Awaken the Elements (Elemental Trilogy) (3 page)

             
“Are you okay?”

             
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll call you back later. I have to go.” She knew he wasn’t fine; she could sense it in his voice.

             
Richard walked in, handing her a glass of wine. “What’s up?”

             
“Ryan is being quarantined.”

             
“That doesn’t sound good,” he said, sitting next to her, sipping his own glass of wine.

             
“I am going to break off the engagement,” she finally said and downed the rest of the wine in her glass.

             
“I see it in your eyes. Every time someone says something, your eyes get all big. I kind of thought you guys would have already called it quits by now.”

             
She looked into her empty glass. “I don’t love him. I hoped it would change, but it hasn’t, and I believe it never will.”

             
He laid his hand on her thigh. “Honey, you should have called it quits when you knew you weren’t happy.”

             
Her phone vibrated with a text message. She looked down at it.
I love you
. She sighed and placed her phone back in her pocket. “Great time for a fucking plague.”

             
Richard nodded. “Fucking yes. We need more wine.”

****

             
The virus started to take over California quickly. It wasn’t like the movies. The virus victims still looked mostly normal, but the news said you either avoided them, or you killed them. There was no cure, and the virus raged through its victim, wanting to infect. Autumn counted four virus victims she had shot while the others were getting supplies onto the truck. She never really thought her good aim would actually be used to kill; thanks
Nintendo
. They looked so normal. It felt wrong until you saw their eyes, their sick eyes and their emotionless faces. Even their skin looked normal until you saw their wounds, bite marks on their throat, arms, and legs. Nasty open sores that oozed pus from infection.

             
Their supplies were simple: some extra freezers and food. They hit stores that were not hit by other people who thought they too could survive the zombies by locking themselves in their houses. Autumn knew that wouldn’t work, wondering if people watched any horror movies. Soon the power and water would be turned off, same with gas. You could live without energy, but not water.

             
She kept checking her phone, wondering if she would get to tell Ryan goodbye.  He had sent her one other message saying he would see her at the safe house. She had tried to call him, but it went straight to his voicemail.

             
“Get your head in the game!” her dad shouted at her.

             
She nodded, shoving her phone into her pocket as she kept an eye out for the infected. But he lingered there in her mind.

             
By the time they were finished, they had enough food to feed more than an army for five years. She had stocked up on some basic cookbooks, home reference books, and others. She didn’t have much medical knowledge though, and her mind drifted to her best friend, Hazel, who was going through college to be a RN, already a certified nurse.

             
Holy Shit!
Her mind screamed. She hadn't heard from her in a few days. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and called. Her cell phone rang and rang; no answer. She tried once more, still nothing.

             
“Dad!” She yelled, getting his attention as he checked to make sure the back of the truck was secured.

****

             
Bud drove her into the small town of Winton outside of Atwater. The place, usually alive at night with crack and meth heads, was a chaotic scene of people running and looting in the late afternoon. They saw her dad’s friend, Howard, at the stop sign at Willow and Winton Way.

             
“Look. I didn’t get a new kidney to die, Bud,” Howard was saying as Autumn looked around nervously.

             
“Why not come with us?” Bud said.

             
“You got something better than those fucked up safe houses? Fuck. No drugs? I might as well just stay here.”

             
“We got something real good, and it leaves us free to do what we want,” he said as Autumn rolled her eyes. Bud drew a small map and handed it to Howard. “We’re leaving as soon as we can.”

             
Howard looked at it. “I got to get some stuff, but we can be there in a day or so. I have to find my sister.” Bud nodded and after saying goodbye, drove to Maple Avenue while Autumn brooded over the ‘we’ Howard mentioned. Hazel lived on Oxford Circle which was right off of Maple.

             
She heard the gunfire first, noticing the zombies second. “Hazel!” she shouted, getting out of the truck. This was not a place for people to be with a virus outbreak at hand. Half the people in town were seriously messed up, and if they came into contact with the infected, they’d think it was another crackhead looking to score.

             
“Autumn, watch yourself out there,” Bud said from the truck as she got to Hazel's front door. She nodded, looking around quickly. A small Mexican man with a neck wound stumbled toward her. She pulled out her small pistol and shot it in the head without hesitating.

             
“Hazel!” She beat on the white, metal security door. “Hazel, you there?” Autumn didn’t hear Hazel’s dogs barking behind the door, or any sound at all.

             
Her heart sank, but then a small voice replied, “Autumn?”

             
She slowly opened the security door. Gun drawn and ready. At that moment, she felt like her gun-toting book idol,
Leslie Miller
. A small glimmer of hope broke the uneasy feeling she had in the pit of her stomach as her hand lingered on the old rusty door knob. She stopped as soon as she had the door open enough to see Hazel.

             
“Autumn?” Hazel walked a couple of steps toward her and sat down hard, covering her face with her hands as she sobbed. Autumn heard a gunshot. She turned to see her dad drop an infected that was getting a little too close to the door. Realizing she still held the knob, keeping the screen door open, she closed it.

             
Turning back to Hazel, she noticed the blood covering the floor. “Hazel, are you hurt?”

Hazel’s eyes were glazed over when she looked up at her. She could see the
first signs of shock. She had taken a First Aid class two months before. Ryan had insisted she at least know some basics. Hazel shook her head. Her long bleached hair flapped against her red tear streaked cheeks. Sitting where she was, she pointed in the direction of the hallway, the direction where the trail of blood got thicker.

             
Although she didn’t want to go, Autumn’s feet took her toward the hallway, following the trail. She slowly turned the corner and peered into Hazel’s sister’s room; nothing out of the ordinary in there. She continued following the blood trail, afraid of what she was going to see at the end. It led to Hazel’s room. The door stood ajar, and there were bloody hand prints all over it. Autumn pushed the door open the rest of the way, trying not to touch the infected blood. All you needed was a scratch to catch the infection.

             
So much blood. There was so much, for a moment her brain couldn’t see past it all. Finally she saw the bodies. Dead, bleeding, a body, everything covered in wet redness, another body. She then noticed the bloody shotgun lying on the ground. Walking into the room, she saw the bodies were missing their heads. It was Paul, Hazel’s fiancé, and her mom and dad, Autumn recognized them by Paul’s work shirt and her mom’s nurse’s uniform. The puzzle started coming together. Hazel’s mom must have gotten bit at work, but she didn't have time to go over and look for a wound. Her mind went to Ryan, and she was sad for him. Was he already infected?

             
The president’s scientists reported that a shot to the head was all that was needed to kill them. Turning, she walked out of the room, not bothering to close the door. She took a moment to wonder why it didn’t affect her like she thought it should. Hazel was still sitting in the living room sobbing quietly.

“Hazel, where is Becky?”

              She said nothing but stared at the backdoor with her wide, glossy, hazel eyes. “Please, Hazel, you have to tell me. Is she with a friend?” Hazel opened her mouth, but instead of talking, she screamed. The scream, long and sharp, hurt Autumn’s ears. Turning to the door, her eyes widened. Becky was banging on the other metal security door.

             
“No!” Hazel cried. “Autumn! Kill it!”

             
She stood there staring at Hazel’s little sister. Becky’s neck wound flowed with thick, ruby liquid, as her pale lips pulled back from her teeth trying to bite at the security door. Holding up her pistol and aiming, her hand shook just a little as she watched Becky. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She liked Becky.
But it’s not Becky anymore
, her mind told her. The thing at the door moaned loudly. She pulled the trigger. Hazel let out a small sob behind her as the thing that used to be Becky fell to the floor, lifeless.

****

             
Autumn had her stuff packed. She still hadn’t gotten hold of Ryan. Already she feared the worse. The radio said the hospitals were closing down as the infected started to overrun them. She at least wanted to tell the man she had been with for a while goodbye. She sighed, looking around her apartment. There wasn’t much she could take along, but she did fill her trunk and a small suitcase with bits and pieces of her life. Not many clothes, after all, they were going to be in a mall. What she did grab was a lot of her collectibles; things she would never be able to replace which held meaning to her, memories that had made her who she was.

             
Autumn took one last look at her tastefully decorated living room which had Ryan’s influence all over it. She would have gone with greens and browns not blues and blacks like he had wanted. Pausing at the entryway, Autumn looked at her reflection in her mirror. She saw that her curly, red blond-brown hair actually looked pretty good for once.
What a shame
, she thought, feeling miserable.

             
She pushed the curls lying against her cheek back behind her ear and walked out, not glancing back. She paused once more, a tear sliding down her cheek. “You can come back afterwards,” Richard said in a small voice. He stood outside waiting on her.

             
She nodded. “Maybe.”

****

             
As everyone gathered together, they took a small convoy of vehicles and closely followed the diesel. There were a number of car wrecks and infected along the back streets which they thought might be safer than the main roads. There were a lot of army trucks and people around the main roads which made travel harder. Autumn knew they had to get indoors soon, because the infected were going to get out of hand. You could tell by how many were aimlessly roaming the streets and fields.

             
At the moment they could take care of the infected, since there weren’t that many, shooting them in the head if they came too close. They didn’t have to stop, and if they did, Autumn planned on staying where she was and not getting bit. She couldn’t even envision being in that kind of situation. She would die first; that she was sure of. Being an infected until she rotted away spooked her more than anything else.

             
That day was supposed to be the grand opening of the mall. The plan was to take over the mall by whatever means necessary. It was bigger than she had imagined. She looked at the mall as they got closer; it was huge. It sat all alone, no houses nearby. There were a few cars scattered throughout the enormous parking lot. The designer of the mall wanted a lot of parking space, obviously hoping to fill it with shoppers spending their money at all the stores inside.  Bad timing since the economy was going through a very slow period, and not many people wanted to part with their money, saving it instead.

             
To the side of the mall stood a three story parking garage; it was almost as tall as the mall itself. The mall would let them hide from each other, avoid each other, and still be safe.

             
They drove up, squashing a zombie in the process. Autumn, Anatha, and a few others jumped out of the back of the Chevy truck Autumn’s mom drove. They looked around. Nothing but infected littered the parking lot. “Tell dad to move the truck up to the doors,” Autumn said to her mom.

             
“It’s clean up time!” Moss, Anatha’s younger brother, shouted as he opened fire with the large gun he had been tweaking   the last few days. It roared angrily, spitting out bullets when he hit the trigger, not just cutting the infected in half but turning them into goo.