Dead, but Not for Long (7 page)

“You’re not hurting that dog, are you?” his mother called out.

“No, Mom, it’s okay,” Eric replied, shutting and locking the door at the top of the stairs. He
ran down the stairs to check on his guest. Fortunately, she was still moving.
He pulled her to the middle of the room and plotted his next move. After some
thought, he went back upstairs, returning with a full roll of duct tape. Carefully
unzipping the bag from the bottom, he exposed his captive’s thrashing legs. He
wrapped the tape around her ankles and knees a couple times. As a final
precaution, he taped her handcuffed wrists to her waist by wrapping the tape around her body.

“This should make you a little more manageable,” he said out loud.

As he unzipped the bag the rest of the way, ‘Cheri’ flopped on the floor like a live guppy on
a hot griddle. The stench permeated the air and the blood on her matted hair
had turned a thick brownish red. Froth seeped from her lips as she continued to
snap in vain at her captor. Ignoring her obvious defects, Eric stared at her for a moment.

“Are you Cheri?” He had to know and there was only one way to be sure.

A while after the breakup, Cheri, unlike Eric, had moved on with her life and had started
dating. Her new boyfriend had talked her into getting matching tattoos above
their right hips, which Cheri had shown Eric in the hopes that he would realize
that the relationship was over. Unfortunately, neither that nor the restraining order had discouraged him.

He peeled the blood soaked waistband, now stuck to her hips, away from her skin, revealing
the spot where the tattoo should be. No tattoo.

“You aren’t Cheri,” he groaned.

He watched as she stared intently at him, still biting at the air.

“That’s all right. Cheri doesn’t want me. You do. You can be anyone I want you to be. I’ll
still call you Cheri. Is that okay?”

She responded with a moan and a snap of her jaw.

Eric sat up and grabbed his radio.

“Jack? You copy?”

A couple seconds later Jack’s voice rang through. “Go ahead, Eric.”

“I’ve acquired a subject for study in my apartment. I’ll let you know what makes these things tick.”

“You captured one?” Jack sounded astonished.

“10-4. She’s in pretty good shape. I have her restrained and I’m going to run some tests.”

“Her?” Jack asked. “Eric, don’t even think about doing what I think you’re going to do, you sick bas . . .”

Eric clicked off the radio and looked down at her again.

“They don’t understand. I finally have someone.”

He stroked her blood crusted hair, avoiding her gnashing teeth.

“You’re not a monster,” he said, looking into her cloudy eyes. “You’re a gift.”

A knock at the stairwell door startled him.

“Eric? I can smell that thing from here. You’d better give it a bath!”

“I’m going to, Mom,” Eric called out, liking the idea.

“We’re going to get you all cleaned up, Baby,” he said, smiling at his ghoulish companion. He
grabbed a pair of scissors from his desk drawer and turned her on her back.
Carefully, he cut away her clothes and peeled them off. He couldn’t help but be
aroused by the sight of her pale, leathery skin. He dragged her writhing body
to the bathroom and started filling the tub.

“You always liked bubble baths, huh, Cheri?” he reminisced as he squirted some soap into
the water. Grabbing her under the arms, he hoisted her into the tub in a sitting position.

“You relax and I’ll be right back, my dear.”

Eric found a trash bag, which he stuffed her clothes into, before running upstairs. His
mother was still peering out the window.

“Mom!” he warned. “Get away from the window!”

Eric cautiously looked out the back door. Seeing nothing, he opened the slider and threw the
bag outside, quickly locking the door again. He grabbed some disinfectant spray
from under the kitchen counter. Seeing that his mother was still at the window,
he slipped into her bedroom and came out with a nightgown, which he hid under his shirt.

“Eric,” his mother said, sounding worried, “there are a lot more of those people than
before. When are the real police going to come?”

“Soon, Mom,” Eric answered, not wanting to be bothered. “I’m on the radio. Just stay away from the window.”

He returned to his apartment in the basement and held up the nightgown.

“What do you think about this?”

She was gone.

~*^*~

Keith returned about half an hour later with an armful of possible weapons.

Jack was just finishing his conversation with Eric. Putting his radio down, he said,
“The crazy SOB brought one of those things to his house and it’s female!”

For a moment, Keith could only stare at Jack, but then he burst out laughing.

“What do you think he has in mind? No, wait. Don’t tell me. I’m not sure my stomach can take it.”

“What did you find?” Jack asked, looking over the pile of items Keith had placed on the counter.

“I’m not sure how good this stuff will be but I’ll bet we can improvise.”

He had found a couple of decent knives as well as a heavy wrench and several scalpels.

“It all looks good but I’m not sure I want to get close enough to use them,” Jack said. “I
wonder if slitting a throat would have any effect.”

Keith glanced at Jack. “Good question. I was hoping for a crowbar or an ax but there was nothing
like that. At least we’ll have something to fight with if any of the infected get through.”

Jack checked his pistol. “Hope I’m getting overtime.”

“You and me both,” Keith told him.

“Why don’t you just use my gun?” Marla asked, picking up a scalpel and looking it over.

“I’ve already used up most of the ammo,” Keith said.

Marla dug through her purse and pulled out a magazine and then two more. “Here, will these help?
I think they’re refills or something.”

Keith blinked and took the magazines from her. “These will help. Thanks.”

Turning back to Jack, he said, “I need to go check on my patients.”

He returned a while later and told the others, “We need to get
the meds, soon, especially for those on the fifth floor.”

The top floor housed the intensive care unit and had several trauma patients,
some of whom were on anti-seizure medication as well as other critical meds. “If
we don’t figure out a way to do it, some of them are going to die.”

His head jerked toward the elevator when he heard the bell ring.

“Damn,” he said, pulling the gun. “I thought you disabled that.”

“I did,” Jack said. “Someone must have used a key.”

“Let’s hope it’s not someone who’s been infected,” Keith said, gun ready.

He took a deep breath and readied his gun, training it on the elevator door as it slowly opened.

~*~

Eric flew into a state of panic. He didn’t know what bothered him the most; the fact that he may
have lost his new companion, or that she might be behind him ready to rip his
throat out. He turned around and saw that his room was empty, except for the
clutter that was perpetually strewn about. There was no trail of suds or water
leading out of the bathroom. Did she have the presence of mind to dry off? Or
to hide? The questions haunted him. He sat on the edge of the bed to gather his thoughts. Where could she hide?

Staring at the closet door that was open just enough to reveal darkness, Eric thought he saw
it move, ever so slightly. He stood up and inched toward it, debating on
whether to open it slowly or catch her by surprise. He grabbed the door knob
and jerked it back to reveal a most hideous sight: his velour sports jacket
from the early ‘80s. He only took a few seconds to admire it then continued the
task at hand. His last option was to look under the bed. Nothing was there but
a collection of dirty socks and his private magazine stash.

Returning to the bathroom, Eric sat on the toilet, staring at the bubbles that his “Cheri” had
bathed in. The bubbles seemed to tease him as they moved in a waving dance. He
stood up to the realization that the bubbles really were moving. Reaching into
the middle of the tub, he lifted her so that her head was above the water. He
thought she looked ridiculous with suds hanging on her still snapping jaws and water pouring from her mouth and nose.

“I knew you wouldn’t leave me!” he exclaimed excitedly.

Cheri’s expression never changed.

Eric emptied the tub and lifted her by the ankles to drain the remaining water from her lungs.
He struggled to hold her high enough and she constantly snapped at his boots
until he put her back down. After he dried her off, he modestly dressed her in his mother’s nightgown.

“Isn’t that better?” he asked.

Her answer was to lunge at him, jaws wide open. Her teeth clamped shut a fraction of an inch
from his shoulder. Only his clumsiness saved him, as he fell back onto the floor.

Getting back up, he regained control, keeping a safe distance. He managed to sit her in a chair,
securing her to it with duct tape in several spots.

“We’ll make this one look like a head band,” he told her, while wrapping a length of tape around
her head to the back of the chair. As he pondered his close call, he recalled
the man that had attacked him at the hospital. Returning to his closet, he
grabbed a small tool box and brought it over to where she was sitting. Pulling out a pair of pliers, he smiled at her.

“This should help me to trust you a little more. After all, what is a relationship without trust?”

He lifted the pliers to her mouth.

~*~

When the elevator doors opened and Keith saw who it was, he lowered the gun in relief.

The gray-haired janitor glanced back and forth between Jack and Keith, running a hand over his handlebar moustache.

“Are we arming the nurses now?” Ernie asked Jack. “I guess that’s one way to make the patients take those pills.”

“Glad to see you’re still in one piece, Ernie,” Keith said. “I checked the other floors earlier and didn’t see you.”

“I was resting my eyes,” Ernie said, rolling his mop bucket out of the elevator. “If I have to
clean up any more zombie guts, I want time and a half.”

“Don’t go to the first or second floor,” Jack told him. “They’re both overrun with the infected.”

“I guess I’ll be able to finish my nap after this floor then,” Ernie said, taking the mop bucket down the hall.

Keith placed the gun on the desk, not sure what else to do with it. He was glad that they had
the weapon, though the thought of Marla handling a gun was nothing short of
terrifying. The woman still hadn’t figured out how to work the remote controls on the televisions in the patients’ rooms.

“All right,” Jack said. “The patients need their medications. That’s second floor, so we’ll
have to clear it first.”

“And food,” Keith said, glancing at the clock. It was already well past noon and several of
them had asked for lunch when he’d made his rounds. “Some of them can’t take their meds without food.”

“The medications we can maybe do, but then we’ll have to go to the cafeteria for food and that’s
on the first floor with the ER,” Jack said, thinking out loud.

“That’s going to be a problem,” Keith said. “It was bad enough when we were down there before,
but with the front doors open, who knows how many more have wandered in from the outside? Even with the extra magazines for
Marla’s gun, we wouldn’t have enough for the bottom two floors.”

“We have one advantage over them,” Jack stated. “They don’t seem to be too smart. And like
you said, I doubt that they even have the capability to use a door knob. I
think the only way they could get through a closed door would be by sheer
numbers. You get enough of them pushing on anything, it’s going to give. Too
bad we couldn’t lure them off the floor and trap them somewhere.”

Keith paced for a moment, thinking about what Jack had just said. “What about the physical
therapy room?” he suggested. “We could lead them in there and lock the door.”

The physical therapy room was connected to the exercise room by a wall that had a door and a
large window in it. Both rooms had large windows looking out at the hallway.

“We’d just have to go through the exercise room and then back out to the hall, leaving them inside. What do you think?”

“I’m game,” Jack replied. “Let’s just try not to get cornered.”

“That’ll be the fun part,” Keith said. He walked over to the computer to find the list of
necessary medications. As the list was printing, he checked his phone to find two more messages from Shanelle.

“I need to make a quick call,” he told the others, punching the buttons on the phone. He tried
twice, but couldn’t get through, so he finally just texted her, telling her as
much as he could in a short message. He advised her to check the news and to
find a safe place to go until the crisis was over. The message was sent but he
had no way of knowing if she got it. He grabbed the list and tucked it into his
pocket before turning back toward Jack.

“Ready?” Jack asked.

Keith nodded. “Let me go check the stairs first and see how the second floor looks.”

He peeked through the window into the stairwell and once he was sure it was clear, he
went in, looking up and down the stairs before walking down one floor. When he
reached the second floor, he could see through the window that there were
several infected nearby. Once they spotted Keith, they came over and began to
press against the door, trying to get in. He was taller than most of them so he
could see over their heads and he noticed that the elevator looked clear, but
it was hard to say how long that would last.

Keith ran back up to tell Jack what he’d learned.

“And I’m guessing I drew more of them toward the door. This might be our best chance to
take the elevator, while they’re busy.”

“Damn,” Jack swore, “I hate elevators!”

“Especially when we know what’s waiting for us,” Keith replied, taking the gun and magazines
from Marla again. He checked the gun to make sure the safety was off.