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

by JJ Pike

  “Oh, thank God. Literally. Thank you, Jesus, for sending us uptown again. I was beginning to lose faith there.”

  “Ten blocks north and we’re there.”

  “Ten blocks?” Alice continued to weave through the parked cars, past falling buildings, over decomposing streets. “That’ll take us back to the Avalond.”

  Barb nodded. “He’s coming for you.”

  Alice swore under her breath. “So help me. If this is a suicide mission, I’ll be mad at you for all eternity, Barb.”

  Barb smiled. “No, you won’t. You’re going to be free.”

  “Free as in, my soul flying free of my body? That kind of free? Because I am not a fan of that option. I have children. I have a job to do. I need to find my people and help stop this crazy destruction that we’ve set in motion.”

  “No. Not free as in dead. Not yet. You’re going to find Bill. Bill’s going to survive. You’re going to find your family. I’m sorry about the deaths. Not all of them will make it. But you will and your husband will.”

  Alice was silent.

  The fire roared around them. To the east there was an explosion. Seconds later, debris showered down on the van.

  “Keep going. Back to where we started.”

  “I’m not sure the van can make it.”

  She was right to be afraid. Only a fool would drive through a wall of flame. Only a fool and them. They would make it. Barb was sure. “Do it.”

  There was no turning back. The street behind them was disappearing, store by store, as the flames grew insistent, strident, all-encompassing.

  “Do it.”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “Die here or drive.” Barb could see Alice on the other side, reunited with Bill. His road would be hard, but he was a fighter. He’d make it. Together they’d create a place like no other. Theirs was a battle that had to be won. The fate of the children was less clear. One, no two, clung to life. Two more were filled with despair. Her own future was hazy. But she didn’t need clarity, she needed her faith. With that, all things were possible.

  “Here we go,” said Alice. She crashed her foot down and charged the wall of flame. They hit a car, swerved to the left, hit another, backed up. The flames lapped at the van.

  Barb visualized the engine and the gas tank, enveloping them in an icy protection.

  Alice swore and maneuvered but, to her credit, never stopped. When they made it through the fire there were three whole blocks that hadn’t been inundated.

  Alice laughed the whole way back to the tower block.

  “Told you so.” Barb laughed with her friend.

  “You’re insane,” said Alice. “Fabulous, but insane. Now what?”

  “Now you go to the roof.”

  “Sweetheart. That boat has sailed.”

  “No, Neal’s coming back for you. Trust me.”

  Alice shook her head. “The fires are too extreme. If he has any sense, he’ll stay away.”

  “Leave no one behind,” said Barb. “That’s his motto. That’s why he was still here when I got here.”

  “But coming back to Manhattan would be suicide. It’s insane.”

  “You said driving through a wall of fire was insane, but you did it.”

  Alice laughed. She was talking. Something about there being no options and rolling the dice and things turning out against the odds. She’d been there, she said. She knew about odds. She could do it again, even if this time the likelihood of her making it out alive were not good.

  Barb wasn’t listening to Alice. There was another voice, louder and more pressing telling her what to do. “My work here isn’t done.” She unbuckled herself and climbed out of the van.

  “What do you mean?” said Alice.

  “Take Charlotte far from here. I want her to be buried in a place of natural beauty. Let there be flowers and trees and a running stream. Let there be birds and forest animals and all the things God loves best. Let her be with His creation. Not ours. His.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I have work to do,” said Barb. “If there is any chance there’s a creature alive in this city and unable to fend for themselves—whether they’re afraid or trapped—I am called to free them.”

  Barb settled Charlotte and the ice scuttle back onto the front seat, filling her hands with kisses and fluttering all around the coal shuttle that held her heart. “She will go with you. As will Mouse and Maggie-loo. Neal will allow them this time. He won’t be able to leave them, or you, behind. KC will come with me.” She took the axe from the van and walked towards the Avalond stairwell. “There are locked doors. We’re going to unlock them. You’re expected on the roof.”

  Before Barb had reached the stairs, the walkie-talkie crackled to life. “It’s for you. He’s come back.”

  When she reached Charlotte’s apartment she was just in time to see the chopper bank and head north. She ruffled KC’s head. “Okay. Let’s get to it. There’s work to be done.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Manhattan has been declared a hot zone.” Aggie stood in the center of the kitchen. “We need to leave.” She’d allowed Mimi to fuss and cry and kiss her—not the greeting Petra had gotten, but whatevermundo—but now that the greetings were done, she was all business. She addressed Jim, because she was a brain that way. Mimi would look to him for the final yes or no on any question. Paul used to say Aggie would outsmart all of them one day. He was right.

  “What’s a hot zone?” said Sean.

  “I have no friggin’ clue. They have a whole new vocabulary. I’ve been listening in on Mom’s ham radio. The officials are all about the ‘hot zone, chemical reactions and exclusion area, infectious agents and skin lesions.’ There’s a guy who goes by the handle Widget, who talks on 146.52, who’s talking ‘plague’ and ‘societal collapse’ and ‘gangs’ and ‘militia.’ He’s coherent and convincing, but a bit out there. Truth is, all the commentators sound damned similar in the last eight hours. The chatter has escalated. There are gas fires up and down Manhattan…”

  “We heard about those,” said Petra.

  “But it’s far worse than that. The subway is flooded.”

  “Which line?” said Petra. Not that it mattered, except that Mom usually took the #7 and it would be hard to know that was underwater.

  “All of them.” Aggie nodded while the news sank in. “Underground flooding and, get this, underground fires.”

  “How is that possible?” Sean was working on his phone while shooting questions her way.

  “Buildings collapse, gas stations collapse, gas leaks into the subway, fire spreads…I don’t know.”

  “That is sick.” Sean carried on doing his deals on his phone, scoring uppers and downers and things to keep cancer patients and asthmatics alive. He didn’t notice the frown from Mimi or the quizzical look Jim gave him. Now was not the time to interpret for him and let them know that “sick” meant “cool,” but in a way that didn’t mean “cool” the way they understood it to mean. Same words, different meanings.

  “There’s more,” said Aggie. “There’s a mandatory quarantine.”

  “Not much left to quarantine,” said Mimi, “what with the fires and flooding.”

  “Mom and Dad and Paul are still down there,” said Petra.

  “They’ll have evacuated by now,” said Aggie. “There have been rescue boats running between Manhattan and New Jersey for at least the last forty-eight hours.”

  “So, who’s being quarantined, then?” Mimi was tipsy, so the questions flowed freely.

  “Anyone who was within a ten-block radius of the original accident is to report to their local ER.”

  Mimi snorted. “That’s not going to do much. No one’s going to go to an ER if they don’t have to.”

  “Signs you might have been exposed include unexplained cuts, cuts that won’t heal, trouble breathing, nausea, vomiting, and so on.”

  Petra caught Jim’s eye. He didn’t say anything about what they’d s
een in St. Augustine’s ambulance bay, so she didn’t either.

  “Scores of buildings collapsed on those people. They will all have ‘unexplained cuts’ and ‘trouble breathing.’”

  “Anyone not reporting for quarantine will be fined and jailed.”

  That put a stop to Mimi’s rambling interrogation. “How will they do that?”

  “They’ve called in the National Guard. They’re stationed at all ports along the Jersey and the Long Island shores directly across from Manhattan. They’re on all bridges. There are no tunnels coming out of Manhattan any more. They’ve all been flooded. The Brooklyn Bridge collapsed, No one knows why, though there are lots of theories floating around out there.”

  Would Mom and Dad and Paul be in an ER by now? If they’d made it to safety, why hadn’t they called? They might have lost their phones, but the grid wasn’t down. Look at Sean, tapping away and scoring enough pharmaceuticals to open his own drugstore.

  “It sounds about as bad as it can get, Aggie, but why do we need to move?” said Jim. “Moving is always a measure of last resort. Bugging in is infinitely preferable. Even if you haven’t prepared much—and we’ve all prepared plenty—staying put is the easier option. Finding shelter when you’re a refugee is hard going.”

  “You can’t be a refugee in your own country.” Sean didn’t look up and didn’t stop working his phone.

  “Don’t be too sure of that, son. This is not the time for abstract discussion or, if you’re headed that way, politics. This is a time to calmly and carefully weigh our options.”

  “Agreed,” said Mimi.

  “We need to move because of the massive numbers of people fleeing now that a quarantine has been declared. People have been pouring out of Manhattan for days. It’s not just Yonkers, but Westchester, Orange, Ulster, and Duchess County. They’re swamped. Hotels have been full for days, the Bed and Breakfasts and Airbnb’s are stacked to the rafters, camp grounds are overflowing. Supermarkets have been picked clean, restaurants are closed, even the fast food joints in Pennsylvania and Virginia can’t keep up with demand. If Widget is to be trusted, truckers are starting to re-route themselves, because of this ‘exclusion zone.’ No one knows what it means. The general chatter is that people who were injured in the blast have been moving out of Manhattan unchecked and have a highly-infectious fungus or bacteria that can be passed by touch or bodily fluids. Widget signs off from every broadcast with the same words, ‘Don’t sneeze on anyone you love or the plague is gonna get you.’”

  “I get it.” Jim was on the edge of his seat, listening to Aggie’s every word. “We knew this would happen. I didn’t figure on the disease part, but the massive number of people coming out of the city, the stores being emptied in a few days or less, people moving further and further north, all of that’s expected. I still say we stay where we are and let them pass us by. We have our own plan.”

  Petra didn’t want to get left out of the discussion. She’d had 19 years of living on the sidelines because of her anxiety. Now was the time to expose and eliminate it. If unexplained cuts and wounds that wouldn’t heal were something to look out for, the equation had changed. “There are how many of us? Jim, Mimi, me, you, Sean, Midge, Betsy, and Cassie.”

  “Wait. Back up. Betsy’s coming home from the hospital? She was shot in the chest. She needs weeks, maybe months, of bed rest.” Aggie had only been gone for a short time, but she’d missed so much.

  “Betsy’s doing great. She’s on her way here now.”

  Agatha nodded. She looked different. Like she’d aged. Like she was an adult. Petra had always known her middle sister was a Brain, but here she was exuding authority. If anyone was going to know what to do next, it was Aggie. “Who’s Cassie?”

  “She’s Midge’s nurse. Midge had surgery…”

  Aggie’s eyes narrowed. She couldn’t say the words. Her throat moved, but she was mute.

  “Midge did great at first. They said the bullet had only grazed her skull. All of us—doctors included—expected a bandaged head and some black eyes, but nothing more.” Petra took a deep breath. “But then she experienced some trouble with her eyes. Brain swelling…” It was hard to talk about. It was only this morning when she herself had been paralyzed with indecision, but looking back it was as if she was looking at a different person. How could she have stalled? Had she cost Midge her sight? Her life? She’d let her stay in a place that was host to a virulent bacterium. Or virus. Or fungus. Whatever, it was infectious.

  “And…?” Aggie squeaked out the single word then fell silent.

  “She underwent an operation to relieve the pressure.” Jim took over, which was a blessing.

  Aggie’s reaction wasn’t unlike Mimi’s. Her cheeks flushed, her lips tightened, her shoulders were bunched up way past her ears. Aggie was not someone you wanted to pick a fight with. She was ruthless. She’d always win. She took no prisoners and put up with no nonsense. “They drilled into her brain?”

  Jim nodded.

  “And she’s on her way back here?”

  Jim didn’t smile or try to soften the information. He simply gave her a curt nod and returned his attention to his to do list.

  “You took her out of the hospital?”

  Petra gathered her courage. Talking to Aggie was harder than talking to Mimi. She could sway her grandmother, but she wasn’t sure she could convince Aggie that this had been a good idea. “They’re running out of meds. And before you have a full-on guilt trip like I did, it’s not all our fault. There are shortages everywhere. We decided it would be best for her and Betsy to be in a place where there were life-saving medications.”

  “Tell her the rest,” said Mimi. “Don’t spare her feelings. It’s worse if you try to mete out the truth, the way you did with me.”

  “The hospital where Midge had her operation is also under quarantine. We didn’t know why until this minute.”

  Aggie was rigid, her arms crossed and her legs planted firmly apart, as if she was bracing herself against a hurricane and didn’t know when it might hit. “This far north? They’re quarantining people this far north?”

  “There was a patient who’d been in the original building collapse. They were transported to St. Augustine’s earlier today. We got Midge out as soon as we could. Then Cassie, she’s the nurse I just told you about; the one who’s helping us, called to tell us the hospital was going into lock down. If you hadn’t told us about the quarantine in Manhattan, I wouldn’t have been able to piece it together.”

  “Let me get this straight. There’s a patient up here who was exposed to the plague and you want us to stay here?”

  “We don’t know that it’s a plague,” said Jim.

  “We don’t know that it’s not,” Aggie shot right back.

  Petra waited. It was all going to be decided in the next minute or so. The room was tipping away from “shelter in place” which was what she’d built her hopes on, for Midge’s sake. If they stayed at Jim and Betsy’s place, they could cobble together a hospital room of sorts and nurse her back to health. If they moved, especially if they made a caravan and tried to take supplies with them, they’d be an easy target. Mom always said, “you’re only as fast as your slowest group member.” Midge couldn’t move. They’d be dead meat.

  “You’ve been up here, doing whatever you all have been doing, while the rest of New York goes into freefall. You’re not clued in. You’re…”

  Petra butted in. “You should go. I’ll stay here with Midge.”

  “That’s a lovely thought,” said Jim, “but you don’t have the skill. This is serious nursing. We need Betsy.”

  “I have a plan.” She took Sean’s phone from him. “I also have a rich boyfriend.”

  Sean nodded. “I’m your boyfriend again, then?” No one laughed. He had the worst comic timing of anyone ever. It made her love him more.

  “If I find a nurse who’s willing to stay, you could move on and Midge and I could come join you when she was ready to move. We can build a
pressure alarm under the road leading to the house so I can hear people coming and a perimeter that keeps people at bay. I’m sharpshooter-level good with a gun, you saw that for yourself today.”

  “No. I can’t let you do it. It’s too dangerous to leave two girls alone in the woods.”

  “How much can we spend?” She directed the question at Sean.

  “However much you need.”

  Petra walked out onto the back porch and dialed. “Nigel. Petra Everlee. Have you been exposed?”

  Nigel wavered. “I don’t think so. The infected patient is in another ward. I’ve been on critical cases that have nothing to do with her or the burn victims. That being said, if this thing is airborne I could have been. So could you, for that matter.”