by Max Lockwood
When he returned, he looked more tired than usual. Dark circles lined his eyes, making him look much older than his age. He was surprisingly quiet for someone who hadn’t had the opportunity to speak for a couple of hours. As someone who could be described as obnoxious in terms of his speaking habits, he had said few words since they stopped.
“Are you feeling okay?” Bethany asked. “You’re awfully quiet. I haven’t heard you make a sarcastic joke for hours.”
He forced a small smile. “Just tired, I guess. I’ve been thinking a lot about getting out of this place. Where exactly are we going and how long will it take to get there?”
She shrugged. “I can’t say I’m familiar with this part of the country. I was just planning on driving until we had to stop to rest. Even then, my goal was to travel east until we found a good stopping place. It could be weeks until we find a safe place to stay. But if you’ve got a better idea, I’m open to hearing it.”
He shook his head quickly. “No, I don’t really know where to go, either.”
“We can try to get inside that store and look for a map of the area if you want,” Bethany suggested. “That might help us plan our route.”
“No,” he said briskly. “Let’s just go.”
“Okay,” she responded, getting back on the bike.
Bethany thought that Will was acting a little strangely, but she reasoned that he was in one of his moods. She had seen him go from upbeat, albeit sassy, to quiet and morose several times since she’d met him. It made her feel bad for him, no matter how his mood was affecting her travel. She had a hard time kicking him to the curb when he was feeling miserable.
That was something Bethany was capable of understanding. Sure, her actions portrayed a woman who didn’t care about other people’s feelings, though this wasn’t an accurate assessment of her true outlook. While she frequently screwed other people over for personal gain, she never felt good about it. Feelings of remorse meant nothing, though, if she couldn’t make amends. So she carried around a great deal of guilt that she constantly worked to suppress so she could move on with her life. But like anyone who has carried a great deal of emotional baggage, Bethany was mentally and emotionally exhausted. She understood how Will must have felt, on some level, and decided to leave him to his thoughts.
Bethany’s mind returned to other more pressing matters, like where they were going to rest for the night. Stopping to sleep was perhaps the most dangerous thing one could do in this time, but not listening to one’s physical needs could also prove fatal. As much as she wanted to drive through the night, falling asleep behind the handlebars could be as deadly as being ravaged by an infected person. She weighed the pros and cons of stopping to rest as she sped down the empty stretch of highway, Will holding onto her waist. She was in the middle of a crazy idea, involving tethering Will’s body to hers so he could sleep as she drove without falling off, when he gripped her waist a little tighter.
She brushed it off at first, assuming that he was readjusting his grip or being a little too handsy with her. But when he squeezed her flesh with increasing strength, she couldn’t ignore his strange behavior anymore.
“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to look at him in the mirrors.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he dug his arms around her torso with so much force that she felt her organs being compressed inside her body cavity.
“Cut that out!” she yelled. “You’re hurting me.”
He didn’t stop. Will was very clearly intending to hurt Bethany. She didn’t know what she did to deserve it, but she was frightened.
With one hand, she tried to pull his hands away, but he was too strong. She slowed the motorcycle, attempting to carefully stop the bike so she could get away from Will. She feared that he was having a reaction to traumatic stress and had hallucinated.
“It’s Bethany,” she screamed into the wind before he loosened his grip. She took a deep sigh of relief, having broken whatever trance that had caused him to grab her like that.
She sped back up, assuming their troubles were behind them, when he suddenly let go of her waist and gripped her neck with the same crushing force he had applied to her waist. Her head felt like it was underwater and it was impossible to breathe. She jerked the handlebars as she tried to stop, but she was having a hard time understanding how the brakes worked. Time was running out. Bethany had to figure out how to slow down before she lost consciousness.
Then, she felt a sharp pain on her neck. She reached back with one hand to feel Will’s face. His teeth were digging into her neck, breaking through the skin. She fought back with both hands, causing her to lose control of the vehicle. The pair flew through the air, crashing down on the asphalt at forty miles per hour.
Then, everything went dark. Bethany lay on the road with closed eyes, coming back to consciousness. Everything hurt, and she was scared to look at the extent of her injuries. She didn’t want to see what he had done to her.
After conjuring up a little bravery, she opened her eyes halfway to assess the situation.
Road rash covered half of Bethany’s body. Raw skin was peppered with flecks of debris, irritating her burning flesh. She blew cool air onto her hand, relieving the stinging to some degree. Her clothes were tattered beyond recognition, making them useless as protection from the elements.
A mind-numbing pain radiated from her left ankle. She untied her boot and stretched it as far as it would open, but even then, her foot would not yield from the shoe. Her ankle had blown up like a balloon in seconds. Gingerly poking around the area, she felt something hard that seemed out of place. She whimpered. Her leg was definitely broken.
The motorcycle was somehow a few hundred feet behind her. She cringed at the thought of how far her body flew before hitting the ground and was shocked that she’d survived. However, as much pain as she was in, she almost wished she hadn’t.
The only consolation was that Will was gone. She touched the spot on her bruised neck where his mouth made contact with her skin. It was swollen and tender, and when Bethany looked at her hand, it was covered in blood. She pressed a ripped sleeve to the wound, soaking up the rest of the blood. As far as wounds went, this one was fairly superficial. While it was painful and bleeding a minimal amount, at least there was no damage to any major blood vessels.
An overwhelming sense of dread filled Bethany’s gut. She had long questioned the status of her genetics, hoping to never find out whether she was truly immune. Now, there was no more time to ignore the possibility that she could be a false positive. She could do nothing but wait and see.
She spotted the shotgun further up the road from the bike and thought about what it would be like to end her own life. The idea of dying scared the hell out of her. She didn’t think she would ever be able to pull the trigger if the time came. It was horribly selfish, but she would rather let the infection ravage her brain until she had no clue who she was or what she was doing. She would probably come to hurt someone, but eventually, she would die, blissfully oblivious.
She cried out in frustration. She had been so stupid to overlook Will’s infection status. Somehow, he had tricked her into thinking that he wasn’t dangerous. After he killed Bretton, he’d seemed so normal, so human again. He was moody and disobedient, just like Bethany. She had seen so much of herself in Will that she’d overlooked the fact that he had been tainted with a deadly virus. Of course he was going to succumb to the virus one day—everyone else did!
All along, she had screwed people over to do whatever she thought would help her get ahead. She had done some terrible things to both good and bad people. She feared this injury was the universe’s way of showing her that it was, in fact, keeping score. If karmic forces existed, they were definitely catching up to her.
There was nothing for her to do but get back on the metaphorical horse. She tried to stand up, but her twisted ankle could not bear any weight. She laced her boot back up in an attempt to compress the injury and hopped on one foot while balanc
ing her body on her hands. She walked like a three-legged dog from her point of impact all the way to the bike. She didn’t know if it was still working, but she was going to try like hell to get it to start. She couldn’t carry on in the state she was in, especially not on foot.
She saw a figure streak across the road and her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t get a good look at what it was, but she feared that Will had returned for her. She pressed her body into the ground, playing dead.
Something rustled in the bushes. She cracked one eye open to see Will staring back at her. She didn’t blink or breathe but tried to play the role of a convincing dead person. She wasn’t far from death, as it were.
His appearance had changed so suddenly. His skin was so pale that blue veins glowed through his flesh. His eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were dilated, far larger than could ever be natural. Blood lined his mouth, reminding Bethany what he was capable of.
The stolen rifle lay just feet away. Bethany figured that if she could make an extraordinary attempt to grab it, then she could put a couple of bullets in his brain. But she would have to hop on one foot and spring herself toward the weapon. As impaired as she was, it seemed nearly impossible. But it was either that or play dead and hope he didn’t realize what she was up to.
He took a step toward her and she involuntarily flinched, giving herself away. Will snarled at her, sounding more like a wild animal than any noise a human could produce. He stomped over toward her. It was now or never.
She pressed her good foot into the ground, bracing herself on her hands so she could hop along the road. Taking a flying leap, she locked her eyes on the gun, stretching out her arms to grasp it.
She fell short, just inches from the barrel of the rifle. She dragged her road-worn body closer, but Will was closing in on her. Giving one last reach, she managed to touch the gun, but not before Will got to her. He dragged her away from the gun by her broken ankle as she screamed in pain. Then, he descended upon her, finishing the job he’d started before the crash. He pinned her to the ground and sank his teeth in the front of her throat. He crushed her windpipe as she gasped for help.
No one was there to save her. With one last bite, he ripped her throat apart and left her for dead. Bethany clutched at the gaping hole in her neck as Will fled the scene. She was alone, and she was dying. Luckily, her organs shut down so quickly from the trauma, so she didn’t even have time to fully comprehend what was going on. After a few seconds of convulsions, Bethany drifted off to sleep, surrounded by a pool of her own blood.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
For what seemed like the hundredth time, Elaina found herself quietly pulling on car handles, looking for one that opened with ease. Alec offered to break a window, if necessary, but Elaina didn’t want it to come to that. The less noise they made, the better.
In the business district of the village, Elaina and Melissa darted from car to car, pulling handles and moving on to the next vehicle when they didn’t yield. After sprinting down a few streets, light on their feet, Melissa began to wave her arms like a maniac.
She jumped up and down a few times to silently catch the attention of the others, who quickly ran over. An old green pickup truck sat unlocked in front of the town’s sports bar. It wasn’t the new luxury vehicle that the others had hoped for, but it would provide them with ample space. That, and it was strong enough to withstand a beating if they were ambushed.
“Good find, Melissa,” Alec said, giving her a thumbs-up. She smiled and got out of the way so Alec could hotwire the car. Elaina joined Melissa on the sidewalk, looking at the vehicle they hoped to call home.
“This might take a while,” Alec said. “It’s hard to do with only one arm. If you guys want to gather anything else while we’re waiting, I’ll try my best to make it quick.”
The girls looked at each other, frowning.
“I think we’ll stay here,” Elaina said.
She took a seat on the sidewalk and began to stretch her hamstrings in preparation for a long day of sitting in a car. She could practically feel the leg cramps coming on.
As Alec worked on the car, something startled him, causing him to hit the side of his head on the car horn. The engine was running, but something was distracting Alec. Elaina sprang to her feet to see what was going on.
Through the windshield, she saw something small pounce on his head, causing him to scream and bat the thing away.
“What is it?” Melissa asked.
“I don’t know,” Elaina said, rushing to his aid. It moved so quickly that she didn’t get the chance to identify it. At first glance, she thought it was a rabid raccoon or possum, but it looked too big to be either of those things.
“Are there coyotes in this area?” Elaina wondered out loud, her knife in her hand.
“Shit,” Melissa said. Elaina took that as an affirmative.
Elaina managed to get past Alec and opened the back door, revealing a snarling child whom Alec had pinned against the seat with both hands. The little Infected hissed and spat as it clawed at Alec’s hands.
“Alec,” Elaina exclaimed, shocked to see something to small wreaking so much havoc.
“It was hiding behind the seat,” he panted. “Help me get it out of here.”
“How?” she asked, still clutching the knife in her hand.
“I don’t know,” he said exasperatedly. “I don’t want to kill it, but . . .”
He trailed off. The thought of killing a small child, regardless of its disease, was too horrible to even comprehend.
“Empty that bag,” he said, nodding to Melissa as the child screeched and screamed. She poured the contents of the bag into the passenger’s seat. “Good,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “Now, slip it on its head and pull the strings tight. When I toss it out of here, I need you guys to hop in and shut the doors, okay?”
They nodded, ready to move.
“Okay, now,” Alec yelled, and Melissa jammed the sack over the creature’s head, cinching the opening snugly around its head to prevent it from biting. Once the muzzle was secure, Alec launched the boy onto the street and quickly jumped in the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind him. Melissa leapt into the passenger’s seat and Elaina took the back.
The three were stunned by what they had just seen. Elaina had no idea that children that young experienced the rage symptoms. She figured that their immune systems were too weak to handle the virus for that long and that their underdeveloped brains would just shut down.
“Let’s get out of here before there are more,” Melissa said, shuddering. “I hope I never have to see something like that ever again.”
Alec was quiet. He sat in the front seat with his hand on the gear shift but didn’t pull out of the parking space.
“What’s up?” Elaina asked, leaning between the seats to talk to him.
“I need to tell you something before we go,” he said. His voice wavered as he spoke.
“What?” Elaina breathed.
He turned his head away from the girls so they could see the small circle of teeth marks on the back of his neck. Tiny droplets of blood trickled down onto the collar of his shirt.
“That happened just now?” Elaina asked, her head in a fog.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “It doesn’t look good for me. I think we need to talk about how to move forward.”
Elaina blinked, hoping to wake herself up from what had to be a nightmare.
“Just drive,” Melissa ordered, her voice cracking. Alec steered the truck toward the highway and drove east.
The three sat in silence as Alec drove through the plains. His superficial wound had begun to scab over and the drops of blood on his shirt had turned a rusty brown. From her seat in the back, Elaina couldn’t stop looking at the bite, her stomach churning as she tried to process what this meant for the two of them.
Without warning, Alec pulled over at a rest stop and parked the car next to an abandoned motor home.
“What are you doing?�
�� Melissa asked. “Are you feeling sick?”
“No,” he said softly. “All things considered, I feel fine. I can’t keep driving you guys to safety. It’s so backward to keep going with you when my health will eventually hold you back. We can’t go on until we come to an agreement. So, what’s the plan?”
“What do you want to do?” Elaina asked, feeling numb.
“No,” he said harshly. “This isn’t my choice to make. It’s up to the two of you. I’ll do whatever you want, within reason. If you want me to get out right now, I will. In fact, that’s sort of where I’m leaning right now.”
“No,” Elaina gasped. “You can’t leave—not now. It usually takes a while before the virus even begins to affect the brain. I’m immune, so I’m not afraid of your getting me sick. Melissa, I understand if you have some reservations, though.”
Melissa pursed her lips. “How long does it usually take before infected people become violent?”
“It varies,” Elaina said. “Typically, a few days to a few weeks. We don’t know what strain he has, either. It’s possible that he has one of the experimental militarized versions.”
“And how likely is it that I’ll contract the virus if he doesn’t attack me?”
“Only if you come into contact with bodily fluids, including droplets in the air. I’ve got a surgical mask you can wear if it makes you feel better.”
She nodded. “Yeah, if that’s okay?”
Elaina dug through her bag and handed over the gauzy mask. Melissa looped the strings over her ears. Elaina handed her a can of a powerful disinfectant. She clutched it on her lap.
“What are you thinking?” she asked Melissa.
“Can we play it by ear?” she asked after thinking for a minute. Her eyes had welled up with tears. “We’ve lost so many of our guys this year,” she whimpered. “Do you think you can save him?” she asked Elaina.
“No,” Alec interrupted. “You two need to get somewhere safe. I’m not going to let you waste time on me. It’s unfortunate that I got bitten, but you’ve got more important things to do than worry about me.”