Barely Alive (6 page)

Heather gasped beside me.

I expected to hear screaming, yells, something. But nothing came from the building. No one tried to get out.

At first.

A pounding on the thick, shatter-proof window jarred us. I don’t know who jolted first, but we both jumped. I stepped forward. But Heather pulled back. With one arm in her hands, all I could do was watch and listen as fourteen of my kind burned alive – or dead. I blocked the possibilities of what was happening in the basement at the same time. I didn’t need that reality to stack on top of the rest.

Part of me was glad they were going. Fourteen less mouths to feed. But the part of me that hadn’t yet died, maybe my humanity living in the flesh, ached for them. They’d had varying numbers of weeks left and, who knows, they could have done something with that time. Besides stealing, pillaging, raping, and killing.

John’s reign as leader was shorter than mine.

Dominic turned from the horror, seemingly unaffected. He walked by us, looking at Heather with the eye of an appraiser. I bristled. He met my gaze. “Inside. We need to talk.”

I wanted to run. Screw my impending death in ten weeks. For all I knew, Dominic put something in the water and I’d be fine once I left. But deep down, my gut told me that wasn’t true. The tingling in my toes and fingers declared something was happening to me. Not to mention my insatiable need for meat.

Dominic had the answers. I’d have to bite the bullet and get them.

But I wasn’t alone. Heather was smack in the middle of the mess, too. And that terrified me. She was a human girl – not worth much in the whole scheme of things, but for some reason I was entranced with more than just her honey-blood. Damn it.

I turned to face her. “I need to talk with him.” Her dark brown hair reminded me of brownies my mom made before the divorce, when she was happy. Her blue eyes had a deep liquid feel like blue-raspberry slushies. She nodded. I rushed on, before she could vocalize the fear evident in her paling face. “You can come with me, of course, but I don’t know what I’ll find out.” I screwed up my mouth. “And you have no idea what it is I am.”

Her voice had a velvet undercurrent I’d missed when she’d tossed around her spunk and fire. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go.” She glanced toward the building. The pounding had stopped. She closed her eyes.

I wanted to ask her what she was thinking. But we didn’t know each other well enough for that.

Chapter 6

“
Close the door, Paul.” Dominic leaned against the wall and watched me enter.

I arched my brow and ignored his command. The creature I’d been the day before would have slapped me for acting so disrespectful, but the creature I’d become wanted to stretch my hand into the past and slap myself for being such a bitch – Dominic’s bitch.

Heather took my lead and left the door open. She hid behind me, but I didn’t catch fear coming off her, more like an effort to stay out of my way. The chick seemed solid – even for a human. No, the irony wasn’t lost on me that I’d been human two weeks before – but I was smarter and faster and a helluva lot stronger. I could take both humans I was in the room with. If I wanted.

Dominic didn’t react like I’d hoped. He threw back his head and laughed. Loud. Asshole.

“
What do you want, Dominic?” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Why’d that happen? That was far from fair.”

“
I think they deserved the punishment, don’t you?” He slapped his leg. “Plus, I didn’t see you rushing to help them, Paully.” He offered a half-smile dripping with challenge.

Paully. I hated that nickname. My dad had used it during the divorce. Like I was four. “I didn’t have enough time to react. You seem hell bent on killing everyone. Why?” And more importantly, when was I scheduled to go?

He peered behind me, at Heather. “Why are you protecting her? She must be clean by now. I was going to give the girls to you guys. But…” He shrugged.

I copied the shrug to be a dick. “I don’t think you were going to do anything. You’ve been full of nothing but empty promises and orders. Tell me what’s going on, before you piss me off.” My anger had surpassed the fear of anything he might do to me. I was stronger. And he’d just lost his torture basement.

Dominic shoved away from the wall. “I need to know more about the attacks.”

“
I don’t know any more. Tom didn’t tell me much as it was and I only went on those three jobs. The first two I was alone and not bringing back girls or food. But guys to recruit, remember?” Dumbass. Those jobs had been the worst with lies spewing from my mouth like citrus-scented vomit. Each time had increased my shame.

Dominic moved in front of me. “I don’t think the girl behind you needs to be included in this. Why not take a step outside, doll?” He tilted his head toward the door, flashing his teeth.

Heather clutched at my shirt. I shifted my feet so he couldn’t see her. “She’s fine. Who knows how many more are out there waiting to jump on her, right?”

“
Right.” His eyes narrowed. “So, what exactly did the news say?”

I sighed. “They say it’s a gang attacking. Survivors are at the hospital or leaving hospitals. But that’s if they gathered them, right? I mean, that girl changed faster than it would have taken an ambulance to get here.” In reality, who knew how many more of us were out there. “We did one attack last night. Who did the other one? And the ones before that?” I didn’t need sleep, but that didn’t stop fatigue from stealing over my body. I was still hungry which left my body to feed on itself.

“
The problem is you guys have been biting people, spreading the virus.” He pointed his finger at me.

“
What virus?” I dropped my chin. He wasn’t going to blame this crap on me. “You injected us with needles. How could we be spreading anything? We didn’t get it being in the same area, so it can’t be like a cold or flu.” Science had been my thing, even though I’d pretended to be the big dumb jock. My microscope alone cost more than my 1965 Mustang Coupe.

“
I injected you with infected saliva. The virus is spread through the saliva to the blood. I attached the virus to an antibody which disguises it as something else so the body’s immune system would be confused. Once that happens, the enzymes in the body start to work faster on the proteins. You need to eat more because the enzymes are like parasites and eat anything they can get a hold of. They start working in the ends of the capillaries where the linings are thinner.”

“
That’s why I’m so cold.” I didn’t really care about the temperature issue. Tightening my resolve, I lifted my chin. “And why the saliva?”

He inspected his hands. “I didn’t mean for it to end up in the saliva. Apparently those enzymes are stronger than others in the body. I used dog saliva at first, but that didn’t have the correct structure. So, I used my own.”

Heather was holding me up. If Dominic coughed on me, I’d fall over from shock. “Are you telling me you used your own saliva enzymes to create this virus? You made this?”
Me? You made me? I’m part of you?
The urge to throw up filled me.

He nodded. And just stood there. Like he was done or something.

“
Keep talking.” My jaw hurt from the tension and continual grinding.

“
And say what?” He cleared his throat and stepped back. “As much as I hate to admit it, I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“
What the hell does that mean? You don’t know? But you used it. This virus that you made. And on us. How could you do that?” My mouth had dried up. Hadn’t happened in days.

Regret or something in that spectrum of emotion flashed across his face – but refused to linger, it was Dominic after all. “I wanted a cure for my father’s Lou Gehrig’s disease. I isolated the gene that alters the proteins, but funding was denied on my research. I created an autoimmune disabler so the virus could counterattack the genetic anomaly but my research was incomplete.” He steepled his fingers and pressed his thumbs to his face – bisecting his features and covering his mouth. His words were muffled. “I skipped a step. The order was supposed to be virus, enzyme, and then genome. This virus did what it was supposed to do, but one step too soon. The enzyme it created attacks the muscular tissues. I wanted it to attack the DNA.”

He dropped his hands and looked at me, his eyes begging me to understand. “I tried it on my father. I thought for sure it would work. I thought he would be pleased I had cured his disease.” He looked toward the burning building, even though he couldn’t see it through the filthy window pane. “I only made it worse, faster. The virus doesn’t attack ligaments, organs, or skeletal structures. It atrophies fibrous proteins and does something to the neural capabilities. I haven’t figured it out yet. I think…” Dominic wagged his finger at waist level. “I think the virus converts oxygen for the neurons. The brain doesn’t need the blood after a certain point and will actually exist in and of itself long after the body has died and decomposed.”

The mental images, combined with the memories from the basement, were too much. I looked at Heather, her mouth slack in horror.

I was dying, except I wasn’t. My body would die long before my mind would. The process had already begun – I knew it, I’d just been stupid enough to think I could “busy” it away.

I glanced at my fingertips, and then readjusted their position to see better in the light. The day before the graying had reached my third knuckles but today, the graying had retreated to the very tips of my fingers. While the peach color hadn’t returned, the return to pale flesh was a vast improvement over the necrotic appearance I’d been sporting.

Dominic’s gaze followed mine. “It’s when the tissue turns black that it can never come back. Like frost bite. When you eat, it pushes the tissue death off longer.” A snake smile spread under a sly wink. “You ate something, didn’t you?” He didn’t wait for my reply, waving his hand instead. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll do worse things than eat. Just so you know, I have no idea how long one can function. I’ve never fed any of you until you were sated. I don’t know if there are enough animals in the state for that feat.” His attempt at humor fell into the room with a plop.

I didn’t laugh. And Heather was close enough to shock she could have passed out on her feet.

The silence stretched out magnified by discomfort with the company we had to keep. Heather’s hand wasn’t far from my own. I had the sudden urge to see if my senses had dulled with the return of the color. Gray was unattractive, but my nerves had been a hundred times more sensitive.

“
So who is Travis Duncan?” I’d never get all the answers I wanted, but I had to start somewhere.

Dominic scowled and he stepped toward me with a threat in his raised fist. “He’s a research scientist at the university. He’s an idiot who lacks imagination. His wife has more brains than he does.” Dominic’s face flushed and his breathing quickened. “How do you know him?”

“
I don’t.” I pointed at his boxes. “His name is all over the boxes you had to save.”

He looked behind him, shifting to hide the boxes from my view. “Duncan doesn’t matter.”

Dominic’s denial reassured me that Dr. Duncan was exactly the opposite. He was important to Dominic’s plan. I just didn’t know how.

Heather coughed behind me. She needed to get to safety. But was it safer in the city than where I was? And how had Dominic gotten the okay to experiment on humans? I focused on returning to the conversation. Answers would help Heather… and maybe me. The possibilities the fading gray in my skin represented were limitless and I needed to know more. “Don’t you have to perform some kind of testing and get government approval or something?”

Dominic laughed at me – again. “It’s not like I’m selling this crap in the pharmacies or over-the counter, Paully. And I haven’t had time to do a test study. Think of it this way,” he held out his hands, “you’re my test studies. You should be proud.”

Rage filled me. I clenched my fists at my side. I was what?
A damn guinea pig?
“You bastard. You don’t even care. That’s why you never infected yourself. You didn’t know exactly what it would do to you. Even your own dad got less effort or care than a lab rat.” I shook my head. I wanted to kill him. Eat him alive. Or worse – spread the virus to him. In fact… “So everyone we bite that doesn’t die becomes like us?”

“
I’m not sure, yet.” He pointed at Heather. “That’s why I use the girls. I give them to the men locked in confinement and test to see how long each one lasts. The girl in the locker room is the first one I’ve ever seen torn apart that bad and still functioning. Another test I’ve started involves how long the hormones last in the boys after they’ve been infected. At first you’re all about sex and food, but at some point you become focused only on food. It’s hard to pinpoint the time frame this occurs, so I use pretty girls and ask the guys if they’d like to screw them or eat them. So far, it’s been both.” He smiled. “Entertaining, but not very informative.” He tilted his head. “You, however, Paul, continue to defy the norm. Not once have you given in to either your hormones or your hunger. A locker room full of naked girls? And you haven’t eaten in days?” He shook his head. “I have no idea how you’re doing it.”

“
Have you tried it on dead girls before?” Heather startled me. Her pale face set, she peered around my arm at him and tried to move beside me, but I pushed her back. She glared at me, but stayed.