Resurrection: A Zombie Novel, - [ereader manga .TXT] 📗
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Kyle hated that Annie was mad at him. He was beginning to think she’d always be mad at him, or at least think of him differently than before. They could not have a future together if they couldn’t get past this.
Parker had been right about one thing. Ruthlessness has to be met with ruthlessness. Kyle had been too soft. The cozy and comfortable morality of high-tech Seattle and Portland had no place in a world where life was brutish and short. Kyle understood now. Annie needed to understand it, as well. They needed to talk.
Annie thought she had sneaked over to the main house to visit Parker, but Kyle had seen her leave. He wouldn’t say anything. It would just create one more thing for them to fight about. Instead he waited on the couch for her return while Frank and Hughes chopped wood for a fire in back.
She came back a half-hour later. And she looked startled when she opened the door and saw Kyle sitting there waiting.
“I know why you’re upset,” he said.
“You do, huh?” she said.
“It was pretty gruesome what happened up there.”
She shook her head. “You don’t get it at all.”
“What don’t I get?”
“Every day since this virus appeared has been gruesome. I never even imagined the things I’ve seen the last two months. But what happened up there was worse because it was pointless. We didn’t have to do it that way.”
“It was the only way to be sure.”
“Bullshit.”
“We could have injected him with infected blood,” Kyle said, “but we still don’t know if it would work. It’s not like we have anyone else around here to experiment on.”
“You hate him. And you want revenge.”
“I don’t hate him.”
“Of course you do. Not that I blame you. I’d hate him too if I were you.”
“You’re saying you don’t hate him?”
“It’s hard to hate someone after tying him to a chair and force-feeding him to an infected. You heard what he said.”
“I heard what he said.”
You’re the most wicked people alive.
“It doesn’t bother you.”
“Why should it? He’s wrong. This was your idea, Annie. And it was a brilliant idea. This is science. Progress. We’re not the Center for Disease Control here, but there’s a chance we’ll all be immune by the time this is over.”
Hughes and Frank came in from outside. Kyle needed to dial the argument down. He didn’t want to fight with Annie at all, and especially not in front of the others.
But Annie retreated to her room and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the windows.
Annie collapsed on the bed. She lay on her back without bothering to put her head on the pillow. All she wanted was a long, deep sleep and the peace of oblivion.
It was not going to happen.
“Shit!” she said and bolted up.
“You okay in there?” Hughes said from the living room.
She crossed the room and opened the door.
Kyle was still on the couch, and now Frank was sitting next to him. Hughes was on his feet and looked ready for anything.
“We are so stupid,” Annie said.
Hughes seemed to relax slightly. No, she hadn’t seen one of those things out her window, and no, she wasn’t about to stab Kyle.
“We can’t do this,” she said. “We need a doctor.”
“What now?” Kyle said. “We’re already doing it.”
“No,” Annie said. “I mean we really need a doctor.”
“You sick?” Hughes said.
“I’m fine,” Annie said. “But Parker might not be.”
Frank raised his eyebrows. Kyle rolled his eyes.
God, they hadn’t thought this through at all.
“Have any of you ever donated blood?” Annie said.
Frank shook his head.
“No,” Kyle said.
“Can’t say I have,” Hughes said.
“I give blood every year,” Annie said. “Jesus, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this until now.”
“What?” Kyle said.
Hughes looked crestfallen. He closed his eyes. He had figured it out. “Your blood type.”
“Yeah,” Annie said. “My blood type.”
“What about it?” Kyle said.
“I can only donate blood to people who share my blood type.”
“Oh,” Kyle said. “Shit!” He was still mad from their fight, and now she was just pouring it on.
“Do you and Parker have the same blood type?” Frank said.
“I have no idea,” Annie said. “We didn’t ask him. He might not even know his blood type.”
“Do you know yours?” Hughes said.
“Well,” Annie said, “if I had type O, Parker’s wouldn’t matter. O is the universal donor. But I have type A. Which means I can only donate to people with type A or AB.”
“How many people have type A or AB?” Hughes said.
“Less than half,” Annie said. “About forty percent of the population if I remember correctly.”
“I have type B,” Frank said. “I was in the Army. We all got tested. In case something happened.”
“And if Parker’s is different?” Hughes said.
“He’ll have an allergic reaction,” Annie said.
“What does that mean?” Hughes said. “Will it kill him?”
“I don’t know!” Annie said. “But either way it’s pretty unlikely that he’ll be immune to the virus if his blood rejects mine.”
Kyle put his face in his hands and groaned.
“So if you’re A and I’m B,” Frank said to Annie, “we know I can’t get an injection. But we still have a forty-percent chance it will work out with Parker.”
“No,” Annie said, “we have a forty-percent chance that his body won’t reject the transfusion. We still have no idea if the antibodies in my blood will kill the virus in his.”
“So what do we do?” Frank said. “Should we ask him his blood type?”
“Now?” Kyle said. “It doesn’t make a rat’s-ass bit of difference what his blood type is now. It’s already in his system, and so is the virus. This’ll either work or it won’t.”
“No sense going up there and looking like a bunch of amateurs in front of him,” Hughes said.
“But we are amateurs,” Annie said. “And you know what else?”
“What?” Kyle said.
“Even if this works, we’re still screwed,” Annie said.
“Why?” Frank said.
“I assume,” Annie said, “that since none of you have donated blood, you don’t know your blood type. Am I right?” Kyle squeezed his eyes shut. “Which means you can’t have a transfusion. I can’t pass my immunity on to you even if it does work with Parker. We’ve already failed.”
But they had already moved forward. And Parker turned in the night. They all heard it happen. The walls weren’t soundproofed and no one had gagged him.
He roared is if he wanted to swallow the world.
Annie cried into her pillow and refused to come out of her room even to eat.
Frozen. Trapped. Pinned. Tied. Tied to a chair. Tied to a chair by his prey. By his food.
A hungry hungry predator shouldn’t be tied. Cannot be tied. Cannot be tied by his prey, by his food,
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