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  “It’s all right.” I put a hand on his arm. “It’s only—”

  Another bolt, and the air cracks. The sound echoes through my chest, like an explosion. I can see the R&D facility going up in a bright plume and the shock wave coming at me again, even though my eyes are open.

  “Tempest.” Alder is shaking me. “Tempest!”

  I come to myself again. I have Alder’s sleeve in a sweaty grip and I’m doubled over, panting.

  “Sorry.” I unclench my fingers. They ache, as if they’ve been locked in that position too long.

  “It’s okay.” Alder hesitates, then reaches for my hand.

  I look at our entwined fingers, and then at him. Sweat plasters his dark hair to his forehead. His hand is too hot.

  He turns his head away, but he doesn’t let go. “It’s going to be okay.”

  The rain keeps up all through the night. We trudge along the edge of the highway, too tired to speak. At least we have enough to drink. Near dawn, we pass an old road sign.

  ATLANTA 42

  I stop and chew on my lip. Through the mist, I catch glimpses of old housing developments flanking both sides of the road. Their uniform white backs look like ghosts, where they aren’t overrun by kudzu vines. The closer we get to Atlanta, the firmer hold AgraStar will have. We’ll have to go off-road soon if we want to avoid their patrols. I glance at Alder. He sits by the road, rocking back and forth and shivering. He’s past the forty-eight hour mark. Time is running out.

  I take a seat beside him.

  “I’m not going to make it another day.” Alder stares straight ahead, at a tangle of honeysuckle wrapped around an old sign on the opposite side of the road.

  I focus on the toes of my boots. “I know.”

  “I need your help.” Alder looks at me. “You promised.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I look at the ghost houses and the honeysuckle bobbing in the rain. “But I will now.”

  I unzip my backpack and hand Alder the tiny bottle of morphine. “I found this back at the station.”

  Alder turns it over in his hands. A little under a third of the clear liquid is left. “You think that’s enough?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. Seems like it should at least be enough to put you to sleep. Keep you from feeling it if I have to . . .” I gesture at my gun.

  Alder nods and hands the bottle back to me. “Let’s do it.”

  “What, now?”

  He leans over his knees. “Why not now?”

  “You’ve still got half a day left, maybe more.” I clutch the bottle tight. “We could still find help.”

  He gestures at the deserted road. “You really think we’re going to find anyone but AgraStar patrols and jackers out here?”

  I shrug. “It’s possible.”

  He scoffs. “I’m ready, Tempest. You’ve got to do it before I lose my nerve.”

  “No.” I stand. “Not yet.”

  “But why? You promised—”

  “Because I’m not ready.” I turn and start walking, my back to Alder so he won’t see the tears brimming in my eyes or the way I’m twisting my face to keep them from falling. It’s not so much the thought of doing it. I’m a sniper. I’m trained for this. But I don’t want to be alone out here. I don’t want to be the only one to remember the place we came from and what the world was like before it ended.

  Alder catches up to me. “Tempest . . .”

  “Tonight, okay? If we haven’t found help by tonight, I’ll do it. I swear.”

  The rain finally slacks off in the afternoon. The thick, sloping stacks of a nuclear power plant appear above the tree line, belching clouds of white steam.

  “We should get off the road.” Alder nods at the plant. “Lots more roadblocks and patrols whenever those things are nearby.”

  The ground to our west slopes up to a low ridge covered with trees. We follow it, walking in silence over the damp mulch of old pine needles, the highway visible below us to the left. Alder hums under his breath, a slow, sad tune I can barely hear over our footfalls.

  I slow to walk beside him. “What’s that song?”

  He looks up, as if he’s suddenly woken from a reverie. “It’s just an old song, something my father would sing. I sang it to Eden once, but she said it was too sad to hear again.”

  I keep my eyes on the ground. “Will you sing it for me?”

  He looks at me sidelong, but then wets his lips. His voice starts low and off-key.

  “Cold blows the wind to my true love,

  And gently drops the rain

  I never had but one true love

  And in the greenwood she lies slain . . .”

  Alder’s voice breaks, but then he finds it again.

  “How oft on yonder grave, sweetheart,

  Where we were wont to walk,

  The fairest flower that I e’er saw

  Has withered to a stalk.

  “When will we meet again, sweetheart?

  When will we meet again?

  When the autumn leaves that fall from the trees

  Are green and spring up again.”

  “She’s right,” I say. “It’s too sad.”

  “Was,” Alder corrects. “She was right.”

  “Let’s stop and rest,” I say quickly. Better not to dwell on these things. Better to keep our minds on the present, or else Eden and Ellison and all the rest will be there when we close our eyes.

  We sleep, and wake, and walk again. Another volley of jets streaks overhead, but we’re well hidden by the trees, and we’re not their target, anyway. The afternoon thunderstorm rolls in, just as my clothes are finally drying off from the morning’s rain. I glance at Alder every few minutes. His pace has slowed, but his expression hasn’t altered. He’s getting worse. I don’t think he’s changed his mind.

  Sunset comes, then dusk.

  Alder stops. “Tempest.”

  “Not yet,” I say. “Another mile or two.”

  We trudge on through the dark. Fireflies glow among the pine trees, and night insects take up their song.

  Ahead, the road straightens, and a steady light breaks the darkness.

  I hold out a hand. “Someone’s there.” Hope and fear fill my heart.

  We pick our way forward, moving quietly through the woods. As we close in, I see that the light is coming from flood lamps, dead center in the road, surrounded by vehicles.

  “Stay here.” I shove the morphine and syringes, and then, after a moment of hesitation, my gun, into Alder’s hands. “I’ll see what it is. If I don’t come back . . .”

  Alder nods, his face pale.

  I creep forward, heart hammering in my ears, and stop behind the cover of trees a dozen yards away. Two armored trucks block the road on one side, while a personnel carrier does the same on the opposite set of lanes. Five guards kitted out with M4s and body armor mill around behind the floodlights, and a midsize drone circles above, buzzing like a thousand flies. AgraStar.

  Bile collects in my throat. I crawl back, deeper into the forest. That drone probably has heat sensors, and I don’t want to be in its range when it swings around. When I think I’m safe, I run.

  Alder looks up as I crash through the trees. “Is it . . .”

  “AgraStar.” I drop down beside him, breathing hard. I close my hand over his, the one holding the morphine bottle. “You don’t have to . . . We could try turning ourselves over.”

  Alder shakes his head. “No.”

  “Will it really be worse than—”

  “Yes.” He pulls his hand free and pops the plastic cap from the top of the syringe. “You still don’t get it.”

  “Or maybe you’re so bent on hating them you don’t see that they could save you.”

  “I wasn’t born yesterday,” he says. “I don’t trust them.”

  He holds the syringe and morphine bottle out to me, but I hesitate.

  “You said you would.” He scowls. “You swore.”

  My hands tremble as I take the vial and fit the tip of
the syringe through the hole in the thick metal foil. I draw out everything I can, everything that’s left.

  “Flick it,” Alder says. “Get out the air bubbles.”

  He holds out his arm, takes a deep, shaky breath, and then looks up and meets my eyes. “I’m ready.”

  I slide the needle into the soft flesh of his inner arm, close my eyes, and depress the plunger. Alder lets out a breath.

  I open my eyes and draw out the needle. “Do you feel anything?”

  “Not yet.” He leans back against a tree trunk.

  I rub at the dirt on my fingers. “Should have washed my hands first, huh?” I joke.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes. I sift through my nearly empty backpack, picking out pieces of the broken sat phone and chucking them into the woods. Even if I could fix it, there’s no use for it now.

  “Tempest?”

  “Hmm?” I look up.

  “Will you sing me a song?”

  “What kind of song?” I ask.

  “Anything,” he says. “Something you remember from when you were a kid.”

  I glance around the woods, as if I’ll find one there. “I don’t remember any.”

  “None?”

  “Not the kind you mean.” All the songs I know are AgraStar training chants or songs the children on the compound were taught about cleaning up or praising sharecroppers. I don’t have any from before that, from the white-tiled room, or the flower around my finger, or my father before the neat bullet hole in his forehead.

  Alder raises a hand to his eyes. “I think I’m starting to feel it.”

  I shift closer to him. “We should sing your song again.”

  He raises an eyebrow, and his head lolls back against the bark. “I thought you said it was too sad.”

  “I can be sad if it helps,” I say.

  He nods, and I start, haltingly, unsure of the words.

  “Cold blows the wind to my true love . . .”

  We sing it through once, and then again, until we reach the autumn leaves.

  Alder stops. “Eden,” he whispers, and then he is still.

  .17.

  HEMLOCK

  CONIUM MACULATUM

  I press my ear to Alder’s chest. His heart beats slow and weak, and his breath comes so shallow I can barely feel it. I wait what feels like an hour, but could be ten minutes, then check again. Still beating. Still breathing.

  It must not have been enough. I was hoping it would be easy and gentle, that Alder could simply go to sleep in the woods. Now I have to shoot a drugged and sleeping boy.

  I stand, put on my backpack, check my rounds. I’ll have to run. The gun’s report will reach the roadblock, for sure. I flick off the safety, raise my weapon, and brace my arms.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and move my finger to the trigger. Ellison’s face flashes before mine, then Danica, and Will, and the rest of my team. Eden is on the ground with Rosalie and all those children on the bunker floor. The sky is blood and fire, and the earth is rot, creeping ever closer.

  I drop my arms. “Shit.”

  I turn away, click the safety back on. I walk ten steps into the woods, then back again. You can do this. It’s what he wanted. It’s no different from what you’ve done a hundred times before, guarding the perimeter.

  But it is. Because now I know him. He isn’t some shape moving through the grass at night. He’s a boy named Alder who fell in love once and sings sad songs, who can catch a rabbit with shoelaces. He may think he’s going to heaven, to Eden, but what if he’s wrong? What if there’s nowhere else after this?

  I stare into the darkness. Lightning bugs pulse in and out of view, little flashes of phosphorescence. I wipe my eyes. We hardly ever saw them at the compound. The pesticides kept them away, but sometimes they would blink at us from the forest beyond the perimeter fence. I used to stare at them from up in the guard tower, hungry for some pattern, some Morse code message, but I never saw one.

  One of them lands on me, its tiny feet tickling my skin.

  “Mira, Papi, luces!”

  “Se llaman luciérnagas, cielo. Fireflies.”

  My father’s voice rushes over me like a cool wind. I shiver. What would he tell me if he were here?

  “Let the boy die, cielo. It’s what he wants.”

  But my father isn’t here. He’s gone. He was never the one left behind. If he knew what it has been like for me, alone all these years, would he say the same thing?

  I feel for the bag of seeds. If the blight is still spreading, if the firebreaks can’t stop it, AgraStar will need them and the information I can give them about what happened back at the compound more than ever. Maybe enough to bargain for a human life or two.

  I know what I promised. I know what I decided. But looking down at Alder’s broken body, I can’t drum up that same feeling of certainty I had at the billboard. How can I balance a life, a boy I know, an ally, against some conviction? He’s flesh and bone, solid and lying in front of me, and I can’t trade that reality for any belief, any what-might-be. It may not be what Alder wanted, but I can’t give him that. I can’t pull the trigger. And if I can’t do him that mercy, at least I can try to keep him alive. Even if it means betraying him.

  I walk down the center of the road, my hands held high. I see the floodlights, and then the trucks and guards. The drone buzzes overhead. A harsh blue-white spotlight surrounds me, brighter and colder than sunshine.

  “Unidentified individual,” a hollow voice booms from the drone. “Halt. Do not come any closer.”

  I stop, all my nerve endings crackling with fear.

  “I’m Tempest Torres.” I shout over the drone’s hum. “I survived the attack on compound SCP-52. I have information about blight counteractive measures. Request asylum and medical attention.”

  The drone hovers silently for a moment. Then a different voice crackles over its speakers, a woman’s voice, clipped and rough.

  “Place your hands on your head and get on your knees. No sudden movements. We’ll come to you.”

  My stomach flips, but I obey, closing my eyes against the blue light.

  Boots approach. I open my eyes and squint into the glare. A team of five stands before me, two of them fixed on me, the others scanning the woods around us with LED beams clipped to their rifles.

  “Are you armed?” The guard’s voice matches the one from the drone.

  I nod. “In my holster.”

  “Don’t move.”

  A second guard approaches and pulls my nine-millimeter from my hip. He hands it to the older woman. “AgraStar standard issue.”

  “Anything else?” she asks me.

  I shake my head.

  She nods. “Pat her down.”

  The guard briskly runs his hands down my back and legs. I tense as he brushes over the bag of seeds inside my pocket, but he’s looking for weapons, not contraband.

  He steps back. “She’s clean.”

  “You can get up.” The lead guard keeps her weapon trained on me. “Where are your coms?”

  “I was captured.” I rub my wrist. “They tore it off me.”

  She nods. “You say you have information about blight countermeasures?”

  “I do.” I straighten my spine, make myself stand tall. “But I have conditions.”

  One of the other guards scoffs, and the woman’s expression hardens. “Your contract with AgraStar should be all the assurance you need.”

  “It should be,” I say. “But it isn’t.”

  “Captain,” the guard who patted me down says. “We’re exposed out here, and she’s got nothing. We should turn her away or put her down.”

  “You could do that.” I try to keep my voice steady. “But I was there on the ground when the blight released, and I’m still alive.”

  The guards look at each other.

  “What conditions?” the captain finally asks.

  I let my breath go. “There’s a boy with me, back in the woods. He h
elped me get out. But now he’s sick. Unconscious.”

  The captain shakes her head. “If you think we’re bringing disease back—”

  “It’s not like that,” I say. “The Red Hand had him. They keep rabid dogs. He got bitten while we were trying to escape.”

  One of the guards whistles, and another sucks in a breath.

  “Rabies?” Pity wars with distaste on the captain’s face. “How long ago was he bitten?”

  “Almost three days,” I say. “But there’s still time. You have the vaccine.”

  “And you want us to give it to him?” The captain says. “That’s your condition?”

  “Yes.” I squeeze my hands into fists. “We have seeds from a plant that survived the blight. Cure him, and I’ll tell you where they are.”

  The captain shakes her head. “We’ll cure him, but you tell us where the seeds are first. That’s the deal.”

  I stare at her. There’s no backing out. She’s the one with the guns and the thing I need. Alder is running out of time. She has me, and she knows it. Slowly I reach into my pocket and draw out the plastic bag. One of the guards snatches it from me.

  “This is it?” the captain asks.

  I nod.

  She looks uneasily at the woods, and then at me. “All right. You lead the way to the boy. But anything even feels off, and I’m dropping you. No questions.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I agree.

  I walk a few feet ahead of the AgraStar team, the drone overhead, sweeping its light across the trees. I keep my hands out and to the sides, where the guards can see them.

  We find Alder where I left him, lying on his back in a copse of trees several yards off the freeway. One of the guards presses his head to Alder’s chest, while another takes his pulse. They look at the captain. She nods, and they roll him over on his stomach, pull his arms behind him, and bind his wrists with zip ties.