August Burning (Book 1): Outbreak (16 page)

 
7 days after Outbreak. Appalachia

That night, they
spent a restless six hours in a little field a ways off the road. The stars
refused to emerge, staying hidden in a belt of low-hanging fog. Liam shivered,
stuck in a restless slumber broken by fits of fever. They had been forced to
leave the first duffel bag behind. As a result, their food supply had been cut
in half. They spooned cold chili into their mouths before lying down in the wet
grass. Jaxton kept his rifle close to hand.

Bennett leaned
forward, and rested his hand on Jaxton’s shoulder. “Are you ok?”

Jaxton rose
immediately, and stalked off into the mist. Without hesitation, Adira rose to
follow.

“Where are you
going?”

Bennett saw Adira
bristle at his tone. “He just needs someone to talk to.”

As the two figures
disappeared, Bennett could feel the eyes of the others on him.

Jaxton could hear
someone approaching, through the thick fog.

“Bennett won’t like
that you followed me.”

Adira drew up beside
him, so her arm was pressed against his own. He turned to face her.

“I need to make sure
you’re ok.”

Jaxton chuckled
darkly. “I had figured by now, this thing would be under control. That we’d be
laughing about how scared we all were. It’s just getting worse. And maybe
that’s how it’ll eventually get better. I’ll just get used to it.”

“You’re a good man,
Jax. I can feel it. This whole thing, the infection. It hasn’t changed you.
Against all odds, you’ve remained the same person. I admire that.”

“I haven’t changed?
Those two men, they’re likely dead, corpses in the tall grass.”

Adira clasped his
hand. “You did what you had to do. So that your friends could make it out. You
alone had that courage.”

“If I was a good man,
I wouldn’t want to kiss you right now, but I do.”

Adira looked up at
Jaxton’s chiseled, bearded jawline. “This is how these things go. We don’t know
much about each other, do we? But we have strong feelings about what kind of
person the other is.” She chuckled. “You just like the idea of me.”

Jaxton smiled sadly.
“It’s all in looks, smells, little touches, huh. But damn, is it powerful.”

She rubbed his hand
gingerly, and together they reveled silently in the shared touch, so long in
coming. “Yes, it really is.”

Jaxton wrapped his
arms around her shoulders, and felt the dampness working through their clothes.
The fog hung all around them as they stood, listening to each other’s
breathing.

“He’s still my
friend. Until that changes, I can’t.”

Adira smiled into his
chest. “I know.”

Near dawn, a thunder
from the east awoke them. Looking out from their naked position atop the ridge,
a scene near the horizon took their breath away.

The dawn was coming
swift and strong. The lower quarter of the eastern sky was a smear of faint
blue that was telling of the brilliance that would later fill its reaches. Its
western counterpart was still a deep black, almost purple. At the eastern
foreground, there was a conflagration of flashing thunder. Great plumes of smoke
rose miles into the sky as enormous swaths of the horizon burned bright with
hungry pillars of flame. It seemed the whole edge of the world was on fire.
Little flashes and burps of smaller flames popped up and faltered immediately.
Explosions carried across the floor of the world, reaching their ears as faint
pops and muted rolling thuds. There was blurred movement in the shimmering
dawn. They sat awake, clustered together, watching in horrified fascination as
the only reality they had ever known fell apart in a wall of ash and flame.

“We’re close. We’re
close. Another few days, and home.” Bennett returned after prodding around the
ATVs. He raised a giant black radio transmitter, with an extendable antenna
from a forgotten age. It still had some juice. He tinkered with the dials,
searching the AM radio bands for anything useful. A solitary voice cut through
the mass of static, though its tone was muted and feeble.

“Urging all residents
to visit the FEMA website for advice on how to put together a survival package.
Please adhere to all……evacuation….martial law in several states
including…..Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Dela-…..” Bennett changed the
band.

This voice, female:
“The President has finally made a full speech on the infection, acknowledging they
have no idea what it is. And it seems he has been evacuated, but God knows
where! Maybe out west, in those mountains the DoD has prepped for a disaster.
Lord knows its time to use those holes….” It was changed again.

“The army has been
deployed to contain the infection to the tri-state area. New York will be
retaken.” A more shrill voice cut the stern drawl off-“Bullshit! The infected
are nearly at the Delaware river in some places!”

“That is most
certainly a lie. I can tell you unequivocally that New Jersey is under our firm
control. The government is also in the process of making a vaccine for-“ “More
lies! There’s no *BEEP* vaccine. New Jersey is overrun.”

The argument
continued. “No, no sir that is simply not true. Our military is doing a fine
job of containing any breach-“ “Then how come the whole seaboard is being
evacuated as far south as Virginia!? And Pennsylvania?!” Static washed out the
voices, and the connection terminated.

Their
silhouettes were rimmed with a fiery glow. The city was dying. Jaxton imagined
sickening screams carried on the wind as the proud steel skyscrapers raged with
fire. He shuddered visibly, grateful they were so far removed from the burning
city. He watched the carnage below with an obsession bordering on fascination.
His entire life, he had waited for something to change the rules. Now that it
had finally arrived, his head was a swirl of emotions. He felt recklessly
stupid and shameful for ever praying normality would end.

His nostrils
flared as a wave of smoke rolled through the shadowy trees on a summer morning,
miles from its source. From their vantage point far above, the group felt some
semblance of safety. For the first time all week they relaxed visibly, their
forms drooping with fatigue in the morning air.

Harley drew
closer to Liam’s mottled skin, her face a mask of pain and fear. Her hazel eyes
skittered nervously. Liam absent mindedly began pulling the brambles stuck in
her long auburn hair. The delightful energy in her mannerisms that drew men to
her was dead. All that magic was gone now.

“Do you think
we will ever see them again? Our families?” Liam asked with effort, his
bloodshot eyes never leaving the horizon.

Jaxton
clenched his callused hands and took a last gulp from their dwindling supply of
water. No one answered.
 

Bennett’s
hands rose to tussle his own blond hair. “At least its quiet up here,” he said
bitterly, shooting a glance into the forest behind them. The hair on Jaxton’s
back stood on end as more rumbles echoed in the burning city so far away.
“Those men didn’t need to die today,” Bennett continued flatly.

“You’re a bit
of a hypocrite these days, aren’t you? You play the morally righteous one when
it suits you?”” Jaxton breathed.

“I wouldn’t
wanna follow someone who kills so easily, would you?” Bennett turned to Adira,
who stared at him angrily.

“Here? Now?
Yea, I would,” Harley said.

Jaxton
clenched his jaw. “Did you think they were just going to let us go? Let us
drive off with their ATVs?”

Bennett
kneaded his hands. “You shouldn’t have that gun. You’re going to get us all
hurt one day. You’re too impulsive to handle something with that much power.”

Adira cut him
off curtly, “Bennett, enough.” Adira rubbed her dark eyes with dirt-stained
hands. “I don’t know if it was right to kill them, but I’m glad as hell I
didn’t have to make that call. And I bet you are too.”

“I suppose,
this would be the part of a movie where someone says…God is Dead,” Bennett
mused pretentiously, looking out over the distant burning landscape, paying the
others no mind.

“There’s no
God. There’s just man,” Liam croaked. He spat up a wad of phlegm and leaned
back into Harley.

Tessa laughed
darkly. “I just feel numb. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

“So you all
don’t think it was wrong?” Bennett asked.

Adira shooed
him, “none of that now, Bennett, let’s just rest.”

Jaxton set
his jaw again, grinding his teeth in that way when he was feeling overwhelmed. “I
didn’t even make a decision. I just…did it,” he said evenly. “Is that what you
want to hear?”

Bennett
leaned in, utterly focused with beady, bloodshot eyes. “I want you to admit it
was wrong. Everyone else seems to think you’re infallible. Our leader.”

“There’s no
one to judge you!” Liam growled, almost resembling a lunatic in delirium.

Jaxton rose
alone, and silently strolled away.

Bennett
watched him go. “We can’t abandon morality just because the decisions become
tougher.” Bennett paused, scratching his roughened knees with scratched hands.
“Those are the times morality becomes the most important. Did those men have to
die? He’ll go to the grave wondering, did they have to die?”

Harley looked
up, all her magnetic energy gone. “I hated that. Just there. I hated that.”

Bennett
frowned at her.

“Don’t try to
fill the air. The world is falling apart. How did you manage to turn that into
something so fucking pretentious?”

Liam opened
his eyes in wonder. He scoffed, and chuckled through his coughs. Then he tugged
the hazel-eyed girl closer and laid his head on her lap.

Harley shook
her head, looking towards the wall of fire. “And there’s no one watching out
for us.” She rose, and dragged Liam to a patch of grass nearby, where they
intertwined in slumber. Tessa rose and stumbled off to find Jaxton. Bennett and
Adira were left alone.

“Do you
believe that?”

“Believe
what?”

“There’s no
God, no power at be.”

“I didn’t
take you for a believer.”

Bennett
smiled easily, despite everything. “Of course there’s someone watching us.
Because since the dawn of humanity, every human culture and subculture has
created religion of its own accord. They’ve been isolated by thousands of
miles. Never been in contact. Yet every civilization, independently, decided to
believe there is something greater than themselves. There is no uniquely
atheist culture. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“Sure. It tells
me a lot of human nature. About fear of the unknown.”

“Fear? No
this isn’t about fear. This is about blinding beauty. I choose to believe in
something other than all this, simply because I can. I’m better off. How can
all the beauty in the world exist and you tell me there’s nothing to it?”

Adira turned
her dark, tired eyes to the horizon, where a solid wall of black smoke and
flame was spilling into the frigid lower atmosphere. In that moment, she hated
the man seated next to her. “Because of that,” she spat and rose. “That’s
enough to balance out the beauty of a lifetime.”

Bennett was
left frowning to himself in angry resignation, wondering when Adira would cool
down enough to let him have a go at her.

…

They didn’t
jump at the gunshots anymore. Jaxton grimaced at the dark rings around his
friends’ eyes. He knew he looked just as overrun. Jaxton flexed his muscles and
felt every fiber of his being ache. They had been lounging on the hilltop for
hours. They needed more food. He kneeled beside Liam and clasped his neck
gingerly, to let him know he was cared for.

“You’re the
luckiest man on this little expedition,” he said, indicating Harley. “She
hasn’t left your side.”

“I keep
trying to scare her away. It hasn’t worked,” Liam groaned ruefully.

Jaxton rose
and turned to leave before turning back, “We’re going to find you some medicine
Liam.”

Liam looked
to the girl who regarded him so tenderly. “You will probably get sick too, you
know, caring for me like this.”

Harley
recoiled slightly. “That hardly matters. You’re sick. I’m not. I have to take
care of you.”

Liam chuckled
lightly, trying not to move too much.

“Besides, if
you die…where am I going to find any burly gentle giant to fall in love with?”

Liam failed
to contain his laughter this time. He squinted at her with one eye. “Love, huh.
Breaking out the big guns.”

“Hardly.
We’ve still got a while before we start playing that game.”

“What game is
that, dear?”

“Don’t call
me dear. It sounds old. And you know, the game where we try to figure out what
the other is thinking, without saying it first.”

Liam groaned
as he lay in the high grass. “Sounds like a blast.”