Aftermath (13 page)

“
I wasn’t worried,” Sam protested quietly. “I know he can take care of himself.”

The kid looked like he wanted to say more, but looked down at the ground and pinched his lips together. Lee thought he knew how the rest of the sentence would have gone:
It’s just that I’ve already lost everything else.

“
Did you guys get some food?” Lee asked, hoping to move the conversation off of himself.

“
Yes.” Angela nodded. “I didn’t see you in line.”

“
Oh, I got some earlier,” he lied, because he didn’t want her trying to convince him to eat when he’d already made up his mind.

“
I’m still hungry,” Abby said in a subdued voice.

She was still detached, Lee noted. Just like her mother had said.

“
So, if you could eat anything right now, what would it be?” Lee leaned back with a thoughtful look on his face. He wanted to keep the kids talking, maybe turn their thoughts to more pleasant things, even if those things were only memories.

“
McDonalds,” Abby said instantly.

“
Oh really?” Lee sounded fascinated. “And what would you get from McDonald’s?”

Abby smiled and seemed to come alive a bit. “I’d get some chicken nuggets. And some French fries!”

“
That’s it?” Lee looked shocked. “What about a cheeseburger?”

“
Yeah!” she nodded. “In the happy meal. With the girl toy.”

“
And some ice-cream?” he added.

“
Uh-huh. With chocolate syrup.”

“
Mmm.” Lee put on a dreamy expression for kids’ benefit. “That does sound good. What about you, Sam?”

Sam was more thoughtful. “I miss pancakes. With butter and syrup. On my birthday, mom would make chocolate chip pancakes. Those were really good.” He closed his eyes like he was tasting them again. “I want a big stack of chocolate chip pancakes.”

Lee smiled at the two kids and found Angela looking at him, though he couldn’t see her expression in the darkness. Feeling suddenly awkward again, Lee sat up. “I probably need to get to bed. Got an early start tomorrow.”

Angela stood. “Some of the folks were nice enough to help me set up a little room of our own over by the medical trailer.”

Lee must have looked hesitant because Angela continued, quickly. “I think it would help the kids sleep if they knew you were there with them.”

“
Of course,” Lee backpedaled into graciousness. “Thank you for offering. Didn’t want to be in that medical trailer again anyway.”

The dinner gathering was beginning to disperse and those that did not sleep inside the Ryder building were making their way out into the shantytown. Everyone’s conversations quieted as they neared Lee and his little group, and then picked up again once they were passed. But the feel was not one of ostracism, as it had been earlier. Now it seemed they were just more interested in what Lee might be talking about and were taking a moment to listen in, though Lee and Angela said little as they walked to her shack.

The makeshift room was hastily thrown together with some two-by-fours, a few pallets, and some blue tarp, which covered the structure and provided the doorway. Inside were several large pieces of cardboard laid out as beds and a small, windup LED lantern casting a sharp glow over everything. It reminded Lee of a homeless camp, but he supposed that’s what they were.

Homeless.

The kids settled in quickly and were asleep almost instantly. Angela took her daughter’s dirty tennis shoes off, and then removed her own. Lee followed suit and removed his boots, wondering if the four of them miraculously didn’t stink, or whether he just didn’t notice anymore. As he pulled his left boot off, a piece of thick paper fell out onto the ground. Lee picked it up with a furrowed brow.

It was the scratch off lottery ticket that Jack had given him just before he died. Jenny or Doc must have taken it from his old pair of pants and put it in his boot for safe keeping. Lee stared down at it thoughtfully until he realized that Angela was watching him with that same soft look that made him so uncomfortable.

He forced a smile. “Jack made me scratch the lottery ticket. Said I should keep it for good luck.” Then he stuffed it into his cargo pocket without another word and began stripping off his socks.

As he laid his socks out over the toes of his boots, he noted that Angela kept hers and Abby’s on and that they were about as filthy as the shoes they wore.

Lee nodded to their feet. “You should take your socks off. Feet can catch some pretty nasty things if you don’t let them breathe. Air your socks out too, especially if it’s the only pair you got.”

Angela nodded as though what he’d said made good sense and took her and Abby’s socks off. The little girl slept through it all, her legs flopping around limply while her mother worked. “Thanks,” she said simply.

Lee laid back on his cardboard mattress and rested his head on his arms. For him, the silence grew thick and strained, but Angela was soon asleep and her breathing was even. He felt that strange feeling of living someone else’s life, but despite whatever he felt about it, Angela and the two kids seemed to draw comfort from him.

Eventually he did fall asleep. And when he did, it wasn’t dreams that followed him through the night, but memories of all the things he had lost.

CHAPTER 8: ROADBLOCKS

There was no fanfare for the volunteers as they huddled around the pickup truck at dawn. That cool morning dew had settled on everything and Lee had woken up damp from head to toe. Around them the camp was slowly coming to life, but most of the people were quiet. They gathered water and boiled it. Some of the families had personal items such as coffee and tea that they made themselves in the morning to stave off the hunger.

One such family—the Burkes, Lee remembered—kindly gave a small cup of hot instant coffee to each of the five men. They all thanked the Burkes profusely and drank the brew with relish. A few individuals walking by to collect water or visit the latrines behind the Ryder building wished them good luck and told them to be careful.

There was no breakfast to be had, so after the coffee, the five men grabbed what little they were bringing and piled into the truck. They each brought a few extra bottles of water. Harper had his shotgun and .22 revolver, and Lee had his rifle and the .22 pistol. They put the ammunition Bus had gathered for them in a small knapsack in the back seat. Miller was armed with his .38 Special and a few extra shells in his pocket. Doc had a 20 gauge shotgun someone had given him for the trip and a small box of shells. Josh carried his Ruger LCP and an ancient bolt-action .22 rifle.

Lee put the six gallons they had siphoned into the truck’s tank and then tossed the two gas cans and the siphoning tube into the bed with Miller. Harper cranked the engine and it started up with a throaty rumble.

By the time Lee had seated himself in the passenger’s seat, Bus was there, looking bleary-eyed and tired. He leaned into Harper’s open window and looked at the group. “You guys don’t do anything stupid, okay? Do what you gotta do, and come right back. We need you and we’re all counting on you.”

Bus received a few silent nods.

Lee met the man’s gaze and gave him a thumbs up. “I’ll get ‘em back safe, Bus.” Though he knew it was not a promise he could make.

Bus backed away a few steps and someone opened the gate.

Harper put the pickup in drive and they left the relative safety of Camp Ryder just as the sun cleared the tree tops.

***

They drove slowly.

As he had the day before, Lee kept his window open so he could rest his rifle on the side-view mirror and scope out any potential hazards. They stopped frequently when Harper or Lee spied something in the roadway. Mostly it was abandoned vehicles or accidents that had not been cleared. Each time they stopped Lee spent a few minutes surveying the vehicles and the surrounding landscape for signs of an ambush.

More time was eaten up by checking these vehicles for fuel. The job of testing and siphoning fell to Miller since he was already in the truck bed and strangely didn’t seem to mind the taste of gasoline fumes. Smartly, he didn’t try to siphon each vehicle to see if there was fuel. Instead, he would insert the tube and feed it down into the bottom of the tank, then blow through it. If he made bubbles, he would siphon. If the air blew freely, they would move on.

They had managed to glean only a little over a gallon so far. Most of the vehicles in the roadway were abandoned because they were completely out of gas. The ones from pileups and accidents were close to empty, or had already been siphoned by other passing motorists in the six weeks since the collapse.

After clearing another cluster of abandoned cars with nothing to celebrate fuel-wise, Lee broke the silence. “So, Doc...You’re a medical professional, right?”

“
Fourth year medical student,” he replied flatly.

Lee honestly didn’t know whether that was good or bad. He plunged forward. “Can you tell me anything you’ve learned about FURY? Have you been able to do any research?”

“
Research?” Doc sounded humored. “Like spinning up some blood samples in my high-tech laboratory?” He laughed. “No.”

Lee craned his neck and looked back at the younger man with a blank stare.

Doc got uncomfortable and stowed his attitude. “No, I haven’t really been able to do any research because I don’t have the equipment. However, we can draw certain conclusions about the bacterium from what we observe in our personal experiences.”

Lee turned back around. “I’d like to hear it.”

“
Well, we begin with what we know.” Doc gave a lengthy sigh. “We know it’s a plague, which means its born from a bacteria, not a virus. We know bacteria are a little bit larger and a little more clumsy than a virus. A virus can’t reproduce by itself, but bacteria can. Also, bacteria are living organisms, while a virus is just a bit of genetic material floating around.

“
We can safely assume that FURY is not airborne, because bacteria usually are too heavy to float around in the air like viruses do. Which isn’t to say that someone coughing on you can’t give you FURY because the bacteria will cling to mucous and spit globules that are coming out of the person’s mouth. Generally, a bacteria means we have to get it from physical contact. But physical contact doesn’t seem to be enough with FURY because we’ve all seen people fight hand-to-hand with the infected and not contract the plague. It seems to only want to transmit from one bodily fluid to another. Blood to blood, spit to spit, mucous to mucous, and every other combination therein. So, from that we can infer that the bacteria doesn’t like to be dry.”

Miller looked thoughtful. “Seems like it’s very selective. If it needs such a narrow avenue to spread, why did it spread so fast?”

Doc shrugged. “There’s a lot we don’t know. Maybe somebody out there had time to get some answers before things fell apart, but it wasn’t me.” He regarded his hands with great interest. “I would venture a guess that it has less to do with the virulence of FURY and more to do with the how infected people act. Normally when people get sick they stay in their house and avoid other people. In this case, the sick ones are seeking out the healthy ones. Imagine if someone with the flu wasn’t sitting in bed and sipping chicken noodle soup, but intentionally going out and coughing on everyone they could find. Imagine how fast that would spread.”

Josh’s eyes widened. “Do you think that’s a biological mechanism of the bacteria? To spread itself?”

Doc looked at him as though he’d just asked if the moon was made of cheese. “No. I think a bacteria is a single-cell organism incapable of desiring to extend its life. I think the spread of the plague is an unfortunate coincidence based on what the bacteria does to our brains and the base instincts of aggression ingrained in our DNA.”

Josh spoke in a dramatic, breathy voice. “It’s like a perfect storm of biology.”

Doc’s eyes narrowed. “You’re fucking weird, man.”

Josh laughed and looked out the window.

“
Any other inferences?” Lee asked.

“
Not really,” Doc shifted in his seat. “Based on our collective experiences, those are pretty much the conclusions I’m willing to come to. Perhaps a bacteriologist or maybe even someone with a complete PhD might know more.”

They came upon another pileup, this one made up of two cars and an SUV.

Fifteen minutes after spotting it, they left it behind—no gas to be had.

“
So, I answered one of your questions,” Doc said. “Can you answer one of mine?”

Lee thought for a moment. “Sure.”

“
Why are you doing this?”

“
Doing what?”

“
This whole thing. This ‘mission’ of yours. I mean, what’s in it for you? There’s no government anymore, there’s no one to pay your salary or recognize your work.”

Lee actually found himself laughing. “You know, for all your sarcasm and pessimism, Doc, you’re guilty of doing the same thing.”

“
Oh?”

Lee turned in his seat and made eye-contact. “Why do you heal people? You get nothing from it. You’re not getting a big doctor’s salary, or driving a nice car, or being recognized by the medical field.”

Doc turned away from Lee’s gaze. “I just do what I can do.”