.four.
“All right. Sounds good,” Isaac said into his cell phone. “I’ll call you when I get home. Bye.”
He ended the call and stuffed the Blackberry back into his pocket. He could feel eyes staring at him and he turned to see a grinning Natalie.
“Were you just talking to a GIRL?!”
Isaac nodded in reply, his cheeks turning red. He had not dated a girl since before the band got famous. It was just never on his list of priorities.
“What’s her name?” Natalie pried for further information.
“Nikki.” He handed her a picture he took on his phone before they left to go on tour.
“Isaac! She is so hot! Nice job!” Natalie squealed with joy just as the bathroom door in the bus flew open.
Standing there before them was a very sickly Kate. She looked even worse than she did earlier that morning. Natalie gasped at the sight of her.
“Would you fuckers keep it down! I’m fucking dying here!” Kate cried trying to make her way back to her bunk.
The pajama’s she wore were stained and had obviously been soiled by some type of fluid. Her face was as white as snow and her hair was matted to her head in gnarled strands.
“Sorry, Kate.” Natalie told her sincerely. “Can I get you anything?”
“Yeah, you can find my good-for-nothing boyfriend who’s supposed to be taking me to the goddamned hospital!”
Isaac glared at her for being so rude. No matter how sick she was there was no reason to take it all out on them. He followed Natalie out of the tour bus just as Zac and Taylor walked up. They had been talking to the town locals after the church service to locate the nearest hospital or doctor’s office.
“A nurse at the clinic in town said that they were all booked today and she was even going in for over time later so,” Zac explained, “she told us that our best bet is to finish the drive to Louisville and go to the university hospital there. Apparently, it’s pretty big and there are other hospitals within the vicinity of our venue if needed.”
“All right let’s do it,” Natalie said as she headed back up the steps into the bus.
Luckily, Kate had passed out before hearing the news that they’d have to drive another 2 hours before getting to a hospital. She and Zac had gotten into it again when they all boarded the bus after decided the next plan of action. The energy of bitching him out had caused her to lose her composure and faint.
Zac looked down at Kate who lay asleep on his lap. The longer they waited to get help, the worse she got. He was actually beginning to worry about her for the first time in God knows how long.
Softly, Zac brushed his fingers through her damp hair trying to remember when they first met. They had gotten along so well when Natalie introduced them and then that fateful day when he found out about Kate cheating it all went downhill from there.
Regardless of the fact that he wasn’t as into her as he used to be, he still didn’t want to see anything bad happen.
The bus was quiet. Taylor and Natalie had disappeared into the back bedroom and Isaac was strumming a tune on his acoustic guitar. He paused from playing when he received a text message.
“That was mom,” he told his brother. “She says to call her later.”
Zac nodded in response while Isaac pressed a few buttons, scrolling to different pages.
“Hmmm,” he said aloud, his brow ruffling in question. “Take a look at this.”
Isaac handed the blue palm pilot over to Zac and what he saw on the screen made his heart race. He swallowed hard as he read a news bulletin from msnbc.com.
According to world news, this vomiting illness was all over the globe. Reports say it began the night of the eclipse and has escalated so much it has caused the infected to fill up urban hospitals and clinics. No one can figure out where the virus came from, but they were looking into biological warfare, terrorism, and environmental possibilities. Casualties are massive.
“Holy shit,” was all Zac could say as he handed the phone back to his elder.
He looked down at the girl curled into a fetal position beside him, and then back at Isaac.
“It doesn’t sound too good, bro.” Isaac said not knowing what to say about the situation.
“Something crazy is definitely going on,” Zac agreed just as Kate began to stir.
Out of nowhere, Kate’s body began to shake violently. Zac tried to hold her down, but she was still incoherent. Isaac jumped up in surprise.
“Dude, is she ok?”
“I don’t know. Kate!” he tried to wake his girlfriend up. “Can you drive any faster?”
Zac yelled up to the bus driver who only nodded in return. They couldn’t have been too far from Louisville now.
Just then, the same red liquid that came out of the brunette fan spewed out of Kate’s mouth onto the floor of the bus. She fell into the puddle and began having a seizure. Zac and Isaac tried to help her but both selfishly kept out of the way as to not get any vomit on themselves. They could hear gargling sounds coming from her blood-filled mouth as her brown eyes began to roll into the back of her head.
At that point Zac picked her up and held her in his arms knowing that she was almost gone.
“Kate! Stay with me! Wake up”
Taylor and Natalie came rushing out of their room at the sound of Zac screaming. Both of them had looks of pure horror spread across their face. Natalie put a hand to her mouth and began to cry as she watched her best friend die on the floor.
Kate’s body went lifeless in a matter of seconds. Zac lay her down as the group stood around her. The whites of her eyeballs could still be seen and her mouth hung open in anguish leaving a terrifying image embedded in their minds.
Isaac knelt down and felt her wrist for a pulse. He looked up at them with no expression or feeling in his eyes.
“She’s gone.”
Just those words were all it took for Natalie to break down into sobs. She fell onto the bench behind her, Taylor wrapping his arm around her shoulders. Zac put the blanket he had been using the night before over her motionless body as Isaac went up to tell the driver what had happened.
They were only 15 miles outside of Louisville, but it was 15 too late. There was no saving Kate.
Zac bent over and put his head in his hands. Sighing, he tried to think of what to do next. What would they tell her family?
Then, everyone went over to the running sink and cleaned up, making sure no one else had any contaminated fluid on them.
“Oh my God!” Natalie screamed pointing to Kate’s corpse as it was suddenly sitting upright.
Everyone turned to see the blanket fall exposing Kate’s mangled expression. Her eyes were glazed over with a foggy white substance, her mouth and skin were dry and turning a purplish gray, and her face looked as if she were angry at them for letting her die.
Sluggishly, Kate lifted her body up to a standing position, her frame now facing the front of the bus.
“Kate?” Zac asked her his voice barely above a whisper. “Kate, are you ok?”
No reply. She began to walk, a slow, limping walk towards the driver until she was right behind him.
“Kate! What are you doing?”
With that, Kate pounced like an animal onto the man. He roared in agony as she bit down on his shoulder causing him to swerve towards the side of the road. He drove off of the highway into a bumpy field as she bit at his skin harder. Blood went everywhere and the man passed out.
Isaac pulled Kate off of the man as everyone else fell over from the sudden change in terrain. Fighting for his balance, Zac got up as Isaac was wrestling with the dead girlfriend.
Crash! The bus hit a telephone pole right smack dab in the middle of the engine compartment, busting the wind shield wide open. A metal hook hanging from the wooden pole came within inches of Isaac’s face. Reacting to the sudden change, he swung the attacking Kate around and pushed her into the hook.
Everyone held their breath. The hook stuck out a few inches from her chest surrounded by protruding bone and blood. If she wasn’t dead before she was definitely dead now.
Panting, Isaac stepped back to where his brothers stood, and they surveyed the damage before them. He ran a hand through his hair. The quiet on the bus only lasted a minute when a growl escaped Kate’s lips.
“Holy shit she’s still alive!” Zac exclaimed incredulously.
Kate reached out for them hungrily. She pulled herself off the hook and came towards their direction.
“This cannot be happening,” Natalie cried holding onto Taylor for dear life.
Zac motioned for everyone to go around Kate.
“Go that way while I distract her.” He instructed waving his hands so all of her focus would be on him and not everyone else. Once the rest of the group was out of the bus safely, it was now Zac’s turn to make a move.
Quickly, as agile as he could, Zac grabbed her by the arm and swung her body around the other way. He pushed his girlfriend to the ground, in which under normal circumstances he would have never done before, and ran outside. He slammed the side door behind him.
“What the fuck is going on?!” he exclaimed to no one in particular.