Drifters (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-F
ive

              “It was about thirty-four years ago, at that time I worked at the CDC after leaving the military. I worked as a scientist on viral contingency planning; I used all my knowledge in viruses to contain any potential outbreak from diseases that were out there and out of control. We received a call, from a small island at the coast of Africa were something strange was happening, many didn’t know what so they sent for us. As they explained the situation it was something that brought horror in my mind. I had never heard of the types of symptoms before. With my military history and my knowledge they sent me there to see what it was all about. It spread fast and not by air. Apparently some Chimpanzee was the first to get infected and he bit someone that after three days, well you know, coma, death, hunger. Well after three weeks almost the whole island was infected we had thousands of people walking around acting mad and the hunger really was strong in them. I went to a village trying to track patient ‘0’, that is what we called the first infected. To get a sample of the original virus instead I got an even bigger surprise. It was not a chimp, patient Zero, it was a baby born with the hunger. I found two rotting bodies both crouched and embracing something in their arms, a baby. I got closer as one growled at me and the other one hissed like a snake. Until they meet my eyes. That’s when the creepy part started. None that we encountered first had spoken, and these corpses had been turned for a long time. The humming of a soft tune could be heard in the air, I looked around to see where it was coming from and it was them, they both were humming a song I did not knew what it was. I could see their flesh was eaten away in small chunks all around their faces, their eyes were sunken inwards and the smell of putrid flesh was in the air. I got closer and one said to me.

“Please help her it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t know.”

“Please save her?” said the other, as they parted ways like the opening of a gate, they handed me a child no older than a year old.  I looked at them strangely when one jumped the other and started eating him the view was so grotesque that I had to leave. After I got back we had to put the baby in a safe place so we devised a plan and put it in a coma state. It had to be done. One bit of the baby could mean infection from one of us. After all was lost and that island was buried with infected hunger humans, we diced that it was something we had to contain, so like a military men I made the order to burn every inch of the town and the island. The disease was never heard of again.”

“Wow, what does that have to do with my past?”

“Sara you were that baby, you were sleeping for fourteen years before we decided to wake you up.”

“So you are saying that I am th
e original and that this was no accident.”

“Not by human hands.”

“So the suppressant is what a duplication of my baby cells?”

“Yes, in a way it is, it only gives them,” he said and pointed to Alex and Max again
, “the same abilities you have and some other extras. I am guessing that it has to do with DNA, some boring details I will not discuss right now.”

“So what is Marino doing that is so diffe
rent than yours.”

“Mine was so you could
be better like be in a coma state, more like sleeping than nearly dead. After a while I guess you got immune to it that’s when we decided to wake you. Marino’s is to create stronger versions of you, double dosing them is what makes then a danger to us all.”

I stayed in
a dumbfounded state as Jeremy explanation of all that had happened in my life was nothing but nature’s way of saying you are too many around and a new predator is needed. I look at Max he was still standing by my side as his eyes started closing, as if he was board or sleepy.

“Max, Max, wake up,” I said as I shook him to alertness.

“Yea Miss Sara?” he slurred his words as if he just gotten back from a nap.

“Don’t worry Sara he will be okay just drowsy from the injection.”

I sat on a metal chair looking at Max, Jeremy and to the screen where Alex was being help.

“Can we here what he is saying?”

“Yes.” He said and flipped a switched as the audio started blasting from some speakers on top of the desk.

“Marino, you bastard you promised me Sara’s head. Fuck you, fuck you, let me out, let me out Marino, you fucking insolent piece of meat I will get you for betraying me. Hear me I will fucking get you and that monster of yours.” The screams were heard all over as if I was right in the room with him.

When I heard the word Marino I knew he was behind all this maybe while looking for me he found them both. Injected Alex before he was picked up and that is why he was sick on the car.

“Where is Alex being held?”

“It’s an offsite location, I cannot tell you.”

I turned my head and looked straight in my adopted father eyes. “Now, you listen to me  Jeremy, you said double dosing him made him a crazed animal, but look at him now  he is not acting like an animal he is just mad, if he and Max are like me, then I have to protect them from the likes of you and Marino. You will never understand what it is to be the o
nly one like this and never, ever will be able to feel another ones touch since you know you will have to kill them soon. I have lost everything. All my life and my freedom has all been but a lie, you should know this. I am tired of looking over my shoulder to see if you are there or not. Tired of the lone nights in the woods so you and your fucking hounds don’t find me. At least now I have someone I could actually be with, and another that is probably just scared and mad.” I almost screamed those words to him, as I pointed to Alex on the screen and Max at my side. “They are like my only family, they are part of me. I must save them at whatever cost.” My finger now at his face and feeling really angry as if a volcano had erupted the lava flowing ready to burn everyone and everything around. Marino’s plan, Jeremy’s evil past, even Max for slapping me in the forest, but now I understand it was all Marino’s fault. And he will pay.

“Sara calm down, I cannot tell you where the offsite is but I can take you there. Next time let me finish.”

We left the tent all walking in a single file as if we were ants fallowing the trail of the leader or scout that was sent at first to find the source of food. We walked east away from the tent and command center and on to and old abandon mill. The trail was covered with foliage, a big wheel laid broken to it side as the old rusty place had a big padlock on the front door with big heavy chains.

“This is where he is, I don’t have the key but you should know…”

I did not let him finished. I got closer to the door grabbing the padlock in my hand and yanking it off the door throwing it on the floor and looking inside the big black hole in front of me.

Chapter Twenty-S
ix

There was no sound inside, the old mill was rotting and the boards looked like a rain of bullets had torn the wood away, but it was age. I looked back at Max he just nudge his shoulders up, but said nothing. Jeremy stood still I guess wondering where all that strength had come from. I tilted my head right he said ‘oh’. I walked inside to nothing more than the rotten flesh of and old building, the boards where cracked and stiff. At the end stairs. We three walked towards them stepping on the first one, it creaked hard and long under my weight. I stopped and listen, but no sound came from darken hole underneath.

With each step I took and the two at my back, the boards creaked more and the sound came louder as the wooden steps wither under our weights. I thought that one of us would end on the bottom after falling through one of them and probably end with a broken ankle or neck, but we ended the trail of the downward spiral the stairs made. They ended on another room filled with old desks chairs and the place looked like it had been locked for ages dust covered every object in the room. I looked back at Jeremy he said nothing but looked worried, in his brow sweat, his eyes moving from side to side like expecting som
eone to appear from somewhere. I gave him a little hit with my fist hard enough to make him look at me, Max smiles.

“What is it?” I said

“Nothing Sara I swear.” He said with his worried face.

“Why so worried about?”

“I..I..I….” the stumbling of the words gave me a warning and I turned around grabbing the knob of the door and twisting it right. The door opened with a slow creaking sound, like those from horror movies where the heroin is about to find the corpse of her boyfriend impaled into the wall, in his chest a spear or a machete, you know those stories of a murderer inside the old house. I remember the time where one was fallowing me and how he tried to do exactly that, I suffer a little he was smart and really perverse, but I manage to take him down, but that is definitely another story I will tell someday.

I walked in. Inside the middle was a chair in it Alex head down looking at nothing but black floors. I slowly walked to him.

“Alex? Are you okay?”

“You, what are you doing here?”

“We came for you buddy.” Said Max as he past me and kneeled in front of him putting one hand to his left shoulder.

“You smell like her.” Alex said and growled at him like and angry dog.

“Alex please, she is trying to help, it is not as you say she is.”

“But she is, you just wait and see,” said Alex.

“Listen Alex, you have been dosed two time now with a suppressant Marino is using make you go berserk, you have to listen to us.” Jeremy said taking a step back as Alex smiled as if knowing what he had inside him all this time.

“Ah, Marino’s a fool, a bastard for thro
wing me in here, yet he wasn’t a fool after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said you would come and so I waited. And here you are the white demon with hair as fire coming to save the innocent man.” He said mockingly and I got infuriated.

“You don’t want our help fine; wait till Marino is done with you so you can see for yourself who the real monster is.” I said as the words I told Jeremy still lingered in my
mind yet I turned around my hair swiftly turning with me and landing on my shoulders.

“The fire, that gorgeous creature, I want to see her again?” he said.

I turned around again looking him with my downed brow, my tight lips and the anger so vicious that I wanted to kill him. “What?”

“You don’t remember?”

“What Canyon Diablo? I do, I do really well.”

“That is the Sara Garber I want to see again, and I will, whatever it takes.”

“Even using Marion?” I said as I understood now Marino was not using Alex, Alex was using Marino for his plan on revenge.

“Maybe, maybe we both got the same idea on dealing with you and your kind.”

“You mean our kind.”

“No, I mean you’re kind.” he said

I looked at him as I tilted my head right not knowing what he meant by it, then he broke his chains like nothing was ever holding him he stood and Max fell backwards on his ass. AS he squirmed backwards I thought to see the same blackness around his eyes but I wasn’t sure since the room was dark, damp and only a faint glow of what was left of the moon shown threw a hole in the upper left side of the room, giving Alex a hellish glow on his face.

“Listen, you Sara Garber, bringer of death and bringer of the disease, you are one of a kind
, we are just product of the ingenuity of others and so are they going to pay, but it has to be you first. I saw that demon once, the one you really are and now I want to see her again.” He finished lunching forward growling and hissing with his arm extended. His hands cover my face as he threw me across the room with one single motion. I flew to the back of the room back first high on the wall and fell face flat as Alex walked towards Jeremy. I coughed and spat a little blood on the floor as I stagger to get up. My eyes were a little fuzzy at first, but they cleared fast to see that now Alex had Jeremy by the neck same way he did at the fertilizer plant.

“Alex, don’t!” I screamed at him as he moved his head left to watch me try a stand up.

“What can you do, you can’t even stand straight.” He said smiling with a little laughter at the end.

“You have been dose with two of Marino’s cocktail you are not you.” Jeremy managed to say with a hoarse voice.

“Two. You think two is what Marino had given me?”

“Alex, stop this, you are way over your head here.” Max screamed as he stood up and ran towards his friend with his fist raised.

“And what will you do?” he said as Max suddenly stopped. His body had left communication with his brain as now Alex was in control. The blackness of Max’s eyes returned in one simple and fast draw. I stood there still trying to take control of my wobbly legs. He was strong that is for sure, but he got me off guard. I have learned to fight in and old ring in Nevada, my teacher and old boxing champion, now retired and fragile. I pity him and hold the hunger for as long as I could, but then someone murdered him and I went after the murderer. When I found him I let the hunger control me for the second time in my life, first time was when a woman murdered Med and after I had to do to Kevin what needed to be done. 

I was sent to a corner inside my head as another
I took control. I do not recalled what it did to the victims all I knew is that when I came through, the murderers weren’t there all there was or what was left of them were blobs of flesh and dead skin, bones protruding from it sides as if they were legs and arms only did I noticed the open torso of what used to be a man.