by Scott Cramer
He opened the door to the examination room, and his knees buckled. Wenlan had her back to him. She was using her fingertips to probe the neck of a boy who had his shirt off, revealing a lattice of bony ribs.
Jordan cleared his throat.
Wenlan turned, and her jaw dropped in shock. They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Jordan’s mind was as frozen as his limbs.
They met halfway and embraced. As he held her trembling body, he closed his eyes to block out all other distractions. When he opened them again, the boy on the examination table stared back listlessly.
He could have held Wenlan for hours, but an image of Eddie flashed across his mind, and he pushed back, still keeping his hands on Wenlan’s upper arms. He drew in a sharp breath, horrified at how exhausted she looked. He must have looked equally as tired, as well as dirty and weather-beaten. What mattered most was that Wenlan’s skin felt cool to the touch. Thank God she didn’t have the Pig.
“My friend is sick. I need to get a pill for him,” Jordan babbled. “Can William get me a car? We need to go to Atlanta. I don’t mean by car. We need motorcycles. I met Jonzy at The Port. I know where Abby went.”
Words tumbled from Wenlan too. “Cee Cee has the Pig, but she will get better soon. William will get you a car. Abby was very sick, but she took two pills. She’ll get better. You should take a pill. We’re passing out pills, but the number of sick kids showing up keeps increasing. Everyone wants food. Fights keep breaking out. And Jordan? I love you.”
He embraced her, pulling her closer and closer. The beating of Wenlan’s heart anchored him in the turbulence that surrounded them. “I love you, too.”
DAY 3
WASHINGTON DC - GEORGIA
Abby was grateful for the steady, loud noise of the propeller and engine because it allowed her to grunt freely as endless waves of cramps steamrolled her midsection. She wanted Mark and Toby to concentrate on navigating, not on her condition.
Delirious with fever, Abby rested her head against Toby’s shoulder, slipping back and forth between the blur of dreams and an awareness of the moment. One minute, she’d know it was the moon out the window; the next minute, she’d ask herself why someone was shining a light in her face.
Maggie flew low, just above the treetops. The moonlight painted the highway pavement a lighter shade of gray, and the shadowy hulks of eighteen-wheelers were like buoys marking a channel.
Earlier, Abby had tried to help navigate, but her mind turned the highway into a twisting river and the sporadic fires burning below into stars in a black sky.
They were on the second leg of the journey to Atlanta. After flying over the White House, they had landed at an airport in Washington DC where Mark had hopped out, removed the gas cans from the storage area, and poured gas into the wing tanks. After taking off, they had flown for about two hours.
“Route 385 should be coming up soon,” Mark said. “Follow it to the right. It goes southeast.”
By knowing their air speed and the time aloft, he could plot their course on a road atlas.
“Shield your eyes,” he said before turning on the flashlight to read the atlas.
Bright light damaged night vision. Heeding Mark’s instruction, Maggie held up her right hand as a shade, and Toby dropped his chin to his chest and covered his eyes with his hand. Cupping the flashlight, Mark turned it on and consulted the map. Abby fixed her eyes on the lines between his fingers glowing bright red. When he flicked off the light, she saw a haze of gold and green.
“I’m giving Abby another pill,” Toby said.
She felt his fingers walk across her face, pry apart her lips, and push an antibiotic pill into her mouth. It was her third one. It crumbled and sat under her tongue like a pinch of chalk. She didn’t have enough saliva for it to dissolve.
Bomb blasts of cramps exploding in her stomach got her attention, and she forgot about the pill.
Toby cried out excitedly that he spotted Atlanta ahead, but Mark said the tall buildings were in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. The wings suddenly dipped hard left, then right. Each change of direction coincided with a force that pushed Abby into her seat and made her head spin.
“That was close,” Mark said. “Good job, Maggie.”
Abby’s fingers hurt from how hard Toby had squeezed them. He, too, must have feared they would crash into a building.
Sometime later, she became aware of the plane tilting one way, then the other. They were making long sweeping turns, maybe even flying in a circle. She listened to the chatter of voices and learned they were low on fuel, and the moon had gone behind the clouds.
“Let’s look for a place to land,” Mark said.
“How far are we from Atlanta?” Maggie asked.
Mark warned them he was going to turn on the flashlight. “Maybe twenty miles,” he said while looking at the map.
“I can climb above the clouds,” Maggie said. “There might be a break ahead. We’ll keep heading southeast.”
Maggie, Toby, and Mark engaged in a debate. Should they look for a place to land or forge ahead? In the feverish landscape of her mind, it was hard for Abby to make sense of what they were saying. She understood it was risky to land in the pitch dark and just as it was risky to fly above the clouds. Descending through the clouds, they would be blind to trees, buildings, and the contours of the land. Mark wanted to land sooner rather than later. Maggie wanted to climb higher and hunt for a break in the clouds closer to Atlanta. Toby kept changing his mind.
“We should land now,” Mark interjected.
“Abby, what do you want to do?” Toby asked.
Mark shook his head. “She’s still recovering from the Pig. She doesn’t even know where we are.”
Abby lifted her head. “Go to Atlanta.”
Toucan was in Atlanta, and Abby wanted to get as close to her as possible.
“If that’s what she wants,” Toby said, “then so do I. Let’s do it!”
Mark remained silent, the engine roar grew louder, and Abby felt herself pushed deeper into the seat. Soon, her ears were popping.
Maggie called out their altitude in increments of five-hundred feet. “One thousand. Fifteen hundred. Two thousand.”
The plane buffeted when they entered the clouds. “Twenty-five hundred. Three thousand.”
Still in the clouds at four-thousand feet, Abby tightened her seatbelt and cried out from the increase of pressure on her stomach. She unbuckled the belt, fearing she would pass out from the pain.
After climbing another five-hundred feet, they burst into the clear with a starry sky above. From moonlight reflecting off the tops of clouds, a brilliant sea of white stretched out before them in all directions. The ride was so smooth, it felt as if they had stopped and were suspended.
Maggie climbed to ten-thousand feet, and Mark spotted it first. Up ahead, what started as a tiny rip in the clouds spread wider, and in the dark gap, skyscrapers poked up like little matchsticks.
Abby’s optimism shattered into shards of dread as the whistle of wind replaced the growling vibration.
The engine had quit.
Nobody spoke for a long moment.
“We can make it,” Maggie said. “I think.”
“What’s the glide ratio of this plane?” Mark asked in a shaky voice.
“Five to one,” Maggie said.
“So, if our altitude is one mile, we can glide about five miles?” Mark said.
“That’s right,” the pilot replied. “We’re at nine thousand five hundred now. We can go almost ten miles.”
“That might do it,” Mark said.
Abby loosely buckled her seat belt and pressed closer to Toby. His arm was around her shoulder, and he pulled her even closer. She started to speak, but her voice choked.
She took a breath to settle herself and said, “If something happens to me, find Touk and Jordan. Then all of you should go to Mandy’s cabin in Maine. You’ll be safe there.”
Toby leaned back with a scowl
. “Are you giving up?”
She was not giving up. She was being realistic. “Please, promise me.”
Toby’s scowl deepened, and he muttered angrily. “Stop it. Nothing is going to happen to you.”
His scowl and angry tone were the result of his fear, Abby realized. Toby was as fearful of losing her as she was of losing him and never seeing Touk and Jordan again.
“Four thousand,” Maggie said.
Abby sat up and saw the skyscrapers had quadrupled in height. The plane was skimming the creamy cloud tops, taking aim for the break in the clouds ahead.
Toby joined Mark in peering out the window, looking for a place to touch down.
“Three thousand five hundred. Three thousand. Two thousand five hundred …”
Abby felt that her heart was going that many beats per minute.
“Emory Campus,” Mark called, pointing to the right. “That’s Atlanta Colony.”
The site glowed with electric lights. Toucan was there, unaware her sister was soaring silently through the night sky right above her.
“Two thousand. Fifteen hundred. A thousand feet.”
With every foot they dropped in altitude, it seemed like time sped up. Moonlight revealed that every major road was clogged with trucks and cars.
“Can you land in water?” Toby asked, nose pressed against the window.
“That’s the Chattahoochee River,” Mark said. “It has rapids and rocks.”
They flew past the inviting, but deadly river.
“Five hundred feet,” Maggie called out in a strained voice.
“Let’s shoot for Olympic Park,” Mark shouted. “It’s near the center of the city. There’s lots of open space. It’s right up ahead.”
“We’re too high,” Maggie said. “Hold on.”
The left wing tip dipped violently, and the plane seemed to drop straight down. Just as suddenly, Maggie leveled the wings, ending the rapid descent.
Ahead, Olympic Park had trees growing on the right and left, and miraculously, the open field before them appeared to be free of kids and obstacles.
“It doesn’t look level,” Maggie said.
“Piece of cake,” Mark said in a shaky voice.
Abby gripped Toby’s hand, and he gripped harder. A blur of buildings out the side window indicated how fast they were going.
Maggie came in for a perfect landing in an open field of tall grass in the middle of Atlanta. What sounded like a cloud of bugs striking the windshield were the wheels grazing the tall grass.
The plane cartwheeled. There was a loud bang and crunch of metal as the nose struck the ground. A flash of pain from the vicious pull of the belt against her lap blinded Abby for a moment.
The ripping of metal and tumbling lessened, and the shouting ended as soon as the plane came to rest. Abby realized that in the stillness, she alone was crying out.
3.01
EMORY CAMPUS
In Unit 2A, Lisette waited in line for Mother to inspect the contents of her backpack. Molly, Lydia, and Zoe were ahead of her in line, holding their packs.
Excitement crackled in the air as all the girls were scrambling to collect their belongings. This morning, they were going on a trip to the CDC bunker. Mother had said that Generation M would stay there for a while. More exciting to Lisette, she would get to ride on a bus.
“On the double, ladies,” Murph barked. The Petty Officer stood by the monitoring station with hands on hips. “Remember, just two uniforms. If I find anyone has three, I will be very distressed. That is the word of the day. D-I-S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D. Does anyone know what it means?”
Zoe raised her hand. “You’ll wear a dress?”
“Nope. Anyone else?”
“You will be unhappy,” Lisette shouted.
“Very good,” Murph said. “I will be quite unhappy if you pack more than two uniforms. Thank you, Miss Leigh.”
Lisette grinned.
Ahead of her in line, Mother inspected Molly’s pack, removing the items one by one. A toothbrush, a hairbrush, underwear, iPod, and two uniforms.
“What’s this?” Mother asked, crinkling her forehead. She held up a crumpled piece of paper.
Molly looked down. “The duck.”
“I’m sorry, Molly, but Captain Mathews said everyone must bring essential items only. Then Mother cracked a small smile. “I know how fun the Duck Game is. I’ll bring it in my pack.”
Mother repacked the bag and sent Molly to the other line of girls eagerly waiting to go out to the bus.
Mother peered into Lisette’s pack and took out a hairbrush. “Do you need a brush?” she asked.
Lisette ran her hand over the stubble on her scalp. “All the girls are bringing brushes.”
Mother smiled with sad eyes and returned the brush to her pack. “You can keep it. Hurry up and get in line.”
In the new line, Lisette received five offers from girls wanting to sit with her on the bus, but she felt sorry for Tabby, one of the girls who had just arrived from Colony East. Tabby didn’t have any good friends yet.
Lisette walked up to her. “Can I sit with you?”
Tabby’s face lit up.
When the line moved, Lisette took Tabby’s hand, and they stepped outside together. The boys from Unit 2B were already climbing into their blue bus.
Black material covered the bus’s windows and half the windshield. When the girls around Lisette started complaining that they wouldn’t be able to look out the windows, she announced loudly, “I bet the bunker has a big play area. The scientists want it to be a surprise.”
Grumbles turned into giggles.
3.02
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
The plane was upside down, and Abby was stuck, unable to unbuckle her seatbelt. She had to pull herself up to lessen the pressure on the strap, but she was too weak and had given up after several futile attempts.
Only she and Maggie were conscious. Maggie had managed to unbuckle her belt, but she couldn’t move from the pilot’s seat; she was pinned in place by the crumpled instrument panel.
“Toby,” Abby called and squeezed his hand.
Even though Toby was unconscious, she prayed he could hear her voice. Earlier, he had lightly squeezed her hand, though Abby wondered if she had imagined it.
The warmth of his hand and the steadiness of his pulse, which she felt by pressing her fingertips against his neck, kept her hope alive.
“How’s Mark?” Abby asked.
Since Maggie had regained consciousness, the two of them kept speaking to each other, mostly about the condition of Mark and Toby.
Maggie’s voice came out of the darkness. “His skin is cold.”
“Can you hear him breathing?”
A long pause. “No.”
Abby shuddered from a frigid ache in her chest. Her heart already fluttered from fighting gravity, as it struggled to pump the blood pooling in her head, and Mark’s death was a crushing blow. He had found his daughter, Sarah, saving her from the Pig, and now she would be twice orphaned. Abby also wondered how she, Maggie, and Toby, should he recover, would find Atlanta Colony or the pill plant. How would they even get out of the plane? Abby swallowed a sob. There would time for crying later. Still, tears blurred her vision and dribbled through her eyebrows and down her forehead.
Mark grunted.
Abby lurched in shock and then flushed with relief.
“Mark,” Maggie cried. “Mark.”
He didn’t respond.
“I can hear him breathing.”
“Keep talking to him,” Abby said and did the same for Toby. She had to let him know she was there for him.
As the sky lightened, Abby saw they were upside down in a forest of grass. Enough light filtered through the grassy curtain to inspect the injured.
“Is there any blood on Mark?” Abby asked.
From her position in the backseat of the plane, she could not see any open wounds or blood on him.
Abby was checking Toby’s legs for wounds when Maggie
reported that she didn’t see or feel any blood on Mark.
A face appeared in the window. Abby had expected kids to be curious about a flipped-over airplane in Olympic Park, but the hollow-cheeked boy startled her nevertheless. He was on his hands and knees, looking at her sideways.
“One of them is dead,” the boy said.
“No,” Abby croaked. “Everyone is alive. We need help.”
She heard other voices nearby.
“Do you have food?” the boy asked.
Loud banging startled her. It sounded like a rock striking metal. The fuselage shifted slightly with each bang, and she realized the kids were breaking into the cargo area.
“Yes, we have food. We’ll give you some. Open the door and help us out.”
The banging stopped, and the boy stood. Abby saw his knobby knees in the tall grass for only a second before he walked out of sight. After a period of silence, she knew the kids had taken their food and left.
She and Maggie resumed their efforts to resuscitate Toby and Mark with words and hand squeezes.
A thought crawled into Abby’s mind, which she brushed aside, but it popped back, sharper and more detailed, and she forcefully expelled it again with a jagged grunt, but it quickly consumed her, filling her head the way the rising sun was flooding the interior of the plane with light. Abby would outlive Toby and Mark and then die from the Pig, the three of them hanging upside down, leaving Maggie as the sole survivor, pinned in her pilot’s seat.
The persistent image spread throughout Abby like poison, withering her vocal cords, but she kept squeezing Toby’s hand.
Sometime later, he groaned and shook violently. The spasm passed quickly, and he blinked and groaned more.
Abby mumbled, “Toby.”
He opened his eyes. “Where are we? What happened?” His brow crinkled. “Oh. We’re in Atlanta. We crashed.”
Maggie explained that she and Abby were stuck, and Mark was seriously injured.
“My head is pounding,” Toby said with confusion in his eyes. “I got to get out. I’ll get all of us out.”