The Safe Zone (The Dead Zone Book Two)

Chapter 6

Paige awakes to the pale sunlight streaming in the windows, but finds no solace in it. The only thing she feels is emptiness. Its then that she realized what exactly it was that had awoken her. Someone was banging on the front door.

She groans, throwing the pillow over her head to block out the noise. Whoever it was could go away. She wasn't in the mood to socialize.

She sighed as heavy footsteps resounded on the stairs, heading toward her bedroom. Probably Zach coming to wake her.

"Go away! I'm not getting out of bed today." He stood there silently for a few moments, until he spoke.

"You don't really want to spend your first full day at Lemuria in bed, do you?"

She bolted upright, pulling the covers up around her. There, in the doorway, stood Jason, eyeing her humorously.

"Oh my god. I thought you were Zach." She was sure she looked like a mess but couldn't find it in herself to really care. Jason grinned, and she felt uncomfortable. He was curious about her, probably more curious than he should be. Is that why he kept showing up?

"Well, I was going to show you the ropes, but if you really want to sleep all day..." He turned to leave, when she sighed in resignation.

"No, just give me a few minutes. I'll meet you downstairs."

There was really no point in moping around all day. Why should she sit around and cry over Bryson, who didn't even give a second thought about her before he up and left? She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She'd be productive. Besides, she needed something to take her mind off of him.

Meeting Jason downstairs, he beamed at her, making her uneasy again.

"Where do we start?" She asks.

"Well, tell me a bit about yourself first so I know where to place you."

She stood silently for a moment, unsure how to answer. She was just Paige... a survivor of the zombie apocalypse. Did anything else really matter? Did it matter that she loved to read? Or that she used to paint? Or knew how to play piano? All those skills were useless to her now. She didn't even feel like she knew herself.

"Well, I was a nurse before all of this happened." She figured that was the most use she could be around here.

"Great! Health care professionals are always in high demand."

That's the only reason Bryson had let her join the group, before he'd gotten to know her.

"Do you have doctors here?" She asked, more to be polite than anything.

"We have one doctor. James Miller. Everyone calls him Doc, though. I'm sure he'd be glad to have a nurse assistant. That is, if you're interested."

"Yeah, of course I'm interested."

He smiles knowingly, and she realizes his blue eyes aren't as lifeless as she'd originally believed. They're nothing like Bryson's; they're pale, turning almost translucent when they catch the light right.

"Let's go meet him."

She follows Jason through town, nodding along as he points out where everyone lives.

"That's Elle's house, but you already knew that. And over there is Victor Waldorf's house. He's the boss around here."

"I want to meet him." She was curious about the man who ran such a successful colony like this one. She had lots of questions for him.

"Later. He's busy at the moment."

She let her eyes linger on the large white house a moment longer, before continuing on, excited to meet Doc. Hopefully she could learn from him, so in the future she would be better trained to help others. A sliver of hope returned in that moment. With or without Bryson, she would make something of herself.

Doc worked in a small Doctor's office building, with ten patient rooms and a small waiting area. There was a pharmacy in the back, which she was glad to see. Supplies weren't an issue around here; not yet, at least. They wouldn't last forever, though.

Doc was an older gentlemen, with a frosting of gray hair. He appeared to be around her father's age. He wore a white lab coat as he inspected something in his microscope, not seeming to notice her and Jason as they approached.

"Doc, I've got someone I'd like you to meet."

He didn't flinch at Jason's voice, so maybe she'd been wrong about him not noticing them. He turns to them then, a pleasant look on his face.

"This is Paige. She's new here. She used to be a nurse."

Doc's hazel eyes light up and his smile widens.

"Paige! It's nice to meet you. I'm James, but you can call me Doc. So tell me, how long have you been practicing?"

She smiled shyly. "Well, I was actually in my third year of nursing school before... you know. I worked at a hospital in Portland though. And my mom was a nurse. I used to follow her around and she'd teach me all sorts of things. She's the reason I wanted to help people." She didn't talk about her parents much, didn't allow herself to dwell on them. Her mother had passed away in the initial outbreak, and her father... he lived in Arizona, she didn't even know if he was alive or not.

"That's great! I could use a hand around here."

"I'm happy to help." He noticed her eyeing his microscope. "I was just in the middle of inspecting the virus from a biter sample some of the men brought me."

By biter, he must mean roamer. Her eyes widened. Nobody really knew anything about the virus that had caused all this, turning people into feral monsters, but maybe Doc could change that. She wondered if he had the technology to create a cure.

"You can have a look if you want." He adds, stepping aside. She nods, curiosity taking over. She wanted to know. Looking through the microscope, it took a second for her eyes to adjust, before a dark splotch became visible against a backdrop of light. What she was looking at appeared to be a cluster of squiggly lines, looking like tiny little worms. They were black as tar, with a fringe of red on the tip. The virus looked as evil as it truly was.

"I got those samples from the brain," Doc says, "As you know, that's how it targets its victims. From there it is transmitted from saliva. There's not much else we know about it, though. It's quite the anomaly."

"Do you think it's natural?" She asked, giving it one last look before handing the microscope back over to its owner. "Do you think it was mother nature? Or something more sinister?" What she meant was, is the virus man made?

"I'm not sure on that, either. Right now I'm only able to run the microscope off a small generator we have. Once the power grid is restored, I'll be able to do more in depth testing. Maybe I'll get some answers then."

"I have faith you'll get those answers." She already liked Doc. He was kind, and easy to talk to. Jason cleared his throat, grabbing both of their attention.

"Did you still want to meet Victor?" Doc's eyes dropped to the floor as he goes silent, and she wonders what that was all about.

"Yeah. It was nice meeting you, Doc. Good luck on your lab work."

He doesn't respond as he watches them leave, a strange look on his face.