“Adrian?” she said.
He pulled the door shut. Lucy stepped out directly in front of the car and slammed her palms on the hood.
“Look at me! Tell me what the hell your problem is!” she demanded.
He flung the door open and leaped out of the car, advancing toward Lucy with a boiling anger.
“My problem?” he said, bearing down on her.
“Yes, Adrian, tell me your problem!” yelled Lucy, squaring up to him.
He grabbed her jacket and slammed her backwards against the hood.
“You made it and he didn’t!” he yelled, his face inches from hers. Spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted. Every muscle in his face contorted into an expression of the greatest pain and anger a human can feel. “You made it… you,” he repeated, breaking down in tears and slackening his grip on Lucy.
Lucy edged out from beneath him without resistance. Adrian rolled onto his back and slid to the ground. Lucy took a moment to compose herself, then took a seat on the road beside him, where he sat clutching his knees to his chest. Lucy shuffled closer and gently drew his head onto her shoulder. She held him, silently, and allowed his shuddering, sobbing body to shake her torso while she stared at the asphalt.
After a minute, Adrian’s tears subsided and he brushed Lucy off, stumbling onto the sidewalk to compose himself privately. Lucy listened to the wind as it whistled through nearby branches, caressing the buds clinging to each offshoot. She couldn’t lift her eyes from the road. Dan would never have dreamed of raising a hand to her. Her eyes filled with tears as she imagined him witnessing what had just happened; the pain and disbelief he would have felt.
“I’m so sorry,” said Adrian, slumping down beside Lucy once more. “So sorry,” he repeated. “I’ve lost both my children, and I’m trying to keep a city alive with guesswork. How can I possibly protect a hundred thousand people when I failed the ones I loved the most?” he said, his voice cracking.
“That makes two of us,” said Lucy, her gaze tracing aimless loops between the cracks in the tar.
The radio in Adrian’s car crackled.
“Incident reported at Dupont Circle Chemical Plant. Requesting urgent attendance, over,” hissed the operator.
“I won’t fail you again, Lucy. There are so few people I can trust in this city, please forgive me,” said Adrian, earnestly.
She embraced him tightly, as the radio reiterated its urgent call.
“You sure you want to do this again?” said Adrian.
“Someone’s got to have your back. I owe Dan that much. Let’s go,” said Lucy, rising up and extending him a hand.
***
Lucy’s head swam with exhaustion as she walked home from the bus stop after work that evening. With an hour of twilight before curfew, the street lights were on, guiding her way back to the residence. Each attack scene they’d visited was unique. In the first, a beast had tailgated a Jeep inside the city’s west gate. It was killed in the security courtyard – but not before it had wiped out two of the passengers.
The second investigation was more disquieting altogether. At first appearance, it bore the hallmarks of another ‘wildcat’ attack like the one that morning; the victim’s neck was flayed, there were scuff marks on the ceiling, and there was fur caught on the door latch. But, as Lucy had spotted, there were no signs of degradation on the body; yet the rigor mortis and the temperature of corpse suggested the process should have been well underway. Together, she and Adrian came to the grim realization that what they were looking at was straight up murder.
Adrian said it wasn’t their place to investigate homicides, and that he was referring the case to the military police, but three things troubled Lucy. Firstly, the sophistication of the attempt to frame the murder as a beast attack. Secondly, the ordinary status of the victim; this wasn’t an assassination of a high-level figure, this was a community-level grudge that had escalated lethally. Thirdly, and most significantly, she was struck by how quickly her sense of horror at each scene had given away to fascination. She was good at spotting the clues, and – dare she admit it – she enjoyed piecing the evidence together, and trying to identify a low-tech solution that could be rolled out to prevent future attacks.
Although Adrian was unaware, Lucy knew she was entering each attack scene with a degree of immunity. So long as she kept her wits about her, she had the upper hand. She was the one pursuing the creatures. She had the power.
With Adrian opening up to her, it also felt like she was renting time back with Dan; getting glimpses of his personality, and his love, for precious moments each hour. For the first time since the train crash, she felt something approaching contentment.
“Hey, stop!” cried a voice, dragging her out of her thoughts abruptly.
A patrol truck swerved towards her and screeched to a halt. She shielded her eyes from the headlights, where a uniformed soldier leaped out and dashed towards her.
“I didn’t hear the curfew, sorry!” called Lucy, raising her arms in surrender.
“I thought I’d never see you again!” cried the voice, which now sounded familiar, as a pair of arms wrapped around her in a fierce embrace.
Lucy broke away and took in the figure properly.
“You made it out of Boston,” she stammered with amazement, staring at Lopez.
“I could say the same to you,” said the Major, grinning.
She blinked at him several times then laughed with delight and grabbed him in a reciprocal hug.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, excitedly.
“You look cured – have the lesions gone?” said Lucy, lowering her voice.
“We can’t discuss that here,” said Lopez glancing around.
An incoherent call crackled from his radio.
“I need to go – I’m on duty. Where’s your block’s social tomorrow?” said Lopez.
“What?” said Lucy.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday – is this your first week here? This is insane. OK, I’ll look up your residence and find out where your block’s going – I can meet you there, we’ll catch up. I really have to go – but it’s so good to see you. I’m glad you’re not – you know,” he said.
“Stoned to death?” snorted Lucy.
“Yeah. That.”
He grinned at her then hurried back to his truck, speeding away to make up the lost time.
***
“Share it,” said Fliss, as they walked to the social the next morning.
“Share what?” said Lucy.
“That thing on your mind – the one that keeps making you frown and stare into the distance,” said Fliss, nudging her.
“What are you now, my counsellor?” said Lucy, scowling.
“Something like that,” shrugged Fliss.
“Hey, what’s with those white armband people?” said Lucy, as they approached a crowd of supporters.
“They’re the city’s opposition party – well, not officially, not yet, anyway. I went to one of their neighborhood meetings last night. They wanted to give me a white armband but I said no. Figured that’s more of a third meeting kinda move. They were impressive, though. Stuff they said made sense. They reckon they’ve already got a fifth of the city backing them,” said Fliss.
They slowed their walk and joined the crowd for a moment. The listeners were gathered in a horseshoe around a charismatic speaker, who stood several feet above the crowd, using a bench as a podium.
Her skin was darker than Lucy’s but lighter than Dan’s had been; it was a light brown somewhere in the middle. Her long black hair was thick and wavy. Lucy wondered how she’d managed to avoid having to shear it off.
The speaker wore a white armband too. She spoke with the syntactical rhythms of a highly educated renegade, carefully sculpting the contour of each sentence to build on the last, conducting the enraptured crowd with such skill that they could have been her orchestra. Her hands extended regularly to emphasize key points with precision, before returning to her central po
wer stance.
A soldier made his way to the front of the crowd and stood before the bench. Lucy couldn’t hear what he said, but the master orator was all too happy to shed light on the interloper’s intentions, and put his case before the assembled jury.
“I would gladly step down, sir, but before I do so, could you kindly inform us of what law I am breaking? Sir? I would venture that I am not disturbing the peace, but rather that I am stepping up to defend it. Peace is a fragile commodity in these times, and one we must each be prepared to defend with words, civility, and courage. So you see, sir, I cannot step down. For I have a duty to these good people; to ensure their rights are upheld by the present government,” proclaimed the woman, proudly.
The soldier tried to coax her down, extending an arm upwards, but the wily speaker seized upon this intervention as further ammunition.
“It is my constitutional right to stand on this street and proclaim the truth. It is this crowd’s constitutional right to hear it. Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of our democracy, from the foundations of this bench, to the stones of the Lincoln Memorial, and the soles of your very boots. I will defend these rights peacefully with every breath in my body for the sake of each human being inside these walls, including you and your colleagues, sir,” declared the woman, to cries of approval from the motley jury.
The soldier gave up and slunk out of the crowd to rejoin his colleague across the street, who was monitoring the group with suspicion. Some of the crowd booed the soldier as he departed, but the woman quickly doused such reactions.
“Our uniformed compatriots are only doing their best. But how can they be expected to get it right every time, when no-one really knows who’s leading them? Is it the Attorney General? Is it the Joint Chiefs? It’s certainly not the democratically elected President of the United States, because we don’t have one. It’s been eight months and we still don’t know who’s leading this country. The line of succession has become a wall of obfuscation. We deserve transparency. Accountability. Truth. It’s ours by right.”
The crowd cheered in approval, with pockets of clapping and whooping.
“I ask you to sign our petition today. We are the People’s Voice and we are lobbying the government to publish the truth about the current power structure, the truth about ration inequality, and the truth about the South. If you’re unsure, just ask yourself, what are they not telling us?”
The woman hopped down from the bench and began shaking hands emphatically, while two assistants circulated through the crowd with clipboards, gathering names and signatures. Half the crowd seemed keen to commit their names to paper, the other half dispersed in twos and threes, discussing what they’d heard with a mixture of curiosity and cynicism.
“That’s Raya,” said Fliss, her eyes wide with admiration, as she and Lucy continued on their way to the social.
“You know her?” said Lucy, clocking several members of their residence who were stopping to sign the petition, and talk to the enigmatic woman.
“They told us about her in the meeting. They’re hoping she’ll speak at our group soon, but obviously she’s in high demand all across town,” said Fliss.
“I don’t see that many people signing,” said Lucy, noting the number of passers-by – the majority of whom were giving the white armband-wearers a wide berth.
“It’s early days. Raya only set up the People’s Voice a few weeks ago. Hey, are we in a hurry?” said Fliss.
“Sorry, kinda, yeah – I don’t wanna be late for the social,” said Lucy, as Jack passed by with some guys from the canteen.
“But it’s all-day?” said Fliss, quick-stepping to match Lucy’s brisk march.
“I’m meeting someone there,” said Lucy.
“Is it that senator-detective guy? Just being honest here, he seems a little old for you,” said Fliss.
“Ew, no. It’s someone else. Someone from-” Lucy trailed off as she paused to consider how little time she’d actually known Lopez for. A few weeks, at best? Given what they’d been through, it felt like so much longer. He’d been such an asshole for so much it. Then again, so had she.
***
“Sorry I’m late,” said Lopez, giving Lucy a pat on the shoulder as he arrived. She half-stood to give him a hug, but he was already on his way to the other side of the table.
“Jack, let’s go check out the soccer,” said Fliss, nudging her brother away from his spot next to Lucy. He lifted his sling off the table gingerly as he stood.
Fliss pulled an ‘oh my god’ face behind Lopez as she left the table, giving Lucy a wink. Lucy shook her head. If the girl knew just the half of it, she wouldn’t be thinking along those lines.
“I got held up on a call-out. Neighbors arguing over rations – the usual. How are you? You’re alive, which is amazing,” said Lopez.
“I could say the same to you – last I saw you were going on a kamikaze mission against the Faithful,” said Lucy, sipping her free, state-provided lemonade.
“I beat them. There were only two left, after the others split between you and the doc. Is she here too?” said Lopez, swiveling around to take in the rest of the casino.
The venue was rammed with giddy workers, all gambling with chips that carried no monetary value, seizing the opportunity to stoke their entire sense of universal justice on the flick of the dealer’s next card. In all corners of the room workers laughed, danced, made out, and briefly forgot the impending extinction of their species.
Lopez returned his attention to Lucy. From her face, he realized Charlie hadn’t made it.
“Oh. I’m sorry. What happened to her?” said Lopez.
“The faithful stoned her. I saw it,” said Lucy.
“Sons of bitches. But they didn’t catch you?” said Lopez.
Lucy laughed, bitterly, remember the short-lived hope she’d felt in her mom’s house when Shona had found her, and cursing her own naivety.
“I joined them,” said Lucy, taking a sip.
“What?” said Lopez, his face falling.
“It was the only way to survive,” said Lucy.
“You didn’t-” began Lopez.
“I didn’t stone anyone, I hid among them until they discovered I was infected. In the end I had to-”
Lucy close her eyes. She felt Lopez place a hand on hers.
“It’s OK. I get it. You did what you had to do. You’re here now and that’s what matters,” he said, with an understanding look.
Lucy forced a smile as she drew her hand back sharply.
“How about you?” said Lucy.
“Luck choose to keep me alive. That and two decades of advanced combat training. Turns out those Faithful guys are really good with rocks, but not so great with guns,” said Lopez.
“I’m not talking about them. I mean you – mentally. I thought you’d had it,” said Lucy.
“I found a reason to live,” shrugged Lopez.
“Which is…?” said Lucy.
“Same one I always had. I just started believing in it again,” said Lopez.
“And here you are,” said Lucy, frowning.
Lopez gave a sage tilt of his head, and opened his palms in acknowledgement.
“Ugh, you always loved the military,” said Lucy, bitterly.
“Oh fuck off, not this again,” said Lopez, slamming his glass down on the table and drawing the eyes of some nearby gamblers.
“I’m yanking your chain. God, that was too easy,” said Lucy, with a flicker of a smile. “I’m glad you’re alive, and I’m glad it’s as part of a functioning U.S. Army. Is that better?”
“You should join. We’re short on recruits,” said Lopez.
“You must be desperate. What was it you called me – a damned liability?” said Lucy, leaning back in her chair.
“If I did, then it was the understatement of the century,” chuckled Lopez. He paused and looked at Lucy seriously for a moment. “I was wrong about you, Young. A lot of the things I said would also fall into that category. What
you did for me in New York showed an integrity I should’ve acknowledged a lot sooner. You would make any regiment proud,” said Lopez, sincerely.
“Is that your attempt at an apology?” said Lucy, raising an eyebrow.
“Was it bad?” said Lopez.
“Horrible. A damned rookie could’ve done better,” chuckled Lucy.
Her laughter grew, and grew, until she was wiping tears from her eyes – Lopez too – as she considered the magnitude of the traumas they’d faced, and the meltdowns they’d had at each turn.
“That was the least adequate apology in history, for the level of shit you served up from day one!” declared Lucy, thumping the table with laughter.
She sighed as the laughter petered out to a contented titter, and she took another sip. “Whatever. I’ll take it. Apology accepted,” she said, sighing.
“Your turn, rookie,” said Lopez, tilting his head forwards.
“Fine. I’m sorry I was an out-of-control, livewire douche bag. Happy?” said Lucy.
“Maybe. Too soon to tell, really. I reckon you’re still a livewire,” snorted Lopez.
“I’m a highly respectable member of society, I’ll have you know. Before the apocalypse I used to volunteer at a homeless shelter, avoid plastic packaging, and offset all my flights,” said Lucy.
“So you used to be an in-control douche bag?” said Lopez.
“Volunteering does not make someone a douche!” protested Lucy.
“No – but lying about it to sound good does,” chuckled Lopez.
“God dammit. Fine. But the other two are true,” laughed Lucy.
“Really? When are they building your statue?” said Lopez.
“Pretty soon, I heard. They just gotta rebuild civilization first, then they’re getting right on it,” said Lucy.
“So… Tuesday?” said Lopez.
“Yeah, totally,” laughed Lucy.
The pair settled down and drank together in silence. Roars of joy and agony sprung up from a neighboring table as a spinning roulette wheel delivered its verdict.
“I’m sorry I put you in danger,” said Lucy, twiddling her bottle and glancing up.
“You made up for it,” said Lopez.
“Still, though. I had a lot of anger. I blamed you for all of it. That was wrong,” said Lucy.
Convulsive Box Set Page 55