by Tracey Ward
We both nod in agreement.
“One…Two…”
Goodbye, Kyle.
“Three.”
Simmons and I both let go as we jump back to get clear. Billings keeps hold of Kyle’s shoulder as he presses the muzzle of the gun quickly to his temple. He closes his eyes, turns his head. Then he fires.
Kyle hits the floor hard. His body goes without resistance. It’s good. It’s right because he’s gone now. He’s himself somewhere else. Somewhere better. Somewhere free.
I take a deep, shuddering breath then let it out slowly. It’s over. It’s done.
“Dad?” Alissa whispers tremulously. “Dad, no.”
Chapter Twenty Four
Leah rushes past me silently. She’s nothing but a blur of efficiency as she kneels beside Alissa and Syd on the debris littered ground. Broken bottles, syringes, a scalpel exposed and dangerous. Syd lies in the middle of it all. He’s leaning back breathing slow and deep. His stomach is covered in blood.
“Alissa, I need that gauze behind you,” Leah tells her quickly. “Open it and press it firmly to the wound. We need to clear it.”
“No, Al, don’t.” Syd reaches out to stop her but thinks better of it. His hand is covered in blood. “Don’t touch me.”
“We need to stop your bleeding,” Leah tells him calmly. “There’s too much blood. We can’t ignore this.”
“It’s not mine.”
“What?”
“The blood. It’s not all mine.” Syd looks past the women kneeling on either side of him. He looks to Kyle’s body lying on the floor, a pool of blood growing around him. It looks dark against the floor. Black. “It’s his.”
“Oh, thank God.” Alissa falls back onto her butt on the floor, relief leaking out of her. “I thought you’d been bit.”
“No,” Syd answers grimly.
He won’t look at her. His tone is all wrong. Where’s the celebration? Where’s his relief at cheating death? It’s not there. And now he’s looking at me with meaning in his eyes that tells me just what’s gone wrong and I feel myself withering under that stare. He looks briefly to Alissa, then back to me, making himself utterly clear. My breathing freezes, becoming brittle in my chest. It cracks and snaps, stuttering worthlessly in my lungs, making them ache and burn.
I nod stiffly to him.
“It’s a lot of pressure,” he warns quietly.
I feel my eyes burn. I nod again. It’s all I can do. It’s the only way I can tell him what words can’t. That I love her. That I’ll never leave her. That I’ll stay with her until the very end.
I glance at Alissa to find her frowning. Her eyes dart between Syd and I and it’s only a matter of time before…
“No,” she says firmly. “No, you’re fine. It’s his blood, not yours.”
“It’s mostly his, Al,” Syd tells her gruffly. He lifts his shirt to expose his stomach. To expose the thin red line of a cut along his belly. It’s not much. It’s barely anything. But it’s enough.
Alissa’s laugh is brittle. “That’s nothing. It’s fine. You’ll be fine.”
“Alissa, some of Kyle’s blood had to have gotten in,” Leah reasons with her sadly.
“No, it’s alright. It’s happened before. Jordan, do you remember? On the river?” She looks to me, her eyes shining and brilliant with hope and fear. “You were shot and you had that horrible shirt on. The one covered in sludge. We were so worried but you were fine. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” I reply softly.
“Then tell them. Tell them it’s fine, that he can be fine.”
“Ali,” I carefully kneel beside her, watching out for the broken glass and blood surrounding her. “It wasn’t the same.”
“It was exactly the same!”
“No, it wasn’t. The stuff on my shirt, it was dried and there wasn’t that much of it. This, though,” I gesture to Syd’s soaked shirt, “this is too much.”
“You don’t know that,” she says stubbornly. She looks to Leah and Syd. “None of you know that. We’ll wait it out just like we waited for Jordan. You’ll be fine, dad, you’ll see. I was scared then too but it all turned out fine.”
“Al, it’s not—“
“We’ll wait,” I interrupt him. I look at Syd hard. “We’ll wait and see. It doesn’t take long to know.”
We all know already but we owe it to Alissa to wait. To share her never ending hope and give him a chance. I’m terrified as I sit there beside her. I’m watching Syd and begging for him to stay calm, for his temperature to remain low. I want to be wrong. I want Ali to be right and to hold this over my head for the rest of our long, long lives. So I sit beside her silently and we wait.
Alissa stares down at Syd, watching his body for any signs of betrayal. I can see him start to strain and I know she does too but she remains silent. His jaw clenches as his body begins to ache. Sweat breaks out on his forehead as his temperature climbs. The clock keeps ticking, the world keeps turning but we’re trapped here between heaven and hell and no one seems to hear us. No one is taking requests at the moment so no miracle is performed, no shady deal with the devil is to be made. Fate rolls on relentlessly and after only ten minutes, we all know the truth.
“Al, it’s not good, hon.” Syd groans.
“Dammit,” she moans. She leans forward to reach for him but he won’t allow it. He shrinks back from her shaking his head. “Dad,”
“No. You can’t get close to me. I don’t feel right.”
We all watch as he convulses. As his body bends inward and his face turns red. Then he leans over and vomits on the floor.
“It’s happening,” I whisper to her. It feels cruel but she needs to hear it. She sees it but she needs to know it. We need to act on it.
“I know that,” she whispers back, her eyes firmly on her father’s.
“Take her out of here, Jordan. Don’t you dare let her see this,” Syd groans painfully.
I go to take her arm, to help her up, but she shakes me off.
“I’m staying with you,” she tells Syd stubbornly.
“No you’re not. You’re going with him.”
“Since when do you want me going anywhere with him? I’m staying here with you.”
“Al, this isn’t the time. Go.”
“You would never leave me behind. Never,” she says fervently, her voice trembling with emotion. “So I’m sure as hell not leaving you.”
Syd’s eyes glisten as he squints against the pain. “There’s no reason for you to be here.”
“There’s every reason,” she tells him, her voice suddenly surprisingly firm. “You’re my dad.”
We’re running out of time. I can see it in the grimace pinching Syd’s face and the sweat pouring off his forehead. I can feel it in the tension rolling off Leah beside me and the nervous shift of Simmons and Billings behind me. I hear the gun come back out of its holster.
I reach for the gauze Alissa is clenching in her hands and gesture for Syd to give me his hand. He hesitates only a second before giving it up. I wipe it clean of blood while Leah reaches out with a bottle of alcohol and pours it over his hand until it’s soaked. We work together wiping it clear before handing it off to Alissa. She clenches it between both of hers gratefully.
“Billings,” I mutter softly.
“Just say the word,” he replies somberly.
“Don’t look, baby,” Syd grunts to Alissa.
She shakes her head stiffly, stares at him one last long moment, then turns to bury her face in my shoulder. I can feel the wetness of her tears on my shirt as I wrap my arms around her tightly. I press my hand against her exposed ear, lay my face against her head and close my eyes.
“Now.”
The shot fires. Alissa jumps once in surprise but she doesn’t make a sound. When I open my eyes I’m careful not to look at what has become of him. If Ali has taught me anything it’s that images like that will haunt you forever and I’ve got enough ghosts. I look down and I can see she still has hol
d of Syd’s hand. She stayed with him. I can’t imagine what it will cost her in the future to have done it, but she never left him. That’s just how Ali is.
I don’t know how much time passes but eventually Leah carefully pulls Syd’s hand from Alissa’s. She lets it go without a fight. Without a word. I can feel her breathing against my neck. It’s deep and even, like she’s sleeping. I stand, taking her with me, surprised at how easily she comes. I’m careful to keep her face buried in my shoulder and when we’re up she wraps her arms tightly around me.
“We’ll take her to the hospital,” Leah tells me. “I want to keep an eye on her. We might need to sedate her.”
I nod in agreement. With Ali’s condition who knows what this is going to do to her?
I follow Leah, passing through the tent door into the dark night. The wind whips with a sudden cold and I feel Alissa shiver against me.
“Jordan?” she asks, her voice muffled and strange.
“Yeah, Ali?”
She pulls back slightly to look at me. I’m surprised to see her eyes sharp and lucid.
“You have to burn him.”
I frown. “What?”
“My dad,” she repeats patiently. “You have to burn him. They can’t have him.”
I involuntarily look out over the landscape. I can’t see the base across the river but I know that’s what she’s talking about. It’s almost the same thing Simmons, Billings and I worried about with Kyle. She doesn’t want his body to fall into their hands. To be dissected and destroyed.
“I’ll take care of it. I promise.”
She falls slowly against me again, her arms tightening down with a surprising strength. At the hospital, Leah helps me get her into a bed in a room alone near the nurse’s station. Alissa moves when we tell her to but other than that there’s no response from her. Her eyes are open, she hears our words but it’s all autopilot. She’s checked out for now and I can’t decide if I’m relieved or terrified by that.
“I’ll give her something to help her sleep,” Leah whispers to me. “She needs to rest and reset.”
“Is she pregnant?” I ask abruptly, staring down at Leah intently.
She sighs, not surprised by the question. “I don’t know. Alissa doesn’t either.” Leah pauses, considering, then looks me in the eyes. “She’s off her meds.”
“What?!”
She presses her finger to her lips. “Quiet. If she can fall asleep naturally that’d be better.”
“Why is she off her medications? Do you know what she takes them for?”
“Yes, and she’s off them because they’re dangerous to the baby if she’s pregnant.”
“But she doesn’t know if she is?”
“She told me yesterday that she’s missed her period. That alone doesn’t mean she’s pregnant. It’s a symptom, but not a sure sign. A lot of things can throw a woman off her cycle. Stress or change in diet alone could have done it.”
I shake my head in frustration. “Let’s do a test. Let’s find out. She can pee on something, right?”
Leah grins faintly. “Yes, she could. But she hasn’t yet and I won’t perform that test until she tells me to.”
I look to Alissa who lays with her back to us in the dark room. I can’t see her face but I know her eyes are open. I also know no one is home at the moment.
“She can’t exactly consent right now.”
“No.”
“With what happened tonight and her going off her medication…” I fail to find the words to describe my worst fears for her. I can’t imagine what this will be like. The horrors she’ll have cascading down on her when it all catches up to her. I’m scared for her.
I’m scared for me as well.
“It could get very ugly,” Leah agrees, confirming my fears. “Which is why I want to move her in here permanently. At least until we know for sure what’s happening. Besides, she can’t very well go back to that RV alone. With or without her medical condition, that’s not a good environment for someone who’s grieving.”
“Can I stay with her?”
She squeezes my arm as she turns to leave the room. “Why do you think I picked a room with an empty bed?”
I leave Ali there. I hate myself for doing it but I made a promise to her and I can’t be in two places at once. I’ll sleep beside her tonight, though. That’s a promise I make to myself.
When I get back to the quarantine area, Billings and Simmons are gone. There are new nurses here cleaning up the mess of blood on the floor of the tent. Alvarez is supervising with tired eyes. He nods to me when I enter.
“How’s she doing?”
I shake my head in reply. He curses softly but nods in understanding. He’s not surprised. How would anyone be? I can see it in the slouch of his shoulders that he’s exhausted. Spent. He’s torn up over Kyle just like Ali is lost over her dad. It’s been a bad night all around.
“Where are the bodies?” I ask him reluctantly.
He sighs. “Near the fence line. They’re being guarded.”
“Are they being kept safe or are we being kept safe from them?”
“Who knows anymore,” he mumbles tiredly.
I pause, unsure to ask what I need to ask. It’s not your average borrow a cup of sugar kind of favor.
“I need Syd’s body.”
“I know.”
“Do you know why?”
“It’s already being set up. Kyle too.”
“Good.”
“Did you hear about the other base?” he asks suddenly. “The one on the coast?”
I shake my head. “I know there is one. That’s all.”
“It fell.”
“What? When?”
“Three days ago. They lost all communication. When they did a fly by, it was gone. Empty. Nothing but droves of Zs roaming around it.”
It’s my worst fears come to life.
“Unreal,” I say, disbelieving. Not wanting to believe. “If it happened to them—“
“It could easily happen to us.”
His eyes haven’t left the blood stains on the floor since I got here. He’s mesmerized by them. By the small soapy bubbles turning reddish orange with each pass of the nurses’ scrub brush. It’ll never come out entirely. Blood never does.
We stand in silence for another ten minutes at least. The nurses never speak. They never acknowledge us as we mutely watch them work. When they finish, when the dark black-red stains on the ground are faded orange ghosts, Alvarez silently leaves the building. I nod to the nurses as I follow him out.
He leads me to a Jeep which we hop into and peel out over the dusty earth. There’s pink building on the horizon. The night is almost over but our work has just begun. I think of Ali in that bed alone in the hospital and I wonder what lays ahead of us. What tomorrow will bring. The fact that she’s taken herself off her drugs doesn’t really phase me when I think about it. Drugs or no, the death of her father, her only living family, was going to destroy her no matter what.
When we arrive at the gate, I’m surprised to find so many people already there. Practically the entire crew from the top of the plateau and I recognize a few guys from the maintenance crew Syd worked on. News travels fast. Especially bad news.
“Are we ready?” Franklin asks Alvarez as we pile out of the Jeep.
“Yeah, we’re good.”
“We’re not waiting for his daughter?”
I shake my head, replying vaguely, “She’s not up for this.”
Franklin nods in silent understanding.
We move as a group to where they’ve built a pyre out of old, worn wood planks. On top of it are two bodies, both covered in dark sheets that can’t hide the telltale wetness of the blood soaking through them. The wood around them is dark with wetness as well and I can smell the strong scent of gasoline in the air.
“Would anyone like to say any words?” Franklin asks.
He looks at me questioningly, but I shake my head. I’m no more equipped for prayers now than I was w
hen I asked Alissa to pray over the dead in our dorm. I could repeat her words but I choose silence instead.
All I can think to say is this; I miss him already. Kyle because he was my friend and Syd because... well, because he was Syd. It seems like I wouldn’t but I do. I didn’t realize until now how much I counted on him to show me the way around Ali’s condition. I resented him and his condescending tone, but he was still teaching me. I could still fall back and let him run the show, leading me by example on how to navigate the ups and downs of life with Alissa. But now he’s gone and I’m on my own during one of the darkest hours of her life.
I’m terrified. I’m absolutely, positively scared out of my mind because not only is she slipping into a depression, she’s off her medication and she might be pregnant with my kid. How am I supposed to handle all of this? I’m still a kid myself, trying to come to grips with this new life we’re living along with the loss of my hand and my sister. I’ve got troubles of my own and now I’ve got to find out how to fix hers too? I can’t rescue her from this. I’m barely keeping my own head above water.
It’s then, just as I’m freaking myself out and my breaths are starting to come short and panicky, that I remember what Syd told me.
Her problems are beyond you. They’re beyond me too. Don’t ever think you can cure her.
In all the time I spent with them, Syd never tried to fix Ali. He never tried to make the world right for her, never coddled her, never tiptoed around her and her condition. He never treated her like she was anyone or anything other than Alissa. Than Al. The tough as nails, resilient woman we both know she is. And that’s exactly what I have to do. I don’t have to make it right for her. If it were me on that pyre and him standing here, he wouldn’t be contemplating how he could fix her world. How he could save her from the pain she’s being engulfed in. He’d be doing what needed to be done. He’d burn my body just as she asked, then he’s stay beside her. Nothing more.
It’s such a simple thing. It feels too passive to be of any use, but when has Ali asked for more? That girl is too strong, too independent and fierce to ever need me to solve all her problems. She’s never asked that of me and she never will. She doesn’t need me to kiss her wounds and make them all better any more than I need that of her. What she needs is exactly what I need – someone to have her back until the bitter end.