Seeking Daylight

by Becky Poirier

  He smiled at me. “If anyone deserves a miracle, it’s you.” I placed the precious piece of my sister into my crusty jean pocket. Seth took hold of my hand again and we walked out of the building. Seth stopped for just a moment.

  “It’s okay if you need to stop for a second and look back.”

  I shook my head with a small smile on my lips. “Never look back. That’s what my mom used to say. She used the example of Lot’s wife in the bible.” He looked at me curiously. I knew from our conversation, that religion wasn’t a part of his upbringing. “In the story God told them not to look back when he destroyed their home. Lot’s wife disobeyed and was turned to salt.”

  He raised his eyebrow as he grinned. “I’m pretty sure you won’t turn to salt if you look back.”

  “Probably not, but that’s not the point. Nothing good can come from dwelling on the past. I’ve spent too much time in the past. I’m ready for my future now.” He squeezed my hand as he pulled me in with his other arm. When his lips met mine, they were soft and gentle, not at all like the passionate kisses we shared. This kiss, I liked even more. This wasn’t hormonal, it was pure love. “Let’s get back to Doc. He’s probably worried sick about us, not to mention the rest of the group.

  Chapter Thirty

  The walk back to the clinic took a lot longer than I would have thought. But then the night we’d run in the storm, we’d already walked a significant distance and then with the adrenaline of having the infected on our tail we’d run pretty fast. Now that I had my cast back on and we were trying to avoid slipping on the sidewalks it was taking us twice as long as it should have. Even with the sun beating down on us the air was still pretty cold, and the paths were treacherous.

  I had the same eerie feeling I had the day we’d gone for our walk. It had turned out to be right the last time. The infected had been watching us then. Here I was again, feeling like eyes were once again trained on us. I tried to shake the feeling, but with every building we passed I found myself looking around to see if I saw any signs of intrusive eyes. There was never anything there. I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t make the feeling go away. Seth kept looking at the buildings too, whenever he was sure I wasn’t watching him. It was silly really, neither of us saying anything. When we were both feeling the same thing. I could only assume he was trying to prevent me from worrying the same as I was for him.

  When we finally arrived at the clinic, the unsettling feeling only intensified. Nothing physically looked different. But something just didn’t feel right. “You wait out here,” Seth tried to suggest nonchalantly. He wasn’t fooling anyone. When I wouldn’t let go of his hand, he tried changing tactics. “Your ankle must be killing you. You just rest on the bench out here.”

  “Yes, because resting out here in the cold is so much better than resting inside the warmer clinic,” I replied with a role of my eyes.

  “Please just do this for me. For once just listen to me.”

  “Why?”

  “You and I both know why. Something’s not right and I’m not risking your life.”

  “But you’ll risk your own. Don’t you get that my life is forever intertwined with yours now. You can’t just ask a girl to marry you and then go risking your life on your own. I’m going in there with you. I’m not losing anyone else.”

  “Paige please just do this one thing for me. I can’t risk losing you. You’re not the only one who’s lost people.”

  “I know that.” At some point in our conversation we’d gone from just plain old whispering to whisper yelling. If the infected were close by they’d hear us either way. “I live with you or I die with you. I’m not going to survive another loss. Besides, you need someone to watch your back. Bummed ankle or no I’m still a better fighter than you.” He stared at me, stunned by my boldness.

  “You really won’t budge on this?” I shook my head. “Fine,” he said with annoyance. “But you follow my lead. And we’re going to have a discussion later about this whole better fighter thing.” I suppressed the laughter that rose in my throat.

  I nodded my head in the direction of the clinic. “Lead on,” I replied.

  He wasn’t going to pretend for my sake that he was happy to have me there. He’d insisted I take his only knife. If it came down to a fist fight, I was pretty sure I had better odds than he. I’d already insulted his manhood once and didn’t think it was worth doing so again. I took the knife begrudgingly.

  While the outside of the clinic hadn’t given any hint of anything being a miss, the inside was another story. The floor that Doc had been working on, had been cleared by our group to make for more sanitary conditions. It no longer was in the immaculate condition it had been in when I’d visited it just the other day. Now there were claw marks on the floor, the walls. Blood was spattered everywhere. It wasn’t enough to make me think anyone had died. It was enough though to make both Seth and I fear the worst.

  I didn’t know what Seth was expecting to find. As for me, I thought Doc would be long gone, already turned and joined a hive. I could feel Seth’s pulse beating faster in my hand. I squeezed his hand a little tighter in an attempt to comfort him. He of course mistook it for a sign of my fear.

  “You can go back outside. You don’t need to see this,” he offered.

  “I’m fine. Nothing you can do or say will make me leave you in here alone.” He sighed deeply but didn’t push the issue as we continued further towards the main staff room. Seth said it was where Doc had set up their sleeping area.

  The door to the room hung by its remaining hinge half open. Seth let go of my hand to take a more defensive position as the door slowly creaked open. The scene in the room was worse than the hallway. The bedding on the floor had been torn to shreds. The feathers from the pillows were strewn everywhere. Doc’s research papers were torn out of his note pad and tossed carelessly around the room. And just like the hallway there was blood as well as signs that Doc had bandaged his wound.

  Seth collapsed in the middle of the mess. He tucked his knees up and rested his head against them as he rocked. I watched him helplessly not sure of how to comfort him. I’d comforted Molly all the time, but this was different. This was a grown man, the man I loved, having a breakdown.

  After a couple of minutes of silence, I sat down in front of him keeping the knife on my lap and at the ready, should it be needed, though I was pretty sure we were safe. If there were any infected in this building, they would have already attacked us by now. I watched Seth and waited for him to be ready to talk. He’d told me multiple times that we were very much alike. If that was true, then I knew that pushing him to speak before he was ready would be pointless. He had to choose to open up.

  When he finally lifted his head from his knees, his eyes were red and swollen. “This is my fault,” he finally said.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because I supported his plan, even though we weren’t ready. You said as much, so did Nina. He took Alex because it was easy, but it wasn’t right. But I didn’t tell him no. If I had, this wouldn’t have happened. We didn’t even have a chance to properly secure this place or make sure it wasn’t near a hive, which clearly it is.”

  “Well if you’re going to blame yourself, then you should also blame me. After all I’m the one who suggested this location. I offered to help. Oh, and while we’re tossing the blame around how about blaming Kyle, after all he did help.”

  “I get it,” he said cutting me off.

  “Really cause, I could keep going. How about blaming Nina. It was Doc’s crush on her that spawned his obsession with finding a cure. He wanted her to feel safe again, just like you wanted me to feel safe. And then we could always blame Doc for being irrational and trying to take on such a monumental task, pretty much all on his own.”

  “Okay you can stop already.”

  “You sure about that? Or should we sit on the floor some more wasting daylight, when the others must be worried sick about us?”

  It was his turn t
o roll his eyes at me. He pulled himself up off the ground and then offered his hand to me with a weak smile. “You win smart ass. What do you think we should do next?” I reached up and used him to pull myself up off the ground.

  “We should look through his papers. There might be something here of value and then take any supplies we might need back to the others. But I don’t think we should spend more than thirty minutes here. I don’t know how much of the infected’s mind remains intact after the bite, but I know my father knew well enough to come home.”

  Real fear spread across Seth’s face. “You don’t think he’d lead a hive back to the others?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. My dad was different than Doc. He had an all or nothing view on life. Either we all lived, or we all died. Or we were all whole or we were…”

  “All infected,” he finished for me. I nodded. “We can’t take the risk. You take that half of the room and I’ll take this.” We didn’t discuss any further. Enough time had been wasted in the panic room.

  I set to work on my half of the room. Most of the notes were filled with a lot of medical talk, which didn’t mean much to me. But whatever I found intact I grabbed and put in one of the spare packs I’d found, by one of the mangled pillows.

  I wasn’t too worried about the others for the moment, though Seth clearly was judging by the speed at which he was moving. Thankfully, the storm would have trapped Doc just like us…and Alex. I’d completely forgotten about him. Without Doc dosing him, I was pretty much sure that he would have torn free from his restraints, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I stood up and rushed towards the door. Seth was by my side in a moment. “What is it? Did you hear something?”

  I shook my head. “I just remembered Alex.” Seth looked disappointed. I let out a gasp of exasperation. “Seriously you can stop with the jealousy thing, it’s not like that,” I whispered. “What if he’s still here? Doc would have stopped medicating him.” Seth looked down the hallway in the direction of the medical suite. He had the same look of fear that I wore.

  “We’re leaving now,” he whispered intensely gathering up his things quickly.

  He held out his hand for me, but I didn’t take it. Instead I held the knife closely to my chest. “I can’t Seth. We made each other a promise. If he’s still here, then he needs me to fulfill that promise.”

  “No,” Seth said intently. I ran my fingers through my hair aggressively. Why couldn’t he get that I had to do this? He held his hand out for the knife, but I held onto it defiantly. “You’re not going to kill him. I am.” I stared back at him stunned. “He asked me to do it. You’ve already had to do this once; you shouldn’t have to do it again. Give me the knife,” he said with his usual soft kind voice. This time I let it go willingly into his hand.

  He tried to make me stay back in the staff room, but I wasn’t about to let him do this alone. We didn’t even know that Alex was even still here. If he was, I needed to be by Seth to make sure he stayed safe.

  The medical suite door was ajar, but still on its hinges unlike the other room. This door had none of the scratch marks that the rest of the floor had. From inside I could make out the sound of the machines Doc had used to monitor Alex, while he was being treated. The machine was beeping insistently every thirty seconds. I had no idea what it meant, but Seth appeared to. He held onto his knife tighter.

  Slowly he pushed the door open. We were both stunned, when we found that there was still a person lying in the hospital bed. What was more surprising was that it wasn’t Alex, but Doc. He was haphazardly strapped down to the bed with an I.V sticking out of his arm leading to a couple empty medicine bags.

  His eyes opened the moment he knew we were there. He looked panicked by our presence. His eyes were still brown, but just on the edge of the iris, a small rim of red was already developing. “I need another dose,” he choked out as he nodded towards the side table. On it were several bags of medications.

  Seth went to put his knife down to replace the bags. “Don’t!” Doc shouted. Seth and I both jumped at the change in his voice. It almost came out like a growl. Doc smashed his head against the bed and grunted out in frustration. “I’m sorry. I can’t control it. The I.V ran dry last night. I hoped you’d get here in time to dose me up again. Don’t put the knife down. I’m barely holding it together.”

  Seth passed the knife to me. I held it at the ready, watching Doc closely as Seth fiddled with the medicine bags changing the old ones out and pressing buttons on the I.V pump to get things going. “Make the drip fast at first,” Doc advised. Seth nodded. Seth was working so hard to stay emotionally detached from the situation, but I could see it was killing him. This man had been like a father to him. Seth had already lost so many people and now he was watching one more slip through his fingers. My heart ached for him.

  Doc sighed as the medication reached his veins. His reaction was almost instant. “One of the medications is a sedative,” Seth explained. That made sense.

  Seth moved in closer and tightened Doc’s restraints. Doc relaxed further, which would have been the exact opposite reaction I would have had, at being restrained. But he felt better knowing he couldn’t hurt us. He was nothing like my Dad. I had a feeling that as the change took hold of him, he’d do everything in his power to get as far away from our group as possible.

  Seth and I both pulled up a chair next to Doc. Doc looked sadly at Seth. I think he had already come to the same realization Seth had. This was the last time they were going to see each other. “There isn’t much time,” Doc explained. “When they attacked, they released Alex. He stayed with me that night, after I was bitten, refusing to leave with the new hive. He even let me medicate him at first, but last night he refused treatment. I don’t know if it was because he was developing a tolerance for the medication or if he…”

  “He what?” I asked.

  “I think being human, but not, was way too much for him to handle. I could see him struggling with the emotions, especially after seeing you again. He agreed to tie me up, but then he went to another part of the building. I heard him take off before sunrise.”

  “You heard him?” Seth asked.

  “I heard you two on the street also. A part of me wanted to call out to you when I heard you riffling through my papers in the office, but the other part hoped you’d just leave. It’s not safe for you here. I wrote down all my notes in that binder over the by the window.” I went over and grabbed it. I was expecting for it to have more medical mumbo jumbo, but instead it was full of maps and directions.

  “I don’t understand,” I said handing the binder over to Seth. Seth looked just as confused as I was as he thumbed through the binder. But slowly Seth seemed to understand better than I, what Doc wanted us to do.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t find the cure. Maybe someone else will someday, but at least now we have a solution. This wasn’t a waste Seth. It was worth it.”

  A tear fell down Seth’s face. “I don’t agree with you. This wasn’t worth the sacrifice. The cost is too high.”

  “You have a future now because of what we’ve done here. And don’t waste it,” Doc said to Seth. I was still completely confused.

  “Will one of you explain to me what’s going on? How can there be answers without a cure?”

  Seth opened his mouth to answer me, but Doc interrupted. “There’s no time you need to get back to the others. Alex knows where our home is. If he’s met up with another hive, he’ll be back with them tonight. You two need to leave now.”

  “What about you?” Seth asked.

  Doc had a wry smile on his face when he looked at me. “That’s something for Paige and me to discuss alone.”

  Seth shook his head adamantly. “No, this isn’t you talking. You always said you’d rather be alive as an infected with a chance, then dead with no hope at all.”

  “That was before I realized that it could lead to the infection of my family. That’s what you and the rest of them are to me. You’re
my family and I won’t be the cause of your demise. Please let Paige do this for me. All I ever wanted was to give our group hope. That can’t happen if I continue to turn. Seth just leave us. You don’t want to see this.”

  It was strange how easy it was for me to pick up the knife off the table. When Doc said it was what he wanted, I didn’t even think about hesitating. Of course, I hadn’t loved Doc. I cared about him, respected him, but there wasn’t a strong emotional attachment. I could do this without feeling remorse. But I knew Seth couldn’t be here to see it. Yet Seth was absolutely refusing to leave.

  “Seth you heard what he said. We don’t have time to discuss this. As it is, we’ll be lucky if we are able to prepare ourselves for the attack, if we get back now. He’s right. You shouldn’t be here for this.”

  Seth’s eyes were red like they had been back in the office. As he turned to leave, he asked me one thing, “Please make it quick.” I nodded. He hesitated for only a second before forcing himself out of the room.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  What I thought would be easy, turned out to be a lot harder than I could have ever imagined. Doc had been so calm and matter of fact about the whole thing. He wasn’t the least bit afraid of his life ending. He actually looked at peace about the whole thing. He did have a pretty strong sedative running through his system.

  Once he was confident that Seth was out of the building, he instructed me on the best method for ending his life. If we had access to more medication, that would have been the best method. Unfortunately, the infected had destroyed most of the medications. Doc managed to stash a few doses aside, before the infected breached the building, otherwise he wouldn’t have been so lucid when we found him. Apparently the infected were pissed about Doc experimenting on one of their own. I wondered if they had the ability to even understand the irony of what they did to Doc.