Mutated

by Joe McKinney

  Richardson wrapped a rag around the beans and took them off the heat. Then he got a spoon from his pack and handed it to Avery. “You too,” he said to her. “Call me Ben, okay?”

  Avery took the can and spoon from him and ate a spoonful with her eyes closed. She savored it for a long time. When she opened her eyes she smiled apologetically. “That’s really good,” she said.

  “There’s more,” Richardson said. “Help yourself.” Avery looked at Sylvia, who nodded. Then she helped herself to two more spoonfuls and passed the can to Richardson.

  “How many interviews have you collected?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Six or seven hundred maybe.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Here, I’ll show you.”

  He took a battered trash can from the corner and upended it and set the iPad on it like a picture frame. “This should pick up all three of us,” he said.

  “You want to interview me?” Avery asked.

  “Sure. If that’s okay.”

  She looked uncertain, and nervous. She kept touching her hair. “What do I do?”

  “Just talk,” Richardson said. “Tell me about yourself. Who you are? What you guys are doing? What you plan on doing in the future? Anything, really.”

  “Is it running now?”

  Richardson nodded. Avery’s cheeks colored slightly. She ducked her head and fiddled with her blond hair. She swallowed a few times, then looked at Sylvia Carnes. From the expression on her face it looked like she was asking for permission.

  “Go ahead,” Sylvia said. “I think it’s alright. We can trust him.”

  “Okay,” Avery said. She fingered her hair back from her ears and looked at the iPad. “How do I start?”

  “Tell me your name,” Richardson said.

  “Avery Harper.”

  “How old are you, Avery?”

  “Twenty.”

  “So you would have been how old when the outbreak happened?”

  “I was twelve when Hurricane Mardell hit. I was living with my dad in Houston at the time.”

  Richardson handed the can of pork and beans to Sylvia. “You were in Houston during the storm?”

  “No, we evacuated to Dallas before the storm. We were with some of his friends when all the fighting started. After that, Dad said we couldn’t go back.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “To live with my cousin, Niki Booth.”

  “That’s the young woman we saw earlier today? The one with the short brown hair?”

  Avery’s smile faded. “That’s right. Her dad was a doctor in Gooding, Illinois. It’s this tiny little town on the other side of the river, about a hundred miles from here.”

  “So you were twelve, and making this big change. What was it like there?”

  “Well, at first it was scary, you know? I didn’t have any friends. I was in a new school. I had Niki, but she was just back from college and I was just a kid, so it wasn’t like we hung out or anything. But then, after a while, I got used to it. Living in a small town is actually kind of boring, you know?”

  “I know,” Richardson said, and laughed. “I grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, birthplace of Janis Joplin.”

  “Who’s Janis Joplin?”

  “It’s not important,” he said, trading a sly smile with Sylvia. “So you and Niki eventually left Gooding, right? How did that happen?”

  “Like I said, Gooding was kind of boring. There were a lot of drugs and stuff like that. Niki used to tell me all the cute guys had gone off to the military and the ones who didn’t were too busy doing meth. The town was pretty much dying when the quarantine wall fell. People had been moving away for a while, but after the wall came down, things pretty much went to hell, you know? We both lost our parents during that second wave. I was lucky I had Niki. Without her, I would have died too. Probably a bunch of times.”

  “I’m sorry about your parents,” Richardson said. He scanned the girl’s face, but the memory didn’t seem to cause her any obvious pain, so he pressed on. “What did you guys do after you lost them?”

  “We lived on the road.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. Just sort of wandered, you know?”

  Richardson smiled. “Yes,” he said. “I know wandering very well indeed.”

  Avery didn’t look like she knew how to respond to that. “Before the outbreak, Niki was just a normal girl, you know? But afterwards . . .”

  She shivered.

  “What, Avery? What happened while you guys were on the road?”

  “Niki changed. I mean, she loved me. I think she loved me more after her dad died than she ever did while he was alive, but after he died she turned . . . I don’t know, dangerous. I’ve seen her do things to people that . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head, as though to push unpleasant memories down.

  “Survival is a rough business,” Richardson said. “And if she was looking out for a twelve-year-old girl . . .” He shrugged.

  Avery said nothing.

  “But you’re not still living on the road, are you? You found Sylvia here, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Mr. Stoler was forming his compound just north of St. Louis about that time. We used to see patrols from Union Field scavenging around the river.”

  “Union Field? That’s the name of the compound where you guys have been living?”

  Avery nodded. “Mr. Stoler was just starting to get control over the area. His patrols were all over the place, but they were sloppy. Most of them were just regular people playing at being soldiers. I remember when Niki would come back after a day of scavenging to wherever we were hiding out at the time. She would make fun of them. Sometimes she’d steal their supplies. She fought them a couple of times, but it was never a big deal to her. To her, it was just a game. At least at first.”

  “So what changed?” Richardson asked.

  “I got real sick. My appendix. It hurt real bad. Niki didn’t know what else to do, so she brought me to Ken Stoler’s compound. That’s where we met Sylvia.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “You said Ken Stoler. You don’t mean the same Ken Stoler from San Antonio, do you? The one Eddie Hudson mentions in his book?”

  Sylvia laughed. “If you ever meet him, Ben, do yourself a favor and don’t mention Eddie Hudson. Not a good subject with him.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” Richardson said. “God, I’d love to meet him.”

  During the interview, Avery seemed to grow comfortable. She looked at ease. The flame from the Sterno gave her plump face a pleasant glow. And when she smiled, her teeth were white and straight and healthy. But the smile drained away from her face as soon as Richardson mentioned meeting Ken Stoler. He could see her body stiffen beneath her baggy clothes.

  “Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

  Avery swallowed several times, very fast, but wouldn’t meet Richardson’s gaze. He looked from the girl to Sylvia. Sylvia looked back at him, and she seemed to be taking his measure, as though she was wondering just how far she could trust him.

  Finally, she looked at Avery. “Go ahead. It’s okay.”

  Avery said nothing.

  “Avery, honey, it’s okay. We’re going to have to trust somebody. We can’t help Niki on our own.” Sylvia studied Richardson for a long moment. Then she said, “It didn’t take very long for Niki to completely redo the way Union Field sent out patrols. Niki organized our defenses, trained our people. She turned a bunch of clueless survivors into a fairly professional fighting force. She and Ken Stoler were very close.”

  “Were?” Richardson asked.

  Avery nodded. “Before the Red Man came.”

  “Tell me about that,” Richardson said. “What’s his story?”

  “There used to be five other compounds just south of Union Field,” Avery said. “We used to trade with them fairly regular. We knew each other. Then the Red Man came with his zombies and his black shirts and one by one they took over the
compounds.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “The first one was Wagner-Green. It fell about a year and a half ago. After that it was Las Cruces, then the Wilhelm-Crowder compound, then Mud Flats. Niki and some of the men from the Calimar compound managed to push the Red Man back into St. Louis. For a while, we all thought he’d given up, but then he went after Calimar. Niki was there right afterwards. She told me it was . . . awful.”

  “And Calimar, that was . . . when?”

  “About two months ago.”

  Sylvia put a hand on Avery’s arm. To Richardson, she said, “Niki and Stoler got into a really bad fight after that.”

  “About what?”

  “Ben, you don’t understand. When the Red Man takes over a compound, he’s usually after people. If they’ll join him voluntarily they can become one of his black shirts. If not . . .”

  “They get turned?”

  “Most of the time.” She frowned. “But he didn’t do that at Calimar. He was furious about losing to them at St. Louis. I saw the pictures Niki and his patrols took of what they found at Calimar. Ben, he didn’t even try to take prisoners. He slaughtered them all.”

  Richardson was quiet, waiting for her to go on. Lightning flashed outside, followed by a deep, bellowing roll of thunder.

  “After Calimar, Ken wanted Niki to take the fight to the Red Man. He thought if they beat the Red Man once, they could do it again.”

  “But Niki didn’t agree?”

  Sylvia shook her head. “She said that would be suicide. She said the Red Man would just keep her busy in the field while the rest of his troops did to Union Field what they did to Calimar.”

  “So she wanted to fight a defensive war?”

  Sylvia and Avery smiled at each other. “No,” Sylvia said. “Niki wouldn’t even consider fighting a defensive war.”

  “So . . . what then?”

  “Niki was looking for a cure.”

  Richardson stared at them, a half smile on his face. “You’re joking?”

  “No, Ben, I’m not. She was pretty sure she found one, too. That’s why we left Union Field. That’s what we’re doing out here.”

  Richardson shook his head in dismay. “Sylvia, that’s absolutely ridiculous. I have been all over this country. I’ve even been into Mexico a few times. People everywhere talk about finding a cure. It’s like some kind of fairy tale.”

  “That’s what Stoler said.”

  Richardson laughed. “Huh, what do you know? I never thought I’d agree with that idiot on anything.”

  “It’s real, Ben. Niki believed in it.”

  “Yeah, so much that she turned her back on however many people you’ve got back at Union Field. She’s your best fighter, and she went off hunting red herrings when her people needed her most. No wonder Ken Stoler is pissed.”

  Sylvia’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, Ben.”

  “I understand things just fine, Sylvia. I understand that there’s no such thing as a cure to the necrosis filovirus. The only cure for a zombie is a bullet in the brain.”

  “Now you really sound like Stoler.”

  “Yeah? Well, it sounds like he finally came to his senses, if you ask me.”

  “That’s the difference between us, Ben. You never did believe.”

  “And you were always a dreamer, Sylvia.”

  She slapped her palm down on the floor, kicking up a thin cloud of dust. “You don’t mean to tell me, after everything you’ve seen today, that you still believe these people can’t be saved. I would think this, finally, would convince you.”

  “What do you mean, after what I saw today? Were we watching the same thing? Because what I saw was some guy who fed a living person to a huddle of zombies, and then deliberately infected another man. That doesn’t sound like somebody in need of saving. What I saw was a man in need of being cut up into little bits and buried beneath a ton of lime.”

  “He’s insane, Ben. I’ll give you that. But he is regaining his sense of self. He is living proof that the disease isn’t permanent. That’s there hope.”

  “Hope? Sense of self? Sylvia, I didn’t think it was possible, but you might actually have gotten crazier since San Antonio.”

  “Crazier?” She pulled her hair and made a noise that, to Richardson at least, sounded a lot like a growl. “What do you think is going on out there, Ben? The Red Man is proof that this disease can be dealt with. You’ve seen him with his troops. Surely even you can see that he’s capable of working with uninfected people to achieve a common goal. That’s all we want. We want to coexist until a cure can be found.”

  “That’s not gonna happen, Sylvia. Look around you. There’s nothing left. We have one chance to survive, and it doesn’t involve subjugating ourselves to some freak of evolution.”

  “Freak of evolution?” Sylvia scoffed at him. “That’s nice, Ben. Is that really what you think this is? How can you study so much about this disease and still be so ignorant? I have tried to—”

  “Don’t call me ignorant. I’m not the—”

  “Stop it, both of you!” It was Avery. She had her hands cupped over her ears, a gesture that reminded Richardson of a child cowering in a closet, trying to shut out the noise of the screaming his parents made while they fought. Looking at her, he saw himself a long, long time ago, frightened, alone, feeling small in the face of a very large and very unfriendly world. “Please,” she said again. “Don’t yell anymore.”

  Sylvia crawled across the floor on her knees to the girl and hugged her. Richardson watched her go. His blood was up and he still wanted to hash it out with Sylvia. It was just like San Antonio all over again. The only difference was that it had taken them a whole day together before they were at each other’s throats. He wondered if that was a good sign.

  He also found himself wondering about the curious dynamic between the two women. The girl clearly looked up to Sylvia like some kind of mother figure. But why would she lean on her the way she does, he wondered. She’s twenty years old. Living in the world she lives in, she should be stronger than that, more independent.

  Sylvia stroked the girl’s blond hair. She looked at Richardson and motioned to the iPad with her chin. “Can you turn that thing off ?”

  “Sure.” Richardson tapped the STOP button at the bottom of the screen.

  “Avery,” Sylvia said, “Do you want to rest?”

  The girl nodded without speaking. Richardson handed her the coat from his pack and Sylvia rolled it up as a pillow for Avery.

  Within moments she was asleep.

  “Let’s step outside,” Sylvia whispered.

  They went out to the balcony and watched the advance winds of the storm blow trash and dust down the street below. The river was a thick dark line in the near distance, and they could smell it on the wind. Somewhere behind them they could hear a dog barking, very faintly, but otherwise it was quiet. That was one thing about this world that Richardson liked. It was always quiet.

  Sylvia turned to face him, her frizzled hair rustling against her cheek. He didn’t like the strange look on her face, as though she were about to gloat.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “The cure is real, Ben.”

  “Oh come on, Sylvia. You’ve already tried this one on me. There isn’t going to be any cure because there isn’t anyone to—”

  “Ben, there is a cure. It’s already been found.”

  The smirk on his face remained for a few moments before he blinked at her. Then it faded. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She wasn’t smiling anymore. Her light blue eyes flashed in the darkness, and he could tell how excited she was.

  “But . . . how? Where is it?”

  “That’s what we’re doing here, Ben. We’re going to see the man who’s working on the cure. His name is Dr. Don Fisher. He’s immune, Ben. Or, at least mostly. Niki heard about him through her foraging parties. He was bitten more than
four years ago, and he hasn’t turned. It crippled him, but it didn’t turn him. He’s been working on a cure ever since. This is it. We think he’s finally found it.”

  Richardson was shaking his head. “But you haven’t spoken to him? I mean, how do you know this is the real deal?”

  “It is, Ben. We just have to find him. Niki’s foraging parties made the arrangements. We were supposed to go to Herculaneum tomorrow and meet a man from Union Field who’s agreed to help us. He’s got AR-15s like the ones we have. Niki told me to trade those weapons for passage on a trawler down to Chester. We’re supposed to meet Fisher there on Tuesday of next week.”

  “That’s . . .” He trailed off. He had no idea what to say. To him, the whole thing sounded insane, but, at the same time, if it was real . . . the possibilities were endless.

  He shook his head. Crazy.

  “But the Red Man has Niki now. Don’t you think that changes your plans?”

  She shrugged. “I trust in Niki Booth, Ben. I trust in her like nobody I’ve ever met. If you knew her like I do, you would too. The Red Man won’t get anything out of her.”

  A few light raindrops splattered on his hands and face. The next instant the rain swept over them, and they moved inside the building. Sylvia looked down at Avery, who had curled up in the fetal position and was cradling Richardson’s jacket like it was a child’s teddy bear. She was sleeping soundly.

  Sylvia turned to face him. And when she spoke again, she was whispering. “I know you don’t believe in this, but we’re going to do it. We’re going to bring back a cure. This is too important to fail.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The next morning Richardson woke before dawn and dressed by candlelight. The floor creaked as he walked toward the patio door. Sylvia rolled over, murmuring thickly, but didn’t wake. Avery was curled in a ball next to her, sleeping soundly. Richardson waited for a moment, letting Sylvia settle, then went outside.

  The storm had passed during the night, leaving a clean, earthy smell on the air. There was a light breeze and the early morning chill felt good against his skin. During the night the rain trap they’d set out had collected almost a gallon of fresh water. It wouldn’t be enough to bathe with, which a quick sniff had told him he sorely needed, but at least they wouldn’t be leaving here with dry throats. It wasn’t all bad, he guessed.