That night we returned to Windhaven. Lev didn’t look at me and quite frankly I didn’t look at him. It was like a repeat of history between us.
For some reason, and I was wrong, I lumped Ben into that ‘judgmental’ group with Lev. When he approached me about what occurred, I handed him attitude.
“I really don’t want to hear it,” I said.
“Hear what? I’m just asking,” Ben said. “Are they all dead?”
“Yes.”
Ben nodded. “When can we go back to the cabin and wait it out?”
I exhaled. “Two days. Give us two days. We’ll get it clean, get you situated, then we’ll prepare to go to Canada.”
“It will be a lot easier getting ready when we’re at the cabin.”
“Yeah, it will be. Your RV is … let’s say it needs cleaned.”
“Edi’s pop up trailer?” Ben asked.
I shook my head. “Someone spent their last hours in there before they turned and you know how bloody that can be. We’re gonna pull it from the property.”
“Do you need my help?”
“No we got this.” I squeezed his arm. “Thank you for not judging me.”
I started to walk away. I was beat.
“Nila, listen …” Ben inched toward me. “It’s a shock thing, you know, it’s really not a judgmental issue.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Ben, you didn’t hear him.”
“Yeah, I did. I heard what he told me. Then you know, I heard what he told Katie and the boys.”
“Which was?” I asked.
“He said that you took care of things and everything is going to be okay. The cabin is ours again. The kids didn’t ask why and he didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t present you as a killer.”
“I should hope not, my daughter is four.”
“I’m just saying, he knows. Give him time.”
I would, I did. Lev and I didn’t speak to each other and the only interaction we had was when we switched baby duty. The next day, I thanked Ben for watching Katie then Corbin, me and Fleck left for the cabin.
Getting the cabin cleaned up was easier than I expected. Corbin took the really dirty job saying he didn’t mind because he’d worked at a department store, “Ever see a women’s rest room?” he asked.
It was another exhausting day and the next morning we began moving supplies. We took everything we could from the Windhaven. Every can of corn, roll of toilet paper, towels and booze. If it wasn’t nailed down we took it.
By that evening we had dinner … at the cabin.
Sitting around the table, we spread out a map and planned our course of travel to Canada. Being back in the cabin, surrounded by familiarity, knowing what the world was like outside our safety fence, had me doubting I wanted to leave.
After getting the kids down for the evening, I checked the shed and storage. It was packed. Since Helena’s people arrived in some sort of convoy, we had our pick of vehicles for the trip. Corbin was getting one road ready, when last I checked Lev was loading supplies for the trip.
It hadn’t been that long but I missed my nightly routine of sitting on the porch step. I grabbed my glass along with the bottle and walked through the cabin. Bella was on the couch holding the baby.
“You should get some sleep,” she said. “You have a long trip tomorrow.”
“I will. I want to wind down. It was my tradition here.” I lifted the drink.
“Thank you for letting us stay here,” she said. “I love it.”
“You know, when I was your age … I hated it here. My father forced me to come here. The only saving grace was Lev. Now I love this place.”
“You don’t want to go, do you?” she asked.
I shook my head. “We have to try. If there is a civilized world out there, we have to find it. It’s a scary thought to think the world has ended. It’s even scarier to think we may be the only country in ruins. Imagine that. I mean how long with they let us be?”
Her eyes filled with horror.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot you’re young. Forget I said anything.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening any time soon,” she said.
I smiled and laid my hand on her shoulder. “Let me know if you need a break.”
“I will. I’m fine.”
Drink in hand I headed outside to enjoy what could be my last night on that porch.
I sat there in thought, wondering what the road ahead would hold, what the days ahead would bring. If Canada was indeed a live country, then what would entering be like.
I had been there for awhile having my second drink when Lev came over and without saying a word sat next to me.
After a long thirty seconds, Lev took the bottle and sipped from it. He talked nearly emotionlessly while staring straight ahead. “Twenty-two years ago you gave me a long hard stare, turned from me and never spoke to me again. The closest thing there was to reconnecting was when you friend requested me on social media six years ago.”
I took the bottle. “I didn’t do it. Bobby was in town, staying over, I was logged on and he did it. He also put a bogus post about how great a brother I had.” I set down the bottle. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t cancel the friend request.”
“Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome for that.”
“I won’t have it again,” Lev said. “I won’t go half my life without speaking to you.”
“Kind of tough if we’re gonna survive this thing.”
“Even then, things can be strained. I don’t want that.”
“Neither do I,” I said. “But I’m not apologizing.”
“I’m not asking to you to.”
“And I won’t get into a moral discussion.”
“It will be a non discussion.”
“Deal.”
Silence.
“I know you hate what happened,” I said.
“I thought we weren’t talking about this.”
“I have to say one thing.” I lifted a finger. “Do you think I’m proud of what I did?”
“You really want me to answer that?” Lev asked.
“Yes.”
“Then yes. I think you are.”
“No, I’m not. But I’m not ashamed. Not yet. I may be. Just not yet. I did what I believed had to be done.” I poured more into my glass and handed Lev the bottle.
“I understand that, I do. Just understand that I never believed you to be capable of something like that.”
“Well …” I exhaled. “I have a vengeful side.”
“Since when?”
“Since eighth grade. Remember when Belinda cut the back of my hair? We all thought I was passive. I wasn’t. I plotted, I planned and I got my revenge,” I said. “Eighth grade picnic. I saw she carried a purse, and when you’re in eighth grade and carry a purse it means one thing. You’re on your period. I waited, and when she wasn’t looking, I took her pads from her purse. She didn’t have any feminine protection the whole picnic, bled right through her shorts. Yep. I have a vengeful side.”
Lev stared at me for a moment. “Nila, this is hardly the same thing.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve never been a teenage girl with visible menstrual blood on the back of her pants. It’s the end of the world.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He extended his hand. “Friends?”
“Friends.” I took his hand.
Lev cupped my hand gently then surprising me, leaned to me and kissed me quickly and softly on the lips before squeezing my hand. He released it and lifted the bottle to his lips. “So …” he said. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”
“I have mixed emotions. Especially since we’re back here.”
“I hear you,” Lev said. “I would like not to leave. However … I think if we don’t, we’ll always wonder. If there’s a chance that somewhere out there’s a world still in existence we need to look. I heard what you said to Bella.”
“You mean about if we’re the only one in ruins?”<
br />
Lev nodded. “I can’t imagine what the rest of the world would want to do with us. That’s why we need to know as well.”
“Are you concerned about us traveling with the kids? I mean, after Fleck told us the ambush story, that scares me more than the infected.”
“Me, too. Last week proved we’re not safe here. We may think it, feel it but we’re not a hundred percent safe. We’ll never be no matter where we go,” Lev said.
“Can I ask you something?”
He nodded.
“Doesn’t look like you’re packing much.”
“I’m not. Enough to get there and get back.”
“So you’re planning on there not being anything in Canada?”
“No,” he said. “I’m planning on there being people there. Lots.”
I looked at him confused. “I don’t understand. Why not take a lot of stuff. Especially if we’re not coming back.”
“Oh, we’ll be back eventually. But if you think about it. If Canada is a safe zone, they’re not going to stand at the border waving their arms saying, ‘hey come on in’, there’ll be a vetting process. They’ll take our weapons and we’ll have to hand over a lot of our stuff. I’d rather not have it with us.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked.
“If refuges from an infected country were coming here, do you think we’d just freely let them in without checking?”
“No.” I shook my head. “So you think that’s the way it is?”
“I don’t know. It could be. It could also be the guy waving us in or …” He paused. “It could be like the Green Area. A short lived promising place that fell. I believe that is the most probable.”
“If was fine a while back but now it’s not?” I asked.
“That’s what I think. Then again, time will let us know.”
“Well if all goes as planned. Twenty-four hours from now …” I looked at my watch and tapped the face. “We will know.”
TWENTY-THREE - BEYOND BORDERS
August 21
If there was one useful thing that Helena’s people brought with them, it was the radio system. We delayed our trip to Canada one more day to get the radios up and running. Open communication with Ben was best, but as a Plan B, Lev had made wooden spikes that we would use instead of breadcrumbs.
The route was pretty straightforward, all highway driving. As long as the roads were semi passable, we were good. The shortest distance to the point of entry into our neighbor was through Buffalo. Of course, we would take a route around Erie, Pennsylvania, since we knew that was down.
Saying goodbye wasn’t hard because it didn’t seem like a forever goodbye. Ben had the hardest time saying goodbye to the kids. He knew, if we stayed in Canada, he’d see us in a month or so when Christian was able to travel.
“Remember,” Ben said to Lev. “When you get there. You have them look at that leg and stomach.”
“I feel confident I had the best doctor,” Lev replied.
Ben was such an asset, a part of me really wished he were going with us. If there was a government running north of us, Ben would be an entry ticket.
We left behind almost everything and took only the minimum. After all, we were only traveling a short distance. Returning was an option. Our problem was not a single one of us had been north of Erie. We had no clue what was up there.
In fact, all communication with other camps came from the south, or west.
Thinking about my radio contact with them pissed me off. How much I trusted them and believed we shared a common interest.
Helena invited us to her camp. Was that authentic?
I wondered about Hal? He genuinely seemed nice. Did Helena wipe him out, too?
Who Helena was, or if that was even her real name, would never be known. I saw the body of a woman I believed could have been Helena. She was in a camper not far from the main entrance. A larger woman with many lines on her face, even dead, she looked rough and just like I envisioned her. There were twelve women who died in Big Bear. One died at my father’s cabin.
I looked at them all. She was the most likely.
We left as soon as the sun was up, giving us the whole day for the journey. If it was a bust, then we’d spend the night and return.
Been there done that before.
To me, it was a given that Buffalo, the nearest entry point would not pan out.
Erie was still blocked and going around it wasn’t much better.
There was a hoard of infected that moved like a wave of destruction north. Were they following life or were they, like I suspected, following memory and instinct. So many of them had backpacks.
Since it was months after the initial outbreak, I had to wonder where that many infected came from.
Around Erie, and just beyond it, we saw a lot of bodies. Some badly decomposed, most weren’t even in one piece. That happened when they moved in their dead state. The decay caused them to pull apart limb by limb until nothing was left.
A little farther on they were still moving. Struggling, crawling along the ground with their lower torso trailing behind connected only by tendons and intestines.
The closer we got to Buffalo, the more we saw of full blown infected.
The migration of mindless proved that even infected, only the strong survived.
A part of me even wondered if father north we’d see uninfected moving.
“Why this progression?” I asked. I sat in the middle of the back seat, the kids were staring out the windows on either side. Billy was trying to count the infected. “I mean back there were dead. Here are infected.”
The highway a hundred miles before Buffalo was pretty clear, only infected moved down it. We tried not to hit them because we didn’t want any damage to the wagon.
“I think people got the memo,” Corbin said. “I think they were headed to Canada. Those who were infected father south died near Erie.”
“After,” Lev added. “They probably infected more before they dropped. They in turn infected people. It was a domino effect.”
“Where are they all coming from? Were there that many people that survived?”
“Nila, we haven’t seen much of the world. We saw a small fraction of the country. They could have come from all over,” Lev said. “Look at Fleck and Bella. They traveled.”
“Plus,” Corbin said. “Think about it. Even at a low one percent not affected out of four hundred million Americans, that’s four million healthy and fine. If half of them died for unknown reasons that’s still two million people heading north.”
I laughed. “I doubt two million people are headed north.”
“One percent of them? That’s twenty-thousand refugees,” Corbin nodded.
“That’s pretty good,” Lev said.
Corbin pointed to his temple. “Math whiz. Did you have a big television?”
“What?” I laughed my question.
“And there it is.” Lev lifted his hand and dropped it. “You ask questions out of the blue. It’s been a while so one was due.”
“That wasn’t out of the blue,” Corbin defended.
“We’re talking about percentage of population and you ask about the TV size.”
“Because I learned about this on the History Channel. Geez. Hell there’s more people left now than in 1800.” Corbin shook his head. “Out of the blue question. Good Lord, bet you feel dumb now.”
“No.” Lev shook his head. “Not at all.”
We tested the radio each time we made a stop for one of the kids to go to the bathroom. I hated stopping simply because we didn’t know if any infected would race out toward us.
Just before Buffalo, it was apparent that my suspicions were correct.
On a large green sign that listed Buffalo exits was a spray painted message.
A large arrow blocked out the exits signs.
On top of the arrow it read, Buffalo Dead, no CA entry, below it, Take 20 to 1,000 Is
It was easy to decipher. Avoid Buffalo, it w
as dead and there was no access to Canada. It gave an alternate route.
We discussed it a little then radioed Ben. Should we keep going, or turn around? That sign could have been painted months earlier. A lot could happen in a month.
It was decided we’d move forward. According to the map, Thousand Island Bridge and Border Patrol was another three hour drive. It wasn’t much. If it was a bust, we’d go back to the cabin.
We didn’t see any cars, no traffic at all. Not that we expected to, we also didn’t see any infected after Buffalo.
Corbin joked, “Maybe the infected remembered they had to go to Canada, but couldn’t read.”
I didn’t think that was funny, as I believed it to be true.
Three bathroom stops and nearly four hours later, we hit the north stretch of highway that went from Watertown, New York to the Wesley Islands, and the Thousand Island Bridge.
We passed through Alexandria Bay and everything was just so green and peaceful. The winding road gave us a view of the lakes, the air smelled fresh and I believe we saw only one body on the side of the road.
It was exactly two miles to the border and bridge that everything came to a complete halt.
All lanes across the highway were packed with cars. Both sides utilized for inbound traffic across the border.
If traffic was stopped surely there were people.
We didn’t see a soul.
“Stay here,” Corbin opened the door and stepped out.
Both Lev and I did the same, shutting the doors to the wagon.
Corbin walked ahead, looking in cars.
There was a bit of disappointment on Lev’s face, I saw it. I think a part of him, deep inside really wanted there to be life and a safe zone in Canada.
“Empty,” Corbin yelled. “They’re all empty.” He walked a little farther while we watched, then after a football field length, returned.
“Bodies?” Lev asked.
Corbin shook his head. “None. In fact some of these cars have no dust on them. They haven’t been here long.”
“We gotta get out of here,” I said. “This many cars means that many infected around here.”
“I agree.” Lev said. “Let’s radio Ben and head home.”
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