by Ann Christy
The worst is the blood. The bottom of her sweatshirt and her legs are covered, telling me exactly how she was injured, and her face is awash in new and old blood. Her hands look broken, the fingers oddly bent and the thumbs tucked too tightly to the rest of her hands. She’s so thin it’s amazing to me that she can run, that she hasn’t descended into deader-hood already.
Charlie makes the mistake of looking back at her and what he sees is enough to set the bike into a swerve. The way we’ve loaded it, and with two people on it, this small lapse in attention is all that’s needed to break the delicate balance we’ve maintained so far. With me reaching for my hammer with one hand, that small swerve is just enough to unseat me.
I fall backward onto the rack, smacking my butt bone hard enough to make me see stars, then I start to slide backward. My other hand is still clenching Charlie’s belt tightly, and I’m not letting go. The backpack containing all of the things I need for Emily is too important to lose. I jam my foot around the frame, trying for any leverage that will keep me from falling all the way off the back, or if that fails, then at least twist me around.
The brakes on the bike squeal almost as loudly as the in-betweener barreling toward us, and the bike slides to the side, leaving me to cling with one hand to Charlie and both of us falling to the ground. There’s no way to stop the impact. All I can do is try not to land on the backpack.
Instead of my back, I hit the ground with my forearm and my face. The slide burns like fire on my cheek and arm. All I care about is getting to a weapon and making sure the backpack contents are safe. Charlie seems to be of the same mind as I am, because he scrambles up and lifts his hammer out of his belt in one motion.
I was afraid of this, him having to be the one to find Gloria—whether dead or re-animated—and here it is. I drag myself up, leaving a good bit of my skin behind on the street and reach for my hammer again. My fist barely closes, a screaming pain forcing my fingers open again immediately. There’s a lump on my wrist that is not at all normal, like one of the bones is popped out of joint where it should be joining my hand. It’s a shock to see something like that, and it freezes me in place for just a second, a second we can’t afford.
As I grab for the hammer with my off-hand, Gloria is already halfway across the street and Charlie is shuffle-skipping across the road, his hammer pulled back into smashing position as he goes. This isn’t how we normally do things, but we made the mistake of not having our crossbows handy, favoring getting home fast over getting home safe.
The odd thought crosses my mind that most car accidents used to occur close to home, no matter how long the trip. I think I must have heard that in school, and it comes back to me now as I cradle my arm at my side and try my best to hold a hammer meant for bashing in heads in my off-hand.
Yeah, close to home. Some accident.
The in-betweener that was Gloria takes two more hard, awkward steps then falls to her knees in the street. She’ still making that horrible keening noise, but as Charlie takes those last few, quick steps toward her—probably hoping to get the important first blow in while she’s off balance—she holds her hands up toward him.
It’s in that moment that I see her eyes. They’re fully aware, in pain and as she watches Charlie get ready to swing the hammer, hopeless.
Charlie’s arm flexes, his hammer ready to swing. I scream out, hoping against hope that I’m right about what I see in her eyes, “No! Charlie wait!”
Three Weeks Ago - Seeing Spots
“No way. That doesn’t make even the slightest bit of sense in our situation,” Gregory says. To me he sounds like one of those annoyingly reasonable parents, the kind that sit their kids down and try to convince them of what’s right instead of just laying down the law. In this case, it’s equally pointless. I’m not interested.
I shrug and send back as deadpan a stare as I can. “Then don’t go. I’ll go. I’m not asking anyone else to risk anything. I just want to be clear on who is taking care of Jon and that Emily will stay safe while I’m gone.”
For one of the only times since they’ve been here, Matt and Gregory actually seem to be on the same page about something. That should worry me, make me reconsider. But it doesn’t. Since Emily told me everything about her, her cancer, her nanites, and the hard drive, all I’ve been able to think about is getting to the place where this all began and seeing for myself if anything can be done to help her.
I need to know if anything can be done to help all of us.
Savannah holds her hands out as if pleading with me to hear her, or see reason as she sees it. Maybe it’s both of those things. “Veronica, you do elevate the risk for everyone by taking yourself. That’s one set of eyes, one pair of hands to work, one person who can keep watch so someone else sleeps a few extra hours. You take one of us when you take yourself,” she says.
“Listen, V, there’s no question that Jon would be as safe with us as any of us can be, but that doesn’t mean he’ll understand you leaving. Those kids have already lost Gloria. What do you think it would do to them to lose you now, too?” Gregory asks, using the big guns of Jon and Maribelle and their wellbeing as his weapon against me.
“He’ll get over it. He’s already lost most of the people in his life. He’s growing up with that as a fact of life. Besides, you’re acting like I won’t come back. Gloria was taken by humans. Deaders are almost too easy to get away from now and in-betweeners are becoming a rare thing. I’ll make it,” I argue, trying to sound casual about the whole thing.
Inside, I’m really hoping that half of us go and half of us stay. I’m not chicken, but being scared isn’t the same as being chicken. Those are two different things entirely.
Matt’s voice is more controlled than usual when he argues, “If losing people is such a fact of life, then why can’t you just accept that Emily’s turn is here. Why can’t you just accept that you’re going to lose her. Hell, we’ve already lost her.”
I hate it when he’s reasonable. Really.
Now is the time to sell them. I can tell that they are feeling victory in the air and thinking they’ve talked silly old Veronica off the ledge. They know what I know now. I just don’t think they believe it. There are too many unknown people between them and Emily’s mom for them to have the same level of faith that I do. To these people, she was just the moody, weird girl who got sick before they really got to know her. They never got to hear it the way she tells it. If they could have, they would believe.
I brace my arms on my knees so I sit up a little straighter and before I can even start to speak, I see the subtle shift in Savannah’s posture that says, Here we go again.
“Yeah, I am going to say it again, Savannah,” I say, giving her a look. She has the good grace to wipe the snotty expression off her face and look me in the eyes. “I know it’s hard to believe. I understand that. Especially, since the only computer that might have been able to convince you doesn’t work.”
“Conveniently,” Matt mutters.
I hold up a hand for patience and go on as if he didn’t speak. “But none of us would have understood it anyway, so that really doesn’t matter. You all know for sure that Emily had something in her head that went away and then came back. Her scars prove that, and she knows more about that kind of brain tumor and nanites than anyone the age she was when this happened possibly could. I know you think she’s just gone all delusional or something, but her story hasn’t budged, not one bit, since before she got sick. I’ve been with her for two years. Two years.”
Gregory looks like he’s about to squirm out of his pants he wants to break in so badly. I shut up and wave him on.
“But you never went and she never went. Seriously. I have a hard time believing that any person who actually thought they had a cure would just sit on their ass for all that time and let everything else go to hell in a hand-basket. I don’t want to think anyone would do that. If I think too hard about that—if I believe that—I’ll go over there and smash her head in for that re
ason alone!”
We’re all silent after that. Gregory’s chin is shaking with a combination of rage and pain. He looks like he’s holding it all in check by the thinnest of threads. He looks at each of us in turn, then closes his visual circuit of the room by looking at me once more. With a swipe of his hand, he waves off the entire topic in disgust, stands and leaves the warehouse, his strides hard and angry. The echo of his steps in the warehouse ends abruptly with the bang of a door as he walks out. All that’s left is a peculiar ringing feeling in the air and blowing dust disturbed by his passage.
I look down at the floor. I’ll never make them understand. Never. Matt’s hand brushes my shoulder as he walks out behind his brother, but at least he doesn’t stomp.
When Savannah speaks, she sounds like she pities me and it’s almost too much to take on top of everything else. I don’t want pity. I want at least one person here to say that I’m right, that it’s worth the risk. I’d like a little freaking support.
Instead she says, “He’s right, Veronica.”
I make to argue but she holds up her hand for my silence and says, “I do understand intellectually. I do. We all talk like age isn’t an issue but when it comes down to it only Gregory and I were even old enough to vote when all this happened. You probably weren’t even wearing make-up yet! And Emily—if what she says is true—led the sheltered and protected life of a kid who spent much of her life very, very sick. If her mother really did tell her not to risk it by going on her own, if she told her to wait until she had some way to ensure her safety, and the safety of the hard drive, then I get why she waited. And I understand that her finding us and putting herself at risk to get to us was her way of doing what her mother said.”
She pauses, her lips twitching up into a brief smile at my expression. All the arguments I’m dying to make must be showing on my face. She gets up and sits next to me on my bench, scooting me aside to make a little room. Then she does the worst thing she could do. She squeezes my shoulder in a way that manages to convey encouragement, an apology, and the hope that I’ll understand. Emily used to do that.
“Veronica, I do understand. But that doesn’t change how the heart feels and I also feel the same things that Gregory and Matt do in that regard. All that we went through might have been avoided, all the people we’ve lost might never have been lost, if only she would have taken the drive. It’s easier to believe that there’s nothing of value on it and that it won’t work than to accept that people we love are gone when there’s a chance—any chance—that they wouldn’t have needed to be lost. The difference is that I know why I’m feeling it and can deal with it. Gregory and Matt, well, they just get angry.”
“But, don’t you see?” I ask. “That’s exactly it. Now that we do have the people, we can ensure the safety of the drive—at least to some extent—and every moment we waste like this means another person like you will lose someone when they don’t need to. This is our chance! What if something happens and we wind up with not enough people again.”
Savannah considers me a moment, her eyebrows drawing together as if she’s finally seeing what I’m seeing, understanding it from my point of view.
She finally nods, and says, “I understand that you have to try.”
*****
Her arm is still around my shoulders as we walk back toward the home warehouse. Instead of kids running around in typical pre-lunch fashion, the vast room is too quiet. The cages are in another warehouse, so there’s not even that noise to break the ringing of our footsteps on the dirty concrete.
Savannah tenses, so I know it’s not just me. Her hand drops from my shoulder and we both reach for the last-ditch weapons in our holsters. With no one on watch after our morning rounds, we should have had our bows, but neither of us does. So stupid.
The office door on the platform opens and we both start at the sudden noise. Charlie steps out, his face flushed. When he sees us, he blows out a stress-filled breath and waves us up. “Something’s wrong with Jon. Hurry!”
I forget pretty much everything at those words and take off at a run across the warehouse. I can hear Savannah just a half-step behind me. The metal stairs ring loudly as I run up them, a no-no in our world, but all I can think is, Has Jon been infected? It’s the new big fear for parents, including me. It used to be strangers dragging off our kids that we feared. Now, it’s whether or not our kids have enough different nanites inside them to come back from the dead if the worst happens.
Charlie has ducked back into the room and the door is open. I have no idea what I’ll find, but what I find is Maribelle standing in the corner and Jon standing next to his pallet, all the LED lanterns at full illumination and glaring off his almost nude form. In just his underpants, Charlie is examining his skin under the harsh, white light.
“Stop,” he says, his hand raised in emphasis to his word as we rush through the door. Savannah does right away, and she grabs the back of my shirt to pull me up short as I keep going. I bounce back against her and turn to try to loosen her hold, but her eyes are riveted on Jon, a look of horrified alarm on her face. She’s good with the kids and always keeps her smile on so that they don’t get scared when things inevitably go wrong. Even when an in-betweener gets too close to our fence, nose lifted at our scents and voice raised in a snarl, Savannah can be counted on to corral the kids with perfect calm and a smile. I can feel her fist twist into my shirt, holding me fast.
I turn back toward Jon and Charlie and this time, I really look. While I had been focusing on the fact that Jon was standing in the cold air in just his underpants, I missed the smattering of red spots covering his torso and legs. Now, I see them.
Charlie turns Jon around, soothing him with a quick ruffling of his hair as he does. He doesn’t look up, keeping his eyes to the cataloging or examination of Jon’s spots. “Are you both vaccinated?”
Vaccinated. The word is like a bucket of ice down my back. “Oh my god,” I whisper, trying to run the list of childhood diseases through my head that I must have received shots for.
Savannah slips past me, pushing me backward with a palm to my chest. Sticking close to the edge of the room, she takes Maribelle’s shoulder and leads her out. They disappear into the spare room—the name we’ve given to the office that we’ve pushed all the other desks into. It has only enough room for a pallet or two left on the floor and we use it in case of sickness.
“Are you vaccinated?” I ask Charlie. The truth is, I don’t know how current I am on my shots. Every year before school I went to a doctor and sometimes I got a shot or four, sometimes I didn’t. My mom—or more likely my doctor—kept track of what I needed and when.
Charlie shrugs, turns Jon back around and asks, “Are you still itchy, Jon?”
He nods, his fingers reaching for his belly, but Charlie gently pushes his hand down again and smiles. “Let’s put something on that instead of scratching. Okay?”
Jon nods again, and I can see under the bright light that he has two big bright spots of feverish color on his cheeks.
“Is he hot?” I ask, my hands almost twitching to go and soothe him.
“A little,” Charlie says, smiling at Jon to keep the alarm down. He finally looks my way. “Do you still have any of that anti-itch cream stuff?”
Luckily for us, it was high summer when all this happened. That means tons of sunscreen, mosquito repellent and bug-bite cream was left in the warehouse for distribution. We’ve used it liberally in the years since the world died. Mosquitoes were terrible the first two summers, as if the loss of so many animals and people to feed on only made them more committed. This past summer, there were far fewer. We still have loads of the various creams and lotions.
“I’ll go get it. And some cool water. Don’t let him get too hot,” I say, then stop. “But don’t leave him with no clothes on either.”
He nods and picks up a huge t-shirt from our pile of clean laundry. “I’ve got it. Just go get the cream.”
Any thoughts I may have had a
bout going to the military base leave my mind as I try to remember where we stacked all the summer supplies, including the anti-itch cream. Even Emily, in her haze of pain inside the cage, passes my mind no further than to wonder how we’ll arrange the cage watch if we have to take care of sick children. Nothing matters except Jon and his angry red spots.
Today - No Words
Our ruckus in the street has drawn others. The second floor of the bank is a bad place to try to hole up, given the glass exterior and the wide stairs, but it’s as far as Charlie could get Gloria. At least it provides a good view of the street.
I’m on watch, sitting on a pile of couch cushions liberated from one of the nicer offices, so that my head is high enough to see out, but only just. Down the hall I can hear the faint sounds of Charlie talking and the tiny moans and squeaks of pain Gloria emits now and again.
Poor Gloria. I don’t want to know more. I know Charlie will come out again, come and relay yet more as he finds it out, but I don’t want to hear it. Not now.
My arm is throbbing like it has a second heart lodged somewhere deep inside my swollen wrist. The bone that normally sticks up a little at the wrist, the knob girls used to compare or display as a sign of their skinniness—mostly the aspiring anorexics and budding bulimics—is standing up like a beacon. It’s clearly out of joint and I have no idea how to put it back other than the obvious. I’m terrified of what that’s going to be like.
Out in the street, an in-betweener is vacillating between raging around and becoming entranced by birds flitting between buildings, or chasing the papers in the street. Charlie tossed handfuls of loose papers from one of the drawers down below out in the street. Loan forms that used to cause dread in people hoping for a new house are being put to a much better use. Now, they flutter in the wind and draw the attention of the in-betweener, sending him lurching from one side of the street to the other. Some of the papers have made it to the limits of my vision, the white standing out more than a block away, and I’m hoping his steady progress in that direction will make him forget why he wanted to be in this area in the first place.