Walker, who barely ever acknowledges me, seems impressed by my speech.
“You have running water?” Caroline asks, her voice a mixture of curious and incredulous.
I nod. “Yes and solar powered electricity.”
Wyatt from behind me. “It’s your choice. We’re not in the business of making anyone go anywhere they don’t want to.”
Two younger women behind Jude perk up when Wyatt speaks. He’s probably smiling. Yeah, they’ll come, just to try to unravel that mystery. Good luck, ladies.
“What do you mean by ‘qualify’?” Caroline asks.
Walker reaches into the pocket of her tactical vest and pulls out the color brochure my sister had printed. Jane isn’t going to let something like the end of civilized society ruin her marketing abilities. Caroline takes the brochure and skims the information. Everything is laid out in clean bullet points.
For shelter, food, and medical at PharmaCorp residents must:
• Pass a Health Exam
• Pass a Mental Evaluation
• Participate in Medical Trials
• Follow Rules and Regulations of the Fort (*described on the following page)
• Volunteer for Appropriate Work Detail (*described on the following page)
The rules aren’t complicated. Mostly behaving like a civilized person while walking around fully armed. The worst part is attending Jane’s meetings, where she attempts to motivate everyone to her vague and undefined cause. Jane doesn’t have the self-actualization to realize that she is, in fact, bat-shit crazy. But she’s a genius, and if anyone can stabilize and mass produce a vaccine my father created right before shit hit the fan, it’s her.
The group takes a minute to talk it over but we already know they’ll come. Who wouldn’t? They can’t have much food left, and blood stains on the street outside tell the other side of the story. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets infected. Or worse, other survivors show up.
Plus, I think, as Caroline comes back and nods at Walker, if they don’t come with us Erwin will find them. Even though I’m not on Jane’s side, I’m definitely not on his.
Chapter 2
If and when the history books tell the story about the E-TR virus the scholars will surely only tell one version—the not-exactly-true-version.
The historians will tell future generations that people started behaving oddly. Ground-zero picked Florida, which is one reason no one paid much attention at first—people were always doing bizarre, crazy things in Florida. The talking heads on the news speculated that it looked like some kind of tainted drug or possibly an environmental effect that caused the user to turn erratic and violent. People were violent every day in America. People inhaled, snorted, and injected all kinds of garbage in their systems. That alone wasn’t a big deal—the big deal was when people started eating other people.
Right. Cannibalism. The real sign of the apocalypse.
A top epidemiologist, my father, Dr. Arthur Ramsey, was called in to stop the crisis. The CDC and every specialist in the country worked overtime to figure out what this was and why it was spreading. What they realized is that a parasite, identified as the E-TR Parasite, was being passed from person to person, burrowing into their skulls, igniting a virus that inflamed the brain. The infection triggered extreme rage and the urge to kill. The onset was slow, but eventually the infected lost control of their bodies and minds, using their hands and teeth to kill anyone that crossed their paths.
They aren’t zombies—not in that Walking Dead, World War Z kind of way. The people are still alive, although their brains are basically on fire. Their bodies deteriorate, just slower than normal. The Eaters are consumed with the need to spread the infection and act out with extreme aggression, but they don’t take care of themselves and have lost all ability to communicate. Oh, and they smell. Awful. Like rotten, spoiled flesh. Thank God, it takes little more than a solid blow to the head, heart, or decapitation to kill them. Unfortunately they’re also strong as hell with amped-up strength which makes it hard to land a shot.
At the beginning, before anyone knew what was really going on, we all went under quarantine. The military took control. My father went into final stages testing a vaccine on me, hoping to save humanity. I am not a cure. I am not immune, but my blood and his science started the process for the only known vaccine. Unfortunately, he disappeared before he finished, leaving me and my mother a pouch of information and directions to find my sister, three states away. We traveled on foot. She died.
No.
I killed her.
I shot her in the heart before the parasite could get in her brain and change her from the mother I loved into a human I couldn’t recognize. It was a promise we made. It was one I kept, and it was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do.
I also promised I would keep going and find my dad and sister. Along the way I met Wyatt, Cole, and his twin sister, Chloe, on the road.
And that was when I got to the real truth behind the E-TR virus.
My sister was involved. Of course she was. Someone with her drive and ego wouldn’t be on the sidelines of humanity falling. Her name is Jane Ramsey, and at the time, a brilliant student with a bright future in our father’s footsteps, epidemiology. She wanted a career in academia—researching for the University, esteem from writing papers, and testing on lab rats and monkeys. That was her plan until right before her graduation, when she was approached by PharamCorp and asked to work for them in their research department. They had the funding, the equipment and the desire to change the world—in ways no one realized. The other thing no one realized was that the founders of Ph
armaCorp had some radical views on humanity and the state of society.