Suspending Reality (10 page)

“This is a huge risk you’re taking, but I completely understand.” Lucas swiped a card over a control panel, and the door opened with a loud
click
. “Be careful, though, and whatever you do, don’t underestimate her. That virus is flooding through her veins. They have good reasons for putting her in quarantine.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on joining Bite Club any time soon, I promise.” With a last glance back, I walked in through the heavy steel door. As soon as the door closed behind me, it hit me:
There is no turning back now.
I took a sharp breath and focused my gaze ahead.

The room looked just like any other sickbed, complete with sterile-looking white walls and the strong, bleach-like aroma of a plethora of medicines. On the far right was a huge lamp that cast an unnatural glow on the tiled floor. On the far left, a narrow bed with white sheets that were arranged around a frail woman told me I had the right room. I took a hesitant step forward, then stopped, suddenly unsure of whether or not I really was doing the right thing. What if she’s already turned? What if it’s too late to help her and I’m risking my safety for nothing? Fighting with myself, I took a step back.

Suddenly, Val rose to her feet. Her fists were clenched, and her eyes were wide with terror.

I pulled down my mask before she got the chance to pound me. “Hey! It’s me.”

“Dean!” she said. “You know I’ve been…bitten. But why are you…? Look, you shouldn’t be in here. You know being anywhere near me is a death sentence.”

I slowly unwrapped the bandages from her arm and cringed. The zombie bite looked worse—far, far worse—than I had anticipated. Green pus drained from the open wound on her lower arm, and it reeked of dead, rotting flesh.

“That bad, huh?” Val asked when she saw my ghastly expression, her voice echoing off the white walls in the confined isolation room. She brushed back her disheveled, long brown hair. “It’s funny how fate works. I spent so long trying to find you…” Her voice quivered as tears welled up in her blue eyes. “And now that I have, we won’t even get to spend one day together.”

I let out a long breath. “Don’t talk like that. We’ll have plenty of time together—so much time that you’ll probably get sick of me.”

“How do you figure that? And for the record, I don’t think I’d ever…I would never get sick of you.”

“Because I have a possible cure?”

She cocked a brow. “You mean the experimental serum?”

“Yeah, I snatched a bag of vials from the lab.”

She gasped. “Do you know what woulda happened if you’d been caught?”

“I don’t care. I’ll do anything to save you.” I wasn’t lying. I’d barely known the girl a few hours, but there was something about her, something worth saving, even at the risk of imprisonment or death. The funny thing was; I never thought I had that kind of sacrificial savior in me—especially for a girl I wasn’t even in love with. But after hearing her story, I knew there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. She needed me, and I was going to be there.

“I can’t believe you’d go through all this for me, basically a stranger. It’s impressive. Thank you.” She softly touched my arm. “But those vials haven’t been tested, so there’s no guarantee.”

“Doc was sure this batch would work. He told me they’re on the verge of a major breakthrough, so it’s worth a shot—no pun intended.”

She smiled at my accidental joke. “Okay, if you say so. Give me the medicine. I’d rather be a guinea pig than one of those brain-munching things out there.”

“I can’t, Val. It’s too early. The virus has to be in your system for…well, for a set amount of time before the medicine has a chance to work.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the medicine couldn’t be given to her until
after
she turned into a zombie, a process that usually took about five days with the mutation of the virus now.
Yeah, she has a right to know, but just not now.

“A set amount of time? How long before you can give it to me?” she asked, sounding a bit more panicked and demanding.

“Just a little while more.”

“You know I don’t have that kind of time.” She threw the bandage back on and pressed firmly on the tape. “Be realistic, Dean. You know the rules. I’ve been compromised. They’ll be in any minute to kill me, humanely of course.”

Her words pierced my heart, especially since I knew they rang of truth; if I didn’t intervene, she was doomed. “That isn’t happening! I’m here to break you out.” My plan was to sneak Val out, take her to the next sheltered city, and then give her a secret potion that the doc had been working on for months—the supposed cure to the nasty Necrotina virus that had spread across the U.S. and the globe, turning men, women, and children into zombie-like beings with the burning desire to feed on human flesh.

“Really?” She grabbed my arm as if I was kidding.

“Really.”

“Well, in that case, what’re we waiting for?”

“We can’t go until Lucas comes back and gives us the go-ahead. If we run into the general, our plan is screwed. It’ll just be a minute.”

She nodded and then placed her hands on her hips, her gaze imploring. “Is your brother going to help us?”

“I haven’t told Nick anything about you. He’d just flip out, and right now, we need him focused if we want our little plan to work.”

“I want to meet him. I
need
to meet him.”

“You will. I begged him to take us to the next city, told him we have to deliver some antibiotics for the doc.”

“Great. Think your smokin’ hot plan will work?”

“Trust me, nobody will suspect a thing.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“For starters, we’re flying.” Making it up to the roof was the only way to get past the heavy security. Nevertheless, even though flying was the safest option, in those days, nothing was a safe bet any more.

“Wait…did you say we’re flying?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I mention that Nick’s a pilot?” What I hadn’t told my brother was that I’d be hiding a secret stowaway in the back of the helicopter.
Oh well. I’ll worry about that later.
I was sure Nick would understand once I told him the entire story.

The door burst open, and Lucas peered in. “You guys ready? There isn’t much time.”

I motioned her out of the cell and pointed to a gurney. “Hop on!” I helped Val onto the gurney, then threw a sheet over her body up to her neck, mimicking medical protocol for handling the diseased on their way to the morgue.

“You’ve got to play dead,” Lucas said. “So no blinking.”

Val blotted the sweat from her brow.

“Are you gonna be okay?” I asked her, ignoring the sudden dread in the pit of my own stomach.

Her jaw clenched. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring home the Oscar. My life depends on it.”

As I wheeled her down the long corridor past a group of soldiers, I was hit with a rush of adrenalin like I’d never felt before. Danger aside, I was having the time of my life. I’d never wanted my parents’ version of the “normal teenage life”. I had been thrust into the middle of a real live—or dead, if you think about it—zombie apocalypse, the kind people had been joking about and making videogames and movies about for years. Like my brother, who had chosen the military for his own adventure, I lived for that stuff, always seeking a thrill. I craved being where the action was, and finally I was there, immersed in a risky rescue.

When we approached the guards, a chill ran across my spine. We all knew that if we didn’t get past that squad, it was all over before we even really got started.

“We’re putting her on ice,” Lucas said without so much as a nervous quiver in his voice.

The sergeant shook his head. “It just never ends, does it?”

“Nope.” Lucas looked at me. “You got this from here?”

I nodded and moved down the corridor fast, my heart thudding against my chest. Once we were around the corner, I bolted. Metal wheels screeched against the tile floor in protest of the speed I was pushing, and I hoped Val didn’t fly off the thing as we took the corners. The hall turned right, then a sharp left, and then a right again. “Okay, it’s safe,” I said, stopping. I started to strip off my white pants. Having Nick see me in scrubs would blow the entire plan, especially if he knew I was up to no good.

She sat up abruptly. “Please tell me you have clothes on under there.”

“Of course. Now c’mon!” I helped her down and pointed. “The helicopter pad’s this way.” 

We raced through the corridor and up the stairs and finally reached the helipad, where a healthy gust of wind rushed through my hair. Val jumped into the back of the military helicopter and lay down, and I threw a U.S. Army-issued olive green wool blanket over her.

“I have a little confession to make,” I whispered between breaths, just in case Nick made a sudden appearance and caught me off guard.

“You secretly wear women’s clothing?”

“Geez, no!” I couldn’t stifle a tiny chuckle; the girl was funny, even in the most stressful of situations, and I appreciated that.

Her gaze narrowed. “Well, that’s good to know. So what is it?”

“I didn’t tell Nick about any of this. He has no idea you’re coming whatsoever.”

She let out a huff. “Ah. So when you said nobody will suspect a thing, you
really
meant
nobody
. Geez. I don’t believe this. I thought he knew a girl was coming, but he hadn’t been informed about my identity.”

“Nope. Please just keep quiet until we get to the city, okay?”

“Fine,” she mumbled, “but you should’ve told him.” 

A minute later, Nick jumped into the helicopter and put on his headset. “Ready, bro?”

I jumped into the copilot seat and buckled up. “Yep.”

“You got the list of antibiotics we need for the doc?”

“Sure thing.” My big brother always played by the rules. That made him perfect for the military, of course, but it was exactly why I didn’t tell him about Val. He would’ve never agreed to sneaking her out of the city; he did nothing against the rules—ever. He lived by the moral code 100 percent. I don’t know where he inherited that from, though, because I didn’t mind bending the rules when it was appropriate.

He turned over the helicopter engine, and a few minutes later we lifted off and climbed slowly into the sky over Kelleys Island. The island wasn’t far from Sandusky, Ohio. That’s where Cedar Point was located. I had triumphantly ridden all seventeen roller coasters in that amusement park. Well, before everything happened, but I’ll never forget the adrenaline rush I felt.

Kelleys Island was the perfect place to go for refuge because we were completely surrounded by water. Zombies couldn’t swim, and as a backup, there were towering walls to keep the undead from penetrating the safe haven. That helped us all sleep easier at night. We had a nice cottage that was owned by my grandma. She lived next door in a spacious bed and breakfast that she ran before the zombie outbreak.

All the Lake Erie islands had become refuges for a multitude of people, and citizens were making lives there, living almost normally, with the exception of knowing that outside those walls, the hungry dead were walking. In order for everyone to maintain such a lifestyle, the city had very strict rules in place. One of those rules stated that if a person was bitten, execution was mandatory—without exception, whether the victim was the mayor’s son or the housekeeper’s daughter. The safety of the many could not be compromised for the life of one.

“We should be back before supper,” Nick called out.

“Yep!” I yelled over the noise of the helicopter.

Halfway there, I heard a loud
pop,
something like a car backfiring. The floor and walls began to shake and vibrate. My head jerked back and then snapped forward as the helicopter plunged, cutting through the white clouds like a knife. Looking out the window, I noticed a plume of dark smoke swirling outside the copter.

“Wh-what’s happening?”

Nick fumbled frantically with the controls. “Malfunction. We’re going down!”

“Mal-what?” I asked with a gasp.

Chapter 3

The helicopter dropped in altitude at a pace that felt like light speed. A sudden loud banging, like hundreds of baseball bats smacking against us, echoed beneath my feet. Gripping the arm rests tightly; I looked out the window, though I shouldn’t have. The copter skidded on its belly and skipped across the treetops. The vibrations shook the floor like an earthquake. I braced for impact, knowing that even if we somehow miraculously survived the crash, we’d still have to live through the flames and/or toxic fumes that were sure to envelop us. I shook away the thought of blackened, tangled, twisting metal burning in the charred trees. My head jerked forward as Nick clipped a row of towering trees on a thirty-foot ridge. The helicopter jerked, forcing the side of my head into the metal wall. In an instant, everything was dark. 

I don’t know how long I lingered in that quiet darkness, surrounded by nothing but tranquility and carelessness that had become a sure death sentence in the real world. As I hovered in that dark place, unconscious of my body, the softest whiff of fumes assaulted my nostrils, slowly but steadily jolting me back to the grim reality:
We crashed…in Zombie Land.