by Angel Lawson
“Why? The rest of you would have still had protection if that person chose not to get the shot.”
She shakes her head. “We already had one incident where one of our members returned from a larger town with the infection. He became rageful and killed a dozen people, mostly children, before he was stopped. A person can survive the bite but not a brutal attack.”
We knew this, of course. Or at least Walker and I did. We’d lost fellow soldiers in this manner since Jane gave us the EVI-1. My sister nods in understanding, but I realize how so much of her research is limited to theory. The more time she spends out in the world, the more she sees it actually tested.
“So it was all or nothing,” Mary Ellen continues. “And after many arguments, the elders decided we would all take the vaccine. That happened on December nineteenth. The day of the first heavy snowfall.”
“When did they get sick?” Green asks. He’s sitting next to me. Close. And as much as I want to move away, to maintain the barrier I’ve built, I’m tired and he’s warm.
“A month passed and we managed well in isolation. It was our first real winter post-Crisis. Even though we were prepared as a community with food and supplies, we too have become reliant on outside sources. A group of our men, our best hunters, decided to go out in search of what we needed. They left in late January only to return a week later, empty-handed and hot with fever.”
“That night while the rest of the town slept, one of the sick men attacked his wife. The following day, members of our church paid a visit and,” Mary Ellen swallows, “the virus spread.”
“It moved slowly—not like the rampage from before,” Finn adds.
“Methodical?” Jane asks. Her pencil had been the only sound other than the fire and Mary’s voice.
Finn nods. “Yes. Methodical.”
“It only took hours for the virus to take the entire town.”
Walker asks, “How did you get out?”
Again the two look at one another. They’re young, but the bond between them is strong. They hold hands, fingers wrapped tight together. “My mother was one of the women from the church that was infected that first morning. She returned home and spread the virus to my older brother and my father,” Finn tells us. His eyes are cast down. The uneasy feeling in my stomach predicts what he’s going to say next. “I had to kill them all.”
“Finn ran to my house—it’s a farm on the outskirts of town. He was covered in blood.” She looks at him. The fire reflects off her eyes. “And shame.”
He nods.
“There is no shame here, Finn. We’ve all been forced to make awful decisions since the Crisis began,” I say, but my voice betrays any control. Green places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes.
“Finn and I are betrothed. Our wedding was set for two years—when we reach eighteen. This house belonged to the next married couple in town. That wasn’t us—but those people, my brother and his wife, no longer needed it. It had been stocked as a wedding gift. Full of food and supplies. Wood for the fire and stove.”
“They never found you?” Green asks.
“The night we left, a massive snowstorm trapped us in—and kept them out.” We all know the storm they’re talking about. We experienced it as well. Finn continues, “Now that the snow has melted, they’ll find us. You did. But we have no idea where to go from here.”
“We’ve spent our whole lives in this town. Just like our parents and grandparents,” Mary Ellen admits.
The room grows quiet and Jackson stands. “I’m going to go check the upstairs windows.”
“I’ll go too,” Walker says.
Their footsteps retreat on the hardwoods, leaving us alone. Jane stares at her notepad, the wheels in her head turning. Suddenly she writes furiously. Green tugs my sleeve and lifts his eyebrow. I jerk my head and we quietly get up and walk to the kitchen.
“So what’s happening here?” he asks quietly.
“We’re waiting for Jane to figure that out.”
“Do you think she will?”
I cross my arms and lean against the counter. “She always does.”
“You have a lot of faith in her.”
I laugh. “Faith isn’t the right word. It’s more like she’s predictable. Jane needs a project. One for her brain. And mistakes are her weakness. She’ll fix it. ”
“What if it’s too late?”
“For the infected out there? Yeah, it’s probably too late. But this vaccine is going to save the world, and when it fails, it gives us something to work toward.” He watches me and I grow uncomfortable under the scrutiny. Finally I ask, “What?”
“The Ramsey women are pretty impressive, did you know that?”
“We have our moments.” I smile. “Of course we also have a history of destroying mankind, starting ill-prepared revolutions and getting captured. It’s sort of a fifty-fifty shot on how things will turn out.”
Green takes a step forward. “You know, I’m willing to be one of those shots.”
Oh boy, I think, trying to escape his intense gaze. “Green—”
“You can call me Benjamin. I have a first name.” He must sense my unease and says, “There’s no pressure, Ramsey. I’ve just learned there’s not enough time to hold feelings in, you know?”
He turns and leaves the kitchen.
“Green—Benjamin—wait,” I start, but I’m interrupted by an excited voice from the living room. It’s Jane, and I rush back into the room. She’s standing alone in the middle of the room, pencil in hand with a triumphant look on her face.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I figured it out. I know why the vaccine didn’t work.” She beams with excitement. “It was this community specifically—or rather, people that had never been exposed to any childhood vaccines. There must be some crossover in inoculations.”
“That’s good,” I say. “That means we should be okay. I can’t imagine many people back in Catlettsburg or from the Fort not having their childhood vaccines.”
“Hopefully,” she says, but for the first time in a while actually looks hopeful. “I need to get Finn and Mary Ellen back to Catlettsburg and do some further testing in Avi’s laboratory.”
“Wait.” I frown. “He has a lab?”
“Avi may not like what I did with the E-TR virus but he’s still a scientist. He knows science and research is an important part of our survival. His lab is top of the line and fully stocked for decades of research.” She lowers her voice. “It’s hidden beneath city hall.”
“I think they’ll come with us,” I say. “They seem pretty close to desperate measures around here.”
Jane sits on the couch and pulls out her notepad and starts with the scribbling again. I know I need to go back and talk to Green—or Benjamin—or God, I don’t want to do this. I stand in the hallway and listen to him speak with Walker and Jackson and wish he’d never made any sort of overture.
I take a deep breath and head for the kitchen, Green and I make eye contact and my cheeks burn, probably matching the red of his hair. I open my mouth to speak but the sound of glass shattering draws us away from one another. I run to the front room, where Jane scrambles for her weapon and wind whips into the room. Bodies press against the broken window, seconds from getting inside.
“What the hell?” Jackson asks pushing me aside, but a low moan cuts through the night. It’s been months but I’ll never forget that sound.
“Damn, that’s a whole lotta Eaters,” Green says, already reaching for his weapons. Walker dashes past him, rifle in hand, running up to the second floor. He looks at Finn and Mary. “Get upstairs.”
I’m checking my own weapons. Gun, hatchet, knives. I ask, “Where do you want me?”
“We need to keep them out of the house and now that the window has been breached we’ll have to barricade ourselves upstairs.”
The next moments are sheer pandemonium as we gather our packs and weapons, racing up the wooden stairs. I catch sight of the first Eaters spill into the room, s
creeching with hunger. At the top, Jackson and Green, along with Finn’s help, push furniture down the stairs, blocking the narrow path. Wooden dressers, chairs, and a small bedside table topple down with a crash. The largest chest of drawers wipes out a man in overalls as he is charging forward. Jackson aims his gun at the felled man and shoots him between the eyes.
I turn and come face-to-face with Finn, who looks green with sickness. “That was my neighbor,” he mumbles.
“Don’t. Do not go there,” I tell him. “They’re as good as dead and have been for a long time.” He nods but has a distant look in his eye. I spin him around and push him toward the bedrooms. “Go find Mary Ellen.”
I search the rooms for Walker, following the sound of gunfire. I locate her leaning out a bedroom window, rifle held up to her eye.
“How many?”
“Too effing many,” she replies, firing off two more shots. “At least two dozen, but it’s dark and there could be more in the woods.”
I move to the next window and push open the sash. Sure enough, a rushing mass of Eaters races through the yard. “What are they doing? How did they find us?” I ask, aiming my own gun. I fire and hit a woman in the shoulder. Not good enough. “I’ve never seen them run like this.”
“Me either,” Walker says, firing again. A man drops. “It’s like they’re running from something, right?”
“Move over,” Jane says, carrying her own rifle. She closes one eye and settles her aim—shooting the same woman I just missed in the head. “I’ll take it from here.”
The room is filled with the sound of gunfire and I pace, not knowing what to do. Mary Ellen sits in the corner, squeezed between the closet and bed, eyes closed and whispering. I think she’s praying.
I notice a lull in the gunfire and look up. Walker’s rifle is still in her hands and I walk over. “Are you out of ammo?” I ask, offering her my gun.
“No,” she looks out the window, face contorted in confusion. “Do you see that?”
I lean over and see crowd of Eaters moving erratically in the yard. “They’re not attacking. Just sort of…running?”
The horde reaches the porch, their feet pounding on the wooden steps. The hiss and howls rattle the windows—or at least my head. A loud, shattering crash rocks the house.
“They’ve broken down the door,” Jackson yells, on his way back in the room. The other men follow and they barricade the bedroom door. Mary Ellen continues to pray in the corner and Jane stops her firing and comes over to me and Walker.
“It’s pointless, there are too many,” she says.
I glance back out the window and see the Eaters stream out of the woods. Way more than two dozen. Attacking or not, we’re about to get overrun. Walker thoughtfully looks out the window and says, “I guess the question is, what are they running from?”
“Do you smell that?” Jackson asks, sniffing the air. We all do the same.
“Smoke?” Walker asks. We stare at one another wide-eyed and increasingly nervous. I run back to the window.
“Oh shit,” I say staring in the distance. Just beyond the trees toward town is a fireball. A moving fireball that lops over the top branches and lands in the yard, flaming like the sun. The Eaters in the yard burst into flames, turning them into manic, running torches. Their screams rock me to the core, and the others in the room crowd around and we watch, speechless, as another ball launches toward us.
The yard catches fire and I grab Walker’s arm. “It’s not what they’re running from, but who?”
Chapter 16
There’s no time to worry about what or who the Eaters are running from because the house is moments from bursting into flames. The room falls into various degrees of panic but Walker, like always, is calm.
“Tell me what to do,” I demand. We’re not getting out of here alive without a plan.
“Are there back stairs?” she asks Finn. He shakes his head no. “Can we jump?”
“Yeah maybe. If we don’t land on the monsters,” he says. Again, he looks seconds from being sick.
Good point.
“Everybody on the roof,” Walker says. She looks me and Jackson in the eye. “We’ll figure it out from there but we can’t go down and we can’t go up. We’re going out.”
With packs on our backs and weapons in our hands, we climb through the window. Finn and Mary have nothing but the clothes they’re wearing. Everything they own will be cinder soon enough. The yard shines bright and gunfire blasts under the crackling fire. The ice and snow that surrounded the yard has melted into puddles, providing a damp barrier to the spreading fire.
The Eaters run with no logic, trying to escape the fire, and they have no regard for the puddles, stepping over them to reach the house.
“Who do you think is out there?” I ask Walker. Even though the fire made it bright, there’s too much smoke to see.
“With that kind of firepower?” she asks. “I’m afraid to ask.”
We both fear the Hybrids may have caught up to us.
“Over here!” Jane calls and we see her near the chimney. “Look.” She points to the backside of the house where it’s still dark and the melting snow has revealed a soggy pile of hay. “If we help one another down, we may be able to land without injury. Then we can run the opposite way—into the woods.”
Finn peers over the edge and says, “There could be anything in or under that pile. Like machinery or tools.”
“The monsters will get us the minute we land,” Mary Ellen adds. Her fingers tug on the silver cross around her neck.
“Would you rather burn?” Green asks. “Because that’s your choice. Burning alive or taking a chance to survive.”
“Mary,” Finn says. “God sent these people to save us. They didn’t bring the Eaters or fire with them. We knew the day would come and we thought we’d die like everyone else. These people can help us. We have to do what they say.”
The girl nods. “Okay.”
“I’ll go first,” I say, ignoring their concerns. “Once I’m down, I’ll stand guard for whoever comes next.”
Green grabs my arm. “I’ll go. Jackson can help me and everyone else down. Then he’ll go last. He’s the tallest and has less distance to fall.” Jackson nods in agreement.
“I want to go.” I bristle at the idea of a man thinking he needs to step in for me.
“He’s right,” Walker says. “He’s a better shot than you anyway.”
I roll my eyes but there’s no time to argue. Green kneels on the edge and Jackson grabs his hands; we all grab hold of him to help with stability. Green drops over the edge, giving me one last nod.
He lands with a grunt and in the shadow of the house I see him wave. “Walker—go next,” Jackson declares.
She moves quickly, giving her hand to Jackson. Just before she dips below the surface he pulls her back up, kissing her on the mouth. “Be safe.”
My heart breaks right there, cracking under the pressure of this shitty life where we fight for every second. The calm of the last three months means nothing if the instant you walk out the door you have to choose between surviving and being with the one you love.
I’m sick of this war, the Eaters, and the never-ending struggle to live.
I watch Jane follow Walker, caught by Green before hitting the ground. She and Walker jump to a defensive position, waiting for Eaters or whoever else may come around the corner before we’re all down.
“Finn, you’re up,” Jackson says. He looks at me. “You okay, Ramsey?”
I cough and blink. “It’s just the smoke getting to me.” By this point, it billows up the front of the house. The first floor must be fully engulfed. “Get moving.”
Finn shimmies down the house with more bravery than I expected. Mary grits her teeth, closes her eyes and whispers. She leaps and lands in Finn’s arms. God helped her through another day—or at least part of one.
“Ready?” Jackson asks. He’s sweating. It’s getting hot up here, the shingles on the roof growing warm.
“You come right after me,” I say, feeling the sweat trickle down my back. “Don’t hesitate.”
He nods and takes my hands, following the procedure of those before me. His hands are slippery though, it’s too hot up here. “Ben!” he shouts. “She’s coming down fast!”
“I got her,” he calls back up and I make the stupid mistake of looking over my shoulder.
The firelight moves around the corner of the house—not just the flame but an engulfed body. Jackson sees it too, yellow fire reflecting in his dark eyes. He tries to hold on, but his skin is too slippery—it’s too late anyway. The whole house shudders, exhaling a loud moan. I fall, expecting to feel Green’s hands, but there’s nothing but air. Gunfire ricochets through my ears and the howling screams meet me as I land in the flattened, wet hay on my back. The fall is broken by my gun, still wedged in my waistband.
“Oof,” I breathe, sure I’ve broken my back or a dozen other bones.
“Ramsey! Move!”
I look up to see Jackson drop and I roll out of the way, bumping into feet. Green tussles with an Eater and I blink when the decapitated, charred head lands next to my face.
Jackson lands with a loud thud, but on both feet. I reach for a knife in my boot, because rolling proved my bones are fine. I flinch though, when I put weight on my ankle. Okay, fine-ish.
“Get to the barn!” Walker shouts, the second we’re all on solid ground. Dead, still-burning Eaters lay on the ground, the hay too wet to ignite. Smoke fills my lungs and I succumb to a coughing spasm. More Eaters round the corner.
I’m screwed.
Green rushes to me, looping an arm over my shoulder. He’s bleeding badly from a wound on his neck.
“You’re hurt,” I say, not liking the way it looks.
“So are you,” he replies, dragging me away from the house. We follow the muddy tracks of the others, passing smoldering arms and bodies along the way. Walker wants to get to the horses and use them for an escape, I get that, but the barn seems like another death trap.
A howl shatters the night, close behind us, but it’s cut short. A shadow steps from the fire-lit woods, hulking and massive. The figure isn’t on fire and he’s not moving with the speed and erratic gait of an Eater.