Chapter 18 – Arnold is saved
They disembarked from the PBX boat at the docks of the first town they saw. Arnold had gotten worse. His skin had taken on an orange tinge and his side was distended, causing him to groan in pain any time Doc examined it. This town was swollen, with infected so Robert left Doc and Arnold in a warehouse near the docks as he went solo, to look for a hospital.
The town was split between an industrial area to the north near the water, and a residential area further south and inland. As he looked through the northern part of the town, he spent most of the time on his belly, crawling past groaning infected whilst hunting for supplies. He’d found food, water, clothes and lots of dead bodies clutching guns, but no hospital. By the state of decomposition, these people had been dead for a long time, but for some reason they weren’t infected. Robert took lots of mental notes, the occasional drink, and a map and compass as he continued on his search for medication.
Running along a field he saw a sign posted on the road that indicated the town’s name was Berezino. Looking at the map and tracing back his route he could see the inlet where he’d found the PBX, the peninsula where the ship had been beached and the docks where they had left the PBX. He took out a pen and marked some of the locations that he’d return to - especially the military area that had been set up near a football field - as he planned a route south.
In his morning of scouting the northern part of Berezino, Robert had learnt to dodge the infected and understand that their sense of hearing was far better than their sense of sight. So long as you were low and quiet you could crawl almost right beside one and they wouldn’t notice you. It also seemed their olfactory senses were not working – or else overpowered by their own stench - as they didn’t seem to smell Robert either. He didn’t know about their sense of touch, and he hoped to never discover whether they still possessed their sense of taste.
He was carrying a Remington 870 shotgun which he’d chosen over some pretty impressive looking rifles at the military tents. Robert figured that any contact with the infected would be up close and he liked the stopping power that a shotgun provided over the range of a sniper rifle. He had 24 slugs and fortunately, so far, hadn’t needed to fire one.
Crossing the field he passed a crudely constructed observation post that had three infected roaming around it. Robert decided to avoid any risk, circumnavigated it and continued across the field to the large buildings in the distance, hoping one of them was a hospital. He came upon a general store that had a burnt-out Humvee and a pile of body bags at its rear entrance. Avoiding the infected, he made his way inside the store looking for something to eat.
There he found cans of beans, cans of pasta and a larger Alice pack which he took, ditching his ship-issued patrol pack. He filled the backpack with as much food and drink as he could carry and found another map, which he also took along with a hunting knife and matches. The pack was heavy with food and loot as he walked out the front of the store and crawled across the road. He moved low and kept to the building’s shadows as he turned the corner to see the big red cross painted on the side of a tall building. This was a makeshift hospital with camouflage netting and tents set up outside the main building. Bingo, he thought as he made his way around the back, avoiding the front and the infected wandering around there.
He looked through the tents but they had been picked clean of weapons, although he found a medical supply box on the ground outside one. Inside the box were epi-pens, morphine auto-injectors, bandages and blood bags. They weren’t on the list of medications Doc told him to look out for but he decided to take one of each just in case. With the back of the hospital a dead end, he slowly made his way to the front.
The front was a wall of glass but inside he could see similar medical boxes on the floor. He made his way to the front door and found that the double doors had been chained shut. He violently rattled the doors, but since he hadn’t suddenly developed super-human powers, it was futile as the doors remained locked tight. He tapped on the glass window with the tip of his Remington, two or three shots and the glass would break. He looked around at all the walkers that roamed nearby and further away and decided he wasn’t going to do that alone. He needed help, he’d need Doc. If he was still there, he couldn’t stop the thought from forming as he sensed Doc would abandon them at the first opportunity he could.
He started to make his way back to Doc when the flame decal caught his eye. Leaned up against a pile of wreckage was a Kawasaki motorbike, bright red with a flame decal on the fuel tank. He assumed the owner was the dead youngish looking man nearby. A quick rummage of his pockets recovered the motorbike keys and confirmed his assumption. The bike’s fuel was low but it started first go and seemed to be in good shape. Robert revved the engine and the infected came from everywhere, the sound attracting them like ants to a sugar pot. He pushed back the kickstand, put the bike in gear and took off down the road, a train of infected chasing him.
The speed of the motorbike made short work of outrunning the chasing infected, they lost sight and interest once the noise of the bike faded away. Robert arrived back at the docks and was relieved to find Doc still sitting with Arnold, drip feeding him water. Doc was just as relieved to discover it was Robert making that noise and even managed a smile as he rode the motorbike into the warehouse.
Robert parked the bike and closed the warehouse door. He lifted the heavy Alice pack off his shoulder and handed Doc some food and soda, “I found a hospital in town with a medical box outside. This was all that was inside it.” He indicated the medical haul he laid at Doc’s feet. “Is that any help for Arnold?”
Doc looked it over picking up a blood bag and reading the label, “O negative.”
“That useful?” Robert asked.
“It’s the universal donor so it can be used for anyone. But it’s not refrigerated and we don’t know how old it is so it may cause more harm than good. The rest of this stuff looks like combat hospital provisions. It’ll get someone patched up and moving again, but it’s no help for the treatment of malaria.”
“So we have to go back. There were more boxes inside but the place was locked. I think there’s a way in but I’ll need help.”
“We have to be quick about it. Arnold's getting worse by the minute.”
“Then we’ll take the bike but we need to make a quick fuel stop and get you a gun.”
Doc was shocked, “a gun!”
“You said so yourself Doc, this is a war zone. And you don’t go into a war zone unarmed.”
After a quick side trip back to the military tents, Robert returned to the front of the hospital, this time with Doc. They left Arnold as comfortable as possible in the shed and at the military tents, Robert found Doc a silenced M9 pistol. Doc got a crash course in gun safety as Robert set up some tin cans as a crude firing range. Doc’s first shot was wide but the silenced nature of the gun didn’t attract any infected. The next two still missed and Robert decided they should conserve ammo and avoid wasting any more shots.
“Just point it at the chest and keep pulling the trigger until they fall down,” was the final instruction Doc was given as they stood outside the hospital.
They’d left the bike at the back of the general store and had moved quietly across to the hospital, Doc learning about avoiding the infected from Robert.
Later on, the intellectual side of Doc’s brain would try to comprehend the physiological reasons for the sense of hearing becoming more dominant than that of sight. For now, survival was all he thought about. Being so close to the infected unnerved him, and it was not something he could get used to.
Outside the hospital he pointed a shaky pistol at nearby infected, willing them to walk away as Robert pumped the shotgun and fired at the glass window. The boom shattered the peaceful silence of the countryside, and was immediately followed by a second shot. Doc looked around at the infected all running towards the noise. Panicked, he called out, “they’re coming, get that fucking window open.” <
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A third shot broke the glass and it shattered at the base of the window. “Inside, now!” Robert yelled at Doc as he took stock of the infected running towards them. “Get to the back and look through those boxes. I’ll take care of them.”
Robert went behind a check-in counter and trained the Remington at the broken glass entrance waiting. He breathed hard desperately trying to catch his breath with rapid pants that did nothing as the first infected entered. The sound of Doc rummaging through boxes behind him disappeared and his mind went blank as he focused on the infected. Looking down the iron sights he waited until one was close and squeezed the trigger. He didn’t hear the shot fire but suddenly the infected's face was gone, replaced by a blackened cavity oozing out dark brown bile.
He sensed Doc was saying something behind him but his mind shut it out as he focused on the entrance waiting for the next infected to rush in. It was just as quickly disposed of as four more came through the glass. Robert fired off three more shots before the shotgun fired dry – out of ammo.
Suddenly the sounds and groans of the infected returned as he kicked the last one away trying to reload the Remington. The infected struck at his side and Doc noticed blood seeping out of the wound as Robert reloaded the gun and put a round into its chest. The infected dropped and Robert made short work of the final four that came through the glass.
The hospital was suddenly quiet - but for the sounds of their breathing - and Robert turned to face Doc, “did you find the medicine?”
“No, nothing. I have some antibiotics that might keep him alive for a bit longer but they won’t cure him.”
“So all of this has been for nothing,” Robert looked over the bodies at the entrance.
“You’re bleeding, so let’s get that sorted first before we worry about Arnold.” Robert looked down the wound at his side as Doc patched it up with a bandage.
“Oh shit. Does that mean I’m going to turn into one of them?”
“I don’t know. I’ve taken some more useful supplies but let’s get out of here before more of them arrive. We’ll give Arnold these antibiotics, at least it will buy him some more time,” replied Doc.
They returned to the motorbike at the general store. The shock was wearing off as Robert’s mind returned to almost normal function. “We’ll come back at dusk. As the glass is now open we won’t need to make any noise which should give you enough time to find the right medication,” Doc nodded as he hopped on the bike and they returned to the shed.
But they didn’t return that night, instead they spent the night burying Arnold out in a field. When they’d returned from the failed hospital run, Arnold was dead. Silently, Doc was relieved as realistically this now increased their chance of survival. Robert said nothing, instead he beat his hands against the tin walls in fury until they were bloody. He looked around for a shovel and cried for the entire duration it took him to dig Arnold’s grave. Doc watched from under a tree as Robert insisted on doing it himself.
As Robert shoveled down the last of the dirt over Arnold's body, the cloud-cover cleared and a bright full moon lit up the field. Doc asked, “should we leave a marker of some sorts?”
“No,” Robert replied, as he patted the dirt one last time with his hands. He tossed the shovel aside and walked back to the shed. In essence, Arnold was now saved – he was spared from ever knowing a world that had been eclipsed by the infection.