by Tara Brown
He shakes his head. "No. Marshall was too smart for that, I guess."
That doesn’t make me feel better. We are running low on time. When Will is well enough to wake, he's going to be tortured to find me. That is something I will not allow to happen.
I tap my fingers against the couch and stare out the dirty window. "It really doesn’t look like he was ever here."
"I know."
Anna nods and pulls the book out of my pocket. She flips to the first page, making me smile. I have created a monster. My foot starts tapping, joining in with my fingers. The floor echoes my tapping, making Bernie sit up. He flops off the couch to his knees and crawls to the spot I'm tapping. He knocks on the floor in a big circle. One spot sounds hollow compared to the others. He gets up and rushes to the kitchen. He comes back with a knife and skids along the floor to the spot again. He stabs the knife into the floor, picking at the wood. A chunk of wood shoots off, leaving a small opening. He picks at the floor and sticks his hand in the hole. He sighs and pulls out a piece of paper and looks at it quizzically.
"What does it say?"
"Black lab stop HEMP stop Kansas stop."
I furrow my brow. "Is that English?"
He laughs. "It's sent like it's a telegram."
I shake my head. "A what?"
He laughs harder. Anna is biting her nails and reading, ignoring us completely.
He bites his lip and looks at the words like they're magically going to make sense and then sighs. "Shit."
"What's a telegram?"
He sighs. "It was a way of sending and receiving messages back in the day before phones and internet and everything."
"What's it trying to stop?"
He looks confused. " What?"
I point at the paper. "The stops—what's it stopping? How do you stop Kansas?"
"No, it's where you stop talking. End of the sentence. So this says, Black Lab, HEMP, Kansas."
I stand up and pace again. I feel like that’s all I do indoors. "Where is the black lab?"
He shakes his head. "Not a clue, but I know what a HEMP is and where Kansas is." He stands and paces too. "EMP stands for electromagnetic pulse and the H is for high altitude. It’s a way to shut down all electricity and power. The layman's way of describing it is that it's a nuclear-powered missile, essentially with capability to destroy everything electric and battery powered. Nothing would work. It was a way of shutting everything down in a country you wanted to destroy. The civilization we lived in was completely dependent upon electricity and technology. This was a warfare that didn’t kill people; it killed the machines we needed."
I sit again. "Wait, so Marshall thought there was one of these in Kansas?"
He nods. "I would have to assume he felt that way and wrote this down for someone to find or to remind himself that’s where it was. Or someone else put it here for him to find."
I point at him. "That’s got to be it. He never had time to come here."
He nods. "Well then, I would have to say he was going to Kansas to detonate this missile in something called the black lab, and he was going to ruin the breeder farms with it."
I frown. "How far is Kansas?"
He sighs. "Far, very far."
"That doesn’t make sense. All the way to Kansas to destroy this city? That must be a code. I had heard about codes before."
Bernie stands and looks out the window. "Only one person will know that."
I nod. "The minute we ask, he's going to know we aren’t who you said we were."
He turns for the door. "I'll be back."
He closes the door and I stare out the window, chanting HEMP, Black Lab, and Kansas until the words don’t even sound like words anymore.
Chapter Six
The door flies open. Bernie looks a little crazed with blood smears on his lips and a swollen eye, but the guy lying on the ground looks much worse.
He leans in the frame, grinning at us. "Clyde, this is Emma and Anna."
I smirk. "I didn’t see that coming."
Anna frowns from halfway through her book and stands up. Bernie looks beat in every way. He points. "Can you get the answers from him? I'm more of a tech guy."
I nod and crouch down to the older man who’s giving me a hesitant look.
"What is the black lab?"
He spits at me. I can take a lot of things, but I do not like to be spit at. I smack his face into the wooden floor and then haul him up, bloody nose and all. I slam him into a cupboard. "What is the black lab?"
He starts to laugh. "You can't stop us. We're everywhere. God made sure of that."
I roll my eyes and look at Bernie. "You didn't tell him that we want to make it end? That we're on the same team?"
Bernie shook his head. "He wouldn’t let me talk."
I give Clyde a smile. "We want the same thing as you."
He growls. "I know what you are—you’re sin and temptation from the devil himself."
I'm not sure I have a response for that, so I punch him in the throat hard. It seems like the right thing to do. He gags and heaves, struggling for air. I drag him over to the curtains, tear them down, and kick him onto the couch. I push his arms behind his back and wrap him in the curtain, so his fingers stick out the bottom of the wrap. I pull my knife from my boot and stab it into the base of his finger. "Where is the black lab?"
He screams, but I press his face into the couch. I can hear gasps from Anna and Bernie, mostly Bernie, but I press the knife in deeper. He cries out as the first finger is gone. It's only his pinky; he doesn’t need it, not really.
"Where is the black lab?"
"I'll t-t-t-tell y-y-y-you, j-j-j-just stop."
I cut into the meat of the second finger. He screams, "U-u-under th-th-the main lab. Under Michael's l-l-lab."
I frown. "What's Kansas?" I ask and cut at the same time, shoving his face into the pillows.
"Stop, Emma. Let him talk."
I ignore Bernie. Anna can deal with him.
I cut into the knuckle a bit more.
"It's the detonation location! It'll level all of the USA! The missile has to detonate there!" He screams but the pillow muffles it. I drop him to the ground. "If you hurry to the hospital, they can sew that one back on. I heard that anyway."
He cries, "Screw you, crazy bitch." Spit and blood pours out of his face as he cries. I grimace and look at Bernie. "How self-explanatory is a nuclear bomb?"
He can't tear his eyes from Clyde, but he answers, "Not at all. I have to come with you."
I glance at Anna. "You keeping him company?" I nod at Clyde. She nods and shrugs. "I can finish my book." Her look darkens. "You gonna get Will first?"
I try to smile, but I know what's going to happen. Her face hardens. "Can you try?"
I want to cry but I don’t. I nod. "I will do everything I can to save him."
She looks down so I barely hear the whisper, "I know you will."
Bernie looks grey. "You didn't have to go so hard."
I ignore him and let my cold hate and fear make me what I used to be, what my father intended me to be all along. We get back onto the street where I stick my bloody knife back in my boot and wipe my hands on my pants.
Bernie grimaces. "You are disturbing."
I give him a sideways glare. "I'd hate for you and my dad not to get your money’s worth."
He sighs. "It wasn’t supposed to be like that." He turns and walks, taking me with him.
"It's quiet tonight."
He nods. "They expect you to attack the gates any second, I think."
"You all are too confident. That’s your problem. You think you can fix what God made, but you think you're smarter than him, so you can take the easy route. He put some serious effort into this place."
He looks back at me, almost mocking me. "God? Really?"
I narrow my gaze. "Yeah, God. I believe. If Meg is dead, then there is a God and she is up there arguing with him right now. He is getting a 'my momma' talk as we speak."
; He chuckles. "Touché."
I don’t know what that means, but I'm too tired and scared to care. My body is so tightly wound that I don't know what to do with myself. I know how it's going to end; Will is going to die, and I'm not sure I can live with that.
"This is the building."
We stop in front of the building we went to last time. He scans us in and walks inside. A guard walks up right away. "Hey Bernie!"
Bernie smiles and points at me. "Good evening. This is my colleague from one of the farms. She's here to see about some drugs we've been working on."
The guard gives me an uncertain look. I walk towards him with my hand out, like a civilized person. Of course he sees the old bloodstain and frowns. I kick his legs out, duck from the blow he’s about to deliver, and punch his stomach. He buckles so I can wrap my arm around his throat. I drop back, breaking his neck. Bernie gags slightly, looking disturbed. "What the hell?"
I drag the guard behind the front counter and take his gun, listening for everything else that could attack.
We sneak through the building, with the lights overhead flashing and announcing us. I give Bernie a look. He puts his hands up. "I know, I know. These were stupid."
I mutter and climb the stairs.
He glances at me. "You ever feel bad, Em… for killing them?"
I shake my head, still listening to the stairwell as we walk along.
He looks confused. "Why not?"
I want to say wolves raised me and laugh, but I don’t. My heart is in my throat and everything is burning. I don’t know what to expect or find, but I know I need to see him once before we end everything in the whole world for good. I give Bernie a shrug. "I don’t think of them as people; they're obstacles." I take another step. "It's us or them, and I choose us every time."
He nods and turns back around. "Glad I'm in the ‘us’."
I don’t say anything else, hoping he shuts up. He stops outside of a doorway and nods."Same as last time. You ready?"
I shake my head. It's true, I'm not. I'm scared of losing the thing I can't live without.
He points. "I'll go first. Stay close and the lights will come on for me, not you. Okay?"
He swipes and enters the large lab. The lights flick on, but we don’t get two steps before a man comes up to Bernie. "What are you doing here?" He's older with a gray beard. He's not my father. I can tell.
Bernie nods back at me. "You all are acting crazy tonight. This chick told me I wasn’t allowed to come in the building unaccompanied. I told her I don’t need a guard, but she won't listen."
The man glances at my gun and nods. "She's right. We are on lock down. The prisoner we have back there is Michael's."
Bernie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I guess I have to tell you too. Michael wants him injected with a 3507. He wants to be able to track him. He asked me to come do it."
The man looks confused. "A tracker? Why? The man's in a coma. He ain't going anywhere."
Bernie tilts his head. "That group of rebels may come and take him; Michael is sure they'll try the city gates tonight."
The man steps aside. "Just be fast. I don’t want anyone up here tonight." He gives me a look. "You stay with him."
I nod, confused at his gullibility. These people have lived safely in these walls too long. Morons.
Bernie walks us both to the back of the room. He scans the lab door, opening it for me. My gut kicks in when I see Will lying on the table. He's relaxed and clean again, naked from the waist up, with a large, white bandage on his chest.
When the door closes, I take a step towards Will but Bernie makes a noise. "No miss, you stand over to the side, please. I don’t want you interfering with my work."
I can tell by his tone that we are being watched. I step to the side, pressing my back against the wall and waiting as he grabs a huge needle from the case. He leans over the computer next to the case and starts typing. The seconds feel like hours. The ten feet between me and Will feel like miles. His breath is funny and forced. The machine next to him makes his chest lift and fall. It makes him live.
Bernie stands, grabbing the huge needle and glances at me. "Come hold his arm down, just in case."
I know it's the moment he's giving me to say goodbye.
I lay my gun against the wall and take the couple steps I need to be next to his bed. Hesitantly and slightly shaky, I lift my fingers to his forearm, holding his warm skin in my hands for what might be the last time. His stern smile flashes in my eyes, but I push it away.
Bernie leans across him with the needle. "He may jump. Hold him down."
I nod, gripping tighter.
Will makes a funny noise, tossing his head a little. His eyes flutter for a second and hope fills me, but then he settles back in. Bernie injects the huge needle into his arm. Will tenses. I hold him still, fighting my tears.
I feel like a thousand whispers pass between my fingers and his arm. A thousand things I needed to say, or just one maybe. One thing to make sure he knows. I nearly lower my face onto his chest and close my eyes; he's become my human Leo. I can sob into his chest just like Leo's and feel the same safety and comfort. His arms wrap around me the same way. He makes the world be quiet for a minute.
I squeeze once more and a subtle smile creeps across his lips.
Bernie pulls the needle out. I don’t move though. I hold his arm like it's the only thing stopping me from going nuts.
Deep down, I know nothing is going to stop me when he's gone. I'll kill everyone. I know that.
Bernie smiles like he's about to sell me something. "Okay, let's go."
He walks to the door. I let go of Will, turning my back slowly, and try not to feel every step.
Bernie closes the door, leaving nonchalantly.
The lights flick on, leaving it dark behind us where the door was.
The man with the gray beard walks towards us, constantly in the light as they switch on for him too.
"All done?"
Bernie nods. "Yup. Have a good night, Frank."
"Night, Bernie."
We get into the stairwell and Bernie slumps against the wall. He takes a huge breath. "Okay. We gotta find that HEMP."
I frown. "What did you inject him with?"
He grins, "A 3507. Now if they try taking him anywhere, we can find him."
"Is that going to hurt him?"
He shakes his head. "No."
We walk down the stairs. "Where is this black lab?"
He looks back. "I think it's across the street. Michael's got a secret lab he thinks none of us know about. I didn’t know it was called the black lab. The HEMP is under the lab, I guess." He jogs down the stairs, shouting back at me, "I assumed it was where he was making his monsters. I sort of lost interest in that after I started seeing the mess we were making."
I grip the gun tighter and follow him to the bottom of the stairs. He stops and smirks. "I wonder…" He walks to a door, swiping his pass at the scanner. It doesn’t open. He gets a grin on his face, and drops to his knees, and pulls something from his pocket. He works on the scanner for a minute and then scans his pass again. The door opens. He gives me a look. "Kill anyone we see in here. That’s our only option."
I nod and walk in after him. He says it all grim and frightened, but I planned on that anyway. I don’t tell him that. He already looks at me like I'm scary; we don’t need to make it worse. I pass him my gun. "Don’t shoot unless I say shoot."
He swallows and nods. I pull my bloodstained knife out of my boot and creep ahead in the long corridor. It's narrow and lit with sporadic, round wall lights. They are dim and orange, and remind me of the light in Brian's bunker. I grip the knife, creeping along the wall, listening to everything and nothing all at once. I don’t like narrow hallways; I decide this now. I like the openness of the forest. This feels like I might never escape, or that the walls are going to close in on me. Bernie's careless footsteps are the thing I hear until a cough fills the silence. I put a hand up, halting Bernie.
I glance around the corner ahead of me, seeing a man with a gun and his hand against his lips. He coughs again and leans into the wall. I tuck the blade behind my back and walk toward him slowly, not making any sounds. He yawns and closes his eyes for a second. I almost stop and wait for him to open his eyes, but the coward in me pushes on. I pull the blade softly, not making a sound, and swing it wide as I reach him. His eyes fly open, but it's too late. His jugular is hit. He drops his gun, but I catch it as he slumps along the wall, bleeding out. I sling the rifle over my shoulder and tiptoe further down the hall. I reach a door and look back at Bernie. He pulls out the screwdriver he had before and drops to his knees, fiddling with it like the other one. He scans and the door unlocks. I push it open, peeking around the corners for movement. The area is completely dark. I step in and the light flicks on above me.
"I hate this city."
Bernie closes the door, standing under the light with me. The hallway only goes one way, so I walk ahead with the lights announcing me to anyone who is ahead. I can't see into the black oblivion of the rest of the hallway.
My breath speeds up with my heartbeat. I don’t know that we're in the right place, or that we'll see anything that helps. I don’t know if that was the last time I'll ever see Will alive. I don’t know anything but that my feet don’t want to take any more steps, and my heart is aching like there is no tomorrow. Granny used to say that, ‘like there is no tomorrow.’
I stop when the lights show a door. Bernie opens it and closes it. "No."
We move ahead, keeping a close eye on the darkness and the fact that it isn’t moving or making noises.
My body hair is standing on end. I have a disturbing feeling that the infected are going to pop out any second. They always manage to when it's dark and creepy and you're lost. They may be brain dead, but they have an uncanny ability to time their arrivals.
My hands start shaking as I round another corner. Bernie is opening every door he sees, but is still moving along behind me. I reach the end of the hallway and glance back at him. In the white light of the spotlight, I see the frustration on his face. I feel it too.