by catt dahman
Rocks and concrete poured from the ceiling as everyone went diving for safety and curled up, waiting for it to end, but it kept raining down on them.
Most were reminded of when the hospital caved in, and Johnny screamed as she got into the fetal position, waiting for the noise and pain to end.
After it was over this time, they were afraid even to move.
“Hello?” Julia called out. She got on her hands and knees to look around, coughing. “Johnny? Alex? Is everyone okay?”
“I’m here,” Alex said, “undamaged, but scared as hell.”
“I’m okay. Kind of…” Johnny sat up and cradled her hand to her stomach, her face white in the limited light they had.
Crystal helped Josh to his feet; neither had worse than cuts and scrapes.
“Check the rest,” Conner groaned.
Blood pooled from under a pile of rocks, and they could see Mark’s hand sticking out of the rubble, but he was covered, and the rocks were too heavy to be moved since he couldn’t have survived.
“Dumbass.” Alex shook his head at where Mark was buried. Conner said, “Don’t touch anything.”
Karen was unconscious with a lump and a deep, bleeding gash on her head; her ankle was badly broken.Crystal and Josh pulled out their first aid kits to clean and bandage her. The head wound looked bad.
Julia found Johnny, pale and bloody. While Alex held the light, Julia looked at Johnny’s hand and told her to hang on as she cleaned the wound. Where Johnny’s pinky had been, was a mashed second joint with a spongy end, smashed off by an enormous rock.“I know it hurts, but be strong.”
Johnny moaned miserably.
After cleaning the spot and with a squeeze of the tube, Julia gently added a smear of antibiotic cream, and then gauze, and then a thick bandage. She made a makeshift sling and gave Johnny a strong painkiller with a sip of water.
Alex shivered, “And I was just talking about torturing people by cutting off fingers…damn…karma.”
“Why’d the karma get me and not you?” Johnny glared at him.
“Karma’s a bitch,” Alex said, earning a half-smile from Johnny.
“Okay, ready,” Juan called out. “I need help.”
“Madre Dios, why didn’t you call us over before now?” Julia sank to her butt beside Conner. His injury made her feel dizzy.
“I didn’t need you until now. Build me a little fire. I’m going to help Conner, but I need a bit of help.” Juan was grim. He just hoped he could do what he needed to do. No one offered to do the job, so he steeled himself.
Josh and Crystal came over. “Karen is still knocked out, but her ankle is splinted, as well as we could do. We aren’t doctors; she won’t be walking…oh…damn.” Josh stared.
“Stop worrying, and give me a few pain pills,” Conner demanded, his face grey.
Juan had put a tourniquet around Conner’s forearm, but blood seeped where his wrist was crushed beneath an enormous rock that had been piled above them as a trap. The long, hard work involved in setting the trap was staggering to imagine.
“We need to roll it off of him,” Crystal said.
Alex shook his head and pointed his light for her to see. Only flesh was left, attaching him to the mangled hand.
“I’d rather you not,” Conner groaned. He let Julia put a rolled up shirt under his head as he stretched out more. He tried not to look as Juan prepared, hating the sight of where his wrist disappeared under the rock, wondering how he would get along without a hand, wondering how badly this would hurt, wondering why they didn’t just shoot him and put him out of his considerable misery.
“Okay, Julia and Alex can help me. Crystal and Josh, see if you can grab a few things to make a litter so we can drag Karen with us,” Juan requested. “Julia, you and Johnny need to watch for zeds; sorry, Johnny, I know you’re hurting.”
“Julia, come on. We need you.”
Julia took a deep breath.
“Got it,” Johnny told him. Although she was in pain, she blanched when she looked at Conner’s injury. She would have been screaming had it been she with her arm crushed; losing a finger was painful enough.
Juan worked fast, dousing the torn flesh and broken bones with disinfectant while Conner yelled in pain; then, Juan took his sharp Bowie knife and cut through the flesh, sawing and cutting, sick enough to vomit.
Grinding through the remaining bone and almost gagging, Juan jerked the stub back and without a word, plunged it into the coals of the fire before he lost his nerve.
He gagged at the scent of burned flesh and remembered how another set of raiders had cooked and eaten people. Head buzzing with nausea, Juan kept swallowing hard, breathing through his mouth slowly as he worked.
Conner had never imagined such pain: lightning stabs that ran brutally through his arm and into his head, sharp and over powering him with every nerve-ending screaming.
Julia, using one hand, pinched the area between Juan’s neck and shoulder with all of her strength, hurting Juan, but saw color rush back to his face as he muttered a thanks to her. Conner screamed and thrashed, but Juan used his weight to finish the surgery.
With Conner falling unconscious finally, Juan again put the charred stub of Conner’s arm in the coals of the fire and quickly pulled it out of the fire and poured more disinfectant on it.Then, he rubbed on a thick slather of antibiotic cream and finally added gauze that he wrapped with more bandages and a muscle wrap. He removed the tourniquet, and to his relief, it didn’t gush blood. He asked Alex to help him set Conner up so Conner’s arm could be bound to his chest.
Juan fell back, weak from having to do the first aid. Crawling off alone, he dug into his pack for something he had needed but had put off using: a small, airplane-sized bottle of tequila that he drank in gulps. Right now, he needed it to keep him going after what he had done to Conner.
They made a travois for Karen, fed Conner sips of water when he awoke, and made plans as they watched for zeds. “Stage two must mean traps,” Josh grumbled. “Stinkin’ bastards.”
“We need to keep moving,” Julia said. She saw Juan was done-in from his makeshift surgery on Conner and knew she would feel just as weak and horrified as Juan did now. More than she had ever wanted anything, she wished Len were there beside her, leading them and making decisions.
But despite her wishes and hopes, Len didn’t appear, and Juan was still mentally exhausted, so she was going to have to lead this group to safety.No amount of hoping was about to change any of that.
Juan and Julia took point with Josh and Alex pulling Karen on her travois, while Conner, Johnny, and Crystal walked behind.
A half of a dozen fresh zeds poured out of an open doorway, and the ensuing battle left Juan and Julia gasping for breath, exhausted. They used the bats, hitting furiously, stomping at the heads of fallen zeds, kicking and fighting.
Brains, blood, and body fluids splattered the walls and floor as they attacked the zombies. They couldn’t go on this way much longer. Had the zombies been faster or caught them unprepared or without the bats, they would have been infected and turned as well.
Julia swiped angrily at tears of exhaustion squeezed from her eyes.
They no longer opened storeroom doors but walked past them or closed the ones that stood partially open. Their nerves were more on-edge as they waited to blunder into a new trap. It was foolish to believe there were no more traps set and waiting for them.
They all stopped when they found a scene that mystified them; the raiders had pried the metal plates from the floor, leaving an open pit two yards across. When they looked into the pit, it was easy to imagine the insane giggling of the ones who had set this trap since rattlesnakes squirmed in the bottom.
“Snakes? Really? What a cliché,” Alex complained.
“It’s not a bad jump, but we have injured, and I think it’s more of a mind fuck than anything,” Juan said.
“Ideas, Jules?”
“I’m thinking.” She stared at the other side, looking back at
Karen and Conner, trying to get the wheels of thought running. Her brain felt dulled.
“My turn.” Josh went flying by them, landing easily on the other side. When a zed approached him, he swung hard at its head, putting it down.
Johnny, worried about him being alone there, ran and then jumped, barely making it because of the instability of her wrapped arm ruining her balance.
Julia resisted, yelling at both of them for not waiting, but it had to be done so they could jump and land without being attacked.
“I could try carrying Karen,” Juan said uncertainly, “but my ribs, I dunno. No one else is big enough. Not sure if I can get us both across.”
“You can’t do it, Juan,” Julia said, “no way in your condition, and she’s a big girl.”
“I don’t think I’m gonna get over it either, so maybe I could wait here with her for you all to figure this out, get out, and come back.”
“We’re not leaving you,” Julia told Conner.
“Okay, so Juan holds her feet, and we hold her hands; then, we sway her back and forth and toss her over,” Crystal said.
“Painful…possible…no ideas here.”
“I think it would work,” Juan said to Crystal.
It almost worked, but she landed sideways, and Karen hit the edge with her ribs, feet dangling. Josh and Johnny yanked her to safety but thought she might have been bitten by the snakes, and most likely now had broken ribs as well. But she was over the pit.
Julia outlined her plan for getting Conner over, and he stared at her, flummoxed. “No way. I can’t make it…too damned weak, and that will be too dangerous to the rest of you. No. Absolutely no.”
“It could work,” Juan said.
“It’s a good plan,” Julia argued.
“I said no.”
Julia grabbed his collar as she pulled him back, cursing him the whole way. “Now everyone get in place, and if you fail, you get to meet the snakes, so do it right.”
“Ready,” Alex said as he and Juan took their places.
“I said no.”
“And leap high,” Julia reminded Conner; she began running.
He gritted his teeth, concentrating as they ran toward the pit, yelling, “Motherfucker…” As he and Julia jumped high and long toward the other side, he knew in midair that he wasn’t going to make it, despite Julia’s momentum at his elbow and shoulder as she sailed over with him. He was going to miss it by inches.
That really sucked. He hated snakes.
But then a hard force caught him along his butt, the slight additional push, knocking him and Julia the last few inches; not a split second behind them, Alex and Juan, a baseball bat held low and tightly between them, slammed against the pair. The bat fell into the pit, making the snakes strike angrily, but all four rolled on the other side, tumbling. Conner screamed with the pain as he rolled over his mangled wrist.
“I can’t believe it worked,” Crystal leaped over.
“Me either,” Julia admitted.
“Damn good plan, Jules,” Juan told her.
Conner had passed out again, his wrist leaked, but his heartbeat was steady. As soon as she could, Julia got him to his feet, asking Alex and Josh to drag Karen by her arms now; they didn’t have resources to make another travois, and Karen’s pulse was weaker by far.
Julia knew moving Karen was taking their energy; she didn’t want to suggest anything differently, but all eyes were on her, asking how long they could keep carrying her weight. Literally. Before long, they might be dragging Conner.
Karen wasn’t one of the team, not one of them.
Julia ticked off Johnny’s injury, Juan’s still sore ribs, Conner’s injury, and the exhaustion of the others. She, Alex, Crystal, and Josh couldn’t carry the team much longer. She ran her fingers through her chopped off hair, resting for a while as they waited for Karen just to die so they could move on; it was harsh but true.
What would Len do? She wasn’t trained for leadership of a team; she was a bilingual teacher. No, she had been one.
Things had changed.
Juan and Johnny met her eyes but answered nothing.
“Let’s move,” she said as she got to her feet, bruises throbbing.
Moaning alerted them, and zeds shambled out of a doorway to bite them.
“No fucking way,” Juan groaned.
He took one down while beating its head after it fell, with the help from Alex.Julia took her bat and ran towards one, slamming it with the bat under its jaw and shoving it against the wall. She pinned it there, waiting for help, hoping the third walking dead wouldn’t attack her.
Josh and Crystal bashed at the other zed, taking turns hitting so that it fell beneath the barrage. Johnny tried to smack the one Julia had pinned but didn’t have much power one-handed. She settled for smacking its hands away from Julia, instead, while they waited for help. Never had it taken this many for so few and was a reminder of how tired they all were. Juan finally came over and finished it off for the women.
The battle with a trio of zombies left them dragging more, and Julia began to think they should find a storage room, hunker down, and rest a while, but she kept remembering the family that had done that and then been infected by the teen daughter.
While none of them was bitten, it still gave her the creeps. The raiders might even come down and finish them off if they were sitting ducks. When she looked into the storage rooms close by, she slammed the doors closed after being hit with the scent of rat droppings and hearing the rodents scuttling. Snakes were bad, but she wasn’t in the mood to face a horde of rats, too.
“Please, Len, what do I do?” she wondered.
“Karen is doing worse; maybe she was bitten by one of the snakes or maybe the head injury…” Alex said.
“Or both,” Johnny added, “with zed bites, at least the decision is there for sure; I mean, at least with them, we know what to do.”
Julia knew what her friend was hinting or asking.
They sat mostly in the dark now, conserving the flashlight batteries. Periodically, Julia asked how everyone was, but then she stopped as they dozed off.
Getting back on her feet was worse this time; she was done in and knew the rest were worse off than she was. “One more push and then, maybe we can hole up in a room if we find a clear one.”
“Karen passed, Julia,” Alex said.
She spun on him, “Alex…”
“Did…you didn’t…right?”
He leaned in so their noses almost touched, “You and Johnny…whatever it takes to get you two out. Now shut the fuck up and lead us out.” He planted a kiss on her cheek and took point beside her.
Tears stung her eyes as she thought about what real friends did for one another in this new world. He hadn’t answered, but she would have done it for him, would have slipped a hand over someone’s mouth and nose, smothering him. What made her hurt the most was someone having to make a hard choice or a bold move because she wasn’t strong enough.
She stumbled but caught her balance again.
Alex took out a lone zombie who was mostly skeletal. “Bad when the strongest of us is the gay guy,” he muttered.
“Hey, I’m doing okay,” Josh said, eyes dark underneath, and huffing while trying to hold Conner on his feet.
“Me, too,” Crystal said, “you aren’t so tough, Alex.”
“Really? I got that one…think you can do as well?”
“Bet on it,” Crystal said.
Julia shot him a look of thanks for getting morale back up.
“I’m hallucinating,” Juan said a few minutes later as they moved down another hallway.
“Are you sick,” Julia jerked his arm to a standstill, “bitten?”
“No, Loca. I’m just hallucinating. I keep hearing your name, Jules.”
“I am, too,” Josh said, “what the hell?”
Crystal slapped his arm, “Dumb ass, listen.”
“Kim?” Julia said, but then she yelled it, “Kim! It’s Kim.”
S
he urged the rest to keep up, but stay watchful, calling Kim every few seconds as his voice got closer. They turned a corner, and Julia began running, despite her exhaustion, throwing herself at Kim, weeping. Beth grabbed her in a bear hug while the others on Kim’s team reached for all of them.
“There are raiders…left over Popeites; they have guns,” Juan’s words tumbled over one another.
“We know. It’s over,” Kim said as the team was helped down the hallway, into a tunnel, and up a ladder, following marks on the walls.
Johnny and Conner needed rope slings to be hauled up top while Kim and Beth stood in the tunnel, helping everyone up and guarding the team.
The fresh air outside had never smelled so good.
“Zombies and traps…hallways in a maze,” Johnny said, collapsing to the ground, “we lost the three others that were with us.”
George and Andie re-bandaged Conner and Johnny.
“They saw them…the badies… and sent me in as bait,” Hannah explained. “Then whoosh, they swept in and killed them...pow… right to their heads. No prisoners, they were executed like that.” She snapped her fingers.
“Ummm… Pretty much as she says,” Beth admitted, “and we got your guns back, and let’s say Earl and Andie are persuasive when they question people.”
“She means they got the information out of the ones left so we could find you all.” Hannah still grinned. “It was wickedly brutal, but then again, we aren’t under the Geneva Convention anyway.”
“I didn’t let you watch,” Andie said.
“No, but my imagination rocks,” Hannah said.
“We found out what they did and where a ladder was and came to find you,” Beth told them.
“And where are the ones who gave you the information?” Julia asked. “I want to gut them like a fish, slowly.”
“Sorry, Jules, but Kim took care of them more humanely.”
“Puta,” Julia grumbled.
Kim laughed “Sorry to ruin your revenge, Jules; I didn’t know how personal it was.”
“You can’t imagine how personal,” Julia said sadly, “look at Johnny and Conner…bastards just sent us down with nothing and look what happened.”
