Mass Extinction Event (Book 11): Days 349 to 356

by Cross, Amy

  I open my mouth, poised to tell him that she's pregnant, but at the last moment I remind myself that it's not my place to do that. Besides, there's still a chance that it's all a false alarm.

  “It's cold,” he says after a moment.

  “Yeah,” I reply.

  “This isn't working,” he adds.

  “We -”

  “We're making decisions the wrong way,” he continues, interrupting me. “I know I've said it before, but it's true. If we don't find a way to get moving tomorrow...”

  His voice trails off, and I don't intervene to tell him that everything's going to be okay. I know that he'd only call me an idiot, and he'd probably be right. We have no food, and no water, and only enough gas to get us about another hour or two along the road. When the sun comes up in the morning, we need to have an idea of where we're going, and I'm getting more and more convinced that Martha is right, that a major city is our only chance.

  “We should go to Philadelphia,” I say finally. “I don't see what other choice we have.”

  “Maybe,” Martha mutters.

  “Maybe?” I turn to her. “Earlier, you were the one who -”

  “We hadn't met those three guys earlier,” she says, interrupting me. “The second I saw the bodies next to that car, I got a bad feeling about this whole area.”

  “They were just three men,” I point out. “They might not even have had anything to do with the bodies. You're jumping to a lot of conclusions here.”

  “I'm following my gut,” she replies.

  “It's your gut that led us here,” Riley says, getting to his feet. “Screw this whole mess.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask as he walks away.

  “I need to be by myself,” he replies. “I need to think. I've spent too long listening to what everyone else wants to do. I need to figure out what my gut's telling me to do, and for that I need to not have the rest of you yelling all the time. I'm outta here.”

  I start to get up so that I can follow, but Martha puts a hand on my arm to hold me down.

  “Let him go,” she says softly. “He's got every right to make up his own mind. And we don't have a right to stop him.”

  I don't know what to say to that, and I'm too weak to just randomly go on about things, so instead I simply sit and resume my contemplation of the stars. Everything is starting to feel ragged at the edges, even time itself, and hunger and thirst seem to be influencing the way I think. No matter how hungry I am now, I know that I'll be hungrier in the morning, and hungrier still this time tomorrow. For a moment, I think back to the bodies we saw earlier, and I realize that I can maybe understand why their meat was taken. I'm horrified by this realization, of course, but this incessant hunger is starting to change me.

  Maybe zombies aren't the only things that people can turn into our here. Maybe they can become desperate and turn into some other kind of monster. Maybe that's how all of this is going to end.

  Day 350

  Thomas

  “Huh?”

  Startled, having not even realized that I managed to fall asleep, I open my eyes and sit up. Warm morning light is streaming across the land, and as I look around I realize that at some point during the night I must have dozed off. For a few seconds, I actually feel pretty good, but then I feel the claws of hunger starting to dig deep in my belly again, and when I swallow I find that my throat hurts.

  There was no miracle in the night, then.

  We still have nothing.

  Hauling myself up, I head around to the front of the building. I can already hear Martha's voice up ahead, and when I go past the next corner I see that Martha is loading some old, partially-broken crates out of the car. As I get closer, I realize that I don't even need to ask her what she's doing, since it's pretty obvious that she's reducing weight in the hope of getting the car to go as far as possible today. At the same time, she's also trying to persuade Katrina that Philadelphia is worth a shot. Assuming we can even get there.

  Katrina, meanwhile, is sitting on the back seat, out of the sun, barely listening.

  “Hey,” I say as I reach Martha. “Do we have a plan yet?”

  “Take this,” she replies, passing another crate to me. “I let you sleep, but I'm glad you're up now. Doing this with only one hand is kinda tricky.”

  “We need food,” I tell her.

  “And we're going to get some. Last night, there was a sign saying Philadelphia's only eighty miles away. I think we should be able to cover most of that, and then we'll walk the last stretch.” She smiles at me. “It's better than baking to death out here, right?”

  “What if there's nothing in Philadelphia?” I ask.

  “Then we're no worse off than we are right now.” She pauses. “I admit it, leaving the farm was wrong. But we can't go back, so this is our best – and only – option.” She glances past me, toward Katrina. “If other people don't agree, then nobody's going to try to force them to join us.”

  “Then who gets the car?”

  She looks at me, and I can see that she hadn't thought about that point.

  Figuring that there's not much else I can say, I wander around to check on Katrina. She's simply staring into space, but she looks up at me as I get closer. Opening the front passenger-side door, I climb into the car, but I'm not really sure where to begin. It's pretty clear that she didn't tell Riley about the pregnancy last night, and right now I honestly don't have any answers. If I'm honest, I really can't think of anything to say that'll make a pregnant woman feel better in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

  “I think your sister's right,” she says finally.

  “You do?”

  She nods.

  “About going to Philadelphia?” I ask.

  She nods again.

  “It's a big risk,” I point out.

  “Everything's a big risk,” she replies. “The only thing I know for sure is that we're dead if we don't keep moving.”

  “Okay,” Martha says as she comes over to join us, “I've taken us much weight from the car as I can, and there's no point sticking around here. Katrina, are you sure you're coming with us?”

  Katrina hesitates, and then she nods.

  “It's the only option,” she says.

  “And what about Riley?” Martha asks.

  “I haven't seen him this morning,” she replies, before pausing again. “Have either of you?”

  ***

  “Riley!” I yell, with my hands cupped around my mouth as I stand about two hundred meters from the gas station. “Where are you?”

  Lowering my hands, I look out across the barren scrub-land and I wait for a response. A moment later, I hear Martha yelling his name in the distance, and then I hear Katrina too. We've been calling for about half an hour now, ever since we realized that he's been missing since the middle of the night, but so far we're not having any luck.

  “Come on, Riley,” I mutter under my breath, “you're not an idiot. What are you doing?”

  I turn and look the other way. Whatever's going on here, I can't shake a desperately uneasy sensation in the pit of my stomach. There's absolutely no good reason why Riley shouldn't be able to hear us right now. The only possible explanation is that he must be in trouble.

  Finally, I raise my hands again.

  “Riley!” I shout, even though I'm starting to feel that this is hopeless. “Where are you?”

  ***

  “He's gone,” Martha says firmly as she wipes sweat from her brow. “It's the only explanation. He left in the night.”

  “He wouldn't do that!” Katrina sobs, with tears running down her face. “He wouldn't just walk away and not say goodbye! He wouldn't walk away at all!”

  “Then where is he?” Martha asks, perhaps sounding a little harsher than necessary. “Because I don't see him anywhere. Do you? We have to face the truth. He's gone.”

  “You don't know him like I know him,” Katrina replies, and now she seems to be really panicking. “I know we argued last night, I'm n
ot denying that, and I know he's not been happy with the decisions we've all been making, but there's no way he'd leave like this!”

  “She's right,” I tell Martha. “You might not like Riley much, but he'd never just up and walk away.”

  “Are you sure about that?” she asks, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Where would he have gone?” I reply. “Look around, there's nowhere.”

  “He figured he's better off on his own,” she says with a shrug. “He's basically been hinting that for days now. Weeks, even. We all have to face the truth. When things get bad, people look after themselves. They don't worry about everyone else.”

  “Not Riley,” I tell her. “He's better than that.”

  “What were his last words to us last night?” she asks.

  “I don't -”

  “I'm outta here,” she adds before I can finish. “I remember it clearly. He said he needed time to think, then he walked away and he said those three words. I'm. Outta. Here.” She pauses. “Maybe the fact that I don't know Riley so well means that I can be more honest about what's going on here. He specifically told us that he was getting out of here. Do you know what those words mean, Thomas?”

  “They don't mean that he'd just leave,” I tell her.

  “You two don't know him,” Katrina cries as she sits on the back seat of the car and puts her head in her hands. “He wouldn't leave us. He wouldn't leave me.”

  Martha turns to me, and it's clear that she's not convinced.

  “Riley's a lot of things,” I tell her, “but he's not an asshole. Not a complete asshole, anyway. And, sure, he might leave me behind, Martha, and he might leave you behind too, but...”

  I pause, and then I look at Katrina again.

  “I was so horrible to him last night,” she whimpers. “He kept asking me what was wrong, over and over, and I couldn't tell him. Instead I froze him out, I acted like I didn't care about him. You don't think he really believed that, do you?”

  “No,” I reply, even though I'm honestly not sure.

  “That's rough,” Martha says. “You know, maybe you should have just told him that you're pregnant.”

  Katrina looks at her, and then she turns and glares at me.

  “I didn't tell her!” I say, holding my hands up in mock surrender. “I swear!”

  “Relax,” Martha continues with a sigh, “I noticed the signs. You've been edgy, you haven't been yourself, and I noticed you sneaking away to vomit a few times early in the morning. That got me noticing things, because I was worried you might be sick. Then I saw that you kept touching your belly, and touching other parts of yourself too, as if you were feeling a little tender. It didn't take much to put one and one together and come up with two.”

  “Why didn't you say anything?” Katrina asks.

  “I hoped I was wrong. I hoped you two hadn't truly been that dumb. I mean, getting pregnant in the middle of a global apocalypse has to count as one of the less smart moves I've ever come across. I mean, there's a time and a place for everything.”

  “It wasn't on purpose!” Katrina hisses.

  “No shit,” Martha replies. “It doesn't matter whether it was on purpose or not, the outcome's the same. And the thing is, Thomas was right just now. Riley's not an asshole, and he's not an idiot. If I figured out what was wrong with you, I bet he did too.” She pauses. “He's gone,” she adds finally. “If he'd had an accident, we'd have found him. He's gone, and you need to move past denial and get on with being angry.”

  “I'm not leaving without him!” she shouts.

  “And I'm not sitting around waiting for him to come back,” Martha replies, “because it's not going to happen. So it seems that we've got a problem.”

  Thomas

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Just give it a while longer,” I whisper, as I glance past Martha and watch Katrina still searching in the distance. “She's not ready to accept that he's gone. Not yet.”

  “We should be far from here by now.”

  “I know, but...” I pause for a moment. “Thank you for agreeing to wait. I just can't quite accept that Riley would abandon us all like this. Especially Katrina.”

  “Isn't it obvious what happened?” Martha asks. “He figured out that she's pregnant, he figured he's better off on his own, and he bolted.”

  I shake my head.

  “You just don't want to admit it,” she adds. “Most guys are like that anyway, even without the added zombie apocalypse element thrown into the mix.”

  “Most guys are not like that,” I tell her. “What about Andrew? Would he have abandoned you like this, if you were the one who got pregnant?”

  “That's different.”

  “How?”

  “Andrew was special,” she says bitterly, through gritted teeth. “Andrew and I were in love.”

  “Riley!” Katrina shouts far off past the gas station, and she's starting to sound increasingly desperate now. “Can you hear me?”

  “There's a point when this stops being cute and starts being pathetic,” Martha mutters darkly. “I think we've reached that point.”

  “When did you get so down about everything?” I ask.

  “Around the time I lost my arm,” she replies. “Or was it when I lost an eye? Hang on, maybe it was when my boyfriend, the love of my life, got turned into a zombie. No, actually, it might have been when I had to shoot him and burn his corpse. Or could it have been when I finally made it home and found that the farm had been burned to the ground?” She shrugs. “I'll think about it and let you know. There really are a lot of possibilities.”

  “Riley!” Katrina yells. “Where are you?”

  “He wouldn't leave her,” I say firmly. “He's just not that kind of -”

  Suddenly a drop of water lands next to me, hitting the roof of the car, quickly followed by another. Looking up, I see that the dark clouds are getting darker, and a moment later more rain begins to fall.

  “Well,” Martha says, as the downpour begins, “I think we just got a very overdue lucky break!”

  ***

  “I wish it'd rain hamburgers,” I say as I sit in the car and listen to rain pounding down against the roof. “Or chilli. Or candy. Or -”

  “We get the idea,” Martha says, as she passes another cup of rain water to me. “For now, enjoy some more of this. Get as much into your body as you can. We don't know when there'll be more rain, and we don't have as many bottles as I'd like. Plus, the weight would slow us down.”

  I down the cup's contents in one go, and Martha hands me another.

  “For her,” she says, nodding toward the back seat.

  Turning, I hold the water out to Katrina, but she's staring out the window and I don't think she's even noticed me. She's watching for any sign that Riley might be about to return, and she still has the hope and faith that – for me – faded a while ago.

  I might not like it.

  I might not understand it.

  But the truth is, Riley seems to have run away.

  Sure, he could have had an accident, but where? We've searched, and there's no reason why he would have gone wandering off too far. Could he have been attacked? Again, yes, but then why didn't his attackers also come for us? I've even begun to consider some pretty outlandish ideas, like the possibility that he fell down a hole somewhere, but again we've found no evidence of that. Faced with all of these facts, it's pretty clear that the simplest explanation is the most likely.

  Riley set off on his own. He left in the night, and he's not coming back.

  “Donuts,” Martha says suddenly.

  I turn to her.

  “I wish it'd rain donuts,” she says. “Big, fat donuts. The kind that could kill you if you ate more than about ten in one go.”

  “I see him!” Katrina yells, and suddenly she clambers out of the car and starts racing out across the scrub-land, ignoring the rain as it continues to come pelting down.

  “I don't see anything,” I stammer, but I quickly climb out
of the car and run after her.

  “There's nothing out there!” Martha shouts after me. “You're going to get soaked!”

  She might be right, but Katrina seems certain and I figure I should at least check. There's so much rain, I'm already drenched after just a few steps, and I can already see that Katrina is getting a long way ahead. There's still no sign of Riley, but I figure there's always a chance that Katrina spotted something that I missed. I stumble for a moment and almost fall, and then I see that Katrina has stopped in the distance so I rush to catch up to her.

  “Where?” I shout, as rain pours down all around us. “I don't see anything!”

  “It was him,” she says, but she doesn't sound very certain. “I saw him, I know I did.”

  “Where?” I ask.

  Looking out across the scrub-land, all I see is a flat expanse spreading to the horizon. I want to believe that Riley's here somewhere, but I just don't see where he could be hiding.

  “He was coming toward me,” Katrina says after a few seconds. “He was coming back.”

  Sighing, I realize that she seems to be losing her mind.

  “I was so sure,” she continues. “He was coming back, and everything was going to be okay. He wasn't going to abandon us, he was going to help me with the...”

  I pause, and then I put a hand on the side of her arm.

  “We're going to go to Philadelphia,” I tell her, figuring that the time has come for some uplifting words. “There might be nothing there, but there might be people and there might be hope. We've been lucky before, we've made it this far. We might be lucky again.”

  I wait, but she's still watching for even the slightest hint of Riley.

  “Just my luck,” she says finally, with a sigh. “All those creeps who used to...” She pauses, and then she turns to me. “I really thought he was the one,” she continues. “I know how stupid that sounds, and I was careful for so long, but eventually I really, truly thought that Riley was different. I thought he actually cared about me. He wasn't some paying customer who just wanted me for an hour or two, he was a guy who was with me because he liked me and because he thought we had a future. I never thought I was gonna be one of those dumb girls who fall for an asshole, but...”