The jokes wore thin and the conversation died as we each descended into our own thoughts. That wasn’t a good thing, because our minds were filled with grief, bad memories, and uncertainty. I noticed that KC, Houston, and Jesse had packed their iPods. I found it ironic that, despite the apocalypse, Apple still ruled the world. Jesse shared earphones with Danny, which was nice because it almost made him stop his constant scratching. Almost. KC shared her earphones with Mouse and of course Houston shared his with Nemesis, using it as a sweet excuse to get closer to her.
But their batteries ran out and the grumbling started up again. This was a group that, apart from Margaret, got along in spite of their differences. I think they reached the point where they preferred complaining to reminiscing. Fortunately KC rummaged around in the glove compartment and found some dusty tapes left over from the eighties and nineties. She popped a tape in the only slot in the dash that fit them and took a chance on the music. The strains of John Denver’s version of “Country Roads” filled the air.
“I can’t tell if we’re being rewarded or punished for my musical gamble,” she said apologetically.
It was a gamble that paid off. We got lost in the music whether it was good or bad. They were all oldies, but what could you expect from tapes? Danny and Jesse looked at them with great curiosity, the same way I looked at eight track tapes in my grandpa’s old pickup.
They say that music soothes the savage beast, and that day I discovered that it also soothed the savage beasties in my head. I had grown used to their constant pulse and drone to the point where I only noticed them when they went still. At first I thought they were lulled to sleep by John Denver’s voice, but they stayed dormant despite the pulse-pumping beat from Heart’s “If Looks Could Kill” or the guitar-shredding riff of Guns ‘n Roses “Welcome To The Jungle.” I knew they were still around because their buzzing returned as soon as one piece stopped and before the next one began. It was as if the hive mentality of the microbes were put on hold by a melody, any melody. It was fascinating, really. We were free from their influence no matter what song we put on because they were too focused and entranced with the music to do anything but listen.
Tom Cochrane’s “Life Is A Highway” started playing and I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be safer to get off the rural roads and back onto the main roads. There was a danger of being spotted on the freeway, but those untamed backwoods communities were starting to scare me. It was a good thing the rest of the group were in the back of the windowless ambulance because if they could see outside they would stop getting into the music and go back to being anxious. Sure, there was the occasional burned-out home and the usual abandoned and overgrown shacks, but that’s not what set my alarm bells ringing. The real worry came from the homes and businesses still occupied by the living. Gone were the folksy friendly farmers and small-town mom and pop stores. In their place were survivors hardened by tragedy and loss and not a one of them was in the mood to trust strangers that had no business being on a road trip. I was hoping the ambulance would make the locals think I was doing my rounds as a pickup truck for the injured or dead, but I wasn’t fooling anyone. Different hillbilly contraptions to keep the dead out surrounded each home or squatter-filled store. There were a few traditional barbed-wire fences, but the country ran out of that within the first month of the Lost Day. In their place stood varying degrees of homemade contraptions. Trip wires and clothing lines festooned with sharp shiny trinkets served as primitive alarm systems. There were sharpened posts set in the ground at different angles and deep ditches filled with what I assumed to be salt water. I don’t know why they bothered out here. I hadn’t sensed or smelled a zombie since we picked up Mouse and Nemesis.
As the strains from Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” eked out of the antiquated sound system, I started to see the people in these houses. They looked at me with suspicion and raised their shotguns in warning. I started to notice literal signs after that. I slowed down and took the time to read them as Rush’s “Red Barchetta” filled the air. Most were hastily scrawled and clear in their meaning. They either read “Purebloods only” or “Inoculated Keep Out”, which made me worry that these holed-up hillbillies were either going to start shooting or report the one and only vehicle on the road in the middle of nowhere.
I made an executive decision and pulled onto the next four-lane freeway. My passengers were suddenly alert and up as soon as they detected the increase in speed coupled with a moderately smoother drive. I gave a lame excuse, “Road’s Broke.” I didn’t want to make them nervous with what I saw.
But I couldn’t keep them from seeing the Billboards. Little signs hastily plonked down in front of a house are not easily viewed from the back of an ambulance, but a ten by twenty foot sign with “$1000 reward for each inoculated person turned in” made everyone cry out in unison. KC dashed up to the front and hastily sat down in the passenger seat. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “You were right! You were right all along.” She gazed down at her lap and let the tears fall. “If I had listened to you, we would have been fine. My parents would be fine. They’d be with us.”
I felt a stab of guilt just thinking about our last fight and how I should have made a better argument to leave when I did. Houston came to my rescue by saying, “We don’t know that for sure, KC. Things were good, and then they were bearable, and then things were decided behind our backs. We were under a dome; we thought we were safe!”
“We weren’t under a dome; we were in a self-imposed bubble.” This came from the quietest member of the group. It was Dan talking, a man so small and meek we kept forgetting he was even there. “I’ve been going over the past few weeks in my mind and I can’t believe how much we were in denial,” he continued. “It felt wrong to be segregated, but I figured that if my wife and son were PureBloods, I wouldn’t want them drinking from the same fountain as myself. Besides, anything seemed better than a life outside New Arlington. I couldn’t imagine we’d go from that security to being hunted.”
“Mr. Cromwell and Sarah did,” Jesse said mournfully. “They disappeared.” She started to cry, making it hard for her to get the rest of her thoughts out. “Why didn’t they take us with them? I thought we were family! I thought we’d stick together forever! They must not have cared about us much ‘cause they left us behind.”
Jesse’s misery only made things worse. I tried to comfort her by saying, “I don’t think they left you, Jesse, I think they were one of the ‘Disappeared.’ Did you ever wonder why people would move without telling anyone? Did you ever have friends at school who suddenly stopped coming?” That was probably a waste of breath. I love Jesse like the little sister I lost, but the kid didn’t notice much.
“That was part of our self-deception,” muttered Dan. “We told ourselves they must have found missing members of their family and were so overjoyed, they dropped everything to go join them.”
“That’s not a far-fetched idea,” said Nemesis wistfully, “because I was one of those people. I knew I would miss everyone in the Dumb Luck Club, but family came first.”
“I hoped that was the case with some families, but from what I observed, they removed anyone that exhibited signs of possession. Soldiers would march them outside the perimeter to buses and drive them away.” I kept watching to make sure they weren’t taking anyone from the Dumb Luck Club. I had a plan to stop them but was grateful I never had to use it.
“Were they Greyhound buses?” Mouse said hopefully. “Maybe they were going to family after all and the soldiers were just trying to keep tabs on them. You know, for their protection.”
“Sorry, Mouse, they were prison buses. They had bars and gun-toting guards, just like the ones that used to take serious cons to their final living space.” The time for being tactful and sowing hope was gone. My one remaining hope was that we made it to that cabin to live the rest of our days in peace, safe from humans and non-humans alike.
There was another type of Disappeared, the kind that no one wanted to mention. These were the kind who died in the middle of the night, leaving their bodies to the microorganisms that would reanimate and reactivate them. They were the ones who died behind closed doors and once the Infected took over, got back up on their feet and slipped out of their communities to join the rest of their kind. Some died of old age, some succumbed to the microorganisms’ desires and took their own life, and some, like the cranky old lady I bit, were brought down by us, the Infected Inoculated.
“If Sarah found out her parents were alive, she’d tell me!” said a petulant Jesse. “But she didn’t. I went over to her apartment just as she asked me to the day before. Their door was unlocked, so it’s not like she was hiding from me. They left almost everything behind just like the Disappeared, except Sarah wrote, “It’s time to go home” in my Shel Silversteen book.”
“She left you a message? And you didn’t tell us?” KC said incredulously.
“It didn’t make any sense!” Jesse said defensively. “Our old home was burnt up and we were already at our new home, so how were we supposed to go home? It didn’t mean anything to me, so I forgot about it.”
“Do you think they meant Doom’s home?” Houston asked.
“Don’t know. And I don’t know why they couldn’t let us know they were leaving, and I don’t know why they didn’t tell us about Doom’s place.” It was easy to understand why Jesse was upset; she felt abandoned by her friend.
“My father knew about Doom’s place,” Houston said thoughtfully. I couldn’t tell by his voice whether he was angry or mournful or just disappointed. “The last thing he told me to do was to get to Doom’s cottage. He didn’t get a chance to tell me where it was or how he knew. I wish he trusted me enough to tell me about it before it was too late.”
This made me feel all the more guilty because their father talked to me. I assumed he had told his own son about the safe house. “He wanted to protect you, all of you. I passed on the details of Doom’s cabin before I left, but your father didn’t want to take a chance with his family on the outside when he wasn’t even sure that cabin existed.”
“Remember Houston, this is Doom we’re talking about,” Nemesis chimed in. “I mean, God Rest His Soul and all that, but the kid was raised on a steady diet of conspiracy theories. He spent most of his life in the land of the lunatic fringe. Your dad probably thought the cabin would be your last resort and you would go when the moment was right.”
Houston’s shoulders slumped in resignation. “I guess so. We couldn’t imagine things would go bad that quickly. This is America, right? Americans are not supposed to hunt their own and throw them into, I don’t know, concentration camps.”
We drove in unhappy silence for a while as the billboards increased in frequency and ferocity. All the advertisements for Cracker Barrel or Sonic or McDonald’s were covered up in government-style warnings about the dangers of the Inoculated mixing with Uninoculated and featured rewards for any Inoculated individual turned in to the proper authorities. Mile after mile passed under our wheels before KC asked, “Can we get off this road? I don’t think I can handle looking at those signs anymore. Besides, if there is a reward out for us, there could be people traps ahead. You know, like a speed trap run by overzealous well-armed rednecks…”
“We know what you mean!” snapped Margaret, ending her unusual run of silence.
I pulled off the road and back onto the lumpy bumpy side streets without argument. The tape started playing REM’s “It’s The End of the World as We Know It,” which made everyone laugh and lightened the mood. Then Dan brought up an interesting point. “You know, those billboards offering a reward for the Inoculated gives me hope.”
“Why is that?” KC asked.
“Think about it. They weren’t offering money for us ‘Dead or Alive,’ only ‘Alive.’ I’m surprised you didn’t catch that.” He looked at Margaret while he said this. “What if the government put out a reward not only to protect the public, but to protect us from the public?”
“That’s just stupid,” Margaret said dismissively.
“No, really, what do people do when they’re frightened and left to their own devices? How do they act when they feel their very lives and loved ones are threatened?”
“They shoot you,” whispered Jesse. “That’s what our neighbors did when we went to them for help.”
“So you’re saying that by putting a reward on our heads, they appeal to people’s greed and head off a witch hunt.” Houston didn’t sound convinced.
“I don’t think you can stop a witch hunt,” said Dan, “but you can stop the Uninoculated killing us if they can make money turning us in alive.”
“What do you think will happen to us once we’re caught and turned in?” said Margaret angrily. “They’ll try to figure out how these Parasites control us…they’ll experiment on us like rats!”
This made Danny and Jesse cry and KC and Houston bark in unison, “Shut up Margaret!”
I didn’t say anything because I was trying to block the image of their parents being experimented on while we ran for the hills.