by Ann Christy
I have two voices in my head, and both are saying the same thing, Someone might be there! The only difference is that one voice sounds excited and happy, while the other has the low tones of doom.
*****
The military shopping complex is the very picture of an orderly shut-down. I have zero doubt that there is not a single scavengable thing left inside there. Concrete barriers form a snaking trail toward every approach amenable to a vehicle breech. There’s no easily pried off wood over the windows or doors here. Steel shutters that appear to be a part of the building have been lowered everywhere and on the lower floor, more metal—this time painted white—has been affixed to that.
Places where there is no paint over the metal have their collection of deaders attached to the steel like leeches, but it all seems too precise. Just enough to seem dangerous to a passerby or someone in search of lootable material, but not so many that the building is covered.
“Wait a second,” Charlie says, eyes on some deaders at the nearest corner of the building and his brows drawn together. “Just wait a dag-gone second.”
He’s not talking to me, but himself. He says it like he’s seen something I can’t yet see. He swerves his bike into the parking lot, ready to take on the twisting course of the barriers.
“What?” I hiss, trying not to yell, but wanting him to stop and tell me what’s up.
He doesn’t stop, just lifts one hand and waves me forward.
“Stupid, stupid!” I say to myself, but I follow nonetheless. This is so stupid.
The barriers are a pain because they weren’t meant to just slow down cars, but stop them. The way they’re placed is meant to make it hard for anything to get through unless it’s a person walking and able to climb over the waist-high blocks. Charlie parks his bike when he can’t get any closer, the brakes letting out a small squeal that makes me flinch.
That gives me a chance to catch up so I grab his arm before he can get over the barrier, and ask, “What are you doing? You don’t know that they can’t come after you. Look how many there are!”
I’ve kept my voice down to a whisper, but it’s an angry one and he can tell. He pats my hand and says, “Oh, I don’t think those guys are going anywhere. I just want to check for myself. Stay here.”
He grins then clambers over the barrier, making his way with easy agility over each set of blocks as he moves toward the shopping center. I balance one foot on the barrier next to me so I don’t have to try to straddle the bike on my tip-toes, and settle my crossbow into shooting position. I’ve got to be ready in case he’s wrong. He’s being quiet, but not slow, and movement can create vibrations that deaders with no other senses remaining to them can pick up.
As he gets closer to the corner of the building, he slows and I see him rise onto his toes for a quieter approach, his crossbow out in front of him. At just twenty feet away from the corner, he stops and it looks like he’s really examining a group of deaders at a shuttered bank of windows. It looks like that’s where the food court was if the signs above the windows are accurate. One of the signs is for a Chinese food place I’ve seen in almost every mall I’ve ever been into. My mouth floods with saliva at the sudden memory of lo mein noodles.
I snap out of it when Charlie starts sort of jogging on his tip-toes toward the next set, then the next. He appears satisfied, because he runs like normal back to where I wait, his feet making slapping noises on the asphalt that make me cringe.
The grin on his face is huge. As soon as he’s close enough, he says, “They don’t have legs. Not one of them. The legs aren’t even there. Someone either carted them off or brought them here without legs already.”
“No legs? God, that’s gross,” I say, but I understand what it means. These deaders are plants, put here on purpose and not meant to be able to wander off. Hence, the no legs business.
“And smart,” Charlie says, grinning.
“Are you sure you want to walk into this? I mean, I’m giving you an out here. If you stay out here somewhere and I don’t come back, at least you can go back and let them know. You can go on from there, maybe find another place to do this thing,” I say. In a way, I actually mean it. Though going by myself is terrifying and I desperately want him to come with me, there’s a part of me that just wants to keep him safe out here, so he can go back and at least let them know what happens to me. For Jon, if nothing else. I’d hate for him to spend his life wondering.
Charlie examines my face, perhaps seeing my conflict there. He gives a little shake of his head and smiles wryly. “No way. I’m with you.”
“Okay,” I breathe out in relief, and his grin grows. Once more, we put our feet to the pedals for one last ride.
*****
The medical and dental clinics are in very similar states to the shopping complex. Even the gas station between those two places is neatly boarded, with big wooden boxes around the pumps. Locking bars that look hand welded are in place over the covers where gas and diesel were pumped into the tanks beneath the station. We take a look and the locks have little corroded outlines around them. These should have drawn deaders, but didn’t, confirming to us in one more way that most of the deaders around here are ones placed where they’re wanted.
Past medical, the hospital complex looms in the center of an overgrown field and parking lots that seem to extend forever. There are cars in the lots, but not near the building. Rather, it’s like all the cars were specifically moved to ring the building in a protective—and deliciously metal—shell.
Like the other buildings, all the glass is shuttered on the bottom two floors, but above that, the windows are bare glass and unbroken. We come to a stop at the edge of the parking lot, waiting for whatever might happen to happen. We’re out of normal rifle range here, though if someone has good gear and the inclination to shoot, we’re toast.
Charlie passes me a bottle of water and as I drink, he asks, “How long do you want to stay here?”
The water is so delicious and feels so good going down that I give a huge, post-drink sigh as I hand the bottle back. He grins and tips back the bottle, his closed eyes registering that it feels good for him to drink as well. We should be really nervous right now, and I suppose I am, but mostly, I’m just loving that water.
I give my head a shake to snap out of it and say, “Let’s give them enough time to get a good look at us. Maybe decide if we’re safe.”
“If there’s anyone there,” he comments, and puts the bottle away. I watch it disappear into his front pack mournfully.
“True. They might be on the base, but would you leave the hospital unmanned entirely if you had any part of that base under control?” I counter.
“Not me. This place would be too valuable and too vulnerable. I’d man it as much as I could,” he answers quietly, patting the bottle inside the pack as if he is mourning its loss as much as I am.
There are piles of deaders at some of the shutters, but we’re too far away to see if they’re legless. I’d bet they are.
I almost wish we’d brought something to write on and with, like a can of spray paint and a big sheet or something. As it is, we just climb off the bikes and sit ourselves down next to one of the concrete barriers. It’s late in the afternoon and the warmth of the day is fading back into the coolness of evening. Putting our backs to the concrete may make us better targets, but the warmth of the day will leak out of the blocks for hours yet and that makes it nice. And anyone inside can see we’re waiting here, not being aggressive and not going anywhere.
I’m not exactly sure of the day, but I know it’s May and it should be warm at night by now. At least I think so. I don’t remember it being this cool before. It’s okay, though. We can always put more clothes on when it’s cool, but there’s only so much you can take off when it’s hot. When summer really hits and the mugginess of our southern climate makes life almost unbearable, I’ll wish for this.
We share a meal. One pouch of some sort of Indian lentils in sauce—sadly, we’ve ru
n out of my favorites and these lesser ones are now dwindling as well—some cold rice that’s gone gluey, and a shared fruit cup, the fruit inside now so old that it’s becoming a single uniform, pale yellow color. That is our meal. It would have been far less than acceptable in my former life. Yet now, it’s good. Tasty. Occasionally, I’m amazed at how my preferences for things have changed and how much more important being full is than the particulars of flavor or temperature.
For dessert, we crunch on a few carrots from the garden that I managed to snag. They do double duty, these carrots, because they scrape the gunk off our teeth while we eat them. I have a toothbrush, but now is really not the time for that. As we sit there, watching the silent building and taking tiny, hard bites of our carrots from every angle against our teeth, the sky turns the most glorious shades of pink and red just above the horizon. Underneath the shadows of the clouds, the colors deepen to purple. It’s breathtaking.
Emily told me once that after a volcano in the Philippines erupted long ago, much of the world experienced the most beautiful sunsets for months. She thought maybe something like that had happened somewhere, because our sunsets grew so lovely all of the sudden and still are. I don’t know, but for whatever reason that thought provides comfort. Just knowing the processes of the world are still going on gives me hope, because in those processes, creation is occurring. It’s probably stupid, but there it is.
As the evening begins to settle in, I know we can’t stay here all night. There is that lack of leg-possessing deaders to make us feel secure, but sleeping out in the open is just asking for trouble. And despite the persistent silence and darkness of the hospital complex, I feel eyes upon me. But are they waiting for us to leave, waiting for us to settle in so they can kill us, or waiting for something else altogether?
I can feel Charlie looking at me from the corner of my eye. He’s waiting for me to decide it’s time to leave. He knows it’s the right move but still, he’s waiting for me to admit it.
I say, “I don’t think that place is empty, but I know we can’t stay here overnight.”
“There are some trucks back by the gas station. We could sleep on top of one of those,” he suggests.
I nod, not saying anything, trying to search for any sign of life at the hospital’s many windows.
“We’ll come back tomorrow morning. If we don’t see any change, then we’ll go in. Will that do?” he asks.
“Yeah. It’ll have to, but it will only get us half of what we’re after and that’s only if we’re lucky.”
He pats my shoulder, an affectionate and consoling pat, like I didn’t win a prize that I really wanted. Then he stands and gives me a hand up. I brush off the seat of my pants and look at the hospital one more time, hoping against hope that I’ll see a light come on somewhere inside, but there’s nothing.
We climb onto the bikes, my butt bones protesting more seriously this time, and turn them around to go back the way we came. I feel a little defeated and my tire looks a little squishy.
“Hey, Charlie, you think my tire looks…hey!” I cry out as his arm reaches out like my mom’s used to when she had to hit the brakes hard. I almost fall off the bike but right myself only to see Charlie staring open-mouthed ahead of him.
I’m prepared for deaders or in-betweeners, so I’m reaching for my bow even as I look up.
Charlie says, “Don’t,” really low in this throat and his hands begin to slowly rise, reaching for the sky. It’s almost dark, and it takes me a minute to distinguish the figures standing so quietly a few barriers beyond us.
Three men, or maybe two men and a woman if I use size as my judge, stand still and silent behind a barrier. I can’t see the particulars of what they’re wearing, but they all have the sharp angles I associate with military uniforms and their weapons are highlighted in front of them by the last of the light. Rifles.
I raise my hands as well and we stand there, looking at each other’s deepening shadows as night finishes falling. The tension of it all is beginning to rise, making me want to scream. What will they do now? Shoot us? Hurt us in some other way? I’m not stupid and I know what a girl might be worth to some people in this world. Emily made sure I understood the consequences of getting captured.
My shoulders are starting to ache and I’m just about ready to lower my hands and make a run for it on the bike when I hear the crackle of a walkie-talkie or some other such communications device. Two short squawks and then the man in front raises a hand to his waist and I hear two sharp clicks in return. I haven’t heard anything like it in years and I let out an involuntary sound, like I’m from some protected tribe never exposed to technology before.
Then one of the shadows speaks. The voice is low, gruff, a touch sarcastic, and very, very human. “To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”
I take a deep breath. A rush of relief runs through me at almost the exact amplitude of the terror, though in the opposite direction, making a chemically confused muddle of my systems. My voice is shaky with adrenaline, but I answer him, saying the words I’ve been longing to say since the moment Emily first told me what she had—or possibly had.
“I think I may have the cure.”
Three Months Ago - A Community of Headaches
I hand Emily the two tablets and a cup of water. She swallows them down a little too eagerly. Even the act of swallowing seems to bring her pain, though, because she presses her fingers into her temples and winces.
“I’ll be better in a few minutes. I just need to let this start working,” she says quietly, softly. Her speech doesn’t sound right to me. It’s nothing I can put my finger on, but she sounds a little less clear, her words enunciated less crisply. Liquid-sounding is the only real description I can come up with.
I bend down to squat next to where she lies on a mat of opened up cardboard boxes and a sleeping bag. This time of day everyone is outside that can be, either working in our gardens where the winter crops are starting to come in or watching the kids play. But for the last two days, Emily has been here in the darkest, coldest corner of the home warehouse, lying down and in pain.
She eases back down, her eyes closed and pain etching her features in stark lines. I touch her forehead with the back of my hand to see if she has a fever, but if anything, it feels too cool to me. Her eyelids squeeze shut more tightly at my touch, as if even that hurts her head.
“Emily, what’s wrong? Please tell me. Is this because of all the stuff you went through before?” I ask, wondering if the places where her skull was sawed into are what might be bothering her. She seemed fine when I first got here, but she did get headaches now and again. In the last few months, she’s grown pale—almost greenish underneath her sallow skin—and her headaches are growing worse. She’s fine most days, but even when she’s fine, there’s something off about her. She’s less energetic, but that’s not quite the right way to explain it either. Once in a while, when I see her walking, she looks like an old person, cautious and slow.
For a moment she says nothing, then she opens up one eye a little in the dim light and examines me, clearly considering if she should tell me something or not.
“Please,” I urge, and reach for her hand.
Her open eye fills with shiny tears, but her gaze remains steady on mine. “Sit down,” she says quietly.
I do and lean in close, blocking even more of the light that is coming in from the door on the far side of the warehouse. It takes her another minute to work up to whatever it is she’s going to say, but eventually, she disengages her hand from mine and levers herself up into a sitting position.
“I’m pretty sure my cancer is back,” she says. Her voice is flat and very matter-of-fact, like she’s telling me we can harvest spinach tomorrow, or that we need to arrange a day to collect firewood.
My mouth drops open and I stare at her. “What? How do you know? You can’t know.”
Her pale, cool hand lifts my chin up so that my mouth shuts and she smiles at me. It’s a sad smile and
now that I’m looking at it differently, I notice that it’s crooked, one side of her face not as responsive as the other.
“Oh, no,” I whisper.
She nods and grips my hands in hers. Her smile goes wry, which looks more normal to me somehow, and she says, “Things haven’t exactly worked out like I had hoped. But…”
“But, what?” I prompt. Whatever she’s holding inside I want to know. She’s my lifeline. These other people still feel like strangers, or visitors. I mean, not exactly that, because I’ve known them all for a varying number of months now, but it’s not the same thing. Emily has never led me astray and we understand each other. She saved me, saved Jon.
“I’ve got a lot to tell you and I think this is probably the right time to do it,” Emily begins. “Make yourself useful and get me some hot tea. I’ll meet you up in our room.”
She says it gruffly, in that way she does when she’s messing with me. It’s her way of saying she cares. When she tries to get up, she wobbles terribly, like she’s going to take a header onto the concrete floor.
“Whoa!” I say, and brace her waist before she can fall. “Let me get you up to bed.”
She squeezes her eyes shut again and holds onto my arm, but then she pushes it away as she steadies. “No, I’m okay. I just get dizzy when I stand. I’m good now.” She detaches herself and leaves me standing there. I’m ready to grab her, but she seems fine again, if somewhat slow, as she crosses the space to the stairs.
She doesn’t turn around as she starts up, but she calls out, “That tea isn’t going to make itself, you know.”
*****
Emily sips the tea and gives a tiny, happy moan when she lowers the cup. “You used sugar,” she says, half-chastising me for using sugar and half-pleased that I did.
“I did. And you can’t put it back in the bin now, so you might as well enjoy it,” I say and sit down across from her on her pallet of cushions and blankets.
She eyes me, takes a deep breath, and says, “My head is a little better, so I’d better talk while the talking is good.”