“I know it's hard right now,” said Casey. “It'll pass. Just give it time.”
“How long has it been for you?” she said.
“Since I was bitten?” said Casey. “A year. Give or take.”
“I'm sorry I wasn't here for you,” she said. “I shouldn't have run away. I should have stayed with you. Protected you.”
“I keep telling you I'm not mad at you.”
“Yeah,” said Jenny, “but maybe I'm mad at myself. It was a shitty thing to do to you.”
“Honestly?” said Casey. “You running away was the best thing that could have happened.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “It's not that I don't love you, or I didn't miss you like crazy. You were my hero. You were always so brave, even when you were going through hell. I wanted to be brave like that. But when you ran, the old man lost interest in us. The tests stopped. And then, one day, I woke up and he was gone. He left us alone. And then Mom took me away. She was so sad for so long, but it was better than the lab.”
“What Sully said,” said Jenny, “about Dad...”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think they killed him?”
“I don't know,” he said. “But if they did, it wasn't on you. If someone had Dad, they would have killed him anyway. He wasn't like them. I just can't see the connection between Mom's work and Dad. I mean, he was an engineer, wasn't he? Unless he knew something about, you know. The disease getting out. But even if he'd stayed, I don't think even Dad could have saved you.”
“Do you think it's true? All of it?” said Jenny. “I mean, do you think I really died back then?”
“Jen, this Sully guy is some kind of sociopath. He got you killed. And now you're letting him get in your head. You can't think like that. Besides, how is it even possible for you to die and come back? I mean, sure, after you were bitten, after you died, I can see it. But when you were still living? How would that even work?”
“How does any of it work?” said Jenny. “We're fucking zombies, Casey. And here we are driving a car around and having a nice chat. None of it makes sense.”
The road was blocked ahead with cars and debris and Jenny stopped the car.
“Hasn't been cleared up here,” she said.
“It's okay, it's only a little way more,” said Casey. “We can walk.”
The cars were covered in vines and had a thick layer of dirt and ash on them, but Jenny could still see inside most of them. Rotting corpses sat in some. Most were completely empty. Skeletons with arms still held in front of ghastly skulls, their jaws still open in their last screams. It hadn't been just the rotters in the last days. People had gone out armed into the streets. They hadn't just killed rotters. They had shot at everything. Most of the shooters had been Righteous ready for the Rapture. Some were just crazies who wanted an excuse to kill. It was before Jenny had met Declan, before she was strong, or even knew how to fight very well. She had cowered in a parking garage with some other people she'd met on the street, aware that any moment one of them could turn around and start killing. The rapes had been bad back then, before the Heathens united. The Heathens didn't have rules, but you had to toe the line if you wanted to get into Expo: No murders, no rape, no stealing. There were always those who lived on the edges. The dregs.
None of that mattered now. What happened, happened. Jenny knew there was no way to change it. And now she wasn't even alive, but if she had the chance to end the ugliness, she had to take it. She had to find out what made them different. And if that didn't help, she had to find her mother. If Sully was telling the truth, her mother's people would come looking for Sully to give him another message.
A question nagged in the back of her mind: Why hadn't her mother come looking for her? If Anna Hawkins knew where she was, why had Sully been the messenger instead of Jenny? Nothing made sense.
“It's right up ahead,” said Casey.
“You sure you know where to find one of these things?” said Jenny. “Maybe someone else took it.”
“I saw it the last time I was here. It was just like the one Mom had. I don't think anyone else knows about this place. I just sort of stumbled onto it when I was looking for Mom's office.”
“Where's the office?” said Jenny. “Nearby?”
“In a basement about a half mile from here,” said Casey. “We can go there after we're done here if you want. I don't think you'll find anything, though. We were pretty thorough. There was nothing there.”
“There's always something,” said Jenny. “Let's just get to this place. One task at a time.”
There were no living in this part of town. Jenny was thankful for that. It took away the sharp edge the hunger always seemed to lean on her. She felt like she had more room to breathe, so to speak.
Casey stopped in front of a nondescript, squat gray building.
“This is it,” he said. “All kinds of weird shit in this place last time I was here.”
“We only need one thing,” said Jenny. “Let's just get out of here as soon as possible so Sully can start looking at the blood.”
“You really trust that guy with our blood? You think he'll do what you ask?”
“A month ago I wouldn't hesitate to say yes,” said Jenny.
“You thought he was your friend,” said Casey.
“It doesn't matter.”
“I'm sorry he hurt you,” said Casey. Jenny smiled. “What?” he said.
“It's just that I'm, well, fucking dead, Casey. But you're worried about my feelings. It's sweet.”
“I'll always look out for you,” he said. “Just like you'll look out for me.”
“Okay, little brother,” said Jenny. “Let's get in there before someone else snags our thingamajigger.”
Jenny brushed cobwebs away from her as they entered the smashed door, glass still sparkling through dirt and plant life. There was a smell like stagnant water somewhere nearby. Mosquitoes buzzed by Jenny's ears, but they didn't touch her.
The hall was overgrown with vines and strong-smelling weeds. They passed room after room, waiting rooms for doctors' offices mostly. There were a few diagnostic labs. Dentists. The glass in the doors had been broken in most cases, debris and broken equipment scattering the offices and waiting rooms. A few rooms were overrun with green algae, growing in ponds of stagnant water. The roof was intact. A water line had probably broken a long time ago. Jenny only saw a few corpses, rotted away until the bones showed through.
“Should we search these offices?” said Jenny. “The doctors might have stuff.”
“What they had is long gone,” said Casey. “I checked. We're going below, though.”
“Below?” said Jenny. “If it's bad up here...”
“Yeah, it's pretty disgusting down there,” said Casey. “You up for it?”
Jenny shrugged. “Disgusting is my life now.”
They pushed their way down the hall. Fat, shiny beetles crawled along the vines and Jenny could hear a deeper buzzing than the mosquitoes nearby. They came to a peeling orange door made of heavy steel.
Casey pulled hard and the door swung open. Moist, rancid air hit her in the face. There was a sound like trickling water coming from the darkness. Jenny could make out the first few slimy, green stairs. She looked at Casey.
“I don't think anyone else has been down here,” he said happily.
“You don't say,” she said, and took a careful step into the darkness.
They moved down the stairs in silence, lifting their feet out of the muck, and feeling the water running into their boots. Jenny thought about the prowler she'd killed, or, more precisely, ripped apart with her teeth. She was starting to feel a slight twinge of remorse about that.
“Would they turn?” she said.
“What?”
“If we bit someone and they got away,” she said. “Would they turn into rotters or would they be like us?”
“I don't know,” Casey said. “We should probably assume they'd be rotters, though.
We spent time in a lab having who knows what shoved into our bodies. That might be what makes us different. The rotter that bit you wasn't special. Neither was the one that got me. The virus is the same. It's us who are different.”
“If we're the cure,” Jenny said slowly, “do you think we can cure them?”
“The rotters?” said Casey. “Do you really think all these dead things are going to magically come back to life? It's just the living we're saving. The dead are going to stay dead, no matter what we do.”
“You can't know that,” she said.
“No,” he said. “But just don't bite anyone else, okay?”
“What about us?” she said. “Will we be saved?”
It was a long moment before Casey answered. “I don't know.”
“You think we're going to stay dead.”
“I'm trying to remember where this place is. Can we just stop talking?” said Casey.
“No,” said Jenny. “Do you really think we're going to stay like this? Even if we save everyone?”
He turned awkwardly, his feet not complying because of the muck. “We are already dead, Jenny. All of us. We died the second Mom walked us into that lab. Hell, if you listen to Sully, you died a shitload of times. It would be stupid to go around thinking we're going to make it out of this in one piece.”
“I think we are,” Jenny said defiantly.
“Well, you've got a lot more faith than I do,” he said. “Come on, I think it's over here. There are a bunch of rooms over here somewhere. Feel for a door.”
Jenny felt along the slimy wall, shaking bugs and salamanders away. But eventually she felt a lump in the vegetation. She dug her hand through the moss and growth scumming up the wall and wrapped her fingers around a door handle.
“Found it,” she said. “Help me pull.”
It took both of them pulling with all their strength before there was a tearing sound and the door opened and light from the other side blinded them.
“Did all that grow since you were last here?” she said.
“Of course not,” he said. “I came in from the other side last time.”
“Are you kidding me?” she said.
He smiled. In the light she could see he had a smear of green on his forehead. “I thought it would be fun to come the other way,” he said.
“What the fuck, Casey?”
“There's no living here,” he said. “And you needed time away from everyone else.”
“Whatever,” she said. “You suck. I liked these boots.”
“Sorry,” he said, not looking sorry at all. “If it makes you feel better, it was quicker to walk through the building than around the building.”
“It doesn't,” she said.
It was dry and bright. Tiny windows enforced with iron bars were set into the wall near the ceiling. The floor was raised and their shoes squeaked and sloshed on the relatively clean tile. The whole place was clean. Jenny had to blink a few times. Nothing was ever clean.
“Fuck the museum,” she said, looking at the pristine counters and shining microscopes. “We should set up shop here.” One microscope, much larger than the others, stood in the corner on its own table. There was a lot of equipment here, probably all of it working, too. She looked up to see hundreds of bottles on narrow shelves built into the wall. There was a closet with its door wide open, displaying rubber aprons hanging from hooks. “What was this place?” she said, grabbing boxes on the lower shelves and peeking inside. She found a small plastic container filled with syringes and tucked it under her arm.
Casey shrugged. “No idea. Might have been set up in the end. First group of scientists to cure the virus would have been set for life.”
“Are these bottles chemicals or drugs?”
“Both, I think,” said Casey, then shrugged. “I don't know.”
“Where did you come in before? The last time you were here, I mean.”
Casey pointed to another door on the other side of the room. “On the other side of that door there's a staircase that goes right outside. It's sort of hidden from the street.”
“It's open,” she said.
“What?” he said looking at the door. It was ajar about an inch.
“Did you leave it open?” she said.
“No,” he said. “I don't think so. Maybe.”
Thump thump thump thump.
“Shit,” said Casey. “Living coming.”
“And there's more than one,” said Jenny.
TWENTY-FIVE
Jenny stared out of slats from the closet as they entered. She couldn't see Casey, but knew he was there, hiding in a cupboard under the counter. There were voices before she could see anything. A man and a woman were talking. It sounded like an argument.
“Fuck this,” the woman said as they came through the door. “I can't take it anymore. He's lost his shit. You know it's true, Beacon. Don't look at me like I'm the bitch here.”
It was Lucy. It was fucking Lucy. How the hell could it be Lucy? Everywhere Jenny went, it was always Lucy. And Beacon was here too. Was Declan here? It seemed like everywhere she went she saw Declan. It was like she couldn't escape.
“You're overreacting,” Beacon said, in his low, quiet voice. Ever calm. The hunger was creeping up on Jenny. She ground her teeth together. “Let him grieve. They loved each other for Christ's sake. Let him have time to deal with it.”
“He's not dealing with it,” she said. “He's disappearing every day for hours. He's screaming at everyone. He's picking fights with punk-ass Heathens. When he does sleep he has nightmares, and when he doesn't sleep he's even worse.”
“It hasn't been that long,” said Beacon. “You have to step back.”
“That's what you said before,” Lucy said, her voice suddenly filled with ice. “That's what you said to me back then. Give him space and he'll come back to me, wasn't that it, Beacon? And what good did that do me? Munro disappears for weeks and comes back with a little trollop, cute as a fucking button.” Jenny heard her spit. “And I smiled and pretended it was all cool for five years. And now it's my turn. It's my fucking turn!”
“It doesn't work like that, Luce,” said Beacon mildly.
“And how the fuck does it work?” said Lucy.
“That trollop was the love of Munro's life. You can't just replace her.” Beacon pulled some bottles down and stuffed them into a bag. “And don't call her a trollop. Jenny was amazing. We all miss her.”
“You still think it's my fault,” she said.
“It doesn't matter anymore,” said Beacon, sounding tired.
“I didn't kill her,” said Lucy.
“You didn't stop her either,” said Beacon.
“Fuck you, Beacon. Fuck you!” Lucy turned and pushed the large microscope onto the floor with a crash. Jenny balled up her fist. Casey had managed to grab the centrifuge before they found hiding places, but all the equipment could have been used.
She could stop it. She could step out of the closet and bite the bitch in the throat. Lucy was in a rage. She was throwing microscopes and beakers across the room. Beacon walked out silently, but Lucy didn't seem to notice. She wouldn't notice if Jenny came up behind her either. She wouldn't notice until it was too late. Jenny's vision went red. She clenched her fists and tried to will it away. It almost took her, but then another voice broke through.
“Stop it.” It was deep and familiar and Jenny took a step back when she heard it, the red draining away. “You're being ridiculous. These bottles are good for trade.”
“Fuck off, Munro,” Lucy said. “You should talk. You think I'm the crazy one?”
“I didn't say that, Luce. But you're acting like an asshole.”
She looked down at the mess she had made. Jenny saw her smile at Declan. “I'm sorry,” she said, tossing her dreads over her shoulder. “I'm sorry, Munro. I'm just so frustrated.”
“Is that what you call it?” he said coldly. Lucy didn't seem to notice, but Jenny did. It was the same tone Declan took when someone was tryi
ng to rip him off. Lucy lifted herself up to sit on the counter. She smiled again.
“Do you remember how we were, Munro? We were good together, weren't we?”
He snorted. “What are you doing?”
“Just reminiscing,” she said. “Don't you remember the good parts?”
“I remember you have a temper,” he said.
“And you have other assets,” she said. “Come on, Munro. For old time's sake. We can do it right here and no one would know.”
Declan took a step toward Lucy and Jenny cringed. “Let me tell you a little secret,” he said.
“Anything,” she breathed.
“You,” he said, “will never be her.”
Lucy jumped off the counter and pulled her gun out. She cocked it, the barrel aimed straight at Declan. “I could be better,” she said. “I could be better than her. She was nothing. Just a kitten you found on the streets. She was nothing.”
“She. Was. Everything,” Declan said, his voice barely a whisper, but thick with emotion. He reached up and pulled open his shirt revealing his chest. “Go ahead. Shoot. You'll be doing me a big fucking favor. Nothing is worth it anymore. Nothing.”
Lucy stood there for a long time with the gun aimed at him. Then she started shaking. She was crying. She dropped the gun.
“I loved you, Munro,” she said, her voice high and manic. “I've always loved you. I still love you.”
“But I could never love you,” said Declan. He shook his head. “Maybe in some alternate reality you and I would end up together.”
“What kind of alternate reality?” Lucy said.
Jenny saw Declan's face harden as he watched her sobbing in front of him. “The one where you didn't kill her,” he said.
“I didn't fucking kill Jenny,” said Lucy.
“You might as well have,” said Declan, his voice flat.
“You're not being fair.”
“Jenny is dead,” Declan said. “It's been, what? Two weeks? And you think I'm going to fuck you? I can't even look at you. You killed the only thing worth living for. Fuck you, Lucy.”
Lucy walked out with her back straight. Jenny felt something for her. Pity twisted with anger. She had once considered Lucy a friend. Jenny had always known she had a past with Declan, but she didn't know it was like this. She watched Declan. He didn't leave to follow Beacon and Lucy. He sat down on a stool, his back hunched, like all his strength had been sapped away. He put a hand on his face and was still. Jenny put her hand to the slats. Her body was fighting with hunger and a deep desire to walk out and put her arms around Declan. This wasn't right, this secrecy. But then, he hopped down from the stool and picked up the revolver Lucy had dropped. He checked the chamber and Jenny remembered. He wouldn't hesitate if he saw her. He would just kill her. In his eyes she was just a rotter using his lover's face. He would kill her, she had no doubt. And then Jenny would never find out about the cure.
Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One) Page 14