Blood Soaked and Contagious

by James Crawford

  The friendly, country boy exterior peeled off him like a snakeskin, and something much angrier was left in that place.

  I didn’t see the fist coming. Suddenly my face hurt, and I was on my back across the table. There were angry black spots in front of my eyes, and I was pretty sure I couldn’t get up on my own.

  “What the fuck is it with you, anyway? Are you so damned smart you can’t imagine people making decisions without your input?” Even with black spots in front of me, more pain than I can ever remember, and the drug hangover, there was no way I could mistake how angry he was... how angry he had every right in the world to be. “Man, I don’t give a fuckin’ rat’s ass what you think. You are not God. I will tell you, God as my witness, if you ever speak that way about people who saved your ass ever again, you had better leave town before I find you. If all you’ve got is that kind of bullshit: we don’t need you.”

  I was wrong. I hated myself for it. Maybe I had over-stayed my welcome and really was better off leaving and finding someplace else to live.

  I heard Shawn turn around, breathing like a freight train, and leave the room. I couldn’t move.

  The sound of your heart breaking is the voice of someone you care about telling you they don’t want you or need you. Don’t argue with me about that, because I know I’m right. I’ve been through it too many times, have too much data, and more scars than you.

  Chapter 12

  At some point, the world stopped looking like a bad acid experience and I knew I had to get off my back. That was a simple decision, really, because the pain was getting unbearable and sensations like that are enough to motivate even the most despairing of souls.

  It did take a little time to roll over onto my right side without using my left arm or many of my other major muscle groups, but I did it. Time didn’t really matter much. I wasn’t sure about anything, other than the pain, and the growling of my stomach.

  I guess I hadn’t eaten anything in three days or so. I didn’t really want to eat, but at least it would give me a purpose for a short time, and even a small challenge. Would I be able to get up the stairs to the loft where my food and water stash was?

  Would I be able to get back down the stairs? Then again, it might not even matter if I couldn’t get down the stairs again. I could stay up there, piss and shit into a bucket, dump it out the window, and never come down. If the food ran out, well, I could decide what to do then.

  No time like the present to find out. Standing up again was a unique experience, and walking was just as interesting. Before long I was standing in front of the stairs to the loft. It used to be the store manager’s office and looked out across the floor of the store. A great view.

  I opened the door, once I made my slow and careful way up the stairs, and went inside. My sleeping bag and pillow were in the same place. The desk was still in the corner with the circa 1950s office chair, across from the racks of dry goods and bottled water. All I did was stand there because I didn’t know what to do.

  I couldn’t sit in the chair and I couldn’t get down to the sleeping bag and expect to get up again. The best I could do was use the desk for everything. There are worse fates. I gathered up some beef jerky and a bottle of water and lowered myself onto the desk.

  At no other time in my life was I so aware of the location of my tailbone.

  When I put the bottle and bag down on the top of the desk, I saw an envelope with my name on it. Careful block letters. Whoever wrote it wasn’t rushed while they did it. Sharp corners on the letters. Probably written by a man. Not a love letter from Shawn’s sister.

  I’d always imagined that she’d have that rolly handwriting girls did when I was in high school. They’d make circles to dot the “i” and little hearts all over the place.

  Love letters in school were the best! If the world hadn’t changed, I bet I could have collected old love letters and turned them into some kind of Internet and coffee-table book phenomenon. Most of my dreams and ideas start out with “If the world hadn’t changed.”

  Beef jerky and water aren’t my favorite choices for a meal, but there was just very little likelihood enough energy remained in me to do anything more involved. The world looked very bleak through my eyes, having alienated myself from my people and knowing that a friend was risking mankind’s future in an effort to give us more time to fight back.

  Baj was going to get himself killed, infected, undead, or worse. God forbid he might succeed in one way or another.

  Depression grabbed me like a piranha on the testicles of an Amazonian warrior. I couldn’t tell where the pain was worse: my arm, my whole back, or my heart. The back, ass, and arm commanded a certain amount of care, whereas my feelings could be swung around without a care for their condition.

  So, I danced with the piranha.

  At some point the jerky was finished, and so was the water. The companion meat-eating fish in my heart were still gnawing on my gristle when I remembered the letter on the table beside me. I looked down at it and tried to resist the urge to read it. The Piranha Brothers were against me.

  “Oyé, gringo. Read the letter, man. No, we mean it. Read the letter. Maaaan, read the goddamned letter!”

  Persistent little fuckers, putting the Nom on my bits like that.

  Of course, the letter was from Bajali.

  My dear friend,

  You have always given me the benefit of your friendship and honesty, and in this situation, I can do no less for you.

  We were all duped, as you know. They have been watching us for some time, but we were foolish enough to believe the village we have made for ourselves would not be seen as a potential threat. So it goes, freedom and peace spoil the unwary.

  As I write this, my wife is pulling shards of metal from your body, hoping you will not lose too much blood.

  I think what I would like to say is something less rational than the words I used a moment ago. I hope if you are reading this, you will bear with me.

  I am writing this letter to you as you are bleeding out across a table in a makeshift surgery. You may not live to read what I am writing. Jayashri is terribly worried, as are we all.

  It is not our friends that concern me in this moment, but the terror that I will lose my friend—you, who had a flash of intuition that saved the children, whom we all hold dear, from capture or worse.

  Can I do less than my friend who is bleeding, as likely to die as to live, on that table? You will be furious beyond reason with me, and I dearly hope you will live to tell me so, but I know what I must do.

  Jayashri and I cannot flee. She is needed here and knows this better than anyone. Wherever I go, our enemy will follow. Unless I go to him. Then, for the weeks and months it could take for me to complete the work he desires, my dear friends will be safe.

  Should I choose to stay, and I think you would agree, Hightower will attack with all he has at his disposal in order to capture me or force my compliance. That is an unconscionable choice for me. I cannot let more of you be injured or killed so that I might be safe for another day.

  I will go willingly. I will work and sabotage that work if at all possible. That is my duty to you and to each living soul I have come to love in this lifetime.

  Pray, if you will, that we will succeed and meet again in this life. I will pray for that. Jayashri will pray for that. Nothing spoken in this world goes unheard; this, I believe.

  Live.

  Very sincerely,

  Bajali

  My chest hurt more than the rest of my body, and I couldn’t help but collapse in on myself. Paralyzed and flooded, I tumbled to the floor. I am not even sure whether I wept or not, or even if I was able to form a coherent thought. The Piranha Brothers abandoned me without a single taunt to mark their exit.

  All I had left was my breath, in and out. Everything else was disintegrating, and I was to blame for not thinking fast enough and for not holding my damned tongue. Even my breath, that last thing left in the shell of me, was too heavy to bear.
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  Chapter 13

  Before I found this enclave of happiness a little over a year before that day, I’d been doing a lot of wandering. When the first stories about dead people coming back to life hit the news, I was in a pub in Duddingston, Scotland, soaking my tongue with sequential pints of 80 Shilling beer, dark, thick, malty stuff.

  Duddingston is “over the hill” from Edinburgh. The hill is Arthur’s Seat, and a decent little hike if you don’t realize that the best way up is to just walk around to the other side and go right up the slope. Bing, you’re at the top. Bong, you’ve just walked back down. It’s a nice view.

  Over the few weeks I’d been tramping around that countryside, the morning view across E-burg from the top of Arthur’s Seat was my all-time favorite. I’d stop by Neal’s Yard Cheese, grab a little something different, walk around the mini-mountain, up the slope, and chill out with the nibble. That day, it rained.

  I jogged down, nearly killed myself slipping on the wet, mossy steps that lead into that Edinburgh suburb, and threw myself into the Sheep’s Heid pub. I won’t bore you with the history, but Bonnie Prince Charlie was said to have made war plans over a pint at the Heid. It’s been around for quite some time.

  Earlier in the week, I’d discovered that the bartender had a sister in Alexandria, Virginia, the city next to Arlington. Having come from that area myself, we had quite a lot to talk about. He was never one for keeping the telly on, except during important footie matches. That afternoon, on a lark, he turned it on.

  I had three pints in me when the news came on about the dead rising from the grave in countries around the world. Within moments, everyone in the pub was crowded around the bar, and the volume on the TV was turned up all the way. We were a human chorus of incredulous murmurs.

  Some hours later, in the wee half-light of the morning, I decided to head back to the little hotel that I’d been calling home for a few weeks. There was a scream from somewhere ahead of me on the cobbled path back to Edinburgh proper, followed by some thuds and wet noises.

  While personal crime is lower in the UK than the US, there is still some to contend with. I figured I was merely going to witness a mugging, or a rape at worst. No such luck for me.

  He was eating the girl by the time I made it close enough to see what was going on. I rushed in, and he threw me about 20 feet through the air. The landing made my teeth bounce around in my gums, but I was able to roll with it and come back up on my feet. I was surprised to find him directly in front of me when I completed the roll.

  “I’m not interested in you, so if you stay out of my way,” he growled, “you won’t get hurt.”

  I’ve been menaced by thugs in the past, and I never really felt overwhelmed by it. My dad was to blame for that, having dropped me into the martial arts at a young age. I wasn’t clear on his reasons for that, because he knew I didn’t like it, even if I was surprisingly good at picking things up. Even my mother was unsure.

  Deep down in the secret catacombs of my heart, I secretly suspected my father wanted to have this sort of conversation with people.

  “Carl! Have I ever introduced you to my son? Carl, this is my son, Killing Machine. Killing Machine, this is Carl Businessman. Say hello, why don’t you?”

  “Grrr. Grrr. ARRRR. Grr. Mister ARRRRG.”

  “See? He’s a great little kneebiter, isn’t he? Carl? Where did you go?”

  I left home well before I ever decided to ask him just what the Hell he was thinking. If you wanted to call my family “estranged” or “dysfunctional,” I certainly wouldn’t blame you for it, because they’re really pieces of work, every single one of them. After all, they were the main reason I set off to wander the world for a while. I needed to get away from them and see who I was without their influence. The terror that gripped me occasionally came in the form of being afraid I was more like them than I wanted to be.

  Although, at this particular moment in time, my angst came in the form of a homicidal, cannibalistic, acne-ravaged, blood-soaked, Scottish teenager. While he had informed me that the menu didn’t include me, I got the distinct impression that roughing me up was part of his early-morning exercise plan. Unfortunately for me, I was not mistaken.

  I slid backwards on instinct, and if I hadn’t, he would have sunk his fingernails into my stomach instead of shredding my favorite windbreaker. Fortunately, he didn’t get hung up on my zipper, which gave me time to move into him as he tried to come back with his other hand.

  This time, I met his arm as he swung, caught it, and put him face on the ground in a classic Aikido arm lock. He was not happy. I also learned how insanely strong the undead are, because he was beginning to curl me over and down while I held him. Normal human beings don’t do things like that from the sort of position we were in.

  You are taught, in some martial arts, that the way to end a fight is to remove your opponent’s desire to continue the altercation. I chose to try and communicate with my opponent by tightening my hold on his arm and dropping to my knees. Actions do speak louder than words.

  I would have to say, my effort was successful. There was a loud pop, my opponent screamed, and I was flying through the air in the opposite direction. When I was able to raise my head, I could see him running away with one arm dangling like a noodle at his side. About the same time, I heard the distinct sound of police cars and saw the flashy blue lights through the trees.

  There is an old rule of thumb that really should be passed down through the generations. If you are the only witness at the scene of a spectacularly violent crime, do not run from the police in whatever country you find yourself visiting. In this way, you go from being a witness to a suspect, and they will do their best to track you down in order to ask pointed questions. Depending on the country, the degree of unpleasantness you will experience when they find and interrogate you is variable.

  In the UK, at least, you can expect some level of civilized behavior. With those things in mind, I stayed where I was, lying in the dew-wet grass, and slowly let my eyes close. They’d be here soon enough, and allowing myself the luxury of feeling as though I’d been tossed through the air twice wouldn’t hurt me. A little acting never hurt, either.

  “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh... ”

  I heard the officer approach and crouch down beside me. “Lad? Are yeh right? Laddie,” he nudged me gently, “can yeh open yer eyes?”

  “Ow.” I cracked my eyelids and didn’t have to fake recoiling in horror when he flicked the flashlight on my face. “Gah!”

  He spoke into the microphone that was clipped to his jacket. “We have one white male down, responsive. Contusions. Request ambulance for transport.”

  “Lad, I’ve got medics on the way. Stay still, and we’ll get all this sorted out. Can yeh tell me what happened? Can yeh tell me yer name?”

  I was faced with a moral choice. Continue to be the victimized witness or actually start interacting. The sooner I interacted, the less likely it would be drawn out later. Reasonable decision, I thought, so I told him my name.

  “Izzat American or Canadian?”

  “‘merican,” I slurred. It wasn’t hard to act like I’d been hit by a truck. Impacting the ground at speed generally shakes up your bits.

  “All right, now, can you tell me wha’ happened here?”

  “Uhhhh. Walking back to the hotel. Heard a woman scream an’ ran to see.” I followed up by trying to shift my position on the ground a little.

  “No, lad, don’t try to move around. Just be still. Can yeh tell me wha’ yeh saw?”

  “The guy was eating her. Blood everywhere. He threw me.”

  “Oh, aye. Go on.”

  “Got up, but he was right in front of me. Had big fingernails. Tried to gut me with them. Jacket all ripped up.”

  “Did yeh tussle wi’ him? Defend yerself?”

  “Yeah, got him in an arm lock. Think it broke. He threw me again.”

  The EMTs appeared at about that time and started checking me over. There was another set across the
way where the girl was, but they weren’t moving quickly at all. My set of law enforcement and health care professionals decided I needed to be taken to the hospital for X-rays and observation. I wasn’t going to argue.

  They were a competent duo, this ambulance crew, and I even complimented them on their sterling gurney technique. It got a few laughs. Then we heard a ruckus and two gunshots. The officer who interviewed me took off at a dead run, followed by one of my Dynamic Duo: the one who had the bag of medical goodies.

  I wanted to get up and haul ass after them, but it wasn’t in keeping with the image I was working on building. I heard my gurney driver get the order over his walkie-talkie to deposit me in the ambulance and come running right away. He wasted no time.

  The ambulance door shut, locked, and he took off. I was left alone with my thoughts, which had only just started processing the day’s events: people coming back from the dead to eat the living—not just a good news story but something that was actually happening.

  I couldn’t deny it, because I’d fought with one of them. What was the world coming to, and why?

  The beer may have done it, or it could have been two major encounters with Mother Earth, but I nodded off in the ambulance. An indeterminate amount of time later, the EMTs came back, checked me over, and off to the hospital we did go.

  “Hey,” I said, giving the fellow who was riding in the back a tug on the sleeve of his jacket. “What happened back there with the gunshots?”

  “Oh, you’re awake then. I think I can tell you, you’re not a suspect anymore, so you needn’t worry about that.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “The fella that did that girl tried to attack an officer who cornered him over by the Sheep’s Heid. Our lad’s partner shot the guy once in the leg, but he kept comin’ and didn’t listen when he was ordered to stop.”