Three Months since Ground Zero

It had been three days, and Colby was far from our sight. Being back on the road again was unnerving, and I didn't expect it to be nervous on our first night. But as the days came, as we passed more farmlands and sparse areas, getting farther and farther from the rail yard warehouses we had called home, I remembered what I had learned before, like muscle memory. I became alert every time we were in a new area where every corner could have a vector hiding behind it, or worse, other survivors. I didn't want to get ambushed again.

But today, the car ride would be uneventful. Since the stretch of road we were going to cross had fewer towns and villages, the ride would be straightforward until we hit the next town with a gas station. I sat back and relaxed in my bunk bed, reading a fantasy book I was already not sure about, but I was right not to pick it up after three hours into the story.

"This is not good," I said to myself. It was about teenagers becoming master assassins after only training for less than a year (they were peasants before their recruitment), giving up after I got to the halfway point where it wasn't only a love triangle but a love hexagon. I shelved it under my bunk and made a note to borrow one of Alfie's books.

There was a soft rap on the door, and Logan walked into the cabin. "So, this is where you've been hiding," he said, crossing his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

"It's a lot quieter here than out there," I said. I bent my knees and scooted my legs to make room for Logan on the mattress.

Logan sat down at the foot of the bunk. "Wait...is that your way of saying I'm too loud?"

"Maybe. Maybe I'm just tired and sore, and I want to lay down."

"Aw. Poor puppy."

"Woof," I mumbled.

He paused. "Let me show you something."

Logan took a deep breath. I wondered what he would do when he suddenly clapped his hands as if he was about to pray and then started rubbing them together. He grabbed both my ankles and forcibly put my legs over his lap. I tried to wiggle out, but his grip was firm. What was he doing? Then, he started massaging my calves—fingers delicate yet with a determined grasp. I didn't realize I had many knots and tension down there, and my groan sent red flushes up my cheeks. Logan merely grinned like he won the lottery.

I began to relax. "Okay. That actually feels good." I wished I could think of something else to say, but what else was there? He could have just asked, and I would have said yes instead of grabbing me, but I wasn't complaining about this impromptu massage.

"I used to do this for my siblings and my teammates. After practice, my team would have a giant back massage circle going on for ten minutes in the middle of the football field just to get the knot off our shoulders, you know? Plus, it's a nice bonding moment. As for my brothers, whoever loses a game of Uno or Trivia night has to massage the back of the winners, and you know we play board games every Tuesday and Thursday nights. My brothers and I are experts in the art."

"Did you just seriously call it an art?"

"What? Of course, it is! You have to learn the different types of muscles, and the lymphatic system, where it goes, and all sorts of anatomy. Have you heard of petrissage on your neck? Feels good, man. It's like kneading a roll of bread, except it's your muscle tissue."

"Ew. Sounds painful."

"Yet it feels so good."

"Hm. Look at you. I didn't know you're the jack of all trades."

"Well, I got to have my few surprises. You got the guns and ammo show, and I got these magic fingers."

"Is that why you're popular with the ladies?"

Logan laughed. "That, and I got other skills to be proud of." He started wiggling his brows at me.

My legs jerked upward instinctively and shouted, "Oh! Right there!" I pointed to the center of my right calf muscle.

"Here?" Logan took a firm squeeze around that area, but the RV ran over a bump on the road, causing him to grasp harder. It felt like my spine was about to break.

"Ow! Not too hard!"

"Oh, hush. That's nothing. I'm just getting into the deep tissue," he said, grinning. "I was right. Very knotted." He used his knuckles to press around it and my legs tensed up.

I closed my eyes, curled my toes as I rode the pain, but then it started to feel good, tingles running up my legs, then up to my spine. I let out a heavy sigh, relaxing my legs on his lap again.

Logan chuckled. "Ha! Told you. I am an expert. I expect a payment, by the way."

"And what's that?"

Logan paused, pursing his lips. "Well, let's see...Ah! You get to clean my guns. I hate cleaning them."

"If you don't want them to break down easily, you have to learn to do it on your own. It's important."

"Exactly! As payment for this massage, you will clean and oil up my guns instead. You do it far better than me."

"Here, I thought you were doing it as a friendly favor."

"Friends are for suckers."

"Rude." I poked him under his armpit, chuckling at the way he squirmed from my touch.

"Fine. Fine. I'll do it for free. But only this one time."

"Touché."

Miguel let out a slew of curses from the lounge; no doubt something was happening on the TV. Logan gently pushed my legs off his lap and went to the door, and peered out. He turned and shook his head. Logan fashioned an invisible noose around his neck and pretended he was being hanged, choking and coughing.

"Doom and gloom," Logan muttered and let out a laugh.

"Bad news sells ratings."

For the first time since summer began, a hard rain fell from the sky. Not too long, but enough time to make the roads slick because of oil and dirt, which hadn't been washed away for weeks on the pavement's surface. Enough to permeate the air with an earthy scent of fresh rain after sunshine. I looked out of the window and the droplets clinging to the glass.

We passed a sign that said: LEAVING NEW YORK: WE'LL MISS YOU!

Followed by: WELCOME TO PENNSYLVANIA: THE KEYSTONE STATE. PURSUE YOUR HAPPINESS!

Three hundred and fifty more miles to go until Pittsburgh. I looked at the clock on the wall striking ten in the morning, remembered what Peter told me that we would hit the border around this hour. Right on schedule.

"Let's see what the others are up to," I said and got off my bunk. I had enough being cooked up in one room and needed a stretch.

I followed Logan into the lounge room. At the front, Haskell was behind the wheel, quietly listening to DJ Swayze's broadcast again, which played a mellow pop ballad. Both Miguel and Alfie were watching the news on the TV while Yousef was napping on the couch.

"Get off the seat, boy. You're not supposed to be up there." Logan said, snapping his fingers to get Indy's attention. Indy quickly jumped off the settee on the dinette and sat on the floor, tail wagging, eyes shifting guiltily. Logan slid onto the empty seat, briefly patting Indy on the head.

I sat next to Logan and said, "We just crossed state lines."

"About time. Three days going from town to town, making sure we didn't attract any hordes or survivors. I'm so tired of crawling like a turtle and getting stuck in this tin can," Logan said.

"We're just trying to be safe, Logan. Cora attracts a lot of attention."

"I know. She's a big girl." He winked at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Leave your dirty mind with Miguel's magazines."

Logan's cheeks started to flush. "I'm gonna regret handing you that backpack. If only you hadn't opened that pocket..."

"Oh, please. You guys don't have to pretend like I don't know you all jerked off to that crusty thing. Why do you think I never use the toilet?" I pointed at the RV's bathroom door. "You all practically made that place a red light district."

"I mean, it'd be rude to let you know since you don't borrow it. Kind of awkward."

"What can I say? I don't like kitties."

"Hold up. I'm gonna pretend you didn't just say kitties, Bren."

I shrugged and quickly changed the subject. "Peter said we'll hit one of the cities soon, Northumberland, I think, in two days. Hopefully, we won't encounter any hordes."

"And in the meantime, we'll just wait in this boring car ride," Logan leaned further back into the cushion, letting out a deep sigh. "I might ask Miguel for that magazine and go to the back..."

I smacked him on the shoulder. "I said I'm done with that."

"Ow! Fine. We can always find you some gay porn."

"No, thanks."

"Okay. What else do you want to talk about, then?"

"Anything but that."

"Well, I can't talk about the news again. They're awfully grim."

"What are they on about now?" I pointed at the TV, egging him on.

Logan groaned again. "Alright. If you want to be miserable..." He squinted at the screen, trying to read the chyron. "I think it's another pro-Alpha protest in front of the White House this time."

"Don't they know that President Marshall is in Seattle, the new capital?"

"I guess they don't care. They probably thought protesting in front of the White House is more symbolic than standing outside the Space Needle. The latter is too tall for the cameras." Logan grinned.

The CB radio on the table crackled, and Peter's voice went through. "Anybody copy?"

I held the radio over my lips and answered, "Bren here."

"Oh. Bren. Can you tell Haskell to stop about ten miles in? There's a village nearby with a gas station, so make sure he takes Depot Hill Road on his right. On the map, it looks like a narrow road, so he better watch out for it, or else he'll miss the turn."

"Alright. I'll tell him. Um...over."

I was about to tell Haskell when he shouted over his shoulder, "I heard it! Depot Hill Road!"

"Gotcha," I said. I placed the radio back on the table, waiting for a couple of seconds if Peter was going to say something else. Silence.

"Do you think they're doing okay for Jun and Peter to be in the same car?" Logan asked, breaking the silence.

"Er, Jun rarely strikes a conversation, and Peter's not the type for small talk. I think they're perfect for each other," I said, letting out a laugh.

"Hm. They're miserable."

Both men were driving in the Honda Civic, our designated vehicle for supply runs, which followed behind the RV. I could only imagine how awkward it was in that car. Earlier that morning, Peter begged me to ride with him, but I had been driving in that Honda Civic for the past two days with Yousef and Miguel. I wanted something with more room for a change. It was nice to kick back on a sofa with plenty of space to stretch, ignoring the fact that Haskell drove like a maniac. No traffic cop was going to stop him, anyway. Haskell rarely let anyone drive Cora and was fiercely protective of her, like a man with his newly-brought Ferrari.

"Happy ninety days," Logan said to me without a hint of delight, pointing at the TV screen where the newscaster was busy listing all the failures and achievements over the past three months. The former had a long list of fuck-ups. "Kidding. I can tell you this much: not my worst monthsary."

"Has it really been three months?" I asked.

"Time moves fast. Who keeps count at the end of the world, anyway? Each day only gets shittier than the last, and that one was already shit. Might as well not bother."

"Only crazy people do."

The news was making a big deal about today. It's been three months since the outbreak in Manhattan began, and there was nothing to show for it but chaos, destruction, and more chaos. Since the TV was fixed, all we saw on every major channel were those things, and they wouldn't shut up about it. It would have been tolerable if they reported at least one good news, but they had to fuck it up by doubling down on the doom. We couldn't even watch regular TV like NCIS or Family Feud reruns, where those channels ended up in static. No amount of beating up the TV screen and fiddling with the antenna dish would do a damn thing to change it.

I am willing to watch more episodes of the Kardashians reruns than watch another city burning from the opposite side of the world, I thought.

Alfie clamored out of his seat and went to turn off the TV in a huff, muttering, "peace and quiet."

"I was watching that!" Miguel exclaimed.

"It's all the same, Miguel. When we check back tomorrow, they'll recycle the same news, over-and-over."

"We might miss something important."

"I doubt it. They've talked about the food riots in Cleveland and Miami for three days in a row. The only thing newsworthy was Britain blowing up the Channel Tunnel."

I frowned, remembering that segment yesterday on CNN. The infected (who had not turned into vectors yet) and the refugees tried to cross the tunnel from France into the UK. The British government decided to blow up both ends of the passage, causing thousands to get buried in the tunnel, both exits sealed while a large body of water, the English Channel, pressing above them. I could only imagine what it would be like to survive in the dark with dwindling resources, knowing that the vectors were also trapped with you merely ten feet away and there was no way out.

The bombings angered the French so much that they were a hair-length away at executing a military strike against the British. Still, they had other priorities to deal with when mainland Europe was overrun with vectors and refugees entering all sides. Even China had its first significant outbreaks occurring mere two weeks ago (this was when China had managed to do an excellent job of suppressing the disease in the lower digits by adapting harsh draconian rules). China was bragging about their small case numbers and their prompt response for many months, but now, they went under a media blackout, both within state-run news and social media, and there's one reason I could think of why. The multiple satellite photos of Chinese cities burning proved what everyone had speculated.

To our horror, we realized that the disease had spread across the globe like wildfire.

I remembered Logan asking me, "How are we going to go back to normal with all this shit going on?"

It took me a while to answer until it dawned on me: no, we wouldn't.

The world had changed, and it was becoming stranger by the hour. Perhaps that was why many countries hoped that President Marshall succeeded in eradicating The Red Zone. The United States had 2.6 million soldiers. If the campaign succeeded, those 2.6 million could be sent out to allied countries to assist in reclaiming and securing their borders...if the US would honor the decades-long relationship of amicable treaties and compacts.

Many ifs and promises hinge on faith and dubious trust—a thread that can easily be cut when blood is at stake.

Hopefully, that will change in the coming days, I thought, imagining the military mobilizing along the Susquehanna River as I sat on the dinette seat in the RV. It had been three days since the president's speech and four days away from Reclamation Day. To be honest, I wanted President Marshall and the military command to succeed, but given what I had experienced, the doubts remained like a sleeve on my arm.

——

NO GAS said the sign hanging by the side of the gas pumps. Cars were strewn about in a line, obviously waiting to take their turn, but they had been abandoned along with the owners' belongings; those people were nowhere to be seen. The rain had stopped for now, but the gray clouds still hung above.

"Shit," Peter spat, kicking the curb in a huff. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

"We've passed five gas stations already. How much do we have left in the tank?" Logan asked Haskell.

"We can go no further than seventy miles, but with Cora, she'll burn it off fast," Haskell answered.

"I guess we had to use our reserves again," Peter said defeatedly.

"We've emptied two cans already. You know we only use that for emergencies. There are long stretches on our route where we don't see any gas stations for several miles once we cross the mountains," Haskell added.

"You don't think this is an emergency?"

Haskell breathed a sigh. "Okay. Then, we're going to have to empty half a can. The city of Scranton is nearby. We can go look there, check the suburbs."

"How far is it?"

"Well, within seventy miles, I can tell you that much."

I visibly cringed, not looking forward to going into a big city again. I could handle Colby but not a place where it used to be home to over eighty thousand people.

That could be eighty thousand vectors now, I imagined.

"Alright. Do it," Peter said.

Haskell's shoulders dropped, and he plodded back to the RV. We were now down to five cans of reserve gas, which was about twenty gallons. That would be enough for three hundred miles of fuel.

Three days ago, we were sitting on a pretty reserve of thirty-five gallons of gas, separated in seven five-gallon containers, thinking it would be enough. We were wrong. Cora was greedy, and we had to empty two cans between the RV, the Honda Civic, and the generator; the latter ate up one gallon for ten hours of electricity. We stopped by the gas stations just to be safe and to avoid reverting to our reserves. Cora could carry fifty gallons of fuel, burning up twelve miles per gallon. I surmised that us taking the backcountry roads and avoiding the freeways only prolonged our trip. If this were pre-pandemic, we would be in Pittsburgh in ten hours if we took the freeways.

But the freeways are a death trap now, I thought. I pictured hundreds of cars lining the road toward the horizon, bumper-to-bumper. Perhaps there were many vectors still left wandering about around the area. I shuddered just thinking about it.

At least the Honda Civic has better fuel economy.

Logan leaned over to whisper in my ear. "Isn't Scranton that city from The Office?"

"I've never seen it," I admitted.

He let out an overdramatic gasp. "Sacrilege. I don't even want to talk to you anymore." He pretended to walk away from me, heading toward the broken convenience store windows and peered inside. A second later, he gasped again and took a hurried step back. "Uh... there's a dead body in there."

I walked over to the entrance, my hand instinctively on Betty, and peeked inside. A half-rotten corpse sat against the shelves, shirt shredded with shrapnel, looking like it came from a shotgun. His tissue had sunk into his bones and hollowed eyes; the heat over the past few weeks elevated his decay. He didn't look like a vector, nor had any signs of the disease.

"Vector?" Logan asked.

"No. I think he died from a gunshot," I said, thinking it was probably from a looter or another desperate survivor. I studied the shelves, which had been picked clean. I wondered if the looters missed anything. "I'm gonna go head inside."

"I'll go with you," Logan said.

"Since the pumps are a bust, I think it's a good idea to scout what's around. Who knows what these people left behind," Peter said. "Alfie, why don't you climb up the RV and be our lookout. Whistle if you see anything."