Trapped (Part One) - BWWM Dark Romance - Zombie Apocalypse

Trapped (Chapter 3)

CHAPTER THREE

Steven left the APC to check on the burning body outside and then checked the area again for others like it, hoping to catch soggy eyes looking back at him from behind some tree or abandoned car.

He was somewhat surprised not to see any.

Then again, perhaps the Morphs were smart enough to process the destruction of one like them, and, therefore, got smarter about hiding.

Satisfied that the area remained clear, he returned to the vehicle.

He saw that Serena was still picking through the food, but she seemed sated enough to actually take in her options.

Finally, she found a bag of Cheetos and opened it.

He noticed that her movements had slowed down tremendously.

She picked at the junk food almost distractedly, her eyes gazing off to the side.

"How did this whole thing happen?" she asked, but as if to herself. Still, he felt a need to answer.

"Chimera virus," he said. "Some combination of rabies and a few others. It was developed as a weapon of war but...something went wrong."

Her eyes snapped to him, widened, her face contorted in horror.

"You guys didn't seriously think you could make something like that and be able to control it, did you? And who the hell were you going to use it on? What was it supposed to do?"

Steven felt a bit offended that she had lumped him in with the group who was behind the project.

"Serena, I'm not exactly at liberty to tell you everything, but I will tell you this: a village of diseased people is easier to stomach blowing to smithereens—easier for the world to comprehend even though people generally don't think or care about civilian casualties anyway, no matter where we are. But too much attention was starting to be paid to them recently. Listen, the public will accept a heck of a lot if it means that their world and their family is safe. It's always easy to annihilate something you don't think is like you and possibly a danger to you."

He couldn't tell what she was thinking.

He had been deliberately vague, and Serena was again looking off to the side, but instead of seeming lost in a daydream, her eyes looked intelligent and alert.

"And there's no cure, obviously," he continued. "It's a virus, and as such, it must take its own course. The only current treatment for its host is annihilation."

Serena silently finished off the last of the Cheetos and licked her fingers, the act appearing to be mindless, but taking his brain back to a place he had been wrestling it from.

As she crushed the empty bag in her fist, it appeared that her binge was finally over.

She looked at him with sad eyes.

Guilt gnawed at him again, and the reality of their situation returned to him easily, redirecting his wayward thoughts.

"He's dead, isn't he?" she said, somewhat lugubriously.

Steven looked down and nodded, trying to push back his own sorrow at the thought, and the horrible memory of Gregory's transformed face.

Steven felt an inquisition on the way and prepared himself for the onslaught of questions, blocking out emotional attachments to events and people as he had done countless times before so that he felt nothing the whole time they spoke.

"What about your mom and grandma?" she began, just as he expected.

"My grandma probably had a heart attack at the first sight of those things; she died a normal human. My mom...turned. I had to put her down."