The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy

by Tony Battista

  Checking on Jake, she found him perched on the edge of the sofa and she firmly told him to lie down and be still as she peeled the bloody wrappings from his wound and put on a fresh bandage. She was getting much more practice tending to wounds than she ever wanted. The wound looked like it needed to be stitched, but she had no clue how to go about it and so pinched it together as best she could, wrapping it tightly in an Ace bandage over gauze.

  After covering him with a blanket from the linen closet, closing all the blinds and drapes and making sure everything was latched and secure, she returned to the living room to find him asleep on the sofa. She knelt on the floor beside him, one hand on his chest and cupped her other to his cheek, just looking at him. Before getting up, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead.

  It was only midafternoon and she resigned herself to spending a long day and even longer night trapped inside the house so she began to explore. First, she looked in the kitchen and found boxes of cereal and crackers, a bag of chips and some canned goods, deliberately ignoring the refrigerator. The house had so far been mercifully spared the stench of infected or prey and she had no desire to pollute it with the rancid odor emanating from spoiled food in a long unpowered refrigerator.

  She looked at the pictures in the living room. One showed an older couple, presumably the homeowners by the room's décor. Others were of three younger couples and various grandchildren playing ball, laughing on a swing-set, dressed for church, and the whole extended family sitting at a large table enjoying a Christmas dinner. She smiled sadly, wondering if any of them survived and if they knew what happened to the rest of their family.

  The closets yielded a handful of candles and clothing of various sizes, mostly for the owners but some obviously for the children and grandchildren. A few items looked like they'd fit her and Jake and she stacked them in a laundry basket and set it in the living room. Using a step stool, she took a shoebox from an upper shelf in the larger bedroom and found a .38 revolver and a box of fifty bullets. She understood revolvers better than the 9mm Jake had given her and she loaded it and stuffed it in her belt, dumping a handful of bullets into a pants pocket. She found nothing else of any obvious use in the rest of the rooms, though she knew she should ask Jake when he came around again, and she picked up a months old news magazine and went back to the living room to sit in an overstuffed chair near his sofa, munching from a box of Cheerios.

  Jake began to stir about dusk and Vickie went to his side right away. He looked up at her through slowly focusing eyes until he recognized her and gave her a faint smile. She propped a pillow under his head and held a cup of water to his lips and he drank gratefully.

  "We're in the house," she told him. "It's secure. I brought in the weapons and the first aid kit. Things have been quiet outside, just a few roamers now and then; no big groups." She didn't mention that several infected had been feeding on the corpses of the two she'd taken down and another five were crowded around the Hummer, attracted by the smell of blood. He smiled and she smiled back at him. "Do you want something to eat? I found some cans of soup and broth, some stew, chili... What would you like?"

  "A thick, rare rib eye and a big baked potato with butter and sour cream," he grinned weakly.

  Vickie laughed in spite of the precarious position they were in and told him he'd have cold chicken soup and like it. She helped him into more of a sitting position and spoon-fed him the soup right from the can and he began to feel a little better.

  "We can stay here for a few days," she said while feeding him. "We have enough food and water, and they don't seem to be paying any attention to the house at all. I'll drive by the bridge again and see if the path is clear and if it is we can go back to the island."

  "No, don't go alone."

  "You don't have a say in the matter. You aren't in any shape to make any unnecessary trips, so leave it to me this time. I'll manage."

  Jake looked at her thoughtfully, then let her finish feeding him the soup. He was too tired to argue, too weak to put up any protest and he drifted off to sleep while she dabbed a napkin to his chin. Vickie eased one of the pillows out from behind his head so he could lie easier on the sofa and checked his bandaging. The bleeding had tapered to a slow ooze and she cleaned and dressed the wound again. With daylight fading and not wanting to waste a candle, there was nothing for her to do but try to get some sleep herself so she pulled off her shoes and jeans, tucked her legs under and curled up in the chair and closed her eyes.

  She woke in the middle of the night to find the sofa empty. Frantic, she called his name and heard him answer from the bathroom, where she'd set up a couple of buckets with lids. He was in there for a long time, letting out an occasional grunt or groan and Vickie knocked on the door twice to ask if he was okay, only to be told gruffly he was fine and just needed a few minutes. When he finally came out, wearing only his shirt and a pair of boxers and carrying a candle, he made his way back to the sofa, Vickie supporting him the whole way.

  "I'm feeling better. I think it was mostly shock. Day or two, I'll be good as new."

  "Oh, my God!" Vickie cried out, looking at his bare leg. "You stitched it yourself?"

  "Yeah, there was a suture kit in the first aid box. I managed to get it while you were bringing things in from the car, but wasn’t up to doing it then. Why, did you want to do it?" he half smiled.

  "Oh, God no! It had to hurt like hell!"

  "It did. Nothing to be done about that, though. All our painkillers and anesthetics are still on the island. Look, can you hand me the first aid kit so I can bandage this back up?"

  "I'll take care of that for you." Vickie opened the kit and cleaned the crudely stitched wound, applied antiseptic and wrapped it in a fresh bandage. She looked up at his face as she finished tying it. "I never did hear your last name, Jake."

  "Why, it's Harper. Jacob Lee Harper."

  "Mine is Baker. Victoria Anne Baker."

  "Well, pleased to meet you, Ms. Baker."

  "You, too, Mr. Harper," she smiled.

  "Why did you want to know my last name all of a sudden?"

  "I just really wanted you to know mine. The way things have been going, I think you'll still be around after I... Well, if I don't manage to get you killed first, I just wanted someone to know who I was."

  "Hey, let's not talk about dying. No reason to think we won't both get through this."

  "I'd be dead already if it hadn't been for you, Jake." She lowered her eyes. "And all I've managed to do is to make your life harder. You'd be better off now if you'd never set eyes on me in the first place."

  "I'd be alone. I was alone before you came along, and I didn't like it. I don't want to be alone again." He looked at her and realized just how alone he'd felt before she came along. Despite the problems her arrival had caused, despite the danger she'd put him in, he knew he didn’t want to go on without her now. He wanted to hold her, kiss her, tell her how he felt, but there wasn’t really any place for that now. Survival was the only thing that should be on his mind, on both their minds, but she was in his head and his heart now. Just being with her would have to be enough.

  Chapter 13: Temporary Arrangements

  Jake woke the next morning to the aroma of hot coffee. He called out Vickie's name and she came in from the kitchen a moment later with a cup of hot instant coffee.

  "How did you manage that?"

  "I set up some candles in the sink and set an oven rack over it and set a couple of pots on top of it. There's sugar and some powdered creamer if you'd like."

  "No. I like my coffee black."

  "That's disgusting," she made a face.

  "Don't like it any other way," he said. Taking a sip, he made a face himself and said, "That's pretty awful."

  "Well, if you don't like my coffee, next time you can make your own."

  "I smell soup, too. Hope it's better than the coffee."

  "Beef stew. I found some crackers and croutons in the cupboard if you'd like some."

  "I
'll take the crackers."

  After they'd eaten and, disparaging remarks aside, Jake was on his third cup of coffee, Vickie stood to one side of a window and pulled the drapes back just enough to peek out. One infected was still picking over the remains of the two she'd taken down yesterday. Very little was left of them and he soon drifted on. The others had apparently lost interest in the Hummer, though one stood part way down the block, sniffing the air. Jake was at the next window leaning heavily on a cane he’d found in one corner and looking out grimly. He took a last sip of coffee and set the cup down on an end table.

  "I don't like that one sniffing around," he said. "She knows something's up. Look at the way she's moving. That's one of the alphas; nothing but trouble. Think you could take her down with the bow from the porch?"

  "Maybe," her voice was uncertain. "She's pretty far for a clean head shot."

  "So put one in her chest, just take her down."

  "What good will that do if I don't destroy the brain?"

  Jake looked at her and chuckled. "You've watched too many cheap zombie movies," he laughed. "There's nothing supernatural about them. Muscles still need blood and oxygen to move and the brain, no matter how tiny a portion of it still functions, still needs blood and oxygen to tell the muscles to move. Stop the heart and it dies just like anything else. The movies may show zombies with their whole lower half cut away pulling themselves along the ground with their entrails dragging behind, or severed heads still trying to bite, but once you lose enough blood, once the heart stops, the brain dies and so does the body."

  "I guess I never really thought it out. That makes sense. Yeah, I think I could put an arrow in her chest from here."

  Jake opened the door and Vickie stepped out onto the porch with her bow while he stood to one side with the shotgun. She drew back the bowstring and the infected spotted her and began moving toward her. Until then, she wasn’t really sure she could shoot it, but now that it was coming directly at her she felt no qualms at all. Vickie waited until it was fifty feet away and released the string. The arrow hit it nearly dead center in the chest and it stopped and stared down at the shaft, then looked back up at Vickie and took three faltering steps and fell. It got up on its elbows and made a futile effort to crawl, then slowly sagged back to the ground and was still.

  "And that's how you do it," Jake said.

  Vickie stared at the lifeless form on the ground. Only two days ago, she had balked at the thought of killing one except in defense of her own life but looking at the thing that was once a living woman, she realized that they really weren't human any more. She felt no regret, no sorrow over killing it. She felt nothing at all, except that she'd done what needed to be done. She wasn't even thinking of them as women or men anymore, just things that were dangerous and needed to be stopped, and only in the back of her mind did she wonder what that made her now.

  Back in the house, the door bolted again, Jake sat heavily on the sofa while Vickie carried the dirty bowls and cups into the kitchen.

  "It's silly," she said when she came back a minute later. "I was about to wash the dishes in the sink when I remembered there was no water, so I wiped them off with paper towels and stacked them on the counter. Not much sense in that, was there?"

  "Actually, it's good not to abandon all the particulars of civilization. I always tried to keep whatever place I was living in tidy and clean. Some sense of normalcy is comforting, I think."

  "Normal is a strange word anymore. There's a whole new normal now."

  "I don't believe that. What's going on now is not normal. This is going to pass. Not tomorrow or next week, maybe not for years to come yet, but it will. We'll rebuild. Civilization will return. Humanity will endure."

  "Okay, preacher, I believe you."

  "I mean it, Vickie. One day this will be a nightmare still remembered but over and done. The great cities are dead, the infrastructure is falling apart, but all that can be rebuilt as long as people survive."

  "I really do believe you. I think, for the first time, I believe we'll actually get through this."

  Their eyes met, and for long moments they gazed at each other. Jake broke the spell and said he needed to check his wound and clean and re-bandage it. Vickie had found more first aid supplies in the bathroom and she undid the bandage over his wound, cleaned it with peroxide, smeared some more cream on it and re-wrapped it. Their eyes met again. She placed her hand on his cheek and Jake turned his head to kiss her palm. Vickie held his face in her hands and pressed her lips softly against his.

  "You saved my life. You gave me hope again. All I've done is to make your life miserable, but you still look after me, still try to keep me safe, still try to make me feel good about myself." She kissed him again, softly at first, then with growing passion and hunger. Her hand went between his legs and she took hold of him, squeezing and caressing.

  Jake gently took her by the shoulders and held her away.

  “I've been nothing but trouble since you saved my life out on the road that day,” she said to him. “Everything I've done since has been wrong or stupid or both and I've put your life in danger more than once. Let me do something to try to make up for it.”

  "Vickie. You're very emotional right now. Don't let your emotions get in the way of your common sense. Do we really need this kind of complication on top of everything else?"

  "I am emotional. I'm scared and I'm lost and I don't know what to do from one moment to the next. Without you, Jake, I would be dead right now, or walking around preying on other people, trapped in a living hell. Let me thank you and show you how much you mean to me. Don't you want me?"

  "I do want you, but, I'm afraid that you're getting carried away by the circumstances. I'm afraid that, afterward, you'll regret doing this and you'll resent me for taking advantage of you. I don't want to risk that. Besides, you aren't looking at how far you've come in the last week, in just the last twenty-four hours. You took down two infected with a bow last night, on your own, and another just now. You cleared this house, alone. You’ve taken care of me, taken charge of the situation. You aren't a frightened little girl anymore; you're a woman who's learning how to survive in a world you never imagined in any nightmare. You won't be a victim, you'll be a survivor."

  Vickie took his face in her hands again. "I'm what you made me become, what you gave me the chance to become. And I'm not just thinking of this as an obligation. I really do want you to make love to me."

  "Vickie... I'm not even in any shape to do this; I'd just tear my stitches open. I couldn't... I don't think I could even perform in the shape I'm in right now."

  She knew from the way he had felt in her hand that he was capable of it, but she didn't press the issue. Instead, she kissed him again and stood up. "There's a little more of that terrible coffee left."

  "No, thanks,” he said, both relieved and regretful that she didn’t pursue it. “I'd like to get dressed and take a look around outside."

  "You just sit your ass right there on that sofa! There's no way you're leaving this house for at least two or three days! I'll see what's up outside."

  "I don't want you going out there alone!"

  "I'll be okay. I'm not going to take any chances."

  "If you go out, I'll be right behind you."

  Vickie glared down at him. "Stubborn! All right. Day after tomorrow, we'll both go out. If you're getting around okay, then maybe the next day we can go look around the island, see if the way's clear."

  "We'll go out tomorrow morning, and if I feel up to it, we'll head to the island after that."

  "Why? We have enough food and water here to last a week or more. Why not rest a while and build up your strength?"

  "Leaving the island for a few hours to make a supply run is one thing, it can't be helped, but there are bound to be other people around. If someone else moves in on the island, it might not be possible to get back there."

  "Paranoid, too, huh?"

  "It doesn't pay to take chances. So, tomorrow?"
>
  Vickie bent down and kissed him again. "Tomorrow."

  Chapter 14: Carolyn

  Jake woke at first light. He’d slept in the master bedroom while Vickie took the one across the hall. He'd had a difficult time getting to sleep, knowing she was right there only yards away, not only available but willing. For a long while, he'd imagined her lying there in bed beside him, imagining her body beneath the thin sheet, the rise and fall of her chest with each breath, the feel of her soft, smooth flesh. But he couldn’t help remembering that there was another who’d rightfully occupied that place, one who was lost to him forever.

  Shaking those thoughts out of his head, he slipped quietly out of bed and limped into the living room, standing to the side of one of the front windows and looking out between the heavy drapes. The street looked deserted and the morning was overcast, threatening rain. That would be good luck, keeping the infected disoriented and less likely to pose a significant threat.

  “I know you weren't planning to go outside by yourself,” Vickie said from the bedroom doorway.

  “Thought never crossed my mind,” Jake lied with a smile.

  “Bullshit! You sit down and I'll make some more of my world famous coffee and see what I can find to make breakfast.”

  Jake sat in a big, overstuffed chair and watched her move about the kitchen wearing nothing but an oversized dress shirt and a pair of panties. After a while, he forced himself to tear his eyes away and got up to look out the side windows. To the left was an empty lot where another house had stood some years back before it burned down. It had never been built upon again, but looked as though the lot had been mowed regularly before the outbreak. On the other side, the land sloped away for twenty yards or so, steeply enough to be unsuitable for another house and looked as though no one had tended to it for years. Still, there were no infected in sight.

  “Coffee's ready,” Vickie called him, and he limped to the table and sat down. He took a sip and made an exaggerated face of disgust and Vickie stuck her tongue out at him.”