by Sam Sisavath
“Earl, you know what happens when they bite you.”
“I told you, I don’t know if it bit me.” He wiped the back of his good hand across his temple. It came away covered in sweat. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine…”
No, you won’t, Keo thought, but he said instead, “Okay, Earl. Okay…”
CHAPTER 18
“Are you sure?” Gavin asked.
“I’ve seen it happen in person,” Keo said. “It’s going to happen to him, too.”
“But he’s not dead yet.”
“Not yet.”
“He’s gonna be fine,” Levy said, though he didn’t look at them when he said it. Instead, he was staring out the window, where he had been standing for the last two hours.
“Earl’s a tough guy,” Bowe said. “The toughest guy I know. It was only a bite, anyway.”
I bet that’s what the billion other people on the planet said three nights ago, Keo thought, but he said instead, “It’s not a normal bite. The bleeding won’t stop and the victim gets worse with time. I don’t know how it works, or how fast it happens. Maybe it depends on how much they take out of you during the bite. Or put into you. I don’t know. I’m not a doctor or a scientist. I’m just telling you what I saw, and what I saw is that eventually you succumb.”
Keo stood across the window from Levy, both of them watching Rachel and Christine walking around the front yard while Norris rolled Lotte along in her wheelchair. What should have been a hopeful new day for them had become dour when they brought Earl back to the house. But the kids seemed to be handling it well, Christine in particular. Keo wondered if that was some kind of coping mechanism. Maybe. It wasn’t like he knew anything about kids.
Behind him, Gavin sat on the couch with a bottle of water, staring off at nothing while Bowe paced back and forth.
They all looked over when Gillian came out of Gavin’s room, where they had put Earl. She was cleaning blood off her fingers with a damp towel, and the look on her face confirmed everything to Keo.
“Is he okay?” Levy asked.
Both Gavin and Bowe waited anxiously for the answer, too.
“I’ve cleaned and treated the bite,” Gillian said, “but the rest of it… I don’t think we’ll know for sure until tonight.” Gillian walked to the kitchen where she poured water into a bowl and washed her hands with soap. Blood quickly muddied up the water, and that encouraged her to rub harder. “He lost a lot of blood,” Gillian continued. “I don’t even know how you lose that much blood from just a bite wound. And there’s something else. The area around the bite looks infected.”
“Infected?” Levy said.
“Look, I’m not a doctor. I’m not even a nurse.” She sighed, sounding exasperated and tired. “But from what I can tell, he’s got a fever, and the body only does that when it’s trying to fight an infection. We don’t know if this is how the virus works.” She looked at Keo. “You said it yourself. It’s like an invasion. How they multiplied so fast three nights ago. They bite you, you die…and you turn.”
“It’s efficient,” Keo said. “They don’t need a big army. They literally just create one as they go, until there’s no one left to resist.”
“You don’t know that,” Gavin said, springing up suddenly from the sofa. “He’ll be fine. He’s Earl.”
“Yeah,” Bowe nodded. “Earl’s one tough sonofabitch.”
Gavin picked up his AR-15. “He’ll be fine,” he said again before going outside.
Keo watched Gavin through the window as he climbed onto one of the ATVs and rode off. Norris and the girls looked worriedly after him.
“Let him go,” Bowe said. “He just needs to cool off. He and Earl were close—are close. I meant to say are close.” He sat down on the same spot that Gavin had just vacated. “Shit,” he said quietly, then looked toward the left side hallway, where Earl was somewhere inside Gavin’s room.
“You saw this before,” Levy said to Keo. “What happened with your friend?”
“She got bit, like Earl,” Keo said. “She was bleeding a lot, too. No matter what we did, she just kept bleeding. I used to think all I needed was a first aid kit and I might have been able to save her, but now… I don’t think that’s possible.” He looked across the room at Gillian. “The wound, it doesn’t heal. It just keeps bleeding.”
“I changed Earl’s bandages twice while I was in there,” Gillian said. “Keo’s right. It just keeps bleeding and he keeps getting worse.”
Levy’s face paled. “I gotta go grab some fresh air,” he said, grabbing his own rifle and leaving the house.
Bowe stood up and looked at Gillian. “Keep an eye on him, huh?”
“I will,” Gillian nodded.
Bowe grabbed his own carbine and fled out of the house after Levy and Gavin. They reminded Keo of children fleeing because dad got sick and they didn’t know what else to do. He felt sorry for them. They had survived the end of the world together, likely because of Earl. And now, the man who had saved them was sick and hurt and probably dying, and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Gillian walked over and handed Keo a bottle of water. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
Keo took a sip. “Thanks.” He noticed Gillian was looking at him more carefully than before. “What?”
She shrugged. “It works on you.”
“What’s that?”
“The gun belt and all those pouches. I guess you’ve worn them before.”
“Here and there.”
“How come I don’t have one?”
“You want a belt?”
“I’d settle for one of those,” she said, pointing at his holstered Glock.
“Can you shoot a gun?”
“I’m a fast learner. You can teach me.”
He nodded. “It’s a date.”
Gillian gazed out the window at the girls and Norris. The ex-cop was alert, his body tense, and he had one hand on the M4 rifle slung over his back while his eyes scanned the woods around them.
Keo looked over at her, standing close to him. She really was a beautiful woman. Her long black hair, spread around her face, gave her a strangely exotic look. Keo had met a lot of beautiful women, one of the perks of being sent around the world by the organization. Delia had been something special, too, but she was almost plain next to Gillian.
“Stop it,” she said, still looking out the window.
“What?”
“You’re staring.”
“I wasn’t staring.”
“Yes, you were.” She gave him a half smile. “It’s sweet, but this is probably not the time.” She glanced across the house at Gavin’s room. “Is he really going to die tonight?”
“Tonight. Before tonight. It only took my friend a few hours.”
“It must have something to do with the bite, like you said. How deep it is, or how much of the virus—or whatever it is they transfer into you—that determines how long you last.” She ran her hands over her face, looking more tired than he had ever seen her, and turned back to the window. “It’s not going to get any easier, is it?”
“No,” he said.
“I didn’t think so, but you could have at least lied.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. Gillian peered out the window and looked up at the sky. “It’ll be night soon.”
“It’s always going to be night sooner or later,” Keo said. “That’s the problem.”
*
The remaining afternoon was spent with everyone waiting for the inevitable nightfall. They all knew it was coming, but it was still bright outside. Impossibly bright, in fact. Instead of comforting them, though, all that sunshine only added to the pervading sense of approaching dread.
The girls kept busy by settling into their new rooms. They did it without the same enthusiasm they had shown before Keo and the others had carried Earl back.
Gavin and Bowe continued to stay away from the house by hunting in the woods. Keo could hear their gunshots every no
w and then. The loud sounds of their ATVs were usually followed by long bouts of silence as they settled somewhere looking for prey. He wondered how they could continue hunting after everything that had happened. Didn’t becoming prey themselves give them a new perspective? Apparently not.
Keo and Norris finished bringing in the supplies they had brought with them, piling most of them down in the basement.
Gillian checked in on Earl every thirty minutes or so, and each time she came out of the room she looked less optimistic.
“How is he?” Levy would ask each time.
“He’s not getting any better,” she would say.
After a while, Levy stopped asking.
“Do you think it’s like this everywhere?” Gillian asked Keo when they found themselves at the kitchen together, with Levy having wandered outside to be with his thoughts and the girls still in their rooms.
“What’s that?” Keo said.
“People hiding, like us. Inside barricaded cabins in the woods. Or in rooms with steel doors. Places that they can’t break into. We can’t be the only ones still out here, Keo.”
“We’re not. You forgot those assholes at the gas station.”
“No, I didn’t. I just try not to think too much about them.”
I don’t have that luxury.
Who the hell were those guys?
“Maybe it is like this everywhere,” he said. “Survival means abandoning the cities and staying away from places with high concentrations of people. Out here there’s less of them, and maybe you have a chance.”
“Do you ever wonder, though?”
“About what?”
“What it was like in the cities when all of this started. It was terrifying at the hospital that night, and there were less than a hundred people there. I can’t imagine a city with hundreds of thousands of people. Or the ones with millions of souls…”
*
Around 4:30 p.m., with the skies starting to darken, Keo asked Levy to show him the generator and followed the young man out the back of the house and to the supply shack next to the river. Inside, Keo saw a neon green square block flanked by propane tanks and bright-red gasoline cans.
“It runs on propane and gasoline,” Levy said. “We’ve rigged it to run the plumbing and lights, too. Plus outlets to plug in electronic devices, though we haven’t really used that yet. It puts out about 6,000 continuous watts and close to eight hours of run time on a single eight-pound tank. Eventually, we’re going to have to limit it to a few hours a day to conserve, but for now I think it’s worth wasting a few tanks to get the girls comfortable. Earl mentioned that he wanted to install solar panels. Maybe we can do that later when he gets better.”
He’s not going to get better, kid, Keo thought, but he didn’t say it out loud.
Levy pressed a switch and the generator shut down. The shack, which had been vibrating when they entered, went suddenly very still around them. They headed back outside, and while Levy put a padlock over the shack door, Keo walked over to the ridge and looked down at the flowing water, which was surprisingly clear even under the graying sky.
“Norris and I can help around the place,” Keo said. “I’ve been known to swing a mean hammer every now and then.”
“He used to be a cop, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What about you?”
“Nope. I never could stand taking orders from people in uniforms.”
“I thought your dad was in the Army?”
“He was.”
“Oh,” Levy said, “getting” it that time.
“Earl doesn’t have a boat?” Keo asked.
“He’s not much of a swimmer. Besides, you can fish from any part of the bank with a rod and reel and catch everything you need.”
“What kind of fish do you get around here?”
“Crappies, bass, and some catfish, too. The channel cat can grow pretty big. You fish?”
“Not so much. The funny thing is, I’m a very good swimmer.”
“You don’t say.”
“Nope.”
Levy gave him a slightly confused look, but let it go and said, “Come on, let’s get back inside. Night’s not our friend anymore, remember?”
Keo followed Levy back into the house. It was a short walk, and by the time they reached the back door, Keo had committed the area to memory. The back door, like the front, had its own steel security gate on the outside and similar reinforcements on the inside.
The others were gathered in the living room eating MRE bags from the basement and perishable foods they had brought with them from the gas station. Gavin and Bowe had returned an hour ago without any fresh kills. There was, Bowe told Keo, just nothing out there to hunt anymore.
The front door was closed and locked, the 2x4s settled into their brackets, and the wooden slates had been lowered over the two front windows, along with the windows in the separate bedrooms. Six in all. It was a simple but brilliant setup, and just one more thing to add to his list of Things To Be Grateful To Earl For.
Sorry, Earl. And I mean that.
Every now and then, Keo noticed the girls looking around nervously. They could all feel it, he thought, even if they couldn’t see it for themselves through the walls.
Night is coming.
*
Seeing the woods from a small 2x12 inch slot—a window within the window—was a new experience. The moon had chosen tonight of all nights to hide behind the clouds, which made it almost impossible to make out the trucks from the ATVs in the front yard, much less the dirt trail and the trees.
“It’s so dark outside,” Gillian whispered over Keo’s shoulder, her warm breath against the back of his neck. It wasn’t an entirely unwelcome sensation.
She had her arms around her chest, but it wasn’t because it was cold. Even though the temperature had dipped outside, it was a nice and comfortable seventy-five degrees inside. They had left just one of the LED lamps on in the living room, but even on its lowest setting it provided surprisingly strong light throughout most of the house and even portions of the two hallways. There were more lamps that were turned off hanging from the ceiling.
“It shouldn’t be this quiet,” Gillian said.
Keo looked down at his watch: 10:16 p.m.
They were well into the night, and there were no signs of the creatures. Keo wasn’t sure if that should have comforted him or worried him. The bloodsucker in the mobile home was proof they were out there in the woods.
But it was too dark outside to see much of anything. That would have been fine, but he couldn’t even hear the birds chirping around them anymore. They had gone quiet almost as soon as the sun disappeared. Were the animals in the trees hiding, too? Why? Could the bloodsuckers climb? That was a slightly disturbing thought.
“How are the girls?” he asked.
“They’re tired. I don’t think they realized how tired they were until they laid down on an honest to goodness bed again.”
“What about you?”
“I’m okay.”
“You look tired.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re still beautiful.”
“It’s the end of the world, and you’re hitting on me,” she said, though she didn’t look entirely displeased.
Keo slid the metal peephole closed and they sat down on the floor under the window. Without the generator, the house was impossibly still, and he could hear every single breath Gillian took. He could also smell her, and it was a nice smell. But then again, women always smelled good to him.
He looked across the living room at Norris, cocooned inside a sleeping bag on the floor close to the unused fireplace. Keo wasn’t sure if Norris was really asleep or if he was just pretending to be in order to give them some privacy. There was an unused bedroll next to Norris. It belonged to Gavin, who was inside his room with Earl at the moment.
“How long has he been in there?” Keo asked.
“Gavin? Three hours, I think. I’ve been looking in on t
hem every hour.”
“Good. When Earl dies, we need to get his body outside before he turns.”
Gillian nodded. “I’ll keep checking on him throughout the night.” She paused, then, “Gavin still doesn’t think it’ll happen. He’s convinced Earl will make it.”
“He’s in denial.”
“I know.” She was looking down at her hands, though he couldn’t tell what she was looking for. They were clean, as far as he could see.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I didn’t know it was so hard to get blood off. It clings to you. I can still smell it.”
“You get used to it.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you, Keo? Who are you really?”
She was looking at him intently with those green eyes, and he never wanted so badly to kiss someone in his life. She had such soft-looking lips, too, and she was sitting so close he didn’t have to make any effort at all to breathe in her intoxicating scent.
Somehow, though, Keo managed to restrain himself and smiled at her instead. “You’re going to find out, much to your disappointment, that I’m very ordinary and pretty unspectacular.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said. “But that’s okay. If we survive tonight, we can get to know each other better.”
“Daebak.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What did you just say? Did you just cuss me out in Korean?”
He chuckled. “It’s something my mom used to say to me when I was a kid and I did something good, or that she approved of.”
“So it’s a good thing.”
“Yes. Although…”
“What?”
“She said it to me when I did something bad, too, so…”
“You’re Korean. How do you not know what a Korean word means?”
“I was born on a military base in San Diego, Gillian. English is my native tongue. Besides, the closest I’ve ever been to anything remotely Korean is North Korea.”
“What were you doing in North Korea?”