The Infected, a PODs Novel

by Michelle K. Pickett

  Devlin ground out a curse and my gaze snapped to his. “Eva.” His breath was ragged.

  “I want to touch you everywhere, and I want to feel you touch me everywhere. On me, over me, in me—”

  His mouth crushed mine, his tongue pushing past my lips. Bracing his weight on one forearm, he leaned over me. His free hand slipped beneath my panties, and his fingers dug into my hip. He swallowed the moan that floated out of me, echoing it with his own.

  Adrenaline filled blood rushed behind my ears. Every nerve ending, every cell in my body was focused on Devlin, and the way it felt when he touched me. It was intense, dizzying, and the room spun around me, out of control.

  Devlin’s hand moved from my hip to the flat of my stomach, his fingers pushing the waistband of my panties down. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured against my lips

  I buried my face in the curve of his neck, planting soft kisses along his skin… across his shoulders… his chest. My hands on his hips, I pushed his briefs away.

  “Eva,” he ground out through clenched teeth. He pushed me away with both hands and looked in my eyes. “Tell me to stop now. If we’re going to stop, it has to be now.”

  “Do you have something… protection?”

  “Shit.” Devlin leaned over me, his arms straight, his head hung between them.

  I nodded and pulled the quilt over me. “I don’t want to stop. But we can’t risk…” I shrugged one shoulder and gave him a small smile.

  He groaned and lowered himself next to me. “I know.”

  We held each other quietly for minutes, maybe an hour or more. Devlin made little circles with the tip of his finger across my bare skin. Finally, he spoke. “Do you think you could ever love anyone else?” He said it so quietly, I almost didn’t hear him. If my ear hadn’t been against his chest, I may not have known he’d said anything at all.

  “If the right person came into my life I think I’d be able to”

  “And has he? The right person. Has he come around?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Devlin kissed my temple. “I hope so.”

  It was late afternoon on the third day of the lock-down. I was watching David through the binoculars, and he was watching me. We’d made up our own form of sign language to communicate. We were gesturing back and forth when I saw movement in the trees—just before a man stumbled forward, a baseball bat in his hand.

  I pointed wildly, my hand shaking. David turned just as the man swung the bat. David raised his arm, blocking his head, but taking a nasty blow to his forearm.

  Two more Infected stumbled into the camp. Roy and Juan grabbed their guns and ran across the camp toward David and the three infected men. One man swung what looked like a tree branch at David, he ducked and the man stumbled and fell. Juan ran over and shot him in the head. I saw blood splay across the white snow.

  Roy chased down a second man. He was running toward the cabin. Roy shot him in the back of the head. I saw him go down, face first in the snow.

  I screamed.

  “Eva, Eva!” Devlin grabbed my shoulders, turning me to him.

  “The Infected—they’re in the camp.”

  “You have to be quiet. Let me see.” He reached for the binoculars.

  “No.” I shook my head and tried to move the binoculars from his reach. “I need to make sure they’re okay.”

  “Let me look.” He took the binoculars gently out of my hands, putting them to his eyes. I watched him. His jaw worked, and his grip on the binoculars was so tight, his knuckles turned white.

  “What’s happening? Devlin, what’s going on?” I squeezed his arm.

  “They’re fine. Here.”

  He handed the binoculars back and I grabbed them, putting them to my eyes. I scanned the camp for David. I saw him pulling one of the Infected across the camp by the legs. Roy walked by one man lying on his back in the snow. He looked down at him with a frown, putting a bullet through his forehead.

  No survivors. That’s our motto. No survivors.

  I watched as they packed up. David put his binoculars to his eyes. He pointed to the right. I knew what he was telling me. They had to move camp. They couldn’t be anywhere near the blood. It would draw more Infected. I lowered the eye piece and nodded, swiping a tear away with the back of my hand. When I raised the binoculars again I saw them walking away.

  I didn’t see them again.

  The morning of the Eighth day, we were able to leave Area-One. We met up with Jake, Cat, Tim and Jewels.

  “I was able to get some bags of feed for you to take back with you. Not many, but enough that you can study them,” Tim said.

  “Great, thanks.” Devlin said, grabbing Tim’s hand and bumping shoulders with him in a half hug.

  We walked out of the village as easily as we had walked into it days before. The guards checked our paperwork, asked what we were going to be doing, and without really listening, handed our papers back, waving us through the gate.

  We entered the trees and walked the perimeter of the compound looking for the group’s new campsite. I knew they wouldn’t have gone far. We were nearly to the opposite side of the village when we saw their tents.

  “Well look who’s here. Hiya, Eva, Devlin.” Roy said with a smile. “Feeling better, are ya, girlie?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” I nodded, a little embarrassed that I’d caused so much trouble.

  “Hey.” David came out of his tent. “Feel better?”

  “Hi, David.” I said with a smile. “Much.”

  “Good, we were all getting worried.” He looked at Devlin’s hand resting on the small of my back and frowned.

  “Sorry I worried everyone. I have no idea where it came from. One minute I was fine and the next, wham-o! I was kneeling in front of the porcelain god.”

  “Well, we’re sure glad yer okay now.” Judy said.

  “Had you on lock-down, huh?” Juan asked Devlin.

  “Yeah, I think someone saw your infected friends before they met their untimely demise.” Devlin smiled.

  “Well, we’re just hoping there aren’t any more like them roaming around.” Juan wrapped his arm around Rebecca.

  Seth took my hand and walked me to my tent. “Your master suite,” he said, with a wave of his arm. He’d added extra quilts and a pillow. Pillows were a luxury. We didn’t carry them with us because they were too bulky.

  I hugged him. “Thank you! Where did you find a pillow?”

  He shrugged one shoulder and grinned. “Eh, I have my ways.”

  Jake, Cat, Tim and Jewels stayed and ate dinner with us. We sat around a small campfire eating a meal of rabbit and rice.

  Not long after dinner, Jake said, “We need to get back. It’ll be dusk soon and the gates will be closing.”

  “Thank you, truly.” I gave each one a hug. “We can’t tell you enough how much you’ve helped. We couldn’t have managed this without you.”

  “It wasn’t a problem. You’re good people. You’d have done the same.” Cat smiled and hugged me tightly to her. “You take care, Eva. Maybe when the villages are open again we can visit.”

  “I’d really like that.”

  We finished our goodbyes and watched the group walk back the way we came. I was sad to see them go, but ready to go home.

  Home. I wondered if we even had one to go to.

  Day Thirty—Six

  It was so cold that night. I didn’t get much sleep. After spending time in a warm house, the tents seemed even colder than before. The extra quilts and pillow Seth added to my tent made lying on the hard, frozen ground a little more bearable, but it didn’t match a warm, cushy bed.

  I crawled out of my tent, watching the air puff out of my lungs in little white balls. We were leaving that morning—starting our journey back to Rosewood. I was anxious to get moving, and hurried to help the others break down camp.

  “Is this it?” I looked at the food supply.

  “Yes.” Judy nodded. “We’ve used most everything. Good thing the guys ar
e good hunters. We wouldn’t have ate, otherwise.”

  Guilt stabbed my stomach. While Devlin and I were enjoying nice hot meals, eating until our bellies were full, David and the others were rationing their food.

  “We need to get to the highway and find a town. See if we can find some food somewhere.” I fingered through the few cans of soup we had.

  “Yep. If we want dinner, we gotta find something somewhere to eat.”

  Quietly, I finished packing the supplies into my backpack, and David helped me slip it on. I stumbled backward from the weight.

  He caught me by the arm and frowned. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Is it too heavy? Give it to me. I can carry it.” David reached for my pack.

  I moved away. “David, you can’t carry both packs. I’m fine.”

  He studied me, and I glared back at him. “Okay, but if you start struggling under the weight, I’m taking it.”

  “Fine. Besides, we only have to get to past this snow and we can get a car. Then I can stow the pack and ride in comfort.”

  “You are so stubborn.” He shook his head, hefting his pack onto his back. “Ready?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, let’s go home.”

  I’d only taken two steps when my toe caught on a tree root, and I face-planted in the snow. Laughing, I sat up. David didn’t see the humor.

  “Give me your pack.” He grabbed the back of it and jerked.

  “David, I’m fine. I tripped over a tree root. I could’ve done that with or without the backpack on.”

  “Hell’s bells, Evangelina! Why do you have to be so stubborn and argue about every damn thing? You don’t have all your strength back yet. Give me the damn pack.”

  “No. And don’t yell at me.”

  “I’m not yelling.”

  “Yes you are,” Devlin said as he walked by, rubbing his hand along his stubble covered jaw. My mind wandered to how that stubble felt against my bare skin.

  Pulling myself out of the bedroom and back to the present, I looked at David. “See?” I smiled.

  “You’re not being funny. Stop smiling. I mean it…” He started to laugh. “Okay, but anymore tree root incidents and I’m taking the pack.”

  “Yes, Mom.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “Funny.”

  “David?” I looked up at his profile.

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you still planning to sneak back into the village?

  He glanced at me. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  He matched his steps to mine. “You’re still thinking about the PODs?”

  “Mm-hmm. Let’s say we do get back into the village, what reason are we going to give for being absent from work? What are we going to tell our neighbors? Surely they’ve noticed that we haven’t been around. We’ve been gone too long to explain it away as having the flu.”

  “I don’t know, Eva. We’ll just have to wing it.”

  Wing it? That’s great. So glad you have a plan.

  We were making our way to the highway, weaving around the dense trees just outside Area-One. The snow was deep, nearly to my knees. I had to struggle to keep up with David’s long, easy strides. My breath came in gasps; little puffs of condensation showed every time I panted.

  I was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Actually, it was more like marching. I lifted one foot up and over the snow—paying attention not to trip over anything that was hiding beneath. I wasn’t paying attention to anything else but walking, when a loud boom sounded close to me.

  I screamed and jumped, landing on my butt. The snow balancing precariously on the tree branches above my head fell, showering down on me.

  “Got it!” Roy beamed.

  “What the hell, Roy? My ears won’t stop ringing,” I pushed at my ear with my finger. “What did you do?” I yelled, partly because I was pissed and partly because I couldn’t hear anything above the ringing bouncing around in my head like a Ping-Pong ball.

  A dead squirrel dangled from Roy’s hand. “Dinner.”

  I rolled my eyes and crawled up from the snow bank. I didn’t need to look at David to know he’d be laughing.

  “Shut-up, David.”

  “I didn’t say anything.” I could hear the suppressed laughter in his voice.

  I trudged by him, bumping into him with my shoulder. A faint snickering came from his vicinity. I heard someone clear their throat and looked up into Devlin’s eyes. His finger lying beside his nose, he looked at me through his lashes and shook his head.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Devlin chuckled, which made David laugh harder.

  “‘Em boys don’t know when to behave do they?” Judy gave them a disgusted look. “Roy! No more shootin’ squirrels over people’s heads.”

  I had to laugh at that. “Yeah, Roy!” I said with a smile and stuck out my tongue, earning a face full of snow. “That’s okay.” I wiped the snow from my eyes. “I’ll get you back.”

  He grinned at me until Judy said, “and I’m gonna help her.”

  His smile fizzled. I laughed harder.

  As the morning wore on, we did less joking. We had to work harder to make our way through the never ending snow, battling exhaustion, burning muscles, and the relentless cold. Several times we thought we’d come to the highway only to be disappointed when our feet didn’t hit concrete under the never ending sea of white.

  “I swear the snot is frozen to the inside of my nose. It was running earlier. Now it’s just a block of ice up there.”

  “Funny, Eva. Really. A beautiful image,” Devlin said with a laugh.

  “Seriously. How long do we keep walking before we risk frostbite? Is it cold enough for frostbite, because I lost feeling in my fingers and toes miles back. It’s nearly noon. Shouldn’t we think about stopping and having something to eat? We could make a small fire and warm up a little. Devlin?” I looked over when I realized I was the only one talking.

  David stopped abruptly and grabbed my sleeve, pulling me to a stop next to him. The weight of my backpack combined with David tugging me backward was enough for me to go sprawling on my ass for the third time that day.

  “Eva, get up,” David hissed, pulling me up by the collar of my coat.

  “What’s wrong?” Everyone had quit talking and gone still. It seemed I was the only one oblivious to whatever was going on. Said a lot about my survival skills in the wild—I had none, apparently.

  I pushed my hair out of my face, the snow and ice clinging to my glove scratched against my skin.

  “Move behind me,” David whispered.

  I moved behind David as quietly as possible, cringing when the snow crunched under my boots. It seemed unnaturally loud in the sudden stillness.

  Once I was safely behind David, I peeked around his arm and sucked in a breath. Six bloated, grotesque looking wolves stood in front of us. At least I thought they were wolves. It was hard to tell, and I was never very clear on the differences between them and wild dogs or coyotes, but that was a discussion that would have to wait, because the animals were quite literally licking their lips for a taste of us.

  I reached behind me and slowly started to unzip the side pocket of my pack. Devlin’s hand covered mine and squeezed. My eyes darted in his direction. He stood on my right, his shoulder touching me.

  “Shh,” he whispered almost too low for me to hear.

  Okay, no gun. I hate not having my gun. What am I going to do if they…

  They broke into a run, directly at us. They growled, snapping their bared teeth.

  Roy reached behind him to draw his rifle from his pack, but it was stuck. “Son of a bitch!”

  Juan’s bow was out and an arrow flew. Bright red blood stained the crystalline snow when the arrow met its target.

  David and Devlin were both ready to fire, but Juan and Roy were in front of them, blocking their shots.

  “Roy, move!” David yelled.

  Roy imm
ediately dropped to his knees, pulling Judy with him. They hit the snow at the same time David’s gun rang out. His first shot missed.

  Juan knelt on one knee, giving Devlin room to shoot. Devlin’s gun rang out at the same time Juan’s arrow flew. Juan’s arrow hit. The impact lifted the animal off the ground.

  Devlin missed.

  The wolves darted from left to right as they ran, bumping and biting each other, fighting over which would get the first go at us. One pair reared up on their back haunches and jumped at each other, their mouths chomping in the air as they tried to connect with the other’s neck. The second pair rolled like a tumbleweed across the snow.

  Growling and yelping filled the air between gunshots.

  The fighting between the animals was the only thing that gave us the edge. The two standing on their hind legs fighting were relatively still targets, and Juan picked them off one at a time with arrows straight to their chests.

  The two tumbling forward head over tail, rolled into Devlin’s line of vision. He shot one, David the other.

  All six of the wolves lay bleeding in the snow, their tongues lolling out their open mouths, bodies bloated from the virus, like a puppy with a stomach full of worms. Their eyes were cloudy, and pus oozed from them. And the tell-tale sign that this was the same virus we’d battled in humans… their gums were blue.

  One animal was left alive. Its chest rose and fell unnaturally fast. It whined, and its pus filled gaze followed us. Devlin, placed the barrel of his gun to its head, and fired. Brain matter splayed across the already blood soaked snow.

  “It was suffering.” He turned and walked past me.

  I nodded and followed after him, David right behind me. Juan trailed behind, taking time to gather his arrows.

  Day Thirty - Nine

  We came to a small town. It looked like one of the towns we’d stopped at on our way to Area-One. But we raided the grocery store and sporting goods store looking for supplies anyway. And, like was becoming the norm, came up empty. Either other travelers had come through and cleaned the town out, or the military had. Either way, it was bare. So we walked through the neighborhoods.