“How bad is it, Brady?” Although Chris tried to sound calm, his voice cracked. His body was still racing with adrenaline. All that Chris could see in the backseat was red. He glanced at Stephanie for a second, her expression void of any hope. “Well, tell me! Is he going to make it or what?”
“Just drive, Chris!” Brady pointed out toward the road ahead of them.
“To where? I don’t know where I’m going!”
“We need to get this boy to a doctor.” Nan grimaced, while applying pressure to the wound.
“The rescue station in Orange! Last night, the radio said they would have medical staff stationed out there. It’s not too far from here! And the hospitals would be too risky anyway,” Stephanie said.
“Here, hold ‘em still, hold ‘em still.” Brady pulled out his pocketknife, cutting into one of his pants legs. Tearing it free, he said, “Tie this into a tourniquet, would ya? The tighter the better! We need to stop the bleedin’.” Brady turned back to Chris sitting straight in his seat. “Stephanie’s right. He needs medical attention. It ain’t bad, I can tell that. The bullet exited out the back, which is good and all. But he needs stitches something fierce.”
“So, he’s going to live?”
“He took that bullet right between the shoulder and the left bicep, he did. As long as he didn’t break any major blood vessels or send bone fragments deeper into that chest of his, he’ll manage. There’s no way of us knowing any of that without risking infection though. All’s we can do for him is to stop the bleeding. He did lose a lot of blood, so he’s gonna be mighty weak for a spell. That rescue station is his best bet. I don’t recon you know how to get there, do you?”
“No sir, I don’t,” Chris said with distress.
“What about you, Stephanie? Do you remember?” Brady asked.
Stephanie sat for a while trying to remember exactly where. A few locations rolled around in her head, but one came to the surface. “It was one of the high schools. I remember that much. Andrew . . . something,” she said.
“The old Community Church School, off the highway in Orange. Anderson High? I thought they shut that place down, honey?”
“Not from what I understand, Nan. Either way it was one of the locations they mentioned last night on the radio. They for sure, said something about medical support there.”
“I remember how to get there,” Brady smiled. “Stephanie’s sure of the place, then that’s the place we’re headed. Any objections?” Brady asked, sensing uncertainty in Chris’ demeanor.
Chris glanced to the backseat at Steve. Steve lay across Stephanie and Nan, his breathing faint. The bleeding looked like it had stopped, thankfully. Leave it to you, Steve, for keeping us from getting home sooner. Always just thinking of yourself, Chris thought jokingly. With a heavy sigh, Chris said, “Show me the way!”
Chapter Seven
Getting onto the small teaching grounds had proven itself to be no easy task. It had gotten dark quite quickly, and with no way of communicating with those inside, Chris and the others found themselves circling the facility multiple times before getting ample notice. Not just from the dead, but from those inside as well. At one time, Anderson High had been a private Catholic school, which made it high on the list when considered as a rescue station by the state; something Nan had pointed out. She seemed to know quite a bit about the school’s history. Chris took what Nan had said into account the second he set eyes on the place. The seven-foot steel fence surrounding the school seemed almost impenetrable. It was definitely an ideal place to hold up. They had almost given up after circling the facility for a third time. Then Stephanie spotted a group of people on the roof of one of the smaller buildings. It had taken a five-mile drive away from the school, deflecting most of the dead away, and communication with those on the roof to allow them access. The fact that it had gotten dark made both situations very tedious.
With over a hundred of the undead, initially blocking the entrance to the school, almost everyone seeking safety had given up or died trying. After hearing that, Chris connected the dots between those who failed to get in and the amount of vacant cars just looming around outside the school’s entrance.
That left the rescue station’s population much lower than Chris or any of the others had expected. Morale was low and so were supplies. The medical staff consisted of two local practitioners and one trained field nurse. It was the duty of the three to tend to the dozen or more men and women. Those severely injured were brought into one of the buildings lined with gurneys along the hallway walls. Chris had only caught a quick glimpse of that when one of the medics rushed Steve through the small building’s double doors, kicking them open wide enough to peek inside. Several uniformed local law enforcement personnel guarded the weaker points of the school, aided by a fair amount of armed civilians. Over fifty cots, half of them empty, lay out in five neat little rows in the center of the courtyard.
A cloud of desperation and hopelessness hung low over the facility.
Brady had initially counted nearly forty-five survivors including the shorthanded medical staff. Nan had disagreed with Brady’s number, counting off thirty-two people in all.
This wasn’t Chris’ town. He didn’t belong here. He belonged back home in Tennessee surrounded by familiar faces and loved ones. All he wanted right now more than anything was just to get home.
Chris was surprised to find the school was surprisingly smaller than he had expected. It appeared a lot larger on the outside with its large brick walls and thick fencing. In all, the school only held up to about seventy-five students at a time, which ranged from Pre-K all the way up to the Twelfth grade. It had been the smallest school in the district. Its low enrollment eventually caused it to close. However, that had been more than ten years ago, or so Nan had said.
The place was run down and dilapidated. Stained glass windows were partially boarded up. Large sheets, no longer white from time and weather, lay tossed over a plethora of statues outside. At the far end of the courtyard, there was a wishing well. The bricks and mortar were caved in making the well almost nonexistent. Any more damage and it would just be a pile of loose bricks and dirt.
Chris knew he wasn’t the only one worried that the rescue station was not adequate for long term survival. The setup was clearly meant to be a temporary solution to a short-term problem. If there was a permanent rescue outpost established somewhere, they hadn’t heard. No one had said much of anything.
Greetings were rather short when they first arrived. Steve was rushed in for medical attention, leaving Chris and the others to be escorted to the courtyard where they sat and waited. Father Garcia Clark, a Hispanic priest, had shown them to their pillow-less cots. Having been the only person to greet them, he told the group that they were the first set of survivors to show up in the last twenty-four hours and that tomorrow morning they would be having a meeting to welcome them as new arrivals. With it getting late, it would be best to wait till morning for introductions. Able to read the distress of the group’s mood, Father Clark quietly led them in a short, respectful prayer for Steve, and then left them to their thoughts. Although the religious man’s accent was fairly heavy, Chris was impressed at how well the holy man’s English had actually been.
However, all of that was more than two hours ago. It had all seemed like days to Chris. For a while, they all just sat around in silence, tired and emotionally worn down, the night sky getting darker by the minute.
“You think Steve’s going to be alright, Brady?”
“He’ll be fine, son. I done seen many a men take worse on the battlefield and live to tell the tale. As long as those doctors do him up right, he should be on his feet in a few days, give or take.”
“You really think so?”
“He’ll be fine, Chris.”
Chris hadn’t remembered much else about his first night inside the Orange county private high school. They were all dehydrated, exhausted and stressed from the ordeal. After a while, things blurred together int
o one horrible nightmare.
Brady pulled a small rifle cleaning kit from his duffle bag and went to work on the guns. Using long cotton swabs to get the debris and residue out of each barrel, he then oiled them down. He explained each step to Chris and Stephanie knowing that Nan had heard it a thousand times before. An inventory of all the weapons totaled two rifles, four pistols and a small machete that had been at the bottom of Brady’s duffle bag. It was the kind of knife commonly bought at a camping surplus store, nothing special. With each weapon cleaned, Brady chambered a fresh round into Chris’ original handgun and handed it back. He also handed over the pistol’s clip, fully loaded. Although one of Brady’s pistols took the same ammunition as the gun Chris was carrying, the magazines weren’t the same size. After giving the gun back to Chris, Brady retrieved a few small boxes of ammunition, fifty rounds in all. He then showed Chris the proper way to load the clip. Chris stashed the extra bullets away inside his backpack. On the other hand, the rifle that Stephanie had was pretty much useless, unless one of the other people in the compound had some extra ammo. Brady tossed away the idea even to consider asking and just gave up the handgun that Steve had used. It wasn’t like he would need it any time soon. Chris found it rather odd that Nan still stuck to her ways and refused to take a pistol. Sure, Chris hated the idea of shooting a fellow human, but the need to stay alive was the need to say alive. Besides, these things weren’t human any more, were they? Chris wondered if a cure was even possible. Most of the zombies were foul partially consumed things, missing organs or chunks of flesh, if not missing entire limbs.
With the guns cleaned, reloaded and distributed, Brady packed away all of the loose items and laid down on one of the cots. Chris noticed that the old man didn’t bother taking off his shoes and Chris decided to do the same. The cots smelled of mildew.
“My cot freakin’ reeks,” Chris complained.
“So does my blanket.” Stephanie wrinkled her nose. “Smells worse than the dead. Gross!”
“And it should, sweetheart,” Nan said. “They’ve probably been packed away up in one of the chapel attics for the last ten years.”
Chris leaned up on his cot. “And they couldn’t bring out the good linen? We’re guests here! That’s absurd. I’m going to find the bellhop and get this straightened out right away. Unacceptable!” Chris burst out laughing and so did the others.
It only lasted for a few seconds, but at least everyone had a moment of humor. Brady looked younger, his cheeks reddening with joy and Stephanie actually appeared to have loosened up some. Chris liked seeing them like that. It made him feel normal for a change. He thought of Mark, and the way his laugh had come so easily. Chris realized that he missed his cousin fiercely. He forced the thought out of his mind, trying to avoid tears so soon after laughter. He didn’t want to be the one to explain to his parents that he couldn’t protect his cousin. Sleep was going to come hard tonight, the same as it did the night before.
“Would you keep it down? Some of us are trying to get some sleep over here!” A voice grumbled from not too far off beneath a musty blanket.
Chris scanned the courtyard full of cots, but couldn’t make out who had made the brash remark. With no real lighting of any kind outside, it was beginning to get very dark. Tons of people lay rustling their way to sleep.
“Sheesh, someone needs a chill pill,” Stephanie said loud enough for the grumbling complainer to hear.
Around them, other than the men posted at guard all over the courtyard and the medics still tending to the wounded, people were winding down to call it a night. The stars overhead had shown brighter than Chris had ever seen them before in his entire life. He wondered if they were actually brighter. Maybe he was just finally appreciating their true beauty. Then again, with everything the way it was now, there were less house lights on in the area to wash out the star. He looked up at them thinking a musty pillow would be better than no pillow. His head lay stiff against the cot as he gazed up into the night sky.
“Hey, Nan. You know a lot about this place, don’t you?” Stephanie whispered as she watched Chris fumble with his blanket trying his best to turn it into a pillow.
“I sure do, dear,” she said quietly with a little bit of excitement. “Why do you ask?”
“Just from what you had mentioned when we first got here . . . the place is pretty historical, I take it?”
Chris leaned up, also interested in the conversation. The place had definitely been around for a long time. The old brick foundation and stained glass displayed in many of the windows was evidence of that.
“You just opened up a whole can a worms, little lady.” Brady smiled, tucking himself under his blanket. He closed his eyes and said, “Tomorrow’s goanna be a long day for everybody. Goodnight ya’ll.”
“Well?” Stephanie pressed her curiosity impatiently toward Nan.
Nan lit up. “For starters, you see that wishing well over there. It was here even before the Parish built the school grounds way back in late eighteen-thirty. Because, it was such a historical landmark for the county, they were required to the keep it.”
“You think they still have coins buried down there?” Stephanie asked eyeing the well from afar.
“Well sure, honey.” Nan continued. “Actually, the well probably connects with the sewer system if ya dug deep enough. No telling how many coins made their way down there.”
“I bet those coins are worth a load by now. Freaking vintage money is worth a fat chunk of change to the right people.” Chris smiled.
Nan continued with an eager voice. “In nineteen-twenty-eight, the great Reverend Maurice F. Munich, Auxiliary Bishop of Harford, came here and served one year as Acting Supervisor of the Parish as Seminary President. If they took down all of those rotted boards blocking the stained glass, there’s actually a picture of Munich on one of ‘em. He was the man who is actually responsible for converting the Parish into a private school. During his short time, he had a lot of renovations done, and he even had the fence put in between the outer buildings. The way that it lines the outer section of the school like that, connecting from building to building, was actually Munich’s design.”
“Too cool,” Chris said.
“That’s right.” Nan pointed at the way they had come in with the car. “That fence out there is something like eighty to eighty-five years old.”
Stephanie flinched with a darting glance toward the front of the courtyard.
“Don’t fret, dear. Those fence posts are solid steel bars. Nothing is getting in here,” Nan said. “It’s like a fortress. And it’s done been used as one before. Back in the late nineteen-fifties, a large portion of the historical district was burned down in a wild fire. Lots of people died. The town’s folk flocked here for refuge during the fires. The school was one of the only buildings left standing. Ever since then, this has been a major rescue station for natural disasters and such.”
“Yeah, but if this place is supposed to be an active rescue center, then why is it practically condemned?” Stephanie raised an eyebrow as if she had caught Nan off guard.
“Nothing happened since the devastating wildfire of the nineteen-fifties. It went back to being a school for a long time, but that eventually fell to the wayside like all things do.” Nan looked to the ground.
After a moment, Chris asked, “So, how is it that you know so much about this place?”
Nan said nothing. She just sat there in awkward silence. The subtle sounds of people in the background rustling about on their cots and coughing and quiet conversation filled the void around them.
“She used to be a teacher here,” Brady said, startling both Chris and Stephanie.
“Man, I thought you were asleep,” Chris said.
“Na . . . I’m a light sleeper, I am.” Brady flipped to his side facing the three.
“But if you were a teacher here, wouldn’t that have made you a Nun?” Stephanie was confused.
“No, I was a volunteer, not a teacher. Did consider it a ti
me or two, being a Nun. But that was before Brady and I met. It’s so odd how fast time flies. Seems like so long ago. I was an active volunteer when they decided to shut the school down. It was really sad. This place is the historical landmark of Orange County, and just like that, they shut it down. They let it fall apart like this. I hate to see it this way.” She sat there quietly for a while longer. “Probably been ten years since anyone stepped foot in here. And that’s why your blankets smell so bad. These are the same blankets we had in case of emergency over a decade ago. Probably just pulled them out of a damp closet somewhere upstairs.” She looked around at all of the activity in the courtyard.
She breathed a heavy sigh.
Chris could tell that the brick buildings surrounding the courtyard brought back old memories for Nan. He wondered if they were good ones.
“That’s gross.” Chris wrinkled his nose. “Decade blanket gunk! Haaa…”
Exhausted from their ordeal, Nan and Stephanie fell asleep soon after. Chris and Brady lay in the stillness, not speaking, and not wanting to disturb them. Stephanie and Nan lay head to head at the very end of the outer row of cots. Only one row in, Chris and Brady lay beside the girls looking up into the night sky. A light breeze flew in. At first if felt cool and soothing, but before long, it was only a reminder; a reminder of them. The rancid stench of the dead reminded Chris there was only a steel fence between him and the dead on the other side. He lay wondering if their undead numbers had grown to the hundreds since first corralling them away. He wondered how many it actually would take to break down the fence.
Despite the fact that he felt like he didn’t belong and was eager to get home, Chris was thankful to be alive and to have found Steve the attention he needed. As soon as that drummer punk was well enough, he hoped to be on his way. Tennessee seemed farther and farther away by the hour. Beside him, Nan snored pretty loud and Stephanie wrestled in her sleep. Chris couldn’t help but wonder what they were dreaming about. The last thing he needed was another restless night filled with bad dreams. He was fatigued and needed a real night’s rest. He thought of his parents and of Mark. Before long, he was filing through images of all the people he had met along the way in his years of tour. As much as he tried not to, everyone he brought to mind looked the same. Every time he tried to imagine someone’s face, they just looked dead, like lifeless ghouls hungry for flesh.
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