Foamers (13 page)

___________

Kade was thankful for the cloudy night as he made his way south. For once, he might
be
able to do something right and avoid detection. Soldiering on, he fought his way
into the bitter cold. White flakes danced in the air and pelted him as he took each
painful step into the first snow.

The thought of not knowing if Ashton was alive had become unbearable. After encountering
her shade, he knew what he already knew—she was still alive. He would find a way
to her.

Kade stuck his numb fingers under his armpits. The snow blew around him like thousands
of little dancers. He was a mile south of campus on 19, but with how cold it was,
he could not gather enough brainpower to figure out how far his trudge had taken
him.

Ducking his chin against the gust of wind, he wished he had gathered warmer clothes.
His clothes were no match for winter, but he hadn’t wanted to take a chance of someone
trying to stop him.

Mick’s words were still bouncing around his mind. Kade had assumed he would be handing
over the torch of leadership to Lucas when they arrived and then to Damian whenever,
if ever, he arrived. He couldn’t grasp why they would want to follow him. His decision
making skills cost Lucas his life, and Damian was a smarter version that wasn’t dying.
When it all boiled down, Kade didn’t find himself worthy to lead this group of exceptional
individuals. He found himself lesser to all of them in most ways. They would have
trouble considering him leadership material after they learned of his vision quest
to go find his sister. Even he thought he was crazy for embarking on the freezing
endeavor.

In the cold, time stretched into eternity and he felt as if he had walked a thousand
miles. The giant tire of a rusted red tractor blocked the road ahead. His nose flared
at the smell of exhaust. Circling around the tractor, he pressed his hand to the
engine casing. The warmth forced a moan from his mouth. He wanted to hug the giant
metal machine and never let go.

While the heat permeated his body and his brain momentarily defrosted, Kade saw
the futility of his plan. He shouldn’t have walked away from Lambian, or even driven
away. His place was there with his cohort, not wandering the wild looking for a needle
in a haystack, propagated by a drug-induced vision. Whether the mirage came from
his hope or brother’s intuition, he knew Ashton was alive. She was smart and strong;
she would come to him.

The warm tractor did mean that someone had recently been here—someone who wasn’t
a foamer. His fool’s quest could turn out to have a silver lining if he was able
to return with another survivor, even if it wasn’t his sister.

He noticed a set of footprints leading away from the road. He followed them across
the open field, straight for a grove of trees. Through the pines, Kade could see
what seemed to be a lighted window.

He ducked his head again and followed the footprints, feeling the cold touch of the
rubber knuckles Ashton had given him hanging around his neck. He doubted his sister
was there, but footprints meant someone was there.

Dragging his feet along as he fought his chattering teeth, Kade realized he was on
a dirt driveway. There was a wooden barn behind an old, rickety farmhouse with a
widow’s porch that looked as if a strong wind might flatten it.

A chain rattled in the darkness, and he felt a stab as his stitches pulled against
his flesh when he turned to see the source. Kade’s brain told him to step back, but
his legs didn’t respond, and he fell on his butt. The frozen soil sent a wave of
pain through his body, reminding him of the two bullet wounds the pain killers had
let him forget.

A deep growl was the first thing Kade heard out of the shape in front of him. Then
he saw the snapping, white jaws of a large black dog at the full extension of a metal
chain. When the jaws failed to reach flesh, the giant dog barked with such force,
the sound was like someone beating him with a stick. A screen door on the house squeaked
open as the sandpaper shuffle of the owner’s feet moved to the stairs.

“Who the hell’s out there?” the old man shouted, his voice punctuated by the breach
of a shotgun locking into place.

“I’m unarmed. I’m just looking for help!” Kade replied.

“Fenris, whoa, girl,” the old man commanded, and the dog sat back on its haunches.
“Bring yourself to the light where I can get a look at you.”

Kade pressed the palms of his hands against the snowy ground and struggled to his
feet. As he made his way to the porch, the features of the old man became visible:
he was bent in half, with straw-like arms and legs and a right shoulder that was
higher than the left, as if he had broken a collarbone and never had it fixed.

“Where’d ya come from, boy?” the old man said, drawing a bead on Kade.

“Houghton College.”

“Alone?”

“No, sir. I’m actually looking for two friends of mine.”

The old man set the butt of the shotgun on the ground and used it like a cane.

“I ain’t see no one. But come on in and get warm.”

Kade fought hard not to run toward the house at the offer. The old man led him to
the kitchen, there was a small square table with four chairs around it; all had lost
their finish long ago. The cold linoleum floor had yellowed with age, and the wooden
counters carried their years in tallies of knife scratches.

Kade stood by the basement door, letting his muscles defrost near the wood stove.
The old man took a mug out of a squeaky cupboard, filled it from the whistler on
the stove, and offered it to him. Kade held the mug in both hands, letting the heat
from the warm clay seep into his tissues.

“There’s venison steaks in the basement freezer. I don’t do so good on the stairs.
If you’re starving, I can cook them.”

Kade salivated at the thought. He was three steps down the basement stairs when the
door slammed shut behind him. He grabbed the knob, but it was locked. He couldn’t
believe how stupid he was; he had spent his whole life preparing for the Primal Age,
and now he continually made the wrong decisions.

Through the stairs, cold fingers curled around his ankles and yanked. Crashing down
the wooden steps, his stitches broke. The wind rushed from his lungs as a half-starved
boy leapt onto his chest. The small hands clawed at his throat as the yellowed teeth
chomped, like an angry shark. Kade crossed his forearms against the child’s chest.
Red foam dripped onto Kade’s face.

This was just a child. The youth’s nails ripped at the weak skin of Kade’s throat.
This was just a child.

The child’s hands dug deeper into his throat. No, this was a foamer. A foamer that
would happily kill him. That’s the only thing it knew to do.

Kade brought a leg up and kicked the creature across the basement, then struggled
to his feet, inch by painful inch. As the foamer scrambled to its feet, Kade slid
his fingers into the brass rubber knuckles hanging around his neck, snapping them
off the chain. The child slammed both palms off the ground and charged Kade, growling
like he was possessed. The foamer’s arms spread, coming for the tackle. With one
powerful swing, Kade connected the knuckles with the child’s head. Instantly, the
child crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Kade stumbled to the stairs and took a seat. The child’s body twitched as red liquid,
Kade wasn’t sure if it was blood or foam, ran from his mouth. At the infirmary, Kade
had killed many foamers, but the shotgun took the closeness out of the emotion. Here
he sat watching a ten-year-old’s death spasm. He knew he shouldn’t write the obituary
in his head, but he couldn’t help wondering who the child had been before the vaccine.

He brought himself back to the present by thinking about Tiny and how she was going
to be pissed that he tore open his stitches. Leaving a bloody handprint on the wooden
step, he staggered up the stairs.

Turning his healthy side toward the door, he slammed his shoulder against the wood.
The door pulled against the lock. It creaked with the second hit as the screws holding
the slide-lock stripped from the wood. On the third hit, Kade fell into the kitchen.

Passing through the entire house, he found no sign of the old man. Kade arrived back
in the kitchen just as the whistler screamed from on top of the stove. Looking at
his side, he knew the bleeding needed to be stopped. He grabbed the whistler and
poured the steaming water into the sink, then tore open his shirt and took a deep
breath. His knuckles curled around the handle, and he slowly moved the whistler toward
his bleeding side. The heat scorched his skin as the metal approached. Biting down
on his lip, he moved it closer. As the heat intensified, he pulled the whistler away.

He told himself to stop being a pussy. He moved the whistler toward his skin again.
His arm shook as his body tensed from the oncoming heat. Slamming the whistler on
the table, he crashed into a chair.

He punched the table, splintering fragments with each blow from his rubber knuckles.
Each strike sent waves of pain through his body. The dog barked from outside as the
sound of a rumbling engine approached the house. Kade rushed across the house to
the front window, hiding in the blinds. A red pickup truck parked and shut its lights
off. The old man shambled out, carrying his shotgun, and yelled at the dog to stop
barking. Kade didn’t want to attack him, nor did he know if he could kill another
human being; a foamer was one thing, but a person was different.

The passenger side door opened; Tiny, wrapped in a heavy blue parka, climbed out.
Kade was furious at himself for giving up the location of his friends.

Tiny followed the old man as they approached the house. When he stepped onto the
porch, he shed his frail act and stood tall as he turned around and aimed the shotgun
at Tiny. She held up her hands as her eyes searched for an escape. Kade heard the
mumbles of their exchange, but couldn’t make out the words.

Any moment now, he knew she’d disarm the old man and they’d be done with the situation.
Tiny was deadly and amazing. She unzipped her parka, revealing nothing but a black
sports bra underneath. Tossing the parka aside, she went down on her knees. She had
come here looking for Kade, and he was just gawking at her milky-white skin. He felt
every inch of his body burn as his self-hate came to a boil. This was his fault.
His mistake.

Tiny curled her fingers under the elastic at the bottom of the bra. His directive
was clear.

Kill him.

Kade swung the door open and launched himself at the old man. The old man’s brittle
bones crunched against the frozen ground.

Pinning the old man with his left hand, Kade landed the knuckles squarely into the
man’s nose. Again. Each hit sent waves of rage through his body. Again. He felt the
features of the man collapse under his fist. Again. He was breathing heavily. Again.
He wasn’t sure whose blood was where. Again. He felt the cold around him. Again.
He’d killed a man. Not a foamer, but a man. He killed him. Not just killed him, but
obliterated him.

Kade’s hand froze at the pinnacle as his eyes met Tiny’s. He stood up, stepped over
the discarded shotgun, and lifted Tiny to her feet.

His hand moved across her cheek, brushing her hair back, lost in her warm brown eyes.
Their lips met as she ran her hands along his spine and he felt her heartbeat against
his body. He forgot about Huntington’s, the Flu, the vaccine, the foamers, his dead
friends, the old man, the Primal Age, and embraced the only woman he had ever loved—and
whom he had loved, it seemed, for his entire life.

Tiny separated from the kiss, leaning her forehead against his. “Should I put my
parka back on?”

No
. “That’s probably smart.”

“Yeah.” She curled her hand into a fist and tapped it against his chest as she squeezed
her eyes shut. “Yeah.”

Tiny pulled away from Kade, and a cold rush replaced the area she had filled. He
wanted to pull her back to him as she zipped the parka shut.

She didn’t turn around to face him. “If you wanted to go looking for Ashton, we’d
have understood. You’re too smart to make dumb choices like this.”

“Tiny,” he said. “I just had this weird feeling. I thought … then I found the
house. I had to check it out.”

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help.”

Fenris barked in the direction of the road and pulled at the chain. Kade hurried
to the anchor post and tore it from the ground. The metal jangled behind the dog
as she ran for the road. Kade’s legs flexed and pumped as he fought to keep pace
with the four-legged beast.

At the road, two people rushed from the tractor to a pickup surrounded by six foamers.
Kade reached the road and his stride stuttered. His little sister stood in the back
of the pickup and Kade feared it was another illusion. Then he saw X, his dark form
a beacon against the snow, holding his .357 by the barrel in one hand, like it was
a small club, and predator knife in the other. This was real.

“Kade!” Ashton yelled.

He felt happiness surge through him, then a house-sized foamer barreled into him
and knocked him to the ground. From the gash along the side of the foamer’s head,
Kade figured it was the same big hoss Tiny had shot. The foamer stomped over him
like a gorilla. The foamer’s arms were easily the size of Kade’s legs. There was
a black A on the monster’s red jacket. Kade’s arms collapsed toward his body as
the foamer’s weight kept him from drawing a breath.

Kade recognized the beast as someone famous, but couldn’t remember the identity.

Two foamers, college boys in infirmary gowns, were trying to climb opposite sides
of the truck bed. Ashton popped off two shots to one foamer’s pale chest before her
snub nose revolver hit an empty chamber. The foamer fell from the side of the truck.