A Dark Evolution (Book 2): Deranged
Deranged
Jason LaVelle
Copyright © 2016 by Jason LaVelle. All rights reserved.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author (seriously, it took me a year to write it).
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
ISBN:
9781311633019
Copyright © 2016 Jason LaVelle
All rights reserved.
For weeks I wanted to die. Maybe it was more than a month. It wasn’t just the physical pain, though I’m not going to lie, being shot in the chest by an FBI sniper is not the most pleasant experience. I was in and out of surgery more times than I can remember, and pumped full of so many drugs and fluids that I thought I would burst. The most painful part, truly, was watching my best friend die before my very eyes.
Abigail, you’ll never meet her of course, but she was an awesome person. She was a star athlete, a loyal friend, and basically my sister. When the zombie disease, plasmodium lyssa, first took hold, and I mean the very first few days, I was with her. She was there for me when my father turned, when he killed my mother, my brother, and almost me. She saved my life, and in turn, ended up infected herself. All she wanted was to be with her family, and those bastard FBI agents killed her. Well, in the end I guess they got what they had coming to them. One of them died by my own hand, and as for the rest... I hope the damn zombies got them.
A good friendship isn’t something you find every day, in fact, it needs to be built. A close friend becomes family. They can offer you support, love, and protection. Once you have that, you’ll never want to let it go. I can’t stress this enough; we aren’t really safe here, in fact we aren’t safe anywhere. The medicines we use, the precautions we take, they’re all good, but they aren’t perfect. Nothing can protect you as well as a friend...and a good rifle. Remember, everything outside is trying to kill you. You must be vigilant; you must look after each other.
“How are you going to get out of here?”
“You don’t think I’ve been thinking about it?”
“Well, I assumed. So, do you have any ideas?”
“I have a lot of ideas, I mostly think about eating though.”
“Are you even strong enough to leave?”
“I’ve been here for three months. Anything that was broken in me should be healed by now.”
“But what then?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“Is that the last of them leaving?”
“Yes.”
Kala watched through a warren of wires that hung from the ceiling. There were short hospital dividers and clear plastic isolation booths that made the view unclear. It was an aviation hangar, large and wide open, perfectly suited to the field hospital while it was operational. It was no longer in operation. Two figures snaked their way through the three thousand square feet of containment equipment toward the exit.
Kala could not see the door itself, not from the very back of the hangar where she was restrained. She saw a light brighten in the far corner though, where daylight entered as the people exited. Then the light was gone. The fluorescents hummed overhead for another two minutes until the generator was switched off, and then the hangar was dark except for the shafts of light that streamed in from a dozen fiberglass skylights cut into the ceiling.
“That was it, they’re all gone.”
“And then there were two.”
Kala sighed, “Yeah, something like that.”
Keith had come to her two days ago. She’d been waiting. Keith was the security officer who oversaw all operations in the hospital. He wore a solid black tactical suit with a bright yellow Taser affixed to his belt. He wasn’t all non-lethal though. Keith also wore a nine millimeter strapped to the chest of his tactical vest. He was ready.
As Kala watched him approach that day, she noticed him fidgeting with the strap that held the semiautomatic pistol in place. He desperately wanted to use it on her. Kala smirked. Keith had been asked to assist the nurse in bathing her one day, a task he took a little too much pleasure in. While he was “helping her” into the bathing tub, he had copped a feel of her naked butt. Kala, in turn, had kicked him in the balls hard enough to knock him down. That was the day Kala found out how bad a Taser actually hurt. But that was then.
Keith looked smug. He had news and was eager to share, though Kala could ascertain most of it for herself. The staff had been dwindling here. The patients that they were caring for were being rolled out on carts or limping away with the help of the staff. The hospital was being decommissioned, which meant things had either gotten better out there in the world, or much worse. She had no way of knowing, no one would tell her anything anymore.
So back to Keith, standing in front of her two days ago, shit-eating, smug grin, hands on his hips. He pushed aside the clear plastic from the booth next to her.
“Time to go?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, only continued to fidget with the Velcro strap on the gun.
“Are you bringing me to jail now? I’m not blind; I can see everyone’s left. Has the epidemic been contained?”
“We were told to make sure everyone was moved to an appropriate location. The doctors and nurses will be gone by the end of the day, out of harm’s way.”
“Out of harm’s way? So then it’s still happening out there?”
Keith ignored her and continued. “The thing is, me and Roger-”
Roger, the big male nurse,
ugh, what an asshole.
“We took a little vote. And we decided that you’re already in the perfect location.”
“What? You can’t just leave me here - I’m a human being.”
“You’re a cop killer!”
“He was FBI!”
“Still a cop!”
“And I didn’t
kill
him, I mean, I did, but there were extenuating circumstances. It was accidental! When I was shot, my finger reflexively pulled the trigger. His head was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Because you were aiming an assault rifle at him.”
“That was - look, I didn’t get out of that unscathed either, I’ve had to have six surgeries to put my chest and lungs back together.”
Keith scoffed, “A waste of precious resources.”
“Come on Keith, don’t leave me here, I’ll starve. Please, you can have a little touchy-feely again if you want-” Kala tried to make her voice sound sweet.
Keith’s face turned red. “You’ll get your dues, in this life or the next.”
“Probably the next, since this one is really sucking.”
That got a chuckle out of Keith. He approached her bed carefully and inspected the leather restraints on her arms and legs to make sure they were secure. He leaned over her and sniffed, then wrinkled his nose. “My god, you smell like an animal.”
“You’ve kept me chained up like an animal for months.”
“Well, you won’t have much time left. I’m leaving tomorrow, and there won’t be anyone here to feed you. So, the human body can stay alive for what, three weeks without food? I’m not sure about water, but I expect it takes that long. I hope you lay here in the heat long enough for your stink to draw a whole pack of animals in. Wouldn’t that be a nice treat?”
Kala didn’t think it would be. “I’ll scream! I’ll tell the doctors what you’re planning on doing before they leave. They wouldn’t just leave me behind.” Kala tried to sound tough, but there was desperation in her voice, and she felt like she was on the verge of tears.
“I thought as much. That’s why you’ll be taking a little nap while I tell the doctors I’m going to move you to the jail.” Keith smiled at her with perfectly white, straight teeth.
Kala didn’t hear Roger approach, but there he was, jabbing a needle into her neck.
She went instantly slack and felt groggy.
“Good timing Rog,” Keith said and bumped him with his knuckles. Then they left her there, in the farthest back reaches of the hangar, as all the other patients were taken away. She didn’t wake up until the next day, and watched with futility as Keith and Roger swept through the building, making sure nothing
important
was left behind.
It was already getting hot; they must have shut the air conditioning off this morning or the night before. Her stomach was rolling around uncomfortably with a mix of hunger and nausea. She hated to admit it, but she was scared. Summer was over now, but here in what she assumed was still southern Florida, the air temperature was in the high eighties. Couple that with the humidity and it felt like a hundred degrees outside. It wouldn’t take long for this steel box she was jailed in to reach that temperature and more.
“How long before heat stroke kicks in?”
“Depends on a lot of factors. What the actual temperature is, what the humidity is, how much water you’re drinking.”
“And how long I’ve been exposed to the high temperatures.”
“Exactly. How hot do you think it is in here?”
“I don’t know. I’m sweating like crazy though, and my face feels really hot.”
“Your IV is empty too.”
Kala looked up at the deflated bag of saline hanging from a chrome pole next to her bed.
More like her coffin, now.
How long had it been empty? Had she been given any fluids at all today?
“How long has it been since they left?”
“I - I don’t really remember. I know they left, but the details are starting to get a little fuzzy.”
“Well, that’s not good.”
Kala huffed out a breath. It was hot, really hot now. She took stock of the situation. Her feet were bare, thank god, she couldn’t sleep with socks on. She wore a calf-length hospital gown that buttoned down the front. There was an IV taped to the back of her left hand. She couldn’t see her chest beneath the gown, but she knew it was a patchwork of healing stitches, bandages, and badly bruised and discolored skin.
Lovely.
Her shoulder, where the bullet entered, bore a horrific scar of twisted skin that was purple now and probably always would be.
“I look like crap.”
“…”
“Thanks.” She pulled at her arms. The leather cuffs she had worn for months were still there, the same with the ones on her ankles. She could see the red skin beneath the cuffs. It was soggy and tender, like she had spent too much time in a bath.
“A bath of my own sweat. How’s my hair?”
“You don’t want to know.” It was true, she didn’t. Kala had not seen a mirror in weeks, but she knew her dark mane of black hair had been chopped off by the nurses when she came in.
“They didn’t even try to do a nice job, just hacked it off below my ears.”
“They could have at least given you a cute little pixie cut.”
“Yeah, but my head’s too big for that anyway. I’d look like a watermelon wearing a toupee.”
“Ha! Can’t be worse than you look right now!”
“You can be a real
B
sometimes.”
“Your words.”
“Crap, I have to pee.”
“Be thankful it’s only pee.”
A horrified expression came over Kala’s face.
Crap is right!
“I’ll just hold it for a while.”
“I’m sure that will help.”
“Shut up.”
“Do you miss your friend?”
“Abigail? Of course I miss her.” Kala closed her eyes, which were gritty with gunk that had accumulated and was never wiped away. One of the many drawbacks to not being able to take care of her own hygiene.
Abigail.
It had been only hours since she had thought about her best friend. Abigail was always on her mind. It was for Abigail that they came to the airport, to look for her parents in the midst of the, well, zombie outbreak is the best way to describe it. She supposed they weren’t actually zombies, but what was a zombie except defined by cinema and fiction anyway.
“I’ll always miss her,” Kala said, with her eyes still closed. She kept them closed to keep the tears in. The last time she saw Abbie, her best friend was running away from her, running across the airport tarmac toward her parents’ plane. She had been infected by the virus.
Parasite,
she corrected herself.
All she wanted was to see her parents again, to feel their loving arms around her.
But she never reached them.
Because she was murdered.
Shot by an FBI sniper positioned on the airport roof. Kala hoped Abigail had felt nothing, that when the bullet passed through her, the lights just clicked out in her brain and there was no more pain for her, and no more fear.
“Because fear is all I really have left.” She opened her eyes.
“Does it seem darker in here to you now?”
“Not really.”
“I guess you’re right. Damn, I’m really thirsty, and - ugh!” When she lifted an arm a little off the bed, the gown that covered it drooped with moisture. “Gross! I’m completely soaked with sweat now.”
“Your body is just trying to cool itself off. Sweating is good; it could save your life.”
“Well, you’re almost right. The body sweats, and then it is the evaporation of the sweat that produces the cooling effect intended to bring the body’s temperature down.”
“God you’re a geek.”
“But I’m still soaking wet…”
“And burning hot, too.”
“Yeah, because it’s not working.”
“Why wouldn’t it work? You’re definitely sweating.”
“It’s the humidity, it must be over sixty percent. When the humidity rises over sixty percent, sweat ceases to evaporate on the skin.”
“So you don’t get cooled down?”
“So I don’t get cooled down.”
“Can’t your body just keep the sweat in, not waste the water?”
“No, I’ll continue to sweat like a disgusting hog, until…”
“Until what?”
“Until I run out of water in my body. Then my core temp will start getting hot, really hot.”
“Then what?”
“Well, once my body reaches about one hundred degrees, it will stop trying to shed heat into the environment. Instead, it will go backwards and just start absorbing the heat. Once that happens, my body temp will skyrocket.”
“That sounds bad.”
“Super bad. At one hundred three degrees, I’ll be suffering pretty badly from heat exhaustion, and at one hundred four, heat stroke. At one hundred six, I’ll lose consciousness. By one hundred eight, I’ll be dead.”
“Great, is there any good news?”
“Yeah, I’ll only have to suffer through unbelievable headache pain and vomiting for a few hours before I die.”
“That’s what I like about you, you’re a silver lining kind of girl.”
Kala tried to clear her mind, but could not.
I wish I knew how long I’ve been without water.
Deep in her head, a painful throbbing began.
This is going to suck.