Between Life and Death

by Ann Christy

  He shakes his head, grips the back of my neck to bring me close again and says into my ear, “No. I think Emily can keep others away from us. If we go quietly, sneak into one of the houses and remain utterly silent, I think Emily’s presence can mask ours. Think. It’s gotten so much easier to take care of our in-betweeners lately. Tell me you haven’t noticed. It’s like they want to eat us, but know they aren’t supposed to, so they behave. You’ve seen it. You must have. That can only be Emily’s work.”

  He’s right. It’s been a gradual change, but it’s definitely there. I put it down to them being able to learn that trying to get at us is hopeless after so long. Even they must be able to learn. But if I think of it the other way, then it could be Emily. But Emily is still dangerous all on her own.

  “Even if she can, she might eat us. And how would we feed her?”

  “I haven’t worked it all out yet. That’s just one idea. We could try to make it back toward one of the houses along the highway, like that farmer’s house we stayed in. We could get birds to feed her there. We need to think of something in case we have to go,” he says, then stops to look around again.

  When he turns his face back toward me, I get a look at his expression. It’s a bit desperate looking, much like I feel, and I know at least part of that feeling is brought on by his desire not to see me hurt.

  And it’s that expression that makes me say what I do.

  “I love you, Charlie,” I whisper.

  It’s his turn to be shocked. He stares at me in the starlight for so long that I start to get embarrassed, sure that I’ve over-stepped.

  Then he smiles, kisses my cheek with his soft, warm lips and whispers, “I love you, Veronica. I’ve been waiting for you to say that for a long time.”

  I had no idea that such simple words could feel like that. It’s like fireworks inside me, a mix of adrenaline and something else that sets my system alight. I’m almost glad there are others around, because I’m quite sure I would do something I’m not ready for if we were alone. Instead of that, I reach out and hug Charlie to me with my free arm. He hugs me back and I can tell he’s smiling.

  No matter what happens, I know we’ll figure it out together. We’ll find a way.

  *****

  We’ve worked so hard to make this place livable that it rankles me to have to undo all that work. But, at least the others aren’t talking about leaving anymore. It’s been two days since Charlie and I had our night time chat on the roof, but neither of us has gotten any further on a plan for leaving with Emily if the worst happens.

  During this morning’s meeting, the ones who were out on patrol gave their reports and it seems that the panic has passed. Whoever those military vehicles are carrying, they aren’t being very systematic in their searching. Tom, Gregory, and some of the others think we can make this place look disused enough that they’ll pass it by.

  But it’s a heck of a lot of work.

  Matt grunts as he clomps down the access road. He’s loud enough that it makes me stop my work and turn. He’s bowed under the weight of a tarp full of dead grass and branches. He looks like a giant turtle with an oversized blue shell. He lets the giant bundle slide off his back and straightens with a groan.

  “I’m never going to be the same after this,” he says as I reach him.

  “As if we were going to be the same after any of this,” I quip, meaning the destruction of our world and civilization.

  He chuckles at that, then gives a sharp grunt when he tries to bend and untie the bundle.

  I push his hand away and bend to untie the lines holding all the debris inside the tarp. “Lay down right there. Stretch your back. We’ve got a lot to do, so we can’t have you going down for the count.”

  “I can’t. Everyone else is working too. Laying down on the job might not look good,” he says, looking over his shoulder at the others scattered around our compound.

  “Just do it,” I say. “I’ve got to get all this stuff spread anyway, so take a break.”

  While I take bundles of dead grass, branches, and assorted debris from the tarp and begin scattering them in a suitably random manner all over the access road leading to the gate, I can hear Matt’s grunts and groans as he lies down and stretches himself. It only takes me a few minutes to empty the tarp that probably took him much longer to fill. He looks sad when I start to fold up the ragged plastic and coil the ropes for him to take back.

  “Ugh,” he moans. “More?”

  “Lots more,” I confirm.

  When he’s gone, I stop and look at my work with a critical eye. It looks good. We’ve been keeping the access road clear of branches or greenery that might root and split the pavement, but doing that has made it stand out from the other roads and driveways around this area. Even the street outside our gate has the occasional sapling rising from cracks in the surface. And all the driveways to other facilities are covered in debris, mostly consisting of dead grass that the storms blow around.

  After the kerfuffle that the suggestion of us leaving created, everyone’s been talking about little else. This is our home and we’re safe here. How will we find anything like it somewhere else? In the end, the real problem was that this place looked lived in and we needed someplace that didn’t look like people lived there. The easiest solution was to make this place look abandoned, so that’s what we’re doing.

  Our garden out back is now a mess, many of the plants ripped up and what’s left shielded by tall debris around it, so that it can’t be seen by a casual observer. As much as possible was transplanted to other places, but the chances of those surviving are slim. Our winter will be a precarious one if we don’t find a whole lot of food.

  Tom is talking about trying to make a run to the suburban enclave to harvest what hasn’t been destroyed by wandering in-betweeners at the end of the summer. He said the fields of grains were outside the fence, so maybe those will be usable.

  But not now. For now, we’ve got to worry about the military trucks that have been sighted roaming the streets of our city. It’s too much of a coincidence for it to be random. Whatever Tom set in motion when he got on the handset with whoever it was, it’s got to be related to the sudden appearance of these trucks. Our spotters have caught glimpses from their watching posts at the tops of the tallest buildings, but we’ve got to pull back from those as well, ensuring that we leave no evidence that anyone was there. They aren’t searching thoroughly, but they are searching, and whoever is in the trucks seems to know what they’re looking for. And given what happened to the people in the suburban enclave, I don’t think they have anything good in mind for us.

  And since only Violet and Princeton knew where we were going, I’m worried for them as well. I hate to say it, but I’m glad that Tom said the others who were escaping were told the name of our city. It’s terrible to say, but I hope it was one of the others that was caught and made to give up the information instead of Violet or Princeton.

  As for Charlie and me, we’re relieved. I can only confess to myself now that I’m not going to have to escape with Emily that the idea of being with her without a cage scares me to death. She’s becoming something different. I still love her, but I’m also very afraid of her.

  I hope we get a message from the hospital soon. I hope there’s a cure soon. I hope it comes before she becomes something so different that I can’t help her come back anymore.

  Today – Singing My Tune

  “You know what this means, right?” Tom says. He sets down his plate, our dinner now over and our meeting officially in session.

  With half of Tom’s group out on another run, keeping watch from the bank roof while not actively searching for things worth scavenging, our group is relatively small again. Besides the ones I tend to think of as our original group, there are Tom, Lizzy, and Jeremy here for the evening. Gloria is technically here, but she’s off bathing the children to the accompaniment of their strong protests. What is it with kids and their aversion to bathing? Roger has finally
healed up and gone on the run with the others, despite Savannah’s dire descriptions of the infections he could get if he tore the delicate, newly formed skin over his wounds.

  As for me, I’ve finally gotten used to hearing Jeremy’s name without my heart clenching up in my chest, but when I look at him, I can’t help but wonder what my Jeremy would be like now. Would he be tall like this Jeremy? Would he still be kind and thoughtful or would this world have turned him brash and blustery? I’ll never know, since he died before he had a chance to become any of those things, but at least I can deal with this Jeremy without as much pain.

  I already know what Tom is referring to when he asks that question. When we told him about Emily and the other in-betweeners forming some sort of pack, Tom and Roger had shared a look, and Roger absently touched his leg where he tore it up during his misadventure with the fence at the suburban enclave. I think Roger went on this run with the others just to avoid talking about what we’re certainly going to talk about.

  “How many in-betweeners are trapped in there?” Matt asks. “How closely confined are they?”

  I’m wondering the same thing, and from the attentive way each of the others look while waiting for the answer, I’m guessing we all are. The in-betweeners we have are contained in a very small space, breathing each other’s air. Emily is a bit further from them, but even then, no more than thirty feet separates her from them. And on top of that, they’re all confined in the same warehouse.

  The suburban enclave is an open space, with lots of houses and yards. It’s a very different situation, and none of us knows how close the proximity to each other must be for the pack behavior to form.

  Tom thinks for a minute while dusk falls around us, then says, “There are about twenty houses or thereabouts, but there had to be fifty people or more there. Maybe a lot more that we couldn’t see. They were sort of spread out all over. Jeremy, were any of them grouped up?”

  Jeremy’s eyes move over the ground as he thinks, as if he’s trying to play back his memories like a movie. Finally, he says, “I’m not sure if I’d call it a grouping, but they weren’t trying to make space between them either. At the time, I thought that odd since there was no food to fight over that I could see, so they should have been avoiding each other. About half of them were at the fence, screaming that scream of theirs once they got sight of us, but the rest were just sort of everywhere. There are probably more trapped in houses, too.”

  “And what about when you went back to try to get the food from their gardens?” Matt asks.

  I already know the answer to that question, since I was with them on that run, but I was inside the fence, searching for food. From my perspective, I mostly just saw the backs of the in-betweeners as they ran for the fences where the noise was. Except for those trapped in the houses, that is. And that was a whole other kettle of fish.

  Tom once again looks to Jeremy for the answer, but it’s Lizzy that speaks up. “I was at the fence with the music player to draw them over. They couldn’t see me and I was upwind, but when they came to the fence, they seemed just fine being near each other. They were even touching each other, which you know they never do unless they’re fighting.”

  “Jeremy,” Tom says, waiting for him to add anything.

  Jeremy gives us a grim smile and says, “Well, I was pretty busy trying to grab anything edible, but yeah, I noticed the same thing. They seemed comfortable with each other. Not like friendly or anything, but not uncomfortable at all. It was just sort of natural looking.”

  Gregory nods as he listens, sharing a look with Tom once Jeremy finishes speaking that I don’t like at all. “Uh, oh. What are you two thinking?” I ask.

  Tom laughs that crazy, deep laugh of his and gives me a paternal pat on the shoulder. “Down tiger,” he says. “It’s just that we can’t really leave a pack of in-betweeners alive, even if they are behind a fence. What if they have one like Emily or that Sam fellow of yours? What if they figure out how to work together enough to get over that fence or unlock their gates? What if they’re forming some huge group that can communicate in that weird way your in-betweeners can?”

  “Oh,” I say, glad it’s nothing to do with Emily. I don’t know why I get so defensive, except that I still worry that someone will decide she’s too dangerous to keep around if I’m not constantly working to keep that opinion from forming.

  Savannah, who’s gazing into the bottom of her bowl as if she could will more stew to appear by staring hard enough, suddenly looks up and says, “Hey! What if she can tell the ones over there what to do? I mean, she seems to exercise some sort of control over the ones here, making them be quiet or focus on her or the like. Maybe she can do a lot more than that. I’m not sure what we could do with it, but that might come in handy. You never know. We should know, at least.”

  She finally notices me glaring at her and stops talking with a final shrug. That’s the sort of thing I worry about exactly. “Emily is not a guinea pig! You have no idea what might happen to her if you take her there. What if she got loose and we lost her? No, forget all your crazy crap. We’re going to try the cure on one more in-betweener and if that works, then she’s getting it.”

  Matt grunts as if agreeing with me and Charlie reaches out discreetly to touch the small of my back, I suppose trying to calm me down. I really hate it that the others feel so free in opening up lines of inquiry like that where Emily is concerned.

  “V, calm down,” Gregory says in that annoyingly reasonable tone. Someday, I will reach out and slap him just to see if he’ll react like a human or if it knocks a faceplate off of a machine underneath. I’m not taking bets on which outcome it will be. “It was a question, not a plan. It’s a good question, though. It could give us information that could save our lives. What if we ever cross paths with any other in-betweeners locked in close proximity? It might be useful in ways we can’t imagine now.”

  Savannah, whatever apology might have been on her lips before now completely gone, breaks in. “And think about the other side of that. Even without Emily, if we can figure out how to tell which in-betweener—if any—is in charge, then what happens to the others when that one goes? What if we can figure out a way to get an edge on them? Not everything having to do with in-betweeners is about Emily, Veronica.”

  I’m an ass. I know this. All I can do is say, “I’m sorry.”

  Tom appears to decide that changing the subject is a good idea. He clears his throat and asks, “Speaking of the cure, when are you planning on giving the next one up to bat their dose?”

  *****

  The in-betweener Emily chose as the strong one has been out for just under twenty-four hours, his strange comatose state almost exactly the same as it was for the two previous ones. Except that this one is already moving his eyes under his lids, something that took much longer with the others. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Is it good because it’s consistent or bad because both of the previous ones died?

  Tanner stopped breathing early this morning without waking again. Once again, Savannah, Charlie, and I did a quasi-autopsy on him, taking the tissue samples and examining what we could. Unlike Carson, Tanner was pink, red, and healthy inside—at least as far as we could tell. What was wrong with his mind, we can only guess at. Savannah surmises that this is where the time spent without blood flow really comes into play. It’s just another reason for me to be relieved that Emily came back quickly.

  Emily draws my attention to her enclosure, rattling her chains as she stands and peers over the barrier. “What is it, Emily?”

  Her hair is a hot mess, the braids a mass of fuzz as the hair frays inside the tight braids. It’s the only way I can keep her even semi-clean, but she does sort of look funny by the time we get to her next hair-washing day. Now, her head darts from side to side in tiny, sharp jerks and I can hear her sniffing at the air.

  “Heez waikin,” she says, her voice a little growly and low. We’re only hours away from breakfast, the night still deep and quiet a
round us. She’s most difficult during these hours if she doesn’t lie down and rest, as if the night and the length of time between meals takes away much of the humanity she still has.

  She sniffs again and growls before I have a chance to get to the desk where I have the in-betweener strapped down. Charlie is outside the enclosure, supposedly keeping watch, but I can see that his head is tipped to his chest by the light of the lantern.

  “Awaik,” Emily says.

  Awake, I think, and shiver.

  I point the flashlight toward the in-betweener’s eyes and he slams the lids shut as the light touches him. Human or not? That is the question.

  “Charlie! Wake up,” I call out, setting the remaining two in-betweeners to screeching through their gags and hoods.

  I hear him jump up and the distinctive sound of a crossbow scraping across the floor.

  “Charlie, it’s okay. He’s waking up,” I add, belatedly realizing that he might wake up combat-ready. “Sorry I frightened you.”

  The lantern hides his face from my eyes with its glare as he turns it up and lifts it high, but I can hear his footsteps and the light sways from side to side as he comes to the enclosure. I’ve been watching the in-betweener’s eyes and they remain tightly closed, the lids wrinkled. His lips are moving, but no sound is coming out and I can hear the sound of him pulling at his straps when he tries to raise his hands to shield his face.

  “Are you awake?” I ask him. Behind me, I can hear Emily humming that peculiar tune again. It’s low, barely within range of my hearing, but the man on the table must hear it as well, because he opens his eyes, then squints against the light as he tries to look in Emily’s direction.

  “Ahhh,” the in-betweener—or man—says, shutting his eyes again.

  When the lantern is close enough to illuminate the area, I turn the flashlight so that it shines upward onto a piece of whiteboard we’ve hung near the ceiling of the enclosure. It works for reflecting the light back down and around the enclosure far better than the dull girders and steel roof far above us.