by Rachel Aukes
The doctor stepped forward with a syringe. We all watched in silence as Dr. Edmund injected Hodge with the antigen.
“It’s done,” the doctor said and took a step back.
I prayed Hodge survived, because I wanted to be the one who killed him.
Chapter XX
Six days later
The fucker survived. He hadn’t even caught a serious fever.
I was one of the four guards on duty at the lab, and tried not to look at him while he ate New Eden food. Hodge was still imprisoned in the small house’s dank cellar. One of his ankles was handcuffed to a chain that looped around the stairs. Each wrist was handcuffed to a chain looped through a cinderblock. No one was taking any chances at him escaping, though he seemed quite content to be in captivity.
No surprise there. He was safe, well fed, and didn’t have to do shit for any of it.
He scooped up rice with his fingers (we refused to give him a spoon) and examined it. “This could use some salt,” he said and popped it into his mouth.
We ignored him. Zach and I were stuck in the basement with him, while Jase and Hali were upstairs. We rotated with them every hour during our shift to keep Hodge from grinding too deeply on our nerves. Though, he tended to grind on my nerves within five minutes of every hour I spent in that basement.
“You know, your timing at picking me up was perfect. I just finished the last can of food you guys so generously dropped off.”
I started a mental count to ten, trying my best to ignore him. Zach walked slowly over to Hodge, lifted his foot, and shoved the prisoner onto his back. Then, he snatched the bowl of rice, dumped it in the pail that served as Hodge’s latrine, and returned to his position.
I gave Zach a grin.
Hodge pulled himself back up. “That wasn’t nice. I wasn’t finished yet.”
“Oh, sorry,” I said, my words laced with sarcasm. “With the way you kept yammering on and on, we assumed you must’ve been full.”
He watched me for a moment and cocked his head. “Have we met?”
When I didn’t answer, he continued. “You seem awfully familiar. Every day, I try to remember where I’ve seen you before. Have we fucked?”
I shot him a quick glare and turned back away.
“Don’t worry. I’ll remember, eventually.”
I turned to face him then. “I’m surprised you don’t remember me. You could say I left a lasting impression.” I said as I ran my finger along the side of my throat.
When the meaning of my words hit him, his face tightened in an expression of pure rage. “You. You were a part of the group that put a hurtin’ on my Sheep. I got stranded after that little adventure and didn’t make it back to my Sheep until they’d all been wiped out, no thanks to the dickless wonders at New Eden.” He chuckled drily. “And, you guys say you’re peaceful. How many people have you killed?”
“We kill only those who’ve attacked innocents,” Zach said.
“Innocents? Bah. There are no innocents anymore. All the innocents are rotting away while they eat their own families.”
“Too bad the vaccine worked on you,” Zach said. “I was looking forward to seeing you turn into one of those things.”
Hodge sneered. “Instead, I have free room and board, and my own personal security detail. I’d say things worked out pretty good.”
Zach’s brow rose. “Pretty good, huh? You think Justin is going to keep you here and feed you? You really think that? You don’t know Justin very well then.”
Hodge’s lips thinned.
Zach continued. “I can guarantee that whatever Justin is planning for you involves pain. Lots and lots of pain.”
“We’ll see about that,” Hodge said. “I heard the lab rat talking upstairs. My blood carries the cure now. I’m carrying precious cargo.”
Zach spoke. “Didn’t you hear? Bonnie’s done with you. That last liter of blood she took was all they needed to finish their research. Now, you’re baggage.” With that, Zach sat on his chair and stared at Hodge.
The prisoner turned his attention back onto me. His features relaxed, and his lips curled upward. “I remember you. You’re the whore of one of those men my Sheep caught. You begged so pretty. I was looking forward to seeing what else you’d beg for.”
I’d cried out when Hodge held a gun to Clutch’s held, and I didn’t regret it. My plea had saved his life. “You never would’ve gotten me to beg for anything else,” I said.
“Oh, you would’ve begged. They always begged.”
I heard boots hitting each step. Jase, then Hali, came into view. Their shoulders slumped; they looked as excited to be in this basement as I felt. “Thank God,” I muttered, and turned from Hodge without another glance.
“Oh, goody,” Hodge said from behind. “My favorite girl is back.”
“Fuck you,” Jase and Hali said at the same time.
“Soon enough, that’s a promise,” Hodge replied.
Jase sighed and shook his head.
Hali glanced at me. “I’m so glad this is our last hour for the day.”
I gave her a knowing glance. “I promise.”
With that, I took the stairs two at a time. Hodge was still talking when I reached the first floor, and Zach soon followed.
“Some folks grow on you over time,” Zach said. “But, he’s not one of them.”
I dramatically shook my head. “No, he’s not.”
In the living room, the two kids were watching their same cartoon, while Bonnie was putting labels on vials. She glanced up. “I’ll have everything packed and ready to go by tonight. Dr. Edmund said to keep everything below forty degrees and above freezing if you can. The samples can save the capital thousands of hours of work so they don’t have to start from scratch from only Dr. Gidar’s research notes.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” I said. “As long as the weather holds, we’ll head out first thing in the morning.”
“What a way to kick off the New Year,” Zach said before taking a seat by the kids. The boy looked at him, and Zach raised his hand. The boy mimicked, and Zach slowly moved his hand around. Zach looked up, surprised. “Hey, he’s improving.”
“They have good days and bad days,” Bonnie said. “Without Dr. Gidar, we can’t do anything for them except keep them comfortable and hope for the best. He planned to focus on the children once he worked out a vaccine. He truly was a brilliant man.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. Not only did his research lead to a possible vaccine, his blood had been the breakthrough he’d been looking for. His calculations and tests had gotten him as far as he could go. When he introduced the antigen to his own system, the antigen became stronger, but too much of the live virus had been included. It had taken Dr. Edmund—a general practitioner—only a few hours of testing Dr. Gidar’s blood to verify the results and find Dr. Gidar’s mistake. The doctor hadn’t purified the antigen before injecting himself.
Fortunately, the hour passed quickly. Griz and three other guards arrived, and I pulled on my coat with gusto. “Have fun with him,” I said. “He’s a talker today.”
A smile crept up Griz’s face. “He can talk. But, he won’t like what I do to him every time he opens that pie hole.”
I grinned as Griz and his partner headed down to the basement. When Jase and Hali came upstairs, they joined Zach and me on the long walk back to the silo. On our walk, we met Vicki, who had her eyes narrowed in an intense stare focused on the lab in front of her.
“Hi Vicki,” I said. “Heading to the lab?”
Startled, she looked at us. She lifted the bag slightly. “I thought I’d bring some treats to Bonnie and the kids.”
“They’ll like that,” Jase said.
She nodded and then continued on her way.
“Wow, she was in the zone,” Hali said. “I don’t think she would’ve even noticed us if you hadn’t said something.”
“She’s had a lot on her mind. Seeing Hodge again really upset her,”
“I’m sur
prised she’d go anywhere near the lab with him in it,” Jase said.
“Yeah,” I said.
Vicki had been Camp Fox’s cook, and she had developed more than a little crush on Tyler. She’d been resilient. No matter what happened, she’d always been rational and strong. Then, she’d watched Hodge kill Tyler in front of her. After that, she was still strong, but she was quieter, more distant. When we brought Hodge into the silo, I saw the pain in her eyes. At that moment, it was as though she was watching Tyler die all over again.
The only other people we met on our walk were the guards at each gate. The dogs were building in numbers again. Once the weather warmed somewhat, they showed back up, with their numbers doubling every day. They were starving. The sunlight cast shadows under rib bones and hipbones. I wanted to feed them, but I knew that would only draw more to us. And they were sick. While Bonnie said Dr. Gidar had told her the vaccine might also have some effect on dog bites, he hadn’t done any analysis to validate the possibility.
“Poor things,” Hali said.
“Those poor things want to eat you,” Zach said.
Hali didn’t reply.
“It does suck, though,” Jase said. “To think most of those dogs were people’s pets at one time, and now they’re sick and breeding out here. I wonder if there’s hope for any of them.”
“Some will survive,” I said optimistically. “I would think they’re like us. Some of us are surviving the outbreak. Some of them will, too.”
“I hope so.” After that, Jase said nothing else until we reached the silo and headed to our bunks.
I spent the next few hours with Clutch, planning our trip to the capital. It would be the longest flight I’d taken without GPS, so I wanted to be accurate on my flight plan, with any possible landing sites marked along the way.
Justin didn’t have any radio frequency, let alone address, so I decided to fly into the Canadian Air Force base at Moose Jaw. I figured if any airport in the area were operational, it’d be that one.
At some point, Justin stopped by. “You two have a minute?”
“Sure,” I said, stretching my stiff neck.
Justin looked at each of us. “Hodge is dead.”
“He was alive and annoyingly well earlier today,” I said.
“I’m sure he was. But, a couple dozen stab wounds didn’t help.”
“Wow,” was all I said.
“Either of you have anything to do with it?”
My eyes widened. I looked at Clutch, who looked just as surprised, and back at Justin. “No. Not at all.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Clutch said.
Justin nodded and looked around. “Well, I figured as much. Griz and Joachim said they’d stepped away for only a few minutes. They said Hodge must’ve gotten a hold of a knife and stabbed himself. I think death by dozens of stab wounds is an interesting way to commit suicide.”
“I’ll talk to my people,” Clutch said. “We had him under twenty-four hour surveillance. And none of my people had the authority to harm him unless he attempted escape. Griz would never disobey an order.”
Justin shrugged. “It’s okay. Hodge’s death isn’t a loss to New Eden, especially now that we have the antigen Dr. Gidar was seeking. If anything, it saves us time and resources. There will be an investigation, but I suspect we won’t find anything. You know how these things go.”
Clutch tilted his head into an almost nod.
“Well,” Justin continued. “No need to keep you. You have to fly out early tomorrow. Get some rest. Just think, once the capital can create and distribute the vaccine to everyone, there will never be another zed again. Imagine that.”
Once he left, I looked at Clutch. “Did you order Hodge’s death?”
“I had nothing to do with his death.”
“Do you think Griz did?”
“Griz wouldn’t have killed him, not without talking it over with me first.”
“You think Justin ordered it?”
“If he did, why ask us about it?”
I sighed. “Well, then we have a vigilante around here.”
TEMPERANCE
Chapter XXI
Clutch, Griz, Zach, and I had doused ourselves with no-scent spray made for hunters. We figured it couldn’t hurt in case we came across any dogs at the airport. I’d never thought of using the stuff until we found some in the store at Des Moines. I mused if it would also work to mask our scent from zeds.
Jase was pissed that we were taking Zach instead of him, but Clutch had been obstinate. He refused to take Jase, because that meant Hali would come, and if things went to shit, Jase would be distracted if Hali got hurt. Jase denied there was anything between him and Hali, but Clutch refused nonetheless.
“Weren’t you being a tad hypocritical back there?” I asked as we walked toward the Humvee, carrying a small cooler. “You’re as bad as Jase.”
Clutch shot a look at me. “What do you mean?”
“What if something happened to me? You’d be distracted, too.”
“Nothing will happen,” he said gruffly. “I’ll make sure of it.
I shook my head and chuckled drily. “You’re such a he-man.”
“It’s not that you can’t take care of yourself,” he said. “I know you’re more than capable. It’s that,” he paused, “I want to take care of you.”
I let his words linger for a minute before speaking. “I think that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
He didn’t smile. Instead, he reached out and pulled me to him. “I mean it,” he said quietly.
“No one’s getting lucky on this trip,” Griz said as he walked around us. “Not unless I’m the one getting lucky.”
“You think you’ll find some sheep on this trip?” Clutch asked.
Griz flipped him off and didn’t look back again as he headed to the Humvee.
I laughed. Griz was a hot catch for any woman. Even with men outnumbering women seven to one in New Eden, women flocked to him. It was likely because he was young, able-bodied, and easy to get along with. Jase and I, though, gave him crap about it. We picked on him that the ladies were intent on finding out if the “once you go black” urban legend was actually true. Griz denied it and said it was his sparkling personality.
Griz dropped his gear into the back of the vehicle before climbing into the driver’s seat. Everyone else’s gear was loaded into the remaining cargo space. We’d loaded the avgas for the plane yesterday. We had more gear than usual since we had no idea how long the thousand-mile trip could take. Before the outbreak, I could’ve flown to Moose Jaw in less than six hours flight time, not counting a fuel stop and immigration check.
In the middle of winter, we had about eight hours of sunlight each day. We were planning to make Moose Jaw tomorrow, stopping this afternoon to refuel and camp down for the night. Doing anything after dark was dangerous and a risk none of us were willing to take.
The sun hadn’t yet peeked over the horizon; we had a good head start on the day. When we reached the airport, everything was still and silent. No new zeds appeared in the office window. No dogs sniffed around the hangar when Zach pushed the door open. The white Cessna with a yellow and orange stripe sat patiently inside. I smiled and tapped the engine cowl. “Soon, baby. You’ll be dancing on the clouds soon.”
We pulled the plane out of the hangar. Clutch and I topped off the fuel while Griz and Zach loaded as much fuel as they could fit into the baggage. The rest of our gear would have to sit on our laps. The plane was going to be weighted down. It’d need much of the runway, but I’d done my calculations. We’d get off the ground. On a hot, humid day, we might not be so lucky. But the cold air was a pilot’s friend. Cold air was more dense, which meant it provided more lift. An airplane could lift off the ground easier and faster, and that was exactly what I needed for today.
“It’s full.” I handed Clutch the half-full fuel jug. Before sliding down, I sat on the top wing another minute and watched the tip of t
he sun break the horizon. It was going to be a beautiful sunrise, one of those fiery orange ones. Movement in the direction of the airport office caught the corner of my eye, and I squinted to make out the dark shapes emerging from the tree line in the distance.
I sucked in a breath.
Clutch held out a hand to help me down. “Ready?”
I glanced down at him, my eyes wide.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re being stalked.” I pointed in the direction of the animals.
Clutch moved away to see for himself. “Griz, Zach. We need to get a move on. We’ve got company coming for breakfast.”
Griz and Zach were holding the last of our bags, and Griz closed the back of the Humvee. He looked in the direction of the dogs. “Sneaky little bastards.”
“They couldn’t have smelled us,” Zach said.
“They could’ve heard us,” I said as I slid down the windshield to stand on the engine cowl. “The Humvee isn’t exactly a stealth vehicle.”
“Shit.” I glanced over to see Zach drop everything and kick at something. “Get away!”
Clutch grabbed his sword and ran over the same time Griz slammed his machete down on something. Clutch swung and a yelp echoed through the morning air. They each kept swinging until I saw three furred shapes lay lifeless on the ground.
Zach lifted his pant leg and looked up at the other two men. “Did you see them? Were they sick?”
“Yeah,” Clutch said.
“Yeah, you saw them, or yeah, they were sick?” Zach asked.
A pause, then, “Both.”
Zach swung his fist through the air. “Shit.”
“Come on,” Clutch said. “We’ve got to go.”
Zach didn’t move. “I think I’ll sit this one out.”
“They’ll have a hospital at the capital. They can help.”
“The earliest we’ll reach them is tomorrow. By then, I’ll be dead weight. No, I think I’ll stick around here, watch the sun rise, and then head back to New Eden.”
After a long moment, Clutch nodded tightly.
Griz patted Zach on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself.” He grabbed his bags and put them into the plane.