After we had eaten, we told our newcomers about the bomb threats. Their fear reignited the terror amongst our group. The only way we were able to calm the entire place was to reassure them that the compound had plenty of space below ground for us all to take shelter. Also, seeing us working on a plan to get the doctor to the base before the Germans started releasing the bombs focused everyone’s attention.
Once we’d made as much of a plan as we could without Tera, her people, and the doctor and had made several others in case the doctor wouldn’t come, or in case something happened to us on our journey, we found ourselves reluctant to resume our usual daily chores and lives. We appeared unwilling to part with each other’s company, but we were growing bored hanging out in the cafeteria. The location was helpful as we worked through lunch, yet once we’d eaten and we’d finalized our plans, we had no other reason to be there.
Jasper fixed that problem by reminding us of the theater. He didn’t have anything new to watch, but he had plenty of older fan favorites. We were finishing the second movie and planning the evening meal when Jasper’s tablet went off again signaling we had more guests.
That time the people wanting entrance weren’t strangers. They were Tera and her group plus two doctors. We didn’t let our group as a whole know they were back at that moment. Jasper, Samantha, Katrina, Kayla, and I left everyone watching the movie while we went to talk to the new arrivals.
They didn’t appear to have run into any issues going to and coming from the lab. That didn’t stop Jasper from stopping them at the entrance to ask Tera if she thought any of them needed to go through quarantine.
“No. No one has come into that kind of contact with a zombie. We had a run in with some feral survivors, but no zombies,” she said.
“What happened to the survivors?” I asked, following them down the hall to the weapon’s room where they would remove the mounds of gear they carried with them.
“They’re dead,” one of the doctors said. I didn’t know her name, but she was an older white woman.
“Dead?” Kayla asked. “How? What happened?”
“We killed them,” Tera stated matter-of-factly.
No one in her group flinched at her words, which told me something horrible had happened.
“Care to elaborate,” I asked, hating that I sounded annoyed.
“Not really,” she said.
“They were kids,” the female doctor said. “Three of them. We don’t know what has happened to them since the outbreak, but when we found them, they weren’t speaking, they were eating animals raw, and despite all of our efforts to assure them that we were safe people…that we could take care of them, they kept attacking us.
“After a while, we just walked away. There wasn’t anything we could do for the group. That wasn’t enough for them, though. They followed us, and when we camped that night, they tried to kill us. In the fight, they died. One was an accident, one had a gun, so it was either shoot or be shot, and she’d already shot at us several times before we returned fire. The third killed himself. We’d subdued him and had him tied up, but when we woke the next morning, he was dead. He took his own life. We probably should have found another way to help them, but they were feral beyond help or reason and feeding off each other’s insanity and fear.”
“I’m so sorry,” Samantha said to the group.
“No one else knows about this,” Tera said. “I don’t want to hear anyone talking about it ever again.” At that, she walked away from us. Others followed her.
“Hi, I’m Dr. McNamara,” the female doctor said, holding her hand out to Jasper. He shook it and told her who we were. “I suggest you do as Tera said. She said she didn’t know the kids, but either she was lying, or one of those kids reminded her strongly of a child she knew. Most likely one of her own children. It was a bad situation. I promise we did everything we knew to do to help them, but there was no helping them. I examined the bodies. Any kind of abuse you can think appears to have happened to one or all three of those children. To be honest, they were dying anyway without medical help.”
Samantha was holding her stomach and trying not to be sick at the woman’s words. I wrapped myself around her and asked if she wanted me to take her back to our apartment, but she declined.
We had other things to talk about. We didn’t have time to dwell on the bad that had already happened. We needed to worry about the bad to come. Or so she told me as we followed the others to Tera’s apartment for them to put away their things. The doctors were staying with her, she’d informed us, since we would be back on the road the next day. Jasper and I did our best to fill her in on what we’d planned for the next journey.
“All of that sounds good,” she told us, then turned to the doctors to seek their opinion. They only had a few suggestions, but that was because our plan had just included one doctor. They decided it would be a good idea to separate them to up the chances that at least one of them would make it.
Chapter 30
~~~Samantha~~~
Jason wasn’t happy with my insistence on going with him on what might be his final trip outside of Shore Haven, but he didn’t argue. We would have to take vehicles, as we would need to move as quickly as possible. Both things would grab the attention of the zombies and the humans outside our walls. The zombies would most likely be easy to deal with. The humans, not so much.
We hadn’t had ‘the talk’ since I’d found out my ex-husband was dead. That night when we should be getting a good night’s rest for the following day wasn’t the right time to do it, but I had to make sure he was aware that I cared for him more than I should for how little I knew him. Even so, the thought of being without him scared me to the point that I nearly had a panic attack every time the idea crossed my mind.
Without either of us making the decision, we didn’t set up the sofa bed for him. We both went to his bedroom to prepare for bed. We all but showered and changed in front of each other, not even realizing we were doing it. We crawled into bed together, and I’d curled into his arms before one of us commented on what we were doing.
“Does this feel like we’re moving too fast?” Jason asked, rubbing my back.
“No. We’re moving at just the right speed. To be honest, it’s taking a lot of self-control on my part not to move us any faster.”
I was glad I was looking down his body toward the blank television as I said the words.
“I know the feeling, but I think this is as far as we need to push things for now.”
I could tell he really hadn’t wanted to say that, but he was right.
“I wish you would stay here,” he said a few minutes later.
“I will if you do,” I answered.
“You know I can’t.”
“You can, but I know why you won’t, and since you’re going, I’m going.”
“We might not come back from this trip.”
“I’m well aware, but at least we’ll be together for whatever happens.”
We were quiet for a few more minutes before I said, “I don’t want to freak you out, and I know I don’t know you well enough to be saying this, but I love you. I love you more than I ever loved David. I’m not a child, so I know this isn’t a crush or lust. Don’t get me wrong, the lust is there, boy is it there, but that isn’t all this is. I can’t imagine doing any of this without you. If something happened to you out there, and I wasn’t with you, I couldn’t forgive myself. I couldn’t…”
I got choked up just thinking about all the things that could go wrong. I wouldn’t let myself cry, but I wanted to…badly.
“I’ll be all right. We’ll be all right,” Jason said, holding me tighter.
“Don’t ask me to stay here,” I pleaded, tilting my head up to look at him.
“I’m scared to take you with me, but I don’t want to be without you either,” he said, kissing my forehead before tucking my head under his chin.
I wished he’d kiss me already, but I understood a little about why he was waiting.
My husband had been dead almost from the beginning of the outbreak, and whereas I’d assumed it was so, I hadn’t known it for a fact until just a few days ago. I didn’t feel as if I was grieving, but I was sure some part of my brain was. We both needed to let me have time to process things before taking our relationship to the next level.
Jason and I fell asleep shortly after that and only reluctantly rose the next morning.
The three vehicles we had weren’t large and would have to do for the first bit of our journey, but one of the doctors knew of a small military base on our way east that we might stop at to get bigger vehicles and to get a better arsenal.
As nervous as we were as we made our way out of Shore Haven and off the island, we met little resistance at the beginning of our travels. There where areas where massive pileups blocked the road or where several zombies had converged on the street to eat something they’d killed. None of their meals had been humans, but each other. They were moving too slowly at that point to be a threat in such small numbers. It also meant that they weren’t fast enough to catch their meals and had resorted to cannibalism.
The pileups were time-consuming to maneuver around and nerve-racking when we had to actually get out of our vehicles to move the obstructions. We didn’t encounter any problems, but the fear that someone would ambush us or a horde would come upon us while we were working was always present and kept us on edge.
Our only true bit of trouble came at the military base the doctor recommended we stop at for supplies and new vehicles. The gate surrounding the base was open, which was only slightly shocking considering the world in which we were living. The fact that no one stopped us from going through the gates was also disconcerting. If the gate was open, and no military personnel was there to stop us, then anyone could have already come in and taken the items we sought.
The thought was discouraging, as it meant that we were possibly wasting precious time even checking out the situation. That possibility didn’t stop us from going, though.
The front of the compound looked deserted but unmolested. There were no signs of looting or zombies. We weren’t sure if that was comforting or not. As we pulled into the center of the compound, Jason asked the doctor if he knew which building held the arsenal. The building housing the vehicles was obvious, although from where we’d parked, we couldn’t tell if there were actually any vehicles there. The doctor didn’t know the layout of the compound, so we’d have to search them individually until we found it.
No sooner than we’d cut the engine and exited our current vehicles, then a group of militia types poured from the buildings and surrounded us. I froze behind Jason. We’d only run into a handful of groups of survivors as large as ours since the outbreak. None of them was like the group in front of us.
To my relief, these people didn’t appear to be the kill first and ask questions later type. Both of our groups stood in silence with our weapons out and only semi-poised to fire, but no one said a word for a long time.
“We didn’t know anyone was here,” Jason finally said. “If you’ll allow it, we’ll get back into our vehicles and go.”
“Why are you here?” a voice asked. I couldn’t tell from exactly which figure it had come. The voice was male, though. The man was older. His voice was deep and a little raspy.
“We’re on our way to the coast. So far, our journey has been pretty uneventful, but we aren’t sure what we’ll encounter along the way. We thought this place might have better vehicles and weapons. We don’t have to have them, though, so we’ll go.”
“Why are you traveling east?” the man asked.
Jason stayed quiet for a long time. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I knew I was worried about what those people would do to us if they knew we had a doctor and a vaccine. We had more than enough for them, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t kill us for what we had.
“How have you survived this long?” Jason asked instead.
“By sheer fucking dumb luck,” the man said without a hint of humor in his voice.
“You and us both. What I want to know is if you’ve killed people, eaten people, do you have slaves, have you decided that the world and its inhabitants belong to you or, in other words, been a complete and utter asshole when the world needs to come together and take care of itself?” Jason asked.
I gaped at him. If those people had done anything remotely like that, then chances were they weren’t going to own up to it.
The man laughed. “You’ve run into a few psychos, have you?” he asked.
“A few. The ones who’ve gone crazy because of what happened, I can understand. I can forgive. But those worthless pieces of shit who’ve used this apocalypse to scare people into doing their bidding, those who’ve raped, who’ve tried to set hordes onto my people because they wanted my home, those I can’t forgive. Those I refuse to tell my story to. I don’t want to fight with you. If your group is that way, we will walk away, but we will not associate with each other.”
Jason was too rational for the situation. If that group were full of murderers, rapists, and the like, they wouldn’t let us out of the compound alive. If they did, we weren’t leaving here with our weapons and supplies. I wanted to get his attention. I wanted to ask him what the hell he was playing at, but he remained calm and a tiny bit aloof.
The man chuckled again. “You really are your father’s son aren’t you, you little shit?” the man said, and everyone—their people and ours—turned to him in surprise.
“Oh, thank God,” Jason said. “I was only about seventy-five percent positive that was you, Dayton, when I heard your voice.” Jason lowered his weapon, and so did Dayton, but the rest of us continued to look on in shock.
The man named Dayton removed his face covering to give Jason a huge grin, but he didn’t step forward. Jason didn’t take offense.
“We were headed your way when we found this place,” Dayton said. “I’ve been out of the military for a while and had forgotten that there was a base so close to Shore Haven. We’ve only been here a few days. We’ve been trying to pack up all of the supplies to bring to the compound. I’m glad to see you’ve survived. Did anyone else in your family?”
“Just Jasper. Keisha was one of the first victims. And you and yours?”
“Just me. Everyone I knew went down in the first wave. I’d been on a site with just a few others surveying the land when it swept through. By the time I got back home, everyone was sick. After Rhoda turned, and I put her down, I knew what was happening. This wasn’t one of the outbreaks Jasper was planning for, but I’ve heard of other survivalists like him talk about this. I never believed it was possible, even with all the evidence they brought to me that said otherwise.”
“Jasper is still in shock. Look, I would love to catch up. Your people are more than welcome at Shore Haven. Jasper will be glad to see you. He’s been on me for years to ask you to be a part of Shore Haven, but I didn’t think you would.”
“I wouldn’t have. Your uncle was batshit back then. I knew he had a right to be scared, but I was determined not to be like him.”
“That I get. We really should get on the road. If you can spare an armored vehicle, that’d be great. We can make do with one.”
“What’s the emergency?”
The longer the two men talked, the calmer the rest of us grew, but no one fully rested their stance.
“Germany is threatening to finish wiping us off the planet,” Jason answered, sending all of Dayton’s people into an uproar.
The man silenced them as much as possible and then asked Jason to explain. Jason told him the story as succinctly as he could so that we could get back on the road.
Dayton’s people burst into another uproar at the mention of the vaccine. For a brief second, I feared they would ambush us to get to it. The look in Dayton’s eyes said that he worried they were going to as well. He barked another order of silence, but that didn’t quiet them the way the first order had.
“Boy, you had better
not be lying to us about any of that,” Dayton said once Jason was through with his story.
“I wish the bombs were a joke, but they aren’t. The vaccine is real. We’ve all been injected. We even have a young man back at Shore Haven who let a zombie bite him to prove to another group that it was real. We don’t have time for that now. We need to get back on the road within the hour.”
“Where can we get the vaccine?” one of Dayton’s men asked before Dayton could respond to Jason.
“We have plenty for all of you, but we’ll have to take the rest with us. The doctors can make more once we get there, but we need plenty of samples for the German scientists to test immediately.”
Jason asked one of the doctors to bring a case of the vaccines out for Dayton’s people to see.
“Are there any side effects?” another person asked.
“Not really, but a few people have gotten sick right after taking the shot. They get better quickly,” Jason rushed to say to reassure the fear he saw in their eyes.
“How quickly,” Dayton asked.
“Within twenty-four hours.”
“That means we can’t go with you,” Dayton said.
“It doesn’t mean you can’t come, but I would advise that most of you not go with us. We won’t have time to care for a bunch of sick people. Only three out of the nearly twenty-something of us became ill, so the chances are small any of you will, but we need to make sure we get to New Norfolk soon. We don’t have any guarantees that the Germans won’t jump the gun and start bombing us before the designated time. They are supposed to give us time to get to them, but they may decide we aren’t coming.”
“How do you know about the bombing?” someone in the crowd asked.
“My Uncle Jasper. He’s been monitoring radio broadcasts. He heard the Germans sending out messages to survivors, trying to find out if a vaccine or cure was out here somewhere. He connected them with the C.D.C. lab, who told them what they had created and were working on, and they made plans to deliver a sample.”
Shore Haven Page 27
