The Remnants of Yesterday (14 page)

41

THE FIRE CAST LONG shadows over the clearing, the flames providing some comfort against the onslaught of night. For all I knew, we were drawing Crazies to us by the dozen. Somehow I didn’t think so, not this far into the woods, and the fire would surely keep away most of the nocturnal wildlife.

I felt like crap. My clothing, soaked through hours ago, was now just damp and cold against my skin. My shirt, I suspected, was ruined. Large stains smeared the front of it, and there was a tear below one shoulder where I’d snagged it pushing through the fence. I peeled the shirt off and discarded it. There was no point in bothering to dry it by the fire, since I had no intention of ever wearing it again.

Clara followed suit, stripping off her shirt, and unbuckling her pants.

“We’re just going to undress here?” Emily asked.

“Right out in the open?”

“I think circumstances outweigh modesty,” Clara said, dropping her pants and kneeling, wearing just her undies, to find some dry clothes in her pack.

“I agree,” I said. It would be a bad idea to split up and change clothes out of sight. We had no idea what may be lurking in the woods, if anything, but I didn’t want to take any chances. “It’s better if we stick together.”

“Fine.” Emily didn’t look happy.

“We can turn our backs if you want?” I ventured.

“No. It just feels odd, undressing like this.” She pulled her tee up and off. “I mean, I didn’t know any of you a few days ago. I don’t even like undressing in front of my boyfriend.” She paused a moment, then spoke again. “Still, after what we’ve been through together, it feels like I’ve known you forever.”

“You have a boyfriend?” Darwin glanced sideways at her.

“Used to. We broke up a few weeks back,” She said. “He said he wanted different things.”

“What did he want?” Darwin found a clean shirt, pilfered from one of the guest rooms, and put it on.

“Mainly, he wanted Amy Clements. The bastard.” She slid out of her jeans and draped them over a nearby branch to dry, then pulled on a fresh pair. “Funny, he’s probably dead now, or crazy. I should feel sad about that, but somehow I don’t.”

42

WE SAT AROUND eating cold baked beans out of cans with the lids pulled back, and soaking up the juice with sliced sandwich bread. It was not an ideal meal, and one I would never have imagined myself eating just a few days before, but tonight it tasted like heaven. We could have pushed the cans into the bottom of the fire to heat up, poking holes in the top to prevent them from exploding, but we were all so hungry that we decided to skip that step for the sake of swiftness and go straight for the eating part.

A moment of panic set in when I realized we did not have a can opener, a stupid oversight. Luckily, the beans were pull top so we dodged a bullet, at least this time.

For the longest time nobody said a word, the only sound around the campfire that of us devouring the oddly satisfying meal and the soft crackling of the wood as it burned. After a while, with our bellies full, we dissected the events of the past few days.

“What do you think they are?” Clara asked.

“What?” I shoveled a spoonful of beans into my mouth, scraping the bottom of the can to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Food was suddenly precious.

“Those things back at the motel,” She said. “Those vile creatures that attacked the Crazies, that came after us.”

“I don’t know.” It was the truth. I had never heard of any beast matching the description of the ones we encountered.

Darwin spoke up. “Maybe they escaped from a government lab.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You know, mutants or something.”

“I hardly think so,” I replied. “Is there even a government facility anywhere around here? Besides, that doesn’t explain the Crazies. It all has to be linked somehow.”

“Have you got a better explanation then?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “I just don’t think they are mutants.”

“Well they sure as hell aren’t pussy cats.” Emily picked up a stick and stoked the fire, sending a ribbon of flames leaping into the air.

“My money is on aliens,” Darwin said.

“Oh, come on. Really?” That seemed to be pushing things too far. I took another piece of bread and bit into it.

“Why not aliens?” Emily countered, leaping to his defense. “There are plenty of theories that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth. The History Channel is full of that stuff.”

“Well, they will have a field day now,” I muttered. “Assuming things ever get back to normal.”

“I think aliens are a long shot,” Clara said. “But they must have come from somewhere.”

“They didn’t seem to like the Crazies, that’s for sure.”

”They didn’t like us either.” I pointed out. “And the feeling is mutual.”

“So that brings us back to the big question,” Clara said. “Where did they come from and why?”

“A zoo?” Darwin waggled his spoon. “They looked a bit like panthers.”

“Yeah. Panthers with really huge jaws, and teeth that would make a Sabre Tooth Cat cry,” I retorted.

“And let’s not forget those muscles. If they were Panthers, they were on steroids,” Clara said.

“Right. I think we can safely rule out escapees from a zoo, and while we’re at it, lab mutants and aliens too.” Now that the crackpot theories were out of the way, I hoped we might have a reasonable discussion regarding the origins of the beasts. It seemed I was out of luck.

“What about another dimension?” Darwin seemed to be determined to come up with one wacky idea after another. “Scientists have theorized that we may be living in one of millions of dimensions, all existing in the same space but on separate frequencies.”

“This is pointless.” I slammed the empty bean can down on the ground and stood up, glaring at Darwin. “What is wrong with you? You’re just hiding behind stupid theories. Don’t you get it? Don’t you see what’s happening all around us? The whole world has gone to crap. People that were perfectly sane three days ago have somehow turned into mindless killers. Monsters that look like something out of a horror movie are stalking us, and not even the weather is acting right.”

“Hey, he’s just trying to make sense of things.” Clara reached out and put her hand on my arm. “We all are.”

“I know.” I sat back down and took a deep breath. It wasn’t Darwin’s fault, but there was steam I needed to vent, and he was the easiest target. “Sorry.” I cast him a sideways glance.

“Well-” He looked hurt.

“Come on… I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Fine.”

“Great,” Clara said. “Can we play nice from now on boys?”

I nodded.

“That’s better.” She rummaged in a bag and took out a soda, popping the top and drinking before speaking again. “Let’s all agree that it’s not aliens or mutants, shall we.”

Now Darwin nodded.

“I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for all this.”

“Like what?” Darwin asked.

“It has to be a virus that turned everyone into Crazies. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.” 

“Fine, but that still doesn’t explain the Panthers.” Great. Now I was thinking of them as big cats, which we all knew they were not. “Even if we assume the humans fell victim to a virus of some sort, and from what we know it is highly likely, we are still left with the puzzle of those creatures. There’s nothing the right shape or size for an animal like that living in North America, let alone here.”

“Actually there have been sightings of Cougars and Mountain Lions in recent years.” Darwin spoke softly, probably testing the waters to see if I would go off on him again. “They are scarce, but they would be about the right size.”

“I don’t see it. Those things looked nothing like a big cat. They looked-” I searched for the right word.

“Monstrous.” Clara filled in the blank.

“Thank you. Monstrous.” That seemed to be about as good a word as any. “Besides, what type of virus would make people go mad, then jump species and turn big cats into monsters like that? I mean, it would have to be a physical change, not just a mental one. I’m no biologist, but I don’t think it’s even possible for an infection to do that kind of thing.”

“If only we had access to the internet,” Emily said. “I bet we could find out what was going on then.”

“Oh yes, Wikipedia knows all,” I muttered.

“Sorry?”

“I was agreeing with you.”

“There is something else too.” Clara reached out and warmed her hands by the fire. “All the missing people.”

“We don’t know for sure that they are missing. Maybe they all just went off reservation, went nuts.” My thoughts returned to the woman with the BMW back at the gas station. If she had turned crazy, we would surely have encountered her when we ran across Walter. Then again, Walter could have gotten to her too. That didn’t explain the other odd instances where there should have been people, or bodies.

As if reading my mind, Clara said, “What about the cars on the highway? You said yourself that the seatbelts were still buckled, the doors jammed. Those people couldn’t have escaped. Same with the pilots in the downed plane. And Emily said that she was alone when she woke up in the school library. There should have been many more people at the school than there was.”

“I know, I know. I don’t have an answer.” I wished I did. Something else nagged at me too, how we’d all blacked out at the same time. I was about to mention that, but suddenly without warning my phone vibrated.

I had received another text.

43

FOR THE LONGEST time no one spoke.

We huddled around the phone and stared at the screen, at the text message sitting there in all its backlit glory.

VIRUS UNSTABLE

NORTH NOT SAFE

GO TO NEW HAVEN

“What does that mean,” Clara asked, finally breaking the silence. “North not safe?”

“Beats me. It doesn’t sound good,” I said. I read the text again, but it didn’t get any better the second time around.

“I don’t like the part about the virus,” Emily said. “It sounds like it’s spreading. What if one of us comes down with it?”

“I guess if that happens, we deal with it then. Thinking about the possibility will do no good, it will only make us feel paranoid and scared,” Clara said. “We stick together, we continue to head south, and we’ll be fine.”

“Is it from your brother, like the last time?” Emily asked.

“It’s his number for sure. Other than that, I have no idea.”

“How can your phone have any battery power left?” Emily asked. “You can’t have charged it. There hasn’t been any power since the first afternoon.”

“Another good question.” I was as baffled as everyone else, especially since the phone still showed twenty-five percent juice. “I’d like to say it has awesome battery life, but there’s no way it should still be working now.”

“Finally some contact with the outside world.” Darwin looked hopeful. “Call him back.”

“It won’t work,” Clara told him. “We tried last time.”

“Last time?” Darwin echoed. “You mean you’ve been talking to someone all this time?”

“No.” I punched the number and hit the option for callback, then put it on speaker. After one ring, an all too familiar voice came on the line. Not my brother, but the same automated message as before. “See? It won’t connect. The text messages come in, but I can’t send anything out. It’s a one-way street, so no conversation.”

“That’s a shame.” Darwin looked crestfallen.

“Yeah, it is.” I understood his disappointment. It was nothing compared to my own dismay upon discovering that I could not communicate with my brother. In the three days since the world had collapsed around us, my thoughts had turned to Jeff often. I wondered if the texts really were from him. If they were, what was he doing in New Haven? How had he found his way there? I would have given anything to hear his voice, even for just a few short moments, to know he was really, truly safe. The text messages provided a ray of hope, something to grasp onto. After all, who else would bother to send messages to me other than Jeff? It had to be him.

“I wish I’d heard from my family,” Emily said. “I would give anything to know they are safe.”

“Best not to think about it,” said Clara.

I glanced at her, remembering her pragmatic decision not to bother trying to reach her parents in Florida. I wished I could say something that would make her feel better, but what was there to say?

“Makes me glad I never knew my parents,” Darwin said. “Makes things easier.”

“You never knew your parents?” A look of sadness crossed Emily’s face. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I grew up in foster homes.” He looked down into his can of beans. “I spent most of my childhood bouncing from place to place until I reached eighteen and then I was on my own.”

“That’s awful.” Emily looked shocked. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He smiled. “Turned out to be a good thing in the end. I’m the only one not worried about anyone else.”

Emily shot a look at him.

“Except you guys of course,” he said. “I’m glad you were there when those beasts came. I don’t know what I would have done on my own. Probably be a half digested meal for one of them by now.”

“And it would probably be high as a kite,” I said. “Judging by the amount of pot you had.”

There was a moment of silence, and then everyone burst out laughing.