Dead and Forsaken (26 page)

“
Let
he without sin cast the first stone!” was the first thing he
said.

“
You
know what's going to happen to her padre!” said Dr. Green.
“You know what she is going to become!”

“
She is going to be
exactly what God wanted her to be!” said the Pastor.

“
Shut up!” yelled
Anne. “All of you shut the fuck up! I know what's going to
happen next. I just don't want to die!”

The
pastor grabbed her by the shoulders and slapped her across the face.

“
Calm down!” said
Blair. “We're all here to help you through this.”

Anne
tearfully apologized to the rest of the group and asked for their
forgiveness.

“
I have a family!”
said Anne. “I have children!”

Now
she didn’t know if she would never see her kids again. Her
oldest was ten and her youngest was five. They were visiting their
father in California for the summer. It was a condition ordered by
the judge overseeing their custody hearing. It was a fierce battle
but she ended up with primary custody.

“
Can you guarantee that
you won't go crazy and try to kill us?” asked George.

“
I can only guarantee that
god has a plan for all of us!” answered the pastor.

“
So what should we do?”
said Joe. “My daddy always said that God made death because
folks are too dumb to know when to quit!”

“
What the fuck are you
babbling about?” Dr. Green asked. “All of you need to
quit acting like a bunch of pussies and kill that bitch!”

“
He is right!” said
George. “Maybe we should put her out of her misery!”

“
That is murder you are
talking about!” Blair responded. “She is still alive!”

She
was horrified by the actions they intended to take.

“
She might be alive now
but in a couple of hours she is going to try and kill us!”
said George.

“
You heard
Mr.
Fancy Pants
!”
yelled Dr. Green. “We have to kill her before she kills us!”

“
Maybe the government has
found a cure by now!” said Blair.

“
I don't see the
government doing shit to try and help us!” responded Dr.
Green. “So what makes you think they found a cure?”

“
We can't give up hope!”
Maria begged.

“
Don't be stupid!”
said Joe. “She is good as dead!”

After seeing the fresh bite wound
he panicked and was ready to attack his close friend.

“
Please don't hurt her!”
said Latia.

“
This is grown folks
business!” said Dr. Green. “So shut your little mouth!”

“
Don't talk to her like
that!” Maria yelled.

“
Keep those brats away
from me!” said Dr. Green. “After all they can't fight!
Maybe we could move faster if we didn't have to baby sit!”

“
You stay away from them
or I’ll kill you!” said Maria. “You talk a good
game like you’re so perfect but I know your secret! Dr.
Okonkwo told me you stole those pain killers!”

“
You need to watch your
mouth and quit talking about shit you know nothing about bitch!”
yelled Dr. Green.

“
This does concern me!”
shot back Maria. “I have been sending patients to a drug
addict!”

“
You are a fool! I save
lives every day and if I have to take a little something to take the
edge off then so be it!” declared Dr. Green. “Besides
that doesn’t change the fact that she is infected!”

“
Don't listen to him
guys!” Maria begged. “Even now his speech is slurred and
his eyes are all crazy!”

“
I say we just leave her
here!” said Joe.

“
We can't just abandon
her!” pleaded Blair.

“
We'll we can't take her
with us either!” said Kahleem.

“
In order for us to stay
uninfected we need to kill her while she is normal!” explained
Joe

“
We just have to watch for
signs of infection.” said Blair. “She might not turn!”

“
KNOCK!
KNOCK!”

“
What the hell is going
on?” I asked coming into the room. “Do you have a death
wish or something?”

“
You
heard the man!” asked Carlos. “Why the hell are y’all
making so much noise? We don't need this bullshit right now. There
is enough mess going on already.”

Maria told us why they had gotten
into it with each other. I knew what had to be done. Dr. Green and
his group were right about one thing. Once she changed she would be
dangerous and no longer be human.

“
Everybody calm down!”
I stressed. “I'm in charge so I'll deal with her. She can stay
with us until she changes and then I’ll take care of it. When
the time is right I'll end her suffering!”

Doctor
Green continued to question my leadership because I refused to kill
her on the spot.

“
Oh I get it!”
blurted out Dr. Green. “Mister big, black and macho wants to
get a taste of that Spanish brown sugar so the rest of us have to
put up with this bullshit!”

“
This is the last time I'm
going to warn you about being disrespectful!” I said while
grabbing him around the collar.

“
If I get bit by one of
those things don't waste your time.” responded Dr. Green.
“Just shoot me in the head and get it over with!”

“
We'll keep that in mind!”
Carlos told him.

I
told doctor and the rest of the group that if they had a problem
with how I was running things then they could find their own way
out! I knew they weren't happy with that but nobody said anything.
After hearing the rest of the groups silence the doctor shut up and
sat down.

“
Now if the trial is over
then maybe we should get out of here before the forsaken show up!”
I demanded. “All
of this arguing is going to attract more of those things to us.”

Maria
was happy we didn't kill Anne. She was scared that the group was
close to losing its humanity.

“
Maria?” I asked.
“How is she really doing?”

“
It's not good Kevin!”
she replied. “She doesn't have that long!”

While
we were talking Carlos told the others that the hallway to the
service elevator was blocked and we would have to go around. We
gathered up everyone and got under way. Anne was forced to bring up
the rear.

“
I don't want anyone
talking unless necessary!” I stressed. “Maintain silence
unless you see something important.”

I
was in the lead followed by Carlos. The partially lit hallways were
hard to navigate. At one point he stopped for a second and gazed out
the broken window in the hallway. Anne stopped too and also looked
down. She was trembling and crying. Maria and everybody else kept
following me. Two stories down below three bodies laid crushed on
the concrete. Carlos could tell that one of the figures was a
woman. The other two looked like children. The impact broke their
necks and backs. Several streams of blood had extended from the
bodies before drying up. When faced with dying sometimes the best
choice is a quicker death. Just like the people who jump out the
window of a burning building. At that moment they would rather jump
than be burned alive. During a crisis people choose personal or mass
suicide as an option. They believe that it is better to die on their
own terms.

“
I
guess they found a way out!” Carlos whispered to Anne. “You
never know what a person’s state of mind is toward the end but
suicide is not the way. You can't give up!”

Anne wiped away her tears and
paused for a second before carrying on. It was clear that she was
regressing mentally. The sickness was also affecting her physically.
She experienced several brief blackouts and was feeling weaker.
Carlos made a cross on his chest and then trailed behind her. We had
no way of knowing how many forsaken were now roaming the building.
Hopefully we didn't have any problems on the way there. It was
getting late and we needed to get outside or find a place to hold up
for the night. In the military I learned the importance of cover,
concealment and shelter. Every time we moved into a new area we made
a quick sweep to make sure we were alone. We stopped anytime we
heard something or saw movement. Out of the corner of her eye Blair
thought she saw something underneath a bed.

“
Hold on!” she
begged. “Don't move forward yet.”

Thankfully it turned out to be
nothing. It could have been more survivors or it could have been
trouble. Our group ventured down the hall walking past various
offices and wards. The smell was so sour and rotten that it caused
many of them to stop to cover their nose. As we glanced inside we
found empty rooms with all the contents scattered around. After a
while we made it to the service elevator entrance. I looked around
the corner to see what was going on. Dismembered body parts covered
in flies were scattered around the hall. Luckily the service
elevator had its own emergency power. A warehouse dolly was stuck in
between the doors keeping them open. On a normal day the separate
power source prevented staff from getting trapped inside during a
fire or power outage. They opened and closed slowly on the box
filled dolly.

Dr.
Green saw a drug cart through a glass window to a room. In the rush
to escape one of the staff members left the cart unlocked. When he
got a chance he slipped away and entered the room. He lit a
cigarette and let it dangle from the side of his mouth. He loved the
aroma of the burning tobacco and the menthol flavor it produced when
he exhaled. The room was a two person maternity suite with two beds.
The bed next to the cart was empty but the other bed was blocked by
a curtain. He slowly walked across the room towards the cart. The
room was a mess. Medical supplies were tossed everywhere. Dr. Green
had hit the jackpot. The cart was filled with pain killers and
stimulants of every kind. He pulled a pillow case off the bed and
filled it up with pills, drug vials and syringes. Dr. Green smiled
wide as he looked at his prize. That’s when he heard the
slurping and chewing noise.

“
MUNCH!”

He
pulled the curtain back from the other bed and revealed a pregnant
forsaken. She was chin deep in the chest of a dead nurse. He had
inadvertently disturbed its meal.

“
GRRRRRR!”

There
was no intelligence in her eyes just animal instinct. He let the
curtain go and started to back away. For a second he caught a glance
of something in his peripheral vision. Another one of the pregnant
creatures came from out of nowhere. She had been hiding in the
suite's bathroom. The mutated woman bit a plug out of the hand
holding the drugs.

“
GNAAAW!”

The
doctor screamed in pain alerting the other creature.

“
Uuuggghhh!”

She rose up from the bed and
attacked him too.

“
GRRRRRR!”

He scrambled for a place to hide
but there was nowhere to go. They knocked him to the ground biting
and clawing his flesh. He was able to get up but they kept coming
towards him moaning and gnashing their teeth.

“
GROOOWWWL!”

Dr.
Green's shirt was saturated with his blood as he tried to apply
pressure to the wound. The two monsters circled him before
attacking him again.

“
CHOMP!”

He
was in excruciating pain but struggled to get back up on his feet.

“
Help! Help me! Help!”

We
could all hear him calling out but no one was going to risk their
life for someone like him. Dr. Greens back was ripped open and a
section of his shoulder was injured. Blood gushed from the mouth
shaped puncture wound.

“
CHOMP!”

Carlos
stood at the doorway of the room and aimed his gun at the back of
the doctor’s head.

“
You’re sorry ass
ain’t worth the bullet essay!” he mumbled to himself as
he lowered the gun and headed back out into the hall.

Dr.
Green wrestled with the dead women but was eventually pinned down.
He was left writhing in a pool of blood. His eyes rolled to the back
of his head as he lost consciousness from so much bleeding.

“
GRRRRRRR!”

After
a few more bites he woke up to see them digging in his viscera and
abdominal cavity. He was being eaten alive.