by Main, Lynn
Faith, not Gary, answers, “Obviously you don’t have things under control like you thought, Mr. Petrova. There was an attack and this man, Gary, was injured.”
“I was talking to Gary, doctor. Were you bitten? What happened to your neck?” Gary looks at Mr. Petrova then over at me. He looks back at him and gulps, “I thought he was just sick…he was moving around and moaning. I knew he hadn’t been bit. I just…thought…I should get the kid a cup of water…”
“And you did?” Mr. Petrova crosses his arms but relaxes his shoulders and nods.
Gary seems to relax, “Yeah…I was just trying to help him.”
“Of course you were. But then what happened?” Mr. Petrova continues, seeming completely intrigued –intrigued for him. “I walked up to the cot with the cup of water and he grabbed my arm and slung the water all over the place…he was so strong I couldn’t get away from him…he growled at me…I looked at his eyes and thuh...there…was just…nothing…no light...nothing in them…and I knew. He lunged at me…bit me…and I…uh…threw him off of me. I ran for the doors, but he was right behind me. So I locked them. I ran again and turned over that gurney in the corner and hid behind it…”
“It was very smart for you to lock the doors Gary. So then what happened? What did you do next?” Mr. Petrova asks.
“I had to fight him off for a while…and then the lady, Mrs. Leonard, on the cot across the way woke up and started to scream. He went straight for her…that woke the old man with the heart condition…and…and…”
“And so on. So then he went for the doors after he finished with them?” Mr. Petrova asks, still as calm as ever. “Yes. He took bites out of her until the old man woke up a nd got his attention, then he did the same to him for a while…but then he stopped. He lifted his head and turned it toward me. I…I thought he would come after me, but he ran for the doors instead.”
“And he did what?”
“He rammed them...with his body…over and over again. He hit them and fell and got back up and ran and hit them again.”
“And that is what alerted us.” It isn’t a question.
“Yes.” Gary answers Mr. Petrova. I look down at my arm and my own bite. He may have a chance if he is a fighter. I shift my position, still crouched over the suitcase. Now that Faith is here he probably does have a chance. I stare at my shredded arm and start to speak, “Gary, don’t worry. The doctor is going to…” but Mr. Petrova cuts me off.
“Gary you did the right thing. You are truly a hero. I am sorry about all of this.” I look up as Mr. Petrova finishes speaking and then pulls a gun out that he had folded in his arms. It is a black 9mm with a long smooth round barrel attached to the end. It doesn’t register to me what is happening before he puts it between Gary’s eyes and pulls the trigger. There isn’t much sound; just a smack as the spray of blood out the back of Gary’s head hits the wall behind him, and the flopping sound of his body dropping off the side of the cot.
In a shallow voice without air I finish, “…fix you right up.”
Consider the Living
“What the fuck!” Faith screams. I jump up and dash to her. Grab her around the waist, struggling to keep her off of Mr. Petrova. The calm man just steps back as if he had just shot a picture with a Polaroid instead of blowing a man’s brains out. A small speck of blood hit his cheek just below his right eye and he pulls a red and silky handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe it off.
“I am sorry doctor, but I don’ t run this place based on your experience. We are taking no chances.” Mr. Petrova replies and replaces his pistol in his chest holster.
“You…you just… you fucking shot him! How do you know he was sick? He was not turning into one of those things. He was talking to you!” Faith continues shouting from my arms but she slowly stops pulling against me.
“I told you doctor. I had to. The boy who bit him was sick. He died and turned on a room of our people. Now they are all dead people. Gary was the only one contaminated in this room. He was bitten on the throat. He was going to die. Who knows how soon? Don’t you see where that eventually leads, doctor? We can’t have any more of this. We must consider the living.” It seems like a totally rational argument, and if Mr. Petrova hadn’t just shot someone without even taking the time to talk about it, I might have even sided with him.
“You didn’t have to. You didn’t shoot me. I haven’t bitten anyone.” I say with as much venom in my tone as I can muster. “That was a narrow decision. Don’t fo rget Dead Boy, it is a cautious man who survives. I intend to act very cautiously indeed from here on out. I suggest the two of you do the same.” He just smiles. It is not even a big smile. He doesn’t seem too concerned with any of this.
“Well you just stay cautious then…see how far it gets you.” I say , letting Faith go. I turn and walk to the suitcase and bend down over it with my back turned on the others. I stare at it for a long time without seeing anything.
I can’t really believe it; I was just talkin g to that guy and now he is dead. I finally kneel and rearrange the supplies in the suitcase. I put some boxes of gauze pads and medical tape further in and touch something cold and hard with my hand. I move some boxes of ointment and some weird jelly bag and there it is Ramirez’s gun.
I slide my hand around the grip. I can feel the idea of turning it on Mr. Petrova seeping up through me. That would put a wrench in his well thought out plan. I put my finger on the trigger very delicately and feel a soft touch on my shoulder. I turn and see Faith. Her cheeks are flushed and wet with tears. “I’m sorry that happened…” I say under my breath pushing the gun back under the weird bags of jelly and then close the suitcase before standing and turning to her.
She has her shotgun hanging by her side. I know it is loaded too. I wonder if she thought the same thing when she picked it up not 4 feet from Gary’s corpse. She puts her arms around me with the gun across my back like a bar. She pulls me to her and hugs me as tightly as I have ever been hugged, “Lets go see if everyone else is okay.” She whispers. She has a tired little smile on her face that threatens at every moment to turn into a torrent of tears.
“Yeah . Okay.” I say as casually as I can. As I turn, I bend down and grab the green suitcase’s handle and hoist it up. I can feel the weight of the gun in it now. I put my arm around Faith and lead her out of the room.
About the time we clear the doorway, I hear a soft thump. Another silenced shot I believe. I turn and see Mr. Petrova standing over the mutilated body of the old man that had the heart condition. He must have just put one in the old ladies head. Now he points the gun at the dead man’s head. He doesn’t even flinch when he fires.
I turn back in time to see about half of the gunmen from the foyer run past. In a big hurry to get rid of those bodies I suppose. The bald guy with the .38 Magnum stares at me a second then looks down at the suitcase and then over at Faith’s shotgun as he runs past us. I choose to ignore him as I survey the rest of the room.
There are two groups of people in here. Assorted -mostly teenaged looking- kids are directly behind their makeshift barricade with the Shotgunner standing behind the others, shotgun slung over his shoulder. They all look frightened. Their guns are not trained on anything; all are holding them up alert for the slightest hint of danger.
Just beyond them there is another group sitting in a circle. The Asian girl that looks like she should be on TV or modeling somewhere is with them, as well as Levi. Then there are the two children in the group; two little boys with black hair that could be twins. There is another older looking man with long hair and what looks like it used to be a well-kept beard. There is also another lady who is probably in her mid-forties.
With her hair flying every which way, the deep purple bags under her eyes and no make-up, the forties-something woman looks almost cartoonish sitting next to the young girl. She swings her hand this way and that in front of her as she makes some point in an obviously very one sided argument.
I look from face to face of the remai
ning gunmen as we approach the barricade. The one on the far left is a tomboyish looking girl who might not yet be 15. She has a rifle that looks way too big for her, freckles, and a braid of dirty brown hair.
The two next to her could be twins. They both have the same fuzzy overgrown hairstyles, somewhat broad chests, and thick arms. Both of these guys, while looking more like G.I.’s in civilian gear than kids, hold assault rifles and each have a holster for a hand gun. I reach up and mindlessly muss my hair.
Last along the barricade is a guy dressed all in black. He’s wearing a death-metal tee shirt and ripped oversized jeans, holding his gun clumsily. It looks like a 9mm. He has long sandy blond hair and a silly looking smile on his face that accents his chubby and rosy cheeks. I think for a moment that he could be Gary’s son. He also has a pack of some kind of cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve. I veer toward him.
I wonder what Faith would think of it, but decide to ask him for a smoke anyway. I had smoked casually for 3 years, but I hadn’t even thought about a cigarette since I was attacked…until now. “Hey, you got a spare cigarette?”
“Um sure I can…I mean I do…for you man…sure.” He says and gingerly sits his gun by the wall, lying on its side. He unrolls the pack from his sleeve and reveals some Marlboro lights in a soft pack.
He offers me a cigarette and I take it. “Thanks man.” I say , jamming it in my mouth. I feel my jeans pockets, knowing I don’t have a lighter. “You got a light?” I question him further then sneak a look over at Faith. Her face is blank though she is looking right at me and the cigarette hanging between my lips.
“Sure I do, but…um…Mr. Petrova doesn’t want us smoking in here. But we can go out on the balcony. It is safe and we can smoke out there.” He smiles and points behind him. As he looks back, the Shotgunner walks over and his finger falters.
“Chris, yo u know the rules. No smoking inside. What the hell man?” The Shotgunner asks him, though I am the one with the cigarette in my mouth.
“I know. I was just telling…”Chris starts to mumble his reply but the Shotgunner just cuts him off. “It looks like you are passing out cigarettes in here.” And with that he looks at me. The look on his face is mad, seething almost, but changes quickly.
“Yeah” I say dripping sarcasm from my slack jaw. “It’s not lit. So why don’t you relax. We were just going outside with it.” “Uh…sorry…I didn’t…realize” the Shotgunner says looking right past me as he says it. He turns and nudges Chris and both face toward the balcony.
I turn around and Mr. Petrova’s standing right behind me. Faith turns around too. I take the cigarette out of my mouth, but I am not sure why. “Hey look, the Shotgunner already told me to take it outside, and I was just going.” I say, but then realize that Mr. Petrova isn’t looking at me. Faith is staring back at him with daggers of hatred shooting from her eyes.
For a second I think neither of them is going to speak and they are just going to try to drill holes through each other by staring, but then Faith erupts, “What the hell happened in there?”
“A boy died, turned, and infected 3 more of our people and now we are 4 people fewer and I am sorry to say that it is because of you.” “Because of me? H ow in the hell is this my fault?” Faith retorts. “ You told us you were a doctor, and the patient was in your charge. How can it not be your fault? Are you saying you are not accountable? Not a real doctor?” Mr. Petrova asks, still as cool as ice; not even sweating in the blaze of Faith’s fire.
“I am a doctor.” “Well you must realize that we are a little troubled by this. Your very first patient dies. How could that have happened, doctor? I thought you said he was going to survive his injury and that the fever was just from infection?”
“He wasn’t bitten? Are you totally sure of that?” Faith asks. “He was inspected thoroughly before you arrived. He had no bites.” “Well, h e should have survived that infection. There might have been some blood poisoning but the penicillin I gave him should have… How was he cut in the first place?” Faith says her manner quickly cooling.
“The boy cut his hand on the shards from a broken window he was climbing through. How do you know he wasn’t allergic to the penicillin?”
“I didn’t know. I guess I took a risk. There was an infection in his cut. It was bad, and it needed antibiotics.”
“Can you see the possibility that this antibiotic killed him?” Mr. Petrova asks. “I don’t pretend to know what killed him, but it was not the medicine. That is just not possible. He would have started having a reaction to it before I left the room.”
“You do not know for certain that somehow…”
“It can’t.”
“Well then, he is dead all the same. The others were all bitten by him.”
“I don’t know how this works but you don’t either. Maybe we should exercise a little restraint before we start killing everyone who has a runny nose.”
“We do know some things doctor. We know th at the bites spread this plague. No matter how impossible it is, we also know that this plague not only kills people but brings them back to life.” Mr. Petrova responds, still as calm as ever.
“Yeah…but the bite didn’t kill me. And no matter how he died , that kid wasn’t bitten. So this plague doesn’t follow all of your rules all of the time. Does it Mr. Petrova?” I say.
He looks at me a moment and then offers a thin smile, “Why don’t you show these two the terrace Nick. Relax, we are here for now. We must make the best of this.”
“Yessir” The Shotgunner, apparently Nick, replies. I’m waiting for the kid to start saluting the guy. Mr. Petrova turns and walks back toward the room where Gary and the others lay dead. Nick steps to the connection of two stacks of pews in the make-shift wall and pulls the pews apart so we can walk through. He motions for us to follow him. I lead and Faith follows me silently with her head held high, her eyes fierce and determined. The other kid, Chris, follows us too. Nick opens a sliding glass door and we step out onto the balcony into a
midafternoon’s clear blue sky.
A little green As soon as we are all out on the balcony, Nick shuts the doors behind us and Chris offers me a Bic lighter. “Thanks Chris.” I say, immediately striking it and lighting the cigarette.
“No worries.” He replies. “We’re the ones who saw you down there in the van. Nick and me, I mean.”
“We are glad you did…I think.” “Let me get one of those.” Nick asks Chris. A cigarette is passed to him and I toss him the Bic as I inhale deeply from mine. I start to cough and hack as I blow the drag out.
“Is this your first time smoking?” Nick asks. “No…I used to all the time…but I haven’t since…well since I was bitten.” I offer, a little distracted because I am watching Faith who is leaning over the balcony.
“Excuse me.” I say to Chris , who has now lit up too. I nod to Nick and walk over to the balcony, “How’s the view?” I look over the rail to see that the parking lot and street in front of us is completely clear of zombies.
There is a large white van pulled up in front of the funeral home. Several gunmen are piling in. Mr. Petrova stands next to the driver’s door talking to the large bald headed man. He starts the van and pulls away. Mr. Petrova stands watching after it for a moment and then looks right up at us.
As if we were naughty children, Faith and I jump back behind the rail and look at each other. As casually as possible, I hide the cigarette behind my back. Faith looks somewhat annoyed. She frowns at me, “God, I hate that guy.” And then walks back to Nick and Chris. “Can I have one of those too?”
“Sure” Chris offers her one and then Nick strikes the lighter, lifts it and cups his other hand to light it.
She takes a deep drag says, “Thank you.” As she turns and strolls back to me, exhaling a pillar of smoke.
“You smoke?” I ask when she leans against the railing next to me.
She takes another drag in reply, “Are you going to smoke that or waste it?” She asks, still looking a
nnoyed.
I pull the cigarette from behind my back put it to my lips and take a drag. Then I cough even worse than the first time.
“Are you sure you smoke? You look a little green.” Faith asks with a shrewd grin on her face. “Well I used to. I hadn’t really thought about it until I saw that Chris had some. I guess it wasn’t my best idea. Come to think of it, I thought I had some left on my dresser in my room.”
“Yeah…I uh…found them.”
“Oh you did.” Now I am the one grinning while Faith takes another drag. “Well it was only like half a pack and I was under a lot of stress. You didn’t need them anyway. I actually don’t smoke. I quit after school; I never even really smoked before medical school. In high school and college, only when I was drinking.”
“You drink too? Wow , Faith I am finding out all kinds of entertaining facts about you.” I say trying a third time to drag the cigarette. It comes easier this time. I don’t breathe as deeply, and then I exhale and stifle a small cough.
“I can’t believe he shot him….” She says turning back to the crumbling skyline. I feel terrible about what happened to Gary, but I am starting to think it is inevitable with larger groups. Killing off the dweebs for the good of the many, “We should try to just get along with him for now. I know you don’t like him Faith, but…”
“ I know. Mr. Petrova is their leader. But I hope all these gun toting idiots know that he will do the same to them and just as fast.” As she says that last, she turns and swings her arm around pointing her cigarette past Chris and Nick. They have to be able to hear us, but so far both have just puffed away on their cigarettes. When Faith points at them, Nick and Chris take it as a queue and walk over to us.
“If you want some more I have a few spare packs.” Chris says smiling shyly.
“Where did you get them from? Been stocking up for the end of the world?” I ask.
“We go out every day to hunt for supplies and more survivors.” Nick says.
`“Don’t call them that.” Faith snaps at him.
