The Book of a Few (20 page)

“
We’re gonna make one last run,” Will said. “You’re coming, too, right?”

I sighed, and slowly breathed back in before speaking my mind. “I don’t really think that it’s the smartest time to go out again.”

Will half-nodded but still spoke in favor of going. “It is a bad time, but we owe it to Branden to go out one more time. Just for a while, anyway. We’re planning on making this one quick.”

Branden sat hunched over on the back of the truck, patiently eyeing us as we spoke. Dana sat behind the wheel, flipping through the static channels on the radio.

“
I guess I don’t have much
else
to live for,” I shrugged.

“
I feel like we should try for the northern part of town. We could walk up Main Street and turn around at some point and come back,” Dana said loudly from the truck’s interior. “Besides, we could still use a vehicle that we can actually drive around without fear of being hunted down.”

“
That sounds good,” Branden said. “There are a couple of churches on the way there. We can stop by them, and see if anyone is around.”

I hadn’t thought of the multiple churches that littered Cedar Falls before. It was a good idea, but I felt as though it was a bit of a cliché—struggling survivors hiding out in a church in their final stand was a pretty common thing to do in all the science fiction movies I have seen. It seemed a little too good to be true, but I figured it would be best to give it a try.

It was around four o’clock in the afternoon when we headed out. We had already informed Lisa of our plan. Dana was nice enough to leave his second handgun with her, leaving himself with only Bruce’s six-shooter. She thought we were crazy, and I agreed. Nothing sounded stupider than going out
again
after we just lost Taylor. But I knew that I couldn’t stay at the Warehouse. I wouldn’t be able to handle losing Branden, too.

Walking the streets into the north part of town, we devised our own formation with Branden and me up front. We were to be the ‘first defense’ if we were to get rushed by anything. With the bayonet on my rifle and Branden’s axe, it didn’t sound like a half bad idea. We could get up close to any zombies and still be all right. Dana and Will would have to resort to gun butting and pistol-whipping if they got close to one. They would stay farther back to pick off everything they could at a distance, making our team a little more efficient and structured.

We walked about a half mile north and reached our first church. It was a small, modern, brick building with the windows still intact. It looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in the slightest by all the violence that was now a commonplace in everyday life. We walked across the grass closer toward the church, keeping an eye on every window for movement.

Branden reached out and tapped on the doors. We all paused, but no answer came. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered inside while the others went around the sides of the church. All I could see inside was a red colored carpet, a cross resting on a small table, and multiple hallways that turned out of view.

“
It’s all locked up. No one’s here,” Dana said.

“
Yeah, looks like it,” Will added.

I nodded my head in agreement, and we continued on our way. Perhaps twenty minutes after we left that church, two infected burst from an enclosed patio of a home. Branden and I dealt with them accordingly. For this first instance, our strategy worked well. We seemed able to keep quiet enough with our ‘melee first’ tactic. We paused after the fight to listen and all was quiet. Upon our mutual agreement that we didn’t draw any attention to ourselves, we pushed onward to our next church.

Each block we walked past was desolate of life. It seemed like the further we went into town, the number of dead bodies lying about grew more and more. By the time we had reached the busier parts of town, we counted an average of three a block. The ones that we took the time to inspect, roughly a quarter of them, all appeared to have died by gunshot. The only unfortunate thing about it is that there is no way to tell which people were infected and which ones were the victim of a homicide.

In a more detailed examination of one of our inspections, I noticed two deceased people lying on the side of the road. I’m not sure why, but I felt the need to examine them closely. At first I had thought it odd that two bodies lay so close to one another, and assumed that both must have died from the same cause. I approached them and took a long look at them.

One man was wearing a bloodstained suit and tie while the other, a young teenage boy, wore some casual jean shorts and black shirt with a band logo. Both corpses were bloated in only one central area: the chest. But I noticed small details that I wouldn’t have if I had just walked past, and I decided to bring it up with the others.

“
Look at this,” I said quietly. “Do you notice something different between these two?” Will crouched to get a better view. “One is wearing a suit?”

A single airy laugh escaped me and I responded, “Yeah, but that’s not what I’m getting at. This guy,” I pointed at the one in the suit, “got shot in the throat. While this one,” I pointed at the young teenager, “was shot in the side of the head.” The others nodded as if they understood what I was getting at.

“
Look at the kid’s hand,” I said.

“
Oh yeah, his finger is missing,” Dana said.

“
Which means?”

The others looked at one another blankly.

I gave them the answer. “Suited man here was a threat to the kid, who was armed. The kid waited a second too long, got his finger bit off, shot the man, and then turned the gun on himself.” I paused for a moment to let it sink into the others’ minds, and then continued, “I could be wrong, but I feel like the man in the suit was infected when he died.”

“
So? What does it matter?” Branden asked.

“
Both bodies are bloated. The kid wasn’t
turned
before he died, which means that the infection could be in everyone, but just inactive.”

The others stood in thought for a moment until Branden spoke. “Well if his finger was bit off, that would explain why he is bloating. The infection would have come into his body that way before he blew his brains out.” Will agreed.

“
But look how his hand is shaped,” Dana pointed at the hand with the missing finger. “Its cupped, like he was holding the gun. He had the death grip on it when he pulled the trigger, so the hand stays tight. Someone could have come along, tried to pry the gun that isn’t here from his hand and cut his finger off to get the gun from him.”

“
Clever. That’s possible, too,” I said. “I’d like to search him for bites, but we shouldn’t move him.”

“
What if,” Will said, “he was shot by a third party?”

“
I wouldn’t doubt that either,” Branden said.

“
I mean, he probably shot the infected in the suit—I won’t argue that. But maybe someone saw him and his gun and shot him and stole it?”

“
That would mean if he wasn’t bit or hurt by the infected, he still bloated,” I said.

Dana hummed in his thought, and said, “More of a reason to burn the bodies.” We all agreed with him, and he continued, “We should stop by the hospital. Check up on that Arabian dude. What’s his name? Dr. Mijoka or something?”

“
Dr. Milaka, I believe,” I answered. “And he’s Indian. But not a bad idea.”

Branden silently continued to look at the bodies lying in front of us. He rubbed his nose. “We aren’t going to find Christian,” he said with his head drooped. “We should just go to the hospital. That way, at least we will gain something from this outing.”

“
Well,” Dana said, “we came out here for a reason. I mean, if you feel like it, we can. But I don’t mind, man. I want to find my family someday, too.”

“
I don’t mind either,” Will said.

“
I do,” Branden said. “We are wasting time. Taylor died today, guys.” He looked up at us. “We should aim for something attainable, and not chase after chance.” Branden turned away from us and began walking away.

Dana, Will, and I stood still for a moment. I sighed.

“
Yeah,” Dana said.

Branden seemed quite set in his decision, so we followed him as he led the way. Whenever one of us would try to talk him out of completely abandoning the search for his son, he would disregard what we had to say. He would go on about Taylor, again and again. Honestly, it started to piss me off. We all knew he was dead, so he should have stopped bringing it up. Another thing he kept saying was that if he was to find his son, he simply would. That almost sounds to me like he is either leaving it up to fate, or he has faith that he eventually will. I find it odd for Branden to have faith in anything.

When we reached the hospital, it was the same old shit. The waiting room was empty, we rang the bell, guards came out, hands went up, and we were escorted to our doctor. Wasn’t the doctor we
wanted
to see, but he did just fine.

“
Ah, you boys,” Dr. Milaka said as we walked into his office.

I nodded and greeted him as well.

“
What can I help you with today?” the kind doctor asked.

We all looked at each other blankly for a moment. I guess we hadn’t really thought about that. “Just coming in to check up with you guys,” Dana finally said.

“
Ah.” Dr. Milaka paused a moment and clacked his teeth together a few times while his eyes wandered about. “Well, everything here is all right. We learned a few things since the last time we spoke. Well, we had assumptions before, but we needed a controlled test to be absolutely positive.”

“
What is it?” I asked.

Dr. Milaka turned to me and said, “Follow.” He led us out of the door we came in, and through a maze of hallways. As we walked with him, he spoke more. “Nobody knows for certain how the disease moves from one person to another, right?” He paused for a moment to let us have the time to agree with him.

“
Well, we had guesses and assumptions of bodily fluid and the likes. But for the past week, we were looking to find a,” Dr. Milaka paused for a moment to choose his words, “test subject. Human, of course. But trust me, it was our first concern to do it
humanely
.”

“
Wait,” I said, “you tested on a person?”

“
Don’t be upset. The man was looking for death,” Dr. Milaka said.

“
Guess I’m not surprised at that.”

“
Continuing, the first bloated body we had in the building for about five days popped itself naturally before we could find a test subject.”

Dr. Milaka led us down another hallway and continued speaking, “Thanks to our experiences with Bella,” Dr. Milaka’s eyes cast downward, “we confirmed that the virus is contagious through the air. We ran our experiment and separated Bella from the subject so we could examine both.”

We walked through a door and started heading up a flight of stairs.

“
From a long and heart wrenching examination of Bella, we have solidified our previous assumptions. The virus literally dissolves all organs inside the chest cavity and produces various gases. This is normal for all deceased bodies, but the virus pushes it even further and produces more gas than a natural death. It also somehow helps the skin close any bullet or puncture holes in the torso and retain elasticity. It turns the dead host into a balloon, if you will. When something comes along and disturbs it enough, it pops.”