No Man's Land

by Jacqueline Druga

  With all that kindness how could I do it? Even though the experts said she wasn’t my wife, how did I know? What if she just couldn’t control what she did? What if my Leah, my beautiful Leah, was inside that shell of a body crying out, “Calvin please help me. Help me, Calvin”?

  I didn’t sleep the whole night, which wasn’t good. I had to care for the baby, protect him. If I was tired and weak then I wasn’t any good to my son.

  It had been three days since we left our home, at first making lots of miles, then Leah was bitten and we had to stop frequently. The infection didn’t really seem to hit her at all, with the exception of the wound. It didn’t want to heal. She showed no signs and I thought maybe she didn’t get infected at all until she went into labor. That was when the fever started and Leah grew weak.

  Her water had broken and giving birth on the road didn’t seem like an option. We saw the lone house in the distance. The house ended up being filled with Vee and by the time we decided to run back to the car, we were surrounded. The only option was the shed.

  Hours later, after Edward was born, the night was quiet and I just had to wait.

  There was gas in the car, I had siphoned some, it would take us into West Virginia. Things were going to be harder with the baby. I’d have to stop often, stay away from crowds and find a secure spot, because eventually he was going to wail like babies often did.

  I spent the night talking to Edward, telling him I would find him clothes and get him food. I promised him I would do everything I could to protect him. All while talking to him, I kept watching Leah.

  Dawn arrived. I could feel the shift in temperature and smell it in the air. Bag over my shoulder, I swaddled the baby as best as I could and peeked out the open board of the shed.

  A fog had set in; it wasn’t thick, but enough to add a haze. I could see the car about a hundred feet away. The day before we pulled on to the property in a hurry, leaving the car in the front lawn. Holding the baby in my arms, I looked down to Leah.

  “I have to go. I’m sorry. I will always love you.” I closed my eyes tightly, then quietly opened the door.

  I looked from right to left and didn’t see any Vee. Baby in my arms, I hurriedly raced to the car and got there unnoticed.

  The hoard of Vee had moved on, but they weren’t far, I could smell them in the air.

  Edward whined and whimpered a little and it sounded so loud. I opened the car door, tossed in the backpack and slid inside.

  I had to keep him in my arms and drive that way. Once the fog lifted and it was easier to see, I would pull over and find that baby carrier. I would strap him to my chest as I drove.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I told the baby, then pressed my lips to his head. “Shh.” I inserted the key in the ignition and started the car. “It will be—”

  Slam!

  The sound of something suddenly hitting my window caused me to jump. I quickly put the car in drive and readied to slam on the gas, when I saw.

  It was Leah. She was at my side of the car.

  Her hands kept hitting the window, squeaking as her fingers slid down.

  After mouthing, “I’m sorry,” I slowly depressed the gas and pulled out. Carefully, I drove from the lawn to the driveway. I didn’t want to gun it and take a chance of hitting or running over something, damaging our only means of transportation.

  Once I pulled to the street, I sighed in relief. The road seemed free and clear. Then I looked in the rearview mirror. My heart sunk.

  I saw Leah. Her arms, bound at the wrist extended as if reaching out. The sad part was, she wasn’t just standing there, she was following us. Watching us go, staggering along, naked from the waist down from giving birth, trying her best to catch up, as if to say, “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.”

  I deliberately slowed down to see what she would do. Leah didn’t give up. She fell twice, got back up, and continued to try to get us. Even though I knew she was infected, that she was a Vee, it broke my heart to watch.

  I couldn’t go any further.

  I stopped the car.

  Recall

  7 Months Earlier

  Leah rambled that day. In fact, that was typical for her to do when she was nervous or anxious. Leah was on pins and needles. I didn’t know how to ease her mind. I was divided between checking my emails on my phone and listening to her while we sat in the waiting room of the doctor’s office.

  “What if I’m not?” she asked.

  “Then you’re not.”

  “How can you be so insensitive?” she asked. She clutched her purse tight to her lap like a security blanket. Her legs tight together, her knees raised as her feet rested on the floor on her tiptoes. I could feel the vibration next to me when she slightly bounced her legs.

  “I’m not being insensitive,” I said. “I’m not. Just… if you aren’t pregnant nothing I say or do is going to change that fact this very second, will it?”

  “So you don’t think I am?”

  I exhaled in frustration. “I didn’t say that. You should have taken the test at home.”

  “No, what if it said I was and I wasn’t.”

  “Oh my God.” I rested my head back against the wall. “Leah, stop this.”

  “I want to be so bad.”

  “I know.”

  “I just can’t lose another baby, Calvin. I can’t.”

  That made me stop. I understood that because I didn’t want to lose another one either. All the losses were early, but still losses nonetheless. The joy of finding out we were pregnant, then just before we’d hear the heartbeat, she’d miscarry. Three times it had happened and there was still no indication that anything was wrong. The doctors all said there was no reason she couldn't carry one to term.

  There we sat again, waiting to see the doctor. It was the first time we didn’t take one of the ‘pee on a stick’ tests. Leah suspected she was, but wanted to go to the doctor to be sure.

  As odd as it sounded, all the anxiety that was with us that day, it was the last normal morning we would ever have. The last normal morning the world would have.

  Things would forever change. The days of waking up to see the news about global conflicts, arguments about gun control, and people’s rights ended that afternoon. All that gradually became obsolete.

  We as a human race were about to embark on a different fight. A fight for our very existence.

  I don’t think when it happened, we pegged it as the day. But thinking back to that afternoon in the doctor’s office, we witnessed the start.

  “Why is it taking so long?” she asked. “I mean really.”

  “You’re impatient.”

  A nap. I thought maybe if I closed my eyes, time would move faster and I’d be able to block out her constant neurotic talking. I was nervous, too. Wasn’t she even concerned about that?

  Just as I closed my eyes, I heard the female voice ask, “Do you mind?”

  I looked and the office nurse was standing there with a remote. She turned off the ‘I love Lucy’ reruns.

  “I have to see,” she said and changed the channel to the news.

  I sat up. Looked at the screen. A breaking news ribbon ran across the bottom, ‘Riot’s in Atlanta.’

  “What’s going on?” Leah asked.

  “I don’t know,” the nurse said. “It started with a few people attacking each other.”

  “Drugs,” I said. “Must be drugs. Something new. You watch.”

  “I don’t know.” The nurse shook her head. “They say they aren’t even stopping for the police.”

  “Look at all that blood,” Leah commented. “What is this world coming to?”

  It was rhetorical question, I suppose. I mean, how many times had I heard it said in my life?

  Watch a fight…

  What is this world coming to?

  A war breaks out.

  What is this world coming to?

  Leah didn’t expect an answer, probably because she didn’t think there was one. But un
known to us in that room, that day there was finally an answer to that question.

  What is this world coming to?

  Its end.

  Committed

  Edward cried only a little bit. I feared his tiny lungs weren’t developed enough. That was something we learned in prenatal classes. He needed to cry, to scream to push his lung capacity. I felt horrible allowing him to fuss and cry, but there were no doctors, he had to be strong.

  That was a must.

  It was funny looking back to those classes. I imagined years or even months earlier those classes were different. Before the virus the classes probably taught how to prepare for birth, when to go to the hospital, how to recognize danger signs. All those things including nursing and post birth care.

  It changed when we started classes after the outbreak. Sure it included all those things, but by government standards they had to include how to deliver a baby outside a hospital, and how to cut the cord and deal with the placenta. Although Leah handled that portion on her own.

  In class, we learned how to keep the baby warm, how to be proactive about feeding the child should the mother die, and how to humanely take the baby’s life should the child be born infected.

  The joys of parenthood were replaced with fear.

  That was why I wanted to get to Sanctuary City.

  I feared for my son and my ability to care for him. Leah and I barricaded ourselves in our home; we failed to see what was going on in the world around us.

  Yes, we knew about the Vee but we didn’t know about society, because our area was overrun with Vee.

  Sanctuary cities according to rumors were a success, and people left trails of hope along the way.

  Something we didn’t expect.

  I held out hope that we weren’t the only people who waited until the last minute to get to a sanctuary city and as the miles passed us, I saw evidence that there were others.

  Not long after leaving the shed with my newborn son on the front seat, I saw a barn with a message spray painted on it.

  Carver Town. Zee Free Zone. Stop before Sanctuary.

  Like a rest stop sign on the side of the road, that barn gave me a destination.

  Carver Town was about a little over a hundred miles ahead just across the state line.

  I would stop, but would do so at a safe walking distance.

  I didn’t need to stop for me, I needed to stop for Edward.

  If Carver Town was still a stopping point, perhaps there was a doctor or medical person there. I just needed someone to check the baby. To tell me he was going to be okay.

  Joining up with someone wasn’t a priority. In fact, I probably would venture alone, avoid others. Maybe only cross paths when looking for a place to rest or for supplies.

  I couldn’t just drive into a place like Carver Town, especially if there were people there. I couldn’t. Not with Leah in the vehicle.

  I couldn’t leave her.

  The smell of death was a frequent odor that could not be mistaken. All too often it permeated the air and served as a warning that an attack of the Vee was underway.

  A mob smell was what I called it.

  However, I never knew what the fresh smell of death was like until Leah had died. Twelve hours after her passing, she exuded a smell. It wasn’t strong, a hint of sour, but a smell nonetheless I knew would only get worse in the closed in space of a car.

  I likened it to opening a fridge and catching a whiff of something that just wasn’t right.

  Only this time, there was no closing the refrigerator door to stop it.

  It was there, behind me as I drove. Of course, I chose to keep Leah. She kept following us, staggering, reaching out as if to say, “Why are you leaving me?”

  She was my wife, the love of my life and I wasn’t ready to give that up, or her.

  Not yet.

  The tape covered her mouth, her arms were bound and the seat belt kept her in place. The logical part of the brain was dead and undoing the belt in her state was like rocket science. She merely rocked back and forth never once reaching down and unhooking the belt.

  I felt safe and didn’t fear her getting free.

  I had a little over a hundred miles and I would be out of our zone. I wasn’t sure what was ahead, aside from Carver Town. There was no news or radio, nothing. Then again, everyone in our zone was either dead or evacuated. The roadways were barren and the only people I saw were Vees. It would be interesting to see what was in the next area. Maybe life… something.

  A huge ‘Welcome to West Virginia’ sign created an arch on the highway as I entered the northern most part of the state. A mile later spray painted over the ‘Visitor Station One mile’ sign were the words, ‘Sanctuary Info.’

  Another hand-painted sign, this one was blue. It told me people were looking out for each other by leaving signs.

  To me, things were looking brighter.

  Carver Town.

  Sanctuary information.

  I worried that everything and everyone around us had died while we were held up in our house.

  I wished they weren’t exterminating the areas. Whatever that entailed. The Vee would eventually die off and expire. Our home was the best option and we’d had to leave it.

  I debated on pulling over at the visitors’ center until I saw there were no cars, no Vee. I parked out front of the visitor building, reached down and popped open the trunk.

  Gently, I laid Edward on the passenger side floor, looked back at Leah, then opened my door. I peered around, then listened as best as I could for sound.

  It was quiet and the only Vee I could smell was Leah.

  Still, I couldn’t be sure. In a ‘ready to leave’ position, hand holding onto my car door, I called out. “Hello!”

  I waited.

  Nothing.

  “Hello.”

  With a third attempt, I beeped the horn. No Vee emerged, that was a good thing.

  Staying diligent and focused, I hurried to the back of the car, opened the hatch and grabbed a blanket along with the baby carrier. It was one of those cloth things that strapped around your chest. One geared for newborns, it would keep Edward close to my chest, curled up and safe, allowing me to have my hands free.

  Even though I saw no one around, I tossed the blanket over Leah to keep her hidden, figuring the tinted windows aided in that ask as well. I lifted Edward and placed him in the carrier. He squirmed some. Not much, then again, he was only a day old.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “We’re safe.”

  There was no reason to go into the visitor center other than to seek out information. I needed to know what was ahead.

  There were three cars in the parking lot all appearing to have been abandoned a while ago. The doors were open, windows smashed and the interior and paint was smeared with blood.

  Body parts created a trail; they were so decomposed the flies didn’t even show interest in them. I walked slowly to the building. One side of the double doors was open, the glass on the other had been smashed.

  I was confident there were no Vee inside, because they would have come out when I made noise. That wasn’t to say there weren’t any in the area. I wanted to be fast in case they transcended on me.

  A slaughter had taken place in that visitor center. Dried blood painted the walls, pools of it had hardened on the floor. The Vee left very little of their victims, hair, eyes, bones with tendons on them, maybe even a bit of muscle.

  I had a brother who could put a chicken wing in his mouth and pull it out clean. That’s what it reminded me of. Nothing was wasted.

  Other than a human smorgasbord, it was once a place where people holed up. Probably traveling, saw the sanctuary information and stayed for the night. Canned goods and other food items were scattered about on the floor. I spotted a large backpack and lifted it. I would take those items. Even though Leah and I had packed the car, I didn’t know if I would need more.

  I didn’t have time to dally and I looked around.

 
The entire place was nothing but a shrine to surviving.

  On the far wall was a huge map of West Virginia, one of those ‘you are here’ jobs. Next to it was one of the United States. Circled on the map in thick marker were the areas of sanctuary cities. Along with notes on the map.

  Avoid this route. Take this route.

  A string was taped to a marker than dangled on the frame of the map. Written big on the wall was the instruction, ‘Leave info for others that may pass through.’

  People did and they left more.

  John and Cindy Gray were there.

  Melvin Hayes was looking for his daughter.

  Along with factual speculation information about what was ahead.

  Carver Town Vee Free

  Bruceton infected

  Heard I-79 was clear.

  EAS reports highway blocked at mile marker nineteen.

  When I saw that, I looked at the map. A blocked highway wasn’t good. It meant I had to get off the highway either at Bruceton, the infected town, or before and take backroads to get to I-79. My gas situation was still good, but the loop around meant using more fuel. I could still make Carver Town, but there was now a chance I’d have to stop for the night.

  The slight noise from my newborn son reiterated that.

  I embedded the information I needed in my mind, then stuffed that backpack with things I’d need. I especially looked for bottled water. That was important for Edward and feeding him, keeping him clean. I would also check the cars outside for fuel.

  Every little bit helped.

  After I grabbed what I could from the floor, I lifted a map from the holder on the map wall and I walked out of the center.

  As soon as we stepped outside, Edward started to fuss even more.

  I had to change and feed him before I drove any further.

  It was early, not even noon. I had a good six hours to get to Carver town or find a place for the evening.

  It was doable.