I threaded the needle and braced myself on the tray. Fortunately, all the surgeries had raised my pain tolerance quite a bit. Unfortunately, it still hurt like hell when I shoved a needle through my own skin.
I didn’t scream, though. I didn’t want to attract unwanted attention from a zombie. I just clenched my teeth and powered through it. I nearly threw up halfway through, but I kept it down.
With slick bloody hands, I staggered around the room. I found a towel and wiped myself as best I could, then I put on the shirt I’d come in with. I grabbed a scalpel from the tray, since it was the closest thing I had to a weapon, and I left the operating room to find out what was waiting for me.
It was rather anticlimactic, because at first, there was nothing. The third floor – the floor I lived on – was completely deserted. The red flashing lights and warning sirens had scared everyone, as was their job.
The next floor was exactly the same, but I finally found something when I staggered out of the stairwell onto the first floor.
That main level was the soldiers’ quarters. It was like a dormitory, where they lived. It was dark and appeared to be empty, but as I walked down the hall, one hand running along the wall for support, I heard something coming from a room.
I didn’t think I could fight, not in this condition with a tiny scalpel, so my best bet to escape a zombie was to take off running. And that’s exactly what I did.
I’d only made it a few steps, my bare feet slapping against the cool tiles, when I heard someone calling my name.
2.
“Remy?” Pvt. Tatum shouted, sounding confused.
I stopped and turned around to face him. “Tatum?”
He stood in the doorway of one of the rooms, so he must’ve been the noise I’d heard. His blond hair was cropped short, and he had his gun drawn, pointed at the ground.
“What are you doing in here?” Tatum asked, walking toward me.
“Oh, you know.” I shrugged. “Just hanging out.” He smirked, and I shook my head. “What’s going on? What’s with the sirens?”
“The damn zombies got in.” He lowered his eyes, and I noticed his army fatigues were splattered with greenish blood – zombie blood.
“Are we overrun?” I motioned to the front door. “Are they out there right now?”
“No, not exactly.” He shook his head. “Come on. Let’s go outside where the sirens are quieter, and I’ll explain everything.”
We walked down to the front door together, and he pushed open the door. A draft of cool air blew in, I practically ran past him to get outside.
It was night, and the stars twinkled above me like diamonds. I hadn’t seen them in so long, and I swore that I’d never smelled anything as clean or fresh or wonderful as that air smelled just then.
The grass was cold beneath my bare feet, and the air had a bitter chill to it. But I didn’t mind. It all felt wonderful to me. I stood there for a minute, breathing it in.
“What are you doing?” Tatum asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I never thought I’d see this again. I thought I was going to die in that room.”
“I told you I wouldn’t let that happen.” He smiled warmly at me.
“You did.” I smiled back, then realized we were in an abandoned quarantine in the middle of the night with zombies roaming about. “So what happened? Where are the zombies? Where’s everybody?”
“The past few months, the zombies have been systematically attacking our walls,” Tatum said. “Or at least that’s what I said, but nobody believed me. They said the zombies couldn’t think enough to form an attack.”
“They were getting smarter,” I remembered. “Even when I was back out there. They were working together somehow.”
“Exactly!” Tatum said. “A few nights ago, they finally got in.”
I looked around the camp, the trailers dark and empty, and turned back to Tatum. “But the zombies aren’t here now?”
He shook his head. “No. Only about thirty or so of them got in. We went out to search for survivors, and they were waiting for us when we came back. They snuck in with the caravan.”
The quarantine was surrounded by a giant brick wall. There was only one entrance to the facility, and that was through two metal gates. The first set of doors led into a smaller holding area, and the second set of doors actually led into the quarantine. The double doors helped keep the infected from getting in.
“Did they get in through both doors?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He grimaced. “The idiots on the other side opened the door when they heard shooting, and some of the zombies raced right in.”
“Were people hurt?” I asked. “Are Lazlo and Harlow okay?”
“Yeah, they’re both fine,” he said. “There were some causalities, and it was a lot worse than it needed to be. That’s when they realized how much we’d been underestimating the zombies.”