Calming The Wild - The Wild Duology Book 2

The jungle had stopped choosing for them, but Shara had not yet learned what it meant to walk through it without expecting the path to change. She noticed the difference in small ways at first. A fallen branch remained exactly where it had landed even after Marcus stepped around it, a narrow opening between two enormous ferns did not close behind Randy when he passed through, and vines hung where vines ought to hang while roots twisted through the damp earth without rearranging themselves beneath anyone’s feet. After everything they had endured, the sheer ordinariness of the jungle felt almost suspicious, as though the forest were pretending innocence after everything it had done.

Shara walked near the center of the group with Randy beside her, close enough that their arms occasionally brushed as they navigated the uneven ground. Marcus had taken the lead again, although nobody had officially asked him to, while Darius followed several paces behind carrying more of the supplies than anyone had managed to convince him was reasonable. Lena moved between them, periodically slowing whenever something caught her attention before hurrying to close the distance again. They had fallen into a formation without discussing it, and Shara supposed that was what happened when five people had spent enough time expecting the world to kill them. Eventually survival stopped requiring conversation because their bodies knew what to do before their minds had time to consider it.

The presence inside Shara remained quiet, although she could still feel it. That was the part she had difficulty explaining, even to herself. It wasn't a voice whispering through her thoughts or another consciousness occupying some separate corner of her mind. There were no words, no commands, and none of the pressure that had once pushed against her choices. It was simply there, noticing and learning in a way she could sense without fully understanding.

Every time Shara turned her attention toward that presence, she became aware of how much had changed. She remembered the Watcher's face becoming increasingly familiar as the system tried to understand her by becoming like her, and she remembered the terrible seduction of what it had offered. Clarity and predictability had been tempting things to someone who had survived for years by controlling every variable she possibly could. An existence without uncertainty had almost sounded like peace until Shara understood the price. She had refused to become part of something that could only create harmony by eliminating everything that made one person different from another, and now she was walking through an ordinary jungle with four other people while carrying something inside herself that she still did not entirely understand.

Randy glanced toward her as they walked. "You're doing it again."

Shara looked over at him. "Doing what?"

"Going somewhere without moving."

"I'm walking."

"You know what I mean."

She did, which irritated her slightly, mostly because he knew her well enough now to recognize when her thoughts had carried her somewhere beyond the trail beneath their feet. "I'm fine."

Randy's mouth shifted into the beginnings of a smile. "I didn't ask if you were fine."

"Then technically I volunteered information."

"Very generous of you."

Shara gave him a sideways look, and his smile widened before he returned his attention to the path. The exchange was ridiculously normal, and Shara found herself holding onto that realization for several seconds afterward. Before the world collapsed, normal had been invisible. People complained about traffic, bills, schedules, and grocery-store lines while standing surrounded by more food than most civilizations throughout history could have imagined. They grumbled when the electricity disappeared for twenty minutes and planned vacations six months in advance because some unquestioned part of them believed those future months already belonged to them.

Then the infected came, and normal became a luxury nobody understood they had possessed until it disappeared. Shara wasn't sure what normal meant anymore, and perhaps that was because the old definition no longer mattered. If they lived long enough, maybe they would have to invent a new version for themselves.

Marcus stopped so abruptly that Randy nearly walked into him, and Shara's hand moved toward her weapon before Marcus even raised his fist. Behind her, Darius immediately lowered the supplies he was carrying while Lena shifted to Shara's left and Randy stepped slightly ahead of her. Nobody asked what Marcus had seen because survival had trained questions out of moments when listening mattered more.

At first Shara heard only the jungle. Water moved somewhere in the distance, insects hummed beneath the canopy, and leaves stirred in the humid breeze. Then another sound emerged beneath them, faint but unmistakable, like something heavy being dragged across the forest floor.

"Left side," Marcus murmured.

Darius drew his weapon. "How many?"

"One that I can see."

"There's never one."

"There is right now."

Shara moved forward until she could see beyond Marcus, and a figure slowly emerged from behind a curtain of broad leaves. Once, the infected had been a man. Enough remained of his clothing to suggest he might have worked outdoors before the collapse. His trousers were torn at one knee, and the faded remnants of a work shirt hung loosely from a body that seemed too thin even by the standards of the dead.

The infected noticed them and lifted its head, its mouth opening as the familiar guttural sound escaped its throat. Everyone reacted immediately. Marcus shifted his stance, Randy raised his weapon, Darius moved toward the side to flank it, and Lena stepped backward to give them room. The infected lurched forward, but after only three steps its left leg buckled and its entire body crashed onto the jungle floor.

Darius stared at it. "Well, that was disappointing."

"Don't," Marcus warned.

"I wasn't going near it."

"You were thinking about it."

"You don't know what I was thinking."

"I've known you long enough."

The infected clawed at the ground while Shara watched with a growing sense that something was wrong. It was trying to stand, and there was no mistaking the intent as its hands dug through leaves and wet soil while one knee dragged beneath it. Its body simply wasn't responding with the strength it should have possessed.

The infected had always been relentless. Damage slowed them, and destroying enough of the body stopped them, but exhaustion had never affected them in quite the same way it affected the living. This one looked exhausted in a way Shara had never associated with the creatures before.

"Something's wrong with it," Lena said.

Darius glanced at her. "Besides the obvious?"

"You know what I mean."

The infected managed to push itself partially upright before its arms trembled beneath its weight. Randy stepped forward and ended it before it could make another attempt, and silence returned to the clearing almost immediately.

"We should move," Randy said.

"Wait."

He turned toward Shara as she approached the body cautiously. "Shara."

"It's dead."

"It was dead before."

She glanced back at him. "You know what I mean."

Randy muttered something beneath his breath but followed her anyway. Marcus came with them, and Lena was already moving closer, curiosity apparently outweighing caution, while Darius remained several steps away and kept his attention on the surrounding vegetation.

"Somebody should maintain enough common sense to watch the trees," Darius said.

"Good idea," Marcus replied. "You volunteered."

"I walked directly into that one."

Shara crouched beside the body and examined it without touching. Up close, its condition was even stranger. The skin had pulled tightly across its face, its arms were severely emaciated, and its clothing hung from its frame. There were old injuries scattered across the body, but nothing appeared severe enough to explain why its legs and arms had simply stopped functioning.

Lena crouched across from her and studied the corpse. "When was the last time you saw one this thin?"

Shara thought about the infected she had encountered over the years. She had seen them in almost every stage imaginable: freshly turned, decomposed, mutilated, trapped, burned, and damaged beyond anything that should have allowed movement. Some had wandered long enough that very little remained of the people they had once been, but something about this was different.

"I don't know," Shara admitted.

Marcus leaned closer without touching the corpse. "Could've been trapped somewhere."

"Then how did it get here?" Lena asked.

"Recently escaped."

"Maybe."

Darius looked over his shoulder toward them. "Or maybe the bastard hasn't eaten."

Nobody responded immediately, and Shara turned toward him.

Darius shrugged. "What? Everything needs fuel."

"The infected don't process food normally," Lena said.

"I didn't say normally."

Marcus considered the body again. "He might have a point."

Lena's expression shifted as she returned her attention to the corpse, and Shara studied its hands. Several fingernails were missing, but there were no fresh signs that it had recently clawed its way out of confinement. Its feet were bare and damaged, while the deterioration across the rest of its body appeared generalized rather than caused by one specific injury.

Something shifted at the edge of Shara's awareness, and she froze. The sensation wasn't strong enough to resemble a warning, but the presence inside her had changed its focus. Randy noticed the change in her immediately and stepped closer.

"What is it?"

Shara didn't answer at first because she was trying to understand the sensation herself. The entity had not spoken or attempted to influence her. It had simply become intensely attentive to the thing lying at her feet, and that realization sent a cold sensation along her spine.

"Shara?"

She stood and looked at Randy. "I felt it."

Marcus straightened. "The system?"

"I don't know what we're calling it anymore."

"The thing inside your head seems fairly descriptive," Darius offered from his position near the trees.

Shara looked at him, and he lifted one shoulder.

Lena ignored him. "What did it do?"

"Nothing. That's the strange part. I just felt its attention shift toward him."

Lena's eyes immediately moved back toward the corpse. "It noticed something."

"Maybe. I don't know."

Randy looked down at the infected before returning his attention to Shara. "Can it tell you what's wrong with him?"

"No."

"Can you ask?"

"I don't think it works like that."

Randy nodded, although Shara could see the frustration beneath the movement. He didn't like the entity, and she couldn't blame him for that. He had watched it nearly take her from him, and now everyone was expected to accept that some altered version of it traveled with them. Shara wasn't asking Randy to trust it because she didn't trust it either. Trust was not what she had offered the entity. She had offered boundaries, and there was a difference.

Marcus looked toward the trail. "We aren't learning anything else standing here. Whatever happened to this one, we remember it. If we see it again, then we have a pattern."

Lena rose. "I'd like to find another."

Darius stared at her. "That may be the first time in five years I've heard somebody say they'd like to find another zombie."

"Infected."

"Still not improving the sentence."

Despite herself, Shara smiled as they resumed walking.

For the next hour, the jungle remained quiet enough that Shara began noticing things she might once have interpreted as warning signs. This time, however, the quiet wasn't complete. There were birds overhead, and not merely one or two distant calls but entire conversations moving through the canopy. Somewhere above them, something small raced along a branch and sent a shower of leaves fluttering onto Darius.

He swore and brushed them from his shoulder while Lena laughed.

"Nature has gotten disrespectful," Darius complained.

"Maybe it always hated you," Lena said.

"Then nature and I finally have something in common."

Marcus shook his head but continued walking, and Shara listened to them with an odd sense of wonder. There had been a time when they would never have spoken this much while traveling. Noise attracted danger, laughter was reckless, and conversations happened quietly and only when necessary. Yet they were making jokes in the middle of the jungle now, and nobody seemed to realize they were doing it. That interested Shara almost as much as the weakened infected.

By late afternoon they found a stream. It wasn't the sanctuary, and Shara knew they were still some distance from home, although she had not yet allowed herself to think too deeply about what returning there would mean. The sanctuary had once been the one place in the world where everything made sense to her, until the outside world found it. Randy found it, other people found it, and danger eventually found it too. Somehow, impossibly, Shara had changed enough that she no longer wished she could undo all of that.

Marcus chose a campsite near the stream where the ground rose slightly above the waterline. "We stop here."

Darius dropped his pack with an audible sigh. "Best thing you've said all day."

"You said that yesterday."

"It was true yesterday too."

They established camp with the efficiency of people who had performed the same ritual hundreds of times. Marcus checked the perimeter while Randy gathered wood and Darius sorted through their remaining food. Lena inspected a battered metal cooking pot and announced that somebody had dented it again, which prompted everyone to deny responsibility with suspicious speed. Shara filled their water containers while listening to the familiar exchange behind her.

Nothing about the routine required thought anymore, and for the first time Shara found herself wondering how many things they continued doing simply because they had always done them. The routines weren't wrong, and most of them still made sense, but she wondered whether there might come a day when some of those habits were no longer necessary. She had no idea what that would look like or whether she would even recognize that day when it arrived.

Darkness settled over the jungle while they ate close together near the fire. Darius had somehow managed to turn their miserable collection of dried food into something almost respectable, and Randy made the mistake of complimenting him.

Darius immediately became suspicious. "What do you want?"

"Nothing."

"You complimented the food."

"It tastes good."

"You've eaten my cooking for weeks without developing manners."

Randy shrugged. "People change."

Darius narrowed his eyes. "Not that much."

Lena laughed, and even Marcus smiled as he continued eating.

Shara sat beside Randy with her knees drawn up and watched the firelight move across the faces around her. Something had changed among them, although she couldn't identify when it had happened. They were exhausted, dirty, armed, and still surrounded by a world that had killed almost everyone they had ever known, yet tonight they sounded less like survivors occupying the same patch of ground and more like people sharing dinner.

Perhaps there hadn't been a single moment when that change occurred. Some things arrived quietly enough that people only recognized them after they had already begun.

Later, when the fire burned low, Marcus assigned watches and nobody argued. They had kept watch every night for years, and none of them questioned whether tonight should be different. Randy took the first shift while Shara settled several feet away and used her pack beneath her head. She closed her eyes, but sleep did not come immediately because it rarely did.

Her body knew darkness too well. Every rustle carried possibility, every snapped twig demanded attention, and even within the sanctuary, protected by systems she had designed herself, some part of her had remained awake. Years of surviving could not disappear simply because one battle had ended.

When Shara opened her eyes again, Randy was sitting near the dying fire watching the trees. Marcus was already asleep, while Darius had somehow begun snoring within minutes and Lena lay curled beneath a thin blanket. Beyond them, the jungle stretched into darkness, and the presence inside Shara remained as quiet as it had been for most of the day.

She thought about the infected collapsing. She remembered its wasted body and the strange focus she had felt from the entity. Then her thoughts drifted toward the birds filling the trees, Lena laughing at Darius, and Randy complimenting dinner simply because he liked it. None of those things should have mattered, yet Shara had the strange feeling that they might matter more than she understood.

Randy glanced back and caught her watching him. "You should sleep."

"So should you."

"I'm on watch."

"I know."

He studied her for a moment before his expression softened. "We're going home."

The word tightened something unexpectedly in Shara's chest. For years, home had meant walls, water, glass, trees, systems, and a carefully maintained boundary between herself and everything that could hurt her. When Randy said it now, however, Shara realized she wasn't picturing the house first. She was picturing the people gathered around the dying fire.

She didn't know what to do with that realization yet.

"Tomorrow," she said.

Randy smiled. "Tomorrow."

Shara closed her eyes again and listened as the jungle moved around them. Water slipped over stones in the stream, leaves whispered overhead, and somewhere far away an animal called into the darkness before another answered. Her body still responded to those sounds with the instincts that had kept her alive for years, but the fear accompanying them felt slightly different tonight. It had not disappeared, and Shara doubted it would disappear for a long time, but perhaps it was a little quieter than it had been yesterday.

Eventually exhaustion carried her into sleep while the jungle continued breathing around them. Shara had no way of knowing that miles away, another infected had collapsed beside an abandoned highway without anyone there to witness it. Farther north, several more wandered through the ruins of a city on bodies too deteriorated to sustain them much longer, while in other forgotten places the same quiet failure was beginning among creatures that had dominated the world for years.

Most of those deaths would happen unseen, and no surviving human yet understood what they meant. Shara certainly could not have known that the creature they had encountered that afternoon wasn't an anomaly. It was one small piece of a change already moving across the broken world, so slowly and quietly that humanity had not yet realized the apocalypse itself might finally be running out of time.