by Hamrick, R M
Dwyn gave a nod and a flick of his eyes for Gordon to join him. They topped off their canteens with more tea before heading toward the rail line and its easy navigation to Lysent corporate headquarters.
* * *
After having navigated to the grocery store, Audra appreciated her half broken-in trails. She opened her gait and coursed through the woods. Endless pines, oaks and sweetgums crowded the trail, giving Audra a bit of camouflage as she pushed toward the highway.
I-16.
She and Dwyn had left several in cars along the highway. They would be easy to check on, gather, and bring home. The rest were spread out. They would take time.
Audra had time.
This was something she could do. She couldn’t cure the z-virus. She couldn’t medically tend to the sick. But she could round them up before bounty hunters did. She could keep them safe until the world could be made safer.
The chill in the air kept her body temperature down, allowing her another level of speed impossible to sustain in Georgia summers. Dwyn had wanted to come, but he never would’ve kept this pace for the hours Audra would. His top speed was always faster, but she had the endurance to run for what seemed like forever.
Audra’s breath caught in her chest, not from her exertion, but from thinking about Dwyn. It wasn’t lost on her that she had sent him to speak with his ex-fiancée after assuring him the woman still had feelings for him. Dwyn’s feelings for Audra were earnest, but she had pushed him away so many times. A relationship would demand Audra communicate emotions and vulnerabilities. It was easier to stay closed off. It was easier to run. She just wasn’t sure how easy it would be to watch him move on.
Hours passed before Audra popped out of the forest and onto the highway. Large swaths of wire grass had died and fallen. Their brown streaks matched the rust of the decaying cars, shoved and overturned by Jack’s old convoy. That convoy was sorely missed now. If they had managed to hold onto those vehicles, they could’ve gotten the hell out of Dodge, leaving Greenly and her wrath behind. Or, even she could’ve just gone and escaped the punishment of watching her mistakes snowball into another outbreak.
No matter as it was all wishful thinking. Without vehicles and a reliable source of fuel, they were locked in.
It didn’t appear any vehicles had come through since the convoy. No bustling cars. No terror here. She raced down the highway on foot, pine straw and empty plastic bottles crunching underneath her feet. Despite the throes of winter, human touch was being eaten away by vegetation, streams, and trees. The median and the other side of the highway were indistinguishable from one another. Their phase on Earth might be snuffed out before it ever got started again, the remainder of them just a second round of fertilizer for a new, peaceful world.
Audra ran until things almost looked familiar. She slowed to a walk, peeking into shattered windshields and warped windows. With the highway changing and yet the same mile after mile, it became one thing to remember she’d left a young girl in a sedan and entirely a different thing to remember which sedan. Audra’s mind began playing tricks on her. Had she missed her or was she gone? The attack she suffered on this highway clouded and crowded her memories.
Just as Audra convinced herself she needed to backtrack, she caught sight of the cherry red, now rusty red, vehicle parked at an odd angle on the shoulder of the road. The antenna had been bent into a zig zag at the top. Her mark. Approaching the rear passenger door, she wiped the filth off the window with her sleeve to get a better look. Her heart dropped to her stomach.
The little girl was no more.
The door handle gave with a creak. The familiar odor was not overpowering, just a part of her world. The body slumped against the opposite window and door. She pulled the decaying body down until it was lying on the seat cushion. Her skin had mottled with green and gray hues.
Audra walked around and opened the opposite door, ignoring the bodily fragments left behind. She forced the girl’s eyelids over the emptiness. Audra pulled the yellow tag off the brown ear — a tag she had left when she abandoned this girl. She wiped the flesh off the tag against the back of the passenger seat before putting it in her pocket. Her breath stuck in her throat.
As she climbed out of the car, she looked around for something to leave her. No flowers to be seen. Just winter and death. Audra walked through the drainage ditch and into the forest, climbing a tree to cut down some boughs of evergreen. The somber woman folded and braided, scratching up her arms with the sharp needles and protective bark, until she had a half wreath for the girl. She crawled back inside with the bones and sinew to wrap the head in a green offering.
Audra gently shut the door. She turned around and she finally broke, her knees buckling, her back scraping the crustiness on the door. She let fat tears roll through her hands to her knees underneath.
Audra had found that girl alive, and instead of helping her, she had checked to see if she could use her for gain. When she couldn’t, she trapped her without any way to get food. Lysent said they would round them up and keep them safe. Lysent lied. And Audra knew Lysent lied. She had left her there to starve and rot.
It seemed those were the only options left — starve or rot — but in trapping that girl, she was no better than Lysent.
Wiping the tear-filled grime off her hands, Audra pulled out the list of names bountied, really sentenced to death, because their paths had crossed Audra’s. A heavy burden of grief settled over her as she realized she had knocked out half of this list herself. Many to ash in the trailer she had traded Greenly. Lysent needn’t even bother. She was doing fine killing them all on her own. And their faulty cure — that would do the rest.
Despite the barrage of death, Audra climbed from the ditch where she sat. If this tag was untouched, then there was a chance the others on the highway were also undisturbed. She tightened the straps on her bag, and marched on, determined to help at least one person on the list. Her list of failures.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TAGGING
Audra braced herself with a deep, heaving breath before she approached the black car. Her stomach twisted in knots. Would the teenage boy she and Dwyn left in there be dead? Gone? Audra hoped for the latter over the visual confirmation that another had died.
She muttered a little prayer as she used her sleeve, nasty from the red sedan and her breakdown, to clear the window. The black-brown muck didn’t allow itself to be removed as much as it simply shifted to the sides. Audra fell back in surprise as a mass charged at the window. Teeth snarled atop receding gums. They smacked the glass with a clunk. Gray orbs for eyes bulged. Audra’s ass hit the asphalt and she laughed in surprise before more closely examining her captured tag. He had already sunk back in his seat, having depleted the energy available to him. The teenager’s papery skin had a sheen of grease. His stomach and lower legs bloated and no fat or muscles to speak of, but he was alive.
Audra poured water through the partially opened window, noticing rain stains along the interior of the door. Carcasses of a few rodents lay on the floorboard. Rats seeking rotting flesh to find it wasn’t quite dead had sustained the teenager — Link Culpepper as the bounty list had reminded her. Link lapped up the water, his swollen tongue scraping along the filmy surface of the window.
Pushing into the woods, Audra searched until she found a small rodent den. Building her snare with sticks and a wire, she baited it then repeated the process at another den. She wished her traps luck. Hopefully she’d catch a mouse. Even better, two. One for Link and one for herself. Hedging her bets, she foraged before setting up her tent within visual range of Link’s vehicle. She wanted the opportunity to protect him if another tagger came by.
Soon she had a rat for her pal Link. She bled it, letting the rich liquid flow down the window for his consumption. She then fed him bits at regular intervals late into the afternoon. Link revived with a new energy. The virus was a curse and a blessing for the resilient human body. She yanked the rusty door open and Link fell out. Getti
ng to his feet, he followed her just as he had when she first met him. However, walking was slow. His feet dragged and twisted underneath swollen ankles. Audra forewent the leather mask. Link deserved the full experience of a change in scenery.
When she approached her next stop along the highway, she tied him to a yellowing side view mirror a few cars away. She knew what she’d find. She braided another bough of pine greenery before approaching the car. She laid it gently around the elderly lady’s bones. She picked the tag off the seat where it had fallen and put it in her pocket with the others. At least no one else would try to make money off of her body.
Audra had done enough of that.
Monetizing the sick. Monetizing the dead. She and everyone else had survived only to betray the last of humanity. They deserved whatever was coming. A second outbreak. A wiping out. An extinction. They had failed spectacularly.
Audra distracted herself by searching the ground as she led ambling Link. Lars and Lindon would have covered these miles after attacking her and stealing her pack. Besides being hungry for a few days, Audra had lost several personal mementos. While she knew chances were slim, her eyes swept the road and her feet kicked over loose debris. A carved figurine. A discarded photograph with Belinda’s smile. Seen just one more time. Audra yearned for a reminder, but not for the person. Belinda would be out of her mind with terror if she had to face the looming threat of reversion. Where Belinda was, fear could no longer wrap its claws around her.
Better than a physical memento, that was something to hold onto.
The tautness and angle of the leash changed ever so slightly behind her. Only years of pulling zombies allowed her to sense the change, even if she couldn’t explain it. Link looked straight ahead, but not at her. Beyond her. Audra’s eyes followed but saw nothing. She pulled him off the highway in any case. He sensed something she didn’t.
A pack of men tromped down the road past her and Link’s hiding spot. Eight men she didn’t recognize. Either travelers or just venturing from the safety of Lysent townships. Were they hunting tags? Hunting her? If so, they’d continue on the highway where they’d find boughs decorating dead bodies. She hoped they’d let them rest.
Audra decided to continue on not using the roads. Link would move even more slowly, but they’d move more safely.
* * *
The residents of the motel tensed as Audra entered with Link. The few tables were filled with people, playing cards or eating. Always eating. Ryder stood over a pot of steaming stew. Audra hoped there was at least one group out foraging for food to replace what they’d eaten today.
“Another one?” a man with deep ocher skin and slick black hair said around the food in his mouth.
“Yes… I’m bringing him here because it’s quarantine,” Audra said slowly as if they were kindergarteners forgetting yesterday’s lesson.
Ryder stood back, not supporting Audra’s idea of quarantine or pointing out the man’s hypocrisy.
“I just don’t see the point. We have no doctor. No cure. Just this dusty motel to die in,” he said, having swallowed his food.
Audra felt heat rising over her collarbone and creeping up her neck. She covered half the distance to the table. Link pulled ahead on his leash, limiting her movement.
“I didn’t clear out this entire place for you to die here,” she answered with a cold calmness.
“No, I think when we turn, you’ll go back to Osprey Point. This is just your dumping ground,” started another person at the table. “And we don’t want them here.”
Audra launched forward, grabbing Link by the back of the shirt before barreling toward the table and stopping just short. The Snow White derivative — jet black hair, unnaturally white skin, and lips splattered with rat blood — did his part by pulling and snarling. Link acted like Audra felt.
“What the hell!” came shouts, which just riled Link further as the complainers tumbled off the bench, trying to find distance. From the corner of her eye, Audra saw Ryder rushing over. She didn’t have much time before the situation would be yanked from her hands.
“While he looks like a monster to you, this boy’s name is Link Culpepper. His family was evacuating the coast when he succumbed to his illness. We will keep him safe until a cure can be found. And when you get sick, we will do the same for you. Even though I don’t like you as much as I like Link.”
Audra pulled Link away from the table. She heard Marcos stifle a giggle from the corner. Ryder stopped short of intervening, shock on her face. The people stood up and brushed themselves off.
“This isn’t a dumping ground. You’re welcome to leave if you don’t like how we do things.” She waited for the woman who called it such to make eye contact with her. “But you should know. Lysent is hunting those who have lived outside their system — you. You will not be treated well if you fall into their hands.”
“Why? We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Apparently they believe in us more than we believe in ourselves. They see us as a threat that needs to be eliminated. So let’s trust each other to outlast this bad break and see each other through — turned or not.”
“Where will you keep him?” asked Ryder, hesitating and mousy. “We don’t have any more spare rooms.”
“In mine,” she answered.
“Where will you stay? Surely not in there with them.”
“I’m not staying,” she said plainly as she escorted Link to her room.
“She sure does like the young boys it seems,” giggled someone from another table.
Audra ignored him.
With Link deposited into her room, Audra immediately turned about face and began to head out.
“If anything happens to Link or Kip, I’ll make sure the same happens to you,” threatened Audra. There were nods all around. Apparently she had gotten through to some, or at least scared the heck out of them.
Ryder walked with her to the gate. “I know you want to help them, but aren’t there more important things to do?” she asked softly so the others wouldn’t hear.
Audra reeled around, “There is nothing more important! I won’t sit back and let my tags be scooped up for slaughter. I won’t.”
At one time Ryder felt a duty to the sick and vulnerable. Now she argued for safety. What did safety matter if they lost their humanity for it? She let the gate bang open in the crisp air and didn’t stop to close it.
They were good at that.
CHAPTER NINE
SISTERS
Dwyn and Gordon decided to meet up with the rail line and follow it to Choros, the township housing Lysent corporate headquarters. While it wasn’t the most direct route, it was the least complicated. Not having the years of Audra’s experience in traipsing through the woods, they didn’t want to chance getting lost before completing their tasks.
They gave Uno a wide berth when they neared it. As a township that had sent out taggers, they couldn’t be trusted. If anyone recognized Gordon, he could be detained and sent to Lysent. And while that’s where Gordon wanted to end up, he didn’t want anyone besides his family benefiting. Dwyn promised he’d trade the credits for food and fuel and deliver it to Haleigh.
For the first hour of walking, both men were wrapped in their own thoughts. But Dwyn realized he’d work himself into a frenzy worrying about all the worst-case scenarios of his current venture. He imagined Gordon felt the same in his contemplation. Dwyn decided an effort toward small talk was necessary, if only to keep out of their own heads. Gordon must have had the same idea.
“So, you were a tagger when you met Audra?” he asked abruptly.
Dwyn laughed. “Audra wouldn’t say so. I was uh, pretty green.”
Dwyn remembered his fumbling attempts to scan zombies before Audra had taught him the ropes.
He recounted his job placement. “After they woke me up, they explained to me that during the outbreaks, many people were ‘misplaced’ in the chaos. Taggers reunited the sick with the healthy. It was a crock, but I was required t
o have employment and ‘Lysent goon’ didn’t have a lot of appeal.”
“You think this bounty is a crock?” asked Gordon. His face flushed with either the exertion of the hike or with his illness. Dwyn himself felt a little warm.
“You’ll get something, but nothing worth your life.”
It was Gordon’s turn to laugh. “I’m not sure my life is worth much. I wasn’t there for Haleigh and Eliza at the onset. I was in that damn laboratory, and what did I accomplish? Nothing. And now, I can sit in my room and revert, or I can give them something.”
Dwyn hated it but it was Gordon’s decision. And it wasn’t even a horrible one. He was sacrificing himself for his family. A decision many had made over the years. Audra tagging for her sister. Vesna’s fatal push to dampen Lysent’s rule. Ziv to cure the half zoms. And maybe Corette. What was his sacrifice? And whom was it for?
“Is it weird going to see your ex?” asked Gordon, pulling Dwyn from his reverie.
“Well, yeah. Audra could just be talking shit because she thinks this is the best play. Corette could hate me. Turn me in for a few bucks.”
“What was she like before? Hell, what were you like before?”
Dwyn realized he hadn’t really discussed it with Gordon. Their past lives were so different, they didn’t really seem relevant. But then again, maybe he hadn’t changed much.
Dwyn blinked and instantly could smell her lavender perfume. “She was a dancer and I was head over heels. I couldn’t believe she agreed to marry me. We were so young.” He paused. “After all this, I thought maybe I had loved her more than she had loved me.”
“Young and idealistic. Me too — I thought by staying in the lab, I was going to save the world.”
“Will you hang back until I feel things out at Lysent? I mean, uh, how sick are you?”
“Low-grade fever still, but it’s just a matter of time, right? Lisa has already reverted and I was before her. But yes, I can try.”