3 An Unexpected Meeting

"Come on, we've gotta go, Tatum!"

Tom's grip on my arm became tighter as he pulled me away from Kelly's body that was being devoured by our fellow classmates. I felt the hot tears burning my eyes and blurring my vision as Tom pulled me along despite my pleas for us to stop. 

"What are we going to do?" I asked as we were stepping down the stairs. I shrieked at the sight of a girl I once had in my geometry class having her throat ripped out, her screams piercing the air.

"We've got to help them!" I shouted at Tom so desperate to pull away. 

"We can't stop!" Tom snaps back as he pulls me down the stairs where I feel my foot step in something sticky. "We're going to find the ones we can trust."

Tom gripped my hand tightly as we ran. "Who is that?" I asked feeling even more terrified of all this when I saw a good friend since middle school huddled in the corner sobbing as she watched her boyfriend be shredded to bits.

"The band kids."

...

Turning the corner, I expect to see one or two stiffs roaming the halls quietly limping around in the rooms. I only find myself in a dark and empty hallway lit only by the dimmed emergency lights. With a soft sigh of relief, I slowly make my way down the hall my boots making a hollow sound on the wood. I managed to find the animal hospital I was looking for and did a pretty good job of getting past the first level of stiffs to see if anything remains worth using.

The first door I see is closed. I reach out and close my fingers around it ready to try the handle when I hear a sound. Just the softest sound of something hitting tile followed by the scuffling of feet. I step back from the door until my back is to the cream colored wall.

I lean back and shove my boot forwards, kicking open the door. A clatter of something being shoved backwards followed by something falling onto a tile floor is what comes next. I lift my axe high above my head as I press my hand to the door and shove it open.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!"

Expecting to see a trapped stiff, I almost drive my axe into the head of the boy kneeling down in front of me holding his hands out as if to surrender to my blow. His thick brown curls stick to his head with sweat and his hazel green eyes stare into my golden brown ones with fear in their depths.

"Shh!" I say quickly and right on time, I hear the gurgled moans slowly growing louder down the hall from where I came. I was even proud of myself for being so quiet about getting past them. Now this guy just about ruined my handy work. 

Turning my head, I begin to see their dark shadows casting against the dull gray wall of the hospital and my heartbeat quickens. I look back to the boy who is now standing above me with a gun pointed at my head.

"Who the hell are you?" he ask me calmly but I can tell he's taking no bullshit from me.

"I could ask you the same thing," I retort taking note of the fear in his eyes along with something more; perhaps a sort of curiosity to them which is something I don't think I'm quite accustomed to.

He takes a defensive step forwards causing me to quickly raise up my axe as I glare into his dark eyes. "What are you doing?" I ask him calmly when my eyes adjust to the sunlight streaming through the window above the guy's duffel bag laying open with various medical supplies piled into it.

"Stocking up," he replies to me never letting his eyes leave my own despite the growing fear we both have as the moans from the stiffs become more louder and defined.

"What for," I say without missing a beat. "You have a camp?"

He says nothing only focusing his eyes on mine. "That's not something I wish to discuss with you."

I turn my head to the side and only have a second to see the pale white face coming at me. What comes next surprises me when I hear the gunshot and thick blood splashes across my arm before he grabs the front collar of my hoodie as I'm pulled into the room.

"What the hell!" I shout when I manage to open my eyes and wipe the blood away. The guy with the gun pushes me aside to slam the door shut with a satisfying click of the lock. My axe is on the floor beside my boot with stains of fresh blood covering the top and going up my leg.

"Shut up!" the guy says to me seeming to tower over my figure when he stands at normal height. It was something I missed when I was only inches from his face. I notice his shirt looks fairly clean despite the fresh blood he has stained across the Aeropostale logo. Same goes for his dark blue ripped jeans. I can tell he hasn't gone hungry or been on the road but a day or two.

"You shut up," I snap back too pissed of to care that I probably sound like a middle school minor. I bend down to pick up my axe fingers tightly curling around the handle. I pull back quickly to look at the boy who is glancing to his bag of fallen supplies. Then I look back to the boy who just saved my life.

"Thanks," I mutter feeling my muscles relaxing a bit.

The boy sighs and gives me a small nod looking down at the bag of supplies. Then his dark hazel brown eyes look to me again. "Toby." He extends his hand to me. 

I look down at it hesitantly my fingers curling a bit tighter around my axe. 

Toby chuckles at me. I glare at him. "Come on, if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have pulled you in here." He keeps his hand out for me to hold. I don't budge. He laughs this time despite our situation and the sounds coming from outside the door. "Has it been that long since you have properly greeted someone?" He suddenly reaches out and takes my hand. I'm so shocked I don't even react and he gently holds it in his warm one and shakes it. It's an amazing feeling being able to hold another human's hand. I forgotten what that was like. "So, do you have a name? Or should I just call yous Shy Girl?"

I force myself to meet his eyes. "Tatum."

Toby smiles. "Nice to meet you, Tatum." I nod. There's an awkward silence to follow for a moment before he speaks again. "Sorry for the scare earlier. I just needed to see if I could trust you or not." Toby kneels down to pick up his fallen back of supplies setting his gun down on the ground beside him.

"Excuse me?" I say slowly looking down at him. "Did you say, trust me?"

"Uh, yeah," Toby says slowly as he zips up his bag and straightens up to look over at me. "I can see you're a trustworthy person." He gives me a small smile.

"H-how can you tell?" I ask confused. "You don't even know me." I'm starting to fee annoyed with this kid for some reason. Something lound and hard suddenly bangs against the door causing both of us to flinch and me to tense up again and stare at the door in fright that it may burst open. But it's one of those that's really heavy and it locks like no other door I've ever seen. These doors are common in most hospitals. There's a reason why Toby picked this room to get medicine since it's the best place to store things against fire and other harsh things that can happen in Texas.

"Instead of killing me for my things, you shushed me when I yelled, you snapped at me when I asked you who you were, an untrustworthy person would have done differently, and you even took enough care to say thanks when I saved your life. A trustworthy person is easy to pin point if you know what to look for."

I watch as Toby lifts his duffel bag and slings the strap over his shoulder. Ignoring the moans and sounds coming from outside, we both stand in silence the only sounds heard are the small pills sliding around in their bottles as Toby places them in his duffel. 

"What do you need all that medical supplies for?" I ask trying to sound curious. "Do your people know how to use all this stuff?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Toby says this time turning to face me as he speaks. "We have a doctor in our midst that will love me forever if I ever manage to get back." He pushes reaches over and tries to turn on the small faucet at the corner of the counter next to the wall to see if anything comes out. Nothing. As uaual. "Our camp is running low on supplies," he continue, attention turned back to me. "I was sent to on the supply run before winter actually starts."

"Lucky you," I scoff never letting my eyes waver from his. The dead's moans and gurgled breathing are heard from outside the door. I feel a sense of fear and curiosity fill the empty silence. "How many are you?" I ask this without the least bit of interest, merely to find out how I am going to get him to give me some of his stuff.

"Seven," he says calmly. He begins to move a few things around in his duffel the bottles rattling and the packets of first aid crinkling with every move. Toby stops for a moment and looks over at me. "What are you doing here?"

It's my turn to hesitate for a moment as I study his face and brown curls. "Shelter."

Toby grins and a soft chuckle follows causing me to smile somewhat as I look at him. I don't know why that would be funny but we all have a different sense of humor. Something suddenly catches my eye when I look to his right side when Toby's back is to me. Something red. 

I open my mouth to say something when he speaks first. "Do you mind helping me fill this last bag?" He turns his head to look over at me giving a small smile despite my cold stare.

I hesitate for a moment tightening my grip around my axe not daring to move. 

Toby laughs. "Come on, after being trapped with you in here for this long, you still don't trust me?" I say nothing and only give him a cold blank stare. "You have some serious trust issues." Toby chuckles again and goes back to his work of pulling out the supplies he needs.

Hesitantly, I slowly make my way towards him, watching his every move. I carefully tuck my axe back into the loop at my side feeling it hang upside down from where it gently bumps against my right leg. He doesn't seem bothered by me when I reach up and grab a bottle near his hand to toss into the duffel. We do this in silence our shoulders occasionally brushing until there are no more bottles to reach for. Stepping back a bit, I look into the cabinet on my tip toes to see if there are anymore to grab. To my luck I see one more toppled over in the back.

"Are there anymore?" Toby asks me where he stands bent over his duffel bag pushing around the canisters and other simple medical supplies that will be needed.

"Yes," I say looking at the little bottle standing on my tip toes again. "One more in the back."

"Okay," he says before standing where I am to look and see where it is. I look to the side and feel uncomfortable of how close he is to me again. "I think I can reach that." I know he can, he's got well over a foot above me. Walking towards the cabinet, I catch the red I saw earlier on his coat as he is reaching up for the bottle. I try to push it aside. Must be old, I think to myself ignoring my worried thoughts about someone I don't even know.

I unzip the bag at my side to pull out my water feeling safe here besides the growing sound of the dead piling up at the door. I suppose an escape will have  to be made through the window over there. Of course it will have to be broken...

"AHH! Shit!"

I snap my head towards Toby who has staggered backwards clutching his side. "Toby!" I shout too shocked to realize that the door holding the dead out is beginning to cave in. I run to his aid dropping my water bottle to grab is arms and hold him against the cabinet for a moment. "What's wrong?!" I suddenly feel terrified for his life like I once did when Tom was giving his life for mine after he was bit... We slowly sink to the floor together.

Toby forces out a chuckle as he cringes in pain. "You remember how I told you, Tatum." He lets out a heavy breath. "That my doctor friend would be happy to receive all this supplies if I ever got back to them?" He looks down and slowly lifts his shirt. 

I lean backwards and bring my cold fingers to my mouth feeling my eyes go wide with shock. I feel tears burn in my eyes. He's been bit. "No..." I whisper so softly I doubt he heard me say it. 

"Tatum..." Toby trails off for a moment. "I need you to-"

"No!" I say a bit more forcefully than intended moving towards him tears threatening to fall this time. "I'm not gonna do that." I reach over his arm to lift his shirt once again and look more carefully at the wound. 

Decaying flesh has already begun to turn his skin black and it's very clear that the infection has already begun to set into his blood stream. The mangled bits of skin lay limp against the blood clotted wound that is making Toby shaky where he'll go into a set of fits and start coughing up blood and other nasty things I don't wish to discuss in detail until his skin turns an ugly pale green and he'll begin losing his mind from there. 

"How... how long?" I ask slowly lowering his shirt and turning from the bite to look into Toby's eyes which were once full of light are now dull and sad. It breaks my heart more than it did when Evan died.

He cringes in pain a bit as he slowly moves to sit up and look at me better. I watch him move his hand to gently hold his side. "A couple hours," he says a bit more sadly than before. "I was keeping quiet on my way up here and I had noticed how oddly quiet the pale faces were as I walked up the road." He coughs a bit before looking back at me to continue. "But the closer I got to his place, the more I kept seeing. I made a run for the trees and was able to get to the front of the building with little trouble. And I made to the front door... and I saw one of them half stuck in the automatic door and he kept reaching out for me. But I decided to ignore him and walked in. But I only met another one of the pale faces again and it backed me out the door where the one that was stuck grabbed me and..."

"It's okay," I say softly noticing how much this bothers Toby. His voice was becoming a bit more strained like it sounds when someone is incredibly sad. He looks like he's about to cry just like me. "I don't need to hear anymore." I reach up and feel his forehead and know that the fever has already set in. I need to be quick if I want to save his life. 

"But I have more to tell you," Toby says quickly reaching up to take my cold hand in his warm one. I look at him still surprised at how much he trusts me in the short time that I have known him. "I was so happy when you kicked that door down and threw me against the wall." I almost smile at the memory of doing that to him.

But that faint whisper of a smile completely fades when I snap my head to the side at the sound of the door beginning to cave in with the number of stiffs trying to get into this room. Toby's screaming probably didn't help that. "Why," I ask trying to get my mind off the growing fear building up inside me. I feel incredibly stuck at the moment and feel the tears begin to slip down my face. I feel ashamed to even look over a Toby now.

Toby suddenly grabs my face and gently turns me to look at him once again his face full of care and concern as he looks at me with those large hazel brown eyes his dark brown curls hanging just above his vision sticking to his forehead with sweat. "You want to know why?" He asks me softly his thumb gently brushing away my tears. "Because I know I'm not going to die alone."

We stare at each other for a moment the only sounds heard are from the dead trying to get to us as they claw and push on the door. I just can't let him die. Unlike me, he has a group of people to get back to, a family that loves him and wants to keep him safe. I won't take that away from anybody.

"No" I say again moving away from Toby, I quickly get to my feet. I turn away from him and face the counter. Unclipping my belt, I pull it free from my waist and set it down in front of me. "Take off your shirt," I order him ignoring how odd that must have sounded. Thinking quickly, I pull off my leather jacket and grey hoodie and toss them to the floor. Toby is silent behind me I suppose watching as I work. Ignoring him, I pull off my thin dark blue and dampen it with the remaining water I have from the water bottle I picked up from the floor. I walk towards the boy sitting against a cabinet behind me in my boots, jeans, leather wrist blades, and black tank top. I ignore him as best I can not able to look at him shirtless when he doesn't look all that bad. His muscles aren't too large but they are noticeable and his chest is quite firm and his abs are quite visible as he breathes deeply. I bend down beside him.

"What are you-"

"Put this against your side," I snap quickly ignoring Toby's question."Keep pressure on that." I turn back to the counter and move to unzip my side bag and dig around until I find the small black case I have for emergencies such as this one. Opening it, I pull out the syringe and a small bottle of clear liquid. Filling the syringe, I look over at Toby who obviously doesn't like where this is going.

I chuckle a little at the uncomfort in his face. "Not a fan of needles are you?"

He swallows. "Not particularly, no."

"This one is going to save your life," I say as I kneel down in front of him. "And so is one more that you will probably hate me forever when I use it." I lean in a bit more, my face a bit closer to Toby's than I would like. I push his hand away with my bloody shirt so I can see the bite a little better. 

"How could I ever- Ow! Shit, Tatum!"

As the idiot was talking I managed to drive in the needle right into his bite wound making sure the stuff goes straight into his blood stream before I have to inject the other... substance.

"Toby, you need to shut the hell up!" I say trying so hard not to laugh at Toby's pain. I have no idea why it would be so funny when I'm so used to it being such a bad thing. I look at it sort of like payback for all the shit he's put me through the past hour. "If anymore of those stiffs hear you, neither one of us will survive."

"Well, that hurt," Toby complains giving me a look of more annoyance than anger.

I quickly get to my feet and look down and pick up the dog whistle from around my neck and then look over at Toby. "Are you sensitive to high pitched noises?"

He looks at me a bit puzzled but slowly nods the sweat beads forming on his chest from the fever.

"Then you may wanna cover your ears," I say with a small grin. I walk over to the door and without even Toby's consent, wrench it open with as much strength as I can muster and bring the whistle to my lips just as the stiffs are coming into the room. I hear Toby shout my name but I ignore him and prepare myself.

With one powerful and high shrill of the whistle, the stiffs stop moving and stagger backwards, disoriented and in pain too confused to remember what they were doing. I grin when I see Toby behind me his jaw hanging open in shock. I grab the nearest pale faced drooling freak and drive my wrist blade into his head.

I blow the whistle once more to be able to push the rest of the dead out of the room and into the dark hall. I stumble backwards when I hear the satisfying click of the lock and fall beside Toby who looks like he's seen a ghost when we lock eyes again. The stiffs continue to push in on the door trying to get in once they have regained whatever senses they have left.

"How..."

"We don't have time for questions," I snap getting to my feet to grab my fallen syringe on the floor and the dead stiff that lays with its face to the cold tile floor. "You're life is slipping away and if I don't act quick, there won't be enough dead bacteria in the world to save you."

"Dead bacteria?" Toby says slowly. I feel his eyes on my back as I push the large stiff onto its back against the bottom of the counter in front of me.

I drive my syringe into the gum beneath its teeth my hand coming back bloody and slimy. But I ignore this as I move over to where Toby half sits half lays against the cabinet. 

Toby looks at me like I'm crazy. "What the hell are you thinking?!" He shouts trying to keep away from me his eyes large with fear at the sight of the needle and what I just put inside of it. "Tatum!"

"Toby!" I say quickly as I grab his arms and make sure he stops looking at the needle and more at me. When he stops struggling and focuses on me, I speak once more. "Do you trust me?"

"B- but, Tatum-"

"You said you knew you could trust me the moment you pulled me into his room," I say making sure he doesn't look away again. "Now, do you trust that I can save your life, Toby? Do you trust me?"

Toby keeps his eyes upon mine for a moment longer before he slowly nods and relaxes against my grip.

He slowly moves his hands away from his bleeding side that has already begun to heal because of what I put inside of him earlier. He'll survive. I look at him as the syringe gets closer to his side. He suddenly takes hold of my hand and nods his head. I nod back and give him a small smile.

Without hesitation, I drive the needle in once more to his side and inject the anti-bacterial enzymes into his side. Toby cringes and grips my hand tightly until I have finished. We both seem to let out a breath of relief when I remove the syringe for the last time. 

I sit back and feel quite satisfied with myself as I push aside waves of brown hair that fell into my eyes when I was struggling with Toby. I reach over and feel his head and realize he has not spoken theses past few minutes we have sat in silence. His fever his slowly go away as time passes and he will make a full recovery after a few months. 

"We should get going," I say quietly after removing my hand and picking up the syringe and my bloody shirt. "But I'll need to patch you up first." I slowly get to my feet and place my shirt in the old dry sink on the counter and move to the duffel bag that Toby was filling to see if he grabbed any gauze and bandages I can use.

I dig around for a moment the canisters of pills rattling around with my every move. When I find what I need, I turn around and open my mouth to tell Toby something when I almost run into him. My face nearly bumps into his broad chest but I stop myself short when I place my hand on his chest and push him backwards.

"Personal space, dude," I mutter looking down at the packets of gauze I found and two rolls of bandages we can use. 

Toby stands in silence as I rip off the wrapper to the fist set of gauze strips and they stick themselves on with the blood sticking them on. I continue this until I run out of gauze and then move to the wrapping bandages.

"Have you done that before?" Toby asks me as I wrap. It was obviously weighting on him to ask.

"Nope," I respond calmly after finishing the last of the first roll. I try not to let my fingers glide across Toby's firm warm skin every time I go around just so he won't get any ideas about me. He takes care in lifting his arms when I need him to and holding things place when I pull his hand to that section so I can pin it.

"Then how did you act so calm that whole time?" Toby persists  his hand accidentally brushing the side of my face as he lifts it. I push away from him a bit after I pin down the remains of the last roll.

"I was training to be a doctor before all the shit hit," I begin making my eyes look at Toby. "And I know how to react in stressful situations." Toby grins making me want to. "And clearly that's something you need to work on." I make sure my voice sounds as harsh and annoyed.

Toby throws his head back and laugh at me. "You're funny when you're annoyed with me."

I roll my eyes as I bend down and pick up Toby's thin red shirt and toss it in his direction. "Keep your dignity close, you need it."

I look on the ground for my hoodie but only see my black leather jacket laying near the bloody mess that Toby made. I slowly turn around to look on the other side of the room as I mutter, "Where is my... "

I look up and see Toby standing with his shirt on and my old torn dirty hoodie in his hands. He smiles as he extends his arm to me.

"Thanks," I say slowly as I take my hoodie from him and look down to realize I am still on my tank top. Then I see how cold I am and how bad the goosebumps are as they rise up my arms again.

Toby and I finish clearing out the room making sure we have taken everything we can use. He must have cleared out the rest of the rooms since both bags were almost full anyways. I look over at him once again as I clip my leather belt back to my waist feeling the comfortable and familiar feeling of my axe hanging upside down bumping against my leg.

"So, how are we gonna do this?" Toby asks once we have all of our things together and we both have a heavy duffel bag to carry along with our weapons and own means of necessities. 

I look to the rather small rectangle window that will have to be our escape. "Well," I say slowly. "There's no way in breaking it without being heard and it's obvious we can go any other way than this." Looking out into the world, I see that the dark haze of clouds I saw coming in have yet to leave with their cold and gloomy feel. I sigh, this fall is gonna hurt. We're still on the second floor.

"What's your plan?" I turn to look behind me at Toby who tenderly holds his side beneath his jacket.

I give him a tiny grin. "We break the window," I say simply. "And then we go from there." I walk up to the glass and press my hand to it feeling the cold outside air seep into the fabric of my fingerless gloves to touch my already cold fingers. It's not thick glass but it will still take some force to break enough for two young adults to climb through. And it sounds like we are running out of time.

I remove the duffel bag from my shoulder and drop it to the floor, pills rattling around. I turn around to look at Toby who has a calm expression on his face despite the last hour we both just went through. God, I barely know him and he has already pissed me off more than once today. But I can honestly say, it's so incredibly nice to be around another human being. To talk to them and to feel their warmth near me is the most amazing thing that I have not experienced in a long time...

"Give me your gun," I say holding my hand out to him in all seriousness.

"W-why?" He asks slowly not quite sure of why I would ask for such a thing. The one piece of plastic that could be the different between life and death for him. I know it was for me. I quickly push the memory of me sitting in the grass, blood splashed across my face and more pain and tears in my eyes that I've had over the last year and a half when I looked into Tom's eyes for the last time...

"Do you want to get out of here or not?" I ask him sounding annoyed. He nods slowly passing me his oversized gun which is heavier that I thought it would be. I turn back to the glass window. "You may wanna step back," I say over my shoulder turning my head slightly to look at Toby out of the corner of my eye.

With one powerful lunge forwards, I ram the end of his gun into the bottom half of the glass. It shatters on impact to my surprise. The gun slips from my grip when I keep falling forwards and begin to panic when my eyes meet the shard of glass coming right for my face. It all happens so fast as Toby grabs the leather collar of my jacket and wrenches me backwards. 

The two of us fall back to the floor me landing in his lap shards of glass falling outside and into our room some managing to slice across my face. I stare my eyes wide open in shock as I lay on top of Toby too shocked to realize what just happened. 

"Oww..." Toby moans beneath me fidgeting to hold his wounded side. 

"S-sorry!" I say quickly rolling to the side on my stomach the cold tile seeping into my clothes. I look over at him where he lays beside me a sort of laugh forcing its way out.

The two of us get slowly get back to our feet grabbing our things to walk towards the broken window only large enough for someone as small as me. This could be the moment I make my escape with the medicine and leave Toby...

The thought crosses my mind as I relieve myself of my bag once more for Toby to help me up and out through the broken window, shards of glass pulling at the fabric of my filthy clothes. Cold air seems almost like a blessing to me as I crouch down on the roof of the animal hospital boots crunching in the bits of glass beneath me. I see very few stiffs wandering around surprisingly besides our loud break through. A light breeze picks up the short layers that cover my face and gives me relief. For a little while I never thought I would see the outside or feel the cold air on my face.

"Here." I turn around suddenly forgetting who I am with and what situation I have put myself in. Toby pushes the first duffel bag through the window. He gives me a look of concern before bending down to grab the next bag.

I could do it, you know, I think inside my head as I look out to the open fields beyond the hospital. To freedom from this bad idea I have brought upon myself. I could just take the bags and leave... I turn around to look at Toby. He gives me a simple smile pushing the duffel bag through the broken window.