“Hello,” he said weakly.
We waved.
“What would you like to know?” asked Chase, smiling sadly at his friend, his chess partner.
“Well,” said Woolly in his polite but deliberate way, “for starters, who am I? I can’t seem to remember my name.”
“Oh, right,” said Ruby. “I forgot ya’d forget because normally you don’t forget nothin’. Anyhow, your name’s William. We call ya Woolly, on account of your woolly hair and your big beard, see. And you’re one ’a the smartest fellas we ever met.”
Ruby ushered him to a chair in the living room.
Woolly nodded slowly as we told him about the pandemic and the serum. The next day we explained the Agency and the Zones and the events of the entire last year. I told him about Arie and Gracie. Chase told him about Carlos and Glen. And there were others.
Woolly read and re-read the notebooks he’d written, sometimes staring incredulously at his own handwriting.
“It’s hard to take in,” said Woolly. “It’s hard to believe.”
“Yah,” said Ruby. “It’s too bad you had to take the serum. It was your idea, an’ it was a smart one, but it’s still too damn bad.”
Ruby had stories of people who’d been on the team but had been captured and killed—stories I’d never heard.
We told Woolly everything we knew, everything we could think of. It seemed to rush out of us, almost as though we couldn’t tell him fast enough, maybe because we honestly didn’t know how much time we had.
Days passed by. We sat around for hours talking as we drank tea or took walks after sunset—all the while waiting day by day for the virus to emerge, to take effect.
Chase kept us all on a watch schedule, but we never saw a sign of the Agency.
“They’re rebuilding, planning,” theorized Chase one night as he relived me on guard duty. “A lot of what they knew about us probably died with Gosford and his pals. Whoever replaced them will resume their search for us some point, but with the end of the year serum treatment and the security breaches and the casualties, they won’t be ready to move on us again for a while.”
And so even though those days were little more than a tedious group death-watch, there was laughter and overall it was a very good time. We played chess and wrote in our journals and in the evenings we sat at the fireplace and speculated about where we might be in another year or two.
God, how precious those memories became.
The days grew longer. It was like a new sun was rising—not the dreary depressed sun of winter, but the bright energetic sun of spring. It was the beginning of March and none of us had shown any sign of illness. In fact, we seemed to become healthier with each passing day. The rations stockpiled at the safe house were not luxurious, and at times they were somewhat vile—stale flour and grains, canned foods that had exceeded their optimal shelf life, and dried meats and fruits that were barely more palatable than old gym shoes. But something about being apart from the Agency and its enforced misery revived us.
Then, one morning as the four of us shared a breakfast of cracked wheat and blackstrap molasses, I made my announcement.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
Chase looked up abruptly.
“Whaddya mean?” asked Ruby.
“We’re alive,” I said. “We’ve survived. The serum is a sham. I have to go tell the others.”
“What others?” asked Woolly.
“Everyone,” I said. “But first, I’ve got to find my son. He’s alive. The Agency knows where he is. I can’t wait another day. If we were going to die, it would have happened by now. I’m well enough to travel. I have to go.”
“Where you gonna start?” asked Chase. “What’s your plan?”
I didn’t know. Not for certain. I had to go back to the Zone that Gary supervised to pick up Arie’s trail, but what was I going to do then? Break into the depot? The infirmary?
Ruby dropped her spoon into her bowl. “Well, y’ain’t goin’ alone, if that’s what you’re tryna say.”
It was exactly how I’d hoped she’d respond, but still I replied, “You don’t have to come with me. You could head south, like you’ve talked about. Find out what’s going on out in the world. This is something I need to do and it doesn’t have to involve you.”
“The hell’s that s’posed to mean?” clucked Ruby. She turned to Chase. “Chay, what’s she talking about?”
Chase shrugged. Ruby turned back to me.
“That was our bargain wasn’t it? The trade for you drivin’ the truck? We got what we wanted—we don’t gotta take the serum no more. Now let’s get that smarty-pants son ’a yours and burn them lying bastards to the ground. Ain’t we still all in this together?”
“Yeah, Al,” said Chase. “Don’t be dramatic. Of course we’re coming with you. If you’re ready to start again, then we are, too. Woolly’ll come, won’tcha?”
“Well, not so fast,” said Woolly without looking up from his bowl. “I don’t fully know what I’m getting myself into here. I don’t know any of you very well, and I don’t even know if anything you’re saying is true or reasonable or valid. I hope you understand. It would be exceedingly reckless of me to get involved in what sounds like some very dangerous activity.”
We all stared at him. He ate a spoonful of his porridge.
“Thing is,” he went on. “I don’t have anything else to do. I’ve got literally nothing else planned. Ever. So. I’m in.”
“Psh,” exhaled Chase. “Some things don’t change, I guess.”
I never could get Ruby or Chase to explicitly calculate the odds that we’d be killed or captured by going back, and even though we didn’t talk much about the prospect of being dosed again and having our minds swept clean once more, we’d already proven that the Agency wasn’t strong enough to keep us apart. We were ready to prove it again.
As we prepared our gear for a trip back, a knot of dread sometimes formed in my stomach. We were going back to the Zone, back to that bleakness, that hellscape of dark, ramshackle neighborhoods populated by blank stares and ghosts. Back to the streets patrolled by skulking goons and hulking black war machines. Back to that prison of the mind that some person or group had tried to hold us in.
This time, though, it would be different. Not only were we going together as a team, but this time we were heavily armed. With rifles and weapons, yes, but also with something much more powerful—this time we had our memories. We had what the Agency desperately did not want us to have—ourselves.
Get Book Two
Among These Bones continues in
When It’s No Longer Night, releasing
in late 2018.
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Acknowledgments
Without Chadd VanZanten, this book would not have been possible. I still remember standing in his kitchen while he tried to convince me that the short story I had written should be expanded into a novel. It was only with his insistence and encouragement that I began this endeavor. Chadd helped me by co-writing an earlier version of this book and then by acting as editor and copywriter. He is a writing genius. I’d be thrilled to have even one-tenth of his talent. Chadd is my brilliant editor, forever friend, confidante, and now passionate lover and husband. I admire him endlessly.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to my writing group. Learning about writing would not have been nearly so much fun without them. Thanks especially to our fearless leader, Tim Keller. To E.B. Wheeler, Tim “Turbo” Tarbet, Britney Johnson, Felicia Rose, Eric Bishop, Sherrie Lynn Clarke (SLC), Jeremy Gohier, Casey Gasper, Lori Johnson Parker, Dustin Earl, Jeff Ricks, Jeff Bateman, Robyn Buttars, Emily Olsen, Lora Ann Stead, Arielle Hadfield, Shauna Leavitt, Neil Dabb, Isaac and Aaron Timm, Lynne Allen, and Wally Pride—thank you for your advice, insight, and help, but most importantly for making me laugh until my eyes watered over cherry pie at
Village Inn or sweet potato fries at Angie’s. I’m glad that we agree that Solo shot first and that Picard is better than Kirk. Thank you for indulging my obsession with Downton Abbey and How I Met Your Mother. These are important matters.
Thank you to my family. To my children, Hudson and Dawson, who are so patient with the extra time I spend writing and make super creative and thoughtful suggestions: you are both brilliant. I am so lucky to be your mother.
To my sister Jennifer, I think I would have given up multiple times if it hadn’t been for your encouragement. You believed in me more than I believed in myself. I am so thankful. Thank you for your psychiatric help, brainstorming with me, and motivating me.
Thank you, Melissa, book expert of our family. Thank you for giving me good books to read, for sharing your knowledge of what makes for interesting and compelling plots, and for being my friend. I’m sad you’re moving. Let’s hang out.
Finally, to my parents, Bob and Barbra. If I have any talent for writing, I believe it comes from you. My mother has a gift for words and language, and my father has a gift for thinking outside the box and coming up with solutions. Both have proven that they will always be there to help.
To everyone mentioned above—I love you! It is all of you who make life worth living and worth writing about. I will never forget you.
About the author
Amanda Luzzader writes upmarket science fiction and horror, and she is a self-described ’fraidy cat. Things she will run away from include (but are not limited to): mice, snakes, spiders, bits of string and litter that resemble spiders, most members of the insect kingdom, and (most especially) bats. Bats are the worst. But Amanda is first and primarily a mother to two energetic and intelligent sons, and this role inspires and informs her writing, which frequently involves mothers and women as main characters. As Amanda likes to say, “Moms are people, too.”
Amanda has worked as a technical writer and a professional editor and is currently employed as a grant writer for a Utah nonprofit organization. She is a devout cat person.
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