There’s no calendar but the weather lets us know winter is coming, and thankfully this entire place has been left unbothered. I guess people only want new clothes when hell takes over? Jane may be one of those people, because nothing on the racks suit her desire.
Green and I didn’t want to come this close to a city the size of Lexington, but there’s a large swath of national park land between here and Catlettsburg, making it risky to go that far away from additional provisions. Oh, and Jackson and Walker were intent on coming to Westchester, the town where they make the guns. At this point on our apocalyptic road trip, nothing surprises me.
The truck only has enough gas to get us another fifteen miles, which means we walk or find some fuel. Walker parked it two buildings down from the thrift store. I agreed that if we got winter clothes, we could hit the gun outlet store—then find the gas. Not that there would be much left at the gun store. It had to have been one of the first places hit during the crisis.
“Pick a coat,” I tell her, gleefully stashing a pair of long underwear in my bag. I also found some wool socks and gloves. We woke up this morning and found hard frost on the lawns. Walker sniffed the air like a squirrel and declared snow was on the way.
Green and Jackson picked out new winter clothes quickly and moved to stand watch by the front windows. The area seemed quiet enough on our way in, but we’ve been fooled before in the uncleared areas, and not just by Eaters. The people we encounter are getting weirder and more volatile as time passes.
There’s a difference now in the way we travel. The first time I left my house for the road, survivors had two options. Hide in their homes or go to the evacuation centers. The few of us that were forced to move independently encountered pretty awful stuff. But in hindsight, the infected seemed more manageable, but maybe that’s because we had better supplies and they seemed…less organized? Over the last few months they’ve formed massive roaming packs.
“Why don’t they just die?” I ask Jane after one particularly harsh battle. She spent it locked in the back of a VW Jetta we were siphoning gas from, cowering on the floorboards.
“They should,” she said, taking in the carnage. “But it’s a glitch in the virus. It’s why we started testing the Hybrid vaccine in the first place. I wasn’t looking to create a new army. I was trying to fix a mistake.”
“By making a bigger one?” Because, yeah, the Hybrids were worse than the Eaters. They had mental awareness, even if lacking of independent thought. They had control of their bodies and actions with an added bonus of aggression. “That’s insane!”
“I had to replicate science to figure out what went wrong. I followed protocol, but there’s something about the parasitic nature of the virus that overrides death. It makes the Eater’s survival rate much longer than an average person in a similar situation.”
I stared at her for a good minute trying to figure out what to say. In the end I walked. It made me too angry—and I knew she still hadn’t learned. She still wanted to figure out and test the science, using people as her guinea pigs. People like Chloe who would become a bigger problem than the initial one. All the rest of us want is to walk down the street without a deranged cannibal eyeing us like lunch.
“She’s taking too long,” Walker says from the shoe aisle of the thrift store. I walk over and find her picking through the boots, checking sizes. She has enormous feet.
“I know. I told her to hurry.”
“If she doesn’t pick something I’ll do it for her.”
Her tone is hard and snappy and I’ve just about had it with her. I’m at my wit’s end with my sister, who may be a genius but has the life skills of a chimp. She spent her life in science classes and space camps. She never had to deal with people, or frankly, reality. “Good. Do it. I’m tired of micro-managing her every move.”
“You?” Walker rolls her eyes. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since I pulled you from Erwin’s little torture chamber. If I had only known what that mission involved.”
“You’d what?” I turn to stare at her. “You would have left us? No one asked you to save us, Walker. I know I didn’t. I didn’t ask to be a part of this game at all. Unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury of walking away. Trust me. I’ve tried. You’re the one that signed up for this shit-show.”
Walker’s hand hangs by her hip and I see her clench it into a fist. If she hits me she will pummel me to pulp. I take a steadying breath and ask, “What is your problem with me? Something is different.”
I expect her not to answer. It’s the Fighter way. They keep their emotions buried deep under all that armor and muscle. Trust me, I’m used to it. But she narrows her eyes and says, “You left me there. We were a team and you left me there.”
“What?” Her accusation takes me by surprise. I think back. It seems a lifetime ago. “At the Vaccine Center?”
“I hid you in that bunker and you guys ran. No one told me a word. The Hybrids showed up and tore through that camp looking for Paul and then the rest of you.”
“Wyatt said he wasn’t sure who your allegiance was with and,” I clarify when I see her hackles raise, “we didn’t want you to have the burden of knowing anything. It was the smart move to make.”
“Wyatt?” She snorts. “You know better than to trust a word out of his mouth, right?” When I don’t reply she shakes her head. “He’s a mercenary, Alex. He fights for no one but himself. Never forget that.”
There is no way I’m talking to her about Wyatt. I can barely bring myself to think about him these days. “I’m sorry you got left behind, but where we went wasn’t any better. We were on the run, ambushed by the Hybrids and later Chloe herself. We barely made it out of there alive and to do so we had to join up with Erwin. The last six months have been hell.” I realize I’m close to yelling and lower my voice. “You know better than I do that this is about survival. We’re surviving. Day to day. There’s no room to lay blame.”
Her fist unclenches and I wait for a response but her eyes shift over my shoulder. I turn and find Jane walking up holding two jackets. One has purple puffy fabric. Another long and fur lined. “Which one looks best?”
“It doesn’t matter which one looks the best—you need the one that you can run the fastest in, fight back against an attacker, and will keep you warm.”
She looks between the two as though she can’t figure out which fits that criteria. I glance behind me at Walker but she’s gone.
I roll my eyes and point to the purple coat. “That one.”
“Really?” She wrinkles her nose at the jacket.
“Yes. Put it on. We’re burning daylight.”