Quarantined (Book 2): In the End

by Tracey Ward

  “I’m still a guy, Ali. I watch a lot of movies. I play a lot of video games.”

  “I’m not saying that being scared of guns and mimes makes you any less of a man.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her. “It’s beginning to sound like that’s exactly what you’re saying.”

  She grins slyly as she turns toward me. I can feel her breasts press against my arm through both of our coats. I’m like the Princess and the Pea; I’m infinitely aware of them through countless barriers. I could feel them as I lay up here on the roof of the RV when she was inside, taunting me and denying me sleep. She brings her face in close, resting her chin on my shoulder.

  “You could prove me wrong.” Her breath hits the skin on my neck hot and wet. Suddenly I’m aware of more than just her breasts.

  I take a deep, steadying breath. This is hard (pun intended and earned). I’ve been on the road with her for so long now and she’s so beautiful it’s ridiculous. Every time she laughs I want her, even when I’m mad at her, and every time she touches me I have to think about baseball and killing kittens to slow myself down. I’ve had a hard on for her since the day we woke up together in the boathouse and she was tangled around me like a stripper on a pole. I’m not even mad at myself for wanting her this way. I’d be mad at myself if I didn’t.

  “What are you doing, Ali?” I whisper, worried about waking Syd.

  Her grin widens. “Seducing you, genius.’

  “I thought you were mad at me.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  I shrug, noticing how my movement makes her body rub against mine smoothly. “What were we fighting about?”

  “Exactly. It was stupid, whatever it was.”

  “Were you stupid or was I?” I push, trying to shoot myself in my own foot for some reason. Her body heat is penetrating into mine, scrambling my brain.

  “Both,” she tells me.

  I figure that’s fair.

  “For what’s it worth,” I say, turning toward her and catching her eye, noticing how warm they are. How open. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too,” she whispers. Then she leans in to kiss me long and deep, her tongue trailing across my lips.

  I enjoy it a little longer than I should before I pull away.

  “You’re being mean,” I grumble, my voice low and tortured.

  “How am I being mean?”

  Her hand slides up the sleeve of my jacket, across my chest to the collar of my fleece. Slowly she begins to unzip it.

  “Your dad,” I remind her, reaching for her hand to stop her.

  I turn to face her, trying to look stern, trying to end this thing before it starts. Before it goes till it hurts and ends before it’s awesome. I’ve ridden the Blue Ball express before. I have no desire to ride it again.

  “My dad,” she says shaking off my hand and turning to face me. She’s straddling my lap before I can even blink. “Is sound asleep.”

  “But for how long?”

  “With how much I gave him, a long time.”

  “Gave him of what? Did you drug him?” I ask, shocked.

  She shrugs. “A little. About one Thanksgiving Dinner’s worth.”

  “What? How is that a measurement?”

  “I gave him Tryptophan. It’s the stuff in turkeys that makes you sleepy on Thanksgiving.”

  “I can’t believe you drugged him.” I look her hard in the eye. “Don’t ever drug me.”

  “Don’t get in the way of what I want and I won’t.”

  “And what is it you want?”

  Her hair falls around her face as she leans toward me, but I can still see her smile. Still see her eyes.

  “I want you,” she whispers against my mouth. She presses a light kiss to my lips.

  “You have me,” I whisper back, taking another kiss from her.

  “Do I?”

  I freeze, unsure how to answer that. We’ve been fighting a lot lately, the stress of this lifestyle definitely taking its toll. I’ve been thinking about so many other things, so many more important things than where Ali and I are or where we’re headed, that the question baffles me.

  “Time’s up,” she says huskily, taking my non-answer as an answer.

  She shocks me when instead of dismounting, she reaches for the hem of her shirt and pulls it up over her head. Suddenly I’m face to face with her bra and breasts and I wouldn’t be able to tell you what my name is let alone where this thing between us is going. And the good news is, she doesn’t ask me to.

  “You’re going to get cold,” I say to her breasts.

  She chuckles as she leans into me, pressing her body hard against mine. “You’ll take care of me.”

  I wrap my arms around her tightly. “I will. I always will. You’re sure we have time?”

  “If previous Thanksgivings are any indication, we have until Snoopy shows up in the parade.”

  “Your units of measurement, while festive, mean nothing to me. How long is that?”

  “It’s plenty, Jordan. I promise you. It’s more likely we’ll be caught by zombies than by my dad right now.”

  “It’s messed up that that’s comforting.”

  That’s all she lets me say. After that she devours me, her mouth hungry on mine. There’s an abandon to this that we’ve never had before. A luxury we’ve never been awarded. It’s time. For once, we have time. And yeah, there are still zombies out there. And yeah, her dad is sleeping soundly in the RV beneath us. But here on the roof in the air under the sky, it’s just us and the long stretch of night spanning out around us.

  It’s stupid. Reckless. Careless. It’s terrifying on so many levels.

  It’s also the best sex of my life.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning he knows. Syd absolutely knows. Do you know how I know he knows? Because it’s written all over my face. It’s in the way I walk, talk, eat, smile. I’m smiling! That’s how he knows. A weight has been lifted from me and I’m jovial of all things. It’s not just the sex, though hallelujah for it because I was wound way too tight to function. It’s Alissa and I. It’s finding that connection again, even if just for a night. I missed her. I missed just being friends with her, laughing with her. It’s been over a week since I really smiled at her. Since I’d looked her in the eyes and wanted her, or anyone, in my space.

  “We’re going looting,” Syd announces.

  Alissa has barely laid her head down to sleep so I’m shocked he wants to go loot now. We’ve been careful to only upset the schedule when it interrupts sleep for him or I. Never Alissa.

  “Can’t it wait?” I ask.

  He looks at me hard. “No. We’re going now.”

  Here’s where I want to argue with him, to reason that it’s a bad time and Alissa needs to sleep, because it’s started to feel like I’m on an extended camping trip with my grumpy dad who barks orders and expects them to be followed immediately. I want to shout at this guy that he’s not my father, he’s not the boss of me and we are a democracy not a dictatorship. But it will only sound petulant and right now I’m in such a good mood I can’t even be bothered to fight.

  “What are we going for?” I ask, tossing a blanket over Alissa where she lays on the bench seat in the back. I take the passenger seat next to Stalin and buckle up.

  Syd meets my eyes, then casts a meaningful look back at Alissa. “We’re low on water.”

  No, we’re not. Not even close. Not since we started camping out beside the river and filtering the water from it to drink. But I know what he’s saying and not saying. We need to find Alissa more of her meds and fast.

  “We’ll have to go farther out than normal.”

  He nods reluctantly. “A lot farther out.”

  “We aren’t coming back here tonight, are we?”

  Syd pulls out of our campsite, running over our makeshift fire pit as he goes. He doesn’t answer me.

  “We aren’t coming back here at all, are we?” I ask, feeling myself tense.

  “No.”

&nb
sp; “Son of—“ I bite my tongue. Hard. “Where the hell are we going exactly?”

  “In search of others. We need help.”

  “We don’t. We’re doing fine.”

  “We won’t be for long.”

  I take several deep breaths and start counting to 100. When I get there I’m no calmer than before so I try again, this time in Spanish. I have to fight to remember the right words and by the time I get to 60 my brain is too burnt out to be barking mad at the sheer lack of free will this arrangement is granting me.

  “I know you’re mad,” he suddenly says quietly.

  I don’t answer.

  “We have to do it for her.”

  I glance back at Alissa. She’s out cold, her mouth hanging slightly open like a little kid. She’s probably drooling on the pillow.

  “Does she know?” I ask Syd, turning to look at him. “Did you two decide this together without me last night?”

  “No. She thinks we’re looting. She probably knows we’re looking for her pills, she’s not stupid, but she doesn’t know we’re looking for people too.”

  “This is dangerous. Trying to join up with others right now, it’s really dangerous. People will have formed their families already and we’ll be outsiders. Unknowns that could pose huge risks. What would you do if a band of people came waltzing up to us and asked to join our camp?”

  “I’d tell them to hit the road,” he answers honestly.

  “With the barrel of your gun.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s going to happen to us. To Ali.”

  Syd shifts in his seat slightly but shakes his head. “We’ll be careful.”

  “Being careful is staying hidden.”

  “You really want to keep living like that?” he asks, his voice rising. “Cause it’s no way to live. We’ll all crack sooner or later. With Al’s meds disappearing, you and I will have to take up the slack in the guard duty. That’s 12 hours of sitting on your ass watching the woods, waiting for a zombie to break into camp. Or a human looking to kill us all for a bag of rice and some tuna. And what if one of us gets hurt or taken down by an infected? What then? We need help, kid.”

  I ignore him for two reasons. One, he called me kid. I friggin’ hate that. And two, he’s right. I don’t want to admit it, but he’s right. This is the same argument I had with Ali and I’m over it. It’s solidly two against one and if I’ve got a problem with that maybe I should take my toys and go play by myself.

  A lot of hours, miles and back country road later and the tall, green shade of the trees begins to give way to rocky landscape. The rocks morph from the rounded black of the rolling hills covered in green moss to sharp edged lava rock of a totally different world.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Eastern Oregon,” Syd answers curtly.

  “No joke,” I say sarcastically, pointing at the clearly visible compass on the dash. “Why are we leaving the mountains?”

  “Madras.”

  “What?”

  “We’re going to Madras. It’s a small city but it’s way out in the middle of nowhere here in eastern Oregon. There should be a pharmacy and since it’s so remote we might find it still somewhat stocked. If not, we’ll head south to Redmond. See what they’ve got. If they’re tapped, we’ll go to Bend. It’s bigger. It’s probably our best bet to find anything but it’s also going to have the largest population meaning more people, more spread of infection. Bigger shot of dying, so we’ll save it for last.”

  I stare out the window feeling a little stunned. “It’s a good plan.”

  “Thanks,” he replies dryly.

  “How much farther is it?”

  “Not far. This road is terrible but it will take us over the dam on the river then we’ll find the main highway. We’ll be there in no time.”

  It’s not long after that that his ‘good plan’ goes bad. That the inevitable happens.

  “No,” Syd mutters. He leans forward in his seat, squinting against the light to try and get a better view. “No, no, no, no.”

  “Oh man,” I mumble, running my hands over my face. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Syd doesn’t answer but he doesn’t have to. The second we saw it we both knew what it was. Several large vehicles, one I think is actually a tank, run for at least a quarter mile in both directions across the highway and into open fields. Behind it I can see what looks like a makeshift town made out of temporary buildings and packed with more vehicles and helicopters. Between us and them are several cement barricades on the road, a long stretch of asphalt, what looks like it used to be road before it was blown to rubble and then the dam. We’d have to drive into the dust and dirt off the road in order to pass the barricades and the ruined section of road. The big question becomes would you make it more than one wheel off the road before the waiting guards ahead blow out your tires? I’m inclined to think no. And not just because I’m some kind of brilliant, intuitive genius. It’s because I can read the sign sitting on the barricade in front of us. It has a lot of words on it and it reads very officially, but basically what it is says is, Turn Back Now Or Die In Fire. Your Choice.

  This is it.

  The quarantine.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “We have to turn around.”

  Syd shakes his head. “Where does it stop?”

  I look at him, worried by his tone. He sounds mystified, confused and annoyed. Disoriented angry is a bad way to be with guns no doubt leveled at your head.

  “It follows the river,” I tell him calmly.

  “What?”

  “The river. It’s like I said before, they’re using it as a natural barrier. I’m sure they blew out all the bridges along the quarantine zone when they blew all the hangars.”

  He swears, rubbing his eyes. “We’re trapped.”

  “Please tell me you’re not just figuring that out now.”

  “Of course not,” he snaps, glaring at me. “But it’s different now that I’ve seen it. It’s…”

  “Real?”

  “Yeah,” he answers, his voice softening. “It’s getting realer by the day.”

  “We’ve gotta try somewhere else. We have to keep moving.”

  He sits back in his seat hard, letting his head smack against the headrest. “Where? If it follows the river we’ll never make it to Redmond or Bend. I’m beginning to think even Sisters is too far south. There’s nothing else out here.”

  I lean forward to look out the windshield, to scan the horizon in hopes of seeing something, anything, that looks like civilization. Nothing. It’s all dead open fields and forgotten farmland. I eye the river, thinking of what it would take to swim across. Could we make it before they caught us? I’m pretty sure this border patrol takes their job very serious. I have a feeling we’re considered more of a threat than a few illegal immigrants. We’d be shot dead on sight, no question.

  “Where are we?” Alissa asks sleepily from the back.

  “The end of the rainbow,” Syd mutters.

  She comes to sit between us just as she did the first day we all set off together.

  “Is this the quarantine line?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “We were heading toward Madre—“

  “Madras,” Syd drones.

  “Right, Madras, but we can’t make it. We need a town to loot but there’s nowhere out here to go.”

  “Did you look at your map?” she asks.

  “Not yet. I hadn’t gotten it out. Syd seemed to know where he was going.”

  “What does the sign say?”

  “Get bent,” Syd says, still sounding dead inside and surprisingly British.

  “I doubt that,” Alissa mutters.

  “Close to it,” I disagree.

  “You can’t even read it from here!” she exclaims. “Not all of it. Look, there’s a little handwritten part.”

  Syd and I both jump out our skins with worry when she throws the side door open and hops out into the light of day.

  “Wha
t the hell is she doing?” he grumbles, jumping out after her.

  I’m close behind him, rounding the front of the vehicle on her heels.

  “Ali, they have guns. Many big guns. Get back in the car.”

  “I’m sure they do,” she replies calmly, making me believe she’s not as sure as she should be.

  What I’m sure of is that we all have laser sighted dots on our foreheads right now. I glance at Syd to check his face. No dot. Maybe they’ll simply use a rocket launcher, clear us and the RV out of the way in one shot.

  “They have a barricade up,” Alissa reasons. “Have I crossed the barricade?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, I don’t plan to and until I cross their line, which I’m not doing, they won’t shoot me.”

  “Al, I wouldn’t be so sure,” Syd warns, eyeing the distant vehicles. No movement so far.

  “Shut up. I’m reading. ‘If you are in need of help, proceed north to the city of Warm Springs. Serious survivors only, riffraff need not apply. Troublemakers will be thrown out on their ear. Any infected will be greeted with a buckshot to the face. Good luck and Godspeed.’”

  “Does it seriously say, ‘riffraff need not apply’ on there?” I ask, leaning in next to her to read the sign. “Huh. It’s like an apocalyptic Craigslist ad.” I turn to Syd, meeting his eyes coolly. “You’re going, aren’t you?”

  Alissa turns quickly to face me. “You mean ‘we’re’ going.”

  “No he doesn’t,” Syd replies softly.

  “You can’t seriously consider doing that,” she insists. “You’ll die out there alone, Jordan.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm. We worked our butts off to get out of a city and now she wants inside again? I’m pretty sure they blew Portland off the face of the earth because despite giving the radio a listen every now and then, we haven’t heard the looped message evacuating the city again. How long until this one becomes a problem and they clear it out as well? Maybe tomorrow, maybe never. Maybe someday soon they’ll burn and pave this entire area and there won’t be a need for a quarantine anymore because we’ll be nothing but a bad memory. A black mark on the history of the world to be forgotten or misunderstood by future generations.