by catt dahman
When she begged for mercy for herself and a child, Beth thought of those that this woman had fed on while they screamed in pain. Carla stabbed people to save herself, and Beth remembered the horror before aiming and killing them both with no regrets. Some of the members of the Reconstruction Army, a group that tortured people to death, cannibalized many people and were hybrids.
But they knew others, such as Ponce, who were normal and didn’t eat people.
Jet, on hands and knees, reached over to Hannah, yanked her hair to one side, and grabbed the back of her neck. Everyone shuffled, but she didn’t cry out, only allowed him to look for her tattoo. He stood. “There’s a scar.”
“No shit. Mom cut it off me; it hurt like hell, but it needed to be done so I would be safe.”
“My God.” Lance stared at her. Having a tattoo cut away sounded painful.
“If you hate and fear me, then you do, but I can’t help it. I have never let it change me. Did you hate people infected with AIDS back in the day?”
“They didn’t bite people,” Jet screamed at her.
“Neither do I,” said Hannah as she stood, facing him.
“Yet.”
She had never slapped her brother, but the pop rang out as her hand left a red mark across his cheek. Jet turned and left the room.
“I don’t care,” Robbin said, “I guess you wouldn’t sleep with people ‘cause they’d get infected or wouldn’t bite them either. You take care of cravings; we like Ponce; who cares?”
“I don’t care, either,” Ricky said.
“What do you use to color your hair pink?” Anthony asked Pinky, “what? I changed the subject. Who cares?”
“Berries,” Pinky told him, “what’s AIDS?”
Sarah promised to explain later. “Are you okay, Hannah?”
“I guess. I have a habit of shocking people.”
She told the rest that she planned to trade for salt close to the ocean if the people had it; she thought they did, and then she would take it back to Hopetown. She also wanted to kill zombies and take out any rebel gangs they encountered.
Adam laughed. “I always pegged you as a tough girl.”
“I chopped up the medical nuts who did this to me. I have a vengeful streak towards anyone who wants to harm my family, my friends, or me. I wanna see the coast though. I want to know what it’s like now, and I want to find people like me. I just didn’t know I really would.”
Jet stayed outside and volunteered for guard duty, refusing to speak to or about his sister. She ignored him as well. The rest of the group shook off Hannah’s news and acted as if nothing changed as they were shown places to sleep or places to put their sleeping bags.
“He’ll come around,” Adam told Hannah as they walked, “I think he’s had a few shocks today.”
“I guess. I don’t know if they’ll still want me with them. I hope they do.”
“I think they will. I hope maybe we can all go together, and maybe if we stay outside Hopetown, we can trade for some fresh food from your home when you go back with the salt. We’ll get you to help us know what to trade.”
“I’m sure they’d let everyone in…with quarantines, of course…me too now that it’s known. Books about how to do things will be good to trade if you find them in good shape.
“We may need more choices in case books might be used for fires.”
“Why did you take the inoculation after saying you wouldn’t?”
It had been awhile since Adam had learned how to protect himself and had gone back to his neighborhood to find his grandmother. He had put her down and then buried her but stayed on his own, finding the people he knew.
But he still didn’t take it for a while and felt perfectly safe. “I hated the zoms so much; they represented what we had lost, and they weren’t poor, pitiful people: they were monsters, absolute horrible monsters.”
“I agree,” Hannah said.
“I hated losing Chase; she was a good friend; I was filled with hatred and wanted an edge so I could kill every zom I could find…like you feel. I didn’t think about it a lot…having the immunity to the infection; I just did it one day when I was pissed off.” It had been awhile since Adam had taken inoculation
“Are you sorry?”
“I’m sorry the world sucks so badly that I had to do it. I’m sorry the bastards designed this, unleashed it, and killed the world. I’m really sorry that being fully human wasn’t enough to kill them all. I don’t hate it, just as I don’t hate a rifle, but I hate when I have to shoot someone who is infected, didn’t want it, and is suffering.”
“That’s not a full answer.”
“No. I don’t regret taking it. Yes, I regret taking it. It’s both.”
“I hate it,” Hannah said.
“The zeds get rotty and erode. The Reds still function, and they reproduce.”
“You know that? Good. It’s sickening.”Hannah said.
“We found a nest, and I won’t go into it ‘cause it’s revolting, but their spawn grow fast…maybe double, and they are faster. Adam said.
There aren’t many yet, but in another ten years, the things will be as deadly as hell. Give ‘em a few generations, and they’ll be fast and maybe able to think or plan instead of just act like hives.”
“Scary. We need to wipe them out. I wonder what my mom would think about your having the immunizations? I think she would go hell bent into the middle and burn them.”
Adam thought about that. “What do you hate the most? The inoculations and being a hybrid, as you say.”
“Being alone.” She hoped he understood her. Other people could hold hands and have a kiss, but she never could for fear of infecting him. She didn’t get to be like other boys and girls, who liked one another, felt puppy love, had romances, fell in love, got married, and had children. Hannah was always on the outside looking in.
Adam held her hand. “You aren’t alone. And you’re beautiful, Hannah, and smart and wonderful.” He waved at a man and then gave Pinky a quick hug goodnight. “Sleep tight; don’t bite the bedbugs.” She giggled.
Adam was showing Hannah around. “That’s where I sleep. Alone, in case you wondered.”
“I see.” She blushed and felt her stomach flutter.
“There’s never been anyone else,” Adam said, his big brown eyes sad.
“I’m glad.” She walked into his room, nervous but smiling.
He kicked the door closed and locked it behind him.
Chapter 11
Roads Diverged
Jet elbowed Lance as they ate yet another meal of venison and canned food, missing their fresh food. Every day, just like the people of Hopetown did, they went out to look for food and supplies, quietly dispatched zombies with melee weapons, and checked for breaches of security. Unlike their people, there were no safety drills, training programs, social events, sports, or work in gardens and with herd animals.
“It’s as if everyone else lives in the caveman days,” Lance grumbled.
“I didn’t know how good we have it. Camping was fun, but this is all they have day after day?”
Lance kicked at some trash. “They move around. Nomads.”
“Cavemen,” Jet said again, “in ten years, there won’t be skills or education, just hunting for food and struggling. How can this be the best humans can do?”
“It isn’t. You know, this conversation alone shows we’re growing up if we are suddenly concerned over skills and education.” Lance laughed. “Can’t you hear Mark, Len, Matt, and Kim saying all this, too?”
Jet chewed at his lip. “I guess they thought it ten years ago, and that’s why we have what we do. But there have to be others who are still going, right? That’s why we’re out here even if Hannah says it’s to kill Zs.”
“Hot damn…more canned beans.” Lance winked. He held the can up to show Adam, and they all shared a good laugh.
Adam knew the newcomers were disappointed, and he thought back to when he teamed up with Chase Malone and a bu
nch of others. They had a secured place where they could have grown food and built up a life. Had they not found the inoculations and medical notes and separated, things might have gone differently. Chase would be alive because they wouldn’t have gone to Hopetown but would have made their own home.
Flutters of activity filled their days. Adam felt it was again like when he had been fourteen and he and his group had been forced to decide whether to take the inoculation or refuse it.
People gathered in pairs or went off alone to think it over; he wondered if Hannah’s friends would accept the inoculation or refuse it? Would they join Adam’s group or go off alone, again?
Now, there were so many choices in a place where ten years ago there had been no choices.
He wanted Hannah to stay with his people or with him, no matter what the others decided.
“I don’t think we’ll settle down in one place but will travel and kill all we can along the way. I can’t go back, now. I’ve been out here too long,” Adam said.
“You didn’t pick it the first time you had the chance,” Lance said, “the inoculation, I mean.”
“Nope. We tried to get to Hopetown and were tripped up by a simple car wreck; how normal was that? Zombies and raiders were everywhere. But then, I did choose the shot. I wanted to live.”
“I know,” Lance admitted, “it would be better if once you were immune, they would stop attacking, huh?”
“It makes sense they would, but they don’t,” Adam said.
“I like the travel and seeing things. My father, uncle, brother, all of them are back at Hopetown, and I’m not gonna cut off that possibility of being there with them.” Lance sat back after the meal, wanting to move again; there was so much for him to see and so much information to take back to Hopetown. Ricky agreed with that since he had a lot of family members, as well that were waiting for him.
Jet didn’t say anything, but Hannah could read him well enough to know how he felt, and she wouldn’t let him take the inoculation, anyway. Hannah would never let a sibling turn into a hybrid, nor did she want to deal with family members if she did.
“Never fear being bitten again; it’s tempting,” Sadie said.
“But you can be bitten and eaten. The only difference is that you don’t turn,” Lance explained again to her.
Sadie nodded. “I can’t stand the thought of turning into one and walking around, not knowing things.”
“No. I can’t. I have to be me,” Anthony said, “I won’t do it.
“We’re all still us,” Yuki giggled. People laughed with her. “I’m me.”
“I’m in,” Robbin said. Once it was out there, she relaxed. “I am always scared of being bitten or scratched. Remember Alex? If he had been immune, then it would have been fine. I’ll never forget Beth having to put him down after they got us out of the mall.”
“Mall,” Adam echoed.
“Well, then do what you need to do, and let’s move south a while. There are zombies down there to kill and folks to meet,” Jet said.
That was as much of an acceptance as he could give to what they were deciding. Not for the first time, he wished Len or Kim were there or maybe Julia or Mark who would take over and make all the hard choices and give them guidance. How they learned what were the right things, he didn’t know.
Back at home, Jet had helped Matt with security, always remained calm and sure of himself as he kept everyone safe, but out here, he was a nobody that no one wanted to listen to anyway.
In the beginning, Len felt this way, but he, unlike Jet, earned everyone’s trust and loyalty and led the community.
“We want to be watching for rebels and Zs. I’m guessing that many went south to find food and better weather and that not all are great people,” Jet began.
“Some are okay, and they have come through, saying people found food in the Gulf, but I wonder if it’s safe…between the bombs and hurricanes that have hit….”
“Many?”
“Four that we know about that caused upheaval this far. Dams and levees are broken, so they have heavy flooding now. But you know people who grew up around New Orleans, and even if the city is totally gone, they know things and can get Gulf food and swampy food such as snakes, frogs, and ‘gator. Fruit grows there.
Mexico is a wasteland so we’ve heard, so people don’t go south west now.”
“But it’s going to be potentially dangerous: people are headed there, so Zs are headed there.”
“QED,” said Hannah as she grinned.
“Huh?”
“Quod erat demonstrandu,” she said, “never mind. I was poking at your logic and hinting it would be proven when we see it.”
“Why?”
Hannah looked at her brother with an exasperated frown. “It was a joke.”
“Was it funny?” Lance asked.
“I thought it was,” Hannah said, “skip it. It was funny in my head.”
“Says she’s funny in the head,” Lance quipped.
“We can help you,” Adam said, “we could all go south with you. We could all see it for ourselves. It’ll be safer.”
“Another joke?” Jet asked.
“Jet. That’s rude.”
“It’s a joke, too,” he said. But he knew that she knew that he wasn’t really kidding around; the quirky crew made him nervous.
“They saved our ass at the college,” she reminded him.
“Yep,” Jet agreed. His agreement with something he didn’t feel was very Len-like. He continued his thought. “I think we could all think about how to work better as a team, right?”
“I agree,” Adam said.
Hannah smiled at him.
“We can work on what to do in situations and anticipate what the rest will do. We can combine our styles.”
“I ain’t painting myself or my horse,” Lance muttered, getting a nod of approval from Anthony and Jet.
Lance and Jet chafed at the delay. Jet was frequently irritated that his sister followed Adam everywhere, applauded every choice he made, and slept in his bed every night.
Jet had never shared his little sister, so maybe that was why he found the behavior so irksome, but in some ways, Adam acted as if he were king and had found his queen to parade
Less than a week later when they rode out, the groups were unusual. One group was large enough to make Jet and Lance feel targeted for attacks since they could no longer remain stealthy. Hannah, Adam, and his main group rode first, then Hannah’s friends with Robbin and Sadie slightly apart from them, and then the rest of Adam’s crew. There were twenty of them.
Jet couldn’t define all the reasons this bothered him.
Yes, he hated seeing his sister with Adam because for all he knew, she was just settling for any man. That wasn’t Jet’s business.
His business was that of their original group: two were now hybrids, something that Jet still didn’t care for, but they did it by choice. He could accept his sister’s being a hybrid, except that Hannah’s not telling him bothered him, but she didn’t have a choice in the matter. He could hardly look at Robbin and Sadie now.
Having so many people and horses and gear and noise made Jet jumpy. Maybe the others had fun with the colors and self-images of themselves as super heroes, but Jet found it ridiculous.
They colored their horses; ran into situations in which they had no real training for: just what they had received over the years with experience; and thought they could do everything. They never seemed to be working as a team, only alone or in pairs.
Jet always felt close to his sister, but it wasn’t just finding out her secret, but it was that she had been and always would be separated from him by a prion. He rode in silence most of the time, brooding.
“It’s as if we’re in a parade,” Jet complained.
Pinky heard him and smiled. “Adam always does everything for everyone else; he always has. He tried to take care of that writer he hung out with, Chase Malone, but she thought she was taking care of him.”
&
nbsp; “The one who died after the car wreck while going to Hopetown?”
“Yup. Adam lost his granny and then Chase and everyone else; I think it’s good he finally has someone of his own.”
“Hannah?”
“Of course.” She touched her horse with her boots, and in a pink flash, she rode to catch Jamal and Raul.
Adam was stopped on the broken pavement. “Looks like a blood bath,” Adam said, as he looked over a pile-up on the highway.
He didn’t see the plane crash on the highway close to Hopetown like the others did, but he was as horrified as they had been when they saw something from the skies sitting crumpled and burned on the roadway.
It was impossible to know why this plane had been airborne and what had happened to make it crash here, but the once huge, soaring jet had bellied down, crashing into cars and mangling the metal and setting many of them on fire. It didn’t look as if anyone could have survived this crash.
Maybe an infected person had been bitten by another and spread the infection among passengers and then the crew. Maybe they had beaten at the cockpit doors and gotten inside. The pilot could have been infected. It was possible that the crew had crashed the plane after turning; it was also possible the pilot had crashed on purpose, taking out many of the infected. This was an example of a story that was horrific, no matter what but was untold.
The tail section was ripped away and spun half-way around to spill out personal effects and people, most still strapped into seats or torn apart upon impact to leave pieces and parts all over the highway in the long path the airplane cut.
Zombies came around later, and although they preferred fresh kills, some feasted on what they found hours and then weeks later, leaving the rest for scavengers to pick apart.
The part of the plane around the wings was burned, leaving metal skeletons, melted parts, and ashes behind. It must have happened as people fled the area and ended up in the road blocks because the unburned vehicles had open doors and the remaining bodies spilled out; yellowed bones were picked clean. Close to the plane were burned, crumpled bodies that could have been zombies or humans as neither had a chance once the plane came down.
