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“They have a nice selection,” Justin said quickly, sensing that he may have hit a sensitive area unintentionally. “I saw more in the other houses. Most of it’s comedy and action.”
“You pick.”
He put in a DVD and settled down on one of the recliners. It was Dumb and Dumber, a movie Carly had seen more times than she could count; it always made her laugh, but at that moment, the humor fell flat. She kept wondering if any of the actors had survived the Infection. She wondered what had happened to the actress in the movie who also played Drucilla on The Young and the Restless. Her character had fallen off a cliff; a nice, open ending, leaving room for her to come back, but there was no more show to which she could return. Is she dead for real, now? Carly decided she didn’t really want to know.
Justin wasn’t watching the movie. He was watching Carly. She was stronger than she thought, but she had a tendency to push aside trauma rather than deal with it in the present. His greatest concern was that killing the man in the train station would push her back into her state of shock.
He wondered if he should tell her what concerned him the most about the incident; the man who attacked her wasn’t Infected. Justin had touched the body only moments after he died and the man was not fevered. Justin wasn’t sure what to make of it yet because it presented a troubling possibility—some people may have survived the Infection, but lived with brains fried from the fever. Healthy and insane.
Not everyone who had the Infection had turned violent, of course. It seemed dependent on the personality of the individual. Some searched for lost loved ones. Some hid in their homes, paranoid and terrified of monsters only they could see. Some tried to flee, as though the illness was something they could leave behind if they just got far enough. Justin thought of those bodies scattered on the ferry’s piers, those in the cars on the bridge, the people who had waited to be allowed to pass and died where they sat, still waiting. And he thought of the bodies he had seen at the town’s borders—bodies with bullet holes, those who persisted when the quarantine guards told them to stop. He didn’t think Carly had seen them. She always averted her eyes when they came upon bodies, a trait for which he was grateful.
Carly fell asleep halfway into the movie. She hadn’t even noticed when Justin added a sleeping medication to the small handful of pills he’d given her to take. He waited a bit longer to make sure she was fully under and then rose and turned off the television.
Justin went into the kitchen and picked up the telephone from its wall-mounted cradle. He hadn’t been sure, but he’d suspected that this place would have a satellite telephone system because of the border patrol station, and he was pleased to discover he’d been right.
Because of his dyslexia, Justin had memorized the phone numbers of his contacts. He dialed a number and listened to it ring. He tried another with the same results. And then another. He didn’t expect any of them to work, so it caught him by surprise when he suddenly heard the voice of a friend.
“Carter, it’s Justin.”
“Fuck me!” Carter exclaimed. “I can’t believe it. I’ve been keeping my phone charged using car batteries, but I thought it was only wishful thinking on my part.”
“I’ve dialed seventeen numbers. You’re the only one who answered.”
“Where are you, man?”
“British Columbia. You?”
“Fucking France.” Carter sounded disgusted by the circumstance. “We’re headed south. Think we’ll settle in Nice.”
“You’ve got someone with you?”
“My wife.”
“Your wife? That’s incredible. I’d say you’re probably one of the few intact couples in the world. The odds against both of you being immune are astronomical.” It gave him some hope that others he knew may have survived. Perhaps the Infection hadn’t been so bad in some areas. Perhaps—
“She wasn’t immune,” Carter said, his voice grim. “She... Well, the fever did something to her. She’s different now.”
Justin dropped his forehead against the wall. He’d hoped he was wrong about it. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m just glad to have her with me, even if she’s... different. She’s still in there. I see a glimmer of her old self now and again.”
Justin closed his eyes. He’d only met Carter’s wife once, but she’d been a nice lady, and Carter was head over heels for her. He couldn’t imagine what his friend had gone through, or what it must have been like to have to accept that he would never have his wife back the way she was before the Infection.
Carter changed the subject. “How the hell d’you end up British Columbia, anyway?”
Justin told him about deciding to go on the Deadhorse Rally on a whim and his detour where he had watched Juneau from the nearby woods. He’d tried to keep his cell phone charged from car batteries as Carter had, but as the Infection grew worse, it had been a risk he grew less willing to take. And by the time it was over, he couldn’t get a signal any longer. Carter was in one of the few areas where cell phones would still work because some of the French cell phone towers were powered by solar and wind, technologies that had been tested there for use in developing countries.
“Shit,” Carter said softly. “I had sort of hoped... remote places like Alaska...”
“Juneau is a big tourist draw, and the incubation period was so long...” He thought of the cruise ships anchored in Juneau’s harbor, the floating tombs of those who had probably brought the Infection to the sleepy little town.
“That’s what we’ve been finding too,” Carter said. “Every little village we pass through... Have you encountered any survivors?”
“One.” Justin cleared his throat. “A girl I found in Juneau.” He did not mention the man in the train station.
He could hear the smile in Carter’s voice. “She cute?”
Justin clenched his fist. “I’m trying not to think that way.”
