The Night Sweeper: Assassin: A Zombie Conspiracy Novel (The Sweeper Chronicles Book 2) (12 page)

On the second day of our stay, I followed Andrew down a
dark hallway. He carried a bowl of food that had the smell and texture of
oatmeal. All he'd told me was that there was something he wanted me to see.

There was no power in that part of the building, but
old-fashioned oil lanterns hung at periodic intervals along the route throwing
flickering pools of light every thirty feet or so, broken up by roughly
equal-sized patches of darkness, like sentinels of light striving to keep the
encroaching shadows at bay.

I’d been amazed at what the small flock had
accomplished here. They had all of their basic needs met and seemed to be
flourishing. Not only that, they actually seemed happy and I wondered if
they credited their faith for that. In my world, true happiness was a
rare commodity. We always lived in the shadow of the Festers, and the devastation
we’d all suffered had left its mark on each one in their own way.

Andrew was wearing overalls again. I asked him
about it jokingly, if they were all he ever wore. He laughed heartily and
said he used to be a farmer. His first love was pastoring his little
congregation, but they were too small to support him and his family
financially. His dad had been a farmer, and his dad before him.
Andrew said it was “in his blood”, and if there was anything he was happy doing
other than the work of God, it was growing things.

His wife’s name had been Patricia. They had three
children, all girls. Andrew alone had survived. He had a hard time with
the crushing loss and had spent many years struggling to survive, working odd
jobs, and isolating himself from others. I could see the pain in his eyes
when he spoke of them, but he swore he’d come to terms with it. I know a
thing or two about that myself.

That's about all anyone can do who's lost someone close
to them. You come to terms. The pain never goes away. It just
morphs into a dull ache that can sometimes be overlooked. But at other
times, it’s still raw and tender.

“Where are we going?” I asked as we continued to walk
down the dark corridor. I didn’t feel any alarm from him, despite the
creepy, dungeon feel of the hallway, but my curiosity was piqued.

“We're almost there,” Andrew said. A few moments
later, a lone figure came into view.

A smallish woman that I later found out was named
Angie, was sitting in a folding chair with her legs crossed in front of her.
Even in the near-darkness, she looked haggard. It was apparent she was either
sick, or she hadn't been sleeping well. Dark, puffy circles were under her
eyes, and there was something drawn and pained about her expression.

She looked up as we approached, and though she looked
me over briefly, she showed no concern that a stranger was there. The preacher
started to speak to the woman, but his words were interrupted by an
ear-piercing scream, the unmistakable cry of a Fester.

Every nerve in my body fired into readiness at the same
instant. The scream was followed by rapid pounding on a door to my left,
slightly muted, but repetitive.

In a flash I had my gun out and trained on the door,
waiting for the creature to come crashing through. I had a brief recollection
of Cray telling me these weren't monsters, but curable people, but I dismissed
it. That may have been true, but it didn't make them any less dangerous. If it
came down to us or it, this Fester was going down.

“Get behind me,” I yelled at the others. The pounding
turned into terrible wails. When the preacher and the woman didn't move, I tore
my eyes away from the door for a split second to see them staring calmly at me,
the woman still seated, legs still crossed.

“It's okay, miss,” she said, her voice a weak monotone.
“She can't get to you.”

Andrew produced a small flashlight and flicked it on.
“This is what I wanted you to see.” He made a downward gesture and waited
patiently for me to lower my firearm.

Slowly, the sounds from behind the door began to fade
away to be replaced by odd guttural noises like a mewling cat. After a while,
the woman in the chair nodded to him, and he walked slowly over to the door.
For the first time I noticed the small square window at roughly eye level, a
crisscrossed wire mesh set into it, and I finally realized what this part of
the hospital had been – the mental ward.

Shining the small light through the window, he beckoned
for me to come closer. I crossed to him and peered cautiously inside, knowing
now what to expect.

Inside, the beam of light played over the padded walls
of the room until it came to rest on a small Fester woman huddling in the far
corner, her face turned away from us, her diseased body wracked with periodic
spasms.

Questions flooded my mind. Why were they keeping her
locked up here? What were they trying to accomplish? They were treating
her like a pet.

Suddenly, the woman's face turned towards us, a
venomous snarl ripping between her clenched teeth, and I gasped, taking an
involuntary step backwards. I was wrong. It's wasn't a small woman as I had
believed. This Fester was a child!

Angie looked at the floor and spoke slowly, her mouth
barely moving in the darkness. “She's my daughter. Her name is Kylie.”

At first I thought it was a sick joke, but the reality
began to sink in.

“No,” I said. “No, that's not possible.”

The Fester Virus was released eighteen years ago. You were
either infected or you weren't, but it was never contagious from one person to
another. Despite the infection, Festers still continued to age. That meant
given the time that had passed, any children infected by the initial outbreak
were either adult age now, or had died off long ago. And yet here, beyond all
reason, was a small girl, no doubt about her being infected.

“How old is she?” I finally managed to ask.

“She's eight,” the preacher said.

“No,” I said again. “I don't understand,” I said
dumbly. “The Virus isn't contagious.” I had nothing better to say, but all of
the evidence in front of me pointed to the opposite.

Andrew spoke again. “I wish that were still true.”

Bending down, he opened a small hatch on the bottom of
the door. Looking closely at it, I could tell it was not part of the original
structure. It had been added recently.

The preacher slid the bowl of oatmeal through it
quickly, pulling his hand back out, and shutting and locking the hatch.

Inside the cell, Kylie attacked the food like an
animal, and I shuddered.

If The Virus had evolved and was now contagious, we
were in a lot of trouble. Just when we were really starting to get a handle on
things, this could throw everything out of balance. And even if there was a
cure like Cray said, what if it wasn't effective against this.

I shook my head in disbelief. “So she was bitten?” I
managed.

“Yes,” Andrew said, “but probably not in the way you're
thinking.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kylie was bitten by a dog, not a Fester.”

“What?! She got this from a dog?”

Angie took over for the preacher. “We have a nice
garden,” she said “out of reach of the Festers. It gives us a lot of what we
need, and we do have some livestock here too.”

Andrew said, “Chickens and pigs mostly. We converted an
old wing of the hospital to house 'em.”

“But we know we're pretty safe during the day,” Angie
continued. “The Festers usually keep to themselves during the daylight, so
we'll go out into the town in small groups and get stuff we need. Kylie loves
blackberries, and we don't grown them. But we know of a patch close by here,
and we'll go out picking sometimes.”

I looked at her, but she still gazed at the floor,
never looking up.

“We were out a while back to pick some, and we walked
up on a dog. Just a medium sized dog really. A mutt. He looked harmless, but I
think Kylie startled him, and he took a quick bite at her leg. It barely broke
the skin, and we ran it off. Apart from that, it didn't show any hostility.

“Later that night, Kylie got a bad fever and was having
a hard time breathing. I took her to see Haley. Have you met her?
She’s our doctor. She gave us a little medicine, but thought it might
just be the flu or something. At the time, we really didn’t think it was
related to the bite. The next morning, I woke to Kylie sitting on top of me.”
She pulled aside the neck of her shirt revealing a mostly-healed bite wound the
size of a child's mouth.

“I didn't catch it, The Virus I mean,” she said, and
her tone was heartbreaking. “I screamed for help, and we managed to get her
down here and locked up.”

She went silent, and I thought about everything she'd
told me.

“So,” I said, “the dog was carrying The Virus but
didn't show any signs, and Kylie became infected from the bite but didn't
transfer it to you.” This was really bad news. “How is that possible?” I asked,
almost to myself.

Andrew cleared his throat and placed a comforting hand
on Angie’s arm. “You're guess is as good as mine.”

The problem with pain is that it's exhausting. I sit on
a leather sofa, my head laid back, and concentrate on ignoring it. Although I
could wish for it all day long, I don't have the ability to turn off pain
receptors like Mira does. However, I have found that it is possible to deal
with a lot more than most people think, but it's an issue of mind over matter,
and the worse the pain, the harder it is to ignore.

Take a headache for instance. Nothing too terrible
there, and I can deal with those easily enough. A freaking gunshot wound to the
shoulder, however, not easy to ignore. In fact, with more extreme injuries,
there’s really no such thing as
ignoring
it, but I can usually
tolerate
most of what I’ve been through. But today, I’m having a rough time. It doesn’t
help that the only thing I can think about is Mira, getting back to her, and
figuring out some way to force Damian to save her. I don’t even want to
consider the possibility that he may have been lying about his ability to do
this. Either way, I’m hurting like crud. Maybe I can get the doctor to get me
some more lidocaine, or at least get Ming to knock me out again.

Also, I'm still reeling from the revelation that The
Virus is now contagious. As if we didn't have enough bum luck, now we have this
on our hands too. Any optimism I had left is quickly bleeding away.

I’m about to get up and see if I can find Ming, when a
small head peeks around the corner and I make eye contact with the wintry blue
eyes of a young boy. He quickly ducks back behind the wall, then slowly peeks
around again.

Despite my
discomfort, I can’t help but smile. “I’m not going to eat you, kid,” I
say.

He moves
around the corner now, slowly, and with caution. His blue eyes are as big
as baseballs, like he’s never seen anything like me before.

“You’re him,
aren’t you?” he says.

I’m not sure
how to respond.

“You’re the
Sweeper. The one from New York, right? The girl said your name was
Cray. Your name was all in the news before I came here.”

Uh-oh.

“Did you
really try to kill Cedric Archer?” the boy says.

I decide to
tell the truth about the encounter in the tower and leave off the truth about
my current excursion.

“No,”
I say simply.

The
boy visibly relaxes and I’m amazed at his ability to take my word for it.
“I knew it, he says. Since I found out, I’ve read everything I
could find about you. You’re like the most awesomest Sweeper ever.
You can kill twenty Festers with your bare hands. I knew you
couldn’t be a traitor. I knew it had to be a mistake!”

The
last thing I was expecting was hero worship.

“Hold
on, kid. I can’t kill twenty Festers with my bare hands. At least,
not all at once.” The boy says nothing, but by his expression, I know
none of his enthusiasm has waned. “You must be Toby,” I say.

That’s
almost too much for him.

“You
know who I am?!”

I
laugh again. “Yeah. I overheard your name from Andrew.”

“Oh,” he says,
now looking a little deflated. I guess he was hoping for a more
extravagant explanation. “So how did you end up here? And what
happened to you? You look terrible!”

“Thanks
kid. I feel terrible. It’s a long story though, one you’re probably
better off not knowing.”

“Is it like
secret spy stuff or something?” he asks eagerly.

“Something like
that.”

“I’ve always
wanted to be a Sweeper ever since I was little. Do you think I could be a
Sweeper someday?”

That draws me up
short. “I thought you guys didn’t believe in killing Festers?”

He shrugs
noncommittally. “They don’t,” he whispers. “But I’m not so
sure. I mean, it’s what you do, right?”

“Not
anymore. I kinda lost that job with the whole Archer thing. And
besides, I found out something. Something really important. Do you
want to know what it is?” I say conspiratorially.

His eyes light up
and he nods vigorously and I smile in spite of my pain. His enthusiasm is
catchy, and I find I’m feeling a little better, enjoying his company.

“I found out
there’s somebody who knows how to cure them.”

His eyebrows
wrinkle as he processes this, turning it over in his mind. Finally, he
seems to come to a realization. “You mean, they can be like regular
people again?”

“Right. In
a way, they’re still regular people. Just very sick.”

“So,” he says
slowly, “you’re saying it’s not good to kill them anymore?”

“I think that
would be kind of unfair if we could help them. What do you think?”

This time his
answer comes quickly. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be very nice. I guess my
friends were right.” He hesitates slightly. “So, you’re
girlfriend’s really pretty. She’s been real nice to me while you were
brain dead.”

My hazy mind
takes a second to catch up and I laugh. It hurts. “You mean
Ming. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend. My
girlfriend is very far away.” My eyes sting suddenly with tears, and I
blink them away, forcing myself to think on the moment. “My girlfriend is
sick, too. I’m trying to get back to her.”

Toby looks at his
shoes. “Is she a Fester?” he says softly.

“No. No,
she’s not. She got…hurt.”

“Worse than you?”

He looks back up
again, his expression concerned.

“Yeah.
Worse than me.”

He nods his
head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cray. I hope she gets better.”

“Me too.”

“What’s her name?”

“Mira.”

He looks at me thoughtfully. “Does
that ever get confusing? Ming and Mira? That would confuse me.”

“Not really. And I’ve never been
around them at the same time anyway,” I say.

His cheeks grow red and a mischievous smile
plays across his lips. “Well, if Ming isn’t taken, do you mind if I ask
her out?”

This time I laugh really hard. Needless
to say, I regret it, but I can’t help myself.

“Knock yourself out, kid,” I say.
“But don’t you think she’s a little old for you?”

His gives me a beaming smile. “Dude,
it’s the apocalypse. There’s not a lot for her to choose from.”

Toby keeps talking
until I have to start dropping hints that I really need to rest. Over the
next couple of days he keeps me company when he’s not shadowing Ming, which is
most of the time. But she gets a kick out of the attention, and the kid’s
really sweet. I start to look forward to the times he comes by.
Maybe it’s his innocence, or his lack of guile, but it helps me to relax.

I’m still
chomping at the bit to get out of here, but Ming is insistent I rest some until
I’m better. She keeps saying I’m no good to the world dead. Well,
that’s my generous interpretation. What she actually keeps saying is,
“Stay in the bed and rest, loser, or else I’m going to smother you in your
sleep.”