Chapter Thirteen
~Now~
The blood and goo on the windshield is thick and whatever wipers this beast had stopped working ages ago. I flinch with every hit—the Eater’s knocking heavy and hard out of the way.
“Jesus,” the guy next to me says while looking out the back window. “I think we’re clear.”
The lights shine on a dirt driveway and the tires kick up rocks until I make it to the paved road. I pause.
“What?” he asks, again peering into the darkness behind us.
“Nothing.” With squealing tires I gun the gas, steering the truck to the road, leaving the farm and my mother behind me. I don’t even have time to look at the mailbox address. She’s gone. I know this. She’s not the first person I’ve had to leave behind.
A half a mile away I pull over on a dirt road and reach for my gun again. Good thing because the guy next to me has already leveled his at my head.
Seems like we’ve moved to the distrust phase of the apocalypse.
“Where the hell did you come from?” the shadow says. His voice is firm. Controlled, with a slight southern accent.
I keep my hand low, touching the cool metal of my gun. “The barn. Are you going to kill me?”
“Not unless I have to,” he replies.
I shook my head. “Are you going to rape me or torture me or anything? If that’s your plan just tell me now so we can get it over with.” And by get it over with, I mean blow his freaking head off before he can make a move.
He lowers his gun and runs a hand over his sweaty forehead. “Sweetheart, sex is the last thing on my mind right now. You can put that thing away,” he says gesturing to the weapon in my hand. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I let go but keep the weapon on the worn leather seat. To use on him or an Eater. I’m not sure. Slumping against the headrest, I take a deep, shuddering breath and close my eyes.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“What? No.” I wipe my eyes. “I’m just losing it.”
He reaches for my face, and I flinch. “Hold on a second. I think you’re hurt. There’s blood on your cheek.”
I push his hand away and swallow down the nausea. “It’s not mine.”
“From one of them?” He raises an eyebrow skeptically. Contamination is still a little confusing. The infection has mutated more than once.
“I just killed two of them. Back there.” I jerk my thumb in the direction we came from. He fumbles under the seat. I hear a zipper and he comes back with a handkerchief.
“You sure they didn’t get you?” he has to ask. “Here,” he says but he doesn’t hand it over. He wipes the spot from my cheek.
“No, they didn’t.” I feel the warm tears on my cheeks. It makes the blood gooey and easier to wipe off. “The blood is my mother’s. They got her, not me.”
“Just now? I heard the gunshot.”
“Yeah.”
He grimaces and looks out the back window. Even in the darkened truck cab his good looks are obvious. His profile is strong and angular. Full lips but with his longer hair pulled back in a tight knot at the back of his head, he looks masculine. God he has a man-bun, Liza loved guys with man-buns. I choke back a sob. They’re all dead. My mom. Liza and probably freaking Harry Styles too.
“Do you want me to go back? Do I need to…”
“No.” I shake my head and wipe my nose on the back of my hand. “It’s done.”
His eyes flick to my gun and then to my face and he pretends not to notice me brushing tears from my cheeks.
“I’m Wyatt,” he says offering his hand. I take it and feel his warm, calloused skin.
“Alexandra. People call me Alex, or at least they used to.”
“Well, Alex,” he says looking out the dark window. “Looks like we’re stuck here until morning. You okay sharing space?”
“Yeah, I’m okay with that,” I say feeling relief at the idea of company. It will be a long night—the echo of the gun and look on my mother’s face still flashing in my head.
“I’ll take first watch,” he says.
“I’m not tired.”
His eyes connect to mine. “I’m sure you’re not but rest anyway. I’ve got this, okay?”
“Sure,” I say, allowing the distrust and sarcasm to seep through my tone. Like I’m trusting some guy with a man-bun that I just met with my life. I slump back against the seat and stare at the ceiling, resolving myself not to cry. From here on it’s just me and my promise. There’s no one left to hold me back.
Chapter Fourteen
~Before~
8 Weeks Ago
School is cancelled.
Graduation is on hold—possibly indefinitely. Maybe the feds will change their mind, that’s what everyone says once the announcement is made. There’s a week left. Anything can happen.
That’s what I’m afraid of.
Curfew is in effect for everyone in the south. From Kentucky over to Virginia. Texas refuses. Of course they do. I wonder if parasites know not to mess with Texas. I doubt it.
People are required to be at home by eight p.m. Work from home if you can. Vacations are heavily suggested. Stay-cations. Literally.
The result is that people are pissed and don’t like the government telling them what to do. Police and the CDC quarantine homes. Don’t go to the hospital they say. If you come into contact with an infected person, isolate yourself. Call 911.
Of course, people,
being people
, can never just follow directions. That is one thing the news loves to focus on. Instead of staying home people come out to protest. Or rally for the dead. They swarm churches and bombard grocery stores.
All anyone is supposed to do is stay home.
Jane is stuck in Georgia and my mother is about to lose her mind over it. The result is that my mother calls her five times a day. “Are you okay? Is anyone sick? Are you staying home? Make sure you keep a safe distance…”
She talks to her while baking. Yes, the way my mother handles an epidemic is to bake. Cakes, cookies, pies, fancy cheese puffs…anything she can manage. She listens to my sister talk about her day while she uses the metal cookie cutters my grandmother left her.
I don’t tell her that the news is predicting a shortage on basics due to the quarantine, so this phase will have to end soon.
My father is one of the few required to work, since he’s officially (yes, he finally admitted it) on the E-TR eradication task force. He’s asked me not to come in for the experiment anymore, but even then I’m not off the hook. He does it at home instead. Taking the blood and giving me the shot. I ask him what it’s for but he does that thing where he answers but doesn’t answer. Long answer short: None of your business.
For those of us following the lockdown there’s nothing to do but watch TV and obsess over the virus. The tabloids were the first to nickname it E-TR, spoofing on the cannibalization side effects. Haha right? Eating people is hilarious. No wonder the world is coming to an end. People suck.
Chapter Fifteen
~Now~
Frackity-frack! I fell asleep. I wake at dawn, the sun rising like a fireball over the tobacco fields. My first reaction is to reach for my gun and relief washes over me when I make contact. I’m an idiot.
Turning my head, I see Wyatt, the man from the night before, going through his pack quietly. The bag is covered in patches: an American flag, Captain America’s shield, logos from National Parks.
“Hey,” I say feeling hungover, but not in the good, just-had-an-awesome-night-out-with-friends-kind of way. It’s a unique feeling that I assume comes from shooting your mother and watching her die.
Jesus.
“Hi,” he replies barely glancing up.
In the morning light I get a better look at my companion. Older than eighteen, but not too old, maybe in his twenties. Dark hair, with hazel eyes, and a crooked nose that looks like it’s taken a punch or two. His jaw is sharp and from the side he’s just a standard man-boy, but when he turns and sets his eyes on me I can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable. He’s good looking but intense.
“You should have woken me,” I say realizing we never switched shifts.
He shrugs. “I’m okay. Day before yesterday I holed up in an abandoned house for twenty-four hours. I slept for about sixteen of those. I figured you could use some rest.”
He finished repacking his bag and I caught sight of myself in the rearview mirror. Oh crap. It’s not that I looked bad. No, I looked infinitely worse than bad. I had a “straight from a horror film” vibe going on. Dirt and grime all over my face. Matted hair sticking up in a thousand directions. Oh, and don’t forget the puffy bags under my eyes. No wonder he thought I needed some sleep.
“I guess we need to decide what to do from here,” he said zipping the bag. He held a map in his hand.
“We?”
His eyebrows knitted in the middle. “Yeah, we both sort of found this truck at the same time. Doesn’t have a lot of gas but it makes sense to drive it as long as we can.”
“Okay,” I reply uneasily. I have no plans on hooking up with anyone else right now. “Where are you headed?”
“South.”
“Right to the heart of the infected area?”
“Yeah, I have business there,” he says.
I do too but keep that to myself. He’s right though. No need to separate until the truck runs out of gas. My feet could use a break. “I’m game to take the truck as far as it will go.”
“So you’re okay going south?”
“For a while.”
We take a moment to stretch outside the truck. The area is clear of Eaters. The morning’s quiet other than the sound of the occasional bird or buzzing insect. I take in Wyatt’s boots and broad shoulders and crazy man-bun. He looks like a hippie but at the same time there’s an intensity that is usually reserved for more serious types. Honestly he reminds me of my cousin Brent, who is (was?) a sergeant in the Army. Maybe it’s the camouflage pants, or the way his back is always ram-rod straight. I don’t know.
“Mind if I drive?” he asks flashing me a small grin.
“If you want—I mean, I’m the one with the most sleep.”
“I’m good. It’s been a while since I’ve been behind the wheel.”
See? Reckless—but controlling. I can’t figure out what this guy is all about.
We hop in the truck and as it quickly revs to life, I consider how this must be how it will be from now on. Losing people one day and moving on the next. Meeting new people and hoping they’re allies. I take a quick glance at Wyatt and hope I haven’t made a mistake.
Chapter Sixteen
~Before~
8 Weeks Earlier
After hours of waiting, I finally hear Liza’s pebbles tap against my bedroom window. Double checking that my door is locked I open the sash. Liza and Matt and Olivia, two other kids from school, are waiting two floors down in my backyard.
Liza looks both ways and waves me down. It takes a bit of acrobatics—jumping from the gable to the porch roof and down a drain pipe, but I make it to the yard in one piece.
None of us speak until we’re on the path behind the school. “Did you have any problem getting out?” I ask the others. We each hold a flashlight to cut away at the dark.
“My dad was passed out,” Olivia says with a shrug. “It’s like he thinks all the beer will be gone when the Eaters take over so he has to drink it all now.”
“Ouch,” Matt says. “My mom is just glued to the TV. A bomb could go off and she’d never know. Unless, obviously, the TV told her it was coming first.”
“Mine is making pudding from scratch,” I add. They give me a curious look and I shrug. “She’s freaking out about my dad being gone all the time and totally stressed about my sister down in Atlanta, so baking is the perfect way for her to live in blissful denial.”
“Oh shit, Atlanta?” Matt asks.
I nod, jumping over a fallen branch. “Yeah, she’s in school down there. We haven’t heard from her in a couple of days. My mom is panicking.”
Atlanta has been placed under mandatory quarantine. No one is allowed to leave their homes and the National Guard has been set up there for days. Things seem under control but the E-TR virus spread fast once it made it from Florida to Georgia. Apparently the Atlanta airport is one of the largest in the world. Once it passed through those gates there was no stopping it.
“I saw they’ve been making, like, safe zones,” Liza adds. “Do you think she’s at one of those?”
“I have no idea. I mean, in the movies those are always the first to go down. Like Hurricane Katrina? The people in the evacuation centers were in horrible shape.”
Matt nods. “True. The government sucks.”
We cut through a small trail in the woods that Olivia says leads to the house of a friend. They own acres of property and sure enough, five minutes later I spot the lights and hear voices in one of the backyards.
“You think that’s it?” Liza asks.
“Yes,” Olivia says. “I’ve been to Amber’s house a couple of times.”
I grab Liza’s hand and stop the others. Nerves flare in my belly and suddenly I’d rather be anywhere else. “Are you sure this is okay? We’re not really friends with these people.”
Matt shook his head. “I don’t think clique lines matter much anymore, Alex.”
We step through the woods and snap off the flashlights. Dozens of kids mill around the yard—each of us in violation of curfew. All breaking the law.
A handmade banner made out of a white sheet hangs over the backside of the house. It’s huge with drippy spray paint letters. Ironically, the splatter makes it looks like blood.
“Congratulations Class of 2015!”
I smile nervously at my friends and Liza gives me a tight hug.
Apocalypse or not, we’re still having our graduation party.
Robert, a guy I’d known since elementary school spots us coming from the woods. His eyes widen and he shouts, “Hey look!”
The whole group turns and I see the wary faces of my classmates. They blink, staring at the four of us and I’ve got one foot back in the woods when Robert says, “It’s the valedictorian!”
A loud whoop from the crowd fills the air and Liza squeezes my hand. “Told you it would be okay.”
Cups are shoved into our hands, filled with some sort of sugary drink that smells faintly of rubbing alcohol. I have no idea what is normally discussed at a party like this but tonight it’s about the E-TR virus and everything going on. Worry lines mar the faces of my classmates. They should be thinking about summer and then college in the fall, but we’ve all turned that off a little bit. Everything is unclear. But one thing is obvious, despite the years of high school and drama and cliques, we’re definitely in the same boat now. Nothing like a possible world-ending outbreak to bring everyone together.
“Alex,” a girl named Erica says as she walks up to me. She’s sat next to me in homeroom for four years. This is the first time she’s ever spoken directly to me. “Did you bring your speech?”
I swallow a gulp of the syrupy liquid. “My speech?”
“Your valedictorian speech. This may be your only chance to give it!”
I think for a moment she may be kidding but there’s a seriousness, a desperation, in her eyes and I say, “I didn’t think to bring it with me.”
“Oh, that sucks,” she says and a couple of other classmates nearby shake their heads in disappointment.
Floored by their reaction I take a deep breath and say, “I, uh, well, I do have a speech of sorts I can pull up on my phone. It’s not exactly the one I was going to say at graduation but…” I shrug. “It may be a little more fitting.”
“Yes!” Erica shouts. “Please. Anything. I just want to salvage something from this whole disaster, you know?”
I nod in sympathy. “Yeah, I know.”
The back patio is quickly cleared and I’m standing in front of fifty of my classmates. The group sits on the grass, holding plastic red party cups. Once the group quiets I take a deep breath and begin.
“This isn’t my valedictorian speech. This is more like a manifesto I wrote last week while watching the idiots on cable news discuss the future of society and the crumbling of our systems the minute the E-TR virus reared its ugly, cannibalizing head. They sit behind these desks, analyzing the fractures in our medical, emergency, and governmental systems yet do absolutely nothing about it. I just sort of snapped.
“So right,” I say pulling up the document on my phone. “This is just something I wrote. Hope you like it.”
“I’m sitting on my couch, the one I spilled juice on when I was four. The one that I take naps on when I’m sick. The couch my mother tries to replace every year and my father refuses because it’s so comfortable, soft…so ours. It’s the one I sit on now, perched on the edge of the cushion watching the news. The never ending updates that never update anything at all. Watching the never ending panel of politicians, doctors, experts, journalists discuss our fate. I listen to the fighter jets fly overhead. I read the scrolling information at the bottom of the screen. I do all this with my paper and pen in my lap writing this speech. The one for the students. My students—classmates. Friends. The one to inspire us to the next stage of life.
As valedictorian my job is to propel us forward. Convince you all that I, at eighteen, know what is best for us, help you all rally around the idea that we will be the ones to change the world. We will end poverty. Stop racism. We will be the generation, the class that grabs the world by the balls and squeezes so tight that all the assholes will stop being assholes in the name of religion, self-righteousness, and greed.
Yet the man on the television is telling me something different. Or at least the way the shadows under his eyes imply he isn’t sleeping. The tremor in his voice betrays his nerves. For a brief moment his voice is overpowered by the announcement that we must stay inside. Take shelter. Stay calm.
If your neighbor tries to murder you, well, just make sure he doesn’t make a flesh wound, alright?
We are so very, very screwed.