Chapter Eight : Recovery

Ethan sat against the wall, blankets draped over his shoulders, the mattress under him dark with blood stains. It had been two days since the savage attack at the library, For the whole first day Ava had only left his side to get food and painkillers from the grocery next door, she had sat on a chair reading a book from the library. Now she was gone, she had left some time ago this time to find a chemist, the tears in his arm were deep and signs of infection were starting to appear. She had reasoned with him that he would need antibiotics if he didn't want to die and reluctantly he agreed that she could go salvage some. Now he sat here regretting that decision, she wasn't back yet and he was in no shape to look for her. He cursed himself for letting her go out on such a dangerous endeavor. The streets had a lot more wandering dead now, they roamed endlessly looking for food. When they found nothing living they ate whatever they could, Ethan had watched one earlier in the garden bed across the car park eating roses off the bushes. Another one stood against the shop window eating the dead flesh from its own arm. The ones who did find food became towering monstrosities of muscle, twisting their form and making them even more inhuman. He had seen them patrolling the street from the sanctuary of the shop while waiting for Ava's return. He drank the last of the Gatorade that Ava had left for him resisting the urge to throw his blankets off, instead sweltering with fever, followed by cold sweats. As night fell outside he fell into a nightmare filled sleep.

His body ached but he couldn't stop, a large black dog chased him and every turn he made was met with the giant black beast. It's multiple eyes stared him down, when it opened its jaws, the rows of teeth were accompanied with more rows behind them and more behind those. He ran again his legs pounding and throbbing with every step, his lungs threatening to burst, ahead of him he could see the road and he made it out into the street. A parade filled the road, he stopped as floats and marching bands paraded past down the street. The people lined the street everywhere filling every available spot trying to get a clear view of the proceedings. The joy of seeing people was short lived as he realized the people were all dead, the street full of corpses and the smell infiltrated his sinuses. Suddenly all at once they held their arms out to the passing float, moving as they did so to occupy the road, sweeping him with them as they went. A large shadow moved above him causing him to look up at a giant balloon, it was black and had many eyes, turning in the breeze it billowed out and opened up and the white teeth, row upon row began their decent towards him. As he looked back at the woman on the float she turned enough for him to realize it was Ava and as the black monster above them consumed them both he screamed.

He awoke in the dark covered in sweat, blankets strewn across the mattress, somewhere in the darkness of the room, something moved. His heart raced as he struggled to make out where in the room he was, everything seemed unfamiliar and he couldn't remember which way he was facing. A light was coming from under the door and he used it to get his bearings. He was just starting to make out the inside of the room when a light started to glow and a figure came over holding a lantern.

"The powers out" Said Ava's voice softly, his heart leapt but the feeling of his dream lingered and made him feel a strange dread about everything.

"What's happening?" He asked trying to get a bearing on the situation now.

"Your still not well." Ava sat down on the mattress near him and looked at his arm in the soft light.

"I've got the antibiotics for you. But you need to take it with some food." She explained patiently.

"What happened?" He asked concerned.

Ava swabbed his wounds with iodine as she spoke. "For now I'll get you something to eat and get the antibiotics into you, then we will talk" Ethan was still kind of confused when she got up and left to get the medicine. Daylight streamed in as she opened the door, taking advantage of the extra light he got up to use the toilet, when he returned she had everything ready. As he ate a breakfast of cold baked beans, she explained to him how she had saved him.

"When the dog had started towards you I ran as fast as I could to the car.

I had only just started it, when you came running out towards the gate with that monster behind you." She gave a goose shiver just thinking about it. "I tried to call out but before I got the chance it had dragged you to the ground, so I floored it and drove over it!" Ethan sat quietly thinking this all over in his mind.

"That was the jerk I felt!" He was starting to put it together now. "I remember thinking that the car was right there when you got me up."

"It let you go just as I hit it. The force knocked it over and I parked on top of it. It didn't move when I was getting you in and it dragged under the car until it got caught on the spoon drain as we drove out of the car park." She blushed as she told him how she had to use her top to stop the bleeding and joked that he owed her a top. He had slept for such a long time, all he remembered was that his body ached and when he woke up she was there with painkillers. Then there was the argument when she wanted to leave and get antibiotics. Ethan hadn't been thinking very clearly but he remembered not wanting to be left alone.

"I've got something I want to show you." Ava teased and got up, going to the open doorway.

"What is it?" Ethan's pain and lack of enthusiasm easily outweighing his curiosity.

"Just come and look." She persisted and disappeared into the shop.

His leg was still swollen to the point that it took on a shine, as well it had punctures, each one surrounded by a ring of deep bruise that extended all the way up to his knee. He wasn't excited about standing on it again so soon, but after a minute he was on his feet and hobbling into the shop after her.

He gasped audibly when he got to the front counter, covering every inch of it were weapons and equipment. There was a small pile of vests on the floor, that had police written across them and next to that was a pile of ammo boxes. The counter was covered in firearms, batons and various knives, from machetes to pocket knives and everything in between.

"I found it all at the police station." Ava smiled at his awe, it was clear to him that she thought this was the greatest thing ever and he was inclined to agree. He lifted a shotgun from the counter carefully, he had never held a gun in his whole life. It was far heavier than it looked, the metal was cool to the touch and it gave off a smell like nothing he had smelt before. The power he felt just holding it was inspiring, even just pointing it towards the ground, was amazing.

"How?" He looked at her standing proud and smiling at his reaction.

"When I couldn't get into the chemist I went across the road to the police station, I figured there might be something there I could use. I guess it was one of the only places left open when the quarantine was raised, so I just walked in. The automatic doors were working and everything." Ethan put the gun back on the counter and picked up a handgun. Turning it over in his hand and holding it up to look along the barrel as Ava explained how the keys to the gun locker and the evidence room were all there for the taking.

"So there was no one there at all?" Ethan found the idea of an abandoned police station intriguing. When Ava next spoke it was softly and he could tell she had been affected by whatever it was she found there.

"There was no one alive in there, but there was a body in the cells, it looked as though he had turned and someone had shot him." Ava gave a shudder recalling the memory. "And there was an officer dead over a desk, I don't think he had turned, it looked more like suicide." Ethan didn't know what to say to this so he stood there dumbly pointing the glock at the floor.

"Anyway it took me a lot of looking to find all the keys and then get all the guns into the car." She continued. "Then the power went out, the automatic doors stopped working and locked me in." Ethan remembered back to the night, she was gone and he realized it hadn't been some kind of feverish dream.

"I remember waking up last night and you weren't here." He said out loud.

"Yeah I didn't get back until early this morning. By the time I worked out how to get out of the station it was dark. So I just spent the night in a cell." She grinned at this like it was some kind of joke and not a situation that could have ended her life.

"This morning I drove a car into the chemist window and grabbed what I could before coming back here."

"You did a ram raid?" He stood with his mouth open literally slack jawed.

"Yeah." She couldn't help but grin back. "With a police car." Ethan gazed on in wonder.,

"Anyway, are you up for some practice with the guns? I figure since neither of us has a clue what we are doing we should at least try to work it out before we end up having to use them as clubs."

"Sure where do we do that?" He asked almost sarcastically.

"On the roof, like in Dawn of the Dead." She shot back cooly.

"I haven't seen it." He shot back. "I'm still only twelve!" looking at her face it was clear she had forgotten about his age.

Gunshots rang out through the still air, the sound, amplified by the constant lack of noise of late. Ethan had thought he felt powerful holding the gun before, it paled in comparison to firing it. They stood waist deep in a section of roof directly above the barber shop. It had been easy to remove a few tiles, laying shop signs across the rafters and setting up a makeshift target using a piece of cardboard. His first shots were wild as he jerked the gun, pulling the trigger instead of a gentle squeeze, he missed every shot, but his lack of accuracy didn't seem to wane his enthusiasm. While he thumbed ammo into the clip, Ava took her turn. She was more cautious, taking careful aim and squeezing off each shot before realigning the gun and taking the next shot. Even with her careful aim she still only hit the target with six of her fifteen shots. It had been a surprise how easy the glocks were to work out and use. While Ava reloaded Ethan had a second go, he took care hitting the target more this time. Six clips later, they both had a pretty good handle on the handguns, they were a long way from crack shots but Ethan was confident he could hit something if need be. The view gave them a good vantage over the street, they sat quietly watching the dead, attracted by the noise, wander into the street. Besides the handguns they had a couple of scoped rifles, these were bolt action, Ava sat trying to work out how the bolts worked while Ethan used the other like a binocular. Looking through the scope he lined up a dead man standing in the garden across the road. He looked the man over, studying the way the flesh on his face hung, the way his hair was thinning, the scratches on his arms and rotting flesh. He had never had the chance to sit and watch them this close in such detail, they seemed less scary and more pathetic. He switched to a woman standing in the street, her hair in tatters, her cloths not much better, pants dirty and shirt torn and hanging off. Her breast was exposed an he felt a pang of embarrassment for looking, he turned to see if Ava noticed, but she was loading magazines with shells from a box and not paying any attention. Looking through the scope again he began to practice lining up shots, noticing that the gun wobbled every time he mock killed a zombie, he tried squeezing more softly and focused on keeping the gun steady. He tried resting it on the back of a chair, it was a lot better and he diund it easier to keep stable.

"Are you going to take a shot?" Ava interrupted his thoughts.

"Do you think I should?" Watching the staving hordes of dead, he didn't really have any feelings towards them. Looking at them covered in dirt or blood, clothes falling off, further along in the street stood a man with no pants. He wondered if he should care that they were all people once, Ava came and knelt next to him.

"They do in The movie and I'm sure they wouldn't mind. Besides I can't think of a good reason not to, can you? Unless you want to save the ammo." She made a good point, if they left them it would be a slow death starving, he didn't know if they could feel or think anything but he saw no harm in dropping a few. Lifting the bolt up, drawing it back he watched the bullet spring into place and slide into the chamber as he locked the bolt home. He took aim at the old man with no pants, his skin so loose it was hard to imagine there being anything beneath it but bone. His knees were wounds, torn from having to crawl, probably after his pants fell down. His eyes were dark with flecks of blue but his head was almost nothing more than a skull. The sound of the rifle cracked the air as the former mans head jerked to the side as he toppled over. The noise started a movement below as the dead started their roaming again. He took a minute to line up another man, this time it was a larger and younger one, with blood all over it's face and clothes. He hit it in the throat and it jerked and turned looking for an attacker while dark blood ran down over the things shoulder. He loaded another shot and tried again to hit the wounded man, his movement making it hard but he paused just long enough for Ethan to shoot him through the head. The bullet caught him just above the eye and he crumpled to the ground blood leaking onto the pavement. After Ava had a couple of shots, taking two shots to drop each of the two targets she lined up, they then set about trying the other rifle. It looked more squat and a bit heavier although it still had the hunting rife look to it. The shells were longer and more military looking or Ethan though so anyway. It had taken them a bit of effort to match the ammo to the gun as the barrel didn't look as though it should fire such a large shell. Ethan loaded the magazine which only held four shots. It had some weight to it but not so much it was unmanageable, tucking it into his shoulder he rested it on the back of the chair and lined up a target. The unsuspecting zombie stood in a daze baking in the sun when suddenly accompanied with an ear shattering boom, his head exploded, a large piece flying off and a hollow opened up. He crumpled forward half of his cranium gone. Ethan's ears rung, and he rubbed them trying to dispell the ringing, Ava's gasp caused him to look down at the street searching for his target. The street was full of movement now, he caught sight of the crumpled mess that moments before had been standing.

"That was unreal!" Ava babbled

"It didn't even kick at all." Ethan pulled back the bolt loading the next shot.

"Aren't your ears still buzzing?" Ava asked seeing him lining up the next shot, she blocked them with her fingers anyway when he didn't answer.

Ethan watched through the scope as another head popped spilling it's contents up and outwards in a large ark of blood and brain. He smiled a large smile pulling back the bolt again as he lined up another zombie. Suddenly all the fun went out of it as the zombie turned to look at him, it was large with very little clothing left on, its skin was tan with time in the sun. It seemed that there was less dead flesh, more living tissue holding this one together, the eyes were bright and intelligent. It wasn't the way it looked or the intelligence it showed that shocked him, it was the face. As he looked through the scope ready to wrought destruction upon it, he recognized features under the dirt and blood, features he had known since a child and features that would haunt him forever. It was his father stareing up at him with an unwavering blue gaze.