Chapter 17 #2
Frantically, Keisha and Lucia throw their weight into the door, trying their hardest to push it closed.
Even January tries to help. Nurse Patrick works against them, though.
As he tries to jerk away from the monster inside, he pulls the carrier forward, and the door inches open.
I forget about the stranger behind me and move.
I position myself on Nurse Patrick’s left, trying to find an angle to wedge my machete into the carrier’s head, but it won’t stop thrashing for another taste of Nurse Patrick.
I’ve never seen a carrier so frantic. Its jaws chatter as if freezing cold.
Its lips are peeled back, turning its mouth into a strange copy of a smile.
This carrier looks less human than any other I’ve seen, and for the first time I feel frightened by the monster in front of me.
Nurse Patrick screams again, bringing me back to my senses.
I grab a chair and stand on its seat. From this higher angle I have more control.
I stab downward into its eye socket. A sick screech tells me it’s not enough.
My thick blade sticks in the bones around its eye, but I use my newfound height to my advantage.
Pushing downward, I let my weight do the work.
Finally, the bone gives way. My machete meets brain, and the carrier falls to the ground, useless.
I look down at the carrier’s body lying in a pool of itself. A tiny gold cross hangs from its neck. It’s the only thing indicating that this thing used to be human. I shiver.
Nurse Patrick falls to his knees and skitters backward against the wall, holding his arm to his chest. He breathes quickly, eyes darting from side to side.
Keisha runs to him, doing her best to calm him down.
As my heart starts to slow, I remember we’re not alone.
I look for the stranger and find him behind a box of rotting lettuce, muttering to himself.
“Hey, jackass! You couldn’t give us a warning ten seconds sooner?” I say accusingly, pointing my machete at his chest.
“Look, I was hoping you guys would just leave, okay? It happened so fast!” He starts pacing, raking his fingers through his hair. “Jesus, is he gonna be okay?”
I give him a menacing stare. “Are there more of those things in this building? Tell me now.”
“No, I cleared the whole thing last week. It was just her,” he says, pointing to the lifeless form on the floor. “It’s not what it looks like. I…”
“It looks like you were keeping a carrier as a pet, you moron!” I shout, moving closer.
His hands fly up in self-defense. “It wasn’t like that. She was my girlfriend. I thought if I could find a doctor, she might… I thought… I never wanted…”
I back off, dropping my machete, and roll my eyes. It’s sentimentality that gets you killed in the apocalypse.
I take another look at the camo-clad man in front of me.
He’s younger than I initially thought. Maybe twenty-five?
He grips a large hunting knife with his tattooed knuckles, but there’s no fight in him.
Now that he doesn’t have a machete pointing at his chest, he stares at the scene unfolding behind me.
I turn back to Nurse Patrick. January and Lucia stare in horror as Keisha wraps his arm in a kitchen towel.
She’s focused and calm. She may not be much of a fighter, but when she’s called to care for others, something takes over her.
Too bad it won’t help. Nurse Patrick is a goner, and we all know it.
“Hey, G.I. Joe,” I say, grabbing the attention of the stranger.
“Name’s Ramsey,” he says.
“Ramsey, I’m Quinn. That’s Keisha, January, and Lucia over there. This is Nur… This is Patrick,” I say, avoiding his title. I don’t want any questions about who he is to us. “Now, can you please tell us where we can take him to lie down?” I say impatiently.
He stares stupidly for a moment but snaps into action a moment later. “Yeah. Of course. Here, come with me.”
Ramsey leads us through the dining room and down a dark hallway.
A large staircase remains from when this was a grand hotel.
Most of the rooms look like they’ve been turned into storage space.
Old broken chairs and stacks of plastic cups and takeout containers fill the rooms along the hall.
At the end of the hall in the last room on the right is a small office littered with bills, napkin math, and an ancient desktop computer.
In the corner a sleeping bag lies on top of a stack of broken-down cardboard boxes.
Keisha leads Nurse Patrick to the sleeping bag and lowers him to the ground, fussing over her homemade bandage.
“You’ve been living here,” I say to Ramsey.
“Yeah, I was a bartender. The boss shut this place down after one of those things came in off the beach one night. Everybody panicked. A couple people got bit, and one guy died right down there in the dining room. I never seen anything like it. Anyway, we shut down that night. Then everything went crazy in town, so I came here. I reckoned this would be a good place to ride out the infection. Y’all don’t look like you’re from around here. Where’d you come in from?”
“North. What happened to your girlfriend?” I ask pointedly, trying to avoid his question.
“I heard it’s bad up north. Closer you are to Chicago, worse it is, I reckon. More people and all that.”
“We came from Peoria!” January chirps from the corner.
I give her a death stare that shuts her the hell up.
This man doesn’t need to know where we came from, and the fact that he didn’t answer my question about the carrier in the pantry doesn’t go unnoticed.
I don’t get the chance to press him though.
Nurse Patrick hisses in pain, and I shift my attention back to him.
“How’s the arm?” I ask.
“It burns,” he responds through gritted teeth.
“Did you bring any meds for something like that?” I ask.
“There was a first aid kit in the truck, but that’s long gone.”
“Ramsey, do you have anything for his pain?” Keisha asks, looking up at him through her long eyelashes.
“I’m not sure, but I could take a look,” he says, his eyes lingering on her for just a moment too long before he turns to jog down the hall.
I hadn’t noticed it before, but Ramsey’s not a bad-looking guy.
He’s tall and muscular and has that bad-boy look that’s appealing to some girls.
Still, the way he just looked at Keisha makes my skin crawl.
When he returns with two ibuprofen and a bottle of water for Nurse Patrick, I decide to let it slide.
Nurse Patrick takes the pills and drinks the water gratefully, then checks his watch and sighs.
We sit in silence, and soon Ramsey leaves the room, giving us privacy. Keisha holds Nurse Patrick’s hand. Lucia clings to Keisha. January spins in the office chair behind the desk.
I pick at my nails, wondering how long we’re going to just sit here waiting for the sickness to take Nurse Patrick. After what feels like an eternity of awkward silence, he speaks.
“I’m proud of you girls,” he says with a warm smile. “You’ve really held your own out there. You can do this without me.”
Keisha’s eyes fill with tears. I feel frustrated and completely overwhelmed.
This is such a mess. We’re still running low on food and supplies.
Now we’ve got some stranger wandering around downstairs thinking god knows what.
There seem to be carriers around every corner.
January is a living, breathing dinner bell with a dwindling med supply.
And now, on top of all of this, I’m going to have to kill one of the only good things we had going for us.
It’s too much. The office chair squeaks behind me as January does another rotation.
“Cut it out, Jan,” I scold her. The chair comes to a halt, and she starts to cry. Goddammit.
“Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?” Keisha asks Nurse Patrick, ignoring the fact that I just made things even worse.
“You know, I could use a splint for my arm. Could you go outside and find a couple strong sticks? About a foot long. I think I saw some good ones in the parking lot,” he says.
He looks directly at Keisha with the request. It’s obvious he’s lying. His arm isn’t even broken. A splint would be useless. I know it, and when I glance over at Keisha, I can see she knows it too. Sadness flickers across her face, but she plays along.
“Sure. Of course we can do that. Come on, Lu, Jan. Let’s go see what we can find,” Keisha says. With a newfound purpose, January’s tears dry, and she stands up to follow Keisha and Lucia. Even on the brink of death, he’s still taking care of her.
“Take Ramsey with you, okay? Have him stand guard,” Nurse Patrick says. “Quinn, maybe you can stay back with me?” he says, quietly begging with his eyes.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll stay here,” I say.
I don’t like the idea of Ramsey being alone with the girls, but something tells me Keisha and Lucia can take care of themselves.