She picks up a bottle and uncaps the needle. “Mama took me to the classes she taught when I was little. I watched the nurses learn to inject and draw blood.” She sticks the needle in and sucks up a syringe full of the clear medicine.
“Some of them fainted, but I was fascinated, even though I knew there was no way I’d ever be a nurse.” She squeezes the plunger to remove the air. “But I remember the steps: Find the vein.”
John clamps his hands around Nelly’s good arm until the veins are more prominent.
Ana nods. “Okay, just about at this angle, push it in.” Her hand is steady as she slips the needle in. A curl of Nelly’s blood swirls in the neck of the syringe. “Got it. Now inject.”
She pushes the plunger slowly. When she withdraws the needle, I press a wad of napkins onto the bead of blood. I hold Nelly’s hand and jump whenever a tremor passes through him. I keep my holster on because I know I’m grasping at straws. I have to be realistic.
John suggests we move Nelly into the other room so we don’t disturb him, but I know the real reason: if Nelly turns we’ll be able to stop him before he does much damage. I wonder how long it takes. Do you die first and then turn hours later, or is it instantaneous?
Everyone takes turns sitting with me and Nelly. We wipe his head with a cool cloth. Penny hands me a cup of soup, which I ignore after one bite. I stare at Nelly and will his chest to rise. Ana gives Nelly another dose of antibiotics and takes Bits to bed. Penny gives Nelly’s forehead a kiss and whispers something only he can hear. Then she kisses my head and leaves.
John lowers himself next to me. “I’ll take first watch of Nelly.”
“Wake me if—” I stop when he nods. “I just—I know it won’t really be him, but he deserves someone… there, you know?”
“I will, I promise.”
John lays a hand on my shoulder. He’s so kind that I remember to feel guilty. “I’m sorry about earlier, John. I wish I could have unshakable faith in something like you do.”
He shakes his head. “Oh, hon, this has tested my faith. But when I believe, when I trust in something bigger than me, I can handle whatever comes my way. That’s how I made it through when Caroline passed. Someone told me a long time ago that there are many paths to heaven. I believe that.”
“I can’t believe in any one thing that way.” Right now, though, I really wish I could.
“You don’t have to hold to any one belief. I don’t think God minds. What you did today? Risking your life for a friend? You can’t get much more Christian than that.
“ ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ John 15:13.” He means me and Ana, but I know we’re both thinking of Peter. “Lie down, hon. I’ve got it.”
I kiss him on the cheek and get in my sleeping bag. And before I close my eyes, I hedge my bets by apologizing to God, too. Just in case.
CHAPTER 113
I wake with a start in murky light and see Nelly lying on his pallet. John sleeps upright against the wall at Nelly’s head. He’s fallen asleep on watch; he’s never done that. Nelly is pale, his face slack. I watch for the rise of his chest, but there’s nothing.
I stifle a sob and inch closer. I draw my pistol with a trembling hand. I can’t be sure how long he’s been dead, how long it will take him to turn, if he does. We’re going to have to take care of him.
It’s not really Nelly. It’s not really him.
I stick out my foot and gently prod him. An eye flutters. He’s turning. I hold out my gun, trigger finger ready.
It’s not him, not him, not him.
“Cassie.” John’s voice is soft as he tries not to startle me. “Put down the gun. He’s okay. Nel’s okay.”
I hear what he’s saying, but it doesn’t compute. My fingers are tight on the pistol grip. “What?”
Then I see Nelly’s chest rise. It does it again. It’s barely moving, but he’s breathing. He opens his eyes and turns his absolutely alive, beautiful, pale face to me.
“God: zero. Cassie: one,” he croaks, and his cracked lips turn up.
I sit dumbfounded for a moment and then throw myself on him. I knock his arm when I kiss him on his hot, but no longer fiery, forehead, and he winces.
“Sorry, sorry!” I say. My grinning face is inches from his. I kiss his forehead again, just to be sure.
“Thirsty.”
I hold the bottle and he drinks greedily. Penny, Ana and Bits rush into the room. The sight of Nelly stops them like it did me, and then they move forward. James stands in the main doorway and grins.
“I saw a few hours after the second dose of antibiotics that he was getting better,” John says. “I knew he was okay when he said a few words and drank a little. James agreed when I woke him for watch. I didn’t want to wake you. You both needed sleep.”
Nelly lets me inspect his arm. It still looks terrible, but the red streaks are receding. I feel like I’ve won the lottery. It really worked.
“Thanks, Half-pint,” Nelly whispers. He looks like he might cry, and it’s enough to start me off.
“How’s that for an early birthday present?” I ask with a sob. “Kick-ass enough?” He gives a weak laugh. “Ana’s the one who shot you up. She did a great job.”
Nelly blows her a kiss and she blows one back. “But Cassie’s the reason we went to find medicine,” she says.
“I heard.” Nelly looks at me with shining eyes. They’re back to their normal shade of blue, and it makes me want to leap on him again, but I content myself with giving his hand a kiss. “I think everyone in a two mile radius heard. She doesn’t get pissed that often, but when she does, not even God is going to defy her.”
“Sorry about that,” I say, embarrassed.
I stretch out my other hand and pull Bits into my lap. She still has half the bag of Reese’s Pieces she’s been saving for Nelly crumpled in her hand.
I hug her tight. “I didn’t mean to scare you, Bits. I don’t know what came over me.”
She shakes her head like it’s okay.
The first rays of sunlight stream through the filthy window, illuminating dirt and cobwebs and stains I don’t even want to know about, but every decrepit bit of it looks beautiful. Nelly’s alive. He closes his eyes, but I don’t worry this time. I know he’ll open them again.
“You’re like your mom,” John says. “Slow to anger. But the slow burns make the huge infernos. It’s not always a bad thing.”
He’s right: my anger wasn’t a bad thing. Nelly’s back from the dead, and for once in this God-forsaken world, that’s a good thing.
CHAPTER 114
“I love this car,” I say from behind the steering wheel of the VW. It’s all gleaming wood inside, with a tiny fridge, sink and two bench seats. The outside is unblemished white and teal and chrome. Somebody else loved this car.
“It’s not a car,” Nelly says. “It’s a bus, or camper, or even a van.”
“Whatever. I love it. It has a spice rack! How many people have a spice rack in their car? If we make it all the way there in it, think we can keep it?”
“Sure. We’ll go on road trips. Visit the zombie-filled countryside.”
He’s still pale and his arm is painful, but after three more days of antibiotics, he’s truly on the mend. We’ve been waiting to leave until he’s strong enough.
“Smart-ass.” I go to give him a light smack but feel his forehead instead. It’s blessedly cool.
He ducks away. “How long are you going to insist on feeling my forehead every ten minutes?” He hasn’t had a fever in two days.
“Forever. Get used to it. Are you sure you’re okay to leave tomorrow?”
He rests his good arm on the window and takes a breath. “Definitely. Tomorrow’s as good a day as any to die.” He raises his eyebrows at me. I can’t tell if he’s serious.
A remnant of that overwhelming sadness and rage passes through me. “No! You’re not allowed to die. I didn’t save your ass so you could just go and die agai
n. Promise me.”
He keeps his eyebrows up. I know it’s ridiculous to make him promise something he has no control over, but I don’t care.
“Okay, Cass. I promise not to die. Ever.”
“That’s more like it.” I ignore the sarcasm in his voice. It makes me feel better, which might be even dumber than exacting the promise in the first place.
Penny comes out of the cabin and throws backpacks in the rear. “We’re ready to go first thing in the morning.”
Her hair hangs greasy and limp in its ponytail. I wish I could shower. Showing up greasy and stinky is not how I hoped I’d see Adrian for the first time in two years. I know it shouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but if he’s not happy to see me, it would be nice not to feel physically repulsive to boot.
Penny gets in the back and sighs. “I love this car.”
James arrives with canned food right as she speaks. “It’s a bus, sweetie. Not a car.”
I ignore Nelly’s victorious look.
CHAPTER 115
“Forty miles to go,” James says, in answer to Bits’s tenth, “Are we there yet?”
She’s been serving us water a few drops at a time so she has an excuse to run the sink incessantly. We’ve had to move a few cars, but as the terrain gets less populated there are fewer obstacles.
It’s a beautiful drive. Adrian and I dreamt about living up here one day. The mountains are green, like in lower Vermont, but they’re craggier and wilder. It seems like you could take a few steps off a trail and be lost forever. But it’s also a place of gentle valleys and neat squares of farmland. That farmland is now overgrown and the farmhouses are empty. I count the miles and translate it to minutes. Forty-five minutes left to go. Thirty-five. My mouth is dry and my hands are clasped so tightly my forearms hurt.
“More water?” Bits asks.
I force my lips into a smile and nod. She pirouettes to the sink for a refill. She’s almost as grubby as the night we found her, but she’s excited instead of terrified. She cries for Peter in her sleep, and since he soothed her most nights, it’s another blow when she wakes and realizes the nightmare’s real. But she’s resilient. I hope resilient enough for this world.
Thirty minutes. The water washes over my parched tongue without touching it. I wish it would drown the butterflies in my stomach. Twenty-five minutes. Twenty.
“Someone’s moved the cars off the road,” John says, and points to the ditches where abandoned cars lay.
The farm-bordered road gives way to the lawns and houses of the town before Kingdom Come. We brace ourselves for the infected. There’s at least one group in every small town, and they always come out when they hear a car. We pass town hall and a village green, but no Lexers lope after us. The general store has a sandwich sign out front. Next to it is a metal drum with a hand pump and hose. The sign reads:
GAS IN DRUM. FOOD INSIDE STORE.
TAKE WHAT YOU NEED.
PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE OF OTHERS AFTER YOU.
“Wow,” James says. “They’ve cleared the town out and even have a pit stop. They must have their shit—” he looks at Bits, who grins, “—um, stuff together, huh?”
We turn onto a dirt road that twists through woods until it opens up at a small farm. The sign reads Cob Creek Farm, but we can’t see it because the tree-lined driveway ends abruptly at a tall wooden fence that surrounds the house and outbuildings. The fields outside the fence are planted with corn. We pass more fortified farms. One has a chain-link fence and another a cinderblock wall. Our barbed wire and shutters seem like child’s play in comparison.
John squints at the sign ahead. “Kingdom Come Road. Here it is.”
He makes the turn. A cabin perched atop a framework of legs stands in a clearing. A ladder leads up to a platform outside the cabin door. A man on the platform raises his hand, and John slows to a stop. A blonde woman climbs down the ladder. She holds a rifle but smiles when she motions us out of the van.
“Hi. Sorry about the guns.” She notices Nelly’s bandaged arm and her smile fades. “Are any of you infected?”
“No,” Nelly says. He peels back the gauze to show his wound, which is obviously healing. “I got sliced with a knife.”
Her grip on the rifle relaxes. “Sorry, we’ve got to be careful. I’m Shelby. Welcome to Kingdom Come. Go up the road about a quarter mile, you’ll see the gate. I’ll radio ahead.”
The corrugated metal gate must be ten feet tall. Two guys in jeans and t-shirts stand next to a door set into the wall beside it. A chain-link fence heads into the trees for as far as I can see. I don’t know how they’ve managed all this, although if you have enough people, I guess you can get anything done.
The one with a handsome, rugged face and blue eyes leans an arm on the van window. “Hiya. I’m Dan. You here to stay or just passing through?”
“Hoping to stay,” John says. “We’re friends of Adrian Miller. You know him?”
Dan laughs. “Of course. It’s his and Ben’s farm. We’re all just visiting.”
He winks at me and Bits then grins when she gives him a lopsided wink back. The gate slides open to reveal more tree-lined road.
“You’ll see a small gate up a bit. Maureen’ll meet you there,” Dan says. “I’ll see you all around. Welcome.”
Penny leans over and puts her hand on mine to unclench it. “It’ll be fine.”
I wish I had her faith.
CHAPTER 116
A shed with a stovepipe sits right before a bend in the road. A smiling, pleasantly-rounded older woman walks out and waves.
“John?” she asks. “I’m Maureen. You’re going to follow me through the gate on my bike. I’ll show you where to park, and then we’ll figure out everything else. Sound good?”
John nods. “Lead the way.”
We gasp as the farm comes into view. A white farmhouse with a huge front porch stands in a clearing surrounded by maple trees. An apple orchard, the trees twisted with age, runs to the left. A greenhouse and two gigantic barns are set back, with animals sitting in pens in the sunshine. Cabins and tents dot the back of the land, and behind them is the biggest vegetable garden I’ve ever seen. A far off fence glints, and beyond it are fields of crops.
The farm itself is beautiful, with its red barns, white house and groves of trees, but most breathtaking is the ring of mountains it sits nestled within. We’re surrounded by a circle of solid green. It makes me feel tiny, insignificant and safe. I know how Adrian felt when he saw this place and wish I’d been there. It’s perfect.
We head behind the house to a post and beam building and park next to an ambulance. I pick my jeans off my thighs as I hit the dirt. The banging of pots echoes out of the building’s back doors.
Maureen points toward the noise. “We call that the restaurant, where we make most of the food. Are you hungry? Lunch officially starts in a couple of hours, but there’s always something around.”
We shake our heads. The only thing I want to know is where Adrian is, but I can’t seem to open my mouth and ask.
“Okay.” Her eyes are kind as she takes us in. “I’m thinking you won’t mind being together in a tent? We’ve got an empty one. They’re actually pretty nice. I bet you guys would like a shower, too.”
“Yes to all of the above, ma’am,” says John, who’s become our spokesperson.
Maureen’s cheeks get even rounder when she smiles. “John, don’t ever call me ma’am again. And I don’t know the rest of your names.”
We introduce ourselves as we follow her to the tent. It’s cozy and light inside, with cots, bunk beds, a small bookshelf and a wood stove that vents out the roof.
“Hm,” Maureen says. “It might be a bit tight. We’re building cabins, but they won’t be ready for a few weeks. There are spaces in other tents if you want to spread out.”
The thought of splitting up makes me uneasy and, judging by the vigorous shaking of heads, I’m not alone. I’m pretty sure we’d cram all seven of us into a two-man ten
t if we had to.
“This is great,” Nelly says. “Really.”
“Okay. Think of me as your cruise director.” We laugh. “Today you’ll just get the lay of the land. Tomorrow we’ll talk about your jobs here and all that. Where are you from?”
“New York City,” James says.
Her eyes widen. “Have people been getting out?” James explains that we left early on. “Well, I’m glad you made it. You’ll meet some of the people who live here later. They’re all great. We’re like a family.”
I open my mouth, but Nelly beats me to it. “Actually, we’re good friends with Adrian Miller. Is he here?”
“Adrian’s in Whitefield. The plane’s expected back before dinner. We trade our expertise and food with the guys there.” She clasps her hands and beams at us. “He’ll be so happy to hear you’ve come.”
I’m filled with disappointment, but also the tiniest bit of relief, because I’ve been terrified of this moment. And I hope with all my heart that Maureen’s right.
***
Maureen takes Penny and me to find clothes while the others wait at the showers. A room built onto the restaurant holds bins of clothes organized by size. I find jeans, a tank top and hoodie for me and outfits for the others. Maureen and I wait with my stack of clothes while Penny searches for pants for James.
“Thank you for the clothes,” I say. “This is so great.”
“Isn’t it?” she asks. “When I got here this was all in its beginning stages, but we’ve got a system down now.”
“Adrian’s very organized.”
She leans against a table. “Yes, he is. Everyone loves him. How do you know him?”
“We met in college.” I don’t want to tell her the details. If he’s not glad to see me, at least I won’t be known as the ex-fiancé right away.
“You know him well?” I nod and watch the occasional person walk by outside. “Then you know he’s quiet, but somehow he gets everyone to do what needs to be done. Maybe they don’t want to disappoint him.”