Zocopalypse (Death Fields 1)

“I promise. We’ll get Jane. Don’t worry.”

“The military,” he says pausing at the door, hand clenched on my arm. “It’s complicated. They aren’t the bad guys, but they also aren’t the ones that will cure this. They’ll keep you from getting to Jane and that is the most important task right now.”

After that he rushes out of the house, hugging my mother once more. They get into a van—the only vehicle on the street and drive away.

“Two weeks?” I ask my mother, wondering if he told her the same thing.

She nods, wiping away her tears. “At least we have a deadline,” she says looking more confident than before. She needed a plan, something to focus on other than baking and inventorying supplies. My dad knows her better than anyone else and I guess he figured that out. I watch, stunned as she walks back to the kitchen and her list and making sure we have enough supplies until he returns. Or, at least, I hope he returns.

Chapter Twenty-Three

~Now~

I fall asleep and wake to the sound of scratching. I freeze, listening for the howls and screams but realize it’s just mice burrowing in the walls. Their activity is constant, as if they are as disturbed by me as I am by them. I’m too tired to care.

Rubbing my eyes I try to push aside the overwhelming exhaustion. I go to bed and wake up tired. There’s no change. Just pervasive exhaustion. I felt it before when I was with my mom but now it’s different. Now I carry the burden of her death as well.

What’s one more burden in the grand scheme of things? Like the one hanging like a rock against my chest. There are times I forget the pouch is there, it’s almost become part of my body, like the friendship bracelet Liza and I made for one another in the fourth grade. We wore them until the woven thread frayed and fell apart. It’s the final connection to my father—the link that keeps me pushing forward.

I remove the pouch, lifting the strings over my head. It’s made of vinyl, weatherproof. Black and flat, smaller than a wallet—about the size of a credit card. I never opened it before—it was just another piece of my father’s work I would never understand. Now that my mother was gone I felt some need to see what exactly she died for—why we took the risk.

The case is closed by a Ziploc type clasp. I open it carefully and peek inside and find two different square shaped cards tucked snugly inside. I pull them out and hold one eye level between two fingers. The white card has two separate sealed dots of watery red, suspended as though they’re on a lab slide—blood if I had to guess. I try to bend the edges or peel it apart but nothing happens. If I had to guess I’d say the cards are made of some type of heavy plastic, the window a thick lamination.

The other card is identical in shape and size but this time instead of fluid, two square microchips float under the plastic. I flip the cards front to back. There’s no information other than what I see.

I sigh and carefully return them to the pouch. I’d expected no more. Secret data from a secretive man. I’m assuming my sister knows what to do with them once I find her.

After wrangling my hair into pigtails and washing my face with rusty well water I walk into the kitchen and find Wyatt cleaning his gun. He works methodically, rubbing each inch with a cloth. He’s got a wrinkled piece of paper on the table.

“What’s that?” I ask while opening the package of a half-smushed protein bar.

“It’s a map of the lake area. I found it in the kitchen drawer.”

Wyatt explains that he wants to leave the house soon to search for fuel. Apparently he likes the truck better than hiking. His plan is to leave me at the cabin—under the guise it would be easier for him to go alone and meet me back here.

“No. Let me get one thing clear right now,” I say, hands on my hips, rage boiling beneath the surface. “I’m not sitting around waiting for you to return. If you want to leave and go it alone, then do it. But if we’re sticking together, then we stick together. All the time.”

“That’s a little extreme don’t you think?” he asks. His face is blank other than the tick at the corner of his jaw. God, he can’t stand not being in control all the time.

“No, I don’t. I have no desire to wait around all day to see if you survived or not. Waiting around to get attacked or spending time looking for you if we separate.”

“Okay then,” he says rubbing the back of his neck. “We never separate.”

“Never separate. That’s rule number one.”

“Got it,” he agrees although I’m not entirely sure he agrees at all. “What’s rule number two?”

“I’ll let you know,” I say with a bright smile.

I follow him down the porch steps, his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his gray t-shirt. He’s carrying a rusted gas can that he found out ba

ck near the carport. The bottom is covered in dirt and leaves.

“Maybe a boat?” I suggest, thinking of places to get gas. “I think there are more boats up here than cabins. We could hit up the marina.”

“How far is that?”

I unfold the paper map. “Maybe a half a mile that way?” I say pointing around the curve of the lake.