Into the Badlands

by Brian J. Jarrett

  “I think she might die anyway.” She'll also slow us down, he thought. She could be the death of us all. He hated himself for thinking that, but truth was always truth.

  “What if it was Mommy?” Jeremy asked.

  Ed sighed. He knew the decision had already been made.

  They found some long boards amongst the garbage lining the floor and used part of a thin, sheet metal shelf in order to create a makeshift stretcher. Ed used some rawhide shoelaces from their packs to tie the whole apparatus together. The structure proved strong and lightweight.

  Ed told the boys to stay back, then slowly approached the girl. She was unconscious. It was impossible to tell if she was infected with the virus, so they had to be extremely careful around her. They'd know within a day or two if she had it. The masks and gloves would be used until then.

  They lifted her onto the makeshift stretcher, with Ed on one end and both boys on the other end, then they carried her out of the store. They had to shove the door open wider to fit the girl and the contraption through, but they made it. She moaned occasionally, but made little other movement or sound. Ed thought she probably had a fever, but couldn't risk touching her with exposed skin just yet.

  If she was feverish, then at a minimum she needed some fluids and rest, and probably some antibiotics. Ed had used up the last of the antibiotics they had six months prior when Jeremy had been running a high fever. He anguished for days until the boy's fever finally broke.

  Ed felt in his gut that she wasn't infected with the virus. If she had then she wouldn't be unconscious, she'd be raving mad. He still made Zach and Jeremy keep their face masks and goggles on, just in case. He kept his own on as well.

  If what the girl had was bacterial he could do some good with the antibiotics, provided he could find some. If it was viral it would have to run its course. Any antivirals were surely gone, raided after the pandemic started. They were useless, but many had tried all the same.

  They needed a place to keep her until she got better, or until she died. Ed remembered passing a few farmhouses just before the exit. In this part of the Midwest the highway cut right through mile after mile of farmland, so farmhouses weren't that hard to come by. He thought it was their best option.

  He and the boys carried her almost a mile on the stretcher. The lacing between the bars and the board loosened along the way, but ultimately it held. Progress was slow, and they had to take a few breaks along the way, but eventually they spotted a suitable farmhouse and headed toward it.

  Here the highway was level with the ground around it. They maneuvered the stretcher with the girl atop over a fence then trudged through the frozen, brown vegetation underfoot. It crunched with each step they took. The girl stirred, but continued sleeping. Ed wondered if she'd even make it through the rest of the day.

  The plowed terrain of the farmland was bumpy, filled with dirt clods, dips, and divots. Jeremy fell once, but Ed and Zach were able to keep the stretcher relatively steady until he could regain his footing.

  They scanned their surroundings for carriers as they walked, but saw none along the way. Ed tried not to think about what they would have to do if they did run across any. The thought of leaving the incapacitated girl behind to be devoured alive felt inhuman. The boys wouldn't understand that they might not have any other choice. The best he could do is shield them from it and hope they kept their sanity. He couldn't dwell on those thoughts though; if they had any hope of bringing this girl back from the brink of death they had to first get her stabilized.

  The farmhouse sat about a quarter mile from the highway, so it didn't take Ed and the boys long to reach it. They reached the front yard of the farmhouse, then gently sat the girl down on the ground. “Get behind me boys,” Ed told them. “Zach, get your gun ready.” Ed drew his own gun, chambering a round.

  “What about the girl, Dad?” Zach asked.

  “She'll be fine there until we get back. We have to check this house first.”

  “But what if any carriers come while we're inside?”

  Ed looked at Zach, raising his eyebrows. Zach seemed to not understand. Jeremy did. “Hurry up,” he told his brother, then nudged him into the house.

  Ed was leery of bringing the boys inside; he had no idea who or what he would find in there. Leaving them outside in the front yard, however, felt more dangerous. He had them stay behind him as he walked to the front entryway, facing backward to keep a lookout. The screen door was torn off its hinges and the house's wooden front door was ajar. Aside from one broken pane of glass the windows in the door were intact.

  He rapped three times on the door, then stepped back onto the porch, pistol ready. Zach had his pistol drawn, Jeremy held the machete. Ed heard nothing. He knocked again, this time a bit louder. Still he heard nothing from inside. If there were any deadwalkers in there they would almost definitely be stirring by now.

  Murderers and thieves, however, would not.

  He motioned for the boys to come forward. “Stay close,” he told them, and they carefully walked single file through the front door and into the farmhouse. Zach and Jeremy both glanced at the helpless girl lying on the stretcher, then they followed their father inside.

  The inside of the house was in good shape overall. It had been raided at some point, but since the roof and most of the windows were still intact the weather damage was minimal. Some of the wood floor was warped where water had blown in from the outside, but aside from that the place was still structurally sound.

  They checked every room, including the upstairs bedrooms, and the cellar, and found the house to be free of threats. There were three bedrooms in the house, all on the second floor. They could keep the girl there. Ed didn't like using the second floor but moving the beds would mean taking them apart, noisy work he didn’t want to undertake. The doorways were just too small to fit the beds through assembled.

  When they got back down to the stretcher Ed noticed the girl hadn't moved at all. He still felt it was very doubtful that she had contracted the virus, with all the sleeping. The virus created maniacs, not narcoleptics. Another twenty four hours and he'd know for sure.

  He knew they'd never get her up the inside steps on the stretcher, so he picked the girl up and tossed her over his shoulder. Being so thin she was light, but he doubted he could have carried her for a mile on his shoulders. He wasn't as strong as he used to be. None of them were.

  He carried her to the top of the steps and into the bedroom, with the boys following close behind, then placed her gently on the bed. The bed was still made; undisturbed for the past three years. He checked her forehead with the back of his hand. Although she was still very hot Ed noticed goosebumps on her skin. She was definitely feverish.

  He covered her with the blankets from the bed then took the boys back downstairs to check the kitchen faucets, which didn’t work. He peered through the windows above the sink and into the back yard; there he spied a lever-style water pump. He grabbed a pitcher from the kitchen and walked to the pump with the boys. Sometimes you're just lucky, he thought to himself.

  After almost five minutes of priming work the pump began producing clean water. Ed gave the boys a high-five then rinsed and filled the pitcher he’d brought with him. He sent Zach and Jeremy back inside to fetch more containers. They drank some of the water straight out of the well; Ed thought it might very well be some of the most refreshing water he'd ever tasted.

  They washed and filled as many containers as they could find, then they returned to the house. They brought a cup of water upstairs for the girl; she moaned and her eyes fluttered when Ed attempted to give her a drink. He managed to get a little down her before she closed her eyes again and went silent. He checked the girl's pulse. She was still alive, at least for the time being.

  Ed sat with the boys on the front porch of the farmhouse, watching the highway. Strings of abandoned cars littered the road. There was no movement aside from some birds searching the cold ground for food. The air was chilly; only the sou
nd of the wind broke the silence.

  He wondered what he was going to do with the girl. She was very sick. Ed wasn't a doctor, but he guessed the fever was probably due to an infection. Viral or bacterial he couldn't be sure. Administering an antibiotic was the only course of action he felt might save the girl.

  The problem was, he didn't have any.

  He could likely find it though, if he tried. If he could locate a drug store that hadn't been completely raided it was a possibility. With a Walgreens or a CVS on every corner it became an even better possibility. Unfortunately he couldn't surf the Internet for store locations anymore. He had to do it the hard way; searching on foot.

  But that would mean leaving the girl in the farmhouse alone while he and the boys searched. It would likely take them a day to retrieve the drugs, if they could find them at all. She'd be without water and protection that whole time. He reminded himself that she'd been worse off lying on the floor of the Target. At least this way she had a slim chance of survival, and better than most.

  It was too late in the day to start the search; night would be falling soon. They could begin the following morning at the break of dawn. That would give them the better part of the day to find the drugs and return. It was still winter, so the amount of daylight they had available to them was reduced. He could provide warmth and water to the girl overnight, provided she made it through at all.

  Ed watched his boys playing on the porch; Zach with his toy car and Jeremy with his army men. He wondered if he'd made the right choice, bringing the girl to the farmhouse. He was putting himself and his boys in harm's way to help a girl who might very well die before they returned.

  But in the midst of the waning daylight, the time he most often considered the choices he'd made so far and the choices he still had left to make, he felt it as the right thing to do. If he and the boys were to die, would he want to die knowing he'd lost his humanity, turning his back on someone so desperately in need? Was there a more noble cause to die for than that of humanity?

  He thought of Sarah. He remembered how she'd been in the end. He couldn't let another innocent person suffer as she had. Maybe things would turn out differently this time.

  He decided they would leave in the morning, the three of them.

  In the end, they had to hold on to their humanity. It was far better to die as men than to live as animals.

  CHAPTER 8

  Brenda Peterson and Tammy Koch painstakingly made their way through an overgrown field toward an undecided destination. To their right, the highway was barely visible the overgrown brush, but they kept it in sight to ensure they weren't getting too far off track. The highway was their lifeline. Brenda felt her decision to follow it had been one of her best. In fact, she'd met Tammy along the same highway.

  In her prior life, before humanity had gone virtually wholesale into the shitter, Brenda had worked in a head shop. Before that, she worked the counter at Dunkin’ Donuts. Before that she ran the drive-thru at Taco Bell. And before that just more of the same.

  She’d always struggled with her weight; once an ex-boyfriend had even referred to her as “a fat little hobbit”. She tried liquid diets, carb-counting, detox diets, and a slew of other diets that never worked. Her problem was that she drowned her sorrows in beer and food, and there was more than enough of beer, food, and sorrow to go around.

  Now, however, there was very little of any of those thing in her life. Once she got on the road she dropped the weight like a bad habit. The drinking went with it. And, not surprisingly, the sorrow went with it too.

  Now she was short, lean, and fucking mean.

  Sometimes, even though she knew the world had ended for most, she wondered if maybe it had just begun for her. She'd been coasting in life before the Walking Death arrived, drifting from goofy job to goofy job and from bad guy to worse guy. She'd always chosen the worst ones, the assholes, the ones like her step-father. Sometimes she wondered if it had ever really been a choice; maybe she was wired that way.

  No focus, no purpose, no direction; that had been her life before. Now she had to focus to simply stay alive. Once she was forced to drop the bad habits and the asshole boyfriends it seemed she'd awoken from a bad dream. True, she'd traded one nightmare for another, but now she had a purpose, a reason to keep going. Grit and determination had replaced self-loathing, food, and booze as her best friends.

  And so had Tammy.

  Tammy was a bit rough around the edges, at least by most standards. She was a kindred spirit though, another person trapped in the trappings of society. She’d seen her share of struggle, and she knew what it was like to make all the wrong choices in life. She knew what it was like to have the wrong parents, to choose the wrong guys, and to work at the wrong jobs.

  But she also knew what it was like to be a survivor.

  They'd both been left behind when everyone else fled to the coast; tossed out like trash, or the pets no one could afford to take with them. They wandered independently for a few months, eventually encountering each other inside a Conoco station along the highway. They traveled together after that, scavenging for supplies and avoiding the infected.

  Brenda had decided very early on to follow the highway. In the times before the Walking Death the highway had been a lifeline for travelers, built with an infrastructure to support them. Brenda figured there was no reason why it couldn't still be used this way.

  Despite this conviction she feared the openness of the road itself. It was very exposed. Not only was it open to the infected it was also open to the uninfected. And two women, even tough women, were prime targets for both. She avoided walking on the road when she could, but in the long empty stretches it provided an easier path with good visibility for threat. Sometimes it was worth the risk.

  How she and Tammy had survived at all was a mystery. She supposed that like most everything else a lot of it had to do with luck. She figured that in the end it didn't really matter exactly how they survived; what they were doing was working, and it would continue to work as long as it did. What would be, would be.

  The two women trudged through the undergrowth of the field, Brenda walking in front of Tammy. Both women carried loaded backpacks. Brenda carried a small .22 pistol she'd found inside an abandoned house a couple years back. She really wanted something larger, but she'd found so much ammunition along with it that the decision to keep it made itself.

  Over her shoulder Tammy carried a rifle she found at an old farmhouse. She had a single box of rounds; not enough to feel confident about. She wanted to check some houses in the subdivision they were approaching for more guns, ammunition, or both. Houses were dangerous though; they'd had some close calls in the past with some carriers that had holed up inside them.

  Of course everything about life was dangerous now.

  The two women came to the edge of the field and stepped out into an open area filled with houses. A concrete street ran along these houses. They were in a subdivision, one of the ones that had been built in the middle of a former cornfield. They stepped out onto the street and scanned their surroundings.

  Although the front yards of the houses were overgrown, the streets of the subdivision were still mostly keeping the vegetation at bay. Weeds grew up around the edges of the street, and some grew in cracks in the middle of the street. There were also weeds in the seams where the large, individual concrete squares that made up the street butted together.

  Most of the houses lining the street were large, two-story homes with two-car garages. Many of the windows were broken; shingles hung from the roofs and siding hung in long strips from random houses. Storms had done considerable damage to these structures sitting exposed in these open, flat fields. Garage doors stood open, and cars were still parked in driveways. Mailboxes still stood, some with the flags raised, waiting for a mailman who would never arrive.

  Tammy turned to Brenda. “You wanna pass through, or do you wanna look in some of these houses?” she asked.

  Brenda considere
d the question. If they ran into carriers here they might be able to escape back into the overgrown cornfields. “Let's go through a few of them,” she replied. “We could use some more food, and I know you need more ammunition. Maybe our luck will play out.”

  “Has so far,” Tammy replied.

  Brenda smiled. “True.”

  They walked the row of houses, peering from the street into broken windows and open doors. They found a one-story brick house with boarded windows. Boarded windows were a good sign; it meant the contents inside might not have been raided. They approached the front door, initially thinking it was locked. Unfortunately they found it to be opened, and the interior ransacked.

  They left the house and continued on, walking the subdivision street, looking for better possibilities. All the houses they passed appeared to have been raided at some point. It was looking more and more like the whole subdivision would be a lost cause.

  The subdivision street ran in a circle, leading both to and from a larger street. It doubled back with a ninety degree turn, forming a sort of horseshoe shape. As the two women followed it they rounded the bend then walked back toward the direction they’d come from, this time on the other side of the subdivision.

  That's when they spotted the carrier.

  It was walking away from them, along the same street they walked, perhaps a hundred yards away. They froze. It didn't seem to notice them, it just continued walking slowly and methodically.

  Brenda and Tammy looked at each other. Brenda slowly pulled her pistol from her belt while Tammy quietly removed the rifle from her shoulder. The carrier continued walking at the same pace. Something about it was strange though; it didn't have the meandering gait that carriers typically had. No paralysis either. It seemed...purposely directional.

  Then it stopped.

  The carrier turned around and faced them. Tammy raised the rifle, placing the butt of the gun against her shoulder. She drew a bead on the carrier's head, aligning the notch at the end of the barrel with the groove just above the chamber. She held her fire; the noise attracted other carriers and she wasn't confident they had the ammunition or speed to put them all down.