Ashes, Ashes aa-1

by Jo Treggiari

  “I just wrenched my shoulder,” Aidan said. “Could have pulled a muscle,” he admitted, opening and closing his fist. A flutter of pain crossed his face.

  “He can make you more comfortable. Run a few tests.” She looked into his eyes. “Does that sound feasible? It shouldn’t take long, and then you can join us for coffee if you’d like. Or I’ll send a cup in.”

  Aidan nodded.

  “You can join us later,” the doctor continued. “I’ll leave the door to my office open.”

  Aidan shot Lucy a reassuring smile.

  She reached out for his hand, moved closer, and spoke in a whisper. “This doesn’t seem real. I feel like I’m dreaming. Can we trust her?”

  “I’m not sure. See if you can get some answers.”

  Simmons had removed his helmet. He smoothed his hands over his bushy red hair and slipped his Taser into his pocket. He was younger than Lucy had expected. His face was pale and sweaty. The hazmat suit was zipped up tight under his chin, and the skin above it was red and angry-looking, as if he had heat rash. It was warm inside the building. She felt the lining of her jacket stick to her skin.

  Simmons cleared his throat. “You can put your bow and your backpack just there on the chair, Aidan.” And he waved him into the examining room.

  “Come along, Lucy,” Dr. Lessing said. Lucy entered a room furnished with a large wooden desk, a tall cabinet, and a couple of deep, upholstered armchairs. A thick carpet in rich hues of red and gold covered the floor. It was a comfortable room, but Lucy could smell the strong odor of cleaning fluid and other odors, antiseptic and medicinal. It seemed to permeate everything. And it was chilly, a shock after the humidity on the landing.

  “Have a seat,” Dr. Lessing said, propping the door open. Her gaze never left Lucy’s face, and she frowned as if she were concentrating on a puzzle.

  Lucy took the seat closest to the hallway so that she could keep an eye on the closed door of the examining room where Aidan was. She pushed her backpack under the chair. She looked around. The walls were bare and painted white. Floor to ceiling built-in shelves, also painted white, were filled with a collection of wide-spined books covered in red leather. Medical books, Lucy guessed. Off to the side, a door opened onto a closet-sized space with a narrow cot bed. Heavy curtains were drawn over the windows, which she guessed looked out on the parking lots and the bridge. The thought that Dr. Lessing could have been sitting here in the dark, watching them sneak across it made her feel jumpy.

  The doctor seemed nice enough, though. Lucy watched her as she busied herself at the countertop behind her desk. An electric kettle whistled. The air conditioner rattled and wheezed. The air tasted metallic. The drone of the generator was just background noise now and hardly registered. Lucy tried to remember what it would be like to live with electricity, but failed. She wondered if the hospital staff listened to music, had dance parties on Saturday nights. It didn’t seem likely.

  The two desk lamps felt too bright to her. She was used to the small dancing flames of the lanterns and the steady orange glow of a campfire.

  “It’s only instant, I’m afraid,” Dr. Lessing said and turned around with two steaming mugs. “Artificial creamer?”

  Lucy shook her head and accepted the cup.

  Dr. Lessing sat down behind her desk. “I miss cows, don’t you?”

  “I guess,” said Lucy. She missed donuts and her family. Mostly her family. And feeling safe.

  She took a sip of her drink. It was searingly hot and very sweet. The doctor had added sweetener without asking her. In the past she drank it black and unsweetened, but coffee, even this chalky, sugary mixture, was coffee. And it was comforting.

  She blew on it, watching the woman from behind the rim of the cup.

  Dr. Lessing put her cup down on a neatly folded square of tissue paper and opened a drawer to her right. She pulled out a thick folder. Lucy leaned forward. Coffee slopped over the edge of her mug, splashing onto her leg. She yelped. Dr. Lessing looked up momentarily. A little frown creased her forehead and then smoothed itself. Lucy recognized the folder. It was hers, from the nurse’s office at school. And now she remembered Dr. Lessing’s name from the reports inside. The school nurse, Mrs. Reynolds, had sent all the blood tests here.

  “Why do you have that?” Lucy asked. The coffee wasn’t waking her up. Just the opposite. She felt like curling up in this soft chair and taking a nap. She forced herself to sit straight. “Did the school send it to you? Why?” She peered at it. There were pages covered in small, precisely written words. It was much bulkier than before.

  Dr. Lessing closed the folder and pressed her palms flat against it. She stroked it and smiled. “They did so many tests on you, Lucy. Did you know? A veritable plethora, looking for the usual things: heightened immunity, some kind of increased antibody production, excessive white blood cells, excessive red blood cells. And then they got creative with it. The most far-fetched possibilities were considered, but there was nothing.” Her fingertips caressed the folder as if it were a cat. Her smile didn’t waver. “They died without ever finding out. I can’t imagine anything more frustrating.” Her eyes lingered on Lucy’s face. A spasm flickered across her eyelid.

  Lucy swallowed the gulp of coffee she’d been holding in her mouth. She sputtered as it went down the wrong way. A tiny thread dribbled down her chin. Dr. Lessing handed her a tissue from the box on her desk.

  “Am I sick?” Lucy asked in a whisper.

  Dr. Lessing tapped her lip with a pen.

  “Your parents didn’t vaccinate you.”

  It sounded like an accusation.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Lucy said. “I had an older brother who died from an allergic reaction when he was a baby.”

  The doctor’s mouth pursed. Her eyes narrowed. She seemed to be looking at something that was far off in the distance. Lucy shifted in her chair. She finished the rest of her coffee, so hungry she even drank the thick syrup at the bottom, and held the mug in her hands. “You didn’t answer me,” she finally said. “Am I sick?”

  “I didn’t believe it at first, but the tests corroborate it completely. You’re an anomaly. You shouldn’t exist.” She slapped the folder so hard, it made Lucy jump. “But you do!”

  “What does it mean?”

  Dr. Lessing got to her feet in a quick, smooth motion. She walked to the window, pulled the curtain aside. The sun was coming up, flushing the concrete parking lot with pink and gold light. “It means,” she said, “I’ve searched for you for a long time, Lucy Holloway. I almost got you at the Midtown shelter, but you vanished.” She frowned. “And then Del mentioned your name while I was asking her a few general questions about the settlement. Such an unbelievable stroke of luck. I don’t think she likes you much, by the way. It took some convincing, but she eventually saw that it was the right choice to bring you here.”

  “She didn’t escape,” Lucy said, suddenly sure of it. “You let her go.”

  “She’s a capable girl, that one. A little vindictive, but trustworthy, and her heart’s in the right place.” She swung around. “She’d do anything for the little ones, you know. Quite motherly, although she doesn’t look it.”

  “She’s a rat.”

  Dr. Lessing laughed. “She was stuck between Charybdis and Scylla.”

  “Whatever.”

  Lucy didn’t care much about Del anymore.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “The blood tests and all that, that’s in the past.”

  “Somehow, within your body, within your blood, you have the ability to withstand a disease that killed almost everyone on Earth. I’d say that’s still relevant, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, but the plague is over.” But then what about Leo? She shifted again, pressing her spine to the back of the chair. Her brain was so slow and her eyes felt gritty. She wanted to close them. “I mean, it won’t ever come back like before. Will it?” She tried to sit up straighter, but her spine felt like a limp noodle.

  “You’r
e missing the point. The answer is what is important. A scientist can’t rest until she has the answer.”

  Rest. That’s what she needed. Just a little nap maybe, and then she’d get Aidan and they’d go home.

  Dr. Lessing opened the cabinet. It had plain wooden doors on the outside and looked like it belonged in a kitchen to hold plates and dishes, but its interior was more like a refrigerator. Tubes and vials fitted into individual slots and racks. Some were filled with a clear liquid, others with red. There were hundreds of them. She picked up a tube and tilted it. The lamplight turned it into gooey paint.

  “What are all those?” Lucy asked. She rubbed her eyes, stifled a yawn. Her eyelids fluttered and then opened again. She was so tired.

  “Answers… questions…” Dr. Lessing murmured. She turned suddenly and stared at Lucy. Her smile was gone. “Every answer fits into a box, and that leads to the next question. That is what is so perfect about science. We can be methodical about it. Blood. Plasma. Serums. Vaccines. The answer is in the blood.”

  Lucy had heard that before. It was a creepy phrase and it had stuck in her head. She tried to remember who had said it. Her mind was sluggish. She gripped the arms of the chair, tried to clear the fog. Leo! Leo had said the same thing.

  “Leo!” she said out loud.

  Dr. Lessing was suddenly just above her, so close Lucy could see the large pores on her nose, could hear her breathing, heavy and quick, and smell mint candy. The doctor’s soft brown eyes were now hard as pebbles.

  “Everything fits, except for you,” Dr. Lessing said. “You should want to help. With your blood, I can synthesize a vaccine. A synthetic duplicate. Even if the disease mutates, I’ll be able to control it.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to be a lab rat. It’s my choice, not yours.”

  “It’s an opportunity to help so many people and to keep us safe in the future.”

  Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

  “What did you put in the coffee?” Lucy said. It was difficult to push the words past her lips. Her tongue felt thick.

  Her head snapped back, whacking against the chair. Her eyes flew open. Suddenly, she felt as if she were falling from a great height. She struggled to stay awake, but it was impossible. She was drowning, so heavy in her body that she couldn’t help but be pulled under.

  Just before her eyes closed for the last time, she heard Dr. Lessing call out to someone unseen: “Kelly, can you please take this cup of coffee to Aidan?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  IN THE BOX

  Lucy woke up. The inside of her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and her head pounded with a dull pain that started behind her eyes and continued to the base of her neck. She’d felt the same way after her wisdom teeth had been pulled. She pressed her thumbs into the flesh of her temples, and then rubbed her fingers over her forehead. The pain didn’t lessen. Her hair felt like one matted clump on top of her head. Her legs and arms were heavy and almost impossible to move. With an effort, she rolled over and opened her eyes. The faint glow cast by a recessed light showed the white walls of a small room, the bed she was lying on, a small metal nightstand with a plastic pitcher and cup, and a tall bucket in the corner. There was a tiny window high up, and the door was closed.

  She swung her legs around, put her feet to the linoleum floor. It was cold. Her arms felt stiff and they hurt. Lucy peeled back her shirtsleeves and stared at a trail of new puncture marks that ran up the undersides of both forearms. There were four or five on each arm, and every hole was circled by bruised skin.

  Her head spun. She closed her eyes and bit down on her lip, hard enough to make her eyes tear. She would not faint. She would not vomit. She poured herself a glass of water. It was tepid and tasted unpleasant, but it soothed her dry throat. She stood up. The dizziness rushed back and then ebbed. Her bare feet slapped against the tiles as she walked to the door. She twisted the handle. It was locked from the outside. She pressed her hands against it. It was made of steel and was cold against her palms. She clenched her fists and hammered them against the unyielding metal.

  Her boots stood against the wall, her socks balled neatly beside them.

  She put on her socks and boots. She kicked the door. Finally she gave up. Her toes hurt, her wounded palm throbbed. It was then she noticed that it had been neatly bandaged. A square, flesh-colored adhesive.

  “Dr. Lessing,” she yelled. She kept yelling for a few minutes.

  Lucy got down on the floor and tried to look underneath the door. It was flush with the linoleum. She ran her fingers along the crack in the doorjamb. She could see the tongue of the bolt lock. Maybe she could jimmy it open. She didn’t have anything, but… her knife! Was her knife still inside her jacket pocket? She scrambled to her feet and went to the bed. She felt the lump from the outside of the jacket, pulled it out, and ran back to the door. She slid her knife in and eased it down until she felt the top of the bolt, then jiggled it gently. She thought it gave a little. She pushed down harder, wiggled the blade to the side. Metal slid on metal. She twisted and pushed at the same time. With a squeal the knife snapped. She was left with three inches of rough blade, a hilt-heavy thing that felt clumsy and unbalanced in her hand. Her father’s knife.

  The tears took her by surprise. Hot, they exploded out of her, ripping through her rib cage. When they ceased, she was exhausted. She lay down on the floor, her useless knife clasped between numb fingers. And the door—the door was closed as tightly as ever. The room seemed too small. It didn’t have enough air in it, and her lungs couldn’t get a full breath. She felt the walls pressing down on her.

  The window. It was at least fifteen feet above her. She could tell that even by standing on the bed she wouldn’t be able to reach it, even if she could somehow stack the side table onto the bed and then clamber up on top of it without breaking her neck. And it looked too small to squeeze her shoulders through, anyway.

  She paced, feeling the frustration well up in her until she was sure she would explode with it. She sank down onto the bed. It felt weird being so far from the ground. She pulled the covers off and heaped them in the corner. She curled up on top of them, shrugged her arms into her leather jacket, and yanked a rough blanket up to her chin. She turned her knife over and over in her hands. The blade was toothed now, two spikes of metal with a sharp edge. Sooner or later Dr. Lessing would come, and she would jump on her and press the knife to her neck and get out of this box.

  She slept fitfully, with her knees tucked in and her sore arms folded across her head. The blanket was scratchy and thin and smelled of detergent. She drifted in and out of sleep. The air conditioner was loud. The rattle of the generator, thrumming far below her as it surged and quieted again, kept her on the edge of wakefulness. And the electric light, weak though it was, shone down on her. She’d looked for a switch but the walls were bare. She worried about Aidan. What had they done with him? Was he still next door? She scratched at the wall with her fingernail, tapped out a sequence, wishing she knew Morse code or something. Aidan probably knew secret codes, like he knew about trail markers and how to make bows, but it was no good, anyway. Either he couldn’t hear her or he wasn’t there. She pressed her ear against the wall and slipped into unconsciousness again.

  The fumbling noise at the door woke her. She dragged herself upright and then to her feet. Her right hand was behind her back, holding the knife ready. It was still dark outside. She moved forward and to the side of the door, where shadows offered some concealment. It opened outward, and she planned to rush whoever was coming through it, kicking and screaming, punching and stabbing, if that’s what it took. The idea crossed her mind that it might be a Sweeper with a Taser. The thought of that bolt of electricity made her shudder with fear. She tightened her grip on her knife. Her eyes were glued to the door handle. She heard the click as the lock disengaged, the handle turned, and the door swung open slowly. Lucy balanced with her weight forward on her toes, ready to spring.

/>   Someone stepped into the room. Her eyes registered black clothing and then she was on him, her weight knocking the person to the floor in the office beyond. They were in darkness except for a desk lamp. She brought her knife up, ready to plunge it down.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” she said, “or I’ll kill you.”

  The figure beneath her struggled. She pushed her weight down. Her left arm was pressed against what she thought was his neck. The clothes were voluminous, black, his face covered by a hood, and now, as she leaned in closer with the knife, she saw a weird smoothness, an emptiness where the face should be. His legs drummed against the floor. A strangled sputter erupted from his mouth. Never moving the knife, she relaxed her arm somewhat.

  “Lucy,” he gasped. “You’re choking me.”

  “What?” she said, recognizing Sammy’s voice. She rolled off of him, then held out her hand to help him up. “What are you doing prancing around in the dark?”

  He pushed his black mask down so it hung around his neck. His red eyes blinked away tears. His hand massaged his throat.

  She was so glad to see him, she threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug.

  “I wasn’t prancing,” Sammy said over her shoulder. “Del and I came to rescue you.”

  Lucy jerked away. She felt the dull thud of anger again.

  “Del!” she said. “Rescue us? She’s the reason we’re here. She led us into a trap.”

  He shook his head. “Me and Henry tried to follow you guys. It was pretty hard going until I spotted some of Aidan’s trail markers. We met up with her by the Needle. She had Lottie and Patrick with her. Henry took them back to the camp, and we continued on. Del insisted on coming back even though she’s so exhausted she can hardly walk.”

  Lucy closed her ears to the note of sympathy in his voice.

  “Where is she now? How do you know she isn’t raising the alarm?”

  “I know her,” he said. Oddly, it was the exact opposite of what Aidan had said on the stairs when they realized Del had tricked them.