Wanderers

by Chuck Wendig

  Arav looked fed up. “You know, Doctor Ray, I think you have a vision of yourself, and…it’s a vision of yourself I once had, too, that you were a crusader for truth. A person who was fundamentally honest and good. But maybe you’re too comfortable lying to others in order to save yourself the pain. Isn’t that what you didn’t like about Sadie?”

  “God, Arav, you know where to stick the knife.”

  The young man looked genuinely chastened. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine. You’re not wrong. I’ll try to sit and think on it.”

  “I suppose I should practice what I preach.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  But then, Benji did.

  And with that, Arav reached across the table and pulled out two bagged swabs. One marked with the name STEWART, SHANA.

  The other marked with THEVAR, ARAV.

  Before Benji could even see the stain…

  “She’s infected,” Benji said of the girl.

  “No,” Arav answered. “It’s me. I’m the sick one.”

  It was shameful, but Benji felt himself instantly recoil. He knew that he was healthy, and now he realized that Arav was not. It was foolish, his sudden revulsion, and he thought he had trained himself better. Arav said as much: “I’m not contagious. Or at least, I’m not sniffling and sneezing yet. I know how the disease progresses. I’ve read the reports. You’re not in danger. But you will be, soon. Everyone will be.”

  “Including Shana.”

  “Yes.”

  A war went on inside Benji. On the one hand, Sadie and the others had told him that what was coming was inevitable: They would all become infected. In that context, Arav’s infection was meaningless—if they were all to become sick, then what did it matter? But Benji wondered again if Black Swan was lying? Or if it had some kind of agenda—or perhaps it was Firesight that had the agenda. Or Benex-Voyager. Or Sadie. Conspiracy theories unspooled inside his mind: Could they have created both the nanites and the White Mask fungus? To what end, he could not imagine, especially given that one of their own, Bill Craddock, was now infected with White Mask, last he’d heard. Regardless, if they were wrong—or lying outright—then that meant some could survive.

  Then that meant Arav could not remain.

  He would, like the other infected shepherds, be a vector for contagion.

  Benji didn’t have to say it.

  “I know I’ll have to go,” Arav said. “To leave. I know.”

  “I…wish there were another way. But—” Benji quickly went under the desk and pulled out one of the bottles of triaconozole. “This is fifty pills. Take two a day to delay the effects. Cassie gave them to me. And if you begin to experience…mental decline, I can get you a prescription for Ritalin, but that may be a month or two down the road.” And by then, who knows where the world will be? Again he went through those numbers, a hundred thousand to twenty million, twenty million to four billion…

  “Thank you.” Arav took the pills and idly turned the bottle in his hand, pills rolling and rattling inside. “I’ll finish my work here and go.”

  “Arav, you don’t have to finish your work.”

  “I’ll…okay, I understand, I’ll go.”

  “Go. Talk to Shana.”

  “Maybe I should just leave.”

  “No,” Benji said. “Trust me on this. Speak to her face-to-face. Be vigilant with the truth, Arav. Our truth, our love, it’s what we have.”

  It’s all we have.

  Arav nodded. “It’s been a pleasure, Doctor Ray. I admire you more than you know. You’re kind. And diligent. I one day hoped to be like you.”

  “Arav, you already are like me.”

  “I’d shake your hand, but—”

  “You’re not contagious yet, stop it.” Benji reached across and hugged him. They embraced for a time, and then he said to the young man: “Talk to her. Then I’ll drive you to wherever you need to go.”

  * * *

  —

  PETE STOOD UP, suddenly. “I’m going to go call Landry. Wish me luck. He’s a real pouty asshole when I wake him up. Then again, I’m a real pouty asshole when he wakes me up.”

  “You’re a pouty asshole always,” Shana said.

  “Oh, stuff it.”

  “Do it,” Marcy said.

  The self-proclaimed rock god held his phone up in the air like it was a talisman of luck, and then jogged off into the darkness of the beach, lit only by the light of his device. Marcy sighed and curled in further on herself.

  She looked to be in pain.

  “We can go soon,” Shana said.

  “It’s okay. The flock is heading this way. I can…feel them.”

  “That’s weird,” Mia said. “You know that, right?”

  “It gets weirder,” Marcy said.

  They looked at her, confused.

  “I can sometimes hear the walkers,” she confessed in a small voice.

  Mia and Shana exchanged alarmed looks.

  “Wait, what?” Shana asked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…I hear voices. It’s like, most of the time it’s just a sound, a golden tone, sometimes intercut with a kind of soothing static. But once in a while, I hear their voices.” Shamefacedly Marcy said, “It’s how I knew your birthday, Shana. Nessie told me.”

  Shana opened her mouth to respond to that, but no sound came out.

  That one sentence, Nessie told me, kept resurfacing in her mind like bubbles from the bottom of a lake. Nessie told me. Nessie told me.

  “They’re still in there,” she said. Tears in her eyes.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Mia said. “They’re not just…zombies.”

  Before she knew what she was doing, Shana threw her arms around Marcy. Then she pulled away and slugged the woman hard in the arm.

  “Ow!” Marcy said. “What the crap, Shana?”

  “You should’ve told us! This is huge news.”

  “Huge,” Mia repeated. “Fuckin’ big.”

  They grilled Marcy, then. What had she heard? Who had she heard? She said she heard Nessie sometimes. Mia asked suddenly if this was some kind of cold-reading psychic bullshit. “You ever heard anything from Matty?” Mateo, she meant, her twin brother.

  “I have,” Marcy said, suddenly hesitant.

  “Well? What is it?”

  “You’re going to think it’s crazy.”

  “I think you’re crazy already, so who cares?”

  Marcy massaged her right hand with her left, then reversed. “He said…Zidane Roulette.”

  “Is that some kind of code?” Shana asked. “That doesn’t sound like a real thing, Marcy.”

  “I know. Maybe it is a code. Maybe it’s a message. Shit, I should’ve told you guys, but I didn’t want you to push me away again, and—” The words faded on her tongue like a snowflake. “Mia, are you okay?”

  The other shepherd had rocked back on her heels. Her arms wrapped around herself. Her cheeks shone in the firelight, wet with tears, and suddenly she made this sound, a hitching, wracking gulp as she sobbed.

  And laughed.

  Laughing and crying at the same time.

  “I think you broke Mia,” Shana said.

  Mia erupted with words quickly gabbled: “That’s a soccer move. Zidane Roulette. It’s a—” She took a deep breath. “It’s a move you do in soccer like, you kinda do this three-sixty turn and heel-skid the ball the other way—I don’t know! I don’t play soccer. But Matty did. He loved that move. Always wanted to perfect it. Oh my God.” Mia melted into Marcy. Marcy held her tight. They each shared the bottle of mescal. Glug, glug.

  As they had their moment, Shana stood up.

  In the spirit of this confessional moment…

  It was time to tell Arav.

  About this.

 
; About the baby.

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  Her feet carried her across the beach, boots making a cuff cuff cuff sound in the sand as the wind picked up, bringing with it the smell of salt and sea. Ahead, a shadow came toward her, and she thought, It’s just Pete, but then she saw this wasn’t Pete’s shape, but rather, a shape she recognized.

  It was Arav. He was coming to meet her as she went to meet him.

  Kismet. Serendipity. An odd bliss flowed through her like a slow, warm river. It was the first time in a long time that she’d felt this way.

  Happy.

  What an alien concept.

  She picked up the pace and met Arav and moved to hug him—

  But he stepped back. Hands up.

  That’s all it took for Shana to know that something was wrong. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck prickled. The happiness she felt suddenly began to rattle and crumble under the tectonic strain of sudden worry.

  “Hi,” he said. He looked sad.

  “Hey.”

  “I have something I need to tell you.”

  “I have something to tell you, too. A couple somethings. Maybe more. I love you. That’s the first thing. I know maybe I’m not supposed to say that yet and maybe that’s gonna freak you out but—ha ha, oh shit, if that freaks you out, boy, have I got some bad news for you—”

  “Shana, please—”

  “No, stop, I have to get this out because now I’m afraid you already know what I’m about to tell you and that’s why you’re looking at me the way you’re looking at me.”

  “No, that’s not it—”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Any words he was going to say next suddenly ended, chopped off by the executioner’s ax of that statement: I’m pregnant.

  “It’s yours,” she clarified.

  “Oh God,” he said.

  “That’s not the response I was hoping for, to be honest.”

  “Oh God, oh God.” Arav began pacing back and forth. He reached up and ran his hands through his raven-dark hair, tugging on it as he strode back and forth. “Fuck. Aw, fuck.”

  “Arav, this is—I know this is a hard time but I was hoping this would be good news. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to be involved. The baby—just pretend I didn’t tell you this. Shit. I’m such a fucking dummy. I thought—I thought you’d be happy. I wasn’t happy about it and then I was happy about it and—stupid fucking little girl, I’m such a dope. I’ll leave you alone.”

  She turned to walk away.

  “Wait,” he said, his voice a woeful, stuttering bleat.

  Shana didn’t face him. All she said was, her voice threatening to break, “It’s cool. You feel what you gotta feel. I’m going back to the fire.”

  “I’m sick,” he said.

  Now she turned.

  “What? What kind of sick?”

  “The swab. My swab. It said I have…I have White Mask.”

  “No, that’s not—” She laughed, not a happy sound, no, but an absurd one because that had to be wrong. “Look at you. You don’t have any…any of that white stuff around your mouth or your nose. You’re not even sneezing or anything. You’re fine. Arav, you’re fine.”

  “I’m decidedly not fine. I’m not contagious yet, but I’m not fine. The swabs aren’t wrong. It’s there. Inside me. I…don’t know what to do.”

  She reached for him.

  And again he pulled away.

  “I’m sick!” he bellowed, his voice cracking like a frozen lake underfoot. The sound of it echoed out over the sand. “Shana, I can’t risk you getting sick. Especially—oh God, especially if you’re pregnant.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to leave.”

  “You can’t leave me.”

  “I have to leave you. One sneeze, one cough, and that could be a death sentence for you. Do you understand? It could kill you and the—” His voice got quiet. “And the baby.”

  “Arav, please.” She felt herself well up. Felt her voice coming apart at the seams. “You have to stay.”

  “Keep your phone. We’ll talk.” He began to backpedal even as she stepped toward him. “I love you, too. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  And then he turned and ran, full tilt, back to the CDC trailer.

  Shana, betraying every urge, did not follow. Instead, she collapsed there on the sand, under the stars.

  * * *

  —

  TIME MOVED STRANGELY, then. Grief swept over her like a sickness, feverish and mad. Shana felt lost to it. In the back of her mind, the memory of her momentary hope and happiness—Nessie is in there, I’m in love, I’m going to have a baby—lingered. She wept and others came for her. Marcy and Mia scooped her up and she felt the words come gushing out of her—“Arav is sick and I’m pregnant”—and then they both embraced her. She felt warm and cold at the same time. Supported by them but also in free fall. Then came Pete Corley, Pete who said, “He’s not sick!” and for a moment she thought he meant Arav, but then he said, “My man, Landry. He’s not sick and he’s coming to walk with the shepherds and—wait, what happened to her?” Her. He meant Shana. Mia and Marcy murmured to him what they knew, and he said, “Shit, oh shit, Shana, I’m so fucking sorry.” Fucking became facking as his Irish brogue slid in there like a trespasser, and he did what she did not expect him to do—Pete was a narcissist, she thought, wholly concerned with himself and what the world could do for him or what they thought of him, but instead he reached out and took her hand and held it as the other two held her. He said nothing. He asked for nothing.

  They ended up near the shore. The water sliding up and down the beach, the moonlight through clouds trapped in the tidal edge. They were good to her. They were honest with her. Nobody told her that everything was going to be okay. How could they? It would be a lie, bald-faced and cruel, like standing in front of an oncoming truck and being assured it wouldn’t hit you, it’d pass right through you, not to worry, not to worry.

  Pete then, did what he was good at doing—he sang a song.

  It was not one of his. It was not even rock-and-roll, not punk, not anything that any of them knew. Rather, it was an old Irish song, and in it, his lilt came through softly:

  How sweet was to roam by the sunny old stream,

  And hear the dove’s cry ’neath the morning’s sunbeam.

  Where the thrush and the robin their sweet notes combine

  On the banks of the river that flows down by Mooncoin.

  Flow on, lovely river, flow gently along.

  By your waters so sweet sounds the lark’s merry song.

  On your green banks I’ll wander where first I did join

  With you, lovely Molly, the Rose of Mooncoin.

  Oh Molly, dear Molly, it breaks my fond heart,

  To know that we two forever must part

  I will think of you, Molly, while sun and moon shines

  On the banks of the river that flows down by Mooncoin…

  And then he was gone, though the other two remained. Marcy with a strong arm around her, pulling her tight. Mia behind her, gently braiding her hair, wrestling it away from the sea-swept wind.

  Then Pete came back, but he was not alone.

  With him stood her father. He looked upon her with sad eyes and she rushed up to him. And he held her tight as the other three faded back into the dark, leaving her to be with her father. Her crying in his arms, trying to fall. Him holding her there, keeping her standing.

  Q: Did you hear the one about the fungus?

  A: It might need time to grow on you.

  —graffiti seen at multiple points along I-95 corridor

  SEPTEMBER 7

  Echo Lake, Indiana

  MATTHEW’S LEFT HAND HAD SWOLLEN.
It had blown up, red, and angry, the color of a boiled lobster. Any sensation brought him pain—anytime he moved it, anytime he brushed it against something, anytime he even breathed on it. It was broken, he knew that much. And it would never heal right, not as long as he was trapped here in this bunker.

  He had to do something. Otherwise, all he thought about was Autumn and Bo. His son, lost without him. His wife, passed on without him.

  Idly, he went through the same motions he had when he was first trapped here: roaming the space like a starving rat, looking for bolt-holes he could squeeze himself through for escape. As if any of that would be easy: like he’d find a tunnel out behind a poster, or a secret door in the cement, or a phone that someone had dropped that he could use to call for help. Matthew had fantasies of being some MacGyver-like figure who would use the aglet at the end of his shoelace to somehow pick the lock on his manacle. Or maybe he would break apart the laptop and use the chemicals found in the screen to create a little bomb that blew open the hatch, kaboom. Or when someone came down to check on him, he would spring himself upon them like a trained killer, wrapping his chain around their neck, pulling tighter and tighter until their tongue fell dead on their lips and their neck tendons pulled tight as tow cables…

  He shuddered, there in his cot. Not because of the grotesque imagery, but because of how much he liked it. How much he wished for it. He wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t some MacGyver character. But he wanted to be. And he wanted to kill them all.

  That was a new sensation to him.

  This anger.

  This rage.

  It was madness. It wasn’t God’s light. It was fed from some greater darkness. But he could see nothing else now but those shadows within himself. Worse, he could see no God to guide him. No presence from above. Only the illusion of one. An illusion he’d clung to like a drowning man grabbing hold of driftwood in order to keep his head above water.

  He moved in and out of sleep. His hand throbbed. Dreams and nightmares haunted his edges—none could he remember, but all of them left something on him, something grimy and foul. He woke gasping, sure that someone was on top of him.