Bite

It doesn’t hurt. I thought it would.

It’s a novocaine sensation. Like my arm is made of that foam stuff inside car seats. That’s what it feels like.

The rotter was wounded. I was careless. The bite was fast, took a piece of me. It was over before I knew it had happened. I blew the rotter’s face off and left it on the forest floor. I left my gun by the well. I wouldn’t need it anymore.

The walk back to camp is uneventful. I notice things easier. How the mid-afternoon sunlight attaches itself to every leaf and rock and branch. I hear every little sound — the crunch of every twig and rock under my footsteps, the wings of gnats, the ripples of a puddle.

When I make it back to camp, I see the vaccine has arrived. I’d gone out to get one last run of water. They were making a cake to celebrate the end of the epidemic. They’d been saving an old box of cake mix. They needed water for it. I volunteered to go out to the well. We hadn’t seen a rotter in days. Ever since word of the vaccine, the rotters have stopped coming.

I brought back only one jug of water. My bite arm wouldn’t hold the other one and I had to leave it. I figure one jug is enough for a celebration cake.

That numb feeling, again. It doesn’t hurt, which is weird because it looks like it should. But it doesn’t. It’s just numb. I’m aware that sensation is the virus working its way into my bloodstream. Feels like when it’s been asleep. I know that’s not your blood, it’s your nerves waking up, that feeling that I used to refer to as “salt and pepper” when I was a kid, but that’s the closest I can get to describing it.

The bite itself looks nasty — two jagged asymmetrical wedge shapes of red teeth marks, like when someone gets interrupted biting into an apple. Not much blood due to coagulates in the rotter’s saliva. I reacted too fast for the rotter to get in very deep, but it was enough.

The sky is incredible, just a clean blue with the sun like a jewel. I notice every breath I take, every blink. I take my steps. I feel like I’m walking uphill.

As I round the bend into camp, I see the military vehicles, everyone around them, everyone hugging, tears of joy. I could’ve waited, got the water later. I didn’t. Everything was fine. I’d go get the water for the cake. Everything would be fine. The vaccine was on its way. Everything was fucking fine.

They don’t know what it’s like to turn into a rotter from the rotter’s perspective. The ability to communicate is one of the first things to go. It’s fast and then it’s slow, that’s all we know. I’ll ask them to sedate me, to put me under. I want to say goodbye to everyone as well as I can. I’ll at least get that much out of it. So many people went rotter by themselves, not knowing what was happening to them.

Vanessa sees me. She’s by one of the armored humvees. She waves. Her smile is like the sun overhead, it makes me see everything, every little detail. I see every line on her face, every bit of fuzz on her cheeks, I can count her eyelashes.

She knows what’s up as soon as she gets a good look at me. Only one jug of water, arm hanging, my pace taking on the shuffle of a sedated mental patient. This process takes 24 hours to complete, but the nastiest symptoms kick in within the first four. I see it register on her face. She can’t believe it. Neither can I.

The military personnel, the heroes of the day in sunglasses and black tactical gear, are the second ones to notice me. They know what to look for. I can hear their powerful voices yelling for everyone to stay back. Vanessa is calm. I’m proud of her.

They don’t point their guns at me. They grant me that dignity.

“I got the water,” I try to say, but my throat just gurgles. I can’t remember how to talk.

I lose my grip on the jug and it thuds to the ground, water splashing out of its top. I see every droplet in the afternoon sun as it hits the dirt and soaks into the dirt and the bits of decayed vegetation, the earthen brown, the elements blending, life itself, earth and water. Everything is so fucking beautiful and I never bothered to notice it.

The soldiers are running to me. At least I made it back.