He wrapped a clean part
of his shirt around the glass and slowly slid it from her leg. She
bit down on her lips and moaned in pain, but at least she didn’t
scream. Screaming might bring more of the infected. They seemed to be
attracted to loud noises.
Parrish came back with
the peroxide and he opened the bottle and poured it over the top of
the wound. With quick jerks, he tore his t-shirt into long strips of
fabric. He created a bandage for her, then pressed it gently against
the open wound.
His hand felt suddenly
ice cold and tingly. Then, he felt as if he could somehow pull some
of the pain from Karmen’s leg. It was a strange feeling.
“How do you feel?
Can you walk?”
Karmen’s
shoulders relaxed a little bit. She nodded. “It actually feels
a little better now, thanks,” she said. “I can walk. Help
me up.”
Parrish reached for
Karmen’s hand and helped her up.
The girls followed him
to the back of the house where he had piled a bunch of spare wood
he’d gathered from the shed out back. He’d brought it in
on a whim after he’d talked to Mr. Mills next door, not really
expecting it to come to this. Now he was glad he had.
“Grab as much of
this wood as you can and bring it to the front of the house.”
In the hall closet, he
found a hammer and a bag of nails, then hurried to meet the girls.
He tossed the hammer to
Parrish and told her to start boarding up the windows. Karmen sat
down on the floor at Parrish’s feet, handing wood and nails up
to her as she worked.
He grabbed a second
hammer from the garage and got to work on the doors. Some of the
infected had already reached the front door and were pounding on it,
but they didn’t have enough strength to break through.
Between the two of
them, they had the entire bottom floor of the house boarded up within
half an hour. He was surprised at how strong he felt. It usually took
him at least three or four pounds to hammer a nail into a piece of
wood, but for some reason, tonight he was pounding them in with a
single hit. Maybe his adrenaline was just pumping hard enough to give
him that extra burst of energy.
When they were
finished, he grabbed three bottles of water from the fridge and
brought them into the living room where Parrish and Karmen had
settled on the couch. He handed them the water, then sat down on the
coffee table facing them. He’d been working so hard, sweat
trickled down the center of his back and he realized he hadn’t
even taken the time to put on a fresh shirt.
Karmen took the water
but didn’t open it. She just laid her head against the back of
the couch and curled her bandaged leg under her body. From the looks
of it, the bleeding had stopped. They’d need to keep a close
eye on it to make sure it didn’t get infected, though.
Parrish downed the
water, then crushed the bottle in her fist. When she met his eyes, he
didn’t look away. He just held her gaze while something flipped
in his stomach.
“So what now?”
Parrish asked. “What do you think happened to those people?”
Noah cleared his
throat. He knew a lot more than most people right now because of his
dad’s security clearance, but just how much did he want to
share with them? He couldn’t take them down to the basement
where his dad was. He didn’t want them to see how sick his dad
had become.
Besides, the actual
truth about what happened to the infected outside sounded like
something out of a horror film. He wasn’t even sure they’d
believe him if he told them.
“You know my
dad’s a doctor right?” he asked.
Parrish nodded. For
security reasons, most people who knew his dad thought he was just a
normal doctor. They had no idea he worked for the CDC or that he
studied and tested vaccines.
“He works for the
CDC,” he said.
Karmen lifted her head
from the couch and studied him. “You’re kidding me? So
you knew about this virus the whole time? How dangerous it was?”
He looked at Parrish,
guilt tearing him apart inside. He really should have come to see her
after that night with her mom.
“I knew something
was going on that night the guy collapsed in front of Parrish’s
house,” he said. “My dad works downtown a lot and wasn’t
really able to tell me what was going on, but I knew it was bad. I
just didn’t realize how bad.”
“Is that where he
is now?” Parrish asked. “At work?”
Noah swallowed, then
looked down at the bottle of water in his hands. He moved it from one
hand to the other, nodding. “Yeah, he hasn’t been home in
days,” he lied. “I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“Do you know
what’s going on with those people outside, then?” Karmen
asked.
“I have a
theory,” Noah said, looking up. “But it’s crazy.”
“I think the bar
just got raised on crazy,” Parrish said. She untied her boots
and pulled them off her feet. She was wearing socks that came up to
her thighs and a short black skirt. She tucked her feet underneath
her on the couch and Noah realized he’d never actually hung out
with her like this.
He also realized she
wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.
He really wished this
had happened under different circumstances.
“I think this
virus, whatever it is, killed those people,” he said, deciding
to just blurt it out, no matter how crazy it sounded. It was the
truth. “And then it brought them back.”
Karmen snorted. “That’s
beyond crazy. That’s just impossible.”
Parrish’s
expression didn’t change. “Brought them back how?”
“I have no idea,”
he said. “All I know is that their hearts stopped and they were
dead for a little while, and then suddenly, they weren’t.”
“You’re
talking about zombies, then?” Karmen asked. “Just say it.
We’ve all seen the movies. But that’s fiction. Something
like that couldn’t happen in real life. There has to be
something else going on with them. Maybe the infection just scrambled
their brains. Like mad cow disease or something.”
“No one with mad
cow disease ever tried to eat anyone,” Noah said.
“How do you know
for sure their hearts stopped?” Parrish asked.
He avoided her eyes. “I
just know.”
“And if they bite
you, you can get infected? Is that why you asked us about the bites?”
she asked.
“Yes, I was able
to access some of my dad’s research on his computer and most of
the reports are saying that even if you were immune to the initial
virus, a bite from one of these infected zombies appears to put the
virus directly into your bloodstream where your immune system can no
longer protect you against it.”
“Jesus,”
Parrish said. She put her head in her hands.
Noah wanted to move to
the couch to sit by her. If Karmen wasn’t there, he might have.
But instead, he just stood and paced the room in front of the
fireplace.
“I still don’t
buy it,” Karmen said.
“Then how do you
explain it?” Noah asked. She could really be such a know-it-all
sometimes. Of course she didn’t believe what he had to say.
Still, he doubted she had a credible theory of her own other than
saying he was wrong.
She shrugged. “I
don’t know. This is just some weird mutation of the disease.”
He rubbed the back of
his neck. They were both right, really. Even with the information
that he’d read so far, no one had been able to pinpoint exactly
what the original virus was capable of. And it didn’t seem like
every single person who died had come back to life as one of these
mindless flesh-eaters. Only some of them.
He wanted answers, but
he wasn’t the scientist. His dad was. And his dad couldn’t
help him now.
One of the windows
toward the front of the house shattered and an infected scratched at
the exposed wood. All three of them jumped up, ready to fight, then
relaxed when they realized the boards had held and the infected were
still safely outside the house.
“Look, we’re
all on edge and we’re all exhausted,” Noah said. “None
of us are going anywhere tonight, so why don’t you both go
upstairs and get some sleep. We can try to come up with a plan and
talk through this in the morning.”
“What are you
going to do?” Parrish asked.
He walked over to his
dad’s gun cabinet and searched along the top of it until his
hand made contact with the small metal key. The cabinet held six
different shotguns. They were mostly hunting rifles his dad had
inherited from his brother when he died. They probably hadn’t
been fired in six or seven years, but Noah was pretty sure they still
worked. He pulled open the drawer at the bottom and grabbed a box of
shells.
He also pulled out a
lockbox that held his dad’s .45.
“I’m going
to keep the first watch,” he said. “If anything breaks
through one of the windows or doors, I’m going to shoot it.”
It. He’d used the
word without even really thinking, but those things out there, they
weren’t really people anymore.
“One of you can
sleep in my dad’s bed,” he said. “The sheets are
clean and no one’s slept in there since last Friday. The other
can take the guest room. Dad’s room is just after you get to
the top of the steps on the right. The guest room is to the left,
down the hall. Second room on the left.”
“What about you?
Don’t you need sleep, too?” Parrish asked.
He shrugged. “I’ve
got so much going through my mind right now, I don’t think I
could sleep even if wanted to,” he said.
Parrish nodded. “I
know exactly what you mean.”
“You should at
least try to get some rest,” he said. “I’ll wake
you up if anything interesting happens.”
“I’m not
sure I’ll be able to get up the stairs on my own,” Karmen
said. “My leg is still pretty bad. Don’t suppose you guys
have any painkillers in this house?”
Noah laughed. “Maybe.
My dad had a root canal a couple months ago. I think he might have
some pills left over from that.”
Karmen sighed. “Thank
God. I need it.”
“I’ll carry
you up and then see if I can find them.”
He lifted Karmen into
his arms and was amazed at how light she felt. Not that she was big
by any means, but still. He didn’t even have to exert himself
at all to lift her off the ground and carry her all the way up the
steps.
He set her down on his
dad’s bed as gently as he could and she hung on, hugging him
tight when he tried to let her go.
“Thanks for
letting us stay over,” she said in his ear.
“It’s no
problem,” he said. “I’m glad we’re all
together.”
He searched his dad’s
medicine cabinet and came back with a bottle of Vicodin. Karmen took
the bottle and popped one of the small white pills into her mouth,
swallowing it without even a drink of water.
“Thanks,”
she said. “You could come lay down with me if you wanted to.”
Noah cleared his
throat. What was he supposed to say to that? Karmen was gorgeous, but
she wasn’t the one he wanted to be with.
He decided to not say
anything at all.
He checked the bandage
and as soon as he was sure the bleeding had stopped, he loosened the
belt from her leg. By the time he was done putting on a new bandage
he’d found in the bathroom, she had fallen asleep.
When he came out of the
room, he shut the door carefully behind him.
He turned to find
Parrish standing in the doorway of the guest room.
“Thanks for
taking us in,” she said. “If you hadn’t opened that
door, I’m not sure what would have happened to us.”
“We’re in
this together now,” he said. “I promise I’ll do
whatever I can to keep you safe.”
And he meant it. For
some reason, he’d felt connected to her since the first day he
met her. What were the chances with half the world sick and dying
that they’d both be immune and that she’d have ended up
here with him like this? Something inside him said it hadn’t
been chance at all.
“Get some rest,”
he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Parrish nodded, then
disappeared into the guest room. Noah waited until he heard her door
safely click closed, then went downstairs to start his first watch
against the night.
Crash woke with a
start. His body jerked from the shock of his dream and he nearly fell
out of his chair. He’d fallen asleep in front of his monitors
again. Lately, he’d been glued to them like his life depended
on it.
And didn’t it?
He closed his eyes and
rubbed them with the back of his hand. Holy crap, what was that all
about? Maybe he needed to lay off the energy drinks for a while.
He’d been
dreaming of someone hiding in a dark place. A closet, maybe.
He could feel their
fear as if it were his own.
Outside, noises of a
fight made them shiver and whimper. He wanted to help them. He
couldn’t see them because the inside of the closet was so dark,
but he knew them all the same. The fifth.
It wasn’t the
first time he had dreamed of the fifth, but in his dreams, he could
never quite see them.
He sat up straighter
and tried to shrug off the feeling of fear and loneliness.
On the six main
monitors, he had set up a grid of information. YouTube on one screen,
email on a second, prepper forums loaded in tabs on the third
listening for any recent news on the virus, a hacking program he’d
written running on the fourth monitor constantly trying to break into
a CDC database, local news playing on monitor five, and finally, on
the sixth and center monitor, he had a map up of the affected zones.
The prediction software
he’d created had come back with a very scary outlook for the
future. According to the information he’d been able to pull
from various news organizations and websites, he estimated there were
over two billion people worldwide who had already died from this
virus. Another billion were currently sick and most of those would
probably be dead within a week. That was nearly half the world’s
population.