Contagious (6 page)

“
We have to get out of here!” I agreed.

Padraic objected. “Where are Sonja and Jason?”

“
Zoe,” I said under my breath. Sonja would have wanted to find her and Jason wouldn’t have let them go alone. “Five minutes,” I told him, though I had no way of tracking the time. “If we don’t see them then we leave. Or get killed.” His blue eyes met mine, begrudgingly nodding. “I’m not dying in a basement,” I said with finality. I wanted so badly to race up the basement stairs. But I knew I could never live with myself if I did nothing. I had to try to save them.

Logan took out another zombie. Three more took its place. Like an angry hive, zombies filtered out of the safe room. We couldn’t fight them all. Even if we had proper weapons. There were just too freaking many.

“
This way!” Padraic suggested, jogging ahead. Still holding the brain covered brick, I followed. We blindly crashed down the hall, hearts racing. Padraic stopped suddenly and I bumped into him. “Shh!” he said, instantly irritating me. I wasn’t making a sound. His shushing was highly unnecessary. I pushed past him as if that would help me see into the darkness. Something sizzled behind me. With a pop, a match blazed alive. Logan held it up, casting the flickering light around us. The match only stayed lit long enough to momentarily illuminate the face of a half mad woman. She babbled incoherently, repeatedly walking into the wall. She hid from the light, retreating away.

No one moved. I held my breath, hating for how loudly it escaped from my lungs. Terror pulsed through my body. I couldn’t help the tremors that took over. With hands just as shaky, Logan lit another match. The woman was gone.

“
Maybe she’s gone for good,” I suggested quietly, knowing it wasn’t true. “Let’s keep going.”

“
Where are we going?” Padraic asked, his hand finding its way into mine. I gripped his fingers tightly, trying to will the shakiness from my muscles.

“
We need out,” I said. Then the match burned out. When Logan stuck another, the woman was behind Deron. “Look out!” I cried, pulling my hand from Padraic’s. I was fast; she was faster. She wrapped her arms around Deron’s neck and sunk her teeth into his skin. He yelled and staggered back. She released and clamped down again, blood spurting out of the first wound. Padraic grabbed my hand again.

“
She severed an artery; there’s no way…” he cut off. There’s no way Deron can live was what he meant.

“
Come on!” I shouted, racing forward in the darkness. I tripped over God knows what, falling hard on my knees. “Mother fucker!” I loudly swore.

“
Orissa?” a frail voice called.

“
Zoe!” I shouted back.

“
I got her!” someone, presumably Jason, yelled back.

“
Where are you?” I asked, cursing myself for not grabbing a flashlight. “Don’t move, just keep talking and I’ll follow your voice.”

Padraic—or at least I thought it was Padraic—helped me up. I took hold of his wrist. “Hold onto each other,” I instructed, not wanting to get separated. “Jason,” I called. “Talk to me.”

“
Ok.”

“
I mean keep talking. Talk until I find you.” Or until a zombie eats your brains.

“
We are in the basement. It’s dark. Uh, and cold.”His voice grew louder.

“
Keep talking,” I instructed.

“
I don’t know what to say.”

“
Tell me how you ended up here,” I quickly responded, saying the first thing that popped into my mind.

“
Sonja and I came here with our mom. She had a headache and…”

“
Never mind, what’s your favorite sport?”

“
Football. I like the Colts.”

Finally, I felt body heat. My fingers touched warm flesh. I was almost afraid to ask.

“
Orissa?” Sonja whimpered.

“
Yeah. Grab onto me.”

“
Orissa!” Zoe cried.

Thank God, I let out a breath of relief. “Ok, everyone needs to be really, really quiet,” I directed. “Logan, got any more matches?”

“
Just three,” he told me.

“
Turn—everyone. Then light one.”

The match fizzed. For now, we were alone in the hall. Along with Zoe, Hilary and another young girl made it out of the safe room. I took the lead, finding my brick and holding it up, ready for a fight. I could hear the shuffling and moaning of the zombies as we darted around a corner. The girl coughed loudly and wheezed. Great, we had a sick asthmatic with a cough loud enough to wake the dead. Literally.

The zombies’ pace quickened. The girl doubled over, unable to catch her breath. The second to last match faded to its end just in time for me to see Padraic pick her up and toss her over his shoulder. Logan struck the last match; if we didn’t find the hall with the stairs soon we were screwed. The fire came and went with no such luck.

Running my hand along the wall in front of me, I led the group down another hall. Every few seconds I stopped, listening for the dragging of feet. I was about to give up when a very dull glow came into view. Dim light from the security lights shone above the stairwell. Once everyone was out, I slammed the heavy door shut, a moot attempt, I know.

“
Keys,” I reminded Padraic. I needed to keep moving. If I stopped, my body would react. And I couldn’t have that right now. Logan took the coughing girl from Padraic. And Jason still held Zoe. I couldn’t expect them to race up two flights of stairs. Though it wasn’t as pitch black as the basement thanks to the emergency lights in every hall, it was still too dark to be confident that nothing was lurking. Hesitantly, I opened a door marked ‘janitor closet’.

“
Hey!” I said to the darkness. When nothing came rushing at me, I said, “Everyone get in here. Padraic and I will get the keys.” Jason tried to protest, but I shoved him in the closet and shut the door. I took my bag and gave it to Sonja.

“
There is a taser inside. It won’t hurt a zombie, but I think it can slow down a crazy. Press it against their heart.”

“
Ok,” she said weakly.

“
Which way?” I asked Padraic. His face was pale of color and his body twitched. Well, I wasn’t the only one not handling this with full composure, at least.

“
Uh,” he looked around. “This way.”

We ran to the stairwell. Our footfalls echoed loudly. We encountered nothing as we made our way down the hall on the third floor, which only made me more nervous. Maybe the zombies could go downstairs but had yet to master going up?

“
What kind of car do you have?” I asked suddenly.

Padraic gave me a ‘what the hell does it matter’ look. “A Range Rover.”

Figures. I rolled my eyes. “How many people fit in it?”

“
Oh,” he said, cluing into what I was getting at the whole time. “Five.”

“
I suppose we all will fit. It’s not like we have a choice.”

From inside a room, a crazy jumped out, knocking me to the ground. “Get the keys!” I demanded. “I can hold him off. Go!” He hissed and snapped. Oddly, my martial arts instructor’s voice rang in my head.
Remember that you are worth defending, Orissa
, he had told me. We had spent several months ignoring the traditional methods and focused on self defense. I was confident I could get away with minimal harm from a human attacker. I knew the weak points, and I knew going for the eyes, nose, and throat were good ways to stop an attack. But that relied on inflicting pain, and the crazies didn’t react to pain. The crazy’s hands wrapped around my throat.

In a minute I would pass out.

With my free hand, I struck the crazy’s face, shoving my palm into his nose, driving the bone up. Unable to breathe, he let me go. I scrambled out from under him, uprighting myself. I had nothing to kill him with. A med cart sat a foot behind me. I grabbed it and shoved it at him. He fell back, tumbling over an overturned wheelchair. I had been trained on how to fight, not how to kill.

You are worth defending.
And so was everyone else. The madman crouched, saliva dripping from his mouth as he growled. My body hummed with adrenaline. A biohazard trash can had fallen off the med cart and cracked, spilling dirty, used needles all over the floor.

“
Here goes nothing,” I said, as I dove down to get one. I pulled the needle back and lunged, driving it into the man’s chest. I pushed it in; the needle bent on his sternum, not killing him with a bubble of air as I hoped. Defeated, I backed into a room, gagging instantly at the smell of the rotting corpse that had been left in the bed. Expeditiously, I scanned the room. There was a small bathroom across from me. And the door opened into the room. I circled around the bed, knocking over the IV stand. The tubes pulled the corpse’s arm, and I grimaced, not wanting to look.

My heart was racing so fast I thought I was going to have a heart attack. With my back to the bathroom, I stood completely still, hoping that the crazy would act as predictable as I assumed. I was relieved when he jumped. I dropped out of the way, spun and slammed the door on his hand. I wheeled the bed in front of the door and booked it out of the room. Padraic was racing down the hall, keys in hand, thank God.

“
Run!” I shouted and took off, not bothering to wait for him. I tore down the stairs. My thighs burned from the exertion. Forcing myself to use some grace, I slowed and tried not to stomp down the last section of stairs.

“
We have to go this way,” Padraic breathlessly told me, pointing away from the closet. “To the parking garage.”

“
Ok.” For a minute, we caught our breath. I darted out of the stairwell to the closet. Silently, I waved everyone to follow Padraic. No zombies got in our way as we hurriedly jogged to the parking lot. They must all be in the basement, a fact for which I was both thankful and wary of; why would the zombies stick together?

We piled into the Range Rover, sitting on top of each other. Padraic gunned it out of the parking garage, smashing through the motion censored gate.

“
Where are we going?” he asked, his voice cracking in fear.

“
My house,” I answered instantly. “I have some things that might be useful.”

The farther we got from the hospital, the less zombies we saw. I didn’t know what to make of that either. I hadn’t stopped shaking as I ran up the steps to Aunt Jenny’s apartment. I felt sick with anxious fear. I fumbled with the lock, dropping my keys two times before I finally unlocked the damn door.

When no overwhelming stench of death hit me, I walked inside. Everything was where it should be. The banana bread I had made the day of the outbreak sat on the stove moldy, but untouched. Maybe Aunt Jenny had gotten out in time. A hard ball of guilt wound its way around my stomach, telling me that she would have tried, at the very least, to find me. I was her favorite (if only) niece, as she liked to remind me. There was nothing I could do about it now.

Along with locking the door, Logan shoved a chair under the handle. It was a good idea, but executed prematurely. We didn’t know if we were alone. I crossed the living room into the kitchen, rustling around in the knife draw for the biggest knife I could find. Something rattled the bathroom door. Sonja screamed and I wished it was humane to gag her. No one liked a screamer.

Logan looked at me. I nodded. I raised the knife, moving my feet as quietly as I could. He put his hand on the doorknob, mouthing ‘on three’. I counted along with him.
One, two, three!
The door opened. A cat ran out.

“
Damn it, Finickus,” I swore, letting my hand fall to my side. What was he doing trapped in the bathroom? A big bag of cat food had been dumped on the floor and the sink and tub filled with water. “Oh,” I said out loud, feeling a bit of hope. Aunt Jenny had left him with plenty of food and water. That meant she had left. And she also provided us with something valuable to wash up with.

I peered into the living room. Hilary, Jason and Sonja sat on the couch. Zoe traded her pink stuffed cat for Finickus. Logan looked out the window and Padraic tried to get the other young girl to breathe normally.

“
Take slow breaths, Lisa,” he said, his voice calming. The girl gasped for air, tears rolling down her face. I felt bad for her for being in pain but, mostly, because I had no faith in her survival. I walked into the room; a fuzzy feeling surrounded me when I saw Aunt Jenny’s unfinished tea on the coffee table. Then I felt their eyes. Every one of my seven companions, looked at me.

“
What do we do now?” Jason asked.

“
I don’t know,” I quickly answered. I didn’t like the hope in his voice.

“
I’m tired,” Zoe whimpered. “And hungry.”

“
We should rest,” Padraic suggested.

I couldn’t disagree. My body ached and I was exhausted. “Not all at once,” I told him, leaving the living room to search for food. There was nothing readily available that offered much, if any, nourishment. I extracted a bag of pretzels and a box of Oreos from the cupboard. Aunt Jenny was a fan of canned soup, but without a microwave or range top to heat it up on, it wouldn’t be easy to choke down. Remembering that Finickus preferred tuna over canned cat food, I opened the cupboard under the sink and found ten cans. Perfect, one for each. I opened the cans, plopped one upside down on the floor for Finickus and delivered our less than tasty breakfast.

Zoe, Lisa, and Sonja curled up together in Aunt Jenny’s bed after they ate, falling quickly asleep. I went into the bathroom and gave myself the coldest sponge bath ever, using water from the tub. I even managed to wash my hair. I stood in front of the mirror, staring into my green eyes as I brushed it out. We couldn’t stay here. There was nothing left and too many zombies and crazies. I wanted to go north, to see if one of the only people I truly loved in this world was still alive. I put my bathrobe on and darted across the hall into my bedroom. I hadn’t bothered to unpack anything except my clothes.