by David Rogers
“Okay, keep an eye out then.” EZ said as he pulled out the map, unfolded it, and started making notes. Darryl saw nothing moving except grass and trees before the morning breeze, but it didn’t take EZ very long to update the map regardless. “You want to go inside the fence and check any of them out?”
Darryl glanced at the big double gate that was chained and padlocked; both chain and padlock ridiculously oversized like they were expected to withstand a superhero. And while the fence itself was chain link, it was a heavier gauge chain link than he usually saw. “We ain’t bring no bolt cutters.”
“Bro, I am bolt cutters.” EZ laughed.
Darryl shrugged, knowing the Dog wasn’t kidding. EZ was a hell of a thief. “Naw, leave it locked. Might hold anyone else off if they come looking. Give us time to get organized and come back if Bobo want.”
“Fine. We done here then.”
Darryl nodded and they both rolled on. Now that some heavy equipment was on the list, Darryl felt more comfortable weaving through the little side streets and rural neighborhoods to check things out more closely. They made note of a few houses that had people peering at them from the windows, a few more that had visible storage tanks or vehicles that might be useful, and worked their way slowly east.
Despite the crawling feeling of danger he couldn’t shake, Darryl was enjoying the ride. There had been a lot of work, and stress, since Friday. Danger and adventure sounded good on paper, until you lived it. Then it could get to be quite a lot very quickly. Cruising around on his bike with the wind whipping past and sun falling gently on him as the day warmed was a welcome respite, even if zombies were still wandering around and the pair of bikers had to stay alert for problems or interesting things.
It was getting close to eleven when Darryl saw EZ’s brake light come on. He didn’t see anything near the Dogz’ bike that should have alarmed him, nor anything next to the road that looked interesting, so it took him by surprise. Darryl skidded his tires a little as he barely managed to drag his Softail to a halt next to EZ.
“What?”
“Look.” EZ said, pointing up ahead. Darryl squinted along the road, then raised his visor to get rid of the light tint. He saw what looked like just another roadblock, then looked again more closely. There were people moving around behind the cars. People who held the long shapes of guns in their hands.
“Zombies don’t need no guns.” EZ remarked.
“No, guess they don’t.” Darryl said.
“We gonna roll up and check shit out?”
Darryl hesitated, then nodded. “Slow though. People like to be jumpy.”
“Damn straight.” EZ said. They both dropped back into gear and got moving. Darryl left his visor up, squinting against air and sun as he strained to make out details. As they got closer, he saw it wasn’t just a roadblock. There were cars forming a barrier across the road, yes, but fencing had been laid out on either side of the road that extended out across the scrub grass.
“That Watkinsville.” Darryl said, remembering where they were.
“Yeah.” EZ called back. “Guess they ain’t all got eaten or hungry yet.”
Their motorcycles were not quiet, and they’d drawn the attention of all six people manning the barricade long before the two Dogz were close enough to talk to the guards. EZ dropped back a little, letting Darryl take the lead, and followed suit when Darryl finally killed his engine and let momentum carry him forward the last little bit into conversational distance.
“What you fellas after?” a swarthy man with a faded and weather beaten cap called as the bikers walked their rides up as the last of their momentum faded.
“We taking a look at how things is around here.” Darryl called back, using the same voice he did at the Oasis when he was greeting visitors to the strip club. Friendly, calm, but with just a touch of firmness around the edges to make it clear he was ready for anything.
“Y’all locals?”
“Sort of. We living in our clubhouse. West of here a bit.”
“Who’s we?”
“Our club.” Darryl answered. “Dark Dogz.” He twisted to display the patch on the back of his vest, which was a grinning mixed breed dog with black hair and sunglasses riding a Harley Hog.
One of the other men suddenly nodded. “You them bikers that cruise around here sometimes.”
“That us. We got a little lucky when shit started going bad on Friday, made it out here before the zombies really got going on everyone.”
“How many?”
“Just about all of us.” Darryl said after a moment’s consideration. “Couple hundred, counting all our families and women.” He was exaggerating the number a bit, but they didn’t need to know that. “What about the town. Looks like you holding up okay if you had time to go and put this together.”
“We’re holding our own at the moment.” the swarthy man confirmed. “We ain’t had time to work up a count yet, but I guess maybe two thousand including all the strays we pulled in who showed up looking for people who were still breathing.”
“You guys looking for safety?” one of the others asked.
“Naw, we just out looking.” Darryl said. He pulled out his cigarettes and offered the pack to EZ. The other biker took one and produced his own lighter as he went back to studying the surrounding area.
“What for?”
“World sort of ending. We got people to feed and keep safe. Can’t do that just hanging out at the crib.” Darryl lit his cigarette and put the pack away.
“We got plenty of room if you end up needing a place to be. Whole town’s getting fenced and we’re looking at adding to it unless things start looking up real soon. And if you’re not too rattled to be out and about, you’re definitely folks we could use.”
“We okay.” Darryl said, knowing automatically what Bobo would think about the Dogz throwing away all their work since Friday to move into Watkinsville. Even if the work didn’t mean much, putting themselves amid a couple thousand possible zombies waiting to emerge struck Darryl as dangerous. The news had made it plain what had happened to other concentrations of people. He was content for the Dogz to keep doing their own thing. “You worried about more zombies showing up?”
“That’s why we’re fencing the town.”
“Naw, I mean more people turning into zombies.”
There were some shuffled feet at that, along with a few expressions that went either blank or turned to frowning. They were thinking about it. They were worried about it. Anyone could see it.
“We’re splitting people up into different buildings.” the talker said after a moment. “Running patrols through town as well as along the fence.”
“Guess that’s all you can do.” Darryl nodded, taking a drag on his cigarette. He exhaled and regarded them through the smoke. “Any word about anyone planning on trying to sort all this shit out?”
“How’s that?”
Darryl gestured broadly around the landscape. “You know, the zombies.”
“Ain’t much news coming in anymore. We got some emergency radios, a few ham sets, but there ain’t a whole lot on the regular frequencies.”
“What about the CB?” EZ asked suddenly. Darryl glanced at him, but the biker ignored him as he leaned forward against his handlebars, focusing on the men at the roadblock.
“Bits and pieces.” the one doing the talking shrugged. “They come and go, signals ain’t always real clear. And when we get someone, they usually ask three questions for every one they give a half answer for. Near as we can tell though, it’s all collapsed.”
“Yeah, that’s all we hearing too.” EZ said, sitting back and giving Darryl a slight nod.
“So everyone fending for themselves I guess.” Darryl said as EZ settled.
“Most of us are planning on that being the case. You sure you fellas don’t want to come into town? Lots that needs doing, especially for guys who ain’t too scared to be out and about.”
“We got people depending on us.” Darryl repli
ed calmly, going for neutral-positive rather than dismissive.
“Offer stands, at least for now. There’s talk of trying to pull together a formal leadership committee to work with the mayor. Some of the guys gunning for slots on it are pissed about how many we already got in town though, so there might not be a chance later.”
“Y’all seeing anything coming down from Athens?” Darryl asked, purposefully ignoring the comment. “We pretty close to 78, and seen some zombies come through already. Think they following anyone who managing to get out.”
“Out?”
“Yeah, out of Athens. It about as fucked as Atlanta, at least, that what we hearing.”
“No, can’t say I know of anyone here who’s come from Athens. Not since Friday anyway.”
“Keep an eye out.” Darryl said, trying to make the warning friendly. “Like I said, we already had a bit of a problem with zombies spreading out from there.”
“We’re covered. Taking a lot of manpower to do it, but we’re keeping watch.”
“Good. Last thing anyone left breathing around here needs is another big clump of zombies erupting.” Darryl took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked the butt away. “One more thing. We got people out and about doing stuff we need to do. We ain’t looking for no problems, but the way things is, might be helpful if anyone you got running around knows they might bump into us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” one of the others asked, demanded really.
Darryl shrugged, declining to rise to the somewhat aggressive question. “People jumpy as hell, and everyone with smarts is going armed. Ain’t no cause for folks to go shooting at shadows without making sure they only shooting at zombies. We all okay, but we ain’t gonna stay that way if we don’t keep busy. Or if folks start to shooting at us. I figure you probably in the same boat; shit to do and hoping to not get shot up while you doing it. Might as well make sure everybody know we all gonna be running around.”
“You’re right. I’ll do what I can to make sure anyone we send out knows you fellas might be around.”
Darryl nodded. “Good luck.” He dropped his visor and hit the starter to fire the Softail back up. EZ followed suit, and both bikers turned tight arcs across the road before roaring back the way they’d come.
* * * * *
Jessica
“Okay?” Dennis asked from outside the infirmary door, which stood open just a crack.
Jessica tucked the sheet around her waist and thighs a little further, then shrugged. It would have to do. “I’m decent.” she replied. Her leg couldn’t be properly examined with the slacks still on, and Jessica couldn’t afford to have him keep cutting them off her like he had her jeans last night. But even though he was a doctor, she couldn’t get past the familiarity they had with each other. They weren’t doctor and patient; they were closer to friends with the time they’d spent working together.
Dennis pushed the door open and stepped through. Closing it behind himself, he rolled a little stand with some supplies on it closer to the infirmary’s single examining table, then parked himself on a stool and scooted up next to her. “Alright.” he said as he pulled a pair of latex gloves on. “You’re off the painkillers at the moment, but that’ll actually help me get a better idea of what we’re dealing with here.”
“Right.” Jessica said as he flexed his gloved fingers once before reaching for her knee with an alcohol pad that he began rubbing lightly across her skin.
“This is going to hurt some. Just tell me how it feels.” he said calmly as he finished cleaning her knee off, then started probing gently. “If it spikes, how bad, that sort of thing. Okay?”
“Right.” she repeated.
Her knee was puffy with swelling, but compared to the initial bout it was hardly anything. The skin was still discolored, with yellow and green having added themselves to the mottled red and blue and purple hues swirling beneath her flesh. The worst of the kaleidoscope show was on the left side, where she assumed it had slammed into the side of her car door in the wreck. There was also a pretty bad area of stretched skin and subdermal bruising centered a little low on the front of her kneecap, where she’d tripped and gone down on the stairs Saturday night.
Dennis’ fingers pressed lightly as he ran them over her knee. He glanced at her occasionally as his hands moved. “How’s this? What about here? And here?”
“Not too bad.” Jessica said, only slightly lying. It hurt, especially when he put pressure on the worst of the bruises, but it was manageable. Definitely not as bad as it had been Saturday night during the height of the nightmare.
“Hmm, okay.” he said after a minute or so of light torment. “Alright, you’re going to like this part a lot less, but since I don’t have any way to image the joint, we can either just wrap it up and hope for the best, or you can gut up and take a little bit more pain to give me a better idea what’s going on in there.”
“Be brave mom.” Candice said from her position against the wall next to the door.
“No problem Candy Bear.” Jessica said calmly before nodding to Dennis. “Okay, hit me.”
“First I want to drain off the fluid that’s collected since Sunday morning.” he said, turning to the stand he had positioned. “And I’m afraid I’ll need your pain responses to let me figure out what we’re dealing with, so I can’t give you anything.”
“I can handle it.” she said, though her voice was a little tight.
He had a big syringe in his hands, but he paused in preparing it to look at her intently. “Jessica, if it gets to be too much we can stop and I’ll give you something to manage it, and we’ll just take strictly cautious path.”
“Go ahead.” she told him. “If I could handle it Saturday night, I can handle whatever you’ve got for me.”
He smiled, but it was his professional face. “Okay. This part shouldn’t be any worse than giving blood or getting a shot, but don’t move around or you could do yourself some damage if the needle oscillates while it’s in.” She nodded and settled herself back on her elbows, so she could see what was happening but had something to brace herself against incase she flinched. Dennis set the needle against her knee and slowly pushed it in. He was right, she realized as the needle penetrated her flesh. This wasn’t that bad. He started pulling back on the plunger and fluid began filling the reservoir.
“Does it hurt much?” Candice asked.
“No, it’s okay.” Jessica said calmly.
“You’re doing well.” Dennis said as he drained the swelling. “And this looks better than it did the first time.”
The fluid entering the big plastic cylinder on the back of the syringe was yellow with less of a red tint than the last draining, though it still looked thick and decidedly unpleasant. She didn’t know exactly what about it he thought was ‘better’, but he was the doctor. She did know that the pressure from the swelling was relieving as he pulled the liquid out. By the time he finished and withdrew the needle, the discomfort was better.
“Okay, that was the easy part.” he said, capping the syringe and laying it aside. “And the swelling isn’t as bad as I was afraid it might be, so that’s encouraging.”
“Good.” she said.
“This is the part that’s going to hurt.” Dennis told her, adjusting the stool. He put one hand under the back of her thigh and the other on her ankle. “We’re going to articulate your knee, okay? It’s going to hurt, but try to focus on where it hurts. That’s what I need to know.”
“Got it.”
“Pain that you can handle is okay.” he said as he gripped her leg gently. “If you feel anything that’s sharp, or a pop, or something moving around in there; stop and tell me.”
Jessica nodded and took a deep breath. Dennis smiled his professional smile again. “Okay, very carefully, very slowly. Let me move you. Here we go.” He lifted from her thigh, supporting her ankle as he raised her leg several inches off the table. “And we’re going to bend slowly.” he said, supporting her leg at the thig
h as he began pressing her ankle down.
Her knee flexed gradually as he let her ankle drop. At first she barely felt any additional discomfort, then the pain started to increase somewhat. “Starting to get worse.” she said tightly.
“I know, I know.” he murmured, his eyes on the joint. “Any spikes, any movement?”
“No.” Everything felt normal, except that it hurt.
“Okay, little more.”
He got her foot down on the table, but when they tried to tighten the flex much further she gasped and shook her head. “There.” Her knee was starting to really light up, making her very aware that it didn’t like being used for knee-like things at the moment.
“Did you feel a pop or anything like that?” Dennis asked, holding the angle as he used his right hand to probe gently at the joint.
“No, but it’s getting pretty bad.”
“Hmmm.” he said after he finished his probing. “Okay, can you flex it back straight? Does it hurt when you try that?”
Cautiously she tried to straighten her leg. “Not really.” she admitted. “But most of the pain just went away There’s just a background ache now.”
“Alright, we’re done. Lay it down flat.” he said, scooting back from the table and sighing.
“What do you think?” Jessica asked him.
“Well, I think you definitely sprained it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not as bad as I was afraid of. You almost certainly didn’t pop anything that’s going to take a long time to heal, or stay broken without surgery.”
“How long?”
He blinked at her. “How—oh. You’re probably looking at a couple of weeks before you’re back to full use, but I think if you take it easy like I keep telling you, in a few days you should be considerably better than you are now. You won’t be running marathons, but you’ll be walking without wincing.”
“Good.” Jessica said. She didn’t like the pain, but she could handle it. What scared her was the impact it had on her mobility. If things got bad, she needed to be able to move if she was going to be able to keep Candice out of the thick of any trouble.