Contagious (35 page)

“
Yeah,” I replied.

He rolled over and put his arm around me. I wiggled around until I was facing him. I moved in close, resting my head against his firm chest. “Thanks.”

“
No problem,” he said softly.

I closed my eyes, feeling safe, warm, and something else. Something that filled me in a way I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

“
Hayden?” I whispered.

“
Yeah?”

“
That doll is creeping me out.”

“
What doll?”

“
You seriously didn’t notice it? Look at the dresser?”

“
Ah, you’re right.” He let go of me, sat up, and cocked his gun. The shot echoed in my ears. “Better?” he asked with a smile. Bits of the doll’s face fell to the floor.

“
Yeah, but now the evil spirit that lives inside the doll will kill us in our sleep.”

He laughed. “Ok, sure it will. Wait, do you really believe that?”

“
Of course not. I made that up years ago to scare Raeya. Her dad wasn’t very involved so he never knew that she hated dolls like that. She, of course, didn’t have the heart to tell him. So, year after year guess what she got for Christmas? One year, she got a clown porcelain doll. I mean seriously, a clown? Whoever made that should be shot. Anyway, she purposely dropped it so it broke and had to be thrown out. That’s when I made up the evil spirit story. She didn’t sleep in her room for a week after that.”

“
She believed you?” I laughed.

“
Yup.”

“
So you’ve known her for a long time then.”

“
Yeah, but I told her that when she was fifteen.”

“
You’re joking.”

“
I wish I was,” I said, laughing again. He put his arm around me once more. “Night, Hayden.”

“
Night.”

I woke up first. Quietly, I snuck out of bed, wanting to let Hayden get as much rest as possible. I scanned the yard and saw nothing dead—or undead I suppose. I quickly got dressed and went into the bathroom. I set my gun on the counter and turned on the water, brushing my teeth as it warmed up. I closed my eyes and splashed warm water on my face, wishing I had time to take a hot bath. I pressed a fluffy towel to my face.

Something grabbed my waist.

I dropped the towel and picked up the gun in just seconds. “What the hell, Hayden?” I said, playfully shoving him. “I could have shot you! I’d never forgive myself if you got shot because of me.”

“
Sorry,” he said with a sly smile. “I couldn’t resist.”

“
I will get you,” I threatened, throwing the towel at him.

He made a face. “It’s on.”

“
Oh, you bet it is.” I caught the towel he threw back at me and laughed. We ate not so tasty protein bars as we threw everything into the truck, Hayden cracking jokes and making me laugh the entire time. I went over the remaining items on the list as we drove.

“
Do you think Brock was right? I mean, do people really
need
more clothes?” I asked him.

“
No. Not for survival. But to feel normal, yes.”

“
What is normal anymore?” I folded the list back up. “I mean, even after all this—when they’re all gone—nothing will be normal.”

“
No,” Hayden agreed. “It won’t be.”

“
We’ll have to reset normal.”

“
Yeah,” he said as if the idea had never occurred to him.

“
And when we do, people will be fined for being rude or stupid.”

“
Fined for being rude? Isn’t that a little extreme?”

“
Obviously you’ve never worked retail,” I told him.

“
No, I haven’t. Is that what you did before?”

“
In high school.”

He took his eyes off the empty road. “Tell me more about the pre-apocalypse Orissa.”

“
She’s not that interesting.”

“
Really? ‘Cuz I think a hot girl who can shoot almost as well as me is pretty interesting.”

“
Almost as good as you? Need I remind you of the arrow that blew up a building?” I teased.

He laughed. “Give me time and I’ll be better.”

“
Oh sure.” I rolled my eyes, laughing as well.

“
How did you learn how to shoot like that?”

“
I told you, my grandpa.”

“
When are you going to stop lying to me?”

“
I’m not lying,” I insisted.

“
Ok, not lying, but not telling the whole truth?”

I bit my lip. Talking about my grandpa was painful. I missed him, I felt guilty I hadn’t seen him in so long, and it was sickening to think of what might or might not have happened to him. I was reluctant to talk about him for other reasons too. What he put me through was less than orthodox, and, depending on my exact wording, could come off making him sound like a horrible person. Everything he did was done with the best of intentions, wanting me to be strong and capable. I wasn’t mad at him for it, why did anyone else feel they should be?

“
My grandpa came back from Vietnam with more than just a Purple Heart,” I began, choosing my words carefully. “He had severe PTSD. With medication and therapy, he got it under control by the time I was born, so I didn’t know about it right away. He was always into the whole outdoors thing. We went hunting and fishing and camping all the time, just like normal.

“
And it was normal, for me. I didn’t see the slips. I didn’t think it was odd he insisted I know how to handle a rifle by the age of ten. When my grandma got sick, the stress pulled it out even more. When I was thirteen, he dropped me off in the back woods of God-knows-where Kentucky with a water bottle, matches and a bow and arrows. It took me three days to get home.” I looked at Hayden, gauging his reaction. The truck had slowed, he looked curiously at me.

I folded my hands in my lap, remembering those three days. I was terrified. I cried for the first six hours, wasting all my daylight. I was convinced it was a joke and that he’d come back for me. I didn’t move an inch, wanting him to be able to find me. Then night fell and I knew he was serious. I curled up under a tree, waking with spiders in my hair and enough mosquito bites on my arms and legs to play connect the dots. I was so hungry and thirsty. Not thinking, I drank all of the water.

Kentucky summers are hot. In a matter of hours I had sweated all the water out in my desperate attempt to run to the road. I didn’t know I was running deeper into the woods. I was exhausted and nearly dehydrated when I found a creek. Again not thinking, I drank from it. It would take until the day after I returned home for the E. coli to make me sick.

I wasn’t numb to hunting yet. I cried when I shot a squirrel and almost vomited when I skinned and gutted it. Luckily, I had mastered making fires so I was able to cook the meat. I savored it, eating bits at a time. I was unsure of what plants were edible and what were poisonous, so I ate only dandelion greens.

Assuming the creek was the same one that ran through our pasture, I followed it. It forked some miles later and I chose the wrong branch to follow. It took the rest of the day to double back. I was dirty, tired, scared, and utterly pissed when I got home.

But my grandpa was so proud of me. He went on and on about it. He took me out for ice cream. We went shopping—I got my very own compound bow—and then saw a movie. I sighed at the memory.

“
Why did he do that?” Hayden asked in a level voice.

“
He thought that we might have to hide in the woods from…I don’t even know…the government I suppose. The next time we went even farther. It took me six and a half days to get home.”

“
And your grandma never noticed you were gone for a week?”

“
She was in the hospital during that week. She had lung cancer and was in the hospital a lot.”

“
Oh, sorry.”

“
It’s ok. The sicker she got, the more unhinged my grandpa got. He started buying guns that weren’t traditionally used for hunting. And well…you can figure out the rest.”

Hayden didn’t say anything for a minute. And that sixty seconds was excruciating. I wondered what kind of thoughts were going through his head. He probably pitied me, feeling bad for being raised with such a backwoods, crazy, hillbilly grandpa.

“
Did you always live with your grandparents?” he finally asked.

“
No. I lived in Ohio with my mom and dad. I always spent the summers with my grandparents. My mom didn’t handle the divorce well—or at all—and that’s when she started drinking. My grandparents wouldn’t let me live with an alcoholic so I kind of unofficially moved in then. But she met my stepdad and sobered up. My stepdad, Ted, was into going on missions and helping other countries end hunger. Apparently he forgot about the homeless here. I refused to go with them most of the time. So I lived with my grandparents while they were away.”

“
You are interesting,” he said with a smile.

“
What about you? When did your dad leave you?”

“
When I was thirteen,” he said without hesitation. “It was my birthday. He woke me up extra early and said he had a present for me. I was really excited because I knew we didn’t have much money. I had wanted a dirt bike for years. I couldn’t believe he really got me one. I rode it for hours…when I finally stopped, he was gone. Just like that. When I realized he was never coming back, I sold the bike and got a job. It was my responsibility to take care of the family then.”

“
That really sucks. I’m sorry.”

“
We both had fucked up childhoods.”

“
That is for sure.”

We took the back roads into Shreveport. Almost everything had been burned down. It was gut-wrenching to see the rubble and occasional charred body. “Who set the fires?” I asked, knowing it was a rhetorical question. “The people who lived here? Why?”

“
Maybe it was so overrun they had no choice.”

“
Like back at the store,” I guessed.

“
Yeah. There’s nothing left. I suppose we could check the intact cars for gas.”

“
Fine with me.” We stopped in the parking lot of a windowless, gothic themed bar. We emptied the tank of a red corvette whose windshield had been crushed and crackled. Hayden was muttering something about it being a shame since it was such a nice car. After our gas cans were filled, we went into the bar, stepping through the broken door. Stupidly, I let out a slight gasp. Hayden whirled around, gun at the ready.

“
Where?” he asked.

“
No zombie,” I said quickly. “Come on, do I make noises of surprise at zombies? You should know me better than that,” I said, pretending to be offended. “I just had a realization. The first crazy, or S1, that I ever saw was in a bar. I had no idea at the time.”

“
Oh, ok.”

“
And hah. I said I’d get you back.”

“
Jerk,” Hayden said, unable to keep from smiling. Bodies were piled up on the middle of the dance floor. It was odd and wrong, well more wrong than a pile of bodies can be. Someone had messed with them. The body of a waitress festered on the top of the pile. Crumbled dollar bills spilled from her apron. It was weird how money had no meaning or value anymore.

I hopped over the bar, looking for anything useful. “Yes,” I said when I saw the bottle. “This shit is top shelf!” I cradled the unopened bottle of tequila. Hayden joined me, picking up a cardboard box. He shook out whatever crap was inside it and placed a bottle of Captain in it, smiling up at me.

“
No one ever said we can’t take things for ourselves,” he told me.

A bottle of Jack clanked in next. We carefully selected the most expensive bottles to take back with us. It was so tempting to sit in the truck, blast the radio, and take shots. Neither of us were stupid enough to follow through.

I impressed Hayden with my hotwiring skill again, repeating my drive-a-piece-of-shit-car-through-the-store-doors act. I was also forced to tell him how I learned that, which in turn, forced me to explain about getting arrested—for the first time. We drove into the department store. Hayden stood in the truck bed, keeping watch and shooting the occasional zombie employee in the head while I got clothing. We housed a wide variety of sizes back at the shelter. I randomly shoved things into plastic bags, not caring about color or style.

Socks and underwear were the most needed items. I drove so Hayden could move displays out of the way. I rolled my eyes, annoyed at how presumptuous it was to be worried about scratching your truck when the world’s gone to shit.

“
There are no shops to take it to anymore. And I don’t have anything to fix it with,” he argued. I suggested he get a crappy truck to drive around for missions. Of course, that wouldn’t work since he had gone through ‘a lot of work’ mounting the gun in the back.

I hit the woman’s section while Hayden went to get stuff for the guys. I tried to be practical, thinking no one needed anything fancy. I had always been a fan of lace myself. I filled a bag with sexy undergarments just for me. I justified that I wasn’t being selfish because I was out here risking my life. It was fair. Like Hayden said, no one said we couldn’t take things for ourselves.

We had just crossed the Texas border when we noticed the smoke. We got out of the truck, examining the small bonfire.

“
Unless S1s retained the ability to logically build a campfire, there were people here,” Hayden said, kicking a smoldering log. “And not that long ago.”

“
Should we look for them?”

“
Yeah,” he said enthusiastically.