by Pam Jernigan
She laughed, a very un-joyful sound. “Yeah, that could happen. This mess is too big; the world' s all ruined. Things don’t change, Leo.”
“You… change me. Help me grow.”
She didn’t respond, at first; didn’t act like she’d even heard him, but the darkness inside her lightened, just a tiny bit. She glanced at him thoughtfully. “I do? I mean, something’s going on with you, but...”
“You help me… think.” He didn’t know how to explain it. “You care. That helps.”
“Really?”
He tried to come up with a way to put it into words. Eventually, he was reduced to a shrug, raising his shoulders and then dropping them again.
“Huh.” She fell silent, sitting next to him in the afternoon sun. “I don’t think I can care enough to fix the whole world. I mean, even before Borsa, it was in pretty bad shape. Earthquakes, terrorism, wars." She quirked a smile at him. “Bright side, the Mindless distracted a bunch of people from killing each other, so there’s that. Kat thinks God is gonna fix things. I wish I thought so. But if I can help you a little, I’ll take that.”
She was helping him so much more than a little. She had woken him up. Spoken to him, despite the bars between them. Or maybe because of them. The cage had allowed him time with Karen, given her the confidence to interact with him. That had been good, but being free with her was better.
Wandering around on his own did not sound so good, but sooner or later, she would leave him. After that… he didn’t know. Karen might have some ideas. Following her plan would be almost as good as being with her, right?
I will be so lost without you, Karen.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
By the time Pip made it back to the camp, she regretted her show of temper. She didn’t really think Karen would let those monsters loose because Karen was smarter than that. On the other hand, getting out of the truck in the middle of nowhere didn’t speak too highly of her intellect, either. If she felt safer out there than here in camp… Pip frowned as she parked the truck behind the garden shed.
No alarms, and normal afternoon activity was progressing, so apparently they’d dealt with the outbreak. Pip headed towards the mess hall. Soldiers clustered around one of the tables, looking unhappy. “Hey guys,” she greeted. “How you doing?”
About half of them looked up, and Ricardo gave her a half-wave. “We’re okay, Pips. Got things under control.”
“How’d it happen?” Pip asked, leaning against a nearby table.
“The way I hear it that Borsa was in his lab, with Curt and another guy. The monsters got all excited, and then they were out of the cage. Mike was closest; I don’t know if he was messing around with the door or what. He got killed pretty quick.”
“Oh, man. Sorry to hear that.” She’d always known something would happen someday, but still.
“Yeah. Anyway, while they killed him, Borsa and Curt hightailed it out of the lab and sounded the alarm, so we had other guys with trank guns there pretty quick. We got most of the critters. They’re not smart enough to duck, lucky for us.”
“What do you mean you got most of them?” Pip sat back, alarmed.
Ricardo shook his head. “No worries. One of ‘em’s missing, but we searched everywhere. It is not here. Only thing we can figure is it got outside the gate somehow. The cage door to the lab was open, but so was the one to the outside, so it might have gone that way. Things got pretty confused there for a little while. What has them more worried is they can't find that girl Karen.”
“Oh, well, I can help y’all out there,” Pip said. “This morning, she’d asked for a ride home, and I said sure, we’d leave around lunch. She came running up right after the alarms sounded, so we left.”
Ricardo nodded. “Okay. Thought that might have been it. Think a Mindless could have followed you out?”
Pip frowned, trying to remember. “I didn’t see nothing, but I wasn’t looking.” Karen had been. Would she have said if she’d seen one? They’d been in the truck, no danger. Pip could just about see her keeping mum about it, trying to let the varmint escape back into the wild. Soft-headed, that one.
“So where’s Karen now?” Ricardo asked, taking one last bite of his lunch.
“Walking,” Pip said, not keen to get into all the details. “Pulled my own gun on me.” She frowned, briefly, wondering at what point she’d left her weapon lying loose on the floor. She usually kept it closer than that. Whatever. “Girl’s crazy, if you ask me. Said some wild stuff about Doc Borsa.”
“Oh yeah, like what?”
Pip shrugged. “Thought he was out to get her, turn her Mindless, use her as a lab rat. Either that, or blame her for the critters getting out.”
Ricardo looked around and leaned closer in to Pip. “She’s been acting weird the whole time she was here. Maybe she was infected, and it was just acting slow?”
“Dang, that’s a scary thought. Would explain a lot. You’d think Christoph would have noticed, though.”
“Well, whatever, she’s gone.” Ricardo grabbed his tray and stood. “I’ve gotta get back on duty. See ya later, Pip.”
Pip absent-mindedly waved bye and wandered back outside. Some questions answered, anyways. God, watch out for Karen out there, please. She’s going to need all the help she can get.
Oh well, time to get back to work. She picked up the pace, walking back to the garden shed. There were some bags of seed she still hadn’t unloaded from the previous day’s salvage; she might could take care of that. She approached the truck from the rear and frowned. Those bags hadn’t been like that before. She'd piled them pretty evenly at the front of the bed, right up behind the cab. Now, though... they were all pushed to the passenger side. How had that happened? It must have been pretty recently…
A cold chill crawled across her scalp as one possibility presented itself. The carved-out space would just about fit a human - or something human-sized - crouching down to hide from the people in the cab. At least from the driver; the passenger might have seen if she’d been looking…
Well, dang.
Karen was crazier than Pip had thought.
No, couldn’t have been. Sanity reasserted itself. The Mindless were 1) evil and 2) stupid. No way they’d cooperate or take direction from Karen. No way they’d have thought to hide in the back of the truck, let alone manage to get in and out without her seeing. She took a deep breath, calming her nerves.
No way that one of the Mindless had been that close to her and let her escape alive. Something else was going on. Must be.
#
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Karen. Leo’s right; he’s changed. Why is that?
He was more verbal now, for sure. His facial expressions were still limited, but he was improving. He’d even managed to smile, a little awkwardly. Hard to judge what was going on inside his head, of course, but she’d definitely seen signs of intelligence. He was still pretty slow, most of the time, but slow didn’t equal stupid. Slow was the result of Borsa’s formula; she got pissed again, remembering.
Leo looked sideways at her and reached out towards her. She smiled at him, letting the anger go. It wasn’t worth the energy. Leo dropped his hand, without ever having touched her. They’d held hands earlier, she remembered. It had been kind of nice.
He was so determined to protect her, to connect. That first awkward hug… she’d been so confused. And oddly calm. That was weird. And it happened a lot around Leo, she’d noticed. Not that she minded, exactly, but it didn’t make any sense. Sure, she kind of trusted him now, but after he’d proven himself. That first day… Well, maybe it had just been fatalism. She chewed her lip, considering that. It doesn’t matter what happens to Karen. But she’d been plenty scared when Borsa had been waving the huge needle around, so that wasn’t quite it, either.
Sitting there, next to Leo in the afternoon sun, was unexpectedly relaxing. At least until she heard a dog bark in the distance. Right, they were still in the wilderness, and the peacefulness
was deceptive. Reluctantly, she checked the canteen and took an experimental drink. “Okay, good enough. You want some?”
He shook his head. She narrowed her eyes at him, then fished around in her bag, pulling out a small plastic collapsible cup. She expanded it with a practiced gesture. “Here, drink from the stream, at least, okay? I know you guys don’t need as much water, but you must need some. I don’t want you getting heatstroke on me or anything.”
He accepted the cup, holding it gingerly. Probably worried it would fold up on him, but it retained its shape. He dipped it into the stream and then drank. He rinsed out the cup with care before handing it back to her.
She took it with a slight smile. “Thanks.” Rinsing the cup had probably been unnecessary, and she was about to say so, before rethinking. He had a virus that she most decidedly did not want to get. Apparently he didn’t want her to get it, either. So that was good, wasn’t it?
She packed the cup and put her socks and shoes back on. He stood, and assisted her to her feet, and they set off again, heading up a gentle incline on the far side of the little stream.
The neighborhoods they were walking through had been fancy once. The roads didn’t go straight, though, which made things tricky. They were both wearing long pants, though, so she wasn’t too worried about cutting through fields of tall grass. God only knew whether ticks were hanging around here, still. She had seen no deer, but they occasionally heard dogs in the distance, so the ticks might not have starved yet.
Conversation died out for a while, other than pointing out rough spots, or commenting on the scenery. Karen set a slow pace. No need to get themselves all tired out, right? It had nothing to do with not wanting the trip to end.
They took the occasional rest stop, with Karen pulling out a canteen for a drink. She kept offering it to Leo, but he always refused. She didn’t press him about it, but she wondered. Was he even still contagious? There hadn’t been nearly enough research on this. Borsa was focused on controlling the Mindless, not curing them. She' d bet he’d never once questioned whether the disease could be spread via kissing. Which she shouldn’t be pondering, either.
Leo was on her left, to the west, as the sun approached the horizon, making it more difficult to see his face. The warmth was a little uncomfortable - she’d taken off her jacket and tied it around her waist an hour before - but there was a light breeze to provide relief. It was quiet, except for a dog barking somewhere in the distance. “This is kind of like the other day,” she commented, wondering if he’d get the reference.
He nodded once. His body language wasn’t exactly human; it was too… stiff. Uncoordinated, awkward. The Mindless were stuck in a body that didn’t work quite right, operated by a mind that didn’t work at all. Really, it was a wonder they ever managed to walk. Muscle memory, she supposed.
“Better now,” he said.
It took her a second to process that he was answering her previous comment. “Why’s that?”
He looked down, watching his feet. “You’re not scared.”
Karen looked at him sideways for a moment. “Yeah, that’s better. And it’s a beautiful day for a walk.”
“If you say so,” he replied.
She nodded. “I say so.”
“Then… it is.” He glanced her way with a tiny smile.
She smiled, amused. “You’re agreeable.”
He shrugged.
She laughed. “You know, you’re allowed to disagree with me.”
At first, she thought he wouldn’t reply, but then, looking at her sideways with a perfectly straight face, he said, “No.”
She stopped and looked at him, squinting into the sunlight. “Was that a… joke?”
He halted as well and looked at her fully, his lips tugging upwards into an almost smile. “Yes.”
She grinned. “Awesome.”
#
Leo continued walking, with Karen keeping pace beside him. He felt great. Karen was talking to him as if he were a real person, and he’d even made her laugh. Which had sounded and felt so amazing, the emotions bubbling up and bathing him in ripples of joy. He wanted to be with her always, and make her laugh as often as possible.
The sun was setting, painting colors across the sky. Karen looked around and shivered. “It'll get awfully dark out here before long. We need to find a place to stay.” She reached into the bag she always carried and pulled out a gun. She glanced at him and flashed a smile at him. “I stole it from Pip. I’ve been hearing dogs; they’re getting a little closer. Nobody lives anywhere near here, so they’re not pets. They’re wild, and probably hungry.”
“Gun will protect?”
“If I use it right, it will. I mean, I will. Guns don’t act on their own. But I don’t know how many rounds are in this thing, and I don’t have any extra mags, so I’m planning to be real economical with my shots.”
He wasn’t entirely sure what any of that meant, but he could sense the nervousness underlying her determination. He glanced around, trying to see if he spotted any movement.
She stopped walking, looking at the weapon in her hand. She pulled something out of the bottom of the gun and looked it over. “Looks like maybe six.” She pushed the thing back in, then dropped that hand. The thing stayed put. “So we’ll have to be careful.”
“Okay,” he said.
She joined him in scanning the area. Then she looked right at him. “Okay, wish list at the moment - a working vehicle with keys in the ignition and a full gas tank. Which isn’t too likely. And without that, there’s no way we’re going to make it to the city before dark. So, moving on, second item is a house that we can get into and close up behind us.”
He liked that she said ‘us’. “There are houses,” he said. They were spread out, though, with fields of stubby plants between them. Not right next to each other like the area near the library. Suburb, his mind whispered, although he wasn’t sure that was the correct term.
She nodded. “Yeah, so that one we can probably manage. You have a favorite color?”
He just looked at her, confused. His favorite everything was Karen, and she had a lot of colors.
She sighed. “Never mind. Let’s just… pick a house.” She started walking again, and he followed. “We might even find one with food. That'd be nice.”
They heard another bark, closer, and joined by a few more. He looked behind them. Was that movement in the distance? Karen sped up, veering off the road, heading for the nearest house. She ran up a few stairs to the door, tested the handle, and swore. “Locked.”
From the sidewalk, Leo scanned the horizon and spotted shapes moving closer, low to the ground. Dogs. Had to get Karen safe. Remembering the cage, he asked, “Other door?”
She nodded, coming back down the stairs. “Worth a shot.” She took off around the perimeter of the building. He followed, distracted by the structure. This place reminded him of one of the buildings in the city; it had the rough red rectangles, too. Bricks. That’s what they were. They seemed very solid. He spotted some windows, partially hidden behind overgrown bushes.
“Leo, come on,” her voice urged him, and he abandoned the architectural analysis, hurrying to catch up to her.
“This one’s not locked, only latched, but it’s stuck,” she said. “Can you work on it? I’ll keep watch.”
He nodded, and she stepped away, turning her back to him and holding the gun ready. There was a howl, sounding closer now.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He concentrated on the latch. It was more complicated than the cage door had been, but he saw what to do. Doing it was another question; the metal resisted moving. He frowned and tried harder. Had to get Karen safe.
"Crap," Karen muttered, her fear levels spiking. A loud bang startled him, and he lost his grip. Grimly, he focused on getting the door open. Now.
The gun boomed again just as the latch moved, and he turned the knob. The door opened. "Got it," he said.
"Thank God," she
said, pushing him into the house and slamming the door shut behind her. Moments later there was a loud thud, followed by scratching and barking from outside. He put his weight against the door as she engaged the lock.
She stepped back, trembling slightly. "Okay. That was close. I hope this place has food, because we're not going outside again for a while." Closing her eyes, she took deep breaths. Relaxing. No longer quite so scared.
He was glad. Human fear energy had been what he'd craved, before. He didn't like it coming from Karen.
She opened her eyes again and managed to smile at him. "C'mon, let's find out what we've got here. First off, we need lights."
He looked out a window; it wasn't dark yet, but not much of the light made its way inside. “I’ll check here,” he managed to say.
She headed towards the kitchen, then called, “Found one! Lots of candles, too. Not surprising.”
He turned to see her coming, emerging from the relative darkness with the lantern held in front of her. The effect was to bathe her in a golden glow. It reminded him of the not-fear. The love. He smiled. Again, she brought light and color into his world.
“The power grid started to fall apart a couple of years ago,” she said, setting the lantern down on a table. “Apparently a zombie apocalypse is tough on infrastructure maintenance. It was one of the reasons people huddled up in the city.” She shrugged, half-laughing. “You know, the non-crazy ones.”
She moved further into the room. “Nice place. At least it used to be.” She trailed a finger across a table and left a clear mark, rich brown peeking through the gray dust.
In the light she had brought, he looked around. In the corner was a tall thing with important things on it. He started towards it, drawing her attention.
“Ooh, bookshelf!”
Yes. That’s what it was called. He studied the things—the books. The sense of their importance was inarguable; it had weight and density. Joined now with a suggestion of familiarity. Some of them, anyway.
Karen grabbed the lantern and came near, holding up the light. "Wow, look at all these books."
