Dead Soil | Book 3 | Dead World, page 18
part #3 of Dead Soil Series
“I got it,” she said without hesitation, moving forward with her bat to take care of it.
A whoosh of wind whipped past her, rustling her curly hair on her cheek. Olivia made it to the zombie before Imani had time to realize what was going on. The teen rose her bat straight over her head as she ran at top speed, crying out like a warrior on the frontlines. She jumped into the air as she approached the walking corpse and drove her bat down onto the top of its head. The zombie froze in place, its mouth still open to take a bite of the fresh meat approaching it though no longer chewing and clacking its teeth. The bat made a crater in its skull that dipped down all the way to its eyes, making them look sideways and misshapen. Olivia heaved. She looked like a madwoman ready to snap.
The heavy body dropped to the ground all at once but Olivia kept going. She raised her bat and smashed it into the corpse’s face, pulverizing it until it was nothing more than a pile of brains and blood, over and over again until her arms ached. Blood splattered her face, getting in her eyes and on her lips but she didn’t care. She couldn’t stop. The blood mixed with the tears that streamed down until they were one. Again and again she swung her bat until it was cracking the blacktop beneath what used to be a head.
A hand grabbed her from behind with force and pulled her away. She turned, ready to strike with her bat again. It stopped within inches of smashing into Imani’s temple, though Imani never flinched from it. She pulled her friend into her arms, despite the blood and gore covering Olivia from head to toe.
“I can’t believe he’s really gone,” Olivia sobbed into Imani’s hoodie.
“I know,” Imani said as she stroked the back of Olivia’s soft hair, “me too. But we’ll get through this. I promise.”
Olivia nodded and wiped at her face with her arms, seeing the streaks of blood left behind but choosing to ignore it for now.
“We should get back,” Imani coaxed gently. Olivia complied, letting Imani wrap her arm around her shoulder as they walked. Close behind them Luke followed, always looking over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed. He kept a safe distance away from the crazy girl capable of any horror imaginable, or at least that’s what he thought of her after that display. He had wanted to tell her off after almost hitting Imani but couldn’t muster the nerve to do it. Instead, he watched her closely and let his fear and worry stew inside him.
Time moved steadily as they walked. Olivia looked up at the sky, searching for the moon hidden behind a veil of thick clouds, the stars nowhere to be found. She imagined Lee up there with his family looking down on her. No matter what happened from then on, she would make sure she made him proud. He died trying to save these people. His death would not be in vain. Olivia promised herself, and Lee, that she would be the one to protect them from that day forward, no matter what they faced. She wouldn’t hesitate to put her own life on the line for them because that’s what Lee had done.
When they got back to the bunker they found everyone gathered in the common room in a tight cluster. They seemed nervous and lost, like a flock of sheep that could smell the scent of a wolf in the wind. They looked on at Olivia, Luke, and Imani as if they had been expecting someone else. In fact, Olivia knew they’d been expecting someone else, someone unfriendly by the guard posted at the bunker entrance. He was less of a guard and more of a nervous twenty-something untrained bunker dweller, but it was better than nothing if there truly was a threat.
“What’s going on?” Olivia asked the first person she saw, a middle-aged woman with wavy hair and a loose blouse covered in tiny flowers.
“The disappearances,” the woman said with her eyes narrowed and brow knit, as if angry that Olivia wasn’t already aware of the issue.
“What disappearances?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Where have you been, girl?’ she asked, rudely. “Mac, Carolyn, Jeffrey, Cyrus, Timothy, that other boy, the murderer, the sick girl and her black friends,” she rattled off names without giving her a second glance, “they all went up there and they all haven’t returned.”
Now it was Olivia’s turn to give the woman an annoyed glare. “Well, first off, I’m the sick girl. Olivia. Nice to meet you. And my black friends,” she repeated venomously, “have names. Imani and Luke. We’re all right here. Just got back.”
“I see the murderer is still at large,” she spat, looking from Olivia to Imani to Luke.
It took everything Olivia had inside her not to slap the woman across the face. These were the people Lee died trying to get medicine for? The ones she then swore to protect? She shook her head and decided it was best to just walk away and find someone saner to talk to. She settled for the elderly man standing next to the woman.
With a tap on his shoulder she had his attention. “This woman is a nutjob,” she said without a care, pointing her thumb at the rude woman she’d just talked to, “but maybe you can tell me what’s going on here. What is everyone so upset about?”
He gave the woman next to him a sidelong glance, as if he had dealt with her attitude before as well. “Well, two by two people keep going up to the surface and none of them are coming back,” he said simply as he tucked his hands into the pockets of his Wranglers. “First Mac and Carolyn. Then Jeff and Cy. Now Tim and Sam. Folks are getting worried. We have a problem, and not the undead kind.”
Olivia stared up at him, confusion taking over her face. The rude woman rolled her eyes and put her hand on her hip haughtily. “They’re saying we might have a people problem instead of a zombie problem.” Her sharp tone told Olivia just what she thought of her.
“Thanks, Karen, I got it.”
“My name’s not Karen,” the woman shot back, now her face pinched in confusion.
Olivia didn’t bother to explain. The man next to her chuckled beneath his white mustache. She still didn’t really understand what was going on but she would never admit it to that woman. The man seemed to pick up on it and went further into his explanation.
“Yup, folks are speculating there might be a group up there picking us off as we go up.”
Olivia looked to Imani who shrugged her shoulders in return. “We were just up there and we didn’t see anything.”
“Yeah, no one shot at us, no one tried to grab us, there were no zombies lurking around even. It was dead quiet.”
“Alls I know is what they’re saying,” he replied shortly.
“Thanks,” Olivia said, this time meaning it genuinely.
By that time, everyone gathered had started to notice Olivia, Imani, and Luke’s return. People shifted around them, questions flying at rapid speed.
“How was it out there?”
“Where’s Lee?”
“Did you find any medicine for that poor fellow?”
“What’d you see up there?”
“Were you attacked?”
“What’s all the blood from?”
Olivia started to feel dizzy from the close quarters and lack of fresh air. She took a step back. “QUIET!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. It did the trick. Everyone backed off a little bit and shut their mouths. No one wanted to talk back to the girl covered head to toe in someone else’s blood.
“We didn’t see anyone else up there aside from a few of the dead. Nothing we couldn’t handle,” she started, giving them the surface of their experience so she wouldn’t have to relive it. She went into her jeans pocket and pulled out the bottle of antibiotics, thrusting it up into the air like a trophy. “And look what Lee found! He died trying to save Rowan’s life, so you can all stop accusing him of murder. Rowan will be on the road to recovery tonight.” Wetness gathered in her eyes at the mention of Lee, her hand gripping the bottle tightly and shaking a bit.
A heavy silence settled in. Where people were shifting and talking before they now stood still and avoided looking at the girl with the bottle of medicine lifted into the air.
“What?” she asked, lowering her hand slowly, “What’s wrong?”
She looked at the man who had talked to her before, the only friendly face she now recognized in a sea of strangers. With Carolyn and Mac and Lee gone, Rowan incapacitated, there was no familiar face to gaze upon. He looked back at her with turned down eyes, his face drooping even more than it did naturally. His hand shot up to rub through his thick white hair. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” he started to say in a slow drawl, “but the boy died.”
Olivia stood frozen, afraid to take a single breath. “What?” she asked in a whisper.
“He passed a few hours ago, darlin’. I’m so sorry.”
The tears were getting harder to hold back now as they gathered and overpowered her vision. “Can I see him?” she asked softly, her throat tight and dry.
“It’d be best if you didn’t,” he said shaking his head. “When he passed he came back as one of them. How in the hell that happened we still can’t figure it out, but we had to…put him down. His body is still in his room. We didn’t know if it was safe to go to the surface to bury him, but it ain’t pretty. We were all pretty panicked. No one expected him to open his eyes and try to…” The man’s voice tapered off when he saw the look on the teenage girl’s face.
It was all too much for Olivia. The grief hit her like a tidal wave, knocking her off her feet until she fell to her knees. No one rushed to comfort her. They stood at a safe distance, watching the heartbreaking scene before them, silently judging her display of emotions. The man who’d been talking looked like he wanted to reach out at first but instead he forced his arms to rest at his side, clenching and unclenching his fists nervously.
“He gave his life for nothing,” she cried to no one.
The woman from before gave a huff, the only one ready to put her two-cents in. “He died senselessly at the hands of an oaf, that’s for sure. And so young,” she said, clucking her tongue and shaking her head.
“Not Rowan,” Olivia cried out, unable to control her volume through the pain. “Lee!”
“Lee never would have lost his life if he hadn’t beaten Rowan to death in the first place.”
Olivia’s tears dried up immediately, as if someone had turned off the tap to her eyes. She sat up straight and whipped around, her stick-straight hair flowing over one shoulder. “What did you say?”
She stared at Luke hard, the rage inside her consuming her brown eyes until they were almost black.
"Let's just take a step back," Imani said, placing herself between Olivia and her dad.
Olivia searched the crowd gathered in the living quarters again, glancing over the people until she saw the familiar face she was looking for. Svend stood in the back, several feet away from anyone else. How she had missed him before, she didn’t know. He leaned, the sole of his boot pressed firmly into the wall to prop himself up as he fiddled with something in his hand. She stood and walked over to him, deciding it best to ignore Luke and his comments rather than do something she might regret later.
When she reached Svend he seemed to not notice her standing in front of him at all. She saw that what he was holding and moving meticulously in his giant fingers was a small piece of wood. He was carving something. "I didn't see you when I came in," she said to break the ice. He didn't look up or acknowledge her. He just kept carving. "Look, I know you and Lee were out there together, hunting down the medicine I needed to, you know, so I wouldn’t die. Thanks." Still nothing, not even a glance. "I don't really know how to say this, or even accept it as reality yet, but while I was out there, we...I...Lee..." she stumbled over her words until she gave up with a sigh and hung her head. "He's dead."
A large hand reached out and held something in its palm under her turned down face. "What's this?"
"It is for you," he said in the thick accent she'd come to find endearing.
She took the carved wood in her hand and turned it over, rubbing her thumb across its smooth surface. It was in the shape of a beautiful cross, etched with intricate and old-fashioned designs. Her gaze rose to his. "Thank you," she whispered as she closed her fingers around the carving. "How did you know?"
Svend pushed himself from the wall to stand a good foot taller than her. He looked down, his ice-blue eyes calm like the placid waters of a fjord. "I just know."
Without a thought, Olivia threw her arms around Svend's waist and held onto him tightly. It wasn't the same feeling she got when she seeked comfort in Lee, but it was close. Svend was familiar now, and a friend. He saw things differently than the rest of them, just like Lee had.
Just then a loud crash echoed from the darkened hallway leading to the hatch. BANG! BANG! BANG! It was as if some unearthly form was knocking to gain entrance, a monster from some movie that never should exist. The hatch hinges creaked as it opened and then there was another bang as it slammed back down. People started to panic, huddling closer together as a few large and confident men stepped in front of everyone else. Svend was one of them, leaving Olivia alone at the back of the room while he walked forward with determination, his hand on his axe and his boots stomping into the dirt.
Another creak but this time the hatch was thrown open. No one could see through the blackness, but there was no denying it was open when it wasn't followed by another loud bang of it crashing closed again. Soft, uneven footsteps stepped onto the first wrung of the metal ladder and slowly made its way down. The people whispered frantically to each other, trying to fill the eerie silence with something other than the impending intruder's footsteps as they made it to the dirt floor and started to shuffle forward, one foot dragging behind the other. A soft moan echoed down the corridor.
"Oh, God," someone cried out in a soft whisper.
The footsteps were painfully slow as they drug across the dirt, as if the person were crawling rather than walking upright. Olivia pushed her way to the front of the group, picking her bat up off the floor where she'd left it. Imani stood next to her as they joined Svend. Luke had skillfully melted back into the safety of the crowd.
"On three," one of the men at the forefront whispered, large metal wrench in hand. "One. Two..."
The figure emerged from the shadows and stepped into the light, one arm outstretched, the skin on its hand bubbling and peeling grotesquely.
"Wait!" Olivia yelled and dropped her bat. She ran up to the person as they came into the light, revealing who they were. "Carolyn!"
Olivia placed her arm around Carolyn's waist and propped her up to help her over to the couch. Her face was so swollen and discolored it was almost impossible to recognize her. In fact, if it wasn't for her long mermaid-wavy blonde hair Olivia would never have known who it was. Her jeans were covered in mud and ripped at the knees. Her t-shirt was torn at the shoulders and hanging off in rags. And her hands. They were so badly burned they had turned a bright, shiny red and were already secreting pus as blisters popped and oozed. She held them out in front of her, afraid to let anything come near them. No wonder she had dropped the hatch so many times before opening it. The pain that simple act must have caused her was unimaginable to the people staring at her.
"What happened to you?" Olivia asked, her eyes wide and searching her friend.
"Where's Mac?" a woman yelled from the crowd. One guess who, Olivia thought as she helped Carolyn to the couch and sat her down.
Everyone started to close in on her. Carolyn pressed herself into the back of the couch, her breath coming in rapid bursts, her one eye that wasn't swollen shut bulging from its socket.
"OK, everyone back up!" Olivia yelled at them, shooing them away with her hands. "Give her some space!" Then she turned and knelt at Carolyn's knees, looking up at her but not pressing her to speak before she was ready to.
"Mac is dead," Carolyn declared louder than anyone was expecting, louder than she looked capable of in her state. "We were ambushed and I was taken by a group of people."
"What people?"
"Where?"
"How could this happen?"
A string of questions rose and then blended together as everyone talked at once. Olivia was done telling them what to do. If they didn't have enough common sense to be quiet and listen to what Carolyn had to say then they'd have to figure it out on their own. She let them argue amongst themselves as she leaned in closer to hear the words dripping from Carolyn's split lips.
"They're watching us…waiting until we come up…and then they're picking us off one by one…with arrows…from the woods…they want to take over the bunker…kill us all…take it for themselves…Mac…" she said and then her eyes filled with tears. "Mac…" she said again as she closed her one good eye and lowered her head until her chin touched her chest. Her shoulders rose and fell with silent sobs.
Olivia wanted to reach out to comfort her but was sure anywhere she touched Carolyn would cause her more harm than good. Carolyn said something in such a soft whisper it was lost amongst the din of the flustered crowd.
"What?" Olivia asked, rising up and leaning in closer so her ear was almost to Carolyn's lips.
"They're coming," she whispered.
IV
Christine and Zack returned to the laboratory three days after they set out to find more fresh zombies for testing. They had three more to give; an older man who had salt and peppered short hair and a patchy gray beard, most of it ripped away in chunks from his scratched face. Another was a teenage boy, about fifteen or sixteen, tall, gangly, with a single bite on his forearm and nothing else. He snapped at the air with ferocity, his bloodshot eyes darting all around. The last was a young woman in her early twenties, younger than the first two they had brought in by at least ten years. She was more docile, her skin already turning a pale white, her eyes a sickly yellow with the beginnings of fogging over. She had to be the least fresh of them all, close to Gretchen's own condition. Christine couldn't help being a little excited when they found her. She even reminded Christine of her sister in some ways; close in age, same short blonde bob, thin, fresh but dangerously close to starting to rot.
