by James Evans
Kevin sighed deeply, the breath escaping slowly from his lungs. Five seconds passed without a heartbeat, then ten. In the dark hospital room, Michelle rested her head on Kevin’s arm and wept.
CHAPTER THIRTY-two
John and Eric slipped out quietly. “Shit,” John said. “I really thought it was going to work.”
“So did I! What went wrong?”
They were both exhausted and now were thoroughly depressed. They’d given a pregnant woman false hope after her husband had been bitten by a zombie. They hadn’t eaten in eighteen hours and hadn’t slept in twice that long.
“Where can we go get a drink?” Eric asked.
“There’s a bar downtown. Let’s go.”
A few minutes later they sat at a table, talking about what could have gone wrong. “Maybe we didn’t give it to him soon enough. Maybe there’s a narrow window of time in which to administer the serum, like with stroke patients,” John said.
“Or maybe it just doesn’t work. Maybe we were wrong.”
“It stops zombies. That’s a major breakthrough. So why do I feel so shitty?” John replied. He finished his pint in one long draught and motioned for another.
Everybody in Stormcloud knew who they were. Word spread fast that the new guy in town, Kevin, had been bitten by a zombie when he was trying to rescue a woman Sammy was abusing. They knew John and Eric hoped they could save him. Just by looking at the two scientists, everybody knew they had failed.
After a few pints they were not only exhausted and depressed, but drunk. They ran out of things to say. They sat there, staring miserably into space. Eventually they stumbled to the guest house and slept.
Michelle wept, her tears dripping down her nose and onto Kevin’s forearm. He suddenly gasped a lungful of air and the monitor showed a single heartbeat. And finally another. With a wretched combination of fear and hope, she said, “Is he… did he…?”
Doctor Nunn and Carolyn stood silent. Neither answered her. After a third heartbeat and another gasp of air, Doctor Nunn said, “Zombie hearts don’t beat. And zombies don’t breathe. I’ve never seen this before. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Kevin began having a seizure. His arms began to flail and his legs began to kick. His body was wracked with convulsions so strong he began thrashing around on the bed.
Doctor Nunn opened the door and shouted “WE NEED SEIZURE PADS!!” Tracey appeared seconds later and in the dim light from the hall they surrounded Kevin’s body with foam pads to prevent damage.
His heart rate increased rapidly as he continued to gasp for breath. Within a minute, he developed tachycardia as his heart rate reached and surpassed 200 beats per minute. Carolyn ran to the pharmacy for some Adenosine. Michelle and Doctor Nunn struggled to keep his arm stationary as she injected it into his arm.
Kevin became aware of voices again. He wished they would go away. He was exhausted. He wanted to be left alone, wanted to drift back into darkness. But the voices wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t make out the words and didn’t care.
Over the next few hours, Kevin’s vital signs fluctuated between extremes. His blood pressure rose and fell precipitously; at times he hyperventilated, other times he stopped breathing for several seconds. His heart vacillated between tachycardia and bradycardia. Michelle and Doc never left his side. Carolyn and Doctor Nunn spent as much with him as their patient load would allow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-three
Across town that morning, Tony opened his eyes with a groan. The light was too bright. His bedroom faced east, so if he forgot to shut the blinds he had to endure the morning sun in his eyes.
He wasn’t ready to start the day. He’d gone to bed late and hadn’t slept well. It had been a tough day. Tony had never aimed a gun at a living person and fired; before the Collapse he had been a librarian. But Sammy tortured Laura and fed Kevin to the zombie. Sammy would have murdered them all if he’d had the chance.
He got dressed without taking a shower. Cold showers were unpleasant. When he buckled his holster he remembered he’d given his gun to Kevin. Somehow Sammy had gotten the gun. But after Sammy got killed by the zombie, Tony took care of Kevin and Laura and in all the commotion forgot all about the gun.
He had to retrieve his gun before he did anything else. He had no choice, really. Ten minutes later he was crossing the battered threshold of Sammy’s house. He did a quick check of each room to make sure he was alone, and in the process discovered Sammy’s pile of porn in a side bedroom. He rifled through the magazines, disgusted at what he saw. Tony wasn’t a prude; far from it. But these magazines showed bestiality and cruelty, women being tortured. It wasn’t the least bit erotic.
When he’d made certain the house was empty he went downstairs to get his gun. Sammy had been holding it when Tony shot him in the shoulder. It was probably near or under one of the dead bodies.
He opened the door and nearly retched. The combined odor of the now-disintegrating zombie, the blood from Kevin and Sammy, and Sammy’s voided bowels, was overwhelming. One hand over his nose, he marched down the stairs and into the darkness. He stepped onto the basement floor when his warning radar went off. He stopped, completely aware of everything around him, listening and watching for the slightest noise or movement. Shit! he thought, I forgot about Sammy. He must have turned by now!
From out of the shadows on the other side of the basement, Sammy came lurching toward him, rasping, his neck and chest covered in dried blood. His leather harness and genital pouch were still intact, but one glove was missing. His arms were outstretched as he reached for Tony, his mouth open. His eyes were wild, without intelligence or emotion.
Tony instinctively reached for his gun only to find the empty holster. Instantly Sammy was upon him. Tony locked his elbows as Sammy grasped at him, then twisted to the side, causing Sammy to stumble to the side. But Sammy had already grabbed Tony’s shirt, so when he stumbled, he took Tony with him. Together they tumbled onto the dead zombie body from the day before.
Tony felt the body give way beneath him with a sickening crunch. It was soft and mushy. Tony involuntarily heaved as the zombie Sammy bent its head down to bite him. Despite being dead, Sammy was quite strong; his tissues were still fresh. He was almost as strong as Tony . . . but not quite. His teeth got within an inch of Tony’s shoulder when Tony shoved as hard as he could. Sammy staggered back and fell on the floor. Tony saw the revolver next to Sammy’s leg as the zombie struggled to get up.
His muscles fueled with adrenalin, Tony jumped up and hit Sammy head on, shoulder first. Sammy fell back with a CRUNCH! and Tony scooped up the gun. As Sammy righted himself, Tony aimed and fired. The back of Sammy’s head exploded and Tony watched him die again, this time for good.
Now that he had the gun, Tony was desperate to get out of the basement and away from the house. It was beyond disgusting. He needed to breathe some sweet, fresh air and get the images of dead bodies and twisted porn out of his mind.
He sprinted up the stairs two at time and burst into the kitchen. He retched onto the floor, emptying his stomach of the morel mushroom soup he’d had for dinner. He staggered to the sink to rinse his mouth, but the faucet didn’t work. Desperate, he looked around and through the window onto the back patio.
On the table was a bottle of tequila and tequila mix. Tony rushed onto the patio and indiscriminately grabbed one of the bottles. As the liquid rushed into his mouth, he realized it was tequila. He nearly retched again. He swallowed the liquor and chased it with a big swallow from the tequila mix. He grimaced as he swallowed. Cheap, warm tequila mix is a nasty combination of sweetener, questionable citrus flavor, and salt. But it disguised the flavor of vomit.
Tony searched the house to make sure no other zombies had been captured and bound. He found no zombies, but did find further evidence of Sammy’s disturbed personality. When he’d had his fill (and then some!) he angled for the front door, ready to put the experience behind him. He noted the address to pass along to the custodial crew. They had a
hellacious cleanup job waiting for them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-four
Kevin’s vital signs had leveled out by midafternoon, but he hadn’t regained consciousness.
Still floating in his dark place, Kevin once again heard voices in the distance, too far away to make out. They were familiar. He realized one of the voices was Michelle’s and tried to comprehend what she was saying. He failed. He recognized the voices of his other visitors, too although he couldn’t remember their names.
Later in the day, Michelle gave him a second dose of the serum. The same voice he’d heard earlier spoke to him out of the darkness. “Go back now,” the young man said. “Michelle and Stanley are waiting for you.”
“Squeeze my hand,” Michelle told Kevin. He didn’t respond, just as he hadn’t responded in the preceding hours. “Come on, Kevin, squeeze my hand. Show me you can hear me. Come back, Kevin. You don’t have to squeeze hard, but I need you to squeeze my hand. Squeeze my hand, Kevin. Come on, sweetheart, squeeze my hand, just a little. Come on, my love. Please squeeze my hand.” She struggled to hold back her tears.
Kevin heard her words spoken over and over and understood. She was relentless. It was like listening to a broken record. He squeezed her hand just to shut her up. Then he opened his eyes.
“There you are! There’s my husband!” Michelle was leaning over him, looking into his eyes and smiling despite the tears rolling down her cheeks. “You’re in the hospital in Frankfort. You’re going to be okay! Do you understand me?”
Kevin nodded weakly and tried to speak. She leaned over and placed her ear up to his lips. “Did you say something?” Kevin’s lips moved again and she laughed. “No, you’re not a zombie!” Kevin heard Doc and another voice—was it Tony?—laugh. He moved his lips again. Michelle laughed again and stood up. “He’s going to be fine, the nut!”
“What did he say?” asked Doc.
“He said, You look good enough to eat.” Their laughter echoed down the hall.
Kevin smiled weakly and closed his eyes again. It took too much effort to keep them open. When he next opened them, Jake and Lee were standing near the bed.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Lee said. “Welcome back!”
Jake held a straw to his lips. “Take a drink, Kevin. I imagine you’re thirsty!” Kevin realized he was indeed thirsty and took several sips from the straw.
“What’s going on? Where’s Michelle?” he said weakly.
“She’s around. You’re not her only patient, you know,” Jake said. “She spends every moment she can with you, but she can’t be here twenty-four/seven.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Five days.”
“What happened? The last thing I remember is finding a gorgeous Petoskey Stone on the beach.”
A man after my own heart, Lee thought. Even while dying he searched for Petoskey Stones!
“What’s the last thing you heard about the scientists’ research?”
“I heard they’d potentially found a way to get rid of the zombies.”
“It’s been confirmed. They were right about it being a fungal infection and a series of tests narrowed down which antifungal agent kills zombies. They injected you with a serum. They didn’t know whether it would kill the fungus or kill you or do nothing. Your body freaked out. The fungus had almost taken over. It was touch and go and we thought we might lose you. If they’d waited another hour it would have been too late.”
“You’re going to be famous, dude!” Jake said. “You’re the first person to survive a zombie bite!”
Michelle walked in. “He’s awake!” she said, beaming. She leaned over and gave him a warm kiss.
“He woke up a few minutes ago. We’ve been filling him in.”
“If the meds killed the fungus in my body, why am I still in the hospital?”
“Your system was severely compromised. It took several treatments to destroy the fungus, and it was a fight every step of the way. The treatment was entirely experimental, so we had no idea how much to give you and what might happen if we overwhelmed your system. Your vital organs were weak from the infestation, and you were in a coma. But you slowly recovered. There’s no trace of the fungus in your system now. But you’re still very weak and we want to keep you under observation.”
“I had bizarre dreams. Some kind of monster was chasing me across a weird battlefield. And I heard voices sometimes. I guess it was people in the room. Was there a kid in here?”
“The only people we allowed in were the medical staff, including Doc, plus Jake and Lee. And Tony,” she said. “Let’s sit you up.” She pressed a button on the hospital bed and raised Kevin to a sitting position.
“Hey, Kevin,” Tony said.
“I heard a young man’s voice,” Kevin said “He said, Some Petoskey Stones are never found. Some found stones become lost again. Your stone has not been lost.”
“It must have been part of your dream,” Michelle said.
“I guess,” Kevin replied. “Later he told me it was time to come back, because you and Stanley were waiting for me. I wish I could remember where I heard his voice before.” Kevin closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them wide. “I remember now. It was the voice of the young man who helped me when I had the flu. The kid who said his name was Jason.” It was Jason, my son, Kevin thought, he was helping me again.
“That’s quite a story,” Doc said.
“I have a little story of my own,” Tony said. “Remember when we were outside Sammy’s house and I gave you my gun?”
Kevin held up his left hand, and noticed a cast had been wrapped around his wrist. “Sammy hit me with something and knocked the gun out of my hand. That’s how he broke my wrist.”
“The day after I brought you and Laura here I went back to get my gun. When I went into the basement I found an unpleasant surprise. Sammy had turned. In all the commotion, once the zombie killed him, I forgot to shoot him in the head. I had the rewarding experience of killing him once and for all. Afterwards I searched his house. He had some seriously messed up shit, including some disturbing porn. Sex with animals, rape, tort—”
“Okay, Tony, we get it.” Michelle interrupted.
“Sorry, Doctor Williams. Plus, he had a lot of weird sex toys like—” he stopped and glanced at Michelle. “Let’s just say he made Fifty Shades of Gray look like a walk in the park. He was one messed up son of a bitch!” He glanced apologetically at Michelle again. “Excuse the language, Doctor Williams!”
“First off, Tony, I agree with you. Sammy was one messed up son of a bitch. The asshole very nearly killed my husband. Second, if you don’t start calling me Michelle I’m going to kick your ass! You can call me Doctor Williams when I have to perform your prostate exam, which will be very soon if you don’t start calling me Michelle.”
Tony blushed. “How about I call you Doc?”
“No, that’s my name,” Doc said. He’d been sitting next to Tony, quietly listening to the conversation. “You’ll have to follow the Doctor’s orders and call her Michelle.”
“You’ve been awfully quiet, Bones,” Kevin said.
“I didn’t get enough sleep last night,” Doc replied.
“He’s worn out,” Michelle replied. “Now that he’s part of the medical team he’s officially unretired. When he’s not working, I think Carolyn is giving him quite a workout.”
Doc shrugged, a smile on his face and a blush on his cheeks. “We enjoy spending time together,” he shrugged.
“And he’s not the only one who’s been shot by Cupid’s arrow! Right, Tony? You’ve been spending a lot of time with Laura!”
“It’s not like you think!” Tony protested. “She’s still recovering from her injuries and is afraid to be alone! Every night she wakes up screaming. Right now she’s with Lee, who’s teaching her how to make a tincture of marijuana. It seems to help with trauma.”
“She basically has PTSD,” Doc said. “You saw what Sammy did to her. She may never get over it completely. Not
without help.”
“So you and Laura are just friends, nothing more?” Kevin asked.
“I didn’t say we’re just friends. We have a connection and she needs me. Besides, we make a good team. She’s a pretty good cook and I’m a pretty good eater!”
Michelle noticed a weary look on Kevin’s face. “Okay, visiting hours are over. The patient needs his rest.” He reached out and took her hand.
“You’re not leaving, are you?” he asked her.
“She’s barely left your side all week, except when she was at work,” Doc said. “She even sleeps here. She rolls a cot in and spends the night.”
“Hopefully, tonight’s the last night. The cot isn’t the most comfortable. But now, out everyone! I’d like some private time with my husband.”
Doc and Tony said their goodbyes and promised to be back the next day. After they left, Michelle pulled her chair closer to the bed so she could hold Kevin’s hand. After a few minutes of talking, his hand wandered to her baby bump. “I swear it’s bigger than I remember,” he noted as he idly rubbed in circles. At seven months, she was showing quite a bit.
“Kevin, you said the voice in your dream told you it was time to come back because I need you. What else did he say?”
“He said Michelle and Stanley are waiting for you.”
“Who is Stanley?”
“I don’t know. There’s a councilman Stanley. Or maybe Stanley is the name of the baby you’re carrying.” Michelle mulled over the idea.
