Chapter Four

I didn't think twice about stepping out into the open since Hanson had been out there earlier without any apparent worry.

The sound of a moaning shuffler was a shock to my senses.

"Ignore them," he said when I dug my heels in. "You know how zombies in stories are never interested in eating other zombies? It's the same thing. We're carriers, so they don't react to us."

It was soon clear the entirety of the school grounds was infested with zombies. They shambled around aimlessly, their heads lolling around on their bodies and dried patches of blood standing out in stark contrast on their pale, ashen skin. I started to pull back, even as I glanced around for a weapon, but Hanson stubbornly kept going.

"How'd you figure that out?" I asked as he guided me forward. This time I let him, following his lead as he ushered me across the grounds, past several walking corpses and within a few feet of an armless female cadet.

"It was obvious after Max and the others left. I was the last living thing in the area. They should have been beating down my door, but they didn't. It took half a day to get the courage to go outside, but after that—it wasn't difficult to tell they couldn't sense me at all. I can walk right up to them and punch them and they don't do shit. And if I stand in their path, they react to me like I'm an inanimate object. They just bounce off and change direction."

I glanced down at him, in awe of his balls. "You did that? You just stood there and let one of them walk into you?"

He shrugged as we circled around the main class building and aimed for the tiny cabin the Instructors used. Cadets had never been allowed inside, but everyone knew it was where they kept the good stuff like chocolate and snack cakes. I couldn't count the number of times we could smell pizza coming from the place. I didn't think it was set up for sleeping. We might have been out in the woods, but most of the instructors had homes within driving distance. Only four people ever stayed overnight to do bed checks and walk the perimeter for security. The cabin was where they relaxed between rounds.

Hanson helped me onto the porch and through the unlocked door. As he automatically locked it behind him, I glanced around at my new home. There wasn't much to it. It had a living room, kitchenette, and a computer station. Hanson had dragged in a mattress from one of the bunkrooms and set up a nest in the back corner. The kitchen table and chairs were lined up against the wall next to it, acting as a catch-all for a pile of stuff he'd scavenged from throughout the camp.

As Hanson guided me toward the bathroom, I asked, "So how are we going to do this?" He stared up at me like he didn't understand the question. "The shower," I said. "Are you going to help me?"

"I thought that was a given? You can barely stand up on your own."

"Are you going to be okay seeing me naked?" I prodded. He must have deduced what I was actually asking, because he blushed.

"I think I should be asking you that," he replied snappishly. "You going to freak out if a fag sees you naked?"

"Don't call yourself that," I snapped back. "If I had a problem with you, I would have done something about it a long time ago. I'm asking because I don't want to make assumptions about what you're comfortable with. I can figure something out if you'd prefer not to help."

Hanson cussed softly under his breath, then said, "I'm not even thinking about anything other than getting the blood off you, but I promise, if your nudity starts to bother me, I'll leave the room. And if it starts to bother you, tell me and I'll leave. Fair enough?"

He guided me to the bathroom without waiting for my response, his tense expression making it clear the discussion was closed. Inside, he helped me straight into the tub with my clothes still on. "Sit," he ordered. "Your clothes are stuck to your body. We're going to have to get them wet before we can start pulling them off."

"Kinky," I commented. He huffed out a tired laugh, then turned on the water.

Idly, in the back of my mind, I cataloged the fact the shower spray was cold, but my senses didn't scream for me to flinch away from it.

"Isn't that cold?" he asked as he adjusted the temperature.

"Yeah," I replied. "I guess we can put a check next to 'dulled thermal sense'. It's listed right under a slow heartbeat and not needing air to breathe."

"What?" he asked as the water's temperature heated. It felt heavenly against my skin, making me conscious of exactly how dirty I'd been since I woke up. I ducked my head under the spray, hissing as the water struck my ear, but I embraced the pain in favor of getting clean.

"I'm making a list of side effects," I explained, bowing my head so I could talk without having my mouth fill with water. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the shower. "You might be immune, but I'm not. I'm pretty sure I'm at least half zombie. My brain is still working. I can think and I seem to still have full control of my actions, but my body is fucked. Everything aches. You know how it feels after you break a bone and it's supposed to be healed, but it doesn't feel the same? There's a dull ache that takes forever to go away. It's like that, only all over."

There wasn't anything Hanson could have said that wouldn't have sounded trite. I was glad he opted to remain silent as he rubbed water into the dried patches of blood on my cheek and neck, but the gentle contact broke something in me.

Tears leaked out.

Hanson said nothing as I mourned my own death, understanding it wasn't something I could control. Frankly, I was amazed it'd taken me this long to crack. Most of the other cadets had taken time out to cry and freak out the past few days, getting it out of their system so they could focus on surviving, yet I'd managed to remain strong. Until now.

"It's not fair," I found myself muttering as I washed my face. I knew it was an immature thing to say. Life was rarely fair to anyone. "We shouldn't have been here. They should have evacuated us as soon as the news reported survivors were heading West. My dad lives in Santa Fe. I should have gone home. Why the fuck am I still in Arkansas?"

"Should've, could've, would've," Hanson replied. "I don't know what the instructors were thinking when they decided to fortify instead of evacuate. And, you know, we could've left despite their orders. It's not like they could have stopped us. We were just as stupid as they were. We trusted too much because they were adults and sounded like they knew what they were doing. In hindsight, we should have questioned their authority. Just because they're older doesn't make them smarter. Did you know most of them never saw combat? Max said half of them had never been deployed outside the States. The guy who put this school together felt the instructors needed to be more bark than bite. He hired people with military experience, but they were mostly guys who rode a desk their entire careers—no chance of someone flipping out with PTSD and traumatizing the students. Isn't that ironic?"

"Totally," I said in monotone.

Hanson chuckled and turned his attention to pulling my shirt off. The water had done a good job in loosening it from my body and it only took a couple of focused tugs to pull it over my head. Hanson tossed the soaked fabric aside and it hit the floor with a wet plop.

He suddenly hissed at me. I glanced down at my own torso and winced at the wide swathe of livid bruises and welts running down one side. There was no question of where they'd come from. It was the side of my body I'd been laying on. At some point while I'd been unconscious, my blood had actually pooled inside me.