Blood Soaked Arrows (On Hold)

(4) The Goodbye

When I had finally reached the CDC I was in a daze. I didn’t listen to the doctors screaming around me or even bother answering any of their frantic questions as they carried me into the examining room. It was a room I knew all too well with its high ceilings, computers on every inch of the walls, and the big steel table right in the middle of it all.

When I felt the cool metal touch the exposed skin of my arms I knew that for the next few hours I was going to be probed, pricked, and most likely stitched. It wasn’t as if any of these things were foreign to me so it wasn’t difficult at all for me to lay there perfectly still while they did their tests. With their masks and hazmat suits on it was hard for me to tell which doctors were working on me but when someone briefly held onto my hand as the others drew blood I knew that Dr. Jenner was among them.

I felt as if I had been sitting in the examination room for days waiting for the tests results on my blood to come back. When it finally did the results were nothing surprising, I was immune. Even though I had been expecting those results I still had that small bit of worry in the back of my mind constantly nagging me, What if I’m not immune?, What if I die from this?, Would God really be so cruel as to make me immune to all diseases expect for this one? All of those nasty thoughts disappeared however as soon as I was cleared.

I let out a sigh of relief and slowly watched as one by one the doctors left the room, but one doctor stayed and I knew right away who it was. Dr. Jenner reached up and took off her mask after the all clear had been given and stared at me. I felt a slight pain in the pit of my stomach at the sad look she had written all over her face and suddenly remembered how cold I had been to her on the phone.

I opened my mouth to apologize but she lifted her hand to stop me. “You shouldn’t have done it.” She murmured.

“What?” I barked and noticed the frown that was starting to form on her face. “I don’t understand why you are complaining about it. We were able to find out that I’m immune to the disease, doesn’t that count for something?”

“Of course it does.” She said angrily taking a step towards me. “But how you went about getting infected was stupid!”

I pushed myself into a sitting position on the table before turning my body around to face her. I could feel the cold metal on the table touch the exposed skin on the back of my legs. “It wasn’t stupid, it was well thought out.”

“It was reckless!” She countered. “You ran out there blindly with only two small kitchen knives for protection? What if there had been more of them? What if you lost both of your weapons, huh? What would you have done then?”

“I would have assessed the situation appropriately and survived.” I yelled in a big huff. “It’s what I’m trained to do and it’s something that I do pretty damn well.”

She folded her arms over her chest and started tapping her foot angrily against the floor. Since I had grown up with her, I knew this stance well. It was something that she did when she was trying prove me wrong in an argument but ultimately I would always win.

“Fine,” She spat before turning on her heels for the door. She raised her card up to the CT scanner and the door automatically slid open. For a brief second I thought that she was going to leave me alone in here or something but then she started wheeling in a metal cart. I noticed the orange juice instantly knew exactly what was going to be happening next.

“You’re going to try making a cure out of my blood, aren’t you?” I spoke feeling completely hollow inside.

She picked up the glass or OJ and handed it to me. The anger that had been present on her face was now gone as she looked at me with a bit of pity. “Yeah,”

I nodded my head before taking the juice from her and sucking it down. When I had to get my blood drawn for tests it wasn’t so bad because they took out such a little amount but for something as big as this they were going to take out a lot more. Losing a pint of blood from my body made me feel weak and dizzy, it wasn’t a feeling that I enjoyed and with this new apocalyptic world it wasn’t a wise risk to take.

“Are you going to have me test out the samples?” I asked with a monotone.

She sighed before taking the glass from me and placing it back down on the steel cart and then handing me something to eat. “I don’t really support the idea of it but odds are that they are going to make you tests out the prototypes. After all you were trained to survive something like this.”

I smiled weakly at her before bringing the food to my lips and taking a bite. “And Adam?”

“Since we already have you for the possible cure I expect that they will be transferring him to Fort Benning for protection. Especially since the mutation in his blood isn’t quite as unique as yours, we won’t be able to use him for anything.”

I let out a sigh of relief at that. I was glad that Adam wouldn’t be out there testing the samples with me. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle himself or anything, it was simply because he was my little brother and I would constantly be looking over my shoulder to make sure that he was okay instead of staying focused.

“Thank you,” I spoke softly before taking another bite. She nodded her head slowly before taking a deep breath and prepping my arm so that she could draw the blood.

She stopped for a second before sticking the needle and then started cursing. Completely taken by surprise by her sudden change in mood I tried asking her what was wrong but she just lifted up her hand to stop me.

She stared at me for a second almost as if she was debating on telling me something important or not. With another deep sigh she finally informed me. “The CDC wanted to have you and Adam reproduce together so that we would be able to continue our research if you ever passed away or something but I was against it. That’s why I had Dr. Martha Ridges complain about how it was inhuman to keep you cooped up here. I didn’t want you to be some kind of lap rat or something. You’re a human being and deserved to live like one, to find love like one. I just wanted you to know that.”

It took me only a second to process what she was saying and then all of that anger and worry that I had building up inside of me from yesterday suddenly vanished. She had been the one to kick me out of the CDC and it was because of her that I was able to live like a normal human even though it had only been for a little while. It was because of her that I had been able to meet the Dixon brothers.

“Thank you,” I said a little teary eyed. “Thank you.” She nodded her head before sticking the needle into my arm and that’s when everything started.

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