Chapter 15: The Escape and the Cure

Marvel

"Mavel... oh god, Mavel, what are we going to do?" Ginger panted, pressing her back hard against the cold bars of our cell. Her chest was moving up and down fast, and her eyes were wide with total panic. "Listen to them out there! They're screaming! Everyone is screaming!"

"Shut up and let me think!" I snapped at her, gritting my teeth as I tried to move my bad leg. A sharp, burning pain shot all the way up to my hip, but I forced myself to sit up straight. I stared at the locked iron door, my eyes cold and sharp. "I am not going to sit in this stupid cage and wait to get bitten. We are getting out of here."

Outside our cell, the whole police station was in pure chaos. Loud sirens were blowing nonstop from the street, and heavy gunshots echoed down the hall, followed by scary, unnatural screams.

Suddenly, the heavy iron door at the end of the hallway burst open. A police officer stumbled inside. His face was pale as a bedsheet, and his hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold his big ring of keys.

"Get up! Both of you!" the cop shouted, breathing hard as he ran toward our cell. "The whole city is falling apart! We have to move you to a safe place right now!"

He jammed the key into the lock and turned it with a loud click. The heavy metal door swung open. Ginger jumped up right away and grabbed my arm tightly, holding onto me like a scared kid.

"Stay close to me," the officer warned, pulling out his gun as he led us into the messy hallway. Red emergency lights flickered overhead, making long, creepy shadows over fresh blood wiped on the walls.

We followed the cop down a dark back stairwell toward the exit. I looked at his shaking shoulders and realized nobody else was around. The other cops had either run away or died. This was our only chance.

I dragged my bad leg, groaned loudly, and fell against the wall before dropping flat onto the cold floor.

"My leg! Damn it, my leg! I can't move it!" I cried out, grabbing my knee like I was in crazy pain.

The officer stopped, turned around, and cursed. He dropped down to one knee beside me, lowering his gun. "Damn it, get up! We don't have time for this!"

As the cop looked down at my knee, I caught Ginger's eye and gave her a fast, sharp nod.

Ginger didn't wait a single second. She reached out, grabbed a heavy red fire extinguisher off the stairwell wall, swung it with both hands, and slammed it right into the back of the cop's head.

CLANG!

The cop fell flat on his face, totally knocked out cold. I quickly reached over, grabbed his heavy flashlight and a pocketknife from his belt, and pushed myself back up against the wall.

"Come on! Move!" I hissed.

We ran—or rather, limped as fast as we could—out through the station's back door, bursting out into a dark alleyway.

The second we stepped outside, a light red drizzle hit our skin. It felt cool and wet, but everything outside was in total chaos. Car alarms were screaming in the distance, dark smoke was rising into the sky, and the air stank like rust, blood, and fire.

Just a few feet down the alley, a bloody person was bent over a fallen man, biting hard into his neck with sharp teeth.

"Ahhhhh!" Ginger screamed at the top of her lungs, clapping her hands over her mouth in total terror. "He's... he's eating him!"

"Shut up! Shut your mouth!" I barked, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back into the dark shadows behind a trash bin. "Do you want to get us killed?!"

We couldn't go back into the police station now, but staying on the main street was suicide. My broken leg was hurting terribly, and every single step sent sharp pain right up my body. Ginger had to put her shoulder under my arm, carrying most of my weight as we limped down small back paths to stay away from the main roads where monsters were running around.

Finally, after what felt like forever, we collapsed into a pitch-black corner between two old, empty warehouses. I slid down the wall, breathing fast and hard, my face covered in cold sweat and red rain.

Ginger sat down right next to me, her hands shaking violently. "Mavel... shouldn't we try to get to one of those government emergency shelters? They said on the radio before we got locked up that they're taking in survivors!"

"Are you crazy?!" I hissed back, glaring at her through the dark. "We're all over the news as wanted criminals! The moment we walk up to a government shelter, the guards will recognize our faces and slap cuffs back on us. We'll end up locked right back in a cage—or shot on sight. We can't go anywhere near those shelters."

Ginger swallowed hard, looking down. "Then how are we going to survive with your leg like this? You can barely walk! If those things see us, we can't even run!"

I gritted my teeth and held my swollen knee tightly. "I know! Just give me a second to think!"

As Ginger reached down to wipe the reddish water off her shoes, her fingers touched a wet piece of paper stuck to the muddy ground. She picked it up and held it near the light of my flashlight.

"Look at this," she whispered, her eyes going wide.

It was a paper flyer, soaked from the red drizzle, but the big words were still easy to read:

EMERGENCY MEDICINE

Fast bone and heavy-injury care available now.

Free for injured people.

Find Dr. Khalif at the Old Harbor Warehouse District.

"It's a fake," I spat right away, waving my hand away. "A magic shot printed on cheap paper during an apocalypse? It's fake, Ginger."

"Mavel, look around us!" Ginger begged, her voice scared and desperate. "You can't walk, and we can't go to the government shelters! What else can we do? It says it's totally free! It's better than sitting here in the dark waiting to get eaten!"

I looked down at my useless leg, then looked up at the dark clouds where the light red drizzle was starting to fall faster. She was right. We had no other choice. If I couldn't run, I was dead anyway.

"Fine," I grunted through my teeth. "Let's go."

We stayed on the darkest, smallest paths, sneaking through the city while making no noise. The light red mist soaked our clothes, feeling cold and sticky.

After twenty long, painful minutes of dragging my body through the dirt, we finally made it down to the Old Harbor Warehouse District. The place was a run-down, empty shipping facility surrounded by tall wire fences. The front entrance was a heavy steel door, locked tight.

Ginger ran up and started pounding her fists on the cold metal. "Please! Open up! We saw your flyer! My boyfriend's leg is broken! We need help!"

Nothing happened. The dark building stayed completely quiet.

"Please! Open the door!" Ginger cried out, hitting the metal door again with all her power.

Suddenly, a small metal slot on the door opened with a sharp sound. A hand wearing a thick rubber glove reached out through the small gap, holding a clear syringe filled with a strange yellow liquid.

"Take it and leave," a rough voice said from behind the steel door. "Do not come back."

Before Ginger could even say thank you, the gloved hand dropped the syringe into her palms and slammed the slot shut with a loud CLACK.

We quickly hurried into a dark, covered alley nearby to hide. Ginger held the clear syringe in her shaking hands, staring at the liquid in the dark.

"Are you really sure about this?" I asked, looking at the sharp needle with a bad feeling in my stomach. "We don't even know what is inside that thing."

"It's better than doing nothing, Mavel," Ginger said softly, her hands shaking as she pulled off the plastic cap. "Hold still."

She wiped a spot on my arm and pushed the needle straight into my vein, pushing the plunger all the way down until the syringe was empty.

For three seconds, nothing happened at all.

Then, crazy, unbearable pain exploded inside my whole body.

"AGHHH!" I screamed, slamming my back hard against the wall as a burning fire shot straight down into my leg.

It felt like a hundred tiny hammers were smashing the bones inside my knee, breaking them and snapping them back together. Gross, wet cracking sounds came from under my skin as my broken bones twisted around inside my leg.

"Mavel! Mavel, what's wrong?!" Ginger cried out, stepping back in pure fear while tears ran down her face.

I rolled on the cold ground, groaning and holding my leg as crazy heat rushed through my body. But slowly—very slowly—the terrible pain started to go away. The big swelling around my knee started shrinking right before our eyes. The bad pain that had stopped me from walking for days vanished completely.

I took a deep breath, put my foot flat on the ground, and slowly pushed myself up.

I stood completely straight on both feet. No pain. No limp. My leg felt stronger than it ever had before.

Ginger gasped, her mouth wide open in total shock. Then, a huge smile broke across her face as she jumped up. "It worked! Mavel, your leg! It actually healed you!"

I bent my knee back and forth, feeling fresh power in my body. A cold, mean smile spread across my face as I turned my head toward the distant, dark mountains in the red sky.

"Yeah, it worked," I said, narrowing my eyes with total hatred. "Now... it's time to go to Mount Ironwood."