Page 3 of A Wilderness Within

It would be the only way to survive now.

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@CDC: The virus in Beijing has been identified as a new disease named Hydra-1. The World Health Organization (The WHO) is monitoring the situation closely. We believe it is contained and there is no cause to worry.

—Centers for Disease Control Twitter Feed

November 10, 2019

March 2020

Caroline Kelly crouched in the shadows outside the old supermarket on the outskirts of Omaha. Night was creeping closer. Usually she hated the dark, but tonight it was her friend. Whenever she entered a store or any dwelling, she knew she ran the risk of running into survivors. Ever since H–Day, as she called it, the day everyone truly realized there was a contagion sweeping over the world, people went insane.

Common decency and the humanitarian spirit had been destroyed. Knowing they had nothing to lose, many had reverted to barbarism, violence, greed, and lust. The last legacy of a dying species. And those few who had survived hadn’t been much better.

Caroline shuddered and pulled her coat tight around her body. She scanned the darkened entrance to the grocery store. The chances that anything edible was in there were slim, but she had to look. She would eat just about anything right now. Last week she had found a stash of canned sardines in someone’s house and had a feast that any cat would envy. Then she had thrown up because the oily texture of the tiny fish had made her nauseous. She’d never been into seafood, but starvation was still starvation.

She checked the straps on her backpack, making sure they weren’t loose. Whenever she had a chance to fill up with supplies or food, she needed to make sure that the bag stayed tight to her body. She had already lost one bag when she was running from a man who tried to corner her inside a drugstore last month. The bag had been too loose and heavy. When she rounded a corner too fast, the momentum from the bag swung so hard it knocked her onto her ass. The man caught up with her and tried to grab it. She had to abandon it or risk him catching her. She knew all too well what would have been next if that had happened. In the early days of the contagion, she’d tried to trust other survivors, believing that they could work together to survive. That had been a mistake, a nearly fatal one. She still believed deep down that humanity could survive this, but as the dark days stretched on, her hope was dying, like a candle sputtering in a violent wind. All too soon it would be snuffed out.

The store had been quiet for the last hour. She had been hiding in the shadows across the street, and once darkness fell, she inched her way toward the store, using abandoned cars as cover. But she didn’t go inside, not yet. Someone was out there. She could feel their presence somehow, like a sixth sense warning her of danger. She couldn’t wait forever. Hunger and desperation would force her hand sooner or later. If she was being watched, she would have to brave it and just go.

Caroline moved toward the door. The glass had shattered long ago, and all that remained was a metal frame laced with jagged edges. She didn’t bother to open it but instead slipped through where the glass had once been. Her boots crunched on the broken shards, but she couldn’t help that. Some things were unavoidable. She squinted at the signs hanging overhead, trying to see what was in each aisle.

If she had been more certain she was alone, she would have pulled out her flashlight, but that would be a shining beacon to anyone close by. So she wandered down each aisle, careful to avoid any shelves that had toppled over. The stench of rotten produce a few aisles over made her eyes water, so she stayed closer to the center. The majority of the edible food was gone, but not all of it.

When the virus had swept through the major cities like this one, it had killed so many so quickly that people didn’t have time to loot stores. People were too busy dying to steal TVs. There had been some looting, but not as much as she had expected. Not that it mattered without electricity. She couldn’t benefit from most of the things left behind. She would love a giant flat-screen as much as the next girl, but what would she do with it?

Caroline passed by the empty canned food aisle. The items that could last the longest had been taken first. So she focused on other items like cereal. The easily reached shelves were bare, but she thought she saw something up top. She carefully scaled the shelves, praying they wouldn’t fall down and crush her. She reached her hand along, trying to search for anything that might’ve been left behind. Her fingers brushed along the dust-covered surface of the shelf. They bumped into something. She reached, clawing at the object, and closed her hand around it.

Itmoved. The furry thing squeaked and bit her hand.

Caroline screamed and toppled backward, landing hard on her back. The air whooshed out of her lungs, and she choked on a sob. It was a damn rat. She hated rats. Pain radiated through her as she struggled to catch her breath. She’d missed landing on a bunch of broken jars by mere inches. After a long moment, she stifled a whimper as she rolled onto her side. She got up and wiped the dirt and debris off her jeans and checked her bag. She’d been smart enough to put it down while she’d been searching the shelves. She knelt down and caught sight of several boxes of granola bars at the back of the bottom shelf.

“Yes!” She grinned as she pulled them out, squinting at them in the dim light. Peanut butter and chocolate. Her favorite. She opened the boxes and dumped the bars in her bag to save space. Then she zipped the bag shut and slung it over her shoulder before searching the other aisles. She passed by the frozen foods section and saw the now hardened pools of melted sugary liquid that once had been ice cream. In the shadows they were dark, like blood, and the sight made her stomach churn.

The pharmacy was mostly cleaned out, but she did find some Tylenol and multivitamins. She also discovered a few small bottles of Pedialyte. The salty liquid didn’t taste that great, but she could power through days of little to no food with it. Her personal record so far was four days. Not that she wanted to brag about that.

She was almost done browsing the pharmacy when she heard the faint sound of glass beneath boots. But notherboots.

Oh God.

Her unseen watcher had decided to show his or her face, but Caroline had no plans on sticking around to see who it was. She waited, listening to the sounds around her, ears straining to pick up every little sound. There was a distant scrape from the opposite end of the store. Caroline exhaled slowly, her heart pounding. They were moving away from her. She still had time to escape. She crouched over, using the shorter shelves in the store’s pharmacy section to shield her while she slipped her backpack back on. The harsh grinding sound of the zipper teeth locking into place seemed far too loud to her. Then she swung it over her shoulders and secured it to her waist with straps.

The sound of a can rolling in the distance made her tense. When she peered around the edge of the nearest shelf, she saw a tin of baked beans flash in the moonlight that poured into the grocery store’s high empty panes. That was too good a find to ignore. There might be a way to grab the can as she left the store. Whoever was here was still in the far end of the store and might not see her.

Already tasting the beans in her mind, she left her spot behind the shelf and started to crawl forward slowly on hands and knees toward the can. She bumped against some broken glass and stopped. She was only inches away. She reached out, her hand brushing the metal rim of the can when a booted foot materialized from the shadows. It stepped on the can, pinning it in place.

A scream froze in Caroline’s throat, and she threw her head back to look up at whoever had discovered her.

A tall, well-built man with broad shoulders stared down at her. He was wearing a thick gray sweater, one that looked military, and he had a thick beard that covered his chin and mouth, making his expression impossible to read, but it leaned toward menacing.

“Easy, beautiful.” His deep voice was a little rough, as though he hadn’t spoken in days.

She knew all too well what that sound was like. How long had it been since she’d actually talked to someone? Shouting at them to leave her alone while she ran away didn’t count. It had been at least two weeks. The rare times she came into contact with other survivors, it was a hard scramble, like animals fighting for survival. A person had but a few seconds to measure up the other survivor, to see if they were friend or foe. Could they be trusted, or would they be dangerous? She’d always tried to talk to them and try to calm them down. It never worked. A woman she’d run into last month had pretended to be nice, but then she tried to stab her when Caroline turned her back to help her lift a box of bottled water off the ground. Caroline had the scars to prove that trusting people wasn’t worthwhile, no matter how much she wanted to.

She glanced up at the man looming over her. “You can have whatever’s left in the store. I don’t want any trouble.” She released her hold on the can and slowly sat back on her heels. This guy, whoever he was, was definitely not someone she could trust. He was a mass of muscle and intimidation. A mountain man who likely only thought of base instincts. If she could get him to think she was helpless and weak, she could buy herself time to attack and escape because he’d lower his guard. In seconds, she could rock up fully into a standing position and run, but he didn’t know that. Speed was one of her advantages. She had gotten really good at running since the virus had spread.

“What if I wantyou?” Rather than menacing, the man’s deep voice sounded gentle and melodic. Hell, in another world she would’ve called it seductive.

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