by Cass Kim
“You’re part of this government team. You pretend to be helping me. You say you have a plan. But you’re letting them treat me, my brother, and who knows how many other ‘friends’ of yours worse than animals.”
Syd scrubbed her hands with sanitizer, pulling on a pair of latex gloves before standing in front of Renna, who was sitting on the edge of the table. “Let me get my checks done while I talk.” She placed her hands on either side of Renna’s face, peering into her eyes one at a time. “You’re gunna have a lot of questions, but I don’t know how much time we have, so just listen.”
Syd made notes on a piece of paper then returned to her study of Renna’s eyes. “Look. I know these people are claiming to be the government, but they’re not. That guy runnin’ the show? That’s Royce Algin, from Algin Pharmaceuticals.” She paused, waiting to see if Renna recognized the name.
Renna shrugged lamely.
“They’re the biggest producer of vaccines in North America. They also manufacture a whole boatload of other prescription medications.” Syd continued, her voice taking on her signature know it all tone. “That Botox-faced fool thinks I think he’s partnered with the government. He’s not. Some of the goons with him might be military trained, but those aren’t military issued guns.”
“How do you know that?”
Syd tapped the side of her head with one gloved finger. “Genius, remember? Photographic memory. I read a lot of policy papers and military strategy books when the outbreaks first started.” She paused to look at her watch while counting Renna’s carotid pulse.
“If they’re not the government, then is the real government still coming?”
Syd nodded. “I sure hope so. You didn’t see it, but when they came in, they shot Samantha straight away. Made some giant speech about wanting to work together to avoid more bloodshed. All the while brandishing huge guns.”
Renna nodded, thinking of the flashback of some of the scientists standing over something. The Botox man, Royce Algin, making a speech, flanked by his armed guards, dressed like the US military. Samantha had been one of the quieter Wilders in the camp, but she’d been kind. She hadn’t deserved to be an example.
“Well, just about that time the other half of their squad started killing anyone with copper eyes. You can buy ‘em tough and trained, but you can’t buy ‘em comfortable with Wilders, I guess.” Syd made another note, turning away to hide her frown.
“Is that why you drugged me?”
“Yes. Had to get you safely, had to get you before they did. Emers would never forgive me if you got shot by some musclehead with a gun under my watch. So, I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I told him I knew exactly who he had to test on. And I bargained for my Mom’s life.”
“I was almost out, you know. I was running fast.”
“Might’ve been. But these woods are crawlin’ with armed men, and the chances of you getting out and staying safe by yourself just didn’t seem like good ones.”
Gritting her teeth, she decided getting more information had a higher value than arguing at this point. “What about Soo?”
“Both Dr’s Kim saw what I was doing and joined in. He won’t let them work on any Wilders directly, but they’re processing molecular information and altering formulas. They’re safe. We’re working on a plan. But,” Syd looked guilty, “We need to stick it out longer. His research has taken a lot of paths ours never did. We’re copying his information down every chance we get. Renna, he’s perfected some aspects of the vaccine and treatment we’re not even close to. So. Even if we had a way to escape right now, we wouldn’t.”
“Do you?” Renna tried to keep the edge out of her voice. “Do you have a way to escape yet?”
“No. But I’ve notified Emer’s and as soon as he gets near camp he’ll know what’s going on.”
“Oh my God. They can’t come back here. They’ll shoot them for sure.” She thought of the wildness of some of the Wilders on the supply run.
“They won’t cross the guard perimeter. Emers and I been livin’ in these woods too long to not have a few ways to communicate. He just has to check the right spot, and he’ll get my note.”
“Is Benjamin okay?” Renna pressed, trying to get as much information as she could.
“I suspect he will be. They’re working on a serum to mitigate the aggression response in some. It’s gunna be real important that it’s right, when we get a vaccine to the masses.”
“What happens if their testing kills us before they find the answers you need?”
Syd paused before she looked up from her notes. “I won’t let that happen. If I have to drug every one of these bastards, I’ll get you out before I let that happen.”
Renna nodded, noting how Syd hadn’t promised the pharmaceutical doctors would never kill them. Just that she’d get her out before they did.
21
Alyssa
The force of the crowd carried Alyssa, Jeremy, and their cart through the open double doors and out into the late afternoon snowfall. Gasping, shoving people away with one hand, and trying not to slip in the slushy snow, Alyssa dragged hard on the cart handle to turn it toward Jeremy’s car.
Ahead of her, Jeremy pulled and tugged on the basket, his sneakers useless in the inches of heavy, wet ground cover.
“Get your keys out!” Alyssa shouted, desperate to be heard over the screams still ringing out of the warehouse store behind them.
Jeremy let go of the basket, slip-sliding alongside as he dug into his jean pockets.
For one terrified moment, Alyssa thought he’d lost them somewhere along their desperate flight.
Jeremy held up the keys triumphantly, and she pushed harder into the cart handle, gaining ground. If they could just get to the car, it would be fine. Everything would be okay.
The screams from the store intensified. Alyssa dared a look back. The crowd was surging into the space between the doors, people so tightly packed that some were getting stuck on the edge of the doors, pushed and shoved past, unable to get their bodies fully out, just being smashed into the door edges. When people slipped in the slick wetness just outside the door, those behind them did not pause to help them up. Many of them did not make it back up at all.
“Holy hell. Holy hell.” She gasped the words like a prayer, shoving the cart into the bumper of Jeremy’s car, gesturing wildly for him to open the damn trunk, the doors, anything.
The car beeped, lights flashing. Alyssa shoved the first cooler into the large trunk space. Wordlessly they began throwing the enormous packs of frozen meat into it. People streamed past them, and one slowed, looking hard at their cart as he passed.
“Don’t fucking think about it.” She snarled at him, gripping hard on one of three jugs of rubbing alcohol, ready to swing if he showed any signs of aggression.
He glared and kept running.
One cooler loaded. Alyssa ripped open the back door of the car, shoving the second cooler in at an angle, then yanking the top open. Turning back to the cart, she almost ran into Jeremy, standing frozen next to her. Staring at the store.
Following his gaze, she saw not one, but two inhumanly fast forms ripping through the terrified crowd. No reason or pattern to the wild swings, the destruction. People fled. One guy tried to step up, gesturing for others to join him. He had the right idea. There were enough humans that they could take out two Wilders if they worked together.
Watching in horror, Alyssa couldn’t turn away as nobody else stepped in to help him. The Wilder he was trying to stop didn’t even flinch as he landed a punch. Rather than injuring the Wilder, it turned its rage toward him. The larger Wilder slammed into the man, ricocheting his head off one of the large yellow posts next to the crossing lane before digging into his exposed face and neck with clawed hands.
Fighting down the urge to vomit, Alyssa wrenched her gaze away and fumbled with cold, numb hands at the remaining frozen items in the cart. Slamming the second cooler top down, she gestured for Jeremy to move faster
as he loaded. He stopped between each item, gazing around, movements slow and robotic.
Growling in frustration, she shoved him into the driver’s seat and gestured wildly for him to start the car as she haphazardly threw more items into the trunk before slamming it shut. The last layer of items in the basket would have to go in the backseat.
A crimson ball rolling toward her pulled her gaze around as she reached for the last heavy box in the cart. A girl with long dark hair and a store uniform was running, arms filled with whatever she could carry. Alyssa bent down and grabbed the pomegranate at her feet, intending to give it back to her, when a fast moving body slammed past them, knocking the older girl to the ground, her items flying through the air and landing in a potpourri of food and toiletries in the dirty slush around them.
The Wilder continued past, unfazed and seemingly uninterested in the girl he’d knocked down. Heart pounding in her chest, Alyssa scrabbled for the girl to help her up, shoving as many items into her stunned arms as she could. Dumbly, her eyes caught on the girl’s name tag: ‘Nicole S.’
Grabbing the girl’s shoulders and giving them a gentle shake, looking into her brown eyes, she said sternly, “Nicole. You’re going to be okay. Just keep moving. Get inside a safe house with good metal screens and stay there.” She shoved the girl away, ushering her the direction she’d been running. Then, shoving her own cart away from the car, she chucked the case of cat food into the back seat, and slammed the door shut.
Alyssa slipped and slid around the back of the car, yanking the passenger door open, then whacking her hand down into the automatic lock button.
“Okay. We need to drive. Take the traffic circle. Be aggressive. Everybody else will be too.”
Jeremy nodded once. The heat blasting in the vehicle reassured Alyssa. He couldn’t be infected. He’d touched metal. Jeremy wanted warm air blowing on him. Thank God. She might hate the way he’d treated Renna, but they’d grown up together. He was the closest thing she had to a brother. She might want him to suffer a little, but only in the sense that she could gloat, then his ego would be taken down a notch and maybe they’d all be pals again.
Getting the car out of the store parking lot was almost as terrifying as getting their cart out of the store. Cars were zigzagging in all directions, heedless of the typical traffic pattern. Some drove without concern for the multitude of people running across the open spaces and between parked vehicles.
Jeremy gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckles, his gaze darting as he eased the car through the mayhem. His tongue stuck out, darting from side to side with each turn, just as it always had when they’d played video games as children. Alyssa stifled a hysterical laugh that was forcing its way up her throat. Maybe all those hours of Racing Rooney would pay off.
The light-hearted moment faded into an eternity of staring out the windows, shoulders hunched to their ears, silent and concentrating.
When Jeremy eased the car into the string of vehicles at the parking lot entrance, he asked, "Where are we going?"
Not sure which side of the lot they were on, Alyssa strained forward to peer through the falling snow, searching out the traffic circle she’d come in by. "Um."
Jeremy tapped the wheel impatiently now, waiting for his turn to exit the lot, eyes darting to the chaos in the rearview mirror.
Alyssa dug for the map in her coat pocket, fingers no longer cold, but still clumsy with adrenaline.
“Just give me a first direction.” Jeremy snapped, nosing up, now one car away from exiting.
“Uh, er, the traffic circle. Can you get to the traffic circle?” Alyssa groped the map open, staring at the smudged lines bleeding along the damp paper.
“I think that’s to the right.” Jeremy jerked the wheel, his sudden acceleration throwing them against the seat backs.
“Do you have your phone?” She might not be able to use hers, but she could use his GPS, at least.
“Yeah, it’s in my pocket.” He patted his jeans with one hand, traveling too fast to be steering with a single hand on the slick roads.
“I’ll get it!” Alyssa hissed, trepidation making her voice harsher than she intended.
He ignored her, easing his foot off the accelerator and patting his pocket harder, faster. “I don’t feel it.” He arched his hips up, digging one hand in his left pocket before switching grips on the steering wheel to check the other. “It’s not here. It must have fallen out in the store when I was shoving that shelf around.”
“Okay.” Alyssa took a deep breath. “Um. I remember something about an Angel street. And maybe a Hedy Avenue or something.” She twirled two fingers through her short hair, tugging on the ends. Her head felt light, unable to focus. Too much adrenaline and not enough food. Wishing she’d thought to snag a candy car or bag of cookies on their flight through the shelves, Alyssa scrunched her eyes tight in thought.
“I think Hedy is one of the spokes in the traffic circle.” Jeremy broke in, trapped in another parade of cars, this time inching toward the traffic circle.
“Jeremy. Uh. What about your girlfriend?” She tried to suppress the shame she felt at having left the store without a single thought for the girl Jeremy drove there.
“Stacy.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I didn’t see her anywhere. She has a lot of friends at work.” His throat worked again, too dry to swallow his guilt. “I was so scared. I couldn’t think. Lyssie, if you hadn’t been there, I don’t know if I even would have gotten out.” His gaze remained fixed out the windshield, navigating closer to the circle.
“Yeah.” She scrunched down in her seat, pressing her feet against the dashboard. “I know that feeling.” Her arms wrapped around her middle, collar bone aching from the break a few long weeks ago.
The radio burst into life, blaring out the warning tones for an emergency broadcast. After the initial infection, some states, including New York, had made radio overrides in cars mandatory; radios that were off, or connected to phones still broadcast the warnings.
Jeremy and Alyssa both turned to the radio, as though looking at it would increase their understanding of the message reverberating through the car. “The entire rural area of upstate New York is now placed under house quarantine. Residents are advised to remain in their homes, with copper or silver screens secured in place. Outbreaks have been reported in the following cities: Amsterdam, Cupboard Lake, Glens Falls, Gloversville, and Placid Lake.”
They frowned in confusion. Cupboard Lake had been under quarantine for days. That’s why both of them were there, in Placid Lake. Alyssa squeezed herself tighter in a bid to keep it together.
“Effective at five PM Eastern Standard Time, the aforementioned cities will be in lockdown. Any person on the street will be considered infected, or as a risk to others. Authorities will treat all such persons with the force necessary to subdue a Wilder.”
Alyssa’s heart stopped. It was four-thirty. She had half an hour to get to the gas station and meet Emerson. Then get deep enough into the woods to be safe. What if he wasn’t there? What would Jeremy do, then, alone in his car, once she’d unloaded and left?
Jeremy reached over and wrenched down the volume as the announcement started again. “Do you think they’ll really shoot anyone on the streets after five?” His fingers tapped at the steering wheel, still several cars from merging into the circle.
Alyssa thought about Renna’s Dad, and how many times he’d been shot. Pressing her feet harder into the dashboard, she shoved the potential of Emerson being out, not knowing that the town was going into lockdown, deep down to hide from the fear trying to take over. Her brain kept pushing the past forward, making that impossible. Images of the danger she’d seen first-hand when that Wilder had attacked her at Renna’s house kept breaking through. Of Emerson saving her, and almost dying to do it. Finally, she responded, “Yeah. Yeah, I think they really will. They’ll shoot on sight.”
22
Renna
“You were not as impressive as I had hoped you wou
ld be.” Botox, or as she now knew, Royce Algin, shooed Syd out of the tent as he spoke. “Perhaps Sydney was correct in that you should have a little more buffer than the others, be a little more alert.” He picked up a notebook from the table, reading, still not looking at her. “You seem to be more human than many.” The notebook was tossed back on the table, his gaze turning expectantly to her.
Renna shrugged, a small hitch of her shoulders, feet dangling off the edge of the table, where she still sat, wrapped in a blanket.
“No comment? Not to worry, you will be more than useful even silent. You are the latest vaccination attempt here at this camp, correct?”
“Yes.” Knowing now that he was not the government but not wanting him to know that she knew, Renna tried to keep her voice and behavior as neutrally unhappy as she could. It wasn’t hard to be unhappy but remaining neutral took real effort. Every part of her screamed to jump off the table and claw his eyes out, to end his hold over the camp. But, he was making Benjamin more… Benjamin. If Sydney thought there was a benefit to working with him until they had more information and more options, Renna would choose to trust that.
“Excellent. You see, there’s a problem we keep hitting up against in our own experiments. Other than the aggression, which I think we have almost found a way to completely stamp out.”
Renna nodded, waiting. This was actually pretty interesting to hear. There were other places doing experiments and having different results, different areas of problems.
“You see,” he continued, “the changes in metabolic rate, synapse function, and body temperature have affected the production of eggs, and decreased the life span of sperm.”
Feeling like she was in ninth grade health class all over again, Renna fought down a blush.
“Which means that you, as a hybrid creature, maybe or may not be sterile.”