Deathly Contagious (39 page)

I was about to turn and leave since the humidity was choking me when a flash of purple caught my eye. Without thinking, I stepped from the doorframe and into the building. Following only a step behind me, Hayden kept his gun raised.

“It’s an eggplant,” I said. Before the row rotated, I grabbed it, twisting and snapping it off the vine. “Hayden, look.” I held the football sized eggplant to my chest. “Every row.” I blinked in disbelief.

“They all have plants. Growing plants,” Hayden finished for me. “You were right; someone has been here.”

I set the eggplant down. “We should check the other buildings. Make sure this isn’t a weird fluke.”

Hayden nodded and took my hand. Still feeling a little stunned, we silently walked back over to the cars.

“That was fast,” Ivan said to us with a smile. “What, Underwood couldn’t keep it up?”

I blinked, almost not catching his joke. “No, h-he can. The greenhouses work,” I stammered.

“Huh?” Brock asked. He pushed himself off the Range Rover, which he had been leaning against.

“Riss saw footprints,” Hayden explained. “We went into the greenhouse; I expected it to be full of dead, dried plants. But it’s not, not at all. Or at least the one we went into.”

“Someone’s been taking care of them?” Brock asked incredulously. He ran a hand through his light brown hair. “Do you think crazy in the boat took care of them before he became infected?”

“It would make sense,” Ivan stated.

Rider and Wade joined us. “What’s going on?” Wade asked. Hayden quickly explained and decided to split up in pairs and inspect the rest of the buildings. Hayden grabbed his machine gun and I slung the bow and arrows over my shoulder. We went over to the nearest building to the right. The biggest heads of lettuce I’d ever seen spilled over the top of the plastic beds.

The next greenhouse was filled with strawberries. The smell instantly made my mouth water. Hayden plucked two off and tossed one to me. I held it up; it was huge and bright red and promised to be juicy and sweet.

“What’s the matter?” he asked and bit into his.

“My grandpa used to say that the hormones in these plants would cause cancer.”

“Everything causes cancer,” he said and picked off another. “Did you eat at restaurants?”

“Of course.”

“Then you’ve already been exposed and you’re fine. You’re missing out,” he told me and ate another.

Feeling silly for never thinking that restaurants would no doubt buy cheaper ingredients, I shrugged and devoured the strawberry.

“Ohmigod, this is orgasmic,” I said and pulled off a few more, eager to shove them into my mouth.

“So that’s all I have to do?” Hayden raised his eyebrows.

I nodded. “Right now, yea. I think I could eat every strawberry in here. It’s been months since I had fresh fruit!”

“Yea,” Hayden agreed with his mouth full. “We should bring some back for the ride home.”

“I have to get some for Raeya!”

“I hate to break it to you, but we still have a while. I don’t think they’d be good by then.”

“Dammit,” I said. “You’re right.”

We eat a few more before going into the greenhouse across the street. Unlike the others, this one didn’t have rotating levels. Instead, it had rows of the weirdest looking trees I’d ever seen. I reached out and touched an apple.

Gleaming red and fricken huge, the heavy piece of fruit easily snapped of in my hands. I inspected it, remembering how my grandma used to take Raeya and me to the same orchard every fall to pick our own apples. I would climb up in the tree to get the best ones and then I’d throw them down to Ray. We’d spend the entire next day making apple pies, preserves, jams and my favorite: Apple butter. When my grandma got so sick and weak that walking down the rows of trees became too much for her, Ray and I still went so we could bring her a basket of the prettiest apples we could find.

The trees in front of me were wrong, so wrong. It looked as if someone chopped off the top of the tree on stuck it on a four foot stump. The branches were held up by strong cables attached to the ceiling. I felt like a giant walking amongst the minuscule trees. It was so unnatural; I didn’t like it one bit. I set the apple down and followed Hayden into another greenhouse, this one filled with radishes.

We just stepped out of a green bean filled barn when Rider and Wade jogged over.

“Everything’s fresh,” Wade said. “In all of them.”

I nodded. “That’s how it was in the ones we looked in.”

Hayden took a step in the direction of the truck. Following suit, the three of us began walking with him.

“Should we load up the truck?” Rider asked. “Can you imagine how happy everyone will be when we show up with a bed full of fresh fruit?”

“It won’t be all fresh by the time we get there,” Hayden said grimly, eyeing the strawberries. “We still have a week.”

“Oh,” Rider sighed. “Right.”

We walked the rest of the way to the truck in silence. Hayden jumped up in the bed and grabbed a water bottle. He drank half and offered it to me. Hot, sweaty, and thirsty, I quickly downed the warm water. I wished it were possible to keep a cooler stocked with ice.

A few minutes later, Ivan and Brock joined us, each carrying a box.

“Seeds,” Brock explained and set the box next to the Range Rover. Rain started to sputter down on us again; he opened the tailgate and rearranged the items back there to make room for the seeds. Ivan told us that every greenhouse they went in had fast growing, healthy looking plants in it.

“Harvest time?” Brock asked and slammed the tailgate down.

Hayden shook his head. “Not everything will last the week’s drive.”

“We can’t leave all this,” Brock said, motioning to the greenhouses.

“No,” Hayden agreed. He shifted his weight uncomfortably, his eyes moving from the truck to the greenhouses several times.

“It’s your call,” Brock said in a level tone. “Whatever you decide, I’ll agree with.”

Rider, Wade, and Ivan nodded. I didn’t know Hayden officially called the shots. I wondered why he never told me that before and why he didn’t use his authority more often.

“It would be a waste,” Ivan agreed with Brock. “We could freeze a lot of this stuff and it could last us until our own crops grow.”

 “You’re right,” Hayden said. “We can’t pass this up.”

“What about the people who grew this?” Rider asked shyly. “I’m not saying they need it more than we do, but do you think we should try to find them?”

Hayden’s eyes met mine. I shook my head and he nodded, getting what I implied.

“The whole situation is weird,” I stated. “Why invest the time and energy to grow crops and then leave them? I would be protecting our food source with my life.”

“What about the person driving the boat?” Wade brought up.

I bit my lip as I thought. “I suppose. I don’t know…it still seems like a huge risk to rely on. I suppose it’s possible though. Maybe they come over and set up the greenhouses once a week or something.”

“And it’s not like we are going to clean them out,” Ivan said. “We can’t fit that much into the bed of the truck.”

“We’re not supposed to be here,” Hayden reminded us. “Let’s get the food and go.”

Ivan nodded. “How should we do this? I think it would be the fastest to work together with one as a look out.”

“Sounds good,” Hayden said and took the keys of the truck from his pocket. “Let’s start at that end and work our way down.”

We loaded up in our cars and drove to the first greenhouse. Brock said there were more boxes in the storage shed were they had found the seeds. Hayden suggested I be the lookout. Though picking vegetables and lugging the heavy boxes into the truck bed wasn’t exactly a fun time, it beat standing in the humid drizzle.

My skin was sticky and I desperately wanted to shower. I unbraided my hair and, without even attempting to comb it out, flipped my head upside down and twisted it into a bun. The air was too thick to have any hair touching my neck.

I flicked the safety off my machine gun and waited, carefully keeping a watchful eye all around us. The rain and clouds had moved on by the time the guys came out of the first greenhouse. Along with the humid air, the hot sun beat down on us.

It took hours to get everything picked, packed, and loaded. Along with being hot and sweaty, the guys were now tired. Hayden complained that his back hurt from leaning over. Ivan found a working hose hooked up to a well around the back of the storage shed. We suspected it was used to fill the water tanks when the rainwater ran low. We quickly hosed off, changed into clean clothes and got into the cars.

The bed of the truck was full. Except for a miniscule amount of room left around the machine gun, there was no space left for anything else. Paying careful attention to the map, we headed southwest.

Knowing our chances of finding survivors walking down the road were slim to none, we were all content with the thoughts of being home in half a day. We drove straight through for four hours, making good time. We had to avoid several pile ups and stalled cars on the high way and sped through a zombie infested town in northern Ohio.

We were near Columbus when the sunlight started to fade. We pulled into an empty parking lot in front of a dentist’s office. Hayden used the five gummies milling about as target practice with the bow. His first shot missed, his second hit the gummy in the thigh and his third hit in the heart.

“Relax,” I reminded him. “And stop looking at the arrow; look at your target. That’s what I do at least.” Hayden let out his breath, refocused and released the arrow. “See!” I said excitedly. “I’m a good teacher.”

“Yes you are,” he agreed and walked over to pull the arrow out of the gummy’s head. He flicked the brain matter off and retrieved the other two arrows. We went around the building to find the other deteriorated humans. One was stuck in a sewage ditch—he was an easy target. Two others staggered in our direction going at snail speed.

Hayden’s first arrow whizzed past, grazing the S3’s head. A flap of skin peeled off but it wasn’t enough to kill the bastard. Hayden fired again and nailed him in the eye. He got the second one on his first try.

“He’s not even worth shooting,” I said when we walked over to the third gummy who was dragging himself along the ground. “Is it pathetic that I feel kind of sorry for him?” I asked Hayden, tipping my head to the side.

“No, I do too,” he agreed. The creature in front of us only had one arm. His legs had been chewed; most of the skin was gone and the bones were splintered and broken. His face was crusted in pus and blood. Needless to say, he smelled worse than shit.

Hayden took an arrow and easily pushed it through the thing’s head. His skull was about as strong as a moldy orange. He shook off the mucous and put the arrow back in the quiver. We rejoined our group who was already eating dinner. Careful not to send our boxes of fruit and veggies falling, Hayden put the tailgate down and hopped up while I grabbed us food.

“Do you have zombie crap on your hands?” I asked him before giving him the tuna and crackers I was holding.

Hayden inspected his hands. “Don’t think so. And it doesn’t matter for me, remember?”

“I know,” I told him. “It can make you regular sick, remember?”

“Yea,” he sighed. “But we don’t have soap or water. Too bad.”

“Hang on,” I told him and set the food down. I had forgotten that Padraic gave me a bottle of hand sanitizer several missions ago. I rooted around in my bag for it. “I know you touched those gummies,” I said to Hayden and held out the bottle.

“I don’t need that, Riss,” he said defiantly.

“I don’t need you sick,” I retorted.

“I won’t get sick. I haven’t yet.”

“Hayden, just take it. It’s not hard and it won’t hurt.”

“I don’t want it,” he argued.

“Please?” I tried.

“Fine,” he huffed and held out his hand. I squeezed a large drop of the hand sanitizer onto his palm.

“Underwood, you are such a baby,” Ivan teased.  “It’s a good idea,” he said and held out his hands. “We might not get infected but think of all the nasty shit we touch. I’m surprised we haven’t gotten sick more often.”

We passed the bottle around, agreeing it would be a good idea to ‘wash up’ before eating from now on. We ate our rationed meals and really had to resist stuffing our faces full of apples, strawberries, oranges, and bananas.  

Another night spent sleeping uncomfortably in the cars slowly passed. We got up with the sun, got out to stretch and ate a rushed breakfast. The sun was already beating down hot rays on the black truck. And we weren’t allowed to use the air conditioning.

I leaned against the cool window in the backseat. The wind blowing in from Hayden’s open window felt wonderful as we sped along at seventy miles an hour down a stretch of highway. He and Brock were busy talking about football. I thought it was totally irrelevant since I felt confident to say that at least ninety-five percent of the NFL was dead.

But I’d admit it was nice hearing a normal conversation. I kept my mouth shut and closed my eyes. We had to do some off roading to go around a several mile long stretch of parked cars on the highway. We splashed through a swampy cornfield and onto a gravel road. Not wanting rocks to fly up and damage the truck, Hayden drove slowly.

The sunlight glinting off the back window caught my attention immediately. It wasn’t unusual in the least to see a car pulled over on the side of the road or even stopped in the middle of the road. What did strike me as odd was the mud splashed all over the navy blue Chevy Impala.

“Stop,” I said suddenly.

“Why?” Hayden said and slammed on the brakes.

“That car back there,” I said as I twisted in my seat. “It’s dirty.”

“So is everything,” Hayden reminded me. “There’s no one left to clean it.” He took his foot off the brake.

“No, Hayden, stop. The car is dirty like it just splashed though the same mud we did. It rained yesterday remember? It would have washed it away.”

“Shit,” he swore and told Ivan to stop over the walkie talkie.

“How the hell do you notice things like that?” Brock asked.

“I don’t know. I just do,” I admitted. “I kinda wish I didn’t. Then we’d still be on our way home.”