“No, I didn’t hear you. Sorry. I was just looking out for Joe and Sara.” She looked up at the horizon and long fingers of anxiety wrapped around her insides, continuing their forceful, unrelenting squeeze.
“I did not expect Lukas to be… like that,” said Zuzana, glancing at the boy.
“He was a teacher. He said he was a high school teacher. Or was it a primary school teacher?” Harper tried to recall the details of the conversations she’d had with Lukas.
“I think he lied,” said Zuzana. “He was a bad man, taking advantage of a bad situation.”
Harper nodded. She didn’t want to talk about Lukas right now. She turned to Tomas and smiled at him. “How is Erik’s foot?”
“He was limping last time he stood up,” said the boy.
“He won’t have much further to walk. We’ll be in a car soon and then we can finally leave this place.” She leaned down and patted the beagle. He licked her hand fondly in response. “His nose feels a little dry. Make sure you give him some water, Tomas. Hey… I’m going to check out the car that Sara and Joe brought back.”
The decades-old red sedan had been abandoned a quarter mile up the road. The driver’s door was ajar and Harper closed her eyes, trying to banish the images in her imagination of Sara being dragged from the car by Natália and her henchmen.
With a grim set to her jaw, she waved to the others and jogged up to the car. The key was in the ignition and when she slid in the front seat, the car started immediately. She drove back to the others and turned the car around so it was ready to go.
Once out of the car, she looked up at the horizon once more. Still no sign of Joe. He was supposed to come back no matter what. But where is he? The sun was slipping below the line of trees and it wouldn’t be long until darkness was upon them. The minutes dragged by endlessly, and she started pacing up and down under the footbridge.
After another long period of heavy silence, Zuzana stood. She straightened slowly, rubbing her hand over her lower back. Her yellow dress, stained with her sister’s blood, was luminescent in the dwindling light. “Are you feeling okay?” asked Harper.
“I am fine. But I think we need to face the possibility that Joe will not be back tonight.”
“I’m not leaving without him.”
“The drive to the quarantine center is very short from here. We can take the boy and then come back for Joe.”
“I’m not leaving without either of them,” repeated Harper. Her eyes flicked to Tomas. He looked so small sitting cross-legged on the ground. The image of him tied to the bed flashed in her mind. It triggered an uncomfortable wormhole of emotions that she pushed back inside herself. Harper knew Zuzana was right: getting Tomas out was the only option. “If they aren’t here by nightfall, I will take you to the quarantine center, and then I am coming back to find them.”
Zuzana closed the distance between them and put her arms around Harper. She touched the bruising on Harper’s face gently. “It is the right thing to do. I will come back with you, I promise. You are not alone. We will find Joe and Sara. I will never abandon them.” Harper felt something shift in the air between herself and the older woman. She felt stronger, less alone.
“Thank you,” replied Harper.
Soon after, the sun finally disappeared and a velvet blue light settled over them. Harper cast one long look down the highway and cleared her throat. “It’s time. Let’s go.”
She helped Tomas into the back seat and buckled his seatbelt and then lifted Erik into the car beside him. Zuzana sat beside her and Harper started the engine. She watched the highway in the rearview mirror as they drove toward the Czech border. There was no sign of Joe or Sara. She felt sick to her very core, but Tomas’ sweet face on the back seat behind her kept her moving toward the quarantine center.
The dark landscape zipped past them and Harper drove quickly on the clear roads. “It looks like everyone in this part of the country managed to get out,” commented Harper.
“Kúty is coming up,” said Zuzana. “We are almost at the border.”
A few moments later, as they rounded a bend and the highway straightened out, they saw bright lights in the distance.
“That must be the quarantine center,” whispered Harper. She noticed Zuzana clenching her hands in her lap and she reached out and wrapped her hand around Zuzana’s closest hand. The older woman’s skin felt papery and soft, and they gripped each other tightly. “How are you, buddy?” she asked Tomas. He nodded, his eyes reflecting like glass marbles in the lights ahead.
She slowed as the lights grew closer. A high fence disappeared into the darkness on either side of the road and two strangely shaped silhouettes approached them, lit brilliantly from behind. They spoke in Slovak, their voices amplified. “They are warning us to get out of the car,” translated Zuzana. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “They said they will shoot us if we show any signs of sickness or do not follow their orders.”
“We better do what they say,” said Harper. “Tomas, are you okay to unbuckle and get out by yourself.”
“Yes,” he replied in a small voice.
Harper opened her door and stepped on to the asphalt. She could see the figures more clearly now. They were clad in HAZMAT suits from head to toe, their heads encased in a large cube of plastic with a clear window. Harper moved back in alarm when she noticed the rifles.
“Do not move,” said Zuzana. “Put your hands up. They are coming closer.”
Harper put her hands up and one of the guards strode toward her. Now she could see his face through the plastic window, could see the respirator that covered his nose and mouth. He switched on a torch and shone it in her eyes. She shut them on instinct and he began to shout in Slovak.
“Open your eyes!” yelled Zuzana.
Harper forced her eyes open and stared into the bright light. The man moved around her, scanning her body and face with the torchlight. She seemed to pass the initial test and he walked around the car to Tomas. The boy was assessed, and the guards issued instructions to Zuzana.
“We are permitted to pass into the next zone,” she translated to Harper.
“But I need to go back to Joe!” Harper turned and walked closer to the car. There was rapid, urgent shouting and when she looked back both of the guards had their guns trained on her. Her heart started racing a million miles an hour.
“Harper, stop! Please!” yelled Zuzana. “Come through and we can talk to someone on the other side. They will shoot you if you keep walking. Any unusual behavior will be taken as a sign of sickness! Please, I am begging you.”
Harper froze and lifted her hands in the air. The three of them walked forward and crossed under the blazing lights, Erik limping behind them. She took one of Tomas’ hands and Zuzana took his other. Then she glanced over her shoulder at the black, desolate, lifeless landscape behind her.
I’ll find you both.
Once they passed the lights, there was another line of fencing manned by guards in HAZMAT suits, who patrolled with torches and rifles. Harper could see rows of tents beyond the fence. There was a large white tent at the edge of the camp. Everyone inside was also wearing a HAZMAT suit, and a woman greeted them, ushering them inside.
It was like being in her father’s lab. Harper felt a shiver as another plastic encased humanoid indicated to a chair for her to sit in. There was an exchange of voices in Slovak, and a man took hold of Erik and dragged him out of the tent. The dog barked loudly, digging his paws into the ground. Tomas began wailing as Harper leaped to her feet to intervene.
But Zuzana was already there, blocking the path of the man holding Erik. She smoothed her yellow dress and stood to-to-toe with him. But no matter how Zuzana pleaded and bargained, they wouldn’t let Erik into the camp.
“What will happen to him?” Harper whispered, as the three of them stared at Erik’s forlorn face watching them from thirty feet away.
“They promised not to drive him away or hurt him. We will have to figure it all out tomorrow. But t
hey are not going to listen to us tonight. They want to process us and do their testing.” She bent down and whispered comforting words to Tomas, who buried his face in her dress.
Harper was ushered into a chair once more, and a woman slipped a band around her bicep and pulled it tight. She probed the inside of Harper’s elbow for a vein and Harper felt a sharp sting, wincing as her dark red blood flowed into the vial attached to the needle.
“I need to get out of here,” Harper said. The woman looked at her blankly. “I need to go back to Bratislava. There are people I need to help.”
“I cannot authorize that,” replied the woman. “You will need to speak to someone senior tomorrow.” The pain and anxiety of the last few days threatened to explode and Harper dropped her head to her lap, trying to calm her breathing. She heard a rustle of plastic and felt the woman’s hand on her back.
“We have all lost someone,” said the woman, her blue eyes shiny with tears from behind the plastic window. “I’m so sorry.”
Harper wiped her eyes. “Do you know what it is?”
The woman mouth and nose were obscured by a mask but her eyes were locked on Harper’s intensely. After a long pause, the woman said, “We do not know yet. Some people have arrived from the death zone, like you, and have survived. But only a very small percentage of people have survived.”
“Did others make it out of the country?”
“Yes, thankfully there were many who escaped. We think that the problem is contained now, but the EU is taking the emergency quarantine measures very seriously.”
Harper nodded, suddenly bone weary. “Can I call my parents?”
The woman nodded and led Harper out of the tent. Harper looked back at Zuzana and Tomas. “I’ll be back,” she mouthed. The woman led Harper through to a separate, interconnected tent where she was handed a large satellite phone.
“Be quick,” said the woman’s mechanized voice.
Harper dialed her father’s number from memory and, after a brief pause, the phone connected. “Oh my God, Harper. You’re alive.” She could hear her father crying and the tight feeling in her chest threatened to end her right there.
“Dad, I made it to the quarantine camp. But my friends are back in Bratislava. They won’t let me go to them.”
“Don’t go anywhere!”
“I won’t. I can’t.”
“Wait for me. I’m six hours away from you. We’ll sort something out when I get there. Do not leave without me!” The fact that her father was coming to help was like a child’s fairytale, but Harper desperately wanted to believe.
Even after everything, I still want his love.
“I won’t,” she said. She looked at the woman in the HAZMAT suit and dropped her voice. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Her father’s voice was barely above a whisper. “We’ve learned a little. It looks like some kind of nano-technology that enters via the optical nerve, but it’s not like anything we’ve ever seen before. It was first seen in Rožňava. You’re lucky you survived.”
“So someone did this on purpose?” Harper pictured Wolf; pale and sick in the car in Rožňava, and then dead on the floor of the train station, and felt crushing grief. She swallowed a sob.
“Yes. It looks that way. We’ve tracked the spread of the outbreak as best we can and also analyzed the initial samples collected from the death zone. The nanos don’t spread at night. Remember that: if anything happens before I get there, there is safety in the dark.”
Harper took a deep breath and steadied herself.
“Are you there?”
“Yes I’m here.”
“Have you called your mother?”
“Can you tell her I’m fine? I don’t know if they will let me make another call.” The woman shook her head. No more calls.
“I’ll be there soon, Harper. They want me to help with the analytics. We’ll figure this out and find your friends.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
“I love you,” he replied. Harper let the line fill with silence before hanging up. She quickly returned to the others.
After they had their eyes, ears and noses swabbed, they were released into the camp and they stood together, shell-shocked, surveying the rows of tents ringed by barbed wire. Guards in HAZMAT suits and carrying rifles walked around the perimeter. The other survivors had blank, desolate expressions on their faces.
“What the hell do we do now?” asked Harper. “I can’t even think about Joe and Sara without feeling sick.”
“I am so sorry, Harper. We will get some sleep and then in the morning we will go back to find Joe and Sara. But I think they will come here if they do not see us at the meeting place.” Zuzana’s voice was strained, her accent heavier than usual. Harper could see the losses of the last few days were weighing heavily on her.
“You’re right,” she said, as the older woman put her arm around her. “At least we made it out of Bratislava alive. Tomorrow we’ll find them.”
A mournful howl cut through the air and the three of them hurried to the fence. Erik was on the other side, pressing his nose against the metal and pawing at the ground. Tomas reached through the wire fence and stroked Erik’s head. Then, the boy lay on the ground along the fence and Erik pressed himself against the other side, touching but separate. Darkest night was upon them and they were safe in the quarantine-processing center—for the moment.
About the Author
Thank you for reading Death City, the first book in the Dark Resistance series. I really hope you enjoyed it! If you feel moved to leave a review, I would be very grateful.
Thank you to my wonderful family—my husband Jon, and my three wonderful children—for their endless love and support. Thank you also to my lovely line editor, Liz, and my parents for proofreading the final manuscript. Any remaining errors are my own. A special thanks to my father, Peter, for bouncing ideas around with me and talking through my plot holes.
I mostly write speculative fiction and dark fantasy in the wee hours of the night, after my children have gone to sleep. I really enjoy writing stories about characters placed in highly unusual situations, and exploring how they deal with the fallout.
My favourite books include Harry Potter, The Road, 1984, Wool and Station Eleven, and favourite movies include the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Back to the Future.
You can connect with me on my website below, where you can also sign up to my newsletter. I really love hearing from my readers, so please feel free to reach out.
You can connect with me on:
http://www.stephaniemylchreest.com
https://www.facebook.com/stephmyl
https://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Mylchreest/e/B07T1K5MJB
Death City: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure (Dark Resistance Book 1) Page 19