Speechless, Harper pulled her sister into a desperate hug. A minute after, she burst into tears and couldn’t stop. Her mind went in circles. Did Madison ask her to quit the militia or tell her not to give away the shotgun and become a defenseless civilian? ‘Please don’t die’ could mean stay home as easily as it meant don’t hesitate and shoot the bad guys first. Her little sister’s trembling little body clamped around her kicked Introvert Prime in the head. She couldn’t be passive anymore. Harper couldn’t hope to go unnoticed and avoid conflict. Mom and Dad weren’t there anymore to watch out for Madison. The job fell on her.
And she decided to own that bitch.
“I promise.”
Madison mumbled a teary thank you.
Harper shifted to get up.
“Don’t go. It’s too dark.”
“There’s a candle lit out in the front room. I have to put it out.”
“Oh. Okay.” Madison flopped back.
And the shotgun’s out there.
She got up and hurried down the hall. Her book, the still-lit candle, and the shotgun sat on the dining room table where she’d left them. It struck her as weird that she felt somehow naked without the shotgun being nearby. Even here on the table when she’d been in her bedroom tweaked at her nerves like she’d done something stupid.
Will home ever stop feeling like a war zone? Heh. Maybe if six months pass without anyone firing a shot in town.
The book mocked her for barely making it thirty pages in, though she didn’t want to read it as much as she’d wanted to do something other than go to sleep. Madison had a point: comfortable under covers in total darkness with her sister safe at her side would be even better for relaxing than squinting to read by candlelight. She picked up the shotgun and puffed out the candle.
Her sister’s Christmas wish hit her over the head with guilt. Mom and Dad would never hide presents in the attic again, or wear stupid sweaters, or make them drink at least one cup of egg nog. She wondered if anyone left alive after the nukes came down would even care about holidays. How many years would it take before people felt like celebrating anything?
She wiped her eyes of tears. “Dammit. I really need to stop thinking such depressing thoughts.”
Harper stood there in silence, trying to clear her mind of everything. Mom once said things she had no power to change weren’t worth stressing out over.
“Focus on things I can change.”
The war had happened. No one could undo that. The life she expected to live had been taken away from her. She couldn’t get it back. She could, however, make the best of what she had control over. Her little sister remained alive and healthy, largely because of her. She had a new brother, and even a sorta-father.
Okay. This isn’t too bad.
Madison let off a shrill scream and a thud shook the floor.
31
The Brain Bug
Harper sprinted for the bedroom; she whirled around the doorjamb, shotgun high, committed to blowing Tommy’s head off.
She wound up aiming at an empty bed. Freezing air blew in the open window.
Enraged, Harper started for it, but stopped when her foot hit something soft.
A child’s moan came from the floor.
Her heart stopped, but she forced herself to look down. Jonathan lay curled on his side in his briefs, clutching his face, blood seeping between his fingers.
“Tommy, you son of a bitch. You’re a dead man.” She took a knee, pulling the boy’s hands aside so she could examine his injury.
“T-abah,” said Jonathan, blood oozing out of his nostrils.
“I know.” She held him up into the moonlight, relaxing slightly upon noticing he seemed only to have suffered a punch to the nose.
“No! It’s Tyler!”
Harper blinked, rage shifting to confusion in an instant. “What?”
“He was on the bed trying to stick Maddie with a knife. He said something about saving her from a bug. I tried to pull him off but he hit me.”
Madison’s shriek came from outside.
Harper grabbed his shoulders. “Listen to me. Go to my coat. Get the horn. One long blast. Got it?”
He nodded.
Madison screamed again.
Harper leapt to her feet and scrambled out the window, landing in a mostly controlled half stumble. As soon as she got her feet under her, she ran, fast and heedless of obstacles, chasing the sound of her little sister shrieking. Her foot caught something hard, tripping her into a somersault, but she rolled straight to her feet again and kept going. A long, clear air horn blast went off behind her.
She fixated on a scrap of brightness up ahead, moonlight glowing from Madison’s nightgown, and forced her legs to go even faster. Another rock nearly took her down again, but she kept her balance. Seconds later, she hurdled a fence, crossed a swath of grass, and reached a loop in Butternut Lane. The maybe hundred feet of paving let her gain some ground. She spotted Tyler out of the gloom ahead. He carried Madison under his left arm, her noodle legs flailing as she tried to kick and struggle free.
Tyler ran past a house beyond the curve in the road, veering to the right and into a copse of trees. Once out the other side, he nearly fell trying to make it over a fence while carrying a terrified ten-year-old, though the frigid weather on her sheer nightgown took much of the fight out of her.
Harper slowed to a stop and raised the gun, considering shooting at his legs, but didn’t want to risk a pellet striking Madison. It hit her that she recognized the area, and got an idea. She veered to the right, sprinting over a clear swath of grass and a dirt path to Sun Creek, then following the road’s zig-zaggy path. Assuming he didn’t stop in a yard or turn, going that way should put her in front of him.
She reached the intersection, but didn’t see him anywhere.
Please let me be ahead!
Shouting for Madison would give her away and ruin any ambush, so she forced herself to stand there and listen.
Madison screamed from the west.
Shit! He turned.
She bolted down the road past darkened houses, following the sound of her sister’s voice. Amid a thick group of trees, she found Tyler on one knee, struggling to pin Madison to the ground. She had one foot up, kicking at his face. He clasped her wrists together in his left hand, his right held a large knife.
“Sit still,” rasped Tyler. “Gotta get it out of you. You’ll be fine. I gotta make them stop.”
“Tyler!” shouted Harper, rushing up to a few feet away from him, the Mossberg leveled off at his back. “If you don’t get off her right now…”
He stopped trying to bring the knife down, but didn’t let go of her. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand how buckshot works. Get off my sister. What the hell is wrong with you?” She stared over the gunsights at his head… gasping at a trickle of blood running down his forearm from a two-inch cut midway between wrist and elbow that looked deep.
“I can’t.” He looked back at her, his eyes wild with terror. A spritz of blood covered his face. “The CIA did it all. There’s no war. They only dropped one nuke here as a social experiment. They wanted to see how people react. We all have bugs inside us, listening, watching. Everything we do. Whatever we say, even what we think. They know.”
“Tyler,” said Harper in a stern voice. “That doesn’t make any sense. Listen to yourself. The news reported global nuclear war.”
He laughed. “Of course they would. Don’t you see? The CIA controls the media.”
Madison gurgled.
“Easy, Maddie,” whispered Tyler. “This won’t take long. It’s for your own good.”
“Tyler…” Harper took a step closer. “We can talk, but I’m going to give you two more seconds to let go of my sister or I’m going to remove the bug from your skull with a goddamned shotgun.”
He peered back over his shoulder at her. For an instant, he looked stunned, as if he’d done something horrible and only now realized it. Madison pushed at
his throat with her foot, struggling to get her pinned hands out of his grip.
“One…” Harper aimed high, going for the back of his head.
Tyler leapt to his feet, yanking Madison up in front of himself as a shield. “They put it in the little kids first. I gotta save her before the bug kills her. We need to cut it out, but it’s in her head.”
“Please, Tyler. You sound like one of those idiots on late night radio talking about children working in sweat shops on Mars. This isn’t an experiment.” She hesitated, thinking back to the soldiers she’d seen arresting people. He had a point. The government could control the media, fake a news report, make it seem like the entire world had been incinerated. But… why would they? No way in hell could they use a real nuke on their own people as an experiment. There’d be a global outcry. And… they’d never do it to Colorado Springs. Not right in front of Cheyenne Mountain. They’d hit some nowhere spot in like Kansas. Still, a tiny bit of doubt set her hands shaking.
“You don’t understand. It’s all them. It’s always them.” Tyler backed up a step.
Madison shivered so bad she couldn’t even speak coherent words.
“It’s not them, Tyler. You’re talking crazy.”
A loud air horn blart from about twenty feet behind almost killed Tyler by making Harper jump.
She clenched her jaw and moved her finger off the trigger. “I’m serious. You’re talking crazy. This isn’t a messed-up social experiment. This really happened.”
“Put it in little kids. They don’t deserve it. Gotta cut it out of her brain.”
“No, Tyler. You need to put her down. This is crazy.”
He burst into laughter. “Yeah. Crazy.” His snickering faded to a serious stare. “I am.”
“You are?”
“Crazy.” His grim expression became sad. “My parents thought so, too. That’s why they kept giving me poison. They’re part of the plan. The CIA has things in their heads, too. They kept giving me the little poison pills. Even tricked me into taking it myself for a while after I ran away. But now, there’s no more poison.”
“Poison?” Harper blinked. Holy crap. He’s legit psychotic. “Are you talking about meds?”
“Meds… that’s what they call the poison to fool people. No one makes it anymore. All gone. Tyler’s gone, too. He was just a mask, the boy everyone expected to see. But I don’t have to pretend anymore. There’s no more poison. I’m free of it. I can see all their lies. They can’t control me.”
“Shit. That’s why that insulin guy got you so bad. You knew you’d…” She cringed at a tiny stab of heartbreak as whatever dreams she might’ve had with him died.
“Freak out?” He nodded. “Yeah.”
“You kept talking about leaving Evergreen. You knew you’d run out of pills and lose it. No wonder you kept telling me about exploring places. That was you trying to push me away.”
Tyler started to laugh, but choked, then sighed. “Yeah. I’m not right. I’ve never been right. I’m dangerous. I shouldn’t be around people when I’m off meds. I’m going to hurt you. Not like cheating hurt you. Like”—he made stabbing motions at the air with the knife—“seriously hurt you.”
Harper swallowed hard. “Lorelei…”
“She’s fine. I couldn’t… she’s got a bug, too. But she’s so damn skinny. Starved. She wouldn’t survive the removal procedure. You’re gonna have to do it for her later. They put it in the brain near the pineal gland. It’s really damn hard to remove without killing someone.”
Madison tried to scream.
“There are no bugs, Tyler.” She stepped closer. “Please put her down. That person you are on meds? That’s the real you. That’s my friend. I’m not sure who you are right now, but there’s gotta be some part of you still in there somewhere. Please don’t hurt Maddie.”
“They’re making you kill me because I know.”
Harper shook her head. “No, Tyler. There is no they. You have a mental illness that you’ve been taking pills to manage. Think. You tried to warn me. You knew what would happen when your medicine ran out. You knew you needed to leave and not be a risk to people without your medicine. I’m sorry for talking you into staying. Please let her go and I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Rustling fabric announced Jonathan walking into view off to the left, still in only the briefs he’d worn to bed—plus her coat, which he hadn’t zipped.
Tyler stared at her. His expression shifted between the way he looked at her when they kissed and panicky terror.
“You saved Lorelei from starving to death. You’re a good guy, Tyler. There’s something wrong in your head, but inside, the real you, is a good guy. Good guys don’t hurt children.”
A few shouts rang out in the distance, more militia closing in.
He sighed and let Madison slip down to her feet. She scrambled over and clamped onto Harper, shaking, teeth chattering.
Tyler smirked at the shotgun still pointing at him. “I’m dangerous, Harper. I really shouldn’t be around people. They’re going to lock me up or shoot me. Every now and then, the fog lifts and I can think right, but I’m gonna lose it again. It’s taking a lot of work for me to keep my thoughts straight right now.”
“They’re not going to shoot you. Everyone’s okay.”
Tyler grimaced. “No… I tried to cut a bug out of the boy in the house next to mine.”
Her stomach gurgled, near to throwing up. “D-did you kill him?”
“No. I don’t think so. He woke up when I started. Little bastard’s pretty strong for his size. Nailed me in the nose and ran off. He’s bleeding pretty bad though.”
Harper nudged Madison. “Go share the coat with Jon before you freeze. You’ve only got a nightie on and it’s as thin as a damn tissue.”
Madison whimpered, squeezing tighter. “It’s not a tissue.”
“Maddie. Now,” said Harper in ‘mom voice.’ “We can hug once we’re home in a warm bed.”
She reluctantly let go and trudged over to Jonathan, clamping onto him under the coat.
“Gah! You’re freezing.” Jonathan squealed while closing the zipper.
Harper eyed Tyler. “The boy’s alive?”
“Far as I know.”
She wagged the shotgun to the left. “You need to leave town. Go. Before the rest of the militia gets here.”
“You’re gonna let him go?” Jonathan gasped. “Seriously?”
“I’m half his size. If he wants to run away, I can’t stop him. And I can’t murder an unarmed person.”
Jonathan reached out a hand. “I can. Lemme have the shotgun.”
“He’s got a knife,” said Madison in a weak voice. “He’s not unarmed.”
Tyler glanced down at the knife and slid it back into a sheath on his belt.
“Just go before they catch you.” Harper lowered the shotgun. “If I see you here again, I’ll have to…”
He stepped back. “I understand. It was nice meeting you, Harper Cody. I’m sorry it couldn’t have been different. Damn nuclear war.”
The scuffs and crunching of people drawing close came from the woods behind them.
Tyler’s eyes flared manic for only a second before he took on the posture of a roguish highwayman, bowed with a flourish, and ran off.
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Damn nuclear war.”
32
Dangerous Mercy
Cliff, Fred, a fortyish guy with long, curly black hair she hadn’t seen before, and a muscular bald guy she also didn’t recognize tromped out of the woods. The bald guy had a body armor vest on as well as a utility belt that made him look like an actual cop. Fred and the long-haired guy carried Coleman lanterns.
“Harper!” yelled Cliff, running up to her. “What’s going on?”
“You were right about Tyler.” Harper bowed her head.
The other three men jogged over.
“What?” Cliff grasped her shoulders.
“You always kept looking at him weird. I thought you were jus
t like ‘dad vibing’ on him and being overprotective of me, but you knew something was wrong with him.”
He smirked. “Something was off about that kid, yeah.”
“Real off.” Jonathan shook his head.
“What happened? Why are Maddie and Jon out here in basically nothing?” He took a step toward the kids. “Christ, what happened? He’s covered in blood.”
“Tyler punched me in the nose.” Jonathan sniffed.
“He kidnapped Madison and tried to cut her open to get rid of a CIA listening device. He seriously believes the nuke that hit Springs was some kind of messed up social experiment. He’s crazy. Legit crazy. Was on meds but he ran out.”
Cliff muttered a string of swear words.
“He said he attacked a boy in the house next to his. Cut him bad, but didn’t kill him. I don’t know which house is his. Never saw Tyler around here.”
“Search? He can’t have gotten far,” asked the guy with long hair, his voice way deeper than she expected from his appearance.
“Yeah, Dennis.” Fred looked at Harper. “Where did he go?”
I gave him a head start at least. I can’t lie to these guys. She pointed. “That way. I told him to get lost. I couldn’t just murder him.”
The bald man smiled. “Not easy to talk a guy like that down.”
“Why’d you let him run off?” asked Fred.
“That’s what I wanna know.” Jonathan grumbled.
“Uhh.” Harper fidgeted. “I guess you’re right. I had Maddie and Jon right here, and Tyler’s bigger than me. But, I could’ve kept the gun on him. Maybe I kinda liked him or something and I felt too sorry for him.”
“You liked him?” The bald guy blinked.
“I…” She blushed. “Dunno. The world got really weird. He was cute.”
“Eww,” said Madison.
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