Until the End (15 page)

“Okay.”

We cruise in silence for a bit before Jordan asks me to check out the owner’s music collection. I come across some country mix and he asks me to put it in, which I do grudgingly. I suddenly remember that when we first started this journey it was supposed to be in his truck and I examine how at ease he is, his left knee raised slightly and hitched out so it leans against the door, his left elbow resting on the bottom of the window and his fingers barely touching the wheel.

“Oh my God,” I whisper and he glances at me, his face concerned. “You’re a good ole boy, aren’t you?”

He laughs. Genuinely, full on laughs, and the sound makes me smile.

“Maybe a little, yeah.” he confesses.

“You can’t hunt, though.”

“But I do fish. And I own a four wheeler.”

“And a truck.”

“Which I take mudding.”

“Do you own a beer cozy?”

“Ali, I own several.”

“I thought you were from Boston.”

He raises his eyebrow at me. “We can’t have hillbillies in Boston?”

I sigh heavily and lean my head back against the seat.

“Do you wanna know the best part about being a little country?” he asks quietly, his eyes on the road.

“What’s that?”

He takes full hold of the wheel with his left hand, drapes his right arm across the back of the bench seat and smiles invitingly at me. I blush for some reason and slide over until I’m nestled into his side, his arm curling around me and his fingers start running lazy lines up and down my arm.

We ride through the falling night this way, the rain pounding on the roof but never able to reach us. I know the infected are out there. Our headlights catch them every now and then as they wander the side of the road. Some see us coming and lunge toward the car, but Jordan easily avoids them, and like the rain, they can’t touch us.

The road will run out, the gas will run out, the night will run out, and in the morning there will be a world of worry waiting at my door, but right now with Jordan’s arm loose around me and his handsome heat and life pressing against my side, I am safe and sound and smiling again.

Walking isn’t as painful as I thought it would be. I think my leg is getting stronger now that I’m using it, and even after a night of sleeping two deep in the limited cab of a pickup truck, I feel great. We’re running out of food, which is probably a good thing because what we have is junk anyway. We
ate a breakfast of Nacho Cheese Doritos and shared our last water bottle as we walk along the river. The morning is wet and cold from the rain last night, but the sky is a beautiful blue without a single cloud in sight and I’m thankful for small favors. I miss the sleeve of my shirt that Jordan tore off, my bare arm feeling chilled in the cool air, but I’d rather be cold than running a brain melting fever and trying to eat Jordan for breakfast.

He rewrapped my hand last night with anti-bacterial swabs and sterile gauze, found a rough stadium blanket shoved behind the seat, and wrapped me in his arms and the blanket around the two of us. It was hard to fall asleep because I know we were both nervous of waking up surrounded by infected. We stopped driving with a little bit of gas left just in case that happened and we needed to run. I felt really vulnerable parked out in the middle of a field without a house in sight. There are almost no infected here, we left them behind in Wilsonville where they were marching slowly down I-5. Some stragglers were out here in the country as we drove but they were wandering aimlessly, probably trying to pick up a scent of something. We hoped they never caught ours. I wanted to crack a window when the air in the truck became too warm and stale, but I didn’t say anything because I knew we were both afraid of letting anything catch a whiff of us.

Now, though, we’re searching for any signs of civilization that will lead us to a boat. We were happy last night to be out in the middle of nowhere, but now it’s posing a bit of a problem. This is all farmland running the south side of the river without any houses, docks or, more importantly, boats. On the north side, though, we see the occasional landing and small country home, and while we both feel we could easily swim the width of the river, which has widened considerably here, we still don’t want to get our packs wet. There may not be much food left but the med supplies are too valuable to risk and the last of my pills are in there as well.

“We’ll have to walk to Newberg.” Jordan says, giving up on finding a boat for a while. “There’ll be a bridge we can cross and we’ll be able to reach the other shore.”

“Big city though.”

“I know. And it will be overrun just like the last few were, but what choice do we have?”

“None.”

“And we need to loot more food.”

I know it’s true, but it still makes me chuckle hearing him suggest it. He looks over at me, his expression questioning.

“I don’t even know who you are anymore.” I tell him lightly. “Driving cars, going into cities, looting. You’re breaking all your rules.”

He stops in front of me, forcing me to stop as well, and leans forward. I close my eyes and sigh when his lips meet mine. He doesn’t touch me other than the small press of his lips on mine, but it lights me up inside. I knew I was getting a crush on him, I’ve known it for a while, but when he shows me that he feels that way too, it feels so surreal it makes me dizzy. If I wasn’t sure my pills were working, I would think he was my first good hallucination.

“My priorities are shifting.” he says softly when he pulls away.

I frown slightly and I wish I hadn’t, but his comment bothers me.

“I don’t want you to change your plans because of me. If you think it’s dangerous, we shouldn’t do it, no matter what might be easiest or pleasant for me.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not gonna get us killed, but you’re a game changer. All of my plans and rules before were just about keeping myself alive
if,
and that’s a big if, this ever actually happened. I never believed it would, to be honest.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell the other nerds.”

“Thanks.” he says dryly. “It’s one thing to have theories and plans that you make up in the safety of your home or during a night of drinking with some friends, but it’s another to actually be doing it. Rules and plans have to be amended.”

I take his hand and he squeezes it gently, making me smile and feel so glad that he’s here with me.

Until ten minutes later, when I’m certain I’m going to lose him.

We’re walking along the river, pushing through a particularly thick section of trees, when I hear him cry out and I lose sight of him. He’s disappeared in the brush and I can’t see exactly
where he is, and when I call out, he doesn’t answer. Terrified he’s fallen into a hole or cracked his head on a log or rock, I tear through to the undergrowth looking for him. I continue to cry out for him, calling his name and thinking that if there are any infected nearby, I’m giving them a great beacon to follow to lunch. I can’t even begin to care. I’m too worried about Jordan, and when I search the area that I thought he was in a second time and still come up empty, I start to wonder if an animal got him or worse. One of the fast infected could have subdued him quickly, snapping his neck or covering his mouth. They have the reasoning skills, speed and strength to do it, and if there’s a fast one nearby, that means there are shamblers nearby as well. I stop my yelling, thinking that if Jordan is hurt and I call infected down on us, I might as well just finish us both off myself. I’m nearly crying as I search through the bushes and grass a third time, when suddenly I hear a sound.

“Stop, stop, stop.”

I hear the whisper from my left and when I stop and look around, I see Jordan lying on the ground hidden under a large bush and staring toward his feet.

“Don’t move.”

“What’s ha—“ I start to whisper back.

“Shhhh.” he hushes me, and never takes his eyes off the area near his feet.

I turn my head to look where he is and gasp. There’s a girl there, probably eleven years old, curled up tight in a ball beneath a tree. She’s staring at Jordan as he stares at her and I try very hard not to move or breathe. I know Jordan is sizing her up, waiting her out to see if she’s one of them. I can’t see her eyes in the shadows but her skin looks pale and she is a tight ball of wound up tension. It feels different than the coiled hunger emanating off the infected though, and I have to wonder if she’s simply scared.

Time creeps by, I have no idea how much, and my muscles start to ache with the tension. The girl shows no signs of aggression and I begin to allow myself to relax. She has lovely blond hair that’s terribly tangled and ratted around her face. There are leaves in it and her face is dirty, along with her clothes. I have the awful thought that she’s been sleeping out here alone. There’s no blood though, none that I can see, so I sink to the ground gradually and her eyes dart to me, watching me carefully. I attempt a small grin and wave slowly at her.

“Hi.” I say softly. “My name is Alissa. What’s yours?”

She stares at me for the longest time, never blinking, and I’m beginning to think I’m engaging an infected, when suddenly tears fill her eyes and pour down her cheeks. She’s alive.

“This guy over here,” I tell her, keeping my voice low and my eyes locked on hers. “Is my friend Jordan. Did he trip on you?”

Her eyes flash from me to Jordan, then back again, and she nods at me ever so slightly.

I smile wide and shake my head. “He is so clumsy. He didn’t hurt you, did you he?”

She shakes her head again, a little more emphatically this time.

“Good. Are you alright? Has anyone else hurt you?”

Her eyes go wide and she pulls herself tighter into a ball.

“It’s okay.” I say calmly, putting my hands up. “There’s none of them around right now. I promise. Did you and your family run from them?”

She nods.

“Where is your family, sweetie?”

She simply stares at me, the tears still pouring down her face, and I don’t need her to answer the question.

“Okay, it’s okay. I understand. Are you hungry? Can I give you something to eat?”

She doesn’t answer me, but I pull a candy bar out of my bag anyway. I lift it up and show it to her, see her eyes dart to it then back to me, and I gently toss it toward her. It lands by her feet and she simply stares at it. I glance at Jordan, who hasn’t moved from his prone position under the bush, and he shrugs at me. I settle in, taking a more comfortable seat on the ground with my legs crossed in front of me and pull out my phone. I only have a few songs on here but they’re recent Billboard hits and I wonder if I can find something she might like.

I look for something mellow but upbeat, something that can help me coax her out of her hiding place or even just calm her enough to eat the candy bar. I find a mellow mix and hit play, leaving the volume on low, but the sound carries lightly through the silent, sun dappled brush we’re sitting in and I know she can hear it. I watch her out of the corner of my eye as it plays, and about halfway through the first song I see her reach for the Snickers. I don’t look at her, I don’t want to startle her, but I subtly set the song for repeat and lean back against my hands. Jordan moves his foot slightly, nudging my knee, and when I look at him, his eyes are serious.

You. Are. Amazing.
he mouths.

I know.
I mouth back and smile as his shoulders shake with silent laughter.

It takes the better part of an hour to get the girl out of the bushes. She eats the Snickers and I feel bad that I don’t have any water left to give her. I ask Jordan if she can drink the river water since it’s moving, but he says he’d rather we waited until we hit Newberg and can get water from a faucet. I ask her if that’s okay, if she can wait, but she doesn’t answer me. Just holds my hand tightly and stares straight ahead. We make slow progress after that, with me pulling her along occasionally. She seems to forget that she’s supposed to be moving and just stops and won’t take a step. I have to stand in front of her and catch her eye, smile and then back up slowly. This seems to pull her out of her daze and she eventually starts following me, her eyes locked on mine. Jordan stays silent, but I can tell by his body language, the tightness in his shoulders, that it is killing him. He wants his boat and back on the river, and waiting for this girl and I to slowly wander through the fields is torture. I tell him to go ahead of us, to make it to Newberg and find a boat if he can and we’ll catch up. We haven’t seen an infected all day and my guard is dropping, something Jordan scolds me about.

“You have to stay vigilant.” he warns me. “Just because we don’t see any for a day, even two, doesn’t mean they can’t show up at any time.”

“Okay, I will, I’m sorry. I just think that with the open fields we’re in, I’ll see them coming and I have my bow. She and I will be fine.”

Jordan glances at the silent girl clinging to my hand and he looks worried.

“I don’t know about that.”

I understand what he’s saying. She hasn’t spoken a word and she’s so very out of it all the time, never focusing on anything but me. She doesn’t even want to go near Jordan, but what he doesn’t understand is that I’ve lived this. I’m sure this girl saw her family die, and I of all people can sympathize. After my mom killed herself, I shut down too. Uncle Syd started me in therapy because I wouldn’t talk to him or anyone else. What they found out once they got me talking was that I was having the hallucinations. I’d never really had them before. I’d heard things that turned out to not be there, but I’d never seen anything before. Not until my mom. The sounds, the voices, those I could handle, but the image of my mom following me around and talking to me; that’s what ruined me. When I see this girl looking off into the distance, staring intently, I wonder what she’s seeing that we can’t. Part of me doesn’t want to know.

We reach Newberg and the bridge taking us from farm land into the southern tip of the city. As we cross, we come upon two infected wandering aimlessly. I’m hoping Newberg is a
ghost town. It will make looting so much easier and even if we can’t find a boat maybe we can find another car and make it on the back roads down to Corvallis.

My hand aches where the girl is now crushing it and I wince at Jordan.

“I don’t think she’s letting go anytime soon. Why don’t you use your bow, take the shot.”

He frowns at the death grip the girl has on me, but nods and notches his arrow. I find I’m standing there critiquing his form in my head but I don’t say anything about his drooping elbow. He needs the confidence to do this himself and when real infected are around and not store mannequins, I’d like to let him focus. His first arrow goes wide, skidding over the asphalt and coming to a halt in the middle of the road. I hear him curse as he grabs another
arrow. He hits one of them in the neck with his next arrow, which doesn’t do any good and they are now advancing on us. Obviously frustrated, Jordan pulls out his bat and meets them halfway, cracking into the temple of the first one and dropping it in one hit, something I haven’t seen him do before. He takes a couple swings to bring the next one down, retrieves his arrow from its neck, and continues over the bridge to collect his other arrow without looking back at us.

I pull the girl along even though she fights me hard and starts making shrieking noises in her throat when we pass the infected lying on the ground. I have to practically lift her off the ground to get her past, and when we finally make it and her feet hit the ground, she starts to run to put distance between us and them, and I’m being pulled along beside her. As we run forward, I see that Jordan had been jogging back to us to help me, but now we pass him and run for the end of the bridge.