by Amy Cross
"Is he going to be okay?" I ask.
"He's going to be fine," she replies, before turning to me. "Show me the creature."
"Why?" I ask.
"I want to see it."
"Shouldn't we get going?"
"Show me the creature," she says again. "Or do I have to go wandering around out there until I find it?"
"There are traps," I reply. "I'll show you the way."
It takes a few minutes for us to reach the clearing where the creature fell into the trap. Sure enough, when we look down into the pit, the creature's body is still down there, although its carcass has been almost completely covered by rainwater.
"You destroyed its head?" Patricia asks after a moment.
I nod.
"That always seems to stop them," she replies, clearly lost in thought. "I guess the key is to separate the brain from the rest of the body. They're actually not that difficult to bring down, and most of them aren't even that fast." Kneeling next to the edge of the pit, she leans a little closer.
"Be careful," I say. "Can't we just leave it alone?"
"Toad never lets me go near them after we've killed them," she replies. "While he's incapacitated, I figure I might as well get a better look." Suddenly, with no warning, she starts climbing down into the pit, and soon she's examining the creature's corpse directly. She picks up a piece of its skull that has been floating in the rainwater, and carefully she scrapes a piece of brain matter away from the bone.
"What are you doing?" I hiss. "You have to get out of there!"
"It's dead," she replies firmly. "There's no risk of infection, either. I've seen people touch these things and avoid getting sick. As far as I can tell, those of us who've survived are simply immune to whatever virus is causing this to happen." She examines the stump where the creature's head used to be. "The decomposition process didn't stop," she says after a moment. "Eventually, this thing would have just rotted away. Unless the creatures can reproduce, which I highly doubt is possible, there's no way they can last more than a few weeks."
"So they'll just die off?" I ask.
She pauses. "I'd like to think so, but I also know that wherever there's a problem, life always finds a way. These things are intelligent, and I wouldn't be surprised if they've got some kind of plan. New lifeforms don't just spring up and then die away. There has to be a mechanism for them to keep going. Then again, maybe that's not what's happening here. These things didn't evolve. They were just suddenly here, which means someone created them."
"You shouldn't be down there," I continue. "You might get it."
"Get what?" She smiles. "You think the nasty monster is gonna convert me, huh?"
"What if it's like a virus?" I ask.
"I'm a doctor," she replies. "Do you seriously think I'm dumb enough to take a risk like that?" She pauses. "I've touched one of these things before, Elizabeth. Before I reached the farm, one of the creatures attacked me. Hell, it even scratched my arm and drew blood. I was terrified. I thought I'd turn into one of them, but eventually I realized that's not how it works."
"It's still dangerous," I tell her.
"What do you think's gonna happen?" she asks. "You think it's gonna infect me by magic? Don't be superstitious, Elizabeth. I'm starting to get a good idea of how these things work. If we're going to stop them permanently, we need to address the situation rationally. I'm not squeamish." She starts examining the creature again, using a small scalpel to cut away a section of skin and meat from its shoulder, before placing the specimen in a small plastic pouch that she slips into her pocket.
"You're taking part of it back to the farm?" I ask.
"Gotta have a souvenir," she replies with a smile.
"I think they've all got the same mind," I tell her.
She looks up at me. "That's impossible," she says after a moment.
"This creature remembered seeing me in New York," I reply. "It remembered everything that had happened to the other creature. It even talked about having to control so many different bodies. It's as if there's one mind, and it's in every one of these things. The other one, the one I heard talking in New York, mentioned something about being able to see people in Tokyo."
"I don't get it," Patricia replies. "How does that even work?"
"It's like there's one mind that's looking out at the world through hundreds or millions of pairs of eyes," I explain. "I know that sounds crazy, but all these creatures seem to have the same mind. I can't even begin to explain it, but I've heard two of them talking now, and they've both admitted it."
"We'll need a live specimen if we're going to work out what the hell's going on," she says, climbing out of the pit. "Toad thinks it's too dangerous, but it's more dangerous to be ignorant. It's a pity you killed this one, Elizabeth. It looks as if it was trapped already."
"He shot Toad!" I point out, annoyed that she thinks I did something wrong. "The damn thing had a gun!"
"Still," she replies, "it would have been useful to have studied it first." She pauses. "You did the right thing, though. You did really well here, Elizabeth. Toad almost certainly would have died if you hadn't been here to help him. You saved his life." She puts a hand on my shoulder. "So, are you up for the journey back. If you take Toad's feet, I'll take his shoulders. It's not going to be easy, but we can reach the farm before sundown."
"Sure," I say, and we start walking back toward the cave. I can't help wondering if Patricia's right. Did I really save Toad's life?
"You okay?" she asks.
"I'm fine," I reply, even though it's not really true. I feel as if my mind is blocking out as many of my thoughts and emotions as possible, leaving me with nothing but a kind of blank, empty fog in my mind; at the same time, all those emotions are still inside me somewhere, and I'm scared that eventually they'll burst loose and I'll be overwhelmed.
Thomas
Missouri
"Please," I whisper, sitting by the door, hoping against hope that maybe the old man is on the other side, listening to me. "Let me out. I just want to get out of here. I'll do anything you want, but you have to let me out."
Silence.
"Please," I say again, with tears in my eyes. "You can't leave me down here. You can't just leave me to die. Why would you do that? I can help you. I can do things. Anything you need, just tell me and I'll get it done. All you have to do is feed me and give me water."
I wait.
"Just let me know that you're alive," I continue, trying to keep my voice from trembling. It's crazy, but as much as I hate the old man, I desperately need him to come back for me. "You don't have to tell me about the girl down here. I really don't care, and it's not like I'm gonna tell anyone. Just let me out of here, and I won't give you any trouble. I promise."
No reply.
"What did I do?" I ask, hoping against hope that God might be able to hear me. "I tried to do everything right. I tried to make Joe do the right thing. It's not my fault that everyone died, so why are you punishing me?" Pausing fora moment, I realize that although I keep waiting for an answer, there might be another explanation. Maybe God doesn't exist after all. Why would he punish so many innocent people? Why would he leave this man alive, and let him lock me down in his basement? I want to keep believing, but at the moment it's too hard. The whole world just seems cruel and empty.
As tears pour down my face, I try to keep from sobbing. The truth is, I'm starting to think that there's no way I'll ever get out of this basement. Either by accident or on purpose, the old man has left me to die down here, just like he left that girl to die, and no-one's ever going to come and find me. I'm going to starve, or I'll die from lack of water. It's going to be slow, and it's going to be painful, and eventually all that'll be left of me will be a withered corpse, just like the girl.
Elizabeth
Pennsylvania
"Hey," Toad says later that day, as I enter his room back at the farm. He's laid out on his bed, and although he seems weak, at least he's conscious. "I guess I owe you."
"How are you feeling?" I ask, wandering over and looking down at the blood-stained bandages on his shoulder.
"I've been better," he replies. "Never actually been shot before, so that's a first. I always wondered what it'd feel like, and now I know. It feels like crap."
Smiling, I sit on the old wooden chair next to his bed.
"It's definitely a story to tell people," he continues. "The day I was shot by a zombie. I don't suppose you saved the bullet, did you?"
"Sorry," I reply. "I left it in the cave."
"Damn," he says, "that would have been a hell of a trophy." He pauses. "So Dr. Connors tells me that you basically performed some minor surgery on my shoulder. Without that, I probably would have died out there."
"You'd have been fine," I tell him.
"I don't think so. I'd probably have bled to death, and even if I hadn't, I'd have ended up with an infection." Sitting up, he grimaces with pain for a moment. "We've got painkillers," he continues, "but I don't want to use them up. I can handle this."
I smile politely, but I'm not really sure what to say. The whole experience out there in the forest has left me feeling kind of stunned, and even though I haven't slept for the best part of a couple of days, I'm totally wired and wide awake.
"So what's wrong?" Toad asks eventually. "You just spent two days in the wilderness, you faced down a goddamn zombie, and you saved a guy's life, but you look like something's bothering you."
"It's just..." I pause, wondering whether or not I should really say this to him. "I keep thinking about how I saved you," I continue after a moment, "and I can't stop thinking about my brother. If I'd done the same thing back then, maybe he'd still be alive. Maybe I'd have been able to save his life."
"You can't think like that," Toad replies.
"But it's true! What if he didn't need to die! What if someone smarter, someone better at this kind of thing, could have kept him alive?" I wait for him to say something, but I can see in his eyes that he knows I'm right. "Ever since Henry's death," I continue, "I've been telling myself that there's nothing I could have done to help him, but now I've realized that I could have done something. Do you think that's what he was thinking when he died? Was he wondering why I didn't help?"
Toad sighs. "I don't know what kind of injury your brother had. I don't know where he was shot, or what kind of gun was used. You said it was a rifle, so I figure there was more damage than I ended up with. Either way, you can't go back over every little detail and look for things you might have done differently. The past is the past, and I'm sure you would have saved your brother if there was any chance." He pauses. "I was right about you, though. I could tell you were smart, and you definitely proved it."
"I don't feel smart," I reply, unable to stop thinking about Henry. After a moment, I realize that there are tears in my eyes, and although I want to keep talking to Toad, I can feel my bottom lip starting to tremble. Putting my hands over my face, I try to hold back from crying, but it's no use. I just keep thinking, over and over, of his face as he died. He must have been waiting for me to do something. After all, I was his big sister, so he relied on me to keep him safe. He was probably hoping that I'd find some way to save him. Hell, I should have found a way. Why was I able to keep my head clear and look after Toad, but not my own brother?
"You did a good job," Toad says, reaching out and putting a hand on my knee. "What I told you out in the forest still stands. If you want to stick around after Erikson and Shauna leave, you're more than welcome."
I try to reply, but instead I just get to my feet and hurry out of the room. As soon as I'm in the corridor, I stop and take a moment to regather my composure, but instead I just end up sobbing more than ever. I know it's not my fault that Henry was killed, but I still feel as if there might have been some way that I could have saved him. I'll never forgive myself for not doing more. If I'd maybe tried to pull the bullet out, the same way I did with Toad, and then I could have disinfected the wound and tried to seal it up. In some parallel universe, maybe I'm still in our apartment in Manhattan, looking after him while he recovers. It's not fair that I survived and he died. I was supposed to protect him, and I didn't. I failed.
It takes me a while to calm down, but eventually I head through to Patricia's room, and I find her sitting at her desk, using a microscope to examine the slice of tissue she took from the creature's dead body.
"How's the patient?" she asks after a moment.
"He's fine," I reply. "He's talking." I stand in the doorway for a moment, watching as she works. "So if someone was shot in the chest," I continue eventually, "like, right in the middle of the chest, just below the collarbone, would there be any way they could survive?"
She turns to me. "Where exactly was this person shot?"
I touch my chest to show her where Henry was hit.
"What kind of weapon?" she asks.
"A rifle."
She sighs. "That kind of injury would almost certainly be fatal. Even in the unlikely event that the heart wasn't damaged, you've got the windpipe, the lungs... With proper facilities, there might be a chance, but it'd be touch and go. Why do you ask?"
"No reason," I reply. "But technically, it might have been possible?"
"Possible," she says, "but highly improbable." She pauses. "I don't have a problem with guns, but I've had to clean up two bullet wounds in the past couple of days. I don't like it."
"You're the one who shot me," I point out.
"Exactly," she replies, "and I don't like it."
Walking across the room, I look down at the sliver of discolored skin on the microscope plate.
"If you're wondering what I've found so far," she continues, "I'm afraid I don't really have anything to tell you. There's no real difference between this specimen and the kind of skin you'd find on a dead body after a few days' worth of decomposition. Basically, these creatures are just dead people who have somehow been reanimated." She smiles. "Fuck, can you believe what I'm saying? Dead people walking about. It's fucking insane, and yet..." Reaching into her pocket, she takes out her last cigarette and sniffs the end.
"You going to smoke that?" I ask.
"Not yet," she replies. "Still saving it." After taking another sniff, she puts it back in her pocket. "So Erikson and his girlfriend are talking about getting out of here in a couple of days," she continues. "Are you going to go with them?"
I pause for a moment. "I guess so," I say eventually.
"Really?"
"I came with them," I reply, "so it makes sense if I leave with them. I don't know where they're going, but, I mean, maybe..." My voice trails off as I realize that I don't really have much of a plan. Sure, I keep saying that I'm going to Lake Ontario, but I feel as if that's just some kind of pipe-dream that's never going to happen.
"What's the point of traveling," Patricia says after a moment, "if you're not trying to get anywhere? Especially when things are so bad."
"What's the point of staying anywhere?" I reply.
"Because it's marginally easier to stay alive," she points out. "Only marginally, but still..." She waits for me to say something. "We could use you around here. You're smart. You learn fast, and you've got initiative. I'm not saying you should settle here forever, but would it be so bad? What can Erikson and Shauna offer that you can't get here?"
"I don't want to stay still," I tell her. "I want to keep moving."
"Take a look," she replies, standing up and indicating the microscope. "Tell me what you see."
I lean closer and look into the eyepiece. Magnified several hundred times, the creature's skin is beautiful, and for a moment I just stare mindlessly at the folds of yellow and purple. It's as if there's a whole different world down at that level, and it's hard to believe that something could be so hideous when seen with the naked eye, but so gorgeous when examined more closely.
"Those things are out there," Patricia says after a moment. "Lots of them. More than we can imagine. If they're still decomposing, they sh
ould pretty much fall apart within the next couple of weeks, but until then, we need to stay safe. Toad has ammunition here. Not a limitless supply, but hopefully enough to keep this place defended if we get attacked. I don't really know much about Erikson and Shauna, but they don't seem particularly smart. If I had to choose between going with them or staying here, I know what I'd do."
"It's not that easy," I reply, stepping back from the microscope.
"You're scared to stand still?" she asks.
I nod.
"Toad wants you to stay."
"That's nice," I reply, even though I can't deny that I'm pleased to hear that he likes me. Still, it's not enough of a reason for me to stick around.
"I can even make sure that Thor backs off," she continues. "The guy's an oaf."
"I feel as if I have to get somewhere," I reply. "I don't even know where, but staying here at the farm would just be wrong."
"Don't make the mistake of assuming that you have a better chance of staying alive if you're on the move," she says. "Sooner or later, you'll run into more and more of the creatures, and as far as I can tell, you don't really have any supplies. I mean, what have Erikson and Shauna got in their van? Enough to keep the three of you going for the next few weeks? Have they got weapons? If you ask me, they're woefully under-prepared for any kind of journey, especially since she's almost full-term."
I pause for a moment. I know she's right, and I know that staying here at the farm would be the smartest move. At the same time, I have this insatiable urge to keep moving, as if I'm scared that I'll die if I stay still. Maybe I'm being irrational, but I feel physically sick every time I think about sticking around. I guess I'm secretly hoping that if I keep moving, eventually I'll find a place where things have started to get back to normal.
"I'm going with them," I say eventually. "I've made my decision."
"I guess so," she replies, sitting back down and turning her attention to the microscope.