Dead in Bed by Bailey Simms, The Complete First Book

by Adrian Birch

  I had to get as far away from Jason as possible before I lost consciousness. The night was quickly closing in on me. The world was spinning. I grabbed half of Morgan’s torn shirt and my dad’s map in one hand, and Jason’s wallet in the other. I squeezed them both tightly in my fists. I willed myself to stand. Finally, I found my feet, wobbling unsteadily.

  And I ran. I ran as fast as I could.

  February 8th, 2014

  10:01 p.m.

  Author’s Update

  So, when I was drafting Part 6, I was really nervous about writing the scene with Ashley and Jason on the SUV. But I knew I just had to write it, and I knew it would have to be a difficult and brutal scene, and, most of all, I knew Ashley had to find a strength she never knew she had. Even if her new confidence allows her to do a lot of selfless good, at the same time it makes her capable of committing a lot of selfish vengeance, too.

  Anyway, if you want to find out why Ashley is changing in the way she is, and what will happen as a result, keep reading!

  I said I was nervous about writing the SUV scene, but I’ve also been nervous about a lot of other things these past few days. First of all, I was nervous when I finally wrote to Kyle and told him it was going to be impossible for me to talk to him, that it probably wasn’t going to work out between us, and that he should probably find somebody else. And then I was nervous when he didn’t write back for two days. And then I was really nervous about things when he finally did write to me. I still am. But I'll get to that in a second.

  The thing is, Kyle is graduating early. He actually finished all of his courses last semester, and he doesn’t have to go to school at all until he starts college in California. He already got into a really good school out there.

  When he finally wrote back to me, he told me he’s planning a road trip to California. Like, right away. And he wants me to go with him.

  And I kind of told him I would seriously consider it.

  I’m so tired of being stuck here with my dad. Sometimes I feel like I’m just fading away from existence, sitting here on my bed all day. My doctor would definitely say I’m crazy for even considering a road trip, but it’s not like he could stop me. And since I haven’t been able to attend school anyway this year, I’m already getting all my homework online from my teachers. I don’t see why I couldn’t keep up with school in California, just like I’m doing here. I even have a little bit of money in an account my grandmother left me when she died. It’s not much, but it’ll get me by until I take a job waitressing or something.

  I haven’t told Kyle definitely yes yet. I’m so excited and terrified at the thought of just getting into his car and driving to California. But, honestly, I really want to go.

  xxBailey

  February 19th, 2014

  2:52 a.m.

  Part 7

  Sick

  I woke up to the sound of clucking geese.

  It was morning. My head was still so foggy from the sedatives, I could hardly lift it to get a good look around.

  I was in a poultry stall at the fairgrounds. The rows of cages were still filled with birds that had been entered into the now-abandoned fair. They were starving and molting. Some were dead. I was covered in loose hay and feathers.

  Somehow, I was still holding onto half of Morgan’s flannel shirt, my dad’s map, and Jason’s wallet. I forced myself to sit up.

  I had no memory of making it as far as the fairgrounds before passing out. I was still naked. My bare feet were cut and covered in dried blood.

  I opened Jason’s wallet.

  I threw out a debit card and some kind of Home Guard mess hall card. And then, there it was: a simple white card with a magnetic strip, the words “Pharmaceutical Access,” and a warning that failure to return it to the Home Guard if found was a crime punishable by indefinite detention.

  I kept the card and tossed Jason’s wallet into one of the goose cages. Feeling inside the breast pocket of what was left of Morgan’s flannel, I found that the single quarter I’d saved was still inside.

  I crept from the poultry stall out into the sun. The morning was surprisingly warm after a cold night. The fairgrounds were totally abandoned, and for a moment I just let the sunlight fall onto my naked body. I was still pretty woozy, but I could feel some of my energy start to return.

  I looked out toward the fields stretching away from the poultry stall. As far as I could see, Jason’s SUV was gone.

  The fairgrounds, luckily, were filled with pay phones. The nearest was just across the roadway beside the horse stables.

  I’d torn up Chris’s letter after memorizing his number, but that felt like forever ago. Thankfully I was able to clear the cobwebs from my head just enough to remember the digits as I deposited the quarter into the pay phone.

  Chris picked up right away. “Please tell me this is Ashley,” he said. He must not have recognized the incoming number and hoped it was a pay phone.

  “I got it,” I said. I told him where I was and asked him to pick me up. “Bring me some clothes, will you?” I added. “Don’t ask. It’s a long story.”

  While I waited for Chris, I found a relatively concealed place in the sun behind a wooden barrel that had been converted into a flowerpot. I listened to the horses in their stalls, whinnying loudly. Poor things. I knew my sister’s horse Kaypay was among them. They probably hadn’t heard a human voice for nearly two weeks and were starving.

  A car approached. I ducked down behind the flowerpot and peered over its arrangement of dead pansies. A dust-covered hearse pulled up in front of the stables. It came to a stop by the pay phone. Its engine cut.

  Chris stepped out. He was in a white Home Guard uniform and a lab coat with two armbands, one with a black H.G. logo and the other with a red cross.

  The uniform must have been a disguise, but why was he driving a hearse?

  “Don’t ask about the car and I won’t ask about your clothes,” Chris said, tossing a small duffel bag behind the flowerpot. It landed by my bloodied foot. I unzipped it.

  “Scrubs?”

  “What else?” Chris looked away while I put on the faded blue hospital clothing he’d brought me.

  I looked like a mental patient.

  Now that I was clothed, Chris walked straight over and gave me a big hug. “You are fucking amazing, Ashley,” he said. “Fucking amazing!” he yelled out. “Let me see it.”

  I gave him the access card.

  “Fucking incredible.” He was elated. “I didn’t even think you’d get my note. How did you do it? Did you give him the sedative?”

  “Sort of.” I shrugged. “Seriously, don’t ask.”

  “Do you think he knows you took the card?”

  “I think he knows his whole wallet’s missing.”

  “Shit,” Chris said. “We don’t have much time, then. Let’s go.”

  “Just a minute.”

  I hurried into the stables. Thirty or forty horses, all in individual stalls, pranced and snorted when I came in. They weren’t in as bad of shape as the chickens, but they’d eaten through all of their feed, not to mention all of the hay on the stable floor. The water in their shared trough was down to a muddy puddle.

  I turned on the trough faucet and started emptying sacks of oats into the feeding bins.

  “Seriously?” Chris called out when he saw what I was doing. “We don’t have time for this. We have to go!”

  “You’ll thank me later,” I said. “I promise.”

  When all of the horses had been fed and the trough was full, I turned off the water and got into the hearse with Chris. I was glad to see it wasn’t carrying a coffin. The engine was already running. As soon as I closed the door, Chris put the clutch in gear and sped forward.

  “Can I really not ask about the hearse?” I asked.

  Chris shrugged. “Well, it’s the best way not to get stopped and searched at a check point,” he explained. “Most of the rangers on guard duty are the young ones, and they’re all freaked out by coffins with peop
le inside screaming to be let out…understandably. They’d rather just pretend this kind of thing isn’t happening. So most of the guards just wave hearses through.”

  I tried not to think about how many people must have been buried alive.

  Chris pulled out onto the highway and headed straight toward the center of town. One Home Guard squad was standing around a fire in the supermarket parking lot, warming ration packets on the flames, but they didn’t pay us any attention.

  “I just really hope this uniform passes at the pharmacy.” Chris patted the H.G. logo on his armband. “I’m on the wanted list, but I’m hoping they won’t pay much attention to me if I’m wearing my old stuff.” He took a deep breath. I hadn’t realized until now how scared he was. “We’ll see,” he said, exhaling. “Fingers crossed.”

  I hadn’t expected that actually getting in would be a problem once we had the access card. Somehow, stupidly, I’d imagined that Chris would be able to just swipe the card, waltz right in, and take whatever he needed.

  “Is the pharmacy pretty well-guarded?” I asked.

  Chris laughed hollowly. “Even with the steel door they put in, they’ve stationed an entire squad there. All kinds of meds are in short supply, from ibuprofen and chemo agents to TGV test applicators. And the Home Guard really doesn’t want people getting their hands on any antibiotics.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Isn’t the whole purpose of the Home Guard’s existence to eradicate the pathogen in the quarantine zone? Shouldn’t they want people to have access to antibiotics if it fights the disease?”

  “Not when the cocktail doesn’t actually weaken the parasite.” Chris glanced at me sardonically. “Guess we didn’t tell you that little detail, did we? When I was testing the cocktail months ago on earlier strains—before we really knew what this thing was—we found out that it actually strengthens the parasite. The species adapts and becomes resistant to the antibiotics, allowing for stronger, longer-living larvae. It becomes a superbug. The longer the parasite lives, the longer the host stays viable, and the slower the disease’s stages progress. With the right antibiotics, you could keep people in stage one for months, maybe even longer. But that would mean giving the host a longer period of time to spread the pathogen on to someone else. The Home Guard just wants to wipe the whole thing out.”

  “That’s why they’re only really interested in shooting people? Or burying them alive?” Suddenly, I understood. “They don’t care about curing anyone.”

  “There is no cure,” Chris said somberly. “You can slow the disease, but only by strengthening it. You can’t cure it.”

  He reached into the back of the hearse and handed me a shotgun.

  “It’s all I have,” he said. “I hope you won’t need it, but keep the safety off.”

  I noticed Chris was wearing his pistol under his lab coat. I held the shotgun low and kept it pointed at the floor.

  * * *

  Chris wasn’t kidding about the guards at the pharmacy.

  An entire squad of six rangers—complete with a large, armored vehicle—was stationed at the entrance. It was hard to imagine this was the same place my mom used to buy me cough syrup when I was a kid.

  Before we even began to slow down, the squad’s sergeant—a stout, brawny guy I’d never seen before—waved at us to stop.

  So much for Chris’s hearse strategy.

  He pulled over on the opposite side of the road and parked beside the Bronze Dragon, Muldoon’s single Chinese food restaurant. Both the restaurant and the apartment above were now abandoned.

  “Papers?” the sergeant called out.

  None of the rangers seemed too concerned about us. Most of them leaned against the armored vehicle looking bored with their guns slung over their shoulders. They stirred only to push forward a very young private, obviously new to the squad, to examine our papers.

  “This one’s all yours.” One of the rangers nudged the private forward with his boot on his backside. “A girl and a fairy. You can handle it.”

  “Get her number,” another ranger said mockingly. “Hers, not his.”

  All of the rangers laughed. The young private nervously crossed the road to approach us and examine our papers.

  The problem was, of course, that not only did neither of us have travel clearance, but both of us were also wanted. We had a pharmacy access card, but what good was that going to do if we didn’t have any clearance papers? Obviously, Chris hadn’t anticipated this.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, eyeing the approaching private. He had no idea what to do. He leaned back and put his hands on his head, helpless.

  I had to do something.

  I reached into his lab coat and grabbed his pistol.

  “What are you—?” Chris began, startled. “Ashley!”

  I tucked the pistol into the back of the scrubs I was wearing and got out of the hearse. I walked directly toward the private.

  I wasn’t sure what I was doing—I wasn’t even wearing shoes—but suddenly I was overcome by another weird rush of what felt like limitless confidence. The fog from my sedative hangover had cleared away. I had no idea where these spikes of nerve were coming from, but when they hit me, I was strangely, recklessly without any fear at all.

  The private was very young. I met him in the middle of the road. We stopped on opposite sides of the road’s yellow line. He couldn’t have been a day over eighteen. He was gawky, with a plump, pink zit on his cheek. He was obviously nervous.

  “Your papers, ma’am?” he asked politely, avoiding my gaze.

  I thought about Morgan. I thought about the young girl with the vacant green eyes who had passed me on the highway.

  “What would you do to me, private,” I asked quietly, “if I were positive?”

  “Just your travel papers, ma’am,” he mumbled. “Then you can be on your way.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “What would you do?”

  The private’s face was flushing deeply now. I stared right at him, practically breathing on him, and he still refused to meet my eyes.

  “My sergeant’s orders are to shoot any known or suspected positives on sight,” he recited.

  “Shit, Gomer! I think she’s kind of into you!” one of the rangers called out. “Work your Gomer magic! Maybe you’ll get a hand job out of it!”

  The squad laughed.

  “I didn’t ask you what your orders are,” I said softly. “This is a test, Gomer. Your answer’s important. What would you do if I were positive?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I would shoot you,” he said briskly, as if speaking to a superior officer.

  “You sure about that?” I asked. “Is that your final answer?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he stammered.

  “Do you know what I’m going to do?” I whispered.

  “Show me your travel papers? Ma’am?”

  “No. I’m going to shoot you. Right in the chest.” I gently tapped his chest. “Not because I have any orders. But because I’ve come to the conclusion all on my very own that it’s just the right thing to do.”

  The private stared at me dumbly.

  I pulled Chris’s pistol from my scrubs, jammed it into the private’s chest, and pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the gunshot exploded across the quiet street. The private stumbled backward, gasping, tugging at his bulletproof vest. As quickly as I could, I pulled the semiautomatic rifle from his shoulder and started firing at the squad.

  None of the rangers expected this. Their faces fell as they scrambled to shoulder their guns and take positions behind the armored vehicle.

  I didn’t expect the private’s rifle to be so powerful. Every time I pulled the trigger, the stock leapt up and bit painfully into my shoulder. All of my shots sailed way too high as a result, but it was enough to scare the squad and buy a little time.

  I raced back to the hearse.

  Chris was baffled and terrified. “What the fuck, Ashley?” he kept saying. “What the fuck?!”
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  I handed his pistol back, keeping the rifle for myself, and pulled him behind the hearse. As soon as we hit the ground, a barrage of bullets slammed into the hearse’s body and shattered its windows.

  When the first volley let up, I fired back. I couldn’t even begin to hope to hit any of the rangers with the unwieldy weapon; I just wanted to give us enough cover to fall back into the Bronze Dragon. I pulled Chris with me, firing one shot into the restaurant’s glass front door, and we both ran through the frame and took cover behind the register stand.

  Another volley of bullets shattered the front windows.

  “What the fuck are you doing?!” Chris was incensed.

  “Making it up as I go!” I shouted back. “What the fuck are you doing? Let me fucking know if you have any better ideas.”

  I slipped back into the restaurant kitchen, dragging Chris after me.

  “This way.”

  A stairway led to the second-story apartment. I scrambled up and found the living room, which looked over the street.

  I could see the rangers trying to position themselves. They were confused after the unexpected attack. I’d caught them totally off guard. I doubt they’d ever been attacked before. The young private I’d shot in the chest was still squirming in the road. I’d fired the pistol so close to his vest, I’d probably broken most of his ribs.

  I grabbed Chris’s shotgun.

  “Give me this.”

  I stepped back from the window and took aim directly at the squad’s brawny sergeant. He was still standing across the road, exposed in front of the armored vehicle, waving at his men to take positions.

  I fired.

  The living room window exploded into thousands of tiny shards. The sergeant fell backward.

  I knew the shot wouldn’t kill the sergeant, but I’d been duck hunting with my Dad enough to know that the spread of the shell’s pellets at this distance would be wide enough to pepper him from head to foot. The sergeant tried to pull himself to his feet. Already I could see that he was bleeding from his arms and his face.