As Evan waited for George and Leon to wash off their hands ahead of him, he idly listened to the chatter within the large, mostly empty chamber. Some of the other people lingering within the common room were still watching the news broadcast. Most of the remaining people were discussing quietly what had just taken place in the front lobby. Chloe sat in the back corner away from everyone else, quietly typing studiously on her laptop. George finished washing quickly and silently departed to his room to get some rest.
Without much else to draw his attention, Evan listened to the announcements coming from the television. There apparently had been local efforts to systematically evacuate the surrounding warning zones to clear out the suburbs of infected and prevent the disease from spreading further outside Portland. Other than that, they were mostly providing the same warnings, details and advice they had been giving out since almost the beginning. Among them, the usual cajoling to quarantine the bitten in their own isolated, secure areas and not to go outside or try to kill the zombies personally.
It didn't sound like Evan had missed much news in the last several hours he had been busy trying to get things in order around this place. He also hadn't seen Lucas around in a while, but he knew Lucas wouldn't venture outside on his own. Not that he could, considering people had been keeping the ground floor doors locked. Evan figured that Lucas was probably just locked in his room, busy catching up with reading about everything that had been happening in the last day.
With that thought, Evan sighed. He felt that with the distraction of Simon's stunt and then taking the corpse outside, he had already wasted enough precious time. As Leon moved aside from the sink and tore a paper towel off a roll sitting on the countertop, Evan stepped up beside him and turned his head to speak in a discreet voice. "So, I actually came down here to talk with you."
Leon replied in a conspiratorial tone as other people within the room ignored them. "Oh! Is it about Robert? Is he still okay?"
"He's just trying to get some rest. But I was wondering if there's anything more we could do to help him." Evan ran the warm water over his hands and bare forearms, feeling quite good after the piercing cold wind outside had assaulted his exposed flesh.
"More like what?"
"Like if there's medicine that might help. Antibiotics or something else like that, maybe?" Evan lathered up thoroughly with the soap as he spoke.
"If this disease is caused by a virus, antibiotics won't help at all. But I don't think it's known whether it's a virus or a bacteria causing this." Leon shrugged before tossing the scrap of wet material into the nearby wastebasket. "But since we don't know for sure it would fail, it would be worth trying at the very least. Although that doesn't really matter because I don't have any antibiotics to give him. If I did have some around here, I would have done so already."
"I was wondering if that might be the case." Evan paused to rinse off his hands and arms. "Over in the Mansfield building, we searched through all the rooms shortly after we found out we were probably going to be stranded for a while. To see what resources we would have in case of trouble."
"That could take us a while to do." Leon casually noted as he scratched at his nose idly. "If that's what you're suggesting."
"I wasn't suggesting we do that right now, but I do think it's something we should eventually get around to doing. After we finish cleaning up what's left by the front doors." Evan quickly ripped out a paper towel and dried his hands. "But I ask because when we did inventory over there, one of the things we found was a small stash of antibiotics. I was wondering if that or anything else might help Robert."
"It could." Leon fell silent for a few seconds until Evan threw the paper towel away. "You're not thinking of having someone bring it over here, are you?"
"No. I was going to go get it myself." Evan retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and lifted it up. "Before I went out there, I just wanted to ask if there was anything else that you can think of which might help. I can call ahead and have them ready with anything else we might have. Picking it up and coming back shouldn't take more than a few minutes, but I'd rather not do this more than once if we can avoid it."
