Chapter Ten
7:50 p.m. – Subway Carriage
Portigon, New Barkham
Isabel covered her eyes but continued watching through the cracks between her fingers. Elisa didn't give up as she continued giving Stanley chest compressions to revive him.
"Come on," she urged as his body jerked with every press.
Isabel turned around, feeling hopeless when she saw Claude hop aboard the train. "What the hell is going on?"
He discovered Stanley lying on the ground with Elisa desperately trying to save his life. He shoved Isabel aside to get a better look at what was going on. "What happened to him?"
Isabel was too upset to explain as Elisa kept on pressing. He had been out for a minute now.
"Wake up damn it!" she yelled. She kept going, desperate to save him – but he gave no response.
Elisa shook her head at Claude and Isabel. Isabel buried her face into her hands and sobbed. Elisa watched her for a moment before finally gaining the courage to apologize. "I'm sorry."
But that was when Stanley finally gave a loud cough.
His gasp for air made Isabel give a cry of relief as she knelt beside him. She caressed his face, recognizing that he still retained his normal appearance. The army of the infected hadn't claimed him just yet.
"Stanley can you hear me?" asked Elisa, examining to see if he really was okay. "Do you know where you are?"
He was dazed as he looked at his surroundings. He realized that he was still on the subway carriage in the tunnels. "Ugh, yeah, I – I think so."
Isabel embraced him while he was still on the ground. "My God, I was so worried you –"
"It's alright," he mumbled, cutting her off before she said anything more. He didn't want to spook the others about his possible fate. He struggled to rise from the ground, groaning from pain. He still felt a little dizzy, but his heart was pumping again. The infection in his blood must've already started to affect his heart's ability. There was no telling when he'd collapse again.
"You'd better get some sleep," advised Elisa, helping him to a row of seats. "I'll monitor your condition while you get some rest to recuperate."
"She's right," said Isabel. "Don't go all the way over to Casper Island Stan – you won't make it. At least rest for a little while."
He panted as he took a seat. There was no way he was going to sleep in his condition. There was no time.
"What do you mean?" asked Elisa, hearing Isabel. "Casper Island was cordoned off around one o'clock this afternoon. That's where this whole thing started right?"
"Yeah, they said on the news that they blocked it off this afternoon," said Claude, watching Stanley sit restlessly on the seats while Isabel sat next to him. That was when he thought he realized what Stanley may have been planning. "You're not thinking of going over there are you?"
Stanley looked up at him, unhappy with all these objections being thrown at him. He quickly thought up an excuse other than 'I'm infected, and I need to try and find a cure.'
"I have to go and get something from – my house."
He knew it was a feeble one, but his brain wasn't exactly working efficiently.
"Haha – you're crazy dude!"
They all turned to see the man who had been snoozing before approach them. The same one that Stanley had stolen his gun from. It was only when he started talking that Stanley realized he was talking to a college kid.
He ignored him. "I don't care what you think. I need to get there." He turned to Isabel. "And I want you to stay with these people until I get back."
The college boy snorted as though Stanley had just said something funny. "Yeah, if you get back."
Stanley shot the man a glare, and he instantly recoiled in fear. He jabbed his finger in the air and pointed directly at Stanley. "Holy shit! Guys -- He's one of them!"
"Listen dipstick," said Stanley, nerved by what he said. "I've had enough of your stupid comments. Why don't you go back and have your little nap while the adults talk business."
Isabel glared at Stanley, unaware that he was capable of such behavior. The infection seemed to be altering his mind a little. Maybe he was right. He did need to find something before he got out of control and became like those people outside.
The young adult turned to Claude, his finger still trembling as it pointed at Stanley's face. "Did you see this guy's eyes? They flashed red for like a second. Did you see 'em? I swear they did!"
Stanley took Isabel aside, ignoring his accusations as he winced in pain from a headache. "Listen, I'm going to leave now. These people will take care of you okay? I'll come back as soon as I can. I promise."
Isabel grimaced but nodded to show her understanding. Stanley gave her one last smile before heading to the back of the train, where he would exit and go to the next station – alone. Claude, Elisa and the kid continued to argue as he brushed past them. Stanley's figure seemed to repel the teenager away from him.
"Phil will you please just shut up?" said Claude. "If he was one of them, he'd have tried to kill us by now."
"He seemed fine to me, but he did collapse before. Who knows what his condition is," said Elisa. "Maybe it's a good thing he's leaving. Isabel is definitely alright though."
"Fuck that," said Phil the college boy, going to pursue Stanley, who had already disappeared deep into the dark tunnels. "I'm going to blow him away right –"
Phil halted, patting the back of his pants. "My gun! The fucker took my gun!"
Isabel's sudden anxiety over Phil's attempt to go kill Stanley subsided quickly. "You shouldn't be holding one at your age anyway," she said coldly.
She lay down on a row of seats. Elisa smirked at her coldness and sat opposite her.
"Just get some sleep kid," said Claude, shaking his head. Claude hopped back in front of the train to resume his guard duty, leaving Phil standing bitterly by himself.
The crunching of gravel beneath Stanley's shoes kept him on his toes as he continued through the dark tunnels. He had been travelling for about twenty minutes, and the next station still didn't seem all that close. The constant dripping of water unnerved him, but he was sure there was no one else around. He stood by his theory earlier in which everyone was either one of them or in hiding. If what Lane had said earlier was true, the entire city was cordoned off – and considering there were only two roads out of the city, a shipyard and an airport, it wouldn't be too hard to police them. Escape from the city was probably impossible now.
Thinking about the quarantine, Lane swam to the front of his mind again. His brother had disappeared, and Stanley wasn't so sure that he had succumbed to being one of them. He still couldn't shake that one last sinister grin he gave him before he took Isabel up onto the helipad. And it was a trick anyway. Lane told him he'd be allowed onboard, and it turned out he wasn't. Something wasn't right. All he had to go on was the note in his pocket saying AB Negative clearly written in Lane's handwriting.
He almost stumbled over the track when his head became light again, forcing him to lean against the wall for support. He wasn't sure how long he would be able to keep conscious before something happened, but he knew he needed to press on. Every second counted now.
8:48 p.m. – Subway Station
Portigon, New Barkham
Stanley finally saw an open space ahead in contrast to the cramped tunnels he had been travelling through. He had finally reached the next station. He could see the dark pillars on the subway platform and another train stuck in the tunnels ahead. He pulled himself up onto the platform and waved the flashlight around. The beam shone over a sign saying Weller Bridge Station. This was it. Surprisingly there were no infected here, but the station was pitch black due to the citywide blackout. The flashlight gripped in his hand was his only guide through the darkness.
A quiet noise to his right prompted him to quickly glance to the side, but he saw nothing. Stanley breathed as he pressed on cautiously. He was crept out by the ambience, and he didn't want to stay in the station any longer than he had to. The only things making him hesitate were the screams and howls above ground.
Looking back in the tunnel, he knew he couldn't go back now. He approached the stairs and began his ascent.
He could see the faint moonlight at the top of the stairs, but took his time in case there were heaps of them topside. His suspicions were confirmed when he reached the surface and spotted almost twenty of them shambling in the distance, all navigating through the multiple cars strewn all over the road.
They didn't seem to be paying much attention to him despite his close proximity to them. He didn't know why, but he wasn't going to stick around and find out. To the left was the bridge glowing in orange instead of the bright blue lights on the suspensions that usually lit the bridge. The blockade that had been set up earlier was on fire, with one humvee overturned and in a ball of flames. He ran to the bridge and saw a lot of corpses lying scattered across the road.
"Oh my god," he said, seeing the bodies. Some of them were definitely infected but others had no signs of injuries or bites. They looked like they had been killed in the explosion. They were the ones that wore military fatigues and had their rifles alongside them. Despite the urge to snatch one up off the ground, Stanley had no idea how to fire one of them, and would probably be pathetic at using it. At least he was confident about wielding the pistol tucked behind him. There was nobody in sight along the bridge, which was going to make it easy for him to cross into Casper Island. But there was still the journey to Morton's home.
8:59 p.m. – Weller Bridge
Casper Island, New Barkham
Arriving on the island, there seemed to be hundreds of them, but for some odd reason, they weren't interested in chasing after him. Perhaps it was because they could sense the virus coursing through his veins, but he didn't want to risk wandering through the crowd. Instead, he quickly approached a house nearby, shoved the flashlight into his pocket and clambered over the tall fence into the yard.
The lawn wasn't pretty with weeds sprouting out everywhere, but there was an entrance to the house by the patio. To the left was a garden shed with its door slightly ajar. Stanley peeked inside and saw several tools, including watering cans, clippers and a shovel. His eyes landed on the shovel, which was the biggest thing in there and approached the entrance. Without thinking, he smashed through the pane. The pieces clattered onto the ground and Stanley climbed through. He was in a living area; with the average furniture and flat screen TV sitting nicely in the room. He always wondered why he never decided to buy a property on Casper Island, but he felt he enjoyed living alone in the city more.
He knew he had no business in some stranger's house, and whoever owned it wasn't going to take too kindly to his breaking and entering, but he needed something to soothe his aching head. He wrenched open the fridge and found plenty of bottled water on the shelves inside.
"Who is this guy? An athlete?" he mumbled, spotting loads of vegetables and salads next to the several bottled waters.
He ripped off the lid and began to gulp the water down, feeling a little revitalized. Once he finished it down to one third, he left the bottle on the table and proceeded into the hallway adjacent to the living room to look for some sort of aspirin. At the far end he could make out some sort of vehicle in a large room. The garage.
"Good," he whispered to himself. But before heading there, he made a quick stop by a bathroom. A medicine cabinet was latched to the wall above the sink, where Stanley suspected would be some sort of medication for his migraine. He pulled it open and spotted several pills and toothpaste tubes. Inspecting each one, he eventually found some aspirin hidden behind a toothpaste carton. Retrieving a pill, he shoved it down his throat and drank running water from the tap to keep it there.
He grabbed a facecloth and began to wipe the water off the side of his mouth before looking at himself in the mirror.
That was when he almost fell backwards into the bathtub.
Even though it was quite dark, he could've sworn he saw his eyes glow scarlet for just a second, just like Phil had described back on the subway carriage. He clutched his heart as stress and anxiety revived the migraine in his head. He was coming close to becoming one of them. He couldn't waste anymore time in this house. Morton's home wasn't too far away by car.
He ran into the garage and peered inside the car, where he saw the keys dangling from the ignition. He silently cheered as he hopped into the driver's seat. Stanley pulled down the visor and pressed the garage remote attached to it. The door behind him rumbled as it rose, revealing six infected people standing on the driveway. It seemed that they finally realized that there was someone to feast upon. Stanley switched to reverse and began to accelerate backwards when his heart gave another spike, nearly causing him to veer off the driveway and into the fence. He retained his control of the car as he crushed two of the howling zombies. The car swerved onto the road. Stanley switched to first gear and ploughed through more people that were roaming on the street and drove on towards Morton's home.
9:12 p.m. – Wilthrow Avenue
Casper Island, New Barkham
The only thing that came out of the speakers from the radio was static, except for one station, where someone was broadcasting a message. Stanley turned up the radio to listen.
" -- anyone can hear this message, we're at the Barkham Rock Radio building downtown in Portigon. Please come here as soon as you can. There are three of us here, and we need help. I repeat --"
The female repeated her message over and over, but Stanley was forced to turn down the radio. There weren't that many zombies in this part of the island, which was strange considering this was where the outbreak originated – according to Lane anyway. As Stanley came closer to Morton's house, he made a short stop opposite Lane and Isabel's house, located just around the corner from Morton's mansion. He stared at the house and sighed. It was hard to remember what normal life was like even though things had only been hectic for the past nine hours. He had been running, hiding and fighting in these nine hours more than he ever had in his life. The house retained its nice inviting look, although there was now a little bit of blood shining on the driveway underneath the moon.
He sighed and shook his head to try and forget about it. He drove around the corner, where something caught his eye. Someone in the distance had just exited the same mansion he had seen on the news report that morning with a backpack and approached an SUV parked nearby. Stanley drove closer to take a better look, but it caused the shadowy figure to freeze. It was too dark to make out who it was but the man or woman seemed to be uninfected. A looter perhaps?
Stanley rolled down the window and called out. He wanted to know what this person was doing inside Morton's home. "Hey!"
The person hastily threw the backpack into the backseat of their vehicle and got in. Stanley parked right behind them. He was about to get out when the car in front started up and backed straight into the front of Stanley's car. The force knocked the car backward as the airbag sprung out from the steering wheel. As Stanley struggled to get rid of the large cushion, he could hear the squealing tires of the car as it drove away.
Finally shoving the bag aside, he got out of the car and watched as the car turned a corner, out of sight.
"Who the hell…?"
A/N -- Well there's Chapter Ten. School's started up again so updates may take a while now. I started a poll which can be viewed on my profile page and it may determine where this story ends up going so please feel free to cast a vote. Thanks for reading so far. I enjoy writing this story for you guys.