by Mark Kelly
The two men jerked to attention. “Just a beggar, boss. We’ll get rid of her—probably has the bug.”
Lucia raised her hands in the air, pleading with them. “I’m not infected. I just want something to eat. I can work for it. I am a hard worker…really, I am—and clean too.”
She smiled at the older man. He stared at her for a couple of seconds, undressing her with his eyes.
“Get her tested,” he said. “If she’s clean, bring her inside. If she isn’t, kill her.”
“What about Lilanne, boss?”
“Don’t you worry about her,” the man replied. “She’ll be fine with it. We’re down a worker because John banished the dumb bitch who was helping with the cooking. Stupid idiot spilled his drink right in front of him.”
The older man leered at Lucia and said, “If you test clean, you’ll get a meal, but you’ll have to work hard for it. You’re gonna be so sore when I’m done with you, you won’t be able to walk for a week.”
He chuckled at his own lewd joke and addressed the guards as he turned to leave. “Make sure you search her before she comes inside.”
Lucia’s heart raced. Out in the open with the two men watching her, she’d never be able to get rid of her pistol without being seen. As the older man disappeared back into the hospital, she shouted, “Thanks, mister. Could I ask you a quick question?”
When the two guards turned, expecting to see their boss, Lucia yanked the gun from her pants and tossed it into the ditch with a flick of her wrist.
“I guess he didn’t hear me,” she said when they turned back, confused.
The goateed guard frowned. He waved her forward. “Walk towards me, but stop at the bicycle rack. If you step off the grass onto the pavement, I swear to god I will put a bullet in your head.”
When she reached the bicycle rack, he spoke to the man next to him. “It’s your turn. Go ahead and test her.”
“Screw you. You do it. I did the last one. It’s your turn.”
“No, it’s not.”
She listened as they argued like children—argued like Alejandro and Blanca had done so many times before. The thought angered her. These men were alive and her son and daughter were dead.
“Give me the thermometer and I will do it myself,” she snapped at them.
The guard with a goatee stared at her and scowled. He looked at her as if she were an idiot and said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Give me the thermometer—”
“Lady, I don’t know anything about a thermometer, but you’re gonna take a dump, and he’s gonna test it.”
“Like hell, I am,” the other man said, and the argument began again.
Lucia stared at them in astonishment. Unlike the soldiers who had run out of test kits, the roamers were doing the actual test. It made sense. There must have been hundreds of kits left in the hospital.
“I can do it,” she said, interrupting their argument. “I have seen it done before.”
They stopped mid-sentence and stared at her. “Where?”
“At a hospital.”
“What hospital?”
“Bellevue Hospital in New York City. I was there at the beginning of the pandemic.”
The two men huddled together and talked. One of then stepped to the open door and yelled inside. A minute later, a woman appeared with a small cardboard box in her hand. She looked haggard and lifeless. When she saw Lucia, a flicker of sorrow appeared in her eyes. The man snatched the box from the woman and pushed her back inside the hospital.
“Stay back,” he directed Lucia. “I’ll leave this on the grass. If you come anywhere near me, I’ll shoot you.”
Lucia stepped back, stopping only when he nodded. He ran forward, dropped the box on the ground, and scurried back to the door.
She went to the box and opened it. Like the kits she had seen Mei use, this one contained a small foil package, vials of chemicals and a sealed bag of plastic tubes that look like eyedroppers. She unfolded the instructions and began to read them.
“What are you waiting for?” the man yelled at her.
She peered over the piece of paper in her hand. “I am reading the instructions.”
“I thought you said you had done this before.”
“I said I’ve seen it done, not that I did it.”
“Hurry up. We ain’t got all day.”
She ignored him and turned her attention back to the instructions. The test was simple. It would take ten minutes. All she had to do was mix the chemicals in the right order. She wasn’t worried about that. That was the easy part. It was the sample that concerned her.
She looked around for somewhere private. Two ambulances blocked the road near the hospital’s entrance. She began to walk towards them.
“Where the hell are you going?” the guard with the goatee shouted.
She pointed at the nearest ambulance. “Over there, behind it.”
“Nope. You might cheat.”
“Cheat how? I am in the middle of a parking lot.”
“Don’t matter, rules are rules.” He laughed and shook his head. “You’re gonna take a shit right there in the open, and we’re gonna watch you do it.”
Hatred boiled in the pit of her stomach and burned like acid. She had never wanted to hurt a person as much as she wanted to hurt him. If she still had her gun, she would have shoved it up his ass and pulled the trigger. She bit down on her lip, feeding on the pain. It wasn’t until her mouth filled with the salty taste of her own blood, the hatred disappeared, replaced with crystal clear clarity. This cabrón would be third to die—right after his king and queen.
The men laughed as she yanked down her pants and squatted. She fixed her eyes on them, imagining the bullets that would take their lives. It helped her forget that Baker and the soldiers were in the forest watching.
28
A Sharp Taste
Ten minutes later, it was done. Lucia glanced at the indicator. Negative—as she expected. She left the plastic device on the curb and stepped away so the guards could check it.
Satisfied with what he saw, the goateed guard motioned her forward and pushed her against the building’s brick wall. When she stumbled, he laughed and kicked her feet apart and said, “Arms above your head.”
While the other man watched, the goateed guard searched her, beginning at her ankles and working his way up her torso. He reached her thighs and thrust his hand up, forcing the cloth of her jeans tight against her crotch. She winced but didn’t cry out. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure of hearing her pain. When he finished, she gasped for air, unaware she had been holding her breath.
“Didn’t like that too much, eh?” he said with a biting laugh. “Get used to it.”
He flicked on a flashlight, grabbed her by the arm and pushed her through the door into the hospital. A suffocating humid warmth swept over her, making her lungs feel like they were filled with water. She coughed to clear her throat and inhaled deeply. The pungent odor of bleach hung in the air, not as strong as Abram’s disinfecting solution, but more like laundry that had just been washed.
Blinking to acclimatize her eyes to the dim light, she looked around. On one side of the lobby, a couple dozen people sat on the floor with their backs pressed up against the wall. They were still and languid, as if the heat, or lack of food, had drained every last bit of energy from their bodies.
Two men entered through a door at the far end of the lobby. “Get up, you lazy bastards,” the men shouted as they walked along prodding the people on the floor with the barrels of their rifles.
Slowly, the horde rose. They formed a line and shuffled towards the main entrance. Most of them carried empty knapsacks on their back. A teenage boy at the end of the line held his pack in his hand. It fell to the floor as he passed Lucia and she bent down and reached for it.
“Pick up your own goddamn pack,” the guard said, slapping the boy on the back of his head.
The boy snatched the pack from Lucia’s hand. He di
dn’t speak, but gave her a quick nod of thanks and ran to catch-up with the others. As the last of the scavenging party left, Lucia felt a hand grab at her rear-end. Fists clenched, she started to turn.
“You wanna take a swing, darling?” the goateed guard said with a laugh. He grabbed her hand and twisted it behind her back to the point where she cried out in pain. Then he pushed her across the lobby and shoved her against the wall near the door the other two men had come through.
“Arms up and legs apart.”
She waited for the groping to begin again. It didn’t. Instead, she heard what sounded like a bicycle pump being used. Tense and on edge, she counted the strokes until the pumping stopped at ten. Seconds later, a stream of bleach-scented water soaked the back of her shirt and pants.
“Turn around.”
She turned, and he pulled the trigger, spraying her in the face with a blast of sanitizing solution that burned her eyes. Unable to stop herself, she rubbed them, making it worse.
“Stings a little, doesn’t it? Here’s one more for good measure.”
Flinching as he sprayed her in the face, the knot in her stomach grew and it took every ounce of her willpower to not swing at him.
After he had completely soaked her, he placed the manual pressure sprayer on the floor and knocked on the door.
The door opened a crack. A man shone a flashlight in her eyes.
“Got another one,” the goateed guard said. “A replacement for the one John banished.”
“I hope this one’s brighter,” the man on the other side muttered. He pulled Lucia through the door and slammed it shut.
With her eyes still burning from the bleach, Lucia struggled to see in the dim light. As her vision cleared, she realized she was standing at the start of a hallway lit by what looked to be solar powered garden lights.
“Follow her,” the guard muttered and shoved Lucia forward. Unable to see clearly, she took a hesitant step and stopped. A woman appeared out of the shadows and beckoned to her.
“Where are we going?” Lucia asked.
The woman ignored her question and turned and walked away.
Lucia hurried after the woman before she disappeared back into the darkness. Each step brought them closer to the silhouette of another guard who stood in front of a second door at the end of the hallway. Suspecting the door would lead to the Lodge—and Saanvi, Lucia made a move towards it.
“No, this way. You’re going to the kitchen,” her escort said, turning at a junction in the hallway.
Disappointed, Lucia slowed to study the guard. He lounged against the door with his rifle held loosely in his hand. A pistol was tucked in a holster on his left hip. It was within reach, only a few steps away. Her mind raced as she considered making a move for it.
“Hurry up!” her escort said and grabbed Lucia, pulling her down the corridor towards an open door where the faint glow of a lantern spilled into the hallway. The sign on the wall beside the door read Diagnostics and Imaging. “In you go,” the woman said, pushing Lucia inside.
A large x-ray machine sat in the middle of the room. On the other side of the machine, two women stood with their backs to the door, huddled over a set of camping stoves that had been jammed together beneath a large laboratory fume hood. What little light there was in the room came from a lantern hung from the top of the x-ray machine.
“I brought you help,” Lucia’s escort said to the women.
Startled, they jerked their heads towards the door. The younger of the two wore her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and stepped forward. Her brow wrinkled with worry when she spoke. “Where’s Mya?” she asked Lucia’s escort.
“Banished.”
The word was like a bullet. It hit both women hard. Lucia watched the younger one collapse to her knees while the older woman tried to console her.
“Doesn’t change anything,” Lucia’s escort said in a hard voice. “You still need to get dinner ready and don’t be late about it or the same thing will happen to you.” She took one last condescending look at the two women and left the room.
Lucia ran to the door. She poked her head out and watched the woman walk down the hallway and disappear around the corner. When she was certain the woman wasn’t coming back, Lucia ducked back inside.
She needed a weapon…and then information.
Ignoring the women who sat on the floor consoling each other, Lucia ran to the first of the two counters lining the walls and rummaged through the drawers. Not finding anything she could use as a weapon, she searched the second set of drawers and then ran to a stack of cardboard boxes piled haphazardly in a corner.
Her frustration grew as she opened them. One after another, every single box was filled with canned food; food the roamers had probably stolen and enough to feed a large family for a year.
Cursing under her breath, Lucia knocked over the boxes in anger, spilling their contents everywhere. She climbed to her feet and scanned the dimly lit room. Spotting a door in the middle of the back wall, she ran to it and turned the handle. It was pitch black inside, but she could see the faint outline of a short corridor leading to another room. She needed a light.
She dashed to the table attached to the x-ray machine and climbed up on it. The hiss of fuel vapor spraying onto the lantern’s white-hot mantel filled her ears. Stretching her arm out, Lucia reached for the lantern’s handle, but it was just beyond her grasp.
Frustrated, she tried again, this time leaping upwards onto her toes. Her balance wavered and her hand brushed against the super-heated glass globe. The searing pain was worse than anything she had ever felt. She jerked her hand away and almost fell off the table-top as she cursed in angry Spanish.
“Mierda…Me cago en todo lo que se menea!”
The two women on the floor looked up at her.
“What are you staring at?” she hissed at them. “Have you never seen someone burn themselves?”
Lucia cursed again and stretched up on her toes, reaching for the lantern, and taking care not to touch the glass globe as she unhooked the handle and climbed down from the table-top with the lantern in her hand.
Now, she could see everything in the back room. It was being used as a garbage dump. An empty gurney was pressed against the wall. Dozens of empty cans of camp fuel littered the floor near a pile of trash in the middle of the room. She placed the lantern on the counter and searched through the drawers and cupboards.
Nothing. They were all empty.
Desperate to find something she could use as a weapon, she knelt beside the pile of garbage and combed through the trash. She twisted the lid off an empty tin can and set it aside. If push came to shove, she could use the sharp piece of metal with its jagged edges as a weapon.
Continuing to search, she dug down into the pile of trash, finding broken pieces of lab equipment, a box of medical tape—and then at the very bottom, resting on the floor, a pair of surgical scissors.
Elated by her discovery, she held the scissors up in the faint light. They were dainty with slender blades and small finger holes in the handles. She pricked the pointed end of the blade into the flesh of her arm. A tiny drop of blood appeared, and she smiled, imagining the scissors stuck in King John’s chest.
Lucia tucked the weapon into her sock and stood. Aside from a sharp poke in her leg when she stepped sideways, the scissors stayed in place. Pleased with herself, she grabbed the lantern and returned to the main room.
“You took our light,” a petulant voice called out from the dark.
Lucia held the lantern out to see who had spoken. She saw the older woman squinting from the bright light with her lips stuck out in a sulky pout.
“It was dark in there,” Lucia said.
“It was dark in here,” the woman whined back.
“Not anymore,” Lucia replied, handing her the lantern. It was time to find Saanvi and she needed help. Lucia walked over and turned the stove burners off. The bluish-ora
nge flames winked out with a quiet pop.
“Hey, we haven’t finished cooking their dinner,” the older woman complained, reaching for the BBQ starter next to the stove.
“I don’t care about their dinner,” Lucia replied, snatching the starter out of the woman’s hand. “I want information. We will start with something simple. What is your name?”
The woman scowled at her. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m Delilah.”
“What about you?” Lucia asked, looking down at the woman on the floor who was still sobbing.
“M-Megan…” the woman sniffled.
“Why are you crying?”
“They banished my sister. She’s going to die.”
“Not if you help me.”
Lucia reached down and grabbed Megan by the arm, forcefully lifting her to her feet. “Stop crying. I can not talk to you when you are blubbering like a child. Do you want your sister to die?”
The older woman stood with her hands on her hips and gave Lucia a cross look. “For goodness’ sake, can’t you see she’s upset. Why don’t you leave her alone?”
“Because I need help. I am looking for a friend—a special friend. I think she is in the place you call the Lodge. I need to find her and bring her home.”
“No one gets to leave here,” the older woman said. “If you try to escape, they’ll kill you and then they’ll kill us.”
“Not if I kill them first.”
The older woman’s eyes widened as she stepped away from Lucia and glanced towards the door. She turned and bolted. Lucia raced across the room, tackling her to the floor and clamping a hand over her mouth.
“If you move or shout, I will kill you,” Lucia hissed. “Do you believe me?” She pressed down harder on the woman’s head to make her point.
The woman grunted.
Lucia looked over her shoulder at the other woman, Megan, and said, “There is a box of medical tape in the other room. Get it and bring it here.”
Megan stared at her, shellshocked and unmoving.
“Listen to me,” Lucia said. “Your sister is outside with the people I came here with. They are soldiers. We are looking for a girl who the roamers took. She is immune to the bug and her immunity can be used to cure people.”
