Interlude – Waking Up To A Nightmare

Waking up in a strange room and having no idea how she got there was the stuff of her nightmares.

Fortunately she was still dressed. She looked at the white room around her, at the open door that led to a bathroom, at the other closed door and at the bed she was lying on and shook her head confused.

"How the hell did I get here?" She mumbled to herself. She was pretty sure she had been in her room last night and that she had gotten to bed like usual. She remembered that she spent the evening watching 'The Walking Dead' with Evan and then she had returned home. So why was she here now? In what appeared to be a hospital room, a hospital room whose door was blocked by a bedside table in front of it.

On the bedside table was her gun - a glock 19 - inside its holster, with a loaded 15 round magazine already inserted in the gun, and another loaded 33 round magazine next to the gun, the hunting knife that her uncle had given her as a gift the first time he brought her hunting, her set of kunai knives (36 overall, each set of six pieces in different sizes, from the very small ones - 4.5 inches - to the rather big ones - 12 inches -) still inside its case, and one set of 3 bo shuriken 6 inches long, that too inside its case. The objects near them she recognized immediately, though she knew they didn't belong to her. There was a black leather steampunk belt with a thigh holster attached, perfect for her throwing knives, plus two gun garters holsters, perfect for her gun and knives, and two wrist sheaths with enough space for three small knives or the bo shuriken for each sheath.

On the table's right, a huge hunting backpack was standing against the wall, her compound bow and quiver next to it and complete with a bow hook sling.

A terrible feeling started to creep inside her when she remembered her thoughts before falling asleep last night.

She was thinking about living in 'The Walking Dead' world and specifically that, if she had to wake up there, the best place would be the hospital where Rick was in the first episode. Then she had thought about the fact that she needed to be armed to survive and she had made a mental list of what she would have needed. And there they were, all the things she had thought about, all in one place, all inside a hospital room with her inside.

She shook her head and took a deep breath before getting up from the bed. Only one way to find out for sure.

She wore one of the two wrist sheaths on her right wrist, and put three small throwing knives inside. She wore the leather belt and she attached her gun to it, to her right, while the hunting knife went to her left, she then attached some of the longer throwing knives to the leg holster. She put the garters holsters, one of the two wrist sheaths, the remaining throwing knives and the bo shuriken in her backpack and then the backpack on her shoulders, bow attached to her hip thanks to her new bow hook sling and she was ready.

After a last fortifying breath, she moved the bedside table from in front of the door and left the room. The corridor was deserted, the lights going on and off intermittently. The thing that scared her the most though, was the gurney right in front of a familiar door. She walked cautiously towards it and moved it out of the way, needing to know if there was really Rick Grimes inside it, still in a coma, oblivious to what was going on around him.

"This is crazy! I'm not going to find Rick Grimes there. Of course not." No matter how many times she repeated that to herself though, she wasn't able to convince herself.

Finally inside the room, her worst fears were realized. There was a very familiar man lying on the bed, a VI attached to his arm, eyes closed, obviously still in a coma.

"Oh God! Oh God! This can't be happening!" Her breath started to come out in short pants, faster and faster and she knew she was about to have a panic attack. She run out the door and returned to the corridor, continuing to run without knowing where she was going until she came face to face with the familiar metallic doors, the moaning coming from it and the letters painted on them very telling on what was trapped just on the other side of them. 'Don't Open, Dead Inside'.

She felt like she couldn't breath, a terrified scream trapped inside her throat but knowing that screaming was ill advised right now, she kept it in. It was true that she wanted to meet him but not like this, not in this crazy world where you could die horribly at any moment. She was just messing around, it was all wishful thinking, she didn't really want this.

She tried to calm herself down, sliding down the wall and hugging her knees to her chest, trying to breath normally again.

"Okay, think. What am I supposed to do now? What would Evan say right now? What would my uncle do?" She couldn't put two rational thoughts together in the state she was in but she needed to. Her life was at stake here. "I'm not going to die here. Okay? I'm not. So, what am I going to do? Think! I've got weapons so that's good. But I could need more, you always could use some more. Maybe another gun, and bullets, lots of bullets. I would need food, medicines...And I still have to check what's inside the bag. So, let's start with that."

The bag had a lot of her clothes inside - underwear included, fortunately - plus a sleeping bag and a tent, a portable solar shower, a cordless hair dryer, a parachute cord, a USA road map, a whistle, wrench, pliers, plastic bags, water purification tablets, a lighter and waterproof matches, a fire piston, a flashlight, a compass, a water canteen (empty), fishing net, line and gear, a safety flare kit, a swiss army knife, a climbing rope and gear, a hatchet and a machete, a camp stove, candles, a billycan, a backsaw with coarse teeth, a solar battery charger, a lockpicking set and survival bars.

"Yeah, definitely food, water and medicines. And soap, shampoo, tampons too, stuff like that. Okay, so, first I must find the kitchen. It's a hospital, I'm sure there will be food somewhere." She felt slightly calmer now that she had a plan but she was still shaking.

"Stop shaking!" She told herself. "I would need perfect aim if I find those dead biters walking around. Okay, Evan said a shot to the head, that's the way to kill them!"

She wondered for a second if she would ever see Evan and her uncle again but she tried not to think about it too much, now wasn't the time. It was better anyway that they weren't here with her. She wanted them as far from where she was as possible. It was too dangerous. Though her uncle would know what to do in that situation.

"Evan also said, stick with the group. So, Rick is here. I will have to check on him periodically and follow him as soon as he wakes up. That's my best bet. But right now, I have to find as many things as I can."

Finding the kitchen wasn't easy, fortunately the hospital appeared to be completely deserted so she was safe for the time being.

She went up a flight of stairs and heard the groaning and moaning coming to her left, then came the smell. It was almost unbearable and her eyes watered for a second but she needed to focus. She prepared the arrow and, as soon as she had the thing in her line of sight she shot. And missed. The arrow got stuck in its chest and the thing continued walking, coming closer and closer.

"Come on!" She took immediately another arrow, tried to steady her hands while holding the bow and took a deep breath. She relaxed with every breath and finally shot the thing straight in the head. The biter fell to the ground, really dead this time. "Yes! Take that walker!" She exclaimed with a relieved laugh before retrieving the two arrows she had used and cleaning them on the dead's clothes.

She encountered no more walkers on her way to the kitchen and finally found the storage room she was looking for. It was still full of canned food, ready made pasta sauces, pasta packs and bottles of water so she took everything she could put her fingers on and put them inside her bag. Oil, salt, sugar and spices were next and then other food that was easy to cook with a bit of water and a flame. She also stole aluminum foil, some plastic cutlery (and non) and plates, a colander and a small pot and put that too inside her bag.

"Okay, now medicines! It's a hospital, it shouldn't be too difficult!" After a long hour of searching around, she finally found another storage room, this one full to the brim with medicines. She took a bag for the first aid kit and filled it with various items: antibiotics, painkillers and antipyretics (naproxen, acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, and fentanyl, oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine and methadone for more severe pain), antihistaminics, epinephrine autoinjector, diphenhydramine, activated charcoal, smelling salts, hydrocortisone cream, calamine, anti-fungal cream, antiseptic wipes, bandages, band-aids, gauzes, cotton balls and swabs, hydrogene peroxide, iodine, saline, petroleum jelly, butterfly closure strips, burning dressing and burn cream, eyewash, ice pack, relispray, tweezers, tuff cuts, scissors, alcohol pads and rub, syringes, a bag valve mask, a galinstan thermometer, a flashlight, emergency blankets, safety pins, a surgical suture kit, tape, instant cold packs, rubber gloves, sunscreen, medicines she didn't know the use for but took anyway.

She took a bit of everything because you never knew what you were going to need.

The rest of the day she spent going from room to room, trying to find as many things as she could. The patients had left the most random things in their rooms, clothes (among those a padded leather jacket and leather fingerless gloves) and soaps, shampoo, dry shampoo, conditioner, various hair products, tampons, condoms, brush, toothbrush (fortunately one still untouched), toothpaste, floss, a razor packaging for women, cream wax, hand-wash detergents, make-up, lip balm, wipes (includig make-up remover wipes), hair ties, nail clipper, nail file, nail polishes and nail polish remover, face creams and body lotions, hand creams, a pocket mirror, pen, pencil and paper, books, a mp3 player that worked with AAA batteries instead of electrical power, needle and thread, a knitting kit, a deck of cards and some other board games like chess and checkers. She took those too.

While walking around, she stumbled upon a vending machine. She wasn't very keen on making noise but there was still a lot of stuff inside that she planned on taking, so, after searching for the fire axe that she knew must be there, she used it to break the glass, one hit after another. She looked around herself in fear, waiting with bated breath for more walkers to appear but there was nothing. She grinned a little before putting various bags of chips, chocolate and granola bars inside her bag.

Sometimes she would come across the body of someone who had a shot to the head, mostly civilians but some soldiers too. She didn't know if they had been killed or they had killed themselves and really preferred not to think too much about it. She hated the idea of checking their bodies but soldiers meant weapons and she needed all the weapons she could get. She found another small gun - a glock 26 - that she strapped to her ankle inside her right boot and a large pocketknife that she strapped to her left ankle. She took two more hand guns with silencers – for backup -, and took the magazines out of the other guns she found, deciding to leave the other weapons there since bringing all those guns in her bag would only make her bag too heavy and wouldn't be really useful in the long run. She had four guns and bullets to spare, that was enough for now.

The days passed slowly and boringly, the only bright spot, if one could call it that, was the wandering biter that she sometimes encountered while still visiting the various rooms in the hospital. She had never missed a shot since that first day and the biters were so few and far between that she had almost gotten used to them. If one could really get used to dead people walking and trying to eat you, that's it.

It was two weeks since she had found herself in that hospital that something finally changed. Rick had woken up.