The Virulent Chronicles Box Set

by Shelbi Wescott

“So, you lived here? In Brixton? Among the dead?” Lucy asked and she looked at Cass sidelong as she made her way back to where Lucy was laying.

  “So many dark days,” Cass admitted. “For you, your nightmare began a month ago. Bam. A big reveal. But not for me…my apocalypse started years before yours.” She handed a cracker to Lucy.

  Lucy took a bite and wiped her mouth. “Why did you bring me here? Why are you sharing this with me? Couldn’t we get in trouble?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “A hidden elevator to a refuge that provides a hope he did not provide? Ha, no. Huck would not be pleased to discover this…I’m not sure if it’s tank worthy, but isn’t that part of the way this place works? Confusion over consequences. Loyalties run thin...or so he makes you feel…perhaps my father would suffer the greatest.”

  Never a rule-breaker, Lucy began to feel nervous. Her heart pounded and she thought she heard the elevator clunk downward; she wondered where they were looking, where the landscape above them would be on a map—if she could pop her head up and look out, would she be able to see her car?

  After a long pause, Lucy rolled her head over and looked at Cass, facing her. Cass continued to face upward, looking at the sky with longing. She couldn’t help but stare at Cass’s strange eyes; looking from one to the other and feeling uneasy—as if there were something about this new friend that was not quite human.

  “Why are you showing me this?” Lucy asked.

  “A perfect question,” Cass replied and she stretched herself out next to Lucy. She seemed confident and at ease—without any of the worry that Lucy felt. Either Cassandra was braver than Lucy or she lacked sense. Perhaps the former seemed more likely, but Lucy worried that it was the latter. “The walls, you see. I heard it all. And so I realized that we are not so different, you and I. Each of our fathers sold his soul for a future. And while they sit and cry and pray that we will understand the ramifications for failing to fall in line…we see that this doesn’t have to be our future. Our parents have fallen prey to a rule by terror. A pity really.” As her monologue went on, Cass’s accent grew heavier. Lucy still didn’t know anything about this girl. “Yet…they keep doing things to save us. Perhaps to ask for forgiveness? This sky,” she swept her hand out over the window, “is an apology in a way.”

  “You put all that together from eavesdropping?” Lucy questioned with a small smile.

  Something about that struck Cass as funny and she roared loudly, slapping her hand against the floor. When she was done laughing, she pointed to Lucy and reciprocated the smile. “I listened before you came. I know some things. Perhaps more than you do…about the pain of leaving people behind. Your father’s empty assurances of protection. They do not want to lose you…”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Lucy said flippantly.

  “Your friend Grant is alive.”

  Lucy sat up and looked down at Cass, who didn’t look at Lucy right away. “How do you know that?” she asked and instinctually she felt her pants to make sure his letter was still secure against her body. “My father told me—”

  “What he needed to tell you. Yes. But he is not dead.”

  “How do you know?” Lucy asked again, pressing closer, and staring at Cass.

  Cass shifted her eyes to Lucy and she winked. “The kaleidoscope eye sees all.”

  Lucy exhaled loudly and felt like crying, but she held it back. Grant was alive. It didn’t matter how Cass knew; knowing was only a piece. Now the hard part would start. How could Lucy get to him before her father’s hand was forced and something bad did happen? She felt silly. Grant had been dead and undead so many times, she had lost count.

  “He’s my best friend,” Lucy said to Cass. “I feel like he’s the only one who would understand how strange this is—”

  A shadow passed over them, a quick and fast-moving darkness, a blur, and Lucy’s heart began to quicken. She raised her head to the window and saw the flash of movement above them; Lucy screamed and scampered back to the wall, convinced that they had somehow been caught. But Cass’s giggle gave her pause. Lucy peered up to the window and then let out a long breath.

  Relaxing against the cooling glass was Frank, Blair’s black lab. Panting heavily and then pausing to lick the window—seemingly unaware of the bodies below.

  “Oh, poor puppy,” Lucy said and she shot to her feet and stared up at the dog. “Why didn’t Blair go back for him? He’s all alone out there?”

  “Punishment,” Cass said and shrugged. She stood and stretched upward as if waking from a long nap. “Going out is against the rules. She broke the rules. She loses her companion.”

  “But he’ll die,” Lucy said and she looked to Cass as if she held the keys to fix this.

  “Yes,” Cass replied and nodded. “Why does Huck care? He is immune to death. A necessary cost. That is what he says…those we lost were a necessary cost for forging a new life, a better life, free of the path of our world’s blindness and evil. What is one dog?”

  One dog meant everything in a dogless world, Lucy thought. Frank was not something to be tossed aside, but to be cherished. But she knew that arguing with Cass was pointless; this was not her new friend’s logic. Lucy had not heard the Huck rhetoric before spoken so plainly. Cass was educating her on what her parents had been afraid to say: Why, really, were they here, underground, as the lone survivors? What was the point?

  “He thought he was doing a good thing?”

  “Not a scholar of history, I see,” Cass replied with a wink.

  Lucy shrugged. “Hey, I did my homework. Solid B student.”

  “Huck felt death was a necessary action. Imperative to change. He’s not so difficult to understand…he follows in the footsteps of many powerful men who believed radical change was our only chance. The difference, I suppose, is he succeeded where they failed. And now the only history that matters is the one he is writing. He is the hero of a broken world.” Cass crossed her arms over her body and took a step forward.

  “Sounds like you could write the history books if you wanted,” Lucy replied. Charming and smart. Brimming with sophisticated, canned replies. “Who are you?” Lucy asked in awe.

  “Someone who has had more time to live in this world. We lived in Cambridge. Woke up in the middle of the night with my father standing over me with a suitcase. Pack what you need. Leave everything else. And say goodbye. Moved here…after Huck’s army annihilated the city…in a house built for my father, my mother, my brother, and me. Left my friends without a word and told that I was now part of the Elektos. The chosen ones. But Huck would call me a variable if he knew my heart. C’est la vie.”

  The word caught her attention. “I thought that variables were people outside who could threaten the world inside,” Lucy clarified, thinking back to when her mother uttered that word in the Sky Room.

  “Or people inside who want out.” Cass smiled.

  “Then not everyone wants to stay here?” Finally someone was telling her the truth. The plastered smiles of the men and women in the Sky Room were a facade. They were people born from fear, from irrationality.

  “Sadly, not enough. They will understand someday, but by then it will be too late.”

  “I want out too.”

  Cass smiled. Her lips caught a bit on her bright teeth. She nodded once—a commanding action. They had known each other for an hour, but they were united in rebellion.

  Lucy rolled her eyes playfully, “I know you know that already…but…I wanted to say it. Out loud. This is not a life. I can’t stay like this and I don’t feel like I should have to.”

  “Of course. Agreed. But if you think it’s easy to just walk out and leave, then you don’t understand the System or the man in charge of it.”

  Her shoulders dropped and she closed her eyes. “I see. It was too good to be true.”

  When she opened her eyes, Cass was standing closer to her face, her hands outstretched, and she placed her hands on Lucy’s shoulders. “An escape would involve con
spiracy, espionage, detailed planning, an inside man, a cover-up, and an understanding that whatever you left here would be gone. Forever.” Her eyes pierced sharply into Lucy’s, as if she could impart the importance of her words through her stare. “And miracles. Many, many miracles.”

  “What if I just wanted to save my friend?”

  “Unless you act fast, you have a better chance of escape.”

  Lucy sighed. “You’re a really crappy motivational speaker. I thought you didn’t want this life either. You got my hopes up that it doesn’t have to be like this.”

  “The difference,” Cass replied, pulling away, “is that I know this isn’t the life I want after years of careful thought. You think this isn’t the life for you because you’re comparing it to a life that doesn’t exist.”

  Her honesty stung.

  “Then just tell me what to do,” Lucy said, defeated.

  “No.” Cass shook her head firmly, her braids waving against her back like two black pendulums. “Never. I brought you up here because you needed something special today…to remind you that even though this place is dark and confusing, you are not alone.”

  Lucy’s heart pounded. She could feel the blood rush in her ears. “I’m leaving this place. And I’m leaving with Grant. If you don’t believe I can do it, then I am alone,” Lucy said and she took a backward step back toward the elevator. She felt flustered; she blushed. For every ounce of Cass’s charm, Lucy felt inadequate and blundering. “And…and…I want to get the dog back inside,” she added stammering, grasping. “He shouldn’t be punished for Blair’s mistake. I’ll do that first.” She punctuated her last request by pointing to poor Frank, who still sat against the glass, now barking—although the glass obscured the sound and she couldn’t hear him, only see his mouth open and close, his head turning to follow some unknown sound.

  Then Lucy began to cry; she felt the sharp pang of emotion creeping up, pushing its way out. If Cass said anything to her, anything at all, she knew she would burst into sobs. Being underestimated always made her cry harder than anything else.

  But if Cass was going to reply, she didn’t have a chance.

  Startling them both, an alarm began to ring—loud and clear in the tiny space—an incessant beeping of warning.

  “Is there a fire?” Lucy asked, covering her ears. “Is that a fire alarm?”

  Cass shook her head. She walked over to the wall and flipped a switch. The beeping stopped. Still, Lucy thought she could hear it ringing upward from deep within the belly of the System. She looked frantically to Cass for answers.

  “It’s the alarm for a meeting. If that goes off, we have to gather, by pod, in the Center. As fast as possible.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “Only once. On Release Day.”

  “What could it mean?”

  Cass walked over and opened her faux wall; she pushed the elevator button and the doors swung open on command. Then she rushed into the tiny space and motioned for Lucy to follow.

  “Huck is summoning. Missing it is not an option. It means we better hurry and sneak back in…before we’re missed…or before we’re caught.” Her eyes scanned the glass and then she closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, for the first time she could see that Cass’s confidence wavered and she looked afraid.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dean moved in. After helping restock the patio with their supplies, he climbed back into his truck, sat for a few minutes, and then came back to the house with an offer: he’ll move closer and they could pool their resources. The agreements outweighed the dissent.

  Ethan, who missed the entire journey to the Trotter farm and the bonding that ensued, met the new houseguest with blatant contempt. In private, they tried to pass it off as a tactical measure: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But after time it became apparent that no one thought of Dean as an enemy. While they were enjoying his company, Ethan inwardly seethed about the implications of adding one more person to their group.

  It was one more mouth to feed, one more strong personality to contend with, and one more person to worry about when his family came back to get him. While Spencer and Joey seemed to appreciate what Dean brought to the household—an old school hardness combined with all the qualities of a fun-loving extrovert, especially after a few rounds—Darla communicated that she too was wary.

  “I don’t know, Ethan. I don’t trust him.” And after he pressed further, she looked at him and admitted, “I think there’s something wrong with a man who doesn’t seem to care about whether or not his son lived or died.”

  It was a valid point.

  And their worries hung visibly whenever he entered the room.

  They wanted to embrace their fondness for Grant while exercising their right to dislike his father. After all, he had made off with a six-month supply of meals and never seemed remorseful.

  “I used to think that when the world ended, all these macho hero types would survive. Battling off the evils and looking out for the little guys. That is an inaccurate depiction of our current situation,” Ethan mused to Ainsley and Darla while spinning around the den in his chair. Doctor Krause had given the okay for Ethan to start spending some time out and about. No longer confined to the couch was liberating. He moved the wheelchair right and left, and appreciating his newfound mobility. “Who knew? You try to kill the planet and you get high school principals and gas station attendants battling for a top seat.”

  “Darla’s bad-ass,” Ainsley said and pointed to her friend.

  Darla gave a non-committal look. “Glad to know I’m winning the power-rankings for most-least-likely-person to lead a group of people after the apocalypse. My mother would be so proud.”

  “Let’s just remember that none of us are supposed to be alive, though,” added Ainsley. The sobering thought settled on the room and she frowned. “Sorry.”

  “So then,” Ethan replied, adjusting his body on the couch, “if I saved all your lives, then maybe one-legged undeclared former college sophomore takes first place.”

  “We are doomed,” Darla deadpanned.

  Ethan threw a pillow at her and she batted it away with one swipe.

  “What’s happening in here?” Dean called as he entered the room. Ethan thought he recognized the plaid shirt Dean was wearing as one of his father’s; he added it to an ever-growing list of things that annoyed him about his houseguests.

  “We’re just talking,” Ethan answered.

  “I’ve got something to talk about then,” Dean exclaimed, powering forward with dauntless ambition for ruining conversations. “Spencer and I were having a little chat. Seems like there’s dissention in the ranks about what to do when the killers come back to collect one of their own. Right?”

  Ethan cringed. The killers. Now there was no room left to entertain the idea that the people in Nebraska could be friendly. He shifted uncomfortably and watched as Dean walked the perimeter of the room, examining the spines of books, pulling some out to look at further, and pushing them back. At least he didn’t march in with a presentation.

  “Let me guess,” Darla said. “You think Spencer’s plan is great. Arm ourselves and wait.”

  “I do. Yes.” Dean replied without even looking at them. “I don’t mean to burst anyone’s bubble here, but this guy,” he jabbed his thumb toward Ethan, “isn’t exactly on the same level as us. I actually wanted to add to the plan. I think we have room to negotiate. Make some demands. Food. Water. Shelter. Protection from further attacks.”

  “What if they don’t come?” Ethan asked.

  As the days passed by, non-arrival seemed more likely than rescue. And with Ethan’s fever returning sporadically and Doctor Krause mumbling worries about infection, everything about his future felt tenuous.

  “Or what if they don’t negotiate?” Darla added.

  “Hey,” Dean threw his hands up. “I’m the new guy, I know. But when Spencer laid it all out for me…I don’t think I want to have anything to d
o with them. I’m content here. We haven’t ventured out to the suburbs, if we work together we can clear more ground, move around. Start a little garden.”

  Spencer’s flipchart and easel remained set up in the corner. Dean saw it and smirked.

  “A little garden?” Darla scoffed.

  “I can put together a little demo too, if it helps.” Dean ignored Darla. “Look, Ethan and Darla, you’re the holdouts.”

  “I don’t count?” Ainsley asked and then waited. Everyone looked at her. “Fine. I don’t count.”

  “And Doctor Krause agrees with you?” Darla asked.

  Dean shrugged. “It would appear.” Then he cracked his neck and clapped his hands once together. “Well, this has been fun. Just…think about it.” He spun and walked out of the den, and then kept on walking out of the house, shutting the door behind him.

  “If I’d known that Spencer and Dean would end up being besties, I would’ve shot him when I had the chance,” Darla moaned. Then with an agitated sigh, she stomped out of the den, leaving Ainsley and Ethan alone.

  After a prolonged silence, Ainsley turned to Ethan and cleared her throat.

  “I’m growing to hate all the grown-ups,” she moaned.

  Ethan shrugged. “You don’t feel like a grown-up?”

  “No,” she stared at him. “Do you?”

  He made a face. “I feel bored. Boredom is my most active state.”

  “We can cure that,” Ainsley answered.

  Ethan motioned for her to continue.

  “I believe you had offered to take me on a date?” she reminded him with a sly smile. “Or was that some drug induced offer?”

  He paused and turned his head slowly to her. He moved his chair forward and backward; rolling in a straight line and backward, his head hung low. “Oh yeah? I mean…I didn’t think…it was just a…” He looked up at her. “Really?”

  She shrugged. “It was your idea and, well, we’re both bored.”

  “Oh, I see. Boredom-date. Thanks,” Ethan replied sarcastically. “But…”

  “No, sure,” Ainsley stood up without waiting for a full reply and she waved her hands in front of herself. “I get it. It’s fine. I was just kidding too.” She looked at him and then added dryly, “Ha. Ha.” She exhaled. “Cribbage, then?”