by Adrian Birch
“This isn’t exactly the first time,” she said. “I can only blame myself for staying with him as long as I have. After I got pregnant, his last girlfriend tried to warn me about him. I didn’t listen, but she was right. He’s just an egotistical asshole. He always will be.”
The thing is, though, Bryce didn’t seem like an asshole. It was true that he didn’t tell me about his wife and son—which, I had to admit, was an extremely asshole-ish thing to do—but he seemed so kind. He hadn’t ever come off as egocentric. He was charming, but in a really sweet way. Was it because of the pathogen that he’d been so irresistibly charming? If so, that meant he’d been infected even before sleeping with Morgan. Had he been in stage one when I’d first met him? He must have been. I remembered him mentioning that before his concert he’d been hospitalized overnight and had walked out the next morning feeling fine. He must have died that night in the hospital.
Someone else came out onto the porch. The screen door slammed shut.
It was Bryce.
He sat on the porch swing behind us, still wearing nothing but jeans. He clasped his hands behind his head. He had a really amazing body. Even the way he planted his bare feet against the porch boards was cute.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I wasn’t sure whether he was apologizing to me or to Lindsay. It looked like he wanted to say something more, but his jaw only made the same quivering jerk as before, and he gave up trying to speak.
“What are you sorry for, Bryce?” Lindsay was already seething again. “Are you sorry for sleeping around? Again?”
I realized she had no idea that Bryce was infected. I wondered if that’s what he’d been trying to tell her when he hadn’t been able to speak.
“Don’t be sorry for sleeping around,” she said. “Okay? Sleep around all you fucking want, because it’s over between us. Got it? Over. You want to be sorry about something? Be sorry that your wife—your ex-wife—came to look for you, with your son, after you disappeared. And then I got stuck in this shithole town for who knows how long. Forever, for all I know. Be sorry for that. Don’t be sorry for sleeping with Ashley or whoever else you fucking want.”
“What the hell is going on here?”
My attention had been focused so intensely on Lindsay and Bryce that I hadn’t noticed someone coming up the driveway behind me.
It was Shawn.
He wasn’t wearing his Home Guard combat gear. He was in his old street clothes. At his hip, though, was a very large handgun.
And he’d just heard everything Lindsay had said about Bryce sleeping with me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Shawn in a panic.
“Breakfast!” Shawn said, glancing from person to person on the porch. “Your mom’s making me breakfast. It’s my morning off. She didn’t tell you?”
My husband looked hurt and confused as he tried to make sense of Bryce Tripp sitting shirtless on the porch swing. I could tell he was struggling to process everything he’d just overheard Lindsay say.
Bryce stood and held up his hands defensively. “We’re all just le-le—” he stuttered. But he couldn’t finish his sentence.
“What the hell is going on here?” Shawn repeated, now shooting me a mystified look.
He stormed up the porch, slipped his gun from the holster, znd stared at Bryce as he tried to say something. But once again Bryce failed to get the words out, his jaw quivering.
“This is bullshit!” Shawn screamed like a distraught child. “You’re all obviously at risk!” He turned to me, disgusted. “Especially you! You fucking slut!”
Ian rushed out to the porch.
“Shawn,” he said. “Let’s just calm down a bit. You’re upset. I understand that. But let’s just calm down.”
“Calm down? What the fuck, Ian? I’m doing my job. This overrides any clearance you got! They’re no doubt a ‘contagion threat’ now!” Shawn wagged his gun between Bryce and me. “That means it’s up to our discretion to expire them or arrest them. Period! And this fucktard is well on his way to stage two!” He raised his gun and pointed it straight at Bryce. “What were you thinking keeping them at the house, Ian? I should have done this a long fucking time ago.”
I leaped onto my feet and put a hand gingerly on Shawn’s shoulder.
“Shawn,” I said.
He whipped around, facing me. Tears were starting to well in his eyes. “Fuck you, Ashley,” he whispered.
“…Shawn.” I didn’t know what else to say.
He gave me a heartbreaking expression of hurt, then spun back around, and, with a terrifying, primitive scream, fired his gun at Bryce.
Ian lunged forward, drawing his own gun, but he was too late.
Bryce collapsed backward onto the porch swing, sending the chains bouncing and jangling as he rolled to the ground. He clutched at his stomach, writhing in pain. Blood spilled between his fingers. For a moment he tried to pull himself up with his arms, smearing the porch boards with blood, but then he collapsed backward again.
I couldn’t believe how much blood had already gathered around Bryce. It had collected in a wide pool and was dripping off the porch.
Ian held his gun firmly trained at Shawn’s head.
“You haven’t tested anyone, Shawn,” he said. “You’re not following protocol. Put your gun down. Stop right now.”
Shawn didn’t lower his gun.
Instead, he pointed it directly at my face.
“New rules.” Shawn’s gun was inches from my forehead. “Where have you been, Ian? We’re out of Insta-Read applicators. Until the next shipment comes in, it’s up to our discretion to expire or arrest.” He repeated the phrase like he was reading it from a manual, never taking the gun from my face.
A deafening boom.
Someone had fired their gun.
It couldn’t have been Shawn, because I was still standing, unharmed. My husband was clutching his right hand, and he was no longer holding his gun. Ian had shot the gun out of his hand.
Shawn screamed out in surprise and pain, staring hatefully at Ian.
“Do not point a gun at Ashley,” Ian said flatly, keeping his own gun pointed at Shawn.
I heard my mom screaming from inside the living room as she banged open the screen door and hurried toward Shawn, shrieking.
“He wasn’t going to shoot her, Ian!” She completely ignored Bryce and tried to wrap a dishcloth around Shawn’s bleeding hand. “He was just doing his job. Somebody has to do their job around here!”
My mom seemed to be losing her mind. Shawn let her wrap his hand.
“You want a warrant?” Shawn yelled at Ian. “You stay right fucking here. You all stay right fucking on these premises!” he yelled. “There’s no doubt I’ll get a warrant for him and Ashley both after what I’ve seen here.” Shawn jerked his head toward Bryce, who was gasping and clutching at his stomach. “He’ll live,” he said. “That stomach wound won’t do anything. When I come back with the squad, we’re taking both of them in.” He looked at Lindsay, who was bent over Bryce, her knees soaked with his blood. “And you, too!” he screamed. “Nobody cleared you to leave the motel!” Now he turned to Ian. “And you most of all! Shooting a Home Guard soldier? Are you crazy? You can kiss your cushy rank good-bye, son. Say hello to a fucking court marshal. Just wait. Just fucking wait! Nobody leave these premises!”
Shawn jerked away from my mom, who was still trying to tie the dishcloth, and hobbled into his truck.
He sped away in a storm of dust.
Ian said, “We have to go. Now. All of us.”
Between Ian, myself, and Lindsay, we were able to lift Bryce into my dad’s wheelbarrow.
Bryce looked hopelessly uncomfortable. His legs dangled over the edge and his neck was bent to one side like a dead pig, but there was no other way to move him.
“We have to leave right now,” Ian said. “Jason’s squad could be here any minute. Shawn’s probably already radioed them. None of us are safe here anymore.”
; Ian, Lindsay, and I scrambled from the porch down to the river and started making our way along the bank toward the granary. Ian pushed the wheelbarrow as carefully as he could, but Bryce’s head kept bouncing around inside. He was still conscious, but he’d lost so much blood he’d grown gruesomely pale. Lindsay had grabbed her son and struggled to carry the toddler as she hurried to keep up with us. She was covered in Bryce’s blood. The kid wouldn’t stop wailing.
I was terrified that the crying was going to give up where we were. If Jason’s squad showed up right now, they’d hear the kid and come straight to us.
I grabbed him from Lindsay’s arms. She must have been in a state of shock, because she let me take him. I put my hand over his mouth, careful not to cover his nostrils. And I just kept running.
All I could think about was getting inside the granary where we couldn’t be seen.
We left the bank and rounded the row of silos, but instead of an empty, weed-strewn grain yard like I’d expected to see, there were people—seven or eight of them.
They looked like they were waiting for something.
We all stopped, breathless. I realized the kid had stopped crying and I uncovered his mouth. Ian put the wheelbarrow handles down and tried to catch his breath while he took in the scene.
I recognized the Botteroffs, who lived on the other side of the Hershel’s, and my third grade teacher, Nancy Thomas, who was sitting against the rusted tin wall. I didn’t recognize anyone else; they all must have been from out of town.
What were they doing here, at the granary? I didn’t understand.
“Is this the Underground?” one man asked Ian. He was dressed in a mechanic’s jump suit, covered in grease.
“The what?” Ian lifted the wheelbarrow and started making his way warily through the small crowd toward the granary door.
“The Underground,” an elderly woman said. “You do shelter positives, don’t you? From the Home Guard?”
“Fuck,” Ian said under his breath. “Well, I guess we fucking do now…”
Ian tapped on the granary’s wall. “Chris! What’s going on out here, man! Who are these people?”
Chris appeared at the door.
He looked around at the desperate faces. “Shit. There’s more?”
“What have you been telling people?” Ian demanded, rolling Bryce into the granary’s dark interior.
“I haven’t said anything!” Chris said. “You think I can treat any of them? Any of them? They just keep showing up!”
“We’ll just have to hide them all in one of the silos for now,” Ian said, flustered. “Tell them not to make a sound. Home Guard will probably be crawling all over the place soon.”
“What happened to him?” Chris looked more closely at Bryce. “He’s positive, isn’t he?”
“He got shot, that’s what happened,” Ian said. “And, yes. He’s positive.”
“I knew it,” Chris said. “I thought something was up with that guy.”
“Just get those people out of sight before someone shows up,” Ian said, hoisting Bryce from the wheelbarrow and laying him onto the granary’s dusty floor.
Chris hurried outside to deal with the crowd while Ian took Bryce’s pulse.
Bryce raised his head slowly, watching Ian as he pinched his wrist. He’d stopped bleeding. The small bullet hole in his stomach had started to scab over. His skin was a sickly gray color. I’d never seen anyone so pale.
Bryce dropped his head back onto the floor. “Hungry,” he groaned.
Ian was still holding on to Bryce’s wrist. “No pulse.” Ian shook his head, confused.
Chris hurried back into the granary and fell to his knees beside Bryce.
“I can’t find a pulse,” Ian said.
“No shit you can’t find a pulse! He doesn’t have any fucking blood left! What do you think?” Chris shined a light into Bryce’s eyes. “Can you stand up?” he asked him.
Bryce shook his head. “No legs.”
“The bullet must have hit his spine,” Chris said. “He can’t move his legs at all.”
“Hungry,” Bryce whimpered again.
“How is he conscious?” Ian dropped Bryce’s wrist and sat back on his heels. “I don’t fucking understand!”
Chris grabbed a disposable syringe from a box on his desk. He kneeled beside Bryce while unwrapping the packaging, then tossed aside the clear plastic. He jabbed Bryce’s forearm. He pulled the plunger backward, drawing fluid into the syringe.
What came out of Bryce’s vein wasn’t blood. It was a deep amber color, translucent, and thick like bacon grease left over in a skillet.
“Honey,” Chris said.
“What the fuck?” Ian looked closer at the syringe. “I don’t get it.”
“I don’t really get it, either,” Chris admitted. “Somehow the pathogen replaced his blood with its own honey. His heart stopped beating, but the honey is still oozing through his veins somehow. It’s keeping him conscious.” Chris shook his head in amazement. “The larvae must need tons of protein and sugars to produce so much honey. That’s why he’s so hungry. The pathogen needs him to eat. It needs the energy.”
Bryce flopped his head from one side to the other. His face was ashen. His hair was slicked with sweat.
“Just—wanna fuck,” he stammered. He started to cry. “Wanna fuck so bad,” he whimpered. “Can’t. Can’t.”
Bryce weakly pounded his hip with his fist. His legs lay limp, bent in the same awkward angle they’d landed in when Ian had lowered him from the wheelbarrow. It was obvious Bryce couldn’t feel or move anything from the waist down.
“Wanna fuck so bad,” he stammered, sobbing now. A thick, greasy tear spilled from his eye. “Why? Why?”
I couldn’t watch any longer. I knew the pathogen was going into overdrive, making Bryce crave sex, and now there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Everything below his upper torso was useless and numb. It was driving him mad.
I had to focus on something else. If I stayed here doing nothing but staring at Bryce in his misery, I’d start to go mad, too.
I stepped away and tried not to listen to Bryce’s whimpering. Instead, I started rummaging through the bin of military rations Chris had been living on. I’d wanted to bring Morgan something to eat from the house, but when we all had to rush away, I didn’t even have enough time to grab a jacket, let alone extra food.
I found a pouch of vacuum-packed oatmeal and a sleeve of strawberry jelly at the bottom of the bin. It would have to do. I felt awful feeding Morgan like this. It was like she was some captured beast and I was bringing her a treat, but I refused to think of her as anything but human. I grabbed one of the kerosene burners and made my way as quietly as I could toward Morgan’s silo.
When I unlocked the door, she was asleep. She was curled up in a little ball against the tin wall.
She actually looked peaceful.
It appeared as though she’d been surviving mostly on candy bars. There were wrappers scattered all around her unlit lantern. But she was breathing evenly. She was deeply at rest.
I remembered Ian saying she hadn’t been sleeping well. Now that she was, I didn’t want to wake her.
But I didn’t want to leave, either. I felt comforted with Morgan nearby.
So, for a long time I just sat in the silo’s quiet semi-darkness, listening to Morgan breathe, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do now.
I knew I had to go back to the house. I still had to get Jason’s pharmacy access card. Now that I was a wanted fugitive again, I had no idea how I was going to get him alone, but I had to. Somehow, I had to make him think I wanted to sleep with him. It was the only way. I refused to let Morgan progress to stage three. She’d be totally lost to me.
And it wasn’t just for Morgan now. It was for all the refugees who needed help.
And it was for myself, too. If it turned out Bryce had infected me, there was no way I was letting myself progress past stage one. There was no way I was letting what was
happening to Morgan happen to me.
A gunshot rang out.
I leapt up, expecting to see Home Guard troops raiding the granary. But when I peered out the silo door, the granary yard was empty. And silent.
The gunshot had come from inside the granary itself.
I raced across the yard, trying not to trip in the weeds. I flung the wire-hinged door open and hurried into the dim interior.
My eyes adjusted to the light.
Bryce was still lying on the granary floor. Chris and Ian were standing over him. Ian was holding his head in his heads. Chris stood with his arms folded, staring down at Bryce, holding a pair of tweezers. Nobody was speaking.
Bryce was motionless. He was holding a small pistol in his hand. He clutched it loosely at his throat.
I stepped closer.
Now I could see that the back of Bryce’s head was missing.
The pistol had blown off a chunk of his skull. A mass of tiny larvae streamed from the wound. Almost immediately, each one of them writhed and died, as if contact with the open air killed them.
Chris picked up one larva with the tweezers and dropped it into a vial.
“What did you do?” I screamed. “You didn’t have to kill him!”
“Ashley.” Ian rubbed his forehead. He looked exhausted. “We have to keep quiet.”
Chris slipped the pistol out of Bryce’s hand and tucked it into a holster concealed under his shirt.
“We didn’t kill him,” Chris said. “He asked me for a gun. I gave one to him.”
Ian looked at Chris warily, but seemed too defeated to make any objection.
“What should I have done?” Chris asked.
“Not give him your fucking gun!” I struggled to keep my voice as low as possible.
“And then what?” Chris answered, angrily. “You think I could have treated him? Even if I had any more antibiotics, which I don’t—I gave the last dose to Morgan two days ago—I couldn’t do a fucking thing about his severed spinal cord. Could I? He was miserable. He asked for a gun, and I gave him one. Am I really going to tell him no? And just watch him progress to stage three, in that state? Just let him live in a nightmare for four or five months until he expires? Fuck you, I’m not doing that.”