“I’m glad you got some rest.”
“I was just telling Mom we were going to take a trip for food,” Caddy said, giving Noah a glance.
“I’m starving,” the woman said in response.
Noah nodded. “Me, too. Hopefully, we’ll all have a nice breakfast.”
After chatting with Theresa for a minute, he followed Caddy into the kitchen.
“How about you? Were you able to rest?” he asked her.
“A little,” she replied. “It was hard to relax, though.”
He noticed she’d changed her clothes, and he could smell the faint scent of deodorant and perfume. Noah looked down at his tattered outfit.
“I almost forgot. I have a T-shirt you can borrow.” She grinned. “No offense.”
“I’ll probably take you up on that.”
“So where’s your truck?”
Noah described the location where he’d been run off the road.
“It sounds like you were on Iron Street.”
The name sounded familiar. He’d originally been on US-50W, but after seeing signs of danger, he’d detoured to another road. It was then that he’d run into the men in the black pickup.
“How far is that from here?” Noah asked.
“A few miles.”
He remembered the battered sedan they’d jumped in the day before.
“Is there another car we can take?”
“Most of them have keys, but if not, we could probably locate them in one of the neighbor’s houses.”
Noah nodded. With the infected in the area, the last thing he wanted to do was to travel on foot. Caddy began walking into the other room.
“I’ll scope out our options,” she said.
Before she could get far, Noah called her back.
“I was thinking, Caddy. You should probably stay here with your mother. After what happened yesterday, I don’t think you should leave her alone.”
He sensed that Caddy was trying to concoct an argument, but words failed her. He could only imagine what her life must’ve been like. For years she’d shouldered the burden of taking care of the both herself and her mother. The prospect of assistance must’ve become foreign to her.
Before she could speak, he cut her off.
“I mean it, Caddy. I can do this. I’ll just drive out and take a look. If there’s nothing left in the pickup, I’ll come right back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I’ll need directions.”
“I’ll write them down. There aren’t many turns.”
He crossed the kitchen and joined her at the doorway to the living room. They watched Theresa for a moment as she flipped through the pages of a magazine. Caddy tapped his arm.
“Noah?”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
He followed her upstairs and into Theresa’s bedroom. From there, the two of them inspected the vehicles in the neighborhood. There were several cars in the road—an SUV, a station wagon, and a sedan. All three were dented and battered, the windows smashed. None appeared to be in great shape.
He continued searching. After a few seconds, he noticed the neighbor’s garage open across the street. A car was still in the bay.
“What about that one?”
“That’s Mrs. McDonald’s new hybrid.”
“It looks nice.”
“She barely drove the thing. I guess she won’t have much use for it now.”
“It looks reliable.”
“It is.”
Noah glanced at the girl next to him. Her hands were folded on the windowsill, the rifle between her legs. She gave him a grim smile.
“Do you know where they went?”
“The McDonalds? I saw them wander off a few days ago. All of them were infected.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They were nice, but I didn’t know them too well. They just moved in.”
“Was it always just the two of you? You and your mom?”
“Yep. I never knew my father. He left when I was a little girl, and I barely remember him.”
“Is he alive?”
Caddy shrugged. “I have no idea. He’s never tried to contact me. It doesn’t bother me, though. It’s hard to miss something that was never there.”
“That makes sense. You’ve held things together pretty well.”
“What choice do I have? My mother needs me.” Caddy turned her glance from the street to the sky. “I’ve always wanted to get out of Chester, but after all this, I don’t see much point. Everything I’ve ever needed is right here.”
“Your mother?”
Caddy nodded. He could see tears in her eyes. She leaned back from the window to look at him.
“There are so many people who lose their parents at a young age and never get to see them again. But I get to see Mom every day, and that’s enough to make me happy. Things could be worse.”
“That’s a good point,” Noah said.
“Even when times are tough, I still get to spend time with her, and that means a lot.”
Caddy wiped her face. Noah thought back to his own childhood, to his parents and Ricky, and felt a pit in his stomach.
Although they’d had rough times, their lives seemed so easy in comparison. They’d always had food on the table, a place to sleep—things Noah had taken for granted. If he made it back, he’d never take those things for granted again.
Caddy cleared her throat. “So what’s the deal? Have you decided on a car?”
“I think I’m going for the hybrid.”
“Good choice.”
Noah scanned the McDonald residence. For the most part, the building was similar to Caddy’s. With the exception of the attached garage, the structure was identical. He just hoped the keys were accessible and easy to find.
“I’ll keep a lookout from the window,” Caddy said. “If I see anything, I’ll yell.”
“Thanks.”
“You got it.”
Noah got to his feet. As he started toward the door, he hesitated. For the first time in days, he felt some semblance of normalcy, the illusion of being safe. It was a welcome change from the uncertainty of the road.
He was halfway through the doorway when Caddy tapped him on the shoulder. He spun to find her holding out the rifle.
“Take this. You’ll need it.”
“Are you sure? That’s the only one we have. I was going to take the knives from the kitchen.”
“We’ll manage, Noah. We always have.”
She smiled and walked back to the window.
Noah clutched the rifle as he left the bedroom. Since leaving the salvage yard, he’d avoided all human contact, both with survivors and the infected. It felt good to have found Caddy and her mother, two normal people in a world that seemed to have flipped upside down.
At the same time, it filled him with a sense of worry. What if he were to lose them too?
As he walked down the stairs, he tried to dispel the image that he was descending into the pits of hell, and that leaving the house would mean saying another goodbye.
PART TWO – TIES THAT BIND
11
Being in the open was liberating and terrifying.
Noah pointed the rifle in front of him as he crept through the sunlit yard. Because he’d slipped out through a back entrance, the door closest to him was blocked and barricaded. The house might as well have been miles away.
There would be no getting back inside easily.
He glanced behind him at the windows. True to her word, Caddy remained in the upstairs bedroom, watching him through the screen. He gave her a half-hearted wave and returned his focus to the yard.
Aside from the tire
tracks from the sedan, the lawn was lush and green. He stepped across the soft earth, doing his best not to call attention to himself.
He glanced at the houses around him. Caddy’s house was the last one on the street; all the remaining properties lay to his left. The McDonalds’ house was directly across the road. The garage door hung open like a trap, beckoning him inside. He could still make out the silhouette of the car in its bay.
Noah surveyed the rest of the house. The bulk of the windows were smashed; clothing was strewn across the lawn. Through the broken panes he could make out the shadows of furniture, but not much else. Without power, the interior was dark, and he imagined a plethora of creatures waiting to pounce on him inside.
According to Caddy, the McDonalds had lived there with their daughter Isabelle. At one time, the property had been well maintained, but now it resembled little more than a squat house.
Noah left the grass behind and stepped onto the street. Without the shade of the house, the sun beat down harder, and he wiped his head with his sleeve. He picked up his pace.
Should he enter through the garage or the front door? Both were open. Hopefully the McDonalds hadn’t left with the car keys on them. Maybe he could find a spare key.
He stared at the back of the hybrid, smiling at the vanity license plate. “MCDNLDZ”. In the scope of what was going on, the tag seemed irrelevant, dated. He veered onto the lawn and headed for the garage. He’d check the vehicle first, just in case. Maybe the keys had been left in it.
In contrast to the rest of the neighborhood, the driveway was new and unmarked. He wondered if it had just been redone. He could envision the family planning their lives there, oblivious to the chaos that was soon to follow. As far as he could tell, the neighborhood was nice.
In different circumstances, Noah wouldn’t have minded living in it.
He stalked up the driveway and entered the one-car garage. The building was just wide enough for one vehicle, but there were a few garden tools on either side. He shuffled past them, doing his best not to disturb the quiet.
The vehicle’s windows were tinted. He pointed the rifle at the car and did his best to peer inside. The seats were spotless. There was no one hiding inside that he could see.
He tried the driver’s side door handle. It was locked. A quick pull on the other doors yielded the same result.
So much for things being easy.
He glared at the door leading into the house. Like the front door, it was ajar, but he could make out little of the house’s interior. He made his way around the car until he’d reached it.
Before entering, he paused, listening for signs of danger. The house was silent. He slipped through the doorway, leading with his rifle.
The first room was the kitchen. He was immediately greeted by a diorama of pots and pans. Kitchenware was strewn across the counters, as if someone had torn through the room when the infection hit. Was the mess from the residents or the intruders?
It was possible the clutter was the result of the looters Caddy had mentioned.
He scanned the counters for a set of keys, hoping they’d be within reach. Stacks of paperwork and bills were littered across the floor. He kicked them aside but found nothing of interest.
A thought struck him.
If the keys had been out in the open, the looters would’ve snatched them. The more likely scenario was that they were hidden. Noah decided to switch tactics, starting with the more out-of-reach places. He gave the open drawers a cursory glance, then switched focus to the cabinets.
Neither yielded the keys.
After a fruitless search, he moved on to the dining room. The remainder of the property was in no better shape than the kitchen. Noah stepped over broken furniture and debris, half-expecting to find dead bodies on the floor or a stray animal that had wandered in from outside.
To his relief, he found neither.
After exhausting the ground floor, he moved on to the upstairs. If he couldn’t find the keys, he’d cut his losses and leave. There were other vehicles on the street. Even as damaged as they were, one of them was bound to be drivable.
He took the stairs a step at a time, leading with his rifle. The wooden steps groaned. He shuddered at the sound. He reminded himself that Caddy was keeping watch outside, that if something were to follow after him, she’d surely call his name.
At the same time, he was out of sight.
He needed to be careful.
When he’d reached the landing, he looked left and right, getting a feel for the layout. There were two doors to his left—a bathroom and a master bedroom. To the right were two others. One looked like an office, the other a child’s bedroom. He took a left, heading for the master.
Perhaps the keys were in there.
He eased into the hallway. As he proceeded, he couldn’t help but picture the people who had once walked the same path—both the family that resided here, and the intruders who had come after. Knowing he was walking the same rooms was enough to give him chills.
The house felt like a prop, a cardboard cutout, and he couldn’t imagine people living in it.
The master bedroom was disheveled but in slightly better shape than the downstairs. Noah figured the owners had been elsewhere when the infection hit; perhaps the looters hadn’t come this far.
Noah noticed a pair of jeans sticking out from the far side of the bed. They were long and skinny, and looked like they belonged to a woman. Were they Mrs. McDonald’s? He bent down and scooped them up.
Something rattled inside one of the pockets. The keys, he thought.
He patted the pants until he found the source of the noise, then fished out a keychain. He recognized the Toyota emblem on the largest key and felt his heart skip a beat.
He’d found it.
He let the pants fall to the floor and stuck the keychain in his pocket. Feeling accomplished, he turned toward the doorway.
A bang sounded from across the hall.
The noise seemed to come out of nowhere—a series of intermittent raps. He froze in place, hands shaking on the rifle. He stared through the open door of the master bedroom into the darkened hall.
The noise stopped.
There were two doors across the hallway, the office and the child’s bedroom. In neither did he see what could have caused the disturbance.
He stared for a full minute, but the noise didn’t repeat.
Maybe he’d been hearing things. His nerves were on edge, after all. Over the past few days, his life had become a series of traumas, each more gruesome than the next. Perhaps his senses were finally failing him.
He took a tentative step toward the doorway, making his way around the bed. The rifle felt like rubber in his hands. Even though he’d fired the weapon several times, he still wasn’t confident in his aim. The three bullets inside were hardly enough to make him feel secure.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and took another step. Even though the noise had stopped, he found himself trying to recreate the sound. Where had it originated? Had it been in his head? He didn’t know which scenario was worse. If the attacker was real, at least he had an idea what he was up against, but if he’d lost his grip…
The bang repeated. One loud knock followed by two smaller ones.
It was coming from the child’s bedroom. Inside he could see stuffed animals and dolls on a bureau, a poster of a pop star. The door was twenty feet away. His glance leapt to the stairwell, which was only half the distance.
If he could reach it quietly, he could get out. He had no idea what might be lurking in the bedroom, but he had no desire to find out. He must’ve made too much noise in the kitchen.
Dammit.
He took a few harried steps into the hallway. The banging resumed. It was almost as if whatever was in that room was aware of wha
t he was doing and was trying to stop him. But they were too late.
He’d already reached the stairwell, and he clopped down the stairs, no longer concerned about making noise. The house was already making him feel trapped and claustrophobic, and his only thought was to get out.
He was stopped by a whimper.
The banging had been replaced by a soft mewling. The noise floated down the staircase like a siren song, beckoning him backward. A thought struck him. What if there was a survivor upstairs?
What if Isabelle had survived?
He clutched the rifle, torn by a new dilemma. He tried to remember what Caddy had said about the family. He was certain she’d said they were all infected, but what if she’d been mistaken? What if the young girl was hiding in her room, alone and scared?
What if the knock had been a cry for help?
Noah aimed the rifle up the stairs, heart thundering. Out of nowhere, he pictured his own family. For all he knew, Mom and Dad and Ricky were still alive. But Isabelle’s family had been stripped away. If he didn’t save her, who would?
His mind screamed at him to turn around, to run out of the house, but his conscience pulled him backward. Before he knew it, he was climbing the stairs. He needed to be certain.
The whimper came again. This time there was no mistaking the sound. It was from a little girl.
Noah reached the landing and stared through the half-open doorway into the child’s bedroom. From this angle, he could see a bedpost and the corner of the bureau, but no signs of Isabelle. He took one step. Then two.
His view became clearer, but the right half of the room was still obstructed. He noticed a closet in the far left corner. Would she be hiding there? Or would she be out in the open?
He slipped through the opening, holding the rifle at chest level. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her, but he didn’t want to take any chances, either.
In contrast to the rest of the house, the room was clean. There were a few dolls and toys on the floor, but the place didn’t appear to have been ransacked. Perhaps the looters—as unconscionable as they were—had decided to give the child’s room a pass. Either that or there was nothing of value inside.
Contamination Box Set [Books 0-7] Page 65
