by Woods, Shane
“Yeah, that’s my wife,” I chuckled. “But listen, where we’ve got you, right here, it’s just a recovery room, and really not much better than a janitor’s closet as far as accommodations here. I want you to come stay on the top floor with us, if that’s okay.”
“It’s nicer up there?” she asked, sounding a little uneasy.
“It’s the command floor,” I explained. “It’s also where our apartment is. Me, my wife, and daughter. It’s a monitored floor, there’s somebody awake and on-duty there twenty-four seven. And you’ll have your own room, a nice one, and I’ll lay out things so you can always find your way. Rooftop access, too, if you want fresh air.”
“I won’t be in anybody’s way?” she wondered. “Like, I won’t bother anybody?”
“That’s not what any of this is about, Hannah,” I stated. “You’re one of us now, which makes you family, more or less. It’s a big family, but you’re welcome here if you want to be. There’s a ton of people here and it’s the safest place any of us know of. And, we’ll help you, with whatever you need, or whatever amenity you need. It’s not a problem.”
“If you’re sure,” she agreed, biting her lip. I couldn’t tell if it was a conscious move or not, but dammit this girl just simply looked helpless.
“I’m sure,” I reassured her. “We’ll set it up however you need, make sure it’s comfortable. You can always join us for meals, and being the command floor, there will always be someone there for you to talk to if you like, no matter the time of day or night.”
“We can try that, it sounds nice,” she agreed, forcing a small smile.
“Jennifer,” I spoke into my radio, “Recovery Room One when you can, please. Over.”
No answer came back, but, before I could say anything to Hannah, or try again, the door to the apartment opened.
“I’m here already,” Jennifer called as she entered the space. “I was just walking by after checking on the other girl, and Jonesy.”
“Jennifer is my wife, as I told you,” I spoke to Hannah, then, to Jennifer, “Meet our new roommate. I need you to get her settled into the spare room, just kinda get acquainted, help her around. Tomorrow I’ll go through and set everything up with her.”
“Um, okay,” Jennifer agreed after a pause. “Come on Hannah, let’s go upstairs. There’s a bunch of stuff in that room but we’ll get the bed cleared off and get the covers changed for now.”
“Thank you, wife,” I called as she departed, albeit slowly and carefully, Hannah’s hand in hers.
Amazingly, somehow in over thirty years of life, I have never encountered anybody with an impairment like this. What are you supposed to do with a blind person? This girl has been through hell, and that’s only what we knew of her. None of us had any idea to this point how she had managed to survive in the apocalypse, or even what kind of life she had prior to the end.
I continued pondering things as I left this apartment and entered into the one across the hallway. These were usually for severe cases, people the girls needed to monitor frequently, so I didn’t give the courtesy of a knock this time.
In the first room, Jonesy appeared to be sleeping. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, and soft note of his breath told me as much as I’d find out. He was fine, and whether just sleeping or out for a long while was beyond my immediate ability to tell, I decided to leave him.
I checked the adjacent bedroom, again stripped of all but a bed and dresser which was likely full of basic care supplies. Here lay the other girl we brought in. Jordan, they thought her name was, but her face was too battered for them to tell.
I approached her bedside and confirmed this myself. The poor girl looked like she’d been through several automobile accidents. One whole side of her face was puffed and swollen, and a mass of heavy purple and angry red hues. Her body showed thin as a rail, even under the stark white sheets she was covered with.
They had her hooked up to a machine, one of only a couple the crews had managed to liberate from the local veterinary clinic. I didn’t understand the numbers, but they all seemed much lower than they should be.
Not wanting to mess anything up, I watched her for a moment.
We tried to save everybody we could. Some people, you could just simply tell they were going to be trouble. Even then, unless they showed outward hostility or aggression, we’d help. If not by offering them a place to stay, then by handing over a simple backpack from the collection stocked at every gate.
Each pack had some water, a few power bars or small bag of beef jerky, and a simple change of clothes that were as close to ‘one size fits all’ as we could get. Usually, sweatpants or basketball shorts, and an XL T-shirt. Better than sending someone away empty-handed, at least. We were doing well, amazingly, even, but we still just didn’t have the supplies to stock every soul we encountered.
As I drifted into thought, what I perceived as movement brought me back to the real world.
I stood in stark amazement as something moved, just where the girl’s legs parted with the rest of her being.
No, not movement, something spreading. An irritated red glow began to pool across where the blanket lay lowest, against the bed, and between her legs. As I watched, frozen to my spot, the entire mood of the room changed.
The pool of viscous blood continued to spread, tainting the sheets like the spread of oil from a damaged car. The machine that had previously managed a low, periodic beep began a long monotonous tone. This, I knew, was not a good thing.
“ASHLEY!” I bellowed over my shoulder as I watched, completely panicked and without a clue as to what to do. I fumbled for my radio, finally managing to find it, and pressed the button to make the stupid box work.
“Shannon!” I barked into it. “Shannon, Recovery Room…fuck! The girl by Jonesy!”
“Four!” Ashley directed as she rushed past me and immediately began checking things left and right.
I didn’t have time to call again as Shannon rushed past, still in her pajamas with her hair flying in as many directions as she was. I took several steps back and watched as they worked. It felt like a real emergency room, and though I didn’t fully have a grasp of what they were doing, I was impressed, as they sure looked like they knew.
As I pressed myself against the wall, things took a turn for the worse. The girl, Jordan, arched her back and took in a tremendous shuddering gasp, and expelled a spray of crimson blood from her lips that stretched out to cover the bed as far as her toes.
I had no clue how to react, so I drew my sidearm and pointed it straight at her.
“IS SHE TURNING?” I shouted over the commotion.
“No, Scott!” Shannon fired hastily, then calmer, added, “She’s not turning, she’s dying.”
“Shit,” I muttered, holstering the pistol again. The single syllable was less in disappointment, and more resignation. So many had died to this point, but seeing it happen to the living was never as easy as, say, taking down an infected. We had moved as far as possible from thinking they were ever human. Some instances, like the young, never got much easier, but mostly I was able to distance myself from reality and view them as little more than figures on a television screen.
“Scott!” Shannon shouted, bringing me back. “Main office, get the bottle of nitrous and the mask attached to it! NOW!”
I turned and ran out of the apartment and down the hall, nearly bowling over Clara in the process.
“You’re off duty!” I ordered her as I ran by, and she turned to follow.
“I just needed some Ibuprofen,” she informed me. “Is everything okay?”
“Nope! Now go home, rest!” I ordered again as I grabbed a bottle of Motrin from Shannon’s desk, dumped a half dozen of the pills into Clara’s hand, and ran back out with the nitrous bottle in my free hand.
“Shift starts soon!” she yelled after me.
“I’m on it, two minutes! GO HOME!” I replied, nearly skidding back into the room and standing the tank between Shannon and Ashley.
Shannon immediately grabbed the mask and instructed Ashley to hold the girl down as she pressed the mask over her face and cracked the bottle valve fully open.
“Can you fix her?” I asked, watching as Shannon’s frantic eyes found mine.
“No,” she asserted, “but, if she can breathe enough of this in, we can help her pass as gently as possible. We knew she had internal bleeding once we couldn’t get her heart rate up.”
“Do you know where from?” I asked, trying anything to keep Shannon’s mind in step.
“Not exactly,” she admitted. “We’re not much for invasive surgery here, but she has several broken ribs, and, uh, damage elsewhere. I don’t have a delicate way to put this.”
“We’re all adults,” I calmed, “what ‘other damage’?”
“We think she may have gotten a perforated colon,” came her response, and I could read the uneasiness on her face.
“Oh,” I replied, softly. “Do you need me anymore here?”
“Not unless you want to stand and watch, that’s all any of us can do, keep her comfortable and wait,” she explained.
“I’ve got guard duty to cover for Clara,” I stated, knowing full-well it was a cheap excuse, but I felt so helpless. At least I could keep an eye on our home.
“I’ll call you,” she replied. “And, thanks, Scott.”
“Yup,” was all I could say, and I was gone.
Back up three-million stairs.
I reached the top, thinking I was less and less out of breath each time. I’d been smoking hardly any at all lately, at least, compared to before. This was in part by my own doing, but also due to the ongoing scarcity of cigars and cigarettes. And mostly, what we had now was stale and dry anyway. What better time to quit than when the only thing you can get is garbage?
I reached the ninth floor and began walking toward the opposite end of the hallway to take the next flight of stairs.
Stopping to walk through the conference room, I peeked into the command center long enough to see two of the younger teens against the far wall with a monitor, going through what appeared to be recon photos from the array of digital cameras.
Rob was standing behind two older teens, instructing them on how to use the camera systems. I didn’t intrude and turned to quietly leave. The irony didn’t miss me, that the man with eyes on an entire compound had no idea he was just being watched.
I passed slowly, and extra cautiously, past my own apartment. Again, not wanting to intrude, I could hear Hannah and Jennifer quietly talking from the couch, while Gwen could be heard playing, presumably in her bedroom.
I made the rest of my way to the stairs and climbed the single split-flight to the rooftop. Here I was greeted by the last bit of red across the horizon, signaling the sun had gone down and the daytime was over.
From time to time, I had covered nighttime guard duty, and when I took it from this rooftop, I had a stool I always sat on at the end of one row of plywood and solar panels. I was delighted to see it standing proud, as it always had. But, between myself and my little guard seat was an entirely different scene than I was expecting.
I cleared my throat and watched the two previously embraced figures separate, and instantly felt a little guilty at intruding. It was Bri and Dave.
She had always been a little on the plump side, even this long after the end of everything, but she appeared twice as wide, and twice as short, as she pressed up against Dave’s long, lanky frame. I laughed internally, thinking to myself that if I’d approached them from behind her, the silhouettes would look like a straw in a beer can.
“Scott!” Bri was the first to speak.
“You guys each have an apartment,” I chided, “and locking doors. A towel. A bed, floor, kitchen counters, even a couch.”
My guilt left, if only momentarily, as I watched Dave cover his mouth as he laughed. Bri, on the other hand, turned a shade of red that glowed, even in the pale lighting of the few tiki torches and LED patio lights.
“I’m kidding,” I responded to the silence.
“It’s cool buddy!” Dave laughed, openly this time. “I was just about to see if she wanted to smoke one with me. You can join, if you want.”
“Right, you don’t drink,” I mused. “I always forget that.”
“I…” Bri started. “Well, I have to go do some figuring and tally up some supplies, see what we’re running low on.”
“It’s nighttime though, you’re off-duty, Bri,” I offered.
“Please,” she rolled her eyes playfully. “My boss is such a slave-driver!”
“Oh, oh, I see!” I shot back, grinning. “Well, library, and country.
“Sorry?” she asked, eyeing me like I had just had a stroke.
“We need a team to hit any library they’re nearby,” I explained, “the focus being music, and audiobooks. And, it’s a strange request, but get me the nicest earbuds we can find, too.”
“Planning on shutting out the world?” she asked, still playful.
“For Hannah,” I corrected. “And, the countryside. I need fuel, our two strongest pickup trucks, one trailer, and a strong team. Oh, and lots of rope and ratchet straps.”
“What’s in the countryside?” she asked, now at full attention.
“The day after tomorrow, I’m going to alleviate some of your food concerns,” I grinned. “We’re going to go rustle up some livestock.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Okay, so my boss is actually pretty sweet.”
“I figured it’d take some of your worries,” I confirmed, “and bolster our food supplies with fresh meat, hopefully boost morale and give more jobs to any idle hands here. And any manure could be stockpiled for whatever crops we plant in the spring.”
“Okay!” she chirped, then, grabbing Dave’s hand and letting go after a moment, “Well, you boys get some private time up here. I won’t interrupt like some people.”
“Go do your thing, smartass,” I joked, then, to Dave, “A smoke, you say?”
“Fuck yeah man!” Dave smiled, producing a cigarette pack and pulling a joint out of it.
“I’ll take one of those, too,” I said, pointing to the pack, which he turned on its side and allowed me to draw a single stale cigarette.
We walked over to my stool as he lit the joint and took a long drag, before fixing a run that had formed already and handing it to me.
“How do you always have pot, even when the rest of the world struggles for anything at all?” I asked, genuinely amazed. “Like, we could live a decade underground in a cave and I think somehow you’d still have some smoke.”
“Magic, buddy.” Dave exhaled and passed the leg back to me. “Fuckin’ magic.”
I laughed and took my own hit before passing it back and declining any further.
“Just a couple for me,” I explained. “You know I only like being leveled out, plus, guard duty and all.”
“Yeah, true,” he replied. “So what’s up with this chick?”
“What chick?” I asked as he drew another hit.
“The blind one,” he nearly croaked as he again breathed out a plume of smoke.
“Hannah, bro,” I intervened, “her name is Hannah. I don’t know much else, but she’s staying with Jennifer and me. Which reminds me, I need you to grab me some rope before tomorrow. A fuck ton of it. I have an idea. And some eye hooks.”
“Rope and eye hooks. Got it,” he confirmed, then backtracked to Hannah, “How do you think she survived for so long out here?”
“Damn sure didn’t take many walks, I’m certain,” I replied, and we both laughed before things became somber again. “Truthfully, man we don’t even know how long she was with the alleged cops. She couldn’t tell us, not like she could say when was day or night, or how many had gone by.”
“Didn’t think of that, either,” he said thoughtfully. “Chick’s been through some shit, eh?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “More than any of us, too. Besides the obvious things, where is her family, ya know
?”
Dave nodded solemnly and we both held a short silence as we stared out over the landscape.
Between the two walls, both of which could be seen at night due to being covered with solar-powered garden lights, was the old neighborhood. Nearly a full third of it had been stripped to bare ground. The remaining foundations were filled in with trash, then eventually buried in with what was left from digging the dry-moat or what had been dug up to fill them from yards beyond the outer wall.
We could have left the exposed foundations open, it’s not like there was anyone to care, but we didn’t need anybody falling into one at night. It also bought us more open, flat land for farming, and it simply just felt safer. No giant holes in the ground half-filled with busted dressers and other varying debris meant less places a possible infected freak or marauder could take up residence.
Some homes were left, those that had been inspected by James, rest in peace, and Henry. The ones left were deemed to need no work in the near future. The roofs were new, or at least recent. The interiors well-kept and cared for, the foundations solid, and so-on. Those would be essential, and probably sooner than later, for bunk houses. I estimated our population to be around 180, but I wasn’t sure. That was Bri’s department. Someone else always managed numbers and figures for me, despite all I knew, I was completely inept with such things.
“How long do you think we’ll last?” Dave asked, breaking the silence.
“We’re human,” I answered. “If we continue working together, and the outside world learns to stop fucking with us? Shit, dude, this could be the new heart of civilization. Our ancestors had less to work with and did it. We really just need to do two things.”
“What’s that?” he inquired.
“Manage resources,” I explained, “and mitigate risk. Keep the people safe and fed.”
Before we could continue, we heard a series of distant pops and bangs. We continued listening, and soon enough the radios came to life. The furthest west guard post on the outer wall, a couple of early-20s guys that had come in recently, began reporting gunfire.
