All That I See - 02

by Shane Gregory

  I joined Dr. Barr and put the bag on the floor beside him.

  “Ellen has gone out again,” he said, absently. “Doing her part to use up the world’s cigarette supply.” Then to Bern he said, “You don’t smoke do you, dear?” Bern shook her head.

  He turned and looked up at me. “We should probably get her a drink. I have a bottle in the apartment next door.”

  “No,” Bern said. “I’m pregnant. I can’t drink.”

  “We’ll have to risk it,” he said. “Have you been exposed to the infected?”

  “Not much,” she said.

  “Get the bottle,” he said.

  Chapter 35

  I went outside. Ellen was standing in the open door of the truck with a cigarette in her mouth. She turned toward me when I came out. I watched her put the pistol in the front of her jeans then pull her shirt down over it. Then she drew out the shotgun and shut the door.

  I went out to her.

  “I want that pistol,” I said. “It’s mine.”

  “It’s hers,” she said. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “I need it more than she does,” I said.

  Ellen tossed the glowing cigarette butt on the ground and stepped on it. “I think she needs it more.”

  I could see that I wouldn’t be getting the gun unless I took it by force.

  “Clayfield is clear,” I said, changing the subject and trying to sound friendly.

  “So?”

  “So it’s not overrun like they said.”

  “I never believed what they said,” she replied.

  “You are more than welcome to come in with Mr. Somerville and me,” I said.

  “No thanks.”

  “You won’t make it on your own,” I said.

  “Then I won’t make it,” she said, sounding irritated. “Excuse me. I’m going to bed.”

  She walked past me to her apartment. I watched her go inside and shut the door then I remembered why I was out there—Dr. Barr’s booze. I went over and knocked on the door. Ellen opened it and glared at me.

  “What?”

  “The doctor wants me to get a bottle for him. Bern needs to drink something.”

  She sidestepped so I could come in. “Bern? That’s her name?”

  “Short for Bernice,” I said. “Where’s the bottle?”

  “On the counter in the kitchen.”

  The apartment was identical to the one next door, only mirrored. I went to the counter. There were three bottles there. I grabbed one.

  “Not that one,” she said. “That’s my port. I like port. Take the whisky.”

  I put the bottle down and picked up another.

  “Old Crow,’ I said, reading the label. “Wow. I didn’t know they still made this.”

  “Nobody is making anything anymore,” she said.

  I held up the bottle to show her. “My grandfather used to drink this stuff.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything. She looked tired and sad.

  “Had you always lived in Clayfield?” I asked, trying to be friendly again.

  “Yes,” I was surprised that she answered.

  “Me too,” I said. “Well, except for my college years.”

  She nodded again.

  “Where will you go?”

  She shrugged, “I just want to go home and be left alone for a while.”

  This time it was me that nodded. It sounded perfect.

  “But,” she continued, “I don’t think there is any future there. I’ll be heading north like everyone else…try to find civilization again.”

  “I think we’re it,” I said. “Mr. Somerville is really optimistic about us making a life for ourselves in Clayfield. I think if anyone can get the people to work together, it would be him.”

  She laughed, “No offense to the councilman, but I don’t believe that for a second. Don’t get me wrong, I voted for the man—I liked him a lot—but he’s got enemies, too. There are people like Willy and Nathan who don’t think too much of him. Or didn’t you notice?”

  “Now that the bad element has left town, we—“

  “Bad element?” she laughed again. “You were the bad element.”

  I stepped from behind the counter, “Me? I’m not the one raping you, am I?”

  She winced when I said the word. I came closer to her.

  “I know it might not be the best word to define your situation, but you’ve certainly been coerced.”

  “What about that young girl you’ve been with?” she said accusingly.

  “For one thing, she’s twenty years old,” I said. “For another we’ve never—“

  Dr. Barr opened the door. He looked back and forth between us.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Ellen said. “Just talking.”

  “About what?”

  Ellen was about to speak, but I spoke up first.

  “She was telling me not to take the port,” I said.

  He stared at her as if trying to read her, “Yeah,” he said absently. “Better not touch her port.” Then he looked over at me and with a stern expression said, “Better not touch any of her ports.”

  There was a thick silence in the room. Ellen looked down at her feet, embarrassed. I pretended to read the label on the bottle. The doctor broke the silence with laughter.

  “Come on,” he said, winking at me. “Our new friend needs a drink.”

  I followed Dr. Barr, and Ellen shut the door behind us. The doctor turned and faced me before we rejoined Bern inside.

  “This new girl seems healthy enough,” he said. “She’s not much to look at, and I don’t like that she’s already pregnant, but the situation is what it is.”

  “Couldn’t be helped,” I said.

  “I’ll still take her,” he shrugged and turned to open the door.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, “What does that mean?”

  “It means hands off. She’s mine,” he said, looking me in the eye. “Hands off me, too.”

  I took my hand from his shoulder, “I think you spent too much time with Nathan and Willy.”

  He turned around again to face me. He pulled his shirt aside so I’d be sure to see the gun.

  “In nature, the strongest male beds the females,” he grinned. “It was like that before, too, but now men don’t have to spend all night peacocking in a club trying to talk some bitch into coming home with them.”

  “When did the handsome doctor ever have to do that?” I said.

  “I’m speaking about men in general,” he said. “Men like Nathan and Willy…and you. I can have whomever I want whenever I want.”

  “What was with the nice guy routine back at the high school?”

  “No routine,” he said. “I’m a nice guy. I just don’t think trying to get laid should be so much work. I’m sure it was harder work for you, so you should appreciate our position. In the process we are insuring the continuance of humanity. You should enjoy it….but not with my women. You’ll have to get your own.”

  I didn’t care for Ellen or Bern at all. If I needed to, I could have walked away from them and never thought about them again. Living in this new world had made me callous like that. But I remembered how much Jen and Sara had liked Dr. Barr when they met him. Given the opportunity, he would have smooth-talked his way into their pants, or forced his way in, if it became necessary. It pissed me off.

  “You smarmy piece of shit,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You piece of shit,” I repeated.

  “I’m not going—“

  I punched him right in the teeth. It wasn’t hard—just a quick jab—but it did the job. He dropped to his knees, both hands over his mouth. I punched him again in the side of the head, because I was still mad. He fell on his side. I straddled him and pulled the pistol from his pants.

  “Don’t hurt me,” he said. “I’m the only doctor around. You need me.”

  I stood and opened the door. “Go be a doctor, then,” I said.

/>   He stayed there, curled up on the sidewalk.

  “Now, dammit,” I said.

  He got to his hands and knees, crawled into the room, then over next to Bern. I checked the pistol to see if it was loaded. It had five rounds in the magazine. I put it in the front of my pants and started to walk inside when I noticed Ellen standing in her doorway. She was holding her shotgun.

  “Are you going to use that on me?” I said.

  She didn’t answer. She just turned and went back into her apartment and shut the door.

  I went in my apartment and closed the door. Dr. Barr wouldn’t look at me.

  “Have you two been fighting?” Bern asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

  We didn’t reply.

  “Were you fighting over me?”

  “No,” I said.

  “There’s enough of me to go around,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes and went to check on Mr. Somerville.

  I was surprised to find him awake.

  “What’s going on?” he said. His voice was weak.

  “Nothing much,” I said. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m tired. How long?”

  “It’s been days since the warehouse,” I said.

  “Where’d all this getup come from?” he said nodding up to the I.V. bag.

  “Hospital,” I said.

  “Clayfield?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s not overrun like they said. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  He took a deep breath, and I thought he’d fallen back to sleep. I was about to leave when he spoke again.

  “What about Judy?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m hoping she and Sara are together. Maybe they’ve started the garden.”

  He laughed a little then coughed, “Maybe.”

  “I picked up a new woman,” I said. “The doctor is looking at her now.”

  He grunted a reply.

  “You sleep,” I said. “It’s still the middle of the night.”

  He grunted again.

  When I came back into the living room, Bern was still on the mattress in the floor, but the doctor was gone. She had a big white bandage on her face and another wrapped around her arm.

  “Where is he?” I said.

  “He said he was going to bed.”

  I nodded and went over to get on the couch.

  “You don’t have to go all the way over there,” she said. “There’s plenty of room down here with me.”

  “I’m really tired,” I said.

  “So was the doctor.”

  Just to be sure Travis wouldn’t try to retaliate while I was sleeping, I locked the front door and propped a chair under the knob. I returned to the couch.

  “Goodnight, Bern,” I said and blew out the candle.

  Chapter 36

  I opened my eyes just as the early morning sun was starting to filter in through the curtains. There was enough light in the room that I could see, but just barely. I didn’t know why I had woken up. I hadn’t slept very long.

  I looked around the room for a moment without moving. Bern was up. She was standing by the window.

  “Bern, are you okay?”

  She looked at me when I spoke but didn’t reply. I sat up, and she turned to face me. There was something about her posture that told me she was infected. I pulled the pistol.

  “Bern?”

  She hissed at me. I didn’t hesitate. I put her down quickly. The odd thing was that I didn’t feel anything. I don’t even think my heart rate increased. I didn’t even fully come out of the haze of sleep. I just woke up, killed somebody, and that was it—no more exciting than getting up in the night to take a piss.

  I heard a noise from the bedroom, so I went to check on Mr. Somerville. He was trying to sit up.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “The new girl was sick so I shot her.”

  He paused then lay back on his pillow.

  “You alright?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said, almost in a whisper.

  I returned to the living room expecting Ellen and Travis to come pounding on my door, but they didn’t. He knew it would happen, or at least hoped it would. He hadn’t given her anything to drink, and she’d succumbed to the virus. That was his retaliation.

  “Asshole,” I said.

  I pulled the chair away from the front door, unlocked it, and went out into the cool, morning air. I didn’t bother knocking on their door; I just went in. They weren’t inside. Their bags and supplies were still inside. I went back out and walked down to the office. I didn’t find them there either. The truck was still parked in the front, so I walked around the building to check on the spare vehicle. It was still there, too.

  “Odd,” I said to myself. I couldn’t imagine them leaving on foot. We hadn’t seen any infected out there since we arrived, but that didn’t mean it was safe to venture out without a car. I decided to go back to their apartment to see if they had left a note. I doubted they would have since neither really liked me very much.

  As I rounded the corner of the building, I looked down the road. There was something there on the center line. It looked like a dead body, but it was too far away to say for sure. I knew it hadn’t been there when I went out to dig the garlic.

  Before going to investigate, I went back inside to remove Bern’s body. I felt sorry for the girl, but I tried not to think too much about it. I put a towel over her face so I wouldn’t have to look at her. I dragged her outside and into the apartment next door, shutting her up inside.

  Then I checked my weapon and started walking. I didn’t take the truck, because I didn’t want to make any unnecessary noise I had to walk about 300 yards. There were spots of blood leading up to it. As I got closer, I could tell that it was definitely a body. It was naked and face down. When I saw the dark hair and that the body did not look decomposed, I had a feeling it was Ellen.

  Her back was bloody from several small holes. They didn’t look like gunshots but more like stab wounds. I grabbed her arm and rolled her over. She was already cold. Her eyes were closed. There were scrapes on her nose, left breast and knees, but no stab wounds in the front. Her feet were bloody, too, from running barefoot on the pavement.

  The only thing I could figure was that the doctor had done this. I got a chill and quickly looked around me for any sign of him. Farther down the road I saw a figure. It wasn’t Dr. Barr, but an infected child. I needed to get back to the building. Chances were other zombies were around. Then I noticed blood out ahead of Ellen’s body. I didn’t think it was hers, because she hadn’t made it that far. There was another spot of blood a few feet farther. Then I came to the bloody steak knife. I followed the trail, all the while keeping my eye on the kid.

  The trail of blood took me off the road, down a hill, and to a fence row. When I saw it I stopped. Ahead of me, Travis Barr was seated, leaning against the fence. He was also naked. His legs were spread, and his crotch was a bloody mess. There was an infected woman on the other side of the fence. She had pulled his arm back through to her side and was eating on it. Two more infected people were reaching through the fence trying to get to him, too. I was about to leave when he moved.

  “Help me,” he said feebly. “She…she cut me. Get my bag, and I’ll tell you what to do.”

  “I think it’s too late,” I said. “You’re arm.”

  Slowly, he turned his head to look at his arm. There was a section of it where the bare bone was exposed. The woman didn’t look up from her meal. With his other arm, he tried to swat her away. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t feel her eating him.

  “Get my bag,” he said, as if drugged. “I’ll get rid of her.”

  I looked back to the road. A man had joined the child.

  “I’m sorry, Travis,” I said. “I wish things had been different.”

  He was still trying to slap away the woman when I shot him. I didn’t stick around. I turned and sprinted back to the facility before the creatures could get a fix on the n
oise of the gun.

  When I made it back to the building, I went into the apartment Ellen and the doctor had been using. I needed to collect their supplies—particularly the guns and medicine—while I still could. I expected the infected to be drawn to the area, but I didn’t know if they would zero in on us.

  I found the shotgun and Bern’s pistol next to a pile of Ellen’s clothes in the bedroom. There was blood on the bed sheets. That must have been where she cut him. I didn’t know what had happened after that or why they were outside in the road, but I guessed that he’d taken the knife and chased her out there.

  I divided food, water, booze, clothing and medical supplies between their two bags. I made sure to get the copy of Yertle the Turtle, too. I wanted to give that to Sara. I stowed one bag and the shotgun in the truck, then took the other items into my own apartment.

  Somerville was still sleeping. His I.V. bag was empty, so I pulled the needle out of his hand. That woke him up.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Do you think you can sit up?” I asked.

  “I can if you help me. Why?”

  “We need to leave soon,” I said. “The others are dead.”

  “You mean the doctor?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We don’t have to leave this very second, but soon. Do you think you could eat?”

  “I don’t have an appetite,” he said. “What happened to the doctor?”

  “He went out too far on foot and the zombies got him,” I said, not wanting to tell the whole story. “Ellen was with him.”

  He grunted and shifted in the bed, “He’s got me on some medicine. I don’t know—“

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said. “I’m going to see if I can find some soup. You need to eat.”

  He grunted again.

  There was no soup in the food supply--at least none of that prepackaged or canned stuff--but there was a small can of sliced carrots. I took the fork back outside to dig some more wild garlic. While I was out there, I looked down the road. Ellen’s body was gone. I watched a man cross the road on his way to the spot where I’d found Dr. Barr.

  I dug the garlic quickly and took it back inside. I cleaned it, chopped it up with the chives and put it in a small saucepan with some water, salt, and the carrots. Then I put three short candles in the sink, lit them and propped the pan over them to cook. Within a few minutes, the water was steaming. I poured some of it into a coffee cup and took it in to Somerville.