Sergeant Bennings stepped forward and pointed a second gun at Ricker’s head. Ricker dropped the bloody machete. I held my breath and silently pleaded with Ricker to not move another muscle.
“What the hell did you just do?” Hugh said.
“What you couldn’t,” Ricker said, his voice sounding normal. “I helped him stay uninfected.”
“You made him trade one kind of infection for another,” Sergeant Bennings said.
“Someone should take him back to our town,” Ricker said. “They’ll help him in the hospital. They’ve got supplies.”
“Not antibiotics,” I said, unable to keep my mouth closed, my stomach sick at what I'd just seen.
“Not antibiotics,” Ricker agreed, “but other things might help.”
Sergeant Bennings nodded to Eddy. “You take him back.” He flicked his eyes over Ricker. “You may have just saved his life.”
That was as close to a thank you as I’d ever imagined hearing come out of Sergeant Benning’s mouth. All because a man would rather lose an arm than become a Feeb like us.
“We should go back too,” Kern said.
Sergeant Bennings holstered his gun. A muscle on his neck twitched. He looked over the hillside and the sinkhole. “We’re not going back until I find my son.”
Sergeant Bennings led the way. His people followed even though his decisions might get all of us killed. I fell in behind Gabbi. She didn’t acknowledge me. I had revealed something I’d learned about her in the fevers. I had broken our code, even though it had saved her life.
Ricker came up behind me and I thought about jumping away if he attacked me.
If Ricker attacked me.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around this.
Ricker looked at me sideways. “Don’t be scared, Maibe. Not yet, at least. I’m still okay.”
There was such a note of longing in his voice, my confusion almost stopped me in my tracks.
I felt the tease of Fainthood whispering at the edges of my brain. If I let it take over I wouldn’t have to think about any of this. It would all go away and I would feel so much better remembering only the good things.
My throbbing ankle brought me back. I walked faster, trying to banish it all away. Ricker increased his pace to match mine.
We explored the fairgrounds until we found a two-story warehouse with a fire escape. Sergeant Bennings sent in us Feebs to search the building for Vs. He decided we would stay on the roof for the night and let any Vs in the area move on. We’d find a way around the sinkhole in the morning.
Once on the rooftop, they built a small fire. Pink, orange, and gray streaked the sky during the sunset. No trees interrupted the view this high up. It was as if we had entered a painting. Yet there was this imaginary line that separated Ricker, me, Gabbi, and the other Feebs from the uninfected.
They gave us some blankets and made us set up on the far side of the roof from them, as if breathing the same few inches of air was too much. For a long time, Sergeant Bennings stood at the edge looking out at the brilliant light and the destruction below.
Tabitha sat away from all of us. She was cross-legged, her hands resting on her knees, her back straight. She looked like a picture of calm meditation. As if she were thinking about all the ways she could help the world instead of hurt it.
Most of the other Feebs worked on our own little fire and passed around whatever food they’d escaped with from the cars.
Gabbi was at the other corner of the roof as far away from us as possible.
Ricker sat next to me and I wondered how close I should get to him and what nightmares the darkness might bring him and how I would protect him from the others if he did lose control.
I bit my lip and moved my blanket closer to his. “Hi.”
Ricker looked at me, evaluating my hello as if it held a deeper question.
Of course it did.
He talked softly, as if I were the wild animal that needed soothing instead of the other way around. “Sergeant Bennings was going for his gun. His whole body was going tense. He had this mean stare he was giving the guy like he was a rabid dog that needed to be put down for his own good.”
“He’s right,” Kern said. He stood several feet away. I realized he stood halfway between Tabitha and Gabbi. Unsure or unwilling to go to one over the other. “I saw it too.”
I tilted my head, trying to think over the scene. I’d only had eyes for the machete and Ricker. I hadn’t seen Sergeant Bennings or paid attention to what he had been doing.
“Didn’t you see Sergeant’s gun?” Ricker said. “He was ready to kill the guy for getting bit. For getting infected.”
“But we’re going after the cure,” I said, remembering the disturbing light in Ricker’s eyes. I also remembered how Sergeant Bennings had placed his hand on his holster. I thought he’d been focused on the hillside of Vs. “He believes the cure exists. He’s going after it. It doesn’t make sense.”
“He was about to kill him for having gotten infected,” Ricker said. “I had to do something. You believe me, right?”
“I believe you.” Although I wasn’t sure I did. But I didn’t NOT believe him either.
Ricker squinted at me.
“I believe you. I do.” This time I said it with more conviction.
Hugh crossed the imaginary line on the roof while slapping on a pair of blue surgical gloves. Two other uninfected walked on either side of him, guns ready. Hugh went over to Gabbi.
I stood up.
She turned her head. Her short hair was plastered to her skin. There was a wild look in her eyes.
I took a step. Kern grabbed my wrist. “Let her be.”
I shook him off. He didn’t know Gabbi very well if he thought letting her deal with someone like Hugh alone would work.
“Put your hands together,” Hugh said. “In front of you. Ankles too.”
“What are you going to do?” I called out.
One of the guns swiveled in my direction. The other stayed trained on Gabbi.
“You’re to be tied up for the night so you can’t escape—or worse.”
“Or worse?” I said.
“Infect us,” Hugh said, not taking his eyes off Gabbi as he answered me. “Pull another stunt like you all did today while we’re sleeping and can’t defend ourselves.”
“We’re not criminals,” I said.
“Depends on whose point of view you take,” he said.
Gabbi didn’t move. I thought if she did move, it would be an explosion and we’d all die from the blast.
“Right.” I held out my hands. “Go for it. Tie away. Whatever.”
Hugh left Gabbi and used simple rope around my hands and ankles, then he did the same to Ricker. Next came Kern and the other Feebs.
Gabbi was the only one left untied. They had all the weapons. We had nothing. Gabbi held out her hands while staring steadily at Hugh. He kept breaking the stare and fumbling with the rope. When he finally finished the three uninfected hurried back to their side.
“That’s it?” I said.
“He can’t believe this will hold us for long,” Ricker said.
Hugh returned with a gun and a steaming packet of food. He sat cross-legged on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Ricker said.
“First watch,” Hugh said.
Chapter 22
The night was loud. Crickets and frogs called out a chaotic drum session. A type of painted gravel covered the roof and dug into my skin through the blanket. Even though I was warm enough at first, it soon chilled. I slept in fits. The ropes dug into my body in weird ways. I dreamed of Dutch Flat and wondered how my Faints were. I hoped Corrina and Dylan were still okay.
I woke the next morning to the sun and uncurled from between Ricker and Gabbi. She wouldn’t talk to me, but even still had thrown a protective arm over my waist in the night. I didn’t know if she was angry, sad, scared. Probably all of those things at once.
Ricker moaned at the loss of heat and opened h
is eyes. “What’s on the menu?”
“Hot coffee and French Toast dipped in eggs and cinnamon,” I said, “and real maple syrup.”
“And fresh squeezed orange juice?” He smiled.
“Of course.”
We ate the stale crackers, cheese, and sour water passed around. Hugh untied all of us and we climbed down the fire escape after checking for Vs.
The sinkhole had grown over night, taking out more houses, the entrance to the fairgrounds, and our vehicles.
The drum session hadn’t been the crickets.
Leon cursed. Tabitha whispered something to him. He went silent.
Sergeant Bennings went to the lip of the monster and looked down.
“I hope he falls in,” Gabbi said. They were the first words she had spoken to me since I had called out her full name.
“That’s Alden’s father,” I said.
“That’s the man who imprisoned us, who kept Mary from us, who tried to kill us.” Gabbi’s voice rose in volume with each word until she was practically shouting.
I snatched at her arm. “Lower your voice.”
She jerked away and pushed me up against a fence. The metal chain links scratched my skin.
“Gabbi,” Ricker hissed.
Nobody paid attention to our little drama except for Leon. His gaze stayed steady on Gabbi, flicking only once to me. Gabbi’s fingers pinched my arms. Ricker looked ready to punch her, and Leon, I didn’t know what he would do.
“We need Sergeant Bennings,” I said.
Gabbi snarled. “I don’t NEED anyone. I’ve survived fine without help from anyone like him. Anyone like you.”
Ricker placed a gentle hand on Gabbi’s shoulder. She flinched. Her head turned as if she were about to snap at him. I wanted to throw up. Gabbi couldn’t go V, not now, not with all of them here. She would die. We would watch her die.
“Gabbi, I’m sorry about your name,” I said. “You were standing at the edge. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t want you to die.”
Her voice softened. “Maibe?” She blinked. “It’s just a name. It’s nothing. It’s not anything. You’re one of the only people who has ever cared enough—sometimes you remind me of her.”
Leon stepped closer, blocking us from the sight of Sergeant Bennings and the other uninfected. Something bright glinted in the sun. He unsheathed a knife from his belt. Somehow, he’d kept a weapon from the uninfected. Now he held it out as if ready to use it on Gabbi. Fear shot through me. My heartbeat slammed into my ears, drowning out all sound.
“Mary always cared, even if she was hard on us sometimes. I knew it was because—”
“Gabbi,” I said, my voice low, urgent. I tried to keep the fear out of it because I thought if she could hear that, it would only trip her further into a frenzy. “Remember the cure? Remember Ano and Jimmy? We’re here for them. We’re here and we’re alive and we’re going to find the cure that will bring everyone back and fix all of this.”
Something about Gabbi changed. Her eyes narrowed, her grip became more painful. “You always said we were dead. You said we died as soon as we got infected. What does any of this matter? We’re zombies—that’s what you said. And zombies are supposed to hurt and kill and—”
“Mary’s still out there,” Ricker said, putting a sureness into his words that he couldn’t possibly feel. But then I looked at the blaze in his eyes and thought that maybe he did believe it. I didn’t know Mary, but she was a powerful person to them. She was who this had all started with. She was everything.
“We’re not dead.” My voice caught in my throat. All the movies I’d watched with my uncle tumbled around and overlapped in my brain. Infection. Change. Death. It was my life. It was thick around us. “I was wrong.”
I wasn’t just saying these words to talk her down. I really believed them now. We were alive and I wanted to stay that way.
“We need Sergeant Bennings in order to find Mary. You want to find Mary, right?”
Leon crept closer.
“If he dies,” I said, “How long do you think it will be until Hugh and the others hurt us?”
Her grip on my arm loosened just a little, but it was enough to get her back. She knew I was right.
Leon’s knife flashed in the sky, blinding me.
“No!” I screamed.
Gabbi whirled.
Two figures crashed into Leon. They tumbled to the ground. Dust kicked up and stung my eyes, my mouth, my lungs. Ricker coughed next to me.
Sergeant Bennings and the others ran up.
The dust cleared. Leon was knocked out, knife still in hand, eyes rolled to the whites. Nindal and Bernice held him down.
Gabbi sat on the ground, arms crossed over her chest. She was covered in dust, but she looked unhurt.
“He attacked them,” Bernice said without blinking an eye.
I thought the three of them had teamed up, but now I wasn’t so sure.
Sergeant Bennings took in the scene. He bent over and plucked the knife from Leon’s hand. “Tie them all up again. No more chances.”
We hiked around the sinkhole. The rope rubbed just the right way against my pants that it opened up a fire where the V had bitten me. I gritted my teeth and bore the pain as best I could.
On the other side of the pit we lost several hours until we found enough working vehicles for our group. Once we were bustled into the new cars, the landscape moved by in a blur. We ate up the miles in this flat part of the state. You could almost pretend nothing had happened here because it had always looked abandoned.
We didn’t take I-5, but instead took Jack Tone Road around Stockton, Manteca, Modesto. We avoided the dense population centers. We passed by fields of dead almond trees, grape vines, rows of industrial warehouses, miles of barbed fencing.
Out here, there hadn’t been many people in the first place, and there didn’t seem to be anyone now. When we hit Shiloh Road I began to recognize the scenery. The citrus orchards had died off between now and when I had been here last. Eventually we came to a small rise of a hill that felt a certain way, the paper-thin rattle of dried grass sounded a certain way, the stretch of highway and the now dead trees on the other side looked a certain way.
Sergeant stopped and let all of us stretch our legs. He didn’t want to enter the camp making a bunch of noise. I wandered to the hilltop, my hobble making it awkward.
The rise allowed me to see some of the camp buildings. My breath caught in my throat. Ricker grabbed my hand. I flicked my eyes to him for a moment and then looked away. I’d never told him. I’d never told any of them but they knew. We all fell into the fevers but we never told each other what we learned. Never.
“Those trees,” I said.
“Breathe,” Ricker said.
The orchard, now spindly and transparent and dead, stood between us and the strip of highway. On the other side of the highway was the camp. A slight breeze rustled the dead leaves. Through there I had run and not looked back and had looked back ever since.
“Move, Maibe. You need to move around.” He raised my arm for me and knocked his foot unknowingly against my injured ankle. Shooting pain woke me up.
“Move through it. Move through your practice.”
I breathed deep, brought my hands together above my head, and then leaned over to allow blood to rush to my cheeks. I stood back up and all of it hit me like a train crash.
“Take the medicine.” Ricker held out a steaming cup of liquid. “There were a few bits left. I made it as strong as a could.”
The last of Corrina’s medicine.
How long had I been in the exercises? How long had I been lost if he’d found the time to make tea? My mind rebelled but my mouth opened. Ricker’s face overlaid my visions of the girl and the fence, the father on his knees, the sounds of bullets. I swallowed the tea to keep from choking.
It seemed like only seconds later that my vision cleared. But the sun was at a different angle than I remembered. When I looked down the hillside I saw Ser
geant Bennings and his people lounging in the shade of a large metal storage bin. Two played with a deck of cards, others stared listlessly into the heat. Tabitha sat in the shade with her eyes closed, her hands tied together in her lap. Gabbi was in the shade too, away from everyone, staring out into the distance but not really seeing anything.
Then I noticed I sat on the ground, leaning against someone. My legs were outstretched in the dirt, my arms were slick with sweat because I was in the sun. The ropes around my wrists and ankles were dark with my sweat. A breeze increased and helped cool my skin a little. My pant leg had crept up, revealing the angry red of the V bite. I flicked my cuff back over it. But then I thought—why was I hiding it?
I turned around to tell Ricker. I saw bright red skin, like a lobster.
“Ricker!”
“Yes, my love?” he said, not turning around.
“Get in the shade.”
“You first.”
I snatched the bandanna from around my neck and doused it in my remaining bit of water. Hopefully the camp would have more.
“Bend over.” I wrapped the wet cloth gingerly over his burned skin. “Oh, Ricker.”
“It’ll be fine. I want to know how you are.”
“How long was it?”
He paused. “Two hours.”
It had felt like only seconds.
“And Sergeant Bennings waited like it was no big deal? Just waited for me to…come out of it?”
“You’re why we’re all here, Maibe. He believes he doesn’t have a chance of finding Alden without you.”
“And what do you believe?”
But as soon as I asked it, I knew I wasn’t playing fair.
“Ricker, I—”
He shook his head. “It’s okay. Forget it.”
I held my hand out. He took it and I helped him up, his warmth comforting me more than I thought it should. The wind turned the dust that coated my clothing into a cloud around us. I looked over the landscape. Flat, yellow, the air so hot it distorted shapes, making everything swim.
I grabbed Ricker’s arm.
“Maibe!” he said, alarm in his voice.
I dug my fingers deeper into his skin.
“You can’t go V. It doesn’t make—”
Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4) Page 65
