by John L. Monk
Lisa waited under the trees for thirty minutes with her shirt pulled over her nose. She couldn’t take out the whole group, and honestly, she didn’t want to. Being tough didn’t mean she had to be a serial killer. But Cassie had to go. The girl had shown a troubling relentlessness. She was also sick in the head. That stuff about cutting Lisa’s face … How anyone could get so wrapped up about an abusive boy was a mystery.
The kids she’d seen still hadn’t returned, so obviously they hadn’t found her car. Nobody visited the pool from either house, and Lisa revised her toilet theory. They probably used buckets at night and dumped them here during the day, like she and the others did at the cabins.
The cold was starting to creep into her bones now. When she tried sitting, the damp ground soaked through her jeans, adding to her discomfort. She couldn’t stand around all night waiting, and she grudgingly decided a full-on assault of the house was a losing strategy.
As she made her way back to the car, she told herself she wasn’t chickening out or being weak. She’d hoped to find Cassie and end this, but twenty against one on strange turf seemed a lot less doable now than it had back at the farm. Later, she’d talk to Jack and see if they could find another way to deal with Cassie and her friends.
She had a small fright when she saw the roadblock was open.
“Well, duh,” she said. “They gotta come back, don’t they?”
Lisa or Jack would have closed it on the way out, then opened it again upon return. She allowed herself a superior smirk and revised her opinion of tonight’s outcome. Having lost three of their number already—one a month ago, two yesterday—they’d learned that messing with her meant death. Cassie might have been stupid enough to try again, but her friends probably weren’t crazy. They’d stop.
Arriving at the car, she felt more at ease—until she saw how low to the ground it rested. Someone had slashed the tires!
At the sound of movement through the underbrush, she leaped aside. The concussive boom of a gun sounded, and the window she’d been standing in front of burst inward. She dove behind the car and rolled as more shots were fired. Someone came around the front, gun arm outstretched. She batted it wide with her rifle barrel and smashed the boy in the face with the stock. Someone else fired and her whole body tensed from a flash of pain in her side.
“Kill her! Kill her!” a boy shouted from somewhere.
Lisa dropped her rifle, pulled her pistol, and began firing wildly in all directions. Then, trusting in the cowardice of boys, she dashed for the safety of the trees about ten yards away. Hard to run because she couldn’t breathe, and color and light swam in front of her, threatening to bring her down. And her arm felt weirdly numb.
Blasts shook the night behind her as she ducked and weaved between the trees and underbrush. Miraculously, nothing struck her, but there was a barbed wire fence ahead. She didn’t stop—she tossed her pistol over and climbed, heedless of barbs in her need to escape.
“Keep shooting!” a girl shouted from the road. Not Cassie.
Lisa searched frantically for her pistol, then gave up when a shot tugged at her coat. She ran, no longer ducking and weaving but going for speed.
Stay awake. Stay alive.
“Awake … alive,” she said between breaths while trying to avoid the lingering snowdrifts.
Awake. Alive.
In time, she realized not only was she still awake and alive, but no one had shot at her since the fence.
She entered a clearing with a few small trees and no houses in sight. The snow had mostly melted here, and she did her best to avoid it, lest she leave easy-to-follow tracks. A glance behind her showed no one there. Maybe they’d given up, or maybe they were afraid to follow her, thinking she still had her gun.
Lisa felt along her side and her hand came away sticky with blood. She knew nothing had penetrated deeply or she’d feel a lot worse. She was weak, though, and shaky. And her numb arm had started to sting. There was a hole in it, not very big.
She heard voices behind her and ran, trying her best to parallel where she thought the road was, hoping to catch it farther down.
The voices grew louder, and suddenly she stumbled into a ditch with an inch of freezing water at the bottom. She started to rise, then thought better of it and waited. She must have blacked out because she woke up shivering violently.
“Where’d she go?” a boy said from almost directly above her.
“I swear I got her,” another boy said.
“You sure?”
“Didn’t you see? Probably bleeding to death.”
“Cassie’ll wanna see the body.”
“… cares what she thinks … got Derek killed …”
The voices grew fainter. A minute later, she climbed out of the ditch and walked, not caring where so long as she kept moving. Every step hurt.
I can’t.
It was too much. She’d either freeze to death or bleed to death. It wouldn’t be long. Her brother wouldn’t know what happened to her. Jack would search forever and not find her. And Cassie would win.
With a desperate growl of rage, Lisa scrambled over a low rise and staggered onward, still trying for the road. A compass would have helped. A good view of the sky and an actual moon to go by would have been peachy.
She came to another clearing, this one with houses visible in the distance. No snow, but tall, wet grass. She stumbled to the nearest house and tried the back door. Locked. She busted a window pane in the door, reached through, and opened it from the inside.
In that part of the state, every house had a fireplace, and this one was no exception.
Lisa searched the kitchen, mostly by touch, and found a box of matches in a long, narrow drawer. With shaking hands, she broke five matches before getting one to light. Before it went out, she set a decorative pillow from the couch on fire and tossed it in. She placed a footstool from the kitchen on top of the burning pillow, then a couple of books, and soon the fire was hot enough to easily catch the wood. After that, she took her time busting up the dining room chairs.
Only after she had enough wood to keep the fire going through the night did she allow herself to fall into a black, bottomless sleep.
15
Upon entering Terminals B/C, Dylan’s jaw dropped. Way more people than last time, and most of them kids—as in little kids. Not teenagers, like him. Many looked under five years old. There had to have been over a thousand of them. Hundreds of tan-colored pup tents spanned from one end of the terminal to the other.
His dad got up from his wheelchair after being pushed through the long hallway from the curbside entrance. He looked tired, but at least he was able to stand.
“Christ,” his dad said, looking dubiously at the soaring coffered ceilings and panoramic view of the tarmac. Off to the left were several jets pulled up to the gates, but nothing moved outside. No jets taking off, no baggage cars zipping from place to place, no ground crews.
Several army men approached through the sea of children. One of them—a man as old as Dylan’s dad, and who had the most insignia on his chest—said, “Senator Timmes, we have a place for you on the top level with the other adults. We’ve tried to make it as comfortable as possible.” He glanced at Dylan and Aaron and smiled hesitantly. “All the children are staying down here. We’re trying to get more tents.”
Dylan’s dad nodded. “I’m sure you’re doing your best, Colonel.”
The colonel turned to the private next to him. “Get the new recruits some chow and find them a tent.”
“Yes, sir,” the private said, snapping off a salute before facing Dylan and Aaron. “You two, follow me.”
Dylan looked at his dad, who nodded encouragingly.
“There’s a tour later,” his dad said. “We’ll catch up then. Go on. It’ll be fine.”
Aaron snorted. His father threw him a warning look and the boy shook his head in disgust.
Margaret hovered close to the senator, blinking rapidly and trying to smile. She looked read
y to cry again. Dylan really didn’t want to see that for fear he might start crying, too. Before that happened, he stepped in line behind the private, who turned on his heel and led them away.
As promised, there was a tour later. The Colonel brought twenty teenagers to the roof. Some of them looked seventeen or eighteen years old. Margaret came too, feigning interest, but Dylan knew she was there to keep an eye on him. Aaron noticed, of course. The mohawk kid wore a perpetual smirk, eyes dancing the whole time they were led around.
The colonel took them up a ladder to a wide area with assorted solar panels as far as the eye could see. “There are refrigerated shipping containers over on that side.” He pointed in the direction of the water. “That’s where the food is. As long as they don’t bake in the sun, they’ll stay good forever. One bar a day, per person, and no more.” He paused briefly for effect, eyeing them sternly. “Now listen: these wimpy panels don’t put out a lot of juice, so keep the doors shut when the sun’s up. And don’t leave them open or you’ll burn out the motors. You got that?”
Everyone nodded.
“You kids are special,” he said. “That’s why you’re here and not out there. Lots of bad news out there, so be happy. But if you can’t do your duty, you can leave right now.” He waited to see if anyone wanted to leave right now, then nodded when no one did. “Your duty isn’t to save your own asses, though you should try to do that too. What you’re here for is to watch all those little ones. Keep them safe and out of trouble until this thing blows over.”
The way he was staring at them, eyes hard, piercing them with his determination, Dylan knew the man didn’t believe for a second that the Sickness would simply blow over. He was playing a part, like all the adults.
After some quick instructions on keeping the solar panels free of dust to maintain efficiency, they climbed down to check out the shipping containers, where they had their first and last meal of the day.
At first, Reagan National Airport had seemed huge to Dylan. But within the first week, all he wanted was to get out of there, so stifling had it become.
The little kids were packed in long rows on cots, and many of them were in the middle-to-last stages of the Sickness already, causing their bowels to release. Simply put, the terminal smelled like a sewer. The healthy children tended to scream and cry, all in the loudest voices they could muster. With nothing to distract him but the increasingly rare visits with his father, whose progress slowly worsened, he spent a lot of time outside near the water. Sometimes he’d see a boat go by. Police boats, usually, though occasionally he’d see a yacht.
By now, it was well established that kids—the younger the better—had the greatest chance to recover, whereas adults and older teenagers had no chance. Already, he’d seen a number of military and important civilians carried out on stretchers.
“Look at them,” Aaron said from the booth at Legal Sea Foods, which had unofficially become the hangout for him and his friends. Dylan was included grudgingly because his dad was a Senator.
“Look at who?” Dylan said.
Aaron glanced at him sideways. “The rats, chewing up our food, stinking up our home.” A few of the boys and girls nodded in agreement.
Dylan shook his head. “The colonel said—and my dad said—that there’s enough bars here to last years. They flew it here but couldn’t get it out to everyone, so it piled up.”
“First smart thing they did,” Aaron said. “You ask me, they didn’t even try. They saw the writing on the wall: we’re the future, not them. Definitely not the rats. When our parents are finally gone, I sure ain’t gonna spend my life cleaning up rat shit.”
A girl named Aimee said, “We can’t kick them out. That’d be murder.”
Dylan and a few others nodded.
Aaron rolled his eyes. “It’s the end of the world. You gotta be hardcore. That’s what my old man says. And hey—check this out.” He looked beyond the group to make sure nobody was watching. “He gave me this.”
From under the table, Aaron pulled out a scary-looking black pistol.
Several of them gasped at the sight of it—some with fear, others in admiration.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Aaron said. “He says he’ll try to get us more. Says he knows where we can find a whole ton of stuff better than this. Says it’s guarded now, but won’t be when they’re all dead. When that happens, we need to get to it first, before the trash from Southeast get there. It’s all drug dealers there, that’s what he said. They already got guns. When the Army’s dead, we need to protect ourselves. He said there’s thousands of them over there waiting it out like us.”
Dylan found his voice. “We still need to take care of the kids. It’s not that hard. Give ’em a bar a day. Heck—half a bar. They don’t eat much.”
Aaron laughed good-naturedly. “Trying to be like your dad, I get it. You wanna take care of them, that’s your business. I’m not the boss here. But neither are you.”
“Well I’m helping him,” Aimee said. “And for your information, you’ll never be the boss of anyone.”
Several of the boys closest to Aaron made woo sounds, trying to ramp up the tension.
Aaron just smiled at her.
Over the next two months, countless adults and kids were hauled to a remote gate on stretchers. Sometimes the kids returned, but the adults never did. Unlike them, Senator Timmes was connected to life support, and was barely holding on.
One day, it was Aaron’s turn to get sick, and he was carted off for who knew how long. Not long after, his father got sick, too, but chose to stay with the other adults. During that time, Dylan rose in importance among kids of all ages. He also became increasingly useful to the fifty or so military men and women who could still move around, by organizing groups of little kids to help feed them and run errands.
After working up his courage, Dylan approached the sick sergeant’s cot and said, “Mr. Pearson?”
“Sergeant Pearson to you, recruit,” the man said, eyes closed, voice tired.
“Yes, sir, Sergeant Pearson. I, uh … need you to show me where the weapons are.”
The man’s eyes popped open. He stared somewhat fearfully at Dylan, then glanced around at the nearby cots. “What’d you say? And keep it down.”
Dylan lowered his voice. “Aaron said you wanted us to get some guns. For keeping people away.” He swallowed. “He said for me to go get them, but I don’t know where to go.”
The sergeant seemed to take his measure, then said, “Southeast ain’t a problem no more. D.C. kids are mostly gone. Your dad got ’em moved out for, uh … emergency reasons.” The way he said it, twisting the word like that, Dylan knew there was more to it. “Old Town, too, and Arlington. Got yourself a regular oasis here now.”
“But where did he take them?”
The man looked him in the eyes and said in a chilling tone, “Boy, I said it ain’t a problem no more.”
Not a problem? What did he mean by that?
The sergeant’s eyes fluttered, and for a moment he looked faint. Then he took a long, difficult breath. “How’s my son doing? And don’t lie.”
Dylan felt sure Aaron was doing awful, but he couldn’t say that. “He’s getting better. Lots better. In a month or so, he’ll be fine. One of the adults said so.”
“A month?” Sergeant Pearson said. “That’s too long. I won’t be … by then I’ll be like your dad.” He shook his head. “Help me up, boy. Gimme your hand.”
“My name’s Dylan.”
“Help me over there, Dylan.” He pointed to a cot on the far side of the atrium. There was a big device for pushing things through, something to do with security. Now the area around it was populated by about twenty cots, half of them occupied.
Sergeant Pearson led him to one with a wheelchair next to it. The cot’s occupant was clearly dead: eyes open, chest not moving.
“Been like this two days,” he said. “Tried getting someone to move him but everyone’s sick.”
Thinking of his da
d, Dylan said, “I would have helped.”
“Kids shouldn’t have to.” He let go of Dylan’s hand and slumped into the wheelchair. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, as if shouldering a heavy burden. “Now, come on. Roll me out of here.”
Sergeant Pearson guided Dylan to a military truck out front with a key dangling from the ignition. Dylan helped him behind the wheel, then got into the passenger seat next to him. When they got to the guard station, the gaunt, unshaven guards barely looked at them.
He thought of his mom again, by now almost certainly dead. Soon, his dad would join her, and maybe Dylan when the Sickness finally struck him, as it surely must.
“Go ahead, kid,” Sergeant Pearson said. “It’s okay to cry. Shit, if I wasn’t so damned tired, I’d join you.”
The sergeant’s permission was like a key turning in Dylan’s head, and the sobs came out in wracking peals of sorrow. He tried to stop but couldn’t. A minute later, the man reached over and squeezed his shoulder, saying “That’s right, son,” and “It’s okay” and other encouraging words.
By the time they got through the checkpoint for the National Mall—a base unto itself, now—he’d mostly dried out. He felt better than before, more clearheaded. He considered his lie and the reason behind it: to keep the promised weapons out of Aaron’s hands.
On several occasions, Dylan had caught him making the little kids fight for food. The last time it happened, he’d broken it up and gotten in the mohawk kid’s face. Aaron had stalked off, muttering, “See how tough you are when your daddy’s dead, twerp.”
Bad as that was, what Aimee told him just that morning was worse.
A week before Aaron got sick, she saw him lure a little boy to one of the more remote gates and, from there, into a restroom. Considering his famous hatred for children—calling them rats all the time, making them fight—she’d followed discreetly to see what was going on. Imagine her surprise when she walked in and found the little boy half-naked and crying in terror. Aaron’s face was beet red with shame or fury or both. He held his famous pistol to her head and threatened to kill both of them if she said anything. Not wanting to die, she’d kept his secret for exactly two weeks. Long enough for him to be carted away.
