Jessica Meigs - The Becoming (11 page)

Gray didn’t look much comforted, despite Theo’s reassurances. “Are you absolutely sure you didn’t get hurt?” he persisted.

“
Yes
, Gray, I’m sure,” Theo said with a heavy sigh. “I mean, I bumped my head, but it wasn’t a big deal. There wasn’t even any blood.”

“If you say so,” Gray muttered. There was a gentle lurch as he pressed on the gas again, and the car started to roll forward once more. He steered the vehicle around the wreckage of the ambulance. As they passed, Theo couldn’t help but let his eyes flutter toward the end of the ambulance, where one of the doors still hung open, resting against the pavement. Jonathan’s body was still lying on top of the door, sprawled sideways, the blood long dried and congealed into a puddle beneath the man’s head. Theo swallowed hard and forced his eyes away; the thought that that could have been
him
lying there like that jabbed frantically at the back of his mind. He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t gotten away from the site, if he hadn’t made it to Gray’s apartment in time. The very thought was enough to send his brain spinning like a top.

It wasn’t long before the gravel driveway crunched underneath the Camry’s tires, and Theo drew in a slow breath as the two-story house came into view, the trees lining the long driveway parting like an evergreen curtain to reveal the building sitting solitary in its plot. As Gray pulled the car to a slow stop, Theo leaned forward in his seat, narrowing his eyes as he studied the area around the house, looking for anything out of the ordinary. When he didn’t see anything, he leaned over the seat to retrieve his axe and bag from the back seat and then nodded to Gray.

“Come on, looks clear,” Theo said. He eased his door open and climbed out into the cool, nippy morning air. A moment later, the Camry’s engine cut off—presumably via some more of that vehicular magic Gray seemed to work—and then his brother joined him, staring at their surroundings with a wary look in his eyes. Theo could sympathize. He was almost hesitant to step forward, to make a move that might draw attention to them.

Quit being stupid,
he berated himself.
There’s nothing here. If there were, it would have come at us by now.
He sighed and pushed his car door shut, beckoning to Gray. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see what we can do to get set up in here.”

Chapter 13

Gray took in a deep breath as he stepped into the house behind Theo, inhaling the musky scent that could only be defined as “home.” The foyer’s floorboards let out the familiar creak he’d heard growing up as he walked over them, and as Theo closed the door behind them and snapped the locks into place, he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. It felt good to be home again, even if the circumstances weren’t exactly ideal.

“I think we should cover the windows,” Theo said from behind him without any preamble. Gray hardly paid him any attention; he was too busy looking over the slightly shabby foyer and slowly walking toward the living room beyond. It didn’t look like Theo had replaced a single thing since he’d involuntarily moved out three months before. Gray would have been pissed off if Theo had. Every bit of furniture and every speck of paint in the house had been carefully chosen by their mother, and Gray had often stated his desire that they leave it all as she’d wanted. Despite the fact that she’d passed away nearly five years prior, Gray still thought of the house as their parents’ house, not his and Theo’s.

“What do you want me to do?” Gray asked after studying the living room. He set his bag on the couch and his crowbar on the coffee table and looked to Theo; the other man was giving an attentive study to the large picture window that graced the wall across from the couch. He seemed to snap out of it at Gray’s question.

“There’s black plastic sheeting in the garage,” Theo said, heading for the kitchen. Gray scrambled to follow him. “I need you to cover all the windows on the bottom floor. Make sure they’re totally covered and sealed at the edges with duct tape. I don’t want any light to leak through whatsoever.”

“And what are
you
going to be doing?”

“I’m going to work on searching every room in this house and gathering up everything even remotely useful,” Theo replied. “So get whatever you’re thinking about me being lazy out of your system now, because I know that’s what you’re thinking.”

Gray almost flushed at that; it was like Theo had read his mind. Definitely
not
a good place for his brother to be.

He pushed past Theo and stepped through the garage’s side door. The garage was chilly, and he reflexively wrapped his jacket tighter around himself as he ventured deeper into the building. He flipped the light switch and scanned the large room under the dim light from the single strip above where the car would have been parked if there’d been a car inside.

When he was a small child, Gray had always been scared of the garage. He wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t like it was particularly terrifying as compared to any other place in the house. He remembered how, when he was a small child, his mom would constantly try to send him into the garage for a tool or for one of her canning jars, and he’d throw a temper tantrum trying to avoid it. Even as an adult, he was still unnerved by the badly lit room, though he was far too old for such nonsense. He rolled his eyes at himself and practically ran to his father’s workbench across the room, snatching up the two solitary packages of black plastic and a couple of rolls of duct tape. Once the necessary supplies were in his possession, Gray tucked the plastic under his arm, looped the rolls of tape around his wrist, and then raced back to the garage door, hopping up the three steps to the kitchen entryway. With one last glance over his shoulder at the garage, he hit the switch to turn the lights off and then shut and locked the door behind him.

Theo was still in the kitchen when Gray entered, digging in what they’d always called the “junk drawer.” He barely looked up as he shoved things around in the drawer. “Did you find the plastic?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Gray assured him. He dumped the supplies on the kitchen counter near Theo. It was then that his brother looked at him, a deep frown crossing his face.

“Are you okay?” he asked, the concern in his voice noticeable. “You look…I don’t know. Rattled?”

“I’m fine,” Gray said. “Nothing wrong.” He looked over the kitchen, decided to start on the windows in there, and began to climb up onto the counter to measure the window above the sink.

“You sure?”

“
Yes
, Theo, I’m sure,” Gray muttered. “Jesus.” He rolled his eyes and grabbed one of the packages of plastic.

After fitting the windows in the kitchen and living room with thick plastic coverings, Gray found himself standing outside the closed French doors to his mother’s office. He ran a hand through his hair, tucking it back behind his ears before taking a fortifying breath and stepping forward to open the door. The door creaked softly, and he peered around the edge to look into the office.

The large desk and its computer sat undisturbed in the room lined with windows and bookshelves that were heaped with piles upon piles of books and notebooks. Everything was covered with a thin film of dust. His heart raced as he stepped into the room, and he tightened his grip on the roll of plastic in his hand. The room was essentially a shrine, an altar to their mother, homage to all the work and creativity she had expended throughout their childhood. Even from where he stood, he could see the seven books on the bookshelf closest to the desk, their spines facing out, each adorned with the name “Melissa Carter.” Gray smiled slightly at the sight as he took another slow step deeper into the room and closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath. He immediately began choking on the dust floating in the air.

Coughing harshly, Gray put a hand up against his nose, glanced around one more time, and then retreated from the room, pulling the doors shut behind him. He sagged against one, blowing out a breath, suppressing the coughing and trying to calm his lungs and ward off an asthma attack before it really hit. A couple of short breaths later, the coughing began to subside, and moments after that, he began to feel like he could breathe again. He shook his head, as if that could free him of the horrendous creeping sensation of suffocation, and moved away from the office doors. He couldn’t go in there, couldn’t deal with being in that room with what felt like his mother’s presence everywhere around him. He would just have to see if Theo could handle the windows in that room for him.

Gray heard voices echoing against the ceiling. He abandoned his spot at the office door and followed the sound, moving from room to room in search of it. It didn’t take him very long to track it to the living room, and he stepped inside to find Theo sitting on the coffee table in the near-dark, his elbows resting against his knees and his hands over his mouth, his eyes wide. The lights from the television flickered over his face, and Gray could see his entire body shaking as he stared at the screen. Gray dropped the plastic and duct tape onto a small table by the door and walked toward him with a frown. “Are you okay?” he started to ask, but then he glanced at the television, and his breath caught in his throat as he saw what Theo was watching. “Oh, Jesus. Is that…?” He swallowed and somehow managed to finish. “That’s not a movie, is it?”

“No,” Theo answered. His voice was muffled by his hands, but he didn’t move them away from his face so Gray could hear him better. “That’s not a movie. That’s Birmingham.”

Gray sank down to sit on the table beside Theo, leaning forward as he stared intently at the television. “What’s going on?” he asked, taking in the sight of the smoking city, the glowing skyline hinting at raging fires, and the screaming that nearly drowned out the reporter yelling into her microphone. “What happened?”

“The same thing that happened here,” Theo said. His voice sounded dull, wooden, but Gray didn’t look at him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen. “Only worse. Only…
bigger
.”

“My God,” Gray breathed out. He dug his fingers into his knees as he stared in shock at the scene on display before them.

“Emergency management agencies are requesting that everyone stay indoors at this time,” the reporter was saying. “Lock all doors and windows, do what you can to barricade any entry points into your home, and just wait it out. Martial law has been declared for the entire state of Alabama, and a curfew of sundown will be strictly enforced. The state of martial law will likely be expanded soon to include Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, in addition to the states of Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia that are already under martial law. There’s a possibility that South Carolina will soon be added to that list.”

“This is insane,” Theo commented. Gray glanced at him and saw that he’d finally taken his hands away from his mouth and was instead picking at the edge of the coffee table.

“Now we’re going to kick you back to our station, where Edward will be speaking with David Keene from the Department of Homeland Security. Edward?”

“Thanks, Chelsea,” Edward said. Gray sat up a little straighter as the camera panned back from the frazzled-looking Edward to show another man sitting beside him, this one much more composed and professional, almost relaxed, his tie straight and his shirt and coat smooth and unwrinkled. “I’m here with David Keene from the Department of Homeland Security, who is here today to outline the threat we are facing and the precautions viewers should take in order to protect themselves from it. Mr. Keene?”

“Zombies,” Gray said promptly. “Doesn’t take an idiot to know that’s what it is.”

“Shut up and get me some paper,” Theo said. “A notebook or something. I want to take notes.”

“What’s to write down?” Gray asked. “It’s zombies.”

“I said shut up and get me some fucking paper!”

Gray stared at Theo, wide-eyed, as the government official on the television began to drone. Theo had never yelled at him with such genuine anger and seriousness in his voice. Shaking his head, Gray forced himself off the coffee table and grabbed the notebook and pen from the table by the phone, handing both to Theo before sitting on the couch behind him. Theo bowed his head and, without another word, began to scribble in the notebook furiously, taking down everything the man on the television said, words Gray only half-heard as he stared at his brother’s tense back and wondered what in the world had suddenly made him so angry.

Chapter 14

Gray and Theo had been hiding out in their parents’ house for nearly three weeks when they began to run out of drinking water and gasoline for the generators.

Theo didn’t tell Gray about their worsening situation right away. Frankly, he didn’t see the point in worrying him over it. Everything was bad enough without him having to deal with Gray having a spastic fit over whether or not they were going to dehydrate to death.

That was, of course, assuming Gray would actually
talk
to him. In the long days that had passed since they’d taken shelter at their old family home, Gray had barely spoken two words to him. Theo wasn’t sure why; he didn’t know what he’d done to make Gray so sullen and withdrawn. He hadn’t concerned himself with it too much before then; he’d been too busy getting supplies together and coming up with assorted plans for different scenarios that could have arisen while staying there. Theo had figured that Gray was in shock from everything they’d seen on the street, on the television, and on the Internet—back before it had all stopped working, anyway. They weren’t getting any television stations anymore, just snowy static. The radio stations had stopped broadcasting the week before—at least in the way of information, though there were a few clearly automated stations still playing top-forty hits. The Internet had gone down about two days after they reached the house, thankfully not before an overnight intensive effort at information gathering. Theo was sure the printer would never be the same again.