She stuck her hand up in a stopping motion. "Give me a couple, but don't waste the bottle on me. Before long, I'll turn into one of them." A visible shudder ran through the woman's body.
Randi dumped some of the pills into the woman's outstretched hands.
"Now, go. Get out of here as fast as you can." The woman took a deep breath. "Don't try to go onto the floors. Most of the patients have all turned into these things. Go straight down and get out of here."
"Before I go, do you know what kind of medicine I need for someone who has Lupus?"
"Grab some NSAIDS, hydroxychloroquine, azathioprine, Cellcept, cyclosporine, methotrexate, and cyclophosphamide. That along with all of the steroids you can find should help. Do you have a physician with your group?"
Randi shook her head. "Just my brother who was a resident in orthopedics. What are NSAIDS?"
"They are anti-inflammatory drugs like Naprosyn, and ibuprofen. If you find the Naprosyn, grab everything on the shelf. Also, at the desk there is a drug book for rheumatology and orthopedics along with a few others. Take those and your brother will be able to figure out which drugs to give at what time. The ones I've mentioned aren't all given at once. If she doesn't respond to one, he can try a different one."
Randi scoured the shelves for the drugs, picked up the expansive tomes, and headed for the elevators. She would never make it downstairs with the rolling bin, so she punched the down button. The doors slid open revealing an empty car. She stepped inside and pushed the ground floor button. Her palms sweated as she kept her .45 trained on the doors and hoped it wouldn't stop on the second floor.
The car passed without stopping. When the bell dinged for the first floor, it sent her hammering heart into overdrive. The doors slid open at the lobby. She pushed the cart out and ran for the front as fast as her injured leg would allow.
Randi lowered the lift gate on the truck, then rolled the cart on it, raised it, and shoved the cart inside the back end. She secured it with bungee cords so it wouldn't roll around and dump out. Her leg and arm ached and her muscles turned to mush, so she sat in the truck for a few seconds before hitting the start button. She drove through the hills and tried to focus on the brown brush interspersed with evergreens to keep her mind off Leon.
Infected people shuffled around the outer gates. She drove through and watched the gates slide shut without any of them slipping inside. More infected people by the day gathered near their sanctuary. Maybe she needed to up her patrols in the perimeter. She parked and unloaded the rolling bin. They'd stashed some of the guns in one of the guard towers so she rolled the bin into it and went in search of Miguel.
He was by the fire pit. "Come with me." She took him to the guard tower where she'd stored the medication. "I didn't know what you needed, but I got everything I could think of. We need to give Adriana something to calm her down, and I found a lot of Lupus medications and a book on how to use them."
Miguel stared at the medicine, then at Randi. "What the devil did you do, girl? Why would you go off on your own?"
Images of Leon laying on the blacktop, blood pouring from his chest, flooded her mind. "I didn't want the responsibility of another family member dying." She tugged at her collar.
"So you decided to take it upon yourself?" Miguel's face turned red and his hands curled into fists at his side. "How could you do that? What about Dad and Mom? If something had happened to you, they didn't even know you were gone. How could you be that selfish?"
Heat rose up into her face. "Selfish?" She turned and limped away. "I don't believe you. It seems no matter how much I risk, or how much I give, it's never enough for this family. I'm done." She slammed the door behind her as she limped down the stairs.
Chapter Fourteen
Josh glanced at Mark, who dozed in the passenger seat. How much longer before they made it to Uncle Reginald's land? He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and shifted in the seat to relieve his sore muscles and aching body.
They rolled into a small town. He couldn't remember which one. They'd all run together. He passed a Shop It with boarded up windows. Did it go out of business before the fall, or was someone using it as a hideout? He continued to downtown and when they reached the center, infected people roamed everywhere. Where had they all come from? The sound of the engine, at least he guessed that was it, drew them to the car. They ran in mass toward them and swarmed the car making it impossible to see out the windows.
"What happened?" Mark sat up and unclipped his seatbelt. "We're dead!"
"No, we aren't." Josh pressed the gas pedal and pushed two out of way. As soon as he saw a clearing, he gunned it. The Porsche leaped forward. He maneuvered the car around stalled vehicles and people until he came to an area that blocked most of the road. They careened off to the left slamming Mark into the dash. He screamed in pain, but Josh couldn't stop to check on him. His stomach lodged in his throat as he maneuvered past the last of the infected people in the road, and he pulled off to the side. "Are you okay?"
"No." Mark's voice sounded strained. "My shoulder." His arm hung limp.
"It's out of socket. Do you know how to fix it?"
"No." Mark pointed toward the road. "It doesn't matter anyway. We need to get farther away from those things."
"Okay. Hang on bro."
Josh pulled back onto the road and drove as fast as he could until they put a good distance between them and the overrun town. He pulled to the side of the road again. "Let me see if I can help."
Mark's eyes went wide. "No way."
"I can't stop at the nearest hospital and get help." He motioned to the brown grass and barren trees outside the car window. "If you haven't noticed, the world's gone nuts."
"Don't talk like that." Mark frowned. "You make it sound like there's no hope, so why should we even bother? If it's that bad, then we should turn around and go right back to zombie town. Let those undead freaks have us."
"Don't be so melodramatic."
"Me? You're the one who's talking about the end of the world."
"Shut up and let me look at your arm."
"You aren't a doctor."
"No, but I've had more than one dirt-bag bounce me off walls. I've had several dislocated joints over the years." He grasped Mark's left arm and lifted it.
Mark screamed out in pain. "Stop."
"I know it hurts, but once I'm done, it'll feel better." He continued to manipulate the arm in spite of his brother's screams. The shoulder went back into place, and he eased it down. "It should feel better soon. There's some ibuprofen in the trunk." He went to the back of the car and rummaged through the contents until he found a bottle of naproxen. Same difference. Wasn't it? It was an over the counter pain medicine so it was better than nothing. "Here. Take these."
Mark complied and leaned back against his seat. "Sorry."
"For what?" Josh put the car in gear and started toward his uncle's place again.
"I shouldn't have been such a wimp when you were trying to help me."
Josh laughed until he had to wipe tears from his eyes. "Dude, do you remember Larry Lindall? The big guy I worked with?"
"That cop who looked like he could bench press several cars tied together?"
"Yep. You should've heard him whine when he dislocated his elbow. You looked stoic in comparison."
"I can't believe Larry was a baby. An elbow had to suck, though."
"Yeah, it was bad. They wound up having to surgically repair it because of a fracture at the same time."
Were any of the guys he used to work with still alive, or were they all either zombies or dead? Some of them were decent men with families. A shudder ran through him. How long could they survive in this new world? Would this virus prove the end to humanity?
"Do you think the world is dying?"
"I don't know." Josh ventured a glance at his brother. "Things are bad, and unless there's a cure or at least a vaccine to prevent the continued spread of rabies, I wonder if any of us will survive. Of course, I don't remember an
ything in the Bible about a virus turning people into flesh-eating zombies. Or the world ending this way."
"Maybe we're living that verse in Revelation where John was told not to write what he heard and saw." Mark closed his eyes.
"Maybe. Maybe not." Josh shrugged. "Think about how bad our world's become over the years. The hatred. I've never seen so much unadulterated hate as we have now. Bigotry. Race riots. Ambushing cops. Even before the virus, this world was heartbreaking. Maybe He's allowing us to suffer the consequences of all that hate."
"Yeah. Doesn't mean I have to like it." Mark rubbed his face. "When that zombie killed Sierra, it sent my nerves into overdrive, but I often wonder if she wasn't the lucky one. I mean she never has to see another person cannibalizing someone else. She'll miss out on having to kill anyone."
"Yep." Josh never wanted to kill another living thing, but reality dictated that he would. He'd kill animals for food, and he would have to kill people to keep his family safe. The thought made him want to vomit.
"Do you think Uncle Reg and Aunt Mary Anne will make it to Texas?"
Josh tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. "I pray they do."
"Yeah, but realistically look at what we've dealt with coming from Houston." Mark sunk further into his seat. "And they have two children to try to protect."
"They'll make it. Besides, David's college-age now, so not a child."
Mark raised an eyebrow. "That didn't sound very convincing."
"Sorry." Josh gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. "I pray they get there, but I don't know."
"It's going to be eerie living in this compound with just the two of us." Mark groaned as they hit a bump in the road. "I mean you're great as a brother, but ya ain't much to look at."
Josh laughed and cringed at the same time. If his uncle and aunt didn't make it to the compound, the two of them would have to learn to survive and protect their land. What if another group tried to overtake the place? He shuddered. They couldn't survive too many more nights out in this world.
*****
Randi stepped out of the guard shack. Adriana's wails still reverberated off the walls. She took a deep breath and turned to go back in when her father caught her arm.
"Where have you been, mija?"
"I went to get medicines." She opened the door. "Now, I've got to convince Miguel to give Adriana something to sedate her."
She limped up the steps with her father right behind her.
"We don't need to give her medication. She's grieving. Sedating her will only prolong it."
Miguel walked up to them, as Randi closed her eyes and counted to twenty. "Must you fight me on everything? Adriana's screams will draw the infected. If they swarm the fences, they'll overrun us. Would you rather prolong her grief or get us all killed?"
"Randi, don't be such a witch." Miguel glowered at her. "Dad's trying to do what he thinks is best for Adriana."
"And I'm trying to keep our family alive. When I came back from the hospital, infected people roamed near the gates. Do you want to see what will happen if we don't shut her howling up? The sound will draw them inside and instead of just losing Leon today, we'll lose the entire family. It's your choice."
"I'll give her something." Miguel grabbed a bottle and started for the door. "But you need to rest and take a pain pill because you're turning into a royal donkey's backside."
Randi didn't deserve a pain pill. Not when she'd allowed someone to kill Leon. She slid into a chair and stared at her father. "Well?"
"Well what?" her father asked.
"Aren't you going to join in on Miguel's quest to fix me?" She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed her aching upper arm. "He's already informed me of how unthoughtful, heartless, and selfish I am. What do you have to add to that?"
"I know you're trying to do what's best for everyone, but you tend to get over-excited at times." Her father took the chair across from her. "Do you honestly think there are enough infected people to overrun our gates? Honey, you've always been overly dramatic. The world is coming to an end kind of a gal."
"The world is coming to an end." Randi shook her head. "At least the world as we know it's ending. Why can't you understand that, Dad?"
"Because you've always been a drama queen, mija." Her father clasped her hands in his. "I love you, dearly, but over the years I've watched you proclaim life was over. Sometimes it was over a guy. Other times it was over a broken friendship. You have to understand where we're coming from."
"Dad, have I been a drama queen since I got out of the military and took over the business?"
Her father stared at her for several seconds. "No, I can't say that you have."
"Then you need to listen to me, now. While I was in the midst of the war, I learned a few things about myself that I hated, and I've changed. I'm not the little girl who thinks the world will fall apart because a cute guy doesn't like me." She stood. "Come with me. I'm going to do a perimeter check, and I want you to see things first-hand."
"Okay."
They had the golf-cart loaded with weapons, and Randi drove into the perimeter. "The outer fence is set in about two hundred yards on Barker's property." Randi headed toward the gate where she'd seen the infecteds earlier. As they neared it, she pointed. "Look. There's a herd of them," she whispered.
Her father's eyes grew wide. "There are so many."
"Dad, that's just the ones who've wandered this far from town. We're miles from anywhere, and the neighbors out here are few. Do you understand why I'm so adamant we quiet Adriana?"
"Now, I do."
Randi continued around the perimeter, and when they reached the northeast corner, a group of infected had gathered at the fence pressing in on it. "If that keeps up, the fence'll go down." She lifted her shoulders and turned her hands palm up. "I don't have a choice, but to kill them."
"There's got to be another way."
"What do you suggest? If we don't get rid of them, others will join them, and if this fence goes, the other fences will too. We can't load them in the back of the truck and haul them to town because we don't own any suits of armor. One bite, and we're zombies."
She grabbed AR-10 and put a round into each infected person's head. It made her sick to kill people, but what choice did she have? She would return later and burn the bodies.
They made the rest of the rounds in silence and returned to the compound. She rubbed her eyes and grimaced. Her leg and arm ached, but there was still more work to do. There was always more work. She grabbed a gas can, matches, and her AR. Shudders raced through her. Burning bodies. The odor overwhelmed her, and she hadn't started yet. She loaded the stuff in the truck and drove outside the gates.
She swallowed over the lump in her throat, donned thick gloves, and pulled the bodies into a clearing away from the fence. Anticipation of the task caused her muscles to quiver. If she could run away. Not possible. Marine, do your job. She poured gasoline over the bodies and dropped a match. Flames shot up, and she moved away to keep watch while standing at a distance from the funeral pyre. She would dump them into a mass grave once the bodies were sufficiently burned, but at least they wouldn't be contagious any longer. She hoped.
The sulfur, charcoal, and copper odor of the burning bodies was enough to make her cover her nose with her shirt. She needed to get away from here. Her breathing burst in and out, the scars where she'd had shrapnel slam into her ached, and sounds of tanks and rockets assaulted her ears. She ducked down behind the truck and bumped her head on the mirror. Not real. She forced air into her lungs and focused on the problems at hand instead of allowing the smell of burning bodies take her back.
Maybe Miguel could help figure out a way to build some sort of crematorium. Then they could keep the temps high and long enough to burn the bodies into ashes. The bodies burned for a couple of hours then she dug a pit throwing enough dirt on the burning bodies to extinguish the flames. Once the pit was about six feet deep, she grabbed the top body, pulled it into the grave,
and followed suit with the others.
She vomited several times, wiped her mouth, and climbed into the truck. Time to face her family. She sat in the truck with her head leaning on the steering wheel for a few minutes. No way to put it off any longer, she drove back to the camp, parked, and headed for the guard tower. She needed more time alone. Her family thought she was cold-blooded, heartless, and unloving. While she couldn't change their opinions, she still had to keep them safe. If it meant she had to turn into the ice queen, then fine.
Once in the tower, she curled up in the chair and watched out over the perimeter lands. She continued to smell the odor of burning flesh. It made her stomach cramp, and she wanted to vomit again. How many people would she have to kill to keep her family out of harm's way?
Like she'd done a decent job. She should've kept closer watch on Leon. He was her responsibility. If she'd done her duty, Leon wouldn't be dead. Her sister wouldn't hate her even more than her usual level of ire, and her father wouldn't have watched her shoot ten people. Six women and four men.
Their faces etched into her memory with every other soul she'd killed. A burden she'd carry for the rest of her life. Luckily, life span had drastically decreased in recent weeks.
Her parents' God would never forgive someone with as much blood on their hands as she had. Just as well. If He doomed mankind by having rabid people ravage the few uninfected humans left, she didn't want anything to do with Him.
He had to be callous, unfeeling, and He sure didn't love her. Or any of humanity for that matter. No loving being would allow this to happen. She saw Christians eating other Christians. No difference between the believers and non-believers, so how could God be good? Nope, she wanted nothing to do with Him. Not now. Not ever.
Chapter Fifteen
Light filtering through the tent roused Randi from sleep. She stretched her aching body and forced herself to leave the warmth of her sleeping bag. The second she stepped out of her tent, her father cornered her. "We need to discuss yesterday."
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