At first everything was a blur, mixed together and sort of played in slow motion.
It seemed almost as if the room was spinning, then slowly it took focus.
Michael's eye lids slowly fluttered open and he saw that he was in a dim lighted room. The room was small and looked as if he was in make shift cabin of some sort. The room was small and had a door further towards the right which was closed and a few brown boxes which were stacked in odd piles.
He had no idea where he was.
He scanned the room again and felt dizzy, his head felt as if it was full of lead balls, and all over his body ached.
He saw he was laying in a bed, almost a small cot which was pressed up against the left wall.
He was dressed in black hospital scrubs, and where his bite once was...now was replaced with a neat stitch job which looked as if it all ready healed.
How long had he been here?
He couldn't remember anything.
Just then the door opened and a sudden flash of fear spread through his body. He laid there frozen.
The door swung open and in stepped in a young man.
He must have been in his late twenties, early thirties, seemed fit and stood at the height of maybe six feet. His face looked friendly and had a strange pug look about him. Dark cut hair and wore black jeans, and a thick black leather jacket which had red pin stripes running down it on each side.
He looked as if he had been on his own since this whole thing had started, his skin was tanned and rough looking and dark circles were under each dark brown eye.
Over one shoulder was a double barrel shot gun.
Her walked inside, really not taking any notice of Michael and walked over to the stacked boxes and laid his gun down, Then turned and locked eyes with Michael, a simple, but nice enough look as he leaned against the boxes and stuck his hands in his jacket pockets.
"How are you feeling?"
Michael was taken off guard, his throat felt dry and he felt himself shake a little, but from the sound of the voice...he knew that was the same voice that hovered above him.
Later once the man was able to get Michael under control he took a seat beside his bed and explained himself.
His name was New Jersey, and he had been working at one of the local gas stations when it hit. He was holding up with a couple of people at a local riffle range before the place got attacked and he had been hiding further up the hills away from the city, he made runs during the day time for food and water, and on one of his runs two weeks ago he heard gun shots and saw smoke...
He said by the time he ran over, the boat was all ready gone and Michael was laying in a pool of blood...in fact he thought he was dead and was about to leave him.
He said he hadn't ever seen anything like that before, a man shooting himself clean in the head and being able to live the next day to tell about it.
He wasn't much of a doctor, but he said the bullet had grazed the side of his head, closer towards his ear and didn't even go that deep in the skin, pretty much grazed it...all because of a shaken hand when the gun went off...a few seconds longer Michael would have been dead.
New Jersey had been traveling with this girl since the second week, they met up together on the state line, New Jersey said she was a "street walker, and was hurt pretty bad when he took her in.
Her name, or at least what she called herself was Utopia, he said she couldn't have been older then eighteen, most likely a runaway or something like that.
He took her in and the two of them were heading there way down to Philly, since they heard closer towards the farm land there were bounty hunter groups...people to travel with, and people who were safe.
Utopia was back near the cars (that's how they got around) and New Jersey was the one that looked around the docks, they brought Michael back to the hide out and tried there best to patch him back up.
Michael couldn't believe it, how on earth could this of happened?
New said that they wanted to wait and see if he was gonna be all right before traveling again.
Michael then asked the questions.
He asked if they were sure the boat was gone, and if they had any idea where they went?
They didn't know.
He then told New Jersey a little bot about himself, he told him about the group and about the mall...and most of all about Ana and how he got bit.
"Why didn't I change?"
New Jersey then lifted his pant leg and showed off a scar from a nasty bite mark.
"Man, I have no idea...maybe some people just don't change."