Joel just glares at Scott.
“That’s just it,” Michael says. “I don’t think she’s one of those ‘goddamn things’ anymore. She’s one of us—or at least the closest we’ve seen.”
“Joel’s right, though,” Bonnie says. “It could mean anything.”
“Look, all I’m saying,” Michael says, palms up, “is that she was scared, way scared, and she was trying to say something. Something about ‘them.’ Whoever that is.”
“Maybe something’s still poking around inside her head, did you think of that?” Scott says. “That would scare me more than anything. Worming around in there. And it’s one more reason she probably shouldn’t be in here with us.”
Michael folds his arms. “She’s staying.”
Joel and Rachel and Ron stand to his left, Scott and Mai to his right. They’re all crowded into the book-return area, watching Felicia sleep. The woman’s head is turned away from them, but they can see her minutely jerking in unconsciousness, as if under the sway of a nightmare. She appears to be gradually coming out of the morphine slumber.
“So … what? You think … she could be communicating some kind of retained memory? That’s the question, right?” Joel says. “Something left over from what she became?”
“That’s what I’m hoping, I guess.” Michael glances around.
Bonnie has a worried look on her face. “What’s she going to say?”
Scott makes a disgusted sound. “This is how it starts, I’m telling you. This is how you guys work. You get all riled up about something that’s really just an interpretation. What about the facts?”
Michael observes the slightest nervous twitch at the edge of Scott’s mouth. “Okay, facts,” he says. “We have a number of observable phenomena here, so what are the facts as you see them?”
“Well, I wasn’t here when she apparently woke up, but what I’ve heard so far has been stuttering and raving. Fevered nonsense. There’s no way to know what’s going on in that head.”
“All right, so you prefer to observe a situation and dismiss it for what it’s not, rather than speculate about what it could be? Not really into the ‘theory’ aspect of science?”
Scott is struck silent for a moment. Then, “Oh, okay, so I see where Rachel gets that sense of humor.”
“I’m with Scott, though,” Mai says, playing with a few strands of her hair, absently braiding them. “Feels wrong having these bodies in here. We don’t know what they’re capable of.”
Joel scratches his chin thoughtfully. He turns away from the group and makes his way to the front doors, where Liam and Chrissy are perched on high alert. Liam glances around at Joel’s approach.
“I don’t see shit,” he says. “It’s a graveyard out there.”
“No movement all night.”
“I hate this,” the cop whispers. “This waiting. This paranoia.”
It’s still not long after sunrise, and the sun is searing in from the east, right into their eyes. Michael lets the light laser into him, feels the grittiness in his own gaze. By all rights, he should be asleep right now. His shift is over. But with Felicia approaching potential lucidity again, there’s no way sleep would take him.
Joel is well rested and as cleaned up as he can manage. When he woke, he said he was ready to make a run for more traditional weapons at the precinct west of Old Town, find some new radios, and even send a team to the hospital for supplies and stronger meds. And hell, assuming they could get mobile enough, who’s to say they couldn’t relocate at the Marriott and suffer through the apocalypse in style? Or at least assemble at a grocery store.
But now there’s indecision in the air, and Michael doesn’t see any of that happening in the near future. He thinks Joel has reluctantly come around to the same thinking, despite Scott’s typical objections. Felicia’s damaged words, her repetition of that one word, they—sounding for all the world like a repeated warning—have sent shivers through the group.
“God dammit,” Joel says.
Michael knows he’s frustrated by the need to stay holed up despite the ghost-town quality of the immediate vicinity.
The twins walk sleepily into the lobby, notice everyone milling about uncertainly.
“Oh no,” Chloe says. “What’s going on?”
Rachel very quickly fills her in.
Joel turns to Bonnie. “What’s the situation with the blood?”
“I’ve drawn from everyone except Michael. Obviously he was recently concussed, so I held off. It’s probably safe now, though. We have tranquilizer canisters filled and ready to use in the little fridge. We also have the two units we came in with. To really store more, I’d need more supplies.”
“How many canisters again?”
“One hundred sixty-seven.”
“I’m brimming with optimism,” Mai says.
“Yeah, supposing we have to face forty thousand bodies out there?” Scott says.
“Then maybe we’ll throw you out to ’em first,” Rachel says, not without a small smile.
There’s laughter all around, and even Scott cracks a smile.
“I’ll tell you another option,” Kevin says. “We get the holy fuck out of here.”
“Damn right,” Scott says.
“Is there any kind of tower around here? I’m thinking we get somewhere way high up, see what we can see. Fort Collins isn’t famous for tall buildings, but we’ve got some high spots, right? Let’s go, man. This doesn’t feel right.”
Ron chimes in. “We just spent two days barricading this joint.”
“Plus, there’s so much to read!” Mai says with a grin.
Kevin presses on: “Look, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I’ve had it ever since we got here, and those damn things stopped chasing us. I just know they’re up to something, and God knows it won’t be any good. I’m serious. I say we load up the trucks and go.”
“But after we get a view high up, where then?” Bonnie says, forlorn.
“Well, maybe that’s what we’ll find out. I don’t know—east?”
“You think we’d find any scenario out there that’s better than this one?”
“No,” he says frankly. “Maybe. But that’s what we all said about the hospital. At least we’d be moving.”
“And what’s the benefit of that?” Rachel asks.
“We’d be searching, right? Finding answers. Finding other survivors. I don’t know.”
“Sure,” Joel says, “I think that’s the ultimate goal, at least it’s mine, but things have been so unpredictable that we can’t just take a leisurely stroll out there and see what answers we can find. Have you forgotten what happened on the drive over here?”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten that,” Kevin says, “but maybe we should be remembering that your more recent trip to the store was pretty damned uneventful.”
The conversation continues to revolve around itself, and tempers continue to teeter on the brink of flare-up. Michael removes himself from the knot of survivors and finds some of the rationed food. He practically inhales some beef jerky, feeling a quick protein surge. He follows that up with a small portion of water. When he’s done, he leans against a doorjamb and watches Felicia. She continues to suffer in unconsciousness, and he wonders not for the first time whether whatever has happened to her inside is irreversible.
Chances are good that she will never again be a fully functioning human being.
The thought worms its way to his center and clenches like a fist.
As he pulls away from the door, he catches a glimpse of Rachel and Kayla settling into a nook near the elevator. They speak quietly with each other, shoulder to shoulder, and Rachel holds Kayla’s hand in a loose grip. Occasionally one of them even utters a soft giggle. Michael is not ignorant to the selflessness that is allowing Rachel to appear calm and friendly to this young girl, all in the interest of helping Kayla cope. At the thought, Rachel glances his way, giving him what appears to be a grateful smile. Michael might even call it a peaceful
smile. He winks back at her.
Somehow he finds his way to one of the cushioned benches along the south hallway and sits down, yawning.
And he’s almost instantly asleep, sprawled across the bench.
No one disturbs him.
When he wakes from a thick, dreamless sleep some four hours later, the neighborhood surrounding the library is still deathly quiet, simmering under the summer heat.
Michael uses the restroom, which is already beginning to stink, and then he hurries to Felicia, who still hasn’t achieved consciousness. Bonnie assures him that she would have woken him if the young woman had stirred.
Then Michael wanders to the front doors, his eyes roaming the rows of homes across the streets to the north and east. He remembers those first hours after they arrived, the bodies that scurried south. Where in the hell did they go? What was their purpose? Why that direction, when it had already been established that most of the ambulatory bodies had scrambled off in the direction of the foothills, into the forests of conifers? He remembers the vague glow coming from the south, wonders if it means anything.
It’s becoming warm inside the library, and an impatience is spreading from Joel to the others. As Michael stands there, some heated argument breaks out among Ron’s crew about one of their former members. Michael tunes it out, but tempers are flaring, and it’s Mai who calms everyone. “He wandered out on his own, you know. I’m not some temptress. Everybody makes their own decisions. I liked him. I wish he was still here. Jesus.”
Mai strikes Michael as a pleasing combination of no-nonsense and sensual—certainly all the males among these survivors pay her special attention. She’s sharp and flinty, opinioned, but also playful. Combine all that with a lean, athletic body and a sweet face—not to mention the subtle blue dye streak in her hair—and you have something lethal. Michael’s glad she’s on their side. He wonders how long she’ll be able to use her charm to defuse volatile situations. Because it’s only going to get worse in here.
Michael turns from the door and wanders over to the table where Rachel and Kayla have been playing a card game. They found a number of games and decks of cards in a small room off the children’s area. Kayla is laughing as Michael approaches, and not for the first time, he marvels at this girl’s resiliency. It also seems to be contagious: Rachel is more relaxed and—yes—happier than Michael has seen in …
My god, he thinks. Years. It’s been years.
As he arrives at the table, Rachel glances up and says, “Hey Daddy.”
“You two having fun?” he says, placing his hand on Rachel’s head, letting it drift down through her hair.
“Kayla was just showing me a card trick.”
“My daddy knows a lot of them. He’s good at cards.”
As Michael catches the present tense, Rachel notices his expression and nods.
“Kayla’s good at the games, too. She’s taught me a few.”
Bonnie walks up. “I think she might be waking up.” She gestures toward the book-return area, to which they have a clear line of sight.
Michael turns, sees Chrissy in there, attending to something.
“Let’s go.”
At the threshold to the room, Chrissy notices him. “Michael! Come in. I was labeling those canisters when she cried out a minute ago. She opened her eyes, but then she fell back to sleep. But she’s stirring again. You might want to stick around.”
Michael steps in, takes quick note of the blood canisters at the counter. They’d agreed to a simple categorization by donor initials and date, noted by red Sharpie on the canisters.
“As soon as she’s conscious, I want to get some of this ibuprofen in her.” Bonnie joins Michael, squatting near Felicia’s supine body, which rests atop the makeshift bedding made of blankets found in Kayla’s office. “I examined her this morning, and … without sounding too optimistic, she seems to be in good shape. No fever … the swelling is going down at the joints. Of course, that’s external … but I think if there were anything major happening internally, we’d be seeing evidence of it. There’s nothing noteworthy.” She lowers her voice. “There’s a good possibility she might be okay. Thanks to you.”
Bonnie lets her hand rest briefly on Michael’s shoulder.
He shrugs, tries not to show how important it has become to him that Felicia survive. In whatever condition.
“I couldn’t leave her there to suffer.”
Bonnie joins Chrissy, calling back, “Michael, I still think she’ll be a while waking up. It’s about time you donated some blood to the cause. You ready?”
“Of course.”
Midway through the draw, Felicia opens her eyes. They remain wet and streaming, and new tears seem to flood out of them upon waking. She turns her head left and right as if searching for something, and Michael can see her jaw working in some kind of convulsive motion that confuses him—not quite gagging but an intake, a sucking.
“Almost done?” Michael asks Bonnie.
“Yep,” she says, finishing his eighth small draw and slipping the needle out. “Pressure here,” she instructs, holding an alcohol-soaked paper towel at the entry site, and letting him go.
Kneeling next to Felicia, he notices the woman trying to focus. It reminds him of what he spoke to Bonnie about earlier—about the lingering effects of the radiation inside the skull. The survivors have seen firsthand that the glowing orb can wreak hideous damage outside the skull it inhabits, but it appears that it’s protective of its host body. It wouldn’t do much good to those bastards if the flesh surrounding the inhabitant suddenly started melting at the moment of possession. But had the orb displaced tissue? Had it moved anything roughly out of its way? Or was it purely energy?
Possession? Inhabitation? Michael shakes his head.
Felicia’s eyes settle on his, and she looks at him pleadingly.
“I—I—I ….” Her mouth contorts.
“Do you need pain relievers?”
She shakes her head quickly despite obvious discomfort. Her hand snakes out and grabs his—the grip is sweaty and desperate. She closes her streaming eyes and concentrates, dealing with inner turmoil.
“They …” she says quietly. “… life.”
“Life?”
“D—d—dying.”
Michael is listening intently, and he’s gradually aware of a great commotion coming from the south section of the library, some shouting. He tries to tune it out, but then Ron is bounding into the lobby.
“Truck!” he calls. “Coming fast!”
There’s a flurry of movement around him, and Chrissy bumps him roughly on the shoulder on the way out, but he stays rooted to the spot. He squeezes her hand gently. “Life, death … which one?”
Felicia shakes her head in agonized frustration.
“Inside,” she warbles, eyes shut tight. “D—d—dying.”
He says, “And the trees have what they need?”
Michael can hear the horn of a vehicle now, coming in aggressive bursts.
Felicia opens her wet eyes. She looks scared out of her mind. “Neeeeed.”
“Pain relievers now?” Michael whispers.
Her head moves in a trembling nod.
He searches behind himself, finds the cup of liquid ibuprofen, and manages to get it down her throat, and Felicia turns away, still in apparent pain.
“Neeeed.”
Michael still has the shouting in the lobby tuned out, hoping Felicia will turn back to him and tell him the answers he wants, but she won’t. He feels a hot frustration, deep inside, and he isn’t even sure why he needs these answers. He wants to help this unfortunate young woman, of course, but there’s something else. It’s maybe as simple as wanting to belong to this group, to which a part of him still feels like an outsider. He woke up too late, he defied them early with his trip home, and he’s been on the periphery for too long. They’ve accepted him, yes, and yet a small part of him feels like a fraud.
But now Felicia is unconscious again, and the shouting at the
front doors has become too loud to ignore.
Chapter 26
There’s a throng of survivors at the front doors, watching a big American truck hop the curb, bounce loudly, and come tearing across the grass.
Michael arrives next to Joel in time to hear him say, “Jesus, man, we are vulnerable here. We have plenty of weapons for those things, but nothing against, you know, assholes.”
The truck fishtails briefly on the grass, then rights itself on the wide concrete path leading toward the front doors. It slows to a halt next to the Hummer, and it’s at that point that Joel breathes out a ragged sigh of relief.
“Holy shit, it’s the Thompsons.” The cop actually has a smile in his voice, his tension easing away. “Never thought I’d be so happy to see those good ol’ boys.”
“The Thompsons?” Scott says skeptically, arriving behind them.
Joel is already on his way out the front doors, striding toward the big steel-gray truck. It’s a battered behemoth. A huge man descends quickly, awkwardly from the cab—then what appears to be his twin exits the passenger side. The Thompson brothers are wearing matching blood-spattered camouflage that’s almost hilariously large, and big black boots. They’re wobbling a little on the path, looking stunned but purposeful, and they’re glancing around the entire property, paranoid.
“Hey Jeff … Pete …” Joel calls.
“What the hell happened to your radio, Officer?” the out-of-breath driver, Jeff, says. “We’ve been trying to get you on the horn.”
“Lost it with my cruiser—things got crazy back there.”
“We saw that for sure. Been keeping tabs on you from the ridge.”
“You got that goddamn whole crew in there?” Pete says. He reaches Joel and pauses with his brother, wheezing, peering into the library.
“Yeah, that’s the hospital group you saw before, plus the group from the college.”
“Well, listen up,” Jeff says, “you gotta get the bejeezus outta here.”
Joel’s jaw clenches. “What do you mean?”
“Those things are gunnin’ for you, man. Y’all are in their sights.” He gestures southeast. “They’re all crowded up over there for something, and you are too close. Too close. Pete didn’t even want to come over here, he said we should—”
Blood Trilogy (Book 2): Draw Blood Page 27
