Lucy waited until Darla had moved into the living room before she bent down and picked up the can. She set it on the table gently and looked around.
“This doesn’t feel right,” she said. “This was someone’s home.”
Salem nodded.
From the other room, Darla had found a piano and plunked out a clunky melody; the strings were in dire need of retuning and the song pealed out its tinny tune through the whole house.
Grant moved past Lucy in the kitchen and made his way to the living room where he sat down on the couch and picked up a discarded book, left open, mid-page, on the coffee table.
When Darla was finished with her piano playing, she wandered to the front window. She hooked her finger along the floral curtains and parted them and watched for a long moment, before letting the curtain fall. The window looked out to the main street, and in front of that, a small corner market.
“We have to travel this way. But I know of a small group that’s been hanging out across the way. Just a group of kids. Once I know the coast is clear, we’ll just cross the street quickly and head up through the park. Lots of tree cover. Nothing to steal in the park,” Darla said.
Above the mantel were pictures of an older couple surrounded by children. One framed photo stood out above all the others. It was a photo of a boy with a chocolate-smeared grin and missing teeth, his face smashed up against the wrinkled cheek of a chuckling loved one. Lucy walked over and took the frame in her hand and then flopped it facedown, the back-stand still sticking straight up in the air. She moved to the next picture, the people were so full of life and clueless about their future.
They were smiling and hugging, cherishing moments together. Lucy pushed those down also until the entire mantel was scrubbed cleaned of the memories of bright futures and happier times.
“Where’d you meet my brother?” Lucy asked, turning to look at Darla, then she sat down next to Grant and watched as he flipped the pages of the book mindlessly.
“The airport,” Darla replied, but she shot Lucy a look that implied she wasn’t in a chatty mood and wasn’t going to expand.
Threadbare nerves racked her and she wanted to shake Darla and demand all the answers. It had been a long time since she started following Darla’s orders and still she had no idea who this woman was and how she knew her brother. Lucy’s eyes must have betrayed her agony, because Darla took note and exhaled.
She leaned her head against the wall, closed her eyes, and sighed.
“Look. Ethan was there, at the airport, looking for your family,” Darla said. “They had grounded my plane to Seattle. There weren’t any gates available, so they evacuated us out of the emergency exits. Those little slides aren’t as fun as you would think,” she paused, but then took a long look at Lucy and continued. “And when I was in the terminal, I saw Ethan trying to get out to the tarmac to look at the planes. He was convinced that one of the planes might have your family inside.”
“My family made it to the airport?” Lucy asked.
She didn’t know what she wanted the answer to be. Was there a chance they made it out alive? Could it have been their plane submerged in the Columbia River? Was it possible the plane never left?
“They weren’t at the airport. Either weren’t there or they weren’t able to be found,” Darla continued without missing a beat. “Security was so diminished that it didn’t take long for Ethan to find his way to the tarmac. He was running like a madman. Going from plane to plane. They had grounded flights by then. Whole planes of people just sitting there, with the infected, waiting to die.”
“But Ethan thought my family was at the airport. So, they weren’t at home?”
Darla waited and then she nodded.
“How many planes did he check? It’s possible that they still left. Right?” Now she didn’t know which version she wanted to be true. If her mom could have left her daughter and son behind or if somehow they had never made it to the airport, both versions seemed awful.
She gave a non-committal shrug. “Nothing was smooth over there. It wasn’t like he could just ask someone about a plane and they could point him in the right direction. But…Ethan believes the plane left. Took off. Escaped Portland.”
She didn’t know what that meant.
“So, you see this guy looking for his family and you decide to help him?” Grant asked.
“Not exactly,” Darla replied. She swatted at an invisible fly, fully aware that she was being vague.
No one said anything. Salem shuffled her feet and stared mournfully at the ground. Grant reached into his bag and pulled out his water; he had only a sip left and he dripped the last few drops on to his tongue.
“Wait, wait. Was there a girl with him?” Lucy asked and she couldn’t tell if she was hopeful for survivors or indifferent. Hadn’t Ethan been with Anna?
Grant went back to reading and he flipped another page in the book.
“He was alone.”
This was not surprising news, but Lucy took a moment to process the implication that Anna was gone too. All those times she had encouraged her brother to end that dead-end relationship, all her evil thoughts toward Anna’s idiocy and her false friendship. And now, somewhere between leaving her standing outside the secret door and the airport, Anna and Ethan were dealt a forced separation.
Lucy was sorry that Anna was dead.
But she felt worse for Ethan and she selfishly hoped that he had been spared watching her die in the end. There were too many people to weep for; even if she felt a pang of compassion, she was beyond tears.
“Tell me about the vials,” Lucy finally asked again. “Where did you get the information you shared with Spencer?”
“What vials?” Salem asked.
But before either of them could answer, Lucy heard the floorboards squeak. It was the familiar groan of a house bearing weight. They all heard it and paused, eyes, ears and heads pointed toward the ceiling. Their bodies shifted and they all went on high alert.
“What was that?” Grant asked and he stood straight up, crossing his arms over his chest. Darla stood up next to him, her gun slipping back into the palm of her hand.
“Nothing,” Lucy said because she wanted that to be the right answer. “Don’t houses just settle, make noises?”
But they heard the creak again, and the shifting and shuffling and footsteps above them.
Unmistakable, distinct.
They had entered an occupied house.
“No way,” Darla said and went to the window, moving the curtain back and peering out. She grumbled and nodded outward. “And there are other Raiders. Fantastic.”
Lucy darted to the window and stole a peek.
A ragtag group of boys and one girl ambled up the street. There were four of them in a line. One held a semi-automatic weapon, another a baseball bat. They were dirty and weathered and none of them was over thirty. A boy on a motorized scooter with a wagon attached to the back was leading the crowd. They stopped in front of the storefront. The girl holding the baseball bat took a whack at one of the neon signs in the window and it cracked upon impact with the sound of breaking glass; she pulled it free, the cord trailing behind, and jumped on it for good measure. The group laughed, encouraging her. She batted at another sign and then took the bat to the hood of a car in the parking lot.
The movement above them ceased.
Two of the four people ducked into the store, shouting indecipherable messages to each other. It was just a lot of noise and consonants. Lucy made a move like she was going to back away from the window, but Darla put her hand out, commanding her to stay.
Grant, still standing between them, had no view of the outside, but he watched the ceiling with interest—his ears trained on the movement above.
Outside, with a swift motion, the girl raised her bat in mid-swing and then she stumbled forward. The steel slipped out of her hand and it hit the sidewalk with a clang. She clutched her stomach and slid to the ground. The boys watching guard rushed to her as she
sank, then they recoiled. They called out and the looters rushed from the storefront.
Watching wide-eyed, Lucy covered her mouth with her hand as the boys dropped the goods in the wagon and took off. The boy on the scooter pulled ahead and the rest followed quickly on foot. There was a single boy who stayed and he held a gun in his hand. He spun, looking for something to shoot. Someone to dare cross his path in his moment of anger and surprise. He sat next to the girl, talking to her.
She doubled over in the street on her hands and knees and her body shook against the heavy burden of the virus. It was crippling her.
“Why?” Lucy croaked and took a tentative step back.
“Why what?” Salem whispered.
“The girl,” she said, but she couldn’t find the words to express her anguish. Lucy spun to Darla, “But I thought…” Lucy ran her fingers through her hair and kept her fingers tangled near her scalp. “I thought that you were just lying to Spencer. The stuff you said at the school.”
She couldn’t even begin to formulate the words necessary to ask the questions on her mind.
“Day six,” Darla answered as if it pained her too. “It’s real, Lucy.” And then her eyes shifted to Salem and Grant, who stood and sat respectively without comprehension. Without an understanding of the implication: They could be next.
Grant raised his hand up toward the ceiling. And then put a finger to his lips.
“On the move,” he said.
The steps were heavy now and labored. A single thud and then another; Lucy’s heart quickened, but her arms hung like lead weights at her sides.
There was no escape.
They could see two slippered feet appear at the top of the landing and they watched as the feet slid to the next step and the next step, with rigid and jerky movements.
“Zombie,” Grant whispered. “It’s finally the zombies.”
He yanked the gun out of his waistband and held it up at an angle toward the steps. Lucy noticed that his arm didn’t wobble and he pointed the gun up the stairs with marked self-assuredness. It was as if Grant had never imagined he would have to shoot a person, but shooting a zombie came without effort.
“Don’t you dare shoot me son,” came a rough and steady voice, gravelly from sleep, but unafraid.
“Not zombies,” Lucy said and pushed herself back toward the front door, her eyes trained on the emerging figure of a man in a salmon bath robe, bare, skinny legs, socks rolled down around his ankles and worn-white slippers. His hand gripped the railing and he took each step deliberately. When he had reached a spot where he could see all three of them, he paused and made eye contact with Darla and stared at her without blinking until she lowered her gun. Then he looked to Lucy, his blue eyes striking and bright despite the weathered, wrinkled face.
Outside, they could hear the boy cry out and the pop-pop-pop of rapid gunfire. Each of them ducked, expecting the bullets to rain in their direction. But the man stayed firm and upright, unmoving. He cleared his throat.
“Houseguests,” he mumbled. “If you’d have called beforehand, I could have put on pants.”
Leland Pine’s wife was still interned in their upstairs bedroom. After they had heard news that most of their children and grandchildren had perished, she retreated to the room where they had shared a bed for more than fifty years, finished off a bottle of pills, mixed with some clear alcohol from their freezer and drifted off to sleep.
He was planning on burying her in their garden, but arthritis and the constant threat of the Raiders across the street thwarted his attempts. He had given up hope that she would receive a burial and had taken to sleeping on the floor beside their bed for long hours. He’d been unable to take his own life in return and so he just waited for the illness to come claim him. Praying that he’d feel the unmistakable symptoms of the virus, he wished for death, but it never came.
Leland handed Darla a coffee mug with an illustration of an American Eskimo dog on the side filled with sweet tea that they had made with the all their remaining water and heated on Leland’s old gas stove. She placed her lips on the rim then sucked up the hot liquid between her teeth, then raised mug in a cheers after swallowing, and smiled a thin smile, tight and still suspicious.
“I haven’t seen many survivors beside the Raiders…the looters,” Darla corrected. “Especially not anyone…”
“Older?” Leland finished for her.
“No offense,” she shrugged.
“None taken,” he replied. “Virus wiped out most the older population first. And the little ones too, I suppose. When you think about who was dying early on it makes it even more difficult to comprehend that someone could do this to us.”
“Unfathomable,” Darla agreed.
Lucy took a mug next. The sweet tea had an overpowering fruit smell and she gagged it down. She was thirsty, but fruity drinks always reminded her of the long road trips to her grandparents’ house where her mother shoved juice boxes and packages of gummy bears at them to quiet the rivalry and announcements of boredom.
They all stood and sat around, drinking the sticky-sweet mixture out of an assortment of dime store coffee mugs and weighing their words. The clouds had rolled back over the area and everyone paused to listen to the sound of rain running down the gutters. Grant was the first to finish his drink and he set his mug down on the table and mumbled a sincere thank you. Leland raised his glass in reply.
“I never thought I’d have anyone in my kitchen again,” Leland said. “Raiders, as you call them, would come by periodically and I’d watch them and it would just make me sad. Seems like such a shame. I’ve lived this long life, seen so many things. Served my country and raised my kids. And here I am, one of the last ones standing? A waste if you ask me.”
No one said anything. Then Grant turned, “What branch of the military?”
“Navy,” Leland replied, then he chuckled, wiping the corner of his mouth with his finger. “Cook. Oh boy, I was a mean navy cook. When I met my wife, she was this wispy little thing, all eager and excited to go on a date with me. Didn’t take me long to fatten her up. Plump little gal she turned out to be after we got married. She blamed me and I knew it was true.” His eyes were misty, but his smile was wide.
Lucy couldn’t help but realize that maybe the Pines, in their old age, had pondered a life without each other. Mortality had to play an important role in their everyday thoughts; death was certain for everyone, but the closer you neared to the end of your life, you had to prepare your heart for imminent loss. Maybe Leland had hoped he’d go first and here he was, alone, without anyone.
“My dad wanted me to go into the military,” Grant said and he slid his eyes to the table. He played with the edge of a paper napkin. “Threatened to send me to military school if I couldn’t keep my grades up.”
“Military isn’t the same now,” Leland said and he stretched his hands above his head. “Long ago, you didn’t have a choice. You had to serve and you had to give up youth and plans. But now? Young people have all sorts of options. You have choices.”
Leland’s words were fresh in their ears when Darla laughed without missing a beat. It was loud and abrupt, but she cut it short when she saw their expressions. “I’m sorry,” she then said, looking to each of them. “It’s not funny.”
Leland nodded. “I see my mistake. It’s easy to forget.”
“The opposite is true for me,” added Salem from the back of the kitchen. “I can’t forget. Not even for a second.”
Grant looked at Leland with sympathy, bypassing Salem’s comment. “But I guess we’re in a war now though, right?” he asked.
“Oh really son?” Leland shook his head. “No, no. No war.”
“There’s nothing left to fight for,” Lucy said. But Darla disagreed by sighing and shaking her head.
“We have plenty to fight for. It’s just a matter of how to fight for it,” Darla added. She turned to Leland. “You seem like a good man. Honest. And I’m sorry for your losses, I am. We can’t take
up too much of your time though. We really were just passing through.”
Leland put his hands on the table. “Don’t rush away on my account. The company is nice.”
But Darla started to stand, taking one more sip of her drink before presumably announcing the group’s departure. Lucy watched as Darla put the chipped mug to her lips. Then her eyes grew wide and her breath quickened. She was looking at something beyond Lucy, something that had caused her to freeze.
Without a word, Lucy turned and looked behind her, where Salem was standing.
Salem dropped her hand to her side, her fingers still gripping the porcelain of her I-Heart-Grandma mug, but her breathing was labored.
Her face paled into an eerie shade of white. Her skin milky and green; her eyes moved to each of them in turn, shifting, darting, afraid.
“Lucy?” Salem whispered. “Grant?” There was a tremor in her voice and it rose with panic.
“Salem!” Lucy jumped from her chair, knocking it to the ground, and started toward her friend.
She reached her just as Salem slumped forward, her mug hitting the kitchen floor with a crash, shattering into tiny pieces.
Chapter Seventeen
In an instant Lucy knew exactly what was going to happen next. She knew because she had seen it many times before and she knew because Salem was not looking at her, but looking past her like she was on the other side of a two-way mirror.
She had never been so close to someone succumbing to the virus before and never watched someone she loved in the act of dying. Lucy wiped her hand across Salem’s brow and her friend’s skin was on fire, clumps of her dark hair stuck to her forehead. A small trickle of blood started dripping from Salem’s left nostril and without thinking, without regard for her own safety, Lucy wiped the blood away with her bare hand; she only succeeded in smearing it down across Salem’s cheek.
“Hey, Sal. Come on…please look at me. Sal?” Sal, like Al, her perfect friend, her best friend, her capital and anchor. Oh, her heart ached.
Salem was trying to talk and Lucy cradled her head, lifting her up into her nap, but Salem groaned and shook her head. Lucy set her head back down onto Leland’s kitchen floor.
The Virulent Chronicles Box Set Page 19