Impassable Read online

  Her face grew more distressed. “No. The hospital will cost us a fortune and we don’t have insurance. I’ll be fine,” she said, though her voice trailed off as a wave of pain hit her. I could see the way it moved in a wave as first her hand clenched, then her whole arm, the tendons standing out in harsh relief against her pale skin. Her fingernails dug into me but I didn’t pull away, merely waiting until the spasm or cramp or whatever it was passed. When it finally let go of her, she sobbed and turned her head into her pillow. “Just let me die.”

  Lana and I looked at each other and then she leaned over. “Honey? Can you walk to the car? You need a doctor now. Please don’t worry about the money. We’ll all figure that out together later.” Her expression told me to shut the hell up and I said nothing, though I really didn’t want to be financially responsible for my wife’s ex-husband’s girlfriend’s medical bills. And I certainly didn’t want to deal with it together like we were some sort of weird family unit, but I understood where she was coming from. Get her to the hospital, the rest would sort itself out. Lana was a doer, sometimes to everyone’s detriment.

  “No,” April moaned, but didn’t fight us when we eased her to her feet. She hung limply between us as we walked her down the hallway past more glassed display shelves full of dolls. We got her almost to the porch steps when Rod came out, pills in one hand and glass in the other. “I thought we were doing her bandage first.”

  “We knew it was hard for you to see her in pain, so we decided to move her while you weren’t in the room,” Lana said. We continued down the dark sidewalk and I cursed softly when my shoe sank into a puddle and cold water soaked through to my socks. Lana unlocked the car door with the fob and April scream-cried as we eased her into the backseat. “Rod, get your shoes on and lock up the house. Bring the water and pills. You can give them to her as we drive.”

  He nodded and charged back up the walk. I started the car and turned on the heater since April was shivering hard enough to knock her teeth together. I thought I heard a scream, so I turned down the fans to listen. The same damn dog was still barking up a storm, but the scream didn’t come again. “I’ll be glad to get home,” I said, tamping down the sudden feeling that I was in the start of a horror movie and the first death by monster was about to happen.

  Lana smiled but said nothing else as Rod eased into the back, putting April’s head onto his lap. His greyish brown hair looked like he had been running his fingers through it and his shirt was askew. He was whispering to her as he tried to convince her to take the pills and drink the water. She choked as she drank, turning him a paler shade of pale, but she finally managed to get the pills and at least part of the water down. “Ready?” I asked. When he nodded, I pulled away. “What’s the nearest hospital?”

  “Um.” He thought for a bit, then said, “Methodist.”

  Lana plugged it into Google Maps, and we followed the voice navigation onto 90th. The roads were even more congested than when we drove to Rod’s house and I wondered out loud at the traffic.

  “It’s not normal. I mean. We have a lot of cars but not this many.” Rod craned his head through the seats to stare down the road. “This is like rush hour.”

  “Omaha’s smaller than Seattle, right?” I asked, feeling stupid for the question but this was ridiculous. It was past midnight. It wasn’t a Friday or Saturday.

  “Definitely,” Lana said, wincing when April cried out from the back. Her whole body seized up and she stayed that way, rigid and moaning for too long. When her muscles finally relaxed, her head lolled—I could see her staring eyes and Rod’s panic in the rearview.

  “Oh my God, April? April?” He patted her cheek more and more forcefully until he was slapping her. “Wake up! No, no, no, no.”

  “Pull over,” Lana said. When I objected, she jabbed her finger and I flicked on the blinker, working my way into a parking lot. She jumped out and opened the back door. I got out too, unsure what exactly we were going to do. Rod was crying, big open-mouthed sobs that made me want to slap him. “Is she breathing?”

  Rod shook his head, looking like the oldest toddler in the world what with the tears and the snot running from his nose and that damned, awful crying. “No. I can’t feel her heart, either.” His hand was splayed across her chest now that he didn’t need to smack her with it. “Oh God, oh God. I can’t lose her. How could she die from a bite?”

  “Can you feel her pulse?” Lana asked. When Rod only shook his head, Lana leaned in to place her fingers on April’s pale column. As she did, April’s eyes sprung open along with her mouth. A guttural, monstrous noise ripped from her throat as she lunged at Lana. Lana screamed and yanked back her hand just as Rod reached across to block her. April’s teeth sank into his wrist. He looked equal parts ecstatic that she was alive and horrified by what she’d done.

  “Honey? It’s me, okay? It’s okay. You can let go of me now. You know? Let go, sweetie. Let go.”

  “Rod, I don’t think—” Lana started but Rod screamed again as April tugged him closer, biting and biting him.

  “Get off! Let go, please?” The please rose into a shriek and then Lana wrapped both hands around his forearm and yanked. His flesh tore free and sent Lana flying backward to the pavement. I ran around the car and helped her up as Rod scrambled away from his girlfriend, arm dripping blood. I slammed the door on April before she could get out, and then we all stood there, staring as she pressed against the window, trying to bite through the glass.

  “Holy shit,” Lana whispered, and then we all jumped at a man’s voice behind us.

  “What’s going on? You folks okay?” He came up beside us and then his face sagged into horror. “What’s wrong with her? Is she okay? She’s bleeding!” He reached for the car door and we all shouted at him to stop. “You can’t just leave her in there.”

  I wrapped an arm around Lana’s waist, and she clung to me tight for a second before giving me a squeeze. “Rod? You’re bleeding pretty bad.”

  He didn’t even glance down at the wrist he held cradled to his chest. “She bit me. Was biting me. And she was dead. I swear she was.”

  “I’m calling 911,” the man said, stepping away from us as if we were going to protest. Hell, if he got through, I’d kiss him.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Rod asked, sounding as bewildered as I felt.

  The news had said this disease, virus, whatever it was, spread fast and made people violent. Obviously it had made it to Omaha, and we were in the middle of an outbreak. I pulled my phone free of my coat pocket and dialed Jackson’s number since he was the kid we could count on to answer his phone. “Shit.”

  “What?” Lana’s eyes widened when she saw my phone. “Oh goddess, the boys.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine. All circuits are busy.”

  “Text them,” she said, and then looked at the car. “My phone and purse are in there.”

  April still gnashed at the window, leaving bloody smears on the glass.

  “We can come back for it. I have mine.”

  “Our money is in there, our cards.” Lana sounded as sick as I felt. “We need to get it and then get off the street.”

  A crash somewhere down the block made us all look up. A scream cut the night, then a mad cackle. “What the hell?” I muttered, typing out a message as fast as I could. “Jack, this is Ma. Lock doors. Don’t go out. Watch news. Your mom & I r ok 4 now. Text back asap.”

  I copied that text and forwarded it to Tucker, then tried the call again. All circuits busy. “Shit. Okay. You stand at the window and distract her. I’ll grab the purse. On the passenger side, right?”

  Lana nodded, moving toward the car with trepidation. She stood close, her face pale, jaw rigid. “Hurry. Oh goddess,” she moaned, almost too quietly for me to hear, “her eyes.”

  I opened the passenger side and grabbed the purse. April turned with a snarl when she heard the door and whipped around fast, her fingers snagging my coat sleeve. I yanked back hard and slammed the door just before sh
e’d managed to fling herself over the seat. Her fingers scrabbled at the door, her eyes locked on mine.

  Milky, dead eyes with scarlet pupils.

  “Shit.”

  A thready chorus of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star went up on the street, the off-key tune grating on my ears. Who the hell would be singing right now? I tossed a glance over my shoulder and saw a group of four people: a man, two women, and a young girl clutching a doll. They had surrounded a car full of scared people and they were shout-singing at them, hitting the glass every fourth word.

  As they circled, shouting, singing, the little girl sobbed, “Momma! Momma!”

  “Hey, sweetheart? Do you need help?” I called, taking a couple steps toward her.

  She turned.

  So did the three with her. They were all smeared with blood. The little girl’s face looked like she’d gone face first into a cherry pie.

  Except, somewhere inside I knew it wasn’t cherry pie filling all over her face.

  “Momma!” she said, her hand rising to point at me. “I’m hungry!”

  They started toward us and my gut told me to run. I spun and dashed for Lana. “We gotta go. Now!” I took her hand and tugged, and she started after me, too slowly.

  “What about the little girl? What about Rod?”

  “This is bad, Lana. Really bad. I think they’re like April.”

  She was moving faster now, though not fast enough for my liking. “We can’t just leave Rod.”

  I cursed and gave her a shove. “Keep going. I’ll drag his ass with us, but if he slows us down, we leave him. I’m not watching you die because of him.” I made sure she was running before dashing back to her ex, cursing him all the way. “Come on, Rod. We have to get out of here.”

  “I think we should wait for the police,” the man said, his eyes on the quartet headed our way. “I couldn’t get through, but it’s only a matter of time. And you can’t just leave your friend in the state she’s in.”

  “Run, damn it!” I yelled at Rod and grabbed his arm, tugging him along with me. It propelled him into a shaky, drunk man’s jog. “Come on!” I tugged again and then got behind him and pushed. The quartet had reached the car and one of them opened up the door, setting April free.

  “Rod!” she called, her voice tremulous.

  Rod stumbled to a stop. “April? Honey?”

  “It’s not her, Rod. She bit you, remember? Let’s go.”

  He jerked his elbow away from me and started toward her. 911-guy was trying his phone again, his glances getting more and more frantic as he looked between it and the advancing people. “You guys need to know I called the police! They’ll be here any second.”

  “Help!” screeched one of the women. “Oh, please help!”

  “Hungry,” said the man.

  911-guy stumbled into the wall as the little girl pressed her body up against him.

  Then he began to scream.

  The scream knocked Rod out of whatever trance he was in. He did an about face and took off. I caught up to Lana because she’d stopped to watch when she heard the screams, and then I nudged her. “Let’s get out of here. Please.”

  She nodded shakily and we were running again.

  I didn’t know where we were going; I just knew we had to get away from that little girl and that horribly screaming man.

  4

  Now

  She can’t get the image of the little boy out of her head, can’t get rid of the sound of his plaintive cries either. Part of her insists she go back to check on him, to verify he was one of them. Part of her whispers that she has just murdered a little boy by leaving him by himself in a world filled with teeth and hunger.

  Even as the battle rages within her, she doesn’t turn around. She knows better even though guilt gnaws at her. She once wasn’t the type of person to leave a little boy alone in the middle of nowhere. She once was the type of person to save those who were abandoned and lost.

  Not anymore.

  She’s not sure who she is anymore. Before, she was absolutely sure of herself, of her place in this world. Now, all she knows is death, fear, and the endless hunt for food and gas. All she knows is this seemingly endless stretch of interstate bookended by piles of snow. Without humans to dirty it, it sparkles pristinely in the late afternoon sun.

  Up and over a steep incline and she has to slam on the brakes. A mob clogs the road on just the other side of the rise, hidden by the mountains’ shadows and her own inattention. Her forehead bangs against the steering wheel, not hard, just hard enough to draw a bit of blood.

  She focuses on the pain to keep from panicking.

  The howls begin immediately.

  “No!”

  “Please!”

  “I’m so hungry!”

  The voices rise and rise, digging under her skin, ripping through her dissociation. “Go away,” she says, her voice thick with unshed tears.

  A young woman presses her face against the glass of her window, her eyes desperate, pleading.

  And bone white.

  “Help me,” she mouths. Tears gather in those dead eyes and spill over her dusty cheeks, leaving tracks in the dirt. “I’m alone.”

  She’s new, she thinks. New and so young. Perhaps seventeen? Sixteen? Similar in age to Jackson and Tucker, certainly.

  Are they still safe with their grandparents or are they wandering the streets with white eyes and gaunt cheeks, begging the living to feed them?

  She eases her foot off the brake and the truck jerks forward. She bumps a few out of her way. “Sorry,” she whispers, her knuckles white on the wheel. “Sorry,” she says again as the tires bump up and over one of the unlucky ones, though she wonders who is unluckier. Them? Or her?

  The truck makes it another fifty miles before it sputters to a stop. She’s beyond the ability to care about it, isn’t even surprised. What’s one more setback in this never-ending shit storm of setbacks? Months’ worth of setbacks?

  She looks around quickly, then grabs her pack and jumps out. There is a full gas can in the back and though it’s a pain to lug, it comes along with her, that and the rolling suitcase full of MREs she found at an army surplus store a while back. The suitcase makes noise but there aren’t any of them around right now, so she drags it behind her as she runs.

  She knows the noise of the truck will have alerted them and they will be coming.

  She’s on the outskirts of Coeur d’Alene, the absolute worse place for a breakdown. They could be anywhere waiting for their next victim, their next meal, and she knows nothing of the town. Her best bet will be to find a car and get the hell out, but she knows better than to count on it being that easy.

  A cute tan and green manufactured home sits off the highway a few hundred feet, its front door wide open. It might be a lure or it might mean it’s empty. She doesn’t risk it; instead she picks up the suitcase and dashes around the house to the detached garage beside it. The side door is also open, and she pulls the knife she has strapped to her belt free before counting to ten and poking a cautious head around the corner.

  No car, just junk. She looks over her shoulder at the house, at its dead, dark windows. Is someone in there, watching her with their own dead eyes?

  Another quick count to ten and she slips into the garage and shuts the door. The lock, she’s relieved to see, is intact and she twists it home. Then she carefully inspects the darkness around her, using the penlight she also keeps on her belt.

  Evidence of small critters in the corners and the musky scent of old urine remains. Something sits shrouded in a corner and she pulls back a tarp to see a motorcycle gleaming in her shaking beam. She wishes she knew how to ride one but knows it would be like a clarion-call to them. Better it stays in this empty garage next to the dead house. Perhaps another survivor will find it of use.

  If there are any survivors left in the world.

  She looked newly turned, her mind reminds her. She pushes that thought away and settles down in a corner, her suitcase open to reve
al the shiny MREs, her backpack open to pull free a small travel pillow, the sleeping bag released from its fastenings under the pack and spread beneath her.

  She opens a package and chews without joy, without tasting. A bit dribbles onto her shirt and she roots in the bag to find a wet wipe. Her fingers close around something metallic and cold. Shaky breath out, shaky breath in. She lets the metal fall away, pushes aside the emotions that well, and pulls a wet wipe free. It’s cold on her skin, the wet paper scratchy. Nothing worse than cheap wipes, hadn’t she said that to Lana when the boys were little?

  Pain hits her, grief uncoiling in her chest and ripping her apart as it goes. She stifles her sobs in her jacket, rocking silently as the terrible, empty loneliness leaves her helpless for some time. She’s learned to stay quiet at all costs even if it means holding in what should be set free.

  She promises herself she’ll deal with it later. It’s not a lie. She wants to deal with it. Anything would be better than this silent agony, but she knows the likelihood of her surviving to have a later is slim to none.

  Why don’t you just kill yourself?

  She wipes her cheeks, wipes her nose, hyper-focuses on her food, and keeps her mind carefully turned away from that insidious whispering. No good will come of listening to it, of giving into it.

  She clings to the last thin filament of hope that her boys are alive and she won’t let go until the line is cut, until she sees their dead bodies with her own eyes, until she holds their lifeless forms in her arms. They’re all she has left, and she must cling tight.

  After a restless sleep, she gathers her belongings and waits out the night. She’s learned that moving in the cover of night, while comforting, is dangerous. They don’t sleep and while they don’t see well, they hear perfectly. A lesson learned the hard way and so she waits until she has a slight advantage over them.

  Dawn comes and goes, winter’s mid-morning sun bright but not warm. She opens the door by inches, taking minutes to ease it the barest crack and spends minutes more surveying the area, watching the windows, listening.