The Becoming

by Jessica Meigs

  Brandt studied Ethan for a few silent minutes. “You’re going to need a lot to get you there. Food, water, weapons. We’ve got some to spare to start you off with, but you’d do better to collect what you can on the road.”

  Ethan breathed out slowly and stood. He moved toward the kitchen door, but he paused halfway across the room and turned on his heel to look back at Brandt. “I’m glad you understand,” he said. “Cade didn’t take the idea so well. She doesn’t want me to go.”

  “Truth be told, I don’t want you to either,” Brandt admitted. “We need you here, for additional security if nothing else. Things are going to get more complicated with you gone. But at the same time, I understand why you feel you need to go. Cade will come around, I think, especially if you explain to her that you’re coming back. Which you will be, or I’ll track your ass down and kick it across the state of Tennessee.” He said it matter-of-factly, and Ethan didn’t doubt he would do it.

  Ethan stifled a laugh at Brandt’s words. He moved to the door and pushed it open to return to the living room, Brandt right on his heels. Theo and Gray still sat in the dim room; Theo had moved to sit on the coffee table beside his brother, and Gray remained hunched on the edge of it. Gray looked a fair bit healthier; he didn’t appear as pale and stressed as he had when he’d first come in, and his breathing had become easier.

  As Ethan took a moment to look at both of the men, he realized that his initial gut reaction when confronted with their presences had been completely unwarranted. Brandt was right. These two could serve some use to them, especially Theo. Ethan knew that he would feel better about leaving Cade and Brandt if he left them in the presence of medical personnel.

  “So,” Ethan started casually. He shoved both of his hands in his pockets and observed the two men. The older one looked up from his quiet contemplation of the floorboards; the younger one didn’t move or speak as Ethan continued. “What can you two do for me?”

  “I would think it would be obvious,” Theo said. He motioned to the heavy blue bag at his feet, its pockets bulging with medical supplies.

  “Yeah, for you,” Ethan said. “What about him?” He nodded his head toward Gray, and for the first time, Gray tore his eyes away from the space on the wall that he’d been studying intently.

  “I’m more useful than you think,” Gray said testily as he reached for Theo’s bag. Ethan tensed as Gray plunged a hand inside, but when the younger man only pulled out a book with a soft leather cover, Ethan forced himself to relax. It took him a moment to realize that the book was a Bible, and it was stuffed to overflowing with computer printouts. Ethan took a step closer and pulled his hands out of his pockets as Gray started to pull the sheaves of paper out of the book.

  “What are those?” Ethan asked, moving to kneel beside Gray as his curiosity overcame his standoffish façade.

  “Maps,” Gray said. He stood and spread the papers out on the coffee table where he’d been sitting. “We printed it all out from the Internet before it went down. Basically, each sheet is roughly five square miles of the city of Tupelo and the surrounding areas.” He took a red marker out of his back pocket and held it up. “We’ve had to move a lot, so we’ve seen quite a few of the areas that are totally congested,” Gray explained. He dropped his finger down onto one of the papers, pointing to a street that had been colored in completely with the red marker; there were some notes scribbled beside it in small print. “Perfect example. This street. It’s a no-go. There’s a pileup of wrecked cars blocking most of it, so it bottlenecks halfway down. Perfect place to get ambushed. On top of that, it’s crawling with the infected. You go through there, you’re almost guaranteed a death sentence.”

  Ethan watched Gray for a moment. He had his doubts as to how Gray and Theo had managed to collect all of this information, but the look in Gray’s eyes spoke of total sincerity. Ethan sighed and addressed Brandt. “Go get these guys some food, okay? We’ve obviously got some talking to do here, and both of them look half starved.”

  Theo and Gray both gave Ethan grateful looks, and Gray continued as Brandt left the room. “Most of this comes from either our own experiences out on the street or from the radio. Theo found a battery-operated ham radio, and there are still a few people out there exchanging some useful information over them. Not very often, just once a day around eight in the evening. I would just turn the radio on and sit and listen and write it all down.” He took another book out of Theo’s bag, this one a thick journal-like tome, and handed it to Ethan. Ethan flipped the hard black cover open and discovered that it was full of tight, carefully printed handwriting; the words outlined every area where travel difficulties and high concentrations of infected could be found from their present location in Tupelo to as far west as the border between Louisiana and Texas and as far east as North Carolina. Ethan was impressed at the thoroughness of the information collected.

  As Ethan browsed through the book, Brandt came back into the living room with two wrapped sandwiches and a couple of bottles of water. “I hope neither of you is vegetarian, because these sandwiches are loaded with meat,” Brandt said as he passed the food out. “It’s canned meat, and we don’t have much left, but we’re trying to keep a healthy balance of food in our diets.”

  Gray tore the wrapper off his sandwich, taking a big bite. Theo was more reserved as he twisted the cap off his bottle and took a swallow, giving Brandt and Ethan both a nod of thanks.

  “It’s fine,” Theo assured Brandt as he neatly unwrapped his sandwich. He examined it for a moment before he took a cautious bite.

  As Ethan turned his eyes back to Gray’s papers and maps, Gray spoke again, his mouth still full of bread and meat. “Have you seen those things?” he asked. “I mean, have you really watched them?”

  “I have, some,” Brandt spoke up. He moved to sit heavily in the dining chair he’d vacated earlier and ran a hand over his face. Ethan noticed that Brandt didn’t volunteer information on how he’d watched them. “But our policy has been more of the ‘avoid at all costs’ variety, so we haven’t exactly studied them in detail.”

  “You’re not going to be able to avoid them forever,” Gray said quickly. He paused to swallow the mouthful of food before he continued. “How many times have you guys had to move now? Three? Four?”

  Ethan looked up from the notes he’d been reading on the margins of one of the maps. “This is our third place here in Mississippi.”

  “I figured as much,” Gray said. His voice was confident. “How many of those times have you had to move because one of you went out for supplies, got spotted by one, and then next thing you knew, you had an entire horde on you by sundown?”

  Brandt and Ethan both fell silent. Ethan turned his head to look at Brandt, only to discover that Brandt was already looking right back at him. Every one of Gray’s suppositions had been spot on. Every time they had had to move in the past month, it was because of a scenario exactly like the one Gray had described.

  “It’s because they’re hunters,” Gray continued. He took a deep swallow of his water and set the bottle on the floor beside him. “They don’t just wander around, see an uninfected person by chance, and think, ‘Mmm, lunch.’ They have scouts. And those scouts go out and look for signs of you. And when they see those signs, they hunt you down. And when they find you, they don’t attack. They just disappear. Because they go back to the other infected and lead them to your location, and that’s when you have a problem with a horde of them knocking on your door.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible!” Ethan protested. “I mean, I’ve never seen—”

  “You just admitted a few minutes ago that you’ve spent the past month not seeing,” Theo interrupted. “I’m not surprised that you haven’t noticed it. But trust us, that is exactly what they’re doing. We’ve seen them do it too many times for it to be a coincidence. We’re absolutely certain of this. They strategize.”

  “They plan their attacks,” Gray added almost enthusiastically. “I’m not sur
e how. I’m not even sure how they communicate, because I’ve never heard any of the bastards talk. But they do communicate somehow, and then they find you and surround the house you’re hiding in. They coordinate and concentrate their efforts at every exit and window so you can’t get out. And then they just …” He trailed off and waved his hand, at a loss for words. “Come in,” he finished lamely.

  The four men fell silent at Gray’s final words. Ethan stood up from his spot by the coffee table and bowed his head in thought. The information was a lot for Ethan to take in, a lot for him to process. And the thought of the infected being capable of hunting, of tracking and coordinating and attacking together … frankly, it was terrifying. He’d never really looked at the infected as intelligent enough to do something of that nature; to him, they had always seemed to be mindless killing machines. To learn otherwise went against everything of which he’d convinced himself over the past month.

  He didn’t think he was going to get very much sleep that night.

  “It makes sense,” Brandt acknowledged, breaking the silence. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair and refused to look at any of them, instead keeping his dark eyes on the floor. “The whole idea of the scouts. Especially after what Cade …” He trailed off, much to Ethan’s annoyance.

  “After Cade what?” Ethan gritted his teeth in frustration, trying to contain his irritation.

  “After what Cade started to tell me when we were getting these two inside.” He motioned toward Theo and Gray. “I didn’t have time to dig for details, because there were infected out there. But she started to say something about how she only saw one of the infected, that it was hiding from her so she couldn’t take it out or anything. It didn’t make much sense to me then, but …” He shrugged. “There you have it.”

  Ethan looked up at the ceiling as Brandt’s words settled over them. A soft thump sounded from somewhere upstairs, and he hummed thoughtfully as he shifted his eyes from the ceiling to the staircase. “Should we go get her?” he asked Brandt. “She might need to know this.”

  “No, leave her,” Brandt replied with a quick shake of his head. “She’ll come down when she’s ready. As pissed off as she was, we might not see her for the rest of the day.”

  The silence descended again, and it lasted for several more minutes before someone spoke up to break it. “So, what’s the plan?” Theo asked.

  Ethan looked at him, startled from his thoughts. “Plan?”

  “Well, you’ve been spotted by one of the infected,” Gray broke in. “You can’t expect to be able to stay here much longer, you know? Hell, I’d say you’d best get out of here no later than tomorrow morning. So what’s the plan? What are we going to do?”

  Ethan hesitated and looked to Brandt for guidance. The question was one he hadn’t expected to have put to him, and he was far from prepared to answer it. Brandt shrugged as he caught Ethan’s eyes, holding his hands out to his sides again. Ethan shoved his own hands back into his pockets. “I’m not sure,” he finally admitted. “I mean, I know what my plans are, but as for you four … I don’t know.”

  Theo’s eyebrow rose in question. “Your plans?”

  Ethan wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Theo and Gray what plan he had up his sleeve. But there was really no sense in hiding it. They would find out soon enough. “I … have to go back to Memphis,” he said. “Personal business.” The two words came out feebly, like he hadn’t convinced himself of the importance of it yet.

  Ethan shifted from one foot to the other as Theo and Gray exchanged a look, their expressions clearly stating that they believed Ethan was absolutely insane. Ethan tried to brush it off as the sound of pacing began again upstairs, the floorboards in the old house creaking under Cade’s boots. The sound was followed a moment later by a noise that sounded suspiciously like something crashing against a wall. All four of the men looked up at the ceiling once more in concern.

  “She’s getting mad again,” Brandt said.

  “And making too much noise,” Gray added.

  Brandt stood, moving his chair back against the wall where they usually kept it. “I’ll go up and tell her to keep it down before she draws the infected down on us.”

  “Shouldn’t I go?” Ethan asked as he took a step toward the stairs.

  Brandt reached out and caught Ethan by the arm. “No, she’ll probably shoot you if you show your face upstairs right now. Better for me to go instead of you.” He dropped his voice as he added, “Besides, don’t you have some packing to do?”

  Ethan hesitated as Brandt stared at him pointedly. Ethan had half a mind to object, but deep inside, he knew that Brandt was right. Cade was angry enough with him that there was no telling what she would do if he went upstairs and knocked on her door. Brandt must have seen the acknowledgement in Ethan’s face, because he gave Ethan a short nod and headed upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. Once he was gone, Ethan turned back to Theo and Gray.

  “Sorry,” Ethan said with an apologetic frown. “Things have been a little … tense here lately.”

  “That’s not an understatement or anything,” Gray muttered with a roll of his eyes as he sat up and began to tuck his printed maps back into his Bible.

  Chapter 16

  Cade didn’t care how much noise she was making. She had become the very definition of angry. She wasn’t sure who she was more angry at—Ethan, for proposing such an idiotic idea as to go back to Memphis alone, or herself, for not having the backbone either to truly stand up to him or to go with him.

  It was an asinine idea. Going back into Memphis was bad enough. After their arrival in Mississippi, the three of them had witnessed the footage of the city’s fall on the limited television that had still been available. At the time, Brandt had even gone so far as to say that he would have ranked it just behind Atlanta in how badly it had caved to the infected. And Ethan wanted to go back there? Just to try to find someone who was most likely not even alive anymore?

  Cade wasn’t going to lie to herself; she had no desire to go back into Memphis, with or without Ethan. Nothing would drag her there, no matter how hard it pulled; the thought of going back into the city, the neighborhood, the house where Andrew and Josie had died was enough to deter her from ever stepping foot in the area again.

  Cade still had no idea if the virus had gone worldwide, if her sister was still breathing in Israel, still waiting for word on where Cade and Josie were. Cade hadn’t been able to get in touch with her before the phone lines went down. She had been forced to resign herself to the fact that Lindsey was likely unreachable. She had been forced to assume that no information meant Lindsey was probably no longer alive to give that information—just like Anna.

  A thump on the closed bedroom door startled Cade from her thoughts and drew her attention out of her mind and back to the present. She moved toward the door, casting a baleful glance at the shattered drinking glass resting at the baseboard. It didn’t take more than a second to unlock the door, and when she opened it, the expectant scowl on her face melted away in surprise when she realized that it was Brandt.

  “What do you want?” Cade bit out before she could stop herself. She managed not to cringe as she realized how angry it sounded.

  Brandt showed no surprise at her blatant display of rudeness. “Uh, hi? The guys downstairs think you’re being a bit too loud up here, and honestly, I’m in agreement with them. So could you please drop the noise to about a four?”

  Cade sighed and turned away from the door, leaving it open so Brandt could come inside if he so desired. “He’s just so stupid!” she exclaimed, clenching her fists for a moment. She didn’t even bother to turn to see if Brandt was still standing there. “What in the hell does he think it’s going to accomplish?”

  “Peace of mind. Closure. Whatever it is they call it.” Brandt’s boots thumped on the floor as he came into the room; he paused to look at the broken glass by the door. “It’s just something he feels like he has to do.”

  “Doesn’t mean that
I have to like it,” Cade muttered. She pushed her ponytail back off her neck and plopped down onto the edge of the bed. “I thought he’d change his mind if I told him I wouldn’t go with him,” she admitted. “Turned out that he didn’t want me to go with him anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Brandt said, his voice hoarse. He walked across the room to look out the window.

  “You don’t actually condone him going, do you?”

  “No, but there’s really nothing I or anyone else can do to stop him either, is there?” Brandt said softly. “He’s a grown man. He makes his own decisions.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like those decisions,” Cade repeated.

  “Hey, I’m not saying I like it either,” Brandt said. “From a practical standpoint, it’s going to put a crimp in the whole security aspect of things. But from a personal standpoint, well, I’ve kind of started to like the cranky bastard, and I don’t really want him to leave. I mean, who’s going to help me keep you in line when he’s gone?”

  Cade nearly laughed despite her annoyance. “Hey, who said I needed to be kept in line? I can handle myself just fine, thank you.”

  Brandt finally turned to look at Cade, concern in his dark eyes. Her smirk faded as she looked back at him. “Are you okay with this? With sticking with me and a couple of other guys you barely know?”

  Cade mulled over Brandt’s question. She had several options: she could stay with the three men for the protection they offered, if nothing else; she could follow Ethan once he had departed and perhaps offer him some additional support and backup; or she could strike out on her own, though she knew instinctually that that would most likely lead to her own death. Deep in her heart, though, she knew that it was no contest. She would stick with her personal plan of safety in numbers, even if it meant allowing her best friend to leave for untold dangers alone.