“Your father has been instructed to create a second virus. For a second release. To…erase the probability of survivors.”

The news wasn’t a total shock, but then Lucy understood what her mother had alluded to earlier. “A new virus?”

Maxine nodded.

“So, people who were vaccinated previously—”

“Aren’t safe anymore.” Maxine confirmed the worst news of all: Scott King was working on a new virus that would eventually be used to kill his firstborn son.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Darla and Spencer were the first to sprint out of the den and toward the back; fearless and united, they stumbled out onto the covered porch and then halted in their tracks, scanning the area with guns drawn. Wordlessly Spencer motioned for Darla to take one side of the patio, but before they could fully explore the yard and the surrounding areas, Darla recognized that something was wrong.

“The food,” she said, her mouth dropping open. “Spencer…where is all our food?”

Stopping on the steps, Spencer scanned the porch and then swearing loudly, he took a giant leap out onto the lawn and rushed to the side yard. He fired a warning shot up over the open gate, but Darla yelled after him.

“Don’t fire, don’t fire,” she screamed, running to the side of the patio.

“Joey!” Spencer called. Then he pointed to Darla, “Tell Joey to grab a gun.”

She crouched down and looked at the emptiness of the patio—earlier that day they had mountains of the ready-to-eat meals that Ethan’s father had left them, in addition to the other canned goods and non-perishables salvaged from the surrounding neighborhoods. Altogether they had collected over six months of food for the entire group and all of it was gone.

Darla had suspected someone was squirrelling away food, but Joey had started the nightly inventory and the small disappearances had stopped.

The shock of the empty porch was almost too much to handle.

Joey wandered to the porch and whistled loud and low. His face went white and he tapped his foot  “How on earth—”

“Right under our noses,” Darla groaned. “Teddy!” she called back into the house. “Teddy!”

The child appeared just beyond the screen, pressing his nose against the mesh. “Yes, mama?” Teddy asked, tentative and unsure. He knew that something had gone wrong and he frowned and rocked on the other side of the door.

She turned to Joey. “Go tell the others what happened…but don’t be all alarmist…can you exude calm leadership? Seriously. Calm, leadership,” Darla commanded. “And meet Spencer out front.”

With a salute, Joey disappeared back inside as Teddy joined his mother on the porch and Darla, with a furtive look around, put her hands on Teddy’s shoulders and smoothed his curls with her hand.

“What did the man look like?” she asked Teddy. “Do you remember what the man looked like?”

Teddy shook his head.

“Can you remember anything? What he was wearing? Did he say anything to you?”

For a second, Teddy pondered all the questions. Then he raised a finger, “I remember! He asked me if my mommy was inside.”

A chill traveled down Darla’s spine. “Good,” she told her son, steadying her voice, and forcing a smile to comfort him. “Anything else?”

“No. Just…is he a bad guy, mommy?” Teddy asked, wide-eyed.

Darla kissed Teddy on the cheek. “Yeah, buddy. I think he was a bad guy.”

“Oh,” was all Teddy said, but he looked clearly conflicted. “Am in trouble for eating the bad guy’s chocolate?”

“Not at all.” Darla looked at Teddy and turned his head so she could look in his eyes. “You are not in trouble, Buddy. But it’s time to go inside and stay with Ethan, okay? Don’t come out here again unless mommy calls you.” Darla directed Teddy back into the house and as the screen door shut behind him, she sighed. Such a life for her little man. Then she hopped down into the backyard and bent to examine the grass. As Oregon drifted closer to May, the rain made sporadic appearances and the lawn was still damp, the ground underneath soft. Darla instantly noticed the wheel tracks in the mud next to the lower step—whoever stole the food had to have made several trips. It was an undertaking that seemed suspicious in both scope and execution. The thief was brazen or he was stupid: he would have spirited away wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load right under their noses. It was a feat.

Although, if it weren’t for Teddy stumbling upon the robbery, Darla supposed they wouldn’t have noticed for a couple more hours. Did the man know their schedules? Was he watching them? Where did he come from?

It seemed unlikely that anyone from Nebraska would venture all this way to kill them through slow starvation.

Spencer marched back to Darla through the open gate with Joey on his heels.

“Wheelbarrow,” Darla said pointing to the tracks.

“Moron,” mumbled Spencer. “If it was our stash he was after, why take it all at once? If you have the element of surprise, of people not knowing you exist? Why tip your hand? He could have bought himself a week or so…you know that we’d all think Joey was just screwing up the inventory.”

Joey scrunched his nose. “Hey now,” he challenged, but then he met Spencer’s gaze and shrugged. “Whatever, man.” He bounced anxiously on the balls of his feet.

“Maybe he’s planning on leaving the area?”

“He will if he’s smart,” Spencer said. He hacked and spit a mucousy stream of saliva to the ground.

Joey fidgeted with the gun at his side and looked between Spencer and Darla in turn. “He can’t be far, right? We can find him. Let’s go. Let’s take off—a couple of us in each direction.”

“He’s gone,” Darla said matter-of-factly. “And he has everything we need with him.” She kicked the grass and swore under her breath. They’d survived without devastating hardship—cold meals, no showers—because they had food and water. Now, every day would become about scrounging for sustenance and nothing more; they were about to feel the pain of this existence in the most visceral way possible: hunger. Thirst.

“In words hardly ever spoken,” Spencer said, “I think Joey’s right. We know these neighborhoods; there’s no way someone took off on foot with all our supplies…and a car or a truck only gets you so far. Any of the major roads are still blocked.”

“We have to try. That’s everything we have,” Joey whined.

Darla closed her eyes for a second and then sighed. “He knew the stash was here. Right?” The men nodded. “And he knew we were here. He had a car…that we didn’t hear…”

“He parked it a block away. Left it running?”

“How did we not hear that?” She looked to the ground, ruminating on all the ways this was even possible. “Okay. We split up.” She looked up and checked her weapon and then started marching toward the front.

“Hold up!” Spencer called to her back. “Who’s with who?”

Darla spun and rolled her eyes. “You two, head west. I’ll head east.”

“By yourself? You want us to grab Gloria? Ainsley?” Joey asked. He took a step back toward the porch. “The man could be dangerous.”

She smirked and rolled her eyes. “Please, boys. Please. If he’s dangerous, I’m better off by myself. I don’t have time to find a thief and babysit.” And with that, she jogged out toward the front of the house, her gun drawn, and on high alert for anything that seemed out of place.

 The bodies in the yards were even more disgusting as time passed. Skin rotted away to reveal gelatinous insides, some of which spilled out into pools on the ground. All over the neighborhood the stink of death and rot drifted with the wind; but the King House crew had become accustomed to the smell, and only occasionally did the odor elicit any response. Darla had traversed the neighborhood, the offshoots of the subdivision, many times.