PODs (32 page)

I took my time aiming at the first can, the red color barely visible. The can in my sight, I released the safety and fired… and missed by yards. I aimed and fired at the pop cans until I had to reload the magazine. I had missed every time.

I reloaded, surprised I could do it without David’s help. I guess all the television I’d watched was paying off after all. I extended my arms, relaxed my shoulders, placed the tip of my index finger on the trigger, and pulled. My bullet grazed the side of the can, knocking it over. That gave me the incentive to keep trying.

My next shot missed, but the third connected with the can, blowing it up and off the log. I smiled at David.

“Not bad,” he said.

I emptied my magazine again, hitting all but one of the cans. By the time I reloaded, the forest was too dark for me to see and we stopped for the night.

“Are you sure you’ve never fired a gun before?” David asked as we walked back to the motel.

“That was my first time.”

“Then you’re either a quick learner or you have a natural talent. Either way, you did good.”

“Thanks,” I said.
Told you so
.

He stopped on the road in front of the motel. I turned to look at him. He threaded his fingers through mine and gently pulled me to him. He leaned down and his lips moved over mine in a gentle caress. He lifted his head and looked at me. He started to say something, but stopped and kissed me quickly.

“You’re amazing,” he whispered.

“You’re not so bad yourself, David.”

He smiled and held my hand while we walked across the street.

The smell of stale cigarette smoke and body odor smacked me in the face when he opened the door to my room. The walls were covered in chipped fake-wood paneling, and the two double beds’ quilts were threadbare and stained. I tried not to think about what the stains were.

“This must be what the Ritz looks like,” I said.

We walked in; the foul odor got worse and I wrinkled my nose. He smiled and kissed the tip. “You look so cute when you do that.”

Reaching around his head to the back of his neck, I pulled him toward me. He came willingly, closing the door behind us. His kisses trailed down the side of my neck and over my collarbone. I sighed in pleasure. I walked backward into the room until the bed hit the back of my knees, my lips never leaving David’s.

We fell onto the bed, our lips and hands roaming over each other. I opened his shirt and trailed my hands down his chest, across his belly to the light dusting of hair that disappeared under his waistband.

He pushed my shirt above my head, trailing feather-light kisses across my chest, his tongue following the lacy edge of my bra. He reached under me to unhook my bra. I undid the button of his jeans, reaching for the zipper.

And Jessica opened the door.

Breathless, David rolled off me, throwing his arm over his eyes. I slipped my t-shirt back over my head, a blush creeping across my face.

“I guess I should have knocked, huh?” she said, flouncing into the room and jumping on the bed next to us.

“Gee, honey,” I arched a brow at David, “didn’t you lock the door?”

He groaned. “My mind was on other things.”

I woke up when I felt the bed sag beside me. I didn’t look—I knew it was David. He snuggled behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist. He didn’t say anything. I drifted into a peaceful sleep, knowing David was close.

He was gone when I woke. It was still black outside, with a pale dusting of moonlight outlining the window. I sat up in bed, the springs in the old mattress squeaking.

“Shh,” David said from somewhere in the room.

“
W
hat’s wrong?” I whispered.

“Dunno,” I heard Devlin answer.

“What are you doing in here?”

“David was in here. I thought it was a party.”

“Well, you weren’t invited,” I said, hearing David chuckle.

“Damn. Jessica, wake up.”

Jessica jumped out of bed, the headboard knocking against the wall.

“Be quiet!” Devlin whispered.

I reached slowly for my pack. The zipper scraped loudly in the silent room. I reached in the little compartment and took out my gun and extra magazines. I knew what was about to happen. We could stay quiet all we wanted. They still knew we were here. They could smell us.

“What are they doing?” Devlin asked David.

“Too dark to tell. It looks like they’re standing in the road.”

“They’re gonna rush us.”

“Yep,” David said. “Here they come.”

I heard the grunts as the infected ran toward the motel. I screamed when one jumped through the window. The glass shattered, splinters flying toward my face. I shielded my eyes with one hand.

He lay on the floor next to David, a charcoal outline in the moonlight. He—it—was so still I was sure it was dead, until it grunted, the glass clinking as it tried to stand. David pushed the infected man’s head to the floor with his shotgun, firing one shot into its skull.

Blood and brain matter sprayed through the room, burning when it hit my arm.

Another man tried to climb through the window. This time, it was Devlin’s gun that fired. More infected yanked at the door. It shuddered, the doorknob jangling when they tried to push their way through.

“You get the door, David. I’ll take the window,” Devlin said.

“Heard that.”

Five figures swarmed the window, pushing and clawing at each other to get through. I loaded my gun and extended my arms like David had showed me. I flipped the safety off, aimed at one of the infected climbing through the window and… froze.

I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger. David seemed to sense my hesitation and shouted at me. “They aren’t rational human beings, Eva! They’ll kill you in a second, without thought or remorse.”

I nodded in the darkness and took aim. I fired my shot, hitting a woman climbing through the window. They were coming so fast Devlin was having a hard time keeping up with them. I fired again, grazing a man. He screamed in pain and anger, shoving the person beside him out of the way as he climbed halfway through the window. I finished the job—one bullet through the forehead.

I could hear the faint sound of gunfire—
pop, pop, pop
—from other parts of the motel. I knew the others in our camp were in the middle of their own fights.

The door to the room gave way, and a surge of infected fell forward. Devlin turned to help David. I covered the window. Each body that tried to come in, I shot. I tried not to think of them as human. Whatever they were, they weren’t human anymore.

Their numbers depleted, the infected disappeared into the darkened forest just as the sun peeked over the horizon.

Stunned, I looked around the room. Blood dripped from the walls; a mound of dead lay in front of the door and window. I was covered in gore. My hair dripped blood onto my shoulders; my arms stung where glass had become imbedded in them, my blood mixing with the infected blood.

“David.”

He turned and looked at me. I spread my arms, looking down at myself, letting him see the amount of blood covering me, drying on my skin.

“Go wash up, Eva.”

I did what he said. I didn’t ask why and I didn’t voice my fear. If blood was how the virus was transmitted, I’d just been exposed to the infection.

I came out of the bathroom a little while later. I’d washed my hair in the cold remnants of water left in the pipes and scrubbed the blood from my body before dressing in clean clothes. I started to walk by the bed when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Jessica was huddled between the wall and bed, her knees pulled to her chest, her hands over her ears.

I reached out and touched her arm. She screamed and jumped up, running to Devlin.

“It’s okay, little one. It’s over,” Devlin reassured her in a soft, soothing voice.

I looked at David. “She’s his half-sister,” he told me.

“Oh.”

David walked over to me, reaching for my hand. I jerked away from him.

“You shouldn’t touch me, David.”

“Why not?”

“I was just covered in their blood. I could be infected. You shouldn’t be around me,” I whispered, scared of becoming one of the monsters we’d just seen.

“No one’s been infected by just touching their blood. We’ve all gotten blood on us. You’re fine.” David reached for me.

“Hold out your arms, Eva,” Devlin said.

I held my arms out in front of me. My eyes never left David’s face. I knew something was wrong the second David looked at the cuts covering my arms. His face turned ashen, and his shoulders sagged.

“She’s right,” Devlin said. “If their blood got into one of those cuts she’s at risk of infection.”

My heart froze at the confirmation.
Infected—like those no-longer-people who just attacked us. Becoming one of them
…

“She’s fine,” David insisted.

“You know the rules, David. We can’t bend them for her just because she’s your girlfriend. The rules are in place to protect everyone. They can’t be changed for one person.”

“Wh…what rules?”

“You have to be segregated from the camp for a week. In a week we’ll know if you’ve been infected. If not, you come back and everything is fine. If you are…well, let’s just hope you’re not,” Devlin said.

“You’re going to leave me?” I asked, my voice rising in panic.

“No!” David yelled. I jumped at the hard tone. “You just have to stay away from the camp, but you’ll follow us. We won’t leave you behind. You’ll just have to be separated from the camp. You’ll eat separately, bunk separately and, if we find some cars, you drive alone. But you stay with us.”

I was put in a hotel room by myself. David sat outside the door talking to me for most of the day. The camp members decided to stay another night at the hotel. It was risky. The infected knew we were there, but we needed time to figure out where our next stop would be.

Dinner was left outside my hotel room door. David moved away from the door when I opened it and took my plate. When I was back in the room, he sat at the door again.

“How will I know?”

“I’m not sure, Eva. I don’t know how it feels.”

“Outward signs. Things you can see. What are they?”

“First you develop a rash—large, red splotches with red dots through it. But that doesn’t really mean much. People develop rashes all the time out here—poison ivy, poison oak. There are a hundred different things that could give a person a rash. So we don’t really think a person is infected because of that. Besides, your skin is already irritated from their blood burning it.”

“Yeah,” I whispered, “it did burn.” I looked at my arms. They were red where the infecteds’ blood had stung my skin. It would be impossible to tell if I developed a rash there. I pulled up the leg of my jeans and looked at my legs. No rash. Yet.

“I’m sorry.”

“What else? What should I look for?”

When will I know? Will I feel myself losing control? Will I know I’m losing my mind?

“Changes in your veins. When blue veins start showing all over, we’re pretty sure a person is infected. But it’s the last sign that tells us. The person’s gums turn blue. That’s how we’ll know. Your gums will turn blue.”

I didn’t remember seeing blue gums on the infected. Of course, I had tried not to get too close. But I did remember the blue veins crisscrossing their bodies. The skin looked almost translucent in the moonlight and the blue veins were like neon road maps.

“I never liked the color blue.”

“Still joking around, huh, Eva?” I could hear the smile in his voice.

I want his laugh, his voice, to be the last thing I hear
.

“Yeah, well, there isn’t anything else to do. The television doesn’t work.”

He laughed, and the sound warmed me.

“Whatever happens, I want you to know, I don’t regret it,” I told him, my voice thick. “I only have one regret.”

He was quiet. I didn’t think he was going to answer. Finally he asked, “What’s your regret?”

“That I didn’t kiss you one more time.”