Chapter 2: Contact
"How are you feeling?" Zoey asked worriedly.
"Like I've been dragged over a bed of nails," Louis groaned.
Zoey was wrapping his ruined shirt around his chest as tightly as she could. However, she stopped when she heard him inhale sharply from the pain.
"Sorry..." she mumbled apologetically, and loosened the bandaging slightly.
She finished tying the shirt around Louis' chest and then looked down at her bloodstained hands, before wiping them on his shirt.
"Hey, do I look like a dish cloth to you?" he said jokingly.
Zoey tried to chuckle, but she was seriously worried. Bill and Francis were both downstairs, and they could be in danger. And Louis' injuries looked bad enough.
"Is there anything else I can do to help?"
He smiled encouragingly. "Nah. It can only get better, right?"
Zoey chose not to answer. Unless he got medical attention soon, it could only get worse.
Bill moved silently through the apartment, sweeping his flashlight through the rooms, searching for any signs of danger. He was not aware that Francis was not watching his back. Something else was.
He stealthily moved toward the bathroom and found what he was looking for; a discarded bucket lying on its side on the floor.
Francis slowly walked down the hall in the direction that he heard the sound of pattering feet earlier. His ear was cocked for any more noises. However, save for his heavy footsteps, there was not a sound to be heard. He cautiously walked forward a few more steps when he heard the sound of pattering feet again, this time from behind him. He quickly whirled around, but his flashlight revealed nothing.
Francis took a careful step back down the hall back toward the apartment that Bill had entered. He took another step when, most inexplicably, he heard another footstep on the other side of the wall that he was next to. It came from inside the adjacent apartment on his right. He stopped and listened. Silence.
He took another step, and then he heard his footsteps being mirrored again from behind the wall.
"Son of a bitch," Francis growled. Was the bastard playing mind games with him?
He quickly marched the short distance down the hallway up to the door of the apartment, all the while hearing the thing on the other side of the wall mimicking his movements. He squared his shoulders, readied his shotgun, and then kicked the door open, aiming his shotgun and flashlight inside. However, he was shocked to see no one there.
Suddenly –
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A dreadful scream came from behind him, followed by a terrible crash. Francis whipped around to see an infected woman come tearing out of the doorway behind him; arms held forward, lips curled upward in an ugly snarl.
Francis did not hesitate and pulled the trigger, blasting the woman in the chest and sending her flying back through the doorway. Immediately after, he felt ice-cold arms wrapping themselves around him from behind. An infected man had snuck up on him. The shotgun clattered to the ground.
Bill's head shot up in shock when he heard the shotgun go off out in the hallway.
"Damn it – " he started to curse, but he was cut off.
"RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Bill looked behind him to see a dark shape rushing toward him. He did not have time to aim his assault rifle, so instead he swung the rifle butt and struck his attacker in the face. The infected man stumbled backward a few feet and looked up to see Bill aiming his rifle at him. The man opened his mouth to roar, but never got the chance. Bill shot him through the head, blood and brain matter splattering on the wall behind his crumpled body.
Francis wrestled desperately with his attacker, who had wrapped himself firmly around his back. He glanced back to see the other man bear his teeth, ready to bite into his neck.
"NO!" Francis cried, throwing himself backward into a wall, slamming the man against it.
Nothing happened, so he threw himself against the wall again. This time, the man's grip loosened slightly, and Francis took the opportunity to throw him off. Falling to one knee, Francis quickly scooped up his shotgun and took aim. However, before he could get the shot off, gunfire erupted behind him, and the man fell in a bloody heap.
Francis looked back to see Bill standing further down the hallway, his smoking M-16 raised to his shoulder. The old veteran lowered the rifle and gave Francis a death glare, which the latter ignored. He picked himself up off the ground and brushed himself off.
"Phew!" he breathed. "Good thing I'm indestructible." He turned back toward Bill, but was taken aback to see the old man aiming the rifle at him.
"Next time you wander off and leave me in the lurch like that, you end up like him." Bill jerked his head behind Francis at the dead body lying in the hallway.
The arrogant biker was about to retort angrily, but he stopped himself when he looked into Bill's eyes. The look that he was being given was that of a man not to be messed with. Instead, he just nodded silently.
Bill and Francis walked back up the stairs together in a tense silence. Bill had managed to scrounge a red medical pack from the bathroom, which was now slung across his back, while Francis carried a full bucket of water with one hand and hefted his shotgun over his shoulder with the other.
"Bill, you were in the army, right?" he asked presently.
"Yeah?" the older man replied cautiously.
"So I know that you know a death-wound when you see one."
Bill said nothing, keeping his expression guarded. If this was going where he thought it was…
Francis pointed down at his biker vest. "My gang, we were a pretty notorious bunch. We had a lot of enemies. And I've seen my fair share of fucked-up injuries." He stopped and turned to face his partner. "You know that this is a waste of time. Louis is dead weight. And a ticking time-bomb! We bring him with us, we're all going to die."
"Don't give me that horseshit!" Bill snapped suddenly.
Further up the stairwell, Zoey raised her head hopefully when she realised that she could make out his voice. Thank god they came back!
Francis glowered angrily. "Louis has been slashed! He's infec – "
Bill turned and rounded on him, his voice low and dangerous. "Listen to me, son, and listen well. War is hell. It lacks humanity. But it has rules. And the most important one is that no one gets left behind." He snatched the bucket out of Francis' hands and continued up the stairs without another word.
Francis stood and stared after him in surprise for a moment, and then followed, shaking his head.
Bill stormed up the staircase fuming. The nerve of that punk.
"Bill!" Zoey cried out when he came into view. "Thank god you're okay!" There was a moment of silence. "Where's Francis?"
"On his way up," he grunted. He bent down to examine to her job. "Nice work, kid."
He drew a dull-looking knife and sawed through the rest of the shirt, revealing Louis' chest again as Francis came into view.
"This might sting a bit," he said to Louis.
He then began to pour water over Louis' chest. The younger man gasped in pain as his blood flowed away down the stairs, revealing the ugly slashes in his chest. Zoey gasped while Bill reached for some disinfectant and wrapping from the first-aid kit.
Francis leaned toward Zoey. "Hey, can I talk to you outside for a sec?" he asked softly.
She was shocked. In the short time that they had known each other, Francis had barely paid her a second glance. "Uh, sure," she said, following him out onto the roof.
Bill took in the extent of Louis' injuries as he worked. "You're cut up badly. I'll do what I can, but you've already lost a lot of blood. Not to mention that the wounds could get infected, or sepsis could come into play. We'll need an actual doctor if that happens."
"You should probably work on your bedside manner," the younger man said in a vain attempt to lighten the mood.
"I ain't gonna sugar-coat it, son. If you don't get help soon, you could be in a lot of trouble."
Outside on the roof, aside from a light drizzle, the rain had stopped. Francis walked ahead for a little bit, and then turned to face Zoey, out of earshot of the door.
"Listen, uh..."
"Zoey," she replied.
"Right. Sorry."
"That's okay. I guess it's just girls' names that you have trouble remembering, right?" she said sarcastically.
Francis ignored that last comment. "Look, Louis is screwed. He's going to bring us nothing but trouble. If we stick around with him, we're done. We've gotta think of the bigger picture here."
Zoey was appalled at Francis' callousness. She struggled with her next words.
"You know I'm right, don't you?" he persisted.
Zoey paused, looking back at the stairwell for a moment. "No one left behind, right?" she finally said, repeating Bill's words from earlier. She turned and walked back into the building, leaving Francis alone on the rooftop.