Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4)

by Jamie Thornton

  But then he smiled and I saw it was going to be a much bigger battle to make him pay. But he didn’t know I had hardly any lines I wouldn’t cross when it came to payback, no matter how much I had wanted to kiss him back.

  “Tell me what you want to do about the hot water,” Kern said.

  I hid my surprise and tossed the damp dish rag onto the wash bucket. Maibe and I had washing duty again. “It’s not that hard.”

  “Hot water?” Maibe exclaimed.

  “Warm water,” I said quickly. “Don’t get your hopes up. Lukewarm water.”

  Kern motioned me on. “Let’s get on with it then. I don’t have all day.”

  I explained about the materials I’d seen around the jail and what we still needed to track down. Then I explained the setup.

  “That’s it?” Kern said.

  “It’s not magic. It’s just using infrared waves the sun is already producing for free. Someone else would have thought of it eventually.”

  “How do you know any of this?” Kern said. “I thought you were a runaway or a dropout or something.”

  “She’s super smart,” Maibe said. “She spent hours and hours in the library and—”

  “Shut up, Maibe,” I said.

  She closed her mouth like a fish.

  “You can’t just go around telling people things. The less they know the better.”

  “Well, that’s a sorry way to live,” Kern said. “Nobody ever gets to know you? The real you?”

  “Plenty of people get to know the real me.” If the definition of plenty was Ano, Ricker, Jimmy, and now Maibe—and Corrina on my good days.

  “I guess I’m not on that list.”

  I gave him my most patronizing smile. “Better luck next time.”

  “I don’t give up easily.”

  “I’ve noticed,” I said. “I didn’t take you as very smart to begin with, so…” I shrugged.

  Maibe’s eyes widened. Kern smiled that damn smile of his and said, “We’ll see.”

  By the time we finished, it was lunch, and we had scattered dozens of transparent jugs of water across the yard. Kern was pretty much allowed to leave the jail when he pleased—after lunch he came back with rolls of landscaping cloth. We used this as a heat sink to help warm the water.

  “Here, grab this corner,” Kern told Maibe. She held the cloth flat as Kern unwrapped it from its paper barrel. She kept looking at him, as if about to ask something and then deciding not to.

  “Just spit it out, kid,” Kern said.

  “Are they really looking for a cure here?” Maibe said.

  Kern paused, then continued unrolling another section of cloth. “Yes.”

  I don’t know why, but when he said it this time, part of me believed it. A spark of hope rose in me.

  “But it’s not going to work,” he said.

  “How do you know?” I said, not willing to give up the hope so quickly.

  “What do you mean?” Maibe said.

  “Think about it. So they find a way to make us not be sick like this anymore. So then we’re like them again? We go outside and get bit and turn into a V?”

  “The cure would make us immune,” Maibe said.

  “We’d get a vaccine or something,” I said, “and we’d never be able to catch it again.”

  Kern shook his head. “The scientists have been working for over a year on it. There are too many variations. Even if they come close to finding something that will work, it won’t be permanent.”

  I didn’t know what to do. There were so many things wrong with what he just said. I couldn’t process the cure stuff so I stuck on the other part. “Did you say a year?”

  “But I only got infected in November,” Maibe said.

  “It happened to me in August,” I said. “I thought we were some of the earliest cases. They said we were some of the first.”

  He looked up and then away. “This camp was set up a year ago. That’s when I was infected,” he said as if confessing some great sin. “They were fearing the worst in case they couldn’t stop the spread. They were right.”

  “Whoa,” Maibe said. “I didn’t even think…how come…”

  “This is as done as it’s going to get,” Kern said. He left Maibe and me to stare at each other in disbelief.

  “He said a year.” Had all of this been planned somehow? Did they know it was going to happen like this?

  Maibe shook her head. Something bright flashed across Maibe’s face, as if someone had flicked a mirror. She blinked and the flash disappeared.

  I looked up at the guard towers, but none were turned our way.

  “That was weird,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, Kern likes to make things weird,” Maibe said quickly. She began dancing from foot to foot as if playing hopscotch.

  “That’s not what I meant—”

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “You just went half an hour ago.”

  Maibe shrugged. “All this water makes me need to go again.”

  I looked around at our crazy array of buckets, bags, and black cloth. Maybe the sun had glinted just right off the water in one of the jugs.

  Maibe disappeared into the pit’s plywood walls.

  I scanned what I could see of the camp. Two guard towers, the edge of the fence that separated us from the uninfected side. The gap of space where the graves were. A flash of light again.

  I went into the bathrooms. There was no one in any of the stalls, but a plank of plywood lay at a weird angle under one of the sinks. I kicked it and it moved.

  “Maibe, what the hell are you doing?” I crouched on my hands and knees and pushed aside the plywood. There was just a big enough hole for me to crawl into. When I came through the other side, I was in this gap between the stalls. It backed up to a section of fence the guards couldn’t see unless they came down off the towers and patrolled on foot. Maibe was there against the fence. Talking to Alden.

  “Maibe, what the hell?”

  She whirled around as if caught in the act of something she knew she wasn’t supposed to be doing. She recovered and motioned me over.

  “This is Alden.” She nodded in his direction. He had Sergeant Bennings eyes. Blue, clear, cold. But he was all of thirteen or so. His blonde hair peeked through the green beanie he wore.

  “This is going to get you killed if Sergeant Bennings finds out.”

  “He won’t find out,” Alden said. I looked at him more closely. He stayed far enough from the fence that Maibe couldn’t possibly touch him, but he acted like he wished he could get closer.

  “Then Ricker’s going to kill you when he finds out.”

  “Who’s Ricker?” Alden said.

  “No one,” Maibe said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Just like Kern is no one,” Maibe shot back.

  That shut me up.

  “I don’t have much time,” Alden said. “I just wanted to give you this.” He pushed a thin package through the fencing. It was a chocolate bar. He’d gotten her chocolate.

  Maibe took it and thanked him.

  He smiled and said, “Dr. Ferrad has a whole drawer full in her lab. She won’t miss it.”

  “Dr. Ferrad is here? But she’s the one who experimented on Leaf! How could you—”

  “I know,” Maibe said, cutting me off. “I’ve been asking Alden to watch her for us. He’s been telling me what he knows about the uninfected side of the camp and I’ve been telling him about this side.”

  “You’ve been telling him about us?” I looked at her in disbelief. This whole time I thought she was this scared little girl who could be tough when she needed to but otherwise just wanted to be safe. Here she was proving me totally wrong. A little bit of pride rose in me.

  “I trust him,” she said.

  Chapter 23

  When people discovered the warm water that afternoon, there were shouts of joy and laughter. Kern gave me all the credit.

  Tabitha looked at me in the sort of way you look at
a dog you’re considering at the animal shelter. “Come with me,” she said. I followed her out the front of the jail. Tabitha waved to the guards and they returned the wave and let us through. Just like that, I was past the doors and outside.

  We stopped in front of a ramshackle shed with spiderwebs that hung from the outside rafters.

  The door opened and Kern blocked the opening.

  “Good, you’re already here,” Tabitha said, walking by him.

  I moved to follow, but he blocked my path. I waited, daring him to speak first. I would not. I would wait all day in silence and burn a hole through his jacket. He braced his arms on either side of the doorway as if it were the most natural thing in the world to take a break right in my way.

  I looked up at him and gave him that look I saved for those really special people who liked to give you trouble while you were spanging.

  “She’s on the team today,” Tabitha said.

  Kern stepped aside and bowed. “Well, then, come right in.”

  I entered the room and saw candles lighting up the table. Shadows danced on the walls and across the half dozen people in the room. The same half dozen people at Kern’s table the night before.

  “The council wants us to raid another grocery store, but the next closest one is six miles away,” said Kern.

  Tabitha glanced up from the pile of papers on the table. “Our secondary target is here,” Tabitha tapped the map.

  “That’s ten miles away,” Kern said.

  “Yes, but there’s a grocery store on that same block,” Tabitha said.

  Kern nodded and folded up the papers. He held out one map to Neil and Lilia.

  “Get her outfitted,” Kern said to Neil.

  Neil motioned me over to a metal trunk. It creaked open and I saw vests, gloves, knives, goggles, all arranged neatly in piles.

  “This one should fit. You’ll get a knife, but no guns. You’re on lookout today with Lilia.”

  At the sound of her name, Lilia turned and examined me like a lab specimen.

  “We’ll see how you do and then see about getting you some other gear,” Neil said.

  “I don’t need any other gear. It’ll just slow me down.”

  He eyed me carefully and then shrugged his shoulders. “You were out there a long time then, before coming here?”

  “A long time,” I said.

  “Well, we need all the help we can get.”

  Kern called for us to load up. We left the shed and stepped into the bright morning sun. There was a red minivan in the grass. Its side door was open and so was its trunk. The seats had been torn out and replaced with benches. Dust and dents covered the van from bumper to bumper. There was even a vent in the top. It wasn’t our old van, but it felt a little bit like coming home.

  “Gets great gas mileage,” Lilia said and laughed.

  “So what part of your story was even true?” I sat alongside Kern in the back of the van. Lilia drove and Neil sat in the passenger seat. Two more of Kern’s team sat in front of us. Enos, the older man with thick ropes for muscles, and Julian, thinner, younger, and nervous.

  “What do you mean?” Kern said.

  “I mean, your mom was obviously alive at the greenhouse. You weren’t outside because you’d escaped, but because Tabitha or someone else had sent you out. Did you even have a sister?”

  Outside, the houses that hadn’t burned into ashes still looked decimated. There was no one to clean up the car wrecks, the dead bodies, the broken glass, the trash that flew everywhere in the wind. One side of the street might be totally gone, the other side mostly intact—the street itself creating a fire barrier. It was slow going around the obstacles. Sometimes those obstacles were Vs, dead from dehydration or some other catastrophe. But not all of them were dead. We were already forming a tail.

  “I had a sister, but Vs got her, like I said. That much was true.”

  “Why did you act like you had escaped?”

  “We’d tried telling others about the camp at first, but it had always gone badly. They didn’t believe us, thought it was a trap. People died.” He paused, looked out the window. “So we changed our tactics.”

  “It WAS a trap.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Why are you telling me all of this now?”

  He looked at me with a hooded expression. “There’s a lot more going on here than you know.”

  “I could’ve guessed that.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t even know. My mom was a big player before she got infected. She’s pissed at how they’ve been treating her.”

  “She seems so in control,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Kern said. “Sure seems like it.”

  Lilia stopped the van. “We have arrived.”

  Before I could ask anymore questions, Kern slid open the door and jumped out. “Neil, you’re with me.”

  The contrast from dark to light blinded me.

  “Everyone else does as Lilia says. Food first, medicine second, everything else third,” Kern said. “But for God’s sake, pick up some decent spices this time.”

  We were in an empty parking lot of a little corner grocer, the ethnic kind. Indian, it said. Saliva kicked up in my mouth because even though I hadn’t eaten much of that type of food, I had tasted fresh naan once. Buttery, fluffy, gooey on the tongue.

  “Enos has watch outside. Gabbi, you’re with me and Julian,” Lilia said.

  “I thought Kern wanted me outside,” I said, forcing my mind away from the bread memories.

  “I’m not having you watch my back. You’re inside with us where I can see you,” she said.

  “That’s fine with me.” I smiled, showing her my teeth.

  She grunted.

  “How big is the tail?” Enos said.

  “Too big,” Lilia said. “Get moving.”

  We hurried to the market. One window had already been bashed in. The glass shards crunched underfoot. The interior of the shop smelled wonderful in spite of the underlying layer of rot. Some food had gone bad—a back section of prepared foods that had turned into a black mess. We loaded cans and jars and spice packets into boxes we carried out to the van under Enos’s sentry. Lilia pointed out a few labels to me saying they were Tabitha’s favorite so make sure to grab them.

  I crouched next to Julian on the floor and handed him jars of tikka masala.

  “Don’t know why she said it’s Tabitha’s favorite,” Julian whispered, a hint of a smile in the dim light. “It’s pretty much my favorite, and Kern’s favorite. We won’t be leaving any of these behind.”

  “I haven’t tried it,” I said.

  “You’ll be in for a treat then for dinner tonight.”

  I handed him another jar. “Hey, guess what?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I don’t have to wash a single stupid dish today.”

  A smile appeared on Julian’s lips. “Yeah, I had that job when I first came to camp too.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  “Don’t remember. Got sick—fell into the fevers, you know, and then woke up in camp.”

  “So what are Kern and Neil doing?”

  Julian’s hand froze midair, then he grabbed the jar, fit it into the last slot and closed the cardboard flaps. “Stuff for Tabitha.” He jumped up and walked the box out of the market, then returned with an empty one. “Here,” he said. He pointed to the next aisle over. “Go pack those chickpea flour boxes.”

  Suddenly, there was a pop-pop-pop outside.

  “They’re here,” Enos said, running inside.

  We packed up and scrambled into the van. Kern and Neil hadn’t yet returned, but that didn’t seem to worry Lilia. She drove the van in a donut and pealed out of the parking lot, sideswiping one of the Vs who came at the passenger side at a dead run.

  She slammed on the brakes. I flew forward and hit my cheek against the driver’s seat. Enos crashed into me, bending my back into an awkward angle. Lilia was yelling.

  Enos grunted and pushed hi
mself off. I unwound and turned upright. Black spots dotted my vision. I shook my head, trying to clear them. It didn’t work. I realized the black dots weren’t in my mind, but were the faces of all the Vs that had surrounded the van.

  “Where did they all come from?” Enos said. “There shouldn’t be this many. We cleared this area two weeks ago.”

  Lilia’s hands shook on the steering wheel. She turned around, her face white and splotchy and webbed. “We’re going to get trapped. We have to get out before—”

  “We’re already trapped,” Enos said. “Lilia, snap out of it. Breathe it out.”

  Lilia’s reached for the door handle. I shouted for her take her hand away. Enos and I scrambled for the door at the same time, getting in each other’s way. She was having a memory-rush. She would open the door thinking the Vs were still far away but they were right outside, eager to tear her apart. Enos and I fought to untangle ourselves.

  Julian hooked her around the neck and pulled her out of the driver’s seat. I slammed the lock down so that even if she tried the handle it wouldn’t work.

  Lilia gasped for air in Julian’s arms. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

  Julian released her. My chest heaved. Enos was catatonic staring into the hazel eyes of a V just on the other side of the window. He reached out to touch her chin. I slapped him hard on the cheek. His head flew to the side and the dazed look cleared from his eyes. We were all present now. We hadn’t died yet. We were still surrounded by Vs.

  Lilia rubbed her neck. “We could shoot our way out.”

  “We should wait for Kern and Neil to come back,” Julian said.

  Enos shook his head. “Shooting will draw more of them. Kern and Neil don’t have enough ammo.”

  “Then what do you suggest,” Lilia said, a snarl in her voice.

  Enos didn’t respond.

  I looked up at the vent. If it worked once, why couldn’t it work again? “We go through the vent.”

  Everyone looked up.

  “I won’t fit,” Enos said.

  “We don’t all need to go,” I said. “Just one of us.”

  “And then what, genius?” Lilia said. “Do a dance on top of the roof as they swarm?”