Z Ward

by Jay Mouton

  But then it became all too clear to them.

  As they stood, close together once more, they allowed themselves to allow their breathing to normalize.

  For the most part, they just stared at each other with knowing eyes. But none of them spoke.

  They weren’t sure just how much time had passed, but they all seemed to hear the soft murmurings of a child, from somewhere towards the rear back area of the kitchen.

  The three of them, now by instinct, quickly did a visual inventory of the room. All three of them looking about for two things. A weapon. And a zombie.

  They didn’t have to look too hard.

  There were various knifes, hammers, large forks, and all sundry kitchen cooking tools laying on counter tops and work tables. In less than half a minute, all three of them held a cooking utensil that could help prepare a delicious three course meal. Or carve the dead heart from a zombie’s chest.

  Carefully, with a caution once more applicable, they slowly walked toward the sound of children. Children that were, it seemed, softly crying.

  They came around the outer area of the confines of the kitchen. And over in the back corner of the good-sized room, sitting on a kitchen stool, was a confused and worn looking Tilde Squire.

  “Tilde!” Susann gasped, and she rushed forward to her friend.

  “Wait!” Robey yelled out for Susann to stop. Had Tilde Squire been a zombie, already, Susann would have run right into her gaping jaws. But the old woman just sat, hunched over. She looked lost, lonely, and beaten.

  Susann, paying no heed to the possibility that Tilde was anything but her dear friend, took the old woman into her arms. And, like so many nurses do by natural inclination, she began to sooth the wounded woman.

  “Tilde, it’s okay,” Susann crooned, as tears welled in her nurse’s eyes once more.

  Susann rocked the woman gently. Their bodies, fused inside Susann’s tender hug, swayed side to side.

  Buddy had already figured out where the crying was coming from, and unlatched another locked bolt that had been slid into its hold. He opened the door, and found two young children. A boy and a girl, clutched together, were trembling with fear. And it was the two of them that were crying softly. Buddy Whetherby, the tough guy now gone, sat down between the youngsters. He did what came naturally to him when it came to little kids. He tried to cheer them up.

  He asked them who their favorite cartoon characters were.

  It didn’t take long. Soon enough, they stopped crying. A few minutes later, the boy coaxed laughter out of both children. They would feel safe. For the time being.

  Robey, just thankful to be alive, listened to his sweet nurse care for her dear friend.

  As he listened to the gentle words the nurse used to care for her patient, he could not help but think of the way a younger Robey, one from another life, used to calm his own, dear mother in much the same manner. One thing he knew he and Susann Beckett shared, was the rare, God given gift, for mending broken people. Maybe you couldn’t fix people, he thought. He had learned that you couldn’t really fix another human being. They had to do that hard task themselves. But he did know, with a knowledge held within his heart, there was something you could do with broken people.

  He knew, just as Susann Beckett knew, that you could help them mend.

  Tilde just sat on the stool. Susann stood next to her, and just offered the woman comfort.

  After a little while, Tilde, finally spoke.

  “I’m so, so very sorry, girl,” Tilde said, her voice broken by sobs here, then there.

  Susann just held the old woman, and kept rocking her gently.

  “I didn’t think that boy would,” Tilde paused, and swallowed down tears. She continued, “I didn’t know that boy would, turn? Susann, honey. Girl, I didn’t think that young man would turn.”

  Susann continued to hold her friend. She shushed her, tenderly.

  “How was I supposed to know that, Susann? He. That young man. Young James Hunley. He wasn’t ‘spose to turn like that,” Tilde said, another deep sob escaping her throat.

  The woman continued to sway together. The young woman standing, the elder sitting on the wooden stool.

  “He black.” Tilde said.

  Susann leaned back, and slightly away from Tilde Squire for a moment. She looked down at her friend, and considered Tilde’s deep, brown eyes.

  “What do you mean, Tilde,” Susann asked, thinking maybe the woman knew something about the virus that the nurse had not heard about during the short bit of information she’d heard on television that morning.

  “He black,” Tilde repeated. She was looking at Susann as if, perhaps, the young woman who might be just a little, bit slow. The older woman had slipped into her own childhood patois.

  “Jimmy a black man, Susann,” Tilde said. “I didn’t think that virus,” Tilde continued, but she stumbled as she went on with her story. “Susann, I didn’t think no virus gonna’ have any ‘fect on black folk!” Tilde, finally, blurted out.

  Susann was dumbstruck. Robey, too, wondered what gave the woman the idea that black people were immune to the virus. As far as he understood, from the reporter on the news show they had listened to earlier, the virus affected every adult. Only kids were, so far, immune to whatever it was.

  “Tilde, you thought Jimmy was immune to the virus?” Susann asked, wanting to find out why Tilde believed it.

  “Uh-huh,” the woman said, as if that explained the young laying sliced open against the kitchen door.

  “Did you hear something about black people not being affected?” Susann asked, trying not to further rattle her friend, but desperate for information. Desperate for something more that might offer some hope that her own destiny need not share that of the young man leaning, dead, against a door not ten feet away from her.

  “I’m sorry, girl,” Tilde said, and sucked in a deep breath.

  “I was so, so wrong,” Tilde repeated, adding “and I’m am so sorry ‘bout that young man, but I gave him a chance to leave.”

  Susann, stopped rocking Tilde. She leaned just a little further away from the woman.

  “What do you mean, you gave him a chance to leave, Tilde?”

  “I mean just what I said,” the old woman cracked, sounding a little defensive, now.

  “When I saw him,” she paused, seeming to weigh her words carefully. Then she added “when I heard him babbling like he started to do, I told him it was best that he just takes his leave of me and them little ones he done brought here with him,” Tilde said, the tone in her voice even more defensive as she went on with her story.

  “I told him, he best just get himself on out of here. I told him twice, Susann. I told ’em, he better off take his chance out there in Z Ward. I did, I told him.” Tilde Squire stopped talking, and straightened her back a little.

  “You asked him to leave the kitchen?’ Susann asked.

  “You damn right I told him he’d best leave, Susann. I done told you once, he was babbling like they do,” Tilde blurted.

  “You mean he started talking nonsense? Sentences that, well, don’t make any sense?”

  Tilde’s eyes grew wide. “That’s right girl! That’s a sure sign, they turnin’. They start babbling they nonsense, they already gone. That’s what the news said. Said it over and over,” Tilde explained, her voice wavering as she tried to stay in control.

  “Tilde, did Jimmy turn into one of those things in front of you?”

  “You can say it, girl!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can say what they becomes, Susann! When they turn! Just like Jimmy, turn! You say it, girl! He a zombie!”

  “Tilde, it’s okay,” Susann cried out, and tried to hold the woman again.

  “No! It’s not okay, Susann! It ain’t never, ever gonna be okay, ‘gain!” Tilde Squire, eyes wide with fear and knowledge, was yelling now.

  The old woman stood, abruptly, and jolted toward the front door of the kitchen.

  “
Tilde!” Susann yelled at the woman, “stop, it’s okay!”

  Tilde Squire stood next to the remains of James “Jimmy” Hunley, and turned to face her friend Susann Beckett. Then Tilde reached down toward Jimmy’s still, battered body and reached behind it. She stood back up, slowly turned back toward Susann.

  In her wrinkled, strong right hand, she held a huge, blood stained, meat clever.

  Tilde raised the heavy clever above her head.

  “Ain’t nothing ever gonna be okay, again!” the old woman yelled. Then, without any more words, Tilde Squire brought the sharp, heavy blade of the clever up to her neck. Then she pushed it forward until the stained blade lay against her warm flesh. She pushed the blade further into her flesh. And with one quick and powerful tug of her wrist, she drew the edge of the blade across the front of her throat.

  The old woman was determined that she would not let herself become what poor Jimmy Hunley had become.

  Blood shot out from the gash on her neck. It arched once, twice, then ebbed. Then the woman’s blood became a slow and steady flow as it escaped Tilde’s body, and ran down her once flowed dress. Then the flow became a trickle.

  And then it, simply, stopped.

  Tilde Squire slumped down.

  And, leaning into Jimmy Hunley, she closed her eyes.

  *****

  Robey, helped Susann to her feet. He helped her stand and, even with her in a disoriented state, he helped walk her back to the storage area where Buddy was caring for the orphaned brother and sister.

  He sat Susann down in the back corner, on a folding chair he found leaning against several large boxes of crackers. He opened it for her, lowered her down to the seat. She was, for all that she’d just experienced, somewhat lethargic.

  Then, Robey went back to the front area of the kitchen. There, as best he could, he attempted to cover the most obvious traces of the massacre that just took place.

  The boy found a few plastic sheets that must have been used as picnic table tops. These, he used to cover the corpses that had been leaning against the kitchen door. But first he had to drag them over by the big, industrial sized freezer. He opened the door. Then, he used the plastic sheets to slide the bodies, one at a time, inside the freezer. That task completed, he shut the door to the walk-in.

  After that, he found a mop and bucket, and did his best to mop up some of the frothy, bloody goo that covered portions of the brightly colored tiled floor. He did a pretty good job, but the stains would probably cover the tiles for years to come.

  When he felt he’d done the best he could do, he went back to check on Susann, Buddy, and the children.

  Susann had calmed, and seemed to be back to normal. Although, the word normal held little sense in the world turning in the manner it now was.

  Robey rummaged around and found some sandwich meat and sliced bread. He threw together a small stack of sandwiches, put them on two different plates. He took one of them back to Buddy and the siblings. None of them commented on the fare placed in front of them, but hands flew out and grabbed at bread and meat as soon as Robey had sat the plate in front of them.

  Finally, he went back over to Susann, who’d been, absentmindedly, nibbling on one of the sandwiches.

  Robey unfolded another chair, and sat down directly across from her. He reached out for one of the sandwiches, and took his first bite.

  They sat across from each other. The two of them, slowly eating, but not saying anything.

  They remained quiet for a little while.

  Finally, Susann broke their silence.

  “You do know, Robey,” she said, attempting to smile at the boy. She seemed to reflect upon her words for a moment, then went on “you do, understand, what’s going to happen to me.”

  Robey, still chewing on his sandwich, peered into the woman’s soft eyes. He didn’t say anything. He kept eating. But as he listened, and continued to nibble at his sandwich, he felt the return of tears as they began to well.

  “When it starts to happen, Robey. Dear, sweet boy, Robey. When it starts, well, I know that you will do the right thing by me, Robey,”

  He said nothing, just kept taking small bites on the bread and meat. A few tears trickled, of their own violation, down across his freckled cheeks. They fell, unimpeded, down to the floor in front of the folding chair he was perched on.

  Susann Beckett finished instructing the boy as to her wishes.

  She kept her warm smile aimed at Robey Paquette, and brought her soft fingers up to his cheeks. Softly, she wiped away some of his tears. First from one cheek, and then from the other. Then she repeated her gesture.

  Finally, Robey spoke to her.

  “Susann, I’ll do what you ask. I will, I swear I’ll do it for you. But I don’t know if I will, ever, be able to forgive myself when I do,” he said, his voice breaking into a soft tremor. Susann reached up, again, and wiped several fresh tears away. All the while, she still offered the loving smile to the boy in front of her.

  “You will forgive yourself, Robey. You have to forgive yourself. I’ve already forgiven you from the bottom of my heart. You are forgiven, Robey,” she said, gently. She, too, now tearing up along with the young boy across from her.

  “You swear,” Robey asked, his voice wavering, “you swear to me?”

  “Robey, if all of us were held accountable for the things we do when we stumble through life, the right and the wrong, there wouldn’t be any souls in Heaven. You will be granting me a merciful act, Robey. You will be my,” she paused one, more time. “Robey, you’ll be my angel.”

  *****

  And that was the last conversation Robey Paquette would ever have with Susann Beckett, his nurse during his short stay at Baptist Health.

  He stood up. He prepared another plate sandwiches and took it to Buddy and the children.

  He came back out front to ask Susann if she, too, would like another sandwich.

  She turned to answer him.

  “Bread it up meat plates eat much faster hunger on chairs,” she said, clearly and distinctly.

  Robey Paquette became her angel of mercy.

  *****

  Later that night, after Robey had cleaned up the scene of his crime of mercy. He sat, alone, up near the front end of the kitchen.

  Buddy, finally exhausted by the sheer weight of the day and all they had lived through, was laying on a couple of fruit boxes in the back of the storage room. He was surrounded by two small children that snuggled into him for some warmth from the coolness of the room.

  Robey Paquette, having cried out the last tears contained inside him through his own long journey through the day, thought of his mother.

  He knew. No, he thought, he understood that she was, now, only a memory for him. And Robey wanted to keep her memory one of his better ones. At least concerning this day in his life. His mother was simply gone. She’d died, and was at rest.

  She was, he told himself, not one of the living dead.

  And, he knew beyond any shadow of doubt that Susann Beckett. Loving, nurturing, angel of mercy Susann Beckett was at rest. He knew that she would never walk with the dead. Robey Paquette had made sure of that. It was his one, tender mercy of the day.

  Robey lay back in the dim light of the kitchen. He’d made a comfortable sleeping pallet out of a bundle of old potato sacks he’d found stashed in a drawer.

  His mind raced, then slowed, then started speeding up again.

  He thought about what Tilde Squire had said about the hospital just outside the door of her kitchen. About how the whole damn thing was one big zombie ward.

  He was on the edge of sleep, and falling fast.

  His mind still tried to remember what she’d said.

  Z Ward!

  That’s what Tilde had called it. Tilde had told them that the whole hospital was just one big Z Ward.

  She was right, he supposed. Sleep, now, laid heavier upon his mind.

  She was right about that, he thought.

  In fact, his last though
t just before he slipped, completely, into the even darker world of dreams.

  The whole world was just one, big Z Ward!

  *the end*

  AUTHOR’S NOTE:

  First, I need to send a big thank you out to my heartfelt thanks to those who’ve been making this journey with the individuals in my stories, and to a lesser extent this author. While I’ve been writing this and that for a good part of my life, it’s only been recently that I’ve found a delivery system from which to launch my, sometimes, crazy ideas. A good number of readers have taken a chance on various works I’ve recently published and I, again, sincerely thank you all for doing so.

  That presented, I know that my writing and, ultimately, my stories are not going to satisfy all readers. And that’s just the way that ball bounces. Having said that, it is my sincere wish that any reader venturing into one of my stories stop reading if you simply just don’t like it. No hard feelings from this end (I’ll stop reading if I’m a quarter into any work it and it’s just not ‘doing it’ for me). I, fully, understand that not all stories are going to please all readers. So, don’t torture yourself, Jut step away from whatever you’re reading and write my name down on your stay the hell away from this guy’s stuff list—done!

  Now, back to those who have just had a pretty good time during their journey through this work.

  So, until next time.

  I’m glad for you, and I’m glad for me. And, again, I most sincerely thank you!

  Jay Mouton

  WORKS BY JAY MOUTON

  Apocalypse Awakening Book I: 2016 It Begins (a novel)

  Apocalypse Awakening Book II: A Prologue to War (a novel)

  Have You Ever Tried to Count the Stars (complete poems)

  Z Fever (a novella)

  Assassination America (a novel)

  Incident at Moccasin Creek (a novel)

  American Jihadi (a novel)