The Last Outbreak (Book 2): Devastation (15 page)

Flat on his back, Tom opened his eyes and just stared up at the woman. He didn’t speak and she hadn’t yet noticed that he was looking at her. He didn’t know where he was and couldn’t remember how he got there, but he was breathing on his own and appeared to still have full use of all of his extremities. Although the day hadn’t gone how he expected, he was at least still alive.

Sitting up against the wall of what looked like the interior of a doctor’s office, the woman had her knees pulled up into her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around them. She stared off in the opposite direction and closed her eyes. But as Tom attempted to roll onto his side, she slowly lifted her head and turned to him.

“Hello,” she said.

Sliding his tender right leg up under him, the excruciating pain had faded considerably. The debilitating cramp that literally brought him to his knees had somewhat relaxed. Placing his hand against the back of his leg, the area still ached. However, other than the pounding behind his temples, he now almost felt human.

The room was warm and only partially lit. Splintered sunlight breached the vertical blinds in sharp strands and then filtered throughout the oversized office. The walls looked as though they were freshly painted and were without a single adornment. Scoping the floor below his outstretch body, the commercial grade carpeting was littered with vending machine snack wrappers and empty bottles of water. And as his eyes fully adjusted to the room, he turned to her.

“Where are we?”

She was different now, less comatose. Her bloodshot eyes told him she was tired, but that she was a fighter. Hell, he wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.

“I don’t really know what this place was,” she said. “I came here two days ago after waking up out there on the sidewalk. It’s safe… at least for tonight it should be. If we stay quiet, we should be okay until tomorrow.”

Pushing up into a sitting position, Tom also leaned into the wall and flinched as he attempted to mirror her position. “We can’t stay here. I need to get back.”

The woman smiled and looked toward the door. “It’s going to be dark in the next hour or so.”

Tom also looked to the door. “Is that the door we came through?”

“No,” she said. “We’re still on the first floor, but just on the other side of the lobby. I think they were remodeling this place when it all happened. I tried a few other spots, but no luck.”

Attempting to stand, he felt light-headed and a bit nauseous. “What’s the rest of the building look like? Are there any other exits?”

“I don’t know. I only made it to the second floor. Yesterday, before I left here, I made it to the stairs and then to the second floor.”

“Yeah?”

“I was very hungry and almost out of food. I decided to go out and try some of the other floors. But up there, I opened the door and there were just too many of them. I don’t have a gun and probably wouldn’t know how to use one anyway.”

Slowly moving toward the window, Tom favored his right leg and leaned along the wall. “So that’s why you were out there, in that parking garage?”

The woman slid her backpack in close and unzipped it. “I left through the front and only made it three or four blocks. You’re the only person I’ve seen in four days. I was beginning to think that there was no one left.”

“My friends and I have a place.” Tom stopped at the window and paused. “It’s fenced in and has been abandoned for some time, so there aren’t any of those things to worry about. It’ll be safe, we just need to get there.”

Stretching out her legs, she placed her pack on her lap and reached inside. “Tomorrow?”

Turning toward the window, Tom slid his index and middle finger between the blinds near the edge and parted them only an inch. “I’ll tell you what, how about we agree that we don’t go out until it’s safe, and we don’t even attempt to make it back to the car unless we know for sure that it is clear?”

Hunched over her bag, the woman began slowly emptying its contents onto the ground beside her. “Okay, but I—”

She pulled out a long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of sunglasses. Neither of which looked like they belonged to her, but then she stopped. Looking deep into the pack, she shook her head. She looked up at Tom and then pushed her arm into the bag up to her elbow.

Stepping away from the window, Tom limped slowly to her side. “What? What is it?”

The woman appeared much like she did when he first saw her sitting in the rear of the SUV. She again looked frightened. Her eyes darting from his face to her pack and then back again, she didn’t speak—couldn’t.

He took a step toward her, figuring that may help. He leaned into the wall and used it to hold himself steady as he slid down into a seated position. Attempting to catch her gaze, his right hamstring began to tighten, although stretching it out flat seemed to pacify the challenged body part for the moment.

“Is there anything—?”

She looked up quickly and turned to him, almost as if she remembered. Remembered something she should have already known. Withdrawing her hand, she held a phone. It was covered in dried speckled blood and its case was only partially hanging on. She held it out at arm’s length showing it to him. “This…”

He waited.

She pulled it back and cradled it between her hands. Staring down at the screen, she smiled. “This is me.”

“Uh…” He thought he knew what she was attempting to say, but he wanted her to say it. “Your phone… is there something on there that can help you remember?”

She nodded.

“Is it dead?”

Again she nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

Tom was beginning to understand how she may have lived for six days all on her own. She hid from everything and everyone—that was until he drove into the city. She was fast and stayed to herself. She ate sparingly and watched and learned. Didn’t take chances and only emerged when she thought she had no other choice. She was alive, but she was in pain. Not the same type of physical pain his right leg produced—this was different; it was worse.

Gazing at the dusty screen, the woman began to tear up. She rubbed her sleeve over her face and winced as she swiped over the knot above her right eye. Pulling away her arm, the tears running down her cheek had mixed with the dried blood and although she couldn’t see what she looked like, he could.

Tom sat quietly, watching her struggle for her next words. She started and stopped three separate times. As she gave up and finally turned to him, he slid in beside her and reached for her hand. “I’m going to get you out of here, I promise.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m scared.”

Tom returned her gesture. “I am too, I think we all are.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t remember anything before waking up out on that sidewalk and that scares me. But what scares me even more is that I never will.”

With the Walter Hamilton Bridge and the devastated town of Summer Mill fading in his mirror, Ethan drove away from the only place he’d ever called home. In his thirty-eight years, it was all he’d ever known. His first day of school, his first love, his first kiss, his first job, his first everything. He’d told himself he was going to leave one day and make something of himself, that Summer Mill was just too small of a town to contain him. He even tried to convince himself that it was the truth, but it wasn’t.

The truth was that he loved that town. He loved the people, the weather, the food, the way it felt to be secluded from most everyone else in the world. His own private retreat from the accelerated lifestyle most every other city seemed to adopt. He’d traveled to other places, mostly within a few hours of Summer Mill, but a few times he’d ventured to the opposite end of the state. He was always glad to end up back in this familiar place, even though he’d never admit it.

Watching the snow begin to take up more of the landscape as they progressed up the two-lane mountain road, Ethan stared out through the windshield. He was watching the world beyond, but also gazed at her reflection. Shannon had taken up residence in the passenger seat and although she concentrated on the box in her lap, he figured she was there for more than just idle chit chat.

“So,” Ethan said, “Griffin… is he okay?”

“Yes, but hold on. I’m trying to decide which thing I want to show you first.”

He didn’t know whether he needed to apologize to the group or if he simply needed to explain himself. “I guess what I did back there in the alley—you know, slamming us into that dumpster and all, you guys must think that I’m an idiot?”

She stopped digging through the box and turned toward him. “No one’s upset, I don’t think. Maybe a little confused. I know Ben is still trying to convince them that you made the right choice by thinning the crowd and then driving out. We couldn’t see what you were seeing and so I guess, I mean, I don’t know.”

She sat quietly for a few seconds and then tried to smile. “We’re all alive and that’s what really matters, right?”

That wasn’t exactly what he was expecting to hear. He hoped that the group would say that they trusted him and that they understood why he did what he did, but for now, their indifference would have to do.

“Yeah, I guess.”

Peering into the distance, Ethan slowly accelerated out of a long sweeping curve. The road ahead was clear of any weather and for the first time in six days, the world didn’t appear to be falling in around him. Turning again to Shannon, she looked up and he smiled. He motioned toward the dash and then turned on the radio. Nothing but static, one channel after the next.

Lowering the volume, he quickly scanned the display and pressed the
Seek
button. They listened intently as the radio slowly worked its way from one station to the next. Static and then dead air and more static and dead air. This rotation continued as Shannon lost interest and turned her attention back out the passenger window.

After more than three trips around the dial, she leaned in and lowered the volume herself.

“Aren’t you curious?”

“Curious about what?”

Shannon shook the cardboard box in her lap. “About what I brought from the station. I told you that I would end up being your favorite person ever, and I really wasn’t kidding.”

He wondered if she knew. He was sure that after their kiss, she had some idea, but he doubted that she really knew the extent of his feelings for her. He wanted to tell her, to get it off his chest, but now wasn’t the right time. He hoped that one day soon it would be.

“Okay,” he said, “tell me why you’re about to become my favorite person and what that beat-up old cardboard box has to do with it.”

She was ready before he finished speaking. “Item number one.” She slipped her hand under the jacket covering the box and pulled out three folded roadmaps. Holding them up, she said, “I took only the ones we’d need.”

“Okay?”

“No cell service, no GPS. We’re going to need these.”

He nodded. She was right. “Yeah, good call.”

“You ready for the second most spectacular item left in this world?”

As the road drifted right and they continued climbing, the forest beyond the two-lane road had gone completely white. Snow drifts as far as the eye could see and in every direction. The contrast from where they’d been wasn’t lost to the moment. He took a deep breath and savored the view. It was beautiful.

The radio chirped—sounded almost like a voice. But then a second later static again filtered quietly though the speakers. Shannon was already staring at the dash when Ethan turned to her. “What else you got in that box?”

She hesitated a moment before turning to Ethan. “What was that?”

“Nothing. I’m sure we’re just in a weird spot out here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” she said, turning her attention back to the mystery box. “You ready for this?”

“This better be good.”

Reaching back in, she pulled out a small bag of coffee and dropped it into his lap. “We have caffeine, well at least enough for one cup each.”

Ethan shot a quick look into the rear cabin and then turned to her with a smile. “Not if they don’t find out.”

As he went back to watching the road, Shannon grabbed the bag from his lap, tossed it back into the box and pulled out her third surprise. One in each hand, she held up a pair of matching two way radios.

“They work?” Ethan asked.

“Yep.” Turning them on one at a time, she stared at the displays. “Looks like they both have a full charge.”

“Might come in handy.”

“That’s it?” Shannon reached across and pushed his shoulder. “That’s all I get? I thought you’d be a little more excited.”

“Excited?”

“Well, at least appreciative. I know the coffee isn’t much, but the maps and the radios are—”

Her voice trailed off as she saw it at nearly the same time as Ethan. The remnants of a massive collision that had carried off into the thick treeline and a raised black pickup truck sitting with its doors open and its headlights pointed into the dense forest.

Two men stood near the edge of the roadway each with a shotgun slung over their right shoulder. As they noticed the armored vehicle approaching, the closer of the two held his left hand in the air and motioned for it to stop.

Slowing the truck, Ethan turned to Shannon. “Go into the back and send Frank up. Tell Ben to stay down and stay quiet. Dump all the food into the bags on top of the guns and slide them to the back. Have Carly and Cora stay with Griffin, he’s hurt and these guys need to know it.”

As the men approached, the first moved to the driver’s side and the second stayed near the center of the road. Looking up through the stained window, the smaller of the two men smiled and waved Ethan out.

Taking a deep breath, Ethan cut the engine and reached for the door handle. He waited as Frank slid down into the passenger seat and before opening the door said, “They are going to want to look inside and I’m going to let them.”