Evergreen

6

Song: Too Late to Say Goodbye - Cage The Elephant

"I might have taken something from the penitentiary."

"Well give it bloody back. Whatever it is." Her hands flew up with stress, she exposed a little midriff with the action. She had freckles on her tanned toned stomach. Her long sleeve white henley shirt was no longer white.

"I cant I don't have it anymore." I averted my eyes. She interpreted it as shame.

"Jesus Christ. You lost it to the blood boilers didn't you?!"

"Yes."

"For christ sake you idiot. What was it? What did you steal?"

"I want you to know I don't regret it. It was the right thing to do."

"I'm sure it was very noble of you." She rolled her eyes, one ear listening out to the forest one trained on me. Rebecca always gave me her full attention.

"We were travelling to a different Penitentiary, my friend Samuel worked for the government he tipped me off that batch 45 would be secure. Guaranteed safe passage, we were carrying precious cargo."

"You made the trip with Rebecca?" Her voice dropped in volume almost down to a whisper I followed suit.

"Yes. It seemed like an opportunity for us to have a fresh start. I wouldn't have gambled our safety if I knew it had a chance of not making it to Texas safely." I fiddled with a piece of yarn she had left out.

"Texas. You do know you're in north California right?"

"No, I didn't. I was used by the boilers for a while until I escaped. They kept us on the move." I saw that look of pity she gave me and I hated it.

"There was a group of government armoured trucks that were carrying something. No one was allowed near them, armed guards around the clock. I didn't ask questions until one day one of the vehicles got stuck in some deep mud. I got called on to help move it, while we were digging it out the side door flew open, some jumped up first sergeant with an attitude told us to hurry up. I got a look of what was inside, capsules big glass vials of glowing blue liquid." She was listening intently now, the dogs couldn't be far off.

"I asked a few loaded questions to the right people, looking back I just should of kept my nose out. I found out that, that blue liquid was a new weapon they'd come up with. They'd experimented on Night Walkers." Her eyes flew wide at the information.

"What does it do?"

"It turns them into rabid things, gives them abilities straight out of a horror flick. It makes them hunt themselves, they get a taste for their own kind. We're trying to solve the zombie problem I guess? But the formula doesn't last long and sends them into a frenzy for blood as long as they're dosed up they wont hunt us. But if you stick a human with it, it creates the perfect zombie hunter. And I doubt they'd be inundated with volunteers for the programme." I could see her mind working her face didn't hide much.

"We rarely stopped and those armoured cars were always heavily guarded. When the blood boilers turned up, they were more interested in protecting those fucking trucks than us. Families were slaughtered and ripped apart. I dragged Rebecca away towards the sergeants van and ended up clinging to the outside of it, along with a few other opportunists. They abandoned over a hundred innocent people to those cannibals. I felt like a coward."

"You survived. You can't save everyone." I don't think she believed that herself but she still said it.

"We stopped once, to assess the damage. I got into it with the sergeant. I didn't mean to but I killed him. I hit him too hard and he fell and his head bounced off the truck." I never cried about it. I probably never would he got what he deserved.

"You picked his pockets didn't you."

"I wanted to find his name. You should at least know the name of the person you killed."

"What did you find?"

"Some official letters. A red leather bound book and a memory stick." She stays silent willing me to continue.

"It was instructions on how to use the serum, the formula, how to create more, along with the alpha programme plans..."

"Dare I ask?"

"They wanted... they wanted to experiment on a human foetus. To create the ultimate soldier."

"Fuck. That's vile."

"Exactly. There was a bunch of paperwork with signatures of people i didn't recognise. It stated that these were the only copies in existence everything else had been destroyed; in order to keep it quiet. They were to be delivered to the president in Texas, to be put into motion." I'd never read so much horror, Steven King could dream of those words in bold. They were fiction brought to real life.

"What did you do with it all?" She already has too much faith in me.

"I burnt the documents and book. But the data stick wouldn't burn, it couldn't be smashed, it was water proof. I tried everything when we ran."

"So you didn't get caught for the sergeants murder?" She was barely whispering now, the birds had flown off.

I just shook my head.

"If they're after you, we're as good as dead." She held her finger to her lips.

Then we heard it. A scratching sound. Like claws on bark.

Then she disappeared into the branches bow poised and fight ready.