The Vines

by Shelley Nolden

  The wind howled.

  “I need to know.”

  As he waited for Rollie to respond, her list of his family’s transgressions cycled through his mind. Reality was proving to be far worse than anything he’d imagined after finding that note in their shed.

  “She’s an asymptomatic carrier,” Rollie said. “I was working to eradicate her pathogens. Until 2001, when she asked me to stop.”

  “But you didn’t listen to her, or Mom.” Finn thought of the bats and Kristian’s obsession with how woefully underprepared the world was for an “inevitable” mass pandemic. Curing Lyme couldn’t be their only objective. With so much at stake, they wouldn’t have allocated any of their time or resources to Cora’s welfare. “I don’t buy that your research has been at all for her benefit.”

  “That’s not true,” Kristian said. “We’ve made several advancements with her case. We’re so close to getting her back to Manhattan.”

  “They keep feeding me that line. Please! Maybe Otto originally wanted to fix me, but that hope died with his wife and daughter.”

  Unsure what to think or whom to believe, Finn pivoted to face Rollie, who stretched his arms toward Finn. “I did suspend my work, for a year. But then your mom, the arthritis, and ongoing nerve damage . . .”

  “You think Cora’s antibodies can cure her?”

  “Yes,” he said, stepping closer to the building so Finn could better hear him. “If we can harvest Cora’s autoimmune T-cells. And inject them into Mom. It should wipe out the Lyme bacteria in her synovial fluid.”

  Finn pictured Sylvia gripping a pen, her slanted cursive flowing across a journal page. It had been almost four years since she’d written her last poem.

  He studied the woman whose blood might be able to save Sylvia, the same woman who’d apparently been the subject of his mother’s note.

  Cora shifted forward onto her knees. “I won’t let him inject me with a ninth microbe,” she said, glaring at Finn. “They claim they only want blood samples, but I know Kristian would cut me open again if given a chance.” As she rose, she pulled Finn’s utility knife from her shoulder bag and extended its blade.

  “Rollie, tell me where your tunnel is or I’ll”—she nicked her finger with the blade—“infect your son with all eight of my germs.”

  “No!” Rollie shouted.

  “Tell her,” Finn demanded, kicking to yank free the bolt anchoring the chain.

  Kristian raised a sleek gun, and Cora ducked down against the brick wall.

  “Empty that tranquilizer, now!” she screamed, taking a step back, closer to Finn.

  Adrenaline and fury surging through his blood, Finn tried to lunge away from her, but already the chain contained no slack.

  Rollie snatched the air gun from Kristian. “I’m removing the dart,” he called to Cora, and she popped her head up just high enough to watch.

  “Store it with the others,” she yelled, “and throw me the case, or Finn dies now.”

  Kristian pivoted away from Rollie, who sidestepped to close the gap. Their heads came together, and Finn could tell they were arguing.

  A moment later, Kristian fiddled with the dart case and hurled it toward them.

  It landed on the roof, near Cora, with a crack.

  Her eyes gleaming, she snatched the container with her clean hand and shoved it into her messenger bag. “I’d been wanting a few of these,” she said, getting to her feet.

  Her voice had held that same gleeful yet menacing tone as when she’d been wearing the World War II gas mask.

  With the knife raised, she glanced at the pair below, then took a step toward Finn.

  Behind her, the eastern sky, almost overtaken by the storm, had lightened to a midnight blue. Soon the sun would rise unseen.

  “Dad, just tell her!” He tugged on the chain, but the eye hook remained lodged in the concrete.

  “Ricksettia prowazekii!” she shouted. “You’ve got till I’ve finished naming the other seven. Then my blood meets his.”

  Rollie rocked on his heels, and Kristian grabbed his arm. “We’re micrometers away from Pasteur’s dream of eradicating disease—Otto’s dream, too. If you give in to her, a hundred years of progress will be wasted. Otto wouldn’t have wanted that.”

  Finn stared at his brother. Kristian couldn’t possibly have meant . . . yet his words had been crystal clear.

  “Rubeola.” She dodged a tangle of bricks.

  Rollie shook his head. “He wouldn’t have wanted me to sacrifice his great-grandson, either.”

  “Sacrifice,” Kristian said. “That was his motto.”

  “That’s enough,” Rollie snapped. “You may be in charge at the hospital, but here, you remember your place.”

  “Kristian,” Finn yelled, “have you gone nuts?! What’s wrong with you? I’m your brother.”

  “Half brother. But Sylvia’s just as much my mom as yours. We’re so close to her cure.”

  “Variola major!” Cora shouted, seemingly oblivious to the light rain spattering her forehead and chest.

  To maximize the distance between himself and any air that escaped her mask, Finn dropped to the ground. Wildly, he searched for an errant brick.

  “Zagazig 501.”

  Finn grimaced.

  Cora smirked as blood ran in a rivulet down her finger and smattered on the ground. “What, you haven’t heard of that one? It’s a deadly strain of Rift Valley fever. The mosquitos here seem to love my blood, which I why I insisted you put on my bug spray.” She smiled coldly. “Though surely the rain’s washed it all off by now.”

  “Stop,” a new, higher-pitched voice shrieked from the path.

  Lily. Finn sprung to his feet. Although the cloud cover had lightened to an angry gray, the rain still obscured his view. Shielding his eyes, he spotted her yellow life vest.

  “You need to leave!” Finn shouted down to her. “Now!”

  “No.”

  He spun eastward. “Kristian, get her out of here.”

  “I’m on it!” Kristian shouted, rushing to her.

  Finn couldn’t hear their dialogue over the rising wind, though Lily’s excited gesticulations suggested it was a heated exchange.

  Lightning tore across the sky, and Finn worried that the bright flashes would trigger a seizure.

  Kristian put his arm around her, and she wriggled free.

  Rollie joined them, and his hand motions suggested he was attempting to placate her.

  “Trust you?” Lily shrieked. “Look at you! In that suit, with your son chained to the roof!” She backed away from Rollie. “She’s about to murder my boyfriend. I’m not leaving without him.”

  Cora whistled. “Quite the spitfire, isn’t she?”

  Unsuccessfully, Finn tried to stifle a smile.

  “Why didn’t you call me for help?” Kristian touched Lily’s shoulder.

  “She warned me about you Gettler men. She may be a crazy bitch, but there’s usually some truth in crazy.” Backing away from him, she called up to Cora, “Let my boyfriend go.” The expression in her eyes as unyielding as rock, Cora strode to the northern end of the roof and waved the utility knife. “His family has maimed and tortured me, and they will ruin you, too. Leave him while you still can.”

  “No.” Lily’s right shoulder jerked.

  “Then you’re weak,” Cora spat.

  “Strength is what got me here. He’s my soulmate, and I won’t leave without him.”

  Longing to run to her, Finn turned toward the locked stairwell door.

  “Your céadsearc,” Cora murmured, standing stock still. “Who am I to get in the way of such love?”

  Afraid to break the spell that had transcended her anger, he stayed silent.

  She twisted the handle of his utility knife, and the metal blade sparked with light. “‘Sentimental value
.’ That’s what you said. She gave you this, didn’t she?”

  Finn sensed the loneliness that had gripped her body. A walking biological weapon, she would never experience such a bond.

  He nodded.

  “Kind of like with the scalpel you took from me. So now we’re even,” she said, wiping the blade clean, then folding it closed and dropping it into her scalpel pouch. From her shoulder bag she pulled a strip of cloth and bandaged her finger.

  “A fair trade,” he said, trembling with relief that she’d decided not to use it on him.

  Suddenly, sheets of rain pummeled them.

  Finn felt as if he were suspended ten feet below the surface. He ripped off his mask.

  To block the deluge, he put his arms over his head. Still, he could barely see Cora. He wanted to do something for her, but offering friendship would seem like an empty, desperate gesture.

  “The key to your cuffs,” she said, seemingly unperturbed by the downpour, although she too had removed her mask. “It’s under a small, flat rock, two feet from the bolt.”

  He flinched in surprise, both at her revelation and her sudden magnanimity.

  She leaped over the hole and dashed across the roof. In front of the stairwell, she dug through her shoulder bag, removed a key from her ring, and shoved it into the lock but didn’t turn it.

  Then she lifted one end of a wooden beam from flush against the eastern wall. Working her hands down the wet wood, she raised the end skyward.

  A catwalk. To avoid Rollie and Kristian on the ground, she clearly planned to cross over their heads to the physical plant’s roof. From there she’d be able to reach the tree canopy, where she would disappear.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Preoccupied, she didn’t respond.

  Before the rain could sweep away the debris, he had to find that rock and the key beneath it. He raked his fingers through the standing water.

  A splash sounded from below.

  Finn shot upward and lunged forward to catch a glimpse of Lily.

  On the ground, she was convulsing, her hands slapping the mud, her mouth dangerously close to a swelling puddle.

  He swung along the arc allowed by his chain.

  His dad and brother weren’t within his limited view of the street. “Dad! Kristian! Lily needs you!” he shouted.

  Finn strained to hear their response.

  None came.

  “Where are they?” he called to Cora, who’d frozen with her hands above her head, supporting the beam.

  She let the wood fall, and it hit the roof with a sharp bang.

  Gripping the wall, she leaned over its edge and peered at the street. “They must be inside the morgue.” Her back straightened, and she grabbed the plank again. “They’re planning to ambush me.”

  He swept his fingers along the flooded asphalt. The water had shifted the rubble. “I’m on my way,” he called to Lily, even though she’d likely blacked out.

  An echoing boom signaled that the far end of Cora’s beam had landed on the neighboring building.

  “Wait,” Finn said, scrambling to his feet.

  Standing atop the wall, one foot already on the catwalk, she turned toward him, her hand shielding her eyes from the rain.

  “The key. I can’t find—Lily—she’ll die.”

  Cora looked from him to the physical plant. “I don’t have another.”

  “But they can save her.” He peered into the dark, gaping hole and called to them but the wind swallowed his voice.

  He clasped his hands. “Please.”

  She gazed longingly at the forest.

  “Lily’s innocent.”

  “I know that.” She raised her face toward the thunderheads, and the rain lashed her cheeks. Her lips were moving.

  If she were consulting God, Lily might have a chance, Finn concluded. “We’re running out of time.”

  Her eyes snapped open, and she hopped off the wall and unlocked the stairwell door.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Letting myself get ambushed. Obviously.”

  Her hand fluttered to the pouch on her hip. “No, too risky,” she murmured and hung her sack of scalpels and messenger bag on a makeshift hook within the stairwell. “It’s the fastest way to get their attention,” she said and began her descent. “I’ll tell them . . .” Her voice faded.

  Finn stared at the dark doorway. He couldn’t believe she’d martyr herself for a woman she didn’t know after all his family had done to her.

  Moments later, a high-pitched scream reverberated from deep within the morgue.

  A sharp thud echoed upward, and Finn pictured his brother slamming Cora’s body against a wall.

  Either they’d knocked her out before she’d had a chance to speak or she was too big a prize. No, they would never intentionally leave Lily to die.

  His fingers connected with jagged metal, and he whooped with relief.

  While the wind roared with hurricane force, he unlocked the cuff and scrambled to his feet.

  Lily’s face might already be submerged, he knew.

  Through the water, he sprinted to the stairwell. A gale banged the door shut, and he fought to open it.

  Swiping at his eyes, he looked toward the heart of the storm south of the harbor. His mouth fell open.

  Beyond the farthest bridge, a funnel was tearing its way across the horizon.

  A tornado. In New York City.

  Moments Later

  he twister swirled over Brooklyn. Despite the distance, the air racing past Finn howled. Shielding his eyes from the deluge, he watched the funnel long enough to confirm it wasn’t headed their way. Not yet at least. If Cora had conjured the freak phenomenon, it would be no less astonishing than her other superhuman abilities.

  He darted inside and almost slipped on the slick stairs. Reaching for the wall to steady himself, his hand brushed against her messenger bag, hanging from a piece of rebar. The satchel had gaped open, revealing the dart case, which he jammed into a pocket of his cargo pants.

  Avoiding the handrail, he stepped forward into the darkness and tested the traction on the steps. Guided by memory, he worked his way down.

  “Dad, Kristian!” he shouted.

  Only his echo responded.

  If Cora had failed, Lily might be dead already.

  Picturing water, thick with sediment, pouring past her clacking teeth, he made a beeline for the patch of weak daylight that marked his exit, and burst outside.

  Rain flew at him sideways. Shielding his eyes, he reoriented himself and charged through the mud.

  “Let me go!” Cora shrieked from behind him.

  Unwilling to waste even a second, Finn didn’t look back.

  He rounded the corner.

  Partially submerged in a puddle, Lily’s body lay motionless, her limbs splayed.

  Shouting her name, he ran to her.

  Driven by the wind, small waves were breaking against her mouth and nose. He hooked his arms under her armpits and dragged her from the water.

  Crouching over her, he shielded her face from the rain and checked for breathing.

  No, God, please no.

  Desperately, Finn began chest compressions. Rollie or Kristian should be doing this, he thought. Without disrupting his rhythm, he yelled for help.

  The windstorm drowned his plea.

  If he stopped to find them, Lily could lapse into brain death. If she dies, because of their obsession with that woman . . . He would never forgive them.

  Grunting out each number, he reached thirty and put his ear to her face. Nothing.

  He pinched her nose, twice infused her mouth with air, and resumed the compressions. “Come on, Lil. Come back to me.”

  Abruptly, the downpour began to abate.

  An eerie, cobalt glow permeate
d the gray sky, and the wind had weakened to an angry whisper.

  Yelling for help, he started another round.

  “Finn, come here,” Kristian called from the side of the morgue where Finn had exited.

  His heart pounding with renewed hope, he straightened but kept the compressions going. “I can’t. Doing CPR. I need you!”

  “Come help me, and Dad will go to Lily.”

  Help with what?

  The thought of leaving Lily alone chilled his cold, wet skin. What if Rollie didn’t reach her in time?

  “Now!” Kristian demanded.

  With no alternative, Finn gave Lily two final mouthfuls of air and raced around the corner of the building.

  From behind her, Kristian was bear-hugging Cora.

  In response to Finn’s calls for help, Kristian must have carried her this far, Finn surmised.

  “We thought it was a trick,” Kristian grunted as Cora thrashed. “Hold still,” he hissed and shook her hard.

  “She lies all the time,” he said to Finn. “We didn’t believe she’d give herself up. Certainly not to help one of ours.”

  Twenty feet from the struggling pair, Rollie was stripping off his hazmat suit. “I’m going to Lily.” He tossed a syringe case near Finn’s feet.

  Rollie sprinted past them, giving Cora a wide berth.

  Longing to join his dad, Finn swayed. There, he would merely be watching, praying, as Rollie tried to resuscitate her. Whereas if he stayed here, he could try to compel Kristian—through reason or force—to free the woman who’d selflessly attempted to help his girlfriend.

  “Let her go!” Finn commanded.

  “Not till you inject her with that.” Kristian jerked his chin toward the ground.

  In the mud near the case, Finn spotted his flashlight. He scooped up both objects and clipped the flashlight to his belt loop. With the bottom of his soaked T-shirt, he swiped clean the thin plastic container to read its label: BBSCV-112.

  “What is this?” Finn asked.

  “Borrelia burgdorferi.” Kristian tightened his grip, and Cora gasped for air.

  “That can’t be all,” Finn said, just as Cora raised both legs and drove her boots backward, kicking Kristian’s shins.