by Justin Clay
THIS BOOK, INFECTED, INCLUDING ALL OF ITS CHARACTERS, NAMES AND OTHER CREATIVE ASSETS ARE UNDER COPYRIGHT PROTECTION OF JUSTIN BRENT CLAY BY LAW. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE USED OR REPRODUCED, STORED OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS, AND WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM AUTHOR JUSTIN BRENT CLAY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
ANY RESEMBLANCE TO EXISTING AND OR ACTUAL PERSONS, PLACES OR EVENTS OR WORKS OF FICTION IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY CREDIT TO JUSTIN CLAY
MODEL: WILS DAVIS.
©2016
This novel is dedicated to anyone who
has ever believed in me; I thank you.
The novel is also dedicated to anyone who
has ever lost someone you cared for very deeply.
You are not alone.
J U S T I N C L A Y
PART 1 THE END
PROLOGUE WHAT HAPPENED
1 HOTEL
2 ELI AND LENA
3 THE OUTSKIRTS
4 THE HIGHLANDS
5 THE MOUNTAINS
6 SURVIVORS
7 FIRES OF THE PAST
8 HAUNTING SECRETS
9 A SURPRISING FIND
10 TRAPPED
11 DOWNTOWN
12 THE TWENTY-THIRD FLOOR
13 ESCAPE
PART 2 THE ROAD
14 100 DAYS
15 THE ENEMY
16 LEVERAGE
17 THE PLAN
18 THE WILDERNESS
19 THE MESSENGER
20 THE WILDERNESS, PART II
21 JUDAS’S CAMP
22 CAPTURED
23 WAR
24 WINTER
25 SPRING
PART 3 THE BEGINNING
26 THE HUCKLE’S FARM
27 SOMETHING CALLED FATE
28 ELI’S STORY
29 DEPARTURE
30 A DEAL MADE
31 NOT ALONE
32 SCAVENGERS
33 GAME OF CHANCE
34 THE LAST STOP
35 WAKING UP
EPILOGUE POSSIBILITY
PART 1 THE END
PROLOGUE
WHAT HAPPENED
I’M GOING TO GO ahead and tell it straight. I don’t believe in covering up the truth when it’s as blatant as this, anyhow.
The spoiler is that the end didn’t really come like anyone expected. Not in fire. Not in ice. Not with some cataclysmic impact of a massive asteroid hurtling from outer space at us. No, nothing terribly dramatic like that. Nothing like those sad lot of people have to deal with in those old black and white sci-fi horrors.
The dead didn’t suddenly awaken and crawl from the black depths to wreak havoc on all of us innocent alive folk. Aliens did not beam down and blast cities into oblivion with advanced technological weapons on circular silver spaceships. No…Nothing like that either. So the question remains…
How did it happen? How did it end up like this? With so few remaining people killing each other over the possibility of claiming a last package of food or a measly box of ammunition?
With abandoned cities left everywhere in the decrepit remnants of a grand society that once was? With bloodthirsty gangs running rampant and ambushing wayward survivors? With survival of the fittest all too well in play?
With no Internet, no wifi, no cable, no working cell phones — no familiar trace of modern society left to speak of?
Well, to be honest, the funny thing — and I say that with as much sarcasm a human being can feasibly muster — is that no one really knows. And to me that’s more terrifying than any of the aforementioned. I’d rather have aliens popping out of bellies from otherworldly biological warfare causing pandemonium.
At least then, people would have some sort of reason to blame for this calamity. Something up front and in-your-face to cling onto or run away from screaming maniacally.
Okay, maybe aliens emerging from bodily flesh isn’t the best example, but the reality still stands, both horrifying and unavoidable. People need to know these things or else we tend lose our minds. Because we can’t control it. And if we can’t control the thing, then all hell breaks loose. Or so says our history.
Sure, people have their scientific guesses.
“Oh, the water went bad,” officials blathered. “There was a substantial spill of toxic chemicals from an unnamed corporation based in the Midwest.”
The people who happened to drink the water went berserk and became what we know now as the Infected. Or more aptly, Frothers, as we call them, because all of them — with their sallow skin and glazed over bloodshot eyes — froth at the mouth like a dog inflamed with rabies.
At first, this outbreak was overlooked and written off as just that: a strange, albeit considerably strange, violent infection. But matters quickly changed. The count grew rapidly, more swiftly than any infection known in modern times, until the news had to say something about it. Very little was known about it then, other than the victim’s outburst of aggressive behavior. No one mentioned then that these Infected feed on those who are alive. That just sort of became apparent as time went on...
I guess you could call the Infection a much more gruesome and volatile version of rabies, because it’s not just their appearances and unpredictable violence.
Supposedly, the victim completely loses control of any and all inhibitions. Their humanity is sucked away, and the victim becomes a pathetic, mindless being loafing about, biting at anything that so much as moves.
That’s how it spread, how it still spreads: by the transfer of human salvia through bites, and less inducing but still dangerous: scratches. And so the Infection spread like wildfire, starting in the Midwest of the United States; then it was the Southwest, reaching outward to eventually ensnare the East Coast, and after that, parts of the North.
They say the West Coast is the last place to not be completely Infected…But I have my doubts. Seems like the whole country has gone to shit everywhere you turn.
A lot of people believe this story of how the end came. The majority of folks, actually. They’ve dubbed it The Spill. There are wack-job conspirators who believe the government, when it existed, had some sort of sinister part in the development of what happened with The Spill. They did it in order to create a demand for a need. And that need would be absolutely pricy: a cure. Only one cure.
Only one tiny problem. The Infection’s reaction was a bit more uncontrollable than they foresaw. At first, there was considerable retaliation against the Infected from all armed forces, but as the years took their toll those efforts just eventually caved in and cold reality sunk its deadly claws in at last: no one wins against the Infected. No one.
There has been so much talk about the Centers of Disease Control endeavoring to find and distribute a cure to stave this madness, but no such cure has revealed itself.
It’s been ten long and painful years since The Spill. Enough time to upturn the entire nation into one endless, chaotic, mangled and devastated shit-hole. And I also think enough time for a cure to have been made if such a means was even possible to begin with.
There are some who believe other reasons, though they’re not as logical. Some say it was the wrath of God upon unruly mankind, blighting them out for good. We had it comin’ to us.
Some say it was some kind of invisible alien biological warfare…Yeah, let’s just skip that. I only remember that from the nearly toothless bearded man who shouted such during a breaking news interview. They quickly cut him out.
A tragic outbreak actually from the CDC is another discussed cause, but I’m not sure about this either. Some believe it to be an act of terrorism from a foreign land to spite the U.S. Some say one thing, some believe another, but really, no one knows. There’s so much hearsay nowadays — you know with no workin
g TVs — it’s tough to believe anything, other than your own gut, which you hope you’ll never end up seeing while alive.
Whatever you happen to believe, the damn thing happened. And that’s that. We have to deal with it. Somehow. Somehow humanity has to go on.
“Endure and survive,” they say. “Keep calm and keep going,” they say. Well, it’s not as exactly peach pie as that. Especially when you’re gunning down stupid Frothers hot on your trail. Life gets complicated. Crazy. Primal. Back to the beginning. Whatever-you-want-to-call it.
And by God, we are trying. I have to continue to survive, not just for myself, but for my sister. She’s the last I got of my family — that I know of, and I have to protect her. I know, well enough that my efforts, as strong as I want to believe them to be, will not be enough.
Not for long. We will tire. I will tire, grow weary from dehydration, which has been happening considerably since The Spill. Water has become a true delicacy. True, untouched pristine water. People would kill — have killed for that very thing.
Strange how ruthless people become over such simple necessities when the whole world goes to shit. Regardless, water has become scarily scarce. Too many dead people in the streets because of it, or the lack thereof.
Then more from starvation, because of overrun and ransacked supermarkets. It seems like every dilapidated market or general store you stumble upon has already been looted by some other ravenous survivors.
“Get it before someone else does” seems to be America’s new motto. Well, maybe not new. Just a little more…urgent. If basic human needs don’t kill us first, we could just perish from the mere insanity of it all. I will die, and then my sister will die some horrible death out here in this concrete wasteland, and that will be the end.
“She did her best.” “She came so far.” “She was almost there and then just died.” Gave up. Gave into the madness.
But that’s something I just cannot afford.
Ever.
I don’t care about the way I die, but June can’t die that way. She just can’t.
I can’t let this cruel end be our end. No, there has to be something better. Whether it’s somewhere out there, or beyond the good ol’ United States. There just has to be.
June has hope there is. Sometimes, most times, I think she is the only one who does. I don’t know how she does it. After all of the blood-curdling events she has witnessed that no nine-year-old should ever have to witness in their lifetime…
She still believes we’ll find this safe place we’ve been hunting. It’s run by this insurgent group known as the Carriers, who are “carrying the world into a new and bright future,” or so they say. You know, those individuals still clinging on some sort of hope. I just want them to provide a safe place for my sister and have enough food for us so we’re not animated skeletons like the ones we’re rapidly becoming. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.
They’re supposed to have these things. Everyone keeps saying they do. Word is, the Carriers have enough food and water to go around since they rioted and took army holdings by storm. Problem is, because of that, every one else is looking for them too. So how in the world the Carriers are going to take care of every living soul left in this damnation looking for the place is a bit beyond me.
But June still hopes despite all of this. It’s enough to keep anyone in doubt for the rest of their sad, miserable days. Yet, she still finds beauty in the destruction, in what wonderful life has persisted, mocking the inflicted wrath upon us.
Little does she know, it’s because of her perpetual hope to find a better place for us that keeps me going. Gives me a reason to not stop. To not give in. To not let all of this just crush me and be the end of it. Because of her I have survived. It’s because of her, truly.
I’m still surviving.
1
THE HOTEL
“JUNE, WE HAVE TO move on from here.”
I’m standing by the old hotel room’s rusty red door, my black backpack already slung on with my bow and arrows and my pistol holstered. I say these words to the small, delicate girl sitting by the jagged window, who was staring longingly out of its dusty glass.
She looks like a younger version of me when she sits like she’s doing now, with her head angled and legs crossed. June has the same fair skin, lanky arms and legs and petite body structure as me. Her face is a bit more round than mine, and she also has our mother’s summer blue eyes with long wavy golden brown hair. Our father passed along his longer face, gray-green eyes, and shiny black hair to me, fortunately.
June is my younger sister by eight years, so the resemblance isn’t shocking. But she’s much more doll-like than I am — than I know I am or ever could be. She seems sometimes too fragile, and I wonder how this chaotic, shit-excuse of a world left hasn’t broken her yet.
June was a summer baby, of course. She was only born one year after The Spill, in a Northern Georgia shelter; so, this bizarre, harrowing world is all she knows and sometimes I fear will know. And that terrifies me. She wasn’t even allowed to have a normal, playing-in-the-yard childhood like me, but even mine was short lived. I had only been seven when disaster struck. And that infuriates me. How can things end up like this? Yet, June’s persistence of hope lingers on despite all of this, like sunlight shimmering through cracks of a beaten-down old wooden door.
It surprises me to this day.
Unlike June, I also inherited our father’s impatience. I prop a hand on my side and give her “the look.” She knows I mean business with this. June rolls her eyes, and dusts herself off, as she gets up from the carpet, rough and stained after years of constant neglect.
“But I like it here,” she mumbles, unsatisfied with my nonnegotiable decision.
“You know the rules,” I tell her, unwavering.
“We can’t stay in the same place more than three weeks,” she recites in a flat voice, looking off into nothingness. “Because that leads to comfort, and comfort gets ya’ killed.”
“Damn straight,” I say, nodding. “Now come on kiddo, we got a lot of walking to do. So get to it…Get your stuff together.”
June hurries to gather her belongings, including her own backpack — a small leather one our mother gave her some time ago when both of our parents were still alive. It had been our Mother’s backpack when she was a child. June treasures that old thing like she ought to — never letting it out of her sight. She gives the same treatment to her stuffed animal, Fred the Elephant, the silly looking cartoonish thing she found in one the houses we passed through. Seems like a lifetime ago…As if it all happened in a dream. She said she was taking care of it because if she was the owner, June would want to know her friend was safe and being taken care of.
We’ve been keeping on, keeping on ever since disaster struck. First snatching our parents from us, and now keeping us on our toes, moving around like nervous convicts evading the law. Funny how the vigilance of the government disappears mostly when the entire world goes mad and has met a dire end.
June keeps a few other things in that backpack like a couple of snacks she found at the convenience station we visited a week back, a tiny superhero action-figure, and a couple of comic books. At least I could proudly say I passed that along to her, instead of Barbie dolls and make-up — which I despise — and was pleased to find out she enjoyed them just as much as I do.
I give the weathered, lonely hotel room a last look before we depart. I’m sure it had been a fairly nice room some decade ago. The deep burgundy walls had begun to peel and fleck off in multiple places, revealing the inner white walling and stuffy insulation. There were numerous stains occupying the place, and most of them I did not want to dwell on and made sure June didn’t either.
The place had a certain unpleasant stale aroma and rightly so, considering the state of disrepair. But we managed. After all it truly has been the nicest place we have stayed at for quite some time. No stench of rotting corpses. No damp and dirty floors. No roach and wasp infested housin
g. Thank God. I still have nightmares of roaches crawling up and into my mouth, nose, and emerging from my eye sockets. I think I garnered this from countless deteriorating bodies left horribly against walls and entrenched in blood along ditches of streets.
Nothing could be worse than the time June and I were forced to remain in the tight confines of a bloody, and I mean bloody basement while Frothers loitered about in the streets outside the town. That was...horrible.
If it hadn’t been for a boy named Jamie, we wouldn’t have made it out alive. He risked his fourteen-year-old life for us and consequentially died because of it. I tell June he made it out alive somehow, but I know differently. I’m not sure if I have convinced her though. Maybe, because I am a terrible liar…But I don’t like recalling such things.
I can still remember his scream.
And I can only wonder what June remembers of those events being so young. That had been a year ago. And we’ve only been out on our own for two years, I think. It’s hard to keep up time now. But I do my best with tallying. It keeps you a little saner.