Dead Seasons Part III

[Morris Hospital/Sept. 24th/2205hrs]

“Zombies.”

“What?”

Ray slapped the rectangular button with the faded picture of a bottle of Mountain Dew and, as the whir of the waiting room vending machine’s innards began to fluctuate, turned back toward the carpeted seating area. Nolan and Cassie—the two of them having refused treatment upon arrival; Nolan rather harshly—were sitting opposite where he stood at the soda machine and both were looking at him; their gazes joined by Nick and Sarah’s.

Tim sat silently, his chair separate from the others in the only corner of the open waiting room. Ray always assumed that particular chair was separated from the others as a courtesy for mother’s who might need to nurse. Right now it was being used by a man who had just been attacked by the on again/off again love of his life.

Shaun, who had been the only one of the group in Nick’s truck to have the foresight to call 911 when everyone else was trying to play Rescue Rangers, was still giving his statement to the officers that had been sent to meet them. The two men—bushy gamer and clean-cut cop—were standing just inside the entrance to the Emergency Room, near the big wooden door marked “Triage” in big red block letters.

“Zombies,” Ray said again. He wasn’t sure who had asked him, Nick or Nolan, so he just answered non-committally. The thump-ka-thunk of his Dew bottle dropping from the machine drew his attention once again and he turned away from the group and bent to retrieve the twenty-ounce bottle of caffeinated sugar syrup.

“I heard you the first time, dude.” It was definitely Nolan. “But what the hell are you talking about?”

Bottle in hand, Ray straightened and headed back to his seat beside Sarah’s. As he lowered himself into the chair, he twisted the cap and took an extended swig from the bottle. When he’d gulped down almost half the sugary contents and subsequently caught his breath, Ray turned at met Nolan’s eyes.

“It makes sense,” he said to the group as a whole. When no one replied with anything but a confused look, Ray leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. This all seemed so obvious to him, why didn’t they get it? “C’mon, guys. There isn’t a single one of us who hasn’t seen a zombie movie.”

“Even, Lunchbox, here,” he continued, giving an exaggerated wave in Nick’s direction. “And he hates horror films.”

“You hate horror movies,” Cassie asked, somewhat shocked that a member of this particular group of self-proclaimed geeks was not a fan of the genre.

“What?!” Nick’s round face flushed a little around his blonde goatee. “I startle easily.”

“I had to tell him Jessica Beil had a topless scene to get him to see that shitty Chainsaw Massacre remake with me,” Ray emphasized. “Dude nearly jumped out of his skin every other scene.”

“Hey, fuck off,” Nick said, trying to look hurt. “Don’t you have a point?”

“Right,” Ray agreed. “Zombies. It’s gotta be zombies.”

“Are you fucking retarded,” Nolan laughed. “I mean, I’m the one who took a ride on the Flipping Focus. At what point did you hit your head?”

Cassie elbowed him in the ribs.

“Oh, right, sorry. We took a ride in the Flipping Focus.”

“Seriously,” Sarah asked both Nolan and Cass, “are you feeling okay?”

“We’re fine,” Cassie said gently. “I am curious as to where he’s going with this, though.”

“Thank you,” Ray said as Nolan and Nick shot baffled looks at the younger blonde. He ignored them both and continued. “Look, it’s all right there. I mean, did you see those guys?! Hell, the big fireman-lookin’ guy’s arm looked like it’d been run over with a lawnmower and he just let it dangle like someone stapled a hunk of shredded beef to his shoulder! And what about the guy who jumped Wrobel? That dude was trying to rip Brian’s face off with his bare teeth!”

He paused for a second, his gaze drifting toward Tim for a moment. He felt bad for the guy, really, but this next part had to be mentioned. He knew that everything else was arguable, and he had to admit, even he balked at the idea of a real life zombie attack. But, there was no way they could swat this down. Nolan, Cassie, even Sarah and Nick had seen it with their own eyes.

Hell, her blood was still on half of their clothes.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “What about Amy?”

He never had a chance to move.

Tim was out of his chair and across the small space between them as if he’d been waiting for the words to leave Ray’s lips. He gripped Ray’s shirt in both fists and lifted him partially out of his chair to bring their faces together. Ray stared into the shorter man’s glaring eyes, bloodshot with anger, fear, and unshed tears. His breath was raspy with rage and shame. The two men stared at each other in silence for several heartbeats, the rest of the group seemingly too shocked to react.

“Don’t you ever,” Tim said slowly, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. “You and me go way back, dude. We’ve been through some shit. But if you ever mention her name again, I swear to God I’ll cave your face in. You got that?”

Ray wanted to argue the point. A part of his brain, hidden behind his sense of decency, wanted to point out the facts. Something had blasted through the windshield of the Focus and put a thumb-sized hole in Amy’s neck. Nolan had looked into her glassy eyes—he’d said it was like looking at a porcelain doll—and saw no hint of life. Her fucking blood was all over the car for Christ’s sake! Yet, somehow she’d suddenly attacked Tim. Savagely grabbed and snapped at him.

She’d tried to kill him!

However, he knew when enough was enough. He wasn’t joking about what he thought was going on; a realization as sudden and swift as Tim’s lunge. But he knew now was not the time, or place, to press the matter. He’d never really been afraid of Tim and didn’t really think it would come to blows, but the look in Tim’s eyes had more than just anger in them. He was hurting. Bad. And trying to prove that his fiancé—a woman who’d been laughing and holding his hand less than three hours ago—had been killed and somehow turned into something from a George Romero movie was not the best way to show support.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, bud. I understand. I’m sorry. Really.”

“Ah, fuck your sorry!”

With that, Tim shoved Ray back into the chair. Without another word, he straightened and stormed out of the E. R. waiting room; heading outside through the automatic double doors. Ray watched in silence as Sarah rose from her own seat to follow after him.

“Raaay,” she said, dragging the vowel out slightly in annoyance.

“Well, shit.” There wasn’t much else he could say, really. He had been aware of the risk he was taking when he’d started talking and had known there was a chance of exactly what happened. He was a little ashamed, though, honestly, not much.

“He kinda has a point, dude,” Nolan said softly.

Ray sat back down, setting the plastic bottle on the small wooden table beside the chair. “Yeah,” he said, just as quietly, “I know.”

Shaun picked just that moment to rejoin the group. “You know what?”

“Nothin’.”

[Morris Hospital/Sept. 24th/2228hrs]



Pain. The pain was so severe it was hard to focus on anything else.

“What was his name again,” he heard a voice just beyond the pain. Dull, as if his head were under water.

Another wave of blinding pain seared the edges of his consciousness with white-hot intensity. Jesus Christ! Why did it hurt so bad?

“Brian,” another voice…a girl…answered from the same murky depths beyond the pain. “Or something like that.”

“Brian,” the first voice said, apparently satisfied with the answer. “Brian! I need you to be still for a moment, guy. I can’t get your arm stitched up unless you hold still. You don’t want to be the first guy to bleed to death because of a bite do you?”

He was more than a little sure the voices were talking about him—to him—but he didn’t care. Couldn’t care. All that mattered was the pain.

“Son of a…would someone hold him down so I can get a suture done here?”

It had started in his arm—the bite—but had quickly moved up his arm and consumed his entire body. An army of tiny flames conquering him one muscle at a time and burning everything in its wake. He had forgotten the initial wound before his friends had even gotten him here; forgotten where here was by the time the voices had started. Now there was no here, there was no him.

There was only the pain.

“Forget the needle, Doctor,” a third voice said. “Look!”

There was a moment of silence that he felt as much as he heard. Silence gave the pain his full attention; allowed it to envelope his every sense. So he screamed.

“Shit,” a woman yelled. “He’s crashing!”

“Get a Crash Cart in here, now!”

Suddenly, the pain was gone. For a few seconds there was nothing. Sweet nothing. His lungs emptied all their air and his scream faded and the muscles he couldn’t remember losing control of ceased their constant thrashing. The silence flooded back in slowly and he welcomed it. He was tired…

“Where the hell is that…”

“…coming, but I don’t think…”

“…matter…”

Darkness. Silence and darkness…

Then hunger.

Hunger so acute it drove through the darkness. Brought the lights and the noise…and the pain. The hunger forced his eyes open, drove his muscles to tighten and make the world shift until the noisy things scrambled backward instead of sideways. They were loud. They made the pain scream in his head. He hated them.

But they smelled so good. And though the pain hated them, the hunger wanted them. His muscles tightened again and the world lurched and blurred. The small, soft one directly in front of him didn’t even move and the two of them were on the floor. It screamed and he brought his fists down on its face a few times. Red hot liquid splashed onto the white floor and the hunger roared, driving his head forward.

It screamed again as more of the hot liquid rushed into his mouth…