Stage 6 (8 page)

He looked as if he was going to yell at me again, but then stopped and glanced at Debbie. My group, which had already known this, was looking over at her with horror.

Sarah asked confused, “Well what do you mean ‘takes effect” within eight-twelve hours? What happens?”

Steve replied grimly, “They become Infected. They will no longer know who you are, and will kill you if at all within their power.”

Lucy looked terrified, and asked, “Well what do we do?”

My mom spoke up, “Well we don’t actually know for certain she’s Infected do we? How bout we stay here for a few hours and see what happens to make sure-”

Kevin broke in and yelled, “That’s no good! We can’t stay here a few hours, those things are after us and they run like hell! Besides we don’t even know what else is in store ahead of us! No, we can’t stay here.”

Kevin backed off and looked at the sky angrily, although I did not know what he was angry at. Steve gave Victoria to Lucy and he, Ian, and I backed into a little circle of our own and started debating what to do. Steve wanted to leave her here, and drive off, and Ian pointed out that she had been in our car for a few minutes. We didn’t know if any small virus particles whether in blood or saliva or what had been dislodged in the car.

During this Kevin grew increasingly mad, breaking in to say, unhelpfully, “This is all crap! This sucks!”

I suggested we leave her here, drive off a few minutes and then decontaminate the car, but then Steve pointed out if the Infected behind us get here and she has turned they will follow her who knows exactly where we went.

And then Lucy asked, “And what if they get here BEFORE she has turned? That’s a terrible way to die.”

Kevin then asked, “What if we just put her outside the car, continue on our way until she turns, and then...”

I shook my head and replied, “No that won’t work either. A lot of animals are Infected and if any of them see, hear, or smell Debbie on top of our car they’ll follow us.”

Kevin screamed, “The freaking zombie animals are in on it too!? The whole world is going to crap!”

Then Kevin swore again, turned in one movement, aimed his gun at Debbie and pulled the trigger. A loud shot rang out and Debbie fell to the floor, instantly dead before she hit the ground. I threw myself to the ground as blood splattered out. I saw a flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye and another shot rang out. I quickly jumped to my feet to see Steve on top of Kevin wrestling the gun away from him. There was a bullet hole in the car two feet away from Lucy and Victoria, and Steve wasn’t taking any chances. After taking the gun from Kevin, he gave him a swift punch and Kevin slumped to the ground, obviously unconscious. Steve rose and rushed over to Lucy, taking Victoria from her.

He said quickly, “That shot will call any Infected in the area to us; we need to get out of here fast. Jane, I’ll help you and a few others to clean the car and clean ourselves as best as we can. We need to make sure there’s no Infected blood on us. Jack, find something to tie Kevin up with.”

They moved quickly, Steve pulling a pack of antibacterial wipes out of his bag, and the rest helping him mop up where Debbie sat. They grabbed some plastic wrap as well, and placed it over top of the seat even after cleaning to take no chances. I found some old computer wire in the back, and I used it to tie Kevin’s hands securely behind him. I unceremoniously dragged him over to the truck and dumped him in the back of the trunk for good measure. Sarah was obviously in shock, and Karen had taken a break from cleaning to bring her back into the car and comfort her. Steve finished up the decontamination, and Lucy got in with the baby. I asked Steve if he wouldn’t mind driving, since I was kind of tired of it. It was now very dark, and he agreed. I jumped in the passenger side, and he started the car. We shut the last door, and drove off slowly, already putting it behind us.

I was beginning to realize more and more that dwelling on one bad thing for any amount of time was very counterproductive to both survival and the intactness of the human mind. I accepted what happened, and I moved on to the next thing. Such was life.

Sarah broke the silence and asked almost sarcastically, “So is there anything else I should know about this virus?”

 I replied, “Yeah, it travels in animals too.”

The next few hours were spent in complete silence except for the occasional navigational efforts between me and Steve, as each person collected their thoughts about them. At about eleven o’clock at night we came up to a small town called Lavon, in agreement that we would stop here and then head in a diagonal line towards the border through Caddo National Grasslands.

Steve suddenly shook me and whispered as the others were mostly asleep, “Jack, we’re almost out of gas!”

I mentally slapped myself in the face for forgetting about something as important as gas, and I replied loudly to wake everybody up “Alright, so why don’t we drive into this town up ahead and go around and pick a gas station with the least amount of Infected. Steve since you’re driving, you’ll get out and fill up the car. My mom, Karen, and Lucy will get out of the car and use their hunting rifles to pick them off at far range. Ian and I will be the last reserve. When the gas is about to be filled up, you warn us ok Steve? Then we all get back in the car and drive off. Ian, you’ll drive.”

Steve cut me off, “Sorry Jack, but I see several problems with your plan. Number one, who is going to watch Victoria?”

Lucy volunteered, “I’ll stay in the car and hold her, because I suck at shooting anyways.”

Steve continued, “Then number two, I’m the best shooter here so it doesn’t make any sense that I’d be the only one without a gun.”

I replied to this one, “Ok then, Ian will jump out as soon as the car stops and fill the car up with gas. Then he can easily get into the driver’s seat from there. Steve, you’ll be with me just covering the car. Does this sound good?”

Steve nodded, as we approached the outskirts of the town. It was a relatively small town, and as soon as we entered we could see the exit road a ways up ahead. There was a small grocery store, a motel, a gas station, and about twenty or so houses.

I said, “The towns smaller than we thought, so I guess we’re forced to use the only gas station there is.”

Steve pulled into it and there was no Infected to be seen, but there were cars parked in the parking spaces near the store. As we drove up to the station, we strained our eyes through the dark to see that each gas pump had an “ALL OUT” sign next to it. We looked at each other, all thinking the same thing.
Where would we get gas?

I saw movement in the convenience store and shouted, “Look! I don’t know if it’s a person or Infected but there’s something in that store!”

Everyone craned their necks to peer over seats and see inside the store. There was nothing for a few seconds, and then suddenly we saw a face at the window looking at us. Lucy kind of jumped in shock, and the figure waved at us. Steve pulled the car up closer to the store, and after a quick look around I jumped out of the car and moved to the door. What I saw surprised me. There was a clerk at the counter, and a few people moving around the store, obviously chatting with each other. I cautiously knocked on the door and they all looked towards me. One of them, who was closest moved to open the door.

He looked confused and said, “The store’s open buddy, you don’t have to knock.”

I entered and replied slowly, “Are you guys ok?”

Looking even more confused he said, “Umm. Yeah we’re good. What about you?”

The figure I saw waving at us I could now clearly see was a boy a little bit younger than myself, staring at me with a hint of curiosity.

The clerk noticed our car outside waiting by the gas pump and voiced loudly, “Oh you’re here for gas? Well you’re out of luck, sorry but this whole town ran out of gas a few weeks ago. Some mishap with the supplier.”

Dismayed, I asked, “Really? How do you guys all get around?”

The man who let me in laughed and said, “If you haven’t noticed already, this is a pretty small town. We can walk everywhere we need to go.”

I then said, “But what about the Infection? How are you surviving?”

They all glanced at each other for a second, and then a person in the back said, “What Infection?”

Utterly at a loss for words, I hesitated before asking, “Have the Infected not been here yet?”

Getting kind of angry at my tone, the man who let me in said, “Listen buddy, we have no idea what you are talking about. Care to explain?”

Bewildered, I answered, “The Infection??? The virus that has taken over the entire state of Texas and is transforming us all into violent predators? How could you not have heard about it?”

The man quickly glanced back at the kid that I saw in the window, but then turned laughed contemptuously and replied, “We don’t get very many visitors, and most of them are about as crazy as you are.”

My voice began to rise, and I said, “Haven’t you been listening to the T.V.?? They advised us to evacuate to the nearest fort!”

The man said, “We don’t pay much attention to television, it corrupts the mind.”

Exasperated I said, “So none of you have encountered any Infected people or strangely aggressive animals?”

They all shook their heads.

I asked, “So you all are just living just as normal lives as you always have?”

The man replied, “Yup.”

I bid them good day, and walked out of the store. I moved back to the truck and hopped into the passenger door.

I told them all, “Alright there’s strangely good news, and some pretty bad news. The good news is that the entire population of this town has not seen nor heard of any sign of the Infected, and in fact have had no change in their lives. The bad news is there hasn’t been any gas here for a few weeks.”

They digested this information, and we thought about what to do.

I told the group as a whole, “Well this is much better news than we hoped for! Maybe the Infection is being contained, if this town hasn’t even heard of it!”

The whole car lit up in smiles of hope and excitement. Steve pulled the car out into the road and drove off into the center of a parking lot, angled towards the road out of the town.

He caught me looking at him and shrugged, “It never hurts to plan your escape route.”

The baby started crying, and Lucy said, “I think she’s hungry. I know I am.”

Come to think of it, I thought, none of us had eaten in more than a day.

I said, “Well let’s take advantage of the situation. We’ll sit here for a while and make some dinner out of the food we brought with us, while we are thinking of what to do.”

My mom said, “Jack, most of the food I brought is in the form of canned goods because they can last a long time. They need to be heated up.”

Steve smiled, “Hey Ian can you open up my bag back there? There’s portable butane stove in it. We can use that to heat up anything you have. Also pull out some of those boxes in there.”

My mom thanked him, and did as he asked. Steve took the little boxes, and my mom set to work preparing bean tacos.

Ian asked Steve about the boxes, and he replied, “Its milk that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. I brought some thinking that Victoria would need some.”

He took his baby from Lucy and attempted to feed it his weird milk stuff. He didn’t seem to be having much success, and meanwhile I thought hard about our situation. I didn’t see anything we could do but stay here in this town, which was beginning to sound like not such a bad idea. If there really were no Infected here, than this was as good a place as any to camp out. We could wait here for a while, at least until it seemed dangerous.

I jumped out of the car, and stretched for what felt like the first time in forever. How amazing it felt, to finally move and walk around with a sense of security. I massaged every muscle I had, and felt new life come into my body.

I opened the trunk and beckoned Hunter to me. “Here, boy!”

The dog awkwardly clambered over Kevin’s motionless body and leapt out of the trunk. Hunter immediately began stretching from head to tail, in every possible way.

I informed everybody of my decision, and they all heartedly agreed except for Steve, who had some reservations about staying in one spot. He agreed though, but made me promise we would reevaluate the circumstances every day and make a new decision based on that. After a satisfying dinner of Chile and crackers, we all piled back into the car and drove a mile to the motel. I jogged there with Hunter, relishing the fresh air. If the world wasn’t taken over by vicious Infected humans, it could have been a vacation. My mom went inside to get us a room, and came out surprised a few seconds later.

She said, almost laughing, “They say it costs fifteen dollars a night per room. We didn’t bring any money Jack. All I have is my license that I always keep in my pocket.”

I thought back to those first few terrifying days stuck in the house, and didn’t blame myself for not bringing any money.

Then I remembered, “Wait! When we went to that drug store to get protective gear, I moved my wallet into that new jacket I bought. And now I’m wearing that jacket.”

Grinning, I reached into one of my jacket’s bigger pockets and retrieved it from the depths. I pulled it open to reveal about two hundred dollars.

I handed her thirty dollars, “Why don’t you get two rooms? For at least the first night we can all have a bed to sleep in.”

She went inside and came out with two keys for the rooms. I took one and headed off with the Truck with Ian, Steve and his baby, while Lucy, Karen, Sarah, and my mom took the other room. I looked disapprovingly at Steve as he got out of the truck and walked into the room, baby in one hand, assault rifle in the other.

I yelled after him, “I don’t think we’ll need that Steve.”

He shrugged me off and went inside, “Don’t bring your gun if you don’t want to. Personally I feel a lot safer with the gun, then without it.”

I thought about it, and followed him with my shot gun. I put it in by the side of the room near my bed, and then went back out to the car to grab my backpack. I came back inside leading Hunter to see Steve laying the baby carefully down on the bed, and gently placing pillows around it so it wouldn’t slip off. He then went back outside and unloaded all his gear. He transported it all in one trip to the room, looking like a moving stack of supplies.