The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) (17 page)

The crazy lady clawed at Bethany’s face. With her left hand, Bethany grabbed the woman’s wrist. She threw a knee into the woman’s pelvis and twisted to free herself. But the enraged woman didn’t let up. Even when Bethany caught her other wrist, the woman twisted her neck to bite at her face. Bethany’s head whipped left and right to avoid the chomping jaws.

Kara could see her mother’s arms shaking. Bethany couldn’t hold out much longer. Kara ran to the Volvo and tore through her bag, desperate to find a weapon, anything to aid her mother, but she found nothing of use. She popped the trunk.

“Get back in the car!” Bethany yelled, her voice strained.

Ignoring her, Kara pulled up the mat covering the car’s spare tire and the toolset for changing a flat. The glossy black X-shaped lug wrench glinted in the late afternoon sunlight. She tore it from its place above the spare and stomped toward the woman who was trying to hurt her mother.

“Get off her!” Kara yelled.

The woman whipped around, and Bethany used the momentary confusion to shove her off. Her eyelids twitching and her mouth hanging open, the woman lunged. Kara cocked back the lug wrench but froze before she struck. She’d hunted the Maryland woods with her dad before. She’d field-dressed deer and harvested her fair share of wild turkey. But she’d never hit a person.

“Kara!” Bethany called. She threw herself at the woman and took the brunt of the attack meant for her daughter.

When the woman’s scraping fingers drew blood along her mother’s face, Kara’s hesitation broke. She swung the lug wrench with all the power of a steroid-laden batter going for a grand slam. The end of the wrench smashed against the woman’s skull. Flecks of blood and flesh spattered from the blow. Bone splintered.

Yet the debilitating injury hardly fazed the woman. She snarled and let out a howl. Once again, she leapt at Kara.

This time Kara didn’t hold back. The lug wrench connected for a second time with the woman’s face. Her neck snapped backward. Momentum carried the bottom half of her body forward, and she spun before she smashed against the ground. Her feet landed on the driveway, her crushed head on the grass.

Kara drew the lug wrench back again, ready to swing should the crazy person decide she wasn’t finished. She crept toward the woman and kicked her in the ribs.

“Are you okay?” Bethany asked.

Nodding, Kara stared at the body. Crimson liquid seeped from the jumble of torn flesh and fragmented bone. The woman’s chest lay still. Kara dropped the wrench, and it clattered on the concrete. A painful knot twisted in her gut, and she threw an arm over the Volvo’s open trunk as the contents of her stomach spilled on the driveway.

“You’re okay,” her mother said, drawing an arm around Kara’s shoulder. “You’re okay,” she repeated.

Kara retched again before dry-heaving. She dragged her sleeve across her mouth and stared with grim fascination at the corpse.

“You did the right thing,” Bethany said, exhibiting an amazing calm despite the events she’d just endured.

In her mind’s eye, Kara saw the people on the highway running, pouncing, and tearing apart their hapless victims. This woman in the tracksuit must’ve been like them. Enraged. Crazy. Yet she was still a woman, and Kara had still killed her. She dry-heaved again before straightening. “She’s dead.”

“You saved my life,” Bethany countered.

Kara hardly registered the words, focused on the destruction she’d caused and the life she’d taken.

“Come on, let’s find your sister.” Bethany jogged to the front porch and opened the door. Maggie, the family’s golden retriever, bounded out to greet them. She wound between their legs, whining all the while.

Bethany stepped inside the house and called, “Sadie! Sadie, are you home?”

One hand scratching the back of Maggie’s head, Kara glanced around the street. No one other than the corpse near the car crash and the dead woman at their feet could be seen. The neighborhood appeared empty. She ran to the passenger side of the car and grabbed her bag. Kara followed her mother into the house. She locked the door and tried to flick on the light. “Power’s out,” she said.

Bethany ran up the stairs. “Sadie? Sadie, are you home?”

Kara’s heart began to climb into her throat. “Sadie!”

Breathing heavily, Bethany came back downstairs. The cut on her cheek was bleeding, and the skin around it already seemed to be turning a yellowish color like a fading bruise. “Your sister’s probably still at the Weavers’. We’ve got to go get her.”

“Mom, are you okay? Your cheek—”

“I’m okay. I’ll be fine.” Bethany went to the door and peeked out its small half-circle window. “There are more of those people out there. Those crazies.” She turned away from the window and back to Kara. “We’ve got to find your sister. Run downstairs and grab a couple guns from the safe.”

Kara plunged into the cold basement with an emergency flashlight and ran to the safe. Her eyes were wet, but she made no effort to wipe away the tears as, guided by muscle memory, she twisted the safe’s dial until it clicked open. She selected a Remington Model 860 Pump and the H&R Handi Rifle that was her mom’s. The Remington was Kara’s favorite hunting gun. Her mom had never been as into deer hunting as Kara and her dad, but he’d gotten her a basic rifle and taught her to use it, anyway. Kara sprinted back up the stairs with the weapons and handed the rifle to her mother.

Bethany gripped the weapon and looked at her daughter with haunted eyes. Kara could tell what her mother was thinking. They were so close to Sadie. But with more of those crazy people out there like the ones they had seen along the highway and the one who attacked Bethany, Sadie might as well have been a hundred miles away. Bethany wanted to venture out there alone, fighting off rabid people.

Kara shuddered. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with?”

“I’m okay,” Bethany said, repeating her mantra from earlier. She wiped the tears from Kara’s cheek with a free hand. “We’re going to be okay.”

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M
eredith patted her holstered pistol beneath her jacket as her boots crunched over fallen twigs and leaves. She stepped over the rotted-out husk of a log resting across the trail. Her thoughts lingered on the promise she'd made to Dom. She would gladly help his daughters; over the years, she'd heard enough about the girls to feel that they were a part of her family. She'd never met Kara and Sadie, but Dom had regaled Meredith with his daughters' exploits in school, on camping trips with him, and their family vacations. After his divorce, the stories had become bittersweet, his time with them less frequent. But Dom had still kept her updated on his girls.

Whenever she contracted Dom for a new job or checked in on a current one, Meredith made sure to ask after them, too. They often ended up carrying on like the old friends they were, whether over the phone or in person—though in-person meetings happened far too infrequently for Meredith’s liking. He was a good man, and sometimes she wondered what would have happened if things had turned out differently between them.

She trudged along, lost in her reminiscing, until she came to a small clearing among the trees. Ahead of her, a golden-brown cedar structure greeted her: Rocky Run Shelter. It looked like a log cabin without its front wall. She checked her map to confirm her location and trudged toward the structure’s covered deck. A porch swing creaked in the wind behind a grill pit. Compared to other shelters on the Appalachian Trail, it was a veritable palace. Not only was this one of the more recently renovated structures along the trail, but the paths near it boasted scenic overlooks where, on a clear day, the verdant greens of the surrounding woods and rolling hills contrasted sharply with an azure sky.

These features also meant this particular portion of the trail was rather popular. After listening to the radio reports of spreading violence and rabid humans running amok, she feared encountering anyone. She crept toward the shelter and looked for a pump to refill her water bottles once she had ensured it was safe.

Something moved in the shadows. Slipping one hand into her jacket, she walked toward the porch. She resisted the urge to call out and instead wrapped her fingers around the pistol grip.

A wiry man emerged from the shadows. He blinked and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Dust caked his curly brown hair. Stretching out his arms, he let out a yawn as a young woman, tall and thin as he was, joined him.

“How’s it going?” he said.

Meredith’s heart settled, and she slipped her hand out of her jacket. This was no crazy person, and he certainly didn’t look like a Skull. By his unabashed friendliness, she could tell they had no idea what was going on in the rest of the world. Maybe these two had come for a couple days’ hike. Hell, maybe they had left a car somewhere within walking distance. They were mere miles from Frederick, where Dom’s daughters lived, and she might be able to convince them to give her a ride there on her way to Fort Detrick—if the roads proved traversable.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone else around these parts.”

“Me, too,” the man said. “I’m Eric, by the way. This is Shauna.”

Shauna waved but said nothing.

“We dozed off,” Eric continued. “Been taking the trail from Maine, headed all the way to Georgia. Running from the cold, as they say. You come from the south?”

So much for a ride
. “Sort of. I’m not trying to make the whole hike,” Meredith said. “I take it you haven’t heard the news.”

“We’ve pretty much cut ourselves off from civilization for the past several weeks,” Shauna said.

Meredith hated to be the one to break it to them. “There’s been an outbreak.”

“Outbreak?” Eric said, stepping out from the shade of the shelter. “Like the flu?”

“Worse,” Meredith said. “There’s some disease turning people into crazed killers.”

“Whoa, lady.” Eric held his hands in a supplicating gesture. “You high or something?”

Meredith snorted. She knew nothing she said would get through to these people. She was going to have to prove it to them. She slung off her pack and rested it against one of the posts on the shelter’s porch and dug out her hand-cranked radio and started it up. Adjusting the tuning knob, she searched for a station consisting of more than static.

A panicked, low voice broke through the noise. “—now declared a national state of emergency. All listeners are urged to stay indoors and avoid all contact with persons who exhibit signs of aggression.”

Eric’s skeptical expressions faded. “This isn’t some kind of sick practical joke, is it?”

Meredith shot the man a look as though he was stupid and wondered why she was even wasting her time. But she couldn’t force herself to keep walking and leave these people completely ignorant to the events unfolding around them. “Keep listening.”

“With phone lines and cell service down across the country, it’s been difficult to reach the CDC for current information,” the announcer continued. “Several hours ago we received a wire indicating all physical contact should be avoided with, we quote, ‘aggressive persons.’”

Meredith turned the radio’s volume down.

“Are these, like, zombies?” Eric asked.

Meredith shook her head. “Not exactly...”

Eric backed away from Meredith, his eyes wide. Shauna hid behind him.

“Don’t worry,” Meredith said. “I’m not an ‘aggressive person.’”

“Why the hell are we supposed to believe you?”

Meredith recalled the images she’d seen in Jay’s video feed and from Dom’s debriefing. “If I was, you’d already be dead.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Shauna asked, her voice shaky.

“Find shelter,” Meredith said. “Something more substantial than a lean-to.” The radio droned on, reporting power and communication outages along with estimated casualties. Meredith really couldn’t spare any more time on these two hippies, even if they were a couple of clueless kids. But they were so young, barely into their twenties. If she’d had children, they would probably be the same age. She had to focus on finding Dom’s daughters and heading to Detrick. Her attempts to contact the Army base had so far been thwarted since all normal modes of communication had failed.

Eric paced the shelter’s porch. “Maybe we’re safer on the trail, away from civilization while it explodes, man.” He locked eyes with Shauna.

Meredith glanced at their backpacks resting in the shelter. They’d made it this far on foot. They were clearly resourceful and self-sufficient. They knew how to survive a long hike, but could they survive what looked to be the crumbling, temporary or not, of civilization?

“You have weapons?” Meredith asked.

“A hatchet, a couple knives,” Shauna replied.

Meredith pictured the Skulls again. If the Oni Agent was spreading, a couple of camping tools wouldn’t cut it. “No guns?”

“No way, man.” Eric shook his head, which caused a cloud of dust to lift from his curls.

“You ever shoot one?” She reached into her pocket, wondering if they needed her pistol more than she did.

“I haven’t,” Shauna said. “But he was a Boy Scout. You did at camp, right?”

“Black powder rifles, twenty-twos, a shotgun once,” Eric said. “But that was it.”

Meredith wondered why she was even bothering. Millions stood to suffer from the spread of the Oni Agent, yet she was concerning herself with these two she’d known for all of fifteen minutes. She should move on, but then again, traveling in a group might prove to be a boon for survival. After all, they had equipment and supplies to live off the trail. “Do you have any family or friends nearby?”

“Got some in Georgia,” Eric said.

“My cousins live near Savannah,” Shauna added.

One of the Skulls that washed ashore had been discovered near Savannah. Georgia had been one of the first states to declare a state of emergency. She didn’t bother telling them; it would only make things worse.

“I’m headed to Frederick,” Meredith said. She recalled Dom’s frequent stories of camping and hunting trips with his daughters. “I’m meeting up with a friend’s family. I think they have guns, and it might not be a bad idea to see if they have anything to spare for you.”