Disclaimer: This story is not my property. In no sense or fashion am I attempting to make a profit from this endeavor. All characters, except the ones that I have created, are property of their respective owners.
Author's Notes: A story about a shell of a man, a man without a past, trying to find a reason for his existence in this new, dangerous world. I hope you enjoy it. And if you're looking for Robert Neville, don't worry. He will be here eventually.
THE ADVERSARY
Chapter 2: The First Signs of Life
"Livingston. You are doing well. Continue east, continue killing. Paint your bloody masterpiece, Livingston. Do not worry. As they get stronger, you get stronger."
Livingston woke up to a gentle rapping on his window. He blinked at the sun. It was staring right at him, high in the sky. He looked at the internal clock. It wasn't even noon. Why was he up? This was wrong. Was he having a dream?
Suddenly, the rapping increased in volume, and Livingston sat up straight. He pointed Elaine at the window, expecting to see an infected with an umbrella and a smile. Instead of that, there was a young girl. Her hand was frozen, her eyes were wide with fear. Not that he would fire in his HUMVEE, but she didn't know that. The first shot would probably ricochet straight backwards into his own skull.
She was young, a little younger than him. Of course, he didn't exactly know his age, but he hazarded a guess that he was somewhere in his 20's. The girl looked like a teenager. What was he like when he was a teenager?
He wondered if she was pretty. He compared her with the lists of pictures in his mind, most garnered from magazines and billboards. Compared to those girls, she wasn't as pretty. This was certainly a strange train of thought. It didn't really matter if she was pretty or not. What was he going to do, repopulate the Earth with her or something?
He felt a ugly slab of pain in his head. He had wrapped gauze around the head wound, bandaged his throat wound, and he took some of the pills in the first aid. However, he made sure to take less than needed, just in case they messed with concentration.
He was on top of a parking deck, just like he had wanted. He had just gotten there when the sunrise made its way past the horizon, illuminating the city and forcing the infected back into hiding. He had wanted to scout the city, but he was too tired. It took all of his energy to dump the two bodies out of his HUMVEE. After he did that, he passed out, completely exhausted. He hadn't even bothered to clean up the backseat.
He looked around the HUMVEE. There were several people. This was amazing. It was also sort of scary. Livingston knew what to expect from infected. They chased you and tried to kill you. And while he had nothing but high hopes for humans, a cynical part of his mind was still wary of them. After all, couldn't they lie? Infected don't lie, animals don't lie, dishonesty is a human invention.
"Elaine, what do you think?" She wanted him to go for it, to take a chance on the humans. They didn't look all that dangerous. There were seven in total, five men and three women, all armed. Still, they looked tired, worn-out, and hungry.
Even with his wounds, Livingston felt strong, full of vitality and life. He didn't know what it was. Maybe the rush of killing over a 100 infected in one night. He wasn't quite sure. Come to think of it, that's how they probably tracked him. Followed the trail of dead bodies.
He opened the door and stepped outside the HUMVEE. The teenage girl backed away. Her eyes were still fearful. Not that he blamed her. He was a scary character, like the insane soldier discussed in the memoirs. Apparently, the author's company had run afoul of an AWOL (whatever that meant) who had been killing indiscriminately. They wanted to kill him, but the author and a few others convinced them to imprison him.
He gripped Elaine in his hands, careful not to raise the gun too high. They looked like they were willing to shoot him if he seemed dangerous. He locked eyes with the girl, and she scooted away next to a large, burly man.
Livingston was subdued. He was looking at his HUMVEE now. There were pieces of infected covering it. It used to be camouflaged, now it was some ugly red color. He walked around it, inspecting it. Other than being dirty, it seemed fine. Aside from the smell, of course. It didn't bother Livingston much, but it was getting to the others. The inside was much worse.
"You're him, aren't you?" asked the burly man. His voice was deep, commanding, but his hands were shaking. The shotgun in his hands shook with them. The man was far bigger than Livingston, but he was deathly afraid of him.
Livingston cocked his head sideways at the man's question. His first human interaction! It was intriguing. "Who?"
A young teenage boy, the youngest in the crowd, walked up to Livingston. He didn't look much older than 16, but he didn't show the same amount of fear as the burly man. In fact, he looked more in awe of Livingston than afraid.
The young teenager opened his mouth, but he seemed to have trouble finding the right words. He closed his mouth, and opened it again. He repeated the process a few times before he was able to form a sentence. Livingston was mildly thankful. He had looked like a fish. Had he ever seen a live fish? Livingston couldn't recall.
"You're the guy who's been destroying the infected, aren't you? We heard about you on CB."
Radio. Ah, yes. The HUMVEE didn't have one. For some reason. Livingston had tried to find one, but he never got lucky enough to find a working one. And then, he felt the need to hunt infected and cross the country. Finding a radio stopped being so important.
Livingston nodded. The group whispered to each other in hushed, hurried voices. They looked worried. Or, at least Livingston thought they looked worried. Maybe this is what other people look like when they are happy. He smiled when he was happy, but he had no idea if this was the accepted means.
The burly man was the first one to speak. "Where are you going?"
"East," he replied truthfully. No way specific, just that direction. "Until I can't go east anymore."
The group looked confused. The teenage boy said "are you going to ground zero?"
Livingston cocked his head. "Where's that?"
The group looked even more confused. Livingston felt a tremor of unease. Had he done something wrong? Had he broken some code of ethics, or had his etiquette been substandard?
"Manhattan," said an old man, who had been standing at the fringe of the group. "How can you not know that?"
Livingston spoke the truth. "I don't remember anything before waking up in a old school bus. Almost three years ago."
Another round of hushed whispers. It did not come to him until later that he could have lied to them. He didn't know how, not really. He didn't even know how to communicate. He was simply answering their questions.
Livingston looked around the parking deck, subconsciously scouting the city while the seven discussed with one another. He was going to get back at those bastards for causing him to bleed. Oh, yes. He would hunt down each and every hive, even if it took burning down the city to draw them out.
They had gotten quiet after their discussion. This sort of quiet bothered Livingston. This was different from the usual quiet, driving through the ruins of civilization with no one but a sarcastic carbine to talk with. This quiet was hiding something, like the quiet night the previous morning, yet different. It wasn't as malevolent, but it was still worrisome, in a more subtle way.
He began to secretly wish for Elaine. Because she was safe, she was secure, she was part of his routine. This people were not. However, she was silent. A part of him was thankful, after all, who needs to talk to an inanimate object when you had people? However, another part missed the comforting voice of his only friend. Even if she was imaginary, a friend is a friend, right?
He didn't know how to act around them. He had been around for only for three years, after all. That wasn't normal, right? Was he normal? He thought so, he supposed so. But there was the problem. He didn't know, for sure, without a shadow a doubt, if he was normal or not, if his behavior was normal or completely loony.
It was maddening. During the entire three years, the only thing he had to go on were the terrified and crazed ramblings of some boy scrawled in a cheap, leather journal. These people had a reference point, they had memories. They might be bad, they might be good, but they were still memories. They were a foundation. He had no such foundation. He was just floating, uneasily, above a dark and dangerous ocean. In that ocean, in that darkness, was death and destruction. But for some reason, as he fought harder and harder to stay afloat, the ocean just kept on looking more and more friendly.
And there was that voice, calling to him. In the HUMVEE. In the dream. Had he heard it before that time in the HUMVEE? He didn't think so, but was he sure? No, he wasn't. He wasn't sure of anything, except that he could kill and he was good at it. And that he could destroy. Oh, yes, he could destroy. He wondered if they had seen what he had done to LA, what he had done to San Diego. Those cities had been damaged, but now they were just a smoldering memory.
If he tried hard, very hard, he thought he could remember hearing the voice before the HUMVEE. He couldn't quite pinpoint the exact time, but he was pretty sure he had heard it. One word, repeated over and over, in different areas at different times, but always the same word with always the same meaning.
"Here."
Livingston looked up in surprise. It was the girl's voice, saying the same word that was on his mind. In her hand, she had a candy bar. He took it, and she smiled. He smiled back in response. That was comforting. You were supposed to smile when you were happy. One less thing to worry about.
The girl walked back and the group deliberated for a few minutes. Finally, the burly man walked away from the others and towards Livingston. He had a defeated look on his face.
"We want you to come with us," he said.
Livingston backed away in surprise. He had not been expecting that. He was touched, in a way. Because that meant they were willing to trust him, at least somewhat. And that meant he appeared somewhat trustworthy. He had often had nightmares about running into people, who were always faceless, and scaring them off or causing them to attack him.
"We could use your vehicle. And your weapons. And your experience with the infected," the man continued. "We are going east as well. There's nothing to the west but smoldering ruins. California is pretty much destroyed."
Livingston did not know why he bit his tongue, stopping himself from remarking that he was the reason that California was probably still on fire. There was just something, a part of him or perhaps something else, that felt it wasn't wise to divulge the extents of his measures to kill the infected.
"I'm not leaving yet," Livingston said. The others backed away at this.
"Are you nuts? You can't stay here," said the old man. "This city was one of the first concentrated breakouts. There's thousands here."
That was good to know. "I'm not leaving until I get some payback for what they did to me." He pointed at his various wounds.
"You can't win," said one of the women. It was the middle aged one. The others nodded their head at this. The teenage boy seemed torn.
Livingston smiled at that. He considered it a challenge. He would win, oh yes, he would win. He still had most of his explosives from Wichita. He didn't even have to make any. He would find the hives, and destroy them using his familiar technique. Hotwire a car, fill it up with explosives, and drive it into the complex. It would explode, and the sun would kill the survivors. If any survived that, he would gun them down.
He realized that he probably used too much in California, but there had been so much artillery just lying around. It felt criminal not to use it. He had loaded up a dozen different vehicles with his homemade bomb, and put several shells and warheads to top it off. There had been some monumental explosions. And he still kept his trump card. The special one in the lead trunk. The one he found, practically gift-wrapped. The one far more special than the C4.
"I will win," he said and there was not a shred of doubt in his voice.
The burly man walked up to him. His defeated look was gone, replaced with a look of pure anger. Livingston backed away, but not out of fear. It was more out of surprise. That was what people looked like angry.
"Listen here," the burly man said. "Either you come with us, or we will take your equipment. It's insane for you to waste all that just because you want to kill a few infected. Because of what? They hurt you? Well, my entire fucking family was killed. Everyone's family was killed. And you want us just to pass up all those weapons and go on our merry way with our cheap guns?"
A few of the group cheered. The old man and the middle aged woman were the loud ones. The other were quiet, but no less enthusiastic. They weren't exactly pointing their weapons at him, but they would soon enough. Only the teenagers seemed immune to the hysteria. The sun was directly above the group now. Not even their shadows wanted to see this.
Livingston had no idea what he was supposed to do. He had no idea of negotiation. He had never done it, or he could never remember doing it. Compromises was something alien to him. He had become accustomed to doing whatever he wanted and killing infected whenever he got bored. Just the idea of running from the city turned his stomach.
The teenage girl stepped up. Her voice was small, but it seemed to carry very well. "Let's leave, and stay on the highway, and we'll wait. Is that okay?"
The burly man looked her like he wanted to hit her for a brief moment, but he relaxed. He did not want any bloodshed, plus he was afraid of this soldier. He was bloodied, from his own and the infected, but there was just something about his eyes. Something strong, something sinister. Plus, he seemed to be in extremely good health and was carrying a weapon far better than their measly supermarket rifles and cheap pistols.
The burly man sighed. "All right. We will stay on Highway 70, outside and east of the city. For one day. When daylight comes, we will start a fire."
He walked up to Livingston. He tried to look intimidating, but he was just too tired. He felt a great deal of envy towards this young soldier. He seemed so healthy, so driven. He was just tired of being a leader. Just because he had been a cop before the infection, people had assumed him to be the leader. And before he could realize it, he was the leader.
"What's your name?" he asked the soldier.
Livingston looked up at the burly man. "Livingston."
He nodded. "I'm Randall." He pointed at the two teenagers. "The boy's Chris and the girl's Ashley."
"The old man is Derek," said Randall. He pointed to the middle aged woman next. "This is Alicia."
He pointed to the two quiet ones. They were holding each other's hands, but their eyes seem muted, dull. "And those two are Dennis and Leigh."
"They lost their son five days ago," he whispered to Livingston. The young soldier nodded. He didn't feel an ounce of sympathy, never having lost anything in his life, but he figured he was supposed to do something.
"Remember," said Randall. "One day." He held up a single finger to empathize his point. The group started to walk towards their own vehicles. One was a old, beaten SUV. Ford Explorer. It, in its own right, was probably a tough vehicle, but compared to the HUMVEE, it just looked pathetic.
The other was an old Camaro, just as worn out as the SUV. It still looked fast, though. Randall climbed into it, as did Alicia and Ashley. Derek, Dennis, and Leigh climbed into the SUV. The old man was driving.
Chris was standing next to Livingston. He hadn't moved an inch. He kept glancing at Livingston, but he was too skittish to keep eye contact. Was he afraid of me? Livingston wondered. Randall yelled at the boy to get into the car, but the boy shook his head.
"I'm staying with him," he said. "I want to help him out."
Randall stepped outside of the car, a petulant look on his face. Tired being leader as he was, he still expected his orders to be followed. He looked at Livingston, who simply shrugged. He didn't really care whether or not the boy tagged along. He didn't think he would get in his way, plus it was interesting to see how other people dealt with the infected.
He had to hurry, though. One day, just one day, to hunt down all the infected in the city? Usually, it took him around a week. But, he wasn't too worried. For some reason, he felt confident that he could do it.
Randall grabbed the teenage boy by the shoulder, but he was gentle, soothing, and, of course, subtle. He was trying to convince the boy by other means, because he probably realized yelling would do no good. Livingston shivered at the man's underhandedness. This was the human race? A bunch of insecure liars.
Livingston could not help but compare them to the bloodthirsty infected. And while they were undoubtedly more civilized, maybe that was worse. After all, in their own way, the infected were pure, free of emotions and feelings. The humans, on other hand, could still try to kill you, but they could do with a smile, masking their true intentions.
He shook his head. He had just met this people, and they were under a great deal of strain. Their lives were ruined. Each day was full of fear and unease, wondering if they would survive to see another sunrise. No, he would not judge them for them. Not yet.
"Chris," said Randall. His voice was controlled, but the look in his eyes was anything but. "You can't stay here. It's dangerous. Extremely dangerous."
Chris tore away from Randall. "Like it isn't anymore dangerous than staying on the road? Weren't we just attacked five days ago? They lost their son, Jesus Christ! He was my friend!"
The boy was crying now, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. Livingston was stunned silent. This was something new.
"How many more people are we going to lose, Randy? You tell me. Will we even make it to the East Coast? Will there even be anything for us when we get there? All we do is run, run, run. I'm sick of it. I just am. I can't take it anymore. Living without hope, hiding like rats. I want to fight. And if I die, I'd much rather die fighting than huddling in some hole in fear."
Randall backed away. He looked surprise, and than, defeated. He knew it was pointless to argue. He wasn't the kid's father. He had only met him five months ago. He had no right to order him around, not really.
"All right," said Randall. He sighed. "Stay safe, Chris. Good luck. Livingston, good luck to you too."
He held up a hand and covered his eyes. He didn't know why he was trying to hide his tears, but maybe it was because he had to appear strong for the others. Randall was a broken man, but he had to appear strong for them. They counted on him, and he would not let them down, even if cost him his own life. That was the burden of leadership.
He ambled back to the car and sat back into the driver's seat. The SUV drove away first, going down the circular ramp to the lower floor of the parking deck. The Camaro followed, and Livingston caught Ashley's eyes as she stared outside the window. She was waving at them. Chris was crying still, but he seemed moved by Ashley's small gesture. Livingston wondered why.
Soon, the sounds of the engines faded into nothingness. Now, there was only Chris and Livingston. The teenager looked up at the taller man, and wiped his eyes clean.
"I convinced him. I don't believe it," he said with no small amount of astonishment.
Livingston peered down at the boy. Elaine was resting on his shoulder, whispering into his ear. She didn't trust the humans, not at all. However, she had always been judgmental. Hadn't she? A faded image, perhaps a memory, popped into his head. A woman dressed in stark white, holding a clipboard, and trying to delve into the inner workings of his mind. He had no idea who the woman was, but the memory did not seem pleasant. He could remember a feeling of restraint and absolute anger.
"Well," Livingston spoke. He had to get his mind off the blurry memory or he might just lose his mind. "The tears helped."
Chris laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. "Yeah. And I guess those years on the debate team finally paid off, huh?"
Debate team? What was that? Livingston decided it wasn't very important at the moment. He looked at the sun. It was probably close to 1:00 PM. It was the middle of summer, so they still had plenty of time. However, it was best to work fast.
Livingston turned back and started walking towards the dirty HUMVEE. He stopped a few seconds after, because Chris was standing still. He was just staring at Livingston. He felt confused. Was he supposed to do something?
"Uh," mumbled Livingston. "Come on?"
Chris nodded and ran towards the front passenger's door. Apparently, Livingston had said the right words. Still, he was confused. Interaction was a new concept to him.
"Elaine?" asked Livingston. "What have I gotten myself into?"
She didn't reply. But he had the strange feeling she was unnerved. Why? Simple. Because she didn't like strangers, or the potential effect on Livingston. Or was that him that didn't like strangers, just projecting his feelings onto Elaine? He wasn't sure. His mind hurt with the possibilities.
He walked to the HUMVEE and opened the front driver's door. He stepped inside and put Elaine in his lap.
"Now what?" asked Chris.
Livingston smiled. True, he was far outside of his element when it came to interaction. But, when it came to killing infected, he was very good at his job. This boy would see that firsthand.
"Operation Adversary," replied Livingston. The name had just come to him out of the dark, empty part of his mind. The part blocked and walled away by his amnesia. The part that he had long since stopped missing. He wasn't much of a human, not anymore. He was just a living, breathing weapon against the infected. His head wound was still throbbing. Anger surged through him. Oh yes, he was a weapon, he was something to be feared. The city will burn, and every infected will burn with it.
End of Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Burn
Livingston readies for the night. The bombs are armed, the hives are found. The city of Topeka is about to become a fiery wasteland. Hell on Earth.