Blight Page 15

  “We should get off the road.” I scan the fields. The first touches of dawn are lightening the sky behind us. “Hide out. See if they’re following us.”

  “We should ditch the jeep,” Alder says.

  “Not yet.” The blacktop is broken and rocky. I grip the steering wheel tighter. “We’ll never outrun them without it.” Or find help.

  “What about there?” Alder points to a barren stretch of land to our right. Bare, hard-packed dirt spreads out for acres, ending against a wall of kudzu. We could cross without leaving tracks and hide the jeep in the vines.

  I pull off the road and drive across the empty field. The first rays of sun hit the hood as we near the kudzu forest.

  I lean forward and squint. “What is that?”

  Several long, low shapes project from the woods, perfectly parallel and shrouded in vines.

  “Buildings?” Alder says.

  I slow. Beside the kudzu-draped structures are two huge square troughs cut into the ground, like shallow dirt swimming pools.

  I let the jeep roll to a stop. “What the hell is this place?”

  “Does it matter?” Alder looks tired. “It’s deserted and off the road, like you wanted.”

  We circle around the back of one of the buildings. Alder wanders toward it as I pull down vines and arrange them over the jeep.

  “Tempest, look.” He pushes back a bunch of kudzu, revealing faded letters on the side of the building. FAIRFIELD HOG FARM.

  I peer through the filmy windows. Empty concrete stalls line the room, with a long gutter running down the center aisle.

  “Factory farm?” I look at Alder. “I wonder why it closed down?”

  “Maybe it couldn’t compete with AgraStar.”

  I cut my eyes at him. “AgraStar doesn’t trade in livestock.”

  “Apex does,” he says.

  “What, like they have some kind of trade deal?” I say. “We’ll make sure there are no pig farms in our territory if you make sure there’s no one growing corn in yours?”

  Alder just looks at me.

  “You can’t be serious.” I stare back at him. Why would Apex care about a few pig farms in AgraStar territory? It would be nothing next to what we import from them.

  “Believe what you want.” He turns away. “I’m going to see if there’s a way inside.”

  I follow Alder to the front building, where we have a clear view east across the fields to the road. Chains and padlocks hang on the doors, but one of the windows is boarded up with rotten plywood that falls away with one sharp tug. I climb through and help Alder in after me.

  Morning sunlight filters in between gaps in the kudzu—little glimmers of gold. Alder coughs in the dust stirred by our footsteps.

  I hold out my water bottle to him. “Here.”

  He shakes his head.

  “You’re not thirsty?” I frown. Rabies victims stop drinking, but he can’t be having symptoms yet.

  “I just want to lie down,” he says.

  “Suit yourself.” I stare out at the road through the vines. I didn’t notice earlier, but a few patches of crabgrass have broken through the dirt. When I look back at Alder, he’s lying in the middle of the floor, eyes closed, injured arm held to his chest. He’s bled through his bandages.

  I turn back to the window and prod my nose gingerly. I’m not sure if it’s broken, but it’s definitely swollen. A truck appears on the road, then another, and another, all crawling along slow enough to scan the countryside. The Red Hand. I duck below the window, even though there’s no way they can see me.

  Breathe, Tempest, breathe.

  If they turn this way, we need to be ready to run. I peek out again. The last vehicle in the caravan rolls slowly out of sight. I let out a breath and rest my forehead against the sill. There’s no telling how far they’ll go or when they’ll be back.

  “You awake?” I ask Alder.

  He nods.

  “They passed us by,” I say. “I’m going to see if I can find more water.”

  Alder doesn’t answer.

  “You think there’s a creek nearby?”

  Alder doesn’t open his eyes. “How should I know?”

  I bite back a retort. I’d be in a shitty mood, too, if I’d been tortured and then attacked by a rabid dog.

  “Stay here, okay?” I say. “Get some rest. I’ll be back soon.”

  I head south toward a dip in the landscape, hugging the tree line as I go. The sun is up, but the light is still soft and the mosquitoes haven’t come out yet. The trees creak under the kudzu. Alder needs help. Painkillers. Vaccine. We both need food and water. But I don’t even know exactly where we are. Somewhere west of the Catawba and east of the highway that runs south past my compound to Atlanta. The nearest AgraStar holdings are north, in Charlotte, and GAP-12, somewhere west of the highway, in the foothills. Charlotte is out—that’s back the way we came, back toward the blight. But if we can reach the highway and I can remember which exit to take . . .

  I stop. A smell travels on the breeze. Charcoal and meat cooking. My stomach clenches and my mouth waters. A haze of blue smoke drifts from the woods ahead.

  People.

  I hesitate. It could be scavengers, maybe even the Deacon and her caravan. But it could just as easily be another Red Hand encampment. I touch my nine-millimeter. Whoever they are, they could have medicine, vaccine, a sat phone. Alder isn’t going to make it without help. I have to risk it.

  I push aside a train of kudzu and step into the forest. It’s cooler in here, dim and thick with insects. I try to walk quietly, but it’s next to impossible. Half the trees around me are dead, leaning against one another or downed and reclaimed by vines. I follow the smell of smoke to a narrow creek, small enough to jump over. I pause and refill my water bottle, then push on, into a wide meadow.

  A house stands on the far end, encircled by a razor-wire fence, with solar panels arrayed across its tin roof. Smoke pours from a close-topped grill in the yard. The wind shifts, and suddenly the cooking smells are gone, replaced by a stench of rotten meat and manure. I turn away and gag.

  What the hell is this place? A farm of some kind? I spit bile into the undergrowth and wipe my eyes. The farms we saw on eradication duty kind of looked like this, but they had more land, and they weren’t hidden in the middle of a forest. I creep closer. There are pigs rooting around behind the wire—no, hogs, huge and hairy. A pinkish moat surrounds the property. The closer I get, the stronger the rotten smell. That water—it’s coming from that pink water.

  I fight the nausea building in my throat. The nervous hope I had curdles into a brick of pure anxiety.

  Keep it together. Just because their land smells like warm death doesn’t mean they’re as vicious as the Red Hand. I step away from the cover of trees and into the clearing. A morning mist hangs above the moat. There’s an enormous metal box of some sort built into the fence, like a drawbridge. And there’s something inside it, something moving, something I can’t quite make out. Warning flares go off in my brain.

  “Hello?” I call. “Is anyone there?”

  A sallow-faced man steps out from behind the house, wearing a blood-stained apron and rubber gloves. He stops when he sees me and unslings a rifle from his back.

  “What d’ you want?”

  I hold out my hands to show I’m not going for my weapon.

  “My . . . my friend,” I say. “He got attacked by a dog. Please, I know it’s a long shot, but do you have any rabies vaccine? Or a sat phone?”

  “Maybe.” He lowers his rifle. “What’ll you give me for it?”

  I scramble to inventory what we have. The jeep, my gun, the seeds. We can’t afford to give up any of those. And I doubt our last few protein bars are worth anything.

  “Information,” I say. “You know the AgraStar compound north of here? SCP-52?”

  He steps closer to the fence. “What about it?”

  “There was an attack,” I say. “An accident. Something killed all the crops, and it�
�s spreading. Coming this way. You have to leave, go south, before it reaches here.”

  His face hardens and he laughs. “Interesting story you’ve got there.” He saunters toward the drawbridge. The thing inside bangs against the metal. “Pretty convenient.”

  I take a step back. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re one of them.” He gestures at my clothes. “AgraStar. You think I don’t know they hate people like me signing no contracts, living free? You think this is the first time they’ve tried to scare me off my land?”

  “It’s not about that—”

  “Everything’s about that, darlin’.” He pulls a linchpin from some sort of wheeled contraption by the drawbridge. The metal box shudders.

  “Now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He raises a whistle hanging from a chain around his neck.

  “Wait,” I plead. “I’m telling the truth. My friend needs help. He’s not AgraStar. He’s just a scavenger, like you.”

  The man goes still. “Scavenger, huh? Is that what I am?”

  “I mean . . . no.” Dammit, Tempest. “He’s not signed to anyone. He’s free, like you said.”

  “All right,” the man says. “I’m going to count to ten, and then I want you gone.”

  “Please,” I say. “Look, what about my gun? I can trade you that. Just to use a sat phone. Isn’t that worth it?”

  “Ten,” he says. “Nine, eight, seven . . .”

  I step back, hands still held up. “We have a truck. A jeep.”

  “Six.” He starts to turn the wheel. “Five, four, three . . .”

  The thing in the box lets out a low, guttural growl.

  “I’m leaving.” I stumble over my own feet as I back away, and catch myself. “Please . . .”

  “. . . two, one.” The man turns the wheel.

  The front end of the box opens with a metallic squeal, slowly lowering to form a bridge over the moat. Two eyes flash in the shadows.

  I stand frozen in the middle of the clearing, staring into the depths of the box. The man puts the whistle to his lips and blows a two-note tone. An animal lunges from the darkness, huge and muscled, its ribs visible through its striped hide. Holy shit . . .

  Instinct kicks in, and I turn and run. I can hear it behind me, gaining, paws slapping the ground. A tiger. How does this guy have a fucking tiger? I crash through the tree line and fight my way through the undergrowth. The creek opens up beneath me. I glance back and catch a flash of white muzzle and claws, and trip.

  I splash down into the creek. The tiger leaps through the space where I was mere seconds before and lands on the opposite bank. I stagger up and pull my gun. The animal rounds on me, ears flattened, lips pulled to show its teeth.

  I fire. It screams and startles back. I chamber another round and brace myself, panting. Anyone could have heard that shot for miles around. If the Red Hand is in range, I’ve just sent up a beacon. The tiger stares at me, eyes dilated and a single bloody paw raised.

  “Get out of here!” I shout. My wilderness training is coming back to me. What to do if you come across a mountain lion. Make yourself big. Hold the animal’s gaze. Be as loud as you can. Hopefully the same thing works on tigers. “Go on!”

  It snarls and slinks back a step.

  I raise my arms above my head and look the tiger in the eye. “Get away! Leave me alone!”

  Far off, the two-note whistle sounds again. The tiger turns its head toward the noise and, with a snarl, limps off along the creek. I stand with my back against the bank, watching it go and willing my heart to stop straining against my chest.

  When I’m sure it’s gone, I race back through the woods and out into the sunshine. Did anyone hear? Is the Red Hand turning around to find us this very moment? Is the tiger behind me somewhere, waiting to pounce? I’ve heard stories about people who used to keep exotic animals for pets or run private zoos, in the old days, before AgraStar put an end to that kind of insanity, but I always thought those were stories about how broken everything was before. Not warnings about what might still be out there.

  I meet Alder outside the building. He staggers toward me, still cradling his arm against his chest.

  “What happened?” His eyes are wide, with dark circles beneath them. “I heard a gunshot.”

  “No time.” I hurry to the jeep. “We’ve got to move.”

  “But the Red Hand—”

  “We have to risk it,” I say, yanking the vines away from the jeep. “We can’t stay here.”

  Alder slides into the passenger seat without another word. I jump behind the wheel and pull out onto the dirt field, trailing lengths of kudzu behind us.

  .14.

  CLOVER

  TRIFOLIUM REPENS

  The road rolls bright and cracked beneath us as we ride south through the midday heat. It’s obvious no clearers have stopped on this stretch of highway in months. Weeds and trees have grown in, thick and dangerous, right up to the lip of the road. Excellent cover for an ambush. One of the jeep’s tires is blown, making a rhythmic whapping sound against the asphalt, but we don’t have a spare. It doesn’t matter if I warp the rims, anyway. We’re going to have to ditch the jeep when we run out of gas. I’m just hoping I recognize the turnoff for GAP-12 before that happens.

  We haven’t seen the Red Hand caravan all morning, but then, we haven’t seen any AgraStar convoys, either. And even if we do, it’s not like they’ll hand over corn diesel out of the kindness of their hearts. Best-case scenario, they’d take us captive and I could talk them into using some of their vaccine reserves on Alder. More likely, they’d shoot us on sight, especially with a Red Hand symbol emblazoned on the side of our vehicle. That’s what I was trained to do. Not that I’m complaining. If nothing else, the jeep has helped put some miles between us and the front edge of the blight.

  I glance at the fuel gauge, and then over at Alder. He’s slumped against the passenger-side door, eyes closed. Sweat slicks his forehead, and his skin is greenish pale. We found a bottle of some sort of yellow rotgut in the glove compartment, and I talked him into drinking some of it, then splashing the rest over his wounds. He threw up after that, and now the cab smells like alcohol and vomit, but at least he knocked himself out.

  I squint against the glare. My eyes feel like they’re full of sand, and all the bruises I’ve collected have flared from a background ache to insistent pain. I should have told Alder to save some of the rotgut for me. I spot a break in the trees and pull off the road, into a sort of natural alley carpeted with clover and overhung by oaks and pines. The moment we pass into the shade, the knots in my spine begin to unravel. I’m too tired to be afraid. I sit with the engine running for a moment, numb with relief, before I kill the motor and let the silence wash over me.

  Alder stirs. “Where are we?”

  “Eighty miles northeast of Atlanta,” I say. We passed one of the old, faded highway signs a few miles back. “Give or take.”

  I reach behind the seats and pull out our one remaining water bottle, half full and warm. I hold it out to Alder. “Here.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Come on.” I jiggle it at him so the water sloshes against the sides. “You’ve got to want to wash out your mouth, at least.” I look pointedly at the empty liquor bottle lying at his feet.

  “No.” He looks at me, dead serious, deep gray circles under his eyes. “You shouldn’t waste that on me.”

  My throat catches. So that’s what this is about. “You don’t know—”

  “Yes, I do. There’s no point pretending we don’t know what’s going to happen.” He doesn’t sound angry, only tired. Somehow, that makes it worse.

  “There’s still time, if we can find a vaccine,” I say. Three days. Seventy-two hours. Or more like sixty-five now, but still. Almost three days.

  Alder snorts. “And who’s going to give it to us? The Red Hand?” He nods back the way we came.

  “AgraStar could,” I say quietly.

  Alder gives me sharp lo
ok.

  “I’m only listing our options,” I say quickly. “What about your people? Do you have any settlements outside Atlanta? Allies?”

  Alder shakes his head. “There’re some caravaners to the south we know, but they move around. No one wants to dig in too close to the heart of a company.”

  “What about your Latebra Congress? If we found another satellite phone or a different way to contact them, could they get help to us?”

  “Yes.” Alder presses his fingers against his mouth, and then shakes his head. “Maybe. But we don’t have a sat phone.”

  I huff, frustrated. “What about the Deacon? Don’t you at least have a guess where they might have gone?”

  Alder looks away, out at the deep green shadows of the forest around us. “She would have picked someplace remote, but we didn’t have enough diesel to get us out of AgraStar territory entirely. Sea islands off the east coast, maybe. Or west, someplace deep in the Smokies. Maybe even down as far as the Everglades.” He shakes his head. “Nowhere we can reach on what we have left in that tank.”

  Deep in the green, a cricket pulses.

  “We have to do something,” I say. “We have to try.”

  “It’s not worth it.”

  Pressure builds behind my eyes and in my throat. I shove myself out of the cab and stomp away, crushing the clover beneath my boots. How can he just give up? And how could I let this happen? It’s my fault. I should have come up with a better distraction. Something that didn’t involve the dogs. And if I weren’t so stupid, so caught up in making sure AgraStar was the one to figure out what to do with the seeds, I wouldn’t have taken them from him in the first place.

  I kick a fallen log, knocking away the rotten bark. If I were back at home, back on the compound, I would run or go out to the firing range until I had myself under control again. But I’m not. I’m here. And Alder’s going to die, and it will be my fault.

  I rub angrily at my eyes. No. He won’t. Not if I can help it. Maybe he’s given up, but I haven’t.

  I storm back to the jeep. He’s lying on the ground beside it, his good hand splayed out in the grass, his wounded arm tucked beside his chest. His eyes are closed.