by Brad Knight
The corpses surrounded the car with their hands groping at the windows, trying to get inside. One of them smashed the glass and got its skeletal hands around Troy’s throat. He screamed, and as he did so, he woke himself up. He sat there in covered in sweat, but was relieved to see his wife laying there next to him.
“It was a nightmare, dear. You’re okay. Take a deep breath,” she said in a comforting voice. Troy managed to calm down and even get back to sleep.
In the morning, Hannah and Cordelia came down from the bedroom. Hannah had on a long t-shirt and short shorts. Brandon opened his eyes from where he lay on the couch and noticed her as they came down. Although he had begun to think that he was gay in the days leading up to the disaster, he could not help but notice how beautiful she looked with her long blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, and her long, perfect legs. Then, he was reminded again of the pain that shot through his shoulder as he tried his best to sit up.
“Take it easy, dear,” his mother said as she came over to him and began to dress his wound again.
“How does the wound look?” Troy asked her.
“It doesn't look so great. You need to find him some antibiotics, and soon.”
“I’m off,” he said.
“Wait, have some breakfast first,” Mary urged him. She put together some eggs and toast for them. They were running very low on these things, so it would be the last breakfast of this kind for a while. Troy devoured the toast as the others slowly ate.
“Why don’t you let me come with you?” Mary finally asked her husband as he got up from the table and began to get his weapon loaded.
“No, it’s too dangerous. I need you to stay here and take care of things,” Troy said.
“Well, you need someone to go with you.”
“I’ll go,” Cordelia said, much to everyone’s amazement.
“No, you should stay here dear, it’s too dangerous,” Troy said.
“I want to go. I’ve been cooped up in here for too long. I don’t care how horrible it is out there, I want to be outside again. I want to feel the breeze in my face and see the trees and hills again.”
“You won’t be able to feel the breeze through your gas mask,” Brandon said as he clutched his arm.
“I don’t care, I want to go. Please, dad, let me go with you.”
Troy was silent for a moment.
“Very well, you can go, but I want you to carry a weapon. It’s gotten really dangerous, and there’s people that would rather shoot you than speak to you,” he said.
“I can handle it, dad.” Cordelia tried her best to pluck up her courage.
“Here, you can have my gun.” Brandon handed Cordelia his weapon. She looked at it like it was an object that had come from outer space.
“I’ve never fired a gun before,” she said skeptically.
“Look, this is the safety. This is how you cock it. Then, you simply pull the trigger,” Brandon said.
“Okay, sounds easy enough,” she replied hesitantly.
Hannah smiled at Brandon from across the table. Her smile was infectious to him and he smiled back at her.
“Let’s get going, honey. I want us to get back home long before dark, if we can,” Troy said.
Cordelia put on her gas mask.
“Do be careful out there,” Mary said to them as they left.
“We will mom,” Cordelia said.
Once outside, Cordelia was astonished at how cold it felt.
“I told you it would be chilly. Here, put this on.” Troy put his jacket over his daughter’s shoulders.
They got into the Camaro and sped off down the road in the direction of the county hospital on the edge of Dickson. Troy held his weapon in his hand in case they encountered any other roving bands of opportunists. He was pleased to see that there didn’t appear to be any other people on the road that day. When they pulled up to the hospital, they were surprised to see several cars still parked outside of it. Obviously, there were people inside.
“Cordelia, I want you to stay inside the car. Be ready to pull away as soon as I get back out here with the meds, is that clear? If someone approaches you, keep your gun on them, and if they try and get inside I don’t want you to hesitate - shoot them if you have to.”
“Dad, are you sure you don’t want me to come inside with you?” she asked him.
“No, it’s too dangerous. I need you to be ready to drive the getaway car. If I don’t come back out after thirty minutes, I want you to leave and head back for home,” he said.
“No, I will not leave you in there,” she said stubbornly.
“You have to. If something happens to me in there, I want you to get away safely. Do you understand me?”
Finally she gave up and nodded her head to indicate that she understood his instructions.
Troy cocked his gun and looked around at the outside of the hospital. Like the other buildings he had been to, many of the windows and doors had been kicked in and shattered. But here, objects had been placed up against the doors to bar them from outside intrusion. Troy found a window that was open and entered quietly through it.
Once inside, he could hear voices faintly talking from another room. He was inside one of the patient wards. There was a bed to his right that was still made up as if it were waiting on someone to occupy it. Troy moved quietly and cautiously to the door and peeked out.
Further down the hall, he saw a couple of people walking and talking. They were hooked up to oxygen machines that they were wheeling down the hallway alongside them. Troy crept back away from the window and began to check the cabinets in the room. He found some old medications, but nothing that resembled antibiotics.
He knew that he would have to venture out into the hallway and try and reason with the people there to see if they were willing to help. He would not, however, put his gun away. He moved out of the room and into the hallway with his weapon out in front of him. At first, he didn’t see anyone, but he could hear voices talking further down in the waiting room. He slowly made his way through the hallway, holding his gun forward.
Once he got to the patient waiting room, he saw several people standing around with oxygen masks on their faces. As soon as they saw Troy standing there, a couple of them drew guns and pointed them at Troy, who pointed his weapon back at them.
“Please, I’m not looking for any trouble. I’m only here to see if I can get some antibiotics for my son. He’s badly injured and I’m afraid he might die if I don’t get him the proper medicine.”
“You aren’t welcome here,” a man dressed in a lab coat told him. “We only have enough supplies for the twelve people that are staying here. We are running out of oxygen as it is,” the man said.
“Please, I’m not here to rob you of your oxygen, water or food supplies. I just need medicine, I swear it!” he said. The two men holding the guns looked at one another. The man in the lab coat made a hand motion to indicate to the gunmen that they could lower their weapons. Troy did the same thing after they did, as a gesture of good faith.
“Come with me,” the man in the lab coat said, as Troy followed him into a medical supply room. The man in the lab coat unlocked a cabinet and began to look through the contents.
“I take it you must be the doctor,” Troy said.
“Lab coat gave me away, didn’t it? I’m Doctor Rutherford,” he said.
“Troy’s the name.”
“We have been living here since the crisis began. At first it was just me and a few of the staff members, but as time went on, we have had more people turn up at the hospital. We took on as many as we thought we could reasonably help,” Doctor Rutherford explained.
“Then, after we had taken on about twenty or so of the sick and wounded, we were attacked by a roving gang. They killed about eight people and diminished our supplies greatly. Now, we probably only have enough oxygen to last another month or so, then I’m not sure what we’ll do,” the doctor said as he got out a pill bottle and examined it.
“
Here you go, that’s omoxicillin. Make sure that the person takes all of the pills and doesn’t miss a dose. It should prevent any infection from spreading.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” Troy said. “The last time that we ventured outside, we had some very unfortunate encounters with some opportunists.”
“The town is full of them. The rumor is that a group of unsavory types have banded together just outside of town. There’s lots of bikers amongst them. They go out on raiding parties in the surrounding area. They try and scoop up whatever supplies they can find and they kill indiscriminately. When they raided the hospital, they took half of our water and several of our canned goods. They also kidnapped two women and killed eight of the men. We always have our weapons at the ready now because we know they will come back.”
“There seems to be very little human decency left in the world,” Troy said.
“We must hold onto whatever shreds of humanity are left.”
Troy followed the doctor out of the medical supply room. Once they were back in the waiting area, a large man in camo gear was standing there with his weapon aimed at Troy.
“It’s fine, Harvey, he’s just here for some antibiotics,” the doctor said, trying to get him to lower his weapon.
“I go to the crapper for just a few minutes and look what you do. You let an outsider in.” Harvey walked over to where Troy was standing.
“Please, I don’t want any trouble. My son has been shot by the same people that probably caused all of the trouble that you had. He will likely die of infection if I don’t get this medicine to him.”
Harvey did not take his weapon down from where he had it pointed. “We need all the medicine we have for our own people.”
“It’s just some antibiotics, Harvey. We have plenty more where that came from,” Doctor Rutherford said.
“You guys voted to have me put in charge, did you not?” Harvey asked.
“We did, but I’m telling you this is a decent man. I can tell it.”
“What’s to stop him from telling other people that we are holed up here. He could have been sent by that gang outside of town.”
“Come on, it’s clear that he’s not one of them,” Doctor Rutherford said.
“Where did you come from, cowboy?” Harvey asked him in a cold voice.
“Just outside of town, on the south side,” Troy answered. Troy looked to his immediate left and realized that there was a window there. If this man didn’t see reason, he could try and jump through it. He readied himself.
“I’m sorry doc, but we can’t take any chances. You turn over that weapon of yours and give me any supplies that you are carrying. Boys, I want you to go outside and see who’s with him.”
Immediately, Troy thought of Cordelia, and without any further hesitation, he jumped right through the window to his left as Harvey tried to fire a shot at him.
Luckily for Troy, the shot missed, but he was cut badly in several places once he got to his feet. He could hear the voices of the men inside as they began to exit the hospital. Troy limped around to the front of the building just as the men began to open fire at him. He ducked down and hurried inside the car.
“Drive away as quickly as you can, Cordelia!” he yelled. She stomped on the gas as Harvey and his men began to fire at the Camaro. They managed to shoot out the back windshield, but did not hit either Troy nor Cordelia.
Harvey and one of the other men jumped into a Chevy pick up and came after them. Cordelia didn’t realize it, but she was headed off in the wrong direction, towards the north.
As she drove, her attention was diverted for a moment by something strange that she saw far off in the distance. It looked as if it were several men dressed in full-body suits far off in the distance. She thought they might be military or government personnel that could help them, so she turned off the main road in their direction.
“Where are you going?” Troy asked her, as he attempted to stop the bleeding form his many cuts that covered the upper part of his body.
“There’s some government people up ahead. They might be able to help us,” Cordelia said.
“No sweetie, we cannot trust anyone. Head for home.”
“But Dad, you need help now. Look at how you’re bleeding!” she said urgently.
Just as soon as she said this, the car grinded to a halt. The car had run out of gas, much to their dismay.
“Come on, help me out. We have no choice but to go it on foot!” Troy said, as Cordelia got out of the car.
The Chevy pick up was pulling up just behind them as Cordelia helped her bleeding father out of the car and into the woods. Far off in a clearing, Cordelia saw the strange men in the body suits again. They were moving away from them. The wind was really howling all around them, and with it the dust and debris was kicked up into the air again.
“Help, help us!” Cordelia cried out to the men off in the distance, but they had already moved out of sight and didn’t seem to be able to hear what she was saying. The men in the pick up entered the woods and began to talk amongst themselves.
“Come on, they went this way,” Harvey said as the two men in the pick up followed behind him. Cordelia and Troy were hunkered down in a thick patch of blackberries trying to lie as still as possible. Harvey and his men walked passed them and further off into the woods. Finally, their voices were barely heard far off in the distance.
“Come on,” Troy urged his daughter as they emerged from their hiding spots. Just as Cordelia was about to leave the patch of blackberry bushes, her eyes were drawn to something shiny and metallic that was sitting there in the brambles. She put it in her pocket and then ran to catch up with her father who was still bleeding quite badly.
They got into the Chevy pick up which the men had left idling, and Troy threw it into gear. Just as they sped off, the two men emerged from the woods, realizing that their vehicle had been taken.
“Goddamnit Carl, why the hell did you leave it running?” Harvey said in frustration.
Cordelia took a deep breath as the two men soon faded from sight in the rear view mirror.
“That was far too close, but we did manage to get the antibiotics,” Troy said.
Cordelia took some tissue and dabbed it on the many cuts that her father’s body was covered with. Then she put her hand in her pocket to see if the strange metallic object was still there. She was pleased to see that it was.
Once they made it back to the bunker, Troy parked the truck back behind the bunker again to make sure that it could not be seen from the road. From that point on, supply runs would have to be made somewhere else. There was obviously too much danger awaiting them in Dickson. Once inside, Mary began to fret over her husband.
“What in the world happened to you?” she asked him, as she went and got out the first aid kit.
“We ran into a little trouble at the hospital,” he said. “The doctor there was friendly, but there were others there that pulled a gun on me. I saw an opportunity and I busted through a window just to my left. It was the only way I could escape,” Troy explained. “I did manage to get this though.” He produced the bottle of antibiotics from his jean pocket.
“That’s terrific!” Mary examined the bottle. “Let me get you patched up and then we will get Brandon to begin taking these.”
“How is Brandon doing?” Troy asked her.
“He’s upstairs sleeping. He has a pretty high fever and I gave him more ibuprofen to help. I’m glad you got back with this when you did or I fear he might not have made it.”
Mary began to put antiseptic on Troy’s many cuts and scrapes. Luckily, most of them were shallow, although one or two cuts on his left arm were pretty deep and still bleeding. She wrapped these in gauze and taped them up.
Upstairs, Brandon lay snoring on his bed. Cordelia walked upstairs and found Hannah watching over him as he slept.
“Hey,” she said quietly, startling Hannah.
“Oh, you scared me,” she said.
“Sorry, I didn
’t mean to.”
“How did the trip to the hospital go?” she asked Cordelia.
“It went fine, until more assholes tried to pull a gun on dad. He had to bust through a glass window to get away from them. Then, we got into a high-speed car chase until the car ran out of gas. Then we had to hide out in the woods after some of the guys from the hospital chased us.”
“My god, are there any decent people left in the world anymore?”
“I don’t know,” Cordelia said, “but I saw something really strange when we were out in the woods. We were on some kind of hill, and I could see a group of people off in the distance dressed in full-body suits. I don’t know who they were, but they looked like government officials or maybe military personnel. I called out to them, but they couldn’t hear me. Anyway, I also found this.” Cordelia got out the small metal object that was in her pocket.
“Whoa, what in the world is that?” Hannah asked her.
“I have no idea, but I’ll bet those people in the body suits left it behind. It looks like something from another world.” Cordelia held the object in the palm of her hand. It was round and silver, but very lightweight. It seemed to be covered with some kind of metal, but nothing that either of the girls had seen anywhere before. It had a crease down the middle as if one might be able to unfold it and open it, but the girls did not try and do so.
“I wonder what it does?” Cordelia said.
“You had probably better show your father. It might be some kind of weapon or something.”
“Yeah, I really don’t want to mess with it,” she said.
The two girls went downstairs. Mary was still dressing Troy’s many cuts.
“Dad, I found something when we were out there hiding in the woods,” Cordelia said.
“What?” he asked her.
She opened her palm to reveal the strange object.
