The Truth is Contagious (The Contagium Series Book 4) (24 page)

Hayden wiped the sole of his boot on the
carpet. Next to him was a large glass bird cage. Tiny winged
skeletons littered the bottom. He crept forward. I was only a step
behind him.

Something clattered to the ground. I tensed,
pulling back on the arrow. Hayden froze, flattening himself against
the wall. Wade and I moved back. Jason’s body stiffened. With wide
eyes he stared straight ahead.

There was another bang. I tipped my head. Did
someone just hit a wall? I held my breath. My heart pounded in my
ears. I leaned forward, fingers trembling as they held back the
arrow.

Three distinct raps came from deep inside the
nursing home. Hayden looked over his shoulder, furrowing his brow.
I shook my head, answering his unspoken question. I had no idea
what the hell was going on. Hayden held up his hand and bent his
fingers, signaling us to continue forward.

I picked up my foot. Every muscle tingled,
ready to run or fight. I swallowed hard and took in a breath,
slowly blowing it out to steady myself. Hayden was at the corner
now. He held his gun up and out of sight, waiting. I watched his
chest rise and fall before he sprung around the corner, gun
raised.

His shoulders relaxed, and I knew it was
clear. I turned around to tell the guys to follow. My heart skipped
a beat. There was someone behind Jason! Where the fuck had she come
from?

“Jason!” I screamed. But he was fast. The
second his crazy eyes took in the sight of me he pounced, leaning
off the staircase and landing on Jason’s back. Wade whirled around
aiming his gun, unable to get a clear shot.

The crazy let out a scream and wrapped his
arms around Jason’s neck, bringing him back into a choke hold. I
lowered my bow. They were moving too much. I could shoot Jason by
accident.

“Guys!” Hayden shouted. “We’ve got company!”
I didn’t have to turn around to know that more crazies were
ascending on our group. The echoing bang of gunfire let me know
that there were more than just a few behind us.

I ran to Jason. He was on the floor,
wrestling with the crazy. Wade was almost there. Then two S1s leapt
off the balcony, landing right in front of us. Wade raised his gun,
using the butt to whack a crazy in the face. The female stumbled
back, blinking from the blood that dripped into her eye.

The pain didn’t even register.

Cold, clammy hands wrapped around my wrist. I
twisted my arm and brought it up, breaking the hold. The arrow was
still in my hand. In a swift movement, I jammed it into the crazy’s
eye.

Her face wasn’t rotting. It took a
considerable amount of effort to shove the broadhead arrow point
into her skull. Her body twitched, fingers splayed in a final
attempt to claw me to pieces before she fell.

Another took her place.

“We need to get out of here!” Hayden shouted,
already shoving a new clip into his gun. He elbowed a crazy in the
throat, causing him to wheeze. Hayden grabbed his knife and stabbed
the S1 in the side, above the stomach. The blade punctured the
crazy’s lung. He snarled at Hayden, lips curled over yellowing
teeth. Bits of flesh and hair stuck to his chin.

Hayden leaned back and kicked the crazy. He
turned, eyes meeting mine for a fleeting second. It was a second
too long. A boney fist collided with my jaw. I stumbled back, the
pain fueling my rage.

I came back swinging, my knuckles landing on
his temple. Dammit. Did he even feel it? My hand hurt, just a bit,
and the crazy was still there, foamy saliva running down his
face.

I dropped the bow, not wanting to use it like
a baseball bat and risk damaging it. I reached out at the
sputtering crazy. My hands landed over his ears, flattening his
messy hair. Something moved under my palm. Gross. It shouldn’t have
shocked me that crazy’s had bugs in their hair…they were too busy
disemboweling living people to shower.

His nails, long, jagged, and dirty tore into
the exposed flesh on my chest. Then his eyes diverted to my
cleavage and he stopped struggling to kill me. I couldn’t help it.
I brought my knee up, smashing his testicles as hard as I could
even though I’d get no satisfaction from seeing his pain.

His mouth fell open and he reached for me. I
snapped his neck. The body collapsed on the ground. I whirled
around, completely unnerved from that, and saw Jason on the ground.
He was on top of a crazy, punching him in the face.

I knew the feeling: so angry you wanted to
break everything in sight. But he was being careless and wasting
time. My hand closed around the knife on my belt.

“Jason!” I called. “Just kill him already!”
Jason didn’t so much as look up. “Jason, goddammit!”

Something wrapped around my neck. I let go of
the knife, hands flying up. Whatever was around my neck was thin
and hard, like a cable. I had practiced—relentlessly—how to get out
of this type of hold with my martial arts instructor. But all our
moves, that careful practice…the rules of the art went out the
window.

I couldn’t inflict pain, couldn’t apply
counter pressure to make the crazy let go. All I could count on was
being stronger than him. Judging by the way he pulled me back off
my feet, this fucker was big. Much bigger than me.

I opened my mouth to call for Hayden. Only a
strangled cry came out. My vision blurred...I had to do something.
The crazy was dragging me back behind the desk.

I grabbed my gun, struggling to get it free
from the holster on my thigh. The crazy jerked me back. My feet
caught on a body and I fell, my weight pulling down on the
cord.

Vomit twisted in my stomach. My eyelids were
heavy, so fucking heavy. My body went limp and I passed out.

I woke up to a throbbing pain in my head. The
ground was cold and hard beneath me. I was propped up against a
post, my hands bound behind my back. Right away I knew the quiver
had been taken, and I was sure I had been hit in the head. Dim
light flickered from the hall and the hum of the fluorescent bulbs
was sure to give me an instant headache. I looked down: the gun and
my knife were also gone.

Fucking great. I blinked, still out of it
from being nearly choked to death and hit over the head. Pipes wove
their way on the ceiling above me. I was in a basement—again. The
room was dimly lit. Shelves lined the walls. It took a second for
my eyes to focus on the glorious sight of a medical storage room.
Bandages, latex gloves, and more. The air was sticky and stale. I
could taste the rancid body odor and rotting on my tongue.

I yanked my hands, loosening the knots.
Crazies might be homicidal and determined to get their kill, but
lacked fine motor skills. I gave the knots another pull. My left
hand was almost free. I folded my thumb into my palm and pulled.
The coarse rope caught on my knuckles. I braced myself against the
pain and continued to pull. The cord slipped over my knuckles only
to get caught on my ring.

Fucking hell.

“Hello?” someone called. My blood ran cold.
“Hello?” she called again, her voice a shallow whisper. “Is there
someone there? Someone sane, I mean?”

“Yeah,” I answered, twisting my hand. I
didn’t want to lose a diamond. Stupid, I know, but the ring was so
pretty. Dammit. I’d leave it in the truck next time.

“Did they bite you yet?” she asked
feebly.

“No,” I said right away then did a mental
check. I didn’t feel any pain or warm blood dripping down my body.
I was good then, right? “Wait, what do you mean by yet?”

She coughed. “That’s what they do. Bite us
until we turn.”

Holy fucking shit. The crazies were
infecting
people?

“I’ve been here for days, but I’m not sick. I
have so many bites.” Her voice wavered as if she was about to burst
into tears.

“You’re resistant,” I blurted. “The virus
doesn’t infect everyone.”

“So I’m gonna stay here forever.”

“No.” I pulled my hand free. She’d be dead
soon. She didn’t have the zombie virus but that many bites would
get infected with something else. My eyes flew to my ring; all
diamonds were accounted for. I rolled my eyes at myself then
quickly shook my head and got to work on the other knot. “My
friends are upstairs. If I don’t get us out of here first, they’ll
get us.” The woman whimpered, not believing me. “What is your
name?”

“Megan.”

“All right Megan,” I said, twisting and
reaching for the knot. This one was tied rather tight. “I need you
to stay calm, ok? We will get out of here alive, I promise.” My
nails hooked under it. It would only take a few pulls to get it
free. “I’m Orissa.”

The door to the storage room was open,
allowing just enough light to spill into the room. There were three
shelves in here, creating two aisles. Megan was out of eyesight in
the other aisle. Someone shuffled their feet outside the room. A
rattling breath turned into a growl.

“It’s them!” Megan cried. “Oh God, it’s
them!”

I pulled at the rope to no avail. A shadow
fell over me. I whirled around, sticking my left hand behind me to
look like I was still tied up. A crazy walked in, her navy blue
scrubs stiff with dried blood and other bodily fluids. Curly
dark-blonde hair was matted to her face.

“Please!” Megan screamed. “No. No more! She
said I can’t turn. She said I’m resistant!”

The crazy stopped in the threshold, tipping
her head as her eyes ran over me. Her body twitched unnaturally,
eyes narrowing at the sound of Megan’s cries.

“Shut up,” I told her. “You can’t reason with
them.”

“Please,” she continued to beg. “Let me
go!”

The crazy’s lips pulled up in a sneer. Her
bloodshot eyes sparked and she laughed. My skin crawled.

“No, no, please!” Megan cried when the crazy
moved toward her.

“Hey!” I shouted. “How about some fresh meat?
She’s obviously not converting into your latest crazy cult
member.”

The crazy craned her neck around to beyond
what was normal. Her body followed her head, twisting until she was
facing me. Drool hung from her open mouth.

“Yeah, that’s right,” I coaxed, struggling to
get my right hand free. “Come on Felicia,” I said, reading her name
from the ID badge that was pinned to her chest. Adrenaline coursed
through my veins, speeding up my pulse. My hand was almost
free.

Felicia stopped short, sticking her hand out
in front of her. Primal growls vibrated deep inside. I didn’t think
she was even aware of the noise she was making anymore. She leaned
forward, grabbing something off of the shelf.

Oh shit.

She held the knife up, sniffing the blood
crusted blade. Her eyes closed and she opened her mouth, scraping
the dried blood off with her teeth. It crunched when she ate
it.

“You are disgusting, you know that, right?” I
said, wrinkling my nose. “I’ve seen a lot of nasty shit these last
few months, and I’ve got to say eating left over blood crust ranks
pretty high.”

She narrowed her eyes, staring at me. Did she
understand my insult? No, she couldn’t. Crazies weren’t smart. They
weren’t supposed to understand anything. I slid my left hand back,
sticking my fingers under the rope. Crazies weren’t supposed to
group together, stock up food, or make nests either.

Crap. She turned around, spinning on the heel
of her worn out Crocks, and let out a high pitched yelp. Then she
lunged at me. My hand wasn’t free yet. I twisted my wrist, the rope
dug into my skin, tearing off a layer.

I put my left hand on the ground and kicked
out, knocking the crazy off her feet. She landed with a heavy thud.
Suddenly the room got dark. Two more crazies stood in the doorway,
blocking the light.

Megan started screaming.

One of the crazies was huge and wore camo
pants and tan boots. His white t-shirt was ripped and stained. In
his hand was a human arm. The flesh on the fingers had been gnawed
down to the bone.

The other was an elderly woman in a hospital
gown. Her lungs crackled with every breath. She was pitched
forward, holding onto Camo Pants for support. The flesh on her face
was peeling off. She reached up and picked at it, pulling a large
flap of skin off her cheek. She put it in her mouth.

Sick.

Felicia rolled onto her stomach and reached
for me, swinging dirty hands through the air. She caught my boot,
digging her long nails in as hard as she could.

“That,” I started and yanked my leg up, “is
why I wear leather.” I kicked her in the face. Her nose broke with
a sharp snap. Blood streamed down. She roared, unaffected by pain.
Then she coughed, looking confused by the act. “Not so tough when
you can’t breathe, are you?” I asked.

My arm was free. I sprang to my feet. Camo
Pants rushed forward, raising the bloody stump like a weapon. I
ducked when he swung. Growling, he dropped the arm and curled his
hands into fists, coming at me.

I caught his fist right before it smacked
into my face. Using both hands I twisted his wrist, snapping the
bones. He wouldn’t be able to hit me with that hand again despite
his best efforts.

The old woman weebled in, holding onto the
wall for support. She hissed and pointed at Felicia, who was still
reeling for breath on the floor. Camo Pants charged again, his good
hand finding its way to my throat.

I was still sore from being choked with the
cord, and I couldn’t breathe. In a panic, my hands flew up,
grabbing onto his arm. He was bigger than me; I couldn’t pull his
off.

I tipped my head up, elongating my neck. I
pushed off of him, whipping my body around. His nails tore into my
flesh. Felicia spit blood onto the floor and got up, gurgling a low
growl.

I needed something—anything. Their lack of
response to pain made the crazies seem non-human. I swiped my hand
across the shelf, knocking boxes of glove and containers of
medicine cups to the floor. I sprinted around the shelf, trying to
get to Megan.