In My Blood (Completed)

CHAPTER 8: Weston, MO

After four days of surviving in the woods, Beca led Jesse, Amy, and the sorority girls further west through rural Missouri. She’d hoped to spot signs--physical, labeled signs or radio signals or any indication another settlement stood nearby. The sooner she could get these girls somewhere more stable and safer, the better, because Beca wasn’t confident enough in her abilities to be able to keep all of them alive without additional protections for much longer.

After another full day of driving, Beca spotted a graffiti-caked sign for the town of Weston, which read (Population: 1100). A small town didn’t likely survive long, and Beca hoped they could find maybe a farmhouse or abandoned church to crash in overnight, so she pulled off the highway and led the two cars, slowly and cautiously, through what looked like a looted ghost town. Beca pulled her helmet off as her bike crawled down Main Street, with its different colored brick buildings with striped or solid awnings lining both sides of the road that opened to a town square. Beca spotted a church, an old style movie theater, a bookstore, tailor, bank, laundromat… yep, super typical small town. Most of the windows had been broken but the sidewalks looked relatively uncluttered, as though this town was picked clean toward the start of the outbreak and had been lying dormant since.

“This looks like an old movie set!” Jesse called from the window of his car.

Emily rolled down the window behind him, charmed by it all. “Beca, look! Can we stay there!?” She pointed beyond the tiny village to what looked like a southern gothic style mansion on a nearby hill.

Squinting toward the sunset, Beca wrinkled her nose, eyeing the massive property skeptically. “I was hoping for something more… inconspicuous…”

“Aw, c’mon, short stack,” Cynthia Rose called from the other car. “Let’s at least check it out. We deserve a little luxury after camping so long.”

Beca snorted. “You realize that place is gonna be, like--almost definitely haunted, right?” She realized she was fighting a losing battle when Jesse’s face lit up and muttered something about a horror movie. Of course he’d be into it. What a fucking nerd. “Ugh, fine, if it checks out then you nerds will have to work out the watch shifts ‘cause we’ll need more people on each. But if it’s too sketchy we’re finding something smaller.” She heard some of the girls (and Jesse) hooting and clapping in both cars and she grumbled under her breath as she took off toward the creepy manor. She parked her bike in front of the rusted wrought iron gates and wrenched the gate’s door open with an almost comical squeaky groan. Beca snorted and shot the girls and Jesse a look before heaving a heavy sigh and approaching the front doors to investigate the situation.

*

Everyone knew that morale was wearing thin over the course of several days in the woods. After the initial hope and subsequent dejection when they'd been turned away from the settlement, an uneasy malaise had set in over the group at times. It was easy to ignore when they were staying busy with tasks like gathering firewood and patrolling the surrounding area, but doubts crept in during quiet moments or at night as they all tried to fall asleep. They didn't have a plan, and that seemed to especially unsettle the girls who had grown so accustomed to the routines of daily life at the Barden settlement.

A collective sense of relief seemed to sweep through the group when they finally packed up camp and hit the road again. Even if they didn't have a set destination in mind, it at least felt like they were being productive when they were on the road and searching for signs of shelter. Cramped legs and restless bodies made the atmosphere in the cars a little stir crazy after another full day of driving, but the general mood perked up when they passed what once were the town limits for a small town that proclaimed itself Weston.