How long would they have to sit there in the middle of the intersection, though? Were they just going to wait for Carol to die—or to
turn
?
No one seemed to have any idea how long they’d be there or what exactly they were supposed to be doing. Carol obviously wasn’t coming with them on the boat. And how were they supposed to get to a boat, anyway? They couldn’t drive to Olympia with the roads so packed with cars. Parker wasn’t even convinced that they should go to Olympia. Thousands of those things would be hunting in a city that size. There had to be a smaller marina on Puget Sound somewhere.
“Is there anything I can do?” Kyle said.
Parker should have been the one to say that. Annie would have been impressed.
“You can open that bottle of water,” Annie said.
Kyle twisted the cap off the bottle of water and handed it to her.
Carol moaned and reached toward her shoulder where she’d been bitten. Her shirt was soaked with blood, but the bleeding seemed to be slowing. It wasn’t pooling underneath her.
“Don’t touch it,” Annie said. “You’ll just make it worse.”
She’d also risk spreading the infection to everyone else if she got blood all over her hands, but Parker didn’t say anything. They were all covered in blood splatters anyway.
“Don’t wait for me,” Carol said. “Just set me down on the sidewalk.”
“The hell we will,” Hughes said.
“Shh,” Annie said. “We aren’t going to do that to you.”
“You need to get to that island,” Carol said and tried to sit up. “It will be dark soon and you should get going. It isn’t safe here.”
“We’re going to wait,” Kyle said.
It took everything Parker had to keep quiet. Carol was right. It would be dark in a couple of hours. Then what? Were they supposed to sit out there exposed as the sun went down while she lay there in pain? Someone should put the poor woman out of her misery.
He supposed the humane thing would be to wait for her to pass out. Everyone passes out for an hour or so before turning. She wouldn’t feel a thing when they put her down.
Or
was
that the humane thing to do? They were all risking their lives just sitting there in the intersection. And for what? So Carol wouldn’t be awake when somebody put a round through her head? She’d die instantly. She wouldn’t feel anything. Instead she had to lie there in agony while knowing she was about to turn into one of those things. Who wanted to spend their last hours that way?
Parker sure as hell didn’t. Once this was all over, he’d make damn sure to tell everyone to shoot him dead on the spot if one of those things ever bites him. Kyle, at least, would gleefully take him up on that offer.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Carol said woozily. She was fading. Good. Maybe they could get out of there.
Nobody said anything. The silence of the world was overwhelming. Parker thought he might hear a pinecone falling as far away as Idaho if somebody didn’t say anything soon. He scratched his face. Kyle looked at him sideways as if he’d just belched in church. What was he supposed to do? His beard itched.
Annie kept stroking Carol’s forehead. No one else moved or said anything. Frank looked as uncomfortable as Parker felt.
“I didn’t want to live in this world anyway,” Carol said. “I was just so afraid.”
“You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” Annie said.
“I was silly for being so scared,” Carol said. “It hurt for a couple of minutes, but now I’m okay.”
No, she wasn’t okay. She wasn’t even remotely okay.
“You won’t let me turn, will you?” she said. “I want to just go to sleep.”
“We won’t let you turn,” Kyle said.
Parker wondered, Who was this
we
Kyle referred to? Somebody had to do the deed, and Parker couldn’t see Kyle stepping up for the job.
“Can you not do it now, though?” Carol said. “Can you wait until my little coma?”
“We’ll wait, honey,” Annie said. “We’ll wait.”
“I’m sorry to ask you this, Carol,” Hughes said. “But … how do you want us to do it?”
“What difference does it make?” Parker said. “She won’t feel anything.” God, did he actually say that?
“You,” Kyle said, “are seriously an asshole.”
* * *
Kyle could not believe Parker. Just couldn’t believe him. The man was shaping up to be a serious problem. Hitting him in the mouth like that? What next? Would he punch Annie? Or Carol?
Maybe Parker would try punching Hughes. Kyle would love to see that.
In the meantime, they had to figure out how get to Olympia, or at least to a marina near the city where they could pick up a boat. Kyle still liked bicycles for the job. They could ride up there in one day, or even in one night if they used the night vision.
Parker was disgusting, but Annie was impressive. She had a wonderful bedside manner with Carol. Kyle thought she should have been in nursing school or even med school, but then he realized he didn’t know that she wasn’t. He had no idea what she was doing before.
Carol would probably be better off dead if it weren’t for Annie, but the way Annie comforted her seemed to make everything okay. Kyle wouldn’t mind dying like that, even if—especially if—he’d been bitten by one of those things.
“Thank you,” Annie said to Carol.
“For what?” Carol said.
“For giving me comfort when I woke from those horrible nightmares. I’m glad I got to know you, Carol.”
“Me, too, honey,” Carol said and squeezed Annie’s hand. Then she looked straight at Kyle. “Take care of her, Kyle.”
Kyle swallowed hard. Carol singled him out to take care of Annie? A warm feeling bloomed in his chest.
But then Parker snorted.
* * *
Annie knew something was wrong with her. She was still Annie Starling, but she was no longer the same Annie Starling.
She still suffered some of the effects of the virus. Mother of God, she actually tried to bite one of the infected when it pinned her to the ground. Hughes saw it.
Kyle
saw it. They must have thought she was mad. And she supposed they were right.
The virus was out of her system. Her antibodies beat it back, but she seemed to have new neural pathways in her brain. It happens sometimes. Isn’t that what post-traumatic stress disorder is? When something terrible happens to a person, it blazes new neural pathways. Thoughts and feelings experienced during traumatic events come rushing back when triggered by something associated with the event—a car backfiring can trigger it for someone who was shot. Slipping into a bath can trigger it for someone who nearly drowned.
Neurons that fire together, wire together.
She’d snapped into a state of pure violence when she stabbed Lane in the throat and went after Roland.
It happened again when she beat a bunch of infected to death with her crowbar.
What if she actually did bite the one who had pinned her? Her companions would think she was out of her goddamn mind. They’d start counting down the hours until she went into a coma and had to be shot to death before a monster version of Annie Starling rose and tore them to bits.
Fighting seemed to be her trigger. She might spend the rest of her life having flashbacks and behaving … differently under stress.
She could never tell her companions. Never. They’d shun her.
Or worse.
But she did have an advantage, a secret and enormous advantage.
Unlike the others, she’d be okay if she got bitten again.
* * *
Hughes knew everyone expected him to do it. He didn’t want to. Hell, nobody wanted to. Surely not even Parker. Parker wasn’t a killer. He was just your garden-variety asshole.
Hughes wasn’t a killer either, but they’d all look to him to take care of Carol once she slipped into her coma. It’s not that he was their leader. The group had no leader. Nobody seemed to be up for it. But Hughes knew his way around guns as well or better than anyone else. He didn’t panic. He could think straight in a crisis. The others listened when he barked orders.
No one would listen to Parker if he barked orders. Kyle thought he knew what was best, but he was too immature and naive. Too docile. Frank was a natural follower. He’d shoot Carol if Hughes told him to, but Hughes wouldn’t do that. Frank would be screwed up for life, and Frank was his friend, and Hughes couldn’t do that to him.
Annie was far too sweet and kind-hearted.
That left Hughes by default. Doing the deed wouldn’t mess him up for life. He was already as messed up as he could be, but he was messed up in just the right way. He couldn’t feel anything anymore. He was always a little cold and could become a real hard-ass when necessary, but now he was practically heartless. It was the only way he could keep going.
So when Carol slipped out of consciousness, he drove the truck just past the outskirts of town and asked Frank to help him carry her to the tree line.
Hughes wasn’t going to shoot her. They had to conserve ammunition, and they’d already brought enough attention to themselves and given away their location with the noise from the truck. But the biggest reason he didn’t shoot her was because enough violence had been done to her body already. He sure as hell wasn’t going to bash in her head. He may have become cold and heartless, but he was not a barbarian.
So he gently plugged her nose and covered her mouth. She didn’t struggle. He released her a few minutes later and made sure she’d stopped breathing.
Everybody just stood there in silence and shock.
They didn’t have a shovel to bury her with, so they pushed dirt and rocks and leaves and sticks onto her.
Everyone helped, even Parker.
Annie sobbed.
They stood around her in a circle when they were finished. Nobody said anything for a long time.
Finally, Annie spoke up. “She was the last innocent person.”
Kyle swallowed hard. Frank looked disturbed. Parker didn’t seem to know what to do with himself.
Hughes didn’t feel anything. Come on, he thought.
Cry
. You saved this woman’s life once and now you’ve just killed her. For fuck’s sake, cry like a man.
* * *
Annie later had a terrible thought. It all but seized her with panic.What if Carol had been immune too?
PART TWO - THE ISLAND
CHAPTER TWELVE
They parked the Chevy a half-mile from the bicycle shop and walked the rest of the way, bringing as many supplies as they could carry in their packs. Nothing and no one followed.
The shop’s windows had been smashed in and the door left ajar. Somebody had taken some bikes, but dozens remained and they only needed five.
The air inside smelled okay. A little musty, but nothing had died in there recently.
Nobody carried a watch anymore, since day and night were the only times that mattered, but the sun was low in the sky so they knew they wouldn’t be traveling. Not at that hour.
The bicycle shop seemed as good a place as any to hunker down and sleep. It wasn’t more secure than anywhere else, but it had exits in the front and the back. They might be okay for one night as long as they didn’t make noise.
They set five bicycles out front and five out back. If anyone heard anything coming, they could leave in either direction and ride away fast and hard back to the truck a half-mile away.
They slept in shifts and everybody slept dreamlessly. Everybody but Annie.
* * *
She found herself in her apartment that wasn’t really her apartment sitting on a couch that wasn’t really her couch. They were her dream apartment and dream couch. Her sister Jenny sat next to her.
She was infected.
Part of her cheek had been torn off to her jawline. It looked like she’d been bitten on the face. She had blood in her mouth and all over her arms. She even had blood in her hair.
Jenny spoke. Her voice did not match her appearance. She spoke casually as if she were chatting with Annie over breakfast and coffee.
“We’re special, you know,” Jenny said. “Both of us. Think about it. You know the reason.”
Annie woke gasping on the floor and knew at once that she had to get to South Carolina immediately.
* * *
“We need to get to a marina immediately.” Kyle’s voice. The first thing she heard when she woke up in the morning. She hadn’t even opened her eyes yet.
Her back hurt. For a moment she thought she was still at the grocery store, but she opened her eyes and saw bicycle wheels hanging from the ceiling above her. She was in the bike shop now, free of Lane and his henchmen.
Carol was dead.
They were going to ride to Olympia, snag a boat, and sail north to an island, to safety.
But Annie had to get home.
“Before we head up there,” Hughes said, “we need to get some more gear.”
I need to get to South Carolina, Annie thought. But she didn’t say it out loud. She could not tell the others.
They rode their bicycles back to the Chevy they’d parked a half-mile away, loaded them into the back, then drove to the outdoor store in the next town and loaded up three more backpacks with extra supplies. They grabbed fresh clothes, fresh socks, soap, water filters, flint fire starters, hunting knives, hatchets, rope, fishing tackle and poles, sleeping bags, maps and compasses, flashlights, batteries, four more first-aid kits, a couple more solar chargers, and the last two night-vision monocles.
They strapped the packs to their backs, ditched the Chevy, and rode hard toward Olympia.
Nothing and no one saw them, not even when they had to slow down and weave around cars. Annie didn’t understand how that was possible. Where were all the infected? Were they off in the woods? Were they dead? Dying? No, that couldn’t be. They’d been attacked the day before by more than she’d ever seen at one time.
Maybe they were coalescing into bigger and bigger hordes.
That would be good and bad. The infected wouldn’t be as widely dispersed, which meant she’d run into them less often, but if they were organizing themselves into larger and larger swarms, they’d eventually turn into armies. Pistols, crowbars, and shotguns would be useless. They’d have to be mowed down with machine guns. Or air strikes.