If she could make it there she might be able to get supplies, at least some water. It was a long walk though, and every step she took was agonizing. Her entire body was wracked with excruciating pain. She'd never been more thirsty in her entire life.
She continually looked behind her as she walked, afraid that Darnell or the other unseen kidnapper would be there, ready to finish the job they'd started. She reminded herself that Trey was dead, and she could reasonably assume that Darnell was probably dead too. The third kidnapper was a mystery; she just hoped she had enough of a lead that he'd never be able to find her.
All she had left was to keep walking.
So she walked, slowly and painfully, treating each step as a small victory.
One step at a time, she told herself. One step at a time.
CHAPTER 7
Ed Brady stood between two abandoned cars on a desolate highway, watching his children sleep peacefully beside a dwindling fire. He had gotten a few hours of sleep while Zach and Jeremy relieved him of guard duty, but it seemed he rarely slept anymore. Even when he did sleep he never slept soundly.
He still had concerns about the carrier blood back at the store. The goggles had stopped most of it, the mask seemed to have stopped the rest. Just a droplet of blood in an exposed area and it was all over. Even a sneeze could be deadly. The fact that he and the boys hadn't been infected already surprised him. It seemed as if they were exceptionally lucky; plus the masks, goggles and other gear seemed to be protecting them so far. Wearing their gear was a nothing short of habit for them now.
Especially after Sarah.
Back at the sporting goods store Ed had been able to kill the carrier without using the pistol. Blood spatter from the strike of the baseball bat was dangerous, but not as dangerous as being cornered by twenty deadwalkers responding to the sound of shots fired. It was also a stroke of magnificent luck that the thing had been alone.
Ed continued watching his children sleep. They slept quietly and peacefully, as if the world hadn't fallen apart at all. It was likely they were all chasing a pipe dream; the world had changed and the cities were gone now. For a quarter million years humans had survived as nomads, farmers, herders, and hunters. They became enlightened, and for a galactic millisecond they formed cities and molded the world in their image.
Now those cities were gone. Only empty buildings remained, standing like ghostly sentinels, towering reminders of all that had been lost.
He wondered what he would do once they got to the city. How would the boys take it if they found the place overrun with the pitiful remnants of a nearly extinct species? What if they found it was just like everywhere else they'd been? Would their spirits be broken, or would it then be off to another promised land, along another dangerous road, constantly on the run like prey animals? How long could they expect to keep that up? How long before their luck ran out?
He put his hand in his front pocket, his fingers making out the painfully familiar shape of the clip holding those three terrible bullets.
Things would have to get much worse before it came to that.
He noticed Jeremy stir, followed shortly thereafter by his brother. Their eyes opened. Both boys had green eyes, like their mother.
“Hi, daddy,” Jeremy said. Zach smiled.
Ed's already broken heart broke again. How many times more could he live through that pain?
As many times as it takes, he thought.
The cold held out for another week. Ed and the boys kept traveling, building camps and fires each night, usually between stranded cars on the defunct highway. It was too cold to just stay in the cars without some source of heat. They saw no visible signs of carriers along the way; that was one of the fortunate things about traveling in the more remote areas of the highway.
As the temperatures eventually began to rise and the snow began to melt, their sled became more difficult to pull. Once they'd exhausted most of the supplies it contained they stuffed the remaining items into their backpacks. They then abandoned the sled alongside the road, leaving it to lie silently among the useless cars and blackened corpses.
A day after they dumped the sled they saw another highway exit come into view. Ed felt both hope and trepidation; the exits provided stores and houses that might still have some useful items, but it also meant they could run into more of the infected. They all still vied for the same resources after all. A week without any carrier interaction couldn't allow them to let their guard down.
They spoke very little as they walked. Most of their time was spent on alert. Carriers, thieves, and wild animals were very real threats. It was a lawless, cruel, and indifferent world now. Only the careful and the clever survived.
Just before arriving at the exit they stopped to regroup. After a cursory check of their surroundings they inventoried their supplies. Ed removed everything from their backpacks and arranged it on the ground while Zach and Jeremy kept watch. He took a mental note of their supplies, then repacked everything into their backpacks, placing their most-used items on top. He worked quickly; should they have to make a quick getaway he didn’t want to have to leave anything temporarily unpacked behind.
Ed and Zach carried two 9mm pistols they’d found a couple years earlier. They had a few boxes of ammunition; these they coveted. They ended up picking up a couple more handguns along the way, but none of them had had any ammunition. They took them anyway, just in case. With rampant runs on every gun store during the outbreak, both guns and ammunition were hard to come by.
Most of the guns taken during panicked raids had ended up in houses for defense against an unstoppable enemy. Ironically those same houses very often sheltered carriers now. A lot of those houses were also now exposed to the elements, with broken windows, open doors, and rotting roofs. Rust was taking its toll on what weapons were left.
Their biggest problem wasn't so much a lack of guns, it was more a lack of ammunition. Most of the uninfected who'd gotten their hands on a firearm quickly exhausted their supply. There were so many infected at the beginning of the pandemic that there just weren't enough bullets to put them all down. Many survivors had saved the last bullet for themselves; others had not. Their end was much more grisly.
Ed and Zach carried the loaded pistols, but Jeremy had none. He needed one, and it was one of their top priorities to find one. It was proving more difficult than Ed had foreseen. He’d never thought that in America he’d have trouble finding a gun. More cruel irony.
After repacking their backpacks, the three of them then sat down in the middle of the road and ate some beef jerky, drinking water from their canteens. Before the outbreak Ed hadn't owned a canteen, or a flint, or even a knife, for that matter. They'd never survive without those things now.
They ate enough to survive, but there was always more than enough hunger to go around. They were all incredibly thin but not quite starving...yet. If they didn't find some food soon it wouldn't be long until they were. They were always on the verge, it seemed. They had to do some scavenging off this exit because Ed wasn't sure how long until the next one. They could calculate miles by the map, but the time it took to actually walk those miles was difficult to estimate.
There were other things they needed; boots, coats, pants, and socks, to name a few. They needed to find a department store, if possible, or maybe another sporting goods store. Ed stood up, then gazed at the multitude of buildings off the exit to determine their options. He saw a somewhat dilapidated Target department store that might be able to provide some of what they needed, provided it hadn't already been cleaned out.
Ed also saw a grocery store, some gas stations, some fast food restaurants, and some other stores he couldn't easily identify. The grocery store might still have some canned goods left and the restaurants might have some packaged food they could take along with them.
Some of the buildings looked very run down; it was likely that they'd been raided or had just succumbed to the elements after several years of neglect. Nature worked quickly
and efficiently on Man's empire, retaking the land stolen from Her with ferocious intensity. Behind the commercial buildings were rows of residential area, subdivisions with hundreds upon hundreds of houses. Houses were dangerous, but a last-ditch option if the stores didn't play out. Given that, the Target store seemed to be the best place to start. One-stop shopping made even more sense now.
Ed looked back at the boys. They were both sitting on the ground in their mismatched winter garb, arms folded, waiting for their instructions. He smiled to help alleviate their fear. They smiled back, and Ed was struck by just how lucky he was to have them.
“Let's go.”
Ed felt his stomach tighten into a knot as they walked down the exit ramp toward the strip mall, dodging abandoned cars and bodies along the way. Visibility was good; the undergrowth was dormant due to the cold weather, but once summer came it would take off like wildfire. He wondered briefly how many years it would take for the road to disappear completely back into the wild.
The Target sat at the back of a large parking lot. The lot was only half-full of cars. They were all parked haphazardly in the lot, many with their doors and trunks still open. They walked through a four-way intersection toward the store; the unlit stoplight swung back and forth in the cold breeze. Road signs squeaked as they moved in the wind.
Ed and Zach drew their pistols and walked along either side of Jeremy. Jeremy carried the machete. They had their goggles, masks, and gloves on, as usual. They walked slowly and carefully toward the building, looking everywhere for movement.
Ed wasn't comfortable being so open and exposed in carrier-friendly locations; if they were attacked they'd likely have to use their guns. That would only attract more. There was nowhere to hide; they needed to get in and out as quickly as possible.
As they crossed the Target parking lot they passed scores of bones and darkened lumps that had once been human beings. They skirted these without much thought and continued walking steadily. Ed hated that the boys had to see things in such a disastrous state. They had seen so many dead bodies that they barely noticed anymore. He wasn't sure if he should be thankful for that or disturbed by it. Truth was, he was a little of both.
When they arrived at the front doors Ed stopped the boys. The glass in the doors was broken; the place looked as if it had been raided hard. Chances were there was little left behind. Still, little was better than nothing.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” he told them. They nodded, their eyes glowing green through the lenses of the goggles.
Ed peered into the store through the broken windows. Aisles were ransacked, trash and other debris littered the floor. The weather seemed to have only gotten in just past the broken doors, so Ed hoped much of whatever was left behind would be in reasonably good shape.
They adjusted their goggles and masks to ensure they were properly seated. Ed chambered his first round, Zach did the same, then he took the lead. The boys fell in behind him as they entered the store one after the other. The door creaked when Ed pushed it open, but it otherwise opened without issue.
Once inside he glanced left, then right. On both sides were scores of blackened, desiccated bodies. Many were lying down, others were sitting with their backs against the wall. Sitting just as they'd died, their darkened skin clinging tightly to their skulls. Many were partially eaten, either by wild animals or by carriers. Or by both.
“Ignore the bodies,” he told the boys. They nodded, but he saw their eyes dart to and from the bodies as they walked. Those images would stay with them their whole lives.
Much of the store had been raided, but they were still able to find some things they needed. They picked up some light and compact food such as beef jerky, potato chips, and some chocolate bars. They compacted the chips by opening the bags, crushing the chips, then rolling the bags up tightly. They also found some cans of tuna, sardines, and spam along with two jars of pickles. The glass jars could be useful after they consumed the pickles. It wasn't as much as Ed had hoped, but it was better than nothing.
The floors were lined with the empty packages of supplies opened by survivors who'd used the building for shelter. No doubt many had holed up in large department stores shortly after the infection began to spread. Others had used the place as a rest stop on their way to the coasts. And many others, as was evidenced by the multitude of of decaying bodies near the entrance, had simply come there to die.
Despite the food aisles being mostly picked over, they made out well enough to get them to the next exit at least. There they might find nothing, as was often the case. That they'd have to deal with then. He held out hope though. He had to; he had little choice otherwise.
They moved on to the clothing aisles, but found only a single boot in Jeremy's size. There were some coats left over, and Zach was able to replace one of his outer layer coats with a new one. It was covered with dust, but otherwise in good shape. Zach discarded his old, worn-out coat, then Ed ripped the tags from the new coat and placed it on his son. He then placed a hand on his son's head. Zach smiled. Ed felt a tear start to form in the corner of his eye and he looked away. He could remember school shopping for his son, purchasing that new winter coat for the coming winter. He'd never imagined then he'd be where he was now.
He pushed the feeling back and attempted to remain focused. They found Jeremy a new stocking cap to replace his old one, and they found some wool socks to replaced the ones with holes in them. Spending their lives walking made short work of socks.
During their search they ended up near the electronics section. Dozens of now-useless digital cameras sat on the display shelf. Behind the digital cameras he found a rack of disposable film cameras. It was likely that the film had been damaged by exposure to extreme temperatures over the past few years, but he grabbed one anyway. He lined his sons up side by side, checking first to ensure they were still the only ones in the store.
“When was the last time we used one of these?” he asked them.
“A long time ago,” Zach replied. Jeremy nodded in agreement.
Ed smiled. “Say cheese.”
Both Zach and Jeremy smiled their best and said 'cheese'. Ed raised the camera to his eye and snapped the picture. Surprisingly the flash still worked. He rolled the film forward, then dropped the camera into his backpack. He doubted the film would ever be developed, but it was more a gesture of hope than anything else. An old ritual that brought comfort.
“I wish Mommy was here for the picture,” Jeremy said.
Ed looked at his youngest son and smiled. “Me too, buddy.”
They spent a little less than an hour in the store, gathering what they could. They found many items they had no use for, but they'd found at least enough to get them by for a while. They remained vigilant, keeping the front door and other exits in sight at all times. The near miss in the sporting goods store more than a week prior was still clear in their collective memory.
Being on the go meant they had to be able to carry everything on their backs. There was no snow in which to pull a sled, and a cart slowed them down too much to be useful. Ed tried not to think about the things they had been forced to leave behind in the past simply because they couldn't carry it all. But what was gone was gone, and what was done was done. Living in the present was all they had; it was what kept them alive.
Having gathered about all they could reasonably carry they headed back toward the store entrance. Ed was feeling more and more exposed the longer they remained in the store. He wanted out. He was considering taking a quick look in the grocery store they'd seen, just to see if they could shore up their food supplies a bit more. He never got that far.
As they neared the front doors of the store, Ed noticed movement. He drew his gun, flipped the safety off, and ushered both boys behind him. His body buzzed with the surge of adrenaline; his pupils dilated, his heart raced, and his senses focused.
He caught sight of the movement again. A female carrier, lying on the floor, rolled onto its stomach, then tried to get up and wal
k. It stood up, slowly, then balanced precariously on unsteady legs. Ed noticed the body was in good shape; the infection must have been recent.
The carrier took a step forward and Ed leveled the gun, lining the front sight on the thing's chest, then the back sight with the front sight. If the thing charged he'd have to shoot; there was no time for the bat. His finger squeezed on the trigger.
Then it spoke.
“Help...please,” she said, before collapsing to the ground.
Ed removed his finger and raised the pistol. This wasn't a carrier; this was a survivor.
And he'd almost killed her.
He stood with his children, gun still in hand, watching the girl, unsure what to do next. They couldn't help her; they didn't have enough supplies to share. Plus she appeared ill. Was she infected? He wasn't a doctor, so how could he know? He would have no other choice but to leave her behind to focus on the boys.
But that would be murder. And how could he leave her behind after the boys had seen her? Even if he wanted to leave her it was too late to do that without them knowing. He'd taught them it was wrong to kill and that it was wrong not to help people. They'd never be able to understand how it was necessary to leave her behind in order for them to survive. And he wasn't exactly sure how he'd explain it to them without them losing their faith in him. He looked down at them; they were both watching him intently.
Watching and learning.
“We have to help her Dad,” Jeremy said from behind him.
“I don't think we can, buddy”
“But we have to try.”
“We don't have the supplies. She's sick, and we don't know what's wrong with her. She might be infected with the virus.”
“But we can't just leave her. She'll die,” Zach said.
Into the Badlands Page 6
