Exposed

by RJ Crayton

  “Josh,” she called and ran toward it. She was so excited. A bike in the woods! Her heart soared. They’d finally caught that lucky break she’d been hoping for. It wasn’t just a regular bike; it was a tandem bike. It was on its side, but the wheels appeared to be in decent shape.

  She stopped in front of the bike and stood there smiling, waiting for Josh. This was impossibly wonderful. A bike! A bike they could both use. She scoured the immediate vicinity to see if there was anything else useful, and that was when she screamed. Instinctively she backed away and covered her mouth with her hand.

  Josh ran up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her to him. “What’s wrong?”

  She pointed to the decomposing couple a few yards away. The two bodies were fairly close to each other, as if they’d died together, lying at the foot of the tree. They weren’t just skeletons, but they weren’t still bodies, either. Flesh or muck or something dark brown was on top of their bones. But in many places the flesh had been eaten away by animals or insects.

  Josh eyed the bodies hesitantly, then reached for the bike. The silvery thread of a spider web shook loose from the frame as Josh lifted it. Elaan stepped back. “You’re taking it?” she asked.

  “That’s why you called me over here, right? For the bike.”

  Well, yes, that was why she’d called him over, and he was right that it was important. But she’d called him over before she’d seen the bodies, and now taking it made her feel like a grave robber. She knew they needed the bike, but the bodies bothered her. She couldn’t help peeking back at the people who were probably its owners. “What about them?” she asked.

  “They don’t need it anymore,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  He was right, but she couldn’t feel as detached as he did about it. “What do you think happened to them?” she whispered.

  Josh’s gaze darted quickly to the bodies, before returning to Elaan. “They died. Even if they died of the virus, it can only live for at most, three days after a person dies. And that’s in an ideal tropical climate. Last night’s cold would’ve killed anything dangerous. Plus, it seems like they’ve been dead longer than three days.”

  Elaan couldn’t help eyeing the bodies again, and her breakfast churned in her stomach. Josh had set the bike on the ground so it was upright. The bike had a metal basket on the front. Elaan noticed a water flask near the bodies. There might have been other things at one point, but whatever had been gnawing at the victims probably had also eaten whatever food supplies the couple had, and dragged off anything else useful. She turned away from the bodies, back to Josh. He was surveying the path out of the forest.

  “We should carry this,” he said. “Can you lift the back end? I don’t want to puncture the tires.”

  Elaan cringed at the sight of the rotting bodies. Then she grabbed the bike under the rear seat and lifted. It was heavier than it looked, but she trudged forward with it, not daring to glance back at the bodies. It took them longer than she would have expected to get back to the path where Josh had left the wagon.

  Because the bike’s basket was big enough to fit the duffel, they decided to leave the wagon in the woods, a sort of karmic exchange. They put the duffel in the basket, and carried the bike out of the woods in just a few minutes. They set the bike down, and Josh wiped sweat from his brow.

  It was sunny now. Despite the rain and chill of last night, the day had turned out to be fairly warm. Josh looked around and frowned. “The pond isn’t to our left,” he said after a moment. “We’re off course.”

  “How far?”

  He shrugged, and scanned the area. Elaan wasn’t sure what he hoped to see, but he seemed to have something in mind as his eyes searched the landscape. “I can’t tell yet. Nothing is familiar from the map. With the bike, we can make up some time and get to our destination in a third of the time.”

  There was no one around. But Josh always referred to Dahinda simply as their destination. She supposed it was a good idea, but it also scared her. Was this her new life? Always scared that someone might overhear her, that they might find out where she was going and somehow use that information to hurt her? Or would she end up like that couple back there? Would she and Josh end up rotting bodies on the side of the road, and the people who found them only care about their bike? They’d leave their carcasses to decay by a tree, and steal their stuff. They’d mean nothing to anybody anymore. No one would care what happened to them or what became of them.

  “You okay, Elaan?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Two people died, and we didn’t do anything but steal their bike, Josh. Doesn’t that seem wrong to you?”

  He wrapped his arms around her. “I know that seemed harsh,” he said. “But that’s the world we’re in right now. We don’t have time to figure out everything that went wrong. We can only deal with the situation at hand and move on. There was nothing we could do for them.”

  “Bury them,” she whispered into his chest. “Something.”

  Josh rubbed her back. “I know,” he said, pausing. “I wish there was something we could do, but we don’t have the tools to bury anyone. They shouldn’t be contagious, but there are other concerns with moving bodies.”

  He was right. Always so logical. She didn’t want to touch the bodies, but she did feel like they deserved more than what they had gotten, a slow death alone. Well, not quite alone. They had each other, but they were still dead.

  “Why don’t we say a prayer for them?” Josh suggested.

  Elaan pulled away and nodded. “Yeah, I think I’d feel better.”

  Josh took her hand, bowed his head. “Dear Lord,” he began. She bowed her head too, as he continued. “We pray for the souls of those two that have passed. May you take them into your arms and hold them well for their afterlife. May you also give comfort to their families here on earth, and give them strength and courage to continue on without their loved ones. Amen.”

  Elaan lifted her head. “Thanks,” she said. “That was nice. And good, for on the fly.”

  “It’s what the minister said at my mother’s funeral.”

  A funeral for his mother. His mother was gone, just like … just like she had thought her mother was gone. Only, that had been a lie. Her mother was alive. But Josh hadn’t had such good fortune. His mother was gone forever. She squeezed his hand tighter. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it must be hard for you. I’ve gotten a reprieve with my mom, news from a soap opera — she’s not dead. And you’re still without yours.”

  “A lot of people are without someone they love,” he said, releasing her hand. “We need to get on our way.”

  He turned toward the bike, walked over to it and squatted, feeling the tires. A hint of panic crept into Elaan. The bike was useless without working wheels. “Are they flat?”

  “Yeah,” he said, but he didn’t seem too bothered by it. He unstrapped something from the body of the bike and held it up. It looked like a large syringe. “Portable bike pump,” he said, pulling back the plunger. “We can just pump and go. But if there’s a puncture from the woods, we can’t fix it. So hopefully, they’ll inflate.”

  She watched as he hooked the pump to the bike’s tire and began pumping. After a few minutes, he’d filled both tires and given them each a squeeze to assure they were plump enough. “Should be good,” Josh said. “I just hope things didn’t get rusty.”

  She nodded. “So, you said the bike could get us there in a third of the time. Is that like two more days?”

  “Yeah. If we can do ten miles per hour, which I think is reasonable, for seven hours a day, maybe eight, we’ll get there in three days, including today.”

  Three days. She’d been expecting to walk more than a week and now, by pushing themselves, they could get there in just a couple more days. Seven hours of biking did seem like a lot. Still, she wanted to see her mother. Josh’s mother was dead. He would never see his mother again. But her mother was alive. She’d been thinking about it wrong. She w
as mad about the deception, but ultimately, her mother was alive. That was more than she should have been able to hope for. A mother who was living and breathing and who she could hug again, see again. She wanted that now. More than anything.

  Chapter 18

  Elaan was beginning to feel like everything was running together. They’d biked the remainder of the day they found the bike, and most of yesterday. It had been long and hard but much more efficient than walking.

  They’d seen a few more cars on the road; no one stopped and asked what they were doing. No one asked if they needed a hand, either. You’d have thought people would be helpful, or would come together in a crisis. Though, not if the crisis was a virus. The new normal was to stay away from people you didn’t know. Anyone they passed seemed intent on staying as far away from them as possible.

  Last night, the place they’d stayed had been more like an awning. Something people might have used to store firewood or hay bales. It was only about four feet wide, a piece of tin held up by sticks in a field. They’d woken up cold and with insect bites, but they’d survived another night.

  As ambivalent as she was feeling about her mother, she wanted nothing more than to go to her. Her mother’s place had to be better than this. She had to have figured out how to set up some type of life, right?

  They were pedaling now, and every part of her ached. She hadn’t done anything this physically demanding for this long. She just wanted to curl up and lie down in a warm bed with warm food. She wanted home, and nothing said home like Mom. Even a mom who let you believe she was dead.

  Elaan tapped Josh, who was peddling in front of her. “Josh, can we take a break?”

  He nodded and guided the bike to the side of the road. She dismounted, grabbed a water bottle from the basket, opened it and swallowed down most of the bottle’s contents. She sat down on the gravel and put her head between her knees.

  “Tired?” he asked.

  She nodded and lifted her head. “More exhausted than I’ve ever been.”

  Josh had gotten his own water bottle and squatted next her, taking a sip. “I’m pushing too hard,” he said. “I’m sorry. We can slow down.”

  “No,” Elaan said. “The days are miserable, but the nights are worse when we have to find some place that turns out crappy. We need to get to my mom, not spend more nights out here,” she said waving her arm around at the empty landscape.

  She reached down the back of her shirt to scratch a bite she’d gotten.

  “No, I’m sorry. We should’ve tried to find another house,” he said.

  Elaan shook her head. “After that guy pulled a shotgun on us? No. I don’t want to get shot. Too bad your dad didn’t pack us a gun.” She chuckled, waiting for him to chuckle, too. But he didn’t. He just sipped his water and stared at the ground.

  “You have a gun?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “It’s not the most useful. It’s a subcompact Beretta Storm.” The term didn’t mean a whole lot to Elaan.

  “Is that a good gun?”

  He shrugged. “It’s better than nothing,” he said. “It shoots nicely, and has a pretty large clip. People tend to like it for conceal and carry, because it’s small. Holds fifteen rounds. I have one extra clip.”

  She had never pegged Josh as a gun enthusiast. But he had grown up in Virginia, and gone to school in Texas, which were two pretty gun-loving states. She sighed and watched him in a new light. “Wait,” she said. “So you’ve had it the whole time? Even when we were on the train? We could have used it to get off the train. Instead of him holding a gun on us, it could have been the other way around. Lijah could be here with us. We wouldn’t have had to leave him on that train.”

  Josh was shaking his head. “When could I have used it on Willie?” he said. “After he pulled the gun on us. He would have shot me if I’d gone for my gun. Before he pulled the gun on us? A preemptive strike? We brandish the weapon, tell him we’ll shoot him if he doesn’t let us off. And then he lets us off and two seconds later, tells the inspection guy we just got off the train and headed into the mausoleum. We would have been caught immediately. Or were you suggesting I murder him in cold blood?”

  “No,” she said, feeling guilty for her reaction. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It just surprised me, and I’m still upset that we had to leave Lijah. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

  “It’s OK,” he said. “It’s been a rough few days.”

  They both finished their water. Elaan wanted another bottle, but they didn’t have enough for that. They’d gotten lucky and found a well to replenish their supplies yesterday, but biking took a lot of energy and they needed water and food to keep up the pace.

  She sighed. “Let’s get back on.”

  “We can rest longer if you want,” Josh said.

  She did want to, but she wanted to move on more than she wanted to rest. They stood and Elaan wrapped her arms around him. “Thanks for being so nice and understanding. I shouldn’t have snapped at you about the gun.”

  He released her. “It’s alright,” he said. “We’re both stressed.”

  “Really?” she said. “You don’t show it.”

  “Just ’cause I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “You can talk to me if you want to. You don’t have to keep it all in there,” she said as she placed a hand on his chest. “It helps, sometimes if you talk about it.”

  He shook his head. “I just want to ride,” he said. “The physical motion, the fact that I have to concentrate on the road, that helps keep my mind off my worries.”

  Elaan nodded and smiled back at him, but she did wish he’d confide some of his worries to her. Even though his worries might inspire new worries in her, it would feel better knowing he had worries that were like hers. With little else to say, they mounted the bike and rode off.

  * * *

  They stopped twice more for a break, and by the time they rolled through a town called Peoria, they were exhausted, and it was five o’clock. They weren’t sure they would make it to their destination by nightfall, as they’d hoped. And even if they did, they didn’t have a very accurate map. Dahinda was a dot. They weren’t going to be able to find the address on their own.

  Like most towns they’d passed through, Peoria’s streets were pretty deserted. They hadn’t talked about it, but it seemed that the death tolls had to be higher than they’d thought. She wondered if the government’s desire to eliminate Josh and take her in for further experimentation stemmed from the extreme number of deaths. Something higher than they’d known or understood. The name Scientist Protection Unit suggested it was a place to protect the scientists from the world. But had it been more? Was it a way to protect the human race? A way to make sure at least some people survived? Were things so bad that there was hardly anyone left?

  She was feeling a bit dejected, and then Josh said, “Look,” pointing up ahead. She craned her neck and saw a gas station: Huck’s. She’d seen a few stations with that name, though they didn’t have any back at home. The fact that the sign was lit and it appeared to be open made her heart leap.

  “Should we stop?” she called.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We can talk to someone at least, get a better feel of what’s going on, and buy some food if he’s got any.”

  “OK,” Elaan said, and they rode up a steep incline to the station and parked the bike outside the convenience store part of the station. A neon sign said open, but bars covered the glass doors. Josh walked over and tugged the door handle. It didn’t budge.

  It was locked. Inside the store, there was food on the shelves. Not full racks of stuff, but definitely enough they could get what they needed. There were chips, candy, snack cakes, canned food, and more. She hated being so close to what they wanted with no way to get it.

  Elaan had an urge to smash the glass door and go right in. It was a stupid urge, because it was wrong. And of course, the bars would make smashing
the glass useless. That was when they heard a voice.

  “What do you want?”

  Elaan scanned the area but saw no one besides her and Josh.

  “Up here,” the voice said.

  She and Josh both tipped their heads back and spotted a speaker and a video camera.

  “We want to buy some food and water,” Josh said to the camera.

  The voice from the speaker gave a sigh. “Look through the glass door, write down what you want, and then read me your list. I’ll give you the total price, and if you want to pay, tell me. I’ll get what you want, and when I let you know, you come around to the side of the building. You’ll pay your money through the slot, and I’ll give you your groceries through the window.”

  Josh glanced at Elaan then back up at the camera. He nodded. They walked over to the glass doors and peered inside. “We need water,” Josh said. “And I’d like something other than granola bars and those peanut butter and jelly things.”

  “Me too.” As much as she craved something junky and indulgent, the reality of their biking journey weighed on her mind. They needed something that would last. “They’ve got jerky,” she said.

  Josh nodded. “There’s also a couple of cans of stuff. Beans and wieners, ravioli, that kind of thing.”

  “It’s the kind with the tops you pull off. Let’s get two of each.” She glanced over at the basket on the front of the bike. “It should just fit, or we can eat it right here. But I want something different.”

  They took a couple more minutes to decide. Once Josh had finished the list of about a dozen items, including a dessert of shortbread cookies, they waited.

  “That will be two hundred dollars,” the voice said.

  Elaan’s eyes widened. “How much?”

  “Two hundred dollars,” the voice repeated. “If you don’t want to pay, get on off the property. Most places are closed because they don’t want to get sick. It cost a lot of money to get this setup so I can stay open.”