Project Annihilation

3. Seth's Place

Seth's place was a sizable, white-washed building that sat about fifty feet or so at the head of a dirt track. It was encased in a white picket fence, the kind that you'd envision in a happy suburban home, except it was hammered with thick planks of wood to anchor it to the parched grass below. A dark slate roof was supported by numerous white pillars that were raised on a paneled deck. A single white bench hung from the roof of the deck, swinging ever so slightly in the early autumn wind.

The wooden front door opened slowly as the truck rolled up to a halt beside the steps to the house. Once again, Carter threw Logan over his shoulder with his ease and Benny and I followed him earnestly as he met a man at the front door. He was visibly older than the two young men who had saved us on the freeway, but still looked youthful and in good health. His chin was covered in dark stubble, his dark hair unkempt and swept messily over his head; small silver strands shone ever so slightly by his ears in the sunlight as he stepped forward to meet us. One could only assume that this was Seth.

"What's going on?" he asked as his dark eyebrows knitted in confusion on his forehead. His dark eyes flitted from Logan and then to me. I swallowed nervously. 

"We found them on the I-20 W into Atlanta. The boy's been bit," Carter explained.

Seth looked at me with careful eyes. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Claudia," I coughed nervously as I walked up the steps to meet him. "I'm Claudia."

"What makes you think I can deal with a bite?" he asked me.

Was that a trick question? "Carter and Benny..." I said with nervous apprehension as I gestured to the two men flanking me either side. "They said you were a doctor."

His lips turned upwards slightly. "I'm a GP," he corrected me.

I looked at Carter desperately who held his hands up in mock surrender. "Don't look at me."

"So, you can't do anything?" I asked Seth as I looked back at him. I felt the all-too-familiar feeling of my stomach sinking, like a dead weight was attached to my guts and was dragging them down.

Benny scoffed. "If he had any sense, he wouldn't."

Seth's thoughtful eyes flickered back to Logan who was still draped over Carter's left shoulder. His eyes were still closed, his lips parted marginally as his chest rose and fell in shallow successions. The shirt I'd wrapped around his leg was barely visible now, drenched and dripping with scarlet red blood.

"How long has he been unconscious?" he asked, avoiding my question.

"Since we picked them up off the freeway. I'd say five minutes at the most," Carter replied.

Seth nodded with an age of experience. "I've never dealt with a bite before," he said factually. I could feel my breath catching in my neck as he paused for thought. "I can bandage him up and stop the bleeding. It'll stop him going into hypovelomic shock. If he comes around, I can run him through a course of antibiotics to keep infection at bay. I'm not promising you any miracles though, Claudia."

If I hadn't of been an atheist, I would've fell to my knees there and then and praised God. But, since there was nobody up there who could ever create the heinous things I'd seen, I thanked Seth instead with tears brewing in my eyes as he and Carter disappeared inside the white house to treat Logan.

Then, it was silent.

Slowly, I lowered myself onto the swinging bench on the porch. Seth's place was quiet. Instinctively, I felt my head snapping side to side at the whistle of the autumn winds, which was entirely unnecessary, since there was nothing remotely deleterious or harmful in the long, viridescent grass of Seth's place.