by Anna Abner
It was a boy’s room. Cobalt accents. Toy cars scattered on the floor. T-ball trophies on a shelf. Picture books in a pile. Not that different from my brother Mason’s room. He’d been fourteen, though, not as young as this boy must’ve been, when he’d signed at me how he wanted to kill Mom.
My chest caved in suddenly and I couldn’t bear the sight of the blue walls anymore. I stumbled out and banged into the hall bathroom. Better. I opened my duffel and packed it with bandages, nasal spray, and antibiotic cream.
“I told you,” Carr complained, finding me on the cold tile floor, “ammunition first.”
“I can’t find any.”
He sighed, tapping a quick, staccato tempo against the wall with his fingers. Ticky-ticky-tap-tap. Ticky-ticky-tap-tap. “It’s fine. I didn’t find any bullets either.” He glanced down the hall. “I’ll look for water in the kitchen. You go start on the garage, and then we’ll mark the door and move on to the next house.”
I finished up in the hall bathroom and went through the linen closet just to appear busy. I didn’t enjoy scavenging.
“This cure,” Carr said, ushering me out the front door, “is it some kind of magic spell?” He snickered.
The rear door to the garage was open and we stepped into a hot, moist cubicle crowded with plastic tubs, bicycles, and toilet paper in bulk.
“It’s inside my friend Ben,” I explained. “It was originally in a vial, but he injected it.”
“Ben?” He was still dubious.
“He’s locked in Smart’s lab right now.”
“Oh. I saw him the other day. I just assumed—” He snapped his mouth closed.
His tone made my skin tingle, a light buzzing up and down my arms. “What did you assume?” I pressed.
He busied himself ripping lids off tubs of old toys and I feared he wasn’t going to answer. After clearing the garage, though, he must have had second thoughts. “I assumed he was another one of Smart’s guinea pigs.” At my confused frown, he added, “He experiments on zombies.”
My blood went cold as ice in my veins. “Wh-what kind of experiments?”
“I don’t know.” He got distracted by a box of tools. He tested the weight of a claw hammer. “Whatever weird stuff doctors like to do to infected people. Tests and stuff.”
Tests sounded better than experiments, though not much. “Have you seen inside his lab?”
“Once or twice.” Then his expression changed. “Listen, it’s my night with Juliet. I want to hurry up and get back by dinner bell. Quit dragging your feet.”
Chapter Thirteen
We didn’t make the dinner bell, but the camp was still lounging at the picnic tables when Carr and I pulled through the gate.
“You know Juliet, right?” Without waiting for an answer, he said, “Tell her I’m going to change. I’ll be ten minutes.”
Frowning, I headed for the two shade trees. Durand had already closed up the MRE and bread tubs, but I went straight there anyway.
“You’re late,” he said. “Normally, if you miss dinner bell, you miss dinner.”
“I was scavenging.” And too tired and sore from carrying things all day to be polite. I reached for the MRE tub.
“Are you nuts?” He slapped my hand. Smack. I felt more than saw heads turn in our direction. “I was going to say,” he hissed, drawing close, “that I’d let it slide this one time. You don’t have to be a rude little pig about it.”
A warm hand brushed my hip, a reassuring stroke, before Pollard grabbed Durand by the collar. “Don’t touch her,” he warned.
“What’s going on over here?” Malcolm showed up, frowning at me and then Pollard.
“I don’t care how generous you are,” Pollard said. “No one slaps Maya.” He shook Durand, who failed to wrench free.
“Let’s all cool off.” Malcolm put himself between the two men.
But Durand was flush-faced and livid. “She missed the dinner bell. The rule is, miss the bell, miss dinner.”
“I know the rule,” Malcolm said. “It’s my rule.”
“You’re going to starve her?” Pollard demanded. “In the middle of the apocalypse?”
“Enough,” Malcolm snapped.
We definitely had everyone’s attention then.
He continued, “Maya, take an MRE and eat fast. Chow’s over. The next time you’re late, you’ll get none. Understand?”
I plucked a brown pouch from the tub and as I turned Pollard slipped his hand into mine.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
“It was nothing,” I assured, sitting at our usual table beside Hunny. It wasn’t my hand that hurt. “He was just really rude.”
“That’s sort of the general personality around here,” Pollard grumbled. He hovered closer than normal, close enough that Hunny kept giving us curious looks.
“How was kitchen duty?” I asked to change the subject. Quickly, I heated a packet of spaghetti in meat sauce and snacked on crackers.
“Okay I guess.” He mixed me a bottle of powdered fruit punch and set it in front of me. “Durand isn’t a cook. He learned to make rolls from a book. They’re good, but he could be doing all kinds of other things.” His voice rose as he got more excited about the prospects in the kitchen. “Do you know they haven’t even raided the commissary for food? Since they found so many pallets of MREs they don’t even consider what else they could cook.”
I smiled at him, bumping him a little with my shoulder. “You’ll have to show them.”
“If they’ll let me.” He gazed at Malcolm presiding over the cool guy table. “They’ve got rules and regulations for everything here.”
Simone stood up from the table. “Rodriguez told me he’d show me how to shoot straight.” She threw her trash in a barrel. “By the way, he told me all about Juliet’s secret Get Out Of Jail Free card. I won’t be doing morning exercises anymore.” With a sneaky smile, she left.
“What is that about?” he asked me.
But all I could focus on was Smart as he appeared at the top of the stairs of the medical building. Carrying a sack and a plastic tub, he unlocked the fourth door and disappeared inside.
That reminded me of what Carr had said. I swallowed gooey noodles and sauce and said, “Carr told me Smart conducts experiments on Reds, but he wouldn’t tell me what kind.” I stared meaningfully at the east barracks. “You don’t think—”
“Juliet.” Carr bent over the girl and whispered something in her ear.
She ducked her head.
I got a bad feeling.
Pollard must have as well because he scowled at Carr. “What’s going on?”
As he pulled Juliet to her feet, Carr said, “It’s my night, friend.” As if that explained everything.
Juliet didn’t appear happy or willing to go anywhere with Carr. But he put an arm around her and ushered her upstairs and inside her room.
I gave Pollard a questioning look because I didn’t know what to say. Carr was the second guy I’d seen inside Juliet’s room in two days. And what did it mean that it was his night?
And then I felt like an idiot when it finally dawned on me Juliet’s position in the camp. She didn’t have to do chores or PT because she did other things for Malcolm’s men. Things that made me feel dirty inside. The night before had been Stein’s turn, tonight was Carr’s night, and tomorrow would be some other jerk’s turn.
The worst part, though, was that she obviously didn’t want the arrangement.
Nobody else at the tables seemed disturbed by Juliet and Carr’s exit. The men cleaned up their mess and slowly dispersed to the barracks.
I took a couple extra minutes to finish dinner and my bottle of fruit punch, and then Pollard, Hunny, and I went upstairs.
Pollard lay down on his bed with a pencil and his black moleskin diary to make notes about his day in the kitchen. I smiled to see him excited about cooking again. And Hunny sat on the floor with her Saddle Club Molly doll, getting really invested in changing her clothes and brushing
her hair.
I pushed open the bathroom door to wash up, and had to push a little harder than normal because it was blocked by discarded clothes.
Sighing, I picked up a pair of men’s jeans, two shirts, and a moist bath towel.
“Pollard,” I grumbled. “You left your clothes on the floor again.”
He looked up from the desk where he was perusing pages in his cooking diary. “Oh, sorry.” He bent his head, and I didn’t feel like he was very sorry about it at all.
“We’ll get bugs,” I explained, tossing the clothes onto his bunk. “At the very least, our room will smell. And it’s a small room.”
Laughter. From downstairs.
I forgot about the dirty laundry and frowned at our closed door.
Sometimes we overheard men being loud and obnoxious in their rooms after chores were completed, but this was louder and more obnoxious than normal. And then a female cackle joined the lower, male chuckles. That wasn’t Juliet.
“What in the world?” Pollard stood from the desk and went to investigate.
Scared, I followed in his wake.
“Hunny, stay here and shut the door. We’ll be right back,” I called to her over my shoulder. She was a good girl and I heard the door close as we started down the stairs.
The kitchen was the first door we passed. Closed. Then the community rec room. Closed. The next door was open, though, and candlelight spilled out onto the sidewalk. Shadows flickered and leapt across the walls.
Pollard paused in the doorway and around him I saw Simone sitting on Rodriguez’s lap as Stein and Hoyt stood to the side, a couple of laughing hyenas.
“Simone?” Anxiety radiated off Pollard like invisible sound waves.
“Oh, go away,” Simone huffed, losing her smile as she rolled her eyes at us.
He stretched out a hand for her, but half-heartedly. “I think you should come upstairs with us.” He must have known, as I did, that Simone was quite happy exactly where she was.
Simone turned mean fast, and I suspected she’d been drinking. A lot. “You don’t want me,” she screeched. “You had your chance, but you didn’t want me.”
Rodriguez’s arms tightened around her waist.
“They like me.” Simone circled her hand to include the three men inside the room. “They are fun and nice and they don’t tell me what to do all the time. I like them.”
I glanced at Pollard’s profile as his jaw clenched.
“Ugh,” she continued, “Just take your boring little girlfriend and go away. You two can go be boring together.” She threw back her head and guffawed. Hoyt and Rodriguez joined in, but Stein didn’t laugh.
Very calmly he crossed to the door and shut it in Pollard’s face.
For a moment we stood there on the sidewalk, and then Pollard shuffled back toward the stairs. “She wasn’t like that in Raleigh,” he grumbled. “She’s a different person lately.”
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know for what, exactly, but I felt awful for them both.
At our barracks door, Pollard went in and said hello to Hunny, but I couldn’t sit still. “I’m going to stand on the landing,” I said and stepped outside, leaving the door open.
I leaned over the railing, checking the view of the first floor from my elevated vantage point. Not much to see. Curtains, closed doors. Simone’s party had died down and whatever Malcolm and his other friends did downstairs in their private time was private, indeed.
The guard on the roof of our barracks shouted something garbled, and my chin snapped up.
On the other side of the fence, in the grassy field surrounding the barracks and parking lot, in front of a row of pine trees, walked a lone Red. Not much different looking than Ben had appeared the day I’d found him—or, rather he had found me—a single figure, dark against the trees, heading slowly in our direction.
I fantasized about the possibilities. The antiserum in Ben could cure her. She could come back to life the way Ben had come back. With his blood we could cure every human being suffering from the 212R virus. She could go home, maybe, or join us and help find other zombies to cure.
I edged nearer the railing to see her better.
The guard on the opposite building shouted something unintelligible at the guard on our building. Almost immediately a shot rang out, and I leapt back against the brick wall.
The female in the field shuddered and collapsed into a boneless heap. While both rooftop guards cheered, my stomach clawed its way through my belly button.
Just like that she was dead. And for what?
“We have the cure,” I screamed at no one in particular. Certainly no one listened.
In fact, at the sound of the gunshot, several of Malcolm’s favorites started a Humvee, opened the gate, and drove out there to investigate. Their body language as they stood over her was excited, jubilant even, as if they had bagged a twelve-point buck or a grizzly bear.
In horror, I watched Durand take a long knife from his belt and drive it down into the lady’s chest.
“What are you doing?” I screeched, my voice tearing up my throat. We have the cure.
One of the men waved at me as if I were howling in victory right along with them. The others ignored me completely.
And then they poured gasoline on her body and lit her on fire.
Stunned, I turned away, sick inside.
I stumbled downstairs, intent on pounding on Malcolm’s closed door to find out exactly what was going on in this place. But I didn’t need to invade his privacy. He stood outside his door, enjoying the horror show taking place beyond the fence.
“We have the cure,” I started, giving him no choice but to listen to me. “You know Ben used to be infected. You know we can help people the same way. Why would they kill her?”
He reluctantly shifted his gaze from the dead female to me. “We don’t have a cure. We have a red-eyed skin eater that talks. And we won’t know why he talks until we extract the antiserum from his veins.” He sneered. “We’re not anywhere close to curing Reds. And the safety of this compound comes before anything else.”
He walked around me as if I were an annoying roadblock and headed for the fence. “Good work, men,” he shouted. “Recon the surrounding area and report back in thirty.”
They waved and drove off in their Humvee, leaving the female zombie smoldering in the grass.
Pollard rushed to my side. “What’s going on? Is it Simone?”
His familiar, sympathetic voice unmade me, and I started to cry. “No. They killed a Red,” I said, letting him enfold me in his strong arms. “She was harmless. And they shot her.”
“We’ve had to shoot Reds before,” he reminded me gently. “They’re not teddy bears. If she had gotten through the fence she could have caused a lot of damage. She could have hurt you.”
“But we found the cure,” I pressed, arguing my point even though Pollard was on my side and Malcolm wasn’t listening anymore. “You saw Ben get cured. We don’t have to kill the non-aggressive Reds anymore. It’s just cruel. She wasn’t even threatening us.”
“Okay,” he conceded, his hand running up and down my spine and easing a bit of my frustration. “I get it.”
“It was brutal.” I sighed, leaning more of my weight into him. He easily held me up. “They stabbed her and lit her on fire.”
He twisted to see into my face. “That is extreme.”
“That’s what I’m saying. You never went after a Red for the fun of it.” Finally, someone saw it my way. I knew I couldn’t be the only person who felt that way. I glanced up at Ben’s closed door. “They killed her like they enjoyed it.”
“Come on.” He guided me toward the staircase. “You shouldn’t see this. Let’s get inside.”
But I didn’t need Pollard’s coddling. I needed to see Ben.
“Not yet,” I said, stalling at the top of the stairs. “I want to wait for Smart. I want to find out what he’s doing over there.”
A dark cloud passed briefly over Pollard’s e
xpression. “Right. You’re worried about Ben.”
I didn’t understand his pain. I’d always been worried about Ben. Besides, the man had the antiserum in his bloodstream. Was I not supposed to worry about him?
“I am,” I agreed. “I haven’t seen him. If you were locked in a room, I’d be worried about you, too.”
“Would you?” he asked harshly.
I opened my mouth to argue, but he shook his head.
“Forget it.”
The door to Ben’s room opened and Smart emerged, alone and empty-handed. Leaving Pollard scowling by the kitchen, I rushed across the parking lot to finally get some answers.
Chapter Fourteen
I sucked at confrontation. Always had. I didn’t know what to say to Smart, or Pollard for that matter. But I expected the same military, high-handed rules-and-regulation response from the physician’s assistant I’d already gotten from everyone else at camp.
I hadn’t seen the guy much since he’d carried Ben away. He didn’t take meals with us. He didn’t pal around with Malcolm in the common areas. It was my best chance to talk face to face.
I caught Smart as he stepped off the stairwell. He was pale and had a bruise under his right eye.
“Mr. Smart,” I called, skidding to a stop inches from him. “Hi. Remember me?”
He started, and then smiled. He had a kind face. I felt like I could trust him. I wanted to trust him.
“Of course. And you can just call me Smart.” He chuckled. “How are you adjusting to camp life?”
“It’s fine,” I admitted. Not great. Not awful. Just fine. “Did you get punched?” I pointed at his face.
“No.” He probed the bruise with his fingertips. “A stupid accident.”
“How is Ben?”
He looked confused for a second. “Oh. The boy. Yes.” He smiled, but nervously, like I’d caught him doing something naughty. “He’s stable.”
“Have you taken a blood sample?” I questioned.
“Uh, yes.” He walked away from the building, toward the other barracks, and I followed him.