Dead in Bed by Bailey Simms, The Complete First Book (23 page)

I shook the Hershey’s
wrapper. Two knotted pieces of latex, like little un-inflated balloons, fell
into my palm. One was blue, the other white. I could feel a pill tied inside
each of them.

I looked around the
silo. Morgan’s flannel shirt was lying against the wall near where she used to
sleep. I remembered pulling it from her dresser the night Ian shot Mr. Hershel
and we’d taken Morgan to my parents’ house. It seemed like months ago. I put
the shirt on and buttoned it up. If I had to sleep outside again, it would be
useful. It felt good to wear a piece of Morgan’s clothing, too. It made me feel
close to her. It gave me confidence…and maybe even a little hope.

The shirt had a tiny
breast pocket. I slipped the pills inside and snapped the button.

I thought again about
the ghostly stage-three girl who’d passed me on the road that morning. I
thought about the new refugees,
who
I hoped escaped
the Home Guard last night. I thought about everyone else who contracted the
pathogen, and everyone who would contract it in the future.

Tracking down Jason
might be impossible, and however certain I’d been earlier that he’d sleep with
me given the chance, I wasn’t so sure now that he’d stood me up. Trying to drug
him and steal his access card would definitely be the most hopelessly dangerous
thing I’d ever done, but I had nothing else to live for. And if I died trying,
maybe at least it would make up for some of the ways I’d let my family down.

I had to find Jason.

* * *

A
couple of miles from my parents’ property
was
a gas
station with a mini-mart. It was just on the outskirts of town. By avoiding
roads and walking under cover of the trees along the river, I was able to make
it there by midday.

I approached the gas
station cautiously from the riverbank, but as I got closer to the road, it was
obvious that the place was totally abandoned.

On my side of the
road, a sign marked the border of Muldoon
township
.
MULDOON, POPULATION 647
, it read.
I’d passed it a million times. That’s
probably why I didn’t notice at first that something was hanging from it.

It was a body.

It was the body of a
Home Guard ranger. He was still in uniform, hanging by a rope from one of the
sign’s wooden posts.

There was a bullet
hole in his head. I didn’t recognize the face. Around his neck hung a cardboard
sign that read:
SICKO FUCKER
.

The Home Guard must
have started executing members who were caught having sex with positives. This
was obviously a warning from the higher command that if any of the rangers slept
with anyone suspected of being infected, the punishment would be swift and
harsh.

No wonder Jason didn’t
show up last night. He was a sergeant, but he still had to answer to a higher
chain of command. There was obviously a crackdown on wayward rangers, and he’d probably
been afraid of getting caught and ending up hanged by the road.

It was going to be
even harder than I’d thought to get him to meet me for sex.

Still, I wasn’t about
to give up.

I actually found
Jason’s home number listed in the pay phone directory. The only problem was
that I didn’t have my wallet, and I didn’t have any change to place a call.

The minimart door was
open, but the cash register was locked. I looked around behind the counter for
the key, but I couldn’t find one.

I took another look
around the gas station to make sure I was alone,
then
I slid the register off the counter. It slammed down onto the floor. I could
hear change inside jingling around, but the drawer didn’t budge.

I lifted the register
,
then I heaved it up above my head. I did my best to slam
it hard against the floor. It crashed down, spun over, and rolled against a
bank of glass-windowed refrigerators.

Some of the register’s
keys broke off and scattered across the floor, and the receipt ribbon spooled
down the aisle, but still the drawer stayed locked.

It was only then that
I noticed a cardboard donation board for Huntington’s disease patients on the
counter. It was the kind with little quarter-size slots for people to leave
their change in. Most of the slots were empty, but people had stuffed a total
of eight quarters into the cardboard pockets.

With only passing
guilt, I plucked each of the quarters from the donation board. I promised
myself that if I ever made it out of this alive, I’d donate at least a couple
of dollars to Huntington’s research.

I went straight into
the men’s bathroom. I found exactly what I was looking for: a wall-mounted
vending machine selling condoms. The boys in my middle school class used to buy
them here, though the only pleasure their use brought was laughter at the names,
like
French Tickler
. Luckily, there
was also a box of garden-variety Trojans. I bought a pack for $1.50, tossed out
the box, and stuffed the three foil-wrapped condoms into my pocket.

I did my best to
freshen up at the sink. I hadn’t showered for more than a day, and I’d spent
all night outside. I washed my face and armpits with hand soap, brushed my
teeth with a travel toiletry kit that I stole from the mini-mart shelves, and
ran water through my hair. That was as good as it was going to get.

It occurred to me that
I was truly homeless. I’d slept in a gully, stolen spare change from
Huntington’s donations, and now here I was, bathing in a dingy gas station
bathroom.

I was also starving.

My weird craving for a
cheeseburger and a milkshake had morphed into a craving for anything with lots
of calories, preferably sweet. This was strange, because normally I never had
much of a sweet tooth.

I grabbed a plastic
bag from behind the counter and stuffed it with whatever I could find on the
shelves: teriyaki jerky, Pop Tarts, Snickers bars. Not exactly a square meal,
but my options were limited.

I had two quarters
left. That meant I would be able to make two phone calls.

I had no choice but to
use one quarter to call Jason now and save the last one to call Chris later,
hopefully after I’d stolen Jason’s access card.

I put one quarter into
the pay phone, slipped the last one into my breast pocket along with the pills,
and dialed the number listed next to Jason’s name in the phone book. I hoped to
God it was the number for his cell, and that he’d actually pick up.

The
ringback
tone whirred once.

Jason picked up right
away. I could tell by the sound quality that I’d reached his cell.

“Who’s this?” he
demanded.

“Are you on duty?” I
asked.

“Yes, I’m on duty. Who
is this?”

“You stood me up.”

“Ashley?” Right away
Jason’s voice hushed. “Shit. Give me a second.”

There was a series of
shuffling noises, then the sound of a car door closing.

“Ashley, yeah. Look.
Sorry about that, but it just wasn’t going to work out. They’re kind of
cracking down on unregulated intimate relations around here. It’s just way too
risky.”

“
Unregulated intimate relations
?” I parroted.

“Well, yeah,” he said
sheepishly. “That’s what they call it. Having sex with a positive is amazing.
It’s like fucking on ecstasy. And a lot of guys haven’t been careful enough.
Now, if you get caught fooling around without an intercourse license, it’s not
pretty. I shouldn’t even really be talking to you.”

I pretended to be
hurt. “Have fun jerking off for the rest of your life, then,” I said. “I should
have known all that shit about you being down to party was bullshit. I was even
saving my last two grasshoppers.” I tried to sound as disappointed as possible,
but it was hard. I kept remembering Jason climbing behind the wheel of the
swather
.

“You have
grasshoppers
?” he sounded genuinely
envious.

“I was going to
surprise you, but whatever.”

“Shit,” he said
wistfully. “I haven’t had grasshoppers since before the plague. Where’d you get
grasshoppers?”

“I knew this guy at
the trucking company who used to come in from Denver,” I lied. “How does it
matter now? I’m so fucking bored, Jason. Seriously. My whole family’s cut me
off. And now Morgan’s gone, so I don’t even have her. You heard about Morgan,
right?”

“Yeah, I heard.”

He said this with
utter disinterest. He was so gross.

“Well,” I said. “I’ll
just have to find somebody else to party with now that you’re out, asshole.” I
knew I had to start flirting with him. “The thing is,” I said, “I’m so fucking
lonely right now. I can’t believe you stood me up. You
owe
me. You know? You owe me at least one night. Honestly, I’ve wanted
you to fuck me ever since that night at the fairgrounds. Can you really not get
away? I thought you were the
sergeant
.
I thought you didn’t answer to anybody. Was that really all bullshit? I should
have known you’d pussy out.”

“I
am
the sergeant,” Jason insisted
idiotically. He actually sounded hurt. He was also starting to sound a little
tempted. “It’s just dangerous, that’s all,” he whispered. “I mean, we’d have to
be really, really careful. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about you, too. You
have no idea how bad I want to fuck you, Ashley!” He laughed. “I really
regretted not being able to make it last night.”

I couldn’t believe he
was already taking the bait. All I had to do was question his masculinity, and
I could get him to do anything. This actually had the effect of making me hate
him even more.

“Well, where’s a safe
place?” I asked cautiously.

“I don’t know. Like, a
field.
Someplace way out in the middle of nowhere.
Someplace
where I can be sure
no one
else is around
to report me.”

“I know a place,” I
said, “but look—if you don’t show up again, I’m finding somebody else.
You have no idea how many of these rangers from outside have been coming on to
me. I’ll be behind the fairgrounds tonight just after sunset. There’s a
cottonwood tree in the middle of the first field behind the rodeo grandstands.
I’ll be there. You know where I mean?”

“Yeah, I know where
you mean,” he said tentatively. “Look, Ash. If we do this we have to be really
careful. We’re totally out of
Insta
-Read tests, so I
can’t test you. We
have
to use protection.
Okay?”

I laughed. “Whatever
you say, Sergeant. I’ll bring a pocketful of rubbers with your name on all of
them. Don’t worry about it.”

“And you still have
the grasshoppers?”

“You fucking bet I
do,” I said. “Don’t be late. I swear to God this is your last fucking chance,
Jason. Don’t pussy out on me again.”

* * *

Jason
wasn’t late.

I’d spent the rest of
the day walking all the way to the fairgrounds. I’d reached the field behind
the grandstands just before sunset and sat against the cottonwood tree to wait
in the last of the light.

And as soon as it was
dark, Jason drove up alone in a small military SUV. When he turned into the
field, he cut off his lights and slowly drove toward the cottonwood tree in the
dark. He was being extra careful.

“Get in,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“Just get in.”

I climbed in. Without
turning the headlights on, Jason slowly drove along an irrigation channel until
we were four fields away from the fairgrounds. I could barely see the lights of
town.

He cut the engine.

For a moment he just
sat there in the dark, not moving or saying anything. He wasn’t comfortable
with this. He was nervous.

I reached into my
pocket and took out one of the condoms. I slipped it into his hand.

“Well, Mister Safety
First,” I said. “What are you waiting for?”

He took the condom. He
shined a tiny flashlight into my face,
then
turned it
off again.

“This is crazy, doing
this without testing you,” he said. “But you look pretty good. You don’t
look
infected. I guess we’ll be okay
with just the rubber…I guess.”

I leaned close to him
and whispered softly into his ear, “Since when are you the worrying type,
Sergeant?”

I gently bit his
earlobe.

“Jesus
Christ
,” he whispered. He took a deep
breath and sighed.