Extinct (AM13 Outbreak Series), page 6
“What happened, Tom? Don’t bullshit me now. We deserve to know the truth; we’ve been kept in the God damn dark for long enough. I can’t take anymore. I can’t keep up this fight without knowing where we’re going to end up…” I wave my hands around as I shout, probably looking more like a lunatic than I intend.
“Okay. It’s like this…” Tom sighs, refusing to look at me, but clearly responding to my desperation. “Well, did I tell you I was in the army before?” I nod, but he doesn’t look up to see my answer. “Well, I obviously had to work for them. That was my duty, you know? Whatever’s happened, my duty comes first.” Again, I don’t answer. I’m pretty sure the question is rhetorical. “I was sent on the mission—that’s why I didn’t say goodbye or anything.”
He looks at me, shifting from one foot to the other, tugging on the ends of his hair, clearly uncomfortable. I smile weakly as a reply.
“It was just another job, at first. It was going well; we were working efficiently together…considering. Not all of us were service people to begin with; Wesley, Aaron, Felicity, Kyle—I mean, he was a little sketchy, I couldn’t ever quite figure him out…” He glances at me and trails off, clearly realising that he’s going way off topic. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”
I shake my head, unsure of what I need to say at this point. I’m holding my breath with the tension of it all, and I have no idea how to release it. I can see Jasmine in my peripheral vision, but I don’t try to work out how she’s feeling.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, or actually what you know.” He gestures to the book. “But once the infected get to a certain stage, the damage done to the victims is irreversible. Everything that has happened to their bodies and their minds is permanent. They’ve been slowly deteriorating ever since they caught AM13, and there’s nothing that can be done to help them or cure them.”
He looks at me, and the desperation in his eyes makes it clear what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to justify killing off the infected, not helping them. Does he think I don’t understand that? I may not like it, but I’ve had to accept it.
“They were dying out anyway. When we left the UK, there were massive numbers of the infected left behind, when we got back, a percentage of them were nothing more than…mush on the floor. It was awful—really gross—but I have to say it did make our job easier. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to diminish the work we—”
“Wait!” I call out, sounding much more excited than I feel. “I did know that. I read about it.”
I flick to the relevant page. “Aha!”
Using my professional head, I have come up with another—possibly very substandard—theory. Using Jason’s wound; I wonder how long it would take the infected to literally die out. Maybe, without any opportunity to spread the virus further—or a ‘food source,’ of course I still can’t be 100% on my previous notes—maybe the infected will not be able to survive for long. It came to me as more of a passing thought, but the more I obsess over the concept, the more I realise it could be correct.
I hadn’t paid much attention to that part on first reading, I’d been much too consumed by trying to figure out what had happened to Ruby—a mystery I haven’t managed to solve as yet, and after everything that’s happened, I half wonder if I ever will. Surely, it stands to reason now that she was infected—a thought that causes my heart to stop beating, just for a split second.
“So why are you back?” Jasmine demands once more, breaking off our conversation. “If we still can’t go home, why aren’t you still there?”
Tom huffs loudly, rolling his eyes back into his head. He clearly didn’t want to get into this yet. “I got taken off the job, because I’m mental,” he sneers.
“What do you mean?” Bile rises in my throat, I feel oddly afraid.
“The orders were to kill everyone left there.” I nod, following so far. “But not everyone…was infected.”
It takes me a while to click, to realise what he’s telling us. My mind is so wrapped up in fear and confusion that I can’t see past the fog consuming my brain.
Tom waits patiently until my expression changes with this new knowledge. Jasmine is pale, silent, afraid, just like me.
“I didn’t think it would be a problem. To be honest, I thought if people hadn’t made it to the airport, then they wouldn’t have survived.”
“But they did?” I whisper, interrupting.
Tom nods and nausea washes over me.
“The first person I found who wasn’t infected was at death’s door anyway. He’d almost lost it, his skin was cracked and bleeding and he clearly hadn’t eaten for ages…I don’t think he would have lived whether I’d turned up or not.”
I nod, wanting to tell him not to speak anymore because I can’t handle it. But the words are stuck in my throat.
“All it took was a single bullet to the head. I didn’t even think about it afterwards—it was done, it was over.” His tone becomes cold, as if he’s covering up his true feelings. “Then…” He pauses. The words he’s going to say next are clearly difficult for him. “Then we found a woman and two boys.” He looks up at me. “They were actually glad to see us.”
He laughs bitterly and I feel tears prick my eyes. I’m frozen all over, trapped by the fear of what’s going to happen next. I can hear Jasmine start to cry, but my own emotions are numb.
“I didn’t want to do it. I argued with Kyle relentlessly over it—he was sure that our orders were right and it was the best thing for all of us to follow them—but they were so clearly not infected. They just needed to be saved.” He shakes his head at the memory. “I spoke to my boss, I begged him…but he was adamant it had to be done.”
I gasp audibly. I can’t help myself.
Tom killed innocent people and that’s what sent him mad!
“I didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I grimace awkwardly, guilt spreading through me. My thoughts must be so easy to read from my face. “I was too much of a coward. My best friend Wesley did it.” He sucks in a loud breath. “He did it because I couldn’t, now he’s dead too.”
“Dead?” Jasmine gasps, in between sobs.
“Suicide,” he says bluntly. “It was awful.”
“Is that what…?” I struggle to finish my sentence.
“Sent me mad?” he says, quite angrily. “I’m not mad. I got accused of it, and returned here, because I refused to follow the orders. I refused to kill people that weren’t infected.”
The silence that rings out is painful, loaded with meaning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“This is where Andy is. This is where my boss and all the rest of them have been living throughout everything.” Tom nods towards the derelict building we stumbled across before, the one I didn’t want to return to. I just knew there was something I didn’t like about this place, and now I know what it is. “Where they’ve been the whole time.”
“Here?” Jasmine cries out, disgusted.
I suspect she’s having similar feelings to me. I don’t know what I was expecting really, after all, this is seemingly the only actual building in the surrounding area, but I guess in my imagination, the people who had fought to get power would have organised themselves a little better and would have a more luxurious living situation.
“So who’s left?” I turn away, shaking my head. My imagination and preconceptions aren’t going to be of any use here. I need to focus on what’s right in front of me, on what I know for certain is real.
“I don’t know. We have no idea who’s still here. We weren’t exactly expecting to come back to—”
“So…go?” Jasmine says, inquisitively. “Go inside and find out?”
“I need to contact Andy first. It just isn’t as simple as going in. Not anymore.” He hits his walkie-talkie, but only gets static as a response.
“So, who the fuck is Andy?” Jasmine sighs, clearly getting frustrated with all the variables in this situation. “You’re obviously back because you got kicked off the mission. Why is he with you?”
“Someone had to fly me back here,” Tom snaps. “As soon as we landed, we knew something was wrong. We’d had a conversation about Dr. Jones’s work on the way over here—and when we saw the chaos, we knew it was time to take matters into our own hands.”
“Why? What’s the point? Let’s just go home…”
“Don’t you think that finding the cure is more important than running away?” Tom’s tone is scathing, bordering on nasty. “If we leave it with them then no one will survive this. This isn’t about us, it’s about everyone.”
My heart starts to pound heavily at his words, worse than before. How the hell did I get mixed up in this exactly? How have I managed to get involved in some treasure hunt for the cure? Damn stupid book. Suddenly I regret ever setting eyes on the bloody thing. I should have followed my initial instinct and handed it in right away. Then I wouldn’t be on such a dangerous—albeit important—mission.
“So what the fuck do we do now?”
“I need to find out what’s happened to Andy…” I listen to Jasmine and Tom snap at each other in the background of my mind. The foreground is spinning around with all sorts of terrifying prospects, each more frightening than the last. I can’t picture any scenario in which this ends well—am I being realistic or negative? I have no idea anymore.
“Wait,” one of them finally hisses, snapping my attention back into the present. “Look!”
A body shuffles out of the door, glancing wildly in each direction. I try to hold my breath, terrified that even the slightest noise will get us discovered. Jasmine and Tom are frozen as still as me. I want to ask Tom who it is, but I’m much too afraid.
I sense movement beside me, but it all happens far too quickly for me to react. Tom has grabbed hold of the mystery person and now has his hands wrapped around his throat. I can see him ferociously saying something, but I have no idea what.
“No—” I reach out, but Jasmine pulls me back. Her face is pure white and she’s shaking her head frantically. I don’t know if she’s trying to stop me from intervening or if she doesn’t want me to get hurt, either way I sit back and watch alongside her, my brain spinning. “Do you think that’s Andy?” I ask quietly.
Tom slings out a punch which connects with a sickening thud as his victim slips to the ground. I’m horrified, but also oddly relieved that it went that way and Tom didn’t end up hurt.
“No,” Jasmine finally answers me. “I don’t think that was Andy.”
“Come on.” He indicates for us to go over to him, so we both move quickly and walk behind him into the building, neither of us asking anything—too scared of what the answer might be.
“Is it safe?” I barely whisper, still terrified.
Worryingly, I don’t get an answer.
“Okay, we need to find Dr. Jones. And Andy. That’s of the utmost importance. I think I know where they are, so just—” A loud bang shuts Tom up and we each leap to hide in the nearest place. I dive under a desk whilst Tom and Jasmine move behind the nearest door.
A man enters the room. He looks stressed, dishevelled, a total mess. I find myself a little shocked. I guess in my mind’s eye, the people in charge would look more powerful and in control than this. After all, they clearly had things running the way they wanted until everything went wrong.
Maybe he simply deteriorated quickly as things went belly up.
I watch him move slowly, before spotting out of the corner of my eye the other two moving too. Tom indicates his apology to me, and that’s when it hits me what’s happening—they’re leaving me here! I know Tom just said that getting to Dr. Jones was the most important thing, but I can’t believe they’re just going to abandon me like this.
What the fuck!
I want to go with them; I don’t want to be left here for God knows what to happen to me, but I can’t. If I even slightly move, then we’ll all be discovered. I just need to get into the mindset that finding this cure is the most important thing—even more important than my life. I run those words through my mind over and over, but they seem distant—as if it’s someone else saying it to me. Saying that and putting it into practice are two very different things. If it comes down to it, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop my survival instinct from kicking in. Although, it hasn’t shown its face so far, so maybe I don’t have the normal “survival instinct” gene…
Oh God.
The man walks around the room, looking aimless. I decide to focus on him instead, to see if I can discover anything about him, anything that I can use. I wonder what I’ll do if he finds me, will I be able to fight him if it comes down to it? I don’t know, I’ve never even considered violence in my whole life, but now I might have to. I don’t think I’m anywhere near strong enough to win. He might look weak, but then so am I.
I see him pick up pieces of paper and put them back down again. I wonder if he’s looking for the book, for Dr. Jones’s diary. Maybe none of them know it’s even missing. Maybe there was some sort of plot to get the cure out of their grasps, and that’s how I randomly ended up with the book. That part of the plan clearly went very wrong. Tom has hold of the book now, so at least I can use it as some kind of leverage if it comes down to it. After all, if I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t know that it exists…so he’ll have to believe me.
Tap, tap, tap.
His feet keep passing by me, filling me with an intense anxiety. It feels like the others are taking forever and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do whilst they’re gone. Does Tom think I’m going to kill this man? Does he think he’s going to kill me? Oh God, I hope not. I hope he thinks higher of me than that. I know he’s focused on the end game, but I hope I mean more to him than just another piece of cannon-fodder.
I regard Tom for a moment, really thinking about how he seems different from the last time we were together. Of course, the situation surrounding us is completely and utterly changed to last time, which is going to impact on him—on us both. Plus he’s seemingly been through a whole lot, which would be impossible to survive without having a little impact on his personality. It’s obvious that trauma has an effect on people.
But it’s more than that. He seems…off.
I don’t know what to make of that. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, all I know is that seeing his face was a huge relief, I instantly felt better and safer. I don’t want to start second guessing myself and end up wrecking everything.
We just need to get home. I just need to trust him until then. After that…well, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
As soon as I make that decision, a bump rings out and the man in the room falls flat on the floor, his glassed-over eyes facing me and a trickle of blood pouring from his mouth.
I scuttle backwards, screeching slightly, trying to make myself invisible. Someone just killed this guy without me noticing and if I’m not careful, I’m going to be next! I slap my hands over my mouth, appalled that I allowed fear get to me enough for me to cry out.
“Come on!” Tom’s blood splattered face peeks down to spot me and I shift quickly.
I don’t feel the relief that I should. Tom was the perpetrator, which means my life isn’t in danger, but for some reason I’m not glad about that at all. I just feel numb all over.
A man is hunched over behind Tom, his hair stringy and hanging down his face, sweat pouring down him, his hands tied and his mouth gagged. I look questioningly at Tom, who nods, confirming he’s Dr. Jones.
“Where’s Jasmine?” I finally stammer out, unable to process the situation.
“She’s gone to get Andy.”
“By herself?”
Tom nods, unaware that he shouldn’t have left her alone. I can understand why he did it to me—there really wasn’t any other option—but there was no need to leave Jasmine. We could have all gone together. “We split up; I didn’t want to leave you alone too long.”
The kind sentiment is missed as I push past him and rush into the next room. I need to find her and quickly! I can hear Tom and Dr. Jones follow me, but I don’t pay them any attention. Tom is quietly muttering to Dr. Jones, but I completely ignore that too.
I wander down seemingly endless corridors filled with all sorts of boxes and rubbish, which all look the same, until I reach a room that completely contradicts the rest of the building. Where it’s all derelict and looking dreadful, this is a very modern office conference-type room. This could have come directly from the head office of every big business ever. This is more what I’d been picturing when I thought about them. I’d imagined them living it up in a luxurious place like this, while we all suffered out there in the elements. I can see a whole load of food remnants festering in the bin, just proving to me that they haven’t been living the life of poverty and starvation that we have. I can’t imagine any food was ever discarded out there. But I don’t allow that thought to pass through my brain for longer than a second. What’s done is done, if we can get home, then I’m just going to have to let all of the shit, all of the injustice, go or it’ll eat me up forever.
I hear Tom’s breathing hitch slightly as I walk through this room slower, but his emotions are unimportant to me now. What I need is to find my friend safe. I desperately hope to myself that the only person she’s come across is this Andy. Who knows what will happen if she finds someone else that’s been left behind.
“Jasmine,” I mutter, almost to myself.
Something feels really odd in this room—there’s an unusual energy, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it just isn’t right. I spin around whilst I continue to move backwards, to ask Tom if he feels it too.
That’s when I trip over a blood-splattered, still warm, dead body beneath my feet.
CHAPTER NINE
I’m gasping, breathing heavily, my head between my legs. Jasmine, my friend…she’s dead.
