The Truth is Contagious (The Contagium Series Book 4) (23 page)

Then I heard it. Just a quickly little blip.
I yanked my hand back, staring at the screen, heart racing. It was
a voice. It had to be a voice. There was no music, just talking. I
couldn’t make out what was said, but I heard it. I leaned forward,
breathing fast. What channel was I on? Shit, I didn’t know. I had
to get back to it. I pushed hard on the screen, desperate to go
back. I went too far and started back up. Dammit. Nothing. I knew I
heard it. The voice. It was there, wasn’t it?

“You know that’s not gonna work,” Hayden
said, opening the driver’s door. I looked up, blinking.

“Yeah. It won’t. Right.” I was thankful for
the sunglasses; I knew there was no way I could hide the shock in
my eyes. I turned the radio off altogether. Hayden would plug in
his iPod later and subject me to horrible country music.

He looked behind him at the compound before
getting in. He held his stress in his shoulders; they were tense
and stiff.

“It’s in good hands,” I said before he could
object and beg me to stay behind with him.

“I know it is,” he said, putting on his
seatbelt. “Better than mine, maybe.”

I gave him a sympathetic smile. “Don’t say
that.”

He put his hands on the steering wheel and
nodded.

“Is it bad I was kinda looking forward to
this?” I asked him. “Not so much the mission but being together
again outside of the compound. It feels normal.”

“Your definition of normal is pretty fucked
up,” Hayden said with a smile. He slowly pressed on the gas,
flicking his eyes to the rearview mirror, watching the compound as
we drove down the bumpy driveway. “But I get it.”

I turned the air off to conserve gas and took
the map out of the glove box. Faded lines ran through it from being
folded and refolded so many times. It would take us all day to get
to Kentucky and even longer if we ran into trouble.

We drove through the gates and turned onto
the road. Once the compound was out of sight, Hayden relaxed
considerably. He let out a breath and leaned back into his seat. He
put his hand on mine and we rode in comfortable silence for a
while. Then he plugged in his iPod, blaring country music.

Our plan was to drive straight to Bowling
Green. It would take roughly eight hours, depending on what we
did—or didn’t—run into. We made it halfway before running into
trouble.

“Here?” Wade asked over the radio. Hayden let
off the gas. I rolled down the window and surveyed the medical
plaza’s parking lot. It was empty except for three cars. Had the
employees here had time to flee?

“It’s worth a shot,” Hayden said and turned
off the street.

“Do doctor’s offices have medicine?” I asked
him and pushed the release on my seatbelt. “Every time I’ve gone
they send me out with a prescription.”

“That’s how it normally works,” he said and
let the truck coast to a stop. He turned it off and put the keys in
the side pocket of his jeans. “There are gloves, and uh, exam tools
that we can take.”

“Good enough,” I said and got out of the
truck. I opened the back door and started arming myself, ready in
just minutes. Hayden, on the other hand, was still in the truck.
“What are you doing?” I asked. He ducked his head down, turning
away from me. “Hello? Hayden?” I asked.

Without a word he got out of the car, going
to the bed to get his weapons. All righty then…I shook my head.
Jason walked over, holding an assault rifle at his side.

“How are we gonna do this?” he asked. A tiny
bit of excitement glinted in his eyes. Before I could answer, Wade
called him back to the Jeep. Something funny was going on. I
narrowed my eyes. Wade turned around.

“Riss,” Hayden said. “Ready?”

“Sure.” He came around, keeping his hand
against his side. He was holding something and he didn’t want me to
see it. I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Hayden did a
great job avoiding eye contact as we moved through the parking lot.
Unable to take it any longer, I whirled around, ready to question
him.

“Do you see that sign?” he asked before I
could get one word out, pointing to a closed sign that hung from a
boarded up window across the street from us.

“Yeah.”

“Think you can hit it?”

I snorted a laugh. “Of course I can hit
it.”

“Prove it,” he said with a smile and held up
an arrow. So
that
was what he was hiding at his side. With
my eyebrows raised, I took the arrow, giving Hayden my best
what-the-hell-are-you-doing stare. I nocked the arrow without
having to think about it. The movements were second nature to
me.

But something was different. Sunlight glinted
off the arrow point. Wait. That wasn’t the arrow that was sparkling
in the sun. My eyes widened. I stared at the end of the arrow then
looked at Hayden.

“Is that…” I started. A huge smile pulled up
my lips. “No, you…” I couldn’t stop smiling.

“Want to try it on or just stare at it?”
Hayden asked, also smiling ear to ear.

I shook my head, laughing before lowering the
bow and holding it out for Hayden to take. The smile hadn’t left my
face.

“I was worried you’d think it was lame,”
Hayden confessed.

“It might be.” I brought the arrow to me,
carefully touching the engagement ring that hung from it. “But I
love it.”

I unscrewed the arrow point and slid the ring
off into my hand and held it up. It was gorgeous, boasting more
diamonds than I could count.

“Raeya told me your ring size,” Hayden said.
“Hopefully it fits.”

I turned the ring around, letting the sun
shine on the diamonds. A large oval stone sat in the center of two
smaller round ones. Tiny diamonds covered the entire band. My heart
sped up when I slipped the ring over my finger. It fit
perfectly.

I turned to Hayden, wrapping my arms around
him. We embraced, pulling apart after a quick kiss. “How?”

“I didn’t just fix my truck that day,” he
told me. “That’s why I didn’t ask you to come with. I wanted it to
be a surprise.”

I kept smiling, shaking my head. “I can’t
believe Ray was in on this.”

“Do you like the ring?” He leaned forward,
nervous to hear my response.

“Yes!” I looked at my hand again. “I know I
said I didn’t need one, but I love it; really I do.”

“She said you would like something vintage
styled. I don’t really know what that means so I just picked one I
thought was pretty.”

“You did good,” I said, tearing my eyes away
from the sparkles to look at him. The smile disappeared from my
face. I grabbed my bow from Hayden and fired an arrow.

The zombie’s forehead smacked into the
pavement and exploded like someone dropping a water balloon.

“Ew,” I said and walked over. The arrow was
lying in a puddle of rotting brain slush. “He can keep that one.” I
nudged it with the toe of my boot. The smell was awful. I turned my
head, blinking hard. It was bad enough to cause my eyes to water.
Hayden and I went around the truck. Wade was leaning against the
brick exterior of the medical plaza, grinning.

“You knew, didn’t you?” I asked him.

“Yup. The whole time. Mad at me?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Not at all.”

Jason looked back and forth, confused. Then
his eyes settled on my left hand and soon he was grinning too. “Ah,
I was wondering when he’d give it to you!”

I shook my head, feeling too much like a
cliché. “Come on,” I started, hiking the strap of the quiver up
along my back. “Let’s go in. We don’t have too many hours of
daylight left.”

“It’s locked,” Jason said, eyeing the door.
“Can you pick it?”

“Of course I can,” I said, seeing the simple
lock. “I’ll show you. It’s really not hard.”

“That’s kinda scary,” Jason said and moved
next to the door. Hayden and Wade kept watch while I showed Jason
how to bend the bobby pins the right way. It took him a few tries
since the weak metal kept bending when he pushed it into the lock
but eventually he got it.

The smell hit us like a fist to the face. We
were only a few steps in and already I wanted out. Hayden went
first, pushing open the second set of doors that led into the
waiting room. He stopped short, turning around with his mouth
open.

“What?” Wade asked.

Hayden shook his head and looked forward,
moving aside so we could get through.

“What the fuck?” Wade muttered. I stepped
next to him. Shit. I swallowed hard, the rancid smell so strong I
could taste it. Bodies, charred and blackened beyond recognition
where lined up throughout the office. Empty cans of gasoline had
been tossed to the side. Damage from flames covered the walls. The
ugly, floral print wallpaper was curling and hanging off in burned
sheets.

Their hands and feet were bound around their
bodies. I didn’t want to stare but I couldn’t look away. The
blackened remains were small. Its knees were bent up, head buried
into the body next to it. Its head had fallen back, mouth twisted
in agony.

They had been burned alive.

Jason stepped closer to me, unnerved. For
several seconds we just stood there, frozen in shock. Then Hayden
stepped over a body, starting our search. It didn’t take us long to
discover that this place had already been cleaned out. We left the
building, gasping in fresh air.

“It was locked from the inside,” I said,
removing the quiver from around my neck. “After those bodies were
burned.”

Wade shook his head. “Maybe they came to the
doctor with symptoms?”

“And once it was realized they were infected
they were put down,” Jason said. “By fire.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hayden said, unable to
take his eyes off the building. “There’s nothing here for us.” He
was as unnerved as the rest of us. Sticking to the mission kept him
focused. “Let’s go.”

We loaded back up in the cars and took off,
speeding away from the building full of burned bodies. We drove
past a hospital. Zombies stumbled around the parking lot, dead eyes
following the moving truck. We didn’t stop.

Anxiety wound in me. There were only a few
hours of daylight left. We hadn’t gotten any supplies and we’d need
to find a safe place for the night soon.

“Hey,” I said suddenly. “There’s a nursing
home.”

“So?” Hayden asked.

“I didn’t even think about it before.” I sat
up straighter. “That place would be full of medical stuff.”

“Really?”

“Yes. My grandma stayed at one for a while to
do rehab when she was sick. All sorts of shit goes on there.
Wounds, regular sick people, and some crazy people. We might be
able to get meds for your sister.”

A lightness pulled up on Hayden’s face. He
radioed to Wade and turned the truck around, driving through a
weedy median, and into the nursing home parking lot. We got out,
suited up with weapons, and turned to the building.

“I hate these places,” Jason grumbled. “They
smelled like death and depression before the virus hit.”

I tightened the wrist protector and put the
quiver over my head, staring at the large sign in the front of the
building that read Silver Living Centers. “Yeah,” I agreed.
“Nursing homes are nasty. I never want to be put in one, though I
don’t think it’s an issue now.”

Wade chuckled. “We’ll be lucky to make it
into old age at this point.”

Hayden jumped down from the bed of the truck.
Clouds rolled over the sun, darkening his face. “Ready?” he asked,
flicking the safety off his gun.

“As we’ll ever be,” Wade said. The four of us
crossed the parking lot. The wind picked up, blowing garbage across
the pavement. “You said the medicine was in a big box?” he asked
me.

“Kind of,” I answered. “It’s like a giant
vending machine with no glass front. Or at least that’s what it
looked at that hospital we went to.”

“Interesting,” Wade said. He was carrying an
empty backpack with the hopes of filling it up with medical
supplies. We stopped under a brick awning. I held my bow to my side
and leaned in toward the front door.

“It’s dirty,” I mumbled. A thick coat of dust
and dirt made it hard to see inside. Hayden spit on the glass and
wiped it with his hand. I wrinkled my nose at him.

“What?” he said with a shrug. “Now you can
see in.”

I shook my head and held up my hand,
shielding away the light. “What I can see is empty.” I straightened
up. “That doesn’t mean shit.”

“Only one way to find out,” Hayden said,
putting his hand over the handle. We readied our weapons and moved
around Hayden. Our eyes met and he nodded then pulled back the
door. I moved in, jumping to the side to allow the guys to follow
behind.

Instantly, my eyes watered. The smell of
urine mixed with rotting bodies. I turned my head to the side,
getting one last breath of fresh air before the door closed. We
were standing in a lobby. There was a desk in front of us, tucked
behind a half wall. Brown stains streaked the couch that was pushed
off to the side, surrounded by dead plants and a god-awful floral
print rug. A large staircase led up to an open walkway above. The
lobby emptied into intersecting halls and a cafeteria was across
from us.

“Oh my God,” Jason said, gagging. He covered
his nose with his harm. “It is rank in here.”

“There’s nothing like a building full of
rotting old people,” Hayden said and took a few steps forward.
Blood streaked across the lobby floor. Hayden stepped in it and
froze.

“What?” I asked him.

He lifted up his foot. “It’s sticky.”

My chest tightened with fear. Forcing myself
to focus, I pulled back the arrow.

“What?” Jason asked, raising his gun. He
looked at the floor then at me. “What does that have to do with
anything?”

“Sticky means fresh,” Wade said. “Relatively
fresh.”

The employee entrance was locked. The only
way in was through the front doors and I felt confident no one—no
one sane at least—had come through here recently. So how the fuck
did fresh blood get on the floor?