Blackbird's Fall - Jenika Snow Page 0,2

taking him over.

“The same,” she lied. It looked so much worse than it had just hours before. The infection was spreading fast.

“Even though my eyes are closed, I can still tell when you’re lying.” Her father’s voice was distant, sleep taking control of him.

“Get some rest, Dad.”

Her father was asleep before she even got the rest of the words out.

“Come on, Maya. Let’s eat something.”

Maya followed her mom out of the room, shutting the door behind her, and that’s when she couldn’t stop her tears. But she wiped them away, not wanting to start that floodgate.

“He won’t last much longer,” her mother said with a detached voice. She turned around and gestured for Maya to sit at the table.

Sherman, her old and graying black lab, came trotting into the kitchen and lay down by Maya’s feet. He was going on ten years, but he had a lot of energy and spirit still. She reached down and ran her hand over his head, scratching behind his ear.

Maya didn’t respond to her mother, because she knew that was the truth but didn’t want to think about it. Her mother set some rationed food in front of her, and once Maya’s mom was seated, they ate in silence. The sound of her father’s wheezing and gurgling as his lungs filled with the fluid, as he was dying, surrounded them.

This was her life, her reality, and the sooner she fully accepted that, the better chance she had of surviving.

2

“This is fucked,” said Brandon, one of the scientists who had been working on the immunization from the ground up.

Marius was shoving items into a large backpack, intent on getting out of the bunker they’d been in for far longer than he could even comprehend.

Brandon was walking back and forth, pacing the small confines of the room. The underground bunker had been government issued, a place that held several scientists as they worked on a cure.

But there was no cure, and despite telling the government officials that, informing the president that there was nothing that could be done, they still kept working. What else were they supposed to do this deep below the earth?

Besides, Marius didn’t want to give up, didn’t want to be a part of why humanity had fallen.

“We’ve done all we can, Brandon.” Marius kept his back to the other man as he shoved in bottles of water, canned and packaged food, and grabbed medical supplies.

“So you’re just leaving?”

Marius turned and faced Brandon. “I can’t stay here any longer. I need the fresh air, the sun. Besides, staying here with the supplies diminishing like they are will only make this our tomb.”

Brandon didn’t speak for several long moments.

“You can come with me. We can find a place above ground, try to find survivors, help them.”

Brandon shook his head. “I don’t want to run into those fuckers, Marius.” He ran a hand over his face. “We already had to deal with that down here with Marie and Kyle.”

Just thinking about the two other scientists who had been put down here when they’d gotten infected made Marius sick. Marie had been infected with the virus when she accidently pricked herself with a needle, a rookie mistake that had cost Marie her life.

But she hadn’t told anyone she was infected, and they hadn’t known until it was too late. She’d kept herself away from them as the infection ate away at her body, and when she finally did die and was resurrected as one of those walking corpses, she’d gone after Kyle.

Marius ran a hand over his face. He’d been the one to kill both of them before they got him or Brandon. It was something that had to be done, and he knew something he’d have to do above ground if he wanted to survive.

“Staying down here will be your ultimate death, Brandon. If you want to survive, you need to get out while you can. If lack of food and water doesn’t kill you, the isolation will drive you insane.” Marius shook his head at the reality of that. “We haven’t heard any news from up above in weeks. That has to tell you something, tell you that we are now on our own.”

It took a moment for Brandon to move or even speak, but he finally breathed out and nodded. “You’re right; I know that and should be smart enough to understand it, but I can’t leave, Marius.”

Brandon was afraid, and rightly so, but staying down here really would bring about their deaths.

“What