I need help,” she whispered.
Christine took a cautious step forward into the room to stand next to her sister. Her face was still paler than normal, her blue-again eyes wide with fright. She wrapped her arms around Gretchen and pulled her in close, holding her to her shoulder by the back of the head. Her sister gave in and started to cry softly.
“Please, tell us what’s wrong.”
Zack wanted to reach out and take over, feeling compelled to be there for Gretchen, to take care of her and be her rock, but it was all so new to him, their relationship. Christine had more of a history with her than anyone else in the world and always would. They’d been through so much together. So he stood back, his hands fidgeting at his sides as he watched and waited.
Christine released her hold on her sister and pushed her back by the shoulders to look into her face. “Tell me.”
Gretchen took a rattling breath and gave a heavy sigh. “I’ve been having these thoughts,” she said, wiping the tears from her face. “These unnatural thoughts, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Are you remembering what happened?” Zack asked, taking a step forward and grasping her hand in his, their fingers intertwining so he could be reassured of her warmth, her humanity.
She shook her head. “No, it’s not that. I just, I don’t know if the cure actually worked.”
It was what Christine had feared ever since Jonathan gave her the spare vials with his vague warning. “What makes you say that?”
“Well,” she started to say, turning her head to look back into the room at the kitten curled up on her bed. “I’ve been having these weird cravings…for things I wouldn’t normally crave.”
Christine and Zack looked at each other, both confused. “What do you mean?” Zack asked gently, encouraging her with a squeeze of her hand.
Gretchen huffed. “Well I can see there’s not going to be any gentle way of putting this so I better just be out with it. I’ve been craving brains. Blood. Organs. Flesh!” she said loudly, the fear escalating behind her glossy eyes. “Not two seconds before you knocked on my door I was actually contemplating eating that little small kitten there.” Saying out loud was worse than she imagined. She threw herself at Zack. When he flinched before taking her in his arms it made her cry even harder.
Christine backed away slowly and scooped the little black cat up into her arms and stroked its fur. “It’s OK,” she said to the unknowing creature as it fell back asleep in her arms. She remembered when she found the thing, poor and alone in the rafters of Mac’s old barn. “I got you.”
“What’s happening to me?” Gretchen cried out hysterically. She looked to Zac for answers but he had none. Christine never told him what Jonathan had said or about the vials he gave her. She didn’t want to worry him or take his hope away. He had found the love he always sought in this god forsaken apocalypse and he deserved to enjoy it. Looking back she realized how stupid that was. Her sister could have attacked anyone and if she had it would have been her fault for not saying anything.
“I was afraid of this,” she said quietly.
Zack and Gretchen whipped their heads to stare at Christine, their eyes begging for her to divulge.
“Before we left, the intern, Jonathan, he gave me two vials of the vaccine they created. He couldn’t explain why but he said they might come in handy if we come across someone who needs them or if we need them. But I knew he had intended them for you, Gretch. That he didn’t think the vaccine would be a one-stop cure. That there might be a chance at regression if you didn’t keep taking it.
Gretchen’s hand flew up to her mouth as tears overtook her eyes. “Are you saying I’m going to turn back into one of those things?”
Christine rushed to her sister and put a hand to her arm. “No, no, we would never let that happen.”
Gretchen pushed her away and took a step back into the room, back into the shadowed corner. “You can’t promise that,” she whispered. “You said it yourself. You only have two vials. What happens when those two are gone?”
Christine had been wondering the same thing, wracking her brain for a plan of action when the time came. “We’ll go back. We’ll demand more, and we’ll keep going back until the come up with one that is an actual cure.”
“Yeah,” Zack said, taking a step closer. “Your sister and I, we’d do anything to save you, you know that don’t you?”
“Even if I’m a monster?” she whispered and she sunk to the floor and buried her face into her knees.
Christine knelt down and placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Especially when you’re a monster because we both know that’s not your true nature.”
Gretchen peeked up with tear-soaked eyes. “You don’t hate me?”
“Why would I hate you?”
She sniffed back her emotions. “Because I followed you when you didn’t want me to. I caused all this mess.”
Christine clicked her tongue and waved away the accusation. “If anything we should be thanking you. The whole world should be. Those doctors would never been able to bring anyone back if it wasn’t for my desperate attempts at saving you. I pushed them pretty hard to put you back to the way you were and I like to think that’s how the cure came about in the end.”
