“Madison, you know Aaron is right,” Michael says. “We have to do what’s best for the group.”
“Executing Todd isn’t what’s best for the group,” I say tightly. I turn to Aaron. “Why did you even let me get him out of there if you were just going to kill him once we got back?”
“I knew you’d never leave him back at the store. Not after what he did for you. I couldn’t let you stay behind and get yourself killed just because you’re not thinking clearly. Maddy—”
“There’s a chance he might be immune,” Daisy says quietly. When everyone turns to look at her, she shrinks back a bit. “Madison and I heard rumors about it going around back at the school. People were saying there was a chance some people were immune to the infection, and even if they got bit, they wouldn’t turn or anything.”
Of course! How could I have forgotten something like that? Todd has a chance. I know it’s a long shot, but I don’t have anything else to fight Aaron with, so I take Daisy’s words and run with them. “Aaron, if he is immune and you shoot him…that would make you a murderer.”
He sighs. “Maddy, it was just a rumor.”
“What if it’s not?” I challenge.
“Even if there is a chance there are immune people out there, the odds of Todd being one of them—”
“I don’t care about the odds, Aaron. There’s a chance he might be immune—an incredibly small chance—but a chance nonetheless. Until I know for sure that Todd is going to be a zombie, he is under my protection. I won’t let any of you harm him, and if you try, you’ll be answering to me.” With that, I turn my back on all of them and head back upstairs to Todd’s room. I close the door firmly behind me, shutting myself in with an infected man that might be trying to kill me sometime in the next few hours.
*****
The first hour is the worst. I spend it shut in Todd’s room, doing nothing but staring at his face and blaming myself for what happened to him. My heart breaks a little more each time I see that bandage on his forearm, and I cry harder than I have since before Aaron found me. Back then, the only people I had to cry over were my parents, but now they’re long gone, and I thought I had escaped ever having to feel that kind of pain again.
And yet, here I am…
I’m sitting against the wall, watching Todd slowly die, and I feel like someone has stabbed me in the chest with a rusty knife and is twisting it just for shits and giggles.
How did I even get feelings for Todd? When we first met, he was so annoying. He was arrogant and whiny and lazy and he complained so much. How did I go from seeing him as a nuisance to seeing him as a friend, or even as more than that? The answer comes to me so suddenly I’m not sure why I didn’t see it before. It was that talk in the woods while we were on watch together. We opened up and we started to understand one another. I started to see him as more than a punk with an attitude…
After I cry most of my guilt away, I’m left wondering why Todd did what he did. He could have just waited for Aaron to come to my aid and shoot the zombies, but he didn’t. He put himself in harms way by rushing into the zombies head first, even tackling one to save me.
Is it possible that Todd does have feelings for me? Is that why he wasn’t thinking clearly back in the store?
I’m no longer unsure of my feelings for Todd. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is something between the two of us, and I wonder if Todd knows it, too. I wonder if I’ll ever get the chance to ask him, or if he’ll die before I can tell him how I feel. One look at Todd tells me there is a very real chance that he will be dead by morning, and I wonder if I should tell him now—even if he won’t be able to hear me.
*****
A knock on the door wakes me later. Rubbing my eyes, I get to my feet and yawn. A quick glance at Todd shows that he’s bled through his bandage, but it doesn’t look like he’s woken up yet. Forcing myself to tear my eyes away from Todd’s still form, I open the door and find Daisy standing there, looking unsure and a little nervous. I’m not sure why she looks nervous until her eyes glance down at the gun still tucked into the front of my pants.
“How late is it?” I ask.
“It’s about dinnertime. You’ve been up here for like four and a half hours, I think. How is he?” she asks softly.
“The same. What do you want Daisy?”
She hands me a Gatorade bottle full of water. “Michael filtered and boiled the water from that fish pond that didn’t have any fish in it. It’s not perfect, but he wanted me to bring this up to you. We’ve got like two milk jugs and our bottles filled, so don’t worry about taking it too easy. I know Todd might need a lot right now.”
“Thank you,” I say, taking the water bottle from her. She just stands there in the doorway. “Daisy, did you need something else?”
“Um, Aaron wasn’t sure you’d be too happy to see him, so he asked me to come up and talk to you for him. He wants the supplies you grabbed from the store. He says you guys brought back some candy and…girl stuff. Aaron wants the food, but I need the other stuff. If you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind. That’s why I grabbed it.” I turn away from the door and grab both of my backpacks from their place at the foot of Todd’s bed. I unzip the red one and grab a Snickers bar and a bag of skittles to keep for myself. “The red one has the candy in it, and the black one has the girl stuff. Try to go easy on both, okay? I’m not sure when we’ll get a chance to grab some more.”
She takes them both from me but she still doesn’t leave. She just stands there for a minute, looking unsure of what she wants to do. Finally, she blurts, “I really do think there are people out there who are immune, and I hope Todd is one of them!” She turns and flees, leaving me standing in the open doorway. Shaking my head, I close the door, shutting myself in the room with Todd again.
I kneel down beside Todd, and he twitches in his sleep, but otherwise he doesn’t wake. “Todd?” I call his name softly, and his eyes flutter open. “I’ve got some kind of fresh water. Do you want it?”
He groans. “Madison?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Do you want some water?”
“I’m sick not deaf. I heard you the first time,” he says with a weak chuckle. “As long as it’s not from the toilet, let me have it.”
I lift his head since he seems far too weak to do it himself, and I hold the bottle above his mouth and let the water drip over the edge and into his mouth. I can’t risk infecting anyone else by getting his saliva on the bottle’s rim, so this seems like the best way to do it. When he closes his mouth and turns away, I pour a little water over my fingers and gently rub it across his dry, cracked lips.
“How bad is it?” he croaks.
I peel back the bandage and he hisses in pain. The wound has turned from red to dark purple, and the veins in his arm are red and inflamed. The wound is hot to the touch, and it throbs under my fingertips. A bit of pus oozes from the edges. “It looks better.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Yeah, that one didn’t even convince me. I’m sorry, Todd.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“No, I’m sorry because I think I have to clean it again, and I know it will hurt.”
He sighs. “Do what you have to.”
I take a damp washcloth and wipe away some of the pus. He clenches his teeth but doesn’t cry out, even when I pull back a flap of skin to clean beneath it. He just lies there breathing harshly and sweating through his clothing as I scrub his arm and torture him.
When I’m done re-bandaging his arm, I wash his face and let him relax a bit. His eyes close and he falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.
*****
The next morning, Todd develops an intense fever that leaves him screaming at things only he can see. When I try to get some water into him—hoping it will help with his fever—he nearly bites me when my hand gets too close to his face. He yells and fights me, as if he thinks I’m trying to hurt him instead of help. Before I can g
et out of his way fast enough, his elbow catches me on the outside of my face hard enough to knock me to the floor.
For a minute, I just sit there, stunned and in pain. The area above my left eye throbs, and I can feel a trickle of blood drip slowly down my face. Todd leans over the edge of the bed—face gray and pinched in pain—and bloody vomit spews from his mouth, soaking the carpet by the side of his bed. His back arches from the force of it, and I scoot back quickly to avoid having blood splatter my boots.
“I’ve never seen anyone turn into a zombie before,” Felicia says quietly from the doorway. “I’ve seen people who were infected, and I’ve seen zombies, but I’ve never seen the in-between stage. It’s horrible.”
“He is not going to be a zombie,” I say, determined to do whatever I can to save him. “He’s going to be just fine.”
Todd swears at me and swings for my head, missing by a few inches. “I took his belt off and tossed it over by the toy box last night. Will you grab it for me?”
“What do you want me to do with it?” she asks, staring at Todd’s thrashing body with wide, fearful eyes.
I jump on Todd, using my legs to straddle his chest and pin him to the bed. He screams and thrashes beneath me, trying to buck me off so he can get free, but I refuse to move. “I want you to use that belt to tie his hand to the bed. Hurry!”
She darts forward as I use both of my hands to grip his wrist and hold it against the headboard. Felicia wraps the belt around his wrist and she buckles it around the bed frame, anchoring Todd to the bed and making him unable to escape. When I’m sure he’s held in place, I slide off his chest and nudge Felicia away from the bed.
I don’t have to worry about him swinging at either of us though. Todd’s entire body relaxes and he slumps against the bed, too exhausted to put up much more of a fight. He just lies there and stares up at the ceiling with his blank, unseeing eyes, and I wonder briefly what’s going on inside of his mind right now.
“He looks terrible.”
“Yeah, he does,” I agree.
Todd’s in terrible shape—even worse than he was earlier. Both of his eyes look like black bruises, and they have a blank look to them. His chest rattles with each raspy breath he takes, and every second I worry it will be his last. The wound on his arm has gone from red to purple to black, and his fever climbs higher every hour. The only thing I’ve been able to do for him is get the pus to stop oozing, but when compared to the rest of his ailments, that doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment.
“He’s turning, Madison.”
“No, he isn’t.”
Felicia’s hand touches mine and her fingers curl around mine. “You might be right, but I think you should consider the possibility that he might not live much longer. If there’s anything you want to tell him, now might be the time to do it, even if he can’t understand you.”
I glance over at her. “What makes you think I should do that?”
She shrugs her thin, boney shoulders. “I wish I had taken just a second to tell Levi how I felt, and I never got that chance. Even though he knew, I still wish I had said it. And even though I think Todd knows how you feel about him, I still think he’d like to hear you say it, too. Just so he can be sure.”
“Is that why you came up here? To tell me to confess my feelings before it’s too late?”
“No. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You look terrible, too. You look tired and hungry and hopeless. When was the last time you ate something?”
“I had a bag of skittles and some water last night, and I managed to get a few hours of sleep. I’ll be fine, but thanks for worrying about me,” I say, giving her hand a light squeeze. “I appreciate it.”
“Aaron’s worried about you, too. I think he wants to come up here and check on you himself, but I think we’re all worried you would shoot him.” Her voice takes on a slightly curious tone. “You wouldn’t actually shoot Aaron, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t. He’s my best friend and he’s my leader. I just needed to let him know that I mean business up here. He had to know I was willing to do whatever it takes to save Todd. You can tell him that if you want.”
She nods. “I will. And you should tell Todd how you feel about him, even if you aren’t sure. He could be dead tomorrow, or even an hour from now.”
Shaking my head, I shoo her from the room and close the door behind her. When I hear her footsteps on the stairs, I kneel down by Todd’s side and take one of his unnaturally hot hands in mine. “Todd? Can you hear me?”
His eyes are closed and his breathing is labored. I can’t tell if he’s asleep or maybe unconscious, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m sure he won’t hear what I have to say. I could wait and hope he magically gets better, but I don’t want to take the chance that he dies without hearing what I have to say. So I take a deep breath and just dive right in.
“Todd, I really like you, and I think you might feel the same way about me. I know love is a horrible thing to think about during the end of the world, but I can’t help it. You and I have grown really close since we met, and I know we’ve only known each other for a very short amount of time, but I think there’s something between us—something we should take a chance on.”
I stop just long enough to wipe at my eyes and take a deep, shaky breath. The thought that this might be my only chance to tell Todd how I feel has me in tears, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop crying.
“I don’t know if you can hear any of this, but if you can, I just want you to know that I need you, Todd. I need you, and I want you to keep fighting, because I don’t want to have to face this world by myself. I want you by my side, and honestly, I don’t know how long I’ll make it without you. Please, keep fighting. Don’t ever give up…”
I lean over and kiss his cheek. He moans quietly, but he doesn’t open his eyes, and doesn’t respond. I keep a close eye on him over the next few hours, but his condition steadily worsens. At one point, he begins to convulse on the bed, and foamy spit dribbles from his chin, soaking the collar of his t-shirt. All I can do is stand there and stare at him in horror, and pray that this isn’t his final day on Earth.
*****
Miraculously, Todd’s fever breaks around noon on the following day. His face begins to regain some of its former color, and his veins return to their normal, bluish color. His wound fades from black to a light purplish color—similar to a bruise—and it grows cool to the touch. After another hour, his breathing evens out, and he almost begins to look healthy again.
My hopes begin to soar, and when Todd opens his eyes, I nearly jump for joy. “Madison?”
“How are you feeling?” I ask, taking a seat on the edge of his bed. I brush a strand of sweat-soaked, dingy hair out of his eyes, and he grins shakily.
“I’ve felt better,” he croaks.
“Not lately you haven’t. Todd, I think you’re getting better. Your fever is gone, your breathing is better, you haven’t puked recently, and you haven’t had a seizure or anything for more than eight hours. Your arm is starting to look much better, too.”
He turns his head to get a better look at his wound, which has begun to scab over. “Would ya look at that?”
“Todd, I think you’re immune to the infection. Daisy was right—it wasn’t just a rumor. You’re gonna heal.”
“I’m glad,” he says. “I wouldn’t want you to have to face this world by yourself…”
I can feel my face slowly turn red, and I duck my head so he won’t see. “You heard that?”
“I heard all of it.” He takes my hand in his and brings it to his lips, lightly kissing my hand. His lips are still dry and cracked and they feel rough against my smoother skin, but I don’t care. The gesture is still sweet. “I heard all of it, and I just want you to know that I feel the same way. I don’t know why,” he says, startling a laugh out of me. “I just do.”
“I’m gonna head downstairs and see if I can’t find you something to eat. I hope you like candy becau
se that’s all we have right now.”
He chuckles. “Grab me a Milky Way and a bag of skittles, will ya?”
I pause at the doorway and smile. “You got it.”
Chapter Fifteen
I practically jump down the stairs, and for the first time since yelling at everyone and pretty much threatening to kill anyone that came near Todd, I join the others for a meal. They all look up at me, surprised to see me out of Todd’s room, and when I smile at them, there’s a moment of stunned disbelief.
“He’s better.”
Aaron frowns. “Maddy, are you sure?”
“Positive. He’s no longer puking, convulsing, having delusions of any kind, and his fever is gone. The wound on his arm is healing, too. He’s immune. Daisy and I were right. If you had shot Todd, you would have been a murderer, just like I said.”
He sighs. “Maddy, I’m really sorry. You know it wasn’t anything personal. I was just trying to do what I thought was best for our group as a whole.”
“I know,” I say. “If I were in your position, I probably would have wanted to do the same thing. I should have let you shoot him. I put everyone down here in danger by keeping him alive and taking a chance, but I’m glad I did it. And I’m glad that you didn’t call my bluff and just march upstairs to take care of things.”
“I knew you wouldn’t have really shot me,” he says with a smile. “You might have punched me, or screamed at me, but you definitely would not have shot me. You care about me too much.”
“You’re right about that.”
Aaron pulls me close and hugs me, and it feels so good to know that I’m forgiven for my erratic behavior.
“Well, you’ve taken care of him for the last two days, why don’t you take care of yourself now? Help yourself to the candy, and there’s a toothbrush with your name on it.” He hands me a tube of toothpaste. “I found this in the upstairs bathroom. You can head out back and use the bottle of mouthwash to get your brush wet. Just go easy on it.”
Zombie Country (Zombie Apocalypse #2) Page 19
