by Blake Crouch
“We had to put five of our own down a few weeks ago. They killed three people before we stopped them. Is it a virus? Do you know what’s causing it?”
“No,” she said. “It all imploded so fast.”
They crossed over a road—just the faintest depression of tire tracks in the leaves.
“You have vehicles?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She caught movement up ahead—one of the guards cruising the perimeter.
“Two of our women are pregnant. We don’t have a doctor.”
“I’d be happy to see them.”
They veered back out of the woods into the clearing, moved past a group of children standing in the grass, each with their own easel.
“We’re really proud of our school here,” he said. “Naomi and Cole are welcome to attend, of course.”
In the afternoon, Dee examined two women with child and checked in on a fifteen-year-old boy with a low-grade fever and rackety cough, just relieved to engage her mind in her old life, if only for a short while.
“I don’t like this place,” Naomi said. “These people creep me out.”
Dee lay in bed in their cabin under the covers with Cole and Naomi, the boy already asleep.
“Would you agree it’s an improvement on starving to death?”
“I guess.”
Cold air slipped in through the windowframe, just a hint of color in the sky and the tops of the spruce trees profiled against it.
“We staying?” Naomi asked.
“For a few days at least. Get our strength up.”
“Is this like, a militia?”
“I think it might be.”
“So they probably believe all kinds of crazy shit about the government and black people?”
“I don’t know, haven’t asked them, don’t plan to.”
“I’d rather just go to Canada.”
“Could we take it a day at a time for now? At least while they’re still feeding us?”
The knock came in the middle of the night.
Dee stirred from sleep and sat upright and looked around. Not a single source of manmade light, and because she’d extinguished the candle before settling into bed, the room was absolutely dark. She couldn’t recall the layout of her surroundings or even where she was until Mathias Canner’s voice passed through the door.
“Dee. Get up.”
She climbed over Cole, her bare feet touching the freezing floorboards.
Moved through pure darkness toward Canner’s voice.
No locks on the inside of the door, which she pulled open by the wooden handle.
“Sorry to wake you,” Mathias said through the inch of open space between the doorframe and the door. “But you’re a doctor.” He grinned, and in the starlight, she noticed a dark smear across the left side of his face. “Sometimes you get paged in the wee hours, right?”
“Not often. I have a general practice.”
“Well, terribly sorry to inconvenience you, but we require the services of an MD.”
“What happened?”
“Just get dressed. I’ll be waiting right here.”
She followed him through the field, the stars blazing over them in the moonless dark. Arrived at the edge of the woods at a small concrete building half-buried in the ground, which at first blush, reminded Dee of a storm cellar.
Mathias led her down a set of stairs to a steel door.
She hesitated on the last step. “What are we doing?”
“You’ll see.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Do you think the food and the water and the shelter we’re providing to you and your children have no cost?” He pushed open the door and a waft of blood and shit and scorched tissue washed over Dee and conjured the memory of her ER rotation. She looked away from it and braced herself and looked again.
The man, or what was left of him, lay toppled over on the stone floor, naked and manacled to one of the metal folding chairs from the mess hall. He was unconscious in a puddle of blood that appeared as black as motor oil in the candlelight.
Liz sat in another folding chair looking sweaty and happy. She held an iron rod across her lap, one half-inch wide and wrapped at one end with a bulge of duct tape, the finger-grip indentations clearly visible. A blanket had been spread out on the floor beside Liz and upon it lay knives, a drill, a bucket filled with ice water, and a small blowtorch.
“Why are you doing this to him?” Dee asked and the disgust must have bled through her voice because Liz answered,
“This is the man who was on the verge of burning you and your children before we showed up.”
“I know who he is.”
“We’re collecting information,” Mathias said and closed the door. “Unfortunately, he lost consciousness after Liz hit him a few minutes ago.”
Dee stared at Liz. “Where’d you hit him?”
“Right arm.”
“Would you examine him please, Doctor?” Mathias asked.
Dee approached the man named Max, squatting down at the edge of the pool of his blood which was still creeping, millimeter by millimeter, across the stone. She touched two fingers to his wrist, felt the weak shudder of his radial artery. Inspected the mottled bruise that was expanding imperceptibly over the broken bone beneath his right bicep like a cancerous rainbow—red, yellow, blue, then ringed with black. His abdomen was hot and swollen around a bullethole in his side which she guessed had nicked his liver.
“She didn’t kill him, did she?” Mathias said.
“Not quite, but she did break the humerus of his right arm. He probably lost consciousness from the pain.” She noticed Max’s legs, fighting back the rise of bile in her throat as she said, “If you burn him anymore he’s going to lose so much fluid he’ll go into shock and die. I mean, he’s going to die of sepsis in the next day or so anyway, no doubt, but keep burning him, and you’ll lose him tonight.”
“Good to know.”
“Was there anything else you needed from me?” Dee asked, staring at this man who would’ve murdered her children and yet still cringing for him.
“Max did happen to mention that Cole is affected.”
Dee looked back over her shoulder. “Is that a joke?”
“Max told us that when you pulled up to the checkpoint and got out, he saw a light around Cole’s head.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“You think?”
“You were torturing him. He’d say anything to—”
“That’s possible. In fact, I hope it’s the case. But just to be sure, Mike’s talking with Cole right now.”
Dee jumped up and started toward the door. As she reached for the handle, something struck her from behind and shoved her up against the cold wall of concrete.
Liz spoke into her ear, “Just settle down, Dee.”
“I’ll fucking kill you if you touch—”
“They’re only talking,” Mathias said.
“You don’t talk to my son without me.” She was trembling with rage.
“Fair enough. Let’s join them.”
She walked between Liz and Mathias, the woman clutching Dee’s left arm in a solid grip that Dee imagined could be crushing if Liz wanted it to be. There was candlelight glowing in the windows of her cabin now, and if she could have broken free she would have run toward it, her heart bumping harder and harder as they approached.
They followed Mathias up the three steps to the door.
He pushed it open, said, “How we doing?”
Dee jerked her arm out of Liz’s grasp and pushed past Mathias into the cabin.
Cole sat on the bed and Mike straddled a chair which he’d spun around in front of the door. Naomi was up, too, sitting against the window, and Dee could see in her daughter’s face a measure of real fear.
She climbed onto the bed, pulled her son into her arms.
“You okay, buddy?”
“Yes.”
“Naomi?”
“I’m fine, Mom.
”
“Everybody’s fine, Mom,” Mike said, and something in his tone—a note of rehearsed steadiness and authority—and his cleanshaven face and buzzed blond hair reminded her of everything she hated about lawmen.
“You don’t speak to my son without me.”
Mike seemed to disregard this jurisdictional instruction, glancing instead at Mathias.
“Ask the boy about the lights.”
Mathias looked at Cole. “Go ahead, tell me about—”
“Don’t answer him, Cole. You don’t have to say a word to that man.”
“That’s not exactly true, Dee,” Mathias said. “Do you think I’m incapable of arranging a private conversation with your son? You can answer me, Cole. Cole, no, Jesus. . .it’s okay, don’t get upset. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Cole had turned into Dee’s chest, and she could feel his little body shaking, Cole trying not to cry in front of these strange people.
Mike said, “From what the boy told me, there was some feature in the sky several weeks ago.”
“So he’s confirmed what Max said.”
“Yeah, and apparently the people who witnessed this event became affected shortly thereafter.”
“Did you see the lights, Cole?”
Cole wouldn’t look at him.
“Did the boy see it?”
“Says he did, but that his parents and sister didn’t.”
“There’s nothing wrong with him,” Dee said. “He’s no threat to anyone.”
Mathias stared at Dee. “We stay intentionally out of the loop here. We don’t monitor the news or even the weather. Tell me exactly what this event was.”
Dee kissed the top of Cole’s head and rubbed his back while she spoke. “A massive aurora visible to all of the lower forty-eight, northern Mexico—”
“And you didn’t see it?”
“It wasn’t like the news was going too crazy over it. No more coverage than a large meteor shower. We had wanted to stay up for it, but it happened so late, Jack and I just didn’t manage to drag ourselves out of bed.”
“But your son saw it.”
Her eyes filled up with tears. “Cole slept at a friend’s house and they set their alarm and woke up at three in the morning and watched it.”
Mathias smiled. “You lied to me.”
“I was afraid you’d—”
“You’ve brought someone who’s affected into our community.”
“My son is not affected.”
“So you say. But Cole has admitted to seeing the lights. Max saw the light around his head yesterday night. How exactly is he not affected?”
“I’m his mother. I know my son. He hasn’t changed at all. He isn’t hostile.”
“You’ll understand, me being responsible for the safety of the sixty-seven souls who live in this field, if I don’t just take your word on that.”
“Then we’ll leave,” she said.
“I wish it were that easy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know the location of our compound. You’ve had a tour of our security measures. Do you honestly believe I would allow you to go back out into that war zone with this information?”
“You can’t stop us from leaving if we want to.”
“Dee.” Mathias moved forward, eased down onto the bed. Ran his hand along her shinbone until his fingers closed gently around her ankle. “I wrote the constitution we abide by. I invented our civil and criminal codes of law. I am God here.”
He released her leg and glanced over his shoulder at Mike.
Back to Dee.
“I think at this point, it would benefit all concerned for you and I to step outside and have a private conversation.”
“You go to hell.”
He lowered his voice. “Think about your children, Dee.” Whispering now: “If you get upset, it’s only going to make them more afraid.”
Mike’s radio squeaked.
“Mike, come back.”
Mike unclipped the radio from his belt and lifted the receiver to his mouth.
“Can this wait, Bruce? Little tied up at the moment.”
“The sensors are returning multiple echoes.”
“Look, I don’t mean to be critical, since I know this is a new assignment for you, but sometimes a herd of elk or deer will pass through.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“How do you know?”
“We’ve had a current interruption in the razorwire.”
“You’re telling me someone’s cut through?”
“I think so, because now. . .” His voice trailed off.
Mike said, “Bruce, repeat. You broke up.”
“I’m wearing night vision goggles and staring south toward the woods. . .definitely picking up a lot of movement in the trees.”
“How many?”
“Can’t tell.”
“Soldiers?”
“I don’t know. They’re crawling along the ground.”
Mathias stood and grabbed the radio from Mike. “Bruce, we’re coming. Put the word out on channel eight and get people into position right now. Just like we’ve drilled. If you get a shot, start taking them out.”
“Copy that.”
Mathias handed the radio back to Mike and started for the door. “Liz, stand guard outside. If they try to leave, shoot them.”
Dee brought the lit candle over from the dresser and down with her and Cole onto the floor.
“Come on Naomi, I don’t want you near the window.”
Her daughter climbed off the bed, said, “We’re going to be killed if we stay in here.”
Dee crawled over to Naomi’s bed and lifted the mattress.
“Still there?” Naomi whispered.
“Yeah.”
Dee took the gun and eased the mattress back down. She ejected the magazine—still fully loaded—then coughed to cover the metallic clatter as she popped the magazine home and jacked a round.
“Both of you, get dressed quickly,” she whispered. “Put on every piece of clothing they gave you.” Dee went to the closet and tugged the three black parkas off the hangers, handed Naomi and Cole theirs, slid into hers.
Then she knelt between them, Cole struggling with the laces of the hiking boots they’d given him which were a size too big.
“Take Cole over there and crouch down with him behind the mattress until I come back for you.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Two minutes tops.”
Dee approached the door, tried to steady the Glock in her hand.
Glanced back at her children hiding behind the bed, could see only a bit of Naomi’s hair.
She spoke through the door, “Liz? You out there?”
No answer.
Dee slid the Glock into the front pocket of her parka and pulled the door open.
Whispered, “Liz?”
The woman squatted ten feet away, watching the far woods with her back to the door. Dee would have shot her then but she had no faith in her aim.
“Liz?”
The woman looked back. “He told you to stay inside.”
“I need to talk to you.”
Liz stood and started back toward the cabin. A machinepistol dangled from a strap around her neck. Her right hand held it trained on Dee. She drew in deep lungfuls of air though it wasn’t sufficient oxygen to fuel the raging pump of her heart.
Liz stopped at the foot of the steps, two feet below her. “What?”
Dee breathless, lightheaded.
“Isn’t there a safer place you can put us?”
“Mathias wants you here, so you stay here. Now go back inside or I’ll fuck you up a little.”
Dee wasn’t sure if Liz would even notice in the starlight, but she suddenly diverted her eyes toward the woods, let her brow scrunch into a subtle furrow. In the time it took Liz to glance back at whatever she thought Dee had seen, Dee drew the Glock from the parka pocket, had it waiting when Liz looked back, aimed down at her f
ace.