The Book of a Few (10 page)

“
I know you are having a tough time with your wife dead and son missing, but you need to grow up. You need to realize that everyone has lost something by now.”

That made Branden even more upset. His face turned red, and he spouted back at me before he even gave himself time to think. “How the fuck would you know how I feel? You have no clue.”

“
Just because I don’t say that I feel sad, or what I’m feeling at all, doesn’t mean I don’t have emotions. The first thing I saw was a man beating his daughter’s head against a car after she bit him. I went to my mother’s house and found her and my siblings ripped apart all around the room they had holed up in. Since then, I can’t find Miranda. I don’t even know where to
start
looking. I was so connected to her that I don’t know how I’m even functioning. At least you know what happened to Bekah. So yeah, trust me. I know how you feel.”

“
When did you become a psychiatrist? Are you going to diagnose me?”

“
Sure!” I raised my arms in the air. “Why the fuck not? You’re taking the actions of the stranger at the pool and a couple zombies and throwing out judgment to everyone around you that has nothing to do with what happened to your family.”

“
Well, you’re so busy trying to be ‘the good guy’ that you can’t see the threats right in front of you.”

When he said that, I took a moment to analyze myself. He was right, and I hadn’t even noticed it. I was trying to be a savior in a world that can’t be saved. It might be dangerous trusting
people
in a dying world, but I’d rather die by a bullet in the head than be eaten alive, and if I did some real good along the way, it’d be worth it.

I shook my head in frustration. “You know what, this is pointless. I’ll feed Will.” And so I took the initiative and began picking out some food. But as I walked away with Will’s meal in my arms, I remembered the zombie that Branden had pinned down with the forklift.

“
We forgot about the body,” I said.

“
Fuck,” I heard Branden say under his breath, and after a short moment, he followed behind me.

Inside the equipment room, the closer we got to the body, the stronger the smell became. We were both horrified to see that the body of this zombie was no different than any of the others we had seen. Grotesque bulges had formed on the areas of the body not directly secured by the metal forks of the forklift, causing it to appear larger than it was when we had killed it.

Branden placed one foot on the machine and said, “Let me lift—”

“
No!” I held up a hand, stopping him. “Don’t do anything.”

“
I’m just going to lift the forks off it. It looks like it’s about to burst.”

“
Yeah, don’t. Doesn’t feel right. If you move it, even at all, it might break open and spill juices all over. The last thing we need is to clean up contagious blood.”

Branden rolled his eyes. “Well, we can’t just leave it here forever. It’ll start juicing eventually.”

I shook my head. “I know, I know. But just give it a while. At least until we come up with a better solution and we know how we’re going to deal with it.”

“
Jesus, why can’t we just do it now? I don’t understand.”

Irritated again, I said, “You just criticized me five minutes ago about not seeing danger when it is right in front of me. What do you call this, Branden?”

Branden held his hands up. “Whatever. I’m going to throw a tarp over it to hide the smell. It’s disgusting.”

“
Do whatever pleases you,” I said as I began walking away to feed Will.

Honestly, I’m surprised I criticized Branden that much. I usually let people just do their thing, but my own life is on the same line as his. So I think I’ll stand up for myself more frequently. I’m not necessarily condemning Branden for his actions. I’m disagreeing with the way he treats problems. He is too quick to act violently, and sooner or later, he’s going to take on a fight that’s too big for him to handle. I just don’t want to see him getting himself, or the rest of us, hurt.

After feeding Will, which requires untying him, letting him eat, and re-tying him, I made my way to Lisa’s office. Now, it’s not exactly the best spot in the building, as you know. It’s one of the closest rooms to the main doors, but she insisted on staying there. She said that she could just lock the door and they would all be fine. Only time will tell if she is really as secure as she believes she is.

I checked up on Joey and Taylor. Joey seems a little odd now. He’s conscious, but mumbling a lot. I believe that the fall he suffered in the freezer damaged his mental faculties, causing him to be pretty…slow, intellectually. Taylor, on the other hand, is doing pretty well. He is walking around, chatting it up, and doesn’t seem to be in any pain.

An idea struck me while in the Nurse’s office, and I thought it would be best to present it to both Taylor and Branden at the same time. I left the office, taking Taylor with me, and sought out Branden. Within a few minutes, we had located him.

“
So,” I said, “I’m going to run something by the two of you, and you tell me what you think.”

Branden raised one eyebrow. “Okay. Shoot.”

“
What if,” I looked back and forth between Taylor and Branden, “Taylor is immune?”

Both Taylor and Branden were silent in their thoughts for a moment.

“
Like,
immune
immune? To zombies?” Taylor said skeptically.

I nodded. “Yes. You haven’t gone insane, or changed in any way.”

Branden lifted a hand to his chin. “It’s not impossible, now that I think about it. If your body was able to reject multiple bites in a period of two or three days, I’d say you might at least have some immunity.”

I smiled, but Taylor seemed unsure what to think. His expression changed to one of confusion and surprise to one of excitement.

“
You think so?” Taylor asked.

“
Yeah, think about it,” Branden said.

“
We should take him to the hospital,” I suggested. Both Branden and Taylor looked oddly at me. “If what Will said was true, and they are examining the people who are infected, there is no way that they would turn down a look at you.”

Taylor gulped. “Well, what do you think they will want to do to me?”

“
Probably draw blood,” Branden said. “I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot.”

“
The hospital is
clear
on the other end of town. How are we going to get there?” Taylor asked.

“
That’s true. I’d rather drive there than walk, but we don’t have much of a choice.”

We all stood in our spots with our eyes wandering about while we thought up solutions.

None came until Taylor spoke. “How about we untie Will?”

Both Branden and I dropped our jaws a bit.

“
You want to release him?” I asked.

“
Yeah. Just give him one of those baseball bats and he can come along.”

Branden toyed with the idea, saying, “He would make a good meat shield.”

“
Yeah, I suppose, and if he runs off, then that’s that. No need to go after him,” I said. “We’re not giving him a gun, though.”

“
Oh, no. That’s why I suggested the bat,” Taylor said. “We’ve got three usable guns; the shotgun, the rifle, and the .22 we got from one of Will’s goons. Between the three of us, if Will tries to do anything, we’ll just put him down.”

Branden and I agreed with Taylor’s surprising idea. With an extra person in the group, we could increase our odds exponentially. The biggest fight that we could run into, based on what we have seen recently, is a four-on-six. That sounded much better than a one-to-two ratio. So, we had made up our minds, and headed to the cage to release Will.

Will was untied and we gave him Branden’s wooden baseball bat. We told Will that if he were to try taking any aggressive actions against us that we would make sure he regretted it. Branden, of course, did the majority of the threatening. Will seemed completely surprised and quite appreciative; he thanked us and said several times, “I won’t let you down.”

On our way out we stopped at the Nurse’s office. I knocked on the door, and when Lisa opened it, I told her that we were leaving for a while.

“
All right,” she said. “Where are you going?”

“
We are actually planning on going to the hospital to see what that’s all about. Will is going to be coming with us.”

“
Oh.” She smiled slightly and quietly spoke so Will wouldn’t hear her. “At least I don’t have to worry about him then.”

I smiled, too. “Yeah, we’ll see how it goes. Keep your door locked while we’re gone.”

“
Can do. Bring me back some sweets or something, okay?” She grinned.

I nodded. “I’ll try.”

Our plan was to jump through backyards and stay off the streets as much as possible, but we ended up lost once or twice doing so. Not to mention there were a few times where we were had to break into a sprint from a few zombies that had spotted us. I ended up gouging myself pretty bad trying to squeeze through a gap between some fences, but I’m all right.

We walked for nearly an hour across town. Churches, homes, businesses—all appeared empty at first glance. But if you paid close attention to the windows, you could occasionally catch a sign of life.

The hospital takes up its own block and is surrounded by bushes, trees, and uncut grass. It even has a small playground. At first, we were a little unsure of which door to enter, but Will informed us that the emergency entrance would be the best bet. All four of us walked into the main lobby of the hospital. The inside was oddly silent and empty when we got there. But one thing that did help dispel the unease was that the front desk and waiting room had been kept relatively tidy. Magazines were still in their display shelves or even stacked neatly on the end tables next to the chairs. There weren’t any bloodstains on the carpet and even the chairs themselves appeared to be undisturbed from where you would usually find them.

Out in the open, sitting on top of what would be the receptionist’s desk, was a service bell. Branden and Taylor whispered to one another, wondering what the other thought and if they should yell out for attention. Will stayed quiet. Without fear, I simply walked to the desk and rang the bell a few times.

Right on cue, armed men burst from multiple doors and into the lobby with their weapons pointed toward us. They demanded we drop our guns and raise our arms. Branden cursed aloud, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was: a trap.

The men went as far as ripping our weapons off us and throwing them on the ground. Each one of them wore a lightweight bulletproof vest and appeared to be very practiced at this routine. I looked at Will and examined him. He didn’t appear to be enjoying this experience and he didn’t have a grimace or a smug smile, but he also didn’t appear as worried as I was. All he would have had to do was make those posters and have a group of men occupy the hospital. People who saw one of Will's signs hanging would make their way here to his ambush. For that single moment, Will was, without a doubt in my mind, a very clever man, and forever my enemy.