The Infected, a PODs Novel

by Michelle K. Pickett

  I drug my pack by the strap, heaving it into a corner. Sitting on the bed, I jumped up and down. The bed springs squeaked with the movement. I raised my eyebrow at David and smiled.

  “No hot, monkey-sex tonight, huh? The squeaky bed would give us away.”

  I laughed.

  He sat down bedside me and rubbed his hands up and down my arms. “Warmer?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to go hunt.” Devlin said, walking past the door.

  David grinned crookedly. “I guess I need to go.”

  “I guess so.”

  He stood and grabbed his coat. “I’ll be back.”

  I stretched across the bed and closed my eyes. The fire was slowly warming the house and my fingers and toes were getting some feeling back. I pulled the quilt over me and snuggled beneath it.

  “Eva,” David whispered. “Wake up.”

  I sat up slowly, pushing the hair out of my eyes. “Oh, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

  “It’s okay. Dinner’s ready.”

  “What’s on the menu?”

  “Rabbit.”

  “Ugh.”

  We ate a stew made of rabbit meat and rice. It was good as long as I didn’t think of Thumper from Bambi.

  The fire roared in the fire place. The room was filled with the warm dry air. It felt good and made my eyes heavy. I was so very tired. Everyone else seemed fine, rejuvenated by the meal. I was even more tired, if that was possible.

  “Go to bed, Eva. Things here’ll be fine,” Judy said.

  “I don’t want to leave you to clean up by yourself,” I said with a shake of my head. “You already cooked.”

  “It’s okay. You get some sleep. We’ll be up and outta here first light.”

  Ugh, these people keep horrible hours. They never sleep.

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly. My bedroom was colder than the living area, and darker. I stretched my arm out, feeling in the darkness, until I bumped into the bed. Stripping off my jeans and sweater, I climbed into bed wearing just a T-shirt and panties. The blankets were scratchy, but they were thick and warm, and it didn’t take long before my eyes were too heavy to keep open.

  With a gasp, I jolted, sitting up in bed. Sweat covered my forehead and the back of my neck, making my hair stick to my skin. David slept soundly in a chair next to the four poster bed, his breathing steady and even.

  Nightmare. Just a nightmare.

  I started to lay back when I heard a faint sound. Blood rushed behind my ears, and I strained to hear over it. Slipping into my sweats, I crawled out of bed. I stepped into the hallway and stood quietly for a beat, listening, before moving silently to the living room. I peeked around the corner. Devlin sat on the couch; his head tilted toward the door.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  He jumped at the sound of my voice. “Eva,” he shook his head, “you scared the shit outta me. Don’t sneak up on people like that, especially ones with guns.”

  “Sorry. You hear it too?”

  “Yeah.”

  The rattling was louder in the living room. My heart slowed when I realized it was the doorknob moving. I backed up to the hall and turned, hurrying to the bedroom. I stood just inside the door, listening. The sound came from the window.

  “David.” I put my hand on his shoulder.

  He reached up and placed his hand over mine. “I hear.”

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  “No.”

  “They’re at the front door, too,” I whispered.

  “Mmm.” He stood and grabbed his gun.

  Shards of glass exploded through the room like daggers. One sliced into my arm as it sailed by. Then, all Hell broke loose. Juan and Roy were in the hall, herding Judy and Rebecca into the living room.

  “Go with the others,” David yelled.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Hell’s bells, Evangelina. Will you ever do what I ask?”

  Not when what you ask me to do is stupid.

  I’d just opened my mouth to answer, when I saw the first pale hand striped with grotesque blue veins reach through the window. David’s gun boomed, echoing through the silence. The person on the other side of the window fell backward, taking the window blind with him. The moonlight reflected off the new layer of snow on the ground, revealing three more Infected waiting for their turn at the window.

  I heard guns fire from different parts of the house. I dove toward the corner where my bag was, sliding across the floor, glass nipping at my skin, until I reached my bag. I jammed my hand into a pocket and grabbed my handgun. Smacking in a full magazine, standing, and turning, I fired at the body silhouetted in the hall window. The body went down.

  A second lunged at the window, getting the top half of its body inside before I fired. Blood sprayed across the hallway walls. Another form pulled the body from the window and took its place. I fired again. The person staggered backward before falling to the ground. I waited, watching the window. No one else came. I stood there until my legs cramped.

  “Eva.” David touched my arm. I jumped with a small scream. “Get dressed. We need to go.”

  I nodded and turned to the bedroom. It looked like something out of a horror movie. A dead body laid half in and half out of the window. Blood was splayed over the walls. The sheets on the bed were wet with it, and covered in chunks of… I didn’t want to think about what.

  I grabbed my clothes from the chair in the corner of the room. I jerked my hand away, dropping them. The blood on my clothes bit into my flesh like a hundred bee stings.

  Gads, that hurts.

  I ran into the bathroom, the only room left untouched by the violence, and swiped a towel from a cabinet. Using the towel I cleaned off my pack, then David’s. When I’d finished, I went shopping, rummaging through dresser drawers and the closet until I found some pants and a sweatshirt to replace my ruined clothes. It wasn’t very often that we’d get lucky and find a house that had our exact match in clothing size and it was no different then. But the pants were only a size too big, so I grabbed a belt off the back of the closet door and said a silent thank you to whoever had just donated their clothes.

  Dragging our backpacks, I ran into the living room, sliding to a stop at what I saw. “What are they?” I breathed.

  “Dogs, wolves, coyotes, take your pick,” Devlin said, kicking one of the bloody, bloated bodies out of his way.

  If I pick ‘none’ will they all just go away?

  “They’re hunting in packs. The human infected and the animal infected—they’re hunting together,” Juan said.

  “Yeah. Not a great combination for us.” Seth rubbed his hand over his forehead.

  “Nope. Not a good combination at all. Everyone get ready. We need to get moving before anyone else ventures this way,” Devlin said, pulling on his jeans and slipping his feet into his boots.

  I pushed my arms through my jacket. I’d looked for a warmer coat in the closet, but hadn’t found one. When I saw Devlin walking toward me with his barely there grin, warmth radiated from my stomach throughout my body, and I was all of a sudden not so disappointed that I hadn't found a coat. Devlin laid his quilt over my shoulders before holding up my backpack so I could slip into it. He turned me toward him and adjusted the straps of my pack, letting the tips of his fingers graze the curve of my jaw. I looked up at him. His eyes held mine as he trailed his thumb over my cheek before pushing a lock of hair behind my ear and letting his hand fall away.

  “We need to go.” He turned and walked away.

  We were out of the house and on the road in ten minutes, leaving the grotesque scene behind, but not the memories. Those went with us. Always with us.

  Day Six.

  We walked along the highway, keeping one eye out for untouched neighborhoods—and the other for Infected. Our nerves frayed, the slightest sound or shadow made us jump and reach for our guns.

  We passed through the main part of downtown—I couldn’t even remember the name of the cit
y—and were walking through a suburb.

  “What do you think? Give it a look?” Roy tipped his head at the neighborhood we walked by.

  Devlin glanced around and shrugged.

  Seth slowed, studying the houses. “These have been looted, but farther in we may find houses that haven’t been.”

  We veered off the highway, walking about a mile into the neighborhood before we found houses that were virgin territory.

  “You all know the drill… teams of two. In and out as fast as possible. Look for canned goods, ammo, matches, blah, blah.” Devlin’s eyes landed on me. “Eva, you’re with me. Everyone meet here in an hour.”

  “Keep a look out for Infected. Jist ‘cuz it looks deserted, don’t mean it is.” Roy took Judy’s hand in his and started toward a side street.

  “Where are you going to search?” David asked Devlin, but his eyes never left me.

  “I think we’ll stick to this road. We’ll work our way down one side and up the other.” Devlin looked at me. His face impassive. “Ready? We need to move.”

  “I’m ready.” I slid a piece of hair behind my ear and glanced at David. He stood like a stone statue, watching us. Finally Seth said something to him, and he turned and walked in the opposite direction.

  We stopped at the first house, and Devlin shouldered the door open. “Go upstairs, Eva, and see if there’s any warm clothes that will fit you. Dump the clothes in your pack and fill it with extra socks and the warmest things you can find. Get a hat and some gloves, a scarf if you can find one. Boots if you can, and ditch your tennis shoes.”

  I nodded. “Okay.” I went upstairs. The first two rooms were little boys’ rooms. I stared at the soccer balls and toy trucks, and could almost hear their giggling in the whispers of the house. I felt like an intruder. Rubbing my hands up and down my arms, I forced my feet to move.

  The next room belonged to the parents. The wife’s clothing was way too big, but I did find some hats and gloves and stuffed them in my pack. I couldn’t find scarves, but found handkerchiefs that we could tie around our faces to help block the wind.

  The last room was a teen girl’s and I was hopeful I’d find something to fit me. I picked up a pair of jeans and held them up. “What the hell? Size zero? Well my butt’s not gonna fit in these.” I tossed them back in the drawer and moved on to the bathroom where I found some antiseptic and bandages.

  I went downstairs and found Devlin. “Find anything?”

  “Yeah, he must have been a hunter. There was a little ammunition and a few arrows. Not much, though. You?”

  “Not really.”

  We moved on to the next house and continued our shopping trip. By the time our hour was up, I’d loaded up on warm socks, hoodies and jeans, as many as I could stuff in my bag. I changed the clothes I was wearing, putting on a pair of thermals under my jeans and hoodie. I’d ditched my tennis shoes for boots, and found a warmer coat.

  Our packs were full of extra canned goods, a little more ammunition than we started out with, and some first aid supplies.

  Devlin found a SUV with a full tank of gas. But it was in the garage of the house. So Judy, Rebecca and I sat on the porch and drank bottled water while we watched the men take down the garage door so Devlin could drive the SUV out. It took them less than fifteen minutes. I was impressed.

  We stowed our packs and arranged ourselves in the newer model SUV. I imagine under normal circumstances it would have been roomy, but filled with five men and three women, the space filled quickly.

  I breathed in the scent of leather seats. Ah. Finally a car.

  We drove three hours before we were forced to travel by foot. At sixty miles an hour we’d cut almost two hundred miles off our trip. We climbed out of the SUV and stretched the kinks out, looking around.

  “We’re not getting through this. Maybe if we had a tank.” Seth shielded his eyes with his hand and looked at the fallen trees and electrical poles lying over the highway.

  “What’s that?” Rebecca pointed.

  “A swing set?” Judy asked.

  “That’s what it looks like. Geez, what happened to this town?” I turned to the side and looked at the neighborhood next to the highway. The houses were almost destroyed. Some were missing roofs, others had trees on them. Debris was everywhere. Grills laid in the middle of the road, trampolines sat on top of cars, and fences were crushed under fallen trees or electrical towers.

  “Tornado, maybe.” Roy rubbed his arm over his chin. “Guess we’d best get climbing over this pile of junk. This snow is only gonna get worse.”

  We’d driven right into a storm. I looked up at the sky. Gray clouds swirled around the sun. They’d cover the sun and make everything gloomy, but the sun fought its way out, like it was too cheerful to let some clouds stifle its brilliance.

  Tiny, white flakes floated down from the sky. I felt them on my lips and nose, melting almost instantly. It felt more like rain than snow, but when I tipped my head back and looked up at the sky, it looked like pieces of white cotton candy falling.

  We’d only walked two hours before the storm hit full force. The snow swirled around our feet like mini tornados. The wind blew so hard tree branches swayed, creaking and groaning under the pressure. It was so wicked, it stole our breath if we faced it, and pushed us forward if we had our backs to it.

  The snowstorm was brutal. It wasn’t soft, fluffy snow falling, but hard, stinging sleet. Ice formed on our backpacks and jackets. Our toes and fingers lost feeling as we pressed on, barely making any progress through the wind and sleet, looking for somewhere to get out of the weather.

  A large sign advertised a motel just off the highway. We all but ran in the direction the large arrow pointed. Devlin broke into the office and grabbed keys to six adjoining rooms. We all made our way to our rooms and collapsed.

  I looked around my room. There was a television—it wouldn’t work. A telephone bolted down to a bedside table—it wouldn’t work either. Those were two luxuries we didn’t have in our post-virus world.

  The bottom of the walls was covered in fake, dark wood paneling, and wallpaper with large orange flowers at the top. The forest green rug was stained with, well, I didn’t really want to know what, and the sheets were thread bare. To top it all off, the room wasn’t heated. But it beat the hell out of the cold, whipping wind we’d been walking through. So I wasn’t complaining. In my opinion, it was the Waldorf—Astoria.

  And there were cars. We’d get a good night’s sleep, out of the cold storm, and get another ride in the morning. It seemed our luck was improving.

  That’s always a bad omen.

  Day Seven.

  The smell of sweat and body odor filled the car. We were all dressed in winter gear. Beneath my hoodie and parka, my thermals stuck to my sweaty skin. We’d been driving for nearly five hours, and gas was getting low. We had another hour, maybe less, and we’d be walking again.

  We’d driven nearly four hundred miles; combined with more than two hundred the day before, the miles were quickly piling up. We had less than four hundred miles until we reached Area-One. One more car, that’s all we needed. We were so close to the northern village, we could almost reach out and touch it. And we were almost on schedule. My adrenaline pumped at the thought. I could feel the excitement radiate from everyone else, too. We were all ready for the first half of the trip to be over.

  Devlin drove the small SUV we’d found down highway eighty-one. It didn’t give us the best miles per gallon, but we needed the room, so we tried to squeeze every last mile out of the gas tank. Even though it was a SUV, it still didn’t give us all the space we needed. It seated a maximum of six, there were eight of us.

  “Hey, man, slow down. You’re going too fast. It’s burning up too much gas,” David snapped at Devlin.

  “Nah, it can take it. Besides I’m trying to get as far away from the snow as possible before we have to walk again.”

  We’d trudged through the snowstorm the day before, but the farther we drove, th
e less snow we saw, even though the cold was still brutal. But Devlin made a vital miscalculation. There wasn’t any snow on the ground, but there was a sheet of black ice covering the road. By the time he’d realized his mistake, we were already in trouble. No, make that: up shit creek without a paddle… or a boat.

  The car slid sideways over the ice, careening toward the trees lining the road. Images of tree trunks and brush swirled around me. I held my breath as we barreled toward a large pine. David’s arms wrapped tightly around me just before the car rammed into the tree. I slammed against the crumpled dash, knocking the breath from my lungs. Pain exploded through my head and shoulders.

  I slowly slid, face first, onto the front floorboard, my body bent over the front seat, and legs stretched out behind me.

  “Eva?”

  David? Is that David’s voice? What… wait… where is he? Where am I… upside down? Why am I upside down? On the dirty floor… David? Shit, my head hurts. Why am I spinning?

  I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hands to erase the stars floating in front of them. I took two big gulps of air, and tried to move. But I was at an awkward angle, and I couldn’t get enough leverage to hoist myself up and over the seat.

  “Evangelina?”

  David… where? Ow… can’t turn my head. Shoulders and neck hurt. Damn. I’m in a car. Whose car is this?

  “I’m… okay,” I think I said.

  Someone opened the passenger door and Roy fell out, hitting the ground with a thud and a curse. Judy tumbled out after him. I turned my body so my legs would fall into the passenger seat where Roy and Judy had been. My legs fell forward and I winced when the movement forced my face into the floorboard. Dirt and grit dug into my skin. Scrambling up, I peered over the seat. David’s left eye was bleeding. Juan and Rebecca had climbed out. Rebecca had a cut on her forehead; Juan wiped the blood away with the hem of his shirt.

  “Can you get out?” David asked.

  “Huh? Um, I think so. Can you?”

  “No. The door is jammed.”