17.

A twig snapped right behind us, and I whirled around, expecting to find a blood-thirsty monster. Instead it was only Boden, trudging downhill to us by himself. I stood up, wanting to ask him why’d he come back here, but I was too afraid to make a sound.

Without a word, he bent down and picked up Max. He swung Max around to his back, so Max wrapped his arms around his neck. Then Boden started hurrying back up the hill, moving as fast he could without making noise.

I followed after him, determined to keep his pace. I’d had a bit of a break waiting with Max, and I felt a second wind coming. Or maybe that was the adrenaline from thinking that Boden was a zombie about to tear us to pieces.

Based on the fading sound of their death groans, I guessed the zombies were moving slower than us. They were wandering without a real purpose, possibly drawn to the scent of people but without a clear target. We were on a mission to get away from them.

When the zombies sounded far enough away for that it was safe to talk, I finally asked Boden why he’d come back.

“I noticed that you and Max weren’t with the group anymore,” Boden said.

“You didn’t need to come back and risk running into zombies.”

“I don’t leave anyone behind,” Boden said simply. “Not if I can help it.”

“How’d you know we hadn’t been eaten by zombies already?” I asked.

“I didn’t,” Boden admitted. “But I figured the kid had just needed a break.”

“Thank you for coming back for us,” Max said, and I realized that I hadn’t thanked Boden either. “Remy wouldn’t go on without me.”

“And she shouldn’t have,” Boden said, and then looked over at me. “But she could’ve asked for help.”

“Thank you,” I said and lowered my eyes.

It took a little while, but we caught up with the others. They weren’t going as fast as Boden and I were, which made sense because by that time we couldn’t even hear the zombies anymore. We’d left them behind.

We made it to the top of the hill and then went back down again, which was much easier. Boden was even able to put Max down, and he walked down into the valley below. It was dark by the time we reached it, but we kept going until we could find some place safe to camp out.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to walk very long. We found a picnic area and what appeared to be some kind of lodge. It was a huge log cabin with all the windows boarded up. The front door was metal, and it had been left open.

Bishop and Boden went in first to check it out. Using a stick and an old rag, Boden made a torch, and lit the rag on fire with a match. But it didn’t take him long to scope out the inside and see it was all clear.

It was basically one huge room with a linoleum floor. It reminded me of my old high school cafeteria, except for a few stuffed animal heads on the wall and the blood splattered on things.

In the back was a cafeteria-style kitchen, but it was separated by a metal curtain that came down from the ceiling to the countertop. Boden checked that out briefly, and then shut the door to the kitchen, closing it off.

Other than the two small bathrooms, that was it for the lodge. The main room had a fireplace on one wall, and three wooden pick tables lined up in the middle of the room. The only signs that people had once stayed there were a few pieces of clothing, a couple of empty tin cans, and some other garbage. And the splattered blood, of course.

The windows had been boarded shut so well that not an ounce of light got through the cracks. Boden and Serg gathered wood outside, then started a small fire for light and for warmth, since it was getting cold in here.

They took two of the picnic tables and set them in front of the double metal doors at the opening of the lodge. With that, we were essentially closed off from the world and probably the safest we’d been in a long while.

We all ate supper quickly, without really saying anything. The day had exhausted us. According to Boden’s calculations based on the map, we’d walked nearly forty miles. That was quite a feat, considering how much we’d walked the day before, and the day before that.

Stella hadn’t walked as much as the rest of us, but she was falling asleep while she was trying to eat. Bishop made up a bed for her, using some of her clothes for a pillow and blanket.

Shortly after that, everyone else started hunkering down for the night. lay laid next to Stella, and Bishop, Teddy, and Serg were asleep pretty quickly.

Boden, Daniels, Nolita, and I stayed up, sitting around the fire in a semi-circle. I wasn’t sure whether Boden meant to keep watch again tonight, although I didn’t really feel like we needed it. After the nightmares I’d had last night, I wasn’t eager to get to sleep, not until I would pass out cold, too deep asleep to moan or make a sound.

I’m not sure why Daniels and Nolita were staying up, but they sat awfully close to one another. Nolita had packed a thin army blanket with her, and they shared the one blanket between the two of them. It was wrapped over their shoulders like a shawl, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

They’d been doing that kind of stuff all day. Every time I saw them interact, they were touching or whispering something to each other. It was gross.

And I say that not just because I had feelings of revulsion for Daniels. Something about flirting during the apocalypse felt disgusting. It felt wrong to fall in love when people were dying all around you.

That’s part of the reason I’d refused to feel anything for Lazlo for so long. That and because of how things had turned out. We’d been separated, the way I’d always known we would, and one or both of us would probably end up dead soon.

When I thought of him now, I tried not to feel anything. The best way to do that would be not to think about him at all, but I hadn’t mastered that yet.

“How much longer until we hit Canada, do you think?” I asked.

“A week.” Boden shrugged. “It depends on how fast we go. Maybe a week longer until we’re far enough north for the zombies to stop following.”

He sat cross-legged with his hands held out toward the fire, warming them. I was leaning back, stretching my legs out, and with my arms propped beside me. It put too much pressure on my abdomen when I sat up normally. When I put my hand over my shirt, the incision felt swollen and warm.

“You think the zombies are following us?” I asked.

“They definitely are,” Daniels said. “That’s what I was saying at the quarantine. They’re following people wherever they go.”

“They won’t find us here, will they?” Nolita asked, her Southern accent sounding alarmed.

“Eventually.” Boden put his hands down and rested his elbows on his knees. “Hopefully not tonight, but we’re pretty well boarded up if they do.”

“What do you suppose happened to the people that were staying here?” Nolita looked around, admiring how closed off the lodge was. “Why do you think they left?”

“Probably for the same reason we left the quarantine,” Boden said. “The zombies surrounded the place. Given enough time, they would’ve gotten in. It’s better to run while you still have the chance to.”

“Maybe they did get in,” I said and motioned to the dried blood on the fireplace. “And there aren’t any bodies because they’re all zombies now.”

“One thing’s for sure,” Boden said sadly. “Zombies will always find a way in.”

“How much do we really know about them?” I asked, turning my attention to Daniels. “You’re the resident expert. What do you actually know about them?”

“I spent more time studying the virus itself than the actual zombies.” Daniels attempted to shy away from the question. “Anything I say about their behavior is sheer speculation.”

“But it’s your speculation that caused us to the leave the quarantine,” Boden said.

“No, a brutal zombie attack did that,” Daniels corrected him.

Boden’s expression hardened. “You’re arguing semantics. You’re the one who said that the zombies weren’t going to stop coming, that there were too many of us together making our scent too strong.”

“Yes, that is what I believe,” Daniels said. “But I can’t say that it’s an absolute fact. I can’t say much for certain about the zombies.”

“Well, what do you believe then?” I asked.

“They’re attracted to us, possibly by our pheromones, possibly by something else that we don’t even know about.” Daniels stared off as he spoke. “They’re getting smarter, and they communicate in some way more than sounds.”

Nolita gazed up at him, her face aglow from the fire, and she had an expression of pure unabashed reverence and love. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it, but Daniels didn’t seem to notice. He was too lost in thought.

“They do talk to each other,” Boden said. “We’ve heard their death groans and howls.”

Daniels shook his head “The death groans are just sounds. I think they make them unconsciously. The howls they do to alert the others when they’ve found food, but they have to have another way to communicate with such a vast group and to organize in the way that they are.”

“To say that they do something unconsciously suggests that they do things consciously, that they have a consciousness.” I rubbed my forehead, trying not to think about the implications.  

“Maybe not individually, but they seem to have a collective consciousness,” Daniels explained. “A hive mind, like bees or ants.”

“How?” I asked. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know.” Daniels shook his head again. “But I don’t fully understand how any of this is possible. Even in a particle form, the virus would communicate with itself.”

“What do you mean?” Boden leaned forward, listening intently to Daniels.

“I would isolate individual viruses and keep them in separate petri dishes,” Daniels said. “In one dish, I would expose them to human blood, and the virus would immediately rush to it and infect it.

“When I put the virus under the microscope, they would be moving towards the infected blood, going towards where the virus was already invading,” Daniels went on.

“How do you know the virus wasn’t just drawn to the blood?” I asked.

“They were, when they were close enough to it,” Daniels said. “But since it was only a drop of blood, it had to be in the same dish for the virus to notice.  If I had uninfected blood near the virus but not in the same dish, when I looked at the virus under a microscope, I saw no change in its reaction. The virus simply moved aimlessly around the dish.”

“So you’re saying the virus can communicate with itself?” I asked. “And that form of communication can span a distance far greater than the scent of blood or any other clue we’re giving off?”

“That’s what I think, yes,” Daniels nodded.

“When a zombie finds us, everything infected with the virus knows about it,” Boden summarized. “And the larger the colony of zombies, the louder the virus gets, attracting more zombies, and so on.”

“Exactly,” Daniels said. “That’s why we needed to leave the quarantine. We’d attracted far too many zombies, and they’re strong and determined.”

“What happened when you exposed the virus to my blood?” I asked.

“Your blood?” Nolita looked confused and glanced between Daniels and me. “What’s special about your blood?”

“I’m immune to the virus,” I said, brushing her off. At this point, I didn’t care who knew about it. I just wanted to find out what Daniels knew. “So, what happened with my blood?”

“When I put your blood in a petri dish, the virus didn’t do anything,” Daniels said. “Normally, it rushed toward the blood. But with yours, it only interacted with your blood when it accidentally came in contact with it.”

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“It tried to attack your blood, the way I’d seen it do before,” Daniels said. “But when it engulfed your cells, the virus acted strangely. Instead of expanding and growing, latching onto things and mutating them, it moved erratically. Then it died.”

“It died?” I asked. “My blood actually kills the virus?”

“Well, viruses can’t die, not exactly,” Daniels said. “But it froze. It stopped moving or interacting with anything, so essentially, yes it died.”

“Holy shit,” Nolita said, looking a little stunned.

“Your blood like poison to them,” Daniels said, then exhaled deeply. “Unfortunately, I was never able to figure out why or how to harness that.”

“So you know that the zombies are strong and they can talk to each other,” Boden said. “But you have no idea how to stop them?”

“Essentially, yes,” Daniels nodded grimly.