David’s voice came with a mild shake and a whole lot of effort. “You can leave me behind, Marg. I’m going to die, you know?” His soft eyes didn’t leave her face. Somehow, he’d pulled from whatever had locked him in its grip for the last few days to talk to her. Maybe sitting upright had forced the liquid in his lungs to settle enough he could breathe.
Margie refused to look his way in case he saw her fear that he was right. She scrunched her nose to the side and laughed challengingly. “Don’t be silly. You go where I go until you’re not breathing anymore.”
“Even if it might get you killed?” There was an underlying jaggedness to the consonants as he spoke, like he tried to bite off the words with confidence but it came off as uncertain.
“Even if…” Margie finally glanced at him again. She offered a slight smile. “We only have four hours to go, David. We can get you back to Cady’s. If nothing else, you’ll be comfortable. That’s what matters right now. We’ll be safe.” She glanced at him, smiling, hoping he couldn’t see her fear. “Dying doesn’t matter. It’s how we do it that does and I’m not going to let you die before seeing Cady again. I think you and I both need a hot cup of coffee and a scone. She’ll get us that and then everything will look less bleak.”
She didn’t really believe her lies, but they sounded good.
They didn’t have far to go and she refused to accept that he wouldn’t make it. If nothing else, she at least believed she could get them where she needed them to go. She did not believe that coffee and scones were going to fix anything except the ache in her gut.
Reaching behind them, she pulled the bag partially into the opening between the seats with one hand. She unzipped it and pulled out some rolls from the bag on top. “Here, try eating this. When we stop for gas, I’ll get us some water, too.” If he was talking, he could eat. He needed calories and something in his stomach. “Do you need some medicine?”
He slowly took the roll she offered and lifted it to his mouth. “No. I don’t hurt that much right now.” His statement drew a startled glance from Margie.
If he wasn’t hurting, then something was even worse than she’d assumed. She pushed the gas a little harder until the speed hit fifty-five. She didn’t have to get far.
She could do it.
She had to.
Margie reached over and patted his frail leg. “No matter what you say, David, I’m not leaving you behind. We’re going to face the end together. You’re not going to get out of it.” She grinned as if she wasn’t staring the apocalypse in the face and driving a Volkswagen to get there.
She could do crazy. She’d done worse. Doing the impossible wasn’t hard as long as she had hope. With David alive, she had hope. She could keep going, as long as she believed she was helping him. That’s all she needed. Hope.
In her heart, she silently begged her husband. Hold on, David, for me. I won’t want to live, if you’re not here.
Chapter 19
Cady
Red fliers hung from more doorknobs of homes Cady passed as she drove carefully through town. Nothing stirred on the spring day. She studied the windows as she passed, expecting to see a curtain or a blind moving at the sound of her ATV’s engine, but nothing moved.
The breeze picked up as she almost reached the overpass and the movement of a flier caught her eye. But the door didn’t open and the flier returned to its position as the wind left it alone.
Her ATV putted along like it was a normal day. She didn’t dare leave it anywhere. Someone, if there were any other someones out there, would take it as soon as she turned her back. That wasn’t going to happen.
Cady pulled into the parking lot of the large, newly built grocery store on the east side of the highway in Athol. The store had just had a grand opening only two months before. From the looks of the parking lot, the building could have still been under construction with a stash of tractors and trucks in the corner closest to I95.
Besides two trucks and a small Subaru abandoned on the far side of the lot, no other vehicles were around. The general vacant feel left Cady doubting what she was doing. She didn’t want to steal. She’d thought she had everything.
Scott’s announcement that he was coming back up with a brand-new baby still hadn’t sunk in yet. But the baby was Scott’s family, that made her Cady’s concern as well. She would help her friend and ignore her feelings for him. He was going to get sick and Cady wasn’t dumb enough to ignore that fact or that she was going to get sick as well.
The engine rumblings bounced off the blacktop, off the walls of the store, and then back at her. An echo-effect added to the eeriness of the moment and Cady cast her gaze around the lot more than once in a fast search for danger.
Yanking her gloves off near the open doors, Cady lifted the lid to the small box under the display on the four-wheeler and left the gun inside accessible should she need it. The doors were open.
Why had they been left open? She tilted her head to the side, eyeing the building with suspicion. Either someone had left them open purposely, they wouldn’t close, or someone was inside and had propped the doors open.
She glanced around. The absence of cars near the entrance gave her a small sense of safety, but not enough to climb off the four-wheeler and go inside. After a moment, she took a chance and drove the four-wheeler and the trailer inside.
She didn’t need to leave anything outside. The trailer wasn’t larger than the ATV width and the four-wheeler wasn’t broader than two shopping carts side-by-side.
Daylight worked its way through the warehouse-style ceiling, but not enough to see every detail well. Turning on the headlights, Cady searched for the baby aisle.
If she’d thought the engine had been loud outside, she winced at the increased loudness indoors. The presence of the aisles and other things broke up the sound waves and at least deflected the noise to less of an echo effect.
Cady wasn’t there for anything other than what Scott had asked her for. Taking anything she didn’t need would deprive someone else and she refused to do that. She’d already taken so much from people by not warning them earlier. Cady might not have been able to stop the outbreak, but maybe she could have done something to help even one family, one town, someone.
That guilt would haunt her the rest of her life – no matter how long was left.
She pulled into the aisle marked with baby supplies. Her trailer was enclosed with no top but didn’t go up higher than three feet. She slid from the four-wheeler, grabbing at bags of diapers, no matter what size and carefully stacking them in the most organized way possible. The most order would fit the most items.
The ninety-six cubic feet of her trailer had to hold a lot. At four feet wide by eight feet long, she wouldn’t be able to grab everything in the aisle, but she’d be able to grab a large portion of what she needed.
Formula. After the diapers filled the bottom two feet of the trailer, Cady filled the next layer with formula in powders, at least a hundred cans. She wasn’t sure how much they needed, but she grabbed rice and oat cereal boxes, pluggies, socks, onesies, baby food jars, as well as children’s acetametaphin, and even more items they might need, like teething biscuits and wipes.
She climbed back on the four-wheeler when the trailer was full. Obtaining the most she could for Scott was the least she could do. How soon would he realize that she’d known about this, that she was a part of it, even minutely? He would remember and it would hit him that she’d been apart of the world ending, his parents dying, his sister… everyone he loved.
That could happen at any time and Cady could never deserve his friendship, not now. But at least she could do her best to help him with what he’d requested. She owed him more than that.
Pulling on her gloves, Cady cautiously kept the outside of her gloves away from her skin. Who was she kidding? She was probably already infected. There was no way to know. She was probably being overly cautious and she’d already gotten infected. That wouldn’t surprise her. She’d never been g
reat at the aseptic technique when she’d done lab work. There were too many variables in play and she just wanted to do the work.
She drove the fifteen minutes back to her place, further and further from the empty streets of town whose population was six-hundred-eighty-seven before the sickness had infected them. How many were dead? How many were lying in their beds, begging for relief as she drove by?
Cady wasn’t sure what was scarier – that no one was outside and she hadn’t seen anyone or that she’d been infected and could very soon be in the same situation the residents of the houses was in. Standing beside her running four-wheeler after driving through the open gate, Cady studied the road on either side of her drive.
She would close the gate, shutting in the theft she’d committed as well as the murder she wouldn’t be called in front of a jury for. Her sins would hide with her and she wouldn’t have to answer for them. That, too, left a mark on her that would leave her changed. How would she stick to what was right when the line between right and wrong became more and more blurred and there were fewer people to help monitor the decisions?
No matter how much she watched what she was doing and tried to make sure she was choosing the right, Cady would face more and more moral dilemmas that would come down to what was right and what was right in the moment. Would she be able to make the decisions she needed to make?
She had killed a man, a friend, and at the time, it had seemed the only way. But now, looking back, Cady had to ask herself if Kent would have been stopped with just a bullet in the leg.
She moved to stand at the gate, staring down the road, searching for where she could go. How far could she get if she just drove off into the forest? She could save Bailey the torture of seeing her mother get sick and die. She could abandon the pressures of trying to save Bailey so much.
Cady coughed at a tickle in the back of her throat. Her eyes widened, and she reached back to feel the skin of her neck. No bumps. She couldn’t be sick, not that fast. Her exposure level hadn’t been that long ago. She had to push it off. She hadn’t thought she’d been exposed yet.
Proof that she wasn’t even sure if she was sick or just paranoid. Either was a possibility. Plus, she wasn’t sure what the onset of symptoms presented as. Would she start with a headache? A sore throat? Maybe she’d have a fever or a vomiting to announce her sickness. The possibilities were endless and no one out there was reporting how they started. At least that she knew of.
She’d have to research as much as she could before the internet went down. She had to assume she was exposed. That was a safe assumption.
When Scott returned home, he would be infected. It was only a matter of time.
Getting sick wasn’t a question of if, but when…
Can Cady teach Bailey how to survive? Or will the virus claim everyone she loves in Too Late, book 4 of the 180 Days and Counting… Series. Keep reading for an excerpt!
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***BR Paulson Books***
180 DAYS AND COUNTING… SERIES
No Time, bk 1
Last Chance, bk 2
Hold On, bk 3
Too Late, bk 4
Look Away, bk 5
Find Them, bk6
Try Hard, bk 7
Move On, bk 8
Fit In, bk 9
Death Days, bk 10
Long Gone, bk 11
No More, bk 12
WORTH OF SOULS SERIES
Cost of Survival, bk 1
Exchange Rate, bk 2
Worth of Souls, bk 3
BoxSet books 1 - 3
INTO THE END SERIES
Into the End, bk1
Through the Flames, bk 2
Out of the Ashes, bk 3
BoxSet books 1 - 3
BARELY ALIVE SERIES
Barely Alive, bk 1
Falling Apart, bk 2
Mostly Dead, bk 3
Viral Intent
BoxSet books 1 - 4
MEMOIRS OF A CANNIBAL SERIES
Memoirs of a Cannibal
Cannibal Holiday
Cooking with the Cannibal
Cannibal CookBook
Keeping up with the Cannibals
Copyright © 2017 Bonnie R. Paulson/Captiva Publishing, LLC
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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180 Days and Counting... Series Box Set books 1 - 3 Page 35