Layne looked around the town, her face drawn in sadness. She hated the ghostly feel of the deserted neighborhoods. She could always imagine what they would have been like when the residents were alive and happy, but those visions were quickly blurred away by the horrific side effects of the virus that had stricken them all down. Everybody was blindsided by the sickness, and when it first began nobody had a clue how devastating it would be.
Although she had survived, she had pangs of nausea whenever she thought about it. She could remember the way her family had suffered; the way they had begged for relief that they were unable to find. Death had seemed a mercy at that point.
What if her baby wasn’t immune? There were still traces of the virus all over the world. Even if everything were all sterilized, there were still groups of mournful, green-tinged carriers who had the weight of the world on their shoulders. They traveled in groups, many of them drinking and drugging themselves to death, unable to bear the guilt they felt from causing the collapse of civilization. Their minds circled with regrets. If only they hadn’t pulled the strings to be the first vaccinated. Now they were doomed to witness the destruction their immunity had caused for the rest of their lives.
If those bands of carriers ever passed through and touched the foods in the garden or coughed near them, they could find out the hard way that their child wasn’t immune. They would have to watch their baby suffer the way the rest of their families had suffered. It would be a fate worse than dying herself; to have a part of herself forced to succumb to the terrible illness.
She took a deep breath and headed into the first house that caught her eye. If she could find anything useful for a baby on the way so Jax wouldn’t have to keep leaving her, then she would do it. She didn’t want him to feel like he had to take care of her all the time. And if the baby wasn’t immune, there had to be some antibiotics around that would ease its suffering, if nothing else. A baby without immunity would be doomed to suffer. The people and cities were still infested; the virus wouldn’t go away that easily just because many people now were immune to the effects themselves.
When she walked into the house, she could tell that the people who had lived there had been happy. There were toys scattered on the floor and pictures of smiling faces; three children and two adults. She moved cautiously through the house, trying hard not to think about what had happened to the family or look at their pictures and belongings. She was there for one reason – to get supplies.
She began pushing doors open, looking for the bathroom. She would look for medical supplies first and foremost, and hope that there were still some left. At first, all she found were bedrooms, and then, to her dismay, a nursery. It had never been used. There were no pictures of babies; Layne gathered that the family had been expecting a new child.
Her eyes watered despite herself and she walked into the nursery, looking around and swallowing the lump in her throat as she touched the furniture. The baby had never gotten a chance to use all of this. The family was gone.
She would come back to root through the desolate little room later. Layne forced herself to leave the nursery and finally found the bathroom upstairs. She rummaged through the closets and cabinets, relieved to find that they had a little baby grooming kit. Thermometer, nail clippers, a fuzzy little brush all sealed in a hard plastic container beside a first aid kit that had a fuzzy white film over it. She passed over the first aid kit, careful not to touch it, and grabbed the plastic box of grooming supplies. And as she suspected, there were unfinished bottles of antibiotics, meant to preserve at least some semblance of dignity to the people who were diagnosed with the contagion. She grabbed the supplies and walked out of the bathroom numbly, closing the door behind her.
Layne felt dizzy all of a sudden; numb and scared. Her heart thudded and a familiar surge of nausea nearly brought her to her knees. She tried to hold it back but she couldn’t, and ran into the bathroom to unleash it into the toilet. She would have to rest for a little while. Her night on the ground hadn’t left her feeling particularly refreshed.
Layne didn’t want to be in the pleasant house full of promise and love. She didn’t want reminders of why she was there in the first place. If she was pregnant and not sick, why had she found such a place? Somewhere that reminded her of all the joy and love she would be missing out on if the virus stole her child?
She stumbled back down the hall to the nursery and sat down in the rocking chair beside the little crib, hugging her knees to her chest and allowing herself to cry bitterly. She succumbed to a flood of tears she felt like she had been holding back since the beginning of the end of civilization. She wept for the families who were killed by the virus, and for her own family; for Jax and for herself and their potential child.
She leaned her head back against the headrest of the rocking chair and exhaled out loud, closing her eyes and letting her weary body tug her into a deep sleep.
***
“Good news, Jax,” Tobi said, bounding up the tree. It was late afternoon and he had been waiting in the tree for a little over two hours. “Sam can’t stand Shark Tooth and wouldn’t care if we took off, just the two of us. So I casually introduced her to the idea of maybe helping you out. We’re going to try to do like you did, make it on our own you know? Start out with a trip to visit your little place. And we’ll have a head start. I told Shark Tooth I had some scavenging I wanted to do, just me and my lady. It’ll be a while before they realize we’re gone.”
She winked at Jax and he laughed, shaking his head in relief and disbelief.
“You mean she’ll make a house call for Layne?” Jax asked, his face lighting up.
“Yeah,” Tobi nodded. “She already packed up all her medical supplies. Whether your lady is sick or pregnant, Sam’s the best. She can help her. Though personally I’m hoping for the former, because that’s a lot easier to treat than 18 years with a kid who might drop dead just walking into the wrong area.”
“If Layne and I are both immune that shouldn’t be a problem,” Jax pointed out firmly. Tobi shrugged.
“We’ll see. I just don’t like the odds. It makes me glad I’m a lesbian. Not going to accidentally get knocked up and have to worry about that kind of shit, you know?”
“I guess so,” Jax said glumly.
But there was good news. Tobi had pulled through for him. He was suddenly patting himself on the back for dealing with Tobi’s incessant crush on Sam for so long. It had been persistent and mournful. At least, until she had met Kelsey and the two of them had stuck together like glue for the next few years. He wondered what could have driven a wedge between them; they had seemed so happy.
“Sam is going to meet us by the river. She already left so let’s get going. I told her it was kind of an emergency. I know it’s not like Layne’s dying or anything but you know, it’s better to get it checked out soon in case it is something serious. You’re not sick too are you?”
“Well…” Jax said, thinking back to the way he had thrown up after killing the two desperate wanderers. “I don’t think so.”
Tobi raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing. She turned away and headed as quickly as she could toward the river. She had remembered what Jax said and brought her own bike, which was risky, but Tobi was well known as a hard-ass around the area so she didn’t seem too concerned.
Jax followed along behind her. She never cut through the old neighborhood the way that he did; everybody in Hex had been told to avoid those places and they had become somewhat superstitious about it. That was how Jax knew that he was safe there and could always sleep soundly. They had looted the old buildings as much as they could and the only thing left there was nightmares.
They ran swiftly through the wooded area surrounding the neighborhood and Jax stayed as alert as possible. If anybody from Hex found out that Tobi was helping him, she could get into huge trouble. Fortunately, everybody seemed to be busy elsewhere, and they made it to the river in record time, where Sam was pacing in front of the water, a serene look on her face as she gazed into the trees.
“Hey,” Tobi said, running up to her.
“Hi,” Sam said with a smile. Jax wasn’t sure how it was possible but she somehow looked smarter, maybe older and more wizened, since the last time they’d seen each other.
“Hello,” Jax said, nodding at Sam.
“Long time no see,” Sam said with a smile.
“Yeah,” Jax said. “Thanks for agreeing to help me.”
“I’m mostly doing it for your girlfriend,” Sam said. “And mine. Besides, it’s not like you would have any clue what pregnant women go through.”
Jax frowned and Tobi laughed.
“Ease up, Sam,” she said. “Jax might have gotten her into this mess but he knows he will have to help her out as much as he can.”
“Well that’s why you brought me here,” Sam said, hoisting her bag over her shoulder. She had left it on the ground while she was waiting for them to show up, knowing it would conserve her energy. “Let’s go.”
Jax felt nervous about showing anybody the secret land that he and Layne had found and settled. Even though he trusted Tobi with his life, he still wasn’t sure about Sam.
“I don’t want you guys telling anybody about where we live, all right? We’ve worked really hard to set this place up for ourselves.”
“Don’t worry. We have our own lives to live,” Sam said.
“We’ll give you guys some beer, okay? Just to call it even. This stays between us. I mean it. I’ll do anything to protect my family.”
Jax fixed his dark, intense gaze on both Tobi and Sam, and they shifted uncomfortably, but nodded. They knew that he would kill them if he had a chance, if he knew that they had betrayed him.
“All right dude,” Tobi said. “But don’t blame us if somebody else ends up finding you. I won’t rat you out. Sam might, but I doubt it. I’d dump her if she did.”
Tobi winked at Sam, who gave her a comical frown. Jax tried to ease up about it. They had been able to leave early enough that they would only have to make camp once. Both Tobi and Sam were in excellent physical shape, and kept up with him as he pedaled wildly through the rocky terrain. He knew they would be there soon. He only hoped that Layne would be okay. She could make him feel better about the world simply by looking at him. She didn’t even have to say a word. Hopefully with Sam onboard, he would be able to return the favor.