CHAPTER 28

Every time she wanted to quit, just fall over in the ditch and die, some indefatigable love of life, like an ember deep inside a pile of ashes, made her go on.

Kyra had been walking for two days in the desert heat without water, without shade. The heat from the road was melting the soles of her sneakers. She could hear them peeling away with every step. Her lips had burst open. She felt faint, couldn’t concentrate. Very likely, she was going to die out here. She knew that. If one of the infected didn’t get her, the heat and the dehydration and the sunstroke would. But either way, she was going to die on her feet, fighting it.

She owed herself that much, at least.

They stopped on the side of IH-10 a few miles east of Allamore, Texas, because the bus was overheating again. They all needed bathroom breaks. Somebody—Jeff was pretty sure it was Colin—had clogged up the toilet beyond repair, and now they couldn’t flush it. They couldn’t clear the line either, and the inside of the bus had started to take on a sickeningly sweet sewage smell. Driving through the Arizona and New Mexico and West Texas heat with that smell had been unbearable—and that was before the bus’s air conditioner started to sputter. He was dreading getting back on board.

“Man,” Colin said, “you’d think driving cross-country with a bus full of fuck dolls would be about as much fun as a man could have. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m about ready for this trip to be over.”

Jeff looked back at the bus, and though he hated to admit it, he agreed with Colin. He found himself wanting to run again, wanting to leave the bus and Robin far behind him, just like he’d left Colorado far behind in the ruins of the not so distant past. He’d never thought of himself as a runner, but it sure as hell looked like that’s what he was becoming.

“You think we’ll be able to get that air-conditioning working right?” Colin asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “if we meet somebody who knows how to fix it. I know I can’t, and you can’t either.”

“That bus is a piece of shit.”

Jeff ignored that. It wouldn’t do any good to remind Colin that it was in the shape it was in because he had lost his mind back in Barstow. Colin still hadn’t owned up to that.

Jeff turned back to the figure coming toward them on the road. It was a girl, staggering, arms and legs lurching out of control, one of the infected. He adjusted his cheek against the rifle.

But he didn’t fire.

A long moment went by.

Colin said, “You gonna shoot her or what?”

“Yeah, yeah. Give me a second.”

They had set up on a blanket on the shoulder of the road and were on their bellies with a rifle they’d found in a gas station on their way through Arizona. Jeff looked through the scope and sighted the crosshairs on the girl’s face, right along the crease between her nose and her upper lip. He had never paid much attention to the public service announcements about the infected, but he’d read the book One Shot, One Kill: The Story of Marine Scout-Sniper Carlos Hathcock, and he knew the magic point on the face that snipers called the kill spot—put a bullet dead center right below the nose and the medulla oblongata goes blasting out the back of the head in a pink spray the size of a beach ball. The person dies before their body hits the ground.

Through the scope, her skin looked blistered and cracked, a lifeless gray. Her mouth hung open, her eyes looked milky and empty. He focused on his breathing, thinking about Carlos Hathcock’s credo. Control your breathing. Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it. Let the gun surprise you when it goes off.

But he didn’t fire.

He looked up, wiped the sweat from his eyes, looked through the scope again.

“What’s wrong?” Colin asked.

“I don’t know. She doesn’t look right.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got the binoculars. Look for yourself.”

Colin picked up the binoculars and pointed them at the girl. “Looks like a fucking zombie to me. You want me to shoot her?”

“No, I don’t.”

Then Jeff stood up and yelled at the girl.

“Hey, what the fuck?” Colin said.

“Shut up,” Jeff said.

The girl stopped in her tracks. She turned away, startled, then stopped. She was looking off across the desert. Not anywhere near where they were standing.

“Over here,” Jeff said to her.

The girl turned partially in their direction. He waved his hands over his head, and yet she gave no sign that she saw him. She looked startled, disoriented, even terrified, like she would turn and run the other way if she could.

“Fucking zombie, huh?”

Colin shrugged. “Hey, what can I say? She looked like one to me.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not. Come on, let’s go see if we can help her.”

She heard them approaching. She stood very straight, very still, her head and shoulders turned away from them. To Jeff, it looked like she was set to run away, though he doubted she could make it very far in her condition. And besides, if she ran in the direction she was pointed, she’d go straight into a shallow ditch at the edge of the road.

He said, “Miss, are you okay?”

She flinched at the sound of his voice. Stiffened, if that was possible, even more than she already was.

Jeff held out a hand to her.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We won’t hurt you.”

She half stepped, half staggered away from him.

“Holy shit,” Colin said. “She’s fucking blind.”

Jeff glanced at Colin. He was shocked he hadn’t noticed that. But now that Colin said it, it was obvious.

“Are you hurt?” Jeff asked her.

She shook her head.

“Can you speak?”

She looked indignant. She opened her mouth to speak and tried to speak, but only managed a feeble cough.

“That’s all right,” Jeff said. He took a step toward her. She took a step back. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you, I promise. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Dude, she’s fucking dehydrated.”

“Is it…okay if I come closer?” Jeff asked her.

She stiffened again but finally nodded.

“I promise I won’t hurt you. My name is Jeff Stavers. This is Colin Wyndham. We have a bus over here. We’ve got food and water.”

He held out his hand to her.

“My hand’s right in front of you. Is it okay if I help you to the bus?”

She nodded, and slowly, he took her hand and guided her along. He put an arm around her shoulder and he could feel her trembling. It was a hundred and ten degrees out here, and she was trembling.

He looked around. There was nothing but desert around them. He could see to the horizon in every direction, and there wasn’t even a tree for shade. Nothing but rocks and blowing sand and a constant wind that whipped about his ears and left his skin dry and chapped.

Jesus, he thought. What’s she been through? Blind. In the desert.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

He heard a mumbled whisper and leaned closer.

“Kyra Talbot,” she said.

Jeff got onto the bus first, turned, and took Kyra from Colin. They had to carry her up the stairs, but she was lightly built, and it wasn’t hard to lift her. Once they got her steady in the center aisle of the bus, Jeff kept his arm around her, whispering softly to her about what he was doing and where he was taking her. She let him guide her without resistance and without saying another word.

Robin was reading a magazine on one of the couches back near the bar. Katrina—that was Katrina Cummz’s real first name, apparently, Katrina Morgan—had filled the sink with water and was washing a shirt. The two blondes, Sarah and Tara, were sitting at an open window in the back, passing a joint back and forth and blowing the smoke out a crack in the window. It reminded Jeff of the way he and Colin had done it in their apartment back in school.

As soon as they came through the partition, Robin and the others looked up. Robin’s face went from tired indifference to sudden concern, and she jumped to her feet.

“What happened?” she asked Jeff.

“We found her wandering the road,” Jeff said. “Her name’s Kyra Talbot.”

Robin looked the girl over. Jeff watched her critical eye sweep the girl’s features, her blistered and cracked lips, her dirty, mottled skin, her rheumy, vacant eyes, and he knew exactly what she was thinking as she suddenly backed away.

“She’s not infected,” Jeff said. Then, just mouthing the words, he said, “She’s blind.”

“I can hear you when you do that,” Kyra said. The words came out in a hoarse whisper broken by a ragged, phlegmy cough, but they were clear enough. Robin smiled, and the smile lingered as she caught Jeff’s eye. A quick thrill went through him.

“She’s dehydrated,” Robin said.

“Yeah.”

“Kyra?” she said. “Sweetie, my name’s Robin. I’m going to sit you down over here and get you some water, okay?”

Kyra nodded, and Robin took the girl by the shoulders and led her away.