Chapter 25: Down with the Sickness
I ended up getting another nap in before a knock on the door woke us. I jolted awake and grabbed the butt of my pistol out of habit. But once I heard Rob's voice on the other side, I eased up. Raquel slowly sat up, stretching like a cat. I smiled at that. She didn't look sick as I had noted she had last night. "Alright guys, we need you in the library. We have a problem on our hands." Rob said through the door. I told him we'd be there in a minute and he walked away. His footsteps echoed eerily through the empty hallway. "Jesus Christ…" was all Raquel could say. I had to agree with her. It seemed like everywhere we went, more trouble came about. It was getting to be annoying.
We got ourselves put together and exited the nurse's station, walking across the hall to the library. We found everyone sitting at the center table, a paper coffee cup in their hands. I walked over to the machine and poured a cup for myself, Raquel had declined the offer for a cup herself. I held the cup in my hands and felt that the coffee was lukewarm. I tilted my head back and swallowed the contents of the cup in one gulp. I crumpled the cup and threw it in the trash, I suddenly felt the caffeine rush through my veins. It was a strange sensation, from feeling alone I could've sworn I'd just snorted 20 lines of Columbia's finest. Caffeine was never that strong to me, but I guess having a lack of it the last few days, my tolerance level went out the window.
I sat down beside Raquel at the table and Rob finally came in to talk. "Alright. I'm going to cut to the chase here. We're low on medical supplies. Dangerously low. After the medical emergency that Mr. Bam here had yesterday, I ran a check on our inventory… we aren't as well off as I had once thought.". "And?" Theresa said with a hint of sarcasm to her voice. Apparently her and Cheese had been at it again. "And…" Rob continued "We need someone to go on a supply run.". Everyone at the table looked at each other in dismay. All except me, Raquel, and Roy. I looked at Raquel, and she nodded to me, answering my question before I even asked it. "We'll go." I raised my hand. "You sure that's a good idea, Bam?" Rob asked. "Yeah, man. We're good. Me and Raquel have more experience with these things anyway. Best to send someone who knows what they're doing, right?" Rob nodded. "That's fine. Anyone want to go with them?" I stopped him right there. "No one else needs to go. We need to be inconspicuous, and its easier with just the two of us. No offense. I don't want to risk anyone's life that doesn't need to be. Roy wanted to fight my decision, but I think he saw the sincerity in my eyes. "Well, Bam, Raquel… Thank you for volunteering. Cheese and I went outside earlier and did some tune up work on the car you came in. It'll run better than it had.". Picking up the fact that he had figured Raquel and I would volunteer, I nodded my head in acceptance. Raquel and I quickly got up and went back to our quarters to load up.
When we got back to the library, they had made out a list of necessary items that we needed to look for. Pain meds for the most part, first aid supplies, stuff to fight infections, Ect., Ect. Raquel grabbed the list and shoved it in her pocket. With that we waved our goodbyes and headed out of the door. As we exited, we saw the crazed woman standing outside of her trailer, watching us leave. She still fucking bothered me. It didn't help that she looked like a fucking maniac watching us leave like that. But there was something I didn't like about her, outside of the obvious bat-shit crazy bit.
We made our way to the car and got in. As we were getting ready we had decided to hit the CVS that had been built about a month prior to all of this. It had just been stocked so it should hold some pretty good loot within it. We also talked about swinging by the National Guard armory a bit farther down past Central to possibly resupply our ammo. Right now our ammo situation was fine, but depending on how the trip went was the answer to whether or not we would risk the raid.
We exited the parking lot and drove onward towards the 601 exit ramp. As we drove down the empty highway, we saw the same debris littering the road and its sides. There was, however, a new decoration added, which was a man in a suit had hanged himself on one of the road signs. His reanimated body swung to and froe trying to escape its bonds. It was sad, but subsequently adorable how he swung himself. It was then that I realized we were becoming too desensitized to our surroundings. Strangely enough it was starting not to bother me as much.
After we passed the hanging man, we saw that the old trailer park had finally stopped burning. It was no longer a neighborhood, more like a parking lot. But after seeing the hanging man, and the leveled neighborhood, the scenery seemed to level out. We saw nothing else peculiar on the highway. But just because we didn't see anything, didn't mean something didn't see us. I just couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched. Just when this feeling was beginning to peak, Raquel swerved the car to the side of the road, had her door open, and sprinted behind the car before it even came to a complete stop. I opened my door and ran out behind her to see what was wrong. As I rounded the corner, I could hear her retching. When she was finished she fell against the car, trying to catch her breath. "Raquel, What happened? What's wrong?" I asked her. But she just put her hand up and shook her head trying to signify that she was fine. I put my arm around the small of her back and helped her walk over to the passenger side of the car. I then sat her down as gently as I could. I reached back on my web belt and pulled up the canteen, handing it to her. She took it and drank deep. She handed it back to me after a few gulps and finally said, "Lets go.".
I ran around to the driver's side and jumped in. We continued on down the road. She wouldn't speak the entire way to CVS. I stopped trying to ask any questions after my attempts were shot down with silence. It wasn't until we pulled into the CVS parking lot that she spoke. "Raquel, What's wrong with you?" I asked her. She seemed to not want to answer me at first, I felt my heart drop a little. "I don't know… I've been feeling sick for a couple of days… I just haven't said anything."… I opened my mouth to speak but she put her finger to my lips to shush me, "Before you ask… No, I haven't been bitten. If I had, I would've changed by now. Its something else.". Taking the hint that she didn't want to talk anymore about it, we sat there so she could collect herself. Finally she got out and opened the back door so she could grab her shotgun and backpack. I followed suit and grabbed my remaining pistol and M4 from the back seat. Before I shut the door however, I saw a glint of silver from the periphery of my vision. It was the .32 revolver my dad had given me. It had been his Dad's before him. I had taken it from the house because of its sentimental value, but now that I saw it, it began to bring back fresh, painstaking memories. Before shutting the door, I looked at it again. After feeling the memory resurge again to the surface, I shut the door. We walked forward in silence to the front doors of CVS. The building was dark. I pulled my M4 to the front and turned on the TacLight. Raquel used her machete to pry the automatic doors open enough to put her hands threw and open it. After that, I took point. I walked through the dark doorway and scanned the light over the immediate room. Nothing moved. Raquel shut the doors behind us. I helped her pull down the metal shutters as well. If anything was in here, we'd just take care of it hopefully. We weren't but a stone's throw away from the newly instated Church of the Maniacal, and I didn't want them to sneak in on us. The last thing I wanted was a cannibal, not to mention a fucking group of them, sneaking up behind us.
We made our way through the building, first we went across the front of the store so we could get a good look at the store in its entirety, shining the light down the long aisles. As we searched, we saw nothing move, and subsequently heard nothing as well. I heard Raquel falter behind me and I quickly turned to see what was wrong. I found quickly enough that she was getting sick again. When she was done, she grabbed a travel package of Kleenex from the counter and tore it open, dabbing her mouth to make sure she was clean. As she cleaned her face, I saw her eyes widen. I almost turned around expecting to see a horde of zombies behind us, but quickly realized her eyes hadn't widened over something in her field of vision, it was more of an epiphany. Before I could ask her what was up, she brushed past me and headed down the aisle in front of us. I followed closely behind her.
After checking each sign, she finally stopped at an aisle and began searching its contents. I kept a watchful eye about us. She finally struck pay dirt and grabbed a box from the shelf. Before I could get a good look at what it was, she hid it away from me. "I need to use the bathroom… Stand outside of the door and keep an eye out, okay?" She said to me. I nodded and followed her to the far right corner of the store. She went on into the bathroom and I stood outside and waited. A thought occurred to me as I stood there, and I reached into my web gear and pulled out a suppressor. I attached it to the barrel of the M4 and continued my watch.
Minutes went by, completely uneventful. No movement, no sound, no sign of Raquel coming out of the bathroom. I began to worry about her and decided if she wasn't out in a few minutes I would go in and check on her. About that time, a loud sound pierced the silence. Items falling from a shelf. I turned the light towards where the sound had come from only to find a solitary can rolling out from the end of the aisle. I began a tactful approach towards the aisle, being as silent as possible. Aiming the light at the ground in order to make sure that no potential unfriendlies would see it before I wanted them to. As I neared the aisle, I began to hear ragged breathing. My heart continued to hammer in my chest. I could almost feel it bursting through its fleshy prison. I reached the end of the aisle, and held my ground before turning and facing what awaited me. The breathing still being emitted, now accompanied by mid-high pitched guttural wails. I held my breath and turned my gun on the assailant. As the light shined into its eyes, it hissed at me. My eyes went wide as I saw what it was. Long stringy blonde hair fell down across its face, and the light reflected from the pupils as if it were a dear. I couldn't identify its sex, but it definitely wasn't happy I was in its presence. As the hissing stopped it began to lunge at me. I squeezed the trigger and blew its head apart. It fell to the ground. About that time, a hand touched my shoulder and I almost screamed, until I turned around and saw Raquel staring at me.
Her eyes were full of both sorrow, and hope. It was a strange combination. Before I could ask what was wrong, she held a white stick up to the light. A pregnancy test. Not only a pregnancy test, but a positive test. At a loss for words, I just stared from the stick, back to her. "Is it his?" Was all I could ask. She nodded. A single tear fell from her eye and she fell into me. I slung the rifle behind me and put my arms around her as she wept. I realized that I didn't like that we were out in the open as we were, so I guided her behind the pharmacy counter. I sat her down against it, and I checked the room. I locked the door and pulled the shudders down over the counter before I sat down beside her. She was no longer crying, just staring down at the test as it sat in the palm of her hand. I sat down beside her and grabbed her other hand, trying to enforce the idea that everything would be Okay. Sadly, I couldn't lie to her. Instead I held it just trying to comfort her. She squeezed my hand hard, I could feel the heartache that she felt as well.
Finally she asked me, "Do you think he's still alive?". I sighed before answering. A memory struck me like a sack of bricks. I knew his fate and I knew where he was. His body laid in its final death in the parking lot of K-Mart. I had shot him before I went in to save her. I had dragged him away from the door in hopes she wouldn't see it. I didn't want her to have to see it. It wasn't right. Even though they weren't together, I knew she loved him still. I opened my mouth to tell her, but silence was all that came forward. She understood, all-too-well what that silence meant. She broke down in tears again and laid her head on my shoulder. It hurt me to see her like this. It hurt even worse to know I had put a bullet in his head. I know he had already been changed, but it still didn't feel right.
She ended up crying herself to sleep and though I couldn't sleep, I didn't move from my spot. I knew she needed me to be here now. She needed the warmth and comfort that I apparently gave her. I sat there in silence, letting her rest. I wondered what would come of it all. I wondered if everything would be Okay after all. Even though I knew the answer, the human side of me still stuck to blind hope. For once in my life I didn't try to fight it. I let myself be consumed by it. It was better that way than the alternative. Eventually, I fell asleep as well. We stayed there, huddled under the counter. We didn't dream that night.