“Good system,” Dave said. “I think I’ll stay up with Andy. Get a feel for the place.”

“That’s not necessary,” Melissa said.

“I want to, though. As long as it is alright with you, Andy?”

“I’d love the company.”

Gene clapped his hands. “Sounds like a plan then.”

Chapter Fifteen

Tuesday, November 3rd, 0725 hours

I woke up first. Allison, Charlene and I slept close to one another. The blue wrestling mat served well as a mattress. Walking around white tri-fold room dividers --more than likely from the nurse’s office, I saw that the gymnasium was ours, and ours alone.

While the plan had been to talk before bed, we’d all been exhausted. As soon as we’d settled in, we’d fallen asleep. I’d slept well. Felt very rested, but no less conflicted.

Mexico.

I couldn’t even remember what the radio broadcast announced, not exactly. That had been only an hour or so after Rochester had been severely hit with the outbreak, when Allison and I had been fleeing the 9-1-1 Center, and the journey to find and save my kids had first begun. The guy on the radio said people in poorer countries such as Mexico did not have the government funding to vaccinate their people. That the borders set up to keep illegal aliens out of the U.S. were now being used to keep infected Americans out of a less contaminated Mexico.

That had been about it. The extent of it.

It would be a no-brainer if we lived in Texas or anywhere near the Rio Grande. We didn’t. We weren’t anywhere near the south. We were thousands of miles away from the border. Was a bus with a cow scooper really going to be the salvation to deliver us to this massive wall?

It seemed doubtful. Unrealistic and disheartening.

The school really was a fortress. Possibly impregnable. The kitchen was huge. There were generators, and a room stocked with batteries to keep those generators running at least through the winter if incorporated discipline and restraint was used, so as to not drain all the juice in the first months or two.

If the Terrigino brothers’ place hadn’t burned to the ground, the cabin up along the St. Lawrence would have been ideal. But ideal because the area was isolated. Not as heavily populated as a Pennsylvania county. The cabin sat up high. Was more easily defendable. The problem had been the craziness of the brothers. Fighting a few zombies here and there was nothing compared to having to take those hunters out as well.

Winter was coming. That was surely a con. Generators or not. But was it really a negative, a con?

“Chase?” Allison said.

I moved back around the tri-fold. She was up on an elbow, hair disheveled. She looked beautiful.  “Hey,” I said, and spoke softly. Charlene was still asleep.

Allison stood up, stretched. If I didn’t just see her wake up and know she was still groggy, I’d have sworn she was a zombie the way she walked; clumsy steps, ankle twisting, feet slapping onto the mat and then onto the gymnasium floor, thick with layers of polyurethane.

“What were you doing?” she said, wrapping her arms around my waist, and pressing her head to my chest.

I held her, my arms squeezing just as tight. It felt good, her warmth against me. I’d slept in the middle last night, between Charlene and her. It was not the same. I kissed her forehead. “Trying to figure out what’s what, you know? If Mexico is right or wrong.”

“I’m going wherever you go. So will Dave. You’ve got to know that by now.”

“I know that. I do. That’s the problem. I don’t know where to go. I’ve made a million choices over the last few days. Not all of them good. Some of them, no, many of them put peoples’ lives at risk. I am responsible for people dying.”

“No, you’re--”

“I am, Allison.” I ground my teeth. “It’s easy for people to look at what I’ve done and judge the mistakes I’ve made. I’ve tried though.”

“Who’s judging you?”

“I am.” I pointed at my chest. “Me.”

“Do you want to go to Mexico?” she said. “Do you think Mexico is the place we should head for? Chase?”

“I think we need to move south. Winter’s coming. It’s going to be cold here. Very, very cold.”

Allison dropped her hands to her sides. “Can I say something?”

“You know you can.” I reached for one of her hands.

“What if, like with rain, the snow annoys them? It’s frozen rain, right? And eventually, that snow will melt. It will be rainy for the next several weeks before winter really hits. And then rainy after winter. We’re not all that far from Rochester, really. The weather in western New York is practically the same here.”

“Or worse.”

“Okay. Worse. I’ll give you that. We get a solid, what, two or two and half months of summer? But the rest of the time is either rain, or snow,” she said. Maybe it was because I stayed silent that she became apprehensive. “It was just an idea. Just--it was just something I was thinking.”

“No, Alley. No. I -- I get it. I see what you’re saying. I do.” I almost clapped a hand to my forehead. The obvious was that obvious, but I’d never seen it. Not like this, not until Allison pointed it out.

“Seriously? Because I was also thinking about what that woman… Megan…was saying. If rigor mortis is setting in, maybe the cold, the winter will wipe them out? I mean, unless they get smart enough to find shelter for the winter, you saw them, they just stumble about. A harsh Pennsylvania winter, Chase, it could kill them.”

“And the ones that don’t die, maybe the winter will at least slow them down, make them less threatening, easier to kill?”

“Just a thought,” she said. “Like I said, just something I was thinking.”

#   #   #

Locker room showers sprayed refreshing hot water. I was careful not to wet my new stitches. Allison helped redress the wound on my side afterward. We all looked battered and bruised.  A few stitches up my side wasn’t much of anything, considering there had been car accidents and gunfights. We’d battled zombies and survived inclement weather. There was the obvious, also, crash landing a plane just yesterday.

We even spent an hour using the football team’s washer and dryer before meeting everyone back in the cafeteria for breakfast. Powdered scrambled eggs, sausage links and buttered toast. The best part was the coffee. I enjoyed two cups, despite the still nagging urge to smoke a cigarette. At this point, I was game for lighting up anything and just smoking that.

“Okay, Chase.” Gene stood next to his wife, arms crossed over his chest. She had hands stuffed into the pockets of her jeans. “Melissa and I, we’re with you. We’re ready to go.”

“Me, too,” Megan said. Her face lit up with a smile. “And--I spent some time in the library last night. I found maps and compiled a list of directions and alternate directions in case we run into blocks we can’t get around.”

She held up folded maps and a notebook with a ton of words written on it. She wore a huge smile, and I knew she’d spent the night working on directions and not sleeping. If she’d have been wearing knee-high socks, a pleated skirt, and orange turtleneck sweater, I’d have sworn she’d pass for Velma.

Thankfully, Allison stood next to me, so I cleared my throat. I was an opening-mouth away from making myself look wishy-washy at best. “I’m not sure Mexico is the right place to go.”

Andy sighed. I couldn’t tell if he was relieved to hear the words said, or annoyed with me. Either way, he did not make eye contact, so I had no way of better assessing his sigh.

“Look,” I said, and yes, felt immediately defensive. Dave and Charlene even looked at me, and the confusion they must have felt was apparent on their expressions.  “I am not the leader. I don’t have answers. I’ve said this from day one. I am just winging this--all of it. I’ve made so many bad choices. I go left when right is obviously the better way. I just try to pick what I think is best at the time. I’m not going to lie; at the beginning, when all of this…exploded, I didn’t really care about much else other than getting to my kids,” I said, and stopped. I missed Cash. I failed him. My little boy. I lowered my head. I felt the heat in my face. My eyes were wet. “I don’t know if Mexico is right. I just, I think it might be a mistake.”