Transformation Read Free

are OK. What have you been doing all this time?” he asked.
    “Well, I decided to come here to check on you. Tom and Karen insisted on coming too. We had to go through Watsonville to check on Tom’s brother.”
    The fact that there was no brother present said everything to Cooper.
    “What have you been up to?”
    Cooper looked up at his sister. He’d tell her everything later. “Nothing really.” He said absentmindedly as he took a moment to scan the surroundings. He was surprised how unaware of their surroundings the others were. How’d they survive this long? He wondered.
    Trevor started to moan.
    Hector’s eyes widened and he almost tripped as he jumped backwards. “Shoot him!”
    “Wait.” Cooper pulled both guns up and out and pointed them at Trevor’s head.
    “Two guns? Really?” Ellen said.
    His sister could roll her eyes and make him feel stupid about winning a Nobel Prize—in the past that is. Now he found it easy to ignore her. She was just scared and tired like everyone else and was falling back on old habits.
    Trevor moaned and rocked from side to side. He lightly put his foot on Trevor’s arm and held him still.
    Trevor stopped moaning and looked up at Cooper and croaked weakly.
    “Cooper?”
    “Trevor, are you OK?”
    “I’m dying of thirst.” He closed his eyes.
    Cooper looked at Ellen with a who’s-stupid-now expression.
    “Well I didn’t know! Look at his eyes. He was fighting like . . . “
    “Like he wanted to eat and breathe?” Cooper said.
    “OK.” Karen walked over to Trevor. “We need to get him somewhere safe so he can recuperate. C’mon Tom get over here and help.”
    Ellen noticed that the previously cowed Karen was now the one barking orders. Tom obeyed and helped the others lift Trevor. Despite noticeable weight loss, Trevor was still a big guy. It took all of them to lift him into the SUV. Ellen also watched as Tom stepped aside and let Hector take his spot so he could jump into the passenger seat. She was left with Karen, Cooper, and Hector to push Trevor into the vehicle. She looked over at Hector who was looking at her and shaking his head with a look of disdain on his face.
    They sat Trevor behind the passenger seat and Cooper took the wheel. Ellen slid into the center of the back seat. Karen was next and finally Hector sat next to the window. He could barely get the door closed. He had to sit sideways. Four adults were crammed in the backseat while Tom, looking out the window, was sprawled in the front passenger seat.
    “Wait!” It was Hector. He jumped from the SUV and picked up the weapons dropped by the three men. “Only the rifle has ammo in it. The two shotguns look like they don’t even work.”
    “That explains why those two ran.” Cooper got out of the SUV. “ I guess we should check on this guy.”
    But Cooper could see the man had already pissed himself. He knelt by him to check for a pulse and gagged. Even in the stiff wind he could smell the man shit himself. He had no pulse. His eyes were half closed. Cooper was sure he was dead.
    “OK, let’s go.”
    “Where to now?” Cooper asked but was already heading down the highway. “I’m going to see what’s available down here. Maybe the grocery’s still ok.”
    A little farther down the highway they saw a dozen or so corpses all hunched over an object on the road. Hector rolled up his window. Tom was oblivious and had his arm half out of the vehicle. Hector debated not telling him anything, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He tapped the back of the passenger seat.
    “You might want to roll up your window.”
    As they drove past they could see that the object was in fact two objects, two bodies. The men that had fled were torn to pieces.
    Everyone looked away and no one said a word.
    Cooper took the SUV down the ramp and into Seaside, a small town just north of Monterey. It was its own town, or city, like many on the peninsula, but they were basically all one with no clear borders