The Becoming: Revelations

by Jessica Meigs

  Remy was in the first place Cade checked: the bedroom she’d staked out as her own for the past three months. She stood beside the bed, shaking out a fitted sheet to spread over the bare mattress, a frown gracing her face. Cade stopped in the doorway and watched her for a second, trying to determine if it was safe to enter, before she tapped two knuckles lightly against the doorframe. Remy startled and turned, giving Cade a tight, compressed semblance of a smile before returning to her work with the sheet.

  “Hi,” Cade greeted her. She took a couple of steps into the room to lean against the wall. “You need a hand?”

  “No, I’ve got it,” Remy muttered. She climbed onto the mattress to hook the sheet over the top edge of it.

  “So, ah, Ethan’s awake,” Cade said, deciding not to hedge around the reason she’d come there. Remy seemed completely indifferent to the revelation, which suggested to Cade that she’d already heard the news. Cade sighed and crossed her arms, cupping her elbows in her palms. “You still plan to leave?”

  “Yes,” Remy said. She snapped the end of the fitted sheet around the foot of the mattress. “Nothing that’s happened—or not happened—in the past three months has changed my mind on that.” She smoothed both hands over the sheet and grabbed the flat one, shaking it out. “Just waiting on Derek to wrap things up with Ethan so I can take my turn.”

  Cade pressed her lips together and watched how Remy avoided her gaze. Rather than mention it, she merely asked, “Where do you plan to go?”

  “Somewhere,” Remy said. “Anywhere but here.” She flung the sheet out from her and let it drift down onto the bed. “Dominic has some family up in Pennsylvania he wants to try to find. I might just go with him.”

  Cade raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Dominic? I thought you hated Dominic.”

  Remy shrugged and tossed a blanket haphazardly onto the bed. “Shit changes,” she said, her voice a bit coarse. “So do people, for that matter.” She glanced through the bedroom door to the closed one just across the hall. “I can’t be around him. Not after …”

  “Not after seeing him like that for the past three months?” Cade suggested gently.

  “Not after he tried to kill me,” Remy corrected. The scars from Ethan’s attack marred her features, stripping away part of her natural beauty.

  Cade nodded in understanding and let her arms drop to her sides. “Are you going to come back some day?”

  “I might. I don’t know yet.”

  Cade sighed and moved to the younger woman, hesitating only a second before wrapping her into a tight hug. Though she’d never been one for displays of affection, for once, the gesture didn’t make Cade uncomfortable. “Just be careful, okay?” she requested as Remy returned the hug. “You’re like a little sister to me, and I don’t want you to just disappear and never come back.”

  “When I get my shit settled, you’re never going to be able to get rid of me,” Remy said with a little laugh. “Besides, I’m not leaving for at least three more days. You’re not quite rid of me yet!”

  Cade gave her another squeeze before letting go. “Just don’t randomly take off in the middle of the night, okay? Not unless you’re on a mission to piss me off, that is. Because then I’ll just track you down and smack you with a shoe.”

  Cade’s Journal

  July 3, 2010

  It’s been three months since the hell we fought through in Atlanta, Georgia. We fought, some of us died—but we accomplished what we set out to do. We stopped Alicia Day.

  And yet, I feel no real sense of victory in writing that.

  To say Alicia Day was pretty messed up is probably an understatement. She made absolutely terrible decisions, decisions that cost many people their lives. But, in the end, Alicia was just as much a victim of the Michaluk virus as the rest of us. If not more so.

  The virus was controlling her, altering her instincts and her behaviors, making her take actions she normally wouldn’t have. The virus was behaving in exactly the same way as it did in every other infected person roaming the world. The only difference was that Alicia still had her conscious mind, her human mind, competing with the virus’s effects. It wasn’t all Alicia’s fault, any more than it is the fault of those others who are infected—they’re only reacting in the way the virus tells them to. Nothing more.

  The danger didn’t end with Alicia’s death. The infected didn’t magically disappear when Brandt and I fired those two bullets. They’re still something we have to live with, something we have to guard against. Alicia wasn’t the only threat. But she was a threat, and I believe even she recognized that in the end.

  Those of us who survived—there were forty-four in all—found a place to establish what we believe to be the first real community in the southeast, inside a gated housing development outside of Charleston, South Carolina. In the past couple of weeks, we have begun experimenting with agricultural ideas, toying with what to grow and where to grow it. A few scavenging groups even found several hens—next up is, by all accounts, a rooster. I personally would like to see some cows, for the milk, but I’m not holding my breath.

  In other news, Derek seems to have done his job. The moment we returned from Atlanta, he treated Remy to the best of his ability and then moved on to his research. Just last week, he achieved what I had begun to believe would never be achieved: he found a cure for the Michaluk virus. And Alicia was right: it had been in Brandt’s blood all along.

  Brandt may have saved us all. Just like I knew he would.

  As Cade wrote the last words in her journal entry, Brandt finally came in from his work across the street, dripping with sweat from the heat of the sun. He retreated to the bathroom to clean up, and when he returned, he flopped backward on the bed with a low groan. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a herd of sheep.”

  Cade raised her eyebrows and looked up from the notebook in which she’d been scribbling by the light of the camping lantern. “A herd of sheep?” she repeated. She slipped her pen into the notebook and slowly closed it, setting it on the table and shifting to face the man sprawled on the bed.

  “Yes, sheep,” Brandt confirmed. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and leaned back against his elbows. “I helped with the digging today—I know you saw that. And I walked the perimeter to make sure the fence was still secure and the guys patrolling it were okay for the night shift tonight.”

  “And what else did you do?” Cade asked curiously, smiling as she propped her chin in her hand, resting her own elbow on the arm of the chair.

  “And that’s pretty much it,” Brandt said. He slid off the bed and knelt onto the floor at her feet, reaching out to lightly touch her stomach. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling … I’m feeling like I really want to go see Ethan,” Cade admitted. “Since he’s awake now. I want to make sure he’s okay, see how he’s doing. But I don’t want to go alone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m a little scared of what I’ll see,” Cade confessed, ducking her head slightly. She didn’t think she’d have been able to tell anyone else in the house that and not have to worry about getting a scoffing reaction. Brandt would understand.

  The man lifted a hand and gently ran it over her hair before rising to his feet and offering the hand to her. “Come on, then. Let’s go see how he is,” he agreed. Cade gave him a grateful smile and took his hand, lacing their fingers together as she rose from her chair. She let Brandt lead her out into the hall and several doors down to a closed bedroom door. They paused outside of it and listened carefully before Cade reached for the doorknob.

  The man in the bed resembled Ethan, but only vaguely so. What Cade could see of the figure under the blankets was horribly thin, almost gaunt; to say he was “malnourished,” as Derek described it, was an understatement of epic proportions. Cade couldn’t bring herself to move forward, couldn’t force her feet to take the steps that would propel her to her best friend’s bedside. She turned her head to look to Brandt, seeking …
she didn’t know what. Comfort? Reassurance? The courage to take the few steps between her and the bed? Brandt squeezed her hand and gave her an encouraging smile before dislodging his hand from hers and gently pushing her forward. As she took that first stumbling step, a soft voice from the bed spoke up, breaking the silence in the room.

  “Cade?”

  He might not have looked much like the friend she’d known for eight years, but Ethan certainly sounded like him. Cade drew in a fortifying breath and moved forward, sliding to her knees beside the bed. She found his thin hand with her own and took it carefully.

  “Fuck, Ethan,” she murmured, brushing a stray lock of hair from his eyes. “You look miserable.” She hesitated, her hand tightening just slightly around his, before she repeated the question Brandt had asked her only moments before. “How are you feeling?”

  Ethan turned his head toward her and smiled. “Like I’m going to be okay.”

  Acknowledgements

  A novel is never written in total isolation, and The Becoming: Revelations is certainly no exception. So I have to take a few moments to say thank you to a few people who helped make this happen.

  First, my family and friends: parents and sisters, for their never-ending love and support. I’m incredibly lucky to have you all.

  To Permuted Press and Jacob Kier: many, many thanks for not only taking a chance on my books, but for dealing with my random-ass emails over the past two-plus years.

  To my editor, Stephanie Gianopoulos, for helping me refine and improve on the manuscript during the editing phases.

  Loads of thanks to my beta readers (you know who you are) for your own help and support with the book’s development.

  To the Indie Writers Unite (IWU) and the Insiders: you’ve been there since literally the beginning, and you’ve offered help with everything large and small and gave encouragement whenever I needed it, and I can’t thank you enough for that.

  To Rhiannon Frater and Dana Fredsti: holy cow, ladies, what can I say? You two are so amazing and supportive and helpful, it’s ridiculous. I firmly believe I would probably flounder without your help and advice, and I can’t thank you enough for it all.

  And, lastly, to my readers: Thank you all. And keep an eye out for more adventures involving the crew from the Becoming series! As they say, this isn’t the end; it’s only the beginning of the end.

  About the Author

  Jessica Meigs is the author of The Becoming, a post-apocalyptic thriller series that follows a group of people trying to survive a massive viral outbreak in the southeastern United States. After gaining notoriety for having written the series on a variety of BlackBerry devices, she self-published two novellas that now make up the first book of the series. In April 2011, she accepted a three-book deal with Permuted Press to publish a trilogy of novels. The first of the trilogy, entitled The Becoming, was released in November 2011 in paperback, eBook, and audiobook formats. It was also named one of Barnes & Noble’s Best Zombie Fiction Releases of 2011 and Best Apocalyptic Fiction Releases of 2011 by reviewer Paul Goat Allen.

  Jessica lives in semi-obscurity in Demopolis, Alabama. When she’s not writing, she works full time as an EMT. She enjoys listening to music and spends way too much time building playlists for everything she writes. When she’s not traveling or writing or working, she can be found on Twitter @JessicaMeigs, on Facebook at facebook.com/JessicaMeigs, and on Goodreads at goodreads.com/JessicaMeigs. You can also visit her website at www.jessicameigs.com.