Read After The Virus for Free Online

away.
    “You up for some dinner? We found some canned meat for B.B.” His voice broke slightly, but maybe only a trained ear would have caught it.
    “Thanks. We’ll be right there.” She turned toward him, but he didn’t look at her as he left. She felt oddly aroused, or maybe disappointed, but definitely awake.
    ∞
    Later, after the dishwashing — he’d dried — Rhiannon sat in the living room bay window and watched the sunset burn the sky behind the mountains.
    B.B. slept by the unlit fireplace.
    Will read a book, World War Z of all choices.
    Rhiannon breathed. She hadn’t been this calm in… maybe ever. She watched Snickers, who was crashed on the sofa and cuddled up with her shotgun. She felt the moment Will’s attention hit her.
    “We’re locked in for the night if that’s what’s worrying you,” he whispered.
    She shook her head and indicated the gun. ”Not loaded, is it?”
    “Wouldn’t do her much good if it wasn’t,” he replied, and returned to his book.
    “That your answer for everything?” she asked.
    He laughed, and then soberly stated, “It’s a world gone mad.”  
    Quickly changing the subject, she tried, “How long have you guys been here?”
    He shrugged and guessed. “Two months, maybe, for me. Ten days for Snickers.”
    “Snickers?” she asked.
    “Were what she was eating,” he answered.
    “Amazing she didn’t get snatched. If it’s not the rebuild humanity one-rape-at-a-time group, it’s murderers or the Infected.”
    “The Infected?” he asked, and she was glad she had recent news to offer for his generosity. She never did like owing anyone.
    “They figured out how to stave off death.”  
    “What?” He couldn’t get his jaw up. “Jesus. Not a cure, though?”  
    “No,” she replied, “But the blood of the immune can sustain them indefinitely.”
    He was reeling, working it out. “But the virus burns through the body’s resources, like consuming the Infected from the inside out.”
    “Large doses of blood,” she added. “It sustains them, but the virus symptoms are still present, so they’re sick, but fast, strong, angry —”
    “And in need of our blood,” Will whispered. He glanced at Snickers, who was now sucking her thumb. “Living, breathing monsters. Nice.”
    “Rebuild Humanity keeps them as pets,” she added casually. Nevertheless, she could feel the questions he didn’t ask practically burning her.
    He settled on, “You lost someone?”
    “With 99.9 percent of the worldwide population wiped out, we all lost,” Rhiannon countered, but Will just shrugged. Then there’d been no one special for him, before. She could say the same and they could bond over never truly being loved, but she didn’t.

    ∞
    That night, the terrors started. Rhiannon was trapped in utter darkness with one of them, the Infected, its putrid snot dripping on her face right before it —
    She woke, hoping she hadn’t screamed.

CHAPTER TEN
    WILL

    He thought he heard Rhiannon scream, but as he continued to try to sense her through the multiple walls that separated them, Will got nothing. He’d been awake all night, his brain too full to turn off, not a problem he ever had in the past. He’d watched her, collecting clues: perfect table manners… hesitation with the dishwashing... She wasn’t used to this life. Again, it had nagged him, that feeling that he knew her. He wondered if she was going to stay. He wondered if it came to it, whether or not he’d ask her to. For himself? Or Snickers?  
    He was pretty sure Snickers should be talking by now. He was starting to think maybe she was mute; maybe he shouldn’t have given her the gun, but he couldn’t start second guessing, not even with Rhiannon’s doubt. He thought of the Fleetwood Mac song and wondered if he could still play it. Not that he’d picked up a guitar since college.
    Movement at the door distracted him and he turned his head expecting Snickers but, traitorously, hoping for Rhiannon.