Chase reached over and took her hand and squeezed. She wondered, not for the first time, how much he believed that they’d find something here. It was beginning to seem doubtful to her as well. But she pushed on. Even if the chance was small, she had to know. Chase’s life depended on it.
“This place is huge,” Chase remarked, as they walked down Main Street toward a crumbling Cinderella’s castle with a few missing turrets. “How are we going to find anyone?”
“I’m looking,” Molly told him, glancing off toward Adventureland. “There’ll be signs. But nothing so far.” She stopped as her lenses picked up movement. “Oh God,” she whispered. “There are Others here.” She zoomed in for a closer look. “And they’re headed our way.” She scanned the castle. Same deal.
“They’re everywhere!” she cried. “The place is crawling with them.” She motioned behind her. “Let’s head back to the entrance. Maybe we can find one of those service tunnels or something.”
They ran back down Main Street to Town Square and found a door that said Cast Members Only. Pushing through they found a staircase—Stairway Number 18, according to the sign—leading down into the darkness. Molly checked the passage and couldn’t see any signs of movement in the dim light. Chase closed the door behind them and they both breathed a sigh of relief.
“What are Others doing here?” Chase asked dubiously. “You would think if your father and his friends were here they’d have cleared the place out. Secured it.”
Molly nodded. “Something’s wrong,” she agreed. “This isn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be the last safe human outpost. Not a monster-filled Tunnel of Death.” She felt sick to her stomach. Was it time to face reality, that they had come all this way for nothing? That her dad and his scientist friends didn’t actually ever make it here? Was Chase doomed to die because of this waste of a mission?
“Look, there were Others above the Hive, too,” Chase reminded her. She felt his warm breath as he whispered into her ear. In the darkness, it sent shivers down her spine. “Maybe it’s the same here. Remember your father’s plan? Maybe they’re down working in these service tunnels, right? We should go check it out. Might as well make sure.”
She loved him for not giving up. “Okay,” she agreed. “Let’s head down.”
As they walked down the darkened steps, Molly kept her eyes peeled for any dangerous movements. She held Chase’s hand to lead him. At the bottom of the staircase they came to a long, nondescript tunnel leading off into the distance. She did a scan. Nothing. She let out a breath.
“Okay, let’s start walking. I’ll guide you,” she said.
They headed north, probably right under Main Street if Molly calculated right. Above them she thought she sensed Others wandering the park, but maybe it was paranoia. There were no signs of human life at all. After a while, they came to a wardrobe room. Seemingly endless racks of costumes lined it. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Cinderella—all the favorites were there. It made Molly sad to think that no one would ever wear these outfits again. The silly faces would never be responsible for making another child laugh.
Suddenly, her lenses picked something up northwest of them. A heat pattern that didn’t match the cool blood color of the Others. She grabbed Chase’s arm.
“I think there might be a human up there,” she told him, scarcely able to breathe.
“Above ground?”
“Yeah.” But was it her father? Was he here, alive after all?
“I’ll go up,” Chase said. “After all, I’m already bitten. What more can they do to me?”
“Well, they can tear you apart and eat you,” she replied. “And I’m a better fighter. I have more training, and razors. I can also pinpoint his location.”
“Fair enough, we’ll go together,” he said.
They walked up the stairs and emerged near the Pinocchio Village Haus, an old food stand long deserted. Molly scanned the area. “It’s a Small World,” she announced excitedly.
“It certainly can seem that way.”
“No, no—I mean, that’s where the human is. In the ride somewhere.”
“Oh.” Chase nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”
From the outside, the dingy white building looked like all the rest. Dead and deserted. But Molly’s zooming lenses kept getting definite hints of movement inside. They walked down into the ride and came across a waterway with a line of boats bobbing in some pretty gross-looking water.
Oddly, the boats were moving, gliding through the canals just as they had years ago, when the park was still open. The only thing they’d seen so far still in action.
“Weird,” Molly said, glancing at Chase. She shivered. “And creepy.”
“Yeah. I guess we get in.”
They climbed into the first boat and let it take them slowly down the man-made canal. Soon they were flanked by dolls on either side, all eerily silent and none of them singing or dancing as they were supposed to. As a child, Molly had found the “It’s a Small World” song extremely irritating. She’d give anything to hear it now.
They paddled past Eskimo children, through Scandinavia, then past little British guards. Europe, then Asia, then magic carpets signaling the Middle East. Neither Molly nor Chase spoke as they floated through. All Molly could think was of all these different cultures, all the people of the world—how they had all become extinct.
They passed through Africa. Saw Cleopatra in Egypt. Llamas greeted them at the edge of South America, followed by volcanoes and fire dancers of Tahiti and the space helmet-wearing kids of Station 13. Then, all cultural boundaries faded and the final scene of the ride spread out before them. Children of all nations together as one.
It was then that the music started. And the dancing dolls came to life.
Molly nearly jumped out of her skin as the theme song suddenly blared from unseen speakers. The dolls whirled and danced and smiled. She looked around, wondering what was going on. Then her sensors picked up flashes of movement to the left, movement that didn’t seem like part of the ride. She saw heat trails that seemed human. She motioned to Chase and they jumped out of the boat. Past the dolls, into the background, behind a wall, and…
Found Ian Anderson.
Her father was older. More gray. More wrinkles. But it was definitely him. He was here. Alive. He’d survived. He’d waited for her. Just as he’d always said.
She ran over and threw her arms around him, overjoyed to have accomplished her mission at last. “Oh, Dad!’ she said, burying her face in her chest. “I made it. I actually made it.”
He patted her awkwardly on the back a few times—he never had been one for the whole touchy-feely thing—and then pulled away. He looked at her fondly, reaching out to touch the edges of her implants.
“You’ve finally come,” he whispered. “My razor girl. My Molly.”
“Yes, Dad, I’m here.” She looked up at him, a little worried. Something seemed off. Wrong.
He paced back and forth. “Not that it’s not great to see you,” he said, “but you really shouldn’t have come.”
She stared at him. “What?” she asked. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course I should have come. That was the whole deal. You needed me to bring the data you’d stored in my head, remember?”
“Right.” He sounded distracted. “But it does no good now, does it?”
“What’s going on, Dad?” she asked, feeling like she was missing a vital piece of the puzzle. “Where is everyone? Where are your fellow scientists? Where’s the new society?”
Her father ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “They never came,” he mumbled. “They never came.”
Oh God. “Who? Your friends?”
“It was supposed to be perfect, Molly. We had it all planned out: the disease wiping out all corrupt governments. We were going to start anew. We had a Noah’s Ark. But it went wrong. The zombies…we didn’t know there would be zombies. And they killed them. All my friends. All the ones who were supposed to survive
and rebuild the world. They never made it here. I waited…I went into hiding…I came back…But never anything.”
Molly’s heart filled with fear as she tried to grasp what her dad was saying. “Supposed to survive?” she whispered. “What are you talking about, Dad?”
“I guess I might as well tell you the truth,” he said, glancing around. “What difference does it make now?” He gave a half-mad laugh.
And then he told her. He and his friends had formed a secret coalition ten years ago to create a virus that would work to wipe out certain members of the ruling class, using the AIDS vaccine as a conduit they could manipulate. They’d planned to stage a coup, to take over the government and start fresh.
“We were going to save all the children. Rebuild the world. There were fail-safes in place.”
Chase snorted, but Molly ignored him.
“Fail-safes? And they…what, failed?” she asked through gritted teeth.
Her father hung his head. “Yes,” he admitted. “Once the plague became airborne we could no longer control who was infected. And then there were the mutants. We could have never predicted the virus would mutate some people’s DNA and turn them into monsters. Suddenly those who didn’t get the plague were now at risk of being lunch. Which obviously wasn’t part of the plan.”
“What were you thinking?” Molly shrieked. “You thought you and your friends had the right to play God? What made you think that was okay?”
“Things were bad and getting worse. We figured starting over was the best plan. We could have made it right. And we meant to save the children….”
“But you didn’t. You destroyed the very world you were supposedly trying to save.”
Her father shook his head but said, “Yes, well, as I mentioned before, things didn’t go exactly as planned.”
Molly couldn’t believe it. All this time she’d been thinking she was on a mission to help her dad save the world. But he was the one responsible for ending it in the first place. She felt sick to her stomach. All that death. All that destruction. It was all the fault of her own flesh and blood.
“I can’t believe you!” she cried. “I can’t believe you did this! You’re a monster!” She turned to Chase. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Back to the Hive. There’s nothing for us here.” No new society, no hope for the future. And no miraculous cure for her beloved.
She was almost back to the boats when her dad called out, “That’s where you’re wrong.”
She stopped. Turned around slowly, not wanting to listen but feeling compelled all the same. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“You still have the data in your head,” he reminded her. “So there’s still hope to save the world.”
The data. Right. “What’s in my head, Dad?” she asked through clenched teeth. “Tell me once and for all what the fuck you put in my head!”
“The recipe for the antidote.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“That’s what I stored in your head. The virus code. We can extract it and create an antidote. That’s why I needed you down here. We can fix this. We can still fix this.”
“And it can be extracted how?”
“A simple scan with the right equipment should be able to read it. Any working hospital should have the right equipment….”
She nodded. “Fine.” Turning back to Chase, she said, “Let’s go.”
“But…” Chase said, looking at her dad. “The cure?”
She glared at her father. “The scientists back at the Hive will be able to extract it just as easily as him. In fact, it’s the information they’ve been looking for all this time. They have a plan in place and resources to mass produce and distribute. Together we can rebuild the world.” She glared at her father. “Not here. Not at Disney World. But in the real world.”
“Molly, please!” her dad cried, seeming to return to himself. “I never meant it to be like this. I wanted to make things better. For you. For future generations. I did it for you!”
“I chose you once,” she said. “And betrayed everything I loved. Because I was loyal to you and your mission. But now I realize you’re the cause of it all. You don’t deserve to also be the cure.”
Her father looked pained. “Let me make it right!” he pleaded. Then he said, “You need me.”
“Actually I don’t,” she growled. “And I never will. So you have yourself a Disney Day. We’re out of here.”
She spit on the ground, grabbed Chase’s hand and walked away.
She didn’t look back.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
It was nine P.M. and the rain had not subsided. But still, Chris waited. Trey and the other kids, including an ecstatic Anna Simmons, had left eleven hours earlier, headed up to the mountains. But Chris wasn’t going without Molly. Not without his goddess. And so he waited, praying that she’d come, refusing to believe she’d left him alone.
Headlights suddenly pierced the darkness and his pulse quickened as he wondered if it could be her, arriving at last. Then he saw it was the van and his heart sank. Trey pulled up beside him and popped his head out of the window.
“She didn’t show,” his brother observed. It wasn’t a question.
Chris hung his head. “Something must have happened.”
“Well, hop in. We’ll go head over to her house and see.”
Chris complied, climbing into the passenger seat. Trey revved the engine and they took off down the road. A few minutes later they pulled up to Molly’s front door. The lights were out. It looked deserted. Still, Chris had to know for sure. He hopped out of the van and ran up to the front door, banging his fist on the wood.
“They’re gone.”
He whirled around. A neighbor stood at the bottom of the driveway, arms folded across his chest. “What?” he asked.
“The Andersons. They’re gone. Went down in some fancy fallout shelter or something,” the neighbor explained. “Left all the rest of us up here to die, I reckon.”
Chris stared at him, wanting more than anything to call the guy a liar. “Was…” he started, his voice trembling. “Was there a girl with them?”
“You mean Molly?” the neighbor asked. He nodded his head. “Yup. She was with her mother. They went down together. Down there for the long haul, I guess. Heard her father say something about six years. Long time to be stuck underground is what I say. Might be better to just get the flu and be done with it.”
The neighbor went on speaking, but Chris was no longer listening. So this was it. She was gone. Even after all they’d been through, all that they’d promised each other, when all was said and done it didn’t mean anything. She’d left him. Made her decision to stick with her family, follow her crazy dad to the end of the world.
He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe it. What had made her change her mind?
What had made her break his heart?
Trey popped out of the driver’s seat and headed over to where he stood. He took Chris in his arms and pulled him close, hugging him with brotherly love. “Come on,” he said, releasing him a moment later and leading him to the van. “We’re going to the mountains.”
Chris got into the van, feeling dead and alone. He stared out the window as they pulled out of the driveway. Watching Molly’s house as they drove down the street. Hoping, praying, begging he’d see some sign that the neighbor was wrong. That Molly was there. That she hadn’t abandoned him.
But the house stayed silent. And as they turned the corner, he forced himself to accept that once and for all, his goddess was gone for good.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“My goddess was gone for good….”
Chase set the hand-written manuscript down on his lap and looked up. The group burst into applause and many of the Hive members seemed more than a little misty-eyed at the tragic ending to his tale.
“God, that’s so sad,” sniffed a blonde woman to the far left that Chase knew as Rhoda. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “I remem
ber when my mom died of the plague. I felt so alone. But you must have felt even worse.”
“I can’t even imagine how that must have been,” Starr piped up from her seated position on the floor. She was arm in arm with Torn, as usual. “You never talked about it, either.”
“It’s terrible!” a soldier known as Nick said, sobbing like a baby. “You waiting there, all alone…”
Chase laughed. “You guys!” he cried. “Remember, this is only the beginning!” He rolled his eyes. “The story obviously has a lot more to go. And it only gets better from here.”
“Obviously!” Molly declared as she stepped into the conference room. “Six years later and this lucky guy not only gets the girl, but his very own happy ending.” She patted her bulging stomach and grinned at Chase. “Sorry I’m late for writing club,” she said. “Council meeting ran long.”
“No problem.” He rose to greet her with a hug, her swollen stomach in the way, as usual. She was due in less than a month and her stomach reminded him of an oversized basketball, not that he’d ever admit it to her. Even though she’d had her ocular implants and razors removed, he knew she could still kick his ass. “I was just reading my manuscript. Not a dry eye in the house. I think it could be a best seller.” He laughed. “If there was any book publisher left to print it.”
“You gotta write the rest,” David said, cuddled up in a corner with Helga. The two of them had been married three weeks ago, and were totally in the honeymoon stage still. “I want to hear what happens when Molly comes out of the fallout shelter. It’s all very Casablanca.”
“I will,” Chase said, grinning. “I promise.”
“And I’ll write my side of the story, too,” Molly piped up. “You’ll see why I had to do what I had to do. I wasn’t the total evil bitch you might think.”
“We know, we know,” Chase replied. “You had to save the world and stuff.” He kissed her on the nose to let her know he was just teasing. She kissed him back.
“This is what got you two in trouble to begin with!” someone called out from the back. Everyone laughed.
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