by Anna Abner
“Fire!”
I wasn’t sure whose scream was louder, mine or Hunny’s, but we got the camp’s attention.
As doors opened around ours, and men came running, Pollard pulled me against his big, solid chest and nearly squeezed the breath out of me in a final embrace.
“Don’t get caught,” he hissed. “If something goes wrong, run. You’re faster than any of them.” In other words, if I couldn’t get Ben out, save myself. I wasn’t sure yet if I could do that, but I agreed, and he released me.
The men freaked out, just like we hoped, and in all the shouting and shoving, we disappeared. At the bottom of the stairwell, the other three made a sharp left and sprinted for the backside of the building where no one would be looking. They’d sneak through the destroyed fence and get as far away before anyone noticed them gone.
I ran in the opposite direction, keeping low and praying no one saw me as I rushed up the dark and empty stairwell of the east barracks.
No one was there. Not even Smart. Everyone was across the parking lot shouting at each other and arguing over how to put the fire out without wasting precious water. I was pretty sure one of the men suggested they all pee on it.
At Ben’s door I jimmied the lock with the screwdriver for a good forty-five seconds. I jammed the flathead into the lock and threw my shoulder against the metal barrier. Again, harder, my feet leaving the ground.
“Come on,” I hissed. I reinserted the tool, set one foot on the landing for extra support, and hit the door with everything I had.
It popped open. Panting, I slipped in and shut the door behind me.
Chapter Nineteen
The interior of the lab reeked of blood, and I gagged a little, clapping a hand over my mouth.
It was dark. I pulled the curtain aside to let in some moonlight, and it still took a few seconds for my eyes to register what I was seeing.
All the standard barracks furniture had been removed. No beds, no dressers, no sofas. A hospital gurney dominated the room. Ben was strapped to it—hand, foot, and chest.
“Ben?” I whispered.
He didn’t respond.
I crept closer and recognized an IV attached to his left arm and a rubber mouth guard between his teeth. The kind a doctor would insert into the mouth of an unfortunate electroshock therapy patient.
This wasn’t right. Smart had told me he’d take care of Ben. Malcolm had said everything was going smoothly.
They’d lied. Both of them.
This was no lab. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I spotted car batteries connected to jumper cables and dirty hardware. All the tools were well used and stained black.
Suppressing my gag reflex, I pulled Ben’s mouth guard and tossed it away. “Ben?” I grasped his cold hand and finally his shadowy, red eyes slid open and focused on me.
“Maya,” he whispered. “Run. They’ll find you.”
The thoughts skittering through my mind threatened to paralyze me. The only way to keep moving was to push the fear away and focus on getting him out of the room. Then down the stairs. Then past the fence. Only when we were both safe could I succumb to the panic.
“I’m getting you out of here.” I unbuckled his wrists first, and then his ankles and finally the strap across his chest. He didn’t move, though.
“Ben.” I shook him, and his head rolled on his neck. “We only have a couple minutes. We have to hurry.”
“Run,” he said again, his voice rising in fear. “Maya, go.”
“Not without you.” I searched for a weapon, but discarded the tools in plain sight, especially after I realized they were stained with not only dirt but dried blood.
Not finding anything useful, I took one last look around. Their so-called lab had a pathetic assortment of actual medical equipment. An old-fashioned microscope, syringes, and four unmarked vials of clear fluid.
“Oh, no.” Were those four little bottles responsible for Ben’s inability to get up off the gurney? Anger overwhelmed me, and I threw the vials recklessly, smashing them against the wall.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fix it.
“I hate these people,” I grumbled, tears burning my eyes. “I hate them so much.”
The breaking glass and the sound of my voice roused Ben. He curled onto his side, muttering nonsense under his breath.
Water. Water might help.
I dug a bottle from my pack. The one he’d given me. “Drink,” I said, pushing it at him. “You’ll feel better.”
His fingers trembled against mine as he accepted the bottle.
“It’s okay now,” I whispered, brushing dark hair from his brow.
His black shirt was twisted and wrinkled, which I knew annoyed him. Quickly, I rearranged the hem and tugged the sleeves down. The more I touched him, the more I realized how much I wanted to touch him. I needed to reassure myself that he was real. Solid and safe.
The door banged open and someone kicked my pack across the floor.
“What have you done?” Smart wailed at his first sight of Ben unrestrained. “You stupid girl.”
The muscles in my legs tensed to flee, to take off and be safe somewhere far away. But not without Ben.
I grabbed his T-shirt in both fists, ruining all the straightening I’d just done, and yanked. “Get up,” I hissed. “We have to run.” Now.
He moaned, upended the water down the front of my pants, and gripped my hand. But it wasn’t exactly an escape.
The situation clarified in my mind. Smart was alone. No backup troops jogged up the stairs on his heels. He didn’t have much support in camp for his experiments after all.
I could get past one guy.
“Turn around and go back down the stairs,” I ordered, hoping my voice didn’t betray the terror ricocheting through my ribcage. “It’s over.”
“Get out of the way,” he said, dismissing me the way he always had. I loathed him in that moment, for ignoring me and for treating Ben like some mutated animal. I wanted to hurt him, to cause him pain. Maybe even to kill him. He deserved it.
Smart produced a syringe and a glass vial from his pocket, but he was nervous, too, and he couldn’t get the needle through the seal on the vial.
Something in the air itself shifted, and I knew by the way the hair on the back of my neck stood erect and by the look of horror crossing Smart’s face that Ben was up.
“This is more important than you or I,” Smart said, his hands clattering.
I wasn’t sure whom he was trying to convince. Me or Ben.
“This is about the future of the human race!” he bellowed.
Smart fell back a step as a pair of feet hit the floor. Ben, trailing IV tubing like an arm tail, weaved around me and knocked the syringe and vial out of Smart’s hands with a single swipe. His left fist came up and bashed Smart in the side of the head, giving him a red mark to match the black eye.
“No,” Ben growled as he pummeled Smart into the floor.
I stayed where I was, afraid Ben might stop if I got any closer. And I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted him to wring every ounce of furious vengeance out of Smart.
Panting, Ben leaned dangerously far to the right. I leapt to steady him.
“You feel better?” I asked.
“Much.”
Beaten half senseless, Smart moaned and flopped onto his back. Moving quickly, I retrieved his fallen vial and syringe and injected him with whatever he’d planned for Ben.
“You told me you’d take care of him,” I said, dropping the syringe and crushing it under my shoe. “You’re a liar.”
“Maya?”
Ben’s pale and strained face appeared in my periphery and I forgot all about the physician’s assistant on the floor.
“Can you walk?” I asked, reaching to help. He waved me off.
“Yeah.”
I peeked out the door. The fire across the parking lot was out, but gray smoke continued to seep from the open barracks room door. Simone and several men gathered on th
e landing, but in the dark I couldn’t count exactly how many. It was impossible to say if any were on their way to back up Smart at that very moment.
Fumbling in the faint light, I eventually slid into my pack and my guitar and then jammed my shoulder under Ben’s arm to help support his weight. He and I made it all the way across the second floor landing and to the edge of the exterior stairwell without being spotted before we both realized the same thing at the same time.
Looking down the wide, concrete stairs I felt like crying, just plopping down and bawling.
“Go, Maya,” Ben said, slumping against the cinderblock wall. “If they catch you, they’ll hurt you.”
True, but I wasn’t going to let him get tortured to death either. I could cry later.
“You can’t make it down the stairs by yourself?”
“I’ll fall.”
I could pitch him over the balcony, and maybe on a good day he’d brush off the ten-foot drop, but he was hardly upright. So, we were doing this together.
“Hang on.” I tossed the pack. It hit the ground hard, but I don’t think anyone noticed. I swung my guitar around, and then I grabbed Ben’s back to my chest, tight, and half carried, half dragged him down the stairs. I could feel his ribs through his shirt and the erratic p-p-pump of his heart against my palms. By the time we stepped upon solid earth I was panting, and Ben was on his knees.
But there was no time to rest.
Sliding my shoulder under Ben’s right arm, we hurried across the parking lot, keeping to the darkest shadows. Simone and the men were still clustered on the second floor walkway, talking in loud voices, enjoying a rare moment of entertainment.
No one shouted at us. No one even saw us, as far as I could tell.
It was easy following Pollard’s escape route. He and the girls had used the same hole the zombie pack had torn through the fence.
“Hey!”
At the voice, Ben stumbled and crashed to his knees. I yanked him up, but Stein was quick and grabbed Ben’s other arm.
“I know you. You’re not going anywhere, freak.” He ripped Ben right out of my hands.
He was going to drag Ben back into Smart’s hall of horrors. Smart would wake up pissed off and take it out on my friend. I couldn’t let that happen.
Ben was in this circumstance because of me. He’d been hurt. And it was my fault.
We had to run.
I wedged myself between them, shoving hard, but my pack and guitar made me clumsy. Stein lost his balance, and we all toppled onto the mangled chain link. His pistol fell from his waistband because I felt it under my elbow.
“Enough,” Stein snapped, reaching around me.
It was both easy to palm his gun and the most difficult thing I’d ever done. My hand shook so badly I could hardly keep it aimed in the right direction.
He swatted the barrel of the gun away. “Cut it out. I’ll deal with you next.”
Ben’s cold fingers curled around mine, steadying the weapon. His index finger squeezed against mine, and the gun fired with a pop.
Stein crumpled, hugging his middle, blood blossoming across his belly. “You shot me,” he gasped. “Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you?”
Ben took my arm and we ran. I glanced back only once at the guard as he collapsed on his side. The gun was still in my hand, and with a squeak of distaste, I dropped it in the dirt.
Ben went back for it and stowed the pistol under his shirt, out of sight.
But I was finally running, my hair whipping behind me, and it felt exhilarating. I didn’t stop to worry about the firearm or whether Stein might be calling for a search party. I held on to Ben’s hand and stretched my legs, the evening air cold in my lungs. Finally, I was free.
At the edge of the trees was a white VW bug with the words Maya Take Me spray-painted across the door in hot pink. A parting gift from Pollard. If he’d stuck around, I would have hugged him harder than even Hunny Green could’ve managed.
Ben folded himself into the passenger’s seat as I climbed behind the wheel. It started right up, but had less than a quarter tank of fuel. I turned the wheel, stomped on the gas, and took off over uneven ground and scrub brush.
I was itching to turn east and see the beach, but thick woods blocked the way. I drove north instead, along the edge of the trees, bumping over access lanes, long driveways, and often marshland. In the wrong direction.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said softly. We were way off track. If Pollard had taken the girls directly east, we’d be miles apart. And it had taken so long to get Ben out of the camp, it was also possible the rest of our group had given up and driven off without us.
Or worse, gone back to rescue us.
“Ben?”
He slumped in the passenger’s seat, his pallor a greenish white.
I didn’t dare stop to check on him. So, I pushed the pedal harder and drove north.
Two hours out from Camp Carson, the car sputtered through the last of its fuel. At last, an access road cut east between the trees and I took it. The car died in the sand dunes on a spotless, white Virginia beach.
Throwing open the door, I stumbled out onto uneven sand, whirling to see in every direction.
“Come on,” I pleaded softly. In the starlight I didn’t detect any movement. I didn’t hear any voices over the churning surf.
No Pollard. No Juliet. No Hunny.
I knew what had happened.
We’d been left behind.
Ben and I were on our own.
Panacea
Chapter One
I shoved open the door of our borrowed VW Bug and stumbled into several inches of gritty beach sand. Past a craggy dune, the Atlantic Ocean burst upon the shore. Over and over, undaunted. Behind me, Ben curled in the passenger’s seat, his long legs bunched to his chest to fit the cramped interior. He hadn’t woken when I drove hell-bent across fields and marshes to escape Camp Carson. He hadn’t woken when the car stuttered to a stop, empty of fuel, on the Virginia beach. And he didn’t wake as I stood over him, chewing at my bottom lip.
Smart had done more than lie about extracting my dad’s antiserum from Ben’s blood. He’d drugged him. Among other things. He might not wake up, not completely, until morning. Four hours or more.
He needed help, first aid, possibly a doctor, but all he had was me.
I searched up and down the beach. If a pack of quick-footed red zombies, sufferers of the 212R virus, found us, we had no protection except the car. So, not much protection at all.
“I’m going to search the trunk.” He didn’t answer, but talking to someone, anyone, made me feel better. “Okay, Ben?”
He flinched at the sound of my voice. The sedatives he’d been fed hadn’t worn off completely. I grabbed his hand so he’d know he wasn’t alone anymore. Reflexively, he squeezed back, his fingers twining with mine.
In the storage compartment I found a raincoat, but no emergency flares or forgotten bottles of sports drink. Certainly nothing useful. I tossed the coat into the back seat with my gear and then closed the trunk.
“Don’t worry,” I told Ben, “we’ll be fine.”
We probably weren’t going to be fine. Not alone and unprotected.
I turned toward the sound of the surf. “I just need a minute to make a plan.”
The whitecaps looked and sounded exactly the same as they always had. With all the chaos in the world and all the changes that had hammered down upon the human race, it didn't seem right the ocean kept rolling across the earth, oblivious.
“I’m scared,” I signed at the horizon, my hands stuttering through the motions. Really, really scared.
But the surf kept washing upon the beach in a slow, quiet rhythm. Tempo adagio. Like a hymn. I hummed a counter-beat, and the sad melody I couldn’t shake returned.
Way down here … I disappear.
The water was black as tar with the occasional silver reflection of starlight from overhead. I tried to stay out of the surf, but it was tricky in the dark
determining the tide’s reach, and cold salty water splashed over my sneakers.
“Aw, crap.” I didn’t have spare shoes, which only reminded me that my survival knowledge was nil. I knew how to run, hide, and disinfect. That was about it. Because I came from a family of technology loving city folks, not rugged survivalists. For the millionth time I wished my dad hadn’t left to finish his antiserum for 212R. He may not have been able to teach me about hunting or shelter building during the apocalypse, but at least I wouldn’t have spent so much time alone.
But if Dad hadn’t left, he wouldn’t have finished the elixir and Ben would still be a Red. My dad had wanted his work to mean something. To help people. And it had saved Ben.
So, it was worth it. I just wished I had both of them, Ben and Dad.
I glanced over my shoulder, but the compact car was a shadowy shape across the sand. More than anything, I felt alone. For the first time since the plague it wasn’t a pleasant sensation.
Night stretched and lengthened, seeming to last forever.
Where was Pollard?
I shouldn’t have pushed to separate our group. I should have fought to stay together, but I’d been so sure the four of us—Pollard, Juliet, Hunny, and I—would be too visible, too loud, too obvious, breaking into Ben’s locked room. I’d argued to be the only one to pull off the rescue mission.
Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea because everywhere I looked I saw only sand, water, and sky.
Pollard should’ve been on the beach.
But he wasn’t, and I had no way of contacting him. 212R had infected so many people, and so quickly, there was no one left to run water, trash, and electricity services. No GPS, no cell phones. Wherever he was, he was out of my reach.
I walked south, but didn’t catch sight of my friends. Or any human beings at all. Not even a single house or a forgotten beach umbrella. Pivoting, I marched north as far as I felt comfortable. Off in the distance I recognized roofs and a white fence. But that was it. No Pollard, no Hunny, no Juliet, and no sign they’d been anywhere near there.
