by Woods, Shane
“Once we get this guy patched up,” Keane started in, “we’re going to take a look at that hand of yours, chief.”
“Nah,” Dave replied, half hiding his hand behind him, “it’ll be okay.”
“Really?” the doctor asked as he stopped the wheelchair and reached out to take the offending appendage, “because it looks pretty fuckin’ infected to me. See this? The red? The swelling? The red lines? That’s infected. I could damn near cook a meal with the heat coming off of it, too.”
He turned Dave’s hand to show us. There was a partly still-open gash from Dave’s wrist nearly to his ring finger knuckle. The skin around it nearly glowed with an angry red hue, and in a few places, it had some more faint red lines emanating from the injury, as Keane had just detailed.
We heard a short lecture about the dangers of blood poisoning as we reached the end of a row of shining new vehicles and took a right.
We had finally reached what was apparently the medical offices here. Keane piloted my wheelchair up a long-sloped ramp that had clearly been built post-apocalypse, if you will. The railing changed heights in relation to the ramp along its length, and the surface seemed to be patched together out of several types and thicknesses of plywood.
Moving through the front door, Keane giving some instruction to others inside and Dave and Jennifer conversing quietly about something I couldn’t quite catch, we entered another world it seemed.
The interior of the two-floor home was immaculate. Even in the entryway, the paint was startlingly white, on the walls, ceiling, and even the floor. Carpet had been torn up and likely repurposed elsewhere in the compound, replaced with a heavy coat of the white paint and what seemed to be a six-inch layer of epoxy resin.
In each of what were formerly rooms, there was a drain placed in the center of the floor. The walls had been stripped, the load-bearing wall through the center of the house had also been stripped of all form and left as a series of pillars to open the space. Curtain rails could be seen crisscrossing the ceiling, and each one ended in heavy vinyl curtains made of shower curtains sewn together, and, also painted white.
We disappeared into one of these areas and I found a massage table in the center, over which a corpsman was draping a plastic painter’s sheet. I had been instructed to find a horizontal position here and I did so.
Keane pulled up a chair, removed my wife’s makeshift bandaging from my wound, and began cleaning it. He spoke as he worked.
“Damn buddy, you got a fuckin trench here. I can see where the bullet gouged your skull, no fucking wonder you were bleeding like you was, even with all that shitty Celox in there.”
“Does it look as bad as it feels?” I asked, wincing. Christ it felt like this guy was at work with a belt sander on my cranium. It started hurting inside, too; the headache that had been mild, but constant, turned on me like a beat dog and started to burrow itself deeper and deeper into my mind.
“Probably, but we can fix both of those,” he stated offhandedly, almost completely distracted by his work.
His hands left me for a moment, then returned. I felt myself being wiped with something dampening a cloth, then he spoke again.
“Okay, little pinch and shit, you know how this works.”
Why do they call it a ‘little pinch’ in the medical field, by the way? It’s never a pinch, little or otherwise. Sometimes, it can feel like little more than a small insect bite. Like a mosquito. Other times, you get an angry wasp. The dentist? Three angry wasps, and it won’t take so you get it twice more while he packs your face with enough lidocaine to make a horse go limp.
Luckily, Doc Keane gave me the mosquito bite. A large one, but still nothing compared to the pain I was already in. In moments, that would slip away as his needle’s payload kicked in.
Keane worked, and talked, then worked and talked, and in no more than 20 minutes, he had me good to go. Dave was next.
Dave surprised me. I expected some stoicism from the man, and that was exactly what I didn’t get. I don’t know if Keane didn’t numb him right, or not enough, or what the issue was, but Dave squirmed like a college girl getting a tattoo as Doc drained the infection and essentially reopened the wound to clean all the nastiness out. Another 30 minutes of work, and he had Dave patched back together as well, and a nice shining white bandage on his wounded paw.
He then handed Dave a bottle that was half-filled with some kind of gel capsules.
“One of these twice a day for a week,” he instructed him.
“What is it?” Dave asked, naturally.
“Do you really want to know?” Keane asked, his youthful smile glowing. I decided I didn’t want to know.
“Yeah, if I’m taking it, I’d like to know,” Dave intoned, and Keane chuckled and tossed each of us a box from a lower shelf nearby.
The blue and yellow box had pictures of fish with various things wrong with them on the label. Bacterial infection, mouth fungus, red sores, all kinds of apparent waterborne ailments. Across the front, in bold black letters, it read ‘E.M. Erythromycin’.
“Fish medication?” I queried, nearly in time with Dave’s “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, fish antibiotics,” Keane echoed. “Erythromycin. They give it to people who are allergic to penicillin. While everybody that was left after the start was killing each other over whatever they could carry from the local pharmacy, I pretty much walked right into this fish shop down on State Road. Biggs, Boggs, whatever the place was, yeah.”
“So, it’s a crossover?” Jennifer asked.
“Yep, pretty much,” he replied. “These packs are two-hundred milligrams each, but I like five-hundred milligram dosage, so I just measure them out and dump them into herb capsules. Like, GNC supplements and stuff. Dump the junk out, refill with this shit, boom. Apocalypse antibiotics.”
“No shit,” Dave said, trailing off as he mused over the little clear capsules full of white powder.
We spoke with Keane a while longer, exchanged goodbyes, and walked back outside just as the sun was being overtaken by light clouds. The sun shone through one such cloud, high in the sky. I was thankful it had been gradually cooling down. The brunt of the summer usually wasn’t too kind on me, as I could just sit there some days and still be drenched with sweat.
We made our way through the cars and flagged down Hashman again. He stood tall among a group of what appeared to be mostly young teens, talking them through some kind of work he needed done.
“He got you together, eh?” Hashman inquired as we approached, and the talk was mostly light. Of course, then it became much less light, and we spoke briefly again about a plan regarding the Colonel. A plan that we all felt very good with, which involved Hashman, with all his resources, doing pretty much nothing.
We reminisced for a bit about days before everyone was trying to eat everybody else. We even speculated about the big guys. The behemoths. Hashman had no more inkling as to their origin than we did. His medical team had made mention of capturing one, which was, quite literally, laughed off. They thought about bringing in a dead one, but they were heavy, tipping the scale at an estimated one-thousand pounds. And further, Hashman explained a few of his men even had superstitions of bringing anything dead back, let alone a behemoth. Some of them feared the dead were never really dead, and also questioned how we could be sure the dead couldn’t infect anybody. We had never thought of that, but suddenly I was very thankful we’d never attempted to keep the deceased around, outside of the scattered graves around our compound. We buried deep, and the areas were carefully tended to by a few of the younger members of our crew. Flowers were planted, shrubbery relocated, the gravesites were slowly becoming shrines of sorts, though the rough wooden markers were left.
We carried on conversing with Hashman as we moved among the rows of cars and toward the area where we’d come in from. As we neared the top of the steps, he stopped and turned to me.
“Hey, I saw how fucked up that boat of yours was when you were with Keane,” he intoned
.
“Yeah, they got it pretty good. It’s a miracle we weren’t hit,” I replied.
“Aside from, you know, getting shot in the head, bro,” Hashman responded casually. “Look, your shit’s fucked up, I want you to take my boat.”
“The electric one?” I asked, kind of surprised; that was his baby. A bit smaller than our little cabin cruiser, it had been a shallow-bottomed fishing craft somebody converted over to an electric outboard. It was nearly silent, fairly quick, and Mike’s personal craft.
“Yeah, but you’re just borrowing it,” he cautioned. “And you better not fuck it up, too. My guys will pull yours out of service and fix it up for you, good as new.”
“Why are you so good to us?” I asked, only half-joking.
“You kidding?” he shot in return. “You guys have given us ten times more than what we could have asked for. What was supposed to be just trade turned into a full-on supply line, brotha! We’re more than happy to help!”
“But Mike,” I admonished, “you lost guys in that raid. Good people. And equipment, morale, all kinds of irreplaceable things.”
“And that was entirely my choice to help,” he shot back. “Look, don’t worry about it. I’ve had no problem telling people ‘No’ before, if anything is going to stretch us thin, I’d tell you the same. Now, take my boat before I change my mind.”
That was all he really needed to say, because in a few minutes time, we had his belongings unloaded from the little vessel and were underway.
The little craft barely made a noise as it glided over the water, and neither did we.
All four of us, even Tony, kept our eyes glued to the riverbanks and beyond, in a constant state of readiness for an event that never repeated itself. I still don’t know exactly what gave our presence away, and that drove me a bit mad. I hated not knowing these things. Especially since knowledge was the best preventative for failure.
Did he hear the engine laboring to push us upstream? Did he see us? Follow us? Was there some kind of sensors?
Nonetheless, we were met back at the base by Henry. Mike’s craft was well known at our compound, and gave no reason for alarm, so the crew meeting us at the water was minimal.
“Good Lord my brother, what happened to your head?” Henry interrogated.
“Parker shot me,” I replied levelly.
“Parker?” Henry asked, astonished. “When did he do that? Last I saw, brother Parker was at the outer gate on duty!”
“Not our Parker,” Jennifer informed him, laughing, “the Colonel.”
“Oh! My word!” Henry exclaimed as he joined the rest of us for a round of laughter.
“Yeah, we gotta find something else to call Colonel Parker,” Dave suggested. “It’s gonna get confusing having two Parkers.”
“How about C.O. Dickbag?” Tony offered.
“That he is,” I returned, “but we’ll just leave it at ‘the Colonel’, I guess. Either way, he’s become a thorn in my side even quicker than the end of the world did.”
“Has for all of us,” Henry added. “He has for all of us.”
“Anyway,” I stated, “my head’s pounding. I’m going to go take a nap.”
“Sounds good to me my friend,” Henry agreed. “I’ll hold the fort down.”
“Put Tony to work,” I instructed, “don’t let him slack off. Dave will find something I’m sure.”
“What?” Tony asked, sounding disappointed. “I don’t slack off.”
“Oh, boohoo Shannon said,” I mocked as I walked away, hearing Dave and Henry laugh at his expense as Jennifer followed me.
I had just gotten out of earshot of the others when she started in. My faithful wife, and faithful anchor.
“You said nap?” she asked after me.
“Christ woman, you too?” I asked, joking with her.
“Well, we did just get done being shot at today, a nap sounds nice,” She stated. “But, before you lay down, you’re going to go see Shannon. Then we’ll nap.”
“I’m napping,” I replied, “you’re going to make sure Shannon doesn’t need help, and then Bri. I can’t play favorites, you know.”
“Fine, I’ll make a deal,” she persisted. “You go get checked out by our doctor, and I’ll go be useful or whatever.”
I grunted in reply, and she took my hand in hers and began pulling. Within minutes, we were in Shannon’s office on the second floor where I was essentially shoved into a chair.
After removing my bandage and replacing it with a new one, she gave me some mild painkillers and instructions to keep it clean. She also requested that she meet with the doctor who patched me up, and maybe they could compare notes. I agreed, if for no other reason than to placate her, and left to make my way upstairs. Before I knew it, I was on our couch and dreaming, of course, of cheeseburgers.
We’re going to need to find some cows and a meat grinder at some point.
SEVEN
I was awakened by yelling. I had not the slightest clue how long I’d been asleep, but clearly it wasn’t enough, because my head screamed at me with every pound at my door and every movement I made.
“Scott!” I heard familiar voices call, “Scott wake up! We have casualties!”
That was all it took to set me in motion as I threw the covers back and bolted out of bed, ignoring the pain that ripped through my every thought and nearly clouded my vision.
Without further thought, I grabbed my MK18, clasped my drop leg holster for my pistol to my thigh and ran straight into the door of my apartment. I was already reaching for the knob before my brain told me how stupid I was, at which point I burst through the doorway and into the midst of a half-dozen people, Tony and Ryan at the forefront.
“Whoa!” Ryan exclaimed, shielding his eyes. “Calm down, Scott! All of you!”
“Huh?” was the only intelligible syllable I could manage.
“Having some nice dreams there, buddy?” Tony chimed in, chuckling.
I looked down and realized my folly. In the excitement, I had rushed through arming myself and never considered getting dressed. I was about to run into whatever fight might be present with a raging sleep-boner and nothing to hold it back but threadbare plaid boxers. Shit.
“What’s the emergency?” I asked, playing it off. “Is it the Colonel? Is he here?”
“I mean, it’s an emergency, but not that big. Get dressed first,” Ryan stated, then, “For all of our sakes.”
As I eased my way back into the apartment, I caught the gaze of the older, early twenties girl that was with them. She grinned. Double oops.
“No. Bad!” I pointed at her as I closed my door and went to search for my pants.
Once I had recycled and improved my exit method, I left through my door again.
“You should be proud of yourself, dude,” Tony chided.
“One more word about my junk from you, and you’re getting slapped,” I shot back at him. “So what’s going on?”
“The crew that left this morning got the supplies, then made contact on the way back with a small hostile group,” Ryan informed. “Quick exchange, left five bad guys dead, rescued two hostages, one critical, we have one dead and one wounded on our side.”
“Whose bad guys?” I questioned. “The Colonel’s or someone else’s? Who did we lose? How’s our injured guy?”
“They don’t think it was the Colonel,” Ryan offered. “Two Akron cops, three other unknowns, no military far as we can tell.”
“Cops, eh?” I asked, then, “And our guys?”
“One of the kids from the high school,” Tony started. “Xavier. Another survivor we have named Jonesy, three rounds in his hip and upper leg; Shannon expects him to survive but doesn’t know how or when he’ll ever walk right again.”
“Xavier have friends or family here?” I interrogated. “I’ll check on Jonesy. What about the survivors they rescued?”
“Two girls,” Ryan spoke again. “One, early twenties, she’s rough and they don’t think she’ll make it. She�
�s slipped into a coma.”
“And the other?” I replied as we entered the stairwell and began descending. “What the fuck happened? And did they find James?”
“Clara’s waiting to get you up to speed on all that,” Tony suggested. “The other girl, well, she’s different.”
“We’re all different,” I scolded, descending the stairs in double time. “What the fuck is different?”
“Blind,” came his single word reply.
“Blind?” I echoed. “Like, she can’t see things?”
“Like a bat,” Tony replied, his voice level.
“Bats aren’t actually blind,” I replied, offhandedly.
Blind. A blind girl. How much help could she be for us? I mean, the end of times did a fairly thorough job of eliminating the weak, the elderly, much of the young. It’s hard to get away from a hungry running freak when you have physical limitations, or imminent medical needs to take your life when outside aid stops. But blind? This chick was already an anomaly, but to survive like this. Wow.
I hit the second floor doorway and burst through the door into the hall, then stopped.
“Tony, give me your radio,” I instructed, and he handed over his Baofeng before I continued, “All of you, thank you, but there’s still work to do. Go help offload the supplies and get things in order.”
Most left in compliance, the dark-haired girl left with a smirk.
“You!” I called after her.
“Candace.” She turned, smiling.
“Drop the crush. I’m an asshole, and I’m still married.” I returned the grin as I watched her face fluster before the girl departed behind the rest of them. I heard Tony ribbing her as the door closed behind them but couldn’t quite make out the conversation.
Then, naturally, Clara was present before I even turned all the way around.
“Scott,” she started, “it’s all fucked up.”
“Start at the beginning,” I soothed. “Where’s James?”
“Gone.” The word left on the head of a sob. “It was such a mess. He was everywhere, Scott.”
