Deathly Contagious (37 page)

We continued our search down the dark hallway, looking in every room we went by. One was crammed with the desks taken out of the room set up for sleeping, a few more held cots and blankets, another was stuffed full of duffle bags, suitcases and boxe,s and one was set up like a medical unit.

“There might be something useful in here,” I said, using my bow to point into the med unit. “We should take a look.” I gave the bow and two arrows to Hayden. I clicked on my flashlight and went into the room.

“What should I look for?” Rider asked.

“I’m not too sure. Anything that is clean or unused, I suppose. Like this,” I said, holding up a box of rubber gloves.

“Jackpot,” Rider said, picking up a first aid kit. “There’s three more,” he told me with a smile.

We stacked our stuff in a neat pile by the doorframe; Brock went back a few rooms and returned with an empty duffle bag that he began filling with the medical supplies. Along with the kits and gloves, we found an unopened box of bandages, several saline IV drip bags, ACE bandages, two bottles of iodine, and a box of snap-to-activate hot packs. The bag had to be heavy but Brock slung it over his shoulder with ease.

We crossed the hall, went up a flight of stairs and into a hall. Every classroom door was locked. Thick dust settled on the doorknobs.

“No one has been up here,” Hayden said. “No one living at least. Let’s try downstairs one more time and call it.” He shook his head and looked at a locker decorated with deflated pink balloons and a sign that said “Happy 17
^th
Birthday, Dana!” in swirling purple letters.

We retraced our steps and exited through another hall that took us into the middle of the school. Her rattling death groan gave her away. I strung and arrow, prepared to let it loose as soon as the zombie stepped around the corner.

But she didn’t.

“You do hear that, right?” I asked Hayden quietly.

“Yep. Definitely a zombie,” he responded, loud enough to draw our attention to her.

I shrugged. “If they don’t come to you, then you go to them.” I stepped around the corner with the arrow aimed at head level. “What the fuck?” I said aloud.

The zombie lay on the floor like an upside down turtle. She too had a huge belly, though hers had burst. Half-chewed parts of human bodies oozed out. She held the remains of an arm clutched in her death grip, pushing the flesh into her mouth.

“She ate herself to death,” Ivan said and stepped over to her. He shook his head. “Or to her un-death, I suppose.” Using the heel of his boot, he stomped on her head.

“Two very full zombies,” Wade said nervously. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Me neither,” Hayden agreed. “I think they ate everyone here. Let’s go.”

All agreeing, we pushed open the doors to the cafeteria, thinking we could cut through. Dividers had been put in place, providing little privacy. The sheets on the cots were stained with blood.

“This must have been the waiting room, so to speak,” Wade observed. Our footsteps loudly echoed in the empty room. We raised our weapons and went through another set of doors and into yet another hallway. I never realized how maze-like schools were until now. Bright sunlight filtered through the dirt and dust covered glass doors at the end of a hall.

Ivan’s hand pressed against the door’s lever when someone screamed. It wasn’t a scream of fear, more one of frustration. Springing into action, we raced in the direction it came from.

A long, blonde braid hung down her back. She was standing in the middle of where two hallways crossed, waving a broken piece of a two-by-four in the air at an oncoming zombie. We skidded to a stop right as she swung, hitting the zombie in the side of the head.  When the zombie dropped, she jumped forward, kicked the feet out from under an S3 and raised the board to finish the job.

My arrow got to him first. Startled, she whirled around. Blood splattered her pretty face and was smeared across the white button up shirt she was wearing.

“Haaa,” she yelled, calling to someone down the hall before pointing to us. Glaring in our direction she raised the board again.

“Hi,” Ivan said calmly and holstered his gun. “I have to say I’m surprised to see someone alive in here. I’m Sergeant Brewster. We are on the same side.”

Blondie didn’t move. Her eyes quickly darted to whoever was walking down the hall. Ivan took a step forward, causing her to back away in fear.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured her. “We have a shelter—a real shelter—that we’re on our way back to. You’re welcome to come.”

A boy with beautiful deep olive skin slinked from behind the corner. He grunted and sniffed the air. Then he turned to inspect us, revealing the claw marks that ran the length of the left side of his face, severing his ear from his head.

“Oh shit,” Wade whispered. “He’s infected.”

The boy cocked his head and growled. Blondie made a gurgling noise and shushed him. She held her hand on to him; he took it and rubbed his bloodly cheek against it, reminding me of a cat rubbing on its owner.

Since two adolescent crazies weren’t a threat, the six of us stood rooted to the spot by curiosity. Suddenly, Blondie snapped her attention away from the boy, growled and swung the board in the air, looking down the hall at something we couldn’t see.

The telltale drag and shuffle of undead feet gradually got louder until the zombie made an appearance. Blondie beat it to death.

“Uh, since when do S1’s take down S2’s?” Brock asked, shifting the weight of the heavy bag. “It’s fucked up but kinda…kinda cool.”

“Crazy versus zombie,” I muttered and lowered my bow.

“Should we kill them?” Rider asked with his machine gun aimed at the boy.

“If they’re killing zombies, I’d leave them alone,” Brock suggested.

“Until they come after us,” Hayden pointed out.

“Are you sure they are infected?” Wade asked, eyeing the girl who continued to stare us down.

“Hey,” Ivan called. “Can you hear me? Say something.”

When the girl didn’t respond, Hayden shook his head. “Maybe they don’t speak English.” He waved his hands in the air; still no response.  He walked forward six feet before the boy snarled and lunged himself at Hayden. A second later the girl followed suit, screaming a battle cry, showing her teeth and swinging the board.

Rider quickly fired two rounds. “Definitely infected,” he said. He lowered his gun and turned away. We stepped into the parking lot.

“That was not only disappointing but confusing,” Wade spoke out loud. “S1’s don’t work together. That girl could
talk
. You heard her. She and that boy communicated somehow. But they were clearly crazy. And they killed zombies!”

I shook my head and pulled the M16 from around my neck. “I don’t get it either. But it is what it is, right? Maybe Dr. Cara could make sense of it.”

“She’d probably be pissed we didn’t bring them home for her to do research on,” Brock said with a slight smile.

“I’m seriously waiting for the day she asks us for a live sample,” Wade said, shaking his head. “We already brought back the dead zombies for her to play with.”

“When did you do that?” I asked, setting my machine gun in the bed of the truck.

“When you were gone,” Rider answered.

“Oh, right,” I said, remembering Padraic had told me he had to do an autopsy. “I can’t believe you went on a mission while you thought I was dead,” I joked. “I expected everyone to be horribly grief stricken, like a teenage girl who got dumped by her first boyfriend.”

“I definitely was,” Ivan said with a wink. “It was a bad time; you were presumed dead, Gabby was a basket case thinking you sacrificed yourself for her, and Underwood was drugged up in the hospital ward. We were down three men.”

“Men?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You know what I mean,” Ivan said and set his weapons down.

“No, I don’t.”

“Don’t be such a girl,” he teased and flashed his charming smile. “Men, soldiers, whatever. The way I see it, we’re all equal here. We’re all just as important to the team. We each have our strengths that we bring with us.”

I nodded. “Well said.” I set the rest of my weapons in the bed of the truck and with one last look at the failed quarantine, I got in the backseat. We headed north until we reached the shore again. Rather aimlessly, we drove around until we pulled into the parking lot of a harbor.

“Want to stop for lunch?” Hayden asked Ivan over the walkie talkie.

“Looks clear,” Ivan responded. “Yea, let’s stop.”

With our cars pointing away from the water in case we needed to make a fast getaway, we got out, grabbed our weapons and looked around. Luckily, there wasn’t much to investigate. There were only a handful of boats in the dock and most were tightly sealed for the winter, making it impossible to act as a floating zombie hide out.

The six of us went back into the truck, picked out what we wanted to eat and sat on the sun warmed boards of the dock.

“I’ve never been this far north,” Brock said casually. “I like the lake. It’d be fun to be close to this much water; well it would be if I didn’t have to worry about zombies floating by.”

I laughed. “I went to college in Indiana, about two hours from Lake Michigan. On really nice days, I’d beg Ray to skip class with me, drive up north and spend the day on the beach. We only did it a few times because gas got so expensive we couldn’t afford the drive.” I sighed and smiled. “It was fun. We’d pretend we were somewhere more exotic than Indiana.”

“Did you live close to the coast?” Wade asked Brock.

He shook his head. “I lived in San Antonio. It’s about a hundred miles to the coast. Other than going to South Carolina for training and then going overseas for the war, the most exciting place I’ve ever gone was Nebraska.”

“I didn’t get out of North Dakota until I was eighteen,” Hayden said and took a bite of beef jerky. “I went to Las Vegas for my birthday, spent three days there, came home and joined the Marines.”

“My parents used to go on family vacations every summer,” Rider told us. “I’ve been to Hawaii and Mexico a few times. Nothing too crazy but better than you two,” he joked.

Wade shook his head. “My dad refused to leave the country. He said we had everything we needed right here. I’ve been all over the US. I’ve always wanted to go to Europe.”

“I’ve been there,” Ivan said. “Once. My sister married a British guy and the wedding was in England. The marriage didn’t last long,” he said with a laugh. “Guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“I’ve been all over,” I admitted. “I’m partial to India, but that might be because Orissa is a city over there. My dad—my real dad that is—traveled occasionally for work. The one time my mom went with she came home pregnant, hence my name. Anyway, Kenya is pretty cool too, kinda scary in some places though. Same with China; I met some interesting people there. I wonder if they’re still alive…”

“Lucky,” Wade huffed.

I shrugged. “I guess. I’m not gonna lie and say I didn’t enjoy seeing the world but I was dragged around by my mom and stepdad. They went on charity and church missions.”

“That would be so—” Rider started before Hayden interrupted.

“Is that a boat?” he asked, springing up.

“Where?” we all asked in unison.

“There,” Hayden said, pointing to the water. He held one hand over his eyes to shield the sun. “I think it is. And…it’s moving.”

I jumped up and peered onto the water. “You’re right. Oh my God. There’s probably people on it!”

“No shit,” Brock joked, elbowing me. “Or maybe zombies learned how to drive a boat.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Rider said seriously. “Do you think we can catch their attention?”

“The boat’s moving pretty fast,” Ivan spoke. “It looks like it’s going southeast. Maybe to another dock?”

“We should find out,” Wade suggested. “Drive along the lake and see if we can head it off.” He looked at Hayden.

“Yea,” Hayden agreed after a second. “Let’s go.”

We picked up our stuff and made it into our vehicles in record time. We sped down the harbor and turned left onto the main road that ran parallel to the lake. We flew down it, hoping to get ahead of the boat and flag the captin down. For a good fifteen minutes, the boat and our cars kept a steady pace.

“What if we lay on the horn?” Ivan asked over the walkie talkie. “Do you think they’d hear it? Any hostiles around us would for sure.”

“If there are people in that boat then it’s worth it,” Hayden said.

“Copy that,” Ivan’s voice crackled through. He repeatedly beeped the horn of the Range Rover. Not even a minute later, trees surrounded us on both sides.

“There’s little islands in Lake Erie,” Wade, who had jumped in the truck with us, said. “That’d be an almost perfect place to be. It’s safe but far from supplies.”

“Maybe the people are making a supplies run,” I said.

“We’ll go a bit farther,” Hayden said with a nod. “Once we’re out of the woods we’ll be able to look around for another harbor.”

We had crossed over the Pennsylvania border over a mile ago. Hayden kept a steady pace until we emerged onto a road with a clear view of the lake. The boat had vanished.

“There’s a harbor three and a half miles from here,” I said.

“How in the world do you know that?” Hayden asked, turning around to eye me.

“I used my amazing reading skills to read a sign,” I told him with a smile. Hayden relayed the info to Ivan, who agreed to drive there and scope it out. More trees blocked our view of the lake and Hayden slowed down to a safer speed.  We drove through a winding road that took us through the woods before emerging onto a small off road covered in loose gravel.

The little harbor would have made a perfect background for a Hallmark card. We walked along the weathered wooden planks cautiously. There were ten spots; seven were filled.

“I don’t think that boat would have fit in here,” Brock stated, shaking his head.

“No,” I agreed. “It wouldn’t.” I peered at the water and noticed something else rolling in. “We should go before the storm gets here,” I suggested, pointing to the fast moving clouds.

“Not again,” Hayden said with a sigh, glaring at the sky. “The boat might not fit in the spaces, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t come here. We should wait a few minutes. We might have passed them.”