“I’m going to relieve Bren from watching over the prisoner,” he said, voice pitched softer than usual. “So she will be up for dinner in a moment.” Her rare smile was a reward in itself. He wondered if she’d been the one taking meals down to Bren and Cal today, because she sure hated to be parted from Bren for long.
“Thank you,” she said and took away his plates to wash. Mitch left behind the argument about the council meeting and headed for the brig. Ella was right. If Cal was still here tomorrow night, if Cal wasn’t dying, then he was not staying.
He found the brig quiet. Bren was sitting straight in her chair, rifle in her arms. Cal was lying on his stomach on the cot, chin down on his crossed arms, reading a book.
“Bren?” Mitch said as he walked in. She said she’d learned in the army to sleep with her eyes open and still look alert. But that wasn’t the case this time, as she looked at him entirely awake and smiled.
“Wondered when you were going to get your ass out of bed. I’m starving.”
“Me too,” Cal said.
“Anything to report?” Mitch asked as she handed him the rifle.
“Doc checked him over again. He’s fully recovered from the dehydration and exposure. He’s getting stronger.” They exchanged a significant glance. The infected did not recover. Dex hadn’t. “She’s taken another blood sample to check.”
“I’ve barely got any blood left,” Cal said, following it up with a dramatic sigh.
“And he’s certainly getting cheekier,” Bren added. “Okay, I’m going to go get dinner. I’ll have them send a tray down for him.”
“Have them send two,” Cal called as she left.
“Hungry?” Mitch asked.
“Making up for those days on the boat with nothing but a few power bars and packets of jerky.”
He looked good. Color back in his cheeks. The ashen tinge gone from his skin. No dark circles under his eyes. And he was hungry. The infected stopped eating and drinking by day four at the latest.
He’s not infected. There will be a council meeting. And then…
Mitch knew what to do if Cal was infected. But he wasn’t so sure what to do if he wasn’t.
* * * *
The next evening, the mess hall, cleared up from dinner, held the council and several observers, who couldn’t vote but could raise concerns. Bren was the last to arrive, coming in yawning and rubbing a hand across her eyes. Ignoring any disapproving frowns, she slipped into the chair beside Mitch’s. Inez was sitting in the chair behind the one saved for Bren, and Bren twisted around to give her a smile before turning back to the group.
“Who’s watching him?” Mitch asked quietly. He’d have to wait until this was over to take the night shift watching over Cal, and he was impatient to get down there.
“Blanca and Kristy.”
Mitch nodded. Both useful girls with their weapons. Neither would hesitate…
“Can we come to order now that all the council is here?” Kathy, one of the teachers and chair of the council, tapped a gavel they’d brought from ashore. Obviously human civilization would grind to a halt without a gavel. “I’m calling this extraordinary meeting of the council to discuss the situation of the man Calvin Richardson. Alicia to take the minutes.”
Bren caught Mitch’s gaze and rolled her eyes. He didn’t do the same, but he bet she could see the same exasperation in his face. It was good they had a council. They had to have something, but some people seemed to rather revel in the process.
“First on the agenda,” Kathy said. “Phyllis to give a report on his health. Doctor, you have the floor.”
Phyllis cleared her throat and raised her tired and cracked voice as best she could. “When I first examined Mr. Richardson, I found him to be suffering from dehydration and exposure, consistent with having been adrift in the boat for several days with no food and water. I discovered a bite on his leg and administered my prototype vaccine to him.”
“Is it definitely a zombie bite?” Ella asked.
“Unknown.” Phyllis shook her head. “He insists it was a dog. So far I have nothing to contradict that. So far there is no sign of the zombie infection. I’ve taken daily blood samples, and none of them show evidence of the parasites.”
“And he has no other symptoms?” Dolores asked.
“Nothing. Even if he’d been bitten right before we found him, he would be showing symptoms by now. And I believe the bite was several days old by the time I saw it. Nobody has been known to go this long without displaying symptoms.”
“So he’s uninfected.” Dolores leaned forward, eyes bright and interested, looking quite delighted. Mitch wondered if he would drop the fag bomb on her tonight or later. Later. Anyway, it wasn’t his business to out Cal. That was Cal's choice.
“I can’t say yes, one hundred percent,” Phyllis said, hedging, as doctors were wont to do. “But I’m ninety percent sure.”
“Was it your vaccine?” That came from Naomi, calling from the edge of the room. Naomi wasn’t on the council, but she’d only missed a place by a couple of votes. It still smarted.
Kathy banged her gavel. “The chair does not recognize questions from outside the council at this time.” Naomi snorted and leaned back in her seat. Ella raised a hand and got a nod from Kathy.
“So
was
it the vaccine?” she asked. Naomi smirked.
“I can’t say,” Phyllis said. “He might never have been infected in the first place. Maybe it really was a dog bite.”
“I’m sure it must have been,” Dolores said. “If he’s sticking to this story after all this time.”
Yeah, because people never stick to the insistence they are innocent, even after thirty years in jail.
“The issue of whether or not he’s lying isn’t relevant,” Bren said, as usual cutting through the bull. “What’s relevant is what happens if he’s not infected.”
“Which brings us to the next item on the agenda,” Kathy said. “The motion by Dolores that if Mr. Richardson is uninfected, we should offer him the chance to stay here on a trial basis. Ella will be opposing the motion. Dolores, you have the floor.”
She stood, taking off the reading glasses she wore on a chain. Dolores liked men, Mitch had figured out quickly. Not in the sense he thought she wanted to jump Cal—she was at least twenty years older than him. But she was one of those women who preferred men to other women and viewed said men as rather boisterous pets, their sins and crimes considered easily forgiven peccadilloes and the fault of the victim. She was the nightmare jury member for the prosecutor in a rape trial, and the dream of the defense counsel.
He shook himself from the thoughts and listened to her talking about how the group needed men, that it needed a mix. That men were needed to take on jobs unsuitable for women. He thought Bren might explode at that one, so he trod on her foot and gave her a quelling look.
Dolores finished her argument, to a ripple of applause from her supporters among the observers. Ella got her turn, and the difference was instantly apparent. She treated the council like a jury. But they didn’t like it much. Her argument was good, but the council withdrew from the way she put it across. Mitch guessed they felt they were being manipulated. He felt that way himself, though he’d seen lawyers at work so often by now he had more resistance than most people. He felt that way even though he agreed with her. They couldn’t let Cal stay. It would lead to the kind of trouble it always had, and that was, in its own way, worse than zombies. Zombies were easy. You killed them. Men were harder to deal with.
The fact he wanted Cal was irrelevant. Maybe before Cal left they might help each other out a little. Give each other some relief. It would only be a physical thing, a release for both of them. But then Cal had to go. Mitch shifted in his seat and tried to concentrate on the meeting.
Ella finished and sat back down. Kathy looked around. “Does anyone wish to add anything?”
Phyllis raised her hand. “Yes. As much as I agree with a lot of what Ella said, the fact is, I gave him the vaccine, and I would like the chance to follow up on what happens to him. It could be essential to my research.”
“Damn,” Bren muttered. Mitch gave her a glance, but she didn’t meet his eyes, just looked thoughtful.
“Anyone else?” Kathy asked. “Mitch, Bren, you’ve both spent time with him. Do you have any specific objection to his staying, if he chooses to?”
Did they? Bren shook her head. “No. Aside from when he first woke up and found himself chained up, which probably scared him a bit, he’s been cooperative and hasn’t been violent to anybody.”
“Mitch? Do you agree?”
He had to, didn’t he? She was right. Cal had calmed down after his initial shock. But so what? None of the men who’d been a problem in the past had started out as obviously violent.
“I agree that he’s been cooperative.”
“There’s one other thing,” Bren said. “I’d really like to keep that boat we found him on. But since he arrived on it, that kind of makes it his, and he’d leave in it, unless we can persuade him to swap it for one of the smaller ones. Of course we can just keep it without his permission, but—”
“That would make us pirates,” Ella said.
“Exactly.” Bren gave Mitch a rather guilty look. He knew she was going to vote for Cal to stay. He couldn’t believe it.
“If nobody has anything else to add, let’s take a vote,” Kathy said. “Would anyone prefer a secret ballot, or is a show of hands okay?”
Hands it was. They took the No votes first. Mitch and Ella raised their hands quickly, followed a second later by Alicia. She was the youngest member of the council, but one of the teachers, someone with a wide reach among the women with children. How many children had she seen come into school with bruises on them in the old days?
The Yes votes next. Dolores’s hand went up promptly, followed more slowly by Bren and Phyllis. Neither looked especially happy to be supporting Dolores, but both had their own agenda.
Three for Cal staying, three against.
“Then it appears the chair breaks the deadlock,” Kathy said. She paused for a moment. A held breath. “I vote yes.”
Murmurs rippled around. Mitch sat back in his chair, arms crossed, realizing Ella was mirroring the exact same movement. Well, shit. Kathy banged the gavel to silence the mutters.
“Quiet, please! The motion is carried, four votes to three. When and if the doctor passes Mr. Richardson as fit and uninfected, he will be offered the chance to stay here on a trial basis to last no longer than three months. Any other business?”
“Where’s he going to sleep?” Naomi called. She was the group’s quartermaster, making sure everyone had suitable places to lay their heads—not easy in a group like this, with such a range of ages and a mix of childless women and mothers. “I can’t put him up with the girls, and I don’t have any spare rooms.”
“Perhaps he can share with Mitch?” Dolores suggested.
Mitch looked up, startled. He’d been busy fuming and deciding exactly what he’d say to Bren when he got her alone. But this shock statement broke him out of that. Cal? Share with him? God, no, that was the worst possible idea. It wasn’t like he could chain Cal to the wall. Maybe he’d have to chain himself.
“After all, you’ve got that big room all to yourself, Mitch,” Dolores went on.
And now he’d look like a selfish idiot if he refused. Did Dolores have a gloating look? Maybe she thought he’d be driven mad by having a gorgeous man sharing his room. Maybe he would be.
“Yes,” Bren said, standing up, putting a hand on Mitch’s shoulder but looking at Dolores with an evil smirk. “I’m sure they’ll get along just fine. They have
so
much in common.” Bren knew about what he and Cal had in common? Who knew what they’d talked about while he slept? But he had to admit the look of sudden dismay on Dolores’s face brightened what had just become a very black mood.
Kathy banged her gavel one last time. “Meeting adjourned.”
Chapter Four
By the fifth day it had become a routine, but this had to be the last day. Bren came in, smiling in an almost friendly way at him, but Mitch was still frowning. He’d been tense the last couple of nights, barely talking, however much Cal tried to engage him.
“The doc’s on her way,” Bren said, handing out mugs of coffee. “I didn’t bring breakfast. I think Cal’s gonna join us in the mess hall this morning.”
“That’s for the doctor to decide,” Mitch said. Ever the optimist. That guy’s glass was never half-full. Cal sipped his coffee and waited tensely. He was okay. God knew how, but he was. But the doctor, nice old girl that she was, would come in here and determine his fate any second. It was enough to give a man the heebie-jeebies. He wanted out of these chains, but not so Mitch and Bren could take him out and shoot him.
Mitch and Bren talked quietly, Cal tuning them out. Would they shoot him here in this room? Or take him up on the deck of the rig? They had kids here, he’d learned from talking to Mitch and Bren. Surely they wouldn’t want to scare the kids. Maybe they’d take him off on a boat and do him away from the rig?
God, such morbid thoughts. What made him think they’d do any of that? He was okay. He
was
okay.
The doctor came in, leaning heavily on her cane. Mitch at once helped her to a chair. She didn’t have her bag with her, Cal noticed at once. So no needle for a blood sample. No stethoscope. He tried to decide if that was good or bad.
“Interesting finding in Cal’s latest blood sample,” she said. “In the last two, in fact. I just had to wait for the second one to be sure.”
Cal stared, and he saw Mitch’s face go pale. His gaze locked on Cal’s.
“Antibodies,” the doctor went on. “Antibodies to the zombie disease.”
“He’s…he’s got it?” Mitch asked. His hand rested on his sidearm. Cal took a step back.
“Of course he hasn’t,” the doctor said impatiently. “We can all see that. No patient has gone this long after infection without displaying any symptoms. He doesn’t have it.”
Cal sighed as Mitch’s hand moved away from his gun. His legs wobbled suddenly as the tension of the last few days left him. The fear he’d kept bottled up. He staggered back and leaned on the wall.
“You might as well set him loose,” the doctor said. “I want him down in the infirmary for a full exam.”