by Poe, S. B.
They watched until he disappeared around the corner. Bridger caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The big man that had arrived at the gate with Scott this morning came from the side of the yellow house. Naomi took his hands when he walked up.
“I need to see him.” She said.
“You can’t. I’ll go.” Cyrus said.
“Find him Cyrus.”
“I will.” He turned and went back the way he came. The gate closed as he disappeared between the houses.
Long Ago, Twice Forgotten
“They haven’t stepped foot outside for more than a couple of minutes in two days.” Vernon said. “I took em food this morning, but it didn’t look like they ate much of what I took yesterday.”
“So what do you want to do?” Bridger asked.
Kate looked at the house across the street. She had offered, and they had accepted. It was open ended, but she hadn’t expected them to disappear behind the door. She didn’t know their whole story but Scott had told her everything Noah had told him so she knew they were probably going through a lot of grief and anger right now. Having Scott home had taken all her grief and some of her own anger away. After hearing what Scott had said she felt more sympathy towards them than anything. But she still needed to know what they planned to do now.
“What if they want to stay?” Kate asked.
“Why would they?” Bridger asked in return.
“What if they did?”
“I don’t know Kate. Fold them in, make them part of the team? That would be hard. For everyone.”
“Why?”
“It would be hard for us because of what they just put us through.”
“Scott’s back, I’m okay.”
“Not just you. I don’t know how many of us would ever be able to trust these folks, not enough to live with.”
“What about them? Could we learn to trust them?”
“They just lost their whole world. Everything they have been doing from day one has been gutted and they just lost the one who had led them every step of the way. It would be like losing JW now instead of…” Bridger paused.
“Yeah, I get it.” Kate said.
“But there’s something else. Something she said.” Bridger said.
“Who?” Kate asked.
“Let’s go for a walk. Vernon let us know if they come out.” Bridger said as he stood. He and Kate walked down the sidewalk and turned towards the church.
“What do you know about this group?” Bridger asked.
“Just what Scott told me. And what they’ve said themselves. But…”
“But it’s all a little hard to believe.” Bridger said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“So where does that leave us?” Kate asked.
“There something else. Something Naomi said.” Bridger said.
“Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“Yeah. Before that guy showed up she told me she found something. Something about what they were doing or were supposed to be doing.” Bridger said.
“The Afterlife thing?”
“Yeah, she mentioned that. I’ve heard Scott’s story, and it matches up with the little bits I’ve heard from her. At least the terminology is right.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that maybe there is some truth to it. Maybe they did know more or do know more about what happened than us. Hell that ain’t much of a leap, anyway. But what if there’s more? What if there’s someway out the other side?” Bridger asked.
“What are you talking about?” Kate asked.
“She said she found something. Something that might lead her to someone who may have a cure.” Bridger said.
“A cure?”
“She hedged on that some but from what I gather that is what they were looking for. Someone they think either has a cure or was close to having one when it went sideways.” Bridger said.
“What else did she say?” Kate asked.
“That’s it, the guy showed up at the gate and the shitshow started. Here we are.” Bridger said.
“I think it’s time we go talk to these people.”
“What if they won’t come out?” Bridger said.
“I’m not giving them a choice.” Kate said. She paused. They had wandered down the street and past the wrought-iron fence. Martin, Dottie, Cotton. Most of the letters were legible. They turned and headed back down the street.
“Can we talk outside?” Naomi asked.
“Something in there you don’t want me to see?” Kate asked.
“Not at all. Feel free to come in. It’s just that we’re ready. We were going to come out this morning, but we weren’t sure if what your reaction would be.” Naomi said.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Kate asked.
“Inside or out?”
“Out, let’s go for a walk.” Kate looked back over her shoulder. “Bridger here will keep the rest of you company.”
The others nodded at Bridger. He stepped inside the house and glanced around. “We’ll be fine.” He said.
Kate and Naomi turned down the sidewalk and headed down the street.
“So you’ve made a decision?” Kate asked.
“We just keep doing what we’ve been doing. That supply depot we were at will still be there. We’ll give it a few days to make sure that Caleb doesn’t come back and then go get enough stuff to start over.” Naomi said.
“Start over where?”
“I have a place in mind. The man outside your walls told me about it.” Naomi said.
“Ramey?”
“A lake.” She said.
“Is that what you found?”
“I haven’t found it yet. I think I know where it is.”
“What’s there? What are you looking for?”
“Bridger told you.” She said. “That’s why you’re asking.”
“He said you found a cure.”
“That’s not what I told him.”
“He said you hedged on it.”
“We were so scared.” Naomi said.
“Scared of what?” Kate asked.
“The dead.”
“You’re immune right?”
“Yeah, we walked out of Djibouti bitten and alive. But we didn’t know, not for sure, that they wouldn’t try to finish the job when the shit hit the fan.” Naomi said. “When Pensacola Naval fell, the dead were everywhere. Noah and I got to the back of a hangar out by the old museum and just hunkered down. There was wild gunfire everywhere. People got shot. Dead got shot. We hid. For two days. Even when the sound of gunfire was long gone and the only sound was the shuffle of dead feet on concrete, we hid. We didn’t know they would ignore us. But they did. We ventured out after one came face to face with Noah and never even noticed he was there. For the next month we were the only living beings on the entire air station. The fences and gates were electrified with power supplied by wave collector generators and offshore wind power. Anyone living or dead trying to get in was instantly burnt to a crisp. The closed circuit television worked too. That’s how we knew.” She glanced down. “We couldn’t figure out how to turn the fences off. Just the television.”
“I understand.” Kate said.
“Anyway, Pensacola was set up as a clearinghouse for Afterlife. That’s why we were there. The information was going to come in for a long as it could with updates on research progress and most importantly to us, immunes. We were to keep track of each one found, tag it in our offline system and add it to the log.”
“For what?”
“So we could find them.”
“The others?”
“Yeah, we found some. There are a lot more in the logbook. Some just pure speculation because any report of possible immune was logged.”
“Who was reporting?”
“Right as the outbreak went global, maybe two days after Madagascar, the CDC sent a global BOLO for certain traits of immunity.” Naomi said.
“So it got reported
to the CDC?”
“For a few days. Then it went south, and the info started getting dumped in Pensacola.”
“Why?”
“Because it was the only one that never went offline. People would boot up, shoot a mass of data collected over the course of days and then shut down. We figured it was all about power. The satellites never went down.” She said. “Towards the end of the first month we had gotten ahead of all the data. Noah and I would only pull out notes and emails. Stats and charts were useless. We separated the notes into two piles. Research and immune. We’d read through the research stuff looking for anything remotely hopeful but it was pretty obvious by then what was going to happen. By that point even if someone had created a cure there was no way to get word of it much less get it out there in any meaningful way. We began devoting more and more attention to the immune stack and started preparing to begin what we always knew would ultimately be our mission. Find them, save them. Rebuild.” Naomi said.
“Something changed.”
“An email.” Naomi said.
“An email?”
“Yeah, funny, thinking about it now it may have been the last email ever sent.” She smiled.
“What did it say?”
“It was from a doctor. Noah found her in the Afterlife files. She was a hemorrhagic fever specialist. They had flown her in from Africa on G minus 2.” Naomi said.
“G?”
“Global day. The Madagascar event. She arrived stateside two days before because chatter had already started on the east African coast that something was going on.” Naomi said. “Anyway all that was in the records, the email was from her. In the field.”
“Where in the field?” Kate asked.
“South Springs.” Naomi said. “There’s an airport there.”
“I know, we’re from there.” Kate said.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Small world.”
“Getting smaller every day.” Kate said. “You were saying?”
“Sorry. There was an underground facility there.” Naomi said. “She had found something. An anomaly.”
“Anomaly?”
“That’s what the email said. It said she had discovered an immune, which is why we even bothered reading it in the first place, but this one was different. The infected acted differently towards it and its blood and tissue samples were markedly different from every other immune sample that had been circulated.”
“So?” Kate said.
“She had found a way to isolate it and reproduce it and felt very strongly that she had discovered a precursor that she intended to develop.” Naomi said. “It was a breakthrough. It was really the only chance left.”
“So you decided to what? Go help?”
“We had all of our information about possible immunes. We plotted it out on a map. We found South Springs and the supply stations nearby. It took another day to figure out how to get out without getting electrocuted ourselves but we made it.” Naomi said. “The first supply drop was just outside of Navarre Beach so we made our way there. That’s where we found Hannah, Joel, Abby and Cyrus. They were the first ones we found that made it all the way to a pod.”
She paused.
“We knew where to look for the immunes. We headed north. We could pick them up along the way if there were any to pick up. We still didn’t know just how many would be out there. But we did know that there was a chance there was someone out there who could help everyone. How could you not make that your priority? We couldn’t. We didn’t. I still don’t.” Naomi said.
“So you think there is a chance to find this person? You think she’s still out there?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to find out.” Naomi said.
“Why?” Kate asked.
“That’s the real question isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Why. Answer that one and you’ll answer everything. Why does someone do something? Noah used to say that the rest of it is in the encyclopedia. The who, what, when, all that. It’s the why that matters the most. But no one ever really wants to know.”
“Is that what Noah was telling us? Answer the question?” Kate asked.
“He was hinting at it. But it was my question to answer.”
“And do you have the answer?” Kate asked.
“Why are you and your people still here? That was the question. You’re here because you should be. You’ve earned it. You’re decent people.”
“Why are you still here?” Kate asked.
“Because Noah gave me a job to do. And I’m still doing it.” Naomi said.
“You can stay here for now. I know you said you were going to wherever you said you were going.” Kate said.
“The lake. Ramey told me where he thought it was.” Naomi said.
“So stay here until you’re sure. Spend a few days making sure it's the right place.” Kate said.
“Why are you willing to help us?” Naomi said. “I would think you’d be happy to be rid of us.”
“I would be happy to be rid of you. But I’ve listened to what you’ve said, I’ve listened to what my son has said and I’ve listened to what my heart has said. If there is a chance that somehow we’ve stumbled across a group of people that may be able to solve this whole thing, I’ve got to pay attention. So you’re welcome to stay and use this as a place to operate out of while you look. We will help but before we do you will spend however long it takes outside our walls clearing away the dead you and your people brought here. After that, we’ll figure out how we’re going to work together.” Kate said.
“Fair enough.” Naomi said.
Kate paused then turned and walked away. Bridger was sitting on the curb waiting for her when she rounded the corner.
“Well?”
“Well, we’ve come to an understanding. They’re gonna stay for a little while. We’re going to see if they really do have a way out of this.” Kate said.
“If they don’t?”
“If they don’t, well, we’re already pretty used to that, anyway.” Kate kept walking.
Music for Dead Reckoning
The Dirty River Boys
John Moreland
Thieving Birds
The Dead Tongues
Lee DeWyze
Carolina Story
Passenger
Townes Van Zandt
Rock Plaza Central
Leo
Buddy Miller
The Wailin Jennys
Ben Nichols
Lyle Lovette
Karen Elson
Gillian Welch
Andrea von Kampen
Patty Griffin
Jackie Greene
The Crooked Still
Phillip Phillips
Brittany Howard
The Belleville Outfit
Katie Herzig
Jamestown Revival
Amy Stroup
Flatland Cavalry
Coming Soon
What Remains
Book 13
The Marionette Zombie Series
By
SB Poe