Survival Ties (The Outbreak Chronicles Book 1) (2 page)

One
month later

My best friend, Sawyer,
sat on the counter swinging her legs as she watched the pancakes cook. Her
green eyes were hidden behind cat eye contacts. Her clothes were simple, a
black T-shirt and torn up jeans and her black converse tennis shoes. She had a
cat ear head band on to go with her eyes. The garbage truck was rumbling
outside as it stopped to pick up the trash.

The TV in the
living room was muted but the news station was showing images from some sort of
riot. There were people with injuries. The suspect was restrained in a strait
jacket before they went back to the anchors with their perky smiles.

“Are you seeing
this?” I asked pointing the spatula towards the TV.

“Yeah almost every
day lately with the same things.” She answered, “I don’t get how the anchors
can smile after showing those clips.”

“I don’t either.
I’ve avoided most of the news lately.”

“Not missing much.
Same stories about a shooting here or a riot there, lately more riots though.”
Sawyer said, “Hey start flipping or they’ll burn.”

“What?” I asked,
“Oh.” I cringed when one of the four pancakes revealed that it had burned, hitting
my nose with the smell.

“So Marie seemed
way more energetic last night.” She said as she flipped the three good pancakes
onto Marie’s favorite mint green plate.

“Yeah still healing
and recovering so yesterday was one of the better ones.” I agreed.

Luckily for
Sawyer’s hair I thought to myself.

“I still can’t
believe you actually talked her into not only cutting your hair but adding blue
and pink highlights. Your mom is going to be pissed.”

“I could say I got
attacked by angry highlighters.” Sawyer said as she shrugged and twirled some
of her now chin length platinum blonde hair with her finger. 

I rolled my eyes
causing Sawyer to start laughing as we finished making breakfast. Marie
staggered in followed closely by Carter.

Her brown eyes were
glazed over and she was drooling.

“Morning.” I
greeted her as she stared at me.

She didn’t say
anything.

Then she growled.

I stepped back
coming up against Sawyer’s legs.

“Hon, the girls
made you breakfast.” Carter told her calmly as he touched her shoulder.

She snapped at him
like a dog would. Carter didn’t flinch as he stepped to put himself between
Marie and us.

“Marie.” He said
and clapped his hands in front of her face.

She shook her head
at the sudden noise.

“What?” she asked,
“Oh, you made my favorite.”

Marie took the
plate I was holding and went into the dining room. It was quiet for a moment
while we all took in what had just happened.

“What was that
about?” Sawyer asked, breaking the silence as she slid off the counter.

“I don’t know;
she’s had a couple mornings like this. She’s just a little off I guess from the
medications.” Carter responded.

“You call that ‘a
little’ off?” I asked, “Carter, she growled at us.”

“She doesn’t seem
to remember the spells after she snaps out of them. I’m going to call Dr.
Minnow after breakfast.” He said.

We heard glass
shatter in the dining room.

“Marie, are you
okay?” Carter called.

There was no
answer.

Carter took a step
towards the doorway when she came in. Her bare feet bled from where she had stepped
on broken glass. She didn’t seem to notice anything around her.

“Marie?” I asked,
stepping towards her.

She looked at me;
her eyes blank as she started screaming and lunged.

Carter stepped
quickly behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders before she could
reach me. He pulled her into his chest.

She kept screaming
as she clawed at his arm. She bit him taking a chunk of flesh from his arm.
Carter grunted but held on as she flailed around trying to get free. Blood was
dripping from her chin onto Carter’s arm. It joined the blood spilling from the
bite down her white shirt.

Sawyer and I stood
frozen as Marie continued to scream. Neither of us even turned towards the
sound of the door opening.

The neighbor, Sam,
walked in.

Marie didn’t even
glance at him. Her gaze was locked on me.

An explosion echoed
through the room followed by an
acrid and
sour
smell.

I finally turned my
head and looked at Sam to see him holding the revolver he always carried on his
hip. Marie slumped into Carter. A hole seeped blood from her chest. Her new
heart pumping as the screaming faded to a gurgle. Carter lowered her to the
ground and placed both his hands over the wound using his body to put pressure
there.

“What the hell?” he
yelled at Sam.

“She was crazed.”
Sam told him. “Same thing happened to the Nathan’s down the way.”

“She wasn’t crazed;
she was having a reaction to medication.” Carter responded.

Sam took off his
cowboy hat showing his short cut black hair streaked with grey. He placed the
hat on the counter. My gaze stayed glued to Marie; she stared back.

I dropped down to
the tiles.

She was dead and no
one could explain what had just happened.

“We need to call
911.” I said, still staring at Marie.

“Y-yeah I-I can do
that.” Sawyer stuttered. 

“What are you
talking about?” Carter snapped at Sam as he continued to hold on to Marie like
he could bring her back.

“You know Vick and
Jenny Nathan down the street in the brown house? Their boy Josh had his lungs
replaced a month ago just like Marie’s heart.” Sam told us, leaning against the
counter rubbing his eyes. “He started acting weird and yesterday went after
Jenny in the kitchen, bit Vick in the process. When he got to Jenny he walked
right into the knife she was holding from making dinner, didn’t even noticed
it. Vick pulled him away before he could do anything to poor Jenny and he
died.”

“Wait. What?” Sawyer
asked from behind me. She had dated Josh for two years before he got sick and
broke it off.

“Police were there
and everything. They took the body to the morgue and so far I haven’t heard
anything else.” Sam told us. “Vick seemed okay, had a good piece taken from his
shoulder though. They bandaged him up there and let him stay at home.”

“Josh had a
transplant like Marie?” Sawyer asked. She seemed pretty lost in her thoughts.
She was not processing much. After everything with Marie and then finding out
the boy she still loved was killed.

“Yeah from that
Clydework place, signed up to be a human trial.” Sam answered.

I heard Sawyer
fumble her phone out of her pocket. Before she dialed anything, I watched
Marie’s open brown eyes bleed into red.

“What’s happening
to her eyes?” I asked.

“What?” Carter
asked.

“Her eyes.” I said
again.

Carter looked down
and studied her eyes as I heard Sawyer telling the 911 operator what had
happened.

“It could just be
some reaction from the medication she was on.” Carter answered.

Sawyer was
repeating herself to the operator.

Marie’s hand
twitched sending a flutter of hope through me. She blinked but she didn’t draw
in a breath.

A low growling drew
Sam’s attention to her. Carter was leaning towards her when she rolled into a
crouched position causing him to jump back.

Her red glare was
glued to Sam and her teeth were bared.

Carter froze.

“Marie? Sweetie
helps on the way. I think you should lie down until the paramedics get here.”
Carter said to her. His hands were shaking as he raised them towards her. Her
head snapped to him for a minute and she hissed.

“What the—” Carter
said.

“Carter, step back
slowly.” Sam interrupted.

The sound of his
voice snapped Marie’s attention back to him.

Marie tilted her
head from side to side as she growled at Sam.

“Marie, please calm
down.” Carter tried again to reason with her.

“Carter, no.” Sam
snapped before he could move towards her.

Marie whipped her
head back and forth between Sam and Carter until her gaze stopped on Sam.

She lunged at him.

The second shot
from the revolver echoed in the kitchen as they fell to the tiles.

He rolled her off
him showing the hole in her forehead that wasn’t bleeding.

Sawyer screamed and
dropped her phone.

I could only stare
at Marie in shock.

I barely registered
the operator in the background from Sawyer’s phone, faintly telling us help was
on the way.

Like they would be
able to help with what had just happened.

I was staring out the window as the
garbage truck made its weekly rounds again. I turned when I heard something
shatter in the kitchen.

“You okay?” I asked when I
found Carter staring into the sink.

“Yeah, just lost grip on my
damn cup.” He answered and I could see the black mug sitting in pieces, some
still held a few drops of coffee.

“I’ll clean it up when we get
back.” I told him as I squeezed his arm.

“I’ll do it don’t worry.” He
said, “We have to go.”

We were heading to Marie’s
favorite park where Carter had decided to have a celebration of life for her.
We couldn’t have a real funeral yet. Clydework had sent people over to gather
Marie’s body to run tests on and see if they could figure out what had
happened.

So far the only comments they
had given us was that she must have mixed medications that caused her reaction.

No charges were pressed on Sam.
The police never even handcuffed him since it was self-defense. He probably
saved our lives.

The Nathans’ came to the
celebration. Vick still had a bandage on his shoulder; you could see the corner
of it peeking out of the neck of his shirt. He didn’t look well, his olive skin
had no real color to it and he seemed to be leaning on Jenny as he coughed
violently. Jenny looked as if she hadn’t slept for days. Her blue eyes were
swollen from crying. She looked like she was carrying the weight of the world
on her shoulders, and it was crushing her.

I threw the white rose petals I
was holding into the air to mix with the others floating on the breeze to
symbolize Marie leaving us.

Then Vick started coughing
again.

His fit sent him to all fours,
blood and saliva spraying onto the ground.

Jenny was trying to help him up
when he turned on her.

He ripped a bite out of the curve
of her neck before anyone could get to them.

Sam appeared from out of
nowhere and pulled Vick off Jenny while people panicked.

Vick went after a few different
people, biting anyone who grabbed him. Jenny was crying holding whatever piece
of cloth Sam had given her to the bite. She stared after her husband as he
disappeared down the street. Sam helped us load her into Carter’s Tahoe and
jumped in.

“We should take her with us to
your house.” Sam told Carter. Nothing seemed to faze Sam; he processed what was
happening around him and reacted.

“You’re probably right.” Carter
agreed as he jumped in and started the Tahoe.

“Jenny, we are taking you back
to the Forde’s home in case Vick goes back to your house.” Sam told Jenny, even
though she looked like she wasn’t hearing anything.

Carter sat with the SUV running
as he stared out the windshield. There were a few people helping bandage wounds
on others but more were trying to get back to their own vehicles.

One man started pounding on
Carter’s window.

He looked like he had been out
for a run and still had his headphones in.

Carter put the SUV in drive and
slowly moved away from the man.

I watched out of the back
window as he ran to a pickup truck and jumped into the bed. The driver took off
so fast the runner stumbled and flipped back onto the pavement. Before he could
move a red car backed over him, the driver didn’t even stop to see what they
had ran over. No one said anything as we drove away from the park.

I kept thinking we never
finished Marie’s celebration.

Jenny was quiet the whole drive
to the house. I found myself wondering what was going to happen with her
husband since he was still out there.

I noticed Carter was sweating
even with the A/C on. He was trying to do too much and I was sure he was making
himself sick.

I tried not to look out the
windows. Nothing made sense. The image of the runner falling was seared into my
brain and kept replaying.

“Everything is going to be
okay. Everything is going to be okay.” Carter kept saying. I wasn’t sure if he
was talking to any of us or himself.

Jenny’s soft whimpers drew my
attention back to her.

Her dark skin was chalky and
pale making the blood dripping from the bite look obscene.

There was more chaos outside
the hospital as we ended up in a standstill. Traffic was barely moving. People
were screaming and running. No one was looking where they were going.

My heart pounded as I watched a
woman in a torn yellow sundress slapping her hands on the driver window of a black
Mustang.

Another woman climbed onto the
mustang and lunged at the yellow sundress woman.

Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.

The door to the Mustang opened.
A man in Aviator shades pulled the woman in the sundress into his car.

Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.

The other woman clawed her way
on to the back of the car as it drove away.

We rolled closer to the
hospital entrance, there was a nurse on the ground, not moving, a man pinning
her. As we drew closer he looked up, we were close enough to see his eyes glowing
red, and he was taking huge bites from the nurse’s body. Half her face was down
to bone, even the eyeball gone. I couldn’t tell where her red hair ended or
where the bloody mess started. Her remaining eye was open and blinking, glowing
red as she started to shove out from under the man. He no longer had interest
in her as he let her go.

I saw Jenny look out the
window. She stared at the man and started to cry and crawl over me clawing for
the door handle.

“What are you doing?” Carter
snapped from the front, seeing the movement in the rearview mirror.

“That’s Josh. He’s not dead.”
She screamed.

Josh watched the car with a
blank stare until one of the panicked people ran in front of him. Josh launched
himself at the man catching his leg as he fell and biting into the man’s calf.
The man kicked Josh in the shoulder with his free leg. He was up and running
before Josh recovered.

Sawyer grabbed Jenny and shoved
her back into her seat.

“It’s not him.” She snapped
when Jenny tried for the door again.

I wondered what it cost Sawyer
to say that as Jenny stopped fighting her and stared out the window at what had
been her son.

Sawyer had tears running down
her face freely by the time we pulled up to the house. I climbed out of the
Tahoe as Carter started to cough.

Sawyer and Sam helped Jenny
into the house. I went to open the driver door to help Carter. As I grabbed the
handle he looked up at me through the glass.

His lips were pulled back from
his teeth in a snarl and his eyes were glazed over.

I was already backing away when
he started clawing at the window and throwing his body against the door.

I turned and ran the few yards
to the house, slamming the door as I heard glass breaking behind me. I locked
the dead bolt and waited to hear him pounding on the door.

But the noise never came.

Sawyer came around the corner
and saw me.

“What’s going on? Where’s
Carter?” she asked me.

“In the car. I think he may be
out now.” I told her as I fought to catch my breath.

She followed me to the window
and looked out.

Carter was dragging himself out
from the shattered window of the driver’s door. He didn’t even glance at the
blood coming from where the glass was cutting into his flesh.

“What’s going on?” Sawyer
repeated, stepping away from the window and bumping right into Sam.

“I don’t know.” I told her as I
looked at Sam for answers.

He squeezed Sawyer’s shoulder
and shook his head.

Jenny was asleep on the couch
when Sam slipped into the back yard. He started bringing in lumber Carter had
got to build the deck Marie had wanted.

“I think we should board up the
windows.” He told us.

“Do you think that will keep
them out?” I asked.

“It’ll be better than just
glass.” He answered.

“Carter was planning to put up
shelves. I can show you where he had all of it.” I said.

“Lead the way.” Sam said.

“Do you need help?” Sawyer
asked him.

“Sure. You can come and help us
get everything in here.” He told her. I realized he was giving her a task to
keep her focused and busy.

I led Sam and Sawyer to the
garage where Carter had piles of pine wood he had been in the process of
staining to the color he wanted.

Sam grabbed a whole pile and
went back to the front entrance. Sawyer and I split the next one. It took a few
trips before all the wood was in the house. Off to the side there were two five
gallon buckets of long nails. But we only found two hammers

“Will this be enough?” I asked
when we had everything together.

“We’ll work through what we
have and if we run out we’ll tear apart wood furniture to use.”

Sam had Sawyer hold up the
planks of wood as he nailed them into the wall on one side and I did the other.

It felt like every time a
hammer hit one of the nails the sound echoed through the house.

My ears were ringing with the
banging by the time we got to the last window.

With the windows boarded up and
everything quiet again, Sam gathered Sawyer and me into the dining room.

He looked pretty serious as he
sat down and waited for us to take seats.

“Ashlyn, can you find me some
paper and a pen please.” Sam asked me after a moment.

I went to the kitchen and
grabbed the notepad and pen from by the phone.

“Well from what we’ve seen, it
appears we have at least two stages of whatever is happening.” Sam told us as
he tapped the pen on the table.

He labeled the columns ‘stage
one’ and ‘stage two’.  

“Stage one: we’ve got people
going crazy and attacking others.” He said as he wrote.

Both Sawyer and I watched him.

“Stage two: we’ve got people
with their eyes turning red, should be dead, and still attacking others.” He
continued, “It seems like everyone infected hit that stage one part. Except for
that nurse outside the hospital.”

“How does that help with
anything?” I asked.

“I’m just using a common
survival technique, we use our observations of the situation we are in and to
the best of our abilities figure out what’s going on around us and how to
survive.” Sam answered.

“So what do stages mean?”
Sawyer asked.

“First we need to figure out
what everyone has in common.” Sam responded, “Ashlyn, what did Marie and Josh
have in common?”

“They both got transplants from
Clydework about a month ago.” I answered, wondering why he was asking me
something he already knew.

“Okay, Sawyer what do Vick and
Carter have in common?” he continued.

“They were both bit about eight
days ago.” She answered, “But you already know that.”

“Yes I do. We know Josh died,
like Marie did, but I was here and we saw her die again. Where was Josh?” he
asked.

“He was at the hospital, in the
morgue and he must have come back like Marie did.” I answered.

“Yeah they must have pulled him
out for the autopsy only to find a…zombie.” Sawyer responded struggling on the
word ‘zombie’.

“It appears so. We saw Josh
eating that nurse and she came back with red eyes like Josh and Marie had. It
would seem that stage one can be skipped if the victim dies with no damage
being done to their brain.” Sam said, pointing out the facts. I had never
realized before just how smart he really was.

“So what does all this mean?”
Sawyer asked as she fidgeted in her seat.

“It means we have two dangers
out there to face. We have our stage one crazed people and our stage two red
eye people.” Sam responded “And we know we could have days before anyone bit
turns crazed.”

“Are you saying I have only
days before I go crazy like Josh and Vick did?” Jenny interrupted as she walked
into the dining room. Sam looked at us and I realized he was thinking about the
fact that Jenny had been bitten.

“We don’t know what will happen
yet, Jenny.” Sam told her.

Sawyer and I walked Jenny to
Carter and Marie’s room. It took a while to get her to calm down and rest
again.

She cried even when she finally
fell back to sleep and mumbled about losing her family.

“Ashlyn where are your
parents?” Sam asked me as we returned to the dining room.

“They went to some conference
in California.” I answered.

My heart pounded as I thought
about my parents.

I had forgotten they weren’t
here.