by Tracey Ward
I grin. “No, I’m good. I’m just checking the place out.”
“Are you new?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“How long have you been here?”
He shrugs, jumping deftly over a turtle shell he sent bopping back and forth between two pipes. “I don’t know. Awhile.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yeah. We didn’t have TV for a long time. I’m glad they have them here.”
I wonder what ‘a long time’ really means. This kid looks to be about seven and I doubt his concept of time is the same as mine. A week on the run probably felt like a month to him. I want to ask if his parents are here, how he made it to this place, but I’m scared of his answer. I don’t want to know if they died and, sick as it may sound, I don’t want to hear that they lived. I’m annoyed watching this kid sitting here in clean clothes under the glow of power surging through the lights and into the TV in front of him. It should be sweet. Hopeful. That’s how Alissa would see it.
I see it as a slap in the face. A testament to the fact that somewhere along the line I did something horribly wrong. Someone saved this kid, brought him in to safety, and doing that with a seven year old couldn’t have been easy. I couldn’t even do it with a seventeen year old on day one.
“You sure you don’t want to play?” he asks. “I can switch to two players.”
I swallow hard, willing the venom down my throat and out of my voice. “No, thanks. I’ve gotta get going.”
“Okay. See ya.”
I get out of that room and out into the night air as fast as I can. When I burst out the door I’m nearly gasping. I’m also not thinking. My hand is exposed, my right one. I nearly walk right into a woman, probably the kid’s mother coming to get him, and she jumps back to avoid being trampled.
“What’s happened?” she asks urgently. Her eyes scan my body looking for bites or blood or decay. She calms when she sees nothing amiss other than my frantic breathing. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I say, trying to bring myself down.
“Are you sure? You look flushed. Are y—“
That’s when she sees my missing hand. Her face instantly contorts with fear and loathing.
“What have you done? Where’s my son?”
“There’s a kid in there playing video games,” I tell her calmly. “He’s fine.”
“If you hurt him,” she begins, pushing past me roughly without finishing the sentence.
“He’s fine!” I call after her.
“Get out of here! Stay away from us!” she cries.
As the door slowly swings shut I see her sprint for the couch. She grabs hold of her son, pulls him into her arms and squeezes him tightly. Just before the door clangs closed, I hear his whining protests and the faint sound of the familiar Mario death music.
Chapter Twenty
“I’m a freakin’ leper,” I grumble, hoisting a hand weight violently.
My left arm is getting ridiculously strong, though strength can’t change the fact that I still instinctually move to perform any task with my right hand first. I’m getting better about it. I’m catching myself before I bang it painfully into everything within a 3ft radius. It’s still frustrating.
“People are assholes,” Kyle grunts from the bench press.
“No joke.”
This is the second week Kyle and I are working out together. He comes in for about an hour every day, his lunch break I’m guessing, and we work the weights together. When I suggested we run, he admitted he hates running with a passion.
Alissa is right. I’m a freak.
“You’d think they’d love you. Make you a hero.”
“Why would they do that?”
Kyle looks over at me incredulously. “Are you serious? You survived a bite, man! That should give us all hope, not make us want to watch you burn.”
“Please don’t give them ideas. I’d take a gunshot to the head over burned at the stake any day of the week.”
“Not everyone feels that way about you, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. Most of the medical staff is good with me living. Alissa and sometimes Syd are happy about it.”
“I’m not looking to kill you.”
“Thanks for that, by the way.”
“Any time.”
“So only about 2,970 some people would rather I wasn’t here. That’s not so bad.”
Kyle chuckles as he sits up, sweat dripping off his brow. “It’s not everyone that’s scared of you.”
“No, I know. But it’s the majority. Enough to make it feel like everyone.”
“I think that can be boiled down to location.”
“Can’t really be helped. I’ve gotta live somewhere.”
“It doesn’t have to be where you are.”
“Are you suggesting I move into the hospital?”
“Nope. I’m suggesting you move in with me.”
I look at him in surprise. “You want me to move in with you?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t know, that’s a big step,” I tell him lightly. “And without a ring? How do I know you’re taking this relationship seriously?”
He smirks at me. “No rings, no reach arounds. No monogamy either. I won’t be tied down.”
“I can’t tell if this is getting more enticing or less.”
“Look, I’m serious,” he says as he approaches me. “It’s actually one of the reasons I’m here every day.”
I put down my weight, giving him my full attention. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m supposed to get to know you. Get you comfortable with me.”
“Are you supposed to be telling me this?”
“Probably not, but it’s the truth. You seem like the kind of guy who’d rather have the truth up front.”
“Wouldn’t everyone?”
Kyle laughs. “No way. People love to be lied to.”
“Alright, so what are you being honest about exactly?”
“You know the radio tower on the plateau?”
I nod slowly, wondering where this is going. “Yeah, of course. It’s how this place talks to the outside.”
“Do you know who does the talking?”
“Since we’re discussing it, I’m guessing you.”
He bobs his hand back and forth. “Eh, not exactly. But I work with the guys that do. Those tents up there are housing a few people from the town, including me, and six Army and Air Force members that were trapped when the quarantine first went up. They’re in charge of running the communications between us and the base across the river. They’re still active duty. They’re still taking orders and right now their orders are to keep you safe. In fact, while you were in the hospital two of them were on rotation guarding you.”
I scowl at him. “I never saw anyone.”
“You wouldn’t,” he replies with a grin, “but they were there.”
“Am I being guarded now?”
Kyle lifts his arms wide, giving me an expectant look.
“You?” I ask with surprise.
“What? You don’t think I could tussle?”
“Were you military before? Why are they using you?”
He drops his arms, looking a little deflated. “I was going in. I was in the recruitment process for the Air Force when everything fell apart. Then these guys showed up in town and I kind of fell in with them. They’ve been training me on what they know. Sort of made me honorary, I guess. They even got clearance for me to carry a weapon within the town like they do.”
“And you’re meant to keep me safe?”
“I think the exact words in the order were ‘keep him alive’ but we’re taking it to the next level.”
I sit down heavily on the bench behind me, running my hand over my face.
“What do they want with me?” I ask warily.
He’s quiet for a long time. “I don’t really know. Maybe nothing.”
I look at him through the splayed fingers
of my hand. “Really?”
“Okay,” he agrees, also falling back onto a bench. “They want something. They’ve been taking your blood, right?”
“Yeah.” I drop my hand from my face to run it absently up and down my injured arm. It’s something I do when I’m not really thinking. I try to douse an invisible fire always burning there. It’s one of the reasons I love working out so much; it distracts me from the pain. “They take it every day. Alissa’s too. I guess they think since we were right there when it happened there’s something our bodies can tell them. I don’t know.”
“That might be one reason they’re taking yours. But another reason is definitely because you survived the bite.”
“Not by some magic trick of my immune system,” I snap at him, feeling exhausted. “I hacked my hand off! What can they possibly learn from that?”
“A lot, actually. Spread rate of the infection, for one. The fact that there’s a window of opportunity for survival. Exposure to an infected’s fluids doesn’t automatically mean death.”
“It does if they bite you anywhere that’s not expendable.”
“Unless they can find a cure.”
I chuckle, shaking my head in disbelief. “You sound like Ali. There is no cure for this. Once a zombie, always a zombie. At least until someone puts a bullet in your brain.”
“Alright, not a cure but an immunization. That’s what they’re working towards. An injection to make a person impervious to the infection.”
“They’ll need more than my and Alissa’s blood to find that.”
“Oh, they’ve gotten more,” Kyle says quietly. “A lot more.”
“Like what?” I ask, not really sure I want to know.
He looks at me long and hard, debating something. Then he finally says, “I helped hack up a twice dead zombie. We killed it, cut it up and shipped it over the river for examination.”
I stare at him in shock. “That’s messed up.”
“I’ll have nightmares for the rest of my life. But it needed to be done and they made a lot of headway with it. Only now they—“ He cuts himself off, staring down at his hands as he opens and closes them quickly.
“They want a live one, don’t they?” I ask, catching on to his hesitance and white knuckled fists.
“Yeah,” he grinds out. “They want us to catch them a live one to study. Or autopsy. Billings says they’ll probably do a live autopsy since they don’t die until you destroy the brain. Can you imagine? How creepy would that be? Cutting into this moaning, groaning human body while it snaps and bites at you. It seems inhuman but then they’re inhuman so… I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s messed up,” I repeat quietly.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “This whole life is messed up.”
We sit in silence for a long time after that, both of us staring into the distance at nothing in particular. I imagine we’re both lost in thought about the horrors we’ve seen, the horrors we’re still bound to encounter before this thing is over. But when will it be over? Will it ever? Or will there simply come a day where we grow used to it? When it stops being this thing we’re surviving and becomes the life we’re living.
“Hey,” I say to him, bringing his eyes into focus again, “do I at least get my own bed or do I have to spoon your hairy back every night?”
He cracks a grin. “Sorry, baby, but I’m a cuddle bear.”
***
“You’re really leaving,” Alissa says softly from the doorway.
I’m doing the hardest thing I’ve done in a while; packing my bag. It’s hard because I don’t want to leave her. Because I promised her we’d stick together until the end, no matter what. Also it’s hard because I’m doing it one handed and my pride refuses to let me accept help. But mostly it’s hard because she looks so sad even though I know she’s trying not to be.
But here’s the thing; if I stick here with her and Syd, life will go right back to what it was before when we were on the road. It’ll be tense, angry and eventually unbearable. It’s already started getting ugly again and she knows it. I want to hold on to the way we were. I want to keep that feeling I had when I watched her pull a gun and step between me and death. Or the complete and utter insane lust I felt watching her pistol whip that doctor who mouthed off to her. She’s no longer a sexy female Hawkeye to me. She’s her own action hero right here in front of me in the flesh and I don’t even care if I only have one hand left to touch her with. It’ll slow me down, let me take my time. Let me drive her crazy and hear her—
“It’s for the best, Al,” Syd calls from up front.
Alissa turns to him with a scowl. I’m mentally thanking the man for pulling me out of my thoughts because they were headed somewhere with only one exit worth taking and it’s not the time or place for that. But it does bring up another point in favor of me moving out – my own place away from Syd.
“He’s right,” I agree, shoving a shirt inside my bag. “It’ll be better.”
“For everybody,” Syd agrees.
“No tears, Syd!” I call out to him. “You promised.”
“I’ll do my best to keep my feelings inside.”
I’ll miss that man. Really…
Alissa violently slides the divider between the bedroom area and the rest of the camper closed.
“Open door policy, Al!” Syd cries.
“That’s not even what that means!” she shouts back.
“It means keep that door open!”
“You can still hear us just fine!”
“Not if you’re doing something wrong!”
“Oh! If we were doing something wrong, believe me, you’d hear it!”
“Open the door!”
“Give us five minutes or I’ll show you what ‘wrong’ sounds like!”
Silence.
I sit down on the edge of the bed trying my hardest not to laugh. Alissa is seething angry, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her cheeks flushed pink with anger. It’s beautiful in a slightly scary way.
Finally she looks at me. She finds me chuckling silently and immediately smiles, the tension leaching out of her.
“Take me with you,” she pleads in a dramatic whisper.
I take her hand in mine. “I would if I could.”
“But you can’t.”
“He’d kill me.”
“I’m glad you’re going,” she blurts out.
I don’t know what to say. I’m glad I’m going too, it’s for the best, but I’m surprised to hear her agree. She sits down hard on the bed beside me and lays her head on my shoulder.
“Is that weird?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, making a conscious effort not to shrug.
“It feels weird, but it’s true. I’m glad you’re going because this,” she gestures to the closed door then to me, “isn’t working.”
“No, it’s not,” I agree softly.
“But it feels strange, too. You’ve been with me since the start. You’re a huge part of my survival and to have you go… I don’t know. It’s kind of scary.”
“You’re safer now than you ever have been. And you’re more than able to take care of yourself.”
“I know that,” she whispers, her voice getting softer every time she speaks.
“Then what’s there to be scared of?”
She doesn’t answer. Instead she grips my hand a little tighter, leans into me a little harder and buries her face in my neck. I hesitate for just a moment before wrapping my arm, my right arm, around her. I pull her close to my side the best I can without my hand but she comes easily. She fits beside me, warm and whole, sweet and soft, and I wonder what it will be like tonight to go to sleep knowing she’s so far away. I’ll worry about her. It’s selfish, but I’ll worry about me too. I worry I’ll have the nightmare about Beth just as I’ve been worried I’ll start dreaming about the zombie in the trees. What if I go to this new place with new people and I cry out in my sleep? What if I have bad dreams and have to be wakened like a toddler by hi
s mommy? I already feel like less of a man than I ever have, I’m not sure I want to add bedwetting and whimpering in my sleep to my list of shortcomings.
Suddenly Alissa takes her hand back from mine. She swipes it across her cheeks before taking hold of me again. I can feel the wetness on her skin.
“You’re my best friend,” she breathes shakily.
“You’re mine too,” I whisper into her hair.
I know now what she’s scared of.
And just like that, I’m scared of it too.
Chapter Twenty One
“This is Billings, Alvarez and Simmons,” Kyle rattles off, indicating no one particular with each name.
He’s gesturing to a group of three men ranging in age from mid-twenties to late forties. All of them have short cut hair and clean cut faces, the calling cards of military members. But they’re not in uniform. Every one of them is dressed casually in jeans or cargo shorts and plain T-shirts. They’re sitting around inside one of the tents at a table covered in maps, scattered papers and a battered looking laptop. Despite their lack of uniforms, each of them is wearing a large walkie on their hip with a gun holstered on the other side.
“Guys, this is Jordan.”
“So,” the youngest guy (I think this is Simmons) drawls, spinning around dramatically in his chair, “you’re our Lazarus?”
“You’re an idiot,” the oldest guy (definitely Alvarez) says, barely looking up from the laptop.
“Why?”
“Have you ever read The Bible?”
The guy scoffs. “No one has read The Bible.”
“Are you serious?” Billings demands. “You think absolutely no one has ever read The Bible?”
“Of course someone has. Priests and stuff.”
“Priests and stuff,” Alvarez chuckles quietly to himself.
“What was wrong with calling him Lazarus? He rose from the dead, right?”
Billings turns to me. “Jordan, did you rise from the dead?”
“No.”
“You’re an idiot,” Alvarez repeats.
“Fine, then what would you call it?” Simmons demands of the room.
“Not dying,” I tell him dryly.
He shakes his head in frustration, looking away. “I got nothing for that. That’s just people.”