Mass Extinction Event: The Complete Fourth Series (Days 54 to 61) (13 page)

Elizabeth

“So this is the famous Elizabeth Marter!” says the smiling older man as he enters my father's office. He reaches out and shakes my hand. “Your father made quite a fuss about tracking you down.”

“Lizzie,” my father says, getting up from the chair behind his desk, “I want you to meet Oliver Hardy. Mr. Hardy is one of the other members of the council.”

I manage to smile politely, although something about this Hardy guy immediately strikes me as being a little off. For one thing, his handshake is cold and clammy, and for another he's grinning like an idiot, which seems strangely out of place at a time when so many people are still sick and dying.

“I heard about the Lake Erie operation,” Hardy continues, turning to my father. “Apparently the -”

“Everything's been sorted out,” my father says quickly, almost as if he wants to cut him off.

“But the -”

“It's fine,” my father adds firmly.

“Oh.” Hardy glances at me with a hint of concern, before his grin returns. “This must all be a shock for you, Lizzie. How long were you out in the wilderness for?”

“A while,” I reply cautiously.

“My God, that must have been hard,” he continues. “You must be so glad to have returned to civilization. Well, some form of it, anyway. And being reunited with your father... Well, that's an absolute miracle, isn't it? I doubt there's another case like it in the whole country!”

“I'm easing Lizzie into her new life gently,” my father explains. “She has a lot to get used to.”

“I just want a job,” I reply, turning to him. “I want to help out.”

“We'll find you something,” he tells me. “As soon as your foot is better, we -”

“I can still do things,” I point out, interrupting him. “Please, I want to work.”

“That's the spirit,” Hardy says, patting me on the back. Peering down at my bandaged foot, he allows himself a faint grimace. “That's Doctor Kennedy's work, is it? Well, I suppose she knew what she -”

“Actually,” my father says, cutting him off again, “I haven't been able to speak to Doctor Kennedy yet. It seems she made a few surprising choices when she was dealing with Lizzie's condition, but now she's unfortunately unable to explain herself.”

“Right,” Hardy replies with a frown, clearly understanding that he's not supposed to say too much. “Well, I suppose Mitchfield has been allowed to run on a loose leash for a while, it's no wonder they think they can do whatever they want without having to explain. Still, we'll be closing the place soon enough.” He turns to my father. “Actually, I've just been speaking to the other members of the council and we'd rather like to discuss something with you, if you don't mind. It's a delicate matter.”

“Lizzie,” my father says, “will you excuse us?”

Realizing that they want to be alone, I limp to the door. “I'll go ask around,” I mutter. “Maybe someone thinks I can help with something.”

***

“It's not that,” Alison is saying as I reach the main office, “it's just -”

She stops as soon as she hears me. With a startled look in her eyes, she gets to her feet, while Charles smiles from the chair next to her.

“Hey, Lizzie,” she says, hurrying over to me. “What are you doing out of your wheelchair? If you put pressure on that foot -”

“I'm not putting pressure on it,” I tell her, forcing a smile even though I hate the way she constantly fusses over me. “I just came to see if you've got anything I can do. I know I've only been here for a day, but I already feel like I'm going crazy.”

“We're under strict orders to look after you,” Alison explains, grabbing a chair and sliding it over to me, as if she thinks I can't even stand without getting sick. “Sit, please.”

“Did you hear the exciting news?” Charles asks. “One of the technicians received a brief signal from someone in Tokyo. It was just a burst, but it's enough to make us feel that there's someone alive over there.”

“There must be survivors everywhere, though,” I point out, making my way over to him. “It can't just be here and Japan.”

“That's what we were hoping,” Charles continues, “but you'd think there'd be other signals by now. We've received a few, but for the most part, the planet is silent. We're starting to wonder if the situation is much worse in the rest of the world.”

“I'm sure it's fine,” Alison says, bringing the chair over to me. “You should sit.”

“What about nuclear reactors?” I ask, ignoring the chair as I limp around the desk. “Isn't there a danger that they might go into meltdown?”

“We believe one plant in California might have experienced a partial release of radioactive material,” Charles explains, “but other than that, we're hoping that safety systems kicked into place when the disaster struck. There's no sign of a serious incident, at least not yet.” He pauses for a moment. “The hardest part right now is all this waiting. There's so much we don't know, and our resources are tight.”

“There are small improvements every day, though,” Alison adds, bringing the chair around the desk. “In fact -”

“Hey!” I shout, as she nudges the chair against my bed leg.

“I'm so sorry!” she replies, dropping the chair. “Did I hurt you?”

“It's fine,” I tell her, despite the slight discomfort. “Just stop carrying that damn thing around after me everywhere I go.”

“Sorry, I just -”

“I need to do something,” I continue, making my way over to one of the other desks. “My father seems to think I should just sit around like some kind of princess, but I want to help out. I mean, you guys have jobs, and it's not like I'm an invalid.” Heading over to the window, I look out at the deserted street. “Anyway, working would help me get my mind off things. I visited Boston once with my parents, when I was a kid. I don't remember it very much, but I know there were thousands of people.” I turn to them. “Where are all the bodies?”

“There was a major clean-up,” Charles replies. “You're right, there were a
lot
of people who had to be got out of the way. The risk of disease was huge.”

“So where did you put them? Did you burn them?”

“No, we...” He glances at Alison for a moment, as if he's worried about telling me the truth. Finally he looks back at me. “To be honest, we used the metro system.”

“To move the bodies?”

“To store them. We cleaned the central part of the city and put two hundred thousand corpses in the deepest part of the metro, and then we sealed the whole thing off. No-one's ever going to go down there again.”

“The rest of the bodies,” Alison adds, “in the other parts of the city, we just... I mean, we had no choice.”

“You left them there?”

“We're safe here, though,” Charles continues. “The central three-mile area has been completely sterilized, and there's a plan to take another half-mile before the end of the year. That might not sound like much, but with just eighty-one of us, the whole thing is pretty ambitious.”

“Especially if more people arrive to help,” I point out.

They glance at each other, and I can immediately tell that they're troubled by something I've said.

“What?” I ask. “Don't you want other people to come to Boston?”

“The council has decided that this should be a closed community for now,” Charles explains cautiously. “You were the exception, because of your father, but for the most part... We're not looking to bring other people here. In fact, we're actively keeping them out.”

“Haven't you seen the people at the barriers?” Alison adds.

“What people?” I ask.

“There are people out there,” she continues. “Hundreds of them, maybe even thousands. They're constantly trying to get in, half of our team-members are working as guards just to make sure that there's no contamination. People have been flocking to the city for weeks now, hoping to get help, but that's just not the way the world works anymore. If we open the floodgates, we'll be swamped.”

“But if they're out there,” I reply, “they might be starving to death!”

“Then they should go somewhere else,” Alison says, “and start their own community. They should do what we did, instead of trying to get us to just let them in. They need to prove their worth, not just beg and moan at the gates.”

“Anyway,” Charles adds, “we have no idea how many of them are diseased. Your father says they could all be carrying the sickness, Lizzie. If we let everyone in, we might be sealing our own fate. This isn't the time to have a bleeding heart.”

“I know, but -”

Hearing a sound above, I realize there are helicopters approaching.

“That'll be the team returning from Lake Erie,” Charles says, getting to his feet and heading to the door. “I have to go and debrief them. Alison will take care of you, just don't try to do too much, okay? You might feel like you're ready to run, but you're really not.”

As he heads out of the room, I listen to the sound of three distinct thuds above, as if the helicopters are landing on this building.

“You'll get used to it soon,” Alison says finally, with a hint of concern his her voice. “I know it's a shock, it was for all of us, but suddenly there'll come a moment when you realize that this is the only way we can survive. I know it sounds weird, but you'll start to think like us soon enough.”

“Sure,” I mutter, lost in thought for a moment. “But if I wanted to get in touch with someone at the Mitchfield base,” I continue finally, “and I didn't want my father to know... Could you help?”

Thomas

There are bodies everywhere.

Having left Melissa and Katie by the shore a little further along the lake's edge, I've made my way back to the old camp-site. Despite the carnage, there are still items that we can use, and we can't afford to throw anything away. There must be forty or fifty corpses here, having been cut down by gunfire from the helicopters, but I quickly tell myself that I just have to focus on the task at hand. Picking my way through the wreckage, I make for the main tent where Mark used to keep the most valuable supplies.

“Help,” a female voice whispers suddenly.

Stopping, I look around. Finally I see that one of the bodies is crawling slowly toward me through the mud.

“I can't do anything for you,” I reply, seeing that there are several bullet wounds in the woman's back and arms. “I'm sorry, I just can't.”

When she gets close, she rolls onto her back and reaches up toward me with a hand that's caked in mud and blood. I recognize her: she used to work with the people who gutted fish, and we exchanged a few words occasionally. She always seemed nice, and in a strange way she reminds me of my sister.

“Please...” she whispers. “It hurts...”

“There's nothing I can do for you,” I reply, trying to stay calm even though I'm angry at her for asking. “I don't have any medicine or -”

“Kill me,” she continues. “Please, just stop the pain.”

I shake my head.

“Please,” she sobs, “just do it fast.”

“I can't.”

“You have to. I've been here for hours now, all night... I'd do it for you...”

“I can't,” I tell her, “I'm sorry.” Turning, I hurry away, even though I can hear her desperately calling after me. I know I should go back and put her out of her misery, but after all the pain and horror I've seen over the past few days, I can't bring myself to just murder a girl in cold blood. I feel as if I'm still just clinging onto a few tattered shreds of my own humanity, and they'd be gone forever if I had to pick up a rock or a knife and kill that girl.

Stopping by the main tent, once I'm far enough away from the girl to no longer hear her voice, I take a moment to examine my injured shoulder again.

It's bad.

The creature bit into me hard last night, and the wound doesn't seem to be healing at all. If anything, it's getting worse, and I'm worried that the edges of torn flesh are starting to turn a brighter shade of red. I keep telling myself that it's nothing, that at worst it's just an infection that I can heal with some supplies from the truck, but at the same time I have this nagging fear in the back of my mind that it might be much more.

I keep thinking back to that Lydia woman, the first sick person I saw when this whole mess started, and the way she got ill and then died in the upstairs room of my parents' farm. I don't know exactly how she was infected in the first place, and I still don't fully understand how the sickness works, but there has to be at least a chance that the creature's bite has caused me to become another victim.

Stepping into the tent, I start looking around for anything that Melissa and I can use to make food. With my shoulder still hurting, I figure that my best bet is just to stick around for a few more days, help to get them settled and stocked with supplies, make sure they can find more food, and then get the hell away from them. I'm worried that the longer I stay, the bigger the chance that I might infect them. If there's only one more good thing that I can do in this world, then maybe it'll be ensuring that Melissa and her daughter have the best possible chance to live out their lives free from the threat of starvation.

Suddenly, as I turn to look at another bench in the tent, I feel a sharp pain in my shoulder and I stumble, dropping down to my knees and briefly crying out as the agony echoes and then fades.

“Please not now,” I whisper, taking a series of deep breaths as I try to stay calm. “Just give me a couple more days. Let me help them.”

I wait, but the pain seems to have passed and I quickly force myself back onto my feet. Finding little of use in the tent, I stumble back out and survey the desolate scene once again, trying to spot something useful amidst all the dead bodies.

And then, quite out of nowhere, I realize that I've been overlooking something huge.

***

By the time I reach the door to the bunker, I've been walking for a couple of hours and the back of my neck is badly sunburned. Finding the door unlocked, just the way we left it the other day, I pull it open and then limp inside, and as soon as I get through to the second room I open one of the other doors and make my way into the storeroom.

“Thank God,” I whisper finally, as I see shelf after shelf filled with canned goods and various bottles. Before I've even started looking through a few of them, I can tell that there's enough here to keep Melissa and Katie going for many months. Grabbing a couple of the cans, I take a look at the bare printed labels and see that they contain beans. Somehow, even something so simple feels -

Suddenly a heavy weight crunches against the back of my head, sending me stumbling forward and crashing into one of the shelves, which collapses and pitches me down to the floor. Dazed, I try to get up before I feel a boot being slammed into my neck with enough force to send me headfirst into the wall.

“Thought you'd steal, huh?” a familiar voice asks.

I turn to look at him, but before I get a chance he kicks me again, this time square in the mouth.

“Desperation really brings out the worst in people,” Leonard continues, reaching down and then hauling me up. He smiles at me for a moment, before slamming me into the wall and then reaching over to grab a gun from the counter. “Most people turn out to be thieves and liars in the end.”

Struggling to stand up, I finally see that he's aiming the gun straight at me.

“Are you the only one left?” he asks.

Trying to catch my breath, I realize that he has no idea about Melissa and Katie. If I'm smart, he'll stay ignorant, and I figure they're far enough away that they'll hopefully never run into him.

“I thought I was the only one,” I mutter, with a sharp pain in my chest, as if a few ribs are broken, “but that was before I saw your ugly face.”

“That's smart,” he continues. “Go ahead, insult the guy with the gun.”

“Why would I care?” I ask. “Do what you're gonna do.”

“Not putting up a fight?”

I shake my head.

“That's disappointing,” he continues. “What's wrong? Given up?”

“I'm tired,” I reply, and I mean it: right now, I can't imagine trying to fight back. I just want the pain and fear to end; so long as Melissa and Katie have a chance, that's all that matters.

“Well,” he mutters, “you're a hell of a disappointment, kid.”

I open my mouth to reply to him, but at the last moment I spot a face in the shadows, just beyond Leonard's shoulder. For a brief second I allow myself to think that someone is going to help me, but suddenly I realize that I recognize the face.

“Joe,” I whisper, as my brother smiles at me.

“Don't try that stunt, kid,” Leonard continues. “I know there's no-one else in here.”

“It's okay,” I continue, ignoring him and keeping my eyes on my brother. “I'm coming.”

Joe smiles, still mostly hidden in the shadows.

“I just...” I start to say, barely able to breathe. “I just... I need this asshole to pull the trigger.”

“Seriously?” Joe replies. “This is how you're gonna let it fucking end? Shot in the head by some total idiot?”

“I'm too tired.”

“Whatever,” Leonard says firmly. “How do you want to go? Bullet in the front of the head, or in the back? Either way, let's do it outside. I don't want to have to clean blood-stains off the walls in here.”

“You're gonna die,” Joe continues. “You know it. But don't let it be here, and don't let it be this fucking psychopath who sends you on your way.”

“Out,” Leonard continues. “Go on, out the door.”

I blink a couple of times, and Joe's face starts to become fuzzy, almost as if he's not really there. I try to focus again, but Leonard suddenly grabs me by the collar and shoves me through the door until I land hard on the floor of the next room.

“Get out!” he shouts. “I haven't got all day for this!”

Scrambling to my feet, I stumble to the main door and finally I emerge on the rocks. The sky above is clear and bright blue, and a faint breeze is blowing in from the lake. As Leonard pushes me in the back to make me keep walking, I keep hearing Joe's voice in my head over and over again, and although I'm starting to feel dizzy, I'm less tired than before.

“Sorry about this,” Leonard continues, as I hear a click from the gun, “but I really don't like thieves. Goddamn savages -”

Ducking out of the way as he fires, I cry out in pain as I slam my body against him and knock him down to the ground. The gun spins out of his hand, but I ignore it as I pin him down with one hand and grab a nearby rock with the other.

“You want savages?” I shout. “Here!”

With that, I slam the rock against his face and immediately feel his cheekbone breaking. He lets out a cry, but I keep going: bringing the rock crashing down again and again, I'm filled with a kind of blind fury as I feel a burst of energy surging through my body, pushing me on to hit him over and over, determined to make sure that he's dead. Even when I know I've done enough, I keep going until several minutes have passed and I can feel the rock breaking through his skull and hitting his brain. All the time, I'm screaming at him, as if he's responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened on this planet.

I start crying.

Tears flow down my face.

And still I don't stop.

“That's enough,” Joe's voice whispers.

“No it's not,” I gasp. “It's never enough!”

“Yeah it is, mate,” he continues. “Just stop, okay?”

I raise the rock up high and look at it, feeling a surge of anger in my chest, before I bring it crashing down against Leonard's head one final time. Taking a series of deep breaths, I toss the rock to one side and stare at Leonard's head; for a moment, my vision is too blurry for me to make anything out, but finally I blink a few times and I see that I've completely destroyed his face, with the rock having shattered his skull and mashed his brain.

Disgusted, I pull away and scramble across the rocks, before picking up the gun in my trembling hands.

I turn and look back at Leonard's body, and finally I see just how much blood has been sprayed all over the rocks. When I look down, I see that there's also blood on my clothes.

“You did what you had to do,” Joe's voice says.

“I did what I have to do,” I whisper.

“And you know what you have to do next, don't you?”

I shake my head, still unable to stop looking at Leonard's body.

“Yeah,” Joe continues, “you do. You need to do the only fucking decent, honorable thing that's left to you.”

“What's that?” I ask.

“Well, your shoulder hurts, doesn't it?”

“Like hell.”

“And what have you got in that bunker?”

“Food,” I whisper. “Lots of food.”

“Then you can work the rest out for yourself, can't you?”

I pause for a moment, before finally realizing what he means.

“Oh,” he adds, “and one more thing. Stop talking to yourself and using my voice to rationalize things. It makes you seem like you're losing your fucking mind.”

“It helps,” I whisper. “It's the only way I can hold everything together.”

Slumping down onto the rocks, I lean back and stare up at the sky. I just want to sleep and never wake up, but at the same time I know deep down that I can't stop yet. Besides, Joe was right: I'm going to die, and soon, but I still have one decent and honorable thing to do before I'm out of here.