"Go ahead and start it up, Gigi."
The pretty woman with short hair and large eyes did as she was told from the driver's seat of the police car and turned the ignition. Oliver watched the guts of the vehicle as the engine sputtered with every turn of the key. They had made it nearly eight hundred miles from Llanview, Pennsylvania to the outskirts of Des Moines before the car stalled on a lone stretch of road that sliced through a thick forest of pine trees. They were exposed, completely vulnerable. It was dusk and a light November snow was falling. They hadn't seen a car since leaving Des Moines. The city itself was barren, abandoned, cars and tanks and ambulances strewn about like a child's toys. All the people in the city were either dead or gone.
The engine stalled again and Gigi turned the ignition off. The handsome policeman swore under his breath and rubbed his hands together to fight the biting cold. He stared at the battery, the valve springs, the exhaust valve, as if looking long enough would fix the problem. They couldn't afford to be stalled much longer—they were running out of food and it was too cold to sleep in the car with just their coats.
Gigi rolled down the window and stuck her head out, ignoring the dust of snow. "What do you think? Is it the alternator?"
Oliver pursed his lips and shook his head. "I don't know. Could be the radiator. Lemme check the plugs on the battery."
Gigi pulled her head back into the car and rolled the window back up. She looked at her sister in the rear-view mirror, who face was nearly hidden through the cage that separated the backseat from the front. Stacy was rubbing her sixth-month belly and chewing her bottom lip. She looked worriedly out the window, which was a nice change from her usual snotty attitude about everything, even when the world was crumbling around them.
"I hate this," Stacy said.
"Well, it's no picnic for me, either," Gigi said.
Stacy sighed through her nose. "Do you think they're out there?" she asked.
Gigi glanced in the mirror again. "I don't know."
"What if they attack us while we're just sitting here?"
"They won't. If we didn't see any in Des Moines, I doubt they be out in the middle of nowhere like this."
Stacy paused and looked out the window again. "Unless they left the city to feed."
Gigi looked at her sister in the mirror. Stacy was legitimately concerned. Before the scope of the situation became real and people were dying left and right from the sickness, Stacy would find ways to scare Gigi just to get under her skin. "It's just a bunch of people overreacting," Stacy had said, rolling her eyes as usual. Then reports of deaths began to hit Llanview, and it wasn't strangers dying anymore. It was their friends. It was their neighbors. It was even their families.
Gigi swallowed hard to suppress the fear that climbed the back of her throat. What if Stacy had a point? What if those people—no, they couldn't be called people anymore—what if those things were lurking in the forest, waiting to attack? From what little Gigi had seen, those things who couldn't shake the sickness, who seemed to let it consume them until they were nothing but zombies, they weren't too bright. They followed their stomachs and whatever direction the madness in their brains told them to go.
"Try it again, Gigi," Oliver said from the front of the squad car.
Gigi turned the key in the ignition again, and after a brief second of sputtering, the car flared to life. Stacy sat up and Gigi let out a short laugh. She got out of the car to let Oliver in the driver's seat and gave him a grateful punch on the shoulder.
"Nice job, Fish."
Oliver smiled inwardly at his accomplishment, but he wasn't content just yet. They were still in the middle of nowhere, the next town a few miles out, and although they had gotten enough gas in Des Moines to last them a ways, there was still the issue of food and warmth. What if the car stalled again? What if Stacy had a problem with the baby? What if they were ambushed like before in Indianapolis? Oliver only had one magazine left for his Glock .40, but at least there was still the .223 and the rifle in the trunk, both fully-loaded. As he got in the car and buckled up, he instinctively touched the handle of his .40 to make sure it was there. It was one of the few things left keeping them safe.
"Are we good?" Oliver asked, glancing at Gigi.
"Just get us out of here, Oliver," Gigi said.
Oliver turned to the back seat where Stacy sat. "How're you feeling?"
Stacy rolled her eyes. "Very pregnant. Let's go, this place is giving me the creeps." She was annoyed at how protective Oliver could be. She was just carrying his child, not the second coming of Christ, for Heaven's sake. Still, it was nice to have a leader, someone in charge who could get them to where they were going. Oliver would die for his unborn daughter, and for that, Stacy felt secure that they could get to California in one piece. The man was like an alarm system when the doors were already locked.
Oliver put the car in gear and they headed once more down the road. The car was silent, as usual. Oliver didn't have much in common with the girls, besides impregnating one of them, and as far as he could tell, the sisters hated each other. Oliver had seen others band together to form a plan and escape the havoc that the mysterious disease had brought. He had seen countless heroes sacrifice themselves for their families, staying with loved ones who were sick while the rest of their kin followed government officials to be quarantined.
But Stacy and Gigi were different. There was a past between them, a bitterness and rivalry. But not even the threat of extinction could quell their hatred for one another. Oliver didn't understand it. Then again, there was a lot he didn't understand these days.
They drove on for a good half-hour. When Oliver couldn't stand the silence anymore, he reached over and turned on his police radio to channel 6. "This is 26-91," he said into the mouthpiece. "Looking for a 10-86, does anyone copy?"
"There haven't been any broadcasts for weeks," Gigi said.
"I just wanna make sure," said Oliver. He clicked the mouthpiece again. "Mayday, mayday. Does anyone copy?"
Silence.
"Hey, can you order us a pizza while you're on there, Hoss?" Stacy quipped from the backseat.
"This is 26-91. Mayday, 11-99. Please respond."
The radio crackled. All eyes shot straight to the scanner, then to Oliver.
"Is anyone there?" Oliver asked. "Over."
More crackling. Oliver prayed someone was listening.
"Hello?" A voice said over the scanner. "Someone there?"
Gigi let out a surprised cry.
"Oh my God!" Stacy yelled.
"Pull over!" Gigi said.
Oliver parked the car along the side of the road. For the first time in weeks, hope swelled in his chest. They hadn't seen another live person since they left Llanview, and even then those people were either dying or mad with disease. But now, with just a radio frequency to keep him connected to another soul, Oliver gripped the mouthpiece tightly so as not to lose the voice.
"Mayday, mayday! Do you copy? Over."
"I copy," the man's voice said. "Where are you?"
Oliver smiled widely. "We're headed west on County Road 15 outside of Des Moines—"
"I can't under . . . spea—you're lose—" The voice grew faint and cut out every other word. They were losing the signal.
"I copy!" Oliver said into the scanner. "Tell us your location!"
"I'm . . . West . . . Road fif—" The voice cut out. Everyone in the car held their breath. "Please find . . . alone . . . location?"
Oliver enunciated his words carefully and loudly. "West . . . County . . . Road . . . Fifteen."
There was static on the radio, but no voice. They waited second after agonizing second for the voice to respond, but none came.
"Please respond." Oliver said. He didn't realize that he was pleading instead of requesting.
"Oliver," Gigi began.
"Please respond."
"They're gone, Fish," Stacy said.
Oliver closed his eyes and loosened his tight grasp on the mouthpiece. "Please." He whispered. "Please . . ."
But there was nothing. No voice, no communication, no link to another life. Oliver threw the mouthpiece at the scanner. "Shit!"
The car grew maddeningly quiet again, a black hole of sound as well as hope. "Let's just keep going," Stacy finally offered. "The guy said he was somewhere west, and we're headed that way, anyway—"
"We know, Stacy," Gigi said, staring glumly out the window.
Oliver sighed and put the car in gear. They headed back onto the empty road, keeping a watchful eye outside the window for a cabin or a gas station where the radio signal might have been coming from. The snow started falling heavier, like tufts of cotton against a purple-black sky.
"Y'think the guy on the radio was really alone?" Stacy asked, idly picking her nails.
"I don't know, Stace," Gigi said.
Stacy bit the skin around her thumb nail. "What do you think, Fish?"
Oliver squinted to see through the blizzard of snow. "I think we'd be lucky if he was telling the truth."
There was a pregnant pause in the car.
"What if he wasn't?" Stacy asked.
Oliver gripped the wheel tighter. They would keep going. They would always keep going. It had become something of a mantra, a way of living in this now-desolate world. When their friends and lovers and family died around them, they found a way to keep going. When the trio discovered they were somehow immune to the disease and escaped quarantine, they kept going. That's what they did now on the road—they found ways to eke out a living, town by abandoned town, and they kept going. If the man on the other end of the radio was, indeed, lying, they would overcome it.
"We'll keep going," Oliver said.
They came upon the cabin in the woods like a lightning bolt finds a thundercloud. By now, the snow was thick and fast, and Oliver would have missed the light through the trees completely if Stacy hadn't been paying extra attention outside her window.
"Look!" she cried.
"What?" Oliver slowed the car, the tires skidding along the slippery road.
The passengers diverted their attention to the right side of the police car. At first, all Oliver could see was snow and the tall pines hiding in the shaded whiteness like soldiers waiting to attack an unsuspecting enemy. Then he saw it—a small dot of light through a narrow clearing, probably a road, in the trees.
The cruiser came to a complete stop and all they could do was stare through the trees. This was one of those moments that had the capacity to change their journey, the way it had changed in Indianapolis when they were attacked by the diseased in an abandoned convenience store, or the way it changed when Oliver went to his hometown and found everyone dead, even his parents. In these moments, there was a part of Oliver that never quite knew what to do next. Any decision he made would come with a consequence, and good or bad, he was wary of being held responsible.
"We should check it out," Gigi said.
"No way!" Stacy said.
"They could be in trouble, like us. It could be that guy—"
"I've seen this movie before, Gigi, and the blonde girl always gets killed first by the inbreeds in the creepy cabin."
"Gigi's right," Oliver said. "It's worth looking, at least. We can't go on much longer without more food."
Stacy didn't respond, only rubbed her belly protectively and stared out the window. Gigi looked at Oliver, her eyes asking him if it was really okay. He gave her a reassuring nod and pulled onto the snow-covered entry to the cabin. The long road was bumpy, and twice they nearly got stuck in the snow, but when they finally came to the front of the cabin, it was a triumphant moment of "hey, can't say we didn't try."
The cabin was bigger than Oliver had expected. It was like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting— wrap-around porch, red shutters, a bench swing near the door. And there was the light—the single light in the top left window on the second floor. It was a beacon of hope, a glow of life, but Stacy saw it as something else: a portent of impending doom.
"Now what?" Stacy asked.
"Flash the siren, Fish," Gigi offered.
Oliver turned the siren on for one, loud whoop and flashed the lights. There was no visible movement in the house, no sign of life. It was as if whoever had turned the light on had played a trick on them and subsequently abandoned the place.
"I don't like this," Stacy said.
"I'm going in," Oliver said, unbuckling his seatbelt. He turned the ignition off.
"I'm going with you," Gigi said.
"No," Oliver said. "You need to stay in the car with Stacy in case something happens."
"I'm not staying out here with her!" Stacy cried. "She'll feed me to the first hill person to come swinging out of the forest."
Gigi whipped around in her seat to Stacy. "You really think I'd put my own niece in danger like that?"
"Gee, thanks for thinking of me, sis."
"All right, enough," Oliver growled. "You both can come with."
As Gigi reached for the handle of the door, Oliver put his hand on her shoulder. They locked eyes. "If you see or hear anything, you need to get Stacy out of here. Got it?"
Gigi stole a glance at her sister just as the woman was exiting the car. "I got it," she said. And she meant it.
They approached the house slowly. Oliver had his Glock on his hip and the rifle from the trunk in hand. Gigi and Stacy followed behind him closely, keeping alert to any noises. Stacy was a nervous wreck, jumping at every creak of the front steps and whimpering as they neared the door. Oliver lowered his rifle as they came to the door, finger steadily on the trigger. He pounded on the door with his foot.
"Hello?" he called.
Stacy rubbed her arms and glanced around. "Maybe we should—"
"Is anyone there?" Oliver yelled. "I'm a police officer, we need help!"
Gigi reached out and touched the doorknob.
"Don't!" Oliver cautioned.
But it was too late. The door swung open slowly and Oliver hoisted his gun. His cop instincts kicked in and he swept the entryway with his eyes as he walked in. It was dark, save for the reflective snow gathering on the windows. The entry automatically gave way to a staircase leading to the second floor. To the left was a foyer leading to a cozy, door-less living room with an unlit fireplace. Oliver peeked around the wall and saw another door-less frame leading to the kitchen that connected the living room. To the right, a pair of large pine doors were open a crack to reveal a study.
"I'm gonna check upstairs," Oliver whispered. He took the Glock from his hip and handed it to Gigi. "Remember what I said."
Gigi nodded, and the two sisters watched the policeman ascend the stairs slowly. When he was out of sight at the top, Gigi moved across the entryway to the study and opened the door carefully. Inside, the room was filled with hundreds of books, stacked in rows on the large oak desk, crammed into the shelves on the wall, and towering on the floor like a miniature city. She read some of the titles: How to Read Morse Code, How to Filter Water, Roads and Railways of the United States, The CDC List of Infectious Diseases 2010. Most of them were how-to books about surviving in the wild or learning to live like the Amish. Gigi was so engrossed with the titles and multitude of books, she didn't notice her sister wandering off to the kitchen.
Oliver swept the rooms upstairs. Two bedrooms were untouched, the beds still made and a light film of dust atop the dressers. In the master bedroom down the far end of the hall, the bed was unmade and there were men's clothes strewn about the room. Someone still lived here. Oliver stopped cold when he heard scratching on the inside of the door on the other side of the room. He raised his gun, heart pounding in his throat, images whirling in his mind of the worst possible thing behind that door. He approached it slowly. There was more scratching, then a whine like a dog.
Oliver stopped. "Hello?"
The thing, he was almost positive it was a dog now, let out a quick bark. A lump caught in Oliver's throat. He grasped the doorknob, letting it warm in his hand, then opened the door quickly and raised his gun in case the animal attacked.
Staring back at Oliver was a youngish-looking golden retriever, sitting nicely on bath mat by the sink. The bathroom was bathed in light, the same light they must have seen from the road. The dog wagged its tail jovially, wanting to play as if the world kept going and there would always be someone to throw a ball for him. It barked again and Oliver lowered his gun. He reached his hand out tentatively, and the dog walked over to him and licked it. It seemed nice, and whoever was living here obviously wasn't abusing it.
"Good boy," he said, patting the dog on the head. He checked its red collar and read the name on the gold tag: Jackson. "Good boy, Jackson."
Jackson wagged his tail even harder and lapped at Oliver's hand with a greedy tongue.
"Where's your owner, Jackson? Huh?"
Stacy's stomach, rather than her good judgment, guided her towards the kitchen. She was tired of eating from cans, and even if the owner of this house had nothing but split pea soup, at least she could sit at a real table and enjoy it like a human. Her stomach rumbled, coated in nausea. Morning sickness was a myth, she had learned. The throwing up part lasted all day, even past her first trimester, and even though she hadn't physically puked since leaving Llanview, the idea of it clouded the lining of her intestines, one bad bite away from betraying her.
Stacy walked past a door under the stairway. She wondered if it led to a crawlspace or a basement, but she was scared enough not to explore any further. Any monsters hiding in the house would have to find her, not the other way around. Stacy entered the kitchen through the swinging door and was pleasantly surprised at how clean it was. Only the dirty dishes in the sink gave away the inhabitant. An oval pine table sat near a screen-glass door and array of windows facing the backyard. The only thing Stacy could make out was the thinning trees and hilly landscape beyond. An empty dog dish sat by the screen door.
Stacy wasted no time raiding the cupboards for food. As expected, the first cupboard she opened was crammed to the brink with non-perishables—cans of fruit and soup and tuna. On the very top shelf were dry goods like pancake mix, flour, sugar, and some sweets. Stacy spotted a box of crackers and reached on her tiptoes to get it. It fell on the counter, startling her. She felt like Goldilocks, and laughed inwardly at the thought of having to sleep in a stranger's bed tonight. This one's too big. This one's too small . . .
Stacy ripped open the box of crackers and unsheathed a row from their plastic casing. She stuck a whole one in her mouth and barely chewed before swallowing. The crackers were plain, nothing to write home about, but Stacy thought it was the best thing she had ever tasted.
"Don't. Move."
Stacy screamed at the voice and dropped the box of crackers on the floor. She felt the barrel of a gun being pressed to her back, right between her shoulder blades, and all she could imagine was poor little Goldilocks getting mauled by a bear.
TBC