Ricker walked in front. Alden was behind me. The three of us were out to find Sergeant Bennings and steal the explosives.
Gabbi had stayed behind with Mary and Tabitha.
Tabitha had argued. Her voice had remained steady, almost too calm, as she tried to convince us to sneak in and destroy the machine that way. Night fell, the buildings blazed up. Even from our road, far away from the center of the facility, it was easy to see the patrols. Tabitha stopped arguing.
If we couldn’t get the explosives, then we would try to get back inside. That’s what I told her, that’s what I told all of them. But secretly I swore I would never give Dr. Ferrad another chance to lock me up in the room with the white cloud falling like mist and the dead woman dripping blood on the ground.
Alden breathed heavily behind me. As if even this walk through the field was tough for him. Maybe it was, after the weeks he’d spent locked up.
“How long were you in there?” I whispered.
It was hard to break the silence of the night. It pushed on us from all sides. Not even the insects made noises. We had followed the sound of the explosions into a small town. Its main street was lined with old houses that had front porches and overgrown front lawns. Something smelled like sewer. The smoke from the fire had thickened over the hours. Alden thought it meant the fire was headed this way and we should go back. Ricker said it was probably because each explosion was setting its own separate fire. I agreed with Ricker but didn’t want to start an argument between them. It didn’t matter which fire it was, only that we needed to be careful.
“Too long,” Alden said.
I’d forgotten I had asked a question. It was so strange to have him walk close to me and be without his normal goggles, gloves, and face mask.
There was tension between Alden and Ricker. As if they each pulled a different end of the same rope. I knew some of it had to do with me, my feelings for both of them, how they felt about me, but it was more than that.
Alden represented the uninfected and the choices they made and the way we had needed to live—running from them, dying from them, fighting them.
Someone else had died so that he could be cured. It wasn’t his fault, and yet here was Ricker, his very presence an accusation against Alden’s clear, uninfected skin.
A metal crashing noise startled us. It sounded like a trash can had fallen over. It was a shock in the stillness of the night. We huddled behind a large oak tree. One heavy branch had broken from the tree and formed an arch that touched the ground. Splinters of the branch were still attached to the main tree but the leaves were dead. There was no one to clean it up. There hadn’t been anyone to clean it up in a long time.
The houses felt like tombs. I thought maybe this town would be better off if a fire did blaze through and destroy it. The streets were empty and covered in three years’ worth of dirt and leaves. There was no wind. Several parallel lines in the road had depressed the leaves underneath.
My fingers brushed the rough bark of the tree and found Ricker’s hands. He radiated warmth and all I wanted to do was press myself into him.
“They’ve been through here,” I whispered.
“I see it,” Ricker said.
I shifted position and found the cloth of Alden’s shirt. I tugged it to get his attention. “Tire tracks,” I whispered in his ear.
At the edge of the horizon, down the long street, there was an orange glow that faded into an ugly brown—the fire, or maybe multiple fires. A shape the size of a football moved across the street from us. Another shape about the same size met the first one in the middle. They chattered at each other. We had no flashlights, we had only the far off firelight to see by. More shapes came to meet each other. What were they doing out here?
“Raccoons,” Ricker said.
Naming them did not help. They were acting so strangely. They were acting like humans didn’t matter anymore in the daily activities of their lives. Ricker picked a careful path around the animals. Alden and I followed as he led the way down the tire tracks.
The dark of a summer night is different than the dark of winter, or even spring. The relief from the heat feels like the sun is only holding its breath for a few minutes. The coolness is a luxury, something to welcome. This summer night, covered in a thick layer of smoke, felt like a night where anything could happen, where wild animals took over the streets because there was no one left to make them afraid. We were the intruders now.
The orange glow increased ahead of us. Even though I knew it was because of a fire, I picked up my pace to meet it. Any sort of light would be a relief. Even light that destroyed.
The glow turned into flames. Two houses had been on fire for awhile. Flames flared when they found fresh wood, but otherwise they were two piles of glowing orange coals. Driveways and patios around the houses had formed their own sort of fire break. The little bits of front lawn were piles of overturned soil now. Tire tracks formed large circles and tore off down a different road.
Dark lumps dotted the front yard, smoke trailing off them. They were charred and smelled like barbecue.
Dead Vs.
Ricker kneeled and pulled out a light-colored cloth from beneath a pile of lumber charred to black. The cloth was ragged and torn at the ends, but there were bold, capitalized letters on it. A-N-F. There was a fourth letter, torn off, unreadable.
Ricker dropped the bag and it fluttered to the ground. “I’ve used this type of explosive before.” The shadows the coals threw carved out his eyes and mouth. He walked away from the exploded house.
We followed the tire tracks. Footprints appeared and crossed over them. They came from every direction, dragging, limping, twisting through the trail. They obliterated the tire tracks but that didn’t matter anymore. The trail was clear.
We passed the remains of more explosions, more fires, more bodies. Sometimes the fires cut us off and we hiked into the fields. We linked together, grabbing each other’s shoulders or shirts. Without the light of the fires we would lose each other in the dark. When we went away from the light, each step was painful. We didn’t know what we were stepping on.
Twice, Ricker cut his hands on something sharp. Three times I tripped and got the breath knocked out of me. Once, Alden yelled out when he stepped in something wet and squishy that threw up a stench so terrible all three of us gagged.
We caught up to the V mob hours later. The sewer stench increased and mixed with the smoke. I lifted my shirt over my nose and mouth but that only helped a little bit. Now I smelled my stink instead of theirs.
The groans, shrieks, and moans alerted us before we got too close. The V mob was here, all in one place.
Trucks and several motorcycles with bright lights bulldozed burning piles of fire toward the V mob. Their bodies churned as they snarled and thrashed against each other. There could have been hundreds and they were all being forced in the same direction.
Sergeant Bennings stood on the hood of one truck, holding onto a rope tied taught through the open windows. He directed the moving piles of fire, shooting bullets at any V that tried to break the ranks. The Vs furthest away from the fire disappeared, like they had fallen off a cliff. I felt sick to my stomach. Everything was flame and shrieks and the stink of blood and decay. Everything was death here.
Alden’s face went blank. He’d demanded to come, but worry hit me. Sergeant Bennings was his father. What if Alden did something to give us away?
Ricker tugged on my arm. He was looking at one of the trucks. It wasn’t part of the massacre but held position well back from the other vehicles.
Two people with rifles guarded a pile of bags and a half dozen buckets on the truck bed. The truck latch was open and their feet dangled off the end as they watched the massacre.
“ANFO,” Ricker said quietly. “That’s what we need. That truck is what we need.”
“We can’t get it. No way.” Panic filled Alden’s expression under the firelight. “He’ll see us. He’ll find us and take us.”
&
nbsp; “We need that truck.” Ricker crept away, everything disappearing for him except for this task I’d set him on.
I looked back and forth. Alden seemed frozen in place. I didn’t know what Ricker’s plan was, only that I had set all of this in motion. I had used what he confessed during his memory-fevers to bring him here.
There was no decision to make. There had never been a real decision.
I followed Ricker.
The guards wore masks, long sleeves, and gloves, like the uninfected always did to separate themselves from the rest of us. The V mob held their attention.
I felt Alden’s presence low on the ground behind me. I hoped the uninfected weren’t expecting three kids to jump them from behind. Before I could think, Ricker rushed the truck. His long legs ate up the distance. He didn’t make a sound. He jumped on top of the bags and flipped one of the guys off the back.
I jumped in after him and lost sight of Alden. The bags were labeled in these large block letters—ANFO. A bucket tipped over and spilled out liquid. Everything smelled like gas. The second guy turned and all I could see were his eyes behind his mask. They were dark beads filled with hate. I recognized the eyes—Hugh. He didn’t even raise his gun. He jumped out, jerked open the driver’s door, and blared the horn. The noise cut through the moans and shrieks and shouts. Heads turned—V and uninfected.
Sergeant Bennings fired shots in the air. He pointed in our direction. He shouted Alden’s name.
Ricker dove into the cab, forcing Hugh into the passenger seat. The back window was open and without thinking I pulled myself halfway through. The hard edge bit into my waist. I scraped the skin of my arms along it. Hugh’s legs blocked me from going further—they were tangled up in the steering wheel. The truck cab smelled like spoiled milk. Ricker jammed the key in and the engine coughed.
I grabbed for Hugh. The truck lurched backward and threw me into the dashboard. My neck and shoulder crunched against the plastic. My legs flailed. I braced myself with my hands and cried out when pain flared in my wrist. Hugh’s stink overwhelmed the spoiled milk smell. The truck vibrated my body. I became dizzy and in the darkness lost my sense of which way was up. I had used both hands to break my fall. My wrist burned and felt wet, like the wound had opened.
“Maibe!” Ricker shouted. His mouth felt inches from my ear. I scrambled up, pushing Hugh away from me. I expected him to fight, but he was like a dead lump as I untangled my fingers from his clothing.
I ignored the pain in my wrist even as it traveled up my arm and into my neck. Large rips, like from a knife slash, opened the truck bench to reveal the cushion underneath. When I finally got upright, I realized why Hugh hadn’t fought back—Ricker had knocked him unconscious.
The truck moved at a ferocious speed in the dark. Its headlights bounced and matched the bounce of Hugh’s head as his skull knocked in rhythm on the window. Ricker kept glancing at the rearview mirror. He looked wild-eyed and white-knuckled at the wheel.
“Where’s Alden?” I shouted. I hadn't seen him jump into the truck.
“I’m here, Maibe.” Alden’s voice was almost lost in the wind.
I looked behind me. The window I had crawled through now framed his face. His eyes were wide and unblinking. There was a grim set to his mouth. He held onto the window’s edge with both hands and splayed his body across one of the ANFO bags and a bucket, as if doing his best to pin them down.
Behind him the pile of bags seemed smaller than before. I looked closer. It was hard to see—
There.
A bag slipped away into the darkness.
The truck bed was open.
“We’re losing the bags!” I shouted.
“I know!” Ricker yelled back. He made a hard right that threw me into his ribs. He winced as my elbow hit his side. He straightened out the truck and pressed on the pedal until we were going so fast I feared we’d crash.
He looked out the rearview mirror. “They’re following us.”
Lights, like the shining eyes of an animal, tracked our path. But these lights were too large and bright to be animals. At least six pairs, which meant more vehicles than that if any were motorcycles.
Ricker turned so fast I slammed into Hugh. He grunted, but didn’t wake up.
“Lost another bag,” Alden said, like he was commenting on the weather.
Ricker cursed. He peered so hard at the road in front of him that his eyes almost bugged out of his face.
I’d never learned how to drive. The world had ended before I could and afterwards there didn’t seem much point to it since the noise attracted Vs. But even I knew this was too fast. Even I knew driving like this was going to lose all the explosives and get us killed. We would die for nothing and never see Ano, Jimmy, Dylan, or Corrina again.
“Slow down, Ricker. You have to slow down.”
“They’ll catch us. They’re so close. They’re so close and I can’t go back. I won’t go back. They’ll send me to jail and my mother—”
“Ricker!” I shook him by the shoulders. He looked at me but didn’t really see me. He held the steering wheel so hard I thought it might break in his hands. He was lost in a memory-rush while driving a truck in the dark.
Fear spiked strength I didn’t know I had. I grabbed the gear shift and plunged it to neutral.
Ricker punched his leg down on the pedal again and again, but the truck slowed. He yanked the steering wheel to the left and we glanced off the edge of a car. The impact sent me onto the top of the dashboard, pinched in between it and the glass. Alden was moaning but I couldn’t see him. He must have hit the window and fallen onto the bags. Blood poured down Hugh’s face from his nose and dribbled into his lap. Our engine noise did not cover up the engines behind us.
Sometimes if you played along with the memory, you could change what happened. I had learned that with my Faints and it had worked with Jimmy.
“Ricker, they’ll catch us! You have to turn the lights off. You have to hide us somewhere.”
Ricker’s cheek twitched. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He blinked and a light came back into his eyes. The headlights switched off. The darkness felt complete, almost suffocating, but those other lights were still behind us and growing larger as the growl of their engines grew louder. He was aware enough to shift back into drive. I let him do it. There wasn’t anything to do. We couldn’t let Sergeant Bennings catch us.
The truck jumped forward then settled in at a slower speed, but now the driving was more dangerous than ever.
Ricker turned left, then left again, and then a right, deeper into a neighborhood, but all we could see were the boxy shadows that loomed out. I didn’t know where we were. I could only hope Ricker did.
He pulled us into a church parking lot. He drove to the back of it, parked behind a dumpster, and shut off the engine. The silence rang in my ears. We were quiet now except for our breathing, but our breathing was so heavy I swore it could be heard blocks away.
Engine noise blared, faded, blared again, faded away completely.
“We should keep going,” Alden said, his voice quiet.
“We can’t,” Ricker said, his voice small and strangled. “I don’t know how to get back.”
Chapter 32
It took us until dawn before we found the road we needed. The clouds in the east were this gross brown with edges of pink. The clouds in the other direction were a thick mass of brown that formed a wall. Everything on either side of the road was black and charred beyond recognition.
Hugh was awake. His gun was gone—it had never made it into the truck. While he’d been unconscious, I stripped him of his mask, his gloves, his long sleeve shirt. His face was crusted over in dried blood. His nose was swollen and purple. When he woke, Ricker explained that, as long as he remained calm, we would not infect him.
Hugh saw the bright red blood that had seeped through my wrist bandage. He pressed as far into the passenger door as possible without melting into it.
I didn’t need to lo
ok behind me to recount. Two bags of the ANFO, a coil of detonator rope, one bucket, and Alden, sore and bloodied, on top of all of it, making sure we didn’t lose what was left.
These last few hours had been tense but quiet. It felt like we were between storms. At any moment the relief would end and this time the end would be final.
There were two dots on the gray road ahead. “There, Ricker.” I pointed with my good hand. Gabbi and Mary. The oak trees lined the bottom of the road, along the fence. The river rushed by, cool and calm, because none of what we did mattered to it yet.
Ricker slowed the truck and the brakes shrieked. His eyes were bloodshot. His hands shook as he released the steering wheel.
Gabbi rushed to the hood. Dried mud still coated her skin. Her clothes were torn. Long, angry scratches ran through the white scars of names on her arm.
“Tabitha’s gone. Mary’s flipping out.”
Behind Gabbi, Mary rushed up and her hands were in the shape of claws. Her hair was long and tangled around her head. The gloves and duct tape dangled from her wrists like streamers from a bicycle. Her mask was halfway off her face—her mouth was exposed.
I yelled at Ricker to open the door. If Gabbi got bit she’d be gone. We had no hope of a cure to bring her back.
Hugh cried out next to me and pushed at the seat as if he could vanish into it.
Ricker wasn’t moving fast enough. He opened the door, but Mary was already there. She pinned Gabbi to the hood. The windshield acted like a horrifying movie screen.
A figure slammed feet first onto the middle of the hood, denting the metal.
The figure crouched on all fours and then stood.
Alden.
He extended a hand out to Mary. She snapped at it instead of at Gabbi. He snatched back his hand in time and began to speak. Low, soft words. He almost sang them, like a lullaby.
Ricker left the truck. My hands trembled with fear as I followed. Alden stood above us and he looked so much like his father from the night before, when Sergeant Bennings had shouted and fired shots and directed the flames, it made me shiver. I tried to blame it on the cold morning air.
Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4) Page 72