Nodding slowly, Cady looked away from Bailey. She wasn’t surprised that Bailey had denied her mother, called her a liar, said she was wrong. Isn’t that what teenagers did? “I’m not… surprised, but I am hurt. I’m not going to lie to you. Ever. And I understand this is hard for you, but it’s not like I did this. I didn’t create this virus.”
Bailey leaned forward. “But you did, right? I mean, you knew this guy and you said you guys had made plans together over the years. You’re partially to blame for this – whatever this is. Is it even real?” She shrugged and slumped back again. “I don’t know that I believe anymore.”
“Well, I’m not going to take that chance, to be honest.” Cady shook her head and stood, leaning over Bailey with anger coming off her in waves. “Just so we’re clear, until this blows over, you’re not leaving this house. If you make me tie you to your bed with a chain, I will. This isn’t a joke. I don’t care if you believe me or not. I certainly don’t care if your small-minded friends believe me.”
A shadow crossed over Bailey’s eyes, but Cady didn’t care.
A sporadic honking broke through the silence between them. The gate was closed and no one could get through without the key for the lock on the chain.
Cady jerked from Bailey and slid her boots on at the door. She didn’t grab a coat, ignoring the bite of the evening chill as it ate at the bare skin of her arms.
She’d been waiting for a delivery, unsure just how he was going to pull it off.
Long strides took her over the snow-pocked drive and down to the gate. The honking didn’t stop until she stood behind the gate and the driver of a little red car could see her in the beam of the headlights. It was all the way dark yet, but it was working its way there.
A man’s voice called from the window of the car. “There’s a message… hold on.” The sound of paper ripping replaced the insane honking and the man’s voice.
Cady tried to suppress her breathing as she recovered from the mad dash to the gate – over a hundred yards, maybe closer to two and all with a rising panic in her chest.
“The message says you’re supposed to bleach it before you touch it. Wait…” After a moment, the man cursed, then reversed out of her drive. He sped off, not leaving the message behind or any sign that it was everything she needed to know.
She leaned forward, looking on either side of the gate. No package. Had he left the package or had he taken it with him?
Cady gripped her throat, dread choking her breath. The package. She needed that package. The vaccine was in there.
Jackson had promised her a vaccine. She and Bailey could survive this with the vaccine. She had to find that package.
The man wouldn’t have gotten far. She could probably catch him, if she cut across the roads on the state land down the street from her. She reached out, using the post of the gate to help her turn around the end of the gate.
And tripped.
Landing on her hip, hard, she grunted and rolled to the side. She’d missed the brown and green camouflage-colored box. The box wasn’t bigger than a pencil box and it had been slid under the gate in the mud and the grass.
Relief smoothed her panic and she scooted backward from the package. She glanced around, taking in the dimming light and the fact that there might have been more information in that message than just clean it with bleach. If that man returned for the box, there was nothing there to stop him.
Cady didn’t have time to run back to the house and grab bleach. She glanced around again and then yanked her t-shirt off over her head, wrapping the cotton material around the box and lifting the light package into her arms. She ignored the sting of the evening breeze on her bare back and stomach and tromped back to the house. Putting the box wrapped in her shirt on the ground in the middle of the driveway in front of the house, she stepped back.
She held her hands out in front of her and moved to the edge of the porch but didn’t climb the steps to the door. Kicking the edge, she whistled – a loud piercing sound that dragged on for a long few seconds.
Nothing happened. She kicked again, hard and repetitive about ten times, whistling again, harder and sharper.
As she got ready to start a third session, the door opened and Bailey stuck her head out. Her eyes widened at the sight of her mom in her bra and yoga pants and boots. “Mom, what are you doing?” She moved as if to come onto the deck.
Cady yelled. “No! Don’t come out here. Go get me a gallon of bleach, a roll of paper towels, a knife, a bucket, and a sponge.” She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t mess around, Bailey. Just do what I tell you.” She was no longer treating Bailey with kid gloves. There was too much at stake.
Bailey had the state of mind to disappear back inside the house, reappearing moments later with the items Cady asked for.
As she stepped outside, Cady held up her hand further, palm out. “Put everything in the bucket and push it to the end of the porch. You can’t touch anything else. Do you understand? Then you need to get inside and close the door.”
Bailey’s eyes were wide and she nodded as she did as she was told.
Cady half-squatted, retrieving the bucket without touching the porch. She gingerly approached the box, then dumped bleach straight into the bucket she had emptied. Using the sponge, Cady wiped down the box, liberally letting the bleach drip down the sides. Turning it over, she repeated the process on the other side.
She dropped into a tight squat, hunkering down on her haunches without letting her butt hit the wet ground.
Then, using the knife, she cut across the edge corner and pried open the top of the box that had been duct-taped shut and sealed.
Popping open the top flaps, Cady held herself back enough from the box, but she wasn’t sure, if distance would protect her. She pulled out a small Styrofoam cooler that wasn’t bigger than a sandwich bag and an inch thick. The edge of the lid had been taped shut with packaging tape but cool air seeped from the small gap on a corner.
She used the sponge again to wipe down the mini-cooler, pausing at the site of an index card taped onto the inside flap of the box.
Leaning closer with the cooler in her hands, she squinted at the block writing.
One dose – entire vial needed for success. STAY AWAY FROM OINTMENT.
That was it. Nothing else. A vial. One dose. There was only one dose. He had to be wrong. He had to have put more in the box.
Cady slid the sharp edge of the blade along the tape and pried the lid open. Jackson had to be indicating in the card that each vial was one dose. He wouldn’t just send one dose.
Cady couldn’t face that possibility. Not yet.
She swallowed, lifting the lid carefully from its nested position and stared into the box.
Ice packs cradled a single vial with Jackson’s mark on it – a J curled in vines. He’d always loved the New Zealand Tree Nettle plant and the presence was in the artwork with its leaves wrapped around the base of the J.
Only one dose sized vial and a small syringe took up the valuable space in the cooler.
Cady lifted the cooler higher to see in the box, but there was nothing else. No sign of ointment or any other doses.
Jackson had only given her one dose.
He’d said to stay away from the ointment, but hadn’t included any. Had he been mistaken? Maybe this was one box of two or one of three or something. A mistake. It had to be.
That didn’t seem to fit with Jackson’s personality. The man didn’t make mistakes.
She studied the cooler again and its contents. There was no other vial inside, nothing hiding under the ice packs or anywhere else.
She had fourteen days left, two people to save, and only one vial.
The end was getting real.
Chapter 14
Cady
Cady slowly disposed of the items by burning a small fire in the burn pit on the side of the drive. She pulled off her pants and tossed them in, then followed suit with her bra. Her boots would have to be fine with a deep bleach cle
aning. She’d ignored her chilling numbness of the cold on her skin long enough for it to be numb.
She stared at the flames, small as they were. Her stomach hurt with an ache that she didn’t want to face. There was a minute amount of heat, but she didn’t care.
Jackson had left her with one dose.
She wrapped a towel around her, ignoring the muddy, wet corners and edges as they slapped her upper thighs. As the smoke disappeared, Cady turned back to the house.
One dose.
She couldn’t figure out why Jackson would only send one dose. He had to know she needed more than one. He’d looked her up and… Bailey was in everything she posted… No. Wait, she wasn’t. Cady never mentioned who her daughter was on social media. The pictures were always outdated when she did put them, if she put them up. She went out of her way to make sure Bailey wasn’t “known” on Cady’s page because Cady believed she was protecting her daughter.
Instead, she might have made things worse for her.
Cady sighed. She made her way into the house, the vial and syringe wrapped tightly in the other towel. She had to get them into the fridge without letting Bailey see. How would she keep Bailey away from it?
Inside, Bailey stayed back. She eyed Cady suspiciously. “What was that? Why is there a fire out there?” She searched Cady’s hands, blinking at just the towels and bleach bucket in her grasp.
Cady shook her head, struggling to lie. Unable to, she opted to talk around the situation. “We’ll talk about it soon, but right now… I need to figure out how to change my options.” She begged Bailey silently not to ask more.
Opposite her normal personality traits, Bailey didn’t push. She chewed on her lower lip, her eyebrows knit together. “Can I do anything?”
The opening was more than Cady had hoped for. “Can you grab my robe for me? I need to shower and change.” Cady watched Bailey nod and surprisingly disappear up the stairs. After her daughter was out of sight, Cady slipped her boots off and rushed into the kitchen. She’d gotten enough bleach on her hands to feel comfortable touching things in her house.
The presence of the cooler and small ice packet suggested freezing the vial wouldn’t be a bad idea. Cady thrust the towel with the syringe and vial into the freezer, behind the package of soy burgers they’d tried a few months ago and decided they didn’t like. No one had touched it since. That would be the safest place in the world.
She closed the door soundlessly and then continued walking back to the bathroom past the mudroom, shedding the towel and jumping into the shower.
A few moments later, Bailey called out over the spray of the water. “I’m putting your robe on the hook right here. There’s an extra towel hanging there, too. I’m going to put some tea on. You were outside a while.”
Cady leaned on the fiberglass wall of the shower stall and leaned back as the steaming water beat down upon her chest. Heat pricked her still-chilly skin. Tears blurred her vision as hopelessness washed over her.
Jackson had only sent one vial. Was there enough time to get another one? There had to be. She had to have faith that her daughter would be included in survival plans. She needed Bailey to be okay.
There was no other option.
Unwilling to be defeated before anything had even begun, Cady stiffened her spine and scrubbed herself clean. After her shower, she slipped into the office and brought up her email. Clicking compose, Cady took a deep breath and refused to back down. Jackson didn’t scare her. She refused to be cowed by the man.
To Jackson, she wrote the subject line:
Urgent. Please, open.
She paused, narrowing her eyes, before writing in the body of the email.
Jackson.
I have a daughter. I need another vial, please. She’s a teenager. She’s too young to go through this.
Please.
For me.
Cady.
Cady had to hear from him. She had to try everything she could think of.
Fourteen days and she didn’t know what exactly was coming down the shoot.
~~~
Cady tossed and turned all night. Like the Edgar Allen Poe story, the vial seemed to scream at her from the freezer. She kicked the blanket off because she was too warm. Then she pulled it up to her chin and cuddled into the mattress because she was cold. No matter how many times she checked the clock in the moonlight, the time didn’t seem to move.
She checked her email from her phone more than once every few minutes as well. Would he answer her? He had to. She wouldn’t get any other emails. She’d dropped her tutoring students and her mother hated email – which didn’t matter since Margie seemed to be ignoring Cady. Finally, with one leg sticking out from under the blankets and sheets, about four am, she blacked out.
A beep from her phone broke through the fog of sleep. The notification she had an email. Cady had no problem waking up quickly. She snapped her phone toward her face before she’d even opened her eyes.
Jackson had replied without salutations.
It’s too late. I can’t make another. I won’t make another. I already took mine. I’ll repopulate the world with one of you. You choose.
Cady’s hope died, shriveling and drying up as she realized he was serious. One way or another, one of the women in that house had to take the vaccine and survive, waiting for Jackson to show up and take what he wanted.
Or did they? What if Cady took away his choice and never pulled out the vaccine?
She wasn’t sure she would be able to let Bailey suffer. Maybe nothing would happen.
Maybe all of it was a game and Jackson just wanted to see what she would do.
But the tightness in her gut told her she wasn’t wrong in thinking Jackson wasn’t messing around.
Enough. She had to figure out a plan and she had to figure it out fast.
Just because he said he was coming that way didn’t mean they had to lay around and wait like damsels in distress. They had guns and other means to protect themselves. Jackson was a fool, if he thought things were going to be easy for him simply because he demanded it.
If she didn’t split the vaccine, there was only one dose. If the virus was even fifty/fifty deadly, that was more of a chance than she was willing to take with Bailey. But… if she gave Bailey the vaccine, then Cady would most likely die, leaving her daughter alone.
How could she ever choose?
She only had thirteen days to do so.
Chapter 15
Cady
Waking up the next morning, Cady realized she hadn’t slept worth a gram of salt.
One dose was all she had to work with. Okay, she’d have to figure it out. Before they knew about the vaccine, she’d believed they were stuck. She’d planned on staying quarantined until… she wasn’t sure how long. Limiting exposure to other humans had been a big part of the plan, though.
Cady couldn’t tell Scott that there was only one. He didn’t even know there was a vaccine. He had no idea and she didn’t want to tell him. He would want it, or he would want her to take it. She might not tell Scott, but she would have to tell Bailey because they would have to decide together what they were going to do. Of course, she had to include Bailey in the decision. As long as she decided the same thing as Cady, her opinion would count.
Flopping onto her back from her side, Cady straightened her legs on the bed. She held back her distress but just barely.
She had to think logically. As long as Bailey and Cady stayed in the house and didn’t let anyone in or go out past the gate, they wouldn’t be exposed to the virus. Everything was in place. They, honestly, didn’t have anything to worry about. Thanks in part to Jackson’s warnings, Cady and Bailey were prepared to hunker down for a while. Scott, too, had been adequately warned. What he did with the information was up to him.
Either way, Cady would have to let him know that she was extending their hiatus from seeing each other again. She’d learned enough about shooting that she could practice on her own. Plus, she didn’t know if she
wanted him seeing just how much she had in the way of ammunition and arms. Even Zach hadn’t known, and he’d lived there.
Taking a deep breath, Cady stamped down her fear. Realistically, neither of them probably needed to take the vaccine. If Cady was lucky, Jackson would fail magnificently and he would have to slink off into the wild with his tail tucked between his legs.
But Cady wasn’t lucky. Her early widowhood was evident of that.
She pulled her phone back into view. Why hadn’t her mother called her? Not even once?
The end was starting and Cady hadn’t been able to get ahold of Margie or David. She wasn’t sure what to do or how far to push it. She could call the Coast Guard or the cruise ship offices, but she didn’t have which cruise they were on.
She slapped the phone down by her side again and exhaled on a whoosh. Maybe it was for the best they’d left. Cady didn’t want to watch them die as well as Bailey and Scott. Selfishly, she would rather they died elsewhere.
Shaking her head, Cady forced herself to crawl from bed and throw on her robe. Of course, that wasn’t true. She’d rather they were where she could protect them – with or without a vaccine. She ignored the regret swelling up to bring tears to her eyes. Enough with the crying. Just because she was a girl didn’t mean she had to act like one.
Even if the hardest of men would crumble under the pressure she as under, she didn’t need to act like it.
Downstairs, she joined Bailey on the couch, drawing her feet up beneath her rear end.
Bailey turned the page on her book and glanced up at her mom. For a brief moment, Cady could see the woman Bailey would turn into – if she was given the chance. Bailey’s hair fell across her face and she brushed it back. “So… are you going to tell me what happened last night?”
180 Days and Counting... Series Box Set books 1 - 3 Page 17