by Ann Christy
That doesn’t sound good to me at all. Of course, it might be good in the wider world if they form groups and then attack each other. It would weed out their numbers given time. On the upside, if they didn’t go after Luke as food even though he is cured, might that mean they won’t go after us? Or does that only work for former in-betweeners?
I must not be the only one who thought of that, because Savannah asks, “Wait. If they didn’t go after Luke, does that mean they might not go after us if we’re clear?”
Roger’s mouth gives a twist as if to say she’s close, but not close enough, and he says, “I doubt that. They go after humans now whether they’re infected with nanites or not. I think it’s got to do with his former in-betweener status more than his cleared status. I think we’re out of luck there. Of course, there’s no way to know that for sure.”
Princeton, Violet, and Gordon have been quiet up till now, heads moving like they’re at a tennis match as they watch each speaker in our haphazard circle speak. Princeton clears his throat, then looks shy when we all turn to him.
“Go ahead. There’s no such thing as too much input,” Tom says, clearly trying to be inclusive and inviting.
Savannah smirks a little, earning a nudge from Gregory, but Princeton doesn’t see it, thank goodness.
“Yeah, well, I sort of already knew about that. The hospital was running, along with the military base, for a good many months after things went completely down everywhere else. That was before you got there, Tom. Or even Violet. They were testing First Stage Revived on the base and discovered that females, particularly younger ones at prime child-bearing ages, created a sort of buffer zone around themselves. I don’t know the specifics of what they were doing, but I doubt they were feeding and caring for them the way you are.”
“And the pack behavior?” I ask.
He shakes his head, looks to Gordon, who only shrugs, and then says, “I’m not sure, but I will say that the base went down fairly quickly once people began turning inside, and I know from the Doc that there were problems with containment right about that time. So, it’s possible. It puts their dissolution in a whole new light.”
Violet sort of snort-giggles at his last words, a sour expression on her face. I’ve never actually heard anyone make a sound like that before and I like it. It’s very expressive.
“Violet?” Tom prods.
She shakes her head, her expression still making it look like she’s got something distasteful in her mouth. “It’s just the way he says it, so clinical like. What really happened over there is that they were feeding their in-betweeners, but not like you guys. They were feeding them the newly dead. Once rumors of that started spreading, people stopped going to medical when they were sick, or bringing their loved ones there. And it only took a few people dying inside the wire to get the ball rolling. I don’t know if they developed pack behavior of the kind you’re seeing, but I do know from Doc that they developed a sort of hierarchy of who ate first. They even began parceling out their food, making sure no single in-betweener ate too much. It was all in the reports. That seems close enough to me to call it pack behavior.”
I sure wish we’d known all this earlier. I’m not sure what difference it would have made, but I think back to all the times when we were fighting the in-betweeners and others would always show up, that feral curiosity on their faces, before they charged into the fray. On second thought, I’m glad I didn’t know. It might have changed how willing I was to fight or made me hesitate for just that extra half-second, wondering if each fight was a pack hunt.
“And Emily?” I prompt again.
When Tom looks at me, I can tell he’s going to say things I don’t like. It’s written all over his face.
“Well, we decided to push the tests further and see what would happen if their leaders—if that’s the right word—were gone. It took a while, but with the music covering some of the noise, we put enough holes in the girls’ heads with big enough caliber rounds to put them down for good. Once everyone settled down again, the results were very quick.”
“They went to Emily?” I ask, hoping he says no.
“Those within a certain range did. And there were ripples out from that, sort of like the area she could attract from expanded the more in-betweeners joined her at the fence. It was very quick, much quicker than I would have thought. In that regard, I do think she’s special.”
Charlie’s hand squeezes my side in support. He can probably feel that I’m ready to jump up and run. He asks, “But did they just cluster around her or did she display any sort of actual control.”
Tom looks grave again when he says, “Oh, she did. She started in with that humming and some of the in-betweeners clustered at the fence went around the fence, sniffing like they do. I’m pretty sure she sent them looking for us.”
Those words chill me to the bone. If she did that, then how can she be on our side?
“We were stationed downwind for a reason,” Roger adds.
“Once we got that much information, we decided it was too risky to continue further. Who knows what she might have gotten them to do? Climb fences, maybe? Figure out how to work their gate? We used the music again, but this time, it took a lot longer to get them to move. A few of them stayed with her at her spot in the fence. I’m pretty sure she was somehow communicating that there wasn’t anything there for them to eat,” Tom explains.
“We had to take those few out so we could get Emily and her pets unchained and back the way we’d come,” Roger says.
Now, I need to know what they plan on doing with that information.
“So, what next?” I ask.
Tom scoots forward from his spot in our circle so that he’s closer to me. I’ve been twisting my hands in my lap, nervous and worried, and he gently detaches them from each other. He encloses both of my hands in his two big ones and gives them a squeeze.
He says, “Emily doesn’t know us well, so she didn’t do what we said like she does for you. We’d like to run the test again, but this time, we’d like to see if you can control her. We’d like to find out if you can make her control the in-betweeners. We’d like to see if they can be herded toward fighting a specific enemy.”
Somehow, I’m not surprised by what he’s saying. If I’m logical and think objectively, that’s what we should do. But if it’s successful, then Emily will be put in danger, so I don’t want to do it. I don’t want it to be successful. On the other hand, all of these people are in jeopardy and will continue to be unless we manage to get that military group out of the picture. If we run, we’ll never know when they might find us. If we hide, then what life will we really be living? And if we want to try to find people so that we can cure them of their nanite loads, we have to eliminate them or else we’ll surely be found. That sort of news will spread to them in time.
I take a deep breath and say, “Okay. When do we go?”
Today – Night Falls
Charlie is trying to comfort me, but it’s not doing any good. There’s no comfort to be taken here. Not really. Dinner will be ready soon and the sunset is already turning the sky colors, but for the first time in a long time, I’m in no way hungry. I don’t even think I could eat. Instead, I’m on the roof again and trying not to freak out.
“Shh, V. It’s going to be okay. I know it,” Charlie says in a voice that’s meant to be soothing. I don’t hear that part though. All I hear is the words that can’t be true.
“Okay? How the heck is it going to be okay? Emily didn’t choose this. She isn’t volunteering for this. She probably won’t even understand what I’m asking if I ask her if she wants to do it!” I push him away and he lets me go, sitting still in his place on the roof while I scoot over the rough gravel to extend the distance between us.
I take a deep breath, trying not to cry anymore, but I feel very trapped, both for myself and for Emily. When I think my tears are pushed back again, I look over at Charlie. His expression almost sets me to crying again. Sympathy, compassion,
and real pain for me are written on his handsome face. I do love him and love means allowing myself to be supported when I need it, as well as being the supportive one when that’s needed. I’m just not good at the being supported part.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t mean to take it out on you. It’s just…”
“Just that there’s no one else you can take it out on?” he offers.
The noise that comes out of me sounds bitter. I suppose I am, with good reason.
“I’m still sorry,” I say.
“Will you let me talk and just listen to me?” Charlie asks. “I mean, really listen.”
I look at him for a moment, not sure I want to do that, because it sounds like he’s not going to agree with me. What else is there for me to do, though? Eventually, I nod.
“Veronica, here’s the thing. Emily did volunteer for this in a way.” He sees my back straighten and must see the arguments forming in my mouth, because he holds up a hand and says, “Really listen.”
I’m having a hard time with this. I want to argue. I also want to be convinced. I don’t know what I want. I lie back on the roof and put an arm over my eyes to block my own desire to argue. “Okay,” I say. “Go ahead.”
He sighs, but I hear the crunch of gravel and feel his shadow fall over me when he approaches. He sits next to me and says, “When Emily let herself become an in-betweener, rather than having us kill her before she could turn, she did it because she wanted to be that person who could help you. She wanted to know if curing the cause of death would also bring the person inside back. But she was also prepared for any possibility. The possibility of a cure really existing on that hard drive, the possibility that more of a person might be left inside if they were revived quickly, that in-betweeners might be tamed, and so many more possibilities. She had no idea what else might happen, but she still wanted to be there for you in case having an in-betweener might help. This is part of that. It’s just one of the endless possibilities she was signing up for when she let this happen to herself.”
The way he says what he says, so softly and gently, probably does more to convince me than his words. He’s not just pulling out a convincing argument, he’s telling me the truth as he sees it. Do I see it that way as well?
“V?” he asks when I don’t say anything.
I hold up a finger on my free hand to let him know I need a minute, and I hear the gravel crunch as he leans back, ready to wait for as long as I need him to.
I try to think back to those last months with Emily, with her head pounding and her condition worsening. We spent endless hours talking and what Charlie says is true. She was full of the endless possibilities out there and always hopeful that one would come our way. I don’t know how many times she told me that she’d gotten all those extra years of life for a reason, and that maybe this was the reason. As always, Emily was willing to sacrifice for others.
Really, I don’t have to think too hard to imagine what she would say to this. She’d say yes and do it without hesitation.
“I don’t know if I can,” I say, the tears coming up again and muddying my words.
Charlie stretches out next to me and his arm encircles my middle, squeezing me to him. The rough gravel hurts my back, but I hardly feel it. After a time, my misery is pushed back by Charlie’s soothing voice and comforting arms. I know we’ve missed dinner, and I heard the squeak of the trap door to the roof when someone came looking for us, but I just want to lay here, away from everyone except Charlie. I think he understands and I think he’s strong enough to loan me the strength I’ll need if this experiment leads to the place where I think it will.
That place will be war. And Emily will be the one fighting.
Today – Experimental Behavior
It’s almost my turn. I feel like I need to pee—again—at the mere thought of what comes next. We’ve made the difficult decision to bring most of our best shooters with us today, leaving the warehouse complex with just three adults and three kids. I know I have back-up, but that won’t change the way it will feel to actually walk up to the fence.
The bucket of bird carcasses smells metallic and gamey, and my hand is sweating on the plastic handle. From my position, I can no longer see Emily, but I know where she is. Just as before, she’s chained to the fence, this time accompanied only by Luke. Rather than have him next to her, we’ve put him between the two fences. And just like Tom described, and I saw for myself from the tree this morning, there’s a crowd of in-betweeners on the other side of the fences, all clustering near her like she’s an undead rock star.
We’ve practiced this at the home warehouse, so I know that it’s possible at least. What I don’t know is if it will work with in-betweeners that are strangers. For the last few days, I’ve been working with Emily to see if she can make our in-betweeners ignore me and then ascertain how long that effect lasts.
It’s sort of been happening on its own, which is how we got the idea in the first place. But this is very different than that situation. At home, she’s annoyed by the constant noise of the in-betweeners and does whatever she does to keep them quiet for her own benefit. For a long time, we thought the in-betweeners simply learned that lunging at us was futile, so they did it less.
We’ll see how it works with in-betweeners in the wild. If it works.
Above me in a tree stand, Tom is peering at the near side of the fence through the scope on his rifle. The music is blaring so loudly that I could probably sing along and not draw any attention. We’re using up too much of the precious fuel in the truck so that we can power those huge speakers, but music works. And sadly, the harder the metal in the music, the better it works. Why couldn’t it be a nice pop song? Something I used to like before people stopped making pop music.
He lowers the rifle and urges me onward with quick waves. We want to limit the amount of time the engine has to run for the music, so he’d rather I hurry and get to my spot.
I don’t have time to mull it over. The music covers the sound, but I can feel how deep my breaths are. The squishing in my ears as my heart catches up to my adrenaline gives me an almost immediate headache. I push through the undergrowth, saplings no one has thinned springing up in spaces that were once trails for walking and biking.
As I pass, I glance up at Charlie in his spotter position. His face is grim and tight, his worry for me plain. We try to give each other smiles meant to be encouraging, but his looks as unconvincing as mine feels. I look away, focusing on my path.
The dappled sunlight grows stronger as I near the edge of the trees, and the carrion smell of the birds is lost in the stench that wafts toward me from the enclosed area. Two dead humans, or maybe in-betweeners, lay scattered in bits all along the corner of the fence. It looks like they must have tried to escape, perhaps soon after they were attacked. If Laura survived, it’s not impossible that others did as well, hidden inside the houses somehow. If that’s true and they tried to make a break for it, they were clearly unsuccessful.
Emily already has her head turned toward me, her nose lifted and her eyes on the bucket in my hand. Luke is looking my way as well from his place between the two fences. The space between the fences is maybe four feet wide, one of the narrower spots. It will work for our purposes best because he has to be able to get closer to the in-betweeners than he can from outside both of the fences where we are. His human eyes are more engaged than I’ve seen in a while. All the input out here must be doing something for him, because that dull, glazed expression I often see is nowhere now. He’s chained, but only so that he doesn’t wander too far from our spot, and it’s only by one ankle. He probably feels far freer than he has since he woke.
I’m pretty sure I do not look any of those things. If anything, I probably look like I’m going to puke.
When I come close to Emily, I can already hear the banging and shrieks of in-betweeners as they leave the area where the music drew them. Now that the music is gone, I can hear how ragged my breathing is and I’d swear my h
eart is pounding hard enough to hear from the tree-stands where my protectors are hiding.
“Emily,” I say, drawing her gaze up from the bucket. “Eat this food. Tell them that I’m not for them. Make them leave me alone.”
Her eyes narrow, her expression reflecting only hunger and a sort of feral-ness that makes me think of a cat hunting a mouse. I thrust the bucket in her direction, making sure I stay just out of reach of her arms, then put it on the ground, pushing it toward her with my dog catcher. As she reaches into the bucket, I take a quick glance behind me and check once more that my sanctuary is ready should I need it.
They’ve moved an abandoned car into the cleared area between the fenced off portion of this suburb and the larger, unfenced part of it. It’s not hard to find such cars. This was a housing area filled with the upper-middle class, a place of two car garages and three more cars in the driveway. This one has flat tires, as they all do, but this one is special in that it’s old, someone’s midlife crisis toy, more than likely. It has manual locks and windows.
Roger painted over the windows from the inside so that they’re almost opaque, and one of the doors is invitingly open, waiting for me to jump in and lock it behind me if the worst happens. And the worst would be them coming over the fences at me.
I see the first of the in-betweeners wander out from between two houses at the other end of the enclosure. One of them sniffs the air, his head jerking around in hungry, rapid jerks. I can almost hear his scream before he makes it, and the moment he starts, a cluster of other in-betweeners appears from the same area. No longer wandering without purpose, they are all sniffing, alerted to the sound of found prey.
A girl comes out with rapid, hard steps—almost stomping—and pushes the first keening in-betweener out of her way. He stumbles, makes to lunge toward her, then stops and backs up. The others do as well, veering out of her way or simply moving aside. After less than a minute, she’s left standing with a well-defined circle of space around her, alone in the growing mob.
