Dead in Bed by Bailey Simms, The Complete First Book (21 page)

“My Ashley,” he said.
“I’m so glad you’re okay. You have no idea how worried I’ve been about you.” He
hugged me again. “The world’s gone to hell, hasn’t it?” he said softly. “What
are we all going to do?”

“Well, I’m not going
to stand around doing nothing,” I said. “That’s for sure.”

My dad looked at me
warily. I could tell he was worried that I’d get hurt, or worse.

“I need your help,” I
said.

“My help? How?”

“I need you to tell me
something.” I was sure no one else was around, but I lowered my voice. “You
remember when I was a kid and we took that cross-country horseback-riding trip?
Way out in the mountains? And we found those ruins? That village carved in the
rock? And you told me not to ever tell anyone about it?”

My dad looked around
the feed shed. He craned his head to look out the window.

“I don’t remember
anything like that,” he said. “What are you talking about? That’s ridiculous,
this far north. The Anasazi never set foot past southern Colorado.”

“Dad.” I couldn’t help
but laugh a little. He was serious about keeping this a secret. “It’s okay, no
one can hear us. We’re alone. I need you to tell me where those cliff dwellings
are. It’s important. People’s lives are at stake. I can’t tell you why, but
they are. You told me once that the Anasazi built those dwellings way out there
to hide from a brutal enemy. Now I need to hide just like they did. Do you
understand? And I have no idea how to get there.”

My dad sighed. He
glanced out the feed-shed window one last time.

“Does Ian know about
this?” he asked.

“No,” I whispered.
“Not yet. But he needs a place to hide as badly as I do.”

My dad nodded. “And if
you went out there, he’d go with you?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Good,” he said.

He turned to leave the
feed shed. It was almost dark.

“Stay here,” he said.

In fifteen minutes he
came back with a Ziploc bag. Inside was a black garbage bag folded neatly into
sections.

He removed it from the
Ziploc bag and unfolded it. Inside was a topographical map. My dad unfolded the
map’s sections,
then
pointed to a tiny, penciled-in
X.
He tapped it with his finger. Then he
wrapped the map back up in the bags and handed it to me.

Suddenly, a scream came
from the house.

My dad looked at me
for a moment, confused, before we both ran toward the lit back porch.

I did my best to stuff
the map into the back of my pants as we ran. I didn’t have anywhere else to put
it. When we neared the porch, there was another scream.

“Get off!”

It was Tyler’s voice,
I realized.

I could see a
commotion through the dim screen window that lead to the washroom, but I
couldn’t make out anything but shadows.

“Get
off
!” Tyler shouted again in a terrified
panic.

It was only after
hearing Tyler’s terrified scream that I remembered the moment I’d left Morgan
asleep in the silo. I’d heard Bryce’s gunshot and rushed straight to the
granary.

And I’d left without
locking the door.

I had no choice but to
rush to the house. I had to risk being seen by my mom and Danielle, and even
Shawn.

When I reached the washroom,
I saw exactly what I’d feared, but it was even worse than I’d imagined.

Tyler’s pants were
around his ankles and Morgan was completely naked. Her legs were locked around
Tyler’s waist. Her arms were locked around his neck. He’d fallen onto his back
against a pile of muddy boots, and Morgan’s pelvis was grinding away furiously
as she perched on top of him. She was starting to moan.

They’d obviously been
having sex. They still were.

“I’m so sorry,” Tyler
cried, pushing at Morgan without budging her. Tears were streaming down his
cheeks. “I’m so
sorry
! I couldn’t
help it! I couldn’t
help
it! Now she
won’t
stop
!”

I understood exactly
what must have happened. Without another dose of antibiotics, Morgan’s
infection had progressed. Maybe even as far as stage three. Without being
locked inside the silo, she’d wandered to the house in a sex-crazed stupor.
Tyler must have been the first person she’d seen. She’d stripped her clothes.
She must have been saturated with pheromones. Even now I could feel a strange,
lustful dizziness. Tyler hadn’t stood a chance. He was just a fourteen-year-old
kid who was full of his own adolescent hormones already. He’d probably let
Morgan seduce him, then screamed out when he realized that he couldn’t get her
off of him.

I rushed to the floor
and tried to pull Morgan away. I couldn’t believe her strength. Her legs and
arms were locked so tightly around Tyler that I couldn’t even budge them. The
rigidity of her muscles must have been some strange effect of the pathogen.

“Get her
off!
” Tyler screamed.

“I’m trying, sweetie,”
I said. “I’m trying!”

Morgan’s moaning grew
louder. I pulled at her arms with all my might, and still I couldn’t move her.

“Morgan!” I yelled.
“You have to stop. Snap out of it! Morgan!”

But she just clung
more tightly to Tyler’s body. She ground her pelvis even harder.

“I’m so sorry, Aunt
Ashley,” Tyler wailed.

I tried again to pull
Morgan off, but this only made her cling even tighter. She bit Tyler’s ear.
Tyler screamed, but she wouldn’t let go. She just latched her teeth onto his
flesh, started breathing heavily through her nose, and refused to release her
bite.

Morgan’s moaning
intensified.

If I couldn’t stop
her, she was going to climax. I remembered what Chris had told me. If she
reached that point, Tyler would definitely get infected.

“Get her
off
!” Tyler screamed.

I stood and searched
the washroom for anything I could use to pry Morgan off.

The first thing I saw
was the scarf my mom was making for Haley. I pulled one of the knitting needles
from the loops of yarn.

Morgan was whimpering
now. She was grinding on top of Tyler with a horrifying speed. She’d locked her
fingernails into the back of his neck, and she still hadn’t let go of his ear
with her teeth.

For a moment I thought
about the night when I’d watched Mr. Hershel raping Morgan. I remembered how I hadn’t
been able to bring myself to shoot him, and how Ian had needed to take the gun from
me and do it himself.

But Ian wasn’t here
now.

It was up to me to
act.

Morgan squealed. She
arched her back. Any second now, she was going to come. There was only one
thing I could do to stop her. I didn’t let myself think about it.

I put the tip of the
knitting needle into her ear and then jammed it inside as hard as I could.
There was a faint crunching sound.

Instantly, Morgan
collapsed.

Tyler slid away,
backing himself into the corner of the washroom. He was sobbing.

Then, there was a loud
knocking on the front door.

“Home Guard!” someone
shouted. “Open now!” I heard my mom shriek with relief and rush to let them in.
She must have called the Home Guard herself when she’d seen Morgan prowling
around the house.

But I couldn’t move.
All I could do was
kneel
there, frozen, while Tyler
cowered in the corner and Morgan’s body lay slumped against my knee.

I’d just killed my
best friend.

I tried to process this
fact, but I just felt numb. I knew I needed to stand up and run, but I
couldn’t.

The Home Guard’s
booted footsteps pounded through the kitchen toward me, but all I could do was
look mutely at my right hand. It was like it belonged to somebody else. My
fingers were still tightly clasped around the knitting needle, covered in
Morgan’s blood.

February 3
^rd
, 2014

1:46 p.m.

Author’s
Update

Okay, I know. So Part 5 is
probably the most explicit yet. I hope I haven’t offended anyone’s
sensibilities.

I have to admit that I kind of went out of my way
to make this last installment pretty graphic. If my dad ever saw what I’ve
written now, I’d
really
be in
trouble. Seriously. I think he’d probably disown
me or
something
and never speak to me again. He’d be so upset, which I think
is why I wrote it like that. When I was writing the graphic scenes, I kept
thinking about how disappointed in me he would be, and it made me describe the
details even more explicitly. I
wanted
him to read it. I wanted to see his reaction. I’m not so dumb as to actually
let him see any of this, but sometimes I feel like it’s the only way I could
ever get back at him.

I guess you’re wondering what I mean by “get back
at him.” Get back at him for what? Well…

The thing is, I snuck out again with Kyle. And
this time he caught me. I’m so stupid. I should have known my dad would catch
me. Kyle and I didn’t even really do anything but go for a quick drive and mess
around a little.
Nothing like last time.
He had to be
back before his parents got home from some event, so I was only gone for about a
half hour.

But when I climbed back through the window, my dad
was actually sitting
in my room
. I
almost had a heart attack. He even helped pull me back inside so I wouldn’t
hurt myself. It was so embarrassing.

He basically grounded me “indefinitely” from
everything but homework. He took my phone away. He actually put a block on my
window so it can only open like three inches. I don’t know if that’s even
legal. He said he didn’t want me to hurt myself. At least he didn’t turn the
internet
off this time.

But I don’t know when I’ll be able to see Kyle
again. Maybe never. I haven’t even told him what happened yet. I’m trying to
figure out how to say it in an email. He’s probably tried to text me, and he’s
probably wondering why I haven’t texted him back. I think I might be putting
off writing to him because, when I do, I’ll have to face up to the fact that I
won’t be able to see him anymore, ever, and I’ll have to stop pretending that I
will.

I have to stop thinking so much about Kyle. I’m
just going to write my novel. Write, write,
write
.
Sometimes I feel like it’s the only thing I’ve got.

xxBailey

February 8
^th
,
2014

9:33 p.m.

Whetted Appetites

From my hiding place
beside the highway, I heard someone approaching along the road.

The footsteps were
slow and even, coming from way off in the distance. I sat up and stretched my
back, making sure to keep low enough so that I would still be concealed behind
the gully’s rocks and brush.

It was dawn.

I was still cold, but
not as miserably cold as I’d been all night. The sun was about to rise over the
plains. I could see now that the leaves of the cottonwoods I’d been sleeping
under were beginning to turn from green to an autumn yellow. But as I peered
through the branches and searched the highway, I still couldn’t see who was
coming. The person was on the far side of the bend in the road and concealed by
the hillside.

But they were
definitely getting closer. I could hear what sounded like something being
dragged. With every other footstep came the sound of a chain clinking across
the road’s dry asphalt.

Finally, a tiny figure
emerged from around the bend. I looked around at my hiding spot in the gully,
making sure I was still concealed from the highway now that it was daylight. I
was sitting a few steps from the road, but I was pretty sure whoever was coming
wouldn’t be able to see me behind the cover of sage and low cottonwood
branches.

It was a girl.

This came as a
surprise, because the dragging chain sounded heavy. She was walking with a
slow, even pace. She didn’t appear to be struggling at all. She just took one
step accompanied by the dragging sound, then another quiet step, followed again
by another step with the dragging sound.

As she drew closer, I
could tell that she was only about eleven or twelve years old.

I didn’t recognize
her. She must have been from out of town. She had long brown hair pulled back
behind her ears, and she was wearing a dress. The dress looked like something
she could have worn to a wedding or maybe to church, except it was filthy. What
had once been white fabric was now a soiled, dull gray, closely matching the
color of her equally filthy skin.

This uniform filth was
probably why I didn’t notice immediately that her dress was torn. The entire
front section had been ripped away, revealing everything below her belly
button. And she wasn’t wearing any underwear.

My heart started racing.

As the girl came closer, I could see that her eyes
were a beautiful green, but they were deeply sunken. And she was incredibly
thin. Her hipbones jutted sharply from her waist. And yet her expression was
perfectly calm. She was just staring straight ahead, keeping an even pace as
she made her way down the empty road. She behaved as if she were perfectly
clean and healthy, as if her dress were perfectly intact, and as if everything
below her waist wasn’t exposed for
all the
world to
see.

And
also as if nothing were attached to her foot.

I could see now that a
steel animal trap was clamped around her ankle. Her foot was badly broken and
twisted unnaturally. The trap’s serrated jaws had dug through her skin,
revealing her bone. Her toes were blackened and heavily swollen. Six feet of
chain trailed behind her, and yet she barely limped at all.

“Hey!” I shouted. I
stepped out from the behind the brush. “Are you okay? You need help!”

The girl didn’t
respond. I clambered down the gully and onto the road.

“Stop!” I was close
enough now to hear her steady breathing. “You need help. Sweetie, where are your
parents? Stop!”

She didn’t slow her
pace. I actually had to step out of the way so she wouldn’t bump into me. She
just kept her gaze pointed at the far end of the road where it turned around
the next bend.

I could smell her. Her
foot was gangrenous. She smelled rotten.

She kept walking, and
I didn’t follow after her. She just kept marching casually onward, mostly
naked, dragging the trap with her broken foot. The sound of the chain’s
jangling grew fainter as she moved on.

What more could I do?

I was in no position
to help her. I had no idea how I was going to keep
myself
alive today.

The girl was obviously
TGV-positive and far advanced into stage three. She must have been dumped into
the quarantine zone from the outside, then left to fend for herself. It was
possible that she’d stumbled onto the animal trap in the woods, but I suspected
that someone had set traps around their property, afraid of wandering
positives. She must have been caught in it,
then
pulled the chain free from wherever the trap had been staked into the ground.

And now where was she
going, this little girl?
With such a blind purpose?

I watched as she
disappeared around the bend.

I couldn’t be sure,
but my only guess was that she was moving toward what the Home Guard had called
a “cluster.” The pathogen must have given her an ability to sense where other
positives were gathering, just like I’d seen other positives gathering in a
cluster days ago, before Jason had swathed them down. If I closed my eyes, I
realized I too could feel a strange sexual pull from the direction the girl was
moving in. The pheromones released by the men in the cluster, wherever it was, must
have been affecting her so strongly that she hadn’t even been able to register
my
presence
as she kept moving onward.

My God. She was so
young.

I’d been standing
exposed in the middle of the road for too long. I made my way back up the gully
to my hiding place in the cottonwoods. I couldn’t let anyone see me.

I sat on the ground.
It was morning now, and I had no food, no plan, and, honestly, no hope at all.
I had no idea what I was going to do.

But as I tried to pull
myself together, I became certain of one thing.

I no longer regretted
what I’d done to Morgan.

If Morgan had known
that her fate was to become like that desperately blank body I'd just seen
walking along the highway, she would have
wanted
someone to end her existence.

Or, at least I hoped
she would have wanted it.

If she would have
chosen
that
over death, I’d wish I
were dead myself.

But as I thought about
how Morgan had been locked away in that silo during the last days of her
existence, surrounded by her collected trash, I suddenly knew exactly what I
had to do.

I’d been trying not to
think about what had happened the day before. Now, I let myself remember the
moment I shoved the knitting needle into her ear: the moment I ended her life—or
expired
her…whatever they called it.

I remembered how I
knew I needed to stand up and run, fast, but that I couldn’t bring myself to do
anything but stare at the bloodied knitting needle in my hand. I remembered the
bootsteps
of the Home Guard pounding through the house
toward me. I remembered the ranger racing into the wash room, leaping past me,
then kneeling beside Tyler, clutching my nephew in one arm while discreetly
helping him pull his jeans back up with the other.

I remembered
realizing, slowly, that it hadn’t been the Home Guards’ boot steps that had
been pounding through the house.

They had been Ian’s.

Ian had discovered
that Morgan was missing and had run straight from the granary to the house.
When he’d heard Tyler crying out, he’d shouted “Home Guard!” to try to scare
Morgan, probably not realizing how far progressed she’d gotten and that she had
no capacity left to fear anything.

I still hadn’t been
able to bring myself to move at that point. Morgan’s
slumped,
naked body lay awkwardly at my knees. Her elbow rested limply on my thigh.

I watched Ian taking
in the scene of Morgan lying dead, Tyler still sobbing, mortified, and me
dumbly holding a blood-soaked knitting needle.

“I stopped her in time,”
I mumbled. “She didn’t c—” I began. “She didn’t
finish
. Tyler should be okay, I think.”

Before Ian could say
anything, Danielle arrived in the laundry room, practically tripping over me as
she came in. She saw Morgan’s body,
then
she saw Tyler
buttoning up his jeans. For a moment she looked like she might pass out, then she
bent over and put her hands between her knees. She started sobbing without
making a sound. It seemed as though this was all more than she could take and
she was about to completely break down.

“What have you done!”
she suddenly shrieked at me. “Why didn’t you let them take her away? Now…
this!
She did
this
to my son! Your own
nephew
!”
She gestured toward Tyler indignantly and held me in a hateful glare. “What
have you done?”

Ian grabbed Danielle
as she started to pitch
forward,
crying so intensely
now that her words became unintelligible.

“Listen, Danielle.”
Ian spoke firmly, wrapping his arms around her. “It wasn’t Ashley. It was
me
. Do you understand?
I’ve
been sheltering Morgan. This is
all my
fault. Not Ashley’s.
I think Ashley may have just saved Tyler. She stopped Morgan just in time,
before it was too late. Tyler’s safe.”

My sister jerked away
from Ian’s arms. “
Safe
? How can you
possibly
know that for sure?” Then she
slumped forward again, sobbing. “I’m just so scared,” she said. “
So
scared. Things are only getting
worse.”

Now that Tyler had his
pants on, he hurried off to his room, shaken and embarrassed. He refused to
look anywhere near Morgan’s body as he rushed away.

Ian walked my sister
into the kitchen. I still hadn’t moved from the floor. From the dark washroom,
I watched my brother-in-law embracing Danielle, stroking her hair, whispering
into her ear as he comforted her.

For a moment I would
have given anything to trade places with my sister.

I knew I couldn’t stay
at the house long.

Luckily, it turned out
that Shawn wasn’t there. He was still required to bunk at the Home Guard Center,
even with his wounded hand. Still, it wasn’t safe for me to be at the house.
Ian took Danielle to talk with Tyler in my sister’s old bedroom, and I decided
I should give them a few minutes alone together, as a family. Then I would ask
Ian what to do with Morgan’s body and leave as quickly as possible.

I had to think calmly
and practically, or I knew I’d go crazy. For now, I tried not to let myself
think about Morgan as a person or as my best friend at all. If I let myself
feel anything, it was the vague desire to have Ian to myself for a few minutes,
for him to put his arms around me, and to let him give me a little comfort
after what I’d just done. I’d lost my best friend. If anyone could understand
what that meant, it would be Ian.

After fifteen minutes
or so, I lightly knocked on my sister’s door.

Soon after my knock,
Ian stepped out into the hallway. He closed the door softly behind him and
sighed with a look of utter defeat.

I said, “I have to get
going. Right away.”

“Look, Ash,” he
started,
then
he sighed again. He had something to
tell me that he didn’t know how to say. “Danielle knows everything.
About the granary.
The others. Everything. I had to tell
her.”

I couldn’t believe I
was hearing this. “But why?
I
left
Morgan’s door unlocked. It was my fault, not yours. You
didn’t place your family in danger. You know Danielle will report
the granary to the Home Guard,” I whispered. “You know she will!”

“She will.” Ian nodded.
“You’re right. She will. And I should have let her do it a long time ago.”

I was so confused and
taken by surprise at what Ian had
done,
I didn’t know
what to say. I realized that I could faintly hear my sister through the door
speaking on the phone.

“Look, Ash,” he
whispered. “I’ve put my family in danger. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Hiding refugees on your parents’ property? While my kids are staying at the
house? If we tried to keep this up, more and more refugees would arrive.
There’s nowhere to put them—not right now, anyway. Who knows what would
happen next? I hope to God Tyler’s okay, but what about the next time someone
wanders up here? What then? What about Haley?”

Ian gave me a stern,
hardened look. I hadn’t realized until now how angry he was at me.

“And what were
you
thinking, sleeping with Bryce like
that this morning? What were you
thinking
?
Am I going to have to protect my family from you next?”

I didn’t think it was
possible to feel any lower, but my heart sank. I didn’t know what I would do if
Ian wasn’t on my side. But he was right. I’d let him down. How could he trust
me now?

I tried to blink back
my welling tears. “You said you didn’t want to lose me,” I whispered. “You said
you
couldn’t
lose me.”

“I don’t
want
to lose you, Ashley. But I think,
maybe, I already have.” He stared straight into my eyes. “Look, we’ve always
had a connection,” he whispered. “Honestly, there are things I can tell you
that I couldn’t ever tell Danielle. That’s a fact. But your sister’s my wife.
My kids are
my kids
. And I’m their
father. I’m the only one they’ve got to protect them. And they come before
anyone else. Get it? And now, here you are, sleeping with Bryce fucking Tripp
again
?” he stammered, his voice
cracking. “That puts
all
of us in
danger. Don’t you see? Are you going to end up like Morgan now? Can I let you
around my kids? How could you
do
this
to me, Ashley?”