’Til the World Ends (4 page)

Chapter Four

I stared at the empty bed, the logical part of my brain trying to come up with a way for a dead body to vanish from a room in a few short minutes. One of the interns must��ve come in and moved it. Perhaps Maggie had whisked it down to storage, by herself, without a gurney. Improbable. Impossible, really. But that was the only thing that made any sort of sense. It wasn’t as if the corpse got up and walked out by itself.

Ben staggered back, shaking his head. I could see he was trembling. “No,” he muttered in a low, anguished voice. “No, it isn’t possible.”

“I’m...I’m sure there’s a rational explanation,” I began, trying to ignore the chill creeping up my back. “Maggie probably took it away. Come on.” I turned, suddenly eager to leave to room. The silent, empty bed, sitting motionless in the shadows, was starting to freak me out. The once-familiar walls of the clinic seemed darker now, closing in on me. “We’ll check storage,” I told Ben, leading him back down the corridor. It seemed longer, somehow. I could hear the groans of my patients, drifting to me from the main room. “This is nothing to worry about. She’s probably down in the basement right now.”

Ben didn’t answer, and my words felt hollow as we reached the stairs to the sub-basement level. The door at the bottom of the steps was partially open, creaking faintly on its hinges, and the space beyond was pitch-black.

I fished the mini-flashlight from my coat and clicked it on, shining it down the stairwell. That faint smell of rot lingered in the corridor, but it could be coming from the bodies in storage.

I pushed the door to the basement open and was hit by a wave of cold, dry air that made me shiver. As usual, the scent of death was thick down here, like stepping into a tomb, and tonight it seemed even more ominous. There was no light, no need for electricity except to keep the freezers running, and everything was cloaked in suffocating darkness.

“Maggie?” My voice was a whisper as I eased inside, Ben following at my heels. The door groaned as it swung behind us, closing with a soft click. I swept the flashlight around, scanning the rows of cluttered shelves, the thick white columns that held up the building. I’d never thought about what a maze this place was until tonight. Against the far wall, barely discernible in the weak light, the huge freezers with their grisly contents gave off a faint, low hum.

“Maggie?”

Something clinked to the floor nearby, and an empty can rolled out from between the aisles, stopping at my feet. It caused a chill to skitter up my back.

“Maggie!” I hissed again, sweeping the light around. “Are you down here? Maggie!”

“Yes?”

Ben and I both jumped, swinging around as Maggie stepped between the aisles, holding several sets of folded sheets, a mini-flashlight stuck between them. She frowned at our reaction, looking confused. “Sorry, Miss Kylie. We ran of sheets to cover the bodies, so I came down to get some more. Are you all right?”

“Geez, Maggie!” I released Ben and slumped against the wall, my hand going to my heart. “You scared me half to—”

Something lunged between shelves and slammed into the girl, dragging her down with a screech. Her flashlight spun wildly, clinking to the floor before flickering out. Stumbling back, I caught a split-second glance of a spindly, emaciated creature that faintly resembled a man before it bent its head and sank its teeth into Maggie’s throat.

I screamed. Maggie’s body jerked and flopped to the cement, twitching, and the coppery smell of blood filled the room. My mouth gaped again, but nothing came out. In the flashlight beam, the thing raised its head and stared at me with Nathan’s face, no recognition in its dead white eyes, nothing but the flat, glazed stare of a predator. It hissed, and I couldn’t tear my gaze from its gleaming, jagged fangs, smeared with the blood of my intern.

My mind had gone blank. This wasn’t happening. That thing couldn’t exist, it was dead! The stress had finally gotten to me, and my mind had cracked.

Frozen, I stared at it, subconsciously knowing I was about to die. But the thing turned and started savaging Maggie’s corpse, tearing her open with long fingers, ripping into her with its fangs. Blood splattered everywhere, painting the walls with wet ribbons, and I threw myself backward, hitting the edge of a shelf.

Something grabbed my wrist, yanking me away. I cried out and fought to break loose, hitting the arm with the flashlight, barely conscious of what I was doing, until I realized it was Ben. He dragged me across the floor and up the staircase, his eyes hard, his mouth pressed into a thin white line.

We ducked into the stairwell, the smell of blood clogging our nostrils and the sound of ripping flesh following us out. Ben slammed the door behind us and leaned against it, gasping. I stood there, shaking, trying to gather my thoughts. Rain pounded the ceiling overhead, and lightning flickered erratically over the wall, reflecting the pulse at my throat.

Maggie. Maggie was gone. And that
thing
, that horrible, pale thing, had been Nathan. It couldn’t be real! I had seen him die. I knew he was dead, but now...

This had to be a nightmare.

“Kylie.” Ben’s voice was low, hoarse. I blinked, attempting to focus. “We have to get out of here, now. Do you have anything you have to take, anything you absolutely can’t leave behind?”

“Leave?” I stared at him, still reeling. “I can’t leave. What about Jenna?”

“We’ll take her, too.”

“But my patients! What about the survivors? I can’t leave them—”

“Kylie!” Ben pushed himself off the door and took my upper arms, forcing me to look at him. “They’re dead,” he whispered, his eyes dark with sorrow and guilt. “Everyone here is dead, or they will be. There’s nothing you can do for them anymore. But we have to get out of here now, if we want to survive ourselves.”

A crash from the main room startled me upright. Lightning danced over the walls, the flash revealing eerie dark spatters that hadn’t been there before. Fear, cold and acute, stabbed through me. Ben followed my gaze, his muscles coiled tight beneath his shirt.

“Come on,” he whispered, leading me down the hall. “My truck is out front. Let’s find Jenna and get out of...”

He stopped. I looked down the hall, and everything inside me went cold.

Ms. Sawyer’s gaunt, wasted body stood silhouetted in the doorway to the sick ward, still in the hospital gown she had died in. Blood stained her face and hands, smeared around her mouth and the fangs that protruded from her upper jaw. She carried something in her hands, something round and dripping, the size of a basketball.

Lightning flashed again, and I saw that it was Jenna’s head.

I might have gasped, or gagged, for the thing that had been Ms. Sawyer looked up, and her dead, blank eyes flashed to mine. Her mouth opened, fangs gleaming, like jagged bits of glass. She screamed, a wail unlike anything remotely human, and charged toward us.

Ben yanked me across the hall, ducked into Doc Adams’s office and slammed the door. A booming thud rattled the frame just as he threw the latch and looked frantically around for something to brace it with.

Another bang on the door, followed by the screech of the thing on the other side. I fell back in terror. Ben pulled me aside, dragged the old wooden desk from the corner and shoved it across the tile, pushing it up against the door.

“Kylie, come on!” His voice snapped me out of my daze. Crossing the room, he yanked back the curtain on the window, revealing the full fury of the storm outside. “Hurry, before it claws its way in.”

The door jumped inward a few inches, scraping the desk back, and nails clawed at the opening. More voices joined the one beyond the frame, terrifying shrieks and howls, as if a whole pack of the things were clustered outside. The door shook and began to open as pale arms and shoulders shoved their way inside.

Ben threw up the window with a blast of rain-scented wind. “Come on!” he yelled at me, and I threw myself forward. His hands grabbed my waist as I scrambled for the opening, pushing me through. I fell on wet pavement, gasping as my elbow struck the hard ground, and then Ben collapsed beside me, rolling to his feet.

He dragged me upright, and through the window, I saw the door burst inward and a host of pale, shrieking bodies spill into the room. Former patients, people who had died that very afternoon, reanimated and somehow transformed into bloodthirsty monsters. Their empty white eyes scanned the room, catching sight of us outside the window, and they lunged forward with vicious wails.

We ran.

My shoes splashed over the wet concrete, cold rainwater soaking my hair and clothes. The storm raged around us, forks of lightning slashing the sky over the buildings. Behind me, I heard the monsters’ savage cries as they leaped through the window and skittered after us.

I followed Ben around a corner, dodging a rubble pile, and nearly ran into a small white pickup parked between two buildings. I waited, heart hammering, as Ben fiddled with the keys, hands shaking as he tried to unlock the door. A monster leaped to the top of the rubble pile, hissed when it saw us and sprang forward.

Ben yanked open the door, reached in and pulled a shotgun out of the front seat. The monster leaped onto the hood, snarling, as Ben aimed the muzzle at it and pulled the trigger point-blank.

A flash and a deafening boom rocked the alley, nearly making my heart stop. The creature was hurled away, crumpling into the wall and slumping down, a bloody mess. But then it staggered to its feet, hissing, though there was a massive gaping hole that went right through its chest, showing jagged ribs. It shrieked again, sounding more pissed than hurt, and lurched forward as several others came around the corner.

Ben pushed me into the truck and lunged in after me, slamming the door just as Ms. Sawyer crashed into the glass. She shrieked at us, clawing the door with bony talons, as Ben jammed the keys into the ignition and the truck roared to life. The monster with the bloodied chest scrambled onto the hood again and lunged at me. Its head bounced off the windshield, and a spiderweb of cracks spread out from the impact. More creatures crowded the truck as Ben threw it into Drive. The vehicle lurched forward, striking several monsters as it roared out of the alley. The creature on the hood slipped and rolled off the side as Ben slammed his foot onto the gas and sped into the road.

I turned to look through the back window, watching the clinic and the pale, spindly creatures swarming from it like ants, until Ben turned a corner and the building was lost from view.

Chapter Five

We drove for nearly an hour in frozen silence. Ben kept his gaze on the road, swerving around rubble and debris, easing through oceans of dead cars that had clogged the street. The city loomed above us, dark and menacing in the rain. Except for a few flickering streetlamps and several dying traffic lights, the streets were black, the buildings empty and dark. I remembered, when I first came here, how bright and busy the city had felt, even at night. Now, it was like driving through a war zone. Most everyone had fled or succumbed to the virus. There were a few stubborn hangers-on, those who had nowhere to go, or worse, those who stayed behind to prey on what was left. But for the most part, the city was empty of life, and just a few short months after the catastrophe hit, it was already beginning to crumble.

But
things
moved in the shadows, pale and terrifying, skirting the edges of the light. They skittered through alleys and between aisles of dead cars, sometimes alone, sometimes in small packs. Every time I saw one, my stomach convulsed in dread, and I couldn’t move. How long had they been here, roaming the city, with me oblivious to the monsters right outside my door? Or was this something new, some awful, mutated side effect of the virus?

We drove on, through the city limits, though progress was slow. The road out of the city was clogged with cars, crashed into railings and each other, some upside-down or on their sides. Hundreds lay in ditches, and a few sat burned and blackened in the middle of the road. After weaving around this endless obstacle course of steel and glass, Ben finally pulled his truck off the pavement and drove through the dirt and trees.

It seemed to take forever, but the sea of cars finally thinned, then stopped altogether. After a few miles of nothing, Ben took the next off-ramp and parked the truck at an abandoned gas station.

“Stay here.” His voice was hoarse. Turning off the engine, he grabbed the door handle, not looking at me. “We’re almost out of gas. I’ll be right back.”

“Ben, wait!” My words came out harsh and sharp, startling us both. Ben flinched, then slowly took his hand from the door, turning to face me. His eyes, his face, his entire body, were slumped and resigned, as if he’d been waiting for this moment, dreading it.

“You promised me answers,” I whispered. The numbness inside was fading, the horror and fear slipping away into something that felt close to rage. I could barely force the words out, but I did. “You promised you would tell me what’s going on. I’m not going another step with you until you start talking.”

“All right.” Ben took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “All right, Kylie, I’ll tell you everything I know. I don’t have all the details, because I wasn’t close to it, not like Nathan. But what I did find out...well, you’ll see why I couldn’t tell anyone.”

“You know what those monsters are,” I guessed, and it was an accusation. Ben hesitated, then nodded slowly.

“I’ve seen them before,” he began, gazing out the window. “It was one of those things that attacked Nathan, in the lab.” He looked at me, suddenly pleading. “I swear, I didn’t know it was transferable. Not like that. Nathan was bitten, but I didn’t know the disease could spread to others, Kylie. If I’d known that, I would have never brought him in.”

“Disease?” My mind was spinning. “Ben, what
are
those things? I just watched my dead patients come back to life and attack me! Are they...some sort of zombies?” The words sounded ridiculous out loud, but what else could I think? I’d only seen this happen in horror movies.

“No.” Ben rubbed the stubble on his chin, clearly uncomfortable. “Not...zombies. From what I understand, they’re more of a hybrid. Of human, and...” He trailed off, bring his lip.

“And?” I prompted.

“Vampire.”

Ben grimaced, even as he said the word. I blinked. The implication hung between us, impossible. Ridiculous. Vampires didn’t exist. They were movie monsters, Halloween costumes. Never mind that a second ago I’d seriously considered the zombie apocalypse. My logical doctor’s brain scoffed at the idea of fanged, undead creatures that came out at night and drank the blood of the living to survive.

And yet...I’d been attacked by people who had died. I’d seen the corpses, lying in their beds that very afternoon, before they’d sprung to life. Corpses that moved at lethal, frightening speeds. That had ripped apart two humans as easily as paper, that had smelled of death and rot and decay. Corpses that had fangs.

“Vampires,” I said slowly, still trying to decide what I thought about this, whether to accept, question or scoff at the claim. “You mean...like Dracula? The drinking-blood, turn-into-bats kind?”

Ben sighed. “I know how it sounds,” he muttered. “And that’s why I couldn’t tell you before. You would’ve thought I was insane. But...yes, vampires are real. They don’t turn into bats or wolves or mist, as far as I know, but everything else—the drinking blood, the coming out at night—it’s all true.” My face must’ve betrayed my disbelief, because he shook his head. “I know. When Nathan told me, I thought the chemicals in the lab were affecting his brain. I told him he needed help. But then he showed me, once, what they were keeping behind closed doors.” He visibly shivered. “And that was enough to convince me.”

“Why...” I couldn’t believe I was asking this. “Why were they keeping vampires down there, anyway? I thought you said Nathan was part of a team searching for a cure.”

“He was. And they were.” Ben looked disturbed now, his brows drawn together in a frown. “I didn’t get this out of Nathan until later, but...they were experimenting on the vampires. They were using vampire blood to try to develop the cure.”

“Why?”

“Because vampires were immune to the Red Lung virus,” Ben replied solemnly. “Nathan told me they didn’t know if it was because the vampires were, technically, dead, but none of the specimens they acquired could be infected with the virus. They were hoping to duplicate the vampire’s natural immunity to disease into something that could combat Red Lung.” His gaze darkened, and he gripped the steering wheel tightly. “But something went wrong,” he said in a near whisper. “The virus mutated. The ‘cure’ they gave infected patients—
human
patients—killed them. And turned them into those...things.” He shuddered, running a hand through his hair. “I was there the night they escaped. No one knows how it happened, but Nathan was attacked, bitten. Everything was chaos. We got out, came here. But I had no idea the mutated virus was airborne, that it would spread just like Red Lung.”

“Then...” My stomach felt cold as the implication of what he was really saying hit me like a load of bricks. The virus was airborne, seeping across the country like a spill of blood. “Then, you’re saying that everyone who is already infected with the Red Lung virus...”

Ben didn’t meet my gaze. His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. His face was ashen, and for a moment, I thought he might actually pass out.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “What have I done? What have
we
done, Nate?”

My hands were shaking. I clenched them in my lap and took a deep, calming breath. I’d seen what Red Lung could do to a person, I knew how fast it spread, I’d heard how entire communities and towns had vanished off the map in the space of a week. I imagined those towns now, only instead of bodies lying in their homes, I could see pale, screaming abominations filling the roads, destroying anything they came across.

And it had started right here. With the person in the seat next to mine.

No, that wasn’t entirely fair. Ben Archer hadn’t performed those experiments on—I stumbled over the word—
vampires.
Ben hadn’t created the retrovirus that was spreading across the country, turning the sick into bloodthirsty undead. He wasn’t responsible for the creation of those monsters, he wasn’t even a scientist. I knew that. My doctor’s brain accepted that.

But the part of me that felt responsible for Maggie and Jenna, that had worked like a dog to save those patients, that viewed Red Lung as an enemy that had to be destroyed—that part of me hated him. He’d brought a hidden virus into my clinic, and because of him, my patients were all dead. Worse than dead, they were monsters, rabid beasts. If Ben Archer had never darkened my doorstep, they would still be alive.

My heart pounded. Anger and rage coursed through my veins, turning them hot. Ben’s shotgun lay on the seat between us; without thinking, I grabbed it and flung open the door of the truck, leaping to the pavement.

“Kylie!”

Ben scrambled after me. I heard his footsteps round the hood of the truck, and though my hands were shaking, I planted my feet, spun around and raised the muzzle of the gun, leveling it at his chest.

He stopped, raising his hands, as I took a step backward, glaring at him down the barrel.

Lightning flickered, distant now, the storm having moved on. The lingering rain felt like cold spider webs falling across my skin.

Ben took a slow, careful step forward, still keeping his hands raised. I bared my teeth and shoved the muzzle at him, and he stopped.

“Stay back!” I hissed, knowing how I must look: wild and desperate, the whites of my eyes gleaming in the darkness. I felt crazy, out of control. “You stay right there, Ben Archer. Don’t move, or I swear I’ll kill you!”

“Kylie.” His voice was low, calming, though he didn’t move from where he stood. “Don’t do this. Please. You can’t survive out there alone.”

“You,” I snarled, curling my lip back, “have no right to tell me anything! You brought this down on our heads. My patients are dead because of you! Maggie and Jenna are dead because of you! The whole city, the whole world, maybe, is going to hell. Because of you!” With every accusation, he flinched, as if my words were stones smashing into him. My throat closed up, and I took a breath to open it. “All my life,” I whispered, “I wanted to help people, save people. That’s why I became a doctor, so I could make a difference. I wanted to beat this thing, so badly. And all it took was you waltzing into my clinic with your demon friend to destroy everything I worked for!”

“Then shoot me.” He dropped his arms as he said it, regarding me with dead, hooded eyes. I blinked at him in shock, but he didn’t move. “You’re right,” he said in a quiet voice. “What we did, what happened at that lab, there’s no excuse. We unleashed something that could destroy everything. And if I...” He paused, closing his eyes. “If I deserve to die for that, if killing me will make things right for you, then...do it.” Opening his eyes, he met my gaze, sorrowful but unafraid. “If this will bring you peace,” he rasped, “for Maggie and Jenna and everyone, then do what you have to. No one will fault you for pulling that trigger.”

My arms shook, and the gun was cold in my hands, the curved edge of the metal trigger pressing into my skin. It would be so easy, I realized—a quick pull, barely a motion in itself. I gazed down the barrel at the body in the rain, my throat and chest tight, my mind spinning. No one would hear the gunshot this far from the city. And even if they did, no one would care.

Ben stood there, unmoving, the rain falling lightly around his shoulders, waiting to see if I would kill him.

God, Kylie, what are you doing? You’re really going to murder this man in cold blood?
Horror, swift and abrupt, lanced through me. I was a doctor, sworn to save lives, regardless of circumstances or personal feelings. Ben had saved
my
life. If he hadn’t been there when those things attacked, I would be a pile of blood and bones on the clinic floor. Just like Maggie and Jenna.

And then, all the fear, frustration, sorrow and guilt of the past three days rose up like a black wave and came crashing down. Tears blinded me, my throat closed up and the world went blurry. The gun dropped from my limp grasp, falling into the mud, as, to my horror, I started to cry.

Strong arms wrapped around me a moment later, pulling me to a broad chest. For a heartbeat, anger flashed, but it was immediately drowned by everything else. I had failed. I had lost everything, not only the patients whom I had sworn to save, but my family, my friends and, very nearly, my humanity. And now, the world was filled with monsters and things I didn’t understand, I had nearly been
eaten
by my dead patients and I had nowhere to go, nowhere left that was familiar. I leaned into Ben and sobbed, ugly, gasping breaths that blotched my face and left the front of his shirt stained with tears.

Ben didn’t say anything, just held me as I cried myself out, the rain falling around us. My back and shoulders were cold and damp, but my arms, folded to his body, and the side of my face where his cheek pressed against mine, were very warm. Eventually, the tears stopped and my breathing became normal again, but he didn’t let me go. One arm was wound across the small of my back, the other rested near my shoulders, holding me to him. His head was bowed, and I could feel rough stubble against my cheek.

My arms, trapped against his chest and stomach, began to wind around his waist, to pull him to me as well, but I stopped myself.
No,
I thought, as my senses finally returned.
Just because he saved you, do not excuse this man for what he has done. Jenna and Maggie are dead. If he’d never come to your clinic, they would still be alive.

I stiffened, and Ben apparently sensed the change, for he let me go. I stepped back to compose myself, wiping my face, pulling my hair back, deliberately not looking at the man beside me. Because if I glanced up and met those haunted, soulful brown eyes, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from reaching for him again.

The shotgun still lay in the mud between us, and Ben casually reached down for it, as if it had simply fallen and hadn’t been aimed at his chest a few minutes earlier. I looked at the weapon and shuddered, appalled at myself, what I had almost done.

“What now?” I whispered, rubbing my arms as the rain started to come down hard again. Ben hefted the shotgun to one shoulder, staring out into the darkness.

“I’m going home,” he said without looking back. “Back to the farm. It’s been...too long since I’ve seen everyone. If they’re still there.” He paused, then added, very softly, “You’re welcome to come with me. If you want.”