Post-Surgery, Part II

A sequel to my story "Post-Surgery, Part I"

“I got you a pair of Nate’s sneakers and a pair of his socks,” Julie said. “The sneakers are going to be big on you but it’s all I have for you. We can get you a new pair once we’re gone. Most important thing right now is for the both of us to get out of here.”

“Please just leave me alone,” Jackson said quietly as he remembered Nate’s warning. He had had Jackson by the throat warning him not to look at his girlfriend so he didn’t want to think about what would happen to him if he caught them alone in the bedroom together. “I don’t want to piss your boyfriend off.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. That’s why I’m coming with you. I need to leave here too.”

“Isn’t it pretty risky going out there with all those monsters? I mean – zombies?”

“Better than staying here with him. You know how he was bullying you. It will just get worse because he knows you can’t do anything about it. Tomorrow he’s planning on handcuffing you to make sure you can’t get away and then really humiliating you in front of everyone. He’s been drinking and he’s passed out so now is the time. I got a baseball bat for each of us. Those things don’t seem that aggressive and their heads explode so easily it looks like you could take them out with a small stick. We’ll be OK. Sorry I couldn’t get you any clothes - it was too risky. You’ll have to wear that until we find a better place.”

It was pitch black outside and there were just as many zombies lurking around. The darkness made it a lot more frightening than it was during the day and as much as he hated Nate, he had felt a lot safer having him around. He hadn’t killed a single one of these things yet and with it being just him and this small girl he felt like all of the obligation was on him.

A zombie came at them. He watched Julie wind her bat back. She wore a short-sleeved shirt and he looked at her thin arms that didn’t have any muscle definition whatsoever. But her swing had such perfect form to it that the bat came forward with plenty of power and crushed the zombie’s head. Jackson assumed this girl had to be a softball player with such a good swing. Another one came at them and Julie took that one out with the same ease. Jackson then saw one coming at him from the side he was standing on.

“This one’s yours,” Julie said. 

Between watching how easily the small girl had eliminated two zombies and his desire to impress her, he didn’t have any fear. He wound back the bat ready to take the thing’s head off and show her that he was tough too. He swung the bat forward, almost completely whiffed, and only managed to take off a little bit of the zombie’s scalp. It didn’t slow it at all and now the thing snarled at him as it raised its hands ready to seize him. Even the slow hands of the zombie were going to be faster than he’d be able to get the bat back for another swing that would be hard enough to kill it. He stood there in terror feeling his own warm urine going down in his leg. He thought about how he was going to die in front of this beautiful woman while he was wearing a dress and panties and covered in his own pee and he felt shame at what a coward he was. Before the thing could get its claws on him, he watched Julie’s bat swing and explode its head. Jackson was almost hyperventilating. 

“I’ll take care of them for the rest of the way,” she said to him. She spoke like he should have no shame but he felt it anyway. He now walked behind his new leader as he caught his breath.

“Do you know where we are going?” he asked her.

“Of course,” she said. “I told you I’ve watched a lot of documentaries about this so I’ve been preparing for it. One thing I haven’t seen anyone suggest as a safe place during a Zombie Apocalypse is a hotel. Just get to the top floor, clear it out, then you have a whole floor full of comfortable beds to yourself. I don’t see many zombies climbing ten flights of stairs so we should be safe from them I’m and not sure many people will think of it either. We’re going to The Holiday Inn.”

****

There were a lot more zombies lurking around The Holiday Inn than there had been around the mansion. It was still dark out making this attempt to enter much more frightening. Julie kept taking them out with her baseball bat. She looked like she was getting a good workout and working up a sweat but at no point did it look like what she was doing was difficult for her. She didn’t ask Jackson for help which made him feel embarrassed and glad at the same time. She led him through the lobby, taking out more zombies, and then to a staircase. They only ran into one zombie walking up the ten flights of stairs but the darkness of it despite a few lights that were still on and how closed in it was made it even scarier than being outside. 

Up on the tenth floor there was only one zombie lurking in the hallway that Julie quickly took out. Jackson looked at the insides of its head splattered all over the place and the body on the ground and he thought about how he wasn’t going to be able to feel comfortable with this as his new home until that mess was cleaned up. 

“Tomorrow I’ll get rid of that,” Julie said like she knew what he was thinking. “I’ll venture to the cleaning rooms and see if I can find some gloves and cleaning supplies.”

While they didn’t see any more zombies they heard quite a few. Most of the hotel room doors were closed but plenty of the rooms seemed occupied by zombies as he heard many of them on the other ends of the doors making their zombie noises while they scratched and banged on the doors. Julie banged on one of the door latches with the bat trying to break it open but she couldn’t come close to doing it.

“I’ll have to figure out what to do about that in the morning too,” she said. “But if this bat can’t get them open they won’t be able to get out. There’s an open door down here so we have a room at least.”

She pointed with the bat down towards the end of the hallway where some light was coming out of a room. He was impressed that she had even noticed that as all he was focused on was watching her kick ass with the baseball bat. She led him down the hall.

“A little weird have haven’t seen any regular people other than the ones back at the house, don’t you think?” Jackson said as they walked.

“They’re going to be few and far between,” she said without looking back at him. “One thing has been the same about all of the humans we’ve run into – they were all under the knife and woke up to this. So whatever caused this outbreak – and don’t ask me what may have because I don’t have a flippin’ idea – seems to have affected everyone that wasn’t having surgery at the time. Not to mention even some of them may not have had their procedure finished or may not have survived their surgery if they weren’t getting the right care. So don’t expect this to be like the movies where we keep running into people. Before you, everyone I ran into was from the hospital I was at and there are only two in the area. Might have been some more at yours other than you but we didn’t see any. Let’s check out our new crib.”

She led him into the room that looked in pretty good shape other than an open suitcase with some women’s clothes in it and a couple of fast food wrappers next to a brown bag. There were two queen beds and while he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping in the bed with Julie, he wondered if he’d get to stay in the same room with her. It seemed too good to be true for the balding, wimpy guy but she did say it.

“Why don’t you shower first?” she said to him. “I bet you want to get out of those clothes. I feel so bad Nate did that to you. I’ll look around the hotel for another open room and see if I can get you some men’s clothes. I’ll also try and find us some antibiotics. I stole a bottle from Nate before I left but we’ll need more. What was your surgery anyway?”

“Just something on my nose.”

“OK so that seems pretty basic. Mine was basic too so we should be OK. Get cleaned up and when I come back hopefully I’ll have everything for you. I hope that shower water is hot in there for you too.”

“You want me to come with you?” he said, thinking he shouldn’t just let this small girl out wandering the hotel by herself.

“No, that’s OK,” she said and he could tell by the way she said it that she really didn’t want him because she knew he would be a liability. “I can handle it on my own.”

“You are pretty good with that bat. Do you play softball?”

“Ha-ha, no,” she said with a laugh. “I did play field hockey and I’ve always been really athletic. Any sport I had to play in gym class I always picked up on quickly and did well in. Now that you mention it, I probably should have played softball. A lot more opportunity with that than with field hockey. Too late now, though.” The thought of that made him sad. “I’ll be back,” she said.

He definitely had a warm shower and the water felt great. He never felt like he needed a shower more than after being around all of those decaying bodies that had been smashed open. He hadn’t even heard her come in the bathroom but when he got out of the long shower he saw a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants will ironed and hanging on the towel rack. They looked so comfortable and felt so when he put them on. He walked out of the bathroom and saw Julie sitting on the bed closest to the bathroom door with her little legs with jeans on them stretched out and the brown boots she was wearing still on. The TV was on and she was hitting buttons on the remote. All of the channels were black except for some sort of notification on each one that he didn’t read but he assumed said something about there not being service.

“Hey,” she said when she noticed him. “Looks like the TV isn’t working. I know the cable is out but I was hoping there might be some kind of movie service here or something we could still use.  Oh well. I found you those clothes but I couldn’t find any antibiotics. We can go on a run in the morning when we go look for food. I have enough for us to last us a couple of days. How are you feeling?”

“Much better. How are you doing?”

“Sore,” she said. “Taking out all of those zombies is a lot more tiring than it looks. Will you rub my feet for me?”

“I mean,” he felt uncomfortable. “Your boots are still on.”

“So take them off.”

He had feared Nate and he ran away from him because he didn’t like feeling like he was being controlled but now he felt that way again. But he also realized that being as wimpy as he was in a Zombie Apocalypse, he didn’t have a choice. He got on his knees at the foot of the bed and began unlacing her brown boots. They were little boots with heels and they felt tight to her feet as he pulled them off. She wore white socks underneath them which looked surprisingly clean considering everything she had been through, even just in the time she was with him. He began massaging her right foot and he noticed how soft her sock felt.

“Take my socks off too,” she said. “Come on.”

He pulled off her socks and could feel them sticking to her feet a bit as he did because of the sweat. Still, they looked soft and girly once he had her socks off and even though they had felt a bit sweaty they didn’t smell. He still felt like a loser that was lesser than her, kneeling at the foot of the bed with the soles of her bare feet looking right at him. He grabbed her right foot and began to rub it. It felt so soft.

“Oh, that feels so good,” she said, sounding appreciative. She looked up at the ceiling like she was enjoying it and she looked like she was paying less attention to him. He decided to start some conversation.

“So why’d you want to run away from your boyfriend like that? It seemed like you liked him.”

“He was a jerk,” she said, looking back down at him. “I didn’t like the way he treated any of us and I especially didn’t like the way he was treating you. He was really cocky and that’s a turnoff for me. He was also only 19. I’m 25 so that age is too immature for me – and he definitely was. Plus, I’m not attracted to guys that are that muscular. It’s too much for me since I’m so small. He was really big too and it actually hurt when we had sex. I know I’m different than most girls but I prefer a nice nerdy guy. One that will do what I want. One that will rub my feet if I ask him to.”

Jackson felt good, happy tingles throughout his body when she said that. She was looking at him with her pretty face and she pulled her feet away from him. She turned her body around on the bed so her head was now closer to his. He looked at how beautiful her face looked as she reached her little hands forward, grabbed the back of his head, and pulled it closer to hers. Her lips touched his and it felt magnificent. The best girls he normally was able to get didn’t look much better than Nate’s ‘bitches’ and now he was kissing one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He was disappointed when she stopped but when he looked at her face and saw that she looked as satisfied with the kiss as he did, it lit him right up again. 

“Geez, here I am kissing you and I haven’t even gotten cleaned up,” she said. “How embarrassing. Let me take a quick shower and then we can continue.” 

She got up off of the bed and grabbed something out of the suitcase. He was still staring straight ahead at the head of the bed, completely dazzled so he didn’t see what she took.

“You can lie in the bed now,” she said. “You don’t have to just keep sitting there on your knees.”

He got up in the bed as she walked into the bathroom and closed the door. He heard the shower running as he just lay in bed. Zombie Apocalypse or not, the kiss from that beautiful woman had made him happier than he had ever felt. Her shower didn’t seem like it lasted long at all since he was just lying there in a haze with no conception of time. He heard the bathroom door open and saw the beautiful Julie standing there wearing nothing but a slip.

“Is it OK if we sleep in the bed together tonight?” she asked. 

To be continued…