by Laila Blake
“Like it means something?” He was breathing heavily, as though he’d just run a mile, and, maybe, in some sense, he had. “Like it means someone lives for you and just you? Like I’m going to go tie down some stupid tarps so the fucking roof doesn’t leak, because I’m tryin’ to fix up a house for you so you don’t have to feel lost anymore? Is that what you think love sounds like when I say it? Because that's what I mean, Emily.”
She stared, face red with anger and humiliation and need. She found herself trembling and just for a moment she had the wild notion of throwing herself into his arms—and then to pummel and kick him, and it was indecision that kept her standing still.
“Maybe like you... trust someone,” she growled, “or see them… really see them or… or give someone some fucking time to...” A wave of vertigo surged up inside her, a dizziness borne of saying too much, of feeling too much, and she stared poison at him before she slammed the door and curled up on the floor against it, shaking.
Even with the rain, even with the heavy door between them, she heard him scream—hard and loud and filled with fear.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was the rain, the thunder, that had distracted his senses but, when it came down to it, Aaron hadn’t noticed the zombies shambling up from the nearby stream purely because he was so wholly focused on Emily, on the torrent of emotions trapped in his chest. He'd been caught entirely unaware and it was all his own fault.
He was sprawled on the ground before he even had the sense to reach for his gun. He struck his head hard, and his vision swam for a moment, rain falling directly into his eyes, and it was several blinks before the three walkers came into focus above him, dark and more sinister than the roiling clouds above them.
Grunting, he kicked, scrambling backwards on his ass and arms, finding no traction in the mud. Mercifully, his fingers curled around a board, there at the edge of the porch, and he was able to swing it wildly in front of him, knocking one of the creatures aside and keeping the other two at bay for another second, two.
He hit the stairs, and tore his shirt, but the slope and the solidity gave him something to press to his feet against. They slipped even then. He didn’t know if he was breathing, heart slamming in his ears, the rain making it impossible to see or hear, making it impossible to grasp his gun at his hip.
They advanced on him, predators on prey, undeterred by the cold, the wet, and it was one wild, panicked glance to the shut front door that made him tilt, opened him up, and the first one laid into his outstretched arm, the other knocking him off his feet.
Aaron screamed, more out of some kind of fearful rage than pain, even as he could feel blood pouring over his elbow, a river down to his wrist and hand. He locked into survival mode, flailing and kicking and punching with no idea what he might connect with, flesh giving like pudding, warm and sticky in the rain.
Inside, Emily lurched upright and yanked the door open, momentarily flung back in time. Already there was blood, and she could only glimpse a shock of Aaron’s dark hair at the bottom of the steps. The zombies filled her vision, her entire consciousness, and, somehow, into her hands came her axe that she'd stored in the entrance hall and she was screaming back at them, hacking as best she could from above.
She split one zombie’s head down right in the middle, then lost her balance and stumbled down the porch after Aaron. Her knees connected hard with the wood, but her hands were still clutching her weapon. She lunged at the next one’s side, then jumped at the crack of gun that went off right next to her ear. It blew the creature’s head off just as it was reaching for her. She whirled around to see Aaron, kneeling in the mud, shaking as their eyes met and he turned his gun on the last one. It exploded rotting slime all over the both of them.
There was a commotion in the house. Emily gagged but didn’t throw up; her eyes were still on Aaron.
“Are you okay?” she asked, then quickly dropped the axe as it made her shaking hands all too obvious. “Aaron, are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” The words were out of his mouth almost without thinking, and they were a lie. His head felt pained and light at once, and he had to exert effort to push the corners of his mouth up in something like a smile, to bring his breath in and out. Emily knew better: she had done this before.
The mud, the rain, the new face—the differences didn’t matter. Suddenly she was back in that dim ramshackle room, trying—trying to say something meaningful to the man she loved before he turned into a monster. Her heart was beating violently, and she kept shaking her head.
“They didn’t get you, they can’t have...” she whispered, shaking her head over and over. “Please?”
They both looked at his arm, both of their stomachs not just sinking, but plummeting, landing with a wet thump on the ground. Emily could only raise her head dully as the door swung open, Annika standing there in her jeans and t-shirt, face just as white as Aaron’s.
“Please go in.” Aaron’s voice was thick and wet, and his shoulder nudged at Emily’s.
“What?” She blinked, looked between him and Annika, and then back at him, her expression a cross between terrified and furious.
“Please, Em,” he got out, but she was shaking her head furiously. She was soaked and muddy, same as him, but she looked tiny like that, covered in gooseflesh with giant blue eyes.
“No,” she said again and then knocked her axe aside to get closer to his wounded arm, even as Aaron tried to pull it out of her reach.
“No, no don’t lift it. Just... stay still.” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and peered close to the gash, blinking against tears and rain.
“It... it can’t move that fast, right?” She looked up at Annika, all but begging. “There has to be a way to stop it.”
Annika had trouble responding. “I... it’s an infection, it has an incubation time.”
“So there has to be a way to kill it before it sets in.” Emily’s hand tightened on Aaron’s arm, almost to the point of pain.
“Emily,” he got out, through clenched teeth; he was trembling, freezing cold, even as the rain had started to slack. “There's nothin’ we can do. Annika—she doesn’t have a cure, you know that.”
“No, I don’t, and neither do you... just shut up! Just...” Her gaze was open and wild and intense on Annika, even as she held onto Aaron.
“Please, please just try something. You said—you said there was something you wanted to try but couldn’t, please! Please, Annika!”
The zombie carcasses were oozing under the weight of the rain. Annika hung onto the doorframe as though she might collapse if she didn’t; it could have been an hour, but was likely only a minute, less, before she nodded in the end, a heavy motion.
In some fit of superhuman strength, Emily helped Aaron up. He could walk, but had clearly lost a lot of blood, and his head wavered on his neck as they made their way up the short set of stairs, through the front door and into the kitchen.
Annika had hidden the children, but they could hear them whispering at the top of the stairs. Aaron sat down heavily in a chair, holding his arm against his chest.
“You said... you said it might stop,” Emily stuttered. The faster she spoke the sharper her accent became, but her eyes were wide and pleading.
Annika blinked, and leaned close to look at the bite, the flesh torn away from the muscle and bone, sticky from the zombie’s grasp. She didn’t answer for a long moment, chewing hard at her lip; she was silent for so long, Emily was about to start screaming.
“Stoke the fire and get that dirty shirt off him. There’s rubbing alcohol in the cupboard, wash the area around the wound,” Annika said, finally, voice soft, shaking just a little. “I... I’ll get some stuff from upstairs.”
Annika hurried away, and Emily frantically threw more wood into the stove, not paying much attention to how it was arranged. Shutting the heavy iron door, she tried her best to clean and dry her arms and dashed to the cupboard, digging until she found the clear bottle and a clean t
owel. Then she sank to her knees beside Aaron’s chair, sliding her hands up his soaked jeans to find his hand.
“I told you,” she whispered, even though she still wasn’t sure, “you’ll be okay.”
“Told you I’d give you my right arm,” he retorted, voice rough, and since he felt too weary to move, just wrinkled his nose at her and she almost laughed. It was a choked little sound.
“You just had to say that, didn’t you?” she breathed, and pushed her forehead against his knee for a long, steadying moment.
When she sat up again, Emily gently cut him out of his shirt, then toweled him dry. Aaron hissed in pain even as he grit his teeth and smiled at her apologetically.
“You can’t die, Aaron,” she breathed, looking up at his white face beseechingly, carefully applying alcohol to his arm. “Please... please don’t die...”
“Tryin’ my best.” His hand squeezed at hers, tighter than he meant to, but she didn’t make a sound or pull away.
When Annika came back, she was holding a book, a small leather satchel, and a metal cup. “I don’t know if this will work,” she announced, voice steadier than it had been before, but face still white. “It’s just... just theory.”
In that moment, she could have been a goddess incarnate and Emily wouldn’t doubt her in any way. She just pleaded, prayed at her altar, for a miracle.
“Do it...” she whispered, “I—I can help.”
“We’ve figured out,” Annika started, breathing carefully, studying the bite even as she spoke. “That the only way to actually kill a zombie is to destroy the brain—shooting, beheading, emolliate the body. Burning it,” she added, shrugging, turning the cup in her hands.
“A century ago, burning was used to stop bleeding, the spread of infection. Modern times, cauterization. So, I’m thinking...” She held up the cup. “Burn away the infected flesh. That should kill the virus before it spreads to the rest of the organs, and the brain. And as he’s still bleeding we have a shot that it hasn’t gotten far inside his body yet.”
Emily stared, suddenly wavering just for a moment as her tightened on Aaron’s thigh.
“B... burn?” she whispered.
Annika nodded. “Kills the flesh it’s reached, and should halt the spread. Isn’t all that elegant,” she added, almost to herself. “The cup’s the only thing we’ve got besides, like, spoons.” She set the cup on the burner, which glowed around the edges from the heat of the fire.
“I’ll be here, I’m sorry. I’m not leaving you, okay?” Emily said, then, bringing her gaze back to his.
Aaron nodded weakly, and Annika looked him over, back to biting her lip.
“Aaron, you’re gonna have to sit still,” she said leaning close to inspect the wound.
“I can do it,” he breathed out, tipping his head back to try to focus on the ceiling above him. Somewhere in the back of his head, he recalled the guys he’d patched in the desert, limbs blown off by IED’s, bones shattered by bullets and grenades. He’d gotten off lucky back then: it was his turn now.
Annika was still bent over the wound, inspecting carefully with a thin probe. Aaron grunted every time she touched the raw flesh but his expression stayed stoic, solid, steely.
“I’m so sorry,” Annika began, and immediately had both their eyes on her, “I need to cut some of this away first. I need to make sure I’m not just trapping the virus in a deeper layer of tissue.”
Emily swallowed heavily, her stomach flipping, but she didn’t move, gently cradling his head between her hands. She looked down at him with enormous eyes; the blue had turned grey like the stormy sky. She kissed his forehead, breathed in the smell of sweat and mud, before she straightened up again. Their eyes met for the longest time, waiting.
Annika fished a scalpel out of the thin leather satchel and swabbed it down with what little clear alcohol she had left. Aaron grasped at the chair, trying to keep a calm breathing rhythm, trying not to make his blood run even faster.
Holding her breath, Annika brought the instrument to his arm. In the movies, Emily thought, she would have a quip or a story to distract him but Annika was silent, studious, as she inspected the flesh and the muscle. She couldn’t afford to cut a major artery, not when, as it was, the gash wasn't bleeding too terribly.
“It’s okay,” Aaron breathed out. “Just do it. Done it before... in the field.”
He didn’t sound like he believed himself, even, but Annika gave him a distracted smile all the same.
“Look away,” she advised, “Look at the pretty girl.”
She waited until his eyes moved away from the wound and onto Emily, who was still dripping and muddy but looked more determined than ever. His focus shifted, breath calming, Annika lowered the scalpel to his flesh. The tissue gave way far too easily, and she knew she had to take a wider berth. She tried again at a distance of a thumb’s breadth around the wound and this time, Aaron shuddered, groaning with his mouth clamped shut and muscles of his jaw flaring and flexing under skin gone clammy and wet. The chair was creaking under the pressure of his good arm, but he stayed as still as she could reasonably ask him to.
Adrenaline pulled her through, cutting fast and sure but when she stared at the new wound, huge and red, she had to lean against the table to keep upright.
“That... it worked,” she reported, but quickly nodded to the cup when she saw a glimmer of hope in Emily’s ashen face. “Now for the hard part.”
She lifted the cup from the burner with a ragged old oven mitt, lowering herself to her knees on the other side of his body from Emily. The cup looked strange, black and scorched silver, and her hands trembled again.
Emily had always heard that people passed out when the pain got too much. But Aaron hadn’t. He was still sitting there, slippery with mud and rain and sweat, his eyes feverish with pain. But he nodded.
This time, Annika had to force her hand to stay still when she lowered the red-hot cup to his arm. There was a split second between the contact, and Aaron’s body going rigid; the muscles of his face contracted, demonic and alien. A noise that started low in his chest moved up his throat until it was something high and horrible behind his clenched teeth, his eyes squeezed shut and face contorted with pain.
Emily didn’t know that she was screaming, too, until she ran out of air. She couldn’t look at his arm and kept her eyes utterly trained on his face—but that did nothing to evade the smell of suddenly charred flesh that hit her nose. She retched, but kept it down, trembling fingers still cupping Aaron’s cheeks.
Annika was sweating, and she trembled as she removed the cup. The room smelled horribly of burned meat, and the flesh was blackened, bubbled and crisp.
“Just a little more,” she said, sounding terribly guilty, setting the cup back on the burner.
It was the most horrible sentence Emily had ever heard in her life. All three of them were ghastly white, tears in their eyes. Before Emily knew what she was doing, she had doubled over Aaron and was kissing him: lips resting on his so softly as her hair fanned around them as though it was their own private world.
“I’m so... so sorry...” she whispered, lips brushing against lips.
“It’s okay,” he breathed, tipping his chin up even as his muscles were still strung so tight, the motion hurt—it was tiny compared to the smoldering of his arm, the way the fire felt like it was still licking at his flesh. “Gotta try somethin’, right?”
She tried to nod, tried to hold onto him despite the fact that already, she could hear Annika moving again and as grateful as she was, she had absolutely no way to show it just then.
He might have thought the second pass wouldn’t be as bad, but it was worse, and the third, and, reeling, he actually did puke, just off to the left, narrowly missing his leg, and Emily. The room stank of burning, of flesh and hair, and the wound site was gruesome, spongy and blackened, leaking blood and something clear.
“We can’t do much,” Annika informed them in a hollow voice; she didn’t look either of them i
n the eye. “No... no meds. Just... have to hope that killed the virus.”
Emily was crying, blubbering, ugly tears and not even realizing it, she nodded. She was swaying on her feet, trying to soak up the puke with a towel but was so unfocused, she just smeared it around. Aaron seemed to have finally passed out, utterly exhausted by the ordeal and Emily was close to the same. She did manage to look at Annika and, even with tear-stained eyes, she whispered a word of gratitude.
The woman nodded, wiping her hands on her jeans. The room was silent but for the crackling fire, the labored breaths of everyone in it, until Annika cleared her throat.
“We can’t keep him in the house,” she said, softly, not quite looking at Emily. “It’s too big a risk if this didn’t work.”
Emily started, but nodded after a beat: she wasn’t stupid, she knew the danger. It hurt, more the idea of leaving him alone, than anything else, but Aaron would sooner die than put Song and Lani in danger, Emily knew that.
“The shed has a lock,” Annika said, hollowly. She’d set the cup off to the side to cool, and couldn't stop touching the warmed edge.
“We should know in the next day or so. That—that’s why no pain killers. It can’t mask the symptoms of spreading infection. We have to watch for it.”
“I... I know what it looks like,” Emily whispered, clearing her throat and gently petted Aaron’s hair. “But water... and something to eat, he needs stuff to help him get his strength back.”
“This may have killed him,” Annika interjected, looking up at her with a gaze that had gone steely, even as she wavered a bit, standing there. “Too much blood might have been lost, and once the shock wears off—his heart might not be able to handle it. I don’t know.” She lifted her hands, dropped them. “It was only a theory,” she added, softly.
“No. He wouldn’t.” Emily shook her head, determined more than hopeful. “He’s strong, he wouldn’t die from this...” As though it was his choice. She cleared her throat, sniffed and straightened up on unsteady feet.
