Chapter 7 - THE TURNPIKE
The snowplow lasted thirty-two miles.
Then a wrecked fuel tanker blocked the Pennsylvania Turnpike from guardrail to guardrail.
Marcus stopped fifty yards away.
Cars had piled behind it for nearly half a mile.
Doors hung open.
Luggage littered the road.
No people.
Theo stared through the windshield.
“That is never good.”
Mason checked the mirror.
Harvest helicopters were not visible.
For now.
Naomi looked at the map.
“There’s a service road below the embankment.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Truck won’t fit.”
“We walk.”
Lena laughed from the back seat.
“You keep saying that like I have two functional legs.”
Mason looked toward the abandoned vehicles.
“We find something smaller.”
Sarah did not like the silence.
Neither did Emily.
Her head tilted.
“They’re here.”
“Where?” Sarah asked.
“Everywhere.”
Mason raised his rifle.
Theo whispered, “Helpful.”
Emily glared.
“I can’t map them.”
Sarah squeezed her shoulder.
“You don’t have to.”
They exited.
Cold wind moved through hundreds of abandoned cars.
A minivan still played children’s music through its open door.
Battery dying.
The melody slowed and warped.
Sarah stepped around dried blood near the driver’s seat.
No body.
That was worse.
Marcus and Mason searched for keys.
Theo stayed with Lena.
Naomi kept the hard drive inside a waterproof field bag.
Emily walked beside Sarah.
“What does it feel like?” Sarah asked quietly.
“What?”
“The infected.”
Emily looked toward the tree line.
“Like hearing a crowded room through a wall.”
“Words?”
“Not exactly.”
“Feelings?”
Emily thought.
“Hunger.”
Sarah’s stomach tightened.
“And?”
“Pain.”
She swallowed.
“Mostly pain.”
A car horn sounded.
Everyone froze.
Three vehicles ahead, a sedan horn blared continuously.
A dead woman’s forehead had fallen onto the steering wheel.
Then she lifted her head.
White eyes.
Emily whispered, “Fresh.”
The woman lunged against the seat belt.
The belt held.
Her scream awakened the turnpike.
Bodies rose inside cars.
Under cars.
From drainage ditches.
A man crawled out of an SUV missing both feet.
A child climbed through a shattered rear window.
Dozens became hundreds.
Sarah shouted, “Move!”
Marcus found a state police cruiser with keys still in the ignition.
Dead battery.
Mason pointed to a delivery van.
“Keys!”
They ran.
The first infected reached them.
Mason shot it in the face.
Gunfire drew more.
Sarah swung a tire iron into another skull.
Bone cracked.
The infected kept coming.
Emily grabbed one by the jacket and threw it over a car hood.
Too easily.
She stared at herself again.
Sarah shouted, “Don’t think about it!”
They reached the van.
Marcus started the engine.
Nothing.
Again.
Engine coughed.
Infected slammed against the rear doors.
Theo pushed Lena inside.
Naomi climbed after.
Mason fired until his magazine emptied.
Marcus turned the key a third time.
The engine roared.
Everyone screamed in relief.
Sarah and Emily jumped in through the side door.
Mason barely made it.
The van crashed through a line of shopping carts and took the narrow shoulder around the tanker.
An infected man clung to the hood.
Marcus accelerated.
The man smiled through broken teeth.
Sarah watched his fingers tear against the metal.
He still held on.
Emily stepped forward.
“No.”
Sarah knew what she was trying.
“Emily.”
“I can make him stop.”
“You don’t know that.”
Emily stared through the windshield.
“Stop.”
Nothing.
The infected hammered its head against the glass.
“STOP!”
It froze.
Marcus looked at her.
Then the infected slowly released its hands.
It vanished beneath the van.
Everyone was silent.
Emily sat down.
Sarah knelt beside her.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Fair.
The service road carried them west through wooded hills and small towns.
Every town looked abandoned differently.
One had burned.
One was intact but silent.
One had bodies piled in front of a church.
At a rural gas station, they found handwritten signs.
SAFE CAMP — 2 MILES
FOOD — WATER — DOCTOR
Mason tore one down.
“Trap.”
Theo asked, “How do you know?”
“Because safe people don’t advertise.”
Naomi looked at Lena.
“We need a doctor.”
“I am a doctor.”
“You need surgical supplies.”
Lena’s fever had climbed again.
Her lips were dry.
Sarah saw the infection creeping beyond the bandage.
Not zombie infection.
Something older and just as deadly.
They followed the signs.
The camp occupied an old county prison.
High fences.
Watchtowers.
Concrete walls.
About sixty survivors lived inside.
Men with rifles watched from the gate.
Their leader called himself Pastor Gideon Pike.
He was not a pastor.
Not anymore.
He had been a prison chaplain before the outbreak.
Now he carried a shotgun and spoke like someone accustomed to being obeyed.
He looked at Emily.
“Anyone bitten?”
Sarah answered too quickly.
“No.”
Emily looked at her.
Gideon noticed.
So did Mason.
But nobody corrected her.
Inside, the prison smelled of bleach, sweat, and soup.
Families slept in former cell blocks.
Children played with cards in the cafeteria.
For the first time in days, Sarah saw people laughing.
It hurt.
Normal life had become something fragile enough to break by looking at it.
A nurse treated Lena in the infirmary.
She needed surgery.
They had antibiotics.
They had tools.
They did not have anesthesia beyond a few local injections and expired painkillers.
Lena said, “Do it.”
Marcus stayed with her.
Naomi helped.
Sarah and Emily were given a cell to rest.
The door did not lock.
Still, Sarah hated it.
Emily sat on the lower bunk.
“You lied.”
“At the gate.”
“Yes.”
“They would have shot you.”
“Maybe.”
“They definitely would have.”
Emily rubbed the bite.
The wound was closing.
Too fast.
Sarah noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Sarah.”
The crescent marks that should have remained open and infected were sealing into pink scars.
Naomi entered.
She saw it too.
“Let me look.”
Emily sighed.
“Everybody says that.”
Naomi examined the wound.
“Accelerated repair.”
Sarah said, “From HBX.”
“Yes.”
“Good?”
Naomi looked unhappy.
“Useful.”
“Not the same word.”
“No.”
She drew blood.
Again.
Emily did not complain.
Naomi’s portable test kit showed increased viral load but stable cognition.
She compared it to Maya’s records.
“Maya deteriorated much faster after this point.”
Emily asked, “So I’m different.”
“Yes.”
“Better?”
“We don’t know.”
Sarah almost laughed.
Emily beat her to it.
“Drink.”
Naomi smiled despite herself.
Then prison alarms rang.
Sarah stood.
Her gun came up.
Gideon’s voice echoed over an old intercom.
“Everyone remain in assigned blocks.”
Mason appeared at the cell door.
“Gate patrol caught two infected.”
“So?”
“They weren’t attacking.”
Emily went pale.
They followed him to the yard.
Two infected stood outside the inner fence.
One was a woman in business clothes.
The other wore a delivery uniform.
Both stared through the bars.
At Emily.
Gideon noticed.
“What’s going on?”
Sarah stepped in front of her sister.
“Nothing.”
The infected woman clicked.
Emily flinched.
Then the second answered.
Gideon raised the shotgun.
Emily shouted, “Wait!”
Too late.
He fired.
The woman’s head exploded.
The second infected screamed.
Not rage.
Grief.
Everyone heard it.
The yard went silent.
Gideon fired again.
The second body fell.
Emily stared at him.
“You didn’t have to.”
Gideon looked at her.
“They were dead.”
“No.”
He saw something in her face.
Suspicion.
“Why were they looking at you?”
Sarah stepped closer.
“Leave it.”
Gideon looked at Naomi.
Then Emily’s healing arm.
His eyes narrowed.
“You’re bitten.”
People around the yard began backing away.
Mason raised his weapon.
Gideon’s guards raised theirs.
Children were pulled indoors.
Sarah said, “She’s been bitten for more than a day.”
That made things worse.
Gideon’s face hardened.
“You brought infection into my camp.”
“She isn’t turning.”
“She is infected.”
Naomi stepped forward.
“She is not actively shedding as far as our tests show.”
“As far as?”
“There’s no evidence she can transmit through casual contact.”
Gideon laughed.
“Casual.”
Sarah felt the crowd changing.
Fear spreading faster than virus.
A man shouted, “Get her out!”
Another said, “Kill her!”
Emily backed toward the wall.
Sarah stood in front of her.
Mason joined.
Then Theo.
Then Marcus, limping from the infirmary.
Gideon lifted one hand.
“Everybody calm down.”
Sarah almost believed him.
Then he said, “We can turn her over.”
“To who?” Mason asked.
“Military.”
“No.”
“They’re looking for resistant cases. We heard broadcasts.”
Sarah said, “They’ll kill her.”
Gideon looked at Emily.
“If she saves everyone else—”
Sarah crossed the distance and punched him.
His head snapped sideways.
The yard erupted.
Guards grabbed Sarah.
Mason raised his gun.
Theo shouted.
Emily screamed.
Then every infected outside the prison screamed too.
Not two.
Hundreds.
They emerged from the woods.
From the road.
From behind abandoned buildings.
A ring around the prison.
Gideon stared.
“What did you do?”
Emily shook her head.
“Nothing.”
The horde did not charge.
They gathered at the fence.
Watching.
Waiting.
Sarah pulled free.
Emily stood in the center of the yard.
The infected shifted as she moved.
The entire camp saw it.
Someone whispered, “She controls them.”
Emily shouted, “I don’t!”
Gideon looked at her with terror.
Then opportunity.
Sarah recognized that look from Harvest.
Different clothes.
Same hunger.
He lowered his shotgun.
“You’re staying.”
Mason laughed.
“No.”
Gideon’s guards closed the gate to the cell blocks.
“We can use her.”
Emily stared.
“Use me?”
“To keep them back.”
Naomi said, “That is not how this works.”
“Looks like it works.”
Gideon turned to the crowd.
“As long as she’s here, they don’t attack.”
Sarah stepped closer.
“You don’t know that.”
Gideon smiled.
“Then we test it.”
He grabbed Emily’s arm.
Sarah moved.
A rifle slammed into her back.
She fell.
Emily screamed.
The infected outside hit the fence simultaneously.
Metal thunder shook the yard.
Gideon released her.
The horde stopped.
Silence.
Everyone understood.
Emily whispered, “They feel when I’m afraid.”
Naomi looked at her.
“Maybe.”
Gideon’s fear became calculation again.
“You can protect us.”
Emily looked around.
At families.
Children.
People who had nearly demanded her death.
“I could.”
Sarah pushed herself up.
“Emily, don’t.”
Emily looked at her sister.
“But I’m not going to be their cage.”
She faced the fence.
Closed her eyes.
The horde clicked.
One sound.
Then another.
Emily whispered, “Move.”
The infected parted.
A corridor opened through them from the prison gate to the road.
Every survivor stared.
Mason grinned.
“Now that’s useful.”
Gideon raised his shotgun.
“You’re not leaving.”
Marcus hit him with the butt of his rifle.
Gideon dropped.
Chaos broke again.
Sarah grabbed Emily.
Naomi and Theo brought Lena from the infirmary on a wheeled stretcher.
Mason opened the inner gate.
The guards hesitated.
Nobody wanted to shoot while thousands of infected stood beyond the fence.
Sarah faced the open corridor through the horde.
Every white eye watched them.
Emily trembled.
“Stay close.”
They walked out.
No infected moved.
The smell was unbearable.
Rot.
Blood.
Wet clothes.
Human waste.
One infected child reached toward Emily.
Sarah raised her gun.
Emily lowered it gently.
“No.”
They passed.
At the road, they found a prison transport bus.
Theo hotwired it.
The group climbed aboard.
As the engine started, the horde remained still.
Emily sat by the window.
The infected child stood outside.
Watching.
Sarah looked at her sister.
“You did it.”
Emily shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“I didn’t tell them to part.”
Sarah froze.
Emily looked back at the prison.
“They knew what I wanted.”
Far above the clouds, a helicopter engine began to grow louder.
May you like
Harvest had found them again.
And this time, every infected around the prison turned its face toward the sky.
