The man in the hole started to hack and cough. Hayden waited until he was done before answering. “I’m still human if that’s what you mean. My name’s Hayden Gooding, and I’m trying to get the hell out of Brayburne.” He held out his hand.
The old man took it. “I’m Fred Gill. I just blew the town’s mayor to smithereens, and I may be having a heart attack.”
“We must have worked our way up near the tunnel’s original exit. There was only a foot of dirt above my head when that grenade went off.” Fred Gill massaged his chest and stared out into the night through the passenger window as he recounted his story. “If I’d pulled the pin fifty feet earlier, I would likely still be buried under there… Probably been best if I had.”
“Don’t say that,” Hayden replied. “It sounds like you did the mayor a favor. Whatever it is that took those people over isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy.” He pictured the shirtless asshole that had murdered his horse. “Well, maybe with one exception.”
They pulled off of the gravel road and started west again down Highway 16. Brayburne—or what remained of it—was twelve miles behind them. “It’s a plague, Hayden. That black guck that came out of Corporal Stevens, the same shit you saw coming out of all the others… it’s a disease that spreads almost instantaneously from one host to the next. As if bombs destroying civilization wasn’t enough, now those that are left have this to struggle through.”
They drove along in silence for another two minutes before Hayden spoke again. “How’s the chest?”
“Down to a manageable ache. I can take a full breath again. Thought I was a goner for a while there. So much for doctoring myself.”
“Well I’m glad your diagnosis was wrong.”
“Where are we going?”
“I have friends waiting a few miles away. My son’s with them.”
“I meant after that… Where are we going to go? How can we keep ahead of what happened in Brayburne?”
Hayden didn’t know how to keep ahead of a disease that transformed humans into un-dead cannibals, but he did have a good idea where he wanted to go. Convincing Fred Gill and the others would be the tricky part.
Chapter 37
“I need another roll of duct tape.”
“Just gave you the last one.”
Louie leaned back on the third rung of the step ladder and surveyed his work. There was a two-foot long strip at the top of the window frame that hadn’t been sealed over. Every other part of the small shed was secure—or at least enough to his liking—to ensure the smallest of potentially infected insects couldn’t squeeze through. Two rolls alone had been used on the door. “We’ll need more to make this space safe. Every square inch of join has to be covered.”
Roy looked about the four by eight foot storage shed they had trapped themselves inside. Duct tape was running down all four wall corners, and a rectangle above their heads was in place where the walls met the ceiling. “It’s good enough.” He tested the door handle, pushing lightly to show the smaller man how well the door was stuck in place. “No bugs are getting in. I wouldn’t worry about a few inches above the stupid window.”
“All it would take is a couple of mosquitoes working their way in—a single fricking house fly carrying the ticks… and then we’re infected.”
“It’s enough,” Roy insisted. “Bad enough I didn’t get a chance to have a shit outside before you sealed us in.” He kicked the bottom of the door.
“Don’t do that. Don’t tear the seal.”
“We don’t have anything to eat… no water. How long do you think we can stay holed up in here like this for?” Louie didn’t answer, so Roy explained it to him. “Seventy-two fucking hours. We can last three days without water, maybe four if we drink our own piss.”
“It won’t get to that.”
Roy thumped his big back against the metal wall and slid down onto his big fat ass. “Why won’t it get to that? Is the disease that’s making birds and animals fucking crazy going to magically cure itself in the next couple of days?”
“I think the ticks are attracted to heat and movement. If we keep hidden away for the next day or two… if we keep quiet and still… maybe they’ll move on.”
Roy threw one of the empty cardboard tape rolls at him. It bounced off Louie’s forehead. “We wouldn’t be in here at all if you fucking disease control morons hadn’t been messing around with something so dangerous in the first place. Goddamn it, can’t we stay hidden in the house at least?”
Louie rubbed his forehead and peered out through the window. The farm house was less than a hundred feet away. “No way we could seal that place off. Too many windows and doors, not to mention an open chimney, a back deck with two huge sliding doors, and an attached garage.”
“You’re really fucking brilliant, aren’t you?”
Louie looked down at him. “Huh?”
“So maybe your tick-infected birds and insects won’t make it in here—how are we expected to breathe in here with the door and window sealed off?
Louie closed his eyes and thumped the side of his head against the door. “Well… shit. I never thought about that.”
Eight hours earlier—or somewhere thereabouts—Louie and Roy were lying face down in the middle of a dirt field, choking on dust, and listening to the sky around them being torn apart by half a dozen nuclear detonations over the already ruined city of Winnipeg. They had struggled through the remainder of that bleak plain and come across the farm. The house, barely standing after the latest round of explosions, had been abandoned days before. Louie had insisted they find someplace smaller—a manageable area they could seal off. They had seen animals become infected with the ticks, and Louie suspected even smaller, more mobile creatures, would be able to spread the infection.
Roy had said it was all a bunch of bullshit. You can’t defend yourself against the insect kingdom. If the bugs wanna get you, the fucking bugs are gonna get you. Louie suspected Tick-LDV3 couldn’t be carried by living organisms much smaller than a bumblebee—the microscopic arachnids would require larger, more complex organisms to control—but what did he know? He was no scientist.
They found a bulk six-pack of duct tape left behind in a drawer in the farmhouse kitchen. There wasn’t much else; no food, water, nothing of real value to a couple of men trying to survive in a nuclear wasteland now becoming inhabited with tick-infested hosts—living and dead.
Louie finally won the argument and convinced Roy to help him clear out the small storage shed. He truly believed whatever animals there were left roaming the blasted countryside would soon starve to death, or die from drinking the irradiated water sitting in the lakes and running in the rivers. Even Tick-LDV3 couldn’t survive long in an environment like that. Or so he had hoped.
Louie opened his eyes, slid down, and sat on the small shed’s plywood floor across from Louie. The area was small, their feet almost touched. There was nothing left in the shed except the two men. All the milk crates, every stinking bag of garbage, and every box filled with empty liquor bottles, had been removed to allow them room. “Okay, so maybe sealing ourselves in here wasn’t the brightest idea, but it was safer than staying out in the open.”
“At least we could breathe out in the open. It still fucking reeks in here. Goddamn… I’m already feeling lightheaded.”
Louie ran his fingers along the narrow panelling set over where the walls met the floor. The tape—if they’d had anymore to spare—wouldn’t have held. There was too much dirt and crud on the floor for the adhesive to stick to. If any insects were going to get in, they would crawl through there. “Okay, we’ll open the door every few minutes and let some fresh air in. But you have to promise me to only open it an inch or so, and not leave it open any longer than a few seconds. We can’t risk those ticks getting a lock on us.”