Life Inside the Dead Zone

Chapter 8: Doctor Delgado

Chapter 8

Doctor Delgado

Three days later, I've recovered enough to move unaided, though my movements remain shaky. I can also feel new tendrils growing in my back now that my body is placing less focus on my legs. Even still, the process is miserable. I constantly need to eat and rest to speed up the healing process.

On top of that, our house is feeling rather cramped. Our house isn't exactly small, but the addition of five new people, even temporarily, has forced us to change things up. It has also put a drain on our food and water. Even though the humans don't eat or drink much, they do have to eat at least one meal every day or they get irritable.

Once we made our decision, Lily started working on setting up a meeting with the doctor. At first, it seemed unlikely that a lieutenant would be able to get in touch with such a prominent government official, but, due to her status as a carrier, the nature of Doctor Delgado's research, and this mission, Lily has ways to get in touch with the doctor. At our request, she's pushed to have the doctor come to the Provo settlement, citing that she's found something that can't be brought back that the doctor will want to see with her own eyes.

From what Lily has said, the doctor seems intrigued and is willing to come to the dead zone. However, it is up to us to clear out a safe place for the meeting. We probably won't be able to get inside the settlement, so a meeting outside the walls is our only option.

Surprisingly, this doctor seems particularly eager to see Lily's "discovery" and will be in the area later today, which means the rest of us need to go establish a safe place right now. The unfortunate part is that this means that we have no time to perform advance recon to determine an optimal location. We haven't been to Provo in almost twenty-five years, so we have effectively no idea what we're walking into and we can't rely on the humans for reliable information.

"X," Ivy says. "You getting ready?"

"Yeah," I say, pulling a footlocker out from under my bed. Reaching inside, I pull out a reinforced leather jacket, specifically designed for fighting. Similar to my hunting jacket, this one has thicker leather and plates of chitin reinforcing it, granting greater protection without sacrificing much in the way of speed or stealth. Pulling it on, I also recover a short-bladed sword from the box. I run my hand along the blade, making sure it is still sharp. The weight of it is familiar. When you take the spiked knuckle duster attached to the hilt into account, you see it as a post-apocalyptic variation of an archaic weapon.

"Expecting hand-to-hand?" Ivy asks.

"Pays to be prepared," I say, sliding the sword into its sheath and attaching it to my belt. I don't use my sword very often, so there is a strangeness to having the weight there. However, it is a comforting weight.

"True," she says. "But you're still recovering. Do you think you'll be able to do your fancy bladework?"

"I highly doubt you could ever call my bladework 'fancy,'" I say. "It's just hack and slash at anything that comes too close till it stops moving."

She nods. "Well, we're gathering for final planning, so hop to it." I grin and nod, following her out the door.

We walk into the map room, which is one of the rooms that we've added onto the house over they years. The others are all there, the humans in their armor, the undead in our reinforced leather gear. Why have we never come up with a name for our group? Probably because we've never had to before. It was always just us against the Roamers and the Muties.

I take a place next to Vincent and he nods to me. His armor was actually pretty badly damaged when I pulled him from the Hive, a large groove cut into the abdominal section, probably from when the Buggers implanted him with the new organ. Thankfully, their equipment includes repair tools, so they were able to perform some repairs. It's still damaged, but he won't be vulnerable.