Mad World (Book 3): Desperation

by Samaire Provost

  We headed east and crossed into Vermont, then turned south and drove the 89 all the way down, past St. Albans, Burlington and Montpelier, all the way down to White River Junction, a small city just over the border into New Hampshire. By this time, most of us had dozed off, Risa was talking quietly with Leia while Jonathan snoozed against her, and D was drinking his fourth energy drink. The motion of the SUV had lulled me to sleep a hundred miles ago, so when DeAndre pulled over to check his map, it woke me. Yawning and stretching, I looked out the windows at the landscape around us. It must have been close to midnight, and everything was quiet and still. No cars were on the road other than us and the Humvee that pulled up behind us. Opening my door quietly and grabbing my shotgun, I decided to go check on them.

  “Be right back,” I patted DeAndre’s shoulder as he studied his e-map tablet. He nodded absentmindedly, and I closed the door gently. I heard another door shut a minute later, and Zach and Risa soon joined me in the night air.

  “Jonathan’s been telling me what happened. I can’t believe people would do that,” Risa shook her head. “Poor Gisele.”

  “This emergency forces people to be brave,” Zach said, shotgun trained on the hillside.

  I nodded as we walked over to the Humvee to check on things. “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it. And what’s scary is that Dad and I figure this is probably not an isolated incident.”

  “This plague is going to be the end of humanity if we can’t get it shut down. If not the end of humans then the end of our humanity.”

  I nodded. The guy who hadn’t been burned was at the wheel of the Humvee, they had been switching out drivers just like we had been. “How’s it going Tim?” I asked, walking up to his window.

  “Actually quite well. Everyone’s asleep,” he jerked his thumb back to indicate the rear of the Humvee. “They’ve been zonked out since we crossed the border.” I nodded. He looked at Risa. “So, you’re awake?” She nodded. “How do you feel?”

  “Sore. Hurts like hell. Still a little groggy.” She indicated the bandages on her arm. “If I wasn’t doped up to high heaven I’d probably be screaming in pain.” She shrugged. “It’s all numb.”

  He nodded. “Heard what happened to you. Amazed you even lived through it.” He studied her as if she were a specimen in a lab.

  “Risa’s incredible.” I put my arm around her tenderly. “She’s a superwoman.” I smiled and kissed the top of her head.

  Risa ducked to hide her smile and punched my arm. “Idiot,” she said, grinning. Zach smiled. Laughing, we all headed back to our SUV.

  “Almost there, can’t wait!” Tim called after us. I waved back at him as we got to our vehicle, still chuckling.

  I loved our camaraderie. Except when it made me unconsciously lower my guard. We’d been caught like this a dozen times on this trip. My senses tingled as I opened the door and helped Zach and Risa in. Swinging my head around, I stared into the dark.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath. There were four sets of eyes reflected back at me from about 20 yards away. Black inky night almost hid them. They were crouched behind the bushes, and I could just barely make them out. I thought I saw movement behind them. There were more coming, I sensed. I pushed Risa’s door firmly shut and slowly turned around. Everyone was asleep except for the drivers, Risa, still gravely injured, Zach, and me. I brought my shotgun off my shoulders and held it at midlevel, muzzle pointed outward. Not taking my eyes off of them, I walked sideways and the back across the rear of the SUV.

  Suddenly, BOOM! It came from around the other side of the vehicle, the driver’s side. DeAndre’s side. I jumped, not expecting the loud noise to be behind me. Swinging around, my eyes fell on the body of a zombie dropped about 5 feet from me. It had been trying to creep up on the SUV. The top of its head was gone, and black gore dripped on the road.

  I shivered and studied it for a few seconds, then looked back at the zombie eyes in the bushes on the passenger side and saw them all melt away into the brush. Turning back to the left side of the vehicle, I walked around and saw DeAndre hanging out the window, shotgun smoking.

  “You want to watch yourself, there, Luke,” he said quietly.

  I nodded. “Thanks,” I said as I climbed back in the vehicle.

  “It was Risa who saw them out the window.”

  “Risa? Wait, ‘them’?”

  He nodded. “There were three of them. I got the one in front; the other two ran off when it went down. Lock the door. I want to get going.”

  He pulled out onto the freeway again, giving a thumbs up to Tim driving the Hummer behind us as he pulled out and followed us, matching DeAndre’s determined acceleration.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and looked over at Risa. She grinned and tapped her temple. “Thanks, Sis.”

  “Hey, if I don’t watch your back, who will?” She smiled. “In fact, it’s a miracle you survived at all while I was out of it.” I smiled, and she let out a chuckle.

  “God, you two. I cannot wait to get to Boston.” Dad sat up and yawned. “How much longer, D?”

  “About two and a half hours, if all goes well,” DeAndre answered, taking a swig of water.

  “I’m going to try and sleep some more,” I said. “Wake me when we get there.” I was asleep in under five minutes, the last thing I heard was Risa and Dad whispering together.

  TWENTY

  “Luke, wake up,” Dad was quietly calling me. I was dreaming he was waking me up for training practice, and I was 17 again. But then I realized. Boston. Save Mom. I came awake with a start.

  “Wha…?” I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “Are we there?” It was still dark outside and we were queued in a line with police officers questioning everybody. “Boston?”

  “No, this is the Massachusetts state line,” Dad said as he looked out at the checkpoint set up in front of us. “They’re being very careful.” He looked back at the Humvee behind us. “Unfortunately, we’re bringing a group of plague-infected victims into their state. Hope they won’t give us any trouble.” He sat forward again.

  DeAndre grimly waited his turn, then crept up and rolled down his window. “Hello, officers,” he said, holding up his ID. “We’re traveling with the Humvee behind us. We’re with the Sanctuary Team out of Winnipeg, and …”

  The officer’s eyes widened just a bit, and then, “Hold on, Sir. Wait one minute here, please.” He turned to confer with his fellow border guards a dozen feet away. Five of them huddled together and talked, glancing at us every now and then. After a few minutes of this, the first guard came back to D’s window.

  “Sir, if you and the vehicle following you would please pull off and park in this lot behind me, we’ll be able to help you.” He indicated the small lot filled with at least eight police cars.

  “Certainly, officer,” DeAndre said, then slowly pulled off to the side. He waved for Tim to follow us, but the guards were already waving him over with us. “This is fishy.”

  “Oh, god…” I mumbled. “What now?”

  “I have no idea, Luke,” Dad said thoughtfully, looking at the guards still conferring with one another. A supervisor had arrived and begun talking with them.

  I looked back at the highway where we’d been pulled off. They had stopped letting cars through, and people were just sitting there on the New Hampshire side. I heard one officer call out to the cars in line, “You people need to go back. There’s a station in Nashua that will process you.” Then he turned away and went back to talk with the others.

  Beside me, Zach stretched and yawned, as did Leia, DeAndre, and Jonathan.

  “How are you feeling, Babe?” Jonathan asked, looking Risa over with concern.

  “Actually, not so hot,” she replied, holding her shoulder. “I think I need more painkillers, or whatever you doped me up with.”

  “Come back and lie down here. I want to check your wounds.”

  Risa moved gingerly to the stretcher in the back while Jonathan opened his med kit and
began rummaging around in it, looking for what he needed.

  “What’s going on?” Zach yawned.

  “We’re at the Massachusetts state line, and we’ve been stopped,” Dad said grimly.

  Looking out the side window at the police conferring with each other, I had a feeling. Somehow, I wasn’t worried at all. A peaceful, confident feeling flooded my body from my head down to my feet, and a smile came to my face.

  “Luke,” Zach whispered beside me. “What’re you thinking?”

  I turned to him. “I just have a good feeling about this. I know it looks bad, but I have a really good feeling about this.” I stared into his eyes. He stared back at me with a soft smile on his face. I leaned in to kiss him and …

  “They’re heading back. God, I hope it’s good news.” DeAndre glanced back at me. “Luke, you always have a good sense… uh…” he stopped talking and just smiled at us. We were busy doing a thorough exploration of each other’s mouths.

  I heard Dad chuckle, and then say, “Yes, officer?”

  “Sir, Dr. Carroway is expecting you in Boston and has alerted us to watch for you.” Zach and I broke away from each other, and my eyebrows rose in surprise. The police officer looked inside our SUV with his flashlight. “Which one of you is Luke Hill?”

  I started to talk but Dad hurriedly interrupted from the passenger seat. “Uh, we’d rather not say. We will all be traveling with my son. We don’t plan on being separated.” Dad smiled grimly. The police officer just looked at him. “It never seems to turn out well when we separate.” Dad added.

  “We are staying together,” DeAndre stated in support, his deep voice loud in the small compartment. “If you officers have been in contact with Dr. Carroway, then you were probably told to let us through and to not delay us.” He looked pointedly at the fellow, who, after a minute, turned back to his superiors.

  They conferred for a few more minutes.

  “Do you think we should make a break for it?” DeAndre asked in a low voice.

  “How far do you think we’d get?” Dad asked, turning to him.

  “They’re coming back.”

  We all turned to watch several officers once again approach our window.

  “Sir,” the elder one said, obviously in charge, “I’m Sergeant Wolford of the Massachusetts State Police. We apologize for the delay. We will be providing a police escort for you and the vehicle behind you, so that your arrival in Boston won’t be further delayed. Dr. Carroway has been moved to the underground facility at M.I.T.” He leaned in a bit farther. “The doctor’s lab was overrun two months ago, and the university facility was better protected. He’s basically in an underground bunker. We will lead you there and provide police protection for you and your party. There have been a few uprisings in Boston lately, and we can help with any firefights that may break out.”

  “Thank you, officer. May we get going then?” Dad said, clearly happy but restrained. We’d been here for over ten minutes.

  “Absolutely. In fact, I will take the lead squad car, and there will be two others following you, and two others following the other vehicle.” He left our window and proceeded to a nearby police cruiser.

  “Okay, boys and girls, looks like we’re finally getting on our way,” DeAndre started the engine and put it into gear. Pulling out ahead of us, the police car was running with full lights. We made an interesting parade, a line of seven vehicles, with red and blue lights flashing all over the place. White strobe lights played back and forth in each cruiser rear window, quite impressively. As the first car turned onto the open road, it waited maybe 45 seconds, until the last cruiser had pulled on; then it accelerated to more than 75 mph.

  “Now we’re talking,” Jonathan whooped.

  “At this rate, we should be in Boston in less than 25 minutes,” Dad said.

  Everything was going well, we had a five-car police escort; looking behind us I could see Tim in the Hummer back behind two police cars; and Zach and I had kissed. I smiled with contentment. I knew everything would be okay. I felt it. I had a feeling about things, and everything was going to go smoothly. Everything. Smoothly. Yeah.

  TWENTY ONE

  I should have known not to let down my guard. Speeding south on I-93, we had just passed I-495 and gone about five miles down the freeway when we entered an area that had been overrun by zombies. In the pre-dawn hour not even the stars shown in the overcast sky. We began to see shapes flitting in and out of the headlight beams and along the side of the road. Zombies could move fast if they had the space and really wanted to. About a minute after we caught sight of them, the first one threw itself across the hood of the cruiser in front of us. Sgt. Wolford was traveling with another officer in that car, and it swerved sharply across and into the oncoming lane. Wolford seemed to regain control of the cruiser and got back into his lane a few seconds later, only to have two more zombies jump out at his car from the right.

  “Shit, I knew this was too good to be true,” said DeAndre.

  “Oh, man. Where did this guy learn to drive?” Dad said.

  More zombies had jumped onto Wolford’s cruiser, and he veered sharply back over to the left, then overcorrected and swerved right and went into the ditch.

  “Should we stop?” asked DeAndre.

  “No, keep going,” Dad said firmly, looking out the window as we passed the cruiser. “If two Massachusetts state police can’t shoot their way out of that, then…” but his voice trailed off as he saw one of the police cruisers from behind us peel off and park behind its companion in the ditch. Through the window we could see four officers with shotguns preparing to get out. Dad nodded. “Keep going.” He gave one final look behind us. “And don’t stop for anything.”

  DeAndre nodded and gunned the engine, and we flew down the I-93 freeway at about 80 mph. The Hummer was now one car behind us, with the cruiser in between us. The two other cruisers were behind the Hummer, and lights were still flashing everywhere. It was like a police motorcade set on “hurry” as we raced towards Boston.

  We were okay for another few minutes, and I truly thought we’d make it. I didn’t think anything could stop us now, so close to our goal. Little did I know …

  We’d just come into the developed area surrounding Boston and were just passing Medford when the first real attack came.

  “Whoa, are we going over a river?” Zach looked out the window into the darkness. A few lights could be seen glinting off some water below us, just visible over a low wall on our side.

  “That would be the Mystic River, It means we’re about 10 minutes away from the city,” DeAndre answered from the front. We cleared the water and began to veer slightly to the left. We were now skirting the water’s edge. More lights twinkled and reflected off the river. In fact, the water looked positively frothy in the night air. Waitaminute.

  “Dad…”

  WHUMP!!!

  We’d hit something. DeAndre gripped the wheel as the SUV went up on its side on two wheels. We all tilted to the right as D fought for control of the vehicle. Then …

  SLAM!!! THUMPLETA-THUMPLETA-THUMPLETA-THUMPLETA…

  We were back on four wheels, only we were dragging something, and it was slowing us down.

  “What is that?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Christ! They’re coming at us from the water!”

  “Oh, god! D, floor it!”

  “I’m trying! We’re caught on something!”

  DeAndre was standing on the gas, and we were still steadily slowing down. Zombies were crawling from the shoreline by the dozens, dripping wet in the little light there was. Moss and muck hung from them as they ran up the embankment and toward us.

  I looked behind us through the rear window and saw that the police cars and Hummer were still right behind us, waiting to see what we did.

  We were now slowed to less than 40 mph.

  “Goddammit, I am sick to death of this crap!” DeAndre suddenly pulled over to the right side of the road and stopped. Zombi
es were running to us and surrounding our vehicle.

  “Jake, let’s do Plan B,” DeAndre looked at Jake with fierce anger. “I am done with these monsters. First my Caitlin, and now this.” Unshed tears swam in D’s angry eyes.

  Dad looked back at him, then out the window at the zombies. We were nearly surrounded. “It’s like they know we are trying to get to Carroway for a cure,” he said. “The police knew, and the zombies probably know.” He looked back at DeAndre. “Okay. I’m fed up too. Let’s do it. Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?” Zach asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” Risa mumbled from the back stretcher. Jonathan had given her pain meds, and now she was drugged up. “Just hold on.”

  I looked at Zach. “She’s right. Hold on. This may get crazy.” I looked back at Dad and D and nodded.

  “ ‘Crazy?’ Compared to what?” Zach’s voice rose in surprise as D and Dad unbuckled their seatbelts and swiftly rose in their seats, reaching back to the rear where Risa and Jonathan were already handing them heavy jugs. I helped lift them to the front and took one for myself.

  “I’ll do the right side; I’ve been trained on this,” Jonathan said, then climbed to sit beside Zach. As Jonathan moved forward, without being told Leia moved to the rear with Risa, sat in the jump seat and buckled herself in. She fixed me with a determined look. This girl caught on quick.

  “Okay, I’m going out to the front to lead,” Dad said.

  “You think that’s wise?”

  “It has to be done. I’ll have my harness on.”

  “Still…”

  “Be careful, Dad.”

  “I always am.” He crouched on the seat and turned to give D a nod. DeAndre pulled a lever under the dash and floodlights popped up on the top of the SUV. Suddenly lights blazed all around us, and night was turned into day. The zombies backed up about ten feet and waited cautiously for what was coming. They knew something was up. D rolled the bullet-proof window next to Dad down and Dad crawled out and onto the hood of the big black SUV, lifting the huge jug after him. He crouched on the hood and snapped on the harness he pulled out of the front grill compartment. Nobody would ever know how very tripped-out our vehicles were. I swear, sometimes, they seemed like the Batmobile.