Flesh-Eaters Anonymous - pt 12

"Watch him," he said and left. The kid looked confused. He looked like he wanted to say more but didn't know how, looked like he was about to tell the sergeant about the bite mark on his hand.

I waited a minute before speaking.

"How bad off is Noland?" I asked. The soldier stood at attention and stared straight ahead. I took a deep breath and turned toward him.

"Really. You need to tell me how bad off he is. Look, you see the cuffs—

I'm a prisoner. I know about zombies (sorry, that was the word I used at the time). I was over there with them."

His eyes flashed to me a moment and he licked his lips but he stayed quiet.

"I don't know how long you can keep that wound under wraps but eventually someone is going to see it. Do you know which type of zombie Noland is? Was he bitten?"

Still no answer.

I decided to play it at the other end. I turned back in my seat and slid down so I was looking at the ceiling. The kid shifted a couple times, he had his knees locked and he would probably pass out in a few minutes anyway.

"H-he wasn't never bit," the kid finally said. "We don't know what's wrong with him, he just kinda went crazy. He acts like they do, but he's still alive. We keep him locked up so we can test on him. Try to figure out what's wrong with him."

"Oh. He's one of those." I slid up in my seat.

"You've seen people like him before?" He was about to take a step in my direction, but pulled his foot back at the last moment.

"Yup."

"Well what do you do for him? How do you help him?"

"A bullet in the brain." The kid slitted his eyes at me. "Trust me, it's the best thing for everyone. We call them the feral people. When the rads started waking the dead—"

"It wasn't rads, it was space dust," he interrupted.

"Right—the space dust didn't just wake up the dead. It had an effect on a small percentage of the living. They behave just like zombies, but they eat anything that moves, living or dead. Some are a little smarter than others, but their minds… are gone."

"Aw man." The kid ran his hands over his face, streaking blood down his cheek.

"But none of that solves your problem."

"What do you mean by that?"

I ran my hand down my face and pointed at him. He touched his cheek and saw the blood.

"I bet some of your friends think Noland is infected. I bet everyday someone else would like to bullet in him just to be on the safe side. They're right, but they're wrong. That's why I was asking what type of zombie he was."

"A zombie's a zombie. What are you talking about?"

I explained the difference between active and passive z-words and that unless Noland had been bitten by an active he wasn't going to turn into one. That if one of his friends did put a bullet in Noland he just might get up again and be a z-word for real.

"And if they don't have any idea about feral people, how likely are they to listen to you when you tell them you aren't infected?"