by Raymond Lee
“Are you the new people with the pregnant woman?” a prematurely gray-haired man in a blue flannel shirt asked.
“Yeah,” Hal answered, noting the stethoscope around the man’s neck. “You’re the doctor?”
“Doctor Reed.” He extended his hand and Hal shook it. “Pimjai appears to have had a threatened miscarriage.”
“Threatened? What does that mean? Is she going to lose the baby?” Hal’s heart rate revved up.
“No need to panic yet,” Dr. Reed assured him. “I have no access to her medical history and of course there is the language barrier, so I don’t know if her family has a history of miscarriages or if she has any underlying medical issues, but with threatened miscarriages there is no definite answer. Yes, she could lose this baby, or she could go on to a safe and uncomplicated delivery. I would like to keep her here for observation overnight and if she doesn’t miscarry I strongly suggest bedrest for the remainder of her pregnancy. Oh, and I assume the woman with her is her sister? I don’t think she intends to leave her. We’ve put a cot in the room with her so she can stay with her. We really want to give Pimjai whatever comfort and security she needs during this critical time.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Hal shook his hand again, his heart sinking.
“The power of prayer is so strong,” Elsie said. “It’s about dinner time. Allow me to show you where you’ll be staying while your friend recovers and we can join the others at the dinner hall. We’ll pray for her and her child as a community and of course you can come back and visit her after you’ve had something to eat. This will allow her time to eat as well. It is so important for her to keep her strength up, right, Doctor?”
“Yes, Elsie, and our visitation hours aren’t strict so no worries. Get yourself situated, eat well, and come on back. I’ll make sure she and her sister get a good meal.”
“OK,” Hal said, not able to do anything but agree given the circumstances.
They stepped out of the hospital and saw two men had joined the one David had initially left behind.
“We ask that all new people relinquish their weapons before we give them a place to stay,” Elsie explained. “Safety is important and we have guards for outside threats. There is no reason for anyone outside our security team to have guns. You will find we are a very peaceful, God fearing community.”
“Hal?” Elijah looked to him for guidance.
“Give up your guns,” Hal instructed. “We’re guests here and these people are helping us. We don’t need our guns here.” He removed his gun and machete, then stepped back to allow the others to do the same, hoping they’d understood what he’d told them. One by one, they reluctantly handed over their guns and although Damian had to give up his rock hammer none of them passed over the switchblades they all carried discreetly. They weren’t much in comparison to what they had to give up but they were something.
“Good, now follow me.” Elsie led the way with two of the three men bringing up the rear. The one they’d handed their weapons to had given them their suspiciously light backpacks and left with the new items Hal assumed they’d be adding to their armory.
“So we’re staying here?” Damian asked after making sure no one was close enough to them to overhear their conversation over the announcements Elsie made as she guided them on her tour of what she and her people called the farm.
“We have no choice. We can’t risk Pim’s pregnancy. Why didn’t you tell me Leah was gay?”
“You’ve spent as much time with her as I have and didn’t know. Why do you think I would?”
Hal raised an eyebrow.
“Seriously, Hal? Do you think we have our own scent or something?”
Hal shrugged. “It’s not good that they know.”
“Yeah. What do you think that woman wrote on that clipboard?”
“Nothing good.”
“Now, I know you stated you were a family and that you’ve been staying together,” Elsie said, turning to face them before stopping before a row of long, white, rectangular buildings, “but we do have rules about cohabitation in the community. Women are only to live with their husbands and male blood relatives. You three will be together in Block D.” She waved her hand, gesturing toward the fourth building. “The others will stay in our quarters for single women.”
“The women in our group will all be together?”
“They will all stay in the single women’s quarters.” Elsie smiled, the forced expression sent a chill down Hal’s spine. “I assure you we keep the community safe. I can only imagine what you’ve faced out there but that is over now. You are all safe and under our protection here where everyone works together to live as we were supposed to. Now, who’s hungry?”
“Come on you bastard.” Cruz pressed his back into the tree, gripping the strap of the duffel bag he’d found while scavenging the other cabins in the area. The zombie was a fresh one, so fresh he’d thought it was another survivor until it turned and he saw its milky white eyes.
Unfortunately it had seen him too and it was a runner so he figured the guy must have turned just before the winter, then froze and unthawed into a speed demon. . He’d outran it and managed to find a tree with a thick enough trunk to hide behind. Now he just needed it to run past him so he could kill it and get back to Raven.
“Come on, damn you.”
He heard its heavy footfalls as it drew closer and tightened his grip on the strap. He’d filled the bag with canned goods and other items so it would deliver a decent wallop.
“Come on. One … two…”
The zombie ran alongside the tree and Cruz swung the bag, connecting with its face and knocking it flat on its back. Cruz dropped to his knee before it could get back up and drove his blade into the infected man’s head. He heard laughter in his head, light and giddy, and for a moment he couldn’t tell if it was his own or the voice he pushed away with pills. All he knew for sure was it had felt good driving the blade into the man’s head so he pulled it out and drove it back in again, and again, and again until there wasn’t a face left to drive the blade into. The laughter in his head turned into a gleeful howl. He closed his eyes and basked in the feeling but remembered he had to get back to Raven. He had to spend time with her while he could.
He wiped the blade off in a small patch of snow that had yet to fully thaw out and dried it on his pant leg before grabbing up the duffel bag and running back to the cabin. He used the key he’d easily found under a rock when he’d first found the cabin to get back in and locked the door behind him.
The sound of Raven thrashing alerted him to her distress. He dropped the bag and ran to the room to find her rolling her head back and forth along the sweat-soaked pillow, groaning.
“Raven? How are you doing?”
In response, she rolled onto her side and gagged over the side of the bed. Cruz quickly picked up the pot he’d kept on the floor for that reason and held it beneath her as she proceeded to vomit. Having already voided her stomach of everything she’d eaten the day before, she only spewed a sour smelling white froth.
“Kill me,” she croaked after she’d finished spewing and dry heaved a moment more.
“You know I can’t.” Cruz set the pot on the floor and grabbed the washrag from the water bowl on the night stand. He wiped her sweaty face and cleaned her mouth before wadding up the rag. It would be the sixth one he’d had to replace. “I found Tylenol to help with your head and some cans of soup.”
“Oh, I don’t want to eat. I don’t even want to think of food.” She gagged, but nothing came up. She had nothing left to give.
“Take some Tylenol.” He helped her to lie back.
“I’m beyond Tylenol. I’m dying.”
“Maybe it’ll help with the pain.”
“Tylenol isn’t going to help. You wanna help me, Cruz? Smash my head in and spare me this agony.”
Doooooooo it.
Cruz stood and walked away from the bed, away from the dark, sunken in eyes and dry, chapped lips of the pasty white woman he love
d. It killed him to watch her suffer but he couldn’t bring himself to end her life. He was too greedy to give up a minute with her. He’d only left her for half an hour to find food and painkillers for her, a small offering because he couldn’t give her what she actually wanted.
Dooooooo it. Kill her. She wants it. She never wanted you. Kill the bitch.
Cruz removed the pill bottle he kept in his pocket and popped off the lid. He took double what he normally took, determined to shut up the voice that had grown stronger since he’d brought Raven to the cabin. He didn’t have a lot left, but he only needed them to get by until Raven left him. Once she was gone, he didn’t care what happened to him. If he found more pills and could continue managing his illness, fine. If not, he honestly didn’t care if he went completely batshit crazy. Maybe if he did he wouldn’t have to remember the woman lying in the bed crying because he wouldn’t kill her.
White. White, everywhere, and so, so bright. And was that David Cook she heard singing?
Raven stepped toward the light, her toes sinking into the plushness beneath her feet. She looked down, marveling at the floor. It looked and felt like a cloud. So light and airy, she expected her feet to drop straight through with each step but she walked right on top of it. The walls matched. She reached out to touch one but these her hand went right through.
Two figures appeared at the end of the tunnel-like hall of clouds. Backlit by the bright golden light, they were just black silhouettes to her, but she didn’t feel threatened. The closer she got to them, the more familiar they became. Her whole body grew warm and completely safe.
Less than six feet away, the clouds fell away and the light dimmed so she could see the two figures clearly.
“Mom? Dad?!” Raven ran to them, aware she was running through mid-air with no ground below her but she didn’t fear falling. She had no fear in this place. She hugged them, tears of joy running down her face as she laughed uncontrollably.
They smiled at her serenely as she stepped back to take them in. They wore all white and seemed younger, completely stress free. “Did I die? Is this Heaven? Aw, did David Cook die too?”
Her father shook his head. “This is where you go before the decision of where you spend eternity is decided,” he explained. “It’s a waiting room. You must hear the music you like. I heard Journey when I got here.”
“What?” Raven looked around but only saw endless miles of white nothingness. “You’re still here. You’ve been waiting here all this time? Where’s Sky?”
They looked at each other, exchanging a sad look that seemed completely out of place in the white space. Raven’s heart plummeted, her peaceful feeling fading.
“Is she in Heaven? That’s why she isn’t here? Sky had to go to Heaven. She was so innocent.” Another heart-slicing thought hit her. “Does she not want to see me? I let her die and she can’t forgive me?”
Her mother brushed a lock of hair back from her brow, rolling the faded blue strands over in her fingers first. “You’re not staying here.”
“What? Why?” Her eyes watered. “Because I let Sky die.”
“You’re very special, Raven. You and your sister. Your blood can save everyone. The virus has only made you ill and it’s going to do its best to destroy you, but you will survive it.”
“Then why am I here?”
“We were sent to give you a message. Your body is struggling. Your body will successfully fight off the infection but you will be weakened by it just like with any other illness. You have to eat and drink, and you have to fight.”
“But why?” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I lost Sky. It’s too hard going on without her.”
“That’s why you have to find her.”
Raven looked up at them and frowned. “She died. I saw her body.”
“You saw a body.” Her mother squeezed her hands. “Sweetheart, you were so afraid you’d lost her that when you saw a small girl’s body in the street you thought it was her.”
“No.” Raven shook her head. “It was her. I saw her.”
“Think back. What did you see?”
“I saw her!”
Her mother touched her forehead and suddenly she was back at the hotel, running outside the front doors to find Sky. She stepped outside and right there in the street lay her sister face down, her arms and legs twisted and bloody, chunks of flesh ripped out of her. Her brown hair was soaked in blood and the majority of her T-shirt had been ripped away during the carnage.
“Make it stop,” Raven cried. “I don’t want to see it anymore!”
“What color is the shirt?”
“What?”
“The shirt, Raven. What color is the shirt on the body?”
Raven looked. “It’s covered in blood.”
“Look closer. What color fabric do you see?”
Raven focused on the image. “It’s light purple.”
“What color shirt was Sky wearing that day?”
“What? She was wearing her—” Raven froze, her blood turning to ice as she recalled Sky watching Frozen that morning in one of her U of K shirts. “Her shirt was blue. That wasn’t her.”
“It’s going to be OK, honey.”
“I left her.” Raven backed away from her mother, shaking her head as tears rained down her face. “I left her. She was just a little girl and I left her alone with monsters all around her!”
“Raven!” Her father grabbed her by the shoulders. Her mother held her cheek.
“I left her.”
“She’s alive,” her father told her. “Find her.”
Raven sat up in the bed, screaming. Cruz jumped back, a knife in his hand. His eyes were black. Raven shook her head and they were normal again.
“You’re alive!”
“Yeah, I think I’m going to reschedule the whole death trip so do me a favor and don’t hover over my bed with a knife like that anymore.” She fell back against the headboard, her body weak and hot. “Get me some water, and something to eat, and something to eat after I throw that up. I have a virus’s ass to kick and a mistake to fix.”
I’m going to find you, Sky. Tears rolled down her face, hot and angry. Please don’t die before I do.
“Garcia!” Richards screamed his friend’s name as he saw him under the tree, digging his fingers into his own intestines as one of the monsters ate through his stomach.
“It doesn’t even hurt,” Garcia said, laughing. “I was worried for nothing.”
Richards froze, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. He’d witnessed a lot of death over the past months since the outbreak and seen the vilest of acts, including seeing his wife eat their child, but the image before him chilled him to the bone. Garcia was being eaten alive, and he was laughing about it. He barely kept from pissing his pants as he watched the man hold up a portion of his intestines and say “See?” before blood poured from his mouth. He got out one more good burst of laughter before the sound died on his lips and he just sat there staring back at him, the laughter frozen into his dead eyes.
Raven ran out of the trees and knocked him over before straddling him and leaning down into his face. “Do something!”
Richards startled awake, looking around the small room for danger before lowering his head into his hands and groaning. He’d lost Garcia before the first big snowfall along with the rest of his unit. He didn’t know how he’d managed to stay alive but he’d replayed Garcia’s death over almost every night since he lost him. He wondered if it was punishment for surviving while better men died. Raven still appeared to him in his dreams, beckoning him to her, demanding him to do something, or sometimes just pointing.
He didn’t know what any of it meant, whether she was dead and reaching out to him to torture him like the dreams he had of the people he’d failed to protect, or her image was being used as some sort of supernatural trail guide for him. If he was supposed to save her, he didn’t know how. It had been months since she’d first appeared to him and he’d barely survived the harsh winter himself. I
f she’d managed to survive it she was good on her own. Everyone around him had a tendency to die horribly.
Richards ate the Pop-Tart he’d saved for breakfast and downed the last of his water before packing his meager belongings together and pulling on the coat he’d used as a blanket. The fire he’d built in the fireplace the night before had burned out so he slid his arms through the straps of his pack, secured his weapons, and left the small house that had served its purpose.
He didn’t know where he was going, he only knew Raven’s ghost wasn’t going to leave him alone any time soon. As long as she came to him in his dreams and directed him where to go, he would follow, hoping someday he’d find some form of peace.
He headed north for no other reason than that appeared to be the direction Raven had pointed the last time she gave him a direction. He saw a restaurant called Denver Dogs which placed him in Colorado. He’d been in that state a while and hadn’t come across any survivors, just zombies, and some of them had learned how to run.
“Anything good?”
He froze, hearing someone on the next street.
“It’s been pretty wiped out, like the other stores in this area. I got some pickles and some cereal.”
A man and a woman, judging by the voices. He walked to the end of the block and peered around the building on the corner. A heavyset man with a shotgun stood guard as his much thinner female companion stocked the back of their SUV with the loot she’d found within the store they had parked in front of.
A young girl walked out of the store, carrying boxes of cereal. As if sensing him, she looked over at where he watched and stopped in her tracks, frowning.
Richards blinked, sure he was imagining things. The little brunette girl looked familiar to him, but she was far from home and with people he’d never seen before in his life.
“Hurry up, girl!” The man snapped and the woman smacked her hard enough in the back of the head to send her sprawling before the pair started laughing.
“Do something!” Raven’s voice ordered him clearly in his head.
“I know what you need me to do now,” he said as he raised his gun and lined up his shot.