True enough, behind what I’d thought was an industrial sized dumpster were a few crates—brimming over with magazines and handguns, enough of an arsenal to last a small army for weeks. I barely contained a whoop of triumph, and even in the dark I could see the bright grin on Burns’s face.
Pulling off the empty packs we’d brought, we stuffed them as full as we could get them, and kept shoving ammo into every available pocket on our gear. My pants alone were weighed down enough that I had to readjust the belt to keep them from sliding down my hips.
There was no sense in lingering with no clue where the second half of our team was, or into how much trouble they’d run into. We had what we came for—likely assembled by what was reduced to heaps of torn flesh and bone right outside the back door—and now our only objective was to get it back to our camp.
Chapter 17
Getting out of the base was a lot easier than getting in, and within an hour we were back in the relative safety of our camp. The other team followed about an hour later, laden down even heavier than we were, but we’d definitely scored the better loot. Although I didn’t complain about the huge tub of dehydrated mashed potatoes and several crates of apples that they’d liberated, mind you.
I spent the better part of ten minutes scrubbing my right hand with bleach, until it burned too much in the few scrapes and cuts I’d inflicted in the process for me to continue. I couldn’t deny that I was concerned about that, but there was nothing I could do about that now. If I’d been infected, I’d know it soon enough.
Although none of us caught more than three hours of sleep, we were up and moving shortly after first light. Warmed up potatoes with a side of full magazines was definitely the breakfast of champions.
My own good mood was up to par with most of the group’s. The fear of running out of ammo had clearly been weighing on more than one mind. In hindsight, I should probably have been more worried, but it wasn’t the first time since we’d left Lexington that I’d realized that I still had to get my priorities straight. In that, Nate had been right—even if I didn’t like that one bit.
By the time we took a quick break over lunch, Burns had regaled everyone who couldn’t flee quickly enough with the tale of my newfound skill, as he called it. I still wasn’t sure if it was that or just dumb luck, but I minded less than I pretended to. Even Madeline didn’t rain on our parade, and we covered a good chunk of ground before we dug in for the night.
The day would have been perfect if not for the fact that over dinner, Innes keeled over, sweating and choking on his own vomit.
He’d been unusually quiet the entire day, but I hadn’t really noticed because he wasn’t one of the guys I usually walked next to, and with Burns running his mouth up and down nonstop, there hadn’t been any reason for anyone else to try to entertain the lot of us.
Martinez got up, ready to check on him, but Pia shoved him out of the way.
“Stay put. I’ll handle this.”
I couldn’t help but stare at Innes, the need to inch away making my skin crawl.
Laboriously pushing himself back onto the log he’d been sitting on, Innes stared up at the Ice Queen, panting from even that little bit of exertion. “I’m good. Just some food gone bad. And dehydration, probably.”
“Doesn’t look like sunstroke to me,” she said, her voice hard, but with a note of compassion that was as unfamiliar as it was frightening. If anything, it was that which made Innes blanch. Not that he sounded very convincing—or convinced—but no one spoke up. Within seconds, Pia had him bent over, first checking his hands and neck, ignoring his feeble protest.
“I’m fine! Really. Don’t you think I would have noticed—“
He cut off there when she halted, squinting at his thigh. I wondered why she was staring at his gun or holster, but when she got out her knife and sliced through the sturdy material of his pants, unceremoniously cutting away the fabric, she revealed a festering gash several inches long and deep enough that I thought I saw bone glinting down there. Part of my dinner was ready to resurface, but I held my breath until the urge to hurl passed. Everyone was staring now, Innes’s labored breathing the only sound.
“It’s just a scratch,” he insisted, not that anyone was listening.
Back in his full gear and wearing latex gloves, Martinez joined Pia then, inspecting the wound. The fact that Innes didn’t seem to feel any pain when Martinez poked the edges of the ragged gash was bad; that enough pus to fill half a cup oozed out of it when he pressed down finally did the trick, and I was violently sick where I managed to lean away from my pack. Murmurs started up and people moved out of the way, but none of the panic rose that I’d expected. Innes seemed as shocked as everyone else, but when he looked up and glanced at the rest of us, resignation was already plain on his face. Resignation, and fear that made him look decades younger than his thirty years.
“Don’t leave me. I don’t care what you do, but just don’t leave me to die alone,” he rasped, the words partly obscured by another coughing fit.
Nate and Pia shared one of those looks before he got up and crouched down next to Innes, taking one of his hands in his. “Don’t worry, man. We won’t leave you.”
Innes sagged in on himself, clearly weaker than he’d pretended to be, but relieved now.
I honestly couldn’t say for myself that in Nate’s place, I wouldn’t just have shot him and be done with it. That realization came with its own special kind of unease, and not just because it was no longer easy to ignore how hostile our world had become. Back on that first—no, second—day of our flight, with Thompson and Brad, we’d lucked out in many ways. I’d barely known either of them, and Thompson had handled the whole thing in a way that left the rest of us almost free of guilt. Now—after weeks together on the road—things were different.
But that didn’t mean that I had to like the very idea that one of us was slowly turning into one of them while we were all sitting around, watching.
Nate, of course, wasn’t that stupid. Barking orders, he quickly had the entire camp scurrying, finding tasks for everyone until the worst of the shock had worn off. The perimeter was increased and a second team of guards set up, making sure that nothing could surprise us here while we were sitting ducks. Someone was to stay with Innes at all times—two people, both armed, with at least one of them keeping watch. All of us needed the rest, but it went without saying that this was not going to get very restful.
Feeling like a lowlife but also like this wasn’t my responsibility, I remained as far away as possible from the makeshift triage station that Pia and Martinez set up together. Innes wasn’t my friend and not really my comrade, at least not like Bates and the others who had served with him for years. I did my share of the duty—went on perimeter watch twice, first in the night, then around noon the following day—but otherwise kept a low profile.
As the hours passed and we waited for Innes to die, morale plummeted with every hacking cough and pained groan. I couldn’t deny that the scientist in me was morbidly fascinated by the entire process, but I realized that I’d given up on that life more than I’d thought when it didn’t even occur to me to take notes or samples. His decline was similar to Raleigh Miller’s from the video, at least on the outside. Lesions, bruising, delirium—but at least he didn’t seem to feel any pain. Not from the wound that got worse with every hour, putting gangrene to shame, nor from his increasing disability to move properly.
Then the second night came, and it was obvious that Innes wouldn’t see the light of day ever again. He was barely coherent in the moments when he managed to keep his eyes open, and couldn’t even keep down water. I figured that he was nearing the end when Pia sent me for another extended route around the camp at around midnight, but he was still alive—if no longer kicking—by the time I returned. The guards from before were rolled up in their sleeping bags now, and it was only Nate who sat at Innes’s side, his Glock in his hand and the AK resting on the ground, close enough to scoop up if he needed it.
At my hesitant approach, he looked up, the light from the camping lantern casting his face in a stark contrast of white panes and deep shadows. We normally didn’t keep a night light around—barely even dared to light a fire during the day to heat up food, as not to draw any number of predators—but it was obvious why it was needed.
Like the rest of us, he’d lost weight, but he looked practically gaunt now. He’d shouldered most of the watch time over Innes, giving order to wake him up if things got bad in the few hours he’d caught some sleep. Everyone else had been avoiding Innes, but Nate didn’t seem to share that very visceral fear that—even now, at a healthy few feet of distance—made my heartbeat increase as my body instinctively powered up to kick into fight or flight mode.
He didn’t say anything, and neither did I, but after a few moments I crossed the distance between us and hunkered down in the grass next to Nate, keeping my shotgun across my thighs. And so we waited.
It was minutes after the first light of dawn tickled the horizon in the east and a few early birds started to sing when Innes took a last, rattling breath and went quiet. Nate waited for about a minute, then leaned over to check for a pulse. Not looking away, he raised his gun and fired a single shot straight between Innes’s eyes, startling the birds into taking flight, and scaring everyone else in the camp wide awake.
And that was that.
There was a short debate whether we should bury Innes, but it was easier—and quicker—to burn the body instead. Wrapped in the sleeping bag he’d died in, he was doused in some gasoline that someone had siphoned off a car the day before, and as the sun rose, we watched as flames consumed his remains. No one said anything, but the mood was sombre. As soon as the fire had died down, we kicked out the ashes, grabbed our gear, and were back on the road.
Losing Innes had changed something, although I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. I was sure that all of us—even Madeline and her kids—were aware of the latent danger, and we’d by far lost too many already to keep up any pretense of safety in the first place. But this, this was different, and it wasn’t just me. As we trudged through the day, physically rested but emotionally mauled, I could tell that I wasn’t the only one who kept repeatedly checking their weapons, or jumped at even the smallest sound a scurrying animal made. I didn’t know about the others, but the very thought that an injury that I couldn’t even feel could kill me like that was scary as hell.
It also made me wonder if it had been like this for all the others, those who’d died in the initial phase of the outbreak. Fever, delusions, but not much else. Had they simply fallen asleep and never woken up again?
Was this how Sam had died?
Thinking about her now left me feeling even more hollow inside. It wasn’t like I’d started to forget about her—or that the raging guilt deep in my soul had lessened as time went by—but watching Innes die made it all come up again. Those last words of his—“don’t let me die here alone”—kept repeating over and over in my head. Sam had died alone. All alone. That I couldn’t have done anything for her and likely would have died—either from the plague or because she’d turned and killed me—was no consolation at all.
And as I looked at the faces around me, I could see similar looks on all of them. Everyone had lost someone—more often than not everyone—they’d known. Loved. Been close to. And just because we’d gotten away so far didn’t mean that we weren’t up next. For the first few days, the very idea that food could kill us had horrified me, but this? This slap in the face regarding our mortality? This was much, much worse.
It didn’t come as much of a surprise that Madeline was rather busy that evening, and I didn’t find it in me to glare scornfully at anyone’s back who would disappear into the trees with her. Sex was the farthest thing from my mind, but the need for comfort and basic human closeness was strong. Erica clearly realized what her mother was doing but tried to put on a brave face. The younger children continued to stare into space, barely reacting when she tried to engage them in any activity. I still didn’t know what had happened to them to traumatize them that much, but didn’t really want to. As far as I was concerned, the sooner we could get rid of them all—in a safe, comfy hidey-hole or something—the better.
My indifference changed when, starting the next day, Madeline began actively approaching some of the guys—ranging from a few smiles and comments to more than just casual touches and outright flirting. At first, I was sure that it could only be hours until Pia would shut her down, but the Ice Queen ignored that behavior pointedly. I volunteered for perimeter duty as soon as we were done with the typical round of exercise, and even considered adding another when most of the camp was still awake when my time was up. Andrej had no patience for my antics, though, and ordered me right back to the camp site—where I found Madeline cozying up to Nate.
In his defense, he didn’t look particularly ecstatic to have her sitting beside him, chattering away with lots of smiles, but he didn’t chase her away. He usually wasn’t exactly keeping to himself, but knowing what those bandages covered that Martinez still changed every other day, it made sense that he wasn’t up for the usual sundown wrestling match. But he clearly didn’t mind that special kind of company.
That night, the cat food tasted even worse than usual, and I didn’t even pretend like I wasn’t glaring at them with a stony look on my face. Hopefully stony, because after that chat with Martinez I wasn’t sure how well I could hide my emotions.
And it didn’t just stay at that chat, no. The next day she left her usual place in the middle of the group—easiest to defend, least likely to get attacked—in favor of continuing their animated conversation. At least she continued to laugh and gush, and still he didn’t seem to mind. I so didn’t care for that anger and betrayal that was clogging my throat, but I forced myself to swallow it. Nate was his own man, and it was entirely up to him whose company he chose to keep. It just rankled so fucking much that it was impossible to bear.
But bear it I did, through the entire day and another endless evening. The very idea that now those hours of respite after the grueling day-long trek were what made me apprehensive was hilarious on so many levels, but I didn’t find it in me to laugh—not even at myself, although I really had it coming. Just to stay busy, I signed up for permanent guard duty in the evenings—not just the flexible rotation we had going at all times—and whenever I found someone up to teaching me something extra, I was game. Wrestling. Self-defense. Sprinting. Knife fighting—although we did that with sticks, for obvious reasons—and hot damn, Burns could move quick for a guy his size. I even helped dig the latrine hole and hacked away at dry branches to procure firewood. Yet nothing helped. At the end of the evening, I still spent way too much time staring across the campsite, watching Madeline coo and titter her way around the guys.
I started noticing little things about her that I hadn’t seen when I’d been busy ignoring her first. She didn’t look unhappy about the attention she got, but in the few minutes where she found herself alone—and mostly unobserved—her shoulders slumped and her usually perky attitude gave way to frustration, desolation even. She was clearly fixating on Nate—although by far not as much as I was obsessing over her—but never let any opportunity pass if she could get something out of it. And that she did, way beyond that sense of protection that she seemed to think she had to buy with her body. Trinkets, items, and food passed hands, and it was then that I noticed that she or her children never had to resort to the most basic level food items that the rest of us subsided on. They were always nibbling on some treats, and I hadn’t seen a cat food can anywhere around them in days. My own stash had run empty by then, too, but I knew for a fact that several of the guys were still hoarding the stuff as a steady protein source. Then, one day after another seemingly fruitless looting trip, she was suddenly wearing makeup, the once familiar sight so foreign to me that it took me ten minutes to realize what kept my gaze snagging to her lips and eyes in particular. The very notion was ridiculous—but the st
eady trickle of bartering went on and on, as did her nightly discussions with our esteemed leader.
I probably could have dealt with all that and not lost it, if that had remained the extent of her idiocy. Yet two days after we traversed the Indiana border into Illinois, she uttered that one remark that sent me over the edge.
We were busy breaking camp, with Santos, Bates, Andrej, and me getting ready to do an extra circuit to cut around today’s route for some extra scavenging, when she held up Santos and Bates, smiling coquettishly at them.
“Would you guys mind doing me a favor?”
It wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary that someone would approach the now almost daily hunting party with a list of what was running low, but that’s why Pia kept a list, trying to redistribute between us all first if possible.
“Sure, sugar, just tell me what you need,” Santos crooned, earning himself some well-deserved snickers from Burns and Cho who were crouching nearby.
Batting her mascara-black lashes coquettishly—uselessly, really—Madeline replied. “Could you maybe look for some nice clothes for me? I’ve been wearing these same old jeans and three shirts for days now, and they really don’t accentuate my curves. Not that I’m complaining, but it goes without saying that the stuff those two—“ she was obviously referring to Pia and me, and even had the audacity to roll her eyes now “—are bringing back just isn’t very flattering. So if you find something, bring it back for me, will you? You know that I will appreciate your efforts a lot.”
Santos and Bates traded glances that had lost a lot of the playfulness of before, but—like the whipped, weak male duds that they were—they were already nodding. This was just too much for me to bear.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I screeched, coming to my feet, not caring if everyone was looking at me weirdly now. Stalking over to Madeline, I pushed the guys away to let me get physically in her face. “You want us to risk our damn lives just because you want some pretty clothes to wear?”
The Green Fields Series Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 48