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  But leave Cady’s? What if they had family out there looking for them? Jason’s parents could show up. If Scott and Cady left, there would be no way to let their family know.

  He spoke quietly as he smothered the panic in his chest. “What if your parents show up and you’ve left?” Didn’t she see how foolhardy it would be to leave? He couldn’t go and he wouldn’t want her to leave either.

  “I’m not leaving right now. I’m saying, if the time comes and we have to leave…” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t want to lose everything I’ve collected. We could live here comfortably for at least a year, if not longer with everything stored. If we left… we’d have to leave everything behind.”

  Their chickens, everything. The thought was sobering. “Well, let’s do everything we can to make it so we don’t have to leave.”

  Cady smiled softly. “Some things are outside of our control.” But getting the oil, at least attempting to get it, was within their control and she didn’t have to point it out.

  “So, the plan?” He wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. She had to be feeling even more tired.

  Glancing at him with shadows under her eyes, Cady took a deep breath. “We’ll leave for Beth’s as soon as we can.”

  Leave for Beth’s and take a four-wheeler neither of them had the energy to control? Scott wanted to survive the trip to get the oil. He’d have to convince Cady that taking a vehicle was worthwhile.

  Judging from the way Cady leaned heavily against him, he wouldn’t have to convince her of much.

  Chapter 13

  Beth

  Beth was trapped in some kind of painfilled limbo. The night had come and gone, but she wasn’t sure where time had slipped to.

  She shivered, cold from the lack of power and being outside in the garage overnight and well into the next day. Facing north, their garage didn’t even have the capability of collecting light if the door was open. There was no help there.

  Steven wouldn’t die and he wouldn’t stop bleeding. Blood seeped out in a very slow but consistent stream no matter how hard or long Beth pressed towels to his skin. She even tried skin to skin contact and had braved the terror of her kitchen to grab the cornstarch and try that. Nothing was stopping his bleeding. It seeped like a constant faucet and just when she was sure it had stopped, a new small red rivulet flowed forth.

  Beth was numb. Not like she didn’t care kind of numb, because she did. She just couldn’t feel. It was like some kind of a bandage had been taped over that part of her brain and she was able to sympathize and feel bad for what was going on, but not empathize, not fully immerse herself in her present reality.

  Nothing hurt. Not the way it should hurt. Not the thought of her kids dying. Not the fact that she’d shot her husband. Not that she was alone in a world that was disappearing. Nothing was getting to her. She couldn’t help but be amazed at the general calm she’d wrapped around herself. If she slammed a hammer on her thumb, would she flinch? At that point, anything was possible.

  “Here I have some water for you.” She took the water bottle she’d pulled from the small fridge and helped Steven lift his head to drink it.

  He was in and out of conscious and when he woke, she made sure to give him sips of water and bites of food. She hadn’t slept in so long and her eyelids burned as she gulped from the bottle she pulled from his lips.

  Steven woke more fully, studying her in the light from the camp lantern she’d set up on the floor a foot from them. The heat was feeble but at least it tried.

  Wincing, Steven cocked his head to the side and studied Beth.

  She reached up and pushed at a swath of hair hanging over her shoulder. “I look horrible, stop looking at me.” Steven never missed the opportunity to say how ugly she was or mention how much she’d let herself go. With how tired she was she didn’t know if she could handle any criticism or putdowns. She avoided his gaze which didn’t shift from her face.

  “Hey. I know I haven’t been… nice. I’ve been things to you that I wouldn’t be to my worst enemy.” He closed his eyes and swallowed. The silence stretched between them and Beth wasn’t sure what his point was. He continued after a moment, his voice lower. “I was a monster to you.” He reached out and scrambled to take her hand in his. “I… You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry. And for the record? You’re beautiful. I took it for granted. I wanted you to be ugly and fat and ashamed so I would be justified looking elsewhere. You weren’t the problem. I am.”

  Beth couldn’t say anything. Her teeth chattered. She shook her head. She couldn’t believe him. Did he really think that a simple apology would make everything all better? She wasn’t the woman who forgave just because of words. At the same time, she was so desperate for affection, companionship without strings, that she didn’t think she’d run away from his apology.

  “I can’t stop shaking.” She murmured.

  Steven closed his eyes and grimaced. “I think you’re in shock. Did you see the kids?” He opened his eyes and studied her, pain ripping his features into a mask of grief.

  “Yes.” She dropped her gaze, unable to face the images branded on her memory. Maybe she wasn’t as numb as she’d feared. “S.J. died in front of me. I… there was nothing I could do. They were gone about the same time.” She didn’t admit that she’d never gone for the Cure. If he knew, who knew what he would do. He would probably blame her. She wouldn’t blame him since she carried enough guilt to cover the neighborhood.

  “It didn’t look like they had been given the Cure.” He knew. The yelling would begin. At least he was injured so he couldn’t hit her. His next words floored Beth. “That was smart. The ointment drove a bunch of people crazy. Killed them faster and more violently than the illness did.” He shook his head, reaching up with his uninjured hand and pressing on his wounded flesh. His grimace said all she needed to know. He was in pain and still able to talk. Maybe his wound wasn’t fatal? Or maybe she was just an expert on being delusional.

  “Where were you?” Beth didn’t think shock was the only thing killing her humanity. Something was eating away at her empathy and her grief. She almost welcomed the slow gnawing as the darkness inside her grew. Could she possibly be blaming him?

  Steven took a deep breath, nodding softly as he spoke. “Checking on our parents. Yours are… dead. I’m sorry. Mine I couldn’t find. They weren’t at their place and their R.V. was gone, but they hadn’t packed anything and there was a plate of uneaten food on the table. The whole force left. No one… No one came back. It was unbelievable.” He gasped, his eyes growing wide. “I can’t believe how much this hurts.” He struggled to sit upright but then fell back again, as if the attempt was too much. Which it probably was.

  “I’m sorry. I thought…” Beth’s words faded. She didn’t even know what she’d thought anymore. That he was coming to get her? Was that such a bad thing anymore? Maybe she’d be dead. Maybe she’d be feeling something.

  A detached part of her had already accepted that his death was unavoidable. He was bleeding and it wouldn’t stop. His pallor suggested more blood loss than even she’d known about. The growing pile of blood soaked blue paper towels on the other side of his body testified to how much blood he’d lost.

  Beth avoided looking at the pile too long.

  Steven shook his head faintly to one side and then half-closed his eyes as if the energy he was using could only be used for one thing or the other – looking or speaking – not both. “Nope. Don’t apologize. I’m glad you did it. What if it wasn’t me? You have to always put your safety first. Always. I should have taught you that from the beginning. You might not have taken so much abuse from me.”

  “Why did you come back?” Beth couldn’t help asking. He’d always hated her. There was nothing there for him. Why would he come back? His revelations made her uncomfortable and not because she was cold or in shock or whatever.

  He studied her, surprise holding his mouth slightly open. “Why not?”

  That wasn’t a good enou
gh reason, but it wasn’t a deal breaker. If he had changed from the abusive man he’d become, she would be happy for him to recover. If he recovered, she wouldn’t be alone. That was enough of a reason for her.

  But what was the real reason for him?

  Chapter 14

  Cady

  Pure relief released Cady from the depression she fought.

  Somehow, she had pulled through the illness. She had no idea what she’d done, but she’d been able to pull through the worst part of the symptoms fairly quickly. Scott had suffered longer. Was the virus evolved enough to get in and get out? That didn’t make sense or coincide with any other virus that Cady had ever heard of.

  Cady couldn’t figure out what the goal of the virus was. If it had a motivation, then she had yet to see what it was. Finding a host didn’t seem to be a problem for the disease. It was indiscriminate, hateful of all mankind. Except there was some immunity built up in others and nothing to protect those without.

  The horrific possibility was that it would come back, like cold sores or shingles. The varicella part of its genetic makeup gave the distinct possibility that it would have viral latency.

  Viral latency was something relatively fresh in scientific discoveries around zosters, particularly varicella zoster virus. When the clinical symptoms of chickenpox seemed to resolve, the virus became dormant and then expressed itself later in life in approximately a fifth of the carriers.

  Would that be the case with this new virus? There wasn’t enough clinical evidence of enough living patients to know for sure. The fact that Cady was a walking Petri dish for the chickenpox, shingles, oral cold sores, and now, this virus, served to scare her more. What if this one reinstituted itself at the same time she got the fever blisters and the shingles? Times of stress were already overwhelmingly painful. She wasn’t sure she could survive that bout of the viral symptoms on top of everything else again.

  Chickenpox had been rumored to affect a person only once in their life. What was the saying? Once you’ve had chickenpox, you won’t have it again. Which was a complete lie. You might not have it as strong, but you could still get it. The vaccine itself didn’t even protect you from getting the disease completely. It just helped you develop antibodies that would lessen the effects of the virus.

  The vaccine wasn’t perfect and it had been around close to fifty years.

  What did that say about the vaccine for the virus?

  Rather than dwell on that fact for much longer, Cady crawled into her room while Scott disappeared into his. She paused in her search through her drawers to take a break and gather more energy. Staring at the threads of the carpet, Cady finally realized what had been bothering her.

  Suppressing it hadn’t helped as she hadn’t been able to put all the pieces together in a conscious stream of thought. Her subconscious worked the puzzle and there she was, discovering what she’d been unable to face.

  Bailey had the vaccine to the virus that had almost knocked Cady down for good. But Cady had a vaccine for chickenpox, multiple instances of chickenpox, multiple instances of shingles, and of course herpes simplex in her medical history. Even with all of that, Cady had still succumbed to the virus – the brief stint it had been. Her immune system was shored up with protection.

  Bailey had taken the unproven vaccine. That was it. She’d never had the chickenpox and she didn’t have cold sores. Her vulnerability lie in the possibilities – the vaccine might not work and if it did what every other vaccine did, Bailey would still get the disease. It was only a matter of time. Was it waylaying the infection time? She faced the unknown and suddenly Cady couldn’t help wondering if she’d condemned her daughter to a fate worse than death.

  A knock on her bedroom door pulled Cady from the fear those thoughts led her through. She dragged her gaze from the folded clothes to find Scott leaning on the doorjamb.

  He lifted his chin, shadows under his eyes stressing the fatigue he was still enduring. “You okay?”

  Cady shook her head and looked back into her drawer. “No. I mean, yes. I’m just tired, weak.” He couldn’t know the pressure on her heart. His own nephew faced the virus head-on. Bailey at least had the vaccine – even if it might kill her.

  “Yeah, the tired feeling doesn’t seem to want to go away. I’ve been fighting it, but it’s like a piece of you faded, right? Like you can’t quite grasp the motivation from before.” He didn’t say died, but the implication was there.

  Cady couldn’t agree more. She nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing. My mind keeps drifting and then I lose sight of what I’m supposed to… do.” She’d already said that.

  Scott dropped down to the carpet beside her. He reached into the drawer and pulled out a thick pair of socks. “These will work. Let’s finish getting you dressed.” He stood, using her bed frame for support.

  If Scott was still weak, how did Cady think she was going to be any help?

  Saying anything would make Scott refuse to take her. He wasn’t completely onboard with using the four-wheeler and Cady was starting to agree with him. She wouldn’t be able to stay on the back of the ATV, not when dizziness continued to swarm around her.

  “Scott, if we take the four-wheeler, it has a trailer. We can carry more.” Cady’s SUV wasn’t going to carry more than the people, not when she already had it packed with supplies. Taking a vehicle had more appeal than she’d own to.

  Scott shook his head, pulling a flannel shirt from Cady’s closet and handing it down to her. “We’ll take my rig. It’s not loaded and it has enough room.”

  Cady hadn’t considered his Bronco, she’d only thought of her own resources. “Do you really want to do that?” She eyed him skeptically. Was he just offering his stuff because he thought she didn’t want to use hers? Beth was her friend, her responsibility. Cady couldn’t let Scott use his limited resources for her.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Scott helped Cady draw on the shirt as he bent over.

  “Because… She’s my friend.” If they were going to Beth’s house, Cady wanted to bring her back, if she was still alive. That wasn’t Scott’s responsibility.

  “He’s my nephew.” His deep eyes seemed to see inside Cady and she blushed. He studied her and inclined his head while letting his hands linger on her arms. “We need to talk about this, us, but not yet. I don’t think either of us is emotionally stable yet to deal with the potential outcome.”

  What would the outcome be that they needed to be stable? Had he told her he cared only to rescind that now that they were better or getting better?

  Cady searched his face. “What aren’t you saying, Scott?”

  He smiled softly, sadness in the depths of his eyes. “There’s a lot… Let’s just say I’ve done things, Cady, and I don’t want you to deal with the fallout. I can feel the horror of it growing inside me and I don’t want you to see me when I succumb to it. I don’t want anyone to witness that.” The shadows had the shape of demons as they flitted across his eyes.

  Cady reached out, her hands shaking. “I don’t care.”

  “I do.” Grief twisted his features. “Let’s go get your friend and get some oils. I need to save my nephew to make amends.” He half-grinned as he reached out a hand to help Cady stand. “We can talk after some of my guilt is assuaged. Plus, I’d hate to see my brother in the after-life and tell him I missed my chance to save his son.” More pain that he didn’t verbalize twisted his smile with a cringing edge.

  Cady’s own guilt continued to grow. She wasn’t sure she had what it took to get them the rest of the way through the virus and its consequences.

  Because now that they had both been sick and survived, who knew what was next?

  She failed to focus on what would happen if Jackson really showed up as promised. That was a horror too traumatic to contemplate while she was still too weak to stand properly.

  But the possibility was there. If she ignored it, she could pretend it wasn’t happening for a while.

 
Chapter 15

  Bailey

  Mom and Scott pulled out even though Bailey suggested they wait until Mom’s color was back. Her pallor enhanced the sunken look to her eyes and sharpened the features of her cheekbones and jawline.

  Cady didn’t speak much, but she’d smiled hesitantly at Bailey and seemed to search Bailey’s face for something. When she didn’t see it, Cady seemed relieved. Bailey hung back as her mom moved woodenly outside to get into the Bronco.

  Bailey lifted her hand as they pulled from the drive, the motor loud in the now-normal silence.

  Jessica didn’t seem to fuss about her skin any longer. Bailey cuddled her as she claimed a spot on the couch. As the sun reached its zenith, she stood, careful to hold Jessica close. “Let’s go check the chickens and get the eggs. Does that sound fun?”

  Bailey made sure to gather eggs three times a day. When her dad had been alive, he’d cautioned her on leaving the eggs in the henhouse. When the chickens had broken one and eaten it, they’d decided to try breaking and eating a few of them which had turned into a lot of them.

  Her dad had tried retraining them on that by gathering eggs more often.

  With the power out, the light that extended the chickens’ days wasn’t working and Bailey watched for a slowing in egg production. Another thing her parents had taught her.

  With Jessica in one arm and the bucket of scraps in the other, she let herself outside through the sliding door.

  The air was crisp but warm, carrying a scent of pine and wet dirt on its edges. If she didn’t think about it, she could pretend that everything was normal and she was just running outside with one of her babysitting charges to check on the chickens. She could chase that feeling all day long. Maybe playing outside with Jessica would be good and by play she meant sitting on the swing under the large bull pine at the back of the garden.