Thicker than Blood Page 35

  “I know,” she said softly, dropping her gaze. “I am too.”

  She turned back to stare at the road and we lapsed into silence, just as the eagle above let out another loud squawk. Shielding her eyes, Leisel turned her face toward the sky, watching as it hovered, its great wings outstretched, and her smile began to slowly return. Seeing this, my own smile came back to me, and I refocused on the road with a sigh.

  “There’s a sign up ahead,” Leisel announced, leaning forward to peer out the dirty windshield. “For lodging, I think.”

  Another mountainside loomed up beside us, giving us a brief reprieve from the sun. Slowing down the Jeep, I pulled up alongside the surprisingly still intact road sign that boasted a variety of fast food restaurants and hotels.

  “I don’t know,” I said, hesitating. “Looks like it was some kind of ski resort town. Towns mean people, and people means—”

  “Infected,” Leisel finished. “I know. We could drive through, have a look around. If we see any infected, we’ll just get back on the highway, right?” She looked at me, her brow lifted in question.

  Biting down on the inside of my cheek, I felt my stitches pull, pain shooting up and down the nerves in my face. “Shit,” I muttered, knowing I needed to clean and dress my many wounds. If only Alex were here with us, I wouldn’t have been so apprehensive. Though the infected were a huge threat, the living were more so, the men especially.

  “Eve,” Leisel said, touching my arm. “Eventually we’re going to have to stop somewhere. We don’t have a lot of gas left.”

  “I know,” I whispered, glancing at her. “I just—”

  “We’ll be okay,” she said firmly, giving me a strong smile. “I promise.”

  Her resolve cemented it. With a brief nod of my head, I pulled the car forward again and back onto the road.

  “Since when did you become the voice of reason?” I muttered.

  “Since you decided to be the pessimistic one.”

  Grinning, I looked back at her. “Ready for some skiing?” I joked.

  “I hope you brought your snowsuit,” she quipped back. “According to the sign, they have the best manufactured snow in the South.”

  We were both laughing as I turned onto the exit ramp, a strained sort of laughter, but laughter nonetheless.

  • • •

  “I can’t believe it,” Leisel said, drawing out her words slowly as she glanced around the room in wonderment. “It’s…it’s virtually untouched.”

  Much like the rest of the town, the small bed and breakfast we’d chosen to check out was exactly that. Entirely untouched and with no infected to speak of.

  We’d chosen this particular building for two reasons. It was a two-story bed and breakfast sitting well off the main drag, on top of a steep ravine, hidden by a thick stand of trees, and it hadn’t been looted. In fact, there were no signs of any violence having occurred. Aside from a few broken windows, the layers of dust coating everything within it, and the small forms of wildlife that had made their nests inside, the structure had held up rather nicely. Fully furnished, each of the four bedrooms boasted queen-sized beds, and although filthy, were still made up with their original linens. Towels remained folded neatly on shelves, and several water bottles sat untouched inside the small refrigerators.

  Picking up a brochure lying on the dressing table, I skimmed over it. “There’s a sightseeing tour at noon today, Lei, down a ‘naturally crafted 164-foot ravine bursting with nature and wildlife,’” I said, waving the dusty pamphlet in the air. “I know how much you love that shit.”

  “We could stay here for a while,” she whispered, ignoring my joke. Her eyes filled with tears, and there was a slight tremor in her voice. “Until we figure something else out.”

  “We should,” I agreed. “But before we do that, I need to wash.” Gesturing at my clothing, I made a face. The smell of myself was making me feel light-headed and downright queasy. Grabbing a plastic jug full of water from the pile of supplies we’d hauled inside, I headed toward the bathroom.

  Not bothering to shut the door behind me, I quickly stripped out of my ruined clothing and inspected myself in the mirror. The cuts on my face looked even worse than they had this morning, swollen and red, fluid leaking from between the stitches.

  Grimacing, I closed the stopper in the sink and poured half of the jug of water into the basin. Grabbing a small hand towel from the rack, I shook it free of dust, then dipped it in the water and began the painstaking task of cleaning my wounds.

  • • •

  Hand in hand, we stood by the lone window, watching as the sun began to set on another day. Our bellies were full of peaches, dried rat meat, and complimentary chocolates from the bed and breakfast’s office, and the scent of wildflowers blew in through the open window, breezing through my damp hair.

  It was a truly perfect moment, and I couldn’t help but envision us staying here, maybe even living out the rest of our lives here.

  “I’m going to go to bed,” Leisel said, pulling away from me with a yawn. She smiled. “If that’s okay with you?”

  I nodded. I hadn’t felt this safe, this secure in our surroundings since we’d left Fredericksville. “While you were cleaning up,” I said, “I moved some more of the furniture downstairs. The doors are blocked. If anyone, anything, tries to get in, we’ll hear it.”

  As she padded softly over the hardwood floor and slipped into bed, I turned back to the window, wishing the eagle would have followed us here, hoping that, like Leisel and me, it was someplace safe. It was almost surreal, the view of the deep ravine, the dimming sky full of muted shades of pinks and blues. And so peaceful.

  This was all we’d wanted. After leaving Fredericksville, this was what we’d hoped for, what we had aimed for. So many people had died just for us to get to this point, so many sacrifices had been made, that it was hard not to be a little morbid about it. But Alex and Jami, Shawn and Thomas, they would have wanted this for us. They’d given their lives to keep us safe, and now we were. And I felt like I’d finally kept good on my promise to Thomas.

  I had kept Leisel safe.

  A wave of exhaustion tumbled through me, causing me to reach out and grip the windowsill. I blinked several times, my vision doubling and clouding over, yet I didn’t want to close my eyes just yet. I wanted to let it all soak in for a little while longer.

  “Thank you,” I whispered to the sky. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Leisel

  I was dreaming of screaming. Shrill, high-pitched, blood-curdling screaming that was so very familiar to me, it sounded as if it were my own. I searched wildly for it, running through the darkness, tripping over shadows of arms and legs all reaching for me, yet couldn’t seem to find anything. Only more darkness and constant screaming.

  “Lei! Lei! Wake up!”

  More arms grabbed at me, a hand wrapping around my wrist, nails biting into my skin, shaking me furiously.

  “Leisel!”

  I jolted upright, blinking with confusion at Evelyn’s distorted features.

  “What?” I cried. “What’s wrong?”

  “You tell me!” she said. “You woke me up screaming!”

  My mouth fell open as I looked around the room, taking in our surroundings. “I…uh…” I managed a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry, I was dreaming.”

  Shaking her head, her red curls bouncing, she smiled. “It’s fine, it was just loud. Are you okay?”

  I nodded, then reached up to gingerly touch the angry red wounds on her face. “Are you? These look better than yesterday. They seem to have finally started scabbing.”

  She made a face. “They hurt like a bitch. The scars are going to be awful.”

  Lying back down in bed, she pulled the musty bedcovers up to her chin and grinned. “But what good is surviving an apocalypse without the battle scars to prove it?”

  “I always thought you were too pretty,” I said, laughing as I lay down beside her. Wrapping my arm
around her middle, I pulled myself closer.

  “Thanks,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes even as she turned her face against my chest.

  Snuggled against Evelyn’s warm body, my eyes began to close. It was astounding how relaxed I was, given everything that had happened. Considering our run of bad luck, it was unreal to find a place such as this one—entirely overlooked. I couldn’t imagine that it was going to stay that way forever, but for now this was exactly what we needed. And it was the little things, like finding a slice of safety in a world gone mad, that made the rest of it not seem quite as horrible as it had.

  Nearly asleep once again with a silly smile on my face, I heard it, the telltale groaning growl of an infected. My eyes popped open, and I turned my head to find Evelyn looking back at me, her eyes wide.

  “Fuck,” she mumbled, untangling herself from me. “I knew this was too good to be true.”

  Yanking the covers off us in a huff, she swung her legs out of bed and strode quickly across the floor toward the window. Pushing open the haphazardly hanging shutters, she peered down below.

  “There’s two,” she whispered, glancing back at me. “They’re by the Jeep. Probably heard you screaming, and now they smell the blood.”

  “If it’s only two,” I said, feeling guilty for drawing them here, “we can handle two easily.”

  Rolling myself out of bed, I moved quickly to stand by her side. Like she’d said, there were two shambling around the exterior of the Jeep, wildly turning their heads back and forth and reaching for nothing. Off in the distance, near a thick stand of trees, I noticed more movement.

  “There’s three,” I said, pointing. “Dammit.”

  “That’s a deer, Lei,” Evelyn said, narrowing her gaze. And just as she said it, both of the infected noticed the movement. With a growl, they went stumbling off after the deer. It leaped out from behind the tree that had been hiding it and took off running, the infected still following.

  “Well,” Evelyn said as she turned to me, a smirk on her face. “That solves that.”

  “What if there are more?” I asked, worried that our arrival here might have disturbed an entire town of infected that we’d somehow missed on our drive through.

  “There are going to be infected everywhere,” she said. “It’s unavoidable. And this is too good of a place to pass up. I think all that really matters is how well we can fortify it.”

  She pursed her lips together, wincing as the movement pulled on her stitches. Reaching up to touch them, she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Let’s go check out the town some more, see what can be salvaged. Finding a drugstore would be great…some painkillers, antibiotics…” She touched her stitches again, grimacing. “Before this gets infected.”

  • • •

  The town was quiet. Aside from the water rushing through the nearby gorge, the chirping of small birds, and the sound of our feet as we walked down the center of the road, there was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. We passed by several lodges, and a lot of vacant lots in between. On the main drag there was little else to be found—a bookstore, a movie theatre, a five-and-dime type shop, a shoe store, and a small department store.

  When we didn’t find a pharmacy, I gestured to the grocery store we’d passed only minutes ago, and Evelyn made a face. “I could smell that place from across the street,” she said. “Ten to one, it’s crawling with bugs and rats.”

  “But they probably had a pharmacy.” I shrugged. “It’s worth a shot, right?”

  “Yeah.” She made another face. “I’ll just hold my nose, I guess.”

  Surprisingly, the grocery store wasn’t filled with rotting food. Everything had long since rotted, and what hadn’t been looted had simply petrified. The smell that remained, though, having probably permeated the walls and floors and everything within reach, was downright awful. Worse than awful. Even holding our noses, I could still taste the stench in the back of my throat.

  Side by side, our weapons drawn, we walked cautiously down the dark, empty aisles, the floors covered with sleeping bags, suitcases, even tents.

  “We could take some of this stuff,” Evelyn suggested quietly. “The clothing, at least.”

  Grimacing, I shook my head. “I’d rather check the store one block over than try and wash the smell out of these. God, what happened here? Was the entire town camped out here? Where did they all go?”

  “Nowhere good, I’m guessing,” Evelyn said darkly, kicking a tattered sleeping bag over, revealing a dark stain on the tile beneath it. It was that moment that I noticed the bloody handprints. They were nearly indistinguishable amongst the dirt and dust and stains left from the rotted food, but once I noticed them, it seemed to be all I could see. Handprints, splatters, drag marks, places where blood had pooled heavily.

  A sharp tap-tap sound had us spinning around, raising our guns, only to find a raccoon standing at the end of the aisle. It stared at us in the dark of the supermarket as all three of us froze in place, its eyes appearing to emit an eerie yellow glow.

  “Shoo!” Evelyn shouted, kicking the sleeping bag and startling the creature. It made a whoop-whoop noise before skittering backward and disappearing.

  “Pharmacy,” I said, gesturing with my gun to a sign still hanging from the ceiling. “Though, all things considered…” I looked around at the many makeshift beds. “I’m not holding out much hope there’s anything left.”

  We continued on, passing by more personal belongings, a row of knocked-over shelving, until we reached the far end of the building where a long countertop fitted with Plexiglas windows was labeled Pharmacy. Finding them securely locked, we peered inside. The small room seemed pretty well picked over, but there were still plenty of bottles lining the bottom shelves, along with baskets full of unopened pharmacy bags that remained untouched beneath the cash register.

  “What I wouldn’t give for one of those to be aspirin,” Evelyn whispered, smiling at me. “Fuck antibiotics, I just want some pain relief.”

  “I think the door to get in is in the back,” I said, nodding toward two large rubber doors helpfully marked Employees Only.

  “Great,” Evelyn muttered, rolling her eyes. “Just what I want to do, go traipsing through some scary dark storage room.”

  We stared at each other a moment, as if silently deciding how to proceed. The seconds ticked by while I waited for Evelyn to make up her mind, and I knew the moment she had. Squaring her shoulders, she sniffed imperiously. “If we’re going to survive out here, we’re going to have to stop being afraid. I’m not afraid. Are you afraid, Lei?”

  I was terrified, but it was a different kind of fear than I’d grown accustomed to. It was an adrenaline-pumping, heart-racing sort of fear that didn’t so much cripple me as it gave me strength. It wasn’t the fear that I was going to die, it was born from the thought of dying. I wanted to live, I wanted to keep going, I wanted to be strong. And in order to do any of that, I had to be terrified; any less was going to get me or Evelyn killed.

  “I’m not,” I said, grinning. “Not even a little.”

  Slowly, carefully, we pushed the double doors open, both of us wincing when they let out a loud squeak, loud enough to alert anything that might be back here of our presence. Waiting a moment, listening for any sort of movement and hearing nothing, we proceeded forward. The room wasn’t as big as I’d previously thought, and was stacked with empty shipping pallets and piles of folded boxes. Large metal shelving lined the walls, unfortunately empty, and off in the corner sat a small forklift.

  “This way,” Evelyn whispered. “The door is right up there.”

  Up ahead of us was a small white door, once again properly labeled Pharmacy – Employees Only. We crept toward it, constantly checking over our shoulders for anything that might be lurking in the darkness behind us.

  Grabbing hold of the doorknob, Evelyn looked at me, her eyes wide. “Please let this be unlocked,” she whispered, and turned the knob. The door emitted a soft click, and she grinned. “Jackpot.�
��

  I grinned back at her, thinking that finally things seemed to be going our way for once.

  Turning back, she pulled the door open slowly, only enough so she could take a look inside. Suddenly it pushed open, startling Evelyn and causing her to release the door and stumble backward. The door swung wide open, hitting the wall, as a skeletal-looking infected, lying on its belly, propelled itself forward, gripping Evelyn’s ankle.

  With a surprised shout, she started kicking, attempting to dislodge it, and lost her balance. As she tumbled backward, her gun clattering to the floor, the infected gripped both her legs, its snapping jaw full of decaying teeth latching onto her pants.

  “Leisel!” she screamed, her legs thrashing wildly as she tried to reach for her fallen weapon. “Shoot it!”

  I raised my gun, trying to aim for its head, but my hands were shaking, and fear was causing my vision to blur. I was a horrible shot, and my chances of shooting Evelyn were greater than hitting the infected. As Evelyn screamed louder, I dropped my gun, yanked my blade free from my belt, and rushed forward.

  Attached to her thrashing legs, the infected was groaning and growling, flaps of rotted skin flailing from its body like ropes of long hair. Evelyn let out another awful scream just as I sent the tip of my blade into the back of the thing’s skull. Everything went suddenly quiet and still as the infected slumped heavily over Evelyn’s trembling legs. I yanked my blade free, and Evelyn quickly shoved the infected off her, rolling to her side before jumping to her feet.

  “You’re bleeding!” I cried, dropping to my knees as I reached for her leg.

  She jerked out of my grasp and spun away, giving me her back. She was no longer screaming, but still shaking, trembling violently from her head to her feet.

  “Oh God,” she whispered hoarsely. “Oh God, oh God, oh God…”

  Standing up, I touched her shoulder gently. “You don’t get sick from scratches,” I whispered. “Not unless there’s blood or saliva exchanged. It was an old one, no blood. You’re going to be—”