Dead Moon Rising

by Caitlin Sangster

  “She’s not an inmate, and she isn’t dead, either.” Xuan’s voice is so stilted it makes me wonder if this woman is a First. Not much else would bleed all the color from the medic’s sense of humor. “We need to take her through to this lab right away. She’s infected.”

  “Infected? So that is a malfunctioning mask, then?” The woman’s voice. “Let me look.”

  “Don’t touch her. This girl didn’t break any protocols, hasn’t been Outside for more than a month, and as far as I can tell, her mask is functional. I’m worried…” He lowers his voice, his shadow leaning over me to talk to the woman. I groan internally at the awful manufactured quality of Xuan’s acting, as if he’s part of some propaganda play. “I’m worried it got through her mask somehow. Something changed so SS became contagious. If it’s changing again, we need to know now.”

  “It got through her mask?” another voice breaks in. One of the guards. Menghu, probably. The Menghu have seen what SS looks like up close, and not in a lab with restraints like a First. “You just brought her through here without notifying anyone? Through the base?”

  Feet pound across the floor even as the first speaker—the woman—snorts in disbelief. “There’s no need to run, you stupid Outsider; the likelihood that SS somehow mutated to become small enough—”

  A door slams, and then a loud bell begins to drum overhead. The shrill sound pricks at my eardrums, almost as much as the idea of Menghu standing over me when I’m not supposed to move, but I keep still.

  “This is ridiculous. The mask must have malfunctioned.” Her fingers touch the skin around my mask. “Uneducated savages with no—”

  The words end in a violent, bone-splintering crunch, and my eyes fly open in time to catch an eyeful of dark hair and single red stars on either side of the woman’s collar as she collapses. I was right about her being a First. More interested in peering at us through her microscope than running to save herself and everyone else Xuan and I could have infected, because she doesn’t believe she could be wrong. Xuan stands over her, the handle of a gun still raised as if she might need another good hit.

  She doesn’t.

  I stay on the gurney, the Menghu trapped on the other side of the glass wall staring at us as Xuan grabs her identification cards and wheels me toward the reinforced door between us and the cells. The Menghu don’t try to come back inside the quarantine area, as if they’re unsure whether or not they should try to stop Xuan from breaking into the prison.

  I don’t know if they even can stop us with the alarm blaring something about contagion and lockdown. The City had two years of telling people not all SS victims responded to Mantis. Menghu lived with it, barred people from their Mountain because of it, came up against people who’d long lost any sense of control over themselves wandering out in the forest all the time. Pair that with airborne contagion, and the chance, even the slightest one, that gas masks won’t be able to keep it out… I wouldn’t have opened the door either, if my blood was clear.

  The heavy door barring the prison opens with a thunk as Xuan waves the woman’s identification over the telescreen next to the door. As soon as we’re through, I hop off the gurney. Doors slam shut all the way down the dim corridor even as we run, weighted metal thunks of locking mechanisms punctuating the sound of the alarm blaring down from the speaker system. My legs quiver as I try to run, my days on my back and Sleep in my veins still dogging my steps. Feet dragging slower, I have to stop, coughs racking me to the core until my vision starts to go white.

  “If this is the same layout as the other side, the lab should be that way.” Xuan pulls me up from my hunch and tucks my arm over his shoulder before pointing straight down the hall. “The cells should be in blocks through here. He turns me to the left, my legs shaking under my weight and my ears ringing with the alarm until we get to the first glassed-in cell.

  A woman stands inside the cell. Her head is shaved, scabs climbing up from her cheeks to cover half her skull. She thumps her head on the glass barrier, her eyes following us as she hits her head again, again, each time a bone-splintering crack. We keep walking. Past a man lying facedown on the cement next to his cot. A young teenager scratching at his arms. An old woman who stares wide-eyed as we pass her cell, pressing herself against the glass when we come close and following us, her hands outstretched until she comes to the end of her cell.

  Horror floods my chest. This is like a new Sanatorium. A quarantine where the doctors perform their experiments. I stumble to a stop in front of the last cell in the row, which is empty. I bang a fist against the glass and turn back to the room. “Howl, where are you?” Louder. “Howl?”

  “Sev!” Howl’s voice cracks through me, spinning me around. There’s a narrow passageway to the left that blends in with the gray, gray, gray of this place. There’s cement and a wall and glass and then Howl. Inside.

  I crash into the glass wall, looking for a door, a keypad, any kind of opening. Xuan has the woman’s identification card. “Xuan, get over here now!”

  “Sev?” Howl’s voice sounds panicked, but I can’t focus on him, searching for the way to get him out. “What are you doing here?” He looks down at my hospital gown, anger a tick in his jaw. “Tai-ge didn’t get you out? He sold you straight back—”

  “No. He got caught.” I don’t look up, eyes latching onto a metal box on the floor. Is that how this thing opens? “Xuan?”

  “Sev.” Howl crouches on the other side of the glass, only inches away. We’re almost there. “Tell me there really is a cure.”

  “There is a cure,” I assure him. “How do they open the door? Where do they give you food? How did they get you in?”

  Howl seems to wilt, leaning forward to slump on the glass. “It doesn’t matter. If you’ve got a cure, then… that’s it, I guess.”

  “Howl, how do I get in?”

  He swallows, his eyes so, so tired. “This is an observation deck. The only way in is through the floor. Sev. Look at me.”

  My stomach sinks. There’s no way in from this level?

  “Why won’t you look at me? Please, Sev?” I make myself look up, taking him in. He hugs his arm to his chest, and there’s a red shiny scar peeking out from his collar, still scabbed over in places. When I get to his face, his eyes, everything inside me goes blank.

  He’s staring at me, almost like a last wish. One last moment before he jumps. “You’re going out through the morgue?” he asks quietly.

  I nod.

  “It’s not going to take the Menghu long to figure that out, if they haven’t already. Whatever you did to get rid of the soldiers isn’t going to last long enough to get me out of here.”

  Tears spill out of my eyes and down my cheeks. Because I know.

  “Run. Get out while you can.”

  I put a hand up to match his on the glass, staring at his palm, fine lines of scars crisscrossing the skin. “Your story. The one you were telling me when I was Asleep. Before Tai-ge got there. You didn’t finish.”

  He licks his lips, his eyes holding steady on mine. “Go, Sev.”

  “Sev!” Xuan’s voice echoes up the halls. “Yuan’s ax, where are you?”

  “Just finish the story. You like happy endings so much, so what’s Chang-e’s happy ending?”

  Howl leans forward, his forehead pressing against the glass, just opposite mine. “Um… Chang-e eats the double dose of immortality and jumps out the window. And, instead of falling, she flies. Her husband tries to shoot her down with his arrows, but she flies right up to the moon.”

  I blink. “Wait. She ends up on the moon? Immortal. Alone.”

  Howl tries to laugh. “It’s just a story, Sev—”

  I slam my hand against the glass, startling him back. “Why do all your stories end up with everyone alone?” My hand hits the glass again, tears burning down my cheeks. “I know you make half of them up. Can’t you just try for once to make it happy? Right now. Please?”

  Howl drops his gaze. “You heard everything I said. Wha
t people say about me in the Mountain…” His lips press together, hard.

  “Howl, I already knew about those things. Mei told me back in the heli.”

  “Then why are you here?” He puts his hand to the window. “It’s time to jump. You have to jump.”

  Anger balloons inside me. “You are not an archer or a lost star or a monster or a Menghu or anything else, Howl! All of us have made sacrifices, all of us have hurt people, and there’s nothing wrong with you! It’s the world that is wrong.” My heart aches. “Please help me get you out, Howl. I don’t want to live on the moon, I don’t want to be a star on the opposite side of the sky, and I am sure as Yuan’s bloody ax not going to leave you—”

  “Sev, there’s no time. You have to jump.”

  “I don’t want to jump. You came in here to save me, Howl, not to shoot me down.” I try to get through all the things I wanted to say before, when I was paralyzed and he was baring all his fears. “I know you’ve had a rough time of staying alive, Howl. Keeping me alive. Leave it behind you. Forgive yourself. We’re all doing the best we can with what we have.”

  He shakes his head. “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand just fine!”

  Xuan careens around the corner, skidding to a stop in front of Howl’s cell. He waves the card frantically over the metal box at the floor, across the seamless glass, up to the corners. Nothing moves. There isn’t a door. He grabs my arm without missing a beat. “Nice to see you, Howl. We wanted to help, but now we’ve got to go.”

  “Let go of me!” I twist away, but Xuan grabs me, and I’m too weak to escape as he drags me toward the next row of cells. Howl pushes up against the window, his hand still pressed against the glass, and then we’re around the corner, through a door.

  Xuan dumps me on the floor. Before I can dart back out, he grabs my arm and looks me full in the eyes. “We can’t get him out.”

  My whole brain is on fire, useless, stuck in that moment, Howl on the other side of the glass, so close. “Let go of me!” I try to elbow Xuan in the stomach and hit his arm instead. “We can’t leave him!”

  “You’re going to get us both killed, and I’m not okay with that outcome.” Xuan catches me around the ribs, hefting me over his shoulder, where my fists can only pound on his back.

  “I hate you and your self-centered—”

  “Shut up. You can join the club later, when there aren’t Menghu actively attempting to shoot me. And it’s not just us who will die. Everyone will, because whatever it is that you’ve got in your head will stay there.”

  The cure. In my head. No, under the floorboards of my old house, just waiting to fix the world. I stop hitting him, my body going limp. Xuan turns abruptly down another passage, his shoulder digging into my ribs to send bile rushing to my throat. A shout sounds behind us just as we get to another doorway, Xuan frantically waving the card until it swishes open and he deposits me on the other side.

  It slams closed. Inches of metal between me and Howl.

  Grabbing my arm again, Xuan pulls me through lines of heavy shelves, my body moving too slow. Shelf after shelf holds long metal boxes, the aisle set with two tables and instruments arranged neatly to the side.

  A cadaver lab.

  We only make it a few feet before the door crashes open behind us. I duck between two rows of refrigerated boxes, Xuan folding in behind me as the room erupts with the sounds from the cell block. Feet file in quietly through the door. Only two sets, I think. Why would there only be two soldiers?

  Xuan points down the rows toward the back wall. I let him go first, then tiptoe after him, trying to blink away the afterimage of Howl on the other side of the glass. Trapped in a prison, in an observation cage, the exact situation he ran from when he first left the Mountain. What he’s been running from all along. Ready to lie, hurt, or kill in order to survive. That’s why he took me to the Mountain. Why we know each other at all. It was supposed to be me inside the cell, taking his place.

  But now? All he did was tell me to go.

  At the back of the lab, there’s a thick metal door with a key access and some kind of extra reinforcement. Just as Xuan steps up to the door, a Menghu slides out from between the aisles.

  “They’re over here!” she yells.

  I swallow hard, mind racing. I don’t have a gun. I have a hospital gown, a stupid medic, and…

  A shot tears through the air. I flinch, waiting for the pain to start.…

  But then the Menghu falls forward, blood pooling beneath her. There’s a gun in Xuan’s hands and a shell casing the floor at our feet. How did I forget he had a gun?

  A second Menghu steps out. Maskless. Short and wide, gun pointed at the ground. It’s Kasim.

  He smiles, giving me a little wave as he ducks back behind the boxes when Xuan raises his gun again. “Hey! Good to see you, Sev!” Then gunfire explodes and Xuan jerks backward, slamming into the door.

  Kasim pulls out from behind the boxes. He winks at me, then shoots Xuan again.

  CHAPTER 45 Sev

  I FIGHT WHEN KASIM PULLS me away from Xuan. Fight when he throws his coat over my head and picks me up. Fight when he squeezes my arms straitjacket tight at my sides and carries me like a princess from one of my old fairy stories. But in this story, he’s carrying me toward death instead of saving me from it.

  I hear the door open, cool air on my bare feet. Light. He’s taking me outside? I scream, twisting, kicking… yet nothing makes him pause. Gravel crunches under Kasim’s boots, then changes to the firm tap of heels on cement. Something slams into my head, as if he didn’t quite manage to pull me clear of a doorway.

  Finally, he sets me down on the ground, and I’m already rolling away, determined to meet this upright and with my eyes open. My hands come down on something soft. A uniform.

  It’s occupied. Sort of.

  I’m in the midst of a pile of bodies.

  “Done trying to escape?” Kasim asks.

  I stand up slowly and back away from the corpse I just touched. Kasim waits, his hands folded across his chest.

  “Run,” he says. “You’ve probably got about two minutes to find the guy who’s supposed to get you out of here. If it takes longer than that, Dr. Yang’s guys’ll find you.”

  “Why did you…” I know I should be running. But the dead are all around me, and Xuan’s blood is still warm on my chest as it seeps through the hospital gown.

  “Sole needs you. I was with Tai-ge when Howl screwed up our rescue operation a few days ago, and now this Red bastard”—he looks back, Xuan’s limp arm visible through the door—“almost managed to screw it up again. At least he saved me shooting Huifen to keep my cover. There aren’t very many infected guards in this place, and no one else would come in, so it’ll be easy to pretend you got away while I was trying to revive her. Maybe she’ll even live.” He points to the trees. “Get out of here.”

  “Xuan woke me up. He got me out. He was supposed to help—”

  “He’s not dead. And it was a miracle you made it this far. Whatever his plan was, if bringing you through that cell block was part of it, the end goal wasn’t to get you out.”

  “He’s a good medic, and he helped me. I made him go through the cell block because of Howl.”

  Kasim flinches. “There was never much chance at getting Howl.” The two of them used to be close, but based on the way he looks down, there isn’t room for old friendships during war. “Now go.”

  “Please, Kasim.” My eyes burn at the cold dismissal, at the threat of guards and Sleep and Yuan knows what else will happen if I don’t walk away right now. But if Xuan isn’t dead, I can’t leave him here, even if he is annoying. My tears blur Kasim as he picks his way through the bodies on the way back to the door. So many victims. Waxy. Empty. Dead. “Xuan was trying to help.”

  Kasim limps to face me, anger tearing at his expression. “Haven’t enough people died? Your head is the only thing that can stop it. Get out of here!” When I don’t move, he starts
toward me in a chaotic burst of speed. “If I have to give up my cover here and drag you myself, I will.”

  I skip back a step, and he stops, his face sagging with emotion. I search for the smile I remember from the Mountain, for something that reminds me of the young man who is supposed to be Howl’s best friend. It’s hard to see anything but blood. There are cracks in his expression, something vulnerable underneath that just looks broken.

  “Fine.” He whispers it. “I can’t make you any promises, but I’ll do what I can to get the medic out. Now start running.” He points up to a craggy peak towering over the trees above us, so sharp not even snow will cling to it. “Remember what I told you when I first took you Outside on patrol?”

  “Get up high?”

  “Find a tree a safe distance away and wait. Sole’s guy will find you.” He turns back the way we came, a brace on the leg he broke during that patrol.

  “What about Howl?” I call after him, my voice hoarse. “You’re his friend.”

  Kasim glances back over his shoulder. “I wish they’d shot him straight out. It would’ve been easier on him. Dr. Yang’s only kept him alive this long because of the cure. And because of you.” He yanks the door open and disappears inside.

  CHAPTER 46 June

  DROWNING IS EXPECTED. SOME PART of me knew I would end this way. But I honestly don’t know what to expect when I wake up after I die. Blurry eyes, sore muscles. That makes sense, I guess. It’s the fire I’m wondering about, and the prickly feel of a blanket, heavy and a little bit damp.

  A figure comes into view, dropping something into the fire in a shower of sparks, poking at the flames with the broken end of a long pole. Dad?

  He squats next to me. “Are you awake, June?”

  Not Dad. His voice has been gone since Parhat cut his tongue out. No, this voice I know: It’s Luokai.