The Rabid (26 page)

From the
Desk of Dr. Lisa
James
Reynolds

December 26

"So,
the deal is that there's a watch rotation. All men in the city have to be a
lookout once each month unless physically unable," Jack explained as we hiked
up a long winding staircase inside what looked like a tower.

"Okay."

"My turn isn't for another week, but Kelli took me around at lunch today and I
thought this would be the perfect spot for my surprise."

"And what would this surprise be?" The night air felt great on my warm skin as
we exited a doorway at the top of the stairs.

"Surprises are no fun unless they're surprises." Jack tossed me a smile.

Looking around, I noticed we were on top of the city wall. It twisted around
the entire town, meeting the side of the hospital. It divided Braycart in two
and we were smack in the middle. Jack took my hand and led me to a secluded
corner of the wall. There were trees on both sides. Then, he spread out a
blanket and we sat down to eat.

"So, tell me about your day."

I tossed my head back to look at the stars. "There isn't much to tell. I just
sat around waiting. Alex and Rex made friends at school, though."

"Oh, yeah?"

I looked back at my husband. It felt so odd referring to him as such. But
looking at him while he was watching me with such interest made my heart
flutter.

"Yes. They seem to be having fun."

"Good." Jack moved closer to me. I could smell his unique scent. It put me into
a sort of numb happiness. I felt his fingertips brush my left arm. "I have
something for you."

"What is it?" My breath caught in my throat as he kissed me.

"Look." He leaned back while holding onto my left hand. Then he brought my gaze
to my own fingers where there was now a beautiful diamond ring sparkling at me.

Feelings welled up inside me. "Oh my God. It's stunning."

"You
think so?" Jack was smiling.

"Absolutely." I kissed him. "Where did you get it?"

"We have a whole bin of items we trade for fixing cars. I found this and knew I
wanted you to have it right away. I even used an engraving pen on the inside.
It has our initials."

"I love
it. I love you."

"Do you love me enough to have sex right here under the stars?"

I paused. "As long as no one's around."

"I'll take that as a yes."

***

Jack had finally lifted my spirits and I felt like a teenager as we walked back
to our apartment where Alex was watching Rex. He held my hand and made me
laugh. It was an important few moments for me. And then I saw the woman
standing outside our complex. When she saw us, she approached me.

"Are you Lisa Reynolds?" She was pretty with light brown hair and green eyes.
And while she was hugging herself — suggesting she was either anxious or cold —
she held somewhat of an independence about her.

"Yes."

"Thank God. I've been waiting here for an hour. My name is Catherine Holmes.
I'm Dr. Holmes's wife."

"I'll take these inside." Jack excused himself and left.

I turned back to Catherine. She seemed so much younger than Dr. Holmes. But the
more important thing on my mind that moment was why she was at our home.

"Mrs. Reynolds, it took me a whole day to find you."

"What can I help you with?"

"Well, in short, my husband is an idiot." She gave me a weak smile. "You were
the one who brought in the leg, right?"

"Yes."

She looked around briefly, then jumped on me with a tight hug. My muscles
wouldn't respond fast enough to push her away, so I allowed it to happen. When
she pulled back, she apologized.

"My husband understands how big of a break this is, but he's being an idiot
about how to deal with it. He kept raving about the doctor who'd cut it off
saying it was expertly done."

"But he didn't hire me." I felt the anger bubbling back up inside me.

Catherine looked at the ground. "Malcolm is very private. He means well, but
he needs to realize that we're in it together. These are my children too."

I wasn't sure what she meant, but her tone suggested not to touch on the
subject. "Is there a reason why you came here so late?"

She looked me straight in the eye. "I'm offering you a job at Malcolm's lab.
I'm under the assumption that you have some information that could help us and
I'm not going to let that go to waste."

My anger faded completely. I almost felt as though a weight had been lifted
form my shoulders.

"He's brought so many doctors here, but you came here yourself. I took that as
a sign."

"Won't your husband be upset?"

She screwed up her face. "Not if he knows what's good for him. Besides, I'm
right and he's wrong."

I could tell I was going to like Catherine Holmes. I invited her inside for
some tea. She agreed with reluctance, letting me know she couldn't stay long.

"Oh, my God. Your husband
totally
looks like Ryan Reynolds." Catherine
whispered the words to me across the tiny kitchen table while Jack made tea.

My
synapses lit up. "
That's
what his name was!"

"Whose
what name is who?" Jack came back to the table, sliding out a chair and sitting
backward on it.

"I
could see blood creep into Catherine's cheeks which made me smile on the
inside. "Oh, um... I was just telling Lisa that you look exactly like—"

"Ryan
Reynolds? Yeah. I'm told that about eighty seven times a day."

Our
visitor looked my way as if she wasn't sure whether or not he was joking.

"Okay,
okay. It's more like eighty eight times a day, but who's counting?"

"Oh!"
Catherine's surprise was followed by a bout of giggling. "I'm sorry... It's been
such a long time since I've heard a joke. Malcolm and our two children are so
somber all the time."

"So
what did you do before the outbreak?" I asked.

Catherine
glanced down at the table. "I was a model."

"Oh,
really?" Jack seemed interested. "Have we seen you in anything?"

Catherine
shook her head. "It was mostly magazine covers and such. But after I had my
kids I had to stop."

We
were silent for a moment until the tea kettle began to whistle. It startled
Catherine who jumped a little. When Jack walked away, she leaned toward me, lowering
her voice. "Just promise me that no matter what my husband says tomorrow that
you stand up for yourself."

I
nodded. "Absolutely."

From the
Desk of Dr. Lisa
James
Reynolds

December 27

The
next morning, I waited patiently for Dr. Holmes to come into his office. When
the door opened and he saw me, he gave a heavy sigh.

"Hello, Dr. Reynolds."

"Good morning, Dr. Holmes." I almost couldn't hide the tinge of superiority in
my voice.

"I suppose I was wrong about you. My wife...informed me of your credentials, so I
suppose I owe you a chance at this."

"Yes, you do."

"However..." He took off his spectacles and looked down his nose at me. "You have
to do one thing for me."

"What is that?"

"Find me a cure."

I nodded. "I'll do my best."

"We
shall begin with a tour of my facility."

"With all due respect, sir, I'd like to look at the dissected specimen I
brought in."

Dr. Holmes waved a hand in the air as we entered the hallway.

"Later. Someone with your credentials doesn't need to be bothered with busy
work." Dr. Holmes walked me down the hallway while explaining that the facility
doubled as the town"s hospital. The first three floors I could explore and work
on cases as I saw fit as long as it didn't interfere with finding a cure. He
informed me that I had complete access to the entire lab and hospital for
whatever I needed.

"I must warn you that I believe having a personal life outside of work is what
is going to help us. I don't want half-asleep employees. Therefore, you are
required to only work eight to ten hour shifts. But you must go home promptly
at six." He looked me directly in the eye.

We stopped outside a door that read, "Authorized Staff Only" in large bold
letters. It piqued my curiosity.

"What's in here?" I reached out to touch the card reader, but he grabbed my
wrist.

"You do not have access to this room."

I sized him up for a moment. "With all due respect, Dr. Holmes, if I'm going to
be working to find a cure, I'll need—"

"Yes. And you have access to the entire lab. Except this room."

I didn't argue further as I was eager to get to my specimen. The tour lasted
longer than I would have liked, but I stuck to it. When we were finally back on
the lab floor, he could see I was becoming anxious.

"All right, Dr. Reynolds, let's take a look at your specimen."

We entered the lab where the associates in white coats stopped what they were
doing to watch us. I felt as though they knew who I was.

"Please bring out the slides of the leg."

At Dr. Holmes's words, one of the assistants scampered over to a locked
cabinet, used his card reader to open the doors and took out a box of slides.
My fingers felt itchy. I snatched the box as soon as it was handed it me and
found the closest microscope.

The slides were unlabeled which irritated me, but I picked one out of the box
without a word and slid it into the teeth of the scope. My heart beat like a
jackhammer as I looked into eye piece.

And saw nothing.

I shut my eyes tight for a moment as if to clear my head and looked again. And
again I saw nothing. Clearing my throat for fear of berating the poor
assistants, I fished in the box for another slide. And found another slide of
nothing but skin.

At that point, I became frantic. I plunged my hands into the box and slipped
slide after slide into the scope"s teeth, but each time, only flesh was
visible.

"What is it, Dr. Reynolds?"

I'd had no idea Dr. Homles was still in the room when I slammed a fist down on
the metal table.

"These slides are useless." I looked up at the assistants. "Where's the
saphenous nerve? Where's the popliteal vein? There's nothing here but flesh."

No one said anything.

"Where's the leg?"

"It was destroyed," one of the assistants said.

"What was that?" I could feel the stress and anxiety rise up into my chest
again.

"Protocol is that any and all specimens containing the disease are to be
destroyed once dissected." Dr. Holmes approached the microscope.

I shook my head as if that would cause everything I'd heard to make any kind of
sense. "I should have been the one to dissect the leg. I should have been here
to oversee the slides. I can't do anything with what I have and now we're back
to square one!"

January 1

It
was a completely innocent night. My turn to be watch came up and I was excited
to make new friends. What I wasn't expecting was to get handed an AK-47 and
sent up to the top of the wall. That gun wasn't going to hit shit. The guy I
was watching with agreed.

"Paul, let me ask you something, Paul." I pulled at the Kevlar vest they'd put
me in.

Paul laughed. "Yeah, go for it."

"You
really
think this shit's gonna kill one of those Biters if they
attack us?"

"You sayin' I'm a bad shot?"

"Nah, man. I'm saying these things suck. They spread. Sure, you can get a bigger
target range, but your probability of hitting something is like, one in a
fucking million."

Paul was quiet for a second. "Man...I don't know what the fuck you just said, but
it sounded smart."

I felt a smile on my face. "I don't hear that nearly often enough."

The two of us sat back on a bench facing away from the open world. It was a
rickety bench with one broken foot, but it was nice to get a load off.

"Your wife wear the pants in the family?"

I snorted. "We both wear the pants, man. Makes for an interesting living
situation."

"She nag a lot?" Paul picked at a stray thread on his shirt sleeve.

"Nah." I leaned back and looked up at the stars. "She's amazing. Super smart.
Super hot. And super wild in bed."

"That's
what I'm talkin' about." Paul lifted a hand to give me a high five. I stared at
him.

"That's my wife you're talking about, dude."

He lowered his arm. "Sorry, man."

I laughed and gave him a well-deserved high five. "Just kidding."

We sat for a few moments in silence. If we weren't on watch, I was positive we
could have shared a beer. A light wind picked up. Someone at the top of a
nearby tower shined a light at us.

"Your turn," I said.

Paul rolled his eyes. "It's just a security check."

"I know. But I don't feel like gettin' up."

Groaning, Paul stood and stretched his arms above his head. Then, he flipped me
a thumbs up and walked toward the tower. I relished a bit of quiet while
enjoying the cold wind. The bench creaked beneath me.

Once again, I tilted my head back to look at the stars. As I began to relax, I
studied the constellations. It was amazing that even though the entire world
had changed, the universe stayed exactly the same. We were just a speck of dust
in an ever-expanding dark void.

Something suddenly didn't feel right. I felt like I was losing equilibrium. The
stars weren't the same. They were falling. No. I was falling.

The bench had tilted too far back. It couldn't handle my weight and I went
tumbling right over the wall into the open world.

***

I had no idea how long it had been since I fell. I woke up to clouds covering
most of the sky. My only light source was dampened by weather. I lifted an arm.
Branches and twigs stuck to my sleeve. I'd landed in some bushes. Itchy bushes.

"Ugh." I groaned to myself as I stood to brush dirt off me. Luckily there were
no Biters around. I stooped to pick up my gun. Swinging it over my shoulder, I
took a good look at the area surrounding the town.

Grass and trees littered a small hillside. I could see down to where there
probably used to be a small town. I imagined lights twinkling as people would
be sitting down to dinner.

But I had no time to muse. I had to get back inside so I could continue the
watch. I was halfway between the barbed wire defense and the wall when I heard
someone call out. But it wasn't from inside the city or up by the watch tower.
It was from outside.

I stopped in my tracks to listen. For a while, I heard nothing. Not even
crickets. But then, I heard it again. A weak voice was calling for help. I
looked around for some sign of a human being, but saw nothing.

Venturing closer to the barbed wire, I strained to listen once more. The voice
came again, on my right. To my surprise, a woman was tangled in the wire. Some
of her clothes were shredded, but I couldn't see much as she was wearing darker
colors. But her white skin contrasted with the black night. When she moved her
hand, I rushed over.

"Don't worry! I'm coming! Hold on!" I ran over to the woman with the gun I'd
been given bouncing against my back. Her choked cries became clearer as I
neared. But when I got to her, she'd stopped. She was still. I bent forward to
feel her pulse and immediately pulled away. She was ice cold. Had been dead for
a while. A large chunk of flesh was missing from her left calf. She'd been
bitten. And it looked as though it had happened ages ago.

Then whose voice had I heard?

I didn't have much time to think it over because a long sorrowful howl caught
my attention. I squinted into the darkness, but all I could see was the faint
light coming from the town gates.

And then a Biter appeared out of nowhere, coming out of the light and into the
shadows toward me. It was fast. It was on me sooner than I could react.

"Oh, shit!" I fell backward trying to grab my gun and landed on my ass.
Bringing the gun forward, I didn't have time for a cool catchphrase, so I just
pulled the trigger.

And got nothing.

"Oh, fuck's sake! Seriously?"

The Biter was closing in. When he lunged at me, I swung the butt of the rifle
into its head. A crack told me I'd made contact and the thing fell to the
ground in a convulsion. Shaking my head, I stood to see what the hell was wrong
with the gun.

I checked it over. It seemed fine until I reached the magazine. The damn thing
was stuck in place. My brain went straight to whatever-mode and I started
toward the gates again.

Another howl caught my attention. But this time it was behind me. Right behind
me. I swung around in time to see a Biter jump from a nearby tree onto my side
of the barbed wire. Okay. It was time to fix the gun. While backing away, I
pounded the magazine with my palm. Nothing. I tried the trigger again. Still
jammed. I shook the damn thing, but that didn't work.

"
Help
."

I stopped dead. The Biter had slowed down and was actually
grinning
at
me. Those garbled scratchy words had come from it.

"
Help
." The foam-tipped smile grew wider somehow. Then it made a
half-bark, half-heaving sound. It was laughing at me while its throat convulsed
from muscle spasms. It had somehow tricked me into thinking the dead woman
needed help.

"Well, fuck." Without another moment's hesitation, I threw the AK-47 at the
monster and turned tail to run. I heard the gun hit the thing, but it only
slowed it down. I was almost at the gates when I felt its fingers wrap around my
wrist.

It appeared that someone had noticed my absence as there were watchers yelling
for me at the top of the wall. They were already getting ready to open the
gates. I yelled at them to go faster, but the damn Biter sank its teeth into my
shirt sleeve.

"Oh, come on!" I turned and kicked the thing in its stomach. At least I had
steel-toed boots. It let go of me, ripping a chunk of fabric out of my nice new
shirt, and fell on its ass just as the doors opened behind me.

I rushed the fuck inside as three other guys shut the gates behind me. I could
hear the thing outside screaming and clawing at the metal. A gunshot rang
through the air and all went silent.

***

"Watch the alcohol, man. That stings." I swiped at the nurse assistant's hand
as she dabbed a cotton ball on the scratches running up and down my arms.

"Sir, you're lucky they let you back in. You were bitten."

"Bitten?!" Lisa's voice echoed down the hallway. When she saw me, she ran. I
stood to receive her and she almost pushed me over. "You've been bitten?!"

I pushed her away lightly and showed her the hole in my sleeve. "Didn't break
the skin."

She fell to her knees before me. "Thank God."

I went down and took her face in my hands, tilting her chin up until our gazes
were level.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't ever do that to me again."

I laughed. "Don't worry. I'm a liability so they removed me from the watch
permanently. Me and the bench."