Wild (20 page)

Thirty-two

T
he kitchen smelled like pizza when Dara let herself in.

Oil stained the corner of a delivery box, proof that it was the best pizza of all: greasy and halfway to cold. Locking up, Dara pushed her hood down and helped herself to the last two slices of pepperoni.

Groaning in pleasure, she slumped against the fridge. With another bite, she slid down and savored it. She had no idea how hungry she was until the first taste of mozzarella and sauce. The perfection of grease and sweet filled her mouth and she sighed again.

“Glad that's you I heard,” Sheriff Porter said. He brushed her away from the fridge. Pulling open the stainless steel door, he searched the drawers inside systematically. “I have handcuffs and I'm not afraid to use them.”

“Ha,” Dara said.

Bottles rattled, and Sheriff Porter finally emerged with a beer. Closing the fridge door, he offered the bottle to his daughter. She lit up, and he smiled. Watching her do the counter trick pretty much always made his day.

She rested the fluted edge of the cap against the edge of the counter. Then she gave the cap a thump. It flipped into the air as the bottle wheezed a steamy breath.

“Don't forget to tip your bartender,” she said, smiling like a loon.

It was a dumb, simple thing. Something he'd taught her when she was barely old enough to see the top of the counter. When she was little, it used to earn her quarters from her friends' parents during summer barbecues. Now it was just a leftover, something they alone shared.

Reclaiming his bottle, Sheriff Porter took a thoughtful sip as Dara picked up her pizza again. “So how's Sofia?”

Dara made a face like she might hedge. But she told the truth anyway, no point in lying about it. “I went and saw Cade, actually.”

“Huh.”

“Daddy,” she said, resigned to her exasperation now.

The sheriff shared that exasperation, and whinged back at her. “Daraaaa.”

That teased another smile from her. Polishing off her appetizer, Dara took her turn and brushed her father away from the fridge. This time, she rummaged. Leftover chicken, lunchmeat . . . in her heart, she knew she was looking for more pizza. Or, irrationally, something hot and delicious that she wouldn't have to make herself.

“He's doing better,” she said. “And you'll like this, he shaved.”

Sheriff Porter nodded. “I do like that.”

“He didn't cut his hair.”

“I like that less,” Sheriff Porter said, amused. “So you were at Kelly's all afternoon with him?”

Another hedge. Then Dara emerged with a carton of eggs and a bottle of hot sauce. “We snuck down to Clayton Park.”

Though he wasn't wearing his uniform, the work version of Dara's dad suddenly appeared. It showed in the angle of his gaze. That, and a particular tightness swept over him. It was a shield, the one he put on before the badge. The attitude that kept most people from giving him a hard time. “Why'd you have to sneak? Were there reporters out there?”

“A couple out front,” Dara admitted. “But Mr. Anderson had a hoodie that fit Cade, and we just went out the back. Nobody saw us.”

“Good. I wish somebody'd drive a truck up on their front lawn a couple nights in a row.”

Dara snorted. “Recursive story is recursive.”

When Sheriff Porter looked over, his baffled expression was almost comical. Dara laughed under her breath and greased her pan. There was no point in explaining memes to her dad. By the time he caught on to the intricacies, they were long over.

Soon, the satisfying crack and sizzle of eggs filled the kitchen. The pizza scent faded, replaced by breakfast at night.
One of the best scents in the world,
Dara thought.

Then she wondered if Cade had ever tried it. If he could even conceive of it. Pretty sure he didn't have a toaster in the middle of nowhere. Or bacon, or OJ—citrus definitely didn't grow in the wilds of Kentucky.

“What would it be like if you'd never had orange juice?” Dara mused aloud.

“Less heartburn,” Sheriff Porter quipped. Considering the question, he added, “I don't know. That's like asking, what if you never had food from Ethiopia? I never have, but I expect I don't know what I'm missing.”

Scraping her pan, Dara said, “I couldn't do it. Live in the forest. Even if I could give up my phone, and the internet, I mean . . .
how do you even survive? I'd die without AC in the summer.”

Sheriff Porter laughed. Loudly, and long. “No you wouldn't. I didn't have it growing up. My mother still had an outhouse until she was ten or eleven.”

“Are you serious?”

“You have no idea.” Sheriff Porter finished his beer and tossed the bottle in the recycling. “Now, sugar, let me ask you something. And I don't want you to get bristly on me. It's just a question.”

Being warned not to bristle put Dara on instant alert. She kept her attention on the pan, but shrugged. The gesture told him to go ahead, ask away—but it didn't make promises. She'd bristle if she wanted to.

“Has he said anything to you? Anything that could help me help him?”

Dara sighed. Taking her pan from the fire, she turned to him. “You know what? I honestly don't know that he needs help. He's healing. He's smart. Why can't he just go home?”

“I'd take him myself if I knew where that was.”

“Um, and you know. He told you where he lived.” She shrugged. “I'll work on visualizing no AC. Why don't you try imagining a world outside your categories and boxes?”

“And there's not a single thing come out of that boy's mouth to make you doubt?”

Dara hesitated. She carefully and precisely maneuvered her food from the pan to her plate with the spatula. It was something to concentrate on until she could sort out her thoughts. Or her feelings.

Finally, she dumped the pan in the sink and turned to lean against the counter. “I don't doubt him, no. There's a lot I don't know, but that doesn't mean the rest isn't true.”

“Give me something. Anything. Help me believe him.”

Cradling her plate, she picked at the eggs. It's not that she knew so much. It's that she didn't necessarily trust her father with the things she knew. And that, more than anything, felt like crap. He was her father. This was her family. Ignoring the strange, liquid beating of her heart, she hung on a moment of silence.

Then, she said, “He knows a lot about colds. Not in a home remedy way. He sounds like a doctor or something. A scientist, when he talks about them. Calls it rhinovirus. Did you know people
only
get them from other people?”

Drawling slowly, Sheriff Porter said, “As a matter of fact, I did not.”

“You can't get it from a cat or a dog . . .” Dara trailed off. What if she'd said too much? She felt both better and worse for telling Sheriff Porter that little bit. And yet, it was like she couldn't stop herself. Starting for the hallway, she turned back and added, “But maybe if you shared a spoon with a rabbit. Possibly.”

Sheriff Porter watched his daughter dart from sight. He didn't know what to do with this little dab of information, but it felt important. He filed it mentally, something to think about in the shower and on the drive to work. Anywhere, everywhere, until inspiration hit him. Until it suddenly made sense.

That's how crimes got solved; that's how he would figure out who this Primitive Boy really was.

 

The next day, Cade couldn't stop looking at the pencil-sketched innards of a human chest.

Trailing a finger along the pericardium, Cade rested his brow against the poster. He'd never seen these labels before, but they were familiar. Written in the kind of Latin his mother spoke, her secret language. No matter how often he grasped at a memory of her face, it was her voice that surfaced.

She wouldn't want him to be here. Or maybe she would have. Far away from the place where she raised him, he saw her inconsistencies more clearly. Vaccines that were both necessary and useless. Antibiotics—dangerous and essential. Even people, the whole world: dead and not dead. Beautiful and terrifying.

It used to make sense to Cade. Mom said it, it was true.

Roasting hot, Cade returned to the paper-covered table. The big, tinted windows let in too much light, not soothing at all. And they blasted the shadows away. Everything was antiseptic white and smelled like chemicals. Mom's paradoxes aside, Cade was pretty sure he hated hospitals and clinics all on his own.

Thankfully, someone knocked on the door. Dr. Rice came in a moment later, looking nothing like the doctors in the hospital. No white lab coat. No metal dangling from his neck. He wore a T-shirt that said
ASK ME ABOUT MY ZOMBIE T-SHIRT
, though it was mostly hidden under a plaid button-down.

“Hey there, Cade, just finished looking at your labs from the hospital,” Dr. Rice said. He flicked through a folder, then set it aside. “Everything's looking good, how are you feeling?”

Cade shrugged. “Fine.”

“Can I take a look at your chest and your foot?”

Another shrug. Cade watched him pump an astringent gel into his palm, then scrub it over his hands. The smell burned off quickly, but it stung Cade's eyes until it did. Powder dusted in the air with a new pair of gloves. So many layers and layers, Cade thought. Holding himself very still, he let the doctor peel off the bandage on his chest.

Humming, Dr. Rice touched the edges of the wound gently. “I hear you won this fight.”

“I think it was a tie,” Cade said.

Warmth filled Dr. Rice's laugh as he moved on to the bandage on Cade's foot. Even through the gloves, his touch was warm. “No signs of infection, healing up nicely. We're going to want to get you some physical therapy for that shoulder but I think you'll live.”

“Good.”

Dr. Rice was both fast and slow. He didn't seem rushed, but he managed to listen to Cade's chest and belly, check his pulse, reflexes in his knees and elbows, and get a peek into his ears and throat before the sunlight shifted. Then he sat down, rolling his stool to the counter to write in the file and ask more questions.

“All right, says here we need to stick you a whole bunch. When was your last booster shot?”

“When I was a baby, I guess?”

“You don't remember getting updates when you were eleven or twelve?”

Cade shook his head.
MMR
, his ghost mother whispered like a nursery rhyme.
DTaP, IPV,
my sweet little boy.
Hib, HepB, Varicella, boo.

With a wry smile, Dr. Rice said, “If that's the case, we're not going to be friends when you leave, I'm afraid.”

“Then tell me about your zombie shirt now,” Cade replied.

“All right, but remember, you asked.”

The doctor grabbed the hem of the shirt. When he pulled it up, a painting of a decomposed face stared out. Bloody, gangrenous flesh, and rotted teeth—behind the fabric, Dr. Rice moaned something that sounded like
braaaaiinnns
. As quickly as he'd pulled the shirt up, he replaced it.

His face was flushed, an impish smile dancing on his lips. “I don't get to do that a lot.”

Cade smiled because it seemed expected. He wasn't sure why the doctor thought a corpse face was so funny. Dead bodies were dead. They melted back into the earth, fed new trees that grew from the soil. He could ask Ms. Fourakis about zombies on the way back to her house. Or maybe he could find the answer himself on her tiny tablet phone.

“All right, my assistant is going to replace your dressings and get your shots updated. Do you have any concerns? Questions for me?”

“No.”

“Should we talk about sexually transmitted infections?”

At that, Cade laughed genuinely. “No.”

“Sure?”

“More than,” Cade replied. Retying his robe, he watched Dr. Rice gather his things and head for the door. Just before he left, though, Cade asked, “Is there a cure for AIDS yet?”

That question broke Dr. Rice's light demeanor. Just a crack, enough to reveal a curious, thoughtful man beneath the irreverence. Holding the door open, Dr. Rice studied him for a long time. Then he said, “I'm afraid not. Do you need to be tested, Cade?”

Pulling the robe onto his shoulders again, Cade shook his head. “No. I was just wondering.”

The door closed with a whisper, and another one threaded through Cade's memory.

They got smarter, Cade. Bacteria, viruses . . . they're clever, clever things. They learn. They adapt. When they figured out how to break our immune system, that was the tipping point. No matter how much we planned and prepared, oh, especially when we did. We taught them to destroy us.

Tightening his robe against the cold, Cade pushed those thoughts down, as far as they would go.

Thirty-three

S
chool was the worst it had been since Dara came back from spring break in an ambulance.

It was sick how much she missed being whispered about. At least when it was classmates, she knew they were just curious. Barely anything happened in their small town. Of course people were interested.

Then Jim Albee showed up just off campus. His presence broke the seal. Hunkered in the passenger seat of Sofia's car, Dara covered her face as they slow-rolled into the parking lot. They had to, because the street was full of deputies and reporters, news vans and satellite trucks.

“You've got to be kidding me,” Sofia said. “That's CNN.”

“They already know everything! What do they want?”

Sofia shook her head, waiting for the deputy in front of her to turn his sign from Stop to Caution. Rubbing her own temple, Dara peered out her window. Sofia was right.

Where the local stations usually milled together, a couple of national stations had set up camp as well. Yellow police tape clearly marked the line: on this side, free-for-all. On that side, trespassing like crazy.

So far, it looked like the reporters were staying well in free-for-all territory. Which was fine. The lights and cameras were so alluring, students streamed that way on their own.

“What is their deal?” Dara demanded. “It's
not
that interesting!”

Sounding a little guilty, Sofia said, “I've been watching some of it, and you're so wrong. On TV, it's the best soap opera ever.”

“Sof!”

“Well, it is.” She inched forward. “You've got Team Primitive Boy, and they're hard-core subscribed to the truth. They're like, he says he grew up in the forest with his parents, then that's what happened. We like them. That's our team.”

“Uh-huh.” Dara wondered if she had any aspirin in her purse.

“And there's Team Hoax. Or Team Delusional, as I like to call them. They're, like . . . okay, get this. One website took the pictures of Cade's clothes, the ones he was wearing when they brought him to the hospital? And they're doing, like, these epic Photoshop exposés.”

“Buh?”

“These seams prove he had a Singer Sew-Tastic Model 42 Derp! That leather is way too evenly tanned, he bought it online!”

Still fumbling for aspirin, Dara stared at the chaos surrounding her school. It was like a Breaking News Story play set, complete with cordless microphones and real digital camera grip. Tossing a bitter pill onto her tongue, she swallowed it dry because there was no way she was taking a sip of Sofia's mocha espresso. She was tense enough.

Oblivious to Dara's quiet, Sofia slapped her hands against the wheel. “And oh my god. Team Missing Link. Cade is Bigfoot. Or a Neanderthal. Maybe a Neanderthal Bigfoot. So yeah, those guys. I like them. They're cryptid-crazy. And, Dare—”

“Stop,” Dara said.

“But I haven't told you about Team National Security!”

Wrenching off her seat belt, Dara unlocked her door. “The car, stop the car!”

Sofia did, and Dara flung herself into the bright spring morning. Head pounding, the ache spread faster as her pulse rose. Stalking across the lot, she bounced off a car that was trying to sneak in the exit. Though they honked, she ignored it. Jerking her hoodie up, Dara glowered through her sunglasses as she walked up behind Josh.

Clapping a hand on his back, she interrupted the interview he was giving. “Can I talk to you?”

The reporter looked like he might wet his pants. “Wait a second, are you Dara Porter?”

“No, I'm Taylor Swift,” Dara snapped.

She walked away, and was glad Josh followed. It's not like she could make him do it. Inside, she trembled. A sick, acid burn swirled in her stomach.

Equally angry, Josh shoved his hands deep into his pockets. It's how he kept himself from waving his hands. Since he was a big guy, that made people nervous and she knew it. Dara felt his tension. It tuned hers even higher.

When they were fully on school property, she ducked behind an SUV. From there, the reporters couldn't overhear, or train their cameras on them. She hoped.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Trying to help you!”

Dara boggled. “What made you think I wanted you to talk to the press?”

“I'm trying to tell them what really happened,” Josh said. His eyes flashed, and he bounced on his feet. It was an exercise he always did before a match to pump up and tune out. “They're freaking crazy. They're making up all this sh—”

Dara cut him off. “It doesn't matter.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I don't think they want the truth,” Dara said. Tightening the strings on her hoodie, she peeked around the bumper. There hadn't been any flashing lights before. Now, the cruisers all had their red-and-blues going. “It's like . . . it's like an idea they can build a story on, it has nothing to do with us. Or Cade. Or anything that really happened.”

Josh slumped against the SUV. Thumping his head back against the windshield, he actually made the truck shift slightly. “What did really happen?”

“You were there,” Dara said, confounded. Incredulous.

Grinding his teeth together, Josh closed his eyes. Nostrils flaring like a bull's, he gave a curt shake of his head then pushed off the truck. Hands loose, he dragged them through his hair, then spread them out helplessly. “I wasn't.”

“Josh, you drove. You . . .”

“Like you said, I was there. And yeah, I drove. I carried that guy I don't know how many miles. Big freaking deal, Dara. When it counted, when it mattered, he saved
you
. It sure wasn't me. He got you out of the way, and I had to hide. I was two feet from that thing on the ground.”

Words foundered on her tongue. She felt the impact again. The sick twist of her stomach. The bright flashes of pain in her ribs and her knees. Cade flew. He flew and dropped her, and . . . she'd seen Josh on the ground. Flat, facedown. Why hadn't she thought about this before? In detail? Headache raging, Dara surrendered a helpless look.

Her memories had already started to set. They were firm, immovable pieces of a play that had shown only once. Heat flashed beneath her hoodie, raising a sudden, unbearable sweat. She wanted to peel down to the skin and just breathe.

Instead, she said, “Yeah, he pushed me out of the way, but he went back. He knew you were down there. If all he wanted to do was save me, he could have, and he could have run.”

Offsetting his jaw, Josh said, “Uh-huh.”

“What is the matter with you?”

“You really wanna hear it?” Josh asked. He didn't wait for her to reply. He backed her against the SUV. There was nothing dangerous about him. Crackling with anger, he bit out his words in a low, hard voice. “It used to be
my
job to take care of you! That's who I was, that's what I did!”

“I don't need you to take care of me,” Dara snapped.

Furious, Josh pushed off the SUV. “It's not about you, Dara. I needed it!”

“If it's not about me,” she demanded, “then what difference does it make?”

Josh stopped short. All the difference in the world, he thought. But he realized he could scream it or whisper it, or write it in poems or in fireworks—she didn't get it, and she never would.

“Forget it,” he said.

He walked away from her and they both felt the break. It was imperfect and jagged, and they pulled away on their own, individual halves. It was the first time he'd left without looking back; it was the first time she didn't want him to.

 

“This is crazy,” Ms. Fourakis said.

She stood in her own front window, glaring at the intruders in her street. They were worse than kids playing hit-and-run. At least they knocked on the door, then ran away. These guys, in all their slick, too-shiny suits, knocked. And knocked again. And pounded, and peeked in windows.

“I'm sorry,” Cade said.

Resigned, Ms. Fourakis joked, “You should be. You're more trouble than you're worth.”

Cade listed ever so slightly in the chair and gave her a look. She understood why. She'd signed the paperwork to get him what seemed like fifty thousand shots all at one time. Micro-fine needles—it felt more like he'd sat in some fire ants.

“My very own teenager,” Ms. Fourakis said. She patted him on the shoulder as she passed by, back to her amused self. “How'd I get so lucky?”

When she couldn't see, Cade smiled.

Everyone else around him, even Dara sometimes, sparked with tension. It was constant. He didn't think they even knew it. But it was like watching animals just outside the ring of his firelight. The ones waiting for him to drop a scrap, or forget to tie up his cooler. Only the people stood much closer. And Cade wasn't always sure what they wanted.

Except for Ms. Fourakis. He had nothing for her, and she didn't care. She still smiled at him, and made him watch movies over dinner. When Branson came, she sat nearby and rescued him from weird questions. She made it possible to relax.

And she let him play with her toys. Cade turned her cell phone over in his hands. He was getting pretty good at it. Fingers sliding across the surface, he made it bleat and squeal. Then he touched a blue box that didn't usually make a sound at all. This time, an alarm sounded.

Ms. Fourakis popped her head out of the kitchen. “Don't buy anything else from the app store.”

With a sheepish smile, Cade nodded. It was his fault she had three different campfire icons now.

Skimming past a familiar sort of drawing, Cade stood slowly. Someone pounded at the door, and in response, he pulled the shades closed. Still holding the phone aloft, he turned it to Ms. Fourakis as he entered the kitchen. “What's a zombie?”

“Braaaaaaaaains,” Ms. Fourakis replied. For the first time, something hooked the edge of her smile. She didn't hesitate before speaking. Instead, the hesitation filled her voice. “They're the living dead. They get infected and they die, then they come back. And then all they want to do is eat your brains and turn you into a monster, too.”

Cade poured himself a glass of water. “Are they funny?”

“No, scary.” Then, Ms. Fourakis backed up on herself. “Sometimes. They're supposed to be scary, but they're kind of funny, too. The CDC has a zombie survival guide.”

A primal spark of fear lit in Cade's chest. He knew what the CDC was. Where it was, what they did there. That was the place where the fall started. Engineered, but not intentionally. According to Cade's mother, everyone had good intentions. She included herself in that. Shaking a sealed box in the back of their cave, she sighed as its contents rattled ominously.
There's the road to hell right there,
she said.

Steeling himself, Cade asked, “So they're real.”

“No! Oh kiddo, no!” Abandoning her bag of chips, she slung an arm around his shoulder. Shaking him, gently, she enveloped him in her earthy, herbal scent. “They're monsters. Imaginary monsters.”

“Then why is there a survival guide?”

Ms. Fourakis rasped a hand over his dreads, then let him go. “Because nobody believes the flu can kill you. It's scary to think about natural disasters. It's easier to plan for something terrible if the terrible thing is a game.”

Before he could stop himself, Cade said, “My mother had a plan.”

Casual as she picked up her chips, Ms. Fourakis rattled the bag and offered it to him. “Did she?”