by A. M. Geever
“You never said they were—”
Mario couldn’t prove what stopped Albert from finishing his sentence. Had he been a betting man, the odds on favorite was probably the fury that caused his face to grow hot, because h
e knew what Albert had been about to say—knew it for Gospel truth. He just couldn’t believe it.
“What were you going to call them?”
“You never said… We keep our Aryan blood pure.”
The disgust on Albert’s face intensified when he pulled his shirt aside to reveal the tattoo on his shoulder: a swastika.
Mario didn’t remember setting Violet down, but he must have, because he was in Albert’s face and his hands were free.
“Shut the fuck up about my kids.”
“Doug, Skye,” Tessa called, her voice tense. From the corner of his eye, Mario saw her waving her arms over her head, her jerky movements frantic.
A look of revulsion filled Albert’s face. “You mean you fucked—”
Mario didn’t hear the rest, just felt the thwack of his fist hitting Albert’s face. Rage—wrath—surged through his body. How dare this racist piece of shit… Albert staggered back a few steps while Mario advanced. Albert lunged but telegraphed his punch. He deflected Albert’s punch with his raised forearm, sending the blow glancing up the side of his face.
Then Doug was between him and Albert, pushing on Mario’s chest. Carl was pulling Albert away. Albert’s hatred was a palpable, growing presence. Elise was just a step behind Carl, alarm and surprise filling her face.
“What’s going on?” she asked, bewildered.
“They’re race traitors,” Albert spat.
Elise and Carl both looked around, uncertain, before their eyes settled on the cowering forms of the children. They shrank away, clinging and hiding behind Skye, who had gone to them. Violet began to cry.
“They’re fucking Nazis,” Mario said to Doug, spitting out the words through his gritted teeth.
Doug’s face filled with confusion. “What?”
“Neo-Nazis,” Mario growled. “White supremacists.”
Comprehension, quickly followed by trepidation, flashed in Doug’s eyes. “Fuck,” he said under his breath.
Doug turned back to the others, keeping himself in Mario’s path. Elise looked to Skye, and the children clinging to her. When she looked back to Mario and Doug, her eyes were hard.
“Their kind isn’t welcome.”
“Their kind?” Doug said, incredulity filling his voice. And anger, too. Mario could tell he was working hard to keep it in check.
Behind their erstwhile hosts, Mario saw people coming out of the settlement—people with guns.
Elise didn’t say more, but Carl picked up for her.
“We keep ourselves apart from…” A look of distaste filled his eyes. He wrinkled his nose, like he had smelled a fart but didn’t want to cause a fuss in polite company by mentioning it. “Lesser races.”
Doug’s voice was flat. Lethal. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“It’s our history, our heritage,” Albert said hotly. “All of this was a chance to start again.”
“Zombies weren’t enough for you?” Mario demanded. “You had to make it worse?”
The group coming from the settlement were drawing near. A few men had rifles to their shoulders. When Carl took a step forward, Doug, Mario, and Tessa all raised their guns at Carl. He lurched to a halt and held his hands up.
“Woah… Let’s just take a minute.”
He looked to Elise and tipped his head toward the reinforcements. She turned to them and motioned they should stop and lower their weapons. Incredibly, they did, but the anger in their eyes showed that could turn on a dime.
A hard, cold calculus entered Carl’s eyes, a shrewd menace that Mario hadn’t seen before stirring in their depths.
“All of you can go on your way,” he said. His eyes darted to Silas and Violet. “But we’re keeping them.”
Mario’s contemptuous bark of laughter sounded like a snarl. “Over my dead body.”
“Skye, get the kids in the car,” Doug said. To Carl, he said, “We’re leaving. We won’t be back.”
Carl said, “All of you can go, but—”
“If you wanna do this the hard way, you’ll win. No question,” Doug said, cutting him off. “But I will kill you first. Guaranteed.”
“Let them go, Carl,” Elise said, her mouth a hard line. “It isn’t worth it this time.”
This time, Mario thought, reeling from the implication of her words. What the fuck were these people doing out here?
Carl looked at them another moment, coldly assessing, then tried to approximate a smile.
“Sure,” he said. “You folks go on along. We’re all still Americans, after all.”
The pressure inside Mario’s head sent a cold spike of pain through his temples. Had the white supremacist neo-Nazi in the 82nd Airborne tee shirt really said that?
“We’re all still Americans?” he spat, parroting Carl, so enraged he could barely speak. He released his Sig with one hand and pointed at the faded insignia on Carl’s shirt. “You’re either with the guys who fought the Nazis, or a fucking Nazi. You don’t get to be both!”
Doug nudged Mario with his elbow. “Shut up and get in the car before you get us all killed,” he hissed.
Mario felt his cheek begin to tremble from the snarl twisting his lips. When he caught Albert’s venomous glare, his fingers twitched. He’d gone from friendly to calling Silas and Violet… That fucker had called his kids—
His field of vision narrowed, everything around him fading away while Albert came into focus with crystal clarity. He adjusted his aim, the sight lined up perfectly. The look on Albert’s face was everything—was beautiful—his fear a work of art. It showed in the sweat that popped out on his brow and the tremble of his body, that fucking swastika twitching on his shoulder like a venomous spider. The trigger felt smooth under Mario’s finger, soft as silk and just as inviting. It would be so easy. Just a little squeeze, and Albert’s head would explode in a rain of blood and bone and brain. It would splatter the 82nd Airborne insignia Carl dishonored. But if he gave Albert what he deserved, then Silas and Violet would fall into the hands of these people, and God only knew what horrors would be inflicted upon them.
He shook himself with an effort, blinked rapidly as his peripheral vision returned. He took a step backward, the dull crunch of the gravel under his feet sounding far away. Another backward step, followed by another, until he reached the Tesla. He kept walking backward, past Skye standing behind the open front passenger door, her gun trained on their adversaries. Tessa was already behind the wheel. Doug backed up along the other side of the vehicle. When Doug reached the back door on the driver’s side, he, Mario, and Skye all ducked inside.
Silas and Violet huddled on the floor, silently crying, both clutching Mister Bun Bun’s carrier. The Tesla accelerated with a squeal of tires, the centrifugal force pushing Mario against the door as they raced away. The SUV lurched when Tessa took the turn too fast. Silas and Violet both cried out.
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” Tessa said. “Holy shit.”
“Are you okay?” Mario said to the children.
Skye pulled Violet to her in the front seat. Silas scurried into Mario’s lap, attaching himself leech-tight around Mario’s torso. He shook so hard his teeth chattered.
“Where the hell am I going?” Tessa asked.
“Umm…stay on this road till it ends,” Mario said, trying to remember. “You turn left, and then when you have to turn again, right.”
“They’re following us,” Doug said. “Give me that atlas, Skye.”
“The atlas?” she said. “What do you—”
“Just give it to me,” Doug snapped. “We need to look like we’re taking 175 West, like I told them. I don’t know how to go to make it look like we’re taking 175 but still get to 29. If we get stuck going west and they follow us, we’re screwed.
”
Skye retrieved the atlas after a moment’s scuffling. She barely turned toward the back seat when Doug snatched it out of her fingers.
Mario looked out the back window.
Elise had said they had patrols. How far did they go? If they had radios, they could be driving straight into a trap.
“You said they were nice,” Silas whimpered.
“Oh, Silas,” Mario said.
How was he supposed to explain this to a little boy? How did you explain that there were people twisted enough, vile enough, to still care about this evil legacy from the old world?
He held Silas’ dark, little face in his hands, never more acutely aware of what mattered and what didn’t. “I’m so sorry. I was wrong. But I’ll do anything to keep you safe—anything.”
Silas began to sob. Mario crooned in his ear, trying to soothe him. But what he really wanted to do was go back and kill every last one of those Nazi fucks so they would never hurt Silas and Violet, never hurt anyone, again.
“Where am I going, Doug?” Tessa said, sounding desperate. “Highway 175 is just up ahead.”
Mario turned to look back. The van and motorcycle still followed them.
“Take it west, and when we hit the straight part, floor it. There’s a bend after, and we want to take 405, it’ll be a left-hand turn. If we miss it…” Doug’s voice trailed, then he said, “We can’t miss it.”
They streaked down the uneven road, past rusted cars and collapsed buildings, past the green blur of low fields with vivid glimpses of yellow and orange. The Tesla rocked and jerked. They zoomed through an intersection, the Tesla going airborne before thumping down hard. The countryside opened up to wide-open spaces of pastures and farms still clear from the lack of water that kept the vegetation in check, interspersed with stands of Live Oaks and other old trees not dependent on the rain for survival.
“They’re still behind us,” Doug said. “You need to punch it!”
The landscape blurred. They hadn’t made any turns, so this must be the straightaway. Mario had heard straight and thought flat, which of course wasn’t true. There were no hills, just undulations of the road.
“I don’t see them in the mirror anymore!” Tessa said.
Doug said, “Keep going.”
“Here’s the bend!”
Tessa wasn’t slowing down. Mario held Silas tight, shut his eyes, and prayed. Then the vehicle slowed, so suddenly it felt like they were attached to the end of a rope that had hit its limit. Mario and Silas jerked violently to the left, banging into Doug and the hard plastic of the pet carrier. We’re going to flip, he thought, steeling himself as he clutched Silas tighter.
Miraculously, they kept moving forward.
“Ahead! That’s the turn!” Doug shouted.
Mario opened his eyes again. Tessa was plastered into her seat, knuckles white on the steering wheel. She yanked it left in a squeal of tires, sending them all tumbling. Then the Tesla thumped and churned over an uneven, crumbling road. Mario twisted in his seat but couldn’t see around the bend.
“I think we lost them,” he said.
Tessa took the next turn, the next bend, and the one after at speed.
“I’m not taking any chances,” Tessa said, and gunned the engine.
17
Kendall looked at Miranda in astonishment. “Why didn’t you just tell me from the start?”
Miranda cast about for an explanation that wouldn’t sound self-serving, that wouldn’t be insulting. The girl from the Vermeer painting peeked over his shoulder.
“I couldn’t… I didn’t— Shit,” she muttered. She looked at him, feeling stupid. How had she thought she could keep this hidden? “I thought it would make you feel differently about me.”
Kendall shook his head, disappointment pursing his lips. The rapid owl blink of his eyes made them look like a stutter-stop animation.
“Why would I care that you have a child?”
She glanced at the bassinet behind her. Her breasts were uncomfortably heavy, needing to be relieved of their burden. “I was just about to nurse. Do you want to see him?”
Kendall nodded, and she motioned him over. As he leaned over the bassinet, she said, “His name is—”
“He looks like you,” Kendall said softly.
Tadpole did have her coloring, with a tuft of auburn hair on the crown of his head and her pale complexion. But his dark eyes were all Mario.
From behind her, another voice said, “Too bad he’s dead.”
She whirled around and realized they were in the atrium at the Institute. Mario stood at the hallway to the BSL-3 lab.
“No, he’s not,” she said. “He’s right—”
The words died in her throat. There was no bassinet. Kendall wasn’t leaning over it. She turned back around to find Kendall standing next to Mario. He held a tiny, limp form, its dark eyes open but seeing nothing. The edges of the baby’s lips and the tips of his fingers were blue. He looked emaciated—starved. She could see every rib, every bone, but her breasts were so heavy they hurt. Her nipples leaked milk, wetting her nightgown. Then she felt Mario’s arm around her shoulders as all the air in the room vanished, making her light-headed. She stared at the dead baby, her baby, that lay motionless in Kendall’s arms.
Kendall said, his voice pained, “You lied about everything.”
“Don’t worry, Miri,” Mario said, his voice gentle and kind and full of concern. “We can have another baby, and you’ll make sure that one dies, too.”
She stiffened, unable to shrink away from the arm around her shoulders. She turned her head to look at Mario. His countenance was serene.
“What?” she whispered hoarsely.
He kissed her forehead, his lips soft and warm. His dark eyes overflowed with compassion. “We’ll have another baby. If you don’t want it to be a zombie, choose another way. You could beat it or smother it with a pillow. Whatever you want to do…I’m flexible. But first you have to sleep with Kendall.”
“I don’t… I didn’t…”
“Of course you did,” Mario said, not unkindly. “Of course you—”
* * *
After she jerked awake, she lay in her bed, chest rising and falling in time with her pounding heart. She couldn’t seem to get any air. She sat up, looking around the room slowly, fearfully, as if Mario and Kendall and the dead baby might be hidden in the shadows.
She looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was the middle of the night, and tomorrow was a big day. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need her brain torturing her. The sharp ache of her heart for Tadpole… She already felt so empty and miserable when she let herself think about him. So she tried not to. And then, when she realized she’d managed it, she felt worse.
And Kendall… She already felt sleazy enough without dreaming about him. She hated the mire of self-interest that their discovery of him and the bunker, and the food shortage at LO, had sucked her into. All she wanted was a little peace, some respite. She was starting to think it would never happen.
I wish I could go outside to clear my head, she thought. The idea of danger—of doing something reckless—filled her with longing. She didn’t want to get killed. She wanted the clarity of purpose that danger demanded. She wanted the serenity of life or death, not the teetering, knife’s edge of ambivalence that she balanced on. She wanted the instinctive drive to live that took over and made the hard choices clear-cut. The thrill of cheating death that would follow was as intense as great sex, and when the second followed the first…
“I need a drink,” she muttered.
She crept through the living area to the small kitchenette but found nothing. She wrapped the cashmere cardigan tighter around her body, the concrete floor cool on her feet as she walked down the hallway, then through the nearest lounge.
She opened the small wine cabinet near the silverware drawer in the kitchen, where some reds were kept, and chose a 1974 Chateau Margaux Cabernet Franc/Petit Verdot blend. It sounded expensive. She ho
ped it was as good. She had the cork halfway out when Alec said, “What’re you doing up?”
She yelped and jumped, her heart in her throat. “Jesus!” she said. “Don’t do that!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding his hands up in front of him, as if to ward her off and soothe at the same time.
He was glistening, she realized, and short of breath. Sweaty, upon closer examination, with rosy cheeks and a damp spot on the front of his tee shirt. She’d never seen his legs before, well formed and muscular, but they were on display now between the bottom of the black shorts and athletic shoes.
“Did you have the gym door shut?” she asked.
“Aye,” Alec said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “I was on the treadmill, but I saw the movement through the glass.”
“It has good soundproofing,” she said. “I didn’t even hear you.”
Alec jutted his chin at the wine bottle she held. “Having a wee nightcap?”
She nodded. “Want to join me?”
“Why not?”
Butterflies careened inside her from head to toe when the smile appeared. His gaze was steady, almost as if he were asking her a question with it. She felt like he was undressing her with those hazel eyes, could see the goosebumps that were rippling over her skin. She looked down at the half-pulled cork still skewered by the corkscrew to hide the hot blush she felt creeping over her cheeks. She had a long tee shirt on beneath the cardigan, which was long-sleeved and fell almost to her knees, but she felt exposed, especially after the unsettling dream.
She finished opening the bottle, got two glasses, and joined him at the end of the curved dining tables.
