Familiar Hauntings
Chapter Six
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"Do you hear that?! Do you hear that?!" Bethani's voice strained to overpower the churning rotors that were hovering directly over them. The remaining four hurried to the Centennial Square once again. Lori shrieked in pain and began to feel light-headed as Bethani shuffled her along with awkward strides. Thick agony surged through her veins as Lori fought back the strange urge to vomit. She was only vaguely aware of her surroundings; the pain encompassed all.
"What is that?!" Bobbye yelled, sprinting ahead to get a better view of the pulsing lights levitating in the sky.
"Maybe they're here to help?" Devon knew, however, this was not likely the case, and again, the tingling sensation of new fear showed its face in his mind. The four rounded the corner of the student resources and café building, and the Centennial Square came into view. The group saw two figures running towards them. Claire and Demi.
"Run!" Claire screamed, as the helicopters began to drift away.
"What?!" Bethani cried.
"Run!!" When the two groups met, Claire only remained still long enough to give Devon and Bobbye two of the handguns. The other two she had kept in her side holsters, with her own personal gun strapped to her chest. She pushed some clips into their hands, and sprinted off again, leaving the five dumbfounded for a second before they headed off after her.
"Demi!" Devon yelled as he grabbed her to a hasty embrace before the two of them ran after Claire. "I thought you were dead!" He had just blurted it out, and he frowned at his unexpected sentence. Was that what he thought had happened all along?
"Not...yet!" Demi had already become winded from the adrenaline and sprinting. Devon grabbed her hand and began to run to the café building, his handgun and baseball bat swinging wildly in his other free hand. Claire had already opened the door, and was waving them inside.
Bethani remained with Lori, and the two of them made their way at a slower pace, under the watchful eye of Demi and Devon, who were constantly looking back as they ran to make sure the two girls were okay. When Bethani began to exhaust herself, Devon let go of Demi and went back to lift Lori over his shoulder. She cried in pain as he jerked her off the ground and made his way up the stairs to the entrance.
The power in the building was out, save for the auxiliary charge that was powering the paneled lights somewhat. The six of them stood in the main hall of the Emerson Café and Student Functions building. There were two pairs of stairs leading up and down in the back of the room, leading to the Deans' offices, and to the game hall, respectively. To the side of the stairs was the entrance to the cafeteria. The medical office door was to the right, and it was propped open, as it usually was. It had once been a bookstore, but now served as a large waiting room and office for the sick. To the left was a food court, with another entrance beyond the tables. Deep red brick made up the walls, with a slightly dated banner reading "Welcome to New Student Orientation" that hadn't been taken down for the past couple of weeks. The place was deserted; the café had closed many hours earlier, and there appeared to be no signs of gore in the room.
Devon propped Lori against the wall, wincing at her cry of agony.
"Lori," Devon's tone was stern, but fearful. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know…It just…It hurts."
"What does?"
"…Everything…"
Devon stared into her tortured eyes for an answer, but found nothing but exhaustion and suffering. He stood back up, and began to position the holster and gun on the side of his belt.
"Lori," Claire said, the following words flowing out slowly, "what happened exactly? How were you injured?" She knew the answer.
"One of…Devon's friends…he…attacked me…"
"Was he a zombie?"
With much effort, Lori nodded.
Claire frowned, and opened her mouth to speak, her mind still finding the words to say. "Okay, Lori…You'll be--" She stopped in mid-sentence; she didn't have the courage to lie to one of her dying friends. She looked over at Devon with knowing eyes. "Devon, can I talk to you for a minute?"
He nodded, slowly, afraid of what she would tell him. She slowly walked around a corner of the main room, out of sight of the rest of the group.
"Devon, Lori is going to die."
"What?!" His voice echoed through the entire room, and it made the others jump in surprise. Hearing how loud his voice had been, he moved in slightly closer, trying to keep it at a whisper. "How do you know?"
"She was bitten. She's been infected with the Delta Virus, and she's going to go at any minute now." She was once again distanced from the situation, as if a doctor was giving the bad news for a family that had lost a member.
Devon's spine tingled at the sudden and deadly turn of events, and he stared into Claire's eyes for a while. He mouthed the word "no," but no sound was heard. He slowly began to shake his head, before audibly speaking once more. "No, that can't be."
"I'm sorry."
"Well, we can fix her, or save her or something, right?"
She shook her head solemnly.
Tears started to well up in his eyes, and he looked away in an attempt to conceal them. A quick hand brushed them away, and he continued. "So, what are we supposed to do? She's just going to die, just like that? We just lost Eric to these things, and now we're losing Lori too." His voice was belittling, although it was not his intention to sound so.
She faltered with her point as Devon had delivered her the bad news about Eric. However, she quickly recovered, trying to stay focused on what needed to be done. "She's going to turn into one of the undead soon, and then she's going to be a threat to us."
His eyebrows raised, as another tear traced his cheek. "You mean, she's going to become one of the very things we're trying to kill?"
Claire nodded slowly, and then closed her eyes, fighting back her own emotions.
Devon clenched his jaw, and began to look around the room, as if the actions were physical manifestations of his mind at work. His eyes darted in vain, his vision clouding over from the tears threatening to release. "So," his voice was shaky, "what, we have to kill her?"
She stared at him as her own eyes glazed over with water.
"I don't believe this." He walked past her, one hand made into a fist clenched in helplessness and rage, and the other gripped tightly around his bat. He threatened to hit his free hand against a nearby table. He raised his fist, yet limply relaxed it, and let his open hand flop against the wood, the sound traveling along the walls. "I'm…" Devon's words were slow and painful. "I'm so tired, Claire. I'm…I'm so tired…I can't…" He raised his hand weakly, to stop the flow of emotion, and turned back around to the group, eagerly waiting to be filled in on the conversation. "What am I going to tell them? What am I going to tell her?"
Claire was rigid, her teeth clenched to help stop her lip from quivering. She was trying her best to remain the strong one. This was always easier when it wasn't her friends that were suffering with her. It was one thing to be able to carry her own anguish, but when it was added to others, it seemed overbearing. It sounded horrible to her, but she wished that she hadn't known them in some respects, that way this would be much easier for her.
"What am I going to tell her, Claire?"
"…I don't know."
****
"What do you think they're talking about?" Bethani asked, as she nervously stared out the front doors.
"I don't know," Demi said, "but I would assume it's something bad."
They were silent with agreement.
Bobbye frowned as she strained to hear something in the distance. "Did anyone…else hear that?"
"What?" Bethani asked.
"I'm…not quite sure…It was some sort of yell."
"It probably was," Lori strained to speak. "Look…what's happening…here…"
"No, it was something…different."
The hairs on the back of Demi's neck stood on end. She didn't know what Bobbye was talking about, and she didn't hear the supposed sound, but something in her voice made blood run cold. "Why won't this end," she finally said, "it's only been a couple of hours, but I don't think I can take much more."
Bobbye slid against the wall to a sitting position and checked the fresh clip in her gun once again. It had apparently become something of a nervous habit, as she would do it every couple of minutes. She made sure the safety was on, before she'd set the gun back in its holster. She flipped her long blonde hair to her other shoulder, and leaned her head against the hard brick wall, swallowing hard. Her eyes gazed at the paneled ceiling, waiting. She waited for Devon and Claire to return, and she could still hear them mumbling about serious matters. She waited for the zombies to come tearing through the doors to rip them all to shreds. She waited for someone to rescue them. She waited for something, anything. At this point, it was all the same to her. The environmental sounds began to fade, the voices of Demi and Bethani muffling into unintelligible noise as her mind focused on the happier times of her life. Of her winning state in last year's tennis tournament, of her arm wrestling Claire repeatedly, and winning each time. Last year's formal Christmas dance. The memories were so familiar, so close, yet unreachable. She could only admire them in remembrance.
"Wow Demi," Bethani said, "I really can't believe you're still alive."
Bethani received an ill glare from the freshman girl.
"No, not like that," she explained, "it's just, I don't know how anyone could go so long here by themselves. I thought you were dead for sure."
Demi didn't know quite how to take the words. She frowned before gracelessly saying, "Yeah, I hid a lot." She smirked at how stupid that must have sounded, but Bethani had not seemed to notice.
"Yeah, Claire saved me. I was about to be eaten by my roommate." While the words were well placed, the tone at which she said them was almost joking. Even in the grim circumstances at hand, Beth was still somewhat cheerful. Demi wasn't quite sure how she was able to maintain a light-hearted state of mind in the situation.
It was then that Demi and Beth caught sight of Devon and Claire walking back to the group, their eyes glassy from welling tears. Devon walked toward Lori, catching a glance from Demi that just seemed to ask 'what's wrong.' He returned a weak smile to her before kneeling over to Lori, picking her up in his arms. She did not yell or cry; instead, she released a raspy breath along with a sound that appeared to be gurgling fluid within her lungs. He walked a couple of steps before stopping and turning to the group.
"I'm going to take her into the doctor's office. Maybe she'll be able to relax a bit."
Claire simply stared. No smile, no nod, just acceptance.
"Devon," Demi said as she got up and walked over to him, pushing her deep rose hair back with her long fingers, "what's wrong."
He simply smiled unconvincingly before walking through the propped door of the medical waiting room. He tried to open the door to the office itself, but it was firmly locked in place. He set Lori down on the row of connected chairs in the waiting room, and began searching the reception desk for a spare set of keys.
"What's wrong with Lori, Claire." Bobbye's tone was imperative, demanding.
"She's going to be dead soon." Claire was very blunt, but that's what got the point across, and it seemed to help her shun her emotions a little.
Bobbye didn't move. Instead, she tilted her chin high, and still looking at Claire, slowly nodded. She looked at Demi and Bethani, as if she was going to say something, and then stopped. She didn't need to say anything, the other two girls were thinking the same thing.
They wanted to know who was next.
****
"Sir!" A white coated lab technician trotted over to the thick jawed man in the three-piece suit from behind one of the nearby white vans. "The second shift can't get into the Biolab. There are too many subjects in the upper floors, and we can't get in, nor can the first shift get out."
The man with the black tie stared at the technician, awaiting further explanation.
The scientist swallowed hard before continuing. "We, being the first and second shifts, are uh, requesting roughly half a dozen soldiers to clean out the premises.
The man didn't move, except for his eyes, which ever so slightly shifted to the side, eyeing a few armed soldiers bringing down a few more undead with their M-16s. "All right," he finally said in a low, throated tone, "prepare to depart within five minutes." As the scientist turned and jogged away, the man once again shifted his eyes to the soldiers, still firing at the remaining "subjects." It seemed now the zombies were spreading away from the campus, to the exteriors. "There must not be many people left within the area." He musings turned to a single person. "Maybe that means that Claire was caught off-guard. Even if she is still around, the tyrant is out now, along with the lickers and hunters. It won't be long now." With that, he turned to the nearby group of soldiers who had exterminated the threat, and were now reloading their weapons. He held up two fingers, then three, and six men scurried into two rows of rigid formation, awaiting their next orders.
****
"Well, as long as we're here, we might as well find the dean," Bobbye said, once again nervously checking the clip in her gun.
"Okay," Claire said, "I'll help you find him," her eyes scanned her friends to find another to join her. Her green eyes passed over Devon and Bethani, and locked onto Demi. She opened her mouth, to invite her to join her, but she then remembered how close her and Devon were. She decided to take Bethani instead. "Bethani, do you want to come with me?"
"I…I guess," Bethani said indecisively, "but why do we always split up like this? Wouldn't we be safer in groups?"
"Not in situations like this," Claire explained. Large groups don't do much against zombies. If you can't take down a group of zombies with one person, two won't be a whole lot better." She motioned Beth to follow her, and the three girls walked to the stairs. Suddenly, Claire spun around, her hand on her hip. Beth screamed in surprise at the sudden movement. "Demi, do you want a gun?"
"What?" Demi, apparently lost in her own thoughts, had not heard the question.
"Do you want my gun."
"Oh. Um," she ran her head through her rose hair. "I've never actually shot a gun before."
"It's easy," Claire said, as she took off one of her side holsters. "Devon will show you."
"But," Demi grew uncomfortable at the idea of controlling such fatal equipment, "what about Beth?"
"I don't want one, Demi. I hate those things." Bethani was quick to answer.
Demi turned the firearm over in her hands, and looked at Devon, who weakly smiled at her. He mouthed, 'it'll be okay.' He then walked forward a step to speak.
"I'm going to stay with Lori."
"Devon," Claire pleaded, "don't. Please…She's going to."
"I know, but she's in a lot of pain, and she's scared. If I were her, I'd hate to die alone."
Claire didn't argue with that, instead her words took a darker approach. "When it happens, you'll have to do it."
Devon knew what she was talking about. He needed no further explanation. Yet he said nothing as he stared at the ground.
"We're outta here then." Bobbye said quietly. "Tell Lori that…Um…We love her, and we'll miss her."
With that, the three girls trotted up the stairs to the second floor. Demi stared after them for a while, and swallowed hard before turning to Devon.
"Hey, I'm glad you're still safe." Her words were sharp, but she didn't mean them to be. Demi always seemed to have trouble expressing her feelings.
"Yeah, me too." Devon was equally as dense in his response. His eyes lit up in embarrassment, as he stammered to alter what he had said. "I, I mean, I'm glad that you're safe. I didn't mean that I was glad I was safe. Well, I am, but…" He sighed in defeat. "It's good to see you, Demi."
She smiled at him.
"Hey," Devon said, "the medical room is locked, but there's a storage in the basement. Come with me, and we'll look for that key, okay? Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you."
"I know. But what about Lori?"
"Yeah…" he trailed off, "…but we won't be gone long. We'll be back soon enough…Maybe then we can find something to relieve her pain."
Devon wrapped his hand around her, while the other one held onto his bat. They walked down the dimly lit staircase together.
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