The Last Blade Of Grass (24 page)

Chapter Eleven

The Aftermath

Pain. That’s what I feel. Maybe not so much pain as it is a sharp tingle. My whole body feels like stepping on a foot that has fallen asleep, but in a less agonizing way. The fever took a huge toll on my body, but I can feel that I am still me. At least I haven’t paid the ultimate toll this time.

I’ll need to get Simone’s attention to get me out of these restraints. I hope she’s in here. “Himoa. Himoa?” I’m trying to say her name, but with this wood bit in my mouth, Himoa is all I can get out. “Himoa, Aah ooh Eaah?” She must be here because I can vaguely feel a hand start to grip mine. Her voice is calming as she speaks to me, like a length of rope pulling me to safety after being trapped in a deep and dark cave.

“There you are. You must not be feeling very good, Eddie Your hand is still really warm.”

I love her face staring down at me. It’s expressing such a mixture of concern and relief.

“You’re still talking, so I’ll assume you haven’t turned. I’m going to remove your gag and see how well you are, okay?”

I can only grunt in reply.

The gag feels great coming out, except for my tongue sticking to it a bit. My mouth is really dry from being locked open, and I can now feel the stiffness of my jaw. I guess it’s all over. I don’t feel like biting her and my thoughts seem clear. I wonder how long I’ve been out. “Simone, I need some water, please.”

She drops a little in my mouth with a large soup spoon, and says, “Just a little now or you’ll choke while you’re tied down. I’m going to check your temperature, and if it’s good, I’ll give you the rabbit test.”

The rabbit test is a simple “what will you bite” test we figured on giving anyone we had to tie down after being bitten. What we do is place a live rabbit over the mouth of the infected person, in this case, me. If I bite the rabbit, then I have changed. We take extra precautions like this before untying someone just in case changes to the symptoms or outcomes in the disease occur. In this case, I was bitten by a runner that had extra mobility, so we don’t know if that is a result in a change in the disease or just a change in how that former person reacted to the illness.

I have a thermometer in my armpit checking the level of my fever, and I ask how long I have been out. “Eighty-seven minutes,” she says. “And you peaked at one hundred three degrees.”

This is good news. It takes a far higher temperature to actually cause brain damage, especially the type associated with this disease. What is a little more disconcerting to me is that the rabbit that Simone is holding has reminded me that I am very hungry. But while the fur is running against my mouth, I have no interest in biting it. I just want to get something normal to eat, maybe some stew.

I happily declare, “That means I pass, right? Can you unshackle me now? I am seriously stiff from the fever and being locked down in one position like this.” But Simone doesn’t reply. “Simone? Can you loosen the straps please?”

She replies in a coy manner, “Give me a second, Eddie. I’m deciding whether I should use your immobilized state and celebrate by taking advantage of you.”

I laugh, and reply while she removes my head strap and the restraining box, “You don’t have to worry about me resisting, Simone. I’m not sure how well I could perform, though, feeling like I do.”

Simone smiles, un-does the rest of my straps, and then helps me sit up. I ease my legs over the side and sit there as she leans in and gives me a strong yet tender hug.

She gives a little shudder, and says, “I thought I lost you again. You have to stop doing that, Eddie.”

“Believe me, Simone, I know what you mean. We should have never been in this position in the first place. We let our guards down at that shoe store. I shouldn’t have had everyone just watching me and the two infected we had a visual on. We’ll be more careful next time. It’s a good lesson for all of us to have learned.”

She nods while she steps back, “I know it’s that also, but we were exhausted as well. It's too difficult for us to go on these trips with all the kids by ourselves. Just like here at the house, we need a rotating shift of lookouts when we go out. We need to have more people with us when we go.”

“Or we should rethink taking them with us. I mean, I know we both agreed and thought it was a good idea to teach them what is going on, but now that there are runners, everything has changed.”

“That was one man, Eddie. Who knows what his circumstances were when he changed? That doesn’t mean there are more of them out there!”

“There are more out there, Simone, there always are. And that isn’t the worst part. The worst part is what he is capable of.”

“I know! I know. He can run and move his hands. I don’t want to talk about this right now,” she says.

“No, Simone, it’s not that, and we need to talk about it while it’s still reasonably fresh in our minds. I think that runner was tracking the two slower infected, following them to see what they would turn up. Or worse, it was using them as bait.”

“Oh, come on. You’re just upset by the fact that we were surprised.”

“Yes and no, Simone. We were surprised, but think about how it happened. We were away from the ranch for five days and barely saw any of the infected. There were plenty of bodies everywhere, so we know a lot of them have died off, either from the cold or maybe starvation. So there are barely any left freely walking out where we were, and yet two infected happen to show up following us and they are followed by a new type, a runner. It can’t be coincidence.”

Simone closes her eyes, shakes her head, and says, “It’s the cold.”

“What?”

“The winter, it has to be the cold weather,” she starts explaining to me. “The fever is what damages the brain and destroys fine motor skills and higher cognitive functions. Anyone that has become infected during this past winter or during extreme cold could have had the effects of the fever minimized. They might not just be able to run and use their hands, Eddie. They might be able to think like us, to strategize.”

“That would help explain the whole attack at the shoe store. If those infected were following our scent and the runner was following them, it waited for us to get separated. Once I was distracted by fighting the other two infected, it came in for the kill. There will be more of them out there, and if they can hunt us by stealth and run, it opens up a whole new world of danger for us. Just a few of them could wipe out the remaining groups of people on the planet.”

My mind starts racing again on what needs to be done. We have to let everyone in our group know, get on the radio, and tell anyone we can contact about the threat of runners and the cold. Everyone will have to go out in groups, the bigger the better.

That is the key to survival throughout the ages. More people, a larger group. Defense in numbers is always the preferred way if possible. The tough part these days is finding people you can trust with your family. Which reminds me, “Simone, were is everybody? Why are Greg, Jessica, and Lilly the only ones here? What has been going on?”

Simone takes a deep breath, and says, “First, get cleaned up. Get into the house and take a shower. I have some clothes in our room that I set out for you to change into if things turned out as they have. While you’re doing that, I’ll go let Greg and the others know that your fever broke, you’re alive and normal, well, as normal as ever.” She smiles at me and sticks out her tongue before quickly continuing, “It’s still early, only about eight or eight thirty p.m., so it would be a good time for everyone to sit down together. We can find out what happened here and vice versa.”

She gives me another long hug and just looks into my eyes before turning and walking out the door. I leave and head to the house.

*

While I wash the grit of the road off of me, I realize I am also washing off the blood of the guy I killed when I got here. I am pissed more than ashamed that I had to kill him. He was acting crazy, and I wanted my family to be safe at home. No one will stand between my family and their safety without that person or me dying. That’s just how it is now. No call to the police to remove an intruder these days. I don’t know what I feel about Mike, Craig’s son, or his sick wife. I guess I’ll figure out what to feel after I meet with them. Hopefully it doesn’t end up being a revenge shoot out.

*

Everyone is in the living room when I arrive, except for Mike’s mom. She must be pretty sick to still be laid up. Mike appears to be a young teenager, 14 or 15 years old. He has that awkward teenager look where his body parts just don’t seem to match up yet. He looks angry and depressed, sitting on one of the two couches next to Lilly and Hannah. He glances at me briefly, and then looks away without any noticeable change to his expression. Either he doesn’t know who I am and that I killed his father, or is a great poker player.

Simone hands me a glass of water and a plate with some bread, tomatoes, and a few sausages from our canning supplies. We sit next to each other on one of the two loveseats. I’m surprised to see Randy and Patricia Langford here, as well as Donald’s daughter, Katy. I thought only Greg, Jessica, and Lilly were still at the ranch. I nod to them, and they smile back in return but no words are exchanged between us. I start gobbling up the sausages and tomatoes.

Greg starts talking, “Mike, this is Eddie Keeper, the owner of this property and house we are in. He will have to tell you what happened between your father and himself, since I only walked outside right before… well, right before your father was shot.”

I guess it is my turn to speak already. I look at Greg, and ask, “Usually when someone returns from outside, we give a rundown of what happened and what we brought back, has any of that happened while I was strapped down?”

“No,” Greg replies. “We all kept to ourselves once you got back. Jessica and I were tending to Maria before that and returned to her when you went to the medical shed.”

Simone fills in, “I had Hannah watch you for an hour after your fever hit, while I came in here to check on Maria, and get the kids something to eat and give them something to do. They’re watching a movie in the back room where Maria is so they can tell us if she wakes up. I’ll bring them in here when we have Mike tell us his family’s story.”

I nod, and ask, “You checked on the mom? Good, is she very sick?” I can tell by Simone’s expression it is bad.

Simone looks over at Mike, and then back at me. “I checked her over, and like I explained to Mike, it is clear that his mother has severe internal injuries. Subcutaneous hemorrhaging is apparent in her abdominal and chest area. I can give her an injection for the pain when she wakes up, but can’t give her any oral medication, because I don’t know what the damage in her abdomen is and don’t want to stress or further damage her digestive tract if it is injured. She is on a basic saltwater IV drip to help replenish her fluids. She had passed out right before I entered her room, so she couldn’t tell me anything about her injuries. Mike will need to fill everyone in on what happened to his mom.”

Mike sighs and lifts his head, but doesn’t look at anyone directly. He looks exhausted, has red eyes from crying, and fresh tears welling up as he starts speaking. “It was my dad. He didn’t mean to hurt her. I mean, it was an accident, but it was still his fault. We were walking toward Medford from Grants Pass and had been on the road for about two weeks already. We were stopping a lot, looking around, and scavenging for food and stuff we needed along the way. If we were going to be outside at nightfall, we climbed up trees, and tied ourselves in to sleep.”

“We thought it would be better to wake up to the infected crowded below us than wake up with them chewing on us. Two mornings ago, my mom woke up earlier than my dad and tried to wake him up, but he freaked out. He was totally disoriented and kicked at her, knocking her out of the tree. It was a big oak, and she wasn’t strapped in anymore. She just fell. She only hit one branch near the bottom, that’s how she got hurt.”

He sobs a little and sniffs before wiping his eyes and continuing. “My dad is a bit strange now. He always needed medication before things fell apart, for anxiety, I think, and now he can’t get his medicine and he just freaks out sometimes. We started carrying her, just right down the center of Interstate 5 for a few hours. When it got too hard for us to carry her. I left my dad with my mom hidden in some trees and went off to find some help. I had walked about an hour when I ran into your group. They were heading toward Rogue River, so I went back along the road with them until I got to my parents. Tim and Dianne came here with us, to show us how to find the ranch but mostly to help us carry my mom. They had a deer cart that we carried her here in. We arrived this morning, and mom has been in a lot of pain. She keeps passing out. That’s pretty much it.”

“I think I’m going to check on my mom for a little while,” Mike says through tears, gets up, and leaves.

Poor kid, it seems like he has lost both parents, unless Simone can figure some way to fix up Maria. But internal injury is tricky, even for an experienced surgeon. How do you know where to cut and operate or if you repaired all of the spots hemorrhaging?

After Mike is out of the room, I talk to Greg. “I don’t see Timothy or Dianne. Are they still here? In fact, I would like to find out why everyone left.”

Greg shakes his head, and begins, “They left this morning after they dropped Mike and his parents off. They headed back out to catch up to Arthur’s group. Everyone is headed into Grants Pass to look for Emily, Samantha’s and Conner’s daughter.”