Try Hard: a post-apocalyptic thriller (180 Days and Counting... Series Book 7) Read online

  Why, then, with so much pain was she so calm? It was almost like the injury was one more thing to shut herself off to. She didn’t care.

  Beth clenched her hands in her lap, ignoring the hot blood soaking down the front of her. There wasn’t a lot, but it was warm and it was spreading.

  The drive to Cady’s home felt like it was forever and a day. In reality, it was more likely only ten minutes on the backroads. The sun slipped behind the mountains in the distance and evening set in. It was almost time to make dinner. Wait, Beth wouldn’t be cooking for her kids anymore.

  She blinked long and slow, refusing to inspect that train of thought any more. She didn’t need a reminder of what she’d lost. She didn’t care.

  Afternoon light faded as the sun dipped below the tall pines and tamaracks around Cady’s place. They turned onto the drive and Beth breathed as shallowly as possible. The less she moved, the less the burning consumed her. At least she tried to tell herself that.

  Pulling in front of Cady’s gate, Scott climbed out slowly, walking to push open the gate and climb back in the rig. He moved with painstaking deliberateness like he might fall over if he walked too fast. How had Beth missed how tired they were? Was she so wrapped up in herself that she couldn’t see past the nose on her face or the loss in her own life?

  Scott returned to the driver’s seat, pulling himself up with an oomph. The rig rumbled forward, the lurch bringing another fresh wave of pain to Beth’s upper body.

  They continued driving toward the house, apparently too tired to stop and close the gate. Beth considered suggesting it, but figured if it was important enough, one of them would say something or do something.

  Plus, it didn’t seem to matter that her fingers were pressed to the jagged flesh by the rounded part of her shoulder. No, the heat of her blood pulsated around her fingers. She’d been hit worse than Steven had been, but the pain was like a broken bone more than it felt like anything else. What if she had shattered the bone? That arm would be worthless. She wouldn’t be able to do anything for a very long time.

  If only she had enough guts to palpate the area a little bit more, but she was too scared of how much it would hurt to feel around.

  Scott pulled in front of the garage, having taken the left in the fork of the drive and bypassing the house altogether. They probably wanted to transfer the oil supplies to the garage before they fell over from exhaustion. The house was deep in shadows, making everything hard to see as they parked.

  Beth understood. She had to say something to Cady about her wound, but she wasn’t ready yet.

  She somehow didn’t want to move or say anything at all. She didn’t want to put forth any effort in anything. Weakness spread over her and she just wanted to sit there a while longer.

  Thankfully, Cady and Scott took a while to climb out of the Bronco and Beth took advantage of the extra time and the very dim light as the last rays of the sun reached across the sky.

  It suddenly occurred to Beth that if she wanted to get out, she had to hurry before she passed out in the back of the car. She moved jerkily from the back when Cady popped the seat forward. Beth blinked, reaching for the doorway to wrap her fingers around the edge as she tried lowering herself out.

  But she slipped, falling to the side and landing on her knees on the ground outside of the high vehicle. The onslaught of more pain from the fall and from being shot sliced through her numbness and she cried out. Rocking forward, she dropped her free hand to the ground to stabilizer herself and she hung head. Gravel met her grasping fingers as she searched for help, some kind of relief. But nothing came.

  Cady turned back, rushing back to kneel beside Beth. Up close, she studied her friend, her eyes wide. “Beth! You’re shot!” She looked up, searching for Scott in the shadowy darkness. “Scott! Beth was shot!” He didn’t reply. “Where did he go?” Cady squinted, trying to see Beth’s wound. “I need more light. I can’t do anything like this.”

  Beth shuddered, shaking off the pain and wrapping her emotional numb cloak around her. She used her uninjured side to push up off the ground. “Let’s get some oils together for Scott’s nephew. Can you patch me up while I get stuff mixed?” Beth reached out, stabling herself by grabbing onto the Bronco and studying Cady’s fuzzy shape.

  “Yeah, let’s go.” Cady wrapped her arm around Beth’s shoulder and helped her limp toward the front of the house.

  They stumbled alongside each other. Beth laughed, shaking her head, even as she grimaced. “I’m not sure either of us is helping the other.”

  “Well, if we fall, we fall together.” Cady sniffed, a smile in her voice.

  “I need to stop, just a sec.” Beth stopped moving her feet and leaned her butt against the side of the garage. She was tired, but she also needed to catch her suddenly short breath. After a second, she lifted her gaze and sought out Cady’s shadowy form. “What happened? Do you know?”

  Not about the shooting, or the dash from Beth’s house. Cady seemed to know that Beth asked about all of it. How had everything dropped out from under them?

  Cady shifted to lean beside Beth, her words soft and apologetic. “I’m in the thick of it, Beth. An old… I don’t know, friend? Of mine did all of this.”

  “What? How could one person do all of this?” Maybe Beth hadn’t heard her right. Maybe her pain was creating a delusional moment and nothing was real. She blinked to clear her mind but realized her mind was already clear.

  “Do you remember when I used to message Jackson?” Cady’s voice had dropped into a whisper and she crossed her arms.

  Jackson. Beth remembered the late nights Cady would stay up on the computer while Beth would try to sleep, listening to the constant clicking of the computer keys. Cady would mention him with ‘Jackson said this’ and ‘Jackson thinks that’. She’d even started arguing with her professions based on the information she got from Jackson. She’d taken radical steps and challenged authority and Jackson had been at the root of it all.

  Beth reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please, tell me, you didn’t do this. Please, tell me that…” Was it possible to feel unmitigated anger toward someone who had saved you? Someone who was like a sister? That anger and hatred reared up inside her and Beth tamped it down. She had to let Cady explain. Beth owed Cady that much. But something inside her didn’t care what Cady had to say.

  “I didn’t do this, but Jackson took the things we talked about and… acted on them. He made a strain of a pox, I think it’s a cross between shingles and smallpox. It’s not as deadly as I think he planned, but then he released the Cure and that killed people the virus didn’t. He used some kind of toxin. I… I didn’t do this, but I think I had a part in it. I’m not sure where my fault is.” She sniffed as if she were crying, as if she hoped for absolution or some kind of understanding from Beth.

  Beth didn’t say anything as she turned toward the front of the house and the deck. She had to sit down. There was just too much information she had to process and her wound made it difficult to do anything but breathe. “I have to sit down.”

  Cady fell into step beside Beth and wrapped her arm around Beth’s waist. Beth didn’t shrug her off, even though she wanted to. She was too tired and focused to do much more than try to walk at the moment.

  A small ice berm made of melted and then refrozen snow created a slight obstacle as they trudged along. At the front of the deck, Cady helped lower Beth to the porch and stopped, peering into the shadows in front of the house.

  “What…” But she didn’t continue as she gasped, rearing back and covering her mouth with her hands. “I… I need to turn on the generator. I can’t see.” She disappeared, walking rushed but slow like she was pushing her body past what she could do. The soft click of the west-facing garage door closing broke the sudden silence Cady left behind with Beth.

  Leaning to the side, Beth rested her cheek against the cool vinyl post at the top of the few steps to the deck. Wrapping her arm around the post, in case she decid
ed to pass out, Beth took a steadying breath. She much preferred the physical pain her body was enduring to the emotional onslaught of torture she would have if she looked into the events of the past week or so. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t do it. Searching the illogical deaths of her children, of the world, she allowed her anger to rise up, smothering the sadness and loss.

  If it hadn’t been for that virus. That stupid virus, then Beth never would have lost her family. If it hadn’t been for Cady and Jackson, that virus would never have been created. Beth didn’t need to know the details behind it. Cady had all but worshiped Jackson and everything he’d said and theorized. His statements didn’t even need to be scientifically backed and Cady espoused them like they were gospel.

  No, Beth adored her friend, but even lifelong friendship wouldn’t tolerate the unforgiveable actions of Cady. It wasn’t right. Beth had to do something about it. She had to do something to get revenge for the world. But how did she do that? How did she do anything when she’d been shot and had to gather her strength to move much?

  The loud rumbling of a small four-stroke engine filled the night quiet, muffled behind the walls of the garage. A moment later, lights came on, flooding the house and the front yard.

  Beth blinked at the sudden view of a grisly scene before her. A young man with black tar-like liquid seeping from his orifices, bloody, and shot, lie half-on and half-off the porch like he had dragged himself from the bed of icy rocks where he looked to have fallen.

  Staring despondently at the body, Beth arched an eyebrow. Looked like she wasn’t the only one losing loved ones.

  Chapter 19

  Jackson

  Pulling off the empty US-95 and then left off the exit ramp, Jackson searched for a gas station. There had to be one. A blue information sign had promised there was gas and grocery on this exit. He wasn’t dumb enough to think the station was open, but that was his best bet for a map of some kind.

  The drive had taken longer than he’d planned. He wasn’t used to the stretched-out distance between the towns. Jackson reached the exit with barely enough gas. He had to get more or get a new vehicle before he could go any further. The sole purpose of the gas station was to find a map.

  That’s what he needed. Directions to Cady’s. He had gone as far as he could on his own.

  Knocking on every door he came across wasn’t the best way to find a woman in the woods. No, Jackson would rather just get the information from someone. It would be less effort to torture them than to wander aimlessly or even read a map. He’d do the map thing, but it wouldn’t be his first option.

  A red and white sign flagged him down as he passed under the bridge carrying the freeway overhead. He turned left, pulling into the parking lot of the gas station on the south side of the road. The town was a blip with a large grocery store on one side of the highway and small businesses – maybe a handful – on the other. Intermingled with buildings that looked like they had at one time struggled for a foothold in the town’s economical growth were dilapidated buildings with half a roof or broken out windows.

  Only one lone Toyota pickup, maybe from the 1980s, with a rusty tailgate and a dented in canopy straddled a line between parking spaces. The truck wasn’t running, but it had the look of waiting readiness.

  Did that mean someone was inside? Jackson hoped so. He was getting tired and bored with the constant searching. True, he hadn’t really tried yet, but he could tell he didn’t have it in him to search every house for a survivor. He was too close to the end of his journey. He just wanted to find Cady and sit with her on a couch, any couch. He needed a moment of normalcy before he took over the world.

  That was one thing Jackson hadn’t truly considered. He knew to expect loneliness and change, but he’d been in one long travelogue and when he wasn’t on the road to get to Cady he was killing his family, fighting idiot cowboys, and trying to survive in a motel in some town he didn’t care about. All of that was taking its toll.

  If he had it to do all over – causing the end of the world and all that, he would have taken some psychology classes, maybe gone in for some counseling to prepare him for survival with the right mindset. He knew he was a survivor – look at what he’d survived! The Cure and the vaccine, for hell’s sake. He was a survivor of the highest order.

  Even knowing all that about himself, he couldn’t help wishing he had been prepared to deal with the inkling of doubt. He didn’t doubt his actions. No, he would never do that. He’d done the right thing and he would reap the benefits sooner than he’d hoped. What he doubted included Cady and his plans to repopulate the earth. What if there were too many survivors? What if they weren’t the type to follow anyone?

  He couldn’t control that, but he wanted to.

  Jackson sighed as he parked beside the empty truck in a handicap spot marked with a blue sign and faded blue and white paint on the ground. He reached up, rubbing his lower neck. He was sore. Probably from when he’d been incapacitated from the ointment toxins. Those toxins took some time to work themselves out of one’s system. He needed to drink more water and cleanse his body better.

  The neurological issues alone should have flattened Jackson for more than a week. Instead, he’d survived in less and he’d gotten back to the plan. Further proof that he was more amazing than he was giving himself credit for.

  He rolled his head on his shoulders, straightening his back, and then he grabbed the gun he’d taken from Norman.

  Looking around, Jackson slid from the van. He wasn’t giving up the vehicle for anything. All the food alone was worth siphoning a few gallons of gas. He didn’t have the time to transfer everything from the van to the truck. Taking the gas would be nothing, if there was anything still in it.

  Shutting the door behind him, Jackson peered into the window of the truck, searching for a hint of who could be in the store. A garbage-cluttered floor and seat didn’t give him any clues. He approached the double-doors. Would he have to break through the windows?

  Shattered glass littered the concrete and Jackson carefully stepped over the empty frame. He didn’t have to break anything. Man, things couldn’t be any easier. He narrowed his eyes as he hesitantly pushed further inside the store.

  The store had been surprisingly preserved with many items still in their spots on the shelves. The cash register’s door hung open, the empty slots a testament to what had been valued at the start of the whole thing – a sign of the initial stupidity running through the world – if not the world, then just Athol, Idaho.

  A crinkling of wrappers pulled Jackson’s gaze to the back of the store. As he turned on the ball of his feet, he searched everywhere else, but the dying light from outside was fading fast and seeing clearly was getting harder and harder.

  Deeper in the dark bowels of the store, a light flicked on a split second then disappeared. Jackson headed in the direction the light had come from, walking around the end of an aisle and coming to a stop. He couldn’t see who was back there, but he could tell it was only one person. “Hey.” Jackson murmured.

  A flashlight turned on, shining in his eyes a brief moment before pointing toward the ground. The light reflected off the linoleum and illuminated the area better.

  Jackson blinked the bright spots from his vision, taking a few seconds to adapt.

  “Oh, hey, you must be new up here, man.” Scruffy hair brushed the collar of his t-shirt and matched the dingy brown of a patchy beard covering a young man’s lower half of his face. He wore tortoise shell styled glasses and a Nirvana t-shirt that was horribly stained.

  “Yeah, I’m new here.” Jackson stepped back, holding the butt of his gun tight in his grasp, but out of sight behind his thigh. Why wasn’t the guy worried or even a little scared?

  “That’s cool. If you want to smoke anything, you need to help deliver some groceries. I know there isn’t much, but it’s all we have access to.” The man grinned, his teeth rotted along the edges.

  “Deliver groceries?” Jackson looked around at the
small selection of food that hadn’t been completely picked over yet. With such a small population in the area, maybe there weren’t very many survivors or maybe they were still in the middle of the sickness. That far out in the rural community would slow down their exposure to the disease, but would leave stores unattended. The looting would start after people realized they actually were in need. “I thought people out this way would be more prepared.” He left the question dangling in the air.

  Small towns usually prepared better for those types of things – for apocalypse-type of things. At least, Jackson had always assumed that.

  “Most of them try to be, but there are a few – like in nursing homes and stuff, man, that can’t get out to stock up.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “If you’re going to stay here in town, we’ll need your help delivering food to the sick and the assisted living centers. There are some who can’t leave their homes, but we need to help everyone until the government gets things back on track. It can’t be that long, right?” He snorted, a definite aroma of marijuana permeated the space between him and Jackson. “You know how slow those government guys work.” He shook his head and grinned like the joke was universal.

  “That sounds like a plan. Hey, do you know where 37456 Kootenai is? I wanted to check on them and make sure they’re okay.” Jackson didn’t care how he got the information, but he knew that people were more likely to share what they knew when they weren’t stressed out or scared. Plus, this guy seemed to be all about helping others which was creepy all on its own. Who did that?

  Nodding his head like he copied a bobble head, the guy peered at Jackson through eyes half-lidded. “Yeah, man, here, I’ll draw you a map. It’s kind of tricky on the curve, but with no one out, you should be able to get there just fine.” The young man turned, grabbing at a napkin and a pen and sketching out a map. Small landmarks dotted his drawing and he reached toward Jackson with the map in his hand. He shined his light on the white square. “It’s really pretty basic. Maybe you can take a delivery up that way for me? I need to go toward Bayview. It would definitely help conserve fuel, man.”