“Pretty depressing, eh?” the store owner said, finally making it to the front counter, and seeing Drew looking up at the television screen.
“Yeah,” Drew said. “It’s crazy. For the first time in my life I’m legitimately scared that humanity might be wiped out. At least we all live way out here. Less chance of coming in contact with someone who’s infected.”
The store owner snorted and shrugged. “Don’t feel too safe. You might feel isolated, but we’re still pretty connected to the outside world. Look at all that food in your cart. Where do you think it comes from? People out there, in the big cities. Who knows how all these germs travel. It’s totally possible you’ll get infected by that meat you’re holding right there and you don’t even know it. And even if you don’t get infected, we’re eventually going to run out of people to make this food, package it up, and ship it to us. So you’re gonna starve. It’s a lose-lose situation, man. Something’s gotta change, and fast, or we’re all gonna be goners.”
Drew looked down at the meat in his hands and shrugged. What could he say, really? The man was right. Something had to change. Drew felt pretty confident that he and his friends could survive by hunting and living off the land. But not everyone could do that. Humanity was in crisis. Drew finished paying for his purchases without any more small talk. He bid the owner a good day and went to transfer his food from his cart into his wagon. The bartender, who was standing outside the bar smoking a cigarette, waved at Drew. Drew waved back, but quickly turned away and started walking toward the forest. He didn’t want to keep Hope waiting any longer, and, besides, he didn’t feel like having another conversation about the news.
It was too goddamn depressing.
“Hey you,” Hope said as he hobbled up to her with his dangerously overloaded wagon. “Why the long face?”
“Bear flu is getting worse,” he said, stopping in front of Hope to unload some of the excess from the wagon into her large backpack. “More cities are turning into ghost towns, and even the Vice President has died now.”
Hope’s eyes widened. “The Vice President? Wow. But, I mean, they must be close to a cure, right? They’ve been working on it for a while now. And technology these days is so amazing.”
Drew shrugged. “Every time a scientist gets close to a cure, that scientist dies. This flu is so contagious. It doesn’t matter how great technology is. Even the most advanced technology can never replace the brilliance of a human mind. And if things keep going the way they are, there won’t be any human minds left to work on the problem.”
Hope didn’t reply, but the despondent look on her face said enough. She was as worried as Drew was. He felt a little badly for ruining her good mood, but there was no way he could have gone the whole way home without talking about everything he had just seen on the television screen.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go home. At least out here in the middle of nowhere we’re relatively safe. Imagine if you still lived in Chicago. You’d probably be dead by now. Pretty much the whole city was wiped out.”
“True,” Hope said. “I never thought I’d say this, but right now I’m so glad I’m living the hermit life.”
Drew chuckled and leaned over to kiss Hope’s cheek. “Hey, you’re not a total hermit. You’ve got me and your eight shifter friends to keep you company.”
“I know,” Hope said with a sigh. “I do miss being able to go shopping and having all the modern technological conveniences. But I have to admit that there’s been something really refreshing about the silence and simplicity of the forest. When I lived in Alaska I spent time out in the woods every day. I hadn’t realized until now how much I missed that.”
Drew smiled as they started down the narrow forest path back to the cabin. “Yeah. It’s amazing how much being in nature helps you keep everything in perspective.”
For the next several minutes, the pair walked in silence. Drew quickly lost himself in his own thoughts about how the clan would survive if their food supply got cut off. Luckily, they had plenty of fresh water, since the river that fed the nearby waterfall was a pretty large one. Even now, during the winter, with the whole thing frozen over, they could easily melt ice chunks to use for water. There was plenty of big game around to hunt, and in the warmer months fishing would be good. There were also hundreds of berry bushes scattered throughout the forest. If they had to, the clan could live here indefinitely without any outside support.
That thought was reassuring, but it still didn’t ease the worry in the back of Drew’s mind that this disease might literally be the thing that ended the human race. Even if his small crew out here survived, they wouldn’t be enough on their own to keep humanity going. The threat of extinction was getting serious.
“Drew? Did you hear that?” Hope asked, breaking into Drew’s thoughts.
“Hear what?” Drew asked, looking over at Hope to see a concerned expression on her face. He had been so lost in his own head that he hadn’t heard anything, but obviously something was worrying Hope.
“It sounded like something crashing wildly through the forest. Something large. I think there might be an animal trailing us.”
Drew instantly felt alert. He reached for his rifle, which he had laid across the top of the wagon of supplies. He didn’t hear anything, but he trusted Hope. She had grown up in the woods around all kinds of animals. If she thought a noise was concerning, then there was probably something dangerous lurking.
He strained his ears against the silence, but for a few moments he didn’t hear anything. The forest was quiet, with any small noises muffled by the thick snow. But just as he was about to give up and say they should keep moving, he heard a loud crashing sound. The noise was definitely made by a larger animal, and from the erratic pattern the animal was making, Drew guessed that the animal was wounded.
He swung his rifle toward the forest in the direction the sound was coming from. Probably the best thing he would be able to do for a wounded animal was put it out of its misery, but he would wait until he actually saw the animal to make that decision. Beside him, Hope stood with her gun at the ready as well. They both waited, motionless as the crashing noise came closer.
Suddenly, Hope threw down her gun and screamed. Startled, Drew searched around wildly for whatever it was that Hope had just seen. It took him a moment, but when he saw it he lowered his gun as well.
It wasn’t an animal making the noise. It was a human being. A human being drenched in his own blood. Hope was already running toward him, but something about the wild, desperate look in the man’s eyes set off warning bells in Drew’s eyes. He remembered the images he had seen on the news of humans in the late stages of the bear flu. They often began to lose their minds and go a bit insane, giving them a wild, crazy look. Drew wasn’t sure why this man was covered in blood, but he was sure of one thing: this man was infected with bear flu.
“Hope! Hope get back,” he shrieked, running to try to stop her before she came in contact with the man. But it was too late. Hope had already reached the man and was trying to calm him down and ask him what was wrong.
“Help me!” the man screamed. “There’s a bear chasing me. Help me! He’s going to kill me.”
Drew surveyed the forest behind the man. There was no bear nearby. If the man had been attacked, the bear hadn’t pursued him.
“Hope, get away from him,” Drew yelled again, rushing to try to pull Hope off the man. Drew’s heart sank when he realized that Hope was already covered in the man’s blood, and the man was clawing his fingers into Hope’s arms. Drew realized, too, with horror, that the man was actually one of his most reclusive neighbors. The old man kept to himself, and Drew had only seen him twice in all the years he’d been living out here.
“Drew, he’s hurt. He needs our help,” Hope said, resisting Drew’s attempts to pull her away from the man.
“Hope, he has bear flu!” Drew yelled, still trying to pull her away from the man.
At Drew’s words, Hope instantly released
her grip and jumped back. Her eyes were suddenly wide and full of fear.
“What? How do you know?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“He’s on the verge of death. I’ve seen so many images on the news of this same thing,” Drew said, trying to remain calm. The love of his life was standing over there covered in blood and scratches from a man infected with the deadliest disease humanity had ever seen. Drew himself had splatters of blood on his jacket sleeves. He tried to tell himself it was okay, but he had a horrible, sinking feeling that he and Hope had just been given a death sentence. The disease was transmitted both through bodily fluids and through airborne particles. It was likely that he had already breathed in infected air from the man. He was almost certain that Hope had.
“What do we do?” Hope asked, her eyes fearful. She looked like a cornered animal, afraid and ready to snap out and fight all at the same time.
“We get away from this man. We burn these clothes. We clean up as best we can. We quarantine ourselves from the others so that we don’t infect them, too. Then we wait, and pray that somehow we didn’t catch the disease. It has a twenty-four hour incubation period, from what I understand. So we should know within a day if we caught it.”
“And if we did catch it?” Hope asked, her voice cracking again.
Drew shrugged. There was only one answer to that question, and Hope knew it. She just didn’t want to say it out loud. But Drew didn’t mince words.
“Then we die,” he said grimly.
Chapter Nine
Hope opened her eyes to the gray light of dawn, blinking slowly as she came out of the fog of her dreams. She loved the early morning hours, and for a moment she smiled as she reveled in the perfect stillness surrounding her.
Then she remembered.
Her heart sank as she sat up slowly and looked over at Drew, who was tossing fitfully in his sleep. The two of them were holed up in her room in the cabin, not even opening the door or the window in an effort to avoid any contact with the rest of the clan. It had been about sixteen hours since they had encountered the dying man in the woods, so they still had about another eight hours to wait until they were in the clear. The likelihood of not getting sick was pretty much zero, from what Hope understood. Drew told her that there were no known survivors of the disease, although some people seemed to be slightly less susceptible to actually catching it.
Given that Hope and Drew had come in such close contact with someone so sick, however, odds were almost certain that they had caught the flu and would be sick themselves within the next day. Hope reached up and felt her forehead, searching for a telltale fever. But her forehead felt cool, and normal. Hope didn’t feel sick at all, but that didn’t really mean anything. It was probably just too early for symptoms to show up.
Drew tossed again, mumbling in his sleep. He sounded agitated, and Hope wondered if he was having a bad dream about the bear flu. She reached over and put her palm on his forehead. Her heart dropped.
He was burning up. His face was sweaty, and as she peered at it she could tell, even in the dim early morning light, that he was flushed. He definitely had the flu. Which meant it was just a matter of time before the symptoms showed up in Hope’s body, too. There’s no way she had escaped infection, if Drew hadn’t. She had come into even closer contact with the sick man than Drew had.
Holding back the sob that was rising in her throat. Hope wrapped her arms around Drew and held him tightly. At least, if they were going to die, they would die together. It just seemed so unfair. They had only recently found each other. They were young. They should have had so much life ahead of them. A cabin of their own, holidays, cubs, grandcubs…all of Hope’s visions for the future started vanishing right before her eyes.
She squeezed Drew tighter and did her best to fall back asleep. She just wanted to forget that this was actually happening.
* * *
When Hope woke again, it was to the sound of knocking on her bedroom door. She blinked her eyes open, and winced at the bright sunlight now streaming in through her window.
“Hope? Drew?” came a voice from the other side of the door. “I’m leaving some food and water outside the door for you.”
It was Juno. As the last traces of sleep slipped away, Hope remembered once again that her real life had become a nightmare. She sat up slowly and forced herself to sound cheery as she called out to Juno.
“Thank you, Juno.”
“How are things?” Juno asked, her voice muffled by the thick wood of the door.
Hope glanced over at Drew, who had just opened his eyes and was looking up at her with a flushed, pained expression. Hope fought back the tears filling her eyes. She couldn’t bear to tell Juno the truth right now. She didn’t want to say the words “we’re dying” out loud. Actually saying that made it feel so much more real. So she forced her voice to sound cheery again.
“Hard to say,” she called out, praying that Juno would leave it at that.
“Okay, well, keep us posted,” Juno said.
“Will do,” Hope answered. Then she turned to look at Drew. Even as sick as he was, his face was the most handsome thing Hope had ever seen. She felt tears welling up in her eyes, and, despite her best efforts to stop them, they spilled over. She looked away, and glanced at the wind-up clock on her simple bedside table. It had been twenty-six hours since they saw the man in the woods. Hope suddenly realized that she didn’t feel sick at all. She reached her palm up to her forehead to check, but there was no fever.
Hope felt a feeling of shock run through her system. Was it possible that she hadn’t contracted the flu? How could that be, when Drew was lying next to her, already looking like he was on his way to death’s door? She reached over and felt his forehead. Sure enough, it was on fire. His face glistened with sweat, and his eyes made it obvious that his body was in pain.
“You’re not sick,” he said. His voice was weak and cracking, but he smiled as he said the words.
“I…I guess not,” Hope said. “But it must just not have shown up yet. It’s probably just taking a few hours longer for me. I mean, look at you. You’re obviously very sick, so there’s no way I didn’t escape it.”
“It would have shown up by now,” he said, struggling to get the words out. “That flu is fast and furious. You’re gonna be okay, Hope. You’re gonna be okay.”
Hope shook her head and tears started to stream down her face in full force. “I don’t want to be okay. Not if you’re going to die. I don’t want to live without you.”
“You’ll move on,” Drew said. “It will be hard at first, but eventually your heart will heal. I’m just so glad you’re not sick. You don’t deserve to die. You’re too wonderful. Too special.”
“You’re special, too,” Hope said, starting to sob. “You don’t deserve to die either.”
She threw herself across Drew’s chest, wincing when she felt how hot his body was. He was burning up from the inside, and his breathing was labored. She wanted to ask how long the disease usually took to take its toll, but she almost didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to think about losing him.
She cried for what felt like hours. Eventually, Drew’s labored breathing grew a little steadier, and she realized he had fallen asleep. Hope sat up, her eyes red and swollen as she looked around the simple room. Her mind went back to all of the happy times she and Drew had spent in this room—talking, laughing, and making love. Life was so cruel, and so unfair. She had already lost so much just for being a shifter. It seemed so unfair that she was about to lose the love of her life as well.
Hope gingerly stepped off the bed and went to her closet. She changed into a fresh set of clothes so that she wasn’t wearing clothes covered with flu germs, and then she went to open the bedroom door. The food and water Juno had left was still sitting there, cold. Hope stepped over it and made her way downstairs. The house was eerily quiet. It reminded Hope of the silence of death, and her breath caught in her throat. She pushed back the fresh flood of tears threat
ening her eyelids, and went outside.
The rest of the clan was sitting around a firepit Drew had dug in the middle of the clearing. The crew kept the area around the firepit shoveled and free of snow, and several logs served as seats. On these cold winter days, a fire was burning almost constantly, providing warmth to anyone who wanted to spend time outside without getting frostbite.
Hope trudged slowly toward the firepit, dreading the message she had to deliver and wondering how she was even going to get the words to come out. How did you deliver the news that someone you loved was at death’s door?
Before Hope could come up with the right words to say, Juno looked up and saw her coming.
“Hope!” Juno said in surprise, jumping up and running toward her. “You’re up! And you’re okay!”
The rest of the group looked up, and big smiles spread across their faces.
“Sis!” Calum yelled, running toward her and sweeping her into a big hug, tears streaming down his face. “I knew you’d be alright. I just knew it. You had to be. I couldn’t live without my twin!”
But the chorus of rejoicing quickly died down as everyone realized that Hope had been crying, and that Drew wasn’t with her. It didn’t take long to put the pieces together.
“Oh my god,” Juno said, reaching up to cover her mouth with her hands. “Drew’s sick, isn’t he?”
Hope nodded, the tears starting up again. “I don’t know how he got sick and I didn’t. It doesn’t make any sense, because I was the one who actually ran to the sick man first. It’s all my fault that Drew is sick. I just can’t believe this. I guess for some reason I must be a rare person who isn’t susceptible to the disease. I keep telling myself there must be something we can do, but the numbers don’t lie. Everyone who has contracted this disease has died from it.”
Hope started sobbing loudly, and the rest of the clan gathered around her to comfort her. She leaned her head against her brother’s shoulder, and let Juno squeeze her hand, but she couldn’t stop crying. She should have known better than to run to the sick man in the woods. If she hadn’t done that, Drew wouldn’t have come to try to pull her away. And if he hadn’t gotten so close to the sick man because of her, he would probably still be healthy right now.
Mischief in a Fur Coat Page 7
