Tomorrow Land (15 page)

“Okay,” he said. “I get it. I’m sorry for what I said before. I was just… well, it’s been a long day, to say the least. Anyway, I think we can help each other out here. Sure, we might be a little slower with the kids, but at the same time, you’re getting some travel insurance. I’d make sure, no matter what, you got to Disney World so your dad can fix you. Hell, I could carry you or something, worst comes to worst. We’ll protect each other from wandering Others. I mean, on your own there’s no guarantee that you’ll make it in time, anyway. This way you know you’ll have your own personal bodyguard to keep you safe. One without a ticking time bomb inside him.”

She seemed to consider this for a moment. “What about the kids?” she asked.

“Well, they have to come. I mean, I promised Tank. And I wouldn’t just leave them, would you? But we’ll make sure they behave and don’t get in the way. And we’ll grab those horses. The kids all know how to ride. We can just head down Route 95 on horseback. It’ll be easy.” He found himself full of a new enthusiasm he hadn’t felt in years. Her next words dimmed that a little.

“Easy?”

“Fine. Maybe ‘easy’ is overstating just a tad, but it’ll work. You’ll see. Seriously, I think it’s the only way.”

She paused, but only for a moment. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He couldn’t believe it. She was really going for his idea?

“Okay, let’s do it,” she said. “But we have to move as quickly as possible. We’ll gather our supplies tonight, leave first thing in the morning. Even if I do now have you watching my back, I would still rather make it to our destination before things get bad for me.”

At that moment she could have requested the moon and Chase would have agreed. He was just so happy not to be left alone with the kids. To have a chance to spend more time with her. “No problem. I’ll stay up all night if I have to. This will be great. You won’t regret it.”

On impulse, he threw his arms around her in a hug. She felt a bit stiff. He remembered how once upon a time she’d melted into his embrace, her body soft and supple and willing. Would it ever be that way again?

He knew he shouldn’t want it. Better to keep their relationship on a professional level. After all, she’d betrayed him once. And whether she explained herself or not, she’d made it very clear what her priority was now. Better for him to just keep away. Getting emotionally involved would just open old wounds.

Still, he thought as she disengaged, watching her walk away and curl up inside her sleeping bag, her blond hair spilling out onto her pillow, part of him believed the teen goddess he’d once worshipped might be worth it.

Chapter Fifteen

Several teachers were absent the next day at school. Some kind of flu was going around, the principal said over the loudspeaker. Chris tried to tell himself that it was all a coincidence; a sick old lady and a few ill teachers didn’t equal killer plague. But something was still making him uneasy. Peyton’s dad’s words kept echoing in his ears. The End of Days. That seemed so ridiculous. So why couldn’t he get the concept out of his head?

There was something else he couldn’t get out of his head as well. Make that some
one
else. He hadn’t been able to sleep a wink last night, tossing and turning, replaying that moment on Peyton’s neighbor’s stone wall. He’d been literally millimeters away from kissing the goddess herself and—shock of all shocks—the goddess had seemed willing. At the very least, she hadn’t punched him in the face. (He’d seen Drew’s nose this morning and had a good laugh.)

But, of course, nothing had happened. Par for the course in his sorry life. Her dad had called, ruined the moment. He remembered how Peyton had leapt away. That hasty goodbye—she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. He’d never, ever get her in that position again and he knew it. Not Chris Parker, super dork.

“Hey, Chris, did you see that crazy post on the forums about the Super Flu?”

Speaking of dorks. Chris looked up to see his best friend Stephen nearby, attempting to pry a sim deck out of his overstuffed, undersized locker.

“What post?” he asked. Like him, Stephen was a total forum troll, always looking through the lesser-known, unmonitored message boards for information. “I didn’t log on last night.” He’d been too busy dreaming about Peyton. Sweet, beautiful, almost-kissed Peyton. He hadn’t even done any further research on Mrs. McCormick. He felt a brief pang of guilt at his selfishness.

“It’s all over the place. People are sick, guy. Like, really sick. The hospitals are supposedly overflowing, especially in the big cities like New York. The government is trying to keep it on the down-low, obviously. Not wanting to start a panic, you know. But it’s big news. They say you can even die from it. Especially if you’re, like, an old person and stuff.”

Chris stared at him, his creeping worry returning with a vengeance. So, he’d been right; there was something weird about this sickness. He thought about Mrs. McCormick. The cleaners. Peyton’s dad’s warning. “For real?” he asked, hoping that maybe Stephen might be pulling his leg. “You’re not messing with me?”

His friend shook his head. “Well, it’s on all the forums. Log on and see for yourself.”

“Yeah, I will when I get home.” The school blocked any kind of non-government sanctioned websites, of course.

“It’s flecking scary, let me tell you,” Stephen continued, slamming his locker shut. “It’s like End of Days stuff, some folks are saying.”

Chris was startled. “What did you say?”

“You know, the apocalypse. Everyone dying of some plague. The end of the human race as we know it,” Stephen replied with a cocky grin. “On the plus side, maybe we’ll get zombies. Usually when this kind of thing happens in the movies, they get zombies.”

“Oh yeah, zombies would be stellar,” Chris agreed. He and Stephen had a special fondness for old horror movies—the old George Romero ones in particular. Still, given the circumstances, the thought wasn’t as funny as it might have been.

Stephen stuck his hands out and purposely stumbled off down the hall, moaning. “Brains… brains…”

Chris laughed appreciatively. “Yeah,” he said, slapping his friend on the back. “I agree. You could use some brains. Especially if we’re stuck living through Armageddon. You wouldn’t want zombies to kill you and find there’s nothing to eat.”

*

Peyton was just about to jump on the bus home that afternoon when she heard someone calling her name. Turning around, she saw Chris waving to her furiously from the school doorway. Their eyes met.
Ugh.
Now she had to go talk to him. She felt really weird doing so after what had almost happened yesterday. What if he wanted to pick up where they’d left off? She wasn’t ready to deal with that. Especially not after the day she’d had at school. Drew, as expected, had gone out of his way to make her a social outcast and it hadn’t been fun. Especially through lunch. If Avery hadn’t stuck by her side, she didn’t know what she would have done.

Still, Chris had been really nice to her yesterday and managed to cheer her up when she was at her lowest. And, of course, her mother had taught her not to be rude to anyone no matter what. So, reluctantly, she stepped off the bus and headed over to where he was standing.

He’d better have something important to say, though. She’d miss the early bus.

“What’s up?” she asked.

He held out his deck. “I went home during lunch and did a little research,” he said. “And I found out there’s some weird Super Flu going around.”

“Super Flu?” she repeated, her mind snapping back to Mrs. McCormick. The blood on her tissue.

“Yeah. People are getting really sick all over the world. Most metropolitan hospitals are packed and there have been a ton of deaths.” He handed her his device. “Look. It’s all there.”

She scanned the documents he’d linked. It certainly seemed like he was right. Things were bad if these reports were to be believed. She thought about her dad’s warnings. They were starting to feel uncomfortably relevant. But if this were true, why hadn’t they heard more about it here in Monroeville? Sure, they weren’t a bustling metropolis, but still, she would have thought they’d have heard some whispers at least. Then again, with the government in control of the media, sometimes real news traveled very slowly.

She looked up Chris. “Wow,” she remarked, not sure what else to say. “Do you think that’s what happened to Mrs. McCormick?”

“I’m sure of it,” he replied, taking back his deck. “And I think we should investigate.”

“Investigate?” Her father’s warning came back to her.
Don’t trust anyone.
But that was stupid. Wasn’t it?

“Yeah,” Chris pushed. “Like, let’s go visit a hospital. See if they really are full.”

She bit her lower lip, thinking. “But then we’d be exposed to the disease, right? If there really was one?”

“We already were exposed if that’s what Mrs. McCormick had,” he reminded her.

“And besides, I have some respirators. We used them when painting the house last year. And we won’t get too close to the hospitals, just in case. We could just go and have a look.”

She considered. “But what are we looking
for
? What will going to a hospital prove?”

“Well, these reports, for one. It’ll give us a better sense of what’s really going on. I mean, forums are one thing, but I want to see first hand.” He paused, then added, “Wouldn’t you want to know if there’s really some kind of deadly plague floating around that could kill us all?”

She sighed. Of course she wanted to know what was really going on. But she’d heard a million conspiracy theories in her day, thanks to her dad, none of which had ever panned out. Most non-government-sanctioned media outlets were just glorified rumor mills, after all. So some people were sick. Some old people were dying. That wasn’t exactly enough to prove a coming apocalypse. Though her father would claim it was.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go with you to check out one, at least.”

She would have preferred to head over to Avery’s for a round of
Basketball Dayz
; she was going to be totally left behind if she didn’t get some practice in. And, of course, there was her nightly training with her father. But she knew Chris was really concerned, and she felt like she owed him something after him cheering her up yesterday. So what the hell; she would go with Chris and check things out. Get back just in time for training. Then the two of them would be even.

“We’ll start with Mt. Holyoke. That’s the one they were supposedly taking Mrs. McCormick to, right?” Chris suggested. “I’ll go home and get the respirators and meet you there in an hour.”

Peyton nodded reluctantly. She had to be crazy to have agreed to this. “Okay. Fine. See you there.”

She watched him walk away, part of her shrieking to call the whole thing off. Her new friend was turning out to be just as crazy as her dad.

Just go to the hospital, check things out
, she told herself. They’d see for a fact that there was nothing going on, and she could say “I told you so” to both of the conspiracy theorists in her life. Boy, would they feel like total bunglers when they realized their so-called killer plague was nothing more than the common cold.

Chapter Sixteen

Even after years of thievery, not to mention the looting that had occurred just before the end, the Walmart still held an enormous quantity of supplies, and Chase made good on his promise to get everything gathered for their trip. By the time Peyton awoke the next day, he had assembled backpacks large and small, stuffed with essentials. He also had a few saddlebags packed to the brim with dried food, first aid supplies, and bottled water. (Tank had, Chase informed her, set up a rainwater collection system outside so they never wanted for a drink.)

“It’s not everything we’ll need,” he admitted. “But it’ll get us started. And I figure we’ll be able to pick up some stuff along the way, too. Whatever wasn’t looted at the beginning or eaten by the Others over the years. Even if the stores are bare, we can always try houses.”

“Right.” She didn’t relish the idea of pawing through dead people’s property, but it was certainly a better option than starving, worst come to worst. She looked over the supplies, then threw him an approving nod. “This looks great. Thanks.”

He shrugged modestly. “The horses are outside. I collected them earlier. I’m going to go saddle them up. Be back in a minute.”

As much as she’d originally hated the idea of this group tagging along, she had to admit it was nice to have someone else take over the reins for a bit. As Chase had pointed out the night before, while she might be a good fighter, thanks to her father’s enhancements, he definitely brought other things to the table. She’d been sheltered, living underground with her mom all these years. She had no idea what the world outside was really like. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, it was a relief to have Chase on board.

The kids, on the other hand, were likely to be millstones. Chase was all gung-ho to be Disney-bound, but the others weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea. They were leaving the only safe home most of them had ever known. And while Peyton tried to be patient and understanding, she was about ready to strangle the lot of them. After all, she was doing them a favor—literally risking her life, slowing herself down in order to protect them—and there was absolutely no gratitude. They just whined and complained and demanded she allow them to take useless items. She was at her wits’ end when Chase finally came back from readying the horses.

“Chase!” whined Darla. “She won’t let me take my pony.”

“You’re getting a real pony, Darla,” Chase answered, ruffling the girl’s head. “And if you’ll be quiet for two seconds, I’ll even let you name him.”

“Chase!” cried Starr. “I can’t fit my makeup in my bag.”

“I’ll carry it in mine,” he replied, gesturing for her to throw the bag in question in his direction. “After all, I’m strong like bull.” He gave her an exaggerated flex of his muscles, causing her to break out into giggles.

One by one, he had answers for everyone. Peyton marveled at how he handled them all. It was almost effortless: sometimes teasing, sometimes flattering, sometimes authoritative. And the kids listened. In the time it had taken her to get them to even acknowledge her presence, Chase had them dressed, packed, and on the horses, ready to go. He was like the world’s number one Scout leader. It wasn’t something she would have expected from him, and she had to admire it.