by Toby Neal
“I can’t just leave him.”
“Do it for your family. They still need you.”
JT turned to Elizabeth. There were tears on her cheeks. “Think about them. If we fail, they will die, millions of people will die.”
“They will die no matter what.”
She shook her head. “Don’t say that. It’s not true.”
The Sight told him it was. Her precious mission was doomed before its completion.
JT knew they couldn't save everybody—but he could perhaps maintain his humanity by saving some. “Wait in the car. I’ll help and meet you back there.”
“JT.” Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. Each one pierced him deep inside—he hated that she was going to fail, that he was causing her pain. “Please. I’m begging you. I can’t see you get sick.”
“Hey.” he stepped up close to her, pressing his body to hers and wrapping an arm around her waist. “Shhh, don’t cry.” Elizabeth leaned her head against his chest and snuffled a sob into his shirt. He petted her hair—so smooth and silky. “You’re going to be okay.” That was the second time he’d promised her that. It just kept popping out. Hopefully it was the Sight, and not his own wishful thinking. “But I have to do what I have to do.”
“I want to help too, then.” Her voice was muffled against his pecs. “I saw some rubber gloves back in the science lab. Let me get them, I can probably find some masks and chlorine too.”
“You should go wait in the Rover.” He didn’t want her exposed.
Elizabeth looked up at him, then over at the man lying on the floor, coughing quietly. “No. If we’re going to do this, I need to help too.”
When they returned to the hall where they’d left the stranger, armed with masks, gloves, paper towels and jugs of chlorine from the pool area, they found him lying still. JT's flashlight panned over his still fever-hot skin. Elizabeth squatted down and touched her gloved fingers to his neck. She shook her head.
A new wave of coughing broke out from the gymnasium area, and JT turned toward it. He picked up his canteen, glad the man’s mouth hadn’t touched the rim, and filled it at the water fountain outside the gym. Elizabeth came to his side. “Let's check on the living and then we’ll bury the dead,” JT said.
“Okay." Elizabeth’s mouth was covered by a mask, but her eyes held that same steely resolve he’d seen in the midst of her panic attack. She was terrified, but doing what needed to be done. If that wasn’t courage, he didn’t know what was.
Inside the gymnasium, an electric lantern glowed in the far corner. The big room smelled like floor polish, sweat and the cloying scent of illness. Their steps echoed on the shiny wood floor as they approached four figures lying on blue gym mats. Two of the figures were deathly still, and one coughed loudly while the other shivered with fever.
Elizabeth reached out and took JT’s hand as they crossed the wide space. Her touch was comforting and welcome. They reached the four men and Elizabeth approached the one shaking with fever. Wetting a wad of paper towels, she placed the cold compress on the man's brow. JT squatted down next to the coughing man, touching his gloved hand to his mask to make sure it was secure.
He didn’t want to die like this—suffocating on his own immune response.
"You're not alone,” JT told the man.
The man seemed to breathe easier at that, his coughing coming under control. He was middle-aged and balding, with a large stomach but sunken cheeks. "I’m the caretaker of the high school,” he said. "These are my brothers. We left our homes because our wives and children were still healthy. We wanted to quarantine ourselves."
"That was smart . . . and heroic." Elizabeth said from where she crouched next to the feverish man who was now muttering under his breath.
"Did you see my brother, Paul?”
"Yes," JT said.
"We heard people. He went to get help."
"I'm sorry." JT couldn’t bear to tell him the man was dead, but just his comment brought a fresh wave of coughing. When it subsided, the man spoke again, his voice even lower. "I know we’re all going to die here. Please, bury us."
JT nodded, not knowing how he would grant the man's final wish but determined to do it.
"There's a backhoe. On the baseball field. We were about to start construction on some new bleachers. The key is on my key ring. You can use it." The man started coughing again, his eyes screwing shut as he rolled onto his side, curling around his struggling lungs.
The feverish brother lashed out. Elizabeth fell back onto her butt as the man's arms waved wildly. JT jumped up and hauled Elizabeth back, his arms around her waist and her body pressed against his.
“Betty!" the dying man screamed. "Betty. Betty." His voice lowered and his arms sank back onto the bedding. "Betty."
The man went quiet and still. So very still. JT kept his arms wrapped around Elizabeth. He could feel her heart beating through her back, against his chest. His own pulse thumped in time with hers.
They were alive.
The caretaker stopped coughing and reached out for his brother. "John. John, are you still with me?"
Elizabeth pulled away from JT, and he let his hands trail off of her, wanting to maintain contact for as long as possible. She knelt next to the man and felt for a pulse. "He's gone."
JT rushed to perform CPR, compressing on the man’s chest. He was still burning hot. Elizabeth’s hand fell on JT’s arm. "It's no good."
The man’s only living brother agreed. “We’re all dying, son. The world is dying. Please, bury us. Just bury us."
It was the last thing the man ever said. He was dead an hour later.
Elizabeth stood up, picking up one of the jugs of chlorine she’d cut with water. She poured it over her hands. JT came up behind her and she turned to him. “Put out your hands."
He did as she ordered and she poured the irritating, strong-smelling liquid over them. "Chlorine is the best defense. As far as I know it's the only defense." She looked back at the dead men. "But I worry that it's not good enough."
"I'll bury them,” JT said. "You go wait in the Rover." He didn't want her to experience what he knew was a horrific job.
"Of course I'm going to help." She didn't even look at him. “We need to get back on the road, and it will be faster with two of us."
She glanced around the gymnasium, hung with handmade signs cheering on the Rattlers and the Bears. "We can use those. Wrap them up and then maybe we can find a wheelbarrow or something to roll them out. When you go check out the backhoe, see if you can find some sort of cart. And I'll pull down the signs."
"Sure you're okay being left alone with them?"
Elizabeth nodded. "I'll be fine." She looked up at him, her eyes blue as the Mediterranean that lapped at the shores of Italy, his ancestral homeland. "We have a job to do."
JT found a wheelbarrow in the garden shed and brought it back to the gymnasium where Elizabeth had pulled down the signs and brought them over to the bodies. Together, they rolled the men up into them, hauling them into the wheelbarrow one by one and pushing them out onto the lawn. JT found the backhoe where the caretaker said it would be. He fit the key into the ignition and the big engine rumbled to life, and he drove it onto the field.
JT dug a pit with the machine while Elizabeth gathered a pile of cement bricks from the upcoming development project.
The big, deep hole, illuminated by the construction vehicle’s headlight, was black with rich soil. The air was thick with the rich, fragrant scent of turned dirt—a smell JT had always associated with his mother and her garden in Philly.
He doubted he’d ever smell it again without remembering this night.
Elizabeth helped him push the bodies in and JT climbed onto the backhoe and buried the five brothers. At least they’d been together at the end. Would his own brothers meet the same fate?
Elizabeth placed the blocks on top of the mound of earth in the shape of a cross. “One of them was wearing a cross so I'm assuming they found comfort in the
symbol.”
She removed her gloves and pulled off her mask. JT followed her lead. She dumped more chlorine onto their hands and they wiped up their arms and splashed it around their necks, even rubbing the harsh chemical over their faces. It burned JT’s skin and stung his nose. But the sensation was a comfort. It was their best defense against this fatal disease. They headed back to the Rover.
Pinocchio whined and panted in the driver’s seat. JT gave him a thorough pet, letting the dog’s soft fur and enthusiastic whimpers comfort him before shooing the hound into the back. Elizabeth got into the passenger side and JT backed up, returning to the main road.
His hand itched from the chlorine and a deep need to touch Elizabeth, to feel her heartbeat again. He craved physical proof of the life coursing through them both.
Her profile was set as marble, her gaze focused on the road ahead, her brows drawn together. She looked beautiful. Achingly beautiful, even with dirt in her hair and a frown on her face.
To him, she’d gone from a pretty girl to a beautiful woman in just a few traumatic hours. JT reached out and set his hand on her thigh, giving her firm leg a squeeze, relishing her warmth. She placed her hand over his, as light as a bird landing.
A shaft of feeling, really just a glimmer of something new, warmed the emptiness that the long-ago loss of JT's wife and child had left in him.
Elizabeth
Hours later, they switched seats and Elizabeth drove while JT slept. She kept glancing over at him. The seat was reclined, and he leaned up against the door, a pillow cushioning his head. The tumble of his glossy black curls, the steep arc of his muscular shoulder and back, the shadow of those ridiculous lashes on his high cheekbone—everything about him made her want to touch, to hold, to caress, and to explore. And he was such a good person. He brought out the best in her. Staying to help those men was the right thing, the compassionate thing to do, even if it had been dangerous and delayed their journey.
While she’d watched the disease under her microscope and done everything she could to find a cure, Elizabeth had never seen anyone die from Scorch Flu. The reality of it was terrifying and depressing but, somehow, being with JT still made her feel safe. He’d said she was going to be okay, and she believed him.
Those poor brothers, though. Hiding out together, trying to save their families. Would their wives and children survive? Probably not. It hurt her heart to think of their sacrifice being in vain.
Pinocchio stayed up with Elizabeth, his doggie breath warming her shoulder until JT stirred as the sun began to rise. “I’ll drive,” he offered.
They switched again, and Elizabeth opened a can of black beans and cut up chunks of cheddar cheese for their breakfast, feeding Pinocchio too. Spooning the beans into his mouth made her hungry for him. What a metaphor that was. She smiled to herself as she nibbled on a piece of cheese, glad he couldn’t read her mind—and his hand never left her leg, where it warmed her all the way down to the bone.
For the first time ever she wanted someone and he wanted her back. His big hand, always resting on her thigh, told her that. She didn’t need Melody to interpret “male smoke signals” as she had in the past.
They rolled down a long smooth hill through more farmland planted in wheat and alfalfa, approaching a mid-sized town. “Welcome to Roverton!” a sign at the town limits proclaimed.
“Seems okay. Think we should look for gas here,” JT said.
Elizabeth nodded in agreement. The town appeared up ahead; pretty, clean, and nestled in a cup of a valley, Roverton was bisected by a river.
They were halfway across the two-lane bridge spanning the river when four motorcycles rolled toward them, taking up the width of the road. The bikers wore skull cap helmets and bandannas over their faces, sunglasses obscuring their eyes. JT slowed as the bikes formed a blockade. “We’ve got pirates.”
Elizabeth clutched the dash as JT threw the SUV into reverse and tried to back away, but two more choppers came tearing up behind them, blocking their exit.
“Can you just go through them?” Elizabeth balled her hands into fists.
“I don’t think we’d make it. The bikes might get under the truck and rip up our undercarriage.” JT’s voice was low and tight. He put the Range Rover into park, making sure the windows were closed and doors locked.
“What are we going to do?”
“Stay in the truck.” JT held the Glock on his thigh. “Whatever happens, don’t get out of this vehicle.” He turned to her and held Elizabeth’s gaze. “Hear me?”
Elizabeth nodded, nausea roiling through her, making it hard to swallow.
The four men in front of them dismounted. A burly man wearing a leather jacket and red bandana, his eyes shielded by mirrored aviators, pulled a shotgun off the side of his chopper and stepped forward. The weapon rested in his hands, aimed at the ground.
“We just want the vehicle! Not gonna hurt you. We’ll let you walk away.”
“Not gonna happen!” JT yelled.
The man directly to the leader’s right was staring at Elizabeth. When she looked at him he pulled his bandana down, exposing a stubbled jaw. He licked his lips and waggled his tongue at her. She shivered.
Definitely not going to happen. Elizabeth gripped her knife, pulling it out of her pocket.
The leader raised his shotgun, aiming it at JT. The other men all produced weapons, leveling them on the truck.
Elizabeth glanced at the shotgun in the footwell of her seat. She couldn’t go for it. Not yet. Her breathing became more even as panic transformed into clarity.
“Elizabeth.” JT’s voice was steady. “I’m going to get out.”
“Please don’t.”
“I have to. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
How could he? He was totally outnumbered. She didn’t want to sit here and watch that beautiful man die. He opened his door, slipping the Glock into the back of his pants and pulling his shirt over it as he climbed out, hands up.
“Yeah!” yelled the one who’d been eyeing Elizabeth. “Leave her in there. That works out just great.” He strode forward toward her side of the vehicle while the leader and another man, just as big, approached JT. That left one man with the four bikes in front, and two still behind them.
Pinocchio jumped into the driver’s seat, baring his teeth and barking at the man approaching Elizabeth. The biker grabbed her door handle and pulled. Finding it locked, he raised a pistol at her face. “Open it, bitch.”
The lenses of his sunglasses were pure, matte black, obscuring his eyes, and reflecting nothing back.
Pinocchio barked over her shoulder as a gunshot rang out from JT’s side of the truck. The man at her window glanced up. Elizabeth brought up the shotgun up, aiming it at his face.
“Back up!” she screamed. Her heart was hammering and her breath was shallow as adrenaline surged through her body. She recognized this feeling: the rush and terror of facing death. It was him or her.
It wasn’t going to be her.
The biker laughed and brought his weapon up.
Elizabeth fired.
The window shattered and the man fell back screaming, hitting the guardrail of the bridge and tipping over.
Elizabeth’s ears rang and she was covered with chunks of safety glass. The splash of his body hitting the water barely penetrated the ringing. But it sent a shiver through Elizabeth—that sound would return in her nightmares, joining the labored, gurgling final breaths of the first man she’d killed when she was seventeen.
Elizabeth cracked the shotgun and grabbed shells from the stash in her door, shoving them into the barrel with shaking hands—shock was setting in, but this battle wasn’t over.
Pinocchio’s barking was drowned in the sound of another close gunshot.
Elizabeth locked the Remington and looked up. JT’s back was pressed against the driver’s side window. He held one of the men in front of him as a shield, the Glock to his temple. The leader was on the ground clutching his gut, blood seeping
between his fingers.
The two bikers who’d blocked their retreat by pulling their motorcycles in behind approached JT, weapons ready. “I’ve got your man covered!” JT yelled.
JT needed her help. Elizabeth shoved her knife back into her pocket and opened her door. Broken glass crunched under her sneakers and she closed Pinocchio in the car for his own safety, though his growl was a rumble she could feel more than hear.
Elizabeth pushed up her glasses. Heart pounding, sweat beading on her forehead, fingers slick on the heavy weapon, she walked around the front of the Range Rover.
JT didn’t know she was out of the vehicle. He aimed over the man he held at the two bikers approaching from behind. He fired, two quick, perfect shots, and the men crumpled.
But the one in front was coming forward, weapon rising. No one was paying any attention to her.
Elizabeth fired, the Remington at her shoulder, keeping her body loose. She hit the biker in the chest and he twisted, weapon flying from his hand, and fell onto the pavement.
She glanced at JT.
He stared at her, eyes almost black, his forearm tight against the remaining biker’s neck. The man was turning purple and clawing at his arm. “Get back in the truck!”
She obeyed, running back to her side and jumping in. Pinocchio whimpered, licking her cheek, and she shooed him into the back seat while she reloaded the shotgun.
JT finally dropped the man he’d choked, who fell like a sack of laundry, and strode over to the motorcycles, stopping to kick the fallen leader out of the way, then pushed two of the bikes aside so their vehicle could get through. He shot holes in all the tires, a coup de grâce.
Back in the driver’s seat, JT put the truck into gear and hit the accelerator. The Range Rover’s powerful engine raised smoke from the tires as they tore away from the scene. The SUV flew across the bridge, reaching ninety miles an hour by the time they’d crossed the river.
The road ahead of them was clear.
“I told you to stay in the truck!”
Elizabeth’s ears were still ringing from the incredibly loud gun shots. Hot wind rushed in through the broken window. “I didn’t have a choice! That biker was going to shoot you!”