Blight Read online

  My limbs feel so heavy. I should keep moving before Alder wakes and finds me gone, but my body won’t let me. I pull out the plastic bag. The seeds are tiny, a pale yellow-brown, and thin. Like babies’ teeth, only smaller. It seems impossible that anything could depend on these—a red, round fruit, a future harvest, maybe even the lives of everyone the blight touches. If the other plant varieties the Kingfishers kept aren’t resistant, if this strain is the only one and the blight keeps spreading, Alder’s people really might die without it. Not at first, of course. First they would scavenge wider and wider, and then they would raid someone else’s stores, and then they would die, either from hunger or violence. I look out at the lake again. Two days ago, I wouldn’t have cared either way, but today I don’t want to be the cause of any more death. We can split the seeds—some for AgraStar to study, some to keep the scavengers alive.

  I get up and trudge back to the house. As I reach a slight rise, the sun comes out, burning away the fog shrouding the forest. I stop dead. Where yesterday the trees were in the full, thick green of summer, today they are bare. Shriveled and blackened leaves hang from their branches like tattered cloth. The blight has touched the edges of the meadow, turning the grasses gray.

  “Alder!” I stand in front of the house, my eyes locked on the dead trees. The firebombs didn’t stop the blight. It’s closed the miles between us and the compound in one night. “Alder!”

  “What?” He appears in the door, eyes puffy and hair sticking up. He looks from me to the forest, and his eyes snap wide. “Oh, God.”

  “We’ve got to go,” I tell him.

  “Oh, God,” he whispers again. He doesn’t move.

  “Alder, come on. We have to get out of here.”

  “What did we do?” he says, but he isn’t talking to me, not really.

  “Here.” I hand him a water bottle. He needs a task, something to help him focus. “Get your gun. Follow me.”

  To my relief, he obeys. I lead him down to the lake and away from the spreading destruction as fast as our feet can carry us.

  .10.

  DOGWOOD

  CORNUS FLORIDA

  We’ve been walking along the wooded banks of a stream for an hour when Alder stops.

  “Where are we?” he asks.

  “I dunno exactly.” I look up. The sun shimmers through the treetops. “We went south from the lake, and then came across this creek, so I started following it, like you said.”

  He blinks as if he’s just come awake. “Upstream or down?” he asks.

  “Huh?”

  “How do you know you’re going the right way? Did you turn upstream or down when you got to the creek?”

  “Downstream,” I say. “Southeast. To the Catawba, like you wanted.”

  He stares at me. “Oh.”

  I roll my eyes and keep walking. “I’m not a complete idiot, you know. They gave us some wilderness training before they sent us out on road-clearing patrols. In case we got lost. Or captured.”

  “We don’t go out trying to capture you,” Alder says. “That was a fluke.”

  “I meant the jackers.”

  We both fall silent. He has to know as well as I do that learning how to start a campfire or telling your cardinal directions by the sun won’t do you much good if it’s jackers that have you. That’s why road-clearing duty would get you ration increases or earn you double time on your contract. That’s why guards got pulled for it, why we always had a lookout. The teams that ran across jackers mostly got away. Except when they didn’t.

  “You ever run into them?” Alder asks.

  I shake my head. “We heard stuff, though.”

  “Like what?”

  I roll my shoulders uneasily. It feels like bad luck to talk about it. “About two years ago, they hit one of our eradication teams. We lost two—a guard and a clearer.”

  “You knew them?” Alder says.

  I shake my head. Neither was from my substation. I look around the bright woods, suddenly on edge despite the lush trees and lazy stream.

  “They said the clearer made it back in the middle of the night. She was naked and caked in blood from head to toe.” I swallow. “They evacuated her straight to Atlanta. The higher-ups thought no one would volunteer for clearing duty again if they saw her.”

  “But you did,” Alder says. “You volunteered?”

  “It was only a rumor,” I lie, and shrug. “Besides, every other guard my age was almost ready to contract out on their own. I needed the double time. I didn’t want to be twenty-five and still paying back my keep.”

  The expression on Alder’s face is something between confusion and pity.

  I look away, at the stream. “Anyway, you can’t keep the supply trucks moving if the road isn’t clear.”

  “Why do you care so much about some company?” Alder asks. “They’re not your family. You don’t belong to them. You don’t owe them anything.”

  “I owe them my life. They took me in when . . . when my father died. They raised me.” Only my father didn’t simply die. They killed him. Rosalie killed him.

  I try again. “They could have shot me. They could have let me starve.”

  “What saints.” Alder shakes his head. “They didn’t murder you when you were a little kid.”

  “It’s not like that.” I start walking again. Is it so wrong to want to belong to something, to be a part of something? I belonged with Ellison and his team, however briefly. It was probably the closest I’ll ever come to knowing what family feels like, and now it’s gone.

  “What about you?” I bend back a branch in my way. “Do you belong to the Deacon and them?”

  “No,” Alder says abruptly. I think that might be the only answer I get out of him, but then he takes a deep breath.

  “There’s a difference between belonging with and belonging to.” He keeps his eyes on the path. “I belonged with Eden.”

  I don’t say anything. A mosquito buzzes past my ear.

  “Sometimes . . .” He clears his throat. “Sometimes I used to think about the two of us—me and Eden—making a homestead in the mountains near where I grew up. Little cornfield. Chickens, maybe. Someplace none of the companies would care enough about to bother with.”

  He doesn’t sound angry. Just sad. Defeated.

  “That sounds nice,” I say quietly.

  “It wouldn’t have worked, anyway,” Alder says. “Eden wanted to fight, same as her mother. She would have been our next Deacon if she hadn’t . . .”

  If I hadn’t killed her. The guilt is nearly enough to stop me in my tracks, but I keep walking. I had no choice. Did I? What would have happened if I hadn’t shot Eden? If we’d simply handed over the Kingfishers? Would everyone still be alive, or would Eden have lined us up and shot us by the side of the road anyway?

  I imagine Ellison alive, rallying the blight’s survivors. He would know exactly what to do, how to get us safely back to AgraStar. We wouldn’t be following a twisting creek through a mosquito-infested forest, trying to find our bearings.

  “You should try to reach the Deacon again,” I say. I’m guessing Alder doesn’t want to think about this any more than I do.

  “Yeah.” He stops to pull out the sat phone and powers it up. The low battery tone chimes immediately.

  “Dammit.” He punches in the number.

  I squat beside him and finger a three-leaf clover. In my mind’s eye, a spot of gray appears on it and withers it to a gray husk. We’ve walked away from the blight, but I know it’s back there, hard on our heels. By nightfall, this clover and the trees overhanging the creek might be dead. Will it catch up to us again when we stop to sleep?

  “It’s ringing.” Alder’s eyes go wide. “Hello? Hello? This is Alder . . . Rose? Is that you? Can you hear me?”

  A piercing screech leaps from the sat phone. Alder grimaces and tries again.

  “Rose? Yes . . . no. No, they didn’t. I went back and . . . Listen, I don’t have much time. Can you tell me where you’re he
aded? I thought I could find . . .” He pauses. “Hello?”

  Alder lowers the phone and looks at it.

  “Hello?” he says again, his voice rising, frantic. “Rose? Hello?”

  “What’s wrong?” I say, even though I know. The sat phone is dead. His chances of finding the Deacon are shrinking by the minute.

  “Goddammit!” He hurls the phone against a tree. It shatters, showering plastic shards over the forest floor.

  “Alder, what the hell—”

  “Goddammit.” He races forward, pulling at his hair, and doubles back. “So stupid.”

  “Shhh.” I move toward him, shaken. I’ve seen him focused, angry, sad, but never out of control. “Shut up. Anyone within a mile could’ve heard you.”

  “Let them.” Alder glares at me, his eyes wet. “I’m an idiot. I lost all of them, and I don’t even have anything to show for it. I deserve to get caught.”

  “Well, I don’t.” I stoop to pick up the broken phone. I’d be hopeless at trying to put it back together, but I don’t want to leave a trace behind. AgraStar may claim this territory, but it belongs to them in name only. There are worse things in the wild than quarantine procedures.

  “Come on.” I stuff the pieces of the sat phone in my pack and start walking. We need to put as much distance between ourselves and this spot as possible.

  After a while, I hear Alder behind me.

  “I’m sorry.” He comes up even with me. “I didn’t mean to lose it back there. It won’t happen again.”

  “Better not.” I look sideways at him. “I felt like doing the same thing, back at the cabin.”

  “Yeah?” He meets my gaze.

  “Yeah.” I look away. “Don’t worry. You’ll find them. You must have contacts, people who can help you reach them, right? Other scavengers? Besides, you tracked me all the way across the compound. And they want you to find them.”

  Alder nods. “You’re right. I’ll find them. I have to.” He pats his pocket, the bag of seeds. “If AgraStar can’t stop the blight, this is our best hope.”

  I want to admit what I’ve done, but my mouth is dry. There’s nothing to do but keep moving.

  At midday, we rest at a bend in the creek where a pool has formed, surrounded by dogwood trees.

  “Food’s running low,” Alder says, leaning on his rifle as I roll up my pant legs and wade in to refill our bottles.

  “I know.” I don’t look up. My nine-millimeter is heavy on my hip, but any gunshot will echo for miles. Hunting is out of the question.

  “If we had some wire, I could make a snare,” says Alder. He glances at my boots, partially unlaced on the bank.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I say. “I need those.”

  “You’re in the water,” he says.

  “But I’m not staying here,” I say. “Use your own shoelaces.”

  He raises an eyebrow. I look down. Alder’s shoes are held together by twine and duct tape. My laces are new poly-nylon, perfect for slipknotting.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ll just sit here in the water until you come back.”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Alder says.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Alder raises his other eyebrow.

  “Are you telling me I stink?” Of course I do. Who wouldn’t after surviving an ambush, a fire, and two days on the run? No need to rub it in.

  He smiles and crouches down to unlace my boots.

  “Like you smell any better,” I mutter.

  Alder snorts and pulls the laces free, then walks off into the woods.

  I sit on a rock next to the water and unwind the bandages around my hands. They’re crusty with blood and dried gel, and they stick to my skin in spots. I hiss as I pull them free and lean down to submerge my fingers in the current. I close my eyes. The water is cold and perfect. I could nearly cry with relief. I sit bent double, listening to the rush of the stream, my mind calm for the first time in days.

  A mosquito lands on my forearm, then another, and another, drawn by the shade and the promise of warm blood.

  Screw it. I unclip my holster and lay my nine-millimeter on the rock, within easy reach, then pull out the bag of seeds and lay it alongside my weapon. I slip into the pool, clothes and all, and sit on the riverbed with only my head above the water. My clothes need it as much as I do. I allow myself a tiny smile. There’s a reservoir, banked by gravel and dotted with irrigation pumps, in my compound’s north quadrant. Our wilderness survival instructor taught us to swim there, and we’re allowed to go on Founders’ Day and Contractor Recognition Day. After training drills, we sometimes had a little free time before we were bussed back to our substations. I would swim out a few dozen yards, past where the other trainees were splashing and climbing on one another’s shoulders and float, alone in the middle of the lake. I liked to rest my palms on the surface, test the water’s tension, and enjoy the way it muffled the rest of the world.

  I close my eyes. The sun is warm and the woods are quiet. I barely hurt at all.

  The image of a washroom pops into my mind, smaller and brighter than anything at my substation. A single tub with high sides, and a woman kneeling, a washcloth in her hands. Here, m’ija, put this over your eyes so I don’t get soap in them. . . .

  My eyes spring open. I surge up out of the water, staggering under the weight of my wet clothes. What was that? I can hear my own breathing, harsh and fast, like I’ve been running the track by the perimeter fence. Did I fall asleep? Was that a dream?

  But it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a memory.

  “Tempest?”

  Alder stands on the riverbank, a rabbit in one hand and his shirt gathered up like a sack in the other. I didn’t even hear him. He could have been anyone.

  He stares at me, wide-eyed and wary. “What’s the matter? Did you hear something?”

  “It’s okay.” I swallow. I’m wide awake, shot through with adrenaline. “I’m okay. It’s nothing.”

  “You sure?” He unloops my shoelace from the dead rabbit’s neck. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

  I shake my head. “It’s nothing.” I palm the seed bag, then grab my holster and fumble to fasten it around my hips.

  Alder’s expression says he doesn’t quite believe me, but he shrugs and looks away. “You know how to dress a rabbit, or you want to gather wood?”

  “Now?” I need a second, a minute, an hour to settle myself in my skin again.

  “A fire’d be less likely to give us away in the daytime,” he says. He unrolls his shirt to reveal a handful of brown button mushrooms. “Unless you’re not hungry.”

  “I’ll find the wood.” A walk will calm me down, give me time to hide the bag clenched in my hand. I nod at the mushrooms. “You sure those are safe?” I remember just enough of my survival training to know some mushrooms are poisonous, but not how to recognize them.

  Alder pops one in his mouth. I roll my eyes and stuff my feet in my boots.

  “Dead wood only,” Alder calls as I squelch into the trees. “Green wood’ll make smoke.”

  “I know, I know,” I mutter.

  We eat and go on our way. Later that evening, we reach the Catawba, the last rays of the setting sun making its muddy waters shine like polished bronze. We bed down in an abandoned boathouse. Or more of a boat shack. It has two empty docking wells, each the right size for a rowboat, with a small pier between them, and a little more floor space on the shore side. There are no boats, but when I look down into the water, I can make out a pile of rotten boards and a rusted gas can on the riverbed beneath us.

  Alder volunteers to take first watch, which is fine by me. I stake out a spot, stuff my backpack under my head, and close my eyes, listening to the water lapping underneath the boathouse floor. The image of the washroom creeps back again, but I shove it away. I don’t have time to think about what it means right now. It’s only going to distract me and get me killed.

  “What you said this morning. . . ,” Alder says sud
denly. “About earning your keep?”

  I roll over. He’s sitting on the stubby pier, his face turned away. “Yeah?”

  “They don’t own you, you know.” His voice is firm. “You don’t owe them anything.”

  I don’t reply. I pretend to be asleep, but it’s a long time before my mind quiets enough to allow me some rest.

  “Tempest.” Alder shakes my shoulder. “Your watch.”

  I blink. The moon has risen, flooding the boathouse with silvery light. For a few seconds I stare at it. The world looks unreal in black and white. Am I still dreaming? Then I remember.

  “You awake?” Alder asks. He’s settling down on the pier, as far from me as the small space will allow. He rests his rifle at his side.

  “Of course I am.” I stand and run my hands through my hair. My stomach complains, and I turn my wrist to check the time on my tracker, only to remember it’s gone. It was afternoon when we ate the rabbit, and now the moon is up. We’re going to have to do something about our food situation tomorrow. Alder isn’t always going to find wild game, and we have only four protein bars left.

  “Do you know of any . . .” I turn to Alder. He’s dead asleep.

  I can still feel the plastic bag in my bra, the seeds almost weightless inside it. I’m going to do what I should have done yesterday before Alder woke up. Or undo what I did. Give some of the seeds back to Alder. Let the scavengers have a chance, however small. Of course I’ll keep some. If anyone has a shot at defeating the blight, it’s AgraStar, but why not hedge our bets? “The more eyes on a problem, the better,” Crake always said.

  I watch Alder sleep. It’s going to be harder this time. There’s less room to move around in the small boathouse, and he’s lying on his back, not his side. I wait until his breath slows and deepens.

  I crawl forward and crouch on the narrow span of floor between the docking wells. His left pocket. That’s where he keeps it. I sit close, not touching him, but near enough to feel the heat radiating off his body. I reach over, careful not to jostle him, and feel for the lip of his pocket. I pinch the pouch and pull it up, slow, careful. . . . Suddenly I become aware of my own breath, harsh and loud in the small space.