by Karen Carr
Zora had outfitted us in comfortable shoes and comfortable clothes, Boa and Zora had also supplied us with sturdy and homemade holsters for all of our weapons. Huck and Zeke were wearing the uniforms that they had taken from Mac’s gang, in case they needed to infiltrate in disguise. Zora and Boa had tailored those to fit perfectly and they both looked incredibly handsome, especially after a shave.
I walked behind Zeke and Huck watching their boots move in symmetrical strides, thinking of all the things we would have to overcome in Durham, all the new things that I would have to try. According to Stan, Saudah was housed in the tobacco factories that had been turned into apartments in the middle of downtown Durham. The buildings were all brick lofts with large windows. Before the apocalypse, they were hard to enter, with high brick walls and wrought iron fences surrounding the property.
Stan had told me that one of the reasons Enroy and Duce had chosen the location was because of all the zeroes. They wanted an undead army outside their base, drooling and clawing, for two reasons. The first was that they thought it would keep other humans out, the second was that they needed undead specimens for their experiments with the living, like Saudah. Two terrifying obstacles, one that could be wiped out with my virus, the other, a secured fortress run by crazed humans, was the one that sent my stomach into uncontrollable spasms.
I swallowed my fear when we arrived at the stables and I saw Sneaky. Sivan was waiting at the stables with a horse for each of us, all saddled up and ready to go. I counted seven horses, with one for her. She had known Zora and Boa weren’t going. I marveled at the old woman’s perceptive ability and also her wardrobe. She was wearing the perfect English riding outfit, down to the breeches and boots. I touched my own American Flag shirt that Zora had managed to clean and smiled. It was my lucky shirt and I felt invincible in it.
“Are you sure riding is the best way to go?” Lily asked me as Sivan handed her the reins of a horse, I think it was Drifter. She widened her eyes as Drifter tossed her mane.
“We can’t walk, it will take too long,” I said, eying her suspiciously. Lily was always so calm and cool, it was strange to see her jittery. “We’ll get worn out if we walk. We can’t drive because we’ll draw too much attention to ourselves, especially between Haverlyn Village and downtown Durham. Even if we drive part way, what will we do then? The roads could be blocked…”
Lily put up her hand, “Alright, I’m just a little nervous. It’s been a while. I didn’t have time to come out here and practice, since I was taking care of Trevan.”
“It’s only one way, you’ll be fine,” Sivan said. She held out a riding helmet for Lily. “It’s like riding a bike, it comes back to you naturally.”
“Thanks,” Lily said reluctantly, taking the helmet and putting it on.
“How far is it to Durham from here?” Zeke asked. He had already mounted Midnight and was keeping her still by my side. I marveled at his Zen with the horse, they had really become friends over the last few weeks. I felt the same way about Sneaky as Sivan handed her over to me.
“I think it’s roughly twenty five miles.” I pet Sneaky’s mane. “Stan was always better at distance measurements.” I looked up at Zeke, who seemed extra tall on his horse. In his uniform and with his weapons over his shoulder, across his lap, and strapped to his back, and with his bulging saddle bags full of ammunitions and more things of military nature, he looked like a Calvary soldier.
“You’re worried about Stan, aren’t you?” Zeke asked.
“Yea,” I said. “I can’t believe he left without me.”
“If those assholes had my girlfriend, I would have left a long time ago,” Zeke said.
“Girlfriend?” I asked, and then I figured it out. “Saudah is Stan’s girlfriend?”
Zeke gave me a puzzled expression. “I thought you knew. How could you not, the way he mooned over her all the time.”
“Damn,” I simply said. All of the guys in my life were hooking up with other girls. Most likely Huck was hooking up with Ana, and now Stan and Saudah. Stan and Saudah. I assumed they’d be tearing at each other’s throats, driving each other crazy, but they had found love. I wondered why he didn’t say anything. He knew I was with Huck, or not with Huck. Damn.
“Sneaky is waiting,” Sivan said. She was already astride her horse. “Mount up.”
“Come on, sweetie, let’s go rescue your friends,” Zeke said. Midnight neighed in agreement and Sneaky nudged my backside.
“Okay, Sneaky,” I said. I gave her mane a tousle before I mounted her. I had to rearrange my tool belt, the one that Zora and Boa had given me as a parting gift. Boa had made it for me to fit my collection of recently acquired tools and it worked perfectly.
Sivan came up next to me and touched my arm with her riding crop. “Helena, remember you have a gift. Your virus. You have to use it to help others, to help as many others as you can. You have to use it against Mace Duce. If you can, you must take him down, for your friends and for all of us—but mostly for yourself.”
“I know that now,” I said.
“And I have my horses.” Sivan caressed her horse, whose name I didn’t know. “I believe we were all put on this earth for a reason, especially now. My horses are here to help you, and so am I.”
I didn’t know what to say. Feeling the swell of too much responsibility in my throat, I swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
“I will bring the horses back home when you are close enough to walk into Durham without much effort. Remember, it’s a one way ride. You may not return and I need to bring them back home.” Sivan’s horse was a high-spirited one, and started jumping around like it was anxious to leave. She calmed it down and came next to me again. “When I come back to Jordan Lake with the horses, I will leave them in the hands of Zora and see if I can contact Hipslow. He will help you and you can do so much for him in return.”
“I don’t want to be indebted to Hipslow,” I said, thinking of Candy and Miles and how Galen had raced across the bridge before Minnesota blew it.
Sivan laughed. “You are familiar with his contracts? He means well. I’m sure we can work something out and he is one you want on your side. If it came down to Mace Duce or Hipslow, I would choose Hipslow every day. Now take your horse and let’s get going.”
The first few hours of the walk went swiftly. We kept the horses at a slow pace because we wanted my virus to kill everything. Broder alternatively led the when we needed his tracking skills, or followed us at the end of our party to protect the rear. Sivan and Ana rode together, with Ana depending on Sivan for translations.
I stayed with Lily to give her riding tips and encouragement when I was able, which she seemed to take with grace and appreciation. Huck and Zeke rode mostly together, with one or the other coming to check on me and Lily every so often.
We went through the woods, avoiding the roads. At times the brush was thick and hard to penetrate, but most of the trees were so tall that their canopy prevented the underbrush from growing. There were signs of the storm, and other storms, everywhere. Fallen trees, electric poles and broken down houses. Being in the woods kept us from most houses, but we still passed several dozen.
“It’s going to take all day to get there,” Huck said after another hour had passed.
“We should consider spending the night somewhere,” I said.
“We need to cut Trevan off before nightfall,” Lily said. She was clinging to her horse in an uncomfortable way.
“You’re not going to make it much longer,” I said and did my best to give her a sympathetic smile. “Maybe we can at least take a rest and go in after dark.”
“We’re not going to be able to cut Trevan off,” Zeke said. “We don’t know which direction they went. Stan told me enough about the area and where they were keeping Saudah. I now know why he gave me such detail and asked me what I would do. He was planning this for a long time. I know what he’s going to do by what I told him to do. We’ll need to meet him in Durham.”
“
You are right, Zeke,” I said. “It’s possible that we will run into Stan and Trevan on the way. They are going to the same area, our only choice is to meet them there. We possibly would be wandering around looking for them in the woods for hours or days. It’s better to go where we know they will be.”
All while I was speaking, Huck was translating for Ana. At the end, she said something to him, they had a conversation and then he turned to me. “Ana says we should listen to you. She knows where to go, remember she was there? She thinks she might have even seen Saudah there.”
Ana knows. Of course she knows. Broder picked her up after she had escaped Enroy. I kicked myself for taking German instead of Spanish in school. Spanish was something else I would have to add to my ever increasing list of things I would have to learn post-apocalypse.
We were already way past Haverlyn Village, perhaps only three miles from Durham, when we began to see more bodies. Before there had been one or two bodies here and there, and we were able to navigate the horses around them without them becoming spooked. Now there were bodies here and there and everywhere, making it much more difficult to move forward. Even Sneaky, who had seemed like such a brave horse, didn’t want to move forward. This was a turn of events that I did not anticipate.
Sivan stopped her horse in an open field on the side of the road. “It’s time for us to leave,” she said. “Please dismount your horses and take your packs. I must get my children out of here before they become too afraid.”
We did as she said, and gathered all of our packs in a pile on an old picnic bench. With well-wishes to all, and a special message to Broder, Sivan took all of the horses and headed off in the direction we had come. We were on our own.
“What now?” Huck asked.
“We head to Roxboro Street,” I said. “It should only be a block or two that way.” I pointed left. “It leads directly into downtown, on the south side, a few blocks away from the tobacco buildings, giving us some room.”
“Then, let’s go,” Zeke said.
We picked up our packs, sorting out the equipment, leaving the saddle bags and some of the heavier stuff, including weapons, behind. I was scared, nervous and excited at the same time. This was my calling. This was what I was meant to do, wipe out this apocalypse from the earth, and I was going to do it one step at a time.
“Roxboro,” Ana said, pointing to the street sign.
I nodded and motioned left. We started walking up Roxboro into Durham. We walked along the old oak tree lined street with the tinder box houses on either side. Roxboro ran right into downtown Durham, but only three miles away it still felt rural. Within a few steps, the ever present sound of birds and nature disappeared and the scenery began to change.
The closer we hiked to Durham, the more bodies we saw. They were covering the ground and laying on the sidewalk, draped over fences and sometimes we saw piles in people’s backyard. Once we passed a yard with a chain link fence with over two dozen bodies lying in it. The smell was outrageous.
“How many people live in Durham?” Huck asked as he observed the gruesome scene. The scene on the road in front of us was even worse. Piles and piles of dead covered the road, which would make our progress harder. We’d have to pick our way through all of those bodies.
“Around two hundred and fifty thousand,” I said and then took a deep breath. They would soon be wiped out with my virus, a mound of that many bodies had never been encountered before, a mound that would take forever to clean up.
“There shouldn’t be this many bodies here,” Lily said. “Look ahead, there are hundreds ahead of us. There should be dozens in this area. Hundreds, thousands, should happen downtown or near the campus.”
“It’s like they’re attracted to something, something is drawing them in this direction,” Huck said. Everyone looked at me and I felt myself blushing.
“They’re following you,” Zeke said.
“Me?” I asked.
“Your virus,” Zeke pondered. “It’s attracting them.”
“From so far away?” I asked.
“You’re the social scientist,” Lily said. “Is it possible that the ones nearest to you are attracted by your smell and that the other ones follow? Maybe it’s a chain reaction.”
The short time I studied the zeroes at the village, I noticed they would travel in packs, bumping into each other in rambling fashion. “If it’s true, we need to come in from the north. We need to get the zeroes to come to me on the north side. Sivan said we needed a distraction. She said we would figure it out when we got there. This is it. We lead all of Enroy’s and Duce’s men north and away from the tobacco buildings. We can wait near one of these high rises downtown, like the Durham Center. We can then go in from the south, run the last part of the way.”
“That means we’re going to have to run for it until we get to the north side,” Zeke said. “We have to get rid of your virus right now, or else we won’t be able to walk through the bodies anymore at the rate they are probably piling up.”
“We’re going to be zombie meat if we run for it,” Huck said.
“Shit,” I said. “We can’t lead them south. We have to go back that way. We have no choice.”
“At the rate Hella is attracting these things that would mean we would have to jog through thousands of zeds. We would never make it,” Lily said.
“It’s only Hella that has to go,” Zeke said. “I’ll take her on that bike over there. You stay here where they are all dead for two hours. You can rest, take shifts, and get some sleep. That should give us enough time to get to the building in the north, the Durham Center, and attract and kill as many of those things as we can. Then you should be able to walk in easier. Sure, you will still have to kill some, so stay on your guard, it’s the only way.”
“I’m going to take Hella,” Huck said.
“You can’t, bro,” Zeke said. “You’re the only one that can speak to Ana. She is the only one that can lead you to Saudah. If we don’t make it back, you need to continue on with the mission. We owe it to Stan and we owe it to Hella.”
“Then, give me a moment alone with her,” Huck said.
Zeke glared at Huck and clenched his fist, like he was mad at him, or wanted to fight him. I was so surprised by his reaction that I touched his shoulder. “Let me talk to Huck,” I said.
Huck and I stepped away from the group. By the look in his eyes, fear mixed in with sorrow and confusion, I knew what he was going to say. He wanted to tell me about his relationship with Ana. I was prepared to accept it and move on, in fact most of me already had.
“Hella, there’s something I want to say to you,” Huck said.
I looked in his eyes, and reached for his hands. “I know,” I said.
“You know what?” he asked grasping my hands tightly.
“I know about you and Ana,” I said. “Zeke told me.”
“Zeke told you what?” Huck asked. “There’s nothing going on between me and Ana.”
I gulped and felt hot. Huck looked hurt. Hurt by me, hurt by Zeke. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice sounding squeaky.
“I was going to tell you that I loved you,” Huck pulled me in closer, suddenly lighting all those feelings I had for him, suddenly making me confused and angry at myself. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Hella. You mean the world to me.”
“What about Ana?” I asked.
“She’s kind and she’s lonely. I care for her, Hella, but she’s like my little sister. That’s all.”
A little sister, the same words Zeke used to describe our relationship.
Huck pulled me toward his chest and kissed me. “Hella,” he whispered, his voice sending prickling sensations through my body. I forgot how much I loved to hear him whisper in my ear. Before he continued his sentence, I felt a hand on my wrist and someone tugging me away.
“We have to go, Hella,” Zeke said. He turned to Huck. “Hole up in that house for the next few hours.” Zeke pointed to a small shack next to the field.
Huc
k handed Zeke his Uzi. “Keep this, you’ll need it more than us,” Huck said. He then turned and walked away, glancing back on several occasions, hope and fear in his eyes. Ana ran to catch up to him, and Lily followed. Broder gave me a hug and a thumbs up before he disappeared into the shack with the rest of them.
I turned to Zeke, confused by my feelings. Reading his eyes, I felt that he was too. I opened my mouth to speak, but he put his finger on my lips.
“Not now,” Zeke said. “If we live through this, then we can talk about this.”
I nodded and he clasped my hand. We both walked down the road knowing that in a few short feet we would be fighting for our lives against thousands of zeroes. There had to be a better way.
CHAPTER 22
Zeke and I walked down Roxboro in silence. The road, the world around us, thrived with life. Birds were chirping as they flew through the sky, ants were marching over the pavement in search of food, and bees and wasps and butterflies were darting all around as they pollinated the spring flowers. In another time, I would have felt refreshed and alive with such sights, and I tried to remember that feeling. Instead, I felt a foreboding sense of doom with each step we took, especially when we arrived at the tell-tale signs of my virus’s border, a bunch of bodies in the road.
Zeke observed the bodies in the large semi-circle around us and the other bodies scattered in the distance. “They remind me of iron filaments the way they are all collapsed on the road and you are their magnet.” He regarded me with a cocked head and a downturned mouth.
“This is what happens when I stand still. All of these zeroes were marching toward us and dropped when they hit my virus wall. All of the others scattered in the distance were killed once we started walking toward them.”
Zeke raised an eyebrow. “You like science?”