DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 12, SECTION 6

As the huge mechanized gates slowly eased open, a bullhorn announcement boomed out.

"Remember. Anyone moving within fifty yards of the barricade will be shot on sight. I repeat. Anyone moving within fifty yards of the quarantine barricade will be shot on sight."

All six of us had squeezed into the pickup's cramped extended cab. Ian drove. After what the guard had said, I could tell Ian was wary about what we'd encounter on the outside of the wall. Until now, he'd barely spoken at all. And he was still so weak that I worried he'd collapse at the wheel. But I didn't try to stop him from driving. I could tell he wouldn't have let me.

An endless row of orange flags, each propped up by piled stones, ran along the quarantine zone's perimeter. They must have been placed at a distance of fifty yards away form the barricade. A group of people, mostly men, had gathered at the road where it crossed through the line of flags. They were obviously waiting for us to reach them.

"Could word have gotten out?" Ian asked as he slowly drove forward. "About the TGVx treatment? The guard said there's a rumor about a cure in Muldoon."

I thought about this. It was possible. "A few of the refugees have gone out to look for more cattle feed. They could have mentioned the treatment," I speculated. "It's not like we've asked anyone to keep its existence a secret or anything."

When we reached the group of men at the roadside, they flagged us down. A few of them even stepped out onto the road and waved their hands.

Here, where a low ridge fell away toward the plains, a small city of tents and RVs had become visible. Campfires burned, and generators droned. Thousands of people, it appeared, had been trying to get into Muldoon for weeks. It was a bizarre sight. It finally struck me that everywhere outside Muldoon had become a quarantine zone, rather than the other way around. The last thing I thought I'd encounter while trying to cross beyond the barricades was people clamoring to get in.

A man, tall, dressed in khakis and a fleece jacket, reasonable-looking enough, knocked at the driver's side door. Ian cautiously rolled down the window.

Right away, the man asked, "You have any news from the inside?"

"What kind of news?" Ian replied suspiciously.

"What do you mean what kind of news?" the man asked, taken aback that Ian didn't know exactly what he was talking about. "News about Ashley Travis. Does she exist? Have you seen her? Is it true?"

My heart started to throb uneasily. Why did this guy know my name? Why was he talking about me as if I were some kind of urban legend?

"Is what true?" Ian asked, even more cautiously than before.

"About her blood," the man replied, incredulous. "That her blood is a cure. That her blood cures TGV. You really haven't heard about this? Where have you been?"

"Well, that's not exactly how it works," Chris piped up.

Ian gave Chris a flustered glare. By now, maybe fifty or sixty people had crowded around the pickup. I could tell that Ian was uneasy that the growing crowd was literally out for my blood, as if some kind of magical cure-all were running through my veins. And after Chris's authoritative comment, the crowd had tightened around us, waiting for him to say more. 

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