Duality (The Hitchhiker Strain) (20 page)

“
Even me,” he scoffs, and I would swear he is laughing at me even though his expression remains perfectly neutral. “Most of us here,” Cole’s dad continues, “took an oath to protect the sick. We do understand—we’re not monsters. Those people are your friends. You saw a chance to save lives and you took it.”

“
So why did you bring me here?” I’m still half convinced that I’m hallucinating. I’m not in trouble. They’re even being really cool about the whole thing. Maybe my luck is finally changing.

Doctor Silvers is almost smiling at me now. I think he
’s trying to be reassuring, but the effect is disconcerting. “Well, I’ll admit that we had planned a small lecture about the importance of the rules we have in place, but your certainty that we’d brought you here to yell tells me you’re well aware of them already.” That’s an understatement. If I’d known this was how they were going to react, I might have taken even more chances. “Now, we simply want to come up with a plan that will work for everyone for how to get these people better without keeping them away from their families for too long. You’re the best choice to act as a spokesperson.”

“
Wow. Okay. Uh, thanks. What can I do to help?”

"How'd it go?" Zack asks, rushing over to me as soon as I walk into the atrium. "You're still here, so that's a good sign, right?"

"Right. Definitely a good thing." Except my triumph is short-lived. As much as I wasn’t looking forward to the Initiative’s reaction to our new guest—which admittedly went better than anticipated—I’ve been dreading telling Zack what happened to Pierce.

I know it wouldn't be fair to draw this out. It's not what Zack
—or Pierce—would want. And yet I'm still torn between dragging my friend away right now with the promise of Alex or drawing this out and giving him a few more minutes of living in a world where everyone we care about is still alive and well. I don't know what the right answer is.

"Who's your friend?"
I look pointedly at the brown-haired girl, who is sitting on a couch beside Liam. Her posture is stiff, like she isn't comfortable in her own skin. I won't be telling Zack anything while she's hovering around. I can't wrap my head around how Zack could have made a new friend in less than a week. I have to be missing something.

Zack's face lights up into the most genuine smile I've seen him wear in months. Right away my mind jumps to the possibility that they're dating. Whoever this girl is, she's important
to him.

"You"
—he pauses, inhaling dramatically—"are not going to believe this."

Chapter 25 - Chelsea

"This is incredible!" Savannah exclaims, literally bouncing on the balls of
her feet. For a second she stares at me, gawking.

Her apparent joy at my previously infected state makes me feel incredibly awkward. I wish we could have put this off until morning. I know this is a lot to take in and definitely something worth getting excited about, but she
’s been celebrating for five minutes now.

Eventually, I must look too pained for even her to ignore. She shakes it off, wincing a
pologetically. "Sorry. It's... I mean. This changes everything. Literally." She turns to look at Zack. "So what's the plan from here? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Help with what?" Zack looks over at me and shrugs.

"I don't know. Distribution or whatever. Have they started mass producing yet?" Savannah is still grinning, and as soon as I realize what she's getting at, I feel guilty. I know it's completely out of my control, but I’ve been exactly where she is and the results weren’t great.

"They're not," I say. Savannah frowns and tilts her head, but I can see that she believes the news faster than I did. She
’s been dealing with these people a lot longer and probably understands how they work. But the fact that she wanted to see immediate action exactly like I did goes a long way toward letting me relax around her.

Based on the few stories Zack has told me about his friends from home, I guess I expected s
omeone a little different. She’s petite and brunette like Zack described, but she also says anything and everything that comes into her head and doesn’t seem to care much about authority or how things are supposed to work. But maybe that’s something I can learn to appreciate.

"Well that's crap," Savannah argues. Okay, I lik
e her already. "They can't sit on this. Let me guess… They have to do more tests to ensure something, something, something."

"That's the gist of it," I say. "More testing, more alteration
s, more hoops to jump through. They need to be exactly sure of absolutely everything."

"And I get that," Savannah says sounding irritated, “
but look at you! What, a few weeks ago you were wandering around, literally
eating people
! And now you’re here, talking to me like you didn’t spend any time as one of the brainless wonders.”

“
Savannah!” Zack snaps. I stare at his friend, stunned. This is the first time anyone has so blatantly pointed out exactly what my situation was. What
I
was. I don’t think she means it to be as harsh as it sounded, but it’s still hard to hear. I guess it’s something I need to get used to.

“
Crap. Sorry! I’m a jerk.” Savannah looks horrified. “I’m just excited. I needed some good news today and got a little carried away.” She’s practically tripping over herself to apologize. I want to tell her she shouldn’t have to. None of this is her fault. I can’t even look at her. I can’t look at anyone.

“
I need a minute,” I say, spinning around and walking in the other direction before anyone can stop me.

“
Chelsea!” Zack calls after me, but I don’t stop moving in the other direction.

“
Zack,” I hear Savannah say. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“
Not now!”

I
’m halfway across the massive open space of the Initiative atrium by the time Zack reaches me.

“
Hey, you okay?”

"I
’m fine. I don't know..." I stare down at my shoes, trying to find the words. I know I’m overreacting, which only makes me more embarrassed.

"Chelsea," Zack says, "you
’re okay. Savannah’s an idiot sometimes. You have to ignore her. No one here is judging you for anything…"

Like flicking a switch, his words shift my mood from shame to anger. Not at Savannah
—she’s the only one so far who has been willing to tell it like it is—but at the rest of them. How can he look at me like he's worried about my feelings in all of this? There were people before who did a lot more damage than I did, killed or hurt a lot more people, and society crucified them. Everyone here tiptoes around what I’ve been up to for the last half a year. Everyone.

Not onc
e has anyone called me out on my killing spree. It’s all scientific curiosity, understanding…joy, even. It’s infuriating. "No. She’s right. I killed people, Zack! A lot of people. I was the kind of thing people used to write horror movies about, and now everyone is acting like it's no big deal. It’s not something we can sweep under the rug and pretend like it never happened. But no one here talks about anything beyond how
great
I am. How
special.
I ate people! Why isn’t anyone talking about that, damnit?"

“
Everyone here knows that it wasn’t really you who did those things. It was out of your control!” Zack eyes plead with me to calm down, but I can’t. I’ve tried my best to keep things in perspective and to just be grateful for what I’ve been given.

I don
’t deserve any of it.

“
It’s not as simple as that… You don’t understand. You can’t possibly understand.”

"Savannah and I might have a bit more of an idea of what you went through than you might think," he says. "I won't pretend to have any idea what you're
going through right now but..." He pulls at my sleeve, tugging me over to sit with him beside a small coffee table. "I was infected," Zack admits so quietly that at first I think I misheard him. "I was never bitten, but the result was the same."

"I don't u
nderstand." Everyone said I was the first. Have I been missing some huge, vital piece of information this whole time? If so, I’m about to feel like an idiot for my rant.

"I told you about where I lived before this, where I knew Savannah from and all of tha
t. We were all staying in that high school, right?"

"Right?" I try to take in all of Zack with my eyes, looking for any clues about what it is he's about to tell me.

"When the school got overrun, my friends and I got separated from the main group." He pauses and runs his fingers over his short hair. I'm not sure if I should encourage him to continue, but he does so on his own. "Before we could get back to them, I was captured by the United Militia. Do you know who they are?"

I shake my head no, but they sou
nd like a force to be reckoned with. I have no idea who any of the big players are now or how the world even works anymore. I would think that there being some kind of military arm still existing is a good thing, but I say nothing.

"They control a lot of t
his area. I guess they got a lot of weapons early and used them to fortify. Anyways, they were looking to find a cure too, but in order to do that, they needed people... No time for experimenting on rats and rabbits." Understanding starts to creep up on me and I feel a little lightheaded. "They used the infected too, but they wanted to get as much information as they could as quickly as possible and were willing to do whatever they had to do to get results. Anything and everything. They injected me with...something. No one ever bothered to explain. There was a huge group of us, and we were all getting poked and prodded daily and no one ever took the time to explain anything to us."

"So what was it? You were infected?"

"Yeah, it was something like the virus I guess. Some version of it. Maybe they were trying to vaccinate me, or it's possible they were trying to find a way to weaponize it. I have no idea. I thought I'd be dead within a day or two. I felt that awful, but it dragged on.

"So what happened?"

"It was nothing like it is here. No careful monitoring of vital signs, no tests. They injected me with their crap"—Zack rubs the side of his neck absently—"then they left me to die with dozens of others. We were all locked up like cattle. Some people got sick a lot faster than I did. One guy died within an hour of whatever they gave him. I just kept deteriorating. I could feel this darkness eating at me from the inside." I know exactly the feeling he's describing and wish I could reach over and hug him, make it all okay. "Every night when I went to sleep I was convinced that when I woke up I'd have already lost control and that I'd go on a rampage and kill everyone else. Then someone would put a bullet between my eyes and that would be it."

"But that didn't happen
..."

"No. Savannah found me first and managed to get me here. I thought they were going to kill me outright. I could feel this
thing
inside of me that wanted to rip and tear its way out of my body and gorge on everyone around me. It was there, and I wanted to let him out."

I'm not sure if I should tell him that I understand all too well what he went through. I don't want to diminish his experience with my own. Part of me does resent him a little... He's here now. He got better before he turned. He only touc
hed the darkness; he didn't become it. Still, I appreciate the effort. His story is enough to get me to unclench my hands from fists and steady my breathing. I wish it were enough to ease the guilt that has started to stir again in my chest. He wants to think he can empathize with the things I’ve seen and done, but I can’t blame everything on the infection or the beast.

"Even once I knew it was going to be okay, it took me a long time to shake that feeling like I could turn at any second. Savannah too... Sh
e was bitten before she came here. It wasn't as long before she had a massive dose of Veritas running through her system. Still…on some small level, we understand better than most that what you did wasn't your fault. The things you did were outside of your control."

I bury my head in my hands, not willing to look at him for a second longer. He's trying so hard to be understanding, but he has no idea. None. Most of the time even I can appreciate that the blood of those eighty-one people isn't something I sho
uld have to carry, but there's more to it than that. More that I've been carrying around since the very first day that the beast took control of who I was.

"Chelsea..." Zack keeps his voice hushed, like speaking too loudly might cause me to bolt.

"Can I tell you a secret?" I look up and my eyes meet his. I push back any final feelings of bitterness and resentment. Not once has this guy ever sat in judgment of me, so who am I to belittle what he went through? We've all been through our own versions of hell. The least I can do is share mine. And by now I've been holding on to it for so long that I know I have to let it out or risk it destroying my one chance at really regaining my humanity.

Zack looks at me with a mixture of curiosity and hesitation. He's not
sure he wants to hear what I have to tell him, and I can't blame him. He probably thinks I'm going to share stories about the people I've killed or the horrible things I had to do to survive. And I'll see those faces every day for the rest of my life, giving them names and back stories I can never verify. But it's the person I hurt when I could have done better, should have known better that is my biggest regret. The person whose only crime was trusting me.

“
Okay. Tell me. You can trust me.” And in that moment, I know I can.

"I see her in my mind's eye almost every day, sometimes even once every hour or so
—that little girl. She's probably long dead but I still see her every day." Zack is watching me with a look of such calm and understanding, yet it's still so hard to get the words out of my mouth. To admit what I've done and how selfish I have been. "It was during the last day where I really rode the line between being Chelsea and becoming the beast. I'd already run away from my family—they thought I was a living miracle. I had been bitten and survived. But I could already feel what I was turning into and knew it was only a matter of time. I didn't want to risk hurting them. So I ran while I still could. I didn't want them to ever have to see me like that—a monster. I thought there would be more time.

"I was still in control. Completely." I try to assure him, even though he can't possibly know yet what it is that I'm trying to justify. "The sickness was all but gone and I was still in control. I thought I woul
d have more time, so I stayed for one night in a tent city right outside of the largest refugee camp in the state. Everyone there was waiting for the chance to pass through the screening process—a test I knew I could never pass—and bring their families to safety. I thought it could be a good place to have some final contact with humanity...and to get my hands on a gun so I could kill myself before anyone got hurt.

"Even though I never got close to a weapon, that decision was probably the worst of my life. I
could have just locked myself up somewhere or turned myself into the soldiers, but I was a coward. I was so scared and so lonely. I think I wanted to find someone who would take me in and somehow make everything okay.

"The girl
—I don't think I ever caught her name—was about seven or eight. Small, but sturdy. And she had a look in her eyes that said she'd already seen far too much. I guess by then we all had. Everyone in that camp had lived through the first wave of infection when the dead started reanimating. We'd all celebrated when the cure was found. And we'd also all lived through the days and weeks that followed, when it became perfectly clear that the government couldn't control all of the outbreaks. We had no answers, no direction, and no hope. There was nothing but fear and questions."