In desperation, she forced down a fit of hysterics threatening to overwhelm her. For the first time since the outbreak began, she couldn’t think of a way out.
* * *
The pouring rain had trickled to a stop several minutes ago.
Or maybe it was an hour. It was hard to tell when each second felt like an eternity.
Vlogman’s crazed mutterings had stopped, too, which provided some small relief. The three exhausted survivors had climbed higher into the leaves to avoid detection, but Casey wondered how effective this would be. After all, if the infected could move at lightning speed at night, then who was to say they couldn’t accomplish a similar feat vertically? And it didn’t seem to matter whether they were adult- or child-sized; their brute strength belied anything remotely even human. At this rate, she wouldn’t be surprised if they were capable of tearing a vehicle apart …
Casey whipped her head up, her eyes widening. “Ashley,” she said, dismayed that she’d forgotten all about her friend. The poor girl was probably frightened to death inside that truck, believing she’d been abandoned or that everyone was already dead.
Or she herself could be dead, her inner voice warned. One of the infected could have gotten to her.
No. Casey wasn’t going to jump to conclusions, at least not yet. Not until she’d thought up of every strategy within the realms of possibility.
Gritting her teeth, she carefully edged onto another sturdy branch situated a little closer to Cain’s location, ignoring the protests from her stiff limbs. She waved her arm, minimizing her movement and noise to a simple slash through the air. Hopefully, her twin would notice.
He glanced her way, scowling, though it was tempered with extreme stress caused by their predicament. A brief pause, and then he shook his head as if to say, Not now.
Casey pointed in the direction they’d come from. Ashley, she mouthed at him. They had to get out of here fast, and she could only think of one foolhardy strategy that might work.
“Give me the knife in your backpack,” she hissed loudly.
Even before she’d finished speaking, Casey sensed the shadowy presence watching her from below. She dropped her gaze and noticed two of the infected tweens gaping at her, their little mouths smeared with dark blood. One of them had a ropey bit of flesh swinging left and right from a corner of his lips, a pendulum counting down to the night’s inevitable end. As she watched, mesmerized, she felt like a helpless creature frozen before the undulating sway of a viper.
“Casey,” Cain shouted, snapping her back to reality. “Here!” And he tossed the knife with an underhand throw, having had the foresight to wrap the blade with some torn material.
She had one chance to do this right. A single misstep, and that knife could slip past her fingers or she might topple headfirst into the void and end up just like Vlogman’s buddies.
To her immense relief, her twin had gauged the distance perfectly. The knife reached her outstretched hand, and she tightened her hold on the thickly wrapped blade. A quick look told her the material had been ripped from his shirt, probably one of the sleeves.
“Damn it, Kay, don’t just stand there! He’s moving!”
Startled, she glanced down and saw one of the infected tweens clawing his way up the tree. But unlike their inhuman speed on the ground, he seemed a little … slow. Or perhaps the better description would be careful, judging by the tween’s reluctance to climb higher.
Maybe they aren’t good with heights, she thought, intrigued despite herself. Because if she’d been on the ground, surely she would be mincemeat by now.
Emboldened, Casey unraveled the torn material around the knife. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the knife’s tip against a fleshy part of her arm and made as if to slash it. But before she could cut through the epidermis, a cacophony of car alarms in the distance suddenly broke through the tense atmosphere.
Vlogman cried out and hugged the trunk closer, surprised by the unexpected noise.
In tandem, the infected tweens swung their heads in the same direction, moving with a strange fluidity that sent shivers down Casey’s spine. A low rattling sound floated in the air.
Then in the blink of an eye, they were gone.
“Where did they go?” Cain asked, but before Casey could find her voice to reply, bright lights blinded them, their ears filling with the rumble of an engine and crunching tires.
Ashley poked her head out of the truck, glancing about with frantic energy. “Casey?” she called out, voice quavering. “Cain? Is anyone here?”
Was there a more beautiful sight than Ashley coming to the rescue of her beleaguered friends?
“Up here,” Casey croaked, wasting no time in scurrying down the tree. Cain did the same, reaching the idling truck before she did and almost tearing out the driver’s door. Ashley let out a yelp as he pushed himself onto the driver’s seat.
“Move,” he gritted out, but before she could scamper over to the other side, he grabbed her by the waist, pulling her flush against his chest. “And thanks … for coming,” he muttered, quickly releasing her before things got awkward.
“S-Sure.” Dazed, she crawled to the passenger seat and buckled herself in.
Casey glanced up and saw Vlogman struggling to get down, searching for branches to step on. “Just jump!” she yelled, but her words fell on deaf ears. If he didn’t hurry up, they’d have to leave without him.
There was no helping it, then. He might end up with a sprained ankle or two, but it was better than being eaten alive.
Before she could change her mind, Casey ran in Vlogman’s direction, using a leg to push off from the tree trunk like a springboard. This propelled her high enough to reach for Vlogman’s dangling foot and forcefully upend him from the safety of his branch.
Both fell hard and rolled across the mushy dirt, where the bloody remains of Vlogman’s friends seeped into their wet clothes. Disgust and horror filled his eyes, and he began pulling at his clothes like one demon-possessed.
“Stop it!” Casey gritted through her teeth, dragging his writhing body toward the truck. Good thing he was on the lighter side; if he’d been around Cain’s or Roy’s size, she’d have wished him luck and left him to fend for his own.
The second they tumbled into the backseat and slammed the door shut, Cain drove the truck down the trail in reverse, recklessly increasing the speed with each passing second.
“Slow down,” Casey said, gripping his shoulder hard. “You’re going to get us killed.” Or worse, he might rear-end their truck into one of the nearby trees or get a wheel stuck in a muddy pothole, leaving them at the mercy of those infected tweens that were sure to return.
His response was to go even faster. “Almost there,” he murmured, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “Any second now.”
A stomach-churning jolt later, the truck skidded across the wet asphalt, careening to an abrupt stop just inches away from a colossal trunk lining the other side of the road.
“You lunatic!” Ashley screeched, hugging herself. “You could’ve flipped the truck over and ended us all.”
Cain gave his side view mirror a perfunctory glance. “Hmm, instant death. Still a better option than being ripped apart, don’t you think?” he said, a muscle jumping in his jaw. Before anyone could throw more verbal abuse his way, he floored the gas pedal and sent their truck hurtling dangerously down the road.
Once he’d put some distance between them and Cedar Ridge Trail, he spoke again. “So, what are we going to do with him?” He glared at Vlogman through the rear view mirror.
Casey hadn’t thought much beyond getting out of the woods alive. “I don’t know.”
“Should we toss him out when we reach the highway?”
“No.”
“Shame about that.” A pause. “Well, maybe we can feed him to Roy once we get home. Bet he’d appreciate the live meat.”
Cain’s deliberate provocation didn’t elicit a single response from Vlogman. If anythin
g, their guest remained plastered against the door, his eyes staring blankly into space.
They could worry about him later. Right now, Casey only had one pressing question on her mind.
She edged closer to where Ashley was sitting. “What happened back there?” The timing of the car alarms had been impeccable, almost too good to be true.
Ashley’s eyes darted around nervously. “Well … you guys weren’t coming back, you know? So I started freaking out, thinking I was all alone out there. After waiting and waiting, I kind of lost my head and decided to drive back to the lake house –”
“You WHAT?” Cain’s indignant bellow was so loud that Ashley faltered into terrified silence.
“Let her finish,” Casey said calmly, although she couldn’t blame her twin for exploding like that. “Go on, Ashley.”
Despite her fearful expression, she continued with her explanation. “I-I started driving in the d-dark without the headlights on, so I didn’t see the abandoned cars on the side of the road. Set off their alarms when I grazed their doors,” she muttered, sounding embarrassed. “That scared me so much that I drove back like a madwoman until I ended up at Cedar Ridge Trail. And that was when I found you guys hiding in the trees.”
In other words, their rescue had been based purely on luck alone. Casey didn’t know whether to laugh at how absurd it was, or cry that the only reason they’d made it out of the woods alive was because of Ashley’s usual bumbling self.
She swallowed an irritable sigh and stared out the window. Oh, who was she kidding? This entire fiasco was her fault and hers alone. She was the one who’d asked Cain to reply to Vlogman online. Then she’d rushed headlong into the woods with nothing more than rusty tools and a deluded sense of invincibility because of the stupid vaccine. Her hasty actions had not only endangered her twin and her best friend, but had resulted in the gruesome deaths of two otherwise healthy young men.
“Sorry,” Ashley whispered, mistaking her friend’s silence for contained fury. “I know I should’ve come sooner –”
“You did really well under the circumstances, so there’s no reason to apologize.” Casey gave her a reassuring smile, then settled back into her seat and stared out the window again, her mind a whirlwind of emotions.
She had to do better; what had transpired in the woods could never happen again. Her gaze shifted to the dazed cretin sitting across from her. Now that they had the upper hand, she was going to grill Vlogman into spilling everything he knew about the vaccine and keep him hostage at the lake house until she was satisfied. Her conscience twinged at the thought of forcibly keeping him there, but it wasn’t like she was going to torment him or anything. And they’d provide shelter and food during his “stay,” which were rare commodities these days.
After a while, Vlogman’s jaw tightened, and he turned to look back at her. His beautiful eyes weren’t the dark abyss they’d been just moments ago; instead, a calculating expression flickered in his steady gaze.
Surprised, Casey raised a brow. Well now, would you look at that.
Maybe she didn’t need to feel so guilty, after all. The jerk probably had his own shrewd plan up his sleeve.
They continued staring at each other through the darkness, dull moonlight occasionally shining through the passing thicket of trees. Each time a beam of silvery light fell across his face, the intensity of his gaze only seemed to grow stronger.
By the look of it, he clearly had his own burning questions for Casey.
Chapter 18
While the building’s exterior was immaculate, its interior was sadly another matter. It looked as if a small tornado had rampaged across the polished floors, upending sleek couches and shiny plaques. An assortment of papers, white lab coats, and even shoes littered the floor, to the astonishment of the four trespassers cowering at the entrance.
“What on earth could have happened in here?” Mr. Rothstein spluttered in disbelief.
Mike took a few steps forward, scanning the pale walls. As far as he could see, there wasn’t a speck of blood on them, fresh or dried.
“Looks like they abandoned the place in a hurry,” he said, crouching to pick up several papers off the floor. “I mean, look at this. They didn’t even have time to shred these files.”
“One of the key researchers must have dropped them while everyone was running,” the pianist mused. “However, this disorderly behavior is quite an enigma.”
“Oh, yeah?” Myrtle barked out from behind, startling the elderly gentleman. Her brash voice was uncomfortably loud. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense. Tell us what you’re thinking, Velma.”
Mr. Rothstein was clearly unamused by the Scooby-Doo reference. “The answer is I do not know the cause of their erratic behavior, Myrtle. Now, please, lower your voice –”
“But why?” She spread her arms out like a prima donna about to belt out an aria. “This place is completely deserted. We’re the new sheriff in town now.” Grinning, she elbowed Mr. Rothstein in the ribs as he let out a long-suffering sigh. “Lighten up, old man. Think positive thoughts. Let’s start with where the cafeteria might be, eh?”
Mike watched as she headed to the information desk and rummaged around, probably searching for leaflets and other paraphernalia that might lead her to a stroke-inducing supply of freeze-dried meals and greasy chicken nuggets produced from questionable origins.
He turned to face his elderly friend. “You’re positive there’s no one here? Not even an infected wandering around the floors?”
With a reluctant nod, Mr. Rothstein stared at the ceiling, as if his gaze could penetrate through the barriers and see what lay beyond. “It does seem we’re the only ones occupying this space at present.” After a brief pause, he opened his mouth, reconsidered, then tried again. “Since my daughter isn’t here …. perhaps we should leave –”
“At this hour?” Mike wondered as Trey’s small belly let out a vicious growl beside him. “Maybe it’s best if we hunker down for the night, get some food while we’re here.” Lowering his voice, he added, “I’m sure Miriam is fine. If anything, I’ll bet she’s at a much safer place than us, like, um … a bunker specifically designed for research purposes and long-term stay.”
“They do have a bunker,” Trey suddenly broke in, surprising both men. “I remember an article that mentioned Deen & Blatt’s new facilities out in New Mexico, in the Chihuahuan Desert. Its exact location wasn’t published.”
Mike beamed. “Well, there you go. There’s nothing to worry about, then.” Truth be told, he was a lot more concerned for their little group than a highly qualified scientist with a host of resources at her disposal. Not to mention the elephant in the room – that Miriam Rothstein probably knew exactly how and why the virus had leaked. She had prepared in advance and tested an untried vaccine on unwitting volunteers, even her own father. In Mike’s eyes, that made her a culprit and definitely not a victim.
But he couldn’t voice his honest opinion, lest the pianist suffer a mental breakdown at the mere suggestion. Mr. Rothstein was of the firm belief that she’d done it to protect them.
Protect, my ass. She just saw us as human-sized laboratory rats.
A guttural roar of delight burst from Myrtle as she held up fistfuls of wrinkled paper in triumph.
“Found what you were looking for?” Mike asked dryly.
Her mouth widened and curled at the corners, reminding him of the Cheshire Cat. “It’s the map to the holy grail.” When they remained unmoved by the declaration, she clucked her tongue in irritation. “Well, don’t just stand there gawking. Let’s go!” And she led them to the the escalators and down two floors, where a café, cafeteria, and convenience store stood in all their glory. None of them was locked behind a security grille.
They sure left in a hurry. The question is, why?
Mike’s thoughts were interrupted when Myrtle dashed into the cafeteria, disappearing from their sight in seconds. The rest of the group followed inside. He let out a low whistle as the room revea
led its full breadth and fancy décor. It was visually appealing enough for a wedding reception.
“Must’ve been nice working here,” he muttered, thinking of the perks and bonuses that probably came with the whole package. As a college student nearing graduation, Mike would have killed to have gotten even a three-month internship at a place like this.
The kitchen pantry was another godsend. Rows and rows of canned and packaged food, with a walk-in freezer filled with all sorts of meat, fruits, and vegetables. The freezer was still working, which meant the standby generators must have kicked in some time ago. Mike only hoped the building didn’t house any deadly viruses in its lab freezers.
As the rest of the group watched in silent awe, Myrtle pulled ingredients off the shelves and then disappeared inside the freezer, reappearing a moment later like some fraudulent TV guru surrounded by swirling clouds of smoke. She almost seemed possessed as she washed, sliced, and sauteed, all the while grumbling incoherently under her breath.
“An incantation, perhaps?” Mike joked, unable to help himself. “To ward off the scary zombies and viruses?”
“She is sounding out the recipe in her head,” Trey said seriously, staring up at Mike. His expression revealed nothing out of the ordinary, but his tone was another matter.
Well, now. Did Mike hear a pinch of disapproval, coupled with a generous sprinkling of salty disdain from his little friend?
Smiling, he reached over and ruffled the boy’s hair. “Still haven’t forgiven me, eh?”
At that reminder, the boy blushed and ducked away, pressing his disheveled hair down with both hands.
When Myrtle finished dishing out the food onto large ceramic plates, they sat on one of the round tables near the kitchen. As soon as Mike got a proper look at the food, his jaw fell open.
The crazy woman had made steak Diane for dinner. They were served fricking steak in the middle of an epidemic ravaging their city. The last time Mike had eaten a steak, he’d been in high school, still living at home with his mom and high-functioning alcoholic of a stepdad.
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