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rainbowfic2015-09-19 01:51 am
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2015-09-19 01:51 am
Milk Bottle 16
Name: starphotographs
Story: Corwin and Friends/Universe B: 28 Days Later Edition
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival, Milk Bottle, Summer Blockbuster), Mosaic (with 28 Days Later)
Characters: Spenser (POV), Corwin, Sorrell, some friendly strangers. :D (To them, not to you!)
Colors: Milk Bottle 16 (Tractor Pull)
Word Count: 3,600ish
Rating: R
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: The crew gets carjacked. (Almost.) Spenser makes a friend.
Note: I wish I could have kept being more active, but it’s been a hectic few weeks! (Also, I plan to wrap up this storyline after three more installments, even though I won't manage it in the next three days.)
The Splitting Road
You know, we never did fix that window I broke.
Corwin started complaining about “sitting in a goddamn wind tunnel,” and taped some plastic wrap over it a few weeks ago, but that’s about it. Right now, he’s asleep, and I’m sitting in his usual seat. The leftover glass is starting to punch holes in the plastic. I stick my finger in one of the holes and wiggle it around a little. Then draw it upward, creating a long gap that makes a harsh slapping noise.
Noise. Destruction. Peace.
Sorrell doesn’t take her eyes off the road.
“…I hope you plan on fixing that.”
“Sure, yeah, I’ll fix it in just a sec.”
She was trying to reprimand me, but all she did was give me permission. It’s something I figured out a long time ago. That knowing you can fix something, or knowing it can’t be fixed, gives you license to wreck it. I find another hole, slide my finger up again. Then break the middle strip, turning the two slits into one huge gap. I tried sticking my hand through it, but ended up cutting my arm on some glass.
“…Oww!”
Sorrell shot me a quick, serves-you-right sort of look.
“This looks like a good place to stop for the night, if you want to get on fixing that.”
She turned in to a parking lot. I wiped the blood on my pants.
“Works for me!”
The motorhome skidded to a halt. I found the cling wrap, and the tape, and was about to get to work.
Then there was a bang, and a crash, and Corwin darted out of the bedroom. Panting hard, still half-asleep.
“…Um, someone just broke in.”
He sounded pretty fuckin’ casual about it, but really, he was just so startled that his tone of voice switched off to conserve energy. Still in a daze, and mostly asleep, he opened the glove compartment, and, without taking his eye off the back window, went feeling around for his pistol. Martin’s pistol. Whatever. Call it a hand-me-down.
“I don’t want to shoot you!”
A man was crawling in through the broken window, right over the jagged glass, but he was dressed in that military-style canvas, which is so thick he probably could have slept comfortably on a bed of nails.
“…Well, that’s good, because I don’t really want to shoot you, either!”
Finally, he worked his way inside, crawled over the bed with his dirty shoes. He stood in the hallway, head just a few inches from the ceiling, sawed-off shotgun at the ready.
Something in me, something very stupid, must have whispered “you can take this guy!”
“Well, alright! How about, if you don’t wanna shoot us, you maybe put the gun down, asshole!”
That earned me a cold, jagged barrel against the temple. Apparently, I was the one he wanted to shoot. Sorrel, without missing a beat, grabbed one of her five-thousand assorted guns, and pointed it at the freak who just climbed in through the window. And suddenly, it was a three-person standoff. I’d feel left-out, but really, I was right at the center of it, so I wasn’t left-out at all.
“If you don’t want to shoot us, what do you want?”
He didn’t move his gun from my head. I was just hoping he didn’t have shaky hands.
“My brother is in the back of my truck. We’re out of gas. I need you to tow us to the nearest hospital. I have the chain, so don‘t worry about that.”
Sorrell and Corwin looked at each other. Corwin shrugged. Sorrell looked at the window-man, then at me.
“…Spenser, go help him.”
She asked me not because I’m competent, but because I’m expendable.
*****
I followed Window-Guy to his truck, which was on the other side of the lot. Actually, I think I saw it when we pulled in, but I assumed it was abandoned. The bed had one of those lids that makes your truck look like a van. Window-Guy knocked on it.
“Hey, Frankenweenie. I got someone to help us.”
By which he meant, “I threatened some innocent people with a gun.” I peeked into the bed, which was apparently in use as a literal bed at the moment. It was getting dark, so I couldn’t really see who was in there. I motioned for Sorrell to back up, saw the tail lights come on. Then I figured that I might as well make some conversation.
“So, like, what do you want with a hospital? It’s not like there’s doctors or whatever.”
Window-Guy was pulling a length of heavy chain out of the cab.
“I don’t need doctors. If I can find heparin, TPa, isotonic saline, and a nebulizer, I can do the rest myself.”
He at least seemed to know what he was talking about.
“Dude, like, are you a doctor?”
He shrugged.
“Nah. I just have a lot of practice at this one thing is all.”
I tried to think of a good doctor/practice pun, but nothing came to me. Fuck.
“So, that your brother in there?”
“Yep.”
Neither of us said anything for a while, just watched Sorrell inching closer. Window-Guy extended a hand.
“I’m Satchel, by the way.”
I shook it, even though all evidence pointed towards this being some kind of trap.
“Spenser.”
But, he didn’t flip me or anything.
“Sorry about, like, trying to carjack you or whatever. It’s just kind of an emergency.”
Don’t I know that feeling.
“Dude, I can’t judge you. I actually used to be, um, a literal fuckin’ highwayman, so-”
I didn’t get to finish, because Sorrell almost backed right the fuck over me. Satchel was laughing, and I thought, confirmed for sick fuck.
We were probably going to get along great.
He handed me the chain, and I wound our homes together.
“So… You wanna come in for some food or somethin’?”
*****
Satchel had stopped trying to shoot us, and we were still helping him. I hoped he was learning a handy lesson for the future. Don’t even bother to carjack people if you’re gonna half-ass it. Just tell them what to do and they‘ll probably do it.
Corwin had one of his maps out, looking for a hospital. I was standing in the kitchen, trying to fry Spam in a moving vehicle.
“Sorry, this is the best shit we got. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably, like, so fuckin’ sick of Spam.”
Satchel shook his head.
“I actually haven’t had Spam in forever.”
I wanted to live in his world, man.
“So, like, what’s your deal?”
The Spam was almost done, so I got the “bread,” such as it was. We made it ourselves, out of water and biscuit mix.
“Well, what’s your deal? I’m guessing we have the same deal.”
I put two slices of Spam on the bread/biscuit crap.
“I was a mechanic. Then, like, shit went down, and like I said, I was a highwayman for a while. Tried to steal stuff from these guys, they stole me, you know. Here’s your sandwich, dude. Gotta pay me with your story.”
He took it. I sat down on the floor next to him.
“S’not very interesting. I went around with this, like… Kind of a caravan of people for a while? Anyway, I guess we were too high-maintenance for their tastes or something, because they ditched us about a month and a half ago.”
“…And now you carjack people so you can bum rides to hospitals.”
Satchel took a bite of his sandwich, scowled at it, and sighed.
“Nah, this is a new development. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing.”
I laughed.
“Well, that much is obvious.”
He swallowed, with some difficulty. I could tell from here that his sandwich was so fucking dry.
“Really? How?”
“Dude, you, like, quit carjacking us halfway through and started eating a sandwich.”
*****
We kept shooting the shit for a while. I learned that, while some think the world will end in fire, and some in ice, Satchel thought the world would end in martial law. We had a good laugh at how he was almost right, but the Infected didn’t even give them the chance. He didn’t say much about his brother, and I didn’t really think to ask. I guess I just assumed that, once they got whatever they needed at the hospital, he’d wake up and start talking about himself. So, I didn’t have to worry about him for a while. I could just sit and listen to Satchel’s millions of decade-old pizza delivery stories. Partly because they were funny, but mostly because I missed pizza.
By the time I felt us lurch to a stop, he hadn’t even scratched the surface of the crazy bullshit he’d seen, but the rest would have to wait. Sorrell started distributing flashlights.
“Corwin and I are going to see if we can scrounge up anything useful. Satchel… You go look for whatever it is you need. Spenser?”
I looked up.
“Yeah?”
“You’re welcome to come with us, or go with him, but you can do what you want. Here.”
She handed me my flashlight. I, tucking a compact plasma channel in my pocket, just in case, decided to go with the “whatever I want” option.
Mostly, I just needed to stretch my legs. So I paced the parking lot. I ran up and down a flight of concrete stairs until I got out of breath. Then I decided that outside was boring, and checking out the building couldn’t hurt.
Of course, inside was pretty boring, too, mostly because it was pitch-fucking-dark, and I had to wave my flashlight around if I wanted to see anything interesting. Of which, even lit up, there was very little. Still, all the different doors and hallways made me feel like I was exploring some kind of maze. A maze consisting mostly of straight lines and dead ends, granted, but a maze nonetheless. Hell, I’d seen worse mazes in my time…
…I ended up wandering the darkened hospital on autopilot, thinking about the time I threw up in a corn maze when I was a kid. Something about that combination was uniquely depressing.
And, when I started running across all these dried dark-brown puddles, my flashlight sometimes illuminating bloody handprints on the walls, it got downright unnerving. Then it started to smell, which should have been my cue to run, not walk, and turn the fuck around. But, I didn’t really feel like bailing. Not when things were just starting to get interesting, anyway.
The smell became unbearable. I shone my light around the room.
Holy shit.
This must have been the ER, or the ICU, or some shit like that.
Somewhere with people who couldn’t survive without machines.
Who couldn’t be moved in time.
Shirt pulled up over my nose, I walked between two rows of beds, each containing a badly-decomposed corpse. Most down to skeletons and brown, slimy skin. A few must have held on a little longer, because they still looked almost passably human. One bed was empty, save for a huge bloodstain on the white sheet. A trail of dried-dark droplets lead to the other side of the room, where a skeletal body lay, sticky brown puddle spreading around it. Someone who tried to make a break for safety, and bled out on the way. Jumping out of a window in a burning building, as it were.
As I got closer to the end of the room, I started seeing bodies that were missing limbs. Bones on the floor, covered in rotten chunks or desiccated slime. Old blood everywhere. I gagged.
Again, I should have turned around and booked it the fuck outta there, but I was curious. I had to see what was on the other side of the door.
I pushed it; felt it push back.
And the most decrepit Infected I’d ever seen charged after me, heavy door swinging behind it. God only knows how long he’d been back there, pacing the floor, waiting for more fresh bodies to tear apart.
Well, the fucker wouldn’t have mine. I leapt up onto one of the gurneys, boots dislodging bone, muffled squelching and tearing sounds. I ignored them.
I readied my plasma channel.
The Infected got close enough to stagger me, nearly knock me to the floor, but before he could, I fried him. Then finally lost balance and crashed to the floor, nearly clocking my head on the next gurney over.
I realized my hand was cupping a femur, wretched, and took off running.
That’s enough hospital for today.
*****
The trek back to the motorhome was harrowing in itself, because I blindly darted down the first stairwell I found, and the hospital spat me out in what looked like a completely unfamiliar environment. So I wandered the parameter, waiting to come across something that looked familiar. Inside the building, I thought I heard grunting and crashing. There were more in there. I’d stirred them up. They were going to burst through the windows and rip me apart. I kept one hand on my weapon, breathing heavily, heart pounding. Finally, the parking lot. The lights were on in the motorhome. I broke into a run, and bolted inside.
Satchel was sitting on the bed, next to some runty blonde guy with taped glasses, who had to be his brother, though fuck me if they looked even halfway related. The probably-brother seemed just on the wrong side of semi-conscious, and was breathing some kind of vapor through a mask. Satchel looked up at me.
“Dude, you stink.”
I stripped off my shirt, started sponging myself down with an old wet nap I‘d dug out of a drawer.
“There’s dead people in there. I guess they, like, offgassed on me.”
Also I touched a fucking bone, so there’s that! I started washing my hands, hard, with a criminally wasteful amount of soap.
“I… see.”
I scrubbed my hands until they hurt, finished my makeshift shower-and-change, then sat down next to Satchel.
“So, what’s his problem?”
Satchel shrugged.
“It’s hard to explain.”
“That’s cool, that’s cool. So, like…”
He cut me off.
“…If you’re about to ask me why I go through all this trouble, don’t. It’s because I’m not a shitty person. I mean, shitty people do pretty well for themselves these days, but I guess I‘m not one of them. Oh well.”
I could tell that was the first time this speech had seen the outside of his head. I could also tell he’d been practicing.
“…Um, no. I was about to, like, ask if he was gonna be okay?”
Another shrug.
“I don’t think he’ll be worse. He wasn’t completely out of it like this for very long.”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“That’s good.”
Maybe I didn’t need to say anything at all, because it seemed like we were having two separate conversations.
“You know, he’s been telling me this was going to happen ever since Rage popped up in the UK, but I thought he was just bullshitting. He has a way of doing that. Bullshitting, I mean.”
“Well, hey, don’t we all?”
He sighed.
“The people I hung out with sure did. A lot of them were really in to like… Being prepared. Stockpiling and shit. I mean, at least when the shit went down, I knew where to go. I don’t think they accounted for the fact that they were basically painting targets on their backs.”
Jesus, this guy is hardcore.
“So like, you shook down your own friends?”
Satchel laughed.
“Not the ones who were friends. Just the people I knew who were, like, douchebags.”
I clapped him on the back.
“Well, that’s the way to do it.”
“Yeah… Man, sometimes I just wonder what happened to those people… Anyway, I’m gonna want to get back on the road when he’s finished here, so I need gas. Think you can go and find some?”
I nodded.
“Sure. I mean, it might take, like, forever, so be prepared for a fuckin’ wait.”
Satchel shook my hand, like he did when we first met.
“Waiting, I can do.”
I smiled. Then grabbed the gas can and siphon, and set off down the road.
*****
It took about five miles of walking, and I had to fight through a few more Infected, but eventually, I found an abandoned car with something in the tank. I sucked the tube, spat gasoline, filled the can, and went on my way.
By the time I got back, legs aching, can sloshing, mouth still coated and metallic, Sorrell and Corwin were back, sitting outside the motorhome on folding chairs, guns at the ready. They took turns filling me in.
They did indeed get some nice medical supplies. But, they had to fight their way out of the building, which was, according to Corwin, “like a goddamn hive.” He looked haggard, but his eye patch was new and bright, and I guess that says it all. I offered him a high-five, and he returned it weakly. Then I went inside to tell our guests the gasoline was waiting.
Satchel’s brother was sitting up on the bed, coughing his brains out. I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt, so I just stood there like a dope, waiting for him to finish. This went on for a while, until he took as deep a breath as he could manage, and coughed one last time. Something huge and stringy and white landed on the carpet. I remembered what Satchel said. It’s hard to explain.
Yeah, no kidding.
“So…” I gestured towards the door. “…Your gas is waitin’ out there, dude.”
With his brother in an alert, non-dying state, Satchel seemed a lot more cheerful.
“Great. Anyway, Spenser, this is Frankie. Frankie, this is Spenser. He just saved your dumb ass.”
Frankie was reclining again, trying to catch his breath.
“That’s… Great. Hey… Satch, are we in a hotel?”
I looked around. Two windows were smashed. The bedroom floor was covered in broken glass and buckshot.
“Nope, not a hotel, dude.”
Then again, before all this, I’d stayed in worse.
Still, I had to laugh.
*****
“Listen, thanks for all your help. And I’m… Really sorry for how I went about getting it.”
Satchel was loading up his truck. The stuff from the hospital, his reclaimed chain. Sorrell shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it. I… Did something similar once. Anyway, where are you guys headed?”
He poured the gas in the tank.
“Out east. We heard some rumors about, like, there being a new society on the coast or something. It’s worth a shot.”
Sorrell looked troubled.
“Rumors are rumors, kiddo.”
Satchel shrugged.
“I know, but they’re at least something. And my brother has some really bad medical problems, so this might be his…”
Sorrell exhaled softly.
“That’s what I’m worried about. It sounds like you’re taking a big risk.”
No dice. Satchel wasn’t budging.
“We’ll be alright.”
I wasn’t so sure myself, but there wasn’t anything I could do.
Was there?
Of course there is. There always is.
Most times, it’s harder for me to not do, no matter how impossible it seems.
I clapped my hands a few times, to get everyone’s attention.
“…I’ll go with them.”
If anything, Sorrell was more worried than before.
“Spense…”
I smiled at her.
“Man, don’t even worry about me. I’ll be fine. And hey, like, maybe start paying attention to those rumors yourself. If there’s anything to them, we’ll see each other again before you know it.”
Was I that sure? Not even by fuckin’ half. But I needed her to trust me. Sorrell deflated.
“I guess I can’t stop you.”
“You don’t need to”
Then she hugged me, whispered, be careful.
It occurred to me then, how much I loved her. Not in a way that would get between her and Corwin. I just loved how she made me feel safe, how she always made it obvious that she gave a fuck. How she could shout me down when I felt myself rising up, knocking me back to the ground where it was still and calm.
She was one beautiful goddamn person.
Maybe I wanted to go with them, to protect them, because I wanted to be more like her.
I stared at her for a while, trying to commit to memory the smiley lines around her eyes, that rooted-to-the-Earth stance she always took. So I could recognize her when we found each other again.
Corwin watched the whole thing, but said shit-all. I was glad, because that was just like him, and I didn’t want my last memory of him to be all fucked-up and out of character. I reached out and messed up his hair. Which didn’t work, because really, it couldn’t get much messier than it already was.
And then there was just one more thing to do before I left.
I grabbed the plastic. I grabbed the tape.
I fixed the window.
starphotographsStory: Corwin and Friends/Universe B: 28 Days Later Edition
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival, Milk Bottle, Summer Blockbuster), Mosaic (with 28 Days Later)
Characters: Spenser (POV), Corwin, Sorrell, some friendly strangers. :D (To them, not to you!)
Colors: Milk Bottle 16 (Tractor Pull)
Word Count: 3,600ish
Rating: R
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: The crew gets carjacked. (Almost.) Spenser makes a friend.
Note: I wish I could have kept being more active, but it’s been a hectic few weeks! (Also, I plan to wrap up this storyline after three more installments, even though I won't manage it in the next three days.)
You know, we never did fix that window I broke.
Corwin started complaining about “sitting in a goddamn wind tunnel,” and taped some plastic wrap over it a few weeks ago, but that’s about it. Right now, he’s asleep, and I’m sitting in his usual seat. The leftover glass is starting to punch holes in the plastic. I stick my finger in one of the holes and wiggle it around a little. Then draw it upward, creating a long gap that makes a harsh slapping noise.
Noise. Destruction. Peace.
Sorrell doesn’t take her eyes off the road.
“…I hope you plan on fixing that.”
“Sure, yeah, I’ll fix it in just a sec.”
She was trying to reprimand me, but all she did was give me permission. It’s something I figured out a long time ago. That knowing you can fix something, or knowing it can’t be fixed, gives you license to wreck it. I find another hole, slide my finger up again. Then break the middle strip, turning the two slits into one huge gap. I tried sticking my hand through it, but ended up cutting my arm on some glass.
“…Oww!”
Sorrell shot me a quick, serves-you-right sort of look.
“This looks like a good place to stop for the night, if you want to get on fixing that.”
She turned in to a parking lot. I wiped the blood on my pants.
“Works for me!”
The motorhome skidded to a halt. I found the cling wrap, and the tape, and was about to get to work.
Then there was a bang, and a crash, and Corwin darted out of the bedroom. Panting hard, still half-asleep.
“…Um, someone just broke in.”
He sounded pretty fuckin’ casual about it, but really, he was just so startled that his tone of voice switched off to conserve energy. Still in a daze, and mostly asleep, he opened the glove compartment, and, without taking his eye off the back window, went feeling around for his pistol. Martin’s pistol. Whatever. Call it a hand-me-down.
“I don’t want to shoot you!”
A man was crawling in through the broken window, right over the jagged glass, but he was dressed in that military-style canvas, which is so thick he probably could have slept comfortably on a bed of nails.
“…Well, that’s good, because I don’t really want to shoot you, either!”
Finally, he worked his way inside, crawled over the bed with his dirty shoes. He stood in the hallway, head just a few inches from the ceiling, sawed-off shotgun at the ready.
Something in me, something very stupid, must have whispered “you can take this guy!”
“Well, alright! How about, if you don’t wanna shoot us, you maybe put the gun down, asshole!”
That earned me a cold, jagged barrel against the temple. Apparently, I was the one he wanted to shoot. Sorrel, without missing a beat, grabbed one of her five-thousand assorted guns, and pointed it at the freak who just climbed in through the window. And suddenly, it was a three-person standoff. I’d feel left-out, but really, I was right at the center of it, so I wasn’t left-out at all.
“If you don’t want to shoot us, what do you want?”
He didn’t move his gun from my head. I was just hoping he didn’t have shaky hands.
“My brother is in the back of my truck. We’re out of gas. I need you to tow us to the nearest hospital. I have the chain, so don‘t worry about that.”
Sorrell and Corwin looked at each other. Corwin shrugged. Sorrell looked at the window-man, then at me.
“…Spenser, go help him.”
She asked me not because I’m competent, but because I’m expendable.
I followed Window-Guy to his truck, which was on the other side of the lot. Actually, I think I saw it when we pulled in, but I assumed it was abandoned. The bed had one of those lids that makes your truck look like a van. Window-Guy knocked on it.
“Hey, Frankenweenie. I got someone to help us.”
By which he meant, “I threatened some innocent people with a gun.” I peeked into the bed, which was apparently in use as a literal bed at the moment. It was getting dark, so I couldn’t really see who was in there. I motioned for Sorrell to back up, saw the tail lights come on. Then I figured that I might as well make some conversation.
“So, like, what do you want with a hospital? It’s not like there’s doctors or whatever.”
Window-Guy was pulling a length of heavy chain out of the cab.
“I don’t need doctors. If I can find heparin, TPa, isotonic saline, and a nebulizer, I can do the rest myself.”
He at least seemed to know what he was talking about.
“Dude, like, are you a doctor?”
He shrugged.
“Nah. I just have a lot of practice at this one thing is all.”
I tried to think of a good doctor/practice pun, but nothing came to me. Fuck.
“So, that your brother in there?”
“Yep.”
Neither of us said anything for a while, just watched Sorrell inching closer. Window-Guy extended a hand.
“I’m Satchel, by the way.”
I shook it, even though all evidence pointed towards this being some kind of trap.
“Spenser.”
But, he didn’t flip me or anything.
“Sorry about, like, trying to carjack you or whatever. It’s just kind of an emergency.”
Don’t I know that feeling.
“Dude, I can’t judge you. I actually used to be, um, a literal fuckin’ highwayman, so-”
I didn’t get to finish, because Sorrell almost backed right the fuck over me. Satchel was laughing, and I thought, confirmed for sick fuck.
We were probably going to get along great.
He handed me the chain, and I wound our homes together.
“So… You wanna come in for some food or somethin’?”
Satchel had stopped trying to shoot us, and we were still helping him. I hoped he was learning a handy lesson for the future. Don’t even bother to carjack people if you’re gonna half-ass it. Just tell them what to do and they‘ll probably do it.
Corwin had one of his maps out, looking for a hospital. I was standing in the kitchen, trying to fry Spam in a moving vehicle.
“Sorry, this is the best shit we got. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably, like, so fuckin’ sick of Spam.”
Satchel shook his head.
“I actually haven’t had Spam in forever.”
I wanted to live in his world, man.
“So, like, what’s your deal?”
The Spam was almost done, so I got the “bread,” such as it was. We made it ourselves, out of water and biscuit mix.
“Well, what’s your deal? I’m guessing we have the same deal.”
I put two slices of Spam on the bread/biscuit crap.
“I was a mechanic. Then, like, shit went down, and like I said, I was a highwayman for a while. Tried to steal stuff from these guys, they stole me, you know. Here’s your sandwich, dude. Gotta pay me with your story.”
He took it. I sat down on the floor next to him.
“S’not very interesting. I went around with this, like… Kind of a caravan of people for a while? Anyway, I guess we were too high-maintenance for their tastes or something, because they ditched us about a month and a half ago.”
“…And now you carjack people so you can bum rides to hospitals.”
Satchel took a bite of his sandwich, scowled at it, and sighed.
“Nah, this is a new development. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing.”
I laughed.
“Well, that much is obvious.”
He swallowed, with some difficulty. I could tell from here that his sandwich was so fucking dry.
“Really? How?”
“Dude, you, like, quit carjacking us halfway through and started eating a sandwich.”
We kept shooting the shit for a while. I learned that, while some think the world will end in fire, and some in ice, Satchel thought the world would end in martial law. We had a good laugh at how he was almost right, but the Infected didn’t even give them the chance. He didn’t say much about his brother, and I didn’t really think to ask. I guess I just assumed that, once they got whatever they needed at the hospital, he’d wake up and start talking about himself. So, I didn’t have to worry about him for a while. I could just sit and listen to Satchel’s millions of decade-old pizza delivery stories. Partly because they were funny, but mostly because I missed pizza.
By the time I felt us lurch to a stop, he hadn’t even scratched the surface of the crazy bullshit he’d seen, but the rest would have to wait. Sorrell started distributing flashlights.
“Corwin and I are going to see if we can scrounge up anything useful. Satchel… You go look for whatever it is you need. Spenser?”
I looked up.
“Yeah?”
“You’re welcome to come with us, or go with him, but you can do what you want. Here.”
She handed me my flashlight. I, tucking a compact plasma channel in my pocket, just in case, decided to go with the “whatever I want” option.
Mostly, I just needed to stretch my legs. So I paced the parking lot. I ran up and down a flight of concrete stairs until I got out of breath. Then I decided that outside was boring, and checking out the building couldn’t hurt.
Of course, inside was pretty boring, too, mostly because it was pitch-fucking-dark, and I had to wave my flashlight around if I wanted to see anything interesting. Of which, even lit up, there was very little. Still, all the different doors and hallways made me feel like I was exploring some kind of maze. A maze consisting mostly of straight lines and dead ends, granted, but a maze nonetheless. Hell, I’d seen worse mazes in my time…
…I ended up wandering the darkened hospital on autopilot, thinking about the time I threw up in a corn maze when I was a kid. Something about that combination was uniquely depressing.
And, when I started running across all these dried dark-brown puddles, my flashlight sometimes illuminating bloody handprints on the walls, it got downright unnerving. Then it started to smell, which should have been my cue to run, not walk, and turn the fuck around. But, I didn’t really feel like bailing. Not when things were just starting to get interesting, anyway.
The smell became unbearable. I shone my light around the room.
Holy shit.
This must have been the ER, or the ICU, or some shit like that.
Somewhere with people who couldn’t survive without machines.
Who couldn’t be moved in time.
Shirt pulled up over my nose, I walked between two rows of beds, each containing a badly-decomposed corpse. Most down to skeletons and brown, slimy skin. A few must have held on a little longer, because they still looked almost passably human. One bed was empty, save for a huge bloodstain on the white sheet. A trail of dried-dark droplets lead to the other side of the room, where a skeletal body lay, sticky brown puddle spreading around it. Someone who tried to make a break for safety, and bled out on the way. Jumping out of a window in a burning building, as it were.
As I got closer to the end of the room, I started seeing bodies that were missing limbs. Bones on the floor, covered in rotten chunks or desiccated slime. Old blood everywhere. I gagged.
Again, I should have turned around and booked it the fuck outta there, but I was curious. I had to see what was on the other side of the door.
I pushed it; felt it push back.
And the most decrepit Infected I’d ever seen charged after me, heavy door swinging behind it. God only knows how long he’d been back there, pacing the floor, waiting for more fresh bodies to tear apart.
Well, the fucker wouldn’t have mine. I leapt up onto one of the gurneys, boots dislodging bone, muffled squelching and tearing sounds. I ignored them.
I readied my plasma channel.
The Infected got close enough to stagger me, nearly knock me to the floor, but before he could, I fried him. Then finally lost balance and crashed to the floor, nearly clocking my head on the next gurney over.
I realized my hand was cupping a femur, wretched, and took off running.
That’s enough hospital for today.
The trek back to the motorhome was harrowing in itself, because I blindly darted down the first stairwell I found, and the hospital spat me out in what looked like a completely unfamiliar environment. So I wandered the parameter, waiting to come across something that looked familiar. Inside the building, I thought I heard grunting and crashing. There were more in there. I’d stirred them up. They were going to burst through the windows and rip me apart. I kept one hand on my weapon, breathing heavily, heart pounding. Finally, the parking lot. The lights were on in the motorhome. I broke into a run, and bolted inside.
Satchel was sitting on the bed, next to some runty blonde guy with taped glasses, who had to be his brother, though fuck me if they looked even halfway related. The probably-brother seemed just on the wrong side of semi-conscious, and was breathing some kind of vapor through a mask. Satchel looked up at me.
“Dude, you stink.”
I stripped off my shirt, started sponging myself down with an old wet nap I‘d dug out of a drawer.
“There’s dead people in there. I guess they, like, offgassed on me.”
Also I touched a fucking bone, so there’s that! I started washing my hands, hard, with a criminally wasteful amount of soap.
“I… see.”
I scrubbed my hands until they hurt, finished my makeshift shower-and-change, then sat down next to Satchel.
“So, what’s his problem?”
Satchel shrugged.
“It’s hard to explain.”
“That’s cool, that’s cool. So, like…”
He cut me off.
“…If you’re about to ask me why I go through all this trouble, don’t. It’s because I’m not a shitty person. I mean, shitty people do pretty well for themselves these days, but I guess I‘m not one of them. Oh well.”
I could tell that was the first time this speech had seen the outside of his head. I could also tell he’d been practicing.
“…Um, no. I was about to, like, ask if he was gonna be okay?”
Another shrug.
“I don’t think he’ll be worse. He wasn’t completely out of it like this for very long.”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“That’s good.”
Maybe I didn’t need to say anything at all, because it seemed like we were having two separate conversations.
“You know, he’s been telling me this was going to happen ever since Rage popped up in the UK, but I thought he was just bullshitting. He has a way of doing that. Bullshitting, I mean.”
“Well, hey, don’t we all?”
He sighed.
“The people I hung out with sure did. A lot of them were really in to like… Being prepared. Stockpiling and shit. I mean, at least when the shit went down, I knew where to go. I don’t think they accounted for the fact that they were basically painting targets on their backs.”
Jesus, this guy is hardcore.
“So like, you shook down your own friends?”
Satchel laughed.
“Not the ones who were friends. Just the people I knew who were, like, douchebags.”
I clapped him on the back.
“Well, that’s the way to do it.”
“Yeah… Man, sometimes I just wonder what happened to those people… Anyway, I’m gonna want to get back on the road when he’s finished here, so I need gas. Think you can go and find some?”
I nodded.
“Sure. I mean, it might take, like, forever, so be prepared for a fuckin’ wait.”
Satchel shook my hand, like he did when we first met.
“Waiting, I can do.”
I smiled. Then grabbed the gas can and siphon, and set off down the road.
It took about five miles of walking, and I had to fight through a few more Infected, but eventually, I found an abandoned car with something in the tank. I sucked the tube, spat gasoline, filled the can, and went on my way.
By the time I got back, legs aching, can sloshing, mouth still coated and metallic, Sorrell and Corwin were back, sitting outside the motorhome on folding chairs, guns at the ready. They took turns filling me in.
They did indeed get some nice medical supplies. But, they had to fight their way out of the building, which was, according to Corwin, “like a goddamn hive.” He looked haggard, but his eye patch was new and bright, and I guess that says it all. I offered him a high-five, and he returned it weakly. Then I went inside to tell our guests the gasoline was waiting.
Satchel’s brother was sitting up on the bed, coughing his brains out. I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt, so I just stood there like a dope, waiting for him to finish. This went on for a while, until he took as deep a breath as he could manage, and coughed one last time. Something huge and stringy and white landed on the carpet. I remembered what Satchel said. It’s hard to explain.
Yeah, no kidding.
“So…” I gestured towards the door. “…Your gas is waitin’ out there, dude.”
With his brother in an alert, non-dying state, Satchel seemed a lot more cheerful.
“Great. Anyway, Spenser, this is Frankie. Frankie, this is Spenser. He just saved your dumb ass.”
Frankie was reclining again, trying to catch his breath.
“That’s… Great. Hey… Satch, are we in a hotel?”
I looked around. Two windows were smashed. The bedroom floor was covered in broken glass and buckshot.
“Nope, not a hotel, dude.”
Then again, before all this, I’d stayed in worse.
Still, I had to laugh.
“Listen, thanks for all your help. And I’m… Really sorry for how I went about getting it.”
Satchel was loading up his truck. The stuff from the hospital, his reclaimed chain. Sorrell shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it. I… Did something similar once. Anyway, where are you guys headed?”
He poured the gas in the tank.
“Out east. We heard some rumors about, like, there being a new society on the coast or something. It’s worth a shot.”
Sorrell looked troubled.
“Rumors are rumors, kiddo.”
Satchel shrugged.
“I know, but they’re at least something. And my brother has some really bad medical problems, so this might be his…”
Sorrell exhaled softly.
“That’s what I’m worried about. It sounds like you’re taking a big risk.”
No dice. Satchel wasn’t budging.
“We’ll be alright.”
I wasn’t so sure myself, but there wasn’t anything I could do.
Was there?
Of course there is. There always is.
Most times, it’s harder for me to not do, no matter how impossible it seems.
I clapped my hands a few times, to get everyone’s attention.
“…I’ll go with them.”
If anything, Sorrell was more worried than before.
“Spense…”
I smiled at her.
“Man, don’t even worry about me. I’ll be fine. And hey, like, maybe start paying attention to those rumors yourself. If there’s anything to them, we’ll see each other again before you know it.”
Was I that sure? Not even by fuckin’ half. But I needed her to trust me. Sorrell deflated.
“I guess I can’t stop you.”
“You don’t need to”
Then she hugged me, whispered, be careful.
It occurred to me then, how much I loved her. Not in a way that would get between her and Corwin. I just loved how she made me feel safe, how she always made it obvious that she gave a fuck. How she could shout me down when I felt myself rising up, knocking me back to the ground where it was still and calm.
She was one beautiful goddamn person.
Maybe I wanted to go with them, to protect them, because I wanted to be more like her.
I stared at her for a while, trying to commit to memory the smiley lines around her eyes, that rooted-to-the-Earth stance she always took. So I could recognize her when we found each other again.
Corwin watched the whole thing, but said shit-all. I was glad, because that was just like him, and I didn’t want my last memory of him to be all fucked-up and out of character. I reached out and messed up his hair. Which didn’t work, because really, it couldn’t get much messier than it already was.
And then there was just one more thing to do before I left.
I grabbed the plastic. I grabbed the tape.
I fixed the window.
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That's really all I can say. Well, that and the ICU scene was horrifying.