This Would Be Paradise (Book 1)-A Zombie Novel

Chapter 4

The first thing I registered was that it felt like my whole body was stiff and my limbs just did not want to cooperate. Images from the previous day roared through my head, forcing me from my dreamless sleep. My eyes flashed opened and I tried to move but realized I was confined in a small, hard area. Right, I was in the bathtub. I sat up only to smack my head on the faucet. Why the hell did I sleep with my head on this side?

Rubbing the sore spot on my head, I hopped over the tub wall, my limbs groaning as I was finally able to stretch out. I used to sleep in the bathtub when I was sick as a kid, but I didn't remember it being so uncomfortable. I lifted up my shirt to inspect my wounds and surprisingly they didn't look all filled with pus as I thought they would. Whatever was in that antiseptic spray actually worked; for once the stinging was worth it. So I applied some more, wincing at the burning sensation and taped the gauze over the wound, which felt much better than the mass amounts of Band-Aids I was using.  

"You still alive in there?" Zoe asked hesitantly as she tapped on the door.

I was debating making a groaning sound in lieu of answering, but even I wasn't that cruel.         

"Still kicking, just my side is killing me," I said opening the door.

Zoe gave me a brief hug which added unwanted pressure to my pained side, so I politely shoved her off. Relief was plastered on her face but her red rimmed eyes hinted that she had been crying.

"I'm glad," she smiled.

"That makes two of us."

"So does this mean you're immune?" Zoe asked following me back out to the beds.

"You're asking the wrong person," I shrugged. "Maybe it only gets passed on through saliva."

I turned on the news to see if anything had changed and after watching for a bit I realized that they were showing the exact same newscast that was on yesterday. The same reporter, the same clothes, the exact same words and expressions; could they even do that?

"So are we heading for that emergency shelter?" Zoe asked.

"You think we should?" I asked turning from the television screen.

Zoe nodded and I agreed. We didn't stand much of a chance just waiting in the hotel room. The school would have supplies, guards and maybe even transportation out of the city. We jumped into motion stuffing our bags with all that we had packed. I was glad I had brought my huge camping backpack even though I had never camped a day in my life, it just had all the storage I needed. And it came with a free compass, which is still wrapped in its original packaging in one of the various pockets. I hefted it onto my back to test the weight and I almost toppled over from the added pounds.

"Do you think we can bring our suitcases?" I asked, looking longingly at my stuff that I really didn't want to leave behind.

"Sure why not?" Zoe shrugged, "But you're wheeling your own damn suitcase."

"Oh come on, I'm injured," I whined and Zoe just shook her head.

We packed in silence for a little more before Zoe spoke up.

"I feel guilty that we left Mike yesterday," she said quietly.

"I admit I feel a tad bit guilty too but what could have we done differently?" I reasoned.

"I don't know, something."

"Like what? Run over to his gurney and have him attack us as we unstrapped him?"

She flinched at my words but I was speaking the truth. Mike had gotten whatever virus this was and would have eventually turned on us. None of the sick people we had encountered had seemed in their right mind; in fact they didn't seem to understand anything at all. Of all the infected people we saw yesterday, none of them spoke so much as a single word. Just snarls. And even a swift kick to the head didn't seem to slow them down. We needed some sort of protection, like a gun, not that either of us knew how to shoot one.