"Why would he do that?" I fume, "I mean – ugh – he's so – UGH!"
Seth looks at me from the other side of the backseat. "He'll be back."
"Maybe," I say, "If the dead things don't get him." And suddenly I'm worried, not angry.
Seth glances at his feet. "He's good at taking care of himself."
"He's so stupid," I mutter, angry again, "He knows it's not safe to go out alone."
Seth looks back at me. "He will be back."
Kacey is sleeping between us. Seth runs his hands through his hair and exhales deeply. I chew on my thumbnail. I guess all we can do is sit here and wait.
And that's exactly what we do. For a long time. Kacey wakes up once or twice, coughing. We give her some water.
It's probably midnight or later by the time the rain stops. Doyle left his blanket here. It's got to be forty degrees outside. He's probably frozen to death or something. Can you freeze to death in forty degrees? I don't know. It might be colder, though.
Seth looks out the dirty car window.
"Should we go look for him?" I ask. I'm so tired.
Seth shakes his head. "He'll be back."
"You've said that too much already," I tell him. Kacey stirs a little, but doesn't open her eyes. She's sleeping with her head in Seth's lap, her feet on mine.
"I know, but it's true."
"We should just go," I say. Some dead things could find us at any moment.
Seth turns away from the window and stares at me. Or at least I think he does. It's so dark now.
"Look, Wynne," He says, his voice tight, "You might not understand this, but I actually care about what happens to Doyle. He's my friend. We will wait."
I feel my cheeks heat up. "You don't think I care about what happens to him? I'm not a monster, I do care about people."
Silence.
Seth finally says, "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean –"
"You did mean it," I cut in, "But let's just forget about it."
+++++
I must have drifted off, because the next thing I know, I'm being prodded in the shoulder with a bony index finger.
"Wynne." Doyle's voice. It's surprisingly soft for such a grumpy person.
"It's about time you got back," I mutter, glancing over at Seth and Kacey, who are sleeping. I guess one of us should have stayed awake and kept watching. We're so stupid.
It seems a bit brighter out. Doyle's hair is still wet, but his clothes look dryer now.
"I found food and shelter," He says, a hint of pride in his voice.
"Great," I say, and mean it, though I'm still pissed about how he flat-out disobeyed me. But if he told me to do something, would I obey him?
"One of you should've watched," He says blankly.
"I know," I'm irritated. He could've watched if he hadn't run off.
He leaves me and walks around the back of the car to Seth's door. He opens it and nudges Seth until he wakes up. Seth looks around groggily for a moment, then says to Doyle with a grin, "Find anything?"
Doyle nods. "Good stuff."
I step out of the car. Most of the clouds are gone, and the sky is lightening on the eastern horizon.
I open the driver's side door and pull out Doyle's "10,000 pound" pack. He gets my backpack from the passenger seat. We walk around to the front of the hood and switch.
"If you get sick," I tell him grouchily, "It's not my fault. I told you to wait."
His mouth doesn't move, but – and this won't make any sense – it looks like his eyes smiled.
If that's possible, and if it really happened, it means that I've cracked the once-impenetrable grouch and turned him into a human being, with real feelings. Humph.
Seth is waking Kacey. She looks worse than she did last night. Her eyes are glassy, she's still shaking. I go over to her and put my hand on her forehead. She doesn't smile like she usually does. Her skin is burning. Getting caught in the rain definitely didn't help her already fragile condition.
Seth, instead of carrying her on his back, let's her sit in the crook of his left arm, his right arm supporting the rest of her body as she lays her weary head on his shoulder.
He and I exchange a glance, and we know then. We know that, if she gets any worse, and with the weather getting this cold, that she could very well not make it.
Doyle sets his pack on the cracked asphalt and goes over to Seth, who looks on the verge of tears.
"I'll carry her today," He says, gently taking Kacey into his arms. He holds her like she's made of glass.
Seth scoops up the pack and turns away from us, lifting it onto his shoulders. I hear him sniff, and then he mumbles, "Doyle," and motions for him to lead us to shelter.
We straggle behind Doyle, who is carrying Kacey. He whispers things to her – must be funny things – because soon she is smiling.
+++++
As the day goes on, it gets cloudy again. And colder. God, it's so cold.
We've been walking for hours before we enter an extremely small town. Well, I don't know if you can consider three buildings a town. I don't even know why they're here, but it's a good thing they are.
There's what appears to be an old-fashioned store, a gas station, and a little white house with a porch and a chimney.
Doyle takes us to the house. We enter, and Seth drops the pack in a corner and gets a blanket for Kacey. Doyle sets her down in front of the fireplace.
"Give me a minute, and I'll get a fire started," He tells her. He leaves the house, going to look for firewood, I assume. Seth wraps Kacey in the blanket. She starts coughing. It sounds worse than yesterday.
I keep my backpack and go outside to find Doyle.
I see him collecting small logs from a stack of wood leaning against the house.
"Hey," I walk over to him.
He doesn't look at me, just keeps loading logs into his arms.
"Where's this food you told me about?"
"We'll get it after I start a fire," He says, getting one last log before turning to get back on the front porch of the house. I follow him inside. He dumps the logs in the fireplace, retrieves some matches, cotton balls and Vaseline from his pack. He puts the Vaseline on the cotton balls, sets them under the logs, and sets a match to them.
They spark easily, and soon there's a cheerful fire crackling, Kacey holding her hands out to it to warm them.
"Thanks, Doyle," She says sweetly, "You're awesome."
A small smile – and I mean the smallest possible smile ever, just the hint of one, but a smile nonetheless – plays at his lips.
When he sees me looking at him in utter surprise, it disappears. "Come," he says gruffly, stomping toward the door.
"Wait," Seth says. I turn to look at him and see he's taking off the plaid shirt. "You'll need this," he walks over to Doyle and puts it in his hand.
With a brief nod Doyle leaves. I follow him.
We're walking on the cracked asphalt toward the old-fashioned store.
"How did you know that Vaseline is highly flammable and good for starting fires?" I ask him. I know because my dad made sure I had some survival skills. He taught me how to work the Glock, what berries and plants were edible, how to start fires and all that valuable junk. That's what he called it – valuable junk. It makes no sense, but that was Daddy, coming up with a crazy name for something to make it seem more interesting. He homeschooled me, and called math "The Incredible Life of Numbers". It still didn't make it any less frustrating, though.
"Boy Scouts," He says briefly.
I raise my eyebrows, "You don't seem like the kind of person who would be in the Boy Scouts."
"I wasn't," He replies, glancing at me, "Had a friend who was."
"Oh, okay," I nod.
When we reach the store, the door is locked securely. We walk all the way around it, looking for any way in, but it's locked up tight.
We go back to the front door, and Doyle wraps his fist in his plaid shirt and punches a hole in the window frame just above the doorknob. He knocks away the shards, un-wraps his hand and reaches through to fiddle with the lock.
I hear a click, he withdraws his hand and turns the knob. The door swings open with an almost eerie creak as he pulls the plaid shirt back on.
I step inside first, the Glock held high. Can't ever be too careful. Doyle keeps his pistol in the waistband of his pants, but draws his knife.
The first room we walk into is a fairly good size, and filled with shelves that are just tall enough to reach the bottom of my chin. As Doyle zigzags through the aisles, I see that this place looks virtually untouched. Probably because it's in the middle of nowhere. In the back of the room, there is a counter with an old cash register sitting atop it, and on either side of the counter are two closed doors.
Doyle and I exchange glances, and he motions for me to take the right door as he advances toward the left.
Clutching the Glock in just my left hand now, I cautiously move toward the door. I stretch my right hand out to the doorknob. I grasp it, and turn. The door opens. Quickly, my right hand flies back to the grip on the Glock.
I face an empty hallway, two doors on either side. One door has MEN written on it, the other, LADIES. I found the bathrooms. I head to the LADIES door, preparing to open it and check inside.
And that's when I hear Doyle cry out.