Keep Busy

43.

The soldier who'd led Jane into the Medical trailer, announced their arrival. "Sir, the subject is cleared to proceed."

"Well, can the subject at least get a robe or something?" Jane asked bitterly. "Or one of those lab coats maybe?" She scanned the medical trailer and saw all sorts of things that would help conceal her partial nudity. "I'm feeling a bit exposed."

"Funny you should mention," said Ramirez turning toward Jane from an open cabinet. He approached her, passing what appeared to be a makeshift gynecologist's examination chair with an articulating spotlight trained right between the stirrups. "I was just about to ask you to lose the bikini."

"What?"

"I mean, I suppose you could keep the top on..." he looked to the soldier still holding onto Jane's arm. "Thank you private, you're dismissed." The soldier nodded, released his grip and left the trailer without another word.

"Wait, what is happening here?" Jane said, looking around at the other few soldiers in the room—sentinels positioned by the door she'd just come through. They looked eager and hungry, licking their lips and swaying back and forth in anticipation. "What the fuck is going on? And you," she pointed to Ramirez, "are definitely not a doctor."

"Not in the traditional sense, no, but I'm still going to be the one that checks if your insides are working," Ramirez said. The two other soldiers stepped in, grabbed Jane by the wrists and led her over to the exam chair.

"What? Seriously? You're going to rape me?" she snapped, the indignation rising in her voice. "Fucking rape a zombie? Jesus, you're fucking pathetic! Evidently the end of the world didn't end patriarchal injustice!" Jane was struggling against the other soldiers as they bodily lifted her into the chair and commenced with strapping her down.

"You a fucking feminist?" Ramirez asked as he oversaw the process, still revealing nothing with his expression.

"When I'm about to get raped, I am!"

"Convenient."

"You know you're going to catch the virus doing this, right? Is that what you want you goddamn maniac?" she screeched.

Ramirez grinned maliciously. "We're not going to catch anything we don't already have."

She processed the comment for a second. "You're zombies? You're fucking... kidding!"

"No joke. You could bite us all day long and it wouldn't mean a thing—if you're into that kinky shit."

Well, that explains a lot—like why Jane wasn't feeling the desire to attack the soldiers. There was no allure in dead flesh.

Ramirez waited for the other soldiers to finish securing Jane to the chair. Her ankles were crudely tied up in the stirrups, her wrists tied to the metal legs of the table with nylon ropes. She fought against the restraints, but they held fast. Ramirez nodded to the soldiers and they stepped back, resuming their posts near the door to the trailer.

"Jesus," Jane said. "I fucking hate zombies."

"Self-loathing is unbecoming," Ramirez retorted, eyeing Jane greedily. He slowly pulled off his gloves like a movie villain and gingerly placed his hands on the insides of her thighs. "How are you still warm?" he asked no one in particular. He slid his rough hands higher, and Jane squirmed. "Relax, it's not rape... I mean, you won't feel anything, it'll just be... well... okay, it is rape but whatever. It's what's gotta be done. And hopefully this time, it will work."