by R. J. Spears
“I’ve examined them carefully, and unless he came in contact with a large non-human primate, I have concluded the bite marks to be human,” Doc Wilson said, crossed his arms and closed the case, but they still had their considerable doubts.
“Well, you people may be sucked in by this,” Mrs. Hatcher said standing and scolding everyone in the room with a hot stare, “but I’m not buying it.”
There was loud smacking sound off to my right, and I jerked my head in that direction in time to see Kara draw her hand back from the table and slowly stand.
“I’m going to tell you people something,” she said. “Joel has seen this young man in his visions. Now, he’s here. Joel also saw what happened to Pastor Stevens before what happened to him at the church. I’m telling all of you that what is coming to Joel is divinely sent. God is trying to tell us something through Joel. If we ignore it, we do it with great peril.”
“This is preposterous,” Mrs. Hatcher scoffed, “he’s no more a vessel of the Lord than the zombies.”
“You can believe what you want, but I believe,” Kara said.
Steve Hampton rose and said, “But where does any of this leave us? Really? So Joel see’s visions. So what. We have a guy who claims to be immune but really can’t prove it. And if we did, what then? We have no way to do anything with it. It’s not like we can brew up a vaccine or anything.”
“But the military could,” Greg said. “If it has scientists that can do it. And I believe they can.”
“Then why don’t we contact the military and give him back?” Steve asked.
It was my time to stand, “Because that’s who he was running from. They’re the people who did experiments on him. They’re the people who killed his family.”
“And they could come and kill us,” Brother Ed said. This caused a dark wave of concerned looks to flow over the crowd. “We don’t need this sort of trouble in our midst.” He rose from his seat. “We should cast this boy out.”
I started to get mad about then. I stood feeling all my blood rush to my head. “He’s not going anywhere. The military will get him over my dead body!” Everyone shut up. I felt my pulse pounding in my head, and any nervousness I had dissipated. “Jason came here. To me, he is here because he needed our protection. He’s here because of a greater plan, and I know that for sure. What the details of that plan are, I don’t know. I do know for certain that Jason is a part of it. An important part. Maybe the most important part. If any of you think you’re going to give him up, then you’ll go through me to do it. And I won’t make it easy.” My statement was just about as dramatic as my exit when I stormed out of the room, followed by a lot of shouts and questions. I didn’t care because those people could all go screw themselves. I meant what I said.
Chapter 31
In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
That night, I stationed myself in the infirmary with my rifle and my handgun. Kara came down, accompanied by Naveen. We tried to talk Naveen out of staying with us and even ordered her, but she refused to leave. She was a stubborn one, too. In the end, we decided that she was safer with us but insisted that she sleep at the back of the infirmary away from the door. Kara had arranged with Jo to stay with Madison so she wouldn’t be alone.
We knew why we were there. To many of our people, Jason was a threat, and if I were honest and if I were in their position, I might think he was too, but that didn’t matter. We were linked, and the Big Man upstairs had done that. There was no denying that. What it meant I had no idea, but no one was going to harm Jason if I had anything to do with it.
The beds in the infirmary were lumpy, but I was exhausted after all the emotional tumult of the day. I was about to drowse off when I felt a gentle pressure on my shoulder. I jerked awake and immediately went for my gun. The same hand that had touched my shoulder moved and closed over my hand. It was delicate but firm.
“Joel, it’s me,” Kara said in a quiet voice. The lights were dim, but I could make out her face just inches from mine. She was perched on the side of my bed.
“Okay,” I said groggily, “what’s up?”
“We need to talk.”
Oh yeah. Just what I needed - a talking to. I guess I had been a bit of an ass when I ran out the town meeting.
“About what?” I rubbed a hand over my face, hoping that would shake off the grogginess.
“Naveen says she’s having visions. Did you know this?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She sounded more hurt than angry.
“Honestly, I just found out the other day. With all that’s happened I didn’t get around to it.”
“I think it’s important,” she said, the set of her face tight and serious.
“More important than tracking down an escapee who died on us?” Trump that, I thought.
“Still, you could have told me.”
“Yes,” I said, hoping that mollified her.
“Her visions are different than yours, aren’t they?”
“Yes, she says she sees a lab. She thinks it’s her father’s lab at Ohio State and Jason is there.”
“But there’s more, isn’t there? She’s holding back for me.”
I was hesitant to say more. I had trouble facing it myself. “The zombies are after her.”
“Do they get her?”
Moment of truth time, so for me that meant it was time to lie. “I don’t see that vision, just her and Jason. I’m not sure what happens.”
We were silent for a few moments. I could hear Jason’s light breathing just a few beds away. I watched as Naveen rolled over in her bed.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“About what?”
“About Jason? People are very upset.”
“Nothing,” I said sitting up, “Jason is important. I know it. You know it.”
“But they don’t know it,” she said pointing upward.
“Screw them.”
“It’s not that simple. We are their leaders. We have to serve them well and your walking out like you did didn’t help. It took a lot of convincing from Greg, Hub, Travis, and me for them not to come down here and run Jason out.”
“They would have to go through me.”
“You’re serious?”
“I am.”
Again, a silence came over us. Her shoulders slumped, and I wanted to reach out to her but didn’t have the courage to do anything.
“Joel, I’m so tired,” she said. “We have been going day-in/day-out for as long as I can remember. Don’t get me wrong. It is so much better here than in the city, but still,” she trailed off. I found the courage to move my arm and placed a hand on her back. She didn’t move away but leaned into it. Initially, I just kept my hand still, but then I moved it slowly, back and forth on her back gently. Her body relaxed, and we were silent as I massaged her back.
This went on for a nearly a minute, and then she slowly turned towards me. Her face was masked in shadows, but I could see her eyes shining, full of intent. My heartbeat accelerated, and I wasn’t sure what was going happen next.
While I could face down a wall of zombies, making the next move took more courage than I had. It was fortunate for our sake that she had more backbone than me because I saw her face move towards mine, and before I could react, we were kissing. It wasn’t overtly sexual, but some passion was there. I felt her weight shift onto the bed, and I moved my body over to give her space as she slipped fully onto the bed next to me. I wrapped my arms around her, pulled her close, and kissed her deeply. She met me, measure for measure.
It was as if all the cares of our zombie-infested world slipped away in those few minutes. There was no dead or undead. There were no pissed off people. And there was no threat that we could be attacked by the military at any second. There were only the two of us, safe in our little cocoon of togetherness and whatever that meant. I didn’t put forth any effort to analyze it, but just went with it.
She rolled her body so tha
t I was on top of her, and that got me wondering where this was going. And it brought a question to the fore.
“I thought....” I started to say but stopped.
“Thought what?” she asked, her voice low and breathy.
“Well, I thought you liked Travis,” I said.
“You idiot,” she said and pulled me back down and kissed me, then broke our lip lock. “It’s always been you. You’re just too timid to see it. Travis, he’s okay, but you -- you’re so much more dangerous.” She pulled me down again, and this time we didn’t stop.
I’m not sure what would have happened next. We had Brandon and Jason just a few beds away and Naveen sleeping away at the back of the room, but I think we were both sort of oblivious at that moment, nearly boiling over with overheated passion.
Of course, the zombie apocalypse only allows for so much delirious happiness, and then it gets jealous for attention.
A scream pierced the night, and I was off Kara in a second and standing beside the bed with my gun in hand. A second scream broke the stillness. It was Naveen. Kara was up and beside me, and we were on the move.
We made it to Naveen’s bedside just as she screamed again. The lights popped on, and we blinked at their intensity. Doc Wilson entered the room, his long hair looking like a fright wig and his face heavy with sleep. When my eyes adjusted, I saw Naveen thrashing in the bed in full nightmare mode.
While I wondered if we should wake her from the nightmare or not, Kara reached out and grabbed one of Naveen’s shoulders and called out Naveen’s name. Naveen still thrashed around as if she were being chased by the devil.
“Naveen,” Kara shouted.
Naveen’s eyes fluttered open and shut for a few seconds, and then she blinked against the brightness of the overhead lights. Her expression was disoriented and lost; then, it broke, and she began to sob. “They were after me,” she said.
“Who?” Kara asked as she stroked Naveen’s hair.
“The monsters,” she said, “they are at my daddy’s lab. They chased me.” Her voice broke with racking sobs, and then she rallied. “And they got me. They got me.” Those last few words were lost and almost unintelligible since she couldn’t control the tears.
Over the next few days, we kept a constant vigil for any signs of a military presence on the lookout for Billings, but nothing came our way. We had another issue: what to do with the sat-phone. We kept it off, thinking that whomever Billings had called would use it to track it back to us after he failed to check in.
The issue with the phone got even more interesting when Aaron pulled Greg and me aside late one night while we reviewed the guard duty rosters in the dining area.
“I need to talk to you guys,” Aaron said, tottering on his crutches.
“What about?” “Greg asked, looking up.
“I don’t want to talk here,” Aaron said, dropping his voice to a whisper.
Greg stiffened and asked, “Is something wrong?”
“Sort of, but not really. I just wanted to show you guys something that I found out. But not here.”
“Where?” Greg asked.
“Meet me in the basement in five, okay? By the far storage room.”
Greg and I nodded our heads, and Aaron hobbled his way out of the room.
As nonchalantly as we could, we left the cafeteria separately and found different paths to the basement. There was only a modicum of light down there, and navigating the dim hallways was challenging and sort of spooky. (Not that I would ever admit that.)
Greg beat me to the storage room, but I wasn’t too far behind as I pushed open the door to see Greg standing by a table with Aaron beside him. Floor-to-ceiling shelves covered the walls, and large, sturdy standalone shelves filled much of the room with the exception of the table.
As I walked along the shelves, I saw one of them stocked full of toilet paper.
“Good to know we have a year’s supply of TP,” I said as stood beside Greg.
“Yeah, with less people around, there’s more for us,” Aaron said, but there was no mirth in his statement.
“So, what do need to talk to us about?” Greg asked.
Aaron looked supremely uncomfortable for a few seconds and then stuck his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out the sat-phone we had taken from Billings.
“Where’d you get that?” Greg asked.
“In the chaos after you brought Billing’s body in, Brandon asked me to get it.”
“Why did he want it?” I asked.
“Wait a minute,” Greg said, “who said you guys should take it? You need to tell us what you’re doing before you go off half-cocked.”
“I’m sorry, Greg,” Aaron said, unable to meet Greg’s stare. “Really, I am. Like I said, Brandon wanted me to get it. He said it could be important, so I did. But when I got it to him, he had passed out from his head being scrambled. I forgot about it. Then he remembered, and, well, that’s why we’re here. I didn’t let him come down because he still gets dizzy when he stands.”
“And?” I said.
“Oh yeah,” Aaron said and reached into his other pocket and pulled out an identical sat-phone, only showing more exterior wear, and placed it on the table.
“Hold on, is that the one we took off Hack?” I asked.
“Yes, Brandon has had it ever since, but the battery was dead, so he just stuck it in a drawer. After you got the other phone off of Billings, he had the idea to check to see if they were the same, like they might use the same battery.”
“Well, did they?” I asked.
“Yes.” He grabbed Billings’ phone and held it up. “The battery did work with Hack’s phone.”
“Have you turned on Hack’s phone?”
“Yes, and let me show you what we found out,” he said and thumbed on the power button on the phone. It took a few seconds to power to life. Once it was fully on, he pressed a couple of buttons and turned the screen toward us. “I wrote down the number Billings called before I pulled the battery.” He pulled a small piece of paper from his front shirt pocket and held it up beside the phone. “They’re the same damn numbers.”
Greg snatched the phone from Aaron’s hand.
“What the hell?” Aaron said.
Greg didn’t respond but powered the phone down as quickly as he could.
“You didn’t try to call anyone?” Greg asked, his voice tight and slightly nervous.
“No,” Aaron said. “Who would we call?”
“How long did you have the phone on?” Greg asked with the same urgency.
“Not long.”
“Well, that’s good.” Greg stopped and then held up the phone. “I don’t know if these can be tracked. Maybe they can’t be tracked anymore with all that’s happened, but the last thing we want to do is have this thing on for them to track it back to us.”
“This confirms that Hack was a plant from the military just like Billings,” I said.
“But Hack didn’t seem as obvious like Billings, and why did he stay with us?” Greg asked.
“I thought he was an okay guy,” Aaron said.
“Me, too,” I said, “if he were a plant, he sure didn’t give off any vibes.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Greg said. “Maybe he had gone native with us? We’ll never know.” He paused for a moment as he looked past us and through the walls of the building, mulling over a myriad of questions working his way towards the real one. Then he got to it. “Why did the military put soldiers among groups of survivors?”
“They had to be looking for something,” Aaron said.
“Or someone,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Greg asked.
“Billings was looking for Jason or people like Jason. Maybe they think more people like him are here and are trying to find them. Why else would they be spying on groups of survivors?”
“That could be one answer,” Greg said, not fully convinced.
We mulled over the possibilities, but to me, it always seemed to
come back to my hypothesis. After we exhausted the possibilities and just to be safe, we decided to store the phones off-site at a farmhouse just about a quarter mile away.
Chapter 32
The Farm
Some might think it would be challenging to be giddy during the zombie apocalypse, but if there were a word to describe how I felt, giddy would be the one that best fit my mood those next few days. Not even the killjoys who wanted Jason thrown out of The Manor could have dampened my feelings following that night in the infirmary.
For obvious reasons, Kara and I decided to keep our relationship covert. That is if we could call it a relationship. Whatever it was, I liked it, but I’m not sure that others would. Brother Ed and Mrs. Hatcher didn’t need any more fodder as they whipped their followers into a frenzy any chance they could get. They had segregated themselves from the main group and moved into one of the other buildings to remain uncorrupted by those less pure in thought and deed.
Somehow, our clandestine meet-ups made our time together more precious and even a little dangerous. They were few and far between since I spent my evenings in the infirmary with Jason, and she spent her time with the girls three floors above me each night. My days were spent on our new mission, foraging for farming and planting supplies.
The days marched by as winter finally lost its hold us and spring started winning its war over the weather. The temperatures started to climb, and any traces of the winter snow melted away, but there were still some bitterly cold days.
Over time, spirits lifted as life went back to normal with only minor eruptions from Brother Ed and his crew. Well, as normal as it can be in the apocalypse.
Hub led the master plan to obtain farming equipment to plant our own sustainable supply of food since we knew that sooner or later, nearby food supplies would run out. This meant combing the neighboring farms and getting seeds and planting equipment. I didn’t know the first thing about farming or raising plants. Large-scale agriculture seemed a mystery to me. In fact, my mom used to say I had the brown thumb. My ability to raise anything green was so bad that I killed the lone cactus she bought me when I moved into my first apartment.
