Z-Risen (Book 3): Poisoned Earth

by Long, Timothy W.

  “Damn, I like it when you talk dirty.”

  Anna looked away, but a half-smile curled her lips. She lay on the bed with her arm exposed. The wound was an angry red. Hot, puckered infection would kill her if we didn’t get it under control. Roz thought that the best way to take care of Anna was to get the bullet out.

  I took a few steps away and motioned for Roz to join me. I leaned over to talk to her, and kept my voice low.

  “You know how to do this, right?” I asked.

  “In theory, sure. I’ll dig around and pull out the bullet. It’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker.”

  “You’ve done something like this before?” I asked.

  “No, Creed, I have never dug a fucking bullet out of someone’s arm. I’ve never taken a bullet out of anything. I saw a doctor take a lead pellet out of a dog’s flank, but we had to put the little puppy out for the extraction. We can’t do that with Anna--no drugs in our possession that can do that. Besides, there’s no way to monitor her in case her blood pressure drops or she goes into shock."

  “The Percocets should work, right?”

  “It’ll help put her in a haze. I don’t know, it might work. It also depends on how much pain she can tolerate. She’s pretty tough, so it might be a walk in the park. I really wish we had some kind of a local.”

  “Local?”

  “Shot. Some Lidocaine, assuming I could get a hypodermic needle and put it deep enough into the wound.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Anna, who turned white, which was about what I wanted to do.

  “Just fucking get it over with,” Anna groaned. “You’re about as quiet as a cat in heat. Seriously, Jackson, your whisper is the way normal people talk.”

  “Hey, I’m trying to be sensitive to your needs.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Anna sighed.

  We pulled chairs around Anna and talked about little things while we waited for the pills to kick in. Anna didn’t have to tell me. I saw the glazed look come over her eyes pretty quickly.

  “Okay. I kinda get it now,” she said.

  “Get what?” I asked.

  “Why people get addicted to this shit.”

  Roz and I had found enough half-ass tools to do the deed. I’d found a pair of tweezers with a spring between the tines and managed to flatten the pointed ends with a rock and some oil.

  Then Roz made me boil the shit out them.

  The RV had turned up a number of useful goodies, like a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some peroxide, and small sewing kit. We found a small first aid kit in the RV, too, but the innards had been replaced with dice.

  “Are you going to sew up the wound after the bullet’s out?” I asked Roz.

  “No, because if there’s an infection we’ll end up containing it. Better to just put a bandage on so I can irrigate the wound. Wish I had saline solution, but that water you boiled will be the next best thing.”

  “You’re going to pour water in the hole?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Roz said.

  I got my degree in medical knowledge from watching TV, so I didn’t argue.

  “Can’t you use some of the alcohol?” I asked.

  “Don’t you even think about pouring alcohol into my arm,” Anna said, and then stared at the ceiling.

  “We won't, because it could damage the tissue. Better to clean it, cover it, and feed her antibiotics.”

  Roz poured alcohol on her hands and then let them air dry.

  “Should I do that?” I asked, nodding at the booze.

  “Keep your hands away from her wound. No telling where they’ve been,” Roz said.

  “Yeah, Creed, you dirty bastard,” Anna laughed. “No telling where they’ve been.”

  “Can you sit up, Anna? I need to be able to drain the area.”

  “Sure. Drain away,” Anna said.

  Roz used a small soda bottle with a hole punched in the cap to squeeze water into the hole. Yellowish fluid came out.

  “Okay. I’m going to feel around the wound and try to locate the bullet, as well as any fragments. This will probably hurt.”

  “I don’t really care right now. I’m high as a kite,” she grinned.

  Roz looked at me. “Hold her.”

  I leaned over and put a hand on her shoulder and then my arm across her chest. Roz moved beside me and pulled the bandage off of Anna’s wound.

  “I told you that I’m not into that stuff, Creed,” Anna said, and then giggled. I didn’t envy her when the high wore off. She was going to sleep and wake up hurting, but we didn’t have painkillers to spare.

  “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

  Roz started by probing the wound with her fingers. She didn’t press hard but as she explored, Anna’s body language changed.

  “I can feel that but it’s not too bad,” Anna said and took a deep breath.

  “It’s going to get worse. Sorry,” Roz said.

  I had to look away when she stuck the tweezers in the wound.

  “Motherfuck!” Anna said and nearly bolted up off the bed.

  I held her down, but I didn’t like it. Anna was slight but she was powerfully built, so I had to hold her none too gently.

  “I’m sorry. I almost had it, try not to move.”

  I glanced over and then regretted it. Blood oozed out of the wound and ran down the back of Anna’s arm. The hole was small, but it looked red and infected. I’d seen a lot of nasty stuff out in the z-poc world, but it was different when the damage was on someone I cared for.

  “That can’t get, like, infected, right?” I said to Roz and lifted my eyebrows for emphasis.

  “Of course it can, Creed. It may be infected now.”

  “That’s not what I…”

  “He means can the zombie stuff get into my wound,” Anna said between clenched teeth.

  “I fucking hope not,” Roz said.

  Roz dug in the wound and then pulled the tweezers up. Anna bucked under me.

  “Shit, I almost had it.”

  “Let me go, Creed,” Anna said. “I’ll do this myself.”

  I looked for confirmation from Roz.

  “Now, goddamn it!” Anna swore.

  Roz nodded.

  I lifted the pressure off her body and stood up.

  Anna reached across her body and grasped her upper arm.

  The door rocked open and in stepped Joel Kelly. He took one look at the blood and his face dropped.

  Anna grunted. She squeezed the skin around the wound, teeth clenched, lips in a snarl. She let out something like a growl and then pressed upward.

  The bullet popped out of the wound and fell on the towels.

  My mouth dropped open.

  Roz grinned.

  “Positively badass, Sails. Positively badass,” Joel said.

  I felt like passing out.

  #25 - All Hands on Deck

  07:30 hours approximate

  Location: Just outside of Oceanside

  Another day, another headache.

  That’s not a metaphor. For the last few days I’d woken up with a headache that started at the base of my skull, spread up my head, and then ended with a pounding sensation behind my eyes. I tried and tried to ignore the pain.

  Today the thumping was bad enough to remind me of my epic drinking days: fun times that had ended just a couple of months ago, thanks to the zombie fucking apocalypse. It wasn’t that there was a lack of booze--there was plenty, if you looked in enough houses. It was Joel Kelly, who ended up being my personal AA and sponsor all wrapped up into one.

  “Get drunk, get dead,” Kelly had said after I spun the top off a bottle of cheap whiskey.

  I’d procured the drink from a rambler a few days before, and had been saving it.

  “Not if I get whiskey dick.”

  “Gonna get dead is what you’re gonna get. Can’t stay frosty if you’re drunk off your ass.”

  “A little sip or two isn’t the end of the world,” I’d argued.

  “This is the end of t
he world, and there ain’t no coming back. No waking up in the brig cause you assaulted an officer. No waking up in your rack reaching for a half dozen aspirin. It’s lights out like a mo' fucka.”

  I hated to admit it, but Joel had made a lot of sense. With very few exceptions I’d been clean and sober since then. Maybe not so much on the clean part. The last shower I’d had was one very cold one with Anna Sails the night we’d added Frosty to our crew. Since then it’s been baby-wipe baths and splashing water under the pits from time to time.

  But this headache. Damn. It was like someone was pounding nails into the back of my neck and skull.

  It was time to be a baby.

  ###

  07:45 hours approximate

  Location: Just outside of Oceanside

  “Roz. My head is killing me again,” I said.

  “Your face is killing me,” Joel quipped.

  “Man. If I wasn’t in so much pain I’d have a comeback that would put you down for the count.” I put my hands to the sides of my head, hoping to keep my head from bursting open.

  “How much water have you been drinking?” Roz asked.

  “I don’t know. Enough, I guess,” I said.

  “Drink more,” Roz said.

  “Yeah. You can’t get dehydrated,” Christy said.

  Christy had been walking Frosty and had just returned to the camper. She was dressed in jeans and a beat-up sweater. If I wasn’t mistaken, the oversized and over-color-saturated top had been retrieved from the hotel we’d taken over with the mercenaries a few weeks ago.

  “I’m not that thirsty.”

  “You need water. It’s probably a headache from being dehydrated. You have to be careful, Creed,” Christy cautioned.

  Maybe she was right. While I ho-hummed, she unscrewed the lid on our water supply: a large, clear plastic container, and poured some into a sports bottle with a screw top. We had a bunch of those from raiding a store a few days ago. Most were pink, and that was the color she tossed me.

  I sipped the tepid water and found it to be refreshing, even if it had a weird flavor--like silt and dirt--but it also tasted old, and had a plastic undercurrent. Not that I was a water connoisseur, but I wouldn’t drink this stuff with my pinky up.

  Thing is, you get used to hunting for something to drink, and when you find it you suck it down like there’s no tomorrow. I hadn’t been doing enough of that.

  We’d need to filter more pretty soon, since we were down to a few gallons. That was tedious, but I’d taught Christy how to make a water filter out of a soda bottle, sand, and rocks. She’d made half a dozen of the devices, and used them on a daily basis.

  “Drink,” Christy commanded.

  Roz and Joel had been conferring. As morning came on, they’d decided to move out. We were about ten miles from Pendleton, but those miles might as well have been walking distance for as slow as we were moving.

  The confines of our portable house had become a breeding ground for arguments. Stick four and a half people together in a little space and they were bound to get grumpy with each other. I was ready for a place to stretch out.

  We’d come to the agreement that we needed to rest up another day, because Anna, for all of her badassery, was still in pain. She was taking her antibiotics and painkillers, but she had also developed a low-grade fever.

  “We’re moving out,” Joel said.

  He moved to the door and pushed aside the shitty little rag of a curtain. Joel peered outside for a few seconds, then readied his gun. He cracked the door, and slid out like death with an assault rifle. He moved around the sides of the vehicle and then gestured. Roz slipped out, gun at the ready.

  “Those two,” I said fondly.

  “What about them?” Christy asked.

  “I don’t know. I can’t read them most of the time, but they have a thing and it’s cool.”

  “Of course they have a thing. Everyone has a thing except me,” Christy said.

  “You don’t want a boyfriend during this mess. Wait until we’re settled in somewhere. You’ll meet a nice boy who’s good at head shots.”

  “I’m good at heads shots, dude,” she smirked. “I don’t need a boy to save me.”

  “You’re right,” I smiled. “You’re a crack shot now. You’d probably scare the boys off.”

  Christy nodded and then went back to nursing the filters as they dripped water into cans.

  The camper lurched forward and I was nearly thrown off my feet. Who the hell was driving up there?

  I took a seat next to Anna and pressed a wet cloth to her head.

  “You know that is really irritating, right?” she said.

  “This is what they do in the movies when someone has a fever.”

  “Creed. The last thing I want is warm water dripping onto my pillow.”

  I lifted the wash cloth and wiped water off her forehead. I leaned over and kissed her in the same spot. Her features softened for a second, but then her mask returned.

  “Sorry. I was just trying to be helpful.”

  “Help Christy with the water. There’s a lot to filter, and you getting dehydrated is going to put a dent in what we have,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  “That’s still up for debate. I’m calling this a normal headache, like your everyday variety, ‘my head fucking hurts’, headache. I’m drinking water. Jesus.”

  Anna opened her eyes. “What color was your pee this morning?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t act like a twelve-year-old. We’ve seen each other. So what was your pee color: was it light or dark?”

  “It was dark, why?”

  “Because you’re fucking dehydrated. Now go make some clean water and drink it while I lay here and try not to throw up. My skin itches, Creed. It’s the painkillers. I hate this feeling.”

  “I’m sorry, baby,” I said, unsure if I should touch her again.

  “It’s fine. I just need to be better. I need to stop the Percocets. But Roz is going to irrigate my wound later, and it’s gonna hurt like a mother.”

  I nodded, touched the blanket that bunched up on her knee, and patted it gently.

  “And stop calling me baby.”

  I rose with a sigh.

  ###

  08:15 hours approximate

  Location: Just outside of Oceanside

  Christy had been busy gathering water from a nearby house. A week ago Joel and I had figured out that we could drain water from hot water tanks after the place we were raiding had already been picked clean. The water had been brackish and smelled none too clean, but our homemade filters made that shit taste like almost as good as low-rent Cristal.

  We carefully poured the water into filters and waited while it seeped through the sand, charcoal, and fabric. They hung under the kitchen sink, and had tubes trailing into a large plastic container.

  I poured out about sixteen ounces and drained it in a few long gulps--and then felt guilty for being such a hog.

  Christy smiled at me and handed over another bottle. I sipped this one like a reasonably thirsty dude.

  “Doing okay?” I asked her.

  “Yeah. Just bored.”

  “We found some magazines in the last house. I put a stack near the door.”

  “I know, but it’s all old news. Who cares which celebrity is getting married or which one has a baby bump? They’re all gone now anyway.”

  “Maybe we should write a story together.”

  “I’m not that creative, Creed. You’re the writer.”

  “Not much of one. I just write down our daily adventures, and I’m not very good at it,” I said.

  “You’re really good. I read the first log book and thought it was great. Lots of misspellings, but it didn’t bother me.”

  “I’ll hire an editor when the world is restored,” I chuckled. “You should ask before reading them.”

  “You and Kelly were gone for a while, so Anna and I looked at them. Anna said you exaggerated a lot.”

  I coughed
.

  “But she said you were kind of a badass.” Christy leaned close. “She told me not to tell you that.”

  I looked over my shoulder and found Anna’s eyes on mine. I winked, but her face was stone. Then she closed her eyes and rolled onto her side.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter. You can read them. I’ll put this conversation in the new log book.”

  “Oh jeez.”

  The camper took a hard turn, then slowed.

  Last night we’d been laying up in an open parking lot that was filled with ransacked cars. Our vehicle was as far away from the Walmart as possible while still leaving at least two exits. We didn’t bother with the store, because the doors were shattered and carts and debris littered the entryway.

  Someone had spray-painted obscenities over the front of the building. Others had even seen fit to crawl up on the roof and hack at the bright blue signs, leaving just a few letters intact so that it spelled out ALMA.

  I was pretty sure people were camped on top of the building, but we didn’t bother to investigate. If they stayed out of our shit, we’d stay out of theirs. Joel and I walked the perimeter of the camper, then ranged out to check for anything of interest, but as suspected, the few abandoned cars had long since been stripped of anything useful.

  “That’s a good idea: build a fort on top of a big-ass Walmart. It’s easily defensible and you could hide out from Zs pretty easy,” I said.

  “Yeah, until the place is surrounded by five thousand fools looking for flesh. Remember when we fled our first Fortress?” Joel said, making sense as usual.

  “They must know the trick, then, because whoever is up there isn’t surrounded.”

  “One mistake, and it’s undeadville, as you like to say. Like kicking over a soup can with those big feet of yours.”

  “Gimme a break, man,” I said.

  “Let’s head out,” Joel answered.

  The truck rumbled to life and then lurched forward. I got a hand out to steady myself, and then stood with popping knee joints.

  Christy grabbed a couple of old magazines and put them on the table, then hopped up to page through them. I grabbed one and joined her, but within a few minutes I was also bored, because Christy was right: these things didn’t matter anymore.