They're in the van just in time to not be zombie chow. Gray drops against the floor of the van and focuses on breathing while the Dog King runs to the front and starts it up. It isn't an easy ride any way you cut it, but it's far better than being lunch.
He's still breathing out in slow, deep lungfulls of air when the Dog King hands back his phone. Gray realises he's still, somehow, gripping the KA-BAR in his hand. He drops it, hears it clatter to the floor. With his slightly less damaged hand, Gray grasps the phone.
There are a few things Gray learned from both the Army and his grandfather that have stuck with him. Things like: wear your watch on the left hand so when you punch a man with your right, you don't lose your watch. Or like: always know how to get home from where you are. So he's taken great care to learn the phone numbers he'll have to call if something happens. If he loses his phone and has to call Vannah, Maizie, or Day.
It's a slow and laborious process to type out his messages, an unfamiliar keyboard doesn't help his broken fingers or the stab wound in his palm. He's trying not to think the phrase "nerve damage" but it haunts just outside the words he's typing.
Somehow, he's in a fight with Vannah already and he knows in the back of his mind it's his own fault. That if he stood in her shoes, he'd want exactly what she wants. But he's aching, and he knows he looks every bit as bad as he is, if not worse.
He doesn't want to answer questions. Doesn't want to be touched. Never wants any of his girls to know how bad it is. Even in the apocalypse, the girls have had Gray. He's been a solid presence, a capable and protective figure. But now he's damn near dead.
Eventually, between messages, he hauls himself to the front passenger seat. Sitting hurts. Lying down hurts. Might as well sit up and thank his rescuer if everything hurts the same.
Once he's settled in nice and unlikely to slip and slide straight out of his seat, he says, "Can't thank you enough, brother. You hadn't come along, I'd be worse than just bit." He closes his eyes and exhales. "I sure hope you got medics there in the Dog Park." He doesn't want to discuss particulars, but it's clear that bite or no, he's in some trouble. "Couple'a ghouls. You know the type. Not the wash-outs. The kind that live there for the hell of it."
He scrubs his hand, the left one, over what parts of his face aren't bruised too bad to touch. "Ain't never seen anything like it."
The phone buzzes again--Vannah, arguing, and finally demanding he return the phone to James. "You James? Never did get a name attached to the Dog King. My old lady wants to talk to you. I think she's tired of fighting me."