Remedy

Chapter Seven: Day One, Step One.

Ana

Sledge tied the ropes around a pole, keeping Casper restrained. He hissed and sputtered, he began frothing at the mouth. Tears were building up in her eyes, Sledge backed up, admiring his work grimly.

"I'm so sorry," Mae placed her hand on Casper's mom's shoulder.

"Mom," Ana whispered, "we found Chase." She whipped around, tears immediately falling from her eyes, she wrapped her arms around him. Ana reached in her pocket and pulled out one of the vials, she glanced at Jamie. "This might help Casper." Mae took one of the vials.

"Now, wait a second. . . Where did this come from and who are these kids? How do we know we can trust them." Sledge took the vial from Mae, "We should test it on another Vacant first." Michael carried over a bucket of supplies and knelt by Chase's side.

"Someone start wrapping the boy's face," He started cutting off Chase's shirt, his shoulder was a blackened color. No one moved, "Someone wrap the boy's face now."

Casper's mom, Naomi snatched the vial from Sledge's palm. "We need to try it," her eyes were wide, she stared at Jamie, "You think this is a cure?"

"We aren't sure what it is exactly, we just found it and it seemed important." Naomi pulled the plastic sleeve off of the needle of the syringe.

"Naomi," Mae stepped forward, "We should test it on another before . . . Casper." She reached to take it.

"He told us to try, and I'm going to," she whispered. Mae caught her shoulder.

"You can try when the time is right. We'll get Casper back, I promise you that." Mae quietly took the vial away from her and placed it on the table. She helped her into a seat. "Ana, would you mind gathering Joel, Jenna, and Lee and start searching for supplies? If there's any beds roll them in the lobby. The lobby will be home base, this'll be the infirmary."

Ana nodded before leaving the room.

Jamie

Jamie took a roll of bandages out of the woman's hand, he knelt down at his brothers side. "I'm Sledge, also known as the muscle of the group. That's Mae," he pointed to the woman he had taken the bandages from, "she's the mother of Chase and Anastasia, but I think everyone kind of thinks of her as their mother. That's Michael, he's kind of the doctor and brains of the group. This is Naomi, she's new here. That's . . . Casper," he pointed his thumb at the zombie strapped to a pole. He looked new. "Jenna and Vincent are the ones who walk around in suits. I'd stay away from Jenna if I were you, she's not fond of new people," he grinned, "Hmm, Joel is the one with one hand and Lee is the one dressed as a ninja. You've probably already met Henry and the others." He stuck out his hand and allowed Jamie to shake it.

"The name's Jamie, and that's my brother, Cody. He's all I got left . . . We weren't there when the bomb hit," his voice softened at the end. Sledge gave him a reassuring smile and grabbed a cloth to start cleaning Cody's face. Jamie glanced at the other boy, he looked in bad shape. They said his name was Chase. Michael was cleaning his shoulder, attempting to scrape out the infection.

"Why don'y you follow after Anastasia and find the others," Mae gestured with a small smile. Jamie nodded and started down the hallway. He met up with Ana in one of the rooms that used to hold patients. She was whispering something to the others, she straightened when she saw him.

"There's only two hallways that we know for sure are clear. My mom says we need to roll any usable beds into the lobby," sadness weighed in her voice.

"They think it's a good idea to stay in here?" a girl in a white-gray suit said standing up. Sledge had said her name was Jenna. She brushed off her pants with the palms of her hands. "Casper is one of them now because we weren't careful enough, you could say the same for Isaiah as well."

"What more do you want?" Ana whispered, "Better yet, what do you expect? It's the middle of the zombie apocalypse. It's not going to be rainbows and butterflies, we're going to ave to stay where we don't want to stay, no matter what. This is the safest spot we had in a while. So either help me roll this bed into the lobby or get out." She snapped, shoving a table on wheels away. Jenna nodded.

"This bed is covered in blood," she sighed, "just like everything else."

"We could find a way to clean the sheets, or even find new sheets . . . And we could flip the mattress, unless it's completely soaked in . . ." Jamie went to the girls' side and helped tug off the dirty sheets. "We used to do this at our old camp." Together, the three of them flipped the mattress and unlocked the wheels. Ana and Jamie took the back while Jenna and Joel helped steer from the front.

"We'll need candles," Lee noted, "the sunlight comes through in the morning but it gets pretty dark at night." Ana nodded, they wheeled the bed into the corner of the lobby.

"We should probably seal the bodies in a room," Jamie suggested, glancing down at the zombified body of a teenage girl. Ana nodded.

"We'll clean out the examination room and drag any bodies in there, we'll find a way to seal it after." The group started towards the examination room, Jamie stopped, Lee slid to the ground next to the girl.

"Did you . . . Know her?" Jamie asked, he knelt next to him and awkwardly placed his hand on his shoulder. He was seriously bad at the whole moral support thing. Lee shrugged his hand off.

"Yes, her name was Emma . . . I wanted to cure . . . Her. I promised her I would," Lee unclasped a locket from around her neck. "She made me promise not to, she thought her cancer was too far along. The doctor told me after that he thought she could've made it, that there was a chance. I wanted to bring her back, that's why I kept her in here, but now she's gone, she'll be shoved in some examination room to rot with everyone else." His bottom lip quivered slightly.

"Listen, I'm not going to tell you everything is going to be all right, because I'm not sure it will be."

"Gee, thanks, honestly, that helped ton." Lee snapped, sarcasm laced through his voice.

"I know what it feels like to loose someone," Jamie chose to ignore his comment. "It sucks, everything sucks. I miss when everything was normal and you didn't have to worry about for parents, friends, or sixth grade teachers gouging your eyes out." He felt tears well up in his eyes. "And honestly, I miss showers and food that doesn't taste like garbage," he gave an airy, fake laugh and pushed himself to his feet. "Things happen to people who deserve it the least," he pulled Lee to his feet. "Let's go help the others."

~~~~

lAmE honestly, this chapter sucked so bad but I have such bad writers block and I honestly couldn't think of anything else to write. Ah well, an update is an update, thanks so much for reading :3 I'll try and have another non-lame update up soon XD

I was going to post this with a mass amount of updates but honestly, I haven't updated in a month XD so I'll just throw this one out there