Brent Acuff - Undead Nation 01 (11 page)

"Are you okay, Alex? Where do you hurt? What do you need?"

Alex held a hand to stop her before she could ask anymore questions. "I'm fine, Morgan...I think." Looking towards the others in the doorway he asked, "How long have I been asleep?"

"Almost three hours," Sam answered. "Liam is in the other room still out. Trinity and Stacey are keeping an eye on him."

Alex shook his head to clear the cobwebs. "How is he? Was the gunshot wound bad?" There was concern in Alex's voice, but only a small part of that concern was for the gunshot wound. "Does he have any fever? Is he unconscious? What exactly..."

Sam interrupted Alex's string of questions. "You're almost as bad as Morgan with your questions. To answer your questions, Liam is going to be fine. There is only a slight fever and the wound was minor. It went straight through without hitting anything major--no bones or cartilage, just some fat and muscle and it nicked a vein or two. Good thing your mother-in-law's an RN. She patched him up in no time." Sam turned and came in the doorway unblocking the way through. "You want to go see him?"

Alex pulled the covers from around him and swung his legs to the floor. "I need to see him. And we've got to talk about how to handle this in the future. We may not be out of the woods concerning this just yet."

Everyone in the room looked at each other confused, not sure what he was talking about. "Liam's going to be fine," Morgan said trying to calm Alex's suspicions. "Mom cleaned up the wound and we even found some left over antibiotics in the medicine cabinet." Alex tried to stand and had to grab on to Morgan's shoulder to steady himself. His head was swimming and the room was spinning around him. Bile rose up in Alex's throat.

"I'm going to be sick," Alex said and was given a bucket in just enough time to keep him from retching on the floor. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand Alex said, "Get me up and in to see Liam. The gunshot is the last of our worries." Alex motioned for someone to give him a hand and both Sam and Josh crossed the room to get him. With one on each his sides, Alex was helped to his feet and escorted out the door of his room.

Trinity and Stacey were holding vigil at the side of Liam's bed. Trinity's eyes were red and her cheeks were stained from the tears which had so soon stopped falling. At the sound of someone entering the room, both women turned to see who was coming. The room was dark and were lit by only two candles burning on the nightstands flanking the bed. The flickering light cast jumping shadows across the face of everyone in the room and only amplified the worry on Alex's face. Trinity forced a small smile and asked, "Alex, I'm glad to see you're up. Are you okay?"

Alex eyes raised from his injured friend to meet Trinity's. He did not answer her immediately and aside from his eye contact, one would not even believe that Alex had heard the question at all. After a moment of awkward silence, Alex shrugged off the help of the two men and spoke.

"Everyone needs to leave the room except for Trinity. Make sure you close the door behind you." Alex's eyes glanced at Stacey, then to the other men and women standing around the room before falling again on Trinity. "Now, please."

"Alex, what are you..." Trinity began to protest, but was quickly interrupted by Alex.

"Trinity, I need you to make sure everyone is out of the room and the door is closed. I'll explain everything in a moment, but not before everyone is out of the room. Please." All of Alex's concern and urgency shone through his eyes and the weight that seemed to press down on his shoulders. "Please, Trinity. I need your help."

Trinity's breathing quickened and a look of panic crossed her face. Her gaze flicked quickly and sporadically between the confused and almost angry faces of those gathered in the room. She opened her mouth to protest what Alex had requested, but stopped before uttering anything. She eyes locked with Alex's and in an instant she understood what he was asking. Trinity's body shuddered and her knees gave out beneath her. Trinity slumped to the floor and Stacey quickened to her side to help, but Trinity held up a hand to stop her where she was. Looking around the room once more she spoke. "I need everyone to leave the room, please." Trinity locked eyes with Alex again and everyone in the room began to protest at once. A wave of Trinity's hand stopped them all mid-sentence.

"Please. Everyone out." And looking to Stacey, "And make sure the door is closed behind you."

Against their better judgements, everyone exited the room. Stacey was the last to leave and she pulled the door silently closed behind her.

-----

"Trinity?" Alex's voice was soft and calming. "Trinity, you know why, don't you?"

Trinity's breathing had slowed some, but was still fast and she stared down at her husband laying in bed unconscious. "If one of those things out there got to him, then there is no way to save him...no hope at all." Her voice quivered and her breath caught in her throat. She turned her head to gaze at Alex. "And if he was hurt by one of them, then what do we do? What do we do?" she pleaded.
 

Alex took Trinity's hand and squeezed it gently. "Then we help him in the only way we can." A tear escaped Trinity's eye and she sniffed trying to hold back the emotions that were threatening to overwhelm her.
 

"Okay," Trinity said as she looked down on her love once more. "What do we need to do?"

Alex squeezed Trinity's hand one more time then reached for the blankets covering his friend. Carefully he removed the blankets and the two began searching Liam's body for any wounds that they knew he could never recover from.

-----

"What the hell is this all about?" Stacey cursed as she closed the door behind her. "What are those two doing in there?"

Everyone in the room shrugged, all of them as confused as Stacey. Each of them sat in silence as one minute stretched into five, then ten. Thirty minutes became an hour and everyone waited in silence, listening for any sounds coming from the room. When the time reached nearly an hour and a half everyone was startled by a sudden cry from the room and sobbing. They all met each others gaze and Stacey turned to force her way back into the room when the door opened and Alex stepped out. No one spoke, but simply stared at Alex as he made his way to the couch and sat down in the almost complete darkness of the room.
 

After a moment of stillness Alex put his head in his hands and his shoulders began shaking. He started to sob.
 

Everyone rushed to Alex and began asking at the same time what had happened in the room. Alex was shaking his head and trying to get everyone to stop asking questions while he composed himself enough to speak.
 

"He'll be fine," Alex squeaked. "He'll be fine..." and Alex's voice cracked waves of relief washed over him and he cried uncontrollably. Morgan put her arms around Alex and hugged him tightly trying to provide him with the warmth and support he desperately needed.
 

Everyone gathered in the main room gave Alex the time he needed to release the tension and concern that had been building up in him. After a few minutes Alex's sobs began to weaken and he was able to gain control of his emotions. He wiped the tears away from his eyes and took a deep breath before speaking. "We had to check him...we had to check Liam to make sure he wasn't wounded. Wounded from the zombies, that is." Alex took another deep, rasping breath and continued. "You have to understand. If someone is wounded or injured by one of those creatures, then there is no help. There is no cure or chance of survival. The virus that is carried by the zombies is highly contagious and cannot be cured. There is no immunity for it and it will kill the host, sometimes in a matter of hours before reanimating the body as another zombie." Alex gazed at each of the people in the room, stopping at each of them to drive home his point. "The only cure is to...well, put a bullet in their head."

Everyone gasped and pulled back away from Alex, horrified at what he had just said to them. "Surely you aren't serious? There has to be something..." Paula began.

Alex stopped her. "No. There is absolutely nothing that can be done to save them. Nothing." Alex stared at his feet and finished. "One hundred percent casualty rate. That's it." Alex leaned back and settled into the cushions on the couch. He places his head in his hand, ending all discussion. "Stacey, Trinity needs someone. Would you mind?" Alex looked tired and seemed as if he was ten years older.

"I'll make sure she's okay," Stacey said and headed into the room.
 

No one seemed willing to speak for a while and it was finally Alex that spoke. "Everyone here needs to realize something and you need to come to terms with this fact or none of us have a chance of surviving this." Alex looked to each one of those gathered as he spoke. "If anyone, in this group or that we meet out there is injured by one of those creatures, there is only one option available to us. That person MUST be killed, their brain destroyed." Someone gasped in the room, taken aback by what Alex had just said. "If that person is infected, there is only one option, and that is to kill them as quickly as possible. The virus will quickly spread through the host and they will become a danger to everyone near them."

"But Alex," Morgan asked. "Isn't there a way to know if the person is infected? Isn't there a way to make sure?"

Alex thought for a moment before answering. "There is one way, but we need a dog." Someone in the room snickered and everyone turned to see who the culprit was.
 

"Seriously?" Josh chuckled. "A dog? And just what do we do with this dog." Josh was skeptical of Alex's suggestion and he stood across the room, staring a challenge down at Alex.
 

"Actually," Alex began with a serious, matter-of-fact tone, "nothing."

Josh snorted and feigned shock. "So why do we need the damn dog?" Josh's scorn was almost overwhelming.
 

"Well, Josh," Alex said, "dogs can actually detect the infection in people. Plain and simple."

Josh threw up his hands in disgust. "Come on, are you serious? And just how could you know this? So far nothing has worked right, everything has been fucked, Liam has been shot and now this moron," Josh indicated Sam, "wants us to walk out the door into that shit because...why?" Sam looked as though he could have killed. His gazed locked onto Josh and the effort to keep from hitting the man was visible.

"I told you," Sam said through gritted teeth, "that we have to get to some place that we can defend better and be able to stock resources for a long time if needed."

Josh interrupted Sam trying to push his buttons. "And just why can't we defend this place? And speaking of resources, we are close to everything that we need right here." Josh threw up his hands in a challenge to Sam. "And just where do you expect us to go, even if we could get out the door without those things out there catching us?"

"I told you, I don't know..." Sam started, but was again interrupted before he could finish.

"Oh," Josh said, still mocking Sam, "but you think that we should leave anyway; pray for the best, right?" He was trying to get a rise out of Sam, and it was working. Sam's anger reached the boiling point with Josh. Sam was Josh's senior by over thirty years and could not stand for the insolence that the young man was showing. Sam's fists clenched and he began walking across the room. Josh just smiled wider, happy that he had accomplished his goal. A hand on Sam's shoulder stopped him immediately.

Alex was standing next to Sam holding Josh's gaze, his hand the only thing keeping either man from entering into a fist fight there in the living room. "Sam is right. We need to get out of this place." Josh chuckled at Alex.
 

"And just why is that, huh? Your father-in-law can't give me a reason, and I doubt that you could give me a decent reason either. But let's give you the benefit of the doubt...hit me with it." Josh crossed his arms and waited for Alex to speak. Alex eased his grip from Sam's shoulder and motioned for him to step back.

"Well, Josh," Alex began, using the same matter-of-fact tone that one would expect form someone describing something that happened everyday. "It's all about supply and demand. The supply is the still living population and the demand is from zombies wanting that supply. The greatest concentration of people are in cities. The larger the city, the larger the population and the greater the supply. A large supply in a relatively dense area, with a contagion that spreads quickly and completely means that the population of that area will quickly be used up, creating zombies in their place. The more people, the greater the number of zombies. And the number will only grow exponentially." Alex's hands flashed through the air as if he were explaining something exciting and fun. "Inversely, if you were to be in a large area with a small population, the chances of spreading the contagion would be less so, giving everyone in that area a -- how should I say -- buffer zone?" Alex emphasized this with a shrug of his shoulders. "More distance between people, less chance of contact with the living or the dead, more chance of survival."

Alex turned to each of the people in the room checking their faces to see if anyone questioned his logic. There was only one.
 

"Bullshit," Josh spat. "Utter bullshit. You are not taking us out there to be slaughtered by those things," and Josh placed his hand on a pistol that was hung on his belt. "I won't let you."

"Shut up, Josh!" A voice from behind everyone startled the group. All eyes turned to meet those of Liam who was standing in the doorway of his bedroom, supported on both sides by Trinity and Stacey. "You haven't seen these things up close and you don't understand what we are up against. Alex and I have, and I can tell you Alex is right. We have to get out of this place." Liam met Alex's eyes. "And the sooner, the better."

Alex nodded his ascent as did many of the others. Josh still held out resistance. "Christ, man! Do you realize what you are sending us into? We are going to die out there..."

"We are going to die in here!" Liam shouted and nearly collapsed into Trinity's arms. "Those things are going to find a way in, either by luck or through sheer numbers. We don't have the ammunition, defenses, or the food supply to last here if we face what Alex and I saw today. We have to get out of here."