The Line Between

by Tosca Lee

  “Caribou flu?” he says, clearly confused.

  “I don’t know if that’s what they’ll call it,” I say, plucking a ring of keys from the floor beside me. I roll off my tailbone with a groan and stiffly get to my feet to retrieve the kerosene lamp from the altar.

  Magnus jerks and rolls onto his face, his hands tied behind him by the twisted sleeves of his shirt. It came off pretty easy with the sleeves rolled up like that.

  “What are you saying? That I’m infected?” he cries as I move to the door. I can hear him trying to push up against the bed as I systematically try one key after the other until the doorknob turns.

  Outside, I put the key into the lock, step back, and kick the head clean off. The ring drops to the floor with a clatter. I grab it up.

  Hurrying to the Admitter’s desk, I set the lamp down and sling on my coat, pocket the keys, and pull open a drawer. Finding a black marker, I stride back to the door of my cell where I can hear Magnus shouting from inside.

  I scrawl a big X on the painted metal, write:

  INFECTED!!

  DO NOT ENTER

  YOU WILL RISK THE LIVES OF EVERYONE INSIDE THE ENCLAVE.

  MAGNUS CHOSE TO MEET GOD IN PERSON.

  I cap the marker, pause, and then toss it under the door. Just in case Magnus has any new revelations before he dies.

  And then I’m bolting for the stairs, lantern in hand, taking them two at a time.

  • • •

  MY FIRST INSTINCT is to go straight for the guesthouse. Instead, I make my way through the shadows to the back door of the administrative building, trying each key in succession until I’m in and walking through Magnus’s office door.

  Inside, I turn up the lamp and shine it around until I spot his laptop. I grab and tuck it under my arm and am just on my way out when I notice a stack of papers on his credenza at least three inches thick. Moving toward it, I glance at the title page.

  The Final Testament of Magnus Theisen.

  He was a prophet after all.

  I hurry out into the main office past the cabinets against the wall. The repository of every member’s files, each one a litany of sins. Just beyond it is the mechanical room. Stepping inside, I study the pipes attached to the water tank, running to and from the air-conditioning unit and heater. Haul back and kick the yellow one—once, twice, until it tears away from the unit. Until I smell the odor of gas.

  Back in the main office, I reconsider the laptop in my hands.

  I leave it with the lantern on my old desk, not bothering to lock the door behind me.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  * * *

  There’s an eye in the corner but it’s blind, the red light dark.

  I let myself in the back door to the kitchen, fingers drifting along the counter. It was here that I envisioned a new future for us when we first arrived. And here I first saw the beach, blue and vivid on Shae’s iPhone.

  I move into the living room where Mom stood at the foot of the steps, pulling her short skirt lower on her hips as she prepared to meet with the Elders. Her eyes had been filled with such hope.

  The stairs creak beneath my feet as I follow the bannister up to the bedroom where Jaclyn and I said farewell to our songs, ribbons, and stories and the outside world with them.

  “Truly?” I whisper.

  A figure rises from the corner in a white gown, an infant clutched to her breast.

  “What are you doing here?” Ara asks, clearly startled. Even in the dark I imagine she looks older than her twenty-three years.

  “I’m taking Truly,” I say, and move to the first bed, the little form huddled beneath the quilt. It’s the same one I slept beneath once.

  Ara makes no move to stop me.

  “Is the baby his?” I ask.

  “I told him it was,” she whispers. “But he was already tired of me.”

  I shake Truly’s little shoulder. She barely stirs. I wrap her in her blanket and gather her, quilt and all, into my arms and turn to go.

  “Winnie, where are we going?” she asks sleepily, as though she just saw me yesterday.

  “Somewhere safe,” I say, and clasp her against my shoulder.

  “They hate me here,” Ara blurts out as I reach the stairs. “Everyone.”

  I pause and slowly turn.

  “You could come with us,” I say. “You and the children.”

  She stares at me, her eyes white in the darkness, but makes no move to follow.

  “Good-bye, Ara,” I whisper, as I carry Truly downstairs.

  • • •

  THE GUARDIANS COME running within minutes of the explosion. Flares light the sky, signaling for help as charred papers rain to the ground.

  I don’t even have to key in the code; one of them leaves the Narrow Gate ajar as he rushes inside.

  Conventional wisdom dictates that there’s an insurmountable divide—an entire dimension of eternity and space—between Heaven and Hell.

  But I can tell you it’s closer to a foot and a half. The distance of a step.

  Or a leap of faith.

  I run for the Guardians’ abandoned truck idling outside, climb in front, my terrified niece clinging to my neck.

  “Where are we going?” she wails.

  “Don’t look back,” I say, as we speed down the road.

  Five minutes later I’m retrieving the bundle from the ditch, checking to make sure it’s all there: the soft-sided carrier containing her antibodies, some breakfast bars, a letter from Ashley to Truly, and an envelope of money.

  The Camaro has already been sought out and looted by the Guardians. I know this because the bin of clothing and food was sitting in the front seat of the truck when I got in.

  I get Truly—calm but pensive, asking about the “big boom” as we left—buckled in back, noting the fuel gauge as I climb in. It hovers at a quarter tank. Not enough to get to Sidney.

  I’ll have to keep an eye out for a rowboat.

  • • •

  I’VE JUST PULLED out onto Highway 69 when a set of headlights crests the horizon. I squint at the truck as it begins to slow, my head swiveling to take in the two passengers . . .

  The profile in the driver’s seat.

  I brake as firmly as I dare as the second truck skids to a stop in my rearview mirror. Opening the door, I leap from the truck and run down the asphalt in the glow of taillights. Chase swoops me up in his arms.

  “I thought you were gone!” I say, incredulous.

  “Turns out, four-wheeling in the Sandhills isn’t a crime,” Chase says, leaning in to kiss me.

  I open my eyes to see Kestral moving toward me. Gone the otherworldly grace I once celebrated; her every stride is firmly of this world.

  “He’s in Penitence,” I say as she wraps her arms around me in turn. “And sick. Only a matter of weeks. Maybe days.”

  After hugging Chase and kissing the top of Truly’s head as we transfer vehicles, she shoulders her bag and starts off toward the Enclave.

  “What are you doing?” Chase calls after her. “It’s too cold to walk!”

  She glances over her shoulder with a smile. “Siphon the gas. You’re going to need it. Besides. I’ve walked this road before.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  * * *

  When we reach the Peterson place late the next morning, guards are posted around the perimeter.

  This time we’re held in a cordoned off area where we wait after being administered rapid flu tests.

  “Sorry,” Mel says with a sympathetic look at Truly, who squirmed in my arms at the ordeal. “New protocol. I take it your journey was a success . . . ?” he says carefully, flicking a glance at the nurse working over a set of tubes on a rough table.

  Neither Chase nor I would explain in her presence that two of the tests were unnecessary, that Truly and I both have antibodies to the disease. For the sake of Truly’s safety no one else can know who her real father is or his role in the creation of a vaccine.

  “Yes. Thank you,�
� I say, trusting that he knows I mean for what he did to help get me to Colorado, and not just for asking. “How’s Noah?”

  “Looking forward to seeing you.”

  Chase, the one most at risk, paces until we’re cleared. Blows out a breath in relief as we’re released to follow Mel to the house.

  Julie greets me on the porch with a tearful hug. She looks older in the week since I’ve seen her. Both stronger and more fragile at once.

  “Where’s Lauren?” I ask.

  “Inside. She’s asked about you every hour since we got here. You heard about Ken . . .” she says, unable to finish, her expression crumbling.

  I ask about her mom and she shakes her head as Truly clings to my side.

  “Noah says the ham radio operators are reporting a missile strike in Hawaii. Can that be true?” Her expression is frightened, lost. “Is it possible that crazy Magnus is right—that everything he said about the end of the world—”

  “No,” I say, confident in the answer. “It doesn’t end this way.”

  • • •

  I DIDN’T BELIEVE Julie at first when she said the silo was full, but she’s right. More than thirty people have arrived in the last four days. Now, standing out in the yard with Noah, Chase and I take in the line of people coming down the road. Some in vehicles, most on foot, carrying pets and dragging suitcases.

  “It’s time,” Noah says, and his eyes look worried. “The flood is coming.”

  “What happens to them?” I say. The bunkhouses across the yard are already full with those who arrived yesterday.

  “Maybe there’s something I can do to help,” he says.

  “How can you?” Chase says. “When we’re all underground?”

  Noah gives him a quiet smile. And then I understand.

  “No!” I say, alarmed. “You built this. It’s yours!” And then I realized I never told him I’d be coming back with Truly. That I can’t ask him to give up his place. “I’ll stay above ground. Take my niece in my place.” But Noah shakes his head.

  “It was never for me. Besides, someone has to set and hold the timer from both the inside and the outside in order to shut the door.”

  “No,” Chase says, shaking his head. “I can’t justify going inside for six months while you stay out here. What about you? Who protects you?”

  “Fortunately, son,” Noah says, clapping him on the shoulder, “the world still has need of folks like me. But it’s gonna need people like you in days to come.”

  • • •

  WE GATHER JUST before dusk on the upper level, silent, and nervous. At 4:59 p.m., the lights flash. A siren sounds once every ten seconds. Then every five. Every one of the last ten, more and more incessant until it’s a flutter of sound. By then, anyone wanting to run out would never make it in time. Truly covers her ears. Julie looks ready to hyperventilate as a pale Lauren holds her hand.

  On the final siren, the door thuds, echoing with the finality of a vault. Chase’s arm tightens around me as the bolt slides into place. Do I imagine it, or does he flinch?

  Silence. And then . . .

  Somewhere below us, the power cycles with a soft whoosh of air.

  Gasps escape all around me as the walls and ceiling glow to life, pixels undulating into sun, a meadow, grasses rippling in the breeze.

  “Wynter!” Truly whispers. “Look!” She’s pointing there—and there! At a field of flowers, and butterflies, the first, faint evening star.

  And I realize she’s never seen a meadow—or any other view—like this before, unimpeded by walls or delineating lines.

  I kneel down beside her. “What do you see, Truly? What does it look like?” I ask, laying my arm around her.

  Just then the image glitches—a stutter, nothing more.

  Truly doesn’t notice as she drops her head back, mouth gaping open in wonder.

  “Beautiful,” she whispers.

  One day, I vow, I will show her the ocean.

  But for now, I lift her into my arms as we watch the sun set beneath a twinkling sky.

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  It’s become ritual to climb the stairs to the atrium and watch the sun emerge from the pixelated horizon each morning before I start children’s school, and to say goodnight beneath the electric stars.

  We were fortunate those tense first days of medical observation, when initial screenings could have proven false in any one of the new arrivals.

  None did.

  We’re not the only ones marking time; that first week the children made calendars to hang by their beds so they could color in a square each night until Open Day—which is how I realized the weather in the atrium is always attuned to the same sunny month: June.

  With an hour of leisure before dinner, I’ve convinced Chase to sneak away from the maintenance level and sit with me in the sun—a thing we haven’t done in days. He’s been pensive and quiet since we arrived. We all have.

  I wonder who we’ll be when we emerge.

  It’s Christmas. And for the moment, we have the level to ourselves.

  Chase rolls up onto his elbow and gives me a rare smile as a bee drifts by, so realistic I swear I can hear it. It seizes in mid-flight, flickers before droning on.

  One hundred seventy days to go.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  * * *

  In 2016, thawing permafrost in the Siberian Yamal Peninsula released spores of Bacillus anthracis from a formerly frozen reindeer carcass, sending twenty locals to the hospital, killing one boy and 2300 reindeer.

  In May 2017, the BBC reported the likely revival of long-dormant bacteria and viruses as the temperature of the Arctic Circle continues to warm. (“There Are Diseases Hidden in the Ice and They Are Waking Up,” BBC, May 4, 2017). A November 6, 2017, article in The Atlantic posits that “if there are microbes infectious to humans or human ancestors [in the melting permafrost], we are going to get them.” It’s a fascinating article on so-called “zombie microbes” you can read here: theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/the-zombie-diseases-of-climate-change/544274/. And another by Scientific American here: scientificamerican.com/article/as-earth-warms-the-diseases-that-may-lie-within-permafrost-become-a-bigger-worry/.

  The Russian scientist who injected himself with 3.5 million-year-old bacteria is taken straight from the news. (Life really is stranger than fiction.) In 2015, controversial scientist Anatoli Brouchkov, head of the Geocryology Department at Moscow State University, did just that, injecting himself with Bacillus F discovered in the Siberian permafrost after noticing that the local people who drink the water containing the bacteria tend to live longer. He claims he hasn’t had the flu since.

  As of the writing of this book there is no test for prion disease; as Ken said in the story, it happens by posthumously sampling brain tissue. There is no treatment at present, though there are organizations dedicated to studying prions across the globe—including the Prion Research Center at Colorado State University.

  In 2014, the University of Nebraska Medical Center seized national headlines as the gold standard for treatment of Ebola and highly infectious diseases. In 2016, UNMC was awarded $19.8 million to develop a national training center for the fight against Ebola and other highly infectious diseases. To learn more about UNMC, check out the NET documentary After Ebola here: netnebraska.org/basic-page/news/after-ebola.

  In his 2015 book, Lights Out, Ted Koppel asserts that a cyberattack on America’s power grid is a possibility (that former secretary of homeland security Janet Napolitano estimated at 80–90% at the time) for which we are woefully unprepared. NatGeo’s movie American Blackout is a research-driven drama that paints a picture of what those first days could look like. The US government has logged incursions into the operating systems of American power plants since 2013 and in March 2018 released a report on efforts to infiltrate America’s “critical infrastructure,” pointing the finger at Russia. The report can be found here: us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A.

  On a more positiv
e note, seed hunters like Dr. Ken Street, the “Indiana Jones of agriculture,” are real and scouring the earth for ancient varieties of vegetables lost to us today—a worthy pursuit in my opinion, given that 93% of our seed variety has been lost in the last eighty years. If you’re interested in cultivating or enjoying heirloom and ancient vegetable varieties for yourself, consider checking out companies like Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (you can even visit their farm in Mansfield, MO) and nonprofit seed conservation organization Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson, AZ, where you can order seeds or take workshops in person.

  New Earth International is not based on any real group. For anyone thinking, “But they’re diet-restricted/patriarchal/insular/apocalyptic people who live on a commune, and I know religions like that!” let me just remind us that cults, in the modern sense, are defined by behaviors that may include: mind control, pressure, isolation, intolerance of critical thinking or questions, secrecy, separation from friends and family, the supremacy of a leader with purported special powers (and therefore privileges) who may require constant admiration or humiliate others in public, exploitation (financial, physical, sexual), and dire consequences for leaving.

  Meanwhile, this novel may seem like a quilt of dire and too-real news. But that’s what makes it a fun survival story. As with any tragedy—I’m thinking of the rescue of twelve soccer team members and their coach from a cave system in Thailand that happened two days ago, as I write this—the real story is about the hearts of the heroes involved, those lights that shine brightest in darkness.

  May we all be that light to someone.

  As for a prion disease–inducing ancient virus recombining with the flu? Don’t worry, it’s fiction.

  For now.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  Every book I write is crafted solely for the enjoyment of my readers. Thank you, you guys, for letting me take you away for a few hours at a time and distract you from whatever you should be doing.