“Then—”
“It’s still inside me,” she whispers. “I can hear them. It’s almost like … some of it is still there. Like I have to cough it out. Like I need to have it removed. I don’t know.”
“Listen to me,” Rachel says, pulling her shirt back down and taking hold of both of Felicia’s hands. “They’re afraid of you. You know that. I think you can help us. What are they afraid of? Can we use that again? Can we kill them? Get rid of them?”
Felicia stares at her blankly. “No,” she whispers. Her voice is shaking so badly that her jaw seems unhinged. “There’s too many of them. It’s too big. I don’t know what to do. I mean, there’s fear there. I feel their fear. But I—I don’t know why. I don’t know what I can do.”
“Okay, shhh, don’t worry.”
Rachel stands, watching Felicia, considering. “I’m going to help the others. Find me if you need anything. And think about it, all right? It’s important. You’re important.”
Felicia has slumped in her chair, and Rachel can see her working to control her jaw, slowing it down. As Rachel moves away tentatively, Felicia brings her hands to her ears as if shutting out sound, although the screaming agony in the lobby is no more. The library has become preternaturally quiet.
What is she blocking out? Rachel wonders. Me?
There’s a commotion outside the front doors, and through the open window, Rachel watches Pete’s truck grumble up the path. The vehicle has sustained some damage. In the afternoon light, under light rain, the truck’s left side panel appears to have been walloped by a fiery fist.
CHAPTER 15
Joel is at the wheel, with Pete at shotgun. The truck’s motor guns and backfires as the vehicle bounces over the concrete lip at the edge of the grounds, but eventually the rusty behemoth comes to a hard, rattling stop, very close to the doors. Immediately, Joel flings open the door and steps down to the bloodied ground, Pete following his lead from the other side. Both their faces are stressed and haggard under the rain. A heavy, bloodied plastic bag lolls from one of Joel’s fists, bulky and portentous.
Oh no, Rachel gasps inwardly.
Everyone in the lobby has approached the front doors to meet the men. Zoe and Chloe rush forward with Rachel in time to meet Joel and Pete as they make their way beneath the shelter of the library’s massive concrete façade, shielding their heads with newspapers, their faces wincing.
“What happened?” Rachel calls.
Joel staggers through the doors and into the library, giving Rachel a hard look.
“Ron is dead,” he says.
Stunned silence except for gasps from the twins.
Joel tosses the newspaper aside roughly, then winds up and slams the heavy plastic bag to the ground, scattering candy bars and protein bars across the entrance tiles. Rachel can feel everyone watching the food, hungry but dumbfounded.
Behind Joel, Pete is a shell of what Rachel remembers from a few days ago when she first saw him near City Park, blowing things up with his brother. There’s no swagger left in him as follows Joel, limping, exhausted—even scared.
“Those fuckers are still ornery as hell,” Pete says matter-of-factly.
“What did they do?” Mai says, wiping her bloody hands on her already stiff, blackened jeans. Her eyes are glassy with new moisture, and her voice is high and unsteady with emotion.
“They’re using some kind of explosive.”
Rachel looks sharply at him, then over at Kevin, who is sleepily trying to prop himself up on one elbow.
“They started after us at the station, a group of them,” Joel seethes. “They telegraphed it! We saw them coming at the last minute, I mean racing at us, and we were able to duck into the truck, but they threw something at us, detonated something.” He gestures back at the truck. “Blew out two windows. Ron took the brunt of it. Killed him instantly.” Then he points at the scattered food. “That’s what he was carrying. He’d just run over to the drug store.”
Silence over the sound of steady rain, then:
“Where is—where’s his body?” Liam says, deadened.
Joel doesn’t answer.
Pete watches him, then says, “We left him there.”
“You left him!” Chloe sobs.
“Yes, we left him,” Joel says, hard. “Okay? We didn’t have a choice. You think you’d take the time to gather up a dead body while grenades are going off all around you?”
“He’s our friend!”
“Please, feel free to fetch him. He’s right at College and Laurel, what’s left of him anyway.”
The twins are grasping at each other, crying openly now—tears of both grief and new fear.
“Joel,” Rachel says.
“What?”
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes,” he responds loudly. “Yes, it is. Because this isn’t over. It’s far from over. Goddammit.”
“It was supposed to be over,” comes a small voice toward the elevators.
It’s Kayla. She’s got a knuckle at her eye as if rubbing sleep from it. But Rachel knows it’s exhaustion and fear.
In the hot, close library, the little girl’s words seem to resonate, and there are several whimpers and loud exhalations all around. Rachel flashes back to a couple days ago, when Kayla bravely faced the room and spoke about what she had found out about conifer trees, theorizing about what these inhabited bodies might be seeking.
The girl doesn’t have any more words, simply rubs her eyes and wanders over to Rachel, looking up at her. Rachel puts her arms around her.
“You okay, sweetie?” she whispers.
The girl nods. “I’m sorry I ran away.”
Rachel shakes her head, dismissing the thought. “Shhhh.”
Hugging Kayla tightly, Rachel looks more closely at the truck. The passenger-side window and part of the rear window are blown out. There’s a gaping, blackened hole in the rear glass. Rachel gets an even closer look at the side panel, which appears blackened and pitted. There’s no doubt in Rachel’s mind that whatever happened to Joel is the same thing that happened at the hospital. Except in this case, the detonation probably occurred closer to the truck.
The twins are still clutching at each other, holding back sobs now, and Liam has fallen into a chair at the edge of the lobby, speechless.
“Why are you sitting down?” Joel says, taking on an accusatory, glaring stance.
“Hey,” Mai says, stepping forward. “Take it easy, man.”
“We’re leaving.” Joel glances around the lobby. “What’s the status here?”
But before anyone can answer, Rick steps in through the blasted front doors to find all eyes on him.
“We’ve got a sighting to the south.”
He’s soaked and weary, looking around for something to wipe himself down with. Chloe breaks from Zoe, red-eyed, and looks hopelessly around for an unsullied towel, but there are none. Rick ends up wiping himself down with his forearms.
“What’s it doing?” Joel growls.
“At first I barely saw it, it wasn’t moving, just sitting there, watching. Then I caught a little movement, like it was reacting to Bill on the west side. It didn’t see me.”
“Fucking things are strategizing again,” Pete says.
“Did they follow you?” Liam says. He’s standing again, but he’s glowering at Joel. “Did you lead them here?”
“You better lock that shit up right now.”
To blunt the building anger in the room, Rachel fills in Rick on what happened to Ron. Rick closes his eyes and shakes his head. Rachel watches his jaw clench beneath a weary face speckled with dried blood.
“What are they strategizing?” Rick says quietly.
“I don’t know,” says Joel. “But I do know they’re weaponized. Something new. You mind heading back out, keeping watch till we figure this out? Something is brewing. You and Bill be ready to sprint back here if you see anything, right?”
Rick sighs, straightens up. “You got it.”
&nb
sp; “Wait, take a radio. Liam, give him yours.” Liam hands over the handset. “Pete, how about yours? Bill needs one too.” From a deep pocket in his pants, Pete withdraws his own radio, hands it to Rick. “Give that to Bill, clear? Radio in anything suspicious. Anything.”
“Right.”
When he’s gone, Rachel speaks up.
“Joel, we were attacked the same way at the hospital.”
“Seriously?”
She recounts what happened at the hospital and fills Joel and Pete in on Kevin’s condition—a concussion and minor shrapnel injuries, as a result of some kind of blast. And the same kind of damage to the truck.
“Kevin also said it was like someone threw a grenade at us,” she says glancing over at Kevin for verification.
Kevin nods, eyes closed.
“What, like a human? Someone else threw something?” Joel says. “Not one of those things?”
“I don’t know. All I know is something blew up, and we were all on the ground, including the bodies. Hell, I thought it was you at first, trying to protect us. But those bodies got the worst of it. Blown apart.”
“Same here, yeah—blood all over the place.”
“Is this something new?” Mai says. “Some new kind of weapon?”
There are glances all around.
“I can tell you that a roar came from the sky right before it happened,” Joel grunts. “Just like before, exactly what happened before they attacked the library. You too?”
“Yep.” Rachel nods, thinking desolately of Ron.
The group gathers closer together, exhausted, confused. People are sniffing, breathing unsteadily, scared. The air stinks of ozone and sweat, of smoke and rot, and although a heavy humidity still cloaks the library, the temperature at least is not as bad as it has been. Rachel notices that most of the survivors are watching the rain and the library grounds. The air is expectant.
“We have to leave this place,” Rachel says, resolutely.
“Now,” Joel repeats.
“He’s right,” Mai says. “We gotta get out of here.”
“We need time, guys,” Rachel says, scanning the lobby. “We can’t act rashly.” She thinks of her conversation with Felicia. “When they attacked us all here, they scrambled away. In fear. You all saw it. They’re not going to rush us again so soon. I’m positive about that. We at least have time to gather supplies and do this right. We have to make sure these people can survive.” She gestures to the victims of the library attack, the bodies that have only recently turned back to humanity.
“At the cost of your own life?” Joel asks her. He’s rubbing one reddened eye.
“Hey, look,” Rachel says, “I’m not disagreeing with you about the threat. What happened here—we’re not letting that happen again.” She angles her head and glances out toward the skies. “It is time to leave. But what’s our plan? Where do we go?”
“East.” Mai extends a long, shapely arm, pointing straight through the library’s front doors.
“Just drive east?”
“It makes sense,” Pete says. “Those goddamn things are obviously after the forests, so driving as far away as possible from the forests seems fuckin’ reasonable.”
“That’s what I said!” Kevin calls.
“So, wait, why are we leaving again?” Liam says. “It’s not like we’re in the middle of the forest here. This is a city block.”
“Dude!” Mai says. “You were here for this slaughter, right?”
“I mean, what if Rachel’s right? What if the way we repelled that attack—that gave us a safe zone here? A place they’re afraid of. This could be the safest spot in the city, regardless of the damage. They haven’t even come close to these walls again, haven’t you noticed that?”
“I’ll say it again: Are you willing to gamble all our lives on that?” Joel counters. “Rick just came in to report one of those things out there, right now. This library could just as easily be the target of another giant attack, some kind of revenge. Something they’re working up right now. They’re obviously still aggressive.”
“Joel, I’m on your side,” Rachel says. “All I’m saying is let’s do this methodically. Let’s do this smart. I’m not just rushing out the door.”
“Fine!” Joel looks around at the survivors one by one, takes in the situation in the lobby. “Christ! Look, it was—it was not a fun situation out there.”
Mai punches Joel’s shoulder. “It’s fine. Now let’s figure it out.”
Joel can see the orderly rows of bodies, and Rachel is sure he can perceive the difference between the state of the library when he left and the relative calm now.
“Good work here,” he says. “But we have to leave these people, you know. What are we doing with them?”
Chloe steps forward tearfully from the checkout area, massaging her wrists. “We can make it so they’re comfortable for a few hours anyway. We can inject them with the pain relief we have, and we can add to that. These bodies need time to heal. We can leave them plenty of water and food. They can get better without us here.”
“Are you sure?” Rachel says.
“Reasonably.”
Zoe looks at her sister doubtfully for a brief moment, then nods. Rachel sees her working out the calculation: Either leave this place with the rest of the group or stay in this stinking lobby with these bodies, completely vulnerable to another attack.
“What happens to them?” asks Kayla, whose face is wet and tortured against Rachel’s abdomen. She’s gesturing at the bodies Chloe is referencing. “If we can’t bring them with us, what happens to them? Will those things eat them?”
“They won’t,” says a woman’s voice.
Rachel turns, startled.
Felicia is standing in the shadows near the book-returns area. She appears to have been there for some time, observing. Her eyes are on Rachel.
“Really?” Zoe says.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?” Chloe asks.
Felicia manages a smile, but Rachel can tell that she’s uncomfortable. “I used to be one of ‘those things’.”
“And so because of that, you can see … you know what they …?” Chloe says.
Felicia nods, eyeing the whole group. “I know how they think.”
“So what should we do?” Chloe asks, and suddenly all eyes are on Felicia. “Do you know what’s going to happen? Will they attack again?”
They’re the questions Rachel put to her, but now she seems willing to answer them.
Felicia moves slowly from the shadows. “I’m not one of them anymore. I don’t know what they plan to do now. I don’t speak their language anymore.” She swallows with pain. “I do know they never expected you to survive. That’s the advantage you have over them. They don’t know how to deal with you. They didn’t expect to have to fight.” Her brow is knitted, troubled. “What they want is in the forests. In the trees. You already know that.”
“What is it?” Zoe asks.
“A chemical compound. It’s hazy, but it is that. Something very specific and unique to nature on Earth. It’s at the molecular level.” Rachel can tell she’s having trouble talking for so long. “I don’t have the words to really describe it, but it’s … something that can’t be produced in a lab or anything. It’s the result of a very specific interaction. And they absolutely crave it.”
Kayla glances up at Rachel with wet eyes. “I was right,” she whispers.
Rachel smiles down at her. “Of course you were.”
“So we leave them to it!” Mai says.
Joel clenches his jaw. “What you’re saying, Mai, is we let them get away with everything they’ve done to us. What they’ve done to the world. They get what they want, and then they hightail it outta here, laughing all the way home?” He looks at Felicia. “Right? And of course we trust them to leave all those infected people alive when they’re done with them.”
Felicia shakes her head. “I don’t see that happening.”
“Exactly.”<
br />
“Are you on our side or theirs?” Kayla says to Felicia.
The library goes quiet.
Felicia opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “I’m on yours.”
After a moment, Joel breaks a weighty silence.
“Are we safe here?”
Felicia looks at him gravely. “I don’t think so.”
“How much time do we have?”
She swallows painfully. “I honestly don’t know. But they will never give up. They will use every weapon they have to destroy you.”
“And now it looks like they have a new weapon,” Kevin manages.
The sun is at the horizon now, what Rachel’s dad used to call magic hour. Right now, Rachel would call it decision time.
“We’re splitting up,” Joel says, energizing the fear-clenched room. “We’re splitting up and getting the hell out of here. I loaded up on radios, so we’re good on communication again—at least as far as the range of these things.” He takes the radio off his hip, gives it a cursory glance. “About fifty miles max, I’d say.” He replaces it. “We send one group east to see if there are any answers out there, and I keep another group to go west, right into the thick of it—anyone interested in seeing this through and maybe stopping this thing. Bottom line is I’m not leaving town. I totally get it if anyone here wants to take off. Totally get it. But I’m staying. That girl right there might be the answer.” He gestures at Felicia, who watches him doubtfully. “She’s carrying something—something important. Maybe she knows what it is, maybe she doesn’t. Either way, it’s something we need to take advantage of. Hopefully with some help. I gotta see it through, see what about her is scaring the shit out of them. Cuz that’s what she’s doing.”
The survivors peer around at one another.
“Mai,” Joel says, “I suggest you head up the group heading east. Kevin is probably with you, and whoever else wants to join you. No hard feelings either way. No judgment.”
“So we … pick a group?” Scott asks from the periphery.
“Or take off on your own, if that’s what you’d rather.”
Rachel can’t help but hear Joel’s ulterior message: Remember how that worked out for you last time? She all too clearly remembers his chagrined face peering out of that church window days ago, when they’d found him cornered.
Blood Dawn (Blood Trilogy Book 3) Page 15