PODs

by Michelle Pickett

  David stood and walked to me. His hand grabbed mine. “What’d you write, Evangelina?” I looked in his gray eyes and realized how deeply I loved him. More than anything, I wanted his vote to match mine, but I didn’t tell him what I’d written. He needed to vote his way. I needed to vote mine. I shook my head and kept walking, our fingers gently falling away from each other’s.

  David was the last to enter his ballot. Devlin shook the box, mixing up the papers. Then he began reading them.

  “Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay.”

  Murmurs filled the room. Some people smiled. Others grew frustrated. It was easy to pick out who had voted what.

  “Leave. Stay. Leave. Leave. Leave.” The murmurs grew louder. Some people’s faces turned red as each dissenting vote was called. Others were wide-eyed with worry.

  It’s too close.

  I looked at Jessica. She stared at Devlin, biting her fingernails. Juan sat next to her, his knee bouncing up and down.

  “Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave.” Juan’s knee bounced. Jessica chewed.

  So far there were five stays and eight leaves. It was going to be close.

  When all the votes were read and counted—twice—twenty-one had voted to stay. Sixteen had voted to leave.

  A large fist banged against a tabletop. I jumped, inhaling sharply. David lay his hand on my knee.

  “You can’t make us stay.” A thick-necked man named Jacob banged the table again. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what the majority voted. If I want to leave, I’m gonna.” His voice shook with anger.

  “Yeah, what are you gonna do? Put guards at the hatch? Keep us here like prisoners?” Margie yelled.

  David stood up. “Obviously, no one is going to stop anyone who wants to leave. But no one is going to force someone to leave if they want to stay. If the sixteen want to leave…then they should go.”

  “And what was your vote, David? I want to see a show of hands. Who voted to leave?” a kid in a Yankees t-shirt demanded.

  “That defeats the purpose of a secret ballot, Dan.”

  “Screw the secret ballot. Who voted to leave?”

  A sprinkling of hands rose—Margie, Dan, Jacob and his girlfriend, and a few others. The rest of the group sat silently, their hands in their lap.

  “Cowards,” Jacob yelled.

  “It doesn’t make a difference what anyone voted.” Juan stood up so fast his chair fell backward on the floor. “If you want to leave, Jacob, then get out. Go now. But stop your bullying. Some people want to abide by the majority vote. That takes more courage than having a temper tantrum like a toddler.”

  Jacob fisted his hands at his side. His face was red; a vein throbbed in the side of his neck. I drew back, afraid he was going to make the argument physical, but he slowly sat back down in his chair. A muscle in his jaw jumped as he glared at the group.

  Later that evening, Jacob, his girlfriend, and three others grabbed their gear and left. I said a prayer that they’d be okay. I knew they probably wouldn’

  Chapter 30:

  Found

  It’d been a week since we’d arrived at the PODs—a blissful, almost carefree week. Each person fell into a routine. Jessica and I worked in the gardens every morning. David and Devlin did minor repairs around the main and sub-PODs. A few people took turns cooking, and some cleaned and did laundry for the camp. Some of the men—and a couple of the women—went hunting every day. Everything was working fine…until that day.

  The hunting party was coming in for the day. They climbed down the long ladder, their boots raining red dirt on the floor below.

  “What’dya get today?” Judy, who was serving as one of the cooks, asked. “Rabbit? Maybe a stray cow?”

  “No cows, but we got these.” Juan held up what looked like several long ropes. The odor of blood and meat filled the air.

  I plugged my nose and looked up at what he was holding. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nah, them’s good eatin’,” Roy, one of the hunters, assured me.

  “I’m not eating that,” Jessica said.

  “Well, I’m sure as anything not cookin’ ‘em.” Judy grimaced and took a step back. “I don’t have no use for those, dead or alive. Alive, especially.”

  David walked up behind me, nuzzling the back of my neck. I swatted him away, still discussing the fate of my dinner. “We’ll eat what they brought,” I told Jessica. I held my hand over my mouth and nose and tried not to gag from the smell and the thought of eating what Juan was holding.

  David nibbled on my ear before whispering, “Yum.”

  “David, I know I taste good, but what the hell are we gonna do about the rattlesnakes Juan thinks we’re eating for dinner?”

  His laughter filled the small space. “I was talking about the rattlesnake. Them’s good eatin’ huh, Roy?”

  “That’s what I told ‘er.” to see each other.ar right the other side favorite movie

  “I just became a vegetarian.” Jessica half-ran down the metal corridor to the gardens, Devlin’s chuckle following her.

  “Roy, I don’t know how to cook rattlesnake.” Judy frowned at the day’s catch again. “What’s the matter with your thick head, bringing in those foul things?”

  Roy grabbed the snakes from Juan’s hand. They swung back and forth, their scaly bodies bouncing against each other as Roy hurried to catch up to Judy. “I can show you. My maw made rattlesnake all the time. These’re—”

  “Yeah, I heard you the first time. Them’s good eatin’.”

  The sound of forks and spoons scraping against the china plates that night at dinner told me most people agreed with Roy.

  David and I were on our way back to our sub-POD after dinner when I heard it—a dull thumping. I stopped and cocked my head, not exactly sure what I was hearing or where it was coming from.

  The sound got louder, becoming a clang of metal hitting metal.

  “David?”

  “I hear it.”

  “Of course you hear it. You’re standing right under it. Only a person who needed a hearing aid couldn’t hear that.”

  “Always with the jokes.”

  “Is the hatch latched?”

  “I don’t know. Juan, Roy and the others were the last people in. I can’t remember if they locked it or not.”

  I strained my memory. All I could see were the snakes swinging back and forth, their slimy, headless bodies bumping into each other as Juan bounded down the ladder into the POD. I couldn’t remember seeing if anyone had turned the wheel that locked the hatch.

  “No.” Juan’s voice startled me and I jumped, grabbing David’s arm.

  Devlin ran around the corner, sliding across the metal grating. He placed his hand on the floor to steady himself. Standing, he looked from Juan to David. “It’s not locked?”

  “No. I don’t think any of us threw the bolt,” Juan answered.

  David grabbed the metal sides of the ladder and swung himself up, climbing the rungs two at a time. He made it to the top just as the hinges of the hatch squealed open. He grabbed the wheel on the hatch, jerking it down. The person outside howled when their fingers got caught in the opening. David tried to hold it closed long enough to lock it, fighting whoever was pulling from the outside. He hitched one foot under a rung on the ladder. Using both hands and all his weight, he pulled the hatch down and spun the wheel quickly, locking the door. Three purple, swollen fingers fell from the hatch, bouncing against the metal grate before one fell through an opening to the level below.

  Still staring at the fingers lying on the floor at my feet, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned, but no one was there. My stomach lurched when I realized what it was. I slowly took a step to the side, not looking at the blood drops on my shoulder.

  “Fun’s over,” David said.

  Jumping from the bottom rung of the ladder, he took his shirt off and covered my shoulders. He rubbed his thumb gently across my cheek. When he pulled it away, I saw the blood. Wiping my face with the back of my hand, I f
elt the warm elephant sitting in the middle of I B7, sticky liquid smear.

  Ah, it stings! “They’ve found us,” I whispered, staring at the blood.

  “I knew we should have moved on when we had the chance,” a boy named Robbie yelled.

  “No one was keeping you here!” I shouted back.

  “He’s right. We should’ve left.” That was from Margie—oh, how I hated that girl. Well, not her, exactly, just her fascination with David. I wished she’d left.

  The group had spent the better part of an hour arguing. Our shouts reverberated against the metal walls of the cafeteria where we’d just shared a peaceful dinner. They echoed in my ears, giving me a splitting headache.

  Other than my outburst at Robbie, I sat silently, my hands fisted in my lap.

  How quickly people change. A few hours ago, when they were shoveling a nice hot dinner into their mouths, they weren’t complaining about staying. Last night, when they were sleeping in soft, warm beds, no one was screaming that it was a bad idea to lock ourselves away in the POD. This morning, when they showered and dressed in clean clothes—a luxury they hadn’t had in months—they didn’t think twice about their decision. But now it’s a different story altogether. Now the infected have found us and they need someone to blame. And they’re placing the blame squarely on David and Devlin.

  I was tired of hearing their complaints. I was fed up with hearing them refuse to take responsibility for their own decisions. I was pissed that David and Devlin were the targets of their ill-placed wrath.

  I stood up so fast my chair fell, bouncing against the linoleum floor. My fist came down so hard on the tabletop it hurt. “Shut. Up!”

  The room was blanketed in silence. Everyone stared at me. Some looked defiant, others shocked.

  “I am so sick of hearing you complain about your decision to stay! And it was your decision. If you recall, we voted. The majority of you wanted to stay. Those of you who didn’t could’ve left with Jacob and the others. But you didn’t. So stop blaming others for your choices and start thinking of ways to protect ourselves and our community.”

  “Hell’s bells, Eva,” David murmured. “You sure know how to quiet a room.”

  I righted my chair, setting it down with a hard smack against the floor. With a huff I sat down, folding my arms in front of me. I looked up and saw Robbie staring at me, his face hard, his expression cold. I raised my eyebrows at him, waiting for his response. He blinked first, looking down at the table.

  “We need to stop arguing and start deciding how we’re going to deal with the infected now that they’ve found the PODs,” Devlin said.

  “The guns and ammo are in the storage locker off the main hall. We should be armed anytime we go outside,” Roy said.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Robbie muttered.

  “You can leave, you know,” I snapped.

  Robbie stood, glaring at me. “You know, Eva, you think you’re—”

  “Watch it,” David warned.

  Robbie sat down, My eyes never left David’s face.op do yououcursing under his breath. I didn’t hear everything he said. I just saw the people sitting next to him scoot their chairs away. Not even his closest friends wanted to be associated with him.

  “No one leaves the POD alone. We stay in groups of at least five or more, and everyone is armed,” Devlin said. “The hatch stays locked except when a hunting party is out. When the hatch is unlocked, we post two armed guards next to it, and all residents are aware that the hatch is open so they can be ready to defend the community, if needed.” He let out a heavy sigh. “We need to find a way to know if the infected are waiting for us to emerge. We don’t want to open the hatch if they’re up there, staking it out. Any ideas?”

  Murmurs filled the room, and Robbie raised his hand tentatively.

  I rolled my eyes. “Here we go again,” I whispered to David. He looked at me with a resigned smile.

  “We could attach a mirror on the end of a small pole, like an antenna or somethin’. Then we could stick it out and move it around. We’d see if anyone was lurking around up there. You know, like the ones they showed in police movies and stuff.”

  I looked at David in surprise. Robbie the complainer actually had a decent idea?

  David shrugged. “That’s a good idea, but we’d have to open the hatch. One person couldn’t look around and hold the hatch shut at the same time.”

  “Two people could go up. One to look and one to hold the hatch,” Robbie said.

  David shook his head. “No. Not enough room.”

  “Yeah, there’s plenty of room,” Robbie argued. “One in the passageway and one on the ladder.”

  “The hatch is too high for someone in the passageway to reach. And the ladder’s too narrow for two people,” David said with a frustrated sigh.

  “Well, you got any better ideas, hotshot?”

  The room filled with heated debate. I leaned back and closed my eyes. Robbie had a good idea in theory, but in practice it just wasn’t gonna work.

  “What if we built a platform?” Jessica said, so quietly the crowd nearly drowned her out.

  “What?” David asked.

  “What if we built a platform? Then two people could be up there at a time—three, if the platform was big enough. There are all kinds of tables around. There’s a dozen in here we aren’t using. We find a way to attach them—”

  “There’s chains and other stuff in the maintenance room,” one boy said.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen them.” Devlin nodded and smiled. “We attach a table at the hatch opening and cut out a hole big enough for us to get through when we go up and down the ladder. Before anyone leaves, one person can crack the hatch open just wide enough to get a mirror through while the other person holds the hatch, ready to pull it closed and lock it if there are any infected waiting on the other side. It might just work.”

  “It’s gonna have to. It’s the best idea we’ve got,” I said.

  That night, David and I lay on the living room floor. We’d piled pillows and blankets around the smile in his voice.

  “Do you want to leave?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure we’d be going anywhere any safer than we are here,” he answered.

  “You don’t think there’s a compound in California?”

  “There might be. If there is, I don’t think it’ll let people like us inside. We’ve been out too long.”

  “I’ve been wondering something. How long does the virus last?”

  “What’dya mean?” David’s breath moved my hair, tickling me.

  “Well, the first strain killed people pretty quickly. When they starting showing symptoms like fever and muscle aches, they only had another five days, max, before their internal organs shut down and they were dead. I wonder—how long does the mutated strain lasts before it kills its host? Another thing—I don’t think the infected are as dumb as we think they are.”

  David pulled back. Turning on a small flashlight, he looked at me. “What are you getting at?”

  I swallowed hard. What I was thinking wasn’t going to make him happy. “How’d they find us, David? The hatch isn’t easy to see. And even if they did see it, you said they hunt based on smell.”

  “So?”

  “So, they can’t smell through three feet of metal.”

  “Maybe they followed the hunters back.”

  “I thought of that,” I said. “But they came too long after the hunters came back. Their smell would have been gone by then. The wind and the sand blowing would have masked it.”

  “I’m still not following you, Eva. What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Well, we’re all pretty sure that Jacob and the other four who left with him are toast, right? What if one of them brought the infected to us? What if it wasn’t the group of infected that was following us before? I mean, they couldn’t have caught up to us so quickly, and besides, they’ve probably found another group of people to torment and forgot all about us. What if the infected outside
the PODs are Jacob and the others?”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s right,” Devlin said. I jumped at the sound of his voice piercing the darkness.

  “Would you stop sneaking up on people? It freaks me out,” I said, relaxing against David.

  “Sorry,” he said absently. “I’ve wondered about the lifespan of an infected person, too. I’ve never been able to do a head count, we’ve always been kinda busy when they visited our camps,” he said ruefully, “but I’ve never seen the same person more than a few times.”

  “So, the virus has a lifespan. It kills the host just like the strain before it,” David said. “So the first strain killed in five days. Let&his strain doubles that and kills in ten. We’ve been here a week. We haven’t seen any infected in more than ten days,” Jessica said.ad him andou. That group should be dead.

  “Jacob and his group left five days ago. If they were infected the night they left, they’d be three days into their sickness—”

  “Wait, why three days?” I asked.

  “It takes two for the virus to take over after a bite. They waited until they saw a hunting party, followed them back to the POD, and tried to attack. They knew if they could get down here they could pick us off one by one.” David tapped his finger against his lips. “Yeah. Yeah, that fits. I never thought they were capable of reason. It seemed like they were just hunting, but if this is Jacob’s group, then we’re dealing with a whole new set of trouble.”

  “Hey, what are you two doing up so late, anyway?”

  “Privacy, man,” David said, like it should be obvious.

  Devlin’s laughter filled the room. “You’ve got food, water, shelter, and you’re safe. The one thing you ain’t gonna get is privacy.” He chuckled and walked to the kitchen. Banging around, he grabbed an apple and walked past us, whistling. “G’night.”

  “So, you think it’s Jacob and the others?”

  “I don’t know, Eva, but I know how we’ll find out.”

  “Yeah. And it isn’t the way I want to.”

  The next day the hunting party didn’t go out. Devlin told the group what our thoughts were on the life of the virus and the possibility that it was Jacob and his group outside. Surprisingly, there were no outburst of anger, no fits of rage, just a few murmurs of disbelief, of disgust, and of worry. People listened to what Devlin had to say, and then went about their daily routines inside the POD.