Free Fire Birds by Shane Gregory Page A

the driver’s seat.
    “Barely,” I said.
    She shifted the van into park and was about to come back to us.
    “Go,” I said. “We’re going back to the stables.”
    “I want to see him,” she cried.
    “Get us to the main highway first.”
     
    After we reached the main road and away from the group of undead, I took over as the driver. There was a first aid kit in one of the bags. Grant and Christine did the best they could with the limited medical supplies.
    “He’s not waking up,” Christine said, stroking his cheek.
    “Do you have any antibiotics?” I asked. “Doctor Barr said the bites get infected, and they have to be treated with antibiotics.”
    Grant held up a tube of medicated ointment, “Neosporin, bro. That’s it. It’s just topical, but it’s all we have.”
    “I don’t think that’s good enough,” I said, shaking my head.
    “I’m more concerned about the Seebees,” Christine said.
    The Seebees. The last, and only, person I’d heard use that term was Bern, the young woman from Alabama. It was a shortened version of Canton B (Bern had said, “C for Canton, B for B–the Seebees.”). Another familiar term had come from Christine–“goons.” The last time I’d heard that word was from Wheeler and his men.
    “Get him awake and get him drunk,” I said. “I was bitten, and I didn’t catch it. I’ve known others that were bitten that didn’t get it.”
    “There’s no booze in here, bro.”
    “We took the vodka with us to the bait shop,” Christine said. “Julio must have dropped his bag.”
    “I didn’t see his bag in the woods,” I said. “Why didn’t you have more alcohol than that?”
    “We did,” Christine said coldly. “It was all in the van. Grant didn’t leave us any.”
    Grant didn’t respond to that.
    “We could stop at houses on the way,” Sara said.
    “How would he drink it anyway?” Christine said. “I can’t get him to wake up.”
    “I have plenty at the Lassiter place,” I said. “It’ll be close to an hour before we get there, but I’ve never seen anyone turn that quickly.”
    “If he dies, it’s all your fault,” Christine said to Grant.
    “Christine, don’t,” Sara said.
    “I’m sorry,” Grant said. “I would never hurt either of you.”
    “You’re a selfish child!” Christine shot back.
    “Enough!” I said, giving Christine a sharp look in my mirror. “Grant isn’t any more to blame than Sara or I. Those things that tried to eat Julio used to be people too. Should they be blamed or should we blame the people that gave them the disease? Shit happens–it happens every damn day–and the last thing we need is to be eaten up with guilt because of it.”
    “If he had taken us with him, or not gone at all then–“
    “Then you might be okay, or you might not be,” Sara said. “We don’t know. Let’s try to focus on waking Julio. Talk to him.”
    I was quiet after that for several minutes while Christine and Grant did their best to coax Julio back into consciousness. I was surprised with myself that I had taken up for Grant like that. I think it might have been less about him, however, and more about me. There had been numerous times when I had been responsible, directly or indirectly, for the death of another person. In the beginning, I had let the guilt of that affect me, but I didn’t anymore. That was not to say that I was cold or indifferent to others. I just knew that for me to survive in this new world, I couldn’t allow room for guilt. There were too many opportunities for it. For instance, when I thought back on losing Jen, I could easily see the mistakes I had made that led to it. Perhaps if I had not insisted that we help Brenda and Hunter get off the roof of the drug store, Jen would have never been shot and would have been better able to defend herself. I could have played it from many angles and found others to which I could have pointed to for blame. The fact was, however, that I did not hurt her. Even