by Brown, TW
“I just need to be doing my part.”
“Yes, well, I have some news for you, Mr. Haynes.”
“And what might that be?”
“You will be doing nothing that takes you outside the relatively secure confines of the walls around our new home for the next few weeks at the very least.”
“Weeks!” I exploded. Actually, it only came out as “Weeee—!” before the pain cut my words off in my throat and shut me down.
“You will not be cleared by me to engage in any of this nonsense when it comes to running around a zombie-infested campus in hopes of finding a few things that we can just as easily scavenge from some of the homes in the area with much more control of the environment. There might be as much as a quarter of the fifteen thousand or so former residents of this town on the other side of those barricades.”
Part of me wanted to argue. However, if I had learned anything at all in the several months that I had been around Dr. Zahn, it was that going against her was a futile endeavor. I did the only thing that I could in this situation.
I nodded my head.
“And if you are going to be up and about, I want you wearing that rib protector as well as this.” She pulled out a pretty sturdy vest. I’d seen them before, usually worn by the sissy quarterbacks on the football team.
“A flak jacket?” I moaned.
“If you insist on being up and about, you need to protect yourself. If your lung goes down again, it is quite possible that you will die. You have endured a pneumothorax.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all. I didn’t recall anything like that in any of the updates when the doctor had been checking me out.
“A collapsed lung, you oaf,” Dr. Zahn said with a shake of her head.
“Yeah, well—”
“Dr. Zahn!” a woman I had never seen before burst into the room out of breath. “Hurry…it’s Melissa!”
“What’s the matter?” Dr. Zahn was already pushing the woman out the door.
“The baby…I think she is in labor!”
14
Vignettes XLI
“It came from over that way,” Vix pointed to a cluster of non-descript flats just past a scorched petrol station.
“Well I’m not going in there,” Gemma said. “That place is brimming with zeds.”
Vix scanned the windows of the five-story building. Sure enough, window after window had dead faces peering down at her. As she scanned she began to notice something else.
“Hasidic Jewish community…” she said, more to herself than to the others. “We are in the Stamford Hill district,” she explained. “We had a few students come in for a three day workshop at the hospital. They were all from here in the Stamford Hill area.”
“How did you figure that out?” Harold asked. “Most of the signage is gone or nearly destroyed.”
“The clothes,” Vix pointed to one of the walkers that had attacked Gemma. “They have a very distinct way of dressing.”
Another scream sounded. This time, they were able to pinpoint the actual building. Vix looked at the others and saw them quickly avert their eyes.
“You want to just leave whoever that is to whatever is going on?” Vix asked them.
It took a few seconds, but finally, it was Gemma who looked her in the eye and spoke. “I don’t want to leave that poor soul…but what good would it do for us to go running in to a building that might have hundreds of those things trapped inside just waiting to take a big bite out of the first breather that comes along? We cannot save the world, Vix. Hell’s bells, we can hardly save ourselves these days.”
“What if that was you?” Vix challenged.
“Then I obviously put myself into a position that went poorly.”
Vix could not help but stare at this girl with amazement. She was willing to simply hop back on her bicycle and pedal away from somebody in need without a moment’s hesitation. She looked at Harold who had finally stopped staring at the ground.
“And you?” she demanded. “Do you think we should simply ride away and leave this person to their fate?”
“I’m sorry—” he began, but she cut him off.
“Unbelievable! After everything…after we have fought so hard, we finally find another survivor and you both want to just walk away!”
“We have no idea what is going on, and by the time we get there—” Another scream interrupted Gemma.
This one left no doubt as to the fate of the victim. The screeching rose in pitch and intensity for a few seconds before ending abruptly. Silence fell for several seconds before the occasional moan of the undead broke it up. Every so often, there would be a weak pounding on one of the countless windows that were miraculously still mostly intact if not horribly smeared with filth on the interior side. Some could not be seen through at all, but there were still plenty where the dead, pale faces on the other side could be seen staring down at them.
“There!” Vix glared at Harold and Gemma; both were still fidgeting before her. “Are you happy? I hope that does not weigh too heavily on your conscience.”
Without another word, she slung her leg over the seat of her bicycle and began to pedal off. The other two looked at each other with long faces. Deep down, each felt very strongly that they were correct in their decision, but it did little to ease the gnawing pain on their souls.
Vix was struggling with her thoughts and emotions as well. She believed to her core that she would have gone into those buildings to attempt a rescue. Yet, she had engaged the others in her argument until it was a moot point. Had she done so intentionally? Had she secretly hoped that the situation would resolve itself before she had been forced to act?
She continued to war within herself as she wove through the dead streets on her way to a destination that she was not sure that she could actually find. And if she did…then what?
She tried to imagine setting up home in that little country cottage. She would live her days in that place that held so many magic memories for her as a child…
Her mind snapped out of its reverie as if splashed with ice cold water. She had no real idea of how long she had been riding. She also did not understand how she had ridden so close to the rear of a wandering mob of the undead without the warnings from her friends. Squeezing the hand brakes, she winced at the squeak from her tires as she came to a sudden stop. She glanced over her shoulder. She almost expected them to be gone.
Harold was standing up and pedaling like his life depended on it. The distance between her and her two friends had become enormous. At some point, she had simply left them behind. Gemma was no longer moving. She had indeed come to a complete stop. For a fraction of a second, Vix felt her anger stir. It was bad enough that they had refused to help a stranger; but now it seemed as if Gemma had extended that policy to include Vix as well.
A chorus of moans brought her back sharply to the task at hand. There were a good ten meters between her and the closest cluster of walkers that had broken away from the rear of the herd and headed her direction.
“It just never ends,” Vix sighed. A voice in the back of her mind told her to stop fighting. Perhaps it would be better if she were to simply wait for the swarm to overwhelm her.
***
Juan put one hand in the middle of April’s butt and shoved. She tumbled over the top of the fence and landed with an audible explosion of air. Juan didn’t hesitate a second as he pulled himself up, swung a leg over, and threw his body over. He missed landing on a sprawled April by inches.
She was not moving. Her mouth worked much like a fish as she tried in futility to suck air into her lungs. Tears were filling her eyes and she looked at Juan in pain and fear.
“Got the wind knocked out of you, that’s all,” Juan said as he rolled over and made his way to his knees. He took her hand and patted her a few times. “It feels like you will never be able to breathe again, but it will be fine in a minute.”
He stood up and looked back over the fence. At least a hundred deaders
were coming his way. They would be slowed down by the fence, but it would not hold them long before they simply forced it to buckle over.
“On your feet,” Juan said as he reached down and grabbed one of April’s arms. He slung it over his shoulder as she continued to make hoarse wheezes and gasps. “Do what you can, but we gotta go.”
He started out across the overgrown yard. He was halfway there when a heavy thud sounded and made him stumble, dropping April in a heap. Spinning to the source of the noise, it took him a few seconds to realize that the sound was coming from a sliding glass door that sat in the center of the back side of the house that the yard they were crossing belonged.
“Damn,” Juan breathed.
Standing in the frame of the filthy, smeared glass were three children between the ages of maybe five and ten. One of them had the handle of a large kitchen knife jutting from the middle of her chest. That was upsetting, but it was the figure squirming at their feet that made Juan wince. It was probably the mom of the three children. She was missing one entire arm and the other was gone just around the elbow. It was also fairly obvious that her legs were missing as well.
April tried to look past him, but Juan lurched forward, jerking her along. By the time they reached the other end of the yard, she was almost able to walk on her own. Juan peeked over the wooden slat fence and was relieved to find that the way was relatively clear. He pulled himself up and over and then grabbed April’s wrists and helped her over. Just as her feet touched the ground, the splintering crash of the fence sounded.
“Not much farther and we can circle around and find a way down the hill,” Juan said as April waved away his attempts to help her walk.
“And what does that mean for me?”
Juan paused, at first confused by the question. He realized that he hadn’t really said anything to April after coming to her rescue back at the cut that led to the railroad tracks.
“Look, I don’t know how this shakes out,” Juan admitted, “but I couldn’t just leave you like that.”
“But if it would have happened a few minutes later when I was out of sight…” she let that statement hang in the air.
“I’m not that person you think I am. And no matter what you think you know about me based on some random event where we crossed paths, you got me all wrong.”
“You telling me you didn’t practically beat a man to death?”
“Is this really the time for this conversation?” Juan threw up his hands in exasperation. “We been on the run from deaders for at least an hour. I could have left you to your fate, but I didn’t. Doesn’t that count for something?”
April spun to face Juan. She stared into his eyes as if searching for anything that she could use to make her determination about who it was she was dealing with.
“If anybody here is a bit of a crazed killer…” Juan raised an eyebrow.
“That’s just it,” April fell in as Juan started to jog again in the general direction that would lead them to the river, “I had this urge to protect you that came out of nowhere I can understand. I want to like you, but I just saw so much stuff working that neighborhood.”
“So you just start killing people?” Juan asked, not bothering to hide how incredulous he was at her weak excuse.
April ran in silence for a while. They sped past a few single walkers here and there, but nothing as bad as what they had left behind. Juan was beginning to think that April was done with the conversation.
“I’ve had to kill a few people since this began…” Her voice started strong but grew faint and soft as she continued. “Like I said, I was working a pretty bad part of the city when this started. I ran into a few people early on who were taking full advantage of the chaos and lack of any viable law enforcement response.”
Juan knew just the sort of people she was talking about. He had run with a group led by one such man. His name had been Travis Reynolds, and once he rejoined his old buddy Gary Messer, things had gotten out of control in a hurry. If she had met anybody like those two…he shuddered.
“I was trying to hide from this pack of…deaders,” she used Juan’s word and shot him a slight smile. “I ducked into a ratty little apartment complex…the ones that every parole officer in the city knows because he has at least one person on his or her case load living there. I didn’t recognize where I was until I burst into the first door that wasn’t locked.”
They ran in silence a bit as April kept seeming to speak, but then stopping. By the time they reached the bottom of the hill and were traveling along the shore of the Willamette River back towards where he’d left the boat, she continued.
“I didn’t get away for almost a month.”
She let that statement rattle around in his head. Juan would not have blamed her if that was the end of the conversation. After all, it was absolutely none of his business.
***
“Jesus,” Glenn said with an involuntary gasp and shudder.
Ann’s face was beautiful if you could look past the hideous scar that ran across it at eye level. The left eye was missing, leaving nothing but a horribly puckered hole that seeped a pus-like fluid that looked to be as thick as tree sap. That scar came from the left temple and continued across the bridge of the nose that sat crooked with a large dent and ended where the right eyebrow should be. While certainly not fresh, the wound did not look terribly old either.
Ann looked down and away, a slight flush coming to her cheeks. Everybody immediately did his or her best to wipe the look of horror from their face as they assumed they had just embarrassed their guest. Everybody that is except Mel. She was almost certain that what she saw on this woman’s face was rage, not embarrassment.
“Please, come and let me show you where we have all the clothes and the wash water so you can get cleaned up,” Glenn offered.
“That would be nice.” Ann nodded.
The pair left the room and Mel let out an exhale that she did not realize she had been holding. Xander wriggled to be set down and toddled over to his hammock and the few toys he had been sleeping with.
He pulled the stuffed rabbit that Uncle Glenn had brought back one day when he returned from a scavenging run. The stuffed animal had been far from new and Mel had insisted that it be boiled and hung up to dry before it was given to her son. Unfortunately, Xander had seen the toy and grabbed it from Glenn’s hands and promptly stuffed one ragged, floppy ear into his mouth. Of course all their worry had been for nothing, but Mel had not slept for three days as she watched and waited to see if her son would become sick…or worse.
That seemed like a lifetime ago. Now, as far as Mel was concerned, there was something far more dangerous in their midst.
Kyle walked along the rope bridge behind the diminutive woman. He was trying his best to prepare himself for the next time he saw her face. It was easy to see that she had been a beautiful woman once. And he was not versed well enough in Asian culture; she could be Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, or something else, but whatever she might be, he had barely been able to detect even the slightest accent—not that it would have helped.
Just as quickly, he decided that it was not worth being concerned about. Now that the dead walked, there were really only two “races” if you asked him: living and undead.
“You are all family,” Ann broke the silence. It was a statement, not a question.
“My wife, the one who was shot, is the sister of the tall fella,” Glenn said with a little bit of a laugh. “Most folks think that it is Kyle and I who are related. Personally, I don’t see it.”
“And the child belongs to Kyle and the blond woman? I do not recall her name.”
Ann opened the door of the second treehouse and paused a second before going to the basin and pouring water from one of the large plastic containers. Kyle closed the door and when he turned around, felt his heart leap to his throat. The woman had already peeled out of her outfit and was standing naked with her back to him as she began to dip a large piece of cloth into
the basin and wipe at her arms.
“M-M-Melissa…but we just call her Mel.” Glenn spun back to face the door. “Umm, I will just step outside until you are finished.” He reached for the knob, but a hand on his shoulder made him freeze.
“I will not be able to reach my back. If you could do that before you go.”
Kyle felt his throat tighten and his mouth go dry. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned back around. He felt a wet rag stuffed into his hand. Then, a hand guided his up and placed it against soft, warm flesh. He winced just slightly, but tried to wipe at what he hoped was the woman’s back.
“Such a modest man…and a gentleman.” Ann’s voice was soft and held a hint of playfulness.
Kyle re-doubled his efforts to not think about the fact that he was standing in a room with a naked woman that was not his wife. He tried to bring the image of her ruined left eye to his mind in order to assure that his body did not react inappropriately. It was a difficult battle as he realized that he and his wife had not been intimate in quite a while. It was simply not a comfortable situation sharing a single room with her brother just a few feet away. It was not that the thought did not cross his mind, but there simply had not been any time that had offered itself in quite a long while.
The last time had been just after a fresh snow. They were still holed up in that cabin west of Denver. Mel and Kyle were both down with a bit of the flu and he and Cynthia went to get some fresh water from a nearby creek. The sun had peeked out and hit her face just as she looked back and laughed at one of his terrible jokes. He had been overwhelmed with just how pretty she was at that moment. One thing led to another and pretty soon he was—
No! he thought with all the force and energy he could muster. Already his body was trying to betray him.
“That should do it,” he blurted as he dropped the rag, spun and ducked out the door as quick as possible.
