The Scare
“Abi! Time to get up.”
I manage a small groan as a response, beginning to heave my heavy bones up out of my pit which I look dolefully at when I stumble up out of it. Ruing my choice of getting out of warm covers to get ready in cold bathrooms and kitchens I begin the morning ritual.
Half an hour after all the palaver of a Monday morning I sling my cream skull bag on my shoulder and waltz out of the door. Whilst briskly walking down my usual street my brain wanders to how strange Mum had been this morning. When I’d gotten up it was half an hour after I should have been woken, then it seemed as if she was trying to keep me at home.
Almost as swiftly as these thoughts come into my mind, they develop into anger. I have to admit, looking at my watch probably didn’t help. 15 minutes. I have 15 minutes to get to school and I live at least 30 away. Stupid Mum, I’ll just have to be late and she’ll just have to deal with the impersonal phone call home asking why I was late.
Unable to shake this morning from my head, scenes keep replaying over and over again, each time I notice a new detail. How Mum had held onto Nate so tightly she hurt him, how she seemed to try and keep things normal but really didn’t, how she offered to give Ben a lift to his school up the road. Mostly I remember her eyes creased with worry, her mouth permanently rigid with false smiles. Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong.
When my already pounding feet turn into the next road a scene of carnage
hits me like a 10 tone truck. Blood splashes all over the pavement, draining into side sewers on each side of the road. I recoil in horror as my eyes lock onto seven dead bodies in the middle of the tarmac. Each one physically unrecognizable as human beings, having been disfigured with: bite marks; slashes to every part of them; and to my utter disgust some of their eyes are strewn across the road like golf balls on a golfing range.
Unable to hold back the oncoming waves of nausea, I buckle over at the side of the road vomiting into one of the drains. Breath comes quickly now, ragged almost tearing at my throat and hot tears roll down my pale cheeks. Blanching again at the sight of grey tissue oozing out of one corpses head, I shakily reach for my phone.
Silence.
It rings out, something does not make sense. If these cadavers have been here all night –as they look like they have- why has no-one else reported them. Eyes scan the nearest house, empty it’s been totally gutted and the same with the next house and the next.
Fear strikes at my very core, relentlessly smashing at my nerves until I crawl on my hands and knees to the nearest body. A young boy, I think I remember him from when I walk in the morning; I always used to pass him at the shop. Tremors fill my body, undoubtedly these are plague victims. All have a blue tinge to their skin, not due to cold but their veins have expanded underneath their cracked skin. When plague strikes you, you become addled your brain becomes obsessed with anger and everything seems to annoy you.
Beside him lies what I presume to be his sister, except you can’t tell as his fingers are embedded in her skull and I also guess that her eyes must be around here somewhere.
Pain, both sudden and flaring comes from my leg. I jerk my head to see what it is but I could have guessed without doing so. One of them wasn’t dead, it’s fingers lie deep within pale tissue of my thigh. Gurgles come from it’s diseased mouth, it’s a father, big and fat compared to me, it releases it’s fingers taking with it a chunk of flesh.
High pitched screams erupt from my throat, thank God they did because someone comes rushing down the road. I can hear their heavy footfalls.
Bang.
More black blood spills onto my face, down my white blouse mixing with my own from my injured leg. Sleep tempts me but I try to resist, a startled thought of death creeps into my head which I too try to resist. Slumped next to me is the father, bullet deep within his head, having shattered his skull.
Dark hair swims into my vision, an Asian man stands before me but before I can understand with my tired brain what he wants, his strong arms lift me onto his shoulders. Lying on him, I try to speak but a voice sounding like cream tells me to stop, to conserve my energy. How cliché.
In front of me I can just make out large black vans, at least three, waiting to receive me and what I presume to be a doctor ushering my soldier on. With an outburst of energy he runs into the van, horrid odours assault already weak senses when he hands me over to another man. There is another person in here, low rattling breaths come from the opposite green padded bed.
“Well it’s not the worst Hon’ tell me, did a man, woman or child bite you?” Pale faces loom above me, a doctor comes over armed with a tourniquet and needle when he asked me this simple question.
“I-I think it was a man b-b-ut I really couldn’t tell…his fa-ace was all…”
“Alright love, I’m just going to give you a shot o.k.?”
“No. I hate shots. Do I really need it, lets face it I’m going to die anyway?” Tears of pain or sadness creep down my face as I resign myself to the inescapable truth.
“Don’t be silly; what would make you think that?”
“Dru you shouldn’t give her false hope, yeah there’s a strong chance that you won’t survive. I won’t lie to you. I think that someone as smart as you should just take the shot right…it’s possible you could turn into one of those ‘Onyx Eyes’.” One of the soldiers whispers next to my ear, he places a worn hand onto a cheek looking deep into my eyes.
“You can’t wish that upon such a young girl! She can’t turn into one of them, I won’t allow it. Hush Sweetie it won’t hurt one bit.” Dru coos, slipping a red tourniquet onto my tremoring arm, tightening it and heightening my fear.
“I don’t feel so hot.” I gasp
“O.K. Darlin’ just tell me what you feel like, do you need anything?”
Suddenly my throat tightens, no air can travel down into my screaming cells, and coldness begins to seep into me. Soon after terror increases as fire spreads everywhere in my body it feels like every single cell is imprisoned inside a burning inferno, poison surfs my blood infecting all of my veins. It hits my heart with the ferocity of a scorned lover, sending it into spasm.
Above me Dru jumps into action, removing the tourniquet replacing it with a cool ice pack. Nausea attacks me, but not in anyway I’ve felt before. Pain flares even more inside my traumatized body, I try to double over in pain but Dru holds me back. My soldier holds me down onto the bed as something silver flashes above. Tension eases in my lungs, air sweeps in and out once more. Without knowing my head is over the side of the bed, with crimson blood in a fountain out of my mouth. Out of sheer fear I grab for anyone close to me with every intention not to let go.
In the midst of all this everyone stops immediately when I look up, horror plasters all over their faces. Tears still creep down my face but instead of the cool feel of water they burn deep red welts down my face.
“Look at me.” A new soldier runs into the van, points a gun to my face then cocks the trigger.
“Why are you pointing that at me? Do you have any idea what I’ve just gone through! You rat!” Anger bubbles through my body as I lose control; quickly grabbing the gun from his hand I point it to his head.
“She’s got ‘Onyx Eyes’ Commander, only just turned Sir she needs a little more time to complete the transformation.” Dru dictates, busing herself with tidying up my blood.
“Dru, you don’t have to do that. I will clean it, don’t want you getting ill now do we?” I smile, a small thump echoes around the van when I throw the gun onto my bed.
“No Dear you’re quite alright, it’s my job you know. I feel a little awkward calling you pet names all the time, what is your name?”
“Her name is Abigail Matthews, she’s 17 and it’s her birthday in a month exactly.” Soldier smirks as he closes the great van doors and darkness enfolds the carriage for a moment until Dru switches on lights around the place.
“How do you know all of that?” I stammer
“We are the army Abi; we have all of your information at the touch of a button. You needn’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Since you know my name, can I know yours? In my head I’ve just been calling you Soldier; I can imagine that I will be doing some sort of service for the army now so I’ll need to know.”
“Takeshi Yagami.”
“A pleasure to meet you Takeshi, did I pronounce that right?”
“Yes, unusually. You must have read a lot of manga to pick that up, or should I say listened to a lot of anime.” Takeshi smirks
“Abi has better thing to do than to cater to your sarcastic comments if you’re going to be an idiot, you’d best leave.” Dru orders then turns to address me “You’ve still got a big ordeal to go through yet sweetie, I’ll explain all of it later…now I’ve got to help this poor guy out. I don’t think he’s going to be as lucky as you.”
“What do you mean? He won’t survive or he’s going to become one of those infected humans?” My voice a quiver a part of me not wanting to find out the answer.
“We hope everyone will but Takeshi is going to stay here if he turns on us.”
“Yes Ma’ams!”
He mock salutes from over in the corner, I can expect that the man in the bed would find a soldier looming above him very off-putting...When I think about suffering the pain I was in I hardly expect him to be paying attention. Even from this distance I can see a cold sweat across his forehead, one of those beard moustache combo’s and one serious bite mark on his arm.
Wait I recognize that beard moustache combo, but it can’t be. Can it? I hope not. If it is who I think it is he shouldn’t be in this situation, he should be at school teaching ungrateful students how to pass their English exams.
“Who is he?” I ask Takeshi who has been looking at me strangely since I noticed the man lying in the corner bed.
“I am not at liberty to divulge his personal data with you, unless you know him?”
“I think I do, is his name Daniel?”
“You have a second name with that?” Arms folded across his khaki padded jacket, eyebrow cocked upwards with an impish gleam to his eyes
“Thornton, Daniel Thornton.” I growl
“We found him today, car wrecked on the road…bitten and close to death; well he’s still pretty close to death now. He won’t last the night.” Takeshi sighs “I do hate it when I have to shoot these creatures, they can’t help that they ended up like this.”
“There’s a solution to that then, just don’t do it. Anyway I wont let you shoot him, I know him.”
“Darlin’ Takeshi wont take that as a reason. Besides we have an experimental vaccine going on now which might be able to help him.” Dru smiles while she ushers Takeshi away from (um well what do you call a teacher in your head? I suppose it’ll still have to be Mr. Thornton) Mr. Thornton.
“Well we may not need to, but all I’m saying is that I don’t like doing it. I’ll probably get the Commander to do it, he relishes things like this.” Takeshi states his voice dipping a little just in case the Commander is still around.
“Why?! That’s so horrible, that mean son of a b***h!!!” My voice seems to scream out of my mouth reverberating off the metal walls of the truck
“Shh please you’ll get us into trouble. He doesn’t like being talked about behind his back, anyway too much yelling is bad for the patient.” Dru soothes
Dru hooks up another IV to Mr. Thornton’s arm, not having to pierce his already pale skin with yet another needle; instead she uses a little blue device on his arm. I’ve had one of these before, I hated every minute of it. It’s like a tap to your veins where chemicals can flood in to aid your bodies fleeing white blood cells. Besides the disgusting metaphor of a tap I just thought of, it hurts like hell.
Leaning against one of the walls in a steadily moving truck I think about how my life has changed in mere moments, my main worry was that I forgot my chemistry homework. Not ‘Am I going to get bitten by an angry infected person and meet a totally handsome (if not a bit jerkish) soldier?’. Now I’m headed for God knows where, and I’ll be stuck in this truck for God knows how long and it’s going to be a heck of a long ride
