A Wilderness Within

by Emma Castle

  9

  @CDC: We know people are concerned about the spread of virus Hydra-1. It is important to remember to work with each other. If cooperation among nations and peoples fails, pandemics occur. When we think only of ourselves and not of others, we provide contagions with the opportunity to transmit and spread. Save each other and we save the world.

  —Centers for Disease Control Twitter Feed

  November 29, 2019

  * * *

  In the weeks that followed, Caroline kept Lincoln in bed as much as possible. It was like trying to soothe an angry bear whenever she insisted he stay in bed. She took over making the meals and tending to the chickens, whom she had named Narcissa and Persephone. Not that Lincoln had found her naming them all that amusing.

  “When we eat Narcissa someday, you will regret naming her,” he grumbled.

  “Actually, we should focus on finding a rooster so we can breed more chickens.” She had to admit she would have loved some grilled chicken, but she couldn’t look at the two chickens in their nests when that thought strayed across her mind.

  “That’s a good idea. Once we settle down again, I’ll find us one.”

  Caroline spent her days exploring the house, looking at old photos and papers tucked away in drawers, trying to piece together the lives of the people who had built and lived in the home that now felt like hers. But by the end of the third week, she couldn’t keep Lincoln resting any longer.

  “We need to move,” he said over breakfast. “It’s time we headed to Joplin.”

  “But your arm…” She nodded at the sling she had found after running to a nearby drugstore.

  “Food is running low, and I don’t want to spend any more time here. The longer we wait, the longer it is until we find your family.”

  The need to see her parents and her sister was overwhelming, and she nodded as her throat tightened. How were they surviving? Were they able to find food? Did they have running water or gas-powered hot water tanks? How was her sister’s baby? Caroline couldn’t wait to see them. It felt like a lifetime since that phone call from the airport. And in that time, small doubts had started to creep in. It was entirely possible they were gone, that they weren’t immune like her, but as naïve as she knew it was, she needed to believe they were still alive.

  “Then let’s go.” She collected the dishes and washed them before putting them back in the cupboards.

  “What are you doing?” Lincoln asked. He leaned back against the unusable dishwasher, studying her. His lean form was so close, and it always made her body heat with desire. But in the weeks since his injury he had kept his distance, hadn’t teased her or reminded her that someday she would sleep with him. He had become different, more distant and removed than usual, if that were possible.

  In turn, she had become even more lonely. He had chosen to sleep in the guest room, blaming it on his bad arm, and it had wounded Caroline deeply. Their habit of sleeping beside one another, feeling each other close together, had given her a sense of safety, a sense of belonging. But with him sleeping in the guestroom now, she’d felt more alone than she ever had in her life.

  So whenever he was near, whenever he was talking to her, her heart beat faster and her body ached for him, but she didn’t trust him not to withdraw back into his shell.

  “I just want to leave the house the way we found it.” She didn’t mention the bloodstains and bullet holes. “This place was home to us for a time. People lived here, and they made a place that was safe. Maybe someone else will use it someday after we’re gone.” She closed the cabinet with the dishes and glanced away from him out to the window.

  A tall tree, bare-branched, swayed in the breeze as goldfinches and chickadees bustled around the full birdfeeder. Caroline had done her best to keep the feeder stocked with seeds. The finches chattered wildly, chasing a poaching squirrel back down the tree limb that the feeder hung off. Her lips tugged up into a smile. Brave little birds. Seeing the cheerful gaiety of the birds despite the harsh winter gave her joy and hope. Like a tiny spark catching on tinder, she hoped to stoke it back into a burning fire of confidence.

  Lincoln placed a hand on her hip, pulling her against him so her back pressed into his chest. They stayed like that for a moment, watching the birds, before she turned in his arms and searched his face, for what she wasn’t entirely sure.

  “We are going to find your family,” he promised.

  His focus moved down to her lips, and she closed her eyes, praying he would kiss her, but she felt only the briefest touch of their lips and his breath upon her cheeks before he let go of her. Her heart sank and her bottom lip trembled, but she dared not cry. She wouldn’t let his rejection hurt her, at least not now where he would see.

  “It’s time to pack,” he said.

  The two of them moved their bags and supplies into the back of the SUV. They had to get on the road before nightfall to avoid driving in the dark. It was too much of a risk to move about at night without headlights, and headlights could be seen for miles on the flat Nebraska roads. Any scavengers out there could track them far more easily at night.

  “Here.” Lincoln tossed her a roll of duct tape.

  “What’s this for?”

  “The taillights. You can’t turn off like the taillights like you can the front lights. We don’t want anyone seeing us when we drive, even at dusk, and taillights are too visible. Cover them up with the tape. Not like we need them anymore.”

  She did as instructed, covering up the lights while he rolled suitcases and duffel bags out to the back of the vehicle. Then she propped open the back, and they started loading the dog carriers with the hens inside.

  When they were finished, she stood by the driver’s side and looked back once more at the house that been her home for almost a month. She felt torn about leaving, and far from safe doing so. But it was time to move on. This was the first place that felt like she could stay and grow roots, and here she was abandoning it. Her lip quivered, but she bit it hard enough to draw blood as she turned her back on the lovely, empty house.

  “Come on, honey. Time to go,” Lincoln’s gentle voice reminded her. She wiped a tear away and pressed herself against him, not waiting for an invitation. He wrapped his good arm around her and pressed a kiss to the crown of her hair. It took a moment before she felt strong enough to pull away.

  “I’m driving,” she reminded him when he reached for the driver’s side door.

  “No, I should,” he argued.

  She waved the keys at him. “Not until you’re totally healed you’re not.”

  “Offensive driving might be required,” he countered. “You haven’t driven in combat. I have.”

  “You really expect the wastelands to be full of cars with spikes and drivers wearing hockey masks like in a Mad Max movie, aren’t you?” said Caroline. “You got a name picked out? Loony Lincoln?”

  “When my arm is better…,” he growled.

  “When your arm is better, then you can drive,” she said with a laugh. “Now get in,” she ordered. Despite his beard hiding his expression, she did catch him fighting off a smile.

  Caroline got in, and they were soon headed onto the highway south. The chickens in the back clucked incessantly for the first hour before they quieted down. She tried not to look at the cities they passed, but it was hard not to see what was left behind. Just about every store they passed had its windows broken, from bakeries to sewing shops and hardware stores. Some were just burnt-out shells. And the bodies…everywhere…bodies were both piled like cordwood and scattered where they had fallen, all in various stages of the disease. Stray dogs roamed the streets, their eyes wild as they raced away from any sounds, especially those of cars. If there were any survivors in these places, they kept themselves well hidden.

  Hydra-1 had wiped out entire cities, and no one had been able to stop it. Early on the dead had been dumped into mass graves and burned, the smoke of the fires rising for miles into the sky. There wasn’t time for ceremony or re
spect; there was only the need to remove the bodies to try to kill the infection. But Caroline understood Hydra-1 now. It was a microscopic predator that lurked everywhere, preying on all susceptible to it. It spared no one, no one except a fortunate—or perhaps unfortunate—few who were left.

  “Lincoln…what do you think is going to happen? To people, I mean. Will future children born from survivors be immune to Hydra if they are?”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible that any immune survivors will have formed sufficient antibodies that might be passed down to their offspring. There’s no guarantee that Hydra won’t somehow mutate eventually, though. It is a virus, after all, and mutations are easy to achieve if they run across another virus and copy part of their RNA strand.”

  Caroline was silent a long while after that. She tried to imagine a world where she felt safe enough to have a child, or to trust a man to help her raise it. She glanced at Lincoln and then back to the road. She and Lincoln? Not likely. Yes, the man was fucking hot and kissed like out of some X-rated fantasy, but he didn’t seem like he wanted to be a father. There was a shadow around him, a tragedy he didn’t speak of that seemed to bleed over into his life. She wasn’t sure she could ever banish whatever demon had created that shadow.

  “What happened when you were at the airport?” Lincoln asked. “When you realized they weren’t going to let you go?”

  Caroline went white-knuckled on the steering wheel as she tried not to let the past create a fresh sense of doom within her.

  “Only if you tell me something first.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why don’t you want to check on your parents?”

  Lincoln growled. “Truth? My father was an abusive son of a bitch. I promised myself when I joined the army that he would never hit me again. If he did, I’d kill him. I have a feeling that if I went to visit and they were still alive…I’d end up doing what I promised.”

  “I’m sorry.” Caroline wished now that she hadn’t asked him anything about his family.

  “Your turn. What happened at the airport?” he urged.

  She drew in a deep breath and began to speak about the horror she had endured.

  “You can’t keep us in here!” the woman beside Caroline screamed. She and a hundred other people were pressed against the glass of the security doors that led out of the airport terminal. A row of thirty police officers stood on the other side of the glass, wearing white masks over their noses and mouths. Each officer had an assault rifle ready.

  “I have a family!” someone else shouted, beating a fist on the glass. “You’re killing us by leaving us here!”

  Caroline anxiously studied the officers’ faces. Many were impassive, but a few were wide-eyed and shifty-footed with fear. Someone broke through the police ranks and came to the glass walls. It was a woman wearing a navy-blue coat that had CDC printed on the left side.

  “Excuse me! Can everyone be quiet?” the woman announced loudly. Most of the people nearest the glass barrier grew silent.

  “The man removed earlier today was confirmed infected with a contagious virus. It is fatal if contracted. The symptoms are fever, thirst, and dehydration. You may experience vomiting and diarrhea.” The woman searched the faces of the crowd, likely already trying to gauge the symptoms of the people nearest her.

  “We will be providing water and food and any assistance possible, but you must be patient. Once we are able to determine the extent of the situation, we can find a way to start releasing you to go home.”

  Caroline watched the woman speak softly to a policeman behind her, and his look of pity as he glanced at Caroline and the others filled her with dread. They were being quarantined. They weren’t going to be allowed to leave. The second the people around her realized that, they were going to cause a riot. She had to get somewhere safe. Now.

  She backed up, pushing her way through the crowds until she was free of the mass near the glass security doors. Struggling for air, she slumped down in an empty gate area near the glass windows facing the airport runways. All of the planes had been grounded, and the ground crews were gone. Caroline dug around in her backpack for her phone. She dialed her parents again. Her mother answered on the first ring.

  “Honey! Thank God, what’s the matter? Natalie said something about you being stuck at the airport?”

  “Mom… They aren’t letting us go home.” She tried to keep from crying. “It’s bad. Really bad.”

  Her mother’s panicked breathing wasn’t a comfort. “Is it the virus from the news?”

  “Yeah. A man behind me in line died today. He was infected. He coughed on me. I could be infected with it.”

  “Oh no,” her mother said harshly. “You’re not sick, you hear me? You were so ill as a baby when you came a month early, but we got through that. You’ll get through this too.”

  “This isn’t the flu, Mom. You don’t survive this. The lady from the CDC was just here, and”

  “The CDC? Oh my God!” Her mother’s tone turned shrill with panic.

  “She said it was fatal. I don’t think they have a cure. They aren’t letting anyone leave our terminal. It’s under quarantine. I don’t know how much time I have left. I”

  “Caroline Marie Kelly, you won’t die. When you were born prematurely, I held you in my arms, praying for you as you struggled to breathe and fought to live. I knew then that you were special and you were meant to do great things in life. Whatever this is, you will beat it.”

  Caroline closed her eyes, feeling more hopeless than ever. She talked to her mother for another hour, but then she heard the screams and shouts of an angry mob.

  “Mom, I have to go. I love you.” She hung up and crouched down.

  Dozens of angry passengers were storming the shops in the airport terminal. Men and women fought over neck pillows, bags of chips, bottled water, magazines and expensive travel gear like headphones. Stunned, Caroline watched the violence, the men and women hurting each other. At this rate, they’d kill each other before the virus got them. The thought flitted through her mind on dark wings. No one would survive this.

  Six long days later corpses were draped over uncomfortable chairs near airport gates. Bodies slumped against inside shops or restaurants. Dozens more were piled up in the restroom stalls. The thick, cloying smell of death was an invisible cloud in the terminal. Not a single body stirred, not a single chest rose and fell except hers. Caroline knew she had to be immune. She’d encountered the sick and dying hourly in the past week and hadn’t been able to avoid their touch, their saliva or breath.

  Now she lay alive, exhausted, inside a boarding ramp tunnel. She’d managed to break through the security door that morning, desperate to find one place where she could feel alone and breathe clean air. She used her backpack as a pillow, restlessly turning again and again as she struggled to sleep. She’d tried to read a few books and magazines, but that meant she had to wade through the bodies and feel those glassy, sightless eyes following her wherever she went to find something new to read. It wasn’t worth it anymore. Nothing was.

  I just want to fall asleep and never wake up.

  She prayed night, to have her pain and fear taken away so she could just fade into nothing. Dying was easy for everyone but her, it seemed. Her body fought, drawing in breaths, refusing to give in, and she greeted the bleak winter dawn each morning with exhausted eyes and a weary, broken heart.

  She was in that twilight place between wakefulness and sleep when suddenly she glimpsed the distant sway of a flashlight in the darkness.

  “Anyone alive out there?” The voice seemed to come through a distant tunnel, and for an eternity Caroline lay there, unable to move.

  “Anyone alive?” The call was closer now.

  “Here!” The word struggled to escape her chapped lips. Her back spasmed from long hours on the hard floor. She was weak with hunger and dehydration—not from Hydra-1 but because the food and water they had been promised had stopped arriving a full day ago after the last person
expired in the terminal.

  “Hello!” The call bounced off the walls of the jetway as she crawled on her hands and knees.

  “He–here,” she tried to shout. A beam swung her way, and she threw her hands up, covering his sensitive eyes in the dark.

  “Hands down. Show your face!” the man demanded. He was wearing a hazmat suit, and his voice came through a speaker near his chin.

  Caroline lowered her hands, showing him her face. She had no telltale flush, no fever… No Hydra-1.

  “Step this way,” the man commanded.

  She followed his voice, stepping around the bodies of passengers. Her gaze drifted south, and she saw a child wrapped in her mother’s arms, both dead, their faces sunken and eyes cloudy. Something inside Caroline broke then. Like when she’d once knocked over a favorite vase and the pieces scattered across the ground, too small to ever be put back together again. She could only kneel among the shards, mourning the loss, the permanency of it.

  “This way. You need to be tested.” The man in the hazmat suit led her through the terminal to the security exit that had once been crowded with people. A few bodies littered the area, and a man was still pressed up against the glass, but he’d been dead for days, Caroline guessed. Beyond him, through the protection of the glass, she saw the woman from the CDC and a few police officers waiting nervously.

  “One survivor confirmed,” the man leading her reported. “No sign of infection.”

  “Take her to the quarantine zone,” the CDC woman said.

  They led her toward a pair of distant doors that had been locked and sealed at the far end of the terminal, past the security exit. She was taken into a room where she was stripped of her clothes and belongings and forced into a chemical bath designed to kill any viruses or bacteria on her skin.