BURN - Melt Book 4: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series)

by JJ Pike

  “Hey, freak!” It was the man. He didn’t have his hands over the little boy’s ears any more. He didn’t come as close as he might have done in other circumstances. Naomi must have said something to keep them at bay. Christine was grateful. “Is what she’s saying true?”

  She couldn’t admit that she’d zoned out when their emotional babble had reached a pitch she couldn’t bear. They were already on the cusp of assassinating her and tossing her lifeless corpse overboard. “I’m sure it is. She’s been an excellent interpreter.”

  “What the hell does that mean? The two of you are in cahoots. You have been all along.”

  “I am in cahoots with no one,” said Christine. She needed to roll out her standard presentation on what it meant to be her, to be neuro-atypical. It was her only gambit. “I’m a scientist. I deal in facts and figures. I have no aptitude for language. I understand neither symbolism nor metaphor. They’re too loose for me. I need to remain in the realm of facts. I am easily confused by overt demonstrations of emotion. They cause me to shut down. For this I apologize. I realize it must be frustrating to you.” Her husband had railed at her whenever she said that, but he shouldn’t have. She meant it. They wanted something she didn’t have and couldn’t manufacture.

  “Leave her out of it,” said Naomi. “Talk to me.”

  “You’re a straight up liar,” said the man. “Get the freak to talk. She at least tells the truth.”

  Naomi rounded Angelina so she was facing Christine. “I told them everything.” She winked. Christine’s stomach turned. It was a sign for a trick-lie. This was going to go horribly wrong. She didn’t know what Naomi had said to the mob, but whatever she said next would seal their fates.

  “The child is infectious,” said Christine. “Don’t touch her if you wish to remain safe. She’s the key to understanding what went wrong. I need to get her to my lab.”

  Naomi’s shoulders relaxed. Good sign.

  “That’s not the point. The point is she told us this was a virus. She told us terrorists had taken Manhattan. Is any of that true?”

  “I can’t speak to the assertion that there are terrorists, plural, involved. There may be. I have my suspicions about who, singular, caused this to happen, though I am unable to infer why they might have done so. Minds with different aptitudes will have to piece that together. There are people dedicated to such investigations. I gave the data I had on hand to someone I trusted and implored her to set about finding the perpetrator or perpetrators. I contend that this was a deliberate act by a person or persons as yet unnamed, to what end I cannot tell you. The result of his actions has engendered terror, so in that sense, yes it was a terrorist attack.” It was the most detailed half-truth she’d ever told, but it was based entirely in the truths she’d gathered together so far.

  “Does anyone know what the hell she just said?” The man threw the question out to the crowd.

  “It’s management gobbledegook, Hank. She’s playing us.” Oh, good. A name. He was “Hank.” The woman who’d addressed him had to be familiar with him in some way. A wife, perhaps, or a sister. It didn’t do to make assumptions. The barest fact was she knew his name.

  “This is not management speak, Hank…” Her guidance counselor would be proud. She’d used his name as soon as she’d learned it. “This is the absolute truth. I have a condition. You will have heard of it. I have Asperger’s.”

  “You do not.” It was the wife. “People with Asperger’s can barely speak to strangers.”

  “It’s on the spectrum,” said Christine. “I am what some people call ‘high functioning.’ Many parents of children with the condition do not prefer this nomenclature. I, myself, don’t mind that label. It is descriptive enough to be useful to me.”

  “Make her shut up.” It was the woman with no shoes. She was the angriest person in the boat.

  Naomi held her hand up, palm flat, and waved it at Christine in a downward motion. Her father had often done the same when he wanted to shush her, so she was familiar with its meaning.

  “MELT is the name of the compound,” said Naomi. “Its sole purpose is to eat plastic.”

  A murmur went around the boat. They’d heard that information before. Why the consternation now?

  “Right. If that’s its purpose, why and how has it burned this little girl?”

  That was at the heart of Christine’s need to investigate. How indeed. “She was wearing a crown of flowers when MELT malfunctioned.”

  “Please make her talk sense,” said Hank.

  “A crown of plastic flowers.” Christine pressed ahead. She almost never talked over someone else. Only when it was absolutely necessary. “The plastic melted, as it was supposed to…”

  “What idiot put plastic flowers on a child when she was handling anti-plastic?” Hank’s wife made a good point.

  “The plastic burned her skin and, I believe, was driven into her epidermis by MELT. This is not a function of MELT, which is why I know it has been sabotaged. It was designed to eat plastic only. That it bonds with other material, flesh included, and continues to mutate and eat its way through buildings, is the mystery I need to solve.”

  The crowd was silent. Had she done a good thing? Had she convinced them?

  “You’re the reason we’re in this mess.” It was the woman with no shoes. She’d stood up and was staggering down the boat towards Christine.

  The captain didn’t intervene. Why not? This was his boat. He should tell the woman to sit.

  Frank held up his gun. Christine had almost forgotten about the weapon and its capacity to sway crowds and captains alike. Would he do it? Would Frank shoot the woman? How would he know if she was a real threat? She had been so mad for so long there wasn’t a bright line for her to cross.

  “Step back,” said Naomi. “Getting in her face won’t make this better.”

  “There’s no money either, is there?”

  That broke the back of the calm. Christine held on to the stainless-steel cooler, hoping it would steady her and/or keep her safe should someone come at her.

  Frank fired his gun in the air. That stopped all talk, but the frowning and tight lips and squinting eyes were by no means canceled out.

  “You get out of here with your lives,” said Naomi. “You did a good thing. You heard the Professor. She’s going to study how to stop this. Leave her be.”

  The woman with no shoes lunged at Christine, though it put her in great peril. Christine had her hands over her head and her face pressed into her knees to protect herself from the attack. She wasn’t going to fight back. That wasn’t in her best interest. She was a useless fighter, all slaps and no fists.

  Frank fired his gun again.

  The woman with no shoes screamed. Then she swore. Then she screamed some more.

  Christine peered out from her crouched position. He’d shot her in the leg. He’d really done it. No bluffing, only consequences, just like Naomi had said.

  The dock was rushing towards them. It was the other way around, of course, but that was the visual sense Christine had. As they approached a dock close to the ferry terminal at Weehawken, it approached them. There were a thousand boats waiting, each bobbing in place. The waves were not violent as they had been alongside Manhattan. This was going to be easy. Apart from the woman screaming and crying and bleeding not ten feet away from her.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” said Naomi. “You’re going to sit quietly while I take the Professor to her laboratory. You’re not going to follow us and you’re not going to talk about what you’ve learned here. That will only cause panic. Let the officials do their jobs.”

  “What a load of horse pucky,” said Hank. “People need to know. If there are terrorists involved, the public needs to know.”

  “They’ll know in good time,” said Frank.

  “Are we clear? We are getting off this boat first. Anyone who follows us will get the same as Jenny here.”

  Her name was Jenny. “No Shoes Lady” was a Jenny. Ho
w sad to only learn it at the eleventh hour, when talking to her was pointless. The woman bled profusely and moaned a great deal, but Frank had stopped her attack. It was a good advertisement for gun ownership. If anything like this were to happen again, Christine would more than likely purchase a handgun so she could take charge of the situation, rather than relying on strangers. Why they would help her was a miracle, but they were helping her and she wasn’t going to fight that.

  Everyone on the boat sat quietly. She’d heard enough about the insides of other people’s minds from Alice to know that they were not quiet by choice. Once again, the negative persuasion of steel had done its job.

  They waited in line for forty-five minutes. During that time Christine noted the proliferation of dead fish around the boats. She hadn’t seen when the blanket of rats gave way to a blanket of fish, but judging by the shadows out on the water, about two-thirds of the surface was covered in fish, while the third closest to Manhattan’s shores was far darker, indicating perhaps the presence of rats. She had so much circumstantial data, she couldn’t wait to get to her lab and put her team to work. With this much evidence they’d crack the mystery that the new version of MELT had presented in short order.

  They docked and, as Naomi had indicated, were the first to disembark.

  “You’re carrying her,” said Naomi. “Don’t look back. Don’t say a word. And don’t try to outrun us. We’re still getting our money, no matter what.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “The answer’s no.” Neal was finally looking like a man who’d climbed forty-five flights of stairs; sweaty and agitated, not listening to her properly.

  “I can get them here in under two hours, I know it.”

  “I am already doing two runs, Barbara. Me, Chuck, and Suze will go in the first flight just in case he freaks out, Mr. Peterson and Deirdre in the second one. We can’t make a third.”

  “But why not? What difference does it make?”

  “The fires are getting worse. You said so yourself. The sun’s going down. Visibility is poor. I’m not putting Gerard’s life in danger. You go on the first flight with me or you don’t go at all.”

  She needed to get Bill and Alice to The Avalond. Once Neal saw them he wouldn’t be able to turn them away. He had a good heart. He was three-quarters of the way to agreeing to evacuate her friends. It was just that his head hadn’t caught up with his heart. She’d get him there. The key was to whisk Alice, Bill, and Pete uptown fast. She ran down to Charlotte’s apartment. Her neatly-stocked stroller was sitting waiting for her, complete with canned goods, diapers, rash cream, the works. She hadn’t been thinking when she’d loaded it up. Her mind was still in “elevators and door men” land, when it should have switched over to “no electricity and no one on hand to help” -ville. She couldn’t get that thing down the stairs. Her people had to come here if they were going to eat and drink.

  “Okay, doggies. I am going to take you outside and let you find your own way. That’s the best I can do. I can’t get you on the helicopter, too. If I let you out, you’ll have the best chance of finding someone who can help you.” The more she talked, the worse it got. Was she going to abandon the dogs? What about the cats that were hiding under beds in all the apartments around the city? Was she responsible for them too? “Dear Lord, protect the animals. I leave them in your care.” But what if God had left them in her care? What then?

  She unloaded the stroller and removed the bassinet that doubled as a car seat, then made up a bag of baby essentials for the road. She was going to take the van as far as the roads would allow. It might not get her all the way back to Alice, but whatever time she could save would be a blessing. Mouse trotted beside her, KC bounded ahead and back, ahead and back. Mouse waited by the elevator for a full minute before responding to her calls to use the stairwell. The dogs were excited by the stairs, but neither of them ran too far ahead. She told them the score again. They couldn’t be bumming a ride with her. She was going to see them to the street and say her goodbyes. She loved all God’s creatures and would never let harm come to them, but she had barely convinced Neal that he should come back for the humans. He’d shown no interest in the dogs. “It’s not going to happen, pooches. You’re going to have to gather your wits and make your own adventure.”

  When she opened the door to the van, KC hopped in. Mouse was too low to the ground to manage it, so she lifted him and put him beside KC. “You’re not going on the chopper, you understand?” Mouse licked her hand. “You’re a charmer, but it’s not going to work. Let’s find a kind person who’ll help you get where we’re going. You’ll be safe. I promise.”

  She took her time getting Charlotte situated. Her cherub hadn’t made a sound since she’d had her second feeding. Barb had checked her diaper. All clear on that front. “You’re snug as a bug in a rug, aren’t you? I’m going to keep you that way. This is the buckle that keeps the car seat secure. See? We slip it in there, like that.” Who wouldn’t be a mother? It was the best job in the world.

  The keys were in the ignition. Neal had been in such a rush to get everyone to the penthouse, he hadn’t done a final check to secure his vehicle.

  Advantage: Barb.

  The steel gate that had kept the vandals out and the cars in was locked. Neal to the rescue again. He’d left bolt cutters on the passenger-side floor, along with his axe, a walkie-talkie, and a Taser. Barb hopped out of the van, crunched the lock, raised the gate, and drove onto the empty street.

  It was a sight to see, Manhattan with no traffic. She cruised down 53th Street, crossed 5th Avenue and made her way to 6th. She’d be driving the wrong way down the Avenue, but with no cops and no cars, who’d care? The empty streets gave her the wiggles. There was none of the usual push and press and impatient shouldering your way past whoever wasn’t going fast enough. She’d longed for a day when she wasn’t ratting it out with the mass of humanity who’d stab you in the back for a pay raise and a corner office, but without them what was Manhattan? A monument to man’s indifference to man.

  Food wrappers and scraps of paper blew towards the windshield. Soda cans and bottles rolled in the gutter. The trash cans were long past overflowing, the storefronts shattered, the shop-window dummies crunched and hunched and stripped of their finery. On the way uptown she’d been so focused on the individual stores and her hunt for food and water that she hadn’t seen the big picture. Her hometown had been gutted from the inside out and its carcass set on fire.

  As she passed 47th Street she had an urge to race down to the Build a Bear and see if there was anything left there for Charlotte. She’d remembered formula and diapers, but forgotten the Mozart mobile or any of her million stuffed toys. Every baby needed a fuzzy friend, right? She knew better than to turn. The crazy broad who’d robbed the store was evidence enough that there were still vultures picking the bones of this mangled heap of a city. She didn’t need to tempt fate. Cruise down to 19th Street, get Alice et al., and head right back to The Avalond.

  The walkie-talkie on the floor crackled. She swerved, narrowly missing a parked taxi. KC barked at the invader. Barb shushed the massive, smooshy-face lovebug and reached for the walkie-talkie.

  “Barb? You there?” It was Neal. He’d known she’d take the van. He’d left her all that gear deliberately.

  She pressed the button on the side of the walkie-talkie. “You’re too kind.”

  “I’m looking at the roads. You want to avoid everything south of 15th Street.”

  “Roger that. Don’t go south of 15th.” That was good. Alice was on 19th Street. “What else are you seeing?”

  “Fire. Lots of fires, big and small. Water everywhere. Sink holes the size of Vermont. Boats as far as the eye can see, most of them headed away from Manhattan. You need to grab your friends and go north.”

  “You’ll come back for us?”

  “No, Barb. We can't.”

  “I trust the Lord. He’ll provide.” Barb snuck a look back at her miracle. If she could save a child
, anything was possible.