“Mark.”
Josh, his rifle raised in one hand, swiftly pulls down on the door handle with the other and swings the door open. In the same motion, he steps back towards Dixon, ready to fire.
Light from their raised rifles shines into the bathroom, catching a slouched dead figure seated on the toilet. Neither of them is sure who the figure is, but the dark suit trousers and loafers tell them it isn’t Josh’s Dad.
Dixon’s body tenses as he sees another figure on the floor. He lowers his aim suddenly to throw light on it, ready to shoot.
“Dad?” Josh says involuntarily as he is drawn to the figure sitting on the floor, their back against the sink cupboard. Josh knows it is his Dad, but he can’t see his face though. His head is bowed down, his chin against his chest, his arms unmoving, palms up each side of him on the floor.
“Dad!” Josh is more forceful, scared that his Dad is dead, and he goes to rush into the bathroom but is stopped.
“Nice and easy now, Josh,” Dixon tells him, again taking hold of his arm.
Josh knows why Dixon is being cautious, he doesn’t want to deal with that, he tries to ignore the possibility. He does move into the bathroom slowly now, however, towards his dad. As he enters the smell of death is stomach-churning. Josh pushes through it and another smell accosts his nostrils, a strong smell of whisky. Has his Dad been drinking, is he asleep from the influence? That can’t be, surely?
Josh nears, but his step falters as his Dad’s head starts to rise up from his chest. Josh is shocked by his appearance, his face almost grey, drained of blood and sweaty. His eyes are darkly glazed and half-shut. Most shocking of all, however, are the three trailing cuts across his left cheek, running down towards his chin. The horror of those wounds is not lost on Josh; he has been clawed by one of the two dead Rabids on the office floor. His Dad is infected.
Now Josh does think he is going to be sick, his head spinning, he can’t breathe.
“Josh, is that you?”
Is Josh hearing things? He must be, he thinks to himself; can the Zombies talk now?
“Dad?”
“Josh, what are you doing here, you should be going back to base, to Emily?”
“I came to find you, Dad. What happened?”
“I got scratched, I think I’m infected. Sorry, Josh.”
“You got nothing to be sorry for, how do you feel?”
“Terrible, son, I feel terrible, thirsty.”
“Downey, get down here pronto, we have a medical situation,” Dixon orders into his radio.
Josh grabs a glass from the sink, fills it with water and goes down to his Dad, offering the glass to his cracking lips. Andy manages to drink some of the water down but then starts coughing and retching.
“Pills on the side; give me two of each,” Andy manages to say.
Josh does, not knowing what else to do, he puts them in his dad’s mouth and raises the glass again.
“Thanks, son.”
“Shit,” Downey says as he arrives at the doorway next to Dixon, a look of shock on his face.
“Anything you can do?” Dixon asks him.
“I brought some rabies antiviral shots with me. I doubt they will do any good?”
“Well, why did you bring them?”
“All I could think of in case I got bit, silly really,” Downey says, slightly embarrassed.
“Give him one,” Josh urges.
“I really don’t think it will do any good.”
“Do it!”
Downey unclips the strap from around chest and shrugs off his medi-backpack. He goes down on his haunches, putting the pack in front of him, unzips the top and rummages inside. He rises holding a pair of latex gloves, a sealed packet and a small plastic wallet, with the top open showing four syringes. Putting on the gloves, he slides a syringe out.
“Put your head back against the cupboard please, Captain,” Downey asks, bending down in front of Andy. He covers his nervousness of being so close to an infected person well.
Downey inspects the wounds, rips open the sealed antiseptic wipe and cleans off the wounded area.
“Hold his head still,” he asks Josh as he prepares the syringes. “This is going to hurt, Captain, try not to move.”
Andy says something unintelligible under his breath, his dry lips barely able to move. Downey lines up the injection in between the top two cuts on Andy’s cheek and then pushes the needle into the flesh. He is careful not to go too deep and risk the needle popping out of the inside of the cheek. The plunger goes all the way down, pumping the serum into the cheek.
Josh loses his grip on his dad’s head as the injection goes in. Andy, enraged by the searing pain, pulls his head free and growls harshly at the perpetrator. Downey stumbles backwards, almost falling over, shocked by the reaction and afraid Andy was going to bite him.
Josh, shocked too, moves his hands away and gets up.
“Sorry, that hurt, a lot,” Andy manages to say.
“It’s okay, Dad, don’t worry; it looked painful,” Josh tries to comfort.
“That’s just the first injection, three others are supposed to be taken over the next fourteen days,” Downey says, recovering somewhat.
Andy’s head flops down uncontrollably. It then comes up again, his unrecognisable eyes looking for Josh.
“It’s time for you to go, Josh, you’re going to have to leave me here.”
“No, Dad, we will take you out of here, somewhere safe and I’ll stay with you, help you fight it.”
“I’m not going anywhere; you have to get back to Emily. There is no other way, you know that.”
“He is right, Josh,” Dixon says. “We have to move out, now.”
“Leave me those injections and any other supplies you can spare.”
Josh has to accept the inevitable. Dixon and Downey unload themselves of all the supplies they can, as does Josh, finally. They put the stuff into separate piles on the floor, ammo, medical, food and a pile of other stuff like batteries. The food pile is small, only a few ration
