Rain - A Zombie Apocalypse Story -

*Extended Ending* Part Four

Extended Ending

Part Four

The Enemy

Alan's P.O.V

I came to an abrupt stop, my knees wobbling beneath me, threatening to collapse. Sweat was beginning to trickle down the sides of my face, and my tongue had gone dry and refused to moisten. I didn't have much longer.

"What do you want, Melissa?" the words came out croaked.

"Well, to give you this of course," she waved the syringe she was holding in the air. "The cure, it's what you're looking for isn't it?"

"I don't believe you," I said. My grip on Mel was beginning to slip, so I dug my nails in in an effort to keep from dropping her.

Melissa held up her hands. "No tricks. I promise. Look, I'll even leave it here and walk away." She bent down and gingerly placed the syringe on the ground with a light clink. Then she straightened herself back up, turned around and began walking down the hall as she promised.

She was playing some sort of game again, there was no doubt about it. It was only a matter of figuring out what it was.

Melissa only took a few steps before pausing and turning back around. "Oh, I should tell you however, there's only enough in that syringe for one person."

She smiled, but this time the joke was on her. She thought the decision would be difficult, but it was one of the easiest I'd ever had to make. I didn't care about my own life if I could save Mel's. That's all I cared about. If I could see her blue eyes one more time before I died, I would be content, I would be happy.

So I began trudging towards the syringe, half my mind wondering why Melissa still stood there, watching me approach, and the other half wondering if this was a hallucination brought on by the fever. But when I dropped to my knees, laying Mel down on the ground beside me, and clasped the cold syringe in my hand, I knew that it was real.

The liquid inside it was clear, and while I should have stopped to consider if this was another one of Melissa's games, if the contents inside were actually some sort of poison, or different strain of the virus, I didn't.  My thoughts were thrown into a jumbled mess, already ravaged by the infection.

But it didn't matter, because Melissa only had one final game to play, and she only set it in motion once I pulled the cap off the syringe and held it an inch away from Melody's neck.

"Alan before you do that, I forgot to mention," she began.

My hand paused, trembling in the air.

"That's the only cure in existence. If you give it to her, it'll be lost forever." That hideous smile was back on her face as she scanned mine for a reaction.

Lost forever. My mind struggled to form cohesive thoughts, struggling to bridge the gaps between each concept with flimsy string that only ended up snapping. Lost forever, lost forever, lost forever.

I lose Mel forever, or I lose the cure forever.

If I give it to Mel, they'll never be able to synthesize it, to mass produce and distribute it across the globe. But who is 'they'. If I don't give the cure to Mel, what's to stop Melissa from throwing it in the trash. She said it herself. Why would would she allow something to exist that would only destroy all the work she's done.

Then a new thought entered the fray, one that should have come to me instantly, but was held back by the fever. And this thought made me smile.

I looked back at Melissa. "You're lying," I said, almost laughing. Then I jabbed the syringe into Melody's neck and injected the serum into her bloodstream, watching the smile on Melissa's face turn to a frown as I did so.