“Listen buddy, we are just here to get some supplies.” He gestures towards one of his group. The man has bandages over a large portion of his face. His jacket is white and the top of it is stained with blood. “He got beat up pretty badly last night. We just ran out of medical supplies at our home and thought we’d come here. We’ve been here before and hoped that maybe we missed something to help clean him up. Man, we’ve had a long night. We’re lucky we all didn’t end up worse.”
David nods and glances to us. “Fine. You just stay there for a few more moments, and then we will be on our way.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” the man says, now lowering to his knees. I pick up the box and the four of us make our way past the group and head outside into the cold. David brings up the rear. The man in the green ski hat nods to us as we proceed down the hall. Our car hides a few hundred yards down the road in a garage. Nate figures that if something happens, it can always be a safe fallback point to reach in the event that we become separated. Luckily, we’ve never needed to make a run on any of our supply raids before. This time came dangerously close.
I pass the kneeling group’s car parked right outside. It's a beat up station wagon. While running, my eyes catch a glimpse of a book in the backseat. Jo has been reading the same book. Even the cover is torn…
It is the same book. I feel my eyes widen as I maintain pace with the rest of them as we run down the street. We turn down the cracked driveway and the car comes into view.
No, maybe it’s not hers.
No, it is. It’s exactly her book.
I place the box in the trunk then David closes it and jumps into the driver’s seat. Laura gets in the passenger seat, and we are quickly moving down the road.
It is her book.
“I’m pretty sure they were in the Ax,” I finally say.
“What?” Laura says turning in her seat. “Before us?”
“No. In the backseat of their car is a book. It is Jo’s book.”
David stomps on the brake, and we come to a halt. He turns.
“Are you sure it was her exact book?”
“Yes,” I say. I barely speak, so when I do, people tend to believe me.
“Do we go back?” Laura turns to David. Nate pulls off his glasses and massages his eyes.
“That would probably be the most logical-” he begins.
“No,” I cut him off. “Either way, what’s done is done. Maybe it was just a trade. If we go back there, someone is going to get hurt.”
“Most likely,” Nate says.
“Caitlyn is right,” Laura says. “Let’s just get back there and see. I feel like if they had been there by force, more of them would be hurt.”
That made sense. The car moves again.
“Drive fast,” I insist.
David’s foot comes down hard, and we take off down the road.
Chapter 4: Laura
“Everything looks okay,” I whisper as the car pulls in front of the Ax. The chance of that book actually being Jo’s is slim. I didn’t want to cause an altercation, so I just went along with their plan. The faster we got home, the better anyway. It’s a miracle that we haven't already begun to fall ill from the plague. I gave them a fake time-line for when it will come, but really, we have no way of knowing. It should have started affecting us by now. Perhaps the cold temperatures are slowing it down. I’ll have to look into that later.
We park in front of the main building, and I am the last one to exit the vehicle. No more broken windows than before. No fires. No dead bodies. As I said, they are fine.
“Ryan? Carter?” David shouts while moving through the front entrance. He continues to yell the names of the others along with Caitlyn and Nate. Nate is quick to fall into their state of panic. He gets caught up in the moment and doesn’t quite use his mind. He’s especially afraid of causing conflict. If we finish this vaccine, I don’t know how much longer I can stay with him.
I'm barely with him as it is. He's so weak.
“What? What?” Ryan’s voice calls as he runs around the building, his pistol already at his side. See, they are fine. I’d like to shout, “I told you so,” but I never actually say it. So I just give a slight grin.
David and Ryan come together and the rest of us gather by them. The others that stayed behind begin to come out of the entrance with looks of concern. Carter, Paige, Jo, Kevin, Darrel, and Tori. Yup, everyone’s here. Everyone's fine. Their panic on the way home was completely irrational.
Stupid jungle rat.
That is a harsh name; I’ll feel sorry for thinking it later. They told me how she was once a hell of a fighter. Now, she refuses to fight. She refuses to do much of anything these days. Caitlyn never made it past grade school. Thus, she didn’t offer us a whole hell of a lot of help. I’m sorry about her sister. I truly am, but she needs to move on. If she isn’t going to help this group, she’s just going to bring us down.
“Caitlyn thought she saw something; we were worried. It doesn’t matter,” David explains.
“What did you see?” Paige asks giving her genuine look of concern. I kind of glare, but I doubt anyone sees me. David answers for Caitlyn.
“We ran into another group. She thought she saw one with Jo’s book.” He sticks up for Caitlyn a lot.
“So, that’s where that damn thing went,” Jo says. Carter raises an eyebrow to her.
“We had a close call last night. Bandits went through the Ax. We hid everything important. Then there were some gunshots in the distance and they all ran off - away from the farm. We were lucky.”
I feel like I need to apologize despite the fact that I never made my thought known earlier. I give Caitlyn no credit. Hell, I give none of these people much credit. If it wasn’t for Nate, I wouldn’t still be here. It’s like a group of misfits, and it’s a miracle we made it this far.
Again, I am too harsh. They keep me fed and safe while Nate and I work on that cure. What more do I need from them?
And we are going to have to ask a lot more of them really soon.
“Well, thank heavens you’re all okay.” I say with my most sincere face imaginable. I receive odd looks in return.
“Yea, we’re glad.” Caitlyn says again, nearly covering my former statement’s hint of verbal irony.
Despite how it sounded, I did mean it. I just analyze too much of these people for my own damn good. I need to get back to our lab before I say something I don’t mean.
We all move inside the Ax. The air is warm, and feels good in contrast to the piercing wind outside. A delightful aroma permeates the air and especially the main room. Darrel must have been making food. Everyone has to be good at something.
“Dinner is ready,” Darrel says walking back to the makeshift kitchen formed between two checkout counters.
“Good,” Ryan says. “Paige and Kevin, come with me and we’ll patrol while they eat.”
Ryan’s become much more assertive since we arrived at the Ax. At first, it aggravated me, but he’s become a better leader. He is one of the few that I depend on anymore. What happened at the school was not his fault. I blame Caitlyn.
I know it isn’t very fair. But logically if it wasn’t for her, we never would have trusted the president’s whore.
“Actually,” Carter begins. “It’s been awhile. Let’s just take fifteen minutes and all of us enjoy a meal together. It’ll be okay.”
Ryan reluctantly agreed. Aside from Ryan, Carter was the next one I put some faith in. He managed to keep “new” Ryan in check with some occasional doses of humanity. Even if he doesn’t have the official title, he is a good doctor. I assisted him with the removal of a man’s kidney stone at the school a few years back. It was an ugly business. I wasn’t the most experienced with medicine, but I pretty much remember everything I see and hear. So, after Carter provided me a brief overview, we went to work. When the stone was finally out, the three of us emptied an entire bottle of whiskey. Over that night of trying to forget that calcium brought hell, I learned a
lot about everything he has been through. Carter handled pressure and knew his medicine. His dedication to all those women is the only thing that causes me to cringe sometimes.
Paige is okay. She adopts a facade of being tough pretty well. She isn’t the best medical worker, but she knows her way around a first aid kit. And, that’s all it really takes sometimes. She’s managed the gunshot wound well, but she’s foolishly trying to do too much. I thought she was going to end up dead from internal bleeding sooner or later. When Carter isn’t telling her to take it easy, Kevin is. Kevin, I guess, is the textbook definition of a “good soldier.” He listens and tries his best. I don’t know much more. He keeps to himself and that really doesn’t bother me. I’m sure he didn’t have too much sage advice to share.
Darrel and Tori are usually together. They keep me fed, and it usually tastes pretty good. Food never mattered much to me, but I suppose there is value in having pleasing flavor. Both are quiet, but Darrel especially keeps his lips closed. He says even less when Jo is in the room. It’s odd.
Jo has a wild look in her eye. She’s been better since we came to the Ax. She sits outside of our laboratory refrigerator most nights with the rifle beside her and that book in her lap. She uses the light from our work to read. I believe in her mind she’s keeping us safe. She told me once that she thought that Nate and I were the two most important people of us all.
She is right. None of them could procure a vaccine. I hope we can. We should be able to soon.
And lastly, David. Well, he is another story...
I guess they aren’t so bad. My mind just seems to harbor the negativity of the moment. I have withheld so much for so long that it builds into these continually pessimistic thoughts.
As we sit around the table, the majority of them engage in frivolous conversation. Toward the end, I decide to say what has been needed to be said.
“Nate and I have made some serious advances. We aren’t far from a possible vaccine. After using everything we found today, there will only be one final step.”
“That’s great. What else do you need?” Jo asks.
“That’s the problem. We have to go into the city. We found a dossier in the medical clinic this morning that came from a downtown hospital. The records have print outs from an iso… well, a device that could isolate the specific cause of the virus, and with that information we will be able to immediately begin the manufacture of a vaccine.”
A crackling fire produces the only sound in the chilled air as we share blank stares. The city is dangerous. We went near it a few weeks ago and barely escaped with our lives. There are many hostile people still residing in that shell of a city that many of them once called home. I wish I had better news for our rag-tag bunch. Most of them look around concerned. David gives me a worried look, but I quickly turn away.
“If it’s what we need, it’s what we need.” Ryan stands and looks around at us. “In an hour, get everything ready. Tomorrow we go into the city.”
Chapter 5: Jocelyn
Most of us lie in the main room by the dying fire. Laura and Nate continue to work through the night so they will be ready when they get to the machine tomorrow. They are smart. That was the longest I’ve ever heard Laura speak. She doesn’t say much, but I feel like she’s always thinking.
I lie on several blankets and a sleeping bag that act as a makeshift mattress. Caitlyn lies next to me for warmth. Usually she stays close, and her run-in today at the clinic has left her shaken. I look down into her face. She looks like she could be sleeping. It’s hard to tell.
I breathe out deeply and turn back to the fire.
The city.
It’s been almost seven years since I last saw that place. It feels like even longer. I barely remember what the apartment looked like. Those horrors that occurred there were only the beginning of all the horrible things that came my way. I didn’t look in the mirror all too often, but I can tell I have aged.
Hell, I probably wouldn’t even recognize my old self anymore. My fingertips slowly go to my neck. There isn’t much of a scar from the knife. That cut was a scratch compared to the physical, and mental pain that came while the New Americans had me.
I glance towards Darrel. He has Tori’s head in his lap, and he, too, stares into the flames while slowly moving his hand through the hair on his face. We briefly make eye contact, but he quickly looks away. He’s been doing that a lot since we got here.
He must know, too. I figured that he did. It's in the past.
My eyes become heavier. I lay my head down for a few moments…
I hear a rustle outside. I sit up quickly; I must have been asleep longer than I thought. A shadow moves in front of the doorway. A flame ignites the tip of a cigarette. A moment later, there is a fit of coughing. I glance around the room. Tori is by herself and looks to be fast asleep.
Darrel is outside.
I carefully stand up, as not to disturb Caitlyn, and make my way to the entrance. Carefully opening the glass door slightly, I pass through the small opening into the chilled air. Darrel leans against the outer wall. The moon provides barely enough light for us to see one another. He brings the cigarette up and breathes it in. I pull my arms close to my chest for warmth.
“Where’d you manage to find those?” I ask, leaning beside him with my back also against the brick. He turns to me and hands me the cigarette. Surprising myself, I take it and try to breathe it in. I immediately choke on it. He laughs lightly.
“It’s definitely on the old side. I had Nate keep an eye out for me.”
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I did before all this,” he says, taking it back from me. “Then when I had my younger brother to take care of, the last thing I needed was to die.”
He brings it to his lips and the orange glows brighter. He breathes out the smoke.
“It’s not like we have enough to begin a pack-a-day habit,” I say with a smile and look upward as some clouds move in front of the moon.
“Yea. It’s a brief escape.”
I pause and consider bringing up a topic that will lead to something we should have talked about a long time ago.
“What happened to your brother?” I ask. He looks to me and then to the floor.
“After the plague, he was one of the few that was sick from something else. Once a few of the doctors came down with the plague, they told us to take him home. The next day mom and dad were taken to the hospital. Those doctors and my parents were some of the first ones to die. I took care of my brother at home, but he needed care that I couldn’t give him. Back then, I was pretty much a punk, but I wanted to do right by him. However, anyone I found that could have saved him was sick. He was going to die.”
“What did he have?”
“His kidneys were failing. Actually, he was next on the transplant list. Can you believe that? The very next recipient. Then the plague came along. Ironic, I guess.” He finishes the cigarette, extinguishing it on the brick of the wall. His eyes go to the sky and blink repeatedly. A gust of chilled air rustles his hair. “I figured if I could get him out of the city, perhaps there would be a chance at another hospital. I would drive to as many as I needed to, or as many as he could handle. It was that morning that I decided to...” His words break off and he looks to me. His eyes are large and seem to burst with regret. I raise my eyebrows and give a tiny nod while rolling in my lips.
“Darrel, I know it was you.” My answer doesn’t seem to shock him. I didn’t expect it to. He looks ahead, seemingly afraid to look me in the eye.
“I figured. How long have you known?”
“Not until we first got here. You look a lot different with that beard of yours. But it was your voice I was eventually able to place.”
“Jo, I’m so sorry.” He pauses. “I needed to get him out of there, so I rounded up a few of my friends, and they swore to help me.”
“Why didn’t you just tell us about your brother then?”
“I told the story to a few othe
r cars that morning. They didn’t care and drove off. Jon and I were barely acquaintances from school. I figured I would do whatever it took.”
“I understand that,” I say. After the plague, that's what we all had to do.
“You don’t hate me.”
“No.” I pause. “When I realized it was you, I immediately knew that whatever caused you to do that was out of desperation.” I look up into the clear night sky. At the constellations. “It’s easy to lose ourselves when we are protecting those we love.”
I think of Jon, Caitlyn, and even Ryan.
“Thank you.” His voice is sad while his eyes look stern. Perhaps he would have cried, but I feel it is something he has already cried about too many times.
“So why Darrel these days?”
“Darry just sounded so juvenile. I had to grow up.”
“We’ve all had to grow up.”
“How do you think it’s going to go tomorrow in the city?”
“If we stay together, we’ll be okay.”
I start to walk back into the Ax. Darrel lights another cigarette and breaths it in deeply without a single cough. I stop.
“You never finished about your brother,” I say. He looks to me and then forward. His left hand buries in his pocket while the other holds the burning cigarette to his side.
“I managed to get him out of the city a few days later in a bus that the government was using to relocate children. I found it abandoned not long after you and your brother drove away. It looked like it had been ambushed or something. It didn’t start, but a buddy of mine was able to fix it up. A whole group of us managed to get out of the city on that bus. Most of my friends were low-lifes or soon-to-be criminals, but I figured that if we got into trouble, we could stand tall. We headed east to look for a home. We roughed up a lot of people to get the supplies we needed. However, my brother grew worse and worse.” He paused for another drag on the cigarette. “There was nothing we could do. After a night, while he was in extreme agony I took him in my arms. I told him that we just found some medicine that will make him better”
Humanity Gone (Book 3): Rebirth Page 3
