“He hasn’t gotten any worse,” she said, “but he hasn’t gotten any better either.”
I went in and found Dr. Barr changing the bandage on Mr. Somerville’s shoulder.
“I got what you wanted,” I said. “I found it on the pediatric floor. Will that be okay?”
“It’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m guessing the antibiotic is in powdered form?”
“One of them is,” I said.
“Children have trouble swallowing pills, so the pharmacist will mix the powder in liquid. It might be better for him that way. Did you get more I.V. bags?”
“Yeah,” I said, “and tubing, needles, bandages…all of it.”
“Good. Any trouble? You were gone a while.”
“No more than usual.”
He took the purse and started pulling out the items.
“I need a gun,” I said.
“I’ve already told you—“
“There is someone trapped in a car on the parkway,” I said. “I don’t want to leave them there surrounded like that.”
“Surrounded?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” he said, “if they are surrounded, I can’t see how a gun and a few bullets will do much good.”
“I’m going back to help them,” I said.
He sighed, “When I cut you loose, it was with the understanding that you would help me.”
“But you’re a doctor,” I said. “Don’t you feel the need to help them?”
“Don’t try to guilt me into anything,” he said. “I seem to recall you refusing to help people and then outright hurting others, even taking lives.”
“I think it’s a woman, if that makes a difference to you,” I said.
“You think?”
“I’ve never seen zombies surround men like this. I think it has to do with their menstrual cycle…pheromones and all that.”
“Hmm. Interesting theory. I hadn’t noticed anything like that,” he said obviously intrigued.
“I know your group has been searching for young women,” I said. “I know you wanted Jen, and I know that is why you almost killed me trying to get Sara—“
“I had no part in that,” he said, raising a finger.
“I think you did,” I said. “Maybe not directly, but you had a part.”
He frowned at me, “Are you questioning my ethics?”
“Your motives are what they are,” I said. “But let’s not lie to ourselves, okay? You say I’m a killer, and you’re right. I have killed. I felt justified at the time, but I’m not going to say I’m innocent. I don’t know your reasons for searching out young women, but I wasn’t born yesterday…I can guess.”
“They are our only hope of survival as a species,” he said.
“Whatever,” I said. “I don’t care what your reasons are, I just need a gun to go help one of them.”
He sighed again, looked down at the floor a moment then looked up at me.
“You bring her here,” he said. “I should examine her anyway…just in case. But understand me: she’ll be mine.”
“Sorry? Yours?”
He came in close. “Of the two of us, I am obviously best suited, genetically speaking, to impregnate her.”
I was speechless.
“I mean no disrespect to you,” he said. “You are obviously a smart man, and you’ve been able to survive all this time on your own, but…look at me and look at you.”
I still didn’t know what to say.
“If the new woman suits me, I might be willing to share Ellen with you. She’s been good to have around to take the edge off, and I’m sure she’ll help in other ways, but she’s well past her prime.”
“And if I don’t bring her back here?”
“The councilman might not survive without my care,” he said. “He’s sort of a burden now, anyway. I could refuse to treat him. Besides, you owe me.”
I stared at him.
“Take Ellen’s gun,” he said.
I stared at him a little longer then turned and walked out. I ran into Ellen. She’d been standing in the living room area out of view listening to our conversation. She and I made eye contact in the candlelight. She pulled her shoulders back and stood tall. She looked proud and angry and hurt all at the same time. She presented me with the shotgun, and I took it. We didn’t say a word.
“Send Ellen in here on your way out,” Dr. Barr called out from the other room. “Tell her I said to give you the shotgun.”
Ellen raised a finger to her mouth to tell me not to speak. I nodded and stepped past her to the door. I looked back and she was still standing in the same spot. I went outside to the truck. I put the shotgun inside, and I was about to get in myself, when I heard the door to the apartment open. Ellen followed me out. I pause before climbing in to see what she had to say. She stopped by the front bumper.
“You keep trying to tell me that you aren’t the man they say you are.”
I didn’t reply. What more could I say on the subject? The only way she would know who I was would be to spend time with me.
“If there is a woman in that car, don’t bring her back here,” she said.
“But Mr. Somerville—“
“The councilman will be fine,” she said. “I’ll make sure of that.”
“If I come back empty-handed—“
“Don’t come back at all.”
I stepped around the door to come closer to her. She took a step back.
“I’m not property,” she said. “I’ll not be shared and passed around anymore. As much as I would love a reprieve, I don’t want to see it happen to someone else either. So, with or without her, don’t come back.”
“Ellen, I’m not like that.“
“I don’t care,” she said.
“Okay,” I agreed. “But don’t let him hurt Mr. Somerville.”
“Travis is a wuss,” she said. “He’s not going to do anything.”
“In that case, why not come with me?”
She gave me a derisive laugh, “Why the hell would I want to do that? No. As soon as I’m in a position to do so, I’m going off on my own. I’m done with all of you.”
I stared at her a moment.
“Okay,” I said. “If you change your mind, find a phone book and look up the address for Lassiter Stables. We stay there sometimes.”
“I won’t change my mind,” she said.
I climbed in the truck.
“By the way,” she said before going inside. “That shotgun only has one shell. Better make it count.”
Chapter 32
I thought about the whole situation as I drove back toward the parkway. I didn’t like the idea of leaving Somerville there by himself, but I knew I didn’t want to bring anyone else back there either. Really, all I wanted to do was find Sara. I planned to drive out to the stables, and I hoped I would find her waiting for me there.
But first there was the matter of the surrounded car.
I pulled up the off ramp heading the wrong way again. The car was over in the far lane around a quarter of a mile up the road, and there were two more lanes and a median between us. There were so many creatures around the car, there would be no way to just go in like I was. I would need to do something similar to Willy Rupe’s group and go in with a bulldozer or something big like that.
I sighed and looked at my wrist. At one time, a watch had been there. I laughed a little when I saw the bracelet from the handcuffs. I was hungry and thirsty. So I decided to get something to eat and think about my next course of action.
I did a U-turn and got back on the highway. There was a gas station up the road, and I thought I could find myself a snack. Pulling up close to the front of the building so my headlights would shine in, I left the engine running, and went inside.
The place had already been looted, but as in most lootings, they didn’t take everything. I got a can of Coke, two packages of those little powdered donut gems (one of them had been stepped on), and a snack-sized bag of peanuts. I got a cou
ple of those small key-chain flashlights. I took it out to the truck to eat.
The Coke was warm and the donuts were stale. Only one of the flashlights worked.
I looked back toward the parkway as I licked the crumbs out of the donut package. I would have plenty of energy very soon, as soon as all the sugar and caffeine kicked in, but I still didn’t know what I would do to make use of it.
I opened my package of peanuts. Then I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone slapped the passenger side window. I looked over, expecting it to be an infected person, and saw a healthy woman standing there.
“Let me in!” she yelled through the glass.
I flipped the switch on my door and the door lock went up. She opened the door and climbed in. She was holding a pistol, and she pointed it at me.
“Sorry about the gun, but I don’t know you,” she said, out of breath.
She was in her early to mid-twenties. She was homely-looking and obese. Her clothes—a yellow sweatshirt and jeans—were dirty and torn. It looked like she’d cut her own greasy, brown hair recently; it was uneven. She was wearing glasses but the lens was missing from the right eye.
“I don’t mind you having it, just don’t point it at me,” I said.
“I need your help,” she said. “My friends are trapped in a car over there and—“
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s why I’m here, but I’m not really sure how I can help.”
“They’ve been in there since this morning,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”
“How did you manage to get out?”
“I had to pee,” she said. “That’s why we stopped. Then I had to run to get away from one, and then Shawn tried to help me, and they got him, and I tried to help him, but I couldn’t, and--”
“How many are in there?”
“Cassy and Rodney are left in there.”
“Do they have weapons?”
She held up the pistol, “This is it.”
She started crying and made no pretense to be doing anything else. Her face screwed up and the tears and snot flowed. I’d never seen an adult blubber like that so openly, except maybe Lucille Ball in those old I Love Lucy episodes—certainly no one in real life. She looked me square in the face while snot bubbles popped in her nostrils and was more like a toddler than a fully grown woman. I didn’t know what to do. I would look away, but every time I looked back, she was still staring at me bawling.
“It’s…It’s going to be okay,” I said, reaching over to pat her arm.
“Don’t you touch me!” she yelled, her expression instantly switching to anger.
I pulled my hand away. The tears stopped for a moment as she regarded me in silence. Then she came at me, scooting across the seat. I was unprepared for it and jerked back in surprise. She put her head on my chest, and the bawling started up again. I froze there looking down at the top of her head. Her hair smelled soured. Hesitantly, I put my hand on her back and gently patted her.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Bern,” she said through her wailing.
“Did you say Fern?”
She stopped crying and raised up to look me in the face.
“Bern. It’s short for Bernie and that’s short for Bernice. It was my grandmother’s name—my maternal grandmother. My dad called me Bernie, but my friends call me Bern. My friend Jason used to call me B.B., but that’s a long story.”
“Bern,” I repeated.
She sniffed then wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“What happened to your ear?” she said.
I reached up to touch the bandage. I’d almost forgotten about it. It still hurt, but I’d grown accustomed to the pain.
“It was bitten off,” I said. “The lobe.”
“Gross,” she said. “So now you got the Seebees?”
“The what?”
“The Seebees. You know—C for Canton and B for B--the Seebees.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“Antione got bit, and we shot him then and there. Two in the head…you should have seen him twitch after. Shawn said it was his nerves that made him twitch, but I think it was the Seebees.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I don’t have it.”
She stared at me like she didn’t believe me then, in an instant, her expression changed to relief.
“You must be immune. We could make a serum from your blood like in that movie.”
“No, I—“
She scooted closer to me and put her hand on my leg.
“Do you like vampire books?” she said.
“Never read any,” I said. “Listen, we—“
“I love vampire books. You know what Oprah said about the Twilight books? She said they were delicious. I think that, too. I love Oprah.”
“That’s fine, but—“
“My friend Jason is a vampire. He’s like three hundred years old. Now he’s got the Seebees. Your blood would probably be good for him. It would be good for all of us.”
She looked up at me with her attempt at puppy dog eyes, which looked ridiculous through her broken glasses. Her bottom lip pushed out in a pout, and she made a big production out of licking her lips. Then her hand slid down to my crotch.
“Do you like that?” she whispered. “Do you?”
I was surprised to find that I did. I pushed her hand away.
“What the hell are you doing?” I said, befuddled by her actions and conversation. “We have to help your friends.”
She scooted back against the passenger door and pretended to be examining her gun. She didn’t act angry or embarrassed by my rejection. She just acted like it never happened.
“Is your friend Cassie on her period?” I asked.
She looked up slowly from her pistol and out the windshield as if trying to see something inside the gas station. Then, just as slowly, she turned her head and looked at me in awe.
“How do you know that? Are you psychic?”
“How long have you two been together?”
“We’ve been roommates for like two years,” she said.
“How is it that your periods haven’t synced up? Doesn’t that happen?”
“You are psychic, aren’t you? Tell me who I’m going to marry.”
“Are you on your period or not?”
“I’m pregnant,” she said, smiling down at her belly then rubbing it. “My baby is an immortal just like Jason.”
“Okay,” I said. “I just wanted to be sure we weren’t going to have any unnecessary trouble. We’re going to need to find a really big truck or a bulldozer or something to move the infected out of the way.”
“We passed a big truck right after we crossed the state line and came into Kentucky,” she said. “I can show you where.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Just south of Birmingham,” she said.
“What…what’s happening down there?”
“The Seebees,” she said. “Seebees is everywhere.”
“Nothing else?” I asked. “What about bombs?”
“Well…yeah…bombs, too. They nuked the fuck out of Nashville from what I hear.”
“Really?”
“It’s for the best, I think. Country music was really bad. It wasn’t healing at all, and music should be healing.”
“Who told you about the nukes?” I asked. “Where did you hear this?”
“There was this guy driving this bus. He told us. That’s why we didn’t go through there. He had skulls painted all over his bus, but not in a cool or artsy way. It looked like a two year old did it.”
“But you didn’t actually see anything? You didn’t see the bombs going off?”
“No,” she shrugged.
“Are there a lot more people heading north?”
She snorted, “There’s not a lot more people doing anything at all.”
Chapter 33
I was frustrated with the lack of solid information about nuclear strikes. I don’t know why it
should have mattered—it’s not like I could do anything about it. I looked down at the clock on the truck’s radio. It said 11:20 p.m. I knew that it was actually 12:20 a.m. because of Daylight Savings Time. Of course, nobody gave a damn about springing forward now.
“We’ll find a big truck nearby,” I said. “No need to drive to the state line for one. I’d really prefer to do it during the day, but the longer we wait the more infected will come in. It’s best if we do it now.”
I put the truck in reverse and backed out into the highway.
“Where have you been? Have you been hiding all day?”
“Yeah, in that building over there,” she said, pointing across the street. “That reminds me…this one time in Twilight, Bella and Edward were—“
“Whoa,” I said, raising my hand. “Stop right there.”
“Why?” she said, visibly offended.
I was about to tell her I had absolutely zero interest in the subject, but judging by the look on her face, I didn’t think that was a good idea.
“Well...” I said, searching for something to say. “I…I wouldn’t want you to ruin it for me. I haven’t read them yet, you know.”
“Oh no,” she said, waving both hands and acting relieved and excited. “No, no, no, this won’t ruin anything. Bella and Edward were—“
“I’d really like to read it for myself,” I interrupted. “I’m kind of weird that way. I don’t even watch movie trailers.”
She smiled broadly and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “You’re going to love it,” she said. “I dare you not to love it. I dare you.”
“With a recommendation like that, how can I not?” I said, trying to smile back.
She got an odd look on her face. “I am so going to kiss you right now,” she said, scooting back across the seat.
“No,” I said a little more loudly than I intended.
Her face was inches from mine.
“I have to drive,” I said.
“You’re right,” she said. “There will be time for that later.”
There were three zombies with broken legs still crawling around under the overpass. I drove around them and proceeded to the Clayfield city limits.
“Tell me about your boyfriend,” I said, hoping to keep her distracted. “Jason, was it?”
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