“I'm seeing things in a different light. I did what needed done. They butchered that poor boy and you know what they would have done to Carolyn. I did what I had to.”
Jake stared at her face for a long time and she met his eyes, unblinking, until he reluctantly let go of her arm. She smiled at him and went up the stairs.
Carolyn luxuriated in the shower, turning the water as hot as she could stand it, washing off weeks of grime and sweat and feeling better than she had since before the infection broke. After drying herself off and running a brush through her long, light-brown hair, she found clean underwear in the dresser and a blouse and pants in the closet. She was a good bit fuller in the bosom than Vickie so she went without a bra. She was also a bit wider in the hips as well as two inches taller, but at least they wore the same size shoes, near enough, and, under the circumstances, she was pretty happy with the way the clothes fit her.
Stepping out of the room, she turned for the stairs and stopped short. She could hear soft sobbing coming from the far side of the bunkroom and she walked into the communal bathroom to find Vickie sitting on the floor in a corner, face buried in her hands, sobbing and trembling.
“Vickie,” she cried, going to her side, crouching next to her and taking her gently by the shoulders. “Oh, honey! What's wrong?”
Vickie shook her head and turned away from her and Carolyn took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. Her eyes were red and rivulets of tears flowed down her cheeks and ran down her neck.
“I killed those men,” she squeaked. “I wanted to kill them. It felt right killing them! I enjoyed killing them!” her voice rose with each sentence.
Carolyn put her arms around her and Vickie clung tightly to her, sobbing uncontrollably. Carolyn stroked her hair and spoke softly, soothingly to her.
“Honey, those men were evil. You don't know the things they did before they caught Benny and me. They bragged about them, even as the one was slashing Benny's throat. There's no reason to feel any pity or remorse over them.”
Vickie pulled back and looked at her through blurry, bloodshot eyes.
“What about you? They killed your best friend and I haven't seen you shed any tears over him at all!”
“The things I've seen in the last few weeks, the things I've had to do myself... I'll cry myself to sleep over Benny when I'm alone in bed tonight with nothing else to think about, nothing else to worry about. But life still goes on, even when you've lost someone you love. Even when you've done things that you never could have imagined yourself capable of.”
“You're right. I know you're right. But that doesn't make it any easier.”
“It should never be easy. Killing, watching your friends and family die. God help us if it comes to the point where it doesn't make us sick. Those four men killed other people before they killed Benny. They raped and murdered women and children, and they bragged about it, were proud of it! You stopped them from hurting anyone else. And you saved my life.”
Vickie smiled weakly and wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands.
“Come on. Let's get you cleaned up before we go back downstairs.”
Carolyn led her to the sink and watched her as she washed her face in cold water and collected herself. Then, Carolyn holding Vickie’s hand, they went down the stairs together.
Jake was sound asleep and appeared to be resting comfortably, so the two women heated up some tomato soup and toasted the last of the now stale bread Vickie made earlier, then took seats around the office desk at the front of the building.
“So, you and Jake?” Carolyn asked her.
Vickie shook her head. “He found me wandering the streets about a week ago, saved me when one of them attacked me. Brought me here and we've been together ever since. I've been a nuisance, at best, but he still takes care of me.”
“But the two of you aren’t together then?”
“No. I wanted it to happen. I offered to. But he's got some code that won't let him take advantage of me because he thinks I only offered out of a sense of obligation.”
“Hmm. Don't meet many like that,” Carolyn mused.
“You know, before all this happened, I would never have been interested in a guy like him. He's too much older and much too serious. The crowd I hung around with, we partied and drank and smoked weed and never had a serious thought cross our minds. They're probably all dead now, and I would be, too, if it hadn't been for Jake.”
“The way I would be if it hadn't been for you,” Carolyn added, gazing into Vickie’s eyes and placing her hand atop hers.
Vickie smiled back at her a bit uncomfortably and they finished their meal and took their dishes to the kitchen. Jake was awake when they looked in on him, but had a faraway look in his eyes.
“I guess that sedative wasn't strong enough,” Carolyn said, bending to feel his forehead. “You're a little warm, but I don't think any infection has really set in. A few days of resting and you should start feeling better. Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“Got some tomato soup left over. If you handle that okay, you can have something solid tomorrow.”
Carolyn went to fix him a bowl of soup while Vickie sat down beside him.
“I could use a smoke,” he told her.
She found a pack on the table, shook one out, put it between her lips and lit it, then held it for him while he took a drag.
“Filthy habit,” Carolyn said as she brought the hot soup out to him, eliciting a smile from Jake.
Vickie butted out the cigarette and positioned herself behind Jake so he could get into a sitting position while Carolyn fed him spoonfuls of soup.
“I'm perfectly capable of feeding myself,” he told her. “And I can hold my own cigarette, too.”
“You're going to get waited on hand and foot tonight and like it,” Vickie said sternly. Then, in a lighter tone, “Tomorrow, we'll see how it goes.”
When he finished the soup, Vickie relighted the cigarette to let him take a couple of drags and put it out again when his eyes began to get heavy. She gently lowered his head onto the pillow and pulled the blanket up to his neck.
“You really should discourage him from smoking,” Carolyn admonished. “He’s got enough problems without adding to them.”
“I’ll fight that battle later.”
“It's been a long day,” Carolyn said after they'd cleaned up the dishes. “I think I'm ready to turn in. Can I just pick any of those bunks upstairs?”
“Actually, if you don't think it's weird, I'd kind of like you to sleep in the bedroom with me. I just don't want to be alone tonight. If you don't think that's too creepy.”
“I wouldn't think it was weird at all,” Carolyn said, looking at her and smiling. “I'd rather not be alone tonight, either.”
They took turns in the bathroom, Vickie taking a long shower, trying to resolve her emotions over the events of the day. The more she thought about it, the less sympathy she had for the men she killed and the ones she left for the infected. Carolyn was right; they deserved everything they got and Vickie vowed she’d never again hesitate when the situation called for action and never second-guess herself afterward.
She came out of the bathroom wearing panties and a loose t-shirt to find Carolyn topless beside the bed.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Carolyn said. “I’m not.”
“Uh, no. No, you just caught me by surprise,” Vickie answered hesitantly, averting her eyes.
“No, I'm making you uncomfortable.” Carolyn opened a drawer and took out a long shirt, pulling it on over her head. “Better?”
Vickie nodded and got under the covers and Carolyn joined her.
“I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along, Vickie. Actually, I do know; I would have been raped and murdered.”
“That didn’t happen. It was just pure chance that I heard you scream.”
“You didn’t have to come to my rescue. You could have gone back to the safety of th
e house, locked yourselves in and waited until it was over.”
“I can still hear the screams of another girl, one I couldn’t help. I couldn’t bear to add yours to that.”
They both lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling. After a minute or so of awkward silence, Carolyn turned to Vickie and kissed her on the mouth. For a moment, Vickie was too shocked to react, but found herself hesitantly kissing her back as Carolyn's hand began to move up over her stomach. Suddenly, Vickie drew away sharply and stared, wide-eyed at Carolyn.
“I'm sorry,” Carolyn said. “It’s just... With everything that’s happened today, and it's been such a long time since I’ve been really close to anyone. Do you want me to go?”
“No,” Vickie said, very quickly. “No, you don't have to go. I just didn't expect... When you said Benny was gay, the way you said it, I didn't think that you were that way.”
“Do you think that much less of me now?”
“No! Oh, no! I mean, it's not like that. It's just that this got so intense so fast.”
“I shouldn’t have tried something like that without being sure you felt the same way, but I was just feeling so overwhelmed with it all. I’m sorry. I put my emotions ahead of my judgement. Maybe it would be best if I did sleep elsewhere.”
“No, no, I still don’t want to be alone tonight. But, can we just go to sleep? This is just too much for me to deal with right now.”
“Sure. I’m sorry to have sprung this on you all at once like that. I guess I just wanted to feel safe and and and I don’t know what. Good night, Vickie, and thank you again,” Carolyn said before turning on her side facing away.
Vickie lay on her back for a little while, confused about her own feelings, thinking how much she missed the closeness, the intimacy she’d had with Chuck, wishing she could recapture that feeling of comfort and contentment. She listened to Carolyn’s quiet breathing, felt the warmth from her body and yearned to be closer to that warmth, to share it. She softly whispered a goodnight and Carolyn gave a contented sigh and they both slowly drifted off to sleep.
Chapter15: Strange Relations
Vickie awoke to find herself facing Carolyn in bed, Carolyn's arm around her and her own hand resting on Carolyn’s hip. She carefully disentangled herself and went into the bathroom.
“What the hell have I gotten myself into,” she thought to herself. She definitely found Carolyn physically attractive and had enjoyed their kiss last night entirely too much. Now, waking up this way, she really didn’t want to deal with what this might mean or where it might lead.
Trying to put it out of her head, she washed her face and neck in cold water, letting the chill take her mind off it. She dried off and dressed and went into the bedroom to find Carolyn, already clothed, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I’m sorry about last night, about coming on so strong to you,” she told Vickie. “That was probably the last thing you needed.”
“Carolyn, it’s okay. I think I can understand, but this is something outside of my comfort zone. I see what Jake meant when he told me we didn't need this kind of complication right now.”
“Okay, I won't do anything to make you uncomfortable again,” she agreed. “You’re right. This probably isn't the time for any drama like that. We should probably go downstairs and check on Jake, then get some breakfast, okay?”
Vickie nodded, and they went down the steps. Jake's makeshift bed was empty and he was nowhere in sight. Vickie had a moment of panic before she heard the back door open and saw Jake walking in from outside.
“What the hell are you doing!” she shouted at him. “Are you trying to tear your stitches open again? Get back in bed! Now!”
“Hey, hey, it’s nothing to get excited about. I had to use the can, and since I can't climb the stairs, I went out to one of the porta-potties.”
“Oh, good God, you are such a fool!” Carolyn scolded. “Better a little embarrassment shitting in a bucket than taking a chance on reopening that wound! Now, lie down and let me take a look at it!”
Jake let out a loud, dramatic sigh before stretching out on the bedding and let Carolyn unwrap his bandage and fuss over his wound.
“Well, you didn't do any more damage this time. Still, you are not to get up out of this bed until I tell you you can, alright?”
Jake looked at her and said, “I know you from somewhere, don’t I? I know I’ve seen you before.”
“Maybe. I’ve done some newspaper ads, been in a couple of local commercial spots.”
“Yeah! You do that hot-tub commercial!”
“That’s the one most guys remember,” Carolyn sighed. “I have done a lot of stuff where I’m fully dressed. Nobody seems to remember any of that, though.”
“Well, yeah, that one did have a really catchy jingle,” Jake smiled.
“You're impossible,” Vickie shook her head. “I'll see what I can come up with for breakfast while Carolyn wraps your leg.”
Vickie made pancakes with a mix, powdered milk and water and fried a bit of Spam to go with them. Jake insisted that he be allowed to get up and sit at the table instead of trying to eat while propped up uncomfortably on pillows and they relented. While they ate, Vickie told Carolyn about her time at Peterson's and her rescue by Jake, as well as the two injuries he'd suffered because of her and Jake climbed several steps up in Carolyn's estimation. Jake, in turn, told of his adventures since the outbreak and what he'd learned from the CDC doctor.
“Well, like I told Vickie earlier,” Carolyn took her turn, “my mom was an ER nurse and she was bitten by one of her patients; just a tiny nip, actually. It barely even drew blood. This was before it was generally known how this thing spread. I didn’t find this out until after it was too late. Benny looked for me at my ex-husband’s worksite; he was a contractor and I owned a percentage of the company. When he didn’t find me there, he swung by my house to pick us all up, intending to take us with him to try to find some place that was safe. It was too late for my parents. Dad couldn’t bring himself to kill my mother and she infected him, but Benny and I made it to where these other people were living in a triplex over by the Benton Pike. There were nine of us, altogether, and we actually all got along well, all things considered. We'd take turns going out in groups of three to search for food and water and to search for weapons or to try to find other survivors. For a few weeks, everything was going along fine, relatively speaking, that is. Then, the infected began to pass through in greater numbers, sometimes a hundred or more at a time. I guess it was inevitable that they eventually caught on to us living in that big house.
“We hadn't been able to get out on any runs for over a week, there were just so many of them, and we were running short of everything, but mostly water, so one group decided to chance a run. They were spotted before they reached the street and only one of them made it back inside. Then they were at the door, pounding and scratching at it. They broke a window on the porch and started coming in and we couldn’t hold them off. We killed dozens of them, but they just kept coming and we were running out of ammunition. We all broke for the back door but only four of us made it out of the yard. Benny and I went through a hedge into a neighboring yard, but the other two went running up an alley. I don't know if they made it. We kept running, I think west, until we felt safe enough to stop and catch our breath. I had a 9mm pistol, but was out of ammunition and Benny's gun was a 40 caliber, so he led the way and we spent the days on the run, finding food and water wherever we could, and holed up in empty buildings at night.
“Yesterday, we came across that house with the big fence around it and hoped we might be able to stay there for a while. Those guys pounced on us the moment we went through the gate. They beat Benny to the ground and started kicking him, laughing like it was some great sport. Then they got around to me, telling me how they were going to pass me around before feeding me to the infected, how they'd done that to other women and even little kids. They thought Benny was done for, but he got up and went for them, trying t
o save me, and that's when the one they called Jackie had two other guys pin his arms and he just walked up to him and they all laughed and cheered while he sliced open both sides of Benny’s neck. Right after that is when you showed up, Vickie.”
No one said anything for a long time, and everyone seemed to have lost their appetites.
“We're eventually going to meet other people, groups of people,” Jake broke the silence. “I know there have to be some good people left out there, but, we have to be careful of who we approach and how we approach them. We’ll have to make some judgment calls about who’s trustworthy and who’s dangerous.”
“We might be alone forever?” Vickie despaired.
“No. We have to believe there are good people out there. Look at the three of us. Look at the first group Carolyn and Benny found, the people at the refugee center. We've helped each other, taken care of each other; there have to be other survivors who want to try to bring back some semblance of order, of civilization. We just have to be careful.”
After cleaning up the breakfast dishes, Vickie gave Carolyn a tour of the building and the compound and Jake gave her a 9mm Glock and started to show her how to load and fire it, but she took it from him and deftly stripped it and reassembled it. She explained that she and her ex had belonged to a gun club and they often went shooting together. He also gave both of them some brief instructions on using an AR-15, showing them how to tear one down for cleaning and how to unjam it if need be, though Carolyn was already familiar with it. Later it was Carolyn who suggested taking a toolbox from the utility room and breaking down one of the bunk beds and reassembling the lower half in the dining hall so Jake didn't have to lie on the floor. With some difficulty and a few scrapes and bruised knuckles, they accomplished the task and piled two mattresses on it and settled him in comfortably.
Outside, there were very few infected nearby, but using the binoculars from the second floor balcony, Vickie commented that there seemed to be dozens of them moving across the bridge upstream, near where Jake had rescued her. Vickie and Carolyn took the opportunity to haul the smaller generator in from the Humvee only minutes before large numbers of infected began crossing the open field and set it just outside the back door. Jake was a bit upset that they didn't have him spotting for them, but had to acknowledge that they didn't really need him. Even if he'd been in shape to do them much good, after his trip out to the porta potty Carolyn had been dosing him with mild sedatives to keep him from getting too active while his wound healed since he was too stubborn to listen to either of them.
The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy Page 10