I heard the cheering again that night, long after I’d cranked out a hundred push-ups and crawled into bed. It stretched on into the late hours, filtering into my dreams, making me remember one concert or another where I’d found myself at the front of the stage, screaming with everyone else, blasting out my eardrums for the sake of rock and roll and a good story.
The cheering faded away after about an hour. I rolled over, eager to sleep again, only to be jolted out of bed by a piercing electronic screech and the harder, more distinctive sound of gunfire.
I leaped out of bed and scurried to my window. Lights came on in the houses on our street, but no one came outside. The siren blared a few moments longer and then paused, sputtering out.
The shooting didn’t.
I threw a blanket around my shoulders and went downstairs. Evie and Dax were already there, the former prancing nervously in front of the door, the latter holding on to the most weapon-like object he could find: a space heater.
“That’ll help us,” I said. “Melt those goddamn zombies.”
He made a face at me.
Tony came down the stairs a few seconds later, wrapped in a flannel robe and looking more like a slightly displaced Jedi Master than Camp Elderwood’s fearsome militia leader. “It’s just an attack, guys,” he said.
“Just an attack,” I repeated. “Just an attack?”
“Means ghouls,” he said. “Revenants. They broke through somewhere and the Army is fighting them. That’s all.”
That’s all? That’s all?
I must have looked astonished. Surely we were supposed to do something. Call the military cops. Duck and cover. Run out into battle carrying household utensils as weapons.
Something.
“We’re just going to sit here?” I squeaked.
Tony shrugged. “What do you want me to say? We’re not allowed to help out. This is a military-only operation.”
He let that statement sink in.
“Just go back to bed,” he said. “Try to sleep. We’ll find out what happened in the morning. And Dax, if you break that space heater, I’m going to superglue your toes together while you sleep.”
He went back upstairs.
After a few moments of confusion, Dax and I followed him up. What else could we do? We had no working guns. It wasn’t like we could go dashing off into glory.
I don’t think any of us slept a wink.
Chapter Eight
Not unsurprisingly, the zombie ward had gone critical overnight.
Lattimore sent Pete the Stoner to get me and Dax as soon as the sky began brightening. He then proceeded to trail behind us, entirely too high to walk any faster than a leisurely stroll.
The doctor shoved a suturing kit into my hands as soon as I came in, and then pointed me toward a clump of soldiers and civilians who had evidently materialized in the last half-hour. “Next time you hear those sirens go off, you come straight to work, no matter what time it is,” she said—and I could not wait to rub that in Tony’s face. “This is your group. Get these guys cleaned up, send the hard cases to me.”
I had no idea what constituted a hard case anymore. My perception had shifted somewhat since a flayed man coughed up blood all over me. But Lattimore had already dived into the fray and started barking orders.
I busted out my suturing kit and stared at the dozen or so people standing in front of me. Not too bad so far; these all looked like limb wounds, injuries to the hands, arms, legs, maybe one torso. Some of them had probably started to clot on their own. No major muscle tissue torn away. That was a blessing, at least.
They all stared at me expectantly. Oh, right. I was supposed to be helping them. Finally, after staying up all fucking night worrying, I could do something.
“Okay,” I said to the group at large. “Arm bites here, leg bites there, torso bites in the middle.”
“What if I have multiple bites?” a woman asked as the others shuffled into the order I’d indicated. She had her hand against what appeared to be a bite mark on her cheek.
I bit my lip to prevent myself from expressing further dismay. “Well, I guess it’s your lucky day. You’re first on the list.”
I might as well have told her I was going to foreclose on her house. “You’ve got a funny definition of lucky,” she said.
“I know. That was not one of my wiser sentiments.” I carried my kit over to her. “Everyone else, just…try to stay calm. And don’t touch your wounds, okay? They get worse if you pick at them.”
“People pick at these things?” one of the soldiers asked.
“People pick at anything.” I looked over the woman with multiple bites and had to fight to maintain a straight face. She had a wound on left arm, the one on her cheek, and a bloody chunk missing from her right side. “How the fuck did this happen to you?”
She stared at me. “More stitching, less bitching.”
I liked that. I was going to steal it as my personal suturing motto.
I started with her face, since that seemed the most egregious part. She’d obviously already been dosed with one painkiller or another, and probably a sedative as well; it was probably the only reason she wasn’t screaming her head off or passed out from the pain.