by Ricky Sides
“I thought they were 100% effective,” Dana said. This time, she sounded less demanding.
“No medical treatment is ever 100% guaranteed. There is always a chance that the nanobots could have been damaged in some way prior to your injection, or that your body’s immune system could attack them,” Erma explained.
“What are the odds of either of those things happening?” asked Dana.
“There’s no way to give odds on the first scenario because there are too many variables to take into account. The nanobots are stable, up to a point, but they can be damaged in numerous ways. And, during the creation of the cure, there wasn’t time do a study on the failure rate due to attack by the human immune system.”
That wasn’t quite true. Although they didn’t have time to get the numbers down to the last decimal point, they did know that the failure rate would be very low. However, there was still a slight possibility that it could happen. The experts put the odds of successful treatment at over ninety-seven percent of the pre-parasite population. Those figures took into account damaged injections and immune system rejection, but failed to consider the loss of the majority of Americans to the spread of the zombies. Therefore, it was theoretically possible that the majority of those whose immune systems would attack the nanobots had already died. That meant that it was possible that the vaccines would now be at or very near one hundred percent effective. However, the opposite could also be true and most of those vulnerable to failure could be among the survivors. If that proved to be the case, all the numbers available to her were now worthless. The failure rate, given that scenario, would be much higher.
Dana was now concerned and it showed on her face. “Give me another injection of the nanobots,” she said quietly.
“I’m sure the doctor will try that, if your blood test shows parasites still active in you,” Erma replied.
“Why wait? Just give me the damned injection now,” Dana repeated, this time in a demanding tone of voice.
“We can’t waste injections by giving people a second one unnecessarily,” Erma said.
“Fine, I’ll tell the doctor to do it myself,” Dana replied dismissively.
“Good luck with that,” Erma said sweetly, and then she turned away from Dana.
“You might want to watch how you deal with me. You’re just an errand girl doing the bidding of your husband and the doctor.”
“Excuse me?” Amy said angrily. “Did you just call Erma an errand girl?”
“What of it?” Dana asked with a frown at Amy’s interference.
“Well, now I see why my husband thought we should deny you sanctuary with us!” Amy said hotly.
Doctor Fielding spoke up behind Dana at that point. He said, “Doctor Erma Langley perfected the first generation nanobot injections. She is hardly anyone’s errand girl.” When Dana turned to face the doctor, he added, “You come with me. I’ll get your blood test done and we’ll see if you’re clear of the parasites. Then it’s up to Erma as far as I’m concerned. She can let you stay or show you to the gate.”
Dana frowned and turned to Raman. “Are you going to let these people talk to me like this?” she demanded.
“You’re being stupid,” Raman said. “You can’t come into a place like this and run roughshod over everyone.”
“What about our plans?” she demanded.
“My plans were to bed you, and then kick you out of my trailer,” Raman said smoothly. “If you think I’d help you try to overthrown the people running this place, you’re even more stupid than I thought.”
“But you said you would,” Dana said in confusion.
“Honey, I’d have said damned near anything to get you in my bed, but I’m not fool enough to tamper with the good thing these people have built. I plan to volunteer to help defend this place, or go out on missions, if they need me to do that.”
“You ass!” Dana shouted, and then she tried to slap Raman.
The leader from Hunter caught her wrist in a steely grip. “Don’t ever try that again,” he warned her in a menacing tone of voice.
Dana saw the look in Raman’s eyes and understood that this man was not someone who would permit a woman to abuse him. She understood on a primitive level that her gender would not protect her if she attacked him as it had so often done with Bill Wiley. “Let go of me!” she yelled, but Raman’s grip didn’t loosen. In fact, it tightened painfully.
“Let her go,” Erma said quietly, but with an authoritative tone of voice.
Raman released Dana’s wrist and smiled at the woman. “Did you really believe that I’d help someone like you overthrow these people? I already told the doctor about what you suggested.”
“And he contacted me,” Erma added when Raman stopped speaking to gauge Dana’s reaction.
“But, you needed me,” Dana said in shocked surprise at Raman’s revelation. “Do you know what you are throwing away? Look at all you could have had with me and what we could have done together.”
Raman shrugged to indicate that he didn’t think he had lost much. “I didn’t expect you to try to move this fast. All you had to do was keep your mouth shut and you would have been released until the others return. Then they’ll decide what to do about you. I promised to keep you out of trouble until then. I figured to have you to myself for at least a few hours, possibly longer if the guys in the bus are delayed. After that, it wouldn’t matter. I’d never be interested in a long term relationship with you. You’re an arrogant shrew who insulted the people I’ve spent months protecting.”
“Let’s go, lady,” the doctor said again. This time, he took her by the arm and led her away. Dana followed meekly.
“Are you going to send her away?” Amy asked Erma.
“No, the doctor will keep her here in isolation until the rest of the council returns from their mission later today. We’ll decide what to do with her then. If she is actively plotting the overthrow of our refuge, I don’t think we can let her stay. Then again, if we release her, she could lead the wrong kind of people back to us to try to take over here. This decision is too big for less than the full council to consider.”
“I agree,” Amy said quickly.
***
The team ate a hot meal in the bus as Herb drove toward Newport, Arkansas. “Now this is more like it,” Randy said as he stirred some broken up pieces of bacon into his oatmeal.
The team had prepared their morning meal inside the bus in order to avoid the risk of attracting zombies that might smell the food at a stationary position. Although they lacked the intelligence to reason out that food meant their human prey was near, they always investigated strong odors that appealed to them.
“Yeah, well when you finish yours, you can spell me at driving so I can have some of that,” Herb told his second-in-command.
“Sure thing, buddy. I’ll eat fast,” Randy responded.
“No, you enjoy the meal. Don’t give yourself indigestion by eating like an animal,” Herb quipped.
“You’re in a good mood this morning,” Randy remarked as he settled back in his seat to eat his breakfast.
“It’s good to be out of that fog. I hate not being able to see what’s around me like that,” Herb explained.
“You can say that again. It’s bad enough, these days, when you can see what’s coming at you. It’s much worse when the weather blinds you,” Randy responded, and then he grew silent as he ate his breakfast.
“You need to eat, son,” Ed told Robert who was holding his bowl, but was showing little interest in the food.
Herb glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the young man take a bite of his oatmeal and chew mechanically. His eyes seemed unfocused, as if he was lost in thought, and Herb assumed that the boy was thinking about his father. At one point during the night, he had heard the boy crying. He’d been about to get up and go talk to him when the crying stopped. Herb guessed that the young man had cried himself to sleep. It was understandable. He had lost his only remaining family member when his fathe
r died. Not for the first time, Herb wondered if he had made a mistake to continue with the mission with the boy in their company. They were ill equipped to deal with his grief.
“I know it’s rough, son,” Ed said to Robert, “but your dad would want you to take proper care of yourself so you’ll be strong enough to survive. You never know these days when you just might have to try to outrun these zombies on foot. That’s why eating right is so important.”
Robert nodded his understanding. “He always fussed about that sort of thing,” the boy acknowledged. “But that didn’t help him, did it?”
“I’m sorry,” Ed said quietly. “I really am. I wish he had made it, but he didn’t. And if you just give up now, then you won’t make it either. Then no one from your family will survive. Your dad did the best he could to keep you alive. It seems to me that the best thing you can do to honor his memory is to stay alive and learn to do what it takes to help other people do the same.”
Herb noted that Robert looked thoughtful for a moment, and then he nodded his agreement with what Ed had just said. The boy then seemed to eat with greater appetite. Herb caught Ed’s eyes in the rearview mirror and nodded his approval. He thought that Ed had handled that well, which gave him hope that maybe they weren’t so out of their element with the boy after all.
“Man, that hit the spot,” Randy said with relish as he got up to take Herb’s place so he could eat. Jason vacated his seat so that Randy could get out to the aisle between the rows of seats.
Herb brought the bus to a stop and set the parking brake. “We’re only about ten miles out from Newport. Instead of driving, I’d like you to keep watch while I eat. We’re on an empty stretch of highway with visibility for hundreds of yards in both directions. There are no abandoned vehicles nearby and no homes either, so we should be safe here for a few minutes. I don’t want to get too close to Newport without you in the gunner’s chair and me behind the wheel.”
“Roger that,” Randy replied. “Go ahead and eat before the oatmeal turns to cement and the bacon we saved for you gels over with grease.”
“Thanks, I will,” Herb replied.
Herb had just begun eating when Ox got up off the floor where he had been sitting and paced up front, where he stood beside the door. Not about to be left behind, Sheba followed him. “You two need to go out?” Randy asked, and then he looked to Herb for permission.
Herb frowned. He had tried to get the dogs to handle their business before they left the home where they had spent the night, but neither of them would move away from the bus. Fearing that they might sense the presence of an enemy, Herb had promptly ordered everyone to board the bus at once and they had left. Now it appeared as if the animals had just been stubborn.
“I’ll take them out,” Ed volunteered. “I need to go anyway.”
“You too?” Herb said and then he shook his head in mock frustration, but he was smiling at the same time. “All right, all of you go for it. Better here and now than once we get to the city. I don’t want to stop anywhere in Newport except at the location where we pick up the survivors.”
As the men and animals headed out, followed by Robert, Herb added, “Ox, guard the boy.”
Ox paused in the doorway and turned his head looking at the team behind him. He stopped looking when his gaze fell on Robert, and then he exited the bus so the others could do so.
Randy saw that Ox was waiting outside. He made certain the dog joined the boy as he walked toward the side of the road to urinate. The second-in-command motioned for Jason and Ed to go to the boy’s right, and then he moved further to left where he would take his bathroom break.
Sheba waited beside Ox for a moment, but as Robert began to urinate, the female canine jumped across the shallow ditch and moved out into the grass, where she squatted to answer nature’s call.
Herb was putting his breakfast bowl away when the other members of the party returned. “You finished already?” Randy asked.
“Yep, but I guess I’d better heed my own advice and use the bathroom while we’re here. I’ll be right back,” Herb informed Randy.
“I’ll come watch your back then,” Randy said.
“There’s no need. You guys didn’t see anything out there, and I’ll only be a couple of minutes.”
Randy frowned and shook his head in disagreement. “You know what you’d say if I told you that, Herb, but you’re the leader.”
Herb paused for a moment to consider what his friend had just said. He was forced to admit to himself that Randy was right. He wouldn’t have permitted any of the others to exit the vehicle and use the bathroom alone in the field. He nodded his head and conceded Randy’s point. “You’re right. I wouldn’t allow it,” he said. “Okay, I’ll take Ox with me. The rest of you stow away all the gear and be ready to move out when I return.”
Randy still didn’t look happy, but that was as far as Herb was willing to concede in the matter. As far as he was concerned, they had ample proof that there was no danger in the area. After all, the rest of the team had managed their break without incident, so he felt certain there was no cause for apprehension.
Herb called Ox to him and said, “We’re going back out for a bit, boy,” Ox wagged his tail. He followed Herb as he exited the bus, and walked beside him. Herb walked to the back of the bus, out of sight of the others and stopped beside the road. “Stand guard, boy,” he instructed Ox who tilted his head and regarded the man. “Yeah, I know it’s silly, but you know Randy,” Herb quipped. Ox made a woofing sound in response and sat down on his haunches with his head held high and his ears erect.
Satisfied that the dog was on watch, Herb turned his back on the animal and proceeded to take care of business. He was turning back toward Ox when he noticed the dog’s attention was focused on the air to his left. Herb turned in that direction as Ox made a low rumbling growl that sounded like it began deep in his chest. Herb barely had time to look up before he was struck with a savage impact to his upper body. He went down under a flailing assailant and felt a sharp pain in the right side of his face.
Ox had seen the vulture circling on a thermal when Herb had instructed him to stand guard. The dog had seen such things many times in the past. Usually, he saw them near large numbers of dead zombies. He didn’t associate them with danger because nothing had ever happened when he had seen them. This time something was different. The bird had altered its course and flown toward him and his master. When it became clear to him that the bird might be a threat, the big dog growled in warning, but by then it was too late. He saw the avian threat hit his master and knock him off his feet. He smelled his master’s blood as the creature tore into his body, and then Ox went berserk.
Ox launched his own body at the attacking vulture, knocking it off Herb. His powerful jaws snapped shut on the anizombie’s neck and he shook his head savagely, but the bird didn’t die. Instead, it used its claws to attack him. Ox felt a pain in his chest, then Sheba was there beside him, and she was every bit as angry as Ox.
The bird had hurt her mate, and as Sheba scented his blood, she became incensed. Ox was a big dog, but Sheba was even more massive. She saw Ox still shaking the attacking bird. Its head was whipping back and forth, but she timed her attack perfectly when she clamped her great muzzle down hard on the vulture’s neck above Ox’s muzzle. As her jaws snapped shut, Ox’s momentum continued to move the bird’s body away from Sheba. Thus, the two dogs, working together, tore the creature’s head from its body.
Ox mauled the body of the vulture. Sheba dropped the neck and head of the bird and joined her mate in savaging the remnants of the anizombie. Ox was furious that he had failed to protect his master. For her part, Sheba was intent upon seeing to it that the creature did not do further harm to her mate. The two canines were still ripping the carcass apart when Randy called them off and told them to come to him.
Ox worried the body another moment, but by then his rage was spent. He knew the creature would no longer hurt his master, so he dropped the body.
Sheba lifted the remains in her bloody muzzle defiantly and gave the anizombie one last shake with her powerful head, and then she dropped it and went to join Ox who was standing beside Randy. She whined her concern as she approached, but she saw that her mate was still strong and showing no signs of succumbing to the injuries, he had suffered.
Randy and Ed went to Herb and helped him to his feet. “I’m all right, thanks to Ox,” Herb said when they reached him. He rubbed the back of his head and frowned. “I think I hit my head on the road when I went down,” he said. Then he felt the blood trickling down his face. “That hurts,” he remarked when he touched the wound.
“It looks like the vulture got a claw in your face,” Ed remarked as he examined Herb.
“Get him in the bus,” Randy ordered. Then he shouted, “Jason, get some water to clean the dogs before we bring them back inside!”
“Watch out for more of them,” Herb cautioned as Ed escorted him back toward the open door of the bus.
“You won’t have to warn me twice!” Randy vowed. Then, when he saw the dogs following the two men, he said, “No, Ox, stay.”
Ox stopped and turned to stare at Randy. Sheba, who wasn’t about to let her mate out of her sight, stopped and waited beside him.
Randy watched the sky as Jason emerged from the bus with a large container of water. “God, you two are a mess,” Randy heard Jason tell the dogs, and then he heard the sounds of water being poured. “I know you don’t like it, boy, but you know the rules. You can’t come in with us all bloody, and that goes for your girlfriend too.” Then Randy noted a tone of alarm when Jason said, “Ox has a cut on his chest. It looks deep.”
“Herb will tend to that. Just get them cleaned up and back on the bus ASAP. I don’t want to stay here any longer than necessary.”
“Ah, Sheba, are you going to let me clean you, girl?” Jason asked the big American Mastiff. Randy glanced in the direction of the dogs and saw Jason staring at the dog whose body language indicated that she was on the verge of either biting Jason or running away. “Take it easy, girl,” Jason said in a soothing tone of voice. As the man spoke to the animal, Randy saw her begin to relax.
