The Final Trade

by Joe Hart

  “I’m afraid not,” Chelsea says in a tired way. “But you’ll find out the truth pretty quickly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, untreated infection only leads to one thing. Sepsis.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s an immune response that causes inflammation nearly everywhere. First you get a fever and chills. Then your heart rate picks up until it’s racing. Your breathing increases and you’ll feel like you’re drowning. Then the really bad stuff starts.”

  A look of horror crosses Benny’s features. “Bad stuff?”

  “Yeah. Your skin starts peeling off in different places and your vision fails along with bladder and bowel control. You hallucinate and it feels like you’ve swallowed a burning lump of coal. That lasts for around forty-eight hours, but I can tell you that it will seem like an eternity. Eventually your organs will shut down one by one and you’ll die.”

  Benny’s eyes flit between them. “They’re gonna, they’re gonna be here soon. And . . .”

  Zoey kneels down so that she’s on his level. “But I’m guessing there’s not a doctor in your group or you wouldn’t be so upset right now.” She pauses, gaze unflinching. “You’re going to do exactly what I tell you to or you’ll die the most painful death imaginable. You won’t remember your life or who you are while it’s happening. It will just be pain and fear. Nothing else.”

  Benny’s mouth works for a second before any words come out. “You can fix it?”

  Chelsea nods, digging into her medical bag by her side. She draws out a syringe filled with a clear liquid. “If you do exactly what we say, I’ll give you this and it will stop the infection.”

  “How do I know that’s not poison?”

  “You don’t,” Zoey says, still staring at him. “But I don’t think you want to experience the alternative.”

  Benny swallows, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead even though the temperature has dropped in the last hour. “Okay, what do you want me to do?”

  Zoey draws out the radio and holds it up to his mouth. “Tell them you’re okay and that you found a small group of travelers. Tell them they aren’t armed but have quite a bit of food. Say you’re bringing them to the installation. Tell them one of the group is a doctor.”

  Benny blinks and licks his lips, which are cracked and dry as paper. “Okay.” Zoey holds out the radio and triggers the button. “Greg, you there?”

  There is a long pause before the same voice from earlier comes from the device.

  “Benny? You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah everything’s fine. I found a group of . . . guys. They aren’t armed but they’ve got some good supplies, some of the shit we’re running low on.”

  Static. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where you at? You need backup?”

  Zoey shakes her head and Benny says, “No, no. I’ve got them convinced we can give them shelter. You head back to base and I’ll bring them in.”

  Only silence answers his words and Zoey feels sweat run down the length of her spine.

  “That last part almost sounded like an order, Benny,” Greg finally says.

  “No, definitely not. Just thought it made the most sense.”

  “Yeah. Well I don’t take orders from you.”

  “I know, Greg, I know.”

  Zoey waves a hand at Benny and mouths the word doctor to him. He nods and she depresses the button again.

  “Oh, and Greg? One of them’s a doctor.”

  There is a blast of static, then silence before Greg’s voice returns. “That’s great. She’s not doing so hot and if she dies, Ken’s going to be beyond pissed.”

  Zoey stares at the radio, not believing the words she just heard. She’s not doing so hot? There’s a woman at Riverbend? She comes back to herself and draws a cutting motion across her throat.

  “Yeah, I hear you. Hey, one of them’s coming, gotta go. Be ready for us tomorrow. We’ll party when everything’s done.”

  Crackle of static. “Ten four.”

  Benny slumps back against the tree as Zoey tucks the radio away. “Okay, now give me the shot like you said. I did everything you wanted.”

  Chelsea uncaps the syringe, inserts the needle beside the bullet wound, and depresses the liquid as Benny hisses a breath between his teeth.

  “There. The antibiotic will take care of any infection. You’ll heal up nicely,” Chelsea says, rising. She glances back at Merrill, who is waiting beside another tree, and nods. He approaches carrying a long rope, which he lashes around Benny, tying him tight to the tree trunk.

  “We’ll bring you some food as soon as it’s ready,” Zoey says, and she and Chelsea leave Merrill to his work. They make it a dozen steps before Zoey throws a look at Chelsea, who is fighting not to smile.

  “You were excellent,” Zoey says.

  “I just followed Merrill’s plan. But I have to admit, it was kind of fun.”

  “How much of that did you make up about the sepsis?”

  “Some.”

  “Well I’m sure that water you injected him with will do wonders,” Zoey says. She leans against Chelsea and a giggle escapes her as Chelsea throws an arm over her shoulders and begins to laugh too.

  “Ouch! Damn it!”

  They both glance in the direction of the fire to see Tia holding one hand in the other.

  “What happened?” Chelsea asks as they near the other woman.

  “Slipped and cut myself.”

  “Let me see.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Let me see.” Tia rolls her eyes but holds out her hand, exposing a cut that’s not long but fairly deep. Chelsea tuts, and they settle on a nearby log, where she begins to clean the wound.

  “My father used to be a dockworker and cleaned fish for a few fishermen in his spare time. He always said you cut yourself more often with a dull knife than a sharp one,” Tia says. “Guess mine needs sharpening.” She frowns at Chelsea’s bag. “You’re not going to use that eucalyptus shit, are you? I hate that smell.”

  “Well it’ll keep this from getting infected,” Chelsea says, dabbing some oil onto the cut.

  “Guess I’ll trust you. Kept me from losing my eye that one time after I ran a stick into it. Remember?”

  “How could I forget? I thought for sure you weren’t ever going to see out of it again.”

  “Gets blurry once in a while in the cold, but other than that it’s fine.”

  Zoey watches Chelsea’s careful and deft movements before saying, “I didn’t know you don’t have an actual degree.”

  She smiles, pulling a small band of gauze from the bag. “I always wanted to be a doctor. My mother was a trauma nurse. I suppose that’s where it started. Six months after my sister was taken, I got caught too. I was held at a Marine outpost that doubled as a field hospital and NOA facility. A doctor there let me work with him since they were understaffed and there were so many casualties coming in. At that time the scientists were only studying my eggs so I was allowed to assist him. For nearly four years I helped in surgery every day. He let me read some of his medical textbooks at night and I ate it up. The war was basically over when a group of marauders broke through the outpost’s defenses. He hid me under the floor in the operating room and I had to listen to him beg for his life.”

  She pauses, winding the last of the gauze around Tia’s hand. “He taught me everything I know and I’ve used it to save people. To me that’s what a doctor is.”

  “Well you’re definitely my doctor,” Tia says, flexing her hand. “But I’d be damn glad to know you even if you weren’t.”

  Zoey smiles, pulling Tia to her feet. “Good as new?”

  “Good as new.”

  “Is dinner ready?” Chelsea asks. “I’m starving.”

  Zoey glances to the right then and sees Benny staring at her. She looks away.

  “Getting close. Mmm, venison again. Haven’t had that in, well, at least six hours.”

  Chelse
a and Tia laugh, turning toward the fire, but Zoey doesn’t join in. She can still feel Benny’s gaze heavy upon her, and in that moment she wonders if they’ve made a terrible mistake coming here.

  6

  They drive into the morning in a rumble of engines and swarms of dust kicked up by their tires.

  The sun hasn’t broken past the mountain range in the east and the shadows are long and cold, reminding Zoey that winter will come all too soon. She watches the boulder-strewn walls out the passenger window of the Suburban, the wind sawing past the top of the vehicle in a constant howl.

  Merrill sits at the wheel beside her while Ian, Rita, Sherell, Newton, and Seamus ride in the seats behind them. Merrill’s eyes are focused ahead on Benny’s Jeep, which Eli drives, leading them through the pass. The prisoner himself is just an outline in the backseat beside Tia while Chelsea rides shotgun.

  Benny had remained sullen for the rest of the evening, eating only a small portion of the food they offered before falling asleep against the tree he was tied to. They’d left at the first suggestion of dawn, and found the Jeep he’d been driving at the top of an access road connected to an adjacent highway.

  The Suburban climbs higher through the pass, walls of stone growing to a neck-craning height on either side topped by flourishes of pine trees that perfume the air with their scent. The smell triggers the memory of chewing pine needles and the hollow ache when she was starving after escaping the ARC.

  “Are you still sure about this?”

  Merrill’s words snap her back to the present and she glances at him before looking off to the side once again. “Riverbend’s our only option. I don’t want to give up because someone else is already there.”

  “I just want to make sure you’ve considered everything. There’s a lot of risk.”

  “I know.” She shifts in her seat. “But turning away knowing there’s a chance feels wrong. I don’t think Rita or Sherell would want to either.”

  “Okay.”

  “Besides, we can’t ignore the fact that there’s a woman being held there. If you don’t want to risk it, we can go on from the other side of the pass alone.”

  “I didn’t say that, Zoey. And I’m not fighting you, so quit acting like it.”

  She frowns, tugging a loose stitch on her pants. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You know I want to help you. If I didn’t I would’ve left the first night I met you, after I knew that Meeka was . . .” His voice trails off and the image of Meeka smiling at her from across the lunch table is so clear and poignant that her throat closes. “Being a leader is never simple. I know the rest of them look to me for answers and I have to make the best decision for everyone.”

  “I know.”

  “No you don’t. But you’ll have to learn.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looks at her before returning his gaze to the cracked and crumbling road ahead of them. “If you don’t know already, you will soon enough.”

  Zoey is about to question him further when they crest a rise in the highway and begin to descend, crimson light filling the land below them like a bowl splashed with blood. The pines become thicker as they wind down through the opposite side of the range, their trunks growing closer and closer together until a forest fills the sides of the roadway, their heights overtaking the receding rock walls. The beauty of the moment dispels the muddled thoughts surrounding Merrill’s words, and she’s unable to do anything other than soak in the experience.

  So much beauty in the world alongside unlimited sorrow.

  It is a bitter mixture that she still finds hard to accept. She wonders again where Lee is. What he’s doing at that moment. Is he thinking about her? She can see the letter he left before abandoning her, can see every word like she’s reading it now, even though she burned it months ago.

  Goodbye, Zoey. Maybe someday we’ll see each other again. Until then, know that I love you with all my heart and that there won’t be a day that goes by I won’t think of you.

  She returns to the moment, knowing it is the only way she’s gotten through the recent months. There is less pain by living from one second to the next, so she refuses to exist anywhere else besides the present.

  They follow the road into a sprawling valley that rises and falls over foothills that seem to go on forever. Near noon the road begins to incline again, the forest thickening slightly as a junction in the road appears, and both vehicles slow slightly before speeding up again. To the left another stretch of abandoned pavement disappears into the green swaths of pine. A large cirque of sheer rock rises in the distance, its top razored against the skyline.

  “Wonder what’s that way?” Zoey asks as they cruise past the turnoff and continue through the valley.

  “Place called Wayward Pines. Nothing there now. Just a ghost town,” Merrill says.

  “Ghost town,” she says. The term sends a wash of goose bumps down her arms. “That’s a pretty good description of everywhere.”

  “There’s some places where people still live.”

  “Live or survive?”

  “There’s not much difference nowadays.”

  “There’s a difference,” she says, not meeting his gaze. “You called Seattle the last city. Why?”

  “Because they attempt more than just surviving there. There’s some efforts at industry, production of goods. That’s where the other towns get their gas, a lot of their food, different supplies. The port is still open but ships don’t move in or out as much anymore.”

  “The ocean. How big is it?”

  This elicits a small smile from Merrill. “Big.”

  “I’d like to see it. The city, the ocean.”

  He sobers. “No you wouldn’t. It was beautiful before. But now . . .”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Once, since everything went to hell.”

  “And?”

  “And I’d never go back again.”

  She waits for him to elaborate but he says nothing more. The sun continues its course across the sky. Both vehicles stop to refuel from the gas cans they brought as the afternoon shade creeps out from the western mountains. The air has grown drier the farther they’ve come, the constant moisture in the Cascades only a memory. How anything can grow here is a mystery. Such desolate and harsh conditions.

  A clearing appears on the right and in its center is a small grouping of tall reed grass surrounded by a fan of ferns beginning to brown and wilt. A single, drooping flower with white petals grows beneath the closest fern. It appears out of place among the dryness, so fragile and unique in this arid country.

  “Do you think we’re really the last?” Zoey asks quietly so only Merrill can hear. It takes him a long time to answer though she knows he understands what she meant.

  “No. There’s others. You’re not the last.”

  “Do you think Vivian was telling the truth? That they don’t know what caused the Dearth?”

  “I don’t know. Obviously they lied to you all about the plague, but I think if NOA would have come up with a solution, things would be different by now.”

  She mulls this over. He’s right. If NOA had discovered the cause and a way to fix the Dearth there would have been no reason to lie. Even now, if there were a way to reverse everything, maybe it wouldn’t be too late for the remainder of humankind. Maybe.

  After another hour of driving, the Jeep glides to the left side of the road and turns onto a narrow dirt strip that cuts across a plain dotted with sage and long grass that’s beginning to brown with the cool fall nights. Eli stops the Jeep and they pull in behind it, Zoey and Merrill climbing out of the Suburban.

  “This look about right to you?” Eli asks as he gestures to the dirt road running into the wilds.

  “Yeah, this is it. He’s not trying to run us around,” Merrill says. “You get anything more out of him?”

  “He says there’s seven of them and one woman. Won’t say anything more about her though. When I asked him about securit
y he said they have a fence and an observation tower.”

  “Does he know the repercussions if he tries to squeal?”

  “Oh yeah. Made sure of that.”

  “Good.”

  “We could let Ian out before we come into sight of the installation. Let him get set up where he needs to be to cover us.”

  Merrill nods. “There’s some higher bluffs surrounding it: he could use one for a vantage point.”

  “How far down this road?” Zoey asks.

  “Maybe two miles. It’s after a sharp bend if my memory serves me, but it’s been a long time.”

  “You need to start doing those mind exercises, old man. Even Ian doesn’t forget as much as you do,” Eli says.

  Merrill ignores the jab. “Everyone ready?”

  “Locked and loaded.”

  “We move when I give the signal. Not before.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  “We do this quick and clean, no one gets hurt. Especially our people.” Merrill glances at Zoey as he says this. “Everyone good?”

  “Good,” Eli says.

  “Good,” Zoey replies.

  They climb back in the vehicles and Merrill outlines the plan once again, adding the particulars about what Ian must do. The old man merely begins to uncase his rifle, face solemn, eyes focused on his task.

  The vehicles pull out again and Zoey quells her nerves that are beginning to tighten by checking her handgun’s load. It’s ready. She surveys the landscape as they trundle on, making sure all of her hair is tucked beneath her hat. Rita hands her a bulky jacket and she dons it, making her form shapeless enough that a man wouldn’t notice. The other women do the same.

  After another minute of driving, a bend in the road appears beside a small hill. In the distance a curve of cliffs juts into the sky. Merrill pulls to a stop and Ian gets out, not saying a word as he moves up the rise and is lost almost at once in the gathered sage. In the Jeep, Eli switches to the passenger seat and Benny climbs behind the wheel.

  “I don’t like that he’s driving,” Zoey says.

  “Can’t do it any other way. They’ll know something’s up if he’s not,” Merrill says.