Ageless Secrets

Fourteen

A/N: This is a longer chapter. It took me longer to write it than I thought it would. I was ready for this scene but at the same time wasn't. Hope you enjoy it, and I'm sorry if you cry a little.

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As we got closer to Bill and Franks, an airplane came into view. It was one of the many that fell from the sky and crashed on the night of the outbreak. I remember Tess putting the car in reverse, backing up, and turning around, putting the pedal to the floor to try and get out of the way as a plane came spiraling out of the sky. We could feel the heat after the plane hit nose first into the ground and caught fire, killing everyone inside.

“Holy shit. You fly in one of those?” Ellie asked. “A few times, sure,” Joel told her. “So lucky,” she whispered. “Didn’t feel like it at the time. Get shoved into a middle seat, pay 12 bucks for a sandwich.” I hummed in agreement. “I remember going to Disney World when I was about eight or nine with my grandparents. We had to fly, and it was pretty cool seeing the world below. Everything was so small.

“Dude, you got to go up in the sky!” Ellie said excitedly. “Yeah, well, so did they,” Joel mumbled and kept walking. Ellie looked over at me with raised eyebrows. “Grim.”

We walked past the plane crash, and Ellie was still asking questions. I couldn't blame her. She wasn't even born when the world went to shit. She's just curious about what the world was like before and what happened that night of the outbreak.

“So, everything came crashing down in one day?”

“Pretty much.”

“How? I mean… no one was infected with Cordyceps. Everybody’s fine, eating in restaurants and flying in planes. And then, all at once? How did it even start? If you have to get bitten to be infected, then who bit the first person? Was it a monkey? I bet it was a monkey.”

I laughed a little, “It wasn’t a monkey. I thought you went to school," I said. “FEDRA school. They don’t teach us how their shitty government failed to prevent a pandemic.” Fair enough.

Joel spoke up then on the subject. “No one knows for sure, but, best guess… Cordyceps mutated. And some of it got into the food supply. It was probably a basic ingredient like flour or sugar. There were certain brands of food that were sold everywhere, all across the country, across the world. Bread, cereal… pancake mix.” He paused and had that distant look in his eye like he was replaying a memory from that day or before. He took a deep breath and exhaled, continuing what he was saying.

“You eat enough of it. It’ll get you infected. So the tainted food all hits the store shelves around the same time, Thursday. People bought it, ate some Thursday night or Friday morning. Day goes on… they started to get sick. Afternoon, evening, they got worse. Then they started bitin’. Friday night, September 26, 2003. And by Monday, everything was gone.”

Silence fell between the three of us. That night replayed in my head like it was a movie. Everything still felt like it happened yesterday. We were sitting at the table eating dinner, and then Tess and I were running for our lives. Andy was dead on the floor, and Chase was locked in the basement, which no doubt he's still there today.

“It makes more sense than monkeys,” Ellie said, breaking the silence.

“Thanks,” Joel said with a shake of his head. I scoffed out a laugh. “Sure,” she said. We walked a little ways until we stopped. Joel looked over at me, and I nodded. “What?” Ellie asked, looking between us.

“We’ll cut across the woods here,” Joel told her. She looked confused. “Isn’t the road easier?” She asked. “Yeah, it’s just… There’s stuff up there you shouldn't see," I told her. “Well, now I have to see.”