A Matter of Days (6 page)

My heart rate sped up. My lungs shallowed out in panic. I caught air in my chest for fleeting moments, but a deep breath eluded me. A fresh sweat broke out along my hairline. I closed my eyes and forced my hands to relax their grip.
Survive the effect. Be the cockroach. Adapt
.

I ripped pages from the glossies and loosely crumpled them; tight balls captured less air and took longer to catch fire. I carefully placed an end near the glowing ember and watched the edge smolder and smoke. I waited, balling more paper, adding, blowing. The lick of flame crinkled the paper and ignited. Soon, I felt flashes of heat across my nose and face. I added the last of the color-making pinecones and bits of kindling until a small but steady fire snapped and popped in the fireplace.

How does Rab sleep through all that noise?
He’d stopped crying; his breathing evened out. I needed to go find more big chunks of wood for the fire, maybe a pot to make soup, or tea. The bottles of water in the minifridges would run out quick. I felt like Scrooge, already wanting to count and recount every single supply. Stupid, really, because if we were careful, and replenished our supplies whenever possible, it would be months, if not years, before we ran out of everything.
Hopefully. Maybe. Then what?

I tucked my feet back into my boots, laced them up, grabbed a pad of paper, and started writing a note for Rabbit when he woke.

Rab, I’m in the hotel gathering wood and food. Call the walkie-talkie
.

I placed the note by the bed along with a walkie-talkie. Then stopped.
What if he doesn’t see it?
It was one of those
smallish jot-down-a-phone-number hotel tablets. He might not see it.

My heart skipped a beat. Being left alone was his greatest fear, he’d told me sometime around day forty. I copied the note five times and placed them all around the bed. Even left one by the fire in case he decided to stoke it when he woke.

The temperature in the hotel must have dropped another ten degrees. I wrapped my scarf around my neck and itched my greasy, dirty scalp. I missed daily showers. It was amazing how much more optimistic I felt when squeaky-clean and fresh.
How’d the pioneers do it? Days of struggle and stinking messes?

I unloaded the cart I’d rolled in and inhaled courage. Odds were that no one was checked in when they died. It didn’t matter what I told Rab, I kept waiting for things to jump out at me. Maybe it was Rabbit’s mention of zombies yesterday, or the reality of leaving our house and everything familiar to venture out into the great unknown, that threw me off my game. But I kept holding my breath and tiptoeing as if hoping to not wake the dead.

I went back toward the lobby. There must be an office, with information and a layout of the resort. Plus, I thought I remembered seeing stacks of perfectly cut wood by the massive fireplace in the front room.

A click click click caught my attention. I froze. Like pebbles being thrown against glass. Then like marbles tossed across linoleum stairs. Hail? Rain? I made my way toward the windows, but the flashlight caught my reflection on the glass.

“Crap!” I shrieked, jumping back. “It’s you. Just you.”

I pressed the LED beam against the glass and tried to shine
it out into the world. The beam skittered across ice pellets and chunky raindrops. A thick slush of marbles and Magic Shell ice covered the parking lot.
Um, not going anywhere today
.

I sighed.
Wood. We need wood now
. We were safe in here, dry, and there was food. The ice would turn to rain eventually and we would move on. Was having a ski chalet all to ourselves so bad? Not really.

I stacked the cart with huge tree trunk rounds, leaving behind the heaviest ones, and made my way toward our suite. I stopped at the one next to ours and went in. Raided it for any comforters and then relieved the minifridge of its innards, including bottles of water.
We’ll build a tent of sorts to sleep in
.

I clicked open the suite door and rolled the cart in, trying to keep it from tipping over. The bed was empty.

“Rab?” I called.

“Dia?”

Who else?
“Yeah.”

Rabbit poked his head out of the bathroom. He gripped the fireplace brush like a weapon. “I was scared.”

“I left you notes.” I pointed at the pieces of paper he’d gathered up.

“But what if they got you while you were out there?”

“No zombies, Rab.” I sighed.

“Then why were you so quiet?”

“You were sleeping,” I snarked. “I was trying to be a good big sister and let you sleep. If you’d rather, I can sing at the top of my lungs and wake you up with my stylings of Vlad King of the Vampires’ ‘End Times.’ That can be arranged.”

Rabbit nodded as if I wasn’t being bratty. “Is that a real song?” He laid down his weapon.

“Nah,” I lied. It was the last major chart topper before, well,
before
.

“Is it snowing?”

“No, it’s lumpy rain.” Lumpy rain was a mix of ice and rain and purely a Northwest creation. He knew exactly what I meant.

“Are we leaving today?”

I shook my head. “Not in this we’re not.”

“Is that bad?”

It wasn’t like we were on a time line of someone else’s making. This was our trip.
Our rules
. “Doesn’t have to be.”

“That’s good, I like it here.” He smiled. Rabbit used to smile all the time. He’d annoy me with his always-present grin. Now, I never saw it.

We made it into a game, racing around as the black grew gray outside and the icy rain turned to snow and then stopped. Rab took a cart and I took mine and we shouted over the walkie-talkies as we collected anything and everything that might be useful. Candles, laundry soap. In the staff break room, there were lockers full of clean uniforms, T-shirts, socks. As if people were just off for the weekend and coming back in on Monday.

What day is it?
I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember. For a moment I panicked, I let the fear of the unknown blind me. Days of the week. They didn’t matter. Monday was exactly like Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. No one knew where we were. No one knew we were alive. No one cared, except Uncle Bean. And Pappi, if he’d survived in his West Virginia bolt-hole.

I found the emergency procedures manual. “Bingo.”

“What?” Rab stood in the doorway.

“This binder. Tells us where everything is and what to do in case of emergencies.”

“So?” He jumped from foot to foot like I was taking too long.

“So.” I flipped through it, checking the index. “ ‘In case of power outages, use the keys in locker fifty-two to unlock the shed and turn on the generator.’ ”

“Generator?”

“Power, Rabbit.” I tried to keep my excitement tamped down. Odds were someone had already used the generator, or it was frozen, or because it was us it simply wouldn’t work. I scanned the information about what the generator was hooked into. “Water.”

“Water?” Rabbit scurried over and tried to read too.

“Water!” I yelled, allowing myself a tiny little happy dance.

Rab’s eyes widened and a grin split his lips. “Really?”

“Only one way to find out.” We headed toward the staff room.

“Which locker?” He raced down the line pulling open the unlocked ones and glancing inside with his flashlight.

“Fifty-two.” Turned out the resort had its own propane generators to run both lights and its own well. It looked like the water heaters and in-floor heating systems also kicked on when the generators were running. Now all we had to do was pray that there was enough propane left.
Any
propane left.

I didn’t have to have lights, and there wasn’t any television, radio, or computer info to gather so that would cut down on the draw. But it had been months since we’d had an actual shower—spit baths with rainwater heated to not-cold-but-not-even-lukewarm sucked.

There was a time when the city had turned off the water to halt the spread of the disease. Right before they’d come to the house. I shook off the memory.

We bundled up. The keys were clutched in my hand. We read the directions and I knew what I had to do.

Rabbit stamped his feet. “What are you waiting for?”

Still I hesitated.
What if it doesn’t work?

I
t was only forty-eight hours, two days, but we took four showers, washed our clothes, and flushed the toilet every time we peed. We cooked spaghetti noodles, slathered them with jarred alfredo sauce, and added chunks of canned chicken. There were canned green beans and rings of sweet pineapple. We even found a boxed scone mix that we were able to bake, slather with strawberry jam and wildflower honey, and eat in bed, along with mugs of hot cocoa.

The snow turned to a light rain and I saw bare patches on our Jeep and in the parking lot. The world wasn’t white anymore.
Time to move on
.

Wrapped in one of the resort’s logo-covered bathrobes, socks, and long johns, I folded our clean clothes in neat piles for the morning.

Rab readied another board game. “I’ll be banker.”

“Okay.”

“I’d like a hotel on Boardwalk to start.”

“Okay.” I was distracted. I knew it. Couldn’t help it.

Rabbit tossed down the dice in a huff. “You aren’t paying attention.”

“I’m trying, Rab. I’m really trying.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“We have a decision to make.” I hadn’t planned on giving Rabbit any say. I thought I’d decide no problem and just tell him. But it was his life, too, his journey, and I was fast realizing I wasn’t autocratic and dictatorial. Not anymore.

He sat straighter, looked me in the eye, and said, “Brief me, Marine.”

I snorted. “At ease.”

He slouched back down comically, but the serious expression in his eyes didn’t change. He simply waited, with Dad’s patience.

“Bean said we have two options in our route to get there. For long-term survival, we need to find unoccupied land, like a park or a forest. That way, if we have to we can hunt, and we’ll have access to foraging, drinking water. We’ll be able to stay away from the majority of people who might have survived.”

“Keep going.”

“That’s our best bet. But militias and other wacky folks who might know about this strategy could be there too. And territorial.” I didn’t add mention of the guns and execution of interlopers that Bean said might be worst-case scenario.

“They’ll shoot us or make us slaves,” Rabbit said as calmly as if he’d asked me to pass the toothpaste.

Startled, I nodded before catching myself. “How do you know that?”

“Because that’s what always happens in video games. Assuming we’re not dealing with aliens or zombies.”

“I think we can assume that.”

“So it might be safer if we can’t make it to the mine, but we’re not going to run into Jesus unless he drives a tank and accessorizes with a flamethrower.” Rab grinned at his own vivid word picture. The kid cracked himself up. Often.

“Right.”

“Option B?”

“We stick to populated areas where we can find gas and scrounge supplies, but odds are we may run into people who want what we have or need help.”

“They’ll slow us down or even keep us from getting there. You’re worried we’d have to say no to strangers who want help. And there are going to be more bodies if we do that.”

Moments like this gave me a new appreciation for how perceptive my brother was. “Probably. Yes.”

He nodded, then thoughtfully declared, “I’d rather get over the creepy dead guys than the ones who want to make us slaves.”

“Good point.”
The dead don’t kill or rob
. “I think we need to get a little farther away from Washington and closer to West Virginia.”

“So we stay near small towns, and maybe medium-size ones, but steer away from big cities.”

I saw his logic. “Do the same with the parks—stay in little ones that no one would hole up in long term, but leave alone the ginormous ones people might be possessive over.”

“Works for me.” He finished dealing out the fake money, although now it was as real as any currency.

Late that night we crawled into our blanketed fort, which kept cozy warmth around us even in the wee hours.

When dawn broke on the third day there was a part of me that wanted to stay forever but also a part that was itching to get going. This was just a stop on the journey and not the destination. It wouldn’t work long term for us to stay in the Cascades, not like this.

“It’s time to move on.” Rab spoke to me even as his attention was fixed on the landscape outside the windows.

“You think?”

“The rain washed all the snow away.” Nothing white, only lots of greens and browns.

It took us a couple of hours to load the car with the treasures we’d collected. Most wouldn’t fit. The truth was we hadn’t used much of what we brought with us, so there wasn’t room to restock.

At the last minute, we loaded the rest of the supplies we’d gathered onto one of the carts and parked it by the information desk along with the notebook on how to turn on the generator. Just in case there were people behind us. Maybe they’d say a prayer for us in gratitude.

I cleared my throat. “There’s another full gas can in the shed. Do we leave it in case someone else comes?”

Rab shook his head. “What would Dad say?”

“He’d tell us to take it because we’re the only ones we know for sure need it.”

Unfortunately, I thought that would be the rule of life in this new world. What we knew for sure was us, and only us.

We filled the gas tank of the Jeep and belted in. “Ready?” I asked.

“Yep.”

We drove down the other side of the mountains, making good time with clear skies and empty roads. I didn’t worry about the speed limit as I got the hang of driving. The farther we got into Eastern Washington, the warmer the temperature. Bright sun, fluffy clouds, and heat had us changing into T-shirts and driving with the windows down.

“We need gas. There’s a big blank spot coming on the map.” Rabbit showed me.

Lots of potential for nothing and no one
.

In Quincy, we pulled into a neighborhood that looked hollow, as if a strong wind might blow through and knock all the facades down. It took five cars for us to find enough gas to fill up, but there was a long stretch of open road ahead before 28 crossed into 90 and Spokane.