Chapter 19 #2
“I didn’t say anything in the previous video about being bitten because I thought I would beat it.
The fever didn’t set in as soon as the others.
I made it all the way here before I felt anything at all.
This virus, or whatever the hell it is, is already mutating.
It has to be. Even with such a small sample size, there are variations in behavior.
I saw one in Barrow on the way here that only shuffled along, he wasn’t running.
All the others I’ve seen so far have been fast. A few have seemed almost aware of their targets, calculating, and others mindless.
And then there’s the incubation period, so much longer for me.
I feel certain that it’ll only continue to change the further it spreads.
It’s almost as if it’s testing out different scenarios and mutating on the fly, which is crazy.
It’s crazy. Nothing happens that fast, but it is.
I don’t think we’ve seen anything even close to how this thing behaves.
I’m not immune, but there will be others who are.
There’s a vile of my blood in the freezer with the animal medications on the off chance anyone who knows what to do with it happens to come here.
I wish I had more time to make sense of it.
Oliver never arrived, and I fear he never got on the plane at all.
Nora and his brother aren’t here either.
I can only hope that we’ll all find each other again one day. Oliver, if you see this, I’m so sorry I convinced you to get married in the middle of nowhere. I should have listened when you suggested Costa Rica. I love you. I miss you.
Nora, I never could have asked for a better best friend.
The wildlife center is self-sustaining, assuming you can fish to supplement what grows in the greenhouse, and I know you can’t fish for shit, so I left instructions by the poles.
I left a hunting knife under the bedroom pillow.
Barrow was overrun last I saw, but there could be survivors.
Don’t trust anyone. Not anymore. Not unless he’s flying the plane that’s coming soon to take me and the rest of the animals to a reported safe zone. I won’t be making it now.
Truthfully, I don’t think you should go either. If this virus spreads to the greater population, there won’t be anything left to find out there. It could be airborne eventually and there’s no coming back from that.
I’m sorry. I love you. I’ll be waiting out back by the ocean. I won’t become one of them. There are far worse ways to go than seeing the sunrise one last time.”
* * *
The weight of each word presses down like the ceiling is collapsing over them. By the time he reaches “I never could have asked for a better best friend,” Nora feels her chest cave. The sound she makes hovers between a sob and a mournful gasp.
Theo closes the folded paper again, placing it back on the desk after reading the contents.
His wet eyes meet hers with the same sorrow she feels, and she looks away, sniffling with a shake of her head and wiping her tears off with the back of her hand.
Instead of crumbling where she stands, rage takes over in a burst of wild energy.
“Stupid. Stupid. Fuck!” She grabs the fox statue and hurls it across the room, where it shatters into a hundred jagged pieces. “Why would she do that? Why the fuck would she do that? She might have beaten it if she lasted that long. Made it all the way here, she could have gotten on the plane and…”
Her voice breaks and dies in her throat.
There’s a small window looking out toward the ocean where the outline of a body lies waiting. She stares at it for longer than she should, transfixed by the sight, anger coursing through her at the fact that her best friend gave up, even when Nora knows damn well that it was the only option.
She isn’t prepared for this outcome. The entire time they’ve struggled through the journey here, she has chosen not to dwell on the worst possible what-ifs.
It had been too heavy a thing to consider when everything else was already falling apart around them, but now that the truth is staring back at her at the edge of the ocean, it’s all she can do not to fall to her knees and let out a wail held deep in her throat.
And then she remembers Theo and what he’s lost. She isn’t the only one here who’s grieving. “Your brother. I’m sorry.”
Where she is nothing but wild rage like the storm festering outside, his reaction holds only calm defeat as he reaches out a hand for her. “Come here.”
“I really expected them to be here,” she says quietly, moving between his arms to nestle into his embrace.
“Me too.” The soft pressure of his chin atop her head is gentle, and she shuts her eyes, inhaling deep, listening to how hard his pulse flutters in all the worst ways beneath her ear. “We’re gonna make it. Me and you. We have to…for them as much as for us.”
The main door slamming on its hinges breaks the moment and abruptly splits them apart.
He takes a reflexive step in front of her and she grabs onto his arm, both of them staring wide-eyed in the direction of the noise.
There is no one else here, and unless the plane arrived while they were crying about their lost friends and family, there is no one else who should be showing up right now.
Her grief is shoved aside by the kind of dread that sharpens the edges of her usual anxiety until it’s overwhelming.
They share a pointed glance before reaching for their weapons.
They left the damn rifle further out in the main area, but they have their knives.
There’s rustling in the halls and glass shattering somewhere in the background, the crunch of heavy boots getting closer and closer until a familiar, unwelcome face appears.
“Nice place you got here.” Dalton whistles. “Thought you said you didn’t have nowhere to stay? Now what kinda person would lie like that when it’s obvious his fellow man is struggling?”
Her pulse stutters. Of all the assholes left alive, it had to be them.
There are three men pointing weapons, and Dalton motions to Theo’s knife with a click of his tongue.
“Ain’t no fair fight like this, may as well lower that now, save yourself some trouble.
” Then he points to her. “You too, weapons on the ground.
Better to show ‘em now, then let me find something later.”
“We don’t have much. Just take what you want and go.” Theo grunts, lowering the weapon because he has no choice when they’re outnumbered.
“Oh, we plan to take everything we want and then some. But, go? Go where exactly? Coulda worked this out like friends. Helped each other, even. We had to go all the way to the cabin and watch that video diary of your pretty blonde friend to get the code to this place. At least I assume that she was talking to you, considering ya’ll came right here like you knew it was waiting. ”
They doubled back and tracked them here after stumbling across that cabin and having nowhere else to go. Nora’s nerves crawl right up her spine at the implication of what it means for them to stay.
“It’s getting pretty bad out there,” Dalton continues, shrugging toward his friends. “Bad enough the normal rules don’t apply anymore if this thing is spreading and sounds like it might.”
Her mind races for a way out, as one of the others steps forward, reaching for her face with a sickening wink. “Hey Dalton, how many women do you think are left in these parts? Hell, might not be many live ones left anywhere soon enough.”
She flinches before he can make contact, and Theo lashes out with a punch to the other man’s nose, where it cracks and bends, gushing blood.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” he growls, right before the butt of a gun slams into his temple, dropping him like a rock.
Her scream rips free before she can stop it. The sound echoes through the center, tangling with the cries of the animals in their cages.
“Think we’ll be taking this whole place, and the lady that comes with it,” Dalton says. “Could be the beginning of the end of the world, after all. Gotta make do. You understand. Don’t think there are enough supplies for all of us, though. Better to cull the herd early.”
He aims his weapon at Theo, who’s dazed from the blow, and all at once time shifts and slows, narrowing her focus to this single point and laying out all her choices before her like a deck of cards.
The only one that offers her the barest hint of a chance at saving them both, is the one that sends a shiver of disgust up her spine.
Maybe all the parts of her that might panic have been blunted from so much trauma piled up together, even before she crash-landed in this place, because she has never felt as calm as she does now.
“I’ll stay with you,” she says evenly, raising her chin. “I won’t fight.”
The room stills. She can feel Theo’s gaze burning into her. Even through the blood dripping down his temple, his fear that she’ll be taken from him is clear.
Dalton pauses. “Go on.”
“I can make it good for you. You can do whatever you want with me, just let him live.”
“Honey, we can already do whatever we want with you.”
“Having to fend off someone trying to kick you in the balls or bite your dick off every time you come close is going to get old real fast.”
“That’s the only requirement? Let your boyfriend live?”
She nods.
“See, something tells me you’re gonna fit in just fine with us because that sounds like a real good deal. Take him outside.”
“No!”
“Relax. You ain’t said nothing about letting him live here. He’s going out like a dog in the kennels. Besides, we’re doing him a kindness. I intend to test out this deal first and I’m betting he doesn’t wanna see that.”
She swallows hard as the other two drag a nearly unconscious Theo out the front door, and then she’s shoved forward, almost tripping on her own two feet.
“On the bed.”