Dying to Live (23 page)

“You think it could have spread abroad?” Pete asked seriously.

“How could it not have?” Xin shrugged. “There was an attack at the airport when we arrived here. Then, from Franks account, it wasn’t too long after that, that him and... Him and Bao... found it in disarray. Who knows how many infected people caught planes to god knows where...”

“Oh shit,” Frank looked horrified. “This is actually real serious isn’t it? I know it should have sunk in by now... All the death and craziness, but I really did think that... maybe it would just...”

Lucy got up and moved to Franks lap. “I’m scared too,” She told him. Frank couldn’t find it in himself to lie and tell her he wasn’t. He just scooped her hand into his and squeezed it.

“We’re all scared,” Pete stated. His voice gave a slight waver that exposed the truth of his words. He coughed and mustered the strength to offer the assurance they all needed. “We’re armed with more knowledge than we had before, now. I think that all of this has made our options much clearer.” This time his voice held and he sounded more confident than he felt.

“Pete is right. I don’t want to make the choice for us all and I told you it wasn’t simple. It isn’t simple because we have no idea where this ‘Seahorse’ would take us, or what would be waiting for us if we got there. We don’t even know what it is or exactly where it is. All we know is that we will likely find it at a government building, in Washington DC. Most likely The White House or The Pentagon, though potentially there are other secret service buildings it could be located at. Our hopes would be pinned on Patient X having been taken there and still being alive. It’s a massive gamble but that patient would be the best hope we have. Whereas, if we stay here we have a lot of resources right at our fingertips. Resources that would give us everything we need to survive. Not that I’m suggesting we could work towards a cure here, but there are labs and research tools. In staying here, we would be working towards establishing a safe place, building numbers and surviving...”

“I don’t want to just
survive
, not like this.” Frank shook his head. “Besides, whatever you saw...” He inclined his head apologetically at Xin. “Whatever it was, alien, hallucination or anything else, we wouldn’t have this lead without it. It must mean that this is what we are meant to do. Going to Washington could mean helping everyone. Staying here could mean that we’re the only ones who survive. Even if we aren’t needed when we get there, we could find safety.”

Pete nodded and so did Lucy. Harry didn’t seem convinced but neither did he say anything. The conviction, bravery and selflessness with which Frank had spoken, sang to Xin’s heart. She was growing to love the rag tag group that they made.

“Well then, I suggest that if we’re all agreed, we get some rest. We have a lot of preparation to take care of tomorrow. That’s if we are going to Washington?” Xin asked.

“Washington,” Pete nodded.

“Yup,” Frank agreed.

“I suppose so,” Harry added unenthusiastically.

“Definitely,” Lucy finished.

18.

‘The few hours of sleep that we got, didn’t totally refresh any of us. If anything, my dreams seemed to exhaust me more. They were disturbing and confusing. In the dream, I was stood in a road that I didn’t recognise. Next to me were Xin, Lucy, Frank and a few others, but I couldn’t make out who they were. We appeared to be alone but the street was so foggy that I could barely tell, and at the back of my mind there was panic. I knew that just standing there was dangerous and that we needed to move. However, the others were just staring up into the sky and seemed oblivious to anything else. I shook them, I yelled at them, I pulled at them, but nothing I did drew any reaction. I finally looked up to see for myself what they were staring at, and that was when I jerked awake. It was a sensation like the shock you get after a dream of falling. When my eyes opened I was breathless, soaked in sweat and my mind was swimming. I couldn’t remember what I had seen when I looked up into the sky but it didn’t make me feel good. It was hard to get out of bed and feel positive about our plans that day. I had an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and impending doom. Nonetheless, I was determined to keep it to myself. I needed to keep it together for the sake of the others, especially Xin. I just hoped that this dream didn’t mean anything. Then again, Xin’s dream had turned out to be quite prophetic. This triggered me to worry even more.’

The clock that hung on the wall had stopped whilst they slept. The hands now pointed out an endless five past four. Likewise, it appeared that the electricity had finally cut out. When Lucy attempted to make everyone their morning coffee, she found that the kettle no longer worked. Just to be sure, she had tried the other appliances as well, but to no avail. Fortunately, the gas cooker still worked, but had to be lit with a match. That morning the coffee was made from water boiled in a pan on the hob.

After they had all woken up a little and taken their turns to get washed and dressed in the small bathroom, the first thing that Xin wanted to do was get her haircut over with. It was evident that the thought of losing her long and shining locks was causing her distress. Xin had spent a little too long brushing all of the night’s tangles out, and her eyes were glossy as Lucy sat her down with a towel around her shoulders.

“Are you sure about this, Xin? Maybe you could just wear it up instead?” Lucy asked her for the third time.

Harry and Frank rolled their eyes at each other. They couldn’t understand the fuss; to them it was just hair. It would grow back in time and, at the moment, getting it cut could save her life. The two of them settled down in front of the monitors, Frank shuffled a shabby pack of playing cards and dealt out two hands.

Pete understood a little better. He himself was reluctant to see Xin’s hair fall to the ground around her. He looked at her and the waterfall of hair that was such a dark shade of brown it was almost black. Her chocolate coloured eyes still shone with sorrow, but also determination.

“Just do it, please.” Xin told Lucy with her eyes screwed shut. “It’s for the best.”

“Okay, stay still then. Here goes.” Lucy took a deep breath and made the first snip along the edge of a comb. The sound of the scissor blades cutting through the hair she had been growing for years, made Xin flinch. When she finally opened her eyes, she caught Pete watching her intently.

Thankfully it didn’t take too long. Xin managed to brave it out and Lucy did a pretty good job. After she removed the towel from Xin’s shoulders and set about with the dustpan, Xin tried not to look at the mounds of hair she was sweeping from the floor. She made her way to the small bathroom to check the mirror mounted over the sink. To her surprise, she found that she didn’t completely hate the new look. She had given Lucy the freedom to decide exactly how short it should be, seeing as she couldn’t make the decision herself. Her hair now hung just above her shoulders, and although she missed the familiar swish when she shook her head, she found that the new cut didn’t feel so bad.

“It looks nice...” Pete said from behind her. Xin looked into the face reflected behind her, and returned his smile.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” She said, and turned to face him. She found that when she turned, she was stood much closer to him than she had expected. Pete didn’t seem to notice.

“It doesn’t hide your face so much anymore. I like that,” He told her. He meant it too. How had he not noticed the sharp angles of her face before? And how high her cheekbones rose? She really was quite beautiful. He absently reached out and tucked some hair behind her ear, allowing his finger to brush over her cheek.

“Um...” Xin looked embarrassed.

“Oh...” Pete flustered and took an uneasy step backwards. “I’m sorry, I... aha,” he laughed nervously. Xin laughed too.

“Don’t worry about it,” She told him. She didn’t particularly mind his touch, but his unreadable face made her feel awkward. His mind seemed to be elsewhere today. “Are you alright?” She asked him, cocking her head and scrutinising his face.

“What? Me? Oh, yeah, of course,” he smiled unconvincingly. Xin frowned at him. “I didn’t sleep well, that’s all,” he added.

“Yeah, me either,” she told him. “I had the strangest dream.”

“Oh, want to talk about it?” He probed.

“Well... I don’t know. I can’t really explain it. There was something wrong with the sky. I woke up feeling as though everything was over and there was nothing I could do. It probably sounds silly when I say it out loud.”

“No, not at all. I think we’re all just stressed and tired, and the drama of last night probably didn’t help,” he reassured her. “I’m sure it didn’t mean anything,” he added. “I’m going to let you finish up in here anyway.”

Xin caught the frown on his face as he turned and walked out. She decided that there was something that he wasn’t telling her, but decided to leave it for now. He would tell her when he was ready. Xin turned and took one final look in the mirror. She ran her fingers through her new hair and then shook it out again. When she was satisfied, she turned to follow Pete. Xin forced her face into a smile and pushed the strange interaction to the back of her mind.

“So, what’s the plan then?” Frank asked nobody in particular.

When Xin had re-entered the room, she had thanked Lucy for doing a good job and they had joined Pete in the seating area. Harry and Frank had spun their chairs to face them and it seemed that everyone was waiting to find out what to do next.

Nobody hurried to answer Franks question.

“Great... Well the good news is it seems like the dead guys who were banging on the door last night have wandered back up the track,” he offered, trying to kick-start the discussion.

“That might not be as useful as it sounds,” Lucy replied.

“What do you mean?” Frank puzzled. “At least we can step out of the door without getting munched on.”

“That’s true enough, but we’re going to have to go back up the track ourselves,” Lucy pointed out.

“We are?” Frank asked.

“Yeah, I was thinking that too,” Pete agreed. Xin wondered if that had been what was bugging him. “We need to get more provisions to take with us and we need to get a better vehicle. I’m sure there’ll be other things we need to take, right?” He asked, looking to Xin for the answer.

“I’m not sure,” Xin admitted. “I was thinking it was probably time to rifle through the rest of the things that Bao brought.” She gestured to the boxes that he had flown over with. They had been abandoned in a corner after the radio had been set up. “If I remember correctly, all the basics will be in there. But I really don’t know. I have no idea what to take because none of us know where we’re going to end up. It seems pointless to take too much. Wherever this mystery transport takes us –if we can even use it of course, I mean it could be anything- there’s a good chance there will be a lab. They evacuated the patient presumably to develop another serum. They would need the same things that we would in order to do that.”

“Well, maybe we shouldn’t bog ourselves down with a lot of extra baggage then,” Pete suggested. “If we don’t have what we need, we’ll just have to find it. It can’t be that difficult. In a worst case scenario we could even drive back here, it’s only a couple of days to drive.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Xin said. “We could even bring the patient back here with us if everything has turned to chaos wherever they are. Lucy, do you have any ideas about where the transport from Washington may take us?”

“No, not really. My worry is that it probably isn’t conventional travel, which makes the destination hard to guess. It could be anywhere. The more I think about it, the surer I am that they told me it had taken years just to get to the point they were at when they asked me about it. Who knows how long it took after that.” Lucy looked thoughtful.

“What do you mean about it not being conventional travel? It’s not likely to be something crazy, is it?” Harry queried.

“Well, it’s not going to be just a plane or some kind of car or truck. Nothing like that would take so long to produce. It’s likely to be a more advanced technology. It may be one that’s not even in use anywhere else at the moment.”

“I’m not even going to ask what that means it could be, but if it’s that advanced won’t we struggle to operate it?” Frank asked.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Lucy chuckled. “I’m sure it won’t be that complicated. If it’s for emergencies then they’ll keep it simple. It’d be no use creating an emergency transport that it took months of training to operate. Plus, they’d have to train everyone because there’s no guarantee that certain individuals would be the ones left to use it. Training everyone wouldn’t be cost effective, so I would imagine if isn’t simple then there will be simple instructions.” Lucy shrugged as if to say, ‘who knows?’.

“But back to where it could take us...” Xin tried to guide the conversation back. “Where else in the country would they take important people? Where is there that would be safe?”

“...Maybe it’s not in the country?” Harry suggested. “Surely it would make more sense for the escape plan to get the president out of the country? I mean, if there was a nuclear attack or something...” Everyone was silent as he let his sentence trail off.

Eventually Xin spoke again. “I hadn’t considered that we could be leaving the country.”

“It would make a lot of sense...” Lucy said ponderously.

“Maybe that’s another reason not to fuss about equipment to take with us,” Pete offered. He went on to explain, “If that’s the kind of emergency this transport was created for, it probably isn’t designed to carry much. It may even already be packed with supplies. Besides, if it goes to another country it might not be quite as bad there yet. Hoping it could be completely safe would probably be wishful thinking, but it’s a slim possibility.”

“Alright, so there isn’t any point,” Xin stated bluntly, “Wherever we end up, we’ll just have to find what we need. It seems stupid to try and think of all the instruments and tools that it would take, and then cart them about when so much is unsure.” Without being sure why, Xin’s mind flashed back to the hopeless doomed feeling that her dream had left her with.

“So what should we take then?” Harry asked. “Food? Water?”

“Yes, but we needn’t take that much. Once we’re out of the desert there’ll be places we can raid and pick things up. It would probably be a good idea to avoid busy shopping malls, but we could do with finding a sporting goods store and maybe a pharmacy anyway. We should gather up some basic survival items, for instance: a camping stove, torches, first aid and such,” Pete shared his thoughts. “They probably have all of that here on the base somewhere, but this place is so big that it could take forever to find it all.”

“Moving on from all of this depressing uncertainty...” Lucy happily butted in. “I have an idea that will probably make us some of the best prepared people to face this zombie infested mission of ours.”

Lucy looked smug and pleased with herself, whilst the others raised their eyebrows and looked questioningly at each other.

“One of the perks of being on a
military base
,” she emphasised the words. “Is the access you have to a whole arsenal of weapons and vehicles that you would otherwise never get hold of. We haven’t had much need for them up until this point, but we are going to need to be kitted out and ready to kick ass!”

Slow smiles crept over everyone’s faces. Xin’s mind conjured up an image of herself wearing a soldier’s khaki’s and toting a machine gun from the turret of an enormous tank. She couldn’t hold back a burst of laughter. Frank, Harry and Pete looked at her in confusion for a moment, but Lucy was excited and joined in her amusement. Frank shook his head at them both and let out an exasperated chuckle that turned into gales of carefree laughter. Soon enough, they were all at it. It was a beautiful moment. After so much misery and gloomy, serious conversations, it was blissful for them all to let loose and enjoy a simple moment of happiness. The sound of their mingled laughter gave them a boost, and when the noise finally died down they were wiping their eyes and grinning like fools.

The gang decided not to wait. If they got everything sorted they could set off on their drive immediately. Consequently, they found themselves amongst the hulking buildings of the main base yet again. The ride down had been relatively easy. The hordes of zombies had grown to staggering proportions but due to their clustering they were easy to spot and that made it easy to drive wide of them. They didn’t stick to the track, in order to keep a wide berth they rode across the dirt. The small groups of dead that had straggled away from the others caused them no problems.