For the next two hours, Jerome took his time scouring the woods. Dawn came and went while he meandered through the paths less traveled, doing a lot more thinking than anything else. He scuffed his boot against a slick patch of ice that sparkled like glitter and sighed.
The memory of how he'd talked to Brandon kept popping into his head without warning. He definitely owed him an apology. There was no excuse for the way he'd snapped at him, especially when his concerns were valid. Even though he hadn't seen anything livelier than a squirrel, the pocket knife at Jerome's hip wasn't so reassuring once the nightmare fog cleared. He must've been six or seven miles from camp, much farther than he'd ever ventured while working at Red Fox.
It was dumb of him to venture this far into unknown territory, alone and unarmed, and he was sure he'd be getting an earful once he got back to camp.
Jerome slowly trudged back to the UTV and dumped his armful of dry logs into the back with the others, pausing to drum his numb, chapped fingers against the frame. He had to be stronger.
By the time he drove back to camp, everyone else was awake. All eyes turned to him as he parked the UTV and climbed out. The picnic table was covered in pieces of rope, batteries, matches, and other things Clarence had been storing in his tent. He straddled the bench and was sorting the odds and ends into different tubs he had set in the snow.
"It's about damn time," he said, flashing Jerome a stern look. "Where have you been?"
Jerome fought down a sigh. He had broken so many of Clarence's rules he'd lost track - going out of camp alone, after dark, and taking the UTV without notice were just a few of his offenses - but he really wasn't in the mood for a lecture.
"Looking for firewood," he answered, motioning towards the gathered wood. He glanced at Brandon, who had surely told Clarence where he'd gone before now. The younger man stood chatting with Lauren near a cluster of trees and simply nodded to Jerome in greeting before resuming his conversation.
"For hours?" Clarence questioned, his tone haughty with disbelief. Jerome simply stared back at him, bewildered. What else could he have been doing? After a few long, tense moments, Clarence huffed and shook his head. "Whatever, man."
Rachel started over, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. She glanced at the heap of wood and gave a small smile. "Just something to pass the time or do you think we're gonna use all that here?"
Jerome fought the urge to roll his eyes. She had the subtlety of a rock sometimes. She obviously wanted to talk about the future again, just when Jerome would've been happy to discuss anything else. He grabbed a log from the UTV and set it upright on a flat patch of earth, then grabbed the ax.
"I don't think you really know what it's like out there," he said quietly, hoping to conceal their conversation from the others. He swung down and grunted as the dull blade chopped the wood into two pieces. "Maybe I don't either, all I know is what happened when me and Ben went out before...I wasn't ready for it."
"You've never really told me what happened…"
"I didn't want to freak you out." Jerome stalked back to the UTV and tossed a few logs towards his makeshift chopping block. No matter how hard he tried to keep them at bay, flashes of that day came rushing back. He'd really thought he was going to die, and it wasn't easy to see how close Ben had come to being bitten, but worst of all was the little girl. He thought of her a lot.
"The details aren't important," he said. "What's stuck with me are the things I had to do. I just kept stabbing and shooting until there was a pile of bodies knee deep. That's all I could do, that's the only reason we got out."
"It will get easier." Rachel hesitantly rubbed his back.
Around them, life carried on as usual. Marvin wandered over to join Brandon and Lauren's chit-chatting. Courtney stood outside her and Peggy's trailer, scraping ice off the windows. All of them had probably done the same as Jerome or worse, but if they carried the same guilt, they sure didn't show it. Jerome drove his ax down with more effort than before, sending the blade a few inches into the dirt.
Rachel flinched and took a little step back. Her eyes widened. "Honey," she started softly, with a hint of pity. "I know this has been hard for you - "
"Has it not been hard for you?" Jerome demanded, whirling around to face her. "Right after the plaza explosion, we stopped in a pharmacy to get something for the cut on my arm, remember?" He held out his forearm and waved it around. "Huh? Do you even remember shooting a boy in the head to get medicine for my arm? Or is it just easy for you already?"
"It hadn't been a boy for quite some time." Rachel squared her shoulders and pinned Jerome in her steely gaze.
"Whatever it might be, they're constantly in my head," he spat. "I wonder what they were like, where their families are, if maybe they could've been helped one day had I not blown their fucking brains out." Firewood suddenly seemed like the least important thing in the world. Jerome tossed the ax aside, allowing it to clatter across the woodpile. "They're with me every time I close my eyes, the man I stabbed at Fort McAdams, too. They haunt me. I hate it, but you know what? Maybe that's better than not giving a damn."
Rachel stood frozen in place. Unshed tears glistened in her eyes. "I've never seen you like this," she said, barely above a whisper. An attempt at privacy was moot by now; everyone within earshot was ogling them with varying degrees of shocked expressions.
Jerome sank down onto a log and swept a trembling hand down his face. He bit his lip so hard, he was surprised he hadn't drawn blood. "This can't be it. There's something more, there just has to be," he muttered, scrubbing at his forehead. He wasn't sure whether his words were meant for Rachel or the whole camp, or if anyone was actually listening. He just wanted someone else who hadn't given up. "You mean to tell me every single trace of government, military, FEMA, Red Cross, all of it is gone for good? I don't believe that. I can't believe that."
"We're not gonna find out one way or the other from here. You know that, right?"
Jerome sighed heavily and admitted, "Yes. I do." For Emma's sake, if nothing else, he needed to stop burying his head in the sand. He knew deep down that staying at Red Fox through winter wasn't a viable option, it wasn't even realistic, but the alternative shook him to his core.
Some naive part of him was desperately hanging onto the belief that there were traces of civilization left out there, they just had to find it.
But if there wasn't, if Anchorage turned out to be like Fairbanks with no refugee centers, no military, nothing, that was it. No civilization meant there would be no cure. It meant nobody was working to make things right again. And if that was the case, Jerome was nowhere near ready to face it.
Rural Fairbanks whizzed by in a blur of white and green. The sea of firs, spruces, aspens, and other tall trees on either side of the road were the most happy and normal things Lauren had seen for miles. She knew this route well and had grown accustomed to the abandoned cars and dark houses with boarded windows that were plentiful along the way, but something about seeing it all covered in a layer of snow magnified the gloom.
When the first whispers of something strange going on had started that summer, Lauren would have never guessed this was what her winter would be like. Survival of the fittest, with no end in sight.
Clarence sat across the aisle, legs outstretched and arms crossed tightly over his chest, giving him the appearance of a sulking teenager. He asked, "Are we heading anywhere in particular?"
"I think parking lots are our best bet," Ben answered.
Lauren frowned. That seemed like a random choice to her, almost too obvious. "What about car dealerships?"
Clarence scoffed. "I doubt they're just sitting there with keys in the ignition and tanks full of gas."
Ben grunted in agreement. "Figuring out how to hotwire cars is at the top of my to-do list once we're settled in the next place."
"To-do list?" Lauren snorted in amusement. All three of them swayed as the bus rolled over a pothole. "What else is on there? Pick up the dry cleaning, buy more eggs?"
A faint smirk appeared on Ben's face for just a heartbeat before fading away. "Something like that."
"You look at the big picture too much, man," said Clarence. "It's the little things that matter."
Ben cocked his head to the side and glared at Clarence over his shoulder. "Why don't you enlighten me since you've got it all figured out?"
The edge to his voice was a little too sharp. Clarence sat straighter and met Ben's gaze with a matching scowl of his own. Lauren held her breath, sure this was the explosion she'd been expecting, but then Clarence slowly relaxed. He chuckled and grinned smugly. "Maybe I'll just keep my secrets to myself."
Any future attempts at conversation died then and there. Lauren rolled her eyes and leaned her head against the window. She was really starting to miss Jake Turner. Almost every supply run she'd ever been on had been with him, and none were this tense and uncomfortable.
A short while later, Ben pulled up beside a curb and said, "This will do." He cut the engine and leaned forward to peer out the doors.
Beyond the cracked sidewalk, a parking lot leading up to a grocery store. Vehicles had been haphazardly abandoned among the overturned shopping carts and garbage. A long dead corpse laid face down by the front of the store but that was the only body in sight, dead or otherwise.
Ben turned to Lauren, his eyes wide with mild panic. "Did you bring the stuff?"
"Right here." Lauren produced the little rubber hose from her pocket and lifted the plastic gas jug from between her feet. She motioned to the back of the bus, where there were several more jugs for both gasoline the bus's much needed diesel. "No need to worry about fuel as long as I don't lose the taste for it."
He exhaled in relief and shook a finger at her approvingly. "At least one of us has our head on straight," he said. "That's what I want you to focus on. Me and Clarence are gonna check out the vehicles." Ben flipped a switch on the dashboard and the doors slid open.
He pulled a bowie knife from his belt and led the way out, looking anxiously towards either end of the street. Clarence trailed after him with one hand resting cautiously on his holster.
Lauren brought up the rear and pushed the doors closed behind her, pausing to give their surroundings a once-over now that she could see clearly. Loose pieces of trash gathered along the gutters and occasionally skipped down the street on the breeze. The tall, dark windows of the grocery store loomed ahead, reflecting Ben and Clarence like a mirror as they moved methodically through the parking lot. 'Proverbs 21:26' was scribbled onto the faded cardboard sign that hung from the grimy double doors.
Lauren stopped at the first car in the lot and popped the gas hatch open. She slid one end of the siphon hose inside, then sipped at the other end. Gasoline came up faster than she was expecting, and the moment it hit her tongue, she tore her head away to spit and gag, but managed to jam the hose into the jug. A few ounces of gas drizzled in, but the stream seemed to end just as quickly as it had started.
"This blows, man." Clarence approached a newer, silver car in decent shape. All of the windows were covered in a frost so thick it only smeared around when he scraped his gloved hand over it. Grumbling, he tried to open the door and threw his hands up when it refused. "What am I supposed to do if I can't even see inside?"
"Don't mess with them if the door won't open," Ben said, pinning his firm gaze on Clarence meaningfully. "I know you're eager to get a car today but we don't need to set off any car alarms." He stood a space over from Lauren, inspecting a rusty van. His hand shot into the air, silently cutting off Clarence as he opened his mouth to argue. Raspy noises came from somewhere down the parking lot. Two walkers wandered from behind a couple of vehicles near the sidewalk.
Ben said, "I've got it," and stormed off with his knife raised before anybody else could respond. He dropped both walkers with swift, squishy blows to the forehead, then returned to the van.
Clarence muttered under his breath as he stormed from car to car. Lauren followed behind him, waiting until he cursed and moved onto the next one to drain the gas tanks.
By the time they had checked the left side of the parking lot, he still hadn't found a viable vehicle and Lauren was really over the taste of gasoline.
She strolled over to Ben, who was peering under the hood of an SUV. "Have you found anything?" she asked. The plastic jug, just over halfway full, had grown heavy so she set it atop the SUV's roof and shoved her hands in her pockets, relishing the warmth as it bit away at the cold.
"Yeah, a lot of shitty cars," Ben replied. "This one isn't too bad but it doesn't want to start." He planted his hands on his hips and continued, "If I had to guess, I'd say it is just the battery. These cars have all probably been sitting here since the start."
"Might want to add 'find jumper cables' to the to-do list, huh?"
"We have some at camp." Ben slammed the hood down and shook his head irritably. "I just didn't think to bring them."
"Oh…" Lauren couldn't stop her gaze from drifting to the grocery store. "I want to go inside and check things out," she said, starting towards the building without another thought.
"That's not what we're here for," Ben said.
"Come on, we have nothing," she insisted, turning to him with a frown. "That gas can is almost full."
"Full?" His tone was somewhere between incredulous and amused. He tapped the jug with the back of his hand, sending the meager liquid within sloshing around. "You've got like, maybe two gallons," he said. When Lauren only pursed her lips in response, silently pleading him to let her do something that was actually useful, Ben sighed. He ran hand through his graying hair, further musing it up. "Just stay within earshot. If it really looks good inside, come back out and we'll all go in together," he told her, giving a nod of approval.
"You got it," Lauren replied. She strode across the parking lot and into the store. One hand gravitated towards the gun tucked into her waistband as she entered the darkened lobby.
Patches of dim sunlight came through high windows, leaving pale golden rectangles across the dirty tile. Dry leaves and twigs swept inside by the wind crunched under her boots. Empty bags and boxes littered the floor every few feet. She stepped over and pulled a plastic bag free from where it had been pinned under an overturned shopping cart, just in case she found anything worth taking.
Most of the displays and aisles she passed had been picked clean, but she did find a canister of oatmeal intact and gladly placed it in her bag. Lauren had to wonder where all of this stuff was going. They hadn't ran into any other people since Samantha joined the group, so why was everywhere they went cleared of supplies? Unless everyone else had looted these places out at the beginning and skipped town, there must have been other survivors holed up somewhere in Fairbanks.
What little fruit left in the produce section had been left to rot. All of the apples and oranges laid shriveled and brown, their over-ripened odors all but drowned out under the all-too-familiar stench of death that hung in the air. Lauren coughed in disgust and pressed her nose into the crook of her arm.
She slowly moved towards a dark, vaguely human-like figure in the shadows and halted as soon as her eyes focused. A young boy sat between his parents, eyes sunken into his rotting sockets. A large chunk had been ripped out of his neck. All three of them had gaping holes in their head, evidenced by the large crimson splatters caked on the wall behind them. The father's hand hung limply next to his leg, fingers still curled from where they'd once been wrapped around a gun.
Lauren sighed and forced herself to move on, but the image of that little family remained at the front of her mind. Neither of the parents appeared to have been bitten. They must have decided to just go out with their son, together. Losing her friends sucked, but Lauren couldn't imagine how much harder it would be if she had parents, siblings, or children to worry about.
As soon as that thought passed through her head, Lauren cringed and said a silent apology to her parents - she actually had no idea whether she'd already lost them or not. Last she knew, they were vacationing in Florida, and it wasn't like she had made any real effort to reach them. By the time it became clear that whatever was going on wasn't ending anytime soon, a trip from one end of the continent to the other just seemed too ridiculous to even consider.
She strolled down an aisle labeled 'preserves, canned vegetables, and soups' next, grateful for something to focus on. Dark shapes sparsely dotted the shelves. Pasta, two jars of apricot preserves, and a large can of sweet potatoes would hardly make a decent meal, but she swept it all into her bag anyway.
A shrill, blaring alarm shattered the silence. In one swift motion, Lauren flattened herself against the shelf and pulled the pistol from her belt. She cursed under her breath; Ben or Clarence must have set off a car alarm after all. Low groans came from somewhere past the end of the aisle, a part of the store Lauren hadn't explored. Her wide eyes darted around, desperately searching for a hiding place, only to come up blank.
Heart in her throat, Lauren ran the way she came, only to stumble to a stop at the end. Walkers poured out of a darkened section of the store. A couple wore the tattered polo shirts and slacks that comprised the employee uniforms but most donned shorts and sundresses.
Lauren surged back down the aisle once again, slowing just before the corridor ended. Her fingers twitched against the gun as she peeked around the corner. Half a dozen walkers wandered aimlessly in an open space before the dairy section, bumping into displays. They hissed and craned their heads around curiously.
The way the alarm's echoing must be throwing them off, Lauren thought, giving the gun in her hands a forlorn glance. It would be so simple to start popping off rounds, but if she fired even one shot, the walkers at the front of the store would swarm on her. Her attention moved beyond the walkers and landed on the freezers along the back wall, illuminated by the window above as if in a spotlight. The unit was tall and long enough to give Lauren an escape...if she could make it to the top.
Gunshots boomed in the distance. While the walkers were further distracted, Lauren scurried through the shadows until she reached the freezers. She pulled open the nearest door and braced her foot against the lowest empty shelf. It slipped under her weight and slammed onto the floor with a deafening clatter just as the alarm finally ceased. Lauren's chest tightened as dread fell over her.
Any of the walkers that had been leaving now had their attention on her, and all of them were lumbering towards her with purpose.
Their throaty barks of desperation launched Lauren into action. She tossed the bag of food to the roof of the freezer, then started up the remaining shelves. Her breath grew heavy and ragged as the undead neared her on every side.
As she reached the top, Lauren struggled to find purchase. Her fingers slipped around on the sharply cold, dusty metal until she managed to claw her way up. Just as her hips slid past the top's edge, a hand clamped around her ankle.
Lauren shrieked and kicked frantically with both legs. She flipped over and found at least a dozen walkers clustered together below, arms reaching for her. The one latched onto her leg strained its neck upwards, clacking teeth edging closer and closer.
"No!" Lauren screamed and delivered a kick to the walker's head. Half of the flesh on its face sloughed off, leaving a bulging eyeball. She kicked again and again until she'd caved in the front of its skull and the walker collapsed for good. She scrambled onto the freezer and pressed herself against the cool wall, knees pulled up to her heaving chest.
Her boot was coated in thick, brown muck. Shielding her face with one arm, Lauren aimed her gun at the window nearby and sent every bit of the glass flying with a single shot. Sparing one last glance to the growing mass of grabbing hands waiting below, Lauren looped the grocery bag around her arm and hurled herself out the window.
Her freefall ended when she smacked against the concrete. All of the air left her upon impact, leaving her wheezing and coughing. The gunshots she'd heard inside continued, only now she could faintly hear voices beneath the repetitive booms. Lauren used the building's cracked brick exterior to support herself as she shakily got to her feet. She snatched her pistol up from where it laid by a bag of garbage and hobbled around the corner.
Lauren stopped and blinked in shock at the sight that met her. Clarence stood atop the rusty van with his pistol raised, steadily dropping walkers with each shot he fired. There weren't as many as inside the store, but more seemed to be appearing out of nowhere. After a certain number, it didn't matter how much the cold slowed them down anymore.
Clarence's near-rhythmic firing stalled when the van began to shake from the walkers piling against either side.
"Clarence, let's go already," Ben snapped. He was on the sidewalk, looking back and forth frantically as walkers started over from across the street.
"We can take 'em. This street is too good to give up on," Clarence retorted, resuming his calm gunfire.
For a few long moments, all Ben did was stare at the back of Clarence with an angry gleam in his eye. Then shook his head and stalked towards the bus. He dropped three walkers along the way with vicious stabs between the eyes and hovered near the doors, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds.
While Clarence was focused on the biters at the back of the van, one made its way to the hood and began to climb up. He whirled around and seemed to not even aim as he dropped it with a single shot to the forehead.
Lauren moved past what cover the building offered to join the fight, pistol raised defensively. An elderly walker snarled and staggered towards her. She allowed it to get a little too close before pulling the trigger and blood sprayed out onto her coat. Ben's face lit up with surprise and he nodded to her in greeting. To no one in particular, she asked, "What the hell happened?"
"Clarence," Ben answered through grit teeth.
Two more walkers threw themselves at the van, causing it to creak and lurch forward. Clarence yelped and dropped to a knee. "Dammit," he cursed, slowly rising back up. "Forget what I said, we've gotta go." He raised his gun once more and killed enough walkers to make himself an escape route, then leapt over the waiting cluster of arms.
He landed with a grunt and ran onward, weaving around the bodies and snagging the forgotten gasoline jug along the way. Lauren anxiously waited at the edge of the parking lot, desperate to run but determined to watch Clarence's back. Once he'd cleared the walkers and had a good head start, they headed out together, sharing a knowing look of relief; this was way too close.
Ben was pinned against the bus doors by a single walker. He fought frantically to raise his knife, but his arms were underneath the walker's. Its mouth was agape and headed for his neck. Ben was whimpering like an animal caught in a trap, unable to form words, his eyes bulging in horror.
Lauren bowled past Clarence and grabbed the walker by its shirt collar. It snarled angrily as its chance for a meal was snatched away. Lauren roared with the effort and hurled it backwards. The walker toppled over and hit the sidewalk. Clarence stomped its forehead, bringing forth an eruption of sludge.
On the drive back to camp, Ben's fingers were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel he wasn't sure he would ever be able to let go.
That walker had come within about two seconds of sinking its teeth into his throat and he had only himself to ugly truth was he'd been too busy watching Clarence and Lauren, trying to decide if they were going to make it, figuring out how long he could - or would - wait for them.
Fear had turned him into someone he didn't know. Anger planted ideas he'd never expected from his own head. When the walkers were closing in and all Ben could see were those dragging feet and empty eyes, his only thought had been it was Clarence's own damn fault if they got him. He was the one who triggered the alarm by trying to get into a locked car, which Ben warned him about.
And Lauren? Well, Ben told her to stay within shouting distance. Obviously she hadn't or she would've heard him screaming for her.
Maybe it was just his guilt, but Ben would've swore they knew what he had been thinking. Something about the look in Lauren's eyes at their next stop made his heart skip a beat, and not in a good way.
At his urgence, she wound up driving behind him in an older model Buick with chipped paint they found at a post office. Clarence chose a blue Ford Escape and could've started back to Red Fox for all Ben cared, but he decided to stick around. "You guys might need an extra hand," he had said.
With both of them off in their own vehicles, Ben had the bus to himself for the next twenty miles. The sun sank lower and lower in a vast expanse of reds and pinks as the Fairbanks skyline shrunk away in their rearview mirrors. Winter was on the horizon, plunging Alaska into dusk a little earlier each day.
Ben zoned out more than he liked to admit on the drive home, eyes fixed on the road but not really seeing. A slip like that could never happen again.
His energy seemed to evaporate as he made the wide turn into camp and familiar faces popped into view. Brandon was kicked back in a lawn chair atop the Peterson's trailer. He waved hello with the hand that didn't hold a shotgun. Jerome, Rachel, Emma, and Peggy sat at the picnic table, picking at whatever was on their plates.
As Ben parked the bus in its usual place by the treeline and hopped out, Jerome smiled in greeting, then pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt and said, "They're back, Marvin."
Ben strolled across camp and stopped at the end of the picnic table, hands in his pockets. "I'm sure we'll have to get more fuel along the way but we've got a good headstart for now," he said.
"That is one ugly ass car." Peggy grimaced at the turd-brown Buick as Lauren lined it up behind the bus.
Rachel giggled and pointed towards the dining trailer. "Dinner's waiting for you in there."
The door flew open as Aaliyah came bounding out, grinning from ear to ear. She ran over to her father and wrapped her arms around his middle no sooner than he'd opened the car door. Keisha was fast behind her daughter and stood on her tiptoes to plant a smooch on Clarence's cheek. The three of them headed off towards their tent, rapidly and joyously chattering back and forth.
Ben scoffed - you'd have thought the man had been gone for days - and started towards the trailer. But he hadn't taken more than three steps before Emma''s quiet, concerned voice stopped him in his tracks.
"Ben, your leg," she said. He turned around to find her frowning and staring downward, towards his left ankle. She asked, "What happened?"
To Ben's surprise, there was a tear at the calf of his cargo pants and the material was soaked red. Red, as in fresh blood, not the brown gunk that came out of infected. His breath caught in his throat, mind racing as he frantically tried to retrace his steps and recall if any of the infected ever got near his legs.
"Were you bit?" Jerome asked. His wide eyes met Ben's and they shared a brief look of panic, then Ben yanked his pants leg up. A gash ran four inches along his lower calf. Most of the blood had seeped into his sock and dried up but the wound still glistened with wetness.
"Okay, it's just a cut," Jerome said, exhaling sharply.
Ben nodded, his heart still pounding. He still wasn't positive how he'd hurt himself, but however it had happened, he was certain walkers had played no part. The wound was too clean, not the kind of jagged hole a bite left. Ben stood up, letting his pants leg fall back down. "We both know if you get a cut like this without even feeling it, you were caught by something pretty sharp."
Rachel said, "You still need to let me take a look at it and patch you up." She took a final bite off her fork then set her utensils down. "Come on," she insisted, beckoning Ben to follow her. She stood and led the way into the dining trailer.
Even though all he wanted to do was get back to his own trailer and lay down, Ben reluctantly trailed behind her and plopped down into a dining chair once they were inside.
Rachel crouched down and examined his leg. After a few moments, she clicked her tongue and said, "You really should have a few stitches but I don't have the supplies. All I can do is stick it together with some bandaids and hope for the best." Ben chuckled at that, a quip about her bedside manner on the tip of his tongue. She moved over to a tub near the table and dug through its contents until she had her hands full, then returned to Ben.
"I'm worried about Jerome," she stated, not looking up as she dabbed an ointment-smeared cotton ball along the gash. "I know you've got a lot going on already, but I think you should know he's been acting…" she took a long pause, blinking rapidly as she struggled to come up with the appropriate word. "Weird. Just really not himself."
Ben refrained from wincing as a fiery sting shot through his calf. He thought back over the past month, trying to remember if there were any occasions his friend seemed 'off', but came up blank. Then again, Jerome could've grown a second head and he probably wouldn't have noticed for the first three weeks after Kate died. "He's seemed fine to me," he said, shrugging.
Rachel lined three bandaids over his wound and patted them down lightly. "I'll be honest, Ben," she said, her voice so low he had to lean down to hear her clearly. "I don't know if he can handle going all the way to Anchorage. He's been zoning out and having nightmares, apparently. This morning, he left camp before anyone else was up and snapped at Brandon."
She rose to her feet and started slowly pacing back and forth, hands on her hips. "He just hopped in the UTV 'to look for firewood' and was gone for hours and hours. I had a talk with him and the stuff he said would just blow your mind," she said, smiling a tiny, nervous smile. "He finally agreed to go to Anchorage, so at least there's that. But he's not letting go of anything. From Fort McAdams, to every infected he killed to get here, to what happened to you and him in Fairbanks. It's all weighing him down."
This revelation wasn't nearly as shocking to Ben as it seemed to be to Rachel. He had been questioning what the future would look like for Jerome since he arrived. Some people could adapt and others couldn't, and it was hard to tell where Jerome would end up.
"Don't worry so much, okay?" Ben kept his tone light, hoping to reassure her. "He's still alive and that's what matters. We can deal with anything else along the way."
The following morning, Clarence found that the tent he had pitched in fifteen minutes was now the only thing keeping him from leaving Red Fox Creek.
Months of exposure to the weather had left the stakes frozen into the ground and the poles thoroughly stuck together. Everything else the Evans family owned had been packed into boxes, tubs, and bags and shoved somewhere in their new car, but Clarence's fight to disassemble the tent was nearing the half hour mark.
"Christ Almighty, it shouldn't be this hard…" he trailed off, muttering expletives under his breath. He braced the prongs of a claw hammer around one of the stakes and pulled upwards, gritting his teeth with the effort. The stake popped free of its icy hole and Clarence breathed a dramatic sigh of relief.
"Are you sure you don't need a hand?" Brandon asked. He and Marvin sat at the picnic table, watching Clarence's struggle with poorly masked smirks of amusement. They had been attempting to rig up some type of fishing pole for the better part of an hour. Clarence failed to see how they were going to catch anything with sticks, twine, and paperclips for fishhooks. He was almost disappointed he wouldn't be around to see how it turned out. Almost.
"I've got it." Clarence tossed the loosened stake into the tent's ratty duffel bag before moving on to the next one. "Just three more."
Brandon looked up from the mess of twine knotted around his fingers to glance at Clarence's SUV. The back hatch was raised and revealed just how little of the cargo space had been utilized. Two tubs and a couple bags were shoved in the leftmost corner, leaving two feet of extra room. Brandon's eyebrows furrowed together worriedly. He said, "So...you're sure that's all you need?"
"We're gonna pick things up along the way," Clarence replied, grunting as he popped another stake free. He grinned and added, "Don't forget, boys, there's a whole world of supplies out there for the taking."
Brandon nodded but the concern on his face hadn't lifted. "I'm sure we still have stuff to spare, right Marvin?" He looked to the older man seated across the table. "Aren't there some old shacks around here that might have something?"
Marvin scoffed. "The lovely wildlife around here have torn the miner's barracks up, building nests and pissing all over the place." He used a pocket knife to carve a notch towards the end of his barkless, branchless stick, then continued, "Sixty some years out in the elements hasn't done 'em any good either. I can't believe Samantha slept out there as long as she did."
At the mention of Samantha, Brandon stopped fiddling with his fishing pole. His shoulders slumped ever so slightly.
Marvin inhaled sharply and spluttered, "Oh, s-sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned her in, uh...the past tense. Samantha and Jake and your sister could still come back any time," he said, nodding encouragingly.
"How long do you think Ben is gonna wait around and see?" Brandon questioned, his voice low.
As if on cue, the sound of dried leaves crunching underfoot announced Ben's arrival to the main camp. The discussion died out as quickly as it had started as he strode over to the picnic table and sat down next to his father.
Clarence couldn't help but chuckle to himself; the man's timing was perfect, and he wasn't about to let it go to waste. Too many people had been walking on eggshells around him for too long, and Clarence had never been one of them.
"Well, Brandon," he said, "Why don't you ask him yourself?"
Brandon cut him a dirty look out the corner of his eye and silently resumed his fervent knotting of the twine.
"Ask me what?" Ben looked quizzically at Clarence. "What's going on?"
Brandon gave a frustrated huff and rubbed the back of his neck. "I've been meaning to ask...you know, since we have the extra car now and all...what do you think about looking around for my sister and the others?"
To Clarence's surprise, Ben seemed to actually be considering it. He scratched thoughtfully at his chin and asked, "How long have they been gone now?"
"This is day eight."
"Psh." Ben scoffed. Any consideration he might've been giving the idea had evaporated in an instant. "Come on, man. Eight days?" Some of the rigidness faded from his posture at the crestfallen look that appeared on Brandon's face. A little more tactfully, he added, "If they're still out there, they can't have been in the same place this whole time. We'll be around here for three or four more days, that's plenty of time for them to show up if they're gonna."
"So that's it?" Brandon blinked irritably and motioned towards the exit road. "We're just gonna skip town when you know they could still be out there?"
"We just can't risk it, I'm sorry."
Brandon turned his gaze up to the overcast morning sky and gnawed at his lip for a few moments. When he looked back to Ben, there was an angry gleam to his dark eyes. "I think you'd feel a lot differently if that was your family," he said, shooting to his feet. He left the fishing pole behind and stalked off across camp.
Ben sighed, watching him go. "I'm so glad I came up here today."
"You can't take it personally," Marvin said quietly. "Think about how hard it must be to not even know whether your sister is alive or dead or somewhere in between."
Clarence scoffed to himself and focused on dislodging the final tent spike. Things would be different without him at the helm of the group. Whether it would be for better or worse...that was one more thing he was almost disappointed he wouldn't be around to know.
The door to the dining trailer creaked open and out came Rachel and Lauren. They strolled over to the picnic table together and Lauren rested her hands against the end.
"Hey, Ben," she greeted. "We could really use anything we could get at this point. Food, medical supplies, water that didn't come from a creek...more winter gear couldn't hurt either." She glanced meaningfully down at her light, thin jacket gave a tight-lipped smile. "Is it cool if I go out today and see what I can find?"
"What, alone?" Ben frowned.
"Oh, no. I'm not nuts." Lauren nodded to Rachel. "She's going with me."
Ben's eyes widened. He stared at Rachel for a long, dubious moment, then questioned, "Does your husband know that?"
"Not yet," Rachel answered, discreetly pointing to somewhere beyond the trailers.
Clarence followed her movement and saw Jerome poking around the spruce trees at the far end of camp with Adrian, Emma, and Aaliyah all three on his heels. Clarence wasn't sure what they were up to, but more than likely it had something to do with animals - Jerome's familiarity with Red Fox Creek and the signs that wildlife had been present was pretty popular with the kids. Much to Clarence's bewilderment, even finding piles of rabbit droppings had become a source of excitement.
Once Clarence had popped the final stake out, he got to work on the poles that had supported the tent all this time. They were cruddy at the joints, especially the ones on top, and his fingers were getting sore from forcing them apart after the third one.
"This damn tent!" he exclaimed. "If I hadn't put so much time in already, I'd say to hell with it. I could probably walk into the first garage I see in Fairbanks and find a better one." Whatever was going on around camp had mostly faded into the background of his focus, so his little outburst garnered some attention. Several sets of surprised, scrutinizing eyes turned to him, but no one responded. Clarence ran a hand over his mustache and returned to the tent poles, a little more force behind his movements this time.
It was as if nobody knew what to say to him, or perhaps they just didn't have anything to say. In any case, the static silence really chapped his ass. Brandon had been the only one to initiate a conversation all morning and the kid barely knew him. But the people he'd lived with, dined with, and survived with for three months? Nothing.
As much as he was beginning to wish it wasn't the case, he had grown to care about many of these people. Maybe the feeling wasn't mutual. After all, he'd expected at least some of them to join him, but they were all convinced Juneau was a suicide mission.
Rachel disappeared inside the dining trailer for a while, then returned carrying a bulging tote bag. She smiled politely as she approached the SUV where Keisha had been hanging out most of the morning. For whatever reason, she seemed to want to be alone, but had left the door open to keep an eye on things. Rachel handed over the bag and Clarence edged his way towards the car to get a peek inside. A box of bandaids, a half-empty tube of antibiotic ointment, and some other odds and ends laid among the brightly labeled cans of fruits and vegetables.
"Thank you so much," Keisha said, earnestly clutching the bag to her chest. She looked gratefully at Rachel. "I can't tell you how much this means to me."
Clarence finished forcing the poles apart and tossed them in the bag, then folded up the tent itself. The nylon fabric crinkled loudly next to his ears for the next few minutes, but he forced it into the duffel and was finally able to zip it up.
"Okay," he said, standing for a moment with his hands on his hips. "That's it." The group quietly gathered around the SUV as Clarence shoved his tent in the back and closed the hatch.
"So...that's really it?" Brandon asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise. "You're just gonna leave now?"
Clarence shrugged. "The more light we have to drive in, the better," he said. "No sense in hanging around."
Ben stepped forward and extended his hand. "Well...I wish you the best," he said.
"Thank you." Clarence accepted the handshake but kept it brief. He walked over to the driver's side door and climbed inside, then rolled down the window.
"Thank you all," Keisha said. "You've all been good to us."
Aaliyah sniffled as she hugged Emma. "I'll miss you."
"I'll miss you t-too," Emma said, her shoulders hitching. She pulled away from her friend and ran to where her father and mother stood, burying her face against Jerome.
"Alright, alright," Clarence said. "Come on, Aaliyah, hop in. And no more tears, sweetheart. This is a good thing. We're going to find somewhere that's good for us, and that's what they're going to do too."
He forced a friendly smile to those who stood outside and started the engine. Once Keisha and Aaliyah had both buckled their seatbelts, Clarence waved a final goodbye and drove out of Red Fox Creek for the last time.
