Still breathing | Original story

Chapter Thirty: Jigsaw puzzle

Word count: 1898

The road was bumpy and, if not for Archie, I would've been constantly knocked around. Instead, I had the softness of his body to comfort me throughout the tiresome ride. The journey seemed to last forever, the van was soon shadowed with even more darkness to signal we were driving through the night.
We'd been on the road for hours when it finally screeched to a stop, a day at the most. I was hungry and my lips were dry. I felt my sore throat and all I wanted was water, which Jack would definitely not give me. Hell, if he knew the time of day he wouldn't even give me that.
"Get out!" Jack yelled as the sun shone into the back; scorching my eyes and making me momentarily blind. I put a hand up to shield them from the glare as I felt Archie move away a bit. All I could see were spots in my way. Thick black spots that followed my eye movement.
"Move it," Kyle joined in as he saw I hadn't moved. My vision began to slowly adjust to the lighting, I made out the two figures outside the door. Archie tugged at my arm to make me move and I noticed urgency in his movements. I looked at both the guys properly and saw they were aiming weapons at me, their trigger fingers itching to be used.
I jumped down from the van and landed on the pavement outside a building with an official looking sign boldly displayed. The place had something to do with science. It looked like a hospital but I was sure the only ill patient in there had been tested on. The white building made shivers run down my spine. I felt like the saying of someone walking over your grave was true and currently said person was dancing on my grave, doing the Gangnam style and other dances that involved vigorous movement.
"Remi, you and lover boy follow me," Jack barked at the both of us, a slight grin on his face. "Send the other one someplace else." He dismissed Lily like she was some stray cat that smelt awful.
"Alive?" Kyle smirked as he glared at Lily, his eyes glistening and his orbs dancing at the idea of her not being so alive.
"That's up to you." Jack sighed as if he was bored by the entire thing already. Bored of being the gun in a game of Russian roulette.
"Don't you dare hurt her!" The words rung in my ears, but it wasn't me speaking, it was Archie. His voice was low and husky as he tried to protect Lily but Jack was having none of it.
"Shut the fuck up!" He pushed Archie down on the ground with one movement of his muscular arm.
I watched helplessly as Archie crouched low on the ground. I tried to help him up but a sharp force threw me backwards and air hit my lungs with so much force I expected them to burst. I lay crumpled on the floor.
"That's enough!" I heard Jacks' voice faintly as the black spots returned.
I looked through the darkness to see Lily being pulled away by Kyle. Kevin emerged from the other side of the van with his own deadly tool. Lily tried to struggle free but Kyle merely chuckled at her efforts.

*

I gasped as something cold and wet washed over me. I opened my eyes to find myself still on the pavement, except I was leaning against the van.
"Wakey wakey." I could see Jacks face looking down on me out of the endless darkness I was in. I felt Archie grip my arm as I continued to cough the water out of my lungs, I noticed Jack with a canister in his hand. Obviously, his horrid voice hadn't been enough to wake me alone.
After all the coughing, my insides felt dry and empty, not that Jack cared. I was still forced to get up but luckily Archie helped me. After walking towards the building, the fresh air pumped around my body and I began to walk without darkness clouding my vision. I still allowed Archie to help me, though, with him that close to me I felt so safe. It was a false sense of safety admittedly, as Jack could kill us both easily, but I felt safe all the same.
Jack opened the door to the building for us and we cautiously walked forward. I felt him kick me to push me along faster and I had to bite my tongue to prevent me cursing at him and possibly getting killed.

We were led to an office. It looked like it had once been a meeting room. A long oak table filled almost the entire place, leaving just enough room for a multitude of black chairs and an old TV set that seemed to still take video instead of just DVD. New looking posters and graphs filled the walls:
"Is the population getting too much?" And a pie chart followed, I couldn't make out what the different categories were. All I saw was before and after (I feel the need to say the after had a lot more red on the page.)
"What will end the crisis?" Then a neatly bullet-pointed list.
"Great rulers of the world." This one took my interest the most, the "great rulers" were the ones that had killed thousands, millions even. What is this place?
The squeak of the office chairs filled the air as we all sat down, Jack at the head of the table. Of course, I expected him to sit just there. If not for the weapon, that he had already proven he could use, I would've sat in that chair just to spite him. I don't care how childish that sounds.
I settled into a seat, swinging my dangling legs back and forth, an awkward silence filled the large room.
I cleared the dry clumps out of my throat and my voice echoed around the four walls surrounding us.
"What do you want with us?" I questioned Jack, my eyes never leaving his. He put a hand on his beard and rubbed it in thought.
"It's not a matter of what I want with you really," he told me, emphasising the 'I' like it was important but at the same time not giving much away. I decided to try again.
"Did you start the virus? Was it you all along?" I narrowed my eyes at him, I felt like I was interrogating him and to onlookers, it may seem as though I had brought Jack there. If I had I would've thrown him out already. There would be no case, him starting the virus was a ridiculous idea. I asked him to help me with my science homework once when Ella had gone out and it took him an hour to learn the charges of the electrons, protons, and neutrons in an atom. No way could he manipulate human cells to turn them into flesh-eating creatures and make people become almost as brain dead as him. Although it didn't hurt to ask, maybe I would get some slither of information about what exactly was going on.
We stared each other down for some time, it felt like I was in an old western movie and I was waiting for someone to yell "draw" before making a mad scramble towards a gun that would kill Jack off whilst Archie and I rode away together on a trusty steed.
Archie cleared his throat, probably feeling awkward from the staring contest playing out in front of him.
"No. But I did," Archie said loud and clear. It took a moment for me to register his words, they sounded incredibly out of place. He did what? Created the virus?
I expected him to laugh and say 'gotcha'' but that didn't happen. I broke away from Jacks glare and towards Archie's, very serious looking, face. I tried to make words form but my brain was having a meltdown. I felt like I had sand in my mouth and it was being crammed down my throat, my mouth was so dry.
"Jack to area B," he snapped. It was Archie's voice using Archie's body but he seemed different somehow.
"But sir," Jack began. Sir?
"Now!" He said. It sounded like it should've been a yell, but he was very calm. Jack reacted as though it had been a yell as he rushed to the door and slammed it shut behind him. We listened as his footsteps faded rapidly away, my ears began to ring and I still found no words to say.

"Now I know this may be hard for you to understand at first but-" he began calmly, his voice sweeter than honey but I knew his words would hurt me as much as a bees sting.
"-Why?" I croaked. "Why would you do this?" I felt tears form but I blinked them away, now was not the time for tears. Sure my boyfriend is a mass murderer who created a zombie apocalypse but that didn't mean I should waste my tears on him.
"I want to lead a strong world," he started simply. "You see. Only the strong survive the virus, the stronger survive the attack. And the leaders, people like you and I, survive the infection." It sounded like he had practised the speech in his head over and over again
"I am not a leader. I never will be!" I interjected, I wouldn't want to be a leader; not of a world like that.
"I've been watching you for a while Remi, you have so much great potential. You are so much more than immune, you were born for this." He leaned in close and it took every fibre in my body not to lean away.
"Let me get my head around this," I started as my mind began to clumsily fit the pieces together like I was doing a '1000 piece' jigsaw puzzle. "Your plan was to let the world die, let the people I love die, heck even make me kill someone I used to love, then bring me to this place and expect me to see how great this all was?" I wasn't yelling, I felt like I should be but I wasn't. My voice was as fragile and frail as I felt. I was so angry at everything he had done, every word he had ever said to me, every time he had saved me. "And on top of that, you actually made me love you! How could you be so cruel!?" Still, no tears fell, I felt them well up inside me. Clump together as a lump in my throat, begging to be pushed upwards, but I didn't let them escape.
Archie wasn't smiling or serious; if anything he looked worried. Which just pissed me off even more! He was doing it to play with my emotions and boy was he good at it.
"A lot of that wasn't actually intentional. Believe me, Remi Swinton." How does he know my full name? I wondered how long he had been watching me for, what all this was for. If he knew me so well why not approach me sooner? Archie took a deep breath and looked deep into my eyes, he gulped like all of it was hard for him to say, "I was planning on killing you."