You Can't Survive Alone

Part 21

The beginning of the plan
I'm huddled in a building, curled in a ball to preserve warmth. There's dirt and debris all over me, my hair is messed up, and I'm about as miserable as I can possibly be.
Right now, in the White House, the others are drafting a note explaining that I ran off after hearing that I was to be sent to Ethan in exchange for Zack. They apologize, and beg to get him back. They'll expect a response, saying no, and that's where I come in.
I wait out the night curled in a ball, preserving all the warmth I can. Luckily, it's not been a very tough winter here, but that doesn't make it any less cold. They didn't give me a coat, because this was supposed to just be my venture, my fleeing from being traded away.
I hear a loud banging sound in the next room, and I wince. I uncurl myself from the floor and stretch my stiff muscles. Slowly I walk towards the sound.
I hear a soft footstep behind me, and I pull the sword from its sheathe and turn a second too late. I feel a pinprick in my upper arm.
"Hello, Ashley." My breathing slows, and my muscles stiffen and stop working at my command. Just like that, I'm completely immobilized, and then the toxin reaches my brain and I plunge into blackness.

Later
Not again, I think as my mind swirls into consciousness. I don't want to be here again! Let me OUT!
I remember the plan then. I'm right where I'm supposed to be... Just a little ahead of schedule.
My eyes open, and I'm in a white room, completely alone. I'm in a bed with white sheets, and a white pillow. My hair has been cleaned, but I'm in the same clothes I was in before, luckily. My cuts and bruises and scrapes have been treated. A plastic tube runs into my right arm, and I want it OUT. I can't do that though; it would ruin the plan.
I hear the door opening, and I close my eyes and immediately pretend to be asleep. This isn't too difficult for me, as I used to pretend to sleep all the time to fool my parents when I was on my phone late at night and they would check on me. Thinking about my parents sends a pang through my chest.
An attendant walks in, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor. Wait a second- who wears heels during an apocalypse? I almost laugh at the ridiculousness of this observation. I hold it in though, and continue my deep breathing. She messes with the IV in my arm, stopping the flow of the drug. She stabs something else in my arm, and I almost flinch away, but I hold still, unconscious. I don't feel a cold drip going into my arm; it's almost the opposite, like the blood is flowing out of my arm.
She's taking blood, I realize. I'm still not thinking quite straight; whatever drug he had used on me must have been powerful. Not powerful enough though; I'd obviously woken up before they expected it. A tugging sensation in my arm and a cloth tightening around where the needle was shows she was done taking blood.
I hear her heels clicking out of the room, and the door closing. I open my eyes slightly, to make sure I am alone, and when I am, I sit up. My swords are gone, but I couldn't really expect them to leave me with any visible weapons. But I have one weapon they didn't exactly expect.
I slide my hand under the band of my sweatpants and remove the small knife strapped to the inside of my thigh. The knife's handle fits perfectly in my hand, and I smile.
My shoes aren't on, and they didn't leave them by the bed. Why would they take my shoes? I wonder.
I try the door, and am not surprised to find it locked. I had planned for this, and was ready for some action. The next time someone opened that door, they would not have a good day.
Searching around the room, I look inside cupboards, on the counter, and check all the corners. Inside one of the cupboards I find a basket of syringes marked "Unconsciousness for 4+ hours". I grab two, and decide that instead of killing the orderly sent to check on me, I'll just hit them with one of these.
I curl up on the bed, knife in my right hand, syringe in my left. I lay in as close to the exact position I was in before as I can get, and hope they don't notice. Slowly I wait for my prey to open the door.
The door opens, and another orderly walks in, heels clicking on the floor. She bends next to me and touches my arm. My eyes fly open and my arm comes around, hitting her in the meaty part of her upper arm, and pushes the plunger down. She doesn't even have time to say anything before she's immobilized, then unconscious, and falls down to the floor. I jump up, grab the key from its lanyard around her neck, and unlock the door. I step into the empty hallway, and realize I'm in a hospital. The same hospital we were in last time; they hadn't actually moved. How did we not realize they were still here?
Creeping down the empty hallway, making my way toward the elevators at the end of the hallway. When I reach the elevator berth, I realize the irony of the wing they put me in. They had put me in the psyche ward.
Walking slowly down the staircase, my socks not making a sound on the steps. I hear voices about a staircase below, and recognize Ethan. I hide behind the handrail, and wait for them to reach me.
"She's one of our most successful experiments," Ethan continues. "Human most of the time, but with the ability to become zombie if she needs to. She hasn't figured out how to control it yet, but with careful training, she will learn."
Like hell I hadn't figured it out! I reach inside of myself and feel for my anger against Ethan. Pure, undiluted rage runs through me, and a bloody haze travels over my eyes. I clench the knife tighter in my right hand, the second syringe tighter in my left, and wait for them to reach me.
The second person, a woman, says something quietly that I don't quite catch. "Don't worry, she's completely unconscious. She's only been here an hour or so; that stuff lasts for more than four hours! It's perfectly safe," Ethan claims.
They're getting closer; right around the bend now.
They stop for a second, and the woman says, "I'm going to go back downstairs."
"Thanks for walking me upstairs, it was interesting talking to you."
Heavy heels clack back down the staircase, and Ethan rounds the bend in the staircase. His eyes widen as I bury the knife in his heart, and sprint down the staircase after the woman.
She has to be stopped, has to be stopped, stopped- this echoes in my head, the bloody knife in my bloody hand shaking slightly.
She's in a corner, curled in a ball. "Please, please, don't hurt me; please! It wasn't my fault he's forcing me to be here, please don't kill me!"
"And why, exactly, shouldn't I kill you? You've been assisting a psychopath in harming innocent people!" I want to kill her; I really do, but something is stopping me. I feel like it's my last shreds of humanity.
"He made us," she says, sobbing. "He took us from our groups, promised us safety... I didn't want to, I'm a doctor, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt people! But...but..."
"But what?"
"He took my daughter. I had to protect her!"
Great. An actual, valid reason. "Why didn't you escape?"
"We couldn't! It's a wonder you got this far, there's security everywhere! They're all in on it, they all know what's going on, but they don't care, they're completely loyal to him!"
"I'm not going to kill you."
"You-you're not?"
"No. I can't. You gave me information that I needed, and you're not doing this willingly. Get your daughter, and run. Get as far away from this city as you possibly can."
She just stares at me for a minute, until I say, "Go! Before I change my mind!"
She gets up, and says, "thank you." She thinks for a second. "What's your name? So we can find you later, and help you if you need it?"
"My name is Ash," I say, and turn away. "Wait." I turn back. "Where's my sword?"
"Supply closet on the first floor. Want me to show you? There's some other stuff in there we could use as well."
"Okay. But first, let's get your daughter."
We run down a hallway, and stop in front of a room.
"She's in here. You have a key, don't you?"
"Yes." I look around. "I thought you said there was tons of security!"
"They must be doing something else right now; maybe they found Ethan's body."
As soon as she says that, an alarm begins to sound.
"We have to hurry! Get her out here, now," I say as I unlock and open the door. She rushes inside and returns with a girl who appears about ten. Insanely skinny, brown eyes dominating her face. I feel another pang in my chest; she had probably been just a normal girl, changed to fit into a terrible world...
"Do you have any idea where they kept a boy? About my age, brown hair, glasses?"
"He's in the next room. Wait, is he with you? Oh, my god. You're her. The girl they were trying to get their hands on." She backs away slightly, pulling her daughter with her. "The one who turns into a zombie."
"I have myself under control, which is more than you can say. That isn't important right now though, we just have to get out of here!"
I fiddle with the lock on Zack's door, and hear his voice on the other side.
"Ashley? Is that you?"
"Yes, Zack, it's me. We need to get out of here." I finally undo the lock and open the door, and as soon as it's open enough Zack tackles me in a huge hug.
"You came."
"Of course I did. Let's get out of here!"
"Weapons, first," the woman reminds me.
"Oh yeah. Zack, this is... Wait, what's your name?"
"I'm Carrie."
"Zack, Carrie. Carrie, Zack. And Carrie's daughter-"
"-Val-"
"Val. Now that introductions are done, let's get out of here."
We run back to the stairs, and go down them as fast as we can. When we reach the supply closet, it's unlocked, and I just open it.
Bulletproof vests line the walls, my sword is in its sheathe on the far wall, and there are guns everywhere.
"I thought you called this a closet!" The room was at least fifteen feet by fifteen feet across.
"Originally, it was the main closet for all of the janitors in this building. There wasn't this much stuff when I was in here last."
We each grab a weapon, and put on jackets except for the little girl. I help her pull on her bulletproof vest, and she looked scared. "You're going to be just fine," I promise. She nods seriously back at me.
We step in the lobby, and are immediately surrounded by the security guys. Guns are pointed at us from all directions, except for one way- at the door.
We sprint as fast as we can out the door, and the guards open fire on us. I feel a bullet graze my back, and I run faster. Carrie's protecting Val as much as she can, and runs quickly enough to not get hit.
Zack isn't quite so lucky. He's shot in the leg, and limps down the street as fast as he can. Not fast enough. He's shot again, and again, and I scream, because it's almost as though it's me being shot. One final guard shoots at him, and he takes the shot and crumples to the ground.
"Zack!"
I'm standing over him, sitting next to him, then he sighs, "Ashley." He breaths out, and doesn't breathe in again.
"No, no, no, no! You can't, you can't, no!"
"Ash. He's gone," Carrie says softly.
"No. He can't be. It isn't possible!"
"Ash, we have to move, now. We need to get out of here."
"I'm not leaving him!" I scream, and throw myself down next to him. I slam my fist into the asphalt, again, and again, until blood streams down my hand.
"We need to go."
"Then you go! I'm not leaving him here," I say, sobbing. "Go on! Get out of here, leave me alone." The last word comes out as a groan.
She picks up her daughter and leaves. Leaving me lying on the asphalt, crying. Next to the body of my best friend, of the boy next door, who will always be there for me.
Slowly I start to pull myself together. I pick him up, the bullet graze in my back screaming with pain. I can't really feel it though; I'm completely numb. I'm floating above my own body, watching myself sway through the streets, stumbling around, carrying my best friend to his final home.
I have no clue how I carry him for as far as I do, for as long as I do. We make it all the way to the steps of our home, and there I collapse. I'm bleeding from my back, I'm bleeding from the cuts and bruises upon my abused body, and I'm bleeding from my heart.
I find myself wondering how I'm still alive, then realize that I won't be alive for very long. I'm okay with that. I said earlier that I didn't know how much more of this hell I could take, and I finally found the limit. As I'm laying on the concrete steps, I feel myself sinking into the darkness for the last time.