Alive Again | Book 1

by Piperbrook, T. W.

  Returning to the discussion we started, I ask, “This Outpost. Is it a military base?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Explaining, I say, “We saw a pile of bodies behind some bleachers where I woke up. They looked like they’d been dead a while. Sarah and Ian told me the military took care of them.”

  “The military can’t be trusted,” Cody warns.

  “What do you mean?”

  “With so many people dead, the old hierarchies are gone. They told me we have to watch out for almost everyone.”

  I blow a nervous breath.

  “The old rules don’t apply out here.” Cody’s eyes flicker with fright. “Or at least, that’s what they warned. Too many people only care about their own survival. They’ll lie and cheat and steal to get what they want. There are too many who would do us harm. They said we’d have to be careful on the way back to the Outpost. We were supposed to head back in a day or so; I just wish I knew where it was.” Cody wrings his hands in frustration.

  Thoughts cascade through my head. Bits and pieces of what Sarah and Ian told me come back. “Ian and Sarah mentioned something about a vaccine…”

  Cody looks worried. “They told me that, too.”

  “It sounds like they were able to bring us back, but we still need more shots.”

  One of the stricken dashes across a lawn and toward us, snarling in frustration.

  “If we don’t get the vaccine, does that mean we can still get infected?” I ask, steering past the running monster.

  A new fear surfaces in Cody’s face. “That might not be all it means.”

  A grave feeling settles in my stomach.

  “We need to get to the Outpost to get that vaccine, and those boosters,” Cody resolves. “But with no radio, and no idea of its direction, how will we ever find it?”

  My worry deepens. We might be saved for now, but we’re not immune. And the lack of shots could mean something worse.

  Something in the road rips away our attention. Clutching the wheel, I let my foot off the gas. We’ve just steered around a curve; a small bridge overlooks a highway in the distance. Cars clutter up the overpass in all directions, crashed into one another. Bumpers hang off; tires are flattened. A few monsters weave through the wreckage, picking through the old bones of the dead. Rolling up on the blocked bridge, I see no way through. I pull to a stop, just as some of the infected take notice and look over at us.

  “Dammit,” Cody swears. “This isn’t good.”

  8

  Impasse

  I pull the white bus to a stop, facing the impenetrable barrier. The cars on the bridge are old and wrecked—whatever happened here occurred a while ago. Maybe even a year or more, I think in disbelief. Dings and dents pucker the metal. Doors hang open, exposing the mangled vehicles to the elements. Tall barrier fences rise above the bridge on either side, snaked with ivy and rusted at the top. Wandering out from behind one of the cars, one of the stricken spots the bus and runs, jaw snapping open and shut. Another infected ducks out of a car, following his observant companion. Their running feet draw the attention of more monsters, who squeeze through the twisted metal at the middle of the bridge, forming a small but menacing gang.

  Cranking a thumb behind us, Cody says, “I saw a side street a little way back. Maybe we can take it.”

  I let off the brake, taking a wide turn on the edge of someone’s lawn, certain that an angry homeowner will come out and shake an annoyed fist. Of course, that doesn’t happen. The rules of the road are lost, along with the rest of humanity’s little conceits. Successfully completing the turn, I screech off in the opposite direction, scouring the road for the turnoff.

  “There it is,” Cody points out.

  I follow his direction, catching the name of the street on the way in. Bentwood Road. The name means nothing to me. Vehicles and garbage litter the overgrown lawns and the road. A long, green hose extends from a house to the street.

  “None of the water works anymore.” Cody solidifies my guess. “The electricity’s gone, too, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  I nod. “I saw the dead streetlights.”

  “According to Sarah and Ian, things changed quickly when the virus first spread,” Cody shares. “Lots of people grew violent, insane, like we’ve seen. And lots more just died. Those who didn’t contract the virus had trouble finding the resources to live. With support systems down, and the infected hunting them, supplies got harder and harder to collect. There were no trucks to restock the stores, and all the fresh produce went bad. Of course, there weren’t enough people left to get things up and running again. Ian and Sarah said they mostly relied on bottles of water and cans of food these days, while they were out on their missions.”

  Missions to save people like us, I think gloomily.

  A wavering needle catches my attention. The gas supply hovers at a half tank. Noticing my gaze, Cody motions toward the back of the bus.

  “We’ve got a spare can of diesel in back. It lasts longer than regular gas, most of which has gone bad. That’s why they use this bus.”

  Before I can ask another question, Cody points out the window.

  “I think I recognize where we are.”

  “You do?”

  “I came this way with Ian and Sarah.” He furrows his brow, sifting through his memories. “I might be able to find my way back to where we were. Though, I’m not sure how helpful that would be.”

  “You said you were in Bloomfield?”

  “Yeah, but things were even worse there.” Frustrated, he shakes his head and goes quiet again. “I guess that idea wouldn’t be so hot, after all.”

  I return to my previous questioning. “What else did you see on the way here?”

  “I’ve only been with them for a few days,” Cody reiterates. “The first night after they woke me up, we stayed in a large field behind some barns. After that, we drove here to West Hartford, looking for more people to help. Ian wanted to head back to the Outpost after they found me, but Sarah wanted to stay out for one more day. Something about resources and multiple trips.”

  I bite my lip. It made sense.

  I look over at Cody. Whether it’s his age, or the way that he’s standing beside me, I think of my brother. But Cody is a little taller, and cute, if a bit scruffy. Jared is just Jared.

  Without warning, I choke up, pulling the bus over at the side of the road. The right tires scrape alongside the curb. And then the vehicle is still.

  “What are you doing?” Cody asks, scanning in all directions.

  I look away, embarrassed and at a loss for words.

  To our left, a tree lays fallen across the yard—remnants of an old storm, perhaps. To the right, a garage door hangs crookedly on the tracks, exposing the empty bay. A reality I’ve had little time to process comes out in unexpected tears, and I blot my face.

  “Hannah? Are you all right?”

  Rather than answering, I avert my eyes, quickly drying my face.

  “I’m sorry.” Cody shifts awkwardly in the seat behind me.

  For a few moments, I struggle to calm myself, feeling guilty for my display of emotion. I refuse to look at this young man I’ve just met. He’s going through the same things that I am—I don’t need his sympathy or his pity. The seat creaks behind me; Cody stands and heads to the back of the bus. I’m surprised, but probably shouldn’t be, when he reappears next to me, handing me a clean towel.

  “Thanks,” I say, blotting my face and composing myself.

  “I know how you feel,” Cody says, staring vacantly out the window. He sighs. “My old life seems like a balloon, floating higher into the sky on the wind, shrinking. Every time I look for it, it’s smaller and farther away.” Cody runs his hands through his shaggy hair. “It feels like my old life belonged to someone else. Sarah and Ian told me it would get better. I don’t know if I believe it, but I want to.”

  I nod, looking at the now dirt-stained towel in my hands, a reminder of my filthy face. I’m defin
itely avoiding mirrors now.

  “Whenever I got overwhelmed, Sarah talked to me. Sometimes she didn’t need to say anything at all, but I would get this feeling like everything was going to be alright.”

  All at once, the calm feeling I had in the field returns. I turn and face Cody. A calm seems to wash over him, too. Is this the same, strange feeling I had with Sarah and Ian? Before I can address it, Cody looks away and clears his throat.

  “We’ll figure this out,” he promises. “It will just take time.”

  I consider raising the feeling that it seems like we both experienced, but I hesitate. Cody might think I’m weird. I’m probably just loopy from waking up. Instead, I focus on my family, and the decision I made when I left that car. I’ll have time for other conversations later—hopefully. Setting the towel aside, I stare out into the debris-ridden street. “I need to get home.”

  Cody seems nervous. “What about the vaccine and the shots?”

  “We don’t have any way to know where the Outpost is, at least right now. But I know where my family lives. I need to see what happened to them.”

  Cody watches me sympathetically.

  “Before all this happened, I lived with my mom and my brother in Wheaton. It’s about an hour from here,” I explain, wishing I could beam myself there. “We were in a complex on Plainfield Avenue. There’s a chance they might be alive. There’s a chance I can help them.”

  Neither of us speaks the obvious truth: there’s a much bigger chance they’re dead. Or worse than dead.

  “I know we only have so much gas, and we need to get to the Outpost, but I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t look for them,” I tell Cody.

  He runs his fingers through his stubble. “I’ve been thinking of my family ever since I woke up. Of course, they’re farther away than yours.” He sighs long and hard, before looking at me again.

  “Would you mind if I drove to where I used to live?”

  Cody smiles. “It’s not as if I have much of a choice. You’re the expert bus driver.”

  I smile through the last of my tears. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Cody returns his attention to the street again. “You said Wheaton is an hour away from here. What highway is it off?”

  “I-84,” I tell him.

  “That sounds familiar,” he says. “In fact, I think I saw an on-ramp not too far from here.” He thinks on it. “A lot of it was as blocked off as the bridge we saw, but if we can keep it in sight, maybe we can find our way through the back roads. After we get to your house, we can try to find this Outpost. Who knows? Maybe your family will be there to help us.”

  I smile, grateful for his sorely needed optimism.

  He glances from the road to my dirt-stained outfit, and the towel I’ve sullied. “Like I said, I remember this street. If I’m correct, there’s a park a few blocks away with a brook, just off the highway. Ian and Sarah brought me there, right before they left and found you. You can get clean, grab some clothes from the back, and we can figure out the best way to get to Wheaton. Besides, we still need to take inventory.”

  He gestures toward the back of the bus.

  Once again, real hope sparks inside of me.

  I meet Cody’s eyes, grateful for his company. Being with him is certainly better than navigating this new world alone.

  “That sounds good to me,” I say.

  “So, it’s a plan.” Cody smiles and returns to the seat behind me; we resume our path down the street.

  Neither of us notice the vehicle tailing us, just far enough behind.

  9

  Beachland

  The sun creates a shimmering glare over the road, glancing off the windshield, shining into my eyes. I reach up, pull down the visor, and study the road. It’s late afternoon, or at least, that’s my guess. The same rampant destruction abounds outside. Cones and barricades surround a damaged sewer grate. A car is flipped upside down on a nearby lawn, the undercarriage rusted, the body squashed like an accordion. My eyes instinctively wander to a swinging streetlight, where the three dead bulbs watch us like vacant, glass eyes.

  I shake my head, trying to imagine the world’s deterioration. It feels as if everyone has simply disappeared, rather than died. I remember when my grandmother passed away a few years ago. She’d died suddenly in a nursing home—one day she was here, the next she was gone. I remember the surreal feeling at her funeral. It felt as if any moment, she’d walk in the room and assure us she was okay.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Cody asks, guiding me toward the park.

  “Going to bed,” I explain. “I was supposed to go to school the next morning. My last memory seems normal—nothing like what I woke up to. But Sarah said that the virus causes amnesia, so I guess it makes sense.”

  “Things are blurry for me, too.” Cody sorts through an internal puzzle. “One of the last things I remember is standing on a ladder and painting a house, thinking how hot I was, and how I couldn’t wait to be done and have lunch. I was living in my car then, and I’d dropped out of school, but I’d managed to pick up an odd job to pay for the essentials. Everything after that is jumbled. I remember a car careening down a road. I remember people running and screaming. Maybe the world’s end started before then, or maybe I just didn’t notice.” Cody laughs sadly. “I never was one to watch television or keep up on the news.” He shakes his head. “Maybe I should’ve paid more attention.”

  “Maybe our memories will come back,” I say optimistically.

  “Yeah,” Cody says vaguely.

  We drive quietly for a while, heading down a long, straight road, passing more houses, keeping an alert vigil. Every so often, a running infected gives chase, but by the time it reaches the road, we’re gone. Following a curve, we reach a stop sign and a two-way street.

  “The park is in that direction,” Cody instructs.

  I take a right-hand turn, driving until we see a brown sign jutting from the top of a hill on the side of the road: Beachland Park.

  “That’s it,” Cody informs me.

  The bus shakes as we descend a gravel road, passing a beat-up wooden building, ending up in a small parking area.

  “Stop here,” Cody says.

  I roll to a halt and survey the area. Past the parking lot, the road continues straight, flanked by a pond on the left, a soccer field on the right. A sloping walking path picks up where the road ends, culminating in a playground and a swimming pool atop a hill. To the far left of them—also at the top of the slope—is a baseball diamond.

  “That’s the brook I was talking about.” Cody directs me to our immediate right, where trees cover the grassy banks leading to the water. The brook runs straight in that direction, flanking the closest edge of the soccer field, with another narrow walking path in between. A few waddling ducks paint a picture of tranquility. I see no roaming stricken.

  “We should back in, so we can leave quickly if needed,” Cody suggests.

  With a bit of maneuvering, I take his suggestion and reverse into a spot under some shady oaks, reach for the key, shut off the bus, and stand on achy legs. Cody studies the gun I handed him.

  Feeling a bit foolish, I admit, “I’ve never used a gun. Have you?”

  “My friend owned a Sig Sauer,” Cody tells me. “His parents had a lot of land. We used to shoot cans off a fence in back.” He studies the weapon carefully. “This is a Glock 19. I don’t think I’ve fired one, but it feels similar.”

  “My dad owned a handgun,” I remember. “I was curious about it, but I was too young to use it.”

  Cody cocks his head. “You said you live with your mom and brother?”

  “Yeah. My dad died a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cody says.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him, never quite sure how to react to those words. They always made me feel bad for the person saying them, for some reason. “It happened before all this. Colon cancer.” Blinking away the painful memory, I tell him, “Anyway, I
have no idea whether the thing is loaded. Maybe it’s time we checked the bags in back to see what we have.”

  Cody agrees, and we head toward the back of the bus to take inventory, starting with the backpacks I picked up from Ian and Sarah. The first contains a half dozen sheathed knives, some clean rags, and several cans of food, as well as a can opener. The second contains a first aid kit, some waters, and a small leather satchel. Unzipping it, I find a row of fluid-filled vials like the one with which Ian injected me.

  “These are what they used on us,” Cody says with awe.

  Carefully, I take out one of the vials, turning it in my hand. “They said they’re some type of treatment, and that they suppress the symptoms of the virus.”

  “That’s my understanding, too,” Cody says. “But it sounded like they were different from the vaccines we needed.”

  We look at the vial another moment, wrestling with one too many questions. I replace the vial in the satchel and tuck it away in the main pouch of the backpack, zipping it again.

  “I see something in the side pocket,” Cody says, pointing.

  I open the smaller part of the bag. Inside are two rectangular, metal objects. It doesn’t take much deciphering to figure these out.

  “More magazines,” Cody says, pairing them with the gun in his hand. Setting them on the seat, he carefully holds the weapon up, finds a small release lever, and pushes it. The magazine falls into his waiting fingers.

  “You do know how to use it,” I say, impressed.

  “Yeah. I see a few rounds left in here.” He pushes the magazine back in place with a click. “At least we’ve got some spare ammunition.”

  An awkward moment passes, as we both survey the one gun in our possession.

  “Do you want me to hold on to it?”

  I study Cody for a moment. Clearly, he’s the only one with experience. “That’s fine,” I tell him.

  He hands me the crowbar. I accept the weapon, and we divvy up the knives we found before heading toward the duffel bags at the back of the bus. We each take one and rummage through it.