Juggernaut

by Amelia C. Gormley

  The guard Zach only knew as the “kinder” one called over his shoulder from the front passenger seat. “We have to keep each group who comes in separate from every other group who comes in, see? Otherwise everyone could get infected. The hot zone for airborne contamination with the Rot is about ten, fifteen feet, but don’t worry. There’s thirty feet and two fences between you and your neighbors. You’ll be safe so long as everyone stays in their own units.”

  “For three months, you said?” Nico asked.

  The guard nodded. “If you were exposed yesterday, it would take three to six weeks for you to start showing symptoms. We make it three months, just to make sure everyone is safe. And because there’s a backlog getting houses ready for people in the Clean Zone.”

  Zach grimaced at the sight of small tents within the pens and a rough shed that looked like a possible latrine in the back corner. “There’s no power or sewage?”

  “Sorry. This is the best we could do on short notice. We only began building the camps a few months ago. Before that, everyone was assigned a unit in a repurposed tenement near downtown.” The guard cleared his throat, the sound rasping and rattling the amplifier in his mask. “Someone went rev, broke down their door, started a panic. Everyone was exposed. We had to burn it out.”

  Nico went rigid beside him. “With everyone still inside?”

  The guard groaned softly. “Look, you gotta understand, man, we’re doing the best we can here, and we have to follow orders. We gassed the building first to try to knock everyone unconscious so they wouldn’t suffer, but . . . We had no choice. We just didn’t.”

  Nico scrubbed a hand over his mouth, his grayish pallor suggesting he might just start vomiting. “That’s why you’re using tents instead of all the derelict houses. You don’t want to have to burn existing buildings.”

  “That, and the houses are too close together. And we couldn’t keep water going to them.”

  Zach linked his fingers with Nico’s and tilted his head back, grateful to be in the open-sided trolley where the fresh air could blow away some of his own nausea.

  Apparently, the guard who was driving had enough of his friendly comrade’s chatter. “If you’re found outside your unit, you’ll be shot on sight and your corpse burned for the safety of the other detainees. Ration deliveries will be made every other day. Since it’s just about planting season, we’re trying to equip each pen with gardening tools and seeds so you can help stretch out the rations. By winter they’ll be getting pretty low. We have wind turbines pressurizing the water pipes. Water’s suitable for washing, but the treatment facility is offline so I wouldn’t recommend drinking or cooking with it unless you boil it first. Ration deliveries will include enough firewood for you to boil a gallon or two every couple days, and you’ll find a fire pit outside the tent.”

  “What are we going to do about climate control?” Zach asked. April had just begun, a fact he wouldn’t have known without the computer system in their truck. He wondered how long it would take him to lose track of the date now that they didn’t even have that. “Summer’s coming up. It’s going to be too hot for everyone here in the desert to be without shade during the day, especially with so little water.”

  The guards fell silent. Clearly no one had worked out the logistics for that, yet.

  The kinder one cleared his throat again. “You’re just going to have to do the best you can. I’m sorry.”

  The sight of the fenced-in enclosure where they would be expected to reside for the next three months was no better than any of the others had been. A sick, sinking feeling weighed down Zach’s chest as he shouldered his bag and approached the gate the guards were unlocking. He had a distinct sympathy for criminals approaching the place of their incarceration on their own power, knowing their freedom was gone.

  He couldn’t seem to pick up his feet; they shuffled through the rusty-red mud, resisting his efforts to propel himself forward. He flinched when the gate clanged shut behind him.

  “I don’t know why I’m being such a coward about this.” He sighed and dropped his bag by the entrance to the tent. The wind shifted, carrying the odor of the latrine toward them for a moment before shifting back the way it had been blowing.

  Great.

  “After being stuck with my father and Jacob all winter, a tent in the open for three months should be a holiday in comparison.”

  Nico grunted but didn’t reply as he ducked under the flap of the tent. It wasn’t a reassuring sound. What did it mean? Was Nico’s injury so bad that he couldn’t be bothered to talk? Or did he have an issue with the way Zach was behaving?

  Zach followed him inside. “Are you all right?”

  “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “What?”

  “I’m putting everyone at risk. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.” Nico sank down to sit cross-legged on a cot inside the tent, rubbing his temples. “They can’t ever let me past the quarantine here. Never.”

  “Don’t be stupid. We just have to be careful—”

  “How careful do we have to be to ensure I never have an accident, Zach?” Nico’s voice cracked, and he looked up at Zach with shimmering eyes. “How can I avoid getting a blister from a gardening tool that breaks open and bleeds? Or falling and skinning my knees? Or—” He broke off, wiping his face brusquely. “No. I just need to tell the medics what’s going on and let them know that they either need to send me on my way or keep me away from the rest of the people here.”

  “You can’t! Did you see how they were behaving back there? They would have put a bullet in your head and burned your body on a bonfire!”

  “I doubt they’d shoot me. Too dangerous.” Nico smiled bitterly and let his hands fall back into his lap. “Poison, maybe? Or suffocation?”

  “Stop it!” Zach dropped to a squat before Nico’s cot, laying his hands on Nico’s thighs. “Don’t talk like that. I’m not going to let that happen. Besides,” he offered Nico a weak smile, “they might shoot me too, just for being with you.”

  “You don’t need to remind me that I’m dangerous for you too. Don’t you get that, cariño?” Nico’s eyes swam again. “I shouldn’t be with you, either. I should be alone.”

  “You won’t make it alone.” Zach’s hands began their own journey over every part of Nico that he could reach, especially where the skin was exposed, feeding the hunger for touch he now understood as a part of who Nico was. The idea of this beautiful, sensual man in isolation, where he could never get the contact he so desperately craved . . . It was horrifying. He thought of tales of Hell being a place not full of fire and torment, but of endless, empty cold, cut off from God’s comforting presence and grace. Surely seclusion, without the chance to touch or be touched, would be such an existence for Nico. “And I won’t let you leave me behind.”

  “Then take the last ampule, Zach.” Nico’s dark eyes pleaded with him. “Be like me so I don’t have to worry about hurting you. Then we’ll leave here together.”

  It was tempting. Lord, so tempting. To be strong and able to defend himself. To erase that fear from Nico’s eyes. Why did everything in Zach clench up in an adamant refusal to truly entertain the notion beyond a passing, What if . . .?

  He was shaking his head before the no even fully formed on his lips. “That’s not who I want to be.”

  Nico bowed his head. His hands shook where he clenched them in his lap, until Zach reached for him and pulled his hands apart, holding them snugly. Nico stared at their joined hands for a moment, then laced his fingers with Zach’s. “I don’t know what to do here.”

  Zach leaned in and brushed a kiss on the corner of Nico’s mouth. “Rest. How can you be expected to think clearly with a head injury like this?” He reached for the buttons on Nico’s synth-cotton shirt and carefully opened it, easing it down his shoulders. Part of Zach was tempted to do it seductively, to turn on flirtation the way Nico could, like throwing a switch, but he didn’t think Nico was in any condition to appreciate it. But Nico
did tip his face up and seek out Zach’s mouth, parting his lips and letting their tongues slide together.

  By the time they separated, Zach was the one whose hands were shaking. He had to ball them into fists to keep from pushing Nico to do more than he was clearly physically capable of handling. Lord, had it been less than a week since they’d been in his bedroom together, and Nico’s mouth had been on him, and—

  “Rest,” Zach choked out, and gently shoved Nico down on the cot, then helped remove his trousers. He looked sideways at the other cot, but he couldn’t bring himself to move to it. Instead, he dug his Bible out of his duffel and urged Nico to sit up until Zach could slip behind him, serving as a pillow. “I’ll wake you up when they bring us some rations, or when the medics arrive, or . . . I don’t know. Just rest.”

  Nico didn’t argue. He turned on his side, his face pressed to Zach’s belly, so temptingly close to Zach’s aching groin. He was asleep almost immediately.

  Is it just touch for you? Would anyone do? Zach ignored his Bible, delicately brushing his fingers over Nico’s shaggy hair. Am I the only one feeling more?

  Was he feeling more? Or had he simply imprinted on Nico because they were alone in the world and because being with Nico felt like the first honest and blessed thing Zach had done in his adult life?

  Does it matter? We’re together now. And I’m where God wants me to be—with him. I know that without a doubt.

  Sighing, Zach leaned down and pressed a kiss to Nico’s temple.

  We’ll take care of each other. That’s all we need to do right now. What happens later is in the Lord’s hands.

  The sun was already oppressively warm by midmorning on the seventh day of Zach and Nico’s quarantine. Zach had spent most of the week pampering Nico as he rested and healed. Nico didn’t even put up a fight since they had nothing else to do, a fact that had them both ready to climb the fencing around their enclosure within a matter of days.

  Fortunately, the military personnel in charge of ration deliveries had come through on their promise to provide gardening tools the day before. They even went one better and delivered a few young pine trees with their roots intact, which they recommended the detainees plant southwest of their tents to provide more shade for their lodgings in the midday and afternoon sun.

  “Christmas trees. Can you believe it? We’ve got reclamation teams scouring the whole county for shit like this. Any random thing people can put to use,” the soldier—who was unmistakably the same kind guard from their arrival—explained while he unlocked the gate and delivered the supplies. As he did so, another guard told Zach to keep his distance and reinforced the command with a gun.

  “A couple guys keep lookout for revs while the rest scavenge anything they think we can use,” the kind guard continued.

  “Thanks, um . . . I didn’t get your name?” Zach ventured uncertainly.

  “Gillett Morris.” The suited soldier bobbed his head with what Zach imagined was a shy smile under his mask.

  “Thanks, Gillett.” Zach pictured a fairly young man behind the mask, from the voice and the tendency to babble. Perhaps still a teenager. Had he enlisted straight out of school? Perhaps he was even one of the vocational training recruits. Kids as young as fifteen, desperate to escape the tenements, received early diplomas and full-time incomes by enlisting in the armed services, so long as they weren’t assigned combat roles until they turned eighteen. In that case, being helpful was pretty much Gillett’s entire job description.

  “Have you thought about having the detainees help raise livestock?” Zach asked, just to keep the conversation going as the guard propped up the trees and shovels in a corner of the pen near the latrine. Even though he had Nico for company, it was nice to have other people to talk to. “We have enough space for a goat, and the milk would be good since Nico needs more calories. And if you got us feed and something to build a coop with, I bet a lot of the detainees could take care of some chickens, harvest the eggs for another way to supplement the rations. And it would give people something to do.”

  Gillett’s head bobbed again. “I’ll pass that along to my CO, sir. But can I ask . . . more calories? We don’t have orders for an extra ration drop for this pen. Did your partner discuss it with the medics?”

  Damn. He’d forgotten that Nico didn’t want to make an issue of his dietary needs because then he’d have to explain why.

  “Oh, it’s not a big—”

  “If there’s an issue, sir, the medics will accommodate him, as best they can. We’re not that low on rations just yet.”

  Zach pasted on a bland smile and nodded. What tests would the medics need do to confirm Nico had an issue? Would they need to draw blood? “I’ll be sure to let him know.”

  Gillett and his comrade left, and Zach turned to relieving his boredom by digging holes for the trees. It was nearly mid-April now, and the heat was already rising, an alarming forewarning of the summer to come, and the shade would be a welcome friend.

  “Something interesting about that hole?”

  “Huh?” Zach jerked, realizing he’d been staring at the ground where he’d been digging, resting on his shovel, for . . . he wasn’t sure how long. He looked over his shoulder to see Nico standing at the flap of their tent, shirtless. The distinct protrusion of his ribs canceled out Zach’s immediate and very visceral reaction to the sight of his bare flesh. “Oh. Guess I got lost in my thoughts.”

  Nico stepped out into the sunlight. “What were you thinking about?”

  “The super-spore farms.” He gestured to the saplings. “They brought us these trees for shade, and then I started thinking about how hot it’s going to get soon. I wonder if the Atmosphere Repair Project is offline now or if the farms can operate without someone attending them. Is this all for nothing?”

  Nico frowned thoughtfully. “What, trying to survive?”

  “Yeah. I guess?” Zach shrugged and wiped away the sweat streaming down his face. “I don’t know. We’re so caught up in these minute details about how we’re going to get by from one day to the next now. Ration deliveries, and avoiding infection, and how to find enough shade so we don’t keel over from heat stroke. But not all our big, global problems from before the pandemic went away when everyone died. If the farms go offline, then we’re back on the countdown timer until the planet becomes uninhabitable anyway. Just delaying the inevitable.”

  “Maybe we are,” Nico said after a reflective pause. “Should we stop trying?”

  “. . . No. Of course not.” Zach scoffed at his lapse into pessimism. Maybe the spore farms would continue to thrive unattended. Maybe by the time the solar-powered drones that spread a haze of contrails across the sky to keep the effects of global warming in check failed, the spores would have cleaned the atmosphere and repaired the ozone enough that the drones wouldn’t even be needed.

  Yeah, that felt like the proper way to look at it. The idea brought a lightness to Zach’s heart, the feeling that God was stroking his hair and saying, It’s all right, child, I’ll take care of that for you.

  There was enough to worry about without considering all the things that they had no hope of controlling or influencing. Zach had to leave it in His hands.

  “So,” Nico said after a moment. “Trees?”

  Zach shrugged. “Seems like they’re trying.” He propped the shovel against the chain-link fence and gave his aching hands a rueful look. By the end of the day, he was pretty sure he’d have blisters. Which meant Nico’s fears about not being able to pitch in much with the gardening work were well-founded. He’d have to see if they could requisition some gloves, at least. “How’re you feeling?”

  Nico’s eyes got a distant look, as if he were performing a mental inventory, before he shrugged. “Better, I think. My head is still hurting, but I suspect it’s mostly because that fucking cot is killing my neck.”

  Zach ducked his head, scuffing his toe against tufts of patchy grass in the red soil. “Guess those things are limited in all kinds of ways.”
His face heated up, and he ventured a glance at Nico from under his lashes.

  Nico chuckled. “If my head is still doing all right tonight, we’re going to fold the damn things away and just lay our blankets on the bottom of the tent.”

  “Are we?” Zach’s heart took off racing in his chest. The last week had allowed for some more sexual exploration between the two of them, but it had been rendered logistically difficult by cots that were barely large enough for one person, much less two, and tempered by Nico’s blinding headaches and need to sleep them off. He’d grumbled bitterly over having to take a rain check on Zach’s offer to attempt his first blowjob for just that reason. They’d managed some relatively satisfying groping but not much beyond that.

  “Hell yeah, we are.” Nico licked his lips, and his grin grew downright sinful. “You know how good you look, standing there all sweaty and panting? I’ve got my very own Lady Chatterley’s Lover gardener fantasy locked in this cage with me.”

  “I’m dusty, and I smell,” Zach demurred, but Nico was slinking toward him. His hands settled on Zach’s hips, jerking him forward until their crotches bumped. The contact wrenched a gasp from Zach’s lungs, and the heat in Nico’s eyes seemed to sear away any air that might have replaced it.

  “I’m not complaining.” His tongue traced the sweat-beaded rim of Zach’s upper lip before slipping inside his mouth. Zach let him in with a needy moan, his gritty arms sliding around Nico to bring their bodies into fuller contact. Just like that, he was on fire, incinerating from the inside out. The feeling kept getting stronger the longer they were together. He needed more. More of everything Nico was and everything Nico had to offer. He set something loose inside Zach, something he hadn’t known was trapped until it finally took flight, and all he wanted to do was soar with it.

  He was stuck in a damn cage, and he’d never felt freer.

  “Know what?” Nico murmured, tipping his head back when Zach’s lips sought out his throat. A low groan vibrated against his lips as Zach nibbled and sucked every inch of warm skin he could reach.