by catt dahman
“No kidding. They don’t wanna have to take their own lives or get shot by us. I don’t blame them.”
“But they’ll turn, and that girl with them will get bitten and torn up. But then, didn’t George explain it? We all have our own terms. Maybe she prefers that.”
“That’s bad. How does Len feel about having to do that?”
“Probably terrible, but he can’t dwell on it. They were about to argue when you took your shot; that convinced them we were not playing.”
“Oh.”
“You did good.”
“Never thought I’d be shooting people.” Beth was an interior designer before, a cushy job, and now she was a zed killer. It was laughable. She silently thanked her dad again for teaching her how to use a gun. She tucked in her undershirt again and thought about the way she was dressed.
People often told her she resembled Demi Moore, with her long, almost-black hair, big green eyes, and pale skin; and yes, she was in combat camouflage like in the movie GI Jane, which Moore starred in, but Beth’s hair wasn’t going to be shaved off although Julia looked amazing with her short spikes of hair. Beth was a bit heavier than Moore had been in the movie, but she knew the activity and days ahead would slim her down fast. The issue was that Beth didn’t feel as bad assed as Moore had been.
“What are you thinking about?” Kim asked, noting her wry smile.
She told him, making him chuckle.
“I’d be Nicolas Cage in one of his movies when he was pretty tough, but still a bit unsure of himself.”
“I can imagine that easily,” Beth told him. They made up whom each person with them would be, laughing hard when they argued about Roy. When they switched duty, Mark and Julia commented that they didn’t know guard duty was so funny, making Beth blush as she tried to explain.
“Hey, why didn’t I get Salma? I want a redo,” Julia complained.
Beth washed her face and brushed her teeth. All at once, she felt a wave of dizziness, weakness in her legs, and chills. In horror, she whispered for Kim, asking him to come into the bathroom and then closed the door as she sank to the floor on her butt.
“I’m scared…maybe I got infected when I was helping Gina with her wound.” She frantically searched her hands for cuts, seeing a few scratches. Had she gotten the poison in her skin? “I don’t feel so good.”
Kim watched Beth’s teeth chatter and her face pale, felt of her forehead, and looked over her hands carefully. “Do you hurt anywhere?”
She shook her head.
He felt her pulse and wiped damp hair from her brow, “Beth, what kind of car did you get when you were sixteen? Did you get one?”
Instead of confusion over a strange question, she looked at him blankly, not interested. He stood, and she clutched his hand in a near death-grip. Opening the door a crack, he called Len.
“What’s wrong?”
“Take a look, and tell me what you think. She’s scared she’s infected.”
Len, in fear and concern, knelt by her, but she didn’t respond to his questions, just shivered. He looked her over, talking very softly. “Hang on.”
He vanished and then returned with a quilt, which he wrapped around Beth. He stepped back and motioned to Kim. “We’ve got you, Beth.”
Kim scooped her up in his arms and followed Len to a bedroom.
“What’s going on?” Julia demanded as she followed.
“Delayed shock. Suspect she’s freaking out over Jeri and Ben earlier; she was talking about it,” Kim said. She still didn’t let go of his hand.
“Poor thing. I should stay with her?”
“You’re not letting go of Kim, are you, Beth? He feels safe to you?” Len rubbed her arms. “Kim?”
“I’ll stay here with her.”
Julia and Len helped remove her boots, and then Julia made the men look away as she removed Beth’s pants and wrapped her in the bed covers, pulling pillows along Beth’s back to make a cocoon. “You be a gentleman, or I’ll kill you, even though I like you,” she warned Kim.
“Beth trusts me.” He frowned.
“Keep her warm and comfortable. Julia, can you get her something to drink? She needs to be re-hydrated, too. Don’t leave her alone.”
Kim gave him a wry smile, looking at his hand still in her vise-grip. “I won’t leave her.” Beth pulled at his arm as she rolled to her side away from him, so he stretched out beside her, looking uncomfortable. Len got his boots for him and shrugged.
As the door closed, Beth jumped a little, shaking, and Kim turned towards her, spooning her body with his, wrapping his arms around her to keep her warm.
In minutes, she was quiet, relaxing against him, and he felt her warming. In less than fifteen minutes, she was asleep.
Kim slept, too, waking only when Len checked on them and then when Beth turned over, staying close to him, her head on his chest as she slept. She mumbled, “Thanks.”
Strange, that she thought to thank him; her presence, the fact she had needed him and trusted him made Kim relax enough to sleep when otherwise he would have paced the rooms.
Usually a loner by nature and kind of shy, Kim felt as if he were changing and as if the world had gone to hell, but he was more socially comfortable now than he had ever been.
On a personal level, his only worry was that he hadn’t minded a bit taking care of and sleeping next to her; he felt a quickening in his stomach when he looked at her, when he inhaled how good she smelled, and when she moved closer. If ever there were a bad time to be interested in a woman, this was the worst of times.
For the next seven hours, they were roused only by occasional shots fired.
Len gave up his schedule as some couldn’t sleep or had slept all they could and stood duty while others were exhausted.
Kim woke at daybreak to slip away and save them both the discomfort of waking up together in bed.
“I took your pants off for you.” Julia breezed in to wake Beth.
“Thanks.”
“Just know that maybe it will be me next time, and if so, don’t get my pants for me. You let whoever the man is help and then don’t stick around.” Julia winked.
Beth chuckled, “Noted. Unless it’s Roy?”
“Cabeza de meirda. No, please, save me from him, racist pendejo. He makes me angrier than anyone I’ve ever met. I don’t usually get this mean toward people.”
Katie bounded in, and Beth hugged her close. “I like your hair.” Beth cocked her head, “Did you do this, Julia?”
“Yep.”
Beth held back a grimace as she surveyed Katie’s hair, neatly braided into five strands down her back, the sides in elaborate French-style braiding. “It’s very unique.”
“I want hair like Jules. Choppy, choppy.”
“I told Katie how you chopped mine and that maybe you’d chop hers.”
Beth frowned and groaned this time, making Katie giggle, “No chop chop, and ‘Jules’ is no hair stylist.”
“She wouldn’t let me come get you. Were you sick?”
“Yes. But I’m better now.”
“Is Mommy? Her head ‘bleeded.’”
Julia hugged the little girl. “I explained that this morning, again…how Mommy is in Heaven now with Daddy. You have to help me watch out for Beth, remember?”
“Yes, Jules said you are naughty and I have to help keep you out of the time out chair.” Katie giggled again.
Beth, tying her bootlaces, had to laugh. “Jules is in the time out chair far more than I am.” They ushered Katie downstairs where the food smelled good. Misty and Mark were chatting quietly.
Len went over the plan again.
After they ate, they opened the front door with guards upstairs and covered the area so that Warren, Rita, Tom, and Mark could pile into the SUV parked at the street.
The four almost froze when they saw all the bodies littering the lawn, but Mark told them to hurry. Bodies lay everywhere. The smell made them think again of Benny’s theory that it drove away the zeds with
the scent of death.
Tink drove for Beth, Katie, Julia, and Kim. Beth kept Katie’s eyes covered as they walked out to the SUV.
Benny drove for Dallas, and Len came around the rest to take the lead.
George rode with Misty and Thurman as the last in line. In a caravan, they headed across town, resisting the urge to stop when they saw a house surrounded, but there were hordes, and to stop might mean being over taken.
Len said they might come back and do rescues, but they needed to get the supplies and people to a place where it was safe.
Kim thought, had he been trapped in a house surrounded, he would want one of them to stop a car and save him; the sight of their zooming away had to be beyond depressing, but he couldn’t imagine stopping, either. While he and Tink were good shots, the two couldn’t hold off as many as they had seen in the hordes even long enough to get anyone out of the house. He might be cold enough to leave the rest and grab Beth to run to safety, but the thought of that made him feel sick. That’s why Len had said no stops.
In another car, George worried for the people in the car that Warren drove; Mark was the only one who could shoot for that group.
That thought about Mark had not escaped Misty; George suspected she had a little crush on the man, ten years her senior. She was jumpy as a cat and unreliable because of the separation. George made a note to mention that to Len; when civvies were separated from their significant others or crushes, they got nervous and became undependable.
George watched people.
Len chucked a few times in admiration of Benny’s driving. “You a race car driver?”
“No, but I always drove on patrol. Thurman always kept his eyes shut.” Benny laughed. “Not bad for an old man, huh?”
Dallas barked in a laugh.
Despite not having any mishaps, they hardly dared to breathe until they were within sight of the hospital.
9
Hospital
Everyone was welcomed back, and people stopped to hear news from the outside although all of it was basically bad news. People seemed stunned when they heard the stories of what the group had been through; from Julia’s parents, to the herd that attacked, to losing members, to what the conditions were outside the hospital. For those in the shelters, it was a hard reality.
Hagan said he had been worried when they hadn’t returned but had not known where to look for them. At once, Hagan said they should have reinforced the hospital, easier than it could have been, as they were staying in the huge basement floor area as much as possible with families of the hospitalized, moving from there and back to rooms above.
The news was off, but they had a radio they listened to for the sparse information they could get.
"I didn't think you were coming back," Bryan said, appraising Len and the rest in their camo.
"Me, either," Beth said, “it was really rough out there.” Sometimes she thought he flirted with her, and so appreciated that this time, she was now dressed like one of the men.
"Hey, they're saying on the radio that something happened to New York City and a few other big cities."
"What happened?"
"No one knows. It sounds serious though. Something about explosions."
A man, who looked like Billy, of Bucks and Ducks fame, was looking towards Bryan and Beth, his mouth hanging open; he was standing in the hallway that led to the pharmacy.
"I'll be back," Bryan said. For some reason, the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, and he got that little feeling that he usually got when he was in danger.
"Do you like him?" Beth asked Kim, watching Bryan walk away.
"He's okay. You always seem to be frowning at him."
“He rubs me wrong. I think he’s a sexist pig.”
Kim chuckled.
Beth motioned for Kim to follow her as she felt something was off, just sitting wrong for her, a feeling about the way Billy had looked, as if his face seemed to reflect the shock she had gone through the night before.
As she walked toward the pharmacy, others began following, curious, as they heard voices from the pharmacy that was being guarded by one of the military. Some liked to stand and look out as they watched for zeds.
They walked up the stairs and into the pharmacy. There was a crowd, staring out the front doors and windows, some crying, and some muttering and mumbling.
Beth scooted forward to look, whispering, "Oh, dear God." On the horizon, she saw it, a small mushroom-shaped cloud; it looked like pictures she had seen of atomic tests and of Hiroshima. She backed away.
"Where is that?" a man asked.
Someone answered, "I'm not sure how far we can see, but it could be Barksdale if we can see that far.”
"We can see that far. Maybe. No.”
"Those things are big, and they would get Barksdale since it's an Air Force Base, you know."
"It could be Doddridge; doesn’t it have that tank manufacturer? We could see that far."
"Why would anybody bomb there?"
"Maybe big cities such as Dallas or Little Rock…unless someone is hitting the military bases, refineries, and manufacturers."
“We couldn’t see a bomb hitting Dallas.”
"What, it's not enough for everybody to die of fucking Red? They have to bomb us, too?”
Someone muttered, "Hell, why not hit us when we’re down?"
“Knock off the language. We have women here.”
Bryan said, "Those mushroom clouds are about six miles high…maybe twenty million degrees.”
“Damn.”
"If we were closer, the wind would be hundreds of miles per hour, and if you looked at one closely, it would burn your retinas."
"We're okay, right? Nobody would want a hospital."
Kim suddenly felt his stomach drop. "Lone Star Army Ordinance Plant or Red River Army Depot.”
Ammunition plants.
The man from the military pressed the pharmacist to get out, yelling at everyone to move faster.
Kim grabbed Beth’s arm and swung her around. "Go."
Bryan yelled for everyone to get back into the hospital, away from the windows and out of the pharmacy. As Bryan jogged behind the people he was ushering out and up the stairs, he saw his shadow clearly against the wall in front of him. The light around him was brighter than anything he had ever seen, and his back was hot, like the August sun beating down on him.
They ran for the hall. In the incandescent light, people, who were staring out of the window and refusing to move, continued to stare, screaming in agony and fear.
Beth almost froze when she heard the screams, but several people were pushing her forward.
As the ground began shaking, Bryan and the military guy grabbed the metal doors, swinging them closed, bolting them shut. Even the closest people to the doors were too far away to make it. It was too late for them.
In the pharmacy, hot air singed hair, and screams wailed louder as people reached for the metal doors, blisters popping up on their fingers.
A roaring fireball, driven by wind, hit the hospital like the hand of a giant. Window glass flew like daggers, as metal bent like paper clips; the concrete cracked, and ceilings tumbled. Rooms spilled into one another, tossing everything into the first floor and some below into the basement. It sounded like hundreds of trains crashing; then, like the climax, concrete slabs came sliding, breaking through like huge behemoths. Some of the ceilings poured downward in showers of rubble. Like an earthquake, it was as if it went on forever, rolling, sliding, and falling.
When everything else finally stopped shaking and falling, the hospital wasn't finished, as debris continued to settle, and it seemed possible that the plaster and dust would fill the rest of the basement. Luckily, most of the rubble canted backwards to fill the parking lot and crush the biggest lobby instead of dropping straight downward.
As noise continued randomly, no one dared to make a sound, frozen in place, waiting; then, when it was totally quiet, they called out. Cries broke out all o
ver.
Outside, the wind was screeching and forming small tornadoes, trying to drown out the inside noises. When the tortured metal screamed, there were echoes.
While everything was shaking and falling, both Bryan and Kim tried to pull Beth underneath each of them, not that their bodies would have offered much protection from falling concrete.
Kim won as Beth yanked away from Bryan and allowed herself to be cradled protectively. When it was finally quiet, Kim pulled Beth against him so she could rest against his shoulder. “Shhh. Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay,” Bryan chirped.
“I was talking to her.”
“I’m alright, thanks,” she whispered, “Only Bryan could be cheerful at a time like this.”
"We still have lights," Bryan said, amused.
"I'm guessing it's the backup generator that kicked on; we’re lucky it wasn't crushed," Kim said. "This would be worse in the dark."
"Listen," Beth said.
"People are crying."
"No," Beth protested, "not that. Listen. It sounds as if somebody were calling for help from outside the metal doors."
They all looked at the doors. Others sat up to listen.
"It’s the howling of the wind and this building moaning. That's all you hear," Bryan told them.
"No, I hear someone out there."
Something hit the door. Kim looked confused. "Maybe."
"It's just the wind," Bryan said. "There would be radiation falling back to earth out there, depending on what bombs were used. Now if someone were really out there or still in the pharmacy, he would be really hurt, cut up, and burned horribly. He wouldn't even look human. And if you opened the doors and let something like that in, it would bring in radiation that could kill every one of us. Maybe there are several of those monsters out there, but if we open the doors to see, we might all die."
Kim looked at Bryan straight in the eyes, squaring his shoulders. "I think you're right; it's just the wind."
No one else argued; they just sat and rested for a few moments and then got up to help people around them.
They tried not to look at the other military guy whose head had been crushed by a chunk of concrete and whose blood was seeping out onto the floor. Kim checked his pulse, shaking his head negatively. Bryan didn’t look cheerful then.
