by Joe Hart
“You don’t have to worry. Chelsea’s going to be a great mother. And you’re already a great father.”
He laughs but it is strangled with emotion.
She’s about to tell him something, some memory of Meeka that never fails to make her laugh, but stops.
A sound comes from the road outside the gate. Footsteps.
Close and coming closer. A figure appears out of the gloom.
“Eli, Tia, Ian. We have company at the gate,” Merrill whispers into the small radio resting on the railing. The response is a double click, a signal that they’re coming.
Zoey draws her handgun, checks the safety.
The figure pauses at the gate before crossing the boundary. As the person draws even with the tower, three spears of light cut through the dark.
Zoey moves at the same time Merrill does, both of them aiming down at the man that stands frozen in the others’ flashlight beams.
“Stop right there!” Eli yells, approaching. Ian and Tia flank him, shining their lights across the surrounding compound. Eli stops before the man and presses his gun barrel into his chest. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Jefferson,” he croaks, his voice sounding rusty from disuse. “I’m so glad I found you people.”
“Get down on the ground,” Eli says. Jefferson complies, taking off the small satchel that’s strung over one shoulder. In the glare of Eli’s flashlight Zoey sees that the man’s right arm ends in a blunted hook.
When Jefferson is on the ground, Eli searches him, kicking his bag out of reach. Stepping back, he opens the bag, dumping its contents free.
A fork and knife fall out along with a few scraps of dried meat.
A yellowed bottle of water.
Two shirts and a pair of worn pants.
Eli glances up at Merrill. “He’s clean.”
Zoey moves to the ladder and descends with Merrill close behind. When they reach the ground Jefferson is sitting up, slowly gathering his things.
“Who are you traveling with?” Merrill asks, rifle still pointed at the man’s head.
“Nobody. I’m alone. I’m from Wyoming, traveling west. Trying to get to Seattle.”
“What’s your business there?”
“Work. Food. There’s nothing in my town anymore. People are starving. Getting desperate.”
Tia walks past them to the gate, rolling it shut and locking it. She shines her light across the sage and blanketing dark beyond the fence before returning.
Zoey watches Jefferson pack his things into the bag, coat sleeve riding up over his missing arm. The hook is set in the center of a carved chunk of wood that extends out of sight into his jacket. He uses the hook clumsily to drag the bottle of water to him before placing it inside the satchel.
Jefferson glances around them, eyes hovering on Zoey the longest.
“I’ll ask you again,” Merrill says, stepping closer, putting the muzzle of his rifle against Jefferson’s head. “Are you alone?”
“Y-y-yes. I’m alone. I’m starving. Please. I’ve been rationing my water. All I want is some food if you can spare it.”
Merrill glances at Eli who shrugs.
“Get up.”
Jefferson rises slowly, dragging his bag up with him. “Thank you. You have no idea how grateful I am.”
Eli, Ian, and Tia begin walking toward the installation, lights still sweeping the fences to either side as Jefferson falls in behind them. Merrill and Zoey follow.
“I’ve been walking for God knows how long,” Jefferson says. “Found some food a few days ago in a house but it was spoiled. Only had the venison left from when I took off three weeks ago.” He laughs and it is high and out of sorts. A madman’s cackle. “I’m getting pretty sick of venison.”
Zoey’s hand tightens on her pistol and throws a look at Merrill who frowns. “What town did you say you were from?”
Jefferson continues to walk toward the installation, his good hand ferreting nervously at his hook. “Missoula. Hated to leave, but didn’t really have a choice.”
Merrill stops, eyes shining in the flashlight’s glow. “Jefferson?”
The man pauses, turning back, hand still touching the hook.
“Missoula is in Montana, not Wyoming.”
Jefferson’s face flattens, the smile he’s worn since standing up gone. His hand works at the hook and in the second before his grin returns, Zoey’s breath catches in her lungs.
“You’re right. I never was very good at geography.”
Everything slows.
Jefferson yanks on the hook and it pops free, leaving a dark hole in the wood.
Eli yells something, already bringing his rifle up, but Jefferson is faster.
He aims his stump at Eli and a blast of fire comes from the end.
Eli crumples, a burst from his rifle kicking up a line of dirt.
Even as Zoey raises her pistol, Jefferson trains the prosthetic that isn’t a prosthetic on her.
There’s a flash and something leaps from the hole, flying toward her.
Merrill steps in its path, jerking as the object hits him.
He stumbles and falls, yanking out the six-inch dart that protrudes from his shoulder.
Zoey fires and Jefferson crumples to his knees, his good hand clutching his abdomen.
Tia steps up behind him as he tries to rise and brings the butt of her rifle down on his skull.
He folds over, blood leaking from a hole above his navel.
“What the fuck!” Tia yells. “What the fuck!”
Zoey kneels beside Merrill as he pushes himself up. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It’s a tranquilizer of some kind. Powerful. Can already feel it.”
She reaches to his front pocket, yanking the radio free. “Chelsea, come outside quick. Bring your bag.” Tia’s enraged scream cuts her off from saying anything more and Zoey stands, hurrying to where the older woman crouches beside Ian over Eli.
A dark stain spreads across Eli’s right side. His face is covered in sweat, breaths coming quickly between teeth locked tight.
“Oh no,” she says, eyes meeting his.
“S’all right,” he says. “Just a scratch.”
Zoey feels her legs threaten to give out, back thudding with pain. She returns to where Jefferson lies.
She raises her foot and smashes her heel down on the fake arm resting in the dirt.
Wood splinters.
Inside is some kind of steel carousel with hollowed-out chambers. Several contain darts like the one that struck Merrill, while others hold the shine of live rounds.
She kicks the smashed arm and it detaches, flying several feet away.
Zoey nudges Jefferson over onto his back and presses her gun to his chin as his eyes flutter open.
“Who are you?”
He smiles. “Hello Zoey.” Weakness floods her body. “Almost didn’t recognize you without your hair.” He coughs, a bead of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. “Had to get close and be sure.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“Have a message for you. About the keystone.”
Her heart freezes, then double-times its already frantic pace. “What did you say?”
“The keystone,” Jefferson wheezes, more blood dribbling through his fingers to the ground.
Memories of the night she escaped from the ARC batter her.
Running through the corridors.
Finding Terra.
Terra’s drug-induced words.
They need the keystone. They’re looking for it. They need it.
“What is it?” She grasps Jefferson’s collar and shakes the glazed look from his eyes. “What’s the keystone?”
His bloodied grin widens. “You are.”
The night spins around her.
All sense of direction vanishes.
There is no up or down, left or right. Only Jefferson’s bleeding smile.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re the one they’ve
been looking for. You can bring back the human race.”
“No.”
Jefferson nods, head scraping the dirt. “Yes.”
“You’re lying.” She shakes him again.
“I’m not. And—” His voice chokes into a cough that speckles the front of his coat with blood. “—they wanted me to tell you . . .”
“What?”
“Tell you . . . you have a daughter.”
She sits back from him, the hand holding her pistol loosening.
She can’t breathe, can’t make sense of anything she’s hearing or seeing.
Tia crying, leaning over Eli as Chelsea drops to his side.
Sherell and Rita framed in the light of the doorway, unmoving as if in stasis.
Merrill trying to sit up but sinking down into the dirt again.
And the words that keep rebounding in her mind.
A daughter.
You have a daughter.
She finally manages to shake her head. “No. It’s not possible.”
“You saw the lab, the tanks,” he hisses. “You know it is.”
“How? When?”
“Your last visit to the infirmary. After you were Tasered.”
She has a sudden recollection of the pain she’d felt after waking in the infirmary bed, down deep inside her, almost like menstruation cramps, but different.
“They took an egg. Fertilized it. She’s almost nine months old.” Jefferson coughs again, and this time it is filled with wetness. He blinks rapidly as if something is in his eyes.
“Who?” she hears herself say. “Who’s the father?” But she already knows. And as Jefferson’s lips form the name, she feels something break inside her.
“Lee.”
She shakes her head, jaw trembling, and points the gun at his face. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. P-proof in the arm.” He nods toward the broken prosthetic. “They wanted me to tell you s-something else too . . .”
She waits, still aiming at him, the entire world having quieted to a dull hush of static around her.
“They said to come home.” Jefferson laughs and grimaces, his chuckle becoming a choking strangle that spurts more blood over his chin. His back flexes, lifting off the ground before dropping, and with a final wheeze, he falls still.
Sporadic patches of sound come to Zoey and fade.
Yells.
Sobs.
Her erratic heartbeat.
She kneels by the disembodied arm, rolling it over.
Opposite the cylinders is a small transparent vial, double-walled glass or plastic of some kind. It’s cold to the touch. She pries it from an attachment, bringing it up into the light.
The inside is crimson.
Blood.
When she looks back down she sees a black square set in behind the vial’s attachment. She touches it and the square unclips and falls into her hand. She turns it over numbly, faintly registering that it looks like some of the things strewn across the desk in Lyle’s room.
As she’s about to stand something inside the arm catches her eye. It’s there and gone in an instant and she’s not sure she saw it at all until it repeats itself.
A flash of red.
Again.
Again.
Faster now.
She picks up the arm and turns it enough to peer inside its length.
A red dot set into the interior blinks at an increasing speed until it’s fluttering so quickly it appears constant.
And then it is constant.
She feels her brow crinkle, an instinct sliding snakelike through her mind, beginning as a whisper but gradually rising to a shout.
Run.
Run.
Run.
Runrunrunrunrunrunrun.
She stands, legs revolting, back crying out, every sense igniting as a sound comes across the hills from the north. Distant at first but growing more powerful by the second.
And she would know it anywhere because she’s heard it both in real life and countless times in her nightmares.
The chop of helicopter rotors.
Zoey spins toward the group, fear nearly strangling her mute.
“They’re coming.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With each book I write it seems I have more and more people to thank. And really, I think that’s a very good thing.
Thanks so much to my wife, Jade. You keep me on track more than any other person. I would’ve lost my way a long time ago without you. Huge thanks to my editors Kjersti Egerdahl and Jacque Ben-Zekry for helping me carve the book into its true shape. Many thanks to Sarah Shaw, Dennelle Catlett, Jeff Belle, Mikyla Bruder, and the rest of the team at Thomas & Mercer; you are all appreciated more than you know. Thanks to Caitlin Alexander for the phenomenal developmental edit. Big thanks to David Zarkower at the University of Minnesota who helped me with the science that I built the fiction upon. And thank you to all the readers who have followed Zoey this far. I truly hope you accompany her all the way to the end.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joe Hart was born and raised in northern Minnesota. Having dedicated himself to writing horror and thriller fiction since the age of nine, he is now the author of eight novels that include The River Is Dark, Lineage, and EverFall. The Final Trade is book two in the highly acclaimed Dominion Trilogy, which once again showcases Hart’s knack for creating breathtaking, futuristic thrillers.
When not writing, he enjoys reading, exercising, exploring the great outdoors, and watching movies with his family. For more information on his upcoming novels and access to his blog, visit www.joehartbooks.com.