Authors: Marianne Mancusi
She seemed to consider for a moment. “What about the kids?” she asked.
“Well, they have to come. I mean, I promised Tank. And I wouldn’t just leave them. Would you? But we’ll make sure they behave and don’t get in the way. And we’ll grab those horses. The kids all know how to ride. We can just head down I-95 on horse back. It’ll be easy.” He found himself full of a new enthusiasm he hadn’t felt in years. Her next words dimmed that a little.
“Easy?”
“Fine. Maybe ‘easy’ is overstating just a tad, but it’ll work. You’ll see. Seriously, I think it’s the only way.”
She paused, but only for a moment. “Okay.”
“Okay?” He couldn’t believe it. She was really going for his idea?
“Okay, let’s do it,” she said. “But we have to move as quickly as possible. We’ll gather our supplies to night, leave first thing in the morning. Even if I do now have you watching my back, I still would rather make it to our destination before things get bad for me.”
At that moment she could have requested the moon and Chase would have agreed. He was just so happy not to be left alone with the kids. “No problem, I’ll stay up all night if I have to. This will be great. You won’t regret it.”
On impulse, he threw his arms around her in a hug. She was a bit stiff. He remembered how once upon a time she’d melted into his kiss, her body soft and supple and willing. Would she ever be that way again?
He knew he shouldn’t want it. Better to keep their relationship on a professional level. After all, she’d betrayed him once. And whether she explained herself or not, she’d made it very clear what her priority was now. Better for him to just keep away. Getting emotionally involved would just open old wounds.
Still, he thought as she disengaged, watching her walk away and curl up inside her sleeping bag, her blonde hair spilling onto her pillow, part of him believed the teen goddess he’d once worshipped might be worth it.
Several teachers were absent the next day at school. Some kind of flu was going around, the principal said over the loudspeaker. Chris tried to tell himself that it was all a coincidence; a sick old lady and a few ill teachers didn’t equal killer plague. But something was still making him uneasy. Molly’s dad’s words kept echoing in his ears. The End of Days. That seemed so ridiculous. So, why couldn’t he get the concept out of his head?
There was something else he couldn’t get out of his head. Make that some
one
else. He hadn’t been able to sleep a wink last night, tossing and turning, replaying that moment on Molly’s neighbor’s stone wall. He’d been literally millimeters away from kissing the goddess herself and—shock of all shocks—the goddess had seemed willing. At the very least, she hadn’t punched him in the face. (He’d seen Drew’s nose this morning and had a good laugh.)
But, of course, nothing had happened. Par for the course in his sorry life. Her dad had called, ruined the moment. He remembered how Molly had leapt away. That hasty good-bye—she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. He’d never, ever get her in that position again and he knew it. Not Chris Griffin, super dork.
“Hey, Chris, did you see that crazy post on the forums about the Super Flu?”
Speaking of dorks. Chris looked up to see his best friend
Stephen nearby, attempting to pry a sim deck out of his overstuffed, undersized locker.
“What post?” he asked. Like him, Stephen was a total forum troll, always looking through the lesser-known, unmonitored message boards for information. “I didn’t log on last night.” He’d been too busy dreaming about Molly. Sweet, beautiful, almost-kissed Molly. He hadn’t even done any further research on Mrs. McCormick. He felt a brief pang of embarrassment at his selfishness.
“It’s all over the place. People are sick, guy. Like, really sick. The hospitals are supposedly overflowing, especially in the big cities like New York. The government is trying to keep it on the down-low, obviously. Not wanting to start a panic, you know. But it’s big news. They say you can even die from it. Especially if you’re, like, an old person and shit.”
Chris stared at him, his creeping worry returning with a vengeance. So, he’d been right; there was something weird about this sickness. He thought about Mrs. McCormick. The cleaners. Molly’s dad’s warning. “For real?” he asked, hoping that maybe Stephen was pulling his leg. “You’re not messing with me?”
His friend shrugged. “Well, it’s on a number of forums. Log on and see for yourself.”
“Yeah, I will when I get home.” The school connections blocked any kind of non-government-sanctioned forums, of course.
“It’s fucking scary, let me tell you,” Stephen continued, slamming his locker shut. “It’s like End of Days shit, some folks are saying.”
Chris started. “What did you say?”
“You know, the apocalypse. Everyone dying of some plague. The end of the human race as we know it,” Stephen replied with a cocky grin. “On the plus side, maybe we’ll get zombies. Usually when this kind of thing happens in the movies, they get zombies.”
“Oh yeah, zombies would be kind of cool,” Chris said with an uneasy laugh. He and Stephen had a special fondness for
old horror movies—the old George Romero ones in particular. Still, given the circumstances, the thought wasn’t as funny as it might have been.
Stephen stuck his hands out and purposely stumbled off down the hall, moaning. “Brains…brains…”
Chris laughed appreciatively. “Yeah,” he said, slapping his friend on the back. “I agree. You could use some brains. Especially if we’re stuck living through Armageddon. You wouldn’t want zombies to kill you and find there’s nothing to eat.”
Molly was just about to jump on the bus home that afternoon when she heard someone calling her name. Turning, she saw Chris Griffin waving to her. Their eyes met.
Ugh
. Now she had to go talk to him. She felt really weird doing so after what had happened yesterday. What if he wanted to pick up where they’d left off? She wasn’t ready to deal with that. Especially not after the day she’d had in school. Drew, as expected, had gone out of his way to make her a social outcast.
Still, Chris had been really nice to her yesterday and managed to cheer her up when she was at her lowest. And, of course, her mother had taught her not to be rude to anyone no matter what. So reluctantly she stepped off the bus and headed over to where he was standing.
He’d better have something important to say, though. She’d miss the early bus.
“What’s up?” she asked.
He held out his deck. “I went home during lunch and did a little research,” he said. “And I found out there’s some weird Super Flu going around.”
“Super Flu?” she repeated.
“Yeah. People are getting really sick all over the world. Most metropolitan hospitals are packed and there have been a ton of deaths.” He handed her his device. “Look. It’s all there.”
She scanned the documents he’d downloaded. It certainly seemed like he was right. Things were bad if these reports were to be believed. She thought about her dad’s warnings. They were starting to seem uncomfortably relevant. Why
hadn’t they heard more in Monroeville? Sure, they weren’t a bustling metropolis, but still, she would have thought they’d have heard some whispers. Then again, with the government in control of the media, sometimes real news traveled very slowly.
She looked up at Chris. “Wow,” she remarked, not sure what else to say. “Do you think that’s what happened to Mrs. McCormick?”
“I’m sure of it,” he replied, taking back his deck. “And I think we should investigate.”
“Investigate?” Her father’s warning came back to her.
Don’t
trust anyone
. But that was stupid. Wasn’t it?
“Yeah,” Chris pushed. “Like, let’s go visit a hospital. See if they’re really full.”
“But then we’d be exposed to the disease, right?”
“Well, we were already exposed if Mrs. McCormick had it. But I also have some respirators. We used them when painting the house last year. And we won’t get too close to the hospitals, just in case. We could just go and have a look.”
She considered. “But what are we looking
for?
What will going to any one hospital prove?”
“Well, these reports, for one. It’ll give us a better sense of what’s going on around us. Don’t you want to know if there’s some deadly plague floating around that could kill us all? Looking up forum posts is one thing, but it’s better to do some research on our own.”
She did want to know what was going on, because she’d seen a million conspiracy theories in her day, none of which had ever panned out. Most non-government-sanctioned media outlets were just glorified rumor mills, after all. So, some people were sick. Some old people were dying. That wasn’t exactly enough to prove a coming apocalypse. Though her father would claim it was.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go with you to check one, at least.” She really would have preferred to head over to Erin’s for a round of Basketball Dayz; she was going to be totally left behind if she didn’t get some practice in. Erin had already
told her about the NCAA level, and it sounded awesome. And to night of course there was her nightly training with her father. But she knew Chris was really concerned, and she felt like she owed him something. So what the hell; she would go to the hospital, check things out, and she could still get back in time for training. Then she and Chris would be even.
“Cool. We’ll start with Mount Holyoke. That’s the one they were supposedly taking Mrs. McCormick to, right? Makes sense. I’ll go home and get the respirators and meet you there in an hour, okay?”
Molly sighed. She had to be crazy to be agreeing to this. “Okay. Fine. See you there.”
She watched him walk away, part of her shrieking to call the whole thing off. Her new friend was turning out to be just as crazy as her dad. But just go to the hospital, check things out, she told herself. We’ll see that nothing is really going on, and I can say “I told you so” to the both of them. They were going to feel like idiots when the world didn’t come to an end.
Even after six years of thievery, Wal-Mart still held an enormous quantity of supplies, and Chase made good on his promise to get everything gathered for their trip. When Molly woke up the next day he had backpacks large and small, stuffed with essentials. He also had a few saddlebags packed to the brim with dried food, bottled water (Tank had demanded they collect rainwater from barrels placed outside for everyday use) and first-aid supplies.
“It’s not everything we’ll need,” he explained. “But this will get us started. And I figure we’ll be able to pick up some stuff on the way, too. Whatever wasn’t looted at the beginning or eaten by the Others over the years. Even if the stores are bare, we can always try houses.”
“Right.” She didn’t relish the idea, looking through dead people’s property, but it was certainly a better option than starving, worst come to worst.
She looked over the supplies and nodded at Chase. “This looks great. Thanks.”
He shrugged. “The horses are outside. I collected them earlier. I’m going to go saddle them up. Be back in a minute.”
As much as she’d originally hated the idea of this group tagging along, she had to admit it was nice to have someone else take control. As Chase had pointed out, she might be a good fighter, thanks to her father’s work on her, but he definitely brought other things to the table. She’d been so sheltered,
living underground with her mom all these years. She had no idea what the world outside was really like. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, it was a relief to have Chase on board.
The kids, on the other hand, were likely to be millstones. Chase was all gung-ho to be Disney-bound, but the others weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea. They were leaving the only safe home most of them had ever known. And while Molly tried to be patient and understanding, she was about ready to strangle the lot. After all, she was doing them a favor—literally risking her life, slowing herself down in order to protect them—and there was absolutely no gratitude. They just whined and complained and demanded she allow them to take useless items. She was at her wits’ end when Chase finally came back from readying the horses.
“Chase!” whined Darla. “She won’t let me take my pony.”
“You’re getting a real pony, Darla,” Chase answered, ruffling the girl’s blonde head. “And if you shut up for two seconds, I’ll even let you name him.”
“Chase!” cried Starr. “I can’t fit my makeup in my bag.”
“I’ll carry it in mine,” he replied.
Molly marveled at how he handled them. It was almost effortless: sometimes teasing, sometimes flattering, sometimes authoritative. And the kids listened. In the time it had taken her to get them to even acknowledge her presence, Chase had them dressed, packed, and on the horses, ready to go. He was like the world’s number one Scout leader. It wasn’t something she would have expected from him, and she had to admire it.
“Hey, Molly, I got you something,” Chase said, pulling her aside. She raised her eyebrows, wondering what it could be. He reached into a bag and pulled out a black leather jumpsuit and coat. “I hit a fetish shop down the road,” he said with a sheepish grin. “It may look a bit seedy, but they have the best leather stuff. It’ll protect you from Other bites if you get in a scuffle. Not that you’ve had much of a problem yet, but…well, we don’t know how many we’ll meet out there, or what sort of situations we’ll be in.”
“Thanks,” she said, grateful. She wouldn’t even have thought about that. Again, his street smarts were invaluable.
“I’ll put it on right now.” She stepped behind a shelf display and undressed, then slid on the leather pants. They felt soft and luxurious on her bare legs. She slipped into the top and zipped up before stepping into view. “Perfect fit,” she announced.
Chase whistled. “Damn. That’s hot.”
She swatted him. “Yeah, yeah,” she said. But her stomach fluttered. “I’m roasting actually.”
“That is so not what I meant.”
“Chase! My backpack’s too heavy!” cried one of the triplets.
“Take out the toy trucks and you’ll be fine,” Chase replied. He threw Molly a rueful smile. “Duty calls.”
She watched him walk off to deal with the kids. It was pleasing—if surprising—how upbeat he seemed. Perhaps the demands of their trip were taking his mind off his brother’s death. Her own quest had certainly forced Molly to stop thinking about her mother. She and Chase had both lost people they were close to, but there would be time for mourning later. As her dad said, it wasn’t the people who cried who survived, it was the people who spit and went on. Right now, this group had a pilgrimage to begin. A world to save.
She followed Chase and the kids out of the Wal-Mart. Six horses stood in the parking lot, looking very out of place amidst the abandoned cars. Chase boosted Darla and Red up first, then instructed the two oldest—Starr and Torn—to ride with them. (Red protested loudly that he could ride his own horse, but Chase refused to let him have his way.) Molly got her own white mare, and Chase shared his mount with the littlest child, Sunshine.
“We’re off,” he proclaimed, once everyone was seated and ready to go.
Molly looked around, nervous. Before, nothing had seemed very real. But here they were, heading out into the unknown with no clue as to what they’d encounter. Of course, that didn’t
matter; they were committed. What other hope was there, other than this journey? Once again, Molly felt a pang of relief that she wasn’t on her own, despite everything else she’d said or thought.
And so the journey began, Chase leading the way, Molly taking up the rear. Single file they rode down the trash-strewn streets, the clomping of horse hooves filling all of their ears. No one talked.
According to the databases accessed by her ocular implants and built-in GPS—which, thank God she had, since old-fashioned paper maps were few and far between, just like real books—she’d decided the best way to take was old Interstate 95. The highway ran north-south along the entire eastern seaboard. It’d get them to Daytona, Florida, where they’d pick up Route 4 for the remainder of their trek. Molly had hoped the highway would be relatively clear, making for an easy journey. But she’d been deluding herself. I-95 was much like the Wal-Mart parking lot: a graveyard of rusted-out cars and debris. Broken glass, downed trees and power lines, unidentified objects strewn here and there—it looked as if a hurricane had swept through. Maybe one had.
After a bit, Chase stopped his horse. “God,” he muttered, as Molly came up beside him. He surveyed the scene, hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun. “This is going to be a long trip.”
“I got to go the bathroom!” whined Darla.
Molly raked a hand through her hair. She felt a little like Pilgrim, in John Bunyan’s
Pilgrim’s Progress
, one of the only books her mother had brought down into the shelter. In that book, a guy named Pilgrim had made his way from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, undergoing terrible hardships and traps all along the way. In the end, he’d managed to get to his destination. She hoped she was as lucky.
Of course, Pilgrim didn’t have eight grumpy children in tow. And though it had been a hell of a journey, there were no zombies after his ass. The damn guy had had it easy when all was said and done.
Molly shook her head, remembering what Erin had always said back in the day. Negative people were doomed to fail. If she wanted to survive, she’d have to become Mary fucking Sunshine. Pollyanna incarnate. She’d have to shut down the side of her that was like her father and be more like Erin.
Poor Erin. Optimism hadn’t gotten her very far.
“This is stupid. I want to go home!” cried Red. Molly squeezed her reins in frustration. Rose-colored glasses were easier to talk about than find. She should have had her father build a setting into her implants.
“Okay, that’s it. Everyone dismount,” Chase commanded. She glanced at him, a little irritated. They’d already wasted too much time. She wanted to get some miles in today, feel like they’d made some progress.
The kids slid off their horses. Chase jumped off his own mount and reached into his bag. He pulled out a bunch of sunglasses and started passing them around. “Okay,” he said. “Make sure you all put these on.” One by one the kids slid the glasses over their eyes. Molly watched, curious.
“These are magical glasses,” Chase said. “Just like Molly’s there. And they’re going to help us see Disney World.”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Surely the children weren’t going to buy this.
“Do you see it?” he asked, when each had donned their glasses. He pointed down the highway. “The trail of pixie dust? Isn’t it beautiful?”
“I think I see it!” cried Sunshine. “I think I do!”
Sure enough, the rest of them chimed in. Molly couldn’t believe it.
“That’s the path we need to take to get to the Magic Kingdom,” Chase continued. “Some very smart magicians are building a new society there, and we’ll all get to be a part of it. Just like the princes and princesses in the storybooks.”
“I see it, too,” the teenager Starr said, obviously playing along. A big smile broke out across her freckled face. “Way out there.”
“Yes. It’s very far,” Chase agreed, serious. “But we can make it. Right, guys?”
“Yeah!” they chorused, completely under his spell. Molly shook her head. He was amazing. Absolutely amazing, the way he handled them. Hadn’t his brother been calling him a fuckup?
“Okay, guys, let’s do our tribe dance and then we’ll start our journey,” Chase commanded. “Remember the one Rocky taught us when he gave you your war paint?”
The children cheered, and Chase broke out into a wild dance, twirling in circles and kicking up his feet. He looked so damn ridiculous, Molly smiled. Soon the children joined in, giggling and cheering. They were a group of mad whirling dervishes on a lost highway.
She suddenly felt a tug on her leg and looked down. Darla was standing beside Molly’s horse, looking up at her with her big eyes. “Come on, Molly,” the little girl said. “You gotta do the tribe dance.”
It was a waste of time. It was stalling the journey. And everything inside of her said she should just say no, force them back on their horses and move things along. Instead, she found herself slipping off her horse and kicking up her heels. She grabbed Darla’s hands and twirled her around. The little girl squealed in delight.
“You’re one of us now!” Darla said, grinning from ear to ear. “You’re part of the tribe.”
Molly was secretly pleased at the idea. Maybe there was a chance she could fit in after all; she just needed to relax a bit and go with the flow. She needed to not expect everything to be timely and perfect, had to channel her mother rather than her dad.
A moment later, Chase was next to her. “D’you mind if I cut in?” he asked Darla. He took Molly’s hands and, pulling her close, began a waltz. She allowed him to lead, following his steps and wondering where he had learned. His hand was firmly planted against her back, the other grasping her hand. Forward, back. Side to side. She felt his hot breath on her
cheek. Breathed in his musky scent. Felt his thigh move accidentally up against hers. She sucked in a breath and—
—stepped right on his foot.
“Ow!” he cried, dropping his hands and hopping up and down. “Forget the razors. Your feet are deadly weapons.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She laughed, then caught herself. Put a hand over her mouth.
He grinned. “See?” he said. “I told you you’d laugh eventually. Life goes on.” He turned back to the children. “Okay, mount up, Mouseketeers,” he commanded. “It’s a small world after all!”