The Pandemic Sequence (Book 1): The Tilian Virus (16 page)

Slinging the crossbow over his shoulder, Mike drew his weapons and raced towards the gunshot. Paul and Derrick burst through the trees from their position, with Derrick calling out for his girlfriend. Mike was the first to reach her and found the young girl convulsing on the ground, the body of a Til a foot away from her with the entry wound of a bullet marking its skull.

Mike’s heart fell as Jenni lifted her head towards him, her eyes filled with fear, as her body shook beyond her control. Tears stung his eyes and his vision blurred with moisture as he raised his gun to her. His emotions made his weak, and he hesitated to end the life of the vibrant young woman who had survived so much with him. He could hear Derrick running up behind him and he did not want the boy to see her change, so he marshaled his strength and gently squeezed the trigger.

The shot rang out, but went wild as Mike felt himself thrown to the ground from a thundering weight crashing in behind him. The force of the tackle sent his guns from his hands as his body collided with the soft earth. Dazed and breathless, his eyes could see the blurry form of Derrick rushing to Jenni’s side.

“Derrick, no!” Paul shouted.

As the adrenaline poured through him, Mike was able to catch his breath, and as he stood, he turned to see Derrick restraining the now fully-transitioned woman.

With lips pulled back into a vicious snarl, Jenni fought against her captivity with wild abandon. Mike reached for the other gun strapped to his leg as Derrick continued his struggle to contain her.

“No! You can’t shoot her. There’ll be a cure! The doc will find a cure!” he pleaded, tears streaming down his face.

“Derrick, you can’t do this,” Mike implored. “She’s not herself anymore. There isn’t a cure now, and there may never be.”

“Stand aside, Derrick,” Paul ordered, his own gun aimed directly at the struggling pair. Mike could see him weighing the options. Positioned as they were, a bullet that killed Jenni might also pass through into Derrick, the result would either kill him or infect him.

“No! You kill her, you kill me.”

“Listen to me,” Mike tried again to reason with him. “She’s gone. What’s left now would kill you and anyone else that got near her. Jenni’s gone, Derrick. She’s gone.”

“There’ll be a cure, Mr. Allard. I know it! Please, let her get cured.”

Seeing reason was not going to succeed given the young man’s current hysterical state, Mike did the only thing he could.

“Cuff her.”

“Mike,” Paul began, quickly silenced as his leader barked the command again.

“Just do it, dammit!”

* * *

Mike sat alone in the council room, a gray ball of fur curled around his feet where Gazelle slept. Many nights he woke violently from tortured sleep, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, as the memory played in his dreams. He cursed himself for the second of hesitation on that fall day. Derrick was right. Mike did not visit the tent in which Jenni was chained because he could not bring himself to face his failure. He did not blame himself for Jenni being attacked. He had lost many over the years to unfortunate twists of fate. No, he was wise enough to not accept blame for that which he could not control. Rather, the fault he felt was for letting his emotions prevent him from doing what had needed to be done.

Paul ducked into the room, pausing for permission to intrude. With chin on hand, Mike signaled consent with the raise of his eyebrow and a deep inhalation.

“You okay?” Paul asked as he crossed the room and occupied the chair to Mike’s left.

“You should have known him when he was my student. That kid was so determined to make something of his life. Even when the virus hit, he still kept everyone going,” Mike said, his hand gently scratching the side of his face. “I wanted to save him from this. I should have pulled the trigger a second sooner, but I was weak. I was weak and now they’re both gone.”

“It wasn’t weakness, Mike. And you can’t keep blaming yourself for that. Someone you knew for years was changing in front of you. You were in shock,” Paul said, trying to ease his friend’s guilt.

“That shot, yeah. But, I knew that letting her live would destroy him,” Mike continued, his voice soft and confessional. “I knew it when he pleaded with me for her life...I knew he was just as lost to us as she was then. That was the shot I needed to have taken.”

“No one would have taken that shot, Mike. I was there, remember? I could have pulled the trigger, too. It’s one thing to kill someone that’s transitioning, but no one can blame you, or me, for not killing someone that’s still healthy.”

Mike shook his head as he spoke, “Don’t you see, though? It will happen again. What we set in motion by letting her live, letting her be chained in a tent while we wait for a cure that may never come, it’s all going to happen again. Someone will get bit, and someone’s going to plead for mercy for their loved one. What happens when this camp is filled with infected chained in tents?”

“That’s not going to happen. That’s why we’re going to Cuba, Mike.”

Mike laughed. “Cuba. Yeah, and what do you think is going to happen when we reach the coast and they see us bringing an infected along for the trip? Any place that has cleared itself of the virus has certainly had to have been more decisive than we’ve been. Once they see we have an infected with us, they’re either going to refuse us passage or simply shoot us down where we stand.”

As Paul began to understand Mike’s reluctance to place all his faith in the supposed salvation of the southern island, the conversation drifted into a silence that stretched on into the night.

The infected coalesced from both directions as Mike Allard and the small group huddled with him continued empting round after round into the seething mass. His supply of ammunition was dwindling quickly, yet the numbers of infected seemed to multiply with alarming alacrity. The hall before him offered no opportunity for escape. Unable to turn around, Mike forced his memory to recall the large entry room, scanning the mental images for some means of egress. His mind’s eye passed quickly over the main doors, the thick glass windows, and the other doors of the room that led off to various hallways. Mike knew those exits were now impassable, having seen hordes of infected stumble through them moments earlier. His eyes drifted above him as an unlikely chance began to take shape in his mind.

“Erik,” Mike shouted over the loud din. The second-year senior, with shotgun blasting, stood with his back to Mike.

“Take down the ceiling above me!” Mike instructed, hoping the young man could hear him. In response, drywall and insulation rained down on Mike’s body. Two subsequent shots of Erik’s firearm had created a gaping hole in the ceiling above Mike, exposing the second floor.

Understanding Mike’s intentions, Derrick quickly boosted Jenni—with Gazelle tucked under her arm—into the darkness above them. Her hands grasped onto the metal support beams that framed the building. One by one, those around him were pulled up by outstretched arms, leaving just Mike and Erik losing ground as they tried to hold back the infected pressing down upon them. The congestion of dead bodies had slowed the advance of the infected as they scrambled over the fallen. Those behind, however, faced no such barrier.

“Go!” Mike ordered as he turned to hold back the infected in the entry room so Erik could escape. Once the young man reached the safety of the second floor, Mike stood ready to face the mortality that loomed darkly before him. Any attempt to climb up would allow the infected to charge unhindered, their predatory hands surely strong enough to pull him back down. The decreasing weight of his weapons indicated that the last remaining bullets were soon to be fired.

“Mr. A,” Erik shouted down above him. “The fire extinguisher!”

With a split-second glance to his right, Mike saw the debris-covered red canister that was hooked to the wall. Instincts beyond comprehension directed him to grab the extinguisher and hurl it forward at the infected who stood just a few feet from him. Hoping his aim would prove true, he directed both weapons downward and fired into the canister. The resulting explosion sent a thick cloud of white powder in all directions.

Holstering his firearms, Mike used the brief moment of blind confusion to jump towards the jagged opening ripped in the ceiling. He could feel hands clasp around his wrists and forearms as his body was dragged through the hole.

Without pause, he struggled to his feet and led the others through the moonlit hallway towards the emergency exit door and the staircase beyond. As they raced upwards, Mike could hear the grotesque raging growls of infected following several floors below. Reaching the top floor, he threw his weight against the metal door.

The unsullied evening air was a welcome relief from the scent of gunpowder and decay that hovered thickly within the building. Thinking quickly, Derrick slammed the door shut behind them and tried to find some way of locking it closed. Erik pulled a large metal cover off a ventilation unit and jammed it under the door handle. While it would not hold indefinitely, the hastily rigged blockade would allow the survivors a head start once the infected broke through.

Mike’s eyes strained in the dim light as he searched the rooftop. At the far end of the roof he could see the steel bars of a fire escape. Leading the others to it, he looked down the side of the building and was relieved to find no infected at the ladder’s base. Derrick, followed by Jenni, began the steep descent as Mike waited warily, eyes locked on the door as it was pounded relentlessly from within. As the last to start down, he kept one gun in his left hand, using his right to support his passage down. When he reached the halfway point, he could hear the door give way to the escalating pressure of the infected. Feet finally meeting the ground, Mike brought a finger to his lips to caution silence. Their shadowed forms moved through the night towards another building in the distance. Mike hoped that this building was far enough from the main hall and the infected that now filled it.

Moments later, the still-stunned escapees found themselves in what was clearly a small barracks. The one-story building was compromised of a sleeping area with a dozen or so cots, a bathroom with multiple showers and stalls, and an undersized living area furnished with two couches and a television. Mike quickly set about making sure all exits were secure. The barracks lacked many windows, which he counted as a blessing given the number of infected on the base. Once several large trunks had barricaded the front and rear entrance, he turned to assess what remained of the party that had originally sought refuge that afternoon.

Of the twenty-two that had reached the base, only nine now remained, himself included. Mike found the familiar faces of Jenni, Derrick, Michelle, and Erik. Sarah Weyland sat on one of the cots as she clung to her son Andrew tightly. Blaine Grimson and Josh Sorenson occupied two other cots, the latter shivering with fear.
So few
, Mike thought to himself. Anger grew within him as all the efforts he had expended to keep his students safe had been erased so violently and so quickly.
We left one hell only to be stranded in another
. Reaching the military base had been the full extent of his planning. Desperation and disappointment placed their icy grip upon him as his mind searched fruitlessly for the answer to the screaming question,
What now
?

The faces of those around him were paralyzed with fear as tears tracked their faces, the horror of what had occurred filling them with defeat. Mike could not find the words to console or encourage. His own heart hung heavy with the same emotions. No longer able to lead with strength and conviction, he simply took his place among the weary, sitting with them in silence as the dark of the night passed into the waking of the dawn.

* * *

The nine refugees, as Mike had begun to think of them, had found no sleep since the attack. They kept their movements infrequent, fearing the slightest chance to alert the infected to their presence. When the faint slashes of light cut into the room from behind the barricaded window and doors, he knew it was time for action, but, try as he had during the last few hours, he could see no viable plan. The prolonged silence served as evidence that none of those present knew what to do next and were unwilling to put voice to such a dire predicament.

“Yeah, so we’re pretty much screwed, right?” Erik intoned. In the two years Mike had known him, the teen had never been one to follow the social norms of any situation. In the classroom, he had often delivered scolding looks towards Erik when he made such remarks. This new world however, had already broken previously held standards, and Mike found himself amused by the youth’s impudence. The comment, perhaps inappropriate, had served well in opening the discussion as to what their next steps should be.

Wherever they headed, it was clear that they would need to retrieve at least one of the vehicles since travel on foot would be highly dangerous. How exactly they would manage that endeavor was tabled for later discussion. As for the destination, the small group seemed to agree that the less populated their goal the better. Surprisingly, it was the twelve year old boy who provided them with the solution.

“When we went camping last summer, remember that cabin we saw on the cliff?” Andrew asked his mother. “Why don’t we go there?”