Green Fields (Book 2): Outbreak (15 page)

Some hushed conversations followed, but within five minutes the general mood was obvious—we were going into town. Pia and that guy I kept ending up in teams with and still hadn’t bothered to ask for his name took off down the road that ran parallel to the train tracks over the suspension bridge, almost silent despite of all their gear. Waiting made me tense as hell, but sitting around for a little while, sipping water, wasn’t too bad. They returned soon enough, giving us the “go ahead” even before they’d drawn close. Sighing, I clambered onto my feet and followed the others, tightening my fingers around the bat. Just a precaution.

I relaxed a little when on the brief stretch of road to the city limits no stinking, snappy undead came for us, and the sign proclaiming the population as just over fifteen hundred was looking good, too. Even if the entire town had turned as one and none of the zombies had wandered off, that was still a number we might outrun. Ahead, I could see a few houses to the left, and a huge parking lot to the right. Pia pointed to the access road down the right slope and we switched over to that, entering the parking lot from the rear. I was just wondering why there were almost no cars here when my eyes fell on a cloth banner by the wall that must have torn free.

“Hell, no.”

Stopping in my tracks, I waited for the others to do so, and—surprisingly—they did. The Ice Queen was looking at me with that soulless stare of hers, while Nate gave me a variant of his “what now?” glare.

“That’s a high school,” I offered, as if that explained everything. It should have.

“And your point is?” Nate asked, belligerence dripping from his words. “Don’t worry, no one’s going to bully you for being a nerd.”

Irritation zinged up my spine, but at least that did its own to chase away the lingering fear any trip like this brought with it. Made me even wonder if Nate was doing it on purpose for that very reason.

“High school means children. I’m not going to bash any kid zombie’s head in just for some cafeteria junk food that’s likely contaminated, anyway.”

“Okay. Then we’ll do the bashing,” Nate replied, way too chipper to be serious, but it was Pia who—uttering a rather annoyed sigh—gave me the real reply.

“The school’s perfect because it likely closed down early in the week already when teachers and students alike got sick. There’s maybe a janitor or two left in there, but the building should be empty. We likely can’t eat the normal food but they might still have frozen vegetables and meat in the freezer that’s not completely rotten away now, two weeks without electricity.” Looking at Martinez, she went on. “They also have a nursery—“

“Nurses’ station,” Martinez corrected her, smiling slightly. She gave him that stare before she continued, turning back to me.
 

“—With medication, bandages, first-aid kits, you name it. And a good chance that it’s not been looted yet because every idiot thinks school means just dusty books and disgusting toilets. Any further questions?”

That shut me up for good and I shook my head. When we set out again, I didn’t linger but followed.

At the end of the parking lot, we split up into two groups—one to go by the front, the other around the back. I was in the latter, likely because it meant doing the circuit that had just more fields around, not the town proper. We encountered nothing except two cars that looked abandoned but weren’t even stocked with the usual fare of get-away detritus. The few dull thuds and scuffling sounds that I could hear in the distance as we made it to the other side made me guess that the front team had met with some resistance, but not a single shot was fired.

We met up, and after a quick round of debating we all entered the school through the front entrance together. Burns had his bolt cutters ready—what good they would have done against locks I couldn’t say—but we found the doors unlocked, one of the glass panes smashed.

The school didn’t look as pristine as it probably should have, but littering and destruction was minimal. Someone had been in here before us—busting open lockers, leaving some books and papers strewn across the floor—yet judging from the spray paint on the wall, it looked more like your average school vandalism than a raiding party out to find food or shelter.
 

The guys and Pia spread out, leaving Skip, Steve, and me to tag along, staying mostly to the middle of the corridors while the others checked out the rooms behind the doors. It was nice to be out of the sun, but the building hadn’t been aired for quite a while—probably since this whole shebang started—leaving the interior stale and smelling kind of funny. It was not the pungent stench of heavy decay and decomposition, which was a relief in itself.

We soon reached the cafeteria, and after making sure that nothing lurked below the chairs or behind the counters, Nate gave the “go” to take a closer look at what possibly edible food was still around. There was lots of semi-spoiled food around that I suspected wasn’t much worse than it had started out as—but both in the storage room behind the counters and the walk-in freezer we hit gold, just as Pia had predicted. After a week without refrigeration, all the meat was gray and rotting away, but bags of previously frozen peas and carrots—and a whole ton of apples, oranges, and bananas that weren’t overripe yet were still stashed away untouched—but not for long.

Never in my entire life had I imagined that I would stuff my face with soggy peas and think they tasted like the best thing in the world. I didn’t even think about getting a container but munched them straight from the package, never mind the grime and dirt on my fingers, either. And it wasn’t like I was the only one to pig out there. None of us stopped to consider trying to season the food, or look if at least a heating plate or two were functional. It didn’t really matter—as long as it was edible, it was good.

I was halfway through a bushel of bananas when Nate plunked down on the floor across from me, the lower half of his face sticky with orange juice from the fruits he was gnawing on. Even with the perpetual exhaustion of the past days weighing down my body, it was impossible not to grin at him. He smiled back when I let out a rather undignified burp.

“You know, it’s always the simple things in life—“ he started, cutting off when I pelted him with the remaining two fruits in my hands. I got two oranges in return, although he rolled them across the floor rather than threw them at me. He didn’t wince outright but the tightness in his face didn’t pass by me unnoticed.

“How are you feeling?” I asked after looking around, making sure that no one was listening in too obviously. We were outside the storage room, him with his back against the serving counter, mine against the wall behind it. The others were either still busy foraging, or had withdrawn to other parts of the cafeteria, without a doubt relishing the moment to let down their guard and not be forced into close contact with the rest of our merry little group.

“I’m alive,” Nate replied dryly, briefly looking away from me to focus on peeling the banana. It was spotted and the lower half had already turned brown and mushy, but that didn’t deter him at all. “That counts for something, right?”

It was everything, I’d come to realize. It still baffled me how completely the world had changed in the short space of just one week.

“I guess.” I left it at a vague reply, not sure what else to say. That seemed to amuse him greatly, but he toned down his mirth for a slight, soft smile.

“I didn’t get to thank you yet. So, thank you. I doubt I’d be sitting here right now otherwise.”

Considering what that had taken, his words shouldn’t have made me feel a little awkward.

“You save my life, I save yours. Unless you want to keep score, I’d say we leave it at that,” I proposed.

Normally, he would have shrugged, but I’d realized that he’d skipped such casual motions when no one else was around to notice. That wound—even if it was healing well now, I supposed—must still be hurting like a bitch.

“Fine with me. Doesn’t really do wonders for my ego to have to acknowledge every time that I’m only still around and kicking because of a girl.”

I rolled my eyes at him, but didn’t let the comment get to me. I was pretty sure that he was just teasing me because, well—it was so much easier to get lost in the doom and gloom otherwise.

“You can cut the shit when it’s just you and me. Your second in command is a woman. A woman who could break you even if you weren’t half-dead and take over if she just wanted to. I know that you’re many things, but misogynist asshole is not one of them.”

“Just the asshole part then, eh?” he guessed, polishing off the second banana.

I struck a pensive pose while continuing to pick apart my orange. “It’s always refreshing to be around people who know their worth.”

His smile widened, but he left it at that. Looking around, I couldn’t help but feel like this was the first time since we’d left Gerry and Maude’s house that I felt vaguely not on the run. Plus, there were toilets around here. Even if they weren’t working, the infrastructure was still there—and, most importantly—toilet paper. I told myself to remember to grab a few extra rolls and cram them into my pack.

Pia stepped out of the storage room and halted next to Nate—not quite ignoring me, but I’d learned in the past days that my physical presence usually didn’t mean that she’d include me in their conversations.

“Everyone is fed, and there’s some more that we can take with us,” she reported. “We also found several cans of granola, beans, and dehydrated diced onions. And some rice,” she added dryly.

“Pack it all up,” Nate agreed, receiving a small nod of acknowledgment.

The very idea that we were already breaking camp made my heart sink—and my stomach didn’t really feel too good, either.

“Can’t we stay a little longer? Maybe until tomorrow?” I proposed. Twin sets of stares bored into me, just as I’d expected, but I didn’t even make an effort to pretend like I wasn’t about to roll over and fall asleep. “There are no zombies out there right now and, correct me if I’m wrong, the building’s not that hard to defend if they come our way. It’s dry, we have room to sleep, and there are likely some mats in the gym that we can use for something resembling real beds. What’s the rush? I doubt that things will get any worse just because we don’t slug on for another four hours or so today.”

Nate’s neutral look was an answer in itself, but I was surprised when the Ice Queen agreed with me after a moment of reflection. “Martinez already said he wants to sweep all the class rooms and teachers lounge for first aid kits, and there are other things we could use. Batteries, for instance. We have enough to keep all scopes operating for the time being, but it would be stupid not to stock up if we can now.”

“Well, there you have your answer,” Nate told me, sagging back more comfortably against the counter. “Tell the men to split up into search teams, and brief them on what’s useable. Check-in every two hours.”

Another nod, but Pia still lingered instead of leaving to order everyone into motion.

“We could dispatch a team into town,” she said. “Look around for weapons and ammo.” I noticed that she left out “survivors,” but then she still glared at Skip or Steve whenever they had the bad luck of crossing her path. Me, she tolerated.

“Do that.”

Five seconds later, we were alone, and I licked my fingers clean of juice to the chorus of the less than happy men who were sent out on their respective looting missions. I waited another minute—I might not be of much use, but Martinez might want to take me along while scavenging for medical supplies, if only to help carry them—but we were left alone. I probably should have felt guilty about that, but I really didn’t.

Nate made no move to get up, looking content just to remain where he was. Sitting around idly had never felt so good before.

“Can I ask you a question?”

The corner of his mouth quirked up as his eyes returned to me. “I think you just did.”

“Another one, then,” I offered. “Where exactly are we going? Except ‘away,’ I mean. You and Andrej are poring over the maps too much to account for just trying to stay clear of larger settlements.”

Nate looked at me long enough that I started to feel vaguely uncomfortable, but he still replied.

“Wyoming.”

“Why—“ I started, not sure if that was more an echo or a real question. He didn’t volunteer more information, so I had to ask. “What’s in Wyoming? I mean, I have no idea how far we’ve come so far—“

“About a hundred and fifty miles, give or take,” Nate supplied. That number was mind-boggling, but then we’d been on the move for hours each day, usually far into the night if the terrain allowed it. And the first two days we hadn’t even really stopped. The realization that the distance was just a four-hour car drive—likely even less using the highways—was crushing for a second. I also felt a little proud of myself. I’d never thought I’d ever walk even fifty miles, let alone three times as much. But then what that actually meant sank in.

“Wyoming’s, what, five states away from here?”

Nate considered for a moment. “About. Depending on whether we play it safe and stick to backroads only, which means a lot of detours, or we cut it closer to the cities to try for a straighter route, it’s still about two thousand miles away.”

I didn’t need to make that calculation in my head to realize just how much fucking farther that was. And it had only been a day or two since the worst of the pain from my blisters had subsided.

“Just kill me now,” I groaned, hiding my face in my hands. Nate let out a wry chuckle, but thankfully didn’t oblige me.

“It’ll get easier the longer we’re underway. And, if possible, sooner or later we’ll switch to a different mode of transportation.”

“You mean like the idiots on the quads?” I asked.

He shrugged, if only slightly. “I’d prefer some kind of armored vehicle, but those are a little hard to come by. Depending how bad things get the further west we make it, we might try to swing by an army base or two. The only reason why we still have plenty of ammo and weapons is because we haven’t really had to use them. And before you balk, if I can avoid conflict with anyone, I will stick to sneaking the entire way across the country.”