Viral Nation

by Grimes, Shaunta

“When will it be here?” Phire asked.

  “Soon. Listen.”

  Clover did, straining, then cranked the window down halfway. After about fifteen minutes, she heard the rumble of an approaching train. It came around a curve with its lights glowing and steam billowing from its stack. The whistle blew once, then twice, and the noise seemed to fill Clover up.

  Then the train screeched to a stop in front of them. A few minutes later a middle-aged man with red hair going white and a girl with long hair the same shade without the white walked toward them.

  Waverly opened the van door. “Okay, everyone out.”

  “They’ll see us,” Clover said.

  “Frank and Melissa are the whole crew, and they’re anxious to meet you.”

  Clover walked toward the man and the girl but couldn’t make eye contact. Instead, she walked on by, toward the train. It was magnificent. The engine made the ground under her feet rumble, and the lights were dazzling. The engine, with its big steam stack, pulled three freight cars.

  “Frank,” Waverly said. Clover turned and saw the two men shake hands. “Frank and Melissa, meet West and Clover, Jude, Christopher, Sapphire, Geena, and Marta.”

  “Oh, wow.” Melissa grabbed Clover’s hand and started to pump it. “I can’t believe you’re finally here, Clover.”

  Clover yanked her arm back.

  “Clover,” West said, almost under his breath.

  Clover tried again. “I can’t believe I’m here, either.”

  “I’m Melissa,” the girl said. “Wait! I have something for you.”

  She dug into her pack and came out with a packet of letters held together with a rubber band. “There’s one from all the way in Pennsylvania,” she said. “Can you believe it?”

  Clover took the letters and turned them around in her hands before looking up at Waverly, who was talking to Frank. When she turned back around, Melissa had her arms around Jude’s neck, and he stumbled back a step before hugging her back.

  Even covered in soot and wearing filthy work clothes, Melissa was pretty. She was tall and lanky, and her auburn hair was pulled back into a braid that hung halfway down her back. Clover thrust the letters at Jude, holding them there until he untangled himself and took them.

  “What are these?” he asked.

  Clover shrugged and looked at Melissa.

  “Well, they’re letters,” she said.

  Neither Jude nor Clover responded to that.

  “I mean, they’re the information. The information that we gather. Don’t you know this?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to tell them,” Waverly said.

  “Dr. Waverly gathers the information.” Melissa looked at Waverly and then her father, looking for assurance. “We bring it to him and he puts it in the book.”

  “There’s a book?” Clover looked to Waverly. “What is she talking about?”

  “I keep a book full of the letters,” he said. “It’s really quite incredible. They come from all over.”

  “Why haven’t we seen this book?”

  Waverly took the letters. “You will.”

  “Where is it?”

  “On the other side of the portal.”

  “In the future? You keep this information in the future?”

  “I’ll bring it back tonight.”

  “Denver sent information about a new calorie crop that grows like grass,” Frank said. “Sent some seed, too. Lots of the cities just send updates about how they’re surviving. Recipes for things they can’t get from the Bazaars. That kind of thing.”

  “That doesn’t sound like it needs to be hidden.”

  “They send information about their resistance efforts, too, Clover,” Waverly said.

  chapter 21

  The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

  —THOMAS JEFFERSON, LETTER, MARCH 24, 1818

  The train left after Frank told Waverly he’d have oil to deliver in two weeks. Every first and third week, the train delivered convicts from around the country to the Justice Center in Reno, and Frank couldn’t stop when he had live passengers. Melissa hugged everyone again, including Clover, who wanted to hate the girl, or maybe just resent her, but didn’t.

  “You liked her,” she said to Jude while the others were getting back in the van.

  “She’s a likeable girl.”

  “Yeah.”

  Jude had the nerve to chuckle.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Not a thing. Ready?”

  She climbed into the backseat of the van, as far from Jude as she could get.

  “I dive right in front of the Veronica,” Waverly said as he backed out of the path and turned onto the road to the highway. “You’ll be able to watch from the dock.”

  “What if someone sees us?” West asked.

  “Not at this time of night.”

  “Still, might be better if we stay hidden, don’t you think?”

  “Suit yourself. You can watch from the trees nearby.”

  “But I want to see him dive,” Clover said.

  Waverly tilted the rearview mirror so he could see her through it. “You won’t miss a thing.”

  During the day, the lake was spectacular, mirroring the blue and white sky and the mountains around it. When they approached it a few minutes later, the stars reflected in it, and with an almost full moon, the lake glittered like a giant bed of jewels.

  “I can’t believe Bridget’s missing this,” West said.

  “She’ll have a chance to see it later.” Waverly pulled into a spot in the trees, facing the van so that it pointed toward the lake, where they saw the Veronica in front of them. “You’ll have a good view from here.”

  He got out before anyone could say anything else and went behind the van to undress and get into his wetsuit. When he came back, he looked to Clover like a giant seal. He reached into the front seat for his air bladder and a small tank of oxygen, which he used to fill it. He slipped that over his shoulders like a backpack and picked up a pair of something that looked like duck’s feet.

  “Time me,” he said as he adjusted a mask over his eyes and nose. “Less than thirty.”

  They watched him in complete silence until he was at the dock and walking down it.

  Christopher leaned forward between the seats. “I didn’t even know people could dive through the portal.”

  “It’s how he found it,” Clover said.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Christopher gave up trying to see from inside the van and opened the door.

  “Hey!” West said. “We’re hiding.”

  “I can’t see from here. Can’t we get out of the van and stay in the trees?”

  Before West could answer, everyone came out of the van and crowded around the edge of the stand of trees, hushing each other and generally raising a stage-whispered racket.

  “Just be quiet,” West said.

  “Look, he’s going!” Clover pointed toward Waverly, poised at the end of the dock, positioned about ten feet from the nose of the Veronica.

  A sharp, painfully loud noise took Clover so by surprise that she froze, like the bear she’d nearly hit with the van. It came from a tunnel over the highway leading back to the city, about a hundred yards from where they stood and collectively stopped breathing.

  “Oh, God,” Geena said.

  Waverly collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. Just folded in on himself. Clover started toward him, but her brother held her back forcibly enough to hurt her.

  “We have to get out of here,” West said, his voice barely a whisper.

  “We can’t just leave him,” Clover said.

  “He was shot. We have to take the van and go before we are, too.”

  Apparently, Clover was the only one concerned about Waverly. Everyone else started toward the van.

  “Wait a minute.” Clover turned back to the dock. Her heart stopped when she recognized Langston Bennett walking down it toward Wav
erly’s body. Before she could say anything, there was another shot. One of the twins cried out in surprise somewhere behind her.

  West took her hand and yanked her toward the trees. “Run,” he said as softly as he could.

  Clover wasn’t sure that any of them knew where they were going. If they started out wrong, they might get lost and never find their way back to the van. Especially not in the dark. They were breaking branches and kicking pine cones all over the place, besides breathing like a bunch of freight trains.

  “We need to stop,” she said.

  West pulled her a few more steps.

  “No, wait. We’re making too much noise. He’s going to find us.”

  He might stop chasing if he couldn’t hear them stampeding through the woods like a pack of elephants. Everyone stopped, except for Geena. Christopher reached for her, but she broke through the brush and for a moment was on her own. West made a hushing noise and a downward motion with both hands.

  Clover heard Bennett coming just before the third shot rang out.

  Geena yelped, just once. And then there was no other sound except Bennett moving in to see what he’d done. Clover stood, frozen in the trees. Her brain screamed at her to do something, anything, help Geena, run, scream. Her body couldn’t sort those signals out as she watched Bennett walk to Geena and turn her onto her back. He put a hand to the side of her neck, then sat back on his heels and scanned the woods.

  West took Marta and Christopher each by one arm and manhandled them behind a boulder five feet to their left. Jude and Clover followed. She leaned against the cool stone and shook. Jude gathered her into his arms and sat them both on the ground.

  Bennett searched some, cursing under his breath, then walked back toward the lake, where he must have had a car. If he’d looked even a little harder he would have found them. They were in no condition to be stealthy. Not with Marta burying her sobs in Christopher’s chest and Christopher barely keeping himself from leaving their hiding spot to go to Geena.

  Clover stayed where she was and rocked against Jude. She wished that Mango were there, to help her get her thinking straight, and then was grateful he wasn’t. He would have barked or made some other noise and they’d all be dead.

  Finally, West let Christopher and Marta go out of hiding.

  Christopher knelt beside Geena’s body. There was a small hole in her forehead, above her left eye. Clover wondered if Bennett was that good a shot or poor Geena was just very unlucky, and then hated herself for thinking about that.

  A low, painful wail escaped Marta, and Christopher pulled her against him. It hurt Clover to watch them. West lifted Geena. The hole in the back of her head was much larger than the one in her forehead.

  “Jesus,” Phire said under his breath. “Oh, my God.”

  “We should bring Waverly back to the ranch,” Jude said.

  “We can’t,” West said. Geena’s blood seeped into his shirt and Clover looked away. “Bennett will be back for the body. If it’s gone…”

  “We can’t just leave him here,” Phire said.

  Jude shook his head. “No. West is right.”

  “We need the air bladder.” Clover took a few steps toward the dock. “We have to have it.”

  “Clover, get back here.” West shifted Geena’s body in his arms. “Let’s just go back to the van.”

  “Don’t you think Bennett will notice the van is gone?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We can’t carry Geena back.”

  “Well—”

  “We aren’t leaving her.” Marta’s voice was toneless. As dead as her sister.

  “I need that air bladder if I’m ever going to dive through the portal,” Clover said. “We have to have it.”

  West transferred Geena’s body to Christopher, who held her to him as if she were a sleeping baby. “Get everyone into the van. I’ll get the bladder and be right back.”

  Clover wasn’t sure taking the van was the best idea. It would tell Bennett that Geena wasn’t alone if her body and Waverly’s vehicle were both gone. But no one seemed to care what she thought, and she was too heartsick to force the issue, so after West came back, white-faced and holding the full air bladder, she drove them all home.

  “Are you positive it was Bennett?” Bridget asked much later.

  “It was him.” Clover was curled in a corner of the couch in their living room. Jude was next to her, but far enough that he didn’t touch her. She might have shattered if he touched her.

  “You’re sure Waverly’s dead?” Bridget ran a hand through her hair. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe Bennett did it himself.”

  Clover was not far from the edge of her ability to cope. “Do you think we’re lying to you?”

  “Clover,” West said. “She’s shocked, that’s all. We all are.”

  “He must have left half Waverly’s skull in the lake,” Jude said. Clover closed her eyes against the image. “He did it all right.”

  The others were somewhere else, sitting with Geena, consoling Marta. They all did that, for a while, but Christopher finally took West aside and told him they should go to bed. Not exactly a dismissal, but close. Jude went with Clover after a whispered conversation with Christopher.

  “I can’t believe he shot Geena,” Bridget said. “I can’t believe any of this.”

  “Too bad that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” Clover stood up from the couch and made it outside just in time for the little bit of food she had in her system to come back up in the bushes near the door. She knelt on the stoop, because her legs weren’t strong enough to hold her up anymore.

  The front door opened and Mango was at her side, pressing his body against her for support. She wrapped her arms around his neck, grateful again that she had left him home when they went out with Waverly.

  Jude sat next to her. And when she was sick again, he whispered something soothing in Spanish but still didn’t touch her. When her stomach was empty and settled at least enough for the dry heaves to stop, she said, “She wrote that article. How can she be dead?”

  “Knowing she’d write it changed things,” Jude said. “Just knowing something is supposed to happen changes everything.”

  Clover felt another wave of nausea but had nothing left in her. “We shouldn’t have come.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Clover. You weren’t the one running around the woods in the middle of the night with a gun.”

  She petted Mango’s head. The repetitive motion helped. “What if Bennett finds us here tonight?”

  “I don’t think it would occur to Langston Bennett that there is an us, much less to come looking for us.”

  “But Geena? He’ll know she came from somewhere.”

  “I don’t know, Clover. We’ll figure out our next step tomorrow. Christopher, Marta, Phire, and Emmy are spending the night in the main house, with Geena. Do you want me to stay with you?”

  Clover nodded. Jude opened one arm. She curled into him and let her tears come.

  The next morning, Christopher, Phire and Jude took turns digging an actual grave in front of a fake gravestone in the cemetery. They dug it deep. As deep as Christopher was tall, so that animals wouldn’t dig it back up again.

  Marta washed her sister and wrapped her in a white sheet. This is where ghost stories come from, Clover thought. She felt so out of place, and so tense from working so hard to keep from saying something that would hurt someone, that all she really wanted to do was go home and hide in a corner somewhere. Knowing that she’d never go home again didn’t help.

  Christopher stood in the grave and West handed Geena down to him. Her body was so small. Like she’d shrunk when her spirit left it. Christopher laid her carefully on the freshly turned earth, then climbed back out of the hole. Everyone stood around the open grave.

  “Geena wanted to write that story,” Marta finally said. “She talked about it a lot. She wanted to be smart enough to have something important to say. I’m going to do it for her.”

  “
She liked to braid my hair,” Emmy said. “And she told the best stories.”

  Phire wrapped an arm around Emmy when she started to cry. “I trusted her.”

  Marta looked up at Phire and nodded. He didn’t give his trust easily.

  “I wish I had time to know her better,” Bridget said.

  Marta wrapped her arms around Christopher’s waist and buried her face against his chest, and silent sobs shook her whole body.

  “Geena was one of the bravest people I’ve ever known,” Jude said. “It was her idea to leave Foster City in the first place. She saved my life.”

  “Mine, too.” Christopher had one big hand against Marta’s nearly bald head, smoothing his fingers over it in an effort to soothe her.

  “She was my friend,” Clover finally said. It was the most important thing she could think of between her and Geena.

  Once everyone had said something, Christopher led Marta away and Phire brought Emmy and followed him. Clover slipped her hand into Jude’s while West sprinkled lime he’d found in a shed over the body at the bottom of the grave and then started to shovel the dirt back in. It took a long time, but the four of them finished burying Geena.

  “What did you find while we were gone?” West asked Bridget when they were all sitting around the main house later. He was exhausted. Every muscle either burned or ached. Some of them did both. He wasn’t sure he cared what she found, but he guessed it needed to be discussed tonight.

  Bridget stood up from the couch and went to a corner of the room where she’d stashed a box. She lugged it to them and pulled out several black and white spiral-bound notebooks. “Two per year,” she said. “For almost fourteen years. The most recent ends about five months ago.”

  “The notebooks with future information and the book with the letters in it are on the other side of the portal,” Clover said.

  “What do they say?” Marta asked. Her face was swollen and splotchy, but for the moment, she seemed to be able to be part of the conversation. West wasn’t sure what he’d do if it had been Clover shot in the woods, but whatever it was, he’d probably regret it later. And Marta might have something like that in her, too. Christopher was staying close to her, though. Keeping a good eye.