No Time To Bleed

“Where are we going?”

Alex and Eli were in the backseat asleep. It was early morning, so early that the sky hadn’t changed from its brutish dark color.

“I don’t know. We’ve gotta find them somehow though. I have a clue.”

I was in the front passenger seat and clipped on my seatbelt. Before we left, we had all trapped up and attempted to reinforce the back windshield with a bunch of items. The entire time Eli was out, the boy slept with a brick now.

I pressed myself back into the seat more and stared ahead at the empty roads. “How’d the town clear out so fast?”

The question had been more to me, but I guess she wanted to answer it.

“When the first virus individual came out, they evacuated the city’s edges and left the center.”

“That’s cruel.”

All she did was breath and take a swig of her water bottle. My bat was at my lap. I had managed to scrub off yesterday’s blood from its surface.

“I’m sorry about your son.” I muttered.

“You don’t have to apologize.” She looked to me momentarily. “You don’t even like me, remember?”

“You saved us. That’s all I need to know.”

“I couldn’t save him. He was my son and I was too ignorant to save him.”

“He loved you. A lot.”

“How would you know?”

“Because he told me. He said you’d been through a lot and you were a strong person.”

The tiniest smile snuck it’s onto her face. Her strobes of stringed blonde hair sank past her ears.

“He was the best son anyone could ask for. Maybe he was lucky…”

My eyes almost jumped out their sockets. “Lucky how?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t have to live to see any more of this. I just have this terrible feeling that things are gonna get worse for all of us.”

We drove for another good half an hour until we reached the extensive side roads of an highway.

I poked my head out the window to see the vast dry fields that lay ahead. “Where are we?”

“We’re heading to a local garbage dump.”

My nose wrinkled in disgust and I turned back to her. “A garbage dump? You serious?”

Clarissa giggled and shook her head. “Of course not. I’ve got some friends that are going to help me and you do something, okay?”

Ugh, I didn’t like the sound of this already.

“Fine. Just make sure there’s no zombies.”

“Oh, believe me. There will be no zombies in this place. Zero contact.”

We stopped the van with a trail of dust behind us when an RV came into sight. Clarissa turned and woke Alex up feverishly.

“Huh?” Alex lifted his head, feathery locks of black hair matted into his scalp and I laughed.

“We’re heading to do something real quick. There’s snacks in the back for Eli and a gun under your seat just in case.”

Alex licked his lips and nodded groggily. “I know, honey.”

Honey? What the hell was Alex dreaming about?

We climbed out the car and I held my bat in hand.

The RV was a rickety one with dust all over and one of the wheels popped up. A neon strip of pain went all around it and I wondered how long the thing had been here. Clarissa walked ahead, shotgun in hand and knocked on the tin thin door. Laughter came from inside and the door peeked open the slightest bit.

“Whose there?” A forced scuffled voice sounded.

“Who isn’t here? It’s me, Clarissa. We gotta do Lion’s plan. It’s time.”

The door forced open and the dark skinned woman emerged. “Ah, sweet! I’ve been waiting for some kick ass break ins to happen!”

The woman turned behind her. “Cece! Get out here! We’ve got some ass to kick!”

She turned back to us. “Cece’s my partner in crime. The little nugget’s only 17, but she’s got the skills of somebody who’s been in the game for decades.”

Clarissa whispered to me. “They’re in the heisting game. Banks. Museums. You name it,”

The woman in the door looked closer to me. “Wait, I’ve seen you before. Isn’t your mom, Gladis?”

My heart started to pound. “You know Gladis. H-how?”

“Long, long story. The name’s Shatoya by the way.” She came forward to shake my hand, but not without the weird glance to Clarissa.

“Her uncle works with Lion, Trevor.”

Shatoya nodded further. She had long braids that stretched down past her shoulders and a creamy dark skin that seemed to glint in the light. Her eyes were a warm chocolate like brown as well.

She invited us inside. Someone could be heard rummaging in the back room of the RV.

The whole interior seemed to fit the unkept outside. Paper plates that had been used were all over the place. Clothes and bras were on the floor. The small TV was on in the corner, but the volume didn’t even seem to be functioning. And the brew on the small stove seemed to send a weird scent into the air.

“I’m doing some work on liquid combustibles.” She excused.

Clarissa brushed off a bunch of clothes off the couch and I sat half readily. A tall, slim girl came trotting from the back in black skinny jeans and a rocker leather jacket. Her hair was styled in a fohawk and held a string of amber red in it.

“Okay, now what’s the plan?” she came out saying.

“Cece, this is my friend, Jasmine. Jasmine this is Cece.”

Cece glared at me for the longest moment then, wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like this girl. Where’s your son?”

Shatoya let out a loud laugh. “You’re still not on that boy are you! The last time you saw him was at a barbeque three years ago.”

Clarissa’s face visibly fell and the mood dampened right away.

I had to say it for her. “William’s dead. He was turning into one of them.”

“I had to kill him.” Clarissa clarified.

Cece’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. What a waste? That boy was the bee’s knees. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Her throat cleared and she seemed to want to move on with the topic. “Alright, so, what do you guys have for me? Freshen my friend, Jasmine, here up on the plan.”

And they did.

They went through the whole plan. According to them, the facility that was a little over a mile away was a bunker for Lexicon Corp. It went about five miles underground and held over half of the company’s international information. It had bribed government officials for immunity on the actions they undertook in the building.

“In other words, they can torture and inject stuff into babies until they die.” Cece went on.

“The plan is that we’re going to break in and on the 15th floor is the room where we can find the information we need.” Clarissa handed me a floor plan of where our final location would be.

“The floor is a mixture of long hallways and corridors that are meant to distract from the real place. The main lab for patient information is in a giant computer.” Shatoya went on.

Cece toyed with the watch on her hand. “Okay, we’ve got about ten minutes until game time.”

“Weapons?” Shatoya asked.

Clarissa held up her shotgun and I showed my bat next.

Cece laughed. “Girlie, that’s lame. A bat? Seriously? We’re gonna need to deck you out into something more useful.”

I sneered at her. “Like a new attitude adjustment?”

The smile dropped clear off her face and she trampled to the backroom for more supplies.

“That was not a good idea.” Shatoya hissed.

I smirked and crossed my arms. “Why not? She was being a Grade A bitch.”

Shatoya just raised her eyes and let it go. Cece had nothing at all on me. Clarissa went to drop off my bat at the van and Cece came back with the weapons. She ended up just clipping an entire belt around my waist.

“Right hip is a canister of pepper spray. Next to that is taser. After that is a 8 inch steel plated knife. In the middle is a gun. After that is a grenade. And lastly…” Cece dropped a flash drive into my pocket. “that’s what you’re gonna use to break to break into the computer. That’s a 120 TB of code breaking magic.”

“Wait, what?! I’m breaking into the computer! What if I die?!”

Cece chuckled and walked out the RV door outside. “Too bad.”

Soon than I expected we were nearing the large cement wall that seemed to be about 100 feet long on each side.

“The cement is 3 feet thick.” Cece knocked on it and I looked to the cameras that were inspecting us.”

“Wait, those cameras are watching us.”

Clarissa and Shatoya were backing up behind me and Cece planted a crater sized wired contraption to the side of the cement wall.

“Wait, what’s that?”

“RUN!” Cece shrieked.

She went speeding past and I jerked my legs to follow. I could have sworn I saw a satisfied smirk on her face as she saw the panic in my eyes.

My legs dragged on and on to bring distance between me and the wall.

A wave of heat seared into sky as ball of red the size of a dragon leapt into the air breathing scolding temperatures. The ground literally leapt under my feet and I slammed over by the mass of chunks into the dirt ahead of me. It got into my mouth and my eyes and I was screaming.

My ears were ringing like sirens and more noises came into the air. Cece dug her nails into my arm and pulled me up, dragging me toward the wall of flames that had taken over the wall. We were literally running into a block of fire.

“We’ve gotta get in before they start shooting!” Her hand dug into my arm deeper and I fought away from her steel grasp.

What exactly had I gotten myself into?