“I’m so glad to see you alive. I have seen some horrible things—some not too far from here. That was you at the house that was on fire, wasn’t it?” she said. “We almost shot you, you know.”
“That was your people?” I asked in surprise.
“We weren’t going to get involved.” She stopped me with a look, probably reading the shock in my eyes. “We try to stay out of the way. When it became apparent you were going to start a shooting match, we decided to spook the other guys.”
“Lee’s men,” I said.
“Who is Lee?”
“Long story. Let’s just say he’s a bad man. I wouldn’t be sad to see him dead.” I sighed.
“Is that his first name?”
“Come to think of it, I have no idea.”
Lisa studied me, but didn’t pursue the matter. I was sure we would have time to talk about it later. I was on edge, worried about Katherine. I’m sure Lisa was aware of my constant glances toward the room Katherine was in.
Lisa had a new bearing about her. She was no longer the shy housewife that used to giggle at my jokes when she and Devon stopped by, before Allison left. She had come into her own, and I was willing to bet she was the one who yelled at me earlier.
I found an unoccupied La-Z-Boy and took a seat in it. She came around and sat on a beat-up couch that was probably once a fine leather sofa imported from somewhere expensive, if I knew Mark.
I glanced down the hall and wanted to pursue Katherine, wanted to be by her side when they worked on her, wanted to be there in case they had some bad news. One of the men who had helped us out came back and nodded at me.
“Nurse said she is gonna be all right, man. She is lucky that bullet went in and out clean. She’s gonna stitch her up and give her some antibiotics. We don’t have a lot, but we can spare some for a neighbor.”
He was light skinned but had a slight Hispanic accent. He carried a shotgun over his shoulder and was dressed like the others—jumpsuit with a scarf tied around his neck. I liked him right away for reasons I couldn’t pinpoint. Being in Special Forces, I had learned pretty quickly who I could and couldn’t trust. I had a feeling about him as soon as I saw him. I was pretty sure he was also the man I had seen pass the car when they spooked Lee’s men.
“I’m Scott, by the way.” He offered his hand, and I shook it, noticing he also wore gloves.
“The outfits must be protection from the biters.”
“Smart guy. We should keep you around.” He grinned.
“Thanks, I think.” I smiled back.
“Now this is nothing personal, man, but I’m gonna have to ask you to take your clothes off.”
“Excuse me?”
“Gotta check you for bites, man. Like I said, nothing personal. It’s a brave new world, brother. We don’t stand on modesty much.”
“What, here?”
“You want a private room, amigo?”
Lisa had a churlish grin on her face, but tastefully turned her head to the side to give me the illusion of privacy. Stripping down to my skivvies, I shook my head. They were old and torn, and I felt ridiculous in them. Scott gestured, so I held my arms out and spun around.
“Not the tighty whiteys, I hope,” I said.
“If a zombie bit your ass, you got bigger problems. You’re cool.”
I nodded and put my clothes back on, while Lisa fought back a cough.
He wandered back outside, and I was left alone with Lisa, who sat back and studied me.
“Is that how you greet every survivor?”
“If I didn’t go out for you, you would have been stripped and spread eagle on the ground before you were even let into the perimeter.”
I liked how she used words like that, like she was in the military. This was not the sweet but simpering Lisa I had met a few years ago. This was a confident woman who was used to giving orders and having them followed.
I took a seat in the La-Z-Boy again and tried to look relaxed after doing the striptease. She studied me, and I studied her in return. She was still pretty, but she had the same hard look to her eyes that Katherine had. I hoped she was doing well in their care. I couldn’t imagine she would be too happy with their methods of inspecting for bites.
“I thought the bites were fast—like the movies. You get bit, you die and change. Come back as one of those dead things.”
“It used to be that way, but the virus has mutated. In some cases, it can take days to make its presence known. The ghouls have sent in more than one survivor who didn’t even know they were going to change. Those things are too smart by far. We need a plan to kill them all.”
“I think I know what you mean. We had trouble too. It was like they were driving a bunch of the zombies to kill us. They seemed to have a strange power over them. How can a virus do something like that?”
Sighing, she sat back. She put her hands in her lap and looked small all of a sudden. If I had been close to her, I probably would have patted her hand in a familiar gesture, like one friend does for another.
“We don’t know much—just theories and rumors. There was a lot of talk of a bad swine flu vaccine, and then others said it was the regular flu shots. Then there was a rumor about some experimental gas in North Korea that got out of hand. None of it makes sense.”
“Understatement.”
“Yeah. What have you been up to? You look like you’re in good shape.”
I had been hoping for answers, but like the other survivors, these didn’t know anything either. I wanted to pound the chair in frustration, but what good would it do? Would it even matter, knowing how the cursed virus started? It would just be one more thing to file away for a rainy day when we were all old and retired from zombie hunting—if we lived that long.
I had done more thinking along the lines of food and supplies. The stuff in stores wouldn’t last forever. We would need to start farming, raising animals, taking care of crops. How could we do that when the world was overrun by the dead?
“I hid out at a cabin until I ran out of food. Then I came back and hooked up with a bunch of crazies holed up at the Walmart.”
“Oh them. We have been in communication a few times. They wanted us to join them, but we were happy here.”
So there was dissension in the tiny fiefdoms after all.
“You didn’t want to join forces?”
“We worked hard to build this place. We brought in generators, a tanker full of diesel. We have semis full of food lined up. We brought in a truck filled with water bottles, and we’re doing all right. When we need more stuff, we go on recon and get what we need. We didn’t need them trying to bring it all to them.”
“They had a pretty nice setup. Very secure.”
“We have a nice setup.”
I had to agree. They had a defensible position and they were well supplied. If overrun, they could always pile into the trucks and make their escape.
As if to punctuate my thought, a gunshot broke the still air outside. Another followed. From the blasts, I guessed it was an AK-47, which had a very distinctive sound. I would have loved to have gotten my hand on one; they didn’t look as nice as my assault rifle, but they were a lot more reliable.
“Shit,” she said and jumped up. I followed her out, but I glanced back down the hallway through which they had taken Katherine. Lisa saw my look and nodded. “I’ll be out there when you’re done. As soon as you can, ask around about a jumpsuit. They’re pretty good protection, and your clothes are a mess.”
I nodded my thanks and turned to check on Katherine.