Red Plague Boxed Set Page 5

  But my mom was allergic to dogs. And not slightly sensitive to dander. No, she was full-blown break into hives and suffer a sinus infection allergic. A dog would never be in our future. By the time the truth settled into my consciousness I’d wasted a lot of time and emotional energy wanting something I could never have.

  “Here, buddy,” I cooed, offering my hand to sniff. He looked soft, and I desperately wanted to pet him. I constructed an entire fantasy in my head in those brief few seconds where the dog became my loyal and affectionate companion who would follow me everywhere, hunt for squirrels, and share them with me.

  I’d call him Rooster and we would tackle this post-apocalyptic world as a team.

  Were animals infected by the red plague? I’d often wondered things like that while alone in my panic room. Did their eyes go red too? Did they suddenly crave flesh and blood? Or was it only a human disease? Were there zombie hawks out there? Zombie hamsters? Zombie cockroaches, ants, and bees? Was every step beyond my four walls a minefield of infection and danger? It’s one of the reasons I’d stayed in my home for so long, not knowing what the outside world was like after the red plague.

  Rooster’s head lowered even further and his upper lips curled back, revealing finger-sized canines. He growled like a chainsaw.

  Two other dogs I hadn’t seen walked out from behind one of the compact cars and created a chorus of snarling and snapping noises.

  Their vocal aggression triggered something primal in me.

  Hunny recognized the trouble we were in and screamed like a banshee, sticking to me with superglue.

  “I can’t run,” I panted, my heart pounding in a weird, uneven rhythm. “I can’t run.”

  The black lab launched itself at us, his muscular legs pumping, his ribs showing in sharp relief through his dirty coat.

  I stumbled a few steps, pushing off the cars around me, but it was obvious I couldn’t outrun Rooster. He’d be on me in seconds and I had no defense against his nasty bite.

  But I had lots of things to throw. I bent and gathered an empty tin can, a paperback, and a half eaten hard candy in the shape of a baby bottle, all litter that had blown against the tire of the car nearest me. I stood my ground, Hunny cowering behind me, and threw the tin can. It flew wide, but the dog took notice and slowed. I missed with the paperback, too.

  The hard candy, though, hit Rooster directly on the snout. He halted about fifteen feet away, suddenly uncertain about his plan of attack. His dog friends followed his lead and pushed pause on the assault, stepping nervously from side to side and sniffing the air.

  “Go chase a squirrel,” I shouted at them. “We’re not your dinner!” I pulled my short sword and waved it in the air. It worked. Some inbred fear of human beings reared to the surface in the black lab. He backed off, his tail down.

  “Reverse it,” I hissed at Hunny. “We’re getting out of here fast.”

  “Are they going to bite me?”

  I sent the dogs a good, long, hopefully intimidating look. They were still edging away, but I didn’t trust their innate fear to outweigh their hunger forever. “No. But move it, just in case.”

  I grabbed the back of her shirt and we half ran, half hopped toward the next freeway off-ramp.

  Eventually Hunny grew bored of outpacing me and lent me her shoulder again. I still wasn’t accepting sidekick applications, but it wasn’t completely horrible traveling with her. I was still dumping her skinny rear end first survivor I found, but she was okay. Spoiled, but sort of sweet.

  “Hey,” I said. “Let me teach you finger spelling. It’s fun, and we can sign words to each other when we have to be quiet.”

  Hunny pulled a face. “What is it?”

  “Sign language.”

  She perked up. “Oh. Okay.”

  “This is ‘yes.’ This is ‘no.’” I showed her the simple signs. “A. B. C. Now, you.” She copied the signs with minimal errors. I taught her the rest of the alphabet a few letters at a time, then made her repeat it.

  On the eleventh pass she cried, “My hand hurts!” And quit.

  I snapped my fingers to get her attention, and then spelled, “T-o-o b-a-d.”

  She scrunched up her nose. “Tuba? What is that supposed to mean?”

  “We’ll keep practicing.” I chuckled. “Start at the beginning.” I softly sang “The ABC Song,” expecting her to follow along with her signs. Which she did after releasing a giant sigh.

  I had a mental flashback to when Mason and I were just goofy little kids. It was a good feeling. Still smiling, I realized there were lots of things I could teach her. When I was eight I learned the multiplication tables and North Carolina history. Maybe I could show Hunny a few other things before I found her a new guardian.

  “Whoa,” Hunny said, stopping dead in her tracks.

  Up ahead at the next off-ramp stood a shiny red and yellow McDonald’s restaurant. Even after everything that had happened it still excited the little girl.

  “Can we go there? Please?” She clasped her hands under her chin and stuck out her lower lip. “Please?”

  “You know we can’t make chicken nuggets and fries, right?” The best we could hope for inside the restaurant were canned and bagged ingredients that hadn’t gone bad.

  “I know.” She hopped from one foot to the other. “I still want to go. It’ll be fun.”

  “Fun.” I snorted. I hadn’t done anything fun in a long time. “Make it fast.”

  Chapter Five

  I trudged across the trash-strewn parking lot sticking to the cooler shadows when possible, my gaze bouncing over anything and everything. There were no bird noises here, which gave me a twisting sensation in my gut. I listened for the faintest sounds of movement around the restaurant.

  Nothing but garbage blowing under abandoned vehicles.

  It was hard to imagine the mass exodus that had happened here and all over the country. Where had so many people gone? Had they hiked into the mountains and been absorbed into survivalist compounds? Had they been picked up by the military? Or were they part of those roving packs of Reds circling every city, every neighborhood, in America? Or were they dead? All of them, dead.

  As I followed Hunny up the off-ramp my sneakers hit the street in an off-kilter but distinct rhythm and the song from that morning returned.

  Way down here. I disappear…

  No other lyrics. Just a sad tone and five words.

  Hunny dug into the open trunk of a white car, squealed an unintelligible syllable, tucked something into her pocket, and took off again for the drive-thru.

  “What did you find?” I asked.

  Without answering, she ran ahead into the restaurant.

  Being alone for so long had changed me into a cranky old man. Her refusal to respond to a simple question annoyed me like crazy. It occurred to me, leaning on the front window, to leave her there. An easy trick. Turn and hop across the parking lot, swerve around the gas station next door, and head north. Unless she looked out the window in the next ninety seconds, or so, she’d have no idea where I’d gone. I was home free.

  No more painful, clingy hugs. No more complaining. No more sharing supplies.

  The neighboring gas station wasn’t far away. Fifty meters. Maybe seventy-five.

  “Hurry up, slow poke,” Hunny shouted through the open door.

  And I couldn’t do it.

  She was just a kid. Annoying, sure, but basically helpless. If I abandoned her she'd be dead by morning. And the thought of how much her parents had loved and cherished her—enough to send her away to save her life—made me feel guilty and a little bit responsible. For their benefit, at least, I could hand her off to another survivor. If I’d found her and Willa, there must be others.

  So I pushed my way toward the restaurant even though I'd much rather have stayed on the road. The stench reached me before I even cracked the front door, but when I did an ungodly odor crawled inside my nose like a living thing.

  “Ah.” I clapped a hand over my mout
h. Too late. I wouldn’t be able to scrub the reeking smell off me with bleach and steel wool.

  Other, not-so-lucky survivors had been inside this McDonald’s before us, and by the stink, never left. It must have been the first type of establishment cleaned out during the initial panic. Searching for helpful supplies was most likely a complete waste of time.

  Five minutes was too long to be stuck in there.

  I wanted to get back on the road and breathe fresh air again.

  But Hunny was thrilled to be anywhere even slightly reminiscent of her old life. She grinned as she crossed the dining room and stared up at the broken menu board as if she considered making an order.

  Except no one was assembling lunch and no one was frying burgers in the kitchen. That reality was over. For a while, anyway.

  “Be quick,” I urged, uneasy. “Look for water first and then canned stuff.” Even if she only found barbecue sauce and French fry oil, we weren’t in any position to be choosy. And if we were really lucky she’d find drinkable water.

  The loss of electricity and the vehicles crammed in all around the building like a half-finished blockade made the interior even darker.

  The last time I’d been in a McDonald’s it had been with my mom and Mason. Dad was a health nut and wouldn’t let us eat fast food, but Mom was a French fry junkie and took us every once in a while to a burger joint. Back then the dining room had been crowded and noisy with families, and it had smelled of onions and ketchup.

  “Let’s hurry,” I said, glancing around the shadowy and cavernous interior. “I don’t like it here.”

  Hunny dove over the counter and rifled through cupboards and shelves. “There are a gazillion little bags of nuts and granola and…” Her voice trailed off.

  Maybe it had finally sunk in how creepy this place was. Me, I had figured that out the second I smelled it. The whole restaurant gave me the chills. It reminded me too vividly of the way things had been, and how wrecked the world had become.

  “Just shove it all in a box or something, and let’s go.”

  “Maya?”

  I recognized real fear in her voice, and my heart dropped. She had more than a bad feeling. She was genuinely spooked.

  Coming here had been an awful idea.

  “Maya,” she repeated, “there are bodies back here.”

  I unsheathed my short sword and swiveled to see all corners of the dining room.

  This was even worse than being stuck on the highway in the path of a pack of Reds. There was nowhere to hide. No cover. I was a sitting duck. Sweat blossomed over my entire body as I tensed for the coming fight.

  Sometimes infected people created what newscasters had called a nest where they hunkered down and brought food back for prolonged feeding. Food, of course, being other living things. Preferably, human beings. That must’ve been what was going on behind the counter. We’d stumbled across a zombie’s nest. If the zombie was home he'd probably be pretty ticked off.

  Images from the action movies Mason had loved flickered through my mind. Throat punches. High kicks. Karate chops. I didn’t want to get close enough to a zombie to poke him in the eye, but I might not have a choice. If one attacked Hunny I had to defend her. She couldn’t defend herself.

  The door to the indoor playground squeaked opened, and I pivoted to face whatever horror stampeded through it.

  A little boy no older than seven staggered nearer carrying a pair of yellow, metal tractor toys. He had shaggy brown hair and deep red eyes. The day care sticker on his striped T-shirt read, “Hello, my name is Jack.”

  He didn’t look very terrifying, but so far my good luck juju was on the fritz, so I expected Jack to be the welcoming party for a much more heinous pack. Mama and Papa Zombie maybe? Or an entire death squad of kiddie Reds?

  “Hunny,” I called. “Stay where you are. There might be more.”

  She caught sight of little Jack and shrieked, scrambling onto the front counter and doing a nervous dance on her tiptoes.

  She’d forgotten how to be quiet, but at least she knew to get to an elevated position.

  Taking a cue from her, I sprang onto the nearest table, hip first, and struggled to stand one-legged on the wobbly surface. The table teetered to the left and I spread my arms like a high wire trapeze artist. It worked. Sort of.

  Jack didn't have any sympathy for my poor balance. He bared his teeth and ran, full steam, for my position. His bare feet pattered across the tile floor, and then he slammed into my perch. I crumpled to my knees, gripping the table to stay off the floor.

  Reds couldn’t climb. But they could pull me down.

  No matter what else happened I had to stay above him.

  Across the room Hunny screamed and screamed, pausing only to suck in huge gulps of air and scream again. The sound of her terror ramped up my own.

  Where was Ben? If he barreled through those doors and yanked this kid off me, I would owe him my life twice over. But he didn’t show up to save my butt a second time. It was just me and Jack and Hunny. And I wasn’t feeling terribly optimistic about our odds.

  A buzzing in my ears got louder. The kind of roar a motorcycle made. But it must have been a byproduct of all the fear and adrenalin flushing through my system. I hadn’t seen a running vehicle in ages.

  If the ferocious first grader heard the buzzing, he didn’t let it distract him. He struck my shins with his tractors, their sharp metallic edges biting through my black stretch leggings and drawing blood. Pain ricocheted up my calves and propelled me over tabletops as I tried to decide if it was safer to run and draw the Red away from Hunny or kill him in front of her.

  I gripped my sword and waved it in Jack’s face, hoping to scare him. He deflected the blade and devastated my ankles with his toys, cutting deep. Dark blood smeared across the table.

  The sight of my blood affected him. I expected him to go wild with blood lust like a vampire in a horror film, but instead of growing more agitated, Jack tilted his chin, bringing our faces inches apart. He stared at me. I smelled his foul breath and saw tiny flecks of dried blood on both pale, hollowed cheeks. Maybe I could reason with him. Maybe there was still a spark of humanity inside his little body.

  “Jack,” I snapped in my crankiest twin sister voice. “Stop it. You’re scaring me.”

  He leaned his face nearer to mine. Little Jack had stained baby teeth in front, and irises a lovely shade of rose. He inhaled deeply, and for a split second I thought he was going to answer me. But he curled his lips over grotesque chompers and, like an irritable Chihuahua, snapped at my nose. I flinched at the last second and saved my face from a major blemish. As in a missing nose or a scarred lip.

  Curling my knees up, I kicked him hard in the shoulder. He stumbled back a few steps, readjusted his grip on his tractors, and came at me again with nothing but rage and hunger in his red eyes. Any humanity the child had once possessed was unequivocally missing. Destroyed. Gone.

  I should have stayed home.

  “Kill him!” Hunny screeched, stomping her shoes on the counter. “Kill him, Maya!”

  Chapter Six

  I raised my sword, and Jack threw his whole weight against the table beneath my feet. My right knee tweaked, I fell, and my sword clattered away. The little kid swung his toy tractors like saw blades and caught me on both arms as I tried to block.

  I saw blood. My blood.

  If I didn’t get it together I would end up in the mini monster’s nest.

  The front door banged open, startling Jack, who turned his attention on the newcomers. Two young men filled the front doorway like an answer to a prayer I hadn’t even known I was praying.

  A ginger-haired teen stood beside a scruffy, gun-toting blond in a green tee with the words “U.S. Army” stamped across his chest in bold black print. Both had blood on them, but the redhead had three times as much as his buddy. They stared at me, bleeding and gasping on the floor, and were distracted just long enough for little Jack to attack. He swung his tractors at the red-haired b
oy who kicked Jack in the center of the chest, sending him scuttling back.

  Undaunted, Jack steadied himself, growled low in his throat, and sprinted for the men.

  The gun went off with a bang. Despite only standing five feet from Jack, Army Guy missed the Red entirely. But the sound and smell of gunpowder in the air triggered a whole new panic inside me. So much I couldn’t move for a second, couldn’t think, couldn’t run, couldn’t even blink. I watched grayish white smoke curl from the barrel of the weapon, thinking there was no worse sound in the world than the sharp, unsympathetic report of a gun.

  My heart sped up as the breath froze in my lungs.

  Duck. Hide. Run.

  I just stared at the handgun as it fired again. And missed again. Finally unable to witness the kill, I ducked my head and slid off the table.

  A final shot, a small body dropped, and then silence.

  Tears pooled and spilled over both cheeks, which was so stupid. I didn’t even know the kid. And two minutes ago he’d been trying to kill me, and I’d considered stabbing him through the chest. But it didn’t matter. I cried salty alligator tears, my throat closing up and nearly choking me. Embarrassed by the overreaction, I collected my sword and rushed out the side door, still sobbing.

  Maybe it was cruel to cut and run but I had survived this long by staying away from people. Most human beings were dangerous. And firearms were my breaking point.

  I got as far as the highway overpass before the guy with the gun, followed closely by Hunny, caught up.

  “Maya!” Hunny locked her arms around me and almost knocked me flat.

  I didn’t have any more patience for her clinging, and I was shaking in my skin. My self-control was long gone.

  “Get off me!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, probably attracting every Red for five miles, but my thoughts were scattered leaves after a windstorm. Good God, he’d fired a gun.

  Mason had fired a single shot at point blank range and killed Mom. I didn’t have to witness her murder to loathe guns and the misery they caused.