Z-Virus (3 page)

"I was totally disturbed. I was angry. I want to avenged my father’s death. So I chased after them, but it was too late, they had already ran away. I tripped my self just in front of our house yard. The rain was heavy that night, thunder clapping and zapping through the night sky. I cried and screamed out loud. My heart broke into thousand pieces. That was when a man in a black trench coat with a hat and black mask reached me and . . ."

"Tink!" We had reach the top floor.

"And?" I asked.

"We have to go now and do the search right away." She was avoiding my question and started walking out of the elevator. I followed her just a few inches behind her. She has her gun ready and so am I. I looked at her gun again, she has it on and I started searching on my belt. She noticed what I was doing. "What are you up to?" She said.

"I am looking for my silencer. You had it on your gun so I think I should have it too." I replied.

"You should have been prepared before you get here."

"I know. I’m sorry." I feel rather like an idiot to be educated by someone much younger than me. "So how we do find this Dr. O’Neil’s office?"

"There. Just ahead of us." She pointed with her index finger. Again I feel like a moron. I ask things without looking or analyzing around me first. Good job Travis. So much for your hero story. The door obviously labelled written with a name Dr. Edward O’Neil. She went ahead of me first and opened the door slowly. It was pretty much annoying that the door produced creaking sound like an old wooden house. His office was quite huge. In the middle where lies his desk were full with files and paperworks. Through the right was standing four wooden shelves filled with books. Most of the books were references, all science related books such as chemistry, biology and physic. There were some mathematic books as well also astronomies, medication, animals and some books regarding to Artificial Intelligence and Case Classified Area Fifty-One. She was right. These scientists were mad. To the left was a massive white board where I guess Dr. O’Neil’s wrote his formulas about his new foundation recepies. At the back of Dr. O’Neil’s desk was a massive potrait of all the scientists and staff of Newton Corp. Of course in the middle was Dr. Edward O’Neil and his partner Dr. Richard Ross. They were smiling, faces showing a true success. But something on the potrait attracted my attention. "Who was that? The man in the left back? He dressed and wears differently than the others." I tossed the question to the lady.

"That was Dr. Victor Lockhart. He worked alone and never socialized with the other scientists. I heard rumours about him. He never succeeded in his lab tests and experiments. He envied Dr. O’Neil and Dr. Ross success. Bad tempered as hell. Strangely enough he went missing for twelve years before this pandemic started, the same year when my father was killed and the missing of Dr. Richard Ross."

"Where did they go to?" I wondered.

"No one knows but some of Dr. Lockhart colleagues told Newton’s staff he was in distressed and committed suicide. He left a note on his desk in his office. Saying that he’s already in Heaven and for Dr. Richard Ross, he’s just vanished. No news, no anything."

"That’s really sad. He could have done something better than killing himself."

"No one knows how hard it is to be that someone not until you were in his or her place. I used to experience the same thing. A cut on a skin will heal as time passes by, but a cut in the heart will stay, and no medicine can heal that." 

I can understand why she said that. It was not easy to be her or as Dr. Lockhart. But I am glad she is much wiser than that distressed doctor. The missing of Dr. Ross sounds more tragic to me. There must have been some serious conflicts back then. I saw she started searching the cabinet, then the desk and the drawers. I was looking through the shelves just in case something was hidden there.

"It’s locked." She said. "The last drawer is locked." She added. She pointed her gun to the drawer directly to the key hole. “Bang!” She had shot it.

"What is it?" I asked her.

"There’s a letter. Written by Dr. O’Neil himself." She picked up the letter from the drawer. On the letter it wrote, "To those who found this, this is your answer."

She opened the letter and it read,

“So now that you are in possession of this letter, whoever you are, if you’re a good person then you’ll save this dying planet. But if you’re an evil person then it means this is the end of days. I wrote this letter for a reason. I know that some day and some times in the future bad things would happen. It is a plan that I’ve been keeping to myself. Just in case. If you read this, then that bad thing had already happened. I created something that would save humanity from extinction like diseases. Eventhough I succeeded, I also invented something out of the public eyes. I worked this out with my partner Dr. Richard Ross and kept it somewhere in the city. But to get it, you need the pendant. The pendant was with my wife Elizabeth, but she died of cancer I couldn’t find the cure. She wore it around her neck and is buried with her in her grave. Look out for her grave and hopefully you’ll find the answer.”

Dr. Edward O’Neil

"We need to dig up her grave. There is only one graveyard in Greendale and that is Raven’s Hill."

"This is insane. After all the trouble getting here we need to dig up a dead woman’s grave?" I seriously going about crazy. "We don’t know what might wait for us out there! It’s the grave! Bunch of dead people! How do we sure that they are not infected or we could be saved there? What are the chances?"

"You have such a big mouth Travis, you’re acting like a little girl. Really." 

"Excuse me?" Those words stung me.

"Enough okay? We have a job to do. I understand your worries but we have to do this."

"How can you be sure he was telling the truth in that letter? What if he intentionally wrote the letter to distract us from searching this room? The answer probably here!"

"Yeah, and we already got it." She raised the letter she was holding on her left hand.

"I know Dr. O’Neil well. He wouldn’t play games with this. Now are you coming with me or we can go separate ways now?" She said with eyes full of determination.

"Fine!" I finally gave up protesting.

"Good." She walked towards the door and started opening it. Suddenly something burst forward as soon as the door was opened. “Duck!” I shouted to her. She responded immediately and avoided the attacked by jumping and crouching to the left side. They were two, three then four coming inside. One a woman and three others were men. The undead. I signaled the lady not to make a noise. The walkers were blind but it was still unfortunate for us that we were within three meters range and not making a foot step noise seem impossible. I had an idea. I picked up the fallen books from the floor and started throwing them one by one at the right  back of the desk. They reacted to the sound as soon as the books dropped to the floor. As they were started running to the books, we rushed towards the door going straight for the elevator. I ran first then followed by her. The walkers were so fast that one of them caught the lady’s hair and pull her backwards. “Oh no you don’t! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!” The sound from my silver desert eagle was so loud. I had no idea how I did it, but I shot every one of them right to their skulls. They were pulverizing before they stop trembling and eventually died. I fucked up their brains. I didn’t even realized how did I switched my gun with the silencer, with my silver desert eagle. Everything went too fast. 

"You didn't tell me that you’re good with guns." She said while lying breathlessly on the floor. "I guess I never did." I was shocked too you know.

"Thank you." She thanked me with a weird smile.

"Not a big deal. So now we’re even." She was smiling when I said the words. "Come on, let me help you get up." I reached for her hand and went inside the elevator.

"Claireese." She said. "Claireese Johnson."

"What?" I was dumbstuck. She was only smiling.

"Oh! Well . . . Nice to meet you Claireese."

"Just called me Claire."

"Right!" I pushed the ground floor button and the elevator started to descent.

Chapter 6 

The Grave

As soon as we reached the ground floor, we went out for my truck. From the far view I saw something in the back of my truck, jumping and moving about left and right. It took my eyes some times to adjust the view from the far distance. To my surprise it was Prince!

"Hey buddy how did you get in here?! How am I so glad to see you!" I was so happy that I almost cried. Prince seemed happy too. He won’t stop licking on my face not until I have to push him back.

"That’s kind of gross." Claire said.

"Oh sorry, Claire this is my friend Prince. I came with him earlier before we stumble with each other." I clarified.

"I thought he was a guy?"

"Well no. He’s been a good friend when I have none."

"Good for you." she said. "So now if I am not mistaken we’ve got something to do yes?" Claire added.

"Yeah we should go now. We shouldn’t be wasting anymore time now. Get the job done, everyone’s happy."

"Raven’s Hill shouldn’t be that far from here, just about five miles." We both get inside the truck, and let Prince sat on the back seat. The open air at the back of my truck wouldn't guarantee his safety. I started my truck and drove away. During our way to Raven’s Hill, I couldn’t help myself but to stare at her. She didn’t notice it as she was looking outside from the window of my truck. Then she started talking to me. "Whats with the glare? You would burn me away with that sharp look." She caught me red handed. I was embarrassed. What the fuck Travis. Then she continued talking, "You have a nice truck." she said.

"Thank you." I replied while smiling and blushing.

"Where do you lived?" She asked.

"I don’t really have a place to live, not even a house. I actually stay and live in my truck and I saved almost 90% of my salary from that. No bills and all. I only have to worry about petrol. As you already know, which is obvious I am a trucker." I explained. "Not until this pandemic started then I own a whole apartment to live." I added.

"Apartment? Where?" She looked curious.

"Yep, an apartment, in Brooksville."

"No way! Brooksville?!" She was shocked.

"Yes Brooksville. Why you seemed like you just seen a living dead eating me?" 

"You mean you came somewhere from the Cornfield of Brooksville and actually living there now?"

"Yes Claire. What about it?" I suspected something strange.

"I used to live around the area when I was small with my adopted father Jonathan Johnson. Our house was at Bartson Street, just near to the cornfield. I know the apartment you’re talking about exactly in front of the cornfield at Cornfield Street. My father used to take me to the cornfield during the weekends. There were a large empty space at the far back of the cornfield. We were flying kites. It was the most memorable thing I’ve ever had with a family member. Now it was just a bitter memory." She was emotional and breaking up softly.

"I am sorry Claire."

"It’s okay." She tried to calm herself. "I think we’re almost there." A view of graves over the hill was slowly visible as we went near to our destination. The time on my watch shows 11.35 hours in the morning. But it was odd enough that the mist on the graves were still available during this kind of hour. I know that behind the graves over the top of Raven’s Hill was a thick forest but that doesn’t explain the mist how it appears around the area. It wasn’t even raining earlier. There was no sign of water on the ground or on the road. "This place looks creepy." I said to Claire.

"You’ll get used to it." She replied. I have no idea how she could lived by herself all this time. She was a high spirited woman and knew what she does. 

“Come on buddy, let’s get out of the truck now." I brought along Prince with us to the graves, you know just in case if something’s happen he’s the one to be alerted first. We walked to the graves while carefully examining around us for the walkers if any were spying on us. Everything seemed alright and we began searching the graves one by one. I thought to myself it would be easy if the graves were arranged alphabetically so we didn’t have to search every grave for it. The graves were randomly arranged and this makes the search difficult and longer. Finally, "I found it!" Said Claire. I ran toward her with Prince. "This should be it, Elizabeth J. O’Neil (1984 –2022)" 

"Great! Now wait here I’ll get those shovels out from my truck." I quickly ran back to my truck and grabbed the shovels from behind the truck where Prince sat earlier with opened air. To my cautious I found a walker just walking past my truck. I froze and held my breath for few seconds. The walker stop for a moment. His head move from left to right as if he was looking for something. To my relieved he went forward and continue walking. When I thought it was saved, then I ran back to the graves. Claire greeted me with a weird grinned on her face and said, "That was close. I thought you were about to shoot him, which I wish you don’t, because if you did more of them gonna come up here and eat us all."

"I’m not that stupid. That’s why I stopped." I answered. We dug off the grave, it was a long work and very tiring it took us almost two hours to get it done until finally I hit the coffin just few inches deep from the soil. Quickly we dug of the last remaining soil until the coffin clearly visible in front of us. I opened the coffin with the support of the shovel and applied a little bit pressure to it then suddenly it cracked open. The smell from the coffin was almost choking us to death. The corpse was not completely decomposed. I took off the silver rectangular shaped pendant from around the corpse's neck and quickly close the coffin back. Claire went up first then she helped me out of the grave. 

"We should honor her. She’s a strong woman to fight cancer all her life." Claire said.

"Yes, I believe she was." I agreed to what Claire has said. We shoved off back the soil to the grave and prayed for her to live an eternal happiness in the afterlife.

Chapter 7