Turned: A Spine-Chilling Young Adult Apocalyptic Fiction (The Undead Series, Book 1) (2 page)

I heard him walk back down the stairs carrying the entire First Aid kit I had put together when we moved into this house. He sat down on the coffee table beside me and was so flustered trying to take care of me that he spilled the contents of the kit all over the floor. I giggled. He was so damn cute in everything that he did. He cleaned my wound, then applied antibiotic cream, and a Sponge Bob Band-Aid – I loved Sponge Bob. The entire time I stared at him, watching him love me. When he was done, he picked the items back up off the floor, and put them back in the kit.

“Now, for wine!” he said.

“For wine and grape juice!” I teased. He went into the kitchen, and I heard him gather the wine glasses and uncork the bottle of wine. He came back in the living room around five minutes later with a serving tray of two wine glasses, a bottle of wine, a bottle of grape juice, and Pictionary – our favorite game to play together. We spent the entire night playing the game, drinking, laughing, cuddling and enjoying each other. I wanted to make the best of each second because as much as I wanted to believe he’d beat this disease, if there was one thing I’d ever learned in life, it was that a person’s life is never guaranteed.

***

Four days later, I woke up the morning of Ethan’s first round of radiation therapy to two loud and obnoxious birds having a conversation right outside of my bedroom window. They must have been two girl birds arguing about a boy bird, because they seemed to bicker at each other the way my friends and I bickered in junior high.

I was quite disoriented, as it was still dark in my room so I couldn’t understand why the birds were so enlivened already. Ethan had served me another large glass of my favorite wine last night when we were listening to music and talking about our future honeymoon to Turks and Caicos, which Ethan’s mom was paying for along with the wedding. I couldn’t imagine one glass of wine making me wake up with such a heavy head, but it seemed to do so this morning. I opened my eyes enough to see that the darkening curtains had been closed shut, which was a little strange considering we normally slept with them open since our bedroom was on the second floor, and I liked to wake up with the sun and get an early morning run in.

I rubbed my eyes and turned over to glance at the clock that was on Ethan’s side of the bed, and noticed he wasn’t in bed. He must be getting ready, I thought. I glanced up at the clock, wondering why I never heard it go off, and saw that the clock read 9 AM. It took me a moment to process my thoughts, and then I realized that Ethan and I were supposed to be at the hospital by 8 AM.

“Shit!” I yelled as I jumped out of the covers and ran into the bathroom to see if Ethan was in there, but he wasn’t.

“ETHAN!” I yelled downstairs, to no reply. I ran downstairs in my silk jammies that my mom had bought me for my birthday and tripped on the leg of my pajamas, falling face flat on the floor and smacking my chin.

“God damnit!” I screamed, nearly in tears from confusion and pain. I wanted to wake up early and make Ethan a special breakfast of heart-shaped blueberry pancakes and coffee before he woke up, to help make his day a little better, but it looked like that plan was ruined.

I got to my feet and while holding my chin with one hand, opened the front door with my other. I peered my head out of the front door to see Ethan’s white pickup truck still in the driveway.

“What the fuck is going on?” I muttered under my breath, closing the door. I stood in the hallway for a moment, trying to think while still trying to fully wake up. I walked through all the rooms in the house with Ethan nowhere to be found. The only clue I found was a pot of coffee in the kitchen that was still lukewarm but the light was off. That meant he brewed it over about three or four hours ago.

With no other sign of him, I walked back upstairs to see if his cell phone was still beside the bed charging. It was, so I picked it up and browsed through his messages to see if there was any indication of where he was.

Maybe he skipped out on therapy, I whispered to myself while scrolling through emails. After all, he was having a very hard time coping. Maybe he just didn’t go, which of course wasn’t good. I found was a text message, and then a phone call from an unknown number two nights before after I had gone to bed. The text read: Hey bro…sorry it’s been so long since we talked. Really need to talk. Can you call me?

“Bro?” I asked aloud, wondering who that could be. Maybe it was one of his old friends. I looked closer at the call log and saw that Ethan talked to this person for a half an hour. There was also a text to me, how weird – why didn’t he just wake me up? I went over to my side of the bed to check my phone and see if I received the text he sent. I had. It read:

Hey baby. U looked so beautiful sleeping this morning. I just wanted to tell u that. I know ur probably reading this flustered that u woke up to me not being there, especially since it’s my 1st day of radiation. I know u wanted to make today go as good as possible for me, and I love u for that. I got a call a few days ago from someone very important to me who needs my help. I know what ur thinking, but I’m okay! I will be back in a few days and I will start the radiation. I already left a voicemail with the doctor. He’s gonna kill me and so are u…but u know how I am when it comes to my friends and family. Boarding a plane at 7 AM…I’ll call u later tomorrow. Love you baby…don’t worry or miss me 2 much!

I tucked my phone into my back pocket. What the fuck was he thinking boarding a plane to an undisclosed location when he was supposed to be doing his first radiation therapy? Who is so important that he’d just hop on a plane without telling me, especially in his condition? He must have forgot to take his phone with him too after texting me…great.

I didn’t know how I was supposed to get ahold of him, but decided to call the number than had called him. I did, and no one answered. There was no voicemail set up either. I had to sit and wait for him to call me, how annoying and frustrating it was.

I threw the phone on the bed, and let out a big frustrated sigh. Then I picked it back up again to make sure it was on its loudest setting in case he called, plopped down on the bed, stared at the ceiling and waited.

***

It’s crazy because I always thought the end of world would happen quickly, so that the human race wouldn’t have to suffer long. When the term “apocalypse” was tossed around in high school, I envisioned a giant meteorite smashing into earth and lighting up outer space. Either that or the earth spontaneously combusting – but either way, we’d be here one second and we’d be gone the next. Just like that. No pain. It’s kind of ironic just how wrong I was.

It was 8:39 AM, one month after Ethan disappeared, when I received word that there was an outbreak. I had just got home from my morning run, something I made sure to do every day because it helped keep my mind off Ethan. He vanished into thin air after leaving that morning, and the cops could find no trace of him. He never booked any flights, and since he had left his phone at home, there was no way to reach him. The only tip the police had to work with was the number that called him the few days prior. However, oddly enough, the number that called him belonged to an old woman, and she was murdered one day before he disappeared.

I felt like the police would have pursued his case further, if it wasn’t for the bigger fish they were forced to fry – the Z0X outbreak. Talk about a tough break.

I set down my earplugs and phone and switched on the morning news. Immediately, I saw that the President addressing the nation. Below him was the text banner that read:
President admits lies to nation, zombie outbreak rages through world.
I read it nearly twenty times because my brain didn’t want to comprehend it. I turned up the volume just in time for his speech:

“I want America to know that I am sorry, from the bottom of my heart, that I, as your President, did not divulge this threat to our nation, to our world, sooner. I want everyone to know that the United States government Special Forces unit firmly believed we could handle this threat before any American citizens were harmed. I’m here to tell you that we failed. We failed miserably. A very horrendous and violent epidemic is spreading like wildfire across this nation and our world, and as we speak, thousands of unprepared citizens are contracting the virus. The virus is the Z0X virus, and any human who contracts it will turn into a zombie, or what the media is calling an Undead – a living, breathing, flesh-eating mix of human, animal and death. Please, for the sake of your lives, for your children’s lives, find every weapon that you can find and lock yourselves in your houses and do not come out. I do not know when this outbreak will be handled, but I hope that you are all here with me when it is. Good luck to you, and may God be with you.

And that was that, within a matter of a mon
th, life as I knew it ended. If I only knew what else was in store for me, I probably would have committed suicide that same day. Well, if it wasn’t for one thing…

10 months later

Saving Grace Sanctuary

Post-Apocalypse

Atlanta, Georgia

I sat on the embankment of the stream, tucked behind the trunk of a thick, old oak tree. An old wooden bridge stood to my right, creaking eerily as the summer breeze brushed upon it. The forest was rather shadowy thanks to an abundance of towering trees, except for the occasional ray of sunshine that broke through any open space in the canopy. The forest floor was mostly filled with dirt, dust, dead leaves, sticks and pine cones, as little sunlight meant little vegetation growth below it.

I had been waiting for nearly fifteen minutes, and I grimaced in pain as I stuck my skinny fingers underneath the right handcuff that was mated to my ankle, trying as best as possible to separate my skin from it so that it would quit cutting into my flesh.

My once beautiful and lush blonde locks, now tangled with dirt and matted with sweat from the woods, cloaked my shoulders like a cape. The normally cream white skin of my face was now sickened and pale despite the deep red gash across the left side that Trent had left me with. That bastard. My legs trembled somewhat from the breeze, but more so from the deep purplish-black bruises that covered my thighs underneath my jeans and the gash that was starting to form around my ankle.

I peered back over my left shoulder, then over my right. Now more than ever, I had to be extremely aware of my surroundings since I was outside of the Sanctuary walls and by myself. I didn’t see anything suspicious, though I did hear a far-off moan of a seemingly very hungry and distraught zombie.

It had been nearly 11 months since Ethan disappeared, a little over 10 months since the zombie outbreak went rampant, and seven months since I lost my mother, father and Ethan’s mother to zombies. Details of their murders certainly aren’t willingly told by me, why would they be? Let’s just say that after they were killed, I had been recruited to Saving Grace Sanctuary, a town of about 50 houses surrounded by a 15-foot wooden wall, by a heavyset Italian man named Gus, who promised a safe haven, food, water, and friends. If it weren’t for Trent and his sidekicks, the Sanctuary would probably be a great place. It had running water and electricity, cozy quarters and even social events.

God, I was in so much pain everywhere on my body, but it quickly dawned on me that I didn’t have long before they found me sitting behind the tree. I wasn’t hidden enough.

Jasper must have been stopped by someone on his way back with the right key to get these damn cuffs off. I had grabbed the wrong pair before I left and couldn’t manage to pick it open with a needle. How stupid! Jasper and I could have been long gone by now. I wondered what I’d do if he never came back, when I was really too weak to do much of anything.

After all, Jasper and I never made a plan B. We had complete faith in ourselves escaping during the weekly harvest, when the screams of the poor soul who had been chosen to be sacrificed that week deafened the town.

Of course, a wrench was thrown in to our plan when Trent decided lock my wrists and ankles with cuffs the night before, after I sliced the side of his face with a rusty nail in an attempt to gouge out his eyeballs so he couldn’t see me to hurt me anymore.

But instead, he won again. He locked my wrists and ankles to the bed and had his way with me. Again. For the fourth time in the previous ten weeks. Only Trent and I knew what he was doing to me, because I refused to tell Jasper. If I told him, Trent made it clear that we’d both be killed.

Trent was the son of the man who founded Saving Grace Sanctuary. Now that his dad was dead, which I didn’t believe was a coincidence, Trent ran the town. His words were as prevailing as God’s words in this world, and no one would ever dare to challenge him. After all, his father saved these people. Saved them from their stomachs being ripped out of their abdomen and engulfed in the bloody, stench-filled mouth of a zombie. Saved their children from turning into those flesh-eating animals. There was no way in hell anyone would go against him after that.

If Jasper didn’t return within the next ten minutes, my only option was to push forward with my legs bound to the other town fifteen miles away by myself on nothing but a hope and a prayer, but deep down I knew that in my condition I didn’t have a chance for survival. I knew I couldn’t do it on my own.

Of course, I didn’t have much prayer in me at that point. And I was losing any hope that a higher power existed, so why pray? My God wouldn’t have let this happen. My eyes started to swell up with tears when hollers over the hill interrupted my contemplation.

“Retta!” Trent’s voice was carried through the breeze and was dripping with insincerity. “I know you ran away, and you know this isn’t going to last long. If you don’t come back, you’re going to get eaten alive by a zombie.” Of course, Trent was probably right…I would probably die if Jasper didn’t make it back to me. Someone must have punched him in the stomach because I heard the echo of “Jesus, woman!”

There was more mumbling followed by “You better not scare her off any more.” It was Meredith, Trent’s sister, who had accompanied him on this hunt.

“Shit,” I whispered. “They’re going to find me out here out in the open.”

I peered carefully behind the tree and didn’t see Trent and Meredith come over the hill yet, so I decided I better scoot down under the bridge. I didn’t really want to get wet if I was going to have to walk another fifteen miles, but it was better than Trent finding me. Plus, they would never think I’d step foot in the water in my condition.

Having talked myself into it, I scooted down the hill as quietly as possible, stepped into the shallow water, and glued my back to the wall of the bridge. I could hear Trent and Meredith getting closer as the moments wore on. I stood pressed against the wall, shuttering from the painful shivers that crawled through my body. The water wouldn’t have made a normal person cold, but due to my deteriorating health, it made me freeze.

Within the next minute, both Trent and Meredith stood on top of the bridge. Trent kneeled down and kicked his legs over the bridge, and they dangled right in my face. I held my breath, wishing I could stick my knife right through his shins. Trent grabbed a fistful of rocks and threw them down in the shallow water. A splash of water hit my arm, and I grimaced silently. After half a minute, I heard Meredith speak.

“C’mon, what are you stopping for? Let’s keep it moving.” Trent picked up a flat pebble and made it skip in the water. He let out a big sigh and got up.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “Let’s go. I need to find this bitch.” I waited until their voices faded all the way into the distance. Then, as I was about to get up, I heard a whisper.

“Psst. Hey beautiful.” I smiled. I looked up the embankment and saw Jasper. I hadn’t heard him creep up on me.

“I know we don’t know each other, but can I live in your socks so I can be with you every step of the way?” Jasper smiled as he quietly walked over to the embankment.

“Baby,” I whispered softly, “is there an airport nearby or is that just my heart taking off for you?” Jasper grinned ear-to-ear as he slid down the embankment and scooped me up in his arms. He carried me up the hill, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as he laid me down on the only soft patch of grass left.

He was wearing a cut-off, faded t-shirt that once pictured each of the Marvel comic super heroes, and his biceps were dripping with sweat despite me feeling incredibly cold. I took another moment to drink him in, running my hands over the curves of his tan arms. His lips looked as if they had a deep cherry lip stain on them, and they were smooth, moist and perfect. His sandy brown hair had fallen down over his light dark brown eyes, and I smoothed it back behind his ears as I pulled his neck in closer for a kiss.

“You’re so handsome,” I said to him, amazed at his enduring perfection. Regardless of what conditions the man was thrown into, he always looked as if he jumped out of the pages of an old GQ magazine.

Jasper’s eyes were set on me from the moment he came to the sanctuary two months ago. From the day he was welcomed in, he made it a point to befriend me and find out everything about me – and I loved it. He quickly became my friend, and admitted to falling in love with me shortly after. Of course, Trent wasn’t aware of how deep our relationship was.

However, despite his stunning looks and unflawed personality, it took me some time to admit to myself that I’d fallen in love with him too, but he knew I had. It felt forbidden to fall in love with another man so quickly, but I was so, so lonely in this cruel world, and yearned for a deeper, intimate connection. Of course, I loved Ethan more than I loved being alive and after he disappeared, I vowed I’d never love a man again. But this world…this damned world didn’t make it easy to be alone.

Though I tried my damndest to move on from him, he seemed to unfailingly exist in the deep recesses of my subconscious. And more often than I liked, his memory would climb into my conscious thoughts and flood my heart. I would remember how we used to take afternoon walks and talk about our wedding and buying a house in Everest and having five children. I’d remember how we’d go out for ice cream nearly every week, and how Ethan would only ever eat waffle cones – he hated cake cones. I’d remember how he’d hold me tight every night, and I never could bring myself to tell him that I didn’t like being cuddled while I slept.

I didn’t understand how left his fiancé, his soulmate, and his life partner but he did, and the thought of it ripped out my heart every time I thought about it. So I didn’t. Instead, I lost myself in Jasper because doing so made me happier and if I wanted to survive in this cruel apocalyptic world, I couldn’t be depressed.

It had been a few days since Jasper and I touched, so when we kissed, electricity shot through my body, my heart began to race, and the heat throughout certain parts of my body increased. I pulled his body closer to mine with all the strength I had left and felt his body throb with desire.

“I love you, my frail yet beautiful little human,” Jasper said with his cute smile. “You have no idea what I wanted to do to that man before I left. I wanted to cut off his extremities with a dull blade and feed them to zombies while he watched. Then I would have….”

“Jasper,” I interrupted. “If you would have touched him, his idiotic posse would have been on you in a split second. They would have killed you. And then what was I supposed to do with you as the main course for dinner while I trudged through the woods with my ankles bound? I would have lasted two hours out here maximum before a zombie had me for dinner.”

“I know, that’s why I didn’t do anything to him. I couldn’t risk me being killed, and you being left out here for dead. Hell, we only have a little bit of time before someone finds both of us…whether it’s Trent or a zombie. Let’s go,” he said, as he pulled a small key out of his pocket and opened the lock on the cuff from my ankle.

I let out a sigh of relief as the painful metal was removed. Jasper bent over further to rub it for me. He then stood up and scooped me up in his gorgeous arms. Our gazes met and we stood for a moment to drink each other in again. We simply couldn’t get enough of each other.

“Okay babe, we need to start moving. I’ll carry you as far as I can,” he said. “We need to get to the next town by tonight. The closest one from here is fifteen miles out. I don’t think anything is left of it, but we can find a spot to sleep safely and some food to get us through the night.”

“I can walk,” I assured him. “You need to conserve your strength in case I get worse.”

“Retta, I don’t know. Are you sure that’s the best thing to do?”

“I promise, babe. You know I wouldn’t say anything I didn’t mean.” He nodded, set me down, and pulled a backpack from his arms. Then he pulled out an old but heavy pink sweatshirt with the words California Girl written on it in yellow.

“Come here,” he said as he gently pulled the sweatshirt over my head. He had also brought me some running shoes, bright blue ones that used to be in style when the world was normal so long ago, and a pair of size five skinny jeans that were at least a size too big for my small and skinny frame.

“I couldn’t find anything else,” he said. I giggled as I started to change from my dirty jeans into clean jeans in the middle of the woods without giving a damn. Who would see me anyway but a passing squirrel or raccoon? These days, being naked was the least of my concerns. I pulled my jeans down over my knees and grabbed the new jeans from the ground. As I put the last leg in my jeans and pulled them up over my waist, I realized I didn’t have any underwear on. I looked up and Jasper was staring at me down there, but not in a sexual way.

“Retta...” he said as his mouth melted into a frown.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” I said, embarrassed, as I buttoned the jeans.

“He raped you?” Jasper said as he stepped over and held my face in his hands.

“Yes,” I said, ashamed. “Yes, I’m sorry, Jasper. He chained my wrists and ankles to the bed and raped me. I tried to fight him…I always do…but he always wins. I didn’t want to tell you…I couldn’t.”

I had managed to escape when Trent left to prepare for the weekly harvest. Apparently, Trent didn’t lock the handcuff on my right wrist all the way. So I managed to get my hand loose, find a safety pin in the drawer and pick the lock on my other wrist. However, I couldn’t get the cuffs on my ankles off so I found a switchblade in the drawer and sawed the wooden pole off of the bed to free my ankles. When I escaped, I snuck to Jasper’s quarters, and we ran away together.