Days 9 to 16 Read online

  "Come on," I say to Dawn, before I turn and walk away. "We can't stop." I glance over my shoulder and see that she's still staring up at the plane. "Dawn!" I shout. "Come on!" I keep walking, and finally I hear her footsteps behind me.

  Thomas

  Missouri

  The house looks deserted, but as I park the truck a few hundred meters away, I realize I can't afford to take any risks. Those creatures could be anywhere, and with Joe out of action, I can't be certain of keeping us safe. Then again, we need some fresh supplies, so I figure I might as well take a look.

  "It's okay," I say as I hurry around to the back of the truck. Joe looks bad, maybe even worse than before, and it looks like there's some fresh blood coming from his wounds. The roads around here are pretty rough, and I'm pretty sure that the constant travel isn't much good for Joe's injuries, but I barely even have time to think at the moment. As I grab our only remaining rifle, I tell myself that we have to keep moving. If we stop, we're going to die, both of us.

  "I'm just gonna take a look inside," I say as I double check that the rifle is loaded. "They might have some medicine."

  Turning to the house, I pause for a moment, waiting for any sign that there's someone inside. It's a fairly small wooden house, but although it's out here in the middle of nowhere, it looks to have been fairly well maintained. There are some piles of wood over by the door, and a nearby fence looks as if it was painted quite recently. In a way, it reminds me of my family's house back home, although this place is quite a bit smaller. Still, what really matters is that we seem to be miles from anywhere, which means there's a good chance that this house and all the land is completely cut off from everything that's been happening in the world.

  "Hello?" I call out, walking cautiously toward the door. "Is anyone home?"

  No reply.

  Deciding that it might be too dangerous to try the door, I head to one of the windows. It's dark inside, but I can just about make out a kitchen. The place looks clean and tidy, although I'm remaining cautious for now. Walking over to the door, I give it a gentle push but find that it's locked. I look back over at the truck and see Joe's blooded form on the back shelf, and I realize that even though I hate the idea of breaking into this place, I've got no choice. Besides, no-one's answering me, so I figure the occupants of this place must have either died or left. Taking a step back, I pick up a large rock from the ground, and then I throw it at the window before I have a chance to think twice.

  The glass shatters, and I hurry over to get a better look inside. The first thing I notice, to my relief, is that the place doesn't smell bad. I'm not expert, but I'd have thought that after a week of rotting, a dead body would stink pretty bad, so hopefully this means there's no-one inside. I guess the occupants must have been out of the house when disaster struck, or maybe they set off to get help. After all, there's no car anywhere around. Using the butt of the rifle, I clear away the rest of the glass and then I slowly, cautiously climb inside.

  It takes me a few minutes to check all the rooms, but finally I realize that there's definitely not a body here. I don't know where the people went, but right now I don't care: all that matters is finding some more supplies, and hopefully getting hold of some medical equipment that might help Joe. I hurry through to the bathroom and go through the cabinet, but I don't find much more than some pain-killers and a few prescription tablets that I've never heard of before. I pocket them anyway, while reminding myself that at times of emergency, this isn't so much stealing as sharing things around. I hated it when Joe robbed that gas station last week, but this is different: this is a life or death situation. Joe might have some moral gray areas, but I'm certain that I've made the right decision here.

  Once I'm certain that there's no more medicine left, I head through to the kitchen and start going through the fridge. There's no electricity, of course, but I find a few old tins of beans, which I figure could be useful. To my surprise, I also find what appears to be some kind of animal, arranged on a plate with its fur still on; I look closer and realize it seems to be a skunk. Taking a step back, I tell myself that while things are bad, I'm not quite at the point yet where I'm going to eat skunk meat. Closing the fridge, I walk over to the sink and try the taps, but of course there's no water. That's my biggest concern, I guess. We've only got enough water to last a couple more days, and that's before you factor in the need to keep Joe's wounds clean.

  Hearing a noise outside, I duck down for a moment. I wait, but the whole place is silent again. Still, I know I heard something, like a brief shuffling, scratching sound. I take a deep breath and tell myself that there's no option other than to go and take a look. I doubt the occupants of the house have come back, and hopefully none of those creatures have got this far, so I guess the most likely thing is that there's just some animal out there.

  I walk over to the window and take a look outside. There's no sign of anything, so I quickly climb out and then, keeping the gun pointing straight ahead, I hurry over to the truck.

  "Fuck!" Joe says, reaching up and trying to grab something from the other side of the flat-bed shelf.

  "Hey!" I call out, as I realize that Joe must have been the cause of the noise I heard. "Are you awake?"

  "Give me that!" he mutters, trying to get hold of a small wood ax that's resting in the back of the truck. "Are you fucking deaf? Give it to me!"

  Climbing onto the back of the truck, I reach out to grab the ax, before turning to Joe. "What do you want it for?" I ask.

  "What do you think?" he replies breathlessly.

  "I don't know," I say.

  "Just fucking give it to me," he splutters, "and then drag me out a bit into the woods."

  "Why?" I ask.

  "Do I have to fucking spell it out to you?" he shouts, before coughing up a small amount of blood. "Look at me," he continues. "I'm dying. There's no fucking point trying to pretend I'm not."

  "You're not gonna kill yourself," I tell him, feeling a cold chill pass through my body.

  "Fuck you," he says, trying but failing to grab the ax from my hand.

  "No way," I say, moving away from him. "You're gonna get better."

  "It hurts!" he shouts, his bloodshot eyes filled with anger and fear. Reaching his shoulder, he pulls away the sheets that have been covering him, revealing the full extent of his injuries. One entire side of his upper chest has been badly crushed, with fresh blood seeping from wounds that have started to turn a kind of yellowy-black color. "Look at it!" he continues. "This is so fucking far beyond anything, Thomas! It's infected and shit!"

  "I'm gonna get you to a hospital," I tell him.

  "There's no fucking hospital," he continues. "There's no fucking anything." He tries to get up, but the pain is clearly too much and he lets out an agonized scream as he falls back to the floor.

  "You can't give up," I say, terrified of the thought that I might lose him.

  "Please," he whispers, with tears in his eyes. "Do you have any fucking idea how much it hurts to die like this?"

  I shake my head.

  "You know it's gonna happen," he continues. "You're not a fucking doctor, you fucking dip-shit. Even if you try to keep me alive, it's just gonna be one, two days max of fucking agony. Fuck, I'm sweating already. And what if..." He pauses. "What if I've got whatever turned those other people into..." His voice trails off for a moment. "You need to save yourself," he adds eventually. "I've never given a damn about anyone else, but right now, I want you to save yourself. You're the only one of us left, so just leave me here and get going. If you haven't got the guts to kill me, just leave me behind with an ax and drive off, and I'll sort myself out. But I don't want you dying just 'cause you think you can save me. You can't."

  "I'm not leaving you," I tell him.

  "Are you really that fucking stupid?" he asks.

  "I'm not leaving you," I say again, tossing some food at him before I grab one of our last bottles of water and roll it toward him; he pushes it all back to me.

  "
Don't waste that shit on me," he says firmly. "Come on, Thomas. You're not this dumb. I know it."

  I stare at him for a moment, trying to decide what to do, and then finally I make a decision. Shuffling off the back of the truck, I start walking toward the house.

  "Thomas!" Joe calls after me. "Get back here! Thomas!"

  Elizabeth

  New York

  "Okay," I say, stopping and leaning against the barrier that runs along the side of the road, "I need to take a break." Having been walking more or less non-stop since the middle of the night, I'm starting to realize that maybe I'm not in very good shape, and it's not as if I'm exactly well-nourished right now. It's been a couple of days since I ate anything that would really count as a full meal, and I'm starting to feel weak. For the first time, I'm actually starting to wonder whether I can manage this four hundred mile walk.

  Looking back the way we came, I see that Dawn has stopped nearby. I swear, she just seems to copy me all the time, almost as if she can't make any decisions of her own. I can't help thinking that she seems to be having a hard time dealing with everything that's happened. After all, so far I've seen several people die, I've witnessed some kind of creature trapped in a car, I've killed a man in self-defense and I've buried my younger brother. I guess Dawn has probably gone through some pretty crazy stuff herself. It's weird to think of myself as a strong person, because I've always felt like I'm fairly sensitive and emotional, but right now it seems that I'm dealing with things fairly well. I just wish that Dawn would talk a little, to keep me company.

  "So what happened to you?" I ask eventually, hoping to engage her in conversation. "After all this stuff started, I mean. Were you in the city?"

  She doesn't reply. She just stands there, staring at me.

  "What about your family?" I continue, as I take an energy bar from my bag. I don't really have the resources to start sharing stuff, but I figure I can't exactly let her starve. Opening the packet, I break off half the bar and hold it out to her. "You need to eat," I say, but she doesn't respond. "It's food," I tell her. "Yeah, it's not a steak, but it's still food. Maybe some time, we can catch a cow and..." I pause. "I don't quite know what we'd do next. Milk it, I guess, and then try to cut some meat off its body."

  No reply.

  "Let me know if you change your mind," I mutter, before I start to eat the bar. Once I'm done, I put the empty wrapper back in my bag, just in case it turns out to be useful some time. "I was with my brother," I say. "We were alone in our apartment building, but then this guy kind of took control. His name was Bob. He was a total asshole, and eventually..." I pause as I realize that I don't really want to put this into words, not yet. "Bob's gone," I say eventually, "and so's my brother. Things didn't work out too well."

  Silence.

  "You know," I continue, "if you just -"

  Before I can finish, I hear a distant noise, and I turn to see a camper van driving along one of the other roads nearby. I stare for a moment, unable to really comprehend what I'm seeing, and although my first thought is that maybe it's time to hide, I quickly realize that there's no way one of those creatures could be driving a vehicle. This must be people. Actual, live people, and they have a vehicle.

  "Hey!" I shout, waving my arms as I run along the road. "Over here!"

  The van keeps driving.

  "Hey!" I scream, desperately hoping that they might see us. "Stop!"

  After a moment, the van seems to slow down, and finally it comes to a halt. There's a pause, before the door opens and a figure steps out. The vehicle's too far away for me to make out any details about the person apart from the fact that it appears to be a man, and he's definitely noticed us. I'm not sure what to do at first, but finally I figure this is an opportunity I can't pass up. I'd assumed I wouldn't meet anyone during the journey, but now there's a real life person with an actual vehicle. This could be the difference between life and death.

  "Come on!" I shout to Dawn, before I start running along the road. I quickly clamber over one of the barriers and rush through the grass, before climbing up onto another road. The camper van has stopped on a section of road that passes over a bridge, but sheer adrenalin pushes me to keep running until finally I get close to the van and see that the person standing next to the driver's door is a youngish guy with a big curly mop of black hair, a leather jacket, and a cigarette. He seems relaxed enough, and he has the casual demeanor of someone who can probably look after himself just fine.

  "Hey," I say breathlessly as I finally get close enough. Glancing over my shoulder, I see that Dawn is following, although instead of running she seems to be simply walking after me. I turn back to look at the guy next to the van, and finally I notice that there's a woman sitting in the passenger seat.

  "Hey," the guy says, before taking a drag on his cigarette. "You lost out here?"

  "I don't know," I say. "I mean, we're just walking."

  He pauses. "Where to?" he asks eventually.

  "Lake Ontario."

  He raises an eyebrow. "Why are you going to Lake fucking Ontario?"

  "I know some people," I explain, still a little short of breath. "They went there a few days ago, so I figure I'm going to try to catch up. They've got a plan."

  "Huh," he replies, seemingly a little unimpressed. "Lake Ontario. Never thought about that."

  "I think they want to be next to the water," I say.

  He sniffs, before looking down at my shoes. "You gonna walk five hundred odd miles in those?"

  "Why?" I ask.

  "You've got some spares, haven't you?"

  Sighing, I realize what he means. In my rush to get going, it never occurred to me that this single pair of sneakers might not be up to the job. If they wear out, I'll have to walk in my socks, and after that I'll be barefoot all the day. I thought I'd got everything covered, but I guess I missed a few things.

  "You got sun cream?" he asks.

  "No," I reply bitterly.

  We stand in silence for a moment.

  "I suppose you want a ride," the guy says eventually. "I mean, seeing as you're not remotely equipped for a long journey."

  "I..." Pausing, I see that the woman in the passenger seat doesn't look too friendly. She's staring at me as if she's annoyed, which I guess means that she didn't want to stop. "Which way are you going?" I ask.

  "West," the guy replies. "That's kind of all we've got right now. We've got some friends who own a farm about a hundred miles from here, so I was thinking we could head there for a bit, check up on them. At the very least, there might be some food. Other than that, we could kind of use a destination." He pauses. "Erikson," he says eventually. "That's my name. Carl Erikson, but everyone just calls me Erikson. Or they did, before..." His voice trails off.

  "Elizabeth," I tell him. "Elizabeth Mercer. I'm from New York."

  "Hello Elizabeth Mercer from New York," he replies, before looking over at Dawn, who's still quite a way behind. "Who's your friend?"

  "Her name's Dawn," I reply. "She's not really my friend. I just kind of found her, and she's following me."

  He takes another drag on his cigarette. "She looks weird. What's wrong with her?"

  "Nothing," I say. "I think she's just in shock."

  "No," he replies, squinting as he watches her getting closer and closer. "Something's wrong with her. The way she's walking, the look on her face. Something's not right."

  "No, really," I continue, "she's just kind of spaced out. She doesn't really talk much, but she's okay. She keeps herself to herself most of the time. I don't know what happened to her, but I'm pretty sure she's traumatized. I'm just waiting for her to snap out of it."

  "Huh." After a moment, he stubs out the cigarette before carefully placing the butt in his jacket pocket and then leaning back into the camper van. "Come on," he says to the woman, "we could use some extra people. If we keep going by ourselves, we're gonna go crazy."

  "They got any food?" the woman asks.

  "You got any food?" Erikson call
s out to me.

  I nod.

  "She's got guns, too," he says to the woman. "They're just kids. I think we can trust them, and if we can't, we'll just ditch them somewhere." He turns to me. "No offense. You're safe with us, unless you try to pull any shit. You do that, we won't be friends anymore. Got it?"

  I nod.

  "I'm serious," he continues. "You need to pull your weight, too. We're not a charity."

  I stare at the woman, and it's clear that she's not keen on the idea. She looks to be kind of young, maybe in her early twenties, with raven black hair and eyes that seem to be staring straight into my soul. Since I've barely had a chance to speak, I can only assume that it's the idea of me that she doesn't like, rather than anything personal.

  "Fine," she says eventually. "They can come."

  "This is my girlfriend," Erikson says as he pushes the driver's side door shut and turns to me. "Her name's Shauna. There's not enough room in the front for you two, so you'll have to ride in the back." He walks around to the side of the van and slides the door open. "It's not exactly tidy, but I figure it'll do. Beggars can't be choosers, right? We were out camping when all the shit came down."

  I walk over and take a look inside. The place is kind of dark and cramped, but there are seats and a table, and piles of old newspapers on the floor, along with various bags that seem to be stuffed with food. The air smells a little stale, but it's a lot better than continuing on foot.