Thicker than Blood (49 page)

But there was no stopping the infection. It
spread like hot acid, burning through my body, infesting and
infecting every part of me. I could sense myself slip away,
everything that I was and have ever been, and it was terrifying.
More terrifying than anything else I’d ever experienced before, and
far more terrifying than I had ever thought dying would be.

“Leisel,” I managed to say before choking on
the phlegm again. My vision momentarily cleared and I could see her
face move closer, but the sight of her was heartbreaking.

“I’m so sorry.” I sobbed, relinquishing
myself to my self-pity, and lifted a hand to her damp cheek.

“I remember,” she replied, her voice hoarse.
“I remember the dress.” Pulling me up and into her arms, she
brought me closer until her face was in the crook of my neck.

I knew she was crying, that her tears should
be hot and wet against my skin, but I couldn’t feel them. All I
could feel was the raging panic that barreled through me as my body
became something else, something evil and cruel, something that
would hurt Leisel without question. The mere thought of me hurting
her panicked me, leaving me dizzy and breathless with fear.

“You looked beautiful in that dress, Eve,”
she whispered. “Shawn always picked pretty dresses for you. He
loved you so much.” Her words, laced with bitter sadness, trailed
off as she began to cry harder.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I cried again,
unable to hear my own words properly, my eardrums feeling punctured
and pained. “Forgive me. Please, please, forgive me.”

Abruptly Leisel pulled away from me, forcing
me into an upright position and holding me there when my body
wanted nothing more than to fall limply back onto the bed.

“You stop that right now, Evelyn. I love you
and you have nothing to apologize for.” Through her waterfall of
tears, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’m
going to be fine, I promise you. You don’t need to worry about
me.”

“Promise me,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“Promise me you’ll stay here where it’s safe. You can live here,
Lei. You can survive here. Promise me you’ll stay.”

A fresh wave of tears cascaded down her
cheeks, but she nodded through her tears and attempted a small
smile. “I promise,” she whispered.

I tried to smile in return, not sure if I
managed it since my muscles were no longer responding. But I wanted
to smile at the sight of her face, so full of strength and
determination, even shrouded in pain. Seeing her this way afforded
me a small slice of hope for all that was happening—me dying and
having to leave her here alone. It was freeing for me to know that
Leisel was strong now, that she’d be able to survive without
me.

I remembered Leisel going through each of the
five stages of grief when she’d lost her Thomas. And now, with me,
she’d done the same, having reached the final stage—acceptance of
the situation at hand.

Her denial of the situation had come
first, the denial that this was really happening, that I was truly
dying and leaving her all alone in this world. Quickly following
her denial, she’d become angry, furious even that I
really was
leaving her all alone. Because
how could I do that to her? If I loved her, if Thomas had loved
her, how the fuck could we all just keep dying and leaving
her?

She’d yelled at me as if I had a choice in
the matter, as if I were choosing to leave her. As if I could have
somehow decided to stay. But I couldn’t choose; she’d known that. I
was dying, and not only was I dying but I was becoming the very
thing that I feared more than death itself. But I
couldn’t—wouldn’t—be angry at her for her erratic emotions, because
I actually
was
leaving her
all alone. There was nothing I could do about it, and the guilt of
that weighed on me heavily, eating away at me worse than any
infection possibly could.

Next, she had pleaded with me to let her take
my leg, to take both if she had to, as if that would have somehow
helped. She’d offered to take me back to Purgatory, thinking that
maybe they would help us. Thank God, at the time I’d still been
strong enough to laugh at that suggestion. No matter what happened,
I would never go back there, and I would never allow Leisel to go
back there either.

Because she deserved better than that place,
she deserved so much more. She certainly deserved better than this
world.

No matter how much she begged and pleaded, I
wouldn’t relent. And so then the tears came, the sobs and the
shrieking, and with them more guilt was piled onto my already
aching and fracturing heart. How could I do this to her? She
couldn’t do this without me. I’d die and then she’d die, and then
what would have been the point? What had everyone fought and died
for if neither of us was going to make it?

But now, looking into her eyes and seeing
such steely determination within them, was like a gift from an
unknown force. Not from God, because I no longer believed in God,
but maybe something else, definitely something stronger than either
of us.

There was no more fear or anger in her
features, there was sadness and grief, but beyond that there was
strength, and the cold, hard truth of what was coming.

This was it.

My final act.

Our final act.

Together.

“It’s time,” I whispered, my throat clogged
and painfully tight. “I can’t—”

Interrupted by coughing, I choked on more
blood and phlegm, feeling it splatter across my chin.

“I love you,” I said, trying again.
“I’m…”

As my entire body went utterly lax, my words
trailed off and my vision darkened. A coppery taste filled my
mouth, and suddenly I was convulsing, my body violently thrashing
in Leisel’s arms. Yet I couldn’t feel it, not in the sense that it
was actually happening to me. It was more as if my body were no
longer my own, as if I were no longer inside it but instead looking
down at myself, seeing my own body jerking and shuddering, watching
as Leisel attempted to hold me down, her sobs growing louder.

I wished I could have told her how much I
loved her one last time, how forever grateful I was that I’d had
the privilege of being her friend. But more than anything, I wished
I could have made her one more promise—the promise that I would see
her in the next life, and that I would be waiting for her with
Shawn and Thomas. And that until that day, the three of us would be
watching over her. Protecting her. Always.

As my convulsions begin to fade, Leisel
hugged me one last time before letting me fall heavily down onto
the mattress. Pressing her lips to the top of my head, she
whispered her final good-bye. It was then that I knew it was time,
and strangely enough, I was ready for it. I was heartbroken and
devastated to leave her, but I was ready.

I wanted to go home, was desperate even to
leave, to go back to before all this happened. I wanted to return
to a simpler time full of laughter and love, to when I could still
remember the feel of my husband’s breath on my cheek. I wanted to
stare into his beautiful eyes again, the way they once had looked
upon me, so full of life, and not the cloudy, desperate eyes that
had haunted my soul for years now. I wanted to slip into my silky
yellow dress, feel his warm hands around my waist, hear the sultry
riff of the guitar echoing in my ears as we swayed together.

Smiling to myself, I whispered good-bye to my
friend, the best friend a woman could ever have, and then I closed
my eyes, falling backward into oblivion.

“Forgive me,” I heard Leisel say. “Please
forgive me.”

And then there was nothing more.

Leisel

I’d never been alone before. Not like this. Not so
utterly, completely alone, without another soul in the world to
speak with, to laugh with, to share even the simplest and most
mundane of things with. As the days turned to weeks and the weeks
turned to months, the silence was deafening at times; the echoing
of my own footsteps, of my own breathing, sounded hollow and
desolate.

Every day I awoke at dawn, washed, pulled my
hair into a high ponytail, dressed in one of two pairs of
formfitting cargo pants and a tight black T-shirt—outfits I’d begun
reserving specifically for pillaging. Then I would make my bed from
the night before and set out into the heart of the town to collect
whatever resources I could find to bring back to the bed and
breakfast. I was fortifying it as best I could, just like Evelyn
had wanted us to.

There were more secure buildings, something
I’d found during one of my many trips into town, but I couldn’t
bring myself to leave the bed and breakfast. That wasn’t saying the
inn didn’t have its advantages. It was off the beaten track down a
gravel road, set far back atop a steep ravine, and partially hidden
behind a smattering of trees. But more than anything, I wanted to
stay because it held the memory of Evelyn within its walls, and I
wasn’t ready to let her go.

First, I boarded up all the first-floor
windows and doors, leaving only the service entrance in the back
usable. For my own peace of mind, I rigged it with a rather
impressive impromptu crossbar, using a block of wood I had mounted
to the wall that extended across both sides of the door frame.

I’d left the first floor as it was, broken
and in shambles, a mess of furniture and scattered belongings. From
the outside looking in, it would seem to anyone or anything passing
by just another broken-down structure, and nothing of worth. But on
the inside, once you breached the second floor where I’d made my
home, it was a veritable fortress.

Next, I’d left only one of the three bedrooms
as is, using the rest of the furniture to create a blockade in the
stairwell and hallway. Every day it was quite a feat climbing over
the mess I’d intentionally made, but it was necessary protection
against any sort of intruder. If the noise anyone or anything made
while attempting to ascend the stairs didn’t wake me, then nothing
would.

Even so, I took my safeguards one step
farther, creating a fence of sorts, comprised of dozens of ski
poles I’d pilfered from the ski lodge. Tying pairs of them together
in an
X
pattern, I set
them up all over the inn, the perfect killing tool for a clueless
infected, and a somewhat useful deterrent for an unwelcome visitor
of the living variety as well.

With the aid of a hand truck from the same
supermarket Evelyn had been bitten in, I was able to transport the
heavier things back to the bed and breakfast that I wouldn’t have
had the strength to otherwise. It took long weeks to properly
fortify the inn exactly the way I wanted it, in a way that made me
feel safe, but it kept me busy. More importantly, it kept my mind
off my grief.

Although hard work kept the pain away during
the day, nothing could stop my mind from wandering in the dead of
night. That was when I missed Evelyn the most, when it was only me
and the moonlight, the sweet scent of flowers wafting through the
open window on a cool breeze. I ached for her then—the sound of her
voice, the glint in her eyes, the way her hand felt when her
fingers were intertwined with mine.

But most of all I missed her presence. Just
knowing she was there, sleeping beside me, walking next to me; no
matter what, she’d always been there.

And now she was gone.

I’d thought about ending it, just letting go.
It would be easy to put a bullet in my head, quick and painless. I
could be with her again, with Thomas too. With everyone I’d lost.
And a couple of times, during a few very dark nights filled with
long bouts of crying and feeling more alone than I ever had before,
I almost did just that.

It was the guilt that stopped me each and
every time. The many lives that had been lost just so we could
reach a safe place like this one. Thomas and Shawn, Alex and Jami,
and Evelyn. They had all died trying to survive, trying to ensure
we would all survive. How selfish would I have to be to take my own
life when they’d given theirs for me to be here, in this very
place?

This was all we’d ever wanted. Somewhere
untouched, somewhere safe and quiet. Somewhere we could live out
our lives in peace. I couldn’t waste it, couldn’t let it all be for
nothing, so I focused instead on the fact that we had all actually
made it. Because through me, they had all survived, even if it was
only their memory.

So I kept going, kept surviving, and soon the
days began to blur together, each one the same as the last.
Peaceful and quiet, with the exception of the occasional infected
that I always quickly disposed of.

I developed a routine, one I stuck to and
could count on. After my walk through town each morning, I’d make
myself breakfast, and after breakfast I would read a book from the
large collection I’d been slowly amassing. Lunch, I usually spent
outside, my legs hanging over the edge of the steep ravine, humming
to myself, and every evening, just as the sun was setting, I had my
dinner with Evelyn.

With the aid of an actual shovel, I’d buried
her close to the bed and breakfast, wrapped in the same comforter
she’d died in, near a small grove of trees where the grass and
wildflowers grew thick and tall. Her grave sat directly beneath one
very large tree, its heavy branches comfortably shading the area,
and its thick trunk perfect for leaning against.

“I need to learn how to hunt,” I said,
wrinkling my nose at the newly opened can of creamed corn. “I swear
this stuff has gone bad.”

Many times I’d planned on setting up a target
practice area, but I was loath to waste my bullets, and even more
afraid that the gunshots would alert either any nearby infected or
living that happened to be passing by. So I stayed quiet.