by T. W. Brown
“We’ve been feeding you with a tube,” Dr. Zahn said with a smirk. She actually smirked! “I don’t suggest yelling, Steve.”
I glared. As loud as I could. Melissa tried to hide a smile. Jon tried to look like he was inspecting something incredibly and suddenly fascinating under his fingernails.
“The news is not all bad,” Melissa piped up once she felt she could speak without laughing. “You will have the use of crutches, and you are past the dangers of infection.”
“Yippee,” I mumbled, crossing my arms in my best display of childish sulking.
“Yes, Steve,” Dr. Zahn’s icy tone sounded just a bit hostile. “Yippy is the least you should be saying. Had infection set in, you wouldn’t be worrying about a cast. At the least, you’d have lost that leg at the knee. And at the worst…” She left the statement open, but I knew.
“And here I am bitching about sore throats, bed locations, and petty bullshit,” I said after a long and uncomfortable silence. “What I should be saying is Thank you, Dr. Zahn.”
A gentle hand on my arm made me look up. Dr. Zahn allowed a hint of a smile through, but it was what I saw in her eyes that really tugged at something deep down. I saw honest-to-goodness caring, compassion, and…love?
It was like the last time I had seen my grandmother shortly after graduating college. It had only been a month after my grandfather had died, and it had been no secret that I was his favorite. I took her to dinner to the spaghetti place she loved so much. I’d opened doors, pulled out chairs…all the things that my grandfather did any time they went out. It was old fashioned, and I’d always considered it cute, if not a touch quaint. That evening when I’d walked with my grandmother to her door, she had given me a look that had left no doubt as to how she felt about me. She died in her sleep that night.
“You are very welcome, Steve,” Dr. Zahn whispered. “We need you now more than ever. Get some rest.”
With that, the doctor and Jon left. It was just me and Melissa. She was fussing around and asking if I needed anything, and once again I was reminded that something was up. I knew that she liked Chloe an awful lot, and took a perverse pleasure that she had a bit of a crush on me.
“Hey.” I took her hand after she smoothed my blankets for the fourth time.
“I’m pregnant.”
We both sat there in silence. Me, because I was dumbfounded. Her, because I imagined she was waiting for me to react. I looked into her eyes which had brimmed with, and then spilled over, great big tears. Her lower lip quivered, and at that moment I never loved anybody more in my life. It was like something inside of me physically shifted.
“Are you sure?” I finally managed to ask.
“When Teresa got checked, I had a hunch, and asked Dr. Zahn if I could take one of the pregnancy tests, too.” A shy smile crept across her face creating something more breathtaking than the most amazing sunrise I’d ever seen. “I took two more just to be absolutely certain.”
“Melissa, that’s…” Suddenly my voice left me.
“Are you mad?”
“Not at all,” I said, brushing a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “I’m gonna be a dad.”
“And I know you’ll be a good one.” She leaned in and kissed me.
“Papi?” a tiny voice whispered in my ear. “Papi, are you asleeping?”
“I told you, Thalia,” another voice joined in, barely above the sound of a breath. “Dr. Zahn put stuff in that hose in his arm so that he stays sleeping.”
As consciousness bloomed, so did the pain in my left leg. It was like a freight train, a low and distant thing that grew quickly. I opened my eyes, instantly regretting it as it felt like somebody poured moulten silver in the sockets. That’s when I let out a combination of a moan and cry. Two little shadows scurried away quickly, frightened by my involuntary outburst.
“Daddy Steve?” Emily’s face appeared over mine, her eyebrows bunched and her expression stern. “Are you okay?”
“Hey, Emmy,” I managed through clenched teeth. “And where’s my little Thalia?”
“Papi!” Thalia squeeled. Tiny arms wrapped around my neck, jerking my head off the pillow. The distinct sensation of nausea rolled through me and I struggled not to empty whatever there may be in my stomach all over the head of my little girl.
“Hi, princess,” I managed to say around the bile that was rising in the back of my throat. “How are my little girls?”
“Dr. Zahn told us not to wake you,” Emily said with that hint of annoyance in her voice most women are very adept at being able to summon.
“We didn’t wake you,” Thalia said, but it sounded like she was instructing me.
“Where is everybody?” I managed through lips that felt like splitting with every syllable.
“Mr. Saunders, Ian and Billy went out yesterday,” Thalia said. She climbed up on my bed and snuggeld up under my left arm like she belonged there. Emily had come to my right side and was holding my hand in her lap, each of her hands gripping two of my fingers.
Damn, I thought, how long have I been out this time?
“Melissa is in the gun tower,” Emily offered. “Sunshine, Teresa and Fiona are making something outside in a big pot that smells like throw up.”
“And Brad is on the per-mim-a-ter,” Thalia struggled with the long word.
“That’s pa-rim-a-tur,” Emily corrected, enunciating slowly. Thalia mimicked the older girl, repeating it a few times until she got it right.
“How long have I been sleeping?” I asked. I’d closed my eyes to get the room to settle down. I tried to divert my focus from the pain.
“This time for only two days.” Emily pulled my arm aound her waist and eased underneath it.
“Well I’m glad I got to see you two this time,” I mumbled. Something tasted really bad in my throat now that I thought about it. And the sickness that I originally credited to Thalia pulling me over so suddenly wasn’t letting up. Also, there was this odd sensation like my brain had been replaced by a ball of wet cotton.
I could tell that I was drifting off again. I tried to resist. I wanted desperately to stay awake this time. I hadn’t seen Teresa since she’d told me—
Pregnant? Hadn’t Melissa told me that she was pregnant? Or was I mixing up what Teresa had told me with Melissa? Why couldn’t I think straight?
“Thalia,” a voice echoed in my head. It was familiar. “You and Emily get down from there right now!”
I smelt something. It was curiously familiar. I tried to place it, but couldn’t. I sensed both girls move away. Then, something mushy was being spooned into my mouth. It tasted vile; rotten cabbage and mud thrown into a blender and then heated until just past lukewarm.
I opened my eyes and blinked a few times to ensure that they were actually opened. It took a minute for me to realize that it was night time. A bottle of water was on the stand beside me. I grabbed it and drained half. I noticed that the pain was still there but seemed dull. That was a welcome relief to the last time that I remember being awake.
The last time?
Crap, how long had I been out now? And what was that taste? And why did it look like light was trickling through the large window beside my bed like giant, silver raindrops? The longer I laid there, the brighter the room seemed to become. Only it wasn’t. What the hell was going on?
“Wake up, baby,” a voice broke through the haze. I opened my eyes to Melissa’s smile. That love came rushing to the surface, and I was certain that she had in fact told me she was pregnant.
“Well, well,” a man’s voice rumbled. I glanced over to see Jon standing on the other side of the bed. “Welcome back, Woodstock.”
I blinked a few times puzzling over the comments by the burly former Marine sergeant. Then, Dr. Zahn stepped up with Sunshine beside her. Everybody had peculiar looks on their faces, and kept glancing at Sunshine.
“How do you feel, Steve?” Dr. Zahn asked.
“Dull…fuzzy…I don’t k
now,” I managed. I hoped that my breath wasn’t as bad as the taste in my mouth. “So how many days this time?”
“You’ve been in and out for a few,” Dr. Zahn said cryptically.
“He seems fine.” Melissa glanced up at Sunshine. Again there were these looks flashing between the others; looks that I couldn’t decipher.
“It seems our little journey into Hell to get drugs for your pain, wasn’t absolutely necessary,” Jon said.
“Huh?” I asked growing annoyed by the little secret I’d been left out of the loop on.
“Sunshine made a discovery,” Dr. Zahn began. “It seems that the proprietor that had been working here at the park was quite the…free spirit.”
“Whoever it was had a little marijuana growing operation, and also set up a nice little harvest of wavy caps around the edge of the field right by the woods,” Sunshine explained when my confused expression didn’t diminish.
“I still don’t follow.”
“A little olive oil, some buds, and mushrooms in a kettle kept you out of it,” Sunshine said with a serious tone.
“Out of it?”
“Stoned out of your brain!” Jon snickered.
“But today,” Dr. Zahn said with her usual seriousness, “you’ll be starting your therapy.”
The entry door to the lobby—also known most recently as my bedroom—opened, and two cherubic faces peeked in with big smiles. Dr. Zahn waved her hand ushering Thalia and Emily inside.
“Say hello to your therapists.” Melissa stood up producing a set of aluminum crutches. “Today you’ll be moving around this house. We want you to go outside and just make three laps, then take a break. Then do it again. See how many times you can manage that today.”
I glanced at Dr. Zahn who was nodding in affirmation. Jon and Melissa helped me to sit up the rest of the way. That’s when I noticed that I had a new cast. Wow, how out of it did they keep me? I felt a little woozy, but the prospect of being out of this bed was extremely motivating.
I tucked a crutch under each arm and settled the weight on my right foot. Very cautiously, I lowered my left leg, entombed in a walking cast, to the floor. There was only a slight increase in the pain. I started by navigating the room. Thalia and Emily skipped ahead of me, each of them looking back over their shoulder ensuring that I was in fact following them.
The first ten or twenty minutes went just fine. We moved outside and the sun on my skin felt just heavenly. I found that I actually missed fresh air. But as we continued to do laps around the house, the pain began to climb.
If I’m the hero, or the leader, or whatever, shouldn’t this be happening to somebody else? It should be me waving as I trooped off on another supply run. Instead, I’m stuck waving as Jon, Ian, and Billy head across the large open field into woods and who knows where. That’s another thing…why don’t I know what the heck anybodies doing or where they’re going?
“I’ve called everybody together because I don’t know what is going on,” I said.
Everybody sat around at a few of the picnic tables. After a week of physical therapy, I’d felt comfortable enough to hobble my way down the hill and take a bath in the stream. Wrapping my leg in plastic was the hardest part of the whole thing. And once I got to the stream, I was forced to sit on a rock while Melissa washed the parts I couldn’t. After that milestone, I felt comfortable enough to call the meeting. Minus Sanchez and Beebe, who were still out hunting for Jason, and including myself, there were eleven adults present and two children who were both off occupying themselves by dropping leaves into the stream and watching them drift away.
“What would you like to know?” Jon spoke up. “The defensive preparations continue. We’ve strung trip wires along the perimeter that ignite flares for early warning. A series of pits have been dug in the woods with plastic streamers tied to branches as a warning so that none of us take a tumble.”
“Right,” I nodded. “And all that is great. But I’ve been able to observe a few things in my current condition that I feel need addressing.”
“Such as?” Ian looked up from where he sat with a handgun disassembled before him. He had an oiled rag in one hand and the sliding mechanism in the other.
“Supply runs for starters.”
“We’ve been taking care of that,” Jamie said.
“Yes, but nobody ever seems to know where you guys go, or when to expect you back,” I pointed out.
“You should know as well as anybody that you can’t give a return time,” Ian said.
“I realize that, but you can give an estimate. I mean, do we start to worry after a week? Ten days? And your last run, nobody had a clue where you guys went. That’s unacceptable. While I realize that there’s only so far you could go, we at least need a general idea of your direction in case you’re gone too long. If you get trapped someplace, you can’t hold out forever. Trust me.”
“He’s got a point,” Jon agreed.
“And another thing, the last few times you’ve left, it has been three guys. With Sanchez and Beebe gone, it leaves the homefront with five women, two who are pregnant, two children, a gimp and two guys to hold things down. Melissa and Teresa have both been cleared by Dr. Zahn for at least another month to participate in runs. Other than Dr. Zahn, the children and myself, I want everybody involved in supply runs.”
“What happens if we run into hostiles out there?” Jamie spoke up avoinding eye contact with Teresa.
“The same thing that happens here if raiders show up,” Teresa snapped. I could tell that this was a topic of conversation that the two of them had already gone at each other about. I wasn’t about to stick my nose in, but if Jamie thought he could win it in public with support from any of us, one glance around the group told otherwise.
“From now on, I want at least one of the women on a run, and no more double-dipping.” I glanced at Jon. To my knowledge, he’d made every trip since I went down. “Everybody has experience out there, and you each need some time here to recharge.” To his credit, the big Marine simply nodded.
“The last thing I want to say is that I really appreciate everything you all have done since I went down. Dr. Zahn says I am progressing nicely, but not to expect to be fully functional for another couple of months at best. However, I am cleared to take a lookout watch in the tower as long as somebody will help me on the stairs and the ladder.”
There was a polite round of applause and I noticed Melissa glance over at Dr. Zahn for confirmation. Afterwards, there was a bunch of chatting and the next scavenger team was selected: Sunshine, Teresa, and Jamie. I felt sorry for Sunshine, she’d probably have to spend most of her time as referee when Jamie tried to tell Teresa what she couldn’t do.
I hobbled over to Melissa who was grilling the good doctor. No doubt she was trying to see exactly what restrictions she could place on me.
“…falls down that ladder he might never walk again,” Melissa was arguing.
“And if worms had shotguns, birds would mess with them,” Dr. Zahn said stoically. “Steve is able to move around. There are a million ‘if’s’ here, but we do not have the luxury of coddling somebody. And, correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t you and Teresa bully him into the whole ‘women will be included on supply runs’ issue?”
Melissa’s open mouth snapped shut. She turned in a huff to find me standing there. I don’t think I wiped the smile off my face quick enough because she glared at me real nasty like. She huffed and blew a strand of hair out of her face and made to storm past.
“Can I talk to you?” I asked as she tried to decide which way to go to skirt around me.
“Fine,” she stopped and crossed her arms. Dr. Zahn might’ve actually snickered as she turned and walked away. “But just so you know…I’m making the next supply run with Ian and Billy so you go right ahead and put yourself on the watch roster Mister I-can-risk-my-life-climbing-ladders.”
“Fair enough,” I nodded. For the second time in as many minutes, Melissa’s mouth
snapped shut with an audible click. “Now, can we go some place private and talk?”
“If you think you’re gonna haul me off and talk me out of doing—”
“Not at all.” I cut her off, placing my index finger over her lips to shush her. Her eyes narrowed and I could tell that I’d just pissed her off even more.
“I wouldn’t have taken yours and Teresa’s issue to the group if I didn’t support you,” I said in a hurry, preempting her eruption of anger.
Before she could resume the argument, I turned and hobbled away on my crutches, making for a trail. I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I struggled not to look over my shoulder to see if she was following. As I reached the first switchback, I heard her behind me.
I could feel the sweat on my forehead start to bead up and drip. Also, little beads of it on my neck trickled down my back, giving me chills. I could feel the nausea building in a way I hadn’t felt since consuming Sunshine’s psychotropic pain remedy. To Melissa’s credit, or due to her anger, she remained quiet, not even bothering to ask where we were going. That wasn’t exactly what I wanted either. Her being angry was not part of the plan at all. In fact, I’d mistakenly counted on her being in a good mood after I’d just championed her cause.
We hiked up the switchback trail. I had forgotten how long the trip to my pre-planned destination was. And I’d never made it on crutches. By the time the huge, flat rock came into view, I was soaked. What the hell had I been thinking? Still, it was too late to turn back now
My stomach was churning like crazy, and it got even worse when I saw the wicker basket. I couldn’t look back at Melissa or I might actually hurl. Without a word, I set down my crutches and went through the awkward contortions of sitting down on the big rock.
