A Cruel, Undead World
~ Chapter 6 ~
Of Heroes and Villains
Tervu Infection Outbreak Active for: 0 Years, 0 Months, 0 Weeks, 0 Days, 01:41:34.
"I'm sorry I couldn't do much more…" Michael looked sadly at his poor make-shift cast made from five layers of bandages. Maja stared at it, her face was pale with the pain she felt, since the major pain-killers they gave her was still taking affect.
Jodie put her hand on his shoulder.
"You did the best you could do, and that's all we could ask for." Michael gave her a small grin; to someone watching them, it was a small gesture—but to him, it meant a lot more.
You see…no one had ever looked out for him, but himself. The only person who showed she cared was his little sister, Michelle. She was the darling sweet heart of Las Vegas all those years ago: the strippers would squeal when Michael's mother brought her to work, and the men loved to play with her.
It was his job to watch her.
She was four years old, he was only nine at the time, and mistook Michelle's signs of affection as annoyance and took every chance he could to drop her and go on his own.
Like I said, no one looked out for him, and only one person cared-
And he abandoned her.
His mother would give him money to go gamble, and because she was such a key stripper, the management didn't bother him. One day, in an effort to shake his shadow, he left her at the table to go play some slots.
When he came back, she was gone. Panicked, he looked everywhere, asked everyone. He walked into one of the rooms to see a sight he will never be able to forget.
No one could describe his agony, and I'm not going to put the picture in your head of what the worst of humanity is capable of doing to a four year old girl.
She died in the ambulance. He screamed at the paramedics to save her, but they tried everything twice and it still wasn't enough. Cause of death: strangulation from a leather belt.
With mommy's little princess gone, there was no reason to be sober. His mother took up drugs, and didn't restrain herself from shaming her now only child.
Guilt was always on his mind, and he felt no escape. Finally he gave in to temptation and took a hit of what his mother had, and that was all it took for the road to Hell. He not only partook in this deadly deed, but sold it around school for more money to feed his own addiction.
He was fifteen when thrown into the back of a police car and hauled into a child psychiatric ward for treatment. The words they told him didn't seem to get through until three years later, when he was eighteen and his gang was about to do the same thing to another little girl that he witnessed men do to his sister. Is there blood and life on his hands? Probably. Did the police know? Probably not. He vanished that night, and was never seen again in Las Vegas, Nevada.
But a new man showed up on the streets of Tervu, Washington; a clean man of twenty-one with a stable job and home.
Now fighting for his life in the zombie apocalypse.
Fate is cruel.
Those last words were thought in Michael's head, as he sighed and broke the eye contact he had with Jodie. Watching the two interact with each other, Maja could feel something there, but for once decided to keep her big mouth shut.
"Well, what now?" she whimpered, trying to move her leg slightly to a more comfortable position. Jodie knelt beside her and whispered in a motherly tone to be careful, and helped the girl move so she felt better. Michael stood up and walked over to the only door; they had placed a long thick bar in the handles to keep it from opening, but they could still hear the hungry grumbles of the zombies outside.
"Now, we wait for rescue…that's really all we can do."
Who would have thought that such a quaint neighborhood would now look more like rival gang territory? Omar Ruan sure didn't.
But this sight was not unfamiliar to Omar, who had lived most of his adolescent life in a very bad part of Mexico, controlled by gangs. He was one of the few Mexicans who were smuggled successfully into the United States. Eventually, he was able to attend law school with help of friends, but decided that wasn't what he wanted to do. Instead, he became a law teacher for the Washington Whales School. Luckily, he called in sick that day to comfort his sickly wife.
Who is still very, very sick.
She spent ten minutes in the bathroom, puking, with the kind yet awkward young man standing behind her, holding back her hair. Derik tried soothing her with song, only to yield insults from the misses in between vomits.
Omar waited for her in the other room, already knowing it was futile to help while she was tossing it. He looked worried, for more reasons than one. Just finished with the last of the reinforcements, Lana started walking passed him, but couldn't help herself but to stop and sit next to him.
"Is something wrong, Omar?" she asked. He exhaled deeply and didn't look at her, too busy watching his thumbs wrestling each other.
"It's Fiona…she's been sick for the past two months, and I'm not sure what to do anymore…she's been throwing up a lot, she's always tired, going to the bathroom frequently, craving strange foods, changing moods rapidly, gaining weight…" as he listed all these symptoms, Lana's eyebrows rose steadily until they were at the highest point of her brow. Suddenly, he looked as if something just struck him, and with a panicked expression turned to Lana. "You don't think she has a bladder infection do you?"
Lana couldn't tell if he was really that ignorant or just plain stupid.
She didn't quite know how to begin, so she just let herself sort of ramble. "Well…do you think that it may be possible that all the seed planting in the bedroom finally grew some fruit?"
He stared at her with a strange expression, and just when she thinks he knows what she meant, he says: "I suppose some of the plants in our bedroom could be growing a bit more, but I hardly think that would be the reason she's acting so strange."
She shook her head with both disappointment and pity for the poor man. "I meant, is it possible she could be pregnant?"
"Pregnant?" he repeated. She nodded, and he looked at her as if she were an alien with a hundred eyes and tentacles for hair. "No! She couldn't be pregnant!"
"Why couldn't she be? What you described is the majority of symptoms associated with the first trimester of pregnancy." She gaged his expressions before saying, "Listen, you're what, in your mid-30's? Have you two actually talked about the possibility of having kids?"
Trying to be the helpful person that she is, she continued "I have had quite a few friends who were married have children, and even though in the beginning it was hard for them, they always told me it was the greatest thing that happened to them. I'm sure that having a child would only grow the bond between you and Fiona."
To her surprise, Omar's face began to contort with anger and his golden skin started turning red. He stood up and left the room, and after a few seconds of collecting what just happened, Lana followed.
When she found Omar, he was standing in the bathroom, a couple of feet away from his still sick wife.
"You're pregnant?" he shouted. Fiona sat, unable to move, before wiping her mouth and swatting away Derik's hands.
"Of course not. Why would yo—"
"Tell me the truth!" his voice began to shake, as if he was close to tears. Lana couldn't understand what the problem was. Fiona stared him straight in the face with narrowed, calculating eyes.
"Alright, fine, I admit it. I'm pregnant."
Kenny walked upon the scene as Omar began breaking down, yelling profanities and crying like his dog just died. Lana didn't know what was going on, but she didn't think the way he was acting was fair. She yelled for his attention and he quieted slightly for her to speak to him.
"Quit acting like it's the end of the world! If you're the one who knocked her up than you should suck it up and take responsibility for this!" he fell silent, and all eyes were on him. After a few seconds, he finally explained.
"You don't understand…a few years ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and had to undergo radiation therapy…" he stood with difficulty, due to the shakiness of his legs. "It rendered me sterile-it's impossible for me to father children!"
They had decided to go back to the sewers that Alex, Salmon and Jasmine had come from. Matt drove as far as he could with the car, but they had to leave it behind short of the playground. Making sure no one was around, Matt got out first, then signaled the others to follow him.
"The sewage line is over there!" Salmon called back as she led the way. They didn't go two feet away from the car when a blood-curling scream forced them to turn; what they saw was ten feet tall, and weighed 500 lbs of pure muscle. It looked hideous, all fat eaten away by the infection and forcing the muscles to grow to an unnatural size. The brain was overgrown too, making it look like Jimmy Neutron on serious steroids. Veins covered the beast, and because its clothes were torn off by the process, you could tell it was an unfortunate female.
"Run!" Matt barked, and the four began to sprint away. The large zombie shrieked loudly, causing the ground beneath them to shake and they lost their balance. Following the scream, they heard groans and grumbles—it had called for the rest of them. The four stumbled to their feet once more, but the larger one started making its slow way toward them, causing the ground to shake violently. They fought to stay balanced while still making progress to the covered hole.
While it was tough for them, it was even more difficult to Jasmine, who suffered from anemia. She huffed and puffed, trying to keep up, but knew she wouldn't make it. Her dark blue eyes closed and time seemed to stand still for just a moment.
I can't give up…I can't let this stupid thing keep me from surviving…
Her eyes cracked to see the other three: zombies were surrounding them, they weren't all going to make it.
This would almost be funny…all this time people made fun of me because I knew zombies were real…and now I'm going to be killed by them…
They were closing in, it was now or never.
If they make it, that's all that matters.
She stopped. Being the nerdy girl she was, she knew how to get them to turn on her instead. Zombies always go after the slower pray. Her knees hit the ground, no one notices her left behind until her piercing screams filled the air. They were almost there, but they turned anyway to see Jasmine lying in the bright green grass with her hands on her head, the infected leaping at her.
Matt wasn't going to let this happen. He ordered the other two to get out of there, and they obeyed and threw open the hatch and jumped down. Struggling with the approaching tank, he retrieved his special pocket knife he used earlier and braced himself, pushing the nearest one away. He stabbed the one mounting her, and was shocked and sickened to see it had bit her shoulder. Not giving up, Matt slammed his elbow into one of the running zombies, and it flew backward. The naked zombie was upon them now, but Matt ducked its slow swing and grabbed Jasmine, picking her up bridal style and dodging the attackers, managing to get to the open hatch and lower her down to the other two. Without a moment to lose, he jumped in and slammed it shut just before the horde was upon him.
Leaned up against the wall of the Cheesecake Factory, she waited with boredom, shooting random passing zombies before they were even twelve feet away. The mall was almost empty now, the scattered zombies leaving the mall to find other sources of food. She was not the most patient, and was quickly becoming irritated with the mysterious stranger she needed to be meeting with. Her thoughts were interrupted by a man's voice, who called out to her.
"So you must be Agent Carson, or I hear you also respond to, what was it…Cherry?" she turned to see the black cloaked man, chuckling at her. She put a hand on her hip with a smirk on her face.
"The nickname my mother called me back in the third grade. Now how would you know about that?" he laughed harshly, shaking his head as he approached her. She didn't flinch when he took out a Beretta and shot a zombie behind her, the bullet nearly grazing her cheek.
"I know everything about the people I work with," he told her. She hummed and switched her weight from her left side to her right.
"Why don't we just cut to the chase and you give me what you promised?"
He shrugged. "Suit yourself." He reached behind him, where a sack was hung over his back, and pulled out a small case. She reached for it, but he held it out of her reach.
"I must know, what are you going to do if this doesn't work?" she scoffed at his question.
"We continue on until it does. You should know that just as well as I."
"That seems like a waste of a lot of lives, don't you think?" she turned partially, pretending to look off in the distance of two infected, fighting over a half-eaten person.
"How would you live with yourself?" he pushed the issue, and she was tired with it. She looked back to him, her head tilted slightly, expression showing irritation.
"The same way we all would. Forget and move on." She held out her hand, and he finally gave her the case. He put his hands in his pockets and sighs.
"Well then, I hope for the sake of your conscious, this goes according to plan."
She placed the case in her deep jacket pocket, and played with her gun while speaking slowly to him. "Yes…according to plan…" she pointed the gun at him. Stunned, he backed up, completely forgetting the gun still in his hand.
"What are you doing?" she chuckled.
"Sorry, just following orders." The gun went off, and he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. "Because if this doesn't work, we can't have you running off to the authorities. Nothing personal, of course." She holstered the gun and walked away, taking out the prism-phone and pressing a couple invisible buttons.
"Yes?" the deep voice answered. The woman looked back at the dead figure.
"Step two is complete."
"Good work, Agent Carson. We are nearly finished. Continue with Step three." She nodded and opened the cube back to the rectangular-prism, and put it back in her pocket, walking toward the nearest mall exit.
A/N: Whoo! That's a lot of new information! Chances of survival are getting super thin, and some have even slimmer chances! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I was surprised (yet somewhat glad) that I didn't get any new characters. So, for ahead, be prepared for after Chapter 7 I won't accept new characters for a chapter, and also the time will play a big part in Chapter 8, so be sure to be watching that carefully! Thanks also for the wonderful reviews! I've been reading them all and putting what I learn from them into play in my writing, and I hope you guys can see an improvement! Catch you all next week!