by T. A. Sorsby
I coughed, leaning forward in my seat, the taste of vomit lying heavy on my tongue. I dry-wretched, the air rubbing at the back of my throat like sandpaper.
‘Not in de car, man.’ Damian moaned, reaching across and opening my door.
Apparently I didn’t have anything left to throw up, and my stomach lining was being stubborn. I coughed again and sat up, muttering something about needing a drink.
A bottle of water appeared over the headrest, and I took it, spitting some out of the door and draining half of it in one. It cut off the worst of the puke taste, but I knew that wouldn’t go any time soon. I’d probably wake up in the morning with it.
‘Must have nodded off.’ I said, passing the water back over the headrest.
‘Erm, best hold onto that Kell.’ Laurel said, not unkindly.
Everyone dismounted, but I sat for a while longer. I put my head against the dashboard. The cool plastic felt soothing. Damian and Neville were carrying Laurel’s supply boxes into the foyer, but Laurel stayed behind.
She stood in the open door at my side of the 4x4, and offered me a hand down. I took it, and she pulled me closer, squeezing her arms around my shoulders and holding me reassuringly tight. The night was turning cold outside of the climate-controlled vehicle, and it was nice to have a warm, living person to hold onto.
‘Thank you.’ she said quietly, her head on my shoulder. ‘I was all ready to…call it, back there. Seeing you, other people…maybe it’s not as bad as it could be.’
‘All I did was drive by…’ I said, rubbing my hands on her shoulders.
‘It was enough.’ she nodded, breaking the hug. ‘So, you sure you’ve got room for me? We going to have to bunk together?’ she chuckled, gesturing at the fourteen storeys of living space.
‘Going to assess the situation inside.’ I replied, waving a hand at the glass doors, ‘We’ve got wounded. Possibly infected.’
‘Like Danni.’ Laurel said, looking over her shoulder, at the doors. ‘If this Anita woman, if she’s like Danni…will you?’
I just nodded. It’d be me this time, not Neville.
We grabbed our gear; tins, rifle and bats, and found Neville, Damian and Morgan waiting for us in the foyer. Morgan was sat in candlelight, boiling a pan of water over a camping stove – probably the one from Damian’s apartment – and had a bunch of cups set out on a squat magazine table, along with milk and sugar. My Gods, she’s an angel.
I knew that coming back home without Katy was going to draw some questions from her, but I was too tired, too drained, and I didn’t have the answers myself. Where was she? Why didn’t she come to me? Or did she come to me, and something happened on the way? I gave Morgan a smile, feeling my lips turn up but my expression was still probably grim.
‘Builder’s, two sugars.’ I said, making my way to Stan’s apartment, keeping my head down.
‘But what-?’ Morgan tried.
‘Later.’ I snapped, feeling the word come out too harsh, too fast. ‘Please.’ I added to soften, ‘Just a minute, okay?’
I opened the door to Stan’s apartment and walked inside, shutting the door behind me. I wanted to lock it, my hand hovering over the catch, but they might hear the latch click. Like Katy’s room and the foyer, candles were the only light source, giving just enough to see by.
The flat smelled like antiseptic, and I could hear the shower running. Good, nobody to see me losing it. I drank the rest of the bottled water Laurel had given me, and slid my cowboy boots off on the doormat. I checked my gun was still in my trousers before I crossed into the kitchen and filled the bottle back up, splashing more water on my face as I went. Hot tears mixed in with the cold water. By the time I’d stopped running the tap, I couldn’t hear the shower anymore. I’d probably spoiled the water pressure.
Stan’s sofa was comfortable, and in the darkened apartment I couldn’t see the flecks and splotches of blood that must have been at the other end; where Lucile had employed her rudimentary medical training. I hoped it’d be enough.
The sound of the bedroom door opening pulled my eyes away, Anita jumped backwards, her towel slipping. I looked down before I saw more than the bin-bag taped over her bandages – but that took my eyes past her well-toned legs.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said, waving one hand and putting the other over my eyes, ‘my bad. Shouldn’t just sit around in the dark.’
‘You saved my life, Kelly.’ Anita replied. ‘If you wanted a peep show, all you had to do was ask.’ she added, but there was no smile in the line, reflexive banter but her heart wasn’t in it.
‘Funny. You got clothes?’ I asked, still keeping my eyes politely shut.
‘Ones that aren’t ruined? No. My house is out on the way to Overbridge, I’d usually take the motorway to get here, so I’m not asking for a ride. Lucile said she knew a woman who might be a similar size and brought some stuff down from her apartment.’
‘Theft and looting, that not against the law?’ I asked, scratching my head theatrically.
‘A little B&E to retain my modesty, I think I can live with that,’ she shrugged. ‘Not like there’s anyone left to call it in to.’
‘No police, at all?’ I asked.
‘Haven’t been able to raise anybody on my radio, but that could mean anything. I’m not going to write everyone off yet – just don’t have a means of getting in touch if there are.’
‘I should leave you to it, you and your modesty, I just wanted to see if you were alright.’ I said.
‘I can’t see to be sure, but I bet you’re blushing. Stop being such a kid. Come on, I’ll need you to help me get dressed.’
‘I’m a married man. Almost.’ I protested, smiling weakly.
This might sound a little strange, and don’t ask me why, but after everything that’d happened tonight, being in the vicinity of a semi-nude woman was making me feel a lot better. I sat up and followed Anita into the bedroom, where yet more candles awaited.
*
Seventeen
Despite the flattering lighting and her almost-nudity, there wasn’t as much sexual tension as you might expect. Her family was dead, and she was wounded - or possibly worse.
‘Turn around while I put some knickers on.’ She said.
As she asked, I turned around and stared at the wall. Her shadow dropped the towel – and while there was no funny business going on in here, that was a lot nicer to look at than the other thing’s I’d been imagining when I closed my eyes.
I kept my gaze averted but offered a supportive shoulder as Anita Mason gingerly stepped into her stolen underwear, making a small sound of discomfort when she pulled them up. She picked up the tracksuit bottoms from the bed and stepped into those too, before peeling back the tape on the bin-bag over her bandages, and throwing that down on the bed.
‘Could you clasp me in?’ She asked.
I helped her get her arms through the straps of a white bra, noticing the way her back muscles moved under her skin. Her arms were toned too, and probably carried more muscle than mine.
‘Thank Gods she didn’t get you a frontsie.’ I joked.
‘Guy like you mustn’t be used to this.’ she said, finding a hint of a smile from somewhere.
‘Huh?’ I managed, my voice a little deeper than I would have liked.
‘More used to taking them off, right?’ she chuckled. ‘Drop the strap on the wound side, I don’t need it digging in.’
‘Well what guy makes a habit of helping his girl get dressed? Usually it’s the undressing you do for each other.’ I answered, helping her wriggle in to a loose long-sleeved top.
‘Your fiancée then…’ Anita said, ‘the one you went for earlier, instead of the radio station.’
‘How’d you know about that?’
‘Lucile told me. She also got little Morgan to help me shower so she could work on the generator, but I didn’t need her help past getting my bandages covered.’ She replied. ‘So you didn’t find her then?’
‘No. Found two of our f
riends.’
‘You don’t sound too happy about that.’ She said, turning to face me as she adjusted the shirt. Lucile might have found someone of a similar size, but Anita was a little taller than them and had the build of an athlete, the shirt barely meeting the top of her bottoms. With the chill in the air, she used it as an under-shirt and pulled on a longer blouse over the top. It was a mismatched outfit, but comfort is worth more than style when you’ve got a shoulder wound.
‘One of them was infected. Neville…euthanized her. Wasn’t pretty.’ I sniffed, wrinkling my nose. ‘The other one, Laurel, she’s alive. She’s back here with us now.’
‘What happened to your fiancée?’ Anita asked, gently broaching the subject.
‘Chance she went back to work. She’s a nurse at County General. Or maybe she’s with the TA, or the CDC’s soldiers. We heard they were under new leadership.’ I shrugged.
‘County, you said? I hope not.’ Anita said, giving my shoulder a squeeze before removing her hand.
‘Why not?’
‘I was at County. With some of the CDC, soldiers and doctors. We were going to fortify the place, but the infected got out of control, way too fast. We tried to evacuate the healthy, but…I’ll tell you later. I’ll tell everyone at once.’ She sighed, her face twisting, shoulders tensing up as she folded her arms.
I gave her a hug. It seemed to be the thing to do. Or maybe I was just being a little touchy-feely after seeing her shadow in the buff. She hugged back, and let out a deep breath, her head resting against my chest – she was taller than Lucile, but shorter than Laurel and Morgan.
‘You smell like vomit. You should get a shower while the water’s still hot.’ She suggested. Like I said – no sexual tension.
‘Come on, blow the candles out. We’ll go join the others.’ I said, giving her a pat on her uninjured shoulder.
We picked up the medical kit and Anita’s clothes, then left Stan’s apartment. I got my shoes on and dropped the latch behind us, since it was only polite. Though after all that had happened, if Stan ever came home the least of his problems would be burglars.
There was a dim rumbling sound, growing louder. Suddenly the elevator doors rattled open, and florescent lighting spilled out into the foyer, almost too bright to look at after coming out of the candlelight in Stan’s place. Lucile stood between the doors, her silhouette slightly misshapen because of the tool belt around her waist.
‘Generator’s running on near-empty, make it quick.’ She said, clapping her hands, ‘Let’s move, people.’
‘Angel of mercy,’ Damian said, starting to pack away the tea and coffee making facilities, ‘my feet are killing me.’
Neville pressed a mug of tea into my hand as we piled into the elevator, the seven of us having to breathe in a little.
‘I’m calling a meeting,’ I said, ‘take your time, have a shower, fill every seal-able container you can with water, then come to Edgar and Rosie’s place. We got lucky today. We need to make sure we’re prepared tomorrow.’
Lucile and Damian got off on the thirteenth floor. On the fourteenth, Neville and Morgan went back home to get showered and changed, while I let Anita and Lucile into my place.
Anita settled down onto the sofa while I found some candles under the sink and lit them around the room for her. Then I went to light Katy’s bathroom ones. I was just putting a covered tea-light in the soap tray when I turned around to find Laurel in the doorway, arms folded, watching me.
‘You do this for all the girls?’ she asked.
‘Only the ones I rescue from suicidal last stands.’ I replied, trying not to think about Danni or Becky again.
I moved for the doorway, but she barely budged an inch, forcing me to edge past her to get out. She smirked at me and asked, ‘Could you hand me a spare towel?’
‘I’ll even get one for your hair. Liking the new cut, by the way.’ I added, moving into the bedroom, where I kept the spare towels and linens and such.
As I came out of the bedroom, I looked over into the living room. Anita’s was still on the sofa, her eyes were closed and her head rolled back onto the cushions as I watched. A rush of fear went right through me, a cold flush rising, and I looked around for where I’d put my bat. But then I saw her chest rising up and down. She’d only nodded off.
Not to wake her, I quietly nudged the bathroom door open, steam already misting up the mirror over the sink. I threw the towel onto the closed lid of the toilet and closed the door. They weren’t prudes in that house, Laurel herself had walked in on me in the shower one morning and stayed to brush her teeth, but I had stuff to be getting on with that’d need a different sink.
Laurel took about twenty minutes. She found me in the kitchen, scrubbing the blood out of my baseball bat’s many dinks and nicks. Anita was still sleeping, but she was dead to the world, so to speak.
‘All yours.’ She said, draping the hair towel over her shoulders, letting it air dry rather than wrapping it.
‘You use up all the hot water again?’ I asked. It was a long-standing tradition that she shower last at the ladies’ house.
‘Tried. Your boiler just doesn’t know when to quit. Hey,’ she added, putting a hand on my chest as we passed by the sofa and sleeping Anita. ‘I’m sorry I don’t know more.’
‘That’s not your fault, we’re all in the dark here.’ I shook my head.
‘Maybe. But I should have gone with her. We should have stuck together, had a better chance. If she’s…if she’s gone…’ Laurel trailed off, her voice cracking.
‘We’re not crossing that bridge.’ I told her, placing my hand over hers. ‘We’re here now, and if we made it then there’s no reason to think she hasn’t.’
‘Right, right…’ Laurel nodded, her eyes welling up. ‘She’s tough. She’ll be okay, yeah.’
‘I’m going to get cleaned up. Be back soon.’ I added, meeting her eyes. ‘We stick together from here out, you and me. We’ll find her.’
I locked myself in the bathroom and ran a sink of cold water while I stripped out of my clothes. I felt the patches of dried blood on my shirt, and figured there’d be some on my jeans too, so I made sure my pockets were empty before I dumped them both into the sink. Yes, it was a deep sink, one of those big bowl-type ones that sits above the stand. I’ve filled it with ice and used it as a beer bucket before.
Katy once told me that the best thing for getting blood out of your clothes was spitting on the stain, and then sucking. I’d actually used that for tiny cuts and such and it wasn’t bad, but it seemed a fair assumption that the blood in these clothes should go nowhere near the mouth. So I went with the old fashioned cold water method.
The air was still thick and steamy from Laurel’s shower, making it a little too humid for comfort, but by the time I’d gotten under the water I didn’t care. There was too much blood on my hands, literally speaking.
Laurel must have had a lot of Danni’s blood on her, she wasn’t just trying to drain the boiler. I took as long as she did, maybe longer, scrubbing the red lines out of all the creases and wrinkles in my hands with a nail-brush. It hurt, but it let me know I was clean again. I rested my head against the shower wall and let the water pound the muscles in my back for a while. I didn’t know when I’d next have a hot shower, so enjoyed the moment for a while longer, until Morgan politely knocked on the bathroom door.
‘Lucile’s making dinner. Everyone’s going to be in Edgar and Rosie’s place, like you said.’ She called. ‘You okay in there?’
‘I’m okay, Morgan.’ I said, my voice a little rough.
‘Heh, yeah, me too.’ She replied.
I sighed and turned off the water, but didn’t get out of the shower for another minute, just dripped off and breathed in the steam. Eventually though, I had to face everyone. I felt like I could just curl up and sleep for a week, but at the same time, I could still feel the anger I’d felt earlier. The confusion about why Katy hadn’t come to see me. Was she alive? Dead? I was no better off tha
n I was this morning – worse even, for having come so close, from having exhausted all good options.
I towelled off and changed into some pyjama bottoms and an old grey shirt, then wrung my wet clothes out in the shower, putting them on the radiator while the heating was still on. Water would probably still pool under the radiator, so I put my already damp towel down on the floor underneath. It was something at least.
I crossed the hallway and opened the door to the Jamesons’ apartment. Everyone was sat in a big circle on the floor, backs against sofas and chairs or just sat cross legged around the camping stove, where a chunky soup was steaming away. If you included the kitchen stools there were enough seats for everyone, I guess they just felt this was more…social, somehow.
Neville was passing Edgar’s bottle of whisky around, not one to let something like that go to waste. I sat down between Laurel and Anita, and the bottle made its way to me.
I tipped it back and drank to Edgar’s memory, wondering what he’d say if he were here now. Would he risk going out again, knowing what’s out there? Or would he tell us to stay put, horde the food and wait for this to blow over?
What would Katy do? How would she want me to play this? I know if I were in her position, I wouldn’t want people risking themselves to come looking for me. But I couldn’t stand the thought of her out there alone. I drank again, and passed the bottle on to Laurel.
Lucile dished out the soup with a big ladle, while Morgan handed a loaf of sliced bread around, the use-by-date just coming up. It probably wasn’t such a good idea to be drinking on nothing but soup and bread, but when the bottle came around again, I took another long pull.
Anita had a thousand-yard stare fixed while she was eating, spaced out, looking at the little fire under the cooking pot, burning away from the nozzle on the gas bottle. Only after everyone had finished eating did I see her blink. The last of the booze ended up in front of her, and she finished it off in one long swig. Her voice was still burning with it when she started to speak. She’d seen me looking, started talking with just me listening, but after a few seconds, everyone quietened down, and was leaning in.
