by Anna Abner
With all the traffic and debris it was slow going. I tried to stick to the medians, but even the emergency and access lanes were crowded.
Because people had panicked at the spread of the red virus and run for their lives.
The infection took three days to incubate while the only symptom was a high, unbreakable fever. Two days to get out of town or hole up in your house. And if a person weren’t infected, but feared contamination, they might go somewhere out of the city they considered safe. Like a secluded cabin. Or a quarantine hospital. Or a mountain compound.
Highways and most of the major roads were clogged with the abandoned vehicles of the people who’d fled the cities for the wide-open spaces of the country. I hoped most of them made it, but I knew by looking out the windows that not many had escaped the virus or the roaming Reds.
Only about four miles from the truck stop, when I’d finally found my driving groove, we hit our first roadblock. I swerved into the far right lane, tried to squeeze through two semi-trucks, but got wedged between them.
Pollard sat forward in the passenger’s seat. “I’ll see if I can get us clear.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said, peeking at Ben from the corner of my eye and finding him sitting against the mini fridge.
He didn’t react one way or the other, and I hurried after Pollard.
I’d already gotten used to the RV’s air conditioning, so when I stepped out of the vehicle into the humid air I broke into a sweat immediately, my clothes clinging to my skin. Wiping sticky hair from my brow, I squeezed around the vehicle’s front end.
“I wish the zombie apocalypse had happened in the fall,” Pollard teased. “Fighting off zombies in the sweltering heat is annoying.”
A surprised laugh bubbled up from my chest. “Yeah,” I said, amping up the sarcasm. “The Reds could be a little more considerate, don’t you think?”
Grinning at me, Pollard opened the driver’s side door of the first semi-truck and searched for a key. No luck.
“Maybe if we asked nicely they’d postpone the end of the world till October.”
He hoisted me into the second truck.
“I wish it worked that way,” I said, no longer kidding.
In the console next to an empty soda can I found a ring of keys. “We’re in luck.” At last.
Pollard climbed behind the wheel and accepted the keys. “I’ve never driven a semi,” he said, inspecting the different buttons, dials, and gauges.
Hardly any of it looked familiar to me. It wasn’t like my dad’s Honda at all. Or the RV.
“Let’s see how it works.” He stalled the engine twice, but finally got it into reverse and rolled it far enough that we could squeeze the RV around it.
“I always wanted to drive one of these bad boys.” Pollard got out and helped me down. “Maybe we should convert one into a wheeled apartment and get out of here. What do you think?”
“I like the RV better,” I said.
The moment I stepped into the vehicle I sensed Ben as if the air around him were charged. I chanced a look, but his head was bowed over his knees, and without the distraction of his wary gaze it was more obvious how much he still needed clean clothes, clean bandages, medicine, and water. Not that I could help him with any of those things. He wouldn’t let me within five feet of him, and Pollard refused to untie him.
I got behind the wheel and cruised along the edge of the highway. After chugging an energy drink, Pollard hovered beside me, hanging onto the back of my seat.
“Thirsty?” He offered me the half-full can.
“Actually,” I said, pulling the vehicle to the shoulder even though we were the only people out there and traffic rules didn’t mean much anymore. “Take over? I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
I approached Ben who crouched in the aisle between the restroom door and me. I prepared to pass him swiftly and get out of his way.
He caught sight of me and snapped his legs to his chest, giving me plenty of room to squeeze through.
“Stay away,” he growled.
I hesitated, one foot poised to step past him. He was even dirtier up close, and still dressed in his filthy work clothes. We had to find him something cleaner, something more comfortable.
Though his face was turned away, his red eyes tracked me as if he couldn’t help himself. Either that or he didn’t trust me to keep my distance.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
My heart fluttered in my chest. Hurting me was an option? I gulped down air and skipped past him, grabbing the bathroom handle like a life preserver.
I pulled on the door, but it didn’t budge. “Did you lock this?” I called to Pollard.
“I never used it.”
I jerked harder, jiggling and wiggling the handle. Without warning the lock clicked and the door popped open. I stared into the cubicle at Hunny Green’s very guilty face.
“Sorry,” she said.
At the sound of her little kid voice Ben turned to marble. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought he was spooked.
“What are you doing?” I asked Hunny, shielding her from Ben. “You’re not supposed to be here. Where is Simone?”
“I don’t like her,” she said, clutching her Saddle Club Molly doll to her chest as she skipped out of the bathroom and rushed to Pollard’s side. “I want to stay with you,” she told him. “You’ll take care of me, won’t you?”
“Crap.” Pollard slammed on the brakes. “We have to go back.”
“No!” Hunny threw her arms around him. “Don’t leave me there!”
“Fine,” he snapped, unhooking her from his throat. “But we can’t abandon Simone. It’s mean. The truth is, we may never make it back to the truck stop. She’ll be on her own for who knows how long. I can’t do that to her.” He maneuvered a slow three-point turn and re-traced our trail back toward Raleigh.
“That was sneaky,” I told Hunny. “You should have talked to me about your feelings, not lied to us and then tricked your way into our trip.”
“You shouldn’t have left me behind!” She sat and pouted.
“I thought it was the best way to protect you.” The truck stop was fortified. The RV wasn’t. But she was right. Skipping out on her had been a mistake. “I’m sorry I tried to leave you behind. From now on,” I swallowed thickly, “we stick together.”
She finger-spelled, “I m-i-s-s-e-d y-o-u.”
I yanked her onto my lap for a hug. “I missed you, too,” I whispered in her ear.
“I just hope Simone didn’t go searching for you,” Pollard said, gunning the engine and plowing through smaller cars. “It wasn’t cool to leave her.”
Unperturbed, Hunny shifted on my lap until we were face to face, and then untied my perfectly good braid to braid it again herself. “Your hair is pretty.”
Before the red plague, when I’d had electricity, my routine on days I didn’t have morning track practice was to wash my hair, blow it dry, and then flat iron it until it hung in glossy black sheets down my back. But post-212R it was too humid to leave it wild and free. I didn’t like the way the frizzy strands stuck to my cheeks and throat.
“Thanks,” I said, though I preferred her to leave it alone.
She finished one sloppy braid and started another. As she did, I caught her focusing on the rear of the vehicle.
“What is he doing?” I whispered very near her ear.
She took a quick peek over my shoulder. “Sitting.”
“He’s not doing anything strange?” Like drooling or muttering to himself or something.
Hunny shook her head, and then finger-spelled, “S-i-t-t-i-n-g.”
“Good.”
“I don’t like your zombie pet,” Hunny said, abandoning hair styling and propping both feet on the dash.
“He’s not a zombie, and he’s not my pet. Be respectful.” I untied her chaotic braid and fixed it into a clean, tight plait over my right shoulder.
“Pollard says he’s your zombie pet.”
>
I rolled my eyes. “Well, Pollard is wrong.”
“Wrong about what?” Pollard asked.
“Ben is not a pet,” I said sternly. “He never has been. He is a human being.”
Pollard sent me a wounded look. “I know that.”
Through the extra wide windshield, gas pumps came into view. Past those, abandoned semi-trucks loomed. And finally we pulled to a jerky halt in front of the truck stop entrance.
“I’ll watch Ben,” he said to me. “Will you get Simone? And pick up the last of the water, too?”
“Sure.”
Hunny stole my spot in the passenger’s seat, and I stepped out of the vehicle, testing my right knee. There was a twinge of pain with each step, but I could put weight on it. A couple more days and it would be good as new.
I knocked on the building’s duct tape-covered front door. “Simone?” There was no answer. I rapped the distinctive knock Pollard always used. “Simone? It’s Maya. Can you open the door?”
Just as I was about to give up, the lock scraped open.
“That was quick,” Simone complained, shielding her eyes from the sunlight. “I have some bad news. Your little sister ran away. I tried to find her.”
“She’s not my sister,” I said, “and she’s fine. She stowed away in the RV.”
“Oh. Good. So, why are you back already?”
“Pollard wants you to lock up and come with us.” I talked right over her stuttered argument. “You can stay here by yourself and drink up all the alcohol until a smarter-than-average zombie breaks down the door, or you can get in the RV and be around good people.”
Pollard rolled down the driver’s side window and shouted, “Get in here, Simone. I’m not leaving you alone.”
“I have to pack.” She started to cry. “Why do all these bad things happen to me?” She wandered into the main restaurant area and gathered random pieces of clothing.
“Only the important stuff,” Pollard shouted. “We’ll pick up what we need along the way.”
She stuffed the clothes into a bag. Then she weaved into the store area.
I took a last circuit of the truck stop, Pollard’s words about maybe never coming back ringing in my ears. What if leaving this place was a huge mistake? What if trying to get my dad’s antiserum to experts led to my death or the deaths of the people I was starting to care about?
No.
I had to try. Dad would want his sacrifice to mean something. His elixir had to be used, or else his abandoning me to create it was all for nothing.
While I gathered water bottles into plastic sacks, Simone bumbled through the dining room, crying noisily.
“Simone, are you okay?”
She laughed like a donkey. “Oh, sure, I’m fantastic, Maya. Thanks for asking.” She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Everyone I love is dead. Zombies are picking us off one by one. And I live in a stinky gas station just waiting for a giant wave of zombies to break in and kill me, too.” She snorted. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
With four bags in tow, two of which clinked suspiciously, Simone and I boarded the RV. She immediately slouched at the tiny table, pulled out her pitcher of iced tea, and poured herself a tall drink.
With a nod of approval, Pollard rolled onto the street as Hunny, his biggest fan, lounged beside him in the front passenger’s seat. I glanced from Simone nursing her spiked sweet tea to Ben curled beside the bathroom door and had a weird, almost out-of-body sensation.
Sitting in world history class a couple years ago learning about the fall of the Roman Empire, I never imagined how tenuous our situation really was. All it took was one fast-moving, communicable disease and everything changed.
I used to fear a bomb would bring about the end of the world, but it wasn’t a series of air strikes or even a nuclear war. A microscopic organism had stripped away our world. How could we fight what was already inside us?
I sat at the tiny table across from Simone, but turned and stared out the window above the sink. Mostly blue sky or the tops of trees swept by, but occasionally a delivery van broke the view.
“Turn on the stereo,” I said. “The George Jones CD from before.”
Hunny was quick. A few buttons clicked and a hollow, achy melody played from the speakers. I closed my eyes as if I could absorb the sound through my pores. I wished that were possible. On my invisible air guitar I fingered chords and strummed the shirt over my belly. Someday I’d have a real guitar again and I’d play that song.
Pollard swerved, and my elbow knocked against the window. I popped my eyes open as he evaded an overturned pickup truck and then slowed to a stop. There wasn’t anywhere else to go. The road was bottlenecked with other vehicles. On the right were thick trees. On the left, a concrete barrier.
“We’re stuck,” he announced.
“Of course we are,” Simone complained bitterly.
I craned my neck to see Ben in the very rear of the RV, kneeling in front of the folding bed. He had quietly scooted as far away from the rest of us as possible in the cramped living quarters. Only his eyes moved as they tracked Pollard, and then fell upon my face.
I don’t want to hurt you. Is that why he’d followed me from my Parrish Meadows suburb? Was Pollard right? Ben had been hunting me all along?
I stood up and went outside.
“They’re smashed in too tight,” Pollard decided, patting the roof of a compact import. “There’s no where to move them to.”
I sighed. “We’re walking for a while?”
“Might as well.” Pollard scanned up and down the highway. “The faster we get to Camp Carson the faster we get rid of the Red.”
“His name is Ben,” I reminded him. “And he’s not a Red anymore.”
He opened his mouth as if to argue the point, but he slid an arm around me instead. “We made good time today. Let’s check the map. I’ll bet we’re closer than you think.”
He was right. According to the map we were near the North Carolina-Virginia border. The RV had been a blessing.
Pollard poked his head into the vehicle and announced, “We’re on foot from here. Bring all your essential gear outside and we’ll divide it into packs.”
There was some grumbling from the girls. Ben emerged first, climbing down unassisted and walking about fifteen feet away from us to stand and brood.
“When you got Ben yesterday,” I asked Pollard, my eyes taking in the former Red’s haunted expression, “before we left, did you notice if he ate anything?”
“No.” Hunny tossed Pollard a bag which he caught one-handed. “He just drank the water.”
If he hadn’t eaten my breakfast options, maybe it was because he still craved blood and raw flesh. “He has to eat something.”
“As long as it’s dead when he does it,” Pollard said, his head and shoulders disappearing into the luggage bay. If he was joking, it wasn’t funny.
“He’ll get sick and die,” I reminded him. “The whole reason you talked me into going to Camp Carson was to take him there.”
He pulled his head out of the storage chamber to frown at me. “Sorry. You’re right.” Digging into the supplies, he passed me a gallon of water. “Maybe it’s a good time for lunch.”
I opened the next compartment and inventoried the food within. “Salsa con queso, popcorn, dried fruit, candy bars, bagels chips…” We’d nearly emptied the truck stop shelves, but I wasn’t sure it was enough to last five people for days.
“Grab some ready-to-eat stuff and pass it out.” Pollard divvied water into bottles and canteens.
I chose the dried fruit as well as a bag of corn nuts and approached Ben, not close enough for smelling, but close enough to talk. “You must be hungry,” I greeted. “I brought you a couple things.” I set them on the ground between us. He didn’t even glance at my gift. “If you tell me what you want to eat, maybe I could get it for you.” No response. “Do you want something…fresher?” Pollard caught wild animals in snares on a regular basis. “Or carbs, maybe?” We
had plenty of chips and crackers.
I suspected he was going to glare at me indefinitely, but he shifted feet, swallowed thickly, and said, “Just water.”
“Are you sure you’re not hungry?”
No answer.
I returned to the RV to get him a bottle, when I caught Simone running her hand up and down Pollard’s arm while they talked. An unconscious, friendly gesture. But then Simone met my eye and her smile told me her actions were more predatory than cordial. I decided to ask him later, in private, if he and Simone had a more-than-friends relationship.
I was in no position to judge other people’s choices, but I wanted to know. I wasn’t interested in getting involved in any of Simone’s drama.
By the time I found Ben a bottle of water, which he downed fast, Pollard had passed around the lunch snacks and sorted our gear, food, and first aid into four backpacks.
Strapping on a pack and slipping my short sword through my belt, I took a last look at our rolling stronghold. “I’m going to miss this old thing.” I patted the RV’s cold metallic siding. “It saved our lives at least twice.”
“If we’re really lucky,” Pollard said, still digging through the luggage, “we’ll find an even better model down the road.” He emerged with a coil of thin rope. “Here it is.”
“What’s the rope for?” I had a sick feeling I already knew.
Pollard sized up Ben. “We can’t give him the chance to hurt anyone.”
“What are you going to do?” I pressed. “He’s not infected. You don’t have to treat him like that.”
He spoke in a condescending tone as if I were being silly. “I’m restricting his movements.” He glanced at Ben. “You don’t care, do you?”
Ben’s expression remained inscrutable. “I promised.”
“See?” Pollard tied one end of the rope to Ben’s already bound hands and the other around his own wrist.
“You can’t walk him around on a leash!”
“Don’t fool yourself. He is still a carrier of the Red Plague. This antiserum may have altered the symptoms, but he’s still infected.”