The Last Peak (Book 2): The Darwin Collapse (7 page)

“Something wrong with your hand?” Beth asked as her doctor instincts kicked into gear. What medicines did she have on hand? Not much. What gear? Did she have a splint?
 

“Yes,” Iridia said, “my cuticles are growing in!”

Beth’s doctor mind dropped into annoyed pseudo-parent mode. “Did you know your cuticles are there to prevent fungus and bacteria from getting in?”

Iridia stared blankly. She looked back at her hand. “They’re hideous!”

Elio slipped under the sheet with the empty tub and then froze in his tracks. His eyes went wide as dinner plates. They were locked to Iridia, to somewhere below her eyes.

Beth dipped under the laundry line and came out face to crotch with Iridia’s naked body. Not believing her eyes, she did a double take. Yes, naked. And she did have hair growing in. “Why are you naked?”

“Laundry is too much trouble. I’d rather go naked.”

Elio didn’t move.

“That wasn’t the solution I asked for!” Beth said.

“I know,” Iridia replied. “But I’m creative like that.”

Beth grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. She marched her out of the living room and noticed Elio frozen like a statue the whole way. They arrived at her room and she guided Iridia inside.

“You are not to leave this room without clothes covering your body. Do you understand me?”

Oh.

Em.

Gee.

She was such a parent! She was being forced to parent a twenty-five-year-old supermodel! How screwed up was that? One daughter was hard enough to handle.

“So, you’re saying I can hang out in
here
naked, right?”

THERESA WEST
peered out the passenger window of the Bronco as they slowly wound through a maze of abandoned vehicles, discarded furniture, decomposing bodies, and random junk that littered the street. Her dad drove with the Bronco lights off, but the last tendrils of twilight still revealed more than she wanted to see.

Her heart pounded in her eyes. At first, it was from the burning touch of Elio’s lips on hers. But over the last few blocks, it had shifted much darker. Lost was the warmth in her belly after their brief kiss. Lost was the giddy glow of his reflected desire.
 

She felt cold now. Deathly cold.

It was the evidence of suffering that surrounded them. How odd that some blocks could seem almost normal where others were like this one.

The faint scent of smoke reminded her of weekends at Tito and Mamaw’s house. Of how Tito would work up a roaring fire in the stone pit he’d built decades ago. Of how the flames would spit out little glowing fireflies that would shoot up and twirl away into the black sky. She always wondered if any of them made it to wherever it was they were going.

Or if every last one was sooner or later snuffed out and forgotten.

She looked down and noticed a bloated body lying face down next to the curb. A woman. More than that was hard to tell. Maybe it was a trick of the gathering darkness or maybe it was a simple defense mechanism, but none of it seemed real.

It felt fake.

Like it was a huge set in a Hollywood movie, maybe
Death Before Life
. She could almost see Ryan in his leading role step out of the shadows after defeating the enemy once and for all. His shirt torn off. Carved chest and abs throwing off sex appeal like nothing else in the world mattered.

But Ryan didn’t appear.

And this reality didn’t have an upbeat, sexy ending. One where she and Holly could clap and hoot like crazy, finish off the last kernels of popcorn, and then head home going over every second of a totally kickass two hours.

Because Holly was gone. Her best friend since third grade.
 

Buried in the ground in the Crayfords’ backyard.

Gone.

It couldn’t be real.

Her dad said something from the driver’s seat.

“Hmmm?” she said.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t think so.”

He squeezed her knee and didn’t say a word. He saw exactly what she saw. What could he say? If this wasn’t a movie, what could he do to change what had already happened?

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to visit Holly’s house. See if her parents are alive. It’s on the way to Rite-Aid.”

He didn’t answer and so Theresa prepared herself to battle over it.

“Okay.”

That was a surprise.
 

“Thanks.”

She really did want to check on them. Maybe they’d survived. But she also wanted to be in Holly’s room. Just
be
for a minute. She longed to feel connected to her best friend again, if only through the things she’d left behind.

They cut over a block and headed up Holly’s street. It wasn’t as chaotic as the last one was. That one looked like a war zone. This one looked like the morning after a block party. They stopped in front and Theresa saw a large red triangle sloppily painted on the front door, the sign that the house had been touched by the Delta Virus.

In the first days of the outbreak, an attempt at a coordinated response had been made. The national guard had rolled through Los Angeles marking and cordoning off infected zones, trying to impose order where none would take root.

She wondered if the Pearson’s door was painted by a soldier as a warning to others to stay away, or, like their house, someone had painted it as a deterrent to looters. Like a sign in your yard of an alarm company that didn’t exist. She looked at all the nearby houses and saw the same spray-painted, red triangle on each of the doors.

It didn’t look like a trick.

Mason cut the engine and she grabbed the door handle to exit.

“Wait,” he said. “Put on your respirator mask and latex gloves. A virus isn’t supposed to be able to live for more than twenty four hours outside the body. Then again, the world has never seen a virus like this so we’re going to play it safe. Got it?”

“Okay.”

Theresa dug through her backpack and pulled out a white N95 respirator mask and secured it to her face. She pulled out blue latex gloves and stretched them over her hands.
 

Her dad checked the mask and tightened it a little. “Let’s observe first.”

She nodded. Made sense. If anyone or anything came after them, good luck messing with the Bronco. This old tank could probably bulldoze through a house in a pinch. They watched in silence for a few minutes. She watched how her father turned his head back and forth, constantly scanning in every direction.

“Seems quiet,” he said in a hushed tone. “This is how we’re going to do this. I want you right behind me at all times. If I stop, you stop. If I get down, you get down. If I run, you run.”

He flicked a look at the holstered Glock at her hip. “You only draw that if I am unable to defend us. Understand?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Good. Get your headlamp and backpack on.” He looked her over and blew out a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

He met her on the passenger side and they crept toward the house that held so many happy memories for her and, yet, now seemed so full of nightmares. Her dad moved with his gun drawn and pointed a few feet in front of him.

She watched him and marveled at the transformation. He was no longer the annoying father that snooped through her texts or shoved his overprotective nose in where it didn’t belong.
 

He was an animal in his element.

He moved like a predator on the prowl. A creature of the night welcoming the end of day and the return to the shadows. It sent chills up her spine and set the hairs on the back of her neck on end.

He appeared deadly calm, which made the hammering in her chest all the more violent. He stopped at the door and dropped to a knee. She did the same. He held his finger to his lips while listening through the door.

They stayed there for a few moments. She started to wonder if maybe he’d forgotten what they were doing and was lost in thought or something.

He tapped her shoulder and brought her attention back to the present. He nodded and tried the doorknob. With the faintest click, it opened a sliver. He paused to listen again.
 

Nothing.

In a burst of speed, he swept inside, flicked on his headlamp and scanned the front room with his Glock following his eyes back and forth.
 

Empty.

He eased the door shut behind her and brought his mouth to her ear. “Leave your light off until we need it.”

She nodded. She took a deep breath and immediately regretted it.

Even through the N95-rated filter, the air stank of rot and disease. The Pearson’s didn’t have a pet, so the most likely source of the stench wasn’t hard to figure out.

Mason tapped her shoulder and waved for her to follow.

As they moved deeper into the darkened house, a wild scream bubbled up in her throat and threatened to tear free.
 

In the living room, cords hung out of the wall above the fireplace where a huge flat-panel TV once hung. All of the family pictures that had lined the mantle were now on the ground, images trampled and glass shattered. The cabinets on either side were either open or missing the doors altogether. Old VHS tapes and newer DVDs were scattered all over the carpet. A large, irregular patch of charred black in the middle evidence that a fire had briefly burned.
 

Mason motioned her on. She took a step.

CRUNCH.

A plastic DVD case cracked apart underfoot. The sound shattered the silence like the gunshot that starts a horse race. They both froze, expecting a response and thankfully not getting one.

They moved through the kitchen and on toward the back of the house. The stench grew stronger. They encountered nothing living through the remaining rooms and finally came to the closed door that was Holly’s parent’s room.

The odor was so thick Theresa could feel it on her skin.

Mason turned to her and whispered, “Stay out here. You don’t need to see this.”

She nodded. She had no desire to add some gruesome scene of decomposition to the material that already invaded her nightly dreams.

He opened the door just enough to slip through and disappeared inside. The light from his headlamp bounced dimly back into the hallway through the opening.
 

Theresa’s chest started to hurt. A dull ache that squeezed tight, making it difficult to breathe. She sucked hard through the filtered mask that was beginning to feel like a plastic bag. Her fingers tingled and her head swam. Her pounding heart echoed in her ears. She leaned against the wall trying to catch her breath.

Mason appeared and shut the door behind him.
 

“Holly’s parents are gone.”

Theresa slumped to the floor. Tears cascaded down her cheeks and soaked into the cotton mask. She heard a low moaning and was only dimly aware that it was coming from her mouth.

Her father pulled her up with ease and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry.” He held her in place as her numb legs supported no weight.
 

Something inside Theresa broke free and the dam behind her eyes collapsed. A river of grief flowed from her soul and onto his chest. He held her tight until the torrent eased to a trickle. “I can’t believe she’s gone, Daddy.”

“I know, honey. I know.”

“I want my best friend back.”

Another wellspring of anguish billowed up, but then sputtered when there was nothing below it to continue building the pressure.

“Can I go to her room?”

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

“Can I do it alone?”

Mason considered and then answered, “Yes. Just be careful. I’m going to look through the kitchen to see if anything useful might be left.”

“Okay.”

They walked together back to Holly’s room. Theresa clicked her headlamp on to the dim setting.

“You sure you want to do this?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“I’ll check on you in a few minutes.”

She stepped into the bedroom that was once occupied by her best friend in the world. The place was a total mess, which wasn’t all that different from when Holly had lived here. She sat on the mattress on the floor and looked around. A torn
Death Before Life
movie poster hung from the wall above Holly’s bed. Holly used to say she loved waking up with Ryan’s hot body on top of her.
 

A choked giggle escaped Theresa’s lips as she remembered Holly bragging about how she’d fall asleep gazing at the poster and then find Prince Charming in her dreams. Her very non-Disney, and shockingly explicit, dreams.

That was Holly.

And she was gone.

Theresa shone her headlamp around the room, as much in the present as in the past that dwelt more deeply in her heart.

A sparkle in the corner of the room caught her eye.

She swept across the area and there it was again. Probably a shard of broken glass. She got up and shoved aside filthy sheets and clothes that might’ve once been Holly’s.
 

There.

Lodged in the corner where the carpet met the wall.

A fine silver chain.

She dug in with her fingernail and pulled it free.
 

A silver locket in the shape of a heart. The letters BFFs engraved on the surface.
 

Her heart broke in two as she wedged a fingernail into the seam and popped it open. Each half contained a faded picture of each of them in third grade. Theresa remembered giving the locket to Holly for her ninth birthday like it was yesterday.

She pinched it closed and pressed it to her chest over her heart. Holly was gone. But Theresa would never forget her.
 

Never.

A noise from outside the bedroom made Theresa jump. She turned around and saw nothing. It sounded like a door opening or closing.

“Dad?” she said in a loud whisper.

There was no reply.

“Dad! Is that you?” she said a little louder.

Still no reply.

She stuffed the locket in her pocket and crept out of the room. A shuffling sound and then what was definitely a door shutting froze her in her tracks. Her hand went to the holstered Glock at her hip.