Drink in case of Emergency (16 page)

The shock of what had happened was beginning to wear off, and a dull pain was registering in Chris’s shoulder. Looking down, he saw that Jesus had bit through the long sleeve shirt he had been wearing, as well as the lighter tee shirt below. It was a small hole through the fabric, all things considered. Before yesterday, he would have actually kept wearing the shirt, worst case scenario he could cut off the sleeves and wear them both as workout shirts for the twice per month he felt guilty enough to go jogging. His throat felt tight from the adrenaline that was still pumping through his system, but he managed to squeak a few words.

“I’m okay. It’s okay.” Justin and Scott stopped arguing to look down at him.

“What do you feel?” Scott asked, concern in his voice. Justin wasn’t as politically correct.

“Are you turning? Do we have to cut your head off?”

“I feel,” then the content of Justin’s message sunk in. “Cut off my head? Really? That’s your ‘go-to’? Decapitation?”

“I’m pretty sure it would work?” Justin’s response was more question than statement. Soft and yielding. Tyler, still holding the door, suddenly jerked in exertion.

“He’s at the door. What are we going to do, guys?”

“Hold on a second, we have to make sure that Chris is okay first.” Scott was reaching down a hand to help Chris to his feet. Justin reached down and slapped the hand away before Chris could reach it.

“Don’t! He might be contagious. It might be too late for him already.” Justin’s eyes were filled with panic, his voice had a forced note of authority within it. He locked eyes with Scott and the forced authority broke into fear, matching his eyes. “We have to do what’s best for all of us.” Scott and Justin stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds.

Tyler transitioned from fear to excitement.

             
The sound of laughter broke the moment of silence. The laughter came long and hard “Hahahahaha. Whew!” Tyler shouted from the door. “This is the best day ever!” His shout was followed by a grunt as he hefted his weight, trying to keep the door closed. “Dammit! Jesus is a stroonnnggg man.” Tyler drew out the word strong as another tug on the door caused him to grunt with effort. “Hey Chris, did he getcha?”

             
“Yeah, I don’t think he got me too bad though. Only a flesh-wound.” The shock was wearing off. Chris pushed off the wall and got up into a standing position. Justin took a step back from him, putting his hands up in defense. “Chill out buddy. If I’m going to turn into a monster, I’ll be sure to give you a good heads up first.” Chris winked and moved back to the door and began pulling on it with Tyler.

             
“We just gonna hold the door shut all day then?” Scott asked, more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Tyler pointed down the hall, past Scott and Justin.

             
“There should be a janitors closet about halfway down the hall. See if there’s a tarp or sheet or some kind of blanket. He pointed to a place on the wall that was much closer, right behind Justin and Scott. “There’s a fire extinguisher right behind you.”

             
“I don’t really see how this is going to get us out of here. Are we supposed to create a smokescreen?” Justin raised his eyebrows in confusion.

             
“We make a smokescreen and escape. The sheet is to keep the smokescreen focused in this area?” Scott was already trotting down the hallway towards the janitorial closet.

             
“What do you think this is? Some kinda movie situation? Jesus is going to wander into a smoky hallway and we’ll sneak past him to freedom?” Tyler was smiling as he spoke, he really was having fun, in spite of the predicament. “What happens when we get outside and run into more zombies? More smokescreens? Fuck that. We’re going to let him through the door, wrap him in a sheet so he can’t grab us, and hit him in the head with the fire extinguisher until he stops moving.”

             
“What’s that going to do?” Justin wasn’t catching on, the stress of the moment was getting to him.

             
“Hopefully kill him.” Chris said through a grunt as Jesus beat against the door once again. “Or would you like to cut his head off somehow?” Chris rolled his eyes as he turned so he was facing the door as he leaned into it.

             
“Wait. I have another idea.” Justin cut in as Scott returned with a large grey drop cloth. Tyler vaguely remembered seeing it when they were repainting the North stairwell last year. It would work perfectly. “What if I run around, use the other stairs to get behind him and distract him? I could lead him away to another floor. Somewhere we could lock him up.” Justin looked from one face to another, he could immediately tell that Scott was on board, Chris and Tyler would need more convincing.

             
“If nothing else, it would give us a chance to fight it on better grounds. We could get the guns. Isn’t there somewhere we would be able to lock it in?” He could see Tyler wavering, opening up to the option. Chris was still stone faced, focused on surviving while not thinking about the wound on his shoulder. Trying to not think about the fact that he might already be dead, some kind of virus circulating his system until it turned him into the monster that was 2 inches of wooden door away.

             
“I don’t really know for sure, but I think every floor has one of those janitorial closets like that one. Maybe we could lock him in there like you did the ground level doors? Assuming they all open out, just stack enough furniture in front of it?” Tyler was working it through in his mind. He didn’t notice Chris step away from the door and walk quickly past Justin. Tyler did notice when Chris walked back toward him with the thick, red fire extinguisher in hand. Tyler saw his other hand raise and his palm rested against Tyler’s shoulder. Tyler looked up in time to see Chris nod and wink at him, and then the palm pushed and threw him off balance.

Tyler fell to the side, into the corner of the hallway. The doorway burst open, flying toward him and blocking his vision of the hall. He heard a few shouts, a muffled groaning, followed by a meaty thunk. The stairwell door swung slowly closed, just in time for Tyler to see the zombie that used to be Jesus fall to it’s hands and knees. Chris, splattered in specks of purple goo, was raising the fire extinguisher in both hands for a second blow. Scott and Justin stood behind him, looks of shock covered their faces. Tyler saw the look on Chris’s face, and for brief moment, it looked like the corners of his lips may have been curled up in a thin smile. The moment ended as Chris swung down the hefty red tank, it connected with another meaty thunk, and Jesus crumpled to the floor limply. Chris brought down the red tank, now smeared in purple blood, another three times, each connection sounding more wet and squishy than the last.

Tyler scrambled back to his feet, unsure of what to expect next. Chris lowered the fire extinguisher, his shirt and pants fully stained with Jesus’s purple blood. He wiped away a few droplets of purple from his face on his shoulder, and let out a low whistle.

“That.” Scott spoke softly from behind Justin, “was...” each word hanging in the air as it’s own statement “Awesome!”

The last word seemed to instantly cut the thick web of tension that had been hanging since Jesus first grabbed Chris in the stairwell.

“To be honest,” Chris said as he stepped away from the soggy mess that was Jesus. “Never in my life, did I even remotely imagine bashing someone’s brain in with a blunt object. But now that I have...Holy shit. That was something else.” Tyler expected Chris’s hands to be shaking, but they were steady.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t be as much fun if it were, you know, a living person. But holy shit. I feel like I won the lottery, had a threesome, and got a bullseye all at once. I don’t even know.” Chris shook his head in exasperation. “I fucking destroyed that thing. It was all like ‘Arrgggghhhh...I’m going to eat your brains.’ And I was all like ‘Fuck you, bash bash bash’” Chris swung his fists in the air with each ‘bash’. “Whew.  So much better than video games.”

“Chris, you might want to sit down now. And relax. We don’t know how fast this thing is going to affect you, or if activity is going to make it happen faster.” Justin was gingerly moving towards Chris and raising his hands up to his blood spattered shoulders, as he got close, Justin seemingly changed his mind about the endearing touch.

“We don’t even know if it works that way.” Scott said, a note of frustration in his voice. “We don’t know if it’s a virus or what it could be. Virus actually seems unlikely, when you consider that it apparently happened everywhere at once.”

“Oh thanks, Dr. know-it-all. We don’t know what it could be, true. This could be the first phase. He becomes more and more violent and then suddenly his blood turns purple.” Justin was still on guard. Tyler could see him tense, standing on the balls of his feet, cautious of the heavy, blood covered fire extinguisher at his feet.

Chris sighed, “Well. To be absolutely honest with you guys. I feel good. Maybe coming down off my buzz a little bit. And my arm does hurt like a bitch. But all things considered, I feel great.”

“Does it ache? Does the aching feel like it’s spreading? Do you have any strange hungers or thirsts?”

“You mean like pica?” Scott offered.

“The natives of South and Central America who were all but whiped out by Columbus?” Chris asked with a hidden note of bemusement.

“I think those were the Inca.” Tyler said, now standing over Jesus’s prone body. “What are we going to do with him?” He said pointing.

“Pica is a hunger for nonfood items, commonly due to a nutrient deficiency.” Scott clarified. “And we can always just throw him outside.”

“Throw him outside? Like, just pick him up and toss him?” Justin balked at the suggestion.

“So picking up a dead dude and carrying him down a few flights of stairs is too much, but you just can’t wait to cut off my head.”

“Well...it’s not that. It’s just. Umm.” Justin was starting to stumble over his words. “You know, he’s already dead. And keeping you around could be dangerous if you are going to turn.”

Tyler had moved up alongside Chris and was looking at his shoulder. “Assuming that you’re not about to turn into a zombie, we better get some disinfectant on that. Don’t want you to get an infection, what with all the real doctors dead.”

“Finally, someone is actually worried about me.” Chris had a look of feigned relief on his face.

“I was worried about you.” Justin mumbled under his breath.

“You know where the first aid kit is in your office?” Scott asked,

“Yeah, unless they moved it since my orientation.” Tyler was now poking Chris’s shoulder, which was still bleeding slowly.

“Great, you go patch Chris up so he doesn’t die of dysentary, in case he doesn’t turn into a zombie. We’ll find somewhere to put Jesus, here.”

“We?” Justin asked, a hint of fear in his voice.

“Yes, ‘we’. Stop being such a twat.” Scott reached down and picked up Jesus’s arms, dragging him towards the stairwell. Tyler and Chris had already vanished through the door to head back upstairs.

“I’m not a twat.” Justin mumbled to himself as he moved to pick up Jesus’s feet.

****

Fifteen minutes later, one floor higher, Tyler was pouring hydrogen peroxide into the bite marks on Chris’s shoulder. Once it had been cleaned up, the wound didn’t actually look that bad. The fact that it was there at all was the only part making Tyler feel nervous. Chris hadn’t said anything since Tyler had rolled up the torn tee shirt sleeve and gotten a good look at it. Tyler couldn’t really read his face. He didn’t have the defeated look that Tyler was feeling himself, Chris’s eyes really just had a blank stare to them. As if he were watching a foreign movie, and instead of trying to keep up with the plot, simply stared at the screen to enjoy the pretty pictures going by.

“It doesn’t look too bad.” Tyler mumbled as he squeezed half a bottle of antibiotic ointment onto it. He folded over a bandage and pressed it into the wound. He remembered learning these skills back in Wilderness camp in eighth grade. He learned how to dress wounds, make a basic splint, and apply a tourniquet if he had to. He really only remembered that last one because of how much he recalled never wanting to use it in real life.

“I suppose it’s not what’s on the outside that’s got your mind racing.” Tyler said as he wrapped gauze around Chris’s shoulder. “You feel any different?” Tyler tore off a strip of tape and fastened the gauze with it. Afterwards, he began putting the first aid kit back together. Placing everything back in the small red plastic container that had been sitting in the copy room, slowly gathering dust as it waited for an emergency to help out with. Tyler kept packing away the supplies, waiting in silence for the question to sink down to whatever level of consciousness Chris was at. Tyler began to worry that he was already turning. That he would turn his back for a moment, turn around and see those cold gray eyes staring at him like a hungry animal.

“Arm aches a little bit, and I’m feeling a little more hungover now. I have a feeling that is just the shock wearing off though.” Chris finally spoke up, the vacant look had vanished from his eyes. “We have any of those Gatorades left?”

“Brought you each one.” A voice called from the hallway. Scott poked his head around the corner a moment later, his lips twisted up in a smirk. Scott was shaking a bottle of gatorade in each hand, one red, one blue. As he tossed the red to Chris, he asked, “So, what’s it like, being a zombie?”