There was something in the water. It was only in the tap water. Oceans, streams, and lakes were all unaffected. There was something dangerous in the tap water though. So many people were affected by what was in the water. It was… an illness, as far as anyone could understand. At first, it acted like a normal virus, like the flu, but after awhile it mutated. Mutated to the point in which this virus was unstoppable. In the first few stages of infection, symptoms would present as any other virus, mainly corresponding to flu-like symptoms. This stage would only last for a couple of days to a week, depending on the immune system. Then an extremely high fever would set in, causing delirium and near death. If the infected was lucky enough, the fever would climb high enough to kill. If the infected was unlucky, then stage three would set in. This stage consisted of a hallucinated induced paranoia causing the infected to lash out at everyone and everything around them. There had been something in the water. So many people had been affected by what was in the water.
One Year After the Outbreak
It smelled of rotten meat in the grocery store. Ronda, a well muscled African American woman, leaned against the wall next to the front entrance, a baseball bat held firmly in her grasp, every now and then glancing out the filthy glass doors. In the produce section, a tiny light haired caucasian woman named Heather was picking through vegetables and fruits in an attempt to find something semi-fresh. Finally, in the can aisle, Isaac, a second-generation American whose parents hailed from Pakistan, was throwing as many cans as he could into a bag. Together, Ronda, Heather, and Isaac had been surviving together. This was their routine. Heather and Isaac would gather any food left in the stores they raided and Ronda would stand guard, keeping a watchful eye out for any infected. Ronda ran her hand along the textured wood of the bat she weld in her left hand. If someone had told her how important a bat would become to her, she would have laughed. Baseball was her least favourite sport. But now… she glanced out the front doors again and her heart skipped a beat. There were two distant figures coming towards the store. They darted as a pair from one hiding spot to another.
"Guys, someone's coming," Ronda announced. Isaac, who was the closest, jogged past the cash register and to the front doors. He squinted.
"Think they're infected?" he murmured. Heather joined them, a couple of apples in the crook of her arms.
"I don't want to run anymore," she whimpered. Isaac placed a comforting hand upon her shoulder. Isaac was the oldest, at 47. Ronda was 31, leaving Heather the youngest with her age of 19. They had all found each other by chance and had stuck together for much of the same reason.
"It will be alright Heather," assured Isaac.
"I dunno about that. If they're infected, we don't have much of an exit 'sides this front door here," Ronda pointed out, "And their heading right for our exit." Isaac shot Ronda a disapproving look as Heather shook, slowly depositing the apples she held into the bag slung around her shoulder.
"Perhaps they are not infected. They seem to be quite coordinated together," said Isaac. Ronda nodded her head in agreement, although she wasn't convinced. She wasn't one to trust anyone besides Isaac and Heather.
"Let's hide behind the cash registers. Heather will hide with you, Ronda, behind that one," Isaac suggested, pointing towards the second cash registered, the one further away from the front door, "And I'll hide behind this one." Isaac motioned towards the first cash register.
"I should be closest to the door," protested Ronda but the look Isaac gave her diminished the argument quickly. Ronda lead Heather over to the second register, Heather clambering as far underneath the register as she could. Isaac crouched down behind the first one, peeking over the top to watch the door. The silence was suffocating to Heather. She wanted something to happen. Either the people come inside and get whatever was going to happen over with, or she wanted the people to divert in another direction so that she and the others could collect a bit more food. She hugged her knees. Two minutes passed and then there was the sound of the door opening. Isaac saw a curly haired youth poke his head inside. He glanced around and Isaac ducked his head down a little to prevent detection.
"It's all clear I think, Davy," the curly haired young man said, stepping into the store and holding the door open for a smaller youth.
"I dunno mate, I coulda sworn I saw something looking out the front door. I'm not kidding Micky," the smaller man, Davy, murmured. Coherent speech was not something an infected could accomplish, and, as Isaac peeked above the register again, both of the young men were armed. Nothing an infected would do, and early stagers were something rare to find out and about.
"I believe that would have been us," Isaac announced, straightening himself up, hands held up with his palm open wide. Both young men screamed a little, whirling to face Isaac, weapons readied. Behind him, Ronda moved around the register, tense and ready to defend Isaac from the two newcomers. Heather stood up as well, looking like a frightened deer in large headlights.
"Who in your right minds are you?" Micky squawked.
"It's okay, we aren't going to hurt you. I'm Isaac," Isaac said gently, waving a hand at Ronda to signal her to lower her bat. Ronda reluctantly did so.
"Hi Isaac," Micky waved his hand slightly. Davy elbowed Micky in the side, giving him a warning glare. Isaac moved slowly out from behind the cash register, keeping his palms facing towards the two young men.
"Behind me are my friends Ronda and Heather. We're not infected. You can look us over however you like, within reason," Isaac said, continuing to keep his voice as soothing as possible. He had handled distressed mothers, panicking fathers, absolutely terror driven children, and so on when he had been in the ER as a trauma doctor. To top this off, after his stint in the ER, Isaac had been a therapist. So there had been a lot he had learned through his time in the medical field. But… now he was here. Micky and Davy exchanged looks.
"Hi Isaac," Micky repeated, turning back to face the the trio, "Hello Ronda, hiya Heather." Micky flashed Heather a friendly smile and a wave. Rondo noticed how Heather's muscles relaxed slightly and she smiled back at Micky. It hadn't occurred to Rondo before just exactly how young Heather was. In comparison to the ages of herself and Isaac, Heather was probably closer in age to these two young men.
"You guys ain't infected, are ya?" Ronda spoke finally, staring coldly at Micky and Davy.
"No! Do we look infected to you?" Micky squeaked defensively.
"So none of us are infected, that's a good thing to know," Davy shrugged, then he continued, "I'm Davy, this is my friend Micky." Davy gestured to Micky.
"Hi Micky," Heather called out. Micky gave Heather another friendly smile.
"Do you live around here?" Isaac asked. Micky nodded, answering, "Yeah we live a couple of roads down. We've been needing to travel a bit further out for supplies, so we've been coming here for a couple of days now."
"Is it just you two?" blurted Heather, wondering something similar to what Ronda had been thinking. She had grown to love both Ronda and Isaac, they had become a family in a sense, but an only child yearned for friends of their own age.
"No, there's four of us. Me, Micky, and our friends Mike and Peter," Davy explained. Heather's face lite up at that response.
"Are any of them infected?" Isaac inquired, trying to sound more concerned for the stranger's party than his own. With a question like that, one had to tread carefully.
"No, we're all healthy as can be expected these days," Micky said flatly, the first time the curly haired young man had seemed dead serious. For a moment Isaac saw before him a broken early twenty-something. The moment was brief. Davy tapped Micky on the shoulder and the taller leaned down. Davy whispered something into Micky's ear. Micky responded in a likewise fashion. This was repeated twice until the two faced Isaac, Ronda, and Heather once more.
"If you want to finish up restocking your supplies while we get our stuff, you can come back to our place. It's big enough and protected and you guys can take a bath," Davy offered, not wanting to seem rude. Plus none of them had seen other, healthy people for so long.
"The water's not from the faucet either, just FYI. It's cleaned. And if it's clear down on the beach, we could even go swimming," Micky added. Heather ran out from behind the cash registered and grabbed onto Isaac's arm.
"Can we Isaac? Please?" she nearly begged. Isaac glanced back at Ronda. The woman was shaking her head. But they did need a rest. They hadn't had a proper rest in so long. The infected were everywhere, and unless one had a secure place to stay, there was no rest to be found.
"We'd be grateful to accompany you back," Isaac finally answered. Ronda went to Isaac's side.
"How can we know these people are trustworthy?" Ronda hissed, glaring daggers at Davy and Micky.
"They haven't tried to kill us. They aren't infected. And I don't think Heather can keep going if she doesn't get a full eight hours of sleep soon," Isaac explained. Ronda wanted to argue but there wasn't an argument in that statement. Placing a hand onto Ronda's shoulder, Isaac added, "We'll be careful, cautious. We always are, especially thanks to your watchful eye." Ronda pulled away from Isaac, but nodded her head in agreement.
"Hand me the bag, I'll go gather the rest of what we need," Ronda instructed. Isaac smiled and handed over the bag slung across his shoulder. Ronda disappeared into the nearest aisle.
"Hey man, I'll get the stuff okay," Micky announced after seeing that the others were going to finish their gathering. He was mainly speaking to Davy. Davy nodded and Micky bounded over to an overturned shopping cart. He uprighted it and began wheeling it away. Isaac and Heather inched a little toward their new acquaintance.
"So... was it cool living in Cali before all this stuff happened?" Heather asked. Davy thought about the question for a bit.
"It was pretty interesting. My friends and I came here looking for our big break, but we mainly ended up barely broke," he replied after a moment, "Still, it was a lot of fun." A pained expression crossed Davy's face.
"What were you trying to make it big in?" Isaac asked, in an attempt to change the subject matter.
"Music. We're a band. Were a band… I'm not really sure what we are now. We're the Monkees, anyways," Davy answered. So Isaac's plan hadn't fully worked out.
"A band? I've always wanted to meet a band. I used to live in Ohio, which was so boring. I hated it there so much," Heather gushed.
"I'm sure it wasn't as bad as this," chuckled Davy. Heather gave a shrug of her shoulders, although she didn't protest. Meanwhile Micky was busy loading up the cart. He bumped into Ronda in the back, who was inspecting a box of cookies. Ronda looked over Micky with a skeptical eye upon noticing his arrival.
"And how do you expect to get all that home? Are you taking the cart?" she asked. Micky regarded her with an equal amount of suspicion.
"Davy and I got some bags for this stuff," he replied. He leaned past her and grabbed a couple of packets of cookies, dropping them into the cart. It didn't take long for Ronda to finish filling up Isaac's bag nor Micky filling up his cart. The two returned to the front. Davy and Micky began putting the items within the cart into a couple of bags they had on their persons.
"Can I help?" Heather asked.
"Sure," Micky beamed. Heather grinned and took the bag Davy offered her.
"We can help you carry your load," Isaac offered. Ronda held tightly to her bat with one hand, holding Isaac's food satchel in the other. She didn't trust these men. She didn't trust their friends. She only trusted Isaac and Heather, and would do very little to help these acquaintances.
"That would be great, thank you," Davy said to Isaac. Once everything was sorted out, the two groups headed outside. It was quiet. The only noises to be heard were that of birds. It gave Micky shivers every time he left the pad. Everything used to be so loud and exciting… now it was just quiet. They walked in relative ease, Davy assuring Isaac, Heather, and Ronda that infected were hardly encountered around here as long as very little noise was made. That didn't mean the little band wasn't on guard. Silence enveloped them as they walked. Heather noticed that a lot of the stores and homes they passed had been ransacked long ago. It was surprising that the grocery they had just been in had all that it had. Two blocks later, Davy and Micky veered off the road and lead the trio up a steep road that could have been considered either a private road or a long driveway, depending on how one looked at it. The road lead them to a house. A colourful car was parked in the driveway, although it too seemed to be a bit battered despite it's overall appearance.
"This is it," Micky exclaimed, waggling his eyebrows at Heather before bounding over to the front door. He knocked, or rather kicked, five times and then the door swung inwards.
"Hey Peter, come out here for a sec," Micky said to the young man that had opened the door. Peter opened the door a bit more and stepped in front of it. A frown creased his brow, but the look of confusion on his face was quickly replaced with one of fright as he spied Heather, Isaac, and Ronda.
"It's okay Peter, this is Isaac, Heather, and Ronda. They're very nice," Davy explained. Peter seemed rooted to the spot, unable to keep himself from staring.
"They aren't infected and we decided it'd be nice to know how it is out there," Micky added.
"We're very grateful for this and we will happily do something in return for this," Isaac said to Peter, stepping forward a little.
"No it's okay, hi I'm Peter, sorry I didn't mean to stare or anything, sorry," Peter gushed suddenly, coming alive and retreating back a bit into the home so that Davy and Micky could make their way to the kitchen to put away the supplies, "It's just that I'm not sure how Mike will like this."
"Mike will like this just fine Peter," Micky reassured his friend as he entered the home.
"Who's Mike?" Heather wondered aloud.
"He's honestly really nice but he can come off pretty strongly," Peter answered, ushering Isaac, Ronda, and Heather inside.
"Ronda and him might get along well then," Isaac joked gently. Ronda shot him a disapproving look.
"I'll like what just fine Mick?" came a voice with a strange accent. Ronda and Isaac both identified it as Southern although Heather thought cowboy, and in her defense she hadn't had much experience with accents besides those in the Northeast.
"Okay man, don't freak out or anything-," Micky began, dumping the bags in his arms onto the kitchen table, "But we invited these guys to come and crash here." Mike came in from the porch and glanced at the three newcomers. Isaac put the bag he had offered to carry for Micky and Davy onto the floor next to him. Carefully stepping over this, he went over to Mike.
"Hello, I'm Isaac. My friends are Ronda and Heather. We are all very healthy and if you would like, you may inspect us to an extent," Isaac greeted, holding out his hand towards Mike, "And I understand that you have your own unit and that we are foreign to this unit. We will understand if you don't want us to stay." Mike took Isaac's hand and shook it.
"But Isaac, I wanna stay!" protested Heather. Isaac shot her a warning look. He didn't want to get kicked out on the streets, not when they were so close to being able to get a decent night's rest, but he still didn't want to impose upon their newfound friends. If Heather pushed, it could jeopardize what Isaac wished to accomplish.
"Hi there Isaac. I'm Mike," Michael responded, breaking the handshake. He smiled warmly at Isaac, then Heather and Ronda, before continuing, "And I don't see why y'all can't stay, at least for the night, considering how my friends already gave you the go-ahead."
"It really wouldn't be much of a trouble-," Isaac started but Mike shook his head.
"Nah, it's alright," Mike assured Isaac. Isaac bowed his head to Michael.
"Thank you very much. My friends and I are extremely grateful for this hospitality," he thanked Michael.
"So, now that's out of the way, how about I show them the bedrooms or something?" Davy asked, clapping his hands together. Although he had seemed very genuine with Isaac and had pulled out that old Nesmith charm, Davy could sense how pissed Mike was, at least towards Micky. He couldn't get a read on what sort of hot water he was in himself.
"Yeah, yeah," Michael nodded his head, "They can stay in the upstairs bedroom. We'll bunk down in your's and Pete's bedroom for now."
"Hey but that's-," Micky started to protest but the look Mike shot him shut him up real quick. Isaac noticed the tension. He hoped that this wouldn't cause too much trouble, that was the last thing he wanted, but he also needed to keep Heather in mind. The last time they had all gotten a full eight hours of sleep was four months ago, in Washington.
"Okay. I can show you guys upstairs," Davy grinned. Heather cheered and followed Davy as eager as a puppy.
"Thank you again," Isaac said to Mike who merely nodded again. Isaac followed Heather, leaving Ronda to size up Mike. The two stared at each other for a moment, before Ronda went up the stairs along with Isaac and the others. Out of the four young men, Ronda decided the only trustworthy one was Mike. He seemed to be the leader, the capable one. Ronda respected that. No lies, no half-truths, just straightforward leadership. With the newcomers gone, Michael turned to Micky, who had busied himself in tucking away the supplies into their correct places. Peter was helping.
"The hell did you think you were doin' Mick?" Michael demanded, walking over to the kitchen.
"Dunno what you mean, hey Peter you mind putting this box with the soup?" Micky shrugged, doing his best to avoid Mike. Peter took the box and looked at it.
"These are crackers though," he pointed out. Micky leaned over and tapped on the front of the box.
"Yeah but soup crackers," Micky countered. Peter stared at the label for a moment before shrugging and putting it in the cabinet that they kept the soup in.
"Micky, you better turn around right now and talk to me," Mike said. Micky cringed at the tone of Mike's voice. Putting down the boxes he was putting into a cabinet, he turned around slowly.
"Look man, you saw them. They seemed really tired and I felt bad for them. They said they weren't infected," Micky explained, "We don't know how bad it is out there. We holed ourselves in here."
"Okay, I get that, but we can't comprise what we've got. You're right Micky, we don't know how bad it is out there and I'll be damned if I let any of us know any time soon. For now, Peter'll go with Davy on runs and you'll go with me," Michael said at length.
"What? That's not fair!" protested Micky.
"It's fair if I say so, you coulda gotten both of you killed," Mike pointed out.
"Yeah, but I didn't," mumbled Micky, but he wasn't going to push it. Ever since the illness had ruined everything, Mike had been overbearing and overprotective. At first, it was comforting, something to rely on in such troubled times. But now, sometimes Micky felt Mike's protectiveness stemmed not just from his personality but also from paranoia and fear. Of course, it wasn't just Mike. They all had taken things in their own ways. Micky wasn't sure how he had taken it. Sort of ignored it, he supposed, and had gone on the protective front with Mike. Peter got real quiet. For the first month or so he refused to speak, it had had them all extremely worried. Davy had cried a lot, but he cried less now. Micky hadn't seen that one coming. So Mike switching up the supply run roster was an easy let off and Micky wasn't about to try and make things worse. After a couple of minutes, Davy returned to the living room area with Heather, Isaac, and Ronda.
"Alright, so how about we get a proper introduction?" Mike suggested, walking away from the kitchen.
"You guys have met me and Micky, and I guess Mike too, and that's Peter," Davy said, pointing to Peter who had just finished putting away the last box. Peter gave a little wave.
"Hello all," Isaac smiled.
"Hey, um… Micky right?" Heather started.
"Yeah that's me!" Micky beamed.
"Can we see if the beach is clear and we can go swimming?" Heather finished. Isaac nudged her with his elbow.
"Don't impose Heather," he warned.
"Oh it's not a problem. We go down there often, man," Micky shrugged, bounding over to Heather, "Let's go out on the porch and see what's happening." As they headed towards the doorway to the porch, Mike called after them, "Unless somethin's changed, it should be clear."
"Thanks Mike," Micky called over his shoulder. He and Heather went out onto the porch.
"Peter, you wanna go down with them? I'll go with ya," Davy inquired.
"No thank you Davy," Peter said with a half smile. He gave Mike a hug, then Davy a hug, before going into the downstairs bedroom.
"Ya wanna sit down?" Mike asked, motioning to one of the various chairs in the room.
"Thank you," Isaac nodded his head and sat down in the nearest chair. Ronda remained standing, her baseball bat still in her grasp.
"I think I'm going to make tea," announced Davy. Mike made a face but Davy ignored it. Mike and Micky didn't like tea. Mike had good reasons, but Micky always protested that it tasted like disgusting leaf water. This made no sense to Davy, considering that coffee (something Micky loved) was the same exact thing expect you'd replace leaf with bean. This was something Davy often pointed out to his comrade.
"That would be lovely, thank you so much," Isaac gushed. He wished Ronda would sit down. Here they were, in these lovely people's home, and she was ready for a fight.
"It's no trouble. No one but Peter appreciates my tea around here anyways," Davy grinned and made his way to the kitchen. Mike rolled his eyes at that comment.
"So, how did you guys get here?" Mike asked, wanting to get the awkwardness of first encounters out of the way as soon as possible. It was silly of course. These people would be moving on soon, they couldn't stay forever, that would be too many people to take care of. But… Mike knew deep down, no matter how much sense it made to kick these people out, he wouldn't be able to bring himself to such an action.
"Well… I personally was visiting family up in Wyoming when the outbreak happened. I was called on duty a lot until I realized there was no curing this illness… I used to be an ER doctor you see," Isaac explained, "I met Heather on a train, about two months into all of this. I think she was being sent up to Washington to live with relatives after her parents died."
"That's horrible," Mike commented. Isaac nodded his head in agreement.
"Yeah… I feel bad for her. The train derailed somewhere in Oregon. That's where we met Ronda. At first we were trying to get up into Washington to see if Heather's relatives were still… alive, but it got too dangerous. So we made our way down the coast," he finished. Mike held his question while Davy handed Isaac a mug and offered one to Ronda. At first, the older woman seemed as if she would refuse but Ronda eventually accepted the cup with a mutter 'thank you'. Davy sat down next to Mike on the lounge chair.
"How is it out there?" Michael asked finally. He was glad Micky wasn't here. If he had been, he would have demanded to know everything the newcomers knew about how the outside world was fairing.
"It's… something. Like one of those terrible horror movies. I never liked horror movies," Isaac answered, pausing to take a sip of his tea, "This is wonderful tea, thank you Davy. Anyways, if you'd have asked me a few months back, maybe three or four back, I'd have said it was bad. But the infected seem to be dying off. There are so few survivors… at least you don't meet many of them. You're the first living, healthy people we've met."
"Really? There… we're the first?" Davy gasped, a frightening feeling twisting his stomach.
"Yes. There is not much to do to escape this illness," Ronda spoke for the first time. Davy's eyes went wide and he ran a hand through his hair.
"Wow I didn't know… I didn't know it was that bad," he muttered, his voice cracking a bit. Isaac noticed the slight tremor that shook Davy's hands.
"It isn't all bad. I noticed that the wildlife don't seem to be infected, which is a bonus. And it seems that maybe we're nearing the end of this epidemic," he said in an attempt to indirectly reassure Davy.
"That's good. That's all we should hope for," Mike nodded his head, noticing and appreciating Isaac's attempt.
"Only fools hope," spat Ronda. Isaac shot her a glare. He knew she didn't like this, but that didn't mean she had any right to be rude.
"A good philosophy to me," Mike commented. He didn't seem bothered by what Ronda had said.
"So I heard from… umm… Micky that you four were a band?" Isaac inquired, searching for a new topic.
"Yeah, that's right," Davy confirmed.
"What instruments do you play?" Isaac asked.
"Well we all sort of take turns singing, it all just depends. Micky plays drums and I play the maracas… sometimes the tambourine," Davy replied.
"And I play guitar, Pete's bass," added Mike.
"That's wonderful. My brother, Jacob, he used to be in a band, although they were terrible," chuckled Isaac.
"What kind of music did they play?" Davy questioned.
"They all sort of played their instruments individually and one of them screamed into the microphone and they called that music," replied Isaac.
"Sounds awful," Mike agreed.
"Certainly was," Isaac laughed. There was a lull of silence before Mike asked, "So either of you know anything about cooking?"
"I do," Ronda said.
"Would it make ya feel more at home if we let ya cook dinner tonight?" Mike asked her. Ronda took a moment to seriously think about this. At this point, they couldn't leave. And as far as she could tell, these people seemed alright. And Mike had gained, in some sense, her trust. She could sense that perhaps her values and his values would turn out to be quite similar.
"Yes, it would, thank you," she finally answered. Isaac was happy that Ronda was starting to warm up a little.
"That's great! To tell you a secret, none of us really know how to cook decently, although with these circumstances, we haven't complained much," Davy grinned.