Chapter 8: Not Lookin' Too Good
Two weeks. That's how long they'd been on the road. Two weeks. Fourteen days. Three-hundred-and-thirty-six hours. Twenty-thousand-one-hundred-and-sixty minutes. One-million-two-hundred-nine-thousand-six-hundred seconds. One-million-two-hundred-nine-thousand-six-hundred seconds seconds since they'd left Michigan. One-million-two-hundred-nine-thousand-six-hundred seconds seconds they'd been on the road.
That's two weeks since Hiccup had seen his childhood home burn to the ground and left the only place he'd ever known.
Hiccup and Toothless had done little else but walk. Walk and travel. Walk and travel. Travel and walk. Travel and walk.
Hiccup would've liked to drive, had they been able to. But every time he started up a car and got it moving, it wasn't long until the roads lead them to a town or city where the cars left abandoned were packed so tight, there was barely enough room to walk between them, much less drive. So the two were left to walk most of the time. A boy and his dog, backpacking it across the country.
Every night, they'd set up camp with what supplies they had, either barricading themselves in some abandoned car or house, or when they had no other choice, setting up a tent by the side of the road, camouflaging it against the infected and possible marauders as best they could with branches and mud.
After camp was set up, the two would eat, with Hiccup cooking food for the both of them. He'd spoon the beans or veggies or meat right out of the can with the two of them laid out in the grass outside their tent as they watched the sun set every evening. One scoop for him. Then one scoop for Toothless, the dog lapping it straight off the spoon, with Hiccup giving it not one thought. The pattern continuing until the designated one can for the night was gone.
Then they'd take a good twenty or thirty minutes to just do…whatever. If the day hadn't been too long or tiring, they'd play catch. Hiccup throwing a battered ball or broken branch across some abandoned stretch of interstate for Toothless to retrieve, enthusiasm abounding, until the sun finally set, submerging the pair in uninterrupted darkness.
Days like that were not the norm. More often than most, they'd end the day exhausted. Most days consisted of the pair covering twenty to thirty miles in a day. More than once, they'd come across a wrecked city or pile-up of cars that usually required climbing or sorting through rubble to find a safe path. Not to mention the number of times they'd ended up running or fighting for their lives amongst a collection of the infected.
It was days like those, the long, arduous days that could leave Hiccup weak at the knees, or Toothless with scraped and bloody paw pads. The days were the only thing that seemed to matter was to keep moving forward. To keep plunging on. To follow the maps. Aim for D.C. Just keep your eyes straight ahead. Don't think of today, don't think of tomorrow, don't think of yesterday. Just think of moving forward.
It was those days were the two would just continue to sit under a clear sky outside their tent after they'd finished their can and their fire began to die down. It was those days that Hiccup would talk. He'd talk and talk to Toothless as if the dog could understand every word. And there were times when Hiccup swore he could. He'd talk about anything. He'd talk about everything. The most recurring topic being that of his mother. Now and then, he'd talk about his father, though he tried to stay away from the subject, the memories still recent enough to rub his voice raw and make his eyes sting.
When the topic of his father did come up, Hiccup could only find good things to say. He'd talk about a fight they'd had and how he realized that his father was somewhat right in his argument. Or he'd mention how much he wished they'd been able to just drop it all together. For the year or two before the epidemic hit, that's all Hiccup and his father seemed able to do. Fight. Fight about this. Fight about that. Fight about how Hiccup should join sports. Fight about Hiccup leaving for college two years early. Fight about how much they fought. Day in and day out, it only seemed to grow worse with time.
Looking back, Hiccup wished with his whole heart that they would've fought just a little less. That they could've gotten along better. Like they used to when Hiccup had been younger. Father and son against the world.
But more often than not, the subject would fall to his mother. A woman that had left Hiccup and his father when Hiccup was still barely tall enough to reach the top shelf in the refrigerator. A woman that had meant everything to Hiccup when he was younger. And now, Hiccup wasn't sure if this was a woman that still even mattered.
It'd been two weeks. Two weeks Hiccup and Toothless had been out on the road. Two weeks sine they escaped from the raging inferno that they had once called home.
Dinner had finished. The fire was burning down and the can of Bush's Baked Beans was empty. Hiccup chucked the tin can as far as he could into the woods next to the interstate they were camping out by. Littering and global warming used to be an issue. Something that was all over the new, taught in schools, discussed in important debates. The future of the environment. The future of the world. Well, the world had gone to shit and it looked like that's how it's future was going to end up as well. Hiccup couldn't give two shits about littering. If anything, maybe some infected bastard would trip on the can and break its neck.
After dinner had been cleaned up, Hiccup and Toothless settled in. Today had been a long one. Thirty-two miles, from what Hiccup could determine. Some of it over army barricades that had been set up as an attempt to keep the infected at bay, only to be abandoned days later. Hiccup propped himself up against one of the supports of their tent and lifted his arm for Toothless to snuggle on up to him and rest his furry head in Hiccup's lap.
After a few moments of silence and watching as the sun began to sink towards the horizon, Hiccup dug his hand into his pocket and fished out the small picture. The picture of a woman with greying hair and eyes like his. A woman that had left Hiccup and his father when Hiccup was still barely tall enough to reach the top shelf in the refrigerator.
The picture had been folded and unfolded over a hundred times in the past two weeks. It was beat up, dirty, cracked and wrinkled. Even torn in one place. But it was still clear. Clear enough to show the woman smiling on the front. His mother.
Hiccup let out a sigh and turned the picture over to reveal the message on the back.
Washington, D.C. Come find me when you're ready.
Be brave, my little viking.
"Toothless, are we doing the right thing?" he finally asked, breaking the silence of the late evening sunset. "Going to D.C. to find her?"
His response was a pair of concerned green eyes looking back up at him, accompanied by a small whine that told him that the lab would fallow him to the ends of the Earth. Hiccup looked down and smiled at his friend. He let his hand fall to ruffle the black lab's scruffy head.
"I mean, I don't even know her," he said, still running his fingers over Toothless's head as the dog's tail began to whip back and forth happily. Hiccup turned the picture over again to the front, looking at his mother as she continued to smile pointlessly at the sky.
"I remember when she left. I woke up one morning and she was just…gone. I knew first thing that morning that she wasn't there any more. I knew because she'd always wake me up laughing and giggling. She'd come in, and snatch me out of my bed. Pick me up and pretend to fly me around my room, calling me a dragon rider, laughing the whole time. Then she'd take me out to the kitchen and we'd all sit down together and have breakfast with my dad there and we were a real family, you know? Not just some sit-com, or some sappy Disney family. A real one.
"And then, one day, she never came in to my room to wake me up. I remember coming out of my room sometime in the morning and finding my dad at the kitchen table, eyes red, shoulders slumped. I never asked what had happened. I just knew Mom was gone.
"She left this under my pillow," Hiccups said gesturing towards the picture in his hands. His eyes had begun to tear up, his nose starting to run. "Like some twisted gift from the tooth-fairy. Letting some six-year-old know his mother had left him and not telling him why." His voice cracked and Hiccup's words came stumbling to a stop.
He looked down at the picture in his hands. He swallowed and pushed back his tears.
"It doesn't matter, anyways," he said as he folded up the picture again.
"It's the only place we have left to go, right Bud?" he asked looking down at Toothless again as he slid the picture back into his pocket.
Toothless let out a happy bark in agreement and leapt up to lick at Hiccup's face. He laughed, wrapping his arms around his best friend and reveling in the comfort of knowing he had at least one last soul that cared about him.
Later that night, Hiccup woke the both of them with a fit of coughing. The two slept together in the sanctity of their tent, both relying on Toothless's senses to wake them if one of the infected came by. The coughing fit was harsher than the others, loud enough to wake Toothless and rattle the tent.
After the coughing had died down, Hiccup pulled away and looked at the palm of the hand he'd been coughing into. It was speckled with blood.
As the pair had continued to travel over the last two weeks, it became apparent to Hiccup that they were about to encounter some serious issues. Or more specifically, he was about to encounter some serious issues.
The blisters and burns from the fire had yet to heal since they'd left the house, especially the ones at the end of Hiccup's stump caused by his metal prosthetic. He had tended to them as best he could, which wasn't too good, considering the fact that he'd neglected to pack any medical supplies. They weren't able to scavenge any, either. They'd tried their best to keep out of towns as much as possible. Those were dangerous. Areas that were originally highly populated were still populated, only not by humans, but by the walking dead. The best the two could do was raid one house with every town they'd come to, not being able to chance the danger of staying longer to raid others. Though this had been working so far in terms of finding food and a few other necessities, they had yet to find a single house that had any medical supplies.
Maybe it was just their luck. Maybe fate had dealt them a shitty hand. Maybe they just didn't know how to pick their houses.
Whatever it was, it meant Hiccup had two week old burns and wounds that had not been treated properly. And though he'd been studying medicine at uni before the hit of the HSE and knew quite a bit about how to treat a wound, there was only so much he could do with some-what clean water and some grungy strips of clothing. Almost all of his blisters had popped by this point, creating open wounds that were susceptible to infection. Having most of them where his prosthetic could dig in and rub them raw wasn't helping the wounds to heal any faster, either. His skin had started to swell in some places, creating angry, red blotches. A few of his burns and blisters had began to fester, filling with puss and bile, and lord only knew what else.
Not to mention the smoke that still rested in his lungs. When he was younger, Hiccup had been the geek of the school. The nerd, the dweeb, the embarrassing dork. The picture made complete with scrawny limbs, braces, glasses, and asthma to boot. As he grew older, Hiccup managed to grow out of these few identifying traits (as well as the bullying). His eye-sight grew better, the braces came off, and he bulked up some-what. Even his asthma became less of a problem, to the point of eradicating any need of an inhaler.
Unfortunately, asthma never disappears. Not completely. And it looked like it was coming back at the worst possible time.
Due to Hiccup's already existing lung issues, his body was not able to completely expel all the smoke that had invaded his lungs from the fire. The poison was still festering inside his breathing organs, building and damaging his tissues and muscles. Hiccup wasn't sure what would happen if it was left there, but he was sure it couldn't be good.
He'd often found himself waking in the middle of the night to coughing fits, his body doing its best to get rid of the smoke that refused to leave his lungs. The hacking had grown so bad that it had caused him to vomit at times.
Hiccup looked over at Toothless, the dog having started whining with concern at his master's coughing fit.
"Doesn't seem to be looking to good, does it boy?" he asked as he reached over and gave Toothless a reassuring rub of the head.
How many day's had it been? He couldn't be sure. How far had he gone? Again, not too sure. He just knew he was somewhere in the middle of Ohio. He'd stopped being able to read the map a day or two ago.
He couldn't take more than two steps before falling into a coughing fit. The burning in his lungs was excruciating. He relied almost entirely on a walking stick he'd picked up to get anywhere.
Their average milage of twenty miles a day dropped to eight. They'd have to stop every few feet for Hiccup to cough or rest his aching and blistering stump.
The days had dragged by, and they had yet to find any medical supplies to help Hiccup. The wounds were becoming infected instead of healing. His lungs were clogging up instead of emptying. He had a fever. It burned him up more than the fire had. He was sweating. It was affecting his brain, as well. His thoughts were scrambled and reality started to mix with fantasy. The skies filled with dragons. All signs they came across pointed towards Washington D.C., whether it was the right direction or not. A woman's laughter filled his ears that strangely familiar. He could've sworn he'd heard Toothless talking to him in English at one point. Nothing made sense. He struggled to see in a straight line, much less walk it. They couldn't risk going into a town to find medicine. Not in his state. It would only be a matter of seconds before they'd stumble on the infected once in a city, and Hiccup was in no condition to run or to fight.
It'd almost been three weeks since they'd left home. Every time they had to stop, Toothless would whine. Paw at Hiccup's legs, lick at his face. Do his best to convince his master to stop. The more they walked, the sicker he grew.
Only Hiccup wouldn't stop. He couldn't. D.C. was his last source of hope. He and Toothless hadn't come across a single living soul since they'd been on the road. Healthy humans might not even exist any more. He might be the only one left. But there was still the chance. That last glimmer of hope that his mother was alive and healthy and waiting for him in D.C. That one last chance that he had family left. Someone who cared about him. So he kept trudging on, eyes trained on D.C.
The two stopped early that night. They came across a small neighborhood, completely abandoned. Not a living person in sight. The second house they came to was empty. No dead bodies, no corpses, walking or otherwise. Hiccup stumbled in through the front door, Toothless loping along side him.
Hiccup fell to his knees under the weight of the bags he was still carrying. He dropped them and left them in the entryway to the house. He was so tired. Exhausted beyond description. Everything was pain. Everything was heat. He was on fire, the fever cooking his thoughts and reasoning until all he had were delusions and hallucinations.
It was Toothless that found the house. He was the one that nosed his way in through the open door and sniffed around to make sure it was clear. He was the one that dragged his master into the house by his pants leg, hauling him along to somewhere the dog could sense was safe.
Hiccup fell onto the couch in the front living room of the house. He was two seconds aways from passing out right then and there, the fever consuming him completely.
And then something caught his eye.
A stereo.
Small, sleek. Probably ran on batteries. An iPod was still hooked up to it. A thought floated into his head. Wonder if it still works. Suddenly, his priorities were skewed. The fever had baked his brain, screwing with his survival instincts. Sleeping wasn't what was most important now. That stereo was. He didn't know why. He just had to make sure it still worked.
Hiccup stumbled to his feet, much to Toothless's dismay. Hiccup needed to rest, that was obvious. The lab let out a whine and pulled at his master's pants again with teeth, trying to get him back to the couch. The dog did his best to refrain from barking, knowing the sound could draw any infected people to them.
Hiccup ignored him and continued towards the stand alone stereo system. His legs gave out and he fell to his knees as he made it to the stereo. The table that the stereo rested on was still within reach and Hiccup stretched to hit the on button.
It came to life.
The stereo turned on, it's face lighting up. Looked like it still had working batteries after all. Hiccup fumbled for the iPod, fingers numb as his mind began to fog over. Something nagged at the back of his brain. Something about batteries. How they shouldn't be wasted now that the world had gone to shit and there was no more electricity for things to run on.
And something else. Something about noise. How it was bad. Attracted sick people or something.
Hiccup pushed the thoughts away. He didn't care any more. He hadn't heard music in so long. He used to listen to it all the time. Lock himself in his dorm room and blast Beethoven when his roommate was still at class. Walk around campus, headphones screwed in, blasting Mozart. He just wanted to hear music again.
So, with a few quick touches, Hiccup turned the iPod on. Found the music. Thank gods. It had a classical playlist.
With one last tap, the stereo started blasting. Johann Sebastian Bach's Overture in the French Style rang throughout the house, piano keys singing out, spilling out of the windows and resounding through the street.
Hiccup fell to the floor, finally losing the battle as the fever overcame him. Toothless started barking. The music rang out like a beacon. The situation wasn't looking too good at all.