Chapter Six #3
“I mean.” I clear my throat and try again. “If she’s still…available, I’ll take you and Chicken to D.C. on my way up north.”
“Really?” Everett blinks rapidly. “I didn’t think you’d actually agree.”
“There are zombies out there, and you almost got killed by a coat stand. You won’t make it on your own. I don’t want you or Chicken to die, and D.C. is technically on the way.” I sigh, rubbing my forehead with one hand. “Pack only the essentials, okay? And you better not eat a lot.”
A stunned silence settles over the room, until finally Everett lumbers to his feet. He really is a Sasquatch of a man to be so helpless. I find myself squaring my shoulders as he towers over me, daring him to argue with my candid assessment of his ability to survive alone.
“I don’t want to be a burden to you, Maisie.”
I tilt my chin up high. “Then don’t be. You’ll figure out how to contribute.”
After a long pause, Everett nods and exhales deeply. “Okay.” He releases another breath just as hard. “Okay,” he repeats, as if he has to psych himself up for this as much as I do. “I’ll plug in my phone and call Gemma.”
He sets off while I sit down and consult the map in my bra to figure out the new route.
I’d planned on taking the back roads up to Gramps’s bunker, avoiding the Eastern Seaboard altogether.
Still, traveling with a survival partner, even one as bumbling as Everett, might be worth the change in plans.
When Chicken settles in my lap, a sheepish relief fills my chest, calming the ever-present anxiety bubbling there.
My first road trip lies ahead, and for once, I won’t be alone.
“What’s my comforter doing over here?” Everett asks as he approaches the stairs. He leans over to scoop it up before I can yell, “No!”
“Mrs. Hensley!” he shrieks, then throws the comforter back down. He turns to me, eyes jacked wide.
“Well? A sleeping bag would be better to pack anyway.” I shoo him up the stairs. “Chop-chop!”
Everett
Gemma answers on the first ring.
“Everett? Are you okay?!”
“Oh, thank god.” I breathe out, as relieved to hear her voice as she is to hear mine. “Yes, I’m fine. Are you sick?”
“No, I’m okay, but the country isn’t. The whole country appears to be fucked.” Gemma’s voice sounds ragged and angry and scared.
“So D.C. is…”
“D.C. is full of zombies.”
My stomach drops; I hadn’t realized how much I’d hoped to hear that it was just Durham overrun by the undead, or North Carolina. Hell, even the whole South. But if our nation’s capital isn’t safe, is anywhere?
“Have you talked to Mom and Dad?” My fingers grip the corner of my bedroom’s mattress, compressing the space foam or whatever it is as though I could somehow transfer the pressure in my chest into it.
“Yes, they’re fine, too,” Gemma says, and my fingers slowly release. “Maybe we’re immune? Something in our blood? If only I could get to my lab…I could take some samples, study this thing, and figure it out before it destroys everyone.”
“Gemma, are you serious? Don’t leave your house!” My other hand flies up to the phone, too, clutching it double-handed to my face. “Wait until I get there, and then—then we’ll figure out what to do next.”
“You have a plan to get to D.C.?” Her voice fills with excitement. “Is Sandeep driving you?”
The question hits me square in the sternum. “No, he—ah. He got sick.”
“Jesus,” Gemma says, softly swearing under her breath. “I’m so sorry. What are you going to do, then? Steal a car or something?”
“No. I’m getting a ride with—”
I hesitate.
With the way Sandeep sprang last night’s date on me, I haven’t had a chance to tell Gemma about Maisie yet, and I don’t particularly want to now.
“—a friend,” I finally settle on, though Maisie’s by far the most intimidating friend I’ve ever had. “She’s going to drop me off on her way north.”
“You have a friend?” Gemma’s tone instantly downshifts into a girlish tease. “And it’s a she?!”
I sigh. I knew this would happen.
“Gemma. Are you really going to give me hell about this when the world’s literally gone to hell?”
“I have to have something to live for, don’t I?” Gemma huffs. “What’s her naaaame?”
“Oh my god.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Maisie Bennett. Now can you please stop?”
“Mai-sie,” Gemma purrs. “Is she pretty?”
“She’s terrifying.”
“So, yes, then,” Gemma says, satisfied. “This is so great, Everett! I didn’t know you were dating again.”
“A date. One. Singular. Not dating. And it ended in the zombie apocalypse, so I can’t say that it was a very successful one.”
“Wait.” Gemma’s voice gets much louder in the earpiece. “You met this woman last night? Did you spend the night together?”
“Jesus, Gemma—no! It’s a long story. Can we please stay focused on, oh, I don’t know, the end of the world?!”
Gemma audibly sighs. “You’re asking a lot of me right now.”
My god. Is there anything more frustrating than a little sister?
“And you trust this Maisie enough to go on a road trip with her?”
I glance at the closed bedroom door, considering Gemma’s question, and not for the first time. “I…think so. She’s already saved my life twice and Chicken’s once. She’s—nice, if a little strange.” I pause. “She owns a mace.”
“Wow.” Gemma whistles. “That red flag’s gone temporarily green, hasn’t it?”
“Don’t I know it.” I adjust the phone, switching it to my other hand as I start pulling out clothes from my dresser.
“Listen, I need you to stay put until I get there. You should be safe if you stay inside, especially at night. Keep your doors locked. Stay on the highest floor of your house. And no going to the lab!”
“Yes, Dad. When will you get here?”
I’d asked Maisie the same thing after I recovered from the Mrs. Hensley incident.
“Maisie estimates anytime between Sunday and Tuesday.” I pause over the nice new underwear or the comfortable, worn pairs with holes in the crotch.
After a second, I grab the crotch holes. It’s not like anyone’s going to see them, and if I die on this trip, I’d rather not have a wedgie when I go.
“So tomorrow or three days from now? That’s a pretty big range,” Gemma says, sounding impatient for the first time on the call. “She can’t narrow it down more than that?”
“It all depends on her rig—Maisie drives an electric SUV, and if we find places to stay where she can charge it, we’ll get there faster, but if we have to depend on the solar panels on the car’s roof for energy, we’ll only be able to travel a hundred miles or so a day before we’ll need to stop again. ”
“She has solar panels on her roof?” Gemma asks, incredulous. “And a mace? Is she a prepper or something?”
I guess I don’t negate this fast enough, because Gemma promptly explodes, “Oh my god, she is!”
I sigh. “Listen, Gemma, I’ve gotta pack so we can hit the road while it’s still daylight. It seems to—”
“Deactivate them somehow? Yes, I’ve observed that,” Gemma muses. “My working theory is that sunlight degrades the pathogen somehow. If I could—”
“No lab,” I reiterate, cutting her off. If Gemma ventures out alone, her tenacious curiosity could truly be the end of her this time, and I’d never forgive myself for not getting there sooner to protect her, literally, from herself. “Got it?”
“Got it, big brother,” Gemma says, her voice going quiet and fond. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Evvie. Mom and Dad will be, too.”
“If you could call them for me and let them know, that’d be good,” I say, though my throat’s gone tight again. “I love you, and please, stay put until I can get there. See you soon.” The words of our preferred goodbye phrase have never felt so loaded.
“Will do, and I love you, too. See you soon,” says Gemma, the one person I really have left.
I care about Mom and Dad, of course, and I want them to be okay, but they don’t understand me, or accept me, the way Gemma always has.
I hadn’t realized just how small my world had gotten in these numb and lonesome years after Louise died until I found my best friend’s cold body on his bathroom floor.
Gemma is it for me, the one vestige of love in human form I have left, and I’ll do anything to reach her.
Even road-trip through feral America with the most badass woman I’ve ever pissed off.
God help me.