My Zombie Summer (Book 1): The Undead Road (12 page)

Jewel and I bee-lined for the healthcare center.

Under the cover of dusk, we made sure to stay behind trees and parked cars to hide our approach. Two men left the building through the west entrance, where we had planned to enter. They just stood there, talking.

I removed the leash from Chloe’s collar. “Chloe.” I pointed at the guards. “Decoy.”

She sprinted for the entrance. The guards saw Chloe right away. She pawed at the glass doors and took off, heading south. I was worried that they wouldn’t fall for the bait, but then they followed her and tried to coax her by whistling. Jewel ran for it. I followed at her heels. Getting in was the easy part. Getting out required a second decoy. That was Jewel. She would approach the guards on our way out, ask if they’d found her dog, and keep them distracted while Kaylynn and I split.

Piece of cake.

I pulled at the first door handle to the health center that I could reach. We then slipped into a vestibule and opened the next door. The coast was clear. We walked down the halls. I listened, forcing myself to be more alert than usual. We made it to Radiology when someone pushed a pair of swinging doors open. I ducked behind a nurse station, pulling Jewel with me.

“She’s beginning to stir,” a woman said. “Should I give another one-hundred?”

“Make it two-hundred,” Sam replied. “The pathogen is resilient to sedatives.”

“Right,” the woman replied. “I’ll do that when I come back this way.”

“You’ve done enough for today,” Sam said. “I’ll take care of this.”

My jaw clenched, my nervous fear replaced by anger. They were giving sedatives to Kaylynn? That was really messed up. Talk about timing. Breaking Kaylynn out would be a lot easier if she wasn’t asleep. When the hall was quiet again, we made our way down the last stretch. We poked our heads around the next corner. An armed man stood in front of the restricted section. Kaylynn had to be on the other side of that door, but without a blind spot, we’d never slip past that guard.

Jewel walked ahead.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

She pretended to ignore me. “Excuse me, sir. Do you know where the bathroom is?”

“You shouldn’t be here, kid,” the man said. “There’s no bathrooms here.”

Jewel did a panic dance. “Where can I find one?”

“Go straight, make a left and—shit, I know where to go, but”—he paused for a second, and then he sighed—“It’ll be quicker if I show you. Make it fast.”

“Okay! Thank you.” Jewel nodded at me and whispered from the corner of her mouth, “Hide!”

I dove behind a fake plant, worried and thankful for my sister’s quick brain. And thanks to Dad, she could fight off a wannabe security dude if she needed to. I entered the hallway again, like a ninja, and made my way through the forbidden door. The first thing I saw was another hall with a nurse station at the end.
Labor and Delivery
to the right—
Surgery
to the left. Following my gut, I veered right, where someone had scribbled
Armory
on a door in the middle of the hall.

Our swag had to be in there.

I opened the door with ease into some kind of in-patient common room with a large TV mounted on the wall. A pool table caught my eye in the back corner, next to a huge window with double-paned glass. Weapons covered nearly every inch of the green felt.

Getting our weapons back wasn’t exactly in the plan, but why not? Better safe than sorry. I just went after the ones that belonged to Jewel and me. I found her new rifle first and then I packed a couple boxes of 30.06 ammunition. It took me a minute to find my Berettas. Someone had put them in a gaming closet.

I had to keep moving, although I was relieved to be reunited with my little friends. There was no time to check them, so I grabbed a couple more boxes of .40 and .45 and zipped them in my backpack, just to make it heavier. After that I checked the hall before entering.

I checked the nurse’s station. Nothing but scattered papers and some keys. Keys unlock stuff, so I grabbed them and sprinted for the Nursery first. I searched the windows where people could look at their newborn babies. There were beds inside. Kaylynn was on one.

She seemed perfectly normal, lying still, except for the Velcro-restraints on her wrists and feet. And the door was locked. Overkill. I searched the keys until I found the right one. I twisted the lock and entered.

Kaylynn’s jaw dropped as I set down the rifle. “Hey,” I said. I wish I had said something cooler.

“Jay!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”

“Busting you out. What’ve they done to you?”

“Nothing . . . they’re just
observing
me, I guess.” I went to work on the restraints. They came off easily. “You shouldn’t,” she said. “We’re in enough trouble.”

“There’s a cure,” I said, deciding to come clean. I told her everything, including our plan to help her. “We heard it over the radio. My parents went to check it out.” I unfastened the belt at her waist and went for the ankles. “And Sam’s on her way to give you a sedative.”

“A seda-
what
?” That made her sit up. “Why?”

“She hasn’t?” I pulled the last restraint off.

Kaylynn shook her head. “What’s going on?”

I had no clue. I thought I had one, but the facts had changed. If the sedative wasn’t for her, then who?”

“I don’t know. Are you coming or not?”

“I . . . shouldn’t. I’m jinxed, remember?”

“You’re the luckiest jinx I’ve ever met.”

She stared at me with a
so-you-know
look in her dark blue eyes. She lowered her head and parted her bangs. She had a two-inch scar above her left ear. A Vector must have scratched her. “They got me a week after it all started,” she explained. “I thought I was dead, but . . . I didn’t turn. The people with me thought I was a miracle, but—I don’t know who or what I am now.”

I couldn’t find her clothes, so I tossed her my hoodie instead. When we left the nursery and went back for the exit, the doors opened. I pulled Kaylynn all the way across the front desk to the other side of hall as Sam entered the corner of my eye, holding a syringe.

She hadn’t noticed us yet.

There was only one place I could think of where she wouldn’t find us. I took Kaylynn’s hand, and we ran into Surgery together. We pushed the door open and entered a dark room. To our relief, Sam hadn’t raised the alarm. She would when she found Kaylynn missing.

Kaylynn tugged on my arm. She was pointing at an operating table in the center of the room. A body was lying on it, covered with a sheet. It was hooked up to more monitors and medical equipment than I’d ever seen. That’s saying something, since my mom’s a nurse.

The patient’s chest rose with slow, calm breaths.

Kaylynn stepped back. “Let’s get out of here, Jay.”

I should’ve listened to her, but I had to know what Sam was hiding. I neared the table and pulled the sheet off. A girl with pale skin turned her head and looked at me with those red Vector eyes. She was also strapped down, her mouth covered by an oxygen mask. She raised her head and snapped her jaws at us. Gray foam pooled around the corner of her mouth. The smell alone made my stomach churn. And by her side was a heart monitor, and other devices. She had a pulse.

I brushed sides with Kaylynn, trying to make sense of what we had discovered. The girl was a Vector, but she wasn’t dead. She had a heartbeat. She was alive!

The lights flashed on, nearly blinding us.

“Hello, children . . .”

Kaylynn and I turned around. Sam was at the door, holding a syringe in one hand and a pistol in the other. I whipped out my .45 and pointed back before she could aim. I’d never pointed a gun at a living person before.

For the first time in my life, I was truly horrified.

Sam stepped forward. A wide smile was spreading across her face. “I see you’ve met my daughter . . .”

Dad once told me, if I ever pointed a gun at someone, I had to be ready to pull the trigger. But now, for real, I knew I couldn’t bring myself to do it. If Sam would just step away from the door and let us go, we’d have no problem. But for reasons in front of me—and behind me—I could tell that her mind had long since left David City. Way to go, whoever put her in charge.

Maybe no one put her in charge.

I hugged the trigger of my .45 a little tighter.

Sam set her pistol next to a washbasin and raised her hands, still holding the syringe. “I knew you kids were too nosy for your own good.” She sidestepped to the other corner of the table, leaving the doorway open. “Now that you’ve freed your friend, what are you gonna do? You have nowhere else to go. You have no one to run to. You’ve just screwed yourselves.”

“What’re you doing to her?” Kaylynn asked, nodding at the girl.

“What am I doing
for
her, you mean,” Sam corrected. “I’m doing the same as you. I’m trying to keep her from slipping away from me. You should know, Kaylynn. You’re one of them.”

My grip tightened. “She’s no Vector. She’s alive.”

Sam laughed. “Do you think my daughter is?”

I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to get the hell out, but my feet were like glue on the linoleum floor.

“Do you know the medical definition of death?” Sam asked. “It’s when the vital organs stop: the liver, the brain, the heart. Take a good look at my daughter.” She motioned her hand at the thrashing girl. “Her heart is beating. She knows her Mamma when she sees me.”

The woman choked up. Tears filled her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” was all I could say. “Let us go—”

“What will you do?” Sam’s voice was bitter. “Fend for yourself? Kill off more people just because they’re suffering? Your little friend is infected, isn’t she? What will happen when she turns? What will you do then? Shoot her? Burn her in a pile with the rest of them?”

“I won’t let that happen!”

Sam closed in on the table. The girl still struggled as she neared, trying her best to reach Sam’s neck with her teeth. Sam reached out with her hand and ran her fingers through the girl’s hair. “I thought the same thing when I gave her my shotgun.” The girl growled as Sam pulled away. “When the dead first came to our town, I told her to stay put, but then she took off running to help a friend. I didn’t give her enough shells.” A tear fell down Sam’s cheek. “I should’ve been there . . .”

In a few short minutes, my impression of Sam had changed. She had the nerve to lecture us while she was holding a flesh-eating girl right in the heart of their headquarters? It became perfectly clear what Sam had planned to do with the syringe in her hand. The sedative wasn’t for Kaylynn. It was to control her daughter.

“You’re keeping her alive?” Kaylynn asked.

Nodding slightly, Sam wiped her eyes dry. “You’re a smart girl, Kaylynn. Constant sleep slows the process. If we keep her watered and fed, why—her cells will keep restoring and everything. We can’t assume they’re gone and treat these monsters like target practice. She’s still fighting against it now.” Sam stuck the syringe into the girl’s IV line. “Life is a gift. It needs to be nurtured and valued.” Her smile widened as the infected girl lay still. “We must value every life, no matter what . . .”

My hands trembled so bad that I couldn’t aim. Within seconds, the infected girl calmed down and closed her eyes, back to the peaceful state we’d found her in. This didn’t reassure me. I wanted to get out.

I looked at Kaylynn and gestured at the door.

We slowly made our way to the exit while Sam was caressing the head of her near-dead daughter. She didn’t look at us. Or speak. She was in a trance. I reached back for the door handle and pulled. It wouldn’t budge.

I pocketed my Beretta and tried with both hands. Even with Kaylynn’s help, we couldn’t open the door. Then, so faint I could barely hear it, a rifle round went off—a big one, probably from the roof where the sniper perched. Radio static filled the room from Sam’s belt, and a second and a third round sounded off in the distance. I lost count when the automatic fire blared.

Kaylynn clenched my hand, looking at me in panic. I read her mind. A horde was coming our way.