by Main, Lynn
“I remember…you were going to shoot me, right?” Now I'm even more confused. Why the hell would a lady doctor be looting my house in this shitty fucking ghetto with a shotgun? None of this makes sense. Why would she shoot me?
“ I never held a gun before this one. Never fired one. I never imagined ever in my life firing one at a person. But I did that day. I did to survive. I was going to do the same to you.” Did she just say that day? What day is it? Her voice quivers and she pauses and gives me a strange look.
“What day? Why would you do that?”
“It was three days ago.”
“Three days!” I scream. “I have been out for three days?” “Yes.”
“Why did you point that gun at me?”
“I thought you were like the others. I thought you would…try to hurt me.”
“What others?” She shakes her head exhaling with obvious exasperation and looks over at the black stain on my floor, “The people that attacked…everyone.”
I’m silent. I was attacked and so were others. What is going on?
She intends to continue so I nod for her to. She starts slowly; trying to find her words, “I was taking Rose to the park…”
“Was it Martin Luther King Park?” I ask. “Yes” she says not troubled by the interruption. “Rose is…my niece. Her mother had to work on Sunday, so I asked if I could take her to the park…and…I loved her so much.” She whispers, stops and sobs for several moments.
“I'm sorry.” I say solemnly, I don’t know what, but something terrible happened to Rose. She takes a moment to compose herself and continues with an even shakier voice. “I left Rose in the car. We hadn't even gotten to the park yet. I needed gas so I stopped at the Shell station on Tamiami and MLK Blvd. and...” her voice trails off again, and she is quivering.
I feel bad for her. I want to comfort her. I sit up more and lean towards her trying not to pay attention to how much that small motion hurts. But the movement hurts more than a little, and she refocuses and watches me try, intently. An odd sense of pleasure seems to cross her lips in the midst of her pain. Then the look fades and she frowns at me, her nostrils flaring. She is so beautiful that I cannot help but stare as her face morphs with emotion in front of me.
She notices the staring. It causes quite a reaction in her. Her scowl returns without hesitation. She grabs the shotgun and points it at me.
“Whoa!” My heart starts to pound. I throw my hands in the air. She grimaces and quickly turns the gun aside. “I'm sorry; it’s just so hard to believe…it can’t be?” She looks at me strangely again. Cocking her head to the side, “I mean…how…did…you? You…should…be! I’m Sorry it is just so hard to believe!”
“What is?” I ask honestly confused. “That you are still alive!” She says with an exasperated ton e. She sits the gun back against the wall and leans back in the glider shutting her eyes and rocking back and forth. A long silence passes while I continue to stare but slowly put my hands back down on the bed.
She tells me about the people attacking the store. She tells me about losing Rose and watching cars crash right in front of her and people hurting other people. Attacking them and biting them.
“That’s when you found me?”
“Yes but...”
“That still doesn’t explain why you were going to shoot me?”
“Because I...”
“You’ve really lost your mind haven’t you? I was bleeding and unarmed! Did you really think that I could have hurt you?” “Yes! I...I'm sorry I thought you were one of them.”
“I was one of whom?” I ask, calming down; starting to put it all together. Was I one of them? “You were so messed up; the way you looked I was sure you were…until...I was going to shoot, but then you fainted...and they don’t faint, I guess they don’t. I don’t see them fainting. It is not a response that I would associate with their behavior at all. I wasn’t really sure what to think. But I thought maybe…you would live.” She stops and looks down, too ashamed to meet my eyes.
“What do you mean the way I looked?” I'm starting to get a little angry and I can feel my heart in my throat as I demand, “What do you mean?”
“Because you had been bitten, and...and...annd...andd” She looks up at me frantically talking faster and stuttering her words.
“And?” I say trying to keep calm. “And you looked like you had been put through a meatgrinder!” She stares at me; her eyes are intense and sparkling with tears. Her lip quivers.
Her gaze doesn’ t shy away. She tries to smile and it turns into a frown. I am prickled with annoyance for the obvious pity. The way I look. What could that mean? I feel at the stitches on my face again cringing. Then we sit quietly. She does not cry, but she looks like she wants to. I think I want to as well but I don’t either. I just lie back in my bed thinking
Zombies Thinking of the man who came through my window I realize something. These people…these things…they are zombies. That man’s eyes were dead; moving around -yeah maybe- but they were definitely dead. So I have no reason to blame her for almost shooting me. She must have thought I was already…But doesn’t that mean that my clock is ticking…that my days are numbered? I wonder how bad I must have looked; probably still look.
It’s quiet for a long time. I’ m feeling very self-conscious. I stare down at the scars and the bruises on my chest. Some of the scars are fading already, only pink lines from small scrapes. The worst are jagged cuts with stitches in them, still red with black lines of scab down the center. The bruises range in color from a deep passionate purple to a smeared thin yellow.
The bandage on my arm is getting pretty saturated. I need to look at it. I don’t want to, but I need to. I need to see my face, and my arm, all of it. I can feel the cuts on my face. I can feel the tight skin over my brow. And I know that whatever hides beneath the bandages on my arm must be terrible.
I clear my throat and say, “Show me please. Will you take me to a mirror and show me what I look like?”
She stands, walks over to me, and in a voice that I wouldn’t have heard if she was still seated in the rocker says, “Okay.”
“What?” I ask.
“I said okay…I will help you.” She replies. In the back of my left hand there is a clean puncture. I look at the medical tray. Where the hell did she get that? I look closely at all the objects on it; the syringes, those little bottles. Angry looking needles still drip a clear fluid. The needles make my skin crawl. She tugs at my arm, interrupting my train of thought. She starts to pull me to the edge of the bed very slowly and grabs me around my waist preparing to lift me. Scooting and helping her as much as possible I get my legs over the edge.
Getting out of bed is a long process that pulls at my stitches and hurts in every possible way. I want to cry, scream, or pass out. Maybe I’ll do all three. Maybe I did get caught in a meatgrinder. I’m sorer and weaker than I ever remember being. But I grit my teeth. Refuse to cry from the pain.
My jeans are still on. They don’t look filthy with blood and gore. She must have changed them. The thought of her seeing me naked and flaccid makes me shudder with embarrassment. She hangs my legs, one by one, over the side of the bed until both of my feet hover just above the floor. She lifts me, hugging me tight with her arms around my chest, which would be completely thrilling if it didn’t hurt so much. When I start to settle my weight onto my legs, pins and needles come and I cry out, “Oh Fuck!”
“Are you okay? We can do this…hang on. There…better?” she says trying to redistribute my weight, but I can tell it is a huge burden on her. She looks like the kind of girl that hits the gym a lot when not doctoring. She is fit, but I’m easily three inches taller than her and she can’t weigh more than 110 pounds. It takes several moments to stabilize me.
After I reassure her a few times that I will be okay she lets go and I am standing on my own. Ripping through me in new ways, pain and soreness vibrate through all the different parts of my body, but it’s all overshadowed by the thro
bbing in my arm.
The rest is nothing compared to that pain. It is a whisper of a shadow of pain compared to the pain where that thing’s teeth met my flesh. “This really hurts,” I say gesturing to my wound.
“I don’t know what is going to happen, I thought for a while maybe you would die in your sleep and then…”
“…Return!” I finish for her holding my arms out somewhat limply.
She looks at me with a blank stare. I stop smiling and say, “Too soon?”
She doesn’t respond and for a moment I think that I shouldn’t have said anything.
“These are too tight,” I complain gesturing to the bandages. She checks them, “They’ re fine for now. The pain medicine is wearing off.” She walks over and picks up one of the used syringes and inspects it. I decide to try and take a step towards the door saying, “It’ll be okay. I’m okay.”
I manage to take a ste p; a single miserable step. It’s slow and I want to groan and cry the whole time. But I don’t. I would rather put up with the pain than watch that needle stick me. I am holding my breath, and the rush of agony makes me feel fuzzy in the head. The room begins to spin as if I am totally smashed. She jumps and grabs my arm in time to save me.
I fall on her then back onto the bed rather than the floor. “It’s okay I got you.” She says. As soon as she can wriggle from beneath me she grabs my waist and hoists with all of her strength, and we are standing again.
This time she gets underneath my left shoulder and helps me take each step. The seven full steps to the door hurt. The four more through the foyer and into the bathroom are excruciating. It only seems to be getting worse as I go.
She walks me into my darkened bathroom, where there is a mirror. I am nervous. I say as nonchalantly as possible, “I had to be pretty messed up when you found me; hope I’m not still that messed up. I hope that I don’t look...terrible.”
“No…not terrible,” is the only reply I get until we are through the bathroom door. I instinctively flick the light switch, but nothing happens. “There’s no power at all. I checked the breakers, but I think the lines are down up the street. Someone hit a transformer or something.” She says and then carefully helps me lean up against the sink.
“What’s it like out there?” I ask, staring at my darkened form in the mirror. “It’s scary; a lot of fires and car crashes…and stuff.” She leaves the room at a trot, saying over her shoulder, “Have to get a candle. I’ll be right back.”
I stand in the dark looking into the mirror alone with only a tiny amount of light trickling in. Seeing the dark shape in the mirror I can already tell that this is going to be bad. My head looks strange and I can see cuts on the side of my face. Too many cuts.
She comes in with a candle. Standing practically behind me, she sits it on the smooth linoleum shelf of the basin and then lights a long thin white candle off of it. She takes that and goes to sit on the toilet with her head bowed and doesn't look back up at me. I look from the mirror to her several times in utter disbelief.
I had thought that the wounds on my body looked bad, but they were nothing; small potatoes; minor. A huge deep brown goose-egg covers the left side of my forehead. Somehow a small chunk of my hair has been pulled out, just above that bruise. A terrible scar starts in the middle of the egg and runs across my forehead and then dives across my right cheek which is stitched up. I imagine that the flesh was hanging open, probably from the glass. Thankfully, it is the only stitching on my face even though there are many other cuts. I look like a monster. I look like one of them; disgusting! Then out of nowhere she starts speaking. It startles me. I give her an angry look that I really don’t mean, but she ignores it.
It’s as if she has been rehearsing it, so it comes out seamlessly. “It actually looks far worse than it is; AND it was much worse two days ago. I didn’t want to stitch your cheek, but when I cleaned that wound it wouldn’t stop bleeding. I was worried about the blood loss so… I mean the skin was open and I had to…really! I was only concerned with your survival for the first 24 hours!” She builds to a fever as she talks, and she hardly takes a breath. “Your internal injuries have been far more troubling. Your spleen has been punctured, you have two broken ribs, a bruised lung, your jaw’s possibly fractured, but I can’t be sure without an x-ray and your skull might be fractured too.”
“What about my arm?” I question gesturing towards my right bicep with my left thumb. “ I am worried about your arm; it was black and the skin around the wound was a terrible gray. The puss and blood would not stop flowing. You should have died. I had no blood for a transfusion. I was pumping you so full of Ketamine and Oxycontin that I had to give you Epinephrine to keep your heart going. I gave you every damn antibiotic I had…some that I really thought I shouldn’t have. I just… I'm sorry...I did all that I could.” She says as she leans her head in her hands, and begins to sob softly. She may not have been able to make me look very nice but I am alive.
“I didn’t mean it. I really appreciate this… all of it... I still don't understand why you are doing it though. Helping me I mean. I don’t know why you would do all of this for a stranger…but thank you.” I smile, but glancing over at her, stop.
She looks so sad. I wonder if all of her misery is for Rose or if there was a boyfriend; I don’t see a wedding ring. Maybe she is worried about her mom and dad; probably her sister. I wonder if she is worried about what her sister will do or say when she finds out she lost Rose. I wonder what her sister’s name is then remember; I don’t even know this girls name. “I'm fucking grateful to be alive is what I mean to say. I really am grateful. You’re beautiful and I don't even know your name.” I stall out; my whole face, except the scars, goes white in the mirror.
She looks up at me, tears still moistening a stream down her face, “It’s Faith. My name is Faith Beaumont.” She looks away again trying to dry her tears with the backs of her hands.
“Is that your real name?” I chuckle – almost giggling- “Dr. Faith…really? Isn’t that a bit cliché?” I start outright laughing for a moment but, looking up at her face, stop.
“I’ m French. My father brought me here when I was just a little girl, and my given name is Fatima Marie Antoinette Du BeauxmonteClaire.”
“I’m sorry…” “It’s okay. I’ m used to it. I caught a lot of crap about it in high school. When I became a citizen, right after college, I had it legally changed to Faith Marie Beaumont.”
“Are you religious?”
“No…I’m not. It was just easier for people to say.”
“Do you think there is any meaning to any of this?”
“No. I don’t believe in God or the apocalypse or end times or any of that. I’m a doctor…a scientist. But...this is unnatural.”
Sleeping Arrangements The trip back to my bedroom is q uicker, but just as painful. I’m grateful when she helps me back into bed and leaves, promising to return with something to drink and some pills for the pain.
While she is gone I reel. I let myself go a little bit in astonishment. I can't believe all of this. I hardly recognized the man in the mirror. I don't know what to do, or where I am going to go. I could go home; maybe she would even tag along? But it’s far. Will I ever see her again after we’re rescued and returned to civilization? Probably not. Is there any civilization left? I have no idea. I feel my chest getting tight. If that thing was what I think it was there probably isn't going to be any rescue. Or any civilization left…at all.
The thing that bothers me the most is a thought that keeps replaying. It’s a daydream of those things, zombies, attacking Jill and my other friends; eating them. Going for the closest pink flesh and sinking their teeth in. Jill was the closest thing I had to family. There’s Brian and Lynne and even Daniel to think about too. Where the hell are they? I shiver and a slight murmur of agony escapes my lips. It’s overwhelming and the room seems to spin.
My friends are dead. If they were n’t, they would’ve come and found me here and helped me. They wou
ldn’t leave me here like this. Brian wouldn’t. Those aren’t the kind of friends I had. Jill would have come too. No matter what happened between us, we were still friends.
Faith comes back with two white pills and a can of Pepsi. She walks over smiling and then her face changes and she gasps, “You’re pale. I’m going to dress the wound on your arm.” I nod in consent but don’t speak. I just throw the pills in my mouth and after she cracks the can of soda open, I take it and guzzle to wash them down.
Faith moves to the other side of my bed where she had made a scarce space to stand in between it and the wall. She unwinds the bandages from my arm. I only have a moment to gaze at its horror because the sting of the open air on it makes me wince. Also her head and shoulder are in the way sweeping a blonde curtain in front of the wound, which I must admit I am grateful for.
She takes some cold damp wet-naps out of a package. She turns and looks at me with an extremely worried expression on her face then turns back and begins scrubbing at the bite wound feverishly. It hurts a lot. I cringe and grind my teeth and stare at her in astonishment. She looks up at my face and her eyes are round and horrified. ‘I am so sorry I am doing this,’ they say, ‘but I mustn’t stop.’
“Ah, that stings!” I say with a grimace and then let out a few more moans of pain. But she only continues with that worried look on her face. She stops, and after applying some cream to the wound and rewrapping my arm she puts her fists on her hips, stepping back a little. She grins.
“It seems that you are pleased then?” I say with an annoyed inflection in my voice. “It is a good sign; in fact I think that it is healin g faster than your other wounds.” She says. Her teeth are delicate and white –almost perfect- except that one of the ones just to the side of her incisors is turned slightly. It gives it a sharp dangerous look. Her smile is beautiful but obviously unsure as it quickly wavers and her lips close over her teeth. Again her look changes, morphing back to the caring physician as she takes a final clean wet-nap and wipes around the egg on my forehead.
