“Neil? You alright?” Elijah’s voice floated through the broken windows and Neil struggled to steady his breath. He didn’t want Elijah to come looking for him. No reason to make him miserable, too.
“Fine,” he answered. “Be out in a minute.” He glanced down at the backpack fragment and saw the object that had slid out had been a small tablet. It’s not their bus. No one on her bus would have had a tablet. Or a phone. Or a laptop. Or anything that takes electricity. Even if they had solar panels, they wouldn’t have used it for that. Not their bus. He released the fabric and pulled himself back over the seats toward the emergency exit. He wanted— expected to feel intense relief at the idea that this wasn’t the bus Joan and Randi had been on, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there were going to be other wrecks. Other buses. That the country was a vast network of roads and trails and paths and if he walked them until the day he died he’d never find the right bus. He was never going to know. Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. I’m going to know because they’re going to be at the house. I’m going to roll up on the bicycle in a few days and I’ll see them sitting on the porch or swimming in the pond and they’ll be surprised but they’ll be whole. And happy. I’m going to know. He wiped his eyes and then wriggled his way off the emergency door and down to the pavement. He tried to lift the door again, close the bus away so the bodies inside could lay as they were, sprouting bright fireweed and small brown puffball mushrooms until they were all dust. He’d regained muscle in his time at the camp, but the door was still too heavy and he couldn’t lift it completely until Elijah appeared beside him and helped him shut it again. Neil leaned against the bus, grateful for the cooler shadow it cast.
“You get what you needed?” asked Elijah.
Neil shook his head and took the half-full water bottle Elijah handed to him.
“Good,” said Elijah after a moment. “It’s because they’re up there already. At your place. That’s all. Not going to find them out here.” He patted Neil’s shoulder and walked back to the bikes. “Another ten miles to the next exit. We should get moving so we can get there before dark. Otherwise, we’ll be sleeping on the highway.”
Neil followed him. “Would that be bad? There are no people here, none that I’ve seen anyway. Might be safer from the Infected on the highway.”
“Maybe. But I’d rather sleep with a wall between us and them if we can. And people aren’t the only things out here anymore. Best if we find a building. A little one. A convenience store or a storage unit or maybe a campground with cabins. Someplace that wasn’t really popular in winter during an epidemic.”
Neil picked up his bike slowly. It felt heavier than it had a few minutes ago. Rest sounded— inevitable. “What about a house?” he asked, slinging a leg over. His thighs felt bruised and stretched. It was going to hurt when he stopped for the night.
“A house?” asked Elijah, as if the idea were something alien, inconceivable.
“Yeah. A house. You know, with an actual bed? Maybe with a bottle of ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet and a couch to flop on. House.”
“I don’t— I don’t think that’s the place for us.”
“Why not?”
Elijah hesitated. “Well— what if someone owns it?”
“Who? Everyone’s gone. You keep telling me. And I’ve seen it myself now. Rows and rows of houses all empty. But if it makes you feel better, we’ll knock on the door first, okay?”
“I know there’s not likely to be anyone alive, Neil. I’ve been out here before. But what if— what if whatever happened to the owner happened in the house? That’s where most people died. In their house. Sleeping. While someone they loved snapped and attacked them. They’re tombs. We don’t need to take anything from them. We should let them— let them rest.” Elijah’s face was shiny with sweat and his hands gripped the handlebars of his bike tightly.
Neil realized Elijah was thinking of his own house. His own wife and baby and whatever he’d done. “I’ll go in first,” said Neil. “Look around. Make sure it’s empty and clean. Lots of people must have left. They would have gone looking for somewhere safe or went to find relatives, right? Or hell, just been out at work or trying to get groceries when it happened. Lots of houses will be empty. Like the people just walked away. And we can get a good night’s sleep.”
Elijah didn’t seem to be listening, lost in a bad memory under the beating sun. Neil touched his shoulder and Elijah flinched away. “You don’t understand,” he said sadly after a second, “There are people in those houses. Just like the bus. Whoever— whoever left them, they didn’t leave them for us to stare at.”
“But you must have gone into houses when you were with Shay. You must have seen— I don’t know— dozens of bodies, right? And watched people die in the camp—”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Elijah puffed out a breath in frustration. “It was never for me. We scavenged on the team so other people would have what they needed to survive. And to make sure there weren’t people still alive and in trouble. We don’t have to do that now. And if we do, we might find Infected that we can’t help. Or— something we weren’t meant to see. We can sleep in a store or a restaurant. We don’t have to disturb anyone’s resting place.”
“We won’t. If we find bodies, we’ll go somewhere else. We both know what the Infected did. We both know what that looks like. It’s not going to be a shock. And neither of us are going to judge what we find. How could we? We’ll find an empty house. It’s going to be okay, Elijah.”
“You only think that because you don’t know what happened to your daughter. I already know what happened to my family. To almost everyone’s family. I already know what’s behind all the doors of those empty houses. And in the damn bus. Nothing’s going to be okay. Not ever!” he shouted. Neil drew back, startled, and Elijah shook his head and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Need a minute to myself, brother.” He slammed a foot down on the pedal of his bike and spun away from Neil, skirting smoothly around the end of the bus without looking back to see if Neil was with him.
Neil struggled with the bike, eventually walking it through the scattered bits of glass and rubber and metal rather than trying to ride his way around and risk a fall or a popped tire. When he reached the other side of the bus, Elijah was already just a sparking glint far down the road.
For a few minutes, Neil had a real sense of panic, expecting the glint to roll over a hill and completely disappear. For Elijah to just leave him behind. To be truly alone on what seemed a vast expanse of empty tar. Like a fucking arena out here. Anything could be in those trees and they can all see me, he thought, straining to make the bike go faster, to not lose the little shimmer that might only be a heat illusion and not Elijah anymore. Calm down, I was going to do this alone before. If I need to finish it alone, I knew what I was getting into. But the shimmer resolved into a figure standing beside a bike at last, and Neil was ashamed that he had been so ready to write Elijah off as a loss. The man had done an immense thing for him. More than most of the other people in his life would have done. Except Dante, maybe. Wrote him off, too, Neil, he reminded himself. You’re a shitty friend when it matters, aren’t you?
Elijah didn’t turn around, simply staring off down the road, even when Neil stopped beside him.
“I’m sorry,” gasped Neil after a second. “I didn’t mean to make you remember— everything. No houses. We’re on the coast. There’ll be campgrounds or maybe— I dunno, an RV sales lot or something. We’ll—”
“No,” said Elijah, seeming to shake himself loose of whatever had held him. “You’re right. A house makes the most sense. Closed off, one, maybe two entrances, less likely to be several people in the area— Infected or not. The most we’d need to worry about is the family pet and at this point, they’re either feral or starved a long time ago. It makes the most sense. I just… it was the bus. It’s the kids. Seeing the kids is always so bad.”
&
nbsp; “We don’t have to, Elijah. There are plenty of other places. And when we get to the cabin— every house around it was a summer place. If you don’t want to stay with us I understand. You never even have to meet Randi if you—”
“I want to stay with you,” he said quickly. “For a while, if that’s all right. I’m happy to meet your daughter.”
Neil didn’t like the panicked edge in Elijah’s voice or his guarded expression, as if Neil were readying to strike him. “Of course you can stay with us, I want you to. Just didn’t want to crowd you, is all. Look, let’s not worry about it until we get there and see what Joan’s got set up. We’ll figure it out.” He rubbed his right hip where it ached hardest. “For now, let’s just find a furniture store or something. Don’t think my legs are going to take too kindly to another night on concrete. I’ll be lame in the morning either way but—”
“We’ll find a house. You’re right, it makes the most sense and I need— I need to face this. It’s been too easy to shove it away for work or because I was safe with other people like me. It’s not going to get better until I do.” Elijah climbed back onto his bike. “The exit’s only another half a mile. And the sun’s starting to set. We don’t want to still be looking after dusk. We want to be able to see what we’re sleeping in.”
19
Neil fought the urge to repeat the offer of forgoing a house as they rolled past a sparse collection of fast food places, a gas station, and a strip mall. The bright red of the fast-food sign was especially jarring above the dark windows. He missed the smell of frying and cigarette smoke that used to waft out of the rear doorways of kitchens and over parking lots like these. The absence of that scent was even more jarring than the silence and the soft click of his bike. Something large and gray hung out of the restaurant’s drive-thru window, draped with dingy red fabric in tattered strings. They passed too quickly for Neil to see if it were really what he thought it was. Elijah didn’t slow down until they reached rows of small houses crowded too close to the road. The lawns were thickets of long grass and black-eyed Susans except for the startling emptiness of a mulch-filled formal flower bed every few houses or so.
“Too close together,” Elijah muttered even as he slowed. “More chances of people here. And dogs. Need something a little farther out.”
Neil ached. His legs felt ready to quit and he was truly hungry in a way he hadn’t been since he was sick. “Nobody here, Elijah. We haven’t seen or heard a soul since we left the highway. Since we left Shay, in fact.”
“Just because we haven’t seen them doesn’t mean nobody’s seen us. We won’t go much farther, I know you’re tired. There’s a yard with a fence up there, see it?” He pointed toward the crest of the long hill ahead. Neil could just make out the metal crosshatch of a fence and groaned inwardly.
“Sure,” was all he said.
“If there’s no one in that one, it’ll be safer. The fence should keep the Infected out if there are any. And at least slow any animals down.”
“Okay,” Neil agreed, even though he wondered what Elijah’s next house would be if this one was occupied. Or had corpses inside. Just get there. Top of the hill means the next bit after will be easier. If that one doesn’t work, there’ll be a house on the downhill slope that will. By halfway up the hill, he was too tired to keep pedaling and gave up, sliding off the seat to trudge beside the bike instead. “Sorry,” he called when Elijah looked back for him. “Got nothing else in me.”
Elijah stopped his own bike and got off as well. “Don’t worry. Your body will catch up. You’re still recovering. You’ve got no fat reserves. It’ll come back.”
Neil gave a tired, breathy laugh. “To be honest, don’t think I could have done this before I got sick, either. I was seriously out of shape.”
“Me, too,” Elijah admitted. “My job wasn’t too active and with the baby, I was eating just to stay awake sometimes, ‘stead of sleeping. Maybe that’s why we lasted so long.” He poked at his stomach. “Kind of miss the spare, now. Don’t think it’s coming back. Maybe when we’re old and things— change again.” He shook off a dark idea and gave Neil a sympathetic smile. “But your muscles will. Gonna be sore and tired for a little while, but we’ll risk a scavenging stop in a day or two to replenish water and food. Look for protein bars or nuts or jerky— if you can stomach it. I— never can, honestly. Some people like it, though. The Immunes used to go crazy for jerky when the teams brought back a shipment. Too close to other things for me. Anyway. Maybe we’ll find a chicken still running around a farm somewhere. Find some eggs.”
Neil groaned. “Stop talking about food until we’re eating it,” he said.
“Alright,” Elijah laughed. “We’re here anyway. Let’s— let’s go inside and see if we’ve got a bed for the night.”
They made it to the fence gate. Morning glory and grapevine had climbed up the wire mesh and spread over most of the front fence, making it difficult to see into the yard. Neil leaned his bike against the fence and reached for the gate latch.
“Wait. We shouldn’t leave the bikes out here. It’d be hard to replace them if they got stolen. Or if we need to get away fast, it’s better to have them nearby.”
“I’m just going to check the house first. You stay with the bikes. I’ll come back in a minute.” The latch was stubborn but creaked open at last.
“We should go together. Anything could be in there.” Elijah tugged on the back of Neil’s shirt, but Neil just shoved against the fence gate, snapping the weeds and vines to let it swing free.
“I don’t think anyone’s home. No path in the grass, the latch is rusted— I don’t think anyone’s been here in a while. Just let me go up and see. Look, you can see the porch from here. If I get in trouble, I’ll yell.”
Elijah stared uncomfortably at the house but let Neil’s shirt go. “Careful,” he pleaded.
“I’m just going to look around. Pick out the most comfortable bed.” Neil pushed aside the thick ground cover as well as he could with his feet, trying not to get tangled in the long grasses and vines. Joan would have yelled about ticks if she could see him. She always kept the lawn short. It was almost her religion. He wondered how she was coping. Probably found a manual lawn mower already. Probably sitting on the porch of the cabin right now, sweaty and flushed and swearing at an unbalanced blade with her ponytail sticking to her neck— the comfortable thought cut off abruptly as something crunched under his shoe. A collection of slender bones lay under his foot. He was relieved to see the narrow skull beside it. It’s a cat. Or a small dog. Something like that. Not people. Didn’t step on people. But he had. Just not here. He could still hear the snap of brittle, dried-out tendons in the shallow end of the drained hospital pool. Like the pig ears that spoiled dogs got. And the dull clatter of bones as they fell against each other, slipping and shifting when someone else entered the pool. It usually warned him, drew him, sent his blood pounding in anticipation of battle. Of prey. Except for the last time. He’d been so thirsty. So thirsty. He’d heard the bones that day, he could remember that. Hadn’t cared. Just wanted water. His knees had hurt as they hit the pool floor. He remembered that, too. And the roar of someone already in mid-leap. The startling heat of her breath against his neck and more clunks. His head on the concrete, in the water, his knuckles hitting the rounded ends of a leg bone—
“You okay?” called Elijah. “Is there something in the grass there? Come on back, we’ll find another place.”
Neil looked over his shoulder. “No, nothing, just— just a pet I think. Nothing bad. Sorry, reminded me of something.”
Elijah gave him a reluctant nod and Neil turned back to the house. The perfect, unchipped blue paint bothered him. The nicely stained porch. It didn’t go with the weedy lawn. It’s only been two years, he reminded himself. He’d seen abandoned houses before. Pretty common in the part of town he’d lived in. But they were run-down. Peeling and slumping, their windows cracked or missing. Mailbox leaning sideways, if it was even there. Whe
n people left them behind, it was because the house was dying and they’d run out of money years before. Turned off the lights like it was the life-support switch and walked away. It wasn’t— this. It wasn’t neat and tidy with a carefully covered grill stowed under the overhang and pretty outdoor furniture stacked in a corner for winter. The porch beams still had plastic garland and twinkle lights wrapped in a spiral around them. He tried the door. It was locked, as he expected it would be. He knocked, waited. Called a hello once. Nobody came. Not that he’d expected anyone to. The fence gate had been closed for a long time. Months. Maybe more. Long enough for the plants to twine themselves into it. He started looking for something to help with the door. The key wasn’t under the mat or the heavy flowerpots that sat on the edge of the porch. He pried at the nearby window, trying to see if he could lift the sash from outside when Elijah called out to him.
“No good. Come back. There’s a broken window.” Elijah pointed up toward the roof. Neil backed off the porch to look. A breeze flapped a faded pink bit of fabric, sucking it through the broken pane of an upper story window. Neil had a flash of the fateful parade. The flutter of a curtain and masses of green vinyl collapsing around him and the crash of shattering glass.
“Second floor,” he called after a minute. “Nothing’s going to climb in up there.”
“What if someone’s already inside?” asked Elijah.
Neil shook his head. “How? There’s a summer’s worth of plants in that gate. And the door’s locked tight. The bottom floor window isn’t broken—”
“Garage, maybe. Come back, Neil. We’ll go down the road a little. Find somewhere else. Something bad happened here. Or will. Windows don’t get broken on their own. Not like that. No trees near to hit it in a storm. Someone fought in there at some point.”
Before The Cure (Book 2): The Infected Page 18
