CHAPTER 10 - COLDER

I was moving in an instant, axe lining up to smack the monster away from her. My gut was cold with the horrible feeling that I was already too late; each time Kat’s heart beat, it was pumping more of the spider venom deeper into her body. But I had to try. Kat fell over screaming as I approached. She kicked at the spider with her free leg, but it wasn’t letting go

I sliced my axe in a swift downward swing. The spider was distracted and missing enough legs it wasn’t as nimble as it had been. My swing struck it solidly in the side, splitting it in two; one less thing to worry about. If only we’d been able to kill all three spiders in the first place..!

I ripped the fangs out of her leg to prevent more venom from being injected and knelt beside Kat, unslinging my backpack and yanking out a spare t-shirt. Using the shirt and a serving spoon someone had dropped on the floor, I improvised a tourniquet, then tightened it until Kat screamed.

“Sorry! It has to be tight. We need to stop the venom from getting out of your leg,” I told her.

She was sheet-white, lips pursed, but she nodded her understanding. I went down to her leg to see what else I could do.

Her calf was already swelling. I took my knife to her jeans, slicing them up from the bottom cuff to let me better visualize the injury. It wasn’t good. There were two holes, each big enough I thought I could cram a pinky inside. The good news was they’d bled a little when I ripped out the fangs. That hopefully washed out some of the venom.

The skin around the bite was already beginning to blacken and rot. I’d never seen anything like it. Plenty of spider bites had a necrotic effect on tissue, but it was small, and it took time. This was happening quickly enough that I was watching it like a time-lapse video.

“I’m screwed, aren’t I?” Kat asked, her voice thick with pain.

“What!? No, we’ll figure this out,” I lied. She was right. Unless we got her proper medical care stat, she was going to die.

“The look on your face says otherwise,” she replied. “I’m sorry. You were right. We should have just run. I’m sorry.”

“Shut up,” I told her. “We’re gonna get you out of here. Alfred, see if you can find me a couple of brooms or mops, so we can make a stretcher? We’re going to have to carry her out.”

But he shook his head. “Better plan: I’ll just carry her myself. If we use a stretcher, neither of us can fight. If I carry her your hands are still free.”

“You sure you can manage?”

“Yeah. That strength crystal is pretty cool.”

I nodded. “All right then. That’s the plan. We need to get moving fast. Those zombies are probably already in the building.”

Kate tugged my arm. “I’m getting colder. And it’s getting harder to breathe.”

Neurotoxin spreading through her system. I gave the tourniquet an extra twist and tied it back down. She was well on her way to losing her lower leg, and for all I knew I was sentencing her to a slow death instead of a fast one, but I couldn’t just leave her. We had to at least try.

Alfred looked down at the wound as he approached and grimaced. “That’s not great. Should we try to remove it?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. Neither of us had any surgical background. We’d be trying our best, but the results wouldn’t be pretty, and infection would be certain. Without antibiotics and other meds, Kat was in deep shit.

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Kat raised her hand weakly. “I vote for leave it until we have no other options.”

Alfred and I glanced at each other, each knowing we were probably already at that point. But if we took her leg off here, it would leave a blood trail, and we still didn’t know how smart these zombies were. Would that lead them right to us? Maybe. And besides, even if we took the leg off, she’d likely die of blood loss unless we could cauterize it or something. That would take time we just didn’t have, not with zombies closing in.

After he hooked his axe into loops on his backpack, Alfred leaned down and scooped her up. He was gentle, compassionate; if the world hadn’t gone to shit, he’d have been a good doctor. Meanwhile I was over here worrying that there was no way Alfred would be able to unhook that axe quickly if we were attacked again, so we were down another fighter. He was probably right that this was better than both of us having occupied hands, but I still worried.

More noises came down the hallway from the direction we’d come. The zombies were on their way, so it was time to go. As I led the way toward the loading docks in the rear of the building, Alfred called out. “Hey, there’s still a lot of food here.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m hungry. Betting everyone is going to be very hungry soon,” he replied. “I don’t see how we can, but I wish we could bring some of it with us.”

“Agreed, but I can’t see how, either,” I said. I went over to a nearby shelf and scooped up some sealed plastic bags of dry goods: slivered almonds and sunflower seeds for the dining hall’s salad bar. Both decent emergency food. I stashed them in my backpack. “That gives us something for tonight and tomorrow, anyway. We’ll figure the rest out after, if we need to.”

The longer this whatever-it-was went on, the more I figured it wasn’t ending on its own anytime soon. I could tell Alfred was of the same mind. My best hope was this phenomenon was limited to a small region, and things would be normal outside it. But the sinking feeling in my gut said that wasn’t the way this was rolling out.

I sent the zombies ahead into the loading dock area, and when nothing jumped them I followed, with Alfred and Kat trailing right behind me. The docks were clear, and a few steps later we were out in fresh air again.

“Now what?” Alfred asked. “Where can we go?”

He was asking me? It wasn’t like I had any ore idea how to get us out of this mess… I thought about it a moment, considering. We needed at least intermediate medical supplies—something a cut above a first aid kit, like a paramedic’s bag. We also needed security. Where would people tend to go, in a dangerous crisis, if they wanted safety? Probably the police. Campus security had their own office, and it wouldn’t shock me if they’d managed to defend it. The problem was, it was almost as far as the hospital, in an entirely different direction. It was the opposite direction as the zombies, but who knew what other dangers lay that way?

“I see two choices,” I said at last. “We can try to slip northeast, sneak around the zombies, and work our way up to the hospital. Or we can head away from the zombies, southeast to campus security. The UVM rescue station is right there, too, so they’ll have medical supplies for Kat.”

“The hospital would be a more-sure bet,” Alfred said. “Doctors to handle this, instead of us. Even with the power out, they’ve got the skills and knowledge to help her.”

“Assuming the place isn’t overrun, yeah,” I replied. “That would absolutely be best. I don’t know if we can evade the zombies, though. And I have a hunch the campus cops have probably kept their shit together enough to create a secured area.”

“Point. The hospital is big. I wasn’t thinking about security.”

“None of us are used to thinking that way,” I replied. “But it’s getting dark, and I’m betting the monsters, spiders, and everything else aren’t all going to bed until morning.”

He shivered. “We should get going.”

We set off, moving along the back side of the building and trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible. With my zombies scouting a little ahead of us, I figured we were mostly safe. They were likely to attract attention first, so we’d probably have some warning. But as we reached the edge of the building, we were still in the clear. I heaved a sigh of relief as we set off across the open space to a thick stand of trees on the far side of a parking lot.

The creaking of a door that badly needed oil can from being me, freezing me in my tracks.

I did say our dorm had a lot of doors, and one of them was only twenty feet to our rear. A zombie had shoved it open and staggered out into the evening air. The moment it looked up, it saw us right away and started toward us. Behind it another zombie exited, and then a third.