by Cross, Amy
“Perfect,” she says with a smile, as she pulls her hand away. “We'll talk again soon, Thomas Edgewater, but you made the right choice today. You made a good deal.”
With that, she turns and head back toward the building, leaving me standing all alone and feeling more than a little confused.
Apparently I just made a deal to help Martha and Melissa and Katie. But while I understand what I'm getting out of the deal, I don't quite know what I'm expected to give in return.
8am
Elizabeth
I sit staring at the dead girl's face. I haven't shifted my gaze once in the past hour. Ever since I first saw her features, even from all the way up here, I've been staring straight at her as I feel a very slow, very painful sense of guilt creeping up through my chest. It must be an hour now since I first saw the girl properly, and it's as if I'm in some kind of a daze. Natalie has stopped bothering to ask me if I'm okay, and instead I'm just focused on keeping my head together.
There are no tears.
There's no anguished wailing.
I'm just sitting here, stony-faced and horrified, staring down at what I've done. I shot a little girl in cold blood. I blew the back of her head away. She was just hungry, and I shot her because she was trying to break into our storage unit. I know everyone else here would find ways to justify that, but I don't want to hear their excuses. I just want to sit here and force myself to face the truth. Until, finally, the sense of horror tips slightly too far over the edge and I get to my feet.
“What?” Natalie asks. “Lizzie? What are you doing?”
“She can't stay there,” I whisper. “It's not right. She deserves to be moved.”
“Someone'll drag her away eventually. She's probably not top of the priority list.”
“But it's wrong!”
“Chill. It's just how things are at the moment.”
I stare at the corpse for a moment, as I feel myself filling with the belief that something has to be done fast.
“You've got that look on you face again,” Natalie says after a few seconds. “Like you're chewing a big-ass wasp. Please, Lizzie, tell me you're not about to do something cretinous.”
***
“I really don't think I can let you do this!” Natalie says, grabbing my arm again as she tries to hold me back. “Lizzie, there are rules about going out there! Or if there aren't, there should be!”
“The rules are about going beyond the perimeter,” I point out as I slip away from her and make my way toward the door. “The body's inside the perimeter, so it's fine.”
“She came from outside it, though. Lizzie, you could end up quarantined if you do this! Plus, I'll never let you live it down, because it's really dumb!”
“I don't care,” I reply, leaning my gun against the wall and then unlocking the door. “I know people go out there occasionally to perform maintenance. There's no threat.”
“They wear suits!”
“As a precaution. And sometimes they don't.”
“That's because they know what they're doing!” she says. “You're putting yourself and everyone else at risk. I'll still have to report the -”
“Then report it!” I snap, as I pull the door open. “Maybe I can finally call in a favor from my father and get out of trouble. That's what people keep telling me to do, isn't it? I'm supposed to ask Daddy to get me out of any messes I stumble into.”
With that, I step out into the yard and hurry toward the body, although I stop as I get closer. I was so focused on getting down here, I didn't really stop to contemplate what I'm supposed to do next. Now that I'm here, just a few meters from the dead girl, I suddenly realize that I have no idea what I should actually do with her body. Most corpses – for reasons of hygiene – are simply dragged back to the perimeter and shoved over into one of the pits, and I know that's what'll happen if I don't intervene.
Even the dead of our own community are disposed of in the same manner. At least back in New York I managed to give Henry a proper burial, whereas out here now bodies are simply tossed onto a pile and left to rot like the carcasses of old animals.
“Lizzie, just leave her,” Natalie calls out to me from the doorway. “Let the janitors drag her away. There's nothing you can do that'll make you feel any better. It's not healthy to let things get to you like this!”
“I have to bury her.”
“You won't be allowed. You know the rules, and you know why they're in place. You're taking a risk just by being there.”
Looking down at the dead girl's face, I see that her eyes are still open. She was so thin, and she was just trying to get some food from the stores. She was probably starving to death and coming here was a last resort attempt to find something, anything, to eat. She didn't do anything wrong. She must have been so terrified, racing through the darkness in a desperate attempt to get to the storeroom. She must have known that the task was hopeless, but I guess hunger was clawing at her belly. She'd probably been suffering for days, maybe even weeks, with barely any food. I can't believe how thin she looks.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper, as a gust of wind ruffles her hair. “I wasn't even trying to shoot you, I was trying to miss, but that's how bad my aim is. We should have just found a way to help you instead.”
“Lizzie!” Natalie hisses. “They're coming!”
Hearing footsteps, I look up just in time to see two figures walking this way, wearing anti-contamination uniforms. They're carrying a stretcher, and I feel a sense of nausea in the pit of my belly as I realize that two janitors have already arrived. They're wearing the thick masks that they always wear, with tubes running out of the front and sides, and with big round eye-holes.
“What are you doing out here?” one of them asks, his voice barely audible through the mask's filters.
“I just...”
My voice trails off.
“Did you touch her?” the other janitor adds.
I pause, before shaking my head.
“Are you sure?” the first janitor asks. “Are you really, really sure?”
“She didn't touch anything!” Natalie yells from the doorway. “Leave her alone and get on with your job!”
The janitors stare at me for a moment, before turning and setting the stretcher down. I step back, horrified by this clinical process but at the same time unable to look away. After grabbing the girl's hands and feet, the janitors haul her up and onto the stretcher, and then they take a plastic container and spray the blood on the ground with some kind of cleaning agent. I guess they've done this so many times, they're used to the process, but that doesn't make me feel any better.
“We're going to have to report you for coming out here,” one of them says, turning to me. “There can't be any exceptions, even if you say you didn't touch the body. The rules say that we have to inform the Council of your transgression, and that's exactly what we're going to do.”
“No, we're not,” the other janitor adds. “You know who she is, right?”
“Who?”
“Elizabeth Marter.” He pauses. “John Marter's daughter.”
“Crap, really?” The first janitor stares at me for a moment, and I can just about make out his eyes through the mask. “Never mind, then. I guess she can get away with whatever she wants. Some things never change in this world, do they?”
“I don't want special treatment,” I tell them, but now they're picking the stretcher up and I watch as they start carrying the dead girl away. “Report me!” I call after them. “Go on, I dare you! I want you to! Report me and get me pulled up before the Council! I deserve it!”
“Kid,” one of them sighs, “get out of the way and let us do this. We've got a million other jobs lined up after we're done here.”
I take a step forward, wanting to go after them, but then I stop as I realize that they're going to one of the pits. I've never been out there, and there's a good reason for that: I really don't want to see all the bodies that have been piled up over the past month or so. There must be twenty or
thirty at least, all in various stages of decomposition, and I've heard stories about how there are flies buzzing around the place. As the girl is carried away and out of sight, I realize that running after her wouldn't actually achieve anything.
“I'm sorry,” I say again, before turning and heading back to the doorway.
“It doesn't really matter,” Natalie says as I head inside.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing really matters, not right now.” She helps me shut the door, and then she slides the bolt across. “Going out there was a dumb idea. You're lucky they won't report you.”
“They should.”
“But they won't.” She pauses. “The girl's dead, and no amount of self-absorbed moping will change that. She was a thief and she took a calculated risk.”
“She was a kid.”
“Kids can be assholes too.” She steps past me and grabs my gun, before handing it back to me. When I delay taking it, she forces it into my hands. “Let's just get on with things and -”
Suddenly an alarm rings out, and I realize I can hear people running somewhere else in the building.
“Something must be wrong!” Natalie says, her voice filled with urgency. “Lizzie, come on! We have to get to the briefing room!”
9am
Thomas
“I don't get what they want with her,” Toad mutters darkly as we sit side-by-side on the ground, watching the captured zombie. “They're hiding something.”
“Ten, eleven...”
As soon as I get to eleven, the zombie starts struggling again, fighting wildly in its attempt to break free of the ropes. I know I shouldn't feel sorry for a zombie, I know that'd be ridiculous, but I still can't help feeling as if this is all somehow unnecessary. The zombie was a person once, and it's not right that what's essentially a corpse is being left to struggle out here in the open. There doesn't seem to be much dignity in what we're doing.
Finally the zombie stops struggling, although I know it'll start again soon. The pauses between bursts of anger seem random, sometimes lasting a few seconds and sometimes going on for several minutes at a time. The burst of anger, however, always last for exactly eleven seconds. That can't be random.
“He's not in there, is he?” I whisper.
“Who are you talking about?” Toad asks.
“Joseph.” I pause, staring at the zombie. “Before, they all used to gloat as Joseph spoke through them, but that all seems to have changed. Joseph's consciousness seems to be gone, and now the zombies are apparently just empty, hungry monsters.”
“I wouldn't be too sorry if that turned out to be true,” Toad replies. “Then again, I'd like to think that Joseph's mind is out there somewhere, so he can be forced to face justice for what he did.”
“I think he just faded away,” I continue, “and left these creatures behind.”
“That's as good a theory as anything else I've heard.
“But what are they, really?” I ask. “How do they work? There's got to be more we can find out about them.”
“Apparently Sarah Carter's coming out to poke around,” Toad says after a moment. “I don't know what she's planning, but she's the one who wanted the damn thing captured alive. Well, not alive, but you know what I mean. She didn't want it delivered burned on a slab. I guess she's planning to poke around and try to figure out exactly what's going on inside these things.”
“Do you trust her?” I ask.
“Carter?”
I turn to him.
“She's not exactly my favorite person,” he says cautiously, “but I suppose she hasn't exactly done anything to make me dislike her. Not yet. And you have to admit that she inspires confidence. She seems to at least have some clue about what's going on.”
“It's like she's in charge,” I continue. “Patterson's supposed to be the one who's running the whole show, but I feel like Carter's pulling the strings. It's like she tells him what to do. She's doing it more and more, too.”
“I don't know much, Thomas,” he replies, “but I'll tell you one thing I learned a long time before all of this madness started. The more someone tells you to trust them, the more careful you need to be around them. Good, decent folk don't go around urging people to trust them all the time. They don't need to.”
“Carter's always telling us to trust her,” I point out.
“Yeah,” he says with a sigh. “I noticed that.”
“She -”
Stopping myself just in time, I realize that maybe I shouldn't mention the conversation I had with Carter after the meeting. I don't know why, exactly, but something about the way we talked has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I feel that by shaking her hand I might have somehow become complicit in something that I don't quite understand. In fact, the more I think back to that conversation, the more I worry that I made a big mistake, even if I don't yet know what I agreed to.
Or am I being dumb? If shaking that woman's hand means I get to help Martha, Melissa and Katie, then does it matter what I have to give in return? Surely their lives are the most important thing? Right now, all I care about is finding a way to get them here.
Suddenly the zombie starts struggling again, breaking my train of thought. I look over and see that the creature is twisting harder than ever against the ropes. I start counting in my head, but then I'm distracted as I see something fall out of the creature's tattered jacket and land on the dusty ground.
“What was that?” I ask.
“It looked like a book,” Toad says, “or a wallet. Or a purse, I guess.”
Getting to my feet, I edge closer, just as the zombie falls still again. I'm not dumb enough to get close, but I know it's safe to approach a little more.
“Stay back from her!” Toad calls out. “Remember what happened to McGuinness!”
“I'm not going to do what she did,” I reply, peering at the fallen object and seeing that it looks like a small, dark purse. “I just want to see.”
“What is it?” Toad asks.
“I think you were right,” I tell him. “It's a purse. It must have been in her pocket all this time.”
“I guess she won't be needing it anymore,” he says with a sigh.
Looking around, I spot some old, half-rotten branches that have been left out to dry in the sun. Some of them are a couple of meters long, and after a moment I head over and pick one of them up.
“Now what are you doing?” Toad asks.
I head back toward the zombie, and then I stop and wait.
Sure enough, a moment later she bursts into another frenzy, snarling louder than ever as she tries to get free. She pulls and pulls on the ropes, but there's no chance of them coming free so I simply count to eleven and then, just as I expected, she falls still.
Without wasting any time, I reach out with the branch and use it to start scraping the purse this way across the ground.
“What are you doing?” Toad hisses. “Are you crazy?”
“It's fine,” I reply, “she can't reach.”
“That thing might be infected!”
“It doesn't work like that.”
“And you're an expert suddenly, are you?”
“Relax, I'm not going to touch it!”
As soon as it's close enough, I turn the purse around with the branch, and then I use the tip to carefully un-clip the front of the purse and open it up. As I do that, I stop at the sight of a driving license bearing a name and a photo.
“Jane Anne Kincaid,” I read out loud, “born on November the twenty-third. She's twenty-one years old.”
I look at the photo, which shows a smiling, pretty girl with dark hair. She seems so happy, but after a moment I turn and glance back at the zombie. She's rotten and dirty, with blood smeared on her face, and patches of skin have fallen away from her cheeks, but somehow despite all of that I can just about recognize her from the picture. It's crazy to think that one hundred days ago she was a normal person, and she's this thing that we've got trapped here.
Clums
ily opening another section of the purse with the branch's tip, I find some business cards. I don't dare risk pulling one of them out, but from the visible section I can tell that this Jane girl was apparently self-employed.
“Jane Kincaid,” I read out loud. “Freelance writer.”
I turn to Toad.
“She was some kind of journalist, I think.”
“Everyone was something before all of this started,” he points out. “Except me, I suppose. I was just sorta living my life on the farm, preparing for...” His voice trails off for a moment. “People used to make so much fun of me. They used to use the word prepper as a synonym for madman. Turns out I had the right idea, although I hadn't counted on a whole bunch of visitors. I'd have been alright if I'd just turned everyone away.” He pauses again. “There's one person in particular I have to find when this is all over. I know she's out there, I know she's okay. Somehow I just feel it.”
“I think maybe Jane Kincaid was really just a blogger,” I continue, as I look back down at the card. “There's a website address. Not that that's particularly useful anymore. Maybe she just scraped by and -”
Suddenly she snarls again, and I flinch as I take a step back. Somehow I'd forgotten that this would happen, and I watch as she struggles against the ropes. I look down at the calm, smiling face on the driving license, and then I look at the furious, rotten face that's screaming right in front of me. I forgot to keep count this time, but I guess that doesn't really matter. After a few more seconds she falls still again, and her latest bout of rage seems to be over.
Heading back over to the purse, I grab another branch, and with two in my hands I'm able to tilt the purse onto its side until some photos slide out from a side compartment.
The first photo shows Jane and some other people her age. I guess this is her with some of her friends, relaxing and having fun in a bar. Growing up on the farm back in Oklahoma, I never really had many friends and I certainly never thought I'd living a city life. The scene in this photo looks pretty alien to me, but I can't deny that Jane and her friends look happy. And when I look at the next photo, showing them on a beach somewhere, I'm struck by the fact that they look like normal teenagers having a good time.