Chapter 13
“Noooo!” I ran to the base of the tree and kneeled beside the doctor’s body. I leaned over, pressing my ear close to the guy’s face, hoping to hear some breath escaping.
That was a no go. I checked for a pulse, ignoring the obvious crook in the guy’s neck. No pulse, no breath, neck flopping around in a way that necks usually don’t. I’m no doctor, but these were all bad signs, weren’t they? But they didn’t necessarily mean death. Hadn’t I been hoping to bring Marilyn back from exactly this state?
Although, the doctor’s skin didn’t look so good. I mean, he obviously took care of himself, but there wasn’t that appealing glow. He was starting to look a little pale under his spray tan. “He was the only one who could help my wife.” My voice cracked under the strain.
The surfer shrugged and stepped back from the doctor, not seeming all that interested in the two of us. He strolled toward the pile of downed zombies and started popping off their heads. It didn’t seem like that much effort for him. There wasn’t any blood, not like you would imagine anyways, but my stomach was still shaky so I turned away.
I refocused my attention on the doctor and gingerly tried to realign his neck with his spine. But the ground beneath the tree wasn’t level, so his head rolled back to its initial resting place. At a right angle from the rest of his body. So much for that plan. His glazed eyes stared unblinkingly in my direction. I squirmed, the heebie jeebies running up and down my spine.
This guy sure seemed dead. All the way dead.
I noticed the doctor’s arms were covered in scratches, probably from climbing the tree. They were bleeding. Not a lot, but steady streams of red crisscrossing his bare skin.
They didn’t seem to be healing.
At that moment, every part of my body ached. Whatever had been keeping me going till now ebbed away, and I was left tired and shaking and desperate.
I heard footsteps in the grass—the surfer returning. To do what exactly, I wasn’t sure.
“Is the doctor coming back?” I asked. I didn’t bother turning around. My eyes were scanning the body before me, hoping to find some hint of life. Even weird zombie afterlife.
“Back?”
“You know, like miraculously heal. What you did when Spense hit you with the baseball bat.” I paused. “What Marilyn did.” Although, I knew that last one was mainly wishful thinking. Marilyn had healed from the knife wound, but she still wasn’t better. I was beginning to wonder if she would ever come back completely.
“Nope.” He didn’t elaborate.
Well, that wasn’t particularly helpful.
“No zombie doctor?” I shot back. My fear and tiredness and guilt turning into anger.
He gave a short laugh. “Zombies, huh? I guess that’s as good a name as any. No. He’s staying right where he is.” The dude was still standing a few feet away, watching me. “No dawn of the dead for this dermatologist.”
I sucked in a breath and it burned going down. My throat was so dry. I looked back at the doctor. His face was turning white. And frankly, now that I was paying attention to it, he kinda smelled. I got to my feet. Slowly. My body still a little woozy.
“Are you going to pop his head off?” I asked, getting uneasy at the way the surfer kept staring at me.
“No need.”
He seemed so sure. Could that really be the end of it? My mind rebelled against the thought. It couldn’t end here. With no chance to cure Marilyn. Wait…the functioning parts of my brain started yelling at me.…if he knew that there was no chance of the doctor coming back all zombified—did that mean? Did he know what all this was about?
“Do you know what he did to the others? Can you help my wife?” I stumbled toward the surfer, my hunch giving me hope that I didn’t have a moment ago.
“Is your wife one of the fouled ones?”
“She’s over there. The doctor said he could fix her.” I was practically screaming in his face I was so close.
“Fix her?” Surfer dude said incredulously. “He broke her in the first place. He couldn’t have helped your wife. He was lying to you,” he replied flatly. “Like he lied to all these poor schmucks. Your doctor was in way over his head. He had no idea what he was messing with.”
The surfer turned his back to me and was ambling toward the doctor’s house. He sounded so calmly sure of himself, like he had just said, “the sky is blue” or “today is a good day to go surfing.” I just stood there, bent over and heaving, like he had punched me in the gut.
He was halfway across the yard before my brain stopped reeling. Now that the doctor was dead, he might be my only chance. I couldn’t let him out of my sight.
I ran after him and lunged to grab him from behind. “There’s got to be something—”
“—Whoa, dude.” The guy flicked off my hand and sent me flying back into the grass. “You don’t realize what you’re messing with here.”
I bounced up immediately, not down long enough to register the pain. He didn’t know what he was messing with was what he had said about the doctor. “Why don’t you tell me then!” I yelled.
Surfer dude sighed and looked down at a watch. He said, “Well, first you might want to collect your wife. I think she’s gnawing on your friend.”
I looked toward Spense, and sure enough Marilyn had crawled over to him. He was still lying on the ground, but it looked like he was slowly regaining consciousness. He was swatting away Marilyn, who kept trying to snatch his hand and presumably stuff it in her mouth.
“I’ll see if the doctor kept any beer. You look like you could use it.”
“But—” I gestured at Marilyn.
“Oh, she’ll keep for another couple of hours. Well, one at least. 45 minutes definitely. You don’t know where the beer is, do you?”
My brain went haywire, all my thoughts and emotions spiking together. What the hell did he mean 45 minutes?! Yay, someone other than the doctor knew what was going on! But he said she couldn’t be fixed. Yet he seemed to be zombie superman. Could Marilyn be something like that? How would that change our relationship if she had the strength to accidentally pop off my head? It was all too much. My brain shorted out trying to process it all. I struggled to know where to begin, my mouth working but nothing really coming out.
So I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, and went with the easiest thing. “The kitchen is through the broken window, down the hall.”
“Awesome.”