by Fitch, E. M.
Pride and Prejudice. Kaylee smiled back. When life had been normal, she had been assigned that book in school. She had read it while Andrew groaned about having to read it and eventually coaxed her into renting the movie.
"One of my favorites," Maggie confided. "Keeps me company."
Kaylee nodded, understanding easily. "Has it mostly just been you all here? Have there been many to come through?"
"There has been a few," Maggie answered, averting her eyes. "But most of them come and then go."
Kaylee was surprised. Yes, her group had a plan. And there were enough of them that it was relatively safe to travel, as long as they had armored vehicles and plenty of weapons, which they did. But if it had been just she, her sister, and her dad and they had stumbled into this place, there was no way they would leave. No matter how unpleasant Marsden could be, it was undeniable that the safety he offered more than made up for it.
"Was it large groups then?"
"Oh no," Maggie answered dismissively. "Mostly just one or two people."
"And they left? Back out there all alone?"
Maggie frowned, her mouth falling open and then snapping shut. She nodded. "Aren't you leaving?"
Kaylee paused, not sure how to answer, not sure if they really would go after all. If Jack and Quinton thought it unsafe, they probably would. She knew the goal was Alaska. Her father would want to keep going, knowing that no one here could help develop a cure, none of them would have the ability. So telling them about Emma wouldn't be an option. And isn't that why he agreed to leave their city in the first place?
"Anyway, even if you did go," Maggie continued in Kaylee's pause, "maybe you'd come back."
"Have the others?"
Maggie frowned, her eyes skipping from her book cover and to the door that led to the kitchen.
"Have any of the others ever come back?"
"No," she answered eventually. She didn't meet Kaylee's eye as she murmured her excuse and slipped out to the kitchen. Kaylee heard the outside door open and shut.
"It's not you, just in case you're wondering."
Kaylee jumped, her hand flying to her throat. Paul came up behind her, his eyes towards the kitchen.
"Maggie is still not over Charles. He came and went, said he'd be back, but..." Paul trailed off with a shrug. "I'm grabbing some water, need anything?"
She shook her head no, murmuring her thanks. She chose a book at random and left the little hallway full of books for the large, brightly lit great room. The crane that hung from the ceiling was a great, dark blot against the otherwise lit ceiling. Jack caught her eye as soon as she entered, his gaze drifting over her. She nodded to him, grimacing through a smile, before he turned back to his game. She opened her book, staring down at the title page.
She tried but she couldn't focus on the words. Her conversation with Maggie was stuck on replay in her head.
None of the others came back?
That couldn't be right. It made no sense. Unless something prevented them from coming back, something dangerous that they couldn't escape.
"Rose?" Kaylee started, waiting for the older women to hum her acknowledgement. "Other than that hospital you mentioned, are there a lot of highly populated areas around here?"
"Around here?" she asked, distracted by the card game. "No, not really. Kinda out in the sticks, if you know what I mean."
Kaylee hummed, turning back to her book. The words blurred together. Maybe it wasn't something dangerous that held them away, but something better.
"What about other survivors? Other groups of people?" Kaylee pressed, leaning forward out of her seat.
"Eh?" Rose grunted, her eyes darting from Emma to Andrew. "Nothing but some stragglers that come and go. Hey now!"
Emma, Andrew, and Jack had all slammed their thumbs down on the table. Rose missed the cue. "See now I've lost my turn!"
"Sorry," Kaylee said through a smile. Jack turned to look at her, his gaze quizzical. "It's nothing, just Maggie mentioned some people that have come and gone and I wondered why none ever came back."
"Oh that old pity case," Cynthia sneered, she was just walking in from the hall. Kaylee looked up at her, startled. "Whining about Charlie again, isn't she?"
"Now, Cyn," Marsden drawled, his eyes darting to her in warning.
"I can say what I want," she shot back, dropping herself into a chair behind her mother. Rose placed her cards down with a sigh. "It's his own fault he left. Probably dead or a biter by now."
"Cynthia!" Rose admonished, frowning at her daughter.
"Oh, don't be so sensitive mother," Cynthia said with a wave of her hand. "We survived the apocalypse, you think you could develop a sense of humor about it. I'm sure old one-handed Charlie did, right before he bit it, that is."
The group turned at the collective gasp from the hall door. Maggie stood there, stricken; her book in hand, staring at the others. Kaylee felt a sinking in her stomach and the urge to apologize.
"Oh, what?" Cynthia blurted out. "He did have only one hand!"
The room fell silent as Maggie grit her teeth and turned on her heel. Moments later the door to the yard was slammed shut.
"So sensitive," Cynthia snorted. "Well mother, off to bed?"
Rose said nothing. She sat still, breathing sharply through her nose. But after a moment, she threw her cards down, got up, and headed towards the kitchen. Cynthia followed.
Kaylee waited until Marsden and Danny left too before saying aloud what was teeming inside of her. Once the last door closed, it burst from her.
"What a bitch!"
No one disagreed.
Chapter Eight
"This is my fault," Andrew muttered, his head in his hands.
"What are you talking about?" Kaylee asked, looking from Andrew to Anna. The latter was coming in back from the hall. She shook her head.
"I was teasing-"
"It's no one's fault," Kaylee interrupted. She glanced around the room again, still not able to believe it. Emma had left. Sometime in the middle of the night. She wasn't in the room and Anna just swept through the bathrooms, yard, kitchen. She was gone. Kaylee turned to her father. Nick was lacing his boots. "She couldn't have just- Dad, what are you doing?"
"Your sister is too young, and obviously too idiotic, to be out there alone."
"I'm sure Quin-" Bill started.
"We hear from Quinton once every twenty-four hours and you're telling me I'm supposed to just assume that Emma made it to him safely?" Nick stood, shifting his weight off his bad leg. The room they had been given, a room large enough to comfortably space the ten beds lined in rows, shrunk with the tension. The walls felt closer, the air heavier.
Kaylee couldn't believe her sister left. They had been at The Mill just over a week. Quinton still hadn't joined them, but he was okay, signaling Jack every night. Kaylee couldn't understand what would make her sister just up and leave like that.
"But what about Marsden?" Bill said.
"Screw Marsden!"
It hadn't even been half an hour since Marsden had come in to their rooms, woke them up, and told them that Emma had left. She had cut through the fence, left a gaping hole in the chain link, and stepped from the safety of the yard into the unknown of the surrounding meadows. Only Rose had seen her, woke from her arm chair in the kitchen as Emma had slid through the door into the night.
"I'm so sorry," she had said, reaching out for Nick's hand. "I didn't know what she was doing, thought she was just catching a bit of fresh air. Otherwise I would have stopped her, obviously."
The stunned look on Nick's face quickly shifted into anger.
"I thought those fences were electrified!" he had burst out, rounding on Marsden. "How in the hell did she-"
"I had it off," Marsden had interrupted. "Cynthia wasn't in yet. Better question is why in the hell did she cut through my fence? Danny's been out there since he woke patching the thing up. Lucky we didn't have a swarm on our heads."
Emma was gone. She hadn't even lef
t a note.
Nick had decided immediately that Emma had gotten sick of waiting and went looking for Quinton. But that didn't make sense to Kaylee. Something, a bubble in her chest expanding with anxiety but unable to burst, was bothering her. Why would Emma tell no one, not even her? How could she just leave?
And yet, the alternative was unacceptable.
Of course, the alternative was also realistic. Something no one had mentioned yet.
Maybe Emma felt something, maybe her fingers wouldn't stay straight, maybe the whites of her eyes were staining yellow. If something had woken her in the middle of the night, something that brought about a new and horrifying kind of hunger, Emma would leave. She wouldn't allow herself to contaminate the others. And she wouldn't allow the other members at The Mill to know either, that would endanger the rest of their group. She would find a way to disappear, Kaylee knew that. Emma herself had threatened it, multiple times.
But she also promised to say goodbye.
Rose and Marsden had gone, leaving the rest to argue about what to do and why she'd go. Nick stood, his expression set.
"Nick, I know you don't want to hear this," Anna started.
"Don't," he snapped.
"You need to listen," she continued. "If you leave now, you can't come back."
"What about Emma?" he snapped. "She can't come back either. I should just leave her out there?"
"She might not be able to come back regardless," Bill muttered, finally sounding what they were all obviously thinking. Emma had turned. Nick rose to face his friend, his jaw muscle clench, his fists tight at his side.
"Careful, Nick," Anna warned in a low tone, moving towards him. His eyes didn't leave Bill's and Kaylee saw his fists tremble.
"It's a possibility," Bill continued in a forced whisper. "You know it is. And as reckless as Emma can be, do you honestly think she'd just take off and not tell anyone unless..."
"Unless she couldn't," Jack supplied in the pause.
A heavy silence swelled. Andrew hadn't moved from the bed, his head swayed back and forth in a shake of denial and guilt. Bill and Nick stood toe to toe. An awful sinking sensation filled Kaylee's stomach.
She had promised me. It was a while ago, but she had said the words, promised she'd say goodbye.
What if it happened quickly, what if it swooped over her and the best she could do was get to the fence? She hadn't even taken any of her things, her bed was messy, yesterday's clothes piled at the foot of it.
When was the last time Kaylee had even checked in on her? Asked her if she felt anything, watched her compulsively straighten her fingers? It had been some time. Since before they came to The Mill, and a week or so before that even. She had been taking it for granted that her sister was fine, that the infection couldn't touch her, that she wouldn't turn.
"I don't trust Marsden." Andrew's voice was soft, measured. Kaylee turned to look at him, still hunched on the edge of the bed. When they discovered Emma's bed empty, he had panicked, rambling about how he had been teasing her, bickering. He said that he was the reason she'd taken off. Kaylee couldn't see why that should matter, Andrew and Emma were always on one another in some way.
"Rose saw her-" Anna started but she was interrupted.
"I don't care," Andrew said hotly. "She wouldn't leave without saying a word to one of us."
"Maybe she couldn't face it," Anna said softly. "Or maybe she didn't have time-"
"She's not turned!" Andrew hissed, standing with grit teeth. His father shushed him, looking between Andrew and the open door. Andrew shook his head. "We need to get to Quinton."
"And if we break out, and she's not with him," Bill started, "what then?"
No one answered.
~
In the end, they didn't have to break out. Danny had the truck parked outside the fence by the time Nick made it downstairs. He was looking for volunteers to clear the lines, claiming a large group had almost collapsed them at dawn. Andrew and Nick volunteered immediately but Marsden cut across.
"All of you," he said gruffly. Nick was too worked up to even argue. The gate was opened and Kaylee was once again sitting on the floor of the van, knocking into Jack and Anna. Paul sat in the front seat though he turned back to talk to the group.
"Not really a new thing, him sending us all out like this," he said conversationally. They were told that Mario was already out, Danny and he had gone early to check and found more work than either of them could handle. "It doesn't happen often, but when a really large crowd of biters hits the lines and fries, it takes a lot to get them free. We usually get stuck out on line duty for a few days."
"Better than being lunch," Danny snapped, his voice wheezy. Paul rolled his eyes and turned back in his seat.
The van bounced over the meadow. Kaylee grit her teeth to keep from biting through her tongue.
"So, your other girl," Paul started again, "took off?"
It was Danny of all people who answered. He cut the wheel left and Kaylee fell into Anna. "Cut through the fence last night, Rose saw."
"Meeting up with your friend?" Paul continued, nodding as though he was answering his own question. That seemed to be a convenient thing about Paul, maybe from all the one on one time miming for Mario, he was able to answer his own questions. "Can't say I really blame her. Must be tough having one of your own out there. Marsden is-"
Danny cut the wheel hard and even Paul had to stop talking as the van bounced. Kaylee saw the trees looming through the window shield. She sat up, peering past the dashboard, and caught sight of a line of twitching lumps and an occasional flailing limb. The van jerked to a halt and even before the doors opened, she could smell them.
Cooked flesh, rotting around the wires that were seared into the bellies, chests, the legs and in one case the neck, of infected bodies. The line stretched and stretched, she counted ten, twenty, double that even before she gave up, the remnants of her hasty breakfast catching in her throat. Even as they watched, none of them but Paul knowing where to start, more infected were staggering to the fence, draw by the noise or the smell.
Kaylee wasn't sure what she had expected, maybe masses of blackened bodies, so burnt they were barely recognizable. She had thought that would be awful. This was worse.
The lines didn't blacken their bodies. The infected didn't push away from them, didn't cringe back or drop like a normal person would, instead they tried to push through the electrified fences. The wires burnt and seared the dead skin, getting caught in the fleshy remains, snagged on backbone and rib, and the body of the infected person flailed and pushed, not able to but trying to get through regardless.
She watched, transfixed by the horror, as an infected woman approached the fence, staggered over and walked right into it, snapping her teeth at the group. Her eyes were dark yellow, her teeth blackened and chipped. The wire of the fence caught at her knees and chest, just at the base of her ribs. She kept walking. Her feet pushed forward even as the wire burnt into her, a faint hiss, a small trail of smoke rising at the sight of the burning flesh. Kaylee turned away at the sound of vomiting behind her.
Anna was bent over, retching into the grass.
"It's not pretty," Paul agreed, his tone still conversational. "But like I said..."
"Better than being lunch," Bill finished. Paul nodded.
"Where's Mario?" Jack asked, scanning the line in front of them. Danny explained that he had sent Mario to check further down. He opened the back of the van, pulling out various tools. A pick ax, two shovels, a long javelin like the kind Kaylee used to throw for her track team. They were handed out, the smooth column of the javelin familiar in her hands.
"Aim for the heads," Danny said, advancing before the group and sinking his hatchet in the skull of a young boy.
"We have to," Paul added, grimacing. "The noise seems to attract them. Best to quiet them down, peel them off after."
Kaylee felt her stomach roil. "I don't think I-" she broke off, flinching as Danny's hatchet sunk into another sk
ull with a squelching crack that reverberated throughout the morning air. Jack frowned in concern.
"Danny," he called, causing the skinny man to turn in question. "What do you do with the bodies?"
"Bury 'em, usually," he answered, shrugging. There's a site over that way, but with a group this large I'd probably just dig a shallow pit closer by."
"How about the girls start that?" Jack asked, looking back at Kaylee. Anna was wiping her mouth clean, nodding. Kaylee could see that the prospect of digging was more appealing than the alternative. Danny shrugged. Paul gathered the shovels and traded for the weapons Danny had thrust at Kaylee and Anna with a sympathetic smile.
~
The digging wasn't easy. Sweat dampened Kaylee's forehead, and trickled between her breasts. She was distracted and anxious, her eyes darting to the woods every few moments. So far, there had been no sign of Quinton. And no sign of her sister. But they had stayed in one location, the men peeling body parts from the lines and tossing them towards the ever widening ditch that she and Anna were chipping away at.
The work was good in that it was steady, mindless, but exerting. Kaylee felt her panic pitch and rise and she would throw the shovel harder into the soil, scrape out rocks and toss the dirt aside. She wanted to run the length of the fence, her eyes traced it all throughout the day. But something small, something nagging, like a snag in her chest, told her even if she could, she wouldn't find Emma with Quinton.
Nothing had happened, nothing had changed. There was no urgent need to find Quinton and even if Emma had decided to go and do it anyway, there was no real reason to sneak out in the middle of the night. Jack was contacting him every twenty-four hours, he was fine for now.
But still, Emma left.
Andrew thought it was his fault. Kaylee reviewed the possibility, even as she pressed her weight into the shovel, breaking through the earth's crust with a scraping sound that mingled with moans. Something in that made sense, something about the way Andrew watched her, about the way Emma reacted to it. Kaylee had sensed it for a while. But could that really have caused enough discomfort for her to just leave? Just forget her family, everyone she knew, and take off without even a note?
