Lockdown (AM13 Outbreak Series) (8 page)

Chapter

Fourteen

The next thing I’m aware of is ice cold water hitting my face, making me jump up with a start. When did I fall asleep? I try and tell what I saw, but my panicky garbled voice is not making any sense to anyone. I jump up onto my feet and point out the window, gesturing wildly as I can’t quite find the words to explain the horror. Not one person is showing any signs of recognition or understanding, which just causes me to freak out more. The tears are burning my skin and my throat starts to feel constricted. In the end, I’m forced to give up trying to form words, and concentrate on breathing properly again.

When I actually calm down enough to think to look out the window, I can clearly see there’s no one there. The battered woman has gone. Did I imagine her? Have I started hallucinating? Is that what all this worry has done to me? Oh God, now I have to try and pretend to the others that I’m sane so they don’t instantly send me to some psych ward.

I sit myself back down quietly, hoping that everyone will simply assume my ranting was due to me passing out. That’s a side effect, right? I’m starting to actually see faces in front of my eyes, rather than just the messy blur of before, and everyone looks concerned. A hot shame washes over me as someone hands me a glass of water to drink.

“Sorry,” Michelle mutters, almost to herself. “I didn’t think the water would shock you
that
much, I just…didn’t know what else to do. You were yelling for an ambulance. I ran in and found you on the floor, and you were out for so long.”

I nod, trying to act like I understand, but the words don’t quite make sense in my addled mind.

On the outside, I now look cool and calm, but my brain is whirring round and round trying to decide if what I saw was real, and if so how to explain it. I’m aware of the troubled chatter surrounding me, about how to ‘deal’ with me, but I’m no longer affected by it. Trying to figure this out feels more important.

Suddenly a loud shouting that seems to come from nowhere breaks through my thought barrier. Is it her? Am I about to be proven sane? Everyone follows me and dashes to the window to see what’s happening and there, lying in the road, is a man who has fallen off his motorbike. He looks pretty messed up, so on instinct we all run outside to do whatever we can to help, Lockdown completely dismissed. I can hear someone on the phone to the emergency services as we go. All thoughts about me and my little incident have been immediately forgotten in the midst of this newest drama.

The cool, refreshing air hits my face and takes my breath away, which must be a direct result of the fainting. I pause for a second to regain myself, by which time everyone else has already reached the main entrance gate. They’re shaking it and screaming for it to be opened. No one has their work pass with them to unlock it. I guess they’re all tucked away somewhere in their bags—I know mine is. We’ve had no use for them since we’ve been here.

Although we’ve always been told that they are the only way to get in and out of the premises, security
must
have another option. I turn desperately to look in the window and see one of the security guards, Lucas, looking at us all, but doing nothing. As I try and communicate with him that he needs to open the damn gate now—after all it is a matter of life and death—he turns away whilst shaking his head. What the hell? Surely he can’t put the Lockdown before
this
. That’s insane!

“The medics are on their way!” I hear one voice yell above the rest, which makes me feel slightly more at ease. At least we’ve managed to do
something
.

I rush forward, my body trembling with adrenaline. When I finally get a good look at the injured man, I can clearly see just how afraid he is. It’s a pure unadulterated terror that isn’t really justified by his fall. Surely, as a biker, he’s had minor accidents before. Plus, the wounds he’s sustained don’t actually look
that
bad from down here.

No, it has to be something more than that.

I watch him carefully, finally noticing he’s been staring in the same direction for an extended period of time. Even as we’ve been down here, yelling, screaming, rattling the fence, he hasn’t even glanced our way once. Whatever it is he’s looking at must be more attention-grabbing than a bunch of noisy nutters.

I need to find out what it is.

I run further along the wall, trying desperately to find a way to get a better view. My addled mind hasn’t quite recovered from the fainting, so I’m nowhere near thinking straight. Just as the panic is about to kick in, I’m distracted by a loud crash, which causes me to spin back around to face the gate.

Someone has managed to climb over the gate. I race back to see what idiot it was, all the while wondering how the hell they managed it, it’s huge! Oh my God, it’s Tim—one of the human resources guys. He’s now swaggering over to the injured man, acting as if he’s some sort of action hero. I roll my eyes, callously thinking that his motivation is linked to the attention he’ll get for doing this, rather than to help.

After a few seconds of talking to the man and trying to catch his attention, Tim clicks on to what I’ve already noticed. He follows his eye line, trying to see what has him so captivated. I’ve never seen a man go from pure adrenalin rush high to pale, terrified shock so quickly.

He staggers backwards, losing his footing more than once. When his body finally crashes against the gate, I quickly meet his eyes. In that split second, shock jolts through me and I instantly know what he’s seen.

“Get back. Move away from the gate!” I scream at everyone. The fear in my voice must be obvious, because everyone jumps back as if they have been electrocuted. That doesn’t stop me. “Move, come on!” I’m pulling people backwards, throwing them to the ground, desperate to emphasise my point. I can’t think about anything except my goal of clearing the way and keeping everyone else away from harm. I haven’t got any time to explain, and I still haven’t figured out how to vocalise all that I’ve seen.

Tim jumps and tries to pull himself up, as I guess he did before, but the fear must have gotten to him and the pressure has made his palms too sweaty because he keeps slipping back down. I’ve been so focused on getting everyone out of his way that there’s no one left to help him, to try and push him up and get him over the top quicker.

My heart is in my throat, fear is pouring through my veins. I have no idea what to do, what decision to make, the best way to act. It’s all going wrong, and I’m paralysed with shock. As I scan my eyes around, it seems that everyone else is in the same position.

Then we’re all forced to witness the horror descending on us. It happens in slow motion, and I can’t even begin to move a muscle to do anything useful. The woman I saw earlier, the monstrous, bloody, destroyed woman is back. This time, however, she isn’t alone. She’s ambling over with two men—if you can call them that—both in a similar condition as her. She heads straight for the easy target, the biker trapped by his own injuries, whereas the others drag Tim, kicking and screaming, to the ground. And there’s no other way to describe this…

They start eating them.

Chapter

Fifteen

This is all my fault. A man—well, two men—are dead because of me. I may as well have murdered them myself. If I had just
said
something to someone about seeing that awful woman from up in the office, or shouted sooner, or even mentioned that the biker was staring at something up the street.
Something
. If I hadn’t been so bloody obsessed with pulling everyone out of harm’s way, we could have pulled Tim over the gate. Every decision I made was the wrong one, and this is the consequence. Death is the result.

If I’d done everything differently then Tim would still be alive and here now. I assume that the biker had already been attacked, and that’s what had caused him to crash. His injuries kind of suggest that much now I know more, so I feel much worse about Tim. Plus, I knew Tim. I worked alongside him on a daily basis and that makes it much harder to comprehend. We weren’t great mates or anything—he was just someone I said ‘hello’ to in passing—but still, he was one of us.

And now, I’ve contributed towards his death. I’ll always be a part of his history…in the worst possible way. I didn’t know it was possible to hate myself
this
much. I feel utterly useless, hopeless, like a void of negativity.

I
could
tell myself that no one would have believed me, that everyone would have dismissed my claims anyway so it doesn’t matter, but somehow that argument feels weak. This virus is real. AM13 has been here all along. It really
has
been the life-threatening disease that it was portrayed as. The only person who couldn’t see that was me. I was so stubborn, so convinced that it was all an overly elaborate hoax. That I’d set something in motion.

And I was wrong.

I
knew
people wouldn’t go to these extreme levels without any proof. Yet somehow, I had myself assured that it had happened anyway. I led myself to think I was instrumental in all of this. It turns out I was, but surprisingly in a good way. Maybe I should feel okay about that—after all, I had wished the virus could be real so I wouldn’t be viewed as an idiot any longer. But that suddenly feels like the least important thing in the world. Why would I care about how people look at me now? Everyone always says be careful what you wish for. How right they are…

I look around at everyone else’s faces. They all look as stunned and disbelieving as I feel. I’m sure my expression is mirrored in all of theirs, just tainted with the knowledge that I actually had the power to prevent all of this from happening.

As soon as the horror plummeted into a feeding frenzy outside, before any of us even had a split second to react, the emergency services arrived. The paramedics rushed out in blood-splattered white protective boiler suits, armed with all sorts of medical equipment. It all happened so quickly that I couldn’t quite follow their actions, but before I knew what had even happened, the infected and their victims were motionless and being bundled into the back of the ambulance.

Then they were gone.

I don’t know where they were taken. Maybe they’ve been buried right away or maybe they’ve been taken to the specialised medical facility for testing. Every time I try to think about it, my brain hurts and I feel sick all over again.

We all just stood there, silent and unmoving, while they drove away without even acknowledging our existence. It felt like hours before someone finally turned around and went back inside. We all followed slowly, like sheep, and no one has uttered a word since.

Jamie stands up and clears his throat as if he’s preparing to say something, but falls into silence. Finally he opens his mouth again, and this time he manages to speak. “I’m sorry, everyone, I don’t know what to say.” His voice catches. “This comes as a massive shock. For an attack to happen to one of us, on our doorstep, is unthinkable.” I wonder if he wants to tell us
‘I told you so
.’ After all, Tim
did
defy his rules by breaking out. Thankfully, if he feels that opinion, he respectfully keeps it to himself. “Tim was our colleague and our friend. The only thing we can do is to make sure his death wasn’t in vain. We’ve just witnessed an attack that’s derived from this virus. Now we need to work even harder to make sure everyone follows this quarantine—there are people out there
still
ignoring what they have to do. We have a responsibility to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

One person bursts into sobs, but everyone else makes agreeable noises. I feel a fire rise up in my belly. Jamie’s right! Okay, we might not be able to change what has just happened, but we
can
help other people. If I made mistakes back then, I can rectify them a little by making the right choices now. We may not have any footage of what just happened—how the hell anyone gets it together enough to pull out a camera in that situation is beyond me—but we
are
in the unique position of having an outlet to get our message across.

As soon as we all separate, I ring my mother. I’m not entirely sure how much she really knows about this virus, and I want her to know for certain that it’s true. I want her to understand just how dangerous it is. I try and explain it to her, but I must sound a little like I’m cracking up. My voice is coming out all hysterical and stressed, and I can tell her concern for me overshadows any chance of her actually paying attention to what I’m saying.

“Can I speak to Felix?” I finally ask. My brother might be a typical stubborn seventeen-year-old, but he’s also the only person who might take me seriously. He’ll know I wouldn’t be saying these things if I didn’t mean them.

I stumble through all the events of the day, trying to skate over the blame that lies on me. It’s not that I don’t
want
to tell him the truth, it’s just not the time or place right now—anyone in the office could overhear me if they really wanted to. Eventually he shuts me down, clearly trying to prevent me from getting too emotional. He promises to keep Mum and Dad indoors; he says that he will explain it all to them very carefully, ensuring that they’re completely clued up. His words don’t totally fill me with confidence—after all, he’s so laid back he’s practically horizontal—but it isn’t as if I’m left with any other choice.

“Keep in touch, sis,” he says firmly at the end of the phone call, and I eagerly agree. At least if we text regularly, I’ll know more about their fate for certain.

I remain seated for a while after we’ve hung up the phone, unable to shake the uncomfortable worry that’s firmly consuming the pit of my stomach. This is all just…unbelievable. I can’t even begin to get my head around it. This really isn’t a time that I should be away from my family. Now I can see just what danger we’re in, it’s more upsetting to me that I haven’t been allowed home.

I make the decision to post what I’ve seen online, to try and encourage people to get themselves indoors. If what Jamie said is true, and people really are ignoring the Lockdown, then they’re putting themselves in terrible danger. If people haven’t seen it yet, they might be struggling to believe—just as I was.

Michelle wanders over to my desk to sit down next to me. She stays there in silence, while I type manically, trying to get my message across in the most firm and sane-sounding manner possible. It’s not until I turn around to get a good look at her that I see the red blotchy face and puffy eyes—she’s been crying. I clearly see nothing I say or do will make her feel better, so I just pull her in for a hug.

After about five minutes, she finally speaks. “That was—” She chokes a little on her words. “That was insane. I just…I don’t understand…” She rubs her eyes furiously. “I mean, I knew this virus was bad, but
that
. I can’t even find words to verbalise it. We heard about it, we spoke about it, but actually
seeing
it…”

“Yeah…” I mumble, wishing I could articulate any of my emotions.

“We’re never going to be locked up here for only two weeks, you know.” Her voice starts to gain more strength, more determination. “They will
never
get rid of this virus in that time. I tried to tell that to…well, just about everyone. They were too concerned with budgets to listen.” She looks up at me, desperation evident in her eyes. “We’re going to die here. Do you realise that? There’s no other
possible
outcome. How are they going to get all the infected people cured in time? I don’t think they even
have
a cure. In fact, I don’t think they even know what’s caused this, never mind how to solve it. If you think about it, nothing has been confirmed. I just—I don’t want to die here, not at work, for Christ’s sake! Surrounded by people I don’t really even care for.”

The more she speaks, the more my veins ice over with fear. Could she really be right?

***

As I lie in bed that night, sleep totally evades me yet again. Even though I know these sleepless nights are going to catch up with me soon, I can’t switch off. I can’t stop thinking about Michelle. I’ve never,
ever
seen her like that. She’s the most positive, upbeat person I know. She’s practically famous for surviving off the happy and bubbly mode—no matter what’s going on around her. The fact that she was so distraught has really struck a chord with me.

After her rant, she started to talk about people from her past—a subject we never really discuss. She talked about her stilted relationship with her mum, and an old boyfriend, ‘the one that got away,’ her ex-best friend from college that she misses dreadfully. I went along with the conversation, not once mentioning the undertone of her words. The way she talks, it was as if she truly believes she’ll never see them again.

The worst part about all of this is the fact that she voiced everything I’ve been too scared to
really
think about. This worry about not seeing my parents stems from the fear that I’ll never get to see my family again.

I just…don’t know what to do about that.

I mean, I can’t exactly leave, can I? I’d be stupid to try and brave the world outside of this office to get back home. I’d get caught out, I’d die just like Tim did. I’m protected here, I’m registered for food supplies here, there’s just no way I’d be able to survive out there, with those horrible flesh-munching creatures.