The others took their turn to freshen up after me. When everyone was ready, Rhona stood in the middle of the room, ready to be vaccinated.
“Let's do this,” she said.
“I’m not biting you in your neck if you don’t mind, Rhona,” I said when she presented her jugular to me. “I’d hate to bleed you to death accidentally.”
“Oh, okay, where do you want to bite me then?” She let go of her collar.
“How about her triceps,” Harry said, “there’s muscle enough to sink your teeth in without slicing a vein or artery.”
Rhona rolled up her sleeve as high as she could and offered me her arm.
“Her glutes are the safest location though,” Harry suggested.
Both Rhona and I stared at Harry for a second, both realizing he had just implied I should bite Rhona’s butt. We decided to ignore his last remark.
“Just a thought,” he said.
Not in a million years, Harry.
“Okay, here we go,” I said and held Rhona’s arm in front of my mouth. “Let me know if I hurt you.”
She didn’t say anything. I guessed she was as nervous as I was. Her arm was tiny but relatively muscular. Like Harry had said, I wouldn’t have a problem biting it without causing fatal damage. For a moment I was staring at her arm. I felt awkward as I’d never bitten a person before in my life.
Let alone somebody asking me to bite them.
“Here goes,” I warned her again, maybe more for my sake than hers, and I sank my teeth into her flesh.
As I tried to make my bite as big as possible, getting as much flesh in between, I caught my lip in my bite. The sharp pain made me make a little noise. At the same time, I heard Rhona’s sharp intake of breath. Her muscles tensed as her blood spread into my mouth. She hadn’t noticed my cry, but Charlie had.
“You okay?” he asked, obviously more worried about me than about Rhona. Harry fussed over her already, though, holding her free hand.
I nodded minutely as I didn’t want to cause any more discomfort to Rhona than necessary. I kept my bite. Rhona’s blood tasted delicious. It made my mouth water. Charlie had fed me a little more of his blood not long before, convincing me I wasn’t going to get carried away. I had indeed no problem withdrawing my fangs from her flesh a little to let my saliva get into the two piercings. After about ten seconds, I let go of her arm.
Harry bandaged the two marks immediately. I wiped my mouth clean, but the blood kept coming.
“Let me have a look,” Charlie said.
“I think I bit my own lip,” I said before he pressed a tissue on the corner of my mouth. When he pulled it away, there was blood on it, and I felt new blood well up from the little wound.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll live.”
“I’ll grab an ice cube anyway,” Charlie said and went into the kitchen. I kept licking my lip until he returned.
I don’t taste too bad either if I may say so myself.
I asked Rhona if she was okay, to which she nodded.
Is she still in too much pain to talk?
I watched on as Harry did what he was trained to do.
I hope those scars will be nicer looking than a pox vaccination.
“How long until it works?” Rhona asked Harry.
Can’t be that painful then.
“I don’t know,” he said, taping the bandage. “How long ago was it when you were first bitten by Caleb, Kate?”
“Oh, um, let me think. That was Tuesday morning, about five days ago,” I answered.
“We better make sure we don’t expose you to sunlight for five days then, just to be on the safe side,” Harry warned Rhona.
Chapter 51
Harry and Charlie prepared a meal from the meager food supply I still had in my kitchen. I became hungrier seeing them eat. Now that there was no urgent matter to attend to or any emotions welling up, my need for a feed was making itself heard. My stomach grumbled loudly. All eyes focused on me.
“I’m sorry. I’m still hungry,” I said, looking apologetically at Charlie, who couldn’t possibly give me any more of his blood. I glanced at Rhona, who must have been starving as well. We both needed blood, but where to get it?
We all tried to think where we might find human blood without killing anybody. I suggested trying to get some last drops from the people that were already dead, but Harry said this wasn’t a healthy option. It took some time before Charlie came up with the answer.
“Bullsbrook Medical Center. They should have a supply of blood in case of emergencies, shouldn’t they?”
We all thought this was very likely. It was a temporary measure, but it would have to do for now.
“Great idea,” Rhona said. “I classify my hunger as an emergency. Where is it?” She first looked at Charlie, then at me for the answer.
I turned to Charlie, and he raised his eyebrows at me.
“Don’t look at me,” he said, “I’ve no idea where to find it.”
“Neither do I. I haven’t been sick either.” My hand went to my back pocket but found no cell. I had put it in my bag in the cabin when the batteries had died. “Anybody got a cell, so we can look it up?”
“No network, remember,” Charlie said, grimacing.
“Duh, I forgot.” I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity. Since buying my first cell, I’d become addicted to it and used it to look up everything I wanted to know. I missed it so much.
“We’ll just have to drive around until we find it,” Harry said and stood up to get going. The others followed suit. I was the only one who didn't move.
“Um, is that a good idea?” I said, looking up at them.
“How else are we going to find it?” Harry said, cocking his head slightly.
“No, I mean, driving around in a hearse. It would look suspicious, wouldn’t it? Charlie mentioned the army’s in town. Surely they’ll suspect infected people in a car with tinted windows.” My attention turned to nobody in particular. “As a matter of fact, driving around in any car would be suspicious at night. Nobody but the army would do such a thing at the moment. They’d certainly stop and interrogate us,” I said.
They all sat back down. Nobody said anything. There was no point, they all knew I was right.
“We’ll just have to walk then and try to keep out of sight,” Harry said, getting up again. He seemed determined to provide Rhona with blood, no matter what.
We discussed where to look for the medical center and thought it best to start in the center of town.
Walking in single file, we stuck close to the buildings. We didn’t know what the army would do with Rhona and me if they picked us up. We didn’t want to find out either.
The town looked eerie. It was as if all the color had drained out of it.
I don’t think I could ever be happy living in a world without color.
There were no signs of residents, but there were plenty of army cars driving through the streets now. We had to hide several times. It took us forever to get to the town center with the constant ducking and hiding into shadows even though it wasn’t that far from my place. Once we got there, it was busier than we expected. We hid in the shadow of the bakery building. We saw army vehicles arriving and civilians getting out. They were getting onto a bus. I assumed it would bring them to a safer location. When it left the bus stop, the soldiers returned from wherever they had come from.
When all was quiet again, we looked around for some sign of a medical practice. I didn’t dare to go out into the square and study the map at the bus stop like Julie had done days before. Memories of that night came floating up. I was too hungry to linger on them and willed them back to the dark depths they came from.
We couldn’t find anything remotely looking like a general practice, apart from a plaque next to a door stating the person inside offered pedicures, so we agreed to move on. Not too much ducking and hiding from army vehicles now, but no medical practice either.
I almost suggested we head back when we finally found th
e building on the outskirts of town, in a nice street with lots of trees. The practice was a stand-alone, one-story building, surrounded by manicured lawns and bushes. There was no moon, but the streetlights cast black shadows of the trees across the gray grass. We moved from the shade of one tree to the next, and at last made it to the back of the building.
Harry was about to smash a window when Charlie stopped him.
“Wait,” he whispered to Harry.
“What is it?” Harry asked, looking surprised.
“There’s an alarm,” Charlie said and pointed at the wired, little piece of foil stuck on the inside of the window.
“Didn’t Tom teach you to open locks?” I asked Harry, pointing at the door.
“He did, but I’m not that good at it.” He studied the door. “Even if I could manage, I don’t know if the alarm would still go off, and I don’t know how to shut off an alarm.” He rubbed his chin.
“Motherfucking shit pile,” Rhona said. “Now what?”
My ears turned red hearing those words coming from Rhona’s mouth. Everybody turned to her. I saw no sign of shame on her face whatsoever, just extreme annoyance, and could only assume it was common for her to swear like a trucker. I could only imagine how hungry she was by now. It couldn’t be much worse than what I was experiencing myself, but my vocabulary wasn’t as good as hers in expressing it, apparently. Only the prospect of finding blood in the center kept me from going for Charlie’s or Harry’s throat. I looked at the stars for help.
“What about the roof?” I said, pointing upward. “Do you think we could get in unnoticed through there?”
They all looked up.
“I can’t get up there,” Charlie said.
“Yes, you can,” Rhona said. She looked at me, at Charlie, then at the rooftop while moving her head in a bit of an arc and at me again. I got her drift and together we giggled.
“Okay, I suppose I can get up there then,” Charlie said, looking confused, but Rhona and I didn’t tell him what we thought of doing.
We told Harry to get up onto the roof. He had no problem climbing up the drainpipe. I followed him like a monkey scooting up a tree.
Not bad for a person who not so long ago couldn’t do push-ups if her life depended on it.
Rhona stayed below. When I was up and indicated to her I was ready, she took Charlie by surprise as she grabbed him under his arms and, with a big swing, threw him high up in the air. As soon as he cleared the roofline, I caught his hands and pulled him toward me. It was an awkward move, and we both fell. Charlie landed on top of me.
“Rhona’s pretty good at dwarf tossing, don’t you think?” I grinned at Charlie, his face close to mine.
“Yeah, you’re not so good at dwarf catching though,” he said as he rolled off me and got up. I felt a bit bad about not catching him properly until I noticed his wicked grin when he offered me his hand to help me up. “Not that I’m complaining,” he said, and he made an effort to wipe the dirt off my backside while standing very close in front of me. I laughed.
As soon as Rhona had climbed up, she created an opening in the roof with her hands as if it was butter. The boys were extremely impressed until she winced when she broke a nail.
Shut up, guys. I would wince too if I had nails like that and broke one.
One after the other, we dropped down into the building.
Chapter 52
The signage in the medical center was pretty good, and at the nurses’ station we found the refrigerator with the so-desired blood bags. It was like finding a bar in the desert.
There weren’t a lot of bags, five half-liter ones in total, but they would have to do for the night. For a split second, I thought about blood types and wondered if it mattered which one I drank. My hunger, however, didn’t care about this. It urged me to drink what was available.
Rhona and I each gulped down the blood like two alcoholics in a drinking contest. It tasted so good. We sat down, and after we’d had two bags each, we were quenched. There was only one bag left, and I told Rhona to have it.
“No, you take the last one,” she said. “You need it more than I do.” She shoved it back in my direction.
“You better take it with you because we need to get back asap,” Charlie said, standing at the window, peeking through the blinds. “The sun’s about to rise.”
At that moment, we heard two thuds in the hall. Somebody had entered the building the same way we had. Rhona and I got up, and we all were about to leave the room when the door flew open. Caleb and Sasha stood in the doorway.
“You,” Sasha said under her breath when she recognized me. The hatred in her eyes and voice was unmistakable. I hoped to find a friendlier vibe in Caleb’s eyes, but he was scanning the room, taking in the situation. I noticed his lingering glances on the refrigerator and the empty blood bags on the floor.
They, too, must have been in hiding without an opportunity to feed.
“Charlie, Harry, stay behind us,” I said.
Sasha spotted the blood bag I held in my hand. She made a dive for it. I turned and lifted the blood bag out of Sasha’s reach as she crashed into me. The shock made me let go of the bag. It flew into the air in a wide arc while we fell hard onto the floor. Caleb leaped to catch the flying blood bag, but Rhona threw her body against his, knocking him off course. Both of them also crashed to the floor. Charlie caught the bag.
“Get out!” I screamed at Charlie and Harry, knowing they were no match for Caleb and Sasha.
But the way out for them was through the door which was blocked by us four infected clambering around on the floor, trying to get up while restraining the others. The only available exit was the floor-to-ceiling window behind Charlie and Harry.
Harry picked up a desk chair and flung it full force into the window. It shattered with a piercing noise and set off the building’s alarm. Charlie ran out after Harry. They both turned and yelled for us to get out as well.
Rhona and I tried to get up and out, but Caleb and Sasha were holding on to us. They were older infected and much, much stronger. Charlie didn’t blink an eye. He threw the bag of blood into the room. Sasha and Caleb let go of us and dove for the bag before it could explode on the floor of the nurses’ station. Once free, Rhona and I ran outside into Harry’s and Charlie’s arms.
We turned around to check if we were being followed. The four of us looked at Caleb and Sasha and … they stood inside, staring back at us. They’d caught the bag but weren’t drinking. I didn’t understand why they were just standing there.
“How is this possible …?” Sasha said.
Then it dawned on me. Rhona and I stood in the dappled morning light that shone through the trees, and we didn’t even blink, let alone have a seizure. I stepped into the full sunlight and Rhona, hesitant at first, followed me. Nothing happened. We couldn’t believe our eyes. I looked at Rhona, who went into a victory crouch.
“It worked! Your idea worked!” she yelled. She lifted me off the ground in a hug, spinning me around.
The building’s alarm kept ringing. Harry and Charlie pulled at us. They reminded us we had to get out before the army came to investigate. Charlie took my hand, and we ran as fast as we could through the sun-filled streets. I glanced back before we turned the corner and saw Caleb and Sasha running off into the street, using their coats and the shade from the trees to avoid being hit by the sun’s rays.
Once back at my place, we collapsed exhausted on the chairs and couch. We laughed. We were so excited that the ‘vaccination’ bite had worked and that Rhona could now go out in daylight as well.
“Oh, the possibilities,” Harry kept saying and Rhona kept hugging him again and again.
“How is it possible it worked so fast?” I said to Harry. “Vaccines normally take time to work, don’t they?”
“The only reason I can think of,” he replied, “is that you passed on some of your antibodies with your blood when you bit your lip while you were biting Rhona. That would work pretty fast.”
Rhona kept hugging and kissing Harry. Watching them made me struggle with feelings of embarrassment and jealousy. I tried to look away, but this caused my eyes to drift to Charlie, and I would begin blushing, forced to look away again.
“We have a future,” Rhona kept repeating.
Chapter 53
The more often I thought of Caleb and Sasha’s faces at the moment of our escape, the quieter my mood became. I didn’t say anything to the others as I didn’t want to spoil their elation. It seemed that Harry and Rhona were already planning their entire life together. To prevent putting a damper on their happiness, I went into the back garden.
I stood on the lawn with my eyes closed, my face absorbing the warmth of the sunshine. It had been too long since I’d felt how good it was. Opening my eyes, I took in the blue sky, the green pines, and the multi-colored leaves on the birch trees. Their colors were so beautiful this time of year. I loved the different shades of yellows, oranges, and browns. I’d really missed this kaleidoscope of colors during my nightlife this past week.
When I heard the kitchen door open and close, I knew it was Charlie. He stood on the porch for a while before he spoke.
“You okay?”
I turned around. As always, seeing him made me smile. Since this whole drama began, there had been a dark veil of sadness over me, but seeing Charlie was like a glimmer of light. It was as if he lifted that veil, bringing me to higher spirits. I liked the reaction; it was almost an addiction.
“Yes and no.” I walked toward him, and we sat down on the steps of the back porch. “I’m happy for Rhona and Harry. I truly am,” I said after some thought.
“But …?”
“But it’s wrong.”
My gaze remained forward. I needed Charlie to see the bigger picture. I needed him to realize the possible danger caused by Caleb and Sasha knowing our secret. In order to say it right to him, I needed to focus.
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