I pull my hood over my head, not just because I’m cold, which I am, but because tears are now coursing freely down my cheeks.
Where are my parents? Where the hell am I? How long until one of those undead things finds me and bites me?
“Faster,” Cole repeats. “Pick up your feet. High-step it so you don’t trip over all them roots.”
“I’m sorry,” I grind out. “I’m not used to hiking the Appalachian Trail or whatever it is you do for fun on weekends.”
“At least I do something useful. It’s obvious you didn’t learn any survival skills hanging out at the mall.”
“You’re rude. And mean. And you’re going too fast.” I use my jacket sleeve to mop my face. Lucky I do it then, because just as I finish, Cole turns to frown at me.
“Sorry I’m going fast,” he says sarcastically. “I’m a little worried about the damn zombies on our tail. If you’d like to lead the way—”
I guess he thinks I’ll be demure and apologize and kiss his ass or whatever, but no such luck. I stomp in front of him, still fighting for oxygen, picking my way through the piles of leaves. I go slower than he did, but not by much. I know he wouldn’t let me lead unless we’d gained a big head start over the infected, and there’s some comfort in that thought.
It might be sunny outside the confines of the forest, but here the sprawling trees cast dark, cold shadows. I’m not used to these temperatures; every inch of my exposed skin feels raw and numb. And every tall stalk of dead grass harbors tiny, hidden enemies.
“How long until we reach a place with people?” I try not to sound like I’m hyperventilating. “Or a phone? Or heat?”
“At your pace, maybe four, five days.”
I stop walking. Is he serious? I have to spend the next five days in the woods? With Cole? And the Beavers? And the infected crazies from the country club?
Fear grips my chest in a vise. We won’t last the night.
Chapter Four
“Four or five days?” Ava repeats, panic widening her eyes.
Wind hisses through the bare branches.
“Three if you’d go faster.”
She’s incredulous. “It can’t be that far to civilization.”
“Did you ever drive to Glenview? Almost forty miles. Maybe you didn’t realize it City-Girl, but we live on the back side of the biggest national forest in North Carolina. And I got news for you—that truck we hijacked—it took us on a little detour. I’m making a beeline to town, but we’re deep in the heart of the woods now. It’s gonna be a while before Mama and Daddy can rescue you.”
No smart-aleck response for that. She snorts once and continues walking—keeping her back turned. At least she’s trying to go faster. Finally.
We been pushing so hard the last few hours, it’s my first real chance to size her up
. I mean
—size up her gear. Her jacket’s decent—down-filled, I reckon. She’ll need it tonight when the temperature dips below freezing. Good hood on the coat, but that color. Cherry red—visible for miles. What was I thinking, grabbing a red jacket off that peg in her hallway?
That’s the problem, I wasn’t thinking, just nabbed the first thing I saw.
Her sneakers might be okay. Decent tread. Thank God she wasn’t wearing heels or something stupid when I got to her house. Her pants…what do they call them things, yoga pants? Thin, cotton material. Her legs’ll be cold when we stop moving. Jeans would be better. Damn, she has a nice ass.
I mentally slap myself.
You’re being chased by dadgum zombies! Quit staring at this girl’s ass.
She stops abruptly, startling me back to reality. For a second, I wonder if she’s lost the trail. Then I spot the metal sign she’s reading: Bear Preserve.
“Is this for real?”
“Yep. Ready for me to take the lead again?”
I figure she’ll cower and duck behind me. Instead, she stomps on ahead.
Lord God,
but she’s stubborn.
“What kind of bears?” she asks after a few minutes.
Is she serious? “We live in the eastern United States,” I huff, like I’m talking to a little kid, “so what kind of bears do you think?”
“What do I look like, the Bear Whisperer? Why don’t you just tell me, instead of making me feel like an idiot?”
“Well, beg your pardon. I do think it’s ignorant you don’t know what kind of bear lives in the entire eastern half of our country.”
“Fine,” she mutters. “I’m totally ignorant. 2000 on the SAT, and I’m ignorant.”
“You might be book smart, City-Girl, but you ain’t got a lick of sense about the world around you.” I pause and walk a few more steps before I tell her reluctantly, “Black bears live here. Not grizzlies, but vicious enough. Especially if they got babies. Let’s hope we don’t run into any mama bears.”
Her brown eyes widen.
For some reason, I’m having a good time pushing her buttons. It melts away some of my fear. “Did you know the largest bear ever recorded was found in North Carolina?” I ask. “Damn thing weighed eight hundred eighty pounds.”
Ava doesn’t respond, just shoots me a quick, worried glance. She keeps walking, but now she’s acting more spooked than before, jumping and cowering like there’s a bear or a zombie around every tree.
And who knows? Maybe there is.
Me, I’m more concerned about the sun sinking low on the horizon. We got a long night ahead of us. Why did all this zombie crap go down on a night with no moon?
“We’ll hit the river trail soon,” I tell her. “And then we best be searching for a place to stop.”
“No way,” she says in her usual bossy tone. “If we stop, the Beavers will catch up. Not to mention those fifty infected people from the country club.”
For such a little thing, she sure does have a big mouth. “We took so many turns, maybe we lost ’em.”
“I’d rather not take that chance.”
“I hate to break this to you,” I say, trying to keep calm, “but unless you got a Coleman lantern in that pocketbook of yours, we’ll be hiking a pitch-dark trail in a few hours. We ain’t gonna see squat-diddly. You wanna stumble on a bunch of infected people in the dark?”
“No,” she answers in a small voice.
“And I’m guessing you’ll walk even slower when you can’t spot the tree roots. There ain’t no point going farther. Let’s find us a good place to hide.”
…
It takes another half hour of downhill scrambling before we reach the river trail Cole was searching for. I’d imagined a creek like the one by our house, but this is wider—at least twenty feet across. The current tumbles from the arms of the mountains into a rocky channel, where water gurgles and foams along the bank, throwing mist on the border of the trail.
Light is fading fast, and I’m glad there’s a wide, worn path here. If I
ever
have to wrestle my way through another blackberry thicket, it’ll be too soon. A sudden realization creeps over me: a well-used path might be a bad thing—other people could be following this same trail. Infected people.
Hugging my jacket tight around me, I peer ahead into the gloom, sure any second a pack of flu people will emerge from the rising mist.
Cole’s not interested in the trail. He scans the branches overhead. Rows of ancient trees stand along both banks, forming a sort of canopy over the river.
“What are you searching for?” I ask softly. “You think infected hide in trees?”
“No, look.” He points to a basic wooden platform in the joint of two limbs. “Right there.” Narrow slats run up the trunk to make a crude ladder.
“A tree house?” I ask.
He mumbles something that sounds like
beer stand
.
“A beer stand?” I picture rednecks selling beer like kids sell lemonade from a stand.
“Deer stand,” he corrects. “Hunters sit in it and shoot deer.”
I blink at him a few times.
“And it’s up high,” he continues. “We can hide there and the zombies—beg your pardon, the
infected
—can’t get us.”
“How do we know they can’t climb?”
“They can’t if I break off the rungs as we go.”
Is this kid a total idiot? “Um, Cole, without rungs, how will we get back down the tree?”
“The nails’ll still be here. We can slide down. Slow our momentum on the nails.”
“Sliding down a tree full of rusty nails. That sounds fun.”
“Listen, if you’ve got a better idea, I’d love to hear it.”
I’m too exhausted to argue, and with daylight failing, we don’t have time to find another spot. I move toward the tree. For a minute all I do is stare up at it, weighing my options.
Is this really a good idea? Could we get trapped in this tree? Like, for the rest of eternity?
“Lord God, this sucks,” Cole says coming up behind me. And for the first time, I notice his voice is low and deep—not twangy like some rednecks. “You go on up before I start breaking these rungs.”
I’ve never climbed a tree before. Not once in my entire life. I study the wooden slats, unable to take that first step. A few cold stars have popped out above the sunset. I can’t shake the feeling we need to get off the path and out of sight before darkness falls.
Cole snorts impatiently. “What’s the hold up? You scared of heights?”
“No…bugs.”
He studies me for a full second—like I might be the craziest person
ever
—then gestures at the leaf-strewn ground. “Well, by all means, stay down here with the zombies instead of the scary bugs.”
The boy has a point. With a sigh, I begin scaling the ladder. Cole follows behind me, and kicks off the first rung.
“You know, City-Girl, insects hibernate in winter.”
Secretly, I’m pleased to know something he doesn’t. “Actually, Banjo Boy, a large percentage of North Carolina wasps remain active in November. Some of them swarm right before they go dormant.”
“Hibernate, dormant, whatever.”
Snap!
Below me, another rung bites the dust.
I reach the top of the rickety ladder and haul myself onto the board. And really, that’s all it is. Just a four-foot square of particleboard wedged in the tree. Thin, wobbly, and small. But my entire body wants to throw a party because it can stop walking and rest.
“So, what are you, a wasp expert?” Cole yells up to me.
I peek over the platform edge.
Snap!
He kicks another thick slat to the ground. For a brief instant, I forget the bugs and infected people and my complaining muscles.
How in the heck can he break those boards so easily?
This boy must have some seriously strong thigh muscles. Suddenly, without meaning to, I’m picturing the bare legs beneath his camo pants. And it’s not an unpleasant image. Not in the slightest…
“Hello!” Cole says, reminding me we’re in the middle of a conversation.
My face burns. “Me, um, no. I’m not a wasp expert.” My brain snaps back to the present. “I’m, just uh…interested in insects.”
Wow. That’s the understatement of the year.
For a second, I consider telling him the truth. After all, if I hang out with a person for any length of time, they should know about my allergies—not the generic ones, like, pollen makes me sneeze and I can’t wear wool. I’m talking about the other allergies, the life-threatening ones: penicillin, cephalosporin, insect bites and stings. Stuff that seriously messes me up. Stuff that could kill me in ten seconds flat.
I take a deep breath, steeling myself. It’s obvious Cole already regrets bringing me along, and I’m about to make myself sound like an even bigger liability. But I need to tell him the truth.
Snap!
“Dagnabbit!” Cole shouts from below.
I peep over the edge again. He’s close now. Just a few rungs down.
“What?” I ask.
“Tried to break one with my hands.” Cole cradles his left hand. Blood coats his fingers.
“Crap,” I say. “Is it bad?”
“Not deep. Just hurts like hell.”
He scales the last few rungs, kicking out the boards with his heavy boots, and hauling himself beside me on the deer stand. It creaks with our weight. Are we really going to spend the entire night here? With one flimsy board to hide us from the infected?
“Let me see your hand,” I offer.
“Forget it,” he mutters, still clutching the bleeding finger. “Like you could do anything to help.”
His words sting. Why is he so mean? Sadness bubbles in my chest. I can’t stop it—I’m perilously close to tears again.
I want to go home.
I have to fight not to say the words aloud.
I drop my chin to my chest, hoping to catch a remnant of my mom’s scent on her jacket, but there’s only the sharp tang of my own sweat and fear.
I
cannot
let Cole get to me. He’s annoying, sure, but he’s not the real problem here.
The flu is the problem. The fact that the flu is here in my country, in this state, in this forest. And there’s the likelihood it’ll decimate our population just like China’s. I think back to bio class—Ms. Smythe showing us all those pictures of people with rabies. How it took centuries to find a cure. How millions of people died a horrible death. And that’s nothing compared to this new virus. Complete infection within twenty seconds. Total loss of cerebral function in ninety.
The horror of my circumstances crashes down on me with sudden weight. My parents are gone—possibly dead. Eaten.
And if not, odds are they’re infected like the Beavers.
An image flashes through my mind—my sweet, funny, slightly clumsy dad, foaming at the mouth, lunging, biting—all the kindness gone from his eyes. And my mom, stumbling through the Home Depot, trapped there forever as a member of the walking dead. I bite my lower lip to keep down a sob.
I
have
to find my mom and dad. Before it’s too late. But Glenview is far from here. So far.
My mind seems to back up, like a computer map after you click the enlarge button. I picture myself, a tiny black dot, surrounded by forest, miles and miles of hostile woodlands filled with dangerous insects and flesh-hungry monsters.
And I realize with startling clarity that I’ll probably never see my parents again. Odds are, I won’t make it out of this forest alive.
…
This deer stand ain’t no bigger than a bathtub. I have to sit slap-up against Ava so we’ll both fit. Neither of us is crazy about the setup.
High in the mountains, a bird’s cry echoes long and cold in the empty forest, filling in the spaces of the gathering dusk.
“Why’d you want to see my hand?” I ask after a few long minutes of silence. “It ain’t like you got bandages and antiseptic in that pocketbook.”
Damn, my finger hurts.
I managed to roll out of a speeding car with barely a scratch, and then I mangle my hand on a little piece of wood. So dumb. Makes me want to lash out at someone.
Ava gives me another one of those death glares. She’s pretty good at those. And then a determined expression passes over her face—almost like she’s decided something.
“Here.” She fumbles in her pocketbook and passes me a cute little container of hand sanitizer—the kind from that trendy place in the mall. It smells like tropical fruit or some crap, but burns against the cut, so there must be some real antiseptic under all the frou-frou junk.
“Thanks,” I say reluctantly.
“I’m not done,” she snaps.
She hands me an old receipt from her pocketbook. I study the slip of paper—it’s from a Chinese restaurant at Valley Mall. Figures.
“What’s this for?”
“Wrap it around your wound.”
“How long’s it been collecting lint at the bottom of your pocketbook?”
Her brow furrows in annoyance. “You got anything better?”
I coil the paper around my finger.