by catt dahman
She didn’t bother to try to get up again, but let the fog come in and take her away so the pain was gone.
She had a terrible nightmare about a group of wolves pulling people apart with their teeth; in her dream, she wanted to take the people and eat them. That was the worst part; was she imagining herself as a zombie? She awoke once, found herself sweat soaked, and slipped back to sleep. She slept through the doctor cleaning her, changing her sheets, and medicating her more.
When she awoke next, she noticed her arm felt better and no longer felt hot or ached. It did hurt in one spot when Doctor Anderson took off a bandage from her bicep to change the dressing. He wiped at the spot, and she saw it was purplish and that yellow pus leaked from a pinprick place. He smooshed it a little to release the pus; she winced a bit, but then he cleaned it and put a bandage over it.
“Why is it infected?”
“Nothing to worry over, and it was expected, but it should be better soon: healed very fast with no problems. This is perfectly normal for the injection site. I’ll give you something for the pain of having to drain it. I am sorry about that part.”
“How is the fever?” the soldier asked.
“Not so bad, my head still hurts though.”
“It will for a few days, still perfectly normal. You slept through the worst of the sweats and chills, so you are going to be better on that part now. Are you hungry?”
She nodded.
Again, there was the bitter, red broth. “Too salty,” she complained.
She looked at the steak with feelings of disgust when she saw how rare it was, but it had plenty of pepper and steak sauce, so after the first bite, she enjoyed it. He fed her a small baked potato and a few green beans that filled her up. She felt much better after eating.
The next time she ate was from an MRE that had spaghetti and meatballs in it. The chocolate bar was good, and she had two Pepsis. She didn’t protest when he gave her medication that made her sleep, and this time, nothing scared her; she didn’t recall any dreams she had.
“Am I inoculated, now?” she asked finally.
“You are. Good. I knew you would get curious, Hannah,” Doctor Anderson told her.
If you were bitten by one who was infected, you would not turn or become infected. I am a hundred percent sure. You can’t become infected at all.
Now, if you are bitten, you will want to clean the wound well and put antibiotic cream on it. Maybe you will need antibiotics since human bites, and these especially, carry nasty germs. Right?”
“I understand.”
“Also, if attacked, you are not invincible. You can certainly be killed or injured, and you can be taken down to the ground and eaten by a zombie. You can feel pain as well.”
“Okay, so one bite and I will be probably okay: a bunch get me, and I am main course.”
The doctor laughed. “You aren’t fully grown and not as strong as you will be when you mature, but you are a strong, healthy girl. Your body is slightly enhanced, but only slightly, so you may be just a touch smarter, stronger, and maybe a little faster moving.
But I would be surprised if it is enough for you to notice. You will have a higher pain tolerance. I don’t mean you can’t feel pain, but it will feel less to you than to others, and you will probably be aware of that at times.”
“I have noticed that cuts and scrapes are nothing to me, now,” Ben Cryer told her, “I was inoculated a few weeks back.”
“Why isn’t everyone?”
“It’s a new inoculation, and we are giving it to everyone who meets our criteria of being young and healthy, who has a passion for life and fire in his minds…the smart ones…all of those who are warriors in their hearts.”
“Me?”
“Oh, by far, you meet the criteria, Hannah. You, as Dr. D would say, are now an avenging angel set to kill zombies and to be one of the first of a new, master race who is protected from the zombies and who will inherit this world and rebuild it.”
“I see.” She thought he was crazy. While all the medical stuff might be true, his view of this was seriously warped. “For some reason, I suspect there is more, maybe a part that I won’t care for. Right?”
Doctor Anderson smiled. “Well, two little things.”
Cryer chuckled. “And both are fine in the long run and simple to deal with; they’re nothing, really.”
“I can’t wait to hear this, then.”
“First, you shouldn’t bite people.” He smiled at her again, chilling her to the core. “Your saliva is infectious now. You are safe, but you can spread the infection.”
“What would happen?”
“To me or Cryer? Nothing, so don’t bite. We are inoculated.
If you bit John Doe, he would become a zombie as fast as or faster than if a zombie bit him. Your blood and tears and waste could also infect someone if you had contact with his blood.
Likewise, you should not, when you are older and inclined to do so, have unprotected sex. Even a condom may not be enough. That part is unstudied but assumed. It’s better to be safe and be with another who also is inoculated.”
Hannah blushed as he spoke of sex, but she mustered a smart assed response. “So a rapist will be sorry he fooled with me.”
“Yep,” Cryer said, “so, that part isn’t too bad, right?”
“Not really. I can be careful and not bite people,” she said.
“The other is a bit, well, odd. You will note your beef was rare?”
Hannah nodded. “Let me guess; I need raw meat?”
“Brilliant. Yes, you will crave it, and if you skip it, you can get those bad stomach cramps. If totally ignored, you could get very ill and possibly die, but we have no studies about how bad it can get. You can eat animals. Spinach is good; iron rich foods will hold off the need. I suggest not eating humans, of course.”
“No shit.”
Cryer chuckled again.
“So get rare meat and eat it; we will leave some with you.”
“You’re leaving me?”
“You can join us, if you want. But yes, we are going to look for other survivors to inoculate.”
“I’ll stay alone,” Hannah said, “by the way, what am I now?”
“Dr. D would say you are an Angel. You are a survivor. You are the first of a new breed with a strong chance to live in this world, and you can give birth one day to children with immunity. You are a future for this country.”
“But I need raw meat, and I am contagious, so those things are like zombies.”
“Yes, but you are a hybrid. You will retain your ability to use your mind. Your brain isn’t spongy; it is preserved as normal. Unlike them, you aren’t alive forever either unless the brain is destroyed. You are the best of all possible choices.”
She wanted time to think and to rest. She was tired. The doctor gave her medication, and she rested. There were no dreams, but she knew what the others had meant, except for the wolves.
When she awoke next, she was unhooked from the IV, and pill bottles were arranged on her table with directions. A new soldier was with her.
She sat up and gently exercised her limbs. “Where are the rest?”
“Just us two and the doctor, and they are getting ready to leave.”
She felt fine, and her muscles were not as weak as she feared.
Her trusty axe was propped in the corner, and the soldier ignored her as he leaned out the doorway to see if it were almost time to go.
Without thought, Hannah grabbed the axe and swung the backside right into his head, knocking him down. Before he could get oriented, she slammed it twice into his throat.
As he began to choke in his own blood, she looked down at him. “You all have no right to force people to have this done. I didn’t agree, and I didn’t ask for this. You made me something else against my will and put me through this; it’s enough, once you think it over, to make anyone insane. I don’t wanna be a monster.”
When Doctor Anderson returned, she was ready; taking out his le
g with her axe, she saw him fall, screaming.
When Cryer ran in, she shot at him, only getting him on the fifth shot and only because he was so shocked by her actions. She had to shoot him again after she kicked away his gun because he reached for his side arm. The second shot was to his leg, and he stopped fighting her. In a minute, she searched him for weapons and tied him up.
She tied the doctor as well, but before she finished, he stunned her. “Hannah, this is a show of some poor manners and stupidity after all we have done for you.”
“Poor manners?” She snapped with anger and slammed the axe into his head several times until he was dead, so she didn’t have to finish with the rope.
She used the rest of the rope to secure Cryer better and then taped his mouth and eyes so he would shut up and not watch her.
Next, she got a Pepsi and rested.
Later, she pulled the bodies out but left the still-alive Cryer tied.
In the Humvee, she found raw meat packed in dry ice. She noticed she needed the raw meat only about once a week as long as she got some iron-rich food as well.
Later, she would figure out how exactly often she needed to eat the meat and how much.
As for Cryer, she wouldn’t speak to him but would give him meager food and plenty of water. If she ran out of the packaged meat or if it ruined, then she would use him as raw meat, even if that were sickening to think about.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she told Cryer,“ you and your Dr. Frankenstein wannabees won’t do this to any more unsuspecting people. You are all evil.”
She took her medications, and soon the headache went away. The injection site healed just fine. She cleaned up, stripped the Humvee, managed to get inside, and drive it away from her home. How many others did they do this to? Did some of them go insane and kill themselves like she briefly considered?
“You can think, and you chose this; you’re worse than the zombies who don’t know any better,” she raved at Cryer, “is Dr. D the one Anderson kept talking about…is that Dr. Diamond whom they blame for this?”
Cryer didn’t answer, so she kicked him in his bullet wound that was now infected. He nodded.
She figured it had to be; for anyone to make an inoculation, he had to know the disease well. It was so coincidental and obscure that it had to be true. It was poetic as hell.
“He likes making monsters, huh? Like me?” Cryer didn’t have to answer this time.
“Sometimes monsters come back and bite their masters…their creators…did you know that? I just hope I get the chance.”
Hannah vowed she would find revenge.
14
Bitterness
None knew that the people left in the army inoculated people, and those who changed sometimes recalled little of the event if they weren’t cared for the same, didn’t believe it, or weren’t given explanations, just that they were immune.
Frank, the prisoner, who ran the new Reconstruction Army, a group of Neo Nazis, was inoculated weeks before: had no real memory of it except for being alone and sick and in terrible pain with a painful, cramping stomach.
He felt tortured. When he was fully changed, he scavenged for raw meat, finding it in fellow survivors, and roasting them a little to make it less horrendous to others he found along the way. He celebrated raw meat and cannibalism with the Reconstruction Army, or the RA.
A woman and child who were inoculated preferred to stay alone after her husband was killed and eaten by the monsters. They fought every zombie they found and even found ways to sneak in the raw flesh even in the company of other people.
In time, they allowed the cravings to make them careless, and their actions caused a safe haven of survivors almost to be overrun with the infected.
They ended up in pain and, with shame on their heads, killed outside a gate where they begged for sanctuary. A woman named Beth, who was very much the nurturing type, killed them both with no remorse. To Beth, the two were monsters.
The same woman, Beth, took Hannah to be her child and raised her with love and pride, even knowing what Hannah was.
Hannah continued to move around and to kill the zombies when she could. The number tattooed on her neck never bothered her; she didn’t even know it was there.
Yuki, or Kee Kee, didn’t know a number was marked on her neck, either.
Before she joined the group, she was very ill with a fever and headache and suffered terrible dreams of wolves, eating people, and a boy with a withered face.
Kee Kee thought she would die and was shocked she hadn’t. There were days of being sick and dirtying herself, thinking she had Red after all since the symptoms were the same, but she finally decided that it was another bad disease, and she made it.
In her dreams, she heard a chuckling voice telling her not to bite anyone.
When Kee Kee finally left her home in a neighborhood close to her, she saw a Humvee that made her afraid and fearful, so she avoided it, slipped past, and did not want anyone to find her.
Later, she found Henry’s group and joined them.
Hannah stayed behind with Chase and the others because she thought it was the safest action to take and she liked the people who stayed with her.
She knew Tommy was interested in a beautiful Japanese American girl as his eyes lit up when he looked over her slim body and pretty face. She thought he was attractive and funny. She liked that he was quiet, too.
After drinking, they held hands and kissed a little. Then their hands were all over one another. After leaving the others so they could be alone together, they made love. She thought more might come of the union.
As Kee Kee awakened, she stretched, wondering if, after brushing his teeth, Tommy might want another round before they joined the rest. It felt so good to have a cute man with her, so safe.
Outside, several looked over a car that Adam brought back the day before. They had so many supplies that they needed a second vehicle and took the one in the garage.
"My mom used to have a Firebird; it could haul, ass," Adam said.
Chase was checking the rear of the car, "Adam? Hey, remind me when this
is over....”
"To do something about my bad language. Got it." Adam laughed, and Chase felt better than she had all morning. There was something about his laugh that helped the situation.
"You are crazy, you know."
She shrugged, "That's what people love about me," Chase quipped; then, she shook her head, "no, it isn't; I was never impulsive or brave or anything but careful except when I write.
This is a new and different Chase Malone, one whom I never knew existed."
"Nice to meet you. I guess I'm a new Adam Perkins." He lit a cigarette, "I need a new pack…only four left." He handed her one.
"You don’t need them. I don't need them."
“Can I smoke?"
Chase laughed at Danny. "No, and Adam is going to stop after we leave
here.
"And, she's going to clean up my language, too. What a job that’ll be,” he said as he leaned back a little, “when this is over, where will Danny and I go? I’ve no other family."
"Where do you want to go?"
“I want to stay with you."
"Me, too," Danny told them.
"Then, it's settled," Chase promised them. It seemed exactly right.
Adam poked her in the arm. “You need us. So like I told you: I also need
smokes, and a cold Dr. Pepper would hit the spot.”
"I'm thirsty."
Chase agreed with the boys; she felt dehydrated. Before she could suggest a break, they heard Yuki screaming from inside. Chase turned and ran, but Adam drew ahead of her, and they skidded through the doorway to find Yuki nude and hysterical, and a big spot on her arm bitten away. Behind her, Tommy was also naked, moaning, his eyes milky, his mind gone as he snapped and went after the girl.
Adam used a broom to stab at Tommy’s stomach and pushed him back. Yuki dove towards them, and someone got her back on her feet.
Greg had his gun pulled and shot several times until Tommy went down. Greg added another shot to the man’s forehead.
“Sit down,” Chase ordered Kee Kee. Quickly, Chase soaked the wound in alcohol that made the girl screech. Then she wrapped a bandage around Kee Kee’s arm to stop the blood from going all over. “She’s bitten for sure.”
“He’s a zed.”
“So she’ll turn.”
“I won’t; I promise,” Yuki swore. Jennie brought a sheet to cover the girl’s body.
“Now, I see why people don’t just shoot bitten people,” Adam said.
“Don’t kill me,” she begged.
“We’ll cover you, and then you have to let us tie you in the chair. We won’t tie you tight enough to hurt but tight enough that if something happens, we will be safe, okay? Fair?” Chase asked.
“He isn’t bitten though, not a mark on Tommy, and he wasn’t in a fight with anyone to be bitten,” Jamal said. “So how was he infected?”
Neal and Jamal looked him over again. “Just his…well…his dick…look how purple and swollen up it is.” Neal touched it with his foot. The smell of ruined flesh suddenly filled the room as Tommy’s penis fell off to the side, leaving a hole in his crotch, weeping yellow and green pus.
Yuki shrieked.
“Get him and that thing out, please,” Chase begged.
With latex gloves on, they did. Several went outside to vomit.
“Okay, someone tell me when his dick was bitten,” Neal said.
“I saw the thing…no bites…it was just infected. And he’s infected.”
“How?” Neal demanded as they gathered again while a few cleaned the floor. “Kee Kee, what happened last night? Did he go anywhere?”
“We had sex, and he never left me. We fell asleep. I woke up and shook his shoulder, and he groaned, turned over, and tried to bite me. I ran; he got my arm; I broke away. You all came in when I screamed.”
“So you had sex; if he had the infection then, you would have turned sooner and be showing it…you know…down there.”