Contagious (22 page)

We crossed the creek at the pond river, crossed through a thin tree line and emerged into the pasture. The rusty, metal gate had been left open. Argos ran alongside us happily. He barked, darting forward with more speed.

“
Ohmygod,” I whispered. “They’re still alive.” One by one, cows came into view. If the cows were still here, then the horses had to be. My heart sped up as I scanned the pasture. I learned to ride the same time I learned to hunt. I enjoyed it, and I loved Sundance, but I never became one of those horse obsessed girls. My grandma was the horse person in the family. Aunt Jenny had shown Quarter Horses as a girl, competing in barrel racing. My own mother must have been the odd one out in this farming family as she never took to the animals or the lifestyle. I hadn’t either, thinking I would be much happier in the city were there was this indescribable energy flowing. I liked the city, loved it even at times.

You never realize how much you miss a place until you come back. This farm was home. In the back of my mind I think I knew I’d end up back here. I slowed the ATV, not wanting to spook or upset the cows. They seemed in good shape; not skinny or beat up. I hadn’t bothered to check the hay barn. If there was any hay left, we should bring a few round bales out here before all the plants died in the winter.

This pasture was about fifty acres. I accelerated quickly and Padraic grabbed onto my waist to keep his balance. We didn’t find the goats or the horses, which could be good, I reminded myself. With limited daylight left, we drove home. The keys to the old pickup were hanging where they should be. I fired it up and drove around to throw firewood in the back. Reminding me again that I hadn’t healed, Raeya and Padraic did all the heavy lifting while I kept the truck running.

Everyone crowded around the fire place that night. Finickus purred loudly on Zoe’s lap, enjoying the warmth as much as she did. Raeya and I kept first watch. She laid out several pieces of paper on the coffee table. I picked up the closest one.

“
You made a pie chart about zombies?”

“
Yes,” she said as if it wasn’t odd. “We need to know what we are dealing with. See,” she said and grabbed another paper. “The virus does several things that we know about: infect, kill, or do nothing. If infected, you go through three phases: crazy, zombie, and gummy.”

“
Gummy?” I asked, unable to keep the incredulous eyebrow raise from my face.

“
Yes. They get all gooey and gummy, remember. I think it’s safe to say they are the least threatening. And, given what we’ve seen, crazies don’t live that long, if you can call that living. The longest phase is the zombie one. And I don’t know how long the gummies last. I’m assuming they will…fall apart.”

“
You are very thorough,” I complimented.

“
Thanks,” she beamed. “I figured it doesn’t hurt to know the facts.”

We moved closer to the fire, chatting, then went upstairs to wake Lauren and Sonja up around one. Sonja slowly dragged herself out of bed. Lauren pulled the covers over her face and groaned.

“
Lauren, it’s your turn to keep watch,” Raeya whispered, trying not to wake up Lisa, who crowded into the bed next to her. It took almost ten minutes before Lauren dragged her butt out of bed. She grumbled about how she wasn’t good at keeping watch and someone else should do it. Reminding her all she had to do was wake us up, a job a monkey could do, I sighed and went into my own room.

I got dressed in my jeans and plaid shirt that next morning. After choking down a small bowl of oatmeal, Raeya and I went outside and into the workshop. We gathered up three gas cans, hoping to bring home a total of fifteen gallons of gas to add to the larger tanks. Everyone but Ray and Padraic raised their eyebrows in surprise when I emerged from the basement with two rifles and a shot gun. My plan was for Raeya and me to make a quick run into town. If it was free of zombies and crazies, we would load up on food and gas.

There were objections of course. I was really getting tired of the whole ‘a man should come with you’ argument. If I was walking down a dark alley in the middle of New York City after a night out at a bar, then I could accept having a guy to ward off sex offenders. In our case, I was the one who had to ward off anything. The more people I had to cover, the longer it would take to get out of there.

Jason took the news as the most deplorable thing he’d ever heard. Padraic wasn’t happy to not know what was going on and Spencer looked relieved. He was a big guy, standing over six feet. He was muscular but overweight. Sometimes I wondered if he was in shock because he never said much and kept mostly to himself, never offering to help but never complaining like Lauren.

‘
Town’ consisted of two bars, a funeral home, a gas station, a general store, a post office, a barber shop, an antique store full of junk, a feed-slash-hunting supplies shop, and Bob and Barb’s diner. Leaving the truck running, we parked in front of Lee’s General Store. The front door was ajar. I clicked the safety off the gun, my finger poised over the trigger.

Shelves were knocked over, food strewn about, carts on their sides. The place had been madly picked over and looted. Raeya held the flashlight as we walked deeper into the store. It wasn’t that big and normally enough sunlight would shine through the glass front. The clouds made that impossible today. We could waste time sorting through the food on the ground, trying to find anything edible. Raeya suggested we hit the hygiene aisle and try another store. She took off her backpack and stuffed it full of anything useful.

The feed store was in a similar state, though it was obvious human survival was the top priority. We piled several bags of chicken feed, three bags of dog food, dog treats, and a big bag of cat food into the truck. There was absolutely nothing left on the side of the store that housed the hunting supplies.

Feeling disgruntled, we went back to the house. On the way, we decided it was necessary to go to the nearest town in hopes of finding food. I told Raeya about the stores in Indy. If we could find a place that had no time to prepare we’d be sure to find plenty of food.

“
And plenty of zombies,” she added.

“
True. Maybe they’ll have moved on by now. Ya know, if there’s no one to eat.”

“
What a lovely thing to hope for,” she agreed with a sigh. “Do you think we’ll ever find other people?”

“
I don’t know. I’m sure there are others like us, doing what they have to do to survive. We can’t be all that’s left. Like everyone in this town. They must have gotten out and away to safety. They took food, cars, fuel, let the animals go…they had time to prepare.”

Raeya nodded but didn’t say anything. I could tell she wasn’t buying what I was saying, and neither was I. Deep down I believed there were other people in the world. In government quarantines. Behind big fences. Not searching for food.

A deer loped out of a field. For a split second I considered slamming the pedal down. Deciding the deer could crash through the windshield and hurt us or totally bash up the truck, I slammed on the breaks.

“
What the hell, Orissa?” Raeya shouted. “Way to wait till the last minute.”

“
Sorry,” I said after the deer took off. “I wanted to hit it.”

“
I can tell. Why in the world would you—oh, I get it. Free food.”

“
Yup.”

“
Smart. I draw the line at eating not fresh road kill though.”

“
Ditto.”

It was disheartening to share the food situation with everyone. Raeya spread a map of Kentucky on the breakfast table and pointed to the closet grocery store: it was an hour away.

“
How do you people function out here?” Lauren scoffed.

“
You people?” Raeya and I said in unison, immediately insulted.

Not seeing the ignominy of her question she continued. “Yeah, so far away from everything. I mean, where do you buy clothes?”

There was no way in hell I would admit the same thing used to bother me.

“
We got along just fine, thank you very much,” Raeya said through clenched teeth. Though she wasn’t born and raised here like most of the townspeople, Raeya didn’t take kindly to harsh words about our little town. “Anyway,” she pointed to a spot on the map, “this is our best bet.”

“
Great,” Jason said, his eyes scanning over Raeya. “When do we leave?”

“
Uh…” Raeya looked at me for an answer.

“
Right away,” I said. “Though I think its best it’s the two of us again.” I waited for the chaos to begin. Why anyone would want to willingly go out of the protection of the house was beyond me.

“
Maybe,” Padraic said over the censure, “you should think about it more. Orissa, what if you got hurt? Raeya would be left on her own.”

Dammit, now Padraic was figuring me out. “Right. Three of us then.”

“
I’ll go,” Jason offered. “I’ll keep Raeya safe. And you too,” he added quickly, his cheeks turning red. Sonja grabbed his arm.

“
I don’t want you to go,” she whimpered. “What if you don’t come back?”

Jason’s face softened. “I will.”

“
You don’t know that for sure,” I stated, hating being the voice of reason. “We don’t know what’s out there. This town is near where that crazy almost got me. Where there’s one, I’m guessing there are two. Or hundreds.” I eyed the nine others, splitting them up into groups in my head. Lauren, Lisa, and Zoe were definite no’s.

Spencer, Sonja, and Hilary…I wasn’t sure. I remembered that Sonja was fast. Hilary had enough sense to get Lisa and Zoe out of the basement alive and unscathed. Spencer was big and presumably strong. That had to be useful in one way or another.

Raeya, Jason, and Padraic were smart, reliable, and capable. They were the best to take with me. And the worst to lose. If something happened to the four of us, the others would be royally screwed. I mulled it over in my head while Sonja pleaded with her brother to stay with her.

“
So, who’s it gonna be?” Jason asked, looking at me. I bit my lip, wishing someone else could take over as group appointed leader. No, I thought. I was the best at this.

“
Come with me,” I said and waved my hand for Raeya, Padraic, and Jason to follow. We went into the living room. “Ok, you guys are my first choice. All three of you. But I don’t want to leave the others unprotected. And what if we don’t make it back?”

“
We will,” Jason told me, actually meaning it.

“
I hope we do. But, come on, be honest. There’s a great chance we won’t.”

“
She’s right,” Raeya said, pulling her hair out of a pony tail. It fell to her shoulders. She raked her fingers through it. “I can stay then. Instead of a gun, can I have your bow and arrows?”

“
Of course. You know where it is, right?”

“
Yeah.”

“
The crossbow,” I suggested. “Is easier to use.”

“
Oh, right. It is.”

“
Get it now, while I tell the others.” She nodded and snuck off into the basement. I felt bad for Sonja. She had lost everyone in her family except her brother. I promised myself to look after him. “Five hours,” I told Raeya as I pulled my boots on. “Should be the max we’re gone.”

“
It will be a long five hours,” she said warily. Not wanting this to seem more like a shot in the dark than it was, I waved goodbye and left. I could hear Argos whining at my departure.

“
Am I ever going to know why your grandfather has so many weapons?” Padraic asked only ten minutes into our journey. Along with the M9, I brought two rifles, a shot gun, a .22 pistol for him and Jason, and a bow and arrows.

“
Hunting,” I said stiffly.

“
You hunt with a hand gun?”

“
You can.”

“
Sure.” He sighed, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “I didn’t know bows looked like that. I imagined them a lot simpler.”

“
You’re thinking of a long bow then,” I assumed.

“
What is that called?” he asked, eyeing my black bow.

“
A compound bow.”

“
Is it better?”

“
In some ways. This can shoot farther. You can draw and hold back the arrow while you wait for prey. It’s just more modern, in my opinion. A long bow is lighter.”

“
Hmm. So you’ve shot both?”

“
Yup. We used bows a lot when hunting. It’s quiet, and you can get your ammo back.”

“
You know,” he said and glanced at me. “I thought you were going to turn out to be a stuck up bitch. Sorry.”

I shrugged. Why did he even feel the need to voice that out loud and apologize? “It’s ok. You’re not the first person to think that.”

“
You’re kind of bossy,” Jason piped up from the backseat.

I couldn’t refute that either. “I just like things done the right way.”

“
And you think you’re way is right?” Jason inquired.

“
So far I’d say my way has been the right way,” I stated simply.

A peaceful half hour passed before Padraic started the twenty questions again. “Did you hate living in the city?”

“
Nope.”

“
Even though you grew up in the country?”

“
It was a fun change.” And I didn’t always live with my grandparents.

“
You’re grandpa was in the Army?”

“
Nope.”

“
You said he was a veteran.”

“
He is. Air Force.”

“
I wanted to join the Air Force,” Jason said wistfully. “I just turned eighteen this summer, not that it matters anymore. Do you think any laws really matter?”