Travis laughed suddenly and impulsively leaned down and hugged her. In just two days, she felt so tiny and frail. Already slim, the drain on her body resources had been powerful. She awkwardly hugged him back. She tried to stand up. Her body was determined to keep her seated.
"Okay, I guess I was really sick." She fell back onto the bed and looked a little woozy.
"Scary sick." Travis responded and sat next to her on the bed. He took hold of her hand and looked at her arm. "We couldn't figure out if it was the zombie infection or not. Your scrape happened on one of the trucks. I didn't know if the blood and guts from the zombies may have infected you." Peeling back the bandage, he revealed a nicely healing wound. "But we saw no signs of infection but you were burning up and we couldn't keep anything in you."
Katie grimaced and shook her head. She touched her hair again and made a face. "Gawd, I'm so gross right now. None of you could have known this, but when I get the flu I go down like an elephant. I always have and that is why I usually get the flu shot. I skipped this year due to a big case and just never finding the time. Who knows what diseases all those dead bodies have unleashed into the air?" She shivered at the thought. Looking down she saw she was dressed in a nightgown that was probably Nerit's.
"The flu," Travis said with relief. "Thank God, just the fucking everyday flu." He leaned forward and ran his hands over his face.
Katie draped her arm over his broad shoulders and gave him a little hug. "I'm a tough bitch. A little bug like that can't keep me down for long. I always bounce back."
He looked up at her and said, "You're something else, you know that."
She gave him an impish smile. "I was called the Bitch Queen of the Prosecution. That has to say something about me."
"Tough as nails, eh?"
"Eat them for breakfast," Katie said.
She looked frail, but her voice was strong. She had ridden out the worst of it and was on the mend. He could tell that by the brightness in her eyes. Now that she was sitting next to him, smiling at him, he couldn't imagine why he had thought she would go out of the world so easily.
"I was really worried about you." He took hold of her hand. It felt a little cold, fragile, the bones under her skin so very delicate. "I thought you were gone. And we need you. You're smart, resourceful, and...and..."
"Bitchy."
"No, very real. I feel like what I see is what you are. I like that about you. That is why I wanted to know you better the second I met you. I knew in my heart that you were the type of person that could help all of us survive and keep us human. Not just keeping us from being zombies, but keeping us compassionate."
"You give me way too much credit," Katie said swiftly.
"You rode into town with a kid, a dog, and a woman who doesn't have all her marbles and you were all alive and not bitten. That is an amazing feat all unto itself. When Jenni told me all you've done..." He shook his head. "To have lost you would have cost all of us."
Katie frowned at him and said, "Stop it. I'm going to cry. And I don't cry!"
Travis laughed and his eyes sparkled with tears. "Well, I'm much more butch than you and I cry."
Katie rolled her eyes, than laughed and ran a hand over her hair. "Ugh, my hair!" She staggered to her feet and went to the mirror on the wall. "I need a bath. Fast."
"I would insist on you laying back down, but I don't think that will work."
"Absolutely not." Katie fussed with her greasy, matted hair and threw up her hands. "Ugh!"
"Okay, you can take a shower, but I'm staying right here and you're leaving that door open. If you fall I need to be able to go in immediately."
"Fine...fine..."
She stumbled about a bit and he considered helping her, but figured she wouldn't appreciate it. Grabbing up a fresh pair of jeans and a white tank top, she managed to get herself into the bathroom.
There was a gentle knock on the door and Travis opened it. Nerit stood there with her yellowish hair falling over one shoulder and one hand holding her flannel robe shut.
"How is she?" Her voice was anxious, then she saw the empty bed and heard the shower. "She's up?"
"And lucid. And feisty. Weak as hell, but she's okay."
Nerit clasped her hands together and smiled. "Oh, thank goodness! I woke up fearing the worst!"
"Honestly, I almost put one between her eyes. But, luckily, she spoke. I was so convinced she was gone."
Nerit hugged Travis and looked toward the open bathroom door. "I must tell Ralph!"
She scurried off and Travis hesitantly walked toward the door.
Maybe I'm dreaming and she died and I shot her and I'm dreaming, he thought for a moment.
And then he saw her outline behind the shower curtain and the tension between his shoulders lessened.
Again, for a moment, he saw a flash of Katie sitting up, eyes dead, screaming, and trushing toward him...
But that hadn't happened.
He stood with his back to the bathroom and hands in his pockets as he waited. He was still afraid. Afraid of what had nearly happened and he was shaken.
Katie finally emerged with her wet hair up on top of her head. Damp little curls spilled over her brow and her shoulders poking out of the tank top were a little bonier than before. The men's jeans she was wearing slung a little low on her hips and showed that she had lost a little weight. But despite her delicate appearance, Travis knew she was going to be okay.
"I need to talk to Jenni," she said, ignoring his obvious examination of her appearance.
Feeling a little embarrassed and awkward, he nodded.
Taking her arm, he helped her down the hall. He knew she was feeling weak because she did not protest. They entered a small room where the CB radio was set up and a man in his forties with a wide, pleasant face looked up.
"Hey, you made it!" He gave her an enormous grin that lit up his rather plain face.
Katie nodded and said, "You're Bill, right?"
"Yep, that's me. I take it you want to call your friends?"
"Please," Katie sat down heavily in a chair and Travis steadied her with one hand. "Then I want to eat something really bad."
"Sure thing, give me a moment." Bill messed with the dials and started talking.
Katie looked up at Travis and laid her hand over his. "Thank you. For watching over me. For making sure I was okay."
Travis felt a little flushed and nodded. "No problem. Really?"
"…she's up and talking," Bill said into the microphone.
It sounded like there was a brief struggle of some kind on the other end then a voice said, "Katie! Katie! It's me!"
Bill laughed and handed the Mic over to Katie. Travis couldn't help but laugh a little, imagining Jenni virtually climbing over Curtis to get to the microphone.
"And it's me, Jenni. I'm okay. It was just the flu."
"Oh, thank God!" And Jenni broke down crying and her sobs were loud over the speakers. "I was so scared! So scared! But we're going to find a way to get you back in and you'll be safe here!"
Katie smiled and winked at Travis. "I know, Jenni. I know. And I know you were looking after me in your own way. I felt it. We'll come home. I promise. Soon."
Travis could see tears in Katie's eyes and turned away. He felt emotional and unsteady on his feet. Nerit and Ralph were in the doorway now and Katie reached out to them and they both grabbed her hand.
The most radiant smile he had ever seen on any woman's face lit up Katie's features and he felt almost as if he was basking in it.
For the first time since the world had slid sideways into hell, he felt a moment of happiness, and it felt delicious.
Chapter 12
1. Dancing for the Dead
Two days later, the excitement in the fort was a tangible, electric force sweeping through all the survivors. It seemed as if everyone was drawn outside, into the morning sunlight, to watch what had been dubbed "Operation Little Doggy".
Even Old Man Watson came out and sat in a plastic
chair in the sun to watch. He was their oldest survivor at ninety-three and he had ended up at city hall only because he had come in to pay his water bill when the zombies had arrived. His arms were covered in tattoos from his Navy days and he mostly sat around and just smiled at everyone. It took Jenni a while to realize he couldn't hear hardly at all. She went out of her way to talk very loudly to him and explain the plan to him.
He had patted her on the head and said, "You give em hell, kid."
Jenni had been the first person to sign up on the volunteer sheet for Operation Little Doggy. Jason was second. They were both determined to help in the project that would bring Katie and Travis home safely with their load of guns and supplies. Everyone else in the Fort was more concerned about Travis returning with the guns than they were about Katie. It annoyed Jenni, but she understood these people didn't know Katie like she did. Also, the more she listened to the townsfolk talk about Travis, the more evident it was that when he had moved to the town to help with the reconstruction of the downtown area, he had caused an immediate stir.
"Movie star looks, nice as can be, volunteering down at the senior center," Peggy had said to Jenni as they had washed dishes the night before. Everyone had to do his or her part and Jenni didn't mind. "Caused an immediate stir. All the ladies, old and young, had mad crushes on him. And honestly, I don't think he noticed. He's nursing a broken heart. He told me his fiancée left him when he gave up his high paying job as a architect and went back to construction."
Jenni had absorbed that, considered it, and tucked it away for later. She had seen Travis' subtle charisma in action and she had been very much affected by it. Weirdly, she thought Katie was, too. But she had seen something in his eyes when he gazed at her and she felt pretty confident in it. Time would tell all things, of course.
Now she stood next to Jason, clad in the same outfit she had left Ralph's in. It had been washed numerous times and now had a softness to it that she found comforting. Jason had told Jack to stay with Old Man Watson so he could help with his volunteer crew and now the German Shepherd sat faithfully next to the old man getting his ears scratched.
"Okay, the cement is mixed on the other side," Juan said, approaching the groups of volunteers. "Just do what we told you and make it quick. We don't want to give these zombies any ideas. Try to keep low and out of view."
Jenni and Jason quickly scaled the ladder over the cement wall and down the other side. The Hurricane fence was easy to scale and she dropped over the other side easily. Jason dropped down second. The other members of their team, six in all, started the process of handing over long wicked spikes over the wall and fence using a conveyor belt system. Another man, Mike, a tall black man, also dropped over the fence.
The day before a crew of the construction workers had worked long and hard with sledgehammers creating deep gouges in the sidewalk that divided the fence from the line of trucks. Now, Mike helped lower a large spike into the ground and Jenni and Jason held it into position. Freshly made cement was then poured into the deep hole around the bottom of the spike.
It seemed easy enough at first, but as the morning wore on, Jenni grew tired. The spikes were bits of the old wrought iron fence the construction crew had torn down. They were heavy and, after awhile, her muscles began to ache. But the spikes had been something Juan had insisted upon. If the zombies became "climbing" zombies, Juan wanted something waiting for them they tried to drop down. The spikes were staggered in such a way that you had duck low and around them to get safely through. Anyone jumping down from on top the trucks would be impaled. Her little team moved quickly, but it was still exhausting and she was covered with sweat. What made it harder was the sheer, nasty stench of the dead just on the other side of the ring of trucks. Their moans and screeches indicated they were stirred up, sensing warm flesh nearby.
Jason's hair hung in wet, long strands in his eyes and he looked at her and blew them up out of his eyes. "Eh, maybe I do need a haircut."
She giggled and they helped maneuver another spike into place.
Soon the forest of spikes was ready; all of them angled at a deadly slant to capture anyone attempting to jump down. It would likely not kill the zombies, but it would slow them down.
Finally, they clambered back into the fortress and got a round of applause. The storage containers that had lined the back of the old building with the faded advertisement on it were now rigged with chains as a harness. Juan walked toward Jenni and the rest of the crews and said, "Okay, so far so good."
Jenni giggled and pulled off her heavy gloves. 'Piece of cake."
"So far, Loca, but we have more to do." He walked past her and up onto to the stairs that led up to a sentry post in the corner of their makeshift fortress. He looked out over the crowd of zombies and turned around to motion to the crane operator high above them.
With a whine, the huge crane snagged the first of the storage units and lifted it high into the air. The forty foot long container that stood almost ten feet tall was used for storing a lot of the materials that were to be used in the construction of the building. But now it would serve another purpose. The crane arm slowly swung the unit over the construction site and Juan continued to motion and direct the operator.
Jenni joined some other people standing on a pile of cement bags to try to watch.
Slowly, the arm swung into position and the container was carefully aligned to fit into the road below. Juan motioned again and the container lowered slowly over the heads of the zombies reaching for it. Finally, it descended, smashing them beneath its weight. It was almost a perfect fit.
The crane arm swung back into position as Jenni ran across the site to where Juan was. She just had to see what was going on. Running up the steps, the sea of zombies came into view and she gasped.
Some were beating on the storage container that almost completely cut off the street to the right of the fortress. Most were reaching toward the people that were visible on the platform, screeching, howling, and pushing hard against the large trucks in front of them.
The crane arm swung overhead again, but this time dropped large bags full of earth between the end of the storage container and the storefront it had settled in front off.
Now the road was cut off.
Juan turned to Jenni. "Not bad, huh?"
She grinned and looked over the crowd again.
Tobias stood nearby, shaking his head. "We slaughter them instead of helping them."
"What do you suggest we do, huh? Give them some vitamin C and some aspirin and tell them to get some rest?" Juan shook his head with disgust.
That was when Jenni noticed that the crowd was shifting slightly. It was almost as if they knew they were about to get trapped in a narrow space with nowhere to go unless they backtracked up the road.
"Shit!" She watched some moving toward the zone that Juan said they needed to keep clear. Frowning, she watched some of them looking up at the container now being hefted into the air.
Jenni took off running, down the stairs, across the site, toward city hall. Rushing up the back stairs, she wasn't sure what she was doing until she saw the staircase to the second floor. She ran up the stairs, taking two at a time, then turned down another hallway. The third floor had a small narrow balcony that was forbidden to everyone since it overlooked the street. She ripped down the "do not enter" sign and pushed open the door and stumbled out onto the balcony.
It gave a warning creak, but held her weight.
"Hey, dead fuckers! Up here!"
The ones that were moving toward the forbidden area turned their heads upwards and looked straight up at her. Immediately, they began to screech and reach for her. They pushed up against the truck barrier.
Jenni noticed a few that were not paying attention so she danced along the balcony screaming, "Over here, stupid fuckers! Hey, dead ass! Up here! Fine quality human flesh up here!"
Jenni waved her hands over her head and flipped off the zombies as they looked up. Seeing she had an audience, s
he showed them her ass, wiggled it, and did the most annoying faces she could think of. The zombies howled in response as she whipped them up into a frenzy.
She noticed the container was on its way down so she got to the end of the balcony and nearly hung over it, getting as many zombies as she could to move directly under her.
"Hey, freaks, hey, guess what? I'm not for dinner!"
The container came down. There was a mighty thank as it settled down onto the road and a gush of blood and gore came out from beneath it as Jenni managed to get almost ten taken out with one blow.
Laughing almost maniacally, she grabbed hold of the rail and taunted the nearly completely trapped zombies to follow her away from the slight gap between the storage container and the wall of the store. She kept taunting them until the crane arm delivered the bags of dirt that completely cut off the left-hand side of the street. The zombies were now trapped in a t-shaped corral.
Dancing across the balcony, Jenni laughed her ass off. The balcony gave a loud moan and Jenni realized the show was over.
"Oh, shit!" She dove back in the door and the balcony shuddered, but stayed in place.
Juan stood in the hallway just inside the doorway. He looked past her into the corral, seem satisfied with what he saw, then looked back at her.
"You're loca," he said simply and walked away.
Jenni grinned, turned and held her hands over her head like Nixon flashing the victory sign and retreated into the city hall.
Behind her, the zombies moaned and groaned.
2. Family Ties that Bind
Jason trudged across the construction site, Jack at his heels, his hand wiping the sweat off his brow. He was exhausted. He had been helping with defenses all day and his body hurt with every movement he made. His long bangs were soaked with sweat and he had finally borrowed a rubber band and managed to get most of his hair into a stubby ponytail. Now a few wisps fell around his face and he flicked his hand at them with annoyance.
Jenni was sitting at a table with several of the townspeople. He was proud of her. He knew how hard it was for her to socialize with more than one or two people at a time. But she seemed to be changing, getting bolder. Hell, that dance on the balcony had proven that.
As The World Dies: The First Days-A Zombie Trilogy Page 17
