My Dead World 2

by Jacqueline Druga

  I lifted my hands with a shrug. “Then I guess we find someplace else.”

  “That’s the logical thing, but if there are people in there, they can use some help,” Ben said.

  “You said no shooting,” I replied.

  Lev spoke up. “There are other places. Let’s just go.”

  “You’re right,” Ben said. “Let’s head out.” He looked at the Windhaven. “We have supplies. We just need shelter.” He started walking back to the driver’s door and I positioned myself next to Lev in the back.

  “Wait.” Corbin called out and pointed. “Look.”

  I turned around. From the side window of the second floor apartment, we saw a waving towel. Someone was flagging us.

  Ben was right they needed help.

  More than likely, as he suggested, there weren’t enough people inside to fight off the infected and or they didn’t have the weapons to do so.

  I stood up with my rifle. “I’ll go take the side…”

  “No. No shooting. It’s a bad idea.” Ben looked at Corbin. “You did it before. You up for it again?’

  “What?” I asked.

  Corbin exhaled. “Yeah. I’ll handle it.”

  “What? He’ll handle what?”

  Corbin walked back to the station wagon, reached in behind the driver’s seat and returned with a red and black gun like object. It was obvious that there were some adjustments to the chamber, but it was clearly just a nail gun.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Really?”

  “What?” Corbin asked. “I got heavy duty wood to steel, 2 inchers in here. It’s pneumatic. Powerful.” He held it up.

  “Yeah, I get it. You want to fire it on the group of infected so you don’t make any noise. That doesn’t work. In the movies it does, not in real life.”

  “It does,” Corbin argued.

  “No, it doesn’t. Tell him Lev,” I said. “Nailers don’t work like they do in the movies as weapons.”

  “They bounce,” Lev said.

  “They bounce,” I repeated. “Trust me we tried it as kids. Even on cardboard, they bounce. They got a good velocity but they don’t penetrate from any distance.”

  “Hell, I know that,” Corbin scoffed. “Everyone does. That’s not how it’s done.” He then proceeded to walk toward the Windhaven.

  I wanted to scream, shriek for him to stop but I was afraid to draw their attention. “Ben,” I said through clenched teeth. “He is getting too close.”

  “I know.”

  “Ben it’s suicide.”

  “No, he has a special skill.”

  “Skill with a nailer or not, it’s suicide, there’s too many.” Immediately, I jumped form the back of the truck with my rifle.

  “Nila,” Ben held out his arm to stop me.

  “Get ready to pull out fast.” I pushed past. It was insane. Corbin got closer and closer. I could see it happening, the infected turning and raging toward him, he wouldn’t have a chance. All I saw in my mind was Corbin being torn to shreds in front of his son.

  Close enough to get a good shot, I stopped, got a good stance and raised my weapon. My plan was to pick off the ones closest to Corbin first. I watched where he walked and got one in my scope. I didn’t want to pull the trigger until Corbin was there. One shot. One noise. That close, Corbin was done.

  Or so I thought.

  It didn’t dawn on me to question how he was getting so close without being seen.

  It should have.

  The moment I was about to press the trigger, I watched Corbin walk up behind an infected woman and lift the nailer to the back of her neck near the base of the skull and fire.

  The infected went down and Corbin quickly moved to the next, doing the same thing. At first I attributed it to his coming up from behind; they didn’t sense, see or smell him. Then I saw him pull one from the door, ‘nail’ him and grab another.

  They weren’t reacting to him. They weren’t attacking. They focused on the Windhaven without a clue that Corbin was among them playing executioner. They’d get hit and just drop.

  I kept my rifle raised just in case, however there was no need. Corbin was cutting through the infected and it shocked the hell out of me. When Ben said Corbin had a special skill, he wasn’t kidding. I just couldn’t fathom what made Corbin so special.

  SEVENTEEN – THE CHOICE

  There were so many questions that I had about Corbin in the seconds following him clearing the area. He turned around in the middle of the carnage and looked at me. Not with a look of ‘hey, I’m cool’, but rather, ‘I did what needed to be done’.

  Corbin was winded, his shoulders bounced and his face was pale. It took a lot out of him to do that. He concentrated and got the job done.

  But how?

  Had it been me, they would have engulfed me.

  I lowered my rifle, frozen in my stance, ready to say something when the windowless, white metal front door of the Windhaven was flung open and a taller man, wearing faded jeans, a dirty tee shirt and bandana, appeared.

  “Help, can you help, please?” He said frantically. “Please. Help.”

  He left that doorframe as fast as he appeared, leaving the door open.

  Corbin spun to me. “Go drive the wagon.” He didn’t wait for my reply before he ran in.

  Was he nuts? He was just going to run in there on the pleas of a stranger? It could have been a trap. I signaled to Ben that I was going in as well, and I imagine he thought the same as me because he tossed up his hands, almost as if asking what I was thinking.

  By the time I ran inside, I couldn’t see Corbin.

  The Windhaven was sectioned off by a semi open wall, on one side was a large bar, the other had tables, and a dance floor.

  I didn’t get a chance to notice what all remained, or if it was disheveled. I was looking for Corbin. The Windhaven wasn’t that big, I should have been able to see him.

  “Corbin!” I called out.

  I didn’t hear him, but I heard something else, a woman. She cried and screamed and it sounded as if she was in pain.

  “Corbin!”

  “Nila!” he shouted in the distance. “Up here!”

  I followed the sound of his voice to a door next to the kitchen behind the bar. It was open and there was a staircase.

  Just as I lifted my foot to the first step, Corbin called out again. “Nila, go get Ben. Get him now! Hurry.”

  He sounded as frantic as the man who opened the door. Upon hearing that in his voice, I did as he requested, I ran and got Ben.

  If it was urgent that I get Ben, that could only mean one thing … a medical emergency. Lev being incapacitated would leave the kids vulnerable if I too went to see what was going on. So I stayed behind. I brought Sawyer into the truck and drove it behind The Windhaven to the back door. After I got the kids inside, unfortunately with Lev still in the bed of the truck, I ran back and got the station wagon.

  I stayed at the back of the truck, near the door, keeping an eye on the kids while watching Lev.

  It didn’t take long for Corbin to come back down.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Let’s get Lev inside and secure this place.”

  “Corbin, what the hell?”

  “Please. Ben needs a few minutes, then wants you up there.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see. But before you go up, I need help with Lev.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Lev said. “I’ll walk.” With a groan and his face cringing from the pain, he partially sat up.

  “Lev, stop!” I blasted.

  “No, I’m not going to stop, Nila. I’ll get in there and then rest again. Okay?” He looked at me. “I am not going to have you carry me. No. Not when the bullet hit nothing but flesh and muscle.”

  “He’s got a point,” Corbin nodded at Lev.

  “He’s got a cast. He can’t walk on that.”

  “He can lean on us,” Corbin said then
turned to Lev. “Will that work?”

  Lev laughed at that notion and sniffed. “Yeah, that will work.”

  The Windhaven had thick wooden tables and we put two together against a wall, placed the cot mattress on them and made Lev a bed. It would have to do, although I didn’t see Lev staying down for very long. Ben promised if Lev rested his leg for five days, he’d replace the cast with something easier, even though it could mean slower healing.

  In a world with fast running infected Lev needed to be more mobile.

  I felt bad for several reasons. Lev being injured for one, and another that the poor kids were just sitting in chairs, looking lost and not knowing what to do.

  Once we got Lev settled, Corbin said he was going to unload the truck, and I made my way upstairs. As I did, I heard him telling the kids it was all right if they played with the balls on the pool table as long as they didn’t throw them at each other.

  At the top of the staircase I stopped hearing the kids and heard something else, moans of pain and crying.

  Like when I first entered the Windhaven, it was a woman and it hit me, the sounds she was making were from being in labor. Ben was delivering a baby.

  The guy who had opened the door stood outside the room at the end of the hall, one arm wrapped across his waist, his other hand covering his face.

  “Is that your wife in there?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “A friend.”

  As I turned to walk in, a young girl, a teenager, barreled out nearly knocking me over. At the same time a long, loud scream emerged.

  I expected to walk in to a woman bearing down, I didn’t expect to walk in to blood.

  The bed was saturated with it, creating a huge circle around the woman, it soaked through the sheet that covered her.

  Ben was bent over at the side of the bed looking desperate. It was obvious he was trying to listen to her stomach with the stethoscope. The woman wasn’t having it.

  “Christina, listen to me,” Ben said calmly. “I have to listen, okay. I really need to listen, so you have to be quiet.”

  “It hurts.” She cried.

  “I know,” Ben spoke softly. “This is not normal. Okay, I need to move fast for you and the baby.” He lifted his eyes to me. “Can you help Nila, please?”

  Help? What was I suppose to do? I walked to the bed. “Christina, I’m Nila. Is this your first baby?”

  What was I thinking? What kind of question was that? Even if it was her first baby, she knew something was wrong.

  She grabbed my hand with desperation, her hands slick with blood and she pulled her face closer to mine. “Don’t let my baby die. Please don’t let my baby die. He’s all I have left. Don’t let my baby die.” She cried as she begged.

  “Nila,” Ben called my name as he stood and waved me over to the end of the bed.

  “I don’t know what you need me to do. I don’t know any of this. Corbin probably could help.”

  “Medically yeah, he could,” Ben said. “Emotionally, statistics show if there is another woman in the room, it helps. I need her calm.”

  “She’s in labor, right?” I asked.

  “No. She’s not. She’s in pain, but not dilated and her abdomen is soft.”

  I shook my head, mouth moving without words, not knowing what it meant.

  “She suffered a trauma to her stomach yesterday morning. Pain started about an hour ago and she’s bleeding out.”

  “The placenta separated.”

  “Placenta abruption from trauma, the worst kind. We’re probably already too late. If I have an inkling of saving her, I have to take the baby now. I have a faint heart beat, but any longer, the baby will die. If we leave the baby in … she’ll die. In fact, to do this, I have to put her under. I have morphine. That might kill her. She may die anyhow from blood loss or cardiac arrest.”

  “Be honest, is she going to die anyhow?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. More than likely. There is a chance I can save her, a slim chance.”

  I folded my arms tight against my body. I understood his dilemma. Should he fight for the mother’s life at the risk of the baby’s when her chances of death were greater?

  It was a shit world, a horrible world. “What about making her comfortable and letting them both pass,” I suggested.

  “That’s another option. An option I don’t like. I think we should just try to save life. We need life in this world. I won’t make the call to put them down.”

  “Sometimes there are circumstances that we don’t have any choice in and the outcome is the same. Like putting down a loved one sick with the virus.”

  “We think that,” Ben argued. “But we don’t know. We think it will go one way and it goes the other. If I went the correct route with Corbin he’d be dead. He’s not.”

  That confused me. Why did Corbin’s name come into it? Apparently something happened with him.

  “Did Corbin make that call?” I asked.

  “No, I did.”

  “Then do the same here.”

  I watched Ben take a deep breath and move to his bag. He began removing items, including morphine and surgical tools in a sealed hospital bag.

  Figuring she needed to be calm and told what was happening, I walked back to the bed. “Christina.”

  Christina hyperventilated from crying.

  “Listen to me,” I spoke calmly. “The accident that hurt you caused the placenta to detach. You’re bleeding really bad, you know that.” I swept her curly brown hair from her eyes and drew myself close to her. I took a moment to think what I would say, how I would say it. I had to be honest with her if she was going to make the choice. “Things aren’t good. Ben is a good doctor. He’s going to give you something to relax you and he’s going to remove the baby and try to save you both.”

  She gripped my hand so tight. I saw it in her eyes, she thought only the baby was in danger. She didn’t realize how bad she was. “Could I die?”

  I lifted my eyes to Ben.

  Ben answered. “We’re going to do all we can. I will try my hardest.”

  “Is there … is there a chance the baby lives and I die?” She asked. “Is there?”

  “I’m gonna try to not let that happen,” Ben explained. “I’ll take the baby and will have to perform a hysterectomy. I have to do so now.”

  Surprising me, Christina shook her head frantically. Her eyes rolled slightly out of control when she did. “Then no. No. Don’t … not in this world. I can’t … I can’t take that chance. I can’t have him live without me. If I won’t live to protect him, let us go.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Christina nodded.

  Ben was prepping her stomach and I reached up and stopped him.

  “She doesn’t want it,” I said. “Give her the morphine and let her rest.”

  Ben nodded.

  Just once more I wanted to ask, to double check that it was what she wanted. My attention was away from her only a second, but that was all it took. A second. “Christina, just to …” Her grip loosened, her head slumped to the side, her wide open eyes stared blankly out.

  My lungs filled with a burning air that made it hard for me to exhale. I blinked long and hard as I absorbed what happened.

  Another death.

  I didn’t know why, but I instantly grieved her. I felt her pain, her hard choice as a mother.

  “Ben, she’s gone,” I whispered.

  Her pinky finger was still semi latched onto my hand and gently I pulled her hand away, resting it on the bed. I reached up and closed her eyes, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

  As I stood, I saw Ben hurriedly bring the scalpel to her stomach.

  “Oh my God, what are you doing?”

  “Removing the baby.”

  “Ben…”

  “He’s still alive. He won’t be in a minute.”

  “You can’t do this. She didn’t want …”

  “You told me to make the call, did you not?” Ben asked as his hands moved.
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  “Yes, but …”

  “I’m making the call. I can’t, Nila … I can’t let this baby die without trying. Not now, not in this world. Can you get me a towel, or blanket?”

  Not now? Not in this world? Was he even thinking it through, beyond the birth? I left the room to find him a blanket or towel. I was shocked at his decision, but with each second that passed after that emotional moment and Christina’s death, I understood it.

  EIGHTEEN – BACK STORY

  I was emotionally and physically burned out when I returned downstairs. Ben stayed upstairs with the baby. He wasn’t premature, at least I didn’t think. He was average size. I believe that was one of the reasons Ben wanted to save him. If born alive, he stood a chance at life … however, with things the way they were, that still remained to be seen.

  I didn’t know anything medical, only what Ben told me. Ben said it was a wait and see situation.

  Truth be known, I could wait, but I didn’t want to see.

  I was so tired of death. Finished with it. But it wasn’t the end and I was sure I would see so much more.

  The stranger who asked us for help was still in the hallway. I said, “I’m sorry,” as I passed him.

  At the bottom of the stairs, ready to just drop, I heard Lev talking to the kids.

  They giggled and it was good to hear.

  Early in the day or not, I needed a drink. Before stepping behind the bar, I glanced in the bigger room, the back door was closed, and Corbin seemed to be organizing supplies. I couldn’t see Lev, he was against the wall, but I could see the kids all sitting in chairs in front of him.

  The bar was still fully stocked, the three residents obviously weren’t big drinkers. Then again, I didn’t know how long they had been taking refuge in the Windhaven.

  I grabbed a bottle of whiskey, it didn’t matter what brand; I dusted off a glass from the bar and poured a healthy drink.

  “Are they dead?” I heard the meek voice ask.

  I took a drink and looked behind me. The teenage girl sat at the far corner of the bar, eating from one of those bar size bags of chips. Her hair was pulled in a loose ponytail, her face was puffy from crying, dirty and there was an abrasion on her cheek.