A Little More Dead (25 page)

Chapter
Thirty-Nine

DAY SIXTEEN

Paul popped his eyes open and stared at
Shelly’s dimpled ceiling, the quiet buzzing in his ears like a swarm of bees.
His heart sank as his throbbing mind slowly put the pieces together. Dan and
Brock were dead. Paul sat up and rubbed the back of head, wincing in pain.
Twisting in the front seat, he squinted through the morning gray to see Wendy
stretched across the back seat and sound asleep. A heavy sigh slipped through
his chapped lips, the windows fogged over from their heavy breathing. Somehow,
they were still alive. His heart jumped into his throat. He turned and looked
at Wendy again.

Cora was gone.

His eyes went to Cora’s unlocked door. It
was barely shut, just enough to turn off the dome light. Grimacing, he hopped
out into a rugged dirt field and stumbled. The fog was gone but the panic
wasn’t. Spinning in frantic rotations, he cupped his hands around his mouth and
yelled her name, the echo carrying on the wind. A crow squawked back. He
whirled in the soil and screamed her name again. Standing frozen, Paul held his
racing breath, hands balling into fists. Jesus!

Wendy popped out from the backseat,
bright eyed and bushy tailed with dried blood on her face and clothes. “Where
is she?”

“I don’t know,” he said, surveying the
rural landscape while grasping at shallow gulps of crisp morning air.

“How long has she been gone?”

“I don’t know; I just woke up.”

“Well, where did she go?” Wendy cried,
casing the countryside with him.

“
I
-
don’t
-
know
!”
He stopped doing circles, the motion making him woozy. “Fuck!” he said, kicking
the soil.

The wind tugged at Wendy’s long hair,
like it was trying to show her something off to the northeast. “She can’t just
be gone! We would’ve heard her get out of the car!”

“Stop walking.”

Wendy watched him scan the dirt field around
the car. “What’re you doing?”

“Looking for footprints.”

The ground was moist on top with dew but
hard and clumpy beneath, difficult to read. His own prints left faint marks and
he had at least sixty pounds on Cora. He tried recalling the shoes she’d been
wearing and drew a blank filled with a thousand other gruesome images. Paul
swore and kicked the dirt again, Wendy looking to him with that terrified look
in her eyes that pissed him off even more. It was too much pressure. He didn’t
have all of the answers. In fact, he didn’t have any. Releasing a defeated
breath, Paul linked his fingers behind his head and stared off into the
distance. From here you would never know Hell had thrown back its charred gates.
Even under turbulent skies, it was beautiful and serene, the smell of the ocean
playing peek-a-boo on a light breeze.

Brow knitting together, his feet
uncontrollably followed his eyes to the trunk. He popped it, triggering a
sliver of hope to pump an extra beat into his broken heart. The food, water,
and duffel bag they’d packed the day before was another break. “
Sonofabitch
,” he whispered, not sure if he was happy or sad.
The basic weapons would only prolong the inevitable and the M4 was back in
Brock’s Suburban. Paul sighed. They could’ve used it with just the two of them
now.

“Thank God,” Wendy said, unzipping the
bag and grabbing a box of ammo. “If we would’ve waited until this morning to
load the car…” Dolefully, she shook her head and filled a clip, teardrops
streaking her filthy cheeks. “We have to find her.”

Paul’s gaze drifted back the way they
came, wondering if Dan and Brock were still hobbling after them. Paul had no
idea how far they drove last night, or in which direction. He just remembered driving
to the sound of sobbing in the backseat and God knows where they were
now,
let alone where Cora might be. Taking the duffel bag
and some water from the trunk, he got back inside the car and angrily slammed
his door shut. Meanwhile, Wendy mulled over their limited options with her
hands on her hips before hopping into the passenger seat and locking all of the
doors. She took a long drink of water and passed it to Paul, who finished the
bottle with greedy chugs. His mind shuffled like a detective.

When
did you last see Cora?

Before I fell
asleep last night.

What
was she wearing?

A shiny red
robe.

Which
direction did she go?

No idea.

Where
would she want to go?

Home.

Paul started the car and reversed their
path, or something close to it. With pockets of fog masking their surroundings
last night, he wasn’t entirely sure which direction to go. After a handful of
miles, he began driving a poorly thought out grid pattern, getting lost twice
before finding his way back to the highway. He banged his fist against the
steering wheel and swore, making Wendy flinch. They combed the area for several
miles, the wind bustling through the serrated hole in the front windshield.

Nothing.

The gas light came on, ripping at his
insides because this is when it would happen.

On a gas run.

Just the two of
them.

He pulled over and turned the
Chevelle
off. Outside of a barking dog in the distance, it
was noiseless. The kind of quiet you never want to hear again. Goose bumps
rippled across his flesh as he pictured Cora wandering around out there by
herself – cold and unarmed. Paul dropped his face into his hands. “Fucking
shit,” he grumbled under his breath. When he realized he hadn’t thought about
Sophia in a while now, his anger flowered. These damn things not only wanted to
eat them, but they wouldn’t let them rest long enough to mourn and that is all
he wanted to do. The thought of siphoning gas with just Wendy made him laugh.

Her eyes narrowed. “What’s so funny?”

He shook his head, afraid to tell her they
were finished. Afraid to tell her this was the end. Paul wasn’t even sure he
could get out of the car again. Every muscle in his body screamed with the
slightest movement while a dull thud rotated behind his eyes. “We need gas.”

Her eyes darted to the dash. “Do we even
have a siphon?”

Paul nodded, surveying the open land around
them. “We made sure both cars did,” he replied, the word
we
driving a knife through his windpipe.

Wendy put her hair back into a ponytail
and straightened her bloody v-neck t-shirt. “Well, this
oughtta
be good.” Staring straight ahead like she was watching something play out
against the broken window – something ghastly – she spoke in a weak voice.
“How long until we’re next?”

“I’m going to start heading south
again.”

Her eyes snapped over to him. “What do
you mean?”

“I mean, she’s gone.” Paul looked around.
“I’m not even sure where we are.”

“You just want to give up?”

“Cora is the one who gave up, Wendy. I’m
still here.”

Wendy vehemently shook her head. “No.”

“She could be anywhere!”

“We’ll keep looking then!”

“We’ve already
looked
everywhere!” He sighed and lowered his voice. “Look, we
don’t even know where we’re at. She could be hours ahead of us, or behind us.”

Or dead.

His eyes scoured the flattened landscape
around them. What else could they do? Even if they were able to find Cora, he
was certain she would only do something stupid like this again and the next
time they would all die. After all, she left the car door unlocked and in this
world that was the equivalent to leaving your door unlocked in East St. Louis
in the old world. Without Brock, she was a loose cannon and Paul knew the
feeling.

He started the car and turned to Wendy,
who refused to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Chapter
Forty

Paul siphoned gas from a beige Escalade
parked in front of a convenience store while Wendy covered him from behind. The
bigger vehicles had larger tanks and, usually, more gas. If the car doors were
unlocked, he would’ve searched for a set of hidden spare keys. Thanks to
Pajamas, it was difficult to see out Shelly’s shattered front windshield and
chilly as hell in the morning air. In the end, he decided not to risk the noise
from breaking out a window and bled the tank dry instead. What were the odd the
keys were inside a luxury SUV like this? Not good. No, they would find a new
car somewhere else, probably a dealership with a box of keys in the office and
their choice of colors parked outside in the lot.

They didn’t speak while the last of the gas
gurgled into Shelly1 from the five gallon can. Paul stared at the shuddered gas
station and caught a whiff of the old world going on around him. He could see
the cars coming and going, people filling their tanks and tires, nozzles automatically
clicking off. It would never be like that again, people going about their
business without a care in the world. After emptying the can, Paul screwed the
caps back on it and the car.

“What could do this?”

He tossed the can and siphon back into
the trunk, following Wendy’s gaze to a pair of bloody handprints on the
station’s windows –
Jesus Kills
smeared in blood just below. A number of answers rifled through Paul’s head:
Bioterrorism, North Korea, witchcraft, or maybe the world’s anger had turned
from hateful online comments into something tangible.

Something
deadly.

Paul slammed the trunk shut and got back
in the car. At any rate, what could anyone have done to prevent it?
Protest?
March in the streets and flip over some cars? He
grunted, leading the black
Chevelle
down a winding
two-lane highway under a sad sky. Like that
shit ever did
anything before but fan
the flames. The wind howled through the
windshield, ruffling his hair, and if it started to rain they’d have to pull
over. The closer they got to the ocean, the more it hit home. Everyone was dead.
Everyone.
Wendy nonchalantly dabbed at an eye,
fighting back more tears. She looked older in the daylight. Time was different
in this world. Two weeks equaled two years. He opened his mouth to tell her
they would be okay, that they could do this on their own, but returned his attention
to the road instead, too tired to even lie.

She sensed his distress and took his
hand in hers. “We’ll be okay.”

He replied with a shallow nod and slowed
down at a pack of abandoned vehicles blocking the road. Coming to a complete
stop, Paul surveyed the best way to go around when a man in a trucker hat
emerged from the red cab of an eighteen-wheeler up ahead.

“
Look,
there’s someone!”
Wendy announced, sitting up straighter.

Paul watched the man climb down from the
cab.

“He looks normal,” Wendy said in a
hopeful tone, eager to restock the ones they’d lost.
The
whole power in numbers thing.
“
Maybe
he needs help.
”

But the closer the man came, the more
Paul realized they were the ones who needed the help. The man stumbled and lost
his cap but didn’t bother picking it up.

“
Go,
”
she said coldly.

Paul studied the steep ditches bordering
the road on both sides. It looked like a good way to roll the car so he
squeezed between a blue
Prius
and another car instead,
scraping the side of the
Prius
as the man limped
closer. The
Chevelle
wedged itself between the cars,
coming to a jerky halt. The man reached for them, nearly to Wendy’s door.

“Go, Paul!”

He gunned it and knocked the
Prius
out of the way with a long metallic screech,
accelerating into the open road ahead. In the rearview mirror, he watched the
man stumble after them. Palm trees and signs for different beaches rushed by in
a dizzying blur, everything strange, everything foreign. Even Wendy seemed strange
and foreign. Hell, he barely knew her, yet here they were. The last two people
on Earth.

“Do you still believe in God?” she
asked.

The day’s gray light cast an eerie glow
across her drawn face. He turned back to the road without answering.

She frowned. “I mean, how could you?
After everything that’s happened?”

He drummed his fingers against the wheel
and shifted in the seat, butt going numb.

She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m
probably already dead and this is my version of Hell.”

He looked over to her. “You’re not dead.
Not yet anyway.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring.”

The road droned beneath them, issuing a
soothing vibration throughout the classic ride. Paul took a Jimmy Buffett CD
from the glove box – the only CD in the car – and debated putting it in the updated
Pioneer deck before throwing the disc out the window instead.

“Hey!” Wendy shouted.

He tried the radio again and nothing.
Not even static. When he hit the seek button the digital numbers flipped by
without stopping. It was impossible to tell what even used to be a radio station.
The dead air gave him the chills. Wendy watched the digits spin, hoping they
would snag on something but they just kept rolling, lost in a sea of
nothingness. She turned to face him, her ponytail blowing in the wind. “I don’t
want to end up like one of those things.”

“We won’t,” he said, turning up the
heater.

“How can you be so sure? Look what’s
happened to everyone else! As far as we know, we’re the last two people on the
entire planet.”

“There are more people somewhere.” He
adjusted his seat belt again which kept getting tighter every few miles. “There
has to be.” But for all he knew, she could be right and the fate of mankind was
resting squarely upon their shoulders. If that was the case, mankind was in for
some serious trouble. They passed a Ford F-150 with perfect windows and Paul considered
pulling over and trading out the battered show car but was too tired to attempt
such a brazen move without knowing if the keys were inside or not. Nothing was
easy. Not with just the two of them.

“So what now?” she asked, breaking the
silence.

“We’ll figure something out.”

“Something like what?”

He didn’t answer.

Right now he just wanted to drive. Not
talk. The ghastly image of Dan bobbed to the surface in his
groggy
mind, sticking him with poisoned darts. Dan turned so fast. How was
that
even possible? Paul’s mom and Sophia took days to turn, but Dan changed in a
matter of minutes, if not seconds. Maybe multiple bites could speed up the
infection. Paul didn’t know but the unpredictability of it all left a sour
taste in his mouth. With some effort he pushed the image of Dan’s dangling jaw
back down and tried to focus on Sophia’s heart-shaped face, which was hazy and
missing some pieces around the edges, leaving him feeling claustrophobic and
hopeless. If he couldn’t be with her, he at least needed to see her. They rode
in silence, passing through one ghost town after another.

“Eventually, I’m going back.”

A quizzical look slid across Wendy’s
blood-stained face. “Back where?”

“To Des Moines.”

“Iowa?”

He nodded.
“Back to my
house.”

“For what?”

Paul’s Adams apple bobbed. “Some photo
albums.”

“Photo albums?
Paul, it’s not
worth risking…”

He pounded his fist against the wheel,
honking the horn as they blazed past a shop selling boogey-boards and bikinis.
“I can’t see her face! What don’t you get about that?”

She stared at him, slack jawed and
unnerved. “And what am I supposed to do?”

“We’ll find some other people soon.”

“
Other people
?
And what,
you’re just going to leave me with complete strangers?”

“Strangers?”
He chuckled.
“What’s my last name again?”

Eyebrows sinking, she opened her mouth
to reply but didn’t. The quiet resumed its place as the car blazed past a CVS
with shattered windows and a woman’s body impaled on a metal handicapped sign
in the parking lot. Wendy breathed out. “We’re not
complete
strangers.”

Shelly1 flew along as the sky darkened
with an approaching storm system. Paul yawned and thought about being with
Sophia on the picnic table the other night – just the two of them under a
blanket of stars.

“Where do you think the President is?”
Wendy asked, taking her shoes off and resting her red painted toes on the dash.

“Probably flying
around in Air Force One somewhere, looking for a safe place to land before they
run out of fuel.”

“That would be horrible.”

“If he’s even still
alive.”

“Why do you think that, out of
all
the people out there, we made it?
Why us?”

He stared out the hole in the front
window and shrugged. “Bad luck I guess.”

She got quiet, wiping away another
teardrop making a break for it down her cheek. “Thank you for saving my life.”

He kept his eyes on the road.

“Back in Brock’s driveway,” she
clarified, rubbing the spot on her arm where a zombie had pressed its teeth the
night before. If Paul would’ve hesitated for even a second, she’d be on the
other team today and he’d be sitting here alone.

Wendy rested a hand on his, studying his
strong profile. “The Chinese say, when you save somebody’s life they belong to
you.”

He took his hand back as they crested a
hill and watched the ocean unfold before them like a springtime flower. It was
a beautiful sight, the body of water running to the ends of the earth, its
infinite mass breathtaking. Seagulls rode the frenetic airwaves above and Paul
remembered Mike asking if there were sharks in the ocean. Paul sat up
straighter and stepped on the gas, driving Shelly1 onto a smooth stretch of
sandy beach near Port O’Connor, Texas. He shut the car off and sat there,
soaking it all in. This was the end of the line and the end of the plan. Mike
and Matt would have loved it here. They all would’ve.

Paul exchanged a silent glance with Wendy
before getting out and filling his lungs with a deep breath of salty air. She climbed
out and pulled her ponytail free, letting the wind run through her hair while
stretching her arms out and shutting her eyes. Seagulls cried out overhead and
swooped down for a closer look, convinced Wendy and Paul had already dropped
some scraps to the sand. As far as the eye could see, the beach was clear of
people, dead or alive. Just the same, he retrieved a pistol-grip shotgun from
the duffel bag in the backseat, thinking of Brock as he did so. Stopping in
front of the car, Paul dropped into the sand and set the stockless weapon next
to him, pulling his knees to his chest. Wendy sat cross-legged beside him and
watched the waves crash onto the beach and throw spray into the air.

They made it.

Sort of.

“It’s so beautiful,” she murmured,
gazing out over the water. “Everything seems so...normal.”

Squinting into the ocean breeze, Paul
tried to remember
normal
. Valentine’s
Day seemed so long ago now, one of the last
normal
days on the planet. A
day he and Sophia spent at a nice Chinese restaurant, where soft lights and low
music set the romantic tone in her voice. She looked so beautiful that night
and she should be here with him now, not some fucking waitress from Kansas he
barely knew. Fuck!

The wind tugged at Wendy’s hair. “What’re
you thinking about?”

He redirected his attention to a small
dock housing some large boats down the way. This was the end of the plan and
without Sophia and Dan he had no clue what to do next. Without them, he
couldn’t think.
Couldn’t see.

Sophia’s last words rattled around
inside his skull like loose change in a dryer.

You’re
the only hope.

The wind carried off his bitter laughter,
sweeping it down the barren beach.
Some fucking hope.
Lot of good it did Dan.

“I’m sorry about Dan,” Wendy said,
reading his mind. “You were lucky to have a friend like him. He made me laugh.”

Paul turned to find her soft blue eyes
staring back. He nodded a little and swung his gaze back to the empty horizon,
fighting the tears blurring his vision. He needed to focus. Not a single boat,
plane or pedestrian moved in any direction. His stomach turned. He didn’t know
what to do next but he did know one thing: They were in trouble.