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Chapter 27


I don’t know what to say here.

I don’t know how to describe that moment at the Cape. Don’t get the wrong idea, I was with Howie (as I started calling him – I wasn’t fond of Howard). But, I don’t know. Once I regained my senses, and once I came back to reality, where everyone I loved was dead, I just took everything in.

I mean everything.

The truth, the quiet, the peace, all of it sunk in, and it took me a bit to really, I don’t know, process it all. There was this weird peaceful feeling that came with all the death. Peace that came with the pain, the never-ending heartache of losing everyone around me. I still haven’t stopped mourning them. But there was a sweet peace that came that day, and while it stayed, I loved it.

I haven’t bothered trying to understand any of it. Why it happened, how it happened… I leave that for the others. I just try to focus on the fact that I’m alive.

I’m alive, and that’s a miracle.

Right now, I guess that’s enough.



Saturday, April 14, 2012
5:00 p.m.


“Kayleigh… Kayleigh… KAYLEIGH!” Howard shook her fiercely, hoping for an answer. For the past hour, she’d done nothing but cry hysterically. Then, suddenly, she had stopped and had been quiet since. She peered up at him and saw he was fearing that she had finally snapped completely. Admittedly, that would have been nice; it would have been easier. She could tell he was never one for comforting; he was never one to rely on others, but she could also see that the idea of being alone in a world where everyone else was dead frightened the hell out of him.

Kayleigh could see he needed her just as much as she needed him.

“YES! What! What, Howie!”

He blinked, staring at her. “What did you just call me?”

“Howie. It’s better than Howard. Howard is too stuffy; how do you put up with that?”

He rolled his eyes, but was visibly relieved she was acting more normally and actually talking. Kayleigh gave a weak smile; she must have worried him more than she’d thought. “It is my name. Are you alright now?”

“Howie sounds better,” she replied, completely avoiding his question.

“Howard.”

“Still calling you Howie…”

He waved her off impatiently. “Forget it. But really, are you alright?”

She processed the question. Would she be okay ever again? Somehow, Kayleigh doubted it. Still, she nodded dutifully, noting that Howie, as she would now think of him and call him, needed her to say yes. He could handle a major crisis, but couldn’t take emotional outbursts. How odd. “I need… I need a change of clothes.”

She looked down at what she was wearing. Skimpy pajamas, covered in dried vomit that, she sadly remembered, came from trying to take care of Sammy, of Bradley…

Her hair was covered still in chunks of half-digested food, for the same reason, and he nodded in agreement. “We can go back and check that yacht; it would have a bathroom for you to wash up in. Possibly clothes, too.”

Kayleigh nodded and climbed out of the boat. “We can leave the supplies here. There’s…”

She didn’t continue her sentence aloud, but her mind completed it for her. There’s no one left alive to steal them. She felt herself shudder instinctively. It didn’t feel natural, to have a world without people. There was a peace about it, though, that she actually appreciated a bit. It was soothing, but unnatural. Yet there they were. The quiet, the calm beyond any they’d ever experienced before it hit, was all the confirmation they needed. Neither of them said anything for a moment, the thought still settling within their heads. Then Kayleigh stood, slowly climbing out of the boat, leaving her shoes inside. She glanced back at Howard. “You coming?”

“Yes, I’m coming,” he replied after a minute, climbed out, and followed her along the beach.

The two walked in silence, much to Kayleigh’s dismay. She could have used some simple chatter to distract her. She needed something simple to make her forget that her mother and father hadn’t answered any calls. Neither had her grandparents. Something to make her forget the cruel fate she’d had, of waking up and finding all of her sorority sisters dead, pale, covered in vomit and lesions, not to mention the fraternity boys she’d come to love as brothers damned to the same end as well. Kayleigh craved for something to make her forget the horror of having her Bradley Lee die in her arms, just earlier that morning. Had it only been hours? Felt like years. His last words still echoed in her mind.

“Kayleigh… I love you… always.”

“What should we do now?” she asked, begging inwardly for anything to break the silence as they walked along the beach. The waves could be heard crashing against the shore, with seagulls soaring overhead, but she needed human noise, talking, something. She couldn’t take hearing Brad’s words in her head anymore. Not now. Kayleigh would break down again, and she knew it. “After I get fixed up, I mean…”

Howard sighed. She guessed then that he, himself, wasn’t sure anymore. They were an odd pair, to be sure, and neither was experienced in handling any sort of crisis that came even slightly close to their current situation. Howie was a rich businessman, not the outdoorsy type, and she was a pampered, southern, sorority girl. Now they were forced to find a way to live on in a world without the comforts they’d both enjoyed. They couldn’t find a boat with fuel, the power was down, and she didn’t have a clue about what to do.

“I’m not sure yet. I want to just… drive. Find a place that hasn’t been hit by this yet…”

“You think it’s spread farther than Florida?” The two walked side by side, and Kayleigh forced herself to just enjoy the feel of warm sand beneath her feet.

“I don’t know, but it took over the school; we saw it as we drove here. You can’t get a hold of anyone in your family. The radio had nothing but static earlier… I think it has.”

“So… there may not be a place to… go to?” She watched him, as the hope struggled to live inside her, and she waited anxiously for him to reply.

And so he lied. She knew he did, yet she took comfort in it anyway. “There will be. We lived; there’s got to be some place that was missed. I don’t know where it is, but it’s got to be there.”

“You think we’ll be okay?”

“Yes, Kayleigh, I think we might be.”

She smiled at Howie, slightly touched at how he tried to protect her within that bold, yet simple lie. Finally, they approached the yacht and slowly climbed aboard. The door was open, and she morbidly wondered if they’d find yet another body to add to the growing list of corpses they’d encountered.

She glanced back at Howie. He nodded at her calmly. “I’ll stay on the deck.” Peering in, Kayleigh went inside and found… well, she wasn’t sure what to call it, per say, but she’d describe it as the “house” part of the yacht, anyway. She peered in and found a bedroom. She thought she saw something in the bed, but didn’t wish to check. Heading further along, her eyes looked within another room, and with no sign of life, or of former life, she walked on in.

It was designed for a girl, and that was all she needed to know. Rummaging through the suitcase still sitting carelessly upon the bed, Kayleigh wondered if they had been trying to run from the disease. She wondered if they had tried to do what she and Howie had wanted to do, but died before they could.

Wrinkling her nose a bit at the style of the clothes, she shed hers and tried them on to see if they’d fit well enough to deal with for now. They were a bit too punk-styled for her, with the chains and rips all through not only the pants, but the shirt. Kayleigh figured they must have belonged to the rebellious teenager.

“She had no taste.” Her words felt odd in the air, stale and unwelcome. She stared at the clothes again. Yuck. Still, they fit, and that would do.

Back in the hall, she felt her spirits dip again. It was just so hard to stay upbeat with it all. Everything had its upsides. There was that calmness, the ability to actually hear nature, and she liked it, despite what had caused it. She wasn’t alone; she did have Howie, who, in an odd way, was already trying to look out for her.

She was alive. She was alive, and to be blunt, she knew she may be only one of two who could say that. How was she still alive? Kayleigh had been surrounded by that illness, just like everyone else she knew. It was the same with Howie. By all rights, by all nature and science, she guessed the two of them should have caught it and died as well.

Yet they hadn’t.

So there was the ultimate upside: they were alive, and the very fact they were seemed like a miracle.

Kayleigh gave a slight sigh as she continued her exploring. Tears sprang to her eyes when she remembered that she was alive, but that everyone she loved was not. But they wouldn’t want her to break down completely. They wouldn’t. She needed to control herself somehow, to make herself deal with it. She needed a lot of things. Before now, she had always relied on the current boyfriend to help her be strong. Always, she had been dependent on others, and now that was a luxury denied to her.

I need Sammy, I need Brad, I need Daddy, I need…

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by one simple action. She turned her head, and, in doing so, her eyes caught sight of the doorway to the bathroom. She smiled a bit to herself. A bathroom meant she’d be able to have a hot shower.

At that moment, the idea sounded like heaven.

***

Turned out a long shower was what she needed to set herself right. Her hair still wet, she tied it back in a ponytail with one of the hair ties she’s discovered. She felt refreshed and able to actually try and do something now. Staring at herself in the mirror, she giggled at her appearance. Her pants were ripped all along the legs, featuring spikes and chains along them as well. Her shirt was a band shirt for a death metal band she’d always hated. A lone rip tore across her bosom, revealing some cleavage for no one to see. All she needed was some white makeup, black lipstick, and some eyeliner, and she’d be able to complete the look.

She started making her way back to the deck, where she could hear Howie calling out for her. He was excited and holding something small in his hands. She ran over to him, expecting more bad news, which wasn’t surprising when one considered the day she’d had. It was a day that felt like decades had gone by, rather than hours.

“About time you came up; I’ve been waiting.”

“Why? What is it?”

Howie turned the knob of what she finally realized was a radio, and the two leaned in to listen.

“Hello, this is Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Richardson from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. In this state of emergency, I need any survivors of the illness caused by bioterrorism to come to the base. I repeat, I urge any survivors to come to MacDill Air Force Base as soon as possible. We have everything needed to help you. If there are any survivors, come to MacDill Air Force Base.”

She squealed, hugging Howie and, in turn, causing him to drop the radio overboard.

“KAYLEIGH!”

“It doesn’t matter! We know where to go! We’re not alone! Howie, we’re not the only ones left alive! We’ll be okay!” Kayleigh hugged him tighter. He chuckled, before shrugging out of her death-gripped hug.

“Alright, let’s go back and get our supplies, just in case. Then we’ll get in the car and go to the base.”

“I’m so excited. We’ll be okay!”

He gave her a gentle look. “Hopefully. Just, don’t get too excited till we get there, okay?”

Nodding in reply, Kayleigh hurriedly climbed off the yacht. She ran along the beach, her feet splashing in the water as the waves came to meet them. They were going to be okay. For the first time all day, she felt like they were going to be okay.

***