by Anna Abner
I continued, “Mason was the murderer. Not me.”
On the next exhale something heavy dropped away from my shoulders. Not all the guilt. There was too much to lose all at once, but a great deal of it sloughed off like old skin and drifted into the stale air around us.
“As far as what happened at Camp Carson,” he added, “you asked me to go, but I made my own decisions. You didn’t know what would happen. Neither did I. Smart’s experiments are definitely not your fault.” He stared deep into my eyes with an inscrutable longing. “Maya, for God’s sake, I would have done anything you asked me to do. Don’t you know that?”
“What? No.” That made me feel awful, like I could lead him right off a cliff and he would happily make the jump.
I couldn’t be responsible for any more catastrophes. My conscience couldn’t take it.
I still felt awfully guilty—about everything—and probably would for a long time. “I hate that they hurt you,” I said. “Because you’ve been so kind to me.” Respectful. Generous. Protective.
“I’m not kind,” he whispered.
“I don’t know what you were like before the plague,” I told him, turning on my serious voice because it obviously meant a lot to him. “But this is your chance at a fresh start. You’re brand new. A blank page. I’ve been watching you, the whole time you were watching me. You protected me. Even when you were still infected. You listened to me. You cared about me.”
His brows drew down as he lifted my hand from his chest and pressed an urgent kiss to my palm. His whiskers tickled, and his breath blew hot against my skin.
As if he had decided kissing my limb was not enough, Ben cupped my face. He kissed me like he’d been craving it. Not gently and reverently. No. He kissed me like he’d been holding back all this time and had finally decided he was good enough to try.
My hands wound up his bare arms and clutched at him. His muscles tensed and tightened under my fingers, and then he drew slowly away.
It seemed as if he wanted to say something, but he only shook his head and put more and more space between us.
“I guess we should get ready to leave,” I said. I didn’t want to leave. If it weren’t for Pollard, Hunny, and Juliet waiting for us I would’ve stayed with Ben in that house for longer. Maybe forever.
Ben pulled his shirt back on, and, with his hands on his hips, stared at the door leading to the garage. “You’re right. It’s still a long drive to D.C.”
“Yes, Pollard and Hunny are out there somewhere,” I said. It was time. I didn’t want to lose them if I could help it.
“Pollard,” he said in an odd tone he only used when speaking of the man. “Right. We better go so I can get you to your Pollard.”
I frowned, uncomfortable with his suddenly impersonal briskness. “He’s not my Pollard.” But I wondered how much Ben had observed while he’d followed us around Raleigh and into Camp Carson. The handholding? The kissing?
“Pollard takes care of you,” he said as if one thing obviously led to the other.
“I feel fragile when I’m around him,” I confessed. “He takes care of me too much.” Smothering was another word for it. Thinking back on our time together I realized he must not have had a high opinion of my ability to take care of myself. The insight stung.
“What’s too much?” He shook his head at me, clearly confused.
Sighing, I tried to explain. “I spent two weeks, all by myself, locked in a glorified closet. Do you know how hard it was not to lose my mind? Two weeks.” The hardest, loneliest, most terrifying fourteen days of my life. “I’m not soft or breakable. I’m the opposite, actually.”
“I know,” he said. “I watched you for a long time.”
A tiny smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. He knew.
“Get your stuff together,” he said. “Let’s take all the food and drinks. And if you want the generator, put it in the back of the Hummer.”
Chapter Fourteen
We loaded the Hummer with everything important. The survival kit Ben had put together full of fire starters, water purification tablets, weapons, and first aid. I contributed my pack with my song diary and freshly charged iPad. Plus my guitar, the generator, a red can full of gas, and all the water.
Just for good measure I threw in the down pillows from the upstairs bedrooms and a bunch of toiletries I normally wouldn’t worry about. But now that we had the Hummer, we could travel in style.
What I didn’t have all calculated was what happened two minutes after we found Pollard, Juliet, and Hunny. Pollard would have a plan. He was like that, but Ben might have a different strategy all his own. He wasn’t a zombie anymore. And though he still carried the answer to the future of the human race in his blood, I’d never force him to be experimented on again. And he didn’t need me to find a doctor. He didn’t have to follow me around in a dazed stupor anymore. He had proven he was capable of taking care of himself. He could go off and have a real life.
But the thought of him striking out on his own made my stomach cramp. I didn’t want him to leave. He was important to me.
“Um, Ben?” I called, tracing dust swirls on the hood of the vehicle. “What happens when we get to D.C.?”
He tossed a sack in the rear and slammed the door. “I don’t want to hang around and watch you fall in love with your Pollard,” he said, averting his gaze.
“He’s not my Pollard,” I countered, hating when he called him that. But he acted like he hadn’t heard me.
“I can’t do that, Maya. Why, what do you think happens?”
If I closed my eyes, I could still feel his lips on mine. Our kiss meant something to him. I’d sensed it in his touch. It had meant something to me, too.
I didn’t say anything, and he banged on the hood. “Get in. Let’s go.”
I slid in beside him and stared out my window, wishing for the mindless chatter of the radio or a CD or even the wind, but there was nothing but the hum of the engine.
I wanted to say something big and important, something life changing and mature, but I couldn’t form the words. How did I tell Ben, when I had never told a man I wasn’t related to, that I cared about him? More than just a friend. More than a simple science experiment. I cared about him as a person. I respected his honor and integrity. I enjoyed being around him. He made me feel special.
But I didn’t know how to say it, especially with Pollard, Hunny, and Juliet hovering on our horizon.
I couldn’t process the overwhelming feelings his kiss and his kindness had brought up in me.
I had once loved my twin brother, and he ruined my life. I’d loved my father, and he left me behind. I’d cared about Pollard, and he disappeared, too. I wasn’t sure I could handle any more men wrecking me.
Ben started the car, but didn’t put it in gear. “Maya, I’ve been thinking.”
Tensing, expecting bad news, I asked, “Thinking about what?”
“If the medicine inside my blood can help other people,” our eyes met, “then I have to do whatever it takes to help them.”
“What are you saying?”
“If we find a doctor, a real doctor,” he said, “I want to copy the antiserum. I want to help make a new one.”
A relieved sigh escaped. “I’m glad.”
“I want to put a stop to the red plague.”
Smiling, I said, “Me, too.”
With a nod, Ben reversed out of the driveway, shifted into drive, and left skid marks as he accelerated down the quiet residential street and took the first right. Neither of us saw the pack of Reds until it was too late.
He shouted a curse word as he spun the wheel hard to avoid plowing into them, but we were going too fast, and though it seemed impossible, our vehicle flipped.
For a moment the world stopped moving, time slowed, and I sensed each millisecond as everything turned topsy-turvy. Gravity abandoned me. Time crumpled.
We sideswiped a large swath of zombies and rolled once before slamming into an electrical pole and shudde
ring to a stop. Upside down.
Everything rushed back at once. Light. Pain. Fear. I screamed.
“Maya?”
I hung upside down by the seatbelt, my heart racing triple time.
“Maya,” Ben called, reaching blindly for me. “Are you hurt?”
I assessed the situation. Besides the painful rush of adrenaline, I was unharmed. Maybe bruised from knocking around the interior and from the seatbelt, but nothing permanent.
“I’m okay. Are you?”
He unhooked his seatbelt and clambered toward me. “I’m fine. Hold onto me.”
I grabbed him around the neck as he clicked open my seatbelt. I landed in an inglorious twist upon the smashed roof of the vehicle. But from my new position I had an excellent view out the windshield. The pack of Reds had been decimated. Only nine or ten remained upright, and they were feasting ravenously on the zombies we’d hit with the Hummer. I immediately picked out one Red in particular. Devil Dog.
“No,” I groaned. “It’s impossible.”
Had they heard the car alarm? Had they tracked us and waited for us to emerge from our hiding place? Were they hunting us?
“We have to go.” Ben yanked me after him toward the smashed driver’s side window. “We have to run.”
I scrambled after, cutting my hands and knees on broken glass.
The moment I stood upright in the fresh air I wavered, my vision going gray for a second. He pulled at me, but I couldn’t go yet. In the days since I had left the safety of my panic room I’d never once been out of eyesight of my song diary or my iPad. Not once.
But he was urging me away from the two inanimate objects that meant the most to me. The last two things tying me to my old world.
“My bag!” I cried out, ripping my hand from Ben’s and diving inside the Hummer. I reached between the front seats, but our gear had gone through the rinse cycle. Everything was mixed up and broken and water had formed a puddle on the roof, which was now the floor. I swatted sacks and down pillows, desperate to find my backpack in the chaos.
“Get out of there,” Ben hissed, grabbing at my ankles. “Are you nuts? We’re surrounded.”
I didn’t care. I had to find my things. Flickering memories of my dad and mom and Mason and the first seventeen years of my life flashed through my mind.
I heard a grunting noise, and then a growl. The pack, or what was left of it, had realized we were still alive and weren’t running away.
“Maya!” Ben’s voice was panicked.
I hauled my guitar out and shoved it at him because it was the closest thing I could reach. And then I saw my backpack. I fisted a strap a moment before he yanked me straight out of the broken window, right over shattered glass and debris, and onto the street.
He pulled my backpack onto his shoulders, grabbed the guitar by the neck, twisting the strings all out of key, and we took off running. I looked back and saw Devil Dog chasing us, his beefy arms pumping. Other members of his pack noticed him giving chase and followed suit, but a few remained on their hands and knees, too focused on feeding from their fallen comrades to notice. I tried to count how many chased us, running at full speed. Five? Six?
With my attention on the pack behind me I was distracted and stumbled over a curb.
“For God’s sake, Maya!” Ben exploded, steadying me with his free hand.
I glanced at him, at his flushed face, his shiny eyes, and his shirt drenched in sweat. There was blood smeared across his face, and he was panting with exertion. I’d been so worried about myself and my stupid trinkets, I hadn’t stopped to check if he was okay. He wasn’t a runner like me. He was doing the best he could, but the energy to keep up our sprint, not to mention the humid heat, was draining him.
“Did you hit your head?” I asked, skipping across a deserted street and hopping onto a sidewalk fronting luxury homes still under construction.
He didn’t have the breath to answer, so he merely shook his head.
Liar. He must have smashed his nose into the steering wheel when he’d flipped the Hummer. He could have a broken nose. Or a concussion. Or a brain bleed. My heart beat faster, though my pace remained even and steady. No, it was fear squeezing my heart and making it harder to breathe.
We were putting more and more distance between us and Devil Dog’s pack, but Ben was tiring rapidly. He wasn’t in peak shape. He’d been through a lot in the past few days and I was pushing him too far.
“Just a little bit more,” I assured. We darted over someone’s lawn and turned left at the next street, leaving the neighborhood and following a street sign for a nearby highway. “If we have a quarter mile head start we can stop and look for another car.”
He didn’t say anything.
I glanced back at the pursuing pack.
How had they found us? The last time I’d seen Devil Dog and his zombies they’d cornered us in a car lot to the south. But there they were in our little neighborhood. Our bumping into each other could not be a coincidence.
On the other hand, Reds followed the food, whether it was a herd of animals or a group of people. They didn’t have the higher level thinking capabilities to do much beyond using their five senses to flush out prey. If they were headed north toward D.C., the same as us, maybe it was a good sign. It might mean they sensed people in the vicinity. It might mean there was still human civilization in the area.
I glanced back again. Most of the Reds had decelerated to a walk, tiring the same as us. And the ones still running were slowing down.
“We can walk,” I said, pulling on his sleeve.
He eased into a jog, but he was still running on fumes. With quick steps I removed my canteen from my bag on Ben’s back. Luckily, the lid had stayed closed and it hadn’t spilled all over my personal belongings. I removed the cap and handed it to him without stopping our forward momentum.
“Drink,” I said. After he swallowed a couple times I reminded him, “We can’t afford to stop. So if you feel dizzy or sick you have to tell me right away.”
He huffed a laugh. “I’m always a little dizzy and sick.” He took another drink, and then handed the canteen to me and I zipped it into the pack. “But I’ll be okay. Just let me know if those Reds start running again, okay?”
I looked back for the latest update. “They’re all walking now,” I told him. “But they’re still following us.”
“They’ll never stop,” Ben said, picking up the pace as we crossed another street and ventured farther from our safe house. “Not ever.”
Chapter Fifteen
Was it just me or was Ben limping? “You hurt yourself in the rollover,” I deduced. Dang it. My rage spiked. I was failing at protecting him, even though I had promised myself to do exactly that. “How bad?”
“I’m fine.”
Anger exploded, and I gave him a frustrated nudge. “Stop acting bulletproof. You’re hurt.”
Ben looked at me like he’d never seen me before. I guess I hadn’t let loose my temper on him before. Well, tough. He was acting like an idiot. I’m fine. I’m fine. He wasn’t fine! And neither was I. Why did we have to pretend we were?
“I got beat up when the Hummer crashed,” he answered slowly, as if afraid to say something wrong and make me yell again. “My left hip hurts a little. I hit my face on the steering wheel. The seatbelt rubbed my neck raw.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “What does it matter if I have a few more bruises? Don’t worry. I’ll get you to your Pollard.”
I didn’t bother saying, “He’s not my Pollard,” because I knew it wouldn’t do any good. But the phrase continued to run through my head like a stuttering track.
“It matters,” I argued. Because I cared about Ben.
He ignored my response and pointed toward a weathered strip mall to the right, visible over a clump of shrubberies. “We might be able to lose them.” He glanced behind him, and I did the same. The Reds were still there, walking in a mob, their collective focus on us and nothing else. “We’re too visible right now.”
/> He took my hand and our fingers fastened together like a lock and a key, like we were designed to fit together. We jogged off the street, jumped across a drainage ditch, and shoved through the prickly shrubs. My last look at the pack behind us was of the entire mass of zombies shifting to the right and following us.
We kept up a quick walking pace, not quite a jog but not a leisurely stroll either. We crossed the parking lot fronting a discount supercenter and then headed past it. As if in some unspoken pact, we kept our hands linked tight. I could have let him go a hundred times as we crossed a once busy street, jogged around a chicken restaurant, passed a pair of ancient farmhouses, and cut through a grassy field, but I didn’t let go. And neither did he.
We continued heading in a northerly direction, but away from thoroughfares. It was possible Reds remembered what freeways were for and instinctively followed them, which meant we needed to stay away from roads and streets until we were sure we were no longer being tracked.
They’ll never stop.
“Do you remember being infected?” I couldn’t imagine losing my humanity. My memories. My emotions. It was unfathomable to me, and yet Ben had survived it and come out mostly unscathed. Except for his red eyes, some memory loss, and an inability to climb a staircase or a ladder. Other than that, he was a normal, regular guy. How had he done it? How had he come through the infection with his humanity intact?
“I’m remembering more every day, but you don’t really want to hear about that.”
“I do. I’m fascinated.” I blanched. I was talking as if he were a science experiment again. “You know what I mean, don’t you? I’ve been so scared for so long about becoming infected. I’m curious.”
His index finger tapped a staccato beat into my hand, and he spoke slowly as if choosing his words carefully. “I went to sleep Ben Sawyer. But I woke up something else.”
“What were you?” I got the chills recalling exactly what he’d been to me—a filthy, blood-caked zombie in dark blue work clothes.
The field beneath our feet looked flat as a tabletop, but it was full of little potholes the perfect size to trip up human feet. We had to slow to keep from falling or twisting our ankles. I glanced back as Devil Dog and his pack, six zombies total, stumbled after us. Was it my imagination or had they narrowed the gap?
