Talker – Chapter Nine: Where There's a Will There's a…Risk
Author's Note: Okay, I suppose I should explain some of Tyler's condition. Where did he hit his head? Well, we don't know. It's no big secret; he just hit it somewhere along the line and doesn't remember how. It might come up later. As for color blindness—well that's just caused by the head injury. It can happen. So I'll put it medically: sometime ago, (about a week by Ana's assumption) he suffered an injury to his head. He has mild amnesia of the events surrounding it due to that injury. A few days later, he lost the color in his vision, a gradual effect that can show up hours, days, or even weeks or months after the actual infliction. The moral being…head injuries are dangerous and weird!! Xx…Sorry for the confusion, I probably should've explained this earlier.
"I don't even know why you're arguing about it, I thought we already talked about this." Ana interupted, putting a hand to her head. "We can't just scout out to the middle of the island, that's suicide."
"Well so is staying out here." Terry pointed out. Obviously Ana's unspoken reign of judgement had been broken by this point. "We're going to have to eventually, Ana, you know that's true."
"And so we just march up there, the five of us? We need time, or preperation, or…or something more than two guns and a dog." She motioned to Chips, who looked up from his spot lying in the sand and wagged his tail once or twice.
Tyler kept quiet to the side of them, considering their conversation curiously and nervously tapping his thumb against his leg.
"So we sit here and starve?" Terry took a drink of watter and sighed. "We have to take some kind of risk. What are you suggesting that we do, anyway?"
"He's right, Ana." Kenneth agreed. "We've gotta get out of here. One way or another."
"Look, we have enough food and water to last us for a week or so. We should wait." She looked from Kenneth to Terry, folding her arms over her knees.
"Why?" Terry shrugged in exasperation. "Why should we wait? So we can run out of food for sure?"
"You can't use that arm very well, Terry. It needs some time to heal, and you can function best when we need you most. And the same goes for Tyler," she pointed over at him and he looked up. "He needs to keep eating and get over that fever, otherwise he won't even have the energy to keep up with us."
There was an awkward pause at Tyler's mention, but Terry quickly covered. "Or maybe he'd do better if we found him some medicine." He countered, clearing his throat and looking briefly at Nicole. "Wouldn't you be able to fix him up better if we found some supplies? And my arm, too?"
"We're in a shit situation." Kenneth broke in, holding out a hand. "And when it comes down to it, we really only got two options. Either we do somethin' about it or we don't. Personally, I'm all for doin' somethin'."
"Well why do we have to rush into it just because it's an idea? We don't even know how far we'd have to go." She said as she watched Chips get up and wander off a ways to the treeline. She almost called out to tell him not to go out too far before she angrily reminded herself that he was a dog.
"Well hold up now, we just might." Kenneth said. "When I went out there last night, I saw the top of some building coming up from a ways off. It's somethin', at least."
Ana stopped, thinking for a moment. "About how far off?"
"A mile. Maybe less."
"It could be swarmed." She decided. "We'd go out there and if they didn't kill us there, they'd follow us back here."
"Or there could be other survivors." Nicole muttered quietly.
Ana sighed. "Am I really that outnumbered? I'm just trying to think of what's best for our health here."
"Well I'm thinkin' of what's best for our lives." Kenneth disagreed, giving the dog a gruff pat as it rested its head on his knee. "Don't give a damn about how healthy we are so long as we're still breathin'. We need food and we need water. We ain't gonna find much a'that out here, you know that 'well as we do."
"So then why don't two of us check it out first before we move everyone out at once? Will you at least give me that much?" Ana bargained, obviously irritated at this point.
"No," Kenneth snorted, "who says just two can do it? What if those two get killed, and have the gun? What'll the rest of you do?" it was clear by that insinuation he had decided himself first in line for the position of a scout-out. "And what if the infected get back here while we're gone? We're just s'posed to leave you unprotected?"
"We're not helpless. And weren't you just suggesting that we should take a risk?"
"I don't want the group seperated." Kenneth shook his head. "You've seen what happens when the group seperates, no matter how good the plan was."
"Great, okay, so—no plan. And blind luck's a better thing to rely on?"
"It's not luck, Ana," Terry stopped her. "We stay together and we stay alive. If we start making smaller groups, they'll just pick us off."
"It doesn't matter how many of us there are, they're gonna be on us like flies all the same. They're not smart enough to pick us off; they just swarm. There's more of them than us, we get overrun no matter what. Our best chance is to avoid them."
"Avoid them?" Terry leaned his cheek down on his palm. "Okay. Five on an island of a hundred and we just ignore them."
"Don't simplify it like that, Terry, you know what I mean." She gave him a determined glare.
"See Ana, there's the problem: I don't." his arm fell slack. "I don't understand why you want us to just run and hide from them, we can't do that forever."
"What I mean is that we shouldn't go looking for them. It's stupid, and it's belligerent."
"Well we're out of options." Kenneth shrugged.
"What's wrong with waiting? Just for a few days, even?" she stole a nervous glance at Tyler, who was studying them through burning golden eyes of the dead.
"There's just as much risk in waiting as there is in going out there." Nicole said, eyes low. There was a long period of silence after her statement, each considering her point in a different manner. Ana sighed and rubbed her cheek with a desperate prayer that they would understand. She wouldn't be able to bear it if they all went out there and even one of them were killed. She couldn't watch another friend screaming in agony as they were torn down into a feeding frenzy. She couldn't look again at the remaining survivors and think why me? Why am I still alive?
"If we do go…we can't take everyone." Ana started, holding out a stiff hand like she was trying to get them to silence and hear the rest of her plea. "Think about it. Just think about it. What's the use if we all die? Kenneth, you're a cop," she said, looking at him. He straightened up, a mixture of despondant pride and suspicious curiousity at her words. "Okay, put it in the same situation if you were…I don't know, busting a crackhouse. Do you send every officer you have into the building or do you leave some for back-up? To guard the post?"
"I ain't been a cop in a long time, Ana." He said darkly. "And ain't no situation ever been the same as this. I want each a'you exactly where you are now: where I can see you."
"Well if you're so damn busy watching us, who's watching you?" she demanded.
He didn't seem to know what to say to that, staring at her with a calculating expression and the others watching in hesitant wonderment. Ana could feel his internal conflict. He didn't care what happened to him, so long as the group was safe, but he knew he couldn't voice this because they would not agree. And damned if he was going to look like some ignorant hero.
With a deep breath in, he shook his head and cracked his knuckles. "I wouldn't be the one staying behind. And I don't think any of you'd wanna be, either."
Ana bit down on her lip, rubbing her arms gently despite the warmth of the island air. "Kenneth and I should go." She announced.
At that, the group erupted into wayward scorn, all throwing out vehement protests.
"I should be going," Terry insisted, "You should stay, Ana, if something happens to the group, they'll need you."
"What if something happens to you while you're out there, which is a hell of a lot more likely? You'll need a doctor then." She pointed out.
"Well I'm not leaving Terry. If he goes, so do I." Nicole said indignantly.
"That's just great, so we leave Tyler and the dog?" Ana scoffed.
"No, Nicole and Tyler should stay behind." Terry decided. Nicole's eyes widened and she appeared horrified at that remark.
"So there's your problem." Kenneth rose his voice to break the chatter. "No one wants to stay behind. You see that? Whatever we do, it's gonna have to be together."
Ana seethed, clenching her fist against the palm of the other hand dropped between her knees. Kenneth was right. It was obvious how tightly the last few survivors clung to eachother, and it would be impossible to set them apart. They lived together, they struggled together, and it became increasingly apparent that they would die together one way or another. Nothing she said could sway them from that mentallity of unity, and it was both reassuring and damning at once.
Kenneth took her silence to mean she had no rebuttle, and so he nodded gravely at the rest of the group. "Tomorrow morning. We'll take half our supplies, just in case. And everyone goes."