Chapter 3
3
GAGE
Several Months Later
The world fell in less than twelve months.
Yet, I would be a lying man if I said I was surprised. There was no preparing for something like this. Ari and I barely made it out of the hospital, never mind the U.S. capital.
The pediatric nurse wasn’t the first man I’d ever killed, but he was the first “Infected” I’d offed while the woman who grew up like a sister to me gave birth yards away in a crumbling world.
Once my niece, Thandie, was born, we holed up at Ari and Julien’s house in Alexandria for a while, trying to find a way to reach him and Mo. But impromptu mandatory quarantine orders forced us out. We were screened and sent to a military camp in Richmond, but on the way, our bus was overrun. Then, I watched human beings take bites out of others as if mind-controlled by the devil or some darker, more nebulous entity. I had no clue if anyone but the three of us made it away from the wreck in one piece.
Literally.
We’d continued on foot only to arrive at a decimated camp. Had I been alone, I probably would have been less concerned, but I’d had an infant to worry about and a younger sister not built for this life.
That was three months after escaping the hospital.
Since then, we’d met and lost people along the way, whether through a bite from the creatures now roaming, starvation, separation from the larger group, or despair. So, for the last several weeks, it had been just the three of us, but I didn’t know how much longer that would be the case.
I stared at the thermometer I’d picked up miles back from an overrun pharmacy and prayed it was inaccurate. Yet, all I had to do was sit near Ari to feel the waves of heat emanating from her body.
“Gage,” she gripped my wrist and tried to pull it away from her forehead, “focus on Thandie.”
I ignored her and continued to pass the wet cloth over her hot skin, but she needed fluids, medicine, and antibiotics. While the “bite” did cause a fever, I’d checked every inch of her body. This was simply a good old-fashioned infection she’d picked up somewhere on our journey.
“Gage, I don’t care about dying as long as my baby lives. She’ll be okay with you. Look how far you’ve gotten us already.”
For the first time in a long time, my eyes stung.
I turned away to check on Thandie, who was asleep on a semi-clean blanket inside a plastic baby bathtub. Luck, if it existed any longer, had brought us to this empty camper. I’d had Ari stay behind with Thandie while I checked the surrounding terrain, and “luckily,” there’d been only three Infected to clear out. After checking all the trailers, this one was the “cleanest” of the bunch. Every other day, I canvassed the area to familiarize myself with the layout. If enough resources were nearby, we could hunker down here for a while. Maybe until Thandie could walk.
Ari went silent.
Panic and dread congealed in my stomach.
I hurried back, placed my hand on her stomach, and when I felt that she was still breathing, I hung my head. Apparently, to Ari, I was just another guy. Perhaps the fever made her forget how close we were.
It didn’t matter that we had different parents and looked nothing alike; we would only be closer if we shared DNA. She and Mo gave me hell as a kid, the twin terrors. Our folks used to watch, amused, as I tried to exert power using my “maleness,” only for them to beat me into the ground.
Did Ari honestly think it would be easy to let her go? I’d lost my entire family, my brothers and parents, in an accident back when I was in my early twenties.
She, Mo, and Thandie were all I had.
I refused to let her die, and there was no way a pandemic like this one had taken Mo out. Despite them coming from the same egg, Mo was born to thrive in situations where the only way out was to kick ass and take names.
“Ari, I’m going to have to leave,” I told her. “I need to find out whether there’s somewhere around here that I can get you some medicine.”
She slowly shook her head. “Gage, it’s no use.”
“Ari, don’t do that. Don’t do that whole ‘let me go’ bullshit. You’re my sister. I love you, sweetheart. I can save you, and I will.”
Tears dripped from the corners of her eyes, and she bent her head, coughing into her elbow. All that had transpired, and she still covered her coughs.
“Then take Thandie with you, and don’t argue with me. She can’t stay here. If someone…or something shows up, I can’t defend myself, never mind her. She has to go with you.”
“Ari—”
“You can secure the trailer, right?” She motioned around, her arms moving as if tied to boat anchors. “Secure it as best as you can, but please, Gagey, take the baby with you.”
I hated this.
Fucking hated it.
Because I couldn’t argue against it.
“I won’t be gone long,” I promised. “Please…just hold on for me. I’ll get you better, and then we’ll find Julien, okay?”
She smiled, eyes closed. “Okay.
I kissed her forehead, carefully removed Thandie from the makeshift crib, and fashioned the baby wrap I’d become an expert in creating over the last few months. With a few twists and turns of the woven scarf we’d had since Alexandria, Thandie was secured against my midsection in a small, colorful pouch.
She’d eaten as recently as an hour ago, but I made a bottle using water I’d boiled on the gas stove earlier, along with a tin of formula down to its last few scoops. Afterward, I tucked the bottle in my pocket, grabbed a gun and ammo, gave Ari another kiss, and left.
The trailer was safeguarded inside, so I secured whatever I could on the outside before setting off. Thandie was asleep, but I’d gotten used to having companions with me, so I spoke as if she was awake and could understand.
“Think we should tackle the new area of the map, T?” I kissed the top of her head. “We won’t be able to get through the whole thing, but we’re getting closer and closer to Columbia. There’s gotta be something there, right? Big city like that?”
There was little to nothing in the capital. Still, there was nothing wrong with hope, especially in situations like these.
We kept to the Congaree River, kept to the trees, for both safety and shade. Temperatures fell at night, but things continued to scorch during the part of the day when the sun was highest. Then, whenever we encountered Infected in places like the woods, they were always stragglers. The large groups were almost always located in more populated metro areas.
Thandie yawned.
I smiled.
Even prior to a world-ending event, I’d never seen myself as being of husband or father cloth, but it wasn’t because I didn’t like babies or marriage. It never fit my lifestyle, and I’d never found anyone worth the effort. Plus, I would never meet anyone I would look at the way Julien looked at Ari.
And, he had to.
If he didn’t treat her like the treasure she was, he knew I would take him to the Outback Regions of Australia and bury him in the golden-orange soil while he was still breathing.
I’d told him so.
Thandie smacked her lips, and her eyelids fluttered before she drifted back to sleep. Still smiling, I kissed her curly head and picked up my pace. The quicker we could get back to her mother, the better.
About an hour into our trek, we came to a bridge littered with abandoned cars. Thandie, now awake, quietly surveyed our surroundings. Although she wouldn’t understand or remember, I made sure she didn’t see what was inside those abandoned cars.
Half-opened luggage.
Seats torn to shreds.
Corpses drier than jerky.
“We’re almost out of here, baby girl,” I said. “Don’t worry. The last time I got this far, I remember seeing a building that could be some sort of hospital or clinic a small ways up ahead.”
She looked up at me.
A smile spread on her face, dimpling her cheek, and I just about melted.
God forbid something happened to me. Ari and Thandie would be sitting ducks, but that wasn’t what weighed most heavily on my mind. If something happened to me, it would be the end of my bloodline—full stop. If Thandie continued on, her Uncle Gage would remain a relic in her memories.
“You’ll see better days, baby girl,” I said, smoothing her hair. “I promise, okay? Even if it takes my last breath, you’ll see this world turn itself over. Hopefully, it’ll come back better than what it was before.”
She continued to smile.
I continued to melt.
Roughly two hours later, I saw the top of a brick building.
“T, I think that’s it.”
From what I could tell, only one Infected seemed to be lurking about, walking in aimless circles near the entrance, waiting for the scent of human flesh and the sound of human footsteps.
I retrieved my knife and placed my index finger over my lips as if Thandie would understand what it meant. Still, she remained quiet as I crept up behind the undead drone, stuck a knife through its temple, and watched it drop to the ground.
Headshots, we’d discovered by accident.
The first large group we joined held shooting sessions at their survivor’s camp. When they found out I was a former military sniper, they asked me to take part. Very quickly, I went from assistant to head instructor. After the groups mastered static targets, we brought in fresh blood.
As I’d demonstrated that, with practice, they could get as good as I was, a single headshot took the first Infected down. Then another. And another. Before, we’d assumed it was the accumulation of “injuries” that killed them. From then on, we went for the head.
After another quick sweep of the exterior, I slipped inside the urgent care center. The front door dropped me into a lobby covered in dirt and leaves and littered with overturned chairs. A few overhead lights flickered, pointing to solar power or the longest-running generator in human history. Once it became widespread knowledge that not everyone who became infected died and that the infection had hit the White House, the power grids didn’t take long to collapse.
The likelihood of us finding anything was low.
By now, anywhere that looked like it could harbor essential goods, like medicine, had likely been picked through. My only advantage was the clinic’s rural location between a thicket of trees. Hopefully, the building was easily bypassed like a woman wearing glasses in a nineties movie.
The lights flickered as I cleared each patient room. I grabbed pairs of gloves just in case. These days, everything was valuable.
The final door had a filing cabinet leaned across it—never a good sign. My senses told me that this room held what I was looking for, but someone had taken the time to seal something inside.
Maybe more than one something .
“I wish I didn’t have to get in there so badly,” I told Thandie.
Inside, I could be facing a miniature herd. Although I was skilled and a good shot, I had an infant with me. An infant whose life was one hundred times more precious than mine. And, if we didn’t make it back, Ari would die.
Alone.
As if no one cared for her.
As if no one ever had.
Thandie let out a low coo as if she’d innately sensed the tenseness of the situation.
I nodded. “You’re right. There should be windows where I can at least see what’s inside.”
I started back down the hallway.
Then, the front door creaked.
Voices followed, none of which I was familiar with.