Molly shook her head, remembering what Erin had always said back in the day. Negative people were doomed to fail. If she wanted to survive, she’d have to become Mary fucking Sunshine. Pollyanna incarnate. She’d have to shut down the side of her that was like her father and be more like Erin.
Poor Erin. Optimism hadn’t gotten her very far.
“This is stupid. I want to go home!” cried Red. Molly squeezed her reins in frustration. Rose-colored glasses were easier to talk about than find. She should have had her father build a setting into her implants.
“Okay, that’s it. Everyone dismount,” Chase commanded. She glanced at him, a little irritated. They’d already wasted too much time. She wanted to get some miles in today, feel like they’d made some progress.
The kids slid off their horses. Chase jumped off his own mount and reached into his bag. He pulled out a bunch of sunglasses and started passing them around. “Okay,” he said. “Make sure you all put these on.” One by one the kids slid the glasses over their eyes. Molly watched, curious.
“These are magical glasses,” Chase said. “Just like Molly’s there. And they’re going to help us see Disney World.”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Surely the children weren’t going to buy this.
“Do you see it?” he asked, when each had donned their glasses. He pointed down the highway. “The trail of pixie dust? Isn’t it beautiful?”
“I think I see it!” cried Sunshine. “I think I do!”
Sure enough, the rest of them chimed in. Molly couldn’t believe it.
“That’s the path we need to take to get to the Magic Kingdom,” Chase continued. “Some very smart magicians are building a new society there, and we’ll all get to be a part of it. Just like the princes and princesses in the storybooks.”
“I see it, too,” the teenager Starr said, obviously playing along. A big smile broke out across her freckled face. “Way out there.”
“Yes. It’s very far,” Chase agreed, serious. “But we can make it. Right, guys?”
“Yeah!” they chorused, completely under his spell. Molly shook her head. He was amazing. Absolutely amazing, the way he handled them. Hadn’t his brother been calling him a fuckup?
“Okay, guys, let’s do our tribe dance and then we’ll start our journey,” Chase commanded. “Remember the one Rocky taught us when he gave you your war paint?”
The children cheered, and Chase broke out into a wild dance, twirling in circles and kicking up his feet. He looked so damn ridiculous, Molly smiled. Soon the children joined in, giggling and cheering. They were a group of mad whirling dervishes on a lost highway.
She suddenly felt a tug on her leg and looked down. Darla was standing beside Molly’s horse, looking up at her with her big eyes. “Come on, Molly,” the little girl said. “You gotta do the tribe dance.”
It was a waste of time. It was stalling the journey. And everything inside of her said she should just say no, force them back on their horses and move things along. Instead, she found herself slipping off her horse and kicking up her heels. She grabbed Darla’s hands and twirled her around. The little girl squealed in delight.
“You’re one of us now!” Darla said, grinning from ear to ear. “You’re part of the tribe.”
Molly was secretly pleased at the idea. Maybe there was a chance she could fit in after all; she just needed to relax a bit and go with the flow. She needed to not expect everything to be timely and perfect, had to channel her mother rather than her dad.
A moment later, Chase was next to her. “D’you mind if I cut in?” he asked Darla. He took Molly’s hands and, pulling her close, began a waltz. She allowed him to lead, following his steps and wondering where he had learned. His hand was firmly planted against her back, the other grasping her hand. Forward, back. Side to side. She felt his hot breath on her cheek. Breathed in his musky scent. Felt his thigh move accidentally up against hers. She sucked in a breath and—
—stepped right on his foot.
“Ow!” he cried, dropping his hands and hopping up and down. “Forget the razors. Your feet are deadly weapons.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She laughed, then caught herself. Put a hand over her mouth.
He grinned. “See?” he said. “I told you you’d laugh eventually. Life goes on.” He turned back to the children. “Okay, mount up, Mouseketeers,” he commanded. “It’s a small world after all!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mount Holyoke Hospital was a tall brick building originally built in the 1800s and it had survived the Civil War. Over the years there had been additions, but the main structure still stood. It was a full-service facility, but one of their main operations was delivering babies. They had a reputation for kind nurses, beautifully decorated private rooms, and the best epidurals around.
Thus, it was surprising that when Molly and Chris got off their bikes and approached the place, they saw armed, uniformed guards flanking the sliding glass doors of the entrance. Guards who stopped them from entering.
“We’re sorry,” said the one on the left, a giant in full beard and brown uniform. “We’re full.”
Molly cocked her head. Full? Since when did a hospital turn people away? Didn’t doctors sign an oath to help everyone? Or at least those with good medical insurance…“We don’t need to see a doctor,” she informed the guard. “We just want to find out if a friend of ours was admitted.”
“No visitors,” said the one on the right. He was clean-shaven but just as big.
Molly and Chris looked at one another. “Since when?” Chris asked.
“Kids, we’re going to have to ask you to leave,” said the guard on the left. He rattled his machine gun.
Molly shivered. None of this was helping her case against the apocalypse.
“Come on,” she said, grabbing Chris by the arm. There was no need to mess with soldiers. “Let’s go.”
Once out of earshot, Chris turned to her, looking puzzled. “We’re giving up that easily?” he asked.
Molly shook her head. “No,” she replied. “We’re just going to have to be more creative. Let’s walk around back and see what we can find.” She was curious now, to be honest. Were her dad and Chris actually onto something? She wasn’t leaving until she got some answers.
They headed to the back of the hospital, ducking under barbed wire fencing that pronounced the area off limits. Since when did a hospital use barbed wire?
“We have to be quick,” Chris whispered. “They’ve probably got a billion security cameras and motion detectors. And maybe guards patrol here, too.”
Molly nodded, peering around the back lot. At the moment the place was desolate, and it gave her the creeps by being overgrown and trash-strewn. She pointed to a window and motioned for Chris to follow. Wiped off the grime with her sleeve and peered in.
She drew in a quick breath. The guards hadn’t been exaggerating when they’d used the word “full.” Packed like a can of sardines would have been more accurate. The room had row upon row of cots with very little space between. A patient lay upon each, many looking weirdly green or yellow. The close ones had bloodshot eyes, drool at the corners of their mouths. Some lay still, eyes staring wildly into nothingness. Still others thrashed in their sleep, as if they were living a nightmare from which they couldn’t wake. And perhaps they were.
Molly backed up, horrified, and bumped into an enormous trash compactor directly behind her. She hadn’t paid it much attention before, because it looked like it was used for industrial construction work. She wondered now what it was doing here. “Ow!” she cried, rubbing her arm. “That hurt.”
Chris abandoned the window to give her his full attention. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded. Then she peeked back inside the hospital. “God. There’s so many people in there. And they look…awful.”
He nodded. “And if this is happening here, maybe it really is happening everywhere around the world….”
She shuddered. “Maybe t
hose rumors weren’t exaggerated after all.”
“I wonder…” Chris absently flipped open the compactor door, peering inside. He went dead silent. Molly turned from the window and squinted at him. He looked horrified.
“What did you find now?” she asked, almost afraid to know.
He banged the door shut. His face was white as a sheet. “Nothing,” he said.
“Let me see.” She reached over to pull open the lid.
“Molly, no—”
But it was too late.
The first thing she noticed was a horrific smell. An overwhelming odor of rot assaulted her nose. But that smell was only a precursor to the true nightmare.
“Oh God.” She felt her knees wobble and she stumbled.
Chris caught her, steadying her. His hand felt warm on her suddenly freezing-cold skin.
“Those…those…” She found she couldn’t finish. It was too awful. All those bodies, thrown out like common trash. What about their families? Their friends? Their chance at a proper burial?
“Come on,” he commanded. “We need to get out of here. Now!”
She nodded, and they started back the way they came. Suddenly they heard a sound: a low, guttural moan. They looked at each other.
“It sounded like it was coming from the trash compactor!” Chris observed in a shaky voice.
Molly felt her stomach heave. It was all she could do not to throw up. “Do you think…Oh God, what if the doctors made a mistake? What if one of them is still alive?”
The moan grew louder, accompanied by a thrashing noise. Someone was clearly trying to get out.
“Should we check?” she asked.
Chris glanced at the compactor and then back at her. “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to take a quick peek,” Molly said, inching over to the compactor. Everything inside her said it was a mistake, but she just couldn’t bring herself to walk away from a living person trapped in there with corpses. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and it was difficult to take a breath. She swallowed the bile bubbling up in her throat. “Here goes,” she said, reaching for the door.
She lifted it then jumped back, her heart stopped from shock.
“Oh, my God!” she cried, dropping the door closed with a bang. “Run!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Another marshmallow, m’lady?” Chase said, pulling his stick from their makeshift fire. Of course, he didn’t really have a toasted marshmallow on the end. If he did, it’d likely have been stale and hard as a rock. Molly giggled at the gesture all the same.
“Why, thank you, good sir,” she said, miming acceptance. She popped the fake sweet into her mouth and rubbed her stomach. “Mmm. Delicious.”
“What’s a marshmallow?” asked Darla, the only child still awake. The others were mostly sacked out a few feet away, exhausted by their trek.
“Only the best food on Earth,” Chase declared, reaching over to tickle her. “Soft and squishy, just like you.” The girl squealed in delight and jumped onto him, knocking him backwards. They tussled for a bit before Chase finally let her pin him to the ground in victory.
They’d set up camp in a small motel courtyard off of I-95 for the night. Chase had scouted out a room for them to sleep in and collected blankets from other rooms. Those blankets were all now spread across the floor inside, making a cozy little space to sleep and an easy position to retreat to. But first he’d said they should cook dinner. They did so right in front of the room he’d chosen, and there was a good view of all their surroundings, no way for someone to sneak up on their position. And by cooking outside they were saving their precious supply of gas in their portable stove for rainy nights.
He’d made one hell of a fire, a roaring blaze circled by big stones he’d collected from nearby, then cooked their feast: something he’d teasingly called Stone Soup in front of the children. It was watered-down chicken broth with some vegetables from the Wal-Mart garden thrown in. He’d added a little whiskey and some other spices, too. Not the most filling or delicious meal in the world, but Molly applauded his efforts all the same. Alone, she probably would have only managed to crack open a can of string beans.
“What was that old movie that had the giant marshmallow guy? Remember?” Chase asked Molly, eyes shining, as he lay back on the grass. Darla had gone back to her dolls. “Something about ghosts?”
“Ghostbusters,” Molly replied, laughing as she thought back to the silly movie. “My dad loved it.” She smiled at the memory. “I used to sneak out of bed as a kid and slip downstairs to the living room. He and my mom liked to watch old movies on our ancient DVD player, and that was one of their favorites. ‘I ain’t ’fraid of no ghost.’”
“That’s it!” Chase exclaimed, pointing at her. Then he sighed. “Ah, movies. I would give my right arm to watch another movie right about now—on an ancient DVD player or anything. You wouldn’t believe what I used to love watching. Ironic.”
Molly was thinking about her own past. “Well, maybe someday there will be movies and TV again. You never know, right? When we find my dad…”
“Yeah, I’m sure those will be the first priority when rebuilding our world.” Chase fell silent, then turned to her. “Do you ever think about that—where we can go from here?”
She turned, surprised by the question. “All the time.”
“Yeah, I guess you would. Not me, though. Until we started on this little adventure, I’d pretty much given up on things,” he said, poking the fire with his stick. “Figured we were destined to live out the rest of our lives in the Wal-Mart. I never in a million years would have predicted being out traveling again.”
“Life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan,” Molly said. Then, blushing, she added, “Well, I guess that’s obvious.”
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” Chase asked suddenly. “You know, before, back when you could be something? Feels funny that we never talked about things like that. I wanted to be a video game designer myself. Talk about a useless career nowadays.”
She laughed. “Why am I not surprised? Anyway, I wanted to be an actress. Also useless, I guess.”
“Well, like you said, maybe there will be TV again someday. Or at least plays.”
“Yeah, right. I could never be an actress now,” she said, gesturing to her eye implants. “Unless the new Hollywood is all about casting freaks.”
“Don’t say that,” Chase said.
“Why not?” she snapped, feeling annoyed. He was trying to be nice, but she knew how she looked and didn’t need to be patronized. “I’ve got mirrored plates fused to my skull, covering my eyes.”
He shrugged. “The better to help you see in the dark.”
“And four-centimeter razors under my fingernails.” She released the blades, and they glinted in the firelight before she retracted them again.
“The better to fight with.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mr. Big Bad Wolf. Whatever you say.”
Chase caught her hand in his, ran a thumb up the inside of her palm. “I’m serious,” he said, his voice becoming a husky whisper. “You may not look how you once did, but life didn’t turn out like either of us expected and those razors saved us from Spud. He was about to eat Darla when you stepped in and smacked him down. You should be glad you’re alive, not worried about how you look.”
She sighed. “I know the razors are useful,” she admitted, not wanting to enjoy his touch as much as she did. “But I can’tased the blades, and they glinted in the firelight before she retracted them again. help looking at them and seeing…well, seeing how things might have been. Seeing what the world has made me—or at least my father. Seeing what a freak I’ve become.”
“Well, not that it matters what I think, of course, but to me you’re still as beautiful as you were in high school,” he murmured. “A goddess.”
Her heart fluttered, and she was plagued by a score of memories. Chris Griffin had always been sweet. In some ways he’d changed, like sh
e had, but in other ways…
Inspired, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the gift he’d given her so long ago, held it out in her palm. “Do you remember this?” she asked. The tiny bit of broken glass caught the firelight and sparkled.
He stared at it for a moment, then recognition lit his face. “The diamond?” he said.
She nodded. “You told me I needed to look beyond the surface. To see the beauty deep inside.”
“I sure was wise for a kid.”
She chuckled. “I guess so.”
“Pretty damn romantic, too, I must say.” He looked at her and grinned.
“Well, you know you won me over.”
“You know, I meant everything I said,” he remarked, suddenly earnest. “And you’re still a diamond, no matter what anyone else thinks. If anyone’s dumb enough to not realize the truth.”
She could feel his breath on her face, once again doing crazy things to her insides. She knew she should resist, get up and walk away while she still could. After all, there was no use in starting a relationship. It would distract her, and she had a mission. Maybe when and if everything was over and fixed, when she’d done what she needed to…
Against her will, she found herself trapped by his kryptonite-colored eyes. They were so brilliant in the firelight, they glowed. Molly’s traitorous body moved forward instead of away. Her traitorous heart pounded in her chest, and her traitorous lungs struggled to take in air almost too thick to breathe.
Chase drew her hand to his lips and kissed her palm with an unbearable softness. She squirmed as impossible sensations coursed through her, too hard and fast to catalog. Six years without being touched by a man. Six years when her body’s drive for that was strongest.
He smelled like the earth: rich, dark, delicious. She suddenly wanted nothing more than the opportunity to taste him.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
He needed no second invitation. Taking her head in his hands, he pulled her forward, pressing his lips against hers. Softly, almost reverently. Then harder. At first she was convinced she was going to pass out from excitement, but she managed to stay conscious.
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