Find Me (Life After the Outbreak, Book 2) (3 page)

"Um, excuse me?"

She opened one eye and raised an eyebrow.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and took a step forward. "What do you want me to do?"

She growled under her breath and jumped to her feet. "We have six patients, as you can see. Vitals checks every two hours. I'll show you how. If they need something, you get it. Jack here," she waved at the older man with one leg."Likes to be read to. Urinals are over there," she pointed. "Bed three and four can't get up on their own. The other's you can walk to the bathroom. You have any medical training at all?"

"Not really."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course not. Well, I'll teach you wound care in awhile. The rest you can learn as we go. Stay where they can see you in case they need anything. I told them you'd be here."

I looked over the six patients. All but Jack were asleep. He sat up in bed smirking at me and I wondered what Nurse Sue told him about me.
 

Sue returned to her desk and left me standing there in the middle of the room with Jack still smirking at me.

"Well, you going to come keep me company, or not?" Jack barked.

I took the seat next to his bed and held my hand out to him. "I'm Andi."

"Yeah, yeah." He brushed my hand aside. "The troublemaker. She told us all about you."

"I'm not a troublemaker. I got in a fight. That's all."

"Oh I saw your handiwork. That poor girl was down here for over an hour."

It hadn't occurred to me that Donna would have come to the infirmary for a simple pop in the face.
 

What a baby
.

"Oh."

"Well, did she at least deserve it?" Jack winked.

"She would have if I didn't beat her to the punch. Pun intended." We both laughed. "So you want me to read something to you?"

"Nah. That idiot nurse thinks I'm incapable of doing anything for myself. I lost a leg and last I checked, legs aren't required for reading."

"Okay..." I scanned the room for some other way to keep Jack entertained. "What about cards?"

"Now that's something I can get into." He pulled himself upright and waited for me to get the deck of cards.

"What's your poison, Jack?"

"You know how to play Gin Rummy?"

"I spent months trapped in a basement with my parents and neighbors. I can play any card or board game in my sleep."

I shuffled the cards and counted out each hand.
 

"Being trapped in a basement doesn't exactly prepare you for this world. Does it?"

"No, I guess it really doesn't. That was a long time ago though. I've had plenty of time to get used to our new world."

"New world," he repeated. "That's one way to look at it. You alone?"

"I was. Then I made some new friends. That's how I got here."

"I was a year into my retirement. Fifty-six years on the job. Me and the missus sold the house and bought a rv, one of those fancy ones with all the bells and whistles. We were gonna travel the country in style." His eyes fell to his cards and he grew quiet.

I wanted to say something to make him feel better, but these days, 'I'm sorry', just didn't cut it. Everyone was sorry and we all had our own similar story. Nothing made it better.

"What was her name?"

He looked up and met my eyes. A small smile pulled up one corner of his mouth. "Sheila. Smart as a whip, but the woman couldn't cook worth a damn. I never could understand how anyone could screw up a meatloaf."

I nudged further, not sure if it would make things worse or better. "You have kids?"

"Nah," he dragged out the word. "My girl was all I ever needed." He reached over the side of the bed and pulled out a photo. "This is her on the day I met her. Carried that picture around all these years."

"She was beautiful."

"Every day until the day she died, she was. I'll tell ya, my Sheila didn't go quietly either. She put up one hell of a fight. Saved my sorry ass." He shoved the photo back down into the mattress on the side of the bed. "That's all I have left now."

His blue eyes looked briefly back to mine then returned to his cards as he began sorting them in his hand. I placed my cards down on the bed and pulled my old camera from my bag. I found a photo of Will and me that Dan took on my birthday, and held the camera out to Jack.

"That's Will."

Jack took the camera and examined the photo. "Not a bad looking boy. I guess that's why you're doing that ridiculous training. To stay close to him?"

I tucked the camera back into my bag and nodded. "Can't hurt to have training. I used to think I was prepared to survive in this world. I was wrong."

"No, no, I don't disagree with the skills part of it. It's the going back out there to fight part that makes you an idiot. All for a boy. Nonsense." Jack waved a hand at me and dropped a king of clubs into the discard pile.

"You think we shouldn't fight?"

"Hell no. I think we should kick some zombie ass until those bastards go straight to hell where they belong."

I shook my head. "Then I'm confused."

"Fighting to rid the world of that filth isn't what I'm against. But, how sure are you that's what we’re actually doing here?"

Nurse Sue coughed loudly and Jack's head snapped in her direction.

He lowered his voice and continued. "Look, alls I'm saying is maybe some of what's going on around here isn't what they say."

"What do you mean?"

He put his hand on mine and leaned in close. "I've seen things. Strange things."

Nurse Sue walked in the room and cleared her throat. "I need you to take these pills down to the General."

I jumped up and knocked the cards onto the floor. She just shook her head at me, disgusted.
 
I wasn't sure what I did to the woman to make her dislike me so much, but apparently it was big.
 

She tossed the bag at me and walked back into her office. "I won't need you anymore tonight. You can come back after your training session in the morning."

“I have a one-on-one session after that.”

“Whatever, after that then.” She huffed.

I cleaned up the cards and put the box away.
 

"Andi," Jack grabbed my arm before I could turn to go. "You be careful out there, okay?"

I smiled down at my new friend. "I will."

I waved as I walked out the door. Something on Jack's face told me to be careful. I wasn't sure what was going on around the base, but it sure seemed like Jack knew something. Unless of course, he was just a crazy old man.

After dropping off the pills to the General, I went to find Will by the pond. It was on the far end of the compound, away from buildings and soldiers, and all things military. I was sure they were there, for safety measures, but looking around, they weren’t easily noticeable. It was the one place on the base that it was easy to forget we lived in a world where everything normal was gone.
 

Will was standing on the edge of the water skipping rocks along the calm surface. He looked carefree and young. I couldn’t help but smile seeing him there. I almost didn’t want to disturb him, but he was right, we hardly saw each other for a few weeks and I definitely needed some Will time.

I got halfway to him before he turned, as if he could sense that I was there, and flashed me his signature crooked smile. I melted on the spot and waited for him to close the distance between us.

“Hey you.” He took my hand and pulled me quick against him. “How’s the new job?”

“Temporary. But not bad. Nurse Sue is as bitchy as ever, but one of the patients. Jack, is probably my new best friend.”

“Oh?” Will raised an eyebrow. “Do I have some competition?”

I laughed. “Maybe. He’s seventy-five, missing one leg, and pining for his dead wife. Plus, he’s a bigger smart ass than me, so yeah. I’m pretty sure he’s my soul mate.”

“I thought I was your soul mate.” Will crossed his arms in front of his chest and pretended to pout.
 

I pulled his arms apart and looked up at him. “You’re my everything.”

His lips curved up and he looped his thumbs into my belt to pull me against him. “That works too.” He brought his mouth down on mine and kissed me until I thought I would fall apart in his arms.
 

I fell limp against his chest and let him support me, wanting nothing more than to be lost in that moment forever. “Why can’t we just stay like this?”

“Because we’d starve.”

“It might be worth it.”

Will took my hand and led me over to one of the benches near the water. “I think that we can find even better ways to pass the time, though we would need to eat to keep our energy up.”

I almost couldn’t imagine anything being better than kissing Will, but I knew exactly what he was talking about.
 

“Well you know, if we went back to the basement, we would have all the time we wanted to explore those kind of activities.”

Will’s eyebrows pulled down and he gave me an interested look. “Go back?”

“Yeah, I mean, you thought we shouldn’t stay here to begin with. Right?”

“Andi, that was when we first got here. Things are good here. We’re safe. We don’t have to worry about anyone sneaking in while we’re asleep and killing either of us. Why would you want to go?”

“Whether we are safe or not is irrelevant, Will. You’re constantly being sent out and you’re certainly not safe out there. And like you said, we hardly ever see each other. This is the first time we’ve even had more than twenty minutes together where both of us were awake and no one else was around. Don’t you want to have more time together?”

“Of course I do, but I also wanna know that you’re fed, and not being fed on. This is the best way for me to keep you safe.” Will gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “Let’s not talk about this now. I know you had a really long day and I wanna enjoy what time I have with you before you start yawning. Okay?”

“Sure.” The last thing I wanted to do was waste my time with him, but we couldn’t avoid the conversation forever.
 

We spent the next half hour walking, hand in hand, around the pond and talking about anything and everything that didn’t matter in the least. It was nice being there like that. Almost like any other couple our age. Almost like neither of us had spent the last two years chasing off flesh eating zombies and fighting for our lives.
 

I held in the yawns until I couldn’t stop them anymore and Will insisted we head back to our room. Before we got halfway up the stairs, my feet were dragging and I was ready to camp out right there on the steps. Training with Janet was brutal and after getting in trouble, my guess was, she was going to be extra hard on me. As much as I loved spending time with Will, at that moment, all I wanted was sleep.

The last thing I wanted was to train with those girls for three hours, but I put on a fake smile and made the best of it. In the end, it would allow me to go on missions and spend more time with Will. Not that I was super excited to go out zombie killing, but at least it kept me from waiting around, worrying about him. I really was starting to believe that leaving would be a good idea, but I wanted to be with Will, above all else. That was what mattered.
 

I did have one thing to be grateful for, though. Donna claimed she was in too much pain to make it to practice because of her
injury
, so she stayed in her room, and I had an extra day before I had to apologize. I was surprised Janet let her get away with that excuse. My first week I was covered in bruises and had a sprained wrist. Not only did I have to come to training, but Janet didn’t even take it easy on me. I wasn’t happy about it at the time, but really it did make sense. There was no time to sit back and lick your wounds. You had to be able to get up and fight, no matter what. Certainly one punch in the face shouldn’t stop you from training.
 

"You done with your nap over there, twerp?" Janet dropped her bag down next to me. She gave me a whole five minutes to rest between the group training session and our one-on-one.

I guess lunch is out of the question today.

“No, please, Mom, just five more minutes to relax by the pool?"

Janet rolled her eyes. "Your immaturity is showing again."

"Uh huh." I shook my head and jumped to my feet. “Ok, drill sergeant. Bring it on." I knew better than to give her anymore shit. She'd make me pay for the next three hours for it, and I was already exhausted.

"You ever talk to Bear about Rose?"

"I was going to wait until after training to talk to you about it." She picked her bag up and started walking down the hill toward the weapons building.

"What do you mean? How is she?"

"Bear said it was too late. She was gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone. Dead. Too late." She waved me off and picked up her pace.

I hurried to keep up. "So that's it? She's dead, and no one was going to even tell us? We didn't even get to say goodbye. What did they do with her? "

She stopped short and turned to face me. "I have no idea. They probably threw her in a pit and burned her with the others. What do you think happens in a place like this? There's no time to mourn the dead. If we took the time to grieve for every person we lost, we'd all be dead."