Haven (32 page)

Mei blinked. “You…You haven’t been outside?”

“We’ve gone as far down as the third floor,” Ms. Kremil explained from the room’s entrance. “It houses the cafeteria and we needed food, but we ran into…” Her eyes skipped to the little boy tucked beneath his mother’s comforting arm. “…obstacles.”

“We’ve taken care of those,” I said, plainly.

It was such an understatement they didn’t appear to believe me.

“Manuel, let’s give them some space,” Ms. Kremil suggested, but the Hispanic man didn’t move.

“Did you see anyone else out there?” he persisted.

“Yes,” Beverly replied. “Plenty.”

She was being sarcastic, referring to the Infected, but Manuel didn’t know Beverly or her penchant for mockery.

“See?” he snapped at Ms. Kremil. “You keep us here, make us believe there are no survivors. But our families, they’re waiting for us!”

Ms. Kremil stepped up, tired and uninterested in dealing with Manuel and what seemed to be another outburst of rebellion. They launched into an argument that gave me the impression this had all been played out before, but I didn’t bother staying to listen to it. In the midst of the shouting, I left the room and made my way down the hall to a private office. Inside sat a desk, a chair, a few whiteboards mounted to the walls, and stacks of papers strewn across the desk. It was a cold, unwelcoming office, designed to appeal to its owner, who surely had lost his or her humanity during the pursuit of scientific research. In short, it felt insensitive, and it perfectly suited my current state of being.

I collapsed against the wall beneath the window and laid the rifle across my lap, ignoring the argument still raging in the boardroom. That’s when it began, the silent, invisible ripping across my chest, the gutting of my heart.
Harrison is gone
, my mind told me, attempting to work through this concept.
Harrison is gone
. I caved against the void it created, folding my body over to keep the emptiness from spreading, but it was too late. It crept up my neck, down my shoulders and along my arms, finding its way to my legs and leaving them worn and lifeless. I couldn’t have moved if I wanted. The weight of Harrison’s loss left me motionless, speechless, dead.

I had felt numbness before, when my dad didn’t come home. And once again, I was consumed by the injustice of loss, a sense that time had been cut too short, and the sensation of isolation. But this time was different, it carved a special wound, one that badgered me as I sat there against the wall…

I’d never told Harrison that I loved him.

He had told me. He’d found the courage. He’d handed over his heart to me. He’d made himself vulnerable and exposed. He’d fought through, and defeated, that icy protection he’d formed around himself.
Why hadn’t I?

WHY HADN’T I?

He had deserved to know the truth…That my heart ached for him, that without him it was hard to breath, that my soul felt whole with him near and incomplete with him gone, that within a world filled with unjust circumstances and dark, desolate futures, he had become all I needed to survive.

I cringed against the pain for an indeterminate amount of time, during which I heard footsteps shuffling along the carpet into and out of the office. There were whispers and the constant fade and return of the sound of rustling clothes.

“Maybe he made it. Maybe he was able to get away…”

“It’s been fourteen hours, Mei. It’s dark out and he’s not…I don’t think…I don’t know how he could have…”

With that sentiment, my fingernails dug into my pant legs and my face winced against the tears beginning to fight their way out. Mei noticed and approached me, sliding down the wall to place an arm over my shoulders. I curled into her embrace and let my body shake from the sobs consuming me. My knees folded into my chest and my head sank down against them as I leaned on Mei, in so many ways.

“I’m in love with Harrison, Mei. I love him.”

“That’s really good to hear,” said a relaxed voice from the door. It was out of place, entirely, because it was nonchalant and lined with playfulness. “I love you, too, Kennedy.”

Before my head could even snap up, I recognized the voice. It was one that had led me, literally, through my worst nightmares. Yet even as my eyes darted to its source, my mind refused to believe what I was seeing.

“So quick to write me off, huh?” he said with a smile. “I thought you had faith in my abilities…”

And there he was…whole, healthy, and teasing me, lit by the candles lining the room and the hallway beyond it.

I was overwhelmed. I pushed myself upright, and suddenly, I ran for him, throwing myself in his arms. I began feverishly kissing him, leaning into him and caressing the muscles that rippled down his back as he held me close. He kissed me with the same intense passion he’d shown the first time our lips touched, leaving me breathless and wanting more, wanting all of him.

“How?” I asked through a kiss. “How…?”

He chuckled and pulled away long enough to answer. “It took some maneuvering, but I lost them. Sat the last few hours on a rooftop and then snuck back here, found the keys in the guard’s booth, and here I-”

I kissed him again, deeply, before stepping back. “Don’t you ever! EVER! DO! THAT! AGAIN! EVER! Don’t you leave me again! I don’t want to live without you, Harrison. I can’t. I won’t. Because I love you. Life isn’t worth living without you. Do you understand? NEVER do that again.”

He let me finish my rant before calmly explaining with admirable patience, “I needed to lead them away or they’d have surrounded us like they had at school. I couldn’t risk that again not when I knew you were inside.”

“Tell me that you won’t do it again,” I demanded and waited for his reply, squaring up my shoulders to show I was serious.

He took them tenderly in his hands and grinned. “I won’t,” he said and his eyes grew serious, “ever leave you again…”

Ms. Kremil, who had been watching, scoffed and muttered something about ‘young love’ before disappearing back inside the boardroom. Doc laughed and stepped forward to slap Harrison on the shoulder.

“Welcome back.”

“Thanks,” he said with a nod of respect.

Mei sighed, contentedly making her way to the door while Beverly sneered.

“What is it with the abnormal people always surviving?”

“You’re alive, aren’t you?” Doc reminded her, to which she rolled her eyes.

“Good to see you again,” she mumbled before shrugging away the discomfort of admitting it.

Harrison tipped his head toward the boardroom. “So is that Marion Kremil?” There was some hesitancy in his tone, which I understood. He and I were the only two who knew she was trying to find Harrison for reasons that remained a mystery to us. Apparently, he was ready to figure out why.

“Come meet the rest of the group,” Mei suggested, starting toward the room.

Harrison drew in a deep breath and did something I hadn’t been expecting. He took my hand and walked with me into the room. At first, I thought it was for a show of solidarity, him and me against the world. But by the time we entered the room and our hosts had introduced themselves, I knew it was because he didn’t want me to stray too far from him again. When it came time for us to introduce ourselves, Beverly announced her name first, adding her traditional, “like the Hills” appendage. Doc and Mei had already greeted them and knew everyone by name. I tipped my head at the room, thanked them for letting us in, and gave them my name. And then it was Harrison’s turn. By this time Ms. Kremil had taken one of the flashlights and had circled the room toward him with an expression of speculation on her face.

Eyeing her as she advanced, he tipped his head at them. “I’m Harrison-”

“Huntington,” Ms. Kremil finished before he had a chance to.

Doc, Mei and Beverly glanced at each other in confusion and returned to Ms. Kremil.

“Do you know each other?” Mei asked.

Ms. Kremil didn’t seem to hear her, continuing her advancement until she was within arm’s reach of Harrison.

In a show of good southern manners, he extended his hand in greeting, which she seized at the wrist before whipping it around to the soft underside.

“Harrison,” she said tightly. “I need a sample of your blood.”

~ 13 ~

“
W
HAT THE FU-”
B
EVERLY UTTERED.
D
OC
and I moved to separate Ms. Kremil from Harrison, nudging her so closely that she was forced to release Harrison’s arm. Mei took a more respectful approach.

“Why do you want Harrison’s blood?”

Ms. Kremil’s eyebrows furrowed before answering. “He hasn’t told you?”

Beverly’s head jerked forward.”Told us what…exactly?”

Ms. Kremil’s face contorted again, deeper into confusion as she glanced at Harrison. “You didn’t mention-” she began to say until her voice faded away. After her face contorted in bewilderment, she started again. “You didn’t say a word to them?”

“About what?” Beverly demanded. Her bottom lip was puffed up, reminding me of a whining toddler.

Ms. Kremil tipped her head back and shook it in wonder. “He is the reason we are here now. All of us. Each and every one.”

For once, Beverly’s sarcasm was to our benefit. She scoffed and replied, “I don’t know about you, but I’m here because a bunch of psychotic cannibals broke into our school.”

Harrison, who had been docile the entire altercation, suddenly asked in a far nicer tone than I would have, “What are you talking about, Ms. Kremil?”

She took a moment to close her eyes and work through her astonishment. When she opened them, they were filled with renewed vigor. “Come with me.”

She led us down the hall to the office where’ I’d been slouching against the wall in misery only a few minutes earlier. Heading directly for the desk and shifting through papers, she seemed to be looking for visual tools to explain whatever it was she needed to.

We remained just inside the door, waiting. Doc and Mei appeared perplexed while Beverly’s wore her usual disgusted expression, as if she thought the woman had lost her mind. She may have, but one of the reasons they were waiting so patiently for Ms. Kremil’s explanation was because they had seen themselves that Harrison was different. And they wanted answers. If she could provide them, they’d stay in place until she confirmed it one way or another. Only Harrison stepped forward, and he did so in a curiously defensive manner, which was explained by his next question.

“Why are you in my aunt’s office?” he asked, not hiding his confusion.

“Your…aunt’s?” I said, stumbling through my question in shock. Looking at the edge of the desk, I noticed a very dated, wooden and brass nameplate. It was engraved with the name Eve Kelly.

Eve.

The name he had mentioned her by on the first day of the outbreak, a day that felt like an incredibly long time ago.

She gave Harrison a fleeting look and resumed her hunt across the desk. “Your aunt didn’t tell you anything, did she?”

“About what?”

“About what she was doing here.”

“She’s trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s,” Harrison said.

It was absolutely clear he was as puzzled as the rest of us. Even Ms. Kremil stopped her search to assess him for several long seconds before discarding her efforts on the desk. She directed an irritated frown at it and then came around the edge in order to lean against the front. Before beginning to speak, she shifted her position on it and it looked like she planned to be there for a while.

“It started in the major metropolitan cities, nearly every one of them around the world. Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Chicago,” she emphasized. “Bangkok, Hong Kong, London, Johannesburg, Paris, Rio de Janeiro. It hit every continent in a nearly simultaneous timeframe.”

Mei gawked at Ms. Kremil and then cut her off. “But how? How could that happen? There are…There must have been safeguards in place.”

Ms. Kremil drew in a deep, distraught breath and began again. “Oh, they followed them, but Ezekiel Labs was about to go under. Being under time constraints, they pushed for an aggressive Phase III clinical test…human trials. The virus had been tested on animals and since Phase II trials showed no effect….” Ms. Kremil shrugged to indicate Ezekiel Labs’ indifference. “But animals wouldn’t have reacted. A bovine serum was used… Animals are immune.” She paused to discount this assertion which had been realized too late to be of any good. “So, in a brilliant promotional effort, they launched Phase III. They figured…why wait to get the word out? Launch worldwide, demonstrate the impact of its effectiveness, word would spread.” In summary, she added, “The trials would be their advertisement.”

As we stared back at Ms. Kremil, astounded by what we were hearing, Mei summed up our thoughts perfectly when she muttered under her breath, “Amazing…”

Ms. Kremil nodded once, sharply, in agreement. “When the first test case in the clinical trial was given the T1L2 virus, that person immediately experienced a flesh-eating psychosis. And that first injection was all it took. The research subjects weren’t strapped down, or guarded. No doors were locked, no one in the reception areas or the waiting rooms had any indication the trial had gone wrong until it was too late. The virus spread rapidly. Within two days, the cities were devastated, some were nuked while others simply…went under. The rural areas began to be affected by the third day. Now there are pockets of survivors but…there’s no telling when they can be rescued, or
if
they can be rescued.”