WILLA, стр. 44
By that point, I think he’d forgotten I was in the room, but again, I was all right with that. I knew I would need to step up at some point and start making decisions, but right then, with my arm throbbing, wasn’t the time. He talked through his plans and ideas and jotted down notes for a good half hour before realizing I hadn’t said a word.
He turned to me, sheepishly and said, “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ve been listening to you. I think your last thought to have bugout bags in each house is a good one, especially for now. Chances are high we’ll need to leave a place in a hurry. You get me the backpacks, and I’ll start filling them while you’re scouting.”
“Thanks. Hopefully, we won’t need them. I’d like to stay in one spot finally, but...”
“But we have to prepare for everything. I know. I’ll have something for you to take to each home every day while my arm heals. I promise. I can carry my part.”
“I know you can.”
30.
The wound in my arm took longer than either one of us expected to heal. Tanner assumed that was due to the lack of proper medicine and a balanced diet. I was scared it was because it was a zombie bite, and I was slowly turning. Of course, I didn’t tell him of my fears. He would’ve laughed at me and tried to reassure me that that wasn’t the case. I would’ve gotten mad at his first reaction and thought the second was a lie.
“It’s not going to heal if you keep messing with it,” Tanner said, catching me prodding the side of the wound with my finger.
“I’m not poking it for no reason. I’m checking for pus. It’s still a little red, and I want to make sure the infection is going away,” I said, looking over my shoulder at where Tanner was leaning against the bathroom door.
“Have you been taking your meds?” he asked, moving to my side.
Tanner’s expression had turned serious. He took my arm and twisted it in different ways in the light of the lantern we kept in the bathroom.
“I have,” I said, wanting to jerk my arm away but also needing his opinion on whether he thought the wound was severely infected or not.
We’d known each other only a few weeks by that point, and he wasn’t much older than I was, so his medical knowledge wouldn’t be any better than mine, but I still wanted his thoughts on it.
“You’ve been cleaning it every day?” he asked.
Tanner’s facial expression told me nothing of his thoughts, and that was infuriating.
“I have,” I said, pointing to the medical kit spread out on the short counter.
“The redness doesn’t look too bad,” he said, letting my arm drop. “Probably agitation from you messing with it more than anything. I don’t think you should go out with me today, though. I only have a few more houses to check along the river bank. You stay here and rest. Heal.”
“Please don’t make me. I’m bored. I’ve had the bugout bags done for days. I’ve also finished the first boxes of rations to go into the houses. I can’t stay cooped up here any longer. I promise not to touch the dead when you start clearing the bodies along the bank. Have you decided what you want to do with them yet?”
“When I first got here, I saw where the National Guard had burned the zombies on the north side of town, but I don’t think I could carry the bodies that far on my own unnoticed.”
Tanner allowed my change in the subject without argument, but I didn’t know if that meant I could go or not, so I had to ask. “I...”
“Willa, no. You aren’t risking hurting your arm any more than it already is by dragging bodies. So get that thought out of your head.”
“I could drive the dead to the dump,” I offered.
“A truck would be too loud. Anything else would take too long, and we’d get someone’s attention. I don’t want to burn near the houses, though,” Tanner said as an afterthought. “That’d be a sure signal to anyone in the area that we were around and possibly staying.”
“We could store them in a nearby house or pool house if one of the homes has one,” I suggested.
“That’s a great idea,” he said, not acknowledging my “we.” “I’m sure there are several boathouses around that area. Though, we don’t want the dead in or near the water. That could cause contamination.”
“Surely, there’ll be a place to store them. Are there a lot of bodies?”
“More than normal. It looks like a few parties were going on when the outbreak happened. Remember, it was mid-summer when the zombies reached this area, so there were plenty of people on the water.”
“It’s hard to imagine not knowing about the zombies beforehand. If those people had received any kind of warning, some might have survived.”
“None of us had an early enough warning. Not even those on the west coast. Most people only had hours, if that. Even those who had heard about the outbreak had nowhere to go, and probably didn’t believe it was happening.”
“My mom sure didn’t, not even when my uncles came to get us. She sat in front of the television for hours, saying, ‘This can’t be,’ although she couldn’t deny it either. For the outbreak to completely blindside someone has to be the worst. Do you think more died early on or were turned because the creatures weren’t as hungry or were slow?”
“I don’t know. I know there are a lot of bodies on the river bank, but probably not near the number of people who were out there that day.”
Tanner went quiet for a bit, sighed, and then said, “If you’re coming with me, make sure you bandage that tight and wear the clothes I