by Kit Tunstall
When my gaze cleared, I let out a sob of relief to recognize Ben, leaning down to hold out a hand. I took it, aware of my legs having fallen asleep. The pins-and-needles sensation made it difficult to stand, and I definitely required his help to evacuate the hole. As soon as the trap door closed behind me, and my feet were solidly on the wooden planks, I threw myself into his arms. Sobs overtook me, and I was incapable of speech for a long moment.
“It’s okay. They’re gone. They insisted on searching the camp again, and this time they wanted to know if we had seen Joshua too.”
I pulled away from him just enough to look into his eyes. “What did you tell them?”
“I told them we hadn’t had a Joshua, but we’d had a few people come and go over the past few weeks, so maybe he’d been among them.” He shrugged. “It was the best I could do on short notice to protect Joshua if he shows up at Fort Glacier again and tells them he was here.”
“I have to leave.” I blurted out the words in a loud voice, the panic I hadn’t allowed to overtake me when I was in the root cellar suddenly resurging to life and threatening to overwhelm me. “It isn’t safe for anyone while I’m here.”
He frowned at me. “They didn’t find you today, and they searched the camp. They don’t think you’re here.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know Briggs. I don’t think he’ll give up. He’s probably still convinced I’m here, or at least nearby. I need to get as far away from this area as possible. Maybe take a truck and drive to the coast or something.” It might’ve been a good plan, but it sent a pang of agony through me to even imagine leaving Camp Utopia.
It seemed wrong to take Ben with me, to tear him away from the place he considered home too, where he was an integral part of the community. The idea of being on the road alone, and then settling somewhere without anyone else around, made my breathing shallow again. I tried to push through the lightheaded feeling as I spun away from him, heading toward our tent. I was in full fight-or-flight mode, and I’d chosen flight. It seemed safest for everyone to leave not only Camp Utopia, but the entire state. Briggs didn’t have the resources to continue looking for me if I went hundreds of miles away.
In the tent, I grabbed the backpack I had taken from that unknown teenage girl weeks ago, starting to haphazardly shove clothes and other supplies inside. When Ben put his hand on my arm, I shrugged him away almost violently. “Let me do this. I have to leave.”
“No, you don’t. This is crazy. You’re reacting from fear rather than thinking it through.”
I shrugged, not disagreeing, but not entirely convinced that just because I was acting from fear that it was the wrong decision. “I have to do this for everyone. We can’t allow them to come into the camp. They’ll kill anyone who gets in the way. Lila’s too fragile to go through an experience like that, not to mention the other children here in the camp.” My heart squeezed at the thought of my little classroom of students being caught in the crossfire from Fort Glacier. “I’m trying to do the right thing, Ben.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t the right thing. We hid you today, and we’ll hide you again if it becomes necessary. We aren’t leaving.”
I paused long enough in my packing to turn to face him. The sensation made my head spin, and the room seemed to roll around me for a moment. I closed my eyes until the sensation had passed before putting a hand on his chest. “You’re not coming with me. It’s not safe out there, and you’re needed here.”
His brown eyes darkened, and his mouth compressed. “You’re not going anywhere without me. We’re in this together. If you won’t see reason, then I’m coming with you.”
I shook my head, regretting the action as soon as it instigated the room spinning again. “You can’t. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “I feel the same way about you. If you’re determined to leave, I’m coming with you. The smart thing to do is stay here though.”
Deciding I wasn’t going to be able to get through to him, I turned away again, intending to scoop up a few more items to shove into my already crammed backpack, but the room spun crazily around me before I could. I wasn’t certain what was happening as the world seemed to dip, and my center of gravity shifted forward. I realized at the last moment I was about to hit the floor of the tent, but I didn’t have enough awareness or ability to stop myself. I was unconscious before the collision.
I was vaguely aware of Ben carrying me somewhere, but didn’t return to full alertness until I felt a pinch on my arm. I opened my eyes. “Ow.”
“Sorry,” said Grace. “I need to get some blood.”
I turned my head, unsurprised to see Ben standing beside me. I frowned up at him. “What happened?”
“You passed out.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Did I have another panic attack?” It didn’t feel anything like the time I had passed out when Ben had been shot, but maybe I wasn’t remembering clearly, or perhaps I was underestimating my own panic at the time, having felt more than I’d thought.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. We were arguing a bit about your course of action, but you didn’t seem panicked or out of control. You were fearful, but nothing that would make me expect you to have a panic attack.”
“Anxiety’s a strange thing,” said Grace, doing something at the microscope nearby. “It can creep up on you and overwhelm you in a matter of seconds.”
I nodded, but I was still doubtful. I honestly didn’t remember any sense of panic. I’d felt fear, combined with the need to get as far away from the camp as possible to protect everyone, but I didn’t think I was panic-driven. “What else could have caused me to faint?” It would be just my luck to survive the HLV virus, elude Fort Glacier all this time, and then end up with something like a brain tumor that no one could treat.
“Head injury, anemia, pregnancy, low blood pressure… There are a lot of different causes. I can’t test for all of them, but once I spin your blood in the centrifuge, I can perform more basic lab tests to see if I can identify an obvious cause. It could have just been plain old stress too.”
I was hoping for the final guess, because I was stressed. Who wasn’t? It was the new norm to be stressed out and running on your last nerve. I had already tentatively decided that was the diagnosis, since I didn’t think it could be any of the others, so I leaned back against the exam table from where I’d risen to ask Grace the question and closed my eyes. “Can I go back to my tent to wait?”
“No,” said Grace and Ben at the same time.
“I’d rather have you in here until we figure out the cause, or at least ‘til I’ve observed you for a while,” added Grace.
“Fine,” I said with a bit of disgruntlement. I’d much rather be resting on the comfortable mattress in our tent than on the metal table covered by the thin pad. I should insist on leaving, grab the bag I’d packed, and head out now before the soldiers from Fort Glacier returned again for another sweep.
Lack of time suggested that was the best course, but caution held me back. I needed to know if I had a medical condition that required treatment or some type of supervision before I headed out alone. I was still determined to leave, but maybe Grace would help with the treatment regimen if it turned out to be something like anemia. All I had to do was take iron supplements or something, I thought, vaguely remembering my mom using those when she was pregnant with my little brother and became anemic. They should be easy enough to forage.
I drifted off to sleep, I guess, because I was startled when Grace came to stand beside the bed sometime later. She didn’t look solemn or ominous, so I assumed she’d found nothing of concern. That meant I could leave as soon as she discharged me from the infirmary. Every muscle in my body tensed at the idea, and my mind screamed in rejection, but I knew I had to go. It was the only safe course for everyone.
“You’re a little anemic, so we need to give you some iron supplements.”
I let out a small sigh of
relief. “Thanks, Grace. Can I go now?”
She shook her head. “You’re only borderline anemic, and certainly not to the point where it would cause you to pass out. I have the results of your other tests too.”
That was unwelcome news, because if it wasn’t stress, then anemia would have been an easy problem to treat. “What else is wrong with me?”
“You’re pregnant,” she said in an even tone. She didn’t offer congratulations or commiseration. She simply delivered the news with little inflection or expression.
I stared at her in shock for a moment, certain she was nuts. “That’s impossible. We’ve always used a condom.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Always?”
I closed my eyes, briefly recalling all the times I could think of with Ben, and even forcing myself to remember being with Joshua, though the memories were still painful. I nodded when I opened my eyes. “Always, to prevent something like that.”
She shrugged again, though not unkindly. “I’d suggest checking the expiration date of the boxes you’re using. It’s been a year-and-a half since anybody manufactured new condoms, and they do have a shelf life. After they expire, they become weaker—more prone to tearing and less effective.”
I cursed, saying words that would have made my mother put soap on my tongue, but I felt no better afterward. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I did a blood test, remember? You have hCG present, and that only happens if you’re pregnant, occasionally with hormonal disorders, or with a type of cancer that mimics pregnancy.”
“I never thought I’d wish for cancer,” I said a bit bitingly. Of course I didn’t really want cancer, but what was I supposed to do with a baby, especially in the circumstances? I was planning to leave the safety of Camp Utopia, so how was I supposed to survive being alone and pregnant on the road? “Is there a way to make sure it isn’t cancer?” Was I really hoping for that outcome? No, I supposed even a baby was better than cancer. Of course it was, but I wasn’t prepared for either one.
Grace turned away from me, moving over to the corner of the infirmary. When she returned, she was wheeling an ultrasound machine that she plugged in to the strip cord on the wall. I lifted my shirt while she took a bottle from the ultrasound cart and squirted cold gel on my stomach. I grimaced at the sensation, and then the wand glided over my skin, pressing firmly into my lower abdomen.
“There it is,” said Grace, tapping gently on the screen to show me a little black and white blob. “That’s definitely a baby.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” It didn’t look anything like a baby to me. “How far along am I?” As I asked the question, I found myself mentally crossing my fingers, hoping to be either so early or so far along that Joshua couldn’t possibly be the father.
“About six weeks.”
I cursed again. “It doesn’t seem very far along to make me pass out.”
“Your blood volume increases with pregnancy, and you’re more sensitive to changes in pressure. Add in your anemia, along with the stress of whatever you and Ben were discussing, and it’s entirely plausible. You just need to be slow and careful for a little while when getting up, and try to keep your stress levels reduced.”
Abruptly, my gaze wandered to the incubator in the corner, where the baby slept quietly. A chill seized me at the idea that could be my child lying there in a few months. “How is she?”
Grace glanced in the baby’s direction before looking back at me. “She’s doing pretty well actually. I’m pretty optimistic for her, and for Maisie. She’s recovering well from her hemorrhage.”
“Where is she? I expected her to still be in here.”
“I had to send her back to her tent to get some rest. I can’t have her in here all the time, at least not with a cot like she wanted. There’s just no room.”
“What do you think about reproduction in this new world, Grace?”
Grace hesitated for a moment. “I wouldn’t want to do it, but I think it’s still possible to safely bring children into the world. I’m sure we’ll lose more than we did before the HLV virus, but the United States already had an abysmal infant mortality rate, so I doubt it will be a death sentence to have a child—for either the mom or the child. There’ll be exceptions, but even in state-of-the-art hospitals with the best professionals in the world, there were still casualties. Birth is a little less safe than it was, but I think you’ll be fine. We’ll keep a close eye on you and monitor you every step of the way.”
I nodded, not sharing with her my plan to leave the camp. I didn’t know where that stood. I still believed everyone was safer without me here, but the baby changed everything. “Is it all right if I go back to my tent now?”
“Yes, but I want you to take it easy for the rest of the afternoon. Just rest.”
“Am I in danger of miscarrying?” As I asked the question, I wasn’t entirely certain if I was dreading or hoping for that outcome. It’d certainly be easier if I wasn’t pregnant, but I couldn’t imagine taking the step to abort the child.
If someone like Maisie, trapped in the worst circumstances ever to conceive a child, could keep her and love her, it seemed wrong to me to even entertain the idea when the baby I’d created with either Ben or Joshua had been from love. If Joshua was the father, the love might have all been on my side, but the love was there. I was certain I would love my baby, but it made things unbearably complicated. I didn’t know how to proceed.
“I see no signs of you being in danger of miscarrying at this point. Just rest, take your iron supplements, and try to avoid stress.”
I let out a slightly harsh laugh. “Yeah, that shouldn’t be any problem.” Moving carefully, I slid from the bed and stood upright, waiting to feel dizzy. Instead, I felt just like normal, though my legs were a little shaky for a moment until they stabilized. “I guess I need to find Ben.”
“Look for him at the generators. Jerry came in and told him there was some kind of problem with one of them, or he wouldn’t have left you.”
“I’m not upset that he left. He probably thought it was just stress too. That’s what I was hoping for. The generators are more important than sitting beside me and watching me sleep.”
After leaving the infirmary, I set out in the direction of the shelter housing the generators. The people in charge of the system had been slowly adding to the makeshift shelter around the machines, turning it into a building rather than an open frame awning-type structure. I didn’t immediately see Ben, so I stepped inside and found him crouched down beside Dustin, and they were clearly engrossed in whatever they were doing.
I leaned against the wall and waited for him, not wanting to interrupt him at the moment. Part of me dreaded telling him the truth anyway. For just a moment, I had the urge to slip away quietly, grab my bags, and get out of the camp while he was busy. He didn’t know anything about the baby, and he might not even be the father. I was leaving for a noble reason, as he’d said, so would it be wrong to do that?
My heart cried out its protest at the thought, and I knew it would be terribly wrong. I still wasn’t sure what we were going to do, but I could no longer do it without Ben. If we decided to leave the camp, it would be together, even though it put him at unnecessary risk and opened the camp to danger without a strong leader in place.
That didn’t seem like a good solution, but neither did staying here with my head buried in the sand, one day inevitably caught unaware by a surprise Fort Glacier inspection. I’d like to think at some point they would give up, but I wasn’t that optimistic. My blood held the antibodies that could give the unexposed scientists, doctors, and soldiers immunity to the HLV hemorrhagic strain. I doubted they would quit looking, because for them it was a matter of survival, just like it was a matter of survival and sanity for me to avoid being caught.
A few minutes later, Ben stood up and turned away from the generators, clearly done conferring with Dustin. He stumbled to a stop for a moment when he saw me leaning against the wall, and then h
e frowned as he hurried toward me. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
I shrugged, reaching for his hands. “Let’s take a walk.” He didn’t resist as I led him from the generator building, approaching the edge of the camp. We were far enough away to have privacy, but still within sight of others to ensure our safety. “I do have to go lie down in a minute, but Grace sent me here to find you, so I assume it’s okay to be up and around first.”
He frowned, his concern evident. “So what’s wrong with you?”
“I’m slightly anemic.” The same flash of relief I’d experienced upon hearing the news crossed his face, and I wondered if he would be as shocked by the next words as I had been. “I’m also pregnant.”
Ben let out a choked gasp, taking a step back as though he’d done it automatically. A second later, he stepped forward instead, wrapping his arms around me. “Are you all right? Are you healthy? What about the baby?”
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Other than the anemia, and too much stress, I appear to be healthy, according to Grace. She didn’t see any obvious problems with me or the child.”
He let out a long sigh that was clearly an expression of relief as his arms wrapped more tightly around me. “I’ll take care of both of you.”
I bit my lip as I eased away from his embrace. “According to the ultrasound, Grace thinks I’m about six weeks along.” I held my breath as I waited for him to comprehend what that meant. I wondered if his perspective would change when he realized there was only a fifty percent chance he was the father.
After a moment of his features being tense, his expression relaxed, and he hugged me tighter again. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter who’s the father. The baby’s mine. It’d be the same way if Joshua were still here with us too. We’d both be the fathers, unless he had a problem with that.”