This Would Be Paradise (Book 1) (22 page)

Her face was paler than I had ever seen it, she was probably in shock. I ran to her.

“Oh god, oh god,” I started to panic.

I tried to lift up her right hand to see how bad it was, but as soon as I did, blood started to spurt anew. It looked bad – out of my realm bad. It was deeper than any cut I had ever gotten. That fucking, splintering fence must have sliced her arm open when she fell.

“Let’s get inside,” I had to really focus to keep the panic out of my voice.

“Am…am I goin’ to be okay?” Chloe’s eyes were glassy.

“Of course.” I had no way of knowing that.

We left a bloody trail all the way to the sliding door. My hand slipped on the door handle from all the blood that coated it; I had to wipe it off on my already ruined pants. This was too much blood for an adult, let alone a small child. I flung open the door and sat her down on a kitchen chair. I started to pull open all the drawers searching for a towel. After I tried all of them, I finally opened the right one.

I forced Chloe’s hand away and shoved the sunflower print tea towel on the bleeding wound.

“It hurts!” Chloe screamed, and I had never felt so powerless. She started to kick out her legs, and I had to jump to the side to avoid them. Blood was staining the towel at an alarming rate.

“I know it hurts Chloe, but you have to push on this as hard as possible okay? I’m going to run upstairs and grab something.”

I ran off before she could protest. I flew up the stairs, into the little boy’s room. He had to own a belt that I could use as a tourniquet. I threw open and rummaged through his dresser, clothes flying everywhere. I found a faux leather one that would work, so I ran back down the stairs in a flurry.

Chloe was now screaming and crying, the initial shock having worn off. She was like a banshee; her pain was palpable. “Make it stop!” Her face was now red from all the screaming.

She needed to stop yelling. We already had all those infected in the alley. No doubt they were banging and pushing on the fence trying to get in.

“I’m going to tie this around your arm okay? It will help stop the blood, so I can treat it.”

I looped my arm under hers and latched the belt, tightening it just past the elbow.

“OW!” She flailed, but I tugged it as tight as it could go.

“I know it hurts Chloe, but this will stop the bleeding,” I pleaded with her.

She weakly pushed and scratched at me, trying to get me to release the belt. But even as she was doing that, I could see that the blood flow was slowing when I lifted the tea towel.

“See it’s working,” I pointed out. “Now I need you to be really brave right now and hold this belt.”

I realized she had more strength than most adults would, when she grabbed the end of the belt I was pulling on and started to tug.

“Good. Now we need antiseptic.”

I ran to the living room where the stuff we grabbed from the medicine cabinet was currently sitting. There was a brown bottle of peroxide that I needed to find. Chloe was going to hate this even more. I made a mess of our bags as I rooted through them to grab the bottle. Once I got back to the kitchen, I took out the gauze we pilfered from the general store.

All this was going to do was disinfect the wound. It was deep enough that she needed stitches and there was no way I could administer them to a flailing child.

Superglue.

Darren’s tidbit from when he patched up Ethan roared into my head. I had spotted a tube when I was going through the kitchen drawers. I went back to the various open drawers and found the rolled up tube of superglue. This would have to do. I took a deep breath, realizing I would more than likely have to hold her down.

“Chloe, I need you to lie on the floor.”

“Why?” she demanded through tears and snot.

“I can’t put the disinfectant on properly unless the arm is flat out,” I lied through my teeth.

She looked at me hesitantly, so I tried to hurry her along. I helped her to the floor and she sprawled out. Every time I reached for the wound, she tried to move her arm away. Human instinct I guess, to avoid pain as much as possible.

“I need to hold the belt!” she tried to sit up, but I gently pushed her back down.

“Don’t worry about that. I just need you to be brave, can you do that?”

She looked at me; tears were running down her face like a faucet.

“Just make it stop, please!”

I kneeled down beside her with all my supplies. “Now Chloe, I don’t want to scare you or lie to you, but this will sting. The peroxide will kill any germs in the cut; we can’t have it getting infected.”

She tried to move away from me again. “Wait–”

Before she could finish, I placed my knee on her upper forearm to hold it in place and poured some of the clear liquid onto the wound. She thrashed wildly and screamed like I was the one who did it. I kept my hold on her arm with my knee and used my other hand to hold the lower part steady.

“PLEASE STOP! IT HURTS SO BAD!”

I had to try to block out her screaming and pleading for me to stop. It was hard. I felt like I was killing her, but it was for her own good.

The wound hissed and bubbled as the peroxide ate away the germs that had embedded themselves in there. I wiped away the white bubbles and blood with another clean towel I had grabbed. Then poured more peroxide directly into the wound this time. She kicked and jerked even harder, but I was stronger and used my weight to keep her arm in place.

The bleeding had slowed immensely, and I took that as a good sign. Her breathing was labored from all the fighting against me and screaming.

“Please… just stop,” she tearfully pleaded.

I noticed the fight was leaving her. I felt like an abuser. The worst person in the world.

Finally, after another round of peroxide, the fizzing stopped and it no longer reacted to the wound. This was a guess on my part, but I think that meant the disinfectant had done its job. Now was time for the glue. I poured the peroxide on my fingers and scrubbed it in. I needed them to be sterile.

The lid was stuck to the top of the tube, so I had to use the towel for leverage to twist it off. The smell of vinegar reached my nose once the lid came off.

“Is it over?” She sounded so defeated.

“Almost. I just have to make sure the wound closes.”

I dabbed a fair amount on my finger tip and spread it slightly on the edges of the wound.

“STOP!” Chloe started screaming and kicking again as I aggravated the sore wound.

Once I figured I got enough on there, I pinched the two sides of the cut together.

“DEAR GOD, MAKE IT STOP!” She was so loud, that I had to take feelings out of the equation.

I shoved my free hand over her mouth to smother her screams.

The look in her eyes said it all: Traitor.

She continued to jerk and scream against my hand, I could feel the vibrations against my palm. All the windows were open along with the back door and those things at the back fence didn’t need to be spurred on. I released the wound and it didn’t reopen. The glue had worked.

I took my hand off her mouth. “I’m just going to put some gauze around it, and it will be over.”

“I hate you!” Chloe spat.

That hurt, twisting up my stomach in knots, but I had a job to do. I wrapped the gauze around a few times and tied it off. As soon as I removed my knee, Chloe shuffled away from me, cradling her bandaged arm. The collar of her shirt was stained with tears and her clothes were matted in her blood. I was a horrible protector. I should never have been here in the first place, should never have been in charge of another human being. I wasn’t cut out for this.

I looked down at the mess I had made. The white tiles were stained with blood and peroxide. Dirty towels and opened supplies surrounded me. I had just held down a child while I attempted to treat a serious wound with zero experience. Chloe would have been better off with anyone else but me.

Chloe huddled as far away from me as possible, like a kicked puppy. Even through her tears and sobs, she managed to shoot me a hateful glare. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and started to clean up the mess, trying to distract myself from what just happened. I left out all the supplies on the table; I would need to re-dress the wound tomorrow. Chloe shot up and ran into the living room. I heard her stomping as she ran up the stairs, away from me.

I didn’t blame her. I had handled that poorly, but what else was I to do? I had no idea how to treat a wound of that magnitude, let alone on a kid that wouldn’t hold still. I could sit here and try to justify my actions, but the truth was that I should never be responsible for a child. She got injured under my watch. My own side groaned in pain as I moved about. After all that, I was sure my elbow wasn’t broken, just really sore and swollen.

The sun was going down fast, like it was in a hurry to get to its evening plans. I didn’t hear banging on the sturdy wooden fence anymore, but there was still movement and moaning in the alley. Maybe the infected had forgotten why they were here in the first place or had just given up. Bottom line was that they were still out there. Right in our own backyard took on a whole new meaning.

I felt numb at this point, or felt too much; I couldn’t tell the difference. My mind wasn’t coping well with the events of this past day. I was running on autopilot, but unfortunately it wasn’t a very good program. I felt the way you did when you came to the end of a particularly good book and now didn’t know what to feel. Lost. Heartbroken. Empty.

I stumbled to the back doors. In the rush of everything, I had forgotten to close them. The setting sun shone through the spaces in the fence, making the yard appear stripped. Our bags were still lying on the grass, odd items thrown all around the mesh totes. I walked over and started to shove them back in, very aware of the sound of bodies moving slowly on the other side of the fence.

My task became harder, as my vision blurred. Tears were dropping onto my hands, like little liver spots, as I picked up the various cans and boxes. Pain bloomed in my chest.
What have I done?
I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell into the sky a slew of curse words in every language. I wanted to disappear. I gripped the can in my hand and wound my arm back to throw it like I was a pitcher for the MLB.

But I couldn’t. Everything I did put us in danger. I lowered my arm in defeat, and then stood up; the bag I was holding flopped over to its side. I started lashing out at the air all around me, like I was a kid throwing a fit. In a way, that’s exactly what I was. I needed to inflict pain, so that mine felt small in comparison. I wanted the world to know how shitty I felt.

I picked up my discarded axe and started to whack at the ground with it. Chunks of grass and dirt leapt like grasshoppers fleeing for their lives, from the uneven hole I was making. My body was starting to become heated from my spectacle; I must have looked like a raging lunatic. With a deep breath, I tried to center myself. I dropped the axe and dipped down to pick up the bags. With one in each hand, I walked back over to the house.

I threw the heavy totes inside and their contents rolled all over the floor like a glass of spilt milk. Except milk wouldn’t have made that much noise. The infected started to scrape along the fence, alerted by the banging sound.

Fuck it. Let them devour me.

We were all doomed to be food for the worms sooner or later. Why not end it now? I could hear growling coming from the crowd; some had started to lightly bang on the fence. They didn’t realize they were powerless to knock over their obstacle with their decaying arms like dried tree branches. But they were powerful enough to take down this world; the irony was almost too much. 

Dead, infected people owned this place now. They marched into the streets like all armies before them, except they didn’t discriminate. We were all fair game. All races, all colors, all genders. We were all equally screwed.

I slid down the rough outside paneling of the house, resting my head in my hands and wept.

I managed to get my sobbing under control. The streaks of my tears were drying on my face, making the skin feel dehydrated. Once I shed my last tear for myself, I decided that was enough. Using the outside of the house as leverage, I pushed myself back to my feet and wandered back inside. My little episode had made the pain in my elbow come back with a vengeance and the side I had landed on screamed at me for my stupidity.

The kitchen was filling with shadows; later all we had to keep them at bay were the camping lanterns we found while searching the house. I wiped at my face, embarrassed by my behavior. Not only had I made a fool of myself, I got the infected all worked up right outside the fence. At least they seemed to have calmed down again for the time being. It seems like they have the memory of a goldfish.

I tiptoed back outside for my axe, which was now coated in blood and grass. Once back inside, I flipped the lock on the sliding doors and overturned the kitchen table up against them. If something or someone wanted inside, they would have to work for it. I made sure the front door was dead bolted and pushed the couch in front of it. The sound of the legs scraping across the hardwood floor echoed in the house. At least I didn’t have to worry about repairing the damage.

Darkness was starting to set in, and it made me nervous. This would be the first night without the others. I didn’t have them to depend on, I had only myself. I found I missed them dearly. We were our own family, looking out for one another. Yet they had abandoned me. Or was I the abandoner? I didn’t want to believe that anyone had left anyone behind. Maybe things would have been different if I had stayed behind, maybe they would have turned out exactly the same. There was no way to tell now.

All I could do was hope that they were all alive. What mattered now was surviving and finding our dysfunctional little family.

Taylor smirked at me yet again, laughing to himself about my mishap. How was I to know you couldn’t just smoke anything in the meat smoker? You could have smoked salmon, why not smoked trout? I hated the taste of fish and figured at least smoking it would make it edible.

We were all situated around the campfire, the flames blazing like an inferno. Stars had started to peek out through the receding day light, now dotting the sky above us. The cabin was currently airing out the burnt fish smell. If you thought fish smelt bad before, just wait until it started on fire. Ethan had managed to put out the flames before any damage was done to the smoker, which reminded me of a tall safe without the lock on the front.

“Is it useable?” I asked timidly.

Ethan chuckled, “It’ll live to smoke another day.”

Chloe cocked out her hip. “Why would you think puttin’ trout in there on as high as it can go, would be a good idea?”

“You can smoke salmon can’t you?” I said to Ethan.

“All right, enough. Nothin’ we can do about it now ‘cept let the place air out,” Ethan interjected.

John and Ethan had gone out earlier to catch the fish; apparently there was a small lake and stream nearby that had a decent-sized fish population. Ethan said normally you wouldn’t have been able to take home so many, but there was no fish and wildlife police left to complain. We didn’t have to worry about making a run into the city for poles and gear because there was already some stashed in the cabin. We were damn lucky to have run into Ethan; he had pretty much everything we needed out here.

They had a grill set up on top of the fire pit, roasting the rest of the fish. I guess I won’t be able to get myself out of eating this.

“Looks like you’re not getting out of it this time,” Zoe grinned, knowing full well how much I disliked fish.

“Well, I tried.”

“I didn’t know fish could catch on fire like that,” Darren said.

I sighed; I was never going to hear the end of this.

“Hey, you gotta break a few eggs before you can make an omelet, right?” John winked at me, his eyes full of mirth.

“If my clothes stink, you’ll be washin’ them,” Taylor quipped.

“That’ll be the day,” I snorted. “Maybe they will be the next thing to start on fire.”

Chuckles rang out around the camp fire, all while the disgusting fish continued to sizzle.

I smiled at the random memory. I found it strange how you started to recall all the arbitrary memories when you’re growing despondent. It’s not the bad stuff, but rather the things that remind you what you’re living to fight for. We had been through so much that there was no way I was giving up now. I started to feel hopeful.

We will find them.

I started to clean up the mess I had made in the living room when I had torn through the bags looking for the peroxide. Heading back into the kitchen, I went to grab my backpack to sort out. As I rummaged through my backpack, some items fell to the floor, the pink Benadryl package among them.

There was no way Chloe was going get any sleep tonight, not with what had happened and all the pain she must be in. I rooted through the kitchen cabinets for an opaque glass, and then twisted the top off of a water bottle. Using the blunt end of a butter knife, I crushed up two of the small, pink tablets. I mixed the powder with the water, hoping she would just drink it and get some much needed sleep. I grabbed a couple of granola bars as well as some over-the-counter painkillers.

I walked quietly up the stairs, like when I used to tiptoe into the house after going out to the bar. I found Chloe lying on the boy’s bed with her back to me. She was sniffing softly.

“Chloe, I know you’re mad right now, but you need to eat and drink something,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

She ignored me, so I just remained in the doorway. Eventually she turned to me, glaring the whole time. As she sat up, she put out her hand for the items. I passed her the glass and she started to chug the contents as I opened the bars for her. With her arm out of commission, she would need some help.

Chloe passed me back the almost empty glass and tore into the first granola bar. After everything that happened, I’m surprised I wasn’t just as famished.

“Here, I brought you something for the pain.”

She eyed me warily as she chewed her second bar. I passed her two of the white pills and the glass back. She was smart enough to see that she needed the pills and took them without hesitation. She rolled away from me, back to lying on the bed.

I guess I had been dismissed. I hoped she would eventually see that what I did was for her own good. Although, that didn’t look like it would be anytime soon. Maybe if she could forgive me, I could forgive myself.

I went down the hall into the main bedroom to find something to sleep in. The husband’s large shirts would do. I grabbed a clean white one and the comforter from the bed and headed back downstairs. Even though I badly needed sleep, I would still have to be on alert. I would hear better if I was on the main floor.

I also needed to wash up somehow. You never realize how dependent you are on everyday things until they are forcefully taken from you. I didn’t think the shower would work in the house and there was no well like Ethan’s cabin. When I was cleaning up our supplies, I remembered the wipes we had scavenged from the store.

It took a whole 12-pack of wipes, but I was able to get the grime off of my skin. I placed my ruined clothes in a plastic bag and threw them in the kitchen garbage. I could smell the heavy baby powder scent clinging to me, but it beat the smell of rotten meat any day.

I lit up the lantern, and the soft glow brightened the room. I made up my bed on the couch, which currently doubled as a brace against the door. Setting out my weapons within reach, I laid down. My stomach growled, finally catching up to all the exertion from today.

I gnawed on a granola bar and some trail mix to appease the hunger. I would kill for some fresh food, but canned peaches would have to do. Luckily we had found a can opener in one of the kitchen drawers, otherwise the canned food would have been useless. I would undoubtedly have butchered the can if I tried to use my hunting knife. After I had stuffed my face, I wobbled back to the couch, dimming the light on the lantern.

Weariness was in my bones. My body was exhausted, and my mind wasn’t in the best shape either.
Didn’t people say things always look better in the morning?
Somehow, I doubted that would be the case tonight. But as soon as I closed my eyes, sleep took me.

I woke to the sun pouring through the off-white lace curtains. They didn’t do a very good job of blocking the light out and they were hideous to boot. I had no idea what time it was, but judging from the stiffness of my body, I had laid in this one position for hours. Everything popped and cracked as I sat up; I felt like I had aged twenty years.

I had meant to go check on Chloe before I fell asleep, so I headed upstairs first. I found her breathing deeply, still fast asleep in the boy’s Transformer sheets. Apparently he had been a fan. I went to the bathroom and examined myself in the mirror. My elbow and a good chunk of my right arm were bruised, as was my side. The elbow was also slightly swollen.

I peered at the tub and tried the faucet just to see what would happen. The pipes groaned in the walls, but water started to pour from the tap. It was rusty at first, but cleared after a few seconds. They must still have had water in the tank. I laughed out loud as I plugged the drain and let the tub fill up a bit. The water was freezing since there was no power to heat it up, but it was better than nothing. I turned the tap off, not wanting to waste one drop.

I went down the stairs as fast as my creaky limbs would allow. Snatching up the soap and shampoo, I went back up to my frosty bath. Bathing in my books was a necessity, not an option. The water was only up to my ankles, but that was all I needed. My toes and fingers were almost blue by the time I had cleaned myself off and my teeth were chattering. I toweled off, not bothered in the least. Cold was something I could deal with, especially if it meant I could wash up.

A cleaner reflection looked back at me from the mirror. This was much better. I let the water out and left the supplies there for Chloe to use later. Once back downstairs, I unfolded the maps.

After a good thirty minutes, I tossed the map I had been looking at to the floor in frustration. Nothing was giving hints as to what this Hargrove place was. It wasn’t a main building, it wasn’t a suburb, it wasn’t a park, and it wasn’t on there. It wasn’t even a fucking street name. How was I supposed to find it?

I felt useless without the Internet. This place might as well have been across the country for all it was worth. With an angry sigh, I returned to the maps. I scanned a local one, a red medical cross icon catching my eye. According to the map, there was a medical center just off of Main Street. This was one of those small towns where everything was either on Main Street or just off of it. Chloe would need some antibiotics to keep an infection at bay.

It looked like I was making another run into town before we left this place.