Chapter 17: The Victim
Thomas Garter
The wound was unlike anything else Thomas had seen before. It was shaped like a bite and was oozing black pus mixed with dark blood. He wasn't sure why, but when Parker stood up and trained his gun on him, Thomas followed.
"When did you get that?" Parker shouted at him, in a threatening tone.
Brandon turned and put his hands in the air, trying as hard as he could not to be afraid. It wasn't working. "It happened this morning... When we were clearing out the building."
"Why didn't you tell us?"
He frowned and pointed at the rifle being aimed at his chest. "Why do you think?"
Will and Usui scrambled over each other to see what was going on, and a few of the younger patients and doctors stood up from their table and formed a semicircle around the bitten man just as they had with the squad's entrance. It was almost as if they had rehearsed it. There was Cecil, the man and woman with the dark red hair, and a two others Thomas didn't recognize.
"Just hear me out!" Brandon yelled at them. "Just hear me out...before you kill me..."
"We're listening." said the woman with the red head.
"No, we're not." Cecil replied angrily. "This man is bitten! We've all seen what happens to people with a bite! They get sick, and they die, and turn into one of those things and kill everything they can find!"
The woman frowned. "Stop being such an old asshole. The guy's a person just like us."
The man who looked to be his brother took her by the arm. Thomas remembered his name being Trevor. "Violet... come on."
"Cecil's right. We can't let him live." One of the other people in the circle mentioned. He had short black hair with a stubble and didn't look terribly older than Thomas. He spoke with a higher tone of voice than normal, but had great intensity inside of it. "Stuff like this is the beginning of the end..."
"You know what's the beginning of the end, Mitch?" Parker asked him. "The moment we start killing people every time shit starts to get bad. You want him to die? Do any of you want him to die? Then you do it." He held the rifle out in front of him and gestured towards it sarcastically when no one came forward. "No? I didn't think so. Now, we're going to do something, but we're gonna hear him out first."
"...Fair enough." Cecil grunted.
"You folks done?" Brandon asked in an annoyed fashion. "Good. My name is Brandon Fuller, and I just wanted to tell you all that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that this happened to me, and I'm sorry that I wasn't able to help. I am the chief of surgery here, and a few of you might have needed my knowledge. I am so sorry that I couldn't live long enough to help you."
"You're not the only one around here who can sew up a wound." Cecil yelled.
"No, but I am the only one around here who can properly sew a wound together micrometers from someone's vital organs."
"What are you getting at?" Parker asked him. "You're not making an argument for life..."
"I'm not arguing, no." Brandon replied. "The only thing I want, is a last wish."
"And this is?" Parker said.
He sighed for a moment, and looked around the room. Thomas, Parker, Cecil, Will, Trevor, Violet, Usui and Mitch all stood around him, waiting to hear what he had to say. When he prolonged he answer, Thomas started to wonder if he even had one. "When I'm gone... remember me. I never had anyone in life... I grew up in an orphanage, and was never adopted. I never married and I never had any children. I am the first and last of my family line, and I've managed to get myself killed before making a mark on society. I want to have one last moment in the real world before having to leave it."
