Time Frame: 3 Days Later
Pairings: Nellis, Frochelle
Summary: CEDA is coming
Three more days went by and still, the couple found little to no privacy, save for a few feet of room while using the bathroom in the woods, but not enough to enjoy any of their time together.
The lot of them continued on their main mission of sectioning off areas around the shed to where the woods formed a makeshift fence around the clearing they were living in. It wasn't the easiest work, and it felt fruitless without having seen anything aside from other humans since Derek woke up. That hole in his head didn't seem to get in the way of his ability to remain a zombie repellant.
It was late in the evening on the third day, and the sun sank behind the mountain, leaving everything in darkness save for the moonlight and because he was feeling better than he had in recent days, he offered to accompany Francis and Rochelle into the woods to see if there was any easy hunting in the area.
"Thanks, bud. You can keep an eye out." Francis agreed.
Of course, he wasn't going to do the hunting, but he would remain available to watch out in case of any zombies.
"An eye is all I can give." He joked, earning a chuckle from Francis as they disappeared into the trees.
Not thirty minutes went by before the woods rustled around the camp and the remaining survivors raised their attention to the noise in the dark before Derek emerged from the woods, running as fast as his feet would carry him, followed by a very confused Francis and Rochelle.
"FUCKING RUN! IT'S CEDA!" He yelled, taking off into the other side of the trees.
Francis and Rochelle stopped in the clearing to address the rest of their group before the edge of the woods came to life with people in hazmat suits. They had guns and there had to be at least twenty of them, surrounding the entire treeline to where there was nowhere else to run.
"Remain where you are." One man said through his mask.
The struggling at the edge of the woods became louder, more desperate, and the sound of a taser shot through the air.
Derek screamed at the top of his lungs when the electricity tore through his body, and a couple of workers in the hazmat suits were barely visible through the trees. They must have caught him.
"What the fuck?" Nick whispered, keeping his hands up along with the rest of his group.
"You're safe. We're going to take you all out of this." The same man in the mask continued.
"Get that fucking thing off me!" Derek yelled from beyond where they could see.
Another zap burst through the air.
Ellis made a move to step forward, only to be stopped by Nick. The older man shook his head, as this was no time to be concerned about anyone save for themselves.
"Let it go, kiddo."
Nick had no idea what these people were going to do to them, and he didn't want to set any of them off. He already knew that they weren't above executing citizens, being that Keith was one of the only survivors of one of those mass-executions. He didn't want anyone to get stupid and earn them all a quick death.
"Lower your guns, will you? We'll go quietly." Jared spoke, assuming the place of a leader while everyone stood looking around for directions.
"Show them your hands, guys." Jared added, as the group slowly sat their guns on the floor, save for Nick, who kept his beloved colt in the waistband of his pants.
"Very good." The man said, "If you'll all line up and get into the vans exactly as we tell you, this will be incredibly easy for everyone. We will take you to one of our rescues for survivors. It's brand new. You've been the first group of survivors we've located in a long time."
It took several minutes for Jared to talk everyone into forgetting their possessions. All they had to their names anymore was food rations, which the CEDA people claimed to have plenty of.
"Okay guys, they want us two by two, and eight people can fit in each van. So, pairs are: Zoey and Louis, Nick and Ellis, John and Sidney, Keith and I. We go to the first van. Francis and Rochelle, Coach and Ylaina, Danny has only himself, so that makes up van two."
None of them spoke until they were in the van.
"Derek isn't in van two." Ellis noted.
"Maybe he's in a third van." Zoey guessed, "He was putting up a big fight with them so they might have needed to separate him for safety."
"There's probably a reason for that fight, and we're heading right into it." Nick added.
If anyone had an objection, they didn't say. They sat in silence, unsure of whether they were actually going toward safety or certain death.
The van moved on the road at a constant speed, and it had to have at least been an hour before they came to a stop. Then they moved again, then came to another stop and the doors of the vans were opened.
When the groups stepped outside, they saw that three vans were parked together. Hazmat people were wheeling a now unconscious Derek into the side door of the building ahead on a gurney, but the rest of the group came to stand outside.
"This is a prison." Nick whispered.
"How do ya know?" Keith asked.
"Use your fucking head, Stubbs."
It had to be a prison, it looked just like a prison and felt like one, too. There was a single large building in the center, surrounded by several smaller buildings and the whole complex was fenced with very tall, double fences with razor wire on top. A guard tower with an armed guard in it was posted to the right of the gate.
The hazmat suits ushered them all into the building before stopping in a single large room with seats on either side.
"We're going to get each of you checked in and examined for injury or illness, so that we can treat you to the best of our ability. Not to worry, it's standard. Things will get much better from there out." The main suit said, before leaving the lot of them in the room alone.
"Don't bother with the doors." Nick suggested when Zoey attempted to touch the knob, "Everything in prisons lock from the outside. We're stuck here until-"
The door at the far left of the room opened and a woman in a lab coat entered. She was middle-aged, and had her hair pulled back into a tight bun.
"I'll give each of you a number," she said, passing out little wooden tags with numbers on them, "and I'll call you by them until I get your names down."
With that she called number one, which happened to be Coach. He followed her hesitantly, and the pair disappeared behind the door.
Twenty minutes later, she called number two, which was Jared.
The process continued for hours until every name was called.
Behind the door, the woman in the lab coat took down their names and other identifying information, fingerprints, mugshots even though this was not for criminal purposes. A battery of questions were asked of them, and during the process, a male doctor came in and administered quick physical examinations, including the drawing of blood for lab testing.
When the process was over, the group was once again together in another room. The woman in the lab coat explained that next, they were going to go through a room with a big blast of air that was supposed to remove outside toxins from their hair and skin. It required being naked, so each person was sent in individually and given a prison-style pair of tan scrubs, underwear, and socks afterward. Their old clothes were discarded, and at long last, anyone that was hiding a weapon was separated from it.
Once "clean" they were led into the center of the prison, the main area where there were tables and benches bolted to the floor and cells with glass windows in their doors were on the north and south ends of the room. Stairs led to a second floor, but they were drawn up to where the group only had access to the first floor.
On the second floor, three people in lab coats came out of a door and stood on the catwalk to greet the new arrivals. One was the same lab coat woman. One was an older white man with glasses, and the third was a very young, Asian man.
"I want to thank each of you for being so cooperative. Now that we've got you settled in, you're free to roam about the open area. You need not worry about stumbling into restricted areas, because they're all locked down. You're free to choose a cell as your living quarters. Cells can be occupied individually or by two persons, for any couples."
The woman in the lab coat came forward.
"You've already met me, but I forgot to tell you my name in the rush we were in. I'm Doctor Renee Hastings, this is Doctor Fredrick Castle," she said, motioning to the old doctor. "This is Doctor Michael Wu. This sanctuary is highly guarded with CEDA employees but you don't need to bother yourselves with their names. They have numbers on their uniforms and you can refer to them by those. We will be available to answer your questions in the morning and throughout the week until you've grown accustomed to the way things work here. Until then, I'm sure you're tired."
The three doctors turned and left without another word.
"What the fuck?" Nick said again.
Everyone had to be thinking it, he had to say it.
One moment they were all surviving on almost nothing in the woods, living in a shed together, and now CEDA finally decided to show up after nearly one year of being MIA.
"What is this place?" Zoey asked.
"Did you all get blood tests?" Rochelle piped in.
"Yeah, that and then some." Jared answered, adjusting his prison shirt.
John was sitting with a distraught Sidney, trying to comfort her after the ordeal she went through without him. He explained to Dr. Hastings that Sid couldn't speak and that it was going to be hard to get information from her unless she had a pen.
"I know, sweetheart, I'm sorry."
She was showing John a second pinprick on her arm where she was administered a mild sedative to help her cope with her physical examination.
"What do they want the bloodwork for?" Francis asked.
"Obviously, they wanna see how the hell we're alive almost a year after everyone else died. Hell, I wonder how much of the country is gone, cause we don't really know." Keith added.
Over the hours, the groups chose to set up in their cells and try to make the area habitable rather than sleeping. The beds were full-sized, but not very comfortable. Nick took extra pillows from empty cells and decided to take advantage of the access to showers.
He and Ellis spent a good deal of time in the public shower room, finally gaining some alone time, being that Nick told Rochelle to stab anyone that tried to open the door until they came out.
After much-needed release and use of soap, Nick took some time to shave.
"I hate this fucking beard." He muttered, insisting that Ellis shave the patchy hair on his chin and cheeks.
"But I like mine." He added, finishing redressing after a particularly frenzied session with his partner.
"You look like a homeless man." Nick insisted.
They emerged from the bathroom fresher than they'd been since Zone 15.
A day passed, and though food and drinks were provided to everyone in the main area, the doctors did not appear again to answer questions until late. The CEDA workers, now maskless, didn't answer any questions that the group had.
They kept themselves as busy as they could, trying desperately to ignore the fact that they didn't know anything about the plan CEDA had for them. They were all in such a state of shock in the woods that they followed the men with guns without thinking. There wasn't a lot they could have done against men more armed than they were without a shootout. But now, they were in this prison, at the hands of an organization that was known for shady antics.
What was going to happen?
They hadn't seen Derek since CEDA took him away and when Ellis asked the armed guards, they told him that the information was classified.
Dr. Hastings returned to the upstairs catwalk at the end of that day, 24 hours after they arrived, and once the group was quiet, she spoke.
"When we encountered your group, you were traveling with a man by the name of Derek Keller. While he's alive and well, he is in quarantine because he's incredibly ill with a contagious infection. That being said, we are still waiting on the results of all of your bloodwork. It's important, though, that I ask each of you for your full cooperation.
"If any of you came into contact with any of Derek Keller's bodily fluids, we need to know. This includes kissing, sexual contact or contact with blood."
Keith sat in silence, eyeing Jared as inconspicuously as he could. There was no way he was going to volunteer information like that in front of everyone, especially Jared. Even though they weren't together anymore, it would upset the guy to know what happened between them when the pair were still technically together.
If I have to wait it out, I will. No way I'm announcing this shit public. Everyone will have so many questions. No one is going to believe we didn't sleep together.
Zoey slowly raised her hand.
"When he got shot, he received medical attention from me. I didn't have any open wounds at the time but I got his blood on my hands." She explained, shaking like a leaf.
"I need you to remain calm. You should be okay, but it's best to have you checked out immediately. With such little exposure, we should be able to treat you." She replied.
A man came out of the door on the first floor and led Zoey with him through the doors. She gave a last look at her group before disappearing out of sight.
Shit, Keith thought, if she ends up having whatever he has, there's no way I don't. What are they going to do when they find out I'm like him? They're going to toss me into some white quarantine room and I'm not going to come back out.
If Zoey is sick, she's not gonna come back out, either.