The Becoming: Ground Zero (14 page)

“Come on, Cade! We’ve got to get out of here!” Remy shouted, heedless of the noise she made. It was pointless to mind her volume anyway, since the infected had already zeroed in on them.

Cade fired one more shot; it dug into the dead grass in front of its intended target. She shook her head in disappointment and grabbed her bag, tossing it to Remy as gently as she could. Then, as Remy yelled for Ethan to get the van moving and as the vehicle started to roll toward the nearest gap in the infected, Cade leaped, rifle in hand, and landed on her knees on the van. She slid across the smooth metal and let out a startled cry, nearly dropping her rifle off the side of the van as she scrambled to keep from falling to the moving grass on the other side. The infected were too close. If Cade hit the ground, they were sure to be on her before the van stopped to help her.

A hand closed tightly around her wrist. Brandt knelt by her, hanging on to her arm to keep her from falling. She fleetingly wondered how he’d moved to her aid so fast, but mostly she let out a heavy sigh of relief and clutched his arm. Brandt dragged Cade more securely onto the van, making sure she wasn’t going to fall again before he let go of her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just … damn. I almost fell,” Cade said. Her voice trembled, and her hands shook noticeably as she slung her rifle over her shoulder. She made sure the strap was secure before she motioned for Brandt to head to the sunroof. Remy ducked inside, hauling Cade’s bag in with her. Brandt wrapped an arm around Cade’s waist and guided her to the sunroof as he moved to it himself.

Once inside the van, Cade took a moment to stand on the seat and look back at their safe house as it receded into the distance. They’d been there so long that it’d begun to feel like home. It was a feeling she hadn’t had in a very long time, a feeling of peace and security despite the world in which they lived. That once peaceful and secure place was now completely surrounded by the infected, who threw themselves at the windows and doors and walls of the house, streaming inside to look for their prey. Several of the infected noticed the moving van and gave chase, but they were no match for the vehicle as it skidded onto the street and steadily accelerated. The infected quickly fell behind.

Cade shuddered again and dropped into the van, pushing the sunroof closed with a click. They’d come so close to being overwhelmed, the closest they’d been to death since the world fell. The thought made Cade’s stomach cramp painfully in fear and shock. She slumped in her seat and let out a slow, shaky breath.

Brandt leaned over Cade to pull her seatbelt across her chest, and he buckled it securely. He did the same for himself, and then he took Cade’s rifle from her. “Are you okay?” he asked again, his voice hushed.

“Yeah, I think I’m okay,” Cade said just as quietly. “I’m just a little rattled. That’s all.” Brandt nodded and reloaded her rifle before he offered it back to her. She checked the safety and rested it on the floor between her knees, the barrel against the van’s carpeting. She breathed in slowly, trying to calm down. “So where are we going?” Cade finally asked.

“Where else
can
we go?” Brandt asked. He motioned to the front of the van. Ethan was behind the wheel, Nikola in the passenger seat beside him; the maps they’d consulted the day before were spread out in her lap, crumpled and wrinkled as if they’d been hastily gathered and folded. “I think Ethan’s decided we might as well head on to Atlanta.”

“Do we have a plan? Supplies?” Cade asked as she looked at Brandt worriedly. Brandt shrugged and glanced in her duffel bag, avoiding her gaze as she added, “Are you ready for it? Are
we?
”

Brandt finally shifted his eyes to Cade. His gaze was solemn as he said quietly, “We have to be.”

Ethan didn’t slow the van until he’d driven it well out of town. His heart hammered wildly in his chest, and his hands shook. He glanced compulsively in the rearview mirror as he drove, despite the fact that the van’s speed outpaced any infected in existence. The adrenaline pumping through Ethan’s veins made him mash his foot harder and harder on the gas pedal. It was exceedingly dangerous to drive so fast with the sun disappearing over the horizon. Darkness wasn’t a wise time to travel. It restricted Ethan’s view of the road ahead, and that could prove fatal.

Ethan took his foot off the gas and let the van coast to a slow stop in the middle of the road. He shoved the gearshift to park and jabbed the hazard button out of habit; red and yellow parking lights strobed rhythmically across the cracked pavement. Once that was done, Ethan slumped over the steering wheel, trying to calm his breathing and heart rate. He gripped the wheel to hide the shaking of his hands and drew in breath after breath, fighting back the nausea stirring in his gut.

Ethan shuddered as he realized how dangerously close to death they’d come. Anything could have happened. The infected could have bitten one of them. The detonation that had demolished the stairs could have easily taken out the entire second floor—hell, the entire
house
. When things went wrong for them, they went wrong drastically, and Ethan felt a heavy wave of relief as he realized how lucky they were. He swallowed and closed his eyes, feeling Nikola’s worried gaze on him. He turned his head, forehead still mashed against the steering wheel, and gave her a small smile. Then he straightened and flipped on the overhead light to get a look at everyone. He had to make sure they were okay, and he wouldn’t believe they were until he saw it with his own eyes.

Cade and Brandt sat immediately behind Ethan. Both appeared okay. Brandt was digging energetically through a large bag, while Cade was slumped over, gripping her rifle tightly. Neither of them seemed to be injured, much to Ethan’s relief. He didn’t know if he could handle the idea of Cade getting hurt or killed.

Remy sat on her knees on the seat beside Gray. Ethan was disappointed at the twinge of jealousy he felt. He itched to crawl back there and shove Gray away from her, but then he’d have to explain himself to the others. And
that
would open up a whole new can of worms. This whole emotion thing—the jealousy, the irritation, the anger at everything—was driving him nuts.

Behind Remy and Gray were Avi and Theo. Avi looked exhausted, which reinforced Ethan’s belief that the woman didn’t see much action. Theo, too, knelt on his seat, hovering in the very back of the van, watching out the rear window attentively. He turned to look at Ethan and raised an eyebrow at the older man.

“Everybody okay?” Ethan asked after he finished inspecting them. He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it too.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Cade said. She leaned forward with a soft groan, rubbing at her lower back. Ethan frowned, worried that she’d hurt herself. That was the last thing they needed. Cade didn’t mention it, though. She simply rested her elbows on her thighs and let her hands dangle loosely between her knees. “What are we going to do, Eth?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan admitted. He rested his head against the steering wheel again and tried to work out the problem in his head. He let out a slow breath and felt a hand touch the back of his neck. Ethan turned to see Nikola nodding as she pulled her hand away. He gave the teenager another smile and sat back up again. Her obvious trust in him was just enough to jar him loose from dwelling on his uncertainties.

“Okay,” Ethan finally said. He huffed out another breath. “Okay so. Inventory. What do we have?” Everyone began to check over their weapons and look inside their bags and pockets. The sound of shuffling and rattling met his ears.

“We’ve got four sidearms and a couple of shotguns in Cade’s bag,” Brandt reported. “Plus a crowbar. Some ammo for the guns, but there’s really not much. We hadn’t gotten the chance to finish packing the ammunition. My Beretta’s got half a mag in it, and Cade’s got her rifle and, I’m assuming, ammo for it in her other bag?”

Cade looked inside her messenger bag and nodded absently. She still appeared bothered by something. The look on her face worried Ethan. It was a cross between stress and almost … fear, perhaps? The last thing Ethan needed was Cade falling apart on him. She was tough, but she wasn’t unsusceptible to cracking. Indeed, she spent so much time bottling up everything she felt, holding in her stress and worry and fear and grief, that Ethan knew it was only a matter of time before she fell apart. He wanted to know what was on Cade’s mind, but he didn’t have time to pick her brain for more information. He decided to save the discussion for later, when things had quieted down and she would be more receptive to talking to him about it.

Ethan ejected the magazine from his Glock and studied it. “I have my gun and about half a magazine too,” he said. “Nothing more than that, though. I left my spare magazine on the desk in the office.” Ethan glanced past Cade and Brandt to the dark-haired young woman who still knelt on the seat. “Remy?”

“My blade and my gun,” Remy answered. She glanced at Ethan, her dark eyes lingering on his face. A strange, unidentifiable feeling fluttered in his stomach. It vanished as she returned her eyes to the window beside her. “But I only have a few bullets left. I used too many of them covering Cade.”

“I don’t have anything,” Gray admitted with a shrug, speaking up before Ethan prompted him. “I dropped my gun on the roof while I was helping everyone through the window. It was empty anyway.”

“I’ve got my machete,” Avi said. “I don’t have anything else. Just that.”

“And I have my gun but no ammo,” Theo said. “And no medical supplies. They’re all still bagged up on the coffee table in the house.”

Ethan looked to Nikola wordlessly. She shook her head. “I think we’re lucky to even still have the maps,” she said, lifting the wrinkled papers with a rustle.

“Fuck,” Ethan muttered. He stared out the windshield into the darkness. There were so many problems they already faced, and they’d only just left the safe house. “Food?” he asked without looking back. In the darkened reflection of the windshield, Ethan saw everyone shake their heads mutely. “Half a tank of gas,” Ethan said. His mind spun as he scraped up a plan. “Okay, first we need to get farther away from Maplesville. I’m not going to feel remotely comfortable until we do. Then we need to stop somewhere and work on resupplying. We need food, water, weapons, ammunition, and probably camping gear.”

“And first aid supplies,” Theo called from the back.

“And
first aid supplies,” Ethan repeated with a nod. “Nikki? Any suggestions? Something close, preferably.”

Nikola leaned over the map of Alabama. “I’m not sure. I think maybe … Clanton? It’s about fifteen miles from here and looks like it’s big enough to have most of what we need. But it’s not so big that we’ll drastically increase our risk of being attacked again.”

Ethan nodded and glanced at the others again. They still sat hunched in their seats or looking out the windows. Only Remy met his eyes, and her expression was unreadable. “Are we okay with that?” he asked. He got a round of silent nods in reply, so he put the van back in drive and started in the direction Nikola indicated.

It took the group almost two hours to make the fifteen-mile drive from Maplesville to Clanton, thanks primarily to congestion and roadblocks scattered haphazardly along their path. Once dawn came and after they’d managed to gas up the van, Cade found herself standing in the parking lot of a Walmart, her arms crossed over her chest as she studied the darkened building and its shattered automatic front door. Cade wasn’t sure what she thought about the place or even if she felt it safe enough to go inside. But they needed supplies badly; they wouldn’t make it out of the state without water and food and weapons. And it was likely safer to go where they could get everything in one stop, since more travel and more stops meant more risks.

Brandt approached and stopped beside Cade. He crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking her stance, and joined her silent stare. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

“Right now? I’m thinking I could really go for a cheeseburger with all the trimmings,” Cade said, keeping her eyes on the building.

“Yeah? I’m thinking a steak. Medium rare, of course. With a loaded baked potato on the side,” Brandt said. “Something tells me neither of us is going to get what we want, though.” He looked at Cade, and the motion made her turn her head. Their eyes met, and Brandt murmured, “At least, not
everything
we want.”

Cade drew in a slow breath and nodded. She tore her gaze from Brandt’s almost reluctantly as her heart tried to stuff itself into her throat. She quickly choked it back down. “Yeah, I suppose so,” Cade said quietly. She looked back at the building for a long moment, trying to steady her nerves, and then glanced behind them. The van was parked halfway down the lot, and she could see Ethan, Gray, and Theo standing outside its open doors. Judging by the hand gestures Ethan and Gray made at each other, they were arguing again. Theo looked ready to strangle them both, a sentiment with which Cade could sympathize. “What are they doing?” she asked, changing the subject before it slipped into territory that made her uncomfortable.

“Bitching again,” Brandt said tiredly. “Basically, the usual.”

Cade snorted and looked back at the building. She pulled a sidearm out of her shoulder bag and ejected the magazine, carefully counting the bullets inside before she jammed it back into place. She slid the weapon into the empty holster on her belt. “So are we going to go in?” she asked, tilting her head back to look toward the roof of the store.