Virulent: The Release

by Shelbi Wescott

  “We can’t just stay here. So, then what?” Lucy asked and she turned over her shoulder toward the den. She pushed her chair back away from the table and started to make her way to Ethan.

  “Right,” Grant answered. His voice was strong and confident. “Well, that makes it easy.”

  Lucy paused and turned to look at him. “What?”

  “Lucy and I will go,” he said to Darla.

  The offer hung in the room, palpable and tense. Everyone collectively held his or her breath.

  Then Darla looked thoughtfully toward the ceiling and then back toward Grant. Her eyes went between the two of them, assessing. Finally, she assented. “It’s not the only way, but I suppose if you’re hell-bent on going…it is the best way. You can drive once you get out of the city. Gas is an issue because you can’t pump without power…but cars should be easy to come by.”

  “But you just said—” Lucy started, but Darla raised a fork at her.

  “Look,” she interrupted. “I’m not going to tell you not to take a risk. And I think you’re crazy, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want some answers. I lost the love of my life and everyone on this planet I cared about with the exception of my son. You think you can do this? Then go.”

  “Is this happening?” Lucy asked and she took a step forward. “Everyone is okay with this?”

  Shrugging, Darla looked over at Teddy. “I’m not leaving my son. And I’m not taking my son. Your brother can’t travel. Neither of you should go alone. If Nebraska is in your future…then this has to be the way. I don’t think it’s safe and I am petrified about what’s waiting for you there. But if you want to go, I’m not going to stand in your way.”

  Inside the den, Ethan flipped through records. Lucy entered and stood near the doorway, the sounds of the others clearing breakfast dishes in the background.

  “You know what shocks me most of all?” he said with his back still turned to her. “Why would Dad just walk away from the life he built here? Why leave this heirloom? And his wedding pictures,” he nodded toward an album on the edge of their father’s work desk. “How could he risk losing us?”

  Lucy sat down on the couch and leaned her head back—she stared at the white ceiling and the overhead fan above them—the blades decorated with some flowery design that had always looked like an abstract drawing of an owl’s face. She turned to face Ethan.

  “I’ll ask him that. When I find him. He’s got to be out there Ethan…I believe that. I think he wants us to find him.”

  “And you really want to do this?” Ethan asked.

  Lucy exhaled out her nose. “This is our family. Our mom. And I can do this. Please trust me.”

  “I trust you. But it’s scary…to let you go. What if you—” he couldn’t finish his thought.

  Teddy swooped into the room and made a leap to the couch. He jumped and jumped until Darla came in and swung him off the leather and planted his feet on the ground.

  “Legos?” she suggested and he rushed away, shouting about building an all-blue spaceship. Grant came in and sat by Lucy and he gave her a reassuring smile.

  Pushing her back against the bookshelf, Darla crossed her arms. “We heard before the communication ended that the bridge is down between here and Washington. Car backup along all major highways will be impossible to navigate. You could walk out…but Grant is a living testament that you might still run into Raiders…who knows what type of people are lurking at the major entrances and exits to the city.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Grant said. “What if we head north?”

  “Fine. But still I-84 is a traffic jam up the Gorge. You’re walking out of here and that alone carries all sorts of risks,” Darla explained as she rubbed her temples. “Too bad you can’t just fly out over the wreckage. Land yourself beyond the miles of corpses and cars.”

  “What if we could?” Grant asked, alert and looking between everyone, his eyes flashing with excitement.

  “Fly?” Darla laughed. “Oh yeah?”

  “Well, more like float,” Grant replied and he smiled.

  From Up Above Tours was family owned and operated for thirty years. Grant’s uncle was a commercial pilot frustrated by an aggravating schedule that kept him away from his wife and young children and Grant’s aunt was a strong woman with an entrepreneurial spirit and unstoppable business acumen. For years they ran sunrise hot air balloon tours over the Willamette Valley, storing their massive equipment during the off-season in Grant’s family’s storage barn on their large lot with acreage. Abandoned and ready for flight, just miles from Lucy’s home, were a collection of hot air balloons. Grant’s aunt and uncle kept the balloons in trailers next to the stables, where Grant’s horses grazed and slept.

  “Horses? You have horses?” Lucy asked and she raised her eyebrows with a knowing look.

  “Don’t say it…just don’t. I think the point’s been made.” Then he frowned as he remembered. “Had horses, though. We lost two the night before everything. Not all of them. But if it was just a precursor to everything else then I doubt I have any horses anymore.”

  “Wait, wait,” Ethan turned to Grant. “So, you can fly these things?”

  “Yes,” Grant replied quickly. Then he shifted his eyes to Lucy and lowered his eyes. “I mean…I’ve helped fly them. I work every summer with the company. Setting up the balloons, assisting with flights. I can do it. I know how. I’ve done it a hundred times over the years.”

  “But you’ve never actually flown one solo?” Ethan wheeled closer and looked at Grant incredulously.

  “I can do it,” Grant said, his eyes lighting up, moving between each of them – eager to convince. “I’ll need some extra hands, but I can fly us out over the wreckage. Right? That’s all we need?”

  “How far do they go?” Lucy asked, imagining a stress-free ride through the skies all the way to Nebraska.

  “Depends on how much fuel we take, which balloon, which gondola. I think I can get us like fifty miles. But maybe more, I can push it to more.”

  “That’s all?” Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s not even a start to the trip.”

  “Well, I don’t want to walk fifty miles instead if those are our options,” Grant replied.

  “Where will you go?” Ethan asked.

  “Well,” Grant paused, “we don’t have a choice. We go where the wind takes us. But from here? I’m hoping to catch the wind that travels south. Head toward Central Oregon…plenty of open landing space.”

  “This is brilliant, Grant,” Ethan reached forward for a high-five, which Grant reciprocated. He turned to his sister with appraising eyes. She looked to Ethan, Grant, and then Darla who picked at the bed of her fingernails with the tip of a paperclip.

  “I can’t even believe we’re talking about this as an actual thing,” Darla muttered. She flicked the dirt and grime to the floor and bit off the top part of her fingernail on her right pointer finger.

  “A freaking hot air balloon,” Lucy added and Darla smirked—they shared a moment bonding over their skepticism.

  “This can work, Lucy,” Grant said, turning to her. “I am promising you.” He lowered his voice. “I will get us to your family.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’re following a cryptic letter. Nothing more.” Ethan replied. “For now, we’re following the hint of my family. That is what we’re chasing. A hope. In a hot air balloon.”

  “A hint, a hope, a hot air balloon,” Lucy mused out loud. She thought of Mrs. Johnston’s alliteration poster and smiled to herself. Yes, fools, all of them, thinking that in the end knowledge of literary terms could ever be useful. “You’ll need this for a successful future,” some of the more idiotic educators pontificated. What future? Lucy thought. Apparently for her future she needed to know how to navigate a hot air balloon. And she shook her head, exhaled long and low, and then turned to the group. “When do we leave?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Eight days after The Release

/>   The day before the big trip, they planned and prepped and enjoyed their last full day together. Anxious to hear if Spencer would be able to uphold his end of the bargain, Darla had paced the length of the den while brainstorming a backup plan, while Ethan sat morose, dipping into their father’s liquor cabinet again and self-medicating until he had passed out on the couch. Lucy could not blame him for wanting to check out. They could all see that Ethan’s health was deteriorating and without antibiotics and someone to look at his legs, they all feared the worst.

  Darla tucked him in and then asked them not to be too hard on him. “He wishes he could be the one to do this,” she said. “He feels like he’s failing you.”

  For the first time since they concocted the hot air balloon idea, Lucy felt guilty for her quick willingness to leave him behind. “If you think I should stay, please tell me,” Lucy begged Darla.

  “No, you should go,” Darla replied. “Spencer’s network was intricate and vast. I would never have saved his pathetic life and offered him our most precious resource if I didn’t believe he would help us save Ethan.”

  Lucy had to trust that she was right.

  When sleep finally found her that evening, she crashed. There were no dreams. No midnight awakenings. And now, in this early morning, her body refused to budge and her mind kept shoving her back into the darkness. She could feel Grant’s hand push on her shoulder, his voice call her name, but she refused to acknowledge his presence.

  “Lucy? Lucy?” Grant said to her. “It’s time. We have to go.”

  When she was able to pry her eyes open, Grant’s shape was blurry in front of her as he knelt down by her bedside. Outside, it was still dark.

  “Don’t make me pour a bucket of water on you Lucy, please?” Grant pleaded and his words hovered in the place where sleep beckoned her, but where her mind was aware, but not awake.

  “No—” she protested.

  “Wake up, please. We have to go. I’ve checked the wind…heading south…at sunrise. It’s a mile to my house, Lucy. We have to hurry. Who knows if the weather will be right tomorrow. It’s Oregon after all. We have to catch the wind just right.”

  “I don’t want to go—” she slurred. But she felt Grant reach a hand under her back, lift her forward. “Okay, okay,” she said when her body was upright.

  “Pack a bag. Light. I’ll be downstairs.”

  Lucy nodded, her eyes still closed.

  She thought of the last time she had been awakened and then told to get her bags ready. She shivered at the comparison.

  “Are you getting up?” Grant asked her in a parental tone as he stood in the doorway.

  She nodded again, but felt her body slink back toward the warmth of her bed.

  From outside she heard the sounds of heavy footsteps, her door banging backward, and Darla’s exasperated sigh.

  “Please Grant, this is not how you do it,” Darla spat at him. “You’re being too nice.”

  Lucy resisted and Darla grabbed her by her hands and pulled her to the floor, her chin hitting the carpeted floor with a thud. Then Darla sat her up and yanked all the remaining covers free.

  “Five minutes. Go downstairs, Grant. I got this.”

  Grant mumbled a protest, but then retreated.

  Alone with Darla, Lucy started to move.

  “Not even nearly fast enough sweetheart,” Darla said and pulled her to her feet. “Such a ridiculous life you lead. Bet your mommy got you up every morning with some soft rock and butterfly kisses, right?”

  “Hardly,” Lucy replied. Then her thoughts went to her mom.

  Her mother was in Nebraska. She knew it, felt it, like she knew that she was going to take another breath or blink. Her mommy was in Nebraska.

  “I’m up,” she said and walked to her closet. She knew she had been wearing the same clothes for the past few days and she could smell the stench as she shed them without a hint of self-consciousness. Then Lucy changed into a pair of cargo pants and a black hooded sweatshirt. She grabbed a change of clothes and shoved it into a backpack. The other night in the den, she found her father’s copy of Fahrenheit 451 and for comfort and reading material she packed that too.

  Tying on Galen’s hiking boots, which she was pleased to discover fit her quite comfortably, she was ready to leave, but Lucy still felt disoriented.

  “You good?” Darla asked and then she retreated.

  When she finally made it downstairs, she saw everyone waiting.

  Now Lucy could see that Grant had changed too. He was wearing a combination of clothing items from Ethan and her dad, including a weather-resistant jacket with Ethan’s college logo displayed across the back.

  Off they marched into the middle of a war and they both just looked like co-eds heading to a rainy football game.

  “I’m ready,” Lucy announced.

  Grant shimmied into a hiking pack. He nodded toward it as he lifted it up across his shoulders. “The ready-to-eat meals. Flashlight and a blanket.” He leaned down and handed Lucy a pack of matches and a handful of glow-sticks. “These didn’t fit in my pack.”

  She shoved them into the front packet, the crinkly packaging echoing loudly in the quiet front room.

  “We’ll be heading through unfamiliar neighborhoods,” Darla said. “We stay close. We don’t know who’s alive out there. Grant has proved that much.”

  “And there definitely could be zombies,” Grant whispered.

  “No zombies.” Lucy rolled her eyes.

  “Grant, you’ll have to lead the way,” Darla continued.

  Teddy sat on the steps, a found stuffed animal in his hand. He was sucking his thumb and his eyes were heavy with sleep. “Mom,” he asked. “When are you coming back?”

  “Later sweetheart. Stay good for Ethan.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, baby boy.”

  “Can we go to the park to play when you get home?”

  Darla looked at him and smiled softly. “I’ll see. Let’s just say maybe.”

  Grant and Darla started toward the side-door, but Lucy hesitated. “Go on, I’ll be right out.” They exited out into the carport and left the two of them alone. She turned to Ethan and walked over to him, kneeling, but careful not to touch his legs. “I don’t know what I should say here,” she mumbled.

  “I thought I was the only one,” he replied. “The lone survivor. When I realized there was a chance you were alive too, I’ve never been so happy.”

  “I always hoped. I never gave up hope,” Lucy said.

  He reached out and grabbed her hand. “I can’t lose you.”

  “You won’t. And I can’t lose you.”

  “I have no immediate plans to die. Spencer will come through. I’m more worried about you. Be safe, Lucy. Please?”

  “I’m doing this for us, Ethan. It feels like I’m abandoning you…but…I want to do this for us. See that and feel it. Believe it.”

  “I do.”

  “A hot air balloon,” Lucy said and smiled.

  “The great and powerful…” Ethan trailed off and then he looked up at her—his blue eyes searching hers. “But you are. You really are. So, it’s fitting, I suppose.”

  “There really is no place like home,” she said back, wanting to assure him she understood.

  After a long pause, Ethan gave her hand a tight squeeze. “What home?” he asked. Then as she started to pull away he added, “Find them, Lucy. Find them.”

  “I will.” She stood up and hugged her brother tightly, avoiding the dark thoughts of impending loss that flooded her and she hugged him until she couldn’t anymore.

  The others had generously offered her precious moments to say goodbye.

  But now it was time to go.

  The Trotter farm was a legitimate farm with a small grove of apple trees and a pasture for grazing horses. Just a mile away from sprawling housing developments, and only a few miles away from the buzzing metropolis of Portland, a more rural part of the city lived and thrived. The streets were empty and va
cant, but everywhere they walked, they could not avoid the stench. It reminded them that once upon a time, people were alive. Rot and death wafted in from all angles and it blended with the early morning air, bowling them over.

  Only their soft footsteps, sinking in mud or thudding along on the streets, made any sound at all. Occasionally one of them remarked at a sight—a person’s body in the front yard, pajama clad, and left abandoned among the growing grass or a person in the middle of the street, or behind the wheel of a car.

  All signs pointed to the fact that many people tried to go about their lives the day the virus claimed them, unwilling to let the disease stop them from going to work, watering their lawn, checking the mail. Everything happened so quickly. One minute they were walking to pick up a newspaper, the next, gone.

  “Cut through here,” Grant said and his voice broke up the silence.

  They followed him, leaving the developments, cutting through backyards, until they reached a long drive flanked by well-manicured grass.

  Grant paused.

  “This it?” Darla asked and started to walk forward.

  He nodded.

  “Let’s go,” she demanded. But Grant refused to step forward. Suddenly tender, Darla went back and took his hand. “We do what you say,” she announced. “Okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. Let’s just, um, just go to the barn.”

  Darla nodded once. “You got it.”

  Lucy took in the sprawling estate with wide-eyed wonder.

  Halfway up the drive, Grant walked straight through the yard and spotted a patch of yellow fur nestled among the green. He knelt down and hung his head, and then he stood up more purposeful than before.

  “A pet?” Lucy asked.

  Grant shook his head. “A stray,” he replied. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m just tired of all of this.”

  “Do you want to go inside?” Lucy asked and then immediately regretted it. “Never mind,” she said, backtracking, realizing it was a ridiculous suggestion. “We’ll just get the balloon up.”