Chapter Three

The sedative that Kendra was given took the edge off of her anxiety enough to relax her, but it did not knock her out.  Rex couldn’t help admiring the way that she dealt with the obvious pain that pulling the deep rooted fangs from her arm caused.  If it hadn’t been for the way she was biting her lower lip and the tears that flowed freely down her cheeks, no one would ever know that she suffered.

“I don’t think it broke the bone,” Olga assured her. “The tips of the fangs were barely lodged into the bone’s surface.  We just needed to be at the right angle to pull, more than anything else.  Had Rex realized this, he’d have never brought you back with the head still embedded.”

“I don’t care about that,” Kendra said with a voice that she struggled to keep steady.  “I’ve been through enough to not let that bother me.  I just want to know what will happen now.”  She looked directly into her aunt’s worried eyes. “The zombie grew fangs before our very eyes.  It’s obvious that you altered the virus a lot more than we thought.  Am I still immune to it?”

Filling her lungs with air and bracing herself for the reaction that she expected to come from Felix, Rex, and possibly Kendra, she said, “I’m not sure.”

The room went so still that if someone had dropped a pin on the floor the sound would have echoed off the walls.

Rex surprised her when he said in a calm manner, “I was afraid of that.”

Felix, on the other hand, met her expectations with his panicked tone. “What do we do?”

It was bad enough to lose Ari, but if he was to lose Kendra too… well, he just didn’t think that he could bear it.

Kendra looked away to avoid them seeing the sadness on her face. “There’s nothing to do except wait.”

“Wait?” Felix practically screeched. “No!”  Looking at his aunt, he ordered more than suggested, “Go into your cupboard and find something to give her so that nothing happens.”

Olga slowly shook her head. “Would that it be that easy, son.”

“It has to be,” Felix said with powerful insistence.

Seeing that her cousin had reached the end of his sanity rope, Kendra lied, in hopes of calming him down.  She was barely hanging on to the façade of calmness that she’d managed to muster.  Her inner self wanted to scream from fear and frustration.  If Felix persisted with his panic, her fear  would win over and she’d completely lose it.  She’d never allowed herself to succumb to fear in such a way and she didn’t want to start now. “I feel just fine, brother.  I’m sure I’ll be okay.  The wound hurts, but, otherwise, I’m good.”

She was never a good liar, so she held her breath while she watched him absorb her words.  The Felix she’d grown up with would have called her on her lie almost immediately, but the man standing before her wasn’t who she’d had by her side during her formative years.  He was a man who was tattered and torn by life’s tragedies to the point that the possibility of him being permanently altered was very real.

Felix may have accepted her lie, but Rex and Olga didn’t.  Olga finished bandaging her arm and then insisted that Rex take her to the office where she could lie on the bed and rest.  She’d also noticed how fragile Felix’s emotions were, so she made no indication to him that she was going to do exactly as he’d suggested and see what she could come up with to assure that Kendra would not succumb to the virus while Rex sat and closely monitored her.  If he noticed the least little change in her niece, he was to notify her immediately.

Of course, Olga had no idea what they would or could do for Kendra, should the virus take hold.  To her knowledge - save drive a blade through the girl’s temple before she turned into one of those gruesome creatures- there wasn’t much that could be done to save her from becoming a zombie if the immunity was no longer valid.  Shaking her head to clear it, she told herself that she’d deal with that if it became necessary.  For the moment, she intended to see what she could come up with to boost the effects of the immunization against the virus that she’d taken great pains to inoculate her family with.  Not just for Kendra, but if her niece wasn’t immune, then none of them were.  She needed to stay on top of the situation for all of her family.

The light was fading over the mountain’s ridge when Arthur ventured into the oversized storage closet that Olga had turned into a make-shift lab to check on her progress. The afternoon had been long and arduous for all concerned. He’d spent hours in meetings with the other council members of Hopeville to come up with a plan to protect against the newly made a****n zombies. Although they focused on the topic, he was also forced to deflect a goodly amount of hostility toward Olga and her family over the change of events. He couldn’t blame them. They’d lived peacefully for the last fifteen years with the only concern to be an occasional beast entering their perimeter. Wild animals on the hunt were one thing, but a****n zombies were quite another. The fact that they’d learned that there were also alien zombies joining the zombie population that was making its way in their direction didn’t help the matter at all. He was concerned about the fact that his peers couldn’t grasp the fact that the infection of the aliens with the virus was a necessary evil if they were to take back the planet.

Even more so, he was concerned for the safety and well-being of his lover and her family.  He was thankful that Alice had left before the question of Kendra’s immunity came up.  He could only imagine the panic and violence that would ensue if they were aware of the possibility of an infection within his household.

Stepping behind his love, he gently wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. “What’s the verdict, doc?”

“I’ve checked on Kendra off and on. Other than a high fever, she seems normal,” Olga replied as she tilted her head back and rested it against him.

“What about the booster?” he asked.

She picked up a vial to show him.  “I’m so sorry that I didn’t bring the actual inoculation with me.  I never thought that the virus would have reached inner earth.  As soon as we reach the surface, I’m going to inoculate you and whoever else comes along.  In the meantime, don’t get bitten.”

“If Kendra’s infected, the risk is pretty high,” he mused.

“It’s been hours since the attack.  I still want to watch her, but I believe that, if something was to happen, it would have happened by now,” she offered.

“Unless the inoculation slowed things down,” he suggested.

She nodded. “Unless that.”

Just then, Kendra’s very weak body leaned against the door frame.  Her face was almost a pasty white and her eyes rested in sockets that were dark and shadowy as she said, “I’m starving.”

“Where’s Rex?” Olga said with surprise. “What are you doing up and about?”

Rex’s voice came from around the corner. “I’m right behind her.  She insisted on finding you on her own.”

“Trying to prove you’re fine?” Olga asked with concern.

“I am fine,” Kendra insisted. “I’m just very tired and super hungry.”

“What would you like to eat?” Olga asked, suspiciously.  If her vegetarian niece asked for meat, then she’d have her answer about an infection.

Kendra placed her hand on her stomach.  “I’m craving a tomato and cucumber sandwich.”

Olga closed her eyes as she released the breath that she’d been holding. “Thank the gods.”  Turning to Arthur, she added, “I think the worst is over.” 

Smiling, she set the vial down and guided her niece to the kitchen.  After making sure that Kendra was comfortably seated at the counter, she quickly put together a tomato and cucumber sandwich.

With her hunger more acute than she could ever recall it being, Kendra was hard pressed not to snatch the sandwich from her aunt and attack it like a wild beast.  As she bit into it, her nose wrinkled.  Its taste didn’t meet her expectations.

“Something must be off with these tomatoes,” she said. “It doesn’t taste right.”  After a moment’s thought, she added, “Do we have any meat in the refrigerator to add to this?  It’s lacking something.  Maybe a bit of protein will help.”

Olga’s back was to Kendra, so she didn’t see the woman’s eyes fly open with concern.  Nor did Rex or Arthur who were standing behind Kendra with looks of relief on their faces.

Moving close behind his wife, Rex placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed her cheek. “You can have anything you wish on that sandwich, my love.  If there’s no meat in the house, I’ll go hunt some for you.”

Kendra smiled and patted his hand. “You smell good.  What are you wearing?”

His brows raised with surprise.  With a little chuckle, he said, “Sunshine and sweat.”

She scowled. “Seriously.  You have a sweet, almost delicious smell about you.  Are you wearing a cologne?”

He vigorously shook his head.  It was at this moment that he caught Olga’s look of concern as she turned around and produced a few thin slices of meat to add to the sandwich.

Setting the plate with the meat on the counter, she moved opposite her niece.  “Open your mouth for me, please.”

Kendra gave a look of surprise. “Why?”

“I want to check your teeth,” Olga explained.  “It’s just a precautionary thing to make sure that the bite didn’t infect you.”

“It’s been hours,” Kendra whined. “Can’t we agree that I’m fine?”

“Are you?” Olga firmly asked. 

“I’m not a zombie,” she replied with angst.

Olga thought for a moment. “No, but your senses have shifted.  I want to see what else has changed.”

“How do you know my senses have shifted?” Kendra asked, accusingly.

Not backing down from her niece’s aggressive tone, but, also, not allowing it to dictate her own tone of voice, Olga continued in the calm and steady manner that one would expect from a scientist observing a case study. “For one, I tasted the tomatoes before I made the sandwich.  They’re delicious and full of flavor.  Then, there’s the matter of Rex’s scent.” She looked at her friend and nephew-by-law and smiled. “No offense to the dear man, but there’s nothing sweet about his smell. Quite the opposite, in fact.  The man could do with a shave and a shower – which is understandable after the day he’s had.”

Kendra’s eyes went wide. “What are you saying?  Am I turning?”

Olga studied her niece’s mouth and then inspected her eyes. “I was worried, but I don’t think you’re turning.  I think what’s happened is similar to what happens with an immunization of any sort.  A small amount of the disease is introduced to the body for it to develop an immunity to.  That zombie gave you a good dose of the disease, but, because you’ve already been inoculated to its original strain, you simply morphed your immunity into being immune to it as well as the original virus.”

“We all could use that, I think,” Rex said.

“I agree,” Olga said. “I think I’ll take a bit of your blood, daughter, and make a serum for the rest of us.”

“Even those of us who haven’t been inoculated with the original antivirus?” Arthur asked.

Olga knit her brows together. “Let me think on that one.”