by Teri Terry
I leave Kai at Bobby’s house. I can’t see the sun yet, but the sky is starting to lighten.
The signs say this place is St. Andrews. Bobby’s house is a grand one, and there was another car at the house—a sporty red one—and he’s got that sailboat too. He’s got all the nice things and had the matching family and vacations along with it. Their faces smile in frames on the walls—in swimsuits on sandy beaches and in ski gear in the snow.
It doesn’t care who you are, though, does it? Rich, poor; young, old; loved, hated—where you are from or the color of your skin—it just doesn’t care.
The whole town is empty and dark. No power, no sound—no people sounds, that is. There are birds and the surf and some barking dogs running loose here and there, and that is it.
The only people I find are the silent ones; the dead.
Mostly they’re at home, tucked into bed or on their sofas, together or alone. Some have been dead longer than others. No one is collecting them, taking them to pyres to burn. They’re just left to rot where they died.
Not as many people as you’d think for the number of houses, though. Did some get away?
And where are the immune, like Kai and Bobby? I’m curious and look closer, everywhere I can, but no one stirs. In a place this size, there should be some immune. Something like five percent of people are immune—isn’t that what the scientists say?
Where have they all gone?
CHAPTER 7
KAI
I’M RUNNING. AS FAR AND AS FAST AS I CAN, but it’s never fast enough. I can still hear Shay: she’s crying out for me to help her. She’s inside me, outside me, coming from every direction. The pain and fear in her voice tear into my gut so that it is all I can do to not scream.
But that’s not the worst.
I’m not running to Shay—I’m running away from her.
Soaked in sweat, I push the blankets off. The curtains are open and the sun is beaming in through the window—the light must have woken me. I’m glad.
My heart is pounding, and I’m exhausted, as if I really had been running all night. I pull myself up, go to the window, and stare out without seeing.
The dream won’t leave me. I can still hear Shay, as if she were here, pleading with me to help her inside my head. And I feel sick with it. She left; she tricked me and she left. I didn’t make her go.
But it was my job to keep her safe, and she’s not safe, is she? I feel like I’ve failed her, like I did in my dream by running away.
Where is she? There’s a sense of panic inside. I was too late with Callie; I have to find Shay before it’s too late to help her too.
There are sounds down below: Bobby must be up. Last night I’d driven us back here to his house, helped him inside. He didn’t want to go upstairs and instead made for the sofa; he told me where to find the guest room.
I go downstairs and find Bobby in the garage. He’s pulling a box down from a shelf.
He glances over as he opens the box.
“Sleep okay?”
“Not really.”
“Dreams?”
I nod.
He pulls some sort of camp stove out of the box, and it clangs loudly against the metal shelf.
He winces, puts it down, and rubs his head. “Too many beers. But at least I slept like the dead.” He says it like he wants to go back there for real and forever this time.
“We need a plan,” I say. “Or, at least, I need one.”
“Yes. But first I need some tea.”
I take the stove and follow him back into the house and to the kitchen. It smells, and it’s bad—the fridge and freezer are full of spoiled food. How long has the power been off? We rummage through cupboards and find some canned beans, crackers, tea, and shelf-stable milk.
We go outside. He lights the stove, goes back into the kitchen, and returns with a pot of water, mugs, and a battery-operated radio.
He hands it to me. “Give that a try while I get domestic.”
I turn it on and it crackles with static. Battery is low. I hit the presets, one after another; crackle, static. Nothing.
I look up at Bobby. I’m somehow shocked, despite everything, that radio is off the air.
“Creepy,” Bobby says. “The presets were all local and music stations. Try to find something else?”
I go through the tuner slowly. He’s put the beans on and handed me a cup of tea when the static finally makes way for a clear voice: bingo.
It’s steady, calm, modulated—a woman’s voice, a BBC reporter whose voice I recognize but can’t name. But this is no normal news report, and it’s a moment before the words register enough to make sense:
… contact with others. If you become ill, stay where you are. Do not seek medical aid. The cause of the epidemic is unknown, and there is no treatment. If you try to leave the quarantine zone, lethal force may be used to stop you.
If you are immune, report to the authorities at the current quarantine zone boundaries for testing and mandatory work assignment.
All survivors must be reported to the army at once. They pose a risk to public health.
This message will now repeat.
This is an automated message for residents of Scotland and northern England. All of Scotland north of Glasgow is quarantined. To the south of Glasgow, the quarantine zone stretches east from the M74 and A74 down to Penrith. The boundary then follows the A66 to Darlington and Middlesbrough.
Avoid contact with others. If you become ill, stay where you are. Do not seek medical aid. The cause of the epidemic is unknown, and there is no treatment. If you try to leave the quarantine zone, lethal force may be used—
Bobby reaches out a shaking hand and turns it off.
His eyes reach mine. “Bloody hell,” he says.
“Does that mean…is everyone in all those places…” I can’t finish the sentence out loud. Are they all dead?
“Sounds that way. So, what do we do now?”
“Tell the truth. Make sure everybody—”
“Everybody who’s left.”
“Yes. Make sure they know what causes the illness. That recording says it isn’t known. Shay risked her life to tell the authorities; what if that message hasn’t been passed along?”
“Maybe the message was recorded before they learned this?”
“I don’t think so. They obviously know survivors are carriers now—they’re a risk to public health, it said. She went to tell them both of these things.”
“What now?” Bobby asks.
“I need access to the internet. Which means power.”
“We could head for the border of the quarantine zone, as we were instructed—Glasgow, maybe?”
“Yes. I was told Shay had been taken out of the quarantine zone; I need to leave it to start looking for her.”
“So that’s where we’ll go.”
“That’s where I’ll go. There’s more I haven’t told you. You need to know everything before you decide what you want to do.”
“Tell me.”
So I tell Bobby about the Special Alternatives Regiment, SAR; about how they tried to kill Shay and took me as a hostage. How we were both wanted in connection with a murder and fled a quarantine zone illegally.
He stares back; nods. “So it seems to me that before we head for Glasgow, you need a new identity. And there’s something that I need to do too.”
Bobby packs some things—a few clothes, favorite photos, and a tablet and phone in case we find a network anywhere. We take his sports car, as it has more gas, and stop at his sister’s house.
She, her husband, and their son are all at home, forever. Still. Quiet.
We make a pyre for them in their backyard.
What will happen in all the places like this inside the quarantine zone? Are they being left to the dead and their ghosts? What of
their bodies—of decay and disease that will follow with no one here to do what must be done?
After that grim task, I become Bobby’s nephew: John MacIver. His clothes fit me, near enough. He was a year younger—seventeen—and he’d never had a driver’s license or passport, so hopefully there are no images of him anywhere official. Maybe everything will be in so much turmoil that no one will notice there is nothing of Scotland in the way I speak.
CHAPTER 8
CALLIE
WE DRIVE THROUGH THE SCOTTISH COUNTRYSIDE on a beautiful summer’s day. There’s no traffic; none that moves, anyway, and Bobby drives fast—way faster than the speed limit. Sometimes he has to brake hard and maneuver around cars and trucks that have been abandoned along the road, either with or without silent occupants. Once Kai even has to get out and push a body aside from a driver’s seat, then drive the car out of the way so we can continue.
Despite these things, I feel better than I have for a while. The sunshine is part of it; getting farther from Shetland and what happened there is another. Road signs count down the miles to Glasgow, and the closer we get to leaving the quarantine zone, the closer we may be to finding Shay.
Then Bobby brakes hard again and slows down.
Wow.
There’s a roadblock ahead of us; the city is near. But that isn’t where my wow comes from. The roadblock stretches on and on—to both sides as far as you can see—becoming not so much a roadblock as a fence, a barrier.
And here, finally, are people. There are buildings to one side of the road, smoke rising lazily behind, and on the other, a fenced tent city. Faces—bare, no biohazard suits—peer through a chain-link fence twice as high as they are tall. There’s barbed wire along the top of it.
Along the roadblock and outside the fences, there are some people wearing biohazard suits, but there’s no mistaking that there are uniforms inside them. Army personnel are everywhere—with guns.
One gestures at us to stop, and Bobby pulls in. “Best let me do the talking,” he says to Kai.
Bobby opens the window. “We’re immune,” he says.
“We’ll be the judge of that. Get out of the car, slowly. Hands where we can see them.”
Guns are trained on Kai and Bobby as they do what they were told; fingers are on the triggers. Not just those of the two closest to us, but others on the perimeter, watching from a distance.
“Take a left.” They gesture. The tent city is to the right; to the left are buildings and what looks like…a roadside service plaza? In front of it are more army, more guns.
“What’s going on? We’re immune; the recording on the radio said to—”
“Be quiet. You have to be tested. Everything will be fine if you really are immune.”
Kai and Bobby exchange a glance, then walk across to the building and go in. It actually is a service plaza. But inside, chairs and tables have been ripped out to make an open space; food outlets are shut, and behind barricades there is a load of medical-looking equipment. There are a few technicians, without biohazard suits, and they have some sort of funny mark on their left hands.
And there are more suited guards—not just standing there idly like guards usually do, but tense with weapons ready.
“Sit,” one of them says, and gestures to a row of chairs. Two others—a man and a girl about ten years old—are there already. Kai and Bobby sit next to them.
There are odd clunky noises coming from behind a partition, then silence. A few muffled voices, then a door opens.
A technician stands there. “Next!” she says.
The girl stands up at her dad’s urging, fear all over her face.
The technician’s face softens. “This won’t hurt, I promise,” she says. “It’s just a scan.”
The girl steps forward with the technician. They disappear through the door. A minute or so later there’s equipment whirring, clunking noises again for a few minutes. Muffled voices, another door opens and closes.
The technician reappears. “Next!” she says.
The man gets up. Curious, I go with him as he follows the tech. “What are you scanning for?” the man asks.
The tech doesn’t answer. “Just cooperate. They’re trigger-happy.” There are more armed guards in here too—one with a gun trained on the man.
“Lie down here. The platform will move you along; the machine is a little noisy. Stay still and it’ll be over quicker.”
He lies down where he’s told. The platform whirs to life, moving him into some big tube thing. I’ve been in something like this in that place underground; it was some test or scan or something, and it freaked me out being trapped in the small space inside it. They had to strap me down; when that didn’t keep me still enough, they injected me with something that knocked me out.
There’s some loud whirring and banging sort of noises as the whole thing moves around the man. He stays still, like he was told. I watch over the technician’s shoulder behind another partition. She’s looking at a screen with numbers and lines on graphs.
I glide back around for a closer look at the machine, then along the platform inside of it. There’s something about it that makes me think of the worm—that massive metal thing underground in Shetland. The humming inside the worm somehow drew me to race along its surface, and I’m drawn to this now in the same way. But this is much smaller, and—
Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep…
Is that an alarm?
The machine stops and the platform slides out. Two guards are here now; they’re grabbing the man, pulling him away, and twisting his arms behind his back.
“Wait; I don’t understand,” the technician says. “The reading was way, way too high. Maybe it’s a malfunction? Let’s scan him again.”
The soldiers ignore her. The man is still struggling, yelling; one of them hits him in the head with his gun. Blood trickles down his head and drips onto the floor, and he stops struggling.
The soldiers drag the man out the door, through the waiting area.
“What’s going on?” Bobby demands. He starts to get up, but then another guard moves closer to him and Kai and points his gun in their faces.
“Stay where you are!” the guard says.
The man is dragged out of the building, gone from sight.
“Where are you taking him?” Kai asks.
“Quiet!”
The door opens over his shoulder; it’s the same technician, a bit paler now. “Next,” she says.
“You!” A gun is gestured at Kai, and he starts to get to his feet.
I’m scared. Did the machine malfunction, like the tech said? What will happen if it does it again?
Wait a minute. The alarm only went off when I was there, when I was looking inside the machine. Maybe, somehow, it was me being there that set it off?
I feel sick. The guards hit that man on the head; they dragged him away. What will they do to him?
I shrink as far away from Kai as I can get and still hear what is happening. Kai gets on the platform like he’s told. The machine whirs and makes its odd noises.
There’s a pause, and I’m scared, waiting for the alarm, but all there is is silence.
When Kai emerges through the door, I rush to him, give him a hug he can’t feel.
“Go through there,” the tech tells him—and points at a door on the other side of the room.
He goes through, me alongside him, into an office. There is a woman at a desk, a computer and papers in front of her.
“Have a seat,” she says, and gestures at chairs opposite the desk. “What’s your name?”
Kai almost forgets and starts to say his real name, then turns it into a cough. “John MacIver,” he says.
“Are you on your own here today?”
He shakes his head. “My uncle is with me; he was next.”
“Okay, we’ll wait a
moment.”
Bobby comes through the door a minute or two later.
She asks questions and enters names, addresses, dates of birth, and occupations on the computer screen. Kai’s is given as a student; Bobby is a golf pro. I didn’t know he did that.
“What’s happening?” Bobby asks. “Are we getting out of the quarantine zone now?”
“There’s just one last stage of processing.” She pushes a buzzer on her desk and another door opens. Two suited soldiers stand there.
“Follow us,” one of them says.
Kai and Bobby are taken to another door inside the service plaza—to what used to be a newsstand?—and told they must go in, that if they’re still alive in twenty-four hours they’ll be let out.
As soon as the door opens, a boy and girl rush toward it, but the guards push them back. One of them is the girl who was ahead of Kai, Bobby, and the man who got dragged out.
The door swings shut and clicks locked.
The two children aren’t the only other ones inside. There are men, women, children—forty or so. Some standing, some sitting, arms around themselves, faces blank, eyes wide. Others lie on the floor.
“Where’s our daddy?” the girl says to Bobby and Kai. “You were after him. Why isn’t he here?”
Hysteria is in her voice, each word louder than the last until she ends almost in a scream. Everyone is looking over now—looking at the two children with fear and loathing.
“Your father must have failed the scan,” a woman says, her voice accusing. “He faked being immune, but they caught him!”
“No, no; that’s not true!” the girl says. “We’re all immune! Only our mum…” Her voice breaks. “Daddy didn’t get sick like she did.”
People are angry, scared, glaring at the children. Bobby stares them down. “You should be ashamed of yourselves! They’re just a couple of kids!”
He turns and kneels next to them. “I’m sorry, but we don’t know where your dad is. They took him away.”
Another woman looks over listlessly from where she lies on the floor. “When I arrived here this morning, someone didn’t pass,” she says. “He was dragged out before I went in. They took him to the pyre with the dead, tied him up, and threw him on the fire.”