Fatima smiled that empathetic smile that Ehsan felt certain she would someday use to great effect with future patients. “I understand. It has been hard for me, too. But I’m glad we can at least deal with it together.”
Ehsan nodded. Before he could say anything, however, Lucero stirred. She opened her eyes ever so slightly.
“Can I… have some… water?” she croaked.
“Definitely,” Ehsan answered without delay, opening his water and carefully tilting it against her lips so that a trickle of water made its way in.
Lucero fell back asleep.
Fatima nudged Ehsan. He opened his eyes, having nodded off without realizing it. The light shining through the blinds had dimmed and reddened. Afternoon was getting ready to leave them, just as Lucero was. Ehsan looked at Fatima, still on the bed, studying Lucero.
“What’s up, Sis?”
“Look at her closely.”
Ehsan slapped his cheeks to wake himself up. He almost took a sip from his water bottle before remembering he’d let Lucero drink from it. He looked at her. Some of the color had returned to her face, and her breathing looked less labored.
“Is she… recovering?”
“I’ll get Emma.”
Emma examined Lucero closely, checking her pulse, blood pressure, and other vital signs as best she could without any equipment. Fatima only told Emma for fear of giving everyone false hope. Ehsan watched Lucero without blinking, trying to fight back against his newfound desperate belief that Lucero would live. He couldn’t take the thought of thinking she’d be okay and ending up wrong.
“She… looks like she’s recovering,” declared Emma, her eyes wide. “It’s like she’s just getting over a bad fever. I’ll try to examine a bit more closely, but she seems- I mean, I don’t wanna give false hope or anything, but she seems… better.”
Emma’s voice stirred Lucero, who opened her eyes and motioned toward Ehsan’s water. Ehsan obliged, so eager to help her he fumbled and almost dropped it on the floor.
“Lucero, are you- how are you feeling?” Emma sputtered.
She groaned. Her voice, though weak and gravely, sounded stronger than the feeble croak it’d been hours before. Awful. But… better, I think.”
Emma pumped her fist in quiet celebration while Fatima gently embraced Lucero. “Lucero, I-” Fatima paused, covering her mouth and clenching her jaw to prevent her emotions from pouring out all at once. “I just, I’m thrilled you- it looks like you will recover, Lucero.”
“I was really- I mean, you were… I’m so glad, Lucero,” Ehsan added, gently grabbing her left hand with his two trembling hands. He lowered his forehead onto the back of her hand. His eyes became misty. He sat back up and exchanged glances with Fatima. This time he had zero reservations about letting her see his emotions. The two exchanged face-consuming smiles.
Ehsan got out of his chair. Without another word he opened the door and bolted down the stairs. Everyone in the living room looked up as he entered with a grin on his face.
“You good, Ehsan?” Deon asked, looking him over.
“Lucero’s recovering!” Ehsan yelped. “She’s still running a fever, but her condition’s improved!”
Everyone stared, looking as if they’d heard him wrong. He imagined the horror and shock of the last few days made them reluctant to accept anything resembling good news. Only Sarah didn’t look surprised- or at least, not surprised in the same way everyone else was. Ehsan glanced at her and tilted his head.
“What’s up, Sarah?” Ehsan asked.
“When I was wandering around, before I made my home at the clinic…” She grinned and shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. “Well, long story short, I met this guy who told me he survived a bite. I thought he was crazy. He showed it to me, but I figured he’d just done it to himself and crafted the story for attention. But, maybe it is possible...”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Ken demanded.
“I figured he was full of shit. I mean, we’ve all seen what bites do. I had zero reason to believe him.”
Hector spoke before Ken could respond. “So, Lucero’s okay?”
“I dunno if I’d say she is now,” Ehsan admitted with a subtle shrug. “But she’s gonna be.”
Hector smiled and removed his glasses as they started to fog. His smile rippled among everyone in the living room as he wiped his eyes. Even Ken let a tepid, guarded smile spread across his face for a few seconds before it flickered out.
“You mind staying down here while we check in on Lucero?” Hector asked.
Fatima and Emma joined Ehsan downstairs as Sarah, Deon, Ken, and Hector entered Lucero’s room. Sarah, who’d brought up Mateo’s ax without thinking about it, set it down next to the room’s old oak dresser and hugged Fatima and Emma before they left the room, all of them on the verge of tears. After strained words and unrestrained, tearful smiles, Fatima and Emma left the room, Sarah focused her attention on Lucero, who’d fallen back asleep.
“Good to see you, Lucero,” Deon whispered as he looked down at her.
“I can’t believe she’s alright,” Hector beamed in as quiet a voice he could muster.
“No thanks to us,” Ken pointed out. The smiles evaporated from everyone’s faces.
“Let’s not do this right now, Ken.” Sarah tried hard not to roll her eyes. “We lost our school, our best members, a kid... can you please let us have this one?”
“I just don’t want us to get comfortable,” Ken replied is as close to apologetic a tone as Sarah had ever heard from him. “We’ve still lost too much to start feeling good about ourselves. We still lost a kid today.”
“Yeah, a kid I’ve helped raise for the last few months,” Sarah shot back. “You don’t have to remind me.”
“Whatever. I’ll be downstairs.”
“You still gonna run?” Deon interjected.
Ken stopped just before opening the door. “Not as long as our kids are around.”
Sarah looked at Lucero. She slept with a tranquility on her face Sarah envied. She glanced back at Mateo’s ax. Perhaps he was also immune to the bites? Sarah instantly regretted the thought, not wanting to cling to it and drive herself mad wondering if Mateo awaited her outside the confines of their temporary hideout, full of bites but still human. She dragged her mind, kicking and screaming, back to reality. Whether or not Mateo awaited her, Lucero and every other kid needed her. She needed them, too. She glanced at Mateo’s ax once more. They all needed each other.
Ehsan and Fatima sat on the black pleather sofa while Deon, Sarah, Ken, and Hector gathered in the living room. Silver moonlight had replaced red sunlight in glimmering through the blinds. Emma went upstairs to go tell Julie and the kids about Lucero’s recovery.
“We need to figure out our next move,” Fatima declared as everyone settled in.
“I say we get the hell outta here,” Hector proposed. “We gotta get these kids somewhere safe.”
“We can’t just leave things be,” Deon argued. “We gotta help our people at the fields.”
“So that we can lose more people?” Hector countered. “They beat us, guys. They beat us bad. I’m glad Lucero’s okay, but like Ken said, we can’t get comfortable.”
“So we’re just gonna leave everyone at the fields to die?”
“If we go over there we’re all dead, too. There’s no point in adding to the body count. They’ve already wiped out three of our four outposts, easily.”
“I dunno if it’s a good idea to fight again,” Sarah admitted, studying Mateo’s ax as she turned it over in her hands. “But we at least gotta warn the fields. There’s no way we should just leave them there.”
Ehsan had no idea what he thought they should do next. His opinion went as far as agreeing with Sarah. Fight or run, they had to warn the fields. The thought of sharing the same destination as the trenchcoat zombie’s horde made Ehsan nauseous with terror, but he thought of Mateo’s parting words. Work through the fear. He felt some comfort in knowing that Mat
eo went through life just as susceptible to fear as anyone else. He looked at Mateo’s ax. Everyone in this house was his living legacy. They couldn’t take that lightly.
“I say we help the clinic,” Ehsan decided.
“Incredible,” Ken sighed. “You all want to throw our lives away, right after getting Lucero’s back.”
Hector turned to Fatima, who sat on the couch in her normal thinking pose. “What do you think, Fatima? Don’t you agree it’s too risky?”
“I’m not so sure,” Fatima answered. “It is risky in the immediate sense. However, if we allow that thing to take down the fields and keep building its forces, I fear we may be putting ourselves in greater danger. Imagine if we allowed it to amass an army. We would be far less safe than we are now.”
“Damn it,” Hector cursed. “I didn’t think about that. So we’re screwed no matter what, then?”
“Not necessarily,” Fatima replied. She stood up and spoke with great fortitude. “Deon, Sarah, would you two be okay going out to scout? We need to find where their forces are gathering. Stick to the shadows, do not engage under any circumstances.”
“Are you serious?” Ken retorted before Deon or Sarah could reply. “What makes you think we have any sort of chance?”
“We finally know what their forces look like. Also, they ambushed us at the library, so we were not fully prepared. This time will be different.”
“By getting ambushed at the fields this time?”
Fatima shook her head. “I was thinking we ambush them for a change.”
Deon and Sarah agreed to go scout. Ehsan couldn’t stop worrying about them after they left. He paced in the front living room, rubbing his thumb, unable to contain his anxiety. Hector also paced around, while Ken leaned against the front door with his arms folded. After updating Emma and Julie upstairs, Fatima returned to the living room.
“If everyone feels up to it, I have a job for each of you.”
“I definitely am,” Ehsan declared, welcoming the distraction.
“Wonderful. You and I can search this house for nail polish remover, paint thinner, rubbing alcohol... anything flammable we can find.”
“What are we-”
“What about us?” Ken demanded before Ehsan could finish his sentence.
Fatima turned to Hector and motioned toward the gauntlets on his hands. “Think you two can make bigger versions of those and attach them to something?”
Deon and Sarah returned as Ehsan and Fatima moved from the kitchen to the downstairs bathroom searching for flammable materials. Ehsan recognized the sound of their footsteps right after the door opened. He and his sister walked to greet them, while Ken and Hector came from the garage.
“Did you find them?” Ehsan asked.
“Yeah,” Deon answered. “I saw the top of the big guy’s head in the crowd. They got some reinforcements, I guess. They’re about back to the size they were when they stormed the library.”
“They were coming back from the direction of the school,” Sarah added. “They’re avoiding the main road to the fields, but they’re still going on some of the bigger roads. Their path won’t be too hard to follow.”
“Wonderful.” Fatima smirked.
The trenchcoat zombie led his forces toward the fields through a dilapidated residential street. He wondered if the survivors from the school would join those at their agricultural base. It mattered little. His lieutenant had a surprise prepared if they decided to show up, though he deducted they had already fled. Regardless of their fate, he hoped this final base had a worthy enough recruit to keep their strength and cognitive faculties upon their transformation. The previous three bases had proven severe disappointments. His lieutenant served him well, but its missing lower jaw gave it no capacity for speech. On top of that, it showed an inability to process commands too complex for a normal human child. He needed something better, especially now that the firefighter had severely damaged his lieutenant’s left shoulder.
He looked at the two of his four surviving officers leading the march. He felt a pang of anger at the firefighter’s ability to destroy two of his officers as well as wound his lieutenant’s left shoulder. Even worse, the firefighter had disappointed him. Both the firefighter and teacher gave him the impression he had found worthy recruits when he first stumbled upon them, but in the end, neither hope came to fruition.
Just as the front of the herd passed yet another generic-looking suburban house, the trenchcoat zombie heard a human female voice. “NOW!” it screamed.
The garage door on either side of the front of the herd opened. From the door to the left emerged a dusty brown minivan with metal spikes attached to the front grille, pushed by the two surviving boxers from the clinic. To the right, the male scout and the male new arrival who normally used a shovel pushed an equally dusty, equally armed white sedan. The two cars barreled down the driveway and into the front two rows of his soldiers, destroying many of them before finally colliding in the middle of the street. Both officers leading the pack avoided the weaponized vehicles, though the female scout and female new arrival each jumped from behind deadened bushes carrying buckets and jogging toward them. They splashed the two officers as their four male counterparts ran to join the fray. The taller, less threatening boxer quickly lit a match and threw it at the nearest officer. It burst into flames. He did the same to the other. Both writhed around as the flames consumed them, their movement slowing little by little until they collapsed to the ground.
The six humans turned toward the rest of the herd. The two boxers picked up a bundle of bricks, gardening tools, and other supplies. All of them turned to the female new arrival to await instructions. She brandished her machete as she made eye contact with him.
He glanced back at the remains of his officers, then back to the female new arrival. He didn’t mind the loss of troops, for she gave him something far more important: hope.
Ehsan stood to his sister’s right as he stared down the horde in front of them. He clutched Nimbus, which Sarah gave to him right before leaving for the attack. In front of the six of them the horde of at least a hundred zombies watched. The less intelligent ones clamored for the chance to charge, but the trenchcoat zombie ordered the intelligent ones to restrain the rest, especially the sprinters. The trenchcoat zombie then stepped forward, two of its officers by its side. Ehsan could also see the Viking zombie making its way from the back of the crowd. Behind them, Ehsan still heard the sound of the zombies trapped by the cars trying to reach for them.
“I am impressed,” the trenchcoat zombie admitted. “Perhaps my search for a worthy recruit has come to an end.”
“It certainly has,” Fatima agreed. “But not in the way you think.”
“Well hopefully you prove less of a disappointment than the teacher, or the firefighter.” Before anyone could ask what he meant, the Viking zombie made its way to the front. It held five metal chains in its right hand connected to the necks of what had once been Cecilia, Mateo, Manuel, Josue, and Andrew. The five animated corpses of their former friends stared at them with lifeless, ravenous eyes.
The Viking zombie held their metal leashes, using its tremendous arm strength to jerk them backwards when they walked too far forward. Manuel and Josue had so many chunks of flesh missing that they barely stood. While all had entrails and dried blood on their bodies, Cecilia’s corpse had the most, by far. Her skin looked oddly firm compared to the others, though it was far more discolored.
Ehsan’s heart sunk. He could barely look ahead as his former friends chomped at the bits to devour them. Seeing Andrew especially stung, and Manuel’s corpse made Ehsan think of Gustavo and Natalia, still unable to speak by the time they left. Ehsan still couldn’t conceive of a future for their group without Mateo or Cecilia, and even less so with their remains trying to eat him.
Still, he knew he had to push through the fear and fight, even if it seemed his heart might pop out of this chest. This was their one shot. Despite wanting to drop everything and run,
he stood his ground. His five friends did the same. He had no idea if he could destroy the remains of his former friends, especially Andrew, but he would try.
“It turns out they were nothing special after all,” the trenchcoat zombie declared in a tone more disappointed than mocking.
“Or maybe you are nothing special,” Fatima glowered.
It narrowed its eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“Maybe your hypothesis about strength being the key to your transformation is bullshit,” she spat back in response. “Maybe you were created, or maybe your current condition was just the result of chance. Maybe what you are had nothing to do with your own abilities.”
Its left eye twitched. For the first time, its stoic façade cracked with a scowl. “I am far too rational and powerful for this to just be an accident of fate.” It raised its sword and took a step toward Fatima.
“I must say, I think Fatima has a point,” declared a familiar voice.
Ehsan looked to the row of his undead former friends. Ehsan watched in utter shock as Cecilia pulled out a knife and slashed Mateo’s throat. She then slashed Andrew’s, grimacing right before doing so and closing her eyes as the blade sank in. The Viking zombie pulled her chain. Instead of resisting the pull, she charged for the Viking zombie. When it lunged forward to grab her, she grabbed its outstretched arm and threw it over her shoulder. It let go of all four chains. She raised her knife, but it pushed her away. Cecilia carefully removed her chain and crept backward slowly to join Ehsan and the others as she watched the Viking zombie get up.
“Charge!” the trenchcoat zombie commanded.
The Human Spring Page 33