Humanity's Edge- The Complete Trilogy

by Paul B. Kohler

  Alex nodded, seemingly trying to focus his thoughts. “I was with a . . . some others,” he whispered. “People. Survivors. That’s what we call ourselves now, isn’t it? We survived something. At least, we have so far.”

  “Why’d you stop here?” Alayna asked.

  “Food. Shelter. The hotel had it,” Alex continued. He dropped his head to the pillow. “But there were others here already.”

  Alex’s eyes began to droop. Clay put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and started to shake him.

  “Don’t, Clay. He needs to rest,” Lane said.

  “We don’t have time. We need to find out as much as we can.”

  “We can’t get anything from him if he dies on us,” Lane retorted.

  But Clay continued to shake the boy, insisting he wake. “Hey. Kid. Alex. Who was in the hotel already? Other survivors? Do you remember any of their names?”

  Alex’s eyes popped open. “We—we weren’t here very long,” he murmured. “Not long. Before they came. The dead . . . monsters. They used to be people. They used to be just like us.”

  “And they escaped? They left you here to save themselves?” Clay demanded.

  “The healthy. They got to leave. But me . . .” Alex started gasping for oxygen, before losing consciousness once more. His lips hung open, fish-like.

  “Fuck,” Clay yelled. He let go of Alex’s shoulders and stormed to the far side of the room.

  “Maybe he was left behind because he was too sick to travel,” Lane suggested. “They must have thought he was going to turn. The symptoms are similar.”

  “This epidemic—that you all created—is a bit more common than the flu, these days,” Clay interjected.

  “Whatever,” Lane snapped. “Regardless, he probably wasn’t told much. Just tied up here to die. What kind of monster would do that?”

  “One that was probably no better than those crazed wondering the streets,” Alayna said, leaning against the bedpost.

  “Alex. Hey,” Clay said, shaking the boy’s shoulders. “Alex. Wake up.”

  The boy blinked awake. He stared at them incredulously, as if searching his mind for recognition.

  “Do you remember anyone else that was here? The other survivors? Can you remember their names?” Clay asked, his voice rising. “Anything. Anything at all?”

  “He doesn’t remember, Clay. He’s had the flu for who knows how long. You know what it’s like to get the flu,” Alayna said. “You’re really out of it.”

  “Anyone’s name, kid. Can you remember talking to anyone?”

  “I—” Alex breathed. His eyes searched the ceiling, like a daydreamer. “Survivors? What a silly—” He pressed his lips together, licking what was left of the toilet water. “I—I miss her. She was—she was—” He paused. “M-Myy.”

  Clay jerked up, his heart thumping against his ribcage.

  “What did you just say?” he demanded, wanting to know for sure.

  “Mona—” Alex whispered, tailing off. “Mmaia.”

  His eyes closed. He took a long, gasping breath, and then fell into darkness—a deep sleep from which Clay couldn’t awaken him. Not in that moment.

  In the silence that followed, Clay’s mind raced.

  Maia. Jesus. Maia.

  He’d heard only the name, and nothing more. Was she alive? Was she safe? Had she gone with the others, or had she—God forbid—been attacked?

  His eyes swept the room, hunting for any clue of her. He wished he could smell her. Feel her presence. Know if she’d existed in that very room.

  Alayna broke into his reverie. “We should let him rest for a little while, Clay.”

  “He knows her,” Clay said. His head swung back and forth wildly, his fingers twitched. Could Alayna even understand how this made him feel? She wasn’t a parent. She’d never even expressed any desire for children. She could never imagine the love for a child. This wasn’t a game for him. This was his lifeblood. This was his everything.

  Chapter 36

  Lane stepped in front of Clay.

  “No,” she said, her voice low, like a growl. “You’re done here for now.”

  “You heard him,” Clay exclaimed. “He said her name, Lane. Maia! Don’t you understand what that means?”

  “I understand that he’s delirious,” Lane said. “And it’s quite incredible that he’s even lived this long. You know, if we’d been just one day later, we would have found a dead body instead of a malnourished boy who was left for dead by people. People like us. We have to remember our humanity, Clay.”

  “Fuck humanity. He knows where she is,” Clay snarled at Lane, jabbing her with his finger.

  The motion was forceful, jarring Lane back slightly. Alayna gasped, and covered her mouth. A heavy silence followed.

  Clearing her throat, Lane stood her ground. “I will not be bullied.”

  Clay felt a burning in his brain. He pulled his fingers through his hair, his shoulders shaking with anger. He realized he was out of line and knew he should apologize, but words would not form. He pointed at the dying boy.

  “You have to save him, then,” he said. “You have to make sure he lives. He knows Maia. He knows where they took her.”

  Alayna interrupted, “Clay! Just because he said her name doesn’t mean he knows any of that.”

  Clay shook his head. “What do you mean?”

  “She could just be the last person he remembers. Possibly not your Maia at all,” Alayna said. “Just the last friend he had before they all packed up. And that doesn’t mean he knows where they went. He might have been delirious when he was tied to the bed. It’s actually a pretty sure bet. Right, Lane?”

  Lane nodded, not looking at Clay. She placed a hand on Alex’s forehead, checking his temperature. It seemed to radiate through the room, fueling all their nerves.

  “If he knows anything about Maia, then that’s all the more reason to save him.” Clay folded his arms across his chest. He refused to believe that Alex knew nothing. They’d found him for a reason. Now, they’d save him. They were limping along from miracle to miracle. Weren’t they?

  “Well, I don’t have the proper supplies,” Lane said. “There’s not a lot I can do for him here. I can keep him warm. Administer fluids. I don’t have a great deal of hope, to be honest.”

  But Clay refused to believe it. He turned to the door, his mind already rolling. “Then we need to get to a hospital. Even though they’re most likely abandoned, they must still have plenty of supplies. We could even stock up for the future.”

  “Well, of course,” Lane said. “But Alex is in no condition to be moved. We could hardly handle moving him to the bathroom, let alone across town. And if we come across the crazed—”

  “He would hold us back. Put us in jeopardy,” Alayna said. “I agree with Lane. He needs to stay put.”

  “Then, you both stay here. Watch him,” Clay grunted. “I’ll head to the hospital. I think I saw it on the other side of the railroad tracks as we came into town. Shouldn’t be more than a thirty minute walk.”

  “No. You’re not going out there by yourself,” Alayna protested. “I’ll go with you. Lane can stay here. Watch over Alex. She’s safe here. But out there—there’s just no way we can know how many are out there, waiting for you. I don’t want you to be surrounded.”

  Clay felt his heartbeat ramp up. He nodded slowly, knowing Alayna was right.

  “We’re losing time,” Lane said, and began to describe the supplies she needed, scribbling them down on a piece of paper from her back pocket. She passed it to Clay, sounding breathless. “But shit, I almost forgot. The neutralizer. It needs a new battery.”

  Clay flipped his thumb toward the door, shrugging. “I’ll just stop by the store on the way back. What size does it take?”

  “You don’t understand,” Lane said. “It’s a special kind of battery. Long life, high output. That sort of thing.”

  “You’re saying we can’t get it at the local supermarket, then?” Clay asked, incredulous.
“Because that doesn’t seem practical in this end of world scenario. I’m no rocket scientist here, but wouldn’t it have made better sense to design the device to utilize a standard battery? I mean, assuming there are enough batteries in the world to power it up.”

  “It wasn’t developed for this kind of emergency. It was designed for the military. They would have always had supplies . . .” she trailed off. The silence stretched between them, heavy with recriminations.

  “As far as I know, there’s no military base around here,” Clay said, bringing his fist against his thigh. He immediately felt a bruise begin to form. He didn’t know his own strength.

  “Mobile defibrillators. At the hospital.” Lane’s eyes were dancing through computations or algorithms that only she could see. “They use a similar power source, if you can believe it. If you find one at the hospital, grab it. If all goes well, I should be able to make it work.”

  “And if you can’t?” Clay asked.

  The silence that followed was deafening.

  “Fuck it,” Clay said and shrugged. “Let’s get a move on.”

  He passed through the open door and into the hallway, which reeked of Alayna’s vomit. He marched toward the staircase, Alayna behind him. As the minutes ticked by, he knew Alex’s death was nearing.

  And with his death, Clay was afraid he would lose Maia for good.

  Chapter 37

  Clay bolted down the staircase with Alayna following. He didn’t dare look back; she would see that he was near sobbing. His eyes were tinged red with a mix of anger and sadness and fear, knowing that with each passing moment, his daughter was inching away from him.

  At the hotel entrance, where they’d shattered the window, he crunched through the glass. Alayna’s voice calling out his name hardly registered.

  “Clay! Hey! Clay,” she cried. “Listen to me.”

  Clay paused at the doorway. “We don’t have time to talk.”

  “But we don’t have what we need to just leave like this,” Alayna said, resting her hand on his shoulder in an attempt to ground him. His body twitched at her touch. “We need to look for weapons, ammunition, anything they could have left behind. If they were in such a hurry to leave, they might have left supplies, things we could use out there. Let’s not go out there half-cocked, is all I’m saying.”

  Clay knew she was speaking reasonably. He sighed, and turned back toward the foyer. She eyed him fearfully.

  “Let’s split up, then,” Clay said. “You take the upper floors, and I’ll look down here. The kitchen. The supply closets. Maybe there’s a basement we missed. The hospital I saw was across town, but maybe there’s a closer one. Find a phone book.”

  They separated, Alayna darting back up the stairs and Clay turning toward the wide swinging doors, which led him into the hotel kitchen with its bright countertops, scattered with food packaging. A large slab of meat rotted on the counter. The smell made Clay’s stomach turn. Bolting through the room, he found a supply closet near the pantry. Inside, a dozen automatic weapons were positioned, lined up like library books. There were three flashlights and several boxes of ammunition on the shelf above.

  “Fuck yeah.” Clay reached for a gun and found the right ammo. He loaded—his movements deft and precise—as if he’d been at war his entire life.

  Not like before, when he’d been a slightly overweight sheriff, just waiting to go home for the day. That Clay didn’t seem to exist anymore.

  He slipped two flashlights into front pockets then took another gun for Alayna before heading back to the foyer. As he looked down the countertop, past the slab of meat, he saw a few packages of granola bars in the corner. Grabbing them, he ripped his teeth into one of the packages, pulling out the snack, sugar tingling on his tongue.

  In the foyer, Alayna was waiting for him, emptyhanded.

  Clay tossed a pistol across the room. She caught it deftly, surprise on her face. “Is this loaded?” she asked. “It could’ve gone off.”

  “It didn’t,” Clay said. “You find a phone book?”

  “Just the one hospital is listed. The one we saw coming in. I think that’s our best bet. Where’d you get the firepower?” she asked, spying Clay’s newly adorned holster.

  “Supply closet through the kitchen.” Clay thumbed over his shoulder.

  “Anything else back there?”

  “At least ten more. It’s strange they left so much here. Oh. And I found these.” He tossed a pack of granola bars toward her. She nabbed them from the air and ate them quickly, her jaw grinding like a wild animal. Clay looked away, he didn’t like to see her like that.

  The ingrained behavior of civilized society was dropping away from them. They were blood and guts and wants and needs. For all intents and purposes, they were animals with guns, on the loose in a jungle.

  “You get enough?” Clay asked.

  “It’ll never be enough. Can’t you see how much weight I’ve lost?” she asked, bits of granola falling from her lips. “I’ll be skin and bones before the end of the week. We should get some up to Lane and the kid. He’ll be needing fuel soon.”

  “Hurry,” Clay snapped, pointing toward the staircase. “We leave in five.”

  Watching her scamper up the steps, he felt high, dominant, resilient. When Alayna reached the foyer once more, the food delivered, she was huffing, out of breath.

  Chapter 38

  The streets of Dearing were eerie, abandoned of anyone living or dead. It was long after sundown, and the few street lamps that still worked flickered like a cartoon haunted house, casting strange shadows. Clay and Alayna held their guns forward, scanning left and right. For a long time, as they crept through the town, they found no reason to speak.

  Their path was crowded with abandoned cars, most of them stalled haphazardly, with several rammed into the backs of others—as if some kind of real-life bumper car ride had opened up to the general public. Clay and Alayna had to bob and weave through the streets, darting between the wreckage, crunching over broken glass on the pavement.

  As they moved, Clay peered into the abandoned cars, trying to make sense of the lives that were left behind. The effect was humbling. Car seats, empty—probably still sticky from bottles of formula or milk. Toys scattered throughout. Several of them resembled the little red sedan Valerie had driven when they’d first met as teenagers, all those years before. They’d made out in the back, finding all the uniquely wonderful ways they could make each other’s bodies feel—unaware they were just animals, chasing hormones like dogs chase balls.

  “It’s weird not to see anyone in an entire town like this,” Alayna said. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.”

  “There’s a lot we won’t get used to,” Clay said.

  After nearly forty minutes, they reached the hospital, a two-level building made of concrete and steel. They approached the emergency room entrance first, peering into the long, whitewashed hallways. The automatic doors didn’t open—no power. Alayna reached for a decorative rock near an overgrown bush. She prepared to hurl it through the glass.

  “Don’t!” Clay held his hands up. “That could attract them. We’ve been lucky so far, but who knows how long that’ll last?”

  Alayna nodded and dropped it to the cement walk with a dull crack. “Let’s circle the building then. I’m sure there’s another entrance.”

  “Agreed,” Clay said.

  They crept around the building, eyeing the dark, shadowed windows.

  Alayna stopped short.

  “What’s the matter?” Clay asked, turning toward his one-time deputy.

  “How are we going to see a thing in there? The power—”

  Clay slipped the two flashlights from his pockets like a magician. “Voila!” he said, handing one to Alayna.

  “Aren’t you full of surprises.” She clicked the power button on and off several times.

  “I found them in the same storage closet where they stashed the guns and ammo. I figured it might get a little dark in there. It�
��d be tough to see things without them.”

  “Great thinking,” Alayna said. “You don’t think anyone’s hiding out in there, do you? Waiting for fools like us to stumble in?”

  “People could have used this as a shelter, sure. We just have to have our wits about us,” Clay said. “They could try to shake us down, or worse, try to kill us. Desperate times. You can’t say what anyone will do.”

  “Right.”

  They rounded another corner and found an auxiliary entrance, where a dark, narrow corridor led into the depths of the hospital. Alayna stayed behind Clay, her breath coming in ragged bursts, showing her fear. He clicked on his flashlight. It blinded them for a moment before their eyes adjusted.

  “We’ll need to find batteries for these at some point,” Clay whispered. “I didn’t see any back at the hotel.”

  “Let’s head toward the front of the building,” Alayna murmured, her voice quivering. “I think I saw a directory through the glass doors. It should show us where the pharmacy is. I don’t want to waste time wandering around too much. This place gives me the major creeps. And that smell!”

  The odor was a foul mix of unwashed bedpans and decomposition. Having come directly from Alex’s room to this, it was easy to link horrible smells with fear. Even that first day in the jail cell, Clay had felt fear, had smelled the rank vomit and alcohol, and then had unknowingly contracted the infection.

  This was an unclean world.

  They made their way through the dark hallways, walking what seemed like miles, ending up in countless dead ends. They passed nurses’ stations and dark, closed doors, until they finally found the facility’s admissions center. The place looked orderly, with the clerk’s chairs still facing their desks, almost as if everyone had just gone out to lunch and turned out the lights.

  “There. The directory,” Alayna said, pointing toward a large map of the premises. She traced her finger up and down, then across the floor plan, studying its layout before finally stabbing a finger on top of their destination. “Wing C. Didn’t we pass a Wing C on the way here? About five minutes ago?”