Without warning, I was awake. There was a sickening jolt in my stomach as I considered that fact, going over it again and again in my mind to try and figure out how it could have happened. I had been bitten by a zombie and I had survived. Maybe it had all been some kind of nightmare? My eyes flicked open and I glanced about, hoping to see Hanna and my quaint apartment, but instead I was greeted by an unfamiliar room.
The walls of the room were a clinical white, the only things that seemed clean around me. On a table to my right was medical equipment, soaking in disinfectant—though I had doubts that the chemicals were doing anything. Blood was slathered onto every tool on the table, brown and black and red, caked on like dirt. My gaze lowered to the ground, and I saw a similar sight down there. What kind of person owned this place? The answer to that question hit me not a moment later: and I mean that in a literal way.
"Fuckin' hell, it's awake!"
Smacking me across the face with something hard, the speaker stumbled back from me. Twisting around to see him, still reeling from the blow, I squinted and clasped my forehead, gritting my teeth against the pain. As I began to recover, I was able to make out a blurry off-white shape. "Oi, Connie! C'mon, where'd ya put the gun?" Calling back to someone, the figure kept away from me. As my vision cleared, the white blob became a lanky man, probably in his thirties, with short blonde hair and a cigarette dangling disdainfully from his mouth, puffing out smoke. Looking him over, I discovered that he had stolen my crowbar. "Shit, Conrad! Any day now would be great!"
"I can't find it!" A British voice barked back from outside the room.
"Whaddaya mean, 'can't find it'?" The blonde man replied, nervously yanking the cigarette from his mouth, dropping it to the floor and stomping it out. "Check the desk!" Throwing my legs over the side of the operating table I was lying on, I sat up and rubbed my forehead, trying to ignore the dull ache developing. Glancing my way, the blonde man's eyes widened.
"Shit—shit—shit! Conrad! It's getting up!" For the first time since he'd started speaking, I considered the fact that the man might've been referring to me. Getting to my feet, I staggered towards him, trying to assure him that I wasn't going to hurt him, ask what was happening, calm him down: but I was unable to find my voice
Without warning, a door clicked open behind the man and a hand was stuck through it, offering him a gun. Taking it, the man began to raise it towards me. Finally, a single word rolled off my tongue—"Stop," I commanded
An emotion somewhere between shock and relief flashed across his face. Both the crowbar and the gun clattered from his hands onto the floor, and his mouth formed a grin. "Worth?" The British man called out again. "Worth, why didn't I hear a gunshot? Look, if you're getting mauled or something I'm not coming to save you."
"Conrad," Worth quietly replied, taking a hesitant step in my direction. "You've gotta come'n take a look at this." The door opened again, and from it stepped a slight man with glasses. I looked him over. While at first glance he looked like tidy, any further scrutiny of his appearance revealed blood spatters against his fancy white shoes and a distinctly wild bent to his hairdo. Conrad recoiled a bit as he saw me standing there, but nevertheless closed the door behind him and stared at me.
"He's not trying to eat us," Conrad, it seemed, was some kind of genius who could state the obvious with unparalleled skill. That said, his observation begged the question—why were they both so amazed that I was walking and talking? I had a feeling I knew why, but I didn't want to acknowledge it.
"What are you two talking about?" I asked, figuring that was as good a point as any to start demanding answers. The grin on Worth's face gained a strange edge to it—a twisted mix of sympathy and amusement.
"Aww, bless the poor bugger," he folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't even realize he's dead."
Suddenly the possibility that I hadn't survived rang out louder, but that had to be wrong, because then wouldn't I just be mauling these two? Part of me knew that I was right, that I was one of the living dead, but most of me argued against it. I desperately wanted to be human, wanted that enough that I convinced myself I had to be.
"You're lying," I said. "I'm alive."
"Guess I'd be lyin' to m'self too, in your shoes." Worth replied, his eyes shining deviously.
"It's not a lie. I'm alive,"
"Really?" Striding forwards, Worth came to a halt a small distance away from me, and looked me up and down. Slapping a hand onto the left side of my chest, he looked thoughtfully away for a moment, then laughed and resumed his twisted grin. "No pulse, green skin, glowing eyes." Pivoting on one heel, he motioned to Conrad.
"What's the verdict, Connie?" After a moment of stillness, Conrad shook his head anxiously and looked in my direction.
"… I'm sorry," he muttered.
"And we have our conclusion!" As he turned back to face me, Worth's face was void of the remorse you'd expect when telling someone they had died. "As such, ya can call me Worth. I'm a doctor—or somethin' like that." Without missing a beat, he pointed to Conrad.
"And that's Conrad Achenleck. Ain't a doctor, but he's pretty handy 'round here in his own way," still too stunned to really question what had happened to me, I moved on to an easier question.
"… And where is 'here'?"
"Ya know how ya collapsed in an alley prior to yer ever-so-unfortunate demise?" I nodded cautiously, wary of Worth. He didn't seem like the best person to be around; though whether it was the nonchalance towards my death or the dubious claims of being a doctor, I couldn't tell. "We pulled ya off the doorstep of this place and brought ya inside after ya blacked out."
"You two live outside the walls?" I felt a light frown crinkle across my brow. "That's impossible."
"That's what I would've said too, until a few months ago," Conrad pulled his glasses off and rubbed them gently against the fabric of his vest, a meek smile appearing on his face. "But there are things the council keeps from us, apparently."
"Ya shoulda expected that. Both of ya," reaching a hand into a pocket, hidden in the lining of his coat, Worth drew out a packet of cigarettes and raised one to his lips. The flash of a match came soon after, and he was smoking again. "I mean, what else is a government for—keepin' secrets, martyring dumb civvies and collectin' taxes."
"You make them sound like some kind of mafia," I replied. While I had never exactly liked the council, I'd at least trusted them—enough to accept the occasional job I'd been hired to go on with Hanna.
"They might as well be. I'm out here cause'a that lot."
"Did they abandon you?" I asked, somewhat aware that it wasn't a likely explanation. Whatever reason Worth was out here for, it was a reason that required him to have access to power and a fully-equipped surgery.
"Me? Naaah. Conrad though, yeah," he looked expectantly at the man in question, as though asking him to explain more.
"I got stuck here when those council bastards shifted the walls closer in about six months back," folding his arms, he scowled, his shoulders tensing.
"My fault, technically," Worth chimed in. "Council wanted someone to do their dirty work 'n' find a cure for zombie-itis. So, after getting a fat pay check, they built me a surgery on the borderline of the walls, pulled them closer in and then said 'fuck ya' ta anyone stuck outside—hipsters like Connie here, mostly."
"And so here I am, stuck with some masochistic doctor and his strange-ass experiments," Conrad shot a glare in Worth's direction.
"But that can't be right. They pulled this bit of the wall back because the hordes got through,"
"Geez, didn'tcha hear the part about the council lyin' through their teeth?" Worth let out a hoarse laugh. "Experiments're happenin' anywhere they can find shady enough doctors. Walls're getting' pulled back fer kicks. And idiots who think they're 'bove it all—like you and Connie—are getting' dragged into shit they never even imagined." Suddenly, something clicked on inside his brain and a burst of thoughtfulness registered on his face.
"Speakin' of experiments, what kind of funky stuff didja have done to ya 'fore ya got here?" None. I'd never seen the inside of a surgery before arriving at Worth's, except on TV. Maybe, in the long-forgotten decades leading up to my arrival at Hanna's, I'd had something done to me, but it wasn't anything I could remember.
"You're the first doctor I've come face-to-face with in years," I said, completely straight-faced, not wanting to give away my uncertainty about my past. Hanna and Lamont were the only people who knew about my amnesia, and I wanted to keep it that way.
"Sure?" Worth somehow picked up on my hesitation regardless. "Well, tha' jes leaves more stuff fer me ta figure out."
"Do you think I've had something done to me?" It was an unsettling thought, considering that I might've been the victim of some kind of mad experiment.
"Yeah, but I won't know fer sure 'til we hit the city and use s'ma their equipment," it was unusual, because I felt like I should've had some rush of energy telling me to get excited, but there was nothing. Further proof of my state as one of the deceased, I supposed.
"We're going into the city?" A chance to reunite with Hanna, a chance to find out more about what the council had been doing, a chance to go drinking with Lamont again, a chance to—be shot in the head and killed by some paranoid citizen. A zombie wouldn't go down well with the inhabitants. Hell, a zombie wouldn't go down well with Hanna. My stomach sank as I mulled over that thought.
"Told the council I'd come back in when I got a thinker. Yer a thinker, and I'm sick of Conrad's whining. Put two and two, Zombie," I didn't know whether to be excited or scared. From the sound of it, Worth had proper arrangements for getting in and getting around, but assuming I didn't get killed on-sight, what would happen to me? No—no, taking it too fast. I had to slow down; I was getting ahead of myself. Talking about going back to the city before I'd even completely grasped the idea of being outside of it and being…
"Zombie? Is that your new nickname for me?" One of my eyebrows shot up.
"Unless ya got a better suggestion for what I should call ya, then yeah," Worth said.
"Dot Redfield," I told him; surprisingly firmly considering I'd never really connected with it as a name before. Worth snorted, plucking his cigarette from his mouth for a moment, and eying me like I was crazy.
"Cruel parents, givin' ya a name like that. Dot's a girl's name," was I the only one in there that didn't love redundant statements? "Ah well, guess ya can't help it. Life's life, and ya name's ya name." Spilling smoke out from his mouth, Worth went silent for a few moments, deep in thought—before making a sudden break across the room.
"Shit, I was s'posed ta call in a progress report to the boss earlier—Connie, look after the dead guy for me," the door closed with a click. I stared at 'Connie', who flinched away, his gaze directing down to the floor. His mouth crinkled into an anxious expression.
"… I'm sorry about what happened," he tried to force a smile, but failed. He became even more interested in his shoes. "Worth thought that you might end up like this, since you were out for so long after changing. I mean, normally it all happens so fast, but…" He sighed, and finally looked me in the eyes, but only for a second.
"You took so long to wake up. We knew you had to be different," pushing his glasses further up on his nose, they blocked out his eyes, the surgery lights reflecting off of them like a mirror. I caught a glimpse of myself in them—my glowing orange irises. "Hey, Dot, what happened before you got here, anyway? I mean; I might be kinda rude asking that but… still."
"No, don't worry, it's not rude at all," I wasn't sure whether or not asking a man how he died was considered an intrusive question or not. "I'm a hunter by trade, as I guess you've figured out. They sounded an alarm and started closing the gates after some zombies got too close, and while my partner and I were trying to get back through them I was bitten."
"That's… awful," I thought of Hanna's screams as I disappeared behind the wall, and couldn't help but agree. It was awful—for my partner.
"Lots of awful things have happened thanks to the virus. My partner and I have seen far worse things than my death, over our time together,"
"I don't think that could be true. Nothing could be worse than watching a close friend die," Conrad's expression seemed distant at that moment, his expression tightened into a light frown. "… except maybe dying. I wouldn't know."
"Being dead isn't too bad so far," I replied, trying my best to give a reassuring smile to Conrad, who had started to look guilty for some reason. As I revealed my teeth, he once again threw his attention to the ground.
"Everyone's going to be afraid of you when we get back into town," he told me, and it was no lie. "Won't that be painful?" I couldn't answer that: at least not aloud.
"… Sorry for asking," Conrad finally said, after the pause had extended a few seconds longer than he was comfortable with. Luckily, before another lull could interrupt our conversation, Worth burst in, a grin spread across his face.
"They're taking us back in,"
"When?" was Conrad's immediate reply. He jumped to his feet with his eyes lit up like stars.
"Any time tomorrow, I just have to phone an hour or two ahead,"
Everything was going much too fast for me, but that's life: you plod along at a steady pace, and then before you know it you'll be caught up in a whirlwind. I wanted to just lie down and go back to being asleep again, maybe forever, if that was what it would take to be left alone. But, in my new unlife, I had doubts that sleep would come easily to me, if at all… and as such, all I could do was look from Worth to Conrad, wondering where I'd be lead next.