“I guess I got lucky though, I mean I was already back home before the major infection vector. I am pretty scared though, there are lunatics running past outside the apartment and there are helicopters. Damn things are huge. Every so often I hear a noise in the distance like a saw – I think it’s gunf-“
Emma gasped at the abrupt ending.
“Second message,” said the answering machine.
“Sorry about that,” started Dan. Emma exhaled sharply.
“I think your machine cut me off.. anyway I just wanted to check you are okay. I tried your cell but there was no answer.”
Emma looked sadly towards her inert cell phone. A bath in the sea would ensure she would never answer on it again. She supposed it had been out of battery long before her fateful trip to the old sanitarium.
“I am hoping you finally made it back to the college,” Dan continued “… and I had no-one else to call. Does that make me sound needy?”
“Anyway.. T.V. says to stay inside and keep quiet so I am going to studiously read. Hope you are okay. Bye.”
“End of messages.”
Emma sat down heavily, she was more tired, sore and raw inside than she could remember ever being. With a sigh, she dialed the number for the college – intent on getting Dan’s home address.
* * * * *
Emma finally reached the apartment building specified on the small piece of yellow paper in her hand. Lacking a computer AND phone, she had to get the cranky lab assistant who answered the college biology department number to give her directions. To her credit, Emma persuaded her to do so with a bare minimum of threatening.
The building was nice – obviously much nicer than hers. It even boasted a private dog walking area somewhere to the rear of the property - handy for all the single people ensconced therein who desperately needed some form of company.
Assailing the stairs (power was out on the elevators) Emma soon came to the 2nd floor, where Dan lived. Getting ready to knock on his door, Emma instantly noted something amiss.
Emma had not previously noted the new habit but thanks to Steve and his merry band of misfits she had taken to carefully examining doors before entering a room.
This one had a couple drops of blood at the base of it.
Deciding to err on the side of caution, Emma didn’t knock on the door - or ring the doorbell. She instead ran at it, centering her dense mass into the door, right by the handle. The door splintered as it gave, revealing a scene featuring Dan slumped in a pool of blood, emanating from a hole in his stomach.
“Oh great,” he said, weakly lifting his head at the intrusion to see it was her. “Now I also have to replace a door.”
“No-one leaves me two voicemails,” she replied deadpan, masking her concern as she rushed over to tend to him. The man had a pallor to his skin that suggested the blood loss was at a critical level.
A chocolate lab, previously affixed to Dan’s side growled as she entered but lay back down with a weak pat to the top of his head.
“I knew it was too much,” he replied, coughing up blood. Coughing immediately set Emma’s nerves on edge, until she realized this was just good old fashioned internal bleeding.
Examining the wound, Emma kept the patter going - hoping to take Dan’s mind off the pain.
“So what happened?” she asked, quickly pouring a nearby bottle of vodka on her hands before probing gently into the stomach wound.
“So check this out,” Dan replied, not really reacting to the pressure on his wound – not a good sign. The flesh had been devoid of good blood flow long enough to make the nerves dead. “It is the middle of a Zombie apocalypse and I manage to get shot.”
“Poor reaction to a bad grade?” she asked, looking for damage to arteries – one had been nicked but was merely oozing.. mere millimeters to the right and his life expectancy would have been seconds as opposed to the… hours? that he had spent slowly ruining his nice carpets.
“Dumb bad luck” he answered. “People started looting pretty hard. This one guy had me at gunpoint when Prince came around the corner growling. I jumped him to try and grab the gun – figured it was that or watch him shoot my dog.”
“How’d that work out for you?” asked Emma, thinking she probably would have let the gunman do so. Sorry Prince she mentally added, slightly inclining her head.
Dan nodded over to the side and Emma was shocked to see a downed figure partially around the corner.
“Then how?” she asked intelligently, pointing to the wound.
“His friend was not happy,” Dan said closing his eyes.
“You love your dog a little too much, attacking two people with guns while unarmed,” Emma commented.
Dan nodded “I have spent the better part of a day reflecting on it and I am inclined to agree,” he answered. “So how is it?” he asked, nodding his head weakly to indicate the stomach wound.
“Not good,” answered Emma honestly. “You’ve lost a ton of blood and you have a nicked artery that still hasn’t clotted over. You’re a timebomb” she finished simply.
“Jesus your bedside manner sucks,” Dan answered, coughing. “Can you operate?”
“God no. It would be touch and go if you had a surgeon – I would just kill you,” Emma answered, getting up.
“Can you at least try?” Dan asked, pleading.
“How long has he been dead?” asked Emma, pointing down to the would-be robber by her feet. She wiped her hands absently on her sweatpants, leaving a bloody trail.
“I don’t know,” answered Dan, sounding frustrated but weaker. He was fading.
“You might not thank me for this in the short term. Hell, you might not even thank me for it in the long term,” Emma said, kneeling.
She bit him.
Dan’s weakened immune system was absolutely no match for this virus. Within seconds he started shaking uncontrollably, in time with the crunching noise of Emma bashing looter head repeatedly against her professor’s granite counter.
“Crap,” she said after a few seconds “Sorry Dan, I put another stain on your carpet.”
* * * * *
In a basement a couple of miles away, a mound of rubble slowly shifted.
My Unlife trilogy, books 2 & 3
Look for the following in 2014 & 2015!
Book 2 - My Unlife: Revolution
Book 3 - My Unlife: Extinction
About the Author
Typhoid Marty is the writer for Hell Inc (https://www.hellinccomic.com), a webcomic about Demons, Angels and Big Business. He likes games, books and other nerdy things - outside gives him hives but he likes to look at it through the window.
Connect with Typhoid Marty at the following fine online venues:
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