Chapter Three

Know what you're doing

"Will he recover?"

The doctor finished pulling through the final stitch and swiftly snipped the thin thread, keeping her eyes focused on her work, trying not to notice the fact that the skin she was working on was sickly and gray and lacerated and scarred so many times it looked like it sported a sprawling, winding tattoo.

"From these wounds? Maybe," she said shortly, shrugging. "If the Infection doesn't kill him first. Recovery will take time, though. And a lot of rest and care."

She glanced up and over as she spoke, the narrowed brown eyes behind her square glasses fleetingly meeting calm, piercing blue. The doubt she wanted to voice died in her throat at the sight and she turned back to her work, plucking up several plastic packages of gauze and medical tape and rolls of bandages from the supply boxes flooding the tables around her.

There was a heavy, deep sigh that broke through the still air. "You believe that I am being foolish."

Her nimble fingers placed the gauze carefully against the pale, gray skin, even white teeth biting tentatively at her lower lip in thought. "I…believe you have good intentions, John. You always do. But I'm afraid they might be…blinding you in this case. I'm not saying what you did was wrong—it was disgusting what they were doing to him, and it needed to be stopped—but I do wonder…if choosing to bring him here was the best choice."

Silence fell. The doctor continued placing the gauze, carefully covering it and taping it as best she could what with the limited amount of uninjured skin she had to work with. Luckily, there had been a bathing station in the clinic where they had managed to clean the Hunter's filthy body and wounds before patching him up, or the grime would have provided an entirely different set of problems. The rustling of medical supplies and the ragged breathing of the unusual patient lying on her clinic table were the only sounds to punctuate the contemplative quiet. Which was fine with her. Talking meant she had to think about what she was doing.

She didn't want to think about that quite yet.

They were standing in a back room of the Compound's clinic. A single light hung above them, directly over the stainless steel operating table positioned in the middle. There were tables and cabinets lining the wall, covered in various degrees of chaos that the medical staff just did not have the time to organize or clean.

The doctor was the only one in the building tonight, though. A brief, unusual moment in her shift. Lucky for John, who had come in through the backdoor cradling the damaged form of an Infected in his powerful arms shortly after midnight. Quite a shock for the poor doctor.

Only Mallory Benson was not a real doctor. Not yet, anyway, seeing as she had not graduated from university and was only halfway through her studies, if even that. But her education had been put on indefinite hold, considering the circumstances. Not that anyone really cared about that anymore. There were only two other doctors besides her in the Compound—one was a graduate fresh out of med school, barely a few years older than she was, and the other was a roughened old medical surgeon who used to be retired before the whole zombie apocalypse began. Of course, those two would probably have been enough for the Compound's small population if things had been normal. But things were not normal and the workload for the Compound's medical staff was immense. Survivors were being carted through nearly every other day, most in desperate need of check ups or patch jobs, and the Compound residents came in on all the other days, panicking over coughs or sniffles or fevers that usually turned out to be nothing, so Mallory had been upgraded from the assistant position she had originally volunteered for and now she had about as much experience and knowledge as she needed to keep up with her two associates and on one said anything to make her feel like it wasn't enough.

After all, there was no better teacher than being on the field, as one of her old professors used to say. "Used to" because he was probably so much decaying flesh on the side of the road back in the east coast by now. Just like the rest of the high and mighty university faculty.

"Perhaps you are right," said John heavily, shifting on the tiny stool he sat upon. The suddenness of his deep, rumbling voice caused Mallory's hands to slip slightly, startling her from her thoughts. But she quickly recovered, berating herself for the momentary lapse of attentiveness, despite the fact that it was well into the early hours of the morning and she knew that she was exhausted after another near sleepless night. She continued with her care, concentrating her eyes on her hands so she would not have to look up again into that piercing gaze.

"What are you planning on doing with him now?" she asked quietly after realizing that John had no intention of continuing to speak.

At the question, the large man sighed again, leaning back and staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "I will take him home with me. There is a small room off the kitchen that he might like. It has dim lighting and locks from the outside, and is certainly quite a bit larger than the cage they had him living in. I will take care of him there—after all this trouble, it would be a waste not to—and when he is recovered, I will return him to the city."

Mallory finished taping the last stretch of gauze, and then she stood back and had John lift up the Infected's upper body so she could quickly wrap several lengths of bandages around his chest as an added precaution, and while she did so, she mulled over her friend's words. He made it sound so simple. But of course, he always did that. And for him, usually it was.

Still…

"Are you sure that's safe? Putting him in a house like that filled with people? What if he gets out and bites someone? What if he bites you? I know you've been bitten by these things before, but you can't keep pressing your luck like this…"

"I will take the necessary precautions," interrupted the man gently, "but I doubt that they will be needed. Trust me, Miss Benson, I do not wish for anyone else to be harmed, especially those residing with me. I would not be making this decision if I thought it would be unsafe for others, especially them."

Mallory sighed and tied off the bandage roll. "Of course, John. I know you wouldn't put anyone in danger on purpose…but this…this is an Infected…"

"I know what an Infected is," said John quietly, and glancing up, Mallory saw a brief flash of emptiness in his gaze, the same emptiness that spoke of living through horrors she could never imagine. She suddenly felt foolish chiding him on his choice. Of course he understood what he was doing. He knew. After all he had been through, how could he not? "I understand the risks. But there is something about this one…I believe I may be able to do some good for him."

Mallory stood back, her job complete, to survey her work. Nodding in satisfaction after several moments of studying the stitches and bandages with experienced eyes, she quickly cleaned up the supplies and then pulled off her bloodied gloves, tossing them in the nearby trashcan. She struggled for a moment trying to find words to say before turning and disguising her uncertainty by washing her hands. Behind her, the large man picked up a fresh blanket she had brought out of the supply bin and moved forward, gently maneuvering the much smaller form to get the covering around it.

Silently, the doctor chewed on her lip, trying not to think of how strange this situation was, wondering if she was making the right choice in letting her friend do this, in letting him take care of an Infected. And not only was it an Infected, it was one of the most dangerous ones the virus had produced.

If it was her being faced with this decision…if it had been her at the Outpost…

She sighed to herself, shaking her head slowly. No, that was a bad argument. She knew what she would have done if it had been she in his shoes—or rather, what she would not have done. She wouldn't have had the guts to do the same thing as he had.

But she would have liked to.

Still though, bringing an Infected into a quarantined, paranoid Compound filled with survivors, many of whom had learned the hard way to hate and fear the Infected after weeks upon weeks of running and fighting for their lives, trying to make it to the few safe zones left in North America…that was just asking for trouble.

"What if someone finds out?" asked Mallory quietly, turning to face her friend while drying her hands.

The large man merely shrugged and said nothing. It was the type of response that told her she was better off not pressing further. He continued carefully wrapping the prone form in the blanket, and then when the Hunter was sufficiently covered so that it would be near impossible to tell him apart from a normal human, the large man scooped him up into strong arms. Standing there with the size difference so obvious between them, despite the fact that the Hunter was neither larger nor smaller than average, it looked like he was cradling a child.

She stared at them for a long moment, fighting within herself between what she knew to be the rules, and what she knew to be right. Even if it was insanity. Even if it seemed taking care of an already grievously sick creature was a hopeless cause. But then, if anyone could take care of an injured Infected and make it through unscathed with the minimal amount of problems possible, it would be John Logan. As the saying went around camp, if there were ever to be a counteracting force to Murphy's Law, it would be him. And despite her own personal doubts and misgivings, despite not agreeing with him in the slightest, she trusted his judgment.

"I suppose I'll drop by every night until he gets better," she muttered grudgingly, leaning back against the table behind her, arms folded and lips tugged down into a frown. "His bandages are going to need to be checked and changed daily. If he even lets me get that close to him once he wakes up, of course."

"Oh, he might," said John calmly, smiling. "He is not quite like the other Infected, Miss Benson. He may surprise you. And I thank you dearly for your willingness to continue with his care. I will ensure your safety will not be at risk."

Mallory shrugged, despite the fact she was inwardly wondering why in hell she had offered to continue doing something she very much did not want to do. She walked past him casually and went to hold open the back door. Beyond, the faintest hint of dawn was gracing the horizon. "Sure, gives me something to keep my mind off everything else going on around here. And who knows? I might even learn something useful."

The large man smiled slightly as he started for the door. "Yes. That is precisely what I was thinking."

The Gateway Compound was one of many small settlements erected in the northwest reaches of the North American continent several months after the initial Outbreak, organized by the remnants of the former local governments of the cities affected the least or the last and protected by the severely diminished military and local police forces. It was fairly isolated in a pocket of the mountains where a former farming community had once been, far enough away from the nearest city to avoid being run over by the remaining Infected, but close enough to the nearest Outpost to be a temporary stop for relocated and rescued survivors and those passing through to other Compounds. It was a small cluster of mismatched buildings—indeed, some were not buildings at all but rather old semi-trailers or camping trailers or whatever else could be found to live in—that looked as if the structures had been dropped from the sky there over night, all clustered together according to what they were used for. However, the high, barbed wire topped double fence and sentry posts every few meters that surrounded the small Compound were as new and as structurally sound as anything from the old world had been. And over the past few months while it had been in operation, the place was beginning to look more and more like a stable town as the less than one hundred and fifty residents began to make it their home.

Almost all of them had realized by now that they wouldn't be going anywhere. There just wasn't anywhere else to go.

Many of those who chose to stay as part of the permanent population or were assigned to the Gateway were either medical or military professionals of some sort, researchers still vainly attempting to find a cure for the Infection that had ravaged the greater part of the civilized world, or those with enough experience to stay alive without their former civilization and related luxuries and help others do the same—those particular people ranged everywhere from avid backcountry camping and hunting enthusiasts to former Scout leaders. There were few others who stayed for any other reason. The rest of those who had somehow miraculously survived the Infection long enough to make it to the north or be rescued were usually transferred to the larger, more remote but better developed communities in an attempt to salvage what humanity the world had left once they had successfully passed through one of the quarantine stations.

Then there was John Logan.

John had been relocated to the Compound after being shifted from one evacuation point to the next and taken through more quarantine facilities than he cared to remember. The whole structure of everything was unnerving to him—he had not expected to find much of anything resembling order and government after escaping his former home in the mid west, only to be curiously surprised by the effectiveness at which human life had been established in the far wildernesses. Not that he had had much time to dwell on it. Not that he had wanted to.

By the time he had come to the Gateway, he was sick of traveling. Sick of change. He wanted to stay put as much as he wanted to help, and the Gateway, even as run down and shoddily constructed as it was, presented itself as the best option to do so. He lived at the edge of the fortified Compound farthest away from the single, heavily guarded entrance gate. He had been lucky to have arrived in the outlying survivor community early enough on to procure one of the previously standing structures of the small farming town that had existed before the area had been converted into its present state. It was a modest two-story farmhouse with three bedrooms and what had once been a large front and back yard that was now crammed with camping trailers and tents and whatever else could be hastily salvaged and constructed and used to shelter the steady trickle of survivors that passed through. It was a bit crowded, but few people complained—cramped living quarters was a small price to pay for safety and a peace of mind.

None of the other residents of the small house were awake when John arrived, which was a relief. He would rather tell first and show later to avoid setting off a panic. He had left his truck at the supply depot, as it would have disturbed too many sleeping people if he had driven it into the residential sector so early in the morning. It hadn't been that long of a walk from the medical clinic, but he had had to be extra careful to avoid any of the patrols stationed around the Compound and the odd early morning straggler setting about a day's work. John was not a fool, after all. He knew that not everyone would be as readily to accept his judgment as Mallory Benson had.

She had asked him what he would do if he were found out. In truth, he really wasn't sure. But he would do what he had to do.

He just hoped it would never get to that point.

John flicked on one of the lamps in the kitchen and carried the still form in his arms into the small room off to the side. It was not exactly a bedroom and had in fact been a pantry and supply closet until a week or so earlier when it had been converted into a simple guest room. Just in case it was needed.

And now it was. John carefully pulled back the covers on the bed and set the Hunter onto the thin, firm mattress, covering him as much as possible with the worn but clean blankets before standing back and staring down at the heavily bandaged form with a thoughtful gaze. In the dim castoff light from the kitchen, the Infected looked no different than any other human man. How could the men at the Outpost justify treating him like an animal?

He leaned down, gently picking up one of the Infected's limp clawed hands and examining it. The doctor and he had put in their best efforts to clean the blood out from under the sharpened, lethal claws, but they seemed to be permanently stained. Not to mention still very dangerous. They had accidentally torn through more than one towel and washcloth. In the end, the young doctor had simply procured some cutting instruments—ranging from sheers to clippers—and some heavy-duty files and together they had cut and filed down the claws on the Hunter's hands and feet. John had a feeling the Infected wouldn't be too happy about that, but it was necessary, not only for hygiene, but also for safety, both that of his and those around him.

John had been worried that they had trimmed the claws down too far, as it had been difficult to determine what was fresh blood from new wounds, fresh blood from old wounds, or simply dried blood that had coagulated and coated his filthy skin. However, now that he was able to have a closer look, he could see that they had not caused any terrible harm. A few scrapes or scratches that may or may not have resulted from the trimming, but nothing too serious.

Satisfied, he tugged out several extra rolls of bandages from his coat pocket and began wrapping them firmly around the Hunter's right hand and upper arm, keeping the wrappings loose enough to allow for proper circulation, but tight enough that hopefully the Hunter would be prevented from using his fingers to try to claw or grab dangerously. At least, until he figured out that all he needed to do was bite them off. In that instance, it was also a test—how much intelligence had the Hunter retained?

He had just finished binding the Hunter's other hand when movement in the doorway caught his eye. After living for two months in an Infected-infested city, his peripheral vision had been trained up enough to be able to immediately and almost always accurately assess any movement in any part of his range of vision. As such, he recognized who it was immediately.

Calmly, the large man gathered the unused bandages, tucked the Hunter's arms under the blankets, and stood, his calm gaze turned towards the door with a serene smile.

A girl stood in the doorway. She looked small and young, almost childlike, but John knew that, like his own appearance, it was an unintentionally deceiving perception as she was well into her late teens. She had a head of shaggy blonde hair that gave evidence to the fact that she apparently had just got out of bed, and a pair of brilliant green eyes that shown from the pale, thin face, shadowed with sleepiness that was mostly masked by curiosity. She didn't move or speak when he turned his attention to her, instead choosing to simply stand there with her slim arms leisurely folded across her thin body, her expressionless gaze turned on him.

"I apologize if I awoke you," said John gently.

The girl's thin shoulders rose in a shrug, and he noticed that her gaze flickered alternatingly between him and the form on the bed. "I was listening for you," she explained quietly. Her voice was light but held a dark, serious overtone that hinted to experience and trials well beyond her years. "It doesn't take much to wake me up nowadays."

"Then I shall apologize for keeping you waiting."

She said nothing, letting that particular topic of conversation fall to the side in favor of turning her gaze completely to the being on the bed, letting the unasked question hover on the quiet morning air and in the small, curious frown tugging at her lips.

John watched her closely as he debated on whether or not to immediately provide an answer. However, of all the residents of the small house, she was the one he would prefer finding out first, the one he had honestly expected to be the first to find out. Yet still he was wary of how she would react. "He is an Infected. A Hunter."

There was a brief moment where her eyes widened with surprise, slim mouth opening in shock as she stared at him in disbelief. However, she recovered her composure quickly, her tone of voice and body posture betraying nothing more of what she was feeling at the receiving of the information. Her mouth closed, her expression slackened into its customary lack of definitive emotion, and she politely waited for him to continue explaining.

"I came across a group of men at the Outpost who were forcing captured Infected to fight other Infected for entertainment."

He didn't need to say anymore. He saw the understanding in her eyes. And the acceptance of the decisions that she reasoned he had made to lead them up to this point. She simply nodded, standing aside as he lumbered tiredly out of the room and closed the door tightly behind him. For a long moment, they stood silently in the dim light of the kitchen, staring at the closed door.

"Miss Benson sedated him before she began patching him up," said the large man eventually, breaking the silence. The girl turned to look at him. "He should be waking soon, according to her calculations, unless he simply continues sleeping from exhaustion."

"I'll keep watch," said the girl instantly, her tone of voice so finalized that it was nearly impossible for him to argue. "I should start on my studying. You get some sleep. You've had a long drive. I'll wake you up when he wakes up."

John hesitated, meeting her blank green gaze with his own piercing blue. After several moments of thought, he slowly nodded. "And the others…"

"I'll let you explain."

He continued to regard her silently for several moments, as if weighing his choices. He wanted to speak instructions to her, warnings. Not to open the door unless he was there. Not to mention the Hunter to anyone else unless speaking to him first. But he had a feeling she already knew and understood everything he would have voiced. He could not hope to place the Hunter in better hands. She had learned how to analyze situations, comprehend the conclusions, and adapt to them at a rate that was astonishing.

She hadn't been like that before the Infection.

But people changed when they had to. Even when they didn't want to.

"Thank you," he said graciously, smiling.

Again, the girl nodded in customary silence, watching quietly as the large man turned and lumbered off to bed, her ever-vigilant green gaze edged with a hint of the immense uncertainty and heavy weight of memories haunting both their thoughts.