by J. R. Knoll
Raising her brow, Rachel asked, "Better?"
Zoe nodded.
"Must have been a really bad one," the Doctor observed. With one last stroke of the girl's hair, she pulled the blanket off of Zoe and went about unbuckling her wrist. "I think we can let you up now. It's almost breakfast time, anyway."
In a meek voice, one of a frightened little girl, Zoe whimpered, "I don't want to become one of them."
Rachel nodded as she finished freeing the girl's wrist, and she assured, "I know, Zoe. We'll figure something out."
Closing her eyes as the Doctor freed the rest of her, Zoe asked, "If it happens, will you have to kill me?"
"If it happens," Rachel informed, "You'll already be dead."
Hearing that sent a chill through the girl and a childish whine escaped her.
"It's all right," Doctor Caswell assured. "We're going to do everything we can to prevent it from happening."
"More tests?" Zoe asked. "I don't mind so much now. If you need to do more then it's okay. I won't complain about it anymore."
**
Seeing Zoe enter the cafeteria dining room with a tray of pastries and a bowl of cereal was not that uncommon. This time of the morning it was mostly soldiers who were eating and most of them had grown accustomed to a zombie girl wandering about.
One person had been waiting for her, and as she paused to look around her and find a place to sit, he came up behind her and bumped her with his tray, and she turned with a little surprise on her face.
Zachary was smiling and actually looking into her eyes, something he rarely did. When she turned fully to him, he asked, "You want to eat breakfast with me?"
Distracted from horrible thoughts, she nodded and said, "Okay."
They found an empty table that would accommodate about eight people and Zachary set his tray down and pulled her chair out for her, something else he had not done before. She had her brow high over her eyes as she sat down and placed her tray on the table. He pushed her chair in a little and then sat down beside her.
Breakfast began in silence, again, but this day he would shatter that silence with, "So, how did you sleep?"
Zoe shrugged and replied, "Pretty good, I guess."
He nodded and took a big bite of his oatmeal.
She glanced at him. He was tense and acting a little strange and she was not sure how to feel about it.
"The guys from Texas are going to let me go out with them today," he informed. "They said they could use an extra gun out there and my Dad said it's okay. There's this place they've been talking about where there is a lot of zombie activity and they want to go take it out."
With another nod, Zoe confirmed, "That sounds like it'll be fun."
"Do you think they'll let you go with us this time?" he asked.
"I don't know," was her answer. "There is a lot of stuff going on with me right now, but I guess I can ask."
"It just isn't the same if you aren't out there with us," he said.
That touched her and a little smile overpowered her lips. Shrugging her shoulders up slightly, she looked away from him and offered, "Thanks."
"Hey, guys," came from behind them.
They both turned to see most of the San Antonio Zombie Response Team approaching with their breakfasts.
Josh sat down beside Zachary and asked, "Mind if we join you? Thanks."
All of them sat down with them, Morgan right across from Zoe.
"It was way too quiet in that room last night," Morgan told her.
Zoe looked down to her tray and nodded, confirming, "It was pretty quiet where they moved me."
Eric raised his chin to the zombie girl and asked, "So you coming with us today?"
Shaking her head, Zoe replied, "No. Rachel has a bunch of stuff she wants to do with me here." She was tempted to just tell them the truth, to tell them why, but she really did not want them to know that she could become their enemy at any time. Not yet. "But I can ask."
"When are we going?" Zachary asked in a clear attempt to be part of the team.
"Going to hit them a little after noon," Josh replied as he picked at his eggs with his fork. "Zombies don't like heat and if we hit them when they're the weakest then we can do some serious damage."
Donny added, "A couple of months ago we were helping out in Austin. The temperature pegged out at like a hundred and five and when we found zombies in the open they were dropping dead from the heat."
"That was weird," Morgan said. "You'd be taking aim at one and it would just drop."
"We saved a lot of ammo that day," Matt reminded. "All we had to do was watch them fry."
Zoe finally looked up from her tray and asked, "So they die if they get too hot?"
"Looks like it," Eric confirmed. "I talked with Caswell and Kavorski about it and they said the virus has kind of a low temperature threshold. That's why they don't produce body heat. They get too hot and the virus will die. That means the zombie will die."
"What if someone gets really hot and they're not all the way a zombie yet?" she prodded.
He shrugged. "Don't know for sure. It seems like a lot of heat would kill the virus, but too much heat can kill the patient, too."
Turning her eyes down to her tray again, Zoe nodded, but her eyes darted about as she thought.
"There's been talk about seeing if the whole thing can be reversed using heat," Eric went on, "but right now it's just talk. Until we hear differently we'll just keep shooting them."
"But not you," Morgan added with a smile. "We like ya too much."
Zoe offered her a glance and a little smile back.
Conversation shifted from this to that and eventually everyone was done. Zoe only ate about half her food, and was really not that interested in eating or the conversation, but something caught her ear and drew her attention to Donny.
"I'm just saying that we should take over that gym that's a couple of blocks from here," he was saying. "From what I saw last time we went by it, it's got everything: Swimming pool, sauna, weight room… whole nine yards!"
"Sauna?" Zoe asked.
"Yeah," he confirmed. "Jacuzzis, too. I think they may even have massage tables."
Morgan snickered and asked, "So who is going to give you a massage?"
He smiled and said, "You know you want to touch me, Morgan."
"How hot do those saunas get?" Zoe asked suddenly.
Everyone glanced around, and most just shrugged.
"I'm sure not danger hot," Eric replied. "You're really just supposed to go in there and sweat. It helps detox the body and you can come out feeling great!"
"I've never been in one of those," she said.
"They don't often allow kids in them," Donny informed.
"I'm eighteen in two months," she advised almost proudly.
Dan looked to her and asked, "Two more months, huh?"
"Down, boy," Morgan growled.
Zoe pushed away from the table and stood, picking her tray up as she announced, "I have to go see Doctor Caswell about something. I'll see you guys later." As she turned, she bumped Zachary with her hip and said, "See you later, Zach."
**
With her ZRT vest over her pink shirt and Sergeant Morris' hat on her head, she approached the gym with slow steps, looking up to the sign that was near the top of the two level building. It was illuminated and this told her the electricity here was still working, and that was a good sign.
Pulling the glass door open, her hand found her revolver as she quietly entered and looked around her. It was an open space with a counter ahead of her, a glass wall behind it and workout equipment on both sides. This place was very big, very inviting, and very open. The ceiling was high and it was very well lit within.
She passed by the office area and negotiated the weight systems, the treadmills, the exercise bike stations, lined up along the wall and facing big screen TV's that were all off. It was a maze within, but she finally happened across a sign at the back near the bathrooms, a sign she had been lookin
g for. It directed her downstairs where the men's and women's showers were on opposite sides, and in the middle was the big, Olympic sized swimming pool, partitioned off by walls that were glass half way up. There were lockers, hot tubs, and finally she found what she was looking for on the other side of the pool: The saunas!
She had seen how this worked in the movies and on TV shows. There were dressing rooms and showers on the lady's side adjoining the bathrooms and stacks of towels for both the pool and sauna. She entered one of the dressing rooms and undressed, neatly folding her clothes and putting them in a stack on the bench within, her vest, belt and gun on top of them. Wrapping herself in a towel, she draped another around her neck and left the dressing room, and she strode right to the closest sauna. A dial to the right of the door would set the temperature, and she turned it all the way up. There was another dial beside it, a timer, and she turned it as far over as it would go as well. Drawing a deep breath, she opened the sauna door and stepped inside, closing the door beside her.
This one was smaller inside and looked like it would accommodate a group of six or so on the two wooden benches on both sides of the stones that were in a cedar trimmed cauldron in the middle, and this is where the heat was coming from. An ornate bucket of some kind with a metal ladle laying in it was right beside this, and it was still full of water. Dipping some of the water out, she poured it over the rocks as she had seen done on TV, and she backed away from the steam that rose up. This done, she backed up and sat down on one of the benches that was built into the wall.
Zoe drew a deep breath, watching the steam continue to rise from the stones as she said aloud to herself, "Well, I guess this will end today, one way or another."
CHAPTER 13
Lunchtime had ended and the San Antonio ZRT had returned.
All Morgan could think about was a shower. They found few zombies and they had made quick work of them. The police station they stormed was now secure, weapons and ammunition were taken and the short mission returned in success. It was time to relax.
With the door to the room closed, she pulled off her vest and belt, setting her weapons on her bed one by one. The ponytail she wore her hair in for this mission was taken down and she shook her hair out as she threw the scrunchie down with her weapons. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she unlaced and removed her boots, then her socks, setting them down by the nightstand. With a quick rub of her eyes, she stood and walked toward the bathroom for that shower, pulling her shirt off as she approached.
The door to the room burst open and Morgan, who was just wearing her trousers and sport bra now, was quick to cover her chest with her shirt as she barked, "Hey! A little privacy?"
Doctor Caswell stormed in, her wide eyes scanning the room before she found Morgan, and she asked with a desperate tone, "Have you seen Zoe? Did she go on the mission with you?"
Raising her chin slightly, Morgan replied, "No, we just got back. I thought she was with you."
With a shake of her head, Rachel assured, "I haven't seen her since early this morning. She was supposed to come to the lab but she never showed up. Nobody's seen her most of the day! We've searched the whole hospital and she's nowhere to be found."
Morgan turned and returned to her bed, tossing her shirt onto it as she reached for her belt, the radio clipped to it. Raising it to her mouth, she called, "Josh, Morgan here. Have any of you seen Zoe?"
There was a pause, then he responded, "No, we thought she was with Doctor Caswell."
"Not good," Morgan mumbled, then she said into the radio, "No, she isn't in the hospital. Everybody's been looking for her all day."
"Meet us in the rally area," he ordered.
Morgan combed her hair back and reached for her shirt. "Okay, no problem. We'll find her."
Word spread quickly and in short order there were more than fifty people, most of them zombie fighters, in the rally area to search for her outside of the hospital.
Rachel and Morgan strode to the San Antonio ZRT, who stood closest to the door checking their weapons, and the Doctor was as calm as she could be as she said, "Okay, you guys were the last ones with her. I need to know what was said, if she said anything that might clue us in as to where she went."
"We talked about a lot of things," Josh informed. "She was only half listening most of the time and didn't say much."
"Oh my God," Eric said absently, staring blankly forward. All attention turned to him and his eyes darted about as he went on, "We talked about zombies dying in the heat in Texas." He looked to Doctor Caswell. "We were talking about how the virus can't survive in a high temperature environment."
Her eyes widening, Rachel raised her chin and was unable to speak.
"I'm sorry," he offered, turning his eyes down. "I'm so sorry."
The Doctor looked away, then she shook her head and countered, "You don't need to be sorry." She shook her head. "Okay, we need to just concentrate on where she would have gone."
"The gym," Donny declared. "She was interested in the gym."
"The sauna," Dan clarified. He looked to Morgan and insisted, "We need to get there. Now!"
Zachary's eyes widened a little and he asked in a desperate tone, "You don't think she would try something like that, do you? I mean, if she sets that sauna too high and stays in there too long it could…"
All exchanged glances.
They wasted no more time, grabbing their weapons and heading out the door. Others who saw their rapid departure did the same, following them out the door with weapons held ready.
They did not take time to mount vehicles and instead ran the whole way to the gym that was only two blocks away. Behind the nine zombie fighters and the doctor were some forty heavily armed military and civilian volunteers who were determined to find their wayward zombie girl.
Inside the gym, Morgan, Josh and Rachel stopped halfway between the front counter and the door to get their bearings. All of the others stormed in behind them and stopped behind them, holding their weapons at the ready.
"The pool's downstairs," someone announced.
At a hurried pace, they negotiated their way through the gym and down the stairs where they found the pool area and fanned out to find the saunas, the dressing rooms, anywhere she might have gone.
The sauna doors were opened one by one, and the last was opened by Morgan, who drew a loud gasp and took a step back, her wide eyes on the form that was sprawled on the floor. Hearing this, the rest of her team crowded around the doorway.
Zachary pushed his way through them and into the unbearably hot sauna, stopping right inside as he looked down to the girl who lay on her side on the wooden floor where she had fallen.
Zoe's hair was soaked with sweat and steam and lay around her head in long tentacles. She lay on her side, her legs pulled halfway to her and her right laying ahead of her left. One arm was stretched out under her head, the other was behind her, and she was not moving, not at all.
"Oh, no!" he breathed. Keeling down, Zachary gently scooped the limp girl into his arms and picked her up, standing with her as he cradled her in his arms.
The people at the door stepped away as he turned to leave the room, but Doctor Caswell hurried to the girl and placed a hand across her forehead, then her neck.
"She's burning up," Rachel declared. "We need to get her cooled off."
"Is she still alive?" Eric asked desperately.
"She's a zombie," Dan pointed out. "How would you tell?"
"Get her into the pool," the Doctor ordered. "We need to get her cooled down quickly. If she's still with us then getting her cooled off will be her only chance of staying with us."
Zachary did not respond and instead turned toward the shallow end of the swimming pool, walking right through the people around him as they moved quickly out of his way. When he got to the pool, he simply jumped in with her, and he held her in the water and kept her head right above the surface.
Alfred made it to the side of the pool and ordered, "Keep her head up, boy. Move her a
round and keep that cool water moving over her."
Doctor Caswell kicked her shoes off and also jumped in the water. Wading to the girl, she brushed Zoe's hair from her face and moved her head to lean against his shoulder. She scooped water into her hand and poured it onto Zoe's forehead, repeating this a few times, then she stroked her hair and called, "Zoe! Can you hear me? Give me a sign, sweetie. Open your eyes. Twitch your nose. Come on!"
Everyone watched in absolute silence as Rachel tried to get some kind of response from the girl's still form. Zoe was limp, her body lifeless.
"Zoe!" Rachel cried. "Please don't do this!"
Zachary carried her all the way back to the hospital, refusing to allow anyone else to help him even as it was clear that he was tiring.
She was taken to her room in the ICU where she was cleaned and put into her bed. Monitors were hooked up to her, but her heartbeat was not to be found, only the steady wave of the barely alive heart action of a zombie. Her body finally cooled, all the way to room temperature.
Rachel and Doctor Kavorski had managed to get everyone out of the room, but it took Josh, Morgan and Eric combined to finally get Zachary out of there so that they could work. Now, they stared down at the lifeless girl who still seemed to cling to the undead heart activity of a zombie.
Stroking his chin, Doctor Kavorski suggested, "We need to do a lumbar puncture and also get some fluid directly from her brain cavity."
Her lips tightening to a thin slit, Rachel closed her eyes and raised a hand to her mouth.
"I know what it seems like," he assured, "but if she was right about this then we need to confirm that, and if she wasn't… Either way, if we do lose her, I don't want her to have died in vain."
Doctor Caswell agreed with a nod.
He grasped her shoulder and said, "I'll go and get the kits, and once we're done we'd better get her strapped down, just in case she goes full-on zombie."
"Yeah," Rachel agreed in a whisper. "I'll get things ready here."
They worked as fast and respectfully as they could, and when they were finished collecting the samples they needed they took great care in strapping the girl down as she had slept. Monitors were put all over her head to watch for brain activity, but all it showed was a girl in very deep, dreamless sleep, and the waves they showed were very weak.