The Virulent Chronicles Box Set

by Shelbi Wescott

  “An old record player. And a charm bracelet.”

  “Of course, of course. That makes sense. We bring things that have stories,” Cass noted wisely and she nodded toward the cards. “I would not leave these behind.” Then she pointed toward the upturned card in front of them. “The Eruzulie La Flambeau is good. It’s a strong card. For a strong woman.”

  Lucy smiled. Flattery could earn Cass some credibility. She leaned closer and ran her finger over the dancing woman’s curves. It was clear to see that this card had confidence. She wished that she could see that trait in herself. “So...I am, in this present moment, strong?”

  Cass shook her head. “It’s not just inner strength that the Eruzile sees. It’s all in the timing. You are encountering obstacles and you are determined to succeed...you will not allow your fear to stop you.”

  “Like saving Grant!” Lucy said with excitement, feeling for the first time that she could put the pieces of her life into these cards and make it work.

  “Ha!” Cass let out a single, punctuated, laugh. “Yes, yes, dear Lucy. Just like that. So, you are converted now? You believe?” She raised her eyebrows and then wagged her finger. “Then let’s see about your future, eh?” With a steady hand, Cass drew the top card off the deck and went to set it down, but she hesitated. There was a flash of uneasiness and the card hovered in her hand for an extra second before she set it down. Staring at it wordlessly, Cass’s features went dark.

  “It’s bad,” Lucy stated, unsurprised. She saw the artwork: a dark woman smoking above three red caskets, each filled with a skeleton, buried underground. A forest bloomed behind the woman, but her body language conveyed a certain carelessness. “Of course it’s bad.”

  “More or less,” was the reply.

  “At least it’s not the death card. That would be too predictable,” Lucy said, eyeing the word typed at the bottom. Guedeh it read.

  “At least it’s not that,” Cass repeated. And she went to scoop up the three lone cards, her hand sweeping them off the table and into her palm.

  “Hey—” Lucy put her hand on top of Cass’s and stopped her. “I paid my ticket.”

  “You don’t believe. It’s just a deck of cards to you. There’s no point...you’ll think it’s for effect. I should just tell you that the card means hope, love, and prosperity.”

  “Oh, come on,” Lucy said and she crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s unfair. I’m willing to listen. I’m sorry about before. Tell me...”

  Cass eyed Lucy with reluctance and then she sighed. “The Guedeh are the keepers of the dead. They represent what we don’t know about death and the afterlife. But this card...it’s not good. It means that you will have a great heartbreak. That your life will be marred with a separation. And it will be caused by your own actions.”

  Lucy raised her eyebrows. “Goodness,” she whispered, resisting the urge to reply with a dismissal. Playing it off would hurt Cass’s feelings, so she swallowed and listened, trying to hide every shred of questioning that she felt bubbling up around her.

  “You will do something that will hurt a great number of people. It will reveal truths about yourself and your values.”

  “I think I’d rather have death,” Lucy replied, her throat dry. “You’re going to send me back out to play balloon darts after that?” she managed to add with a half-smile.

  Cass picked up the cards off the table. Each in turn. “This is just a snapshot. No future is set in stone, Lucy. Even God and the spirits understand that we can take control, we can set a course. Divination is a tool. It’s not...as you say...a science.”

  “But—” Lucy reached out as if she was making to take the cards, but Cass intercepted and took Lucy’s hand. She leaned down and kissed it with a loud smack and then set her free.

  “Change your path. Change your future.”

  “I don’t think the System supports your cute catchphrase.”

  “I think the System was built with that exact idea in mind,” Cass said matter-of-factly. “It’s not the motto that matters, it’s how you interpret it. Everything walks a fine line between good and evil; just a little,” Cass cupped her hands and blew, as if scattering confetti, “and everything changes.” Then she leaned at squeezed Lucy’s bicep, letting the touch linger for a moment.

  The tent rustled behind them and Lucy turned. Two boys and a girl entered holding goodie bags and brandishing tickets. One of the boys laughed and ducked behind the others, covering his mouth with a fist and hitting his male friend playfully in the shoulder, as if he couldn’t believe they had entered the tent. Their mockery was evident; somehow Cass as a fortuneteller gave them ammunition. Lucy went tense.

  The girl didn’t crack a smile. She examined Cass, scoffing at the ridiculousness of the set-up. Twinkle lights and tarot cards held no magic for her. She was an unwilling tag-a-long and her body language conveyed a mixture of superiority and unease.

  Cass looked over to Lucy and motioned for her to stay, so Lucy stood and ducked back into the shadows of the tent. If the boys cared she was there as a witness, they didn’t let on. Instead the tallest one moved forward and held out a single ticket. He sniffed.

  “So, Cassandra Salvant...fortuneteller...cute,” he said. Cass stepped forward and took the ticket and put it in her pocket. She tried to smile.

  Lucy recognized the kids in the tent. Knew their faces, their backgrounds. Hunter, Noah, and Felicity. They were of the same ilk as the Brikhams—entitled and lost. Back in the old world they had been privileged bullies. Unfortunately, the System disoriented them, so they wandered around without purpose, itching for a fight, and pushing back against the rules out of boredom. It was shocking to Lucy that Huck had not accounted for this group. Everyone underground could see their behavior shifting from calculating to brazen. Power had been redefined. And the rumors about tanking the Brikhams had been the tipping point for a great number of them. Now people saw: The Elektos Board held the keys of power.

  Lucy and Cass were the new beneficiaries, the golden children of the underground.

  And these teens knew it.

  “Tell me my future,” the boy named Hunter continued. “I’m sure you know all about the future. Right? That’s your thing.” He collapsed in the empty chair, and Cass sat across from him. She pulled out her deck of cards and hesitated.

  “What kind of reading do you desire?” Cass asked. “Is there someone you are hoping to discover? Love? Business? An upcoming challenge?”

  Hunter sneered. “You pick,” he said.

  With careful deliberation, Cass flipped three cards onto the table facedown. She went through each card, like she had with Lucy, giving him select information. His past was filled with contentment, good fortune. His present was challenging, feeling concerned, worried. When Cass reached the card for his future, she looked up and made eye contact with Lucy for a brief second, and then she launched into all of the shining opportunities headed his way.

  “That’s what that says?” Hunter asked as he leaned over and examined the picture—reversed, it showed a woman standing on a box surrounded by smoke, a snake wrapped around her middle. He reached out to grab the card, but Cass moved in and pushed his hand away. “Hey,” he snapped, affronted. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Don’t touch the cards,” Cass said in an even voice. She peered around him to the lurkers in the doorway of the tent. “Who’s next?”

  Felicity cleared her throat and shook her head. “You’re a joke,” she said, her voice as slippery as oil. She said it as if it had been the plan since the beginning, as if they had discussed a word-war before entering the tent. It was a rehearsed barb; planned and plotted and executed with ease.

  Cass stood up and put her hands on her hips. She elongated her neck, exuding such confidence and élan that Lucy felt momentarily frozen—her friend was not intimidated. Lucy wished she could say the same thing for herself. Her heart was pumping wildly and all the words she wanted to say to stand up for Cass were tumbling away.


  “You can leave now,” Cass said and she pointed her finger toward the tent opening. The sidekick, Noah, snickered, a brutish har-har-har as he looked around for reinforcements.

  “Not without my future,” Hunter said to Cass and in a swift motion he lunged toward the table and swiped up the final tarot card in his hand. Cass watched the scene unfold, but she had been too slow to react. Instead of pitching forward after him, she bowed her head, and let her shoulder’s drop. The boy flipped the card between his fingers. “Zombi,” he read. “You lied. This card is about something else. Life after death, maybe? This card is about prosperity? I’m not an idiot. Maybe it means you and everyone like you are planning on taking more from us. You’ll go after our souls next. Right?” But something in Hunter’s voice wavered, as if he couldn’t understand how Cass’s refiguring of his future positively could hurt him.

  “It’s not that kind of zombie,” Cass said to him. “And if you feel like you’re a better fit to sit in this tent and play-act for tickets, be my guest.” She motioned to the chair. Lucy thought she heard a trembling in her voice, but if so, it was disguised, hidden, buried beneath Cass’s levelheaded charm. She stood firm.

  “Playacting,” he repeated. “Sure.”

  “So, then, you believe the tarot? You’re confusing me,” Cass said to the group. She pretended to stifle a yawn.

  After a quick look to his friends, Hunter turned to Cass and looked her square in the eye. Then in slow motion, he ripped the card he was holding in two and let it float to the floor, its two halves fluttering down and landing inches apart. “No more Zombi,” he said with a wink. And the group turned to leave.

  Cass watched them, unmoving.

  “How dare you,” Lucy whispered from the shadows. Then she cleared her throat and tried again, “Who do you think you are?” Stepping forward, the group stopped. They assessed her with annoyance rather than fear.

  Felicity opened her mouth to respond, but Hunter put his hand up. “Who do I think I am?” he asked. “Who do I think I am?” He turned and looked at his pals. “Lucy King wants to start something.”

  “Maybe she’ll get her daddy to poison you,” Noah snickered.

  “Cass’s daddy can build a nice big tank for all of us to fit in together,” Hunter added.

  Lucy cringed.

  Of course they knew. Of course the System’s rumor mill was a well-oiled machine—and while Lucy’s negative energy was directed toward Huck, Gordon, and Blair—for most people there was no difference between the Truman family and Scott King or Claude Salvant. She realized now that the hostility was warranted, even if it was bred from misinformation. For a moment she felt compelled to defend her father; she wanted to say that they didn’t understand, he didn’t have a choice, he was going to do good—he had saved Grant, after all. But before the argument left her mouth, she knew it would be in vain.

  Lucy took a step toward the trio and bolstered up her strength as best she could.

  “Apologize to her,” Lucy said. “Those cards were special. Maybe it’s all a joke to you, but these cards meant something to Cass.”

  After a moment, Hunter stepped forward. “Oh yeah?” He turned and gained support from his friends. “They meant something to her?”

  Lucy nodded and swallowed hard.

  “You know what meant something to me?” he asked, taking another step, the distance between him and Lucy shrinking. She resisted the urge to take a step away. “My house. My friends. My life. My dad wakes me up and tells me to pack one suitcase because we have to take a little trip. Some car picks us up and takes us to the airport before the sun rises and off we go. You know what’s in my suitcase? Nothing. I don’t have shit. I thought my dad was taking me to boarding school, so I left my bag empty. I don’t have anything that means anything to me.”

  “You have your life,” Cass interjected without missing a beat. Then she walked with a steady click-clack of her feet against the Center’s tiled flooring and put herself in front of the boy. One of her shoes partially covered the Zombi card on the floor, the tiny wisps of white fog visible underfoot. “The moment you forget that the very fact that you can breathe...the very fact that your heart beats...that your brain thinks...is a gift, then you’ve lost sight of everything that matters. Someone in your family earned your right to live here. And you risk it...you dare to risk it all.”

  The trio froze, halted by her intensity. Cass hadn’t sounded overtly threatening, but it was still there: intimidation thinly veiled.

  “Go,” she commanded and they tripped over each other to exit, swearing at the girls under their breath and mumbling on the way out—the sounds of the festival outside filling the tent and then eclipsing as the door flapped closed.

  When it was clear they were gone, Lucy rushed forward. She bent down to retrieve the pieces of Cass’s tarot card. “I’m so sorry,” Lucy said. Cass walked back to her table and Lucy held the torn card in her hand. “You didn’t deserve this. I’m so sorry,” she said again. “It feels like we let them get away with it. It feels like they won.”

  “What have they won?” Cass asked. “What did they gain? They left, didn’t they?”

  “Nothing, I suppose,” Lucy answered. “A fleeting sense of power, maybe. But your winning argument is that they should feel lucky to be here? Lucky to just be alive?” Lucy stopped and waited for Cass to contradict her. When she didn’t, Lucy asked tentatively, “You don’t really believe that. Do you?”

  “Being alive is never enough,” Cass said to Lucy slowly and she sat down in her chair. “You’re nothing without your freedom.” She pulled the rest of her undamaged cards out of her pocket and put them in front of her.

  Lucy walked over and put the ripped card on top.

  “We’ll tape it,” she said.

  Cass nodded. Then Lucy watched as her friend wiped away a single tear.

  The curtain rustled again and Lucy spun. She half-expected to see Hunter back with more cronies, but instead it was Blair standing at the tent entrance. She was dressed in black leggings and big brown boots; an oversized sweater dwarfed her small shoulders. She didn’t have a loot bag or a string of tickets, only a serious expression, and an ounce of self-awareness.

  She looked at the girls and then closed her eyes. When she opened them, she seemed surprised to find them both still staring at her.

  “This was a mistake,” Blair mumbled and turned to leave.

  “No, no,” Cass called out. “Please...you don’t have to go.”

  Blair looked at Lucy and Lucy stared back. Then she walked forward and placed her ticket in Cass’s outstretched hand.

  “How does this work?” Blair asked. “Can I ask specific questions?”

  Cass tilted her head and nodded. “Yes. And then we can see what the cards say.”

  “Alone,” Blair said. She didn’t have to look in Lucy’s direction, but Lucy could still feel Blair willing her to exit.

  “Of course,” Cass answered, a little too quickly for Lucy’s liking. Her friend turned to her and tried to look apologetic, and Lucy tried to play it off. She waved goodbye and made a face at Blair’s back before exiting out into the bright fluorescent lights of the Center. The noise hit her instantly—the cheers, the music, the rumble of a bass. Children laughed, some cried, and there was a huge splash from the dunk tank. The cacophony was overpowering: Lucy put her hands to her ears to tune some of it out.

  Inside of Cass’s tent, Lucy had heard nothing from the carnival. The world had gone silent under the big heavy tent flaps. She wondered, just for a second, how her mother had managed that trick.

  Chapter Five

  They sat in the pickup truck without speaking. Ainsley hunched over with her hands in her lap, and she refused to look up. She kept sniffing and would occasionally let out a little squeak like a swallowed sob. But Darla refused to coddle her and Dean was too busy trying to get them out of the city to spend much time trying to mend the severity of the tension between the women.

  For an hour they
tried to maneuver the back roads. The freeways and the bridges were gone, clogged, damaged, and cluttered. Neighborhoods were riddled with debris. Dean would turn the car down one residential street and find it empty, only to turn down the next street and find a tow-truck blocking their way or a fallen tree left across the road. Down a different street, the road was washed out. One month since human life was ripped from the world and evidence of mankind’s absence rippled outward in ever-growing circles of devastation. They were not up against people, but rather the remnants of people.

  Out in the city, further away from Whispering Waters, it reminded the group how egregiously the world was damaged. Some obstacles were moveable. Dean would throw the truck into park and wordlessly they would push a car out of the way or roll abandoned garbage cans to the side of the road. Some obstacles would stay forever.

  Every roadblock incensed Darla.

  “You’re too close to the main roads. Too many people tried to escape the freeway back-ups this way,” she complained.

  Before people knew there was no escape, they tried to flee. Major cities like New York and Los Angeles were hit with multiple attacks. The worldwide wipeout created mass panic. No one knew who the adversary was, but while the virus—in their water, in the air—took effect, countries mobilized against their natural enemies. The masterminds had simply needed to give the world a push; governments accelerated annihilation.

  “If we can get north of this, we’ll be fine. It’s going to take trial and error,” Dean replied. He was the picture of calm.

  Ainsley sighed.

  “We’d be farther along if we had hiked out,” Darla snapped. “We have about forty minutes before it’s dark, Dean. And then we’re stuck. We won’t be able to maneuver this truck after that. We’ll be one mile away from homes we know are empty and habitable, but unable to get back to them. And Washington is a bad idea. Last time I had radio contact, there were Raiders working up there who told me the bridges were out.”