15
We backtracked north for a few miles, passing several exits, before I finally asked Rosa to pull off at an interchange where it looked like we might be able to find supplies. After several wasted stops, we came across a convenience store a couple of turns off the main road that ended up being a great find — a storeroom held food, water, a small can of gas, and something we suddenly realized we really needed: a map. We vowed not to venture into the big cities again.
Using the map, we realized we could skirt around Richmond using 295 — we hoped it would swing wide enough to avoid any future confrontations. It did.
The RV was scuffed up on the driver’s side and the mirror was broken off, but it didn’t seem like we’d have to look behind us for too much other traffic, and we weren’t terribly concerned about having the nicest car on the road. It still handled fine. Rosa had had enough driving for one day, and passed the job to me. Soon, she was napping in the passenger seat while I navigated around Richmond.
The rest of the drive through Virginia was uneventful, except for one moment in a remote, densely wooded section of the highway. Out of nowhere, a zombie ran directly into the road. Rosa startled awake as we clipped him with the passenger side of the RV, no doubt denting up that side of the vehicle, too. She screamed. I tried to defuse the tension. “The way we drive, they may take our license away,” I said. She just stared at the blood that was dripping down the passenger window next to her.
* * *
Driving into North Carolina seemed like a huge accomplishment. First, we had been in Virginia since the moment we landed the paddleboats coming out of DC. And second, it just felt closer to South Carolina, our objective.
Just past the border, I had to pee, so we pulled over and I went to use the small bathroom in the RV. Rosa, seeming morbidly fascinated by the bloody mess on the passenger side of the car, got out to take a look. Afterward, I guessed that the combination of our vehicle approaching, doors opening and closing, and other sounds of human activity must have stirred up interest. A zombie we might otherwise have dismissed as a corpse on the side of the road stood, shook itself free of the underbrush, and made directly for Rosa. From inside the bathroom, I heard her shout. My heart raced, and I fumbled my way outside as fast as possible.
There, my racing heart almost stopped.
A frantic zombie was on top of Rosa, who’d fallen to the street, backpedaling desperately with her elbows and feet, trying for some purchase to get away. The zombie, formerly a dark-skinned woman, perhaps 50 years old, somewhat overweight, scrambled to keep Rosa down, to bite and tear at her.
I turned, flung open the tire compartment at the rear of the RV, and grabbed whatever I could. It was a small jack for replacing a flat tire. I didn’t care. It was metal and heavy. I hefted it, and ran.
My only thought was: Let her be okay. Skidding up behind the zombie, I cocked my arm and hit the thing as hard as I could. The zombie woman didn’t just fall, she was launched to the side of Rosa in a splatter of blood and gore. I stopped, looked at the zombie, ready to do it again. She didn’t move. Given the state of her skull, I figured she’d never move again.
Rosa was up on her elbows, looking down at herself. She was incredulous, shocked. No, horrified. Following her eyes, I saw why. Her shirt had a vertical tear, and under that it was clear that the zombie had slashed her across the belly.
As she slowly looked up at me, anguish in her eyes, the zombie’s blood and her own continued to mix in the wound. It felt like the cut continued down into my core, my soul.
A tear opened between us, and the part of me that Rosa had become was ripped away.
16
She lived. We had no idea if it would be for long or for short, but damn it, she was alive. We would continue south, come what may. The journey took on even greater urgency. Where before, I had come along on this quest for The Oasis out of duty to Rosa, now it took on much more serious weight. I began to feel that I had to get her to The Oasis or she would turn into a zombie in front of my eyes. It was all I had to hold on to; they might shun us, they might have no way to help her, hell, they probably didn’t even exist, but there was nothing else. No other option.
We had a good-sized first-aid kit in the RV, and I patched her up, wiping everything as clean as I could. But it was a pale comparison to what we’d known for the last 10 years. Life in DC was infinitely more sterile than the half-assed roadside clean up I was able to provide. Still, it would have to do.
Now I thundered down the highway, willing us to get to our destination as soon as we could. We tore through North Carolina — it was nothing but a blur to me. Rosa faded in and out of consciousness. The biggest concern I had was Fayetteville, which was the largest city near the highway, a potential bottleneck, possibly even a walled-off dead end. But we raced past the city like it was a ghost town. How many hundreds of thousands of people had lived in Fayetteville? I guess most of them were dead now. The futility of my every move felt like an anchor around my neck.
I’d reviewed the map we found, and knew that around Florence, South Carolina, I had to finally get off 95 and head west on Interstate 20. That would take us right past Columbia. I hoped not too close.
In the end, we covered hundreds of miles in a blink. We probably were the noisiest thing in the entire (former) state of South Carolina. From any other vantage point, I must have looked insane. Perhaps even diseased. I was driving as fast as possible down highways blasted with potholes, a never-ending boneyard of cars in various states of disrepair, rust, collision damage, fire damage. And our luxury RV was zipping in and out of lanes, trying to make time.
Interstate 20 was a blur. I guess we were wide enough of Columbia to avoid trouble, or maybe we came and went so fast they didn’t have time to react. Rosa got a little better; at least she woke up. I could sense the pain and fear clearly etched across my face, knew she could see it, but she looked oddly calm. Like all was well, all was at peace... or perhaps, all was coming to an end.
Using the map, Rosa, her voice a whisper, guided me into an expanse of lakes and parks along the South Carolina–Georgia border. My heart dropped again, seeing the large swath of green on the paper map — it seemed impossibly huge to search. Even if The Oasis was there, could we find it in time for them to do something for Rosa? But studying the lakes, parks, and roads, she had a hunch, and directed me to Hickory Knob State Park, and damn if she wasn’t right. We found them. Because they weren’t hiding from anyone. The compound was right there, on the shore of Clarks Hill Lake. Makeshift but solid-looking walls blocked off the road. As we pulled near and stopped, dozens of people came out. They met us beside the golf course. Some people were even out playing golf. The idea was absurd, and knowing nothing of the game, I looked at them like they were from another planet. I saw that some of the people approaching us were carrying guns, but for the most part they all just looked curious. A small girl waved in welcome. They were alive. They were just people. And they were right where Rosa had said they would be. I turned and beamed at her, in awe of her brilliance. In the entire wide world, she had found The Oasis.
Rosa and I hugged, sobbing, for a long time.
17
They could tell right away that something bad had happened to Rosa. She was pale, her breathing shallow, and the large wrap of bandages on her stomach was seeping blood. Strangely, they didn’t do what we expected; they didn’t shut us out, shun us, run us away. Rosa had the disease and we all knew it, yet the people of The Oasis did... nothing.
A young woman stepped forward. “Where are you from?” she asked.
“DC,” Rosa said, her voice weaker than I was used to hearing.
“Well, you’re here now. We don’t live that way, the way they do in the cities.” No declaration of arrival to the hallowed Oasis. “I’m Caroline.”
Rosa stretched to shake Caroline’s hand, but winced in pain from the injury to her mid-section. Caroline turned to the older man next to her. “We need to see Harvey,” she sa
id.
“I hope you live,” said a young voice. It was the little girl who had waved to us.
“Eva, shush,” said Caroline. Turning to us, she added, “Kids overreact.”
Behind them, the gate blocking the road rolled open. For a brief moment, I thought I had just traded one walled city for another, and wondered why. I felt a moment of fear. It wouldn’t be the last.
“You’d be better off driving up,” Caroline said, looking at Rosa’s bandages. I nodded. Caroline and two others climbed into a pickup truck just inside the gate. It was the first time we’d seen another moving vehicle on our trip. The oddness of it struck me.
Back in the RV, it seemed almost like a victory lap — one last moment in our home on wheels. I hoped it wasn’t a last moment for Rosa entirely.
At the end of a small spit of land jutting into the lake, the road blossomed into a wide, sweeping loop. Inside the loop a huge building loomed, austere brick with wide, white-paned windows opening on the lake. Additional smaller buildings, similar in style, with brick and large windows, stretched off to the side, and there were even tennis courts and a pool. I felt like I was in a dream, seeing the way they lived out here in the wild. Around the grounds, individual homes made neat rows; these had the appearance of being built more recently. Outside the looping drive, tents appeared scattered through the woods. I assumed we weren’t the only stragglers to find our way here. There was a parking lot at the end of the road. Several well-maintained cars and trucks were parked there, but many spaces remained open. The pickup parked in one of them. Caroline guided us into another space, and she and her friends helped Rosa out of the RV. Together we all walked to the large main building.
It was called the Hickory Knob State Park Lodge, and we were told it offered 76 rooms and its own restaurant. The restaurant was bustling as we walked in, although people turned and stared at our unfamiliar faces. My first impression of the building being a huge home for one important family — heightened by the sense that we were being taken to their leader — was way off. This was more commune than palace.
Nevertheless, we were taken to their leader, Harvey. He was an older, rather disheveled man, with a comb-over hairstyle to hide his mostly bald head. Ten years into the disease, and small vanities still prevailed. His natural posture seemed to be a sort of half-stoop, accented by a heavy-set build and sloppy, rumpled clothes. He stood up from a tiny, plain desk in the small office behind the lobby counter, walked over to us, and put out his hand. “I’m Harvey,” was all he said.
The place was... well, it was filthy. We had grown used to a certain amount of unclean on the road, but still held ourselves to the sterile standards of the city. Stay clean, stay alive. But not here. If this was The Oasis, it was The Oasis of Filth. I was stunned. Rosa seemed too ill to care, but I saw it. It was so different from our lives behind the wall, even from our lives in the RV, that it was shocking. Things were not pristine. Things were not scoured clean. Had we just traveled hundreds of miles, risked everything, only to expose ourselves to the disease here? But these people. They looked healthy, even happy. How did they do it? They must have some answer.
“We need your help,” I said.
“Hold on, now. Where’re you from?” Harvey cocked his head.
“She’s been infected.”
I swear he rolled his eyes. “I know. Where are you from?”
“DC. Come on! She’s infected!”
“And you brought her here anyway?” Harvey asked.
What else could I say? “I thought The Oasis was her only hope.”
“You were probably right. And stupid as hell.” Harvey was crass, but seemed to be very smart. I stared at him. Was this wise, or the stupidest thing I’d ever do?
“Help her,” I finally said, tilting my head down as a wave of exhaustion set in. His eyebrows raised.
“You think we can help her?” he asked, eyeing Rosa’s condition, her bandages tinted pink.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I... I have no idea. But there has to be some reason. A reason why I met her. A reason why she knew you were here. A reason we got here when we did.”
Harvey scoffed. “I haven’t found much of life works with reason.”
“But you can help her?”
He paused. “Probably... but you have to do it our way.”
“I don’t know of any other way,” I said.
One last sweeping look, to judge me, I guessed. To judge us. Then his expression changed. He became very businesslike. “Then we should move quickly. She won’t last.” Harvey turned to look at the people around him. A glance, a nod, then they were all set.
They took us back outside, led us to a private cottage. Its front porch was made of wood, knotty and comfortably worn, and held rocking chairs that begged to be used in the afternoon warmth. We stepped past all that. The front door was open.
We walked inside. Rosa coughed, stumbled. She ended up on her knees on the floor. I moved to help her, but was held back. The cottage’s lobby looked like it was wrapped completely in plastic. Two people grabbed my arms from behind and dragged me away. I saw Rosa, seemingly unconscious, being carried in another direction.
“Rosa!” I shouted. She was taken into a room with bright lights. The door closed and she was gone. I figured I would never see her again.
18
They took me to a similar bright room, and just like the lobby, it was covered in plastic. “What the hell are you doing to us? Let me go!” I shouted, with no results. The two burly young men in light-blue medical garb who were holding my arms took me to a hospital gurney in the middle of the room. I struggled, but they easily strapped me down, then left the room. I was lined up next to another gurney, where another person lay strapped down. The whole trip, the whole idea of The Oasis, was a huge joke. They must be taking in stragglers off the streets for some perverse game.
Thinking that the person next to me — a man, I could see, maybe 25 or 30 — was someone who must have wandered into their grasp, too, I tried to make eye contact. And I realized he was really, really sick.
He looked feverish, nearly unconscious. I remembered Noah, sweating on that first cool day. These people had just strapped me down next to a soon-to-be-zombie. Was this their idea of fun? Maybe they’d watch as he turned, then tore at his straps until he was free to come rip me apart. All that plastic would make for easy clean up.
Why hadn’t we been more cautious? Rosa, well, she just believed. And I was desperate to get her help. It was a pair of fatal mistakes.
The door opened again, and Harvey walked in.
“You son of a bitch!” I started. He just held up his two large hands in front of him, calmly.
“Hold on,” he said. “I know how this looks.”
“Really? Because to me, it looks like you’re about to watch us die, for sport!” Harvey seemed confused. Then he turned to look at the other gurney, and my meaning dawned on him.
“Oh.” His eyes got slightly wider. “Oh. You think — well.” He stammered, but also seemed amused. If I could have ripped him limb from limb at that moment, I would have.
He leaned over me, eyes darting around, checking everything over. “This is going to be really unpleasant for you, I won’t lie.” Then he did crack a small smile. “But not in the way you think. The man next to you is named Todd. But he doesn’t have the disease. He has the flu.” Harvey turned and walked out, and a nurse came in, dressed all in white, a strange reminder of Terry Rawlins, my nurse before the disease.
She took my vital signs without a word. Then she prepped a small rolling cart carrying a tray stacked with instruments. To my surprise, she pushed it over next to the other man, Todd. After a brief check of his vitals and a few marks on a chart that hung off the end of his gurney, she raised a long, thin, wooden stick with a cotton swab on the end. Peeling Todd’s lips apart, she twirled the cotton swab in his mouth, covering it with his saliva. Then she turned to me.
She reached
for my mouth, and a combination of terror and revulsion went through me in a fast wave. “No! Stop that — leave me alone!” I turned my head away. Her latex-gloved hand reached out, grabbed my chin. She was strong and clearly used to these feeble attempts to ward her off. She leaned over me while tipping my head back, and managed to open my lips with her fingers. I was desperate. I tried to thrash my head back and forth. I may even have snapped my teeth at her fingers to make her back away. It was all pointless. She stuck the cotton swab into my mouth, and Todd’s saliva mixed with mine. I had the urge to throw up. Instead, I spat at her, hitting her in the face. She flinched, but only slightly, then turned and methodically cleaned up herself, her tray and instruments. She tossed the cotton swab in a trash container in the corner of the room, and left without another glance in my direction.
19
Her name was Marian. She was 56, Caucasian, a mix of English and German in her family tree. She was about five-foot-10, and built solid — a battle-axe, someone my age might have called her. She’d been a nurse in Augusta before the outbreak, and remained one afterward until the city fell. She didn’t know where to go once the walls came down, but in that part of the country the rumors about The Oasis were more persistent, and much more specific. She joined a caravan heading north. Harvey was impressed with her right away and, after her own processing, asked her to help with The Oasis’ medical staff. She was pragmatic. She knew what had to be done and knew she could do it. Now here she was, processing Rosa and me.
Processing was the official welcoming procedure for anyone arriving at The Oasis. It was standard for them not to tell you what it was until they got you started. Marian told me that they used to try to be nice and explain it up front, but too many people refused to do it then still wanted to stay. So Harvey declared, and the residents of The Oasis agreed, that everyone who wanted to stay had to be processed. A couple of the ones who refused turned belligerent. There was some bloodshed. But processing continued, and The Oasis stayed safe.