“This could be the last time I ever look at it,” Chloe said.
Nolan patted Chloe on the knee. “It was home. It was a beautiful home, between all of us, if only for a short while.”
“I loved it here,” Chloe said, and a tear streamed down her cheek.
“We all did. Jim especially.”
“It feels like, like—” Chloe stopped to catch her breath. “Like I’m leaving him behind. Like I’m leaving him here.”
Nolan rubbed Chloe’s knee, noticed the Timex strapped to her wrist. It’d been almost twenty four hours since the madness had began.
“I have a feeling,” Nolan said, watching the second hand on Chloe’s wrist tick, “that he’s closer to you than you realize. That home isn’t him. It isn’t any of us. Home isn’t a place.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Chloe said, and she let out a soft sob. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.”
“I know,” Nolan said.
Chloe dabbed at her eyes with her shirt sleeve. She glanced around the Jeep, stuffed to the brim with bags of clothes and whatever food they could carry from the sparsely filled pantry beside their kitchen. “We have everything?” she asked. “We ready to go?”
Nolan started the Jeep, said: “I think I might have left the oven on.”
A small grin grew across Chloe’s face and she said, “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Chloe,” Nolan said, and he took one last look at the Whiteman home for himself. A couple of stragglers had wormed their way into the backyard. One was missing the bottom half of his face, his partner was undressed from the waist down. Both had papery skin and jelly like limbs that moved awkwardly and independently of one another. The one without pants started to beat at the window on the right side of the home—the window to Jim’s master bedroom, Nolan figured. Maybe it smelled the decomposing Sherri inside.
Maybe it smelled a free, easy meal.
Nolan turned the Jeep around onto Hemming. Chloe hadn’t taken her eyes off him or Max for the past few moments, and he didn’t want her to notice the strange infected that were roaming beside her house, eager to break in. More than anything, he didn’t want that to be her last memory of the Whiteman home.
The drive out toward state road thirty was calm and eerie. Night was starting to fall and the sun sank low on the horizon, yet the streetlights weren’t turning on. Passing gas stations and grocery stores stood quietly behind their unlit neon signs.
In the backseat, Max hummed and hugged his stuffed animal until he fell asleep. He was better off that way, Chloe thought, shielded from the nightmares outside. Nolan had passed no fewer than fifty corpses between home and the edge of town. Some were strewn across front yards, or hung out the windows of cars, but they weren’t always easy to spot. Chloe would catch herself finding one sprawled out on the roof of a passing suburban home, or squatted down and hugging the post of a mailbox.
“Do you remember Mr. Unser, our freshman year world history teacher?” Nolan asked, punctuating the silence and the stillness that had filled the cabin of the Jeep.
Chloe laughed. “How could I forget?”
“Halfway through the semester he gave a thirty minute lecture on Pompeii. You know Pompeii, right?”
“Yeah, Nole,” Chloe said.
“He said how most people imagine the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is wrong. Cartoon like. The idea of lava rolling down the mountain, setting fires and burning people as it oozed. He said the people closest to the top of the mountain didn’t have a chance to react to the eruption. That as soon as the volcano exploded, the rush of heat and pressure was so intense that…their heads just exploded—”
“Shit, Nolan, why are you talking about this?”
Nolan shook his head, studied the passing scenery as he drove the Jeep slowly through suburban streets. “People closer to the middle and the base of the mountain were swamped with falling ash, were frozen in place where they stood for eons to come.” Leaned against a stop sign was a partially decayed corpse; it had no legs, but it flailed it’s arms to and fro and clicked its hungry little jaws.
“These people here,” Nolan continued, “were our neighbors. Our friends. The people who delivered our mail and flipped our burgers at the Jack Rabbit Slim’s drive-through. And now, they’re just frozen here. Either dead, or half dead…whatever that even means anymore. All they are to us is a threat. Something that could be in our way. If the military ever comes through, that’s all they’ll be to them, too. Gun fodder.” Nolan swallowed. “I got so anxious during Unser’s lecture that day, I almost got sick. The thought of being at the top of that volcano during that eruption…it made me dizzy. But this? This is worse. This is long and dreadful. These people are stuck here, but they’re already forgotten. They’re at the base, watching the ash rain down on them. I’d prefer the flash, the instant heat and pressure. I’d prefer to not even see it coming. We have been suffering since New York—a two year long descent towards this. Part of me felt like this day would always come. I almost wished it’d come, just so I could stop thinking about it. The end of the world, Chloe, has been painfully slow.”
“You can’t talk like this,” Chloe said. “As long as we’re together, the world hasn’t ended, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know what awaits us, but I’m not going to just lay down and take it. I’m not going to sit at the base of the mountain, awestruck at the avalanche coming my way.”
One of the infected shambled from a corner sidewalk and out into the street. Nolan had to swerve to avoid it. As he continued down the road, he watched it in his rearview mirror—it stood there, statue still, and simply watched as Nolan drove away.
“I’m fully aware of the thin line that separates us from ending up like that guy back there,” Chloe said. “But it doesn’t discourage me. If anything, it actually encourages me. It encourages me to dance and laugh and love with you for as long as I’m allowed. To take care of that toddler in the backseat, to honor Hannah’s wish, for as long as I can stand.”
“That’s always been the difference between you and me,” Nolan said. “I hear a lecture about heads exploding during Mount Vesuvius, and it’s enough to make me sick. You see this—all this carnage, all this destruction, in all its awful glory—you’re actually face to face with it, and you still have hope.”
Chloe smiled. “I’m hoping that it someday rubs off on you.”
“Me too,” Nolan said. “Me too.”
Thirty minutes had passed and the trio were well on their way up state road thirty. The road was long and lonesome on even its most busiest of days. The motorway snaked through northern Colorado, avoided major metropolitan areas, a forgotten highway from a bygone era. Once it reached the border of Wyoming it shrunk to two lanes and became even more desolate, until it hooked across the border to Montana and eventually connected to a border station in lower Saskatchewan between Canada and the United States.
“There’s hardly anyone out here,” Nolan grumbled. “I haven’t seen a car for miles.”
Chloe kept her eyes patiently focused on the map in her lap. “State road thirty mostly hugs the Seven Lakes State Park. There’s hardly any nearby towns or cities.” Chloe sighed, leaned her head back in her seat. “He planned it this way, Nolan. Don’t you see?”
“Who? Jim?”
“Yes,” Chloe said, cheerfully. “Whatever’s out here is miles away from heavily populated areas. He put it there so that we might find it—with the right directions—and so that it’d be near impossible for someone to stumble upon. The lack of urban areas? He knew that if there was another EV1 outbreak, cities and towns would be the most dangerous areas. More people means more infected crowding through the streets. I don’t know what’s waiting for us, but I think my father beautifully engineered it.”
“I hope to God you’re right,” Nolan said. “We’re running low on gas and it’s getting late. If it snows like it did last night, and we’re stranded out here on an empty tank…” Nolan shook his head. “W
ell. It won’t be comfortable.”
“Here!” Chloe shouted.
“Here what?” Nolan asked.
“Turn here!”
Nolan decelerated the Jeep to a stop. Its breaks squeaked. There was an awful sound coming from the front axle. The vehicle was old, and its age was showing. Hannah and her mother hadn’t taken very good care of it in the time they owned it, and their lack of maintenance was apparent.
“Turn where?” Nolan said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Turn left,” Chloe said. “There should be an old access road west of us.”
Nolan squinted. On the left of him were dense rows of trees. Driving into them made as much sense as driving off a cliff.
“There’s nothing there,” Nolan said. “You must have made a mistake.”
“I don’t think so,” Chloe said. “I’ve been watching the mile marker signs carefully. I’ve been following the latitude and longitude lines on the map intensely.”
Nolan huffed, steered the Jeep to the left. With the headlights pointed at the row of trees, he could see a muddy, overgrown two lane road that carved into the pines ahead of him.
“Oh my God,” Nolan said. “You’re right.”
Chloe clapped. “Drive carefully.”
Nolan tapped his foot against the Jeep’s accelerator, and it lurched forward. “Your friend’s mom couldn’t have sprung for the sport model?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Nolan said. “Just that we’re about to go off-roading in a vehicle meant for dropping kids off at soccer practice.”
“Drive slow and careful, just like you have been. And we’ll make it there. We have two and a half miles on this road before it ends. Then, there’s a field we have to cut through. We make it through that, and we’ll be at the base of Mt. Tipoulk. We follow the edge of the mountain for a half mile or so, and we’ll be at the coordinates my father left us.”
“Okay,” Nolan said, and he took a big breath. The Jeep pushed into the bramble and branches that blocked its path, and then through them. They bent and slapped at the windshield of the vehicle as Nolan drove through.
The tires of the vehicle fought to cling to the sometimes muddy, sometimes snowy terrain. They spun in puddles and fishtailed through icy patches of road.
“I hope this is worth it,” Nolan said.
“I have a feeling it will be,” Chloe replied.
“I hope you’re right. If we get stuck now, we’re shit outta luck. We don’t have so much as a tent.”
The Jeep hummed over uneven terrain, then dipped. The frame of the vehicle shook, and Max woke up.
“Where are we?” Max asked, and he rubbed his eyes.
Chloe thought for a second. She had no idea how to answer that question. Where was it that they were going? What had her father left for her, buried so far away in the middle of the woods? Children can sense uncertainty and lying; but, she didn’t want to upset the small toddler.
“We’re going…home.” Chloe said. “A new home. You’re going to stay with us for a while, is that okay?”
“Will my mom be there?”
“I don’t think so,” Chloe said. “We’re very far from your home, and she’s very busy. But I promised her I’ll take super good care of you. Just until she can meet up with us.”
“When will that be?” Max asked.
Chloe chewed at her bottom lip. “I don’t know, buddy.”
She felt awful; her insides twisted and knotted with each lie she told the child. But how do you unveil that kind of truth to someone who is only three? How do you unveil it to anyone, really?
The Jeep sputtered down the mud soaked road for the two and a half miles, just as Chloe had predicted, before it opened up to wide field, brushed with snow. There was only one problem: the thirty foot wide creek between the end of the road and the field that lay ahead.
“What is this?” Nolan asked. “Is this on the map?”
Chloe shook her head. “No, no, it isn’t…”
“Then what happened? Are we lost?”
“No,” Chloe said. “Everything’s been exactly where it should be.”
“Is there a creek on the map?”
“No,” Chloe said. “Hold on.” She furrowed her brows and scanned the map with a studious intensity. “There,” Chloe said, and she flicked a square patch at the top of the map. “The Little Bear Creek runs north of us. This must be some runoff. Some overflow.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We drive through it,” Chloe said. “It can’t possibly be that deep.”
“We just came off two miles of uneven, muddy road. Who cares how deep it is. If we get stuck, we’ll be screwed. We’ll have to grab as much as we can carry, abandon the Jeep, and walk the rest of the way. It could take hours. We’ll be wet, and it’ll be freezing out.”
“Trust me,” Chloe said. “We’ll get through it.”
“You can’t know that,” Nolan replied. “You’re hoping we’ll get through. But you don’t know that we will.”
“Then what, Nolan? We turn around? Drive all the way back out to state road thirty and look for another way in? On what, a half tank of gas?”
“A little less than a half tank, now—”
“Great, Nole. The Little Bear stretches for miles. If there’s overflow here, then there’s overflow north of us and south of us, too. Even if I could find another way in, we’d still have to cross it.”
Nolan shook his head, smacked the steering wheel.
“I can drive, now, if you want me to.”
“No,” Nolan said. “Let’s just get this over with.”
The Jeep groaned forward and into the edge of the creek. Nolan breathed a sigh of relief—the tires held their traction, and the vehicle sped forward. It wasn’t any worse than driving through a puddle after a storm.
At first.
When Nolan had nearly forded the creek to its midway point, it took a sudden dip in depth. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, struggled to keep the Jeep pointed forward.
The water of the creek rose to two-thirds up the height of the Jeeps’ small tires. Though it washed past slowly, it made driving difficult. Near impossible.
“What’s happening?” Max asked.
“Nothing, Max,” Chloe said. “We’re almost there.”
Nolan fought the steering wheel to stay on course. The Jeep slid to the side, the wheels spun, and then—by some gentle miracle—they caught against a firm mound of soil, not yet weakened and loosened by the water. The Jeep rocketed forward into the shallower water ahead.
Chloe cheered.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Nolan said. “Literally.”
The Jeep’s sewing machine motor hummed, and the homeless trio sped out and over the great field ahead of them. Flurries of snow kicked up behind them.
The sun was even lower now. Twilight was taking its grasp.
Nolan arrived at the base of Mt. Tipoulk, just as Chloe had estimated they would. He followed a narrow path along the bottom of the great mountain, one that was probably meant for hikers, snowmobilers, or campers who had rented all-terrain vehicles. Still, the Jeep squeezed through, chugged along the narrow, snaking trail that looked to have not been used in ages.
Nolan read the odometer. They had travelled the required half mile or so, and not far ahead was The Little Bear Creek. Not so little, and more river than Creek, Nolan thought. There’d be no crossing it.
“It says we’re here,” Nolan huffed. He scanned the dense patches of trees on either side of the Jeep.
“I don’t understand,” Chloe said. “We should be right on top of it—”
“On top of what?” Nolan scuffed. “We don’t even know what we’re looking for. If only we had a little more light—”
“Shut up,” Chloe said, and she pointed out the windshield of the car. “Look.”
“What?” Nolan said. “I don’t see anything.”
“Look,” Chloe repeated.
Nolan squinted, and he saw it, clear as day. It’d been practically camouflaged by the recent snow; the color of its log exterior blended perfectly to the trees around it.
A cabin, lonesome, in the middle of the woods.
“Let’s get out,” Nolan said, but Chloe had already unbuckled her seatbelt. She’d hurried around to the rear of the car, opened the door beside Max, and lifted him from his booster seat.
“I guess here’s as good a place as any to park,” Nolan laughed, and he shifted the Jeep into park, twisted the key in the ignition and stepped out. The air was clean, crisp, and quiet.
“I’m guessing that’s what this is for,” Chloe said, and she bounced Max up and onto her arm as she slid the heavy bronze key from out of her pants pocket.
The three marched forward through the snow, up the beaten path that lead between the trees and towards the face of the cabin.
Nolan inhaled deeply. “This…this is amazing,” he said. “We’re so far from everything. The chaos. The carnage. We’re…free.”
Chloe plugged the heavy key into the lock beneath the doorknob, and the front door groaned open.
“How long do you think he knew about this?” Chloe asked.
Nolan ignored her. On a small dining table in the center of the cabin was a folded letter. He walked towards it, picked it up, unfolded it…and started to cry.
“What?” Chloe said. “What is it?”
“Here,” Nolan said, and he handed the paper to Chloe and outstretched his arms for Max. “Let’s trade.”
Max shifted from Chloe’s arms to Nolan’s, and Chloe carefully opened the folded piece of notebook paper. She trembled as she read:
Chloe, Nolan—
If you’re reading this, then the worst-case scenario has happened. EV1 is back, and I couldn’t be beside you on your journey here. Whatever has prevented me from being there with you right now, know that I am truly sorry for it. That I regret it.
I found the cabin you’re standing in not long after I started work at Seven Lakes. No one seemed to believe it existed. So, I took it as my own. I took great care to stockpile it with everything we’d need, should we ever have to disappear here. It’s remote. It’s reclusive. It should have all you need, should the two of you need to make a fresh start.
The Hours Page 44
