Afterbirth (19 page)

John and Frank sat in uncomfortable silence, listening to the sound of gravel and mud flinging from the wheel wells. The ambulance reeked of death, and though it made it uncomfortably cold, Frank rolled down both of the windows to vent the smell.

John hung his head out the passenger’s side, his mop of brown curls catching in the wind. “It stinks in here.”

Frank grinned at the understatement. “You didn’t have to go quite that far.” He hitched his thumb over his shoulder and looked in the rearview at the mutilated body of the female patient strapped to the gurney. Her skull had warped, leaving her a faceless pile of hair, scalp, and bone. Blood had spilled from her neck onto the white fitted sheet, and the heavy cast-off made it hard to see through the back windows.

John looked back and covered his mouth as though trying not to be sick. “I didn’t mean to... Everything happened so fast.”

“It’s called survival, kid. You did what you had to.”

John kept his head leaned to the side and held pressure on his wounded arm.

“You okay?” Frank asked.

John shrugged. “I guess. I probably shouldn’t complain about what I did to myself.”

Frank had cleaned and dressed the wound the best he could, but he needed John to be on antibiotics before he felt comfortable closing it. Open, he could flush and drain it. Closed, the infection would turn inward. If it got in John’s bloodstream, he was as good as dead. Frank wasn’t about to let that happen.

He took a sharp left turn, headed down a familiar stretch of road, and those items not secured in the back, toppled.

“Hang on.”

“Where are we going?” John straightened up in his seat and shifted his eyes nervously over the desolate landscape. “Please tell me you’re not headed where I think you are.”

Frank shrugged. “Ok, I won’t tell you, but you need antibiotics and I can’t think of a better place to find them. Besides, it smells like shit in here. You want me to drop you off on the roadside or should I keep driving?”

John wiped his hands down his face and sighed. “Is there a third option?”

Frank accelerated. “Afraid not.”

The cold wind whipped the empty I.V bag against the pole hanging next to the corpse in the back. Pieces of paper danced in the air, touched down briefly in the blood and gore, and came up stained. One flew between the seats into the front and John batted it out the window. The speedometer climbed: fifty, sixty, eighty miles per hour. The ambulance rattled along the empty road, the last of the dried mud skittering behind them like BBs.

“Woo hoo!” Frank put a fresh cigarette to his lips and lit it, handing it to John, who had never been a smoker. “It’s time to live a little.”

John smiled and took a drag off the cigarette. He coughed and the smoke came out of him in stilted puffs. “That’s awful,” he said and handed it back to Frank.

Frank shrugged. “Got your mind off of things, though, didn’t it?”

The Nixon Center came into view, the weak, autumn sunlight reflecting off the glass façade between clouds. Three trucks parked out front, only one of them vaguely familiar.

“What do we have here?” Frank parked next to the white Yukon and noted a stench coming from a trunk on the back. He examined the lock and whiffed the air, trying to place what could only be the smell of decomposition.

“What’s in it?” John leaned over the driver’s seat and called out the window.

Frank shook his head. “Not sure, but I don’t think anything good. Someone else’s here. We’re going to have to make this fast.”

John unsheathed his knife, stepped out of the ambulance, and followed Frank through the entranceway.

“Isn’t this some shit?” Frank shook his head at the familiar group of escapees.

Foster turned around, slowly, as though he’d been hurt.

A young girl clung to his arm.

“Frank, what are you doing here?” Foster asked.

“I imagine the same as you. It’s one of the few places people are too scared to come for supplies, right?” He raised his eyebrow.

Foster moved aside and Miranda limped around him holding an infant wrapped in a blanket.

The sight of her with the child infuriated him, bringing his feelings about what happened to Holly to the surface. He pulled his pistol and took aim.

Scott stepped protectively in front of them. His back was covered in overfull packs.

“You don’t think I’ll shoot through you?” Frank asked. “It’s a little different when it’s your family at the other end of a gun isn’t it

“I’m warning you, Frank. Put the gun down.” Scott pulled his own and held it at arm’s length.

“Frank, stop!” John reached for Frank’s hand and Frank shoved him away.

John stumbled backward and hit his head against the wall.

“I’ve got no reason to live, Scott. You made sure of that when you killed my daughter. Can you say the same?”

Cold metal pressed against the back of Frank’s skull and pushed him slightly forward. “Lower your weapon.” An unfamiliar man had come from the room behind them. “Any of us fires, we’re going to have a hell storm and I don’t mean human. You try to hurt that baby, it’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

Frank considered what the man was saying and tucked his gun between his loose belt and his jeans.

“Now put your hands up,” Michael said.

Frank did as he was told.

“Kid, you all right?” Michael spoke directly to John, who’d gone pale and silent.

He nodded. “Just let us go, please.”

Frank clenched his teeth. “There is no ‘us’, John, only me. You never wanted to come back here in the first place.” John siding with the others and trying to grab his gun was enough reason to push him away.

John wrinkled his forehead and looked like he might cry. “What do you mean?”

“I’m better off alone than with a traitor.” The angry words came too easily. He’d gone too far down the path and had pushed John away before he’d even realized it. “Go,” he said and wondered if John could see he didn’t mean it.

“Put your hands against the wall,” Michael said. Frank hesitated. “Do it!”

Sweat rolled down Frank’s face and he waited for his pacer to fire. He took three small steps forward and pressed his hands to the cold wall. He set his forehead between them, though he hadn’t been asked to.

Michael took Frank’s gun.

“Come on,” Foster tugged John’s sleeve.

John kept looking over his shoulder. “You can’t leave him unarmed.”

“I’m not.” Michael put the gun inside a supply closet with the key still in the lock. He pulled the key and slid it down the hallway. “I’m just making sure we have a head start.”

“It should be safe inside, but we’d better check before we get too comfortable.” Foster depressed the front door latch and held the door to the Halstead’s house for the others. His back ached and the slightest twisting motion tugged the fresh sutures. He leaned against the jamb and reached for his pistol, unsure how he was going to navigate the stairs.

“You can barely walk,” Scott said. “Let me.” With three out of six adults injured, Foster wasn’t about to argue. Scott pulled his gun and circled the living room, checking behind drapes and large furniture. “All clear in here.” He gestured for Miranda to come inside.

She shuffled her feet and held onto Amelie, who slept soundly.

Michael kept look-out.

“You coming?” Scott asked him.

“In a minute. I have to unload.”

John tugged at the bandage on his wrist. “You need a hand?”

Michael waved him on. “No, thanks. You go inside with the others.”

Foster took a step and hissed as the pain shot into his leg.

“Come on,” Penny said. “You need to sit down.”

He let her help him to the couch, though she was limping almost as badly. “You’re going to have to let the doc have a look at your leg,” he said to her, worried about the sloppy suturing.

Miranda sat in the cherry rocker by the fireplace, her attention focused solely on Amelie.

Michael made several trips between the truck and the house, setting the supplies just inside the door.

Penny twisted several pieces of newspaper from the scrap pile near the living room fireplace and weaved them through a teepee of kindling. “I’ll make a fire and we need to get this place boarded up for the night.” She struck a match and adjusted the flu. The paper went up and a crackling light radiated the first bit of warmth into the room.

“I’ll get started.” Foster tried to stand, but debilitating pain stopped him. He shivered, feeling suddenly hot and sweaty.

Michael carried the last of the haul inside and closed the door behind him. “Why don’t you let us handle it, Chief?” He waved for Scott and John to help him.

Foster handed over the screwdriver he’d used to put up the boards. “There’s enough plywood for the first floor, screws about every two feet or so around each window.” Penny glanced over and he held up his hand. “Check the upstairs, make sure everything’s locked. At the very least we know Reid and Frank are still out there. God knows who else.”

Miranda looked at Scott. “We should’ve brought Frank back here.”

“He wouldn’t come and I’m not sure it would’ve been any better if he did.”

“At least we could keep an eye on him.”

Scott crossed the room, kissed her forehead, and then kissed Amelie’s. “You let me worry about him. I’m not in the business of keeping prisoners.”

Foster sat on the couch, unable to lean back. He tucked a throw pillow under his arm and rolled onto his side.

Penny stoked the fire, adding several large pieces to the now roaring flames, and then sat down next to him.

Foster whispered, though Miranda seemed to be paying no attention. “Want to talk about what happened?”

Penny shook her head. “Not now.”

Miranda leaned forward in the rocker and was visibly uncomfortable. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked, careful not to disturb Amelie.

Foster wondered if maybe she was giving them privacy. “There’s a small one on this floor,” he pointed in the general direction, “and two more upstairs.”

Miranda struggled to get to her feet and looked down at Amelie. “Would you mind holding her for a minute while I go to the bathroom?”

Penny’s eyes went wide. “I, um,” she stammered and looked up at the sound of footsteps.

Scott came downstairs carrying a white, wicker Moses basket. “I found this upstairs in one of the kids’ rooms. There’s quite a bit of baby stuff in the closet.”

Foster sighed, saddened by the reminder of the children who had lost their lives. “At least it’ll be put to good use.”

Scott set the basket at Miranda’s feet and took the fleece blanket from inside. “Sheets, blankets, everything.”

She smiled and set Amelie inside. “Will you at least keep an eye on her?” She asked Penny.

Penny nodded. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I just don’t have any practice with babies. I didn’t mean to… It’s just that she’s so tiny.”

“You won’t break her if that’s what you’re worried about.” Michael looked in on the infant who fussed and then went back to sleep.

Foster knew what Penny was thinking. Amelie had come from Nixon’s experiment and she knew enough to be afraid of her.

Miranda forced a smile and shuffled toward the bathroom.

“How about I have a look at that leg?” Michael patted the floor in front of the fire place for Penny to take a seat.

Foster coughed into his hand and winced as a burning pain ignited in his stitches.

“You okay, Chief?”

Foster nodded. “Yeah, fine.”

Michael took a headlight from his supplies and strapped it around his forehead. “If you can just lower your pants a little,” he said. “I can get a better look.”

Penny looked at Scott who, in turn, looked down at Amelie.

She didn’t need or want to show herself off which was one of the many things Foster liked about her. She slid the pants down only as far as she had to.

Foster closed his eyes and tried to get his head comfortable against the stiff arm rest. It was the next best thing to privacy.

“What happened?” Michael asked.

Penny didn’t answer.

Foster’s breathing became slower and deeper as his body relaxed.

Scott rocked Amelie and the rhythmic sound of the wooden rockers against the hardwood floor repeated like a metronome.

Penny let out a squeal of pain and Foster forced his eyes open.

“I have to clean it so it doesn’t get infected,” Michael said.

Infected.
The word sparked something within Foster. Some things couldn’t be addressed with peroxide and bandages and he did his best to convince himself that the wound in his back, certainly caused by a shard of bone from the gelatinous pile of undead, wasn’t contaminated. He’d considered, briefly, telling Penny what had happened and thought better of it. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since she lost her parents, and after being kidnapped by Reid, it seemed too much for her to handle. He’d come clean with her in the morning, if he were able to do so. Until then, he’d lock himself in one of the upstairs bedrooms and pray that if he turned, he’d forget how to get out.