A Different Virus: Heartfire

Chapter 10

I woke up and looked at the brightening sky. I didn't understand. No one had ever heard of an infected person making it longer than seven days. This was the eighth morning.

Gazing at the sky didn't provide any answers. I sat up with a sigh. The sooner I started moving, the sooner the faint but building pain would recede. I was wide awake anyway. My glasses now rode in my backpack – I could see better without them than with them.

My sight without my glasses was still improving. Things in the distance were still fuzzy, but nowhere near as bad as it had been before I left the Fort – before I had been bitten.

I glanced down as I stuffed my hammock into my pack, carefully inspecting the area below. My inspection yielded no guests or visitors. There had been several nights where I had a zombie hang out below, but I had gotten out of the tree easily enough in the morning.

Once I climbed down, I started jogging northwards. I didn't really have a destination since I hadn't expected to still be alive this morning, so I simply continued moving in the direction I had been heading.

I had been avoiding the main roads just in case I encountered people, and I decided to continue that trend. I really didn't feel like explaining why I was running around in the middle of nowhere. The roads around here seemed to have forest flanking them, so I travelled just inside the trees, parallel to the road.

This allowed me to read the road signs while avoiding possible contact. Last night, I had passed a sign that said something about a U-pick berry farm about twenty kilometers down the road. It was a good enough destination for me, and I might be able to hit that place by sunset if I pushed myself. If I was still alive by then.

*        *        *

   I really had to decide on a plan. It was day ten now.

The bite mark had healed into a silvery scar - completely healed. It should have taken over a month to fully heal, but when I had removed the tattered bandages yesterday, dried up scabs and a rather-noticeable scar greeted me. When I had checked my knees, I discovered those wounds had also healed, although without leaving any scars.

And if I wasn't spooked enough by the rapidly healing injuries, I was noticing other changes that worried me further. My eyesight was now excellent, better than it had ever been, even with my glasses. I wasn't tiring as easily either, being able to alternate jogging and walking all day. Jogging made up about a quarter of my day, something that had been way beyond my ability ten days ago.

Sleep was becoming more and more elusive. I found that I had to actually run for about thirty minutes before going to sleep – and even then, I could only manage to sleep for about seven hours. It was as if my T-cell over-reaction was on steroids. Even with seven hours of sleep, I was wide awake and raring to go. It was almost ridiculous considering that I used to sleep eight or nine hours and still be groggy in the morning.

I sighed as I considered my current predicament. When I had run away from the Fort, I was sure that I would be dead within four days. Admittedly, if I had stayed, my new restlessness would have shown that something had changed. Not to mention how fast those wounds had closed up. Even zombie wounds seemed to take at least a month to heal.

I leaned back and rubbed my eyes. I had been at this berry farm for two days, and while the fresh fruit was nice, I was getting bored silly just lounging around without anything constructive to do. The grass around the farm perimeter was getting beaten down from my frequent laps as I jogged to keep the pain away.

In my boredom, I had even entered the farmhouse after lots of checking from the outside. I had been rewarded with an excellent dinner of canned soup and fried potatoes. I also found a map which I was looking at right now.