No. It had been serving time with this man. Somehow, he’d helped me find myself again, for better or worse.
I tried to be stoic, tried to sound as neutral as possible. “Do what you have to do.”
I could see he had more to say but couldn’t find the words. This was hard on him too, harder than I would have expected. He nodded. “I’m gonna wash up.”
I helped with that. I found him a washcloth and dug through my linen closet, locating a toothbrush. I asked him if he wanted a fresh change of clothes and showed him the boxes. I found the ones more likely to fit him, things my husband had worn long ago, before his illness had all but defeated him.
Then I left the room and sat at the kitchen table, trying to figure out what I’d do next.
I too was going to have to head north, but my direction would be a little farther west than Savage’s. Once we hit south of Denver, all bets were off. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to access Golden and Boulder the way I used to or if I’d have to find an alternate path. And what the hell would I have to do to get there? Would I have to work in exchange for fuel? This new world was going to be harder to navigate, and I knew I’d need to figure out the rules first.
Savage, though, already had plans in place. I could feel it. It was probably what he’d been doing instead of sleeping last night—going through his immediate future in his head, plotting each point and solving problems before they came along.
But instead of focusing on my own future, I came back to one of my life’s themes—that of not letting go and, with Savage in particular, of not letting him know what I was thinking, what I was feeling.
So when he came to the kitchen, seemingly to say goodbye, I asked him to sit down. “Just for a couple minutes. I know you have to get on the road.” Where to start? What to say? I closed my eyes for a second so I could let my heart take over. “Do you remember that night my senior year? When we were up in the hills, just before Halloween. Some of the kids were drinking, and we were goofing around, telling ghost stories and crap like that? But when we were walking back to the clearing, you slipped your arm around my waist.” Oh, shit. There it was. Recognition. Admission. Knowledge. I could see it all in his eyes…but I wasn’t going to force him to say anything. Seeing it in his expression was more than enough.
But I couldn’t look him in the eyes anymore, because I could feel the tears wanting to make yet another appearance. I swallowed and focused on my hands that were folded and resting on the table. Otherwise, there was no way I would be able to finish saying what had to be said. “You…put your arm around my back and I—I just froze. You have no idea how giddy I was inside, how excited, because I was sure that was it. But I was an awkward kid—never been kissed, never had a real boyfriend, and I had no idea what to do, how to act, and…” I drifted off.
I had to force myself to look him in the eye for this part. I couldn’t chicken out. I’d hesitated with this man far too many times in my life, kept my feelings secret, failed to say or do the right thing—and now, I was going to do what I had to, right or wrong. I was going to tell him what I should have all those years ago.
Saliva was pooling in my mouth as my nerves grew more taut, but I swallowed and looked up. He’d been looking at my hands too, but his eyes drifted up to meet mine when he noticed my motion. I let a slow breath out of my lungs and said, “I love you, Kevin Savage. I loved you back then, and I love you now, and I understand that you have to go”—and here came the fucking tears—“but I can’t let you walk away again without saying something.” I swallowed again and swiped a tear off my cheek. “This… I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring. I don’t know who is in my life anymore, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again, so…” But that was it. I had no more words I could say.
But no longer could I have any regrets for things unsaid, for things undone.
He held me then, bringing his chair close, and let me cry it all out…this man who’d claimed to be clueless when it came to tears.
But he left a little while later, and, as I watched him drive his bike down the street until it was out of sight and I could no longer hear the roar of the engine, I wondered if it would again be another thirty years before I saw Kevin Savage.
Chapter Sixty-six
“Moving Forward” – Hoobastank
AS I’D BEEN doing over the past couple of months, I allowed myself to cry it out until there were no tears left. When I was done, I made my way to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, but it didn’t help. My face was still red and splotchy, my eyes bloodshot and puffy. Fortunately, I had an hour or so before the meal at the community college, and that would give my face some time to return to normal.
Oh, but how was I going to get there? Kevin and his bike had been my only source of transportation since leaving my aunt’s. I sighed. There was my car out front…but it was still blocked by the truck that had the infected guy in it. But maybe that was all okay now. Maybe I could move his truck, or…
I walked into the living room toward the front door. Whatever the case, nothing would happen while I debated with myself. I needed to actually do something, and I’d be able to work my way through it. Hell, the college was three miles away, but after all the hiking we’d done in the high country over the past several months, three miles on a mostly flat surface and smooth concrete at a lower elevation would be nothing.
It wasn’t the effort. It was the heaviness of my heart that made me want to retreat.
But I couldn’t. Something inside me told me my kids needed me. I had to get to them if it was literally the last thing I’d do.
I knew there was a bike buried in our garden shed somewhere—but it was Kyleigh’s and it was built for a kid. I’d do it if I had to, but that would be a last resort. I still had a little food around, so if I could only make it to the evening meal, that would be the plan. If it came down to that and I couldn’t get my car out of the driveway, then I’d also need help from those folks to getting out of town in the first place.
I was beginning to feel trapped again.
At least winter was over. I knew we could get one or two more snowstorms, but the spring snows, although heavy, melted quickly; by April, the weather would be mild enough that I could walk anywhere. The idea of walking north for that long was daunting, though, and potentially dangerous, especially because I didn’t know this new world. Driving in a car by myself would be risky enough.
I took a deep breath and walked out the door to the driveway. Yes, there was my old beater car, ready to go more miles, hanging in there for me like she had for years. I’m sure, if machines could, that she’d appreciated the respite, especially over this harsh winter. She and I had been through a lot, and she’d been the best vehicle I’d ever owned. Sure, I’d had to take the car in for occasional repairs, but two hundred thousand miles later, and she was still burning rubber. I couldn’t complain.
I walked to the end of the driveway and the back of my car to look at the truck. That damned truck—and its infected driver—had probably saved my life. Had I gone to my aunt’s by myself…
No, I was exaggerating things in my mind. Had I gone to my aunt’s by myself, I wouldn’t have run out of gas. I was also beginning to wonder if Larry, now knowing that he’d been going a little off his rocker the whole time and had sabotaged our chances of getting out there, had ruined things with my aunt’s neighbors that he and Vera met without Kevin and me. Ah, but there was also how he’d ensured that my aunt’s car couldn’t get us out of there either. That man had done everything in his power to strand us there, and I felt a chill wondering what he would have done now had Kevin and I not wised up a little bit.
So, yeah. Fuck this truck. It actually threw me into the wake of a madman disguised as friend. But I wondered if he too would have been better off staying here. Maybe being around civilization would have kept him in check. Then again, he might have been one of the looters…or he might have been an officer of the law gone bad.
; As I stared at that truck, though, I couldn’t be angry. It had reunited me with Kevin Savage, and as much as my stubborn head and heart wanted to be pissed, wanted to wish that I’d never seen him again because I was once more had to experience the pain of loss, I would only be feeling that way because of what had happened between us in the first place. He had turned out to be what I needed at the time, whether I wanted to admit it or not. Last fall, before we were thrown together, I’d become just another body on this planet going through the motions. I was alive in body only and hanging on by a thread for my kids’ sake. I wasn’t truly living life. I was dead on the inside, almost dead on the outside, infected with the disease of needing to turn off everything that made me human in the first place—the ability and need to feel. That was back—I was back, and I had to believe that was a good thing.
So maybe Savage was out of my life for good once more, but in spite of the tribulations we endured on that mountain, I would one day look back at those days fondly, only because of our time together. I couldn’t hate him for leaving, couldn’t hate him for needing to go on with his life now that we were free. He was a good man and I sent thanks to the universe for letting me borrow him, even if only for a short while. He’d been the spark that brought me back to life.
Just those thoughts reinvigorated my spirit. I’d always been strong when I’d needed to be, and this time called for it like no other. I had to find my kids—I had to know where they were, if they were okay, and the only way to do it was to get my ass up north.
So I had a problem to solve. My car was wedged in the driveway, trapped. There were two trees in my yard, but even if I could maneuver around them, there was a car in front of my house halfway on the sidewalk, the one the infected guy’s truck had dragged down the street. There was no way I could drive out that direction, even if I managed to turn my car that way. The driveway itself was blocked from the street by the truck and then the mailbox just past it, and then a fence on the other side.
But maybe I could get the car turned so I could break through that fence. It was a wooden fence on that side of the driveway next to my neighbor’s house, while my yard’s fence was chain link. I thought, with enough speed, that my car could break through either, but there was no way I could go fast in this tight space.
I looked at that truck again. Maybe I could move it instead.
I walked over, taking tentative steps, as though the truck could start driving itself or the driver would suddenly come back to life. I hadn’t gotten all the details about the infected—about how long they remained that way before either healing or dying, but my experience with them in the hills told me that it wasn’t like the flu, that in a couple of days they felt better. Like the woman who’d tried to attack Kevin when he was checking out his motorcycle—I was convinced she’d been that way for a while, for at least a couple of months. Once I knew my kids were okay, I’d have to find out more.
I’d also have to help rebuild. It was a job I felt suited for and, somehow, this new society felt better, like people cared. Like they wanted to contribute. Like they wanted the best for everyone else and not just every man for himself. Granted, that notion was based mostly upon my meetings with people like Susana, but I was optimistic in a way I hadn’t been since I’d been a young naïve woman.
Maybe that part of me needed to wake up to make it through this new world.
I walked over to the driver’s side of that truck and peeked in the window. There was no doubt that poor man was dead now. His body seemed to be in a partial state of decay, and I felt overwhelmed with sadness that no one had been able to help him.
Maybe there hadn’t been any help for him. Maybe he was one of those doomed to die because his body had succumbed to the illness.
I tried to think back to all the shit I’d learned in high school history classes, about plagues from times gone by, like the black death. I wondered if we’d lost as many people proportionally as had been lost then. When would we even restore our civilization enough that the statisticians could begin crunching numbers and let us know how great our losses were?
Well…I had to start here. I took a deep breath. Yeah, the guy was definitely dead. The only possible harm that could come to me was becoming infected myself…and I didn’t know enough about this virus to know if I was immune or just hadn’t been properly exposed. From what I could remember, though, I was pretty certain that it was like AIDS or Ebola in that I’d have to have an infected person’s body fluid make it inside my body somehow—through a scratch or mucous membrane or something like that.
It was a chance I had to take. I’d already been around plenty of infected people and hadn’t gotten sick yet.
Another deep breath and my hand gripped the handle of the truck. I pulled on it and slowly opened the door…only to be hit by the most putrid, overpowering stench I’d ever smelled in my life. I imagined a battlefield, if the bodies were left on the ground to rot, would smell much like this. My kitchen the day before had been nothing compared to this. I started gagging and dry heaving, my body responding to the odor, and I slammed the door. The guy was most certainly dead, but I didn’t think there was any way my body could handle that smell.
I looked again once my stomach stopped convulsing, but the sight wasn’t helpful. I decided that, if I got desperate, I could maybe find a way to cover my nose, but for now…well, I wasn’t even considering it a possibility. And, for all I knew, he’d made the truck undrivable when he’d crashed it into the post.
I could maybe walk up and down the street, looking in neighbors’ cars for keys and use theirs. But then I realized that I had no idea who was alive and who was gone. Susana had mentioned that many families were actually living at the college for now, and who knew when they’d return home? I decided at that moment that if something wasn’t mine, I wasn’t going to take it. I’d done more than enough of that on the mountain.
So my car it was.
I went to open the door and realized it was locked. And then I remembered my key was in my purse…still at my aunt’s house—as good as a million miles away. But I had a spare. My kids drove the car on occasion, and we had a spare key for it hanging on a hook next to the calendar in the kitchen.
A calendar stuck on November.
I went in the house and grabbed the key, looking at that damned calendar that no longer had purpose. I’d circled the Saturday before Thanksgiving in red, indicating that my kids were going to be home that day.
And I blinked back another tear.
Damn it.
I clenched my jaw and went back out front. It was odd, not hearing all the spring neighborhood noises I used to. It was pretty quiet overall, and I didn’t know if that was comforting or creepy.
I walked over to my car and slid the key in the lock. As often happened, it stuck, and I had to turn it twice. The automatic lock that opened with the help of a key fob had died years before, and I’d since grown used to opening the doors the old-fashioned way. I didn’t know if that reminder of the past reinforced a sense of security or if it was simply annoying.
I chose to be optimistic and decided it was nice to have something feel familiar. I opened the door and slid in the seat. The car smelled nice inside, probably because of some forgotten air freshener under a seat, because the scent was an almost new smell. I put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine at first wouldn’t turn over, and I knew it was because I hadn’t started it in so long, but I stubbornly tried again. This time, I pumped it a little—probably a stupid idea—but then I turned the ignition and it turned over…once, then twice, and then it caught. It caught! I revved it then, several times, wanting to keep it going. Once I was sure it wasn’t going to die, I took my foot off the gas and rolled down the driver’s side window halfway. Then I just sat there, letting the car idle, and I looked out the windshield, then out the sides, and finally in my rearview mirror, trying to formulate a plan of attack.
After five minutes, I was sure the car was no longer in danger of dying, a
nd I put it into reverse. I decided to crank the wheel as far as I could to the right and then took my foot off the brake, letting the car back up until it looked like I was just hairs away from the truck that had crashed at my house. Then I braked and put the car in drive, turning the wheel far left and moving the car until it was mere inches from my house. I continued this back-and-forth for ten minutes and felt like it was futile, because—even though the car was at a bit of an angle—I’d barely made any progress. I looked down at the gas gauge and determined that I had plenty of fuel for the task…but I wasn’t sure I had enough patience.
I put the car in park and considered letting it idle again but knew I’d also have to test if it would start now. I needed to know before I took it out on the road. So I shut it off and went inside the house for a drink of water. This task was going to take several hours, it seemed, but I figured that I would get to a point where it would be easier and go faster. The biggest problems were all the obstacles and the fact that my car was in there tight.
But I wasn’t ready to give up—and I sure as hell wasn’t ready to slap on a mask and sit next to the dead infected guy…not yet anyway. I walked around the car a couple of times, eyeballing the space, and I was fairly certain I could do it. It was just going to take a lot of time and a lot of patience—and, even though I might have been lacking somewhat in the patience department, I had plenty of time to spare.
Might as well get started.
I took a deep breath and grabbed the door handle…when I heard something. At first, it sounded like a chainsaw or maybe even a lawnmower. Neither made much sense. Well, the chainsaw could be explained if there were more infected people in Winchester or even had it been winter. The back of my mind knew, though…it knew, but it was afraid. How many times had I been excited or happy and had wound up supremely disappointed?
I couldn’t stand heartbreak again, so I was in denial.
I was almost frozen, though, and I finally rested my head on my forearm across the top of the car and closed my eyes, listening to loud purr of that engine as it seemed to come closer to me, a little at a time.
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