The Becoming

by Jessica Meigs

  “What about her?” Cade asked shortly. “We can’t stay here and hope she walks out of that building. Look at it, Ethan!” She pointed through the windshield. The building still crackled and burned almost merrily against the nearly black night sky, the cheerfulness of the blaze like a slap in the face. “She’s not going to come out of it!”

  “We’re not leaving without her!” Ethan exploded. He turned in his seat to glare at Cade. Cade stood her ground and glared right back at him as she gripped the steering wheel with one hand. Her knuckles turned white with the strength of her grasp as she struggled against the urge to punch Ethan in the head.

  “Ethan,” Lisa said quietly from the back seat. Her voice was reluctant enough to make Cade turn her attention to Lisa in the rearview mirror. She wondered what the woman could possibly have to say. Lisa’s face was drawn from the effort of keeping her wound from bleeding. Cade wrapped her own free hand around the gear-shift and pressed her foot on the brake as she prepared to change gears. “Ethan, I think Anna is dead,” Lisa finally said.

  Chapter 7

  Cade drove the SUV well out of the city before she bothered to pull over to consult a map. She eased the vehicle off into the grass at the side of the road and pushed the gear-shift into park. She turned to look back at Lisa. The woman lay slumped sideways across both seats, her eyes closed. Earlier, Cade had stopped the car just outside of the city limits to help Lisa bandage her shoulder and give her painkillers from a bottle of Advil in the console. She figured that sleep was good for Lisa at that point. The woman was shaken up from what she’d experienced at the hospital; Cade didn’t begrudge her whatever rest she could get.

  Cade leaned across Ethan and hit the switch on the front of the glove box with her thumb. The box’s door fell open and banged the man in the passenger seat across his knees. Ethan didn’t react to the impact; he just continued to stare out the side window despondently. Cade rolled her eyes again and snatched the map book from the glove box. She flipped it open to the T section.

  “You know, you’re not the only person who’s lost someone tonight,” Cade said softly, her accent thick with emotion. She didn’t bother to look at Ethan. Instead, her eyes skimmed the map of Tennessee as she looked for the SUV’s general location.

  “I know,” Ethan said simply. He continued to stare out the window as Cade trailed her finger over the paper. She found their location and studied it carefully, looking at all of the surrounding roads and trying to decide on their next move. “We should get off this road,” Ethan added. He finally tore his eyes from the window and looked at Cade for just a moment.

  “Yeah, I think so too,” Cade agreed. She set the book on her thigh and took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “We’re going to be okay, right?” she asked as she laced their fingers together.

  “I sincerely hope so.”

  Cade swallowed and closed her eyes as a surge of emotion welled up and nearly choked her. The only thing she could think of was Josie and Anna and Andrew, and it was almost too much for her to handle. But Cade had to stop thinking about it, because that would do nothing but distract her from the task of getting the three of them out of the city and to Ethan’s mother’s house. Cade took several deep breaths and squeezed the steering wheel with both hands. She pushed everything to the back of her mind with a mighty shove and buried it all there deeply, where it wouldn’t suddenly surface at an inconvenient time.

  Cade opened her blue eyes and dropped her gaze back to the map book in her lap. She mentally centered herself the same way she used to when she was assigned a task in her time in the IDF. It was all about focusing herself and keeping her mind on the task at hand and not letting anything distract her from it. She passed the map to Ethan and asked, “So what do you think?” It was a poor attempt to draw Ethan away from his sadness, to distract him. Thankfully, it worked.

  Ethan bowed his head and looked over the map thoughtfully. Cade could practically see gears turning in Ethan’s head as he studied the paper. “How about here?” he asked. He pointed to one of the highways crossing the state. “I think we should stick with highways instead of interstates to avoid traffic.”

  Cade leaned across the seats to look at the route to which Ethan pointed. “That’s a long drive. I hope you’re ready to help out,” Cade said. She checked the rearview and side mirrors before she shifted the car back into drive and eased out onto the road once more. “Is Lisa okay back there?”

  Ethan twisted around in his seat to look. He reached back and pressed his fingers gently against Lisa’s cheek, holding them there for a moment. “Yeah, she’s breathing, if that’s what you mean,” he answered. “She’s running a bit of a fever, though.” Ethan sighed with exhaustion and rubbed his face once he’d pulled his arm back into the front seat. “She could probably use the sleep. Hell, I could use the sleep.”

  Cade tilted the rearview mirror down for a moment to get a better look at the sleeping woman. “You don’t think she’s getting an infection or something from that injury of hers, do you?”

  “I’m not sure. It might be too soon for infection to be showing, you know?” He unbuckled his seatbelt. “Pull over again. Let me get in the back.” Cade let out an annoyed sigh before she eased the Jeep back onto the shoulder. Ethan was out the passenger door and into the back seat within seconds. Cade started to drive again as Ethan woke Lisa and steadied her. He pushed the shoulder of her scrubs aside and gently probed at her wound through the bandage.

  “Maybe we should find a doctor,” Cade suggested. Ethan removed the bandage she and Lisa had taped over the wound earlier. Even as Lisa looked on the verge of drifting off again, Ethan peeled the gauze back from the wound; the bandage stuck sickly to the injury. Ethan let out a shocked gasp as it finally pulled fully away from the wound.

  “Fuck, I think you’re right,” Ethan said. His trembling voice made Cade nervous. “I think maybe you need to take a look at this.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the closest thing we’ve got to a doctor right now.”

  Cade slowed the Jeep down and adjusted the rearview mirror once again to see Lisa’s shoulder. Her foot slipped off the gas as she caught a glimpse of the wound. She quickly shifted her foot to the brake to slow down even more as she gaped at what she saw.

  “There’s no way that’s possible,” Cade said. She hated the way her voice shook as she spoke. She grimaced and tried to steady it. What she saw made that exceptionally difficult. “Ethan, it looks like it’s … festering.”

  “I know,” Ethan said quietly.

  “But … that’s not possible,” Cade added with a short shake of her head. “I mean, so soon after the injury? It should take days to get that bad. Maybe even weeks!”

  “I know,” Ethan repeated.

  The wound looked like none Cade had ever seen before, and she’d seen a lot of injuries in her life. It looked like an actual bite wound from a human. In a rapid succession of glances in the rearview mirror, Cade could see the indentations and punctures from teeth that were the perfect size for an adult human being. The wound didn’t look fresh, like it had thirty minutes earlier. Instead, it was steadily beginning to blacken; the skin around the wound had become inflamed, strange red streaks radiating out from it into the uninjured tissue nearby.

  Cade sucked in a deep, steadying breath and looked out the windshield once more, attempting to keep her attention on the road ahead of them. “What do we do, Eth?” she asked. “That’s definitely bad enough to need a doctor. There’s no way I can handle that on my own. She’s going to need drugs and shots and stuff for it before it kills her. Do we find her a doctor in the next town, or should we continue on to Gadsden and try to find her one there?”

  Ethan covered Lisa’s wound with fresh gauze before he spoke again. “I think we should take her by a doctor or an ER in the next city,” he decided. “Especially since she looks like she keeps dropping in and out on us. I’m not even sure she’s totally conscious at the moment. Give me the
map, let me take a look.” He leaned between the seats and held his arm out for the book. Cade found it on the passenger seat and passed it back to him. Ethan stayed between the front and back seats as he looked at the map. “Think she can hold out until Holly Springs, Mississippi?”

  Cade tried to get another glimpse of Lisa in the mirror, but Ethan’s concerned face blocked her view. “I hope so. Is she definitely running a fever?”

  Ethan sat back again and touched Lisa’s forehead and cheek in turn with his wrist before he nodded. “Yeah, she’s burning up. It’s got to be over a hundred.”

  Cade swore under her breath and pressed down harder on the gas pedal. “I’ll try to hurry,” she said as the dark scenery flew by. “The sooner we can get her some help, the better.”

  Thirty minutes passed without further comment on Lisa’s condition, though Cade constantly glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure the other woman was still alive. Cade didn’t know why she was so afraid she’d find the woman dead; perhaps it was the way Lisa seemed to be falling in and out of consciousness, bordering on sleep one moment and blinking half-awake the next. Perhaps it was the nature of Lisa’s injury, the way it seemed to be rotting out, eating into her skin and sliding into her bloodstream. Cade had no idea how long it would take for something like that to kill a person, especially at the speed it seemed to be spreading.

  Ethan had moved back to the front passenger seat to help Cade navigate once they’d settled on a temporary destination. They listened to the police scanner, trying to find out anything they could about the situation in Memphis. Cade was surprised to discover that the outbreak of rioting wasn’t confined to just Memphis and Atlanta. On the radio, stations reported similar outbreaks of riots, fires, and murders in cities like Birmingham, New Orleans, Mobile, and Biloxi. The interstates were jammed with vehicles as the populations of those cities tried in vain to flee the chaos. It seemed as if, in one single night, the entire world had gone to hell.

  Ethan changed the station to check for updates from other DJs every few minutes. After what seemed like the millionth time he’d twisted the dial on the radio, Cade let out an exasperated sigh. “Eth, you’re driving me nuts with the constant station changing.”

  Ethan threw the map book on the floorboard in frustration and let go of the radio’s tuner. “Fuck,” he snapped. “What the hell is going on? I can barely keep up with all this shit.”

  “It’s not just around here,” Cade said. “It sounds like it’s almost everywhere. Like it’s … I don’t know.” Cade rubbed her eyes with the heel of a hand and sighed. She dropped her hand as a thought occurred to her. “You don’t think that that virus has something to do with it, do you?” Cade vaguely remembered asking Ethan the question two nights before when they were on the phone, but in the hectic events that had followed the phone call, Cade had forgotten until this moment that she’d never gotten more than an “I don’t know” from him.

  “Virus?” Ethan repeated vacantly as he turned his eyes back onto the map. “What virus?”

  “The illness that was going around Atlanta,” Cade clarified. “You remember? The one you were asking me about that was in the newspaper. The one the hospitals are having so many problems treating.”

  Ethan sat quiet in thought for a moment before he acknowledged, “It sort of makes sense. But at the same time, it doesn’t. I mean, what kind of virus would make people act like that?” Ethan jabbed his finger in the direction of the in-dash radio. Cade couldn’t help but agree with him.

  “I’ve never heard of one,” Cade admitted. She glanced at him again. “I don’t think a virus like that exists.”

  “But something exists,” Ethan pointed out. He looked out the window. “Something is making these people crazy. Something is causing all these riots and murders. And I don’t think that that something is anything that’s been seen before.”

  “I don’t think it is either,” Cade said. She looked in the rearview mirror to check on Lisa and saw, to her surprise, that the other woman was sitting up in the back seat, her dark eyes watching Cade with a steady gaze. “Hey, Lisa. You feel any better?”

  Lisa didn’t reply. She simply continued to sit oddly upright and stare at Cade with a strange look in her eyes. “Lisa?” Cade asked.

  Ethan twisted around in his seat to look at the silent woman. As Cade looked forward out the windshield again, Lisa lunged forward from her seat, a horribly familiar almost-snarl erupting from her throat. An image of Andrew flashed through Cade’s mind. She started to turn her head, but Lisa’s arm hooked around her throat, stopping the motion. Cade let out a strangled cry as her head was jerked back hard against the headrest of her seat. Lisa’s forearm pressed down against her throat, cutting off her breath.

  Cade instinctively grabbed Lisa’s arm with both hands. She pulled desperately at Lisa’s arm as fingernails dug into the back of her neck. The Jeep swerved violently. Cade was forced to let go of Lisa’s arm with one hand to grab the steering wheel and get the car back in control. Cade managed to wedge her fingers between her throat and Lisa’s arm and push the limb away enough to gasp out, “Ethan, stop her.”

  Ethan sat in the passenger seat, eyes wide, in shock at Lisa’s sudden attack. Cade’s words were all he needed to prompt him into action. Ethan grabbed Lisa’s arm and tried to pull her away from Cade. He pried at her elbow and wrist with both hands and pulled with nearly all his strength. But he was unable to dislodge her grip. Cade opened her mouth and tried to suck air into her lungs as her head swam. She clawed Lisa’s skin as Lisa’s nails dug more firmly into the back of her neck. Cade’s skin broke with a sharp stab of pain.

  Cade took her foot off the gas as Ethan hauled on Lisa’s arm again. The pressure on Cade’s throat eased slightly. Taking the opportunity, Cade slammed both feet down on the brake pedal. Everyone in the car lurched forward. Lisa slammed into the back of Cade’s seat with the action, and her grip loosened enough for Cade to take a single deep, precious breath. Ethan yanked on Lisa’s arm again as her grip loosened, and her arm came away from Cade’s neck with the awful sound of bone snapping. Ethan growled and shoved Lisa into the back seat once more.

  Cade coughed harshly and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. Lisa lunged toward her again as soon as her back hit the seat. Cade punched the gas pedal again to throw Lisa against the back seat more firmly. Lisa caught her balance almost immediately at the faster speed. She grabbed a fistful of Cade’s dark hair and pulled hard. Cade yelped as her head hit the headrest once more, and her eyes watered in pain.

  “Get her the hell off of me!” Cade yelled. Her head tilted backwards with the force of the pressure Lisa put on her neck. Cade fumbled blindly between the seats and tried to locate the handgun she’d stashed in the console earlier. She found it and pointed it awkwardly in Lisa’s general direction. “Get this bitch off of me before I shoot her!”

  Ethan grabbed Lisa’s hands and tried to pull them from Cade’s hair. Cade waved the gun in the woman’s face in an attempt to scare Lisa off of her. It didn’t work, though, and Cade gasped as Lisa hooked her arm back around her neck and squeezed her throat again. The broken bones in Lisa’s arm dug into Cade’s throat. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Cade wondered how the woman could continue to attack her with what would under normal circumstances be an agonizing injury. Ethan snatched the handgun from Cade’s hand and pointed it at Lisa, firing a shot into Lisa’s right shoulder.

  Cade was deafened by the gunshot. She barely heard Lisa’s snarl as the shot loosened her grip on Cade’s throat and threw her back against the seat. Lisa turned her eyes to Ethan and bared her teeth at him. Ethan recoiled against the dashboard. Cade finally managed to get the SUV onto the side of the road, and the Jeep sprayed gravel as she slammed on the brakes. Lisa lurched toward Ethan, and Cade shoved the gear-shift into park and unfastened her seatbelt. She turned to face Lisa, kneeling on the seat, and fumbled for anything she could get her hands on that resembled a weapon.

  Before Cade cou
ld find anything, Ethan raised the gun and pointed it at Lisa. “Back off!” he barked. He aimed the weapon directly at her head. “Sit the fuck down now! That’s an order!”

  “I don’t think she’s going to back off, Ethan,” Cade said. Her voice was hoarse; just talking made her throat hurt. She rubbed at the sore skin and muscles where Lisa had grabbed her and winced at the pain.

  Even as Cade spoke, Lisa proved her right when she dove toward them once more. Ethan grimaced and adjusted his aim before he squeezed the trigger. The bullet slammed directly into Lisa’s forehead and threw her back against the seats. She sprawled there limply and didn’t move.

  Cade covered her ears belatedly as the echo of the second gunshot in the enclosed space of the Jeep magnified itself and made her ears ring. Ethan muttered something under his breath that Cade couldn’t hear. She leaned back against the steering wheel, panting. She felt dizzy, and as Ethan watched Lisa’s body guardedly for any sign of movement, Cade leaned forward to rest her head against the seat.

  “Oh my God, what the fuck,” Cade said breathlessly. “I’ve got to get out of this fucking car.” She pulled on the door handle as bile rose in her throat. She cursed as she found the door locked, and she slapped at the unlock button before she threw the door open and staggered into the fresh air outside.

  Cade’s stomach roiled as she stumbled away from the Jeep. She leaned over and vomited into the tall grass at the side of the road. A car door shut, and a moment later, Ethan was at her side. He rubbed her back soothingly as she coughed and wiped at her eyes.

  “Here,” Ethan said. Cade lifted her head to see him holding one of his t-shirts out to her. She accepted it gratefully and used the hem to wipe her lips, then shoved the stick of gum he handed her into her mouth. “You okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Cade admitted. She chewed the peppermint gum furiously to get the acrid taste of bile out of her mouth. Cade refused to look in the direction of the car; the thought of getting back inside of it made her cringe. “Did we just kill her?”