Whimper (25 page)

“No! We’ve got to keep moving!” Elliott yelled from the backseat.

“No shit,” I growled, trying to move the car past the growing numbers of bodies in the street heading for our stopped car.

I stomped the accelerator, making the tires spin on the wet pavement before they caught and we shot forward. I squealed when two people bounced off the hood, but kept forcing our way free of the attacking crowd. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m doing this!” I gasped.

One of our headlights had gone out, but the streetlights were still glowing orange. I shut off the remaining headlight, hoping it would make us less of an attraction.

I made it another block, almost to the edge of campus, before it happened. The first white van shot out in front of me from the alley. We all screamed as I stood on the brakes, the SUV fishtailing wildly. I barely stopped before I t-boned the white van. Two more vans peeled in on either side of us and an SUV blocked us from behind.

“Run. Both of you run,” Elliott ordered, hauling Amie over the back seat. “They want us. Go!” The doors of the vehicles were opening, CDC security members in black tactical gear would be on top of us in seconds. Zack pushed me out the driver’s door and thrust my bag in my hands. “Don’t draw, don’t give them a reason to shoot you,” he snarled. “Run!”

Elliott dragged Amie behind him, bailing out of the backseat. The rain was coming down in sheets now, hammering everyone and making it hard to see even a few feet in front of you. My brother and I crept around the front of the driver’s side van, splashing our way towards the alley. We knew this part of town, we were only minutes from home and our bar. I knew every stone of this street. I slipped in the rainwater, but Zack grabbed me by the backpack, hauling me back to my feet.

A CDC agent popped out of nowhere, screaming at me through his face mask, a rifle swinging towards my face. I panicked, lurching backwards to get away from the barrel. “Zoe!” my brother screamed, crashing into me like a linebacker. I went down as the rifle spit sound and flame.

Warm mist splattered my face, along with bits of gore. Bile forced its way up my throat as I slowly realized what I was feeling. My brother’s body dropped onto the wet pavement next to me, limp and lifeless. There was nothing I could do. No way to repair the damage they’d done to him. Tears burned in my eyes, blurring the world beyond the torrential rainfall. I grabbed his bag and ran down the alley, tripping and crying. I could hear shouting behind me, but kept going.

As I emerged from the alley and into the next street, another figure emerged from the alley right behind me. Elliott had Amie slung over his shoulder, and he was breathing hard.

“They can’t drive past the dumpsters, but they’re coming. Keep going, don’t slow down for me!” he urged.

I tasted the acid in my mouth as I struggled not to snarl at him. My brother was bleeding out in the street, but that bitch was still alive. “Just leave her!” I sobbed. “We have to go!”

We were moving, but too slowly. They’d be pulling around the corner any minute. “I won’t leave her. Tell me where to find you and I’ll try to catch up,” Elliott argued.

Through my rage, details slowly came into focus. I knew where we were. Even in the dark and through the rain, I knew this place. We couldn’t outrun them, but we could hide.

The building across the street from us was where Bill’s Dry Cleaning used to be. He was one of my uncle’s best friends and I’d played in that building millions of times. There was an equipment elevator in the alley that Zack and I had ridden up and down, pretending to “Disappear.”

The memory flayed me, but it gave me a direction. “This way,” I ordered. We could hear the engines racing, they were almost on top of us. I raced into the alley, looking for the controls. The door into the basement would likely be locked, but if we could get down into the access shaft, maybe they’d overlook us.

I had the grate slid back and the platform lowering before Elliott reached me. He dropped Amie onto the moving metal plate next to me and hopped down after her. We hit the bottom and I forced the grate back closed, dirty water pouring down over our heads. We moved back towards the entrance to the basement. It was padlocked. Of course. I slumped against the door, both bags dragging on me like boulders. Zack’s bag of tricks weighed a ton.

“He never got to use his stupid grenades,” I said to myself, the tears streaming down my face.

Elliott’s face was starting to look ashen as he took the bag from my shoulder and pressed a kiss to my temple. He dug into Zack’s bag and pulled out bolt cutters. I grabbed them from him and snapped the padlock then forced the door open.

My heart was pounding inside my chest like a runaway freight train and my mouth had gone dry, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. Zoe was drenched, shaking and pale. Tears ran down her cheeks, but I don’t think she was even aware. She pushed into the dark, dirty basement, pulling the bags with her.

I hefted Amie’s dead weight, dragging her into the cool space. She was completely unconscious. The virus was working its way into her organs. Before long, she’d be past the point where my serum would do any good for her.

I could inject her now, but I needed to know Zoe was okay first. She was standing in the middle of the room, water dripping from her hair and eyes as she stared down at Zack’s bag in her hand.

I made sure the door to the outside was bolted behind us before going over to talk to her. Zack was gone. I had no idea what to expect from her. “Zoe?” I whispered softly, approaching her slowly.

She sniffled and looked up at me. “Stop acting like I’m a strange dog you’re afraid is going to bite, please.”

I folded her into my arms, holding her while she wept on my shoulder. “I always thought the twin thing was bullshit. We never thought we had any unusual connection, but I felt it when he was gone. I knew.”

I patted her back, not knowing what to say or how I could make any of this better. “I’m so sorry,” I finally said.

After a few minutes, she pulled away and wiped her eyes. “It’s going to be daylight soon. We can’t stay here. They’ll be looking for us. How long until they either find us or move on?”

I shook my head. I had no idea. Fatigue and thirst were hitting me hard now. I sat down on the grimy concrete floor and pulled a water bottle out of my bag, drinking greedily until it was empty.

“Here, give it to me. I’ll refill it for you,” Zoe offered with a tired, raspy sound to her voice. I let her take the bottle and watched as she used her red pen light to find a sink over in a far corner.

“How did you know this was here?” I asked, amazed by how easily she kept finding ways to save my ass.

“Used to play here as a kid. The Firebrand is only a block over. We’re so close…” She sighed and didn’t bother finishing.

I knew what she meant. So close, yet so far away. I looked back over at Amie. Her breathing was growing shallow. “Zoe, are you feeling sick at all? Any symptoms?”

“I don’t know, Elliott. My brother just
died
. Everything aches, but I don’t know what’s emotional and what’s physical. I don’t think I’m infected, if that’s what you’re asking. Can’t you examine me or something?”

I could, but not here. “I’d need a microscope at least. It has been long enough. You should be showing some kind of symptoms.” I looked back at Amie, feeling torn. Which one did I treat?

“Why does this matter now, Elliott? What aren’t you telling me?” Zoe asked.

I sucked in a few deep breaths. The coward in me wanted to push the responsibility for making this decision on to Zoe. If she wanted the serum, I’d give it to her and make Amie as comfortable as I could before the change. If not, I could treat Amie without this overwhelming guilt and fear.

“I have a single dose of my serum with me. I haven’t tested it yet. It might not even work, but I think it will boost the immune system enough to allow it to defend itself and keep the virus from ever taking over,” I explained.

“And why the hell haven’t you taken it yet?” she gasped.

“I couldn’t risk it knocking me out or making things worse while you needed my help. Plus I thought we’d be able to make more, but of course it hasn’t worked out that way. I left instructions with Brianna to finish another dose. It takes too long and it takes a lot of our blood to produce.”

She stared at me expectantly, knowing I was holding something back. “I feel like I should be treating Amie, but only if I know that you’re safe. It might not even work, but it’s the best chance I have,” I admitted.

“So, if we inject her and it
works
, then we’ll know it’s safe for you to take it. If it doesn’t work then you’ll know to go back to the drawing board,” Zoe summarized.

Wiped clean of all my moral entanglements, she had summed up the situation pretty well. “Yes, but if you start showing symptoms in the next few hours then I won’t have any way to treat you,” I reminded her.

“If I start showing symptoms we’ll deal with it then. You’d be afraid the serum would make me worse anyway. This way we’ll know. Shoot her up and then let’s move. I want to make it to the bar before we’re out in broad daylight,” Zoe said brusquely as she pulled off the bloodied, sodden lab coat she’d still been wearing and threw it to the ground, followed by her skirt and blouse until she stood in her bra and underwear, digging through her bag. She pulled out her leggings and a dark t-shirt and began putting them on almost forcefully. “I’m not running around wearing my brother’s blood. I can’t,” she said flatly. “Give her the damn shot.”

I turned, giving Zoe a modicum of privacy. She needed time to grieve, but we wouldn’t have that luxury soon.

I carefully unwrapped the vial of serum, grateful that nothing had broken during our exertions. My hands were trembling, and my headache was so bad it was almost blinding. Administer this and then you can tend to yourself. I took slow, deep breaths, willing myself to slow down, and lower my body temperature. The trembling continued regardless. I drew the slightly amber liquid into a syringe and wiped Amie’s arm clean with an alcohol pad before locating the brachial artery and inserting the needle through her flesh. I drew back, confirming there was blood in the serum before I slowly depressed the liquid into her bloodstream. I covered the puncture wound with a bandage, more out of habit than necessity, and put everything in a biohazard bag. I couldn’t risk leaving anything behind that could be picked up by an innocent later.
      

Then I pulled out my own syringe and plunged the needle into my abdomen, my breath catching from the burn as the liquid entered my body.

“We’ll get you ice when we get to the bar,” Zoe suggested. She was dressed and carrying both bags. “Let’s take the stairs if you’re ready. It’ll make less noise.”

I wanted to protest; dragging Amie up a flight of stairs sounded almost impossible. She was a slight girl, but I was running out of energy. It was logical not to draw a crowd though, so I stumbled to my feet.

“Hold on, you’re exhausted. Let me help,” Zoe demanded. I started to protest, against a deflective hand. “I wrangle kegs and cases of beer every day. I’ve got the arms of a pro wrestler. I’ll get her head, you grab the feet.”

I was too tired to argue, and when she didn’t seem to be struggling at all under the load, I grabbed Amie’s feet and followed Zoe out of the basement.

We emerged in a shuttered dry cleaning business, Zoe leading the way through the machinery to a back door. Amie, still heavily unconscious but breathing, slumped on the floor as we peeked out into the street.

“I don’t hear any vehicles,” Zoe whispered, “but I’m not sure I could over the storm anyway.”

The wind was howling, bouncing tree limbs and power lines around, swirling debris and massive amounts of water through the streets.

Normally, it was the kind of weather a sane person would avoid. Normally, we’d sit inside with a hot beverage and a good book, listening to the rain pound the roof. Today the rain was our friend because it would camouflage us as we raced from one building to another.

“I hope the power doesn’t go out,” Zoe breathed. “All those people in the tunnels, they’ll be shit out of luck down there in the dark.”

We watched, seeing nothing unnatural moving after several minutes, and decided to make a break for it. Zoe took all three bags and I slung Amie over my shoulder. She was beginning to weigh a ton. Sloshing outside, the wind ripped at us. The sheer force of it driving the rain against our faces made it a struggle to breathe. Zoe clung to my arm, fighting to stay upright and keep us from being separated in the street.

A child’s pool bounced down the roadway, flipping over and over. “Almost there!” Zoe called against the wind. We stumbled around a corner, discovering several large mounds laying in the street, with more beyond them. I tried to steer her away, feeling with a sick certainty that I already knew what they were.

The same street that had vibrated with life and music only a few days before was now littered with dead bodies, the carcasses of people who had become infected, spread the contagion, and whose bodies had then essentially burnt out.