She hesitated a second then put her hand on the table in front of me. I opened the first aid kit and got out the antibiotic wipes to clean her wound to see how deep it was and to find out if stitches were necessary or if she could get away with some butterfly bandages.
Ian pulled up a chair and sat down at the table. Milo laid down at my feet.
“You did this trying to get food out of the vending machine?” I asked Natalie.
She nodded, “Yes. I kept on trying after the initial cut. I was so hungry.”
“You really don’t remember the last time you ate?” I asked.
She shrugged, “I had a box of crackers. I ran out a couple days ago.”
After cleaning her wound, I saw that it wasn’t very deep at all.
“It looks like you don’t need stitches. It’s not terribly deep,” I stated.
“Why does it keep bleeding?” She asked looking scared.
“It’s in an awkward place on your hand and there’s nothing covering the wound. You probably keep opening it on accident. We’ll put some butterfly bandages on it and cover that with a few band-aids and it should heal fine.”
I opened the butterfly bandages and began to cover the wounds on her hand. She sat quietly as I went about taking care of her wounds. Ian was cleaning his own cut. He didn’t need stitches either. In fact his wasn’t deep at all. It looked like I was the one who was injured the worst of all with my fall.
I was about done when Natalie asked, “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m on my own?”
“There’s a desert filled with dead humans trying to eat our flesh. Not very hard to figure out. Besides, I figure you will tell us your story when you’re ready.”
“Are you going to take me with you?” She asked.
I looked at Ian. I knew what he was thinking. Aaron and Laura didn’t want any more new tenants. They didn’t want any more mouths to feed. I felt this was different though. She was just a kid.
“Yes, we’re going to take you with us.”
She smiled a little bit and pulled her hand close to her chest.
“Cate, can I talk to you for a second?” Ian asked.
I nodded and followed him down the hall past the bathrooms.
“What?” I asked when we were out of earshot.
“We can’t go back,” he said.
“We have too,” I said.
He shook his head. “This is going to go over like a lead balloon. Aaron and Laura won’t like it. They won’t let her stay.”
“She’s kid; they’ve got to be understanding on this.”
Ian sighed, “I just don’t think we should go back.”
I felt the pain shoot up my side and it was so painful I had to lean against the wall. I closed my eyes and breathed in deep.
“You okay?” He asked.
I nodded, “Ian, I would agree with you if I wasn’t useless right now. You can’t take care of me and her. You need help and I need to heal. We have to go back. I’m no good to you in this condition.”
“How hard did you fall?” He asked looking concerned.
“It was bad,” I answered.
I finally looked down to excess the extent of the damage. My left hand was scratched up and a bit bloody. My arm was scraped and my jeans were torn. I was going to be badly bruised and it was going to hurt like hell to walk probably for the next week.
“I’ll be alright though,” I finished.
He nodded. “Okay. We’ll go back.”
He and I walked back to the break room.
Natalie was on the floor petting Milo.
“We should get going,” I said. “Before we lose daylight.”
“Yeah, we’re barely going to make it back before dark,” Ian agreed.
Natalie stood up. I handed her one of my knifes. She didn’t take it, she reached into the back of her pants and pulled out a rather large switch blade with a blue handle in the shape of a bat and Batman printed on it.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“Down stairs. It was the coolest thing I found that I thought might be useful. The Harry Potter cookie jar I found however probably wouldn’t be useful just extra weight.”
I nodded, “Well, I take it you know some what of what you’re doing since you’ve survived this long.”
She shrugged, “I’ve been really lucky and I used to run track.”
Ian and I laughed.
I grabbed the bag of food and drinks putting the first aid kit inside.
Ian lead the way downstairs and outside. There was a zombie at the back door when we went outside. Ian took care of it without any trouble.
We headed to the car without incident. The only zombies that were near the car were the ones I killed.
“Damn,” Natalie said. “You did that by yourself.”
“Yep,” I said opening the back door. “And I paid for it.” I said pointing to my left side.
Milo jumped in the backseat. Natalie was going to go in after him but before she did she looked at me and said “Still pretty badass though.”
She got in the car and I closed the door behind her.
I made to get in the front seat.
“What’s that smile?” Ian asked.
“I’m a badass,” I answered.
He laughed, “Don’t let it go to your head there champ.”
“Too late.”
We both got in the car. Ian started the engine and we were off. We didn’t have time to look at the other places around which bothered me since I knew our score wasn’t going
