I nodded.
“Well, it was looking this way the whole time. Then it drove past the building, and I swear the driver was checking the building out. So, yeah. I told the others, but I figured you’d want to know, too.”
“Thanks,” I said.
With nothing else to do, I followed Will back inside the Warehouse. Branden and Dana had pulled the truck inside to hide it from any unwanted attention. If any of those men that attacked us were still alive, we knew that they would come looking for us if they could afford to. Considering how they were less than two miles away, it would be better to be cautious. So we made an agreement to only take the truck outside in the event of an emergency.
Will, Branden, and Dana approached me as I walked up to them, hanging around the new green utility truck. Well, the truck isn’t exactly new. It’s rusty, the transmission is on the verge of death, and the cab smells like a spittoon. The bed in the back has a few broken planks, but it does still have a few tie-down straps attached. I imagine the truck was used for hauling wood, but what do I know.
“We’re gonna make one last run,” Will said. “You’re coming, too, right?”
I sighed, and slowly breathed back in before speaking my mind. “I don’t really think that it’s the smartest time to go out again.”
Will half-nodded but still spoke in favor of going. “It is a bad time, but we owe it to Branden to go out one more time. Just for a while, anyway. We’re planning on making this one quick.”
Branden sat hunched over on the back of the truck, patiently eyeing us as we spoke. Dana sat behind the wheel, flipping through the static channels on the radio.
“I guess I don’t have much else to live for,” I shrugged.
“I feel like we should try for the northern part of town. We could walk up Main Street and turn around at some point and come back,” Dana said loudly from the truck’s interior. “Besides, we could still use a vehicle that we can actually drive around without fear of being hunted down.”
“That sounds good,” Branden said. “There are a couple of churches on the way there. We can stop by them, and see if anyone is around.”
I hadn’t thought of the multiple churches that littered Cedar Falls before. It was a good idea, but I felt as though it was a bit of a cliché—struggling survivors hiding out in a church in their final stand was a pretty common thing to do in all the science fiction movies I have seen. It seemed a little too good to be true, but I figured it would be best to give it a try.
It was around four o’clock in the afternoon when we headed out. We had already informed Lisa of our plan. Dana was nice enough to leave his second handgun with her, leaving himself with only Bruce’s six-shooter. She thought we were crazy, and I agreed. Nothing sounded stupider than going out again after we just lost Taylor. But I knew that I couldn’t stay at the Warehouse. I wouldn’t be able to handle losing Branden, too.
Walking the streets into the north part of town, we devised our own formation with Branden and me up front. We were to be the ‘first defense’ if we were to get rushed by anything. With the bayonet on my rifle and Branden’s axe, it didn’t sound like a half bad idea. We could get up close to any zombies and still be all right. Dana and Will would have to resort to gun butting and pistol-whipping if they got close to one. They would stay farther back to pick off everything they could at a distance, making our team a little more efficient and structured.
We walked about a half mile north and reached our first church. It was a small, modern, brick building with the windows still intact. It looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in the slightest by all the violence that was now a commonplace in everyday life. We walked across the grass closer toward the church, keeping an eye on every window for movement.
Branden reached out and tapped on the doors. We all paused, but no answer came. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered inside while the others went around the sides of the church. All I could see inside was a red colored carpet, a cross resting on a small table, and multiple hallways that turned out of view.
“It’s all locked up. No one’s here,” Dana said.
“Yeah, looks like it,” Will added.
I nodded my head in agreement, and we continued on our way. Perhaps twenty minutes after we left that church, two infected burst from an enclosed patio of a home. Branden and I dealt with them accordingly. For this first instance, our strategy worked well. We seemed able to keep quiet enough with our ‘melee first’ tactic. We paused after the fight to listen and all was quiet. Upon our mutual agreement that we didn’t draw any attention to ourselves, we pushed onward to our next church.
Each block we walked past was desolate of life. It seemed like the further we went into town, the number of dead bodies lying about grew more and more. By the time we had reached the busier parts of town, we counted an average of three a block. The ones that we took the time to inspect, roughly a quarter of them, all appeared to have died by gunshot. The only unfortunate thing about it is that there is no way to tell which people were infected and which ones were the victim of a homicide.
In a more detailed examination of one of our inspections, I noticed two deceased people lying on the side of the road. I’m not sure why, but I felt the need to examine them closely. At first I had thought it odd that two bodies lay so close to one another, and assumed that both must have died from the same cause. I approached them and took a long look at them.
One man was wearing a bloodstained suit and tie while the other, a young teenage boy, wore some casual jean shorts and black shirt with a band logo. Both corpses were bloated in only one central area: the chest. But I noticed small details that I wouldn’t have if I had just walked past, and I decided to bring it up with the others.
“Look at this,” I said quietly. “Do you notice something different between these two?” Will crouched to get a better view. “One is wearing a suit?”
A single airy laugh escaped me and I responded, “Yeah, but that’s not what I’m getting at. This guy,” I pointed at the one in the suit, “got shot in the throat. While this one,” I pointed at the young teenager, “was shot in the side of the head.” The others nodded as if they understood what I was getting at.
“Look at the kid’s hand,” I said.
“Oh yeah, his finger is missing,” Dana said.
“Which means?”
The others looked at one another blankly.
I gave them the answer. “Suited man here was a threat to the kid, who was armed. The kid waited a second too long, got his finger bit off, shot the man, and then turned the gun on himself.” I paused for a moment to let it sink into the others’ minds, and then continued, “I could be wrong, but I feel like the man in the suit was infected when he died.”
“So? What does it matter?” Branden asked.
“Both bodies are bloated. The kid wasn’t turned before he died, which means that the infection could be in everyone, but just inactive.”
The others stood in thought for a moment until Branden spoke. “Well if his finger was bit off, that would explain why he is bloating. The infection would have come into his body that way before he blew his brains out.” Will agreed.
“But look how his hand is shaped,” Dana pointed at the hand with the missing finger. “Its cupped, like he was holding the gun. He had the death grip on it when he pulled the trigger, so the hand stays tight. Someone could have come along, tried to pry the gun that isn’t here from his hand and cut his finger off to get the gun from him.”
“Clever. That’s possible, too,” I said. “I’d like to search him for bites, but we shouldn’t move him.”
“What if,” Will said, “he was shot by a third party?”
“I wouldn’t doubt that either,” Branden said.
“I mean, he probably shot the infected in the suit—I won’t argue that. But maybe someone saw him and his gun and shot him and stole it?”
“That would mean if he wasn’t bit or hurt by the infected, he still bloated,” I said.
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Dana hummed in his thought, and said, “More of a reason to burn the bodies.” We all agreed with him, and he continued, “We should stop by the hospital. Check up on that Arabian dude. What’s his name? Dr. Mijoka or something?”
“Dr. Milaka, I believe,” I answered. “And he’s Indian. But not a bad idea.”
Branden silently continued to look at the bodies lying in front of us. He rubbed his nose. “We aren’t going to find Christian,” he said with his head drooped. “We should just go to the hospital. That way, at least we will gain something from this outing.”
“Well,” Dana said, “we came out here for a reason. I mean, if you feel like it, we can. But I don’t mind, man. I want to find my family someday, too.”
“I don’t mind either,” Will said.
“I do,” Branden said. “We are wasting time. Taylor died today, guys.” He looked up at us. “We should aim for something attainable, and not chase after chance.” Branden turned away from us and began walking away.
Dana, Will, and I stood still for a moment. I sighed.
“Yeah,” Dana said.
Branden seemed quite set in his decision, so we followed him as he led the way. Whenever one of us would try to talk him out of completely abandoning the search for his son, he would disregard what we had to say. He would go on about Taylor, again and again. Honestly, it started to piss me off. We all knew he was dead, so he should have stopped bringing it up. Another thing he kept saying was that if he was to find his son, he simply would. That almost sounds to me like he is either leaving it up to fate, or he has faith that he eventually will. I find it odd for Branden to have faith in anything.
When we reached the hospital, it was the same old shit. The waiting room was empty, we rang the bell, guards came out, hands went up, and we were escorted to our doctor. Wasn’t the doctor we wanted to see, but he did just fine.
“Ah, you boys,” Dr. Milaka said as we walked into his office.
I nodded and greeted him as well.
“What can I help you with today?” the kind doctor asked.
We all looked at each other blankly for a moment. I guess we hadn’t really thought about that. “Just coming in to check up with you guys,” Dana finally said.
“Ah.” Dr. Milaka paused a moment and clacked his teeth together a few times while his eyes wandered about. “Well, everything here is all right. We learned a few things since the last time we spoke. Well, we had assumptions before, but we needed a controlled test to be absolutely positive.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Dr. Milaka turned to me and said, “Follow.” He led us out of the door we came in, and through a maze of hallways. As we walked with him, he spoke more. “Nobody knows for certain how the disease moves from one person to another, right?” He paused for a moment to let us have the time to agree with him.
“Well, we had guesses and assumptions of bodily fluid and the likes. But for the past week, we were looking to find a,” Dr. Milaka paused for a moment to choose his words, “test subject. Human, of course. But trust me, it was our first concern to do it humanely.”
“Wait,” I said, “you tested on a person?”
“Don’t be upset. The man was looking for death,” Dr. Milaka said.
“Guess I’m not surprised at that.”
“Continuing, the first bloated body we had in the building for about five days popped itself naturally before we could find a test subject.”
Dr. Milaka led us down another hallway and continued speaking, “Thanks to our experiences with Bella,” Dr. Milaka’s eyes cast downward, “we confirmed that the virus is contagious through the air. We ran our experiment and separated Bella from the subject so we could examine both.”
We walked through a door and started heading up a flight of stairs.
“From a long and heart wrenching examination of Bella, we have solidified our previous assumptions. The virus literally dissolves all organs inside the chest cavity and produces various gases. This is normal for all deceased bodies, but the virus pushes it even further and produces more gas than a natural death. It also somehow helps the skin close any bullet or puncture holes in the torso and retain elasticity. It turns the dead host into a balloon, if you will. When something comes along and disturbs it enough, it pops.”
Dr. Milaka led us through a door. The sign next to it read “Delivery and Labor Unit.” Dana huffed and puffed from a number of steps behind us, which was not surprising considering we had just climbed two stories. We paused a moment as he caught up to us, then resumed walking down a hallway to our left.
“Now, the only thing we exposed our test patient to was this gas. We gave the man a scalpel and let him do the work. After roughly twenty minutes, we retrieved him and locked him up in a room of his own.” Dr. Milaka slowed in front of a door and turned to us. “Now be strong.” Dr. Milaka opened the door to the delivery room.
A man with bloodshot eyes and bleeding wrists noticed us immediately. He howled, and lunged for us. The restraints that kept him on his wheelchair held true to their purpose. The infected man landed face first onto the hospital floor with a crack. We all stood there outside the door, watching, and the man lay there motionless for a moment. Suddenly, springing back to animation, the man yanked and squirmed. He hysterically tried to break free and reach one of us. Dr. Milaka took a step into the room and looked the man over.
“He agreed to this?” Will asked with a quivering voice.
“Yes, in the end, he did. The man snuck from his family home, or wherever, and we spotted him rolling down the sidewalk a block away. We took him in, and asked him why he was outside with his disability. He said he didn’t want his family wasting food on him and risking themselves protecting him. He simply wished to escape them and find his own way or die honorably.” Dr. Milaka shrugged.
“Nobody would want to die this way,” I said assertively.
“Are you angry that he died for a purpose and not from a quick bullet to the brain?”
“Why do I feel that you forced him to go out this way?” I laughed to myself. “I bet you told him it was this way or nothing.”
What made the sight so horrific to me was the victim’s lack of legs. The doctors of the hospital were desperate to run this test, so they wouldn’t dare throw away a crippled body that would be useless for any other purpose. Even the test subject was too desperate to throw away his own life that he took any route that he could get. I imagine that, in his final moments, he had prayed that he would cease to be conscious when the sickness took him over. The man was willing to be turned into the biggest thing that threatened his life just so he could stop running away from it.
But thinking about it again, now, part of me doesn’t blame the man for taking that route. If he did say no, what other ways would he be able to get what he wanted? Being eaten alive sounds just as bad, if not worse. Maybe this way he didn’t feel any pain, just a slow numbing effect until his consciousness and awareness of what he was doing, and the world around him, faded away. At least I’d like to think that those unfortunate people don’t know what they are doing and suffer from internal turmoil as they tear their family into pieces. Or enjoy it.
Dr. Milaka scoffed at me. The others didn’t say anything to back me up. Thanks, guys.
“Anyway,” the atrocious intimidator of men said, “that isn’t the only test we have run. Two other men, who were found to be criminals, were all killed in—”
“Criminals?” Dana said, followed by a laugh. “Everyone is a criminal, you curry-muncher.”
Dr. Milaka’s jaw dropped.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t done something immoral. There is no way you’d be standing here in that white coat all safe and secure if you didn’t. You gotta keep the riff-raff out, even if it means doing shitty things.”
“I don’t think you understand how important it is to discover as many details of the virus as we can. We are trying to save the lives of more than just ourselves.”
“Yeah,
yeah.” Dana waved his arms in the air and rolled his eyes. “You’re a saint, Doctor. You really are. But tell me, I’m more interested in who deemed them criminals. Was it you or one of the others here?”
Dr. Milaka’s fists tightened. “The C.V.P.M. has a few trucks that are always out sitting somewhere in town. The men were caught trying to kidnap a woman.”
“The military made the call then, right?”
“Yes. There has been talk of enforcing civil order to try to prevent people from killing other people. That will help slow down public exposure to the virus.”
“I don’t know if I like the sound of the military enforcing anything,” I said.
The Book of a Few Page 14