After the storm - part two
Luke is still trying to catch his breath and make sense of what´s going on, when the woman slaps the other man’s arm and kneels beside Luke. She is tall for a woman, with long, dark, curly hair cascading over her shoulder and piercing green eyes. Luke would have guessed she´d be in her mid-thirties, but close up he sees the laugh lines around her eyes and adds another five years to her age.
“I´m Joanne Mills and this charming man is Reid Oliver,” she says. Her voice is calm and soothing as if she´s afraid to scare him.
“Doctor Reid Oliver,” the other man interrupts and Joanne rolls her eyes but Luke can see she´s holding back a smile.
“Okay, this is Doctor Reid Oliver and I´m Doctor Joanne Mills.” She holds out her hand and Luke reflexively shakes it. “We came here last night. Who are you and where have you been hiding out? You´re the first live person we´ve come across in almost a week.”
“I-,” Luke begins, feeling his throat tighten and tears prickling the corners of his eyes. He takes a deep breath and manages to hold it back. “I´m Luke...Luke Snyder and I´m from Oakdale. I was here on a business trip when I got hit by a car and I guess I was in a coma or something. I just woke up today and I have no idea how long I´ve been out or what´s going on.”
He realizes he sounds a bit panicked but Joanne gives him an understanding smile and puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Wow, a lot have changed this past few weeks, I don´t even know where to begin.” Joanne looks at Reid who simply shrugs and picks up one of the two large hiking bags and starts rummaging around in it.
“Those things,” Luke begins, “that were chasing me. What the hell were they?”
“Zombies,” Reid answers shortly and somehow he manages to sound insulting at the same time, as if Luke should know what´s going and is an idiot for asking.
“Yeah, I kinda figured that out all by myself,” he says. “But, where did they come from? I may have been in a coma for the past few weeks but before that I´d never heard of dead people coming back from the grave.”
Well, he thinks, maybe that wasn’t completely true. There has been a few people coming back from the dead in Oakdale, but in those cases the person was never actually dead to begin with.
“You should learn how to separate facts from fiction, Mr. Snyder,” Reid says. “This is not a movie were the dead start climbing out of their graves at midnight. This is a chemical virus made by idiots who should have known better.”
“A virus?”
“You ever heard of a drug called Ceregen made by MediTech?” Joanne asks. When Luke shakes his head she continues. “It´s supposed to be the magic cure to Alzheimer’s and similar diseases where the nerve endings in the brain atrophy. To simplify it, let´s just say it´s said to regenerate brain tissue.”
Reid snorts, picks up one of the bags and walks over to the candy stand in the store. He starts shuffling down every bag of chips, peanuts and chocolate bar he sees before continuing to the drinks.
“Neurosurgeons and press from all over the world were invited to a medical conference in Las Vegas to hear more of this miracle drug, only it didn´t turn out as planned.”
Luke turns his attention back to Joanne. “We were sitting there listening to these doctors go on and on about how this drug would change the world and how all their test subjects had shown incredible improvements. I didn´t hear all of it though, Reid was sitting next to me sharing his true opinion. He was not impressed.”
Joanne looks over at Reid, who´s finished packing all the sodas in the bag and is now busy stuffing his face with chips, and gives him what Luke can only describe as a fond smile.
“What happened next?” he asks and Joanne´s focus turns back to him.
“They wanted us to meet some of the test subjects so we could see for ourselves. An older woman and maybe eight men came out and started talking about how they all had Alzheimer’s and how their memory had improved after being treated with Ceregen. The journalists were up front, taking photos and filming and suddenly one of the men throws himself of the stage and onto a journalist.”
“At first, I thought he had a stroke or a heart attack but on the screen we could see how he was biting the poor woman repeatedly. There was blood everywhere and it was as if that spurred the others on. Suddenly, the room was in complete chaos, people trying to escape and these, these things were everywhere, attacking everyone they could. It was like we were suddenly in a really bad movie. It didn´t feel real.”
Reid walks over and hands Luke a coke and a chocolate bar. He´s completely lost his appetite though so he shakes his head but Reid drops the snacks in his lap anyway.
“Eat it,” he says gruffly and jumps up to sit on the counter. “You´ll need it.”
“When we finally got out we went to the hospital and figured they could need all the extra hands they could get, but when we got there we realized it was a mistake. Whatever had happened to those test subjects we saw, it was happening there too. The place was a mess and after that everything just got worse, there didn´t seem to be a way to stop it. We were trapped at the hospital for almost five days and barely made it out alive.”
Joanne looks up at Reid and puts a hand on his leg, giving it a light squeeze. “Our friends and colleagues didn´t.”
“They put the whole city in quarantine, but it was too late. Apparently MediTech had distributed Ceregen not only to most of the hospitals in America, but to several others all over the world in their trial studies. The last broadcast we saw was from France.” Joanne sighs and looks away. ”Let´s just say that the reporter got bitten and you can guess how bad it was.”
“But what about…”
“Are you bitten?” Reid suddenly interrupts.
“No, they never got close enough, thanks to you.” He looks up at Reid and tries to smile and while he´s not expecting Reid to smile back, he´s not prepared to see a gun pointed at his head.
“Reid?” Joanne asks, and Luke´s not sure what to think.
“If you´re not bitten, what´s wrong with your hand?” Reid asks calmly and dips the gun towards the hand in Luke´s lap.
“My hand?” Luke looks down at it and suddenly realizes what Reid means. The bandage he swept around the wound from the IV needle is covered in blood and could just as easily cover up a bite wound.
“Oh! No, my hand was bleeding when I pulled out the IV needle, I swear I´m not bitten.”
Reid just raises an eyebrow but doesn´t lower the gun, so Luke quickly unwraps the bandage and shows him his hand, which thankfully isn´t bleeding anymore. Reid examines it closely before giving a curt nod and puts the gun away.
“I´m sorry, Luke,” Joanne says apologetically, which is unnecessary, if anyone should be apologizing it should be Reid and not her. Reid doesn´t seem to care about that though. “But we´ve seen people trying to hide that they´re infected and it´s a risk we cannot take.”
“What happens after you get bitten?” Luke asks. “Do you turn into one of those things immediately or…?” He trails off, not sure he really wants to hear the answer but at the same time, he needs to know.
“It depends. The ones who got infected by someone who had taken the drug turned almost immediately, that´s why it spread so fast. Most of them are probably dead now though, we can´t explain why but they seemed to only survive a few days.” She huffs out a laugh. “Then again, how can anyone explain anything these days? Anyway, if you were to be bitten it would take approximately 24 hours before you would turn.”
Luke rests his forehead in his palms and shakes his head. “I can´t believe this is happening.”
Joanne puts her arm around his shoulders. “I´m sorry, I understand this is a lot to take in.”
Luke closes his eyes and is suddenly painfully homesick. He misses his family so much that it hurts. “My family,” he begins, “do you think they´re--?” He trails off again, not able to say the word dead aloud, ridiculously afraid that saying it makes it true.
“Yes,” Reid says and Luke´s heart sinks.
“Reid!” Joanne exclaims.
“What? There´s no point in sugarcoating it. You know as well as I do that it´s highly unlikely that they´re alive.” He turns towards Luke. “You should pray that they are dead, because if they´re not they´ve turned into monsters.”
“That´s enough, Reid.”
“Fine, have it your way.” He shrugs and walks over to the bags and pulls out a sleeping bag. “It´s getting dark so it´s better if we stay here tonight.” He rolls out the sleeping bag and removes his jacket but keeps his shoes and other clothes on before climbing in. He puts a gun and a knife within reach before turning his back at them, using the jacket as a pillow.
“Don´t listen to him, Luke,” Joanne says softly. “There´s still hope.”
“He doesn´t seem to think so.”
“Reid thinks in terms of facts and statistics, not with his heart. I know he comes off as a bit rude and unemotional, but he´s a good man. A good friend. Without him I wouldn´t be here.” She takes a deep breath. “He´s right though, it is late and we need to get some sleep.”
She grabs the other bag and pulls out another sleeping bag which she hands to Luke. “You can take mine, Reid and I can share.”
He opens his mouth to protest but changes his mind. “Thank you.”
“Stay close and keep your shoes on.” He looks at her questioningly and she continues. “In case we´re attacked and need to get out of here fast.”
He does as she says and watches as she too removes her jacket, revealing two hand guns and a knife. “Good night, Luke.”
“Good night.” He rolls over onto his back and puts his arm under his head. His thoughts are spinning and he has a hard time comprehending what they told him. If he hadn´t seen the zombies for himself he would have thought they were insane, but as it is he has no other choice than to accept everything they said.
He needs to get back to Oakdale, however, because despite what Reid said, he still believes that his family is safe, that they somehow made it through this and that he´ll see them again. He needs to believe it, because the thought of a life without his mom, dads, siblings and his grandmothers is terrifying. He rolls over onto his side and wonders how on earth he´s supposed to fall asleep.
“Telling lies about me again, Jo?” He hears Reid say and to his surprise, he sounds amused.
“It wouldn´t be lies if you stopped acting like an insensitive jerk.”
Reid snorts. “But then I wouldn´t be me.”
“Point. Now, scoot over, your bony hip is digging holes in my stomach.”
There´s a lot of rustling and a few curse words before it gets quiet. Joanne was right though, Reid is an insensitive jerk and he has no idea what she sees in him. He realizes he didn´t ask where they are heading and wonders if there´s any way he can convince them to help him get back to Oakdale.
***
After a whole night of tossing and turning and fighting back panic, Luke manages to fall into a dreamless sleep and only a couple of hours later wakes up to the sound of people arguing in hushed voices. At first he doesn´t remember where he is but then he recognizes the low but rough tone of Reid´s voice.
“Absolutely not, Jo! The last person you wanted to save nearly had us both killed. I can´t understand why we´re even having this discussion.”
Luke watches them through his lashes and sees that Reid and Joanne have packed their stuff and look to be ready to leave. Afraid that they´re going to leave without him, he was just about to announce that he´s awake when Joanne´s voice stops him.
“Reid, we can´t just leave him here! He´s in no shape to be left alone, we have to help him.”
Reid huffs out a breath. “Absolutely not.”
“Well, I´m going to help him whether you like it or not.” She takes a few steps towards Reid so that they´re face to face and whatever it is he sees in her eyes makes him shake his head and raise his hands in surrender. “Fine, suit yourself. You´re going to regret it though.”
Joanne laughs and leans forward to kiss his cheek. “And I´m sure you can´t wait to get the chance to say ‘I told you so’.”
“Damn right I will. Now, wake him up, we´re leaving in ten.”
Luke quickly closes his eyes and pretends to be sleeping until he feels a hand lightly shaking his shoulder.
“Luke?” Joanne leans over him and pushes gently. “Time to wake up!”
He slowly opens his eyes and blinks owlishly. “What?”
Joanne smiles down at him and rubs his shoulder. “You need to get up and get ready, we´re leaving in ten minutes.”
“Where?” Luke rubs his eyes and sits up. He stretches his neck in an attempt to get rid of the ache there from sleeping on a floor without a pillow.
“Reid and I are attempting to go to Chicago, where did you say your family was again?”
Luke feels a rush of relief, Chicago isn´t that far from Oakdale and it´s much better than he could hope for.
“Oakdale,” he answers, a glimmer of hope in his heart. He climbs out of the sleeping bag and starts to roll it up in excitement.
“Where the hell is Oakdale?” Reid asks, disdain clear in his voice.
“Less than 50 miles from St. Louis,” Luke replies shortly, irritated by Reid´s tone.
“Well, isn´t that convenient. Now, get a move on, Mr. Snyder.”
Since Luke doesn´t have anything to pack he hands Joanne the sleeping bag and they´re ready to go. There´s no denying that he´s scared when Joanne opens up the gate with a gun clasped in her free hand and it doesn´t help that Reid stands ready with a rifle aimed towards the streets but to his relief it´s empty outside and they slowly move forward.
Joanne silently lowers the gate down behind them before raising her gun. They quickly walk down the street, Reid taking the lead with Luke in the middle. It takes a while for him to realize that they´re keeping him in the middle in case there is an attack, he´s unarmed and can´t do anything to defending himself so they´re protecting him.
The thought is haunting.
This, more than anything he´s seen so far, including Father Stevens and the others from the church chasing him, confirms that they´re fighting for survival here and Luke might not have understood it before but he does now. He can´t help but feel grateful for meeting Reid and Joanne, even if Reid seems to be an asshole, because without them he probably wouldn´t be alive right now. Or worse, he would’ve been a zombie.
Reid and Joanne have a car, but before leaving they search the stores nearby for new clothes and other essentials for Luke. Many of the stores, as expected, are trashed but they manage to find a large hiking bag, a sleeping bag and other necessities before leaving. Luke is grateful to get out of the hospital clothes and while he doesn´t like Reid pointing out what he should wear, he does as he says. Reid and Joanne also change clothes and Reid grumbles and complains about how he’d not had a proper shower in weeks.
“How much gas do we have left?” Joanne says when they´re in the car. She leans over to check the meter herself and sighs happily when she sees that there is almost half a tank.
Apparently, finding a car in larger cities is easy, but it´s also harder to drive there, and Luke quickly understands why. Sometimes the roads are blocked with crashed or abandoned vehicles and it´s not always easy to pass them. The highways are impossible to drive on, too many people trying to escape at the same time led to mile long queues with now abandoned cars and Luke tries hard to not think about what happened to the people driving them. So they stick to smaller roads and hope that when their car runs out of gas there´s another one close by. Since the electricity has been out, the gas pumps don’t work which is why it´s easier to take a new car then trying to pump up the gas by hand.
Instead of taking the I-90 all the way to Chicago they choose route two through Wenatchee National forest to Spokane.
Luke learns that while it still feels weird and freaks him out to see the streets empty and abandoned it´s easier to handle when you have company. Joanne is constantly talking, asking questions about Luke and his life, or telling him stories of their journey so far. She´s a kind and caring woman with a quirky sense of humor and Luke instantly likes her. She is also the complete opposite to Reid, who doesn´t seem to be able to say a single sentence without insulting someone. Joanne doesn´t seem to care though and gives as good as she gets.
As it turns out, Reid and Joanne are both neurosurgeons from Boston and the reason they´re going to Chicago is in the hopes that the military has set up a medical basecamp to produce a vaccine there. There was a radio broadcast a few weeks ago asking all people with any kind of medical training to report there and while the radio´s been down since then they still have hope that there will be a functioning hospital, and more importantly a lab there. According to Joanne, Reid thinks that if he´s able to study a sample of brain tissue from the infected, there´s a high chance that he can figure out how to produce an antidote.
“You´re really that good?” Luke asks disbelievingly.
Reid huffs and shoots him a glance in the rearview mirror. “I´m the best there is.”
Luke looks at Joanne. “Well, he really is.” She smiles, “If anyone can come up with a way to fix this mess, it´s going to be Reid.”
“If you´re that good, then why don’t you think of a cure instead?” Luke turns his gaze back to Reid´s profile in the mirror. “Isn´t saving the ones infected just as important?”
“I may be the best there is, but I´m not God,” Reid replies sarcastically.
“What do you mean?”
“It means that I cannot raise the dead, Mr. Snyder. Don´t you know anything about zombies? All the infected ones are dead. There´s no heart beating, they don´t need to breathe or eat or sleep, the only thing that keeps them going is the Ceregen regenerating the cells in their brains, without that they´re just corpses.”
Luke closes his eyes and once again wishes he hadn´t asked a thing.
***
While Luke would have thought that driving to Chicago would be easy and the journey would be fairly quick, maybe a week at the most, they´re not even in Spokane after three days. It turns out that it didn´t really matter how much gas there was in the tank, when there was a truck blocking the entire road shortly after they passed Wenatchee, the journey was bound to be slow. Joanne had sighed and Reid had cursed but there was nothing more they could do except strap on their bags and start walking.
Luke was still rather weak having only woken up from his coma a couple days ago and his muscles started aching after only an hour of walking. He felt dizzy and nauseous and had trouble eating to keep his strength up which led to them to take a break every so often. Luke tries to keep up the same pace as the others, since he knew Reid didn´t want him there in the first place, but when the sun starts to set, he can barely stand up straight. Joanne takes pity on him and orders Reid to find a house that´s safe enough to spend the night in.
Reid leads them to a small two-story house a mile or two’s walk from where he’d let them rest. He’d searched every room beforehand and found the house empty and declared it safe enough to spend the night in. Joanne tells Luke to sit down on the sofa and have something to eat and drink and to relax. Luke feels bad for slowing them down and not helping and so follows Reid and Joanne around in an attempt to make the house safe until Reid tells him to, “Sit down and eat Mr. Snyder, you´re not helping,” and he figures he can do exactly that. After they´ve blocked the windows with sheets and blankets and barricaded both doors, they join him in the living room. Luke falls asleep to the sound of them discussing which road to take next and into a dreamless sleep until morning.
When he wakes up, the first thing he sees is Joanne´s sleeping face in Reid´s lap on the floor beside him. Reid is fully awake, sitting up and staring into nothing.
Luke clears his throat. “Haven´t you slept?”
Reid jumps at the sound of his raspy voice. “Joanne took the first watch, I´ve been awake since 2am.”
Luke suddenly feels embarrassed for not participating in the vigil, which is ridiculous since no one woke him up, but still. “You should have told me, I could´ve stayed up, too.”
Reid snorts. “You slept like a log. We could have been eaten by zombies and you would just have kept snoring.”
Luke sits up and removes the blanket since someone, most probably Joanne, had been thoughtful enough to wrap it around him. “I don´t snore!”
Reid looks at him incredulously. “Well, you’ve been doing a pretty good imitation of it all night.” He shakes his head. “Trust me, you snore.”
Luke ignores the jibe and awkwardly rubs his neck. “So, what´s the plan for today?”
At that, Joanne wakes up and it turns out that today´s plan is more walking and hoping that they can find a car.
For some reason, many of the abandoned cars are locked, which is ridiculous but Luke figures that the human brain is programmed to lock the car when you leave it, and even during their panicked state the person’s habit is not lost. However it is very annoying.
They walk all day and Luke feels bad for slowing them down even though neither of them say a thing. Joanne keeps up the conversation the whole time and Luke feels grateful that it´s not just him and Reid. He really likes Joanne, she feels like the big sister he never had. She´s kind and funny and he can´t think of a better person he could have met when the world as he knew it was ending.
Unfortunately, his feelings towards Reid are much more complex.
While Reid is undoubtedly smart and obviously cares a great deal about Joanne he barely talks to Luke more than it is absolutely necessary. He talks a lot to Joanne though, and if they really are a couple, Joanne must be a masochist. It´s not that he´s rude to her, it´s just that everything Reid says seems to be either ironic or sarcastic and Luke has no idea how Joanne stands it. Reid is really good looking though, the rare times he actually does smile, his whole face lights up and at those times Luke can´t help but stare at him. He figures his attraction towards Reid is only there since Reid´s the only guy he´s spent time with lately. Even though he´s only had a few relationships with guys he´s genuinely liked, he can still totally appreciate a hot guy when there is one in front of him. Even if the guy is in a relationship with a girl and lacks every sense of politeness there is, Luke decides to ignore it - it’s the best thing to do.
They spend the next night in another house and this time Luke forces Joanne to wake him up when it´s her turn to keep watch. They spend the time talking about Luke´s family and his work and it´s not until they wake Reid, that he realizes that he still knows nothing about her or Reid, besides what they do for a living.
The rest of the week moves forward slowly. They finally manage to get car and Luke enjoys being able to sit in the back with his eyes closed, listening to Reid and Joanne´s bickering.
They arrive in Spokane after five days and by then, Luke´s getting used to living the way they do. Spokane, in comparison, is definitely not a big town but it is the biggest one they´ve been to since Chicago. They leave the car outside a Wal-Mart, since it was almost out of gas, and Reid starts going through their bags while Joanne hands Luke a gun to hold on to. It´s a small handgun which seems fairly easy to use but Luke has no idea how to actually use it.
“I think it´s time for you to have a gun too, Luke. You need something to defend yourself with,” she says when he doesn´t take it from her outstretched hand.
Reid looks up. “Only bitch is that you have to shoot them in the head. They don´t feel any pain and there´s no heart beating so while shooting off a leg to slow them down is good, it won´t kill them. A clean shot to the brain does it though.”
Luke shakes his head and takes a step back. “I´m sorry, but I can´t possibly use a gun. I´ve been on the receiving end of one too many times to feel comfortable even holding one and there´s no way I would be able to shoot another person, zombie or not.”
Reid rolls his eyes and seems to be on the verge on the saying something insulting, but Joanne raises her hand and Reid snorts, turning back to their bags to go through their stack of ammunition.
“Okay Luke, I see your point and I might not agree but it´s your decision. Could you at least consider it? How about this time you bring a baseball bat with you, so you have something to defend yourself with?”
Luke reluctantly takes the bat and places it in his right hand.
“Same goes for the bat, aim for the head,” Reid reminds him and Luke swallows hard before nodding.
Thankfully the store is empty. It´s clear that they´re not the first ones to have wanted to ransack it, because while there are still some things left, all of the canned food is gone, as is all of the water and most of the snacks. Luke finds a couple of bottles of soda and packs them in his bag, along with toothpaste, crackers and some chocolate bars.
“Luke!” He suddenly hears Joanne call. Heart jumping to his throat, he takes a firm grip on his baseball bat before walking over to her and Reid. They´re standing at the fruit and vegetable section and while most of it is too rotten to even contemplate eating. But there is a stack of perfect green apples that makes Luke´s mouth water. They silently stare at the fresh fruit in awe.
Reid´s the first one to move, and starts to shovel the apples into his bag. “Well, thank god for pesticides,” he says which makes Luke and Joanne break out in a laugh. They take one apple each and it´s the best thing Luke can ever remember eating.
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