by L. T. Ryan
Leo lurched upright, shook his shoulders out. He reached down and pulled Beth off the ground. He cradled her in both arms and stammered forward, shuffling his large feet through the snow, leaving behind deep tracks anyone could follow. Sean did his best to cover them as he trudged behind. But all he did was make it more obvious they’d been there. Didn’t matter, he told himself. There were footprints leading this way for half a mile.
Three sets.
Side by side.
Obvious that one person wasn’t able to support themselves entirely.
They climbed the hill, struggling against the wind and snow and the pitch of the ascent. The house came into view below the roofline. It was a simple structure, built square. Four walls and a roof. Couple of windows cut out. They hadn’t been broken.
A stretch fifty-feet long of virgin snowfall stood between them and the front door. Every step sent a chill further up Sean’s leg. It had even started to affect both legs. Leo stopped next to a tree. He leaned back and let Beth slide to her feet. Her knees buckled. He supported her, helped her back up. Then he stuck his hand in his trousers and pulled out a keychain. The sound of the keys clattering against each other rose above the howl of that frigid wind.
The thing that dashed through the open space between the house and that skeletal tree moved quicker than any of the afflicted Sean had seen since Africa, where all memories were still mired in the desert sand. He could barely yell “look out” before the afflicted was on top of Beth.
Marley reacted before Sean or Leo. He raced across the short distance and plowed headfirst into the dead. The afflicted went sprawling onto its side and sank into eight inches of snow until it settled on the ground. It wriggled, but it seemed that being surrounded as it was affected its speed.
Sean freed the machete from its sheath and hurried over, fighting against the loosening prosthetic fixed to his thigh. He brought the blade high and dropped to his knees. The afflicted let out a gag as Sean lopped off the top of its head.
Leo’s hands shook and slid off Beth as he attempted to lift her off the ground. “D-d-did you see that? How fast that sumbitch moved?”
Sean pointed at the house. “Go unlock the door. I got Beth.”
Leo found his keyring in the snow and scooped it up. He staggered toward the house, repeating what he had said moments ago.
Sean leaned over and helped Beth to her feet. “I can’t carry you, hon. Can you walk the rest of the way?”
She grimaced as she cradled her stomach with both hands. “I think I can do it.”
Sean assessed her condition as she started forward. “It didn’t get you, right?”
“I’m okay.”
“All right. We’re almost to a safe place. One foot in front of the other. That a girl.” He stayed with her the entire way with Marley a few paces ahead, ears perked up, gaze aimed at some unseen dead in the woods through the white veil that surrounded them.
He stopped underneath the porch, handed Beth over to Leo.
“Come on, boy,” he called to Marley. The dog trotted over, sat down next to him. Marley refused to come inside when Sean entered. “Gonna take point for a while?”
Marley looked back out toward the skeletal forest.
Sean closed the door. The floor plan was wide open with a closet and bathroom that he figured wasn’t operational at this point. There was a couch and a couple of plastic chairs like he had out on his deck at home. He took off his gloves and cupped his hands and exhaled a hot breath into them. Rubbing them together, he took a closer look at the kitchen and stopped in front of the square window overlooking the back.
He stood there for several minutes, watching the snow fall and the shadows darken as the sun began its trek westward. How had that afflicted moved so fast? He hadn’t seen a single one do that since Africa. He’d figured the ones bred with that trait had died in the bombings. That the ones who escaped were slow and dimwitted. Maybe it was recessive, only one in a million or so would have the ability. Another thing to be mindful of, he told himself, all the while hoping he never saw another like that.
Beth cried out. The contractions were getting closer. The baby would come soon.
And he couldn’t shake the feeling that something worse was coming with it.
Four
Addison Bowen had reached shore and navigated into the marshlands. The winds died down. There were no waves. And the dead couldn’t reach her there. She dropped anchor and settled in for a long night alone.
When she woke, thin wispy clouds raced past the moon which hung low and reflected off the rippled water. White twinkles of light filled the sky. The first traces of pink lined the eastern horizon.
A fish slapped against the surface then popped out a moment later, splashing hard when it landed. The sequence sent a shiver down Addy’s spine. She shone her light across the cove, expecting to see an afflicted trudging toward her. What would happen next? Would it walk all the way out and stand below grasping at the watery space between it and the raft? The light fell upon a section of disturbed water.
“Just a fish,” she muttered.
She grabbed the paddle and plunged it below the surface. She’d performed the exercise earlier to make sure she was in at least five feet of water. Again, the paddle failed to reach the bottom.
The silence that followed left her more uneasy. When had nature died? In the previous months, the birds and insects were always present, one giving way to the other with the cycles of the sun. But lately, there was nothing. No crickets, cicadas, blue jays, robins.
Silence prevailed.
In time, she’d adjust. But for now, her intense focus on the quiet meant there’d be no more sleep. It was too early to set out on foot, though. This was the time of the dead. She glanced toward the east. Another finger of light had overtaken the dark horizon. Thirty minutes, she figured, before she’d set out.
Addy unzipped the duffel and looked through the supplies. There was too much. Certainly more than she could carry herself. She had stuffed her backpack with enough to last her two weeks. After that, she’d scavenge. Turk had come through with more. What would be helpful? Food and water, for one. He’d left her with some purifying tablets and a few filter straws. Enough to provide her with four to six months of suitable drinking water. Maybe more if she conserved use.
She also took the stock of energy bars he’d stuck in there. Two boxes of twenty-four. Each bar provided almost two hundred calories. She could survive two weeks on the supply alone. Best to save it for the end, she figured. She could scavenge and hunt early. The energy and drive were there. A month from now that might not be the case as she battled winter in the mountains.
Would it take that long, she wondered? A month to reach her grandparents? It all depended on how much of the journey she had to take on foot. If Turk was correct, and that horse farm had been untouched, she could reach it by afternoon. Ten miles. With a healthy steed the distance would be easier to manage. She wouldn’t push the animal. Twenty miles a day was plenty, and would get her to Charlotte inside three weeks, and that included any possible delays that could, or more likely would, arise.
When Addy finished going through the duffel, she had one knife clipped to her belt and two more hidden in her boots. She had a Glock 19 9mm pistol concealed behind her back, and a Glock 17 on her waist band opposite the knife. Turk had also supplied her with a spare magazine for each, and a box of 9mm rounds. She hoped she wouldn’t need to break into them, but that was wishful thinking, and she knew it.
The tip of the sun now crested the skyline. The water around her rippled in orange and red and pink through the rising steam. She breathed in the salty, clean air, filling her lungs deep. The temperature hadn’t changed, but her cheeks warmed with the light. She tugged the opening of her right glove with her left index finger and exhaled into it, then repeated the sequence on the other side.
Inspiration filled her soul at that moment. She could do this. No, she was destined to do this. Her grandparents were on
their farm, fortified and thriving with a community. That’s who they were. That’s who they would continue to be.
Addy pulled the anchor hand over hand until the twenty-pound dumbbell cleared the water with a thick sucking and slurping sound. She heaved it into the boat on a pile of blankets that she hadn’t needed overnight.
“Ow!”
Addison nearly fell backward over the inflated railing. The tips of her fingers plunged into the frigid water. Her feet scraped on the bottom of the raft, but there was no where for her to retreat to.
The blankets moved up and down, side to side. A small hand appeared out of the far end. It grabbed the edge and began to pull it down.
Addy tugged the Glock 19 out of the holster clipped to her waist and struggled to get a hold of it with both hands. She lowered her hands to her waist. Steadied herself. Wouldn’t do her any good if she fumbled the pistol overboard. Besides, what exactly was she looking at?
The thick gray blanket wrinkled as it lowered. Emma’s pale face and blue eyes appeared with the ever-rising sun surrounding her like a halo.
“Emma?” Addison unthreaded her shaking finger from the trigger guard. “I could have shot you.”
That was the only thought going through her head at the moment. But it wasn’t the only question she had.
Emma’s lip trembled. “Please don’t make me go back, Addy. I’ve got to find my father.”
The life in Addison’s dream of reaching her grandparents’ farm began to fade. “Why? Why would you—”
Emma hung her head. Tears dripped onto the blanket, soaked into the wool. “I have to find—”
Panic overloaded Addy’s system. How was she supposed to take care of herself and the girl?
“I’m going home, Emma. To my grandparents’ farm. That’s it. I’m not taking you back to where we came from. And definitely not back to Virginia. My goal is not to find Sean. I don’t know what the hell you were thinking here?”
Emma looked up, eyes glassed over with tears that couldn’t find her cheeks. “Take me with you.” She spoke as soft as a mouse’s whimper. “I can help when we reach the farm. I can hunt, clean, take care of animals.”
Addison sat there, her mind racing through scenarios.
Emma continued, “I know my dad will find me as long as I’m here. If I left with Turk and the others, he’d never see me again. At your grandparents’, there’s a chance. Right? He knew about the farm. You told him.”
Addison slowly nodded in response to the girl. Sean did know about the farm. But that wasn’t what her mind chewed on at that moment. All the supplies she had, the weeks of food, the backup arsenal, it was all cut in half now. And not only did she have to keep her own ass safe from the hordes of afflicted, which wasn’t too difficult if she was cautious, she now had to watch over a twelve-year-old girl.
“I can hold my own,” Emma said, now steeled in her resolve. It shone through in the look on her face, and in her voice. “And if something happens, and I make a mistake and you’d have to risk your life to save me, just keep going. You won’t be held back by me.”
Addy took a deep breath and closed her eyes and let her head tip back. The sun shone on her and heated her skin for real this time. “You’re crazy, girl.” She looked across the boat at Emma. “But I can’t just send you back out into the Atlantic on this raft. So tighten up and stick close to me. Got it?”
Emma nodded and reached for the oar. She plunged it into the water, disrupting the calm surface. Little whirlpools spun out from the side and died five feet away. The small raft cut through the water. Ten strokes later they slid to a stop on a short, sandy beach bordered with tall reeds and grass.
Addy rose and reached behind her back where the Glock 19 was holstered. It was smaller than the Glock 17, and probably a better fit for the girl. Though she figured a .22 or .380 would have been the best match. She knew from talks with Sean, and experience watching Emma, that the girl could handle the weapon. But when crunch time hit, when Emma had a branch on her leg pinning her down and six afflicted bearing down on her, could she pull off enough perfect shots to survive? What if Addy’s life depended on the girl? She shook off the thoughts as Emma took the pistol and scooped up the duffel, threading her arm through it and tossing it over her back.
“You sure you got that?”
Emma staggered left, right, then steadied herself. “Sure.”
“We don’t need everything in there.” Addy reached out for the bag. Emma leaned over and let it slide to Addy’s hand. She went through it again, lightening the load, then handed it back. “Here, this is better. We’ll look for a backpack as soon as we find a store.”
They set off, first through the muddy marshlands, taking their time and keeping the surroundings in check. A distant song filled the morning. A bird. One of the remaining few, it seemed, still filled with enough inspiration to let the world know it was time to get moving.
Addy kept her pistol in hand but wouldn’t allow Emma to travel the same. The girl carried a machete that Turk had packed. Addison had planned on leaving it behind, which she now realized would be a mistake. It was a solid choice in these times, where you might have to slice into the decaying flesh of a monster looking to eat your face as an appetizer. The girl demonstrated competence with the weapon, slicing through the reeds and hacking away when they reached a thicket of bushes.
Now they lingered along a roadway. Addison believed it was the one Turk had pointed out, and if they followed it generally toward the south, they’d come across the road that led to the horse farm. After a mile she was proven correct when she spotted a lingering street sign.
The woods thinned along the side of the road, giving way to a stretch of small, square, brick ranch houses with what were once neat little square yards surrounded by chain-link fencing. They stuck to the right of the road, behind the houses, hidden by the trees. They were almost past the stretch when Emma screamed and collapsed out of Addison’s sight.
Five
Beth’s frail gasps echoed across the open room. Rivers of sweat slid across her forehead, cascaded down her cheeks, despite the frigid temperatures in the room. It had been a long night of constant contractions. The pace was near frantic now, and, best Sean could tell, she was fully dilated. A dark tuft of matted hair was visible under the sheet that covered her legs.
Sean and Leo used the couch cushions and blankets Leo brought from the closet to make a bed for Beth. The cushions spread out as she writhed in pain and fought against them with every contraction.
For her part, Beth kept her screams to a minimum. She squeezed their hands. She bit down hard on a thick chunk of blanket wrapped around a stick the diameter of Leo’s thumb. And during the minutes in between, her pants settled to breaths, and her eyes closed, and she dozed for a few seconds at a time, only to be awoken again by the pain of her body expelling the child.
Leo stood in front of the kitchen sink. He wiped the fog on the window created by their breath with a square dish towel. Swirling streaks coated the glass, but he could see outside now.
“How much longer?” he asked without looking back.
Sean checked the baby’s progress again, though he hadn’t needed to. “Could be minutes. Could be an hour.”
Leo turned, leaned back against the sink. “Anything we can do?”
Sean pushed off his knees and rose and joined the man. He turned the spigot. Wishful thinking. There was no water running? Everything they had was in various stages of melting in the three steel pots they found in the cabinets. He wiped his hands on his pants and leaned back against the counter next to Leo.
“Ever worked on a farm?” Sean said.
Leo shot him a sideways glance, mouth open a crack as though he’d be awfully comfortable with a cigarette there. “No. Not sure what you mean, either.”
“Sometimes you run into a situation with the cattle. A breech.”
“Like a sideways baby?”
“Exactly.”
“That what’s happenin
g here?”
“No, it’s not that.” Sean lowered his voice even more. He didn’t want to upset Beth. If she thought her baby was in danger, she might not be as steeled in her resolve to keep noise to a minimum. “At some point, we gotta worry about the baby though. Too long in the current position could result in a massive decrease in heart rate. And without enough blood pumping around…well, you can guess.”
“Jesus.”
“There’s more, and it could be worse.”
“What the hell could be worse?”
“The umbilical cord.”
“What about it?”
“Could be wrapped around the baby’s neck.”
“Well, what are we gonna do, Sean?”
We? Sean thought. All Leo had been good for was fetching more snow for the water buckets and lending his hand for Beth to crush. The man was rubbing his right hand at that moment and flexing his fingers, a grimace across his face.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Sean said. “We’re not gonna panic. The contractions are coming at three to three-and-a-half minutes now. This is almost over. Beth’s been resting for a while now. I haven’t been nagging on her to push. But it’s time. She needs to give everything she’s got, and for that, you need to do the same.”
Leo nodded and said nothing.
“Can you do that? Do you have it in you?”
But before Leo could answer, they heard Marley outside. The bark was ferocious, and non-stop for several seconds. Leo spun away from Sean, toward the window. He wiped frantically with his rag on the glass and put his face to it.
“Can’t see a damn thing through all that snow,” he said.
Sean reached around his back and grabbed his pistol. “I’ll go check this out.”
Beth drew a sharp breath, bit her bottom lip hard and moaned. She covered her eyes with the back of her left forearm. Her head shook side to side, then her body convulsed as though she had a hundred thousand volts running through her. Her foot knocked one of the pots over. Fortunately, it was the most recent, and a small avalanche of snow spilled out. She pulled her arm away from her face and began to cry, muttering something about not being able to do this.
