Dead: Winter (11 page)

“Only shoot if somebody is in absolute danger of being grabbed by one they don’t see.” There wasn’t really any more instruction to give beyond that.

I went inside and felt the immediate wave of relative warmth on my face. Thalia was sitting in a chair with Emily holding her hand. I could see the ball of cotton held in place by a Band-Aid. They were both crying. That seemed a bit extreme for giving a little blood.

“Steve!” Sunshine stepped out of the kitchen where I could see what looked like everybody who was not outside standing around in a cluster. “It’s Teresa.”

I felt my stomach lurch and the room got all tilted before snapping back to normal. That was when I found myself on my knees. I didn’t need to see what was wrong. The tone of voice on the heels of Dr. Zahn’s urgent summons told me everything that I needed. It was bad.

“She collapsed.”

“And?” I was aware that Thalia’s and Emily’s crying had gotten louder.

“Just get in here.” Sunshine stepped aside and held the door open. I could see the expressions on everybody’s faces and knew it was not going to be something good.

I stepped past the woman and for some reason, it popped into my head that, if everybody was here, who was taking care of the new girl? Then I saw her. Teresa was sprawled on the floor looking every bit the sixteen-year-old that she had never been as long as I’d known her.

“Steve,” Brad moved aside so that I could kneel beside the girl, “she just fell out.”

“As much as that can be used to describe what happened,” Dr. Zahn’s head popped up, her eyes blazing, “I would ask that you leave any sort of diagnosis to me. And since I have just started examining the girl, there is nothing to say. Now, everybody get out of the kitchen except for Steve. There are two little girls in the other room that just watched every adult they know act like they have lost their minds.”

I wouldn’t say everybody rushed out of the room, but they certainly left in a hurry.

“Sunshine!” the doctor called. “Get in there with that other woman and keep an eye on her. She is stable for the most part, but if her pulse drops below forty, give me a yell.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“What happened?” I asked after the door shut.

“She was carrying plates in and, according to Melinda, she staggered a step and shoved the entire stack onto the counter before passing out.”

Melinda Cribbs was DeAngelo’s wife. She’d been brought in after being shot by the same guy who’d been part of our group briefly before murdering at least two of our members directly and leading a herd of zombies to our site where he tallied a few indirect kills. Melinda and DeAngelo’s arrival had sent Jesus and Jake out in the hopes that the guy was still in the area. Much to his detriment, he had been.

“So what’s wrong with her?”

“That’s the problem, Steve,” Dr. Zahn said in a whisper. “It could be a million things related to the pregnancy. I don’t have anything that will tell me shit.”

I think that was the first time I could recall hearing Dr. Francis Zahn swear. I took Teresa’s hand in mine, not sure what to expect. It was warm and soft, but I could still feel the callouses.

“Let’s get her into bed,” the doctor suggested. “The last thing we need is Jamie coming in and finding her on the floor.”

I scooped her up, surprised at how light she was even being a few months pregnant. I let the doctor lead the way, and I carried Teresa to her bed and tucked her in. She stirred once. I don’t care what anybody else might say, I took that as a good sign. I kissed her on the forehead and after a dismissive nod from Dr. Zahn, I returned to the main area.

Thalia and Emily were still sitting huddled close, but now Buster the Border Collie was at their feet giving everybody a dog’s equivalent of a dirty look. I was just about to go over and check on the girls when the door slammed open.

“Ian’s down!” Fiona panted. “One of the creepers tripped him up and he hit his head on something, by the time Billy got to him, it had taken a chunk out of his shoulder.”

On cue, Billy and Jamie came in carrying the visibly injured Ian. The blood from the wound was making his leather coat look shiny. For some reason, that was all I could think about; how shiny his black leather jacket looked in the firelight.

Jon was on their heels. “Jake is walking the perimeter with the new girl,” he announced as he peeled out of his gear. “How bad is it?”

“It’s a bite,” Ian said through clenched teeth as Dr. Zahn knelt beside him while pulling on a new set of rubber gloves. “It doesn’t have to be bad to kill you.”

“You don’t know that!” Billy blurted. “Bites don’t mean you’re gonna die.”

“What are the odds that two of us are immune?” Ian sucked air between clenched teeth as Dr. Zahn cut away his bloody shirt.

“How did it bite you with you gear on?” the doctor asked.

“When I fell, my coat must’ve slipped down.”

“Why didn’t you have it fastened?”

“I must’ve missed it when I was heading out. We were in a hurry and I guess I got sloppy.”

“Get him in the back.” Dr. Zahn pointed to Billy and Jamie. “Put him on the cot and help him get out of his clothes. Gloves are in the box on the wall just inside the door. Get ‘em on first.”

“It’s my shoulder, my feet work fine.” Ian sat up, but then flopped back down.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Dr. Zahn cautioned. “You are bound to experience dizziness.”

I knelt beside Ian. “I should’ve been out there.” The fact that I had handed off my responsibility of lookout to a new person who wasn’t familiar with the evolution crashed down on me with a wave of guilt.

“You wouldn’t have seen it either,” Ian said. “Don’t start beating yourself up. This creeper was barely a head and shoulders. It had to have been crawling here for days. We all missed it in the snow.”

“Let’s go, Ian,” Billy said, reaching past me from one side as Jamie came around to the other.

Holy crap! Jamie.

He had no idea about Teresa. She was in bed. Maybe I should help and let him go to her.

“Steve,” Melissa called. I looked over my shoulder and saw her sitting on the floor holding Emily who was crying her eyes out. Thalia was standing beside the two. She was no longer crying and was stroking Emily’s hair. Buster was sprawled out in front of the three, head perked up and tilted as he took it all in and seemed to be trying his hardest to figure out what the crazy humans were up to now.

“I’ll be in to check on you in a few minutes,” I said to Ian, and patted his arm.

I went over to the girls and knelt down so that my face was even with Emily’s. Her face was wet from all the tears. This was a big one, whatever it was. And I didn’t think it was about Ian.

“What’s the matter, Em?”

“I want to change my birthday,” Emily sniffled.

“What?” There were a bunch of things that she could’ve said and I would have had some idea where to go with the conversation. I was still learning about how to be a dad, and I’d gotten better, but this one flew right past me.

“First the sick girl,” Emily sniffed, “then Teresa…and now Ian is gonna be a zombie.”

“Whoa, sweetie,” I said, wiping away some of the tears. “Nobody is gonna be a zombie.” That was true. I wouldn’t let Ian get back up. When his eyes closed, they would stay shut.

“But Teresa—”

“What?” I heard Jamie’s voice behind me. “What about Teresa.”

Crap
. This wasn’t how he was supposed to get the news. Melissa gave me a funny look and got to her feet.

“She is in back resting, Jamie,” Melissa said in that voice I recognized from when she would try to get me to relax. “Dr. Zahn looked her over and decided that she needed to stay in bed for a while. It happens to pregnant women all the time.”

I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Jamie’s expression change from extremely worried to just a bit concerned. I watched as Melissa escorted Jamie back. Brad stepped in without a word and helped Billy escort Ian to what passed off as our emergency room, leaving me with Thalia and Emily.

“Now listen,” I climbed up and sat down on the chair Melissa had vacated, pulling both girls onto my lap, “I agree things got a little crazy, but that is the way things are now. Sometimes days like this will just happen. We need your birthday, Emily. Everybody needs to have a reason to be happy.”

“Like when you and Melissa got married?” Emily sniffed.

“Exactly,” I agreed. “Now…it’s getting late and you girls have school tomorrow, so how about I tuck you in and tell you a bedtime story.”

“
Jack and the beanstalk
?” Thalia asked.

“Em?” I deferred.

“I like that one.”

“Okay then,” I said as I scooped both girls under my arms like sacks of potatoes and headed to their sleeping area.

I tucked them in and told them the story from memory as best I could. Both girls made sure to prompt me if I missed anything. Hell, they knew the story better than I did. I have no idea why they would want me to tell them a story that they know better than the person telling it, but it seemed to make them both happy and that was good enough.

I walked back out to the main entry area just as Jake and Nickie came in. Both were frosted in thick, wet snow.

“Looks like it is coming down hard,” I observed.

“Sure is,” Jake agreed as he began peeling out of his wet gear. “Seems like a pretty crazy time to make a supply run.”

“What?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Brad and Billy,” Jake said as if that meant anything.

“What about them?” I asked tentatively.

“They were both suited up and trudging down the road as Nickie and I were coming in,” Jake said, glancing at the woman who was trying with some difficulty to get out of a harness that held an assortment of blades. He leaned over and hit the release on a buckle that sent the whole thing crashing to the floor.

“I didn’t send anybody anywhere in this weather.”

A thought came. I felt it in my gut, and over the past few months, I’d come to trust that feeling. I turned on my heel and went to the supply closet-turned-ER. I knew before I opened the door what I would see…or rather…what I wouldn’t.

Ian was gone.



I woke to find that Melissa was already out of bed. The fact that she hadn’t said anything to me was a clear indication that we still had a problem. Well, that would have to take its place on my list; which was growing almost exponentially every day it seemed.

As soon as I threw back the covers, my body felt as if it instantly contracted into one giant goose pimple. When I gasped, I got confirmation that it was extremely cold. My breath was a thick cloud of steam. I started putting on layers of clothing when Jake came in with two mugs of coffee.

“Figure you might need this.”

“Why is it so cold in here?” I asked through chattering teeth.

“That is what I came to tell you,” Jake said in his slow drawl. “Mind you, I’m just repeatin’ what the sarge said. The good news is that it stopped snowing. I guess it reaches a point where it is too cold to snow or something. Sounds kinda backwards to me, but that
is
what sarge said.”

“Did he say how cold?”

“He didn’t have to; everybody has been gathered ‘round that thermometer like it was the most interesting show in town…guess it might be. Anyways, it’s just above zero.”

“And three of our people are out in it?” I sighed.

“Good news is that Fiona says she can get some more tests done on the solar panels. She says it don’t matter how cold it is as long as there is sunlight. Ain’t that the darndest thing?”

I had to admit that it was something. I was more than happy to leave the solar panel refit to Fiona and Brad. I didn’t have the slightest clue about that stuff. I dated a gal who was really into things like Earth Day and saving the rain forests. I was fine with it until she started making a list of all the food I shouldn’t eat. Hell, I would’ve had to empty out my whole dang kitchen.