Talker – Chapter Seven: The Question Why
Author's Note: Nyaaaaah I know, another looooong chapter. Sorry. Thanks for the reviews thus far, I'm happy that people are actually reading it. And for the record, Gray, your story didn't lower my IQ. It is at zero, and therefore invincible!! It just made me laugh 'til I peed. And choke. And…get really hungry for a minute there. Anyway, you write humor better than I do. Sooo…on to Tyler's dilemna…
Tyler's eyes seemed to open despite his better wishes, forcing his vision to fix back into the mechanical black and white and bringing the numb pain coursing through his brain again. He didn't wonder where he was, or what he was doing there, because (oh-so-graciously) that part of his immediate memory had been retained even through the hazy confusion of his dreams. He lay on his side in the sand, near the water of a secluded and small shore. There was a treeline roughly fifty or so feet away from him, leading into the bulk of the island. For a moment, he curiously wondered why he was left here, but quickly admonished himself for being so naïve. It was a great task to lift himself up off his throbbing shoulder, tiredly resting his weight on one hand as he surveyed his new suroundings.
He was suffering some terrible kind of hunger, he supposed—because it was either that or, in comensurate terms of pain, there was a knife in his stomach. Since he saw no knife, he could only assume it was his severe malnourishment that pained his abdomen so greatly. His torn open arm was almost completely numb, and after a few moments of being unable to move it, Tyler was panicked into thinking that he had lost feeling in it, and that it would die and break off. Such presumptuous thoughts were replaced with relief, however, when he realized that it had merely been asleep. The tingling subsided and pain buzzed within it anew.
It took enormous effort to draw up onto his knees, but from there, he found it not so difficult to find his feet again. Soon he was standing, only a little wobbly on sore legs. From an upright angle, he found that the trees didn't seem quite so tall, and the area around him slightly less vast. With this dull ponder, he ambled forward for the trees, hand on his head and eyes occasionally blurring. The sand tripped him up a little, and looking down in regard to the burn of sand gritting in the wounds, he made the discovery for the first time that his feet were gashed and bleeding. It didn't mean much to him at the moment, but he made a note to fix himself up later. He lifted his head from his feet quickly as he heard voices up ahead, speaking in low tones about something he could not decipher.
As he came closer and his vision cleared up, he observed a small group of people sitting in a broken circle around a smoldering pit of wood. The fire had recently burned out, and they all wore tired, hopless faces. He was shocked to see them here. They were obviously the same group as before, they had to know he was here. In fact, they had to have put him out on the beach, because that was not where he remembered have lain. Perhaps they had just thought him dead. Whatever the case, he felt a cold sweat when a young man of the group looked up and met his gaze. All conversation in the group stopped, each turning to meet Tyler in tense positions and wondering stares. He greeted them back with an equally baffled stare, wondering quite nervously what they were thinking. In a vague attempt at appeasement, he gently held up a hand in a brief sort of wave.
That miraculously seemed to calm them. The young light-haired woman moved first, muttering what looked like some kind of hastey assurance to the large, dark fellow sitting next to her before she stood. Tyler almost jumped back as she made her way towards him, all of the group's eyes watching the scene play out. His muscles went stiff as she approached, his apprehensive distrust rising back to the surface.
"Hey…" she said, somewhat smiling. The kind of encouraging smile you would give to a frightened child. That alone made Tyler indignantly force up his courage. What had he to fear, after all?
"Hi." He responded, not sounding too eager.
"It's…it's really good to see you awake. We were worried that you'd…you know." She tried to explain, fumbling as the mention of death somehow instantly found its way to her tongue.
"Yeah, well…so was I." He said lightly, looking back down. He couldn't bring himself to meet the challenging gazes of the people who sat staring at him a ways off.
"We're sorry that we put you out there. We just weren't sure what you were." She said this honestly, sincerely, though he could hear the slight tip of shame in her tone.
He could have died of bled to death on that beach discarded, but it didn't matter. Truly, he couldn't guess why they would even keep him that close. Why should they have bothered with him? "Mm." He answered distantly, eying her gesturing hands with some suspicion.
"My name's Ana." She introduced, causing him to turn back to her face.
He almost responded, out of mere habit, before realizing that he had already identified himself before. "Thank you." He nodded, unsure himself of exactly what he was grateful for at the moment.
She hugged her arms tightly to herself for a minute before catching his eyes again. "Let me check out your arm." She said nervously, trying to remain objective to his humanity.
Tyler was inclined to refuse, sheerly from the discomfort of the idea, but her next statement changed his mind.
"I'm a doctor. Was a doctor…"
He was situated rather awkwardly on a scattering of large driftwood lying idle on the beach sand across from Ana, who gingerly cradled his quaking arm between her hands. She examined the bite marks carefully, brow furrowed and every now and then biting her lip as though seeing something very disconcerting. He didn't know what she was looking for, it was obvious the circumstances of the wound, and wondering if it had become infected just seemed pointless. "Clench your fist here." She said, tapping his palm with a finger. He did as he was told, and was startled when a sharp spurt of blood skipped from the wound. Ana immediately let out a choked gasp and clamped her hand down over the opening, making Tyler grimace. "I-I'm sorry." She apologized, drawing out a rather mangled roll of bandaging she had concealed in her pocket. She set to work wrapping the wound tightly, intent on preventing further bloodloss.
"God, you've lost so much blood…" she said quietly, every so often glancing up at him. "How do you feel?"
He moved to make some kind of sarcastic comment, but he thought better of it, instead taking that question with grave consideration. "Tired. Sick." He murmured, lifting a hand to his newly bandaged wrist.
Seeming uncomfortable, she hesitantly reach up to feel his forehead. Swallowing, she looked dismayed. "A fever."
"Mmph." Tyler sighed, lowering his head. "Guess that explains it."
"Well it's amazing that you're awake, let alone up and walking." She informed.
Comforting. Tyler thought, but tried hard to ignore unecessary biterness.
She quickly sensed his uneasiness and offered another apologetic smile. "Sorry. I mean, you're lucky." She began prodding his fingers to try and get a response from them. They twitched of their own accord—a good sign, he was sure.
"It's okay." He nodded.
"It doesn't look too serious…" she attempted to assuage his anxiety. "You'll just drink a lot of water, get some rest, okay?" Ana seemed to slip easily back into a nurse mentallity. "You need to replenish your blood supply." Though honestly she wasn't sure if that was possible in his…state.
"Thanks." He replied. It was good to know that what ailed him was a perfectly natural human sickness, something that even a doctor with no equipment could diagnose.
"Come over with me. You need to eat something. Drink some water." She invited, standing. She didn't seem too enthused with this offer, but it was made all the same. It took him a minute to rise, and another to focus his vision. She walked a few steps off, and he almost didn't follow. In the end, he knew he didn't have any other option.
As they rejoined the group, all eyes fell onto Tyler, an strange air of fear settling over them. Ana was trying hard to pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary, motioning for Tyler to sit and taking her place back next to Kenneth. "Tyler, this is Kenneth," she gestured a thumb. "Terry, and Nicole." She flipped out a hand in the direction of the young couple.
He nodded, but couldn't find his voice at the moment, unwilling to socialize just yet with people that he knew could not trust him.
"Here, eat this." Came Ana's order as she placed a sandwich wrapped in cellophane into his hand.
Tyler looked down calculating, the idea of food making him feel nauseous but the knowledge that he must eat taking over. He could tell that he was making the others nervous with his hesitation (if he didn't want that, what would he eat, after all?), so he slowly unwrapped it and muttered a thank you.
"We haven't been on the island that much longer than you, I don't think." Ana continued to speak for the rest of the group, trying to keep an amiable mood among them. "We took a sailboat here. Before that, we were all trapped in the Crossroads Mall. We're…we're lucky that we escaped." She nodded, bringing her eyes low. How strange that she would label this situation as a blessing just to raise spirits.
Crossroads Mall. He'd been there before. Four or five times, on occasion. Once, he remembered in particular, to buy a gift for his father's birthday, but he couldn't even recall what exactly he had gotten. Somehow that bothered him greatly.
"Where did you come from? Do you remember?" she asked him, watching as he took a bite and flinched. Egg salad. Definitely not his favorite.
"We traveled a pretty good distance." He then paused, realizing how 'we' must have sounded to them. He didn't want to give the painful explanation of his former companion, but he had unwittingly put it out on the table already. "Um, he…Well, I only ever found one other person. Until…until you four. We both just wandered. Eventually wound up on the beach." He stopped there, mind clouding in the midst of such a flurrying memory.
"On this beach?" Ana asked.
"No." Tyler answered back. "No, we…well we seperated."
"Seperated?" Kenneth spoke up. "You just…parted ways?" he raised an eyebrow.
"No, it wasn't like that. I mean he…we were…" the memory seemed to grin at him, happy to present its ugliness in his face. He didn't want to think about it, and yet it was all he could.
"Well how did you just happen to leave him?" Kenneth's tone was pressuring.
"You think I killed him." He stated, becoming stern as he raised his eyes. No one said a word, all frozen at the accusation before a mixture of shame and curiousity crept over them. It was what they had been leaning towards, and without direct conformation, they still had that uncertainty. Tyler sighed deeply and snorted, shaking his head. "He was bitten and I didn't realize it. Not before he was swallowing a chunk of my arm."
That statement made the others reel a little, a dark vibration filtering through each of them with the grim reminder of what it felt like to watch an infected person turn. Their assumptions had been put to rest rather brutally, but accompanied also by slight relief.
Ana looked at the others with an expression that advised them to be careful about what they said, turning her attention back to Tyler.
"Sorry…I didn't…mean to put it like that." He held up a hand, seeing that this was not starting out on the right foot.
"It's okay. I think we all know what it's like." Ana said, putting her hands in her lap. "Why don't you tell us about yourself?"
"About me?" he blinked repeatedly, haphazardly pointing a hand in his own direction. "…what do you mean?"
"Who are you?" she clarified. "Where do you come from?"
"Oh…well…" swallowing past the dryness in his throat, he thought back to a month or so prior when the world still breathed with ease. When things were normal. Thoughts of waking up at six and wandering out the door, promising that he'd meet his friend Cody Lexington at the coffee shop two blocks from his apartment like he did every Thursday or Friday. He missed Cody. Frosted blonde hair and hazel eyes, an ever-aspiring artist who worked for some high standard company dealing in graphic design. He was thin and had sharp-looking teeth, always wore loose fitting clothes and rings in his peirced nose. He'd often made fun of Tyler for his hieght, to which he'd frequently replied 'well—It worked well enough for Frodo'. And Cody would chuckle and roll his eyes every time. They'd made quite the duo of friends, the writer with the visions of a painter and the artist with the heart of a poet. He was arbitrarily reminded that Cody had been the one to instigate the peircing of his own ears, giving him some 'the body is a work of art' gimmick. After enough drinks, Tyler came out with three peircings in each ear and a very unwanted tattoo on his backside just above the tailbone. He'd woken up with a hangover the next day and had gone down to Cody's loft. He'd never yelled at anyone like that before in all his life, nor seen anyone laugh so hard. …It was funny that he could barely recall these memories until just now.
"I was…Well I'm twenty-four. And I was a writer. Friends said I was a pretty damn good one." He felt himself say, smiling numbly for a moment. "I'd just moved to Milwaukee eight months before…it." And suddenly he was torn back down from his reminiscing by the reality surrounding him. It was cold and cruel rush that almost took his breath away. "That's me…I guess."
"It was a nice city." Ana said, also seeming to be in the hazy mist of a repressed memory for a moment. "Great neighborhoods, at least where I lived, anyway."
They could all feel the hollowness in her words, but they chose to say nothing. Mostly their attention was focused on Tyler, who they tried not to stare at. Each time they caught his gaze, they saw the same eyes that had mutilated their friends and loved ones, and unable to process his tranquility, they were forced to look away. Nicole seemed especially unwilling to acknowledge him, biting her lip and pressing her forehead against Terry's shoulder.
"Uh, Tyler…" Ana began, and he could sense the change in her tone. Her averted eyes told him enough in regards to what she was after. "If you…well if you don't feel too uncomfortable about it, can we ask you about the past few days?"
He'd been expecting it, really, but that didn't mean he was prepared to answer. Shaking his head submissively, he scratched his fingers through the scant beard on his chin. "Yeah…go ahead."
She paused to gather her thoughts, looking down at her shoes. "You said…uh, you said that you got here on a boat, right?"
"Yes."
"So where is it now?" she glanced at the group, her demeanor suggesting to him that perhaps they had followed his tracks and searched for it. When they didn't find any boat, surely, he could see where they should be suspicious of him.
"I don't know. Out there, somewhere." He waved a hand to the sea.
"You didn't take it here?" Ana confirmed, awaiting an explanation.
Tyler took a breath, wanting to get this over with as quick as possible. "No. We were on the boat when…well, when he changed."
Kenneth sighed and Terry's eyes widened slightly, imagining that scene. "Your friend?" Kenneth asked.
"Yeah." He nodded back. "We left the shore because we were attacked by those things. We didn't have a choice. I just can't believe I didn't see him get…get bitten."
"And he attacked you then?" Ana continued.
He felt like lashing out at that question. What do you think? He thought, but as he looked down and saw the bandages on his arm, he softened, and was slightly ashamed at his own irritability. "We struggled…he fell overboard when I-I…"
A long moment of dead air. "When you what?" Ana prodded.
"I…cut off his head…threw it in the cooler…ugh, God…" at that, he put his sandwich aside for good and rubbed his head.
Ana straightened up, giving the others a clearly surprised look. Could it be that they had almost crossed paths with him before? They had passed that boat…
Tyler was oblivious to their recognition of his story, licking his upper lip before starting again. "He pulled me overboard. From there I swam."
Ana felt compelled to offer condolences, but she couldn't find the words. She knew that when she watched Luis clawing for her blood, or when she had been forced to fire a shot into Steve's head (not that that particular moment bothered her entirely), no petty apologies made her feel any better about it. In some kind of attempt at compassion, she tenatively offered him a bottle of water from what supplies they had salvaged.
Kenneth didn't take the same approach. "You're a helluva lucky kid." He muttered, absently tossing small wood chips into the dying embers.
Tyler didn't say anything, reliving those agonizing moments when he had nearly drowned for the fear that his former travel-mate was still after him in the water. The taste of blood and saltwater heavy on his tongue, the pounding headache and dizziness, and the white flashes of pain on his many cuts and bruises all came back to him. "There are more on this island, aren't there? More dead." Tyler sighed, letting the memory go.
Ana swallowed and mirrored his unhappiness at the thought. "Yes. Did you see any of them? Near here?"
"No, I just…" he looked up at her. "Figured that we'd be somewhere else if there weren't…that's all."
"I think it's pretty much safe to say that…nowhere's safe." She smirked with a tinge of resentment at that. She immediately thought better, however, realizing that she must be bringing down the spirits of the group. "Not yet, anyway." She added. "I mean not that we've found, at least."
"I can't take this-" Nicole suddenly spoke out. The others looked to her in mild bewilderment, just now seeing the tears breaking over her eyes.
Terry reached to her, only to receive a shove back.
"I can't sit here and look at him anymore!" she yelled, holding a hand to her forehead.
"Nicole…" Ana's mouth opened, unprepared for her outburst.
"It's not right!" she countered. "Don't you see what he is? 'Did he see any of them near here'? He is one of them, Ana, open your eyes!"
"Nicole, calm down, don'-" Terry tried, but he was cut off.
"Well I can't just sit here and wait for him to fucking turn on us!" she stood up.
"Stop it, Nicole." Ana ordered boldly. "If he were one of them, he would've tried to kill us last night."
"Bullshit! If Kenneth hadn't had that gun to his head, he would've been on him in a second!" tears came down her cheeks, her face held in a scowl.
"You know that's not true." Ana stood up as well, tossing a hand gesture in the direction of the gun near Kenneth's feet. "Zombies can't think, they can't reason. They're just big chunks of meat, that's all they are!"
Nicole clenched a fist for a moment and gripped the sides of her head. "It's just wrong! Why the hell is he moving? Breathing? How the hell can he still be talking? Talking like he wasn't bitten—but he was bitten! He was bitten!"
Tyler stared blankly, an eneffable sort of despair coming from him.
"I don't know, but he is. If you want to ignore that and shoot him, well what the hell does that say about you?" Ana brushed off Kenneth, who was holding up a hand at her.
"He should be dead!" Nicole sputtered, furiously wiping her tears with a sleeve. "He should've died! That's what happens when you're bitten: you die! Why is he so special? Huh? Why is he still alive and all of our friends are dead?"
"I don't know." Ana repeated, shaking her head.
"W-well what if he's not the only one, huh?" her voice of rage was quickly being overcome by sobs. "What if it was possible to live through being bitten and we just didn't know it?"
"…Nicole, I…" Ana became sympathetic, a realization spreading over her.
"What about my dad?…What about him? Why couldn't he have been that way? A-and what if he was, what if you just…" she turned away, "Killed him anyway?", before breaking down into sobs, storming off away from them.
"Nicole!" Terry called out. "Stop it! You can't just go out there by yourself!" in a worried manner, he pulled himself up and shakily ambled after her.
"God damn-" Kenneth grunted and he climbed to his feet. "-kids. Hey! Hey you two, get your scrawny asses back here!" he marched off after them.
Ana put a hand to her head in exasperation as she watched a brash but concerned Kenneth jog after them, feeling yet again like she wanted to tear herself in two. Again they were giving into emotional chaos, again they sat poised on the edge of each other's throats. Here they were, falling apart at the seams when they needed eachother most and there was nothing she could do about it. She wanted to scream from the rage and frustration, cry from the misery and drudgery. But she couldn't. She wasn't allowed to show that she was weak as the rest of them. At least not when they still believed she was strong enough to handle it.
"I'm…I'm sorry…" Tyler said, clutching his bandaged arm tightly in a masochistic moment of self-disgust.
Ana turned back to him, almost having forgot that the argument was in regard to him in the first place. "Don't apologize." She said instantly, but it came out much harsher than she had meant it. "Don't…"
She ignored the fact that she felt a twinge of resentment when she glanced down at him. Above all things, she would not allow hereslf to identify with Nicole's feelings…It wasn't his fault, after all, that he was still alive and talking—
…while Micheal was dead.
Author's Note: Okay, I know the way the group deals with him might seem sort of strange. After all, he's freaking been infected, shouldn't they be insanely paranoid? Well I'm basically taking the approach that they're sort of numb right now. In a state of shock, if you will. So when he acts human, they don't know how else to deal with him except for treating him as just that. Not that they're stupid, after all, none of them like the idea. I'm saying that they're attatched to him because he's human, but they're dettatched from him because he's not. I hope that sort of resembled some kind of sense…