Infected the series Book 1 chapter 9

Sarah and I stayed up on the roof and joked until the sun rose. It was beautiful; I have not been this relaxed in such a long time. It was truly wonderful. At about five in the morning we climbed down and got to work. Sarah reminded me that leaders need to lead by example. Which is true, that meant no more sleeping late, even though I really like it. To be the leader I must be the first one up. Even that is not enough, I will have to work hard and be decisive and right now I choose to lead.

For the next two weeks we stayed at Doonsfield Animal Hospital and I was the hardest working person anyone had ever seen. I was the first one up and was finished cleaning and walking all of the dogs before anybody even woke up. I felt great about it. I even began sleeping some nights. Soon others were waking up early with me and cleaning with me. We were suddenly a unit and it was amazing. These two weeks passed as though they were nothing.

Suddenly my phone rang and this whole world which we had built came crashing down.

It was Brandon, his breath was heavy and he sounded tired. In the background I could hear the distant sound of crying.

“Sam” he heaved into the phone, his voice seemed haggard, afraid. It was very unusual for the normally cocky Brandon. “Are Nikki and I still invited?”

“Invited?”

“Yeah Sam, Are Nikki and I still invited?” His voice seemed to be lower than a whisper and his hoarse voice seemed to crash awkwardly into the speaker.

“Invited,” I repeat with a mix of fear and frustration in my voice “Invited to what?”

“Your group”

“Oh, yeah,” really, do I seem that petty? “What happened? Is everything okay Brandon?”

“What is the address?”

“5600 Route 9 South in Doonsfield NJ”

“I will call you when we get there.” That was it I would have kept talking but he hung up on me. I looked up from my chair. Everyone was looking at me. They knew it was something bad. It was hard to hide such a fear. There was something that bothered me about Brandon during that conversation.

“My Friend Brandon and his sister Nikki will be joining us in the next few days.”  Sean’s ears perked up at the mention of a girl. His eyes caught mine and I never saw such excitement on his face. His girlfriend died early on in the infection. He swore he would never love again. Apparently he lied.

“When are they getting here?” Nicole asked in between bites of canned cat food.

“I actually don’t know” I awkwardly smiled trying to make it not seem awkward. I failed, it was obvious that everyone was a little bit uncomfortable with the idea of new people joining our little group, but Brandon and Nikki were very important and provided knowledge, numbers and guns to our little group.

There was an awkward silence which seemed to fill the air. I found myself zoning out in the new fire which cracked under the fresh tinder. It had rained the night before which caused the wet wood to crackle and burn from the water. I don’t think I can stay here anymore it feels like we have waited to long and the Infection will eventually over run the wood boards that hold us away from the outside world. Also there seems to be something going on at the car lot next to us. I have brought Matt Freddie and Sean there twice to look to see if anyone was there but every time it seemed empty. It wasn’t though. I am almost certain of it. There is someone living there. Well at least one person, a young man probably about my age there may be others but I have not seen them yet. The truth is that at a time like this, staying still is not an option.

            My body slowly rose from the old plastic chair and moved silently towards the door. My knees cracked and creaked with each step, as I pushed myself back to the doctors’ office where I have been staying for a while. I collapsed into my chair and rolled over to the computer. I turned it on and wiped the dust off the screen. The internet in here was still active so I checked the stats. 14.3 to 86.7.

I have not spoken to Lucas since we left. He could be gone and this whole trip could be for nothing. So I had to call him up just for a check.

The phone rang once, then again, and a third time. My fingers tapped furiously against the table with each sound in my ear.

“Hey this is Lucas I am not available right now please leave a message after the beep.” His voice was high pitched and childish like when we were younger and for a second I hoped it was a joke. Then finally the long, high pitched beep of the recorder.

I was done after that, I hung up the phone and let my body crumple in my chair. His death meant that this whole trip was a waste of time. I knew that we should have left earlier; I let myself get too comfortable. Now because I failed my best friend is dead, his life a waste and destruction to the power of the Infection.

My body just lied there on the floor for what felt like hours. I don’t care anyway. I failed. My head was screaming at me and I wanted it to explode and cover this room. I closed my eyes and imagined it. Vibrations, I felt vibrations against my leg. It felt nice but it did not seem real or natural. I enjoyed it though, until I heard the crashing sound of plastic hitting the floor. I opened my eyes and saw the vibration was coming from my phone.

“Hello?” My voice trailed off.

“Hi Sam, how are you?”  The voice is clearly a young woman’s she seems like she is at least seventeen.

“I am good,” I wasn’t. I always feel that no one wants to hear anything else and if you tell them otherwise then they feel uncomfortable and hang up while you are talking. So I lied. “How are you?” I realized after I said this that I have no clue who this person is.

“I am great,” Her voice seems to be a little whisper but she sounds genuinely excited. “I am sorry I missed your call. Lucas is taking a little nap.” Suddenly I realized who this was. Danielle, this was Lucas’s girlfriend. I never met her but I knew about her from Lucas. “But yeah,” her voice trailed off for second “He is asleep.”

“Really?”

“Yeah he fell asleep on the couch about half an hour ago.” Really, that lazy easygoing life living lucky jerk, napping, he is napping. I have trouble sleeping and he can just nap the day away without a care in the world. Maybe I am wrong and people are not dying every day and I have nothing to worry about. I want to shout into the phone yet all I can muster is.

“Cool, tell him I called” In a half hearted and half smile, but mostly ready to kill him.

“Alright, bye Sam” She said bye. Yet he way she said it her optimism and joy seemed to make that word less agitating. I hung up the phone and leaned back in my chair. A smile fell across my face as I sat there and kept repeating that word, nap, I laughed, nap, Lucas is taking a nap. I laughed and spun around in my chair.

My ears perked at the sound of feet moving down the hall. There were many of them. At least three people, and by the sounds of the step I am going to guess that it is one girl and two boys. I turn the chair and stare intently at the open door as Sarah, Matt, and Freddie, come into view. Our eyes meet and there is a silence. It is a pretty awkward silence when suddenly Leila sneezes.

“God bless you.” We all remark, and then burst out laughing. Tension disappeared with that. Then suddenly it all rushed back.

“Sam, we don’t want Brandon to join our group.” Matt started off.

“Too bad,”

“We are serious,” Sarah joins in.

“Me too,” I smile.

“None of us know anything about him and we all get along.” Sarah continues.

“Well then we get to meet him and get to know him.”

“Sam!” Matt’s patience look like they are about to run out. “Cut the crap. We all agree we don’t want him here and you can’t just-“

“86 percent of the human population is part of the Infected.” I stand up from my chair and begin walking towards the door. “We need to protect as many as we can and that includes Brandon” Freddie and Sarah seemed to split a small path for me to walk through. I walked through the hall and heard the sound of Leila’s collar clanging behind me. Something about her makes me smile.

We walked outside; I stood by the door and watched as Leila tried to find some piece from Babe as she tried to use the bathroom.  I knew there were more of us, the survivors. There was clearly one following us. He refuses to come closer than where he is now but I know he is there. I just hope he is friendly. People tend to not become cruel and selfish during the Infection. I have seen it. Infighting as everyone wants to exist just like we did beforehand every luxury handed to us on a silver platter. Things like food were easy. People would mock the “third world countries” yet here we are, no different. We call ourselves civilized yet when push comes to shove people will do whatever it takes to survive.

Yet there is power in numbers. I would love to have a few more people. They won’t come to us though. So I believe I will come to them.

I pulled out my phone and went straight into contacts. “HENRY GREENHUT” appeared in black pixels on the screen. A little smirk snuck across my face. Henry was one of my closest friend’s from camp. He also lived the farthest away. Henry was an acrobat and circus freak who spent most of his summer swinging on the camp trapeze. Although He was strong it never really showed as his fun loving and joyous nature always seemed to hide it. Henry. Lived out in California and always came to camp with Brandon and me in Pennsylvania. It was a far flight yet he seemed to enjoy it all. Henry had many noticeable features like his blue green eyes. However, all of the qualities he had seemed to be overshadowed by the one quality he did not have. When Henry was seven he lost his right pinky finger in an accident. The stub was the first thing I noticed when I met him, but that was a long time ago in a distant land where maybe for just a moment I was happy.

I put the speaker to my ear and waited. Each second made my heart skip a beat until finally.

“Yo, Sam.” Henry’s voice rang into the speaker.

“Hey Henry” A smile runs across my face. “Glad to see you are alive.”

“As am I of you good sir” Henry laughs. “So to what do I owe the phone call from the East?”

“Just to see what is going on and let you know that I have creating a group to survive the Infection and I was wondering if you would like to join us?” Henry laughed into the phone as if I was joking. It made me feel dumb for just asking.

“I actually just created my own group of survivors in LA.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, my friend Juddy and I started it.”

“Well we should all meet up in the future.”

“Yeah, keep in touch.”

“I intend too” I smile

“Wonderful” Then he hung up. Leila was standing at my feet with Babe. I knelt down and gave each of them a pat on the head and then walked back inside.

The sounds of barking dogs have almost become second nature to my ears as I walk through the halls. Only to here the sound of breaking glass, panic sets in. I run down the hall with Leila and Babe. The door and wood barricade had been broken down and the Infected have burst in. A large male in a gray suit and bright red tie locks onto me. I am unarmed. My adrenaline kicks in and I run into the doctors’ office and close the glass door and lock it. Leila and Babe have managed to disappear into hiding. I don’t really need to worry too much about those two right now. The mangled body of the Infected is now smashing against the glass I fumble with the P.A system in the hospital until I finally hear the high pitched beep. “Attention we have a break in by the staff lounge we have a break in!” I desperately shouted.

Crash! Glass crackles along the floor as the beast bursts in blood covered its face and its mangled body charged towards me. I felt around and found my gun sitting on the counter. I aimed and shot it in the stomach. The body stumbled back with a grunt, another shot to the head splattered blood and brain matter across the walls. There was a deformed body of what was probably a high school cheerleader in the hall in front of me. I grabbed the woodpecker scythe and prepared to strike when its head fell cleanly from its body. Sean stood behind it with his sword drawn. Then the crack of Matt’s bat against the body of another zombie echoes down the hall. I climbed through the broken door and saw the wave of the undead fighting to break in.

“Guy, get down!” Sarah and Nicole shouted from down the hall. We all dropped to our stomach as Nicole Freddie and Sarah unleashed as many bullets as they could against the undead.

“Matt Help me barricade the door” I tried to shout over the gun fire. Matt and I crawled into the staff lounge and grabbed the large table and propped it up against the broken door. Sean Matt and I held it up as tightly as we could.

“Freddie go into the supply closet and get the biggest nails you can find!” I shout with in seconds he was back with them and one of my war hammers smashing the nails into the broken door frame. After all was said and done we had gone through twenty bullets and forty five nails. We could no longer stay here and live this comfortable life we had all become so accustomed to. Bodies litter the hallway and blood has covered the light walls to a dirty brown color. I look around at the group; we all share the same stupid expression of fear. The hall echoes the sounds of our heavy panting. Babe rubs up against my leg and I almost jump from shock. All eyes are now on me, we have been put in a very tough situation. Brandon is on his way and the sun is going down. We can not just up and leave it would not be safe. This place has provided us with a lot, food, medical supplies, and shelter. To just up and leave all this in a rush would be suicide. Yet to pretend like this place would be a lie.

If I make the wrong decision we all die. All the eyes seem to be stabbing at me waiting for my next words.

“Guys lets get cleaned up and get ready for dinner.” I say with as much command in my voice as I could muster. “Let us get this cleaned up and ready. Tonight we are going to have one person guarding this area at a time. Every two hours the person will change.  That means that you need to sleep when it is not your turn. I will take the first shift. Let’s get started.” Everyone still stood there dumbfounded by my decision. “Now,” I whispered. All the bodies began to move and rush through as they cleaned the corpses out of the hall. I stood by the door with my woodpecker scythe and pistol ready. Time passed and I was alone sitting in a chair bored and waiting. I looked at the clock along the wall. It had been a whole twenty minutes. Time was not my friend. As I sat in that chair the rotation of the earth began to make me nauseous. The barricade we made out of the large table in the staff lounge seemed to hold tight.

“Hey Sam, brought you dinner.” I heard a voice from behind me. It was obvious that it was Sean. His light sneakers made very little sound across the crimson colored floor. I turned around in my chair and saw him standing there with a steaming can of cat food. I did not want to eat the cat food. It made me sick.

“Sean can I ask you a question” I smile. Sean looks at me with a worry in is eyes. “What is up with that blade on your back?” He feels around and finds the sheath that has been sitting on his back for as long as we have been traveling. “You never even use it.” His hand clutches the handle but does not remove the blade. Then he lets go and brings his attention back to me.

“It is my prized possession,” Hey says with pride. “It is called a Buster Blade and honestly I have no need to use it yet.” The blade sheath covers Sean’s back yet he moves remarkably quickly with it. I wish I could see him wield this weapon. “Anyway, I am here to replace you.” I look at the clock and it has actually been two hours which surprised me.

“Do you mind if I stay with you, I am not really tired?” Sean shrugs as he takes is seat by the door. I grabbed my chair and rolled down the hall towards Sean.

I felt a vibration from my pocket followed by the sounds of my phone ringing in a loud upbeat tone. 732-453-8857 the number is new to me.

“Hello?” I delicately say into the phone. There is a sound of ruffling on the other end. “Hello?” The ruffling continues until finally I hear a light yet terrified whisper.

“Sam it is me, I need help” My jaw dropped and I began to feel nauseous. I can not believe this. Sean looks at me through his periphery then back at the door. I stand up and run into an exam room and close the door. “Sam, are you there?”