August Burning (Book 1): Outbreak (11 page)

“Bennett. Slow down, those bumps hurt
my nose.” The bleeding in Liam’s nose still hadn’t subsided. “Bennett! Slow
down!”

Bennett startled, as if out of a
dream. “Oh Jesus man, I’m sorry.”

Liam looked to Jaxton, as if to share
an understanding. “You ok, dude?”

Bennett breathed in. “Everything is
changing.”

Jaxton frowned. “I don’t want to think
about it. I don’t want to talk about it.” He hated how grotesque the broken man
had looked. He hated that man for crashing his car, for dying, and most of all
for giving him that horrific image of the twisted neck.

“Are you ok?” Adira cooed. Her voice
was silky. Jaxon thought she had never looked more beautiful and fragile than
she did right then, soaked and dark.

It was Bennett who answered her. “We
just witnessed-we were just a part of terrible violence. And we moved on
without batting an eye.”

“What would you have us do?” Liam
growled, as the pain grated on his nerves.

“Nothing. I just can’t shake the
feeling we just took a huge turn, for better or worse. I think that was just
the beginning.”

“It was his own damn fault. I hate him
for what he gave me. I’ll think of that till I die, now,” Jaxton snapped, horrifying
himself. The words just spilled out.

In a calmer tone, Bennett resumed,
“Look at how fragile society is. How proudly we all preached our moralities
before all this. And it’s been like what, 3 days? And everything is gone.
Nothing matters when people are trying not to die.”

“I just didn’t…expect to see it so
fast,” Adira whispered.

“The only thing that matters is
getting home, staying away from the infected, and finding our families,” Jaxton
said.

“Look.” Harley said quietly, her
bleary hazel eyes staring ahead blankly in the fog and rain. All across the
northbound lanes there was a wall of armored vehicles. Black rifles protruded
skyward across a one hundred foot front. It was a homicidal wall of black and
dark green, and their mini van was facing it.

Bennett’s callused hands gripped the
leather wheel till they could all hear it creaking. “Guys, what the fuck is the
plan.” He struggled to keep his voice even. The car sped past a green sign;
Philadelphia: 80 miles East.

Harley pointed to the side of the
highway, where there was a little clearing in the forest wall. They were still
too far to see the white of the soldiers’ eyes, but they felt they were being
watched intently. Jaxton could feel the nervous energy in the car picking up
steam. It would snowball until it led them to ruin or salvation. Seizing the
moment, Jaxton indicated the clearing. “Bennett. At the last minute, get us
into that clearing. Everyone else, grab everything you can carry.”

“Why don’t we drive up to them?” Adira
asked.

“No!” Jaxton shouted. “No, we can’t.
They’ll take us away. We just need to get away from all these people!”

“What are you talking about?” Bennett
asked, his voice strained.

“Make for the clearing,” Liam said.
The car erupted into a shouting match as the clearing drew closer. At the last
second Bennett yanked the wheel over and eased the car to a stop beside the
road. They were three hundred feet from the soldiers.

At Jaxton’s insistence the six of them
burst out of the broken vehicle and made for the tree line. There was a violent
rumble of thunder, and the snap of purple lightning lit up the sky overhead.
Jaxton could tell they had made it to the trees without looking around. He
could smell it. There was a sweet, wet smell that had been made somewhat sickly
by the fresh rainwater. Glistening green leaves crowded the space around him.
He indicated the deeper woods. “Go!”

The storm became more furious as darkness
fell. They skittered like refugees among boarded up houses, advancing as fast
as they could through empty streets with garbage drifting in the howling winds.
The tempest seemed intent on savaging their small band of six. Crouching under
dripping porches, Jaxton snuck a look at the water-logged map. By now, all
their phones were all dead, and most of the lights in the quaint little
neighborhood were out. They had to scuffle out of sight a few times, as roaring
Army vehicles came rolling through. Though most of the civilians had left, some
remained, peering out suspiciously from curtained windows in the night. Slowly,
Jaxton led them north-west, through the bigger towns of southern Pennsylvania.

Bennett trodded alongside Jaxton, both
men struggling with their payloads.

“Still think we made the right call?”
Bennett groaned. The others had fallen behind some distance.

Jaxton nodded, somewhat annoyed.
“What’s the alternative?”

“Could have easily gone south with
those columns of refugees.”

Jaxton kept his eyes forward,
searching out safe places to step in the gloom. The highway, now deserted, laid
a stone’s throw to their right. “You saw the video.”

“And?”

“And what do you think the chances are
this thing can’t be stopped? I’d say pretty damn high.”

“I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate
here. I’m still on board, Jax.”

Bennett saw Jaxton frown in the wet
darkness as he opened his mouth. “So lets assume this thing can’t be stopped.
Let’s assume it keeps spreading, pushing south, west, and north…until the
entire continent is overrun. Where will our families try to find us, if they
survive?”

“The entire continent? Are you
serious?”

“Completely. Home is our best bet if
the world crumbles. And it’s isolated. We know the terrain; we know there are
weapons there. Don’t challenge me in front of the others unless you have a
better plan, got it?”

Bennett couldn’t filter his thoughts,
couldn’t say how he felt. The night was dark, and he was cold. He remained
silent.

“Jesus Christ,” Jaxton muttered to
himself. He couldn’t feel his shoulders any more. The bags, heavy as they were
from canned food, were even more unwieldy logged down with rain-water. The
water collected in his hair and trickled in his vision. The sneakers that had
been with him faithfully since sophomore year were falling apart. He halted, and
dropped the duffel bags unceremoniously. The air was thick with humidity.

A small hand rested on his back.
“Going to let me carry one now?” Tessa looked prettier in the rain, her smile
undiminished even in the fierce tempest. Jax felt himself smiling, despite how
his body ached.

“Let’s rest for the night. We can
start again tomorrow.”

Tessa grinned easily. Her face was
relaxed, somehow. “I don’t know if you could hear up there at the front, but
Harley’s been bitching for the last mile.”

Jaxton couldn’t help but chuckle
darkly as the others drew close, huddling beneath a flickering street light in
a vacant cul-de-sac. Harley did look exhausted, though the rain made her
clothes stick to her body, Jaxton did not fail to notice.

“Enough for tonight.”

“Now what?” Bennett asked. “Are we
guna sleep out here?”

“I need to get out of the fucking
cold,” Liam mumbled, a bloody tissue stuffed in his nose.

“What about those houses?” Harley
asked. She motioned to a neighborhood nestled in shrubbery and patches of
ominous trees.

“Ring the doorbell and ask if we can
stay the night? I think not.” Bennett said.

“I think they evacuated this area,”
Jaxton ventured.

Harley held onto Liam’s bulky arm and
examined his nose. “We’ll take our damn chances. Come on Liam, we’ll fix you up
inside.” She dragged him forward till he was stumbling. Jaxton followed;
relieved someone else had made the call for once.

…

They approached a squat residence with
no cars in the driveway. Its dark windows were more fully illuminated with the
violent crack of white lightning. Jaxton repressed a shudder. It looked creepy.
They knocked savagely on the wooden door. No answer.

“Liam, open it,” Harley commanded.

“What, break it down?”

“I’m sorry guys, I don’t care
anymore.” Liam stepped back and hammered his huge shoulder into it, and the
frame cracked. They scurried inside like frightened pets, and tried the lights.
They worked.

“Whoever left did it in a hurry. No
one’s home.”

Jaxton surveyed the foyer. Clothes and
empty boxes lay scattered around the tiled floor. Harley emerged from the
kitchen with a can opener, and snatched a few selections from the duffel. They
stood around awkwardly, feeling decidedly strange around pictures of another family.
Harley was the first to move.
 
After
they had stripped their soaking clothes and changed into whatever they could
find in the bedrooms upstairs, they gathered in the living room.

“Well, I guess this could be
worse….but for the record this doesn’t feel right at all.” Liam looked sheepish
wearing an obscenely small t-shirt that didn’t belong to him.

“Dryer works,” Harley said, licking
her lips.

“There’s food?”

“They left a bunch of shit in the
fridge.” She grinned, dipping a spoon into a jar of Nutella.

Bennett emerged from the pantry. He
had not taken his own clothes off. “I can’t stop thinking about his eyes. So
fucking white. Bulging.”

“Bennett, shut the fuck up,” Liam
said, his voice hoarse.

The group settled quietly on the
couches, but nothing was said. Jaxton rose quickly, feeling the anxiety of the
day infecting them all. That needed to be replaced, swiftly. He returned with a
small grin, hoping they could share some measure of happiness that night. He
wanted to crawl into a warm corner and knock himself out with drugs, but he
relented.

He drew a bottle of clear liquid from
behind his back, with exaggerated majesty. “Behold. The finest elixir.”

Artificial laughter broke out between
the couches. Jaxton placed a plastic bottle of vodka on the glass coffee table.

Jaxton tried to smile expectantly at
his friends, and realized they might not do anything. He couldn’t go to sleep
sober. Adira made eye contact with him and she forced a false smile.

“Oh ho ho. Fancy. Whipped cream
flavored always was my first choice,” Adira grabbed the bottle and poured
herself a shot. Then she passed it around. “Everyone should partake. You won’t
want to miss out.”

Slowly, one by one, they gathered in a
tight circle clutching shot glasses with warm cheap vodka, their clothes all
too small or too large, in a house they had never visited before.

“Lets have a toast to these fine
people, who have been so gracious as to let us stay the night.” Jaxton raised
his glass. “And hopefully they are sleeping safely somewhere south tonight.” He
finished solemnly, and drained the shot.

As time passed, they forgot their
fears. They stopped obsessing over where their families were. They were sick of
it. Instead, they became giddy with their newly found warmth; they knew they
would sleep in soft beds tonight.

Within an hour, burly Liam was leading
Harley up the stairs. Always the gentleman, he insisted on carrying her up,
which was completed with some degree of difficulty due to his stuffed nose.
Jaxton looked at his friends through a warm haze. He felt slightly giddy, yet
there was a terror at the edge of his mind, whispering to him.

Bennett’s eyes wandered. He seemed to
be in a cloud, looking but not seeing much. He remained quite sober, and always
refused a re-fill as time passed. At some point, he entered the kitchen to down
half a bottle of Nyquil. As he became loopier, Bennett laid his head in Adira’s
lap, and stared at her from below.

Tessa drew herself close to Jaxton,
and talked about what she was going to do after the infection was over. Jaxton
smiled and nodded, not paying much mind. He felt his own eyes kept flicking to
Adira’s. She hadn’t properly washed the eye makeup off her face, so that it
stained her cheeks and ran. He couldn’t stop staring. Her dark eyes glittered
as she met his own gaze. He looked away hastily, feeling like he was intruding
on something. When he looked again, she continued to calmly meet his gaze,
seemingly appraising him. It felt uncanny. She didn’t seem drunk at all, and
her eyes were unwavering.

“I won’t put you on a pedestal, I
promise,” Bennett muttered. Adira chuckled and pushed his blond hair back from
his face.

He continued, slurring his words, “I
just don’t know why you chose me. I’m very happy, that you did, did you know?”

Jaxton fought his own demons, and
found himself looking at Adira’s body. For the first time, he noticed it in a
tank-top. It was slight, not shapeless, but not aggressively figured. All the
same, the power of her sensuality came from her eyes and the way her lips
naturally curved, beckoning. He felt himself shifting in his seat, feeling like
his self-control was slipping away. To his sudden annoyance, Tessa slipped her
arm around him and leaned close. The vodka wafted off her lips. He couldn’t be
mad for long; her face was an oblivious grin. He felt himself answering her
smile, and then she was kissing him. He recoiled slightly, but not far. She
rose and attempted to strut out of the room, beckoning clumsily to him and
laughing. He looked at Adira.