Skylar and I huddled by the door, watching with mute despair as the doctor began his makeshift surgery. When Michael joined us, Skye handed him a towel from the bundle she clutched. He was covered in blood from moving poor Dog to his room, and he accepted it without a word to wipe himself down.
Once he was as clean as he could be, Michael tossed the towel out into the hall and looked around to check on the rest of his group. He took one look at me then put an arm around me and pulled me up against his side. My expression must have been transparent as glass – I was pretty upset. Okay, really, really upset. I felt no desire to protest, strike him or shove him off. I just hugged him back in silence, shaking like a leaf from the adrenaline and horror of it all.
I’d seen wounds before, terrible wounds, even wounds that I’d inflicted – but I’d never felt so helpless.
Ryan returned, out of breath from his run.
"The doors are all locked, I don't think anything followed him in," he announced breathlessly and joined us in our huddle. He took Skylar's hand to comfort her, and looked around at the rest of us. "There's blood everywhere. Is he...?"
"He's alive, but I don’t know how much longer he’ll last." Skylar’s voice was grim.
I half-expected the doctor to yell at us and tell us not to give up hope, but he was too busy to even notice us. This was not some TV drama where the patient always makes a miraculous recovery by the end of the episode. Our reality was so much more brutal.
A life hung by the slenderest of threads.
With a flash of guilt, I realised that it came down to me, one choice made in a heartbeat. If I’d slept a little bit deeper, then we would have awoken come morning to find nothing but a corpse in a puddle of blood. It might have even been Madeline that found him. Somehow, that thought was even more horrifying than anything else.
I’d almost missed the sound of the poor boy’s struggles. I’d almost decided to just roll over and go back to sleep. Tears welled up in my eyes and I brushed them away hurriedly, trying to reassure myself that there was nothing more I could have done. But try as I might, I couldn’t quite shake the unreasonable feeling that somehow, this was my fault.
The four of us stood dumbly for ten minutes before Skye excused herself to go check on Madeline, and Ryan left to go start the job of cleaning up the blood before it congealed. Michael offered to help him, but Ryan declined. Someone needed to stay with the Doc in case he needed anything.
He was right, of course, so we stayed. One by one, the doctor stitched torn flesh back together where possible, or bound it as best as he could where it was not, until the youth was a mass of bandages with just one eye and a patch of soft brown skin visible. The eye was closed in blessed, drug-induced sleep.
Thankfully, Dr Cross stockpiled anaesthetics. Just looking at those injuries made me feel nauseated – I could only imagine how poor Dog felt. It seemed like it was only sheer willpower that had kept him alive for so long.
At last, exhausted, Dr Cross sat back and looked at us. His face was a mask of regret. "That’s the best I can do, but he’s lost a lot of blood. He needs a blood transfusion, but even with one I'm not sure he'll live."
"But there’s a chance he’ll survive?" Michael asked, his voice sharp and hard.
Dr Cross hesitated, then shrugged. "There's always a chance."
Michael nodded curtly and slipped his arm out from around me. He moved past me, further into the room, and dragged a worn old chair close to the bed so that he could sit down. He offered his arm to the doctor without a word, who stared back at him in confusion.
"What are you—"
"I'm O-negative, the universal donor. Do it." Michael’s voice was a hiss; looking startled, the doctor nodded and started setting up his equipment for a transfusion.
Great, more needles. I already felt queasy, but at the same time I didn’t want to leave Michael to suffer alone. That seemed so wrong. Although my moral code might have been a little askew after all these years, I still had one. Michael was my friend, and he was doing something very brave. He deserved my support. Lacking any other option that was remotely useful, I sat down on the floor beside his chair and rested my head against his leg.
He looked surprised by the gesture, and stared down at me thoughtfully. I felt a gentle hand stroke my hair as we both tried to ignore the needle being inserted into his arm. Even though no words passed between us, there was a silent understanding: I was offering comfort, and he was accepting it. I took his hand in mine and put my cheek against it, giving him what support I could from simple closeness and human warmth.
It was true that I was socially retarded, but I wasn’t without instincts. There were risks associated with what he was doing, but I understood why he had to do it. It was his friend’s life at stake. If there was even the slimmest chance that he could help, then any risk was worth it. If he didn’t, how would he live with himself afterwards?
I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the metallic scent of blood, just waiting for it to be over.
***
When the transfusion was done, I helped Michael back to his room. He was pale and shaky from blood loss and did not complain when I tucked him back into bed with doctor's orders to stay put. Feeling unexpectedly protective, I brought him some fruit and water a few minutes later, and waited with him while he ate.
When he finally closed his eyes to rest, I left him to it. I closed the door softly and padded back out into the hallway with barefoot stealth, to check on the doctor and Dog.
The doctor looked exhausted, and was intensely focused on his patient. I suspected that he would get so wrapped up in his patient he’d forget about himself, so I brought him some food and water as well.
It took a fair amount of bullying to get him to take food with his patient struggling for life. Eventually, I managed to convince him that Dog stood no chance at all if his doctor fainted from hunger when he needed him most. When I was sure I could trust him to take care of his own needs as well, I departed and went off to check on the others.
Maddy was still sleeping, innocent as the child she was, so I left her in peace. I found Ryan and Skylar hard at work mopping up blood, so I joined them instead. Three sets of hands would make the work go faster, and there was an awful lot of blood. We worked in silence for some time, until Skye finally got up to go take the soiled towels off to be washed, leaving me alone with Ryan.
His head came up and he watched her until she was out of earshot. When she was gone, he turned to me with a worried look on his face.
"Skye told me what you said to her yesterday, about the immunity."
My heart sank, but I nodded. "I only know what I’ve read. I don't know if there’s more to it, or maybe they were wrong."
"We don't want to risk it." His voice was soft. "We're going to leave, go south, try and find a little farm somewhere. We want our baby to be born as far away from danger as possible."
This time my heart went the exact opposite direction and leapt up into my throat. "You're leaving? Have you– have you told Michael yet?"
"Not yet. We only decided last night." Ryan looked down at the puddle he was mopping, a myriad of emotions playing across his face. "We're not really a hundred per cent sure what we’re going to do. From what you've said, there's a whole bunch of other dangers out there. And now these– things, these mutants, killing us one by one."
"You're just thinking about your baby's safety. I understand." I felt sick at the thought of losing my sister after I'd only just found her, but equally sick about leaving sweet Michael and little Maddy behind. And the doctor, too. I was still a little uncertain about how I felt, but I understood why he’d said those awful things about me and I was in the process of forgiving him. "Maybe we should all go. It would be safer in numbers."
Ryan looked at me with a mixture of hope and despair. "Do you think they would?"
"I don't know. But like you said, it's not safe here anymore." I tossed a bloody towel out of the way, then I looked at his earnest young f
ace and offered him a faint smile. "We'll talk about it with Michael when he recovers. I know a place we could go, for a while at least."
"Really?" His expression brightened.
"Yeah, there's this town south of here that I spent some time in." It felt strange to willingly share my haven with others, but it also felt like the right thing to do. "It's as safe as any other place I’ve seen down there. It could probably be even safer if we put a little effort in to fortifying it."
He nodded, and hope brought a smile to his freckled face. I offered a silent prayer that I wasn’t leading the lad to his death, or worse.
Only time would tell.
***
In spite of everyone's best efforts, the kid named Dog died two days later, surrounded by the group of survivors he'd come to call his family. Just before he passed, he managed to tell Michael what happened to him with awkward, one-handed sign language.
"He was with his dog when they attacked him." Michael was translating for us, signing back to the boy to confirm he understood what he was being told. The boy nodded stiffly, his one good eye almost glazed over. "Several infected knocked him down, and they were eating him when his dog attacked them. His dog fought for him while he ran away, and then he came home as fast as he could."
Eating him? I felt sick at the thought and leaned against Skylar for support. Judging by how pale she was, she was caught up on the same word as well.
Dog’s hand was trembling as he signed, making it hard for Michael to understand him.
"What?" Michael looked confused and upset, signing to the young boy and speaking out loud for our sake. "Of course you'll go to Heaven one day, son, but not yet."
Dog smiled weakly up at him and shook his head, then signed one last sentence before he rested his head back on his pillow and closed his eye. With one last deep, rattling breath, he left our mortal world of suffering to explore whatever lay beyond.
We all knew instinctively that he was gone, even before the doctor leaned over to check his pulse. Skye burst into tears and hugged me, while I stood dumbstruck, not sure how to feel. I hadn't known him at all, and now he was one more person that I would never have the opportunity to meet; I felt a sense of grief and loss for the friendship we would never be able to share.
I would never have the opportunity to ask him how old he was. Never have the chance to ask how he got his name. We would never get to share those moments of laughter and camaraderie or any of the other things I longed for over the years.
I looked at Michael, and found him staring at that young face, that seemed so very small against the pillows.
"What did he say?" I asked, even though I was afraid to hear the answer.
Michael looked at me, his expression unreadable. At first, he didn't quite seem to understand the question. It took a second before comprehension sunk in, and then he closed his eyes and smiled weakly.
"He said he was going to go see Sophie again. He promised to tell her how much we all loved her." His voice shook and cracked, but somehow he stayed strong.
I didn't. That was enough for me. I melted down in tears, and cried for what felt like a very long time.
***
We buried them side by side, in Soldiers Memorial Park. It seemed like an appropriate place to entomb survivors who had spent their whole lives fighting an impossible enemy against insurmountable odds, and it was a beautiful green place where the huge, old willow trees overhung the river.
A nice place to spend the rest of eternity.
Wildflowers had already begun to grow atop Sophie's grave. As the men lay Dog into a hole beside her, I marvelled at how swiftly nature reclaims us when we are gone.
I knelt and picked a particularly beautiful flower that grew at my feet, and wonder briefly what species it was. I didn’t know, but it was lovely. I stepped close to the grave and I dropped it atop the corpse before they began to shovel the dirt onto him. Perhaps the flower's seeds would sprout and cover the grave with its children.
The sun felt far too bright to be putting someone so young into the earth. I had found out his age after all, from Michael and the others. He was only twenty-three.
I blinked back tears as I retreated to where Skylar stood holding Madeline, who watched blankly as the men laboured to shift the dirt back into the hole. She looked up at me as I neared her, then suddenly a bright smile lit up her young face.
"Don't worry, Miss Sandy." She reached out and took my hand. "Mummy and Sophie will take good care of him."
I smiled weakly back at her, uncertain what I believed. Once I had been like her, innocent and full of absolute trust. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
In the golden sunshine that filtered through the leaves, we watched the men working, the sweat glistening on their backs. It was the heat of summer and even under the shade of the trees, it was swelteringly hot. Although I hadn’t been outside in days, I already longed to retreat back to the cool, dark bunker that had become home so quickly.
But I couldn't. There were important things that needed to be discussed and time was of the essence. I waited until they patted down the last shovelful of earth, and everyone got their chance to say goodbye. On the way back to the car, I drew Michael aside with a gentle touch on the arm.
When the others were out of earshot, I told him about my conversation with Ryan two days before and about the fear the young couple held for their baby. That combined with the threat from these new mutated infected made me feel a sense of urgency to get out of the area, but I desperately wanted to convince him to join us. I couldn’t fathom the thought of leaving him behind.
"If two of us are going, then we should all go. She's my sister so I have to, but she's going to need the doctor when she gives birth, and we all rely on you for leadership." I paused for breath as the words tumbled out, worried by his peculiar expression. "We need to get out of here, get away from those things before they kill us all. You know what I mean, right?"
He nodded slowly as he mulled over what I said, his expression distant. When he finally spoke, his answer was not the one I was hoping for. "You're right. You should go somewhere safer. I'll remain here, and kill as many of those new things as I can."
"What? No!" I must have exclaimed louder than I meant to – I saw a couple of faces turn towards us, watching curiously. Ignoring them, I reached out and grabbed his hand. "You have to come with us as well."
"Why? You don't need me. I haven’t done a very good job at protecting any of you so far." Somehow, he seemed to look like a lost little boy despite his stiff posture. Gazing up at him, I realised that he felt responsible for the deaths of those closest to him. My heart did a somersault in my chest.
"Don't be silly. " I squeezed his hand firmly. "We do need you, and you have done a very good job of protecting us. Bad things happen sometimes – it’s not your fault. We need you, Michael, now more than ever." Caught in a sudden, confusing surge of emotion, I brought his hand to my chest and wrapped my fingers around it. "I need you."
He stared at me, bewildered, until finally the pieces seemed to click together in his head. Then he looked away, towards the car full of people whose lives depended on him.
Finally, he took a deep breath and nodded once.
Just like that, the decision was made. We would all leave the only home he'd known for more than a decade and together, we would travel to another place. They were putting their faith in my knowledge as they set out into the unknown.
I just hoped that I had enough knowledge to keep us all alive.
Chapter Seventeen
Having a plan of action helped to keep everyone from falling apart in the wake of Dog's death. When we returned to the bunker, Michael called a meeting to discuss the options for our departure. It was agreed by universal consensus that Ohaupo was the place to go, since it was the only place any of us had been to recently that was still secure and reasonably well supplied, with ready access to farmland.
What to do with the supplies in the bunker was an issue. The only function
al vehicle we had was my utility, and if we crammed everyone into it then there would be no room left for anything else. We needed to find more vehicles.
As the only member of the group with any mechanical knowledge, however rudimentary it was, that task fell to me. The others began organising what needed to be taken with us, and packing it into anything they could find that would make it easier to move.
There was also a new rule in the group: Nobody was to go anywhere alone, or without a weapon. Since the only weapons we had were my pistol and taser and Michael's shotgun, the new rule meant only two of us could leave the bunker at any one time. After what happened to Dog and Sophie, it seemed like a reasonable precaution.
I spent the first morning after Dog's death in the bunker's underground garage, examining the vehicles the others deemed unsalvageable. Since they had no idea what they were looking at, I had decided to take a look at the wrecks myself before I wrote them off.
I discovered that the majority of the vehicles were either completely useless or only good for parts, but there were a couple I thought I could fix up with a bit of effort. One in particular caught my eye – a large prisoner transport, with barred windows and double-locks on the back.
I was lying on the ground beneath the transport van when Michael came looking for me around midday. I saw his boots walk past, and then he stopped and looked about before cautiously calling my name.
"Sandy?"
"Down here." The sound of my voice from an unexpected direction made him jump. He looked around, confused, before finally noticing my feet sticking out from beneath the transport. With a soft grunt, he eased himself down to ground level to peer at me.
"What are you doing down here?" He asked curiously.
"Salvaging." I gave him a playful smile.
He raised a brow. "And?"
"Well, I have good news. A few of the spark plugs needed to be replaced and some of the cables were perished, but I’ve managed to salvage replacement parts from one of the other trucks. I think once the battery is charged, this one will be good to go."
The Survivors (Book 1): Summer Page 17
