by Hamrick, R M
Negotiation. Audra understood. She sighed. She didn’t have time for these petty greedy transactions. She needed to get to Greenly and end it. At this point, if she’d had any credits to her name, she’d pay them to deliver her to Greenly. Preferably with a weapon in hand. But she in fact had a very large debt in the Lysent system. It hadn’t seemed to matter much, until now.
“I’ll head out in the morning and talk to ‘em,” said Blue. “Manny will stay here with you.”
Manny wiggled his eyebrows.
Audra flopped her butt onto the ground and let the two build a fire for them.
* * *
Satomi volunteered to help in the repair of the fence at Osprey Point. Marla nervously pulled on her shirt’s hem as she directed people. It was her first project without Ryder and she had her work cut out for her. The explosive wasn’t just a scare tactic. It had taken out support beams and Osprey Point didn’t have much in the way of supplies. This side of their home would be weaker for many months to come.
“We can add a set of cars on the exterior. They can help support the fencing for now, but I’d like to cut trees and perform the repair sooner rather than later,” Marla said, scratching her head between waves of curls and looking down at her half-scribbled plans.
Satomi helped dig out the remainder of the telephone posts that hadn’t been blasted away. Another shovel contributed to her work with Jack sidling up to her.
“Hey, I’m sorry I got caught like that.”
Satomi shook her head. She dived her shovel’s point into the hard dirt. “That’s why we don’t go out alone,” she lectured.
The potential to be grabbed or held hostage wasn’t the only reason to not go out alone, but in this moment she allowed it to be so.
“Thank you for not letting them kill me,” he said and smiled.
“I didn’t do anything,” she said. Anger directed toward herself and a particular dirt clod. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with the thoughts churning in her head.
“No, no,” said Jack, dropping his shoulder and put his hands lightly on her arms. “You kept them talking. You kept them from killing me. You had a choice. You could have taken one look at the situation, laughed, and gone back into your laboratory. You don’t need me. You don’t like me. I did… awful things.” He let his arms drop.
Satomi tied her hair up into a ponytail with the elastic from some old clothes, giving herself time to think. As much as she wanted to hate Jack and punish him — she couldn’t.
“I couldn’t let them kill you. You’re not a bad man,” she admitted more to herself than him.
Jack had made horrible mistakes, but since his sister’s death, he busied himself caring for his father, defending the community, and working harder than many of Osprey Point’s original inhabitants. Satomi considered the mistakes she had made. She wasn’t ‘bad’ either.
Jack gave a nod and started back digging.
“After this, I’ll go out and search for Audra.” He sighed. “We lost her.”
Satomi gave a small smile. “I doubt that woman’s out just yet. She’s either got a plan in mind or she’s at least giving us an opportunity.”
While Satomi had beaten herself up for mistakes still unknown to her, Lysent didn’t seem to hold the same mindset. They didn’t want her working. And if that was the case, then that’s exactly what she should be doing.
Jack wiped the sweat from his brow. “Opportunity for what?”
“To do what Lysent doesn’t want us to do. Cure your father.”
* * *
After helping with the fence, Satomi stepped into her laboratory. It felt like an entirely new place. She was thankful to be there, to have a chance to work. And with her decision made, she no longer felt lost.
Satomi pulled open a drawer and removed the notebook she had kept under her shirt when Audra came to negotiate her release from Jack and Jill. It contained the protocol for creating a peptide that might not only bring Peter back, but would also be the first beneficial application of the z-virus. Satomi opened the refrigerator to confirm the medium for building the peptide remained untouched. It might have been useful in working on the antiviral. Instead, it would be helping the father of the virus.
Jack coughed at the door to not surprise her. She jumped anyway.
“Sorry,” he said.
She gave him a look and he apologized for his apology. She had asked that he stop apologizing so much. She was ready to move forward.
“I’m going to escort Audra’s zombies to the motel,” he announced. “Is there any message you want me to deliver to Ryder or anyone else?”
Satomi’s eyes moistened at the thought of getting a message to Ryder. She’d be pleased to know Satomi was working toward something to help them. She only hoped her friends still thought she was capable. She ripped a sheet from the back of the notebook and began trying out the pens for ink.
“God, Dwyn’s going to be super pissed, isn’t he?” asked Jack. “She disappeared on my watch.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“She didn’t disappear. She chose to go. But yeah, he’s going to be upset,” she said, not looking up from the start of her letter.
“Maybe we can form a search team, try to find her, try to back her up. Whatever it is she’s doing.”
Satomi had learned a long time ago Audra never asked for permission or advice before running headlong into things. Satomi wasn’t the same.
“I’m glad you came in, I need your express permission to treat your father.” She paused. “I don’t think he’s lucid enough to understand and give consent. I will be injecting the z-virus into his body, which we currently don’t have a cure for. This treatment is highly experimental. It could kill him, maim him, or otherwise infect your father.”
Jack thought for a moment. He gazed at the beakers on the counter, the lopsided microscope on the table. Jack never thought they had a cure to begin with.
“My father was a risktaker. If there was a chance he could become whole again and useful, he’d do it in a heartbeat.”
Satomi couldn’t help but ask.
“Was your father… a bad man?”
Jack huffed at the question, leaning on the back of a stool. “I don’t really know how to answer that. He’s my dad. I never thought of him as a bad man. He worked at his job. He did what he was told. When things started going to shit, he knew exactly what it was. Shit they were working on. He did what he could to protect us. Always. And so did Evelyn and I after that. I don’t think we’re good people — not like you guys. We’re just… surviving. I think my father would help with the cure if he could. It drove him crazy that he couldn’t figure it out on his own. I think he’d help you.”
Peter was a pleasant man now, but that did not mean he’d remain that way. He could become less than cooperative, combative, with his intelligence back. That wouldn’t be her fault though. Peter had done wrong, but it wasn’t Satomi’s place to judge him. Only Lysent held back treatment based on agendas and selfish protocol. Satomi would no longer do the same.
She finished her letter to Ryder and started pulling supplies off the shelves to take the treatment from paper to injectable serum. It was time to take action.
CHAPTER TWELVE
RECONCILIATION
Dwyn picked up a long, straight stick along the path. Its bark stripped, it had already done time as a hiking companion before it had been discarded. Dwyn used it to provide support as he climbed root systems that wove over the surface of the hill like a waterfall. The steepness required some amount of focus, so he was allowed to not speak to his partner constantly.
Instead, Dwyn tried to wrap his mind around a world in which his ex-girlfriend plotted for a corporate downfall and secretly recruited him. There had been some amount of deception in bringing in Audra. He was naive to think that it wasn’t the same for him. She could also be lying. Pretending to be on the inside to get information from Dwyn.
But then, why wouldn’t she lie about lov
ing her husband? Why be honest about that, when it could turn him away?
As if waiting until they crested the hill, Gordon asked, “What if they hate me?”
“Audra said they loved your note. They’re going to love you all the more,” encouraged Dwyn as he considered dropping the walking stick. It could help someone else down.
Dwyn looked behind and saw Gordon slowing down.
“I don’t know if I deserve to see them.”
Gordon stopped.
Dwyn backtracked to him. It was obvious something was bothering Gordon. Dwyn nodded toward a couple of fallen logs and swung his pack off. Gordon did the same, plopping down on one of the logs.
“Haleigh didn’t tell me she was pregnant with Eliza until after the divorce was finalized. She said she wanted me to decide on her as a wife, not as the mother of our child.”
“Whoa, that’s rough, dude,” was all that Dwyn could get out.
“I was too focused on my career. I got the job at Osprey Point shortly after we got married. I was publishing papers. Working with our largest client, Lysent Corporation. I didn’t put time into our relationship.
I was angry when I learned what she had kept from me, but more so I was embarrassed. It had seemed easier to let her go than to change my ways. I figured what was the harm.”
Gordon kicked at a rock, which rolled over. Tears streamed from his eyes.
He sighed. “It’s taken pandemics, world restructuring, and a god awful long time for me to realize what really matters. I should have fought. I should have fought before the divorce. After the divorce.”
“And now,” recommended Dwyn.
“And now. So even if they hate me… because they have every right to… I’m still going to go and fight for them, for us.”
Dwyn placed his hand on Gordon’s shoulder. People’s problems weren’t erased by the z-virus. In fact, at times they seemed highlighted by it.
“Ready to go fight?” Dwyn asked with a grin.
Gordon wiggled back into his pack.
“We’re not far. That was the last big hill,” Gordon stated as he kicked the gray rock off to the side of the trail.
Dwyn leaned his stick against the logs for someone else or perhaps his future self.
It wasn’t far at all to the tiny town. Dwyn couldn’t imagine a giant grocery store here. It must have landed here after someone in corporate fed data into an algorithm, no one actually bothering to scout out the site.
“It’s down this way. Across from the bank,” Gordon said, picking up the pace.
Dwyn started in a trot to follow him. As they turned a corner, the store came into sight. By the road, a couple hundred grocery carts lay scattered and tossed.
Dwyn guessed the carts were not where they were supposed to be. It sent Gordon into a frenzy. He ran headlong into the mass of carts, hopping, tripping, and climbing. Dwyn followed more carefully. He noticed some carts were tied together when they fell. They created odd pyramids and ramps over cars.
Gordon cleared the carts and leapfrogged over them, yelling Haleigh’s name all the way through the parking lot.
Gordon pushed his way into the store and disappeared into its depths. No one stood atop the store. Inside, trash, supplies, and debris lay scattered on the ground. Blood. No one in sight.
It didn’t bode well. Dwyn pulled out his knife and waited at the door.
Deep guttural sobs started from the produce section of the store, moving through the aisles. It seemed to shake the entire core of the store.
There wasn’t enough blood on the floors. And there were no bodies. The carts had been trashed.
Where was everyone?
What had happened here?
* * *
Audra’s shoulders ached. Besides breaks for the bathroom and a single meal, both her wrists and ankles remained secured. And yet, Audra refused to ask for reprieve. She didn’t want to owe Manny anything and she didn’t want to be touched any more than what was necessary. She just needed to survive the next few days. Then, she’d be delivered to Greenly.
Two nights passed at the gas station before Blue sauntered in and slid onto a moldy cooler.
“Sup?” asked Manny, tossing Blue a bottle of water.
Both Audra and Manny were anxious to know the results of his negotiation. Audra for its time frame. Manny for its monetary value. Blue spat tobacco onto the chipped linoleum floor, shaking his head and a few days’ worth of scraggly facial hair.
“She’s drawing it out, Mann. Doesn’t want to pay up.” He kicked a stone into the fire. Sparks flew and died.
“She don’t care about money. Why she stalling?”
“I been thinking. Maybe she doesn’t need her, just needs her out of the picture.”
“Out of what picture? Osprey Point?” Audra couldn’t help but ask.
“Sure, she wants your whole crew,” said Blue. “But they don’t seem so difficult to round up, especially with you out and the group split between there and the motel.”
Greenly knew about the motel? Audra felt adrenaline building in her body as she realized she had left both locations vulnerable.
“Take me to Greenly,” she demanded. She needed to finish this.
Blue raised his eyebrows. “Why you so eager to die?”
“You promised you’d take me to Greenly! I’m going to kill her.”
Audra fought against her wrist bindings. Her shoulders burned in protest, but the rope-made creases had gone from numb to raw. At Osprey Point, she felt useless. Here, she felt like a ticking time bomb.
Both men watched her and laughed. Manny finished with a hacking fit.
“You doin’ all right, Mann?” asked Blue, passing the bottle of water back to Manny.
“I’m fine,” he grunted, wiping spittle from his beard before taking a sip from the bottle.
“For now,” his friend mumbled.
Audra paused from her temper tantrum.
“You were cured?” she asked.
“Apparently not,” said Manny, his voice dripping with bitterness.
She’d have known if they had cured him with their faulty antidotes. They hadn’t.
“What do you mean?” she dared to ask the giant man. She needed confirmation.
“Turn-backs. Folks everywhere turning back.”
Jack was right. It wasn’t just their stock; all the antidotes were bad.
“Does everyone know?”
“No, Lysent’s covering it up — blaming you guys for having sleepers in the townships…”
By blaming Osprey Point, none of the townships would be taking proper precautions. Greenly wouldn’t be able to keep up the lie indefinitely, but until then, Audra expected many townships to fall. All the Lysent-cured were at risk.
Dwyn.
Dwyn had been cured by Lysent.
Audra struggled to not be sick as she considered it. Dwyn’s face going ashen, drool in the corners of his mouth, reaching out to her with bony fingers. Dwyn was on borrowed time.
Audra realized she was too. She was being held ransom, and just because they had shared information didn’t mean they were helping her. It just meant they didn’t think it would matter soon. Audra pushed the rising panic down.
Killing Greenly wouldn’t fix this.
“You need to let me go.”
* * *
“We have to find them,” Gordon said, his voice rife with panic.
Dwyn stood frozen for a moment at the store’s entrance, not sure how to say what needed to be said.
“We will,” he started. “But we can’t, right now.”
Gordon’s face contorted in anger. Dwyn considered the possibility that his friend was about to punch him out. He took a step back, but Gordon fell to his knees.
Dwyn approached to comfort him, but Gordon waved heavy arms out to maintain his space. Then, his hands went to the floor to support him as vomit spilled from his mouth.
Gordon was getting sicker.
He sat back and wiped his mouth with his dar
k jacket sleeve. He leaned against some boxes.
Dwyn knelt down to him. “Something went down here, but I don’t think they’re dead.” Gordon whimpered. “They moved, or they were moved. But we’re just going to have to trust Haleigh to do what she’s done for years — keep herself and Eliza alive. I promise we’re going to get to the bottom of this. We will find them, but for now I have to get back with my information, and you’re getting worse. If you stay out here, you’ll turn. Then you’ll never find them, or worse, you will.”
Gordon didn’t move or respond.
The mess on the floor stung Dwyn’s nose. He wanted to get some fresh air, but knew he couldn’t leave Gordon alone.
“I’m so sorry. But let’s write them a note in case they return here. You found them once. We can do it again.”
He pulled Gordon up and they went to find something for a note. After what seemed like a long time, they finally made their way around the carts outside.
Gordon looked back. His eyes swept the store front.
“How could I have run out of time?” he mumbled.
But it had been a long time coming.
* * *
Satomi decided against bringing Peter to the laboratory for treatment. It was an unfamiliar space with familiar objects. She didn’t want him to be upset or scared, nor did she want him to latch onto latent memories that might pull him in a bad direction. Who knew if that’s how it worked. It was all experimental.
Instead, she prepared a tray with sets of syringes for a house, or room, call.
Jack had returned from dropping off the sisters whom Audra apparently considered of equal value to herself. He delivered Satomi’s letter and notified Ryder and Marcos of Audra’s latest excursion. He sat with Satomi as she worked.
“OK, I’m not reneging my consent or anything, but if I’m being honest, I don’t see how infecting my father with the z-virus is going to make things better.”
Jack then began to spin on his stool, so Satomi wasn’t sure how serious he was in his statement.
“Well, what does the z-virus do?” she asked.
He reached out a hand onto the counter to stop his motion. “It turns you into a stupid brute that eats people. Like I said… not an improvement.”