“He breathing?” Allison said.
“I don’t know,” I said, running faster.
“I don’t think he’s breathing,” she said.
“Erway,” I said. I stopped, set him down and put my ear to his lips. “I can’t tell. I don’t know.”
Erway dropped down beside me and pushed me out of the way. She lowered her head to his face. She seemed to watch for his chest to rise and fall while listening for breathing. “He’s breathing. Shallow breaths, but breathing.”
The man from the rear came up on us. “Why’d we stop?”
“How far is this camp?” Erway said. “Because I’m not sure we can wait.”
“Right up that hill,” the man said. He handed his rifle over to me, squatted down and lifted my son into his arms. “We’ll get him there. Come on!”
We all followed. I was now the one with the gun with ammo. I was last. Ahead of me was Charlene and Allison, they stayed right by the man with my son. Erway was behind them. Dave, Sues and Crystal were ahead of everyone, must have been right behind the other guy on point.
Didn’t want to jinx anything, but we’d not seen a zombie in a while. That was another thing that I suddenly found myself feeling thankful about.
Chapter Twenty-Two
0718 hours
The log cabin sat on top of the hill we’d just climbed. The horizontally laid logs interlocked at the corners, while the logs making up the purlin roof were notched into the gable-wall logs. Tall pines and a variety of trees were set back, but surrounded the patch of property.
“Get him inside,” the one brother said to the man carrying my son.
Everyone shuffled in.
“Pull the blanket off my bed, Jeremy. And someone, shut and lock that door,” the man said. He followed his brother to a room. Jeremy stripped the bedding as the other man laid my son down onto the mattress.
Erway set her bag down beside the bed. “Do you have a bowl I can use to sterilize my equipment? A jug of water and some clean towels, or sheets.”
“I’ll grab it, Jason. You stay here,” Jeremy said. “You stay.”
Jason gave me a pat on the back as he squeezed by me and out of the room. Allison, Charlene and I moved closer to the bed.
“I don’t need all three of you in here,” Erway said. “Chase, you stay. I am going to need your help.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Charlene said. She had her arms around Allison’s waist. They both actually held each other.
“Take her out of here, Alley,” I said.
“I’m staying, Dad! I’m not—”
“Get her out of here!”
Allison didn’t have to try too hard to remove my daughter from the room. Charlene was spent, emotionally, and physically.
Jeremy returned with a couple of porcelain bowls. “I brought rubbing alcohol, too.”
Jason took the supplies. “What should I do?”
Erway used scissors to cut away Cash’s clothing. “Pour the alcohol into the bowls. Set them on the nightstand by me. Chase, get on the other side of the bed. I’m going to need you to hold his arm and legs down. He’s passed out right now, but without any anesthetics, if he wakes up, any movement is going to be dangerous. We understand each other?”
I nodded. She took one of the towels and pressed it over the small hole in my son’s stomach, and mopped up far too much blood.
“You two, I’m going to need you to hold down his arm and leg on this side, without getting in my way. You, take the arm. And you, you have his leg,” she said.
Like me, they nodded.
“You’ve done this before,” I said. “Removed a bullet?”
She smiled. “I’m a paramedic.”
That was hardly an answer. Maybe I didn’t want an answer as bad as I thought I needed one.
Erway placed silver tools into the bowls of alcohol. “I need to wash my hands,” she said.
“That way, right around the corner,” Jason said.
“You hold this cloth tight on the wound,” Erway said, placing my hand onto the towel. “Don’t lift it to look at it. Got it? Hold it. Firmly.”
“Seems like the doc has it together,” Jason said. “That’s a good thing.”
Small talk wasn’t going to cut it. My mind ached. I looked over my son’ body. The towel seemed to do little more than keep blood from staining Jason’s bed.
Erway returned, removed plastic gloves from her bag and snapped them on over her hands. “I could use more light.”
It was the first time I noticed wood shutters on the inside of the cabin locked in place over the two windows in the room. “Can we open one of them?” Jeremy said. “Sun’s up. Be the best light.”
Jason nodded. They each went to a window. “My brother built this place so sunlight would hit the cabin whenever there was sunlight to be had.”
I ignored him, as we all did. “Now what?” I said.
“Get ready to hold him. Chase, remove the towel,” she said, so I did.
She poured some water from the jug over the wound. The hole didn’t look so bad with all the blood gone. I almost smiled.
From the bowl of alcohol, she removed what looked like scissors. “What’s that?” Jason said.
“Hemostat,” she said. “Now shh!”
Outside the room, I heard Allison and Charlene sobbing.
“Good chance he’s going to stir, wake up,” she said.
“It’s going to hurt?” I said.
“Immensely.” She chose something that was long and slender. It looked like a pick a dentist used to scrape at plaque build-up, but was thicker all around. She stuck it into the gaping hole.
Cash didn’t just stir. He woke the fuck up. His eyes went wide, darting left and right and then stopped on me. His mouth was in a giant “O.” He looked like he wanted to scream, but the sound was trapped inside his lungs.
“I’m searching for the bullet. I’m flicking the probe,” she said. “I’ll hear a click when I’ve found it.”
Cash found his voice. He screamed. His body shook.
I held his arm down with both hands, but just barely. Jason had both of his legs and he was practically laying out over them, his chest weighing them down. Jeremy had the other arm, and sat with his back to the bed, holding on as best he could.
“Hang in there, buddy. We’re almost done,” I said. “You’re doing great. Great. She’s almost done.”
“Think I found it,” Erway said.
Blood spilled from the round hole. I didn’t want to think about the possibility of internal injuries from the bullet.
Erway moved the probe around, as if she was trying to hook the bullet and hoist it out. When she stopped, she used the other hand with the hemostat, and opened the tongs slightly. She dipped them into the wound with the probe and Cash thrashed.
“You have to hold him still,” she said.
“We’re trying,” Jason said.
“Try harder,” she said.
“Cash? Cash, buddy, we’re almost done. It’s almost over,” I said. There was little more I could say. He wasn’t talking or responding. He was just screaming.
Then he stopped screaming. His body stopped writhing. “Erway,” I said.
“He passed out.”
“He what?” I said.
“The pain. He passed out,” she said. That tone again. “I want to get the bullet now, while he’s out. Should be a little easier.”
Easier. I almost laughed.
Then she flicked a little more with the probe, as if guiding the bullet up toward the tongs of the hemostat. She clipped and cursed, then clipped again. “Shit,” she said. “Jeremy, pour some more water over the entry point, there.”
Jeremy looked reluctant to let go of Cash’s arm. He tentatively let go with one hand and stared for a moment – like he was afraid that my son’s arm would snap out and latch onto his throat.
“Jeremy, water!”
He picked up the jug and poured out water. “That enough?”
“More,” she said.
The blood thinned when mixed with water and rolled off his skin. “Okay, that’s good.”
I didn’t think I’d be able to watch anymore. With Cash out of it, it was a little easier.
Erway’s mouth opened. She looked at me. “Got it.”
With a steady hand, she slowly withdrew the hemostat, which had a flattened slug in its grip. “That all of it?” I said.
“Not sure yet.” She dropped it into a glass on the nightstand. “Looks like a .22. I was able to pull it straight out. That’s good.”
The bedroom door opened and Dave popped his head in. “Chase, we got zombies in the yard. A lot of zombies.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Erway assured me she could finish up on Cash without us.
“I’ve got guns,” Jason said. “Come with me.”
I stopped at the doorway, “You’re good?”
“We’re going to be fine,” Erway said. She even smiled. That made me the most apprehensive. All along, it had been the tone that bothered me. The tone, that was honest. I knew where she stood. She wasn’t feeding me bullshit. The smile, that fucked with me. A mental fuck at that.
The whole downstairs of the cabin had shutters over the windows. The shutters were on the inside. I liked it. Zombies, if they could, had to first break the glass, and then figure out a way through the wood shutters. Door was solid and locked. Place was like a fortress. “Guns?” I said.
“Here,” Jason said.
Hall closet. Jeremy pulled open the door.
“How is he, Dad?” Charlene asked.
“Erway got the bullet. I think he’s going to be okay,” I said.
Charlene’s lower lip quivered. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I got mad at the captain and I shot him. I shot him and then his crew started shooting at us. But they were going to leave. He was going to leave you and everyone else stranded out there.”
“It’s okay, honey. I’m not mad,” I said. It wasn’t going to be enough. I needed to give her more. She needed more. “I’m proud of you. You stood up for me. You did the right thing.”
Vitale had tried to station Spencer by the boat to prevent just such a thing from happening. Where had he been? What had gone wrong there?
She hugged me.
I looked at the closet, but clearly, it was no closet. Dave disappeared inside, with Sues behind him, Palmeri and Crystal. It must lead to another room. The cabin didn’t look that big when we came up on it. I’ll admit I’d been preoccupied with Cash. With everything. Feeling overwhelmed was becoming the norm, and I didn’t like it.
“Come on,” I said. I took Charlene’s hand and led her to the doorway. I went in first and emerged into a room that looked like something out of a movie. AK-47s lined one wall. Gun safe doors stood open showcasing a variety of rifles and shotguns. Another wall held both compound and recurve bows over a work table where it looked like feather fletching were homemade and affixed to arrow shafts. The floor was stockpiled with pallets and boxes of ammunition, and there was no shortage of swords, hatchets and machetes.
After using guns the last day and a half, many might disagree, but I prefer the machetes and swords. You didn’t run out of steel the way you did ammo. You could only carry so many rounds with you. I’d take a gun or two, stuff my pockets with ammo, but I wanted to get my hands on the machetes and swords, and strap them around my waist, and to my back. That’s what I was thinking.
“Seen this coming?” Palmeri said. She slowly spun in circles, as if trying to take it all in. I had to agree that it was a lot to process.
“Yes,” Jeremy said. “Not zombies, but something. Fall of the government. Got democrats and bleeding heart liberals running things. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Not zombies.”
“You said that, not zombies,” Jason said. “We believe there is nothing wrong with stockpiling a little peace of mind. This room, everything inside here, it’s our peace of mind.”
Jeremy bounced up and down. “Got another room, twice the size of this room with all kinds of food, and water, and sup—”
“Enough, Jeremy,” Jason said.
Jason was the big brother. That much was evident. And the smart one. He didn’t like his little brother giving away too much. After all, we were strangers.
“Take what you think you’ll need. Got bars on the outside of the windows upstairs. No shutters. Be a perfect place to hit targets out on the lawn,” Jason said.
I couldn’t agree more. We grabbed what we thought we would need. I fit a belt around my waist, and affixed both a broadsword on one side, and a twelve inch blade recurve hunting knife on the other. I slung a machete in a leather sheath over my neck and shoulder. The blade had to have been twenty-five inches long.
Charlene stood beside me and I looked at her. “What are you doing?” I said.
“You don’t want me to have a gun,” she said.
“You’re right. I don’t. Wish things could be like they were before. When there were no…no zombies. That’s not where we are anymore, honey. We’re far, far away from that place, from that time. I don’t want you to have a gun, but what happened to your brother—that wasn’t your fault. You’ve shown me over and over that you are responsible, and that you can handle the truth and handle what is going on. I don’t want you to have a gun, but Char, I need you to have one,” I said.
“Chase! Chase!”
It was Erway. Charlene and I locked eyes.
We left the weapons room and ran back for the bedroom. Erway was at the door. “He’s awake.”
I studied her expression. She gave nothing away.
Charlene grabbed my hand. It wasn’t subtle. She was telling me there was no way she wasn’t coming into the room this time.
We walked in. I pointed to the right side of the bed. Charlene went there. “Hey, little brother,” she said.
She couldn’t hold it together. The tears rolled down her cheeks, but she smiled. She wore a mask made of smiles.
I took the left side of the bed and knelt there. Took his hand. “Hey, buddy,” I said.
“Dad,” he said.
“Yeah, Cash, what?”
“Did you kill my mother?”
It wasn’t the question that I expected. I stared at him, felt Charlene staring at me.
“You came looking for us, right?”
“Of course, I did,” I said.
“Where did you go, when you were looking for us?” His words came out slow. A whisper. His lips were dry, cracked. “Where did you look for us? You went to Mom’s house, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Cash, I did.”
“When you got there, did you kill my mom?”
I looked up and over at Charlene. She seemed to wait for the answer, too. They did not need to hear the truth.
“No,” I said. “I did not. I didn’t kill her.”
Charlene’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t believe me.
I saw it in my head. Their mom on the bed, the shattered picture frame on the hardwood floor. I used a shovel. Tried to flatten her skull with it, but swing after swing had done little to stop her until I used the blade of the shovel and separated most of her head from her shoulders.
I cringed. The memory felt horrible, and knew I’d relive it time and again once this nightmare ended. If it ever ended.
I had to give more. “When I got there, we searched the house for you guys. For the two of you. We found your mom’s husband,” I said.
“I had to chop his hand off,” Charlene said. Was she smiling?
“We killed him. We had too. But when I was upstairs, I found your mother,” I said. “She was in one of the bedrooms, looking at a picture of you kids…”
She had been in a bedroom looking at a picture.
The zombies at the fence had figured out how to climb higher by standing on corpses like step stools.
“Dad,” Charlene said.
I hadn’t killed their mother. What I did might have been worse. Don’t think I ever expected
them to ask me about it. Not sure, I’d have handled it differently, regardless. “I left her there,” I said. “I closed the bedroom door. I left her in the room with pictures of you two.”
“Do you think that made her happy,” Cash said.
I closed my eyes. “Yes, buddy. I think that made her happy. She has memories of you guys to keep her happy.”
Memories. In her infected state, did she have memories? Was it possible?
“Is he sleeping?” Charlene said. “Dad?”
I watched his chest. It didn’t rise. It didn’t fall. “Erway,” I said. “He’s not breathing!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’d been sound asleep when Julie woke me up with a nudge. Working two jobs, when I had time to sleep, I slept.
“What is it?” I’d whispered. Don’t think I’d even opened my eyes.
“The baby,” my ex-wife had said. Charlene was five years old. Hardly a baby.
“What does she want?”
“Not Charlene. This baby,” she said.
I opened my eyes. Julie had the bedroom light on. She was dressed, her packed bag for the hospital by the door. “Is it time?”
She shrugged. “Contractions started about an hour ago. They’re less than three minutes apart already.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?” I said, lifting myself up onto an elbow.
“If it was nothing, I would have let you sleep. I assumed they wouldn’t get so close together so soon.” She stood by her bag, with one hand on the doorknob.
“Doctor told us the second delivery will be faster than the first. Your body already knows the routine. Dilating and effacing,” I said, and threw off the bedspread. “I have time to shower?”
“I don’t think so. I waited as long as I could.”
I picked up the phone, “I’ll call our parents and get Charlene ready. You sit down, just rest. Try to relax.”
A contraction must have hit, because her face contorted. She gave the doorknob a white-knuckle grip. She breathed quick, shallow breaths in a steady rhythm.
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