Dead Friends Series (Book 2): Dead Friends Running

by Carlisle, Natalie

  “What I meant,” Lewis corrected, I guess feeling my warning glare finally, “Is your daughter…uh…gave me some shooting tips for uh… hunting…” His words faded off as he struggled to think of something. He obviously had no idea how to backpedal.

  “Right,” I immediately interjected. “And you’ll have to let me know how that goes.” I grabbed Lewis in the arm, and started to drag him. “Come then, if I only get a few minutes to see Jason, let’s go.”

  “Dee Forrester,” my mom said, bewildered. “Your manners.”

  “Mom, I am sorry,” I apologized, heading toward the exit. “But I want to see Jason, and small talk isn’t all that important right now.”

  Lewis looked uncomfortable, tensing under my grip. “Uh, again, it was nice to meet you,” he said, peering over his shoulder as I dragged him away. He faced me and beneath his breath, cursed, “What the hell, Dee?”

  Ignoring him, I slapped my hand onto the red security button that opened the heavy, secure doors and prided myself on fixing Lewis’ blabbering tongue before he said too much.

  But that faded fast.

  As we waited for the doors to open toward us, revealing the way toward the elevators, I heard my father comment to my mother as they caught up behind us. “Don’t worry, Linda, I know when our daughter is lying to us and when we get back home, the three of us are going to have a very serious chat. She’s in big trouble.”

  And though I didn’t know for sure, I was pretty sure my father purposely said it loud enough for me to hear. You know, to instill fear into me. I avoided eye contact with all of them, Lewis included. By the time we loaded the elevator, I knew without a doubt if I wanted any chance at seeing my boyfriend and my friends again, I was going to have to come clean about this entire Pennsylvania trip.

  I just didn’t know if that would even guarantee it.

  My father sounded really pissed off.

  37

  When we got to Jason’s floor, there was an intercom button to press for assistance. There was no red button that opened the doors. On this floor, we needed to be buzzed in.

  I held the button down. There were a few beeps and then a voice came over the speaker. “May I help you?”

  “Yes, we are here to see Jason Ollie please. Room eight-one-five.”

  “Are you friend or family?”

  “Friend,” I replied, hoping that didn’t make a difference.

  A few seconds later the doors opened and I heard the same voice say, “Please report to the reception desk.”

  We followed the instructions, coming up to a large, oval shaped Formica desk in the middle of the floor. A woman was sitting behind it, dressed in blue and white scrubs, her name tag clipped to the shirt pocket.

  Jessica Tener. She looked about my mother’s age.

  She peered up at us from beneath fringy blonde bangs. “Names?”

  We gave them to her, and she typed something on the computer in front of her. “Only two people to a room, please.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Lewis and I will go in.”

  She shook her head, still typing something. “There’s someone in there now. One of you will have to wait too. Sorry, hospital policy.”

  “Do you know who’s in there?” I asked, surprised someone was with him, but at the same time glad he wasn’t alone.

  “Sorry,” she prompted, pushing away from her desk, standing up. “That’s confidential. Three of you can wait in the waiting room just down the hall.” She held out a cardstock that had visitor typed in bold print. “Here’s your pass. Who gets it?”

  “Give it to her,” Lewis urged. “She’s most important.”

  The woman nodded, and handed me the red pass.

  “You are just as important,” I told him, but secretly I was happy to take it.

  “Trust me,” he teased, “He’d rather see his girlfriend then this face.”

  “Thank you,” I mumbled, lowering attention to the pass. I didn’t chuckle though. “Do you think he’s even awake? What if he has memory loss? What if he doesn’t remember me?”

  “Dee,” Lewis sighed. “He has a concussion, not brain damage.”

  He placed his hand at the small of my back, pushing me forward lightly. “Now go visit him.”

  I dug my heel into the floor, hesitating. “What about you? Are you going to wait with my parents?” That thought terrified me too.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I think I’ll go visit Tony. I’ll come back later.”

  “Oh.” I considered for a moment. “So then, I guess this is goodbye? My parents told me I only get a couple minutes, right?”

  My mom and dad were standing off to the side, a few feet away. They heard us talking though. “Correct,” my father warned.

  Lewis made a face, but they couldn’t see. “Well, Dee,” he replied, looking as if he felt sorry for me. “If you are ever back in this neck of the woods, stop by the diner and say hello.”

  I knew that would never happen. “Sure,” I lied. Not because I wouldn’t want to see Lewis, but because I was never coming back here again. This time I meant it.

  “And hey,” he said, his voice changing. “Do me a favor. When you know the details for Spencer’s funeral, could you let me know? I may want to try to make a trip down to attend. He was a good kid.”

  I nodded, my eyes stinging almost instantly. His funeral? Ugh. I couldn’t even think of that.

  Sniffing, I turned, and gave Lewis a hug, startling him this time. After all, the guy did save my life.

  After saying our goodbyes, my parents made their way to the waiting room chairs, and I tightened my grip on the visitor pass and scanned the room numbers in search of Jason’s room.

  My heart pounded abnormally fast for walking so slow.

  The door to his room, which was located almost at the complete end of the hospital wing, was shut. I took a couple deep breathes to calm down, and knocked with the outside of my hand. I’m not sure why I was suddenly so scared.

  “Come in,” a voice said, groggily. I knew that voice. Jason.

  The sound made half my anxiety subside in an instant. He was alive.

  Pushing the door, I noticed two things simultaneously. One, Jason was lying in a cot, covered in blankets, wires hooked up to every inch of his arms, hair slicked back in sweat, looking dreadful, and another guy, older than us, was sitting next to him in a wheelchair.

  “Ah, we were just talking about you,” the man said with a smile. His smile didn’t compare to the smile that was suddenly spreading across Jason’s pale face at the sight of me.

  “Dee,” he cried, trying to sit up higher. He winced.

  So much for trying to put on an I’m fine act for me, I thought. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “About me?” I half-laughed, half-croaked. He couldn’t be serious. “What about you? How are you?”

  “Better now that I know you are safe.” His face contorted in pain again as he held out his arm to signal me toward him. “You are okay, right?”

  Taking that as my cue, I hurried over to him, stopping right next to his bed. He went to grasp my fingers, his eyes landing on my cast. “Oh babe, your hand.”

  I quickly maneuvered so I could entwine our fingers with my other hand. “I could say the same thing about your spleen.”

  He chuckled, but it hurt him to do so. “True.” Seconds later, he sobered, traces of a smirk leaving him. “I am sorry. I honestly thought I had the virus. I would have never lied about something like that. You know I wouldn’t.”

  “I just don’t get it,” I said, but I was just so relieved to be holding his hand again. “I don’t get any of it. What happened? I thought you were calling the police. Lewis said they never saw any cops when they went out looking for Buck with you, but then when we ran into the cops, they said you called them. I am so confused. Did you or didn’t you call the cops after we left? And why didn’t they get you help sooner?”

  “I think I can clear that up for you,” the other male voice sudden
ly said, making me jump. I had been so focused on Jason I’d forgotten he was there.

  Peering across Jason’s cot, I did a double take as recognition kicked in.

  “Trooper Wesson?” I couldn’t have sounded more shocked. Trooper Wesson was the cop we saved during the last outbreak and the cop Missy wanted Jason to call before they sent out the search party for Buck.

  “Hello, Dee,” he said, with a smile on his face. “I hear we have you to thank for saving your friend Buck.”

  “Huh?” Did he just say me? “I’m sorry, I think you are mistaken.”

  “Well, from what the sergeant tells me, it was your idea to shoot him in the knee caps.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Actually, it was technically Missy’s, but hold up, does that mean they listened?”

  He nodded, his smile still on his bearded face and I realized that was why I hadn’t immediately recognized him, because of the beard. “It was the first time they were able to immobilize someone enough to apprehend them without one of our guys getting injured.”

  I let that sink in. “Wait…so Buck really isn’t dead?”

  Jason’s grip tightened on my left hand. “No,” he said, gratefully. “They apprehended him. He’s currently locked up. They are doing everything they can to reverse the virus.”

  “That’s great news,” I said, relieved. I needed great news. Who would have thought, they’d actually listen to me.

  “It’s good news for sure,” Jason agreed. “But we have to be realistic. The chance of him actually making it is very unlikely. I just hope, if he doesn’t make it, they at least can find a cure for others before they relapse like he did. For instance, maybe he can end up saving Spencer, since he seems to be having a hard time responding to the treatments. Any chance you know his blood type? Maybe that’s a big reason why. They think it all has to do with the blood type.”

  I got silent, fast. I guess my expression revealed a lot. “Dee, what is it?” Jason asked, immediate concern growing in his green brown eyes.

  My throat tightened again, my stomach twisting. “He didn’t make it,” I choked out. “Spencer is dead.”

  “Oh, Dee,” he said, letting go of my hand and reflexively reaching to hug me. The movement caused him to grimace, and he gave up. “I’m, sorry,” he said, biting back the surge of pain he must have been feeling.

  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” I mumbled, reaching to fix his pillow. I pretended not to notice his attempt to hug me or his pain, knowing how much pain he was in made me want to cry. “I can’t talk about it.”

  “Okay,” he said, softly. “We don’t have to.” I knew he’d get it and respect that. He lost people he cared about too.

  Once his pillow was propped back up, supporting him, I took a step away from him, but grabbing his hand again in the process. “Look, I don’t have much time. I would love to stay here and talk, but I can’t. My parents are in the waiting room, waiting to take me back home. So can you both just forget everything else right now, and answer my question from before. I have to know. Someone please clarify.”

  “Alright, I will,” Trooper Wesson began. “It started with Jason calling me at the hospital.”

  “I decided to try one last time before contacting the police,” Jason interjected defensively. “I promise, Dee, I was planning on calling them, but then he answered.”

  “And I told him not to. I told him to hold off, and call me back in twenty minutes.”

  “Which is why I was off the phone so fast,” Jason pointed out. He looked so apologetic and guilty. It was kind of cute. “I didn’t technically lie to you—”

  I shook off his comment. “Then what happened?” The clock was ticking. I didn’t have time for pauses.

  “I went to the contagious diseases floor, to find out if anyone else was showing up infected or experiencing relapses and to notify them of a potential patient,” Trooper Wesson continued. “I was told a previously treated person had just come in with similar symptoms of the virus and if the blood work came back positive there could potentially be something serious happening with the treated.”

  “When Jason called me back, I informed him what I was told, and Jason said he already got a group of guys together to start looking. He suggested they take the west side of the mountain and a couple of my men take the east side to cover more ground, and keep things as discreet as possible in case it was nothing. We had an agreement that if I didn’t hear from him in twenty-four hours, we were closing down the road access between the towns and not allowing anyone in or out to be safe. We didn’t expect there to be others—well we were hoping there wouldn’t be.”

  “And I didn’t count on getting sick,” Jason sighed. “I knew I felt funny after the accident, but I was just achy and had a headache which I thought was expected. The longer I was out in the woods though, the worse I got. The symptoms were spreading so fast, I only assumed that meant I somehow contacted the virus not that my spleen was about to rupture and I had a severe concussion.”

  “I will confess I was panicking,” he apologized. “The moment I found a spot that had cell phone service, I just started calling everyone I could that would know how to find me. I was just so worried about what that meant for my brother and sister if I didn’t get help. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t in the right mind.”

  I tightened my grip, comfortingly. “I couldn’t even imagine. But where was Kyle? Wasn’t he with you? Tony said you split around one in the morning to continue looking for Buck.”

  “Wait, Tony? How do you know Tony too?”

  “We were all out looking for you, and a dog,” I grumbled.

  When he went to question that, I shook my head. “Never mind. My point is we ran into everyone but you and Kyle out in those woods. ”

  “Don’t tell me that,” he groaned. “I wish I never made those phone calls. I never should have put you in danger like that. Your parents will never forgive me.”

  “I was fine. We managed well enough,” I replied. “Saving you was all that mattered.”

  He motioned to my cast. “No, you aren’t fine.”

  “Oh, stop. I broke that before you called me. That is one reason I called you.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Staring at him then, I was certain he either never got to hear the full voicemail I left him, or he forgot it.

  “I’ll explain another time.” My gaze darted to the clock on the wall, and I cringed. “I really have to go. Tell me, where was Kyle or what happened to him?”

  “I don’t know what happened to him. Sometime around three in the morning we spotted Buck and then he was chasing us. We split up, and Buck followed Kyle. I tried to keep up, but I lost them. After that everything started getting really bad for me. I tried looking for him, but realized I couldn’t stay awake.”

  “When my department found him, he was unconscious,” Trooper Wesson informed me but that I had already known from Lewis’ friend that was a cop. “They took him right in. I verified his identity when they brought him in. I’ve been with him most the night.”

  “And Kyle?” I still didn’t understand what happened to him.

  “Shortly after they apprehended Buck,” Trooper Wesson concluded, “They found him. He was bit. He’s currently in treatment too.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Jason grimaced again.

  “I figured we’d get around to talking about that. You had a lot of your own health to deal with first.”

  “This is just terrible. Too many got hurt this time.”

  “Yes, but a lot less deaths,” Trooper Wesson pointed out, as if they had accomplished a great thing.

  All I could think was that maybe there were a lot fewer deaths of random strangers this time, but there were a lot of heartbreaking deaths for me.

  Spencer.

  Jacob.

  My grip went slack. Did Jason even know about Jacob?

  “Dee? What is it?”

  I wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. No way. At least I don’t thi
nk I should be, but then again, it was his friend. He should know right? “I just…”

  Suddenly a loud speaker went off above our heads, interrupting my mental debate. “Dee Forrester, please report to the reception desk, you are being paged. Dee Forrester please report to the reception desk.”

  Shit. Time was up. “I gotta go.” I glanced at his scruffy face, at the bandage on his forehead, the freckles on his cheeks, and his weary, tired hazel eyes, storing it to memory.

  If his instant change of expression was any indication, he was as disappointed about me leaving as I was as having to go.

  “I really don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

  “You’re still grounded, aren’t you?”

  I exhaled, willing myself not to cry. “Probably for life.” I did it to myself, I know.

  “I’ll figure out a way to see you, I promise. They can’t keep us apart forever.”

  A few tears sprouted in my eyes anyway. “I’m still worried about you.”

  “Don’t be. Doctor says I’m healing nicely. Should be out of here by tomorrow.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, but I’m going to stay with Meg and Germaine for a little bit. Until I’m a bit more healed. Only because I can’t help the twins and Duke with everything on my own just yet.”

  “Okay, good,” I responded. “That makes me feel better.”

  “I’ll come back,” he promised.

  It was the first time I felt any certainty in a while. “I know. You always keep your promises.”

  “Trooper Wesson,” I said then. “Thanks for helping him. And your department for helping us.”

  “I owe you guys a lot,” he smiled grimly. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you guys. I might have a long recovery ahead me, but you guys saved my life too.”

  “Do you think the outbreak is over?” I asked. I had to know before I left.

  “Since they officially confirmed this morning that the only ones testing positive for the virus are patients with o negative blood type, I believe it’s only a matter of time. They’ll just have to make a few tweaks to the treatments, but they’ll figure out their cure too. I’m sure of it. This will be over.”