Chapter Six: It's Not Just Zombies
It had been nearly three days since Elyza had left the Blakes, meaning four days since the world had decided to end as she knew it. Her phone was complete crap and she had given up on it while she'd been drunk the first night. She'd thrown it against the brick wall of the abandoned storage locker until it had fallen apart in her hands in her anger.
Every night since, she'd slowly but surely depleted her reserves of alcohol, trying to cope with the tragedy that was now her life. The only thing that kept her moving was her desire to see her mother again. She hadn't managed to go far after the incident at the gas station and she hadn't moved much since.
After finding the storage building, Elyza had broken in and discovered an unused 7x7 storage unit on the first floor. She had rolled in her motorcycle and parked it in the corner before taking out her backpack and rolling out her fuzzy blanket.
The only things she had had in her carry-on bag were a blanket, her book, toothbrush, toothpaste, sunglasses, cellphone charger, and a set of pajama clothes that she hadn't managed to fit back in her suitcase. She had the gun and the three pocket knives she'd gotten. There were only fifteen bullets left in her Glock and she was worried that she'd run out of bullets sometime soon.
But after three days of sitting in that storage unit without sunlight and drinking herself into a stupor, she was ready to get moving again.
On the morning of her fourth day on her own, she awoke with a much more minor headache than the other days. She'd refrained from drinking more than one beer because she was trying to prepare herself for moving the next day.
Slowly and painfully, Elyza stood up and cracked her back. Every joint in her body hurt from sleeping on the chilly cement floor. Her hips throbbed as she moved them, trying to stretch them out as she cleaned up her space.
She felt disgusting. It had been days since she'd last showered and she wasn't sure when she would get the chance again. Her hair was greasy and her face felt like it was covered in a heavy sheen of oil. She didn't know how much she had managed to sweat in the last couple of days but she was acutely conscious of the heavy layer of grime on her skin.
She couldn't even begin to wonder what she smelled like. Pushing the thought from her mind, Elyza shoved her things back into her backpack and unlocked the nearest, empty compartment on the motorcycle. She'd taken to calling it Blaze because the name reminded her of the Blakes and she hated just calling it 'the motorcycle' since she didn't feel comfortable calling it hers.
After packing away her blanket, she pulled out the map with Bellamy's handwriting on it. She was halfway to Santa Monica and she regretting wasting so much time wallowing in her own misery. The Jahas were out there still, she might not know if they were alive, but she needed to find out either way.
Elyza pulled on her leather jacket before yanking open the unit door, allowing in sunlight from the glass window opposite it. Blinking hard through the pounding in her head as her eyes adjusted to the penetrating sunlight, Elyza groaned in pain.
This is why I hate drinking, she thought depressingly before rubbing her hands over her face. She grabbed her aviator sunglasses from the inner pocket of her jacket and put them on. As she maneuvered the bike into the hallway, she heard a noise. Fearing it was an infected, she settled Blaze down carefully on its kickstand and yanked the Glock out of her waistband, flicking the safety off in the same motion.
She strained her ears, listening harder for any signs of something moving. A much louder noise echoed through the hallway after a moment of careful attentiveness from Elyza. Jumping slightly, adrenaline coursed through her veins as the fight or flight instinct took over.
Brandishing her gun threateningly in front of her, Elyza cautiously moved down the hallway, heading deeper into the building. The further away she got from the window, the darker her surroundings became. It became harder to see in front of her and she reminded herself to find a flashlight as soon as possible.
Another crash alerted her to the presence of something. It sounded like an animal desperately trying to break free from a trap. But Elyza knew that normally, when an animal was trapped it made noise, like whining or moaning for help. This time there was only a wet rasping noise that didn't sound at all healthy.
Slowly but surely, Elyza made her way down the darkening corridor until she could faintly see the outline of the walls around her. Her heart continued to pound furiously in her chest as she scanned her surroundings. Finally, she discovered the source of the noise.
There was a long hallway to the left of smaller, darker storage units and through the faint lighting, Elyza could see an open door. Someone must be in there, she thought warily. It was dark—almost too dark to see, even with the small window allowing in light at the end of the hallway.
The cement walls were chilly and damp around her, sending a shiver down her spine. Goosebumps rose all over her body, even underneath her clothes. This all seems so horror movie-like.
As she moved closer, the wet wheezy noise grew louder and something else fell. The noise was definitely coming from the open unit because something round clattered and rolled into the hallway. A loud growl almost made Elyza jump out of her skin and she nearly pulled the trigger on her gun.
"Hello?" She called and her voice echoed.
More frantic noises followed her voice and she edged to stand in front of the pitch black room. She brandished the gun towards the entrance, standing as far away as possible in the cramped room. She narrowed her eyes, trying to penetrate through the darkness and see what was going on within.
Something moved within, slowly this time but she didn't know what it was. Taking a nervous, hesitant step forward she aimed her gun at the small movement. She was merely feet away from whatever the thing was and didn't expect it to lunge at her.
Elyza screamed—something she wasn't proud of—and a hand slapped the gun out of her hand as she jumped back. She pressed herself tightly against the damp wall behind her and cringed away. Hands grabbed at her shoulder and the wet grunts and groans were closer to her face than before—nearly too close for comfort.
She raised her arms and pressed against a hard, cold chest. Her head was angled upward at the chin of a skinny, bearded man whose mouth was wide open and ready to chomp down on her face. He didn't have blood around his mouth like the guy she'd killed did, but his eyes were still the same hazy, unseeing blue.
Pushing harder, she ducked under one of its arms and punched it in the side. But, the guy didn't at all react in the way a normal, living person would. In fact, he didn't react at all as she scrambled away, diving for her pistol and quickly turning around.
With minimal hesitation this time, Elyza aimed and fired the gun. Only this time she missed, the one time she really needed accuracy, she only managed to graze the man's ear. The bullet actually ricocheted off of the cement wall, sending a spray of debris clattering to the ground.
The Infected fell on top of her and frenziedly grabbed at her shirt and jacket. It crawled up her body and gnashed its death in her face, disgusting saliva drizzling onto Elyza's shirt. She desperately grabbed at the guy's hair, forcing it to keep its mouth away from her body.
Grabbing for something, anything with her free hand, Elyza wrapped her fingers around a plastic handle. Not caring what it was, she brought it over the Infected's head with as much strength as she could muster from the angle. The zombie didn't seem very fazed, but its grip faltered enough for her to squirm out of the way.
"Hold on," a deep, male voice called as Elyza gasped heavily, scrambling away.
A heavy black boot landed mere inches from her face as she grabbed behind her, trying to rip the infected guys' hand off of her jacket. As she struggled, whoever was standing over her fired a gun, causing her ears to ring loudly and her eyes to cross at the incredibly loud noise.
The hand on her jacket went slack and she took a second to catch her breath. She allowed herself to enjoy the cool feeling of the cement ground for a second before she began to stand up.
"Thank y-" before she could finish her sentence something hard slammed into the back of her head and her vision went black. She felt her legs crumble before strong arms caught her and she fell completely unconscious.
When Elyza woke up, she was laying on something comfortable and her head hurt—not unlike when she'd had a hangover before. Before she even opened her eyes, she knew she wasn't in that storage place. Bright, fluorescent lights hurt even though she hadn't even seen her surroundings yet.
She groaned and sat up, opening her eyes to a brightly lit, white metal room. For a second, she was confused, the wall seemed to be angled outward. She rubbed her forehead and felt a rough bandage wrapped around her forehead.
She followed it with her fingers to a tender, painful spot near the base of her skull. Wincing, she twisted, placing her feet on the white-metal floor below her. She was dressed in different clothes than the ones she had been in before.
A pair of loose, blue and gray-white cargo pants hung loosely on her waist and a white tank-top hugged her torso. The bed beneath her was thin, but still more comfortable than the way that she had been sleeping for the last several days. It had a metal frame that was bolted securely to the floor.
Standing up shakily, the floor seemed to shift and roll underneath her, it felt oddly family but she still stumbled, catching herself on a rounded protrusion from the wall. She thought that maybe it was just her head, the last thing she remembered was something hitting her. Hard.
It felt like a concussion, but before she could really gather her thoughts together a loud, electronic beep came from above. A silver metal door hissed open on a hydraulic locking mechanism and a woman with a tight sandy blonde bun entered the room.
She was dressed in a bleach white lab coat and underneath, blue scrubs. "Hi, I'm glad to see you awake."
Elyza narrowed her eyes at the woman, crossing her arms uncomfortably over her chest after yanking up her sagging pants. They were too long on her legs, pooling around her feet. "Hello." She nodded, "Where am I? Where's Blaze?"
The woman frowned, her penciled in eyebrows creasing closer. "Who's Blaze? There was nobody with you when we found you."
Elyza shook her head and hesitatingly added, "No, Blaze isn't a person. It's a bike. A motorcycle. It has all of my stuff in it." She knew she probably sounded crazy, but there was no other way for her to say that she'd named a motorcycle because she was too lonely.
The lady's facial expression cleared and she chuckled lightly, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. "We acquired your personal belongings when we found you. The vehicle you had was placed in secure location back on shore, your clothes and backpack were disinfected to avoid attainment of any germs onto the ship. I will have them brought here, if you desire to make you feel more comfortable."
She pulled a clipboard out from underneath her arm and once again, flashed me a fake smile, "Now, it seems you have a minor concussion from the injury you received when one of our soldiers attempted to detain you. He reports that you fought him so he had to take extensive measures to get you to calm down. I'm going to have to run a few tests to make sure everything is healing properly now that you have woken up. Please have a seat."
Elyza had no idea what to think, this woman—doctor, or whatever—had just given her so much information she wasn't sure how to process it properly. Shore? Ship? Soldiers? Detained? What the hell was going on? She did as the woman said and perched herself on the edge of her bed as the doctor walked around and stood before her.
She reached into the outer pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a small handheld flashlight. "I need you to follow the light with your eyes, alright?" She leaned down and rested a cool hand on Elyza's shoulder, squeezing softly.
The doctor clicked on the light and Elyza flinched ever so slightly as her head pounded. She did as the woman said and after the test was over, rubbed her eyes with her hands in an attempt to clear her vision.
"You look good, slightly slow reaction in the left eye, but it doesn't seem like there's too much swelling anymore," she wrote something down on the clipboard and replaced the flashlight in her pocket. "Now, I would like you to tell me the last thing you remember."
Frowning carefully in thought, Elyza remembered back to the last thing that happened before everything went black. She had finally been leaving the storage unit to head to Santa Monica after her three-day pity party when she'd heard a noise. Against her better judgement she had gone to investigate and found one of the infected people there. After a small altercation between them, it seemed like the infected guy was going to kill her and she was desperately trying to get away.
Then a voice, a loud gunshot and a whack in the back of the head that sent her into the realm of the dead for a short period of time. There was no memory of her resisting anyone, she didn't even know who'd saved her and then kidnapped her. Someone was clearly lying.
"I remember getting hit over the head after one of those, those…things nearly killed me. Then after that…nothing. But I don't remember any sort of altercation," It was hard to resist mocking the straight-backed, no nonsense doctor's vocabulary.
Once again, the doctor raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow, "Are you insinuating that a U.S. Navy SEAL lied to their commanding officer?"
"I'm not insinuating anything, ma'am. I'm telling you that I did not put up a fight," Elyza's voice grew hard, the condescending tone this doctor was taking with her didn't go over well. She had a problem with people treating her like a child and with authority figures trying to make her do what they wanted.
The doctor's jaw clenched several times before she responded, "I will investigate further, if you wish."
Elyza forced herself to restrain from rolling her eyes, "That would be much appreciated. Where am I?"
The doctor cleared her throat and straightening, grabbing the clipboard from where it sat on the bed besides Elyza, "You are aboard the USS Freedom and among a group of Pacific Fleet Naval ships. We were sent to recover any survivors and supplies from what remains of California."
"Remains? What are you saying? What exactly is going on?"
The doctor walked around the side of the bed and rested her hand on the handle of the door, "I am not at liberty to say. I will have someone bring you something to eat, but I have not been given clearance to allow you unlimited access to this ship's assets. Do not attempt to leave and I would suggest resting more. You have a concussion, you can't be moving too much."
With those last words, the doctor left and Elyza was left alone with the buzzing of overhead lights and the low rumble of the ocean beneath her. Feeling slightly sick to her stomach from the constant motion, she sat down, struggling to rid herself of the uncomfortable sensation.
Sitting only seemed to make it worse, the door seemed to be moving at a different pace as her own body. Her brain didn't know how to process what her eyes were seeing and her body was feeling. Laying down, she threw her arm over her head and tried to lull herself into sleep with the steady rocking motion of the ship.
Her head still pounding, she tried to force her mind from reeling at the new information she had received. It didn't work. She was on a ship, somewhere off of the coast of California. How far away from Santa Monica was she? She should have kept moving after killing that infected guy, she should have done so many things differently. Maybe she shouldn't have left the Blakes and Finn after they had so graciously offered her a place to stay.
Should of, could of, would of, she thought bitterly, repeating the words her father used to say when things hadn't gone her way. He was always one to go with the flow after something went his way, unlike Elyza who constantly stressed over every decision before making them.
After a few minutes in that small semi-conscious state of sleeping and alertness, a beeping noise woke her up completely. The door hissed open again and she sat up to see who was visiting her again.
A man dressed in fatigues similar to hers stood in the doorway, his face void of any expression. "I brought you lunch and your personal belongings." He held up each item in his full hands.
Standing up slowly, she reached for the backpack the man held out to her. Once she had it, she pulled the zipper open and sorted through her clothes, she noticed what was missing. "Where are my weapons?"
The guy ran a hand through his short, sandy blond hair. "They were confiscated and placed in the armory for future use." He placed the plate of food at the foot of the bed. A sandwich and a small bag of chips sat on the plate with a bottle of water. "Before you ask, we have been forbidden from allowing civilians to have firearms. Your pocket knives are still in there, but don't think about doing anything stupid with them, I read your file."
Unable to resist, Elyza rolled her eyes. "Thanks. But I need to get out of here. I think I'm getting sea sick." She was already unfolding her leather jacket and pulling it on over her tank top. It made her feel more comfortable, no matter the situation.
The man gave her a sad look. He was taller than Elyza by nearly half a foot and stood with his back straight. He had a very stocky build, even for his tall height and a handsome face for an older man. He had to have been older than forty, but he still had the strength and build of a young man, at least clothed.
"I'm not allowed to let you out without clearance. But I'll see if I can get the Doc to give me some Dramamine so I can bring it to you. And I'll check to see if I can get you on deck. But for now, you need to get some food in your system. You've been out for nearly twelve hours. When was the last time you ate?" The concern evident in his voice surprised Elyza.
With an audible sigh, Elyza shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket, "Fine." She plopped down on the bed and grabbed the bag of chips, opening them with a loud pop. Her stomach was tight and she didn't actually want to eat anything so she replaced the bag with the bottle of water and took a small sip.
The soldier was still standing there, "Are you going to be okay? Are there any people back on shore that we should search for?"
Elyza frowned, her first thought was her mother, but she was in a completely different country. The Jahas were next, but she didn't have a clue where they were or if they had even survived the initial chaos.
"There's this family that saved me. They were heading down near the San Pedro area," she put down the bottle and rummaged through her backpack, pulling out the slightly crumbled map. "There were four of them. Bellamy, Aurora and Octavia Blake with their friend Finn Collins. I don't know if they made it down, but there were military personnel moving in when I left." She paused, then added as an afterthought, "They gave me the motorcycle you guys took away. They're the kids in the picture on the keychain."
She flashed the soldier a hard look. She wasn't completely sure why she was so possessive and protective of the family, but she did want them to survive. Who else could help them other than their own government?
"Alright, I'll look into it for you," he held out his hand for them map, "I'm Allister, by the way."
"Elyza," she placed the map in his hands, for some reason she trusted him.
"Nice to meet you, Elyza." He nodded before exiting the room.