by Sylvia Ryan
She knew something was wrong before she was able to fully untangle herself and get a good look at him. He was on fire. A sheen of perspiration coated the parts of her body that had been touching his. His cheeks were flushed a frightening shade of crimson, and his hair was wet with sweat.
She knelt beside him, and shook him. “Rock.”
No response.
“Rock? Wake up.” She lowered her lips to his ear. “Open your eyes so I know you’re with me.”
Nothing.
Laila stood and dressed in her damp clothes and holstered her firearm. Hands on her hips, she scanned the store and then walked through the broken glass in the entryway. She cleared their immediate area as she’d been taught, making sure they were safe before she returned to Rock.
Past where he lay on the floor, there was a short, back hallway. Rock had explored there the night before, but she hadn’t. She entered the room marked Employees Only. It was a tiny, windowless break room, containing a folding table and chairs, sink, and a little fridge. The bulletin board was full of work schedules and signs warning employees to wash their hands and another illustrating the correct way to lift a box. Laila pushed the table to the side.
They’d be better concealed in there.
Returning to the store area, she found some aspirin and crushed them with the side of her knife blade. Then, a little at a time, she sprinkled the white grit past Rock’s slightly parted lips.
Expecting a reaction, she stared intently at his heat-reddened face, but there was no recoil from him as the powdered aspirin partially dissolved on his tongue. She chased it with a few drops of water.
He’d gotten mortally sick in a matter of hours, with symptoms alarmingly similar to those during the pandemic. If this was the same…“Oh God.” Her insides plunged into free fall. “Oh no. No. No.” She groaned into the dead air of the long deserted truck stop. She was solo once again. Trepidation skittered through the space left empty inside by Rock’s incapacity. It was likely she would get sick too. They had swapped all kinds of spit and breathed all over each other in the past twelve hours. She’d already been exposed. Whatever happened, happened. There was nothing she could do about it now. Now, it was time to make sure both of them survived.
With all the training and preparation before they left Atlanta, not one person had warned her the virus might still be viable. But then, the Gov would never get people to work the recovery teams if there was still a risk of infection from a virus that almost killed every man, woman and child on earth a quarter century ago. But, that was just it. The pandemic was over twenty-five years ago. It had probably mutated countless times since then. Just because that virus was deadly to humans two decades ago didn’t mean this one was.
She placed a hand on Rock’s forehead. He didn’t seem to be sweating anymore. His fever was too high, and his body’s natural ability to cool itself had short-circuited. She needed to reduce his fever, and knew exactly how she’d do it. Laila scooted a couple of feet, grabbed a roll of paper towels, and went to work. A few minutes later Rock’s body was mummified with wet paper towels. Her gaze drifted over him, her heart aching. Thoughts of what she should do next cascaded through her brain.
“Laila?”
She jumped at the sound of her name spoken from behind her. Looking over her shoulder toward the shattered door, she saw Garret. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“I was scavenging for food and water…” Garret stopped in his tracks when he saw Rock passed out on the floor and covered in paper towels. “Is he dead?”
She looked up at him from where she knelt next to Rock. “He’s sick. Been this way since I woke up.” She swallowed before she let loose her fear. “I think it might be the flu.”
Garret blanched and motioned with his arm wildly. “Get away from him.”
“No. If it’s the flu, I’ve been exposed already.”
“If it’s the flu, he’s dead already, whether he’s still breathing right now or not.” He held a hand out toward her. “I can get you back to New Atlanta.”
For a moment, she didn’t comprehend what he was saying. But the minute she put all the pieces together, she stood up abruptly. “I’m not leaving him here to die alone!”
Garret scowled. “Your false loyalty to this man is going to kill you.”
She walked over to where he lingered by the doorway. “No, I don’t fucking think so. And, for the record, if it was you lying sick, I’d stay to take care of you, too. It’s called decency.”
“It’s called stupid.” His words were curt. He studied her for a few more seconds then he shook his head. “You’re making a terrible decision right now.”
“I’d rather die here with a clear conscience than live without him anyway.”
His eyes flickered with momentary surprise.
“Just go, Garret.” She turned away from the door and knelt next to Rock. After a few seconds, she registered his footsteps fading into the distance.
She looked down at Rock, refusing to give up.
They were going to be there for a while. It would be good if they were comfortable. They needed supplies, pillows and blankets at the very least.
Rock was shivering now, but when she touched his head, he still felt heated.
Without looking back, she left Rock lying on the dusty floor and abandoned the store. Stopping where the crumbled blacktop parking lot met the road, she looked both ways. They were in a relatively rural area, and it was a toss-up as to which way to walk. She made a left, away from the freeway, and walked down the center of what used to be a road. Now it was an overgrown, slightly less brush littered path leading away from the truck stop.
Laila walked for almost an hour before she rounded a bend and saw what used to be civilization ahead. There were huge buildings surrounded by vast seas of cement, collections of stores, restaurants, banks and gas stations. She read the sign that hovered at the end of a pole, ending at a pinpoint high in the sky. Super Wal-Mart.
Laila breathed a sigh of relief. Her mother had told her stories about going to huge stores like Wal-Mart and Costco with her grandmother. She set off, knowing she should be able to find what she needed there.
The doors to the hulking building had been smashed in years ago, and the exposure to the weather and wildlife had taken its toll on the interior of the store. Birds protested her entrance, calling their warning to others before flying into the rafters high above her head.
Laila gaped. She had never seen anything like it. The store was so massive, she couldn’t see where it ended. Slowly, she walked past row after row of clothes and shoes, coffeemakers and picture frames. It was as if she’d walked into a museum of a different sort from the ones she’d been working in. The store provided a glimpse into the everyday lifestyle of the people who’d lived before the virus.
She thought she had a pretty good idea what it was like back then since she’d grown up on TV shows produced before the pandemic, but she had not been prepared for anything like this. She investigated the entire building, sometimes losing herself in the sheer volume of it all. The areas that had once contained food had been plundered by the wildlife long ago. The only things left were canned goods and some items in glass jars that had not tumbled and broken open during the wildlife feeding frenzy.
After a full circuit around the store, Laila had to pare down the mental list of what she wanted, knowing she could only take what she could carry. She could, however, make use of many items before she left. She darted around the store, gathering what she needed.
Laila stripped in the middle of an aisle lined with plastic jugs of water. She washed, dried herself with a slightly mildewed towel, then ripped open a plastic package of panties and put on a pair before dressing in her black recovery team uniform. After brushing her teeth, she was ready to face the long walk back with the cloth bag full of blankets, a pillow and a few other small supplies she needed to keep Rock comfortable and nurse him to health.
Th
e trip was slow going. She sometimes carried, sometimes dragged the bulky bag along the path to the truck stop. It was turning out to be a hot day and the struggle took its toll on her mentally and physically.
Frustrated after the bag got caught in a tangle of branches, she sat in the shade of a tree, wishing she’d brought some water to drink, when a feral snarl sounded behind her. Fear pricked down her spine as she stilled, and her senses went on alert. Turning, she realized she was a stone’s throw away from the animal making the dangerous sound. Her eyes tracked the slow movement of a big dog, or…maybe a wolf, with matted silver hair and drool pooling from its mouth. The animal’s tail and ears were flattened against its body and the hair on its neck stood on end. It barked furiously, looking ready to pounce.
Movement behind the animal caught her attention. Laila’s fear jumped when she recognized what they were: two bouncing gray puppies. The mama snarled again as soon as her eyes landed on the pups and launched herself toward Laila before she could stand and move away.
Laila went for her gun, but the animal locked on to her forearm. She screamed as the animal’s canines punctured both sides of her arm. With her left hand, she pulled her knife and hit the animal’s hindquarters with the end of the blade. The dog yipped and in the process, released her arm.
Laila scrambled away then stood when she’d achieved some distance between them.
The animal held its ground, barking a vicious warning, but only advancing a few feet.
Laila grabbed the bag and slung the straps over her shoulder, then pulled her gun. She walked backward, trying to put distance between her and the enormous dog bravely zig-zagging over the terrain, staying close to her.
She yelled, loudly and sharply, “No!”
The animal spooked and stopped in its tracks.
Clumsily, she moved backward through the woods, not wanting to turn her back on it. The animal started following her again. “Nooo!” she shouted long and hard.
The mama slowed, and then stopped. She turned, laid eyes on her pups, and then returned her gaze to Laila. The protective stance said it all. She wasn’t leaving her young, but she watched Laila closely.
With a sigh of relief, Laila continued to put distance between them until she couldn’t see those steely gray eyes anymore. She holstered her gun, stopped and looked around the now unfamiliar forest.
The puncture wounds on her forearm bled profusely, and she was forced to rip the hem of her black mission T-shirt to use as a bandage. Then, as Rock had taught her, she determined whether she was safe first. With sharp eyes and rapt attention, Laila focused on the forest, turning three hundred sixty degrees, then stood quietly for a full thirty seconds before she relaxed a little and directed her attention to her next problem.
It would be incredibly easy to get turned around in the woods. She had to get back to the path. Rock had taught her to read a map during her training, and it only took a moment to transfer those skills to her situation. She made a ninety-degree right-hand turn, picturing a route parallel to the path she’d been on. It was slow going through the snares of sapling’s branches and downed trees as she trekked through the woods.
It wasn’t long before she reached the highway.
“Yes!” She celebrated with a fist pump and turned right. The truck stop was visible in the distance. She ran for a few minutes with the awkward canvas bag bouncing on her shoulder, until she reached the building.
She lowered herself to her knees next to Rock. Her stomach turned. He hadn’t moved at all. She placed a palm to his cheek, feeling the dry, hot skin of his face.
Hastily, she arranged the blankets and pillow in the back room and returned to him. She rolled him over onto a blanket and pulled, sliding him on the dusty tile floor to where she needed him to be.
His hand closed around her arm as she tried to roll him onto the makeshift pallet.
“Get away from me,” he growled.
She turned her gaze away from his face and ignored his words. His grasp on her forearm loosened and then finally fell away. She couldn’t help but monitor how he felt, and his sadness made her practically useless.
His gaze was fixed on her face. His features were bleak as he took her in, looking at her as if it was the last time he ever would.
Her heart clenched. “Stop it. You are not leaving me out here alone.” Laila put all her effort into holding back a sob. “Now do me a favor and roll your humongous ass the rest of the way onto the blanket.”
She helped him as much as she could, keeping the blankets underneath him un-bunched as he did exactly what she asked.
“Laila.”
“I’m not leaving, and you’re not dying, so just—” She shook her head, throat squeezed tight. She swallowed down the sob forming there. “It’s going to be okay, Rock. We’ll get through this together.”
His heavy lidded eyes made his struggle against sleep obvious. “Love you, baby,” he said then fell into unconsciousness again.
Quiet. It was so quiet with only the wheezing of Rock’s labored breathing to fill the tiny candle-lit space. Laila sat next to him, studying his profile in the flickering light. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispered before she began nursing this man who had become her whole world.
She spent four days performing a tedious cycle of tasks, dripping water into his mouth, covering him with cool, wet towels, massage, and aspirin.
All the while, Laila talked to him. Whether he was sleeping or delirious, it didn’t matter. She kept talking so some part of him knew she was there.
Maybe then, he wouldn’t give up, because she had not given up on him.
Chapter 23
Rock was confused. He opened his eyes for a split second. The light from a flickering candle entered through his pupils like spikes hurled into his brain. Even if he wanted to move, which he didn’t, he didn’t think he could. Every cell ached as if he’d been badly beaten.
“Laila.” His attempt at talking came out garbled from his dry, swollen mouth.
“Shhh. It’s okay.” She hovered over him, placing a cool hand on his forehead. “How you doing, Superman?” She put a bottle of water to his lips. He drank for his life. His depleted body felt more like a carcass, refusing to complete the most simple of movements.
“I’m here. Just rest…you’re going to be okay.”
When he’d finished the bottle, she rolled him over and straddled his thighs. Her cool hands moved over his shoulders and back, kneading his sore muscles and easing the searing broiling of his skin. All he could get out was a groan of pleasure before he slipped into unconsciousness again.
When next he opened his eyes, the room was dark. He was lying on his side with Laila curled up behind him. She was talking. Every time he’d become momentarily conscious, she’d been talking to him. He tried to focus on what she was saying, tried to stay awake.
“…I’ve thought about names. Of course, a boy would have to be Rock like his dad and grandpa. But for a girl, I was thinking Leah. It would be a carryover of the tradition of L names in my family.”
He tried to hold on to the consciousness. He was so close to being fully awake.
“Are you still listening?” The soft caress of Laila’s exhalation wafted over his bare shoulder. “You’re going to be a daddy, Rock.”
* * * *
“…you have to remember, anybody is chatty compared to you. So, if you want me to zip it, you’re going to have to tell me to.”
Rock smiled as Laila’s words floated to him through his stupor, and then a gasp. “Are you awake, Rock?” There was a quick shuffle of movement in the dim space. She’d rolled over in his arms. “I can feel you, and you’re smiling at me.”
A flurry of noisy activity followed. Laila heaved his upper body up, forced pills into his mouth and held a bottle of water to his lips.
“Drink it!” She’d yelled the words, which made him jump out of the sleep he’d been returning to. She was relentless in her attempt to ge
t the cool water down his throat, pouring it liberally into his mouth, forcing him to swallow. When the bottle was nearly empty, she let him lie back.
She caressed the curve of his shoulder and ran her palm down his arm. “How you doing, big guy?” She lay down, pressing her length against him. She continued talking. He tried to process her words. Instead, his mind could only focus on the contact of her body with his.
* * * *
“Why don’t you give up this sick act and roll over to make love to me? Come on, big guy. Don’t leave me hangin’.”
The moist breeze of her words kissed the back of his neck. “Is that all you think about, woman? I’m not a piece of meat.”
Laila shifted behind him and left him with a cold spot where she used to be. She rolled him onto his back and cradled his upper body in her arms. The lip of a cup perched at his mouth as her soothing words encouraged him to drink.
“Come on, big guy, drink it all for me.” The liquid splashed past his lips, instantly relieving the stale dustbowl of his mouth. He finished the glass and she laid him back gently.
She was ashen. Dark circles marred the skin underneath her big brown eyes. If he didn’t already feel like an egg frying in the New Atlanta sun, her anxious expression would have told him how sick he’d been.
“How long?”
“Four days.” She grabbed a couple of pills and popped them into his mouth, followed by more water. “I should have known talking about sex would get you conscious.” She laughed weakly, trying to cover her worried expression.
“It’s my favorite subject,” he rasped back.
“It’s the virus, I think.”
Rock nodded and closed his eyes. “Maybe. Could be West Nile. Either way, you shouldn’t risk being so close to me.”
“It’s a little late for this conversation. I would have gotten it by now if I was going to get it at all. Plus, your fever’s broken. I think you’re getting better.”
