Chapter 44- Playground Bullies

"How are you here to help me?" I asked in disbelief. "All you've done is attack us and lie to us, erasing our memories and stealing our cars!" I could tell my tone was not only sharp but judgmental, but that she fully expected this reaction and wasn't bothered by it. She smiled patiently, waiting for me to finish. Seeing her calm demeanor I relaxed a bit, and began to feel more curious than angry. Why wasn't she being defensive? Why wasn't she angry at my accusations? I looked into her eyes. They seemed calm and patient, unmistakably wise for someone who appeared to be so young. "Are you done?" She asked, almost amused at my tirade. I took a deep breath and asked one last question. "How can you possibly claim you've been helping?" She directed my attention to the kids playing on the playground. "Do you see what's missing from that picture?" She asked. I looked at the kids racing up the steps and gliding down the slide. "They seem happy, right?" I looked back at her, trying to discern her meaning. "Those children don't belong to those women." I looked at the ladies cheerfully digging in their little garden. They chatted together like lifelong freinds. "Their biological parents are downstairs, victims of infection." I sat quietly, listening as she unfolded the details. "The first documented exposures were actually here in town, over by the city center." She directed my attention toward the upper corner of the room, reminding me again that we were underground. I immediately felt my muscles tighten at the thought of the hundreds of tons of rock and dirt suspended high above our heads. "They died almost immediately, but not before they infected an entire city block. We quarantined the entire Bungalow for a month to try and contain it." My jaw dropped. "That revitalization project was a cover up for an outbreak?" I asked in disbelief. She nodded and continued. "Those kids are the only survivors left. They are last remnants of that neighborhood, all the others are either infected or dead."

"We got another!" I heard a voice call out. My attention was immediately directed toward the playground, where one of the kids had stopped halfway up the ladder. He stood on the middle step, staring blankly out into nothing. The other kids crowded behind him, unaware of the situation and why it would prevent their playmate from taking his turn as expected. "Oh no," Whitney exclaimed, pulling out her phone and dialing a number. "Not one of the kids!" She cried, her voice sounding desperate and fearful.

The two women who had been gardening had moved toward the ladder, one visibly corralling the kids on the ground and the other trying to talk the kid down like a hostage negotiator. Whitney was speaking urgently on the phone. "Its Laura, the 8 year old" she said in an authoritative tone. She snapped her phone shut and moved cautiously toward the playground, as though crossing a minefield. "I don't know what group she belongs to." She said as she stepped cautiously onto the dark shredded rubber of the playground. She motioned to the mothers to pull the other children back, and took another step toward the slide. "Laura?" She called out timidly. "Laura, can you hear me?" The young girl turned her head toward us and we saw her eyes covered in a thick yellow coating. She twitched and stared in our direction, not at us, but beyond us, as though she could hear something, but could not discern its source.

Four men in Hazmat suits arrived, accompanied by the doctor I had met earlier. They carried the same restraining poles I had seen earlier but refrained from using them. Instead they surrounding the playground at the corners and waited patiently while the doctor approached. He was wearing thick rubber gloves and carried a small needle with an empty vial on the end. With expert swiftness he deftly leaned forward, took a sample of the young girl's blood and stepped back. He squeezed a drop onto a small piece of paper and watched as the red changed to purple and then to a brilliant electric blue. Whitney looked at the doctor in shock. "But she's 3A!" The doctor looked back at her, his face full of sorrow. "I thought we'd have more time, I'm sorry." The doctor's face had a look of fear and uncertainty. "What's a 3A?" I asked, but he didn't respond. He stared at the ID badge fastened to his chest pocket. A large red 3A was printed next to his name.

"What's 3A?" I asked again, turning to Whitney. Her usual confident smile was gone, replaced with the same look of fear and uncertainty the doctor wore. Her badge also had a 3A, and she stared at the ground as though paralyzed. I shook her, trying to get her attention. "What's 3A?" I cried, but she merely looked at me in sympathy. "We all are." She said, and her skin became almost instantly cold in my hands. I watched as the color left her face, her usual healthy pallor took on an eery ghostly white. He face was devoid of emotion and the light in her eyes faded as she seemingly slipped into a standing coma.

The young girl on the ladder suddenly began to move. She turned and stepped down the ladder slowly, her movements erratic and choppy, as though she was struggling to make her muscles move as they used to. She snarled at one of the kids who cowered behind its mother, and the woman shrank back in fear, tears filling her eyes as they darted to one of the men in Hazmat suits. "Do something!" she cried out, pleading vainly to the motionless figures surrounding the scene. I looked at the doctor and Whitney like frozen sentinels as their bodies processed the change. The men in Hazmat suits all seemed to be under the same spell, except one man who suddenly snapped into delirium. "It's just a child, how deadly could it really be?" He backed away slowly, lowering his restraining rod in uncertainty. I looked through the clear plastic window on his suit and saw the same fear in his eyes, exponentially magnified. He screamed, his voice muffled but still audible. He turned and ran, awkwardly stumbling over the restraining rod. As he fell the mask he wore flipped backward, exposing his face to the air. He looked around in terror, as though some unseen force had now grabbed him, then looked back at us and screamed again, running off in the opposite direction.

The infected child stepped down on the ground and was now approaching the man closest. She snarled, revealing thick swollen gums cracking with infection. She closed on him and he just stood there, refusing or unable to move. "Do something!" I called out, and looked to the doctor. He stood staring blankly, the familiar stare of the first stage chilling my heart. I looked at Whitney, and saw her eyes already glazed with a yellow film. The realization suddenly hit me. I backed away, looking at the mothers cowering over the children protectively. One of them suddenly cried out in pain. One of the children was biting into her leg, his small eyes filled with yellow rage. His fingers clawed at her desperately, though his bite wasn't strong enough to break the denim of her jeans. The other woman looked at her in panic and disbelief, backing away rather than getting involved. The instinct of self preservation seemed to outweigh any previous ties or relationships, and those not yet infected fled from those that were. As the boy's fingernails pierced the skin of her leg she screamed again, louder, and the noise reverberated through the massive man-made cavern. Her scream seemed to awaken those standing around us, and they all turned toward her in unison, as if in some macabre dance. They trudged purposefully yet mindlessly toward her, and she screamed and attempted in vain to break free.

As they closed in on her a klaxon sounded, accompanied by flashing yellow lights inside each home and mounted on walls. The other woman fled toward the front door of the nearest house, only to be met by a man in coveralls stumbling out of the entryway. She screamed as he enveloped her in his arms and crumpled to the ground on top of her.

The sirens were deafening but could not muffle the moans of the monsters tearing apart their fellows. In desperation I ran toward the only exit I knew, the door leading upstairs to the surplus shop. It was sealed tightly with a card reader and keypad next to it. I punched in a few numbers by chance and watched the screen turn red with the words "Access Denied." I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through window into the darkness beyond. There was no sign of light inside, no one to grant me access or freedom. I took a step back and noticed a reflection in the window, one of the men in a Hazmat suits, coming fast. I turned just as his hands grabbed at me and we collided against the door, my back slamming against the sharp corner of the keypad. His weight pushed me to the ground and I fended off his hands as he tried to grab my face. The small window in his mask revealed bloodshot eyes caked with yellow cataracts, and gums bursting with foam and puss. Spittle spattered across the plastic as he bellowed, infuriated at his inability to successfully lay hold of me.

His badge dangled from his chest, a thin keycard attached to a plastic strap. The angry face inside the mask barely resembled the smiling man depicted on the badge, and the 3A next to his name was spattered with the blood. I snatched the keycard and struggled to get free, but his flailing hands continually pushed me back down to the ground. His face slammed against my head, causing my vision to blur and darken. I could feel myself slipping out of consciousness when a loud sound rang in my ears. The weight on my chest doubled but ceased to move, and I could feel something warm and wet running down into my collar. In my haze I looked up to see the old shopkeeper standing above me, a smoking shotgun draped over his forearm. "You okay?" He asked, pushing a new shell into the barrel. He clicked it closed and looked toward the playground. "If you can get up, you better do it now."