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

by JJ Pike

  Betsy nodded. Great. That sealed it. Betsy was the boss, even though Jim talked like he was. He always looked to her, asked her questions, weighed what she said as more important than his own opinion. If Betsy okayed it, she’d be allowed to go.

  “I’d feel a bit better if you had a 2IC,” said Betsy.

  “What’s a 2IC?”

  “Second in command,” said Jim. “You sure, Bets? I hate to leave you here.”

  “Go,” she said. “Get the vermin away from your barn. They’ll be shooting up your prize cars if you’re not careful.” She was joking and not joking at the same time. Clever how she got her man to agree with her by diverting attention away from the decision itself. Petra hadn’t seen her parents “manage” each other that way. They told the truth. Like, all the time. Which made for some heated debates, but none of this skirting around each other and getting what you want by sly means.

  “Get in,” said Jim, “and buckle up.”

  Just as she opened the door to the Jeep she saw a nurse jogging across the parking lot, checking car windows. She waved. Nigel had come through for them. She felt better about her decision instantly.

  “Don’t get too excited. The day isn’t over yet.”

  “Hey, there.” The nurse hadn’t even broken a sweat. “I’m Cassie. Nigel said you needed someone to monitor your sister?”

  Petra nodded. She’d seen this nurse before. When was it? Cassie had a bandaged hand. That was the memory trigger. She’d come in with the burn patients. She’d had a massive gash in her hand. Her blood had pooled on the linoleum. “How’s your hand?”

  “Hurts like hell,” said Cassie. “I was put on desk duty. Ordinarily they’d have sent me home. Blood-borne illnesses and all that, but we’re slammed, so I got to stay.”

  “You sound very cavalier about blood-borne illnesses, young woman. Should you remain in the field?” Betsy had her strict voice on.

  Cassie shrugged. “I’ve been stuck so many times now, I can’t get myself worked up about it. You follow all the rules, but there’s going to be that crazy late-night druggie who lies about what’s in their pockets and triple-gloves don’t protect you from sharps.”

  “Is that what happened in the ambulance? Did you get stuck by a needle?” Petra had one eye on her hand, looking for blood, and the other on Cassie’s bland, unruffled face.

  “No, that was a different level of madness. I wasn’t in the first ambulance with the patient no one can touch. She’s in a world of trouble. I took care of the two who were caught in the gas station blast.”

  “Wait, back up,” said Betsy. “You have a patient no one can touch? Why’s that?”

  “I only know what they told us when we were loading them from the choppers. She’s burned and the chemicals on her skin are somehow alive. You can’t use any form of plastic when you’re treating her and you absolutely must not allow your own skin to come into contact with hers. It’s mad.”

  “What’s the chemical?” Jim had gotten back out of the car and joined them. “It sounds highly volatile.”

  “No clue,” said Cassie. “She’s in the acute ward, isolated from everyone else. I don’t like her chances. The other burn victims, the ones I was charged with looking after, aren’t doing well. You saw the aerial footage of the explosions, right?”

  Petra shook her head. She’d been too busy bargaining with the universe to check the news.

  “Oh my God, you guys. It was just the worst. The buildings falling were bad enough, but there are underground fires because of all the damage to the subway system, and one of those fires reached a gas station on the east side.”

  “There are hardly any gas stations in Manhattan,” said Petra. She knew because they were always careful to gas up before they went anywhere near the city.

  “Right? Still, it went kaboom, throwing flaming debris way up into the sky. What goes up has to come down. These guys were a couple of blocks away, but they still got krispied.”

  “Not respectful,” said Jim. “These are real people, with families who love them.”

  “Sorry, Sir. It’s a coping mechanism. We see so much blood and gore. At some point, you have to compartmentalize just so you can do your job.”

  “She’s not wrong,” said Betsy.

  “So, anyway…” Cassie cupped her bandaged hand, “one of them was thrashing around and my hand was collateral damage. I hope there was no blood-to-blood transfer, but it was messy enough in there and the cut was deep enough that I’m going to be on anti-virals for six months.”

  Betsy looked to Jim and Petra, her eyebrows raised. She didn’t need to say it. Did they want Cassie, who was potentially infected, to handle Midge?

  “I get it,” said Cassie. “How about this? I’ll stay here and if your sister wakes up—her name’s Margaret, right?—if Margaret wakes up, I’ll get someone out here or her in there. It will be like desk duty, but in a parking lot.”

  “We have to get going,” said Jim. He kissed Betsy again.

  Petra didn’t dare kiss Midge. She didn’t want to wake her up. “Did Nigel give you my number?”

  “Roger that,” said Cassie.

  “Text if anything changes.”

  Jim was already gunning the Durango, ready to get out of there. The voice in Petra’s head was silent. Did that mean she’d made the right choice? No answer. She buckled up, praying Midge would be safe.

  Getting out of the hospital grounds was far faster without a sick girl in the back. When they saw the highway, Jim whistled. There were cars clogging the north-bound highway. Drivers were honking their horns and throwing up their arms and screaming at each other, but that didn’t change a thing. No one was moving. “That’s why we always take the back roads. Locals know.”

  Petra nodded. Jim would take B roads and backstreets. They’d clock more miles, but hit less traffic. Jim pulled off at Main and 11th Street, staying away from the highway. He cut down a side street, hopped out at a wooden gate, and drove straight into a field full of cows. “This is when you’re glad you’ve got an all-terrain vehicle.”

  The drive back to the compound wasn’t precisely “as the crow flies,” there were more streams and clumps of trees and wandering farm animals than that, but it was pretty close. Every bone in her body rattled, teeth included. She hung onto the bar over the window, for all the good it did her.

  “Do you have guns hidden around your property?” She had to shout to be heard.

  Jim laughed. “We have guns hidden inside the walls and floor and hidden compartments of this Durango. Then there are the ones your mom keeps out at your dad’s favorite blind. We buried those together. We have about seven or eight stashes that we all know about and I have five only I know about. If you’re going to defend yourself, you have to expect the unexpected. I wanted to be sure I could find a weapon at any time, no matter where the interloper entered the property. Any more news from Sean?”

  Petra checked her messages. Nothing.

  “We always knew this day would come, even though we didn’t know it was going to be today. Your sister didn’t believe me when I said there’d be rioting, looting, and general mayhem…”

  Petra clapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t thought about Aggie for the longest time. She had no clue where her elusive middle sister had gone. She’d left them food by the door, but had never come in. She was tending to the animals on the sly. Pippy had carrots and apples, the chickens had their feed, even Floofy had everything she needed. Aggie had to know how much pressure they were under. She was doing her bit to keep them safe. Petra hadn’t checked the loft in the barn, but with any luck Aggie was camping out up there. Her stomach settled, but the minute she let her guard down, the voice started back up.

  “Who’s it to be? Midge, Sean, or Aggie?”

  She banished the evil idea. “Mostly rifles? Is that what you’ve buried?”

  Jim shook his head. “We’ve got handguns, rifles, shotguns. Your dad has some sweet pieces he got at auction. We’ve tested them all
out. We’re not going to come up short. They’re stashed in airtight bags. Ditto the ammo. Don’t worry. We’re going to teach these suckers a lesson. And if they’re not willing to learn, well…their choice.”

  Petra wasn’t worried about the guns. She knew Jim wouldn’t scrimp on that score. She needed him to keep talking, though, in order to halt the Universe’s voice in her head.

  “Sean would take a bullet for you. Midge, too, if she knew what it meant. Aggie’d be first though. She’d run in front of damn near anything to keep all of you safe. She’s protected you more times than I have fingers and toes. She’s got your back like no one else.”

  “Ha!” thought Petra, but backed away from the thought immediately. If she thought about her Bestie, the universe might add him to the mix and she’d never sacrifice him for anyone. It was a chilling thought, that she could in fact choose one human over all others. Not pretty. Not something she’d admit out loud, but there it was. She’d choose Paul over everyone. Hands down. No competition. She would never agree to any crackpot mental equation that put Paul in the Universe’s crosshairs.

  “Everyone has a bottom line. Most never find it. So Paul is your pressure point? You’ll give us Midge if we leave Paul alone?”

  There had to be something the universe wanted from her that was more important than Paul. The hospital was stacked with people she didn’t know, people who were in worse shape that Midge, people who’d had a good run for their money and wouldn’t mind trading places with a little girl, if only they knew how precious she was and how much they all loved her.

  “You know what I really want?”

  Good grief, the Universe was pressing hard. It was so immediate, so there in her mind, it was almost in the SUV with her. In a flash, she knew what it wanted; what it had always wanted.

  The equation solved for X.

  The Universe wanted her.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Weehawken docks were a mish-mash of panic and relief. People poured out of their boats, scrambling towards the street where the taxis once waited. There were none now. There were phones and apps and calls for Ubers and private taxi cabs. A woman with a small child in tow ran into the street, waving down a car. She was too far away for her words to carry, but the intent was clear. Help me. Help us. Get us out of here. The car backed up then inched around her in order to make its get away.

  Christine didn’t want Naomi and Frank to know where she worked, but they’d saved her from the mob and she’d promised them money so there was no way to shake them and be on her way.

  She squeezed Angelina, hoping her legs weren’t knocking against people. It had seemed like such a good idea, to take her from Paul Everlee and transport the child to her lab, but that involved none of the messiness of “getting there” in her mind. “Bring on the tractor beam that will take me anywhere,” she muttered. But then she might be like Seth Brundle, the ambitious, if excitable, scientist in the movie The Fly. He’d entered his teleportation pod unaware that a fly had also entered, thereby fusing them at the “molecular genetic” level. The results, as anyone might have anticipated, were deleterious to his health.

  She smiled. She’d watched that movie with her ex, Milton, when they had first started dating. When she’d downloaded her impressions—only because he had insisted she do so—he’d laughed at her precision. “No one says ‘deleterious,’” he’d roared. “That’s hilarious. What else? What else did you think? What did you think of the girlfriend?” Baffled, but grateful for the attention, Christine had shared all her impressions. It was a golden time, full of promise, when he still thought her precision and attachment to what others thought were frivolous details was an act, an elaborate joke. Later he’d come to sneer at her mode of speech, calling her an “emotional midget” with the Emotional Quotient (EQ) of a “thwarted dwarf.” She was neither, but she didn’t know how to explain that she was the same woman he’d (allegedly) fallen in love with.

  It was probably a good thing he’d left. He’d have done one of them physical harm if he’d stayed. That’s what all the statistics pointed to. If you live with someone who belittles and sneers at you, chances are it will come to blows at some point. The precise statistics eluded her, but she would have been glad to bury her nose in her phone and track them down if it hadn’t been for the fact that she had two extremely irate “companions” steering her from the edge of the water, through the throng, to the edge of the street, all the while hissing at her to hurry the eff up and other language that was entirely unsuitable to use around a child, even if that child was only semi-conscious.

  There were no taxis to be had. Neither would they be able to flag a car down. How would they explain the draped child or the gun that had never left Frank’s hand, even though he thought himself very clever by secreting it in his pocket?

  “We’re screwed,” said Naomi. She turned to look back at the boats, perhaps thinking they could convince the captain to take them to a dock further north. Not a terrible idea, though their personal captain would have left by now. “Would you look at that?” She was breathy, her eyes wide.

  Christine turned. There were six large fires ablaze in Manhattan, where there had been three, if the billowing smoke stacks were an accurate indicator. Her brain began to filter the data, formulate hypotheses, fulminate against the implications as more and more possibilities presented themselves. MELT had eaten away Manhattan’s infrastructure, of this she was now convinced. Nothing with a shred of plastic stood a chance. With the removal of pipelines, gas stations would have been ignited. What would MELT do with petroleum? The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention. Her dream compound might not stop at plastics. She hadn’t thought of that. She’d been so focused on Angelina she’d short circuited, when she should have been thinking ahead.

  “Get us out of here, Frank.” Naomi’s tone was commanding.

  While Christine had been glad of it when the couple from Illinois first stepped up to help her convince the passengers aboard River Journalism Tours to rescue Angelina, she now found it grating. The woman was bossy in a bad way. There were people in her life who were bossy in a good way, so she knew the difference. Alice Everlee was a prime example. She would take charge of Christine’s missteps and turn them into triumphs, without making her feel belittled or ignored. Perhaps Alice had made it to New Jersey and was at K&P’s compound already. That would be a bonus.

  Frank was banging the glass face of his phone, swearing in extremely creative ways. That wasn’t going to get them a ride. In that moment, she was struck with a concept of great genius. “I have a corporate account with a car company,” she said. That wasn’t the genius part, but she didn’t want them to see her excitement, so she bottled the feeling and waited for one of them to offer her their phone.

  “You couldn’t have told us that sooner?” said Naomi.

  She couldn’t because it hadn’t occurred to her that she might need to call on Vasilli, her favorite driver, to come and get her. The advantage of using a car service was that, if Vasilli wasn’t available, there would be other drivers, though Vasilli was the best because he made no comment when she asked him to put the carcinogenic “air fresheners” they all hung from their rearview mirrors in the trunk so she wasn’t inhaling unnecessary contaminants.

  “How do we get this ‘car service’ to come get us?” Naomi’s tone had shifted from friendly-solicitous to jagged and jarring. Alice had tried to train Christine to recognize sarcasm, in all its forms, because some was “friendly, jesting sarcasm” and another kind was “biting and designed to humiliate you.” She had the sense that Naomi had emphasized the phrase “car service” in a way that indicated she didn’t quite believe such a thing existed, which was ludicrous, because of course they existed. Angelina was getting heavier by the second and Frank and Naomi were breathing so hard she was worried they might hyperventilate. She’d been in this type of emotional quandary so many times, but she was never able to anticipate it. She was only able to recognize it after it
had transpired. They didn’t appreciate the fact that her brain never stopped analyzing what was going on. If she couldn’t catch a break, why should they?

  She smiled. She had the upper hand. She hadn’t paid them the second installment of their blackmail money and they seemed desperate to get it. She also had a plan, which was so rare she might even dub it her “Black Swan” moment.

  “If she smiles one more time, I’m going to wipe that smug look right off her face,” Frank was belligerent. A man with a gun in his pocket needed to remain calm.

  Christine dropped her smile. It wasn’t like it was working for her, either. “If one of you could dial for me.” She lifted Angelina a few inches, even though lugging the girl just a few hundred yards had made her muscles scream, to show them that she did not have a free hand with which to dial.

  Frank handed Naomi his phone. Why he couldn’t have done the dialing was a mystery. Christine gave Naomi the number and asked her to put it on speaker. She heard a sound she hadn’t heard in years. It was a busy signal.