For the last thirty miles or so there have been barely any supplies left in the stores we’ve checked. Someone is here. Or at least nearby.
Cara insists it can’t be Fort Caroline. She hadn’t made a route this far for them yet.
We dismount the bikes and stash them behind an overgrown shrub in front of the library.
“I think we should keep moving,” Cara says. She says it tentatively, but it’s the most forceful she’s been.
“I do, too,” I say.
“I’ll hook up the sidecar.”
“Thanks.”
She bends down behind my bike and starts the process of hooking up the wooden cart and making sure it’s secure.
I enter the library through the back door. The library is humid but smells dusty and ancient despite the distinctly 1989 pastel fantasy it’s serving. The shelves are full and everything looks as though it was barely touched, unlike the rest of the town.
There’s a low, hacking cough from the children’s section that drives a spike through my heart. I hold my breath and wait for it to continue to a breathless crescendo, but there were only two coughs.That’s got to be an improvement.
Right?
Jamie is lying on a foam mat in front of the picture books. His forehead is covered in a layer of sweat. His shaggy hair is wet, and despite his shivering, he’s thrown aside the blanket we left him.
I pick up the blanket and pull it over him, becoming the big spoon to his little. It’s complicated because he’s bigger than me, but he still pulls my arm tight against his chest. I kiss his cheek.
Christ, he’s burning up.
“We didn’t find anything,” I say. “We need to keep moving.”
He doesn’t answer at first. I say his name and he finally grunts something and tries to sit up. His breathing is fast. It sounds wet.
I help him up and grab the blanket and his pack. I reach into the pack and grab the last two antibiotics from the orange bottle we found in a house on our way here. There weren’t many left so we had to spread out the dosages. But what’s left isn’t doing anything to slow the infection.
When we changed his bandages, Jamie passed out quickly from the pain, or maybe it was blood loss. I stitched him up, and the next morning I thought everything would be fine. I pulled him on the stretcher as Cara rode her bike. We got out of Fort Caroline’s approximate search radius and camped for a few days while Jamie rested and Cara and I looked for supplies.
We found a house with a car in the driveway, so—after making sure it was empty of life—Cara and I searched it. I found a bottle of peroxide, gauze pads, and four antibiotic pills. Cara found the car keys.
The pills lasted Jamie two days, and Cara and I searched for more but found none. Finally, we loaded Jamie into the back seat and bungeed Cara’s bike in the trunk, then drove until we came upon a pile of burned-out cars blocking the southbound lanes on 95 near Vero Beach.
While we were there, I found the other bike and the cart to tow behind it, which we affectionately call Jamie’s sidecar. I wish it really was a sidecar. The idea of Jamie sitting in a sidecar with goggles and a helmet is kind of adorable.
Jamie said he was good to travel, so we left.
The infection in his side started two days ago, just outside Jupiter. We checked the hospital, which had been burned down, everything inside it destroyed. We stopped at every pharmacy and house for antibiotics but only found the bottle in my hands. There were nine pills when we started south from Jupiter.
Now there are two.
I hold them out to Jamie, but he shakes his head. “We should save them.”
“We can’t use them if you’re dead. Take them. We’ll find more.”
But we won’t. I know we won’t and it’s killing me. Just like this infection is killing him.
Reluctantly, he takes the pills from my hand and downs them with water. Cara is ready for us when we go outside. I help Jamie climb into the cart and he cuddles up with our supplies. He slowly pulls his legs to his poisoned chest with a wince.
I look back at him after we’ve been pedaling for a while and his jaw is hanging open, drool spilling onto the pack under his head. My heart still skips a beat.
He can’t die.
