Apocalypse (The Wasteland Chronicles, #1) (6 page)

I started to get up.

“Come with me,” Khloe said, pulling me by the
wrist. “You need to rest.”

“I need my dad.”

She did not argue. Gently, yet firmly, she
pulled me with her. An emptiness pulsated in my soul, a void that
could never be filled. The only thing connecting me to reality was
Khloe.

We reached her family’s apartment. I lay down
on her bed as she went to the main room to talk to her parents and
explain what was going on. I felt completely alone.

Her parents came in, but I didn’t hear
anything they told me. I just closed my eyes, tuning out
everything.

When I opened my eyes again, the light was
out. I had fallen asleep. I stared for what seemed hours at a
picture on the nightstand of Khloe and her family. The picture was
old – Khloe was smaller, and her little sister stood next to her,
smiling. Abby had been dead now for two years.

Death. So much death. The Wasteland was not
out there. It was in here.

It was night, and the lights were out. Khloe
was sleeping on the floor next to the bed.

I reached down and nudged her.

“What?” she asked, her voice thick with
sleep.

“I can’t let you sleep there.”

Khloe wiped her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. You
need to sleep.”

“So do you. There’s room for you here.”

She stood up. Her face was tender as her eyes
gazed into mine.

I was on the verge of tears as I recalled the
events of the day. I put my hands to her beautiful face, letting
them slide down her neck and rest on her shoulders. She lay down
facing me as I pulled her closer. We stared into each other’s
eyes.

I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around
her, drawing her close, enjoying her warmth, feeling her
heartbeat.

“I feel like you’re all I have now,” I
said.

Khloe didn’t say anything for a while. “I was
so sad when I lost my sister. We fought so much, and I lost her. I
still feel guilty about it. I wish I didn’t have to. I think that’s
part of being human, though. We wish we could control things, but
we can’t. It’s always too late.”

I opened my eyes. Khloe was looking at
me.

“Not always,” I said.

I leaned forward to kiss her, her lips soft
and warm. She kissed me back tenderly, healingly.

She
was
all I had, now. I didn’t ever
want to let go and feel the emptiness again.

We fell asleep in each other’s arms. For one
moment, everything was almost okay.

I was on the edge of consciousness when the
wailing of klaxons shocked me awake. Red light bathed the room. I
shot up in bed, Khloe’s hand latching onto my arm like a vise.

The siren screamed, over and over, fading in
and out.

“What’s happening?” Khloe asked.

“I don’t know. Where are your parents?”

“They’re on night shift at the lab.”

By lab, Khloe meant the hydroponics lab – the
largest room in the Bunker. It was located in the subbasement, near
the generators. It was where all the food was grown.

I pulled on my hoodie. The siren, coupled
with the red light, made me feel like I was living in a surreal
nightmare.

“Let’s go into the other room,” I said.
“Maybe some announcement will be made on the PA.”

We got up and went to the living room. We
stood by the intercom. In the event of an alarm, it was what we
were supposed to do. But no reassuring voice came. Maybe it would
never come.

My father…what if something had happened?
What if he had gone haywire, like the man Chan had shot down?

Khloe looked at me, searching my eyes.

“My father is dead,” I said. “He turned into
what that guy turned into. There’s no other explanation.”

“How do you know? Maybe…”

“What else could it be? My father, Chan, the
others – if they got out of the med bay, somehow, that’s probably
the reason for this. And if it’s anything like the patient, we’re
all in a lot of trouble.”

Khloe grabbed my hand. “You’re right. We have
to go.”

“Go where?”

“Out.”

“Outside?”

Then I heard screams. A gunshot. A snarl. A
body falling, outside our door to the corridor. Coldness creeped
over me.

Something
was out there.

I could not deal with this. Not now.

I looked madly for something that could be
used as a weapon. A lamp. A large book.

A skillet in the kitchen.

I ran to get it as the door slammed open. I
stared up. It was an Officer, hairless, his eyes wild and
completely white. For a moment, I froze in my tracks. Two
lacerations split his face open, where someone had slashed him with
a knife. He stumbled forward, toward Khloe.

Khloe screamed. But instead of cowering as I
might have done, she ran toward him, pushing him back outside. The
attacker growled, and went for her again.

Skillet in hand, I charged the Officer. Khloe
screamed, pushing on the man’s shoulders. His mouth snapped
viciously toward her neck. She punched him in the face. I clobbered
the Officer’s head with the skillet. He fell to the ground, and I
smashed his head in, again and again. His eyelids fluttered, then
stilled, revealing completely white orbs. Purplish blood oozed from
his mouth.

That’s when I noticed his body quivering and
bloating.

“Run!”

We ran past the man and into the corridor. I
slammed the door shut. Just in time – I heard a sickening pop. The
door vibrated against my hands when goo splattered it from the
other side.

We paused for a moment to collect our
breaths.

“What’s going on?” Khloe asked.

I looked down and saw the Officer had dropped
a handgun by the door. I grabbed it, checked the magazine for
bullets. There were four left.

“Like you said. We’re leaving.”

“What about my parents? We need to get to the
hydroponics lab.”

“We’re going there now,” I said. “Take this.
You might need it.”

I handed Khloe the skillet. Eyes wide, she
took it.

She led the way. I followed her through the
empty hall, my gun at the ready. The sirens wailed and pulsed the
floor in eerie red.

We turned the corner and found a body,
already ruptured. Purple goop dripped from the ceiling. A line of
slime fell, missing my face by a hair.

“Watch the ceiling,” I said. “Any of that
stuff gets inside of you, you’re done.”

Khloe nodded shakily.

We entered the commons. The room was empty,
but I heard voices and the sounds of a struggle coming from a
hallway on the other side. Several dead bodies lay on the floor,
mutilated. I recognized the corpse of one of my classmates, Vincent
Corley. He had been athletic, smart, and popular.

Now his right arm was completely ripped
off.

“Vincent…” Khloe said.

Gunshots sounded in the distance, followed by
bloodcurdling screams and inhuman wails. They were coming from the
direction of the Caf.

“We can’t go that way,” I said.

“There are stairs nearby,” Khloe said.
“Follow me.”

We went down two flights, toward the lowest
level in the Bunker. It became dark as we descended, so much so
that I could barely see in front of me. The lights had gone out on
this level, and sudden fear clenched my chest as I wondered: what
could be lurking in this darkness? At the moment silence was my
only answer.

After the first flight, I heard someone
gasping for breath just a few feet away. I did not know if they
were one of the infected, or just injured. In either case, the
person quieted, and we didn’t stay to find out anything more. We
quietly descended the second flight without his or her knowing.

We were now in front of the door that led
into the hydroponics lab. We entered, finding ourselves among
aisles and aisles of plants bearing enough fruits and vegetables to
sustain several hundred people year-round, its interior lit by dim
emergency lighting. Unlike the rest of the Bunker, this room – if
it could be so called, because it was so enormous – smelled fresh.
All the aisles added together ran for miles.

I enjoyed coming here from time to time, but
now the place was dark and frightening. I did not know what horrors
could be hiding in the shadows, around the next corner.

“Mom? Dad?” Khloe called.

Khloe’s voice echoed and died.

We walked the aisles, one by one, checking
each. But the entire room seemed empty.

“We should have stayed home,” Khloe said.
“They probably went back to get us…”

“Maybe.”

“I can’t leave without them,” Khloe said.

A door slammed open. I spun on my heels,
raising my gun. When I saw it was Khloe’s parents, I lowered my
weapon.

“Mom! Dad!”

Khloe ran and threw herself on her mom. Mr.
and Mrs. Kline, racked with sobs, embraced her.

“Thank God you’re here,” Mrs. Kline said.

Mr. Kline said nothing – he merely held his
daughter as if he never wanted to let her go.

Both had brown hair. Mr. Kline had a bookish
look to him, and wore black-rimmed glasses. Despite this, he was
tall and fit. Mrs. Kline was short, a little stout, but in shape.
She had kind, gentle eyes.

It was good to see them, only the reunion was
dragging on too long.

“We need to leave,” I said.

“We just came from the Caf,” Mr. Kline said.
“There are about a dozen making a stand. The rest…”

“We have more of a chance outside the Bunker
than in here,” I said.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Mr. Kline said.
“There’s an exit that leads to the atrium this way. From there, we
can leave by the front door. Follow me.”

We followed Mr. Kline to a corner of the lab.
There was a small, nondescript door, locked by keycard. Mr. Kline
used his card. It beeped, and the lock clicked open.

“Only your mother and I and some of the
Officers have access to this area,” Mr. Kline said. “It’s where we
recycle the hydroponic fluid.”

We passed rows of blue barrels, all filled
with the nutrient-rich liquid needed to grow the plants without
soil in the next room. The room itself was massive, filled with
large, complex machinery. Mr. Kline was the operator of the
recycling tanks, and probably the only person who fully knew the
intricacies of the machines. Thick hoses left the room through the
wall in order to feed the huge farms of the lab. This room,
arguably, was the most important in the entire Bunker. Without it,
everyone starved. No wonder it was kept so secure.

We walked through the room. On the opposite
side we entered a thin, claustrophobic hallway that was little
used. At the end a circular stairway led up. Mr. Kline went first,
followed by Khloe and her mom. I went last.

Mr. Kline opened the door at the top. Once I
stepped through it, I found we were in the Bunker’s atrium. The
exit was one minute away.

“We made it,” I said.

The circular vault door leading into the exit
tunnel was wide open. Someone had already escaped.

“Keep your gun ready,” Mr. Kline said.

I held my gun up as we advanced.

We entered, finding the rocky exit tunnel
dimly lit. The temperature was near freezing. Between us and the
final vault door were two forms: one on the ground, bloody and
dead, and the other kneeling beside it.

Before anyone could speak, the man’s face
snapped around toward us.

It was Chan, his all-white eyes empty and
soulless. Wet, red blood stained his uniform. His head cocked to
the right side. All his muscles tensed.

He charged forward, letting out an
otherworldly bellow.

“Get back!” Mr. Kline yelled.

I aimed my gun and fired three times. The
bullets entered Chan’s body – his chest, his abdomen, his right
arm. From each wound, purple goo shot out, as if it had replaced
the blood in his body.

None of the shots had any effect. Chan merely
stumbled on, set on one goal – killing us at any cost.

I had one shot left. I aimed for the head,
watching it bob up and down as Mr. Kline pulled away from Chan.

I fired.

I missed – probably by inches.

Khloe screamed as Chan tackled her father to
the ground. I dropped my gun and ran to pull Chan off of him.

But it was too late. Mr. Kline screamed as
Chan ripped into his neck, tearing from it a gobbet of bloody
flesh. Mr. Kline’s horrible howl became choked with blood. A small
fountain of red shot upward.

Khloe ran up from behind, letting out a
desperate scream. She smashed Chan’s head in with the skillet,
bludgeoning him until his animalistic eyes rolled back. He keeled
over and collapsed on the ground.

Almost instantly, Chan’s body started to
inflate.

“Run!” Khloe screamed.

I pulled Khloe back, away from the swelling
body. Khloe’s mom and dad were beyond all hope of escaping the
burst. Khloe and I ducked behind a corner just as Chan exploded. A
wall of purple slime gushed past us.

We reemerged to find both of Khloe’s parents
coated with the stuff.

“No,” Khloe said. “No…”

She ran forward.

“No!” her mother yelled. “Do not touch me!
You have to go.” Tears ran down Mrs. Kline’s face, cutting a clear
path through the slime.

Mr. Kline lay on the ground, twitching,
choking. It looked like he was trying to speak, but to no
avail.

Khloe’s face was white as she stared at her
dying father.

“I…” she said.

“You can’t stay here,” Mrs. Kline said.
“Go!”

Khloe recoiled as if struck.

“Go, Khloe,” Mrs. Kline said, desperately.
“Run now. You will not die here.”

“Khloe,” I said. “We have to go.”

Behind us, I could hear gunshots, people
screaming, and non-human growling. I looked toward the vault
door.

“
Come on
, Khloe!”

More snarls, and the pattering of footsteps
from the atrium.