by Harley Tate
Brianna pulled out a white and green box and squinted to read the label. “Shine the light this way.”
Tracy sent up a silent prayer. Please be what we need. Please.
Brianna tore into the packaging, pulling out a plastic rectangle and folded-up instructions. Her shoulders fell. “It’s only a testing kit.”
Tracy brightened. A testing kit was better than nothing. “Will it work on the spit we collected?”
“It should.” Brianna unfolded the instructions. “We put the saliva on the open spot of the collection tablet and wait ten minutes. A control line should appear in the testing window. If the saliva tests positive, a second red line should appear.”
“Just like a pregnancy test.” Tracy pulled the jar of saliva they collected from the fox out of her bag. “Are there any gloves around?”
“I saw some back in the office.” Brianna hurried into the main veterinary space while Tracy stood beside the mummified Dr. Benton and stared at the test kit. If the saliva came up negative, they could take their time loading up everything useful, find a place to sleep, and head back home in the morning.
If it tested positive…
“Got some.” Brianna interrupted Tracy’s runaway train of thoughts. “And some Q-tips. Hand me the test.”
Tracy held it out and Brianna set it up on the edge of the desk. With gloved hands, she opened the jar. Using the oversized Q-tip, she drew up some of the sample and deposited it on the test. “Now we wait.”
Tracy lasted about thirty seconds before the stress of not knowing propelled her into action. She dumped the rest of the medicine into the bag and secured it to her small pack along with the box of gloves Brianna pilfered.
She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes seemed like ten years.
Standing in the dark, with a dead man decaying on the floor, the reality of the world hit Tracy with renewed force. Before the solar storm and the EMP, a ten-minute wait passed in a blur of scrolling. Phones might as well be surgically attached to every person standing in line, waiting in carpool, ordering fast food.
She never noticed how much she relied on a phone to pass the time until they stopped working. Tracy picked up her flashlight and lit up the office, pausing on Dr. Benton’s diplomas and photographs hung on the wall. Most chronicled the life of a boy with a crooked smile and a dimple on his left cheek.
On the bookcase, he toddled between two sheep in a field. On the desk, he smiled in front of a school bus with poppy hair falling in his eyes. Prom in the next picture, goodbye at college in the next. The wall held photos commemorating graduation, a first car, and then a wedding.
A handsome young man standing tall beside a lovely bride.
Where is he now? Tracy focused on the syringe on the floor. Did the son know his father took his own life in his office all alone? Did he try to save his old man or write him off as a casualty of the apocalypse? Was he even still alive?
“You ready?”
Tracy snapped back to the present and turned to Brianna. She nodded.
Together, they bent over the test on the edge of the desk. Brianna pointed her flashlight beam at the testing window. One dark bar under C for control. One bright red bar under T for test.
Tracy’s spit turned to ash and her tongue to charcoal. “Is that—”
“Positive?” The instructions shook in Brianna’s hand. “According to this, it is.”
Tracy closed her eyes. The world spun off-kilter.
The fox had rabies. Madison could have rabies. If they didn’t find a vaccine, and soon, Tracy’s daughter would die a terrible death.
“He has to have a vaccine. It’s got to be somewhere.” Brianna slid the test and the supplies into a plastic bag and twisted it shut before taking off her gloves. “We just have to look harder.” She hurried back to the medicine cabinet, searching through the bottles they already inspected.
Tracy headed back out into the veterinary clinic. Maybe they overlooked a fridge or a hidden drawer. She searched under and over and in and out, turning tables upside down and spilling every jar on the floor.
But it was no use. The vet didn’t have a vaccine.
She leaned against the wall, panting and out of breath.
Brianna climbed through the broken door and stood up. “He doesn’t have one.”
Tracy voiced the words on repeat in her head. “Madison’s going to die.”
“Not yet.” Brianna closed the distance between them, her eyes bright in the flashlight beam. “Some people have lived for months before showing symptoms. We just have to keep searching. If we can find a vaccine and get it to her, she has a good chance.”
Tracy palmed her forehead. “Where are we going to find a vaccine now?”
“The hospital. It’s our only choice.”
“It’ll be a war zone.”
“Not in the middle of winter.”
Tracy shook her head. “It had to be ransacked months ago. There won’t be anything left.”
“We won’t know if we don’t try.”
“It’ll take hours to get there.” Tracy fought to keep the despair out of her voice, but she couldn’t hold it back. The hospital was too far and too dangerous. “Even if we get there, it’ll take days to get home.”
“Not necessarily.” Brianna held up a set of keys on a Ford keychain. “I found them by the back door. If we can dig out the car, we might have a ride.”
Tracy forced her feet to follow Brianna out to the hunk of frozen snow that used to be a car. “We’re never going to be able to dig that out.”
“Don’t say never. Help me find a shovel.”
Brianna huffed over to a small shed twenty yards away and Tracy followed, her eyelashes crusting with frozen tears. Snow wedged against the shed door, but with Tracy pulling and Brianna pushing, they managed to open it wide enough for Brianna to slip inside. She whooped as her flashlight lit up the space. “Forget a shovel, we’ll melt it out.”
Tracy wedged herself in the opening. “What are you—”
Brianna held up a red gas can and baseball bat. “There were some towels in the vet’s office. A big stack on top of the cabinets.”
“I remember.”
“We can wrap them around the bat and use it like a torch. We’ll melt the snow in no time.”
No time turned out to be an hour, but with some perseverance and an armful of stinky towels, the women melted the majority of the snow and ice. A pale blue Ford Explorer greeted them for their efforts.
“Let’s hope it’s got enough battery left to crank.” Brianna unlocked the driver’s-side door and clambered inside.
As Tracy climbed up into the passenger seat, Brianna turned the key. The engine sputtered. Tracy wedged a set of crossed fingers between her pants and the worn velour seat.
On the third pump of gas, the SUV grumbled to life. Tracy’s eyes filled with tears. They might be able to save her daughter after all. She cleared her throat. “Are you sure you want to drive?”
Brianna shifted into four-wheel drive and flicked on the headlights. “Definitely. I’m too amped up to sit still. It gives me something to concentrate on.” She checked the gauges and hit the steering wheel in triumph. “There’s enough gas to get us to the hospital and back home.”
“Then let’s not waste any time.” Tracy buckled her seatbelt and stared out the windshield at the barren landscape lit up in front of them. There was zero chance the hospital wasn’t ransacked, but if they were lucky, the vaccines had been ignored. Vandals hit the high-value targets first: oxy and morphine and all the other drugs that took pain away. Then it would be first aid supplies and antibiotics and life-saving medicines for people with chronic illnesses.
Who wanted vaccine in the apocalypse? Tracy hoped it wasn’t the first wave of thieves. It was the only chance they had to save her daughter.
Brianna reached out and squeezed her hand. “We’ll save Madison.”
Tracy nodded. Brianna wasn’t giving up and neither should she. If other people lived for mont
hs without symptoms and were still cured, then Madison could be, too.
Tracy just had to have faith. She would find a vaccine. She would cure her daughter. Madison wasn’t going to survive the insanity after the EMP only to die thanks to a fox bite.
The Explorer bumped over the exit to the farm and onto the road. Thanks to the lingering snow and the lack of vehicular traffic, every road would be an obstacle. It wouldn’t be smooth going at top speeds, but a vehicle beat hiking hands down.
Tracy dug into her bag and pulled out a packet of venison jerky and a bottle of water. She handed a bit to Brianna before biting into a strip herself. How their lives had changed in a matter of months.
Gone were snack bars and dollar menus and chocolate croissants from the coffee shop down the street. In their place were dehydrated fruit and veggies and every kind of jerky imaginable. If it could be pickled or jellied or turned into leather, Tracy had learned how.
She’d lost ten pounds of fat and gained that much in muscle. The end of modern civilization had forced her into the best shape of her life. But none of it would matter if she couldn’t save Madison. If Walter came home to a dying daughter, Tracy would never forgive herself.
She turned to Brianna. “Thank you for not giving up on us.”
Brianna glanced her way with a frown. “Why would I?”
“You helped Madison find her way home when you could have come straight up here to your parents’ place. You fought for all of us when the compound came under attack.” Tracy swallowed. “When Tucker died, it would have been easy to turn your back and leave us all behind, but you didn’t. We’ll never be able to thank you enough for all that you and your family have done for us.”
“Don’t thank me until we find a vaccine.”
Tracy shook her head. She meant the words from the bottom of her heart. No matter what happened next—even if she lost her husband and her daughter—Brianna deserved unparalleled praise.
She opened her mouth to say so when the SUV slowed. Tracy leaned forward in her seat. “What is that?”
The younger woman squinted into the dark before turning to Tracy. “I think it’s a roadblock.”
Chapter Seventeen
TRACY
State Route 918
Truckee, CA
8:00 p.m.
Brianna took her foot off the gas and Tracy leaned forward, gripping the cracked dash of the borrowed SUV. “Is it a car wreck?”
“I don’t think so.”
As they eased closer, Tracy’s unease grew. It pricked the back of her neck and rose the hair on her arms. Something was wrong. Her voice warbled as she spoke. “Don’t stop.”
“There’s nowhere to go.” Brianna swiveled around in the driver’s seat. “The last cross street is way behind us.”
The headlights illuminated a snowed-over formation spanning both lanes of the road. Too straight to be accidental and too tall to drive over. She fumbled for her flashlight and shined it outside the passenger window. Trees hugged the asphalt, bunched in groups too tight to squeeze through. In the daylight, they might have a chance, but not now with clouds covering the moon and forest blocking their lines of sight.
She clicked off her light. “How far are we from the hospital?”
“A few miles at least. The outskirts of town should be just ahead.”
Tracy chastised herself for being complacent. Instead of keeping her eyes and ears open, she’d focused on the hospital and ignored the drive. But she knew better. The woods could always hide a threat.
She glanced at Brianna. Her knuckles matched the snow. “We should turn around and find another way.”
The younger woman put the Explorer in reverse. Headlights lit up their rear window. Tracy twisted around, panic rising like acid in her throat. “The vehicle is large, oversized. The headlights are far off the ground.” She reached for her rifle. “This isn’t just a roadblock.”
Brianna spun the wheel. “Make sure your seatbelt’s fastened. This could get rough.”
Tracy checked the buckle. “How do we want to play this?”
“Like we’ve been ambushed.” Brianna slammed on the brakes as the Explorer finished the turn and jammed it into drive. “They follow us, you start shooting.”
Tracy checked the rifle to ensure it was ready to fire. “Will do.”
Brianna wasted no time. She pressed the gas pedal to the floor and the SUV fishtailed before accelerating.
The headlights in front of them stayed steady, growing larger and larger as they approached. Tracy ground her teeth together. It was impossible to judge the distance in the dark.
As they neared, the beams of light focused into twin points with the vague shape of a pickup truck beyond. Could a rusty SUV that hadn’t been driven in months outrun the truck in front of them?
Tracy wasn’t sure. She cranked down the window. “Pass them on the left. I want to get a look.”
Brianna nodded. Tracy braced herself. Closer, closer, closer.
Cut to black.
The headlights disappeared.
Brianna cursed. “What do I do?”
“Keep going.”
Within seconds, they blew past a hulking shape. The pickup hadn’t moved. Tracy unbuckled her seatbelt and clambered over the center console.
“What are you doing?”
“They aren’t going to let us go.” She fell into the back seat as Brianna punched the gas. “Just warn me before you jump a ditch.”
Blood pounded in Tracy’s skull and her fingers shook on the rifle, but she couldn’t let her nerves get the better of her. First Walter, then Madison, now this.
She’d been so deluded into thinking the worst was behind them. Just because they found a safe place to sleep at night didn’t mean it was over. The world around them waited to tear their family apart.
Tracy refused to let that happen. Whoever was in that pickup wasn’t going to run them off the road or chase them down or even get within five feet of their vehicle.
No way. She would keep them back and they would make it to the hospital. Madison’s life depended on it. Her daughter wasn’t going to die a painful, agonizing death because Tracy failed.
With a deep breath, she hooked one leg over the rear seat and straddled the back as the SUV bounced down the road. She couldn’t gauge speed in the dark, but the slipping wheels and the curses from Brianna up front gave Tracy a pretty good idea. They were going faster than they should on a road covered in snow and ice.
She fell into the cargo area with her pack and her rifle, crunching onto a cardboard box full of something soft and scratchy. She reached inside. Wool blankets. Tracy grabbed them by the handfuls, holding her breath as clouds of dust flew in her face. She tossed them on the floor in front of the rear door.
As she kneeled on the blankets, she reached for the glass, running her hands along the edge. Come on. She hollered toward the front. “Can you pop the glass from up there?”
Brianna glanced up in the rearview. “Are you crazy? You’ll fall out!”
“Do you want me to stop these people or not?”
“We can outrun them.”
“What if we can’t?” Tracy braced herself with her knees tight against the bottom of the door. “Pop the glass.”
Brianna fumbled with buttons on the top of the dash and the lock on the window unlatched. Tracy pushed it open. The wind picked up her hair and blew it across her face. Cold didn’t begin to describe it. She sucked back an instant stream of snot and clamped her jaw shut.
I can do this.
Secure against the window, she reached into her bag for a flashlight and her DIY roll of duct tape.
“Any sign of them?”
Tracy glanced up. “We’re going too fast. I can’t tell if they’re back there or if we’ve lost them.” She unrolled a strip of tape. “Give me a minute. I’ve got an idea.”
Brianna kept driving as fast as she could and still keeping control while Tracy wrapped strips of tape around the barrel of the rifle and the lig
ht. Once the flashlight was secure, she leaned over and rested the rifle on the rubber window gasket. It wasn’t perfect, but thanks to the beat-up cardboard box, she could keep the gun steady.
She shouted at Brianna. “Ready?”
“For anything!”
One benefit of tactical flashlights was the range. Tracy clicked on the light. A clear circle of steady light illuminated the road behind the Explorer and a massive Chevy pickup truck no more than twenty feet behind them.
Tracy shrieked. “They’re right behind us! Two men in the front seat!”
“Take them out!”
Tracy took aim. Snow and ice from the Explorer’s rear tires flicked into her face. The truck chasing them slammed on its brakes.
No! She pointed at the diminishing shape of the man behind the wheel and fired. The truck shimmied as it came to a stop, receding into the distance as Brianna kept driving.
“Did you hit it?”
“I don’t know! They stopped.”
The SUV slowed.
“Don’t slow down! If I hit it, maybe we can get away!”
Brianna punched the gas and Tracy fell to the side, bringing the rifle with her. The flashlight slammed against the rear door as Tracy’s head cracked against the side window. The light flicked out.
“You okay?”
Tracy palmed her head with a wince, checking for a wound. No blood. She exhaled in relief. “Yeah.” As she picked herself up, she reached for the flashlight. “Keep driving.”
Please be gone. Please, please be gone. Tracy repositioned herself on the blankets and propped the gun back on the window before reaching for the flashlight. She clicked it back on.
The wind ripped her scream away. A huge grille bore down on the SUV and Tracy fought to keep a handle on her wits and the rifle. She leaned down to aim when the truck’s headlights flashed on bright. All she could see was light.
She blinked and spots swam in her vision. Damn it!
Brianna shouted from the front. “Get down!”
Tracy pulled the rifle off the back and fell onto the floor. “I can’t see.”
