Chapter 11 - The Old Camp
After travelling southwest for a couple of days, Tamsin and Kenzi had finally reached the east side of Creeksville.
They had to give up their tricycle because of a derailed freight train that was blocking the road. On foot, they slowly travelled towards a state park that was on the other side of the city.
Shocked by how empty and dilapidated the entire city had become, Kenzi followed the other woman in silence while thinking about how those peaceful lives had been shattered here when everything had started.
Several hours later, they arrived at a small town, which was the gateway of the park. Its main street, once busily entertaining tourists with all the candy stores, restaurants, photo booths and souvenir shops, now was filled with abandoned cars, old trash and rubbles of the collapsed buildings.
Kenzi let out a sigh when she saw a skeleton leg hanging on a broken window of a tour bus which had run into a lamp post. "I thought things I've seen before I joined the army were bad enough already," she murmured.
"Well Creeksville is one of the outbreak origins. It didn't take very long for people to lose hope and abandon the city, and here we are." Tamsin made a welcome gesture.
The entrance of the state park was blocked by a lot of cars, so they decided to enter from its side. After a detour, they reached the very outside of the park, where a few pieces of private lands lay.
They passed by a orchard, and it had been taken over by tall weeds. There was a leafless fruit tree standing in the middle. Neither of them knew if it was still al
Behind the orchard, there was a house which had almost been destroyed by lush vegetation, termites and rodents. Half of its roof had collapsed and buried in brown vines.
Tamsin took a few steps towards it, accidentally hitting a metal plate hanging beside the front gate. Flakes of rust fell on her shoes, and she cursed.
"Someone you know living in there or something?" Kenzi asked, pointing at the house.
"Not really," Tamsin replied. She licked her lips and quickly scanned the surroundings, before she added, "there was a family who used to live here."
"Yeah, I can tell," Kenzi murmured as she stared at a ride on toy car on the side of the front porch.
Then she noticed a skeleton in the corner of the front yard. There was a bludgeoned wound on the skull. Another skeleton was under the collapsed roof, with some sort of weapon in its right hand.
"Come on," the blonde urged her simply, starting to walk again.
Together they headed into the woods behind the house. After walking along a dirt road for a while, they arrived at a small camping area.
Kenzi quickly scanned the whole place. A few big, mature trees formed a circle, and in the middle there was a fire pit built with rocks and bricks. Three log benches surrounded the fire pit. Under one of them there was a rusty fire poker set. An old RV parked between the fire pit and an oak tree, covered in foliage.
"This is your old camp?" Kenzi murmured as she frowned at the car's flat tires, rusty rims and chipped paints. "I don't think that thing would still work."
Tamsin snorted and entered the vehicle. She impatiently signalled Kenzi to follow her after seeing that the brunette wasn't moving at all.
Kenzi hesitantly did as she was told, and frowned at the other woman who got down on one knee in the middle of the living area inside the RV. "Is everything okay?"
"Yep," Tamsin hummed and lifted a piece of the floor board. She brushed away the dirt underneath, and revealed a hatch door.
"Dude...is that…?" Kenzi mumbled as she gaped at the hatch door. "Is that what I think it is?"
Tamsin answered her with a smirk. Then, she grabbed the handle on the door and slid it to the side.
"After you," Kenzi told her after glancing at the long ladder leading its way down.
"Fine," Tamsin rolled her eyes and hopped down. "Make sure you close everything behind you. Make it look like we were never here."
After closing the hatch door above her head, darkness surrounded Kenzi. She gripped the bars of the ladder tightly as she slowly lowered one foot to find the next bar to step on. She almost slipped and fell when lights were turned on below her.
"Are you gonna stay on the ladder forever? It's that comfy, huh?" Tamsin teased.
Kenzi quickly climbed down. She found herself in a bunker. She was shocked to see the fluorescent lights above her head, two sets of simple furniture against the walls and several shelves of supplies.
"Holly molly! This is a fucking nuclear bunker, isn't it?!" She exclaimed as she searched for the buzzing sound that she was hearing. She eventually located it: a ventilation fan on the wall. "There's even a ventilation system?! Did you build this? This is just...damn, girl, if Bo was here, she'd be-"
Choking on that name, she stopped abruptly, leaving an unbearable silence in the air.
Tamsin swallowed hard and kicked her backpack under one of the lab beds. Then, she sat down on the chair beside it and rubbed her sore shoulders. Throwing her head back, she stared at the lights for a long time, before she replied, "no, I didn't build this. I have no idea who built it."
"What you just found it in the middle of nowhere?"
Tamsin let out a deep breath and straightened her body, before she went to get two bottles of water from the shelf. She threw one at Kenzi, and opened the other for herself, After downing it in gulps, she said, "it wasn't me who found it."
"Oh," Kenzi simply nodded. She checked out the lights and the fan again, before she asked, "I thought you said that the whole system had broken down completely. How could this shit still be working?"
"I don't know," Tamsin told her honestly. She put the cap on the bottle and put the empty bottle away. "My guess is that this place has its own power supply system. Maybe solar? I don't think I've seen any panels nearby though...whoever designed this must have planned it well."
Throwing her hand lazily at the door in the corner of the bunker, she said, "there's the bathroom. It used to have clean water, shower and everything, but it stopped working several months ago. Now the water just stinks. The septic system must have broken down."
Kenzi nodded. "So...who found this place?" She murmured. "Were you here with your family or something?"
Tamsin scoffed. "No," she said. After a long pause, she added, "I was with someone who...I guess you could call her...a friend."
She tasted a bitterness on her tongue, and she knew it was the taste of her old memories. They took her back to the day when she had found out that her parents had made the plan to abandon her so they could join the government settlement.
Tamsin thought if she'd ever be banished to hell and thrown into the pit of fire, it would feel like this, her skin being torn off and her flesh being scorched, her heart being pulled out and her body being torn apart.
She opened her mouth and forced the air into her lungs while gripping tightly to her backpack. She tried to call for help, but she couldn't get a word out from her throat. No matter what she would say, they were stuck in the back of her throat like busted bubbles. She tried and tried, but couldn't get them out.
She moaned in pain, when a hand was placed on her forehead. Spooked, she jolted and squeezed her hands tightly around the straps of her backpack, causing the cans in it to clatter.
"You are burning up," a woman's voice told her. A calm voice. "It's good."
Tamsin had finally managed to pry her eyes open, but she could see nothing but a blurry haze. She could barely focus.
There was a female figure in front of her, or maybe there wasn't at all. She couldn't even tell if she was dreaming. Then, there was some sort of light source above her, and she was surprised that it was so bright and it wasn't flickering at all.
Am I in a hospital? She asked herself, and immediately laughed at that thought. The world had ended already. Why would she be in a hospital?
She passed out again soon, but came back not long after that. Her fever would come and go, and she knew that someone was there checking her temperature, feeding her water and taking care of her.
Mom? Is that you? She wondered, wanting to say that out loud but couldn't. At some point she recalled the conversation she had heard between her parents and remembered that they had decided to go to the government settlement without her.
She panted, before someone raised her head to give her some water. The cold fluid flushed down her throat, giving her enough strength to mutter "mom...dad..." before passing out again.
She woke up in nightmares after what seemed to have been forever, soaked in sweat, jerking back and forth, until someone held her arms firmly and forced her to lay back down.
"Burning is good," the female voice came to her again, distant yet firm. "If you were to turn, you wouldn't be having a fever."
Something cool was placed on her forehead. Maybe a folded towel that had been soaked in cold water? Tamsin moved her head from left to right and mumbled something, before she slipped into her nightmares again.
She didn't know how long she had slept, but when she woke up, she felt like she had been reborn. She was weak, worn out, yet alive, with a heart that was still beating.
She struggled to sit up, and found herself in a small room with no windows. She was in a slab bed, and there was a second one against the wall across the room. A desk was in between, with two chairs behind it.
A buzz spooked her. She gasped and spun around, only to realize that it was coming from the radio on the shelf on the other side of the room.
She gaped at the cases of bottled water, medicine and cans of food. Is this heaven? She thought as she moved one of her legs off the bed.
The door behind her suddenly opened, and she immediately grabbed a jar of jam as her weapon.
She saw a woman in her early 40s walking out from a door which seemed to lead to a small bathroom. The woman's brown hair had been braided together and tied into a bun behind her head. There were a scar on her chin, and another one across the bridge of her nose. She was wearing a leather jacket which had some biker gang icon embroidered on the side of her left sleeve. Her jeans were old, a bit tattered, and her boots were muddy. A falchion was hanging on the the left side of her waist, sheathed. She was also carrying a revolver in the holster underneath her jacket.
"You are…?" Tamsin asked hesitantly. She didn't recognize her face, but she did recognize that voice. It was the voice that soothed her during her fever.
"You can just call me Acacia," the woman told her simply as she sat down on an empty chair. She got out a big bag under the other bed, and started to sort the things in the bag.
"I'm...my name's Tamsin," Tamsin introduced herself. She looked around again, before she asked, "umm...where am I?"
"In the woods," Acacia answered simply, opening a can of fruit with a can opener on her multitool. After seeing the confused look on the young blonde's face, she explained, "I was hunting in the woods. You stumbled in and scared away my deer. I almost shot you in the head."
"Did I…?" Tamsin slurred, frowning. She remembered fighting that zombie in the store. After having found out that she was bitten, she ran back home frightened, only to find out that her parents were ready to leave without her. She remembered running into the woods behind the community her family had lived. She remembered herself crying while running before passing out.
"Woulda shot you there, if you hadn't been crying like a baby and burning like a hot coal," Acacia said as she handed Tamsin the opened can and a clean spoon.
"Thanks," Tamsin murmured. She scooped some cubed peach out and carefully ate them, making sure that she wasn't dripping any syrup into the bed sheets.
After she had finished eating, Acacia came over to check her bite wound, which had now turned into a weird purple color.
"It looks all good," the elder woman commented.
"Is this...a scar?" Tamsin asked as she looked at the purple mark closely.
"It's called a Fuchsia Mark," Acacia told her. "Those who got bitten but wouldn't turn will have that."
"Oh," Tamsin nodded, feeling so relieved that she almost fell off the bed. "I thought-I didn't know that you could survive from a...zombie bite."
"Not many people could. Just consider yourself lucky, kid," Acacia said. She glanced at the empty can in Tamsin's hand, before she continued, "alrighty, you wanna go back to where you came from now, or you wanna rest for a little longer?"
Tamsin went quiet. She picked up her backpack, and squeezed her hands around the straps. "I...I have nowhere to go back to," she said. Even though she tried to make her voice as nonchalant and calm as she could, she knew that slight shiver in her voice had already betrayed her.
"No family?"
"Not anymore," Tamsin replied quickly as she picked up a few things that had fallen out from her bag.
"Hmm," Acacia hummed as she eyed the young girl. "Lost them to the walkers?"
Tamsin shook her head and bit her bottom lip.
"How old are you?" Acacia narrowed her eyes at her.
"I'll be 17 this November," Tamsin said, trying to zip up her bag but it seemed that the zipper had been ripped and now it wouldn't close.
"I see. They went somewhere safe and left you behind, huh?" The elder woman pointed out, and Tamsin turned away looking at the floor.
Acacia huffed. "Ever killed walkers before?"
"Tons," Tamsin answered, before she embarrassingly corrected herself under the other woman's piercing look. "...a couple."
Acacia nodded briefly. "Are you good at anything?"
Tamsin paused at that question. "I...I'm really good at math," she blurted.
Acacia rolled her eyes. "I meant, are you good at things like hunting?"
After a long, embarrassing silence, Tamsin replied honestly, "I went hunting with my dad a couple of times and-well I didn't really get anything but I know the basics. I used to go fishing with my grandfather and-"
"-good at nothing, I get it," Acacia interrupted her as she threw her left hand into the air lazily. She stared at Tamsin for a while, before she shook her head and snorted, "well...kids these days…." After a second or two, she looked at the young girl again and asked, "alright, kid, do you want to stay here with me?"
Tamsin opened her mouth, not sure if she should believe such a generous invitation from a total stranger, but then she remembered that she had no home to return to and that it was Acacia who had saved her life. "Yeah, sure," she replied, nodding. "If...if you don't mind me staying here, Ma'am."
"Okay," Acacia nodded. "Now, let's get outta there and get that damn deer first. Hurry."
Lauren had sunk too deep into her own thoughts to notice the impatient knock on the door to her office until it finally turned into a loud banging sound.
She quickly closed the file fold in her hands and put it into the bottom drawer, before she called, "come in."
A nurse opened the door and stuck her head in. "Dr. Lewis, could you come to the patient room one for a second?"
"Sure. What is it, Lisa? Is Mr. Thornton demanding morphine again?" Lauren asked as she stood up and put on her lab coat.
"No, we transferred him to room two, so Daniel could watch him," Lisa said in a quiet chuckle. "It's this woman the hunting squad found beside one of the creeks in the woods," she explained as she lead the way.
"Oh. Is she okay? Any injuries? Any bite wounds? Any signs of turning?"
"No I don't think she's gonna turn. I didn't find any bite wounds either," Lisa replied. "She's just...unconscious right now."
"Unconscious?" Lauren repeated when she noticed the hesitation in the other woman's voice.
"She's ummm..." Lisa mumbled as she stopped outside the door to patient room one. She pointed at the only patient in the room and said, "that's her."
Lauren gave her a nod before she walked to the patient's bedside. "Is she from our settlement?" She asked while checking examining the unconscious woman that she didn't recognize.
"I don't think so. Nobody seems to know her," Lisa said. "I mean, someone that pretty, I'm sure if anyone has ever seen her, they'd remember her."
"Good point," Lauren commented as she glanced at the unknown woman's face. Although covered in mud, water and dirt, she still looked stunning. "Is there anything abnormal that I should know about?"
"Ummm...the hunter who found her. When she sent her in, she said that...at first she thought this woman was dead because she had no pulse."
"No pulse? I'm pretty sure there's a heart beating in there," Lauren commented as she listened to the unknown woman's heartbeat. "Unless-" she suddenly stopped as something occurred to her.
"Unless what?" The nurse asked, oblivious.
"Nothing, nothing really," Lauren told the nurse with a smile on her face.
The nurse was about to say something, but someone on the hallway interrupted her. After murmuring something to that person, she told Lauren, "Dr. Lewis, I gotta go check Ms. Smith for a bit. Just call me if you need anything, okay? "
"Sure," Lauren nodded. After the nurse left, she turned back to the unknown woman, her eyebrows furrowed.
Sliding her fingers behind the woman's left ear, she slowly moved them down under her chin. There she felt her pulse on the tip of her fingers, strong, maybe a little too slow for a doctor's like, but strong.
She pulled back and examined the woman's face. It was pale, almost too pale for a living person, but a hint of pink underneath her cheeks reminded Lauren that this woman was definitely alive.
Lauren stared at that pale face as it reminded her of someone else. Someone who had been as pale That woman in military uniform, her was Kenzi. When she had been sent in, she had had no pulse, but it slowly came back.
Why would something like that happen? How was it even possible? These two questions remained in her mind, haunting her, and she didn't even know if she'd ever have the chance to figure it all out, since Tamsin and Kenzi just disappeared one night.
It was then she recalled the conversation she and Tamsin had in the ICU when Tamsin had told her that there had been a third person with them during the earthquake.
"A brunette, slender body, pretty, long hair…" Lauren murmured the description that Tamsin had given her that day while looking at the unknown woman. She was shocked that the woman lying unconsciously in the patient bed right in front of her would fit that description perfectly.
Huh. Lauren thought as she frowned at the unconscious woman. What happened to you?
A/N: Sorry for the long wait. The end of the semesters are always crazy. A slow chapter, I know, and Bo and Tamsin are still apart...it'll take a while for them to see each other again :)