Beyond Green Fields | Book 6 | Red's Diary [ A Post-Apocalyptic Story] Page 21

  Then the doors to the conference room were unceremoniously opened and our guests waltzed in, and I had, quite frankly, other things to worry about.

  It had only been three weeks since last I’d seen them, but there was a marked difference in all three of them. It could have been down to suddenly finding myself at the other side of their hostile, intense focus than I was used to, but I decided it wasn’t just that. I had to admit, as much as the news that the serum was slowly killing us had shocked me, I hadn’t taken it too seriously after spending a few hours in a state of mild panic. It had been easy to ignore in contrast to the much more immediate threat to my life that the mission to Dallas posed. Yet looking at Hamilton and Miller now, I could tell that they were both definitely on the downward swing.

  Hamilton had beefed up a little but he was still on the gaunt side of lean. It didn’t help that one look at his sister was enough to make what little light there had been in his eyes flicker and die. He didn’t show much outward signs but almost missed a step. That left him lagging slightly behind, and looking almost as vacant as the soldiers lined up next to him.

  Lewis was the polar opposite. She looked strong and healthy—not what you’d expect of someone who must have almost bled out less than a month ago. Her features had been set with determination, which made the way her eyes went wide as they fell on Guinevere rather comical. I almost expected to hear that screeching movie-effect sound accompany the carousel of emotions that played across her face before it settled on curious misgiving, soon to be replaced by a surprisingly neutral mask. It was easy to guess what was going through her mind. Although she was knit from a much more complicated fabric, she must have expected to come blazing in here, high on her “fuck the patriarchy” train, only to realize she needed to switch to the opposite track. With zero personal emotional involvement—except the whole killing-billions-in-the-apocalypse thing—she made the jump easily. Judging how her eyes narrowed as her attention strayed to Marleen, it was obvious that her focus was on the secondary target anyway. Why not for once go for the easy road and kill the woman who’d almost killed her?

  That left Miller—and I had to admit, the quickness of his change in tune was impressive. He still had that strung-out quality to him that I’d first noticed after we’d sprung him from his prison cell, like too much pent-up energy needed to be vented but hadn’t found a target yet. Everything about him—the way he held himself, the fluidity of his motions, the vibe he gave off—screamed apex predator, yet the look in his eyes was calm and calculating. Like his wife, before his eyes fell on the dais he was full of determination, if of a different kind. Clearly, he had prepared himself for a long negotiation with his former mentor, ready to play to all the outdated perceptions—now wrong because of how he had changed over the years—and use anything he could possibly come up with to his advantage. More so, he was a man ready to sacrifice himself, that eerie calm he exuded the same I’d seen in him in the lab in France, seconds before he’d hurled himself down the corridor at the superfreaks to give the rest of us a fighting chance to get out.

  All that changed when he realized that his foe was of a very different nature. His outward show of surprise was minimal and disappeared almost as soon as I recognized it. Almost immediately, he changed. If I hadn’t spent ample time around him, analyzing him, I might not have seen it, but then I was looking for it now. From one step to the next, he seemed to stand taller, his posture more imposing, measured calm getting replaced by cocky aggressiveness. In short, he slipped into the weirdly twisted image reading his psych profile from his army files had conjured up in my mind. I wasn’t the only one who noticed; two statements out of his mouth, and Lewis gave him the kind of side-eye she usually only reserved for Hamilton. I almost laughed at the hilarity of the situation. Watching him kill a man with his bare hands, tear out his heart, and eat it had made her want to jump his bones, yet the swagger so often assumed by young males all over the world got outspoken derision to the point where it wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d offered to “take care of taking out the trash for you” right then and there. I was sure she played it up appropriately, but I knew she wasn’t that good an actress for it to be all pretense. And it was a good thing, too, that she did, as Marleen and Guinevere’s focus remained entirely fixed on the display those two put on, leaving Gita and me up to doing our job.

  Which, in my case, didn’t boil down to much more than to try to get anyone’s attention and point Gita’s way. Hamilton and Miller ignored me—except for Miller’s disparaging remark about me that played perfectly into the lies I’d tried to dish to Marleen just minutes ago—but Lewis caught on quickly. The way she frowned made me wonder just how insecure of my motives she must have been, which hurt but wasn’t entirely unwarranted.

  Looking back, there was a lot I regretted not doing, like not openly supporting them more. If I’d known what this would boil down to, I would have disappeared along with them after returning from France, or not long after that. So many others had deserted around that time—and while a few had turned up at the slaver camp, most on the wrong side of the tracks, quite a lot more familiar faces I’d seen among the scavengers. Even if a life of drugs and partying hadn’t called to me, I’d more than once hesitated on our semi clandestine intel exchanges with Zilinsky when she’d always extended the proverbial hand to me in a standing offer to join them.

  I should have done more. Not sure if it could have made a difference, but maybe then I wouldn’t have spent the entirety of the apocalypse like a useless dog, faithfully following my master’s orders, only to realize that I didn’t matter and had nothing to show for it.

  If anything, the best I had accomplished was to hold out my hands to boost up someone else.

  The conversation—if one wanted to call it that—happening mostly between Guinevere and Miller had been going for several minutes when I realized that I had started to zone out massively, barely being able to process the words flung this way and that. I realized that I was calm again—and now I absolutely had no fucking business for that. Whether I could key up or not, my heart should have been going a mile a minute, seeing as I was surrounded by guns, facing three of the most lethal individuals I’d met in my life.

  And yet, just standing there, staring into space, I felt oddly content. I’d even forgotten to continue my stealthy finger signaling after I’d gotten distracted by the lights flickering once.

  Fuck.

  What the fuck was wrong with me?

  Lewis now joined the verbal altercation, doing what she did best—draw the attention to her and her opinionated opinion. While things didn’t get physical—yet—the level of aggression clearly rose, making something deep inside of me perk up. It was only when I felt Gita’s hand on my left arm that I realized I’d started inching toward Guinevere. I pulled away once more since that was the smart thing to do, but it cost immense amounts of willpower.

  What—

  Fuck.

  Marleen hadn’t given me a sedative. She’d dosed me with that fucking mind control shit!

  I felt no alarm well up inside of me at the thought although it should have kicked off waves of paranoia and a pertinent sense of doom. It wasn’t the potent, immediate shit that Hamilton had shot Miller up with back when he’d wanted to prove his point—that had done a complete mind wipe within moments. What I was feeling was closer to a slowly increasing compulsion to follow instructions…

  … Like when we’d gathered in the conference room hours ago and Marleen had opened by telling everybody to remain calm…

  … Or like before our guests had come strolling into the room and she’d told me to… what had she told me to? I had no memory of it but whatever she’d murmured, my subconscious was definitely responding to it.

  To defend Guinevere with my life, of course.

  “She dies, you die,” was what she’d told me, days ago.

  Looked like I was.

  That idea upset me less than it should have. It wasn’t a purpose I’
d chosen, but it was a purpose nevertheless. I’d lacked purpose over the past two weeks, since I’d come here. Marleen had told me so, repeatedly.

  Fucking Marleen—

  The lights went out and I realized my moment had come. Except for Marleen herself, I was standing closest of all to Guinevere, so it only made sense to physically put myself between her and everybody else. The only reason why I hadn’t moved yet was because I couldn’t see.

  Then—

  “Soldiers! Stand down and drop your weapons!”

  A clear, commanding, female voice barked, cutting through the rising haze in my mind.

  The compulsion to move ceased immediately. I felt the beginning of a smile tug at the corner of my lips, realizing what Lewis was doing. Well, good for her, not getting bamboozled by the same trick twice. I heard a good twenty assault rifles hit the floor. I would have dropped mine, too, but nobody had bothered arming me. But none of that happened in the ranks closest to the dais where Marleen had put the sentient soldiers.

  I idly wondered how many of them were actually working out of their own free will. I couldn’t have been the only one she chose to force to help along. Miller and Hamilton, in particular, had a certain reputation, even among the guards in here. Any man would have been smart to get out of the line of fire rather than into it. It was smarter still not to leave that option.

  Ragged, scared breathing behind me reminded me of the fact that I wasn’t alone up here. An idea—a last vestige of escape—dawned deep inside my mind. It took tremendous effort to turn around to Gita and utter the handful of words my mind slowly came up with. The first salvos of gunfire going off underlined them nicely, if forced me to repeat them, much louder, since I was immediately half deaf.

  “You need to tell me to protect you!”

  My vision wasn’t great in the near total darkness, only the discharge of weapons making me vaguely aware of what was going on. Marleen was vaulting off the dais and into the mass of bodies, toward where Lewis was already charging toward her. Hamilton was doing a good job offering suppressive fire cover. And Miller… Miller was charging toward the dais, triggering my previous desire to move to intercept him.

  “Now!” I screamed at Gita, already feeling my body tense to move away from her.

  “No! Not you, too! She can’t have gotten to you…” I heard Gita mutter as her fingers sank into my arm, trying to hold me back.

  Against my will, I felt my other arm come up to push her off. “Now! Do it!” I yelled, giving her less than five seconds.

  The pain in her eyes registered when close-by muzzle flashes let me see it, but it only went skin deep. I didn’t feel an empathic reaction. She must have seen some of that on my expression, her eyes remaining liquid with fear and something else—sorrow, perhaps?—when she called out, “Protect me!”

  It wasn’t quite as if my world had turned itself upside down, but the urge to commit suicide by distraction lessened. Turning to fully face the room, I pushed Gita behind me. She was tall but I was taller, the bulk of my body enough to cover most of hers. I tried to orient myself but the images bombarding my crumbling mind were too confusing. There was too much screaming, shouting, discharges of guns—

  There were two soldiers close by, like us close to the corner that was the most uninteresting place of the room, compared to the barrage of gunfire coming from Hamilton, and Lewis finally coming to her feet, victorious. Marleen’s lifeless body on the floor registered but there was no emotional response; only an echo of a question if that had been how she’d seen the world. Miller meanwhile was physically tearing through at least ten guards. As I watched, the closer of the two soldiers started moving forward, ignoring us. His buddy, not so much, narrowing his eyes at me, his half-raised assault rifle coming up—

  My body sprang into action before my lagging mind had a chance to catch up. He must have suspected me to pull a stunt, but even without added strength and speed the serum should have given me but still somehow didn’t, I’d still spent the last four years fighting for my life every single day while he was a glorified couch potato in ill-fitting combat uniform. I had my hands on his assault rifle before he knew what was going on, and caved in his face with the stock before he could put up much of a resistance. He was out cold on the floor before I checked that the weapon was in working condition. Before I could finish him off, two of the downed soldiers fell on him, tearing chunks of flesh off him in mindless hunger. I should have killed them then and there, but my priority was to protect Gita, so instead I took up position in front of her first—and then pulverized their skulls.

  I kept shooting but more recently revived dead kept coming for us—the downside of Hamilton and Lewis both knowing what they were doing. And Miller, the much greater, much closer menace, adding to the pile of bodies that wouldn’t stay dead. Part of me was screaming to train my aim at him since he was the cause for three more undead turning toward us, but I somehow managed to hold on to reason and kill them instead.

  The magazine emptied with one last recoil, and my primary way of defense was suddenly gone. The soldier who’d eyed me but passed me by before noticed, staggering back from one of Miller’s kicks against one of his buddies. I raised my rifle, stupidly pulling a trigger that had become useless. He should have been dead, but instead his unblinking gaze focused on me.

  I had a moment of clarity, realizing that Marleen’s command was kicking in—he’d realized that I had turned into a foe, and his order had been to watch and eliminate me when that happened.

  Bullets tore into me as he pulled the trigger; five, six, I couldn’t tell over the hellish streak of pain they chewed from my upper thigh across my abdomen to shortly below my sternum. I expected for the serum to kick in—to overcome whatever fucked-up shit was blocking it; for a last bout of supernatural strength that let me vault at him and tear his arms off to make it impossible to hold that gun and continue to shoot at Gita.

  But it didn’t come.

  Strength failed me and I sagged to my knees, only the bent shape my body ending up keeping me from keeling over immediately. I felt hands on my shoulders, a familiar voice shouting close to my ear, but already it sounded as if it was coming from far, far away. A second salvo of bullets hit me, sternum and up, taking the left part of my field of vision with it.

  A different voice screamed, and the guard’s body jerked as bullets ate into him. I was still hanging in as he dropped, lifeless, to the floor.

  Too late, I felt it—that thrum deep inside my chest that spread out, wiping away pain and replacing it with strength; strength that, seconds ago, I could have used to save a life—my own. Rage built inside of me; not derision and hatred, loss and frustration, but something deeper. Something much more powerful. Something that would not be contained.

  I realized what it was—the end. I’d always wondered if I’d be one of the unlucky few who’d be aware of it happening; that moment when my intellect was completely wiped away, replaced by hunger and the need to feed. As gruesome as that concept was, I’d never truly been afraid of it. Why fear something that was inevitable?

  Gone was the compulsion—including the need to protect Gita. I couldn’t see her, but I was aware of her, kneeling behind me. Exhaling a last, shaky breath, I used the last fleeting thought my mind managed to scrunch together to tell her, “Save…yourself.”

  But I already knew that it was too late.

  And then, nothing.

  GITA:

  He deserved so much better—but don’t we all? Most of us do. I don’t, but he certainly did.

  I never got to tell him that I considered him a friend. I certainly never got to tell him that without him showing up at the bunker, I never could have sprung my trap—and to the very end, I think he saw himself as little more than a useless errand boy.

  He saved my life and that of countless others. Not just our friends, but quite possibly a lot of those still left standing. He may have only been a small cog in a huge machine, but one without the entire machine would have
fallen apart.

  He was one more friend I couldn’t stomach losing.

  And yet, life goes on, whether we deserve it, or not.

  I’ve never truly believed in the afterlife, but for my sanity’s sake, I hope there is one. One where he’s smiling down on us, sipping tequila, knowing that, without him, all of us who stand here, today, at his grave, are alive because of him.

  Thanks, Rob. We’ll never forget what you did for us. You may have died, but your story will forever live on.

  Patreon

  Love the books and short stories? Can’t get enough of them? Need something to fill the void until the next one is out? Maybe fancy a few outtakes and behind-the-scenes information? I have just the thing for you! I’m now on Patreon where I post exclusive content on a monthly basis—starting with the Prequel, of how everything began between Bree and Nate, before that fateful Friday that they met again at the coffee vending machine in the Green Fields Biotech atrium. Here’s a quick teaser for you!

  I absolutely don’t get what my brother saw in her. Dr. Brianna Lewis, Bree to her friends, cutie pie to her girlfriend. She’s so not his type.

  I allow myself a momentary smirk at reducing a woman whose academic credentials are longer than her name to her appearance. I’m sure she must love that whenever it happens.

  Of course, my brother’s interest in her started—and presumably ended, as well—with her intellect. I’ve read her dissertation and all of the scientific publications that she has to her name, but understanding is a different thing. That’s why she has a PhD, and I’m the product of the research she was hired to work on—presumably. That I can’t say this with certainty has been irking me for months.

  What I can say for sure is that Dr. Lewis is one thing above all else: boring as fuck.

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