Exposed

by RJ Crayton

  “I can’t believe that,” Elaan said, her lungs on fire. She leaned forward, trying to take in more air. There didn’t seem to be enough fresh air available.

  A few labored gasps escaped Josh. “We knew it was a risk.” He inhaled a couple more bursts of air and finally said, “Let’s just walk the road a bit. We’ve probably got about an hour more of light. We can figure out a plan for tonight while we walk. I don’t think I want to try another house.”

  Elaan nodded in agreement. “No, not another house.”

  Chapter 15

  Lijah knew that the daytime was his chance to move, his chance to get to Dahinda. Only, he just wanted to stay put. He’d been through a horrible ordeal yesterday, and he wasn’t ready to face the world.

  He’d gone through Willie’s things after shoving him off the train. The boxes contained everything Lijah had needed to know, including small sealed bags labeled with each stop name. The next stop on the route was the one the inspector had mentioned — the one with the change to a new inspector. That guy had never met Willie, so he’d happily accepted the payment Lijah handed him. It had been too simple, and for a moment, Lijah had considered staying on the train, riding it to wherever.

  Only that would have been pushing his luck. He rode on for another half an hour, and jumped from the train as it slowed for a curve. He landed hard, wishing it hadn’t had to be this way and feeling a pang of guilt for how he’d shoved Willie off. After getting off the train, Lijah had walked away from the tracks, toward the woods. He’d been a Boy Scout, so he was familiar with trips into the wilderness. His plan had simply been to make camp for the night and figure out his plan in the morning.

  Once he was deeper into the wooded area, he discovered a small cabin that proved to be empty. Back when the world was normal, it would have been someone’s idea of roughing it. A cabin in the woods, with only a cot and a couple of blankets. No running water or indoor plumbing, a well and a pump for drinking water, and a wood stove that vented through a pipe in the ceiling.

  The cabin was fairly bare. It had a wooden table, two metal folding chairs, the cot and blankets, and an icebox. Inside the few cabinets were a few glasses, plates, and bowls, along with an iron skillet for cooking, but no food.

  Last night, Lijah had eaten a bit of the food he’d packed. He’d woken this morning to get some water from the well, taken a leak, and then crawled back in the bed and pulled up the cover. It was nice here. He could live here. He knew which plants were edible, and maybe he’d be able to trap small game for food. He could stay here for a while and not have problems. Here, he’d be away from people who were sick. He’d be safe here, not having to worry about becoming a carrier. He wouldn’t have to worry about becoming a killer who spread disease everywhere he went.

  And he wouldn’t have to see her. He dreaded the prospect of seeing his mother again. After all this time. After she’d set the lie in motion, the one that had changed his life, the one that had led him to think he needed a vaccine, that he needed to take a risk. All because of her. And then she wasn’t dead. She wasn’t even sick.

  “I’m sorry,” she’d said when she called him. “I wanted you to know that I’m sorry.”

  Everything always had to be about her, her truth, and her wants. She wanted to say she was sorry. Well, maybe he had wanted to think that his mother was dead and there had been good reason to try the experimental vaccine. But she hadn’t thought about his needs, only her own. She had needed to tell him she was sorry when he hadn’t even known she’d done him wrong.

  “If they find out,” she’d said. “You’ll always have a place here with me, where I am.”

  He didn’t want a place with her. He didn’t want anything to do with her. He didn’t have a place with her. Not after her lies.

  He lay there, eyes trained on the ceiling. He wondered whom the cabin belonged to. The owner had probably died in the pandemics, so Lijah could stay here for a while.

  Lijah was trying to convince himself that what he was doing was OK. He’d told his father he would get Elaan to their mother, even though he hadn’t wanted to go himself. He’d told himself that he would take Elaan there, but he wouldn’t stay. But now he was separated from Elaan, and he had to assume that she was safe. That she was still with Josh.

  Josh would get her to Dahinda, to their mother. He trusted Josh. He knew Josh wouldn’t let Elaan down. And so long as Josh was with his sister, he didn’t have to worry. She’d get to their mother without his help. Lijah wouldn’t have to see the woman who’d abandoned him, who’d lied to him, who’d expected too much of him and not enough of herself. He’d be fine, and Elaan would be fine.

  He told himself this was true. He assured himself that he didn’t have to listen to the voice in his head that said he owed it to Elaan to go there. That he owed it to her to show up so she would know he was alright. She hadn’t wanted to leave him on the train, and she was probably worried sick about him. She was probably working furiously to get to their mother’s to meet up with him, and when he didn’t show, she’d assume the worst.

  Lijah shook his head. He was making too much of it. He shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting to just be alone, for wanting to be free. Going out there, trying to get to Dahinda, meant leaving the safety and seclusion here. It meant he could be exposed to sick people. He could become like Dayton, a murderer, a person who went around spreading disease and pestilence.

  Elaan would understand, he told himself. She would understand that he couldn’t keep going when it was dangerous for him. She would understand why he didn’t want to see their mother. She would understand why staying here was the best thing for him.

  Lijah closed his eyes and pulled the blanket over his head. He wasn’t leaving right now. He just wasn’t. Elaan would understand.

  Chapter 16

  Elaan and Josh found an abandoned barn and set up shop for the night. The barn was an odd, random building set a bit off the road. There were no other houses nearby. Just empty fields. It reminded Elaan of the occasional burnt-out building she’d see on their drive to the Outer Banks of North Carolina each summer. Along the side of the two-lane road would just be an old house or a silo, and there’d be nothing else. It was a lonely remnant of some time gone by.

  The wooden building was falling apart, and somewhere in the back of Elaan’s mind, she wondered if it was a good idea to sleep here. There were a few holes in the ceiling, allowing moonlight in. Elaan and Josh hadn’t even had to break in this time. A large hole in the rear wall served as their entry point.

  They’d considered sleeping outside under the stars but had heard the distant rumble of thunder and chose this crumbling building instead.

  Josh set up their blankets on the ground. To save space, they’d packed one of the fleece blankets from the house last night. They also had the blankets from the SPU. The Mylar blankets looked like thin metal, were lightweight and supposedly warmer than regular blankets because they trapped heat. Josh and Elaan planned to lie next to each other, using all the blankets to try to keep warm.

  A week ago, she might have thought the idea of her and Josh alone on a journey romantic. But now she had no such illusions. There was nothing romantic about a cold barn as part of a pit stop for a seven-day walk. She was scared and overwhelmingly anxious. The basics of surviving this trip seemed to trump everything else on her mind.

  “I set us up in the corner here,” Josh called, startling her.

  She turned to see him standing a couple of feet from her and pointing to the southwest corner of the building. The whole barn was probably forty feet by twenty feet, and it had a dirt floor. Josh had laid the blankets down on top of each other. There were no pillows, but it was as cozy as blankets on the ground could look.

  They should have searched for sleeping bags when they’d been at that house. Though she wondered if Josh had tried to find sleeping bags and just not mentioned it because he hadn’t found any.

  “The ground seems to slope just slightly that way,” Jos
h said, as he pointed in the opposite direction of the makeshift bed. “So if it starts to rain, the water should pool away from us.”

  Elaan nodded. She was glad Josh was here. She was glad he thought of things like the slope of the ground and the rain and all the other stuff that would make their journey easier. But even with him there, she felt lost and alone. They had a long way to go, and they had to figure it out all on their own. That was scary. Scarier than she’d ever anticipated.

  “Why don’t we eat dinner, and then get some sleep?” Josh asked.

  “Sure.” She followed Josh to a spot along the middle of the long wall. It was further away from where they slept, and she supposed it was a good idea to spread out and make use of the space. Besides, she didn’t want crumbs to attract vermin to where they were sleeping. Josh had unpacked a can of stew, some granola bars, and bottled water. They sat side by side with their backs to the wall, and dug in. She was actually starving, so she wolfed down her food in a less than ladylike manner, and let out a huge belch after finishing.

  She blushed and said, “Excuse me.”

  Josh laughed and then burped, too. “It’s all good,” he said.

  She smiled. She was quite happy to have eaten, yet she yearned for something else. She wanted something more filling, like a juicy hamburger. She hadn’t eaten a hamburger in ages, but she really wanted one right now.

  “Our rations are good,” Josh said. “I’m glad we decided to bring the extra.”

  Elaan nodded. She didn’t feel like talking. The rations were good, but not so plentiful that she thought she could ask for more. Ten days was a long time. But she wanted more. She wasn’t starving anymore, but she wasn’t full, either.

  “You alright?” Josh asked.

  She nodded, and then he frowned. “I’m fine. I’m just tired. It’s been a long, long day.” Her legs, arms, back, everything ached. Her body had never been a throbbing mass like this before.

  “Yeah, I know,” Josh said, nodding in agreement. “I didn’t think I could ever be this tired. But I am. I was a little afraid I’d fall asleep while talking to you.”

  Elaan half smiled. She couldn’t imagine Josh being anything but attentive while they talked. So, the idea of him falling asleep seemed ludicrous. Yet, maybe he felt just as lost as she did.

  “Do you think we’ll really be able to do this, Josh? I mean, that guy today, he could’ve killed us. And Willie?” She shuddered at the memory of his leering eyes.

  Josh set his hand on Elaan’s. “I know we can do this. We just need to get to your mother, and she’ll be able to help us. She’ll know where the safe places are. She’s been out here for months.”

  “And if there are no safe places?” Elaan asked.

  Josh gently squeezed her hand. “I think there are,” he said. “There have to be.”

  His voice had been firm when he’d spoken. If Josh thought there had to be safe places, then he had to be right. “How far do you think we’ve traveled today?”

  He shrugged. “Probably a little under our target, about twenty miles,” he said. “But that’s still good. We knew it was going to be a long journey.”

  Elaan nodded, though his message was a slap in the gut. They needed to go more than ten times that distance, two hundred and ten miles, and they’d only gone twenty. She’d barely survived one day of this. Could she really do ten more just like it?

  Josh slid an arm around her. “Don’t get down about this. It’s a long way. I know. And I’m just as tired as you are. But we can do this. We’ve got the wagon, the extra supplies, our bravery,” he said with a chuckle. “And most importantly, we’re going to someplace safe. We just have to get there.”

  And what if it wasn’t? What if her mother wasn’t even there? What if she’d died for real or had to flee? What would they do then? She laid her head on Josh’s shoulder. She didn’t dare voice her concerns. She couldn’t. If he really thought about it, thought about the answers to those questions, he might decide he didn’t want to go with her. He might make her go it alone, or demand they try some different journey. She was afraid of what could happen on the journey they expected, but the unknown, a deviation of plan, scared her even more.

  “Thank you, Josh,” she said, nestled beneath his arm. “Thank you for coming with me. I couldn’t do this without you.”

  He gave her a squeeze. “I’m glad to be here with you. We’re going to be OK. We’re going to make it there just fine.”

  Chapter 17

  It must have dropped twenty degrees or more overnight. Elaan awoke feeling as if her face were frozen, even though she was warm and toasty from the collarbone down. Her body was mushed close to Josh’s, wrapped beneath the fleece and Mylar blankets.

  Josh’s arm was around her, adding body heat to the layers of blankets. She smiled, but it faded as she eyed the puddles of water nearby. It had rained overnight.

  It was wet and cold. She hated wet and cold. Wet and warm was OK, but wet and cold. Yeck. She tapped Josh’s arm and said, “Wake up.”

  He stirred, rolling over and pulling the blankets with him. Now exposed to the cold, she sat up, and shivered. Josh startled and opened his eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s cold,” she said.

  Josh sat up, too, the blankets falling away. “You’re right,” he said. He stared at the muddy floor, and then his gaze focused on their backpacks nestled in the wagon. They’d taken a few empty trash bags from the house to use as rain tarps. Thankfully, they’d been put to good use last night, protecting their things.

  “I guess we should put on another layer,” Josh said. “But it should warm up during the day. Usually, the shifts between highs and lows are between fifteen to twenty-five degrees. So, it had to be around sixty-five yesterday, so maybe it dropped to fifty, or the upper forties.”

  Forty degrees was cold. Elaan put on a sweater from her backpack, but she was still cold. She peered out the hole in the side of the barn. It was gray and cloudy outside, like it might rain again. She didn’t want to walk in the rain. Even if they had the makeshift rain tarps, that wouldn’t be fun. But it wasn’t raining at the moment, so maybe it wouldn’t start. She sighed.

  Josh pulled a sweatshirt from the duffel and put it on. “We should eat and get started for the day,” he said.

  She nodded. They ate the PB&J along with granola bars and drank some water. Afterward Josh pulled out a map of Illinois and showed it to Elaan. “I think we’re here,” he said, pointing. “So just inside the Illinois/Indiana border. I’ve been trying to follow main roads, thinking it will be safer. But we’ve run into so few people that I don’t know that it matters. If we check in for signs often enough, I think we can try a shorter path.”

  He pointed to the map, showing a few areas that appeared to be forest, or definitely something off-road. Something that could cut off a few miles of walking. Elaan tipped her head to the wagon. “Will that make it?”

  “We’ll see how far it goes,” he said. “The duffel gets lighter with each stop, so we might be able to just carry it, if the wagon can’t. But it’s a pretty sturdy little thing.”

  Elaan nodded. “Let’s do it,” she said.

  “The key thing is we’ll have to keep on track using just the landscape markers on the map because the smaller roads aren’t labeled. If we get off track, we could end up going way off course.”

  “How far off course?”

  Josh grimaced. “Miles. Maybe add a day to our journey.”

  Not the answer she wanted to hear. “And how much time would we save by going through the woods?”

  “Assuming we do it right, we could kill half a day. We might also see an abandoned car if we get a little bit off the main roads.”

  Elaan bit her lip. Getting there quicker was important. The weather was turning, so the longer it took them to walk, the more cold nights they’d face. A shortcut seemed in order. The downside was bad, but she trusted Josh. She didn’t think he’d steer them off course.

  “You sti
ll want to try it?” he asked tentatively, apparently worried her silence had meant she was second-guessing him.

  It hadn’t. She smiled big at him and said, “Let’s do it. The quicker we get there, the better.”

  * * *

  At first they traveled through dead fields. It smelled of rotting vegetation and the plants were unwieldy, and required more care when walking. The little wagon was pretty sturdy, though, handling the detour with more aplomb than Elaan was mustering. Then they got into the woods, which she realized was worse. Dense trees, undergrowth, spiders and all sorts of insects greeted them. Shouldn’t the bugs be dead from the cold? Ick. She hated it.

  The good news was threefold. First, there appeared to be a path — not an official one, but one that had clearly been used by travelers in the past. Second, the wagon seemed to be holding up alright. And third, Josh felt confident they were going in the right direction. Despite the density of the woods, they could still find the sun in the sky.

  The clouds had dissipated and the sun had come out, making it warmer. They walked at a steady clip, not talking much. It seemed easier to conserve their strength.

  Was her mother really going to be so much of a help that it was worth all this? She wanted to find a little house somewhere and stay there until the world finally settled into normal.

  “I think that’s the edge of the forest up there,” Josh said, picking up his pace. “When we come out, look for a pond to the left. That means we’re in the right spot. We can take a short break, then follow the road.”

  Elaan quickened her pace to catch up with Josh. He was focused on the sunlight ahead, indicating the end to the forest. Elaan just wanted to get out of the moist, cool woodlands and into the open again. Something caught her eye. It was metallic; definitely not a color you found in nature. It was the color of something man-made. Curious, she deviated from the path and walked toward it. The grass had grown high enough to touch her waist. The plants were thick and tangled, but she didn’t care. There was something familiar and important about the glint of color. As she walked toward it, she realized what it was: a bike.