Shades of Gray (19 page)

“Nobody move,” Michael said.

“Because if we hold really still, the virus won’t spread?” I asked.

“Is it in my mouth? It is, isn’t it? It’s in my mouth,” Jake rambled senselessly. “I knew it. I fuckin’
knew
it!”

“It’s not in your mouth, Jake,” Mia said.

“Does anyone have any open wounds, like scratches or cuts?” John asked calmly.

“How do you know it’s not in my mouth?”

“Jake,” Mia warned with that tone she tends to get with Jake.

“Everyone check yourselves for cuts and scratches,” Michael said. Keep in mind, everyone was still frozen in place and assuming the position one would to be patted down.

“How’re we supposed to do that when our hands are covered in blood?” Jonah asked.

“Oh God,” Jake gagged. “I think I swallowed some. Man, I can’t go out like this.”

“Alright. Let’s go to our rooms and shower up,” John said.

“Good idea,” Michael added. “We should keep our clothes on, rinse off first, then strip down and shower.”

“You know it’s always the badass hot guy who fuckin’ bites it in the end, right? He either gets the girl, or he fuckin’ dies. And I don’t have a girl!”

“Jesus, Jake. You didn’t swallow any blood. You weren’t even close to her head!” Mia had lowered her arms and was walking behind Jonah, who had evidently decided to stop screwing around and get Abby’s blood washed off.

“Don’t touch anything you don’t have to, guys,” Michael was saying as we left Abby’s room and split off to our respective rooms.

“Whatever we touch, we can wash with bleach later,” I added after it dawned on me we would have to open doors, meaning we would be smearing blood on the doorknobs.

“Right. Okay. Everyone meet back here in the hall when you’re done,” Michael said before slipping inside his room and shutting the door.

As I entered mine, I thought about Gus and how I was happy I’d left him downstairs in the kitchen. I mean, he was a smart dog, but he was still a dog. The last thing I needed at that moment was a curious Gus wanting to lick the blood off me or taking a sniff at a fresh corpse. I could still hear Jake rambling on about having blood in his mouth after I shut my door and walked to my bathroom.

“This is so messed up. How could we be so stupid? We should’ve checked each other after all that bullshit,” I mumbled.

I turned on the hot water and stepped into the shower. I forced myself to not think about everything we’d been hammered with, instead concentrating on rinsing the blood off my clothes. It actually wasn’t as bad as I had thought; only my shirt sleeves had been soaked through. There were spatters of it here and there, on the front of my shirt and my jeans. Not enough to soak through to my skin.

Hands and arms then
.

I lowered my head and let the water run down my back, over my shoulders, and down my arms. The water turned a dark red, almost black, as it swirled and ran down the drain. I closed my eyes and began counting breaths, forcing every negative thought from my mind. A small part of it wanted to consider the ghosts, Ben and Zack, and why I hadn’t seen them again until now. I suppose it was obvious: I had been preparing to kill a friend. So why not? If I was going to be seeing shit, I might as well see the ghosts of friends I’d killed.

“The ghosts of friends past,” I said a few seconds before realizing I was thinking about exactly what I didn’t want to be thinking about.

I cursed silently and opened my eyes; the water was running clear again. Slowly, I undressed, tossing my soaked clothing toward the back of the shower. I raised my arms up so I could look at them closely. I ran my fingertips over my skin, taking my time and staying alert for even the smallest of scratches. Finally I was satisfied that both arms were in the clear.

I balled my fists, looked up at the ceiling, swallowed hard, then forced myself to look at my hands.

“Oh crap…”

I had honestly forgotten about the scratches on my knuckles, the ones I’d seen before when I was getting ready to climb down the coat-rope. They were shallow, barely noticeable if you didn’t know what you were looking for. But a scratch is a scratch, and these were fresh and coated with Abby’s blood.

“Well this is just perfect.”

* * *

“Are we clean?” Michael asked.

I stood on my side of the door, eavesdropping, working up the courage to go out.

I have to tell them.

“We should have been checking each other all along,” he continued. I assumed everyone else had given him a thumbs-up, since Michael had been the only one to speak the entire time I’d been listening in.

Mia and Jake’s heads snapped around just as I stepped from my own room.

“Here,” I said, running my fingers through soaked hair. “I’m good. Everyone else?”

Don’t do this. You have to tell them you’re infected.

No I don’t. Maybe I’m not. I’ll be okay. I know what to watch for.

Nods and grunts of agreement met me in reply. I blew out a breath and stopped in front of Michael.

“We need to take care of Abby.”

“Got it,” he said. “You heard the lady. And let’s make sure to glove up, people.”

November 20th: just after dusk

Everyone sat around the dining room table, Michael at the head, John and I on either side of him, with Waters at the opposite end and everyone else sitting in between. A handful of Waters’ men were still outside, keeping watch after finishing up work on the fence. Now the club was effectively sealed off. We’d just finished eating the rest of Jonah’s roast and potatoes, and had been sitting in silence, waiting on someone to make the first move, when Waters beat the rest of us to it.

“I’ve suspended all search and recovery missions until further notice. At least until we take care of the hostiles currently heading north.”

Seven sets of weary and suspicious eyes settled on the older military man; the eighth set was closed, their owner snoring and drooling on my feet under the table. Since burning Abby’s remains that afternoon, we (as a group), had only two thoughts on our minds: zombies, and “homing pigeon” zombies. We’d assumed everything else would be put on hold until we could figure out just what the hell had been going on. For Waters to state something so obvious made me wonder what his motivations were. Did he intend on carrying out his previous orders after the current crisis was resolved? For his sake, I hoped not.

As for myself, I had a third thought pounding at the back of my skull. But it would have to remain my own burden to bear until it was time to handle it.

“Don’t mean any disrespect… but no shit, G.I. Joe,” Jake said. Suddenly the
G.I. Joe
theme song was stuck in my head.

Waters leveled his eyes on Jake. “What I meant was my men will no longer be participating in the recovery of survivors. You’re all free to do as you please. But we,” he extended both his arms in a sweeping gesture, “are done.”

We perked up a bit at the word “done.”

“What do you mean?” Michael asked, leaning forward anxiously. The rest of us sitting along the sides of the table turned our heads back and forth between the two men, mouths shut and eyes alert. Waters sighed and looked away.

“My counterparts and I have decided we will no longer carry out the…orders of the CC.” He raised his hands before we could assault him with questions. “After speaking with them, I’m positive that what those folks downstate are up to is no good.” He leaned back in his seat, as if the matter was settled. “We’re supposed to protect civilians, not serve them up on a goddamn platter for who knows what.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and exhaled deeply, signaling us he had indeed wrapped up his speech. For the most part, we were sitting upright and leaning with our arms on the table, intently watching Waters and Michael. Those two simply stared at each other, and I think Michael was working through what the older man had said and was coming to terms with it. No more contact with the CC meant no further supplies. No more supplies meant we would be forced to venture out on scavenging runs. Although we were all happy to hear Waters basically saying to hell with the CC, we were not so happy about going out into the wild, facing runners and cannibals and everything in between to find whatever we might need down the road. Something dawned on me then: when had we become so soft?

“Okay, good.” I decided to break the silence and speak my mind. Except I was talking directly to my clasped hands resting on the tabletop instead of Waters. “So we’re on our own now, correct?”

He measured me up a moment before answering. “No, ma’am. We’ll be here as long as we’re living, giving what aid and assistance we can.”

I nodded to the table in front of me. “I’ll just cut through the bullshit here. What you’re saying is, you’re on our side, correct?”

His eyes widened for a split second, few catching the surprise in them.

“Of course we are. That was never in question.” This was met with several snorts around the table, but I snuffed them out with a wave of my hand.

“Then the
real
question here is: What are we going to do about our situation?” My hands became animated as my voice grew in volume.
Thank God these scratches are faint.
“Are we gonna sit here on our asses and wait for the next wave to hit us? Or are we gonna go to the source and put a stop to it?”

I admit I was losing my temper. Again. Judging from the looks on everyone’s faces, I wasn’t the only one. We weren’t angry with Waters or his men. The anger was with ourselves. We’d gotten lazy, soft, and everything that had happened in the past few days could have been completely avoided had we simply kept to the rules we’d laid down in the beginning. The Plan. And because of that, because of that casual and careless way we’d been handling our business, Nancy and the kids were dead. Abby and Troy were dead. My damn horse was dead. I might be a ticking zombie-bomb. Regardless of what the Guard had or hadn’t done, what they had known or not known, no matter how many innocent people they had sent to their apparent deaths at the CC, we at the Winchester hadn’t kept our own house in order. We hadn’t taken care of our own. In one word, we had been
foolish
. There’s no room for fools in Z-Land. None at all.

“Man.” John covered his face with one elbow propped on the table.

Minutes ticked by in silence, buried anger shining like a light in the back of my mind. Sadness, sorrow, and grief faded away and were replaced by pure lividness. I wondered if I was the only one, and although no one was saying a word, we were all glancing around at one another. Except for John, who was holding his face in his hands. The rest of us held our own hands on the table top, firmly clasped together, knuckles white and forearms tensed. The hardness of my friends’ faces let me know I wasn’t the only one feeling as though I’d been pushed too far. We’d had enough. The longer I studied their faces, and watched the gradual shift from prey to predator, the more convinced I was that it was time to do something. Time to act.

“Waters,” I began, swallowing hard and meeting the Captain’s eyes. “Does the CC know you’re out?”

The muscles of my jaw bunched, my whole body feeling spring-loaded. Waters narrowed his eyes, the gears in his mind always working. I could tell before he even answered that he knew what I was thinking.

“No, I haven’t informed them. Neither have my men.” His lips quirked at the corners, a passing version of a smirk. His eyes flicked from me to Michael. “You know how unreliable those old radios can be.”

“Yeah, damned interference. Sometimes you just don’t know whether a transmission made it through or not.”

Jonah snorted and began chuckling, but it was not a sound filled with humor. I was waiting for Jake to ask what the hell we were snickering about, because by that time it had dawned on everyone exactly what Waters was saying. When I looked over at Jake, he was staring past my head and out the window behind me. His jaw worked and he blinked repeatedly. He sniffled once before catching me staring at him. He must have been thinking about his grandma, because as soon as he noticed me watching, he scooted his chair back and left the room without a word. He hadn’t even been listening to the conversation.

I watched him leave and waited for the room to fall silent again. “We should pay the CC a visit.”

I noted that Mia had crossed her arms and was subtly shaking her head next to me. My statement seemed to excite and perk everyone up. Opinions and thoughts began to fly around the table; the only people staying quiet were Waters and Mia. I’m pretty sure the former was scrutinizing Michael’s leadership abilities, filing it all away for future reference. The latter was biting her tongue because she was becoming more and more convinced that the three of us, herself, Jake, and me, should pack up and pull out before it was too late. Run back home to the mountains.

Under different circumstances, I would have agreed with her. But I was pretty sure I’d never see my home again. By my estimate, I’d be dead within a day or two. Vengeance or revenge, that’s what I was after. I’d been emotionally and physically compromised. Like the others, I was letting raw emotion do the deciding for me.
Come to the Darkside, we have cookies.