by Max Lockwood
“Okay,” Thomas replied. He wasn’t keen on joining, but he could at least promise to think about it. There was no harm in that.
“Cool.” Mark smiled. He stood up from the table and gestured for Thomas to follow him. They walked to the library, where they found Bethany flipping through an old paperback.
“Bedtime, little sister,” Mark sang, beckoning her to follow him toward the bunks. They walked down a hallway until they reached two rooms on opposite sides of the hall.
“Bethany, you’re in Room 5. Thomas, you’re in Room 6, just across the hall. Bathrooms are at the end of the corridor. Try not to wander around too much at night. There are guards to make sure everything is in order. Try not to piss them off.”
“Got it,” Bethany said sharply.
“Goodnight,” Mark said, leaving the two to their rooms. Thomas turned to enter his dormitory and felt a hand touch his left buttock. He whipped around to see why Bethany would do such a thing, but she was already in her room, the door shutting behind her. Thomas reached his hand to his backside and felt a piece of paper tucked into his back pocket.
His heart skipped a beat. He left the paper in his pocket, too nervous to read it. Bethany had been oddly calm about being naked around him, and she had seen how flustered their nudity had made him. Maybe she was just messing with him again by slipping him a salacious note. He didn’t want to read it and get flustered again if he had to enter a dorm full of other men. He decided he’d wait until he was tucked under the covers to read it.
Inside, he was warmly greeted by three other men his age. They all shook his hand and introduced themselves as they filled him in on everything that had been happening on base. They all had recently joined the new army and were eager to join the ranks in the upcoming days.
“Have you joined?” one man asked.
“No,” Thomas admitted. “I’m not sure I’m going to.”
“You should,” the man encouraged. “Everyone has been so great to me here. I just want to join as a way to show my appreciation for picking me off the streets and taking such good care of me.”
The other men echoed his sentiments, talking about how they wanted to be part of a noble cause.
“I said I’d think about it.” Thomas chuckled, overwhelmed by their enthusiasm. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever been surrounded by so much positivity in his life. After Mark found the two of them in the woods, Thomas was so worried that they would be put in a holding cell like his group had done to Alec and Elaina when they were captured. Thomas’s experience with the new army was the furthest thing from that.
After Thomas had a chance to wash his face and brush his teeth, his new roommates turned off the lights to get some sleep. Thomas flicked on his small reading lamp and pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket to read the message Bethany wrote for him.
Don’t trust my brother. Don’t trust any of them.
Thomas quickly turned off the light and wadded the paper into a ball and shoved it between the mattress and the wall. Bethany and Mark were telling two different stories and he wasn’t sure what to believe.
In his short life, Thomas had encountered many smooth talkers who told people what they wanted to hear. When it came down to it, Mark dodged Thomas’s questions and never gave him a straight answer. But perhaps there was just too much classified information out there? It wouldn’t make sense for Mark to divulge secrets to someone who hadn’t officially joined yet.
Everyone’s smiles suggested that they were in the clear and that the virus was no longer a threat. But until Elaina was able to distribute her cure, Thomas knew that it was ridiculous to feel that secure. No one could promise full immunity, no matter how powerful or wealthy he or she was. The virus did not discriminate. Besides, armies were inherently unsafe. If there was fighting involved, then there were certainly casualties. When it came down to it, people were acting as if the virus was eradicated when Thomas knew that was impossible at that moment.
On the other hand, Bethany’s fear and skepticism were something that Thomas could understand. He had seen that kind of fear in Melissa’s eyes when the infected came for them. He knew what it was like not to trust that the leaders of a cult were acting in his best interest. He had heard stories of people being lured in to fight for a cause, then realize they were just talked into being used.
But what if Bethany was wrong? Thomas wasn’t sure if Mark was trustworthy, but he definitely didn’t think that Bethany was. She had rammed her truck into his truck, secretly followed them through the forest, and just happened to be at the cabin when it was going up in flames. She also seemed to dodge important questions. Perhaps she was hiding something sinister.
Thomas fell asleep as he was debating whether he could trust his new friends. One was trying to help him and the other was a liar. He just couldn’t pinpoint to whom each role belonged.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The trip back to the cabin in the mountains seemed to take so much longer than the drive into the city took. By the time Alec got back to the bike, he was completely exhausted. The last thing he wanted to do was drive several hours back to the place where he originated.
But despite the long ride and running seven miles through a deserted city, the worst part of the whole day was leaving Elaina behind.
Alec didn’t like to worry about her to her face because he didn’t want to seem condescending. She was more than capable of taking care of herself in most situations. But there were dangers that were too great for any one person to handle, no matter how clever or strong they were.
Instead of telling her how distressing it was to leave her alone, he did his best to keep it to himself. Elaina had enough to worry about.
Besides, it was his idea to go back for the kids in the first place. He had made a promise that he would return and he planned on sticking to it. It was as if he saw the face of the girl he’d shot at the shopping center that day whenever he looked at Melissa’s concerned face. He would do anything to save innocent lives.
He just hoped that his return trip wasn’t for nothing. He had seen how pushy Melissa could be if she felt like she was being cornered, and Thomas was a bit of a pushover. If Melissa got spooked and wanted to leave, Thomas would be right by her side.
There was also the possibility that one or both of them were dead. Derek was a fierce soldier and he was snuffed out before Alec could even come to his senses. If people like Derek were killed so easily, he feared that the younger two might not stand a chance. They were the weakest of the survivors, both in strength and experience.
Alec couldn’t stop shivering as he rode through the hills. A motorcycle was not the best option for his surroundings, but it was the only thing he had. He didn’t understand why, but almost all of the vehicles he saw in town had been burned. He didn’t remember seeing that on his way in, so he figured something caused the infected to destroy the cars while they were in the hospital. This caused even more concern when he thought about the fact that the infected were growing increasingly violent as time went on. The only other explanation was that a healthy person was trying to make it impossible for others to escape, which seemed like fodder for a conspiracy theory.
So, instead of trading in the motorcycle for a more practical vehicle, he rode through terrain that nearly pushed the small motor to its limits. Alec was also not dressed for the mountainous climate and was frozen in his jacket and jeans. With any luck, the former owners of the cabin had left a spare sweater or long johns in their haste to escape the virus. He fantasized about adding a layer or two of clothing and warming his hands and feet by the fire.
Eventually, Alec was at the end of the trail. He made his way up the narrow path, slowing down considerably to check for Thomas and Melissa. While he’d told them to stay at the cabin, he hoped that they had made their way to one of the closer cabins in order to save time and fuel.
He wanted to make all sorts of noise in order to alert the two of his arrival, but he also feared that any commotion would a
ttract negative attention. Instead, he slowed down even more so the motor didn’t roar and listened carefully.
The further he went up the trail, the more nervous he became. Alec saw no sign of life from any of the other small cabins along the way. As he approached the house where he’d left Thomas and Melissa, he held his breath. If they weren’t waiting for him there, he didn’t know what he would do.
He drove past the charred remains of a structure he didn’t remember seeing during their short stay in the forest. White ashes danced around the air as he drove by.
Then, upon realizing that he had gone too far, he whipped around and returned to the destroyed cabin, a lump in his throat.
“No,” he whispered, stopping the motorcycle. He dismounted and slowly approached the wreckage, hoping that he was wrong in his suspicion. He picked up a piece of blue and brown patterned fabric and realized that the last time he saw such a material, it was on Melissa’s back in the form of a knapsack.
He tread lightly, kicking over rubble with his boot. Bending over, he searched the ground for more evidence that his young companions were once there. From his experience in minor investigations of potential crimes, Alec suspected that arson was likely. A structure rarely experienced such substantial damage from a simple house fire. This looked purposeful.
Alec tripped over the remains of a chair and stomped down on a large boulder. But the rock gave way and Alec’s foot sank to the floor with a sickening squelch.
“Ugh,” Alec groaned as he shook the mysterious muck from his work boot. He bent over to see what he had trod on and nearly became ill. The mangled remains of a human skull lay in front of him. He had cracked the damaged body part like an egg.
He whipped out his flashlight and shined it on the black floor, illuminating more human figures. There were too many of them to only be Thomas and Melissa, and he didn’t foresee the two being keen on letting strangers share their abode. It was horrifying to see so many bodies scattered around, but this was becoming a common sight. It was just a little startling instead of deeply scarring.
Then there was only one thing left for Alec to do. He examined each corpse, comparing them to his mental images of Thomas and Melissa. While dental records would be necessary to identify the charred bodies, there were still enough physical characteristics intact to compare them to Thomas and Melissa. For instance, he could reasonably rule out the large men and women as matches, along with the short men and lanky women. With the process of elimination, he ruled out almost all of the bodies, then searched the corpses for other clues like clothing and personal belongings when they were of similar size to his companions. When he was fairly certain that none of the bodies belonged to Thomas or Melissa, he smiled with relief. There was a chance they were still alive.
The only logical explanation Alec could come up with was that the little house was ambushed by the infected. In an attempt to quietly rid themselves of the threat, Thomas and Melissa had trapped them inside and started the fire. Perhaps they were smarter than he had given them credit for. He felt guilty for worrying so much about them, as if they were little kids. They were inexperienced in a lot of things, but they were tough and determined to survive.
That didn’t solve his problem, though. He had set out to retrieve the kids and bring them to the hospital. By his watch, if he wanted to guarantee a ride out on the helicopter, he needed to leave immediately. Of course, that meant that he would ride straight to the hospital and not encounter any problems along the way.
He stifled a scream. What would he tell Elaina if he returned emptyhanded? He knew that she would be disappointed but otherwise thankful that he’d returned at all. But he knew he couldn’t live with himself, knowing that he broke his promise to the younger two that he would come back for them.
Frustration filled every cell. Alec slammed his fist into a moss-covered tree. He saw the remnants of something etched into a tree, perhaps the initials of the rightful owners of the house. He wondered if they would have suffered a similar fate had they not evacuated the house when they did. His mind wandered to places it had no business being, like imagining owning a vacation home with Elaina. That was when he saw the tire treads on the ground.
The markings were much larger than the wheels of the motorcycle, and Alec was certain they hadn’t been there when he rode out with Elaina. Wherever they were, Thomas and Melissa were not alone.
The treads were large, so Alec reasoned that they belonged to an all-terrain vehicle, possibly military-issued. It was impossible to guess who drove the vehicle, as he learned that it was all too easy to acquire a vehicle from the military.
He found it hard to believe that Melissa would ever get in a vehicle after her bad experience with the new army, but if desperate enough, they may have joined a group of refugees, similar to the one that had abandoned them. Melissa could be stubborn, but if anyone could sweet-talk her, it would be Thomas. He seemed to have a calming effect on her. Even though he was meek and mellow, he had the ability to make tough decisions on his own. Alec had seen him do it firsthand.
It didn’t make sense for Alec to continue backtracking, having told the two that they needed to stay on the trail in order to be found. So, he decided he would follow the tire tracks as far as he could, in hopes that he would be able to retrieve Thomas and Melissa and make it back to the hospital before the helicopter arrived.
What killed Alec was that it would be so easy to call his mission a lost cause and return to the hospital. He remembered telling Thomas that he wouldn’t be able to come back for them if he couldn’t find them. In a way, Thomas had broken his half of the contract by leaving. Alec understood that they likely had no choice but to flee, but it didn’t change the state of things. If anything, their absence should have been a sign that they had moved on and were surviving on their own. With this came the understanding that Alec could no longer provide protection for them.
He just couldn’t give up on them, though. Somewhere, he knew that Thomas and Melissa were wandering around, absolutely petrified. According to Dr. Himmler, they would never make it out of the quarantine zone, especially not on foot. Their only hope for survival was inside the helicopter that was scheduled to arrive that very day.
Fighting all instinct that told him to save himself, Alec followed the tire treads to the end of the trail, looking back at the tiny houses hidden in the trees as he went. Where he had taken a left out of the parking lot to get to the highway, muddy tracks turned right onto a dirt road. Alec cursed under his breath. On an old motorcycle with less than optimal traction, he would have to ride much slower to keep from crashing. Nevertheless, he turned his back on the safe route and headed down the road with a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Alec realized that he was being foolish. In a choice between defending and protecting the country’s only hope for salvation and babysitting a couple of kids he’d picked up along the way, he’d chosen to embark on a futile task of finding two kids in a huge expanse of land. It was like finding a needle in a haystack if there were hoards of infected people destroying any needle they could find first.
It wasn’t even about ensuring that he was evacuated along with Elaina. While he would love to be on the first flight out of the hell that was the western half of the country, he was more concerned about leaving her vulnerable to attack. He had seen how intense Elaina got when she was working. It wouldn’t be hard for an infected to sneak up on her while she was deep in thought. He felt queasy just thinking about it.
“Where are you guys?” Alec muttered to himself, wondering when the helicopter would arrive. Every few minutes, he scanned the skies, relieved that they were clear. For Elaina’s sake, he hoped that help would arrive soon. For his own sake, he hoped the military pilots took their sweet time. He had a feeling he needed all the time allotted to find the kids and return in one piece.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In the living room in her grandparents’ house in Oklahoma, Melissa awoke from the couch to find Thomas drink
ing a glass of ice cold sweet tea. She sat up quickly in utter surprise.
The window was open behind her. She could feel the warm sun on her face and smelled the fresh country air. She felt so warm and cozy that she found it hard to keep her eyes open.
“Your grandma told me to remind you that you promised to help her bake biscuits this afternoon,” he said casually, as if he had been waiting for her to wake up for a while.
“Oh,” she said, dazed from her slumber. “I didn’t realize that I had said that. What are we having for dinner?”
“Your grandpa and I went out and shot some quail today. I think we’re going to roast those and have them with green beans and biscuits, if you ever get off the couch and make them,” he teased.
Melissa playfully rolled her eyes at him. She stood up from the couch, feeling lighter and more energetic than she had in a long time. She was surprised to find that her shoulder was completely healed and that the blistering burns on her hands, neck, and chest had disappeared. Her body finally had enough down time to heal.
“What’s that on your face?” she asked, pointing to Thomas’s pale, freckled complexion. There was a small black, smudge on his face. She figured he had gotten dirty during his hunting trip.
“Huh?” Thomas wiped his hand on his face, but it only made the black smudge grow.
“You have dirt on your hand or something,” she said exasperatedly, reaching over to brush it away. Melissa knew how serious her grandma was about keeping a clean house. She didn’t want her to scold Thomas for dirtying her throw pillows. She rubbed at his face but it only made it darker.
“Oh, it’s probably just soot,” he said, reaching for a home improvement magazine Melissa’s grandma read religiously. He flipped through the pages without giving his dirty face a second thought.