Melt | Book 9 | Charge

by Pike, JJ

  BOOK EIGHT: HOLD

  After hearing a shot, Alice, Aggie, and Nurse Betsy race through the woods to find Bill babbling and covered in blood. Betsy determines Bill is in shock but hasn’t been injured. She directs Aggie to take him back to the house and ply him with drugs.

  Aggie escorts her ailing father home. He has a Guatemalan worry doll clutched in his hand and won’t stop talking about the little girl who gave it to him. Aggie can’t make sense of what he’s saying. She ropes Petra into helping her get him home.

  Aggie leaves Bill with Petra and goes to collect gas from Jim’s vintage cars. The garage where his car collection is housed also houses three dead bodies: Nurse Cassie (whom Petra shot), and Arthur Foss’ wife and son (names unknown). Aggie slips and lands in MELT-infected goo. Once outside, she strips off but notices she has lacerations on her hands and legs.

  Alice remains in the woods, cradling Fran’s lifeless body in her lap. She cannot comprehend that her friend and colleague has taken her own life. When she finally accepts that awful truth, she asks Betsy to stay with Fran’s body while she walks on ahead to Jo Morgan’s house to find the K&P colleagues Fran told her were waiting for her.

  Professor Baxter and Michael Rayton aren’t at Jo’s house. Jo’s dog, Reggie, is. Alice inspects the house. Someone’s been here. Many times. They’ve left notes similar to those made by Red Cross workers inspecting disaster zones. All the usual symbols are represented: No bodies found, no living people in the area, food and water are compromised, but what’s most interesting is the notation for silver. Whoever has been visiting the house—initials H and C—has been searching for Alice Everlee’s silver.

  Alice is ambushed by two girls. She creates a kosh out of a cushion cover and a modem. When she smashes it into one of the girls, it falls apart. Alice is pinned to the floor. Betsy charges the girls beating them off with a stick. The two older women restrain the girls, whom Alice has named Helen and Claire, and interrogate them but learn nothing.

  Alice finds a small key glued to the inside of the wrecked modem. Knowing what she knows about Jo Morgan (she’s an FBI agent) she decides the key has to open something important. She can’t find the lockbox but she pockets the key for later.

  Maggie-loo, one of the dogs Alice rescued in Manhattan, finds her and won’t leave her side.

  The dogs (Maggie-loo and Reggie) alert them to incoming intruders. Professor Baxter, Michael Rayton, General Hoyt and a contingent of his men have beaten a retreat from the standoff with Wolfjaw leader, Alistair Lewk, and plan to take refuge in Jo’s house.

  Some of Hoyt’s men are infected with MELT (as is the General). Before heading out, Alice et al, fix up Jo’s barn so they have a place to stay.

  Christine Baxter still believes Michael Rayton is a spy and a traitor.

  Baxter and Rayton pummel Alice with questions about what the other is thinking and try to turn her into their intermediary.

  Alice has her own agenda. She wants to know whether Professor Baxter has come to any conclusions about a potential genetic resistance to MELT. She fears for the twins, whose biological father is Steven McKan.

  Aggie is on fire to move her family to the salt mines before Hurricane Erin hits. She’s thwarted at every turn. Eventually, Aggie loads Midge (who has a head wound) and Paul (who just had his spleen removed) into the Humvee with Mimi (Grandma Margaret), and Bryony (the little girl who Paul rescued from the health camp).

  While Aggie waits for her mother and Nurse Betsy to return she takes her horse, Indie, for a drink in the creek behind Jim’s house. Floofy, their alpaca, has gotten loose and is eating berries on the far bank. While rescuing Floofy, Aggie pulls a fish from the alpaca’s mouth. The scales slough off on her hands, coating her in slime.

  Aggie takes off for the salt mines, but on the way finds Midge, Paul, Mimi and Bryony in a field beside the Humvee. Midge is having a seizure. Aggie and Hedwig track down Nurse Nigel and Dr. Handel. While Dr. Handel tends to Midge, Paul has a heart attack. Midge is blind, but Paul is brought back from the brink of death. Aggie sets off to find her mother.

  Though Christine Baxter and Michael Rayton continue to press Alice to rejoin the science team she is steadfast in her commitment to remain with her family. When Aggie tells her about Midge and Paul, she travels to the mines. Alice is reunited with her family but knows she has to tell Bill that the twins aren’t his. They may need to take extra precautions or require medical assistance that Midge and Aggie don’t.

  Bill refuses to discuss the matter with her. He raised Paul and Petra, he loves them and thinks of them as his children; his life is falling apart and he doesn’t want her to take the one good thing in his life from him.

  He then tells her his secret: he traveled to Guatemala and killed her rapist, Mateo Hernandez. Further: Fran was Mateo’s daughter. She released MELT to avenge her father’s death. He shows Alice the worry doll which he’d been given on that visit. The doll had belonged to Fran.

  In a haze, Alice makes her way from the salt mines to Betsy’s house. She finds K&P documents, mixed in with her children’s inoculation records, in Fran’s Humvee. She puts them aside.

  Alice resolves to do at least one good thing with her new-found knowledge. She tells Christine Baxter that Fran, and not Michael Rayton, was the traitor. Fran wasn’t her real name. She was Eloise Farmanday, the other “person of interest” on the FBI’s list.

  Michael buries his former lover, Fran.

  Aggie identifies the girls (whom Alice called Helen and Claire) as the chicks from Wolfjaw Ridge. Helen and Claire are, in fact, Hannah and Chloe. Not only did they decimate the Everlee’s stores, they kidnapped Aggie and took her to Wolfjaw. Alistair Lewk set her free.

  Alistair Lewk, head of Wolfjaw Ridge, is in a standoff with the military who are making their way along the highway adjacent to his compound. He claims he’s a peaceful man only interested in creating a utopian retreat. He also claims he has built an underground city which will keep them safe from both MELT and the nuclear fallout from Indian Point.

  Several of General Hoyt’s platoon decamp with Alistair for a better life in Wolfjaw. Some of those men and women are infected with MELT. Alistair tasks Jacinta with killing them.

  Jo Morgan (Alice’s FBI neighbor) has been visiting Wolfjaw for years, posing as a grade-school teacher. Though it goes against all the rules, Alistair has allowed her to come and go at will, for the sake of the children’s education. When the soldiers follow Alistair to Wolfjaw, Jo says she has to accompany them.

  Alistair takes Jo on a tour of his underground city, dubbed “Wolfjaw Down.” He’s miffed that she seems more interested in the fate of the soldiers than his marvel of engineering.

  He cuts the tour of Wolfjaw Down short and instead invites her to watch the induction tests he’s devised for incoming applicants. These tests include forced runs, time in a sensory deprivation tank, and coal walking. While he’s showing off his ability to walk on burning-hot coals, Jacinta returns with news. The soldiers she had been tasked with killing confessed that Josephine Morgan was an FBI agent.

  Alistair convenes the council and puts Jo on trial. As she’s being sentenced, the Wolfjaw lawyer (Herb) arrives with news of an invasion.

  Alistair orders Jacinta to take their people underground. He returns to the sensory-deprivation tank to free the inductees. While he’s crawling between houses, he’s stopped with a boot to the neck. Herb makes a citizen’s arrest and marches Alistair out to the courtyard where several of his people are kneeling in the dirt, held there by the invaders.

  Alice and Aggie Everlee, along with Sean (Petra’s boyfriend) and Hedwig (the young woman Paul rescued from the health camp), have infiltrated Wolfjaw Ridge. They were alerted to Alistair’s plans to kill some of General Hoyt’s soldiers. Jacinta (Alistair’s second in command) disobeyed her orders and set them free.

  Alice allows Aggie to determine Alistair’s fate. Before he’s incarcerated one of the young men who’d been in the sensory-deprivation tanks
charges Alistair and stabs him.

  Jo confesses that she’s been coming to Wolfjaw Ridge all these years because her (dead) husband’s best friend, Herb, has been undercover there. Herb is also an FBI agent.

  Hurricane Erin, which is slated to be a mega-storm, is closing in. With the end of the world fast approaching, Alice decides it’s time to explain some hard truths to her daughter.

  Alice tells Aggie that Fran released MELT. She did so because her husband, Bill Everlee, killed Fran’s father, Mateo Hernandez. Bill killed Mateo because he raped Alice as a child.

  Alice blames herself for what’s happened to the world. Hedwig, who’s listening in, assures Alice that she’s not to blame.

  Aggie, Sean, and Hedwig leave Wolfjaw Ridge to return to the salt mines.

  General Hoyt sends a chopper back to the compound where Alice’s house once stood, along with an invitation for anyone remaining in the compound to relocate to Wolfjaw Ridge for safety.

  Jim and Betsy (Alice’s neighbors), and Angelina (the first victim of MELT) move to Wolfjaw.

  Bill Everlee and the kids do not.

  Alice, who still believes she needs to atone for the release of MELT and for betraying her husband, decides to join Christine Baxter, Michael Rayton, and General Hoyt in the fight against MELT.

  On to BOOK NINE: CHARGE

  CHAPTER ONE

  AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2021, WOLFJAW RIDGE

  FIELD NOTES: ALICE EVERLEE, Former Klean & Pure Industries’ Senior Vice President.

  This is designed to be a factual account of our trip from upstate New York to Indian Point, nothing more.

  I’m keeping these entries short because there’s more to do than sit on my rear end feeling sorry for myself or worrying about my personal stake in this undertaking. It is what it is. We all have loved ones out there. My thoughts and feelings about my family are the same as everyone else’s: I want to see them safe first and happy second. All my energy is going to be concentrated on making the world habitable for them again. I was the one who made it a hazardous wasteland. It’s up to me to put it right.

  The next two lines were heavily scored in black ink, making them illegible.

  I found Alice’s diary after she lit out. I’ve done my best not to annotate it too heavily. Like her, I’m a fan of sticking to the science, so I’ve tried to hold off on editorializing. Mostly I want to mark those places where she’s redacted material or removed entire pages. BUT there I have jotted the odd comment when she made me want to bang my head against a brick wall. Sue me.

  The bottom line is Bill didn’t bring the children to Wolfjaw Ridge. We sent a chopper and gave him the choice and he elected to stay put in the salt mines a few miles from our old home.

  More crossed-out text.

  Stick to the facts: Professor Baxter believes some of us may be immune to MELT but without more testing, Baxter’s hypothesis that there are blood-types with more immunity is just that: a hypothesis. It’s not a proven theory. That’s going to take time and money to nut out.

  In my opinion, we must continue to treat MELT like a virulent compound: Relentless, voracious, adaptable, and blind to our puny human hopes and desires.

  Though there was talk of me being the logistics coordinator who would “pull people together for the greater good” and “create a plastics-free zone along the first-band states” I’m to stay with Professor Baxter, Michael Rayton, and General Hoyt and his band of merry men (who are neither merry nor solely men, but they’re soldiers so they’re barely human. They’re more like automatons who do as they’re told, when they’re told, no questions asked).

  Ha! I bet she changed her tune on that one.

  They’re useful to have around and will be essential once we get to Indian Point Nuclear Power Station and need willing hands. The less I think about that the better.

  After much debate, Josephine (Jo) Morgan was sent West to work on “Operation Major Donut.” The first order of the day is to isolate MELT, stop its spread, then create an exclusion zone so MELT can’t jump to the Western states. Jo’s a smart cookie, even-keeled and level-headed. She’ll be perfect for the job.

  If Baxter’s hair-brained idea (that we’re possibly “immune” to MELT) holds true it makes sense for us to head in the other direction, toward Indian Point Nuclear Power Station (or what’s left of it). Who else could do it? Who else would be mad enough?

  Jim and Betsy are hunkering down in Wolfjaw Ridge until the storm passes. They’ll make sure Angelina is safe. Baxter argued that we should take the little girl with us because she’s “a miracle of science who has defied the odds,” but that’s absurd. Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t run any tests (to say nothing of the fact that where we’re going is no place for children). She needs to stay here, recuperate, and when we’re sure she’s healthy enough she can undergo all the requisite testing.

  Two scored out lines.

  Wolfjaw Down (their name for their underground city) is going into lockdown. Smart. They can ride this out. Too bad Alistair won’t be around to see his masterpiece in action, but for all intents and purposes we’re at war and there are going to be casualties. He gave his life for his vision. No one wants to die young, but he at least died for a reason. May he rest in peace. (To be clear: no one has declared war on the United States, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. We’ve let loose the mother of all pathogens. As of now, we’re battling a compound we can’t isolate and study. Hats off to whoever threads that needle.)

  Sheesh. Stick to the FACTS, Alice. Quit editorializing. No one wants to know what you think.

  FACT: I’m left with Michael Rayton, Professor Christine Baxter, General Hoyt, and bunch of soldiers.

  FACT: We’re going to head east, into danger, while everyone else moves away.

  FACT: Our mission is two-fold. We will assist in the containment effort at Indian Point, acting as MELT consultants. What we can bring to the table, other than “Don’t touch it” is something of a mystery to me, but I’m working on it. Much more important is the scientific goal which is to study MELT in the field.

  That mission begins after the storm passes. Tonight we’re in the abandoned houses of Wolfjaw Ridge. They’re rough-hewn and basic, but at least we have roofs and walls and the ability to light fires and stay warm. Our lives won’t be like this once we head out. I’m not sure Baxter or Rayton are prepared for the days (months?) ahead.

  Hoyt would know how to survive in the wilderness, but he shouldn’t be allowed to travel with us. He’s sick. We’ve already debated it a couple of times, but we’re evenly split. Michael and I think Hoyt should either go west and find a hospital or go to Jo’s place where we left his infected men. Hoyt and Baxter have argued that it makes no difference. We’re going into MELT territory and are going to be exposed anyway.

  It’s a numbers game, we’re all agreed on that. The less we expose ourselves to MELT, the less likely it is we’re going to get infected, but they are strident in their claim that he has so much field experience (and we don’t?) that we can keep him at distance, wrapped in plastic, and monitor his progress.

  He’s as much Baxter’s lab rat as he is her sweetheart.

  Which is another reason I need to stay with the East team. I’ll keep Baxter focused and on point and intervene if she and Michael get snarled in disagreements. She’s been better about talking to him since Fran…

  Again, three lines were scratched out. Just as well. Who wants to think about Fran?

  Goal: Sleep. Collect supplies. Hit the road.

  2:30 AM and I can’t sleep. The wind has ripped a couple of trees out of the ground. It’s a cliché to say they’re being thrown around like matchsticks, but it’s a well-worn phrase for a reason. Baxter has left her house and joined me in mine. She snores. If we weren’t already in danger of the roof being raised, she’d finish the job off.

  I made a small fire and heated up some pork and beans. The Wolfjaw people left things behind in their rush to get underground. It wasn’t bad. Doubt we�
�ll see pork anytime soon.

  Ideas for consideration:

  If we’re headed into MELT country, how are we going to communicate with the outside world? The military comms unit which they set up at Jim and Betsy’s was excellent, but everything’s made of plastic. We can’t take it with us.

  Find out who knows how to hunt. Make a roster. Keep the supply lines stocked.

  Ask Baxter about water and MELT; how to make it safe.

  Ditto clothes. Where can we get cotton/silk/non-synthetic wear?

  Vehicles? The word “damn” was crossed out. We’re going to have to do this on foot.

  Thyroid protection?

  Medics?

  Cooks?

  Pack animals?

  Weapons? Non-plastic? Where? Museum pieces. Airlifted in?

  Tents. Crossed out. Synthetic.

  Tools? Ask Hoyt how much each of his men (and/or women) can carry. Will that slow us down? Will they be willing to sleep wild? If this lasts more than a month, it’s going to get colder. Then what?

  The storm raged around us all night and all the next day, ripping trees out by their roots, tearing roofs off houses, and crushing buildings as if they were made of paper-mâché. The one saving grace was that there were no power lines to come down on our heads. Hiding out in what amounts to a medieval village has its upside.

  We sheltered in place for the night, clustered around our fires.

  Next morning: four casualties. Three from Wolfjaw and one of Hoyt’s soldiers. We set them out beyond the fence. No burial. Don’t want to disturb the ground if we don’t need to. Didn’t see Alistair’s body. Awful to think it had been carried away by animals already.

  We gathered to talk through our options.

  Meeting minutes:

  Water must be boiled for a minimum of half an hour to ensure MELT is eradicated.