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“A-Alice?” he managed to spit out once the noises coming through his speakers had quieted down. “Alice? Can you hear me?” He sat in his creaky old chair, trying desperately not to move lest it make a noise and he’d miss something. Dirty hand covering his mouth, he choked back a sob. “Please, Alice. Please just answer me. I… I know you’re there. Please.”
Another pause. All he could hear were the muffled sounds of groaning zoms through his speakers. Hopeless, he checked the couple of video feeds that they had up and running. Nothing. But he knew that. She hadn’t been running anywhere near the area they already had surveillance in. He knew that.
But he couldn’t help but check.
That’s why she had been sent out instead of all the others. Runner 5. Alice. It was because she was fast. She was so damn fast. Almost made running from zoms look like a game. She had always made it home. Breathless and pumped full of adrenaline, but safe.
He didn’t think she would be coming home this time.
At the thought, he brought his hand from his mouth to his eyes, finally letting the sobs free. “Please,” he sputtered, not actually directing the word at anyone. “Please, Five… Alice, just… please come home.” He knew she probably couldn’t hear him. Even if there was a small chance she was alive, she had probably lost her headset in the loud scuffle that had taken over the room only a few minutes prior.
He let another sob loose and dropped his head to his desk, trying his best to ignore the marmite smudges that she had scolded him about before she left. She had said she would help him clean them up. There would be plenty of sanitizer and soap at the hospital, she had said. She would just pick them up after she grabbed the box for Maxine. In and out. Nice and quick. A simple, easy mission.
But it hadn’t been. And he had heard them coming. He tried his best to tap into the hospital’s camera feed, but everything was so chaotic at that point that it wouldn’t have mattered if he had managed. Within a few minutes, he had heard her screams. Loud, frantic, almost drowning out the groans of hungry zombies.
Almost.
Her screams weren’t the worst part, though. Not really. It was when she stopped that killed him. When he couldn’t hear her anymore and the zombies started to scuffle away.
Then there was silence.
He knew that silence. Unfortunately all too familiar in those days. It meant that they had lost another runner. He had lost another runner. And it wasn’t just any runner this time. Sam always took their losses hard, but this time it was different. This time it was Alice.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, sobbing into the sleeves of his stained jumper. Unwilling to stand, unwilling to leave, just in case. What if she was still there? What if she was out there, alive, and tried to make contact and he wasn’t there to answer? What if?
“Sam?” At first he thought it was his mind playing tricks on him, doing anything to keep him from going insane. There was no possible way that that was her voice. No way. “Sam? Are you still there?” The weak voice broke into loud coughs.
He couldn’t believe his ears. Raising his head from the desk, he wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve. “Alice?” he choked out, voice hoarse and raspy. “Alice? Is that you?”
He swore he heard what should have been an amused scoff before she broke out into a long bout of coughs again. “Yeah,” came her voice over the speakers. He had never heard anything more beautiful. She was alive. She was still alive and he would get her back safely. “It’s me, Sam.”
The tears came back full force, joyous this time. “Oh thank god, Alice!” he cried, sitting up straighter and pulling his chair close to his desk again. “We’re going to get you home! Don’t worry about the case for Maxine. She’ll understand. Plus, now that we know what’s going on in there, we can always send someone back later. Like, in a group. Not alone, obviously.” He shuffled through maps and papers, flicking the monitors a couple of times to find a clear path for her to run through back to Abel.
“Sam,” she coughed again. She sounded weak, but who wouldn’t be after successfully fighting off a huge horde of zoms? “Sam, listen…” She fell into another coughing fit as he picked out a good route.
“No, no. It’s fine, Alice,” he said, tracing his dirty finger along the map. She was right. He really did need to clean under his fingernails. He would do that before she got back. “Look, I know you’re exhausted but-“
“Sam-“
“there’s a path to the West that New Canton said they’d cleared earlier today.”
“Sam-“
“I know, I know. I don’t like trusting them either, but we need to get you home ASAP! I don’t like-“
“Sam-“
“having you out there on your own. Maybe once we’ve got all the camera systems operational it’ll be better but-“
“SAM!” Her shout drove her into yet another coughing fit, this one lasting significantly longer than the previous few. He stopped rambling and stared at a highlighted spot on the map. The hospital. “Please. Don’t do this,” she said, sounding more than slightly out of breath. “Please, Sam.”
“D-do what, Alice?” He stammered. No. This wasn’t happening. She was going to come home, and she’d be safe, and they could lay together underneath the stars tonight and revel at how amazing and brave and strong and fast she was. She was going to come home. She had to. “What are you talking about, Alice?”
There was that almost-scoff again. “Sam…” she managed. He could hear what sounded like her head falling back against a wall. “We both know … I’m not coming home today.”
There it was again, the lump in his throat. The desperate need to cry, to retch, anything. “No… No that’s crazy! Alice, you’re exhausted. Dehydrated, probably. We can send someone out to get you!” he rambled, steadily becoming more and more incoherent. “I’ll… I’ll just call Janine, yeah? She’ll know what to do. Or Maxine! She can fix you up when you get back. You’ll be right as rain, you’ll see! Maxine knows what she’s doing!” He had to stop his own rambling this time. “Alice?” His voice was high, strained.
“Yeah, Sam?”
He didn’t want to say it. He couldn’t say it. If he said it, admitted it, then it would be true. “Alice…” he could feel himself holding his breath. “You’re… you won’t be coming home, will you?”
The pause between his question and her answer lasted a lifetime.
But he didn’t actually need to hear it. He already knew. He had known the whole time, really. Since he heard her panicked screams echoing through his ears.
“No, Sam.”
He didn’t want her to hear him cry. He couldn’t let her know that this would kill him, too.
“O-Oh,” was all he managed before he had to yank the microphone away from his mouth. He pressed his hands to his face, squeezed his eyes shut, and let out a heart-wrenchingly silent scream. He wouldn’t let her see how much this effected him. He would let her die believing that she wasn’t hurting anyone. She would appreciate that, right?
More than anything, he wanted to talk to her, but he couldn’t find the words. Better silence than sobs, he figured, so he bit down on a clenched fist, hoping she wouldn’t hear him.
“S-Sam?” came her voice after a few more minutes of mental processing. The tone surprised him, even though he had heard it many times before. It was what they always sounded like. Every time. Right before they changed. “Sam?”
“Yeah, Alice?”
He heard her raspy, relieved sigh at his response, followed by a weak cough. “I… I checked my gun,” she explained feebly. He thought he could hear the familiar scrape of metal and the clicks of the revolver that she normally carried.
A gun. Good idea. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to be there to hear it happen, but it was sure as hell better than the alternative. “And?” he probed. He thought he knew her response already, but he would let her tell him. Anything to hear her voice for a few more moments.
“Out of bullets,” she rasped. The words were an odd combination of calming and absolutely terrifying.
“R-Right…” He didn’t know what to say. How was he supposed to respond to that?
Luckily he didn’t have to.
“I-it’s okay, though,” she said, bursts of coughs separating the words. “I think… think I might go to sleep… for a while…” Her voice grew weaker with each phrase. “So tired…” He could hear the sound of her weak, ragged breathing through her headset. With each feeble breath, he could practically feel her slipping away.
“Yeah, Alice,” he whispered, his steady voice surprising him. “Just… just go to sleep. Maybe you can dream about… Maybe you can dream about coming home? Then it’ll be like you did, right? Like you came home to Abel? We’re all excited to see you back, Alice. You did such a great job today; you’re such an amazing runner. The best. I’m so proud of you, Alice. I…”
He heard one long, pained breath. “Thanks, Sam,” she rasped.
“For what?” He found himself trying hard to keep his voice from shaking again. Where was the calm Sam from just a few moments ago?
Another breath, this time with the distinct, familiar rattle of the infected. “For… staying…”
The next raspy, rattling breath turned into a deep, emotionless groan. She was gone.
Sam turned to the bin and retched.