by Anna Abner
I shifted, positioning his head on my lap, and cupped the side of his face. To keep him still. To reassure myself he was still breathing.
The little girl, ringlets bouncing, leapt over the unconscious Red and rifled through my pack.
“Here,” she said, returning to the front of the RV and handing the paper to Pollard.
“Spread it out,” he said. “I’m not stopping this thing. Not for a single minute. It’s too crazy out there.” To prove his point, he waved at something on the other side of the extra-tall windshield. “You see that pack of zombies? Must be twenty-five of them.” As we passed the pack by bouncing onto the sidewalk, Pollard checked the side mirrors. “And now they’re running after us.” He caught my eye over his shoulder. “We’re gonna get out of here,” he said, his usually pretty blue eyes steely with resolve. “I promise you.”
With the map unfolded and laid out on the dash, he pointed at different sites. “We’re about here.” He glanced up and turned the wheel to avoid a decorative brick wall around someone’s front yard. “We’re going west through the suburbs,” he announced, nodding as if convincing himself as well as us. “Then we’ll turn south and come up on the truck stop from the back.”
“It took two days to get here the first time,” I reminded him.
“It’s not going to take that long.” He smiled reassuringly at me in the rearview mirror. “On a good day I can drive there in twenty minutes. So…”
But since 212R had ravaged the human race, changing over ninety-nine percent of us into flesh-eating monsters, time seemed to pass differently. What had once taken a few minutes now took hours when you factored in the loss of electricity and scavenging for gas and hiding from Reds.
“Just hurry,” I added unnecessarily. “We need a safe place to stop and regroup.” To process the sight of my dad’s empty and looted lab. Or the fire. Or Ben’s injecting what I hoped was the antiserum. Or his saying my name.
Pollard was right. As soon as he passed through the heart of the city, there were fewer parked vehicles, less random debris, fewer Reds. He rolled over streets, driveways, access lanes, and sometimes even sidewalks and front lawns to keep us moving in the right direction.
“Maya?” Hunny climbed out of the passenger seat and stepped tentatively down the narrow walkway between the gas range and the dining table. “I saw snacks in your pack. Can I have some?”
I couldn’t remember what was in there. “Of course.” Then I recalled another helpful item I’d collected along the way. “And grab the baby wipes, will you?”
But she crept as far as Ben’s boot and then hesitated. “What’s wrong with him?”
I wiggled a little, changing positions, but kept his head in my lap. He didn’t react, just continued sleeping against me. “He injected the antiserum to 212R.” At least I hoped it was the antiserum. If it wasn’t, he may have ruined everything by injecting himself with poison.
Hunny scrunched her nose. “What?”
“He took the cure,” I said. “But probably the wrong dose. It’s making him sick.”
Her green eyes traveled up his body from his dirt-caked black boots over his stained blue work clothes to his blood-splattered face. “Are you going to be a zombie now? Because you touched him?”
“No,” I said quickly. “If I haven’t been infected yet, I probably won’t be. Besides,” I added, nodding at the back of Pollard’s head, “he thinks we’re immune.”
“It’s just a theory,” he said, proving he was eavesdropping. “It doesn’t mean you should touch him, Maya.”
“I think it’s a good theory.” It made sense to me. No matter how catastrophic a virus was, there was always a fraction of the population naturally immune.
“What are you going to do with him?” Hunny asked. She nudged his boot with the toe of her tennis shoe and Ben’s leg wobbled, but he didn’t wake up.
“Easy,” I warned. He was a human being, not a toy. “I’m not going to do anything with him. He’ll wake up,” I hope, “and we’ll find out if the antiserum worked.”
She bobbed her head, but I sensed she had something else to say. Finally, she whispered low enough Pollard couldn’t hear, “Maya, I took something.”
My guts clenched. “What did you take?” And from where?
“I’m sorry,” she said in a rush. “I know you told me not to, but it was just sitting there, and it was so cute and little.”
“What did you take?” I pressed. We’d been in a lab where hazardous chemicals were stored. “It could be dangerous.”
“No, it’s not.” She pulled a silver rectangle from her pocket and offered it to me. “Here. Look. It was on your dad’s desk.”
The moment it landed in my palm I knew what it was. Immediately, like turning a faucet, I teared up.
“It’s me and my brother when we were little.”
I opened the small, hinged frame and stared at a pair of black and white portraits, cropped to show just the faces and nothing else. At two, when the pictures had been taken, we’d looked so similar. We both had wispy black hair. The same brown eyes. Only our smiles were different. Mine was smaller, more hesitant. Mason grinned whole-heartedly, showing off tiny baby teeth.
“This is me.” I touched the glass over my pale face, and then my twin brother’s. “This is Mason.”
So much had gone wrong since we’d taken the photos, but in the snapshots we were still young and sweet and the future seemed bright. Maybe that’s why Dad kept it on his desk, even after Mason was incarcerated. Maybe he’d liked to remember his kids before the darkness descended.
I thought of the picture tucked into my pocket. Is that why Ben liked it? Did my face somehow remind him of his life before the plague?
“I’m sorry,” Hunny said again.
I closed the frame and returned it to her. “It’s okay. I’m glad you took it.”
“You should have it.” She tried to give it back. “It’s yours.”
“No.” I shook my head. It hurt too much to look at. “Keep it. You can give it back to me later when you’re done with it.”
She wedged it into her pocket and unzipped my backpack. “Here.” She handed me the wipes and then returned to the passenger’s seat with a box of yogurt-covered raisins.
I scrubbed vigorously at my hands with a moist towelette, rubbing between my fingers and up both wrists. I repeated the process with a second cloth, removing layers of blood, dirt, and grime. No matter how hard I washed, though, I couldn’t remove every mark I’d gathered since the red plague exploded out of South America and then the world. Maybe I’d never be completely clean.
There was so much blood caked on Ben’s hands they looked black, but up his left arm was a fine misting of white paint. Evidence it had been him who’d written me a message on asphalt, and no one else. Proof he was different than most Reds. I reached to clean it off when the RV hit something so big I was weightless for an instant.
“Ladies?” Pollard announced, spinning the giant steering wheel. “We’re almost there.”
Chapter Two
I got so lost in thought, Ben a comfortable weight against me, I didn’t notice when Pollard pulled into a parking lot and slowed to a crawl.
“Finally.” Pollard slammed on the brakes and grabbed Ben out of my arms before I even had a chance to formulate a proper plan. Pollard slung the former zombie over his shoulder and pushed through the RV’s door. He rapped—knock-knock-knockety-knock—on the truck stop’s glass entrance.
What used to be a trucker’s paradise along the I-40 outside Raleigh had been converted into a fortress of barricaded windows and walls of abandoned vehicles.
The door opened slowly on Simone, the last of Pollard’s group. She wiped her hands across her wide hips, re-arranging the hem of a shirt she’d probably slept in the night before. Hair, clothes, and oral hygiene were all suffering. The apocalypse did not look good on her.
She rubbed blood-shot brown eyes. “Pollard? Is it really you?” She glanced sleepily from him
to me. “Who is that? Russell?”
“No.” Pollard pushed his way inside.
I followed, and I smelled alcohol all over Simone. Maybe she hadn’t expected us back that day. When Pollard told me about finding the woman incarcerated for public drunkenness, I’d assumed it had been in the past. A one-time slip-up.
Either way, Simone could take care of herself. I had more important things to worry about. Like antiseptic and clean bandages. I rushed around her and toward the sleeping quarters in the former greasy spoon’s dining area.
“Lay him here. Don’t hit his head.” I yanked the blankets straight on the makeshift bed before I realized Pollard was whisking Ben into the back of the kitchen. There was an old walk-in freezer, and sure enough, Pollard dumped him unceremoniously in the center of the cleaned out space.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. “He’s sick. He needs a bed and bandages and—”
“He’s a zombie,” Pollard snapped, “not a baby doll. If you insist on keeping him around, he stays tied up in here.”
“Tied up?”
“I’m being as generous as I can here, Maya.” He used a discarded piece of packaging twine and secured Ben’s left hand, his injured side, to the nearest shelf. “I have to think of the safety of everyone under this roof.”
“You’re overreacting,” I said. But he’d brought him into his home. Maybe Pollard was doing more than he wanted to just to please me.
He brushed his fingers through his messy blond hair and rearranged his bunched tee. “You’re underreacting.”
Not possible. Ben suffered because I’d led him into the lab, led him straight to the vial he injected.
My fault.
I gave Pollard an exasperated look before relenting.
Luckily, my bedding remained folded and piled against the wall from the night I’d slept in the walk-in. I snatched a pillow off the top and positioned it under Ben’s head. The least I could do. In fact, I should have been taking his vitals and writing down symptoms. I didn’t know what would be important later when I found a real doctor.
I tested the temperature of his forehead and then the side of his throat. “He’s burning up. What if the medicine he injected only makes him worse?”
Pollard shuffled his feet across the concrete floor. “Maya, whatever happens… happens.”
He didn’t have to tell me. None of us were doctors.
My eyes roamed the empty shelves in the walk-in. There had to be something I could do. “I need an ear thermometer.” I caught Pollard’s worried blue gaze. “You have one of those, don’t you?”
He wiped his hands on his camouflage pants. “Probably.” He took my elbow and urged me upright. “He’s not going anywhere. Help me unpack the RV. You need to eat something before you play nurse, anyway.”
He was right. I hadn’t eaten all day. And there were things to collect from the store. “Okay. Just for a couple minutes.”
As I strolled out, my fingers instinctively reached for the photo in my pocket. Later. When Ben was awake I’d get the story out of him. But I needed time to think before I confronted him.
Holding it in my hand made everything different. If Mason had my picture in his detention cell then how in the world had it found its way into Ben’s possession?
An icky feeling wormed under my skin, an idea I couldn’t put words to yet.
Hunny raced across the room and disappeared into the convenience store, blonde ringlets bouncing. Chip bags popped as she devoured the stock. I turned to follow her and inventory the meager medical supplies, but Pollard grabbed my hand, stalling me.
“Come on.” He tugged me toward the entrance. “I need your help.”
I hated to waste minutes doing busy work, but I went outside and into the heavy North Carolina air with him. Sweat popped up on my arms and on the back of my neck as I gazed at the tall, green pine trees in the distance. Their tops scratched at a clear blue sky. Not even a breath of wind wiggled their branches or cooled the air at all.
Wiping moisture from my face, I couldn’t help thinking about Ben’s fever. Because if it didn’t break soon he might suffer far worse than the symptoms of 212R.
Infection. Brain damage. Organ failure.
“All clear,” Pollard said. “Get up here.”
I hopped inside the RV and hastily collected what personal belongings were within reach. A hat. A crescent wrench. A cigarette lighter. And then I wasted more time searching for water while Pollard rifled through the glove box. I found a couple half-empty bottles and a two-liter of generic brand root beer.
“I’m done,” I announced. “I’m going back inside. I need to look through your first-aid kit.”
“For what? We don’t have anything except Band-Aids and rubbing alcohol.”
That’s what I was afraid of. “Cold medicine maybe? A thermometer?” Sometimes water, a piece of fruit, and a little care went a long way, but I wasn’t doing any good hanging around the RV.
Pollard shrugged, irritating me further. Did he not recognize how important Ben was? If he survived the elixir, he might possibly be the only cured Red on the entire planet.
“We better get back.” I opened the door, but Pollard stepped around me, surveying for threats.
“Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you. I want to check my traps.”
Inside the truck stop I zeroed in on the store’s minuscule health and hygiene section. Hunny squatted beside me, still inhaling snack foods.
“If you don’t quit, you’ll ruin your dinner,” I warned.
The adult cold medicine was expired, but there was a bottle of kids’ fever-reducing medicine.
“This is my dinner,” she shot back.
I’d bribed the girl into brushing her hair. Maybe I’d need to re-negotiate to include eating fruits and veggies every day. Even if they came from cans.
The chips looked so good, though… And I hadn’t eaten in hours. My dad would’ve killed me for eating them, but old rules no longer applied. Not on days like this.
I grabbed a bag of caramel popcorn and smashed a handful into my mouth.
The last three days had been rough. Running from place to place, losing Russell, sleeping in a tent, and all the time worrying about Ben and the elixir and whether I’d be attacked by a Red at any moment. Part of me worried if I’d ever be able to sleep again.
“Hey.” I gave in, sank onto the warm tile floor, and leaned my back against a rack of magazines. “Grab me a bottle of apple juice. We’ll split it.”
She scurried into the refrigerator cases, now dark and room temperature, and returned with the juice. Greedily, she took the first swig and then offered it to me.
“Thanks,” I signed, forgetting she only knew finger spelling, but it was a habit. A hard one to break, no matter how long I’d been separated from Mason. Growing up with a deaf twin brother meant I would never stop signing, not completely.
“T-h-a-n-k-s,” I spelled for her benefit, swallowing the sweet drink. “Even better than I remember.”
“What happens,” Hunny said, flecks of potato chips flying from between her lips, “when we eat all the junk food in here?”
I scanned the shelves. Tubes of salted peanuts, bags of neon pink cotton candy, and enough chocolate bars to choke a bull. But at least half of the store’s stock had been cleaned out and the red virus was only a couple months old.
“Find another place like this,” I guessed, “or start a garden or something.”
With the antiserum inside Ben, so much more was suddenly possible.
“There’s no one to make these anymore, is there? Unless we find the factory.” She perked up, examining the package in her hands. “All we have to do is turn on the machine and it’ll do everything by itself. Cut the chips, season them, cook them…”
As she rattled on about all the factories to locate and how she expected their machinery to operate, my fingers played with the photograph in my pocket. When Pollard had asked if I knew Ben, I’d been positive we’d never met. Until I
’d run past him on my first day out of my panic room.
So why did he carry my picture?
His following me for days with my photograph in his pocket could not be a coincidence. It was just too crazy to believe.
So, who was he? And how had he found it?
How had he found me?
“Maya!” Hunny exclaimed. “Are you listening?”
“Sorry.” I shook myself. “Yes. What?”
Sighing, she asked, “Do you know where a chocolate factory is?”
“No.” I passed her the apple juice and stood up. “I don’t. But we’ll keep an eye out, okay?”
With no alternatives, I snatched the kids’ cough medicine off the shelf and rushed into the kitchen to find Pollard. I wanted to borrow his ear thermometer, but I didn’t know where he kept his first-aid kit.
He wasn’t in the kitchen, though. Simone was.
Like a cornered cat, she hunched her spine. “Oh. Hi. I didn’t hear you.” Easing out of defensive mode, she mixed powdered sweet tea into a pitcher, stirred it well, and then topped it off with rum. “My own brew.” She poured a bit into a blue plastic cup. “Want some?”
“No.” I’d tasted the stuff when we’d toasted my brother. I didn’t like it. And I was sure mixing it into sickly sweet tea would not improve it.
I glanced at the closed door of the walk-in freezer, itching to go inside and lay my palm against Ben’s forehead and then my fingers against his wrist. Just to check. Just to be sure.
“Who is that guy?” she inquired. “Some wounded survivor you picked up on the road?”
Not exactly. “I was looking for Pollard.”
“He’s out with his traps,” she told me, sipping her concoction and gazing at me over the rim of her cup. “Did you and him hook up while you were gone?”
That was so none of her business. I scowled, intending to say, Of course not, but we sort of had. Did two kisses count as a hook up?
“I’ve got stuff to do,” I said instead and left to search for the first-aid kit on my own.
It wasn’t anywhere obvious. Eventually, I stood under the roof hatch considering how to climb up there with a weak knee when Pollard banged into the dining room with a raccoon and two ground squirrels on strings.
