Day 0 - Bitten

It wasn't the pain that woke me up, but the smell. Oh god, that awful smell. It's one of those things that you can't really describe to a person, but when you've smelled it once, you would recognize it in a heartbeat. I grew up on a small farm with chickens and the like, where you would lose a hen occasionally, so I knew that smell. I would know it anywhere.

It was the smell of death.

….

A young girl was laughing. She was towards the back of the group with her older, teenage sister. 15 was too young to become responsible for another life, but then, life wasn't fair anymore, if it ever really was. Sophia was her name, I think. Or was that the name of the little girl the older woman had lost. I say older, but she was probably only in her late thirties, early forties. Maybe both girls had the same name. Huh. I bet that was tough on the woman, if that was the case.

My feet ached, my shoulders ached, and the sun was beating down on us so that I could feel the back of my neck blistering and sweat running down my spine and leaving damp spots under my arms and bra. What I wouldn't give for some sunscreen. I supposed I should've been irritated that the little girl was laughing, worried that such loud noises could give away our position and put our lives at risk, but I was too tired to care. I found myself cracking a small smile instead. That's what we were doing this all for, right? Why we were struggling and fighting to survive. So children could have something to laugh about again. I shrugged inwardly. Sounds like as good a reason as any, I suppose. Whatever you have to tell yourself to get through the hour.

….

I jerked awake with a soft gasp. Glenn and Maggie were still asleep beside me on the full size bed. Through the laundry we had strung up between the four bedposts, I could catch glimpses of the moon. It wasn't very bright, not quite half full, but it was enough for my night-adjusted eyes to see that someone was sleeping with their head resting against the window sill. The older woman with the cropped hair, I think. Only that far corner of the room was illuminated, though. The rest of the room was deep in shadow, including where I slept by the open bedroom door. I could hear someone breathing heavily to my left. I shifted my eyes to scan further in the corner, and hesitated. Why was someone to my left? That was between me and the door. There shouldn't be anyone sleeping on that side of the bed. Glenn's side, maybe, but not mine. I was frozen, couldn't move, the hair on the back of my neck and arms standing on end like the hackles on a scared dog. That smell. It was so strong. I could taste bile in the back of my throat. A walker.

….

"All right guys, that apartment building there looks promising. You know the drill. Daryl, Glenn, Maggie, and I will go first, call for backup if we run into any walkers. Phil, Lawrence, and Suarez will watch the perimeter. Everybody else, stay near the doors and keep your eyes and ears open."

"Sir, yes, sir," Phil mumbled under his breath. I shot him an ugly look, but he didn't notice. I didn't care much for him, but he didn't care much for any of the rest of us, so I didn't feel bad about that. He was older, nearing 70 I think, with a slight beer belly and salt and pepper hair. He had a decent beard going, as well. There was just something about him that rubbed me the wrong way, though. Not sure what it was. He had been leading a group of four when we met up with them a short while ago and he wasn't adjusting well to Rick's leadership now. Three of us had been traveling together to Atlanta, rumors of the CDC working on a cure here and refugee camps for those resilient enough to have survived this long. Instead, when we got to Atlanta, all we found were walkers. A lot of them. There were others, too. That was my group. I was in my late twenties, blonde, professional, a couple out of graduate school. I wasn't overly pretty or thin, but I took care of myself, exercised, ate right, and I looked respectable enough. Well, before the zombies came, or walkers, as some of the others call them. The other two in my group were Suarez and Lawrence. Suarez was a young latino guy with tattoos covering his forearms and a shaved head. He was actually pretty nice after he got to know you and trust you. And he could tell some stories that would have you in stitches, tears rolling down your face. He had been in college when the shit hit the fan. Working on his business degree. I could see him now, moving towards the corner of the 8-story apartment building Rick had targeted as where we would sleep tonight. Suarez's roommate, Lawrence, had been our third person. He was more mainstream in appearance than Suarez, came from a family with old money. Lawrence had been in the same program as Suarez and, despite their apparent differences, had hit it off straight away. Lawrence was moving to the corner of the perimeter closer to me and gave me a slight nod when he noticed I was looking at him.

"Doing all right, Leese? Your shoulders and neck are looking pretty rough." I grunted, feeling the heat rising off my skin in waves. Winter was officially over and this day had ended up being unseasonably hot. I hadn't been prepared.

"They feel pretty rough." Lawrence made a sound of acknowledgement. It was funny how simple communication became when you were reduced to fighting for your life every second of every day.

"Maybe Doc has some aloe vera or sunscreen or something. You should ask him," he said, pausing. He fixed me with a sideways look, his eyes glinting a little. "Wouldn't want you getting skin cancer. Hell of a way to die." I let out a short bark of laughter, too tired for much else, as I reached for the bottle of water clipped to my hip. I took a swig, spilling a little down my chin in my haste, and offered some to Lawrence. He eagerly drained what was left, but I didn't mind. I knew he'd have my back the next time around. I had a fondness for 'my guys', as I liked to call them in the privacy of my thoughts. Once I had set down clear boundaries with them early on, we had never had any issues. I had been on my own for several weeks and had known I couldn't make it much longer without some help. I respected them and they respected me. They knew I must have something vital to offer if I had been on my own that long, too. I couldn't even tell you how long we had traveled together, just the three of us, not seeing another human being.

Then we reached Atlanta, where we met the two sisters (they had lost their parents a week before), Phil, and Kelly (a woman around her mid-thirties, very pretty, and used to a softer way of life). We hadn't had much time to get to know them before getting overwhelmed by the walkers and holing up inside a nearby shop. A group passing by the city must've heard us and came to help us out. They had mentioned vehicles, but hadn't brought them into the city with them. Rick was their leader, from a small town sheriff's department. He was a good-looking guy nearing 40 with a pre-teen son and a very pregnant wife, Lori. Daryl was around Rick's age, and not so bad looking himself, with that rugged, good ol' boy look to him. Maggie and Glenn were an item. That was apparent straight off. They were both about my age. Maggie was a bit thinner than me with short brown hair and traveled with her father, the one Lawrence nicknamed 'Doc' on account of him being the only medically-trained person in the bunch, and younger sister, a tiny, fragile-looking little blonde thing. Glenn was a sort-of geeky, Asian guy, but smart and resourceful. That much was easy to see. Carol, the woman with cropped gray hair who had lost her daughter and husband to the walkers, was also with them. And then there was T Dog. He was a little older than me, African American, as if the name didn't give that away, and solidly built.

It had been a week since our three groups had merged together, Rick retaining his unspoken role as point-man, but it was slow going with Lori nearly due and the sheer number of walking dead to contend with. She only had about a month to go. Lawrence handed me back my bottle, wiping the sweat from his forehead as he turned his gaze to Suarez. I stood watching the little girl and her sister hover near the building, the older one digging around in her pack for something it seemed like the little girl had asked for. Maggie's sister attended to her father as he leaned up against the side of the brick building to catch his breath. Carol was busy fusing over Lori. I hoped she wasn't going to drop that baby early, the way she was struggling to catch hey breath. Lawrence must've seen the concern cross my face because he reached over to squeeze my upper arm, reassuring me. I forced a half smile and moved into the shade of the building. It would take awhile for them to sweep the buidling, since they would go room by room, making sure we were free of zombies, as well as keeping an eye out for potential supplies.

…...

Like I said, it wasn't the pain that woke me up, but the pain is sure what got me moving. I couldn't process what was happening until I felt the sharp sting in my side, just under my ribs. I yelped and jumped sideways into Maggie's lap. She yelled, startled out of her sleep. I cried out as I felt something tear through stomach, the nerves in my side on fire. Maggie let out a blood-curdling scream. Glenn was on his feet, grabbing under his pack for something, a weapon I was guessing. I couldn't take my eyes off the monster that had gotten the slip on me, or rather, the space where I knew it was. I pressed myself into the headboard, Maggie to my right keeping me from backpedaling off the side of the bed. Her hands gripped my shoulders tightly. It was the smacking sound that held me transfixed. My brain was processing too slowly tonight and it had already been my undoing. Then the zombie leaned forward, into a lighter patch, reaching for me, and I could see its face, its half-open mouth, and between its teeth, something rubbery that it was gnawing on. There was fresh blood around its mouth. With horror I realized that I was watching it eating me. It was chewing on the piece of flesh it had ripped from my side, and I could've sworn it was smiling at me as it did so.

I couldn't move, could hardly catch my breath. I registered people screaming and yelling. The walker's fingers reached for me and I just sat there and watched, like it was happening to someone else. An arrow erupted from the walker's temple accompanied with a squishing sound as the creature's brain was damaged, rendering it harmless. Its body collapsed on the bed beside me, its fingers touching my calf. I still didn't move. It had bitten me. It didn't make any sense. All this time, all this effort to stay sharp and alert, just to have it end like this. Not in some glorious battle saving someone's life, but asleep in bed, my brain so frozen with terror that I couldn't even move out of the thing's way. All I had to do was move and I didn't. Oh god, that's it then. I'm dead. Just like that. One stupid fucking mistake and it's over. That's all I could think as the commotion continued around me. Maggie still clung to my shoulders, the darkness momentarily concealing my injury from the others. Who would be the one to do it, then? Who would end me? When they realized I was going to get sick and turn into one of them. Flashlight beams were playing over the bed now. Someone pulled the body onto the floor. I was glad to have its dirty disgusting fingers away from my leg.

"Is everyone alright? Did anyone get hurt? Maggie? Glenn?"

"We're fine, Rick. I think everyone's fine," Maggie responded, her voice too loud next to my ear.

"I thought I heard someone cry out."

"Me, too," Rick agreed with the male speaker I couldn't immediately place. I didn't care who was talking. I just kept staring at the place where I had been sleeping minutes before. It might not have even been a whole minute. Maybe just half a one. A beam of light scanned the bed and found a dark, wet patch. My blood. The beam froze and those close enough to see what myself and the owner of the flashlight were seeing hushed. A dark smear led a path up to where I sat, back against the headboard, still half in Maggie's lap, clutching my side. I could feel the blood trickle through my fingers, not very quickly, but enough to make me feel lightheaded and dizzy. I felt a cold sweat pop up on my forehead and I thought I might pass out. There's a first for everything, apparently, even when you're dying. Or was I already dead? Did it make a difference. My death sentence had been signed, regardless. I heard Rick take a deep, steadying breath.

"Get Hershel."

Rick and the others in his group had swept the building without incident. There was an apartment on the third floor that they had chosen as an easily defensible place that had a fire escape, as well, in case flight was the order of the day instead. They had killed a couple walkers on the first floor, but beyond that, the place was empty. Unfortunately, it had also been picked clean, so no luck with increasing our supplies this time around. We refilled our water bottles with what we could find standing in the hot water heaters as the plumbing wasn't working. The women started working on settling up domestic issues, like washing clothes, making dinner, and setting up a toilet in the apartment next door. A part of me balked at the thought of being relegated to chores typically seen as 'women's work', but I swallowed my pride and pitched in how I could. Even Rick's son had a firearm and was taking up station at one of the windows. Let it go, I thought to myself. It was my own damn fault I didn't have a gun anymore, anyways, otherwise I could justify helping with security. I had been careless and some punk-ass kid had gotten the jump on me a day or two before I joined up with Suarez and Lawrence. Nothing I could do about it now.

I figured I could help with the food situation, but before I did that, I moved to check out the bedrooms and hopefully claim a piece of mattress. The apartment had a sizeable living room and two bedrooms across the hall from one another, so it was feasible that we could fit our entire, larger group into one apartment. This was better for safety reasons, but not so much if you were going for comfort. Carol and the two girls, the sisters, were chatting by the window in the bedroom to the left, sorting the clothes from their packs into color-coded piles. Carol glanced up, smiling tiredly at me.

"If you have some dirty clothes, go ahead and add them to the piles here. We're going to do what we can while we have plenty of water," Carol offered, pointing to the piles at their feet. I did my best to smile back.

"Thanks." There was a full-size, four-poster bed with a short headboard against the wall to my right, the one the door was on, across from the window. Maggie and Glenn were on the other side, talking in hushed voices. Glenn caught my eyes, over Maggie's shoulder, and hesitated mid-sentence. Maggie turned to see what he was distracted by.

"Hey," she said, smiling. I was surprised to see so many smiles in this group. My guys and I had forgone those niceties months ago and apparently I was a bit rusty. "Glenn and I were going to take the bed, but its plenty big enough if you want to squeeze in with us. Doesn't make sense to hog the bed with two of us when there's little enough to go aroun d. And who knows how long this heat wave will last. We can't light a fire indoors, so body heat's all we'll have." Glenn nodded, so I was reassured that sharing the bed hadn't been the subject of the fervent discussion I had unintentionally interrupted.

"If you don't mind," I accepted, relieved. I should probably have offered the bed to Carol or one of the girls, but I was feeling a little selfish. My shoulders and back ached from months of carrying a heavy pack and I was ready to fight with someone for a real mattress, even just for one night. Everyone else could fend for themselves for tonight, as long as I had one restful night in a bed.

"Not at all," she responded, turning back to her conversation with Glenn.

…..

The doctor, Hershel, hadn't moved me from where I was reclining against the headboard. He had my t-shirt tucked into the bottom of my bra so he could more closely examine the wound in my side. I didn't see the point, but he insisted. He was working by the light of a camp lantern; one of those old-fashioned types with the little cloth bags called mantels that you had to light and then used a nob to control the brightness. My dad had had one for camping and power outages when we were little and I can remember playing cards or reading myself to sleep by its light, the crickets outside our tent as my lullaby. Hershel was flushing the wound with some bottled water which made it sting and burn. I flinched without meaning to.

"How bad is it, Doc? Can you give her stitches or something?" Suarez was leaning against the door frame, trying to appear disinterested, but his worried eyes kept flicking to mine. Carol had ushered the children from the room, and Rick was trying to get the others to give me some space, but he wasn't having much success. Maggie, like myself, hadn't moved yet, so she still held onto my shoulders, rubbing them slightly with her thumbs, feeling sorry for me, I was sure. She had seen enough of these type wounds to know what it meant. Glenn stood beside her, a bushman knife in his hand. I assumed that was what he had been reaching under his pack for. Daryl and his arrow had been quicker, though. He must've been sleeping just outside the door, in the hallway. Or perhaps he had been awake, keeping watch, and heard me before Maggie's scream woke the others. He was standing in the corner, watching me closely. It made me a little uncomfortable, but I knew from where he was standing he could see where I had been bitten and was probably weighing out how soon before they would need to end me. They wouldn't give my body the opportunity to turn. I was thankful for that, at least. Rick was standing directly behind the doctor, and Lawrence and Phil were double checking the security of the building since all the raucous had attracted the attention of some of the walkers outside.

"It's not really the kind of wound I can give stitches for, but it's fairly superficial, didn't perforate the abdominal wall, and the bleeding's stopped, so if we keep clean bandages on it, it should be fine." His voice sounded cheery, overly so, I thought. I think he was trying to diffuse what was going to be a tense situation, with people pointing fingers for the blame. Suarez, especially, had a short fuse and I knew he would raise hell when he realized the implications of what had happened to me. With the groups having only just converged, it could lead to a dangerous situation for all of us if things went badly.

"Doc, that is what I think it is, right?" Daryl asked from the corner. His eyes flickered down to where Hershel was working, though I couldn't see it myself, and then to the doctor's shielded face. I could hear him sigh, though, as he taped a gauze pad over the wound. He pulled back when he was done and met my gaze.

"It's a bite," he acknowledged, his voice barely above a whisper. The air felt still, everyone holding their breath, looking at me. I guess they thought I hadn't realized the extent of my injury.

"I know," also barely above a whisper. I hated the way the emotion made my voice sound choked. I took a deep, calming breath. "How long?" The doctor shrugged, and then moved to replace my shirt. I guess modesty was still something I could retain in the face of my demise.

"Two, three days maybe until the infection spreads and the fever takes you. It's a small wound, so you have longer than some. Unfortunately, because of where it is, there's no way to keep it from spreading. I'm sorry." And to his credit, he did, indeed, look sorry. I took another deep breath, trying to steady myself.

I had three days left to live.