The Infected, a PODs Novel

by Michelle K. Pickett

I was immediately aware of Devlin’s lean, muscular body pressed hard against mine. I started to turn into him. His arm snaked out and held me still.

  “Don’t move,” he said through clenched teeth.

  That’s when I heard growling, low and guttural. And right outside the tent.

  I squeezed Devlin’s arm. He rubbed his thumb across the naked skin on my hip in answer. My heart was beating so hard and fast against my ribs it hurt. I don’t know how long we lay in the tent hoping the animal would just pass by. It felt like hours. It was probably just minutes—or even seconds.

  It happened so fast. I was jerked into a sitting position, the nylon tent collapsed under the weight of the animal. Its claws ripped into the material and tore it away. Glowing amber eyes stared into mine and I was sure I was a goner.

  The animal lunged at me. Devlin’s gun went off. A loud shriek echoed through the night, and the animal collapsed in front of me. I kicked my feet against the ground and scrambled away, Devlin right beside me.

  “Eva!”

  I heard commotion around the camp, but I couldn’t see anything. The darkness was oppressive, smothering. There was the hiss of a match and I watched as the small flame sailed in the air, landing in the fire pit. A small fire blossomed when the match connected with the dry leaves.

  David pulled me up. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” My voice shook, like the rest of me.

  “You’re sure?” He held me at arms' length, his gaze scanning me.

  I pushed the hair out of my face and pulled in a deep breath. “Yes.”

  David’s hands framed my face. He bent down to look me in the eye. His silver eyes intense in the firelight.

  “When I heard the growling and I couldn’t get to you I…” he jammed one hand through his hair. “You’re okay,” he said and it sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was asking me. He looked at Devlin. “How’d you make it to her tent without the animal seeing you?”

  Devlin shrugged. “My tent’s next to hers. I just crawled over.”

  “Huh.” David rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb.

  “What is that, anyway?” I pointed to the animal lying on top of my ruined tent.

  “Looks like a wolf,” Devlin said, nudging it with the tip of his gun.

  “A wolf? That doesn’t look like a wolf.” I bent down to get a closer look.

  “Yeah, that there’s a wolf. It’s infected. Its body is bloated from the virus,” Roy said, crouching next to me.

  It was the first time I’d seen a fully infected animal. The one in front of the library had pus in its eyes, but that’s all. The wolf’s body was swollen, its belly round and hard. “A wolf,” I mumbled, circling the body. Its head was split in two where Devlin’s bullet sliced through. Blood pooled around it on the green tent; it looked black in the moonlight.

  “We need to break down the camp,” David said, “It’ll be dawn soon, and we need to get out of here as quickly as we can. The blood will attract other animals.”

  Everyone worked quickly and quietly. As we finished packing our things, the darkness was lifting. When the first ray of light slipped over the horizon, we were already well on our way, putting as much distance between us and the dead animal as we could.

  Day Two

  We walked through the morning. The air was brisk, and the walk difficult. It’s hard to maneuver over fallen logs, tree roots, large rocks and various other hazards in the forest while toting a back pack that’s almost as big as you are. But we needed the cover of the woods until we were far enough away from Rosewood that military doing patrols, or searching for supplies, wouldn’t spot us.

  That afternoon we stumbled across a small town. “Looks like someone’s already been through here.” David toed shards of glass from a broken window.

  “Yup.” Roy climbed through the grocery store window. “There’s a few things in here. Nothin’ to get excited over.”

  “I wanna go to the sporting goods shop over there.” I pointed across the road. Devlin was just stepping through the broken window.

  “Okay. We have to get ammo anyway.” David started walking toward the store.

  He stepped through the smashed out window and reached out his hand to help me. The place was a disaster. Shelving was toppled and what little merchandise was left was strewn over the floor. The gun case was smashed, glass littered the floor and the cupboard door where the ammo was located was hanging by one hinge.

  I stepped over some life jackets and around a canoe, making my way to the gun case. I brushed the glass away with the arm of my jacket. “Empty.”

  “The military’s wiped these towns clean, and what they didn’t take, people travelling through have.” Devlin opened all the cupboards as he talked. “There’s a few boxes of ammo jammed in the back of this cupboard, but that’s it.”

  I sighed, pushing off the counter and wandering through the store. The shelves were picked bare.

  I came to a door marked storeroom. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something in here.” I pushed the door, but it didn’t budge. It wasn’t locked because it moved an inch or two when I pushed, but something was blocking it. I pushed harder. The door opened a little more, but still not wide enough for me to slip through. I was still fighting with the door when Roy walked by.

  “Need help?” Roy braced his hands on the door and gave it a good shove.

  The door opened, and I slipped through. When I turned to thank Roy, I got a glimpse of what had blocked the door.

  And I screamed.

  Roy barreled through the door, and David and Devlin came running. Then I felt like an 6idiot. I’d seen worse, I guess. I don’t know. It was pretty nasty looking, even compared to what I’d seen in the past.

  “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” Devlin grabbed my shoulders.

  “No, but that guy is.” I pointed to the corpse sitting on the floor, listing to one side. When Roy pushed the door open, the body slid across the concrete floor.

  Devlin turned to follow my finger. “Oh.” We both watched the corpse slowly fall to the side and hit the floor with a small thud. “Well, he’s not pretty to look at, that’s for sure.”

  “Um, no. I don’t think he’ll be nominated for People’s Magazine’s sexiest man of the year award.”

  The corpse looked like it was a man. It was wearing men’s clothing, what was left of it, anyway. Judging by the smell and the flesh still rotting on the bone, he was fairly fresh. I pulled my hoodie collar over my nose to mask the stench.

  “Come on.” David put his hand on my elbow and guided me to the door. I shook him off.

  “No. We need to search this room. There might be something here we need.”

  “Really? Like what?” David raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Well for starters, those boxes over there are still sealed. We should look in them. And my dearly departed friend here has a handgun.” I pointed to a gun laying under the arm of the corpse. You could see yellowing bone where the flesh had rotted, or been torn, away. “I want that.”

  “Why? Where’s your gun?” David put his fist on his hip.

  “Well,” I pulled the word out, “I was in a hurry when I packed, and I left it behind.”

  “Shit, Eva.” Devlin looked at the ceiling and licked his lips. His hand ran up the back of his head and rested on top.

  “If you want it, you get it.” David swept his arm toward the dead guy like it was a new car.

  “I was hoping—”

  David started laughing and shook his head. “Oh, no. If you want that dead guy’s gun, you’re going in for it.”

  I turned to Devlin. He grinned and shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Ugh. Fine. I’ll get the dang gun.” I stepped over the man’s leg and surveyed the situation. The corpse had toppled over like a ragdoll, and onto the gun. I used the toe of my shoe to move his arm, but the gun moved too. “Ah, come on.” I tried to get my shoe under his arm, and on the gun, but that pushed it further away.
r />   I turned and used my fingers to rub my eyes. The fumes coming from the rotting body stung my eyes, and coated the back of my throat when I breathed. Each breath added another layer—eventually my throat would close off and I’d suffocate from dead guy stench.

  “What’s the matter, Eva?” David called with a chuckle. “Change your mind?”

  Shut the hell up, David.

  Glancing around for something I could use, I spotted some old towels. I wrapped them around my hand. Crouching, I lifted the arm of the corpse, grabbing the gun with my other hand.

  I started to stand when something in his pocket caught my eye. I cringed and clenched my teeth, forcing myself to drop the towels. I stared at the pocket. It was moving. I really didn’t want to see why, but I wanted what was in it. So I squeezed my eyes closed, grabbed, and got the hell out. But not before glimpsing the maggots that tumbled out, and over my hand. They were in his flesh, the pocket, around the gun—not to mention the other bugs and icky things.

  “Oh, gross, gross, gross! I hate maggots!” I stood and jumped over the guy’s leg, jogging to the other side of Devlin, who was the farthest from my new dead friend.

  David laughed at me. I glared back. I did not see the humor. “Are there maggots in the gun?” he asked.

  “Why, I don’t know, David. Should I shoot you and see what comes out?”

  Devlin laughed.

  “Funny.” David rolled his eyes.

  I checked the gun to make sure it was maggot free. “Creepy crawly free.”

  “That one’s going to have more of a kick than yours,” he warned.

  “That’s alright. They all aim the same.”

  Devlin looked at me and shook his head, grinning. “Do you know how to load it?”

  I flipped the button to release the magazine and looked up at him and smiled. “I think I got it. I already have a full magazine. And when my gun is empty, I can be like the police in the movies. I’ll just let it fall out and pop in a new one. See?” I held out my palm. “There were two extra magazines in his shirt pocket, and they’re both full. Which considering I had to fight through maggots to get them, they should be.”

  “Yeah, you’re a real bad-ass, Eva,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Why, yes, yes I am.” I winked at him.

  Roy walked over from the other end of the room where he and Juan had been going through the stack of unopened boxes. “Well, there wasn’t much in those boxes. I found some water treatment pellets. Those are always good. Some ammo, not much, but better than none. A couple of handguns.” He held up two handguns almost identical to the one I stole from the dead guy.

  David and Devlin burst out laughing. I wanted to shoot them both in the foot. Roy looked at them, then at me. “I’ll take the handguns. Thanks Roy.”

  He shrugged and held them out to me. “Oh, and here’s some ammo and extra mags.” He dug around in a box and pulled out some arrows and a hunting knife and shrugged his shoulders. This is it, but it’s more than I thought we’d find.

  We were walking out of the storage room when Roy looked down at our dearly departed friend. “You know, he looks gnawed on. See how he’s missing parts of skin and muscle in some areas and not others? It’s like something was eating him.” Roy shrugged. He bent down and pulled something from the man’s pockets. “Here ya go, Eva. More ammo for your gun.” He flicked the maggots and other crawlies off the boxes and held them out to me.

  I sat down next to Judy and Rebecca and showed them the two handguns Roy had found.

  “This is how you load them,” I said, dropping the magazine and pushing bullets into it. I snapped it back in place, chambered a round and handed a gun to each of them. “This is the safety. Keep it on until you need to use the gun, and then use your thumb to flip it off.”

  “I don’t want no gun, Eva,” Judy said, holding the gun between her thumb and index finger like it was a snot filled tissue.

  “We all need to be armed. We don’t know what we’re going to find. There are only five men. They can’t guard everything themselves. With us armed that’s almost double the protection. You need this.”

  “I don’t even know how to use it,” Rebecca said, turning the gun over in her hands.

  “Just flip the safety off, point it at whatever you’re trying to shoot, and pull the trigger. Easy peasy.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Look, do what you want. But the Infected didn’t attack one at a time. It was a group. Groups bigger than ours. If we run into a group of Infected—animal or otherwise—we’re going to be outnumbered. We all need to be able to defend ourselves, and each other.”

  Judy nodded her head once and stuffed the gun in the side of her backpack. “I’ll give it a try. I’ll probably shoot my own toes off, but I’ll give it a try.”

  “That’s all I’m asking,” I said with a smile.

  We didn’t find a car.

  “How can there not be a car anywhere in this town with gas. I mean, there are cars everywhere. You’re telling me none of them have gas in the tank?” I turned around in a circle. “Maybe we just need to go further into the neighborhoods and look.”

  “Won’t do no good. The military’s been here. Done drained the gas outta the cars. You won’t find anything here.” Roy slipped his pack on and grabbed Judy’s hand. They started to walk, leading the group. David walked beside them. He and Roy talked and joked. Juan and Rebecca were in the middle and Devlin and I brought up the rear.

  “What did he mean the military’s drained the gas?” I looked up at Devlin.

  “They need gas for supply runs and things like that, so they’ve been draining gas from any source they can find. It isn’t that hard to drain gas from a car if you have the right equipment and know what you’re doing.”

  “Says the man who can hotwire a car in two seconds flat.” I grinned at him. “I’m almost afraid to ask how you know about the gas draining.”

  “Where all good delinquents go to find all their information, Wikipedia and YouTube.” He looked at me with a straight face and I laughed. Finally, he flashed the half grin that made my stomach warm. “No, actually, I heard about it on the news and did some research. I was getting ready to buy a new car when… well, just when.”

  As we made our way down the highway, rock formations grew beside us, trees growing in the red soil above them. There were no homes or towns visible. No exits from the highway. Just tall rock walls hemming us in. I felt like I was in a fish bowl.

  “Are you okay, Eva?” Seth asked.

  “Huh? Yeah. I just don’t like the walls of rocks pinning us in.”

  “You and me both.” Devlin looked at the tree line above us.

  “Well thanks. That makes me feel better.” I rolled my eyes. I was hoping Devlin would tell me it was safer, that we wanted the rock walls to keep away infected animals. I didn’t want to hear he was worried too.

  As it turned out we were right to worry.

  We’d walked about two hours when I heard it—crunching in the brush above us. I could see the weeds moving.

  “Devlin?”

  “I hear,” he said, not looking up.

  David slipped his rifle out of his pack, pulling the lever back and chambering a round. The sound made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Devlin pulled out his gun and pinned it to his side with his elbow. It lay casually on his forearm.

  I fished my gun out of the side pocket of my back pack. “Why don’t they come down?” I asked.

  Devlin shrugged. “Maybe they’re waiting until we stop for the night.”

  “Oh.” I shuddered.

  We pressed on, hoping to find another town where we could pick-up a vehicle and put some space between us and whomever—whatever—was following us. But as the day grew darker, it became clear we were going to have to find a place to camp for the night.

  We came to a spot in the highway where the rock wall had collapsed on one side, spewing orange rocks, trees, and debris over the road, creating a mound talle
r than me.

  Ugh. I’m going to have to climb that.

  “Here, I’ll give you a boost.” Devlin’s mouth was turned up slightly at the corners and my eyes lingered on the little dimple under his bottom lip.

  “You just want a reason to put your hands on my ass.” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  Devlin raised a shoulder and ran his tongue over his lips. “It’s a nice ass.”

  He gave me a boost and I climbed to the top of the pile, using tree branches to pull myself up. When I got to the top I stood and looked around. “I’m the king of the hill!” I giggled.

  Devlin climbed up next to me, giving me a little push. I lost my balance, and slid down the other side of the crappy hill on my butt.

  “Not nice, Devlin.”

  “But funny. Very funny.” He whistled, walking away.

  We walked for another hour before the rock formations fell away, and we were in a small meadow.

  “This looks as good as anywhere to set-up camp,” David said. “At least we’ll be far enough from the trees we’ll see anyone coming.”

  “Yep. This’ll do,” Roy agreed.

  I was sleeping soundly when they came through the camp. They woke me when they knocked over the small pile of wood we had stacked next to the fire pit. I raised my head and unzipped my tent enough to peek outside. My gaze fell on Seth, whose tent was directly across from mine. He put his finger to his lips, then held up two fingers, and pointed to my right. I nodded my understanding.

  Two Infected to my right. What are they, though?

  I heard grunting. That told me nothing. Human Infected grunted. I heard snorting. Human Infected also snorted. I heard sniffing and what sounded like licking or slurping. That was new.

  As quietly as I could, I unzipped the side pocket of my pack and withdrew my gun.

  I heard a soft click from the tent next to mine and knew Devlin had gotten his shotgun ready. Another sound on my left told me David had, as well. I lay unmoving in my tent, waiting for something to happen. Closing my eyes, I listened to the sounds, trying to picture where they were and what they might be doing.

  Just take a look and leave. Please.