Brock told me about being a doctor and how he was engaged once.
“She was a great girl but she didn’t want to be tied down. She enjoyed the party life too much,” he said.
“Sorry,” I told him, placing my hand on his.
“Eh. I dodged a bullet, I’m sure.”
I nodded, wishing I had known about the bullet that was delivered to me when I married Sam. I wish I had known he’d be a cheater. It would have saved a lot of trouble and maybe I’d have met someone who thought I mattered.
“Why do you think this is all happening?” Brock asked, as he turned the car onto another road. I knew why, or I think I did, but I wasn’t sure how Brock would react to the news.
Some people believed in different things, and sometimes when you brought up religion it freaked people out. Then, throwing in the fact that I somehow knew what was going on before anyone else did, wouldn’t help at all. I’d look like a lunatic.
“Not sure. What do you think?” I decided to see where he stood first. I sat back and waited for Brock to explain the madness of the evil dead rising.
“Well, I’m a doctor, so of course I go to the scientific explanation. But, there isn’t any scientific answer for what is happening out there,” he said, as he pointed toward the dead we were passing. “I don’t think they’re zombies exactly.”
“No? Why not?”
He looked at me sideways with a smirk on his face. “Well, zombies are in movies. This… this isn’t a movie.”
I laughed. No, it certainly wasn’t.
“I think it’s a sick joke being played on us by an evil being.”
I nodded and smiled a bit, trying to hide it. It was a sick joke and he was right about the evil being.
“Whatever caused it, I hope it’s over soon,” I said, biting my cheek. “I am about sick of all of this. And that Wasp Head was the worst one of all.”
“Huh?”
He didn’t know exactly how I came across the hive of wasps. He must have thought that I messed with a nest while walking in the woods. Bertie was lucky to not have seen Wasp Head herself. I shivered just thinking about that thing still out there.
“It was a Lifeless. His head was the hive of wasps. He attacked me with his wasps; like he was controlling them or something. He sent them after me one by one.”
I told him about the couple and the child I had found, too. And he nodded solemnly as I spoke.
“Your mom didn’t kill it huh?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of. She didn’t say anything about it to me, but I’ll ask her when I get back.”
“If you go back for Snack, be careful of that thing. It wasn’t like any Lifeless I’d ever seen before. It seemed smart.”
He nodded and promised that he would take care of it with his badass axe. It was impossible not to like Brock. He was like a ray of sunshine in a world of darkness. His charm and wit were something I admired in him, and he was smart as hell. Whenever he talked about his work, his eyes lit up. He loved being a doctor but there weren’t any patients for him to help, and I wondered if he would be able to live in this world without that job.
“Before we get to Sol Duc, do you mind if we stop in town and try to find medical supplies?” Brock asked, pointing west. “It’s just a small town but I know they have a small medical center and a drug store. I’d like to go and see what is leftover. I’ve visited a few near us, but I want to have enough medical supplies to be able to start seeing patients again.”
I nodded. “You think that there are survivors?”
He shrugged and then looked at me. “I hope so. Don’t you?”
I nodded hesitantly. Maybe there were more people holed up in their homes like Bertie and Brock were. But any safe zones were probably gone or were not going to last long in the messed up game between the Devil and God.
“What are you thinking about?” Brock asked, breaking my concentration.
“Just wondering how many people are still out there,” I said honestly. “I think it’s great that you are planning on helping them.”
“If I have to, I’ll go out and find them myself. There has to be people in need of a doctor. My mom found you, right?”
He was right, she did find me. If there were survivors, I hoped that he found them, and soon.
We pulled up near a small town, smaller than any I’d ever seen before. It was cute and quaint with lots of trees and a great view of the mountains off in the distance. It was the kind of town I could see myself living in, you know, once the lifeless were gone. Hopefully that was in the foreseeable future.
Brock parked the car off the side of the road, hiding it from anyone who might pass by, which was unlikely. He told me to follow him as he began trekking in the woods toward the town. It was smart, we were off the road and out of sight of any Lifeless that were possibly milling around the town.
After ten minutes of walking, Brock grabbed my hand and pulled me back a little. He quietly pulled his axe from a holster that he fashioned to his back. His broad chest flexed as he readied the weapon. Without speaking he pointed toward a group of Lifeless that were shuffling around the entrance of a small medical center; right where we needed to be.
“What’s the plan?” I whispered.
He bent down and drew eight x’s in the dirt, then drew two circles. I gathered that we were the circles and the x’s were the lifeless. After that I was confused. He used some sort of plan that he and I would be coming in and working from the outside in. I shrugged like I knew what he was talking about. I didn’t need a plan; I had killed Lifeless before, and I could do it again. The trick was to not let them get too close to you so they could grab your head. It was the head they liked the best, so they could bash it in.
Thoughts of the wasp head made my skin crawl and I sat down in the dirt for a second.
“You okay?” he asked. I nodded but I was lying. I wasn’t okay. I hadn’t fought a Lifeless since the incident and my skin still ached horribly from it. I wasn’t as tough as I once was and it wasn’t lost on me. But it also was important to get medicine so Brock and his mom could save others like they saved me.
“I’m fine. Let’s do this,” I said, pulling the long knife from my holster.
25
We rushed in and took the lifeless from the outer sides easily. I kicked them in the legs, and they fell easily enough so I could stab their heads with ease. These Lifeless were pretty rotted which made killing them easier; my knife went in smooth and came out easily. But as we got to the last three, I realized they were a bit fresher. I tried to kick a girl at the knees but that just made her mad. She glared her red eyes at me and reached for my head. Instead of fighting her, I cut off her hands. She was fresher than the others but her skin wasn’t hard to cut through. This didn’t help her mood, but I didn’t care.
I took the knife and pulled the girl toward me by her shirt and stabbed her through her evil red eye. She fell silently and the knife slid out with a hard tug. Brock was fighting two and I could see he was struggling. I could pull my gun but I didn’t want to make noise and bring more of these assholes our way. I tried to cut the one’s hands off but he was too strong, he pulled my knife from my hands quickly. When he threw it to the side, I knew I was fucked. I had never encountered such a human-like Lifeless before. Most of the ones we had come in contact with had been pretty, well, lifeless. This one was out for vengeance, something I had seen in Wasp Head.
“Oh, are you mad demon?” I asked, teasingly. “Well guess what? You’re in my world now! So you go back and tell the Devil we aren’t going to sit back and take his shit!”
I moved around him as he reached for me. He was mad now because his eyes got a deeper red. I didn’t give a crap, I wasn’t taking this anymore. This was our earth and they weren’t invited here. I let that anger fuel me as I dodged his hands despite the pain that shot through my bo
dy. I looked around me to see what I could use as a weapon. Nothing but tree branches and debris. When I looked closer I saw a sharp piece of metal about the length of my forearm. I dove for it and the demon followed. I hit the ground grabbing the metal, and as he fell onto me I shoved it into his neck as hard as I could. He reached for it and I kicked him away hard. Brock came from behind shoving his axe into the demons skull.
They were dead.
We did it. Brock helped me up and I grabbed my knife. I put it away and pulled my gun. I wasn’t going to take any more chances. That brawl had taken a toll on me; my body was screaming with pain. The medical center was small enough to get through fast, but it was also pitch black. Brock pulled his light out and shone it down the empty corridor.
“Looks good,” he told me, then banged his axe into the wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“If there are any dead in here, they’ll come running toward the sound. I’d rather kill ‘em now then encounter them in the darkness.”
Sure enough three lumbered toward us. I turned away as soon as the child Lifeless rounded the corner, coming toward us and squeezed my eyes shut tight.
“I can’t,” I mumbled. Brock said something about handling it and not to look. I didn’t turn around until he told me it was all clear. I slowly moved my body toward his and saw that he had cleared it from the hallway so I didn’t have to see it.
“You’ve never seen one that young before?” he asked.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen one before, because I had in Tennessee, but I hadn’t ever had to kill one this young. He must have because he killed it with no complaints. When he scooped me up into a soft hug I leaned into him and fought the tears. It was one thing to see a dead child at the campground; I knew that child was in a better place. But this child was somebody’s baby. The child had died of something horrible, causing their family to cry forever and mourn the loss like nothing ever before; like Bertie had told me about. And the Devil thought it would be funny to bring it back and torture us humans with it because he was bored. Brock let go and motioned me toward the end of the hall. He stood in front guarding me from harm, like the gentleman he was.
“I think it’s clear.” I nodded and followed him to a small room labeled pharmacy. The room was worked over and there were bottles strewn across the ground. We weren’t the first visitor’s and we probably wouldn’t be the last.
“What are we looking for?” I asked, looking at the confusing labels.
“Anything and everything but mostly antibiotics. If you see anything that looks like a steroid grab that and these,” he told me, holding up a jar full of pinkish liquid. “This is a re-hydration liquid.”
I grabbed blindly, throwing anything into bags that Brock had with him. I noticed some antibiotics and fluids and a few other medications. He threw in some syringes and some antiseptic stuff. I put bandages and sterile products in as well. Then he zipped up the bag and said, “That’s good. I don’t want to grab too much. Other people might need some of this.”
Thinking about someone coming in here and having to sort through the ransacked room made me sad. I began picking up bottles and putting them nicely on a cot in the corner. I wasn’t a pig like these other jerks were; I could be tidy. Brock followed suit and began sorting the drugs. Once it was somewhat nicely arranged we left.
“Wait,” I told him. “What’s your last name and where do you live, Brock?”
“Masterson. And I live on Arbor Street in Mason.”
I looked around the office space for a marker and I went back to the door and wrote:
If you need medical help:
Dr. Brock Masterson. Arbor Street Mason, WA.
“Thanks, Kamile. That was nice.”
If I could save someone’s life like he saved mine, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so guilty for taking Lou’s mom’s life. Maybe I’d be able to sleep again without regretting it or seeing Ida’s face in my dreams.
We left the hospital only seeing one other Lifeless near the car; Brock killed it without any problem. When we left the small town I looked back wishing I could see some semblance of life existing, but I didn’t. I knew there were survivors out there somewhere, I felt it in my bones. We just didn’t know where they were. God couldn’t erase the whole world could he? Could he take all the lives and leave the Devil with nothing to play with?
I couldn’t believe that. We had to recreate and procreate and he wouldn’t take us all. He left Brock and his mom still, maybe because they had something to offer the future. I suddenly wished I had my journal so I could write about the last few days but I’d have to do without.
Brock placed his hand on mine, making me jump.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking down at our hands. He quickly pulled his hand away. “Your hands were twitching. I wasn’t trying to be forward. Sorry.”
I hadn’t known that my fingers were moving; it must have been because of my need to write. I was so used to writing in these past two weeks, crap my whole career. I missed my desk and my computer and it made me sad thinking about the work I had saved on my hard drive that no one would ever see.
“I’m a writer, so it’s weird that I haven’t written a word in days,” I explained to him. “My journal is with Emma and Lou.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Tell me about your friends. I’d like to know more about them.”
I happily told him about the girls and our wild days. I told him about Emma’s drive and how she shattered records as a female Marine. I also told him how she was the girl I looked up to most.
Talking about Lou wasn’t easy since it was her I hurt the most. I explained how we met in college since we roomed together. But we were more than just roommates, we were best friends. And I hurt her.
“They probably think I’m dead,” I realized out loud.
“How did you get separated?”
I bit my lip. “We got into an argument about a choice I made. It was my fault, totally. But instead of staying behind and working it out, I ran off. And then I encountered Wasp Head.”
He nodded then said, “We all make stupid mistakes and the lesson is to not make these mistakes during the apocalypse.”
He was trying to be funny, but he was right. Everything we did now was a calculated risk. If we did something stupid, it could cost us our lives. Or it could cost us the lives of the people we love the most.
“What happens if we make it to the Sol Duc and you don’t find your friends? What then?”
I hadn’t thought about that. Of course there was always a chance that they would have gotten hurt, but they were alive. We were talking about the toughest women I’d ever known in my life. There was a chance that they made it to the cabin before me. But I would find them without a doubt, and I told Brock that.
We came to a sign that read: Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort 5 Miles. I got so anxious to just get there that I wanted to jump from the car and run the rest of the way. Brock was driving as fast as he could up this windy road, which made me sick to my stomach, but I didn’t care about that. I only cared about my friends and the hope that I’d see some sign that they’d have passed through.
The resort itself was absolutely breathtaking. It looked like a giant log cabin set back into the most beautiful green trees. I surely wasn’t expecting such a place when he first talked about it. He pulled the car off the road like he did before, and we got out quietly. My stomach rolled with hunger and Brock smiled at me.
“Hungry?”
I nodded. He handed me a wrapped sandwich and leaned against the hood of the car eating his. I ate quickly, not wanting to waste time here. I had to see if there were any signs of the girls at all.
“You need to eat, Kamile more often. You need your strength to fight if there are any things up there.”
I nodded and finished the sandwich a little slower, washing it down wit
h water. I looked around searching for the girl’s car and then looked at Brock.
“How far is Lake Crescent?”
He pointed to the center of two mountains and said, “About a thirty minute drive through there. But I’m not letting you hike by yourself.”
I shook my head. That wasn’t the deal.
“You are going to leave me here, Brock. I need to be able to do this on my own and I promised your mom that you’d come back safely. You will leave and go home.”
I felt badly being so blunt and harsh, but I didn’t like breaking a promise to Bertie. I had fucked up so much lately and I wasn’t going to make that woman worry about her son while he held my hand to Lake Crescent. I was a big girl and I would do this by myself. If it took me a day or a week, I needed to be alone with my thoughts. The things I had done—breaking up with Sam and assisting Ida’s suicide—I needed to come to terms with my mistakes. I needed to become a better person in this new life.
I faced him and took in the hurt that was evident on his face. I placed my hands on his shoulders and said, “I’m sorry, Brock. I can’t let you do this. You have to go back to Bertie. Please.”
He nodded and put his head down. Surrendering to my wishes wasn’t easy for Brock. He was a caretaker and he wanted to take care of me, but I didn’t want him too. I was thankful for all he had done, but this was on me from here on out.
“I understand, Kamile. I really do. I just can’t live with myself if I let you hike out there and you get killed. Driving there will take thirty minutes.”
He had a logical reason, but I had unreasonable needs.
“I have to do this. I can’t explain why. I need you to go after we sweep this place,” I said. “Of course, if you want to come visit me in my new awesome lake house sometime, I’d really like that.”
That made him laugh loudly. He stood up from the hood of the car, making me move back a little. He towered over me but in a completely sexy way. His auburn hair waved in the wind.
The Survival Pact Page 18