Gus ignored me and focused his attention onto Hoot. “Once she’s asleep lay her on the couch, brother?”
Finally, Gus scooted toward me. “I’m not sure what’s wrong, but I’ll look at her once she’s asleep.”
“She sounds like she’s in so much pain,” I said as I wiped a tear from my cheek. Knowing my baby was hurting was agonizing.
Hoot cleared his throat gently as he stood with Hope in his arms. Her left arm hung limply, the dark area spreading well past her elbow and threatening to encompass her chubby little hand. Her pale curls were plastered to her cheek and forehead from perspiration. My worry grew by the minute.
Still wrapped in a blanket, I stood to make room for Hope on the couch. When Hoot set her down, she whimpered in her sleep.
“Gus, do something,” I said with a trembling voice.
“She looks horrible,” I whispered to my husband, not wanting Hope to hear, even in her sleep.
“I know. Let me look her over, okay?”
I nodded. My chest still felt tight where my daughter had rested her head. I scooted aside to give Gus access to her small body. He reached for her arm.
“No,” said the woman named Jessa. “Don’t touch her. Let me.”
She wedged herself between Gus and the couch.
“Jessa, what is it?” I asked as I watched her inspect Hope’s arm.
“She’s burnt. Badly. Someone get me the first aid kit,” she snapped.
The bus lurched forward, causing me to fall sideway against the couch. Hope cried out, disturbed by the motion. As I steadied myself and focused on her as she slept fitfully, I could see the skin of her wrist darkening.
She began gasping for breath and her body stiffened. Her tiny hands curled into fists so tight that her knuckles paled. Her left leg began jerking first, quickly followed by her left arm. Gus reached for her. Before Jessa could block him, his hand touched her left thigh. He pulled his hand away quickly, cursing under his breath.
“Let me,” barked Jessa.
“She’s having a seizure,” said a man sitting nearby. “My brother used to have them when we were kids. Looked just like that.”
“Don’t try to hold her still. Just keep her from rolling off the couch,” Gus directed through a shaky voice.
“Jenny, I need your help,” called Jessa.
I hesitantly scooted farther away from my daughter, knowing that Jenny would need the space.
“She’s hot,” whispered Jessa as Jenny knelt beside her.
“How long has she been seizing?” asked Jenny.
“Not long. Maybe twenty seconds?”
I covered my mouth with my hand when Hope began making unintelligible noises. Her jaw was clenched shut and her breathing sounded wet. Her entire hand was black, even where her knuckles had paled from her tight grip. Her thigh bore a bright red mark in the shape of Gus’ palm. The edges were already turning black. Time seemed to stand still as her spasms finally subsided. She remained on her side, lying limp with phlegm audibly dancing in her windpipe. Jenny and Jessa skillfully turned her to her other side to face them. Jessa used the corner of a nearby blanket to rid Hope’s mouth of mucus.
“Is she okay? Why isn’t she waking up?” I asked, barely above a whisper.
The bus swayed as the driver hit potholes in the road.
“She just had a seizure,” said Jenny softly. “Most people will sleep pretty hard afterward. It’s like her body just ran a marathon and her energy got all used up.”
“Jessa,” said Gus firmly.
“I see it,” she replied.
Hope’s arm worsened to the point of skin sloughing off, exposing muscle and bone. Jessa gently took hold of her hand to inspect the wound. Hope cried out but never opened her eyes. She took a shuddering breath before the stillness of death claimed her.
Gus made a noise in his throat. He choked it back and calmed himself while Jennie turned her attention back to our daughter.
“Hand me that blanket,” she said softly.
The two women worked together to gently cover Hope, head to toe.
“I want to hold her,” I said pleadingly.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Hoot from behind us.
“Please,” I begged as I lost composure. “Just let me hold her one more time.”
Gus wrapped his arms around me and buried his head against the curve between my shoulder and neck. “I’m so sorry, Zoe,” he sobbed. I felt his warm tears trickle down my neck.
“Not again,” I moaned.
My eyes filled with tears as I looked at the still form of our beloved daughter. She was our Hope, in more ways than one. She held the secrets that could save humanity. She lay there so small and so motionless.
“What happened?” choked Autumn.
“Gus, do something,” I pleaded.
“She’s gone, baby. She’s gone.” Gus’ words were filled with the strain of disbelief and shock. They were unusually void of emotion; hollow.
“No!” I screamed. “Hope, wake up!”
I was vaguely aware of sobbing in the background. Gus held me firmly while I struggled to reach for my baby. I needed to be with her, to stroke her white curls and kiss her forehead and whisper to her one last time “mama loves you.”
A pain filled my chest that I knew all too well. It wasn’t the cold grip around my heart that tried to claim me only minutes earlier. It was a memory from what seemed like a lifetime ago. The pain of losing Molly shortly after her birth had dulled as time went on, but at that moment it came back and hit me ten-fold. It was joined by the agony I felt when I had found little Emmett killed and reanimated and had been burdened with the task of driving a blade into the base of his still-soft baby skull. The loss of Emilie, Boggs, Louisa, little Jane. Each heartache compounded the ones before.
“Let me hold her,” I demanded.
“Darlin’, it’s not safe,” Gus said, trying to calm me. “I can’t lose you too.”
“Let me die!” I shouted. “Let me go with her!”
“Shhh,” he soothed. “Always choose life, baby. I can’t let you go with her.”
I cried into his shoulder. My heart felt void of life, as if each beat was for no reason.
CHAPTER 13
A mile later, or maybe a hundred, the bus came to a rolling stop. Hoot took over restraining me when I couldn’t stand Gus’ touch anymore. Gus hadn’t tried to save her. No one had. No CPR, no rescue breathing. Nothing. I pleaded with him to save my Molly, and I pleaded with him to save Hope, and he did nothing to help either of them.
“That’s it, folks. End of the line. Bus is dead, probably from the ash mucking up the lines,” said Graeme the driver. He stood to face us all.
Gus also stood. I refused to look up at him.
“We need to bury my daughter.”
Gus’ voice lacked emotion.
“Where are we?” asked the woman from earlier who had vomited all over herself.
“I figure somewhere south of the border. I haven’t seen a sign in a while, but I think we’re somewhere in the Methow Valley. I used to ride my bike through here every damn summer, but it’s so overgrown I just can’t be sure,” Said Graeme.
It was the most I had heard the man say at once. I didn’t care what he had to say. I didn’t care where we were, or where we were going. We were broken down in the middle of nowhere and my daughter was lying four feet away from me no longer living. Jessa sat near her head with a blade in hand.
“Gus, we need to leave as soon as possible. I’ll step out with Diego and get the ground ready,” said Graeme.
“No. It needs to be me,” said Gus.
“That’s fine,” said a man near Gus in age.
I hadn’t taken notice of him until then. He reminded me of a blonde version of Boggs. The reminder only caused my heart to break a little bit more.
“But let us help. Time is never on our side.”
Gus grunted his acceptance. He turned to face me. While I refused to look at his face, I could tell th
at he wanted to say something to me. Instead he addressed Hoot.
“Can you take her to the front of the bus? Or outside? While I take care of Hope?”
Hoot’s arms tightened around me as my entire body tensed.
“No!” I screamed loudly. “No! Don’t touch her!”
My own voice was shrill and filled with panic. I knew my mouth had opened and I had made a noise, but was it really me who screamed so pathetically? Surely not. They were going to hurt her. They were going to cut her and destroy her brain.
“Hoot!” yelled Gus angrily.
I continued to cry out while Hoot forced me to my feet and lifted me in his arms.
“She has to be quiet!” said a short woman with tight dark curls. “They’ll hear her!”
“Fuck you!” I spat at the woman as Hoot carried me past her. “Fuck all of you!”
As we descended the stairs near the driver’s seat, I stop fighting Hoot and crumpled in his arms.
“Shhh,” he soothed quietly. “I’m here, Zoe.”
The fresh air hit me as we left the shelter of the bus, perhaps because it lacked the stench of death to which we were now accustomed. It made reality seem even more tangible and the fury of knowing they were driving a knife into my little girl’s brain enraged me. I thrashed in Hoot’s arms, but he took his responsibility seriously and didn’t let go.
Footfalls came toward us and I stilled.
“Gus, let me help Graeme with the grave,” said Hoot. “You need to be with Zoe right now.”
“Thanks, brother.”
Gus spoke with a tightness in his throat and the congestion of tears lacing his words. I didn’t want him to touch me, but when Hoot transferred me to my husband’s arms I unexpectedly melted into him and cried against his chest. He stroked my hair and cried with me. He pulled me to the ground where he held me on his lap. The sound of shovels scarring the earth grated on each of my raw nerves. Gus leaned against the bus and I leaned against him. Hope was wrapped in a blanket when Autumn carried her from the bus to the new gaping hole in the ground. We were both too broken to stand. I couldn’t bear watching her lowered into the ground or to witness the dirt being shoveled on top of her. My memories of burying Molly mingled with what I knew was happening to my precious Hope. I kept my eyes in the opposite direction and focused on a layer of gray clouds in the distance.
“There’s no ash here,” I whispered only loud enough for Gus to hear.
My throat was raw from screaming. I wasn’t sure he had understood what I said.
“No ash,” he echoed. “Just fresh air and a beautiful view.”
“I can’t keep doing this.”
“I know. I’ll do it for both of us right now.”
“I want to stay here with her. The dead can come and take me. Just leave me here,” I said quietly begging.
“Always choose life. It’s just me and you. We’ll get through this.”
He had lost so much more than I. His two children of the world. Molly. Emmett. Now Hope. How could he bear it? How could he not agree to just let me go?
“She can’t really be gone. How did this happen?” I began sobbing. “How?”
“I don’t have answers.”
He stroked my hair more firmly and kissed the top of my head. His hand trembled and in that moment I knew he needed me as much as I did him. The high pitched screech of a hawk sounded overhead. I looked up and watched as it teetered side to side in the wind, circling. When it dove to the earth to catch its prey, my eyes didn’t follow. Rather, I stared off in the distance wishing I could wake up from the nightmare happening around us. I tried to tune out the sound of dirt being tossed on my daughter’s body. Eventually I closed my eyes and allowed my body to go limp in Gus’ arms. I forced my breathing to slow and focused on listening for his slow heartbeat. Time was in the background and passed whether we wanted it to or not.
“Okay, people! Listen up!” boomed Graeme’s voice.
Gus shifted beneath me and I took a shuddering breath inward.
“We need to move. Grab what you can and we’ll follow the highway north till we find a new rig or shelter. If we’re where I think we are we’ll come across a small town called Burn in ten or fifteen miles. Stay alert. If you have a gun keep it readied. If you don’t, make sure you have a knife or something to hit them with. We leave in five.”
Sam approached us and held his good arm out for me. I looked at him just stared.
“C’mon, let me help you,” he said.
I didn’t want to get up and I didn’t want to go anywhere, but my body betrayed me by taking his hand and standing. I felt numb and trapped and on the verge of panic. Gus’ boots dragged in the loose gravel and dirt that had collected on the roadway. I turned to face him and we took each other’s hands. He leaned down far enough to touch his forehead to mine. I couldn’t feel his soul at all anymore, but I knew from his lack of energy and erratic breathing pattern that he was exhausted.
“We have to go,” he whispered.
“I know.”
***
As Graeme had hoped, we came upon the town of Burn after about six hours. We kept a brisk pace to avoid lingering in one place for too long. Our longest rest break was never more than five minutes. There were no useful vehicles on our path. We saw Roamers sporadically. Any that were close enough to worry about were taken out by those with knives or blunt objects.
We lost several more people at the rest stop we had taken when Hope’s touch had caused me to collapse. The dead had closed in on the bus and not everyone made it back aboard. Flower the little dog was amongst those who died. I hadn’t known our fallen comrades, but Sam told me a little boy who was about five years old and a teenage girl had been amongst them. The woman covered in vomit was also gone. I tried to keep my mind blank, but losing Hope filled my head constantly. I was barely aware when the small town came to view. Gus took my hand and we continued toward two small buildings on the left. They were both boarded up and weathered.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in a long time,” said Jessa quietly.
“I don’t want to mess with these buildings just yet. They look too ragged to be secured. Let’s keep going and see what’s ahead,” said Graeme.
“Everyone stay alert,” said Gus.
The highway curved to the right for about the length of a football field. When we finally got to the end the earth banked sharply to the right and on the left sat a small one-story brick building in the shape of an “L.” A sign out front read Maryweather Assisted Living & Senior Daycare.
“We should scope it out,” said Gus.
“I agree,” said Jenny. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“If we’re lucky it was evacuated before the world went to shit,” interjected Jessa. “Jenny and I can scope out any med carts for usable things. We’ll know what to look for.”
“I can help,” said Gus.
“Gus was a nurse too,” Hoot said to Jessa, who nodded in acknowledgement.
“Worst case scenario, the place is infested. We’ll have to judge if it’s worth trying to salvage anything once we’re inside. Looks like there’s two main wings, so I suggest we clear it in teams of four,” said Graeme.
“I may not be the best shot with just one hand, so I should pass my gun off to someone else,” said Sam.
“Jessa and Jenny you two go with Graeme and Autumn. Hoot, I want you with me and Zoe and Sam,” said Gus matter-of-factly.
“You got it,” our friend replied briskly.
“Priority is to put down anything we find to be a risk. We can clear bodies later. Jenny and Jess, once we’ve rid the place of the dead you can search the med carts to your hearts content,” said Graeme.
He and Gus seemed to flow seamlessly as co-leaders.
“Zo, are you gonna be okay to do this?” Gus whispered to me.
I looked up at him somewhat blankly. “Yeah. I’m just not quite here right now.”
“That’s what worries me. Stay alert, darlin’, and
focus on not getting hurt. We’ll mourn together soon.”
I took a deep breath and gripped my knife tightly before taking a step forward. I suddenly didn’t care if the dead might be waiting to devour me. I could no longer sense them, or Gus. Hope’s silent words no longer reflected as emotions within my mind. Everyone I had ever loved, aside from Gus, was gone. Life was hardly worth living.
The other team headed toward the larger of the two wings as the rest of us proceeded to a set of double glass entry doors. The panes were coated in months, if not years, of dust and grime. I held my trusted hammer at my right side and took a position just in front of Sam, who carried a piece of pipe he scavenged. Both of us were still nursing arm injures so left the guns to Hoot and Gus, figuring our aim would be better with blunt weapons.
I used the back of my good hand, still clutching the hammer, to wipe away a small area of dirt from the pane of glass.
“Look, the inside is painted black,” I whispered.
“Ayup,” said Gus. “Probably someone tried to hole up here. Be alert in case they’re still here.”
“Alive or dead,” contributed Sam.
“Stay back a few feet while I open her up,” said Hoot. “Gus, cover me?”
“You got it, brother.”
The handles on the doors were typical metal pulls than ran vertically. Gus pulled on one, opening the door. From the looks on my companions faces, none of us expected them to be unlocked. Hoot covered his mouth and nose when the smell hit him. Gus held his rifle up and waited. When nothing emerged to consume us, he nodded and stepped into the darkness. Sam followed while Hoot kept the door ajar. I stepped in next. The entry was dark, lit only by the light that crept in with us. Gus turned on a flashlight. Cobwebs hung wherever they had been able to take root. Dust coated black vinyl chairs and couches. There was a small office and greeting counter to our left. A vase of flowers was only recognizable by stems that had dried long ago. Papers were strewn about and a computer tower and monitor were laying on the floor, electrical bits and glass broken and scattered about. How the vase of dead flowers had survived intact was a mystery.
“There,” whispered Sam.
I looked up and followed his line of sight. On the floor lay a body, halfway between the lobby and a smaller room. The torso was masked by the darkness, leaving only a pair of legs visible to us. Whoever it was had lost the skin from foot to knee, where it transitioned to mummification.
State of Grace Page 11
