Green Fields (Book 2): Outbreak (3 page)

The way Nate kept squeezing my arms felt more supportive than the gesture had a right to be, and when I looked at him again, I could clearly see that he was hurting for me. That alone seemed so at odds after his mostly no-nonsense behavior of the past day, but then he had been on a mission. Now, all that was left for us was to survive—those of us who were still alive.

“You can hate me for saying this now, but we don’t have time to sugar-coat it,” Nate suggested, his voice hard but still kind of gentle. “There is nothing you can do for her.”

I knew that—rationally, but my heart still wanted to dance to a different tune. I still didn’t know how the infection was spreading all around us, but if the way Raleigh had died was any indication, anyone would be dead within two days—or worse. And Sam’s two days had run out even before I’d seen that video.

“She… she was—“ I started, swallowing hard when I just couldn’t go on for a moment. “She came home sick on Wednesday afternoon. She called me to pick up some chicken soup on the way home but I forgot—“

Nate cut me off before I could go on.

“You know that you can’t help her,” he said. “Even if you could make it across town—and I honestly don’t think that we have any time left—trust me, you don’t want to. If she was lucky, she’s dead. And if not, she’d just come after you the second you unlocked the door to your apartment.”

The cynic inside of me supplied a third option—that she hadn’t remained home but instead stayed with whatever latest girl she was cheating on me with. If you could call it cheating considering that I suspected and had always been too placid to get in her face about it. And who was I really to throw stones? But the fact was the same—she was likely dead.

Martinez stepped up to us, remaining a little to the side as if to lend us some privacy but clearly intent on butting into our conversation.
 

“From what we know, most infected have died within the first twenty hours. The latest numbers are giving a ten-hour window for incubation, and less than thirty average until it’s over.” He cleared his throat, avoiding my gaze. “And about one in ten… well, you know.”

“Comes back as a zombie?” I asked, my voice still pressed but a little less frail now. There was no sense to sugar-coating that, either.

“Yup,” was all he provided, clearly uncomfortable. The very idea was too absurd to consider, and still—even the looters were wearing face protection, not that it would change anything.

Nate cleared his throat, making me focus back on him. “I know that this is hard for you—“

I interrupted him before he could go any further.

“I get it. She’s dead. And we need to go. So, let’s go, right?” I hated how hollow and cold that sounded, but it was the truth. The fact that all of them were still tense and clearly ready to move out told me that lingering wasn’t an option, either—even if it felt like I was abandoning everything I’d ever believed in. Everything I’d ever loved.

Nate gave me a single, slow nod. I could see that he wanted to say more, but, really, what was there to say? If this was as bad as it seemed from the three blocks we’d seen of the city so far, there was no telling how much worse it would be elsewhere—and that very likely meant that everyone I’d ever known—family, friends, acquaintances—were either dead, or out to kill those who had miraculously avoided infection so far. Looking around at the others, I could see that same knowledge in every pair of eyes that I met, only none of them chose to act on the grief they must be feeling. Somehow, that made it just a little easier to suppress that wave of emotion and push it to the back of my soul, to leave there until a later time when I might have the opportunity to wallow in it.

“Let’s go,” Nate agreed, and after lingering for another second, he turned to Pia. “Get us the fuck out of this city.”

Chapter 2

With the bulk of the soldiers gone now and most of the mercenaries dispersed to the seven winds, there were only twenty-two of us remaining. I was the only civilian, but Nate not the only one more or less out of commission for the moment. Several of the remaining people were limping or holding an arm a little closer to their bodies than needed be, and there was no one around who wasn’t sporting a bruise or stain on their clothes that hinted at a cut or worse. Still, we didn’t linger at the intersection, but Pia had us move out in the direction of the mall within the minute Nate gave her to “go.”

Maybe we were just lucky, but the entire stretch to the mall, we didn’t encounter any problems. There were the occasional looters or other people who quickly faded into the shadows as soon as they saw the amount of weapons and body armor our group was toting. As the buildings started to thin out, the obvious destruction seemed to increase, though, with more burned-out cars, broken windows, and a fair share of bodies clustered together—but it didn’t look that different from what I figured the aftermath of a riot would look like. The wail of sirens remained behind, only audible now when the wind turned.

The mall we were aiming for was not much more than a cluster of maybe twenty stores with a huge parking lot around them, mostly deserted now. A few of the parked cars held what looked like the remnants of someone’s bug-out gear—minus the food, from what I could tell. Of the stores, the only one that was obviously emptied out was the supermarket, with torn-open packaging and no less than ten dead on the sidewalk in front of it. The lights inside were off but from what I could see through the smashed glass front, even the racks had been torn down, not just looted, with debris littering the floor ankle-deep in places. I kind of expected Nate to dispatch a couple of people in that direction, but they completely ignored the store as they swarmed out. Instead, five fatigue-clad figures entered the outdoor goods store, while Pia took Martinez and the two soldiers that had come with him into the pharmacy. The rest of us remained in the parking lot for the moment, until the all-clear came from both sides.

That was Nate’s signal to hail me over, and I followed him into the store. He was still cautiously walking through the aisles while his people were busy pulling backpacks and assorted camping gear from the racks, but when no one shot at us or came to rip our faces off, he relaxed and pushed me toward the women’s section.

“Grab everything that’s sturdy but lightweight, at least two sets of everything that’s not outerwear, if possible in muted colors,” he hollered at me while he dove into the men’s section.

I had to admit, I was a little hesitant at first—likely because while some parts of the store looked ransacked already, the clothes were pretty much in order as I’d come to expect from normal shopping experiences. It just felt… wrong to grab clothes off the rack and not pay for them. Not that the register seemed to be working, with even the indoor lights turned off.
 

“Do you need an extra invitation?” Nate said from right behind me, making me jump and shriek. He flashed me a brief grin as he thrust a lightweight backpack at me. “Here, for your stuff. Now get going. You don’t want to get caught with your pants around your ankles, right?”

I eyed him critically, but then turned back to the rack of T-shirts. “It’s just weird.”

“Better get used to it. I don’t think that we’ll have this luxury for much longer.”

“Luxury?”

“Getting fresh new clothes that haven’t been raided from someone’s corpse.”

With that, he ducked back into the men’s section and disappeared from view as he started unlacing his boots. The very idea made a shudder run through my body, and suddenly, the pristine clothes looked a lot more inviting.

“Do you think it will get that bad?” I asked as I started rifling through my size, pulling two black and one tan shirts off the hangers and stuffed them into the pack.

“Depends,” I heard his answer muffled as he started putting on fresh clothes. “And speed up, you’re way too picky. And change the clothes you’re wearing right now, too. You likely won’t get a chance to change in the next week.”

Looking around, I searched for the changing rooms, but when I saw that they were in a nook that looked just like it had a neon sign with “trap” over it, I decided that staying alive was the better part of valor. My panties and bra I’d only worn since the early hours of the morning so I kept them on, but I grabbed everything else, starting with socks. Nate joined me halfway through, already unrecognizable from before in zip-off pants and a lightweight hiking jacket. Wordlessly, he pulled the pack from my hand and motioned for me to get going. Meanwhile, the others had finished and were lugging their bulging backpacks outside, making me anxious about being left behind for no good reason.

I was just about to add a couple of sports bras to my selection when a loud crash behind me made me tear around, my heart thudding in my throat. Nate’s gun was out and he pushed me behind him before I even had time to register what was going on, but he relaxed a moment later when two hands appeared from behind the cash register, followed by the anxious face of a maybe twenty-something guy.

“Please don’t shoot at me!” he offered, his voice skipping up an entire octave on the last word.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Nate asked, his voice crisp and sharp. He glanced sideways at me, silently urging me to continue. A little anxious, I quickly grabbed a pair of hiking pants and pulled them on, not quite comfortable with my ass out in the open.

“Skip, and this is Brad and Steve,” came the shaky answer from the other side of the store. “We’re working here. Well, were. Late shift yesterday. We hunkered down in storage when they torched the cars outside.” Two more heads joined the first, belonging to guys of similar age. Both looked scared shitless, something I could commiserate with. Nate still hadn’t lowered his gun, but I doubted that he intended to shoot at them. They didn’t share the same conviction, though, and when Nate didn’t react, the one I figured was Brad offered, “Just take anything you want. It’s not like anyone is paying us for this shit.”

Nate gave them a last hard glare, then holstered his gun and turned back to me. “Are you done?” Without a jacket and in socks, I felt like the answer was obvious. Grumbling something under his breath, he grabbed a dark green jacket from the rack and pushed it at me. I was surprised that it fit, although I felt instantly hot with it on. Without looking back, he walked over to the shoe section. He went straight to the hiking boots. When I eyed him critically, he turned to me and gave me a long-suffering look.

“We won’t really do that much running, if that’s why you keep glaring at me like that.”

“Isn’t cardio like rule number one?” I asked, pitching my voice sugar sweet.

Nate snorted. “Trust me, you can run better in boots, particularly if you have to kick the living shit out of whatever wants to hunt you down. And if you have to run more than a mile or two, you’re dead, anyway.” I couldn’t help but be lightly pissed at his claim, which got me an eye-roll. “Seriously. If something is after you that you can’t shake in fifteen minutes or so, you’re fucked. That’s not a commentary on your level of fitness, but a fact of life. Unless you’re a competitive marathon runner, but neither of us can hold a candle to that, I believe.”

Somewhat mollified, I looked over the boots, starting to pull several pairs out and trying them on. I set the first that fit aside and continued until I found a second, while Nate busied himself tying the boots to my backpack. As soon as we were done, he turned toward the door, leaving me to fight with my new burden, but I stopped on the way out and quickly ducked into the team sports section. Nate gave me another of those looks, until I held up an aluminum baseball bat to him.

“Seriously, I’m useless with a gun, but the idea to go back out there with empty hands is making me more than just a little uncomfortable,” I offered.

I got a brief smile in return that, on any other day, would have made me smile back, but I was fresh out of positive displays of emotion.
 

“That’s my girl,” he replied, his smile deepening for a second, but disappearing the next. “Take a wooden one, too. Not sure how much the aluminum will bend over time.”

We were almost out of the store when Skip called after us.

“Ah… would you mind if we joined you guys? You look like you can handle yourselves in a fight.”

Nate eyed them critically, but relented after a second or two. “Grab some gear and meet us outside. If you’re not done in ten minutes, you’re on your own.”

Following him back outside and into the deceptively nice sunshine, I couldn’t help but frown. “Why do they get ten minutes when you hassle me through the store in five?”

“Closer to fifteen,” he grunted while giving my new outfit a last critical look. “And do you really need an answer for that?”

I shook my head, and we went outside to join the others where they had started to build a huge stack of gear in the middle of the parking lot. As soon as I joined them, Pia grabbed my backpack and upended the entire thing right there, but protest died on my lips when she immediately bent to tear packaging open and re-packing it. “I’ll teach you how to do that yourself tomorrow,” she promised, not even looking up from her task.

Anxiously looking around, I was just waiting for something to come for us as we were standing around like sitting ducks, but everything looked just as it had before. And with the sun warming my face, I couldn’t help but yawn. Damn, that wasn’t looking good.

“Why don’t you grab some coffee?” the Ice Queen suggested. “Burns and Martinez are already raiding that shop over there.” It was clear that she didn’t need me here, and as Nate was busy poring over maps with Andrej that they had procured from somewhere, I nodded, taking her advice.

Burns turned out to be the bear of a soldier who had been the first to join besides Martinez. He was currently rummaging through the remains of the snacks section, although it didn’t look like it had been stocked recently, judging from the odor of spoiled food that hung in the air. Martinez and the other two soldiers were behind the counter, filling up what looked like the rest of the take-away cups remaining in the partly destroyed store. I just eyed the foamy atrocities they produced critically and instead stepped around them to turn on the drip coffee machine, pressing the buttons for the extra strong brew.