“We could have wound up like the people inside the stadium,” Ms. Mary pointed out.
“I almost did,” Patrick sighed. “If it hadn’t been for Wendell charging onto the field like a madman, blasting biters along the way, I would have ended up like the poor kid I went out there to rescue. Thanks again for that,” he gave Wendell a smile and a nod that Wendell returned.
“Ugh…don’t bring up,” Marta shivered. “I still have flashback. Is too terrible. I think, what if happen to Louise or…” she stopped, shaking her head. “Too terrible…just too terrible,” she said softly.
“Yeah, let’s not talk about that anymore,” Christine said. “It’s something I think we’d all be better off trying to forget.”
“Agreed,” said Caroline. “Agreed, agreed, agreed!” she said forcefully, giving an inadvertent shiver of her own.
“So on to more pressing matters,” Michael forged ahead.
Michael wasn’t eating. He had said he wasn’t hungry, and he looked exhausted. His mouth drooped at the edges, his eyelids were half closed, and his body listed to one side as he sat hunched on one of the coolers they’d carried from the fishing boat. “What next?” he swayed on his cooler seat.
Patrick reached over to steady his father, a concerned look evident on his face.
“Way I see it, either we stay here and look for a place to set up shop, or we head downriver and see what we see as far as a place that looks good to settle down,” Christine said.
“I don’t know about staying here,” Ms. Mary said. “It didn’t work out too well for the last people,” she tilted a head toward the stadium. “There are still plenty of biters over there, and we have no idea where the people who destroyed the settlement are. They might still be around. And I’m assuming that the people living at the stadium probably harvested most of the available resources from around downtown since the outbreak.”
“I just want a place we can call our own and settle in for a while. I feel like with all this moving around, we never know what tomorrow will bring,” Andrew Franko said. “I think it puts us more at risk too. If we find a place where we can live for longer than a couple weeks, we can settle in, learn the lay of the land, and put down some roots.”
“Wise words from a young man,” Wendell agreed, pointing a finger at Andrew.
“I think that too,” Jack Franko nodded his agreement.
“Me too,” Justin spoke up, nodding firmly.
“Yeah…we need to grow some roots…like the trees,” little Louise chimed in. “I want to find a good place where I can play. There are no good places when we float on the river. I get all crammed up in our boat.”
“All good points,” Patrick couldn’t help but smile at the kids’ comments. “And I tend to agree with Ms. Mary that this place, at first glance at least, seems pretty toxic. After what we saw…what happened today, I think it’s probably reasonable to assume that this isn’t the safest of environments in which to remain.”
“So you think we should move on?” Wendell asked, an eyebrow raised.
“I do,” Patrick nodded.
“So do I,” Wendell agreed. “But to where? We have no idea what’s downriver. And we don’t have the supplies to spend much time looking for a new place to settle.”
“What choice do we have?” Michael managed to get out before a coughing fit that lasted almost a minute.
Finally, his air passage cleared enough to talk again, he said, “Okay, tomorrow morning, we start, bright and early. We have to find something…”
But his sentence was interrupted by Caroline.
“Ouch!” she cried, jerking her shoulders up toward her neck and cringing in pain. “Gosh darn it!”
She held her hand up over her mouth. Then she lowered it and spit something into her palm.
“What is it, hon?” Michael turned to where she sat on the cooler beside him.
“Mmm…nothing,” Caroline dismissed his question as she peered down into her hand.
Michael snuck a peek of his own at what Caroline had spit into her hand, trying to focus his vision, an act that lately he often found made him feel nauseous.
“Wait…is that your…”
Caroline closed her fist tight around the item quickly snatching her hand away from view before Michael could finish.
“You stop that!” Caroline snarled at him angrily. “Can’t a person get any privacy anymore?! I feel like I’m constantly being watched!” she cried. “By you!” she looked accusingly at Michael. “By all of you,” she looked around at the group. “All I ask for is a little privacy. I haven’t had it since we left…left…well since where we were before. I’m so rattled, I can’t even think straight. This,” she gestured around her, “all of this, it’s just too much. I’m so tired, so confused. Can’t we just find a place to, ahhh…” she recoiled suddenly in pain, covering her mouth with a hand again.
Michael scooted closer, putting an arm around his wife.
She instantly shrugged him away, pushing his arm off her shoulder with amazing swiftness and severity. The moved surprised not just Michael but the rest of the Blenders as well. They’d never seen Caroline act in such a way. She was always such a demure woman. The force with which she pushed her husband away wasn’t like her.
She had turned away from the group, hunched, head in her hands, weeping.
Michael stayed close, sitting beside her, hand paused in mid-air from where his wife had thrust it off her, wanting to comfort, but not wanting to agitate further.
Suddenly, Caroline stopped crying and wheeled around to face the others. She started a crazed sort of high-pitched laugh and had a wild, almost animal look in her eyes. But her laughs weren’t those of the good-humored Blender matriarch. They were the laughs of someone the group didn’t know, someone they’d never met before but who they knew only too well through their experiences over the last few months. And her horrific, wailing, almost screeching laugh revealed something else – her front teeth. They were terrible looking teeth, terrifying looking teeth, teeth that could only mean one thing.
CHAPTER 19
“How could it have happened?” Charla whispered to Wendell as they disassembled their tent.
They were both tired. They’d spent much of the night helping tend to Caroline who was in the midst of a transformation from normal Caroline to something far different.
The morning had dawned warm but overcast. Humidity was starting to build, and it was obvious that true summer temperatures were around the corner.
“I don’t know,” Wendell hissed back. “I suppose it was during the trip to the boat rental outside Riverport. Remember when she was attacked by that biter while searching the rental building?”
“Oh yeah,” Charla nodded, folding up some of the tent supports. But that was a while ago, at least a week.”
“But the syndrome can take a while to spread. And it affects different people in different ways and in different timeframes. And you have to admit that Caroline has been acting weird lately, especially with some of the things she says or the way she says them.”
“True,” Charla nodded. “I just can’t believe she’s infected. I mean, what are we going to do?”
The two stopped their conversation as Patrick passed. He was carrying a cooler toward their boats docked at the river’s boat ramp.
“Not much we can do, I imagine,” Wendell sighed after Patrick was out of earshot. “And Michael isn’t doing much better. In fact, he actually seems to be in worse shape than Caroline.”
Patrick was in a sort of daze. He had been up most of the night caring for his parents. His father’s fever had broken the 103-degree mark. The only relief he could offer his dad was the last few acetaminophen tablets they had in an attempt to temper the rising fever.
While he was definitely concerned about his father’s infection, he was equally fearful of his mother’s status, both for her own sake as well as for the rest of the group. This was why he had spent most of the night awake, ensuring that his
mother was both cared for as well as observed to make sure that she didn’t try to attack another Blender. She currently seemed to be in a very confused state. And she didn’t yet appear to have the uncontrollable urge for human flesh. But Patrick wasn’t willing to chance her infecting someone else in the group or worse.
His mother was still resting inside the other tent that the group was waiting to break down.
When Patrick returned from loading the cooler inside the fishing boat, his father was waiting for him. He was standing outside Caroline’s tent, leaning on a cane that Ms. Mary had fashioned for him from a tree limb Wendell had cut the previous evening.
“Patrick,” his father said, looking pale, fragile, and so not like the calmly confident man who had begun the journey with his beloved Blenders less than half a year prior. “Can I have a word?”
“Sure, Dad,” Patrick nodded.
Dark bags had formed beneath the young man’s eyes, and his face was full of patchy scruff. He hadn’t shaved since before leaving the Riverport roadhouse.
He followed his father who slowly led him toward a grove of trees just outside their camp for some privacy.
Once Michael was sure they were away from the others, he put his hand on Patrick’s shoulder and faced his son. “You know there isn’t anything to be done for your mother,” he eyed his boy intently, his eyes red around the edges as though he’d been crying, which Patrick figured he probably had.
“I know,” Patrick said sullenly.
“There’s nothing to be done for me, either,” Michael added.
“Dad, that’s not…”
Michael stopped him by raising his infected and still-bandaged hand.
“Don’t argue, Patrick. I know what I know; and what I know is that this infection has spread. My body is shutting down. And there’s nothing to be done about it. St. Louis, the stadium, it was my last hope. And with the destruction of the settlement there, went my hope at receiving the treatment I needed to fight this thing.”
“But Dad, there might be another option. Maybe there are more people here or maybe we’ll find something downriver…a settlement or something.”
Michael shook his head. “You’re optimistic like me, but I’m realistic too. I don’t have much time left. I’ll be lucky if I last another day, two at most. And even if we find antibiotics, it’s probably too late anyway. I think I’m too far gone. It’s okay. I need to help your mother anyway, and without her, well…” he didn’t finish his thought.
“What are you saying, Dad?” a tear trickled down Patrick’s cheek as he began to put the puzzle pieces together.
“I’m saying that you’re a good boy…a good man,” he emphasized, “and that I’m proud of you. I’m very proud of you. You’ve become a fine man. I think that this situation, and the way in which you’ve dealt with it, has made you more of a man than our old world ever could have. I’m proud of how you’ve responded to it. You’ve taken the bull by the horns,” he did his best to smile at his son. “You’re going to make a great father, whether it’s to Justin and Louise or your own offspring…hopefully both. I only wish…” and here, he choked on his words, tears forming in his eyes.
Patrick nodded knowingly, understanding the unspoken words. “Thanks, Dad. But I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“You…you go off and make me proud,” Michael continued, regaining some of his composure. “You find a spot to settle down. Don’t take too long. You need to get settled and find food quick. But you’ve got some good resources on your side, human resources. Use Ms. Mary. She knows a lot about growing all sorts of foods. Use Wendell and Charla. They’re stronger than they sometimes appear. I think you know that by now. And Christine and her boys are strong and have good common sense. And you and Marta, well, I don’t have to say much about you two,” he smiled weakly at his son. “You’re a good fit. They say that opposites attract, and I think you to are about as opposite as they get. But it seems to work. You’ll make great parents to Justin and Louise, but keep a good eye on them. There are so many damn dangers in this world now. It doesn’t have to be the biters who take you out,” he raised his hand to illustrate. Then he paused and looked away from Patrick. He had a distant sort of look, almost as if he was watching a movie and seeing things that only he could see.
Patrick was realizing that it was difficult to find words to express himself to his father. There were so many things that he wanted to say, but he couldn’t put a finger on any of them right now. He was so caught up in the moment and trying to process his father’s words. His mind was a blur.
Michael continued, “Sometimes I wish I could skip ahead, you know, fast forward a couple years, just to see how this all shakes out.” He looked around him and then exhaled heavily. “I don’t know, maybe I wouldn’t want to see.” He took another deep breath and shook himself free from his thoughts. “But you’ll do good,” he seemed to gather himself once again and nodded. “I know you will. You have to, if not for yourself, at least for the kids. Those kids,” he nodded over to where Justin and Louise sat playing, “they’re your future…our future…the world’s future.”
He dropped his cane and pulled his boy close up to him, using Patrick to support himself while hugging him tightly.
Patrick threw his arms around his father, never wanting to let go of the man who had so formed him into who the person he was today, but knowing that he must.
As they broke from their embrace, Michael said, “You know that your mother loves you more than anything in the world. She always has, and she always will, even if the woman we see today is not the same woman we’ve known and loved. But she’s still in there somewhere. That goddamn virus just won’t let her out, but she’s in there. Since she can no longer speak for herself or as herself as she once was, I speak for her now, since I know she holds the same sentiments I do.”
Michael sighed, taking a long moment to breathe, which appeared to be an increasing struggle. Then he went on. “There is nothing she wouldn’t have done for you, and I know that even though things have been tough the last few weeks, watching you with Marta and the kids has brought her immense joy. Many times when we’ve been alone, she has told me how proud she is of you and how happy she is that you’ve found someone. And she likes Marta. She mentioned what a strong, persevering woman she thought Marta was and how happy she was you’d found an attractive woman who also had common sense and was good mother material. We’ve both seen that you two are going to make wonderful parents through your care of Louise and Justin.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Patrick managed to get out.
Michael took another minute to speak to Patrick about his plans for the rest of the morning. By the time he was finished, both men were in tears.
Patrick knelt and picked up his father’s cane for him.
“Thank you,” his father smiled at him through the tears, and then wiped his eyes. “Okay,” he said after having a moment to collect himself, “time to get your mother, address the group, and get on our way.”
“You sure about this, Dad?”
“Sure as I’ve ever been about anything,” he nodded. “Not much choice at this point anyway. But I think it’s the best course of action…for everyone involved.”
Patrick nodded wordlessly.
He spent the next minute helping Michael gather Caroline, who had gone largely mute since the early morning hours. Michael had undertaken to bind his wife’s hands behind her as an unfortunate security precaution. No one, including Caroline, had been happy about the move, but they all felt it pertinent to ensure the safety of the camp while they slept. They knew that Caroline would never purposefully do any of them harm. But this was no longer Caroline. At least not the one they’d known and loved. This was something more, something dangerous. It just lived inside Caroline’s body.
Caroline was quickly becoming an exterior shell, a tool of the syndrome lurking inside her. And she could no longer be held accountable for her actions. Throughout the night, she could be heard pan
ting, growling, and occasionally letting forth with a sort of snarling shriek that jarred everyone’s nerves. Her teeth had grown sharper and increased noticeably in length. And earlier in the night, when she was still speaking, she kept requesting meat. At one point, Caroline even broke down and begged to satisfy her carnivorous desire while looking hungrily at Charla who had taken the early shift to watch her.
After Michael had relieved Charla, he had made another difficult decision. He had placed a bit of duct tape over Caroline’s mouth. It helped control what at times could be somewhat loud outbursts from her that scared Louise and Justin. And it reduced the chance that Caroline caught someone – mistakenly or not – with her freshly formed and finely honed front teeth.
Now, outside the tent, Patrick, Michael, and Caroline stood together in a row. Had the circumstances been different, it might have been a photo op for a mature family on a camping trip. But the circumstances were different, much different.
They walked out toward the center of camp that now consisted largely of just a lone tent. Most of the supplies had already been loaded into the boats in preparation for departure. There the three stood, gathering the attention of the others as they passed until the Blender clan stood waiting to hear what Michael had to say. Caroline stood in the center of the three. Patrick held her bound hands from behind, ensuring that she stayed put.
Once the children had settled down and been hushed into silence, Michael quietly began, almost as though he was speaking thoughts aloud to himself.
“It has been a long journey. We’ve come so far since that first night when we were attempting to escape Brookfield. We’ve experienced many things together, some good, many not so good, but we’ve dealt with them all as a group…as a family. We’ve lost people who were dear to us and remain dear to us in our hearts and our memories. But we’ve also gained people who are dear to us. It makes me proud to think of what we’ve gone through and how we’ve persevered. Look,” he gestured with his bandaged hand to the emptiness of the city around them, “there are obviously not many others who can say that they’ve made it as long as we have, that they have survived the apocalypse. But we’ve done it. You’ve done it. And I’m proud of you…all of you.”
The Last Bastion [Book 5] Page 17