by Tracey Ward
Finally they found a combo that worked for me and my fever began to drop. They also worked on finding a mix of medicines to help me with the pain, but even with what they’re comfortable giving me, which turns out to be a lot, I’m still hurting all the time. I know Finemen thinks some of it is in my head. Maybe he’s right, but it feels pretty real to me.
They kept talking about me going to the hospital and I thought it was just a term. An old word with a new definition. I expected to be moved into a gymnasium crowded with beds and patients, but it’s nothing like that. The hospital is a hospital. Nothing lost in translation. The fact that they have power is shocking enough. That they have enough consistent, reliant power to run a hospital is mind blowing.
In fairness, the entire place isn’t functional. They’ve taken it down to one wing because they simply don’t have the trained staff to run it all. Dr. Finemen and Dr. Westbrook, the guy Alissa pistol whipped, are the only true, accredited doctors around. Once I’m in the real hospital with all of the nurses, it’s not long until I learn why Dr. Westbrook is so disrespected. Besides being a prick, he’s also a dentist. Finemen was a surgeon before this all happened, a good one too. Leeds was a dentist in a nearby farming community. He did simple cleanings and handed out toothpaste. I hear he went as far as to outsource fillings to bigger offices in far flung towns. Needless to say, the nurses don’t exactly respect his medical opinion and neither do I. Not because he wanted to shoot me in the face, but because he’s a pompous jerkoff who wanted to shoot me in the face.
Nurse Evans becomes a regular in my room in the hospital, probably checking in at the start and end of each shift to make sure I’m still alive. She’s the one who gives me the run down on how this place works. How they have power, running water, medical supplies, drugs on demand, provisions and tools. The list goes on and on. Things that are impossible to come by out there in the thick of it are seemingly plucked from tree branches here like apples in an orchard. When she tells me how it’s all possible I’m surprised. Stunned even.
The government.
On a plateau behind the town is a radio tower. Stationed beside that radio tower is another mini-village, one nearly identical to the one across the river by the barricade, only this one is smaller and doesn’t have helicopters. The one across the river has three. Those three helicopters transport practically any provision we radio to them for from the outside world to our front door. Or at least to the open, deserted plains outside the fence line. They make a scheduled drop of crates full of supplies, the Jeeps are sent out to retrieve the goods and the town rejoices. They even responded to a request for a birthday cake for a little girl who was turning 5. An Apache helicopter flew in the crate of supplies that week complete with birthday cake and cards from kids and adults, not just from around the country but across the globe, wishing her a wonderful day and many more in the future. The outside remembers us and they care. It’s a fact that rips me nearly in half, especially when Leah casually asks if I want to give a message to the village across the river to take to my parents letting them know I’m alive. My silence tells her no.
What I find unreal is the fact that the same people who fire bombed Portland (we hear from several people that, yes, that did happen while we were tucked away in the woods) are doing everything they can to keep us alive. Us and two other towns like us. There’s an outpost in Lincoln City on the coastline and another up in Washington just south of Tacoma. I’m told there was supposed to be a third just outside of Eugene. The flood of people came on too heavy too fast, though, and they ended up ditching their plans and pulling out of the area. If rumors are to be believed, there’s a wall of moaning, moving dead pressed up against the quarantine lines down there. They had to start expanding the massive wall they built in order to keep them all out. It’s making its way toward the coastline and us. Why they don’t do to that swarm what they did to Portland is beyond me.
The mini-village across from the barricade is there watching to make sure no one crosses the quarantine zone, sure, but they’re also there keeping the power supply from that dam juicing this town. This town and the resort and spa just to the north of it. I thought it was a joke at first that there was a resort out here in the middle of nowhere, but it’s true. The town is fenced off tightly with the quarantine area slightly away from its center. Between it and the resort positioned just north of it, there’s a fenced in road that’s regularly patrolled. At the end of the road is the resort, also fenced in tightly. It has 50 RV parking slots, 140 hotel rooms and 20 teepees that can house a large portion of the people seeking refuge here. Alissa and Syd have set up our RV in one of the spots beside the river. I’m expected to go there when I’m released from the hospital. Part of me wonders if I will. Things between Ali, Syd and I have gotten infinitely better since our forced time apart. They’ve both come to visit me every day, Syd surprising the crap out of me every time he does it. But we sit and watch TV silently for half an hour (some random TV show, the kind they show you on airplanes with no commercials or breaks of any kind), then he slaps me on the leg, tells me to feel better and walks out of the room. It doesn’t sound like much but it doesn’t sound like a fight either, does it? That’s improvement.
Two weeks after my arrival in Warm Springs, I’m released from quarantine. Alissa and Syd were released after the traditional 24 hours seeing as they’ve never been bitten. The infection gave us all an out on discussing why I was held longer, but everyone knew what it was. I’m still a question mark, even to myself. Every time I get hungry I get worried. Anytime I get tired or zone out I’m afraid it’s the beginning of the end for me. I don’t know when that will go away or if it ever really will. I imagine I’ll always feel like I’m living on borrowed time. I’ll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Syd has become a member of the Repair Crew, a group of men and women trained in certain trades that are called in to do exactly what it sounds like – repair things. Apparently Syd, on top of being ex-Army and a pain in the… anyway, he’s also a contractor. He’s been inspecting a lot of the buildings, troubleshooting some of the new construction. Apparently he fits right in. Happy as a clam. Yea.
“Where are you working now?” I ask Alissa.
She’s in my hospital room with me as I eat my last meal here. I’m leaving just as soon as Leah gets all my drugs in a row for me with strict instructions of when to take them and how much and with what. I guess Alissa and I have that in common now. A dependence upon pills. I’d rather we liked the same movies or flavor of ice cream, but what can you do?
“Here.”
“What? In the hospital?” I ask, my mac and cheese slipping off the spoon in my left hand and dropping with a thick thump on my tray. I scowl at it. I’m still getting used to this whole left handed thing. It’s not going well. I cringe to think what my throwing accuracy is like. I’m pretty sure my batting average is gone forever.
“Yeah,” she says quietly, sounding almost shy. “Leah hooked me up. She has some of the other nurses training me.”
“That’s…” I want to say it’s great because it sounds like it is. But is it really? Working in a hospital is a high stress job. Is that something she feels like she can handle? I don’t know and I can’t ask because to ask would be to imply that I don’t think she can and then I’m in trouble and a part of her confidence is shot. Nobody wins. So I go with what I know – Ali can take care of herself. If she thinks she can take it, then she can take it, so I smile and tell her, “That’s great.”
“Have they said where they’re putting you?”
“Not yet.” I make another attempt to hook some unnaturally orange cheesy goodness. “I’m sure all of the areas are clamoring to get the one handed ticking time bomb on their team.”
“You could join my dad. He’d take you.”
I look at her in surprise. “Seriously?”
“You don’t want to work with him?”
“Seriously?”
“It was a suggestion.”
“Seri—“
“Shut up.”
I grin at her at until she smiles back. “I may have to take you up on that. Dr. Finemen says there’s a lot of people scared of me.”
“Is he worried?”
I manage to get a heaping bite of pasta in my mouth.
“Worried that I’ll still turn,” I ask her, rudely speaking around my food, “or worried that I’ll get killed somewhere in town for being dangerous?”
“Both.”
“Yes.”
“To what?”
“To both.”
My next spoonful is a fighter. I watch it tumble off the utensil onto the plate.
Splat.
I toss the spoon aside, my appetite suddenly gone.
“You okay?” Ali asks me.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Frustrated?”
I nod mutely.
“You wanna talk about it?”
I look at her blankly. “Are you asking if I want to talk about my feelings?”
“Yes,” she replies with a grin. “Feel free to feel your feelings, Jordan. Let them roll out of you like a river over rocks in the forest, calm and sure. Confident in its purpose. You are to be heard, to be seen, enjoyed and cherished.”
My stare turns from blank to confused. “What in the hell are you doing?”
“Shrinking you,” she says, happily taking a bite of a cookie.
“What does that mean? Like a psychiatrist? You’re giving me therapy?”
“Is it not working?”
“No.”
“What about this? Have the sense to accept the things you can’t change, to change the things you can and have the wisdom to see the difference.”
“That’s the serenity prayer for Alcoholics Anonymous.”
“There’s no one I’d rather be than me?”
“That’s Wreck-It Ralph,” I tell her, chuckling. “It’s a Disney movie.”
She looks at me dubiously. “You watched Wreck-It Ralph?”
“Ali,” I say heavily, “that movie is a love letter to gaming. I not only watched it, I bought the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack and brought it with me to college. Which means it’s now a melted mass of plastic somewhere in what used to be Portland, Oregon along with your mythical archery trophies.”
“Don’t hate,” she warns me. “It’s unbecoming. Just because you were all thumbs as an archer doesn’t mean you have to get ugly about it. But speaking of Portland, I need to tell you something.”
“What?” I ask warily.
I’m suddenly sure this is going to be about Beth and my parents. About me contacting them to let them know one of their children is still alive. I’m not ready for that. I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment, a lot of adjusting to do, and I can’t handle this right now.
“When they were taking my blood for a transfusion for you they asked a lot of questions. Where I’d grown up, where I’ve been living, tattoos from foreign countries. That kind of stuff.”
“Do you have any?”
“Yes. Three.”
“Really?”
“One for each voice in my head. I got them in El Salvador from a street artist who could see souls. It was very moving.”
“So, no?”
“No,” she says dryly.
“Okay, so back to the blood.”
She stares at me for a while before continuing. “Anyway, it came up that I was at Ground Zero for the Fever. I told them you were too and they freaked out. They’ve been collecting samples from anyone willing to give one up, looking for people like us. People who were right there when it happened and made it out.” Her brow furrows suddenly. Her voice grows tighter. “It looks like most of us never made it out alive.”
“How many do they think made it?” I ask softly.
She shakes her head. “Not many. We’re the first they’ve seen here. Most made it to Tacoma up in Washington but Lincoln City hasn’t seen any.”
“What do they want from us?”
“Blood and tissue samples.”
I frown, feeling doubtful. “Do they have a lab here?”
“No, but the village over the river does.” She looks me in the eyes then and I see hope glimmering in every inch of her face. It’s radiant and horrifying in its perfect fragility. “They’re looking for a cure, Jordan.”
“Ali,” I begin cautiously, “we knew they’d look, remember? They want one for themselves in case any of us ever gets out.”
“I know, but what if you’re wrong? What if they want to save us?”
“They don’t.”
“But they cou—“
“Portland,” I say firmly, cutting her off. “Think about Portland. Think of all those people still there at Ground Zero that they could have taken samples from if they really wanted to. But instead they burned and paved the entire place. They wiped it off the map. Probably not long after they confirmed Tacoma was getting Ground Zero blood samples from survivors. And what about my situation here? I survived a bite but even people here who know the timeline that an infected follows are ready to chase me out with torches and pitch forks or put a bullet in my skull. The outside world would be no different with all of us who have lived in here with this. They’d consider us tainted for the rest of our lives.”
She looks away, her lips tightly pressed together. I don’t know if it’s to keep from crying or screaming. It could go either way.
“I still think they’ll try for us,” she whispers.
“Maybe they will.”
She chuckles sadly. “You don’t believe that.”
“No,” I agree, “but you can believe it for me.”
Chapter Nineteen
A couple of days later I’m still jobless. I’m not homeless, though. I’m back inside the RV with Alissa and Syd, all of us sleeping on the same schedule for the first time ever. Ali is sleeping in the bed, I’m on the short awkward bench and Syd is sprawled out on the floor between us, sawing logs all night. I don’t get much sleep. We’re all day workers, though apparently that could easily change for Alissa once she’s trained properly by the nurses. Leah works the night shift and I know Ali would feel better working with her. They’ve become really tight since we got here, something Syd and I are both grateful for. She seems happier with another woman to talk to.
Too bad that’s the only thing Syd and I agree on. We fight night and day which means Alissa and I are beginning to fight as well. It’s not as bad as it was because we’re all getting better sleep, we’ve spent time apart from each other during the day and even though I worry an outbreak will take this place down or that some paranoid psycho is going to bash my head in when I’m standing at the urinal, life is generally pretty good. I can’t remember the last time I thought that. But I know it can be better. I know I can’t stay in that RV with them indefinitely, not if we want to avoid it all going to crap again like out in the woods.
For now, while I wait for a job assignment, I attend my physical therapy sessions for my missing hand. It’s a lot of practicing doing everyday things with my left hand instead of my right, something that is surprisingly difficult to retrain your brain to do. But a lot of what we do every day is muscle memory. Running your hand through your hair, scratching an itch on your nose, grabbing your sunglasses off the table. Your brain doesn’t think about how you’re going to do it, you just do it and it’s done exactly the same almost every time. Now I have to stop and think about everything.
In my sessions there’s also weight training to build strength in my now dominant arm and to maintain strength in my weakened one. Working out in the gym of the town’s high school and knowing there’s a hot shower at the end of it, that’s heaven for me. I start making my sessions longer. I complete what Dr. Finemen assigns for me to do for the day and I add on my own assignments. I run laps and drills. I do weight lifting with my legs, shoulders, back; everything. Not just my arms. I spend hours in there. In the silence of the large empty building with nothing but the sounds of my own breathin
g. It’s a solitude I haven’t known in a while and I’m finding—
“Do you spend all day in here?”
“The fu—“I cry, turning swiftly and crouching down on one knee to minimize my strike surface. It’s harder to stab, shoot, bite or bludgeon me from this position, something I’ve learned now that I’m made to walk around weaponless. I miss my weapon like I miss my hand. I feel helpless as an infant without either.
“Whoa,” the guy says as he steps back, his hands up.
He’s about my age with short blond hair, tall and stocky. He’s built like a brick shit house reminding me of Taylor and I’m worried about the idea of fighting him. I glance around the gymnasium to all of the dark corners.
“I’m alone,” he says, reading my body language. “I’m not looking for a fight.”
I stand up slowly but I’m sure to keep distance between us. I eye him with suspicion, taking in his bright blue workout shorts and ratty, faded T-shirt.
“You came to work out?”
He nods. “Yeah. I got let off work early. Decided to come down here.”
He takes a cautious step toward me, watching my eyes the entire time. Then he extends his hand to me. His right hand.
“I’m Kyle.”
I don’t respond as I stare at his hand, my arms hanging loosely at my sides.
“Oh man, I’m sorry. That was a dick move. I didn’t—I—“ He curses as he quickly withdraws his hand, trading it for his left. When I look up to meet his eyes they’re earnest and pained. “Seriously, dude, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about it. I’m right handed, it was a reflex.”