Isolation

Chapter 27

Vera desperately wished she could see it. The rising sun, birds chirpingin the trees, and the feeling of dirt under her feet. She wanted to witness itall again.  Instead, I'm stuck in this godforsaken ship that I failed to fix. What's more, she did the transfusion on Austin to test if her theory was correct.

She was wrong. Again.

She wasn't infected, but she still felt like a failure. She had a patch on her arm from the transfusion, and she felt really tired. Hunger and thirst were taking control of her senses. When she passed out, she thought she heard her mother's voice. When she woke up, it was to someone banging on the glass. It was one of the guy's that tried to get inside.

"Go away," Aiden said. "It's not opening."

"I would rethink that," he said.

Vera turned around. They had one of the infected people on her knees. She struggled in her bonds, hives broken out on her face and arms. The teen tapped the wood on the wall.

"If you don't open that door, she dies."

The girl started sobbing through her gag. Aiden jumped up and hit the glass.

"We're not opening this door!" He said.

The guy started beating on the wall with rhythm. It sounded like a heartbeat. The others with him did the same, causing the sound to reverb throughout the whole ship.

"Stop it!" Vera shouted weakly.

The heart beating got faster. She grabbed her hair and pulled at it, trying to block out the sound that was causing her headache.

"You're running out of time," he said.

"Screw you," Aiden said. "You're the one killing us."

It got even faster. Vera shook her head.

"Stop it. Stop!"

She could feel her own heartbeat match in sync with theirs. He held up his hand, and it stopped. She thought she could feel her own stop as well. It jumped in her throat. The guy swung his branch into the girl's skull like a bat. Vera shut her eyes, but she still caught the spatter of blood that coated the window. She screamed and sobbed.

"We'll keep coming back every hour with another," he said, "until you open that door."

"You-you idiot!" Vera screeched. "We can't open the door!"

His "bat" went down to his side.

"What?"

"It's under quarantine lockdown," Aiden said. "We couldn't open it if we wanted to."

The girl that Aiden had jabbed yesterday snatched the branch out of the guy's hand.

"I told you it was a stupid idea!" She said. She punched him in the stomach. "Let's just wait them out. They have to come out eventually. And clean up this damn mess you made!"

She shoved the branch back into his hands and walked away. He shouted and threw it at the window.

"That was pointless," someone said.

"Shut up!" He whirled. "I'll kill whoever said that!"

Vera didn't doubt he would. No one said anything. They just left him to simmer. He stared through the window and wrote in the blood before leaving, forgetting about the dead body outside. Aiden gulped.

"You're next."

~~~

Mark felt a branch whip back and slap him in the face, but he ignored the sting. He had to stop them before they got each other killed. Despite their primitive living, they were still human with principles. He wasn't sure if there were any other settlements alive on Earth, but he wasn't letting this one destroy itself.