The Gatherer Series, Book 1

by Colleen Winter

  Maria had an irrational moment of jealousy that Storm had ditched her for another companion until the whispered name of Daniel carried through the group. She tasted revulsion in her throat. He was unrecognizable, his dark hair gone, nothing left to identify him as the rigid, brilliant young man who had been so determined to do the right thing.

  Dorian’s grip on her arm tightened as they carried Storm and Daniel away, pain shooting into her fingers. Storm didn’t wince below the TV screen or avoid the forklift as it passed close by. Anger rose so fast and strong that Maria shook—not the erratic trembling she’d seen in Storm but a manifestation of the fury rising from her gut.

  She let Dorian drag her back to her chair. The pounding in her leg was so strong she thought the skin would burst, but it was nothing compared to the frenzied pounding of her chest. She strained to see into the low block of offices at the far side of the warehouse where they had taken Storm and Daniel. The crowd milled around outside the entrance and she could see nothing through the door’s murky half window.

  There would be lights, computers, and printers, possibly a photocopier.

  Maria remembered the sudden rigidity of Storm’s body as she had carried her below the power line and her courage at enduring the field. She would have gone through worse to get here and it didn’t make sense that she was still standing. Maria stopped moving, realizing she had been rocking back and forth. She hobbled a few steps towards the offices.

  Dorian didn’t bother to say anything as she watched with a bemused smirk. It was not surprising after what Maria had seen outside the doors. The close-cropped air field was bordered by open fields in every direction she could see, with the protection of the mountains or the distant clumps of trees a mile or more away. The range of mountains was familiar but not the individual peaks.

  Two men lowered a case out of the back of the truck. They handled it carefully, making sure of each transition before they acted. A hard exterior, big enough to hold a barrel of diesel, yet their care indicated something else.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The dried blood of Maria’s pant leg cracked as she rolled it up. A dark stain of dried blood covered most of the bandage on her shin, the outer edges brown, the centre a brighter red. She lifted the tape and unwound the bandage, the gauze catching on the dried blood with each turn. As she got closer to the leg each turn pulled at the wound beneath so that she grimaced through the bottom layers, carefully pulling free the gauze.

  The black, trimmed threads of six stitches had pushed into the dried blood and skin, like tiny bits of barbed wire embedded in the swollen flesh. The wound was raw around the entry point yet without the hot redness of infection. Whatever Dorian had been giving her was doing its job.

  She leaned back in her chair, stretched her leg, and flexed her ankle to ease the stiffness, letting the air move over the wound, welcoming it back to the living. She dropped the ball of crusted gauze and lifted her gaze to the screen that acted as some kind of a commanding voice to the people passing beneath it. Dorian had her back to her, rocking from one foot to the next, a gun clutched across her chest.

  The rising noise of preparations echoed in the steel beams of the ceiling, with men, women, and teenagers trotting out of the aisles with weapons and large wooden crates carried between them. They carried them excitedly, like new toys as they lifted them into the three Agri-foods trucks that had arrived shortly after Storm.

  Maria’s stamped photo flashed onto the screen, a wound so much deeper than the one in her leg, yet already she could feel it scabbing over, its blade not reaching as deep as she had thought. She let her gaze travel along the group of offices with its blinds lowered on windows and the single door guarded by one of the hunters who had brought in Storm and Daniel. The roof was flat, maybe four metres above the warehouse floor. Skids had been stacked against one corner that made an easy ladder to the roof, but what then?

  The screen showed her photo again followed by the healthy, powerful Storm, and the edge of her anger lessened. For the woman who had been Storm in that photo no longer existed and neither did the green, young, fanatic girl who had joined up. It was so simple, yet it was as if her disgrace had evaporated like mist that lifts from a morning lake and she could see clear to the other side. She had been in theatre, adjusting to the situation as it developed. They might have wanted her to make different choices, but from her position, she wouldn’t change a thing.

  She rolled her ragged pant leg over her calf, flexed her feet, and pulled them underneath her to stand.

  “Stay where you are.”

  Two patches of colour sat on Dorian’s colourless cheeks, like rouge on the skin of a corpse.

  Maria sat back down, perched lightly on the edge of her seat, paying attention to the flow of people. She noted who was in charge and where the weak links were, suddenly wide awake.

  The place was in chaos, the men who were in charge organizing it more like a weekend at a hunt camp than a successful maneuver. She itemized what they put in the truck: an assortment of weapons, mainly hunting rifles, the occasional handgun and boxes of explosives. John moved among the chaos, stopping to confer with some of the hunters. He fixed a stuck trigger on a rifle for a teenaged boy with long gangly arms and legs. Like a commander in the First World War, blissfully sending unprepared troops to their death.

  There was a cry from the boy with the tablet as he pointed a remote at the screen, clicking through blank images until he arrived at a channel where the image cleared. YouTube. The bustling stopped and people drew in towards the screen. A ghostly image of Storm appeared. She seemed short of breath as the video began to play, and Maria’s shock was as acute as a punch to her gut. Storm sat on a cot, knees pulled up, her back pressed into a corner. Her face was turned away and she had her hand held up against the piercing light of the camera that was recording her. Her head leaned against the wall at an odd angle, and the skin on her face and the hand she held up to the camera had the translucency of a worn handkerchief that could tear at any minute.

  “Ms. Freeman. Did the Gatherer do this to you?”

  The voice was young, excited, likely that of the boy with the tablet.

  Storm stared into the camera with red, slitted eyes. Maria hoped she saw intelligence there, that Storm was choosing not to respond and not that she didn’t have the strength.

  “Is the Gatherer the cause of the plague?”

  It didn’t matter if Storm answered. Her thinness and her drastic decline said everything the recorder needed.

  “Was this your intention when you created it?”

  Thin and burned by the light, Storm looked like a creature that had been hiding too long in a dark place. Her weakness was obvious, the sudden close ups and drawing back of the camera distorting her dimensions so that she appeared otherworldly, living proof of the sickness she had delivered to them.

  The video ended, Storm’s image frozen with her mouth open as if she had finally decided to answer. The crowd started applauding and cheering, the kid who had taken the video grinning from ear to ear like he had won a prize.

  Dorian pressed the butt of her rifle into Maria’s back.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Don’t make me force you.”

  There were too many people for Maria to confront her there. Dorian would have armed, over-excited backup instantly.

  Dorian turned her towards the entrance to the offices where Storm and Daniel had been taken. Maria’s leg hurt more than she wanted it to, and even as she tried to adjust her gait, the pain shot into her thigh as if the wound had expanded. They crossed through the flow of weapons and people, and Maria got a close-up of a case of explosives. Enough power to create some serious damage.

  A young girl stepped into their path, no more than sixteen, her eyebrow and nose pierced. Maria let the girl’s hatred flow over her. The girl needed someone to blame for what w
as happening to her world. An outlet for the fear and panic that ran like stray currents beneath the ground as people’s worlds disintegrated from an invisible force.

  Dorian brushed the girl aside, holding Maria back as two men passed in front of them carrying the case that was unloaded with Daniel and Storm. Black plastic, metal latches on the lid, and no markings at all to indicate its contents. The men carried it behind the offices into one of the aisles, away from the trucks.

  The hunter at the door had had his nose broken more than once and there was a toughness to him that could have been military except for the jittery intensity of his gaze. He was the kind who tried to enlist but didn’t pass the suitability test. He nodded to Dorian as he opened the door. He was twice Maria’s size.

  There were bright lights down a bare corridor and the sounds of an office in high activity. Dorian pushed her forward and pain spiked in her leg. Phones rang, keyboards tapped, chairs rolled back and hit walls as bodies changed directions. She tried to hop as they passed several offices, yet every time her toe touched down a sharp jolt of pain radiated far beyond the physical wound.

  In the first office, three men crowded around a screen, a fourth bent over a table. She slowed her pace, increasing her limp, and tried to linger in front of the second room. It was crammed with a half-dozen computers, each one occupied, several of the attendees wearing headsets with microphones. They passed a darkened corridor before stopping at the end of the hall in front of a closed door marked ‘Conference Room’. The gold enamel was missing from the letter ‘N.’

  Another guard stood at this door, the one that had carried Daniel, and without speaking he chose a key from an extensive ring and unlocked the door. He held it open for her as Dorian released her arm. The room was dimly lit, with a table crammed up against the wall and chairs crowded against it.

  She felt a push between her shoulder blades and stumbled. The air was stale, smelling of dusty plastic and old carpets, and at first she thought it was empty. Yet there was another smell, of flesh, of something alive or at least once had been. The beam of light that had projected onto the table and empty wall narrowed and disappeared as the door closed behind her. Her eyes refocused to the LED lights mounted at either side of two end-to-end cots, like candles lighting caskets.

  Storm lay closest to the door, curled on her side, with a silver blanket over her. Daniel lay on his back in the adjacent cot, the light gleaming off his pale, papery skull, the hollows of his eyes and cheeks deepened by the angle of the lights. There was a stillness about him that was too absolute, and the smell of sickness came from him.

  The door locked behind her and she limped forward, the scuff of her steps slow in the strange silence as if she had entered the sanctuary of two Gods who had been laid out to accept sacrifices. She approached carefully, the edge of the light acting like a barrier protecting a valuable artifact. Time passed slower in this quiet place, the frenzy outside the walls squashed by something stronger, more powerful.

  Storm moved, a subtle tuck of her chin, and the illusion broke. Storm and Daniel became the two broken bodies they were, clinging to whatever life still existed for them. Copper wires had been stapled to the walls in an erratic web that rose to the ceiling.

  She knocked her leg against the cot as she knelt and Storm’s eyes opened. They were pained, unfocused, her brows drawn down tight. She turned her face further into the cot, away from the light and whatever had disturbed her.

  “Storm.”

  Maria shook her gently. The cot rocked with the movement.

  Storm grunted.

  Her voice was angry, the strength of it catching Maria off guard.

  “How are you?”

  The one eye Storm opened was blood-shot, the rim red.

  “Your crew did this.”

  Her face was a bad white but for the too dark freckles that bridged her nose.

  “You cheered at the sight of Daniel and me.”

  Maria sat back on her heels, the damaged muscles in her calf screaming.

  “These aren’t my crew.”

  Storm pulled the sheet close to her neck, her hand trembling. Maria would have to carry her. She didn’t think what that would mean for Daniel, though she already knew.

  “Then why are you here?”

  The strength in Storm’s voice was out of place in a frame that could barely support itself, her suspicion rallying tissues and cells out of proportion to her damaged systems. Her lips were cracked, with blood crusted at one corner.

  Maria limped to the small sink in the section of cupboards in the corner. Using a paper coffee cup, she brought Storm a drink of water. Storm watched the cup Maria held between them, the swallow in her parched throat visible in her thin, shrunken neck.

  “Do you want this or not?”

  The cup was filled almost to the top and the clear liquid shifted, picking up the spill off from the lights.

  Storm lifted a shaking hand to take it.

  Maria put it into her fingers and helped guide it back to Storm’s lips, holding it steady as she lifted her head for one, two gulps. She dropped her head and her hold on the cup at the same time.

  Maria sat on the side of the cot, cup in one hand, her pounding leg stretched out at an angle. Daniel hadn’t stirred, his skull so pronounced she could see the outline of his teeth beneath his lips, the sharp curve of his cheekbones beneath the skin.

  “They took me from the hospital and were holding me in the warehouse when you arrived. That’s why I saw you. And Daniel.”

  Maria offered her the cup again and Storm lifted her head for two more gulps. When she finished swallowing she spoke.

  “How bad is he?”

  Not a single sound of the frenzied preparations reached them. Maria pulled at one of the copper wires above the bed, the metal bending under the pressure. She tried not to let her gaze fall to Daniel’s stillness.

  “Your video has started a revolution. They’ve loaded guns and explosives. They mean to attack.”

  Storm’s eyes closed, her suffering leaving no place for Daniel or this news.

  Maria returned to the sink and drank a full cup. She’d seen maps with the dense areas of Gatherers across the middle latitudes, fewer at the outer reaches. They would need an army to destroy them all. She filled the cup again to deliver it back to Storm.

  “Who’s guarding them?” Storm asked.

  Of course Storm would see how it would play out. The potential for injuries and conflict. She had always been good at seeing how events connected. Except when it came to her own health.

  “The military. Police.”

  Storm closed her eyes, her eyelashes casting tiny shadows on her sunken skin.

  “It’s worse.”

  The words were barely a whisper, spoken from a place of pain that wasn’t physical.

  Maria lowered herself back onto the cot.

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  Storm rolled back her shoulder, partially lifting her face to the ceiling.

  “You did.”

  Maria placed her foot under her injured leg, trying to elevate it.

  “My orders were to bring it under our control. The military wasn’t trying to save anyone.”

  A dull thud sounded from outside the walls.

  “Neither will we.”

  Maria tucked a corner of the blanket back around Storm’s shoulder.

  “We’ll get there.”

  It was hard to see right now, but Maria believed it. She wasn’t about to throw away everything they had done to get there.

  “You might.”

  There was a sudden lift to Storm’s chin, indicating pain.

  “I’m not going without you.”

  “You might have to.”

  Storm’s eyes had closed again, her stillness not as complete as Daniel’s.

  Maria we
nt to his side, feeling even as she drew close that he was so far from them there was nothing she could do. At least he was free of the pain that attacked Storm.

  As she straightened the blanket, she felt the dim warmth of his skin. She checked for a pulse, knowing from his temperature that she wouldn’t find one. She laced her hands one over the other to start CPR, and stopped, her palms hovering above his chest. The temperature of his skin had been too cool; this wasn’t something she could pull him back from. He could have been dead from before she arrived.

  She pulled the blanket higher, just below his chin, not ready yet to tell Storm. She bowed her head as the horror of his demise tore through her like a gale force wind, fearing it would overtake her. She laid her hands on his chest, not to save his life, but to honour it. To convey to him that he had done everything he could to fix the damage he and Storm had brought, even if she didn’t know if it was true.

  He was so small without his spirit to animate the flesh, as if it had never truly been a part of him at all. She stayed for several minutes, hoping he had at least been aware of Storm as he died.

  Storm lay quietly when Maria returned to her side, and Maria had a moment of panic that she had slipped away too.

  “Is he gone?”

  Maria didn’t speak. Storm’s mouth stretched in agony, her features misshapen in grief. Tears rolled out of her eyes, past her ears, and Maria dared not touch her for fear of the pain she would cause. Storm began to shake and a pale curtain drew across her features.

  Maria pulled the blanket off Daniel, his body so thin and frail, and wrapped it carefully around Storm. She scanned the room for anything else she might use as the door clicked open.

  She positioned herself between Storm and the door. It was the guard, followed by Dorian. Maria waited for John behind her but it was only the woman. The guard exited and closed the door, leaving Dorian standing in the dimness, one hand in her big square pocket, the other holding her black medical bag. Her placid face was as blank as ever.