Those Who Remain (Book 2) (25 page)

I hated life. I preferred movies. I liked movies where everything went to shit, because everything does goes to shit. I liked happy sugary endings too, but always knew they were never going be real to me. I liked Zombies movies better because it showed how horrible people could be. How crappy their lives were. It validated my hatred of life.

When I found out about the disease, I felt scared but also excited. Something woke up inside me. I could see myself triumphing over all those petty people who tormented me. I was going to finally star in my own life and take charge. I was going to win and be the hero I always wanted to be for Ma. Everyone would look at me and see someone to be respected and admired.

Look at me now.

The gun’s barrel tastes bitter and cold. I want to throw up, but that would just make things worse.

Ma would hate me now. She would give me her trademark annoyed look and scold me for giving up on life. She wanted grandchildren. Too bad I hate kids and I’m incapable of love. There’s something really broken and wrong inside me and no one can fix it.

The sounds of the movie audience echo around the corridor and reach me again. From the muffled dialog, I can see the scene playing in my mind. Betty just confessed her love for Ethan, only to be rejected by the handsome, but silent and mysterious, teen wolf.

Next there’s a really cool fight scene involving an enormous alpha wolf and a group of dumb teens stuck in a dark cave. Great gore effects and editing. Really gave me chills the first time I saw it.

Maybe I should see it before… Well, why not? The gun isn’t going anywhere and neither is my brain. I can kill myself whenever I want. I place the gun on the desk and drag my feet to the basketball court.

The energy inside is almost contagious. People clap, laugh, cheer and gasp at the same time. They are sharing the delicious cheese pizza that Old Joe prepared earlier. Everyone has a blanket, and some even hug under them. Happy families and couples enjoying a fun movie together. After a long time of being alone in the dark with my own thoughts, this feels like a punch in the stomach. I miss watching movies with Ma and Dad. I miss feeling happy. Will I ever be able to do that again? Just sit and enjoy a movie without the guilt of everything I did haunting me all the time? Should I?

“Hey, Danny! Sit with us!” Carl, the Final Fantasy eight-year-old fan waves at me with a smile. Someone sitting above him silences the poor kid.

I shake my head at him, staying next to the exit door. I wasn’t planning on being noticed. The kid whispers to his mother and gets up, bringing a slice of pizza to me.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” he whispers with a hand covering half his mouth. “She was nice. You should come to my place and help me beat that boss again. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He skips back to the stands, hiding against his father’s chest when the werewolf villain sniffs around in the dark, looking for another teen to kill.

I eat my slice of greasy pizza. It’s cold and mushy. I know I’m crying and can only hope the darkness hides the tears. I made so many mistakes. How can I fix them if I’m dead? How can I face her in the other side or whatever, if I don’t fix them and receive true forgiveness from the people I care about?

All I wanted was to make Ma proud of me and I can’t do that dead.

With a last bite of pizza, I turn around and leave the basketball court and the movie behind. I’m not sure what I should do next, but I know it involves Roger. I have to apologize, beg and ask for forgiveness. He should know what I said was bullshit, he isn’t a murderer. He’s a hero. I’m the one responsible for all those deaths, not him. And if he wants to save the world in a crazy quest for a cure, then he has my full support.

I leave the court behind, the sounds of the movie still echoing through the corridor. I’m halfway back to the classroom when a squeak of surprise stops me.

In front of me is the feral girl from earlier in the morning. She looks scared out of her mind. Worse, she’s pointing a gun at me.

“Hey there,” I say with a smile and a step back. “You woke up, huh?”

The Doctor X

January 8th, Friday, 4 pm

Light fades from between the window’s blinds, and the humming of a generator kicks in, lighting the office by turning on the fluorescent lamps hanging from the ceiling. I check on Billy’s and the girl’s pulse and temperature. They show no signs of change. It’s too soon to know if that’s good or bad news. Without proper equipment for blood analysis, I can only rely on their bodies’ responses. At least the girl isn’t squirming on the bed again.

“That went well,” Tigh says with half a smile.

While I appreciate his attempt at humor, adrenaline still fills my veins. My heart pounds against my chest and my hands tremble. I still can’t believe I told them about the cure and the briefcase. When the young man, named Danny, doubted me at every turn, something snapped inside me.

It was like I was witnessing my darkest thoughts become reality right in front of me. He voiced all of them. It was hard enough to push them back during the night, hearing it made them seem even more likely.

To silence every doubt I had, I told them everything. If I wasn’t going to stay and help these people, the least I could do was give them the truth.

“You think I made a mistake? What if they tell everyone about this? People will… I don’t know. Panic or try to rob us. Did I make a mistake?”

Tigh gets up and places a hand on my upper right arm. “You did the right thing. I think we can trust these people. And the Sheriff is right, going through the woods is a better option for us. With a guide and enough supplies, that is. Our chances just went from terrible to okay.”

I’m grateful that he’s trying to make me feel better. We have known each other for a short time, but Tigh’s support gives me courage. If this man, who saw me make terrible choices and countless mistakes… If this man can trust me with this, then I’m okay. I can feel confident.

“Tigh… We really are going to do this, aren’t we? We are going to save everyone. Everything will be fine, right?”

With a hand on my shoulder, he nods. “Yes.”

I’m not sure if he’s saying that only for my benefit or if he truly believes it, but it works nevertheless. I smile, feeling my heart swell with hope.

“But before we save the world, let’s go and watch teen werewolves kill each other,” I say to him, receiving a short laugh in return.

Tigh takes me to the school’s basketball court, it’s already filled with people eating pizza and sitting on the bleachers. A makeshift cinema screen hangs on the opposite wall, and a projector in the middle of the court shows the start of the movie. We grab two slices of homemade cheese pizza and sit on the floor.

Hours fly past between teen angst and cringe-worthy confessions of eternal love. The crowd cheers at the fight scenes, gasps at the right times and screams at the scary moments. It feels like a huge family, enjoying their time together with no worries or fears.

Whatever fate awaits me in a few days, it can’t reach me in here, not yet. Tigh and I share a smile.

And then the doors open, the sound echoing over the screams on screen. Lily, the young woman from earlier, runs inside the court, blood on her shirt and face. I get up and meet her halfway. Instinct tells me I’m the one she wants.

“Please… We… We need your help. Danny… Danny has been shot.”

We find Danny fallen backwards on the school’s floor, coughing blood and eyes unfocused. The Sheriff presses his hands against Danny’s chest, trying to contain the bleeding. Around him, a pool of red grows by the second. I kneel down next to the body and feel his pulse: erratic. He’s in shock and his skin is pale from the blood loss. Someone shot him in the chest, possibly hitting one of his lungs. Every time he breathes, coughs and painful wheezes follow.

That’s not good. Damn it.

“How long since the incident?” I ask him.

“We just found him like this. We heard a shot. I think… Three minutes ago? I don’t know.”

“Okay, keep the pressure on, but be careful not to damage his ribs.” I turn to Tigh. “Get me Felicity, ask her to bring me a saline solution, an IV and every tool she has. Pads. A valve mask, if she has one. Needles, scissors and a rubber glove.”

Tigh nods and sprints away. Lily walks around us, a hand on her face, the other holds a gun. Her incessant pacing bothers me, but I don’t have the time to ask her to stop.

My fingers stay on Danny’s neck, checking his pulse every few seconds. It takes Felicity and Tigh what appears to be ages to come with the things I asked for. Danny doesn’t have time. His left side is already swollen: he has a collapsed lung and I need to extract the air so he can breathe again. That’s the immediate problem.

I can’t think of the next ones. Not now.

Felicity hands me the gloves and the needle. I make a small incision, releasing the air. Gently, I take the Sheriff’s hands off his friend chest. The man doesn’t even react, eyes fixed on Danny’s pale face. While I start to apply pads on his chest wound to try containing the bleeding, Danny reaches for the Sheriff, trying to raise his left hand. With his lungs decompressed, he can finally speak. Or, at least, try.

“H-hey, Rog… The girl….”

“It’s okay, Danny. Try not to talk,” his friend replies, passing the back of his hand against his sweaty forehead. Lily kneels down beside the Sheriff, listening with wide eyes to each word. “The doctor is here, everything is going to be okay.”

I feel Tigh’s eyes on me. He knows just as I do that this wound is not something I can fix. He needs surgery, intensive care, the right amount of anesthesia, antibiotics and weeks of recovery. I don’t have the tools or the resources to fix a punctured lung. A shoulder with a bullet lodged just under the skin is not as evasive as the procedure Danny needs to survive. I would need to open his chest, sew the lung and repair any other damage the bullet did on its way out, hoping all the while he doesn’t bleed out on the table—I don’t have a supply of blood here. Even if I did manage, by some miracle, to close him up and not lose him to cardiac arrest or bleeding, the chances of him developing a general infection are enormous… I don’t have a breathing machine on hand either; without it he won’t able to breath properly for the duration of the surgery.

“He’s not breathing… He’s not….” the Sheriff murmurs.

“Do something!” Lily’s shout in my ear take me out of my daze. “He’s dying!”

I blink and clear my vision. She’s right, he is.

The Sheriff starts doing CPR. As I watch him pump air into his friend mouth, I sigh and shake my head. “There’s nothing… I… I’m sorry. He needs a hospital. Surgery. We don’t have the time.”

She grabs me by the collar, with her face close to mine. “Make the time. Save him. Now.”

“If I could… I would… He’s bleeding too fast. He’s needs air, and….”

I stop. My mind flashes to Victoria, to every person infected with the virus. They don’t feel pain. They barely bleed. Their bodies’ responses become slow, almost like hibernating. They didn’t need much air in their lungs in the first place. A strange mutation, in the likes I never had seen before, but a reality nevertheless.

My eyes meet Lily’s. She stares at me with open fury, waiting for a solution. Waiting for me to do my job.

“I think I can save him. I think I know a way to save him.” I gulp for air. “But… I don’t know if….”

“What is it? What you need? Tell me!”

“We need to infect him with the virus.”

Her eyes widen, and I feel everyone stare at me. “What?”

“The virus mutates our bodies in such way that it slows our basic needs. Water, food… Lung function. I don’t know how it works, I can’t even explain it to you, but it’s true. If Danny is infected he’ll stop bleeding, he won’t react to the pain, and I’ll be able to open his chest and fix any internal damage. He won’t suffer any infection, because the virus will protect him.”

She releases me, blinking quickly. “But if he’s infected he….”

“We have the cure,” I answer her unspoken fear. “We can cure him, reverse it.”

Lily stares back at Danny’s body. The Sheriff still tries to keep him alive. “Will it work?”

“It’s our best hope.”

She nods, face set. “Keep him alive. I’m going on a hunt.”