Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4)

by Jamie Thornton

  “Is that our answer?” Jane asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “I think so,” Maibe said.

  A figure separated itself from the wall of a building about fifty yards away. “Isn’t that Christopher?” I said.

  “I know where they’ve taken him,” Christopher called out.

  I froze. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t want to…to be a bother,” he huffed out, and then almost fell over. “Could I…can you help me?” And then he collapsed like a deflating balloon.

  I dropped my knife and ran over. Blood soaked the front of his shirt. Three bite marks on his arm wept more blood. His forehead was slick with sweat, his face flushed with fever.

  His eyes still seemed normal. Not like the others. Not yet at least.

  I was careful not to touch the open wounds. I didn’t believe in zombies or Stan’s Ebola theory or Jane's invasion remark. Rabies, maybe, but that took weeks to incubate.

  I tried to sit him up. We splayed his legs while he took deep gulping breaths. His eyes were still closed, but he mumbled under his breath, as if dreaming.

  “I don't see anything worse than the bites. Jane, help me with him.”

  She pulled her sleeve over her hand and covered her mouth. “I don’t think so.”

  I had time to wonder if the only reason we’d stayed friends was because we’d always said we would, before we’d known what that really meant. Then I wondered what she and Dylan had been saying behind my back.

  Christopher groaned and shifted. Jane jumped away.

  “Wake up, Christopher,” I said, shaking him because I couldn’t shake Jane. “Where did they take Dylan? What do you know?”

  His eyes fluttered open, focused on me. “Cheyanne?” He waved a hand in front of his face. “No, you're not Cheyanne.”

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “My wife…She was killed.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Please don't leave me behind. My heart isn’t very good.” He took in another galloping breath. “And the fever is getting stronger. I don’t have much time before I’m going to go unconscious for a little while.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jane asked. “What’s wrong with you? Is it the same as the rest of them?”

  “No…it’s different.”

  “But where were you?” I asked. “We searched the field—”

  “What happened?” Jane asked.

  “You said you know where Dylan is? Where is he?” Just saying his name out loud fluttered the panic inside of me. What had been my last words to him? Why had we argued that morning? Why hadn't I tried harder?

  “I was in the RV when the infected came.”

  “The guys in the van?” I asked.

  “No, like in our neighborhoods. Those kinds of people. Five of them came in, like they were running from something—usually they run after something. They…they…everyone started fighting. I ran out to help. I pulled out a,” he swallowed and laughed, “frying pan from one of the cabinets. I went to help, but it was as if one of them knew I was inside. He was waiting for me when I opened the door and he pushed me back in…I killed him. And I tried to go back out, but then the van arrived. These were military-like people, and they had guns and shot everyone else. I stayed inside the RV. And then something happened with my heart. I don’t know. I passed out and I woke up to Stan shaking me and telling me to get out. To get gone with you three. And then he took off.”

  “With Luna?” Jane asked.

  “No. He couldn’t get her to start. He took off on foot,” Christopher said.

  That sick feeling returned to my stomach. Now I could never take back what I had done. I shouldn't have run away, no matter what he had said.

  “They took him,” Christopher said, his voice hoarse. “Dylan was alive. Holding his right arm, I think. But he was definitely alive. I'm sure they took him to Cal Expo.”

  “Maibe,” I said. “Bring some water over here.”

  “But why? We were headed there anyway. That's where the radio said to go. Why did they shoot everyone? It doesn't make any sense!” Jane said, her voice rising after each word until she was practically screaming.

  He broke into a heavy cough.

  “Maibe,” I said. “Where’s the—” Maibe hadn’t moved from her position a dozen yards away. “What are doing?”

  “He’s been infected,” Maibe said. “He’s going to turn. That’s how it always happens. He’ll get sicker and sicker and then die and then come back to life and kill us all! He’s already sick!”

  Jane took several steps back from Christopher.

  “Maibe,” I said. “He's probably had a heart attack. That’s why he’s sick.”

  “It’s not quite a heart attack,” Christopher whispered. “I was born with a heart defect.” His eyes fluttered closed and then opened again. He saw me but somehow I knew this time he wasn’t really seeing me. He began mumbling under his breath.

  “We need the water,” I said, “to clear out his wounds, or he will get sick from infection and it will be your fault.”

  Maibe almost wailed. “Don’t you see? He’s a nice old man now, but when he turns on us, it won’t be him, it will be some monster and then we’ll all become zombies. We can’t let him near us. We just can’t!” Maibe held the water fiercely to her chest.

  My hands went numb with the thought that she might be right. But I couldn't let him die from coughing either. “If this was your uncle, if Christopher was your uncle, you mean you wouldn’t give him water just to ease his pain? Even though he hasn’t ‘turned’ yet? Even though he’s still a ‘real’ person? You mean you would withhold something that could help him?”

  Maibe began to cry but didn’t move. I hated myself a little bit then. “You would withhold water from this good man, from this man who was trying to help us? Then you’re already one of them. You’ve already turned, and I don’t want to be anywhere near you.”

  I turned an accusing look onto Jane. She knew I meant the words for her too. I didn't need to say them out loud. She flinched but held my gaze.

  Christopher's head rolled to the side. I propped him up as best I could and worked on unsticking his shirt from his skin. A water bottle was thrust into my hand.

  Maibe said a quiet, “I’m sorry.”

  I twisted off the cap, gave him a careful sip, then began ripping apart the sleeve of his shirt to get a better look at the bites.

  “We need to get inside somewhere,” Jane said. “This is too exposed.”

  I looked over our four-person group. Three women and an old, injured man on the asphalt of a long abandoned part of town full of weeds, trash, and car alarms. At least each store on this block was an island onto itself, surrounded by mostly empty lots except for the spurge, burdock, and yarrow growing up through the cracks and along the edge.

  How quickly could I go after Dylan? How much would Christopher slow me down now?

  Alone, with an injured man, a freaked-out girl, and a friend I wasn’t sure I could count on.

  I shook my head as if to banish the thought. I could count on Jane. When it mattered, I could count on her.

  Jane positioned her hands to brace Christopher to a standing position. “We need to get him inside somewhere.”

  “Then go find us a place,” I said, frustration leaking into my words. “I have to stay with him.”

  She headed over to the first building, tried its doors. Locked. She went on to the next one.

  I motioned Maibe over. “Follow her,” I said quietly. I didn't want to say it was because I feared Jane would ditch us, but for all of Maibe's crazy zombie talk, she was a smart girl. She knew.

  I dragged Christopher over to prop him against a brick wall. His shirt stunk of sweat, fear, and blood. I’m sure I smelled the same. The sun should have been somewhere in the middle of the sky by now, but the fog and smoke obscured it. A brownish yellow glow tainted everything.

  How far away was Dylan now?

  I'd clean Chr
istopher’s wounds and I'd find a way to talk Jane into staying with him while I went after Dylan. The faster Christopher got fixed up, the faster I could leave.

  Maibe waved at me outside the door of an Army surplus store then ran back to help get Christopher inside. She used her sleeves to cover her hands when she touched him, but then again, so did I.

  Just because I wasn't going to abandon him didn't mean I had to be stupid about it.

  The door was made out of sturdy tempered glass. It had a hefty handle and slightly bent hinges that made the door stick as I forced it open. It was only slightly warmer inside than outside. I tried the lights, but nothing came on. Just as well. Lights might give us away to anyone watching.

  What windows existed were small, cloudy, and above eye level. Empty store shelves ran along both walls. Though the cash register no longer existed, its presence had left a square mark on the wood countertop. The rest of the counter was rough, pock-marked oak.

  I settled Christopher and checked the shelves. Empty. But there was a box of musty blankets, another filled with plastic holsters, a third that had the look of a clearance bin dumping ground, and a half-full box of dusty MREs. My stomach growled at the sight and I almost hugged the box in relief. There would be food at least.

  On either end of the back wall were doors. The left one opened to a one-stall bathroom that had seen better days. I did not try the light switch. The sunlight was enough to reveal the cracked porcelain, peeling paint, and exposed plumbing.

  The important thing was the toilet still flushed and the faucet ran water. I wouldn’t normally trust it to be drinkable, but this wasn’t a normal kind of day.

  The other door led to a small, lockable storeroom. I twisted the deadbolt and opened it, no knocking this time. The shelves were bare. I returned to the main part of the store and listened to the swop-swop sound my shoes made on the cement flooring. The sound slapped back from the walls, accentuating the hollowness of the place. Hollow was good, hollow meant there wasn’t anywhere for things to hide.

  I went behind the counter and rifled through one final box. Inside were a half dozen rusting machetes still inside army-green cloth covers. I set the machetes on the countertop and pulled one out of its sleeve. I tested the weight and length of it with a few swings through the air, and then looked at Maibe. No way her small body could carry one of these.

  I handed her my kitchen knife. “This is yours now.” I stuck one of the machetes in the back waist of my jeans.

  Maibe examined her knife and then looked sideways at the machete in my hand. “These are some sorry kind of weapons,” Maibe said.

  I laughed. “This is some sorry kind of zombie movie we’re starring in.”

  She laughed and then stopped and stared at me for a second.

  “Joke,” I said.

  “Oh. I thought maybe you were starting to believe me.”

  I shook my head. “Nope.” I smiled again to tell her I meant no offense. Just because people were sick didn’t make it okay to treat them like monsters. Even if that made me a fool.

  I brought one of the blankets over to Christopher. Sweat slicked his forehead but the cement floor was ice cold. I found some gloves and cleaned the wounds on his arms with more of the water, but it wasn’t a very good job. Not with the angry red they were already looking. Then I remembered the yarrow outside.

  People mostly grew it for its yellow flowers or because bees liked it. But it could also be used as an antiseptic.

  I went outside into the chilly air. Goosebumps rose on my skin and I shivered. I wrapped my arms around myself. A person-shaped figure flitted between two buildings then vanished. Either there were people around after all, or I was imagining things.

  I didn't want to wait to find out. I ran over and grabbed up the yarrow. It’s roots flung dirt and moisture around. Its leaves were fuzzy, its flowers soft. There might just be enough to make a poultice. I went for a second plant.

  “Corrina! Behind you!” Maibe yelled.

  A man was sprinting toward me, his hands raised like a claw machine in an arcade game, ready to grab a stuffed animal.

  I ran for the surplus store, my bruised knee slowing me down. I focused on Maibe’s wide eyes, the way her hands jiggled the door as if it would make me go faster, the way my breath caught in my chest and my blood pounded in my ears. A sort of growl sounded behind me.

  I jumped over the curb and tumbled into the store. Maibe slammed the door shut behind me. The guy slammed hard into the tempered glass a second later, smearing its film with yellow streaks of saliva.

  “What was that?” Jane said, hair disheveled, hands frozen mid-air while eating an MRE.

  I bent over, breathing hard, feeling dizzy from the adrenaline rush, feeling like a scared animal that had reached its burrow barely in time.

  The guy banged against the door again and it shifted an inch from its frame, knocking dust into the air. This was not the polite knocking of the patio door man.

  I noticed the checkout counter—a boxy rectangle of metal, glass and plywood—wasn’t attached to the floor. “Help me drag this.”

  We dragged the counter against the door. The pounding continued, but the door seemed more solid now and the counter blocked most of him from sight. I rechecked the rest of the store. It was empty, and the windows were too small and high for anyone to break through.

  But as I peered through the filmy glass, more people appeared in the street.

  The pounding stopped, but the other shadows didn’t leave. They seemed to be milling about, or if they left the area, more came soon after. They hovered like flies over something that died. Or was about to die. It was as if everyone was waking up at once.

  A sick feeling entered my stomach. There was no way I could go after Dylan in the middle of all this, not unless I had a death wish.

  I returned to Christopher and made the yarrow poultice as best I could. There wasn’t much. I’d lost most of it while running.

  Jane didn’t speak a word to me as I worked. She sat herself on a table, huddled in a blanket, and stared out a grimy window, watching the shadows pass by. Maibe curled on another blanket on the ground, asleep.

  I felt that exhaustion pulling at my muscles and eyelids. The faint light outside disappeared altogether. Christopher settled into a hallucinatory sleep and I tried to do the same. I lay there, awake and obsessing. Rabies could make animals violent. People were animals. But how did so many people get sick so fast?

  In the early dawn light, I saw that Christopher no longer slept. He looked wrecked, old, but aware of himself again. I wondered how angry-red his wounds were now. If he didn’t get some antibiotics in him soon, well, I wasn’t any sort of doctor, but I knew it would be bad news if the red lines reached his heart.

  He saw me staring and tried to paste a smile onto his face but broke into a cough instead.

  “It seems like you know a lot for being someone who was just visiting his sister,” I said.

  “Not sure where it started.” He wiped his hand across his mouth. “They didn’t think I needed to know that kind of thing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He coughed again, then paused as if considering what to say. “People are catching a type of rabies virus. One that our normal vaccine can’t prevent, and one where the incubation period is more like thirty minutes instead of three weeks.”

  “Why should I believe you?” But even as I said it, I knew deep down it had to be true. It was the only thing that made sense to me.

  “I’m an EMT,” he said. “I’m also one of the first people who managed to get the new vaccine, if you can call it that. We've been dealing with this for months already.”

  “I thought you said there was no vaccine.”

  “I said the old one didn’t work.”

  A dark object flew through the air and dropped into my lap, startling me. It was square and leather and still warm from Christopher’s body heat.

  “Take a look through my wallet. You’ll se
e.”

  “It’s dark.” Another object fell into my lap. I picked it up.

  “Use my lighter to see it.”

  “How do you know where to throw?” I said.

  “You’re talking, aren’t you? I can tell where you are by the noise you’re making.” Irritation pricked his voice.

  I flipped on the lighter and fumbled open the wallet. The sudden warmth stung my chin.

  Jane and Maibe were huddled forms on the ground, still sleeping. Christopher sat up on his blanket. Shadows danced across the walls and his face. He looked old but talked like someone younger.

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  The flame from his lighter must have shown the surprised look on my face.

  “The vaccine makes the body age quickly,” he explained. “My insides are fine, for now. Heart issues run in my family. It’s the epidermis that’s affected. And the nervous system.”

  I had no idea what to make of his statement so I turned to the wallet instead. I held the lighter up to the plastic covering his ID. I saw his EMT license but nothing to indicate he was otherwise special. There was a picture of a young woman holding a little boy and girl against her. She sat on the grass while they stood on either side of her. They were dressed in summer clothes and smiling. I returned the picture.

  “Do you believe me now?”

  “It’s definitely an EMT license, but I don’t know what that’s supposed to prove except that you’re an EMT.”

  Christopher sighed. “Look in the billfold.”

  I re-opened the wallet. The billfold contained a couple of twenties and a folded piece of paper. It looked like some sort of report. The title read: “Test results for patient: Gurnman, Christopher.” There were a bunch of numbers and labels. Cholesterol, blood pressure, triglycerides.

  “Near the bottom,” he said.

  I scanned down the page. A line read: “Lyssavirus iratus: positive. Borrelia alucinari: positive,” and then a handwritten note: “Congratulations, we’ll retest to confirm.”

  Chapter 5

  “I’ll tell you what I know, but I don’t know much.”