“My name is Braylen. What can I call you?”
Silence. My name is silence.
“Okay. I’ll call you Annie. I had a niece named Annie.” She waited a moment for my approval. I didn’t give it. “So, tell me. How do you know Jackson Day?”
Jackson Day? Jax?
“Who was the old man with him?” she asked.
Who was the old man? That didn’t mean anything. Didn’t mean he was dead. I looked up at the ceiling, staring at the long poles holding up the center of the tent.
“Maybe I’m rushing things a bit,” she said with a slight tilt of her stupid, beautiful head. “I’ll let you rest for a while. Come back in an hour or two.” She turned toward the exit. “Maybe you’ll be able to move your arms by then.” So I wasn’t permanently paralyzed. Thank God.
She left, that smile still plastered on her face like she was a puppet.
Once she was gone, the anger settled in. Any fear I’d felt had melted, bubbled, boiled down to rage. I was so mad. I don’t remember ever being so mad. Maybe at Conrad. But now there was nothing I could do with my anger, and that made it worse. I sat there like a vegetable. That phrase had never made sense to me before. Why a vegetable? But frozen as I was, with my ugly red hair plastered to the sides of my face, I really did feel like a plucked, wilted carrot. I tried to move my limbs and got the barest of twitches from my left thumb. The fire in the pot beside me had died down and was just gray coals now. I sat with my thoughts. I was drowning in my own questions. What had they given me? Why did they take my blood? What were they going to do to me? Had they caught Jeryl and Jax? Had they already killed them? Were they going to kill me? Would I ever see my family again?
I closed my eyes, trying to send signals from my brain to my dead legs. Move, knees. Move, feet. Move, toes. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
* * *
She came back a while later carrying a plate of steaming meat and what looked like some sort of chopped root. She took off my blanket, then stuffed it behind my shoulders to prop me up a bit, then she sat next to my cot on a high stool, the plate on her lap. She held out a fork and knife in either hand.
“Hungry?” Like I was a guest at her cute little bed-and-breakfast.
I was starving. Ravenous. I wanted to eat her hand.
“I was thinking, you probably aren’t going to talk to me. And honestly, I understand. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. We just immobilized you. Not the best situation for a conversation.”
I gave her a screw you look.
“We’re not going to torture you or anything, because we aren’t animals. We just have a few questions.” She nodded to the plate of food. “So, you talk to me, and I’ll give you something to eat.”
I stared at the food. I couldn’t help myself. Elk? I wasn’t sure.
“Jackson Day,” she said. “Do you know who he is? What he’s capable of?”
Glare.
“What were the three of you doing out here? Was Day leading you here?”
Glare glare glare.
She sighed, looked down at the plate, and cut into the meat with the fork and knife. The meat was juicy, a thin layer of pink in the middle. My mouth started to water. She brought the bite to her lips, set it on her tongue, and chewed.
“It’s good. Lance makes the best seasoning. Nice to have a biologist around.”
A biologist. I pictured my dad in the basement.
She cut another piece. “I used to be a vegetarian, you know. Funny how things change,” she said through a mouthful. She swallowed and cut another slice, holding it up in front of me. Fat glistened in the crevices of the dark meat. I could smell it, practically taste it. “The sooner you talk, the more there’ll be left for you.”
If you know anything about hunger, you know that it can overwhelm a person. Change the way you think, talk, act. Same with fear and anger. I was determined not to tell her anything. They shot Jax, they may have killed Jeryl, they kidnapped me, numbed me, and now they wanted me to talk to them?
But I was so freaking hungry.
I opened my mouth, just a sliver.
She leaned forward in her chair. “Here, just a taste.”
She held the fork over my lips, and my mouth opened even more. My stomach groaned audibly. She slid the meat onto my tongue, and my lips closed over it. It was warm, tender, and more flavorful than anything I’d tasted in the last seven years. I chewed, savoring the flavor and the texture, swallowing the juices. It was so good. Perfect.
Then I spat the half-chewed wad of meat into her face. Well, I aimed for her face, but it ended up bouncing against her shoulder. She gave the best little girlie yelp I could have possibly hoped for. Her pleasant smile vanished. She still looked pretty, though. Such a pretty, pretty girl.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said.
21
I didn’t always have such a potty mouth. There was a time when Mom used to scold us for saying words like dang, jerk, or crap. We went to church regularly, sang the hymns, and swore to be good people. Dad never sang, but I knew he could. He believed in God, but I kinda think he went to church for Mom.
It’s really his fault that I learned swear words in the first place. Sure, Ken swore too, but who cares? I wasn’t about to imitate him. Dad would keep his swearing in check at home for Mom’s sake, but while he taught me to fish and shoot the compound bow, he’d let the four-letter words fly. I loved it. It was like he was showing me a side of himself that wasn’t for anyone else. Our little secret.
As Ken and I got older, we started testing Mom. Dang, jerk, and crap were old news. We’d graduated to getting in trouble for saying damn, hell, bitch, and asshole.
The first time I said fuck, we were all outside at our house in Chicago, helping in the yard. Mom was pulling out weeds; Dad was chopping wood. His arms were still the strong, healthy arms I like to remember. Pre-flu arms. Ken and I were stacking the firewood. I was goofing around, climbing on the stacks, when I slipped and my foot fell between two large piles. Ken laughed. I’d scraped my knee, but not bad. The real problem was, my foot was pinned. I pulled and pulled but couldn’t get loose. Between the panicked feeling of being stuck, the pain in my shin, and Ken laughing at me, it was all too much. So I let it fly: “Fuck!”
Bomb dropped.
Mom lifted her head from her weeds, shock plain on her face. Dad came toward me in a hurried walk.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m stuck.” I could feel my face turning red from both embarrassment and the effort of trying to get unstuck.
He looked down at the wood piled around my foot. “Sometimes, the more you push, the worse it gets. Feel it out first.”
“I can’t!” I was close to tears.
“Calm.”
I wiggled my foot. Tried to lift again. Then I turned it to the right. Nothing. Left—slight budge. I pushed left again and found more room. Then more. I twisted my whole leg until my foot came sliding out from beneath the pile. I climbed out while Ken slow-clapped like an asshole.
“See?” Dad said. “No problem.”
I still got sent to my room that night. Apparently, no matter the situation, fuck was not an appropriate word for a nine-year-old to use.
But that was the life before. The forgotten times. The life that was. Now I lived in the Yukon. I ate meat. I cursed like a sailor.
* * *
I slept like a rock. Like a rock buried a mile under the earth, unable to move its little rock limbs. When I woke, daylight filled the brown canvas, and there was a thermos of what I assumed was water and food sitting on a plate next to my jacket. Fish. Looked like grayling. I would have cut off my legs for a bite. Especially since my limbs were currently useless. I was able to lift my head from the pillow. At least that was something. I did my best to kick and, amazingly, the blanket jumped. I kicked again. My foot jerked into the air. It was an erratic motion with not a ton of control to it, but still, it was something. I kicked the other foot. The blanket bounced. I twitched my arms
and they moved back and forth at my sides. Then they lifted into the air. I bent them at the elbow and wiggled my fingers. I could move! I nearly laughed out loud. I was working on sitting up when I heard footsteps and a zipper, then saw Braylen step into the tent.
“Good morning,” she said. “Got some more movement today?”
I dropped my head back onto the pillow.
She took the plate, tore off a bit of the fish, and held it out to me. I tried to pack all the hatred I could into a single glance.
“I’m pretty sure you can use your hands now. You don’t need to hide it.”
A small, twisting trail of steam rose from the fish. I felt my mouth water.
“We’re not going to let you starve.”
I pulled my left hand out from under the blanket. My movement was slow, but I reached out and took the fish. You know how usually when you want something, you grab it without even thinking about it? Your hand seems to act on its own. Well, this was nothing like that. This was like I was controlling a robot arm with complicated dials and buttons. I had to use all of my concentration to get it right. But I did get it right. I brought the fish to my mouth. It was salty, smoky, and delicious. She pulled off another piece.
“I feel like I owe you something of an explanation,” she said as I took the fish from her sticky hand. “We’ve gotten off to a bad start. Let me tell you a bit about us.”
I turned to face her, meeting her eyes.
“We are one of the last groups left of the DCIA. Disease Containment and Immunity Advancement. I’m sure you’ve heard of Immunity? You saw us on the news, before? Anyhow, we were a research group. Started actually a few years before the first case of the flu. We were primarily scientists, but we had all kinds of people working with us back then. When the flu started to spread, we tried to find ways of protecting people, of fighting it. When it crossed the Pacific, our goal was to contain it. As is now obvious, we didn’t succeed.” Giving her a half-interested look, I held out my hand and she ripped off another piece of fish.
“But we haven’t given up. We want to keep what’s left of this world intact. We want to rebuild. That’s why we’re out here. Still searching. Some would say finding the answers we’re looking for is worth any cost. Any life.” For a moment, she was lost in thought, her eyes drifting over the tent canvas behind me. “Did you know that some people who got the flu survived? The survivors were mostly in the colder regions. The flu seems to thrive in warmer temperatures, but for whatever reason, it struggles in the cold. People here were exposed to a less extreme strain. We think there’s a chance that some were able to develop an immunity. Our goal is to find those people, study them, figure out a cure for the rest of us. We’ve been camping out for a few weeks, then packing up and moving on. And we’ll keep moving until we find what we’re looking for, including, I suppose, Jax.” She paused as if unsure how to continue. I wanted to leap up and rip Jax’s name from her mouth, but I kept my face still, betraying nothing. “I can’t say I particularly love all this snow and cold, but we’ve got some excellent outdoorsmen with us who keep our larder stocked and our tents warm.”
If this had been a conversation with anyone else, anywhere else, I would have been thrilled. I might even have wanted to join them. Travel into the northern reaches, find more people, save the world, explore, all that good shit. But they’d nearly killed us, paralyzed me. Jax and Jeryl didn’t trust them, so why should I? Why was she keeping me? Was Jeryl still alive? Why did they want Jax?
Braylen lifted the jug of water and held it to my lips. I took long, greedy gulps.
“Care for a walk?”
I frowned.
“I know. But you probably have more movement than you think. Besides, I’m guessing you have to go to the bathroom. Here. I’ll help.”
I did my best to resist, but she was strong and forceful, and I was weak. Besides, I did have to go. Not badly, though, which meant that I was probably pretty dehydrated.
Braylen got me out of the bed—which I saw now was just a small foldout cot with some blankets—and helped me get my jacket, hat, gloves, and boots on. She had to support my weight every step of the way. I couldn’t even hold myself upright. It was unbelievably frustrating. I felt for my knife at my side, but it wasn’t there. Of course. They’d taken it.
“Let’s give you a test run.”
She basically carried me the first few steps, my feet shuffling awkwardly. We made our way in a slow, agonizing circle around the table.
“You’re doing great,” she said. I wanted to kick her. We walked around the table again. Much better this time. Again. Now my feet were lifting off the ground, and I didn’t have to use her quite as much.
“Let’s try outside.”
The snow was difficult. My legs didn’t want to lift high enough, but I was determined, and the white powder was already mostly beaten down into paths from the others’ footprints. One step, two steps, three, four, five. I settled into a rhythm. Lift foot, stretch foot, plant foot. Repeat.
As we moved our way through the camp, I saw a few people roaming about. A few fires with pots hanging over them. Smoke drifting into the bright, cloudy sky. And eyes. Lots of eyes on me. Watching me walk. A few people said hi to Braylen, but she just waved them off. I scanned the area for any sign of Jax or Jeryl. Nothing.
Braylen led me west past the tents and between the few spruce trees and bushes until we came upon a small wooden structure built between the trees. It was rectangular like, well, like a porta potty.
“I’m sorry to say, but you’ll probably need my help.”
And I was sorry to hear it. But it was the truth. I could barely stand on my own let alone squat. She helped me through the door, and my stomach lurched from the smell. The air felt stale, thick with shit. Light slipped in through the cracks in the wood, and I saw a simple hole in the ground. Braylen helped me with my pants, helped me squat over the hole, and helped me back to my feet when I was done. It was the most humiliating thing I’d ever had to do.
On our way back through the woods, we heard footsteps behind us. We stopped and turned to see a man in a white coat, gloves, and shoulder-length hair tromping through the snow. He was carrying a cage with a bird in it. A white crow. Just like the one I’d seen before finding Jax.
“Braylen,” he said, waving. “I got one.” He held up the cage like a proud child.
“Wow,” Braylen said. “You really did.” When he got close, Braylen bent down and inspected the bird, lifting a hand as if she were going to open the cage and let it free.
“Anders owes me a thousand bucks now,” he said.
A thousand bucks?
Braylen glanced at me as if she’d heard me ask the question. “They bet money, now that it’s meaningless.”
“I’m keeping track,” the man said. “Just in case.”
When his eyes found me, they studied me like I was the one in the cage. His face reminded me of a marten. Wide eyes, pointed nose.
“And who’s this?”
“I call her Annie,” Braylen said.
The bird was panicked, its little claws clinking against the bars beneath its feet.
“Nice to meet you, Annie,” the man said. “Should I put it in your tent?” he asked Braylen, holding up the crow.
“Yes, perfect. Thanks, Tom,” she said, eyes still on the bird.
“No worries.” He moved on ahead of us. I wanted to ask why they were interested in white crows and what they were going to do with the bird, but the only words I’d said so far were “Go fuck yourself.” I kinda wanted to keep it at that.
“Have you seen one of those before?” Braylen asked. She studied my face, gauging my reaction.
I nodded. She beamed, and I instantly regretted answering her.
“Where?”
I looked down at my boots. She seemed to take the hint because we started walking again.
“White crows aren’t unheard of, but they used to be incredibly rare. They showed up here a few years back in greate
r numbers. We’ve been spotting them at least once every few weeks now. At most, we’ve seen three at a time.” She sounded excited. “I’m not sure if it’s some sort of evolutionary advancement, like a camouflage they’ve adopted to blend in with the snow, or if something about the new weather patterns made the white genetic mutation more popular. They’re not albinos, though. Their eyes would be red and their claws pink. It’s pretty amazing.”
I thought of the one I’d seen, cawing in the tree. It was pretty amazing, but I wasn’t about to say that.
“The world is changing. We’ve had reports of moss growing over big cities, spreading across the sides of buildings, and trees, whole forests, sprouting up through pavement. Can you imagine?” She shook her head. I couldn’t imagine. I could barely picture big cities. When I closed my eyes, all I saw was snow. “And we still don’t really know why the weather is doing what it’s doing. Some think it was the bombs and the fires. But I don’t know. Think of all the waste that’s no longer being produced. All the factories that are no longer ruining the ozone. Cars that are no longer running.” Or maybe God just likes the cold, I thought.
We made our way back toward the camp. I smelled smoke and cooked meat and realized I was still hungry.
“We won’t kill it,” Braylen said.
I glanced at her, then back at my feet, which seemed to be getting stronger with each step.
“We’ll study it, run a few tests, then let it go. We should only be observers. Collectors of information. For the good of everyone.” There it was again. That stiffness, plastic, like she was trying to convince herself. For the good of everyone. I don’t know if she was lying or if she just really wanted me to believe her.
Didn’t matter. I didn’t.
* * *
After they left me alone that night, I heard someone moving outside my tent. When I looked toward the tent flap, I could see a man outside fiddling with a stick. It shot open like an umbrella. Only, it wasn’t an umbrella or a stick. It was a chair, a foldout chair. He sat down in it. A guard. Watching over me. Of course.
The Wolves of Winter Page 13