Drifters (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Back to where I was sitting embracing my legs again and Max lose sitting behind me, I thought that In the mist of all this that had happened in these days my mind still wondered to past events leaving me with a heart broken, the memories of a lifelong defending those that would not be able to defend themselves and learning how to control the hunger did took a toll on my emotional state of mind and I was bound to be forever alone, until Max showed in my life. Yet every time I see him it reminds me of everything. Alex twisted revenge, Jeremy’s repentance, Marino’s devious plan, which I still did not know, and Max’s lies.

“Max there is something I have to ask.”

“Yes Miss Sara?”

“Why did you
told me Alex story and plan?”

“Well Miss Sara…”

“Call me Sara I told you already.” I said as the anger was coming deep down from inside me as if a volcano erupted. I unclenched my hold to my legs and stood putting my hands at my side as I turned to meet his eyes.

“Hey, Miss Sara, I am sorry but it is Alex’s plan.”

“Yes it is. But why tell me?”

“Since I meet you on the edge of the road and looking so ravishing, I fell for you and I really did not want to continue with it.”

“But didn’t you say you saw me in the other town?”

“No, I may have said it wrong
. Who saw you was Alex and his description of you there was so precise that when I saw your red hair flying in the wind and extending your hand and putting your thumb up. I knew it was you.” His eyes closed as if he was remembering that night when the picked me up. That had just happened three days ago.

“And Miss Sara, your lips are something any man would die for.”

“Some have.” I said turning around and embracing myself remembering Kevin again and the three dead rapists from my past. I shudder.

“Are you cold, Miss Sara?”

“No and will say one more time, stop with the Miss Sara thing, it is really creeping me out.”

“Okay MISS… Sorry.” he said as his hands went high in the air as if surrendering to an enemy and smiling. “…you know Sara, there is unfinished business here.
Alex and all.”

“Yea that was weird as if someone was act
ually controlling him. How do you feel?” I asked as I still had in my mind that little red dot on Max’s neck where Marino had injected the suppressant. What is it, the suppressant, that cocktail Marino said it was used to suppress the hunger but actually did the contrary. The injection made Alex a rampaging monster with thirst for vengeance, yet what really was it for?

“Max we should head back to town and talk to Jeremy about Max’s suppressant I
think it works differently from what it was made for.” I said as max started to rise from the floor growling a little, his eyes turning black again slowly engulfing the outer rim of his eyes socket.

“Shit!”

That single word seemed to take Max out of the suppressant hold and his eyes cleared the growling disappearing and he tilted his head slightly to the right.

“Yes Miss Sara you were saying?”

“My God you really got me scared there.” I said putting my hand to my chest, letting out a breath of air and feeling the silence inside it.

“What just happened?”

“You growled at me and your eyes was being eaten with the black around them I guess Alex want to know where we are.”

I took Max by the arm and lead him out of the forest to see if we could find Jeremy and talk to him about that injection. Like always I knew there had to be a central base here M
arino and his men would find comfort while they tracked me down.

It was a
lways the same thing, a big open tent with computers and a small lab, cars would be parked around the back ready to go after me. It always struck me as weird that Marino would use such viewable sites. I remember during one of my travels; I think it was in Chicago where the forest was way further than small towns, where I prefer to go. There I rented a room on a rusty motel, which was filled with roaches and really dirty sheets. I remember walking from the hotel to a restaurant I worked as a waitress to pay the rent of the room. It was nothing grand I had had a meal a big one after an incident with a killer that for some reason he wanted me as his prey, but I got to him first. During that walk and in a child’s park I saw the big tent, as I walk by a heard a big siren blasting its incessant scream in the air as people turned their heads around, and from where I was I could see Jeremy radio in hand screaming orders. Military personal was around him looking at a screen later did I know that the screen was a monitoring system that they had implanted me so long ago. Once they grabbed me and strapped me to a chair Jeremy would look at me with tender eyes yet he had a job to do. I never growled at him never till that day. He started speaking about how it was over that they had me again at last and how everything would change from now on. They never knew about my strength till that day. In the chair as Jeremy turned around I recall telling him that it was not over and I would be free again, he laughed as he walked away. He did show me where the tracker was and I knew I had to take it. I broke my chains that hold me to the chair, it was easy. There were made of nylon, weaker than the chains of those I broke when I was eighteen. I escaped and ran away again losing my job, the money I had saved since it was still at the motel and losing my backpack again. I ran for a long while until I finished back in the forest and with my back to a tree I sat and found the tracker injected to my left leg. I used my nails to cut an opening to put my hand inside pulling the tracker out all cover in my brownish blood. I had the idea of putting it inside and animal and let the animal wonder, but the erratic behavior of such an animal would probably tell them something was wrong. So I did  just one thing I let the  tracker stuck in a tree and with my blood I wrote Never again above it. After that they only got me one more time, this time.

We walked outside the forest and on to town. It was peaceful the night had just started to grow in the sky and Max was holding my hand. We looked for a long time around ne
ver seeing the command center where we could see Marino and Jeremy. It was just one of those days everything went wrong. We stopped for a while near a diner where a couple looked at us and their heads snapped to the other side as if we were a couple of hobos that reeked of bad things to come. I look up to meet Max eyes the black was slowly coming back, the only issues here is that if he ran out of control he could kill people around, the street was full of passersby, people walking inside diners, stores, bars. I had to take him back to the forest just to be safe. As we turned I saw Jeremy with a rushed walk in the distance with a radio on his hands.

“Jeremy
!” I screamed he turned his head and waved his hand. I grabbed Max and rushed to Jeremy’s side.

“Any news?”

“No”

“Jeremy I need to know what the suppressant actually does.”

“While I was using it or when Marino took over?”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay I will tell you, but not here.” He said as he looked both ways “Marino may be listening, it is time you should know the whole truth.”

“What truth?”

“From where you came and why Marino took over. Meet me at the park tonight at midnight, from there I will take you to the command center and I can show you what I think he is really up to.” He said as almost a whisper and rushed away. It was still early in the night and Jeremy disappeared in the crowd. Some answers would come for sure, but at midnight tonight.

Chapter Twenty-F
our

Max and I waited in the park all night no need to walk ourselves back to the forest to then come walking back out. We were resting on a bench holding hands my head to Max shoulder and just silence. We would turn and switched sides move our body and speak a little. We would kiss embrace and kiss again. We looked like lovers just spending a nice night in the park. At eleven desperation took hold and I started pacing myself from side to side, long sturdy strides from my legs in front of Max.

“You know if you keep up you will probably get to china through a hole you are carving in the ground.”

I stopped and tilted my head with a smug looked on my face letting him know it was not funny. I waited and waited and wait for what it seemed the worst time in my life. The answer to where I came from. I paced, longer and more urgent strides. I would drive myself through the ground if Jeremy had not appeared with a worried look on his face.

“They found Alex, the real Alex.”

“Where?”

“You will not like this”

“What? Just tell us.” Max anxiously stood from the bench and walked to Jeremy side.

“First thing first, did you get injected?” he asked Max.

“Apparently, Miss Sara thinks I did, but I don’t recall it, no pain what so ever in my neck.” As he tilted his head and Jeremy saw the small red dot.

“How long?”

“About twenty hours ago I guess.”

“Okay listen, take this,” he said handing him a syringe inside it
, a liquid blue in color, “it will hurt, a lot, after that we can go.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“My version of the suppressant, I made some digging and what Marino did with the mix is horrible.”

“What?”

“First take it Max, and then we can get inside the command center. I need to be safe that you will not go on a rampage on me.”

“With it or without I would have done so long ago for Miss Sara’s sake.”

“Max you touch one hair on Jeremy’s head and I will stop being nice. Understand.” I said as I turned around my brow arching downwards like a big old ‘V’. The serious tone in my voice scared him and he stepped back some steps.

He took the syringe from Jeremy’s hand i
njected himself on the thigh, “this isn’t so bad.” he said as not a second had past when he screamed putting his hands on his head and moving it rapidly from side to side. People around looked at us, but did not moved to help, not that I did not minded it was only that there was no need Jeremy was there and as of now many around had seen him with the radio talking barking orders inside. I would say most already knew he was from some agency that was looking on to something.

After several minutes of Max screaming and moving on the floor like worm trying to escape the impending doom of a foot coming down, he stopped. Jeremy got close to
him and examined his eyes.

“There,
we’re clear. Okay let’s go.”

“Already
, can’t I rest a bit, that was really tiring.” Max said as I bent down grabbing him from the waist and putting his hand around my neck.

“Thank you Miss Sara.” He said and I had already told him more than once to stop with that Miss Sara thing and at that moment I knew he would never stop saying it.

We walked for about one hour around town, north to the dinner we sat and Marino showed up, then  west towards the woods, then east on main street right to the hotel were the first attacked took place.

There had been two mistakes I have made since this entire thing started, one going to the scene of the attack after watching Alex drive by in the yellow car, smiling and blood all over him, second avoiding the place at all cost. Now I knew that their command center was erected in the lot beside the hotel where I was dropped off earlier in the week.

“I am so stupid.” I said out loud for Jeremy and Max to here. They both looked at me but said no word.

We kept walking to the entrance of the tent, now it was closed all over. Jeremy pushed as aide the door as we all got inside. There in the screen was Alex, tied with big round chains on a metal chair screaming.

“Ok, there is Alex,” Jeremy said pointing to the screen, the real Alex.”

“What do you mean the real Alex?” Max asked

“We found him over the body of the one you crushed it head, apparently he can manipulate the dead bodies of his infected. That is all we know for now.”

What an extra, I thought that would have come handy during my travels.

“Anyway this is Marino’s suppressant.” Jeremy said as he switched the screens to pictures of cells moving around. The picture looked like blobs of nothing at first then it came clearer.

“This here are Sara’s cell
s, this is a human Cell. See here the suppressant is injected and Sara’s cells stays inert, but the human cell well, just look.” He said and moved to his side as I saw what he wanted us to see the human cell was being consumed by the suppressant and dividing. It was turning to one of my cells what looked like an original from mines and with the hunger driving the host mad.

“I don’t understand.”

“Remember when you said that we made him and him,” he said pointing at Max and switching the screen back to Alex still screaming and bound with the chains, “remember that I told you that there must be another original out there, and that other might had created them?”

“Yes.”

“I was wrong, Marino did this. He created them both to get back at you, to make you suffer somehow.”

I turned my head to Max “I don’t know.” He said

“So, my past tell me, I want to know.”

“Okay you better sit for this
one.”