Alive Again | Book 1

by Piperbrook, T. W.

  Cody stops, spins, and aims his gun.

  “Cody? What are you doing!?”

  A deafening crack follows my question. Glass shatters. I spin to find Cody a few steps behind me, the gun stretched out in his shaking arms. The first pickup veers toward the pond, a stone-sized hole in the windshield. The driver’s hands spin wildly on the wheel. It doesn’t look like Cody hit either of the occupants, but his round sent them off course. Or maybe it was the wet grass, stripping away the truck’s traction. The passenger yells and grabs for the wheel. Out of control, the vehicle skids down the bank, splashing into the pond. Men’s frantic screams fill the air as they fight to escape the sinking truck. Of course, we don’t wait to see what happens.

  The second truck is already on our tail.

  Ted screams obscenities from inside.

  Cody fires at the incoming vehicle, but his shots miss.

  And then we’re running again.

  Keeping to the wet grass, we squelch through the muddy bank of the pond, curving along the water. Looking behind me, I notice the driver keeping a wide berth from the squishy terrain, wary of his friends’ mistakes. Finding purchase on firmer grass, the thick truck tires spin faster.

  We’ll never get away on foot.

  “Over there!” I yell.

  Desperation produces a shaky plan. Looking to our right, I assess the incline to the baseball field; I suck in a breath and go for broke straight up it.

  “Follow me!”

  Cody’s right behind me.

  The truck revs its engine, climbing the steep terrain. We run for several seconds before I abruptly change course, retreating downslope again. I look over my shoulder. The truck attempts a quick turn, but it’s less reactive than two running people; the tires spin, and it slides sideways, tipping nearly up on two tires.

  “Come on!” I tell Cody, barreling back to the road and toward the bus.

  I hear the truck engine growling behind us, but I waste no time looking back. We pass the submerged truck, the pond, and the men still splashing around in the water, finally reaching our vehicle. Without a rifle aimed at my head, I unlock the doors easily. Cody and I trip up the steps, grab the lever, and close the door, just as Ted’s truck reaches the road near the pond.

  “Start the engine! Start the engine!” Cody yells.

  He doesn’t need to tell me twice.

  Ted and his driver are split seconds from the parking lot.

  Remembering something, Cody says, “Ride over the soccer field!”

  “The soccer field?”

  I put my faith in his suggestion, pull a hard left, and whip down the walking path beside the brook. One tire on the grass, another on the thin pavement, I steer the bus over the uneven terrain.

  “Keep going straight!” Cody screams. “There’s a path leading to a neighborhood!”

  I follow his pointing finger and hit the gas toward the path’s end. A metal bar juts up from the middle of the asphalt, threatening a catastrophic collision.

  “Right! Right!” Cody says, motioning toward a missing section of fence.

  The truck immediately on our tail, I ignore Cody and keep going straight; at the last second, I jerk the wheel right, narrowly missing the metal pole. The bus tires crunch over the grass and a piece of fallen fence, before jouncing over a curb and landing back on the pavement.

  And then we’re on the asphalt again, riding free into a residential neighborhood.

  A thunderous crash draws our attention behind. I look in the rearview mirror to find the second truck wrapped around the metal pole. Smoke pours from the engine; the front end is smushed in.

  Ted leans out the window, his face screwed up in an expression of hate.

  “Tainted!” he screams, spittle flying from his mouth. “You’re both tainted!”

  His eyes widen as he continues his frustrated tirade. A chill runs the length of my body, but I don’t stop driving, until Ted is out of view and his venomous cries disappear on the wind.

  12

  The Discussion

  Ted’s poisonous words scream in my mind as I speed through a residential neighborhood, my fingers white on the steering wheel of the bus. Repeatedly, I check the rearview mirror, certain I’ll see the truck bearing down on us, the grill scraping our bumper, Ted lining up a shot. The road is empty, other than the husks of cars and the skeletons of long-dead people. Quick, gasping breaths draw my attention to Cody, who sits in the seat behind me, scouring the road, the gun pressed tightly in his grasp.

  We drive without speaking for another minute, the growl of the bus engine and the rumble of our tires the only sound, while I navigate a maze of suburban, cookie-cutter houses. Soon the neighborhood empties onto a T-intersection, forcing us left or right.

  The sign reads: Mayflower Street.

  On instinct, I take a left, barely slowing.

  “They almost killed us,” I breathe in disbelief.

  I meet Cody’s eyes in the rearview. He looks back at me with fright, his face drained of color. He quickly averts his eyes.

  “What is it, Cody?” I ask.

  Cody opens then closes his mouth. Clearly, he knows something. “Tainted,” he repeats finally. “He called us tainted.”

  “What about it?”

  Cody looks nervously around us. “Remember I told you there are people out there who will do us harm? I wasn’t just talking about people trying to survive. I meant other people, as well. People who hate us for what we are.”

  “Because of what we’ve done?

  “Yeah.”

  “But it wasn’t our fault. We were sick; we’re cured now.”

  “Yeah, but we still did those things, Hannah.” Cody watches me guiltily. “Sarah and Ian told me that not everyone believes what they do is right. There are some people who think bringing us back is wrong.”

  Splinters of fear creep through me.

  “They think we’re abominations to be killed,” Cody continues, looking down at his skin, as if something might be crawling beneath it. “People like Ted call themselves The Army of the Living. They believe that humanity has undergone a reckoning, and that our existence is against God’s will. They think their faith makes them the chosen ones and it’s their sacred mission to purge us from existence. To them, we’re freaks of nature, Hannah, demons. Worth less than the ground we walk on.”

  I watch him in disbelief. Still…I know it’s true. I saw the hate in Ted’s snarling face, and in the savage expression of the bearded man. I heard it in the growl of the engines they revved behind us. Even worse than Ted’s actions was his betrayal.

  “He tricked us,” I say, still trying to reconcile the affable old man with the sadistic killer he turned out to be. “Do you think he knew what we were when he approached us?”

  “Maybe he suspected…” Cody looks out the rear window of the bus. “Or maybe they were following Sarah and Ian, waiting.”

  A shiver of dread sends goosebumps up my spine.

  Cody pauses. “For all we know, he was tailing us long before we saw him, just waiting for the opportunity. In any case, we weren’t careful enough. We can’t allow someone else to get that close to us again.”

  I nod, hating this strange, violent world, wondering how I can ever live in it again.

  Looking at Cody’s gun, I ask, “How many rounds do we have left?”

  Cody ejects the magazine and checks. “This one’s empty.” Unslinging the bag on his back, he pulls out one of the two spares we found earlier, sliding a new one home. “Our ammunition isn’t going to last long. Another problem we’ll have to figure out.”

  His words add to the ominous pit in my stomach.

  “We were lucky to get away,” I say, still catching my breath.

  “Yeah.” The shadow of death spoils any satisfaction we might have.

  I study the road. A wide parking lot passes on our left, leading to what looks like a Catholic school. A weather-worn sign reads: St. Brigid’s. We continue around a corner, past some seemingly vac
ant houses, one of which is cordoned off by a rusty, chain-link fence. Soon, a powerless stoplight gives us a choice: left or right. I glance right, noticing several strips of businesses and a slew of crashed cars.

  Picking the least cluttered route, I turn left, navigating around abandoned vehicles, driving on whichever side of the yellow lines offers free travel. The shattered windows of businesses greet us on all sides: a corner convenience store, a nail salon, a pizza place. A furniture store advertises a year-old sale to no one. We pass a Walgreens, a community center, and a church before the road slopes down beneath a graffiti-covered bridge. “Tainted Burn In Hell” is scrawled in bright red across the middle.

  We emerge on the other side to wide parking lots and the remains of several big box stores, all sporting “for lease” signs that will never be answered. Still shaking, I yank the wheel into a parking lot, pull up behind a Cantonese restaurant, and stop.

  I look around. No infected. No vigilantes in trucks.

  Drawing deep breaths, I turn and look at Cody. “I’m assuming we’re far from the highway you remembered.”

  Cody looks around the lot, disoriented. “I could find my way back, but I doubt either of us want to get near that park again.”

  “Definitely not. There must be another on-ramp nearby.” I glance up the road, hoping to find one, but all I see are more retail parking lots.

  Cody looks at his gun. “Do you think there’s a sporting goods store around here?”

  I think about it. “Even if there was, I’m betting most of the obvious places have been picked over. Still, if we see one—or a gun store—we’ll stop.” I picture the pile of bodies at the school, riddled with bullets. “How many infected do you think are out there?” I ask.

  Cody’s gaze wanders out the window. “Pretty much everybody was afflicted, from what Sarah and Ian told me. Only a fraction of the population survived. Those who are left are spread out everywhere, basically hiding from…from us, I guess.”

  Clearly, Cody has more information than he’s had time to share. I turn so that I’m fully facing him. It’s time to get the rest of the answers he’s been hoarding.

  “Okay, let’s have it. What else do you know?”

  “I’ve told you nearly everything,” he says. “Except maybe a few things.” He takes a deep breath. “Like I said, I know that Ian and Sarah came from a place called the Outpost. Where it is, I don’t know. But they look for people they can save and bring back. They think of themselves as missionaries. They search through the infected for curable people. They call themselves ‘Sponsors.’ They rehab people.”

  “To what?”

  “To life, you know? I think they take them all back to the Outpost. I’m not sure.”

  “How many of us have they saved?” I watch him intently.

  “We definitely weren’t the first; that’s all I know.” Cody knits his brow. “I wish I had more information, but those first few days with them is a blur.”

  Of course, I can relate. The time since I’ve woken up seems like a lucid nightmare.

  Cody shakes his head with regret. “If I’d had more time with Ian and Sarah, maybe I’d know more. No one expects they’re going to die; it’s always a shock when they do.” Cody looks down at his hands.

  “I used to think I’d live forever,” I tell Cody. “I realize now how foolish that was.” I’m about to ask another question when I remember something. “When we first met in the bus, you mentioned a word I didn’t understand. I can’t recall what it was, but—”

  “Keepers,” Cody remembers, shifting uncomfortably.

  “That was it,” I confirm, taken aback by his sudden unease. “You said that there were people that Ian and Sarah identified incorrectly. What did you mean?”

  Cody waits. He fidgets. “They said that most of the people they’ve identified have taken properly to the injection. But not all of them.”

  “What happened to the rest?”

  “At first, it seemed like the virus’s symptoms were dulled and they went back to themselves, like us.” Cody pauses. “But then things deteriorated.”

  “Deteriorated?”

  “The cured people seemed okay for a while, but then the virus took back over, and they returned to what they were.”

  “You mean they became stricken again?” I swallow, processing what he’s telling me. “How long did it take for them to…go back?”

  “It varied. They couldn’t tell me exactly, but they said if we made it a few days, we’d probably be fine.” Cody shrugs, wringing his hands. “They called those people the Botched Ones.”

  I look up at the bus mirror, studying my yellow eyes and my thin face. A surge of fear runs through me; there’s a stranger in that reflection. For all I know, I’m on a collision course with something worse than death. I swallow hard. No. I can’t go back to being infected. I won’t.

  “You’re fine, Hannah,” Cody says automatically.

  “But what if I’m not?”

  “You’re okay,” Cody repeats. “They’ve gotten better at detecting people. You don’t have to worry.”

  Despite his words, he seems uncertain.

  Quelling my fear, I put on a brave face and grab hold of the stick shift. “We should probably get going. I’ve got to get to my family.”

  “Okay,” Cody says.

  I look at my face in the rearview again, wondering if I only have days left before I’m gone.

  13

  The Eye Opener

  “I don’t see the highway,” I say, vigilantly watching while manning the wheel.

  Approaching an overturned motorcycle, I evade the spilled contents of the saddlebags and the skeleton of the rider nearby, his leather jacket clinging to yellowed bones, tufts of wispy hair protruding from his crushed helmet. I turn my attention to either side of the road. Brick commercial buildings line the block, looking as if they’d crumbled well before the world’s end. Somewhere amidst the spray-painted signs, I see the logo for a karate dojo, a machine shop, and a glass-walled building that was once a gym. Secondary roads curve off the main thoroughfare, but none promise much more than a depressing tour of a deserted neighborhood.

  “Try there.” Cody points to a street thick with office buildings.

  I doubt the road will take us where we want, but I make the turn. We drive past parking lots filled with cars, the windows smashed, the interiors raided. A few of the stricken stumble along between the vehicles, searching for anyone unlucky enough or dumb enough to be caught in their feeding grounds. Heads turn as we pass; a few of the infected quicken their pace, but none of them catch up to us. Of course, we see no other traffic.

  I’m about to lose hope when Cody cries, “Over there!”

  Through the gaps in the buildings and up an incline, I spot a weed-covered guardrail.

  “That’s it!” I say.

  Even without the hum of passing cars, there’s no mistaking the highway beyond.

  “Let’s follow it from here; eventually we’ll come to an on-ramp,” Cody suggests. “If we’re lucky, we’ll clear this disaster zone and put some miles behind us.”

  Our purpose renewed, we keep an eye on the parallel interstate, following it excitedly. A few curves in the highway threaten to throw us off, but we only have to backtrack once before we’re on course again. Finally, I see the unmistakable green on-ramp sign, which might as well say “Welcome to the Highway! Population Zero”. I hit the gas, veering around an empty car that had started on the same path as us and stopped. All four doors hang open; the driver and family are long gone.

  A moment later, I see why.

  It’s a junkyard. Trucks, cars, and motorcycles litter the interstate, bumper to bumper, crashed, or just abandoned. A few have attempted to go right through the guardrails, as if the drivers made one last ditch effort to escape before giving up or dying. I wonder how many were caught in this mess and eaten before they could exit. Pulling halfway up the on-ramp, I hit the brake.

  Cody and I share a grim glance
; our hopes are dashed.

  “Look,” I say, “rush hour for the dead. Ironic, right? I mean, they’re already late.”

  Cody gives a half smile and brightens up.

  I swallow the painful lump in my throat and look away from it all, across an overpass and toward another stretch of highway, where the same traffic stretches as far as the eye can see. Fighting a sinking feeling, I nod. “Okay, we knew this was a possibility—still, it’s discouraging.”

  “This is I-84 East,” Cody reports. “Is that the right direction?”

  I think on it. I’ve never been in this area. “From here we need to head west,” I tell him. “Or is it east?”

  Frustration takes over; I barely hold it together as I struggle to mark our place on the map in my mind. “Mom and Dad took me on lots of road trips,” I recall. “Not so many after Dad died; Mom was always working to pay the bills. Plus, it was too painful to take one of Dad’s famous ‘long drives.’”

  Cody hangs his head and nods understandingly.

  “In any case, I still think we want to go east, but this road is impassable either way.”

  I back down the ramp, eyeing the overpass, looking for a street that will keep us next to the highway. A thought hits me.

  “How did Ian and Sarah get around?”

  “They must have been familiar with the roads around here,” Cody says. “They told me GPS doesn’t work, and neither do the phones.”

  “Doesn’t GPS function off of satellites?”

  “Yeah, but it’s fed by control stations,” Cody says. “Without people to run things, and with no power, they’re no longer functional.” He shrugs.

  “But even Ian and Sarah had to get stuck sometimes…” I look out the window at the jammed traffic on the highway. “There must’ve been times when they had to work around all this. No one knows every side street. Not unless—”

  I stop mid-sentence, reach between my feet, and pat the floor. Something rectangular and smooth meets my hands and…I pull out an atlas.