“Things will get worse here, too,” Cash explained. “This thing is going to spread. It’s obvious the big dogs don’t know what they’re doing. We don’t have enough for all of you, that sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.”
“What are we going to do, just turn them out?” Tara asked. “They’ve got a baby with them!”
“No, but we’ve got to go out and get more supplies somehow,” Cash responded. “Before things get too crazy.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Astrid insisted.
“We don’t have a choice.”
Preparing to go out to get supplies looked like preparing for war. The desire to protect ran in the Cooper family and when the older Blake joined the military, Cash joined the police force. With a grim expression, he retrieved bulletproof vests from his stockpile. Blake and Cash suited up as the women stood by, feeling helpless. Cash’s fiancé Lisa begged to go, but Cash shut her down.
“I’m not putting anyone at risk if I don’t have to,” he told her, kissing the top of her head.
Sweat popped out on Blake’s forehead as he read over the list Cash scrawled on a legal pad.
“So how long will this last us?”
“About a month. But there probably isn’t half of that left,” Cash replied, snapping a cartridge into his handgun.
Megan winced at the sound. Lewis returned from the kitchen where he had been angrily whispering to Astrid. He and Blake had never gotten along. Lewis was the oldest by ten years, from Astrid’s first marriage, and resented Blake for some reason. Megan suspected it had something to do with how Blake’s father had treated him, and less to do with Blake. John Cooper had been reserved and awkward with Lewis, and bursting with pride with his own two sons, especially Blake, as the oldest. Lewis could have easily felt pushed to the side and angry about his own father’s premature death; that bitterness kept clinging even as the years passed and John died, as well.
“Going with the truck?” Lewis asked, pulling his shirt over his vest.
“Too flashy. We’ll take the bikes, hide ‘em in the woods, walk the rest of the way.”
Cash glanced at Blake and attempted a weak smile.
“Still know how to handle a hog?”
“Ya never forget.
When they were leaving, Megan clutched Blake close to her. Fear flooded her, like a cup overflowing. She didn’t want to let him go, to feel his absence burning in her arms. She wished she knew what to say, that she had some profound words that she could look back on and be satisfied with should the worst happen. Whenever they had had goodbyes in the past, when he was about to be deployed, Megan always had four or five things she wished she had said. She thought those kind of goodbyes were over, but she had been proven horribly wrong.
“I love you. Stay safe,” was all she could manage.
2.
The three men were gone an hour. At the house, Megan sat on the couch cradling Britney while Tara, Astrid, and Lisa shouted at each other from across the room.
“We need to bug-out!” Lisa screamed. “This whole area is going to go up in flames, we need to get out while we still have a chance!”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?” Tara shouted back.
“We’ve got guns! The guys will handle any shitheads who try to mess with us!”
“There aren’t enough supplies at the place for us all!” Astrid said, her face red.
Lisa swore, throwing her hands up in the air in defeat. She turned on Megan, an accusing finger jabbing towards her.
“Your idiot husband shouldn’t have just showed up expecting to be taken care of! He’s put everyone in danger now
“Hey, easy!” Tara said, squeezing between Lisa and Megan. “It’s not her fault, ok? She just lost her sister.
Megan ignored the shouting going on around her. She was imagining what Blake was going through, as if she was with him. She saw him pushing through a crowd, hand itching for his gun, ready to fire off a couple warning shots. She saw bare store shelves, floors strewn with stomped cereal and produce, people grappling over paper towel rolls…it was like she was watching a disaster movie, except her husband was right in the middle of it. Would the men have to shoot someone? Would other people be armed, too? She looked down at Britney, whose tiny ears she had been covering so she wouldn’t be disturbed by the yelling. Somehow, Britney was still asleep, her eyelids flickering. So innocent. How long would that last?
When the men returned, they had managed to scrounge up four bags of groceries. Empty water jugs, hardware tools, towels, and a few bags of rice, found way at the back of one store’s storage.
“People weren’t thinking of getting these empty ones to fill up with water,” Cash explained.
“Don’t know how long the water will be left on, but we’re gonna take full advantage of it till then.”
Blake looked shaken, but unscathed. Megan went over to hug him, but he took a step back.
“What’s wrong?” Megan asked, stopping in her tracks.
Blake held out his hand a little, and Megan saw it was stained with blood. She was about to speak, but Blake interrupted her.
“It’s not mine,” he assured her. “But someone was sick in the store. I went down an aisle and they were just lying there. I went over to help, but then I saw he was covered with scabs, like bleeding scabs. He grabbed at me, grabbed my hand.”
Megan’s heart began to pound. She glanced around to see if anyone else had heard, but they were all preoccupied with filling water bottles or talking.
“Do Lewis and Cash know?” she whispered.
Blake shook his head. His eyes made him look like a scared teenager, like he was just about to cry but wouldn’t let himself.
“You have to tell them!” Megan insisted.
“They’ll throw us out,” Blake whispered back.
“Maybe, but you can’t keep this hidden! What if…what if you get sick? Everyone will be at risk!”
“I’ll be fine,” Blake said, his voice turning steely. “I’ll just scrub it off. It’s fine.”
Megan was about to argue further, but Blake gave her that look. She had only seen it once before, when she had been trying to convince him to take a job he didn’t want. It was a look that said, “You don’t control me, so don’t even try.” It wasn’t exactly a scary look, but it told her there was nothing she could do, he was making this decision without her, and arguing further would only make his resolve stronger. Megan shut her mouth and sat back on the couch.
A week passed before Megan’s worst fears became reality. On Thursday night, seven days after they had left Alabama, she woke to hear Blake vomiting in the bathroom. Without acknowledging him, Megan got up, tied her robe around her waist, and knocked on Astrid’s bedroom door. When the woman answered, face pale and worn-looking without makeup, Megan spoke in a voice she hardly recognized as her own.
“Get everyone out of the house. Blake is infected.”
Megan learned quickly that it’s true what they say about extreme situations: most people turn into the worst version of themselves. Or at least the animal version of themselves, where the highest priority is their own survival. After screaming at Blake through the closed door, Lewis grabbed his bug-out bag and left without as much as a goodbye. Cash and Lisa followed soon after, less angrily, but still with taut faces and cold, empty eyes. Cash gave Megan a long embrace and whispered, “Good luck,” in her ear. His tone cold and not at all helpful.
After several days of vomiting, Blake’s fever hit 103 and stayed there. Supplies were limited, but thankfully, Astrid had had the sense to hide some things the moment after Megan told her Blake was sick, anticipating panic in the house.
There was water, broth, bandages, a first aid kit, and some canned food. Britney’s diaper bag had some supplies too, like granola bars. Megan, Astrid, Tara, and Britney stayed. Tara kept Britney in her room and barely came out in an attempt to shield the baby from exposure. Astrid left food, water, and diapers outside the door for Tara. Whenever Megan
passed the closed door, which was rare, the supplies were gone. It was like leaving out scraps for a stray cat.
Megan hardly left Blake’s side. His fever made him delusional and Megan had to put socks on his hands to stop him from clawing at the spots on his face and arms. He vomited at least once every hour, and since he barely ate, it was mostly water. Sometimes there was blood in it. Megan cried constantly until her tears dried up and her eyes just stung unbearably. She worked tirelessly all day and night, forcing Blake to drink liquids, changing the pus and sweat-stained sheets, and giving him ibuprofen for his fever. Sometimes he was lucid and talked to her, which made Megan want to cry even more.
“You need to get out of here,” he pleaded. “You’re going to get sick, too.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Megan insisted, sobbing. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Shit,” Blake swore, covering his eyes with his hand. “Why is this happening?”
Megan’s fever started about one week after Blake became ill. She tried to convince herself it was just dehydration, if she drank some water, she would feel better. But after the water, she did not feel better. Her headache worsened. Her joints began to cramp up. After the third hour, she collapsed on her way to the kitchen for more water. She had no choice but to isolate herself in the bedroom with Blake. She lay in the bed beside him, her whole body on fire.
This is it, she thought, looking over at her husband. This is how we go.
The spots came on faster for Megan. They covered her face, arms, and legs. Sometimes, in her fever, she saw spiders crawl out of them, and she would scream and scream. She remembered a silhouette hovering over her, Astrid, and heard a voice comforting her. The vomiting started right after the fever and lasted three days. Megan probably lost ten pounds at least. It was like her body was turning inside out. Everything tasted like blood. The chicken broth Astrid spooned into her like clockwork in an attempt to replace all the lost fluids left a steely mark on her tongue. The thick, syrupy pedialyte almost made Megan gag. Water ran right through her like a river. Megan prayed for death. She had always been a wimp about being sick; every flu was a negotiating session with every god she could imagine. During her lifetime, she had promised at least twenty times that she would become a nun or missionary. She vowed to go to church twice a week and volunteer at the homeless shelter. Her family had always given her crap about how stupid she got when she was sick. But Megan wasn’t being stupid now. She earnestly asked for death.
“Just kill me,” she hissed every time Astrid came in. “End it.”
“Keep strong,” Astrid would say. “For Blake.”
Blake and Megan held hands all through the illness. It wasn’t ideal that they were so close, that they touched, but there were no other options in terms of isolation. The feel of Blake’s hand closed over hers often felt like the only proof that she was still alive, that she was inside her body. When Megan’s fever broke, two weeks had past. When she looked down at her arms and saw her wounds had scabbed over and dried, it had been three weeks. There were water bottles on the bedside table that she could reach, and an orange Post-It note stuck to one of them.
If you come through this, I’m sorry I had to leave. I hope you can forgive me.
It was signed “Astrid.” When Megan turned to Blake, she saw his sickly pale face and knew. He was still breathing, she could see his chest rise and fall, but it was shallow. His scabs hadn’t healed and they looked infected. It wouldn’t be long.
Miraculously, Megan had the strength to stand. There were clothes in the dresser still, and she changed. She saw the rest of her scabs on her body, pale, but flat and peely. She didn’t bother glancing in the mirror. Blake didn’t respond to her voice, but she kept talking anyway as she dabbed iodine on his spots and tried to make him drink. The water just poured out from the corners of his mouth as he choked a little down.
What do you say to someone who’s dying? Megan retold him stories about when they were teenagers and spent hours canoeing, fishing and getting sunburned. She told him about how scared she was when he went to Iraq, even though he worked in tech and was generally away from the real shit. She just kept talking so she wouldn’t think. She still had a low fever, her head swam, and wasn’t quite aware of the passing time. Megan’s body demanded sleep, but she fought it fiercely, determined to not let Blake go just yet. She knelt by the bed, grasping his hands.
“It’s ok, baby, if you want to go,” she whispered. “I know it hurts. I know you want to go. Don’t worry about me.”
Megan reached up to Blake’s face and caressed his hair like she always did, her fingers running over the short blond tips like grass. She wished he would open his eyes, just once more, so she could look into them.
“I love you,” she said.
When she woke, she found herself still kneeling, her head resting against Blake’s hand. She looked up at him, almost hoping she had been dreaming and he would be smiling down at her. He was gone. His body was there, but Blake, her husband, her high school sweetheart, was gone. Megan would have spent more time there, just holding his hand, but her mind propelled itself forward, to the future.
Britney.
*****
Tara had gone, too. Sometime between Megan’s sickness and recovery, fear had consumed the house. Britney was howling, hungry, and in desperate need of a fresh diaper. Megan’s instinct was to go right to her, but thankfully she remembered some information she had heard on the news about infected corpses being contagious. She endured the sounds of Britney yelling for a few more minutes while she scrubbed her hands, arms, and face. After cleaning herself as best she could, Megan soothed the baby, and soon Britney was happy again, totally unaware of the horror unfolding around her. Outside, the suburbs looked eerily calm. Garbage had begun to pile up and the lack of cars in driveways told Megan people had started to head out. Some houses had their windows boarded up, while others looked broken into. Astrid and Tara must not have been gone for that long; no one had broken into the house while Megan had been unconscious. She turned on the local news. The rainbow bars signaled that it was offline. Even in her rattled and still feverish state, Megan knew she had to do something. They couldn’t stay. Megan needed more supplies, like water and food. She needed to get stronger if she hoped to take decent care of the baby. Balancing Britney on her hip, Megan scoured the cabinets for anything useful. A few water bottles, some baby formula, and a stray granola bar that must have fallen out when the box was grabbed in a hurry. Megan couldn’t find any weapons besides a kitchen knife.
Megan felt strange, as if on the brink of exploding, but restrained somehow. It was like she was a grenade, with just a pin holding her back from unhinging, but something was keeping the pin tightly in place. It was Britney, of course. Megan had to stay calm. It felt like her soul had entered a different state when Blake died, when Megan knew there was no hope, and now her life was welded to Britney’s. Without that tie, Megan would have just given up.
Her car was still in the driveway. She noticed someone had tried to break in unsuccessfully. There were cracks in the windshield and side window, like someone had tried throwing something heavy. With Britney strapped into her carrier and a bag under the seat, Megan began to drive around looking for a quiet place to look for supplies. It looked like most of the chaotic looting had come to a close, which probably meant there wasn’t anything left in the stores. Megan wandered through at least three stores in the strip mall, kitchen knife hooked into her belt, bag over her shoulder, and baby strapped across her chest. Even in their desperation, people always left something behind, and Megan found several jars of canned vegetables buried beneath a collapsed shelf. She also found Aspirin, which was a shocking relief. Megan was going through her fifth store, a rummaged Macy’s, in search of a can opener when she first encountered the group.
There were three of them speaking so quietly that Megan didn’t notice them until she was nearly on top of them. She ducked back behind one of the still-standing displays and reache
d for her knife. She didn’t really have a plan, but it seemed safer to be ready.
Go away, go away, she thought, hoping to avoid any kind of encounter.
Unfortunately, her wish was not granted. The three came down the aisle towards her.
“Hey, there’s something over there!”
Megan’s fingers tightened around the knife. She slowly emerged from her hiding spot, her other arm wrapped around Britney’s head in an attempt to shield her.
“Please, I don’t want any trouble,” Megan pleaded.
The three looked at her. There were two women and one man. They all carried AK-47s and wore surgical masks. Were they military? Aid workers?
“I...I need help,” Megan said, loosening her hold on the knife.
It seemed useless now with those guns pointed at her.
“Are you alone?” the man asked, his voice muffled.
“Yes.”
“You have marks on you, are you sick?”
“I was.”
“You were?”
The three glanced at each other as if unsure what to think. Megan’s heart pounded. She imagined a bullet blasting through her chest, through Britney.
Oh God.
“You survived?”
Megan nodded, biting her lip hard. The three began to whisper amongst one another, occasionally glancing back at Megan as if to see if she had moved. Megan slowly took a step back to show she wasn’t trying to overhear or approach them. After a few moments, the three turned back to her.
“We can help you,” one woman said.
“Oh, thank you!”
“But you have to stay isolated until we know you’re not contagious.”
Band of Preppers (Book 2): Life is Hope Page 2