Jacqueline Druga - Immune

“No, you’re not. Come on.” He grabbed for her arm, lifting her.

“No!” Grace screamed. She swung out her arm and dove forward, grabbing the pistol from the waist of Max’s pants.

“Grace, give me the gun.”

“Go away.” She put the gun to her head. “Just leave. I have nothing left.”

“Grace, listen to me, do you think Candice would want—”

“Oh my God, what she went through. My poor baby. She screamed and screamed, and I dropped her!’

“You didn’t drop her. You tried.”

“No, Max, you tried. Thank you but, I’m done.” She engaged the chamber and placed the gun to her head.

“Wait!” Max screamed. “Wait! Please. Please, I am begging you. Don’t do this.”

“And what? Live with this curse? Because that’s what it is. Being immune is a curse. We have to watch others die.”

“Or you can help people live. We have people that need us.”

She shook her head, her finger held to the trigger. “Not me. I can’t live with this pain. I can’t. I don’t want to and I don’t have to.”

“I know.” Max held out his hands. “I know. I also know I have no right to ask this of you. I know you just met me, Grace. But don’t do this. Please be the one person, the only person that doesn’t slip through my fingers. Give me a chance to help you through this.”

Grace sobbed hard and her hand lowered. Max rushed to her, grabbing the gun, and then he grabbed on to Grace. Her legs gave way and she buckled immediately, and Max wrapped his arms tightly around her.

She wept in his arms. While the others evacuated from the roof, Max stayed there with Grace a few minutes longer.

The usual forty minute drive to the airport took Myron nearly two hours. The quiet bus with only eighteen people took many back roads until the bus sputtered its last bit of gas on Tower Road and coasted to the tarmac outside terminal A.

It was eerily deserted. No infected at all. There were planes parked by the gates, which probably had been waiting to leave but had been stranded.

A lone bright green dump truck was parked near the gates, and a stairway ladder was perched next to an open gate.

Myron thought it was a good sign. Because he was immune, he ventured out by himself and when he got to the stairs, a slender woman with short brown hair appeared at the edge of the extended walkway.

“You made it,” she said.

“Not without problems. Are you Tara?”

“I am. Myron?”

“I am.”

“Get your people. We have it secure.”

Myron nodded a thanks and turned. He paused to look at the plane that was sitting there. He had a good feeling, he really did. He felt like they had a real chance.

He wasn’t sure where Thompson, Manitoba was, but as long as Eugene could get them there, that was all that mattered.

Grace sat in the back of the bus, speaking to no one the entire trip to the airport. Not even Max, who sat in front of her. She cried the whole way, her mind replaying the events over and over like a bad movie. Seeing her daughter’s precious face, then watching her fall into the horde of infected. Every time she saw it, her body tensed up, and Grace wanted to scream it out of her.

She didn’t know who the stranger was that reached out his hand to help. She never looked at his face. Eventually she would find out who he was.

The others started to leave the bus. Myron asked her if she was coming, and she didn’t answer. Talking was hard, because she was pretty certain the only sound she could make was sobbing.

Grace felt weak. In fact, she was certain she was the weakest person on that bus. Moving was a chore.

Eugene sat down in the aisle across from her. He reached out and grabbed her hands. “We’re here, Grace.”

“I know.” Her voice cracked.

“Let’s go inside. Rest up. In a few days I’ll have everything ready to go. We go north. You can do this. We all can do this.”

“I know.”

Eugene squeezed her hands and then stood. He moved sideways down the aisle and was the last one off except for Grace and Max.

“Ready?” Max asked, standing.

“Yeah.”

Staying close, Max walked before her, moving slowly.

“Max, thank you for stopping me. I’m not sure if it was really what I wanted to do, but I know that moment was the wrong time to make that decision. So thank you.”

“There will never be a good time to make that decision, you know this right?”

“I do.”

“We take it one step, one day at a time. Okay?” Max tightened his lips and offered her a comforting glance.

Grace accepted the look and then took his hand.

It was all one step at a time. Off the bus was the first step. Somewhere, somehow, one day Grace hoped to find her strength. Until then, she would push forward. That was the best she could do.

That was the best any of them could do.

Move forward and survive.

Immune

By Jacqueline Druga

Copyright 2015 by Jacqueline Druga

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental

Editing: Felicia Sullivan and K. Ravenwood. Thank you guys so much.

Cover Art by Christian Bentulan

www.coversbychristian.com