PODs (35 page)

“So I’m right. Juan’s gonna kill him,” I whispered.

“No, you’re wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong,” David told me. I looked at him, confused. “He’s going to kill an infected person. If the virus was injected when Chris was bitten he’ll turn into one of them. He won’t be Chris any more. It’s no different than you shooting one of them when they attack the camp.”

I flinched at his words. I did shoot them when they attacked us. I didn’t let myself think of them as human. They were just monsters. And that’s what Chris would become. David was right. None of us wanted that. If it were me, I’d want them to do the same thing.

I thought frantically, searching for another way. But I couldn’t find one and my heart ached for Chris.
He was a nice person
. My heart broke for Jessica.
Her first love
. Not for the first time, I wondered how in the hell the world had gotten so screwed up.

The group started toward the next town. Jessica and I walked side by side; she was chattering like always. I was trying not to think about what was happening with Juan and Chris. Instead, I was thinking of what to say to Jessica when she noticed Chris wasn’t with the group.

David didn’t walk with me. We decided his presence would only highlight the fact that Chris wasn’t with Jessica. So David and Devlin walked behind the rest of the camp members.

The day was sunny. I had to squint to see anything around me. The path we took was a narrow trail through a pasture. I could hear the far off bark of a dog.

“Look, Eva.” Jessica pointed to a tree branch.

I jumped, startled by her excited squeal. “What?”

“See that bird? Isn’t it pretty? The blue is so deep.”

“Yeah, um, it is pretty.” I tried to smile. “I think it’s a bluebird, but I’m not sure.”

“Chris will know. He loves watching the birds. He carries a journal that lists every type of bird he’s seen, the date he saw it, and the place. It’s probably a bluebird, or maybe a blue jay.”

“Well, I’m sure he’s seen a bluebird before.” I tried to change the subject when Jessica butted in.

“Where
is
Chris?” Jessica looked around the group. “I don’t see him.”

“I’m sure he’s up there. I saw him just a little while ago.” I used the toe of my sneaker to dig into the ground as we walked.

She stopped and stood on her tiptoes, looking for Chris in the sea of people.

“Jessica, you won’t see him if he’s in front.”

She turned to me, her face pale. “They took him, didn’t they?”

“Who?” I asked.

“The cut on his arm. He told me how he got it, but—they took him anyway.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to answer.

“I’ll take that as a
yes
.” She turned and ran toward Devlin.

“Jessica! Wait!” I called, jogging to catch up to her.

“Who?” she shouted at Devlin.

He didn’t answer right away. He stared at the ground before looking up at me through his eyelashes.

“I’m sorry. She figured it out.”

“It’s okay, Eva. I knew she would.” He looked at Jessica, his face filled with compassion. “Juan.”

“You should have told me,” she yelled. Other group members turned and stared. “It’s nothing. He scraped it on a tree when he was gathering wood for the fire. That’s all.”

“Then he’ll be back tomorrow.”

Jessica turned and walked away, her back straight, chin lifted in the air. She tried to look angry, but her fear showed through, even though she tried to hide it. I walked silently beside her for a few steps before she turned to me.

“Get away from me. You knew. You knew, and you didn’t tell me. Some friend you are.”

I stopped walking, watching her pull ahead of me.

“She’ll be fine.” David came up behind me and kissed the back of my neck. It sent a shiver down my spine. He took my hand and threaded his fingers through mine, pulling me gently along with him.

“I hope so,” I said. I didn’t think so.

Juan met us at the town around dinnertime. When I saw him walking toward us, my heart sank, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I dropped the bowl I was dishing stew into; it clanged loudly against the pavement. Gravy splattered on my jeans and vegetables scattered across the ground.

Chris wasn’t with him.

When Jessica saw him, tears filled her eyes. She ran into the little motel room, slamming and locking the door behind her. She stayed in the room the rest of the night and most of the morning. She didn’t come out until the group was ready to leave.

She looked from Devlin to me, turned, and moved back to walk behind another group. She didn’t speak.

We made camp at the end of the day. It was a beautiful evening—the sky was clear, just turning a purplish black. The stars were already emerging as bats fluttered in the sky.

The campsite was just a small clearing in a wooded area. A fire burned in the middle; people were setting up tents around it. I froze at the sound of Juan’s low voice from the tree line just beyond where I was setting up my tent. “Jessica, Devlin asked me to talk to you. Said you needed to hear it from me. The wound on Chris’s arm wasn’t from gathering wood. It was a bite.”

The light from the campfire barely touched their faces among the trees. The cool metal of the tent pole bit into the palms of my hands, and I said a silent prayer that what Juan was telling her would give her peace. I had to strain to hear him over the crickets and cicadas buzzing. Watching them out of the corner of my eye, I tried not to look like I was eavesdropping, which was exactly what I was doing.

When he didn’t get an answer, Juan continued. “He told me he knew it was a bite. He also knew what he was going to turn into.”

“You’re wrong,” Jessica bit out, her voice cold.

“He was already showing signs. The rash, the blue veins… they were there.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re wrong.”

“Jessica, he asked me to do it. He knew what was happening and he didn’t want to become one of them. He asked me to do it before he could hurt anyone. He said to tell you he was sorry he didn’t say goodbye.”

Tears ran down Jessica’s face, catching the light from the fire. Mucus and saliva trickled from her nose and mouth. She didn’t care. She sobbed, repeating, “You were wrong,” at Juan, over and over.

I went over to her and took her hand. She turned and sagged against me, crying. I held her silently, smoothing the hair down her back, letting her cry. We sank down to the forest floor, our backs against the wide trunk of a tree.

“They’re wrong, right, Eva?”

“No, honey, they’re not. I’m sorry.”

I held her while she cried, my shirt damp with her tears. She sobbed until she was so exhausted that she fell asleep on my shoulder.

Devlin carried her to her tent and placed her blankets gently over her.

“She’ll be fine,” he said, almost to himself. “She’ll be fine.” He looked at me and I gave him a sad smile.

Will she? Will any of us?

The clinking of metal woke me. I listened. David’s breathing was quick and shallow in the tent next to me. Gone were his soft snores. From somewhere in the camp I heard the click of a gun being cocked.

It was beginning again and I braced myself. I heard the grunting first, followed by banshee screams as the infected descended on our campsite.

By dawn, we’d lost two more camp members. One had been mauled by one of the infected attackers. The other walked into the woods and took his own life when he realized he’d been bitten on the ankle.

We packed quickly when the attack was over. We didn’t even take the time needed to bury our dead. The infected were following too closely behind us, and we were still on foot. We needed to get some ground between us and them.

The afternoon was wet. Thunder rolled in the sky and cold, fat raindrops pelted us. We splashed through puddles and mud, going as fast as we were able in the horrible weather. Some of the group ditched their heavy, waterlogged packs so they could keep up with the rest.

The wind howled. It whipped through the trees, ripping the autumn leaves from the branches. The rain beat them into the muddy ground. I looked up, shielding my eyes from the rain. Gray clouds churned above us and lightning spread like jagged fingers across the sky. I prayed we’d come to a town so we could get out of the storm.

I dropped my head and wiped the rainwater from my eyes with my hands. My head facing to the side, I saw it—just a flash of color among the otherwise dark trees.

“David?”

“Yeah?” We were walking right next to each other but had to yell to be heard over the wind and rain.

“Do they only attack at night?”

He stopped abruptly. I skidded in the mud when I stopped and turned to face him. “Usually, but not always,” he said slowly. “Why?”

I put my lips close to his ear. “I think they’re in the trees. I saw a flash of yellow.”

David whistled to Devlin. He didn’t look back at us. He nodded his head once and reached behind him for his shotgun. That created a domino effect. Everyone tensed. Without stopping, people grabbed their guns, and the unarmed group members made their way inside the formation. The men—and the few women who were armed—encircled them.

We walked faster. The cold rain made it almost impossible to see into the darkened forest. The roaring wind made it impossible to hear. We could only wait.

We walked another half-mile, maybe more, before it happened. A group emerged from the trees in front of us, another group behind us. Their white skin seemed to glow in the dim light, the blue veins even more visible. They stood silently, blocking our path. Seconds ticked by, and with each one the tension in our group rose.

Then it started.

The screaming came first. Then they ran toward us, weapons raised. The shotgun blasts echoed through the trees. I watched numbly as the infected in front fell in the mud. Their blood mixed with the rain and pooled on the ground. The other attackers jumped over the dead and continued running at us. Some tripped and fell over the bodies sprawled in the mud. That seemed to infuriate them and they screamed and snarled as they advanced.

“Eva!” David shouted.

I turned to him and froze at the look on his face. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking over my shoulder. I didn’t need to turn around to know what he saw. It seemed to happen in slow motion. David raised his gun. I whirled around. The infected man lurched toward me. David fired and the eerily white-skinned man fell, his club knocking my gun from my hands. The weapon landed yards away—in the middle of the oncoming attack.