Afterbirth (23 page)

In the dim cabin bedroom, time was hard to keep track of. It seemed like weeks since Allison had escaped, though only hours ago she’d been free for probably the last time in her life. She stared into the flickering oil lantern flame and started to cry. Two large bandages wrapped around her feet and searing pain radiated up her legs. She peeled aside the blanket, remembering the amputation as though recalling a dream, and squinted to see the blooms of blood spreading through the gauze on both feet.

This was only the start of her punishment for running away.

Zach sat on a chair in the corner, his head in his hands and his leg jumping up and down.

She searched her mind for something to say that would make things right after placing blame on him for trying to keep her alive. She couldn’t be against him. Not when the only thing certain was her death.

Feet shuffled outside the door. Boxes slid across the hardwood floor. It sounded as though Nixon was packing.

“What’s happening?” she finally asked.

Zach lifted his head. His eyes were red and swollen. “I have to get you out of here.” Blood smeared his cheek and he must’ve noticed her looking because he looked at his fingertips. “I tried to get to the window.” She followed his gaze to the bloody edge of the plywood. He’d tried so hard to pry the board loose that he broke two of his nails back past the skin.

She swung her legs over the edge of the cot to see if she could walk on her heels. Debilitating pain knocked her down as soon as her bandaged feet hit the floor. She collapsed and cried out in pain.

Zach rushed over to help her. “I’m so sorry.” He cradled her in his arms and gently lowered her onto the cot.

She grabbed his shirt and held him close, weeping into his broad chest. “It’s never going to be over, is it?”

The door opened and Nixon stepped inside. “It will be, soon enough,” he said. “There’s been a change of circumstances.”

Zach stood between her and Nixon. “I’m not going to let you hurt her again.”

“I didn’t hurt her, Zach. I saved her. I’ve been saving her all along, and while yes, I’ve had to hold her here to do it, I’ve kept my word which is more than I can say for you.”

“You took her away from me.”

“I took her away from the chaos. She was too weak and sick to survive it. You forced my hand, but I’m going to give you a chance to make it up to me.”

“Make it up to
you
?” Zach snorted out a laugh. “Why would I ever?”

Nixon pushed the bedroom door open so that both Zach and Allison could see into the living area. An infant lay still, wrapped in a blue blanket and fastened to a back board on top of the butcher’s block. A guard stood to its left, holding up an I.V. bag.

“Because I finally have what I need.”

Allison looked at Zach, her eyes narrow with suspicion. She listened, but didn’t ask for an explanation, figuring the answers would come soon enough. What she was hearing in Nixon’s tone was a way out, a compromise.
Maybe more than that.
She shifted her position and hissed out a pained breath.

Zach reached for her hand.

Nixon stepped around him to see her. “May I?” Allison lowered her head to hide her tears. “She needs something for the pain,” he said to Zach. He pulled an empty syringe and a vial from his pocket and showed it to her. “Look, morphine. That’s all.”

Allison read the label and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. She nodded in agreement, desperate for relief.

Nixon drew up a dose and injected her, gently this time. “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “As long as Zach does what I ask, you’ll survive. A little worse for the wear, but you’ll live. I promise.”

Allison’s eyes drifted closed, the pain slowly leaving her, but not before she heard the bargain.

“What do I have to do?” Zach asked.

“Help me take back the center.”

The common area outside the pharmacy had gone, more or less, quiet. The infected gnawed Brett near to the bone.

Frank lowered the shade over the dispensary window to block the view.

“You have a plan to get us out of here, right?” He handed Reid the syringes.

Reid collapsed into a wheeled office chair and put his head in his hands. “Yeah, sure I do.” He dropped his bag of pills on the floor.

“When were you going to tell me?” Frank asked.

Reid sighed. “How did you even know?”

“Your eyes gave it away.”

Reid lifted his shirt and pushed the needle into the tiny fat pad covering his stomach. He depressed the plunger and set the empty syringe on the desk.

Frank picked it up and dropped it into a red sharps container hanging on the wall. “What was that about out there?” He pointed toward the waiting area. “Aren’t you two on the same side?”

“Hardly.” Reid scoffed. “If I hadn’t seen this coming, I’d have been dead already.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been taking the shots since the outbreak. You can’t live with these things and not expect to get bit, but it wasn’t a bite that got me.” Reid unburdened his soul about the baby he’d passed off as Miranda’s and how he lied about her being dead. “Nixon’s been hunting me for months and he injected me with tainted blood to test whether or not the baby I gave him was hers. The shots slowed down the virus, but I can’t say for how much longer.”

Frank sighed. “Looks like we have more than one common enemy.”

“Nixon sent me back here with Brett to get Miranda’s corpse. I can’t bring him what I don’t have, and without it, there’s no cure. That’s about as fucked as a guy can get, right?”

Frank scratched his head and saw his opportunity to get back at Scott. “Not necessarily. What if I told you I knew where she was?”

Reid raised his eyebrows. “I’d ask what’s in it for you.”

A loud thump came at the pharmacy door followed by the clawing of nails as the infected tried to get in.

“We need to get out of here.” Frank whispered.

Reid shouldered his bag of supplies and stood. “What do you have for ammo?”

Frank checked his clip. “Six shots.”

Reid checked the gun he’d taken off of Brett. “It’s more than I’ve got. We’ll have to improvise. See anything around here we can use as a weapon?” Reid sorted through the desk drawers.

Frank looked around the room and then sifted through the mess on top of the desk. He pushed aside a stack of unopened mail and saw a silver handle. “There’s this.” He handed Reid the blade-like opener.

Reid seemed unimpressed. “Anything else?” He searched the storage room and came back empty handed. He took the hammer out of his belt loop and examined a slight crack in the handle. “Guess we’ll have to make do.” He pushed aside the gray, metal filing cabinet and a sea of flailing arms came through the open window. A chorus of moans filled the small space as the infected grasped for a meal.

A petite, infected female led the pack. The top half of her head was the only thing visible above the large, rectangular window. Reid drove the letter opener into her eye, far enough that his hand touched her face and the spike came through the other side with a
crack
.

Frank lifted the edge of the shade, helpless to do more than just watch. “Look out.”

A male clawed his way through the pack. Pieces of Brett’s uniform stuck between his jagged teeth. Reid raised the hammer and lowered the claw into the man’s skull, killing him instantly. He pulled the hook from the man’s head and his body collapsed on top of the woman’s.

Frank was afraid to walk past them. “Help me move this.” He tried to clear the other window, but the cabinet was too heavy. Reid hesitated. “Come on, you can’t take them all out yourself.”

Reid slid the filing cabinet across the floor and the horde frenzied, some of them turning their attention toward Frank.

Frank took aim and fired. “Six.” The male with the hole in his pants and the gaping thigh wound went down. “Five.” Another shot took down an elderly female. Reid kept to the window, cutting down those he could reach with the claw of the hammer. “Four.” He counted down until there were only two infected left.

“One shot left,” Frank said, “And two of them.” His ears rang from the repetitive noise and his chest ached from the stress.

Reid threw open the door and ran out into the room with the hammer held high over his head.

“What the hell are you doing?” Frank fought the lightheadedness.

Reid was a bloody blur as he attacked the largest of the remaining infected with the hammer. The first blow cracked the man’s skull, but he kept coming. The break distorted his face. Reid leveled a second, fatal hit. The frail, elderly woman went down quickly and easily. “Come on!” he said and waved for Frank to hurry.

Frank’s heart raced. A squeezing sensation formed in his chest and the pressure spread to his right arm. He reached for his nitroglycerine tablets, but dropped the bottle. The pain worsened and made him feel weak. He held onto the counter and willed his legs to move, but he was frozen. The room spun and the smell of death made his nausea worse as he waited for his pacer to fire.

“Help me,” he whispered.

Reid rushed over to him and caught him just as he started to fall.

Blood soaked into the beige carpet and an intermittent trickle ran down Miranda’s legs. Crimson handprints stained the window panes and the master bedroom resembled a crime scene. Miranda stared at the empty parking space, wondering how long ago Michael had left and how she could have slept through him taking her daughter who was only feet away in the crib. She held a receiving blanket to her face and breathed in the delicate fragrance of the pink baby lotion she’d slathered Amelie with after washing her.

“I was wrong. We shouldn’t have let the boy go,” she said. Scott stood silently beside her. “Michael wouldn’t have wanted Amelie if it wasn’t for his son.” The statement rang half-true, even as she said it. The world needed a cure, and Amelie was at the crux. If it hadn’t been Michael coming for her, it would have eventually been Nixon. This close to the center, she could almost feel his presence. “We have to get her back,” she said, though she could barely stand.

Scott lifted her arm around his neck and walked her to the attached bathroom. “We’ll find her, but we have to get you taken care of first.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes as clots spilled from inside of her.

John stared from the doorway and Scott looked over at him.

“There’s a pack from the hospital, downstairs. Bring me the box of pads, would you?” Scott lowered Miranda onto the toilet and when John moved away, helped her out of her underwear.

Blood ran out of her and splashed the water’s surface in spurts like a leaky faucet.

Scott stripped off his shirt and washed his hands. The blood on them wasn’t hers.

“What happened?” she asked. Her voice was barely a whisper.

Scott took the washcloth off the towel rack and soaked it with soap and water. “Nothing, it’s fine.” He knelt in front of her and started washing her legs.

The cold water made her shiver.

He lifted her soiled dress to wash her thighs and she grabbed his wrist, terrified that he had done something to make Michael angry, that he had been early on the two weeks. “You gave your word.” She choked up, praying that it wasn’t Scott’s fault Amelie had been taken.

“It’s not the boy’s, Miranda.” A moment of silence followed before he told her the truth. “It’s Penny’s. Somehow she and Foster were infected.”

“Oh, God. We have to get out of here.” The thought of being locked in with two infected terrified her. Now, more than ever, she needed to stay safe. Amelie’s safe return depended on it. She reached for the edge of the sink to help her stand.

Scott eased her back down. “I took care of it. We’re safe.”

She buried her face in her hands and wept. The memory of the joy on Penny’s parents’ faces when Penny arrived home made the loss hurt worse. “How could this have happened?”

“Foster’s injury, I guess. It didn’t look like a bite, but apparently the infection spreads other ways.” Scott lifted her dress over her head and traded her soiled clothes for clean ones. “We have to be careful. Seems we’re all in more trouble than we thought.”

The reality of having lost two more in their dwindling group hit home. Sadness for Penny magnified her worry for Amelie’s safety and she wondered if all of the fighting, if risking her life to save the women at the Nixon Center, was for nothing.

“I’m sorry, Miranda.” Scott wiped the tears from her cheek.

John cleared his throat and handed Scott a pack of sanitary napkins over his shoulder with his back to the bathroom.

“Thanks,” he said and looked up when John didn’t leave. “Something else?”

“I should have known something was wrong,” John said.

“Why do you say that?”

John shrugged. “I heard shuffling around and growling. The doctor gave me something for pain so I thought I was hearing things, but what else would make that noise?”

Miranda held her hand to her forehead, the room spinning as she descended into a pit of worry and angst.

“What about Amelie?” Scott asked John. “Do you remember the last time you heard her crying?”

John shook his head. “I heard some doors opening and closing early this morning. Figured Michael was out at the truck again, but there wasn’t any crying.”

A cold chill swept through Miranda and she shivered. Scott came in and out of focus and John’s voice became distorted. She swallowed, hard, several times to clear her ears. The blood flow between her legs increased to a steady, urine-like stream and made her weaker. She leaned her head against the vanity, suddenly too woozy to sit up.

“Miranda, honey.” Scott patted her hand between his. “Miranda, can you hear me?”

In her head, she said “yes”.

Clearly, Scott didn’t hear her.