by Lissa Bryan
He opened the door to find Mindy standing on the porch. Dagny was in her arms, and she let out a squeal of delight when she saw him. Justin took his daughter into his arms and peered down at her tear-soaked and reddened little face.
“What’s all this?” he asked and pulled up the hem of his T-shirt to dab at her cheeks. Dagny’s breath hitched with fading sobs.
“Well, to put it politely, she threw a fit,” Mindy said. “A knock-down, all-out screaming fit. She cried so hard, I was afraid she’d make herself sick. She wanted her mama and dada and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Dagny hiccupped. Justin finished wiping her face and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Poor Daggers. Your whole little life has been tipped upside down. Come on. We’ll go see Mama.”
He carried her down the stairs and sat down on the edge of the bed. Carly opened her eyes when Dagny squealed. Justin let her go, and she crawled across the bed to her mother and patted her cheek with more eagerness than gentleness. Carly caught her waving arm and used it to draw the baby to her for a snuggle.
“I’ve missed you.” She cast a worried glance up at Justin. “Dagny can’t catch anything, can she?”
“No, if anything, her germs are more of a risk to you with your battered immune system.”
“I’ll risk it.” Carly smiled, and it made his heart ache when he realized he hadn’t seen that smile in a long while now. “Lie down with us.” Carly patted the edge of the bed, and Justin wasn’t going to turn that invitation down. He lay down on the edge of the bed, Dagny between them, jabbering and laughing. No one would have guessed she’d been bawling a few minutes ago.
It didn’t take long before Carly was worn out. He took Dagny back upstairs to Mindy, who’d taken the opportunity to snoop through all of the cabinets. “You didn’t tell me you were almost out of food.”
Justin shrugged. “Carly can only stomach soup right now, and I’ve been eating the leftovers. Without Kaden here, our grocery needs are about a tenth of what they were.”
Mindy grinned. “I’m convinced that boy has a tapeworm. Maybe two.” She took Dagny back from Justin, though the baby gave a shriek of protest.
“Sorry, Daggers,” Justin said softly. He wished he could promise her she would come home when her mother was better, but when would that be? He followed them to the door. Dagny wailed and writhed in Mindy’s arms, reaching back over her shoulder toward Justin. His heart ached, even as he forced himself to go back inside.
“Justin?” Pearl tapped on the door frame. He turned back around.
“Hey,” he said.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t had a chance to get over here.” She gave him a little apologetic smile. “How’s Carly doing?”
“She has malaria,” Justin said. He was too tired to try to soften it.
Pearl nodded. “That’s what the Reverend told us. I wanted to ask you if there are any medicines I could go look for that would help her. I could check the nearby clinics and pharmacies.”
“Cleaned out.”
Pearl chewed on her bottom lip, then snapped her fingers. “I may know of one that hasn’t been hit.” She went into the kitchen and returned with a phone book.
Justin wondered why in the world Carly would have kept such a thing. “Where did you find that?”
Pearl gave him a little grin. “In her cabinet, under p for phone book.” She flipped through the pages and then pointed at a line.
“What’s this?” Justin asked. He peered at the line of dark print and then closed one eye to try to force it into focus.
“Oh, sorry … forgot. This is a listing for Rutgers Supply Company. It’s outside of Blanchard. I told you I had an aunt living down here, right? Well, her son worked for Rutgers.”
“What is it?”
“Distribution center for a mail-order pharmacy company. My cousin drove a forklift there. They supplied several mail-order firms, so it seems like they should have a variety. It’s worth a shot, anyway.”
“Okay, but they’ve probably been looted to the bare walls.”
Pearl shook her head. “I don’t know about that. It doesn’t say drugs anywhere in their name, and I drove by there with my aunt once a few years ago. The building itself is nondescript, tucked away off a side road in the middle of nowhere. If people didn’t know it was there or what kind of business it was, they might never realize it was even there. It’s a chance, Justin. Maybe the best chance we have in this area.”
Justin suddenly understood what Carly had meant when she said hope could be a terrible thing. He glanced back to the partially-closed basement door, and the pain of being separated from Carly now was like a fist in his gut. But he had to do it.
“How long do you think it will take me to get there?”
“You’re not going,” Pearl replied.
He stared at her. “Of course I am. Who else—”
“You can’t. You’re needed here. Carly needs you, and the town needs you in case there’s an attack.” Pearl stood and laid the phone book on the counter. “I’m going.”
“But you don’t know what to get.”
“Make me a list. You give me the wagon, and I’ll fill it up with anything that looks interesting. If this is happening to Carly, I have a feeling we’re going to encounter it with others, so we’d better stock up.”
Justin hesitated, and Pearl sighed. “Justin, you’re needed here. Carly needs you, but the town needs you even more for defense. If Marcus is waiting for a perfect time, it would be while you’re gone.”
“You could do it,” Justin said.
“Yeah, I could lead them, but I wouldn’t have their trust the way you do. That only comes with time. You stay here, where you’re needed, Justin. I’ll be back before you know it.”
He followed her toward the door. “Wait.”
She watched as he opened one of the closets, pulled back the carpet and lifted out the floor board. From the cavity below, he pulled out a submachine gun and a small duffle bag. He handed both to her. “Full auto,” he said, “so watch your ammo. One pull on the trigger will empty your clip.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks, Justin. From your personal stash—I’m touched. I’ll head out today. The sooner she gets those meds, the better. I’ll go grab my bag from home and come back in an hour or so.”
He didn’t reply. Words had escaped him. He still hadn’t worked out how to tell her how grateful he was by the time she came back.
She followed him out of the house and across the wide expanse of lawn to the barn. Shadowfax and Storm were grazing, both of them fastened to what appeared to be dog tie-out lines screwed down into the soil.
“Carly’s idea,” he said, casting Pearl a rueful smile over his shoulder. “She’s paranoid about these horses getting hurt.” He unfastened Shadowfax and led her into the barn where the wagon waited. Pearl helped him harness the horse, partially to demonstrate to him that she knew how to do it, and then climbed up to the driver’s seat.
“I’ll take good care of her,” Pearl said.
“I know.” Justin patted Shadowfax on her shoulder, and the mare lowered her head to snuffle at him.
“Twenty-four hours, tops.”
“Seventy-two,” Justin said. “After that, I’m coming after you.”
Pearl gave him a small grin. “Just to get the horse, right?”
Justin shook his head. “To get my friend.”
He held out a hand, and Pearl took it. For a long moment, she looked as though she was searching for words, but then she clucked to Shadowfax, heading out into the bright summer sunlight.
Chapter Twelve
That afternoon, Justin faced what appeared to be a wide-spread conspiracy. Stacy came over with Michael and Veronica in tow and said she’d come to give him some “respite,” and then Grady, Stan, and the Reverend all arrived ten minutes later with problems that absolutely needed his immediate attention. From the looks on their faces, they were willing to exert force if need be. It seemed everyone had decided Justin m
ust get out of the house, even if just for a few minutes.
Stan wanted him to look at a fish caught from the pond and decide if he thought the algae infection was completely gone, and Grady insisted he needed to know where the rest of the trees had to be felled to complete the swamp perimeter. Justin felt anger stir and nearly exerted some force himself, but he knew they thought they were doing this for his own good.
Carly was coming down from one of her fevers, and she’d have a few good days now. He wondered if they’d timed it to coincide with the least dangerous time for her, and decided they probably had. With Stacy there, Carly was in the best hands other than his own, and she swore she would send Veronica running to get him if there was any change in Carly’s condition. He surrendered with as much good grace as he could muster and followed them out the door.
As Justin told Carly later, Mark had refused to babysit the kids, which was why Stacy had brought them along. When Justin departed, Veronica was sent out to weed Carly’s garden, and Michael was settled on the chair in the corner of Carly’s bedroom with his sketch pad.
The boy was a gifted artist, though no one knew what his sketches meant. A woman’s face. A man’s hand, curled limply. A shadowy room with a figure by the window. A door with a hand curved around the edge above the knob. A linoleum floor with a spill of dark liquid covering the lower edge of the image. Innocuous images, but disturbing.
In the midafternoon, Carly fell asleep and began to toss and mumble from a nightmare. Stacy told her afterward that she had risen to check Carly’s temperature and realized she’d left her medical kit in the kitchen. She headed upstairs.
Carly half-woke and sat up in bed with a gasp. “Mom, the spiders!”
Michael’s head jerked toward her and his eyes bulged. His sketchbook tumbled from his fingers, and he stared at Carly as she fell back to the pillows, muttering.
He jumped to his feet and darted across the room.
Carly saw him coming through the fog of sleep, his face twisted into an expression similar to the one her father had worn that terrible day. And like her father, Michael wrapped his hands around her throat. Squeezing. She couldn’t breathe.
Carly clawed at his hands, but she couldn’t break his grip. The fog grew heavier. She tried to kick him, but her legs were covered by the blankets and she was too weak to toss them off.
“Carly!” Veronica screamed. Where did she come from?
Veronica lunged and grabbed him around the waist, hauling back with all her strength. Michael was pulled away, his arms scrabbling at the air as he tried to reach Carly.
Carly sucked in a whoop of air that burned like fire. She coughed, hard, sucking in painful breaths between them.
Michael slammed his elbow back into Veronica’s ribs, and she let out a cry of pain but didn’t let go. Their feet tangled together and they fell to the floor. Veronica held on for dear life, wrapping one leg across Michael’s.
“She’ll kill us!” Michael screamed. “Let me go!”
Veronica was so surprised, she almost released him.
“She’ll kill us! She’ll kill us!”
Veronica was strong, but Michael was hard to hold. She lost her grip and had to grab him again, letting out a screech of pain when he bit into her arm. “Michael, stop!”
“What in the world?” Stacy appeared at the doorway and rushed inside. She pulled Michael from Veronica’s grasp. “Veronica—”
“Wait, Stacy, no!”
Michael, freed from Veronica’s grasp, pawed at the pouch Stacy wore on her hip and pulled out the .22 pistol. Stacy screamed his name and tackled him. Michael held it out at arm’s length, kicking at Stacy as she tried to reach for it.
Carly stared at the end of the barrel. Justin, I love you. She drew in a last breath.
Michael pulled the trigger and she heard a dry click.
The breath whooshed out of her, and she coughed as he clicked it again and again. When it dawned on him that no bullets were emerging, he looked at the gun in his hand with a puzzled expression, turning it left and right.
Veronica stumbled to her feet and kicked the gun out of Michael’s hand. He snarled—actually snarled—and tried to claw his way across the carpet toward it with Stacy hanging on to his legs. He writhed, trying to dislodge her, his eyes fastened on the gun.
“She’ll kill us!” He turned to Stacy and drove his fist down into her nose. She let out a startled scream and recoiled. He snatched at the gun.
Veronica sent out a kick that caught him across the jaw. He flopped over from the force of the blow and collapsed to the carpet, and Veronica pounced on his back to make sure he wouldn’t get up again. Stacy ran over to Carly, who was still gasping in ragged whoops. She poured Carly a glass of water and helped support her so Carly could slurp at it.
Veronica yanked the belt off Carly’s robe and used it to tie Michael’s hands behind his back. Carly warned her not to make it too tight, wincing as she spoke through her burning throat. Veronica stared at her like Carly was insane.
“Thank God he didn’t crush your windpipe,” Stacy said. “Are you okay?”
Was she serious? Carly almost laughed but just nodded.
Stacy stood and walked over to where Michael lay. Veronica had used one of Justin’s leather belts to bind his feet. Michael had recovered somewhat and was muttering over and over. “… kill us all. Kill us all. Kill us all.”
“What a way to find out he can talk. Michael? Michael, can you hear me?”
He glanced at her but dropped his gaze as he struggled against his bonds. “Kill us all …”
Stacy knelt and gripped him by the shoulders. “Michael! Answer me.”
“She’ll kill us.”
“Carly? Why do you think she’ll hurt us?”
It was a moment before he answered, and the strain in his voice made it sound like he was pulling the words from deep inside him, pulling them with great effort. “She’s Infected! She’s one of them! She’ll kill us! She’s one of the monsters.”
Stacy’s voice gentled. “Michael, she’s not Infected. She has malaria.”
“Look at her! She’s one of them. Kill her!” Like a wall had collapsed or a veil had been rent, he began to sob, great wracking sobs that shook his entire frame.
Justin arrived just a few minutes later, his dark eyes sharp as obsidian with that lethal gleam. Mindy joined them, since Stacy wanted to go with Michael. Justin examined Carly’s throat right after Mindy did. Carly insisted she was fine, just a little sore, but she knew he wouldn’t believe it until he checked it himself. After he was finished, he didn’t look reassured. He looked pissed off.
“Justin, please don’t hurt Michael. He’s just a little boy.”
“A little boy who tried to kill my wife. Carly, if that gun had been loaded—”
“He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Bullshit.”
“What I mean is that fear overtook his reason. We don’t know what kind of trauma he’s been through. Where is he, anyway?”
Mindy was the one who answered. “Mark’s keeping him under house arrest at his place. He’s not saying much, but he is still verbal. He refuses to talk about what happened with you or why he reacted like that.”
“Don’t push him. He could retreat back into silence.” Carly laid a hand on Justin’s arm.
Justin rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re pretty generous in your concern for someone who tried to kill you.”
Carly plucked at the blanket. “It’s not his fault. I know that. What are we going to do with him? How do we punish a child for doing something he couldn’t help? He’s just a kid—”
“Carly, he’s not … normal.”
Carly rubbed her temples. “None of us are. Every one of us who lived through this is fucked up. We’ve all gone through trauma, and it’s going to come out one way or the other. We’ve been numb. We’ve been stoic. We’ve done what we have to do to survive, and we’ve buried it down, deep inside. None of us have dealt with it. We
can’t. There’s only so much a human can take at one time. No matter how deep we bury it, it still clings to our minds, still takes up part of our mind’s power, so none of us can say we make fully rational decisions. We’re all walking wounded, all of us carrying these scars, and none of us able to heal. Not now. Not yet. Maybe never.”
With every word, her voice grew raspier, but Carly couldn’t stop. She had to finish it, to get out the words that were burning in her mind. “We live in this little bubble we’ve created. That I’ve created. I was attracted to this place that seemed untouched by the hellfire that burned through our world. But we brought the hellfire with us. I was determined to rebuild it, but what I was doing was pretending, Justin. Building a place where we could all pretend that ‘normal’ still existed. Like kids in a tree house. You knew that.”
Justin took her hand. “I wanted it to work for you, Carly.”
She took a deep breath and a sip of water from the glass on the nightstand to soothe her aching throat. “For me?”
He gave a small smile. “I never much cared for ‘normal.’ ”
Carly traced the pattern on the bedcover with her finger. “I wanted Dagny to know about the Crisis as something that happened to us, something that was part of our history, but not something that was part of her experience. I didn’t want to pass the trauma on to her generation. And I thought her children would learn about it in school in the distant, academic sense of history. Because their world would be safe and normal again. Maybe not outside the Walls, but in here, it would be America again. In here would be schools and shops and church on Sundays. In here, we would be safe to pretend.”
Mindy poured Carly another glass of water. “It wasn’t all pretend, Carly. We’ve built a solid community. But it’s not America in here. It’s Colby. America doesn’t exist anymore, but Colby does.”
Carly gave Mindy a small smile. “Thank you. But right now, it feels like a blanket fort.”
Justin shook his head. “No, Mindy’s right, honey. It’s something more than that. We’ve got good people here committed to good ideals. That makes for a strong community. It could be the start of something much bigger, if people want it.”
