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“South.”
“You mean, like, Ketchikan?”
“No, I mean, like, Florida. That’s where I’m headed.”
Carly was bewildered. “Why would I want to go there?”
“The climate, for one thing. You wouldn’t have to worry about freezing in the winter, and you can grow food year round down there.”
“I don’t know how to farm.”
He shrugged. “Neither do I. We can learn.”
“I don’t understand why you think I’d need to. Pretty soon everything will be back to normal.”
“Jesus, Carly, look around you. Do you see society rebuilding itself?”
“It may take a little while—”
“No.” Justin’s voice was soft, but firm. “Carly, you have to accept it. Life as you know it is over. America is dead. There isn’t a president or police officers. No one will ever cash those checks you wrote. The power won’t come back on, not for a very, very long time.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said stubbornly.
“You don’t want to believe me, but you know it’s true.”
Carly stood, and her forgotten bowl of oatmeal tumbled off her lap. Sam was delighted and looked up at her for permission to eat it, but Carly took hold of his leash. She wasn’t looking at Justin, her face firmly turned away. “I’m going home now. Leave me alone. Just go away and leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that. Your father—”
“He’s dead,” Carly snapped. “And you just told me there’s no government, which means there’s no army either. Your obligations are at an end.”
She tugged Sam away from the pile of oatmeal and went back to her apartment building.
Justin sighed as he watched Carly retreat to her apartment building. He’d taken a bit of a risk trying to jar her into accepting reality. She was still in shock, still in the denial stage. He had known as much when he saw the detailed list of items she’d taken from the store. She’d even calculated the tax on the non-grocery items. He could see a few cracks in the careful façade she had constructed to hide from the truth, and with more careful prodding, he might be able to break through.
He picked up her plate and bowl and washed them in the bucket of water he’d drawn from a nearby creek and purified with bleach. He needed to give her time to come to grips with the fact that the world she had known was gone, but it was already the middle of June. They couldn’t wait much longer if they were going to reach a more temperate climate before winter set in.
He’d known the moment he spotted her, almost two weeks ago, he couldn’t leave her behind. It just wouldn’t be right. But it was clear he was going to have a hell of a time convincing her to leave the only place she felt safe in this new, uncertain world.
His first indication that there was something wrong had been the fire. He’d been camping in the silent serenity of the hills around the sleepy little town. Sometimes the noise and bustle of the civilized world got to be too much, and he’d need to retreat for a while, to recharge his batteries in solitude.
He smelled the fire before he saw it. It was only once his curiosity had lured him in closer to the town that he’d seen the smear of black smoke besmirching the crystalline, blue sky. He’d frowned as he found a comfortable spot and pulled out his binoculars. Seemed like a hell of a big one, but he heard no sirens. Even when the sun had finally set for the night, he hadn’t seen any flashing lights reflected off the nearby buildings or the haze of smoke that hung low to the rooftops. Fortunately, the building had been far enough from its neighbors that the fire hadn’t spread, or the whole town might have burned.
That was when he’d taken the wind-up radio from his pack, and when he couldn’t make sense of the disjointed babble, he’d turned on his cell phone for the first time in over a month. Dozens of messages. He listened to them at first in shock and then in slowly dawning horror as he realized what was happening.
After that, he’d watched the town through his binoculars as he lay on a small bluff that provided an excellent vantage point. After a while, the only people he saw were the Infected, shuffling aimlessly through the streets like zombies, and soon they were gone, too.
He’d seen Carly by chance during one of his brief forays into the town, dashing from her apartment to the little grocery store, her eyes wide with fear and confusion. He’d watched her for a while to gauge how best to approach her. After checking her building for any potential threats, he set up camp in front and settled in to wait. Humans were social creatures, after all, and it was only a matter of time before loneliness would lead her to initiate contact. He hadn’t counted on the wolf pup, however.
Like most modern Americans, Carly was completely unprepared for survival in a world without technology. To people like Carly, food came from a grocery store, and its origins beyond that point were vague. Water came from a tap, safe and purified, and there was always a doctor to tend to any injuries with safe, FDA-approved medications. People like Carly rarely survived for long when the center did not hold. She’d armed herself with a steak knife and a golf club, for God’s sake! Still, he recognized a spark of strength within her that told him she was a survivor. She just didn’t know it yet.
He hadn’t lied to her when he’d told her he had an obligation to her father, an obligation that still held even if he was the last surviving member of what had simply been called “The Unit.” It was part of the oath. If a man should fall, the rest of them would take care of his family. He hadn’t even been aware that Carl Daniels had a family. Most of them did not. One of the things that made them so effective was none of them had anything to lose.
Justin poured himself another cup of coffee and sipped it while he watched Carly’s window to see if she would reappear. The first step would be to earn her trust.
Carly was dreaming of her parents again. She hated this dream and always tried to fight it off, but at least twice a week, her mind replayed the last weeks of her parents’ lives with horrifying, crystalline clarity.
Her mother, Gloria, had fallen sick first, but it had been mild, like a spring cold or a persistent case of allergies. Both Carly and her father had watched anxiously, and at the end of the week, her mother had actually seemed like she was getting better. Gloria had been in the kitchen, cooking dinner, when she’d collapsed to the linoleum. Carl had rushed in and scooped his wife off the floor, and she had vomited helplessly as he lifted her. She’d been burning up with fever. Carly had held her father’s gaze in a moment of silent, horrified communication. There was no denying she had the Infection.
