DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 12, SECTION 1

Part 12: Spread It

My father's amygdalae lay in a disposable plastic storage container. A pair of small, fleshy lobes, pale pink and glistening.

It was hard to imagine that these two tiny nodes of brain matter contained the trillions of TGVx parasites that Chris was counting on to halt the plague on a global scale.

When I mentioned this to Chris, he said, "Your dad's amygdalae are actually twice the size of normal amygdalae. They're swollen with tiny, densely packed parasites."

Chris poured a bag full of my dad's honey-blood over the lobes. They floated in the golden fluid like some kind of exotic stewed fruit.

"Now that the amygdalae have been separated from the body," Chris explained as he squeezed the last of the honey-blood into the container, "the parasites will disperse into the honey, looking for a new host. They're super tough. They'll live on their own honey for weeks like this." Chris put the lid onto the container and firmly sealed it. "After a few days, we can dilute the honey with large quantities of saline solution, or even water, and then we'll have more than enough TGVx to treat cities full of positives."

Earlier that morning, I'd helped Chris move my dad's body into one of the empty dwelling rooms. I'd watched him extract a pint of honey-blood from his lifeless body. When it had come time to remove the precious amygdalae from the center of his brain, though, I couldn't watch.

Instead, I stepped out and found my mom.

I knew she would take my dad's expiration hard, but I wasn't prepared for how totally lost she seemed to feel. I'd just caught her sleeping with Ed, but this didn't make her any less devastated about losing my dad. I did my best to comfort her, but mostly she just wanted to crawl into her sleeping bag, cover her head, and sob inwardly.

That afternoon, we buried my dad on the ridge overlooking the ravine.

"That stupid son of a bitch," my mom said, shaking her head tearfully and using a tone that somehow imbued this phrase with a deep sense of love and loss that no term of endearment could ever fully express.

Even Ian had found the strength to pull himself from his stone room and walk up to the ridge, proving to Chris and everyone else that he wasn't actually infected, after all. He gave a short but quietly touching speech. Ian and my dad had always been close. "I've never known a better man," Ian said weakly, his voice cracking. "And I don't think I ever will."

I knew he was telling the truth.

After the makeshift funeral, walking down the trail, Chris nudged me. "I know this is hard, Ash," he whispered. "But we gotta act fast. We got a hell of lot of planning to do. I mean, how are we even going to get out of the quarantine zone?"

I looked at Chris blankly. When my dad had sacrificed himself for humanity, he'd left the logistics to us.

"I don't have a clue how we're going to get past the wall," I answered, trying to set aside my grief and suddenly feeling daunted. "You got any bright ideas?"

Chris gave me a sidelong glance and shrugged.

"Well, yeah," he said. "Drugs."

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