“Is it real?” Kayla asked, jumping right into the heart of everything.
“As far as we can tell, yes,” Tera said, patting out burgers. “None of us have been bitten to prove it, but the doctors we met supplied as much proof as they could possibly provide.”
“Start from the beginning,” I said, handing Kayla some celery to chop and motioning for her to go to the table to work.
Everyone was in my apartment doing something to prepare for the meal. We felt cramped, but we wanted to hear the story first hand.
“The lab was where Jasper said it was,” Tera started. “This one looked like a regular medical facility when we first entered. Looters and those desperate for supplies had trashed that part of the building. We got worried that we’d hit another dead end, but Russ remembered that the last one was underground, so we started looking for an entrance of some sort. We found a stairwell that appeared to just go to the basement, but in the basement, we discovered a door that opened up to another stairwell.”
“We made it as far as the first lower level before the overhead lights went from yellow to red,” Russ cut in, relieving her of the story so that she could put the meat on the grills. “No sirens or anything went off, but we knew we’d stumbled onto the right place when that happened. We had our suspicions when we first opened the door, and there was light. Since the floods, though, people have built underground homes, households on the side of mountains, up in trees, and other strange places, so it could have been someone’s home with its own source of electricity like Shore Haven.”
“The next thing we knew, we’re surrounded by people in hazmat suits and guns,” Trevor nearly shouted, wanting to have his say in the story.
Tera rolled her eyes, and Russ laughed. The boy was more excited by that part of the story than they were.
“Well, we were more cornered than surrounded. They locked the door behind us so that we couldn’t get out. They didn’t ask any questions, just forced us through decontamination, searched our things, and took blood to see if we were infected. It was so scary and creepy the way they did it. It was nearly two days before anyone did more than give us orders,” Trevor said.
“Once they were sure we weren’t carrying the virus,” Tera cut in to keep him from going on too much about how terrifying and exciting it all was, “They were much nicer to us. They didn’t return our gear or weapons, but they gave us better clothes to wear, food, and asked us about our experiences since the outbreak.”
“They mostly wanted to know how we’d survived this long,” Russ said.
“They’d lived through the initial wave by being in the lab. They lost some who had wanted to go home to family afterward, but most stayed,” Tera continued. “And they lost some while on scouting trips for food and other supplies.”
“How many of them are there?” I asked.
“I think thirty in all, but we only officially met about five. The doctors kept us isolated just in case. I can’t really say that I blame them. To have that many people in one place survive is a miracle.”
“But they have a vaccine, right?” Emily asked. “If they have it, they would have injected themselves with it, and if they’d done that, they’d be safe. Were they lying about the vaccine?”
“No, they had it, and they’d injected themselves with it, but that wasn’t the only thing they feared. There were other threats we could pose to them not just infecting them. They outnumbered us, so we’d have had a hard time overpowering them and taking over, but we were experienced fighters in their eyes, and we’d learned to survive in our new world. They weren’t putting anything past us.”
“But they have a vaccine. Did they give you some for us?” Kayla asked, looking as if a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“Yes,” Russ said, going over to her and putting his arm around her. “They gave us quite a bit.” He pointed over to the three cases they’d brought back with them that we hadn’t dared open yet.
“How do you know it works?” Samantha asked.
“As we weren’t taking the chance of being bitten and they weren’t either, we do have to take some of this on faith, but the evidence the doctors supplied was pretty convincing,” Tera said.
“What kind of evidence?” Katrina asked.
Until then the newcomers hadn’t said much about the situation. They weren’t as excited about it as we were. They’d been out in the world more than we had and had heard many things, nothing about a real vaccine, only snake oil salesmen. They were a bit dubious about it being real. We were to a small extent after our last experience, but since Russ and Tera seemed so convinced, I was more inclined to believe the vaccine was real.
“The doctors showed us their notes on how they came up with the vaccine—most of it I didn’t understand,” Tera said. “They showed us videos of their trial experiments. The first few vaccines did something like what that first doctor’s vaccine did, but we saw their progression and final success, saw the videos of them taking the vaccine in turn and the time lapse of the days they spent in quarantine waiting for the vaccine to turn on them.”
“They also had videos of one other group like us who found them. They injected the group with the vaccine, and the people survived. The first group left, heading west with a few cases of the vaccine,” Russ added.
“I nearly forgot about them,” Tera said with a tinge of embarrassment in her voice and turned back to the burgers.
“Did you guys take the vaccine,” a woman with Katrina asked. At the time, I hadn’t been able to remember her name, but Samantha reminded me later that it was Dacey.
“We did,” Russ said. “The doctors took a sample of my blood, introduced the virus to it to show us what it does to the blood, then took another sample and inoculated it, then exposed it to the virus.”
“How long did you watch to make sure it didn’t change like the one we saw at the other place?” I asked.
“Hours, but we’d already seen all of the other evidence, so after a while I let her give me the injection.”
“And?” Katrina asked when he didn’t continue.
“And nothing. I’m here aren’t I?”
“So no side effects?” Samantha asked. She’d unconsciously grabbed my arm as they talked.
We’d been in charge of clearing out the living room to set up the tables, and we were nearly done. Shore Haven had a cafeteria, but it was too large to have a gathering as we wanted for the number of people we had.
“We didn’t have any,” Russ said, pointing at Trevor, Tera, and himself in turn. “We saw a video of one of their people get sick, but it was like what we saw in the beginning with the virus. That didn’t last but about a day, and he was all right. They said they had three people get sick, and the group before us had two, and they were a group of ten. So some of you might react that way, but it wasn’t a severe sickness, and everyone recovered.”
“So no deaths? No one turned?” Dacey asked.
“Not that we saw any evidence of. That isn’t to say it won’t happen. One can never know who has a deadly allergic reaction to something. Everything is a risk to someone: all foods, drinks, medicines, plants, you name it. But they didn’t have a record of anyone having any other reaction than the one we mentioned.”
“And we’re supposed to take your word for it,” Dacey asked, though she didn’t sound harsh or accusatory.
“No, but I’m not going to purposely let one of those things bite me just to satisfy your need to be sure,” he replied.
“Russ, don’t be an ass,” Tera interjected. “The doctors did send some things for us to show people as proof, but she figured that we were the best evidence she could provide.”
“How does she think that?” Katrina asked, looking at all three of them a bit more carefully.
“The vaccine has an interesting side effect,” Trevor said, jumping into the conversation excitedly.
“But you guys told me you were fine,” Emily said, backing away from him a bit.
; “It’s not that kind of side effect,” he told her, blowing off her fear. “We no longer attract zombies.”
“What?” Samantha asked, turning to Tera.
Tera sighed, and said, “We don’t know that for sure. The first group they inoculated radioed back that they’d encountered a horde about a half a day’s walk from the lab, and the horde all but walked right by them. We haven’t had much of a chance to test that out ourselves. We only encountered the random straggler on the way back.”
“Stragglers that did not try to come for us,” Trevor added.
“That’s because they were too far away to have sensed us. The ones we met face-to-face, we stumbled upon and killed before testing the theory. In those situations, you just react without thinking.”
“So you don’t know for sure that the zombies can’t sense you?” I asked.
“Yes,” Trevor said.
“No,” Tera said at the same time.
I turned to Russ to get his opinion on the subject. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know. We didn’t actually encounter any zombies on which we could truly test the theory, but they didn’t seem to react to us the way they used to respond. I don’t know if they were just that far gone in their decay or if it’s the vaccine.”
I nodded and thought about things for a minute.
“I’ll take the vaccine,” Samantha said. “If the only side effect is a possible head cold for a few days, I’ll chance it. If it doesn’t work, then I die. If it does, then great. I can go after my parents right away.”
I stared at her in shock and fear, but I couldn’t say a word. We weren’t a couple; therefore, I couldn’t weigh in on her decisions, no matter how badly I wanted to scream that she wasn’t risking her life.
After a moment’s hesitation, I said, “I’ll take it as well.”
The look that crossed her face at my words told me that she was thinking the same thing about me as I had about her. I saw the moment she realized how her decision had affected me. Tears welled in her eyes, and I took her hand and squeezed it in reassurance.
Tera and Russ swore they’d taken the shot. Both of them were alive and well. Samantha and I would be all right.
Others around the room said they would take the vaccine as well. Not everyone, though. Many decided to wait to see how we reacted to the shot first. So we agreed that after we ate, the three of them would administer the vaccine.
To distract everyone from what we were about to do, I asked if they’d encountered any live people on their journey. I didn’t think that question was going to bring down the scene even more.
Tera looked at Russ, but neither said anything. Trevor, on the other hand, was about to burst with the story.
“You tell them if you must,” Tera said to the boy, taking up the burgers and bringing them to the tables. Nearly all of the food was done and waiting for us to eat.
“We saw cannibals,” he said, putting a hot dog and a hot dog bun on his plate.
“Seriously,” Katrina asked. “Have we run out of resources so quickly to need to resort to that?”
“That group must have thought so,” Tera said, shrugging her shoulders.
“How many were there?” one of the men from Katrina’s group named Greg asked.
“We aren’t sure. We didn’t stick around to find out,” Trevor said. “We were about a day’s walk from here when we ran across them. It was nearly dark, and we were looking for a place to bed down for the day. We were nearing a decent size town when we saw a fire off the road in a beautiful neighborhood. We found the fire odd because it was just out in the open for anyone or thing to see.”
They’d snuck into the backyard of the house nearest them and found a tree house. They climbed up and used their binoculars to spy on the group. At first, they thought the group had killed an animal and was just grilling out, but as they watched and scanned the area, they saw what their source of food was.
“They had two humans strung up, and they were skinning them and eating them,” Trevor said.
“Were they infected? Wouldn’t that infect them?” Greg asked. Only he and a few other people seemed intrigued by the story. The rest of us didn’t care to hear any more of it.
“We honestly couldn’t tell, but either way they were eating people. We asked the doctor’s at the lab about it. They hadn’t seen or heard about them or anyone like them and wasn’t sure if the meat was cooked if it would infect them. Raw, most likely, but the heat might kill the virus. They said they would do some experiments to find out, though if we can get the vaccine out quickly and the remaining zombies die soon, we won’t see too many people trying to find out,” he said, taking a big bite out of his burger.
The rest of us looked down at our plates and nearly lost our appetites.
“We met others like us as well,” Tera said, changing the subject.
“What do you mean like us?” Dacey asked.
“We found another group of survivors building a life for themselves and a pretty good one. They’re living in a fancy private school that already had a wall around it. They’ve fortified that wall, scavenged the nearby town, and all but eliminated their zombie population. We asked if they wanted to join us here, but they declined for the moment. They did take a case of the vaccines on our return trip. We weren’t able to get any of their people to go to the lab with us when we first met them but did promise to bring them news on what we found, so we felt obligated to take them the vaccine.”
“Did any of them take the shot?” I asked.
“They said they were going to, but we didn’t watch them, so I don’t know for sure. The group has a radio. Jasper should be able to contact them and find out.”
Chapter 26
~~~Jason~~~
Jasper hadn’t been able to get the group at the school on the radio that night due to a storm in their area, but the following day he spoke to them. The entire group had taken the vaccine, and everyone was all right. A handful did get sick, but the illness hadn’t lasted long. They were so convinced that the vaccine worked that they were making plans to send a party to the lab to assist in the distribution of the vaccine.
When we hadn’t been able to reach the group the night before most of those who had agreed to receive the vaccine decided to wait until we did before taking it. The private school group’s decision to inject themselves with the vaccine made the rest of our group who had planned to wait, decide to go ahead and take it. Due to the possibility of getting sick, we chose to use one of the medical wards to administer the shots. Everyone was together, and everyone had a bed. That made it easier to keep an eye on people and get to them quickly if they turned or got sick.
Jasper allowed me to leave his vaccine outside the elevator door on his floor. He wouldn’t retrieve it until I was back with the others, though. He did allow us to watch him take the shot and monitor him throughout the day. He had no reaction.
By that afternoon, the only people who were sick were Samantha, Katrina, and another of Katrina’s people named Hayden. Their only symptoms were fever, body ache, and nausea, all of which we could take care of quickly enough, and all of which were over by the morning.
I hadn’t noticed Samantha’s symptoms at first. After the shots, we’d laid in the medical beds for about an hour letting the slight burning sensation sweep our bodies before getting up and milling about or preparing for the midday meal. Some people were watching a movie on a big screen at one end of the room. Others were playing board games, putting together puzzles, and talking amongst themselves.
Samantha had been beside me one moment, watching me play a round of chess with Russ, the next time I’d looked her way to see if she’d seen the move I’d made, she was gone. I didn’t panic, only looked around for her. When I spotted her curled up on her bed, I rushed to her, calling for Katrina. She’d taken care of her group while they were sick, so by default we’d made her our medic. She fell into the role happily, and she was even studying the medical books that Jasper sent down to her
.
Katrina gave her Tylenol for the fever and body aches and an antiemetic for nausea. Within an hour, I was giving Katrina, who’d crawled into a bed next to Samantha, the same medicine. Shortly after that, Hayden lay next to Katrina, and Dacey was taking care of him.
Samantha mostly slept, but I made sure I was there, holding her hand, every time she woke. She didn’t call out anyone’s name in her fever haze besides mine, which gave me more pleasure than it should. At one point, she even told me that she loved me. No one else was around, so I’d told her I loved her as well.
“Why do you sleep on the sofa then,” she asked, half opening her eyes to look at me.
“Because if I sleep in the same bed as you, I’m going to want to make love to you, and you aren’t ready for that,” I said, after looking around to make sure no one was near enough to hear us.
Pretty much everyone was staying far away from the three sick people. Some had even complained that they shouldn’t be there in case they caught it. The others quickly reminded them that they couldn’t catch the sickness and that they needed to be there in case they did get sick so someone could give them immediate medical attention.
“Yes, I am. I’m more than ready,” Samantha had replied, reaching out to try to touch my face.
I took her hand and held it with both of mine.
“Physically, yes, but I know you. You’d never subconsciously forgive yourself if we let our relationship go any further without you knowing for sure if your husband is dead or not. We don’t have much longer to wait,” I said, massaging her palm and reminding myself that being a gentleman was a good thing.
“Do you want me,” she asked, barely opening her eyes enough to look at me as she asked the question.
“Very much so.”
“Do you want me because you’re horny, or do you really like me?”
Shore Haven Page 23
