More to distract myself than anything else, I turned back to Nate. My thoughts weren’t good company right now.
“What’s up for the day? Let me guess—more walking and running for our lives?”
He shrugged, appearing way too relaxed for the grimness of the topic, but then gallows humor sounded like a psychologically good idea.
“I’m sure I’ll find an occasion for you to finally christen that bat of yours. You’re awfully fond of blunt weapons.”
“I’m even more fond of not getting ripped to shreds,” I offered, staring down at the pristine bat. “And I can’t shoot, let alone hit, so, yeah. And you didn’t look like you had anything to complain about last night.”
Nate left it at a small smile for an answer.
“We’ll change that as soon as we get out of densely populated areas,” the Ice Queen offered. When I eyed her askance, she indicated the shotgun resting between her and Nate with her chin. “That you can’t shoot for shit,” she explained.
There didn’t seem to be the option of me bowing out of this, and if I was honest, any pacifistic streak I’d ever had had died a sudden, violent death somewhere between the rubble that had been my former work place and the bridge out of town.
Martinez returned to us, sitting down on my other side.
“You doing okay?”
I nodded. “Okay” wasn’t exactly what I was feeling like, but considering that “dead” or “maimed” seemed to be the likely alternatives, “okay” sounded good enough.
“Still a little exhausted, but I’m good.”
“Feet, too?”
I glared at my hiking boots—now no longer shiny and new, but still a long shot from walked-in—and shrugged.
“Not planning on taking them off soon. Maybe by then the blisters that my blisters have will be healed.”
Martinez inclined his head, I thought to hide a smile. “Give it a week or two.”
“Do I have a choice?” I chuffed.
“Well,” he started, breaking off with a snort. “Not really. But we can get pedicures together once we make it out of this hellhole.”
The thought was hilarious enough to make me crack a smile, which I figured had been the intent behind his remark.
“Yeah, not sure about that,” I replied. “I’m not really a girly-girl. But you can ask Pia. She looks right the sort who’d go for that.”
I got an apple lobbed at me for that from Nate’s other side, which I bit into with a grin. The Ice Queen rolled her eyes at me and got up, leaving us to our amused selves.
Breakfast was a quiet but not really somber affair. With the horror of the past day on everyone’s mind, it was still a moment of respite. For now, we were alive. We had food and fresh water from the stream. The sun was shining again with a few clouds drifting by, and there were no zombies coming out of the trees. Life was good.
Just a matter of time until it would turn to shit again, but for now, I was content with my apple and half a box of semi-stale crackers that Pia had had in her pack. The fact that they seemed to have started taking turns feeding me made me feel a little like a pet. Or a mascot. I much preferred the latter.
Then it was time to break camp, yet before anyone could shoulder their freshly re-packed packs, Nate got up, demanding everyone’s attention.
“Before we can go on, we have a few things to address,” he said, waiting until everyone had fallen silent and was looking at him. “First, we need to work out the chain of command.” It didn’t go by unnoticed that he only looked at the people who hadn’t been with him during his previous mission, also sparing out me, Burns, and Martinez. “Anyone else want the job, or are you content with me giving the orders?”
Silence met him, with not even a mutinous glare exchanged, except for when Nate glanced at Pia for a moment. She just looked back at him, not a single emotion on her face.
“Thought so,” he grumbled under his breath, straightening. “For everyone who doesn’t know me already, my name is Nate Miller. This is Pia Zilinsky, my second in command.” The Ice Queen pointedly ignored the looks the two hunters in particular sent her. Moving on, Nate nudged Andrej’s shoulder with his knee. “Andrej Romanoff, third.” He then looked over to Burns. “Tom Burns, although I’m really not sure he should be in any kind of command structure.” Burns gave him the one-fingered salute, grinning brightly. “Alejandro Martinez, our medic. If you’re smart, don’t anger the guy who’ll patch you up later.”
He stopped in his round, briefly looking in my direction, but introductions were obviously over. “I’m not really keen on establishing a hierarchy. Just follow orders any of us give you, and go look for us when we get separated. I expect you all to pull your own weight, and you’re free to leave any time you want if you’re not down with my leadership style. But this is not a democracy. We don’t vote on what we do next, we follow orders. Understand?”
There was some hesitant nodding going on, but no protests. If Nate’s guys were grumpy because they hadn’t been elevated to command status, they didn’t show it. Come to think of it, they looked rather relieved, and Martinez was making a face that spoke volumes. I almost expected Cho or the two soldiers from the barricade by the river to speak up, but they all looked too exhausted to care.
“Good. Next point.” Nate returned to his initial place next to where Pia was busy sharpening her knife—again. I clearly remembered her already doing that while I’d still considered myself their hostage. It made me wonder if she was just careful about maintaining her weapons, or whether there was more to that. Then again—zombies, sharp-edged weapons, not that much of a stretch.
“Andrej has mapped out a way for us that we will follow for the next couple of days, or until we run into a serious obstacle. We’ll head west to north-west until we hit Route 250. If the roads have cleared up, we’ll follow that for a while. After that, we have to cross the Interstate somehow. Sooner or later we’ll have to cross the Ohio River, either north or south of Wheeling. Once we get there, we’ll see how things are. Any other ideas?”
I wasn’t exactly a pro at geography, but I knew enough of the area to judge that this was easily our travel itinerary for the next week.
“There’s a CDC office in Pittsburgh,” I offered, already not sounding very convinced that was an option.
Nate gave me a look that pretty much confirmed that.
“Pittsburgh has over a quarter million inhabitants. Lexington had barely a tenth of that, and we only made it out alive because we were already on the move.”
I knew that it had been a stupid idea, but his comeback just made me angry.
“Well, considering that they all seem to be streaming out of the cities, judging from our data sample of one, maybe Pittsburgh will be a ghost town be the time we get there?”
I didn’t miss the amused look that Pia and Andrej traded, while Nate continued to heap condescension on me.
“And what exactly do you hope to find there in the first place? A reason? A cause?” He paused, offering me a toothy smile. “A vaccine?”
I knew that I’d lost, but just couldn’t bring myself to give up. “A bigger stick to club you over the head with?” I suggested, but then looked away when Nate just snorted. “Jackass.”
“Any other bright ideas?” he asked, pointedly ignoring me now.
“What about weapons and provisions?” Cho spoke up. “We have enough weapons and ammo now, but they’ll run out eventually.”
Nate nodded, acknowledging the issue. “We’ll pick up more along the way. Right now even small villages are hot zones, but I expect that in a week or two we’ll be able to either go scavenge in stores, or just find a few houses with well-stocked pantries. Every police station or cruiser should be stocked with enough weapons and ammo to get us by another couple days.” He closed his mouth, but after a few seconds went on. “Last night has proven that guns aren’t exactly a survival perk out there. They hunt by sound more than sight, I think, so everything that is loud enough to attract attention
will bring more. I say we only shoot if there’s no way around it, and try to hide and sneak away if possible.”
“And if not?” Santos, the guy from the bridge barricade, asked.
“Then grab a stick and beat them to a bloody pulp,” Pia replied succinctly.
Some uneasy laughter went around, followed by a few lewd jokes. It was something, I figured.
“Speaking of which,” Nate went on once comments had died down again. “We have another problem.”
“Besides being chased by a zombie horde?” Burns supplied, clearly amused by his own wit. Nate glared at him briefly, but then looked in the direction of Skip and his friends.
“Just because there are already a shitload of them out there doesn’t mean that no one can get infected anymore,” he said. Just on cue, Brad—Skip’s buddy—succumbed to a coughing fit, and finally I realized what had made Nate and Pia so uncomfortable about that noise. And looking at him now, it was plain that Brad hadn’t just cleared his throat. His eyes were red and feverish, sweat standing on his brow, and he was shivering slightly although he was already bundled up in a jacket and hoodie underneath. My immediate reaction was to shy away and grab my bat, but I forced myself to remain immobile.
“You’re sick,” Nate said, kind of superfluously. “And you, too, Thompson.” Only when he said that did I notice one of the others—guy number two from our mad dash last night, I realized—hunker down by the trees.
“One of the fuckers got me last night,” Thompson rasped, his voice dry enough to make me wince. “Took a bite clean out of my calf.” I hadn’t noticed that he’d been limping, but after he’d vaulted over the fence and disappeared, I hadn’t really paid any attention to him anymore.
Brad didn’t take the news that well. “I don’t have a scratch! Or a bite. I’m okay! Just tired.” He tried to stagger upright but fell right down when his feet gave out. Nate briefly glanced in my direction, but answered before I could—not that I wanted to.
“You probably caught it before that already. Did you eat anything sweet? Remember when I told you all not to touch anything with sugar in it after that guy almost killed three of our own in the coffee shop?”
Brad opened his mouth, clearly to protest, but snapped it shut after a few seconds. “It was just a fucking ice tea, man!”
I felt my gut seize up at that little tidbit of news. It made sense, kind of—but the idea that not even anything but fresh water might be safe to drink was sobering.
“Doesn’t matter now,” Nate replied. “I know it sucks, but you can’t come with us.”
I waited for anyone to protest, but his friends had already started inching away from Brad as if he was a step away from going for their jugulars, and everyone else was busy looking at everything but the two men in question. Thompson just shrugged and came laboriously to his feet, dragging himself over to Andrej who he handed his assault rifle and several gun and rifle clips. Lastly he drew his gun, but looked at it rather than giving it up. “I’m keeping the bullets in my gun,” he said, then offered with a toothy grin, “Might as well take down a few more of the suckers before I go down.”
I briefly wondered where Nate had found these guys. Had they all signed a suicide pact or something? But considering Andrej’s grim nod, followed by a very guy-like brief hug and fist bump, the answer was probably obvious.
At Pia’s whistle, people got up all around me and started shouldering their packs, leaving a still-stunned Brad behind.
“Wait! You can’t do this to me!” he cried, loud enough to scare away a couple of birds and make everyone look around cautiously. Thompson made his way back to him and put one large hand on his comparatively scrawny shoulder—clearly more a restraining than supporting gesture.
“Don’t you worry, bud. I’ll stick with you until the end. And if you’re too scared to do it yourself, one of these bullets carries your name,” he said, tapping his gun lightly against Brad’s knee.
I waited for guilt to come up inside of me, but all I felt was a spreading numbness. It didn’t matter, really—Brad was already dead. He just hadn’t accepted it yet.
Instead of continuing to scream, Brad sunk in on himself, a child-like whimper coming from deep within his chest. His friends were still lingering, offering murmured excuses, but he didn’t seem to hear them anymore.
Andrej lightly nudged my shoulder, making me look at him, and at the jerk of his chin toward where the group was already leaving our impromptu campsite, I started walking after them, without looking back.
Chapter 7
The mood didn’t get much better over the next couple of hours. I doubted that anyone thought that it had been the wrong decision to leave Brad and Thompson behind, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t weighing heavily on all of us, even if it had been Nate’s order. If I’d had any doubts about anyone not accepting his claim for leadership, they were disbanded now. It was obvious that no one thought that this was a walk in the park, and I didn’t even want to consider how bad it would have made me feel if it had been my call. Being in charge had never been less desirable. And I was sure that Nate had known exactly what burden he was about to shoulder the moment he’d gotten up and started that speech.
That our route wasn’t smooth going didn’t help, either.
At first, staying to the mostly wooded areas had sounded like the better choice than getting anywhere close to the roads in the valleys, but I hadn’t considered just how much elevation would factor into that equation. Yesterday, running half-crazed and with adrenaline pumping like crazy hadn’t been that bad—or likely it had, but I’d already forgotten most of that. Now, every time the trail we followed turned toward a rise, I had to bite back a groan. Two hours in, I was sure that the path Andrej had plotted included topping every single hill between us and wherever we were heading; by the time we took a break for half an hour in the early afternoon, I was certain that he was secretly plotting to kill me. Or turn me into a mountain goat, whichever came first. But while Skip and his buddy were huffing and puffing as much as me, neither of them complained, so I couldn’t very well turn into a crybaby now. The beauty of the forest around us was certainly lost on me.
We crossed a few roads, but most of them were completely abandoned, and the few lonely zombies we encountered we either hid from, or bludgeoned into their eternal rest. Encountering them one at a time was somewhat less stressful than the full horde, but whenever I saw one, I was immediately scared of where the others must be hiding. I also couldn’t quite quell a certain curiosity that made me want to get a closer look, but I refrained from going as far as poking them with a stick—which was what Burns did with the second shambler that he offed in the early afternoon. But one thing I noticed even from afar—most of the zombies we now encountered looked a lot more… healthy, for lack of a different term. Unlike the little girl just outside the rabble field back in Lexington, they didn’t look as if they’d spent days battling with the worst sickness of their lives. They also sported—without fail—bite marks or other wounds, making me guess that they’d been directly infected rather than succumbed to the virus otherwise. We already knew from Thompson that this was just as much of a possibility as getting it via contaminated food.
Mid-afternoon, we came across another road, only this time Nate didn’t head right back into the thick vegetation, but instead called for a halt in the middle of the street. I couldn’t help but glance back and forth, anxious to get into cover again.
“Who thinks that making more mileage warrants possibly having to make a run for it later is the way to go? Raise your hands in favor of sticking to the road for a while.”
The overwhelming majority was for it, even if it gave me the creeps, but I didn’t protest. And not having to watch my every step was a relief on its own.
We really must have hit the thick of the woods here because I saw a couple of cows grazing across a meadow we passed, clearly undisturbed by our presence, and not eaten by zombies yet. We also didn’t encounter anyone in the next t
wo hours on the road. Until we walked around a bend, and suddenly found the entire road in front of us blocked by a mob.
So much for not running blindly through the woods today.
Already tired and drained with only short breaks every few hours, I felt even worse as I tore through the underbrush behind Cho, hoping that he knew where he was going. There was a lot of noise around us—both what we caused and the howls that were chasing us—and with some bemusement I realized that I was more annoyed than frightened. At least until my mind had time to catch up with what was going on when one of the quick zombies brought down the guy running left to me, and reminded me all too well that this wasn’t just a walk in the park.
I ran just a little faster after that.
One thing that hour-long flight taught us, though—besides keeping more sentries out at all times and not to let our guard down—zombies weren’t doing well in unsteady terrain. Maybe that was the reason why they seemed to congregate on the streets; or they simply were smart enough not to go after anything that meant spending more energy than it was worth if you could just shamble along the roads. Either way, it dawned on me that once we made it out of the Appalachians and into the Midwest, we’d be screwed. But not now—we were moderately well off if we turned into forest dwellers.
Just our luck that not thirty minutes later the forest started thinning and opened up onto I-70 beyond.
Fuck, but I started to really hate Interstates.
Worn out as we were, we’d been rather subdued in crashing through the underbrush, but as soon as Nate called us to a halt, quiet spread all around. First, there was the fact that there was a four-lane highway in front of us—with half a mile of open ground around it. Second, that meant zombies everywhere. And last—but definitely not least—the highway was chock-full of cars, providing yet more zombies and food for them aplenty. Even in the safety of the trees, I could see them pass by right now—and there were a lot more of them out there than what we’d seen on the roads in the valleys that lay behind us.
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