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

by JJ Pike

  “Oh, Professor.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t get you into trouble. Open the container.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Are you afraid you’ll be chastised? Because I will make sure that doesn’t happen. Now, please, do as I ask.”

  “They say she’s contagious.”

  So that was it. The woman wasn’t afraid of her boss, she was afraid for her life. That was a legitimate cause for caution. “Can you tell me how to open it? I won’t keep it open for long. I need to inspect only one site.”

  “There’s a latch at the bottom. It releases the locks. It opens a little like a bottle of Grolsch. Do you know what that is?”

  “I do not.” Christine stepped to the bottom of the glass container and examined the locking mechanism. The inner lip of the container was lined with rubber. That was what created the seal. The metal mechanism wound around the entire structure. She understood how it worked. She didn’t need the nurse any more.

  The door closed as the nurse exited.

  Christine held her breath. She’d said MELT could not be airborne, but did she know that about MELT-plus? She knew almost nothing. She was a child in the face of a mighty foe. The lock snapped back easily and she felt the metal spring back and the seal hiss open. She reached in with a gloved hand and peeled a tiny fragment of tilapia from Angelina’s skin. She’d seen that angry looking scar only a few hours earlier, but now it was a calm pink. Whatever raged beneath the skin had been assuaged by the application of these fish. She lay the skin back on her patient, closed and locked the glass cage, and ran to the door.

  The General and Fran were pressed against the far wall. They had the good sense to be afraid. Everyone should be afraid. Their lives were in danger.

  “And?” said the General.

  For once Christine knew precisely what he meant. He wanted to know what her conclusions were. “MELT loves plastic.”

  Hoyt and Fran nodded.

  “MELT-plus loves plastic.”

  “If you say so,” said Hoyt.

  “Angelina has been covered in tilapia skins since she was first injured. Tilapia, as you undoubtedly read in her case history…” The man was calm and seemed well versed in what was going on, so it wasn’t too much of a leap to imagine that he had done his due diligence. “…As you read, tilapia has healing properties as well as being excellent for pain management.” She held up her hand. “We don’t understand the mechanism, we only know it works. This is not my area of expertise, so I’m going to accept that what I have been told is true: this is a treatment that is used on burn victims, with extraordinary results. None so astounding as what we see here.”

  “What do we see, Professor?”

  “A girl who has outlived expectations. A girl whose wounds are healing or at least are under control. A girl who gives us our answer.”

  “You have my undivided attention,” said Hoyt.

  “Where is tilapia from?”

  He shrugged.

  “Fran?”

  “Australia?”

  “You are not wholly incorrect,” said Christine, “but neither are you wholly right. Originally hailing from Africa, where they thrive in brackish water, tilapia have migrated to Australia, but that’s not where this tilapia is from.”

  She waited. It was so exciting, so thrilling, she could hardly bear it. She’d solved a huge part of the puzzle. “This tilapia is farmed.”

  The General nodded slowly.

  “Do we know why this is important?” It was like her days as a TA. She hadn’t remained a teaching assistant for long, because the people were too annoying, but she’d had one preternaturally bright student with whom she’d bonded. The two of them played guessing games and created science challenges and even had scripted jokes that set them both off in gales of laughter. She would never be able to recreate what she’d had with her father before he decided she was a “freak” and an “embarrassment” and someone he wanted nothing to do with, but that was the closest she’d ever come to having a real friend. Playing guessing games, even in this hour of extreme stress, brought her relief. And a measure of joy.

  “I give up,” said Fran. “Why is this important?”

  “Because farmed fish has more micro-plastic in its gut than wild fish.”

  Neither the General nor Fran spoke.

  “The tilapia is probably chock full of micro-plastic. That’s why she’s alive. MELT has been working its way towards the fish skin.”

  The lights overhead crackled, as florescent lights often did. It was an old building. They’d had plans to update it, once the money from MELT started rolling in. That wasn’t going to happen now, but at least there was a chance they could stop MELT-plus.

  “You haven’t said anything.” She looked to Fran for help. Fran was silent. Christine turned back to the General. He too was struck dumb. She knew it was exciting news, but this was not the reception she’d imagined. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? We have a way to stall MELT.”

  “I think, Professor, there are other implications. Implications that you yourself have not fully examined.” The General spoke slowly. He’d reverted to his code. He was hedging. They weren’t going to get anywhere if he continued in that vein.

  “Spell it out. Say what you’re thinking. You give me your best ideas and I’ll give you mine.”

  “I am low on ideas, to tell you the truth. High on shock, low on ideas.”

  “Michael Rayton suggested it first. I did not trust the idea, because I do not trust the man. I remain convinced he knows more than he’s saying, which is why he knew what to do to slow the spread of MELT, but I’ve now seen it for myself. MELT loves plastic. We have to give it plastic.” She walked back down the corridor towards the stairs. “Shall we brief the rest of the team?”

  “What’s the plan?” Fran crept along beside her.

  Why were they behaving so strangely? What on earth was the matter with them? “We use those firefighting planes with the cavernous bellies and drop tons of dense plastic on Manhattan. The plastic draws MELT back towards the city. While its contentedly chomping its way through all the garbage we can throw at it, I find a way to knock it out for good.”

  “Why did MELT remain alive on Angelina for so long, Professor? Even when the tilapia skins were dried and crinkly, when we were at the South Street Seaport with her, she didn’t die of her wounds. Do we know why?”

  The Professor halted. “You’re trying to tell me something, Fran. Please speak honestly. We have learned to be frank with one another, have we not?”

  “You said it yourself, Professor. There are micro-plastics everywhere. I know you’ve been laser-focused on MELT. You’ve barely left your lab. What we know and perhaps you don’t is that the plastic islands, bobbing on the ocean, don’t just degrade in the sun and turn to PBA and PSO, which I know has caused you great concern. They also break into tiny, almost microscopic, fragments. Fish eat the fragments. Birds eat the fish. Mammals eat the birds. We eat all of them. We drink the water. We’re filled with plastics. All of us. We’re walking MELT mini-meals.”

  “MELT was eating Angelina.” Christine let the thought sink in. “My mission is now twofold: find a way to beat MELT+ and discover how to immunize ourselves against it.”

  “Are you sure you understand what you’re saying, Professor?”

  They wanted her to wail and rend her hair and freak out, as they would have done in her place. But she was no mere Normal. She was Professor Christine Baxter, creator of MELT and the person most likely to decode MELT-plus. Now was a time for cold calculation. They needed to declare a quarantine, cordon off the infected, let no one in or out, bombard Manhattan with plastic, and leave her to her work.

  She turned and left them gaping at her. She had her orders. Nothing could get in her way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Barb watched Alice inspect the car. All four tires had begun to deflate. Alice plopped herself back in the driver’s seat. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll
ride on our rims if we have to.” She turned the key in the ignition and tapped the accelerator. The car lurched again. They were listing to one side. Alice rolled down her window and peered out. “The rubber has come off the rims on the right. Boy, that was fast.”

  Barb knew why. The fire. The fire was under them. She’d tried to tell Alice, but her friend wasn’t listening. She took one hand out of the ice and placed it on Alice’s arm. “Wait. Watch.”

  The women sat in the van until the flames breached the sewer grate a third time. The car righted itself as the final tire gave out.

  “How much heat has to be generated in order to melt a tire?” said Barb. Her interest was detached, academic. It made sense that Manhattan was burning. Why wouldn’t it, when the children didn’t live?

  “It’s not the heat.” Alice hit the gas. The wheels spun as the remainder of the tires fell apart beneath them.

  “Not the heat?”

  Alice shook her head. “It’s MELT. MELT has made it this far across town.”

  Barb snuck her hand back into the ice as Alice wove through the parked cars in the middle of the street. Ahead, a flame shot from a store window into the street. Alice pulled up short.

  “Get Neal on the walkie-talkie. We need another route.”

  Barb didn’t move.

  “Look. I know this is the worst day of your life, but…”

  “Not the worst,” said Barb. “One of the worst.” She’d had Julia in her arms, now Charlotte. How much heartache could one woman survive? Not this much. Not on her own.

  “You have to help me.” When Barb didn’t budge, Alice reached down by her feet and grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Neal? You there? We need a route out of here. Over.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled. There was someone there, but the signal was low enough that she couldn’t hear the words.

  “Again, please. We’ve only made it blocks from the Avalond. There are fires. We’re not boxed in. Yet. I don’t want to take a route that cuts us off. Over.”

  The car filled with white noise and the occasional word, but nothing close to a plan.

  “I can pray us out of here,” said Barb.

  Alice sighed. “Why not. We are out of options.”

  Barb laughed. “He’s with us, whether we are knee-deep in options or at the end of our rope. His love will succor the weak and salve the broken hearted.”

  The fire lapped the awning outside the store, just 800 feet in front of them. Alice backed up, the tire rims crunching on the cement.

  Barb closed her eyes and let herself fall into that peace which, for her, passed all comprehension, just as the verse promised. “We will be one in Christ,” she said. “He will provide the way.”

  Barb felt Alice’s hand on hers. She’d joined her in the ice bucket. The woman knew something of grief and longing.

  “We should get going,” said Alice.

  “One more moment.” Barb had to stop the flow of thoughts to allow the “not thoughts” space time to blossom. They would come, if they would but give Him time.

  Alice inched the car back towards the intersection.

  When Barb opened her eyes, the entire storefront was engulfed in flame. “We need to go south.”

  “Neal said not to. He said everything south of 19th Street was underwater.”

  “Have faith.”

  Alice sighed. “It’s not that I don’t have faith. I do. It’s just that I’m not sure God has a hand in our everyday affairs. If he did, how would…” She let the thought hang in the air between them. They both knew what she meant. If God had a hand in everyday life, how would it be possible that any child could die alone in an apartment, her momma dead in the adjacent room? What God would allow that?

  “We don’t understand His plan,” said Barb.

  “That’s right.” Alice voice was taut, strained. “There are things that happen that must be beyond the sight of God. Who could look upon this and see justice?”

  Barb shook her head. “We are called, every one of us, to action.”

  Alice turned her head away. “South? We’re supposed to go south?”

  “Yes.”

  “How far?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Alice hit the accelerator, but the cast of her jaw said she was not pleased. “Let me know when you know.”

  “Go right,” said Barb.

  “Right?”

  “Right.”

  “That’s back towards K&P. We don’t want to be anywhere near that. The concentration of MELT will be highest there.”

  “I don’t know what K&P is, but He says to go right.”

  “I wish my faith were as strong as yours.”

  “He does not require you to have faith in Him for Him to have faith in you. He knows you will do what is required of you. I have faith in you, Alice. You’re one of the good ones.”

  Alice hadn’t turned. She sat at the intersection, chewing her lip. The building behind them fell, bricks and mortar and siding and pipes crashing into the street. The flames licked higher, further, engulfing buildings on both sides. The van sank. Not so much that it jogged them, but Barb was on high alert and attuned to her surroundings. “Did you feel that?”

  Alice turned the steering wheel. The van remained still. She pressed down on the accelerator. The wheels spun, taking them deeper.

  “Out,” said Alice. “All of us, out.”

  “There’s a tent in the back.”

  “What use is a tent?” Alice had her hand on the door handle.

  “I don’t know. We’re not supposed to leave the car and the tent is there to help us.” Charlotte’s hand felt warm in her grip. She smiled. Little Charlotte was urging her on from beyond. Stay firm. Keep the faith.

  “Could you be a little less oblique?” Alice was straight out irritated.

  “The tent is to help us get out of here.” Barb didn’t move. She didn’t need to. She needed to remain still and calm and heed His word.

  “Poles. Tent poles.” Alice was out the car and all the way around back and unpacking the tent in a flash. “We’re going to use these under the wheels. Come help me.”

  Barb remained with Charlotte. The little girl was pulling away, her spirit leaving the space, her grace exiting the simple plane that Barb understood to be just one plane of many.

  “You’re not going to help me, are you?”

  Barb smiled. “I’m doing my part. I need to say my goodbyes. It will be a while before she and I will be reunited.”

  Alice raced around the car, placing tent poles under the wheels. She was swearing and complaining, but she did it anyway. When she got back into the car, Maggie-loo and Mouse were excited, barking, wanting her attention. Only KC was calm. She had her eyes on Barb. They were in sync. Her calm was KC’s calm, her anguish the dog’s anguish.

  “Holy hell…” Alice scrambled to open the door and kick her shoes off. “They were coming apart at the seams.”

  “Turn right,” said Barb. “Do it now.”

  Alice revved up and gave the accelerator a couple of taps. The car moved forward. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t smooth. But it was forward motion. How she’d set up the tent poles wasn’t Barb’s business. She was already listening for the next clue.

  “Where now?”

  “Three blocks west, then turn north again.”

  “That’s very specific.”

  Barb laughed. “You can’t have it both ways. First you say God is not involved in the details, now you’re complaining that He’s too involved.”

  Alice held up her hands. “Not complaining, merely observing. We’re in a burning city. I’m listening to a woman who claims she has a direct line to God.” She didn’t say the unkind thing, “A woman with a dead baby in her lap” for which Barb was grateful. Whatever grace Alice brought to her life had made her a good person with a big heart. She was exactly who Barb needed to be with right that moment.

  The windows of the building to Barb’s left were a deep orange. The fire was close to bursting
through the façade. “Pick up the pace. One more block.”

  Alice did as she was instructed. “I don’t like this. We’re too close to K&P. Tell me you’re not driving us to our deaths.” She shot a look at Charlotte in the coal scuttle. She misunderstood. It wasn’t pain that was directing them. It was love.

  A surge of pity welled up for her friend. What would it be like if He was not there? Unbearable. She’d be alone in the world, with two dead children hanging in her heart and no one to help her through the darkness. Or, as in this case, the flames. “Turn right at the traffic light.”