The driver’s door was opposite his body. As she turned the corner of the front of the van, she glanced one last time at his body.
At least he was now at peace.
She climbed into the van’s driver’s seat, turned on the engine, and put it into drive. She felt like such a horrible person leaving him like that as she pulled away from the scene.
It took about forty-five minutes to reach the crossroads that led to the cabin. It seemed like the distant past since she had been there, but it had only been two days. She went into the country store only to find it cleaned out. Maybe some largish organization, like the survivalists, had come through here, and she realized she should be on the lookout for them.
She remembered the stash of food she and Marty had buried in the back behind the storage sheds, and she was vigilant as she went back to it. She saw no one.
Without a shovel, she had to dig by hand, but the dirt was still loose. She gathered up her bag containing the protein bars and the bag of almonds. Fortunately, the bags had not broken open. Ravenous, she ate one bar, and it took the edge off. She stashed the rest in the van. Finally, she retrieved maps of Beaver Park and Colorado from the realtor.
Now where would she go? She could go back south and get to Colorado Springs that way, or she could try I-70 to the North, hitting I-25 going south. She guessed the rural roads would be less jammed, and so far, they hadn’t been jammed.
But her van would most likely run out of fuel before Colorado Springs. And she could get food from the supermarket, and a van from the rental car lot, in Beaver Park, which was only ten miles to the North.
So, on to Beaver Park.
Heading toward Beaver Park, the opposite side of the road was mostly clear; when she encountered a vehicle in her way, which happened a few times, she nudged it out of the way with the van. But by the time she reached the center of town, the van ran out of gas. She took out her map and saw the rental car place was two to three miles up the road. Piece of cake.
She would have to leave the cat in the van. The unhappy cat had meowed the entire way. Jocelyn had never taken care of a cat before, but she was sure with the windows smashed open it could last at least a few hours in the cat carrier. She put a small amount of food inside the carrier with the cat as she smelled the strong odor of shit and cat urine. She could let her out, but where would she go? Hunting mice, perhaps? Still, Jocelyn would be right back for her, so remaining in her carrier was probably her best chance of survival.
About a mile into her walk, that familiar tingling, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, came back. In the distance, she spied some draugar coming toward her. It looked like what had once been families: an elderly woman; a man and woman in their forties; a woman in her twenties carrying an infant; a young girl about Emily’s age; and a man in his twenties. The man was missing half his head, including a significant part of his skull, with no open wounds except for the sores. His skin had healed, but he had no nose. Downwind of them, she smelled the pustules at least a hundred feet away.
She guessed the tingling signaled draugar nearby—a fortunate power. They walked nonchalantly, their plan either to meet up with her or to pass her by. If the former, she wondered what attracted her to them. Was it by sight? Perhaps, but how could they tell she was a draugar merely by looking at her? No one else could. Whatever it was, since George infected her, a draugar only attacked her when she posed a threat to it.
The thought of draugar turning on each other once they had no more humans to eat occurred to her. Going forward, could she count on the draugar leaving her alone? Hopefully, being animalistic, they would not be subtle about it. They would either run ferociously to attack, or just amble on over—as these draugar were doing now—to join her.
She wished Alexander was with her. He would have an idea about how she attracted the draugar.
Oh, Alexander. She regretted grabbing his crotch in the pharmacy. No matter how passionately he kissed her back, she should have realized that he was a jumble of emotions. Then again, so was she. So were all the survivors.
How did her boyfriend fare? Did she care? Oh, yes, she cared. She may have stopped caring about him as a lover, but not as a person. She cared about all of humanity, which was what had sustained her all this time. Because surviving in this world would probably not be worth it.
And what about her mother? A part of her wanted to search the ends of the Earth for her, but her mission took priority. She was anguished that she probably would never see her again. Her father, on the other hand . . . could pound sand.
Jocelyn didn’t fight the reeking draugar families hanging around. She didn’t want to kill them, and in fact, the mother carrying the baby deeply saddened and troubled her. It didn’t change her opinion that they were animalistic (animals carry their children all the time), but it gave her pause. Just like she’d
