American Revenant (Book 3): The Monster In Man (16 page)

Chapter 27

“How’s the side?” Gordy
asked his son as they made their way slowly to the pavilion for breakfast.

“Mom says I was lucky,
nothing important has holes in it or got sliced,” Dean replied.  “Doesn’t feel
lucky,” he said, holding his side, “still hurts like a bitch.”

Gordy chuckled, “I bet it
does, but it’s only been four days, it’ll heal.”  He could not express to
anyone but Jan how he had felt when the men came back.  The instant sorrow he
felt because of Jimmy and the intense fear of his son’s injury creating a
painful conflict inside him.

“Yes, well, it can’t heal
fast enough.  I had to tell Becca I was just coming up to see Mom and get
something to eat before she’d let me leave the house.”

“That isn’t what you
intend to do?” Gordy asked, casting a sideways glance at Dean.

“I can’t just sit around
that house, Dad.  I’ll go stir-crazy.  Besides,” Dean paused, his eyes going
distant for a moment, “just sitting there means too much time to think.”

Gordy raised his hand,
placing it on his son’s shoulder.  Dean turned to face his father.  “Dean,
listen…”

“Dad, I swear if you tell
me that Jimmy wouldn’t want me to mourn, that he would want me to carry on and
protect everyone here or some shit like that, I’ll fucking lose it.”

Gordy looked deep into
his son’s eyes, staying silent.  “Ok then, but I will tell you that you’re
going to rest that injury, so if you want something to do, find something that
isn’t going to put strain on that,” he said, gesturing to Dean’s side.

“Fine, I’ll sit on the
tractor or supervise the gardens.  Can we go eat now?”

Rick nodded to the two
men as they exited the back door of the main hall, bowls of oatmeal in hand. 
“Morning.”

Gordy and Dean replied
with the same as they sat down across from Rick at the picnic table. 

“What’s going on this
morning?” Gordy asked.

“Mike’s up on top-watch,”
Rick said, tossing a glance in the direction of the warehouse building.  “Cal
went down to the front gate to relieve Louis; Lynn, Alex and Everett are
working on the wall, Anna is with Jan still sorting through the stuff we
brought back, which I imagine you know already.”

Gordy nodded, “Yeah, I
saw her just before I came out here.  So everyone is staying busy, that’s
good.”

“Shit has to get done,”
Rick said, spooning oatmeal with sugar and fresh milk into his mouth.  “I’m
going to walk the outside of the wall, then do a drive through town.  Since the
shit with those jackasses from the armory I think I’ll extend the patrols all
the way out to the highway, a couple miles each way along 79, then a mile up
Route N.”

“Sounds good to me,” Gordy
said.

As Rick stood up from the
table Dean said, “Hey, find me after your wall walk is done, I’ll ride with
you.”

“Sure.”

Two hours later Rebecca
was leaning through the window of the De Soto, kissing Dean.  “Where do you
think you’re going, Scarface?”

“Just riding with Rick
while he does some patrolling, nothing to worry about.” 

“Well, ok then, but don’t
do anything stupid and tear out those stitches.”  It would have been hard to
miss the concern in her voice, far beyond just worry over his stitches.

“I thought you were my
wife, not my mother,” he said with a grin. 

“Common Law wife, which
also makes me a mother and sometimes a babysitter,” she said with a hint of
sarcasm. 

“Ouch, burned.  We’ll be
back in a little bit, so don’t spend too much time worrying.”

Rebecca kissed him again,
lingering for a breath.  When she pulled away she glanced to Rick.  “Be careful
out there, buddy.”

Rick only nodded.

Calvin raised the gate as
soon as the men were past, flipping them a wave as they went by.

“Rick…”

“No offense, buddy, but
I’m not in the mood to chat,” Rick said, cutting him off.  “Kinda the reason I
wanted to do the patrols, so I could do what Mike’s doing up there on
top-watch.  Avoid talking.”

Dean stared out the
windshield.  “Oh.”

Rick turned left at the
intersection of Highway 79, taking them north.  Almost two miles down Rick
slowed the car, stopping in the middle of the lane.

“Listen,” Rick said to
the windshield, breaking the heavy silence, “I’m not trying to be a dick, but
damn it I get tired of people wanting me to talk through my feelings, or tell
me theirs to be truthful with you, Dean.”

Dean continued to stare
out his window for a moment before responding.  “I get that, man, I do,
really.  I guess I just feel like we left him, like we all abandoned Jimmy.”

Rick looked at the young
man sitting in the passenger seat, “I know; I feel the same way.  But you and I
and the others know there’s not a damn thing we could have done that wouldn’t
have gotten every one of us killed.”

“Yeah, I
know
that, but it doesn’t change how I
feel
about it.”

“Nothing ever will,
buddy.  Learn to live with it or it’ll eat your insides out, slower than a
fucking zombie, but just as sure.”

Rick slipped the car into
gear, driving until he came to Fort Mason Drive, where he pulled in and backed
the car onto the highway, facing the way they had come.

Silence still hung in the
air, though it was not as dense.  The two men had found an understanding in
their mutual grief.

Driving back, they passed
the turn for State Highway N on the left and State Highway E on the right, the
turn to Saverton and Oko Tipi.  Rick turned off a mile up the road into Brown
Estates, driving the few short streets before turning back onto 79. 

Following State Highway
N, Rick drove almost two miles to the Clark Road turnoff, where he backed the
car onto the gravel road, facing the highway and stopped to light a cigarette.

“Back to smoking?”

“Yeah, I figure, screw it
why the hell not.”  Rick grimaced at the harsh bite of the first drag from the
stale-tasting cigarette.

“Good point.  Give me
one.”

Rick eyed Dean for a
moment and laughed.  “Your momma would kill me, buddy.  Besides, why start now,
these things will all be gone soon,” Rick said holding up the smoldering
cigarette.

Dean just nodded and
grinned at him.  “For a big tough guy, you sure are scared of my Mom, Rick.” 

“Damn right I am, Deany,
I thought she was going to kill me when she found out what I did to keep you
from passing out after you got hurt.”

“Yeah, I still hear about
that from time to time.”  Dean rested his head on the seat staring up at the
roof, thinking about the pall of sadness that permeated every thought, every
word, every forced smile for weeks following the loss of someone in the group.

Several minutes later
Rick finished his smoke, flicking the butt out the window, watching as it
flipped through the air to land in the middle of the highway.  “Ready to head
back?”

“No, but we probably
should.”  Dean sat up, flicking a quick glance to the right, checking for
on-coming traffic out of habit. “Hey Rick, looks like we might have a loner out
here.”

Rick looked over through
Dean’s window.  About one hundred yards up the road they could see a lone
figure stumbling along the blacktop, its arms hung limp, head down as if
watching its steps.  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

“Yeah, odd to see one out
here in the middle of nowhere, and taking a walk when there’s nothing to draw
it on.”

“You’re right, does seem
odd.  I’ll take it out with the rifle.”

Rick saw something dark
in Dean’s eyes when he turned to him saying, “No, I’ll handle it.  Up close and
personal.”

Stepping out of the car
Dean slid his FastHawk from the hammer holder he had repurposed as a carrier
for the tomahawk style weapon.  “I’ll be right back,” he said over his
shoulder.

Dean walked with purpose,
but unhurriedly toward the shambling creature, allowing the fires of rage to
build.  He wanted to hurt this accursed thing, to cut and crush and bludgeon
for the deaths of Sam and Jack, Garret and Jimmy.  Vengeance stoked the fires of
loss, burning thought away, leaving only hatred.  That the things he hated so
much could feel nothing; that hating them was similar to hating a car or a rock
never crossed Dean’s mind.

The creature continued to
stumble on, its shambling gait bringing it ever closer to its final death.

The zombie appeared to be
wearing oddly mismatched clothes; a dark pair of men’s suit pants and a women’s
holiday adorned sweater, both filthy and spotted with blood and other things
Dean chose not to ponder. 

A partially torn off
right ear had soaked the sleeve and shoulder in a thick coating of dried
blood.  Though the creature still looked at the ground he could see a thin
stream of bloody drool hanging below its face, dripping off to splatter on the
ground.  The pants were too short for it, showing a severely swollen ankle,
dark with bruising.  Every few steps it would stumble, the ankle turning under
it.

Dean shouted “Hey! Hey,
Hey!”  He wanted to look into the dead eyes when he buried the spike of his
FastHawk in its skull.

The creature stumbled
again, slowly raising its face and left arm.  Dean noticed the right arm simply
hung at its side, fingers twitching.  The face was swollen and badly bruised
along the right side, and covered in cuts and scratches that looked fresh. 

Only a few steps away he
looked into the creature’s eyes, raising his weapon high for a solid powerful
strike.  Dean stumbled in his forward motion; the eyes of the thing before him
were not dead eyes.  They were glazed, feverish, but they were alive. 

Rick was watching from
the car, wondering why Dean was taking so long.  He could understand Dean’s
intense rage, and he was willing to let him have the moment he needed to burn
some of it out.

It wasn’t until Dean
dropped his weapon and stepped forward into the one raised arm of the creature
that Rick jumped from the car, fearing that maybe Dean had chosen suicide by
zombie. 

He made the distance in
seconds, but Dean was already on the ground, cradling the body in his arms. 

Dean looked up as he
approached, tears streaming down his face.  Rick looked from Dean to the man
held in his lap; tears began to well in his eyes as he instantly recognized the
battered face of his friend.

Dean held the man close,
rocking gently, whispering through sobs.  “We got you, Jimmy.  We got you.”

As Jimmy passed out they
heard him mumble “…
find one
…”

Chapter 28

“Get him on the table,
here, right here.  Be careful!”  Jan shouted orders at the two men, her eyes
welling at the sight of the battered and broken man they carried in from the
car.

People began to gather
outside, wondering what was going on.  Gordy was hobbling over on his crutch
from the main hall, where he had been giving an impromptu history lesson to the
children.

“Anna, go get Tam, now! 
Don’t say anything about this until she’s in this room; just go get her, even
if you have to drag her down here by her hair.  Dean, Rick, you two wait until
Tam gets here, and don’t let anyone else in.”

“Why aren’t you letting
anyone else in?” Gordy asked, closing the door behind him.

Jan stood in front of the
man on the table, blocking Gordy’s view.  She slid around the table, hands
working non-stop to cut away the filthy clothing. 

“Oh, my God!”  Gordy felt
his heart jump in his chest, as if it were about to leap out of his throat.

The front of the old
sweater fell away, exposing a long, brutal slash across the front of Jimmy’s
chest.  The wound was bright red, tendrils of infection beginning to spread
from the eight inch long gash.  Jan ignored the wound as she started cutting
away the suit-pants.  The men in the room chorused exclamations at the sight of
the wound.  Jan finished by cutting off Jimmy’s ruined boxer shorts.

“Dean, hand me that
bottle,” Jan commanded, pointing, “no, the one next to it, yes; now grab a
blanket and throw it over him.”  She began to irrigate the largest of the
wounds, starting with Jimmy’s right ear, which had been ripped half off his
head.  “I’m going to have to debride this,” Jan glanced to the wound on Jimmy’s
chest, “and that one, before I can suture them.”

“Debride?” Rick asked
from a corner, where he stood out of the way.

Continuing to work
steadily Jan said, “Remove the dead or infected tissue around the wound, to
help in healing.”

“Gotcha,” Rick said.

“What the hell, Anna, let
go of me!”  Tam’s voice came through the door, high and angry. 

“Be ready, guys,” Gordy
said.  Rick and Dean both nodded in affirmation.

Rick caught the door as
it flew open, holding it while Anna led Tam into the room, gripping her
forearm.  He quickly closed it and stepped up behind Tam, waiting.

“What the hell?” Tam
asked, eyes going from face to face.  She glanced at the man on the table and
up to Jan.  Taking another step forward she watched the face of the man on the
table, recognizing the battered thing to be her husband.

“Tamara, honey,” Jan said
softly.

A quite “
Oh
,”
issued from Tam’s lips, more breath than word.  Rick caught Tamara under her
arms as her knees began to fold.  Dean helped get her to a folding chair, where
the two men stood like sentinels beside her, each with a hand on her shoulder.

“Anna, we have work to
do.  Get one of the big bottles of iodine, and a suture kit.  Didn’t we find a
surgical stapler in the stuff that was brought back?”

“Yeah, Mom.”  Anna deftly
maneuvered around the small room, picking items from shelves and placing them
on a tray beside her mother. 

“Anna, get me a bag of
the 0.9% Sodium Chloride solution.  We need to start rehydrating him now.”  Jan
swabbed the back of Jimmy’s hand with iodine and slipped an intravenous needle
into the site, taping it down with white surgical tape.  She hung the bag from
a makeshift pole made from a broom-handle with a small hook screwed into it
near the top.

Once the IV fluids were
dripping Jan went to work on Jimmy’s torn ear, slicing dead tissue from the
edges of the wound.  “Anna, use one of the bottles of sterile water and start
wiping him clean, starting at his feet.  Look for lacerations or punctures, and
check that ankle over.”

Jimmy would moan
occasionally as Jan cut or Anna cleaned and prodded, but he did not wake.  Tam
slumped in the chair, held up by the hands of people who cared a great deal for
her and her husband.

“Gordon, we need fewer
people in here, it’s too tight to work comfortably.  Go on out and let everyone
know what’s happening.  I’ll send these two out once I can get Tam awake and
coherent.”

Gordy nodded and left the
small clinic without a word, glancing back at the bloody visage of his friend. 
He offered up silent words in prayer as he closed the door behind him.

“Can you two try to wake
her, gently please?”

At their soft prodding
and rubbing of her hands and arms, Tamara came awake, slowly at first, then her
eyes snapping open as she realized where she was.  “Jimmy,” she said, her voice
weak and questioning.  Several small steps took her to Jimmy’s side, where she
hovered over him. 

“No more fainting,
Tamara.  Jimmy’s in rough shape as you can see, and he’s going to need your
strength to help pull him through this.  Ok?”

Tamara cast watery eyes
at Jan, nodding, not trusting her voice to speak just then.  Her hands
fluttered from Jimmy’s face to his chest and back like pale white butterflies
afraid to land.

“You can touch him, just
be careful.”

Several fingers alighted
softly on the least-bruised portion of Jimmy’s face.  The man stirred beneath
the touch of his wife’s fingers and tears spilled from her eyes.

Jan nodded to Rick and
her son, letting them know they could go.  “Go talk to Jimmy’s girls; let them
know they’ll be able to come see him very soon.”

Jan and Anna continued to
work on the silent, still form of Jimmy Mitchell, while Tamara stood watch,
helping when asked, standing by her husband’s side when not helping.

Jimmy remained
unconscious for three and a half days, unaware of his wife or daughters at his
side or the people that came to stand by him in silent prayer.  Some would
whisper, others would speak while holding his hand. 

Tamara gasped loudly when
Jimmy’s eyes fluttered open for the first time, and she wept when his glassy
eyes found hers.  The corners of his mouth turned up just as he fell back to
sleep seconds later.

Jimmy was in and out of
wakefulness over the next few days, becoming more alert and staying awake
longer each time he crested a wave of sleep. 

Thanks to the attentions
of his wife and the Jan’s medical ministrations, Jimmy woke late one afternoon,
eyes clear and bright.  He looked into Tam’s eyes and said, “Hi babe.”  His
voice was soft, but not weak, though it was still raw at the edges, raspy and
rough.

“Hey, you.”  Tams eye
glittered in the dim light of an oil lamp.

Casting a look around the
room, Jimmy asked, “Where’re the girls?”

“Getting some dinner,
they’ll be back soon.”

“Good.  How long have I
been here?”

“Almost six days now. 
You were in pretty bad shape when Dean and Rick found you on Highway N.  Dean
thought you were a zombie at first, almost put that hatchet of his in your
head.”

Jimmy smiled, “Glad he
didn’t.  Any water?”

Tam removed the cap from
a bottle sitting next to her, filled it with water and tipped it over Jimmy’s
lips.  “Just a bit at a time, Jan’s orders.”

“Ok.  Guess I didn’t turn
all zombie, huh?”

“No, you did,” Tamara
said with a smile, “you’re the new talking-dead kind.”

Jimmy tried a small laugh
as he reached up with his left hand to touch Tam’s smile.  She placed her hand
over his, holding him close, kissing his fingers.

Ashley and Miranda came
in soon after, followed by Jan and Anna.  Jimmy touched his daughter’s faces
and wiped away their tears, reassuring them that he was going to be ok. 

They all talked quietly while
Jan checked and changed bandages.  Jan watched closely as Jimmy visited with
his family, finally administering a painkiller when she saw him grimacing,
though he was trying to hide it.

Soon after he began to
doze off, and Tam leaned in for a soft kiss, followed by both girls.  “Get some
rest; we’ll be back in the morning.”  Jimmy waited until the door closed before
resting his head, his eyes closing fast.  Just before the wave carried him
under for the night Jimmy whispered, “Thank you, Jan.”  She patted his left
hand and told him goodnight.

The following morning
Jimmy asked Jan if he was allowed to sit up. 

“Yes, you can sit up,”
she told him, “just don’t get any ideas about jumping up and dancing.”

“No problem, I can’t
dance,” he told her with a smile.

Soon after Jan had him
sitting Tam and the girls came in, their joy at seeing him awake and sitting up
was enough to light the room. 

“Can you do something for
me, babe?” 

“Not until you’re fully
healed,” she said with a wink.

“Ha, yeah, ok, smartass,”
he said, smiling back.  “Can you get the guys?  I figure everyone wants to know
what happened, and I need to let them know I don’t blame them at all.”

Within the hour everyone
from the hospital scavenging crew, as well as Gordy, Jan and Jimmy’s family were
crowded into the small building.  The room quickly became stuffy and the door
was propped open to the sharp morning air.

Jimmy looked around the
room, watching faces, gazing into eyes, seeing the shame and guilt his friends
felt.

“I’m only gonna say this
once guys, so please don’t make me repeat it.  Shit happens, and it was
nobody’s fault.  We were beating a hasty retreat and I was pushing Alex to step
on it.  That corner caused the trailer to tilt; I lost my grip and fell.  There
was no way you could have gotten me out of there without every single one of us
getting eaten, so put that shit out of your heads now and let’s move on, ok?”

He didn’t speak again
until he had looked every man in the eye and received a nod of agreement in
turn. 

He sipped at a bottle of
water and took several breaths before beginning the tale of his journey home.