Zombie System: Ruling The Apocalypse

004 - There's no cure

Eleanor rummaged through a small, worn backpack that was in the van. She pulled out a crumpled, empty can, her face falling.

"Hu-ngry?" Jonathan rasped, the word a struggle against the blood that constantly threatened to fill his mouth.

He didn't wait for an answer. He pushed open the van door and stepped out.

The streets were a tapestry of green and decay, the shuffling forms of the infected a constant, unsettling backdrop. He moved among them, a silent sentinel, his own kind parting before him as if sensing an invisible authority.

He could tell that they revered him, that he was different and maybe they knew too. One place was his mind, to get Eleanor there and get the cure.

He found a derelict convenience store, its front window shattered, revealing shelves picked clean. But in the back, behind a counter overturned by some forgotten struggle, and then a rotten body.

He found a small cache of canned goods: peaches, beans, and a single can of chunky soup. He gathered them and returned to the van.

He met her there, huddling her knees with widened eyes. He watched as Eleanor devoured the food. He said nothing to her, and she said nothing, too.

As she finished, the radio crackled again. Jonathan, now instinctively recognizing its call, reached for it. "Come in the next 10 minutes, the chopper has been dispatched," a crisp voice ordered.

He stood to his feet and gestured that Eleanor should get up. Jonathan knew the place: the old civic dais, a mere seven-minute walk from their current location.

They set off, hand in hand.

Jonathan moved within them. He observed the Greens, their vacant eyes, their aimless shuffling, doing nothing but staring and growling. Brainless, heartless, he thought, and then realized he had a chance. He could still think, he could still feel.

He wondered how he would have been if he hadn't retained this strange spark of awareness. He scanned the broken streets and the debris-strewn sidewalks. Were there no other survivors? The question echoed in the desolate silence.

As they approached the dais, the scope of the operation became clear. Two sleek, black helicopters, their rotors still, sat incongruously on the elevated platform, like a predatory bird settling on its prey. Figures moved around it, crisp and efficient. And then he saw him, a man of imposing stature, his face etched with concern, standing beside the chopper. It was the President of York Isles, Andrew Roosevelt. The pieces clicked into place with a quiet, horrifying certainty. The woman, Eleanor, was the President’s daughter.

"What's your name?" she asked suddenly, the first question she had asked him as if the realization had just dawned on her too.

"Jo-nathan, Barnes, " he rasped and swallowed hard. Blood.

"Jonathan, they're going to kill you," she said, her eyes wide with a desperate urgency. It was the first stare she gave him.

"What?" The single word was a raw expulsion of disbelief.

"Use me as an escape, now!" Her voice was sharp, followed by a desperate command. "Now!" she barked, her eyes darting between him and the figures on the dais.

He slid behind her, his movements instinctive. As if on cue, soldiers dropped from the chopper, their descent swift and silent. Dressed like the ones who came from the van.

They moved with deadly precision, their weapons fitted with silencers, dispatching the Greens around the dais with chilling efficiency and moved in a formation towards Jonathan and Eleanor.

"Take me back, Jonathan," Eleanor said again.

Jonathan heed and began to retreat, the Greens advancing just as the soldiers too.

Then, a voice boomed from a speaker mounted on the chopper. "Let her go, Jonathan. You will get the cure."

"Lies, they'll kill you, Jon!" Eleanor whispered.

Jonathan rushed back, a cold dread washing over him. "Why?" he demanded, the single word hoarse and blood-stained.

"I'll tell you later," she said.

Jonathan wondered why. He was used to betrayal. But he had hoped too much on that. He kept her safe, but then he wasn't safe anymore.

Jonathan’s mind, which had felt like a series of isolated thoughts, was now connected. His brain, no longer numb, churned with information, processing, analyzing. He felt a growl erupt from deep within his chest, a low, guttural sound that seemed to vibrate through the very air.

And then, as if summoned by his raw emotion, Greens erupted from behind him, coming from all angles of the city. They bypassed him and Eleanor, their forms lurching forward, heedless of the soldiers' fire. Bodies were cut down, limbs severed, but they kept coming, a relentless tide.

"You can control them?" Eleanor asked.

"I think - so," he coughed, a fresh spray of blood marring his chin, landing on Eleanor's shoulder.

"Let's leave here," she urged, pulling at his arm.

"I want the cure," he insisted, the desire burning bright within him.

"There's no cure!" she shouted, turning back to face him, her eyes ablaze with a fierce conviction. "This is politics against the poor, to control the population. The rich are out to Space, to a planet in the sky where you pay a certain amount to stay, the masses are down here to suffer."

"No! It was a viral outbreak. There should be..."

"Snap out of your delusions, Jonathan. The virus was created and sent to the city to achieve this. If there is a cure, it will come when this is all over," Eleanor explained.

Jonathan's eyes widened, a horrifying truth dawning on him. Eleanor knew. She knew about the gas, about the bite, about the whole terrifying, insidious plot. The world, already turned on its head, now spun with a new, terrifying velocity.

Suddenly, a searing pain exploded in his neck. A sharp, precise sniper shot. He stumbled, falling to the ground, the impact jarring his already brittle body.

He looked up, the plain white sky a blinding expanse above him. Is this the end? The question, raw and unbidden, formed in his mind as darkness began to consume him.