Strain

by Amelia C. Gormley

  Darius pondered that a moment, then nodded again. “All right, then, people. We take the lazy man’s trail, stick to the best roads. Scanners front and rear, and stay on your toes. We’re not in patrolled territory just yet.”

  By nightfall they came upon a small town that showed traces of human traffic recently, including an extinguished campfire no more than a day or two old. A large signature at the edge of the infrared scanner’s detection range gave them hope that maybe they were closer to Jacob’s trail than they’d thought, but it turned out to be a trio of revenants, no doubt drawn by the smoke. Unlike animals, revenants were intelligent enough to realize that fire meant people, which meant prey.

  The revs were easily dispatched, but when the squad’s attention was on building a pyre to burn the bodies, a second pack attacked. Rhys had fallen behind, struggling to carry an armful of scrap wood the other Jugs could have hefted easily. Kaleo was ahead of him and scanning forward when the growl came from behind.

  Close. Too close.

  For a moment, Rhys froze, struck motionless with the instinctive paralysis of an animal hoping to evade the notice of a predator. It was an instant, only an instant, then his muscles unlocked as he thought of how fast the revenants moved. His armful of half-rotten boards clattered to the asphalt, and he reached for the assault rifle hanging on his back, bellowing an alarm.

  It was almost upon him by the time he turned around and got the rifle up. The rapid series of explosions staggered the charging revenant but failed to stop it. Rhys moved the stream of bullets in toward center mass, praying to hit the spinal cord before the rev caught up to him. Its legs dropped out from under it just as the rev reached Rhys, and it clutched at him, dragging him to the ground.

  The rifle flew from his hands as he fell. The rev’s teeth tore into the fleshy part of his waist where his shirt had ridden up as Rhys twisted to try to pull his pistol from its holster at his hip. He screamed as those mangling teeth cut into flesh. He freed the pistol, but he couldn’t get the angle for a head shot amid the maddened flailing.

  The world around him erupted in gunfire as the rest of the squad arrived, but he knew they were shooting at the other revs, taking down the ones that were still mobile and closing in for the kill. They couldn’t shoot this one without hitting him, and by the time they got to it, it would tear Rhys apart.

  Another snarl ripped through the air under the rattle of rifle fire, and a dark form dragged the revenant off Rhys. Powerful hands nearly tore the rev’s head from its shoulders with a grotesque explosion of shattering vertebrae. The gunfire died down, and Rhys pushed himself up, gasping as he stared into Darius’s flashing, furious eyes.

  He looked almost as wild as the revenant himself, crouching over its body, hard, rapid breaths bursting from his lungs. It was like that moment in the field with Kaleo all over again. For an instant, it seemed there was nothing human in Darius’s eyes. They burned as he stared at Rhys, and Rhys knew if he looked down, Darius would be hard. He stalked toward Rhys, and in that panicked moment, Rhys wondered if Darius would drag him off like Kaleo had Jacob. But Darius stopped short at the sight of Rhys’s blood, and reason slowly bled back into his eyes. Darius blinked, his gaze growing concerned. He crouched beside Rhys and pushed him down, pulling up the bloody shirt that had fallen over the wound as Xolani hustled over.

  Rhys lay immobile, staring up at the crystalline sky, all the bluer in the years since the plague, without the crisscrossing web of contrails he remembered from his childhood. Why was he even thinking about that? He giggled a little hysterically. He felt dizzy and nauseated as he became aware of the hot, throbbing pain of the bite wound. He didn’t know who handed Xolani a flask of alcohol, but he sure as hell regained his focus when she swabbed it around the ragged bites, probing with a disinfected finger to make sure the rev hadn’t left any portions of its rotting teeth behind. When it was over, Rhys shook with pain and shock, but he sat up so she could wrap bandages around his waist.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered miserably. “I fell behind.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Toby patted his shoulder as Xolani worked on tying off the bandages. Darius, whose pardon he most wanted to hear, remained mute. “We forgot you can’t quite keep pace with us yet.”

  “I know.” The reminder didn’t make his failure any less wretched. “I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck, Rhys, don’t be.” Xolani flashed him an encouraging smile over her kit as she packed away her supplies. “Take it as a compliment. It means everyone thinks of you as one of us.”

  “Oh.” Rhys couldn’t stop the lopsided smile that stretched across his face. It balanced out the nerve-shredding urge to dissolve into hysterics each time the feverish, pulsing pain at his waist reminded him how close he’d come to death.

  “There.” Xolani inspected her bandaging job. “Tomorrow we need to find a medical clinic and pray to God they have the dry-storage tetanus vaccine. I’ve got a supply back on base, but I don’t usually inoculate our people out in the field. Stupid,” she muttered with a disgusted look. “I’ve made sure every damn Jug in the unit is up to date on their vaccines before I let them go out on patrol, but I didn’t think to update yours while we were back there.”

  Darius sat back on his haunches, and his strangely detached gaze traveled to Rhys’s face before he dusted himself off and shot to his feet.

  “Joe, give your scanner to Toby and take a bow. You just got promoted to bodyguard. You stick by Rhys from now on. Kaleo, I don’t give a fresh fuck what your problem is, next time you fail to scan the rear long enough for something to get that close, you’ll find my boot so far up your ass you’ll have tread marks on the back of your teeth. Add these bodies to the pile and finish gathering the wood, people. We’ve got to make camp.”

  Rhys stared at Darius while he strode away, gathering spilled lumber as he went. Darius didn’t look back.

  “Don’t feel bad if you’re shaky for a bit,” Xolani advised as Joe appeared by Rhys’s side to offer him a hand up. Rhys accepted, groaning. “Everyone gets the shakes when they come that close to biting it. It’s not a weakness. In fact, it’ll get worse when you’re one of us because your adrenal responses will be a lot more powerful and the crash afterward will be even more severe. So it’s okay.”

  “All right.” Rhys stared after Darius, only half attending her words.

  Toby clapped Rhys on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine, Cooper. So will Big D. He’s just not gonna be fit for company until it wears off.”

  “He’s not angry?” Rhys clamped his lips, refusing to moan again as the bending and lifting of gathering wood pulled at his wound.

  “More like scared shitless.” Xolani scoffed and walked away.

  Joe was a huge, silent presence beside Rhys as they worked together to gather wood. For the first time since that night in the clubhouse near Salem, Rhys didn’t find his quiet bulk creepy or frightening.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “My husband.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It wasn’t Toby who wrote on me. It was my husband. Toby’s left plenty of his own marks, but no one else will ever write on me.”

  “Oh.” Rhys opened and closed his mouth several times. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Um. Because he’s dead? I mean, Darius told me . . . Sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “For offending you?”

  “Was that a question?” Joe took Rhys’s armful of wood when it began to grow too heavy.

  “I guess. I just— When I first met you, I wasn’t—” Rhys shook his head and began to gather more, too bewildered to make sense of himself, much less express anything that would make sense to someone else. “I didn’t understand.”

  “Now you do?”

  “I think I’m starting to.”

  Joe nodded, and Rhys fell into step beside him as they carried the lumber they’d gathered back toward the pile of revenant bodies. Rhys almost dropped his when Joe spoke.


  “Sheltered kid like you, coming that close to death. Surprised you didn’t fall apart back there after it was all over.”

  Rhys’s mouth tightened. “I can’t. I’ve got to pull my weight, not be a burden. Right?”

  “Don’t let anyone see your weakness.”

  “Well, yeah. At least, I’m trying not to. Kinda hard when you’re about five times weaker than everyone around you.” Rhys ducked his head again.

  “That wasn’t advice.” Joe dropped his boards on the growing pile where they’d burn the bodies. Rhys wanted to ask what he meant, but there wasn’t time as Darius lit the fire.

  That night in an old Grange Hall, Darius kept first watch, sitting near the barricaded door in grim silence. He hadn’t spoken a word to Rhys since the incident that afternoon. Despite Xolani’s reassurances, Rhys couldn’t help but feel that Darius was angry with him. He hadn’t been able to keep up. He’d gotten himself in trouble. He’d been too weak, too slow . . .

  He lay on his bedroll in the cobweb-filled hall, thinking. As everyone settled into watchful stillness or slumber, he heard soft gasps and moans. Toby and Joe were making love. A couple weeks ago, it would have made him blush and squirm, both aroused and miserably ashamed of his arousal.

  Now it only made him ache with a longing he couldn’t put into words.

  We fight to stay alive, and we fuck to feel alive.

  That was what Xolani had said. He understood now.

  He didn’t realize he’d dozed off until there was a shuffle of motion around him as the watch shift changed. Rhys lay in expectant silence while Darius stretched out on his bedroll nearby. When Darius made no move to touch him, the pang in Rhys’s chest grew keener.

  Was Darius so annoyed with him for falling behind, for being weaker and slowing them down, that he’d bypass the opportunity to expose Rhys to the Alpha strain? Or was it simply, as Xolani had implied, relief and concern that kept Darius from reaching for him?

  He could still see the eyes of the revenant that had nearly killed him, one bright and feral, the other an empty socket still oozing pus. He could see the eyes of the others, too, the ones back at the monastery Darius had saved him from. In those mad eyes, devoid of compassion or intelligence, Rhys saw the limited number of his days.

  It had been almost five weeks since his exposure to the revenants at the monastery. The Rot could appear at any time. Each day might be his last.

  He didn’t want to waste time being ashamed or afraid.

  Seizing his courage, he rolled toward Darius. He reached out in the darkness until his hand found the warm bulge of Darius’s biceps. He ignored the pull on the feverish wound at his waist as he dragged himself those scant inches across the floor. His fingertips crawled up Darius’s chest to his jaw and arrived at his mouth, helping Rhys locate his target.

  He replaced his fingers with his lips, and Darius shuddered. His hands rose to rest on Rhys’s arms, but they didn’t seize him.

  “One time’s not gonna make a difference, boy.” His lips brushed Rhys’s as he spoke, not returning the kiss. “Not at this point.”

  Rhys froze for a moment, his resolve faltering in the face of doubt. Was Darius offering him an out because he thought Rhys had only approached him out of necessity? Or did Darius not want him? Should he back away rather than impose?

  He began to withdraw and stopped.

  What would he feel when Darius held the gun to his head? Would he be frightened or relieved?

  What would Darius feel as he pulled the trigger?

  He didn’t have time for doubts. Not now.

  “I know.” Rhys reached for Darius’s belt.

  After a moment, Darius’s mouth opened, slanting against Rhys’s, taking control, and he pulled Rhys closer.

  Two days later, Darius had overcome his irritability from the scare with Rhys and the revenant, though it had taken a few sharp words from Xolani. He didn’t need her jabbing him in the ribs about just how terrified he’d been in the moment he saw Rhys fighting off that rev, and he certainly didn’t need her scolding him for taking the backlash of that fear out on the rest of them.

  Rhys hung toward the back of the formation with his head bowed. He’d been almost listless when Darius had fucked him at first light, though he’d tried to be gentle when Rhys complained about the pain of his wound. He’d become quiet and withdrawn since they broke camp. Darius allowed him his solitude, though he wasn’t sure what exactly had touched off Rhys’s sulk. More than any of them, Rhys had reason to be more furious the longer this manhunt dragged out. Perhaps that was it. At least Joe was a large, quiet presence beside Rhys, so Darius knew the boy was in good hands.

  They ate lunch on the march, munching silently on dried rations between towns. Darius didn’t really have a chance to check on Rhys; he, Xolani, Titus, and Jamie were discussing the status of the search and planning their route. As far as Darius could tell, Rhys kept his head bowed and didn’t say a word to anyone the whole break. The mood of the entire squad seemed sullen, and they largely kept silent until Joe’s deep-bass bellow shattered the stillness.

  “Xolani!”

  Darius whirled to see Joe catch Rhys as he staggered, laying him down on the road. Xolani rushed to his side, Darius only a step behind her.

  “Oh, fuckitall.” She pressed a hand to Rhys’s forehead. His face was flushed damn near scarlet.

  Rhys’s wide, terrified eyes sought Darius, pleading with him.

  “Is it the Rot?” His breath came in shallow pants, his gaze not quite focused. “Darius? Xolani?”

  For a moment it felt like all the air around him had been sucked away, leaving Darius suffocating, his chest near to exploding. Xolani jerked Rhys’s shirt up, lifting the bandage that covered his injury. Pink streaks radiated out from the crescent-shaped wounds.

  “It’s not the Rot, Rhys.” She cupped his blazing cheek. “Listen to me. Listen to me. It’s not the Rot. You’ve got an infection, that’s all.” Her laugh sounded a little choked. “Human mouths aren’t known to be all that clean to begin with. Can you imagine how bad a rev’s must be?”

  She shrugged off her rucksack, digging into it for her medical kit.

  “Do you know if you’re allergic to any antibiotics?” His eyes rolled in her direction, half-lidded and confused. She patted his cheek sharply. “Rhys! Come on, kid. No napping on the march. Do you know if you’re allergic to penicillin?”

  His head rocked back and forth in a boneless shake. “I don’t— I don’t— I don’t know.”

  “Shit.” Xolani bared her teeth in a snarl, looking up at Darius. “Okay, I’ve got some broad-spectrum antibiotics and a couple beesting kits in case he goes into anaphylaxis, but I don’t have the equipment to intubate or trach him if his airway swells shut.”

  “Then do it,” Darius snapped. “What’s the holdup?”

  “We need to get him someplace where we can monitor his condition, with IV antibiotics and epi if necessary. There’s minimal streaking radiating out from the wound, so the infection isn’t all that widespread yet, but we need to backtrack. There’s that medical clinic where we got his tetanus vaccine back in the town where we camped last night. I don’t know if we’ll find anyplace suitable down the road.”

  Darius nodded once. “Say the word when you’re ready to move him and we’ll go.”

  Xolani opened a bottle of carefully sterilized water and loaded it into a syringe, injecting it into an ampule that contained a small quantity of fine powder and rocking it with a twist of her hand to mix. “Thank God for dry-storage drugs.” Darius had heard her mutter that refrain before. The lack of climate control in the summers and winters had decreased the shelf life of many of the drugs they scavenged, but the situation was infinitely better than it would have been a century before, when most drugs had a short shelf life and often required refrigeration.

  She cleaned Rhys’s sweaty, dusty arm with an alcohol wipe and injected the antibiotics, kneeling beside him to listen to his heart and breathing for
nearly half an hour before she gave Darius a nod, loading her pack again. “So far, so good. Let’s go.”

  “All right. Joe, you carry him. You, me, and Kaleo will trade off every half hour. Move out, people.”

  “No.” Xolani tossed her pack to Titus and scooped Rhys up in her arms, hefting him easily. “I need to monitor him. We’ll trade off when I need to be relieved, but for now I’ll carry him.”

  Her eyes met Darius’s, and he gave a nod of agreement and turned to lead them away. Gina’s mouth was drawn tight in irritation as they began double-timing it back the way they came. “What about Houtman?”

  “We’re not leaving a man behind.”

  “Understood. Within reason. But the question is, how much delay are we going to tolerate to take care of a civvie who can’t keep up? Are we going to compromise our objective?”

  “Would you say the same if it was Lucy?” Jamie asked shortly.

  “Lucy’s a Jug. She’s one of us.”

  Darius had her by her shirtfront before he even realized he’d moved, winding his fist in the fabric. “Shut that down right the fuck now. Get this straight, all of you: the only them and us is revs or not revs. The second we start thinking we’re worth more than anyone else, we become Houtman. We become Charlie Company.” He released Gina with a slight shove and glared at them each in turn. “Don’t say it again.”

  The sun had almost set by the time they burst into the medical clinic Xolani had scavenged the day before. They wouldn’t have made it before midnight if they hadn’t been Jugs. Carrying Rhys was no burden, even if he hadn’t been so underweight, and they were able to move faster when they didn’t need to slow their pace for him.

  Xolani laid out syringes of antibiotics and epinephrine injectors, then began tearing through cupboards and cabinets for an intubation kit as Darius deposited Rhys gently on the examination table and Toby set up lanterns around the room. “Kaleo, Gina, take one of the scanners and go down to the pharmacy,” she instructed. “Find me more bandages and Betadine. Search the town for any other emergency clinics where they might have bags of saline and IV epi. Benadryl, too.”