Chapter 8
8
TAYLER
“Tayler, we have to talk.”
I quickly slipped out of my wet clothes and searched the drawers in the filing cabinet that doubled as my dresser. Although it was humid outside, the fan in the room sucked up the remnants of moisture that remained on my damp skin. As “President” and unofficial “First Lady” of the camp, Allen and I had “earned” the right to use the extra energy to keep our quarters cool during the warmer nights.
“Tayler, I’m serious. What you did tonight was stupid, senseless, and dangerous.”
I pointed in the general direction of our infirmary. “Senseless? Me saving a man and his baby from a walking corpse and a fire is senseless?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Allen, I saw something. I got out to take a closer look and saw him. Plus, he’s who we went looking for in the first place.”
I’d spotted the golden hair in the rising glow from the flame. Plus, there’d been something odd about the way he’d held the jacket over his midsection. There was no reason to obscure a weapon from those who were infected. Once the symptoms set in, humans lost every faculty that made us sentient. Those infected didn’t know the difference between a weapon and a banana.
“Do no harm,” I continued, slipping into a T-shirt and pair of shorts that had seen their share of use over the past several months. “I went out there to try to save a life or two. So, don’t stand there and tell me anything was stupid and senseless when both of those lives are safe behind our walls tonight.”
“I don’t mean you are,” he clarified.
I took a step closer to him. “Allen, I’m going to do whatever I have to in order to save people, okay? I lost too many before everything went to shit. Too damn many. If there are survivors, and I can do something, I’m going to help. Now, excuse me. I have patients to check on.”
He stepped aside.
Yet, before I could walk through the door, he grabbed my arm, pulled me up against him, and held me close.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I removed myself from his embrace, left the room, and hurried down the stairwell to the first floor. Many of the upper floors were classrooms, along with some offices.
Allen and I shared what used to be a break room, which we turned into our living quarters. I had one side, and he had his own. To the outside world, we walked through the same door at the end of the day. Whatever happened or didn’t happen behind that door didn’t matter; appearances had to be kept for the stability of the camp. According to Allen, most people needed a leader, and most competent leaders needed a strong figure by their side.
Had our circumstances been different, I wouldn’t let him hold or touch me in any way, but outside of Omar, I had no one else. When I first showed up, I’d shucked his advances. Eventually, I craved enough intimacy and closeness to give in to hugs, strokes, and forehead kisses.
Once downstairs, I slowed to a steady pace before entering the woman’s room. Gage sat beside the bed, wearing only a pair of drawstring shorts. Thandie, dressed in only a diaper, was tucked against his chest, one of his arms wrapped around her like a security blanket.
Seeing them together caused an unexpected jolt of emotion to manifest adjacent to the cavity where my heart lived. It was beautiful to see someone this devoted to his family after all that had happened.
“She doesn’t sound good,” he said. “Ari, I mean. The way she’s breathing...it doesn’t sound good. But she doesn’t have a bite. I checked—back then and just now.”
I joined them at Ari’s bedside. “I know. I examined her, too. It’s pneumonia.”
“Do you know how she might have gotten it?”
“A myriad of ways. I mean, trying to live through an apocalypse might be a factor. Do you remember when she started showing symptoms?”
“Not really, no. Every day just kind of...”
“Blends into the other,” I finished.
“Basically. She started running a fever maybe two or three days ago and had some weakness, fatigue, and muscle aches, but,” he motioned around, “I chalked it up to our circumstances. Once the cough started, I realized something else was going on.”
“It’s possible that it’s secondary. She could have had something simpler, like the flu or bronchitis. Pneumonia can be very opportunistic.”
A faint streak of weariness spread across his handsome face, an admittedly odd to notice while standing in the middle of the rain as fire danced behind him.
I set a hand on his shoulder. “Gage, I wasn’t joking. I’m going to do whatever I can for Ari. The antibiotics we found today will help. Loads.”
“I still have the ones you gave me.”
“Even better.”
Thandie stretched in her sleep.
Gage kissed her head and gently patted her on the back. She’d been sneezing since the drive back to the camp, and if he was all right with it, I wanted to stay up to observe her overnight.
“Thank you,” he said. “It’s been a fucked up day, if you can believe that. I mean, all of our days are fucked up, but this one managed to outshine all the others.”
“How long have you two been married?” I asked. “When Ari first got here, she was disoriented and kept asking about what we thought was a ‘gauge.’ We thought she was delusional because of the fever.”
His eyes moved as if searching my face. “I’m guessing the impatient guy is your husband?”
“Allen?” I shook my head. “No, we’re not married.”
“But you’re something.”
“Something might be the best word for it.”
I waited.
He didn’t offer anything else.
“So, my question?” I prodded. “We’re just going to pretend I never asked?”
He turned his attention to Ari. “When it comes to my relationship with Ari, it’s…complicated.”
“You’re not married, then?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So, you are?”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
“Got it.” I nodded. “Shut up, Tayler.”
“That’s not what I mean?—”
“I’m just messing with you.” I held out my arms. “Mind if I take little Miss Thandie for a moment?”
This time, he handed Thandie over with less reluctance. Hopefully, as we got to know each other better, he would learn that I would harm myself before I ever harmed a hair on this precious baby’s head.
That protection also extended beyond me.
Thandie was the only baby in our camp. In fact, she was the only baby I’d seen in a long time. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, regardless of who they were and what lies they came peddling.
I warmed an exam table by first lying on top of it, Thandie asleep on my stomach as I stroked her hair. Once it was ready, I set her down.
Behind me, I heard Gage stand.
Then, the sound of a screeching chair followed, and I lurched forward, catching him with my palms flat against his bare chest to stop him from falling.
“When was the last time you ate something?” I asked, helping him back into the chair.
“Had a can of tuna earlier,” he said. “Some beans. Lots of protein. Have to keep my muscles, you know?”
I returned to Thandie’s side. “Are you looking to enter an apocalyptic body-building competition or something?”
“Yep. Last Man Standing.”
Something light and teasing that hadn’t been present on the ride over came slipping out of him now. Perhaps he was beginning to understand, to feel that he was safe. However long that safety would last, none of us knew. Still, tonight, he and his family wouldn’t be sleeping with one eye open, waiting to be attacked by bodies occupied by souls once upon a time. If not those bodies, they wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked by something much worse—the living.
“Given our circumstances, you look as healthy as you could possibly look,” I told him. “Regardless, you need to eat. After I’m done with Thandie, I’ll call for someone to walk you up to a room and bring you a plate.”
“No.”
“No? You don’t want food?”
“No, I want food, but I’m staying with Ari.”
“Gage, there’s nowhere for you to lie down in here, and you need to lie down, not sleep upright in a chair. Both Ari and Thandie will be monitored overnight.”
“Not without me.”
“So what do you propose, then?” I asked. “Do you want me to spend the night with you and Thandie in your room?”
“Either you do, or you don’t. There are no other options.”
The air in the room changed. I got the sense that he was about to make a plea and that it was something he wasn’t used to doing.
“Doc, at least try to understand where I’m coming from. Since all this shit started, we’ve met a good deal of ‘not bad people.’ Everything I do, it’s for Thandie and Ari to make it, whatever making it might look like.”
The man was right.
I was asking him to trust me, in an increasingly untrustworthy world, and after knowing me for less than three hours. For all I knew, he, Ari, and Thandie had spent months where it was just the three of them, both parents tasked with fending off those who came to do harm. The fact that he was there with me, letting me hold his baby, was likely a testament to the lengths he would go to make sure they were safe. Right now, I was Ari’s only hope, and it was clear that neither of us wanted that to change.
I picked Thandie up, held her against my chest, and faced him, slowly rocking. “What will your wife, girlfriend, or other say once she wakes up and finds out I spent the night alone with you in a room?” I asked. “I want her to trust me, and that’s not the best start.”
“Doc, Ari’s fighting for her life right now.” He brushed the soaked curls flattened against Ari’s forehead with a fingertip. “I’m sure she’ll understand that I don’t want to be away from Thandie. Plus, I don’t have the energy to stay on my feet, much less make love to a woman.”
Despite his slender frame, he’d retained shadows of his pre-apocalyptic physique. Our community had a predominantly female population, and some wouldn’t be as noble. For Ari’s sake, I hoped Gage was one of the faithful ones.
“By the way, why do you need to stay with Thandie in the first place?” he asked. “Is she sick? I had no choice but to go out into the rain. Trust me, Doc, if I’d had a choice...”
He cupped the side of Ari’s face, and I saw the apology on his as he stared at her. But he’d only done what he had to. Nothing about how he interacted with these two told me their well-being wasn’t his primary concern.
“It was either the rain or that fire,” I said, hoping my words offered even an iota of reassurance. “I’m sure your baby girl appreciates how her daddy looks out for her.”
He looked at me but didn’t comment.
When I noticed him getting woozy again, I used the infirmary’s two-way radio to contact the kitchen.
Jeremy, one of the camp’s cooks, brought a divided plastic plate filled with a canned corned beef and onion mixture, fire-roasted white potatoes, diced carrots, and a plastic jug of water.
I introduced Gage to the former paramedic who would be spending the night watching Ari. Afterward, I accompanied him to the room that would be his, Thandie’s, and Ari’s.
Only then did he touch the food.
As he shoveled forkfuls into his mouth, I continued to warm Thandie with my body heat. I was seated across from him on a bed made from a mattress, cinderblocks, and overturned buckets. Thandie’s sleeping space would be a plastic baby bathtub, which the guys found in the camper and had been made up to look like a bassinet. Pushed together desks and chairs draped with a curtain created a dining table. Over time, and with more salvaging runs, it could look end-of-the-world chic, with curtains dividing zones, shelves, and an area rug, if we found one.
This room was two levels above mine and Allen’s. With the window slightly cracked, a noticeable draft cast a wide net from end to end. During the day, summer poked its head through the windows, but at night, fall snuggled underneath the lightweight sheets.
Gage, plate empty, leaned back in his chair.
“Good?” I asked.
“For how long it’s been since I last ate?” He nodded, groaning. “Excellent. How long have you all been set up here?”
“Almost since the beginning, from what I understand.”
He downed the water in a few gulps and then covered a burp with a fist. “So, you haven’t been here long?”
“Long enough. I came up from Atlanta. It was already established by the time I arrived.”
“Before everything went to shit, I was supposed to be in Atlanta myself. My company bid on a contract to add a wing to the CDC campus, and we were invited down for a visit. The application closed at the last minute. I guess it’s clear why now.”
“What did you do before?”
“Commercial real estate…primarily.”
“And,” I scanned his frame, “that’s it?”
“Why? What’d you do?”
“What I do now. I’m a doctor. I worked in evolutionary microbiology and eventually segued into a discipline that included infectious disease, microbial genomics, and molecular epidemiology.”
He whistled. “Damn. That’s a mouthful. So, did you do any work on whatever this thing is?”
“Tried to. Didn’t work out. Obviously.”
“Still, you had to have been highly sought after.”
“Yes, but for what? To fail?”
He eyed me, one brow lifted as if he wanted to say more, but then he tapped his plate. “By the way, where can I take these?”
“You can leave them there on the table.” I pointed to the “dining table” with my chin. “I’ll have someone come and grab them.”
“You must be a big deal around here.”
I shrugged. “I have privileges.”
“Is it because of your expertise or your relationship with the Allen guy?”
“A bit of both.”
“You’re worried about Ari, but won’t he have a problem with you spending the night in another man’s room?”
“A man and his baby.”
“Two people could do plenty while a baby’s asleep.”
“You don’t have the energy to make love to a woman, remember?” I squeezed my eyelids shut with a quiet groan. “Sorry.”
He cocked his head to the side. “For?”
“You take the bed,” I redirected. “I’m fine with the floor.”
“No, I’ll take the floor. You sleep on the bed with Thandie, just in case she rolls. She’s starting to roll now. Me and Ari think she’ll start crawling soon.” He scanned Thandie with a soft, fatherly smile. “Also, don’t argue with me. You won’t win on this issue, love.”
Allen had offered himself to me like a roasting pig with an apple in its mouth. Yet, the idea of Allen using the word “love” and Gage tacking it on to the end of a sentence elicited two separate reactions.
“Where are you from?” I asked. “Sometimes, when you talk, I hear a bit of an accent. It’s slight, but it’s there. It’s the same with Ari.”
“We were born in Australia, but we’ve been in the States for a while. I live in California now.”
“So, you and Ari traveled to the East Coast from California?”
“No, Ari lives in the DMV area with her…” He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and yawned into his elbow. “Well, she was in the DMV area when everything went down.”
“You lived on different coasts? Are you separated?”
“It’s a long story. For us, this mess all started the same day Thandie was born. The three of us haven’t been apart since. Shit like this? It makes you realize how important it is to be close to the people you love.”
“Amen to that.”
“You’ve lost people?”
“Too many.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Someone knocked on the door. When they entered, I started to point to the empty tray in front of Gage, but the mood in the room shifted.
“How’s the baby, Tayler?” Allen asked.
“So far, so good.” I gave Thandie a quick nuzzle. “I’m staying here overnight to keep an eye on her. If she caught whatever bug her mother did, it’s best if we treat it early. Her immune system won’t survive something like that.”
“Tayler, I’m not comfortable with this arrangement. There’s a half-naked man present in this room.”
“Who came here with his daughter and sick wife.”
“It’s just for this one night?”
I nuzzled Thandie again. “It’s for as long as this little one stays healthy.”
“So, who’s staying with the woman?”
“Her name’s Ari, and Lorna’s staying with her,” I said. “Don’t worry. Everything’s handled. You’re safe to go to bed.”
“What if I want you to go to bed with me?”
We’d sought comfort in one another, but our relationship never breached the intimacy border. For all the items we’d found while scavenging the nearby areas, condoms seemed to always be in short supply. Pregnancies were challenging enough to manage in a stable world.
Allen sighed, crossed the room, bent, and kissed my cheek. As he straightened, he studied Thandie’s tiny form.
“Tayler, this world’s going to eat her alive,” he said. “Let’s be realistic. She probably won’t make it to her first birthday.”
I flinched.
Babies, children, and adults ranging from college students to nursing home residents—we failed every last one of them. They’d arrived at the CDC riding the waves of false promises of hope, only to end up surrounded by experts whose only beneficial act had been to be at their sides as they died because their loved ones couldn’t. To this day, the only thing we’d accomplished was a name. At least, with a name, the civilizations that came after us would be able to identify precisely what had wiped out all human life.
“Would you have preferred I strangled her upon birth?” Gage asked. “Or maybe a gun would suffice?”
“It’s the truth,” Allen argued. “The world before was already brutal enough to eat babies alive.”
I pointed to the door. “Allen, go. Please.”
Gage had food and water in his system. Allen had not only insulted him, but he’d made an ignorant remark about Gage’s daughter. Yet, Allen didn’t seem to sense, like I sensed, how close to death he would come if he didn’t shut his mouth.
“Fine, I’ll go,” Allen said, headed for the door. “But I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”
“Mate,” Gage called, plate raised. “Take this with you on your way, yeah?”
Allen opened his mouth to protest.
“Just take it,” I snapped. “You insulted his daughter, and I don’t have to explain how you hurt me with what you said. Taking the plate is the least you could do.”
Allen trudged over and snatched the empty plate from Gage’s clutches. Gage, however, didn’t make the situation better by saying, “That’s a good boy,” as Allen stormed out of the room.
It was wasted jealousy.
I wouldn’t be getting into any sort of intimate entanglement with another woman’s husband. Or boyfriend. Or whatever Gage was to Ari. If Gage decided he wanted to dally with anyone else in the camp, that was his business, but I would not be taking part.