by Max Barry
The soldier gargled. She glanced down and saw that his face was purple. Neiland was choking the life from him. She returned her attention to Harry, ignoring everything except the forty-eight muscles around his eyes. She fed him sounds. She built her way to an attention word and that was a good start but not enough. She didn’t know how much time was passing. She focused on the words.
None of this was going to save her. She knew that. It was too late for her, and had been from the moment the door to the paramedic van had bounced open and reflected the bareword. But it was not too late for Harry.
When she was done, she touched his face. “Harry,” she whispered. “Kikkhf fkattkx hfkixu zttkcu.”
He changed. She had seen people fall under compromise a hundred times but never him and a part of her died to see it, his face slack, his mind open and waiting for instruction, his soul reduced to machinery. She could say run away with me and do everything I ever tell you and love me forever and he would. She would be loved by the thing she had made him into.
“Forget all of this,” she told him. “Get away from here, forget me, forget you ever lived in Broken Hill. Become someone else. Kikkhf fkattkx hfkixu zttkcu, forget me.”
She stumbled away from the gurney. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Neiland was standing there like a statue, which surprised her. The buzz-cut soldier was on the floor, not moving.
“Neiland,” Emily said. “Thank you.”
Neiland waited.
“Take him away,” she said. “Keep him safe.”
• • •
Once Neiland had put Harry into a Jeep and Emily had watched it speed away into the dust, she returned to the classroom in which she’d awoken and searched around for a marker. Classrooms always had markers. She found a drawer full of colorful ones and took a fistful and went looking for a bathroom. There were many people running around and shouting, but they were mostly outside, drawn by Neiland’s departure. She did not see Plath and was concerned about that, because the worst thing that could happen right now was Plath finding her.
She found a girls’ restroom with a long counter and low sinks, for children. She gripped a blue marker in her fist, like a toddler, and began to scrawl on the mirror. The first word was vartix. This had left her slack-jawed in her dormitory room once, but she had been a good student and done her exercises and was not seventeen anymore, so she managed to get through it, pausing between letters to blink at the ceiling and clear her mind. She completed vartix and kept her eyes averted from it while she wrote the second word, and the third, and fourth, and then she had to gag into the sink for a while. But she had done it. She picked up the marker again, and, keeping her head down, added: DIE.
She closed her eyes. She took two steps backward. She breathed. It would only work if she lowered her defenses. I am cared for, she told herself. I am safe. She felt her muscles loosen. She swallowed. Open your eyes. Open your eyes. She began to do it and squeezed them shut again. Do it, she said. Do it, you bitch—you know if they find you they’ll make you tell them about Harry! Do it! You deserve it! Then she began to cry.
She groped toward the counter and found the marker. She kept her eyes away from the command words and located DIE and added a D. Before that, she wrote HARRY. Before she could change her mind, she walked away and then she looked back.
• • •
She was sitting on tiles. Bathroom tiles. Her mind felt bruised. She had the feeling that someone had just compromised her.
Menindee. Of course. Harry had brought her here. He had dragged her out of Broken Hill and saved her life. But then—
“Oh, no,” she said. Harry had died. They hadn’t been able to save him. She had seen him die on the gurney. A wail burst out of her and she forced it down because Plath was out there. The whole organization was probably looking for her. She closed her fist around her grief and made it anger. There would be time for grief later. The point here was that Harry had wanted her to live. She had to survive. She would flee, and hide, and live, because she was good at that. Then she would find a way to return to Yeats and make her vengeance terrible.
But first. She got to her feet and tried to think how the hell she was going to get out of here.
MEMO
8th Combat Service Support Battalion
Royal Australian Army Medical Corps
SEC: UNCLASSIFIED
ENGAGEMENT: BROKEN HILL, NEW SOUTH WALES
DEPLOYMENT + 28 HRS
Confirming as per request AWOL status of Medic First Class NEILAND, JENNIFER C. Last signed on station E04, Menindee, NSW (-32.400105, 142.411669) at 0600 13/3, no sign off, no contact for 12 hrs ongoing.
Hesitant to put this one in the system as Neiland has been a model soldier with no prior signs of dissent dissatisfaction etc. Does not appear among any of the dead and wounded but frankly feeling that is more likely than abandoned post.
Given current state of ops around Broken Hill in general and station E04 in particular recommend delaying action until we have a clearer situation report. Still highly disrupted here with orders to hold back all personnel from Broken Hill, reports of mass casualties inside town, possible toxicity, confused comm chain due to apparent complete loss of first-entry squads etc.
Appreciate concern for process but recommend stalling until improved sit rep.
WARRANT OFFICER CLASS ONE F. J. BARNES
8 CSSB, RAAMC
[IV]
I cannot live with You—
It would be Life—
And Life is over there—
Behind the Shelf
—EMILY DICKINSON
[ONE]
Wil shouldered open the emergency room doors. After the darkness, the sunlight felt like an explosion. He gasped air. He made it to the white paramedic van and leaned against it. In one hand he had the thing. It was dark inside, but he hadn’t had trouble spotting it. A piece of wood, about the size of a book, with a piece of yellowed paper speared to it. He had left the paper in there. The wood was heavier than it looked and frigid to the touch, like it wanted to leech the heat from his body. There was a symbol on it that looked like nothing he had seen before, and the more he looked at it, the more something in his gut twisted, and his eyes watered, until he looked away. But it did not change him. It was true. He was immune.
He headed back to the Valiant. Then he stopped, because he couldn’t show this thing to Eliot. Eliot had been very clear about that. He glanced around for something to wrap it in. The doors of the paramedic van were open. He peered inside and found a small towel and shook the sand out of it.
When he reached the car, Eliot’s eyes were closed. Wil pulled open the door. Eliot’s chest hitched and his eyes peeled open. “I did it,” Wil said. “I got the word.”
Eliot blinked.
“Right here,” he said, raising the towel, but Eliot’s eyes squeezed shut. “It’s okay! I covered it up. It’s a kind of symbol on a—” Eliot’s head jerked left and right. “I’m not telling you details! I’m describing the general kind of object!”
“Ssss,” said Eliot.
“I know what happened here. Why everyone died. There was something stuck to the word that—”
“Ssss!”
“Okay! I’m just saying, if you look at this thing, you won’t die. It’s not fatal anymore.” This didn’t seem to make any difference to Eliot. “You look terrible. Have you been drinking the water?” He spotted a bottle near Eliot’s feet, the lid off. The mat was wet. “Jesus, you haven’t.” He leaned over Eliot, looking for the other bottles. The smell in the car was very bad. “Drink.” He twisted the bottle’s top and held it to Eliot’s lips. Eliot’s throat clicked. His Adam’s apple bobbed. When water spilled down his chin, Wil lowered the bottle and waited until Eliot no longer seemed to be drowning. Then he said, “More,” and tipped it forward again.
“Gguh,” said Eliot.
“I have an idea. We drive to a hospital. A hospital with living people in it. Then I use this thing to make them help you. Right? I just word th
em. We tell them to help you but not tell anyone we’re there.” Eliot was leaking water again, so he put away the bottle. “Good plan?”
Eliot’s head turned left then right.
“Oh,” Wil said. “What’s your plan, then? Because it’s pretty obvious to me that you’re dying. And we both know I don’t have a hope in hell against the people who are after us all by myself, even if I do have a magic word. So it’s either a hospital or I try a little amateur surgery on you myself with whatever I can find lying around. Do you want me to do that?” Eliot said nothing. “I’m not doing that. I’m getting you to a hospital.” He closed the door and jogged around to the driver’s seat. “Keep drinking the water.”
He tucked the towel and its hidden package between the seats and turned the key. The engine clicked emptily. He blinked. He’d forgotten about the gas. He glanced at Eliot and saw Eliot looking at him with a complete lack of surprise.
“Shut up,” said Wil. He studied the roadway ahead, filled with bones and rusted metal. “I can find gas. I’ll be five minutes. Can you not die for five minutes?”
Eliot’s chin dropped.
“Don’t lie to me. If I have to, I will cut you open.”
“Ff,” said Eliot. “I. Fine.”
Wil eyed him. But he wouldn’t learn anything from Eliot’s face that Eliot did not want him to know. “Sure,” he said. “You’re fine.” He climbed out of the car.
• • •
He found a dust-coated SUV with keys in the ignition and gas in the tank. This was a much better option than trying to reintroduce life to the disintegrating piece of shit that was the Valiant, so he climbed in and steered around wrecked vehicles. The interior had an odd smell, which he tried not to think about. When he got close enough to the Valiant, he put the SUV into neutral and jumped out. Eliot seemed to have deteriorated in the meantime: His skin was papery, his eyes unfocused. “Hey!” Wil said. “I found a better car.” He pulled open Eliot’s door. “Throw your arm around me.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You. Go. I. Stay.”
“No, that’s not what we’re doing. You’re coming with me. That’s the plan. We’re taking you to a hospital.”
“Bad. Plan,” said Eliot. “Gets you. Killed.”
“You have an alternative?”
“North. Two miles. Dirt road. Then. Cross-country. Forty miles. To blacktop. Town. Kikaroo. Then. Any way. You want.”
“Is there a hospital in Kikaroo? No. So we’re not doing that.”
“Must.”
“I tell you what. Look me in the eye, tell me you believe I can do this without you, and I’ll leave you here.”
Eliot eyed him.
“Unconvincing,” Wil said. “Put your goddamn arm around me.”
“No.”
“Get the fuck out of the car!”
“No.”
Wil leaned in to grab him. Eliot’s head pivoted to hit Wil in the nose: a small movement, but enough to knock him back, his vision flaring. “Mother fuck!” He turned in a circle. “You prick!” He lunged across Eliot and grabbed the towel. “I’ll fucking make you!” He began to unwrap it.
“No.”
The intensity of Eliot’s tone stopped him. “Then—”
“Never.” For a moment, Wil thought Eliot was climbing out of the car. But he was only leaning. “Never. On me.”
“Okay,” Wil said, intimidated. “Point made, fine.” But then Eliot slumped back in his seat, becoming less terrifying and more fragile, and he changed his mind. “You know what? I am going to use it.” He peeled the towel from the petrified wood. It caught on a sharp protruberance and ripped. A noise came out of Eliot, something halfway between a snarl and a moan, and his head turned away. Wil had to twist him back to face the bareword, then realized Eliot’s eyes were closed. “Goddammit.” He tried to thumb up his eyelids while keeping a grip on the word. “Open up!” He forced open one eye. The pupil dilated and the fight drained from Eliot’s body. “Okay, now,” Wil said. “Get out of the car.”
Eliot’s hand shot out and gripped the door frame. Wil retreated a step. Eliot’s other hand came out and twitched around like a spider until it found purchase. His body began to shake.
“Are you, uh, okay there?” Wil said.
“Harrrgh,” said Eliot. His expression was very intense. He was trying to pull himself out of the car, Wil realized. Straining, but lacking the strength to do it. Wil moved forward to help and realized that Eliot’s entire body was vibrating, his muscles tight bundles of wire.
“There,” Wil said. Eliot straightened. He threw out a foot in a jerky, searching motion. Wil released him. Eliot fell to the pavement. “Oh, shit! Sorry!” Eliot’s hands scrabbled at the concrete. “Jesus! Eliot! Let me help you.”
“Ghee.”
He wrapped his arms around Eliot’s torso. “Come on. This way.” After four steps, Eliot vomited. His eyes were wide and staring, the pupils milky. He looked dead. “Eliot, I’m sorry. But it’s just a little farther.” Eliot’s foot slid out and Wil maneuvered it to touch the ground. “That’s it.” Eliot made a noise like it might become a cough one day. “Please, Eliot.” Eliot was not going to make it. He was already dead, and Wil was making him walk to an SUV. “I’m so sorry. But I can’t let you die.”
“Haargh.”
“Don’t die! Do not die!” He was still holding the bareword and tried to wave it in Eliot’s face. Whether Eliot could even see anymore, Wil didn’t know. “Don’t die.”
Eliot’s body convulsed. Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth.
“Fuck!” he said. They were inching toward the paramedic van, and Wil wondered if there was a sedative in there, something in a syringe, which he could use to knock Eliot out. Then Eliot would stop being so much like a reanimated corpse. “Come with me!”
He propped Eliot against the rear of the van and Eliot keeled over. Wil climbed inside anyway and began ransacking drawers. The sensation that he had been here before descended again, more strongly this time. He could feel memories scratching at the underside of his mind, just out of reach. But he didn’t have time for that. Eliot was lying in the dust and Wil had to get him to the SUV. He should use a fireman’s carry. Why had he been shuffling along, holding Eliot by the arm? That was stupid. You wanted to move someone, you put them over your shoulders. Everyone knew that. Anyone in emergency services had practiced in drills a hundred times. He looked around the van. This vehicle wasn’t just familiar. It was his.
He crawled past the trolley and into the cabin, dropping into the driver’s seat. He put his hands on the wheel. Eliot was bleeding to death back there. But it was calling to him. He had the feeling he was a paramedic.
He popped open the compartment between the seats and rummaged through the junk inside. Among the loose change and plastic wrappers was a yellowed newsletter. He glanced at it and almost tossed it aside before realizing the picture on the front was of him. He looked different. He was standing with a bunch of other people in front of the emergency room. Everything was clean and bright. His hair was long. He had a tan. His shoulders were broader. He was relaxed in a way that Wil couldn’t ever remember feeling. He read the caption and counted the figures from left to right, to be sure. HARRY WILSON. That was him. His name had been Harry.
Behind him, Eliot coughed. Wil thought, That guy has lost a lot of blood. He blinked. For some reason, he hadn’t attended to Eliot’s gunshot wound. He was letting him bleed out, apparently. He felt bewildered. Why had he let Eliot go so long?
He climbed back through the van and manhandled Eliot into the bed. Eliot groaned. That was a positive sign. Well. It was a sign. He ransacked the shelves for a scalpel, surgical gloves, dressing, and saline, all of which were in their assigned places, rolled Eliot on his side, stuck the scalpel between his teeth, and forced Eliot’s knee up and his arm over. He cut away the shirt and there it was, an exit wound, big as his hand, pink and torn and oozing blood. He was appalled at himself. Timely first a
id would have saved this guy’s life. All he could do now was compress and close anything that looked like it was fountaining blood.
He inserted a finger into Eliot’s lower intestine and gently lifted. There was a sucking noise, a glunk, and a small sea of Eliot flowed onto the back of his hand, which was bad, about the worst thing he could see, because that meant Eliot had holes. To locate the source he had to force four fingers in there, and Eliot made a terrible sound. Wil did what he could. It was not much but maybe enough. He began to dress the wound.
As he did, memories burst in his head like popping corn. Tiny, irrelevant things. The look on a girl’s face. The smell of earth in the morning. But they were coming. Squeezing past whatever barrier had been erected in his head. Something important came to him, and he paused.
Eliot breathed. He was unconscious. His face was gray. The problem was too much of Eliot was spread across two different vehicles. Eliot was on his shirt and his coat and on the floor of two different vehicles. He was about a hair’s breadth away from hypovolemic shock and there was nothing Wil could do about that. He looked out the back of the van at the emergency room. Twenty feet from a hospital that was full of blood product, and every pack would be black and hard as stone.
He leaned forward. “Eliot.” He twisted Eliot’s ear. This was extremely painful, if you did it properly. “Eliot, you motherfucker.”
Eliot groaned.
“Eliot.” He put his lips to Eliot’s ear. “Eliot.”
“Uh,” Eliot said.
“What’s your blood type?”
• • •
Eliot opened his eyes. There was a ceiling. Tiled. A false ceiling: the kind that had pipes and wiring snaking through it. He didn’t know where he was, or when.
He heard a crack. He tensed. His abdomen hurt. There was a lot of pain in his body. He tried to raise his head and his vision swam. He saw pale blue walls and a cracked ceiling. A corded phone implanted into one wall. Chairs, a bedside table. A bed, for that matter, in which he was lying. The air smelled of dust.