Authors: Ann Riley
“You remember what I said? I told you I would cut your balls off.” I tell the other one.
He runs at me and I kick out and catch him in the knee. He falls, screaming.
I walk closer and kick him in the side of the head, he is disoriented, so I cut his pants in at the crotch and reach in and pull out all his little goodies. I take my knife and cut his balls off and as he looks at me and screams, I throw them in his face.
“I told you bastard. You try to kill me or mine, and you get no mercy from me.” I say through clenched teeth.
It’s not a nice feeling to have someone’s body part in your hand while they scream, but, how much empathy can I have for people who try to kill us?
Would you be able to make the choice of kill or be killed?
It’s not hard when you are put in that situation. All I know is that I have to get my nephew out of here and make sure he is alright. That is the only concern I have right now. I will do what I have to in order to get him the hell out of here.
I look up to see the doctor coming back for round two. He doesn’t give up I see. He runs at me and I swing my knife at him.
“You stabbed me bitch.” He says.
“Yes. And if you get close enough, I will stab you again.” I tell him.
I have lost the gun I found. That’s just my luck. I am still burning with fever and I am dizzy now, so I can’t get focused on him.
He runs at me and knocks me down again and he’s back on top of me. Damn can I stay out of this position.
He starts choking me. Squeezing as hard as he can. I am kicking and fighting to get him off me, but I am weak now and feel as though I have no strength. I can feel myself fading and can see dots in front of my face. Damn, he is going to kill me.
I bring my knee up one last time to connect to his balls and I can’t pull it up. Everything is getting darker and I know I am done for now.
Suddenly, I hear a shot ring out and the doctor screams, and I black out.
I come to, after I don’t know how long. I see the doctor beside me with a bullet in his head. I lie there trying to get my mind back together. It feels like he crushed my windpipe as my throat is hurting like hell. I roll onto my side and roll face to face with Marc. I reach my hand out to touch him and see if he is still alive, he is still burning with fever. He must have been able to get in here, get the gun and shoot this crazy bastard. Then he passed out.
I drag myself closer and call his name. No reply. I shake him and still no reply.
Shit.
I get myself up on my knees and lean over to see if I feel his pulse. It’s there, but very weak.
I head over to the cabinet that I see some medicine in and look for the pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine. I find two bottles of each and put them in my pocket.
I find a backboard to put under Marc and strap him on it so I can pull him out of here. I get the gun, still in his hand, and stick it in the back of my waistband.
“Hold on nephew. We are getting the hell out of here.” I tell him.
I would like to see if there are others here, but chances are they are already infected and there is nothing we can do. So I get Marc on the board and pick up the end and start dragging him out.
“Damn you’re heavy. You don’t look that heavy, but you have put on some weight son.” I tell him.
I drag him to the elevators we came down on and dig the key card out of my pocket and scan. The doors open and I pull him inside and we go up.
We reach the top floor and the doors open. I step out and look around. I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean shit.
I start dragging Marc again and we get outside and I see the truck we drove over here in. I run over to it and get in to drive over to where he is. It takes all the strength I have to get his ass off the ground and in the truck. We have food and water in the truck so I drive out to the edge of the woods we waited in earlier so I can get him out and give this medicine to him.
We reach the woods and I park, get out and check for anyone lurking around, like walkers. I don’t see anything so I get our food, water and blankets out. Make a bed on the ground and start a fire. I pull Marc out and get him on the blankets and covered up. I have to rest for a minute as I still have a fever and am about to pass out.
As Marc rests, I get the medicine out and get it ready for him. I’m going to have to crush it and put it in water so I can pour it down him.
I take a bottle of water and pour out some in the small cup in my backpack and dump the pills in.
They dissolve and I raise him up and pour it in. soon he takes some sips and when he is finished, I lay him back.
Fuck, I am hurting. I grab a bottle of water and start pouring it on my head. Washing my face to get the blood off and drinking it too. I feel my hair where I chopped it off. It will grow back, but it sure feels funny as hell.
Grabbing the backpack, I dig out some jerky, chips and cheese. I find some Tylenol Tammy packed for us, bless her soul, and pop three in my mouth. I have to get this fever down.
I finish eating and sit there watching. I’m trying not to go to sleep, but damn it’s hard. I am exhausted.
It’s dark now so I get up and go find a couple of logs for the fire. When I come back, Marc is moving around.
“Marc. Can you hear me?” I ask him.
He nods.
I feel his head and see the fever has gone down some so I take two Tylenols, crush them and make him open up so he can swallow them.
He goes back to sleep and I sit and stare at the fire. I want to go home. Damn this. We still don’t know anything, only that they were infecting people there. We still have no cure. We are back at zero.
I sit long enough to doze off because I wake up to see Marc looking at me.
“Are you alright?” I ask him.
“Better. But not good.” He says.
“Are you alright?” He asks.
“Yeah. Sore and stiff as hell, but alright. My fever finally broke. I got some of those pills in you for the toxo parasite, you need to take some more now.” I tell him.
“How is your arm?” I ask.
“It will be fine.” He replies.
“How did we get out here?” He asks me.
“I put you on a backboard and dragged you out of the building. I wrestled with you to get you in the truck and back out and laid you here.” I tell him.
He shakes his head.
“If you hadn’t been able to shoot that fucker, he would have killed me.” I tell Marc.
“I know. I heard the noise and the explosion and tried to find you. I came down and saw him choking you, saw the gun, picked it up and shot his ass. Then passed out.” Marc says.
“You had me scared. I didn’t know if you were going to make it or not.” I say.
“Yeah, I didn’t know if I was going to make it either.” He says.
“Well, we did. And I’m ready to drive our ass home. Fuck this shit. We can almost die at home.” I tell him.
He snorts out a laugh.
“We are resting here for the night. We will wake up early and head home. How’s that sound?” I ask him.
“Sounds wonderful.” He replies.
I make us something to eat. We smoke a couple of cigarettes and talk for a few minutes before he goes back off to sleep.
I sit there and stare at the fire and want to be at home with Bobby and Riley.
I get up and get the rope out of the truck that we made for an alarm. It has bells on it. I string it around our little camp and go back to sit down. Soon I am asleep.
I don’t think I was asleep any more than thirty minutes when the bells start ringing. I jump up to a squatting position and look around. A damn zombie.
He has gotten tangled in the rope. I walk over and stab him in the head. After dragging him off to the side, I rehang the rope and sit down.
“You need some sleep. Go ahead and I will watch.” Marc says.
“Are you sure you can right now.” I ask.
“Yeah. Go to sleep.” He says.
So I do. I think I died when I laid down because I didn’t know anything else until the sunrise woke me.
When I woke up, Marc was sitting at the fire looking much better. His color was back and he had no fever.
“Did you take some more medicine?” I ask him.
“I didn’t know which one.” He says.
I did around in the bag and get the pills out and hand them to him. He takes them and hands me some cheese and jerky, water and chips.
“Have you seen any walkers around this morning?” I ask Marc.
She shakes his head no.
I guess that’s a relief because I don’t feel up to killing any.
“What now?” Marc asks.
“We need to get your arm checked and set properly. I’m not sure I set it correctly and I don’t want you having trouble with it later on. We need to find a doctor or nurse. Although I don’t know where in the hell we would find one.” I say.
“We need to find a radio to call home. They will come looking for us if we don’t and I’d rather they not be on the highways now. It’s too much shit happening.” Marc says.
“Let’s go then. I will drive and we can look for a Radio Shack or some other electronics store to get a radio.” I tell Marc.
We get our things together and get in the truck to search for a radio.
As we get into town, we see walkers everywhere. It seems as though they have multiplied overnight.
Finally, we see a Radio Shack. We park and get our weapons ready. We are going to bring the guns, but use the kukris so we don’t attract more walkers to us. I get out first and Marc comes from behind.
“Stay behind me. You only have one arm. Just make sure the walkers don’t get me from behind and I will take care of the front.” I tell him.
“I feel useless.” Marc says.
“Well, you better not be because if I get bit I’m kicking your ass.” I tell him.
He smiles.
I start swinging with my first step. We have six walkers right in front of us and I take those down one by one. I hear Marc chopping into heads behind me and hope we can get out of this shit before we get chewed up. I continue my trek to the doors and try to turn occasionally to see where Marc is.
We reach the door and see the window is shattered so that means walkers inside. Damn. I go in and look around as Marc comes in behind me. He walks off to start looking for a radio as he knows what kind we need. I watch and take out any walkers coming in the door after us.
“Got it.” Marc says.
“Good. Let’s get the hell out of here.” I tell him.
On our way out, I see a battery display and load up my backpack. You can never tell when you may need a battery.
We head back out the door and I clear the path again. Marc is coming up behind me swinging with one arm.
Getting to the truck, we see walkers surrounding it.
“Holy Hades on a wagon.” I say.
“What the hell does that mean?” Marc asks.
“Trouble.” I say.
“Get ready to get to the truck and get in.” I tell Marc.
He nods.
I pull out my rifle and start picking off walkers. Marc is still swinging his kukri and we finally get a small path cleared for him to get to the truck and open the door. He gets the truck going and dives to where I am standing with his door open knocking down walkers. He slides over and I get in to drive.
“Fuck. I am tired of this shit. Will it ever end?” I ask.
“Hell if I know.” Marc says.
We drive around to find a walker free place to park. We are able to go back to the hotel we were in on our first night here in Canton. No walkers so far.
Marc gets into the back of the truck to get the radio set up and I watch for visitors. Including walkers and other humans.
“Hey, is anyone there?” I hear Marc say.
We wait for a second, then hear Bobby’s voice.
“Yeah, I’m here.” Bobby says.
“Hey man. How is everything there?” Marc asks him.
“We’re fine. How are y’all? We were getting worried. We haven’t heard from y’all in four days. You know we were about to head that way.” Bobby says.
“Yeah, well, we had some trouble. We will explain when we get home.” Marc says.
“Hey baby.” I say to Bobby.
“Are you alright?” he asks.
“We are now. Marc has a broken arm, but he is alright. We are going to try and look around for a doctor so it can be checked. Then we are coming home.” I tell him.
“Why can’t you wait and let Tammy look at it.” Bobby asks me.
“Because I am not sure I set it correctly and I don’t want it to heal wrong.” I say.
“Well hurry and come home. We are worried. We got the fencing back in order and got all of the security back in place. Trey and I have worked nonstop to get it back up and running. We had to set an alarm around the barn and set up some extra electric fencing because the walkers were trying to get to the horses.” Bobby says.