PRIME

by Samantha Boyette

  “You been crying?” Cale stood beside her, leaning on the window. He cocked his head and peered at her.

  “No.” She waved him away, but could feel the tears coming again because of the concern in his eyes. It seemed so honest. She wiped again at her eyes, willing herself not to cry.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” He put a gentle hand to her back. “We all got plenty to cry about.”

  That did it; the tears began to flow silently. Alice wiped at them almost as fast as they fell. “I’m sorry for acting like this,” she choked out. “I usually have more self-control.”

  “Oh, hell.” Cale shook his head. “Come here.” She tried to hold back, but couldn’t resist being pulled into his arms. They were warm around her, and as he began to stroke her hair she wrapped her arms around him in return. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the touch of another person. “See, it’s not so bad.” He soothed. Alice began to laugh through her tears.

  “Not so bad?” she asked, still laughing, but trying to be quiet about it. “Really?”

  “Sorry.” Cale smiled again as she wiped away the remaining tears. “You know us men; we only got so many comforting phrases stored up.” She laughed again at that.

  “Guess you didn’t think ‘the world’s gone to hell, but hey we’re all still here to party’ seemed like the right thing to say?” Zero rasped as he tried to sit up.

  “Whoa there,” Alice warned as she hurried to his side. She wrapped an arm across his shoulders to help him sit. “Dizzy?”

  “And feelin’ like hell.” Zero’s smile was wide and inviting. It made him even better looking. “You government types offer a harsh rehab program.”

  “Sorry about that.” Alice returned his smile. She felt immediately at ease around him now that he was sober. There was something about his smile that made her want to stay at his side. She shook those thoughts from her head, realizing she was staring at him with a dopey smile on her face. “You slept through the night, I think.”

  “I think you might be right about that. Guess that’s why I only feel like a small pile of dog turds now. Before I was feeling like a grizzly-sized pile, full of dung beetles and all that. Now, I remember you, little miss intern, but who’s this prince charming you got yourself now? I didn’t mean to interrupt anything, but I didn’t want it to get too awkward.” Cale strode over to the bed and, ignoring the last comment, introduced himself.

  “Benjamin Cale.” Cale held out his hand to Zero. Zero shook it with more force than Cale expected. “They mostly call me Cale, ever since I was little.”

  “I guess they told you they call me Zero. Patient Zero, if you want to get into full names.”

  “I heard something about that.” Cale grinned. “Seems like you’re the guy I should be thanking for keeping me free of that zombie disease out there.”

  “The government’s calling them what they are now, eh?” Zero shifted and winced at the effort.

  “Are you alright?” Alice reached for Zero, but he brushed her away.

  “Just a bit of nausea and a headache when I try to move. It’ll pass.”

  “If you talk to the people in charge around here, they’re still calling them hostiles,” Cale said. “Me, I call them zombies.”

  “Well it’s the truth,” Alice muttered as she poured a glass of water for Zero and handed him a pill.

  “Oh shit, look at the intern going against her superiors,” Zero teased. He shared a smile with Alice.

  The connection between Zero and Alice was obvious to Cale. He was surprised at the pang of jealousy he felt watching them.

  “What in God’s green are you feeding me now? I thought the plan was to get me off drugs?” Zero hesitated before taking the pill.

  “It’s aspirin,” Alice said. She pushed the pill into his hand. “For the headache.”

  “Right.” Zero took a swig of the water and pushed the pill between his lips. He swallowed and drained the rest of the glass. “Been a while since I took one of those for a headache; I found Valium worked well on headaches.”

  “Well we have aspirin.” Alice put away the bottle. “I hope it helps.”

  “So Alice,” Cale said, vying for her attention. “You want to tell us how an intern ended up one of the few survivors in a military hospital?” He sank into a chair beside Zero.

  “You know, I never thought to ask her that,” Zero said. He reclined with only a slight wince of pain. He never took his eyes from Alice.

  “I’m surprised you even remember me telling you I was an intern after the state you were in,” Alice teased him. She sat in the chair next to Cale. Both were padded, but so old that you could hardly tell. “I was interning for Senator Johnson in DC. My dad worked at Haven base.”

  “Crap.” Cale leaned forward, wiping at his mouth. He didn’t have to say any more, Haven base, where it all started.

  “Yeah. We moved there when I was thirteen. I went to school on the base, and stuck around and went to Hoover University, political science major. When I graduated last spring, I applied for this internship.”

  “Hoover, huh?” Zero smiled. “Should I be impressed? I don’t remember much about colleges.” Cale wondered if the guy could remember much of anything.

  “It was a decent school,” Alice answered with a small smile. “The internship was a dream come true. Senator Johnson was a nice guy; he got scared when everything started. They thought it was germ warfare, you know from the Middle East. He figured DC would be target one and moved us back to Chicago. We were spending a lot of time on Coda base and here at the hospital. Both of us were lucky enough to still be alive when the vaccine came out,” Alice ended with a shrug.

  “But where’s Johnson now?” Cale frowned. “I don’t think I met him.”

  “The vaccine didn’t take. We shot him after he slipped into his coma,” Alice said. She said it so casually that it took a moment for her words to sink in.

  “Wait.” Cale was taken back “You’re telling me this vaccine you gave me doesn’t always take.” Alice shook her head. “Well, what the hell were my odds when you shot me up with it?”

  Alice sighed. “It seems to work for roughly nine out of ten people.”

  “Jesus.” Cale was wide-eyed. “You couldn’t have told me that before you made me take it?”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered.” Alice shook her head sadly. “It’s the only chance of survival now. Inoculation is mandatory.”

  Cale wiped a hand across his face, looking sick. “This world is screwed.”

  “No,” Alice argued. “No, because you said someone had a way to wipe out the zombies. With them gone, we could start over.”

  “If we can find it before these things take over,” Cale said. “Which, what are the odds?”

  “Now hold on,” Zero interrupted. “Just us all being here is beating the odds, right? An addict, an intern, and whatever the hell you are, together in this hospital. How many others are there?” Cale found Zero’s optimism obnoxiously catchy.

  “Jake, Quigley, and Grace, plus two of the doctors and six other adults. We have ten kids downstairs,” Alice said.

  “The others, were they soldiers?” Cale asked.

  “Three of them,” Alice said. “The others are civilians.”

  “If we can figure out where the broadcast came from, we may be able to salvage this,” Cale said. He nodded slowly, as he came around to the idea. “That is if we can get to the base.”

  “What’s all this about a cure? Zero asked, frowning. Cale sighed and began to tell him his story.

  *

  Jake knew he should have left the observation room when he saw Alice and Cale in the room with Zero. But he hadn’t been able to pull himself away, especially when Cale held her. Zero had woken up, and Cale was filling him in on his story, but Jake wasn’t paying attention to that. All he could see was the way Alice looked at Cale and Zero. She looked at them in a way she never looked at him. When she looked at him, she didn’t see someone who could interest her the way Cal
e or Zero did.

  Jake jerked around when he heard the door open. Quigley looked almost as surprised to see Jake as Jake was to see him. Quigley looked into the other room and gave him a warning look. “What are you doing, Jake?”

  “I came to check on Zero,” Jake answered. It was the truth, he had only come into the room planning to check that Zero wasn’t up and moving around or anything. After that, he meant to head down to the cafeteria to find a bite to eat. It had been Alice who distracted him.

  “It’s not good for you watching this.” Quigley walked further into the room and sank into the chair beside Jake’s. “You like her don’t you?”

  “No.” Jake laughed, but it sounded nervous and tin-filled even to his ears.

  “Uh-huh.” Quigley lit a cigarette in total disregard of the no smoking sign. “She’s a fine young woman, Jake. You’d be a fool not to notice that. I’ve noticed. Spent some of my spare time thinking about it too, if you know what I mean.”

  Jake knew what he meant. When he got a chance to sleep, it was always Alice he thought of as he lay alone in the dark. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “Thought you might. Point is, whatever you feel for her should be kept in your head alone, because that girl isn’t going to have anything to do with you or me. It’s one of those young ones in there who’s going to lay with her one day.”

  “Yeah.” Jake nodded. He knew it was true. Even though Cale was ten years older than Alice, he still had a chance. She even seemed interested in Zero, God knew why.

  Jake bristled with anger. If Alice could show interest in a drug addict, he certainly still had a chance. Why did Quigley have to be so negative? Some girls liked an older man. Someone to keep them safe, teach them things.

  “Go get something to eat, maybe some sleep,” Quigley suggested with a pat on Jake’s arm. “Forget about her.”

  “I’ll try,” Jake said. “Probably won’t though.”

  “Well don’t let Alice, or Grace, catch you looking at her that way then, got it?” Quigley watched Alice and the others. “And tell someone that Zero’s awake.”

  Jake nodded and slipped quietly from the room. He felt like a little boy who had just been caught looking up a girl’s skirt at school. The fact that Quigley felt the same way toward Alice didn’t seem to help him any. He hurried down the hall to the doctors’ quarters and knocked on the door.

  “Yeah?” The younger doctor, Markus Smith, answered the door. He looked like he might have been sleeping.

  “Zero’s awake and talking,” Jake told him. “Quigley says to get down and look him over.”

  Markus nodded and Jake headed for the cafeteria, still thinking about Alice.

  *

  Zero listened to Cale’s story with an intensity Alice hadn’t expected. He seemed less and less like the drug-addled reject they described when he first arrived, even though she knew it was true enough because she’d watched him suffer through his withdrawals. She found herself watching Zero as he listened to Cale, noticing the way his nose crinkled when he was trying to work out what Cale was saying. God help her, she thought he was cute. When Cale was finished, Zero nodded thoughtfully.

  “Should be easy enough to figure where the transmission came from, or at least narrow it down. They got records here of their last contacts right?” Cale directed this part at Alice. She nodded slowly.

  “Not here, but at Coda they should.”

  “Won’t know till we ask,” Zero said. “Then there’s something I know you government and military types aren’t fans of.”

  “What’s that?” Cale asked with a small grin. Against his will, Zero was growing on him.

  “Logic.” Zero smiled openly at him. “Figure out which bases may have sent the broadcast. From there figure which one is the most logical.”

  “Guess, you mean.” Cale looked dubious.

  “No I mean logic it out. There’s got to be something that will make one base more likely to have the cure than others,” Zero insisted. He held Cale’s look for a moment. Cale finally sighed and nodded his agreement.

  “You may be right. Of course, it could be difficult to get the others to go along with a plan you came up with. No offense, just stating the facts,” Cale added. He knew it was a dig, but it was also true.

  “No need to sugarcoat things anymore is my opinion,” Zero agreed. “I suppose telling them the truth wouldn’t do much good either. No way for them to back it up.”

  “The truth?” Alice raised a brow at him. “You don’t even remember your name, what else could you know?”

  “Now come on little miss intern, I know you’ve spoken to the kids downstairs enough to know that pieces of the before come through just fine. For instance, I know I used to be stinking rich. How else do you think I could afford to keep myself dosed out all the time?”

  “Inherited?” Cale looked interested even as he stood and began to pace the room.

  “The first bit,” Zero said. “Can’t remember how much, but I invested in stocks.”

  “Not many people get stinking rich from stocks,” Alice said, repeating his phrase. “You sure it wasn’t a dream?”

  “Not a dream. I just knew how to buy and sell, knew what was going to be big and what was going to fail. Been good at that stuff since I was a kid. When this all got out of hand, I figured it would only be a matter of time before I was killed off by it so I went on a binge. They collected my body from a homeless shelter, and I woulda been incinerated if I hadn’t woke up on the way to the place.”

  “That’s when they brought you here,” Alice said. “It was a huge deal.”

  “You don’t say?” Zero asked dryly. “Imagine how it was for me, waking up in that pile of bodies.” They were silent as that idea sank in.

  “I don’t get why they needed you to get the vaccine when tons of kids were living through it,” Cale said with a frown. “Couldn’t they have figured out their immunity?”

  “No.” Alice shook her head. “One of the doctors explained it to me once. The children’s bodies are made up differently than ours, there’s any number of differences between a child’s body and an adult’s. To pinpoint what made someone immune, the doctors needed an adult.”

  “So what makes him different?” Cale still paced. Alice had the idea he was also planning.

  “I’m not sure.” Alice watched Cale as he paced. “It’s something in his liver that doesn’t naturally occur in you or me.”

  Cale stopped pacing as he thought it over. The other two were quiet as they watched him, waiting for him to share his thoughts. Cale began to open his mouth, but then closed it. He shook his head and began to pace again. Zero and Alice exchanged a look.

  “Well good morning patient Zero.” Markus Smith entered the room with a broad smile plastered across his face. Alice didn’t like him at all. “We look like we’re coping nicely and even making friends.”

  “Yeah Doc, I’m feelin’ peachy this morning. I’m thinking of taking a stroll later on.” Zero’s answer made Alice smirk, and the doctor lost his fake smile.

  “You two better leave, I’ll be keeping him busy for a while if you don’t mind.” Markus was already pulling out his tools and needles.

  “We’ll see you later,” Alice promised Zero, squeezing his hand. “Maybe we’ll bring up some dinner.”

  “That sounds great.” Zero squeezed her hand in return. She was surprised at the shiver it gave her and turned away before he could catch her slight blush. Cale didn’t miss her reaction.

  “Later on.” Cale clapped hands with Zero a little harder than necessary. “We’ll talk more, plan this all out.”

  “Looking forward to it,” Zero said.

  Alice pulled the door shut behind them, hoping Zero would still feel up to dinner after whatever the doctors had planned for him.

  7

  Haven Medical Base

  Simon sat staring numbly into the distance as if he could see through the wooden fence that surrounded the yard. Beside him, Tessa worked on
the cuts covering the side of his face. She poured water down his cheek to wash away the loose dirt and used tweezers to gently pull out the ground-in pieces of grit. Simon winced as the sharp end of the tweezers dug painfully into his skin.

  “Sorry.” Tessa grimaced. “I’m trying to be careful.”

  “It’s alright,” Simon said. He deserved worse. Noah was dead. Simon could handle a little pain.

  “I’m doing the best I can,” Tessa went on as she squeezed out a small pebble. “But it’s going to scar.”

  “I said it’s fine. Are they back yet?” He tried to turn to see if Zeke and Tech had returned.

  “Hold still.” Tessa took his jaw and tugged him back to face her. “They aren’t back yet. It’s not going to be easy getting Noah’s body over the wall.” Simon bit his lip at the thought of Dodge and the others hauling Noah’s half eaten body back into the base. Tears welled in his eyes, and though he willed them not to fall, they slid out. His cheek stung as they ran through the fresh lacerations.

  Tessa let go and sat back. She handed Simon a white hand towel already spotted with blood. Simon dabbed his face, wincing when he touched the cuts. He handed the towel back to her when he managed to stop crying. He nodded once and turned his cheek to her again. Tessa sighed and took his chin in her hand. Her hand was warm and sweaty, but Simon was glad for the touch.

  “You’re both lucky you weren’t pulled over with him.” Tessa shook her head and dropped another small pebble onto the glass table between their chairs. “Honestly I thought you were better than that.”

  “Better than what?” Simon asked defensively. Tessa sat back, studying Simon. Simon’s heart hammered under her scrutiny. In that moment, she was more important than everything that had just happened.

  “Better than the rest of the guys.” Tessa shrugged. “It seemed like you were above all their chest pounding gorilla actions. Then yesterday you’re fighting with Matt in the gym.”

  “He started it,” Simon muttered, looking down at his lap. Her words stung. He hadn’t realized until that moment that he’d hoped standing up to Matt would impress her.