Chapter Thirteen
“The ‘infectious dose’ defines how many living viral cells are absorbed before it can reliably proliferate in the body. Even the most contagious disease will need dozens, if not hundreds of active cells to infect.”
“And what of this ‘HBRS-15.21’?”
“It needs no more than a single one.”
–Dr Ava Sherman. Geneva, Switzerland. 10 Days After.
* * *
“We have to go back home.”
Liam frowned. “We are home, Nelly.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. Not anymore.”
“Sure, it’s small, but we can make it work. Nothing a little expansion can’t fix, yeah?”
Their cabin wasn’t much, but it had done the job. About five hundred square feet of living space, they had enough space for everything they needed, from the bed to wood stove to kitchenette to the cabinet, all of which they had crafted by hand. They had room for clothes, tools, and a supply cache for processed food. What more could they need?
Nelly said nothing, only watched Liam with those cold, blue eyes from between the tangles of blonde hair. Oh, how he loved her. Even now. Even when she was trying to force this on them.
“Come on,” Liam said. “We’ve talked about this before. Why would you want to go back there?”
It had been more than three years since they had finally left civilization behind and moved to the mountains of Alaska to live a naturalist lifestyle, just as the two of them had been saying since high school. It was why he had married her.
Nelly crossed her arms. “We don’t have a choice, Liam.”
“Don’t we?”
Her cheeks reddened. “This is our child we’re talking about! What are you going to do? Have the delivery right on the bunk? Airdrop some more painkillers? We’re only going to see Dale once in the next five months, and it’ll be winter after that. What the hell are we going to do?”
“I don’t know!” Liam shouted. “I’ll think of something. I just need more time, okay!?”
Getting pregnant was always a reality. They were two grown adults with nothing but each other to keep them company as they took on the wilderness together. It was their choice, their dream, their lives. It was only natural that another life would come from that experience.
And yet, this change was still unreal. When Nelly had missed her period, the two had cracked jokes. When she started to feel sick, they talked about her diet instead. Time pressed on, and for longer than he had the right, Liam deflected, even as Nelly’s stomach swelled. Somewhere along the way, the truth was impossible to deny, lack of testing or not.
They were going to have a child, and that was that.
“This isn’t good enough,” Nelly said. “We can’t just wing it.”
“I forgot to check the snares,” Liam said before crawling out of their cabin. The fresh air would be a welcome change, and he was tired of having this daily argument.
God, this view would never get old. Shrubbery stretched off into the distance, their stalks a mix of bronze, gold, and emerald. Pine trees rose from their ranks, lanky and rugged like the landscape they inhabited. A sapphire slate engraved their environment where a nearby lake had formed, and off on the horizon, great grey ridges soared into the sky, their peaks flecked in white.
How could they leave this? How could any human prefer a world detached from such beauty? Civilization was the antithesis of everything here. It was the ugly constructions that man threw up against the kingdom they had marred with their presence, a guileless rejection of where they had originated. To join their ranks yet again, all because they had done the very act that nature instilled in them? He’d rather die!
But what choice did they have, really? Liam hated to think it. He hated to hear it. He hated to let that parasitic worm of acknowledgment get into his brain and fester, but there was no way out of it.
Liam turned around. Nelly was watching from the door, the tears running down her soft cheeks. She wasn’t alone. His heart was racing, and his vision was blurring. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“We have to go back,” Nelly repeated.
“I know,” he said, his throat choked.
“My mother was thinking of buying another house last we talked. We could take her place in Lakewood. I know she’d let us.”
Lakewood. Right outside Los Angeles. The epicenter of urban living, the very contradiction of their worldview.
“If you think that will be best,” Liam said.
Nelly closed in. “This is going to be okay for us, right?”
He smiled meekly. “Of course.”
But that was not the truth.
* * *
“Home, sweet home,” Liam said.
Lakewood had seen better days. Like everywhere else in Los Angeles County, the buildings were aged and crumbling, the streets were cracked and filled with grass, and the cars were rusted and ruined. What had once been a grid of endless suburbia, with its well-trimmed lawns and pedicured trees, was now reduced to a web of vine-encrusted wrecks, with nature claiming dominion yet again.
Liam yawned. After making his leave from that chaotic mess of a city the undead called their home, he’d found an abandoned two-story home with a king sized bed to sleep in, miles and miles away. Though the mattress was rotted beyond recognition, it must have been the best sleep he’d had in a decade.
Until morning, anyway, when the moan of a hollow outside disturbed his rest, and Liam had no choice but to leg it out of there. With a backpack of supplies and a walking stick at the ready, he made the long, long trek across the ruins of Los Angeles and out to Lakewood. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon before he finally made it home.
Haven’t thought of this place as home for a while. There had been a time when he hated this building. It was right at the intersection of two busy streets, and between the nearby elementary school and the freeway, there wasn’t a time of day where he couldn’t hear a child screaming or car horn blaring. How Liam would have loved nothing more than to relive those moments, as ironic as it was that he had once done everything in his power to be as far away from this place as humanly possible.
He walked up the landing to the redbrick veneer that led through the front door.
“Did I ever tell you what it was like moving in here?” Liam asked, giving Thirsty a pat. Thirsty’s smile beamed back. “Nelly’s mum had really let the place go. The shingles were worn where they hadn’t fallen out, and the latches on the windows and doors were all rusted over…” he gave the door a shove. It snapped open with a hiss. “Just like that. Luckily, when you get used to doing all home maintenance on your own with nothing more than twigs and recycled nails, repairing a modern home in the middle of a city is an exercise in leisure.” He crossed through the living room, with a layer of dust covering the couch and antiques. “Of course, once the Survive In Wild money started rolling in, it was all just gravy from there. Didn’t have to spend any time at home. None at all. I could just buy everything, yeah?” He sighed. “I didn’t have a damn reason to be here.”
It was like taking a step outside time. The white plaster walls were cracked, and a film of soot covered everything in sight, but their home was otherwise untouched. The UHD television he’d bought for Nelly sat where it always had, the souvenirs he’d collected from around countries abroad stayed where they’d been, the appliances were all stationary and unused, the curtains were drawn in, and the beds were made. The kitchen was empty, and the pillows on the couch were set.
Only some of their things were missing. Their prepper closet had been cleared out, and the lockbox with their old hunting rifle was now empty where it had once been dead-bolted to keep Lilith out. If any luggage had been taken, it had been small and light. Otherwise, the house was near untouched.
“Seems they did the smart thing and moved on, eh Thirsty?” Liam said. “Doesn’t surprise me. A metropolitan location like this one is the worst place you want to be amid a pandemic. Better to find some shelter in the country where it’s safe, yeah?” His throat cracked. “I suppose we’re going to have our work cut out for us. No telling just how far they’ve g–”
Liam leaned into a wall and gasped. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. It wasn’t like Nelly would just be waiting here with Lilith by her side, sitting in the dining room, her arms folded together, asking why he’d taken so long. He’d prepared himself for this reality over the long walk here.
So why did it hurt so much?
“There you are!” Leah yelled.
Liam’s heart skipped a beat. She stood in the door, her eyes burning in lilac fury below her scarf. She inched closer, suppressed gun gripped in gloved hands. Though not aiming at him, he had a feeling that could soon change.
“How’d you find me?” Liam asked, unsure what else to say. He’d made certain that no one would follow him.
She tossed a book on the ground. Is that the White Pages? “Liam Fenix, Lakewood. You’re publicly listed, asshole.”
Liam grimaced. All he’d wanted was a little bit of peace… A little time to be alone…
“Don’t think you’re getting off this easy,” Leah said. “You have no idea how much of a pain in the ass that book was to get.”
She started to go through the living room bookshelf, examining everything in stock. She seemed more interested in how much they weighed than the contents, and quickly tossed one after the other into her backpack.
“What?” she jibed. “Did you think there’d be some red carpet here? Some bunker in the basement where they’d be hiding? They left. They did it over a decade ago, and they haven’t come back. That’s what everyone did when the Hollowing hit. You aren’t special.”
Liam just sat and stared. Here he was, back home after a triumphant voyage at the sea, weeks on the horizon, only to return to the very place he’d envisioned and found it destroyed. And this walking corpse was pilfering his living room while mocking him for the hope he’d given himself.
Leah caught his eye and paused. The backpack fell with a slam as she walked next to him and sat by his side. Both stared into the same empty space.
She sighed. “Look, I get that this is all bullshit, but you have no idea the risks. A single bite and it’s all over. I’ve seen it thousands of times before. No one survived. Trust me.”
“Please,” Liam said. “Just stop.”
“I can’t. There’s a hollow herd not far from here. You must have missed it, but it’s migrating this way. We stay much longer and we’re holed up for the night. Do you really want that?”
“I don’t want to go back.” Nothing else mattered.
She shook her head. “I was around for the early outbreak. And I don’t just mean my hollowed self. I mean me. My first memories are from the part where everyone still thought this would all die down. Some thought that I was proof they could outlast it. Maybe build an immunity or vaccine against the Hollowing.
“But the sad reality is that the opposite came true. Their future wasn’t going to be saved by me. Mine would come from them. They all died, one after the other after the other, and I still survived. That’s just how it was.”
“How it was or is?” Liam considered. “Seems like everyone’s in it for themselves these days. Is it really so wrong of me to want to find out what happened to my family?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just stupid. Why bother? You already know how it ended.”
Do I? Liam’s eye had caught something in his peripheral, in the kitchen. He lurched to his feet and walked straight for the refrigerator.
Leah started to speak, but Liam wasn’t listening. He gripped a post-it note that’d been stuck on the door, still clear and fresh in spite of the time.
It was in Nelly’s handwriting. ‘We tried to stay here and wait for you, but there isn’t any time. I’m going to a friend’s cabin with Lilith. Please find us. We need you, Liam.’ There was an address and directions to a small town called “Ponderosa”, located deep in Sequoia National Park.
He laughed. This was exactly what he was looking for! The time capsule he needed. The breadcrumb that would let him persevere. Of course there was still hope. Why wouldn’t there be?
Leah glanced at the note. “This was written twelve years ago…”
“And? You said that I’m the first living person that you’ve seen. Well, what’s to say that there aren’t more out there, but they’re just in hiding?” The pause she gave was all he needed. “Exactly. There’d be no safer place to be than an unincorporated community at high elevation. Good natural defenses, plenty of game, low population, cold weather. Don’t know how well that last bit works on you lot, but it does wonders against spoilage. Nelly is just like me. She’d know how to survive this!”
But Leah just furrowed her brow. “You can’t be serious.”
He shoved the note in his pocket. “Tell you what. You can come with me. It’ll be less than a week on foot, a couple hours if you can get one of those trucks. If I’m wrong, you’ll never have to worry about me again.” He swallowed the lump in his throat, remembering what Mother had said about Leah. “You can do whatever you want with me after that. I won’t fight.”
Leah watched him in silence with those demonic, magenta eyes. Whatever trepidation Liam might have about indulging this contract, there was no way out of it. He could only do so much on his own, and he suspected that getting this far without complication was more luck than skill. He needed her just as much as she needed him.
Thunder roared as a gun went off. The shot was close.
“Come out, come out, Leah!” someone screamed from a megaphone. “I know you’re in there!”
Leah rushed to the nearest window. Her eyes bulged.
“What’s going on?” Liam asked, trying to poke past. “Who’s there?”
She removed the safety on her pistol. “The Devil himself.”
