Dead in Bed by Bailey Simms, The Complete First Book (27 page)

I sat at the table
beside Chris. “Bill said he’d ask one of the
Undergrounders
to bring me a pair of boots,” I said. “I guess one of them has feet close to my
size.”

He winced as he
examined my injuries. “You really tore them up, didn’t you? How did you lose
your
shoes
?”

I didn’t answer.

“Right,” he said.
“Don’t ask. Fine.”

He pulled my feet onto
his lap. They were filthy. Most of the dried blood had worn off, but now all of
the cuts were filled with dirt and grime. Chris started washing the cuts out
with a disinfectant pad. I winced whenever he cleaned out a particularly deep gash.

“So, what about you?
Are you coming to the cliff dwellings?” I asked.

Chris shrugged. “Where
else am I going to go? After that crazy shit we pulled at the pharmacy today,
you and me are probably at the top of the Home Guard’s most-wanted list. I can’t
stick around here. I guess you’ll have to give me horseback-riding lessons.”

I was relieved to hear
this. I didn’t want to shoulder the responsibility of bringing a whole group of
infected refugees way out to the middle of nowhere alone.

“Normally this
wouldn’t be any of my business,” Chris said quietly. “But is it true that you,
uh, slept with Bryce Tripp?”

I didn’t blame Chris
for worrying that I might be infected. If he was going to be holed up with me
way out there in the ruins for who knew how long, he had the right to know what
he was getting into. He also needed to know if he should start me on the
antibiotic cocktail.

“Yes,” I said simply.
“I slept with him. But I didn’t let him…you know. I don’t think I let anything
get inside me.”

Chris nodded. He
didn’t look up from my feet. He opened a plastic bandage and pressed it over
one of the larger cuts.

“I know I can’t know
for sure,” I added. I was trying to sound brave, or at least detached and
clinical, about the possibility of my being sick. “But I guess I’ll just have
to wait. It’s been two days since then.”

Chris nodded again.
“How do you feel?”

“Well, I’m not dead
yet.” I tried to laugh. “I feel pretty good. Great actually.”

It was true. Ever
since the firefight with the Home Guard, I wasn’t even feeling foggy from the
sedative hangover.

“That’s good.” Chris
patted my foot. He’d finished cleaning out the cuts. He set my feet back down
onto the floor. “Most people die within twenty-four hours of becoming infected.
Some last as many as three days, but it’s rare. Never longer than that,
though.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I
said. “Good to know.”

I’d been hoping he was
going to tell me I was in the clear after two days, but I’d just have to wait
another twenty-four hours before I could know for sure that I wasn’t infected.

Chris asked, “Do you
still have that
Insta
-Read test I gave you at the
pharmacy?”

“Yeah,” I answered. It
was still in the pocket of the scrubs I was wearing. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Why
don’t you test yourself?”

“I don’t want to waste
it,” I said. “I’ll know I’m negative if I last another day anyway, won’t I? We
might need it later. It’s our only one. And, honestly, I don’t feel sick at
all.”

“You’d be better off
knowing for sure, though. Right? Just in case?”

I thought about this,
but I shook my head. “No. Really,” I said, “by this point it’s unlikely I’m
sick. And if I am, there’s nothing I can do about it. Besides, we might need
the
Insta
-Read later.”

“It’s up to you,”
Chris said.

He went back to filling the pill capsules and
didn’t press me any further. I was pretty sure I wasn’t sick, but if Chris was
concerned, I couldn’t help worrying a little.

* * *

A total of nine refugees
showed up at Bill’s house, some on foot, others in trunks of cars that sped
straight away after dropping them off. This number included a young couple with
an infant—the three Bill had been hiding in his hunting shack.

My third-grade teacher
who had come to the granary was nowhere to be seen. But the
Botteroffs
were there, quietly hanging onto one another, waiting for instruction. The rest
were young, two girls and two guys, I guessed ranging in age from fifteen to seventeen.
I didn’t recognize any of them. They looked like maybe they’d been dumped into
the quarantine zone from some Denver suburb.

Right away Chris
distributed sandwich bags filled with antibiotics.

“Three times a day,”
he told everyone. “Don’t forget. You’re going to feel fatigued. There’s no way
around that. And many of you will experience unusually vivid dreams. But for
now, this is the only way we know of to slow the progression of the disease.”

Everyone eyed the
pills warily, but I didn’t see anyone choose not to take one. None of the
refugees looked like they’d progressed any later than early stage two, but they
were obviously terrified of moving on to stage three.

My plan was to ride
through the night. Judging by my dad’s map, I figured we’d be able to reach the
ruins by sunset the next day if we left right away. We couldn’t afford to wait
around. Bill said the Home Guard always arrived at his place in the evening on
residential patrol, and it was already late afternoon.

I kept the horses
tethered together, put people two to a horse, and told them basically to hold
on tight. Nobody was happy when I passed around blindfolds, but Bill gave a
little speech and insisted that it was necessary to protect the secrecy of the
hideout.

He handed me a pair of
hiking boots—only one size too big—and hugged me.

“Good luck, Ashley.
Thank you. You’re a saint.”

“Let’s hope this works
out,” I said.

Chris and I shared
Kaypay
. I helped him up onto the saddle.

“We’ll try to come
back in a week or so,” Chris told Bill. “Get the word out that we’re sheltering
positives. Anyone willing to wear a blindfold on the trip out is welcome.”

“I will,” Bill said.
“I’ll have a fresh stock of provisions. You can count on it.”

I nudged
Kaypay
with my heels. Chris held on tight behind me. The
entire progression of
horses,
connected by a single
rope and loaded with provisions, gear, and mounted refugees, followed
Kaypay’s
lead. I waved good-bye to Bill, and we headed
toward the mountains.

* * *

The
beginning of the journey was relatively easy. The trails weren’t very steep yet
and no one got saddle sore. Everyone accepted the necessity of the blindfolds,
and people fell into their own thoughts as they swayed atop the horses. Few of
the refugees said much of anything. Even the baby was quiet.

When the
sun set
, it was much harder to navigate than I’d thought. We
reached what was marked as
Pines Bluff
on my dad’s map after two in the morning. From there, we’d need to climb up a
steep, winding incline. Chris and I decided to stop and let everyone sleep
until dawn. No one complained. By this time, they were all sore and exhausted,
but there had also been a release of tension as we moved farther into the
mountains. The refugees had been living in constant fear of being discovered by
the Home Guard, and now people were starting to feel safe.

I woke everyone up at first
light. After rolling up my blanket, I made my way into a ravine to pee.

As I squatted behind a
rock, I felt the
Insta
-Read test in my front pocket.

It had been bothering
me that Chris wanted me to test myself. I was now basically certain that I
hadn’t contracted the pathogen, but Chris’s suggestion had planted a doubt that
had nagged me all night.

I succumbed to
temptation and opened the
Insta
-Read package. If I
tested myself now, at least I’d know for sure that I wasn’t sick. Then I could
stop being preoccupied by it, and I could concentrate on finding the cliff
dwellings. Besides, all of the refugees knew they were positive, and Chris knew
he wasn’t. I was the only one who wasn’t sure.

The applicator was
exactly the same as the one Morgan had used. The same simple instructions for
interpreting the results were printed on the plastic.

I clicked the button,
and the applicator needle shot out. I started to pee. I reached between my legs
and held the tip into my stream of urine.

I set the
Insta
-Read on a rock to wait for the result while a pulled
up my scrubs and tied the strings at the waist.

The result appeared
almost immediately.

Three blue lines: stage
three TGV.

Something was wrong.
It had to be a faulty applicator. Even if I
were
infected, there was no way I could be at stage three.

Still, was I infected?
I’d hoped to set my mind at ease by seeing once and for all that I wasn’t. But
the circle labeled “TGV negative” definitely had
not
turned blue. Now I was even more uncertain than I was before.

I put the
Insta
-Read back in its wrapper and slipped it into my
pocket.

Chris had already
gotten all of the refugees onto their horses and made them put their blindfolds
on. Everyone was waiting for me.

I pulled myself onto
the saddle behind Chris. My heart was pounding.

When we started moving
up the trail, I reached around Chris and handed him the applicator.

“I don’t understand,”
I said. “It’s broken, right?”

Chris read the
Insta
-Read. For a moment he said nothing. Then he shook his
head and sighed.

“I was afraid of
something like this,” he whispered. “I didn’t expect stage three, but I was
afraid of this. Oh my God, Ashley. I’m so sorry.”

“What do you mean?” I
whispered back. “Something’s wrong with it. Something has to be wrong with it.
Even if I were infected, there’s no way I could be stage three. It’s broken. It
has to be. Right?”

“These don’t break,”
Chris said.
He was being so uncharacteristically patient with
me
,
it was frightening
. “It doesn’t work like
that,” he explained. “These applicators test for a protein that’s unique to the
TGV bacteria. It’s physically impossible for the blue lines to appear without
the presence of that protein.”

“You’re wrong,” I
insisted. I couldn’t believe how certain Chris seemed when I was so obviously nowhere
near the state of a stage-three positive. “Chris,” I said. “I never
died!
Don’t you think I’d fucking
remember something like that?
Dying?
I never even got sick! How could I be stage three if I’m still
alive?
”

“Are you sure about
that?”

“Am I sure about not
having died? Yes, I’m pretty fucking sure about that.”

“Seriously, Ashley.
Are you
sure
?” Chris turned around in
the saddle to face me and then put his hand on my forehead.

“What are you doing?”

“I was suspicious that
something might be up when I disinfected your feet. You were
warm
, Ashley. Positives run a slightly
high temperature—about one hundred and one degrees. I felt it in your
feet. And, yes, I can feel your temperature now. It’s high.” He pulled his hand
from my forehead and turned back around. “So are you
sure
you didn’t die?” he whispered. “Are you absolutely sure you
never woke up filled with energy and in an unusual state of elevated
confidence? Are you
sure
that never
happened? I bet you’ve even been craving milk protein and high-caloric foods,
haven’t you?”

“Oh my God.”

The motel
room.
I’d woken up after a night of extremely heavy drinking feeling
great. I remembered feeling like I could race up a cliff.

“Oh my God,” I said
again.

Had I
died
that night? Was it possible? Had I
been too drunk to notice?

“That night,” I
whispered.

“What night?”

“When I slept with
Bryce two days ago…it wasn’t the first time,” I confessed. “The first time I
slept with him was the first night of the fair, but I don’t remember anything.
I have no idea if we even used a condom. And when I woke up late the next day,
I felt, well…
really amazing
.” I let
my head fall against Chris’s back. “Oh my God. Chris? Am I dead?”

He turned around to
look at me.

“I think you must have
died that night.” He shook his head in amazement. “That must have been when it
happened. You must have contracted the pathogen from Bryce, then passed out
from alcohol. You didn’t even know it happened. You must have fallen into a
coma, died there in the motel bed, then woke up thinking you’d just had a heavy
night of drinking.”

“But how is that
possible
?” I was still totally confused.
I didn’t want to believe any of this. “I’m not walking around like some kind of
fucking zombie!” It was getting hard to keep my voice low enough so the
refugees wouldn’t hear me. “I’m here! I’m me! If anything, I should be only
stage one? Right?”

“That’s what I don’t
understand,” Chris said. “If you drew three blue lines, your blood has to be almost
entirely honey at this point. I
thought
something was up with you yesterday, the way you confronted that ranger kid and
shot him like that. The pathogen is affecting your behavior, obviously. It’s stimulating
your confidence and making you take risks—I can tell. It’s also doing
everything it can to make you more sexually active and sexually attractive both.
Honestly, now I understand why I’ve been so fucking turned on by you ever since
picking you up at the fairgrounds. It’s been killing me. Seriously. I haven’t
even been able to think straight. And now I get it. Now I know why.”