Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine (39 page)

Knees buckling, he slowly slid down
the stacked boxes on the flatbed, taking some small pleasure in watching Marty
fall with an axe buried deep within his skull, one eye obliterated on its path
in. His buddy Stew was little better off. The second axe had caved in his chest
and only halted when it jammed halfway through his spine, shredding everything
in between. Stew was thrown back five feet and now lay on his back screaming pounding
his arms on the ground like an eight year old past his bedtime. His legs,
however, remained inert, paralyzed.

Calvin wished his own legs would
move, but they clearly had their own agenda, slowly sliding out in front of him
against his will. He wanted to reach for the throwing blades behind his neck,
but his arms had dropped impotently to his sides.

I think I just got shot…
his
dazed mind mused.

“No!” he heard Athena scream from
somewhere behind the cart.

“You fucktards!” Trip yelled at the
same time, and both fired indiscriminately into the camo-wearing attackers.

Bullets ricocheted all around him. There
were four white-trashers left, and they were running backwards, but aiming to
finish Calvin off, though he was certain they needn’t have bothered. He was
feeling pretty well-done already—though feeling might not have been the proper
word because he could feel nothing in his arms, chest, or lower body. His limbs
‘felt’ like Jello and a part of his musing brain made note of the fact that the
group didn’t have the medical supplies to heal two gaping chest wounds even
with a trained, licensed doctor like MacGreggor. He had watched the hospital
burn the day before, so his outlook was pretty bleak. He was a realist, after
all.

Something blocked his vision of the
gunmen and he pried open his eyes to see Athena slide down in front of him,
blocking his body with her own and firing the M-16 Sarah had given her. Thunderous
reports of gunfire hammered his eardrums as Athena and Trip fired over his
crumbling body. As he continued his slow slide to a prone position on the floor,
now slipping half-under the cart, Calvin was overcome with appreciation for a
woman who was badass enough to step into a gunfight to protect her loved-ones.
His vision began to tunnel as he heard the chunky-thunks of bodies falling down
the aisle. Another detached part of his mind noted that he didn’t hear the
metal thud of chain mail clanking against the floor, for which it said a quiet
thanks to God and the universe, hoping one of them was listening. His last
thought was that he should have asked her to marry him so long ago…

“I’m sorry, Athena,” he coughed
weakly, tasting the distinct iron tang of blood before the darkness took him.

As Calvin faded away, a brief but
desperate gun battle ensued. One skinny man in his early twenties with a swastika
tattooed onto his shaved head fired at Athena, but she aimed and put three
bullets into his chest. He was the only one able to switch his aim at the
newcomers and he missed her by what might as well have been a mile, instead
hitting one of the generators on the shelf next to her. The other three kept
firing at Calvin until their friend died, and then they began running, firing
behind themselves as they went. All three dropped in rapid succession with
well-aimed shots through the back to the heart and head, but Athena and Trip
continued slamming slug after slug into their unmoving corpses until their
weapons were empty. In the ensuing silence of the bloody aftermath, they could
hear muffled screams of concern in the distance and people scampering to distance
themselves from the neighboring aisles. A heavy cloud of acrid, burned
gunpowder hung over the scene like the smog over Los Angeles, glowing a
brilliant bluish-white in the fluorescent lighting of the incredibly
high-ceilinged store.

“Calvin!” Athena screamed. Whatever
strength she possessed now fled and her knees buckled, dropping her to the
floor beside him, flipping the locking snaps on his helm and dropping it to the
floor with a heavy, saddened clang.

“Oh no! Calvin, please speak to
me.” She grunted as she pulled him up with all her might and held him to her,
whispering into his ear, “Please, my love. Please be ok. Speak to me.” She
pleaded.

But his head lolled back to the
floor, his face a blank mask of peace, a dribble of blood trickling down his
chin from the corner of his mouth. He was completely unresponsive and she
somehow knew he was already gone.

“What the fuck was that?” Joel
asked over the radio. “I can hear gunfire all the way out here.”

“Some trailer-trash dickweeds shot
Calvin!” Tripper called back. “In the solar accessories isle.”

“We’re coming!” several of the
others called.

Calvin remained unresponsive
despite Athena’s pleas. She felt his chest and her shaking fingers stopped at
two holes in the leather jerkin he wore over his armor and she let out a great
wail of sorrow. The holes were two inches apart, and both seemed to be right
over his heart.

“Oh God no! Oh please God no!” she
cried, cradling him in her arms while Trip felt his pulse.

“I—I can’t tell. I can’t feel
anything. I’m too pumped up,” he howled, tears rolling freely down his cheeks.

“I know. Me too. Oh my Calvin,” she
cried.

“You assholes!” Trip shouted, jumping
up and kicking Marty in the head, sending the axe handle banging into the
shelves with a satisfying clang.

Trip and Athena both looked up, pleading
eyes imploring help from the others who were arriving in ones and twos. Trip
bent down and reached out a steel-clad fist to touch his friend again. “Calvin!”
he yelled hoarsely, grabbing his buddy’s shoulder and shaking as if willpower
alone could bring his friend back. But he wasn’t a doctor, and he wasn’t a
faith healer able to heal with the words of God, and the only person he knew
personally with the skill to help a shooting victim was all the way across town.

“Let me in there. Please, move,”
Scaggs mumbled quietly.

When both Tripper and Athena looked
up at her in hopeful confusion, she illuminated them. “I’ve got two years of
medical school. I’m a certified medical technician and I spent three months
helping in an ER to practice for my role in
Zombie Hospital Nurses
.”

“Athena is too, but she can’t…neither
of us is thinking too well right now,” Tripper said, teary eyes begging for
help.

Athena didn’t seem to hear him, but
she too begged Scaggs to bring her lover back. Scaggs sank to her knees and
opened the red suede satchel she had been wearing since they’d gone to
Hephaestus’ house. She pulled out a stethoscope and held it to Calvin’s neck,
because
I’ll never get a reading on his chest through chain mail and leather.
“He’s
got a pulse,” she cried heartily. “But it’s really weak.”

“Really?” Athena could have sung a
song.
You’re not dead! Please don’t leave me, Calvin. I can’t live in this
world without you.

Scaggs tried to lay him flat to
examine him, to get his vitals and check his breathing, but the glare Athena fired
at her said she was not going to release her hold. Changing her mind, she
decided to examine the wounds first. Athena did allow her to gently remove a
hand from the two holes, and Scaggs felt inside the leather.

“There’s no wetness from blood
loss,” she muttered. “But it could all be internal for all I know. Or if the
heart was…nevermind.” Best not point out the worst with his girlfriend sitting
right there.

Steeling herself, she pushed her
fingers deeper into the wound and felt around.

“Some of the armor seems to have
melted and refilled the holes or something,” she explained to them. “What is
that? There’s more metal in there.”

But then she felt around some more,
and her brown eyes lit with energy. Pulling her fingers from the wound, she
quickly reached into the pouch and, after some fumbling around, pulled out a
little tube with what looked like white gauze wrapped around it. Twisting and
squeezing brought forth a tinkling snap of glass. She held the little vial
beneath Calvin’s nose and waved it back and forth a few times.

Suddenly Calvin jumped up in
Athena’s lap screaming.

“I’m sorry!” he screamed. “Owwww!
Oh holy hell!” he added, coughing and clutching his chest in agony. “Oh hey,”
he gazed dazedly up at Athena, before promptly passing out again.

“What?” Athena asked Scaggs in
utter shock, tears still falling, arms still clutching the man she thought
she’d lost.

“The bullets did penetrate his leather
armor. But the chainmail armor in combination with the leather and padding underneath
seems to have stopped all of the energy and flattened out the lead so much that
it couldn’t break through.”

Athena somehow held him tighter and
cried silent tears.

“So, he’s going to be ok?” Tripper
asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to check
him out a bit more. He could still have broken ribs that have penetrated
something or internal bleeding just from the impact. I just don’t know. But
he’s not dead yet, and that’s a better sign than we had when I got here. We can
at least take him back to the doctor now.” She leaned over and took his pulse
again.”

“Respiration good. Vitals stable.
Pupil response brisk. I think he might be ok,” she ventured.

“Ok you guys, let’s get our stuff
together and get back to work,” Tripper snapped in a breathless gasp of relief,
wiping tears from his eyes. “We need to get him to Doc, and I think we’ve
outstayed our welcome,” he nodded at the gathering crowds of armed people assembling
at the ends of each isle eying the party with concern.

The group closed ranks and pushed
the full baskets side to side, in front and to the rear to potentially use as a
barricade.

“We didn’t start it!” Gus yelled
down the isle. “But we finished it, so back off!”

Some of the people nodded
understanding and brusquely walked away, but others quickly filled the empty
space to glare menacingly down the aisle.

“Maybe we should just take what we
have and go,” Brick suggested.

Scaggs waved the ammonia under
Calvin’s nose again and he again woke up, this time cursing. “Oh, shit. Oh my God
that fucking hurts!” he exclaimed, still clutching his chest and rolling back
and forth in Athena’s arms.

“Do you think you can get up, buddy?”
Tripper asked, beaming with relieved joy.

“Are you kidding?” Calvin huffed
between gasps. “I can’t believe I’m not dead. Hey…I got shot, dude.”

“I know. I saw it. Thought you were
a goner, pal.”

“No…no. I think I’m ok, Trip,” he
announced in pure wonder.

“You sure?”

“I can feel everything. Are my feet
moving?”

Athena nodded, unable to speak,
tears running down her cheeks under the shadow of her raised visor.

“Wow. I’m serious. I think I’m ok. I’m
alive. I need to get up and prove it.”

“Let’s help him up,” Trip motioned
to Boomer and Gus and they stood on the other side, placing armored hands under
his armpits and pulling Calvin bodily to his feet. Athena stood back a step and
put her hand to her mouth, waiting to see if he really was ok. He pushed the
others away and stepped over to her, looking deep into her beautiful black tear-filled
eyes and smiling, before falling right back to the floor with a heavy clank.
The others helped him back up and he once again pushed them away and stepped
over to Athena, this time leaning against the shelves for support.

“I should have asked you to marry
me a long time ago,” he said. “I’m so stupid…and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” she laughed and slapped
his armored shoulder. “You’ll get around to it.”

“No. I’m asking you now.” He pulled
out a small silver box—from where no one ever found out, and tried to drop to
one knee, but his momentum pulled him to the side and he fell over to lay face
first on the floor, laughing and then groaning from the pain of laughing. After
a few seconds he motioned to his friend and Tripper helped him back up to his
knee and he stretched the ring out to her and said:

“Athena Hannah Rosenthal, the world
may be ending around us. But I’ve loved you since the day you spilled your tray
on me in the cafeteria and nearly masturbated me to fulfillment in front of a
hundred people while you cleaned the spill from my pants and apologized
profusely. Your have the most caring heart of anyone I’ve ever met. You’re
intelligent, witty, wise and my best friend in the whole world. Sorry, Trip,”
he shrugged to his friend and turned back to Athena.

“It’s an unfortunate reality that
you also happen to be the most beautiful woman who has ever walked the face of
this Earth, but I’m willing to overlook that in light of your many positive
attributes. There is literally no one in the world I would rather spend the end
of eternity with other than you. Will you marry me?”

She could only nod as too many
tears had pooled together, blocking her voice. From forlorn and alone to
happily engaged in less than five minutes. It was too much. He slid the simple silver
and titanium ring on her finger and they hugged and kissed passionately while
the others looked on with tears and grins.

After a few minutes, however, when
it became more than a little uncomfortable, Tripper finally broke them up with
a loud harrumph. “Hey, if you two would rather be alone, we can leave you under
the guns of the rest of those kind looters there,” he suggested.

Sarah doubled her fist and punched
him in the shoulder, hard. Unfortunately for her, he was wearing armor, and she
was wearing chain gloves and the resulting crash of metal severely bruised her
knuckles and sent her into a profanity-laced tirade.

“Damn it, Trip Grissom! You are a
jackass and a dirty rotten son-of-a-bitch and you have the emotional capacity
of a fucking toilet, you...you…Ooh, you make me so mad sometimes!”

“I’m just saying, this is a nice
little scene and all, but we need to get moving before we have our own little
war break out in the camping isle. Those guys might not have been alone.”