Chapter 16: Deridder, Louisiana - December 2014

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Teylor stood staring at the house where he lived for the first nineteen years of his life. A small bungalow on a sunny street, one that used to be filled with laughing children and barking dogs, and now sat silent except for the caw of the occasional bird.

The significance of the large, red X spray-painted across the side of his parents' home was not lost on Teylor, or any of his teammates. After all, this was not their first rodeo, as Wolf liked to say, cackling with amusement over the American expression. The plan, as it always was in these circumstances, was for the team to clear the house and open a few windows before Teylor would be allowed inside.

Left unsaid was the fact that nobody wanted Teylor to see his family dead, their corpses mangled both by the virus and the passage of time.

"Wolf, Burk and I will take inside. Tex and Miller, stay here with Cruz." Whistling for Halsey, Danny headed towards the front door. Rick moved forward to stand next to Teylor, providing support in the only way that he could. A full ten minutes passed before the door opened again and Danny exited, his face grim. There was no need for Danny's next words. "I'm sorry, Teylor."

"Who…who was there?" Teylor could barely push the words past the lump in his throat.

"Your parents and Eli and Oz and…," Danny hesitated, "the girls."

Teylor leaned heavily against the jeep, closing his eyes, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, fighting for control. Teylor thought he had been prepared for the news - the large X wasn't exactly ambiguous - but the words still shook him to the core. God, the girls were so little – five, four and three. Stairstep children, he had jokingly called them, because the girls were only a year apart, before telling Oz that he needed to get snipped. All he could see was the picture Oz sent. The one of them sitting outside. Smiling. Eating. Alive. How long after that picture was sent had they died? Days? Weeks? Months?

"There's a letter for you in the kitchen," Carlton added. "We didn't touch it. I can get it, if you want."

"No, I'll go."

Teylor knew that they were all watching him. Not to judge him – he knew these men better than that. But because they were worried. Worried that the news would break him the way that it broke so many others. And their worry was not entirely misplaced. Part of Teylor did want to walk into that house and never walk out again. Part of him didn't want to keep living, keep fighting, keep working for a future towards a future that seemed to contain only pain and misery. But he couldn't give up. Not yet.

Mas. Maria. The boys. Caroline.

They deserved better than him lying down on his bed and swallowing his own gun.

At the kitchen table sat three envelopes. One was addressed to Teylor, the other two for Maria and Mas. Teylor lifted the letter off the table, his finger running over his name, written in his mother's perfect script across the front of the envelope. His finger slid under the flap, unsealing the letter and pulling out the single sheet of paper inside. As he did, a familiar gold band clattered to the table. His mother's wedding ring. Teylor lifted the band, squeezing it tightly in his palm before sliding it onto the chain that held his dog tags. His eyes skimmed across the words on the paper. His mother expressed her love, her hope that he was safe, and her desire that he keep the ring for his future wife. Ignoring the tears burning in his eyes, Teylor re-folded the letter and placed it carefully in his vest pocket along with the unopened letters for Mas and Maria before walking out of his childhood home.

"What are you thinking, Tey?" Danny put a hand on Teylor's shoulder, his warm palm burning through Teylor's uniform to the numb flesh below.

"I need to bury them."

"Where?" Danny didn't hesitate.

"At the church. Mama would want to be in consecrated ground."

Teylor turned, but before he could take a step Carlton blocked him. "You should stay here. We can find it, get everything ready."

Teylor met Carlton's gaze directly. "No, I can't stay here. I need to do something."

Danny was the one to make the call. "Lead on."

Danny, Carlton, and Tex fell in step with him, Wolf and Rick remaining behind. They would follow with the bodies once the graves were dug. The men walked in silence towards the church, the bustling town center where Teylor spent hours as a child nothing more than a ghost town. They had reached the edge of the cemetery when Halsey's growl alerted them to a foreign presence.

"Padre?" Teylor unconsciously switched to Spanish at the sight of the parish priest he had known since childhood.

The elderly man's eyes widened in recognition. "Javier Cruz? Young Teylor? You must leave now! The sickness is here."

"We know, Father, we have the cure." Teylor waved his hand at Danny, who held up the CDC case he was carrying in hopes of locating survivors.

"The cure?" The man's voice trembled, as though he didn't trust his own ears.

"I promise on the Virgin Mary." Crossing himself, Teylor reassured the man. "We have the cure for the sickness, Father."

The priest collapsed in the middle of the road and, as Teylor and Carlton rushed to his side, Teylor noticed the tears streaming down his face. "God is merciful!"

"Father, please drink some water," Carlton pulled out a bottle of water out of his pack and opened it for the priest.

Teylor waited until the man had drained half the bottle. "Why are you out here alone, Padre?"

Tears filled the elderly man's eyes. "God has protected me from the illness. When all those around me died, I survived."

Immune. Even without the look that Danny shot him, Teylor knew to tread carefully. "Are there other survivors?"

"Yes, a few." The man viewed Teylor sorrowfully. "I have not seen your parents in some time."

"We found my parents and Oz at the house," Teylor replied quietly. There was no need to elaborate. "But there was no sign of Mas or Maria."

"I'm sorry, my son. Father Matias was called home." The priest crossed himself as he spoke and Teylor felt his last of his hope evaporating. "But Maria, she and the boys, they are here."

Teylor's head jerked up, hardly able to believe what he had heard. "They're alive?"

"Si. Your mama, she asked Father Matias to find your sister once the sickness began spreading. He brought them here. When the sickness became bad, the convent doors were sealed. We refused to open them for the false prophets, the evil men claiming to be the chosen."

"The Immunes," Danny noted darkly.

Father Samuel nodded. "Yes, they called themselves such. Claiming that the sickness was a plague from Our Heavenly Father. A curse on our children. Such blasphemy."

Despite the situation, Teylor found his lips twitching as he imaged Father Samuel lecturing some unsuspecting Immune. Turning, the priest began moving through the large cemetery at break-neck speed, leading them towards a small building that, prior to the virus, housed a half-dozen elderly nuns. Pulling a small bell out of his pocket, the man began ringing it, apparently a signal to those in the building.

"Praise to Our Heavenly Father and Mother Mary, we are saved! Maria Cruz! Manny! Christopher! You must come! Young Teylor is here! And he has a cure!"