“Hammond picked up,” I said. “Elderwood seems okay.”
Her smile broadened. “Damn. I knew they were still out there.” She turned slowly to me, each motion a definite effort. “I knew it. Something’s been going on here…something bad. Keller…there was some sketchy shit going on right before that…”
She frowned, as if the memory had just managed to slip away from her.
“Is Hammond coming?” she asked.
“Don’t know. His people need help, too, and it would take so long to get here…”
I sure as hell hoped Hammond planned on coming. This place got weirder by the minute.
I glanced around the tent again. No immediate changes. I’d need to start another round in a few minutes.
I looked back down at my pale, sickly friend. She’d put herself—and her brother—at great personal risk to see this done, and while I was grateful, I couldn’t quite figure out what, exactly, had motivated her. “Why are you helping us?” I asked.
Alyssa choked back a laugh that turned into a cough. When she had composed herself, she said, “You’ve seen who’s leading us, right?”
I had, but commenting on it in the presence of his soldiers seemed ill-advised.
Her smile came back, albeit faintly. “He has been a complete tool since day one. He shouldn’t be running anything. He’ll kill us all before he’s done…he already has, really, with all that pastrami.”
“Is the pastrami actually his fault, though?.”
She closed her eyes. “In my world, yes.”
God, what I would have given for more details. For a little bit of time to press her for more information. In less than two hours, Hammond has suggested that Keller had killed Durkee, and now Alyssa thought Keller would be the end of us all. Obviously there was more to Captain Doogie Howser than I’d imagined.
I skimmed through my list of questions, trying to figure out which I could lob at her.
But her fingers closed around mine and tightened before I could start firing off queries. “Vibeke…when I die, will you make sure I don’t come back like them?”
Oh, shit. We’d just gone from mildly heartwarming to wholly disturbing in less than a second.
“I don’t follow,” I said, even though I followed just fine.
“I’m just saying. Don’t think I’m getting better. The doctors don’t know what we have. Two people have come back already. What you did with that bedpan…I don’t want to be a zombie dripping with shit. I have standards.”
The questions about Hastings and Keller went right out of my head. Instead, I wanted to ask her about her life. About her favorite kind of food, and what life was like growing up with her brother, and what she’d be doing with her life if the whole zombie apocalypse thing hadn’t happened.
You’re going to get better, I should have said. That was the proper thing to say. But I had used up just about all my lying ability on the guards this morning, and…how the hell was I supposed to lie to her? She saw what was going on. This wasn’t a private hospital room. People were dying all around her. She was one of many.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, and fuck.
“Vibeke.” She tugged at my hand.
“Okay,” I said, just to keep her quiet and tried not to think of her being dead. You can’t die, you’re the only one I actually talk to anymore who doesn’t seem half-ready to jump off a cliff.
“I mean it, Vibeke. I don’t want shit running down my hair!”
She had a hell of a grip for a sick woman. My fingers ground together in her cold palm.
“I won’t let shit run down your hair,” I said. “I won’t smack you with a bedpan.”
“Don’t let me come back.”
“I won’t.”
There was only one way to make sure someone didn’t come back, and it involved something sharp or explosive through the brain. I had always wondered if someone would make that request of me—pop me before I can pop you.
How the hell was I supposed to do that? Linger with her? Watch her die, and then cave her skull in with something?
My stomach rumbled in familiar discomfort. Oh, hell no. I could not just vomit up pastrami onto Alyssa. She’d probably like that even less than being smacked with a bedpan.
“Just…please don’t do it while I’m alive.” She lowered her voice. “I’m not good with pain. I’m kind of a wuss.”
I nodded, uncomfortably aware of the huge lump in the back of my throat. “I promise,” I mumbled. “I won’t do anything until you’re gone.”
“And no bedpans.”
“No bedpans.”
She released my hand. “Get going,” she said. “You look kind of green.”
I stood up a little too fast, and got her dosed up with the next round of sedative. “Goodnight, Alyssa.”