OUTBREAK (A collection of Zombie Stories) |#Wattys2016|

1000 MILES AWAY (#4)

[Author's note: Better late than never, here's 1000 miles away #4! Right in time for this story to be just around 250 reads short of 1k reads! That's so freaking cool! 1000 reads in less than a year. in any case, I'll shut up. here's the story!]

"The $%#* happened out there, Jerald?" Heather asked sternly. She was in the infirmary van again, standing in front of Jerald's bed. He was in a blue hospital gown and his legs were covered by a white hospital sheet. The stump that was left of his amputated left arm was dressed heavily and the cauterized half of his face was wrapped in bandages. The bandages covered his exposed eye too, with a moistened cotton placed over it to prevent it from drying out. Half of his mouth was pursed shut by the bandages covering half of his face. He was connected to an IV drip.

"We completed the mission." Jerald said, in a manner-of-fact way. "But we were jumped by a bloody horde. Out of the blue too. We find this new girl, I save her life by shooting a Zombie that was gonna kill her –goddamnit I lost my crossbow!"

"You gained a katana. Pretty badass replacement if you ask me. Now. Where did you find the girl?" Heather inquired.
"We found her a ways away from Fitz. She looked pretty woebegone. Seemed like a good lass. Didn't try to kill anyone of us."

"Okay... what happened after you were overrun?"
"We found a house. Random wooden thingy in the middle of the woods. Boarded up in there. Completed the mission and tried to get out while the Zombies were distracted, but they re-formed the horde too damn quickly. Danny, Oliver and I were separated from the group and the two of them were bitten to shit. The Zombies got a good chew on me arm too." Jerald pointed to where his left arm would have been.

"We got back into the house, but Danny and Oliver were as good as dead, so I mercy-killed them by stabbing them in the heart."
"Why the heart? You know you have to go for the brain."
"It's cause I needed camouflage. I chained them up and found a nice big old-fashioned iron. I heated it up red-hot using some wood and a gas stove that I found in the house, then I took the Katana from the bedroom and slash. Cut my chewed-up arm off. I cauterized it then put the iron back on the stove. By then, Danny and Oliver had re-animated, but I had one more thing to do."
"You cauterized your face..." Heather said, horrified. "Why?"
"Well..." Jerald began, "As we were getting back into the house, one of the Zombies... got a hold on my face. Right below the eye and then it just... ripped a chunk off from there to my ear. Tore a bit of me ear off too..."

Heather's eyes widened in horror as she heard what had happened to Jerald. Her hand subconsciously moved to her pistol.

"WAIT!" Jerald exclaimed, "Don't shoot me... I didn't cauterize half my $#@*-ing face off, walk all this way with Zombie decoys just to be killed. I think the Virus got killed by the heat from the cauterization. I should be safe."

"You do remember we know exactly jack shit about the virus. How do we know the cauterization succeeded in killing it? For all we know, you're a dead man walking."

"I took a calculated risk to stay alive. Please Heather." Jerald pleaded. "Let me take this gamble. If I show the first sign of any symptoms, I'll blow my brains out myself. For now, let me please take this gamble. And plus." He added, "If I survive, we'll know that cauterization of bites works to kill the virus."

"Good point..." Heather said. After a minute of thought, she finally said, "Alright. You get your wish, Jerald..." She began to go out of the infirmary, but then paused for a moment and said, "One last thing. That girl, Teresa. You told her that Tyler was bitten. He wasn't bit, so why did you tell her that?"
"Why didn't you tell her otherwise?" Jerald asked.