by Kate Morris
Maybe that one didn’t get to wherever they were all hiding before the sun came up, but he didn’t care. Elijah jogged with the dog food and Dixie until he came to his fence, opened and went through it, and locked it behind them. Then he darted inside with the dog and double-locked their back door. For a long time, he stood there watching out the window to make sure it didn’t pursue them.
Later after the day came to an end again, and they were all settling in- minus Jamie, of course, who was out- Alex came into his room to talk to him, which wasn’t unusual and reminded Elijah of the many times his brother had done this very thing over the last few years acting as parent number one and two. He’d filled that role so easily.
“I wanted to bring something up with you. If you take her with you again, no more staying out overnight, okay?” his brother said. “You and Wren have done that two times, even stayed with other people. That’s not a good idea, E. You can’t trust people now. I know you’ve mostly been going with Jamie, but if you take her, don’t stay out overnight anywhere. You gotta make it home or call us for an evac.”
“I know,” he said, his brother referencing the other two nights this past week when they’d been stuck staying out when they couldn’t get home before dark. They’d holed up in an abandoned warehouse in lower Canton scoping out a restaurant wholesale supply company. An intense thunderstorm had moved in, which made everything dark outside even faster. “Sorry. I know it was stupid. It’s just that we got overrun. When there’s too many of them around, I just don’t feel like it’s safe to keep moving with her. We’ve found some nice groups to hole up with for the night. I kinda’ figured strength in numbers and all that.”
“Robbery and rape and shit more like,” Alex corrected, to which Elijah nodded with resignation.
“Right. I won’t take her overnight. Hopefully, I won’t have to take her at all. This shit’s just getting more and more dangerous.”
“Exactly,” Alex said and left.
Elijah had nightmares that night of Wren being hauled away by their principal. He’d startled awake in a ball of sweat and tangled sheets. Alex was right. She shouldn’t go with him anymore.
Chapter Thirty-six
For three days Hope fought valiantly until the sickness took her. They’d managed to get antibiotics from the medical site as well as fever reducers, and still nothing had worked. Jamie had even managed to run an IV, per an instruction card he was given. In the end, Hope had fallen into a coma, likely from the high fevers according to Jamie, and had not awakened. She’d passed peacefully. Wren didn’t think she had any tears left to give after the deaths of Lila, their neighbors, and everyone else she’d cried for since this started. Jamie had begged the medical site to treat Hope, but they were turned away there and at the hospitals. Doctors’ offices were all closed. She had no doubt they were also just trying to survive or were already dead, too. They were told to burn the body and were given a flyer on how to do it. It was so inhumane and impersonal. No funeral homes would accept bodies now, and they weren’t allowed to disperse of the infected anyway. They’d also burned their neighbors’ bodies. The Crane mansion’s backyard was quickly becoming a funeral pyre.
Jamie still kept communications going with his contacts in the government as best as he could, but cell service was becoming worse and worse. Elijah’s brother suggested a HAM radio, whatever that was. Wren didn’t care. She felt herself falling further and deeper into depression. They’d burned and buried the remains of Hope three weeks ago. Thanksgiving, an important American holiday, came and went. They had soup Jamie made out of mixing a few different cans of vegetables and some sausage together. Soon it would be Christmas, but Wren didn’t care. She not only felt herself sinking into despair; she felt herself giving up. It was only a matter of time before they all got it, became infected, turned on each other, maybe even killed someone in their dwindling group. Maybe Alex would be one of the few remaining people on earth who survived since he was immune. Perhaps this was God’s plan, to purge the earth again, cleanse it.
Their missions to gather as many supplies as possible were becoming more and more dangerous with each passing day as people grew increasingly desperate. She rarely went with them. Alex was shot, grazed in the shoulder a few days ago. He acted like it wasn’t a big deal, but it was. If it infected, he could die. Jamie had him taking the remainder of Hope’s antibiotics. He had survived the virus but could still die from an infection. Nothing was guaranteed. Now Elijah and Jamie went together on missions since Alex was down, which was probably a whole lot of fun since they clearly didn’t like one another.
They should’ve been back a few hours ago, and she was beginning to worry. Dinner was ready, but she put it in the oven to keep it warm. Alex said in another three to four weeks they’d be out of meat in the freezer. She suggested hitting more restaurants. Elijah confessed they already had been checking big and small chains plus mom-and-pop restaurants, and they were all already wiped out. More bad news. More despair. Maybe they’d just starve to death and not even get a chance to go out with the flu strains or by murder.
The military shipments of food were coming only every few weeks now, and Jamie said he thought it was because they were using it all up in their command centers and temporary bases and medical sites they’d set up to house and feed civilians who couldn’t take care of themselves anymore. He and Alex both agreed they should stay away from those if at all possible. They showed them on the news, told people to go there if they had no other place to go or no hope for survival, and were instructed to leave everything they owned behind with the exception of one suitcase. Wren had to agree with the guys. They were better off staying away if they could.
She was sitting in the den with Dixie curled up on the leather sofa beside her as she read one of the nursing manuals. It was so complex. She needed something simpler, but these were basically all they found so far at the Crane residence. Wren was lost.
Dixie raised her dark head, ears pricked forward. A few seconds later, she heard Jamie pull in the driveway behind the house.
“Good girl,” Wren praised the dog, patting her head and giving her a treat from the bag of dog snacks Elijah found at the Crane’s. She now carried them in the pockets of her jackets and hoodies. It made her feel slightly safer having the dog with her at all times, and the guys all said she could be in charge of her. Like Wren, the dog seemed a bit melancholy, probably at the loss of her humans. But she was smart and eager, and she also did this weird mewling whine low in her throat when those things were in their neighborhood. Dixie slept in the bed with Wren.
“Hey,” Elijah greeted, offering a smile. It was welcome, but Wren had a hard time returning it.
“Any luck finding anything?” Alex prompted from his seat at the small kitchen table where he was stripping and cleaning guns, or weapons as he called them.
“Got some stuff,” Elijah offered.
She helped unload the SUV with Jamie and Elijah as Dixie stood guard on the back porch. They didn’t get a lot, but every little bit would help.
“Where’d this all come from?” she asked of the crates and few cardboard boxes.
“Mostly the school,” Jamie answered. “Guess not too many people thought of hitting it yet. There’s some more there we might go back and get tomorrow. They moved the people there to another site, so that worked for us.”
“Oh, that’s good,” she answered without fervor.
Later, they ate mostly in silence, and Wren fed Dixie in her bowl near the door in the mudroom before they sat down.
“We’ve been talking,” Jamie brought up, pointing toward Elijah with his fork. “I’m starting to think we should get out of here.”
“And go where?” Alex asked.
“Somewhere outside the city,” he answered. “The cities are still too congested. We’re taking a big risk staying here.”
“And,” Elijah added, “we could hunt.”
“Hunt?” Wren questioned.
He nodded vigorous
ly. “Yeah, like deer or whatever. We could catch fish in a lake or hunt deer. Soon, that freezer’s gonna be empty.”
“I saw a whole herd of deer in town the other night,” Alex told them. “I went out for a walk to see what was going on out there…”
“What? Why would you do that, Alex?” Elijah asked angrily. “You know it’s not safe at night. It’s not safe during the day, but hell, at night, bro?”
“Relax,” he scolded. “I’m not an idiot, Elijah. I know what I’m doing. Sneaking around a city I’m familiar with is a lot easier than doing it in some shithole in the Middle East.”
He was fearless to a fault.
“I know. It’s just…” Elijah argued.
“Whatever,” Alex scoffed and ran a hand through his short dark hair. “Listen. What I’m saying is that I think the less populated the cities become, the more the animals like deer will start moving around in them. There had to be eight or ten of them in that herd the other night.”
“Well, then imagine what it will be like outside the cities,” Jamie speculated.
“Maybe,” Alex said. “I’m not totally convinced we should leave.”
“Me, neither,” Wren chimed in, agreeing with Alex, who didn’t seem as if he liked her very well. “In case anyone wants my opinion. And besides, what if we get relocated, Jamie?”
“We won’t be,” he answered. “It’s not happening, not anytime soon. Roger told me we’re stuck here to ride it out. He said they’ve lost over sixty percent of their force either to the flu or people just quitting to be with their families. That’s the government right now. Across the pond and here in America. We’re not going to be able to rely on them much longer.”
“Not that we did before,” Alex grumbled.
Jamie continued, “But I’m not just thinking about hunting. That was Elijah’s idea. I’m wondering if there would be fewer of the night crawlers out further away from the cities. Think about it for a minute. City centers are more populated, so it just goes to reason that the cities will be full of crawlers,” he said and paused to take a bite of his chicken. Even he was calling them crawlers now. It made Wren feel even more disheartened. Jamie wasn’t buying into the idea that things would get better. “Farming areas are a safer bet like where we met up at that feed mill in…what’d you call it, Elijah, Amish Country?”
Elijah nodded. “Yeah, it’s an Ohio term. Everyone calls it that. It’s just areas, pockets if you will, where the Amish settle their communities. Hell, we could probably learn a thing or two from them.”
Jamie was quiet for a few moments. “You’re right. We really could. You said they already went without electricity and all had small plots of land for their gardens and farm animals and fields. I’m going to study up on them tonight if the interweb’s working.”
Some days it didn’t work at all. Yesterday they’d lost power for about six hours. Things were getting sketchy, at best.
“Anyway,” he continued, “farming areas, fly-over country as people like to call it, might be a better bet. Fewer people equals less crawlers, right?”
“Maybe,” Alex said. “It makes sense. I see the logic in it, but I’d just like to stay here as long as we can.”
“I can respect that,” Jamie said and took the last bite of his chicken and rice casserole minus cheese, milk or cream, or flavor. It was basically chicken and rice, but that’s what she had to work with, and she wasn’t a good cook when she didn’t have more of a selection of ingredients. “But I figure with the stock I took last night, we’ve got, at best mind you, another month here.”
“A month?” Wren asked with worry. “Just a month?”
He nodded and rested his hand on her back a moment before letting it fall away. “Sorry, Wren. Unless the situation drastically changes, we’re going to have to do something soon. We can’t live here forever.”
“But I thought you said we could stay here for a year or more if we had to?”
“It’s…” Elijah broke in and then hesitated.
“What?” she asked. “What aren’t you saying?”
He sighed and looked at Jamie, who nodded. “It’s getting worse out there, Wren. At night especially.”
Jamie expounded on it, “They aren’t keeping up with the number of infected or newly infected. We’re so outnumbered at night when they get to moving around. The other night, Elijah and I were just late getting back and were out a few hours after the sun set, and it got really bad. Plus, we had to lose some, too. They were tracking us back to the house. Tracking, smelling, or whatever they were doing to tail us. It was hard shaking them, too. We had to lead them somewhere else. We waited it out with another group in an abandoned Walmart before we could move again. Once they figure it out that we’re holed up here, they’re going to start stalking us. It’ll get harder to go out at all.”
Her eyes dropped to her plate. There was still a little food on it, but Wren didn’t feel like she could eat anything more.
“But we’ve seen them during the day, too.”
“Yes, but not in the same numbers as nocturnally,” Elijah said.
“Uncle Jasper’s,” Alex said out of the blue.
“What’s that?” Wren asked.
Alex looked at her with that intense and guarded dark gaze and explained, “He was our uncle on our mother’s side. Owned a dairy farm south of here, Carroll County. His wife passed away from cancer like our mom. Then he had an accident, farm-related, tractor rolled on him and killed him. They never had kids. Couldn’t, I guess. So, he willed the farm to my mom. She never had a use for it, but she couldn’t bring herself to sell it, either. So, it’s just been sitting there abandoned for…what, E?” he looked at Elijah, “Maybe three or four years or so?”
Elijah said, “Yeah, sounds right. I hadn’t thought of that place. It might work. It was pretty hidden away. That might be a good thing.”
“Yes, I agree,” Jamie spoke up. “I think that would be good for sure. Any place that’s away from people is better.”
“Mom and Dad sold everything off, the cows, most of the equipment, but kept the land and the buildings,” Elijah further explained.
“And you say it’s remote?” Jamie asked.
Alex answered, “Oh, yeah. It’s remote all right. Elijah and I used to go down sometimes in the summers when we were young. Probably ‘cuz they couldn’t have kids. They always wanted us to come for visits when school was out. They were cool. Nice to us. And we got to help out around the farm, feeding the cows and even learning the tractors, baling hay. I think it might be a good idea. I wasn’t sure about moving from here, but if it’s to a place we know, then maybe.”
Dixie nudged her hand with her muzzle. Wren took a small piece of chicken and fed it to her.
“You should eat, Wren,” Jamie told her with worry seeping into his deep voice.
“Yeah, can’t afford for you to go on some diet right now,” Elijah teased and gave her upper arm a gentle squeeze. “You’ll blow away in the wind.”
As hard as she tried, Wren couldn’t manage even a grin. Hopelessness was like that. When it took root, it was hard to climb back up from that pit of despair. She simply rose and took her plate to the sink where she washed it and her utensils and put them in the rack to dry. Everyone did their own dishes. It was a new house rule.
They watched the news for a while before Jamie excused himself to go and organize their supplies in the basement and Alex went to his own room for the night, which was what he normally did. She wondered if it was because he lost Lila, but Elijah’s brother was hard to read. He was dark and brooding most of the time, difficult for her to get a bead on, which she was typically good at doing when it came to deciphering people. Alex was not going to be one of those people because he was very closed off.
“How are you feeling? Still getting headaches from the accident?” Elijah asked once they were alone.
She shook her head. “I’m fine. I already told you guys about a million times.”
He sat next to h
er. Dixie was lounging by the door and raised her head to regard Elijah. Then she must’ve realized he was one of the good guys and lowered her muzzle to the floor again. The dog had been acting protective of her for the past week or so. Wren speculated it was because she, like Wren, realized they needed to stick together, and she wasn’t about to let anyone come between them. Either that, or she was just protecting the one in the group who always fed her. That was probably the more likely scenario.
“I just worry,” he said and reached out to stroke her hair.
“Don’t,” she told him. “Just worry about coming home safely every time you leave. I can’t stand the thought of you or Jamie being killed.”
She knew he was thinking something similar. Elijah was going to say more on the topic when the usual series of emergency alert beeps sounded off on the television. That happened daily now as news was coming in at a rapid rate. It was all glum, though, nothing uplifting or positive.
The woman behind the news desk, who didn’t look so healthy herself, reported on the death toll around the world, which was up to four hundred million and rising.
“That’s the entire population of America and then some,” Elijah stated and ran a hand over his weary face.
The footage they were showing from around the globe was even worse. Orphanages full up with children who no longer had parents. Prisons full of those infected with the second strain of the virus. Societal collapses happening at a faster rate than in the United States. Fighting. Robbing. Crime. Death. Wren just wanted to click the television off, but some sick part of her couldn’t look away.
They were showing Italy and Greece. The people were rioting in the streets demanding their governments take care of them. They were burning buildings, committing crimes on live television, and rioting.
“Do you think that could happen here?” she asked.
Elijah didn’t even turn to face her. He just nodded. “Yeah, Wren, I do. I think it will, too. It won’t be long from now, either. This isn’t going to hold.”