We passed through the obstacle course and onto the highway. My friends fanned around me. It felt easy with them, like I was finally in the right place.
We headed for where Gabbi and Ano had seen Alden captured. The place had been a memory research lab for Alzheimer’s patients. It would have the memantine that could bring Ano back and help the rest of us better control our symptoms. Or it could all be gone now, taken by the same people who had captured Alden. We planned to find out.
Most of the Vs had died years before, but the uninfected supplied the virus with enough fresh meat that we needed to remain watchful. Maybe Leon’s group was out here turning V too. Tabitha and Kern’s group was around somewhere. They knew about our town but never bothered us. We weren’t looking for a cure—plus the town was full of Feebs who Tabitha had infected against their will. She wasn’t welcome.
The afternoon warmed up. We had at least several more hours to go. Trash littered the highway. Leaves, weeds, actual paper. Everything yellowed, brittle, ready to burst into flame from the heat. The trees offered some shade but we didn’t want to go too deep for fear of what might come out.
Ricker caught my eye and smiled. I smiled back because I knew it would do no good to hide. It must have been as clear as the sunlight hitting my face—I wanted to be outside and doing something. Not that taking care of my Faints wasn’t doing something. Molly, Freanz and the twins would have a snack soon and I would have thrown open the windows by now to let in fresh air and light and gaze out on the hillsides. But they wouldn’t know I was gone, and here—these steps my feet took—it woke up a part of me I’d thought dead.
The bushes shook like a bear lumbered through them. We crouched because it might actually be a bear. The animals had come back. Not everything, but enough—birds, squirrels, raccoons, coyotes.
Gabbi set down a knee and brought out a crossbow with unconscious ease.
Three figures emerged from the bush, low to the ground—not bears. They saw us and sprinted toward us.
Ricker stood beside Gabbi, holding a machete, saved from some abandoned garage last year. He said he liked the weight of it in his hand. There were guns, we could have carried guns, but we didn’t. Guns drew more Vs to you, and let everyone know where you were. Better to run than fight. Better to put down a V from up close than invite more to join in. Other Feebs thought differently and carried guns wherever they went, but whether it was right or wrong, we didn’t.
“Help us!” the one in front shouted.
This did not impress Gabbi. She leveled her bow.
The two men and a woman halted several yards away, but close enough to stun me into action.
“They’re uninfected,” I shouted.
The three uninfected drew weapons. We scrambled away as if following the moves of a dance. It WAS a sort of dance, the way Gabbi and Ricker had learned how to avoid raids and ambushes and traps when they were runaways.
Jimmy disappeared into the trees. I dove into the bushes. My skin burned as it scraped against gravel. The crushed leaves released a burst of pine scents. I put the pain out of my mind as I catalogued the moving shadows, the shouts, the way the leaves shifted and revealed something that shined like metal pointing right at my forehead.
“Gotcha, you dirty monster.”
If all feeling hadn’t left my body I would have told the guy that I wasn’t the dirty one, not by a long shot, not compared to his sweat-stained, dirt-streaked, awful-smelling self. He wore blue plastic gloves, a painter’s mask, goggles that sealed so tight to his sweaty face it left indents. Fear did more than tickle my throat, it strangled it. I crumpled to my knees on the carpet of dried pine needles and yellowed weeds.
Jimmy had gotten away. We didn’t dare say this aloud to each other. But I knew each one of us hoped that he was safe and would find help somehow.
Their campfire was a mess—like now that the apocalypse had happened they might as well be slobs. Gabbi, Ricker, and I sat against trees within the campfire’s light, hands tied behind our backs, ankles hobbled to our wrists, exhausted after the miles they had forced us to walk through the forest. By all rights and legends and history we should have been dead on sight. These weren’t uninfected from the camps. They were survivalists, zombie hunters, Feeb-haters.
But we were being walked into the ground, for what reason they wouldn’t say. We had stayed in the forest so it was hard to tell if they had moved us away from or closer to our original goal—the brain research lab. Every time Gabbi demanded an answer she got a jab in the stomach until finally she threw up a little blood and zipped her mouth in that way that said everybody better leave town fast. Gabbi was liable to explode the first chance they gave her. Whether or not it was a real chance, or one that would get us all killed—that was a different story.
Ricker was pale, like all the blood had drained from his face, but there was a hard light in his eyes like he was remembering something bad.
There were six uninfected. They laughed quietly among themselves as can openers appeared from pockets. The woman dug a grate into the coals and one of the men balanced the cans over the heat. I suspected none of that food was meant for us but my stomach growled just the same.
“Are you going to feed us or do you plan to kill us by way of starvation?” Gabbi said.
One of the men brandished a stick. “Shut up.”
Gabbi spit. Her saliva shot into the air and landed well short of his shoes, but he jumped back like a snake had bitten him.
Another guy came up, hands gloved, mask on, carrying a cloth. “We’re done with that now. Zach, get back to stirring the cans. If those beans burn, you owe me a week’s worth of food.” Zach retreated, tossing his stick aside.
Gabbi took a blow across the cheek and the man pulled the rolled-up cloth around her neck as if to choke her. Ricker shouted. I pushed myself against the tree, squatted, and then jumped. The rope yanked me down and I landed on my chin in the dirt, the breath knocked out of me. I gasped and the air rushed back in, clearing my head. Two of the uninfected pinned Ricker to the dirt, pressing his face into the ground with rifle points. Gabbi now sat upright, nose bloody, mouth stuffed with a rag tied around her head.
The men pulled me up by my ponytail. I let out an involuntary screech. My head burned as if set on fire. Ricker moved and got kicked in the stomach.
“Stop,” I gasped out. “Stop. I’m fine, Ricker. I’m fine.”
“So she does speak,” the man pulling my hair said. He let go.
I slumped onto my knees and wished that Gabbi could just keep her mouth shut sometimes.
“I thought for sure she was mute. Most skins are,” the woman said, leaving Zach to stirring the cans. She wasn’t wearing any protective gear and stayed well back from us. “I would have taken you for one of the crazies,” she said to Gabbi, “but the skin always tells the truth, doesn’t it?”
The man who had kicked Ricker said, “I still don’t understand why this time is different. Why haven’t we killed them yet, Perkins? The bounty can’t be worth that much. This is crazy risky. I haven’t been this close to a creeper since—”
“Shut up, Hugh,” Perkins said. “They can hear you.”
“Oh, come on. They might look human, but they’re as dumb as dogs now. You know the infection messes with their heads,” Hugh said.
“You don’t have a clue,” Perkins said. “She’ll take whatever we round up. Whatever’s left. You don’t even—”
“Remember Sven last summer?” the woman said quietly. The mention of Sven’s name froze the group in some common memory of grief, not unlike a memory-rush, but I decided not to mention this out loud since my scalp still burned.
“June, you need to leave off now,” Perkins said. “And stop talking around them.”
They returned to a huddle around the fire. Even though it was summer, it cooled off fast at night in the forest. I scooted back over to Ricker and Gabbi.
“Keep separate,” Perkins said, looking over his shoulder. “Keep away from e
ach other or we’ll stake you down now instead of later.”
I stopped moving. He turned back to the fire and dug a spoon into one of the steaming cans.
Something metal glinted out of the corner of my eye. I tilted my gaze in Gabbi’s direction. I hadn’t looked at her yet, didn’t want to look at her. Sometimes her temper got us all in trouble. My burning scalp, Ricker’s punched stomach, her bloodied mouth. But there was a flash again, the firelight bouncing against an object in her hands. She stared at the group around the fire, freezing whenever one of them glanced up.
She had stolen a knife and was cutting loose her bonds.
I bit my tongue and scolded myself. I should have known better. Gabbi didn’t always go about it the way others might want, but she didn’t do things for no reason. She had goaded them into getting close enough for her to grab a knife.
The rope dropped away from her hands. She quickly loosened the rope around her ankles and brought the knife around. Instead of applying it to Ricker’s ropes next, she slipped into the forest shadows.
My mouth dropped open and then I closed it again. We’d been through too much for me not to trust her. Whatever she did, it was going to be a bad plan, but it might get us out of here. I needed to be ready when the moment arrived.
Perkins looked back again, but must have decided not to count, or maybe the shadows were playing tricks on him. He returned to his can of food like nothing had changed.
In the flickering light, Ricker scanned the edges of the darkness. I did the same on my side, turning my head slightly, listening for movement over the crackling logs and murmurs of conversation. There, on the edge of the firelight, a shadow emerged, low to the ground. Metal flashed and Perkins fell backward with a shout.
Gabbi appeared in the firelight, pressing the knife against Perkins throat. “Stay back.”
The others tumbled away as if someone had thrown burning coals in their faces. The food cans spilled their steaming contents into a puddle, making the fire hiss with the sound of burning beans.
“You’re in big trouble, little girl,” Perkins said, his Adam’s apple bobbing around the knife’s edge. He closed his fists.
“Don’t.” Gabbi pressed the knife deeper into his flesh. “One cut is all it will take, honey baby. Don’t you know I spit on this thing just a second ago? You left some smudge marks that needed cleaning.”
June gasped. “Perkins!”
“Hello, Perkins. I’m Gabbi. Nice to meet you, by the way.”
I struggled with the ropes around my wrists, twisting and wrenching. I ignored the burning ache in my bones from the strain. Ricker scooted over in the dirt and we worked on untying each other’s hands. Gabbi against six of them. Not good odds. But if we made it into the dark we could disappear. It would be cold, we’d likely get lost, but as long as we escaped, we could find our bearings at first light.
“You won’t leave here alive,” Perkins said.
“I thought I was already dead?” She rolled her eyes as she said it. Her short, spiky hair stood out straight in all directions.
Suddenly masked figures darted from the forest. The embers scattered. Gabbi and Perkins were knocked aside. She fell flat on her back. He fell on top of her. I shouted for Gabbi to get up and run.
My hands were still tied together.
I was going to lose it.
I was going back to the refugee camp, to the mandarin orchard and the clear sky and the way the dying girl’s eyes had reflected such trust in me until the very last moment.
Hands lifted me by my shoulders, but my feet were unsteady, slippery on the leaves. “Get up, Maibe.”
A familiar voice. I knew who belonged to that voice, but the knowledge wisped away like tendrils of steam.
Something sharp slashed at my ropes, once, twice, catching my skin the third time, opening up a line of fire.
My hands were free.
I didn’t dwell on it, only somehow distantly noticed that the firelight seemed impossibly full of people trampling each other. I barreled into Perkins and threw him off just as his punch landed on Gabbi’s chin.
I helped Gabbi sit up. Blood reddened her lips and teeth. She spit a glob onto the dirt and coughed. I looked around for Ricker. He had pinned the woman’s arms behind her back in a sort of wrestling move. To her credit she wasn’t yelling, but she was struggling. I jumped up, thinking I would find the rope from my wrists and we’d tie her and then run off.
Someone else stepped forward and yanked the woman away from Ricker.
“Hey!” Ricker said.
The man pressed his boot in between her shoulder blades. “Be still or it will go bad for you.”
My mind whirled. His back was to me, the firelight casting shadows against a red plaid shirt. I knew him and the feeling in my stomach wasn’t a good one.
“Kern?” Gabbi said.
“Good to see you again, Gabbi.” Kern didn’t turn as he said it.
Others, his people most likely, had taken out our captors. One lay on the ground, face down, blood pooling on the dirt. The scattered fire had caught and now burned at half a dozen spots in the little clearing. The shadows moved wildly, jumping from face to face, shirt to shirt, trees to mouth to cold eyes. Kern’s people stamped out the fires until just one remained. Two of the uninfected had knives held to their throats by the masked people. One of the masked people uncovered—
Tabitha.
Of course.
Kern’s mother, the leader of those who had taken over the prison long ago and forced the Feeb infection on everyone at the camp.
Gabbi stalked over to Kern, her face bloody, her expression hard. She swung out a punch. Kern caught it. He said something and the words came out like a love song, dancing in the firelight from his mouth to her ears. Sparks of gold flew off Gabbi’s body and into the air around the two of them. As if the electricity that ran their brains had suddenly manifested outside their bodies and joined together.
All thought disappeared and a feeling of calm replaced it. Peace, joy, numbness. To be still like a stone. To invite the water to hit and wash over me and onto the next rock, unmoving, yet taking a part of me with the water to spread out in the world—true peace. I did not understand how I had not known this before. So simple a thing, this being still, this dwelling inside the memories of good things.
“Is she okay?”
The water whispered this. Water could cast shadows as this water did now over me.
“Maibe?” My name was like a caress of mist on a hot morning. “Maibe!” This last call splashed me, moved my rock, made me tumble.
Shapes transformed out of the water—five, six, ten. One shape was close. Another rock. No. Something else. The thing that was calling me—not water.
Ricker.
“She’s gone Faint.” That voice. I remembered. Kern.
“What do you know? How could you possibly—”
“We’re all Feebs, Gabbi. It’s happening to all of us,” Kern said.
“It’s not supposed to happen to her.”
I turned the part of my body that was no longer a rock and my nose ran into a neck and I realized his arms were around my shoulders, holding me up from falling. Words hot in my ear. “I am here, my love.”
I forced words out around the rock in my throat. “Take it back, Ricker.”
He pulled away a little so that the firelight bounced off his eyes. “There you are.”
“Ricker.”
“Not my love, then. Only someone I love, like any of the others.” His arms tightened around my shoulders.
“Better,” I said.
“For now,” he said reasonably, as if noticing it had started to rain, which it had not.
Chapter 12
The smell of burning beans made me wrinkle my nose. Tabitha stepped into the firelight. She surveyed our pitiful group—Gabbi next to Kern, me and Ricker sitting on the ground. I saw Jimmy in the shadows and my heartbeat increased because I didn’t know if he was real or a ghost-memory.
“You’re lucky we were tracking them.” Tabitha was worn, gray, wrinkled, veined. A Feeb that was old to begin with. She had helped us, when we’d first been captured. She acted on our side, acted for the good of the camp, to search for a cure, to bring together infected and uninfected. But what she’d really wanted was more power and revenge on Sergeant Bennings.
“Why would you be tracking them?” Gabbi said.
“We have made it our job to know where and how many Feeb-haters there are,” Tabitha said. “You should have done the same.”
“Please spare me,” Gabbi said.
“What happened,” I said low enough for only Ricker to hear. I shook off the last of the feelings of the rocks and the water and the peace they had brought. “What happened to me?”
Gabbi argued with Kern and Tabitha in the background. Jimmy stayed real for the moment, glancing back and forth between me and Gabbi, his corkscrew hair swinging in time. Ricker’s hands felt warm on my shoulders even through my layers of clothes. I did not pull away.
“It’s what they said. You went Faint.” His smile disappeared into a worried frown. “You froze. Like they do. You went blank in the middle of everyone fighting and wouldn’t come out. What did it feel like?”
I tried to describe it to him. The water, the rocks, the immense peace in being still. He became more worried as I talked, so I stopped. “It’s nothing. It’s better now, right?”
“Right.” But his voice contained an odd note that told me he wasn’t sure about that.
“What are you going to do with these uninfected?” Gabbi said, drawing my attention back to the drama unfolding before me. I saw now that Tabitha’s people had our captors tied up and laid out on the ground like a row of sticks ready for the fire.
Jimmy came over to us and spoke so that only we could hear. “I didn’t know what else to do. They found me and I knew you guys were in trouble—”
“It’s fine, Jimmy,” Ricker said. “You did just right.”
So he was real. He had to be if Ricker could talk to him too.
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