by Chris Babu
Billy took a step toward Sidney and stopped. He furrowed his brow, and turned his head back slightly in the direction of the doorway.
Lightning flared and thunder boomed outside.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Eugene appeared behind Billy, drenched. In one motion, he wrapped an arm around Billy’s head, covering his mouth, and with the other he slit his throat with a knife. Deep.
Blood sprayed.
Catrice bit back a scream.
Drayden averted his eyes and dry heaved a few times. He vomited bile.
Mother of God.
When he dared to peek, Eugene was kneeling over Billy, smothering his mouth with one hand. He pressed until the body stopped moving. A puddle of dark blood grew wider and wider on the floor. Both of Eugene’s hands were covered in it.
It was so quick, so violent, and so brutal. Drayden’s mouth hung open.
Eugene scanned the privates’ faces and held a bloody index finger up to his lips. After checking once behind him, he dashed to Catrice, wiped his bloody hands on his soaked camo pants and cut her ropes.
She leapt up and embraced him, burying her face in his chest, sobbing. Eugene held her for a second and kissed her forehead. He knelt beside Sidney and tackled her ropes. Eugene’s left sleeve was no longer gray but a dark crimson, stained with old blood. After Sidney was free, he cut Charlie and Drayden loose. He pulled out four pistols, handed them out, and cocked his own, quietly.
Catrice was shaking, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Drayden’s horror transformed to elation. They were free! Eugene truly was something special. And he looked like hell.
He was pale, gaunt, and twitchy. Judging by his bloody sleeve, he’d indeed been shot earlier.
“Follow me,” he whispered. “In silence. We’re walking, ducked down, along the outside of the camp to the path, and then we sprint. It’s crazy slippery. Got it? I’ll go in front. Charlie, you in the rear.”
There wasn’t time to thank him for his heroics; that would come later. They were forever indebted to this kid.
Eugene stepped over Billy’s body and stopped at the door, surveying the camp. He waved his hand forward.
Drayden took one final glimpse of Billy’s brutalized body, feeling not an ounce of sympathy for him. He got what he deserved.
Charlie spat on the corpse. “Piece of shkat.”
Sidney snagged the loaf of bread and trailed Eugene to the door. He darted out and everyone followed.
In utter darkness, rain pummeled them, the ground thick with mud. Drayden slid all over the place. He could barely find anyone else in the blackness.
Lightning flashed, which allowed him to orient himself. Not much further to the path. They reached it in seconds and ran.
Tearing blindly through the woods in mud was frightening. Each second carried the threat of running head-on into a tree. After a minute, Drayden saw Sidney’s back, right before he crashed into her. Charlie barreled into him. The three of them fell, getting caked in cold, slimy mud.
“Dammit,” Charlie said.
Eugene hauled them up.
“Sorry,” Drayden said.
“No, my bad,” Charlie answered.
A lightning burst revealed Eugene on his knees rustling around the bushes. “They didn’t find the weapons. They’re here somewhere.”
The privates squatted with him, searching until they found them. They slung the rifles over their backs and deposited their knives back in their sleeves.
“What about our bikes?” Drayden asked.
“Gone,” Eugene said. “They took them. Everybody good? Let’s move out.”
“Wait,” Drayden said. “We should stay off the road a bit. In case they come searching for us or we bump into the Guardians. And I think we need to run now.”
“Roger that,” Eugene said.
“Let’s do this,” Charlie said.
Drayden wolfed down his chunk of bread like a wild animal. He even grunted with pleasure eating it, something he’d never done before. Despite the relative blandness of bread, this piece tasted sweet and extravagant. He didn’t let a single crumb go unconsumed. In addition to making him feel immediately revitalized, it lifted his spirits. A tad. There was still quite a bit to be down about. It also left him starving for more.
They’d run as long as possible, until their energy was spent, which wasn’t long at all. Not eating for forty-eight hours and being awake all night had left them drained.
It was dawn on Route 3 and the skies had cleared. Rain had a way of refreshing everything, a thorough cleansing of the world, and the air smelled fresh and floral. Rain meant something else too—water.
“Hey, guys,” Drayden said with downcast eyes, feeling sheepish, “we should head into the woods and take advantage of this rainwater. We shouldn’t drink it off the ground, but some of the leaves might have little drops.”
“That’s good thinking, Dray.” Eugene veered into the woods.
Odd plants which didn’t exist in New America covered the forest floor. Enormous leaves fanned out from the center of each, forming a circle. The base acted as a miniature bowl, with a tiny pool of water in it.
Drayden knelt and sucked out the water. “Hey, check it out. Everybody find a plant.”
Charlie slurped it up. “This is great. A few hundred of these and we’ll be set.”
Drayden sighed. “Just get some water in your system. This will all be dried out in a few hours.”
They lapped up the microscopic beads of water until they grew tired of it and returned to hiking in silence up Route 3, off the road. Despite running after their escape from Camp Psycho, they’d only made it a few miles.
Drayden couldn’t come to grips with the fact that he had Aeru, the same bacteria that had killed billions on Earth, either through infection or by destroying the food supply. It was ironic that in a world where he never felt he fit in, he now had something in common with billions of former people. Because of Eugene’s courageous rescue, the future became brighter for the others. For Drayden, it remained grim. He was going to die.
The Bureau never intended for him to return from the expedition. That was why they had given him a fake version of the Aeru vaccine. They probably didn’t expect any of the privates to make it home, but with him, they wanted to guarantee it. It might have been Nathan Locke who’d ordered it, or Eli Holst himself. Just because Drayden started receiving the phony vaccine before he’d confronted Locke didn’t mean Locke wasn’t responsible. Maybe he was being proactive, knowing he’d eventually have to eliminate Drayden. The Bureau, and Locke, were one step ahead. They’d won. He wouldn’t get to exact revenge after all. Now it made perfect sense that nobody had discussed their employment or living arrangements upon their return.
How would his mother feel about her affair with Nathan Locke now? It led to her exile, which led to Drayden entering the Initiation, which led to the expedition, which led to him catching Aeru and ultimately dying. His mother’s selfish escapade actually precipitated her own child’s death. His mother had killed him and here he was, worried about failing to avenge her. Drayden yanked off his green Yankees cap and shoved it into his pants’ pocket.
He wondered what would happen when they reached Boston, if they indeed found people there. They could quarantine him, refuse to admit him, or possibly even execute him. At the very least, they’d surely separate him from his friends, which would also clear the way for Catrice and Eugene.
She walked with her arm interlocked with Eugene’s, clinging to him like an orphaned baby animal to its surrogate mother. In any other circumstance it would enrage him, induce tears, and generally drive him mad with jealousy. However, considering what had occurred, she deserved a pass. She had not spoken since the rescue, appearing almost catatonic. The unknown horror they were forced to contemplate upon Gabriel’s arrival was absolutely grounds for shoc
k. They could have been tortured, enslaved, killed, or eaten. Or even worse, all of the above.
Catrice’s public display of affection for Eugene might have been more than that too. Drayden needed to finally accept that she had moved on from him. She’d made her choice, and hell, who could blame her?
Drayden thought what he needed to do was accept who he was, with Catrice and in life—his choices, his values. He needed to generally stop trying to be someone else, and specifically stop trying to be like Eugene. As long as everyone was true to who they were and accepted it, things should work out the way they were supposed to.
Yet that exact philosophy resulted in the disaster at the crazy village. It didn’t make sense. Maybe he was wrong, and he did need to be more like Eugene—tough, brutal, savage—or they couldn’t succeed out here. Was Eugene’s way superior to Drayden’s way on an absolute level?
Eugene’s way > Drayden’s way.
“Hey, Euge?” Charlie said.
Walking up front with Catrice, Eugene turned his head back questioningly.
Charlie cleared his throat. “On behalf of everyone, I want to say thank you. I don’t know what else to say. You’re a total stud.”
Drayden and Sidney chimed in, thanking him too.
Eugene checked the ammo in his rifle. “Thanks. You’re welcome. I wasn’t going to leave you guys behind. I would have died first.”
They’d been walking for over an hour, and until then nobody had uttered a word to Eugene about his dramatic rescue. It wasn’t that they weren’t grateful. On the contrary, they could never repay him enough. It was that they were traumatized, because they’d watched their friend savagely murder a man. They were in clinical shock. The awkwardness of the past hour was akin to what occurred when you accidentally saw someone naked, like your mother. Nobody discussed it afterward and both parties pretended it never happened.
Sidney was walking beside Charlie, chewing her nails. “How did you escape, Eugene? Are you hurt? They said you got shot.”
“I’m all right.” He glanced at his arm. “A bullet grazed my shoulder. I rubbed my bloody hands on the bushes so they would think I was mortally wounded and stop searching for me. It worked. I was nearby after that, in the woods the whole time waiting for a chance to get in. Even after the whole camp was asleep, that pesky guard of yours kept going in and out. Every time I would decide to go for it, I’d have to abort. Then I said, ‘screw it.’ That’s when I came in.”
Sidney snickered. “Right in the nick of time. I was about to attack Billy. That was the guy’s name.”
Drayden studied Eugene, curious if hearing the guard’s name, giving him an identity, elicited any remorse or grief. He didn’t seem upset about it.
Eugene had become decidedly darker the past two days. Gone was the childlike wunderkind, replaced by a much harder, brooding, intense man. It was as if his Guardian identity had overtaken his persona now that it was desperately needed. The expedition was clearly wearing on him as well.
Sidney looked at Catrice, then at Drayden, before shaking her head.
“What is it?” he asked her.
“Can I get any love here? I was about to risk my life in a fight to the death and all everyone can do is fawn over poor Catrice. It’s unbelievable.”
She was right. Drayden had been guilty of the same thing during the Initiation, taking Sidney for granted. She was such a badass it was sometimes hard to remember that she wasn’t superhuman.
He walked up beside her. “You’re totally right, Sid. I’m sorry. What you were about to do was crazy brave. Just because Eugene came in doesn’t change that. You’ve stepped up time after time.”
“Thank you,” she said, with little emotion.
“You’re a legend, Sid,” Charlie said.
Eugene nodded and said, “You would’ve won that fight.”
“You guys, I’m sorry, stop,” Sidney said. “I’m not fishing for compliments. I just…I don’t know what I want.” She threw her hands in the air. “To be appreciated or something, I guess. Forget I said anything. I simply refuse to let my sister be taken from me. Refuse. We have to make it to Boston.”
Since people seemed to be airing their grievances, Drayden had something to get off his chest. He hurried to catch up to Eugene and strode beside him, opposite Catrice. “Eugene, thank you, again. Thank you, thank you. I can’t say it enough times. But I also need to apologize. I’m sorry.”
Eugene chuckled, as if he thought it was a joke. “For what?”
“For not trusting you. I wasn’t sure you were really one of us. I thought you might still be working with the Guardians. Until now, that is.” Eugene had put Drayden’s jealous suspicion to bed for good, with authority. He was on their side.
“Are you serious, Dray?” Eugene appeared hurt. “How could you think that? After everything I’ve done?”
“I know; that’s why I’m apologizing. You’ve saved us time and time again, and none bigger than that last one. God, it sounds so stupid now, but I thought you didn’t actually try to move the tree over the river. And I was surprised you didn’t kill any of the Guardians, given how perfect a shot you are.”
Eugene threw his head back. “C’mon, kid. Ten of me couldn’t have moved that tree. I was a little worried about my back after what happened to Charlie too. During the gunfight…I mean, I never had a single clean shot. Those guys are pros. They were skillfully covered. If I had an opening, I would have connected. But I’m the outsider here. I get it. You guys did the Initiation together. Nothing to be sorry about.” He punched Drayden in the shoulder.
It ached. “Oh yeah, you shouldn’t touch me. I have Aeru.”
Eugene frowned. “Wait, what? How do you know?”
“In our hours of captivity, we determined the Bureau gave me a fake vaccine, different from the others. Mysteriously, I’m sick and everyone else is fine. I’m running a fever now on top of the nasty cough, both signature symptoms.” Drayden thought about Shahnee. She’d told him they’d know the vaccine didn’t work if he developed a cough and fever. He desperately hoped she didn’t know his vaccine was fake.
Eugene looked stunned. “I’m…I’m sorry, Dray. I’m so sorry.” Ignoring Drayden’s advice, he wrapped his arm around Drayden’s shoulders.
While nobody had explicitly stated it, everyone knew what having Aeru foretold. Drayden lowered his head.
“You guys?” Sidney asked. “Do you think the Guardians are ahead of us now?”
It was difficult to tell. Drayden attempted the math. They’d ridden their bikes approximately seventeen miles from where Route 3a intersected Route 3. It took them between two and three hours. Most people walked three miles per hour, but one of the Guardians was injured. If they walked two miles per hour, it would have taken them over eight hours to reach camp Gabriel and the crazies. Call it a six-hour lead when Gabriel’s clan captured them, which was sometime in the afternoon. The Guardians had several hours of daylight to catch up, cutting that to a slim lead. Other variables complicated it as well. Had the Guardians camped for the night? The privates and Eugene had restarted hiking before sunrise.
“I think it’s probably pretty close,” Drayden said. “They might be ahead. It depends on whether they stopped to sleep or did any walking in the dark. We should be on alert. They could be close by.”
“I don’t know if I can go on,” Charlie said. “I’m so weak. We didn’t sleep last night. We haven’t eaten in two days, and that bread woke up the monster in my belly. I’m a few minutes from eating bark off a tree.”
Drayden felt the same way: completely exhausted and mentally fried from stress. A raw hunger stirred up some primitive, ancient instinct to find food. Fifteen or twenty miles on bikes was one thing, but walking that distance was not trivial.
A plume of smoke billowed above the tree line in the distance once again.
Eugene stopped when they
reached it, raising his eyebrows.
Drayden shook his head. “I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Not after…you know.”
A woman’s bloodcurdling scream suddenly pierced the morning silence.
CHAPTER 27
Whoever that was, we need to see if she’s okay,” Drayden said. “But we’ll be real cautious and abort if we sense trouble.”
Charlie cringed. “I didn’t like the sound of that scream. That wasn’t a stub-your-toe scream.”
They maneuvered through the thick bramble, now only a hundred yards or so from the smoke.
“Guys, let me up front.” Eugene stormed past them. “If we go in, we’re doing it my way.”
Drayden didn’t have grounds to object anymore, for obvious reasons. Nonetheless, the “Eugene way”—ready to fire, take no prisoners—didn’t feel right, despite the disaster at Camp Gabriel.
“Eugene, you mean heavy, right?”
“Yeah. Guns live. Ready to act. Nobody’s getting captured this time, I don’t care how many of them there are. If we’re in trouble, we fight.”
Unable to forget the last encampment, Drayden thought they should abort right now. But they did need food, and he couldn’t shake the sound of that scream. Charlie was right; as far as screams went, that was an ominous one.
Eugene waved his arm downward and crouched. The others followed his lead and squatted. Everyone held live weapons except Catrice, who still wore a glazed-over expression and continued to shadow Eugene.
Drayden opted for the Glock since it was easier to carry and was less intimidating. If this was a friendly camp, he didn’t want to scare the crap out of them with an assault rifle.
Several ramshackle wooden huts came into view, surrounding a fire. This village didn’t sit in an expansive clearing like camp crazy. It existed amongst tall trees, on the other side of a hill. From where they were huddled, no people were visible.
Sidney whispered, “The last time we saw no people, it was
a trap.”
“We should get out of here,” Drayden said.
