“I’m sorry,” Lana says softly.
Gabe spins away, wandering toward the trail again. “What the fuck, man?” his voice carries on the breeze. He reaches the sign at the trailhead and kicks it, screaming, “What! The! Fuck!”
His hiking boot smashes it with every word. A simple sign on a wood post, it isn’t prepared for the assault, and it shifts to the side. Gabe drops to his knees, pushing the post straight and attempting to tamp down the dirt at its base. When that doesn’t work, he lets loose with a plaintive wail, the way Holly and Jesse did as toddlers. It’s heartbroken and lost in a way that makes my own throat raw.
By the time Lana and I reach him, Gabe has both hands in the sandy dirt while tears leave tracks in the dust on his cheeks. “I fucking ruined it,” he says, choking on his words. “You respect the trail, man. That’s the rule.”
Lana kneels beside Gabe, her hands on her thighs, then stretches one to his shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s only a sign.”
Gabe wipes a hand under his nose, leaving a smear of dirt, tears, and mucus along his cheek. “No, it’s, like, a rule. People take care of this shit. Volunteers. So that people who want to hike, can. So you know where you’re going. It’s important.”
He takes a great heaving breath and begins to sob. Lana puts her arm around his shoulders. I walk three feet down the trail to where a few small rocks lay, pick up two, and return to the sign, where I crouch and straighten the post. I wedge the rocks into the gap by the post, test it to be sure it’s tight, then push loose dirt into the space until it looks mostly undisturbed.
“There,” I say. “Fixed.”
“Thank you,” Gabe whispers. After another minute in which his sobs lessen, he wipes his cheeks with a bandanna from his coat pocket. “The whole East Coast?”
I sigh and meet his eyes, hating to be the one to put more pain in them. “That’s what they say, but there have to be people still alive, like us.”
Gabe sniffs. He unscrews his Nalgene bottle and sips, then dumps some water on his bandanna and cleans his face. “My mom—she broke her leg right before I left to come out here. She told me to go anyway. But she could barely walk.”
I have no response for that. There’s always a chance, but it’s slim if you can’t outrun the zombies and don’t have a safe place to hide.
Lana rubs Gabe’s shoulder. “Maybe someone helped her. We don’t know how bad it was in Maryland. Just that New York and D.C. didn’t do so well.”
Gabe sucks in a breath, nodding, then stands and brushes off his legs. “She has a lot of good friends. They wouldn’t leave her alone. Even if they did, she’s a survivor.” He motions at himself, his gear. “She taught me all this stuff.”
Lana uses the same motherly smile on Gabe that she used on me. “There you go.”
“Where are you guys going? Hiking the PCT?”
“We were on the road,” I say. “Heading for Oregon. To Eugene.”
“Cool town. But why there?”
“My good friends live there, and I’m checking on them.”
Gabe scratches at his head, his expression hopeful. “Do you mind if I come along? I kind of don’t want to be alone anymore. I won’t eat your food or anything. I need to find some more soon, but—”
“Of course we don’t mind,” Lana says. “We were about to head out. Do you need to rest?”
“Nah. I only did a mile today, I’m good for twenty more. But I do need to get some water at the spring.”
We scrutinize our surroundings until Gabe points out a nearby path. “Goes to a spring. Or it’s supposed to.” He fishes in his inner coat pocket and pulls out a few pages of maps that have been printed and laminated, then points at the six thousand lines on one page.
“We could use more,” I say. With the promise of water, I can polish off my bottle, which I’ve been dying to do.
We collect everyone’s empty bottles before Lana, Francis, and I follow Gabe down a short trail to a pipe that juts from the ground and flows steadily into a rectangular concrete trough. “Does it need to be filtered if you get it from the pipe?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Gabe says. “It’s not tested, so you should filter it even though it’s probably fine. You guys have a filter?”
We show him a filter and the water purification tablets. Gabe takes out a blue plastic object that resembles a miniature light saber, then pulls off the translucent plastic cap to reveal a light bulb emerging from the handle. “UV filter. It kills everything as long as you do it right.” He takes a closer look at Francis’ filter. “Dude, I wouldn’t use that if I were you. Not now. You’re better off boiling or bleaching your water.”
“Why?” Francis asks.
“That filter’s good for bacteria and protozoa, but it doesn’t do dick against viruses. And this is a virus, right? That’s what they kept saying. Those suckers are small, and they’ll slip right through there. The purification tablets work on viruses, though.”
“Good to know,” Francis says, eyeing his filter with mistrust.
“I mean, this is coming straight from the ground, but out there, when you don’t know if one’s upstream or wherever? What if you drink the virus and turn into a zombie? Can that even happen?” Gabe scoops some water into a bottle, then sticks his light filter inside and swishes it around. “I’m sure yours is fine. You could use it here, anyway.”
Maybe it’s fine, but I’m not willing to take that chance. I open my box of tablets and extend a blister pack to Francis. “I’m not using it, are you?”
Francis grabs the tablets. “Hell, no.”
The way is mostly downhill, and just over four hours later, we’re on an asphalt road and exiting the Klamath National Forest, having entered Oregon less than a mile ago. If I weren’t so tired, I might celebrate that fact. My foot is complaining a little, though the blister hasn’t rematerialized. We turn onto the road that promises fewer miles if we have to walk the entire way to Grants Pass. At an empty campground, we debate whether the vault toilet buildings should be our home for the night, but we decide to press on.
A half mile later, the road turns to dirt and the forest closes in, providing welcome shade. A mile after that, I’m trying not to limp. The blister is back, and it’s taking no prisoners. I don’t want to be the person who holds things up, but being the person who can’t walk and stops things entirely will be worse. I think, if I were injured at some point, the others would stay with me until I heal the way they did with Francis, but I’m not certain of that.
“Hold on a sec?” I ask. “I need to check my foot.”
I sit on a downed tree to remove my boot. The bandage Lana gave me is twisted into a sticky mass inside my sock, and the skin on my heel is a swollen bright pink, though it hasn’t blistered.
Gabe has been quiet for miles, but he springs to life at the sight. “That’s a bad hot spot. I have moleskin.”
He grabs a first-aid kit from a pocket of his pack, then sets to work cutting out a smaller square from a square of adhesive fabric. I remember Dad having the same stuff, though I never used it. Gabe sticks the moleskin over the spot, then shows me his water bottle, which has a layer of duct tape wound around its center. “The tape’s slippery, so your skin won’t rub.” He peels off a short length and sticks it over the moleskin. “All right, you’re good to go.”
I put on my wool sock—I do remember that wool is better than cotton—and then test walking in my boot. A slight tingle remains, but the raw, scraping feeling of a worsening blister is gone. “Like magic. Thank you.”
Gabe salutes me. “No problem.”
After groaning our way uphill for another mile and refilling our bottles in a creek, we come upon a gated driveway with a no trespassing sign. The corner of a white house is visible through the trees. “Looks like home for the night,” Troy says. “Probably a summer place.”
The seven of us stumble up the long driveway. Actually, six of us stumble—Gabe has energy to spare, and he’s first to the front door of the two-story house.
The shades are drawn and dried leaves have collected on the front porch, suggesting no one’s been here in a while.
Once inside via a window, we collapse in the living room. We hiked twenty miles. And though we’ve finally reached Oregon, it’s all we can do to keep our eyes open long enough to eat.
55
Craig
My heel doesn’t hurt this morning, but the rest of me is in agony. Twenty miles in one day, after a decade of fairly sedentary existence, has every joint rebelling. My hamstrings are half their length and my calves were replaced with rocks sometime during the night. “Even my fingers are sore, and they have no fucking right to be sore,” I say as we walk down the road. “My body hates me.”
Daisy points to Gabe, who’s chugging along happy as you please fifty feet ahead. “I hate him.” She’s mostly over her indignation from the other night, though her hard edge may be a little sharper than it was.
“We all do,” Troy says. He takes every step gingerly, like each might be his last. “Because he sucks.”
Gabe doesn’t really suck. Especially not when he was the first awake, set up his stove, and treated us all to the last of his coffee. It wasn’t much, but it was delicious. In a display that revealed Troy’s love of coffee, he twice announced his inclination to kiss Gabe for the caffeine.
Lana turns from where she and Francis walk up ahead. “Hey, slowpokes. How you doing?” Troy gives her the one-finger salute, and she cackles before she spins around.
The houses we’ve passed have been looted, though respectfully, if there’s such a thing. Everything is in place, unlike houses in other areas, but we found only empty cabinets and no toilet paper or paper towels or decent medications. Every vehicle, even the ones with keys in the houses, was empty of fuel. Someone—likely someone familiar with the area—has been busy. The looters had no use for an Oregon atlas in a car, and that treasure is now in Francis’ pack.
The house searches cut into time that could’ve been spent gaining ground, but a car will turn a two- or three-day walk—the forty-something miles to Grants Pass—into an hour-long trip. Which will be welcome, even disregarding my legs, because another thing yesterday’s jaunt has made clear is that we’re going to be hungry if we keep walking. I demolished my breakfast of nuts and cookies twenty minutes ago while we strolled the road, and my stomach is already growling.
A crash comes from the right. I stop with the others and examine the thick fir trees. A man appears, shadowy at first before he stumbles onto the grassy area by the shoulder. His brown hair is full of pine needles, and more forest matter sticks to his ripped cotton t-shirt. He limps for us with a hiss.
I walk to meet him with my spike in hand. I’m still nervous I’ll screw up one of these life-or-death moments, but the more I shy away, the more fearful I’ll become. At least it isn’t human, which has become a plus after the other night. I let the man advance. It takes a second to adjust myself for the blow, and once I’ve readied my arm, I step forward to take the Lexer’s shoulder in one hand while plunging my spike into its eye with the other. It’s gross, especially once the zombie drops and I’m left with a gore-covered weapon. I wipe the worst of it on the Lexer’s t-shirt, then clean it on the grass.
Gabe has rejoined us, and he motions to my spike. “That’s badass.”
“Daisy made them,” I say.
Gabe gives Daisy two thumbs up. “Right on. It’s awesome.”
“Craig made the handles,” she says.
“Daisy does the metal, Cherry does the wood,” Troy says, pointing at me in case there’s doubt as to whom he refers.
“Cherry?” Gabe asks me. “Why Cherry?”
“He popped his zombie cherry killing his first with us,” Troy explains, “and then he threw up tuna and maraschino cherries a minute later.”
I groan. “Don’t remind me. I’m never eating tuna again.”
Gabe laughs a low, slow stoner-type laugh. “I like it. It’s your trail name, man.”
“My what?”
“When you get on the trail, you meet other hikers and get to know them and their quirks. Eventually, most people get a nickname. It can be something like where you’re from or something about you. Or, like, if you do something stupid or funny or whatnot on the trail. You can give yourself one, but I wanted to earn mine, you know?” He tugs on a dreadlock, eyes downcast before he raises them. “Maybe one day I’ll get back on the trail and get a name. You gotta believe, right?”
“Yeah,” Lance says, surprising us all by speaking. “I’m going to Iowa soon. I’m gonna find my parents.”
“Cool, man.” Gabe punches Lance’s shoulder, then hitches up his pack. “We should get going. I know you guys can make twenty miles today once you’re warmed up.”
We watch as Gabe and Lance move ahead. Gabe laughs at something, practically bouncing in his boots, then beams us a gigantic smile over his shoulder.
“That kid’s all right,” Troy says. “But I still hate him.”
A couple of abandoned farmhouses later, what was an overcast sky becomes rain. Gabe pulls on a high-tech looking raincoat and slips a rain cover over his pack. I zip up my leather coat, wishing Josh had thought to acquire a poncho. He didn’t, likely because the three boys started hiking north in San Diego, where rain was the furthest thing from their minds. Though I can do without being wet, I grew up in rain. The joke is that you can tell the tourists and non-Oregonians by their umbrellas, since no one else uses them. You put on your raingear—or not—and go on your way.
We pass nameless but numbered dirt roads that intersect with ours. We hike uphill and downhill and then uphill again. The forest is quiet with only the patter of rain on leaves and the crunch of gravel underfoot. When the road turns to asphalt, we eat lunch under trees, pushing crackers and salsa into our mouths with cold, damp fingers.
A gravel track with six houses provides nothing of value except a brief respite from the rain, and two houses up a hill have a few boarded windows but no people. Every single home is vacant—doors locked, shades drawn, cars gone, and cabinets barren, as if they all picked up and decamped somewhere together. That’s our going theory at the moment, anyway.
“Maybe it’s the Rapture,” Daisy says as we walk.
“No chance of that,” Troy says. “I’d be first one up there. Right, Lana?”
Lana lifts her hands to Heaven. “Lord, hear my prayer.”
Rain has seeped into my jacket collar and down my shirt. My jeans are soaked. Dad always dressed me and Mike in wool, synthetics, or silk in the woods. Denim and cotton will kill you, he’d say. It gets wet, loses its meager insulating properties, and pulls all the heat from your body. I have to admit that Death by Denim would be pretty dumb. Although, as band names go, it could work.
A sneaker sits by the side of the road. It’s followed by another sneaker fifty feet on, and then a men’s dress shoe a hundred feet after that. Dread sets up shop in my stomach. “That’s a lot of shoes for the middle of nowhere.”
Troy shrugs. “Yeah.”
“Have you noticed that where the zombies walk, they sometimes—”
“Leave shoes behind,” Francis says. “I’ve noticed.”
Everyone’s steps grow softer, though we don’t stop walking. The view changes from forest to farmland, and four mailboxes sit at the end of a connecting road, with more up ahead. A road sign that once warned of cows crossing or fire safety is now covered by cardboard lettered in black with the word WARNING! scrawled at the top in block handwriting. Underneath, a piece of copy paper sealed behind packing tape says:
APPLEGATE - PROVOLT - MEDFORD
TOO DANGEROUS FOR TRAVEL ON FOOT OR BY CAR
DETOUR: ROUTE 199 OR GRAYBACK ROAD, IF PASSABLE
SAFE ZONE: NINEMILE CIDER FARM, 1/2 MILE AHEAD, GATED DRIVEWAY
ALL PEOPLE WELCOME
ALL INFECTED SHOT ON SIGHT
I read it twice, then stare at the letters in an attempt to make them rearrange themselves into something I want to read. At best, t
he news sends us back into California. At worst, it means we’ll get no farther than southern Oregon, even if we do backtrack. No one else cares where we end up; I’m the only one with a vested interest in reaching Eugene. The safety of a cider farm might prove irresistible to my companions. The thought of biting into an apple, or ten, makes me salivate. The idea of safety makes me swoon.
“We should check out the Safe Zone.” I face the group, attempting a placid expression. “If it’s a good spot for you guys, I’ll backtrack and get to Eugene on my own. I can do it.”
The thought is dismal, frightening, but it’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. I killed two humans the other night. I’ve killed zombies. Maybe the undead will be gone in a month or so, but that’s more than enough time for Rose and Mitch to disappear. I have to get to the kids. When they were small, I gave my word I’d protect them, and I don’t go back on my word.
“I don’t know about y’all,” Troy drawls, “but if Cherry’s friends are special enough for him to go all Chuck Norris on us, then I want to meet them.”
“You don’t have to,” I say.
Lana’s laugh lines deepen. “Guess you’re stuck with us. Or with me and Troy, anyway. Though why I’ve agreed to stick with him is anyone’s guess.”
“I’m in,” Daisy says.
Francis nods above his thick folded arms. “Come out fighting.”
Lance and Gabe eye each other. The hippie and the frat boy are polar opposites, but they’ve chatted all day in quiet voices. Gabe elbows Lance. “How are we gonna get cross-country if we can’t make it two hundred miles north?”
Lance nods. He even smiles.
Yesterday, I wondered if they’d wait for my blister to heal, and now they’re putting themselves in danger for me. I also thought this world harsh and brutal—and it is, but that makes finding these people all the more extraordinary.
“Thank you,” I manage to say before the tears roll. I don’t care if only pussies cry. This is who I am, and it’s enough for people to want to be around me. Rose has said it for decades, and it’s possible she hasn’t been blowing smoke up my ass the entire time.
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 53