Find Them_an apocalyptic survival thriller

by B. R. Paulson

  Those were real. They weren’t fake. Cady’s chest loosened. Scott had lived. Bailey was okay. If Scott had lived, then that meant the possibility that Cady could, too, was high.

  Cady had made it. At least so far. She did it. Somehow, some way.

  “Do you think he’s going to be okay?” Bailey’s words finally penetrated the fog around Cady’s head. Someone was in danger of not making it and that fact greatly saddened her daughter.

  “I don’t know. I hope so. I have no idea what makes this virus work. Some things are pretty easy to figure out. Like rabies, right? Go crazy. You know what spreads it. You know what the disease symptoms are as they play through. You know there is no chance of survival. But this? There’s nothing standard about it since I’m the first one to survive it, that we know of.”

  “Thanks for helping with Mom. I didn’t want to see her hurting like you were.” Bailey sniffed and utensils clinking on dishware gave away their location.

  “I understand. It’s okay. She helped me a lot. I wanted a chance to repay the favor.” They were somber and almost monotone as they spoke.

  How much time had passed? It must have been days since she’d gone to sleep. The Ambien had put her under and she wasn’t sure that was a good thing or a bad thing. If she’d slept through the sickness, tossing and turning as the pain had warranted, it could have been days since she’d gone into her bedroom where she thought she would die.

  The time frame didn’t matter as much as Cady was focusing on it. She simply didn’t care. For intents and purposes, she’d woken up. She was lucid. If she really wanted to drill down into the blessings of the moment, she had to admit that while the aches and pains were uncomfortable, the pain itself waved in and out. She could walk. Her muscles ached but not with an intense burning that made her want to rip them from the tendons.

  She could breathe without the sensation of branding irons scalding her throat and chest.

  Warm tears of gratitude and confusion and fatigue welled over her lower lids. She closed her eyes, but they still escaped and ran down her lashes.

  All she knew was that she could walk and she could hear Scott and Bailey. She’d gather all of her answers in a minute.

  Chapter 11

  Bailey

  Worry had become Bailey’s only constant. Scott had returned about thirty-six hours ago. She’d gotten some sleep, but what if Scott wasn’t over the sickness? She’d tossed and turned when she’d woken up. Would he hurt anyone, if he wasn’t over it? What if he just left again?

  There were a lot of variables at play and Bailey couldn’t believe she used the word variable. One of the last things she’d learned in school before her mom had pulled her out to quarantine them.

  If Scott was fine, then did Bailey have the right to hope her mom would be, too? Scott was right when he said that the illness treated each person differently. She’d had no idea Jason was so sick. She knew almost to the minute how long Scott had been gone. She’d started counting because Jason had collapsed so close to the same time and if Scott could get better after three days and he was old, then Jason should be able to do the same. Jason was young. He hadn’t even been as sick as Scott had seemed.

  If Jason had been, he’d hidden it well.

  Enough time had passed, Scott and her had kind of fallen into a comfortable expectation of each other. There wasn’t a lot to be done when you were too weak to do much. Scott had taken over Jessica’s care. That actually left Bailey with the easy things to do. Feeding and watering the chickens, gathering eggs, and checking on Ranger were small compared to figuring out when to feed the baby and change the baby.

  With the worry about Jessica off her shoulders, Bailey was able to focus her concern more fully on her mom and Jason. She wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing.

  Swallowing a bite of oatmeal, Bailey smiled half-heartedly at Scott as he cooed at Jessica while she sucked on her bottle in his arms and he ate more of his breakfast. After a minute of silence, Bailey met Scott’s gaze when he lifted his eyes her way. “Do you think my mom’s going to be okay? I mean, she should be better tomorrow, right? You’re getting steadily better.” Was that accusation in her tone? She didn’t want to be that way. She didn’t want him to think she wasn’t glad he was still alive. Faintly, she added, “And it’s almost been three days, right?”

  While she didn’t want him to think she wanted him sick, she also needed answers. Plus, she couldn’t deny that she was a little mad that he was there and Cady wasn’t.

  Bailey had already lost her dad, her grandparents, and countless others. Why did she have to lose her mom, too? True, she and her mom weren’t the closest they could be. And maybe, if Bailey made a deal with whatever universal being was out there that she’d do better, maybe that deal would get her mom back and better.

  Scott set the bottle on the table and shifted Jessica to his shoulder, careful to support her head. His lips downturned thoughtfully as he considered her question. “I think expecting your mom to get better in the exact same time frame that I did isn’t realistic.” He patted Jessica’s back.

  “Why? You’re both old. You’re both pretty healthy. Why wouldn’t you get better the same way?” Bailey swallowed her last bite of oatmeal. She didn’t want to sit at home and wait for everyone to either die or get better. What she really wanted was to go out for pizza – the kind with loads of cheese, pineapple, and Canadian bacon, and so much sauce it dripped on your fingers.

  “You know when you get the flu and you throw up four times but your friend gets the same flu and only throws up twice? Or doesn’t get a fever but you do?” Scott returned Jessica to a cradled position and put his finger into her small fist.

  “That makes sense, I guess.” Bailey shrugged and half-shook her head as if to say get to the point.

  “It’s a lot like that. We don’t have a basis for this sickness. We have no idea what is normal for what it does. Does everyone get a fever? Does everyone get the rash? Your mom’s rash hasn’t gotten the pox look to it yet. I’ll check again when I put more oils on her. Which reminds me, did Jason put oils on at all? I really think that helped me.” Scott finished eating his breakfast while Jessica stared around, her eyelids droopy with sleepiness. “I can’t put them on him, so you don’t have to.”

  “Not that I know of. He didn’t ask for any and I didn’t think to offer them since I didn’t know he was already this sick.” She couldn’t look Scott in the eyes. She’d been too busy flirting with Jason and hoping he wouldn’t get sick to notice that he’d already been very sick. To be fair, she’d noticed his eyes were red-rimmed, but that wasn’t enough.

  She didn’t want to be the one to blame, but the sad reality was that if Jason died, it would be her fault. How would she ever be able to tell Scott that she’d killed his nephew or Jessica that she’d let her cousin down?

  There might be worse things than getting the sickness, like surviving to regret one’s actions.

  Bailey was there and her regret was already growing by leaps and bounds.

  Chapter 12

  Scott

  Scott didn’t know how to help Bailey. Her haunted eyes suggested she had a lot of demons to deal with. Things that she shouldn’t have to worry about plagued her, and he’d been part of that.

  His own actions in the past cut into him, taunting his conscious around every turn. He couldn’t catch a break and huge part of him worried that he might have been better off, where he deserved to be, when he was down with the virus. His death would have been nothing when he had taken so much in that hospital wing.

  The very real possibility that he was living his penance for actions he’d taken repeatedly occurred to him. Would Scott lose Cady and Jason because he’d killed all those babies? Their defenseless bodies hadn’t stood a chance as he’d gone around the NICU. How long would that torment him? Well into the eternities? Would he forever struggle with the actions he’d taken? If he couldn’t forgive himself, he’d never be able to move on and be who he
needed to be or do what was required.

  Second-guessing himself would make him dangerous to be around, if a situation came up where he had to make a split-second decision. If he doubted his actions, he wouldn’t be able to decide.

  He had to be able to own what he did with those babies. He had to own it. The only problem was, he didn’t know who to hand it off to. Was that something you could confess? He wasn’t Catholic, but the idea of confessing his sins to someone and to verbally hear of absolution was something he could really get behind.

  “Do you think Jason will die because he didn’t get oils on him?” Bailey’s small voice broke through Scott’s thoughts and he blinked at her as he came back to the moment.

  “I think it’s going to be fine. I’ll put some on him in a minute.” He smiled reassuringly at her, but his smile dimmed at the sudden presence of tears in her eyes. “Bailey, what’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “The oil you used on Mom is the last we had. I didn’t know I was supposed to ration it. Mom said to use what we needed, but she never said we had a limited supply.”

  Scott’s realization of what the situation actually looked like slapped him in the face. Bailey hadn’t known Jason was sick to put oils on him. And they were out of the oils that had saved Scott’s life – he believed they did. The relief they gave had been the only way he’d been able to rest. What would they do to help Jason get better, if the only things that had relieved Scott and Cady were no longer available?

  What did Scott do, if they didn’t have those? The only treatment Scott was aware of for shingles was the oils, vitamin C, and rest. He couldn’t force Jason to swallow the vitamin because he was already resting. The only other thing he could do was get the oil on his skin. “Where does your mom keep the oils?” He had to see for himself that Cady was really out. Maybe Bailey didn’t know which oils Cady used.

  “We’re out of the helichrysum and the ravintsara. We have some anica oil left, but that’s low, too.” Bailey finished her oatmeal, despondent as she stared at the final lumps in her bowl. She glanced up at Scott. “I don’t know what else to do to treat Jason. I’m not sure what else to do about anything.”

  Scott understood. He relished the feel of Jessica in his arms. She seemed to be doing fine, the rash was going down, according to Bailey she’d only had a skiff of the sickness.

  What had made Jessica only have a passing encounter with the virus and knock Jason down to where he was nonresponsive?

  “I’m not sure what to do without the oil, either. But I can assure you that we do the best we can with what we know. We’re trying hard. There has to be some kind of grace allowed for that.” Scott hoped his words came across as optimistic instead of negative like he felt deep inside. Without those oils, he didn’t know what to do for his nephew.

  He stood. “Would you mind holding Jessica so I can use the restroom? I thought I would check on your mom and air out the upstairs as well.” Plus, he needed to think. He had to come up with a plan on how to treat Jason and help Bailey out.

  Bailey pushed her empty bowl toward the center of the table and held out her arms. “Sure.” She cast a glance over her shoulder at Jason, then looked back at Scott. “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”

  “If we can get some oil on him, I have no doubt he’ll be fine. I wish I knew how far along he was. I didn’t have a coma, I just slept for a few hours at a time.” Painfilled hours that he had wished he’d die from. Jason might be able to escape the mind-altering pain Scott had endured by being in a coma. He seemed more restful than Scott had.

  Scott stood and settled Jessica into Bailey’s arms. The baby was already asleep and she transferred easily. He looked down at his niece and tried to see his sister, Stephanie, in the baby’s tiny features. It wasn’t easy to see since Jessica still had the newborn baby roundness to her features that all babies seemed to have – a general cuteness that you couldn’t escape.

  But soon, he hoped to see his sister. He missed his family, missed knowing they were out there. He shoved that to the side as he patted Bailey on the shoulder and headed slowly toward the stairs.

  Scott stooped beside Jason, feeling for his pulse again by pressing his fingers against his throat and then touching his nephew’s skin to feel for a fever and a rash. Pox were already apparent on his skin and they weren’t limited to the rear portion of his neck and shoulders. The rash appeared to crawl down his arms and across his stomach.

  Scott shuddered, recalling the pain that had accompanied that stage of the illness. His own skin still itched and if he reached up and touched his neck, his own rash was still in relief like a textured map, but not so much that the spikes of the pox could be felt under his fingertips. The rigidity of the rash had smoothed as well.

  Hopefully, Jason would get better faster than Scott had. Without the oils, though, Scott didn’t know how that was possible.

  Why hadn’t Jason said anything to any of them? A little bit of care and medicine would have gone a long way.

  Scott was starting to get stronger. Maybe that afternoon or evening he’d be able to move Jason into the living room to rest on the couch. He wouldn’t be able to get him up the stairs. Not with his present state of weakness, but maybe in a day or two.

  Standing, Scott pushed aside the dizziness that crashed over him. Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, he took a deep breath and looked up. With a hand on the railing, Scott froze at the sight of Cady sitting at the top of the steps and crying into her arms folded over her knees. Her shoulders shook soundlessly.

  He glanced around the wall and banister that separated the stairs from the hall and dining room. Bailey had walked out to the deck with Jessica probably to sit on the rocking chairs and enjoy the warm sun.

  He looked back up the stairs and squinted in the dim light coming through the skylight. “Cady?” His soft whisper reached her as he climbed up, holding himself from giving into the fatigue still pulling at him. He sat beside her, placing his arm around her back and shoulders and pulling her head to his upper arm. Oh, it felt good to hold her. “Why are you crying? We’re alive.”

  She sniffed, slowly wiping at her cheeks and nose. “I know. It’s a good thing. I just realized you and Bailey were still alive. That worried me and I wasn’t… I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Her breath hitched.

  He was grateful she realized she didn’t want to lose him, and while he wanted to relish that moment, he didn’t have time. If Cady was awake, she could answer questions and while Scott had tried to hide the urgency surrounding the oils and Jason, he had to admit that he didn’t think Jason would live without them.

  “Cady, do you have any more of that oil? Bailey said we’re out and Jason is really sick. I think I used the last on you.” He narrowed his eyes and watched her, lifting his hand to feel for a fever along her forehead. Her skin was chilled and he leaned back to check her neck.

  A faint rash was present, but it looked like the pox had completely passed her by. Was that possible? Maybe she hadn’t completely made it through the sickness. She could still be in the middle of it. Was she going through a delusional period like he had?

  “No. Everything I had I gave to Bailey. Are we really out?” Her eyes widened and she turned her face away from Scott. “I think my breath stinks.” She reached up and covered her mouth with her hand.

  He chuckled. “Who cares. Mine doesn’t smell like roses.” He tightened his hold around her. “We need to get some oil. Where would you get it from? I can go to the store and maybe get that. I doubt people stocked up on essential oils when food is another option.”

  “You can’t just go into a store and take helichrysum. It doesn’t work like that.” Cady rested her head on his shoulder. She yawned and shivered at the same time, wrapping her arms tighter around her waist. “I don’t think they even carry helichrysum or ravintsara at most stores, if any.”

  “I might be sick, but watch me. I doubt there are many people out there who are seeking medicines other than th
e Cure.” He snorted. “Can you get them in health food stories or anything like that?” He’d tear up the local vitamin and supplement store, if needs be.

  “No, you don’t understand.” She panted like she was out of breath from all the talking. “You can’t get this specific extract at any store. I… I need more of it. I kept the oils in my food storage because I wanted to make sure I had a way to treat burns and other skin issues.” She chewed on her lower lip. “You’re not supposed to use a lot at a time. Usually a little goes a long way.”

  “Where do we get it from?” Scott narrowed his eyes. Cady had to get it from somewhere. Hopefully, she didn’t say she ordered it online. That wouldn’t help anyone and Scott had to be able to do something to help Jason.

  What if they couldn’t get it? Jason could very well die and Scott didn’t want to let his nephew die without trying his best to find every possible way to get his nephew help. Those oils were the best option.

  “My friend… Beth. She’s my supplier. She does her own oil and herbal work.” Cady sighed and sat up, wrapping her arms around her waist. “She’s still alive, but she’s down in Post Falls. I’m not sure we’ll be able to make it by four-wheeler.”

  Four-wheeler. “Why aren’t you using your cars or trucks?” Scott couldn’t see them making any trip on an ATV when they were so weak. A trip down to Post Falls would take the normal thirty-minute car ride and turn it into a tumultuous hour-long trip.

  Cady yawned, nudging his shoulder with her cheek. “Because, if we decide to bug out at some point, we’re going to need our vehicles. The gas… if we waste it going into town on a reconnaissance mission that may or may not get us what we need, we won’t be able to get far out of here.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I don’t want to leave here either, but we have to think of every contingency.”

  Leave their homes? He’d already had to leave his and he’d left it unrecognizable and unlivable. He couldn’t return to his home with the way the social construct was. He had no way to get into a harbor store to fix anything. The small section he’d seen after the coyotes had left him feeling disheartened. Something or multiple somethings had been inside and torn up what he could see. Leaving his home behind hadn’t been a big deal.