by Bobby Adair
As it was, all I had was the peace of having no urgent expectations of me. When I woke from an afternoon nap, Murphy and Steph were sitting next to one another; Murphy had my backpack in his hands, stuffing things into it. Steph was reading the label on a plastic prescription bottle. She looked up. “You sleep a lot after you’ve been injured.”
Murphy laughed; not his big laugh, not the one he had before that day when we’d watched Mandi die. “Zed doesn’t know how to slow down until he’s exhausted.”
Murphy was right about that.
Steph popped the cap off the pill bottle and handed me a couple of small white tablets. She reached out with a plastic water bottle and said, “Take these.”
“Antibiotics?” I asked.
She nodded. “Murphy’s also got some pills for the pain—”
I stretched my left arm up over my head and felt my wound protest. “I don’t need the pain pills.”
“Don’t move your arm,” Steph scolded. “It’ll take longer to heal.”
Murphy took the pill bottles from Steph and put them in my bag. I noticed my machete and an M4 with a suppressor attached to the barrel were leaning on the bench next to him. He caught my look and said, “These are yours.”
Shaking my head emphatically, I said, “You know I can’t—”
“These are yours,” Murphy insisted. He leaned over and in a soft voice said, “Trouble in paradise.”
I sighed. “Already?”
In a calm, adult voice, Steph said, “People are afraid. Last night rattled them. Their friends died. They’re confused.”
Understandable. I looked back at Murphy for the straight scoop.
He said, “Amy says—” He thought about how to say what it was he wanted to convey. “Man, I like Amy, but she wants nothing to do with us.” He pointed a long finger at my chest. “You and me.”
“What?” I didn’t want to believe it.
Murphy leaned back. “She wants nothing to do with you, especially. She says you’re a train wreck. Everywhere you go, everything goes to shit.”
My mouth fell open as I shook my head to disagree.
Steph said, “Don’t listen to that.”
“It’s true,” Murphy argued.
“I’m not contradicting you,” Steph told him.
I wanted to say something in my defense, but what could I say? Both of Amy’s companions, Megan and Brittany, were dead. Was that my fault? Everybody from the hospital was dead except Dalhover. Russell and Mandi were dead. I looked away from Murphy and Steph.
Could it all be my fault?
“She says you’re a trouble magnet,” Murphy finished.
“That’s enough, Murphy.” Steph was in Captain Leonard mode.
Murphy shrugged, “She does like you, Zed. That’s what she told everyone. She just says it’s not healthy to be around you.”
Well, fuck these people.
I stood up as Steph protested. I reached my right arm out for my bag. Murphy handed it to me. As I took it, I felt a little lightheaded, but I held my balance, determined and pissed.
Murphy said, “Keep the M4. I loaded you up with some ammo, some grenades, and another set of night vision goggles. I don’t know how all this is going to shake out, but we’re not gonna be empty-handed again.” Murphy nodded for emphasis.
“Murphy,” Steph said, “it’s not like that.”
Murphy held his forearm up next to Steph’s, making the contrast of his white skin next to her naturally pale skin obvious. “I’m not gonna get brown again. I’ll always be white. Zed will too.”
Steph leaned forward and looked up at me. “There’s a lot of animosity between the group that stayed on the island and the ones that left with Gretchen. Amy and the others want to go back to the island.”
“It’s not safe there,” I said.
“Nowhere is safe, Zed.”
Looking at Steph, thinking about it, I couldn’t disagree.
She said, “If we leave them a few sets of the night vision goggles—”
“Those batteries won’t last,” argued Murphy.
“That’s their problem,” Steph told Murphy. “They can go find a solar charger or something.” She looked back at me. “And if we leave them a couple of M4’s with suppressors, they’ll be able to defend themselves on the island without attracting more Whites from the shores.”
My feelings were whirling around in confusion and growing angrier. We’d gone out of our way not to hurt those people on the island—well, except for Jay’s thugs. Some of the islanders died as a result. Well, maybe a lot of them died, but Jay would have killed them anyway. Or, the question I had to ask myself was, had we abandoned Steph and the others, would the islanders have lived happily ever after?
“Sit down, Zed.” Steph took my hand and tugged. “You’re getting worked up over this.”
I didn’t sit. I turned and looked at the survivors, sitting, standing, talking, deciding, spread over five boats all anchored in the cove. I glared at whoever would look in my direction. I said, “Fuck these people. We’ve got three Humvees and a trailer full of supplies. We’ve got diesel fuel, ammunition, food, even blankets and pillows. My vote is we take whoever wants to go, get in our Humvees and get out of Dodge. The rest of ‘em can do whatever they want. We don’t have room for everybody anyway.”
“Word.” Murphy fist bumped me.
Chapter 50
Twelve of us left the cove in the two boats we had used to attack Jay and his thugs on the island. Of the islanders, only Steph and one guy came along. The rest…well who cares about them? I was pissed. They could all go back to the island and fuck themselves. They hated both me and Murphy. They made that clear when they’d sided with Jay against Gretchen on that first night. Even on their knees with Jay’s gun to the backs of their heads, they still thought my White skin was a greater danger. Double fuck them.
Murphy was right. Other people’s fears would haunt us forever.
The islanders took their three boats with a few M4’s with suppressors—Goddamned valuable equipment—and two sets of night vision goggles. With a few thousand rounds of ammunition and a little patience, they wouldn’t have any trouble clearing their island of the infected. They just had to sit offshore and shoot the Whites. If the infected swam after them in numbers too great to handle, they only had to drive their boats up the lake a bit and come back when things settled down. Once they had their island back, there were rifles and handguns left there by Jay’s dead thugs. Provisions they’d had would likely be ransacked, but the canned goods they’d collected would still be there. None of the Whites we’d come across had yet been able to figure out what to do with canned products.
So without guilt for their future, I watched the islanders head back toward their home. Our group turned our boats into our cove late in the afternoon. Two of our three Humvees and the F-350 with the enclosed trailer still attached were parked just as we’d left them on a street a hundred yards up a hill from the water. They were ready to go.
We docked our boats at the floating boathouse where we’d been holed up for the past few days. We didn’t see nor hear a single White on shore as we got everyone moved inside. Once there, Dalhover spoke up. “It’ll be dark in a couple of hours. That’s when we’ll head out. By the time the sun comes up tomorrow, we’ll be far enough west of here that most of our troubles will be behind us. We might even be in Balmorhea.” He looked over to Gretchen and then to Steph. Both nodded. I guessed the pecking order still wasn’t clear. I didn’t care. They had plenty of time to talk about it on the trip west.
Dalhover continued, “We’ve got room to seat seventeen. There are thirteen of us. Figure out your seating arrangements, and let Gretchen know. We need primary drivers and backup drivers for each vehicle. Anybody with experience pulling a big trailer gets the F-350. I’ll be in the Humvee with the fifty, Murphy will be in the one with the grenade launcher. We need backup operators for those as well.” Dalhover looked around for questions.
Gretc
hen stood up. “Murphy, Rachel, and Molly will take a boat across the lake to get the Humvee we left over there last night. As soon as they get back here, if we don’t have any Whites around, we need to top off the fuel tank as quickly as possible, get loaded into our vehicles, and go. We’ll take it slow on the roads since we’ll be using the night vision goggles to drive. We’ll stay in a tight line with two Humvees in front, the trailer third, and a Humvee in back.”
Dalhover said, “The main thing is we need to get that Humvee gassed up and go as quickly as possible. We’ll be vulnerable at that point, climbing the hill up the lake to the Humvees with no protection.”
The islander guy whose name I didn’t catch said, “But we’ve got weapons.”
Dalhover told him harshly, “Don’t shoot unless you have to. Unless you absolutely have to. What you never had the chance to learn on the island is that shooting at the infected never ends well.”
“Nevertheless,” Gretchen interjected, “there are plenty of weapons and ammunition in the trailer. We’ll all be armed before we head up the hill tonight. Sergeant Dalhover and two other volunteers will head up there early, and mount the machine gun and the grenade launcher. They’ll bring back enough weapons so we’ll each have a rifle, a sidearm, and a bladed weapon of some sort.”
“The main thing,” Dalhover said, “is that we do everything quick and quiet. If the infected don’t know we’re out there, they won’t mess with us. If we lollygag and start making noise, things will go bad. If they go bad, run to get into a Humvee as fast as you can. But only if you can make it safely. If you can’t, get back to the boat and get away from the shore. We’ll work out the rally points at places along the shore up the lake. If we get separated, don’t panic. We’ll meet up at the rally points. We’ll get everybody loaded, and then we’ll head west together. Everybody good?”
People nodded. Nobody had any questions.
Chapter 51
I was convalescing again while others busied themselves. They scoured the boathouse for anything that might be of value: screwdrivers, rope, empty gas cans, anything. The trailer still had room, so why not pack it with anything that might have any potential use at all?
Twilight was fading to full dark. The fifty-caliber machine gun and the grenade launcher had been mounted. Everyone had his or her weapons. Lookouts were standing on top of the boathouse, wearing night vision goggles. Two were up at the Humvees, with one standing behind the machine gun, using the height as a vantage point to see up and down the road. But not a single White had been seen or heard while preparations were underway.
I was lying on an empty worktable using a life preserver for a pillow. I’d told Steph at least a dozen times that I felt fine sitting up. Sitting in a folding chair beside my table, she insisted that I remain on my back. It was hard not to bow to her insistence. Somewhere over the hour or so that I’d been laying there talking with her, her hands came to be cradling one of mine, a situation neither of us was going to comment on but neither of us was going to change either. It made me feel optimistic about our impending ride off into the sunset.
We talked a bit about nothing. We talked about what life might be like for the next few years out in the middle of nowhere. We talked about when we might one day come back to Austin. We speculated about the state of the rest of the world and what life would be like in a world where humans had a second chance to try to get it right. And that was the thing about that conversation that struck me as the strangest of all. It was an optimistic conversation built on a foundation of assumptions that enough of we humans would live to rebuild.
Gretchen burst in through the boathouse door and stole everyone’s silent attention. She pointed to our parked Humvees up the hill. “They’re here.”
We whispered our cheers. Murphy, Molly, and Rachel had made it back safely.
Gretchen said, “Let’s go.”
Steph helped me to sit up as the others filed out the door and onto the deck on the backside of the boathouse. Feet stepped lightly on the roof. Knees and elbows bumped the siding as the lookouts climbed down.
Steph, doting over me, slowed us both as we walked toward the door. We should have hurried, but the attention of a pretty girl was never something I could shirk off. We were the last two out. Someone started up the engine on the pontoon boat with a muted rumble. It gurgled exhaust into the lake water.
The others were standing on the deck, excited. Our first real chance at peaceful sleep, at safety, lay out in west Texas, and if luck was with us, we’d be there before the sun went down tomorrow. Steph and I joined the others on the boat, taking a seat on one of the benches.
Out of habit, I adjusted my M4 in its sling, ready to shoot from the hip as Murphy had shown me days before. My machete was in its sheath across my back. My pistol was in a holster on my left. I opened my bag and reached in for extra magazines. I wasn’t wearing a MOLLE vest—a shortcoming I’d need to correct—but I did have pockets that could hold four magazines. Along with the one in my rifle, that meant I’d have one hundred and fifty bullets all ready to fly if I needed them.
Steph put a hand on my wrist and shook her head. She said, “Don’t worry about those. You’ve done your part. Just get yourself into the Humvee. That’s all you need to do.”
My hands lingered on the magazines. “But—”
“No buts, Zed. Just get yourself into the Humvee. Let the others do their part.” She smiled.
I let go of the magazines. “Yes, boss.” I smiled and zipped up my bag.
Chapter 52
With the pontoon boat’s shallow draft, we ran it aground pretty close to shore, with a grind of limestone on its double aluminum pontoons. The passengers each jumped off the flat deck at the bow and waded across a dozen feet of shallow water. Once they were out of the water, they walked quickly or jogged up the hill toward the Humvees.
“Don’t run,” Steph told me as I started to follow. “You’ll open your wound.”
Just as well, I thought. The effort of getting out of the boat and through the water was more taxing than expected. With Steph on one side of me and Gretchen unexpectedly on the other, we started up the slope. At the top of the hill, Dalhover was standing up through the top of a Humvee behind the fifty-caliber machine gun, looking around. Murphy, Rachel, and Molly were out of their Humvee which they’d left idling loudly behind them. Molly had experience driving the big pickup truck with the trailer, and she was heading that way. Murphy would ride out to Balmorhea in the Humvee with the grenade launcher and Rachel was riding with him, so they were standing together.
With just seventy-five yards of rocky slope to cover, I had the thought that we were going to start our trip without incident, that maybe the Whites on this side of the lake had wandered off to other parts of west Austin, that maybe our luck had finally turned. But in truth, keeping your guard up one hundred percent of the time is hard work. I was tired. We were all tired. We hadn’t seen nor heard a White all day. That allowed us to indulge complacency, and complacency as we’d learned so, so many times, lay at the doorstep to disaster.
I heard one howl at first, barely recognizable over the sound of the Humvee’s diesel engine rattling as it idled. I thought for half a second that it was something strange in the engine noise, but before I even finished that thought, that single White’s howl was joined by a dozen, a hundred, maybe a thousand others. Somewhere off to our left and up the hill, a horde lurked in the trees.
I shouted, “Steph, Gretchen, run.” I pushed Steph from behind to urge her to move.
Gretchen took a few quick steps and turned to look at me with anxious eyes.
“Go,” I yelled at her. “Go.”
Gretchen’s face turned to worry, but she spun and rushed up the hill as fast as her old legs would carry her.
Steph put a hand under my arm to pull me along.
“You go too, Steph. I’ll catch you there.”
“C’mon. We’re going together.”
“No.” I was breathing heavily w
ith the exertion. That bullet had taken a lot more out of me than seemed possible. “I’ll be fine. I’m White too. They won’t fuck with me. Go.”
Steph ignored me and pulled harder. We were halfway up the hill. It looked like we were going to make it. But that changed.
A flood of naked Whites poured out of the trees.
“Shit.” It was immediately obvious that we weren’t going to make it to the Humvees.
Anxious but not yet panicked, Steph yelled, “We have to run, Zed.”
I tried to run, but I instead lumbered on molasses-slow feet.
All the others were in their Humvees already. The engines rapidly fired up one by one. Dalhover’s fifty-caliber machine gun thundered, and Whites fell all across the hill.
Steph figured out at that moment that we weren’t going to make it up the hill. She pulled me to a stop and yelled, “Back to the boat.”
Whites were among the Humvees up on the road. An endless wave of them poured out of the trees. Grenades exploded, and other small weapons fired. I turned with Steph and we started to run, but there was already a smattering of Whites behind us.
Dammit!
I stopped, raised my M4 to my hip and sprayed a full magazine of bullets across our path, then ran after Steph as fast as I could. I tripped over my sagging toes and tumbled across the rough ground. Steph’s pistol fired.
“Run for the boat,” I hollered at her. But she didn’t. She was trying again to help me to my feet.
“Run,” I commanded.
Screams filled the air, punctuated by gunfire. Whites were everywhere, but the boat was just ahead.
A blur of white flashed across my vision and before I realized it, Steph was being tackled. I let go of my empty M4, pulled out my machete and hacked at the White’s back, cutting through its spine. Blood gushed from the wound as Steph struggled out from underneath it.
But more Whites were around us. I hacked at another and drew my pistol. Whites were close enough that I could make every round count. And as much as I preached at others never to fire a gun at the Whites, Steph and I were past the point of caution. I was buying seconds of life with my bullets. I fired, and Whites fell around me.
