To Be A Rebel

Chapter 11: Sail Away

"Hey, how are you doing, honey?" Maxine coughs, and Paula smiles softly as we run.

"Oh, you know. Zombie physiology, accelerated healing. I'm fine." She looks down at the baby in her arms. "And Sarah's fine. She's enjoying the sea air. It's good for her to get some actual daylight on her face."

Sam coughs raggedly, and I grimace in pity. Even though I'm still kind of mad at him because of the fight we had two days ago, I still don't like him being sick.

"Um, are you sure she hasn't caught this horrible flu? No little red spots on her cheeks?" He chuckles to himself. "Apart from that little spot where she caught herself on her fingernail the other week."

"She's fine, Sam," Peter says. "The baby's fine, Paula's fine, Five is always fine, Tom is..."

"I see the ocean," Tom whispers, looking about. "There are fish under the ocean. The dead are there. They lie waiting for us."

"Well, Tom's the same as ever-able to run and not trying to kill us any of us, so that's good."

Maxine hacks. "And you know what Janine said. At the first sign of trouble..."

"We know! At the first sign of trouble, shoot Tom in the head." He tsks. "I think that's just how she says 'hello', you know. 'Good morning, Janine,' I say. 'At the first sign of trouble, shoot Tom in the head,' she says."

"We found him some mood stabilizers in that pharmacy Five broke into," Paula says. "Some more mood stabilizers. He was on them while in Abel too. He's been basically fine for ages, and occasionally better than fine."

"Oh, so my little outing wasn't just helpful in making you not as sick as you already are, Sam, but they also helped our friend, Tom," I say, the tension in my voice thick and noticeable.

"You almost got yourself killed by-"

"By a druggie. Yes, I know. But that wounded my pride more than anything."

"A piece of your ear is missing!"

"Only a small piece. It's not as bad as my left ear."

"It doesn't matter! I told you to wait!" His voice cracks painfully, and he coughs hoarsely.

"It's good thing I didn't, seeing how you sound like hell even after taking the meds. I don't want to think about how you'd sound if I'd waited." I mean it when I say that. I don't like to think of Sam being sicker than he already is. I did this for him, although I didn't really expect him to be happy with what I did.

I expected him to be angry. I expected confrontation, but I didn't expect him to yell at at me as much as he did that day. He screamed about how I should have listened and should have been more careful and how he couldn't bear to think about what might have happened if Tom hadn't gotten there in time and how I was stupid to go out alone and yada yada. I understand he's worried about me, because he's my boyfriend and he loves me, plus he's my operator and he wants to keep me safe, plus he's my friend who just cares about my general wellbeing. I get that, but the yelling got old really quick.

Let's just say we went to bed angry at each other that night, and the next.

Sam grumbles something incoherent, but I shrug it off. While we're still angry at each other, we'll end up simmering down and apologizing sooner or later. We always do.

"You should be getting close to those ships by now," Maxine says. "The message Ed sent us from the island says that some of the Comansys fleet had beached just along the way."

"Yeah, we can see them now," Paula says.

"Oh. That's a 160 meter German cruise liner," Tom says. "I'd guess it was rebuilt around 2005. Probably 350 cabins. Good place to start looking for a berth for the next few nights, chaps."