Until the End (3 page)

I didn’t realize my head was cocked to the side and I had my eyes narrowed at him but he’s right, I’m looking at him quizzically.

“I was just trying to figure out how much time you must’ve spent thinking about this.”

He smirks at me. “A lot and it’s saving your life. Again.” He heads for the door. “I need to pack up and leave. Good luck to you.”

“Wait, you’re leaving? Just like that?” I ask, surprised by the suddenness of his departure.

He pauses at the door and looks over his shoulder at me. “Two seconds ago you didn’t want to be lumped in with me. Now you’re sad to see me go?”

My phone starts ringing loudly in my pocket, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin. My adrenaline spikes and my heart is racing as I fumble to pull the phone free and silence it, holding up a finger to Jordan in a
wait one second
gesture and hoping he heeds it.

When I see my caller ID, I smile reflexively.

“Hey, Uncle Syd.”

“Are you hurt?” he asks gruffly, but calmly. He’s all business.

“No, I’m fine.”

“You need to get somewhere safe. Where are you?”

“I’m in my apartment and the doors are locked. I’m safe.”

“Are you alone? Where are the other girls?”

I don’t answer. I don’t exactly know how to. I can tell him that they’re dead, but then I have to explain how and neither of them has a pretty story. Luckily, my silence speaks for itself and he understands.

“Keep the doors locked and stay put. I’m going to come and get you.”

“No!” I cry, horrified by the idea of him coming here and getting hurt. He’s all I have left. I look at Jordan, who is standing by the window now, gazing out and pretending he can’t hear my conversation. “I’m leaving the city. I’ve got a… friend who has offered to help me get out. I’ll come to you.”

Jordan shakes his head but doesn’t look away from the window. There’s silence on the other end of the line and I know Uncle Syd debating so many things. The Fever, the city, the distance between us, my… friend. Yeah, that’s not gonna sit well with him.

“Can you trust this person?” he finally asks, sounding annoyed.

“He’s already saved my life once.” I say, my voice quiet and reluctant.

“Tell him I was an Eagle Scout too.” Jordan whispers with a grin, giving me some kind of salute that I’m guessing is native to eagles.

“Were you?”

He shrugs, his blue eyes sparkling.

“Were you what?” Uncle Syd asks, pulling my attention back.

“Nothing, sorry. He’s very trustworthy, I promise.” I tell him, knowing no such thing. “We’re leaving soon, though, and I’ll call you with updates on where we are.”

“I don’t like this. It’s going to be dangerous. I’m watching the news and people are already going crazy. They’re looting and people are jamming the freeways. Nutjobs are already throwing out conspiracy theories on this all being a military biochemical weapons test and when they’re not saying that they’re spouting other insanity.”

“Like what?”

Uncle Syd groans and I can picture him rubbing at his forehead the way he does when he’s annoyed.

“Oh, horror movie words like ‘zombie’ and ‘ghoul’. ‘Undead’.”

At least I’m not the only one saying it, I guess. Even though it lumps me in with the “nutjobs”, it makes me feel less insane.

“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” he asks, his voice going uncharacteristically soft. “You’ve seen what it does to a person.”

I swallow hard and try not to think about it, but I answer him honestly. “Yeah, I have.”

“How ya doing?”

“Um, I’ve been better, but I’m okay.”

“Are you taking care of yourself?”

This is what he asks when what he’s really asking is whether or not I’m taking my pills. I’ve taken them every day for the last four years without fail, so the question is always a little insulting. I answer him kindly, though, because just as he’s all I have left, I’m all he’s got too.

“Yes. Always.”

“Good. That’s good. You be careful, Al. Don’t stop to help anybody, you just take care of you. And if this friend takes sick, you run from him. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“You got your knife?”

I smile affectionately. “I do.”

“Alright. See you soon.”

I hang up my phone and look at Jordan who is now sitting on my bed. It’s the first time a guy has been in my room since I’ve been here, and even though there’s no way he could know that, I’m embarrassed by the fact.

“Looks like I’m going with you after all.” I say curtly. He frowns and I soften my tone. “If that’s okay?”

Jordan nods slightly. “Yeah, it’s actually good. I won’t make it alone, neither of us will. Where do you need to go?”

“My uncle’s house in Corvallis. What about you?”

Jordan stands and looks out the window again. “Anywhere but here. I want out of this city and away from so many people. We’re like tinder to a fire. The more of us around, the faster it will spread.”

“So we leave immediately?”

“No,” he says, turning to face me. “It’ll get dark in a few hours. I don’t want to try moving out there in the dark, do you?”

I shiver at the thought of meeting another Dee in the dark and say firmly, “Hell no.”

“I’m gonna go back to my room and pack. Will you watch my back while I cross the hall and unlock the door?”

I nod in agreement and follow him out of my room.

“Pack one bag with the essentials to survive. Any bottled water you have, first aid supplies, non-perishable food. Here,” he says, pulling out his phone. “Let me get your number. I’ll text you when I’m ready to come back over and you can have the door open and ready. Make sure you lock it behind me when I leave.”

We exchange numbers and I hold my bow loaded and ready, scanning the hallway as he hurries to his door and unlocks it. He waits until my door is closed before he closes his own. He’s just across the hall and a couple of doors down, probably has been the entire time I’ve lived here, and yet I’ve never seen him. I probably never would have met him if it hadn’t been for my roommate trying to eat my face.

As we pack, darkness falls on the city and even though we have lights on, I still feel the darkness pressing in on us and it makes me nervous. I ask Jordan if zombies have good night vision and he confesses he doesn’t know. We’ve already agreed to stay the night and leave first thing in the morning, but I can tell it’s killing Jordan. He wants out of the city bad. He doesn’t like having only one exit and I’m with him on that.

We stay in my apartment even though his is dead body free. Jordan reasons that staying in a building full of wandering infected is a terrible idea because eventually they are going to sniff us out and start piling up, clawing at the door, and we’ll never be able to leave. So we stay in my apartment because it has camouflage in the form of two corpses. He tells me we have to get Sara out because she never turned and she still smells like healthy human flesh which could draw them to us. He also says that Dee is a great cover because she was turned and smells like them and they don’t bother with their own.

So we put on more latex gloves and use the shower curtain to gather what remains of Sara from the bathroom and toss her out into the hallway. Next we pull Dee out of the kitchen and drag her over to the door, pressing her body up against it. I felt sick as we cleaned up Sara, something I felt ridiculously weak about until Jordan abruptly leaned over into the toilet and puked, but my hands trembled when we moved Dee and my eyes flittered around the now red kitchen, waiting for shadows of the past to dart out and grab me.

We watch the news cycle through the same information over and over. We learn that the Portland State University campus, right where we are, was the epicenter of The Fever. That’s what the media is calling it. No one says “zombie” on the news, no one but the supposed crazies they interview, but anyone who comes in contact with the infected knows what this is. A living, breathing person is bitten and within five minutes, The Fever overtakes them and they turn. It’s fast. Scary fast. It’s unclear, however, whether the dead are actually rising or if The Fever melts the brain and turns them into living monsters who can’t feel pain or process reason. Jordan and I fight about this for a good hour.

“They’re zombies! They die as humans and then rise up as zombies and try to eat your brains. What’s there to be confused about?” he demands.

“I’m just saying that it’s possible that’s not what’s happening! Have you seen one rise yet? Have you actually seen someone killed and then rise up as a zombie?”

He glares at me. “No.”

“So we don’t know. And they aren’t strictly eating brains, they’re eating everything. Look, I’m not saying you can’t call them zombies and that most of the rules don’t still apply. What I am saying is that they might not be dead people. Brain dead, for sure, but not physically dead.”

“What about the stump of a guy that the other one was pulling around on his ankle? If he were alive, he would have bled out from losing his legs. There are arteries there.”

“That’s a good point.” I concede, frowning.

We’re hiding out in my room at the far end of the hall, as far away from the front door as we can get without going into the bathroom. Even this far away, we both hear it when something moves outside in the hall. My body tenses and I freeze, my eyes wide and locked on Jordan’s. He quickly flicks the TV off even though we had it on silent and closed captioned. There’s a continuous thud coming from the door, like a body bumping against it repeatedly, and my heart refuses to start beating again. I see stars on the corners of my vision and realize I’ve been holding my breath.

Jordan rises slowly, taking his bat with him, and makes a gesture to me of pulling a bow string. I nod, grab my bow, notch an arrow and follow him into the hall. We creep slowly as the noise continues and I can hear the occasional moaning followed by the same wet sound I heard coming from the bathroom earlier when Dee was inside. When we reach the door Jordan turns to me and makes the two fingers at his eyes gesture that universally means
watch
or
look,
then he taps his back and points at me. I need to watch his back, got it. I don’t imagine those shambling groaners could break down the thick apartment door, but I stand at the ready nonetheless.

Jordan leans over Dee and presses his eye to the hole, then stretches to stand up taller and look down, toward the hallway floor. When he pulls back, his face is grim and he gives me the
ok
sign. We head back to the bedroom as silently as we came, close the door and both release a gust of breath we had been holding tight.

“How many were there?” I ask breathlessly.

I need to stop holding it and remember to breathe slow and even. If I’d been holding my breath tensely like that and needed to shoot, my arrow would have flown wild. I have to be calm and steady.

“Just the one. I was worried the body would bring more.”

“Sara.”

His brow
creases in confusion. “What?”

“Her name.” I say softly. “It was Sara.”

He nods. “Sara. I was worried Sara would attract more than one.”

“Then why’d we put her out there in the first place?”

“I didn’t want her in here because if they smelled her they’d definitely start piling up to try to get in to get to her. By putting her outside I’m hoping we take away any interest they might have in coming in. Especially with the other girl…”

“Dee.”

He nods again. “Especially with Dee at the door. I think Dee is covering any scent we might be putting off, but Sara, she was a lot of blood, a lot to smell. I don’t think Dee could have covered that.”

“Wow.” I say emphatically, marveling at how thought out this all was.

He grins and shakes his head. “Are you still ragging on me about this? I’m saving your life, smart ass.”

“I know and I’m grateful.” I tell him, my voice earnest. I would be dead if he hadn’t burst in and bashed my friend’s head in, and for that I am eternally grateful. “You’re my hero.”

His smile disappears and he looks around the room, refusing to meet my eyes.

“Yeah.” he mumbles. “Look, we should get some sleep. I want to get moving at first light and get out of here. I’ll sleep in the next room. Keep your door closed, barricade it if you can.”

“Wait. Shouldn’t we stick together? First rule of horror movies is you don’t split up. Even I know that.”

He’s still not looking at me but he nods. “Right. Yeah.”

I frown. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. You’re right, we should stick together.”

“Jordan?”

His eyes flicker to mine for the briefest of seconds then he’s gone out the door. I hear movement in the other room, and he appears again in the hallway dragging a mattress.

“I’ll sleep on the floor on this. Is your bag all packed?” he asks as he flips the light off.

It is and parked by the door. When we did our scavenging, we ended up with a lot of protein bars, single serve chip bags and sports drinks. Sara was a candy freak and I found her stash in her room. Tons of M&M bags, Snickers bars and assorted other chocolate coated goodness. I thought they were a waste of space in our bags being pure junk food, but Jordan insisted the calorie content and energy boost we could get from the sugar made them worth it. Apparently running for your life from the undead is a big fat burner. Better than Spinning.

“Yeah.” I say as I climb onto my bed and pull the comforter around me. I’m still fully dressed and wearing running shoes, something Jordan warned me to do. Always be ready to run.

“Good.” he grunts, and lowers himself onto the mattress.

We fall silent and I immediately start to think about my meds. I don’t have enough to last me very long. That’s a big problem. I’m fine for now, but what happens two or three days down the road if I don’t keep up with my doses? I could start hallucinating again, and with this as my new reality, it’s a sure thing that I will dream up some wild, violent stuff. I absolutely, positively cannot be near this guy if that happens. What if I imagine that he’s turned into a zombie and is coming at me, trying to kill me, when in reality he’s fine and wants to hand me a granola bar? I’ll kill him to defend myself. From granola. He doesn’t know about me and I won’t risk his life by sticking with him for any longer than necessary. Plus, I’m just not great with people. I do believe I need his help in getting out of the city though, and he needs mine, so I’ll stay with him for as long as I can. I just hope I can keep it together that long.

“Jordan.” I whisper into the dark.

“Yeah?” he responds immediately, and I know he’s wide awake.

“When we get out of the city, once we’re a safe distance from it, I think we should split up. Go our own ways.”

Jordan stays quiet for a long time and I start to wonder if he’s ignoring me or pissed off. When he speaks, his voice is tight.

“Whatever you want.”

“Are you pissed about this?”

“I don’t really care. Hopefully it won’t take long to get somewhere safe.”

“You’re mad so you do care. What’s your deal?”

“Why do you want to split up? Are you worried I’ll take advantage of you? Cause that’s the last thing on my mind, believe me.”

“What? No, that never even crossed my mind.”

“It probably should. You should at least consider it, for your own safety.”

I turn and look down at him on the floor. He looks over and meets my eyes in the semi-darkness. “Jordan, do you plan on taking advantage of me at any point?”

“No.”

“Okay then.”

He frowns at me in confusion. “So then why do you want to split up so quickly?”

I roll over onto my back again and stare at the ceiling. I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t have a good excuse other than the real one and I’m not about to tell him that. He’d probably want to leave me behind right now, and as selfish as it is, I need him to help me. He seems like a good guy and I don’t want to kill him, but I can’t tell him that either. I decide to go for as much honesty as I can muster instead.

“I don’t know how to handle what’s coming and I don’t want to get you killed.”

He thinks on that for a moment and then replies, “Look, I can’t make it alone. Me and a bat, that’s not going to be enough to survive. I need someone I can trust, someone to help watch my back while I watch theirs. Someone to sleep in shifts with. And you do too. Alissa, if we split up, we’ll probably die. If we stick together we have a chance.”

I know he’s right. I know that if I go off on my own and let the meds leak out of me without a single touchstone in reality, I will go off the deep end and end up either completely crazy or dead. Neither is appealing to me. And the truth is, I don’t want to leave him. I don’t want to do this alone.

“Let’s just take it a day at a time, okay?” I ask, my voice becoming tired. “Just know that if I feel like I’m going to get you killed, I’m leaving.”

“That’s fair. Do me a favor though?”

“What?”

“Tell me you’re going. Do not run away without telling me, not under any circumstances. If I wake up some morning and you’re gone, I will search for you and probably get myself killed doing it. Promise me you’ll say goodbye.”

I’m surprised by the sentiment, by the idea that he’d search for me considering he barely knows me, but it’s kind and I feel like this is a promise I can most likely keep. I lean over the side of the bed, hold out my pinky like a little kid and wait for him to link his with it. I hold his firmly with mine, meet his eyes and smile.

“I promise.” I tell him, then I frown. “Wait, what about you? I can’t believe I haven’t asked, but what about your family? Why aren’t you going home?”

He pulls his hand away immediately and stares at the ceiling. “Home is Boston. My family is safe, for now, and I’m just worried about getting out of here alive.” He yawns, loud and long like a bear. “I’ll worry about the rest later.”

He falls asleep soon after that. I hear his breathing even out and a slight snore begin in the back of his throat. I don’t hear any more noises from outside and I’m relieved. I don’t think I could have slept knowing they were right outside. Waiting. I’m nervous about tomorrow but I’m confident we can make it, though I don’t know how I’ll do looking at a human face and loosing an arrow at it, but I tell myself it will be just like hunting. These are not humans anymore and even if they are, even if they aren’t the dead risen to walk again, they will kill me if I don’t kill them. They will kill Jordan, and even though I’ve only known him for an evening and I’ve been kind of a bitch, I feel protective of him. Maybe because he saved my life and I owe him a debt or maybe because he’s the only other truly living being I’ve seen since this started just five hours ago and that makes his life precious to me. Or maybe it’s just because I kind of like him. It’s a breakthrough; I’m forming a connection to someone. My therapist would be so proud.

Assuming she isn’t a zombie.