by Walter Jury
• • •
I manage to choke down a turkey sandwich in the nearly empty dining hall. My mother seems equally tense, but she’s covering it pretty well. She’s trying to make friends with Esther, one of the crew who drove us here, and Esther seems happy enough to oblige. She asks my mom a lot of questions about some of the other families in The Fifty, since the Bishops have been tucked away here for quite some time. Esther has a shy smile and bad teeth, and I wonder what it must have been like to live here in this compound all her life, sheltered from the real world and the benefits of modern dentistry.
She walks us out of the dining hall and down one of the sidewalks toward the row of cabins on the eastern edge of the clearing. It’s stopped raining, and several people are strolling about. A group of young boys runs by with fishing poles over their shoulders and buckets in their hands, headed toward the southern edge of the clearing, near where we arrived. Some of them are shirtless and tanned, but two of them are bundled up, wearing long pants and dark, hooded ponchos. They laugh and chatter with one another, telling jokes I’m certain would offend their parents, and suddenly I miss Will so much that my throat gets tight. We had that a few days ago, the ability to see the world as a giant amusement park. Every time I was with him, he’d make me forget what awaited me at home, and the biggest thing I had to worry about was not pissing my pants from laughing so hard. I’ve lost that now; the events of the last day have stolen it from me. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to see Will again.
We pass a young woman with a baby carriage, but the top of it is covered by a thick, dark shade, so I don’t get to see if there’s an actual kid in there. She stares at me as we walk by, with this unselfconscious, slack-jawed sort of expression.
Probably because I look like I’ve recently ax-murdered someone.
A few guys stride past pushing stacks of boxes on hand trucks, and they’re wearing shorts and T-shirts and talking about some upcoming gathering. I hear the word H2 and start to listen more closely, but that’s when the last guy in line shoulders by, wearing long pants and a long-sleeved, hooded sweatshirt.
“David?”
The guy turns his head. He’s got the same red hair, the same pale skin and freckles, the same bloodshot eyes. But it’s not David. This guy has deep lesions on each of his cheeks, crusty and brown with deep red centers. The pupils of his eyes have a cloudy sheen to them.
“Oh, sorry,” I say, trying not to stare.
He walks by me without a word.
“Oh, that’s Matthew,” says Esther with a fond smile. “My brother Timothy’s boy. He’s shy.”
“Are he and David brothers?” my mother asks.
“No, cousins,” says Esther, and then she gives me a sly look. “So . . . are you and Christina married?” Her gaze lasers over to my left hand.
“I’m sixteen,” I say, because . . . what the fuck?
“Engaged, then,” Esther says with a knowing nod.
I’m about to say exactly what I think of that when my mother says, “Nothing official yet. We’re still in negotiation with the Alexanders.”
Esther folds her arms over her stout middle as her gaze travels back to me. She’s sizing me up in a way that makes certain parts of me shrivel. Jesus.
“Interesting,” is all she says, and then she’s busy asking my mom about Kathleen McClaren, who was apparently a pen pal of hers when they were children. I wonder how Kathleen was related to Peter McClaren, if she was his mother, maybe, or an aunt. If she’s mourning for him now.
By the time we reach the guest cabin, I am ready to start climbing the walls. It’s been well over an hour since I’ve seen Christina, and that’s long enough for shit to happen. They’ve left us alone here, with no one to guard us, but I’m not stupid enough to believe they’re not paying attention. Rufus is way too clever, and even if he trusts us, he’ll still be watching.
It’s what my father would have done.
I believe my mom might be thinking the same thing, the way her eyes travel slowly from corner to corner, lingering on the air vents and outlets.
“I need to know how Christina’s doing,” I say quietly in Russian.
She stops her scan of the room and turns to me. “Ya znayu.” I know. “And Rufus speaks more languages than you do, so don’t bother.”
There’s a knock at the door. My mom opens it for a girl carrying a stack of folded clothes, towels, washcloths, and two toiletry bags. I can just see her wide blue eyes peeking at me over the teetering supplies.
“Hey, let me get that—” I start to say, walking forward as it topples. I catch the bags and two of the towels before they hit the floor, but the rest of it goes flying. Something soft lands on the top of my head, and I pull it off to see that I am holding a pair of granny panties.
My mom snatches the underwear away, burying it in a pile of clothes she’s picked up off the floor.
This is not the kind of moment a guy wants to share with his mother.
The carrier of the clothes clutches a few remaining garments in her shaking hands. She lets out this little giggle and holds out the clothes to Mom. Standing there with her skinny arms and flat chest, the girl can’t be older than twelve or thirteen. She’s got the same reddish hair that most of the people in this compound seem to share, and a heart-shaped face . . . and she looks a lot like Esther.
My mother takes the clothes. “Thank you . . .”
“Theresa,” the girl says.
“Thanks, Theresa,” I reply. “I could definitely stand to clean up.”
She giggles again and bites her lip. And now I suspect two things.
One: Esther has sent her prepubescent daughter down here to flirt with me.
Two: This girl can help me figure out where Christina is.
So I walk Theresa to the front porch of the cabin. She’s a jittery, nervous creature, and I feel bad for her, being sent over here in some twisted play for my attention. I don’t know exactly why Esther would do that. Does she hope I’ll ditch Christina and take her daughter away with me?
Then I gaze over the compound. This is the size of their world, a half-mile-wide clearing. Maybe escape is exactly what Esther wants for her daughter.
Theresa is wringing her hands and shifting from foot to foot. “I’ll be helping with dinner tonight,” she says.
“Yeah? Are you a good cook?”
She gives me a bright smile. “I make good mashed potatoes.”
I put my hand on my stomach and give her a regretful look. “Normally, I could eat a gallon of those, but my stomach is feeling kind of . . .”
Her face falls. “Oh. Are you all right?”
I shrug and grimace. “I don’t know if it was something I ate or what. I could really use some . . . I don’t know. Antacid or something. Do you guys have a pharmacy around here?”
And then, little Theresa gives me what I want. Her eyes dart over to a two-story building at the southeastern edge of the clearing, about an eighth of a mile from the main entrance and close to the place where the boys with fishing poles disappeared into the woods. “Well . . . I guess maybe I could . . . bring you some medicine, maybe?”
I smile at her. “I’m sure that would fix me right up.”
She blinks up at me with the same gooey-eyed look I’ve seen on the faces of several of the freshman girls this year. “I’ll be back!” she announces as she skips down the stairs and runs straight toward the building she was staring at a second ago.
I watch Theresa until she disappears through the front door of that building, then head inside to talk to my mom.
MY MOTHER GIVES ME ONE OF HER ARCHED-EYEBROW looks as I come through the door.
“Mashed potatoes tonight,” I say.
“I hope your stomach feels better by then,” she replies, flicking her gaze toward the old radio sitting on the end table. Probably where she suspects the surveil
lance device is located.
I pick up a towel and a set of clothes. “I’m going to take a shower.”
I go into the bathroom, which is pretty basic, just a toilet with a pull-chain to flush, a sink, and a shower stall. I turn on the water—and then sit on the closed toilet lid and wait. My mother knocks and comes in a second later. She closes the door behind her. Probably the one place in the cabin we can talk without being overheard.
“I think I’ve figured out where the clinic is. If she’s better, can we leave?” I ask.
My mother gives me a pitying look. “She’s going to need more than an hour to recover, Tate,” she says in a gentle voice.
My fists clench. “What if she wakes up and accidentally says she’s H2 or something?”
“I think Christina’s smarter than that.”
“I need to get to her. These people are creepy. It’s obvious Rufus knows his way around technology, so why do they dress and act like they’re living out on the prairie somewhere?”
“Rufus is determined to keep his family safe from the world. Isolation and group conformity make it easier for him to control them.”
“So basically, the Bishops aren’t just a family—they’re a cult.” And my injured, vulnerable H2 girlfriend is at their mercy.
“Unfortunately, I think you understand them well.” My mother reaches out hesitantly and touches my clenched fist, like she wants me to relax. “I swear, Tate, I’m doing my best. I’m sorry he took the scanner. We’ll get it back.” I watch my mother’s hand on mine and feel the gentleness in the gesture, but also the strength.
I loosen my fingers and her hand falls back to her side. “I know, Mom. I believe you.” Then another thing occurs to me as I think about how old-fashioned Rufus and his family are. “Hey, are any of the Bishops named ‘Josephus’?”
Her brow furrows. “Not that I know of. Why?”
“Dad mentioned someone named Josephus. Right at the end. Like he was important.”
She becomes very still. “Tell me exactly what he said.” After I repeat my father’s last words, she says, “There’s no one by that name in The Fifty. Are you sure ‘Josephus’ is a person?”
I shake my head. “I assumed, but . . . that wasn’t smart, I guess. Did he ever mention that name to you?”
“No. But your father and I hadn’t talked much in the last few years,” she replies, her voice small and sad.
I look away from her, giving her a chance to compose herself. I’m on my own with this mystery, and now I realize it’s maybe not as straightforward as I’d hoped. I let out a long, exhausted breath. “Will the Bishops stop me if I just . . . walk down to the clinic to see Christina?”
“I think it would be better if you do exactly that instead of looking like you’re sneaking around. We don’t want them to think we’re hiding anything.”
“What would they do if they knew about her?” I ask softly.
“If I thought there was any other way to help Christina, I wouldn’t have brought her here. And as soon as she’s stable, we’ll go.” She squeezes my shoulder and leaves me alone.
I take the fastest shower ever and change into a plain white T-shirt and cargo shorts. They must buy these clothes in bulk or something. I emerge to see that Theresa’s come and gone, leaving my mother with a little cup of antacid and instructions written in a childish black scrawl on a piece of notebook paper. The note ends with I hope you like my MASHED POTATOS!!!!
The bottoms of her exclamation points are all little hearts.
While my mother takes her turn in the shower, I step out of the cabin to get my bearings, using the sun to orient me. It’s emerged from the clouds and is hanging high over the clearing, warming my face as I descend the front stairs. Most of the north side of this compound is taken up by a huge garden plot, which is probably where Theresa’s getting her potatoes. I head south along the blacktop sidewalk, reaching a large set of solar panels between the cabins and the central buildings. Enough to power more than just the lights in the thirty or so buildings in this place, considering there are also panels on all the roofs. Because our cabin is the last in the row on the eastern side of the clearing, I get to walk the length of the array, and I take full advantage of it. I never know what kind of information will come in handy, but years of drilling by my dad have made constant assessment of my environment second nature.
The control system for the array is rigged up against the side of the last panel in line. It’s a simple key entry. Not a lot of security there, which means their perimeter security must be fierce, and probably what’s sucking up all this energy they’re generating with the panels. With that noted, I jog down the sidewalk to the clinic building. Every cabin I pass, the curtains part, just a crack, enough for a pair of eyes to track my progress. With my dark hair and gray eyes, I’m easy to peg as an outsider.
It doesn’t take me long to reach the clinic. From behind the building, out in the woods, I hear shouts and shrieks and splashes, the sounds of boys being boys. Through the trees, the glint of sun on water tells me there’s a good-sized pond back there, separating this clearing from the winding road Esther and Timothy used to get us here.
The door to the clinic is open, and I walk right in. It doesn’t have a reception area; it’s basically a small entryway and a long hallway with rooms on either side. From one of them, I hear voices, so I walk slowly down the hall.
“. . . looks quite fetching,” David says, his voice trembling with laughter.
There’s a soft, feminine groan. “You’re a horrible liar,” Christina says. She laughs. Then gasps. “Ow.”
“Sorry,” David replies sympathetically. “Too much too soon. Let me help.”
I stick my head around the doorframe in time to see him lowering the head of her bed until she’s lying flat. He’s leaning a shade too close, and his pasty hands linger near her shoulders, her pale cheek . . . and I can tell. I can tell by the way his fingers twitch toward her and pull back, by the way he’s looking just a little too long at the slope of her neck, at her mouth. I know that feeling so well, that barely-bottled-up, highly pressurized want.
This dude is hot for my girlfriend.
She doesn’t look that hot right now, actually. She’s got a bandage on the left side of her head, and her tangled hair is piled over the top and hanging down the right side. A small clump of it is lying on the floor—David must have had to shave some of it off to get a clear shot at the gash. Her skin is nearly as white as his, and there are purple circles beneath her eyes.
Which only makes it worse. The idea that this guy is lusting after her when she’s so vulnerable nearly sets me off. I’m at the foot of her bed before I’m fully aware of moving, and David’s head jerks up. I have no idea how I look to him, but his eyes get wide and he steps away from her bedside quickly. He puts his hands in his pockets and clears his throat. If I were in a different kind of mood, it would be comical.
“No skull fracture on the X-ray,” he says to me. “I have no idea how she managed it, but it looks like she’s escaped with only a concussion. Still, she should probably have a CT scan as soon as possible.”
I look into his bloodshot eyes, the pale blue irises, only a touch of cloudiness. In them I see this earnest kind of friendliness, plus maybe the tiniest glint of anxiety. That’s not what I’m looking for, though—I’m looking for knowledge. Awareness. Suspicion.
I’m looking for whether or not he knows she’s H2.
“Fifteen,” Christina says softly, drawing my eyes back to her.
“What?”
“That’s how many stitches it took,” David says. “But it was a pretty neat gash, so nothing complicated. She didn’t lose much hair at all.” He smiles at her.
She smiles back. “I’m going to be wearing my hair down for a while, though.” She winces and closes her eyes. “And dealing with this enormous headache, I guess.”
> “Oh, sorry,” David says. “I said I’d get something for you. Hang on.”
He walks out of the room, and I sit carefully on the side of her bed. She looks toward the door, and then up at me. And when she does, I see it, the confusion, the terror, everything she’s struggling to contain inside of her. “He said we were being chased by H2 agents and that I got shot. He told me you were okay but . . .” Her eyes are getting shiny and it’s making my throat hurt.
“I’m completely fine. The minivan was wrecked and you were hurt, so we had to come here.”
I lean forward and kiss her on the cheek, then whisper very quietly in her ear, “Your last name is Alexander. You’re Brayton’s niece. You are a human. Not an H2. Got it?”
I draw back a little, and I can tell by the look in her eyes that she does, in fact, get it, and that if she was scared before, that’s nothing compared with what she’s feeling now. “When can we leave?” she asks in a choked-off voice.
I lower my forehead to hers, barely touching, afraid to hurt her but needing the contact. “As soon as you’re better.”
“I don’t remember getting shot.” Her palm is flat against my chest, and I’m not sure if she wants the closeness or is too weak to push me away.
Reluctantly, I lean back to give her some space. “What do you remember?”
Her smile seems like hard work. “Watching you inhale three Egg McMuffins.” She takes a shaky breath. “Then it’s like the screen goes dark.”
Most of the day has been torn out of her mind. Post-concussive amnesia. “Did you say anything to him?” I incline my head toward the door.
What I’m really asking: Did you tell him you’re H2?
“No,” she murmurs. “I don’t think so.”
“She only wanted to know where you were,” David says from the doorway, driving my heart into my throat as I wonder how long he’s been standing there. He has a little steel tray in his hand, and on it sits a small paper cup. He holds it up. “Tylenol.”
“My hero,” Christina breathes, slowly propping herself on an elbow.
