Chapter 9: You're Welcome
"Holy shit! You killed him!" I shouted.
"Eh, probably. So what was that all about?" He asked as he holstered his pistol.
"The guy stole this from Victoria." I showed him her Power-Fist.
We turned away to see the man Joe shot gurgle out sounds and flap on the ground.
"Excuse me, can you shut up?! We're trying to talk!" Joe yelled at the dying man.
"Anyways, that explains why you did so good in that fight!" We both laughed.
The man gurgled and choked. We ignored it.
"So why didn't you use your gun in that fight?" I asked.
"It wouldn't have been a challenge—"
The dying man coughed and spat and shouted.
"Oh my God, shut up!" I yelled as I pulled out Joe's gun and shot his body four times.
"Let's get this to a safe spot." I said as Joe smiled at me and held up his arm for a high-five. I slapped him back as we walked past the bodies.
We made it back to the clinic and into Victoria's room. We decided to keep her gauntlet in my pack, since I keep it on me all the time. I sat down in her bed and sighed.
"We did it, Victoria." I said with a smile.
"I got your Power Fist back." I said, jingling my pack.
"What are you doing?" Joe asked me.
"Talking." I answered.
"Jace, she's in a coma, she can't hear you." Joe squinted.
"How do you know?" I asked, looking at her.
"Alright, you can do you what you want. I'm just telling you that it's a waste of time." Joe said as he got up and washed his hands, smelling them after he cleaned them. "Why do I smell lotion?" Joe asked himself quietly.
I grabbed her hand and continued talking as Joe looked down at her. Joe rolled his eyes and bent down, mumbling something to himself.
"Are you sure she can hear me?" Joe asked.
"Do you want to keep guessing?" I asked him. Joe looked at Victoria as she slept on the bed.
"Hey Vee, you look fat in those pants." Joe said loudly, bending his head towards her ear.
"Yeah, she can't hear me. Those are her favorite pants." Joe said, getting up and dusting his knees of the dirty floor that he kneeled on.
"C'mon, Jace. Let's get going." Joe said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
We got up and started to walk out when we heard a noise, we turned around to Victoria. Joe's face turned to horror, as if he saw a zombie rise from the dead.
"Was that a fart?" Joe asked.
"Shut up and listen." I whispered quickly, looking into the room.
Victoria started to gasp and then hum, loudly, making Joe and I run to Doc Hill. He went into the room and inspected her eyes. "You didn't roofie her, right?" Doc Hill asked us.
"Wha—Ho—How is that even a possibility? What the hell goes on here?" Joe asked him.
"Oh, there's my lotion." Doc Hill smiled as he lifted up the bottle next to Victoria's bed.
"I'm sorry I brought you guys here." Joe mumbled to me.
"Hey Victoria. If you can hear me, I want to say that you... look really weird right now. And I'm 75% sure I'm smelling your farts right now." Joe told her.
"Victoria, hear our voices and concentrate on us, can you do that?" I asked.
"Yeah, please wake up so we can finally get paid for that job." Joe said, looking down at her.
"Aren't you supposed to be her friend or something?" I asked, turning to him.
"And?"
"What do you mean, 'and'?"
"That was it-that was the end of my sentence, I wasn't going to add anything else to it. I put a period at th—"
Victoria started to move and her eyelids slowly opened. The three of us stared at her in anticipation as she wiggled around in her bed. Her eyes fully opened and she stared at us.
"Joe, stop staring at me like that." She said softly.
"Nice to see you too." Joe said, backing away from her in relief.
"Where am I?" She asked.
"You're in a huge dump of a town." Joe said. Doc Hill glared at him.
"I'm gonna go put my lotion away." Doc Hill muttered angrily as he left the room.
"What happened?" She asked.
"The raiders got you with a grenade. You've been out a month or two." I explained.
"Jace? What are you doing here?" Victoria asked as she sat up in the bed.
"He took three gunshots trying to carry you into town." Joe told her. Victoria smiled, but hid it quickly.
"Are you all right Jace?" She asked me in her post-comatose state.
"Yeah, I gave Joe quite a scare, though." I said with a smile, crossing my arms and standing next to him.
"You wanted me to leave you there!" Joe exclaimed.
"Yeah, whatever, chickenshit. So, can you walk?" I asked her.
"Let me try." Victoria said as she pushed her arms from her bed.
She got up from the bed and moved around with shaking legs. She grabbed at her back in pain, and winced. Doc Hill went back into the room, his body glistening for some reason. We stared at the glowing man with a bottle of empty lotion in his hand.
"Hi, I'm your doctor." He said quietly.
"Was-was I raped while I was here?" Victoria whispered to us.
"To be honest, I—I dunno. Anything could have happened here" I whispered back as we forced a smile at Doc Hill.
"Wow, everything hurts." She winced, breathing in.
"The blast took apart a piece of your back; it should be healed right now, thanks to me! I just need to remove the stitches. And as much as it will hurt me more than it will hurt you, I'll need to take yours too, Jace." Doc Hill frowned; contrasting the smiley face on my stomach.
Doc Hill led Victoria to a room and took out her stitches. She left with her old clothes on that were just as dirty as mine. Doc Hill called for me afterwards to remove mine. It felt awkward cutting away the stitches and pulling them out of my skin. I soon got out and stretched my back, sighing in relief. I picked up my pack and pulled out Victoria's fist as we walked down the corridors.
"Oh yeah, I forgot. Here's your Power Fist." I handed Victoria her Power Fist out of my pack.
"Why did you hold on to it?" Victoria asked.
"Well, some of the refreshing citizens in this lovely town stole it, and Joe and I got it back. I've been holding on to it for safe keeping." I answered.
"Huh. I felt like that was the case." Victoria said, looking outside.
I looked at Joe with a smile and he rolled his eyes at me.
"Listen, now that both of you are here, I wanted to talk to you about something." I said, sitting down on a chair in the front office.
"What's the matter? Need to learn about the birds and the bees?" Joe smiled. Victoria elbowed him the stomach harder than usual.
"Why do you do this?" Joe grunted, looking up at Victoria as he bent over in pain.
"I just felt like I needed to do it more that time." Victoria explained.
Joe shrugged in absolute surprise.
"Do these pants look nice to you guys?" Victoria asked.
"Blood stains are always in style, Vee. Now what is it you wanted to talk about, Jace?" Joe asked with a wink to me.
"When Chain shot me in that fight, I passed out... and I... I went to some place." I explained.
"I felt like I was truly there, and the only person there was a woman, and she told me to stop going after Chain. I felt like she was my mother, but... I don't know. I dunno what to do."
"That's perfectly normal to have visions like that Jace, especially since I pumped you full of possible toxins and chemicals! You had a near death experience and your conscious was just trying to pull yourself back up so you didn't wake up a raving lunatic. Trust me, it's a therapeutic science!" Doc Hill laughed out a hard, dry laugh.
"Ugh." Victoria said in disgust at it.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." I said, getting up.
I didn't care. I started to think about the vision and the problems that I faced now.
"Well, Doc, thanks for help—"
"No!" Doc Hill yelled at Victoria.
"Don't leave with the hairy man-baby and the butt-chin guy! Stay here!" He begged.
"Let's go, let's go." Victoria rushed as we fled the hospital.