“Kevin! Snap out of it! Move your ass into the bathroom! Move your ass!!” she yelled. I finally got moving, following Michelle. She started the water running, adjusted the temperature, then turned to me. “Get in the shower! But don’t take your pants off!” I stepped into the shower and paused. Michele stripped down to her t-shirt and panties, grabbed her medical kit and took out a pair of scissors and flashlight. Kneeling on the shower floor, she cut the bottom half of the pant leg off, nicking me in the process. Her hands were shaking.
“Ow!” I said.
“Shut up.” she said matter of factly. I started to unbuckle my pants so I could take what was left of my jeans off. I didn’t want to shower with pants on.
“Do. Not. Move.” she commanded as she put a small LED flashlight she’d fished from her bag into her mouth and illuminated the wound. “This might sting.”
“Geez, Michelle, if you wanted to get kinky, your lingerie would have worked just as well,” I joked lamely, “but I thought I was the Dom! Where’s the paddle?!”
“Shut up.” she said again, her voice muffled by the flashlight. She grabbed some gauze, hastily poured hydrogen peroxide directly on the gash, then started to clean it. She was right; it did sting. When she’d cleaned it, she gently pulled the skin back and examined it in the bluish light of the LEDs.
“It’s a deep cut,” she said, “but no major arteries were hit. That’s what I was worried about.” Without warning, she poured isopropyl alcohol into the wound.
“Aaauugh!” I hollered. “Damn, that really hurts!”
“Sorry, I don’t have any saline to irrigate it with. But don’t worry, the worst is yet to come,” she said. “Get undressed.” I quickly pulled off my sodden shoes and socks, the remainder of my soaking jeans, and my wet shirt.
“I didn’t know we were having a wet t-shirt contest today,” I said. “I think you’re going to win.” Despite everything, I couldn’t help but notice her nipples and areola though her wet shirt. She didn’t grace me with a response.
She grabbed some adhesive tape and taped the gauze on top of the wound. It was immediately soaked with blood. She ignored this and overlapped more strips of tape on top, effectively making it waterproof. Then she turned on the shower and told me to get busy washing.
“Use plenty of soap,” she ordered as she turned to leave the bathroom. “And I mean plenty of soap.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get you some bourbon and something to bite down on. This next part’s going to be tough.”
I washed my body from head to toe, seeing bits of decomposed flesh fall down onto the shower floor. It must have been lodged in my hair. It began to freak me out. I washed my hair over and over. When Michelle came back she had a highball of bourbon and several washcloths, one of them rolled up. I held the highball out of the water. She got in the shower, still wearing her wet underwear, and proceeded to roughly wash me all over with soap and the washcloth.
“I already did that,” I protested. I expected her to tell me to shut up again, but she didn’t say anything, she just kept on washing. After she’d thoroughly scrubbed me, she nodded to the glass of bourbon.
“Drink that.” She said with a matter of fact tone of voice.
“Is this the good stuff or the cheap stuff?” I asked. She raised her head to glare at me.
I glanced away and drank the bourbon. It felt like fire in my stomach, and the warmth spread through my body. She took the tape and gauze off the wound. She handed me the rolled up washcloth and said, “Lean back against the wall and bite down on this.”
“Wait!” I said. I reached down and pulled the Petoskey stone out of my pants pocket which lay in a heap on the shower floor. I then put the washcloth in my mouth as I squeezed the Petoskey stone in my hand.
I leaned against the wall, all the weight on my left leg. She took the remaining wash cloth, poured alcohol onto it, pulled back the flap of skin, and began to scrub the wound. Now I knew why she gave me the wash cloth to bite down on. I’d never felt pain like this. Through squinting and watering eyes, I looked down and saw the floor of the shower turning pink with my blood. She kept scrubbing, continuing to add alcohol liberally. After about three minutes, she sighed and said, “That’s the best I can do.”
She turned off the water and I stood there, dripping wet and tears still leaking out of my closed eyes. As soon as she stopped scrubbing, the respite from the pain was such a relief I couldn’t even speak. I rested my head back against the shower wall, and willed my pain receptors to back off and my heart to slow down. My breathing became regular.
She got out of the shower and reached into her bag, pulling out a needle and thread. With tears in her eyes, she said, “I’m sorry, Kevin, I know this is going to hurt. But I have to.” She held her free hand out to me and helped me to the toilet seat where I sat with my leg propped up. She proceeded to suture the wound. By now the bourbon had kicked in. It didn’t help much, but it made the pain a little soft around the edges. Compared to the scrubbing, suturing the wound was actually tolerable. When she was finished bandaging my leg she put her arm around me and helped me hop to the bed. A bit ago she brought me my laptop. So here I am.
My leg has started to ache, and she says she’s bringing me some Motrin, then a Lortab later to help me sleep. But first she wants to talk to Doc.
My hand hurts from squeezing the Petoskey stone so tight.
New Year’s Eve
After I finished writing yesterday, she brought me the Motrin and ordered me to stay in bed. I got bored and asked her to bring me a book. I didn’t even care what, just something to pass the time. She brought me the Bible. At least it was The Message, not the King James Version. I spent some time reading Ecclesiastes, getting a fresh take on the words Much learning earns you much trouble. The more you know, the more you hurt.
At 8:55, she came in with the shortwave radio and turned it on. Then we sat there waiting. Finally, we heard him give his call sign then say “Kevin, are you on tonight?”
I spoke into the mic “I’m here, for better or for worse.”
“Oh? Something going on?”
I told him about the zombies in the house, and how I’d chopped my leg with the axe while dispatching them. He asked Michelle a few questions, and she described how she’d cleaned the wound and stitched it.
“You sutured his leg? Ever done that before?”
“On occasion,” she replied. “I’m a Nurse Practitioner, or I was. I put a few stitches in now and then when the situation called for it. Plus my father was a doctor and I’ve watched him sew folks up plenty of times. I also stitched up Kevin after he’d been shot by the intruders.”
“Good girl! What did you use for an anesthetic?”
“I gave him some bourbon when I was cleaning it out, which may have been a mistake, because then I couldn’t give him anything else for a while except Motrin. So basically he didn’t have any anesthetic.”
“Kevin, how’d you do?”
“It hurt. But I behaved.”
“Good man. I know it was tough.”
“So Doc, here’s the thing. Since the axe had zombie skin and tissue on it, we’re afraid he may be infected.”
“You mean, infected so he’s going to become a zombie?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what we mean.”
Doc was silent for a moment. “Back when the web was still up, a lot of doctors were discussing this. The docs who worked in the city had the most experience. They claimed it was only through the bite of a zombie that someone could become infected. Zombie flesh is not contagious. That didn’t make sense to the rest of us, but they swore they saw it over and over. So, if they were right, I don’t think Kevin’s at much risk.”
I was very relieved, and saw Michelle’s eyes mist up.
“But let me reiterate: I don’t think he’s at much risk. Michelle, you’re going to want to monitor him for the next 48 hours. It’s possible the doctors were wrong, or the disease has mutated.”
“Meanwhile, if you have any antibiotic ointment, spread it on a couple times a day. Do you have any antibiotics by chance?”
“Yes, I have a full bottle of Amoxicillin.”
“That’s great. If you see any signs of infection—you know what to look for—start him on a one week regimen. And Kevin.” he said, “stay off your feet as much as you can. You don’t want to break those stitches.”
“Fine.” I said. By then my leg was throbbing and I was getting grumpy.
“Michelle, why don’t you and I have a little talk of our own? How about an hour from now?”
“I was thinking the same thing. I could use your advice.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested, “why do you two need to talk alone?”
“Kevin, he’s a doctor. I’m a nurse. He’s going to ask me a few more questions and answer a few of mine. I need medical advice, and you probably don’t want to hear the details. Besides, I think it’s time to give you a Lortab and let you sleep.”
“Fine,” I said again. I didn’t like being left out of the conversation.
“Doc, I’m going to go ahead and medicate him PRN unless you think he needs to QID. Talk to you at 2200.” Michelle said, slipping into nurse-speak. Doc wished us luck and signed off.
Inwardly, I was freaking out, although I did my best to hide it. I had just fallen in love; I wanted to live. I wanted to protect her, wanted a life together. I didn’t want to be a zombie. I didn’t want to eat her except in the Latin sense.
She brought me a Lortab a while ago. I was glad to get it, because my leg had started to ache. Now I’m getting sleepy. I don’t think I’ll be awake to see in the New Year.
January 3rd
Michelle has been hovering over me the past couple of days. I stayed off my feet for the first day, but for crying out loud, it’s not a major wound. I only have a dozen or so stitches, and it’s not likely I’ll be ripping them out by over-exerting myself here in the basement.
I suspect Michelle and the doctor were discussing what to look for if I started to turn into a zombie. This is uncharted territory for all of us. But so far so good. Yesterday it started looking infected, but in a normal way—it was getting very red and hot. Michelle took my temperature and I had a low grade fever as well, so she broke out the Amoxicillin. We know we have to be very careful with the antibiotic—once it’s gone, as far as we know we’ll never have any more.
I could tell she was really worried about me turning. It seems like she checked on me every five minutes, and I caught her looking at me with a funny look in her eyes.
Would I be able to tell if I was turning, or would I feel fine one minute and then the next minute start thinking, Gee, her thigh smells good. I wonder what it would taste like?
I finally had a talk with her. We were sitting together on the sofa, my leg propped up. “Look,” I said, “we might as well talk about it. There’s still a chance I could turn. I don’t know if I’ll be aware I’m turning—does it happen slowly, and you can feel it, or is it like falling asleep a man and waking up a zombie?”
“I don’t know,” Michelle admitted.
“But I think you would know if I was changing. I suspect you’d be able to tell the difference between me having an infection and me turning into a zombie. Michelle,” I said, bringing my fingers to her chin and turning her face up to look at me. “If I start to turn, I’ll have to be shot in the head. One of us will have to shoot me. You know I’m right.”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“You might have to do it. You’ll have to lure me upstairs and outside. And you’ll have to shoot me in the head. It would be far more loving of you to shoot me in the head than to let me turn. I can’t imagine how insanely horrible it would be for you to see me out there, shuffling along, making weird noises, knowing I’d attack you without hesitation and start eating you—“
“All right, Kevin, I get your point, you don’t have to be melodramatic about it,” Michelle said crossly.
“I hate to say it like this, but you’ll do it if you love me. You won’t let me turn. And I won’t let you turn either.” Although if it was her, and I had to shoot her, I’d shoot myself too, I thought. “The best and only way we could honor each other, and honor our love, would be for us to not let the other turn.”
Michelle abruptly got up without so much as a glance in my direction and went upstairs, terminating our conversation.
What does a zombie get when he shows up late to the dinner party? The cold shoulder. That’s what I got the rest of the night.
January 4th
Today my fever is gone and the wound looks a little better—more pink than red. She’s still watching me pretty closely, but I actually made her laugh today. Tonight she put on her flannel pajamas again. If she doesn’t come to bed naked, she probably won’t be getting naked.
Even so, I’m going to finish this entry and see if I can get in her pants. They probably won’t fit.
January 6th
It appears I won’t live out my all-American boyhood dream of being a zombie. The Amoxicillin has knocked out the infection and the gash is healing nicely. It really wasn’t such a big deal, I don’t know why they over-reacted like they did. Michelle and the doctor keep having these private conversations, and I must admit the crazy part of me keeps whispering in my ear, wondering what’s up.
I finally did the smart thing and point blank asked her, “What is it you and Doc keep talking about?”
“You really wouldn’t want to know, Kevin. It’s a woman thing.” That’s the code women use for having plumbing issues and, truthfully, men really don’t want to hear about it.
At one point in the past, I was the sole male in an office filled with females. I swore I’d never work with women again. They were constantly going on about cramps, and bloating, and how heavy the flow was, and getting a D&C (whatever that is!), boob jobs and labiaplasty. I can’t tell you the number of times I left the room, embarrassed. So I suppose she’s right, I don’t want to know any more detail than she gave me.
Michelle mentioned something today I hadn’t thought of. We’d left all those zombie bodies upstairs, and the ones we destroyed are still all over the lawn and in the street. I’d say there’s at least forty of them.
The problem is, if we leave them there, it’s going to really stink upstairs. I’d rather not have to put up with the smell of rotting zombies. And once it gets warm, we’ll have flies and who knows what kind of rodents and disease.
But the real problem isn’t inside, it’s outside. We can’t leave all those bodies just lying there. We have to get rid of them, and we’d better do it while they’re still frozen. If for no other reason, having all those dead zombies in front of our house is a sure-fire way to let someone know the house is occupied.
She checked my wound and was visibly pleased. She said I could pretty much do anything I want, so I reached out and cupped her breasts in my hands. She slapped them away. “That’s not what I meant.” Can’t blame a guy for trying!
Since there’s no sign of infection, we agreed to go upstairs and take a look around. We looked at the bodies in the house and the bodies outside, then talked about where we should take them. The best place to get rid of them is in one of the ruins of a burned house. There are several on our block. Realistically, we can’t take them much further, since we’ll be hauling them by hand and they can be very heavy.
I’m glad it’s as cold as it is—they were already smelling pretty bad. I can’t imagine how they would smell come spring or summer. Having them frozen also helped keep the bodies intact. It would be gross to have one fall apart while we’re hauling it, and then have to pick up the rotting pieces.
We got a couple of large cardboard boxes from Michelle’s house and figured out how to rig them together so we could haul the zombies across the snow. It worked for the most part, but even so, it was quite a task to pull three hundred and fifty pounds (give or take) down the street, a
nd find a place to dump them. We made six trips today and got rid of 13 bodies. This will take a number of days. It’s disgusting work, so gross to have to dig them out of the snow.
When we were finished, my leg hurt. It still looked fine and I didn’t let on I was in pain, but I could tell I’d done enough for one day. Tomorrow we’ll do more. I figure it will take another three days minimum. My shoulder is aching as well. I suppose I should get used to these aches and pains.
One strange thing happened today that played right into my paranoia. We finished hauling for the day, and Michelle headed downstairs. I figured I’d check the dishwasher to see if we’d left any trash in there we should also haul off. When I opened it I found a bunch of photos of Wayne and Michelle along with the notes from the CDs, stacked neatly. I felt compelled to look at them all, and again they made me very uncomfortable. Half jealous, half mad. The paranoid part of me said, She hid these up here so she could look at them without you noticing! But the sane part of me said, No, she put them up here because this is where the trash goes. Honestly, I believe she threw them away, but I’m not completely able to silence the other voice.
I was still on edge when I went downstairs, so I grabbed a growler of beer and put it outside, right next to the door. In a little while I’ll retrieve it, once it’s cold. I drank one pint when it was still warm.
I haven’t brewed any beer in a long time. Truth is, I’m still trying to finish off the last batch I made. It tasted great, but I just haven’t been into alcohol as much as I was a few months back. That’s probably a good sign, right?
Dear Tammy,
My friend Rich, when I was undergoing “cognitive therapy” with him, once advised me to write letters to people who had positively or negatively affected my life, and with all my confusing emotions right now, I figured maybe I should write to you.
First off, Tammy, I miss you. Last night I dreamt I was sitting comfortably in the upstairs living room when you came bursting through the door, weeping. You ran over to me, put your hands on either side of my face, and smothered me with kisses.
Love in the Age of Zombies (Book 1): My Zombie Honeymoon Page 24
