Free The Complex: (The Reanimates) by J. Rudolph

Returns
     
                  It was after I put away all the meds that I realized I hadn't heard how the food run went. I wandered out to the common area to talk with Mercedes who was sitting on the steps leading to her unit.
                  "Hey Ms. Mercedes. How did the boys fair on the food run?" I asked.
                  "They haven't gotten back yet. See what happens when you send men folk to shop for the groceries?" She chuckled a bit but the look in her eyes said that she was more than a little worried. The grocery was just a mile or so down the road from the pharmacy. It should have been an easy grab and go. They understood our "We're Not Shopping" policy on runs. Daniel had even commented on the wisdom of doing this when we came back from our sporting goods run, so where were they? They know it is dangerous out there. My stomach lurched. The grocery is down the road from the pharmacy, in the direction that the zombies came from when we were out.
    "Excuse me, Ms. Mercedes." I said as I turned to find Joey. I ran over to his apartment and banged on the door. When he opened his door I saw his gun in his hand.
                  "Where's the hit coming from?" He questioned, ready to go into battle mode.
                  "Huh? Oh, no, it's nothing like that, but we have a problem. The grocery team isn't back yet. They went to the store just down the road from the pharmacy. They should be here by now. They aren't. Joey, that's the direction that the zombies from the pharmacy were coming from."
                  "Oh, shit." Those two words summed up everything I thought.
                  "Do we send a rescue team?"
                  "No. No team. I'm going to go get them myself. I should never had let them go on their own." I didn't like the idea that he was going to put himself into a situation where he wouldn't have someone watching his back, and I told him so.
                  "I'm not going to put even more people at risk, Cali. I'm going to do this and get them back." He grabbed the keys to his old jeep and walked out the door past me.
                  We walked down the stairs together. I argued that this was a bad idea. He ignored me.
                  As we got to the parking lot we heard the sound of squealing tires come from the street as a car took a tight turn into the drive. I heard the sound of a car horn honking repeatedly. Several of us ran to where the commotion was coming from. It was Daniel behind the wheel of Eric's SUV. Tyreese was looking behind him at something in the back seat.
                  "Move the gate now!" Daniel screamed. Trent and Joey opened the gate after Steven got the lock off. They squealed into the complex. Daniel jumped out of the truck and opened the passenger door. "I need help getting him out!"
                  Trent ran to the open door to help. They pulled Eric out of the back seat. He was hurt, badly.
                  "What happened?" I yelled.
                  "We got attacked. We were loading the groceries and one of them came up on us. He grabbed Eric. There were so many of them. He's hurt. I don't know if he got bit or what. We had a hell of a time getting out." Tyreese explained.
                  "Fix him, Cali!" Daniel cried.
                  We took Eric over to the medical unit and laid him on the dining table that was in there so I could look him over. The unit had almost every adult in there. Martha stood by him with her hand on his arm.
                  "Its OK my sweet boy. It's OK. Mummy is here with you." Admittedly I thought that was kind of odd that she was speaking to him like I would speak to Drew. Eric was 42 for goodness sake. I wondered if my mind went on this route to distract me from what was going on.
                  I cut his shirt off his chest to