by Brown, TW
“How is she?”
“Let’s worry about getting you back to good before you start diving in to save the world again, shall we?” a voice said from the other side of an accordion-like divider that was shoved aside.
“Hey, Doctor Thompson,” Aleah said, standing up and moving back to allow the new arrival a place beside Kevin’s bed.
The woman opened a small notebook and jotted something down. She went through several standard routines like looking into his eyes and checking his pulse. Every time that Kevin tried to speak, she shushed him. Kevin took the time to give this stranger a closer look.
Doctor Thompson was very short, he doubted she could officially claim five feet as her height. She had short blonde hair that was showing streaks of white. Her eyes were an ice blue that did not seem to miss a thing and unless he was mistaken, he saw the hint of a tattoo peeking out from under her short-sleeved scrub top.
“So, Mister Dreon, you are the person that I have heard so much about these past few weeks.”
“Weeks?” Kevin managed. It suddenly felt as if his throat had dried up and sealed itself shut.
“I take it you have not been awake for very long?”
“He actually just opened his eyes less than five minutes before you showed up, Doc,” Aleah said from the doorway.
A frown creased the doctor’s face. Kevin caught the briefest of glimpses down at his feet. He was about to ask a question when the doctor spoke.
“Mister Dreon, you did a remarkable job getting here. Quite honestly, I have no idea how you survived. However, the human body has its limitations.” Kevin immediately heard the voice of Clint Eastwood. “You suffered some pretty severe frostbite. I did all that I could, but I am afraid that you lost a few toes.”
How many is a few?” Kevin felt silly asking, but at the moment, it was the only question that came to mind.
“Seven.” The doctor glanced at Aleah with a raised eyebrow. She shook her head. “And most of your left foot.”
Kevin felt the world swim for a moment. He felt a tangled mess of emotions that he could not unravel. Almost on cue, he felt a tickle from his left foot.
“Who put you up to this?” Kevin grabbed the blankets and pulled them off. With a ‘Ta-da’ gesture he swept his hand down at his feet and lifted his left leg in order to demonstrate that his foot was just fine thank you. Only, what he saw was a massive white blob and a lot of Ace bandages.
His face fell as the realization of the doctor’s words sunk in. He glanced over at Aleah and saw the tears. Great, he thought, pity…just what I need.
“Actually,” Doctor Thompson placed a hand on Kevin’s chest to coax him back to lying down, “you are not the only person who had to go under my knife.”
“What?” Kevin tried to sit up again, but the doctor, for as small as she appeared, was incredibly strong—at least in comparison to Kevin in his current state.
“Heather lost two fingers on her left hand and Matt…” Aleah’s voice faded. Tears filled her eyes. Kevin tasted bile building in the back of his throat.
“Miss Godwin is fine,” Doctor Thompson spoke up. “She lost a few fingers and seems to be recovering fine.”
Aleah shot the look and the doctor seemed to weigh it for a moment. Kevin felt dread seizing his heart. Had they done something to her because she is immune? And what about Matt?
“Matt had to be put down,” Aleah finally said after a nod from the doctor.
“Was he bit?” Kevin knew it had to be more than that. As harsh as it seemed, this was a part of the new reality. The shock of losing people had been numbed by the inundation that each and every one of them experienced. At least that is how Kevin saw things.
“Actually, no…” Doctor Thompson placed a hand on Aleah’s arm now and indicated that she would be the bearer of bad news. “It seems that Heather and the young man were engaged in a sexual relationship. Miss Godwin was pregnant unbeknownst to us when we operated and lost the baby the same evening. However, the young man slipped into a coma and turned the next day while in isolation. I examined him myself prior and know for a fact that he displayed no evidence of being bitten or scratched. The best guess we have is that the zombie virus, or whatever the hell it became classified as by the folks at CDC, is transmittable by blood.”
“We already figured that out…sorta,” Kevin whispered.
He felt a wave of dread hit him hard. That whole situation with Mike turning despite not being bit replayed in his head. How could he have not thought that whole situation through?
You always think you know it all and have all the answers, don’t you? the voice in his head said with obvious derision.
“Heather is really broken up about this,” Aleah said from behind the doctor. “She kept saying something about she should have known after Mike? Does that make any sense?”
Kevin winced. Is that what he sounded like? Thinking that he should have known? How could they have known anything? The reality of this new world was coming fast and hard.
“I think we should let you get some rest.” The doctor stood and produced a syringe out of thin air like a magician—at least that was what Kevin was thinking as she administered the medication via piggyback at the junction of the tube running from his hand to the bag suspended overhead.
Just that quick, Kevin felt the room begin to spin and his eyelids were suddenly much more sensitive to gravity. His final thoughts were that he still had not received a very complete update on Valarie. That brought on troubled dreams.
***
“Kevin?” a voice whispered in the darkness.
“Yeah?” For just a moment, his mind kept him blissfully ignorant. For that single instance, the zombie apocalypse did not exist. He took a deep cleansing breath and yawned.
Then it slammed into his brain with the ferocity of a head-on collision. The pain, the screams, the misery…the death and loss. Just that quick, the icy grip of reality clutched his heart.
“How are you feeling?” the voice whispered in the darkness.
“Woozy…and my foot itches…only…” His voice began a strangled sob. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and then a head lay on his chest.
Together in the darkness, Kevin and Heather wept. Neither tried to tell the other that things would “be okay” or any other hollow words that people seemed compelled to say when they really had no words that could offer comfort of any substance.
“It is all my fault,” Heather finally said, sitting up and scrubbing at her face.
“You could not have possibly known.” Kevin reached around until he found her hands. He squeezed them tight. “This is not like anything we ever saw in movies or on television. Nothing in any of the books that I read concocted any scenarios like this.”
“This ain’t the movies,” Heather said with a sniff as she recited Kevin’s mantra.
“I am just glad that you are okay.” Kevin sat up a little and moved over so that Heather could sit beside him more comfortably. “So what happened after we split? I take it this is Willa’s group?”
“We got lucky…at least that is what we keep being told. It seems that there are four herds moving east…big ones. The scout teams say that it is just a matter of time before those groups converge. I guess we moved right down an alley of sorts. A mile north or south would have put us directly in their path. Considering the number of close calls we had I guess they are right.
“That night was crazy. We found a trailer park and managed to scrounge up some clothes. A lot of it was moldy and gross, but it beat the alternative. Matt kept pushing us, saying that we had to hurry. I guess he knew that he was sick. When morning came, he was wearing dark sunglasses, so none of us knew a thing.
“Believe it or not, Erin was quiet the whole time. She didn’t gripe or complain. Of course she is also the one who came out of this the best. She was bundled up pretty good and other than some ugly sores and parts that will never probably recover their feeling, she came out unscathed. The rest of us lost at least a
couple of digits.”
Kevin realized that he had not given Aleah a good examination. He had been too foggy and as soon as the doctor arrived, she had moved into the background.
“So I hear you can only count to eight now,” Kevin said in a weak attempt at humor. He was actually surprised when Heather chuckled.
She held up her hands. His eyes had slowly become accustomed to the darkness, but he was confused. He counted ten fingers. Then she reached over and grabbed the middle and index finger of her right hand and twisted. She was wearing gloves.
“Aleah told me that you…” Heather’s voice faded when she felt Kevin’s body tense.
“Yeah. I lost a foot, plus a couple of toes on my other foot. It is weird, because I keep feeling things where the foot should be. In fact, the worst is when it starts to itch.”
“That’s kind of spooky,” Heather said.
There was a long silence. Both had things swirling in their heads. But neither knew what to say or where to begin. Finally, Kevin broke.
“I’m sorry about your…baby.”
“To be honest, I felt sad, but the more terrible part was when I felt relieved. I can’t imagine trying to worry about a baby right now. That thing would be a living zombie dinner bell. It’s not like you can just tell a baby to be quiet until the zombies are gone.”
“Yeah,” Kevin agreed. “That would be a definite problem, but we would deal with it. We have with everything else, right.”
Heather was silent for a few minutes. When she spoke, her voice sounded strained and almost afraid.
“We need to talk about Valarie.”
“What about her?” Kevin could feel the apprehension coming off Heather.
“There is talk…some of the people here are saying some of the same stuff that those others were saying.”
“What!” Kevin exploded.
“Not the name calling. Nobody is saying anything mean. It’s just that she keeps having these outbursts. She starts screaming and throwing a fit for reasons that nobody can figure out. Some of the people are saying that she should be…”
Heather went quiet. Kevin waited, but after a few minutes of agonizing and tense silence, he finally had to prompt her to speak. “Should be what?”
“They think she should be put down…out of her misery.”
“She’s not a dog!”
“Nobody is saying that, but she has problems that none of us can deal with. Even the doctor says that she has a lot more going on than just the Down’s thing. She says that there is some delusional stuff. She used much bigger words, but the bottom line is that she says Valarie is hearing voices and seeing things that just are not there,” Heather explained.
“So it is okay to just put her down? Killing her is the answer?” Kevin struggled to keep his voice quiet, but his anger was running hot.
“She has brought zombies sniffing around our location twice in the short time that she has been here. She starts screaming for no reason and the only way they have been able to shut her up is to…make her unconscious.” There was a long pause before Heather finished that sentence. Kevin had the feeling that medication was not the method being used.
Flinging his covers off, he gasped at the blast of cold air on his skin. He wanted desperately to dress and go check on the girl, but in the darkness, he had no idea where his clothing might be. He was not about to go out in the flimsy pajamas they had him in now. And then the realization of his missing foot piled on.
He could not simply “get up” and do anything. For one, there were no crutches or so much as a cane. Mobility was a thing of the past. That was when a new aspect of his reality bloomed in his mind. He was a cripple. If trouble came, he would be a liability. His life expectancy had just taken a serious nosedive.
Kevin let Heather tuck him back into his bed. He tried his best to hold back the tears, but the seriousness of his injury and the magnitude of that loss became instantly clear. Kevin was no longer capable of taking care of himself; much less being able to take care of others. He had fought and scratched and struggled to bring Valarie back; and for what?
“You should get some rest,” Heather whispered and kissed his forehead.
He sank down on the bed, but sleep was no longer an option. His mind whirled and spun with the terrible possibilities. As the dawn came, and the first tendrils of light began to creep through the miniscule creases in the blinds, Kevin had played through every possible scenario in his mind that he could dredge up. Each time, it ended the same way: his inability lead to his death and those around him.
***
“This is not really open to a vote or for any sort of discussion,” Aleah snapped.
Even though they were arguing over a very serious matter, Kevin could not take his eyes away from the bandage on Aleah’s left and right hand. And then there was her face. Both cheeks were still a nasty purplish-black. The skin was cracked, creased, and raw looking. The tip of her nose was solid black and looked as if it would fall off the moment you touched it. In fact, if she sneezed, he would have a difficult time not ducking.
“You can’t go out there like this for something that is, for one thing, probably a death trap, and for two, you don’t even know for sure that you will find anything,” Kevin argued.
“I already talked to the doctor,” Aleah countered. “She says that Newark’s Licking Memorial Hospital had a top-notch prosthesis unit.”
“You can’t just find a piece and slap it on, Aleah.”
“I know that, Mister Smarty Pants,” Aleah shot back. “But Doctor Thompson said that she would make a list of what I needed. And since you are still a couple of weeks away from being able to even be fitted, this will be the perfect time to do it. That way, you can get up and start learning how to move around as soon as possible.”
He had to admit, the thought of having his mobility back was very appealing. However, he did not see how she could even consider going outside with her face looking the way it did.
“It doesn’t even hurt,” Aleah said in a soft voice as if she could read his mind. “In fact, the doctor says that I may never feel anything in parts of my face, hands, and feet ever again.”
“I am so sorry,” Kevin said with a sob threatening to squeeze his throat closed. He’d been near to crying for so long that he began to wonder if that would be his normal state now. He sure did not recall any hero crying in any of the zombie books and movies he’d read. They were all brave, strong, and capable.
“Sorry about what?” Aleah sat up with a quizzical look on her face. “Sorry that you have been the glue keeping us together? Sorry that you came back and rescued us from a group of soldiers that are being led by a sociopath? Sorry that you went through hell and back to find medication for a girl that was suffering? Sorry that you fought your way back to us despite the odds being against you?”
“But look at you…look at all of us!” Kevin slapped his leg for emphasis.
“I will take frostbitten over zombie bitten any day of the week.”
“But why would you go back out there into this?”
“Because you would do the very same thing if the roles were reversed. You aren’t the only person capable of helping or doing for others, Kevin.”
“I’m not saying that I am, but going in to a hospital? That is suicide.”
“And if I were doing this by myself, then you would have every right to protest. However, Doctor Thompson said that a run on a hospital could help save a lot of lives long term. This might be the best chance we get for a while. Small town hospitals are going to be tough enough. There is no realistic way that we can consider trying this in some of the larger cities. Besides, we are running low on just about everything.”
“But why do you need to go?”
“Because everybody here does their part, Kevin. And I am good with my weapons. If there is trouble, they need people that can handle themselves.”
“And of all the soldiers, you are some sort of bad ass? These people have trained for this s
ort of thing. What real training do you have?”
Aleah’s face crumpled. Kevin immediately wished that he could take back what he said. He hadn’t meant what he said…at least not the way she had obviously taken it. The reality was that he simply did not want her to be away from him. When it came down to it, he felt helpless and weak.
So why don’t you just tell her that! the voice in his head scolded.
What had happened in the past couple of days that made him dredge up all those awful parts of his personality that had put people at arm’s distance in the past? He had worked so hard ever since the incident with Cary to try and change. In fact, he felt that finding Heather had been the catalyst to his greatest transformation as a person.
“I’m going.”
Aleah turned and left leaving Kevin with an empty feeling in his gut and a tightness in his chest. He felt the burning sensation begin around his eyes, but he would be damned if there would be any more tears. He bit down on the inside of his cheek.
“What the heck is wrong with me?” he asked the ceiling. It did not seem inclined to answer.
***
Aleah stepped out of the RV and scrubbed the tears away from her eyes. All of her life, she had prided herself on her independence. She had always made her own path in the world. She was no idiot, and she certainly wasn’t blind. She knew how pretty she was, but that just never became a part of who she presented to others.
More than once she had ignored the comments of others when she dated guys that did not meet some societal image of who she ‘should’ be with. When it came right down to it, she valued a sharp mind. That ‘did it for her’ more than six-pack abs and pretty-boy good looks. It was not that she was opposed to an attractive man. However, a lot of her values came from her father.
When she was barely five years old, her dad had been in a terrible fire at the lab he worked at for a government agency. He had been tall, muscular, and amazingly intelligent. After the fire, he still possessed his intellect. Unfortunately, the injuries confined him to a wheelchair and he had so much scar tissue that the first time she saw her dad in the hospital, she had run from the room screaming in terror.
