by T. W. Brown
“So why all the doom and gloom on your face and in your voice?”
“We have to make this work and there is a lot to do in what I imaging to be very little time,” Kevin admitted. “I’ve been paying attention, and the weather is turning. It’s getting chilly and the days are definitely feeling shorter.”
“Hey…you can relax a little bit” Aleah pulled Kevin close. “I think we found our new home.”
* * * * *
14
Problems Solved
“Now just because you’ve graduated to this cane, that doesn’t mean that I want to see you stomping around this place all the time,” Dr. Zahn said in her usual dry tone.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, slowly hobbling around the large, open kitchen area. Satisfied, I returned to the chair and took a seat. “So, how’s Jamie?”
“All better.”
“How crazy is it that he suffers from food poisoning and being bitten at the same time.”
“I’d not use the word crazy. However, it was of interest.”
“Interest?” I asked as I accepted the handful of multiple vitamins and who-knows-what that Dr. Zahn dumped into my hand. I tossed them in my mouth and chewed, trying to ignore the nasty aftertaste, then took a big swig of water.
“Well, it’s obvious that this immunity must be genetic. It still expressed even though Mr. Blossington was not in good health.”
“So what does that mean?”
“Very little since I don’t have a lab or any facility to run tests. Although I believe that it would take a much greater mind than I possess to crack the code on this.”
We sat quietly for a moment, me sipping water and the doctor writing notes in my medical file. She now had complete medical files made up for every single person in our group. I didn’t really see the point, but it seemed to make her happy.
“Sometime soon we should really talk,” I finally broke the silence.
“There is nothing to talk about,” Dr. Zahn replied, not bothering to look up from her scribbling.
“I know that Randall’s death had you twisted up.”
“Then you aren’t quite as clever as you lead yourself to believe.”
“What?”
“Yes,” Dr. Zahn slammed the pen down on the table and glared. “I am obviously upset that Mr. Smith is dead. But…” her voice trailed off. For the first time ever, I saw tears well up in the doctor’s eyes.
“It’s Paul,” I breathed. But I didn’t buy the idea that those two were romantically involved. It wasn’t that I didn’t think older women could hook a younger man. It was just that it didn’t sit right. That’s really the best answer I had.
“He was my son.”
And boom goes the grenade! I don’t know how long my mouth hung open. By now, the tears had actually spilled over and were running down the doctor’s cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Francis.” I worked my way to my feet and crossed the room. Leaning the cane against the counter, I put my arms around the doctor. She stood rigidly for a few seconds before her body shook and she actually allowed me to hold her.
We stood there for a few minutes and the doctor cried. I tried to think of something to say, but came up with nothing. While we hadn’t seen the actual body of Paul Wimmer in with the others, that wasn’t enough. Plus, like it or not, hope was something in short supply these days. And there was far too much false hope out there. No sense shoveling any more out there. Besides, Dr. Zahn wasn’t stupid.
“Well,” the doctor eased away and wiped at her eyes, “that is about enough of that.”
“Doc, I—”
“That’s quite enough, Steve,” she cut me off. “I appreciate your concern, but it is the nature of things nowadays. I’d appreciate if you keep this between the two of us.”
“Of course,” I nodded.
“And if you so much as whisper a word about this little emotional outburst…I’ll poison you.”
“Sanchez, Melissa, and Billy will be making this run,” Jon said.
All of us had gathered at the picnic area for our daily meeting. I had my hands stuffed in my pockets. It wasn’t long before we’d need to have these meetings inside. The clouds were breaking up, but it’d rained a good part of the night.
“I thought I was up in the rotation,” Jamie protested. Theresa’s elbow to the ribs shut him up and Jon’s smile said that he’d just been given his answer.
“They’re making the first run to Joseph,” Jon continued. “They will be tasked with marking the doors for future runs.”
“Can I say something?” Sunshine spoke up.
“The floor is yours.” John sat down. All of us were curious. She almost never spoke so much as a single word at these things.
“One person should be tasked with finding seeds and anything else that we can get. I’m afraid of how the bad weather may affect anything that gets left to the elements over the fall and winter months. Also, I have a small list of a few things that will be necessary next year when we start our garden.” With an embarrassed wave, Sunshine sat back down.
“Excellent point, Sunshine,” Jon said as he stood back up. “Give your list to Sanchez, he’ll see to it personally.
“Other than that, I’d like to announce that the trench is officially complete now, the last section has been dug out. Also, we are now at work shoring up the walls. Of course there will not be nearly enough plywood to line them. We will need to do daily inspections, especially as the weather continues to get wetter.”
“Is that everything?” I asked and looked around the group. There was an assortment of nods and indications to the affirmative. “Good, because I would like to announce that, upon Melissa’s return, we would like to invite you all to attend our little wedding ceremony. And I’d like to ask Ian if he’d be my best man.”
“Wow!” Ian sounded genuinely surprised. “Sure, I’d be honored.”
“And I have two requests,” Melissa stood, coming to be beside me. “I would like Teresa to be my maid of honor, and it would mean the world to me if Thalia would be my flower girl.”
“Abso—” Teresa began.
“No!” Thalia screamed, jumping up from her seat and taking off at a run from the tree covered area of the picnic grounds and towards the house.
“Thalia!” I called after her, struggling to untangle myself from the picnic table.
“No, Steve,” Teresa grabbed my arm. Melissa was already running after the little girl with Emily right on her heels. “This is something they need to work out. You can’t help with this.”
“What the hell was that all about?” I pulled my arm from her grip.
“She thinks you’re replacing her,” Teresa said, acting if I should know what she was talking about.
“Say what?” Obviously I didn’t have a clue.
“There is a new baby on the way…and now you’re getting married,” Teresa emphasized too many words in her statement.
“So?”
“You’re all she has,”
“What?” I didn’t understand, “She has everybody. Me. You. Ian. Everyone here adores her. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Like it or not, Steve,” Dr. Zahn stepped in, “you are Daddy to that little girl. And she thinks you are not going to want her anymore.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“And completely normal in children her age when an addition is about to be introduced to the family.”
I looked around the group and immediately felt like an idiot. Literally everyone was meeting my questioning look with a nod.
“Give Melissa some time with her,” Teresa repeated. “This is as much between them as you two.”
The flare burst in the sky. That was the signal from the lookout tower where Fiona was currently on watch that we had someone or something arriving.
“Steve, you, Sunshine, and Dr. Zahn use the rear drawbridge and pull it across,” Jon barked. “Sanchez, take Billy and Teresa around the right a
nd come in from behind the softball field backstop. Jake, you come with me and Brad. Everybody hurry. Melissa and those little girls are alone in front.”
With that, everybody took off. Once again I was relegated to the rear. Even then, Sunshine and the doctor had to wait for my gimpy ass to catch up. I got across the small “drawbridge” that Billy had constructed from one of the picnic tables and then helped to pull it across. Sure, a living person could clear the trench without too much effort, but they would be very vulnerable for a moment.
We followed the footpath around the backside of the big hill. It would lead us around to the front if we took one fork; or up to the backside of the house if we took the other. Dr. Zahn led the way as we hurried—such as it was for me anyways—up the one that took us to what served as a backyard to our residence.
Buster was lying on the concrete slab that served as the back porch, apparently unimpressed not only by the flare that had been fired earlier, but by our arrival as well. We entered through the gate, and by the time I closed it, Dr. Zahn and Sunshine had already disappeared inside. Meanwhile, Buster had finally popped his head up and was watching me intently, probably trying to discern whether I would be presenting him with a snack.
“Some guard dog you are,” I scoffed. The Border Collie yawned and rolled onto its side with its eyes closed.
By the time I’d worked my way through the kitchen and arrived in front, Sunshine and Dr. Zahn had already seen enough of whatever was happening to exit out the front door. I heard what sounded like shouting and urgent voices from outside and hurried as fast as my gimpy leg would allow.
When I arrived on the porch, Jon, Beebe, and Sanchez were helping the biggest, blackest man I’d ever seen in my life carrying a blanket that was acting as a stretcher for a petite, mocha-with-extra-cream-colored woman who looked to be bleeding profusely. Dr. Zahn and Sunshine had taken off in a sprint, leaving me pretty much alone.
Looking around and realizing that I could serve almost no purpose, I opened up the double doors and secured them with the small floor-mounted hooks. After that, I went inside and ensured that the path was clear all the way to the doctor’s little exam room. Just as I made my way back into the open visitor’s center, the cluster of people arrived.
“…just please help her,” the big man was begging.
“Sir, Mister Cribbs, I will do everything in my power, but I need you to try and calm down and stop upsetting my patient,” Dr. Zahn said in her authoritative-but-compassionate voice.
“Baby, do like she says,” the tiny woman managed through clenched teeth.
The group wove their way back to the tiny space where Dr. Zahn and Sunshine pushed everybody out once the patient had been laid out on the exam table. The door shut with finality.
“Grab your gear and meet me on the porch in two,” Jon snapped. Sanchez and Beebe hurried off.
“What the—”
“It was Jason.” Jon edged past me, heading presumably to where he kept his gear at the ready.
The big man, Mr. Cribbs from what I’d heard from Dr. Zahn, stood at the door with a look of being lost, confused, and—as strange as it looked on a man his size—scared. I wanted to follow Jon and find out what in the hell he was doing, but knew that, as was so often the case these days, I’d only be in the way.
“Steve Hobart.” I stuck my hand out to the big man. He stared at it for a few seconds, then reached out and shook my hand. Almost as soon as he touched me, he jerked away.
“Oh! I’m sorry.” The man tried to wipe his hands on his pants, but they were not only dirty, but bloody as well.
“Hey,” I said, placing my hand on one of his thigh-sized biceps. “It’s okay. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. In fact, let’s take you out back and let you try and wash up a bit. Maybe you can tell me what happened.”
“I can’t leave Melinda.”
“She’s with Dr. Zahn,” I said, attempting to gently get him to start moving. I would have had about as much success trying to pull the house closer to the nearby river. “There’s nothing you can do here, but you’ll need to be clean when she says you can go in and see…Melinda was it??
“Huh?” He looked down at me as if he were just now realizing I was there. “Oh…yeah. Melinda. My wife’s name is Melinda.” Then. Almost as an afterthought, “My name is DeAngelo, DeAngelo Cribbs.”
No way, I thought. I had to actually pretend to be calm. It would’ve been very inappropriate to completely freak out. DeAngelo Cribbs had been the Seattle football team’s first pick in the draft. Hell, I probably knew more about him than I did any of my companions. A standout defense tackle in college, DeAngelo showed up at the pro combines measuring in officially at six feet, five inches tall. He tipped the scales at three hundred and twenty-seven pounds and set a bench press record of fifty-four reps on the two hundred and twenty-five pound station. During his rookie season he led the league with nineteen quarterback sacks, all of them earned while fighting through double and sometimes triple teams. DeAngelo Cribbs was known as “The Beast.” Not a very original moniker, but very fitting.
“Well…DeAngelo…come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” I finally managed to speak. As we walked back into the front area of the house, Jon and his men rushed by with packs and what looked like half the armory.
“I wanna come,” DeAngelo started forward.
“Whoa, big man!” Jon held his hands up. “My men and I are trained. We’re gonna move light and fast. You need to be here, especially when your wife comes out.” With that, he gave a curt nod to me and hurried out the door with his men.
DeAngelo took one step as if to follow. There would be absolutely no way I’d be able to stop him if he decided to go, and the condition of my leg had almost nothing to do with it. Fortunately, he stopped.
“You said there was someplace I could go and wash up?” he asked, shoulders drooping.
“You bet,” I said, moving past the human mountain.
“Steve, was it?” he asked as we walked down the long side of the house to a suspended bin with a spigot on the bottom.
“Yeah.”
“So, what’d you do to yourself?”
“Compound fracture of the tib and fib. I’m told I was fortunate that it was so clean. Dr. Zahn had to put in a plate and some screws or something.”
“Here?” DeAngelo sounded incredulous.
“Hospitals are a little dicey these days.” I shrugged.
“Damn.” He sounded more than a little impressed and I hope that helped him be just a bit more at ease knowing that his wife was in such good hands. “So she’s an honest-to-God, real-life doctor?
“Yes,” I answered, turning on the spigot so that gravity let water begin to flow.
“That’s…amazing,” DeAngelo said as he began to scrub his enormous hands together, washing away his wife’s blood from them.
“So…if it’s not too much…what happened.”
“We’d been living in this military-run camp since about two weeks after this stuff all happened,” he began. I braced myself for his next statement. “This group of lunatics…herded is the best way I can describe it…hit us with a huge pack of zombies, then followed them in and started shooting up the place. It didn’t make any sense.”
“Did it happen at night?” I asked.
“Yeah,” DeAngelo’s head popped up, “how’d you know?”
I told him about Serenity Base. After sharing information, other than the names, it sounded as if we were coming from the same place. He and Melinda had been on their own ever since. They’d followed I-90 through most of their trip form just outside of Seattle. I couldn’t help, I had to ask.
“How did the Jet City fare?”
“Great for all of about two days,” DeAngelo sighed. “The worst was the facility that they set up at the two stadiums. They didn’t figure out in time that even the slightest bite would be enough to turn a person. That area became worse than the hospitals.”
“Damn.” Not eloquent, but it w
as all I could think to say.
“Then there were the airstrikes on the islands like Bainbridge and Whidby. The folks out there tried to keep the mainland folk off. A pair of ferry boats headed out, but they were sunk. Word had it that some crazy faction had gone over to the island the first night or something. Bastards had fuckin’ RPGs! The naval base sealed itself and went all-in with the citizens. One night an airstrike came. That place still glows at night according to some of the folks that managed to escape downtown.”
We’d steered away from the topic I’d initially been trying to get information about, but I figured I’d wait. If I gave him time, I had no doubt that DeAngelo would get around to it.
“I heard that only one of the submarines was out. No tellin’ what happened to those poor bastards. It’s not like there’s anyplace they can pull in. they gotta be out of food or damn close to it by now.
“We felt pretty safe at Camp Emerald,” DeAngelo continued after he dried his hands. “Everybody was working. The soldiers were really friendly and even that government guy held regular town halls to keep everybody up to date. Once a week, at least in the beginning, we had a welcome party for all the new arrivals. Then it was once a month. But we hadn’t had one in about six weeks when that raid went down.
“We ran for our lives that first night. I think a couple folks were tagging along, but by morning, it was just the two of us. We decided to try and head south…towards Texas where she and I are from. We didn’t expect to find our families, but it was something to do. Right?”
“Seems kinda out of the way, being out here,” I said after he’d gone silent again.
“We wanted to skirt anything resembling a city. Figured it would be best if we slipped into the tiny little towns. We had maps of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Figured as we got close to the next state, another map would make itself available.
“Then we saw that man. At first, from a distance, it looked like he was stringing up a pair of zombies…only…that gal was too tan to be dead. We’d run into some bad folks out there, usually in his groups. This was just one so I figured that I could take him. He tied that rope off and I swear I thought that he didn’t know we were even there. Melinda kept pulling at me sayin’ that she didn’t think we should get involved. Some of the stuff we’d seen since leaving Emerald…she was spooked. But me? I was pissed. I was tired of folks doing all this sick crap.”
