They listlessly gathered around the little table to eat some noodles and canned tuna for dinner. Morale was low as they faced the prospect of having to terminate one of their own once she finished turning.

Bill glanced over to watch as she tossed feverishly on the floor, handcuffed to the wall. He knew the task would fall to him, he was trying to think of the best way to do it so that it would be less traumatic for his young friends. He wasn't sure how much longer he should wait, it already looked fairly hopeless. It would probably be best to just drag her outside in the brush and do it out there with his K-bar, that way they wouldn't have to hear it. He would wait until the others went to sleep and do it on his watch, that would probably be the least distressing way to handle it.

Francis decided he might as well continue his ritual of checking Doc's cuts and scrapes and putting fresh ointment on them. There was probably no point in doing it, but at least it felt like he was doing something helpful. And that's how he found it. As he rubbed ointment into the scrape on her back, his fingers ran across a large, hard mass under the skin, almost the size of a small orange. As he probed it, she began groaning, it was obviously painful to touch.

He called Bill over to check it out. After careful examination, Bill announced that he thought it might be an abscess. She could have gotten it from some debris driven deep under the skin when she slid across the rocks and gravel.

"Boil some water, Francis," he said, "we can try to draw it out with heat. If that doesn't work, we may have to lance it." They began to apply hot cloths to the abscess, which seemed to grow much larger, bulging on the surface of the skin. Bill began to press on it firmly, hoping to get it to burst.

Doc began to groan and then abruptly awoke. "Dammit, that really hurts!" she complained weakly. "What are…why am I handcuffed?! Get this shit off me!, she demanded angrily, yanking feebly at the restraints.

Francis glanced at Bill, who nodded and tossed the cuff keys to Francis. Bill continued to apply heated cloths to the abscess and pressure, as Francis did his best to hold her still. Finally, Bill decided they needed to lance it.

"Goddamnit, it hurts! Can't you at least inject some lidocaine? I know this looks like fun, but it's really fuckin' NOT!" Doc spat out, as she gritted her teeth to keep from screaming herself hoarse.

"Easy…easy. It'll be over..soon. OK?", Francis spoke haltingly, trying his best to be soothing. Soothing wasn't exactly his strong suit, so it came out awkwardly.

Bill injected some lidocaine, it would probably ease the pain of the incision, but he doubted it would do much for the deeper tissue involved in the abscess. He looked at Francis and said, "Hold her down, son. You might have to put your knee down on her to pin her down. Once it's open, I'll have to repeatedly squeeze it and it's gonna hurt like hell", he warned.

Francis looked at him like he was crazy, he figured a big guy like him could hold some woman down without any trouble. "Just go ahead and do it, old man! I'll take care of keepin' her still enough, don't worry about it!" he said with a grim look at the sharp pocketknife Bill was heating up in the boiling water.

Bill lanced through the bulging skin, and a flood of putrid-smelling pus and clumps of dead tissue erupted. Francis' face turned white, he'd never seen anything like it.

Doc's entire body trembled and writhed uncontrollably as Bill began to push and squeeze, trying to drain it. She groaned and uttered muffled curses at the intense pain. Francis couldn't believe it, but he was forced to put a knee and both hands on her to keep her still enough. She might be relatively small, but she was all muscle. When it was finally all finished, she was left with a raw hole nearly the size of a golf ball where the abscess had been. Bill cleaned it out with antiseptic and spread antibiotic ointment and taped some gauze over the whole thing.

Francis brought over some pain meds, which she gratefully took, before almost immediately falling deeply asleep, completely drained from the painful ordeal. Bill found the antibiotics they had scavenged from the barn and injected what he hoped was the right dosage for a person of her size.

As they cleaned up, Francis picked up the discarded handcuffs, handing them to Bill. "Does this mean she's not going to…you know, turn?" he asked quietly.

"Well, an abscess can give you a bad fever and make you sicker than a dog. Hell, it can kill you if it's not taken care of. They can go gangrenous and septic, I've seen that in 'Nam. If the fever goes down now, she's probably going to be ok", Bill answered. Feeling her forehead, he nodded, it seemed as if the fever was already subsiding.

Everyone seemed to relax then, the tension slowly seeping out of the little safe room. They set the watch shifts and turned in. Francis moved his bedding closer to Doc, that way he could keep an eye on her if she needed anything. He glanced at Zoey, playing with a deck of cards as she sat on watch, while Louis and Bill snored softly, already asleep. He lay back, feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off his chest. He folded his arms behind his head and fell fast asleep.