Dead: Winter (20 page)

“How are ya feeling?” As soon as I said it, I wished that I could take the words back. I could see the dark tracers in her eyes, and her skin had a sickly grey pallor. She was visibly shi
v
ering and her hair was matted to her forehead from the sweat. In short, she looked like crap.

“Like my body is on fire on the inside, but frozen on the outside,” Teresa wheezed.

“You know, I promised Jamie that he would be the first to see you when the doctor gave the okay.”

“Yeah,” Teresa waved me closer, “well I don’t want him to see me like this. I told the doc not to let him in.”

“You can’t keep him away from you now,” I argued. “He is an absolute wreck. He needs to be here.”

“Not like this,” Teresa insisted, shaking her head. “I don’t want the last memories he has of me being the ones where I look like those damn zombies.”

“But when we thought he was sick—”

“He had you take him out into the woods because he didn’t want me to see him,” Teresa inte
r
rupted. “And now I unde
r
stand why. There is something awful about having the person that you love look at you and see death; and that is all anybody sees when you are infected.”

“But you found us and were ready to put him down when he turned,” I reminded her. “What if he wants that same…?” My voice trailed off as I considered how to finish that sentence. What was it e
x
actly? Duty? Honor?

“I already told Doc that I want you to bring me a cup of that crap Sunshine whipped up. I don’t want to wither and die,” T
e
resa spoke up, her voice not much more than a harsh whisper. “It isn’t like we are holding out hope that I am going to make a m
i
raculous recovery. This isn’t food poisoning.”

“Agreed,” I said with a nod. I had to ask it. “When did you get bit?”

“That’s just it, Steve,” Dr. Zahn stepped forward. I’d almost forgotten that she was there. “I have examined every inch of her. There isn’t a bite or a scratch to be found. Plus, she hasn’t had any co
n
tact with an infected host for over a week. So that elim
i
nates exposure to contaminated—”

A strange look crossed the doctor’s face. She looked at T
e
resa, and then the door, like the answer to whatever question she might be puzzling over would be etched in the surface.

“I wasn’t bit,” Teresa insisted needlessly. “I would never risk any of you like that.”

“So what happened?” I asked. I could tell instantly that T
e
resa didn’t have an answer. Tears filled her eyes and then rolled down her cheeks to add to the slick sheen on her face.

“That’s just it,” she moaned. “I don’t have any idea and ne
i
ther does Dr. Zahn.”

I looked back to see the doctor still staring at the door. I can’t recall a time where I’d ever seen her look puzzled or co
n
fused, but the look on her face was sending that signal loud and clear.

“Steve, stay here with Teresa,” Dr. Zahn said in an uncha
r
acteristically passive tone of voice. And with that, she left the room leaving me alone with this sixteen-year-old girl that I’d seen b
e
come more of a kick-ass-and-take-names leader than I would probably ever be now in my thirties or in the future.

“You need to take care of Jamie when I die,” Teresa said, taking my hand in hers.

Once again I was struck by the peculiarity of the fact that, while her body burned up with a fever, her hands were already cold and clammy. There was a smell coming off of her that was like a mixture of raw chicken left on the counter over a long, hot August weekend and raw sewage mixed with boiled sugar.

“And how am I going to do that?”

“Remind him of the good things we have done…rescuing those people at that warehouse in La Grande…the sled he made for the girls…the way he took charge that night when we were in the high school FEMA shelter,” Teresa recounted.

“That isn’t gonna make him feel any better,” I sighed. “He is losing something very dear to him. The closest I’ve come b
e
sides my dog the first night was when I thought I’d lost Thalia. He is losing the girl he loves and a child. I can’t even begin to understand how he feels…will feel.”

“But you have to take care of him, Steve,” Teresa pleaded. It was the first time I’d heard that tone in her voice.

Great
, I thought,
I don’t have enough troubles with my rel
a
tionship—or whatever it is now—with Melissa
. She hadn’t spoken to me since our blow out a couple days ago. Jesus, it felt like an eternity.

“I’ll do the best I can,” I promised. That was the only thing that I could say.

“And I want you to know something else.” She tried to smile, but with her eyes changed and the sickly color of her skin in stark contrast to the dark color of her gums, it just looked creepy. “You are the leader here. It doesn’t matter who has what experience as a soldier or whatever…you are the one who keeps us all together. There is something about you that makes us complete as a group.”

“What makes you say that?”

“For the past several days, the attitude here has been one where we are fine and there isn’t an
y
thing to worry about. You saw it and tried to warn us and we treated you like Chicken Little screaming that the sky is falling. You take all of this so seriously…and it all started with Thalia.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. Maybe she was getting delir
i
ous, because I honestly had no clue what she was trying to say.

“You shared the story about the first night with me once…and when you told it, you didn’t even see the big deal about saving Thalia. To you, it was just the right thing to do. That is how you do ev
e
rything. Look at this place. Nobody saw it the way you did. Had we been with anybody else, we’d be like these stragglers who come in near starving. You were thinking about winter back in August.”

I thought she might be selling my stock a little high, but I could see in her eyes that she believed every word she was saying. I ignored the smell, and the fear that somehow, just by touching her I could become infected, and I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

“I couldn’t have done half of this without you,” I whispered. “And I don’t know what I’m gonna do without you now.”

“Just don’t lose sight of what has always been important,” Teresa said with a soft hitch in her voice. She was trying not to cry.

“I don’t know what is important anymore,” I said. “I think that is the problem. I thought I did…I thought it was survival, but Melissa—”

“Is pregnant,” Teresa cut me off. “You will never convince a mother that it is a good idea to kill her child unless she is an absolute psycho. You should be glad that she disagrees with you. That means that she is ready to fight to the death for her child. Surrender isn’t an option in her mind. I have a feeling that you are going to need that kind of support in the coming months.”

“Well right now I don’t know what I have; she hasn’t said a single word to me since that day.”

“She’ll come around,” Teresa promised, patting my hand. “I see her looking at you when you aren’t paying attention. I think she understands what you meant, and even though she will never agree, she knows deep down that you have the same sense of pr
o
tection when it comes to her that she feels for the baby she is carrying.”

“I hope so,” I sighed.

“Now, I want you to do me one more favor.”

I knew what she was going to ask. For a moment I thought I might balk at the request, but in a flash, I knew that I would do what was needed.

“Don’t let me be one of
them
.”

“I promise, Teresa.”

She made a slight gasping sound. Funny how we see death around us all the time now, but it r
e
fuses to get any easier when it is one of yours. I could see the pain in her eyes, and I was struck by how much she already did not look like the person I knew. I tried to keep her gaze because, for some reason, I felt that it was important that I look her in the eyes. After all, I was about to watch her die.

“Don’t let Jamie see me,” she whispered. “Not like this…please not like…”

She coughed hard and I was surprised not to discover blood trickling from her lips. Didn’t people always cough up blood in situations like this in the movies? I guess it just adds to the drama. She stif
f
ened and her weak grip on my hand tightened just a little. Not much, but enough to make me wince.

“I can feel it…taste it,” Teresa said through clenched teeth. “It’s exactly like what you think it would feel like.”

“It’s…” I was about to say that it would be okay. But it wouldn’t. It would never be okay for her. There would be no miracle reveal that she was just having extreme reactions to being pregnant, or a
n
ything else of the sort. Teresa was going to die. She was going to die in this little bunk bed in the converted bathroom of a camp ground’s main office.

After everything we’d been through, it was coming to an end…and I was helpless to stop it. Even worse, we had no idea why or how.

“Thanks.”

And with that final word, Teresa closed her eyes. I placed my hand near her mouth and nose to confirm what I still didn’t want to believe. All I had on me was my hunting knife. It would have to do.

Drawing the blade, I struggled with knowing what I
had
to do versus what I absolutely did not
want
to do. Still, I had promised, and I would not let her open her eyes. I kissed her forehead and pulled the blankets up over her face. It was a simple thing to find an eye socket. One quick thrust and it was done.

I pulled the knife free and wiped off the blade. It seemed so anti-climactic. In the movies, there would be a string symphony playing a really sad piece. A montage of clips showing Teresa in her best moments would play with a fuzzy border giving it that dream quality. But all there really was now was the emptiness where she used to exist. There was a body under the sheets that would be dragged out to the fire and burned like the others.

The door opened and Dr. Zahn slipped in with Sunshine at her side. Sunshine was holding a mug.

“You’re too late,” I said, sliding my knife into the sheath.

“Is she…?” Sunshine’s voice trailed off.

“Yep.” I wanted to say something profound, but nothing would come.

“I slipped something in Jamie’s coffee,” Dr. Zahn said qu
i
etly.

I didn’t know what to think of the doctor at the moment. She was acting peculiar; very unlike the Dr. Zahn I’d come to know. That could only mean one thing: Something else was wrong.

“Kind of a dirty trick.” I got up and crossed the room to the pair. Sunshine shot a nervous glance at the doctor. That meant that whatever it was, she knew. Neither of these women should ever sit at a poker table. Not that I was any better at hiding my feelings.

“What the hell is going on?” I blurted.

“I can’t be sure,” Dr. Zahn said. “And until I can run some tests, I won’t start a panic.”

“But Sunshine knows what it is, doesn’t she?” I pressed.

“She is my nurse so to speak, I keep her abreast of things, yes.” This was more like the Dr. Zahn I was familiar and co
m
fortable with.