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We drove through the night, down a road that was desolate and empty, snaking through the darkness. No cars passed us, no headlights pierced the blackness but our own. Ben and I didn’t speak much, just watched the quiet, primitive world scroll by through the glass. Out here, far from cities and towns and dimly lit suburbs, it truly felt as if we were the only humans left alive. The last two people on earth.
I dozed against the window, and when I opened my eyes again, Ben was pulling into the parking lot of a small motel and shutting off the ignition. The streetlamps surrounding the lot were dead and dark but, oddly enough, a Vacancy sign flickered erratically in the window of the office.
“We’re stopping?”
“Just for a bit.” Ben opened the door, and a gust of rain-scented air dispersed my drowsiness a little. “It’s almost dawn. I need a couple hours of sleep, at least, or I’m going to drive us off the road. This looks safe enough.”
It might’ve looked safe enough, but he snatched the gun off the dashboard and handed me a flashlight before walking up to the office door. I followed closely, peering over my shoulder, shining the beam into windows and dark corners. We stepped up to the porch, and my heart pounded, imagining gaunt, pale faces peering through the windows. But they remained dark and empty.
After several moments of pounding on the office door and calling “Hello?” into the darkened interior, Ben raised the shotgun and drove the butt into the glass above the door, shattering it. Ducking inside, he emerged seconds later with a key on a wooden peg, jingling it with weary triumph. I trailed him down the walkway to a battered green door with a brass 14B on the front and watched as he unlocked the door and pushed it back. It creaked open slowly, revealing a small room with an old TV, a hideous pink-and-green armchair and a single bed.
“Damn,” I heard him mutter, and he glanced over his shoulder at me. “Sorry, I was hoping to get one with double beds. I’ll see if they have the keys to another room—”
“There’s no need.” Bringing up the flashlight, I brushed past him through the doorway. The room was stale and dusty, and the carpet probably hadn’t been cleaned in years, but at least there was no stench of death and blood and decay. “We’re both adults,” I said, attempting to be pragmatic and reasonable. “We can share a bed if we have to. And I...I’d feel better not sleeping alone tonight, anyway.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ben, I’m a doctor. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before, trust me.”
My voice sounded too normal, too flippant, for what was happening outside. I felt like a deflated balloon, empty and hollow. Numb. I’d seen patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, having lost a loved one or even their whole family, and wondered if maybe I was heading down that same road. If perhaps this eerie calm and sense of detachment were the beginning.
The door clicked shut behind me, plunging the room into darkness. I whirled with the flashlight, shining the beam into Ben’s face. He flinched, turning his head, and I quickly dropped the light.
“Sorry.”
“It’s all right.” He looked up, and I saw that his stoic mask had slipped back into place. I shivered a little. If anyone was suffering from PTSD, it was probably Ben.
I turned from that haunting gaze, shining the light toward the bathroom in the corner. “I’m...going to see if the water still works.”
He didn’t say anything to that, and I retreated to the bathroom, leaving him in the dark.
Miraculously, the water still ran, though the temperature barely got above lukewarm. I told Ben I was going to take a bath, then filled the tub halfway, sinking down into it with a sigh in the darkness. The flashlight sat upright on the sink, shining a circle of light at the ceiling, turning the room ghostly and surreal. A tiny bar of complimentary soap sat on the edge of the tub, and I scrubbed myself down furiously, as if I could wash away the horror, grief and fear along with the blood. I heard Ben stumble outside the door and felt guilty for hoarding our only light source, but after a minute or two I heard the door open and close, the lock clicking as it shut behind him.
Uncomfortable that he was going somewhere alone, I counted the seconds, the silence pressing against my eardrums. After a few minutes, though, the door creaked open again. I heard his footsteps shuffle around the room before the bed squeaked as he settled atop it, and finally stopped moving.
I finished my bath, slipped back into my dirty, disgusting clothes, and left the room, keeping the flashlight low in case Ben had gone to sleep.
He hadn’t. He was perched on the edge of the mattress with his back to me, head bowed, slumping forward. His tattered shirt lay in a heap at the foot of the bed, and the flashlight beam slid over his broad shoulders and back. As I paused on the other side of the mattress, I saw his shoulders tremble, and heard the quiet, hopeless sound of someone trying to muffle a sob.
“Ben.”
Anger forgotten, I set the flashlight down and slipped around to his side, touching a bare shoulder as I came up. A nest of bloody gauze sat on an end table, next to a bottle of peroxide. His stitches had torn open, and the claw marks were dark, thin stripes down his back.
Sympathy bloomed through me, dissolving the last of the anger as my logical doctor’s brain finally caught up with my emotions. Ben was hurting, not from his wounds, but from the guilt that was tearing him apart inside. I wasn’t quite ready to forgive what had happened to Maggie, Jenna and my patients, but I knew, really knew, that the horrible night in the clinic was not his fault. And if he hadn’t been there, I probably would have died.
“Would you...help me?” Ben didn’t even bother trying to hide the wet tracks down his cheeks, though he didn’t glance up. He gestured to the peroxide and an open first aid kit on the nightstand. “I found those in the office, but I can’t reach it on my own.”
Silently, I picked up the first aid kit and scooted behind him on the bed. His skin was cold, but the area around the slashes was puffy and hot, though it didn’t look infected. I gently wiped away the dirt and blood, watching the peroxide sizzle into the open wounds, bubbling white. Ben didn’t even flinch.
“I don’t blame you, you know.” My voice surprised me, even more that I found it true. Ben didn’t answer, and I pressed a gauze pad to the wounds, keeping my voice low and calm. “What happened back in the clinic, in the lab with Nathan, that wasn’t your fault. I just...I freaked out. I reacted badly and I’m sorry for that, Ben.”
“You have no reason to apologize,” Ben murmured. “I should have been straight with you from the beginning, but...I didn’t know what you would think. How do you explain zombies and vampires to someone without sounding like a raving lunatic?” He scrubbed a hand over his face, and now I felt a tiny prick of guilt. If he had told me that in the clinic, I probably would have scoffed at the idea, or assumed he was on drugs. Whose fault was this, really? “But I should have told you,” Ben went on. “Nate...he was the smart one, the one who could explain anything and have it all make sense. In fact, I was hoping he would wake up so he could tell you what was going on. If that’s not a selfish reason...” A soft, bitter laugh, ending in a muffled sob. “It should’ve been me,” he said in a near whisper. “I should’ve been the one who died.”
“No.” I slid off the bed and walked around to face him. Crouching down, I peered at his face, putting a hand on his knee for balance. “Ben, look at me. This isn’t your fault,” I whispered again, as those tortured eyes met mine. “It isn’t Nathan’s fault. Ben, the virus is killing us. The human race is facing extinction, though no one is willing to admit it. Something had to be done.”
“Something was,” he muttered. “And now things are even worse. I don’t know if we can survive this. And just thinking that I was there when it happened, that maybe if I’d done something a little different, I could’ve stopped them from getting out—”
“You couldn’t have known what would happen.” I kept my voice calm, reasonable, my doctor’s voice. “And those scientists, they were only doing what anyone would do to save our race. We had to try something. It isn’t our nature to roll over and die without a fight.” I smiled faintly. “Humans are stubborn like that.”
He held my gaze, the light reflected in his eyes. Very slowly, as if afraid it would scare me away, he reached out and took a strand of my hair between his fingers. I held my breath, my heartbeat kicking into high gear, pulsing very loudly in my ears.
“I don’t know how you can stand to be around me,” Ben murmured, staring at his hand, at the pale strings between his fingers. “But...don’t go. Don’t leave. You’re the only thing keeping me sane right now.”
Maggie and Jenna’s faces crowded my mind, angry and accusing. My patients rose up from the darkness to stare at me, their gazes vengeful, but I shoved those thoughts away. They were gone. They were dead, and I couldn’t honor their memory with anger and blame and hate. The world was screwed, monsters roamed the streets and I had to cling to my lifelines where I could. I was sure everything would hit me, hard, when I had the chance to breathe. But right now, I had to make sure I—we—kept breathing.
Gently, I placed a palm on his cheek, feeling rough stubble under my fingers. “We’ll get through this,” I promised him, feeling, absurdly, that I was his lifeline right now, and if I left he might take that shotgun and put the muzzle under his chin. “I’m not going anywhere.”
For just a moment, Ben’s gaze grew smoldering, a dark, molten look that swallowed even the anguish on his face, before he straightened and pulled back, looking embarrassed.
Turning away, he gingerly bent to scoop up his shirt. “I’ll take the chair,” he offered in a husky voice, rising to his feet. I stood as well, frowning.
“Ben, you don’t have to—”
“Trust me.” He slipped into his shirt, grimacing. “I think I do.”
I didn’t think I would sleep, but I did drift off, listening to Ben’s quiet snores from the chair in the corner. I awoke the next morning to sunlight streaming in through the dingy curtains and Ben emptying a bag of junk food onto the table.
“Morning,” he greeted, and though his voice was solemn, it lacked the despair of the night before. “I thought you might be hungry, so I raided the snack machines by the office. I, uh, hope you don’t mind Doritos and Twinkies for breakfast.”
I smiled and struggled to my feet, brushing my hair back. “Any Ho Hos in the bunch?” I asked, walking up to the table.
“Mmm...no, sorry.” Ben held up a package. “But I do have Zingers.”
We smiled and ate our hideously unhealthy breakfast without complaint, knowing food was an unknown equation. The days of easy access were over. Places like McDonald’s or Wendy’s, where you could just walk in and order a hot breakfast, were a thing of the past. And many of the big superstores had been raided, gutted and picked clean when the chaos began. I wondered how long it would be before things went back to normal. I wondered if things would ever go back to normal.
“How far is it to your parents’ farm?” I asked, once the chip bags were empty and plastic wrappers covered the table. Ben handed me a Diet Coke, and I washed down the cloying sweetness in my throat.
Ben shrugged. “About a fourteen-hour drive, if the roads are clear. We should get there by this evening if we don’t run into anything.”
Like rabid zombie vampires. I shivered and shook that thought away. “You’ll be home soon, then. That’s good.”
“Yeah.” Ben didn’t sound entirely convinced. I glanced up and saw him watching me intently, his chin on the back of his laced hands. A flutter went through my stomach. Abruptly, he stood and started cleaning up the piles of wrappers scattered about the table, before he stopped, shaking his head. “Sorry. Old habits. Mom would always have us clear the dinner table for her. Come on.” He grabbed the shotgun and opened the door for me. “Let’s get out of here. The sooner we’re on the road, the sooner we’ll arrive.”
We piled into the truck, after stashing the shotgun safely in the backseat, and Ben stuck the key in the ignition. “Home,” he muttered in a voice barely above a whisper, and turned the key.
Nothing happened.
Chapter Seven
My heart stood still. Ben swore quietly and turned the key again. Same result. Nothing. The engine lay still and cold and dead, and no amount of jiggling the key or pumping the gas pedal seemed to revive it.
“Dammit.” Ben jumped out of the driver’s seat and stalked to the front, opening the hood with a rusty squeak. I watched him through the window, obeying when he told me to slide into the driver’s seat and try the ignition again. We worked for nearly twenty minutes, but the old truck remained stubbornly silent.
Ben dropped the hood with a bang, his face sweaty and grim. I peeked out the driver’s side window, trying to stay calm. “No luck?”
He shook his head. “Fuses are blown, I think. That, or the battery is dead. Either way, I’m not going to be able to get it started without jumper cables and another running engine. Dammit.” He rubbed his jaw. “Looks like we’re hoofing it.”
“To Illinois?” The thought was staggering. “A fourteen-hour drive will probably take us a week or more of walking, and that’s if we don’t run into anything.”
“I don’t see any other way, do you?” Ben looked around helplessly, hands on his hips. “We’ll look for another vehicle down the road, but we can’t stay here. I know, it scares me, too. But we have to get moving.”
Daunting was the word that came to mind—hiking across a lawless, empty, plague-ridden country, where society had broken down and humans were just as likely to turn on you as help—it was a frightening thought. Especially now, with those...things out there. But Ben was right; we couldn’t stay here. We had to continue.
Ben dug an old green backpack out from under the seats, and we raided the broken vending machines again, stocking up on sweets, chips and soda, as much as the pack could carry. Hefting it to his back, slinging the gun over one shoulder, he beckoned to me, and we started down the empty road, feeling like the only two people left on Earth.
* * *
The highway continued, weaving through hills and forest, past side roads and off-ramps that led to unknown places. Occasionally, we passed cars on the road, pulled over on the shoulder, abandoned in ditches, or sometimes just stopped in the middle of the lane. Once, I thought I saw a person in one of the cars in a ditch, a woman slumped against the dashboard, and hurried over to help. But she was long dead, and so was her little boy in the backseat. Sickened, I turned away, hoping their deaths had been swift, and the images continued to haunt me the rest of the afternoon.
Ben inspected every car we came across, searching around the dashboard and glove compartments, hoping for a lucky break. But except for the dead woman’s car, none of them had keys, and hers was too damaged to use. Another, a van, seemed to be in good condition, but the tires were flat. I asked him once if we could hot-wire a vehicle into running, but neither of us had a clue how to do that. So we kept walking as the sun slid across the sky and the shadows around us lengthened.
“Here,” Ben said, handing me an open can of Sprite when we stopped for a break. I took a long swig and handed it back as he sat beside me on the guardrail. We’d been hiking uphill for what had seemed like miles, and I could feel the heat of his body against mine, our shoulders and arms lightly touching. My stomach did a weird little twirl, especially when his large hand came to rest over mine on the railing.
“I think we’re coming up on a town,” he said, after finishing off the can and tossing it into the ditch. “If we are, it might be a good idea to stop and look around for a car. And food. Real food, anyway.” He glanced at the backpack, lying open at our feet. Twinkies, Snowballs, chips and candy wrappers stood out brightly against the dull gray of the pavement. “I might slip into a sugar-induced coma if I eat one more Twinkie.”
I smiled, liking this lighter, easygoing version of Ben. Out in the sunlight, away from all the blood, death, horror and despair, things didn’t look as bleak.
I grinned at him, bumping his shoulder, just as he looked back at me. And, very suddenly, we were staring at each other on a lonely, empty road, miles from anywhere.
The late-afternoon sun slanted through the branches of the pine trees, turning his hair golden-brown, his eyes hazel. I could see rings of amber and green around the coffee-colored irises. They were beautiful, and they held my gaze, soft and tender, and a little bit afraid. As if Ben was unsure where we stood, if this was all one-sided.
My heart pounded. Ben waited, not moving, though his eyes never left mine. The ball was in my court. I licked my lips and suddenly found myself leaning toward him.
The growl of a car engine echoed, unnaturally loud in the silence, making us both jerk up. Gazing down the road, I saw a flash of metal in the sun, speeding toward us, and my heart leaped. Ben stood, grabbing the shotgun from where it lay against the railing, as a rusty brown pickup roared around the bend and skidded to a halt in a spray of gravel.
My senses prickled a warning, and I moved closer to Ben as the doors opened and three big, rough-looking guys stepped out into the road. They looked related, brothers maybe, blond and tanned, with the same watery blue eyes. I caught the stench of alcohol wafting from the cab as they sauntered to the edge of the pavement and grinned at us.
They all had guns, one rifle and a couple pistols, though no one had raised a weapon yet. My stomach clenched with dread.
“Hey there.” The closest guy, a little bigger than the other two, leered at me. His voice was lazy and drawling, and a little slurred. I saw his gaze rake over me before he turned a mean look on Ben. “You two lost? Kind of a bad spot to be stranded—never know what kind of crazies you’ll run into out here.”
The other two snickered, as if that was actually funny. Ben nodded politely, though his arms and shoulders were tense, his finger resting on the trigger of the shotgun. “We’re not lost,” he said in a cool, firm voice. “We’re just going home. Thank you for your concern.”
They hooted with laughter. “Ooh, listen to him, all dandy and proper,” one of the others mocked. “A real gentleman, he is.”
“Now, now, be nice, Bobby,” the leader said, turning to grin at the one who’d spoken. “They said they’re trying to get home, so let’s help ’em out.” He turned and smiled at me, blue eyes gleaming, as inviting as a snarling wolf. “We’ll take you home, darlin’. So why don’t you just hop in the truck, right now?”
Ben’s weapon came up instantly, as did the other three. I gasped as a trio of deadly gun barrels were suddenly trained on Ben, who had his own pointed at the leader’s chest.
Time seemed to stop, the air around us crystallizing into a silence that hovered on the edge of chaos and death. I froze, unable to move, shocked at how quickly the situation had descended into another horror film. Only the guns pointed right at us were real.
“Ben,” I whispered, placing a hand on his arm. My legs shook, and a cold, terrified sweat dripped down my spine. “Stop this. You’ll be killed.”
“Listen to your girlfriend, boy,” the leader said, smiling as he leveled the pistol at Ben’s face. “There’s three of us and only one of you. Odds ain’t in your favor.” His eyes flicked to me, and he jerked his head toward the open truck door. “Just come along quietly, missy, and make it easy on you both. Unless you want your dandy boyfriend pumped full o’ holes in about two seconds.”
“I’ll go,” I told both of them, though my eyes still pleaded with Ben. I felt sick, knowing what they wanted, what would happen to me the second I went into that truck. But I couldn’t let them shoot Ben. “Ben, don’t. Please. They’ll kill you.”
“Stay where you are.” His voice, low and steely, froze me in my tracks. He hadn’t moved through the whole encounter, and his stare never wavered from the man in front of him. “There’s three of you,” he agreed, still locking eyes with the leader. “But I can still kill one of you before the others get their shots off. And the odds aren’t in your favor, are they?” The leader stiffened, and the barrel moved with him, just enough to keep him in its sight. “Do you know what happens to a body shot point-blank with a shotgun?” Ben asked, his voice cold as ice. “You’ll have to be buried with your truck, because they’ll never get all the pieces out of it.”
“Fuck you.” The leader pulled the hammer on his pistol back, aiming it at Ben’s face. Ben stared him down over the shotgun, not moving, never wavering, while my heart hammered so hard against my ribs I thought I might pass out.
Finally, the leader slowly raised his other hand, placating. “All right,” he said in a soothing voice, and lowered his weapon. “Everyone just take it easy, now. Relax.” He shot the other two a hard look, and they reluctantly lowered their guns. “This is what we’re gonna do. Give us that pack full of stuff, and we’ll be on our way. That sound like an okay trade, boy?”
“Fine,” Ben said instantly, not lowering his weapon. “Take it and go.”
The leader, still keeping one hand in the air, jerked his head at one of the other two, who edged around the truck and snatched the bag from the ground. Ben kept his gaze and his weapon trained unwaveringly on the leader, who smirked at us and slipped back into the truck, slamming the door as the others did the same.
“Well, thank ya kindly, dandy boy.” He grinned as his friends hooted and pawed through the bag, snatching at Twinkies and cupcakes. “You two have fun, now. Run on home to mommy. It’ll be dark soon.”
The truck peeled away in a squeal of gravel, the echoes of their laughter ringing out behind them.
Ben let out a shaky breath and finally lowered the weapon. I could see his hands shaking as he leaned back against the rail, breathing hard. “Why did you do that?” I whispered, my heart slamming against my ribs. “You could’ve been killed.”
“I wasn’t going to let them take you.”
My legs were trembling. I took a shaky step toward him, and he reached out with one arm, pulling me close. I felt his heart, beating frantically through his shirt, and wrapped my arms around his waist, clinging to him as fear and adrenaline slowly ebbed away, and my heartbeat slowed to normal. Ben leaned the shotgun against the railing and held me in a fierce, almost desperate embrace, as if daring something to try to rip me away. I relaxed into him, felt his arms around me and, if only for a moment, let myself feel safe.
“Come on,” he whispered, finally drawing back. “Let’s try to make town before nightfall.”
* * *
It wasn’t quite dusk when we stumbled off the main highway, following an exit ramp into the ruins of a small town. The late-afternoon sun cast long shadows over the empty streets and rows of dark, decaying houses, their yards overgrown with weeds. We passed homes and streets that must have been a nice little suburban community. Yards had been well-tended once, and the driveways were full of station wagons and minivans. I kept looking for signs of life, hints that people still lived, but except for a small orange cat, darting away into the bushes, there was nothing.
“What are we looking for?” I asked Ben, my voice sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness. The sun hovered low on the horizon, a sullen blood-red, like a swollen eye. Ben gave it a nervous look, then gestured to a building as we reached a crossroad. “Something like that.”
A gas station sat desolately on a corner, windows smashed, gas hoses lying on the ground. We approached cautiously, peering through the shattered glass, but it was empty of life and most everything else. Inside, the shelves were stripped clean, glass littered the floor, and most of the displays were tipped over. Others had been here before us. Fleeing town, perhaps, when the plague hit. Though I didn’t know where they thought they could run. Red Lung was everywhere, now.
“Been pretty picked over,” Ben muttered, stepping around downed shelves and broken glass. He nudged an empty display that had once held energy drinks and shook his head. “Let’s not waste too much time looking; I want to get out of here soon. This place is making me jumpy.”
Me, too. Though I couldn’t put my finger on why. The town seemed lifeless. We rummaged around and found a few meat tins, jerky rolls and a bag of Doritos that had been missed. We tossed our findings into a plastic bag, the rustle of paper and plastic the only sounds in the quiet. Outside, the sun dipped below the horizon, stealing the last of the evening light, and a chill crept through the air.
“All right,” Ben said, rising to his feet, “I think we have enough, for a little while, at least. Now, I wonder how hard it will be to find a car...?”
A woman shuffled past the broken window.
I jerked, grabbing Ben’s arm, as the figure moved by without stopping. My stomach lurched. “Hey!” I called, hopping over shelves and broken glass to the door, peering out. The woman was walking down the sidewalk, stumbling every few steps, and didn’t seem to have heard me.
Abruptly, she put a hand against the wall and bent over as violent coughing shook her thin frame. Blood spattered the ground beneath her in crimson drops, and I stumbled to a halt.
