Demitria Lunetta - In the End

I hurry along the wall, my progress interrupted by others infected who have not yet begun to change, pleading for help. I ignore them, though each appeal cuts through me like a knife, leaving a sharp pain in my chest. It is too late for them, though. They’re doomed.

I reach the chain-link fence that separates the Arena from the Yard. Half of it has been torn down. A determined Florae now feasts within the crumpled fence, surrounded by bodies.

I continue on past the damaged area of the fence before the creature can focus on me, but another Florae has homed in on the smell of his blood. It might have passed me in the dark, but a spotlight sweeping the yard highlights me for a fraction of a second, just long enough for this new Florae to focus its weak eyes on me. It speeds toward me, and I manage to shoot it in the neck—only enough to slow it down. It plows into me, driving me against the half-erect fence. Weakened by its wound, though, it merely pinches at my synth-suit as it tries to bite my shoulder. I work my knife into the hole my bullet opened in its neck until the blade finds the spinal column, and then I pull it out for one final thrust. The knife severs its spine with a sickening snap, and the creature falls to the ground, twitching.

Freed, I move past Cellblock A, pushing through a crowd of people fighting to get inside. Cellblock B is no better. There’s a man at the door with a rifle. I survey the twenty or so people between us, unable to tell if they’re infected or not. I don’t see any bites or gashes, but I understand the man not wanting to take any chances.

“Get lost or get shot,” he tells a man pressing close to him.

“My cell is in there!” the man shouts. “My wife is waiting for me.”

“Too bad,” the armed man says, knocking the man back with the butt of the rifle, then sweeping its barrel back and forth before the crowd. He’s trying to contain the infection to the Yard. Understandable, but I have to get inside. That’s where Jacks would look for me. I step up, putting away my weapons and pulling down my hood so he can see my face.

“I just want to go to my cell and lock myself in,” I say, looking at him over the end of the rifle barrel now trained on me. “I haven’t been bitten, and if I had, I wouldn’t do much damage from inside my cell.”

The people around me murmur their agreement and, pushing in around me, move me to within inches of the rifle barrel’s cold black eye.

Lowering my voice, I say, “You’re not going to be able to hold all these people for much longer, not if they decide to rush you.” I can see the fear in the man’s eyes, but he holds his ground. “It’s admirable, what you’re trying to do,” I tell him, “but don’t you think you’d be better off going to your own cell and locking yourself in?”

He considers this, nodding just perceptibly, then takes a step back into the cellblock. “All right. Y’all got thirty seconds to get to your cells and lock the doors. If I catch anyone out, I’ll shoot. I ain’t getting bit by no damned Florae.”

I rush past him and sprint away from the others, up the stairs to my cell. Jacks isn’t there, and there’s no note from him.

Buzzing with adrenaline, I can’t just sit and wait. Besides, the Floraes are outside and I can do something to stop them. I doubt anyone in the Yard will survive, but maybe I can help the guards prevent the infection from taking out everyone in the cellblocks, too.

I decide to go up to the roof and scout out the situation, take out a few Floraes from there. I’ll also be able to spot any hover-copter arriving. I scribble a note to Jacks, telling him to meet me on the roof, and then I lock up. I’m about to run for the staircase when a sob escapes from the next cell over.

I go to the open door and peer in. What I see hits me like a punch to the stomach.

“Pam?”

Pam looks up at me from where she sits on the floor, eyes red and puffy. In her lap is a man, bloodied, breathing in short gasps. His shoulder has a chunk of flesh missing, the gouge dripping a dark puddle onto the floor of the cell.

“Mike, he . . . he was bitten,” Pam says. “He came to find me. . . .” She stares at me, unseeing. She holds a bunched-up shirt to Mike’s shoulder to stanch the flow of blood. Her hands are covered in green-black goo.

He’s already begun to change.

I draw my gun and Pam’s eyes focus in on the weapon.

“No! You leave him alone!” she screams.

“Pam.” I have to calm her, explain to her what she doesn’t want to admit to herself. “He’s changing. Soon he won’t be Mike anymore. He’ll just be a Florae. He won’t know you.”

“I don’t care,” she says quietly. She wipes her tears with the back of her hand, smudging dark blood across her face.

I watch Mike. His hair has almost completely fallen out, his skin tinged a pale green.

“He’ll kill you,” I say.

“I. Don’t. Care,” she says to me in little more than a whisper.

I think of all the people still out in the Yard, fighting their way back to the cellblock, hoping to lock themselves into their cells and ride out the infection. Finally getting there, that close to safety, and finding Floraes waiting for them. “I can’t leave you, Pam,” I tell her. “Either he’ll kill you or turn you. I can’t endanger everyone in the block.”

Pam’s head drops as she digs through her clothing. She produces something from the pocket of her skirt and tosses it at me. It’s heavy and metallic—a large, opened padlock.

“Lock us in,” she commands.

I want to plead with her, but I know it’s pointless. She is determined to stay with her man until the end. “Where’s the key?” It kills me to ask, but I can’t take the risk that she’ll open the door after I’m gone.

Pam takes a key from her pocket and throws it to me. This time I don’t catch it, and it skitters across the concrete walkway and over the side, falling two floors down.

Once I snap the lock on them, there’ll be no turning back. My resolve breaks. “Pam, please,” I try one last time. “You don’t need to die.”

“If Mike dies, I don’t want to live.” She gazes at his face, stroking his head, pulling away the last wispy brown hair as she does so.

I place the padlock between the two bars of the door and the cell. “Last chance,” I tell her.

“Do it.” She doesn’t look up. I close the padlock with a click that echoes through the cellblock. I have sentenced her to death.

Mike reaches up as though to scratch his nose, then rubs it so hard it begins to come off his face. His mouth twists into a snarl, baring his teeth, sharp and yellowed.

“If you love him,” I say quietly, “you’ll let me end it.”

I don’t think she hears me, but just as I turn to leave she responds. “He’s still my Mike. I’ll be with him until he’s no longer the man I love. After that, I don’t care what happens.”

I force myself to walk down the hall, my limbs heavy. As I make my way to the roof, my body shakes with rage. I tell myself the screams I hear below aren’t Pam’s. And they might not be. So many people are dying right now, it’s impossible to tell who owns what cry of pain.

When I pull open the door to the roof, I see that dawn is breaking. With the light, the Floraes will become even more aggressive, even more lethal. As I look around, I inhale, startled to find a figure cowering by the door. It’s the Warden, clutching a rifle to his chest and muttering to himself.

“Warden?” I say. But he ignores me, too overcome by fear.

I step around him and head to the ledge, searching the chaos below for signs of Jacks, Brenna, or Ken. No hover-copters have come yet; the only things of note in the sky are a few clouds and the pink-orange color that marks a new day.