PODs

by Michelle Pickett

  When will I know? Will I feel myself losing control? Will I know I’m losing my mind?

  “Changes in your veins. When blue veins start showing all over, we’re pretty sure a person the smile in his voice.

  I didn’t remember seeing blue gums on the infected. Of course, I had tried not to get too close. But I did remember the blue veins crisscrossing their bodies. The skin looked almost translucent in the moonlight and the blue veins were like neon road maps.

  “I never liked the color blue.”

  “Still joking around, huh, Eva?” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  < could do it wp class="indent">I want his laugh, his voice, to be the last thing I hear.

  “Yeah, well, there isn’t anything else to do. The television doesn’t work.”

  He laughed, and the sound warmed me.

  “Whatever happens, I want you to know, I don’t regret it,” I told him, my voice thick. “I only have one regret.”

  He was quiet. I didn’t think he was going to answer. Finally he asked, “What’s your regret?”

  “That I didn’t kiss you one more time.”

  We left the next day. Devlin found two trucks and a car for us to use. The camp members piled into the two trucks. Some crammed into the cabs. The rest huddled in the beds. I was given the car to use. It was a small compact car, but it felt big and empty all by myself.

  We drove three hours before stopping in another little town. We found a gas station that had ten full gas cans sitting inside the office. After raiding the gas station’s small store, the camp members grabbed the fuel, filling the gas tanks and putting the rest in the back of one of the trucks. When everyone was safely back in their vehicles, I was allowed out of the car to use the bathroom and grab something to eat.

  I pulled the handle to open the car door, the hinges sticking when I tried to swing it open. I shoved the door with my shoulder; it finally gave way and I stepped out, stretching up to the sky as far as I could. It felt good to get out of the small car that was filled with ancient burger wrappers and other trash.

  “Just shove it out,” David told me when he saw how cluttered with litter the car was.

  I gathered the junk and stuffed it in a trashcan on my way inside. I walked around back and did what I had to do before going inside and finding something to eat and drink. Turning to leave, something lying on the counter caught my eye.

  The counter was grimy. The laminate was gray with a thick layer of dirt. The paper on top was a glaring white spot in the filth. I walked toward it and smiled. David had laid out some chocolates; under them, he’d slid a note telling me he loved me. I grabbed the chocolates and stuffed them in my shoulder bag for later. I picked up the note and carefully folded it before slipping it in my bag next to the candy. As I walked out of the store, my eyes searched for David. I smiled when I found him, patting my bag to let him know I found his gift. He winked and grinned.

  Between the gas still in the tanks and what we’d found at the station, there was enough to last for the day. Devlin thought it would be safer if we kept moving. So we drove until we ran out of gas. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the next town, which meant we had to bunk outside. I had to stay well away from the others. As I set up my tent and unrolled my bedding, I saw David setting up his,” Jessica said.ad promiseou tent as close to mine as was allowed. I smiled.

  “Goodnight,” I called.

  “Sweet dreams, Evangelina.”

  It was the third day of my quarantine. I was changing clothes in the small hotel we

  Chapter 26:

  Chris

  They came again that night. The moon was large and bright in the sky. I was awake, listening to the snores and whispers of the others in the camp. David was asleep in the tent beside me.

  The air smelled of smoke. The fire’s dying embers glowed a yellowish-orange. The dying fire left the camp cold and I shivered, sinking lower in my sleeping bag.

  I heard it over the rustling fabric of my bag moving across the nylon tent—a far-off snap of a twig, the sound unmistakable. I held my breath and waited. If it were a single animal, it would walk through, twigs breaking occasionally as it took a step. If it were a group of animals or people, twigs would break in different areas, moving steadily toward the camp. The second snap was louder than the first, closer. And then I heard it and I knew. A third snap, to the left of the first, followed closely by the rustling of underbrush in front of the camp. Didn’t the man standing watch hear it? I didn’t have time to think about it.

  I reached slowly out of my tent and grabbed David’s hand. He squeezed my fingers softly in answer. He had heard the noises, too. Jessica’s tent was on the opposite side of David’s, Devlin’s tent next to hers. The sound of the shotgun gliding against the floor of the tent was barely audible.

  David let go of my hand and I panicked. The blood rushed behind my ears, making it impossible to hear. I couldn’t breathe. Fear squeezed my chest, and cold sweat beaded on my back. Not so soon after I was allowed back in.

  My hand moved to see each other.ar right,” he said quietly. favorite movie back and forth against the hard ground, searching for David. I heard the clink of metal against metal and realized he’d grabbed his shotgun from his pack. He reached out and grabbed my hand again. A shotgun in his left and my hand in his right, he waited.

  I slowly moved my right hand down my side, feeling for my backpack. Unzipping the small side pocket, I pulled out my handgun.

  The noises in the forest were getting closer.

  “Roll over,” David whispered so quietly I had to strain to hear. “There’s one right behind us. Roll on your back and get ready to fire.”

  I rolled to my back, extending my arms as I clicked off the safety. I waited. It seemed like hours, but was probably just a few seconds. The large shadow loomed over my tent. It raised its arms above its head—and I fired. The man crumpled, half on the ground behind my tent and half across my legs.

  I furiously kicked, freeing my legs from the weight of the man I’d just shot. My tent fell around me; I felt like I was trapped in a net. David reached in and pulled me free.

  The shot alerted the others to the danger lurking in the trees. They scrambled from their tents, the men carrying their guns, the women huddled behind them.

  The infected rushed the camp. Screaming and grunting, they ran toward us, weapons raised over their heads. Devlin’s gun rang out. The smell of acrid smoke filled the air. Banshee screams assaulted my ears.

  Three men went toward Devlin, and five more came in behind our tents. David’s gun echoed Devlin’s as shots thundered. I heard Jessica crying in her tent. I reached down and wrenched her up by her arm. Not waiting for her to get her balance, I dragged her to the center of the circle the men were forming, the girls cowering inside. Throwing her inside with the others, I turned and stood next to two camp members, my gun aimed at the trees.

  David and Devlin ran behind Jessica and me, taking their places in the circle. David stood next to me.

  “Get in the circle!”

  “No.” I was surprised at how calm I’d become.

  “Dammit, Eva! Get in the circle where it’s safe.”

  I didn’t answer him. More infected were swarming the camp. I fired my gun—pop, pop, pop—and felt a sense of empowerment each time I saw my bullets make contact with our attackers.

  That sense waned when I saw a guy get hit in the head by one of the infected’s weapons. He crumpled to the ground. The man standing next to him shot the infected man towering over him. The injured man—no, not a man, a boy, no more than sixteen—lay on the ground, dark blood pooling around his head. My stomach heaved.

  I backed into the circle and ran to him. He was already dead. I grabbed his gun, cocked the lever like I had seen the other men doing, and shot. The blast knocked me backward. I fired again; this time, expecting the jolt, I was able to stand my ground.

  I turned and looked at the girls standing in the middle of the circle, doing nothing to
protect themselves.

  “Fight!” I screamed. They stared at me. “Fight or die.” I held out my handgun. A young girl grabbed it and took a place in the circle, firing on the infected. I used the shotgun, watching the infected advance on the camp, seeing their blue veins shimmer against their pale skin when they came into the circle of the firelight, hearing their grunts and to see each other.r little .pl f screams as they tried to make it past our gunfire.

  I also watched the men next to me, trying to learn how to reload the gun. Chris grabbed the gun from my hands and quickly showed me how to reload. He threw it back to me and took aim at an infected woman who’d wandered too close to our circle. She snarled at him, her blue gums grotesque against her white teeth.

  The fight lasted more than an hour. The infected came one after another, pushing each other out of the way in an attempt to reach us. When their group was depleted, the survivors melted back into the tree line, disappearing through the darkened forest.

  “What the…Evangelina, what did you think you were doing?” David yelled.

  “Fighting. The same as you.”

  “I told you to stay inside the circle,” he yelled louder.

  “I know what you said. I don’t remember agreeing to it.”

  Standing toe-to-toe, he looked down at me, his gray eyes shimmering in the pale moonlight—angry eyes.

  Out of nowhere, he grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head back before kissing me hard. Pulling his face back just far enough that our noses touched, he stared into my eyes. “You scared the crap outta me,” he whispered, lowering his lips to mine, taking them gently, caressing them.

  His hand let go of my hair and cupped my face. I stretched my arms around his neck, leaning into him, forgetting about the carnage that lay around us. I focused only on David.

  At the sound of a giggle, I opened one eye. Jessica stood next to David and me. “Devlin said to tell you guys to get a room.”

  David groaned and cursed under his breath, letting me go.

  I looked around the destroyed camp. “You know, I could be teaching English right now.”

  David laughed. “Always with the jokes.”

  I wasn’t joking.

  Life outside the compound was much harder than I’d anticipated. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering if leaving the compound had been the right thing to do. Then, as always, I looked at David and I knew. Yes. I was where I was supposed to be—where David was.

  The morning sun was just beginning to rise, the black sky turning purple and then cerulean. Puffy cotton-ball clouds dotted the blue. It was beautiful…until you looked down.

  At our feet lay the bodies of the dead infected. Blood seeped across the hard-packed earth; body parts lay in unnatural positions.

  Two camp members had been killed during the night—the boy who’d been standing next to me and another who’d been caught before he’d had a chance to make it to the protective circle. The camp felt their loss deeply.

  I helped clean the remains for burial. I wiped their cold bodies with a damp rag, the blood smearing over their unnaturally white skin. The water turned pink from it, dripping on the ground like bloody teardrops. When we’d finished cleaning the blood and gore from the bodies, we dressed them in clean clothes and the two men were gently laid on their bedrolls.

  David held my hand tightly as each camp member walked by the bodies and silently said goodbye. Some of us had silent tears rolling down our cheeks. Others sniffled quietly. One girl cried loudly as,” Jessica said.ad my lipsou she said goodbye to her dead brother—the only family she’d had left.

  When the ceremony was over, the bodies were gently wrapped in their bedrolls and buried. A small cross carved in the tree hanging over their graves marked their final resting places.

  “I need to talk to you,” Devlin told David.

  “What’s up?”

  “Alone.”

  “Whatever it is, you can say it in front of Eva.”

  Devlin looked at me. “I don’t want Jessica to know.”

  “Sure. I won’t say anything,” I promised.

  “It looks like someone’s been bit.”

  My heart did a nosedive. “Oh, no.” I covered my mouth with my hand.

  David stood ramrod straight. His jaw worked, tightening and untightening. He ran his hand through his hair and looked at Devlin.

  “Who?”

  Devlin opened his mouth, and then closed it. Staring at the ground, he kicked at it with the toe of his shoe. “Dammit.”

  Tears filled my eyes. “Oh, no. It’s not Jessica?”

  “No, it’s not Jessica. It’s Chris,” Devlin whispered.

  “Chris. Jessica’s friend?” I asked.

  The boy Jessica called her ‘soulmate.’ The boy who helped me pick out a backpack the first morning I was with the group. The sweet kid who showed me how to reload a shotgun last night. No. This is going to devastate Jessica. And…what will happen to Chris?

  Chapter 27:

  The Walk

  I watched David from across the camp. His posture was stiff, the look on his face grim. His shoulder leaned against a tree, with his thumb hooked through the belt loop on his jeans. He was gorgeous, but he wasn’t my David.

  Since Devlin’s news that Chris had been bitten, David’s demeanor had shown me that he didn’t like what was going to happen. And that’s how I knew. Two would walk away from camp today. One would come back.

  He turned and his eyes searched me out. He tried to smile, but it looked forced. He walked to me and folded me in his arms, laying his cheek on the top of my head.

  “He’s going to kill Chris, isn’t he?” I whispered.

  “What happened to not asking too many questions?” His breath ruffled my hair.

  “You asked, but I don’t remember agreeing. What’s going to happen?”

  “No, they aren’t going to kill him. Not today.” He dropped his arms from around me. My body shivered from the loss of his warmth. He pulled back and looked at me, running his finger down the side of my face. Dropping his hand, he sighed. “Geez, Eva, why do you have to know every little morsel of information? I don’t want you to have to worry about things like this,” he said, running his fingers through his hair, the morning light making the dark strands look like shimmering silk.

  “Why? Because I’m a girl? I don’t need protection, David. I need answers.”

  “And that’s another thing. Why do you always assume I don’t tell you something because you’re a girl? I don’t tell you the ugly truth of life out here because I love you and I don’t want the ugliness to touch you. I want you to be safe, to be happy.”

  “What?” I asked quietly.

  “I want you to be—”

  “Not that part.”

  “I love you. I think I have since the day you first entered the POD. I knew I did the morning I kissed you. I still know I do because I’d lay down my life for you here and now.”

  “I love you back,” I said with a smile. “But your declaration of undying devotion didn’t do its job.”

  “What job?”

  “You didn’t distract me enough to forget about what’s going on. I want to know, David. I need to know.”

  “Fine.” His voice was clipped.

  “Don’t get pissy with me, either.”

  “Juan and Chris will stay behind when we leave today. Juan will watch Chris, and if he shows additional signs of infection, he’ll do what needs to be done. Chris wants it that way. None of us wants…the alternative.” He looked up and swallowed hard. “If Chris is symptom-free, they’ll follow us and we’ll meet them in the next town. He’ll do his week in isolation and everything will be fine.”

  “So I’m right. Ju He chuckledad you, Evaouan’s gonna kill him,” I whispered.

  “No, you’re wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong,” David told me. I looked at him, confused. “He’s going to kill an infected person. If the virus was injected when Chris was bitten he’ll turn into one of them. He
won’t be Chris any more. It’s no different than you shooting one of them when they attack the camp.”

  I flinched at his words. I did shoot them when they attacked us. I didn’t let myself think of them as human. They were just monsters. And that’s what Chris would become. David was right. None of us wanted that. If it were me, I’d want them to do the same thing.

  I thought frantically, searching for another way. But I couldn’t find one and my heart ached for Chris. He was a nice person. My heart broke for Jessica. Her first love. Not for the first time, I wondered how in the hell the world had gotten so screwed up.

  The group started toward the next town. Jessica and I walked side by side; she was chattering like always. I was trying not to think about what was happening with Juan and Chris. Instead, I was thinking of what to say to Jessica when she noticed Chris wasn’t with the group.

  David didn’t walk with me. We decided his presence would only highlight the fact that Chris wasn’t with Jessica. So David and Devlin walked behind the rest of the camp members.

  The day was sunny. I had to squint to see anything around me. The path we took was a narrow trail through a pasture. I could hear the far off bark of a dog.

  “Look, Eva.” Jessica pointed to a tree branch.

  I jumped, startled by her excited squeal. “What?”

  “See that bird? Isn’t it pretty? The blue is so deep.”

  “Yeah, um, it is pretty.” I tried to smile. “I think it’s a bluebird, but I’m not sure.”

  “Chris will know. He loves watching the birds. He carries a journal that lists every type of bird he’s seen, the date he saw it, and the place. It’s probably a bluebird, or maybe a blue jay.”

  “Well, I’m sure he’s seen a bluebird before.” I tried to change the subject when Jessica butted in.

  “Where is Chris?” Jessica looked around the group. “I don’t see him.”

  “I’m sure he’s up there. I saw him just a little while ago.” I used the toe of my sneaker to dig into the ground as we walked.