Penelope opened her eyes to see Tom sitting in the chair O’Farrell occupied earlier. O’Farrell stood in the door frame.
“Just like that,” Tom said with a smile. “Always alert.”
Penelope tried to sit up, forgetting the waves of motion swirling in her head from earlier. Tom got up and crossed to the bed, trying to ease her back down. Her head began to throb and she let him guide her back to the pillow.
“Go easy, Penny,” he said. “We’re only a few minutes out. We just passed Ironville. Hank’s got the engine under control. We’re home.”
O’Farrell passed Tom a water bottle for her.
“Drink it all,” O’Farrell said.
Penelope nodded and sipped some of the water. It felt so refreshing on her parched tongue. Her thirst erupted and she tilted the bottle up to drink deep gulps.
“Slowly!”
Tom put a hand on the bottle to tilt it down again. Penelope took smaller gulps, but continued drinking until the bottle was empty.
“You ready for the showdown?” Tom asked O’Farrell softly.
She nodded. “You know I can’t get in the middle of this, though, right?”
Tom nodded.
“I’m not in your position,” she said. “I need my name cleared. I need my job back. I need something.”
“Well, you’ve got the cure now,” Tom said.
Penelope patted her pockets to find them emptied.
“Sorry,” Tom said to Penelope. “She told me you had them. I gave her the four from your pockets.”
Penelope nodded, but didn’t reach for the fifth vial stuffed down her sock. Not yet. Not until she understood what was going on.
The train lurched, slowing.
“This is our stop,” Tom said with a smile.
“I’ll go back to Larissa,” O’Farrell said. “It’s been good knowing you, Tom. Penny, you take care of him.”
Penelope’s brows furrowed with confusion. Why were they saying goodbye?
“I’m sorry about Mason,” Tom said. “I really am.”
“So am I,” O’Farrell said, taking a deep, steadying breath before walking out of the berth.
Tom helped Penelope sit all the way up. Her head rolled with the trundling sway of the train.
Tom spoke at a whisper.
“My father did something bad and he doesn’t deserve getting Larissa back. Not until he tells me what’s really going on. I owe it to everyone who’s died these past few days. Don’t be afraid.”
Penelope turned to glare at him.
“Sorry,” he said with a smile. “Don’t be nervous. I know you’re never afraid.”
Her eyes softened. She pointed at him, then at herself, linking her fingers in the sign they used to mean together. She broke the link and let her eyes and face take on a look of horror.
“You and me, together,” he said, hooking her fingers again. “Don’t be afraid.”
The train jerked to a halt. Outside, the EPS was lit up against the blackness of night, a series of flood lights shining out from the rooftop over the compound. Shades in every window along the north side facing the train tracks were drawn and hundreds of faces peered out at the scene. A dozen or more men in military black moved with haste to replace the fence that was being lowered into place behind the train’s arrival.
“Come on, Penny.”
He helped her to her feet and walked her to the front coach. Through the windows, she saw the Senator speaking with a group of soldiers. Hamilton, his arm in a sling, stood by his side. A medic began inspecting the break, trying to pry Hamilton from the Senator’s side.
Tom pushed the door aside and helped Penelope out into the cold winter wind. She wished she still wore the ski jacket, but Tom told her to leave it behind, that they wouldn’t be outside that long.
Hank came out the back of the engine bay as Tom helped Penelope down onto the rocks surrounding the tracks.
“You mind if I crash at your place tonight?” Hank asked.
“As long as you don’t mind Penelope’s snoring,” Tom replied.
“Tomorrow I can go bring in the duck, maybe.”
Penelope fell into Tom’s arms as she jumped off the last step. Tom caught her in his strong arms and eased her to the ground.
“Did I ever tell you how Peske got the duck in the first place?”
Tom only smiled.
“We’ll get a couple beers and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Tom nodded and led Penelope toward his father. Hank didn’t step down from the engine. Instead, he hopped across to the coach cars and ducked inside.
“Captain,” Tom called out as he approached the soldiers surrounding his father. Penelope knew the captain as the night officer of the EPS. “Captain, we have ten infectious children in the cargo cages beneath the main coach there. They need to be transferred into standard holding cages. We also have three bodies in the last coach that need to be brought in for forensics—”
“Tom, I don’t think that will be necessary—”
“And,” Tom said, interrupting his father. “There’s also a child in that coach there who needs to be put into isolated quarantine immediately.”
“Tom,” the Senator growled. “I was just telling Captain Palmer that she was given the curative. She poses no immediate threat.”
“She’s fully infectious,” Tom instructed Captain Palmer, disregarding his father. “We need standard blood tests every three days until her blood toxicity is below legal allowances.”
“Three days!?” the Senator blurted. “Tom, hold on here. What are you doing?”
“My job. She’s not crossing the channel until she passes her blood tests.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“We can talk later, sir,” Tom said to his father. “But she’s not going anywhere until her blood panels clear.”
Tom turned to Captain Palmer and instructed her to collect the children first. Several of the men surrounding them were dispatched. Hamilton was led off with the medic, leaving only the Captain and two of her men.
“This is about her, isn’t it?” the Senator said, pointing at Penelope. “Because she can’t cross?”
Tom stared at his father showing no sign of any emotion. It made Penelope uncomfortable to be the object of their resentment, but she reminded herself that this wasn’t about her. It was about Larissa, the girl inside the train everyone died to save.
Penelope looked back at the train and saw O’Farrell at one of the windows, looking out at them in the same manner as all the people on the EPS. The only difference was that O’Farrell knew what Tom was up to, but Penelope didn’t.
“You can have your daughter in twelve days, sir, if she passes quarantine,” Tom said evenly.
“I can have you fired,” the Senator said under his breath.
“And run the risk of someone else handling your daughter’s transfer? You know, in your speeches you like to say things like ‘for the good of America’, but you’re advocating bringing an infectious child across the channel—the only barrier we have to keep the horde at bay—confident in an untested cure? Is that really the kind of leader America needs?”
“God damn it, Tom, be reasonable. This is Larissa we’re talking about! My daughter! Your—”
“I know! I know who she is. You don’t think I know better than anyone?”
“Tom—”
“We’ll talk later,” Tom interrupted. “I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to file for all these incomings.”
“So that’s how it’s going to be?” the Senator asked. “You know you’re turning your back on family by doing this. I have other doctors, and facilities. She can be in quarantine on the other side. It’s safe.”
“Only if you happen to have a vaccine laying around,” Tom argued.
The Senator stiffened as though Tom struck him with his fists. Penelope’s attention turned to Tom, wondering how he knew that word: vaccine! She looked back at the train. O’Farrell still watched from the window. She must
have told Tom what happened on the roof, of how Kennedy really died.
“God damn it, Dad, you do, don’t you? How could you?”
“Tom. Son, this isn’t the time or place—”
“No, you’re right about that. She was normal, wasn’t she?” Tom asked, nodding his head toward Penelope.
Her head recoiled away from Tom, her eyes wide in disbelief. Normal? What did he mean by normal? Normal like a human? The way she was before she became zombie? Her grip on his neck loosened as she tried to step away from the two of them. Tom turned to her and caught her before she fell, easing her to the rocks surrounding the train tracks.
“Penny,” Tom said. “Penny, I’m sorry.”
“I’m taking Larissa,” the Senator said to Tom’s back. He marched off, his feet crunching in the uneven stones, leaving Tom to care for Penelope alone.
“You can have her,” Tom said under his breath.
Forty-One
Hank’s eyes lounged under heavy, half-open lids, a glaze of welcomed inebriation softening his usually blunt and watchful appearance. Tom sat low in the chair beside him. Several empty bottles of beer stood on the table between them. Tom took another sip of his and put the nearly empty bottle on the table beside the others. Hank rested his own opened bottle on his belly.
Penelope lay on the bed past the television and beyond the two men. She stared out the window of their apartment inside the EPS at the darkness outside and the suggestion of a river beneath them. Lights on the far shore drew long, undulating lines toward her. She watched Tom and Hank in the reflection of the glass.
“She’s going to be OK,” Hank said, referring to Doctor O’Farrell. Tom and Hank had been talking about her for a few minutes.
“My Dad needs her right now to watch over Larissa. She’s planning on trying to use it as leverage to get him to clear her name in the Rock Island investigation.”
“Good for her,” Hank said. He took a swig of his beer. “They fucked her. She may as well fuck them back.”
“She needs them too much, and I don’t think fucking them is her way.”
“I don’t know, Tom. She knows how to hotwire a snowmobile.”
Tom and Hank laughed.
“So what was your deal with Peske?” Hank asked. “What did I earn out of all this?”
“A Districts Pass,” Tom said. Penelope knew what it meant now. A pass to the good life, to any of the protected cities on the other side of the river, past the Rurals. A place where zombies, even the sanctioned ones sold for labor, weren’t allowed.
Hank laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Tom asked.
“I already have one.”
Tom looked at Hank suspiciously. “Seriously?”
Hank stuffed a hand into his cargo pocket and took out an old, worn, leather wallet. He opened it, thumbed through some plastic separators, and turned the wallet to show the white and blue card.
“What else have you got?” Hank asked, putting his wallet away.
“What else is there?”
“Money. I need a new rig.”
“For what? In a few weeks, my Dad’s going to retract the Rezoning Act, and probably rescind the Reusability Law. There won’t be any more sanctioned hunting.”
“You’re not thinking like a businessman. Once word gets out, everyone will start selling off their stuff at rock-bottom prices. I’ll be there to buy ‘em out. Then the government is going to come in and realize they need hunters like me to round up all the loose biters around their work sites. I figure there’s plenty of work for me for years to come. I just need money for another rig.”
“Aren’t you going to repair the duck?”
“That hunk of junk?” Hank didn’t answer Tom’s question. He lifted the beer and took another swig. He sighed as he looked at how little beer he had left in the last bottle.
“How long do you think it will take to repair?” Tom asked.
“Shit, the duck’s done in,” Hank said sourly. “It ain’t worth even trying.”
“I need a reliable vehicle for out there.”
“What the hell for? Your dad’s not going to do anything to you. He might be pissed at you right now, but he’s your father. He’ll get over it. Just apologize and go on doing what you’re doing.”
“Yeah, but there won’t be anything left to do in a few months. It’ll all be gone. Then what?”
“Do what I’m going to do. Help with the reconstruction. What else is there?”
“I don’t know, but there’s got to be something still out there.”
“You’re not going back to Midamerica, are you?”
Tom didn’t answer.
“Tom, God damn it, what’s wrong with you?”
Again, Tom didn’t answer.
“You’ve got Kitty, now. Think about her.”
“But there’re others still out there! Others like Penny. I saw them.”
“So what?”
“So what?!”
“Yeah, so what? How can anything ever be done for them now? It’s over, Tom. Just be thankful you’re alive after all we’ve been through.”
“Right,” Tom said unconvincingly.
“It’s over,” Hank reiterated. “End of story.”
“Right, you said that.”
“God damned right I did. Kitty, do you agree that it’s over?”
Penelope thought a moment. She wanted it to be over, once and for all, even if she still didn’t know where she fit in the world. The channel, with its endlessly sweeping currents, carved a rift between the two worlds, and she lay on her bed looking out over the edge. She imagined herself hovering above the water, neither on land nor in the water, just stuck somewhere in limbo, but thankfully not drowning in the middle anymore.
She had Tom.
She nodded.
“See?” Hank said, waving his hand with satisfaction toward Penelope, content that she agreed with him. “End of story.”
Then Penelope shook her head.
The End
The Ironville Zombie Quarantine Retraction Experiment Page 18
