“I am immune,” Rose said. It was only three little words, but all three of her captures seemed to be shocked by them. Rose was shocked too. She was taking a huge gamble not knowing much about these people or their plans for her.
“How do you know this?” asked Rene, failing to hide the shock plain on his face.
“I lost people. She-I was bit and I never got sick.” Talking about Kate in this way brought back raw emotion. Rose wanted to continue but couldn't. She opened her mouth to talk but no sound came. She closed her mouth and just sat silently.
Rene seemed to sense the truth in Rose’s emotions and didn't press her any further. “This is my daughter Adeline,” said Rene, motioning to the red headed woman. “She’ll be upstairs and will get you food and water when you need it. I have to speak with the other leaders in town. I’ll be back later, but you must remain here.”
Rene nodded to Aaron and all three went back up the stairs without giving Rose an opportunity to respond. Adeline went first, barely glancing at Rose as she left, followed by Rene and then Aaron. Once all three had reached the top of the stairs, Rose heard the door close and the deadbolt slide back into the locked position. Soon after the lights went out and Rose was plunged into darkness, alone with her thoughts of the past and uncertainties of the future.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rose had eventually fallen asleep in the darkness. She’d dreamt of Kate and their honeymoon to the Florida Keys. They’d been so in love and had so much fun, it was painful for Rose to wake up. As she wiped the sleep from her eyes, she could still hear their wedding song, The Beatles’ “And I love Her” playing softly in her mind.
The morning sun was coming through the windows of the basement and Rose watched once more as the dust motes gently floated through the beams. The house was quiet and she wasn’t sure if anyone was home or not. Rose’s stomach growled as she looked over at the empty plate on the chair. There was no point in actively resisting now, she would just bide her time and once she saw an opportunity to escape, she’d take it.
Rose walked to the stairs and climbed to the top. She was about to knock on the door when she could hear faint music echoing through the house. It was Led Zeppelin’s “Ten Years Gone.” It’d been days since Rose had heard any music, let alone good music like this and she just sat at the top of the stairs, head leaning against the door, listening. It was amazing how music like that could instantly make her relax and let her guard down just a bit. Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” had been playing at a college party she’d been at when Kate introduced herself to Rose. It’d been the perfect storm of a beautiful woman and beautiful music coinciding that had struck Rose like a thunderbolt. After that point, it’d been all about Kate for Rose, no one else had mattered.
As the song wound down, Rose could hear footsteps walking toward the door. Not wanting to provoke the other person by being right behind the door when it was opened, Rose backed down the stairs and waited at the bottom. The lock slid open followed by the door. At the top of the stairs was Adeline. She was holding the door with one hand and had a plate of pancakes and bacon in the other. She was wearing tight lime green short-shorts that were only fractionally bigger than the underwear underneath with a dark grey American Eagle hoodie sweatshirt. Her red hair was no longer in a ponytail but rather was hanging loose around her shoulders framing her face. “Good morning,” she said, surprised to find Rose staring up at her from the bottom of the stairs. “I made you some pancakes, and we had a little left over bacon. My Dad isn’t back yet, but he probably will be soon. Might as well eat.” Her French-Canadian accent wasn’t as thick as her father’s, but still very noticeable. Rose could see Aaron sitting in a chair near the top of the stairs, rifle very noticeably leaning against the chair next to him. He glanced down at Rose before returning his attention to the book in his lap.
“Ok, thanks. Great music, by the way,” said Rose, moving over to the cot as Adeline climbed down the stairs.
Adeline blushed. Her freckled rosy cheeks got that much rosier. “Don’t thank me. We found your cell phone when we searched you and I charged it. I was just listening to some of your music. You have interesting taste.”
“Classic rock. Mostly from the 1970s but I like some stuff from the 60s and 80s as well. That was when music was made with heart and soul and passion. Now it’s just mass-produced,” said Rose, accepting the plate of food. There were no forks or knives so Rose ate with her hands.
“If you say so, but I don’t think there’s going to be any more music for a while,” said Adeline.
“Yeah, good point,” Rose said through a stuffed mouth.
“So you’re from Maine?” asked Adeline, taking a seat in the chair next to Rose’s cot.
“Yeah, I grew up in Bangor, the capital,” said Rose, starting in on the bacon.
“My mother lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. When the outbreak started, she sent me up here. She’s a nurse at a hospital down there,” said Adeline. “Or, was I suppose. I don’t know what happened to her, I haven’t heard from her and she didn’t come here so…” She trailed off, looking at the ground.
Rose didn’t know what to say so she didn’t say anything. Rose placed the plate of pancakes down on the bed and picked up a piece of bacon.
“My parents are divorced,” Adeline continued. “Mom didn’t like living here but I don’t mind it that much. Back before the infection, this wasn’t that big of a town, but it just kinda became the place where everyone in the area decided they’d make a stand. I guess we’ve been lucky.”
Not wanting to talk about the destruction cities or the infection, Rose changed the subject. “I saw you. The other night when you were out patrolling on the road. You and a boy.”
“I figured you probably had. That’s why my Dad had me come with him when we met you. He wanted me to see what I’d let slip by when patrolling. Said I should be paying attention and not ‘flirting with some neighbor boy,’” she said, laughing and making air quotes with her hands. Rose couldn’t help but notice that Adeline’s laugh was so similar to Kate’s. Sweet and slightly high-pitched. The thought made her eyes sting. Rose had lost her appetite.
“He wanted to make it a lesson,” said Adeline, not noticing. “According to Aaron, you were like some kinda commando or something sneaking through the woods. Like he’d know, he’s lived in this town his whole life. But once Dad heard you were a police officer and possibly immune to the infection, I think his plan to scare me straight backfired.”
“So what does he want with me?” Rose asked.
Footsteps upstairs drew Adeline’s attention. “That’s probably him, I’ll let him tell you. Are you done eating?”
Rose nodded and Adeline took the plate with her upstairs. Rose could hear Adeline and her father speaking in French. After a brief conversation, Rose heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. Rose was sitting on the bed still and decided not to stand. Rene exited the stairs, walked over to her, and sat down in the chair.
He was wearing the same clothes as the night before and looked tired. Rose doubted that he’d slept at all the last night. Rene kept his eyes on her and rubbed his beard with his right hand. “I’ve recommended to the other leaders that you not be killed.” Rose’s eyes grew wide, she was shocked and dismayed that had even been an option.
“Based on your background, your experience with the infected, and your unique immunity situation, we’ve decided to let you stay here in the community,” continued Rene. “There were several who didn't want this because they don’t take you at your word. I’ve spoken with you and I do. However, they’ve said that if you’re to stay, you’ll have to be shadowed until we can trust you. What do you say to this?”
Taken aback, Rose was quiet for a few moments. “I didn’t ask to stay, I just want to move on,” said Rose. She didn’t know if she could handle watching another town burn as this one surely would. It was going to be hard enough to escape without the infected around.
“You have your two options. I’ve
persuaded them out of death, the normal penalty for someone entering our town without permission. If you don’t take my option, you’ll get the other,” said Rene. “We are secluded and we are stable. If we allow you to leave, we may not stay that way.”
“If I choose to escape?” said Rose, pressing Rene.
“You will not,” said Rene darkly. He held her gaze for a few seconds but then lightened his expression. “I think you’ll see, once you get out of my basement, that we have a lot to offer here. I’m thinking you may not want to leave once you’ve been here for a little while.”
Rose noded at Rene but said “We’ll see” in her mind.
Chapter 12
Paimpol seemed larger to Rose than it had appeared on the map on her phone. It was also bustling with people. The town itself was about half the size of Green Forks but the population was much greater. Adeline hadn’t been lying when she said that people had come here to make a last stand. The only thing Rose saw that outnumbered the people were the guns. Everyone seemed to be armed to the teeth-except her. Rene hadn’t thought it a good idea for her to have a gun just yet. Rene had also introduced her to her new shadow, Aaron. Rose would be living in a small spare room in Rene’s house, but when she wanted to go out, she had to be accompanied by Aaron and his first task as Rose’s shadow was to give her a tour of the town.
While there was still power, every once in a while Rose would hear music coming from a stereo or she’d see a light on, most appeared to be living mainly without power. It was a strange combination of modern amenities mixed with an early 19th century lifestyle. Paimpol had made an effort to be as self-sufficient as possible. There were fields within the city limits that had been plowed and planted hoping for one last crop before the winter. According to Aaron, it was kind of a long shot as it was so late in the season, but anything they got is more than they’d have had otherwise.
While it was clear that Rene and Aaron wanted Rose to be familiar with the town, the main purpose of Rose’s tour wasn’t the shops and houses in town but their barriers on the outer limits. Rose and Aaron had taken Aaron’s ATV out of the center of town and out to the surrounding outer limits of town. The main road into town that Rose had arrived on bisected the town in a north/south direction and both ends of town had been closed off with large piles of cars. They’d been burned so they’d be nothing more than metal hulks and couldn't be used against them in away way. On either side of the main road and at both ends of the town was a dense forest. This was where Rose had been captured. Rose was told that the forest itself was used as a natural barrier as it wasn’t easy to move through. To bolster this defense, the woods were seeded with grid of landmines. Aaron was impressed that Rose was able to spot and avoid the mines but this is exactly why they had patrols with night vision in the woods. The patrols with night vision would have an advantage over any attackers sneaking through the woods. They worked in teams of three: the person doing the patrol-the loud one, his backup-the silent one, and a spotter-the “ghost” or the unseen one. Aaron, who’d been hunting in these woods all his life, was routinely the “ghost”.
While the north and south sides of town were relatively well protected with the car piles, mines, and patrols, the east and west sides of the town were less protected. While these sides were patrolled by the teams of three, there weren’t enough night vision goggles for all the teams once the north/south teams got their pairs. Defenses on the east and west were considered “lower risk” according to Aaron as there were no roads that extended out of town on these sides. There was also dense forest on both sides as thick as on the northern and southern sides.
Outside of the patrols, the defenses on the east and west sides consisted of walls, about ten feet high, that were lined with either barbed wire, spikes, broken glass, or anything else sharp that could be scavenged. The walls were quite long, over a mile on each side, and were crudely built. Many houses had been torn down for materials and surrounding structures had been scavenged, but it was far from perfect. Aaron and Rose pulled up alongside a particularly shabby section that consisted of little more than crudely supported drywall that had begun to deteriorate due to rain and moisture.
“Sections like these are obviously our biggest weakness,” said Aaron. “The patrols know the really weak spots and come by as often as possible, but there are sometimes hours where there is no one here. Who knows what could happen or what dangers could just sneak in...” Aaron smirked raised an eyebrow at Rose for emphasis.
Despite her dislike for Aaron, Rose ignored the eyebrow, “Yeah I could see how this might be a concern. Do you have infected that have gotten through places like this?”
“One or two-not many,” Aaron said, thinking, “Our main concern isn’t the infected so much on the east and west sides. They’re bordered by lots and lots of woods. Our bigger concern are the uninfected that want to get in and get our stuff or take our town from us. A group could get in here and we may not know until they’re almost in town.”
“So have more patrols? Guards? Go find some better materials for the walls?” suggested Rose, unhelpfully. “ How am I supposed to know?” She wasn’t really sure what Aaron wanted from her and was confused as to why he was showing her stuff like this. Rose was getting annoyed that she was wasting her time sitting out here all alone with Aaron. The tour was dragging on and she couldn't be less interested.
“We’d like to get all of those things but can only work with what we have,” said Aaron with clenched teeth. He was staring at her, looking for something more. It was a warm day and Rose was getting more annoyed with every passing second. Aaron’s accent was, by far, the hardest to comprehend which made the drudgery of the tour that much worse.
“Well how the fuck should I know then?” snapped Rose, now openly annoyed. Rose crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow back at Aaron. Aaron grunted, annoyed and started up the ATV. They drove back into town in silence.
Once back at Rene’s house, Rose immediately went inside, jumping off the ATV before Aaron came to a full stop and not looking back to say goodbye. Entering through the front door, Rose hoped that Adeline was home and they could talk some more, but she was out. Rene was sitting at the dining room table drinking a cup of coffee and reading a book. As Rose entered, he put the book down and called her over. “Rose, please sit. You finished the tour I assume? Did you get a chance to look at our outer walls?”
“Yeah, Aaron took me around and gave me the tour. Some of those walls are pretty sorry looking,” said Rose, most of her annoyance with Aaron and his tour fading away in Rene’s presence.
“I’m glad you noticed. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Rene, eyes again fixed on Rose. Rose took a seat not exactly knowing what Rene meant.
“As you can tell,” Rene continued, “we have a lot of people here to protect and on the north and south sides, we’ve been doing a pretty good job. The east and west sides are the problem. They aren’t defenses, they’re speed bumps for the infected and even less for trespassers. The reason you’re still here is that the leaders in town think that you might be a great asset to us. You were a police officer, you were formally trained with firearms, and you were able to penetrate our strongest defenses with little effort.”
This took Rose aback. She had a feeling that Rene wanted her for something, but she’d not guessed this. She had only been here for a few days and they were already asking her to help out with defenses? “Just yesterday, I was locked in your basement if you recall. Now you want me to help you out?”
“Trust,” said Rene simply, before casually taking a sip of coffee. “It’s all about trust here. We couldn't trust you and that’s why you were in my basement. When speaking to you, I saw something there I could trust. If you can prove yourself to us-prove you can be helpful, then we will trust you more. That’ll mean fewer restrictions on you.” Rene took another sip of his coffee but didn't break his gaze on Rose.
Rose sat back in her chair. “Like I even have a choice in the matter
. You told me that you’d kill me if I left.”
Rene sighed, finally breaking his gaze with Rose. “We put up a tough front here, and don’t get me wrong, trespassers are dealt with severely, but we need skilled people. You saw the people on your tour. Most of those people were the farthest thing from soldiers before the infection. We have some farmers and hunters who have experience with weapons like Aaron and some of the others, but mainly the people out there were teachers, bankers, lawyers, cooks, students. They need people like us, like you and me, to protect them.” Rene took a long drink from his coffee, finishing it. “I was hoping you’d see that in your tour. You’d see the people that need protecting, you’d see our shabby walls, and you’d see that we need your help. You say you were a police officer before, well so was I. I retired from the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as a Superintendent. After I retired, I became the Mayor here and then the infection happened. I saw the need, I helped establish this safe haven, and I need people like you to help me keep it that way.”
Rose was quiet for a long time. This hadn’t been her plan. Staying in a community like this is exactly what she didn't want. People were the enemy and if they weren’t right now, they could easily turn into them with one infected bite. Only by getting away from all people and making her way into the deep woods could she escape the infection. But could she? Would staying here behind mines and walls be a better defense than alone in the woods when the infected come knocking? If Green Forks and Estcourt Station had been any indication, there was no “safe haven.” Eventually the infected would come. But Rene made a tough argument. This is why she’d become a police officer and why she’d pursued this life in college. People needed her to protect them when they couldn’t protect themselves. She could be a hero to those people out there just trying to live their lives and survive behind the town’s defenses. But on the other hand, Rose had also been given a free pass with her immunity. Would she be squandering this gift by wasting her life protecting people that couldn’t even take care of themselves?
Break Away (Jordan Rose Duology Book 1) Page 15