We spend the night in the van. The only one who gets rest is Bits. The rest of us sleep in fits and starts, waiting until there’s enough light to safely move on. Penny bandages the deep gash on Nelly’s arm.
“That was what drove them over the edge,” I say. I grimace as I remember the noises they made when the blood hit. “Does it hurt?”
“Nah,” Nelly says. “It’s fine.”
We leave when the sky is streaked with yellow. There’s a faint orange glow in the direction of the house. I tell myself we’re too far to see a fire and it’s the sunrise, but I don’t believe it.
James has planned a route that skirts around Bennington, but it’s jammed with abandoned cars, so we stay on the main road. It’s wide enough that we can weave our way around obstacles. We pass farmland choked with weeds and dandelions. In some places there are signs of a struggle, strewn bodies on the ground and cars tipped off the road. In others it’s the same woods of the northeast I’ve run in my whole life. On one lawn a Lexer sits in the sunshine like it’s enjoying the beautiful summer day. It stumbles to its feet, but by the time it’s on them we’re gone.
“There’s no one,” Penny says quietly. James takes her hand.
The houses become more frequent as we head into Bennington. We pass the Friendly’s restaurant where Eric and I would give ourselves ice cream headaches eating Reese’s Pieces sundaes. We’d slam the ice cream and then gulp our water, which would taste warm by comparison. I smile at the memory and watch John weave through an old roadblock where the ground is littered with black garbage bags.
“What’s funny?” Nelly asks.
I’m about to answer when we hit a bump. There’s a popping sound and the van shudders. John drives a few more yards and stops.
“Everyone stay inside,” he says.
He walks back and rips up the plastic to reveal boards of wood studded with nails. His face is tight when he returns and leans in the window. “Every tire’s flat. They must have abandoned the roadblock when things got bad. We need four tires or a new vehicle.”
Penny buries her head in her hands and moans. We spill out of the van and blink in the sunlight. It’s early in the morning, but the sun already feels hot enough to burn the back of my neck. My shirt sticks to me. I’m not sure if it’s from the sun or the fact that we’re standing in the middle of a deserted street, exhausted and with nowhere to go. There are cars past the roadblock and we try them all. The few that have keys won’t even turn over.
Peter pounds a fist on the roof of a hatchback. “Damn it!”
James points at the buildings down the block. “That looks like Main Street. How about we head there and see if there’s anything. We need to go west on Main anyway.”
“We may as well drive the gear down,” John says.
The wheels grind on their rims as he rolls along beside us. Main Street is a line of brick buildings with wooden storefronts. There are no cars, only a wide expanse of asphalt.
“James has an idea,” Nelly says. “He saw some houses with trucks and RVs as we drove in. Maybe we can find keys in the houses. We’ll take the bikes and go while y’all wait here.”
Penny looks at James in desperation. “I don’t think we should separate.”
“Pen, we can’t all go,” James says softly. “We don’t have enough bikes, even if all of us could make it. We’ll be gone an hour at most.”
I don’t like it either, but I don’t have a better plan. Not only do we need a car, but we also need one big enough to hold us all.
A sign on the corner building says Bennington Brew Company & Pub. It’s a three-story brick building with ornate white moldings around the windows. I think I see something move as a curtain in an open second-story window twitches. I watch as it flutters again, but there’s nothing else. It must have been the breeze.
“We can wait in the van or in here,” Peter says. “Maybe we should check it out.”
Inside, sunlight enters through the huge windows, making the polished oak and brass of the bar shine. The front room and back kitchen are empty. We unload the van and pile the bags by the bar.
“Peter and I will clear out the nails at the roadblock so they can get through. We’ll be gone fifteen minutes. You girls stay here with Bits. Put on the radio,” John says, and he and Nelly each put an earpiece in. I place the radio on the bar.
“Be back soon. Promise,” James says to Penny, who nods mutely.
I feel a sense of foreboding as the lock clicks on the door and am suddenly sure they’re never coming back. I watch as they pass the side windows, willing them to be safe. When they move out of sight, I notice Bits. She watches me carefully, her face devoid of hope, and I realize it’s a mirror of my expression. I force myself to smile.
“Be right back,” I say, and head to the kitchen where I spotted some bottles of fancy ginger ale. Back in the main room, I pull out four glasses and stand behind the bar.
“What are you doing?” Bits asks.
I try to look mysterious while I pour the ginger ale and follow it with grenadine syrup. I find an unopened bottle of maraschino cherries on a dusty shelf. I drop a few in each glass and slide Penny, Ana and Bits their drinks.
I lift mine in the air. “Shirley Temples. To the girls!”
Bits grins. The four of us clink glasses and sip through our tiny red straws.
“Yum. It’s been forever since I’ve had one of these,” Penny says. “I bet it would be good with vodka.” I reach down and pull out a bottle of the cheap stuff, since all the top shelf liquor is gone. She shakes her head and laughs. “What’s it, eight in the morning?”
“It’s a brave new world,” I say. “Cocktails at eight in the morning are practically necessary.”
There’s a burst of static from the radio. “Cassie.” John’s voice is forceful but not panicked. “There’s a pod coming our way. Be ready to let us in and lock the door.”
“Copy that,” Ana answers. Penny and I run to the door. They fly past the windows and race into the bar. Penny slams and locks it behind them.
“I think they saw us,” Peter gasps.
We wait in silence, hearts pounding. A cacophony of groaning tells us he’s right. Lexers appear in the side windows. There’s a crash as one throws itself against the doors. I don’t know if they can see well, but milky eyes peer in like they can. No one breathes. Bits sits on the stool with her drink clutched in her hands, halfway to her mouth.
The doors give a little. The lock holds, but it won’t for long. The gold of the deadbolt shines dully as the doors crack wider. The room is dim now, the streams of sunlight blocked by the crush of bodies outside the windows.
“In the back,” John says.
Peter grabs Bits in one arm and two backpacks in the other and backs through the kitchen door. We follow with as much as we can carry. The last thing I see are our Shirley Temples, my vain attempt at normalcy, waiting on the bar.
105
The banging is muffled in here. I peer out the door window into the alley. There’s a parking lot directly behind us, but it’s on the other side of a chain-link fence. The only way out might be to the left, where the alley narrows and leads to the next block, but several dumpsters block my view of the other end.
“I’ll see where it goes,” John says. He opens the door. “It’s clear. We’ll go down the alley to the street. Let me see where Nel and James are.”
He explains the situation into the radio and then listens. “There’s a pickup they can take. They’re getting it and coming our way. They’ll be at the end of the alley. Only take your daypacks, in case we have to run.”
I throw Bits’s little pack on her back and grab my daypack out of my backpack. It has food and ammo and first aid supplies, the stuff you don’t want to leave behind. There’s an explosion of glass in the front. They’ll be in soon.
“Let’s go,” Ana says. She closes the door with a gentle click once we’re out.
“We’ll—” John begins, but before any of us can mov
e he’s yanked us to the ground behind the dumpsters. Infected are coming down the alley. Thanks to John they haven’t seen us.
“Where are you?” John whispers into the radio. “Change of plans. You’re going to have to come to the parking lot behind the bar. We’re behind the chain-link fence.” He pauses. “We’re going to have to try.”
He turns to us. “A few more minutes. They’ll call when they’re close.”
A garbage can in the alley crashes and rolls away with a clang. I peer through the crack between the dumpsters and see at least a dozen in my narrow field of vision. They’re forty feet away now.
“How are we going to get over the fence?” Penny’s voice is so quiet I have to read her lips.
She, Ana and Bits hunker against the building’s wall. Peter’s crouched next to me, against the dumpsters, his jaw clenched. He gestures for me to look in the crack again. The alley is packed. There won’t be time to get everyone over the fence. John, on my other side, takes a look and runs a hand down his face.
“We need a distraction,” I whisper to them.
It worked at the house. There’s silence as we think. I run through any number of scenarios and dismiss them all. There’s nothing to do but run and hope for the best.
Peter’s breath is warm on my ear. “Remember what you said before we left the city?”
His eyes search mine. I have no idea what he’s talking about or why he’s bringing it up now. He sees my confusion and leans forward again. “That sometimes we do things that jeopardize our own safety because we love someone?”
Of course I remember.
“I’ll be the distraction,” he whispers, loud enough for John to hear. “I’ll jump up on the dumpster while you all go over the fence.”
It won’t work. He’ll be surrounded in seconds. I shake my head. “You’ll never make it out.”
His gaze holds steady, and I see by the set of his face he already knows this. I gasp and shake my head again.
“Three minutes,” John whispers. “We’ll only have a minute before the ones on the side of the pub come around. He’s going to back up to the fence.”
I turn back to Peter and whisper-shout in his ear. “No!”
Peter watches Bits, who’s raised her head and looks at us in terror. He smiles at her, and I can just make out the words he mouths: It’ll be okay. He turns back to me, and although his face is resolute, there’s fear in his eyes. It reminds me of Neil, right before I shot him, but it’s different. They shine with a light that reminds me of the paintings of saints in churches. The martyrs.
“It’s the only way,” John agrees. “But I’ll do it. You go over.”
I can’t believe we’re having this argument.
Peter shakes his head. “No, I’ll just jump up there with you. More distraction. You can get them to the farm, I know you can.” His eyes are desperate and his next words are choked. “Promise me you’ll get them there.”
“I swear,” John says. He clasps Peter’s arm and looks him in the eye. “I swear I will.”
Peter nods once and exhales through his clenched jaw.
John raises two fingers and motions to the fence. Two minutes to find an alternate plan. I look around wildly. We can’t just let him die. There has to be another way.
Peter’s poised to jump up. His hair and face are soaked, his pupils dilated, the blackest I’ve ever seen. I can hardly see through my tears. I want to fight, to shout, but there’s nothing I can do to change this.
I hold out my hand and whisper in a cracked voice, “Love you.”
I need him to know that we love him like he loves us. Our fingers are icy as we grasp each other’s hands.
“Love you,” he mouths, his eyes red.
Then, reluctantly, I let go. Ana’s across from us, unable to hear our whispers. Her eyes move in confusion from Peter to me and back again. They widen in horror. Peter points his chin toward the fence and gives her a soft smile. Her face pales and her jaw drops. He parts his lips, about to speak, but John gathers Bits in his arms and whispers, “Now!”
Tires peel into the lot and a pickup swings wide and backs up to the fence. Peter leaps onto the dumpsters and bangs his machete on the brick of the building.
“Hey!” he yells. “Over here!”
The Lexers turn to him as one. It’s our cue to run, but Ana doesn’t move. Her mouth is still open, and she’s frozen in a crouch.
I grab her arm. “Ana!”
She rises to her feet. We hit the fence with a metallic bang. Ana, the most nimble, is up and over in a flash. We lift Bits into her arms, and they drop into the truck bed. The fence wobbles and screams as the three of us climb. My jeans catch on the top, and I free fall into the truck, onto Nelly’s bicycle. I ignore the pain and scramble up to kneel against the tailgate. I shoot through the fence at the Lexers at Peter’s feet.
Peter fights. He hacks them with his machete and then dances back and fires point-blank into their heads. They can’t reach him and it’s driving them crazy. There’s a brief moment when I think we can get to him; we can back into the fence, knock it down. But then more Lexers pour into the lot. James hangs out the window and fires at the encroaching wave.
John pounds on the roof of the truck. “Go! Go!”
The tires squeal. Ana and I fire at the infected that surround Peter, but it’s a drop in the bucket. Peter looks up as we move away, and before he turns back I swear I see something like happiness pass across his face.
Nelly jumps the curb to the street. I hang on to the tailgate, but I don’t look away. I don’t care about the infected around us. I keep my eyes on Peter and watch him fight with every ounce of strength he has until we round the corner and he disappears from view.
106
Nelly pulls into a clearing and leaps from the driver’s side. His hair looks bleached in the harsh sunlight, as white as his face. “Peter,” is all he says.
“It was his idea,” John says. He raises his big body out of the truck and jumps to the dirt. He holds his hands up, like he’s explaining his innocence to a jury. “He wouldn’t let me…”
James holds Penny tight. Bits is in her arms, eyes closed. There’s no way she could have fallen asleep in the fifteen minutes of bumpy riding. Not after what just happened.
Nelly looks diminished standing there, like he’s slowly shrinking. My knees hurt from the metal truck bed. I’m still kneeling, still clutching the tailgate, still looking toward Peter. Ana is, too. Her breath hitches.
Nelly opens his mouth. I want him to say something, anything, that will make this horrible, empty feeling subside. But, instead of words of comfort, he gulps in air like a fish out of water. Then Nelly, who I’ve never seen more than teary-eyed, leans on the truck, buries his face in his hands and sobs. Blood runs down his arm, soaking his shirt, and it snaps me out of my stupor. I crawl to him. It’s the cut on his arm. The bandage is gone, and the cut’s opened back up.
I cradle his head to my chest like a mother would. “Your arm.”
He nods, and when his crying subsides he speaks. “We had a scuffle getting the truck.” His cheeks are soaked with tears, and he uses his good arm to wipe his face. “The bandage got ripped off. I dropped my glove at the house when I cut my arm.”
“Let’s fix it,” I say, glad to have something to attend to.
We sit under a tree. I pour water over the deep wound. The edges are red and irritated. I squeeze antibiotic ointment onto my finger.
Nelly grabs my hand. “Put on a glove.” His voice is sharp. “Or let me do it.”
“Nels.” I smile at him. “Please, I think I know you well enough—”
He looks at his arm and smiles to offset his brusqueness, but the crinkles near his eyes are missing. “Cass, he grabbed my arm before I killed him. I just realized he could have gotten something on me. In me.”
For a moment I’m frozen to the core. Then I shake my head. The chance is too slim. “You’re fine, Nelly. But I’ll put on gloves anyway, okay?”
“We need to move farther away from Bennington,” John says.
“We need to go back and find Peter,” I say. Ana looks my way quickly and then turns back to the woods.
“Cassie,” John says. “There’s no way Peter’s—”
“Alive?” Everyone winces. I picture Peter as we left, back against the wall, surrounded on three sides by infected. “I know that. But we can’t just leave him.”
I envision Peter’s handsome face turned rotting and gray, and it’s almost more than I can bear. I want to punch something. I’m so angry that, for once in my life, my eyes are dry.
“We have to,” I say, yanking grass out of the ground. “He would want us to—” I don’t want to say kill him, because he’s already dead, and because it sounds so awful, “—take care of him.” Ana jumps up with a sob and walks into the trees.
“Peter didn’t sacrifice himself so we could go back and put ourselves in the same situation,” John says gently.
Of course he’s right. There’s nothing to do but keep going, keep running, forever wondering what’s happened to another person I love.
I catch a glimpse of Ana in the trees and stand. The fern-covered ground muffles my steps, but Ana knows I’m behind her and waits for me to catch up. I hold out my arms, and she falls into me with heartbroken sobs, just like when she was small and had to let go of that little rabbit. I run my hand over her short, silky hair and murmur words that don’t help at all—I know this from experience—but I say them anyway.
107
John insists we eat before we move on. No one’s eaten anything of substance since last night. There’s trail mix and MREs and energy bars. I stare at the food blankly until he hands me a bar. I unwrap it and eat methodically. Chew and swallow, drink. Repeat. We’ve been waiting for Bits to wake, but she’s still out. John says that as long as her pulse is okay, she is.
Until the End of the World Box Set Page 33
