Born to Fight (6 page)

I look around us. We can't drive out. The cars are rotted, and besides, the roads are almost virtually impassable. I take a second look, noticing the far-left side of the alley is empty. The infected move slowly, in comparison to us. They will smell us, unless we can get some kind of bait.

My brain flashes back to the men. They are already close to the left side of the parkade.

I swallow and look at Anna, "I'll be right back. Don't move unless you have to. I'm going to make bait."

She grimaces and nods, "Okay. I'll stay with him." Thank god, I don’t want to have a fight with her. I don’t want to tell her I value my life less than hers and refuse to chance her getting the fever.

Vincent looks confused. I turn and run, as silently as I can, back across the parkade and up the ramp to where I hear them. I slide against a gutted car and wait.

"A U2 concert. I went with my girlfriend. I was eighteen and she was seventeen. We smoked a ton of pot and went. Everything started about two weeks later. Best memory." A man to the right with a rifle is talking.

The other man nods, "Nice, man. Yeah, mine is a barbecue. We figured it was the last one of the season. My whole unit came over and we got trashed and talked about sports and shit. My wife, her name was Trish. She made the best burger patties on earth. I ate like four. I thought I was going to die."

I bite my lip and wait. I can feel my stomach tighten when I think about it. Regular people sharing regular memories and I'm about to kill them both. Unless they kill me first. I should have died yesterday and didn’t. I'm on borrowed time and the bad feeling hasn’t left me yet.

Their feet make scuff sounds, they aren’t even careful. They must not be on high alert. They must not be looking for me.

I slide along the car and sit at the back of it, waiting for them to pass. The third guy must be off doing something again. He's the one I'm going for.

They walk further away, strolling and sharing. I watch them, waiting for the moment. Both are in good shape, but they slump and hold their guns wrong. They aren’t taking it seriously.

They turn their backs and lean casually. I crawl to the next car. It's the last car before the corner. I look back at them. They're still talking and laughing. I frown. The infected are one level away from them, and they're talking about shit they miss. I break into a silent sprint. It's nowhere as fast as it needs to be, but it's got to do.

I get around the corner and feel it. The cold mean is settling in. The cold calculations start figuring in my brain. The third man has to die. I need bait.

I look back around the corner, but the men are still talking.

I swallow and walk to the edge where the man was. He's still there. He too, looks like he's not taking the job very seriously. He's leaning on his gun and picking his nails. Who trains these people? Maybe my real dad is over confident. He doesn’t feel threatened.

I feel sick thinking about it. My own family participated somehow. My dad must have been a scientist too. My mom must have been a complete idiot.

I slide against the wall and creep, pushing away all the thoughts I'm having. My stomach is a ball of nerves and butterflies, but I want that gun. This side of the parkade has been destroyed completely. It's an avalanche of gravel and broken concrete. It really would the be the easy way to come. I sigh  walk down the debris, onto the ground where he is.

I feign a limp and hold my stomach. The knife is in the back of my pants, waiting.

I moan slightly. There is no way I can sneak up on him from here. I climb over the edge of the broken concrete and stumble down the crumbled debris.

His eyes lift. Disgust and confusion settle in. He frowns at me, "Stop."

I shake my head, "Sir, please help me. I ate some food I found and I think it was bad."

His lip curls up, "Stop, where you are." He lifts the gun and points it at me. My stomach tightens more. I could throw up, I'm so nervous.

I shake my head, "My dad is one of the military heads. I got lost and hid from the infected. Please help me."

He tightens his grip on the gun and jerks it at me, "Stop walking, bitch."

I stop and crouch down. I don't like being called bitch. I hold my stomach and fake heave. I don’t have to try very hard. I've used this one before.

He comes closer, just close enough. "What's your dad's name?"

"General…General…" I gag and burp.

He comes closer to hear my soft words. I shoot up and grab the gun, slamming it back into him and lifting the barrel. The hit in the chest dislodges his fingers from the trigger. I pull the gun and swing it. It clips him in the side of the head.

I pull the blade from my back pocket, and in one fell sweep, I slice it across his jugular. I wipe it on his pants as he falls. I shoulder the gun and drag him through the alley as fast I can. My guts are killing me.

I round the corner where the infected are. I watch them milling about as I drag him. He's sputtering and gurgling still. I stop and rifle through his pockets. He has a small blade, a water bottle, a picture that I don't let my eyes see, and a bunch of shells for the gun. I pocket them and the knife as I stand up.

I look around. The infected are milling further down. I bend down and pick up a chunk of broken concrete and toss it down the alley. It lands in between several of them. They look at it and bend down. I sigh and pick up another one. I toss it to the same spot and hit one of the ones bent over.

He stands and looks with his bloody, dirty face. He makes a high moan. I shudder but toss another piece. The ones next to him start making the high moans. I turn and run back to the side of the building. I am gasping for air, my nerves are on fire, and I'm trembling, but I try to stay perfectly still.

The high moans become the ragged screams as they draw nearer to the dead man. It's the third time I've done it. It rots me inside, but it's us and them and I don’t know where all my us are. I don’t know if they're all safe.

My hands find their way to my ears when the ripping starts. My breath is ragged like their throats. I don’t have time to wait and hide. I turn and run back the way I came. I slide my body against the wall where I crawled down and hide. The men should be here by now but I don’t hear them. They really are so stupid, as to sit in a parkade surrounded by the infected and chat?

I'm about to crawl up the debris but my stomach does its thing it does where it makes me stop and wait—like it knows something I don’t. I freeze and wait.

"George!" one of the men shouts from above me, inside of the parkade.

"God dammed, George. Where you at?" the other man shouts.

My skin tingles. I try not to think about the barbecues and whatever U2 was. I try not to imagine their memories as I finger the rifle in my hands. I hold my breath and my back, tight to the wall.

"Shit!" one man yells and the debris starts moving. He blows by me running down the hill. The second man does the same. As they make it to the bottom of the hill and around the corner to where their friend is being eaten, I scramble up it. I run, not looking back. My fingers dig into the broken wall of the parkade, as I get back onto the level they were on.

I hear popping gunshots as I make it past the cars. I'm shaking and tired but my adrenaline is fired. My feet slap against the concrete as I round the corner. I stop and peek back. No one is following me. I'm sucking air in a wheeze like the infected. I'm probably infected. My throat is probably becoming ruined.

The gunshots are still popping in the air. I jump over the debris and crawl under the broken bits, as I run to where Vincent and Anna are standing very still in the darkness. I almost miss them, but she has the vines parted.

He looks back at me and shakes his head, "What are you? You're not like the other Gen kids."

I scowl, "I don’t know. I'm a girl. A pissed-off girl." I don’t have an answer.

He nods, "Some girl."

Anna rolls her eyes, "You haven’t seen her with her wolf and a pistol in each hand, or better yet, her bow."

I swallow, my stomach is burning still, and I have to pee again. I pull the vines back and look down on the dead infected. The men are doubling back and shooting them in the head where they lay, just in case. It's the first smart thing I've seen them do.

"I need my wolf and we need to get the hell out of here," I whisper.

"We won't leave Leo, Em," Anna rubs my arm.

I nod, "I know. We gotta find Jake and Will."

She swallows and shakes her head, "We have a meeting place outside of the city." She doesn’t say anymore. I know she won't, not in front of him.

The other infected have started to come around the corners to where the dead are. The left is now full, but the right side of the parkade is empty. He points to the small, thin alley. I nod. We run to the right side and climb down the debris and broken pillars.

When my feet touch the ground again, I almost collapse. I'm sweating and my body won't stop trembling. We round the corner. One of the infected is wandering about the alley. I finger the gun but know it will draw the others. I swallow hard and pull my shirt up over my face. I panic and try to come up with another option but there isn’t one.

I look back at Vincent and Anna, "Stay here." Looking at her makes me sick. I can't have her around the infected. I look back at the big infected man and try to form something of a plan. If I get it, so will she.

The walls of the city close in on me as I search for another way out.

I take a deep breath and try to strategize. If I don’t breathe and we wash me off right away, I might be okay. I know I'm lying to myself as I pull the blade and sneak up on the infected. He's large, round and tall. His skin hangs now, though. His body is eating itself. They wander until there is nothing left of them.

I hold my shirt tight to my face with my left hand and creep up to him.

He turns and I swing wildly. He grabs at me but I jump back. His brown, decayed teeth are broken. His mouth is filled with a yellow, foamy paste. It's like his spit is almost gone dry. I gag and slice his throat. His hands grip my arms. I drop the shirt and grab the other blade from my pocket. I click the switch to make the blade pop out. His teeth bear down on me. I stab the blade in my left hand into his temple. His yellow eyes are wide and then he's down. I look at the thick, dark-brown blood on me. The greenish tint and the smell make me gag. I look at it and panic. I start wiping it off on his back frantically.

"Water, do we have water? I need something to clean it off." My heart is in my throat. My breath is short and rough. My throat scratches. I've got it. I'm sick now too. My eyes fuzz out.

Vincent walks up to me and tilts his head, "The breeder babies are immune. You were born immune. It's not the cure. You were given the vaccine."

Anna ignores him and grabs the drinking water. She keeps her body back as she starts pouring it over me. I've ripped my shirt off and am scrubbing my skin. I know it’s too late. I'm infected. My head is twitching, "No. No. I'm infected. Look at it. It probably got into my mouth. Anna stay back."

Vincent shoulders past her and grabs my shoulders, shaking me, "You can't get it. You were made immune to it. You can't get sick. You can't even carry it."

I look at him, "No. I was born a decade before the shit hit the fans. The germs mutated."

He nods his head, "Yes! Your body is incredibly strong. You were made to live healthy. No cost to the government. The plan to reduce the population and make people sick was in place long before you were born."

"Maybe but I can get her sick." I'm trying to take it all in. Immune. Leo would eat the infected. I would keep my distance and not share, but there had to have been times that he had some of them left on him.

The sewers I've crawled in. The dead I've laid with.

I've never been truly sick. Only hurt. I always heal—except when I left the breeder farms. I was badly hurt then. I think about it and still feel the pain. Dragging Anna and Sarah up the mountains, with the injuries I had, I should have died. So many times I should have died. There are a thousand times I should have died or been infected.

Not to mention, I was a little kid living in the woods—I should have died from that. I guess he could be right. If he's right about everything else. Either way, I'm infected or I'm immune, only time will tell.

I look at the slime on my hands and finish wiping it on the dead man's dirty clothes. Vincent passes me a clean shirt. I tug it on feeling the tears in my throat. All this time spent avoiding the infected, for what?

Vincent grabs my arm and drags me down the alley. Anna takes the gun and walks ahead of us. We stagger and stumble through the alleys until we reach a tall building.

"This is the end of the clean zone," he whispers.

Anna gives me a look; she's concerned. I would be too, if I were her. There is a very real chance I will give her the infection, even though I'm keeping my distance.

I look at Vincent and scowl. I'm still trying to digest the varieties of things he's handed down to me in knowledge and confusion.

He scowls back at me, "From here on out, it's going to get much worse. The patrols stop here. The infected are bad inside of here."

I feel the horror covering my face, "Worse?"

He nods, "Us doctors and scientists don't go into this part of the city. We stay on the side where the guards are. We use this as a place to keep the infected for experiments. They live in the barricaded areas. Those ones behind us got through. It happens every now and then. That’s what those guards were for." He points to a small wall built up of boards and debris. It blocks the alley. I peek my head out of the alley to the right and then the left. There is no one. The streets are empty.

He continues, "Your wolf is about eight blocks down. It's on the border of the city, almost the outskirts. You cross the bridge and get to an area that looks nice still. It used to be a medical research building. The name on the front of it is Luminarc. But the sign is old and decrepit. It says umina. U-M-I-N-A. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

I watch his face and nod, "You're leaving us."