Rise of the Dead

Chapter 15: The Worst Type of Crying

"Please explain the problem to me slowly, as I do not understand things quickly." ~ Albert Einstein

- - -

I stare around the group before looking back to Amelia and waiting, waiting for her to explain how she's still alive.

"Did Toby explain what happened on the roof?" she asks painfully and we all nod sincerely, our eyes fixated intently on her shaky frame. "I'll start from there then..." she trails off, immersing herself in the sick memories.

"The zombies were chasing us and somehow we got split up, we were both on the roof but different sides. I knew if I distracted them Toby would survive, that's why I was going to jump. It would get their attention and I wouldn't become one of them, I knew I was going to die and the least I could do was take it into my own hands," she says shakily, taking a deep breath and playing with a strand of blood matted hair nervously.

"I remember Toby's panic-stricken face but I didn't stop, I love him too much," she looks at Toby and he holds a pained expression that has permanently settled over his face. "I stepped up to the edge and looked at the drop below, I remember the way the concrete held out its arms for me in an almost comforting way. My family were all stood there too, beckoning me to jump. I was hallucinating from the fear, I know they weren't really there. I closed my eyes and prayed that Toby would find you and that you could survive together. I was ready to die," Amelia states sadly, her eyes cast down onto the tarmac.  

"I had taken the step forward when a hand grabbed the back of my shirt. I was frozen in mid-air for a tiny second before I was slammed back into the roof and that's when they swarmed on me," she mumbles and we all flinch at this, hearing how helpless and weak our best friend was.

"How did you survive?" Josh whispers and Amelia smiles and shakes her head in a haze of dismay.

"I only have a theory, it's not much but it's something I guess," she says and we all hint for her to continue in the form of uninterrupted silence.

"I screamed for Toby to run and I think my words must have got through because he finally listened to me. I grabbed my knife and slashed wildly but they weren't falling quick enough and soon one was biting my leg and others my arms, neck, stomach you name it," she murmurs and we all sit forward now, listening intently to this almost certain death.

Almost.

"That's when I noticed a garbage shoot at my feet, slowly I slipped into the lifeline and I was away. I ended up at the bottom of the building and shakily ran out these of rancid dark rooms, I looked for Toby's car but he had run- just like I asked." Amelia pauses briefly, swallowing the lump in her throat before continuing. "I walked into an old house across the street where I thought the transformation would begin, locking myself away from the world so I could die in peace, but it didn't come," she whispers. I watch as the group frowns around Amelia's shivering frame, a growing look of unease on Maria's face. 

"This is my theory, I believe that when Madeline injected me with that cure, it made me immune to the virus," she explains briefly, our eyes widening as we assess her theory. She could be right but the cure didn't work on the little girl, Maria seems to have the same thought as her voice rings out, clear as day.

"But that can't be, we used the cure in a case about three weeks ago. It didn't work, it was completely useless," Maria says mirroring everyone's thoughts.

"I noticed that they seemed to have evolved recently and that's where the second part comes in. I think that when their venom entered my body because they weren't fully evolved yet, the cure had created memory cells in my body that fought it off. Kind of like how children's bodies fight chickenpox," she explains with a half-hearted smile.