The Girl who Shot First: The Death Fields Read online

  Of course, people, being people, can never just follow directions. That is one thing the news loves to focus on. Instead of staying home people come out to protest. Or rally for the dead. They swarm churches and bombard grocery stores.

  All anyone is supposed to do is stay home.

  Jane is stuck in Georgia and my mother is about to lose her mind over it. The result is that my mother calls her five times a day. “Are you okay? Is anyone sick? Are you staying home? Make sure you keep a safe distance…”

  She talks to her while baking. Yes, the way my mother handles an epidemic is to bake. Cakes, cookies, pies, fancy cheese puffs…anything she can manage. She listens to my sister talk about her day while she uses the metal cookie cutters my grandmother left her.

  I don’t tell her that the news is predicting a shortage on basics due to the quarantine, so this phase will have to end soon.

  My father is one of the few required to work, since he’s officially (yes, he finally admitted it) on the E-TR eradication task force. He’s asked me not to come in for the experiment anymore, but even then I’m not off the hook. He does it at home instead. Taking the blood and giving me the shot. I ask him what it’s for but he does that thing where he answers but doesn’t answer. Long answer short: None of your business.

  For those of us following the lockdown there’s nothing to do but watch TV and obsess over the virus. The tabloids were the first to nickname it E-TR, spoofing on the cannibalization side effects. Haha right? Eating people is hilarious. No wonder the world is coming to an end. People suck.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ~Now~

  Frackity-frack! I fell asleep. I wake at dawn, the sun rising like a fireball over the tobacco fields. My first reaction is to reach for my gun and relief washes over me when I make contact. I’m an idiot.

  Turning my head, I see Wyatt, the man from the night before, going through his pack quietly. The bag is covered in patches: an American flag, Captain America’s shield, logos from National Parks.

  “Hey,” I say feeling hungover, but not in the good, just-had-an-awesome-night-out-with-friends-kind of way. It’s a unique feeling that I assume comes from shooting your mother and watching her die.

  Jesus.

  “Hi,” he replies barely glancing up.

  In the morning light I get a better look at my companion. Older than eighteen, but not too old, maybe in his twenties. Dark hair, with hazel eyes, and a crooked nose that looks like it’s taken a punch or two. His jaw is sharp and from the side he’s just a standard man-boy, but when he turns and sets his eyes on me I can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable. He’s good looking but intense.

  “You should have woken me,” I say realizing we never switched shifts.

  He shrugs. “I’m okay. Day before yesterday I holed up in an abandoned house for twenty-four hours. I slept for about sixteen of those. I figured you could use some rest.”

  He finished repacking his bag and I caught sight of myself in the rearview mirror. Oh crap. It’s not that I looked bad. No, I looked infinitely worse than bad. I had a “straight from a horror film” vibe going on. Dirt and grime all over my face. Matted hair sticking up in a thousand directions. Oh, and don’t forget the puffy bags under my eyes. No wonder he thought I needed some sleep.

  “I guess we need to decide what to do from here,” he said zipping the bag. He held a map in his hand.

  “We?”

  His eyebrows knitted in the middle. “Yeah, we both sort of found this truck at the same time. Doesn’t have a lot of gas but it makes sense to drive it as long as we can.”

  “Okay,” I reply uneasily. I have no plans on hooking up with anyone else right now. “Where are you headed?”

  “South.”

  “Right to the heart of the infected area?”

  “Yeah, I have business there,” he says.

  I do too but keep that to myself. He’s right though. No need to separate until the truck runs out of gas. My feet could use a break. “I’m game to take the truck as far as it will go.”

  “So you’re okay going south?”

  “For a while.”

  We take a moment to stretch outside the truck. The area is clear of Eaters. The morning’s quiet other than the sound of the occasional bird or buzzing insect. I take in Wyatt’s boots and broad shoulders and crazy man-bun. He looks like a hippie but at the same time there’s an intensity that is usually reserved for more serious types. Honestly he reminds me of my cousin Brent, who is (was?) a sergeant in the Army. Maybe it’s the camouflage pants, or the way his back is always ram-rod straight. I don’t know.

  “Mind if I drive?” he asks flashing me a small grin.

  “If you want—I mean, I’m the one with the most sleep.”

  “I’m good. It’s been a while since I’ve been behind the wheel.”

  See? Reckless—but controlling. I can’t figure out what this guy is all about.

  We hop in the truck and as it quickly revs to life, I consider how this must be how it will be from now on. Losing people one day and moving on the next. Meeting new people and hoping they’re allies. I take a quick glance at Wyatt and hope I haven’t made a mistake.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ~Before~

  8 Weeks Earlier

  After hours of waiting, I finally hear Liza’s pebbles tap against my bedroom window. Double checking that my door is locked I open the sash. Liza and Matt and Olivia, two other kids from school, are waiting two floors down in my backyard.

  Liza looks both ways and waves me down. It takes a bit of acrobatics—jumping from the gable to the porch roof and down a drain pipe, but I make it to the yard in one piece.

  None of us speak until we’re on the path behind the school. “Did you have any problem getting out?” I ask the others. We each hold a flashlight to cut away at the dark.

  “My dad was passed out,” Olivia says with a shrug. “It’s like he thinks all the beer will be gone when the Eaters take over so he has to drink it all now.”

  “Ouch,” Matt says. “My mom is just glued to the TV. A bomb could go off and she’d never know. Unless, obviously, the TV told her it was coming first.”

  “Mine is making pudding from scratch,” I add. They give me a curious look and I shrug. “She’s freaking out about my dad being gone all the time and totally stressed about my sister down in Atlanta, so baking is the perfect way for her to live in blissful denial.”

  “Oh shit, Atlanta?” Matt asks.

  I nod, jumping over a fallen branch. “Yeah, she’s in school down there. We haven’t heard from her in a couple of days. My mom is panicking.”

  Atlanta has been placed under mandatory quarantine. No one is allowed to leave their homes and the National Guard has been set up there for days. Things seem under control but the E-TR virus spread fast once it made it from Florida to Georgia. Apparently the Atlanta airport is one of the largest in the world. Once it passed through those gates there was no stopping it.

  “I saw they’ve been making, like, safe zones,” Liza adds. “Do you think she’s at one of those?”

  “I have no idea. I mean, in the movies those are always the first to go down. Like Hurricane Katrina? The people in the evacuation centers were in horrible shape.”

  Matt nods. “True. The government sucks.”

  We cut through a small trail in the woods that Olivia says leads to the house of a friend. They own acres of property and sure enough, five minutes later I spot the lights and hear voices in one of the backyards.

  “You think that’s it?” Liza asks.

  “Yes,” Olivia says. “I’ve been to Amber’s house a couple of times.”

  I grab Liza’s hand and stop the others. Nerves flare in my belly and suddenly I’d rather be anywhere else. “Are you sure this is okay? We’re not really friends with these people.”

  Matt shook his head. “I don’t think clique lines matter much anymore, Alex.”

  We step through the woods and snap off the flashlights. Dozens
of kids mill around the yard—each of us in violation of curfew. All breaking the law.

  A handmade banner made out of a white sheet hangs over the backside of the house. It’s huge with drippy spray paint letters. Ironically, the splatter makes it looks like blood.

  “Congratulations Class of 2015!”

  I smile nervously at my friends and Liza gives me a tight hug.

  Apocalypse or not, we’re still having our graduation party.

  Robert, a guy I’d known since elementary school spots us coming from the woods. His eyes widen and he shouts, “Hey look!”

  The whole group turns and I see the wary faces of my classmates. They blink, staring at the four of us and I’ve got one foot back in the woods when Robert says, “It’s the valedictorian!”

  A loud whoop from the crowd fills the air and Liza squeezes my hand. “Told you it would be okay.”

  Cups are shoved into our hands, filled with some sort of sugary drink that smells faintly of rubbing alcohol. I have no idea what is normally discussed at a party like this but tonight it’s about the E-TR virus and everything going on. Worry lines mar the faces of my classmates. They should be thinking about summer and then college in the fall, but we’ve all turned that off a little bit. Everything is unclear. But one thing is obvious, despite the years of high school and drama and cliques, we’re definitely in the same boat now. Nothing like a possible world-ending outbreak to bring everyone together.

  “Alex,” a girl named Erica says as she walks up to me. She’s sat next to me in homeroom for four years. This is the first time she’s ever spoken directly to me. “Did you bring your speech?”

  I swallow a gulp of the syrupy liquid. “My speech?”

  “Your valedictorian speech. This may be your only chance to give it!”

  I think for a moment she may be kidding but there’s a seriousness, a desperation, in her eyes and I say, “I didn’t think to bring it with me.”

  “Oh, that sucks,” she says and a couple of other classmates nearby shake their heads in disappointment.

  Floored by their reaction I take a deep breath and say, “I, uh, well, I do have a speech of sorts I can pull up on my phone. It’s not exactly the one I was going to say at graduation but…” I shrug. “It may be a little more fitting.”

  “Yes!” Erica shouts. “Please. Anything. I just want to salvage something from this whole disaster, you know?”

  I nod in sympathy. “Yeah, I know.”

  The back patio is quickly cleared and I’m standing in front of fifty of my classmates. The group sits on the grass, holding plastic red party cups. Once the group quiets I take a deep breath and begin.

  “This isn’t my valedictorian speech. This is more like a manifesto I wrote last week while watching the idiots on cable news discuss the future of society and the crumbling of our systems the minute the E-TR virus reared its ugly, cannibalizing head. They sit behind these desks, analyzing the fractures in our medical, emergency, and governmental systems yet do absolutely nothing about it. I just sort of snapped.

  “So right,” I say pulling up the document on my phone. “This is just something I wrote. Hope you like it.”

  “I’m sitting on my couch, the one I spilled juice on when I was four. The one that I take naps on when I’m sick. The couch my mother tries to replace every year and my father refuses because it’s so comfortable, soft…so ours. It’s the one I sit on now, perched on the edge of the cushion watching the news. The never ending updates that never update anything at all. Watching the never ending panel of politicians, doctors, experts, journalists discuss our fate. I listen to the fighter jets fly overhead. I read the scrolling information at the bottom of the screen. I do all this with my paper and pen in my lap writing this speech. The one for the students. My students—classmates. Friends. The one to inspire us to the next stage of life.

  As valedictorian my job is to propel us forward. Convince you all that I, at eighteen, know what is best for us, help you all rally around the idea that we will be the ones to change the world. We will end poverty. Stop racism. We will be the generation, the class that grabs the world by the balls and squeezes so tight that all the assholes will stop being assholes in the name of religion, self-righteousness, and greed.

  Yet the man on the television is telling me something different. Or at least the way the shadows under his eyes imply he isn’t sleeping. The tremor in his voice betrays his nerves. For a brief moment his voice is overpowered by the announcement that we must stay inside. Take shelter. Stay calm.

  If your neighbor tries to murder you, well, just make sure he doesn’t make a flesh wound, alright?

  We are so very, very screwed.

  I look out over my classmates, the ones that have made it to the party and am shocked to find every one of them listening, eyes glued to me on my makeshift podium. I have their attention better now than I ever would in a crowded auditorium. Matt has a small smile on his face. Olivia looks like she’s about to break down and cry. Their hands are linked. Good.

  I continue, “Maybe though, for once the speech is right. Maybe we are the class that will make a difference. The generation that will change things. Maybe we will be the only ones left—the ones on the cusp of it all. The old life and the new. The before and the after. Those who succumb to the end of the world and those who survive it.

  Maybe we will be the ones who will rebuild society in a better way. A way without greed and desperation or sexual exploitation and religious persecution. “

  I take a deep breath because my last line is a lie. At least I tell myself it is. “Or maybe, we’re the group without one single fuck left to give and the world figured it out just in time.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  ~Now~

  Half a day later Wyatt and I stop at a small convenience store at the corner of Nowhere and Nowhere Else, North Carolina. We’re nearing the reservoir, so this one is a bit more like a bait shack than anything else. Combing through the tiny aisles with the truck parked outside feels incredibly exposed but the area seems safe enough.

  I spot the bathroom door, well two, behind the drink machine. The men’s room has an “Out of Order” sign taped to the front. Quietly—matching the obscene silence of the shop, I say, “I’m gonna see if they’ve got any clean water in the faucet.”

  Wyatt nods, shoving stuff in his pack. It’s already clear he’s not a huge talker. That works for me. I’ve already promised myself not to connect to anyone else out here. It seems like the smart thing to do.

  I tap on the bathroom door before opening it but hear nothing inside. I swing it open and to my surprise it’s not that bad. I close the door and test the faucet. Water gushes out, clear and clean. I fill my bottles and then run my hands under the water, splashing some over my face.

  The mirror over the sink is one of those metal, wavy kinds that make my face look distorted, like a funhouse mirror. I find my hairbrush and drag it through the matted tangles before bunching it into two pigtails.

  I glance down and almost cry when I see toilet paper hanging from the roll. No I do cry. I sit down and cry but it isn’t over the toilet paper or the water. It’s my mom and the image of her back in that barn. The way the gun recoiled, vibrating down my arm. I should have buried her. No, I should have saved her. I should have never left her alone.

  I allow myself to cry it out in the tiny moment of privacy I’ve had since it happened. Then I wash my face off again, eyes visibly red and puffy even in the crappy mirror. Whatever, I tell myself. No really. What.Ever. I killed my mom. I deserve a momentary breakdown.

  Back in the shop, I join Wyatt, who is rummaging through the tiny auto parts section. Smart since we have the truck.

  I feel his eyes on me. Quick glances. I swallow and fill my hands with aspirin packets and soap.

  “How long were you and your mom on the road alone?”

  “Long enough. You?”

  “Since they locked down the borders. I packed a bag and headed to the mountains. D
ecided I would camp until it was over. No reason to hang around waiting to get sick.”

  “So you just camped?”

  “Yeah and hiked. There are a lot of people out there. Up on the trails. More were coming when I left.”

  I thought about that. People, infected people, would run and try to hide, but it wasn’t possible. The only way out of this was surviving or a cure.

  “What brought you back to civilization?”

  “I had some stuff to check on.” He shrugs. “People. And the mountains were getting a little crowded. I can go back if I need to.”

  “Where did you live before you left?” I ask breaking my boundary rules right off. Truth: I’m nosy as hell.

  “Durham.”

  “You’re a student?”

  “Am. Was. Whatever.”

  We shift to different parts of the store. Wyatt keeps a vigilant eye on the door and windows.

  “I was going to Duke—this fall. Pre-med.”

  “Ah, a smarty-pants, eh?”

  I shrug.

  “School sucks. You’re not missing anything. Life experience is way better. I mean, after all this who needs an education?”

  Neither of us reacts to his lame attempt at a joke.

  Wyatt takes his turn in the women’s room and I hear the water running through the hollow door. I wait near the counter with my hatchet ready, thinking we’ve spent long enough here. We should probably move on. He comes out, face damp but clean. He inhaled and said, “I’m thinking once we get to the reservoir we may want to split up.”

  “Split up?”

  “The gas is going to run out in a few hours and I’m not sure I want to try to scrounge up some more. I’m an experienced hiker. I can do ten miles easily in one day. I don’t want to get held up.”

  I narrow my eyes. What brought this on?

  “No offense. You seem like an okay girl but I’ve done pretty well the whole time on my own. I don’t want to jinx that.”