by Thonas Rand
“Are you gonna offer them the place?” Derek asked.
“That’s up to Lauren; she told Tom that they’d talk about it at dinner,” Ardent said.
“Really? Okay then,” Derek said.
“We’re gonna go work on the boat’s outboards,” Ardent told him.
Bear said, “We’d ask you to help, but…” He sniffed loudly. “…you really stink.”
“Oh, that’s hilarious,” Derek said.
Ardent smiled and then they both left.
Milla came in from the front of the hospital with Tom. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he answered and walked off.
Milla went to Derek with two bottles of hand sanitizer. “Hey, Tom was nice enough to give us these so we can wash up,” she said and gave him a bottle.
“I don’t think that’s gonna help, sweetie.”
“Oh, come on, it’s better than nothing.”
He turned his frown downside-up for her. “Okay, will you watch our stuff while I go wash up?” he asked.
“Sure. I think the bathrooms are over there.” She pointed.
Derek grabbed his backpack and went down the hall, and as he passed Maggie—“Hey,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Here.” Maggie held out a hand towel to him. “I thought you might need this.”
“Thanks,” Derek said genuinely. “But I wouldn’t wanna give it back to you all soiled.”
“It’s okay, keep it, I have a few,” said Maggie.
Derek took the towel from her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “You’re the first person to make my daughter laugh since this all started.”
Before he could respond, Maggie went back into her room, and Derek continued down the hall to the bathroom.
The men’s bathroom was a dark box inside; one emergency light was on, but one of its light bulbs was busted. Derek didn’t complain as he stood before the bone-dry sink and looked at himself in the dirty, scratched-up mirror. He didn’t like what he saw, but who did in these times? Derek was grateful for one thing, though, and that was the fact he was alive to not like what he saw in the mirror.
Better than most people.
He placed his weapon on a sink and untied his PVC armor; he took it all off and it clattered to the floor, piece-by-piece. He removed his jacket, shirt, his bulletproof vest, and finally, his T-shirt. He took off his boots and then his pants. He looked at the state of his pants; since the local drycleaners were closed, the pants were a lost cause. He chucked them into a bathroom stall, opened his backpack, and pulled out another pair of pants. He stood there in his underwear and grabbed the bottle of hand sanitizer. He flicked it open, squeezed some in his hand, and started to clean himself with the hand towel. Derek was in very good shape for looking like a pothead, as his waistline wasn’t the victim of the munchies. He had more elaborate tattoos on his back and chest, along with a few old scars.
He wiped down his chest with the hand sanitizer, and the white towel quickly turned brown. He stopped to look at the wound on his chest, the reflection in the dirty mirror was bad, to say the least, and he leaned in closer for a better look. The bruising was a precise black and blue indentation on his left pectoral muscle, there didn’t appear to be any broken skin.
He looked closer—
He saw that his skin at the bottom of the circular bruise was broken and caked with some blood. He prodded at it with his fingers to make sure that it didn’t bleed anymore, and it appeared that it wasn’t. He was safe or was he?
Because the bruise was a bite mark—
A human bite mark.
Derek realized what it meant…
He didn’t see Milla sneak up behind him and wrap her arms around him; she purposely clutched at his chest wound.
“Hey, watch it! That still hurts!” he said.
“Aw, poor baby, I’m sorry, but maybe next time I tell you to fuck me harder, you’ll fuck me harder, so I won’t get mad and bite ya again,” she said playfully.
…It meant that he was the luckiest guy in the world to still be getting laid after the end of the world.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Who’s watching our stuff?”
“No one.”
“No one?”
“It’s fine. If they steal from us, it’ll be a real short list of suspects.”
“True.”
Milla hugged him from behind. “Baby, you’re hot, but right now, you stink.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Really, who told you that you were hot? Lauren?”
He smiled. “Bear.”
“Well, he can’t have you.”
“He can have you because you stink, too,” he said with a smile.
She grabbed at his chest wound again.
“Ouch! Really?”
She stopped and caressed his chest. “Better?” she asked.
“Better.”
She took the hand towel from him and wiped down his body with the hand sanitizer.
This he liked. “Now this is the best hand wash I’ve ever had.”
“You like that, huh?”
“Oh yeah.”
Then she removed his underwear and cleaned the rest of him.
“Did I say the best? Now it’s the second best hand wash I’ve ever had,” he said with a broad smile.
She started to remove her armor and he helped her, and when she took off her top, he couldn’t help but to stare at her tanned breasts. She threw the dirty hand towel away, pulled out a clean one from her pocket, and dangled it before him.
“Your turn,” she said.
He was the luckiest guy in the end of world.
Indeed.
Lauren was wandering the hospital, exploring the second floor. Even though Tom and Anthony told her that the building was secure, she walked with her weapon at the ready, regardless. There were no dead bodies on the floors here, and that was something that she wasn’t use to; everywhere they went, the stench of the decaying dead greeted them, but then she realized that she could still smell all of the undead that were on the street below looking for them. The only thing that littered the halls here was trash and turned over equipment, desks, and chairs, the place was a mess. She took a glance out the plate-glass ceiling windows and saw the dead in the street below.
She pulled back out of sight before any of them saw her. She continued on her exploration and as she listened to the dead moan outside, she had an epiphany—that she was a sardine in a giant can that was going to be pried open, sooner or later.
Ripped open.
Sooner or later…
• • •
“Are we gonna be allowed to eat in peace sooner or later?” asked Joe.
“As soon as everyone’s here, Joe,” answered Tom.
They were all gathered in the hospital cafeteria, which was at the front of the building on the north side, and it was just an empty area now with no food of any kind. All the display tables and drink coolers were empty, but it looked like it had been cleaned a little. There were still food trays on the floor here and there, empty soda bottles, and over-flowed trashcans.
Everyone was seated in their own clicks—Joe was with his wife and daughter at one table, Tom and Anthony were seated at another. Anthony had his new pipe armor on; it was all painted black and covered most of his body. Tom had a large box at the table that contained canned food and he had a couple pots set-up over propane camping stoves that cooked beef stew for everyone. Well, almost everyone. Ardent and his crew were seated at two tables and they were going to eat military food—MREs—meal, ready to eat, or as some soldiers called them, Meals Rejected by Ethiopia. Alan and Donnie were at one table, but they sat at opposite ends. Alan also had his new pipe armor on, and then Doctor Ceraulo arrived last and sat with them.
“Okay, we’re all here, now what the hell is this about?” demanded Joe.
“I wanted to let all of you know that we’re letting Ardent and his group take the boat ou
t in back,” Tom informed them.
“And who is we, exactly?” Alan asked.
“Me, okay, Alan, I told him that it was okay, but if you really wanna keep that piece of shit dingy, then fine, keep it, but you can’t fix it, can you?” Tom shot at him.
“Maybe I can’t fix it, but it’s still hospital property.” Alan countered.
“Hospital property?” Anthony said. “And since when did you own this place, Alan?”
“Enough, little boys!” Joe shouted at them. “What I wanna know is what do you intend on doing with the boat?”
“Yeah, me, too,” Donnie finally spoke.
Ardent stood. “Once we fix the boat’s engines, we’re gonna put it in the channel in the back of the hospital and make our way to the naval shipyard on the coast to find a better boat.”
“The naval shipyard?” Donnie said. “That place has been closed for years.”
“True, but there’s still ships out there, and there has to be one that we can use,” Bear said.
“Use for what?” Joe asked.
“We’re gonna go up the coast.” Ardent said.
“Up the coast?” said Ceraulo. “To where? Alaska? You’ll never make it.”
“Oregon,” Ardent said. “We’re going to Oregon.”
“What makes you think that it’ll be any different in the cities of Oregon than the shit that’s here?” Joe said.
“We’re not going to stay in any of the cities,” Derek said.
“Then where are you going?” Maggie asked.
Lauren stood up. “My family’s ranch.”
Ceraulo asked. “And where is this ranch?”
“It’s in the middle of the state, over a hundred thousand acres that’s been in my family for generations.”
“Okay, but what does that mean for us?” Joe said. “Besides telling you ‘good luck’ as you sail away?”
Ardent looked at Lauren because it was her call. “Since you guys let us come in here,” she said, “although it wasn’t wholeheartedly, and you’re giving us the boat, I’m extending my invitation to all of you as well.”
“To go and stay at your ranch?” Anthony asked.
“Yes,” Lauren answered. “Except for you, Alan. If you come—you can sleep in my barn, you pervert.”
“Okay,” Alan answered quietly.
Tom shook his head and laughed. “Already, Alan? She just got here, man.”
Alan stretched his face. “Yeah, well…”
Ceraulo was skeptical. “How do you know that we’ll be safer there?”
“It’s probably a hell of a lot safer than this place,” Milla said.
“Our closest neighbor at the ranch is forty miles away,” Lauren explained. “And the nearest city is eighty-two miles away; we’re pretty secluded there.”
Donnie had doubts—“Let’s say that we accept your offer—how do you plan on getting that old boat, if you can get it running, into the channel past those things? Do you think they’ll just step aside and let us play sailor without trying to eat our dicks?”
“We’ll have a plan by the time we’re ready to leave,” Ardent told them. “We’ll create some kind of a diversion to lure them away from the back of the hospital so we can make our escape.”
“I don’t know…” Joe said. “Sounds too risky to me, I think me and my family will be better off sticking it out here until this thing blows over.” Maggie didn’t say anything, but the look on her face didn’t agree with him.
“’Til this thing blows over?’” Milla said. “You must be lightheaded? This isn’t gonna blow over. Last I heard, the infection turned eighty percent of the world’s population into cannibals that are trying to kill the rest of us.”
That didn’t sway Joe. “I still think we’ll be safer if we just stay here behind these walls.”
“That’s your choice,” Ardent stated. “But you need to realize two things. One way or another, those things will get in here, every place that we’ve been to before this one, where people thought it was safe, they got in.”
“That’s back when there was nineteen of us,” Derek added.
“The other thing,” Ardent went on. “Is that you’re gonna run out of supplies, and when you do, then what? You gonna go outside to your local supermarket?”
“So, what, you have a buffet at your ranch?” Joe asked Lauren.
“Yeah, we live off the land there, we have plenty of livestock and acres of fertile ground to plant crops with,” she said.
“Sounds like Heaven,” Joe sarcastically said.
“What about water?” asked Maggie.
“A river runs through our ranch, and we have wells, along with a water filtration system,” Lauren answered.
“Count me and Corina in,” Maggie said.
“We’re staying here,” Joe told her.
Maggie gave him defiant eyes. “You’re staying here, but I’m taking my daughter out of this hell.”
Tom made his call. “Listen, me and my brother are going with them. We won’t be able to take all the supplies that I have in my trailer, so whoever stays, is welcome to it.”
“When do you plan on leaving?” a humbler Joe asked.
“Not sure, maybe two or three days,” Ardent said. “It depends on when we fix the boat motors and they’re in bad shape.”
“So who’s staying?” Tom asked and nobody said anything. “It’s settled then, we’re getting out of here, all of us.”
They began to eat and talk amongst themselves; they had plenty to talk about now. Ardent and his crew began to eat their MREs, Tom couldn’t help but notice as he spooned warm beef stew into his mouth from his paper bowl. “You guys sure you don’t want some of this stew? It’s a lot better than that plastic military food.”
“Thanks, but we’re fine,” Ardent told him.
“Yeah, we’re cool,” Derek assured him.
“I don’t get it, why not have some?” Tom put to them. “This stew is almost like a home-cooked meal compared to what you guys are having.”
“Exactly,” Bear said. “In case you haven’t noticed—we’re at war and anything that reminds me of home right now will weaken me, and I could make a mistake that will cost me and possibly others in my group, our lives.”
“It will weaken us,” Derek added.
Bear continued. “We’ve made this far because we work as a unit and watch each other’s backs.”
“What about the others that were in your group that didn’t make it, how’d they die?” asked Anthony.
“They were thinking about home,” Ardent said somberly.
“I’ll relax and have some of your stew when we’re all at Lauren’s ranch, and I don’t see any of those ghouls down range,” Bear remarked.
“Were all of you in the military?” Tom wanted to know.
“Just me and Bear,” Ardent said.
“Army?” Tom asked.
Bear was insulted. “Please. We’re Navy.”
Maggie was curious about Milla and Derek. “How did you two meet?”
“Us?” Derek said and smiled. “You tell her, baby.”
“I’m—” Milla corrected herself. “—I was a bounty hunter.”
“Oh, so you two were a bounty hunting team?” Maggie said.
Lauren smiled, along with Ardent and Bear.
Derek chuckled. “Uh, yeah, you could say that.”
“You’re not a bounty hunter?” Joe asked him.
“Nope,” he answered. “I’m the bounty.”
“I don’t get it,” Joe said.
Maggie spoke to Milla. “You’re a bounty hunter that went after him and you two fell for each other, is that it?”
“That’s the gist of it,” Milla answered.
“Oh, but that’s not even the best part!” Derek said. “A few years ago, I got arrested for possession of marijuana, and I missed my court date because I was high, I mean—really high! So the bail bond company sent a bounty hunter after me…” Derek pointed to Milla and grinned. “…She found me
pretty easy because—”
“You were high?” Maggie cut in.
“Yes!” Derek said and pointed at Maggie like she won a prize. “And the second that I saw her walk through my door, that was it. I was hooked.”
“I wasn’t,” Milla said.
“No, you weren’t, baby,” Derek admitted. “But I was in love and on a mission. After I got out of jail, I tracked her down and asked her out.”
“I said, no,” Milla told them.
“She did, but I was persistent, and I kept asking and she kept saying no, and then she disappeared and I couldn’t find her, so I came up with a brilliant plan.”
“Brilliant, honey?” Milla said.
“I thought it was pretty smart. It worked, didn’t it?”
She smiled. “It did.”
Maggie was curious. “What did you do?”
“I smoked some pot in front of a public library, and when they arrested me, I skipped my court date, on purpose this time, and guess who they sent to come and get me? Guess!” Derek said proudly.
Maggie didn’t have trouble. “Milla?”
Milla grinned. “Me.”
“Yes!” Derek said.
“And you asked her out and she said yes, right?” Anthony joined in.
“Nope, it took me a couple more tries.”
“Of asking her out?” Maggie said.
“Yeah, but like I said, I couldn’t find her when I was free, so the only way was to get arrested again and again,” Derek said with a little embarrassment.
“How many times did you get arrested on purpose?” Joe asked.
“Four.”
Maggie laughed and so did Corina because of her mother.
“Wait a minute…” Joe thought. “How was it that she got the job to go after you four times in a row? What are the odds of that?”
“No odds,” Milla said. “Later, I found out that my boss at the bail bond company was his cousin.”
“Hey, family comes in handy sometimes,” Derek said.
“You know, I’ve always wondered how you got him to do that for you, because when he finally told me about it, he also told me that he didn’t even like you,” Milla said to Derek.
“I gave him a bunch of free pot.”
“What? He smoked pot?”
“Tons,” Derek smiled. “God, I miss pot!”
