Rotting Bodies

Chapter Four: "Medicine"

     "Let me just slide this down your throat," Isaac says, holding a cup of some sort of herb medicine liquid mash up to my lips.

     What an odd way of saying, let me get you to drink this. I absentmindedly drank the mash as he held it up to my mouth. It tastes fucking awful. I'm not even sick, he said I was fine. What the fuck. That's disgusting.

     "Wa...water," I croak from having the most awful taste in my mouth. He hands me a bottle of water and I drink it in hopes of getting that foul taste out of my mouth.

     "Calm down, it was just mint, rosemary, thyme..." Issac starts listing off. Honestly I spaced out. He just listed a bunch of spices.

     "Dude, what the fuck?" I ask, "I wasn't even sick, and that wasn't even medicine."

     I try to cough up whatever Issac made me swallow. Even though I know that he knows what he's doing, I'm still worried about, oh I don't know, POISON. Gods that tasted nasty, like that one time I accidentally ate rotten fruit salad because the lights went out and we couldn't see if it was good or not so I tasted it. No, actually, the shit that Issac made me drink tasted worse.

     Issac turns to Vanna. "It seems that they are now mentally with us."

     Vanna turns to me, I don't even know when she got here. "It tasted that bad, huh?"

     I don't even think I was mentally gone. I just sat there dumbfounded. So it was all some stupid test to see if my mental faculties were back up and running. Touché Issac, touché. I will not be so easily fooled next time, I swear.

     "There are no signs of any head injuries, but due to the way you were dragged, you have scrapes on your back and left side, so expect some bruising." Issac points to the spots. "Since this is nothing major, you are free to leave."

     "Can I talk to Vanna for a minute... alone?" I ask.

     Issac nods and puts on gloves to go see Ade, and possibly give him more treatment if Ade needs it. As far as things have been going, Ade has been healing nicely and is expected to wake up soon. Surprisingly he only had a couple broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and cuts on his head when we found him unconscious.

     I'm left alone with Vanna, and I look at her with only two questions ready in my mind. And if she says yes to the first question, I am going to cry.

     "One. Did you tell him we were out hunting?" I look at her and she sighs.

     "Yes," she says and I groan, "Mills has to fix that damn wall before more shit like this happens. For fuck sake, if you were alone and passed out in the woods, you would have been zombie food, so quit your groaning."

     I stop groaning. "Two," I say through my disappointment, "Did you get the chicken and rabbit to Mera?"

     Something sparks in her eyes when I mention the chicken. "Yeah, I did. Mera is cooking some of it tonight for Lance. Speaking of Lance, Issac wouldn't let him visit you, so everyone probably knows you're here, and about your dumbass hunting trips."

     "Damn." That's my go to word for everything. "Well, I can go now, right? Issac said I could, so I'm just going to leave anyway. I don't want anyone to worry more about me than they should."

     I don't even wait for an answer, I just get up and leave. No one stops me, so I couldn't care less. I open the door and step out into the fading sunlight. Huh. It's already dusk? How long was I out?

     I look at my feet as I walk to the highschool, thinking no thoughts. Quiet brain. I'm not used to it. Usually my thoughts are loud and annoying, much like myself at times. Even when I open the lobby door, everything is quiet. But when I open the cafeteria door I come back to real life.

     Lance jumps on me. Literally, like they do the little run jump thing you see in movies when couples haven't seen each other in a long time.

     "Thank God you're okay!" They sigh, "Issac wouldn't let me see you, and I was so worried! What if you were infected! You're not infected. Right? Please say you're not."

     "I'm okay, Vanna carried me back or something, I don't know." I reassured them. "If I were infected I wouldn't be here."

     They sigh with relief and hug me tightly, and I don't think that they'll ever let go anymore. Of course thinking I was infected would be a scary thing, but we have a protocol for that. If one of us gets bitten, we have to kill them before they turn. None of us wants to live life as what we believe is a rotting corpse. Ew, rotting bodies. The smell is awful.

     Lance takes us to our table where Ebie is already sitting. Dinner had already gone by, and I'm hoping Ebie made Lance eat, because I know that he would probably forget in his worried state. Everyone (but Issac, Reyna, and Ade of course) is in the cafeteria. I didn't even notice Vanna, though she must've followed me. It's hard to tell because she's small, she hardly makes noise. They all get up and come over, bombarding me with a million questions a minute.

     Thankfully I'm saved from all the questions when a breathless Reyna bursts through the door. Sweat drips off her forehead (I don't blame her, summers are hot), making her knee long dark brown hair stick to her face.

     "It's Ade!" She yells, "he's awake!"