Contagious (47 page)

“
I thought the same thing about living in Indiana,” I confessed. “Though the winters probably don’t hold a candle to those of North Dakota. Kentucky was nice. We still had cold winters, but it wasn’t as bad.”

“
I’m from New Jersey,” Ivan said. “We had the best of both worlds: hot summers and cold winters.”

“
Arkansas isn’t so bad,” Brock brought up. “It’s still colder than what I’m used to, though.”

“
I can’t wait to go to Mexico when this is over,” I said with a sigh.

“
Me neither,” Hayden agreed. He advanced a few steps, looking through the scope of his high tech gun. Once we made sure the coast was as clear as it could be, we marched to the front doors. Chained and locked, the boys had to get tools from the truck to cut through the metal. “That’s a good sign,” Hayden suggested. “At least nothing new got in.”

“
Not through the front at least,” Ivan corrected. Staying together, we quietly slipped through the doors. A cutout skeleton hung on the door to the principal’s office. “I thought schools weren’t allowed to decorate for Halloween anymore,” Ivan questioned.

“
If this place is as rural and backwoods as my hometown, then they still would,” Hayden said quietly as to not draw too much attention from an unknown lurker. “Especially after President Samael cut funding by more than half and most of the teachers lost their jobs.”

“
My aunt was a teacher,” I whispered, feeling a wave of nausea when I thought about Aunt Jenny. “She lost her job two years ago and was reduced to waiting tables with high school kids at a low class dinner.”

“
The world was bad before the zombies,” Brock affirmed. “I couldn’t find a job. Even with the military experience. There was nothing.”

“
I know the feeling,” I told him. “That’s why I dropped out of college. It didn’t matter anymore. The economy was too crappy.” It still pissed me off when I thought about it. President Samael promised a lot of things: a revamped healthcare system, money for public schools, an economic stimulus. It sounded good in his campaign. He was compared to JFK, young, good looking, and offering hope for our country. But all that changed the moment he got into office.

Our troops had officially been home, out of the war for less than two years when Samael sent them back. That was the turning point of our tanking economy. The housing market, which was already in a slump, plummeted. Things went from bad to worse at a sickeningly scary speed. The stock market was a joke, foreign countries were skeptical to trade with the US, and banks ran out of money. What started as peaceful protests turned into full-on riots and uprisings. People were gassed, tazed, and eventually shot.

I still remember walking to class when the first shooting happened. Students at a digital arts school in Florida held a protest against the government’s shut down of funding for all public school art programs. Supposedly, the protest grew violent and the students refused to listen to police orders. The televised interview with a female student was abruptly cut off the air.

Raeya speculated it was because the freshman was making too much sense. She raised some really good points and found flaws in the government’s tactics, she told me. President Samael put our country even farther in debt ‘fixing up’ what he referred to as America’s hotspots. California and New York were the most well known states. If anyplace in the United States could bring in money from tourism, it was those two, he promised.

I stopped following the train wreck our country was on. It was too depressing and there was nothing I could do to change it. Raeya was optimistic and thought things would get better. We survived the Depression from the 1930s, she often reminded me.

The school was empty and all the doors had been chained. It was safe but had no generator. Funding must have
really
been cut in this small Missouri town. We set up camp in a room that looked like it had been a music room at one time. It held old desks and office supplies now. In the center of the school, it was the only room besides the library that was windowless.

Brock messed with the smoke alarms—Hayden quickly explained that Brock used to be an engineer of some sort—so that they wouldn’t go off when we built a fire. We carefully built one under an air vent, not wanting to choke on the fumes it let off. The four of us huddled close together, giving Hayden and me a reason to be near.

Hayden and I took the first watch, patrolling the halls for awhile and coming back to warm up by the fire. I went into a kindergarten room, examining the artwork on the walls. I shined my flashlight all around. A name list hung by the door with each kid’s name spelled out in sparkly stickers. Their pictures were next to their names.

“
Sasha,” I said aloud to no one, running my fingers over the pink letters. A little girl with blonde curls framing her face smiled up at me with a missing tooth. I wondered if she was dead, alive, or undead. “And what about you, Mrs. Hefty?” I asked when the light hit the teacher’s name plate on the desk. “Did you make it out alive?”

Four hours later, Hayden and I switched with Ivan and Brock. Though I hated it, I slept with my boots on, ready to jump up and defend myself and the guys if need be. We lay down close to the fire. I wrapped my sleeping bag tightly around me, not bothering to take off my gloves since I was so cold. I would have really appreciated Hayden’s warm body pressed up next to mine right now.

As if he could read my mind, he reached out and held my hand. That was as close as we could get with the two others around. Still, somehow, it was enough to comfort me. I didn’t wake up until morning.

Hayden let Ivan drive, which surprised us all. He claimed he didn’t sleep well last night and didn’t feel like concentrating. Brock called shotgun, forcing Hayden to sit in the back with me. We hit a ghost town, making us all feel like we were wasting precious day light hours. By lunch, we found another small town. Zombies struggled through the deep snow drifts.

Careful not to get stuck ourselves, Ivan stopped the truck. Not wanting to trudge through over half a foot of snow, Hayden and I didn’t care that Ivan and Brock would rack up a ton of points when they leaned out the windows to shoot.

The farther north we went, the deeper the snow got. At one point we weren’t sure we were even on a road anymore. It was the most anxiety I’d felt in a long time that didn’t involve zombies. All we could think about was crashing through a lake and freezing to death.

Resisting the urge to yell ‘I told you so’, we turned around and headed south. It was after noon by the time we made it through the town with the school. The snow fell harder, slowing our already slow-going trip. Hayden unbuckled, rolled up his jacket and used it as a makeshift pillow, leaning on me.

“
Wake me up if anything exciting happens,” he said with a slight smile before closing his eyes. Two hours would pass before it did.

“
Stop!” I yelled. Ivan slammed on the brakes; the truck fishtailed. “Go back and down that driveway.”

“
Why?” he questioned.

“
There was a fancy looking sign for a Clydesdale farm.”

“
A what?” Brock asked.

“
A draft horse. You know, like the Budweiser horses.”

“
Ok, and you want to stop and pet the pretty ponies?” Ivan asked, looking at me through the rearview mirror.

“
No, smartass. Big breeder barns like that usually have their own truck and trailer. And since these are big horses…”

“
There’s likely a big truck and trailer,” he finished.

“
Exactly.”

And I was right. The truck started without a hitch, the diesel engine loudly coming to life. Ivan and Brock would take turns driving it; Brock seemed almost excited to test his skills at driving a big rig. I didn’t see any of the horses. I didn’t want to look for them, afraid of what I might find. Several miles later, the snow thinned.

A large barn looked promising ahead. Brown cows dotted a distant pasture. Stupidly, none of us thought about what rounding up the animals would entail.

“
I doubt they’ve had grain in awhile,” I said, an idea forming. “If there is some in the barn we might be able to lure them in the trailer.”

“
It’s worth a try,” Hayden agreed, his breath clouding around him as he spoke. I stuck my hands in my pockets, wanting my fingers warm so they would be able to pull the trigger. The barn was boarded up. It didn’t strike us as odd until something crashed into the door.

All four of us whipped out our weapons. We waited and the things bumped into the door again. The unmistakable sound of fingernails scraping on metal echoed across the snowy farm.

“
Zombie,” Hayden announced. He pressed his ear up to the door. “Sounds like there’s more than one.”

“
Are there any windows?” Ivan asked, moving back to examine the barn.

“
Skylights,” I said, pointing. “Help me up and I’ll tell you how many are in there.”

“
How?”

“
Uh…” I looked around. The barn was nice, but nothing spectacular. It was large but not tall. “Actually, if you pull the truck around, I can climb onto the trailer and then onto the roof easily.”

“
Sure,” Ivan agreed and jogged off. The snow that was stuck to my boots made the roof of the trailer slippery. I almost lost my balance more than once. Clicking the safety on my machine gun, I handed it down to Hayden. I wouldn’t need it to look through a window.

Rather unsteadily, I climbed up the snow-covered roof. Using my arm so my gloves wouldn’t get wet, I brushed off the snow and peered inside. It was too dark to discern much of anything. Carefully, I moved to the next glass window and brushed off the snow, allowing more light to pour into the barn.

“
I can see three,” I called down, moving to the third skylight. This one was frosty and required some scraping. “There’s something…weird.”

“
What’s weird?” Hayden yelled up to me.

“
I can’t tell, hang on.” I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered in. Something big lumbered about. It was too big to be a zombie, I thought. I tapped on the glass, trying to get its attention. “I might be able to shoot them from up here,” I told the guys, not looking away from the large creature.

“
What?” Hayden asked. “I can’t hear you, Riss.”

“
I said,” I shouted, sitting up so my voice would travel down to the guys. “That I might be—” I didn’t get to finish telling Hayden what I might be able to do. The glass cracked and I fell through, landing on the hard, cold barn ground.

-Chapter 18-

The wind had gotten knocked out of me. I reeled, trying to get myself to breathe. I had landed in a stall. A stall full of dirty bedding and uneaten hay. I never thought I’d welcome a stall full of frozen horse poop and urine soaked wood shavings. It had prevented me from breaking something, though.

The guys yelled, frantically, outside the barn. Someone banged on the door. It caught the attention of a few of the zombies. The smell wasn’t as bad as it should be. They could barely move since their limbs were frozen.

“
I’m ok,” I tried to shout. My voice was only a weak wheeze. I pulled myself up, grasping onto the metal bars of the stall. There were five zombies in here, all in the gummy stage or worse. Brushing the glass from me, I slowly moved to the front of the stall. I drew my gun and fired four times.

The big thing I saw was nowhere in sight. The barn was still fairly dark. I wished the guys would stop yelling and trying to break through the boards; it would make it a hell of a lot easier to hear where the bastard was hiding.

The stall was locked and there was no way to reach through to let myself out. Sticking my M9 back in the holster, I climbed over the stall, my cold feet stinging when I jumped down. My hands trembled with adrenaline as I rushed over to flip the metal latches on the sliding door. It flew open. Ivan and Brock rushed inside, rifles at the ready. Hayden’s arms wrapped around me, as if he couldn’t help it.

“
Are you alright?” he asked, letting me go.

“
Yeah. Well, I’m sore. But nothing is broken.”

“
That scared the shit out of me. Don’t do it again.”

“
Trust me, I don’t plan on it.” I looked up. “I don’t know why it broke.”

“
The glass is cold. It weakens it. I-I should have thought of that before.”

“
Me too. And I should have been smart enough not to sit on it, but we live and learn, right?”

“
Yeah. I’m glad you’re ok.” His hazel eyes were still filled with worry, making his attractive face appear older than he really was. I put my hand on his chest.

“
I’m ok, Hayden. Really.”

“
Orissa, I—” Three shots rang out. We rushed inside. The big thing and one more gummy lay dead on the ground.

“
Look at that big mother fucker!” Ivan exclaimed. The big thing was a huge, fat person at one point, standing well over six feet tall. Broad shouldered and built like a bull, he would have looked intimidating as a human. As a zombie, he was downright terrifying.

“
I don’t think they do well in the cold,” I said. “Which would explain why we haven’t seen very many.”

“
It makes sense,” Brock said, nudging Fatty’s leg with his boot. “He’s frozen in some parts.”

“
You ok, Penwell?” Ivan asked.

“
Yeah. Frozen horse shit broke my fall.”

“
You’re cold. You might not feel it right away but you could be hurt internally.”

“
I don’t think so,” I stated, though, come to think of it, I didn’t feel anything.