by Keary Taylor
And lying next to him, his chest barely rising and falling, was a child that looked about five.
Avian dropped to the younger child, pulling him into his lap. He held his fingers to the boy’s neck, feeling for his pulse. He too had a bullet wound, in the fleshy part where his arm met his chest. It looked deeply infected.
“Pulse is very slow,” Avian said, gathering the boy up into his arms. “He looks like he’s been starving to death, and infection has been eating at him too.”
It was true, the child was nothing but skin and bones. I took Avian’s firearm, slinging it over my shoulder as he stood, the boy in his arms.
“We’ve got to get him back to the hospital,” Avian said, already headed for the entrance. “He isn’t going to last much longer.”
“Bill, can you go with him?” I asked, watching Avian’s retreating form.
Bill simply nodded and followed.
By this point, West was on his hands and knees, dry heaving.
“Here,” I said, grabbing a shirt that was hanging out of a box. I ripped the plastic off of it and handed it to him. “Put this over your nose. It will help with the smell.”
“Thanks,” he said, his voice shaky. He spit on the floor and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He climbed shakily to his feet and tied the shirt around his nose and mouth.
“Better?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he nodded, taking a deep breath, hands on hips. He turned away from the body.
“I wonder what happened to them,” I said, looking down at the dead boy once again.
“I don’t think he’s the only body in here,” West said, shaking his head, still not looking at the boy. “The smell is too intense to be coming from just one small kid.”
I swore under my breath and started looking around. I didn’t have to search for long before I found who I assumed was the mother in another alcove of boxes. There was a hole blown through the side of her head and a handgun rested beside her. But she also had a massive bruise mark on her decaying skin, a perfect mechanical handprint on her forearm.
“Shit,” I breathed. “West! She was infected! Her boys could have been infected too before she shot everyone!”
“Come on!” West said, waving toward the exit. “We’ve got to get back to the hospital. Avian just picked him up!”
We darted back out of the building, gathering up the pile of supplies as we ran. We paused outside momentarily.
“They’ve got the car,” West said. “And we’re, like, seventy-five miles from the hospital!”
“Start checking vehicles,” I said, racing across the street to a parking lot. “Maybe we’ll find something with keys.”
“Eve,” West said as we started yanking car doors open. “You know if that kid was infected that it’s too late for Avian. He’ll get infected.”
I shook my head, my jaw set hard. “No,” I said as I checked another car. No keys. “There’s a chance the boy wasn’t infected. And if it just barely happened, he won’t be able to spread the infection for a few hours.”
But even as I made my argument, I knew it wasn’t true. Those bodies had been dead for days, maybe even over a week. If the kid was infected, TorBane would be fully saturated into his system.”
“Got it!” West shouted. He held up a pair of keys as a floor mat came tumbling out of the truck. “Get in!”
I hopped into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. I tossed our supplies in the back seat. “You don’t know how to drive,” I said, my voice breathy.
“Today seems like a good day to learn,” West said, shoving the key in the ignition.
The truck clicked and sputtered. It had been a sitting, rusting dinosaur for six years. We’d been stupid to think any of these vehicles might start.
“Come on!” West shouted, pounding the steering wheel. He slammed one of the pedals with his foot and suddenly it roared to life. “Yes!”
“That there puts it into drive, I think,” I said, pointing to the stick on the side of the driving column.
West yanked on it and the truck jerked backwards and slammed into the vehicle behind us.
“Okay,” West said, shifting the stick again. “R stands for reverse. So D for drive?”
“Let’s assume,” I said, my blood racing and pounding in my ears. “Let’s go!”
D was indeed for drive and we rocketed forward, clipping another vehicle as we swung wildly out of the parking lot and onto the street.
“That woman was touched,” I said, bracing myself as we swerved madly. “She had probably gone out to look for food or something when a Hunter must have found her. West, this means they’re starting to come back into the city.”
The speedometer crept up to eighty miles an hour as we peeled back onto the onramp. Just as we pulled onto the freeway, there was a figure ahead of us. There was no time to stop and the truck plowed right into it.
The mechanical body broke right in half, completely cybernetic by this time. The upper half of the body crashed into the windshield, shattering it.
We both screamed as the glass burst into tiny glittering pieces and an arm dangled between the two of us.
“Holy…” West bellowed as the truck swerved violently back and forth and we ran over the lower half of the body.
“Keep driving!” I shouted. I was about to reach for the shoulders of the body, when its hand suddenly flung out at me, and wrapped around my throat.
West swore loudly. “It’s still alive?!”
“Keep…” I gasped for air as West swerved in an attempt to put distance between himself and the Bane that was somehow still attacking. “Driving!”
Wrapping my hands around the wrist, I squeezed until the cybernetic bones crumpled and bent and the hand let go. Plowing the heel of my hand into what was left of where its nose should have been, its head whipped back with a sickening crunch. The thing was instantly still.
But still carrying active TorBane.
I coughed violently, unbuckling my seatbelt.
“You okay?” West asked, wild fear in his eyes as he attempted to drive straight. He leaned as far to the left as possible, attempting to put some space between him and the mangled Bane.
“Yeah,” I croaked. My throat was probably bruised. “Keep driving. I’ll take care of this.”
I half stood as well as I could in the cramped space. Placing my hands on its shoulders, I gave a good shove. The body slid forward two feet and to the right. But one of its arms slipped down the front of the hood and caught in the grill.
“Oh, come on,” West said, looking at the body in disbelief.
“Keep driving,” I repeated. I used my boot to knock out the rest of the glass hanging around the frame of the window. Crawling up onto the dash, I slowly worked my way out onto the hood of the truck.
As we drove over the bumpy freeway, the arm wedged its way tighter and tighter into the grill. Finally, I simply snapped the arm off at the elbow. The rest of the body crashed to the ground. I tried yanking the rest of the arm free, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Get back in here, Eve!” West shouted. “We can have it melted down later. Sit down before I kill you!”
An amused chuckle worked its way through my lips as I carefully climbed back up the hood and into the vehicle.
“Well, this turned into an exciting day,” West said, shaking his head.
“Yeah, I think the Bane are getting back into the city,” I said, pushing my windblown hair back off my forehead. “That store was supposed to be fifteen miles inside our perimeter. They’ll be getting back into the center of the city soon. I thought I’d cleared all of them out for five hundred miles after the beacon went off.”
“Just another day in the world of the Evolution,” West said. “Must have been a Sleeper that recently woke up. It could have been inactive when you called them all out to the desert.
“For once, could the element of time just be on our side?” I said, exasperated.
“What,” West said, smiling at
me as he swerved around a particularly large crack in the road. “And make life simple and boring?”
I shook my head and laughed. “Seriously.”
West was quiet for a moment as he continued to make our way back to the hospital. “I’m really sorry for how I’ve treated you the last few months. I’m glad we can be friends again.”
I looked over at him, a smile pulling on my lips. “Me too.”
And I meant it.
“Avian!” I screamed as we burst through the front doors of the hospital. I sprinted toward the medical wing, where I was sure I would find him. “Avian!”
We collided with each other as I turned the corner, tumbling to the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Avian asked as we rolled to a stop. He pulled me up to my knees and placed his hands on my upper arms. His eyes started scanning me for injury.
“We found the mom,” I said, searching him over for any early signs of infection. His eyes seemed normal, still burning blue. “She had a hand-shaped bruise on her. She was infected Avian. She shot herself and her kids.”
“It’s okay,” he said, shaking his head furiously. “I’m fine. I had the kid tested with the CDU. He wasn’t infected.”
I swore, my hands rising to knot in my hair.
“It’s okay,” he said, pulling me towards him into an embrace. “I’m fine.”
I shook my head and took a deep breath. My hands shook. It was crushing when West got infected. I wouldn’t survive it if Avian was taken from me.
“Okay,” I said, calming my nerves. I pulled back and rose to my feet. “Do you know where Royce is? I need to talk to him.”
“Right here,” I heard him call from inside the medical wing. I turned to see him talking with one of the doctors.
“Royce, they’re closing in again,” I said, walking toward him, Avian in tow. “One of them infected the mother of that kid, and then West and I plowed into another on the freeway as we were headed back. We were fifteen miles inside the perimeter.”
Royce swore, his hands interlocking behind his head. “Well, we always knew it wasn’t gonna’ last.”
“How much longer until the Pulse is fixed?” Avian asked.
“Dr. Beeson’s crew has been so busy working on everything else, they haven’t had any time to devote to it. They’ve been working on the solar tank nonstop for the past two and a half weeks. And then they’re supposed to start in on the Nova.”
“Have Graye get security detail back on perimeter watch,” I said as I started pacing. There was too much adrenaline coursing through my body and not enough space to do anything with it. “We’re going to have to risk them staying on the outskirts for now. You can’t turn the WTS back on until after we leave with Dr. Evans. We’ve got to get that transmitter built.”
Royce gave a snicker and a smile pulled in the corner of his mouth. “Well yes, ma’am.”
His sudden amusement broke through my nervous pacing and pulled a smile from myself. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get bossy.”
“Hey, it’s good practice, kiddo. You will be the boss in two days,” he said with a wink. He then turned and started walking back down the hall. “Leadership looks good on you.”
“How’s the kid doing?” I asked, turning back to Avian.
His eyes darted to a room, I assumed that was where the child was. “Not good. He’s extremely dehydrated, malnourished. He’s basically starved to death. That bullet wound is disastrously infected. He’s got lice and all sorts of other critters living on him. I’m pretty sure I need to go burn these clothes now and wash myself with bleach after touching him.”
He rubbed a hand over his head as he crossed the hall and peered through a window to the child’s room. “We’ve got him on IV fluids and antiobiotics and they’ll wash him up as soon as he looks a tad more stable. But I think he’ll live.”
That familiar pride I had so often felt for Avian back in the mountains returned. Avian had little need to practice his doctorly duties now that there were three other physicians here, but this was one of his best elements. He was so good under pressure.
“What?” he asked. I hadn’t realized he’d looked back at me.
“Nothing,” I said with a smile. “I guess I just miss seeing the doctor side of you sometimes. It makes me miss home.”
He crossed the space and once again pulled me into his arms. His heart thumped steady and peaceful.
Thinking once again of Eden made my chest ache. I missed the trees and the cool morning air. I missed my tent and our watch towers. I even missed pulling weeds from the gardens.
A nurse stepped out of Morgan’s room.
“How’s she doing?” I asked, pulling away from Avian.
The woman’s face fell and she hesitated. “Not well. It looks like she’s going downhill fast.”
I gave a hard swallow. “And the baby?”
“It doesn’t look good for the baby either, I’m afraid. It will probably go when she does.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
The woman shuffled away.
“It’s not fair,” I said, standing there in limbo between the rooms of two fading people. “People can’t just keep dying.”
“That’s why we’re leaving the day after tomorrow,” Avian said, rubbing a hand over his head again. “It’s time to do something about it.”
I kept staring at the window to Morgan’s room and kept thinking about that baby growing in her stomach and how it didn’t have a chance of surviving. I thought about how crowded it must have been inside my mother’s stomach with my sister and me in there. I wondered if it felt like a relief as an infant to finally have some room once I was out, but that I probably wasn’t aware enough to feel anything.
I had been dying too, at that point, after all.
I suddenly gasped, feeling as if I had been punched in the heart with a ghostly, impossible fist.
“Avian, I need your help.”
EIGHT
Avian and I slept little more than a few hours that night. We had a whole new list of things to collect. We scoured the fifth floor for supplies, took what we knew could be spared from the hospital wing, and knocked on select doors of people we knew would help us and not say a word.
And I very carefully asked Dr. Evans some very careful questions about my past.
The plan was improbable, but not completely impossible.
I informed Royce that I hadn’t come up with a fourth member of our crew, but that I thought we could work just fine with the team I had come up with so far. He didn’t fight me about it, but we were packed for an extra person.
The night before we were to leave, Dr. Beeson radioed to let us know the van was ready. Bill, West, Avian, and I made our way to the back of the building to check out what they’d created for us.
We stepped out into the evening light, which reflected blindingly off the beast before us.
“Who-hoo-hoo!” West said, clapping and whooping as he walked toward it. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
I couldn’t help but admire the vehicle as well.
It had indeed been a fifteen passenger van at one point. But it looked as if it had the top of it chopped off and raised an additional three feet. It also had a huge luggage rack on top of that that already held a great deal of our supplies. And on top of the cargo rack, were six large solar panels.
The beast had been raised at least a foot and it sported massive, rugged-terrain tires. A set of flood lights had been mounted to the front of the roof, and the entire thing was midnight black. Even the windows looked blacked out.
“Is that a firing turret on top?” I asked, spotting the thick, long cylinder atop the solar panels.
“Indeed it is,” Dr. Beeson said, a grin spreading on his face.
“Hey,” Royce said, sounding offended. “This thing was mostly my baby. Don’t you go taking all the credit.”
“Excuse me,” Dr. Beeson said in an exaggerated voice, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “It’s all yours to sho
w off.”
“Thank you,” Royce said, his chin lifting, a coy grin cocking in the corner of his mouth. “Come on, reclamation team.”
By this point, we were all grinning ridiculously as we followed Royce closer to the vehicle. He threw the side doors open and held his arms out grandly for us to check out the inside.
“The solar tank is made to withstand raging Bane, looting humans, and just about anything else this apocalypse has to throw at you,” he said as I stepped inside first.
The last row of seats had been removed and was stocked full of weaponry. The very middle of the roof had a hatch cut into it and opened up to the firing turret, just like a smaller scale version of our actual tanks. Running alongside the hatch in the raised portion of the roof, were two very tiny, claustrophobic looking beds. The front passenger seat was a glass encasement.
No one had to ask what it was for.
“If you can’t get there and back in this thing, you can’t make it anywhere,” Royce said, pride sounding in his voice.
“It’s a thing of beauty,” West said, settling into the driver’s seat.
“Your only problem should be if you get some particularly cloudy days,” Royce said, his excitement falling. “Since this is such a beast, the batteries powering it get drained fast. They don’t get to store much. So if you can’t get access to sun, you may be stuck for a while.”
“I see now why you called it the solar tank,” I said, stepping back out and admiring it from the outside. “You did good, Royce. You did good.”
Royce laughed, a full-hearted, belly birthed laugh, and clapped a hand on my shoulder.
Avian met my eye knowingly as we took one last look at the solar tank, and headed back inside.
“You ready?” I hissed.
Avian seemed to materialize out of the dark, pack slung over his shoulder. He clicked on his small flashlight and nodded.
Taking my hand in his, we slipped silently down the hall.
We descended the stairs, taking our time to make sure our footsteps would not echo on the concrete walls. Pausing briefly at the door to the hall, we found it empty and slipped out. Not a soul seemed to be awake as we jogged to the medical wing.