Dead Shelter Smashwords

by A. Rosaria

  “God,” she said, not knowing why she said that. She was not a believer. Could it be that in times of need everyone sort of became one? That was… the thought had vanished. She tried to think back, but her head was getting lighter. A sharp pain went up from her arm to the rest of her body. She twisted on the mattress, gasping for air, crying out in pain. The RV started spinning around her, and the color became brighter and brighter until it formed one large source of blinding light and shrunk to a dime-sized white sun. Within seconds, darkness swept over her, drowning her consciousness in its depths.

  ****

  Sound, all around her, inside her, vibrating, from a slow hum to louder and louder and louder. Her eyes fluttered open to a bright light. The curtains were open and the sunlight shone in. When had she opened the curtains?

  “Ralph?”

  No answer.

  It was getting tiresome. Had he return from wherever he went and left again before she woke up? The pain intensified behind her eyes with every unanswered thought. How long had she been sleeping? No, she hadn‘t fallen asleep, she had passed out; she remembered that now. Intense pain erupted in her arm. It still throbbed where her brother had bitten her. Little baby Benny, with his little baby teeth, sharp enough to break her skin. The bite wound was infected. Infected from just a shallow bite. While Ralph‘s wounds were worse than hers, he never slowed down. She was the one who got ill and dragged them to a standstill. Apparently, not everyone who caught the flu was immune. She wasn‘t, though obviously Ralph was. Lucky him. She in turn might die and become one of them.

  She heard footsteps coming from the outside. Someone was there and not answering her.

  “Ralph!” She tried to yell, but it came out just a bit louder than before. The pain was much worse. It was barely a whisper.

  The footfalls outside stopped. What if it wasn‘t Ralph? What if it was one of the walkers? Deaders, zombies, or whatever. What if it was only a delirious dream? The RV spun whenever she opened her eyes, and the sound around her had a dreamlike echo to it.

  The click-clack of the RV door handle startled her. It was locked. If it was Ralph trying to get in, he would be out of luck; she had no strength left in her to open the door for him. She could barely lift her head. The waves of pain kept her grounded and the listlessness made it worse.

  Muffled voices from the outside reached her. Was it her mind playing tricks on her? She tried to concentrate, but through the throbbing in her head and her heart thumping in her eardrums, she couldn‘t make out what was being said. When would it stop? When? She wanted to press her hands against her temples and squeeze the pain out, to press so hard that she even squashed the infection out of her veins. But, she only managed a whimper and slight movement of her hands before she had to drop them back down.

  For a moment, there came no sound from outside. She lay there on the mattress, staring at the ceiling. Her mind blank. Some semblance of thinking came back to her. Her eyes turned in her sockets, and the thought of smoking came back fresh in her mind. Never having smoked, she wondered what it would taste like. What made it so good that so many people seemed to enjoy it?

  Pain shot up her arm. She grimaced in confusion, tried to look, but her head barely moved. Sarah sighed. The bite wound, of course. It was killing her. Killing her, because she wasn‘t immune like Ralph. Ralph? Ralph was gone! He went out, but she couldn‘t remember where or why. Her throat was dry; she could barely swallow. It hurt all over, especially her head.

  Shuffling sounds from outside. Footsteps. She breathed faster; her face lit up. He had returned. Ralph was back. Her face darkened. No, that was not it. Hadn‘t she already gone through this déjà vu. This wasn‘t real, was it?

  Someone tried the door handle on the driver‘s side. Someone tried to get in. A zombie. She tried to stand and an all-engulfing pain washed over her. She writhed on the mattress. Calm down, calm down, she whimpered to herself. Zombies didn‘t open doors.

  Muffled talking came from the outside. More than one person. Not zombies. Worse, living humans, soldiers maybe. They would find her and kill her before she turned, like she would do if she found someone with a bite wound. Not true, she wouldn‘t do that, would she? Shoot someone in cold blood. She wouldn‘t do something like that. A bite wound wouldn‘t necessarily kill someone. Ralph was bitten all over. It would be a shame if someone shot him for that. The bite didn‘t kill, the infection did; the infection turned you. Not Ralph though. Never Ralph. A mad chuckle escaped her lips, which surprised her and made her giggle.

  Her thoughts trailed away, riding the waves of the numbing pain. The voices outside drifted off and her consciousness floated to darkness. Before she was swallowed whole by the nothingness, she heard the breaking of glass.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I saw him move. I saw him move.”

  “You see everything move, all the time. I knocked him out good. You just had to step in with your drivel, didn‘t you?”

  Ralph held his eyes shut while the man and the child argued. He had been sure he was done for. To his surprise, he woke up still breathing. He stirred and froze immediately when the kid start squealing when he saw him move. Instinctively, he played dead. He wanted to know something about his captors before waking up.

  “He‘s not dead.”

  “Have you seen the bite wounds on him? He might as well be.”

  “He‘s not a zombie!”

  A rough hand pulled Ralph faceup, and moved his head from side to side. He could smell the man‘s breakfast on his fingers—fresh tuna with onions. With some effort, he kept from wrinkling his nose.

  “You‘re right, he‘s not a zombie, and his wounds are scalded over, and no sign of an infection.”

  “I told you so! Didn‘t I? I told you so!”

  “Easy, Skip. It is still weird what is going on here. You wouldn‘t understand.”

  “I‘m not dumb! I know things! Many things!”

  “No, you sure ain‘t dumb, just got the wrong hand of cards dealt to you when God was dealing brains.”

  The man let go of Ralph‘s chin and checked the ropes tied around his hands.

  “By right he should be dead by now and turned into one of them things. They all do once bitten.”

  “No, no, no, they don‘t. They just don‘t. I know this.”

  The man drew back from Ralph. Footsteps moved away from him. A door opened and closed. They left, leaving him alone. This was the chance he hoped for. He opened his eyes to a tall, plump man, wearing blue bib overalls without a t-shirt underneath, looking back at him slack jawed. Ralph was sure he had been alone. The man must have sent the boy outside and fooled him.

  “Frank, Frank, he moved. He moved his eyes,” Skip said with a too high-pitched voice for a man his size.

  Frank came running in. He was a slender man in blue Dockers and a black shirt, a black gray streaked beard, and with just as much wild black hair on top of his head. He had a rifle in his hand, which he pointed at Ralph‘s head. His piercing blue eyes were cold, making his intent clear in what would happen if Ralph made the wrong move or even dared say the wrong thing. Ralph made sure not to growl. That would put Frank off.

  “You better not move.”

  No shit. With a gun pointed at him and his hands tied behind his back, he would be a fool if he did. Ralph looked from Skip and back to Frank. Skip‘s eyes were wide with wonder, an innocent curiosity you didn‘t often see, if ever, in older men. Frank on the other hand was full of distrust. He held the gun purposely on him, ready to shoot at a moment‘s notice, and for all Ralph knew, maybe the man was wishing he would move so that he had a reason to kill him.

  “Frank, don‘t shoot him. He‘s not a zombie.”

  “You already told me so.”

  “He‘s right,” Ralph said. “I‘m not a zombie. Zombies don‘t talk.”

  Frank pointed the rifle at his bite mark. “Maybe not, but who knows. Maybe that will still get you later.”

  They didn‘t know. No one around them must h
ave survived a bite or not turning into a zombie after being killed. Or it could be that maybe they never gave anyone a chance to do so. A shot to the head at the first bite you got. Frank did seem like the kind that didn‘t like taking chances. Must have been why he survived.

  Ralph shook his head. “I‘ll never become one of them.”

  “Stop talking shit. I‘ve seen men die from the slightest scratch and turn. I‘ve seen men shot, die, and turn. You don‘t even have to be bitten to become one of them, just dying is enough. You choke to death, you become one of them; you are bitten, it‘s a given you become one.”

  “No, it‘s not,” Skip said, laughing. “Not everyone becomes a zombie. Some just don‘t.”

  “Yeah, you say that about everything.”

  What was the meaning of this? It was obvious he was not a zombie or turning into one. He wasn‘t even feverish and sickly. These men didn‘t seem to be the bad sort, but they were overly cautious, especially Frank. Skip seemed all right. He might even have him to thank for the fact that he was still breathing. From what he heard, Frank wouldn‘t have had a second thought about braining him. Ralph touched his temple and winced. Knocked him out good, wasn‘t that what he said? He had indeed.

  “Look, Frank, I mean you guys no harm. I‘m only looking for medicine and was minding my own business before you guys came and knocked me out.”

  “I didn‘t do that,” Skip said in a long whine. “It was Frank. He didn‘t listen to me, never does.”

  “I stopped in time, didn‘t I?”

  Ralph raised his hands. “Can you please let me go?”

  Skip was about to cut the rope with a small pocket knife when Frank stopped him. He sized Ralph up, grumbled, and brandished a large knife.

  “Convince me to use this knife on the ropes instead of on you.”

  “I‘ve got no fever, no infection. I‘m not slowly turning pale or talking gibberish.”

  “I know that already. I can see that for myself, but how is it possible?”

  “Not everyone got the flu, and those who did, not all turned.” Ralph raised his arms, showing his scar. “And not everybody who gets bitten turns. I‘m immune. I can‘t become one of them, and most survivors are somehow resistant to them. However, they turn once they die. A bite might kill, if the wound gets infected, but it‘s not a given, and an infection itself is treatable.”

  His thoughts turned back to Sarah who needed him. Who knew how long she still had without being treated. She needed the antibiotics and if he kept diddling here with these two, he might never get it to her in time. Small chance she would get better without the medicine. She had been in and out of consciousness since they found the RV. God, even if the infection didn‘t get her, dehydration would. He didn‘t dare think what could happen if he was too late, what he would find in the RV once he returned.

  “Look, I need to go. My friend is ill and I need to find antibiotics for her.”

  Skip bounced about as he yelled, “I told you so. I told you so. You should have listened. You never do. You never do.”

  Frank‘s face lost all color. “You‘re telling me the truth, are you?” He asked it with some hope in his eyes that Ralph would deny it.

  Ralph nodded.

  With trembling hands, Frank cut the ropes. He kept saying sorry, but Ralph had the impression it was not all directed at him. Skip held Ralph‘s rucksack and shotgun for him to take. Packed and loaded, he was ready to continue his search.

  “Wait,” Skip said, “there is no medicine in this place. You better leave.”

  “I‘ve not checked the basement yet.”

  “No! Not the basement,” Skip yammered. “Bad place, don‘t go there.”

  Frank grabbed his gear and pushed a backpack in Skip‘s arms. “You better listen to him. I didn‘t and paid the price. He knows things he shouldn‘t know. You got that? If he gets some bad vibe about this place, you better heed his warning. You ask me, I think they holed up in there and took everything with them. These old buildings—some of them have underground shelters from when people still feared a nuclear attack. They never would have imagined what finally brought humanity down.”

  Frank was right. His history teacher talked about the Cold War in class. Ralph smiled ruefully. No more classes for him—ever. The teacher was dead and so was the school system. He wished nothing had happened, that he had gotten his F on his history exam and gotten a scolding from his mother, that everything was just a bad dream and he would wake up with an angry teacher standing over him threatening detention. No, this was all too real. His life as he knew it was over. There was no turning back ever again. He needed to deal with that and do what he came to do.

  “I need to go if the medicine I seek is there. I really have no choice.”

  “There is always a choice.” Teary eyed and with trembling lips, Skip watched him go while Frank looked away. They didn‘t try to stop him.

  Ralph left the room. They seemed like nice guys, but he wasn‘t sure they were up to helping him, or if it was right for him to expect them to. He could handle himself well enough. He just hoped it wasn‘t that bad, that whoever was holed up downstairs wasn‘t paranoid and willing to shoot him on sight, not minding if he was alive or dead. The shelter, more likely a bunker if it was supposed to keep people safe from a nuclear blast, must be a place zombies couldn‘t get in. He stopped walking and uttered a curse. If the thing was built to keep everything out, how would he get in? Time would tell. He would worry about that when he got there.

  He pressed on to the flight of stairs and went down. The smell that came up from downstairs told him all he needed to know. Corpses were down there. He fully expected to see the floor littered with them, but there was none, only one large steel door a foot thick and wide open. Out of it came the smell of rotten meat. Someone had opened the door from the inside and gotten out after all. Survivors chased by the zombies, maybe all the way out of town. It seemed unlikely, but possible since he hadn‘t seen one zombie in this town. It could be that a large group lingered on the outskirts, that somehow, some unlucky bastard got every zombie to chase him out of town. It stank, but he saw not one corpse lying down or walking about.

  Could it be that, despite everything, his luck had turned? For a second, his face lit up at that thought, until he remembered that luck had left this world a long time ago, and that any feeling of luck would be fast fleeting. All that was left was horrendous, bad, and less bad on a good day. He hoped this was his less bad day and that he would find what he was looking for without it turning into a disaster.

  With the shotgun leading, he stepped over the high threshold. Not much light came in from the open door. The place had an earthy smell, which was now overpowered by the smell of decay. He paused a moment, listening. No moans or other sounds. It was quiet, eerily so. He went in, passing empty room after empty room. In the back of the corridor, he could choose left or right. To the right led to a similar hallway as the one he came through, while to his left led to a single twin door with a note taped on it at eye level.

  Ralph grabbed the note. Three words were written on it in big sticky scrawl: Do Not Enter.

  He pressed his ear against the cold metal door and listened. Again nothing, only silence met him. There wasn‘t much choice left for him. There was no other place where he could find the medicine he needed for Sarah. Besides, he had come this far, he might just as well take the next step and enter this room. If this turned out to be a bust, he would return to Sarah‘s side. At least then he could take care of her, preventing her from turning. It was something he wasn‘t sure he could stomach. Shooting Sarah was not the same as shooting that girl in the schoolyard when he tried saving Lilly. He knew Sarah. Without her, he would be dead by now. He owed her one, and besides, the situation was different.

  The muscles in the back of his neck tensed as his hand closed around the door handle, then relaxed just a little when the door was not locked, only to tighten again when he actually opened the door. He backed away when he pushed
the door open, expecting the zombies to come pouring out and attack him. The door opened to a dark room; a whiff of rot assaulted his nostrils. He grabbed his flashlight from his backpack. Its beam cut through the darkness as a circle of light lit the checkered linoleum floor. Swinging the light in front of him, he walked into the large room. Rows and rows of tables and empty seats. It must be the mess hall he was now standing in. The light paused ahead; the beam engulfed a large pile of stacked boxes and bags.

  Ralph yelled in triumph as he ran to the pile. He grabbed one of the boxes and tore it open. It contained ampoules. Forgetting everything else around him he read the labels, persantin. Not what he was seeking, but there was more than this. He had found the stashed medicines. Now he only needed to find the right ones. The day was turning out to be a little-less-bad-luck day after all.

  He started opening boxes, searching for anything resembling antibiotics. While he was busy, he didn‘t hear the shuffled footfalls coming nearer to him. Deep in thought, he focused only on finding the antibiotics for Sarah, not listening to the warning signs around him: the soft moaning, the smell of decay ever increasing as it grew thicker by the second. It wasn‘t until he heard the moan behind him that he moved. Whirling around, the flashlight lit the faces of the dead fast approaching.

  Nurses, doctors, patients, hospital staff, and visitors, all zombiefied, and out to get him. They almost had him surrounded. Having no time to feel stupid, he rushed forward before the gap between a nurse and elderly lady closed. He dodged their fingers grabbing for him, and pushed the elderly lady zombie over. A large man with half his face missing stumbled in his way. Ralph ducked under one big arm, twirled around the zombie, and ran a few steps backward before turning to the door and his escape. He collided with a petite doctor in scrubs and they went down, arms entangled. In life, she must have been fit. He could feel her muscular build. In death, the strength and vigor had not left her. The zombie grabbed for his hair, trying to pull his head back and sink its teeth into his neck. A bite might not turn him, but a torn carotid artery would kill him, and not quickly enough to save him the pain of being eaten alive.