LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series (88 page)

The first room we enter is the living room to our right. Everything in the mudroom, the entryway, and the living room is coated with a thick layer of dust thanks to the obliterated door handle. I look around the room, seeing the fingerprints of lives that are long gone, uprooted and blown away like tumbleweeds, like wind carrying the dust and ash of the past away. The bookshelves are covered with books that haven’t yet started to rot, but have rather baked in the heat of the house in the middle of nowhere and are crispy looking. I’m afraid to reach out and touch them. All of the pictures are coated with dust, impossible to see what’s hiding underneath them.

We clear every room in the house, making our way slowly, quietly moving as softly as mice when we pass through the archways leading into the next rooms. Everywhere we go, we find evidence that is quickly adding to my belief that someone showed up with the intent of bloodshed. The coffee table in the living room is shattered, the chairs flipped over and broken in the formal dining room, and bullet holes cover the walls in the kitchen. Glass covers the floor from an antique china hutch that has been shattered and broken, leaving shards of white glass all cross the floor The kitchen is a mess as well, pots and pans thrown everywhere and a cleaver sticking in the wall with haunting rumors swirling about it.

There’s a guest bedroom on the ground floor that doesn’t have a speck of dust in it, at least none from the outside world. I walk around the bed, checking underneath to make sure that there’s no one hiding from us. Lexi clears the closet and we come up empty. From there, we inspect the other room that we haven’t touched. We walk over the threshold and the two of us stop in surprise, looking at the room and feeling a smile spread across our lips in unison.

It’s a nursery. We look at the painted, pastel colors on the wall with cartoon elephants, giraffes, and lions holding balloons. I look at the white crib away from the window and smile at the sight of it. There’s a thousand different things here that make me want to jump up and down with excitement. Maybe there’s an emergency diaper bag or something that we can salvage for my nephew. God, I think it’s weird that she hasn’t come up with a name yet, but I suppose that’s none of my business. If there’s no one else in the house then this will be the first room that we hit, scouring it for anything that we can scavenge and take for ourselves. This may be what we need to save the little guy from the elements and give him a small semblance of stability.

We clear the ground floor, checking everything but the doorway leading to the basement. There’s something about that door that just doesn’t seem like it’s worth opening. I’ve seen too many horror movies, and Lexi seems in no hurry to rip it open and have a peek either. We abandon it and make our way up the stairs, thankful that the dusty carpet keeps it from squealing and ratting us out to anyone who might be lurking within the house. As we go, I glance over my shoulder toward the door, making sure that the door is still open and that we have a clear exit.

The second floor is mostly bedrooms. There’s an office we find where there’s absolutely no dust, which means that the windows aren’t broken up here. We walk around the banister that overlooks the stairwell and the entryway, making sure that we have a clear sight to ensure no one comes creeping up on us. The office doesn’t have much use but I’m sure I’ll want to snoop through it later after I’ve got Noah as stable as I can. There’s a library that looks intimate and yet spacious. It’s a very nice house, one that I wouldn’t expect to just be sitting out in the middle of nowhere. I imagine that this was a plantation house at one point, or something close to it. It’s the kind of country house that you expect bigwigs to escape the city to for a few months during the summer, or to host holidays at. It’s festive and warmly decorated. Each room seems to be as beautiful as you would have expected it to be in its prime. It doesn’t have the carnage and destruction of the downstairs. We find another room that looks like it belongs to a little girl. It’s a shame that we have a boy in our midst, or we would have clothes for a lifetime here for her.

The third story has a writing room and another small office along with two more bedrooms that belong to no one. Whoever lived here didn’t seem to have uses for the third-story rooms and just dedicated them to storage, and one of them looks to be a craft room. Walking through the third story, peeking over the banisters one last time to make sure there’s no one sneaking up on us, I come to the conclusion that we are absolutely and completely isolated out here without anyone lurking or otherwise hiding from us.

“This place is empty,” I tell Lexi with a sigh of relief.

“At least it looks that way,” Lexi says with a ponderous tone to her voice, hinting at the fact that she doesn’t quite feel right. I suppose she’s just like me, paranoid and cynical now. I look around. No, I’m not so scared of this place anymore. Lexi heads for the exit of the crafts room and stops, turning on me like a soldier on patrol. She looks at me with bloodshot, angry eyes. “Is Noah going to make it?”

“I’m going to try—” She cuts me off before I can finish my sentence.

“Don’t give me that whitewashed doctor bullshit,” Lexi growls at me fiercely. “Is Noah going to make it?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly, feeling a knot in my throat. I do know. I’m just too afraid to tell her. I’m afraid of what that kind of information will do to her. From where I’m standing, no matter what I tell her, I don’t think that she’s going to take it as good news. “Half of his face is missing, Lexi. Even if I somehow help stop the bleeding, he’s going to be in more pain than you or I could ever imagine. It’s going to be a tough job just getting him stable, but then there’s the infection. If we can get him in a room and surround him in plastic, we might have a fighting chance, but no matter what, it’s going to take time for him to get better. You realize that, don’t you?”

Lexi looks at me with a hollow, vacant look in her eyes. It makes me think of a shark or one of the zombies, the way she looks at me so cold and distant from me. Before she says anything to me or I can conclude this little intimate meeting, she turns on her heels and heads for the top of the stairs, vanishing like nothing happened.

Chapter Nineteen

I remember the first year that I experienced a hurricane and how powerful the winds had been before I evacuated the area, heading north to find shelter from the storm. It’s something that you never forget. The power of the winds here though, they make me feel like those winds were just soft breezes. I brace myself, standing out on the porch and looking back at the windshield-less truck. Greg is seated in the driver’s seat, watching us as we step out, unharmed and unmolested by anything that might have been lurking inside. I hurry with Lexi, eager to get everyone and everything inside. Every second we lose is another second that we dangle Noah’s life over the edge. I hurry to the truck, looking at Lexi who is dead set on getting to Greg.

Opening the passenger’s door, I grab Noah and start to help him out of the truck. He’s hanging on to consciousness by a thread, holding the compress to his face with a weak hand. Slipping his arm over my shoulder, I haul him out of the back seat of the truck and slowly walk him toward the house, leaving the door open. I shoot a glance over at the driver’s side where Lexi is taking my nephew and heading for the house, leaving Greg behind the steering wheel.

Getting out of the wind, I help Noah up the stairs, shuffling and moving him steadily, wanting to get him to one of the rooms with the enormous bed frames. It’ll be easier to try and quarantine him from the dust and the elements. If we can keep the dirt and the debris from getting into his wound, the more success we’ll have later on down the road. With each step, I lead him closer and closer to the top of the stairs. I can hear him straining. He’s grunting and I know that pain and fatigue are getting the best of him. He reaches out and puts his hand on the railing, helping to hold himself and taking a little bit of the weight off of my shoulders. I look over at the healthy, intact side of his face. It’s weird to think that Noah used to look like this. For only an hour or so, his face has been missing half of its parts, but honestly, I can’t remember it being complete before. All I see in my mind is the trauma that he’s suffered at the hands of Greg. He slips on the last step, almost taking both of us down, but I keep strong, holding him up and taking him into one of the rooms with an enormous four-poster bed. It looks clean in here. Untouched. It’s the one that I slated for his room the moment I saw it.

Taking him to the bed, I can hear that he’s trying to say something, but I can’t make it out. His face is too damaged and he’s still in shock, trying to keep awake. I look at him as I lay him down on the bed, making sure that his wound isn’t touching the fabric. He’s still trying to say something to me through the great pain that it causes him to try and move his lips and jaw. I put a hand on his chest, trying to calm him, to get him to settle down. I don’t want him overworking himself. He has a long recovery ahead and he needs to keep his strength up. I look out the window at the darkness that has fallen across the world. It’s horrible outside and thick clouds of dust are coming for us. If we’re lucky, it’ll start to rain to keep the dust down while we try to keep Noah calm while we patch him up.

“Noah, I need you to lie on your right side,” I tell him. “I don’t want your injury getting on the bed sheets. I’m going to try and make a sterile environment the best I can to help you through this, but right now, it’s going to be really difficult. One way you can help me is turning your head to the right while you lay here. Okay?”

His eyes, for the first time, look at me. They’re full of anger, pain, and hatred but I don’t think their rage is for me. He looks at me with cold eyes that leave me puzzled. I’m not sure what the message is, written across his brow and in his glassy eyes. There’s something in there, waiting for me to decipher it. He looks at me with those eyes and I can’t help but feel like I’m the only one here who isn’t holding something back. What kind of rabbit hole have I dropped down inside of? He slowly nods his head, painfully, excruciatingly painfully. I don’t know how he’s bearing the pain and not just blacking out. I offer him a warm smile and turn away from him, heading to get more supplies.

“Keep the compress to your face,” I coach him as I pass through the doorway.

Downstairs, I can hear Greg bringing in some of the supplies, the food mostly. He has his bag slung over his shoulder as he limps to the entryway, looking up the stairs at me with his emotionless, defeated look on his face. “That guy’s given up,” he tells me with a sort of certainty that makes me chill to the bone.

“How do you know?” I ask him.

“Because I blew off half of his fucking face,” Greg snaps at me, his voice piercing into this sharp, angry tone that catches me by surprise. His eyes are full of fire, two infernos looking at me and scorching me with their intensity. His lips twist back in a snarl and I can see that Greg is not keeping it together very well. I can’t blame him. If I shot off a person’s face, I wouldn’t be in a good place either. “Val, what are you going to do for him? What can you do for him?”

“I can try and save him,” I tell him with a calm sense of determination. I’m not going to get emotional about this and I’m not going to argue about it. Noah is our friend and he’s one of us. I’m not going to leave him up there to die.

“How can you say that?” Greg shakes his head, almost as if he’s disgusted with me, like this is somehow my doing. “You’re wasting supplies on a dead man, Val.”

“Maybe,” I say to him with a raised eyebrow. “But he’s the father of my nephew and I’m going to give him a fighting chance.”

“Val, don’t you get it?” Greg steps between me and the door. “I love you, but I swear you’re blind when it counts. We don’t have the medical duffle bag anymore. We don’t have hardly anything left after the fucking mosh pit of undead back there. What few fucking supplies we have, they’re going to have to last us until we reach Dayton. Dayton is a hell of a long way off still and you’re going to exhaust everything we have on a guy who is, without a doubt, going to die. Look me in the eyes and tell me that this is a smart road to travel down.”

“It isn’t,” I say immediately. I don’t know what Greg wants from me, but I’m not going to lie to him. Maybe he wants the lies. Maybe he wants someone to still have hope and belief that things might turn around, but I’m not that person. I can’t be. I have to be consumed within this world and become cold now, bitter, and as cynical as they come, but hope has nothing to do with this. Saving Noah is all about doing what is best for our friend. “But he’s one of us, Greg. It’s the least that he deserves.”

“It’s stupid, Val,” he sneers at me.

“What were you and Lexi arguing about?” I ask him, shifting and turning on him.

“When?” Greg is immediately on the defensive and I don’t like it. I smell a rat and when I see smoke, I know that there’s fire. I look at him, trying to take a reading of the situation and feeling awfully terrified of where this road might lead me. I feel like I’m holding a torch up in the depths of a cave after hearing something in the dark. I’m not sure it’s worth going forward. I’m not sure it’s the smart route.

“When Noah and I were getting gas out of the bed,” I say to him, deciding to take that step forward into the darkness. “When we were fueling up the truck and that army of things showed up, we could hear you two arguing. What was so important?”

“Nothing,” Greg says with a shrug, instantly looking away from me. “We were just angry, high strung. We wanted to get out of there and my leg was killing me and it felt like you two were taking forever. Plus, her son was crying and she couldn’t get him to stop. That’s all.”

I’m not buying it. I’m not buying it for a second. I’m tired of feeling like I’m the person who is left out of the loop. I’m tired of feeling like I’m the only person here who doesn’t have a clue what’s happening. Are they plotting to end Noah’s life to spare the supplies? Maybe that is what Greg wants and Lexi argued against it. It’s getting down to the wire and I’m about to snap on all of them. I’ll take a lonesome road over all of this secrecy and shadow bickering. “If you say so,” I say to him. I put an arm on his shoulder and shove him aside.

Lightning rips through the sky, piercing the looming darkness above and sending ripples across the heavens. It’s horrifying to look up and see such madness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a storm this intense. Already, I can feel tiny droplets smacking me on the forehead, breaking my mask of blood, ash, and dust. I feel so unclean that I’m tempted to strip down right here and let the rain wash over my body, cleanse me of everything that’s happened in the past few days. I would kill for a shower and it looks like God has heard the smallest, dumbest one of my prayers.

Reaching the truck, I grab the medical kit and what’s left of my torn and bloody back pack. I don’t have much, but it’s enough that I’m grateful that it was one of the few things left in the bed of gore and horrors. Grabbing a gallon of water, I decide that, eventually, I’m going to have to wash Noah’s face. He’s covered with as much gore and filth as I am. As I grip the gallon jug, I feel the biting pain of my own injuries. I’m going to need to take care of them first.

Making my way back into the house, I can hear Greg and Lexi talking in the nursery. At first, I fight the urge to go listen to what they might be saying, but I decide that I don’t want to be that person. I have a job to do and I’m going to stick to it for now. I’ll leave the secrecy and the bickering to those two for a while. Right now, I’ll focus on what I have to do and I’ll see to it that it’s accomplished.

With each step, I start going back to my training at college, thinking over what I need to do for him. There’s so much damage that I could honestly be working on him through the remainder of the storm without ever having to come up for air. I could just be in that room working while Greg and Lexi get out of their system whatever quarrel they seem to be having. I approach the room, slowly pushing open the door and seeing that Noah is no longer in the bed.

Immediately, my heart begins to race before I see movement out of the corner of my eye. All I can think of is that there is someone in this house, hiding and taking out Noah since he’s the weakest. I swerve and look at the movement, seeing that it’s actually him, holding a picture in his free hand, looking at the faces of the family that lived here. He turns and looks at me, his face twisted into a mask of pain. I wonder what he would do right now if I gave him my gun. The thought chills me. I don’t know where it came from, but I don’t like it. I don’t like how dark my soul is getting.

“Noah, come lie down on the bed,” I say to him, walking over to the bed and setting the makeshift surgical kit down. I watch him as he slowly moves toward the bed. He makes a strange sound when he swallows, almost as if the act of swallowing is killing him. As he lies down on the bed I quickly walk over to one of the closed cupboards, feeling the film of dust on the brass handle as I pull it open and draw out a shirt. Tearing it into strips, I make a sort of sponge that I can use to clean his face.

Standing over him, I immediately wet the sponge and start to clean his face, looking at the gray mask coming off with crimson streaks. He doesn’t look at me. His eyes look up at the ceiling, lost in thought. I can see that there are tears welling in his furious eyes, but I’m not sure whether they are from physical or emotional pain. I look at his expression, twisted and frowning. If he does die from this whole ordeal, he’s going to die a very angry man. I hope hell or heaven is ready for him, because he’s going to want some answers or some bloodshed.

With his face as clean as it’s going to get under these conditions, I immediately go to work. Thankfully, Greg’s shirt covered his wound from the majority of the swirling ash and dust that had gotten over the right side of his face. I look at the wound, how fresh it still looks. I’m worried about necrotic flesh and wonder how far I might be able to push him. He might stand a better chance if we try to cauterize some of the flesh, burning it so that it doesn’t decay. I understand the risk of cauterization and I know how dangerous it can be, but he doesn’t have a lot of options. Maybe if we’re able to get a sterile environment, he might stand a chance, but I don’t hold out much hope. We’re going to have to hurt him more to try and save him.

Immediately, I go to work on what skin I can get around the wound. From the flaps, I grab and begin to suture. He winces and grunts at the pain, but eventually the pokes of the needles mean little to nothing for him. As I work, I watch his eyes close. He looks eternally distraught, like his brow and eyes will never go back to looking relaxed or jovial again. He looks as if he is frozen in time to a point where he is angry and sad. I work as quickly as I can, cleaning away clotted blood and ash as I go. When I run out of thread, I make my way over to the crafts room, gathering what I need that will be durable and good enough at holding Noah’s face together. Thread designed for sewing isn’t ideal, and will be hell to remove if he survives, but it is all I have available. It’s a long process, filled with hours that whittle away while I work, completely in the zone. During my work I vaguely note the feeling of someone looking over my shoulder, but I don’t even pause to look up and see whether it is Greg or Lexi. I’m in the zone, and slowly, Noah’s face is coming together, though gruesomely.

By the time I’m finished, Noah looks worse than he probably did before. The flap of skin that I was able to salvage on his jawline is stretched up to his cheekbones, covering the majority of his missing cheek, shielding what muscles are left from the elements. All around the wound, skin is stretched tight, trying to pull his face together. It doesn’t look pretty and he’s not going to be winning any beauty pageants for a while, but I’m satisfied and very confident about it. What fear I used to have for him surviving is starting to burn away. If the sutures hold and his tissue begins the healing process, he might actually have a chance. I give him what pain medication I have in the proper dosage along with the few antibiotics we have left. I know that Greg is going to need antibiotics as well, so I try to run down the numbers and the supply that we have.