The Becoming: Ground Zero

by Jessica Meigs

  “Oh hell, not right now,” Brandt groaned in exasperation. The temptation to step back and just watch was overwhelming, but instead, Brandt helped Remy off the pavement. “You okay?” he called into her ear over the shouting and grunting from the other two men.

  “Yes, but there’s two bastards whose asses I’m seriously about to kick,” Remy snarled, dusting her clothes off. When Brandt caught a glimpse of her face, he firmly believed she could easily carry through with her threat.

  It was at that point that Cade rounded the truck and stepped into the fray, a look of absolute fury on her face. She stormed into the midst of the fight with no regard for her own safety and grabbed Gray by the back of his shirt. She physically hauled him out of the fight and away from Ethan, slinging the younger man into the middle of the road. “What in the nine circles of Hell is going on out here?” Cade asked. She spat the words out, nearly hissing them, but she never once raised her voice. She didn’t need to; her ominous tone was enough to make Brandt cringe inside. Ethan attempted to push past Cade and swing at Gray again, but Cade grabbed Ethan’s jacket and shoved him back against the truck before she slammed her fist firmly into the side of his neck, hard enough to hurt but not so hard as to maim. Ethan dropped to a knee, gasping for breath, and she loomed over him. “Are you two trying to bring the fucking infected down on us? You’re making enough noise that I’m pretty sure they can hear you in fucking Louisiana!”

  Ethan glared at Cade, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. He braced a hand against the truck, his other hand clasped tightly to his neck, and slowly rose to his feet. Brandt didn’t like the look Ethan gave Cade, and he moved up to stand behind her, offering her his silent support and backup, though he was sure she didn’t actually need it.

  “Keep that fucker away from me,” Ethan said, his voice hoarse from the neck punch Cade had given him. He jabbed his finger at Gray to emphasize his point before brushing past everyone and heading to the back of the truck.

  The four who remained exchanged uncertain glances in silence. Gray finally shook his head and walked away, his fists clenched as he turned his back on all of them. He climbed onto the barrier between the highway lanes and sat on top of it, facing away from the truck. Cade looked to Remy, and then her icy blue eyes landed on Brandt.

  “What in the flying pygmy fuck was that all about?” Cade asked Brandt. He raised his eyebrows at the colorful swearing.

  “Ethan. Gray. Remy,” Brandt said simply, nodding in Remy’s direction. The young woman gave him a disgusted look in return, obviously still smarting from the rough shove to the ground, and then turned on her heel and walked briskly to the back of the truck, her back ramrod straight and her shoulders squared.

  “Wait, scratch that. I don’t want to know any grisly details,” Cade said, putting a hand up to stop Brandt before he could elaborate further. She let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t really have time to hear it anyway. We need to get moving.” Cade glanced around them, and her hand dropped to the gun she wore at her hip. “I’m not comfortable staying here any longer. Especially not after all that noise.”

  “I agree,” Brandt said with a short nod. He motioned to the back of the truck, gesturing for the woman to walk ahead of him. “We should all get some food in our stomachs, pack up our shit, and head on.”

  “Where exactly are we heading on to?” Cade asked as they both reached the back of the truck.

  “Luckie Street,” Brandt announced. The others looked up at Brandt questioningly. Avi climbed out of the truck and ran to get Gray. Brandt released the latch on the tailgate and sat down on it, starting to dig through a bag of food they’d managed to salvage from the van.

  “Luckie Street?” Theo repeated once Avi returned, Gray following a few steps behind her. The man appeared to be the very definition of cranky. He climbed into the back of the truck and dropped down beside his brother, shooting Ethan an ugly look over his brother’s head. “What’s on Luckie Street?” Theo asked.

  Brandt cracked open a can of soda and took a long swallow of the hot, bubbly liquid. He was honestly enjoying leaving his companions in suspense as he drank from the can, but the dirty looks he got from Remy, Ethan, and Gray—none of whom was in the mood to be jerked around, it seemed—made Brandt rethink his methods of finding amusement.

  “The Tabernacle,” Brandt answered. He set the can on the tailgate beside him. “More specifically, the Tabernacle as it was commandeered during the initial Michaluk outbreak. It was turned into a base of operations. It used to be a church but was converted into a concert venue. It was perfect for a base, because the windows were already covered for performances, and there are bars on the outsides of the windows too. Most of the entry points are difficult to get through because of fences and steep stairs.”

  “Okay, so how does an old church help us any?” Ethan asked, his voice heavy with irritation. It took everything in Brandt’s considerable willpower to resist reaching over and hitting the man across the back of the head.

  “Because not only did the military install backup generators in the Tabernacle to run the base’s equipment in the event of total power failure, but it also has a radio linked directly to the fucking higher-ups in the United States military—or what’s left of them, anyway—and they could send in a helicopter to pick us the fuck up.”

  “And what makes you think they would be willing to risk the lives of some of their few remaining military guys to rescue seven random people?” Gray snapped. “We’re nobody important enough for a rescue crew.”

  Brandt picked up his drink once more, taking a deep swallow of the warm Coke before he answered. “Just trust me. Once I tell them who I am, they will definitely be coming in after us.”

  A silence fell over the group as Brandt finished off the drink and tossed the can out of the truck. The other six exchanged looks, Cade’s and Ethan’s puzzled, Gray’s and Theo’s confused, and Avi’s a mixture of relief and triumph. Remy simply looked blankly at him, unblinking, and Brandt found the lack of expression in her dark eyes a bit disturbing.

  Finally, Avi spoke up, the look in her blue eyes calculating as she glanced up at Brandt. “What about what I need to do?” she asked. “I still need to go to the CDC.”

  “No, you don’t,” Ethan said immediately. Brandt was secretly relieved to see the older man begin to take charge again. Ethan faced off with Avi and gave her a hard look. “You’re not going anywhere, and neither are we. We’ve already lost a member of our group because of your bullshit. We’re not going any farther than Luckie Street.”

  “But what about my report?” Avi asked. Despite the desperation in her voice, Brandt could see a flicker of eagerness in her expression, one that likely passed unnoticed by most of the members of the group. The disconnect between her words and her expression was strange, and Brandt tilted his head slightly as he tried to figure out what about it bothered him.

  “What about your report?” Ethan shot back, obviously not seeing the look in Avi’s eyes. “Your report is the least of our worries. I’m focused on getting what’s left of us out of this mess alive. You can deal with that shit on your own damned time.” Ethan turned his gaze to Brandt and said, “We’re in your territory now. What do you propose we do?”

  Brandt looked down the cluttered highway thoughtfully. It was hard to decide what the next step should be, because there were a lot of options open to them. The chances of most of them leading to certain death were pretty high, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. He looked to Remy and asked, “Where exactly are we?”

  “On GA-8,” Remy answered, “just over the Georgia state line.”

  Brandt nodded and climbed completely into the truck. He searched through the bags and satchels and other detritus left by the seven of them before he found what he was looking for: the battered and torn maps they’d brought with them from Maplesville. He sat down on the tailgate again and spread the map of Georgia out where he could see it. The others gathered around to see as he s
canned the map. “Okay, so we’re right … where, exactly?”

  Remy pointed to a spot on the map. “We’re here, just past Muscadine, Alabama, and into Georgia.”

  Brandt walked his fingers over the paper and used his knuckles to measure distances, Remy’s slender fingers right behind his, double-checking his figures. “It’s, what, sixty miles from here to Atlanta?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I got too,” Remy agreed.

  “It’ll take at least two days to walk that distance,” Brandt said. “And that’s not including rests and other delays.” He looked at the others even as he began to root in a bag for something to eat. “You think we can handle that?”

  “Wait, we’re walking it?” Theo asked. “We’re actually walking from here to Atlanta?”

  “We’ll have to,” Brandt said. He pointed to the packed highway beyond the truck. “See that mess? It’ll be like that on both sides of the highway of whatever road we happen to be on from here to Atlanta, and likely even past that. It’s impossible to travel by vehicle anywhere in Georgia at this point, with the exception of the routes kept clear for military use. There’s no way we could even get bicycles through all that, assuming we found some suitable for such a long ride.”

  Cade followed Brandt’s finger and nodded slowly, studying the highway with her bright blue eyes. “Yeah, okay. So we need to get our stuff together and head out soon. The less time we stay in one place, the better I’ll feel about all of this.”

  Chapter 32

  The seven set out for Atlanta on foot three hours later. Each carried some form of bag or pack crammed with water, food, weapons, and ammunition, evenly distributed among the seven of them. Cade had her bag slung across her chest; she’d left the duffel bag behind, emptied of all its useful supplies. The bag felt heavier than usual with the extra ammunition in it. The weight didn’t bother her much, though; during her IDF service, she’d been forced to carry much more weight than the burden of the bag on her shoulder now. Brandt looked like he carried more than his fair share of supplies, though, judging by the way his back hunched under the weight of the bag on his shoulders. Cade had been tempted more than once over the past hour the group had been walking to say something to him about it.

  Weapons in hand, they wove between cars, spread out across the road with a row of vehicles between each of them. They proceeded with obvious caution among the vehicles parked haphazardly on the road. Brandt and Cade led the pack several car lengths ahead of the rest, Cade with her rifle clutched tightly in her hands. Brandt too had a rifle; as Cade prepared for the long walk ahead, Brandt had searched the four other military trucks parked along the road block, returning with not only a rifle he was comfortable using but enough ammunition to fill an entire magazine for both himself and Cade. With both of them armed much better than the others, they’d become the leaders of the group by default, and that idea didn’t bother Cade as much as she’d thought it would.

  It bothered Ethan, though. Cade could tell by the scowl on his face every time she looked back at him. Either he was bothered by the idea of giving up his leadership for a short period of time, or he really didn’t like the fact that Gray had decided to follow Remy up her row of cars. Remy seemed completely oblivious to Gray’s presence, though Cade was uncertain whether her ignoring him was intentional or not. Regardless, Gray reminded Cade of a lost dog, and even she was ready to slap him. She didn’t blame Ethan in the slightest for the surliness he directed toward the man.

  Cade resisted the urge to look into the cars as she passed them. The first time she’d done so, it had been the biggest mistake she’d made that day. She’d seen a young child lying in the back seat of a green car, a teddy bear clutched in her desiccated arms. The sight was heart wrenching and brought to mind horrible memories from the initial outbreak in Memphis, memories Cade had worked to bury over and over again during the past year. She’d choked back tears as she moved past the vehicle as quickly as she could. Cade knew she should have been checking out the interiors of the cars, should have been more alert to any dangers lurking inside them. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  “You okay there, Cade?” a voice asked. Cade turned her head and saw Brandt watching her over the hood of an overpacked red Mustang. She raised a questioning eyebrow, and he added, “You look like something is bothering you. More than just the same things bothering everybody else.”

  Cade blew her bangs up off her forehead and shrugged, turning sideways to slide through a particularly narrow gap between two cars. “Yeah, a little,” she admitted. “I just … I saw a kid back there in one of the cars.” She motioned over her shoulder with her thumb.

  Brandt nodded understandingly, resting his rifle against his shoulder as he kept pace with Cade. “It never really gets any easier,” Brandt agreed. His voice was just loud enough for Cade to hear but not so loud as to carry to the others behind them. “I could see a dozen bodies between here and Atlanta, and the sight of every single one will still bother me. Nightmares for fucking weeks.”

  “I think it’s because none of these people should have died,” Cade said quietly, her boot heels crunching over shattered glass as she skirted a broken suitcase abandoned on the highway. “Not like they did. Not so horribly or violently. Or so young.” She referred to the child in the vehicle long behind them, but something in her voice hinted that she might have been thinking of another child. Brandt nodded slowly, and a heavy silence fell between them again. It was unnerving, and Cade thought about saying something, anything, to break it. Before she could speak up, though, Remy’s voice called up from behind them.

  “Hey, Brandt! Why can’t you just blow these cars to kingdom come and clear us a path or something?” Remy said. “I’m tired of getting punched in the ribs by side mirrors!”

  Cade stifled a laugh and shook her head, turning to walk backwards for a moment. “Remy, don’t give him any ideas,” she warned the younger woman, finding her dark hair over the tops of the cars. “We’ll end up in little bits all over the road if you get his brain going!”

  “It’d be better than all this walking,” Theo grumbled. “My feet are already killing me.”

  “That’s because you’re not used to it,” Brandt said almost cheerfully as Cade turned back around. “Give it a little more time and you’ll toughen up just fine.”

  “I don’t want to toughen up,” Theo complained. “I think I’d rather be somewhere comfortable and warm that doesn’t involve walking.”

  Brandt let out a long sigh and made a point of examining his watch. Then he pulled the road map out of his pocket and studied it for a moment. “We’ve been going for about four hours. We’ve traveled roughly, what, twelve miles? I think we’re okay for a rest when we reach Bremen. It’ll be easier to find shelter for the night there. We can find a house on the outskirts of the city, rest, and set out again in the morning. Sound good?”

  “I think I can live with that,” Theo agreed.

  Cade looked back at Ethan. The older man didn’t seem pleased at the prospect of stopping so soon. She guessed Ethan was ready to get to Atlanta, find Luckie Street, and try for the help Brandt had promised would come for them. Maybe Ethan wanted it all to be over with already. Truth be told, Cade did too, despite her doubts that the promised help would actually show. Cade would have loved nothing more than to be somewhere other than where she was at that moment. But they’d never make it to Atlanta and never have a hope of being rescued if the seven of them exhausted themselves walking more than they could physically handle in one day.

  Cade nodded her assent to Brandt, and the man gave her a smile. “Come on, let’s go find us some beds for the night,” he said as he tucked the map back into his pocket. “I’m ready to fall over and get some sleep myself.”

  Crossing Highway 27 went largely without incident, save for a heart-stopping moment when Cade thought she saw something move inside one of the cars and had to fight to not open fire in that direction with her rifle. As with Gray, being outdoors like
this was beginning to give Cade an itchy trigger finger. To combat this, she kept her finger off the trigger so she wouldn’t accidentally shoot one of her friends. The last thing they needed was to cope with one of them suffering a gunshot wound.

  They covered another mile and a half before they found a suitable house to hide out in. The windows were already boarded up, and the house gave off an aura of abandonment. The yard was overgrown—as most were these days—and everything was dark and quiet. Cade thought that no one had been in the neighborhood in quite some time. Despite the thought, there was something about the house that bothered her, though she couldn’t be sure exactly what it was. She pushed the thoughts aside, figuring it was just her overly active imagination, and looked to Brandt, giving him a slight smile.

  “You want to go in first, or should I?” she asked, lifting her rifle and switching the safety off.

  “We should go in at the same time,” Brandt decided. “You go through the back. I’ll take the front door, and we’ll meet somewhere in the middle, okay?”

  “Showoff,” Cade teased. She headed for the side of the house, pausing at the corner and lifting her rifle to her shoulder in a firing position. She glanced back at her friends; they stood in the center of the street, their own weapons out in case they were attacked while she and Brandt cleared the place. None looked particularly comfortable at the idea of just standing around while Brandt and Cade played commando, but it couldn’t be helped. Cade let out a steadying breath and eased around the corner, keeping her rifle up as she slid out of sight of the others, heading toward the back door.

  Cade pressed against the door and cleared the back yard with a sweep of her rifle. Then she fumbled behind herself, grasping the doorknob and turning it. It was locked, as she’d expected. She took a step back and contemplated her options. She could break a window, but the majority of the windows were boarded over, and she’d accomplish nothing except potential personal injury and a lot of noise. She double-checked the back yard and then lowered her rifle and started to search through her bag.