Chapter 9

At first, it was a buzz in the background in Tamsin's head, clouded by sharp pain, downpour which felt both hot and cold on her skin, voices distant yet loud, and a fever that made her feel like she was burnt in flames.

The darkness seemed to have lasted forever, and the buzz would come and go. She didn't really pay attention to it at all, until everything else had faded away while it got louder and louder.

Eventually, she started to hear words. Incoherent, flat words, like "please", "all" and "filter", or maybe it was "shelter"? She couldn't tell. She drifted in and out of her sleep, occasionally feeling a warm hand or a pinch.

She wanted to wake up. She wanted to yell, to move or at least to make a sound, but she couldn't do anything. She couldn't move a single finger. All her voice was stuck in her throat, but she couldn't get it out.

The buzz continued, now turning into a shriek siren. Suddenly all kinds of different sounds poured into her ears, people yelling, wheels rolling, crying. Among them there were those flat words again. She spent quite some time to assemble them into meaningful speech.

The moment she had realized that it was someone broadcasting a warning message, her eyes shot open.

She reached for her weapon, but accidentally punched on something hard. She cursed, and struggled to sit up, but her body seemed not to follow her mind.

She gasped, squirming. The moment she had found herself in a bed buried under layers of blankets, she paused.

She licked her parched lips as she quickly examined herself. Her waist was wrapped in gauze, and her left ankle had a cast on and was lifted up away from the bed in straps.

She found the handheld control dangling on the side of her bed, so she hit the nurse call button. After getting no answer, she tried all other buttons and quickly figured out that it wasn't working at all.

She lay back, panting, unable to believe doing something so simple could have drained her like this.

There, the broadcast came again. "Residents of the northeast building 1, 2, 3 and 4, please seek shelter immediately. Repeat, there is a zombie attack on the northeast side of the settlement, please seek shelter immediately. If you are a Defense Force member, please report to your unit asap."

Great, so I am still in the damn zombie apocalypse. Tamsin thought as she carefully looked around.

She found herself in a big patient room. There were nothing but two rows of beds aligned along the walls, each bed with a night stand on its side.

Only two beds were occupied, hers, and another one in the corner of the room with some old dude lying in it unconcious.

Shit. Where am I? Tamsin asked herself, though the printed pattern of a tree, a man and a bird on the sheets sort of answered her question already.

She knew that this was definitely a government settlement. She just didn't know how she had gotten here, what had happened after the earthquake, and more importantly, where Bo and Kenzi were.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, forcing the memory of the collapsing canyon out of her mind. She raised to free her casted leg from the straps first. Before she had succeeded, though, a man in a nurse suit came in.

He gaped at her, almost dropping his tray. Soon a smile appeared on his face. "Hey, you are awake!" He exclaimed, rushing to her bedside. "We didn't-I mean the doctor was like oh she won't wake up any time soon but hey you are awake!"

A slight nod and a tight smile were all Tamsin could give him. He smiled back at her warmly and checked her fluids. He was interrupted a couple of times, when some panicking people storming in asking for directions.

"I'm sorry," the man told Tamsin as he tucked her back under the blankets. "There's a zombie attack and...quite a few are injured."

Tamsin nodded. "Yeah," she muttered.

"I'll go get the doctor for you, okay?" The man told her softly. Then he left.

A few minutes later, a blonde woman appeared at the doorway. She was in a washed out white lab coat whose hems had turned yellow and the corners of the pockets frayed. She had a stethoscope hanging on her neck, and a clipboard in her hand.

Quickly walking to Tamsin's side, she checked her IVs. "I'm Dr. Lauren Lewis," she told Tamsin as she carefully checked her vitals. "How do you feel?"

"I've been worse," Tamsin replied simply.

"How would you describe your pain, on a scale of 1 to 10?" Lauren asked as she listened to Tamsin's heartbeat.

"Ummm…probably 0, if not below?"

The doctor frowned slightly while helping Tamsin to turn on her side. "Inhale…" she instructed as she placed the diaphragm on Tamsin's back. "And...exhale...good...so you don't feel any pain?"

"Not really, no."

"Not from your ankle? It was fractured," Lauren explained as she pointed at Tamsin's ankle with her pen.

"I don't feel anything," Tamsin said. "I mean, the cast is heavy…I guess whatever narcotics you gave me is really working then."

"Actually, we didn't give you anything for the pain. Not today," Lauren replied as she resumed examining Tamsin. "Could you tell me your name?"

"Do I have to?" Tamsin rolled her eyes.

"No you don't have to," Lauren replied. "I can still call you patient X, as I wrote down on your medical record when we admitted you. However, if you want to stay here, you'll need to provide a name to the registration office later." She paused for a second or two, staring at Tamsin. "Is there any reason you don't want to tell me your name?"

Tamsin sighed. "Tamsin."

Lauren sighed in defeat. "Okay, Tamsin No-Last-Name…" She murmured as she wrote it down on her paperwork. "Good news is, you are doing great. Let's see if you can take some food, and then we'll do an x-ray of your ankle, okay?"

"Wow, food. Any chance you got some medium rare ribeyes, cuz I could probably eat like 5 of them right now," Tamsin joked, and the doctor snorted.

"Liquid food first," Lauren drawled. "We need to make sure that your stomach can hold it before you try something heavy. You haven't eaten real food for weeks."

"Weeks?" Tamsin frowned. "How long have I been here?"

"3 weeks," the doctor said simply. She later added, "24 days, to be exact."

Tamsin licked her lips, wondering how 3 weeks of her life just elapsed and all she had were broken memories of high body temperature, rain, light and voices. "How..." she swallowed hard. "How did I get here?"

"The rescue team pulled you out from the earthquake site, about 30 miles north west from here," Lauren explained.

"Ummm...the rescue team?"

"Yes. After the earthquake, the settlement sent a rescue team over. They found 3 survivors, you, and two other women."

"3 survivors huh?" Tamsin repeated. That number made her heart pound violently against her chest. She took a deep breath, and continued, "where...I mean...who...I mean, where are they?"

"The other two? They are both in ICU now. One is still in critical condition. The other-" Lauren suddenly stopped. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be discussing this with you."

"No, no, it's okay. We...ummm...they are my friends," Tamsin blurted. "I...I just want to know if they are okay."

"Well, let's just say that we are monitoring them closely," Lauren told her.

"Can I maybe...see them or something?"

The doctor pursed her lips and pondered for a long time. "I suppose you could, after your try eating, and the x-ray." She paused for a bit as she looked around, before she continued, "actually, I do have a few questions for you, about that girl in military uniform-"

"-Kenzi?" Tamsin interrupted her. "What about her?"

"Is she...what's her..." Lauren mumbled. It seemed that she could not form a proper question. She eventually said, "when we found her, she was unconscious, and her vitals were...let's just say that she was ummm-"

"-like she was dead but really wasn't dead?"

"Yeah, that."

"I have no idea. We found her like that," Tamsin shrugged, surprised by how sore her shoulders were.

Lauren nodded, her mind elsewhere. "I'll...go get you some food, and we'll talk about this later," she said as she squeezed Tamsin's shoulder firmly. Then, she left.

A while later, the male nurse came back with a food tray. He first offered Tamsin some diluted fruit juice. After making sure that she could take it just fine, he helped her sit up and pulled a tray table over for her. He offered to feed her, but she refused, so he left the food for her and left.

Tamsin raised her eyebrows at the food in the tray: a bowl of jello, a bowl of beef soup with no meat nor vegetables in it, a small bottle of milk, and a small bowl of very thin porridge.

After she practiced for a while to hold the spoon steadily, she tried the jello first. The taste of it was quite bland, comparing to what she had had before the zombie outbreak, but she didn't plan to complain at all. She savored the slight sweetness before swallowing slowly.

While eating, she started to process all the informations she had learned in the past 10 minutes.

She was weak and consumed, but her heart was still beating strong. She still had all her limbs and digits, which she considered a very good news. However, the best news to her, was that the other two women had been rescued too.

She couldn't wait to see Bo. Just the thought of holding the brunette's hand made her choke in her own tears.

Tamsin had her food, and then she spent a little time to rest. When she woke up, the nurse wheeled her to the x-ray room.

Lauren examined her thoroughly. Then, it was a long wait in the dim room watching the doctor studying those images.

When Lauren finally finished, she turned on the light, and sat down in front of Tamsin. "It looks like your ankle is all healed," she said, a lot of hesitation in her voice. "That's...great news, I guess."

"I'm sensing a but there," Tamsin commented.

"No but, there's not but," Lauren immediately replied. She trailed off, staring at the imaging results.

After a while, she added, "it's just that...normally, that kind of fracture should take 6 weeks or more to-I mean, you've only been here for 3 and half weeks and…."

"Maybe I just heal fast?" Tamsin shrugged.

"I guess...it could be that?" Lauren murmured. "I mean, you've been healing faster than...anyone I've ever seen. All your injuries are pretty much gone now."

Tamsin nodded absentmindedly."So when can I see my friends?"

"So when can I see my friends?"

Lauren was about to answer her, but before she did, a nurse stormed in.

"Doctor Lewis," the nurse called breathlessly as she clung to the edge of the door.

"What's wrong, Amy?" Lauren asked as she stood up and stepped forward.

"The...umm...the patient in ICU," the nurse said with heavy pants. "She...her heart rate...dropping fast...they can't…we can't…."

Lauren dashed out without waiting for the nurse to finish her sentence. Tamsin immediately wheeled herself out, following the doctor.

She could hear the sound of the air being pushed into her lungs, like a dying man's breath. Her muscles were protesting, screaming in pain and exhaustion. She could barely keep herself in the chair, but she just kept going.

She just kept going while ignoring how painful her heart was clenching right now.

The ICU was on the other end of the hallway. It was just a section of several patient rooms with an extra nurse station.

When they arrived, it had already turned into a mess there. Nurses and doctors crammed in one room, trying to resuscitate someone.

Lauren joined them immediately, and Tamsin tried to go in with her. When she saw the flatline on the monitor, she panicked. Having forgotten that she had a cast on her ankle, she stood up, stumbled, and fell, making a loud noise.

No one had paid attention to her though the flat sound of the heart rate monitor seemed to have drowned everything.

Tamsin struggled to stand up. She eventually made it and leaned against the wall. She knew she shouldn't go in, but she was dying to know if that woman in there was okay.

The flat sound continued, and they were still doing CPR. A nurse came to Tamsin, wanting to get her away from the room, but Tamsin wouldn't let her.

Then, they both heard one of the doctors announce the time of death, and Tamsin suddenly had the strength to push the nurse away from her.

She stumbled into the room, squeezing her way through the people in there. She grabbed the edge of the bed before she fell, and looked down at the lifeless face of the woman.

When she realized that it was not Bo nor Kenzi, but a woman she had never known before, she choked, suddenly not knowing what to feel or how to feel. A nurse dragged her back before she collapsed on the floor.

The nurse guided her outside the room, and sat her down on the wheelchair. Tamsin watched them taking the body way. It was then she felt the cold sweat on her back.

Lauren came to her, and stood beside her. "I'm sorry, we can't-" she said to Tamsin. "I'm so sorry."

Tamsin swallowed hard and looked back at her blankly. It took her a while to finally get her voice back. "You don't need to be," she muttered. "I don't know who she is...was."

"Oh," Lauren murmured, beyond surprised. She stared at Tamsin and said, "I thought you said they were your friends?"

"I meant those two who were with me when the earthquake took place. The two who got pulled out with me by the rescue team," Tamsin said. "Where are they?"

"Well, they are...one is in room 104," Lauren pointed at the room across the hallway, and Tamsin was too anxious to notice the weird tone in the doctor's voice.

"Can I see her?"

"Sure, of course," Lauren told her, before she pushed Tamsin to room 104. "Just...I shouldn't let you go in, so…."

Tamsin barely managed a nod, before she glanced at the person lying in the bed.

It was Kenzi, and the output on the monitor seemed to be stable. That made Tamsin sigh with a relief. "She umm...is she…?"

"She's stable. She's been drifting in and out, weak, but overall she's doing fine," Lauren said. "I'll probably move her to the regular patient room in a few days."

"Okay, cool," Tamsin said as looked around in the hallway. After having found that all the other ICU rooms were empty, she asked, "where's the other one?"

"Umm..." Lauren said, a little confused at first. "Didn't you just…." She finished her sentence by pointing at the room where the other patient had just died.

"No, no, not her," Tamsin explained, waving her hands over her own face. "I mean, my other...my other friend, who were also at the earthquake site. A brunette, slender, long hair, pretty. Where is she?"

A look of revelation fleeted across the doctor's face, immediately followed by heavy sympathy. "There were someone else who was with you during the earthquake?" Lauren asked.

"Yes, her name is Bo," Tamsin said, somehow her heart started pounding violently again. This time though, it was fueled by nothing but panic and pain.

"Well..." Lauren said after a long pause. "We...ummm...the rescue team found 3 survivors. You, the Kenzi girl, and the one who had just...passed away. We don't-I don't think we have another patient who...I don't think we have another one."

"Yes, yes, you do," Tamsin argued. "You sure do, doc. She was with me. She was there too! If they had found me and...and Kenzi, they sure as hell should have found her too. She was right there with me! Her name is Bo!"

Lauren opened her mouth, but couldn't make a single sound at first. "Of course," she slurred. "Let me check with the rescue team, and I'll get back to you on that, okay? Why don't you go get some rest, and...you know, you really need food and rest."

"I'm alright," Tamsin said, her voice tight. "I just need to see her."

"Of course you do. Look, maybe she was already discharged. Maybe they sent her to another...I mean, maybe someone else admitted her and I didn't know. I'll make sure that-let me get back to you on that, okay?"

A nurse escorted Tamsin back to the patient room, and made sure she had more food. Then she left.

Tamsin sat in her bed, her back pressing against the headframe, and her arms lolled. She sat there for hours, numbly staring at a water leaking mark on the wall.

The air seemed to have stood still, and the ambient noise outside sounded so far away. For a moment she couldn't tell if this was just a nightmare. Or maybe that searing kiss she had with Bo was nothing but a sweet dream.

Fear drowned her. It was something that she thought she had overcome a long time ago. She couldn't remember when was the last time she had felt her heart dangling in her chest like this. She couldn't remember when was the last time her fear had pained her, strangled her and suffocated her. She couldn't remember when was the last time she had prayed in vain while knowing there must be no hope at all.

Lauren eventually stopped by. "I checked with the rescue team leader. She said that they found you and Kenzi near the canyon region, and then on their way back they found the other...the one who had passed away. They didn't...they didn't find any other survivors, but...just don't lose hope, okay?"

Tamsin could only give her a nod. She stared at the doctor numbly, watching her lips moving, but every word that Lauren said to her just sounded like a meaningless buzz now.

Lauren left shortly, and Tamsin's heart seemed to have disappeared all of a sudden. Her chest now was hollow, overwhelmed by despair.

She curled up in the corner of the bed, and finally gave up on holding in her sobs. She tried to control her volume, or how fast her tears would fall, but she could do neither.

Each sob drained a bit of her life out of her. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..." she slurred, her voice trembling and gagged, her tears so bitter than she could no longer breathe.

After all those subtle, warm things, after each and every moment that she had had with Bo, she was alone again, and that thought tore her apart.

Despite Lauren's warning, Tamsin went to talk to the rescue team members herself the next day. She had talked to every single one of them, but no one had seen Bo.

She checked with the settlement registration office, the Defense Force recruiters, and anyone who could possibly have access to some sort of a list of the residents of the settlement to see if anyone had seen, or heard of Bo.

It was nothing but disappointment after disappointment, and the little spark of hope of hers had gone weaker and weaker as the time went by.

She was no longer able to convince herself that someone in this settlement had seen Bo yet none of them wanted to tell her that. The only choice she had, was to visit the canyon area. Not so much of a hope to see Bo there, but rather a closure for herself.

While receiving her physical therapy, Tamsin gathered items for her new survival pack, since she had lost all her belongings to the earthquake. Slowly she gathered clothes, sleeping bag, a machete, some food, and everything she could think of and get her hands on.

During her recovery, Kenzi got transferred to regular patient room and was put on the bed beside hers. The girl still drifted in and out all the time, and sometimes in the middle of the night, she'd whisper Bo's name unconsciously.

Those soft whispers shattered Tamsin's heart into a million pieces. One day Kenzi woke up for a few minutes, and seemed to have temporarily gained her lucid mind back. She mumbled something about going back to the house she and Bo had resided, but before Tamsin could talk to her, she went back asleep again.

It was then Tamsin had made the decision to take Kenzi with her. She had no idea why she would do that. Having Kenzi travelling along with her would be a thousand times harder than her leaving alone, but she just couldn't leave Kenzi behind.

Maybe it was because Bo had come all the way here to look for her. Maybe it was because Kenzi was the only one who had been close to Bo, close to the ray of light that Tamsin had once held in her palms before it had slipped away.

She just needed someone to remind her that the very existence of Bo wasn't her hallucination. She just needed to be constantly reminded that Bo was very much real, because memories were all she had now. And one day, when they started to fade, she'd start to question herself if anything that had touched her heart had been real.

She had talked to Lauren about leaving, but someone from the settlement governor's office had come to order her to stay.

Fine. Tamsin thought while rolling her eyes at the man. Like you could stop me.

After she was fully recovered, she started to plan their escape. She figured that she could easily sneak out during a zombie attack because every time that happened, the settlement would become a mess.

Taking Kenzi with her wasn't an easy task, but since she had found a tricycle trailer in the recycle center and repaired it, it became doable.

Her last task was to get Kenzi some medication that she would need on the way. She knew Lauren had kept them in her office, so once she had figured out the shift change time of the doctors and nurses, she took the chance to sneak into Lauren's office at one night.

She hand copied Kenzi's prescription first and put the copy into her bag. Then she grabbed everything she needed from the medicine cabinet.

Before leaving, she hesitated if she should leave Lauren a note. The doctor and her team had been quite nice to her, and she felt guilty if they should worry about her.

She hadn't made up her mind yet, when she heard the sound of the key being pushed into the lock.

Oh shit. Tamsin thought as she quickly got into a big two-door cabinet in the corner and closed the doors, leaving only a tiny crack between them.

She had thought maybe it was Lauren coming over to get something and then the doctor would leave shortly. To her surprise, though, two people walked in.

The light was turned on, and Tamsin took a peek. She saw Lauren and another woman standing in front of the desk. Lauren was in her lab coat as usual, and the other woman was wearing a dress that was apparently tailored to her and a pair of high heels so high that they would make running away from zombies impossible. Her perfume was strong, almost making Tamsin sneeze.

"So, how's your research going, doctor?" The other woman asked Lauren. Her voice was full of seduction, yet there was nothing but nonchalance underneath.

"It's going, just slow, governor," Lauren's voice came, bland. She paused for a little, before she added, "I wish I could say that I need more of zombies, but…." She trailed off, and Tamsin wondered if she really had noticed a hint of guilt in that voice.

"Please," the woman, who Lauren addressed as governor, said, "anything you need, Lauren. Oh and you can call me Evony."

Then, the woman turned to her side a little, giving Tamsin a chance to see her face. She was a beautiful woman, with long, wavy hair and sparkling dark eyes. Her face was rather pale, though. There was something in her eyes that made Tamsin's uncomfortable.

"I didn't really make much progress, if that's what you want to know," Lauren murmured.

"Gee, relax, doctor. I'm not here to pressure you. I'm just doing a bit small talk."

"Oh, okay," Lauren replied, pulling her lips into an awkward smile.

"So, I was just wondering...how is that little patient of yours doing?" Evony asked as she took a step forward towards Lauren.

"I'm afraid that you'll have to be more specific," Lauren replied calmly and fell back a little to keep the distance between her and Evony. "I have many patients, Evony."

"I was talking about that...the no-heartbeat one," Evony clarified.

"She's doing great, very stable," Lauren answered simply. "Heart rate is normal now. Everything looks good. She just weak...it'll take a while for her to recover fully but umm...yeah she's doing very well."

"Okay, good, see, there's a progress," the governor praised with an affected tone. "Have you figured out why she was like that when they found her?"

"No," Lauren quickly replied. "I haven't. It could be some sort of...dormancy under a rare condition, at least that's my theory so far."

"Dormancy? Okay," Evony said. She gave Lauren a smile which looked comforting but somehow creeped Tamsin out a little. "Anyway, I was just curious," she added.

"She's doing great," Lauren repeated. "If...that's what you want to know."

"So, where is my..." Evony asked, and Tamsin saw that instead of finishing her sentence, the governor just tilted her head to the side a little and looked at Lauren.

The doctor licked her bottom lip. For a moment, Tamsin thought Lauren would reject Evony's request, but the doctor just opened a fridge beside her, and took out something that looked like a box.

She handed it to Evony, and the two of them battered for a couple more minutes before Evony left.

Lauren stayed a little longer. She looked frustrated and exhausted. She organized her desk for a bit, before she opened the door to the side room and entered it.

Tamsin knew that it was a small morgue where Lauren and few other doctors would dissect and study some zombie bodies. She could hear Lauren pulling out the body drawers and slamming them back in loudly.

After a while, Lauren came out, the look on her face like a part of her had died inside. She turned off the lights and left.

Tamsin made sure that the doctor was gone, before she came out from the cabinet. Out of curiosity, she opened the fridge and took a look inside, but other than some medication vials and bottles, she didn't see anything abnormal.

She shook her head and closed it. Then, she snuck back to the patient room.

All she had to do now, was wait.

A/N: finally, an update. This is a sad chapter, I know, but it's for the story. When the show screws us over and over, we want to see some fluff, and I promise fluff is on its way (it might take a while to arrive but it'll be here eventually) .