by Fitch, E. M.
~
She saw only two infected people on her way to the nearby stream. Andrew had found it after their first night and they had been using it for bathing and drinking water since. She walked quietly, skirting around the car in which two infected people, a man and a women, clawed at the windows. She wondered how long they had been in there, definitely not since the beginning. They could have been trapped in there, chasing a squirrel, or maybe they were newly infected. Maybe they had been alive and well and something got them just as they were heading out on the road. Either way, Kaylee avoided their line of sight, ducked behind bushes and edged around a garage to avoid them.
She bathed, taking her time, even though the water was freezing. It still felt good to rinse clean. She didn't hurry back either, hiking past two houses on her way back and raiding whatever food she could scrounge up.
It's the first moment I've been alone since... She paused, the thought rocketing around her head, since before the infection started, really.
The sun wasn't yet set, it was probably close to dinner time, when Kaylee came back towards the brick house. Emma's naps were getting more and more sporadic. Kaylee thought she may just be developing a tolerance for the booze Anna plied her with. And some solid food, even if it did come from a can, would be good for her. She pushed through the open porch door, took the stairs two at a time. It wasn't until she got to the landing, just under the pull down hatch that led to the attic, that she paused.
Something caught her attention. It was subtle, hard to pinpoint. Mixed in with the birdsong and the wind that whistled gently through the broken glass of the windows, a new sound rose. Soft claps fell against the crumbling asphalt and the sound of laughter broke free.
Male laughter. Something in Kaylee's chest tightened and she dropped the armful of cans she was holding. She pressed herself down to the dusty, mauve carpet. The hatch to the attic was cracked, the string hanging down in the hallway, swaying lightly in the breeze. She couldn't hear Jack or Emma. But the men outside were getting louder.
"This must be it," one said. Kaylee shifted along the floor, inhaling dust as she moved. She inched until her back was against the wall, just next to the window. Her paranoia was hard to define, but something in her gut wanted her to stay hidden. A horse neighed as she slid up the wall. She was just able to see. A dozen men on horses circled three standing figures on the lawn. The horses were restless, snorting and kicking up clouds of dust and leaves. They churned the soft lawn under hoof and spilled off into the street before being reined back.
"What else you got in there, lovely?"
Kaylee clenched her jaw and inhaled sharply. Anna, Bill, and Andrew stood with their backs to each other. Blood dripped from Andrew's nose and a cut was open under Bill's eye.
"Nothing," Bill answered. "Just passing through."
"We told that arrogant prick that this town was off limits!" It was the same man that spoke. Kaylee couldn't see his features under the baseball hat he wore. His plaid shirt was worn but clean. They must have a base camp somewhere. Though the horses were saddled, they were traveling light.
"We don't know-"
Another man, directly across from Andrew, pulled out his rifle and pointed the long barrel at his chest. Andrew stopped speaking.
"One more word blondie and I'll leave you here bleeding out," the first man said. He held his hand up towards the man with the rifle, his eyes trained on the three people standing in front of him.
"Andrew," Bill muttered. He was warning him, telling him to keep quiet.
"Your boy?" the man asked. Bill nodded. "And her?"
One of other men wolf whistled. The leader tipped his hat back and Kaylee could just make out a smirk from her position in the broken window.
"Mine, too," Bill grunted, standing his ground. The man leaned forward, staring Bill down.
"Is that so?" he murmured. He made a show of looking Anna up and down. "She don't look much like you. So my guess is she's not your daughter. And she's missing a ring. Unless you got a brand on her somewhere, who says she's yours?"
"I do," Anna spoke up in a shaky voice. From her position, Kaylee couldn't see Anna's face. But her stance had shifted. She moved closer to Bill, turning slightly to face the man, her chin lifting. A low murmur of laughter ran through the group of men and Kaylee's stomach turned.
"The last time Richardson sent a team out this way, we were courteous enough to send one back," the man in plaid said, ignoring Anna. "We thought our message was clear."
"We don't know anything about that. Just passing through," Bill said again.
"Headed where?"
"No where special, looking for survivors, some place to last out the winter."
"Well, then isn't this lucky?" the man boomed, his horses neighed restlessly and shifted back. "You found us! John, get those three in the cab of this nice truck they've got all ready for us. We'll take them in, let Riley decide."
A man dismounted, moved towards Anna. A dozen guns sat on restless knees, pointing vaguely in her direction. Kaylee saw Anna's head whip towards the trees, her stance tense.
"Think about running and I'll shoot you in the back." It was said without menace, just cold and hard fact. Which made it worse, in Kaylee's opinion. A man reached for Anna's hands, pulled a zip tie around her wrists. She tensed, but didn't fight.
"Hey, Larry, there's six sleeping bags in the bed here."
"Expecting to find other people so quickly?" the man in plaid, Larry, asked. He tipped his hat back and Kaylee ducked just in time as his eyes swiveled towards the house. "Or do you have a couple more wives and kids in there? Sweep it."
Kaylee moved quickly, scraping the cans she had dropped together and pulling the ladder to the attic down. She scrambled up, dropped the food, and then pulled the ladder and the hatch door up with her. A thin line of light from the hall could be seen all around the hatch. Her fingers fumbled for the knot in the string that hung down into the hall and she pulled it up, hopefully out of sight for whoever was coming to search the house.
Jack came and crouched beside her, he dropped a kiss on her shoulder and she turned. She eyed him in the dark space and he nodded, relief and fear warring on his face. He was listening as well then, didn't realize she wasn't with the rest until now.
"They're taking them," she whispered. He nodded again. His features taunt with worry. "I have to go."
He shook his head vigorously and she used the hand that wasn't keeping the string pulled up to reached out and caress his cheek. "It has to be me." Her breath came out in a low rush, the words just decipherable. "You can't run. She can't move. Stay, please. Take care of her."
Emma lay silent, passed out, not far from the hatch. Kaylee let her eyes flit over her sister, refusing to believe it might be the last time she would see her.
"I need her gun," she whispered, her eyes moving back to Jack. He was staring at her, not moving. Her head tilt, a small smile flitting over her lips. "There's no other choice, Jack. You know it."
His expression was unreadable. Fear, anger, doubt, that seemed to be most of it, contort his features and froze his expression. She nodded towards her sister, in the direction of the black Glock that she knew was tucked under a jacket at the foot of the trunk. He moved back, his limbs jerky and slow, retrieved the weapon and then slid towards Kaylee. Just underneath, right below the hatch, she heard the heavy footfalls of the man sent to search the house. She froze, even her breath stalling in her lungs. Jack did the same, his eyes never leaving hers. She had only moments left. As soon as he was gone, as soon as she heard his shouted report to Larry, she'd have to be down the stairs and out the back door, sprinting after the horses.
The footfalls faded away and she could hear as his boot went from dusty carpet to the worn wood of the staircase.
"Kay," Jack whispered, an urgency in his tone. She turned to look at him and he caught her face in his hands, pressed his mouth to hers with a fierceness that was unsettling. But she matched every bit of his intensity,
one hand on the smooth grip of the gun and the other on the string of the hatch.
"I love you," he whispered against her lips as he released her. "Be safe."
They had never said it, never confirmed with words what their actions had been screaming since they met. He loved her. There was no time to wonder at it, no time to soak it in and let happiness surge through her. She needed to go. And it was said less as a revelation than a reminder. As though she always knew he loved her and he was simply warning her to not be gone long, because he wanted her near. So when she whispered back to him, she said it not because he had, but because it had been simple fact and it was just now that she was putting voice to it.
"I love you, too," she said in a hushed voice. "Take care of her."
He nodded, his throat bobbing. The gun was heavy, cold against her skin as she tucked it into the waistband of her jeans. Her fingers dallied over it before tracing the outline of her mother's medal in her pocket. Someone shouted out to Larry. Kaylee pushed the hatch down into the silent hall, climbed down the ladder, and just saw, through the broken window, the horses turn as a group down the road.
Kaylee took off down the stairs to follow.
For my children and all their wild ways.
Caitlin, Adam, Matthew, and James: thank you, my loves, for all you are and all you will be.
Prologue
Emma woke with a pounding headache that seemed to vibrate with the thrum of her heartbeat. For a moment her world existed in the space between two thumps: her heart, steady and even; then the vicious, skull-splitting explosion of pain that throbbed behind her eyes. And then there was a sharper pain, not a throb but a rasping burn, like fire dancing up and down her leg. The pain of that one night, when the fire really did burn through her skin, clouded her mind until she wasn't sure whether the pain she was feeling now was real, as intense as it felt, or mingled with the memory and all the more unbearable because of it. She knew she was groaning, though it was an after thought. Words and admissions she would have never thought could have flown from her mouth had been pouring out. She heard Anna blame it on the drunkenness and seized on that excuse quickly, feigning that she couldn't remember the things she said.
In all honesty, she remembered too well.
She reached out blindly, groping around her pillow with her eyes clenched tightly. Instead of the cool, glass bottle she was searching for, she met warm fingers instead. She jerked her hand back instinctively.
"Emma," Jack said, his voice low and hesitant. She relaxed. Kaylee must have gone out, left her boyfriend to watch over her drunken sister.
"The vodka, Jack," Emma croaked, "please." She cleared her throat and then grimaced into her pillow as the action caused her headache to pound against her temples. She felt as much as heard him sigh, and then the bottle was there, cool and hard against the heated skin of her fingers. Her gut roiled at the thought of digesting any more alcohol. She took several deep breaths to force her stomach into cooperation, eventually deciding that it just wasn't an option to be sick right then and slugging back a healthy swallow.
"Emma," Jack spoke again and this time, even under the haze of the alcohol that began to slowly swim back into her veins, she could hear the hesitancy in his tone. She cracked her eyes open. The light was flat, the pearly gray light of predawn leaking from the open hatch and the hallway below the attic. She frowned, looking around, her eyes finally settling on Jack.
On just Jack. Not Andrew, or Kaylee. Not Anna, or Bill. Just her and Jack.
"Where are they?" she whispered, her voice coarse and low.
"Gone."
Chapter One
Through the scant light of the oncoming dawn, Kaylee scanned the exterior of an oppressive building. Large and square, several stories tall, it had once been a Wal-Mart. The blue letters still hung above the doorway.
The entrance doors were covered in plywood. She watched from behind a pile-up of rusting cars as Anna, Bill, and Andrew were unloaded from the bed of the truck. She could see Anna's mouth moving as one of the men prodded her forward with the barrel of his gun. She couldn't hear the words, but she knew what Anna said.
"The Squatters aren't allowed in the South.”
Kaylee had heard the words often in the last twelve hours. They kept making Anna repeat it. Over and over and over.
Kaylee had followed them. The men had stolen their truck, so they stuck to the roads. She followed in the woods that lined that cracked pavement. The vegetation was sparse, most of what had flourished was dying out. Fall was taking its last breaths, winter on its heels. It would snow soon. She could taste it in the air. There were no ferns, no brambles to trample through. That meant there was no underbrush to hide in either, should she need it. But the group of men on horseback didn't turn once to see if they were being followed. They weren't quiet, even as much as half a mile behind, Kaylee could hear them.
It wasn't easy keeping pace with the men. It was only sheer luck that allowed her to keep up with them; luck and the fact that the roads were such a mess that the truck couldn't speed up. She tried to get closer to overhear what the men were saying. She thought they might drop a hint to reveal their destination. They never did. She caught the occasional snippet of conversation. Most of it was crude. Too much of it was directed at Anna. Their destination remained a secret, though every one of them seemed to know where they were headed.
The ease with which they traveled made Kaylee nervous. It was as though they knew there would be no barrier, nothing to stop or slow them. They held their guns loose at their sides. No one was scanning the trees, watching for the infected. She was unused to this kind of lapse in surveillance. Her father had always insisted on the utmost caution.
The thought caught her like a punch under the ribs.
Her father. Dead now no longer than a few weeks. In a quick flash, she had pictured his face, disfigured and misshapen, a stranger in the body of the man she adored. He was already cold to the touch when they sent his body down the river in lieu of a burial.
She tried, honestly tried, to remember him as he was. Especially as he was before the infection took over the world. She remembered the way he used to look at her mother, his eyes soft and warm. But the haunted look he adopted after her mother had been bitten, the way he would stare aimlessly out the window at her disease ridden body as she staggered about, rotting in the streets; it eradicated the memory of warmth and security, the way his eyes used to softly glow. And now the image of his final expression, of the bones shifting just beneath the skin, of how cold he felt when she touched him, replaced the warmth. She tried to hold on to the memories of love and happiness, but they were slipping away. Like the water that took her father's body to its final, undetermined resting place; the memory of him, of all of them, before this illness consumed the world was slipping through her clenched fists.
She was grateful Emma hadn't seen him. She didn't want that. She wanted one of them, at least, to remember him for how he really looked, not what he had become.
The thought came unbidden and she pushed it aside as soon as she could. But still it had flashed and taken root, ready to spring at her in any unsuspecting moment.
You may never see her again either.
But no. She would. She had to. Behind her was Jack and Emma and she would get back to them. Ahead of her was the rest of her family, people she loved who were counting on her. She needed to get to them first.
At the first gunshot, Kaylee jumped, sprinting through the woods and sustaining multiple scratches as she burst through the forest towards the road. She careened into an oak tree, her cheek scraping against the rough bark as she peered around it. But none of her friends had been shot. Her eyes sought out the three forms in the truck bed, all twisting around to see where the gunshots had come from. Kaylee's eyes followed theirs just as another crack sounded. A writhing body in the road collapsed, blood seeping from its fractured skull. One of the men on horseback laughed, directing his horse to walk over the prone form. Kaylee could h
ear the skull crush under hoof.
It happened several more times, staccatos of gunshot piercing the air. The horses barely stirred, accustomed to the random bursts of noise. The more the men fired, the more it seemed necessary. Bodies staggered out of the woods that surrounded them, stumbling towards the loud noises.
The small rustlings of rabbits and squirrels faded as the sky darkened. What remained was the rhythmic pulse of insects, whirring gently amongst the fallen leaves. Kaylee's footsteps were softened on the forest floor, cushioned by layers of composted leaves and newer leaves that were soaked by the three days of pounding rain. They were wet and springy underfoot, muffling the sounds of her boots. She was careful to avoid the dry branches that hung low, stepping around the dried out bush and bramble that would snap and give her away.
The infected were not so careful.
She heard a crash from her right, the telltale groaning that accompanied it, and knew an infected person was stumbling towards the group firing off rounds on the road. The pine tree just in front of her was thick, the lower branches dead and free of needles. The bark was gritty under her fingers. She pulled herself up the tree, keeping her feet tight against the trunk as she used the dried branches for support. They cracked under her boots but didn't give. Twenty feet from the ground the branches sprouted vivid green needles that swayed gently in the light breeze. The air was saturated with resin and she inhaled deeply, calming herself as an infected man stumbled past the base of the tree and fell out unto the road.
The bullet that dropped him went straight through, leaving his head a pulpy mess on the pavement and taking out a chunk of bark with enough force to make the tree tremble underneath her fingers.
He was the last infected person to stumble after the group. The sun set shortly after.
