FEED (re-write)
Chapter Six
Third Person
“If something happens to me during this, I need you to promise me that you’ll look after them both,”
Hannah opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the blaring sound of the warning sirens sounding throughout town.
“Shit,” She heard Lilly curse through the radio “Hannah, something happened,”
“…What happened?” Hannah asked cautiously, almost scared of the answer she might get.
“I-I think my water just broke… the siren gave me a bit of a start there,”
“I’ll be right there,” She promised.
Hannah jumped to her feet and hooked the radio onto the waistband of her pants and took off out of her room, across the top floor
and down the stairs where she met Erin and Jamie coming from two different directions.
“What’s going on?” Erin asked Hannah, reaching out and grabbing her hand.
“I have no idea,” Hannah admitted, squeezing Erin’s hand “But I have to go-“
“You’re kidding,” Jamie laughed sarcastically “The sirens are sounding, we have to stay in here and lock the place down until they
come around and tell us that it’s safe to go back out,”
“Yes, that’s what you two have to do, but I have to go and be with Lilly because her water broke and the baby is coming now, plus
Lewis is on the frontline out there and she’s all alone,”
“You’re right,” Erin nodded, pulling her best friend into a tight embrace “Go, but be safe and come back to us, alright?”
“I promise,” Hannah murmured into Erin’s shoulder before pulling away and smoothing a hand over Erin’s hair and reaching out to
pull Jamie to her, too. “As soon as I’m out of this door, you lock the place down, alright?” They both nodded “I’ll be on lockdown with
Lilly until the baby is born and until we’re told that everything is clear, and then I’ll be back.”
The three of them shared a quick embrace before Hannah took off out of the front door and dashed to the medical centre to grab
some of her things that she might need for the delivery of the baby. Once she had everything, she ran across town as fast as she
could – dodging people who were running around with guns and knives, until she reached Lilly and Lewis’s house.
“Lilly?!” She called out as she closed and locked the front door behind her “Lilly, where are you?!”
“Up here!” She heard Lilly cry out in distress from the floor above.
Hannah sprinted up the stairs and made her way into the master bedroom of the house where she found Lilly doubled over the bed
and trying to strip the sheets off of it.
“Sorry,” Lilly sniffed through her tears “I wanted to clean up before you got here so that you didn’t have to work in this mess,”
“Don’t you worry about it,” Hannah cooed, placing all of her things on the dresser by the door before moving to help Lilly with the
bed sheets “It’s nothing that I haven’t seen before,”
Lilly moved out of the way and got down on the floor when another contraction tore through her, and that’s when Hannah noticed
the sheets. They were soaked through and stained with deep, red blood.
“Lilly, were you in bed when your waters broke?” She asked.
“Yeah,” Lilly groaned “Why?”
Hannah didn’t answer, she just tore the sheets from the bed and dumped them on the floor so that she could grab some new ones
out of the closet and throw them on the bed.
“Let’s get you back up here,” She spoke “Can you do that?”
Lilly took a hold of Hannah’s hands when she held them out to her and allowed Hannah to lift her off of the floor and lower her into a
sitting position on the edge of the bed before lifting her legs onto the mattress too so that she could lay down.
“That’s better,” Lilly hummed contentedly, closing her eyes.
Now that Lilly was lying down, Hannah could see the state of her. Her nightgown was soaked with blood just as the sheets had
been and the inside of her thighs were covered with red, too.
“Alright,” Hannah started, walking back to her things on the dresser so that she could slip on another pair of latex gloves “I’m just
going to do another examination and see how dilated you are, alright?”
Lilly only hummed in response, but Hannah moved back to the bed and sat on the edge so that she could reach Lilly where she lay
in the middle of the bed. Luckily, she had already removed her panties and Hannah could just slip her hand under her nightgown
and feel what needed to be felt.
Lilly tensed with discomfort and cried out in pain at the intrusion of Hannah’s fingers, but Hannah was quick to soothe her as best
she could before removing herself and disposing of the gloves.
“You’re about five centimetres,” Hannah said “That’s less than I expected, considering how quickly you’ve been progressing so
far,”
“I have to tell you something,” Lilly sighed, sitting herself up slightly against the headboard.
“What is it?” Hannah asked.
“I’ve done this before,” She admitted, causing Hannah to frown.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve had a baby before,” She sighed again “A couple of years before the turn, I was still young and everything seemed fine up until
the labour, and so far… everything is exactly the same as before,”
Hannah felt sick to her stomach. Normally, this was information that she would know, but this wasn’t the hospital anymore and
nobody had medical files these days.
“What happened?” Hannah asked quietly.
“When my waters broke, it was all blood, just like that…” She pointed to the sheets on the floor “I didn’t dilate enough and the baby
was getting distressed, but the doctors didn’t work fast enough and by the time they got him out she was stillborn, so I need you to
do everything you can to get her out.”
“I can’t-“
“I know that you have a scalpel in your bag,” Lilly interrupted “So you use it to cut me open and get my baby out.”
“But you could-“
“I won’t make it,” She interrupted again “I’ll lose too much blood in the process because you don’t have the tools that you need to
stop the bleeding, but I don’t care about me, I just need my baby to live this time… I won’t be able to live if-“
A cry tore from her throat and she arched off of the bed almost completely and gripped at Hannah with a vice-like grip and tugged
her close.
“It’s almost too late,” She told her “Get the baby out, and then put a bullet through my head!”
Hannah felt as though no amount of air could fill her lungs, and that her body was acting on its own accord and moving across the
room to her supplies, grabbing the scalpel and making her way back to stand over the bed.
Lilly had already lifted her nightgown to expose her stomach and she was holding onto the bedposts above her head to keep
herself down on the bed, and she gave Hannah one swift nod as a signal to continue.
Taking a deep breath, Hannah cut into the flesh of Lilly’s lower abdomen and tried to ignore the blood-curdling scream of pain that
left her friend’s mouth while she continued to cut a little deeper. Once the cut was made, she tossed the scalpel down on the bed
and moved back Lilly’s flesh enough for her hands to slip inside her womb until she grasped the baby and started to pull the baby
out.
Lilly’s screams had stopped already and she was starting to slip away, but she hung on just long enough to see her precious baby.
“Lilly,” Hannah whispered “Lilly, look at your baby, she’s here.”
Lilly opened her eyes slowly and looked at the sight before her, and realised that the screaming sound was no longer coming from
her, but it was coming from the healthy baby girl she had just given birth to.
“She’s… beautiful,” She whispered.
“Yeah,” Hannah cried “She looks just like her mom,”
“No,” Lilly shook her head, letting her eyes slip shut once more “You’re her mother now…”
Hannah stood there, next to the bed, holding a new-born baby with blood covered hands and forearms while her grey cut-off
soaked through with blood and stained the skin underneath. The screaming baby in her arms was a comparison to the new corpse
of the woman who had just given birth to her, and Hannah couldn’t stop her own tears from streaming down her face and the sobs
that wracked her body, too.
“Lilly?” She whispered with a sob “Lilly, open your eyes…”
Nothing.
Hannah had killed her once, and she wasn’t about to do it again.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Hannah had separated the baby from her mother, wrapped her in the blanket that Lilly had set out hours ago, threw her bag over
her shoulder and left the room.
She was halfway to the nursery that Lilly and Lewis had set up for the baby when the sound signalling an announcement replaced
the silence that had followed the warning sirens. She started to walk down the stair case and towards the front door while she
listened to the ‘Mayor’ announcing through the speakers that surrounded town that everything was clear and that it was safe to
walk outside now.
Hannah slipped the radio off of her waistband and tuned into the other radios of the fighters in town so that she could send out a
message.
“This is Doctor Hannah MacDonald, and I need to know the state and whereabouts of Lewis Waters… over.”
It took a moment for someone to answer her.
“Hannah?” The voice asked “It’s Jimmy Sullivan, and I’m sorry, but we cannot dispense that information at this time.”
“Jimmy,” She whispered into the radio “His wife died while I delivered his daughter, I have to know where he is so that I can give
her to him.”
A few moments of silence passed.
“Jimmy,”
“He’s dead,” Jimmy finally spoke again “The Stiffs got him… tore him to shreds,”
“Well you better send someone over here; I couldn’t put Lilly down once she slipped away so she’ll be coming around any minute
now,”
Instead of waiting for an answer, she dropped the radio onto the floor and walked out the front door of the house and through the
town towards home.
Everyone else who had been on lockdown in their houses had come outside to see what the damage was and to be reunited with
their loved ones, but they all took notice of Hannah and the baby as they made their way past everybody.
She was overcome with emotion, and tears were filling her eyes but she was ignoring everyone who watched her as she walked
past them and she kept her head held eye and blocked out their curious whispers. She had just lost two dear friends and now had
an unnamed baby to care for.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Erin
The sun was rising, and it had been just over ten minutes since the announcement was made that it was clear to go outside now.
Jamie and I had ‘deactivated’ lockdown but we hadn’t gone outside yet, we were waiting for Hannah to come home.
The two of us were sitting at the kitchen table. Jamie was playing with his knife and I was taking a drink from my bottle of water
when he suddenly jumped to his feet and stuck the knife in his boot and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Maybe I should go over there and make sure everything is alright,” He groaned, readying himself to move away from the table.
“No,” I sighed, grabbing the back of his t-shirt and pulling him back down into his seat “We’re waiting here for her because she’ll be
here soon,”
“She could be in trouble,” He countered.
“She won’t be in trouble,” I assured him “She’s been on lockdown with Lilly for the last few hours and she isn’t stupid enough to
leave that safety before being given the all clear, so maybe you’re just underestimating how long it takes to deliver a baby,”
I was frustrated and somewhat worried that something might have happened, but I couldn’t let Jamie know that because then he
would freak out more and I didn’t have the patience for that. He was already getting on my nerves after being stuck in this house for
hours with nowhere to go and very little to do.
Jamie was about to say something when we heard the front door open and we both jumped to our feet but we didn’t leave the room,
we just stood stock still and listened to the door close and then footsteps walking towards the kitchen. A moment later, Hannah
stood in the doorway and Jamie and I gasped at the sight of her before rushing over to her.
“Hannah?” I asked, my tone panicked “Hannah, what happened?”
She stayed silent and just stared blankly at the floor while I checked her over for bite marks and Jamie kept trying to get her to talk
to him, but she just wasn’t saying anything. She just stood there, holding a bundle of material in her arms against her chest and she
let her bag drop to the floor with a thud.
The state of her was terrifying. Her breathing was shaky and completely out of control, her whole body was trembling, tears were
sliding down her face and she was covered in blood. The blood on her t-shirt had turned it from grey to black over most of it and her
hands and forearms were stained dark red, too, and her face also had some blood on it.
I was confused, because I couldn’t find a wound on her and she didn’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere.
“Hannah?” I asked slowly, taking a step back at her so that I could look at all of her “Please, say something,”
She tried to speak, but only a strangled sob slipped from her throat and more tears ran down her face. She cradled the material
closer to her body and dropped her head and allowed herself to cry. Jamie and I shared a look, confused and not knowing what to
do.
Suddenly, the bundle in her arms moved and gurgled.
I reached out hesitantly and hooked my finger into the material and pulled it open slightly, revealing a bloody new-born baby with the
biggest eyes I have ever seen and she was staring right at me.
“T-They’re both dead,” She sobbed. “Lilly m-made me do it and she d-died as soon as she was born, and Jimmy t-told me over the
r-radio that Lewis was t-torn apart by S-St-i-iffs!”
She started to drop, so I grabbed the baby and Jamie dropped to his knees in front of Hannah and held her to his chest while she
sobbed on the floor. The baby was starting to fuss, so I bounced her soothingly while watching Hannah clutch at her baby brother’s
t-shirt with her blood covered hands and I struggled to hold back my own tears.
It took a few minutes, but Hannah eventually calmed down enough to speak.
“I promised Lilly that I would look after the baby if anything happened to her… and it did, but the last thing she said before she…
before she died was that I was the baby’s mother now,”
“That was an awful lot to dump on you,” Jamie commented.
“No,” She shook her head “I told her that everything would be fine, this whole time… this whole time I had been telling her to trust
me and that everything was going to work out perfectly and now they’re both dead and I’m left with an orphaned baby girl,”
“Jamie, why don’t you take Hannah up the stairs and get her cleaned up and changed into some clean clothes, too?” I suggested,
giving him a pointed look that told him he had no choice “I’ll clean the baby off and send for some of her things,”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
I didn’t have much experience with babies, let alone new-born babies. She was so pink and she was absolutely tiny in my hands.
While I washed her off in the kitchen sink I had to remember to support her head and keep her almost completely out of the water
and practically rinse her off. The whole ordeal was much more difficult than I had anticipated and she didn’t seem to like being
naked and exposed to all of the air, so I had to make quick work and wrap her up with one of the clean dishtowels seeing as her
blanket was stained with blood, too.
I was walking out of the kitchen and towards the front door, ready to step outside and catch someone’s attention so that I could ask
them to get some of the baby things from Lilly and Lewis’ house, but as I touched the door handle there was a knock from the other
side.
I pulled the door open and Jimmy and Matt were standing on our front step with a bag each, and both bags seemed to be
overflowing with baby clothes.
“We thought that you guys might need some of this,” Jimmy smiled sympathetically as they both stepped into the house when I
gestured for them to come inside.
“How did you know?” I asked, leading them into the living room.
“When I told Hannah over the radio that Lewis hadn’t made it through the night she told me that someone was going to have to put
Lilly down because she was going to change, and by the time we got over there she was already reanimated,” Jimmy answered.
“I suggested grabbing some things,” Matt added “I doubted that Hannah had stuck around long enough to pack anything,”
“Well we really appreciate it,” I told them honestly “We’re probably going to need all of that stuff,”
“We’re on it,” Matt smiled softly “Zack and Brian are over there now tearing the nursery apart so that we can move all of the stuff
over here,”
“As long as we have enough to keep us going there isn’t any rush,” I informed them “Hannah’s having a little bit of a tough time with
this and Lilly told her that she was the baby’s mother now so I don’t want to send her into shock by moving all of the stuff in here
right away,”
“Well we brought clothes, cloths, diapers, bottles and formula,” Jimmy grunted, dropping his bag onto the floor “We can hold off on
the furniture and the rest of the supplies,”
“That would be great, thank you guys so much,”
I noticed that Matt was watching the baby girl in my arms so closely, and he had a sort of longing look on his face. I knew what that
meant.
“Do you want to hold her?” I asked him, holding her out to him slightly.
He hesitated until she started to fuss at the loss of close contact and then he quickly scooped her into his arms and cradled her
against his enormous frame.
“What do you call this little beauty?” Jimmy asked, looking down at her as Matt swayed her from side to side.
“Nothing yet,” I shrugged “She doesn’t have a name yet,”
“Well, let someone know as soon as she has one, because she’ll have to be registered in the town,”
“Of course,”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Third Person
Hannah had been silent with a blank expression on her face while she allowed Jamie to lead her into the bathroom on the second
floor of the house.
Hannah sat on the closed lid of the toilet while Jamie filled the bathtub with warm water so that she could take a bath, and Jamie
decided against asking any more questions because he knew that Hannah wasn’t going to answer him – not yet, she still had to let
it sink into her own head before she could give much more information than she already had.
“There,” Jamie grunted as he shut off the tap once the tub had enough water in it and he turned to Hannah “Are you going to be
alright in here alone?” He asked.
“Yeah,” She nodded slowly “I’ll be fine, but if I’m not downstairs in fifteen minutes then send Erin up for me, alright?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jamie agreed without any questions. He knew that it was safer for Erin to check on Hannah if she didn’t make it
downstairs because it would save Jamie from seeing something that he didn’t need to.
Jamie left the room after that and Hannah stripped out of her clothes as quickly as she could and stepped into the tub, sitting down
and letting the water rise up to just under her breasts. Slowly, she looked down at the blood that had soaked into her skin and she
started to scrub her hands under the water in an attempt to remove the blood, but it didn’t want to come off so she scrubbed harder
and harder.
Grunts and cries of frustration slipped from Hannah’s mouth as she scrubbed harder and harder at her skin. Soon enough the
water turned red and it was hard to tell if Hannah was still covered in blood or her skin was just so irritated from all of the harsh
scrubbing. Suddenly she could feel the blood on her face and she cupped some red-tinted water in the palms of her hands and
splashed it on her face and started to scrub every inch she could touch before deciding to submerge herself completely under the
water.
Once she was under, she didn’t resurface.
Under the water she could replay everything that had happened. She could still see the pleading look on Lilly’s face, she could still
hear the screams of pain that she made and she could still feel her hands inside of Lilly trying to pull the baby out.
Within minutes, Hannah’s feet were pressing against the end of the tub and pushing her up and out of the water with a huge gasp
as she refilled her lungs with air. She could feel her body burning from the lack of oxygen and her vision was slightly blurred, but
she knew that she had to get out of the tub.
She smoothed her hands over her wet hair and then down her face before she looked at her chest and then her hands and her
arms and she decided that she was clean enough to get out. If she didn’t, Erin would be up soon.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Once she was dressed in clean clothes and she had dried her hair off as much as she could, Hannah made her way downstairs
and into the living room where she found Erin pacing the room a little while she rocked the baby girl in her arms and Jamie was
sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded in baby stuff and he was sorting everything into separate piles; nappies, clothes,
blankets, bottles and formula.
“Where did all of this come from?” Hannah asked, alerting Erin and Jamie of her presence. They both looked over to her and
smiled.
“Jimmy and Matt brought it over,” Erin told her “They figured that we would need some stuff when they went over to Lilly and Lewis’
house and realised that all of the baby things were still there and the baby wasn’t.”
“That was nice of them,” Hannah mused.
“They’re going to move the crib, too.” Jamie added “They’ve gone to get it,”
Hannah wasn’t really listening now, her eyes had met the large ones of the baby girl in Erin’s arms and a small smile was tugging at
her lips as she watched the baby.
“Here,” Erin cooed, stepping closer to Hannah so that she could hand over the baby.
She took her as carefully as she could and cradled the little bundle in her arms while rocking slightly from side to side.
“We’re all wondering what her name is,” Erin admitted “We were leaving that up to you, though.”
“Emersyn,” Hannah cooed softly, running her finger tips over the baby girls head “Emersyn Jade,”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Hannah
It was a long morning, and Emersyn was a very alert baby for being less than a whole day old but at least she wasn’t too fussy
about everything going on around her.
Jimmy and Matt had roped Brian, Zack and Johnny into helping them move some more of Emersyn’s stuff into our house and as
soon as the crib had been reassembled in my bedroom I had lay her down in it and she fell right to sleep.
It was late in the afternoon and Jamie was having some lunch, Erin was cleaning up in the kitchen and I was half asleep and
leaning over the crib, looking down at the beautiful sleeping little girl. I was starting to doze off above her when suddenly there was
a pounding on the front door of the house – startling me awake again but also waking Emersyn at the same time and she started
crying loudly.
I scooped her out of the crib immediately and cradled her against my chest, over my heart, and patted her behind gently while
walking out of the room and over to the top of the stairs. I looked down and saw that Erin had answered the door and she was
talking to Zack who was standing on the front step.
“What’s going on?” I asked, walking down the stairs, soothing the baby more and more with every step.
Erin looked at me with a very grim look on her newly pale face.
“They’re evacuating the whole town,” She almost whispered “We have to go,”
“Well – where are we going?” I asked, my heartbeat picking up and my stomach dropping.
“Nobody knows,” Zack sighed, running a hand over his face “They just told us to get out of here and leave, everyone is going crazy
out here,”
I looked over Zack’s shoulder and saw everyone running around outside. Some people seemed to be looking for other people,
others were just heading for the exit but Zack certainly wasn’t lying when he said it was crazy outside.
“Hannah,” Zack started again “You still have your van parked somewhere outside the camp, right?”
“It’s in the woodland on the outskirts, yeah.” I nodded “I’ll bring my keys?”
“Perfect,” He smiled, turning and running back down the path before shouting over his shoulder “We’ll meet you four at the van in
twenty, alright?!”
“If something happens to me during this, I need you to promise me that you’ll look after them both,”
Hannah opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the blaring sound of the warning sirens sounding throughout town.
“Shit,” She heard Lilly curse through the radio “Hannah, something happened,”
“…What happened?” Hannah asked cautiously, almost scared of the answer she might get.
“I-I think my water just broke… the siren gave me a bit of a start there,”
“I’ll be right there,” She promised.
Hannah jumped to her feet and hooked the radio onto the waistband of her pants and took off out of her room, across the top floor
and down the stairs where she met Erin and Jamie coming from two different directions.
“What’s going on?” Erin asked Hannah, reaching out and grabbing her hand.
“I have no idea,” Hannah admitted, squeezing Erin’s hand “But I have to go-“
“You’re kidding,” Jamie laughed sarcastically “The sirens are sounding, we have to stay in here and lock the place down until they
come around and tell us that it’s safe to go back out,”
“Yes, that’s what you two have to do, but I have to go and be with Lilly because her water broke and the baby is coming now, plus
Lewis is on the frontline out there and she’s all alone,”
“You’re right,” Erin nodded, pulling her best friend into a tight embrace “Go, but be safe and come back to us, alright?”
“I promise,” Hannah murmured into Erin’s shoulder before pulling away and smoothing a hand over Erin’s hair and reaching out to
pull Jamie to her, too. “As soon as I’m out of this door, you lock the place down, alright?” They both nodded “I’ll be on lockdown with
Lilly until the baby is born and until we’re told that everything is clear, and then I’ll be back.”
The three of them shared a quick embrace before Hannah took off out of the front door and dashed to the medical centre to grab
some of her things that she might need for the delivery of the baby. Once she had everything, she ran across town as fast as she
could – dodging people who were running around with guns and knives, until she reached Lilly and Lewis’s house.
“Lilly?!” She called out as she closed and locked the front door behind her “Lilly, where are you?!”
“Up here!” She heard Lilly cry out in distress from the floor above.
Hannah sprinted up the stairs and made her way into the master bedroom of the house where she found Lilly doubled over the bed
and trying to strip the sheets off of it.
“Sorry,” Lilly sniffed through her tears “I wanted to clean up before you got here so that you didn’t have to work in this mess,”
“Don’t you worry about it,” Hannah cooed, placing all of her things on the dresser by the door before moving to help Lilly with the
bed sheets “It’s nothing that I haven’t seen before,”
Lilly moved out of the way and got down on the floor when another contraction tore through her, and that’s when Hannah noticed
the sheets. They were soaked through and stained with deep, red blood.
“Lilly, were you in bed when your waters broke?” She asked.
“Yeah,” Lilly groaned “Why?”
Hannah didn’t answer, she just tore the sheets from the bed and dumped them on the floor so that she could grab some new ones
out of the closet and throw them on the bed.
“Let’s get you back up here,” She spoke “Can you do that?”
Lilly took a hold of Hannah’s hands when she held them out to her and allowed Hannah to lift her off of the floor and lower her into a
sitting position on the edge of the bed before lifting her legs onto the mattress too so that she could lay down.
“That’s better,” Lilly hummed contentedly, closing her eyes.
Now that Lilly was lying down, Hannah could see the state of her. Her nightgown was soaked with blood just as the sheets had
been and the inside of her thighs were covered with red, too.
“Alright,” Hannah started, walking back to her things on the dresser so that she could slip on another pair of latex gloves “I’m just
going to do another examination and see how dilated you are, alright?”
Lilly only hummed in response, but Hannah moved back to the bed and sat on the edge so that she could reach Lilly where she lay
in the middle of the bed. Luckily, she had already removed her panties and Hannah could just slip her hand under her nightgown
and feel what needed to be felt.
Lilly tensed with discomfort and cried out in pain at the intrusion of Hannah’s fingers, but Hannah was quick to soothe her as best
she could before removing herself and disposing of the gloves.
“You’re about five centimetres,” Hannah said “That’s less than I expected, considering how quickly you’ve been progressing so
far,”
“I have to tell you something,” Lilly sighed, sitting herself up slightly against the headboard.
“What is it?” Hannah asked.
“I’ve done this before,” She admitted, causing Hannah to frown.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve had a baby before,” She sighed again “A couple of years before the turn, I was still young and everything seemed fine up until
the labour, and so far… everything is exactly the same as before,”
Hannah felt sick to her stomach. Normally, this was information that she would know, but this wasn’t the hospital anymore and
nobody had medical files these days.
“What happened?” Hannah asked quietly.
“When my waters broke, it was all blood, just like that…” She pointed to the sheets on the floor “I didn’t dilate enough and the baby
was getting distressed, but the doctors didn’t work fast enough and by the time they got him out she was stillborn, so I need you to
do everything you can to get her out.”
“I can’t-“
“I know that you have a scalpel in your bag,” Lilly interrupted “So you use it to cut me open and get my baby out.”
“But you could-“
“I won’t make it,” She interrupted again “I’ll lose too much blood in the process because you don’t have the tools that you need to
stop the bleeding, but I don’t care about me, I just need my baby to live this time… I won’t be able to live if-“
A cry tore from her throat and she arched off of the bed almost completely and gripped at Hannah with a vice-like grip and tugged
her close.
“It’s almost too late,” She told her “Get the baby out, and then put a bullet through my head!”
Hannah felt as though no amount of air could fill her lungs, and that her body was acting on its own accord and moving across the
room to her supplies, grabbing the scalpel and making her way back to stand over the bed.
Lilly had already lifted her nightgown to expose her stomach and she was holding onto the bedposts above her head to keep
herself down on the bed, and she gave Hannah one swift nod as a signal to continue.
Taking a deep breath, Hannah cut into the flesh of Lilly’s lower abdomen and tried to ignore the blood-curdling scream of pain that
left her friend’s mouth while she continued to cut a little deeper. Once the cut was made, she tossed the scalpel down on the bed
and moved back Lilly’s flesh enough for her hands to slip inside her womb until she grasped the baby and started to pull the baby
out.
Lilly’s screams had stopped already and she was starting to slip away, but she hung on just long enough to see her precious baby.
“Lilly,” Hannah whispered “Lilly, look at your baby, she’s here.”
Lilly opened her eyes slowly and looked at the sight before her, and realised that the screaming sound was no longer coming from
her, but it was coming from the healthy baby girl she had just given birth to.
“She’s… beautiful,” She whispered.
“Yeah,” Hannah cried “She looks just like her mom,”
“No,” Lilly shook her head, letting her eyes slip shut once more “You’re her mother now…”
Hannah stood there, next to the bed, holding a new-born baby with blood covered hands and forearms while her grey cut-off
soaked through with blood and stained the skin underneath. The screaming baby in her arms was a comparison to the new corpse
of the woman who had just given birth to her, and Hannah couldn’t stop her own tears from streaming down her face and the sobs
that wracked her body, too.
“Lilly?” She whispered with a sob “Lilly, open your eyes…”
Nothing.
Hannah had killed her once, and she wasn’t about to do it again.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Hannah had separated the baby from her mother, wrapped her in the blanket that Lilly had set out hours ago, threw her bag over
her shoulder and left the room.
She was halfway to the nursery that Lilly and Lewis had set up for the baby when the sound signalling an announcement replaced
the silence that had followed the warning sirens. She started to walk down the stair case and towards the front door while she
listened to the ‘Mayor’ announcing through the speakers that surrounded town that everything was clear and that it was safe to
walk outside now.
Hannah slipped the radio off of her waistband and tuned into the other radios of the fighters in town so that she could send out a
message.
“This is Doctor Hannah MacDonald, and I need to know the state and whereabouts of Lewis Waters… over.”
It took a moment for someone to answer her.
“Hannah?” The voice asked “It’s Jimmy Sullivan, and I’m sorry, but we cannot dispense that information at this time.”
“Jimmy,” She whispered into the radio “His wife died while I delivered his daughter, I have to know where he is so that I can give
her to him.”
A few moments of silence passed.
“Jimmy,”
“He’s dead,” Jimmy finally spoke again “The Stiffs got him… tore him to shreds,”
“Well you better send someone over here; I couldn’t put Lilly down once she slipped away so she’ll be coming around any minute
now,”
Instead of waiting for an answer, she dropped the radio onto the floor and walked out the front door of the house and through the
town towards home.
Everyone else who had been on lockdown in their houses had come outside to see what the damage was and to be reunited with
their loved ones, but they all took notice of Hannah and the baby as they made their way past everybody.
She was overcome with emotion, and tears were filling her eyes but she was ignoring everyone who watched her as she walked
past them and she kept her head held eye and blocked out their curious whispers. She had just lost two dear friends and now had
an unnamed baby to care for.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Erin
The sun was rising, and it had been just over ten minutes since the announcement was made that it was clear to go outside now.
Jamie and I had ‘deactivated’ lockdown but we hadn’t gone outside yet, we were waiting for Hannah to come home.
The two of us were sitting at the kitchen table. Jamie was playing with his knife and I was taking a drink from my bottle of water
when he suddenly jumped to his feet and stuck the knife in his boot and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Maybe I should go over there and make sure everything is alright,” He groaned, readying himself to move away from the table.
“No,” I sighed, grabbing the back of his t-shirt and pulling him back down into his seat “We’re waiting here for her because she’ll be
here soon,”
“She could be in trouble,” He countered.
“She won’t be in trouble,” I assured him “She’s been on lockdown with Lilly for the last few hours and she isn’t stupid enough to
leave that safety before being given the all clear, so maybe you’re just underestimating how long it takes to deliver a baby,”
I was frustrated and somewhat worried that something might have happened, but I couldn’t let Jamie know that because then he
would freak out more and I didn’t have the patience for that. He was already getting on my nerves after being stuck in this house for
hours with nowhere to go and very little to do.
Jamie was about to say something when we heard the front door open and we both jumped to our feet but we didn’t leave the room,
we just stood stock still and listened to the door close and then footsteps walking towards the kitchen. A moment later, Hannah
stood in the doorway and Jamie and I gasped at the sight of her before rushing over to her.
“Hannah?” I asked, my tone panicked “Hannah, what happened?”
She stayed silent and just stared blankly at the floor while I checked her over for bite marks and Jamie kept trying to get her to talk
to him, but she just wasn’t saying anything. She just stood there, holding a bundle of material in her arms against her chest and she
let her bag drop to the floor with a thud.
The state of her was terrifying. Her breathing was shaky and completely out of control, her whole body was trembling, tears were
sliding down her face and she was covered in blood. The blood on her t-shirt had turned it from grey to black over most of it and her
hands and forearms were stained dark red, too, and her face also had some blood on it.
I was confused, because I couldn’t find a wound on her and she didn’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere.
“Hannah?” I asked slowly, taking a step back at her so that I could look at all of her “Please, say something,”
She tried to speak, but only a strangled sob slipped from her throat and more tears ran down her face. She cradled the material
closer to her body and dropped her head and allowed herself to cry. Jamie and I shared a look, confused and not knowing what to
do.
Suddenly, the bundle in her arms moved and gurgled.
I reached out hesitantly and hooked my finger into the material and pulled it open slightly, revealing a bloody new-born baby with the
biggest eyes I have ever seen and she was staring right at me.
“T-They’re both dead,” She sobbed. “Lilly m-made me do it and she d-died as soon as she was born, and Jimmy t-told me over the
r-radio that Lewis was t-torn apart by S-St-i-iffs!”
She started to drop, so I grabbed the baby and Jamie dropped to his knees in front of Hannah and held her to his chest while she
sobbed on the floor. The baby was starting to fuss, so I bounced her soothingly while watching Hannah clutch at her baby brother’s
t-shirt with her blood covered hands and I struggled to hold back my own tears.
It took a few minutes, but Hannah eventually calmed down enough to speak.
“I promised Lilly that I would look after the baby if anything happened to her… and it did, but the last thing she said before she…
before she died was that I was the baby’s mother now,”
“That was an awful lot to dump on you,” Jamie commented.
“No,” She shook her head “I told her that everything would be fine, this whole time… this whole time I had been telling her to trust
me and that everything was going to work out perfectly and now they’re both dead and I’m left with an orphaned baby girl,”
“Jamie, why don’t you take Hannah up the stairs and get her cleaned up and changed into some clean clothes, too?” I suggested,
giving him a pointed look that told him he had no choice “I’ll clean the baby off and send for some of her things,”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
I didn’t have much experience with babies, let alone new-born babies. She was so pink and she was absolutely tiny in my hands.
While I washed her off in the kitchen sink I had to remember to support her head and keep her almost completely out of the water
and practically rinse her off. The whole ordeal was much more difficult than I had anticipated and she didn’t seem to like being
naked and exposed to all of the air, so I had to make quick work and wrap her up with one of the clean dishtowels seeing as her
blanket was stained with blood, too.
I was walking out of the kitchen and towards the front door, ready to step outside and catch someone’s attention so that I could ask
them to get some of the baby things from Lilly and Lewis’ house, but as I touched the door handle there was a knock from the other
side.
I pulled the door open and Jimmy and Matt were standing on our front step with a bag each, and both bags seemed to be
overflowing with baby clothes.
“We thought that you guys might need some of this,” Jimmy smiled sympathetically as they both stepped into the house when I
gestured for them to come inside.
“How did you know?” I asked, leading them into the living room.
“When I told Hannah over the radio that Lewis hadn’t made it through the night she told me that someone was going to have to put
Lilly down because she was going to change, and by the time we got over there she was already reanimated,” Jimmy answered.
“I suggested grabbing some things,” Matt added “I doubted that Hannah had stuck around long enough to pack anything,”
“Well we really appreciate it,” I told them honestly “We’re probably going to need all of that stuff,”
“We’re on it,” Matt smiled softly “Zack and Brian are over there now tearing the nursery apart so that we can move all of the stuff
over here,”
“As long as we have enough to keep us going there isn’t any rush,” I informed them “Hannah’s having a little bit of a tough time with
this and Lilly told her that she was the baby’s mother now so I don’t want to send her into shock by moving all of the stuff in here
right away,”
“Well we brought clothes, cloths, diapers, bottles and formula,” Jimmy grunted, dropping his bag onto the floor “We can hold off on
the furniture and the rest of the supplies,”
“That would be great, thank you guys so much,”
I noticed that Matt was watching the baby girl in my arms so closely, and he had a sort of longing look on his face. I knew what that
meant.
“Do you want to hold her?” I asked him, holding her out to him slightly.
He hesitated until she started to fuss at the loss of close contact and then he quickly scooped her into his arms and cradled her
against his enormous frame.
“What do you call this little beauty?” Jimmy asked, looking down at her as Matt swayed her from side to side.
“Nothing yet,” I shrugged “She doesn’t have a name yet,”
“Well, let someone know as soon as she has one, because she’ll have to be registered in the town,”
“Of course,”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Third Person
Hannah had been silent with a blank expression on her face while she allowed Jamie to lead her into the bathroom on the second
floor of the house.
Hannah sat on the closed lid of the toilet while Jamie filled the bathtub with warm water so that she could take a bath, and Jamie
decided against asking any more questions because he knew that Hannah wasn’t going to answer him – not yet, she still had to let
it sink into her own head before she could give much more information than she already had.
“There,” Jamie grunted as he shut off the tap once the tub had enough water in it and he turned to Hannah “Are you going to be
alright in here alone?” He asked.
“Yeah,” She nodded slowly “I’ll be fine, but if I’m not downstairs in fifteen minutes then send Erin up for me, alright?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jamie agreed without any questions. He knew that it was safer for Erin to check on Hannah if she didn’t make it
downstairs because it would save Jamie from seeing something that he didn’t need to.
Jamie left the room after that and Hannah stripped out of her clothes as quickly as she could and stepped into the tub, sitting down
and letting the water rise up to just under her breasts. Slowly, she looked down at the blood that had soaked into her skin and she
started to scrub her hands under the water in an attempt to remove the blood, but it didn’t want to come off so she scrubbed harder
and harder.
Grunts and cries of frustration slipped from Hannah’s mouth as she scrubbed harder and harder at her skin. Soon enough the
water turned red and it was hard to tell if Hannah was still covered in blood or her skin was just so irritated from all of the harsh
scrubbing. Suddenly she could feel the blood on her face and she cupped some red-tinted water in the palms of her hands and
splashed it on her face and started to scrub every inch she could touch before deciding to submerge herself completely under the
water.
Once she was under, she didn’t resurface.
Under the water she could replay everything that had happened. She could still see the pleading look on Lilly’s face, she could still
hear the screams of pain that she made and she could still feel her hands inside of Lilly trying to pull the baby out.
Within minutes, Hannah’s feet were pressing against the end of the tub and pushing her up and out of the water with a huge gasp
as she refilled her lungs with air. She could feel her body burning from the lack of oxygen and her vision was slightly blurred, but
she knew that she had to get out of the tub.
She smoothed her hands over her wet hair and then down her face before she looked at her chest and then her hands and her
arms and she decided that she was clean enough to get out. If she didn’t, Erin would be up soon.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Once she was dressed in clean clothes and she had dried her hair off as much as she could, Hannah made her way downstairs
and into the living room where she found Erin pacing the room a little while she rocked the baby girl in her arms and Jamie was
sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded in baby stuff and he was sorting everything into separate piles; nappies, clothes,
blankets, bottles and formula.
“Where did all of this come from?” Hannah asked, alerting Erin and Jamie of her presence. They both looked over to her and
smiled.
“Jimmy and Matt brought it over,” Erin told her “They figured that we would need some stuff when they went over to Lilly and Lewis’
house and realised that all of the baby things were still there and the baby wasn’t.”
“That was nice of them,” Hannah mused.
“They’re going to move the crib, too.” Jamie added “They’ve gone to get it,”
Hannah wasn’t really listening now, her eyes had met the large ones of the baby girl in Erin’s arms and a small smile was tugging at
her lips as she watched the baby.
“Here,” Erin cooed, stepping closer to Hannah so that she could hand over the baby.
She took her as carefully as she could and cradled the little bundle in her arms while rocking slightly from side to side.
“We’re all wondering what her name is,” Erin admitted “We were leaving that up to you, though.”
“Emersyn,” Hannah cooed softly, running her finger tips over the baby girls head “Emersyn Jade,”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Hannah
It was a long morning, and Emersyn was a very alert baby for being less than a whole day old but at least she wasn’t too fussy
about everything going on around her.
Jimmy and Matt had roped Brian, Zack and Johnny into helping them move some more of Emersyn’s stuff into our house and as
soon as the crib had been reassembled in my bedroom I had lay her down in it and she fell right to sleep.
It was late in the afternoon and Jamie was having some lunch, Erin was cleaning up in the kitchen and I was half asleep and
leaning over the crib, looking down at the beautiful sleeping little girl. I was starting to doze off above her when suddenly there was
a pounding on the front door of the house – startling me awake again but also waking Emersyn at the same time and she started
crying loudly.
I scooped her out of the crib immediately and cradled her against my chest, over my heart, and patted her behind gently while
walking out of the room and over to the top of the stairs. I looked down and saw that Erin had answered the door and she was
talking to Zack who was standing on the front step.
“What’s going on?” I asked, walking down the stairs, soothing the baby more and more with every step.
Erin looked at me with a very grim look on her newly pale face.
“They’re evacuating the whole town,” She almost whispered “We have to go,”
“Well – where are we going?” I asked, my heartbeat picking up and my stomach dropping.
“Nobody knows,” Zack sighed, running a hand over his face “They just told us to get out of here and leave, everyone is going crazy
out here,”
I looked over Zack’s shoulder and saw everyone running around outside. Some people seemed to be looking for other people,
others were just heading for the exit but Zack certainly wasn’t lying when he said it was crazy outside.
“Hannah,” Zack started again “You still have your van parked somewhere outside the camp, right?”
“It’s in the woodland on the outskirts, yeah.” I nodded “I’ll bring my keys?”
“Perfect,” He smiled, turning and running back down the path before shouting over his shoulder “We’ll meet you four at the van in
twenty, alright?!”
Notes
So, this part is a bit different than the original, but there will be some evacuation drama in the next chapter and then more from then on out. This was sort of difficult to write which is why it took me so long to finish, but I hope that I detailed this enough so that you guys can feel the emotion that I did while writing it.More soon!
Enjoy!
~ LMV
I've missed this story! I'm glad your back! <3
1/21/15