Only The Living (Lost Survival Series Book 1) (11 page)

That morning, I may as well have been one of the Lost. Pale skin, eyes rolling back as I lunged towards the kitchen in awkward, fatigued movements. I had barely slept again last night, and it was starting to take its toll on my less-than-handsome face.

After cleaning myself up with a mini-shower at the sink, I patted myself dry and fumbled around the lukewarm fridge until I found what I was looking for — the last of the food, which was thankfully two canned energy drinks.

Saving the other for lunch, I downed one of them before realising that I’d dumped my change of clothes in the guest bedroom before our failure of a party. Thinking back, I never regretted what I said to Millie; there was more at stake here than being stuck in the friendzone.

As I moved inside to get changed, my mind was too distracted to register the abrupt scream when I kicked the door shut.
Crap, I forgot she was sleeping in here…

Millie had been up for a while, from what I could tell. Her soaked hair was wrapped up in a fluffy towel, while her bare-pink skin exposed her body to the cold morning’s chill. It took more than three seconds for the penny to finally drop, to realise that she was standing there half-naked without covering herself up.

“Shit!!” I yelled inwardly, blinding myself with my own fist as I smacked it over my wandering eyes. “S-Sorry, I didn’t realise—”

“Oh. It’s you,” she inhaled through gritted teeth. “I thought it was one of
them.
”

“Them? You wanted to flash Harry instead?” I tried to joke, knowing that he was her type. For some reason, she seemed to crack an audible smile.

“Zombies, you idiot.”

“Mils, Mils. We don’t use that word, remember?” I poked a hole through my eye-guard, glancing around for my spare clothes. “I’ll just grab my stuff, and go.”

Groping on top of the bed for a lump of fabric, I found my gaze reeling upwards just as Millie took her towel off. She turned her back and quickly pulled on a green vest, uncaring that there was a blushing dude in the room. I’d never seen her looking so confident before… Not my friend Millie, not my classmate Millie. Just Millie, a girl I liked.

She flipped around to cast a sceptical glare at me, tugging her round chest upwards to accommodate for her size. “We don’t have all day. Are you getting changed or what?”

“W-What? Right here?” I fumed, backing myself into the bedroom wall with a dramatic thud. Trying not to highlight my own double standard, I was anxiously pulling off my sweaty shirt when she spoke again.

“It’s no big deal. We’re ‘friends’, right?” With that kind of tone, it’d be criminal to
not
taste the salt mines underneath. Exhaling tiredly, I dropped my trousers and turned to glare at the wallpaper.

“We already talked about that, this ‘thing’ between us. We decided it was a bad time… It’s
still
a bad time, even worse than before.”

“
You
decided,” she said vacantly, packing away the apartment owner’s accessories. “And it doesn’t seem like a bad time for Harry. Probably makes it easier, having someone that close.”

“Oh, it’s a competition now?” I laughed rigidly, getting changed a little faster. “Sorry, I’m not tough like Harry… He’s making a big mistake, you know. I could never handle it.”

“Handle what?” she asked, her voice growing lighter. I glanced back at her, zipping up my trousers with a shrug.

“I don’t know. Losing someone important. Losing you.”

Before Millie could react, we both heard angered shouts coming from the adjacent bedroom. The sharpness reminded me of the awkwardness that killed last night, but this one seemed different...

It was Harry and Ian.

"No! I don’t care, I’m not going back out there!!"
Ian spat with a swirling echo. It sounded as though he hadn’t slept at all, despite being the first one to turn in.

"Ian, stop being a little bitch. We need to bring back those supplies! For Daniel’s mum, for your shitty folks as well!"
The silence that followed that statement was deafening, and Harry's scoff broke the tension once again.
"You want Burkley to throw them out, is that it? You’re seriously gonna let them die?!"

"It’s not about them! I can’t face going outside... Just leave me alone! Nothing’s ever going to change!"
I could hear Ian sobbing through the wall, much worse than that first night we spent in the newsagents. He’d been so brave when pretending to be someone else, but now that reality had set itself in stone, he was left in pieces.

"Man, it’s gonna be okay. I’ll be there with you, the whole way. C’mere—”
Harry seemed to comfort him, but then a heavy smack jolted down my spine. It seemed as though Ian didn’t like that one bit.

“Stop touching me! Is that all you ever think about, you… you faggot!!”

Apparently Ian had no more interest in hiding as he came storming past the door, shaking the very foundations of the penthouse. Harry chased him out of the apartment, carelessly barking his name down the winding staircase like they’d both forgotten about the flesh-hungry monsters lurking outside.

We'd already taken everything that the shelter had to offer, or at least the stuff that we could carry. On the off-chance that we’d actually make it back to the community centre by the third day, we’d packed a few leftovers from last night to feed the hungry. Skipping down the staircase and leaving the luxurious penthouse behind, I was already dreading what awaited me at the bottom.

As our disjointed group removed the blockade that protected the building's entrance, I went over the game plan as coldly and clinically as possible so that I didn't accidentally set anyone off. No one said a single word during the entire procedure, just glaring at their respective enemies with ferocious judgment while I was talking. So much for 'getting to know each other better'.

We still didn't have any weapons, other than Harry's switchblade which he had somehow managed to conceal from Burkley. The best we could do was to break apart the flat owner's CD rack into four large pieces, giving each of us a metal claw-shaped hook to defend ourselves with. It was too sharp and dangerous to give Beth one, so we resolved to keep a close eye on her instead.

As the final pile of blocking furniture fell to the floor, we left the safety of our shelter in a childish single-file order. To my surprise, a few lingering groups of Lost had congealed together at several points along the sunlit street.

"...There must be more of them now than ever." Ian answered our thoughts, clearly wishing he’d stayed behind in his depression. "Less food for them in the dark. They'll spend more time hunting during the day."

As we stealthily crept past a couple of closed shops, I noticed a rather large gathering of Lost as they seemingly tried to swipe at one of the rooftops. For a brief second, I figured that something, or someone must have been up there.

I thought nothing of it, and briskly moved on. I had the strangest feeling that someone might be following us, but that made no sense. We were the only ones left alive, according to SP. Burkley.

----

We were much closer than we expected, given the amount of time we had left; the penthouse was only two blocks away from the Medical School itself. "Huh, we could've just spent the night here after all," Harry puffed, his face still appearing hungover from last night.

As we approached the school's entrance in the crescent-shaped street, I couldn't help but smirk at the campus’ insignia. I shared my knowing nod with Ian, both of us reminiscing about the partnered university building that we’d also escaped from.

His enthusiasm faded into another tortured stare within seconds. His distress was visible to everyone, almost as though he’d rather be anywhere else than here with us. I chalked it up to his spat with Harry this morning, still unsure of whether it was any of my business to intervene.

The bright-white building emitted a modern clinic vibe, bringing a sensual wave of cleanliness just by walking through the lobby. PSAs and lecture time-tables adorned the soft-painted walls, but this was no open day. Not for us, anyway.

Millie pointed to the end of the hall, and everyone followed her finger as it landed on the chest of a Lost janitor. "They're here too... Guys, be
very
quiet."

We navigated through the tight corridors in a huddle, sweeping each classroom and lab on our way. Most of the rooms had been trashed in what I was starting to call ‘the great panic’; the state of affairs left behind when people realised they were under attack. Those who didn’t notice in time were etched into history, via puddles of dried gore.

After finding nothing but empty bags and stray notes, we decided to change tactics and search for another department in the school. Luckily, we came across a fire escape map of the entire area, after rushing past it an embarrassing amount of times. We had to keep avoiding the dead janitor as he drifted from one wing to the other, seemingly on the lookout for any intruders. To him, it was like his last shift had never ended.

"The basement level. That's where the storage rooms are,” I confirmed. “If there's gonna be meds anywhere, they'll be down there." That tickling sensation of being stalked like prey rose up in me once again, making the hairs on my neck stand up. Whipping my head around, I had to confirm that nothing was there.

"Danny, c'mon! We don't have all day!" The first words Millie had said to me since we’d left the apartment. I tried to forget about the idea of being watched, but as I descended the staircase, I couldn't help but overhear my own gut. It was screaming, petrified that we were walking straight into a hornet's nest.

The moment my feet touched the darkened basement floor, all kinds of anarchy swept over us. A round of footsteps played out behind us in the enclosed space, followed by a sharp cry.
Wait, isn’t that… Ian?!

I flipped around wildly, just barely catching the man’s boot as it left the top step of the stairway. I would've chased after our strange attacker, but something else caught my attention. The sight of blood.

Ian fell against the wall, his leg gushing like a deep-red river. "Oh shit... Ian!!" Harry pushed me out of the way, stripping his leather jacket down into a ball. Pressing it against the boy's injury, it must’ve stung as he winced in agony.

Immediately dabbing it backwards, Harry pinched something shiny and managed to pull it out from his wound… The thickened tip of a hypodermic needle, messily stabbed into his side.

"What the fuck… Where’d
that
come from?!" he barked, throwing his head from side to side.

I didn't have time to venture a guess. Beth clung onto Millie in fear as the background noise shifted from silent whimpers to aggressive roars. The local Lost were coming to investigate our disturbance, any second now.

At the far end of the unkempt-grey basement, the corridor appeared to ripple and move as though it was a wall of one organism. I couldn’t recognise them at first, which seemed impossible with the sheer density they possessed.

Entire classes of the Lost writhed and hissed towards us, dressed in student attire and with dirty-white lab coats hanging off their contorted shoulders. The sound of Ian’s stabbing must have attracted them.

As the horde approached faster than we could react and with similar movements occurring on the other side of the hall, the truth became morbidly obvious. We could never carry Ian up all of those stairs, not without getting caught ourselves.

"What are you standing around for?!" Ian spat at us hastily. "Go, now! Get outta here, they're coming!!"

Time was running out. Without any warning, Ian threw his messed-up body into the opposite wall, wrapping his hands around the handle of a nearby storage closet.

“I'll... I’ll hide in here. It’s fine... Just go,” he croaked. Before anyone could protest, he swung himself inside and slammed the door shut behind him. Ian must have fallen against the other side, as Harry desperately thumped his fist on the metal as hard as he could, trying to get it open.

Watching the scene unfold, Beth grew inconsolable at the sight of Ian’s blood. Millie had to drag her upstairs kicking and screaming, and I assumed they took refuge in one of the nearby classrooms.

It was clear that Ian intended to ride out the approaching horde by staying in that cupboard. My infuriated friend couldn't accept that, banging and flailing against the barricade in the hopes that it would open for him.

“Harry...” I started, but he was having none of it.

“Ian!! Can't you at least let me in? C'mon man, don't freak me out like this! You're... You're hurt...” He was now crying against the door, his tears rolling down the painted-blue metal while our time grew short.

My eyes flitted down the full length of the corridor, keeping watch on our shrinking proximity to the Lost. “Harry, he’s gonna be fine. Really. Christ, we can't stay here any longer...” The thug threw his fist against the wall again, cursing the distance that it created between them both.

“I fucking love you!! You drive me bloody mental, but I need you, so... so don't die in there!! Don't...” I pulled him away, half-expecting him to sock me in the face, but he was too much of a blubbering mess to fight back. Leaving the basement behind, we climbed the stairs one at a time as I heard the Lost starting to claw at the storage room door.

Millie waved us into a small classroom by the main lobby, just in time before the stragglers came clambering up the staircase. While the Lost moved like a stampede through the campus corridors, not one of us dared to make a sound; if we so much as breathed during the incursion, it’d be all of our lives on the line. Especially Beth’s.

Occasionally one of the shadows would rattle the door handle with frightening vigour, but they gave up almost immediately to find easier prey. Their wild shrieks died back down into unintelligible moans, and after around ten minutes or so, you could almost believe there was silence.

Taking a peek through the blurred doorway’s window, there seemed to be six or maybe seven of them shuffling around the immediate exit. Definitely a manageable amount, if we kept our heads down.

“Mils, you stay here and watch Beth. We're gonna get Ian back, okay?” With a skittish nod, Harry and I turned to the door and yanked the handle back to meet the lingering dead. Raising our metal claw-like CD racks, I sunk its sharp edge into the back of the first woman’s spongy neck with relative ease.

Glancing down the corridor to Harry though, it almost made me feel inadequate as he bounded from Lost to Lost, grabbing each one by the hair and swiftly dispatching them with a stab to the back of their heads. He seemed rather anxious to get back downstairs, and with good reason.

The last of the remaining dead went down without much of a fight; it was a good thing that the majority of them had already fled the building, because there was no way in hell that we could take on more than ten at a time... not without Ian or Millie, anyway.

I didn’t have to tell Harry twice. We both immediately made a beeline for the basement, while I was still reeling from how quickly our collective shit hit the fan.
Who the hell stabbed Ian? A person? What am I missing here?

Unfortunately, we weren't far from finding out. Before we’d even made it halfway down the staircase, my legs were brutally swept out from under me by two red-tinted blurs, and I heard Harry's face smacking off of the stairs not long after that.

Before I could get up, I felt a sharp sting in my arm that was quickly followed by a certain numbness, spreading throughout the rest of my body.
An injection?
It can’t be...

I didn't get much time to ponder, as my eyes began to droop of their own accord. After a slight fuzzy spell, that tempting sleep that I’d been deprived of for days was finally granted to me.

----

It felt like no time had passed at all. Right when my eyes jutted open, I instinctively knew that it was dark outside. Moonlight shined through the storage room’s ceiling-high windows, piercing the red-tinted medical bags to create an ominous scarlet glow around me.

I never even considered that I might be in danger, until I felt the straps over my forearms and legs. Somehow I’d been tightly bound to an upright hospital bed frame, too snug for comfort. Stiffly forcing my head to the right, I could see that Harry had suffered a similar fate, along with another man stuck to an operating chair. The stranger was wearing a familiar suit…

I barely even recognised him; it was the man we’d met on the train tracks, the scavenger from the community centre. His hollow-black eyes and pale face suggested that he'd been chained down here for a while, much longer than ourselves.
What’s he doing in a place like this? Where are his friends?

My attention returned to the critically-injured Ian, who was probably still hidden away in the basement's cupboard. “Hey! Let me go!!” I yelled, stirring Harry into a questionable state of consciousness.

A chill ran straight through my spine, sensing a hidden fourth presence in the bloody room... It was similar to the uneasiness I’d felt before, when I was sure that we were being followed. A shaded man holding a syringe melted into our view, soon to be joined by a group of menacing-looking blokes in red hoodies. Some kind of gang?

The hooded shadow pressed his forehead against mine, and spoke with a soft-yet-erratic tone. “I’ve been waiting for you, my child. Don’t worry, the others are soon to follow.”

“Uuah, what…?” I groaned. His words seemed to blend together; my head was still spinning from the drugs he'd injected us with, and to be blunt, I was fucking scared.

“This won’t take long at all. We’re going to find out if you’re like us, whether God has chosen you for the new world.” He pointed to his veins like a madman. “It's what's inside that counts… Only the Lord can decide in the end, whether our earthly bodies are worthy of salvation. Do you understand?”

He removed his hoodie, and I was nearly sick all over myself. A bloodied aggregation of bite-marks had mauled his face into an oozing lump of indented flesh. The only discernible part of him was his eyes, which appeared permanently widened, much like a reptile.

Shaking my head in the hopes that it would turn me lucid, this didn't appear to be some kind of body-horror nightmare. “We... didn't come here to hurt you, or join... whatever you lot are. We came from the community centre, a policeman told us to bring back some medical supplies. If... If you can just give us a small portion of yours, it would help a lot of people.”

The man seemed to recoil at the mention of a policeman. “I see... Yes, I know of this so-called officer... My guardian angel, he told me of your arrival. So this must truly be a test of my faith!”

“Burkley, an angel?” I spat, tasting a tang of metallic-iron. “You’ve got your wires crossed there, mate…” I was getting sick of this lunatic's ravings, spouting nonsense about God and some kind of test.

Harry was fully present now, and having a double-take at the man's mangled face, he jumped into the one-sided conversation with a yell. "Let us go, you freak! We didn't know we were intruding on your stupid red jumper club… Just give us what we came for, and we'll leave!”

The insane man looked offended by his words. “You don't... know who we are? Well, that simply won't do. Soon, the whole world will be cleansed by our teachings.” He raised his hands, as though he was about to deliver a church sermon.

“My name is Pastor Mitchell... Do not forget our names, for we are the O-Saints.” Two of the grunts in hoodies materialised behind us, grappling a rabid Lost between handcuffs.

“W-What are you doing?!” Harry bawled, trying to wriggle away. “Those things are dangerous!!” The Pastor merely laughed it off, unmoved by the vicious howls only inches away.

“Silly child… The chosen ones have nothing to fear.” He demonstrated this by pulling his face towards the gnashing beast, and I closed my eyes as pained shrieks and laughs filled the blood-red room. I could only hear the gory matter as it splattered all over the floor, dribbling and sloshing from the insane man's face.

Harry saw the whole thing, and he couldn't stop himself from screaming in disbelief. “Y-You idiot!! You know what happens when they bite—”

Pastor Mitchell was not pleased with Harry's constant objections to his ideals. “Urgg... Mmph... You don't get it, do you? Well, we'll see for ourselves who's the idiot once we get you tested.” I felt the need to ask, but it became crystal clear as he began to manoeuvre the Lost towards our bound bodies.

I shook and stretched against my tightened straps, but they wouldn't break. The Lost lunged itself wildly, already trying to tear my face apart with his bared yellow teeth.

Mitchell released him without a second thought. The creature's eager jaw sunk down into my shoulder-blade, and I felt the stabbing toxin almost instantly. It was like someone was trying to inject my skin with boiling acid; the area seemed to melt and tear itself apart under the infected’s saliva.

“Raaagh!!” I clenched my teeth into dust as the Lost was then brought over to Harry, followed by the dazed suited man. Everyone had been bitten, one after another…

I glared frightfully at the blood trickling down my forearm, starting to feel the gravity of what had transpired. The dark-red droplets connected with my fingertips, dripping with an echo to the floor. It was only a matter of time now. I had lost the battle... I was dead.