Drabbles and Containment by A Forum User

Containment Part 4

Part 4

~Sang~

My hands were still shaking so I tightened them into fists.

"Where do we go?"

Mr. Blackbourne dragged a hand across his jaw.

"The military will have probably set up roadblocks by now on the most infected areas, and on the highways to stop infected people that don't know it from coming in."

I frowned. "This fast?"

"They'll have been planning this for a while, cupcake," Luke told me. I held my hands up.

"Wait just one moment. I feel like you aren't telling me something. How could they be...Planning, whatever, something that happened five days ago?"

"Pookie, it happened long before then."

"But they-"

"Were hiding it. Think about it. They can either make it public; probably spreading panic and that fucking disease and whatever, or they could see whether they can take care of it themselves before then," North explained, "This is what our mission was about. The Academy heard some shit about a couple of people freaking out west, Jacksonville, we had to go check it out. When we heard that it was spreading down here..." He held his hands out, since it was evident. They came here to protect me.

Okay. Okay, so the government was... 'Hiding' this whole thing.

Fine. I'm good with that. Roll with it. My fingers traced against the edge of the table, and I tried to ignore that if I turned around I would be facing that corpse again.

I opened my mouth to reply but I was interrupted. A high, shrill scream echoed. It sounded too far away to be an immediate worry, but close enough that my stomach tensed with anxiety.

"Shit," Gabe muttered, "we better get going."

I was exasperated by now.

"Where?!"

"Charleston Airport. If there's going to be military support anywhere, it'll be there."

"Won't everyone be going there though? The roads will be clogged up."

Silas, who'd been quiet for a while, spoke up.

"Then we deal with that when we're there, for now let's get the fuck out of this place."

We piled into North's truck and Kota's sedan in two separate groups, our eyes darting everywhere. Gabe, Luke, North, Mr. Blackbourne and I all took the truck. The scream seemed to have drawn away, whatever making it either dead or gone for now.

By the time we made it onto a main road, we saw how bad it really was. Everyone was trying to get out of there, shouting and blasting the horns. It went on until I couldn't see, a river of blinking red lights and cars.

The guy we were behind got out of the car, banging on the edge of an ambulance.

"Hurry it the fuck up! I got a baby in that car, we need out!" His voice was panicked, and soon accompanied by a baby's crying.

"Oh shit," North mumbled and gave a glance to Mr. Blackbourne, "what do we do?"

"Back out, before anyone else com-"

The man was stumbling away from the ambulance, and though we weren't close enough to see an exact facial expression, the way his eyes were so wide he seemed pretty damn terrified.

"The fuck?" Gabe whispered, leaning past Luke to get a better look.

Then I noticed what the man was so surprised by. The back doors of the ambulance were creaking and pushing outwards, like something was pushing from the inside.

And then they snapped open.

Two men ran out of it in hospital gowns. It only took one look to tell they were infected. One took me by surprise, though. It had thick, greenish looking veins running down its face and arms, webbing across its wrists like roots.

"Holy fuck!" The man shouted, running backwards towards his car. The crying of the baby got louder, and the infected started screaming that gargled, choked scream.

I didn't realize it, but my hands had been pressing against the windowpane as I watched.

The infected stumbled towards him as the man started to get into the car, the green veined one shoving its arm through the gap as it closed grasping the man's shirt.

"Should we help them?" Luke asked quickly.

"No. We take care of our own. We are not responsible for anyone else."

Luke went to speak but Mr. Blackbourne held his hand up.

"We can't be heroes in this, Mr. Taylor."

I was barely hearing any of it. This- what was happening- was all so real, yet so far away. I knew it would be idiotic to try and help, but maybe because we had guns-

"Oh god! Help!" He shouted and a woman's hand reached out from the car to grab his. But too late. Those things were covering him so much now it would be impossible to take a clear shot. We would probably kill him in the process too.

The infected dragged him out and the door shut with a crack behind him.

The contents of my stomach threatened to come back up at what I saw next, yet I couldn't look away because of some sick fascination. Something told me it was the same with the guys.

One of the infected pushed past his fumbling and thrashing, and sank its teeth straight into the man's neck. He screamed so loud you could plainly see the agony. Once it bit further, the man simply slumped. The green veined infected, the one that had bitten him, pulled back and I wretched.

Cartilage and a long red stream of meat hung from its mouth.

"Get out of here, Mr. Taylor," Mr. Blackbourne commanded, and even his voice was slightly shocked. Everyone had their breaking point.

North seemed to break through the reverie, as did everyone else. He gestured to Kota in the car behind us to back up and reverse so we could too.

I didn't even notice that I was crying.