Arkadium Rising (31 page)

"It's the nails-on-a-chalkboard, chipper 'Thanks!' at the end of the message. That gets me every time. It's bad news. It has to be. You know it's bad news because they want to set up a treatment plan. You don't set up treatment plans when the test results are negative."

"I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say. He almost reached out across to her, hoping she would take his hand. But he didn't, fearing rejection, fearing she might think he wanted something else from her than a moment of connection with someone who cared for her.

"Good night," she said after a time.

"Same to you."

Jason leaned back on the soft feather pillow. Kat curled up at his side. He stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of things.

After a number of minutes, he could hear Leah's breathing deepen with sleep. He looked over and her lips had parted slightly.

And then it all made sense. He was starting to have feelings for her. It would be hard not to. She was attractive, and they'd been through a lot together already. But it wasn't just that. He thought again about Delaney. She was a sexual creature, someone who used her physical wiles to bend the world to her will. She was all artifice. Even their quick stop at Happy's Qwik Serve wasn't real. And the thing about Leah was… she was real. He didn't know what to do about his feelings for her, not in this context. But he did know that he wanted to keep her safe, and that she made it a little easier to face the world in which they now lived.

Even though he was starting to feel feverish, and was so exhausted he felt like he could sleep for a day and a half, he suddenly felt wide awake. With nothing better to do, he decided to do what he'd lately found to be calming. He eased out of bed, trying hard not to let the squeaky bedsprings wake Leah, and fished his journal out from his pack.

By the time he settled back into bed with the journal propped in his lap, his feverish chill had become a clammy sweat. His every inch felt covered in it. He tried to ignore it. It was just his luck to catch a summer cold during the apocalypse. He wasn't about to let it get him down. Not with St. Louis looming. Not with the possibility that they would soon find a pocket of sanity in this insane world.

Jason began to write, and as had been the case since Marcus bullied him into taking up his pen, the words flowed.

1.

A sticky sweat coated Jason's face—now an undeniable fever-sweat—as he carried Kat in his arms out to Uncle Vince's Ford '40. Mike had pulled the truck up near the front porch and left the engine running, not wanting to chance it dying before they could leave the driveway. Jason's illness had only gotten worse after he finally set aside his writing pen and journal late the night before. Now his head pounded like a drum and his slight cough had ascended to the hacking variety. He'd taken one of Cora's pills with breakfast and so he was starting to feel woozy. He couldn't wait to doze while Mike drove the truck.

When he looked inside the passenger cab, Cora greeted him with a beaming smile. "This is so exciting! Vinny hasn't taken me to the zoo since we were practically kids."

Her green eyes sparkled with happiness. She wore a yellow lily-shaped broach on the lapel of her white cardigan sweater. The scent of floral dusting powder wafted out from the cab. It provided an unexpected and instant recollection of his own grandmother, a kind yet frail woman he hadn't thought about in years.

"You must be excited, too," Cora said. "Your cheeks are so flushed!"

"That must be it. Can you hold Kat while I help load the truck?"

"Can I?" Cora held out her hands and Kat leaped onto her lap. This joyed her to no end. "Aren't you just the sweetest little girl! Yes, you are, little sweetie-pie!"

With that settled, he headed back up to the porch steps just in time to hold the screen door open for Leah, who was carrying a box full of food staples that was almost as big as she was.

"Hold on." He stepped clear of her path and held the door as wide as it would go.

"Thanks," she said. "There's just a few more boxes, some sleeping bags, a tent… Are you okay?"

"I… yeah." A cough snuck up on Jason, sending a riot of pain shooting through his ribs. He held onto the porch railing as heat swarmed his face and his eyes rolled back of their own accord. He shook his head slightly and his vision cleared. "Just… this damn summer cold."

Leah set the box down on the porch swing and then pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. "You are burning up!"

"I know, I know. I took some Tylenol with codeine. That should take care of my fever and back pain. Two birds, one stone, that sort of thing."

"I don't know, Jason. Maybe you need to take more?"

"If I take another pill, I won't be able to stand for a week. I just need for us to get moving, then, I swear, I'll sleep all the way to St. Louis."

"Okay, fine. But maybe you should just wait in the truck. I can get the rest of the supplies to the truck while Mike's filling some five-gallon jugs with water. He'll be out in a minute and then we'll be on the road."

"Sounds like you're insisting."

"That I am, mister. Get moving." Leah lifted the box from the porch swing and headed down to the truck.

The front door opened but not quite all the way. "Dag nab it," Mike said as he struggled with the heavy plastic jug of water.

"Let me get that for you," Jason said.

"Just hold the door. I'll do the rest. I still feel like crap for letting you hurt your back while working on the truck."

"Seriously… no biggie…" Jason felt a wave of nausea. He pushed the inner storm door wide, and then stepped back to hold the screen door open. Mike held the jug to his belly and waddled through the doorway and down the steps, moving like he was about twelve months pregnant.

Jason glanced back inside the farmhouse and then headed out toward the humming truck. As his field of view shifted, his vision slowed and darkened as if someone had turned down a dial on the morning's sunlight. Half-blind and fearing the worst, he staggered away from the door, seeking the brighter light outside the shelter of the porch's overhang. The screen door slammed shut, and as he listlessly jumped back at the sound—a sound very much like an exploding m80 pressed against his skull—his feet tangled and he stumbled, but they connected with nothing but the air. The ground beneath him had disappeared. Darkness swept in like floodwater set loose after centuries of artificial restraint. It was violent, this unconditional surrender to the shadows. It purged anything illuminating within him, anything worth hoping for, anything pure.

He fell into the darkness, nerveless, unable to stop his descent. His body crashed against the broad, flat boards of the shady porch and his inertia sent him tumbling down the steps. He could feel his body settle and also that his eyes were open. He blinked and the darkness became absolute, and when he opened his eyes again, his vision resolved into a gray-hued landscape as bland as porridge.

The heat didn't relent; if anything it intensified. He felt trapped by it. He blinked again, and his vision brightened slightly as a cone-like tunnel vision formed above his head. Leah's concerned face shifted into view, and her cold, cold hands pressed against his forehead, his cheeks.

She was speaking to him, but only a handful of words reached his consciousness.

"Dear… I can't… sick…
Mike
!"

Jason turned his head slightly, and Mike's freshly-shaved pink face appeared above him, floating like an apparition, concern jostling his budding jowls.

"Stop… for him… No, there's no doc…"

Jason closed his eyes, feeling the heat gathering in his brain, gathering with such urgency that it felt like the best thing for him to do was just let every dam and every rampart within him fall, to let the heat invade every corridor of his consciousness until its heat turned him to gelatin.

Time slipped by. Minutes? Hours? He didn't know how long, but he sensed a cloud billowing beneath him. A cloud? No, perhaps a mattress? Cotton candy?

"Damn… stupid bitch! Thinking?" a new voice joined Mike and Leah's chorus. A familiar voice. A voice he'd hoped to never hear again. "Can't be… do something… He's my brother…"

My brother… my brother is dead to me. I never want to see him again. Ever since we were kids he's done nothing but try to ruin my life. To the point he's now destroying the world. He's the reason hundreds or even thousands of planes fell from the sky, impacting the planet like inert asteroids. He's the reason millions will die without access to medical care. He's the reason people will starve and die alone. He's the reason neighbor will strike down neighbor. He's the reason Monique is dead, and Dylan, and all the rest. He's the reason… I'm a killer. He's the reason I can't go another day in this world. He's the reason… the only reason…

2.

The truck rumbled beneath him. Jason opened his eyes and saw sunlight flickering through tree branches as the truck roared down a country road. It felt like the sunlight would burn his skin, blister it until it charred to black, turned to ash, turned to dust, blew away.

"He's awake!" someone next to him called out. "Marcus, he's awake!"

Mandy
.

He'd found him. Somehow his brother had found him.

Other people besides Mandy were in the truck bed with him; he could sense them hovering just out of sight. And he could also sense that they resented him with every fiber of their beings. They'd rather toss him from the moving truck than share the overheated air with him. His breathing was labored and when he tried to breathe deeply, his lungs crackled.

Mandy dabbed a cool cloth against his forehead, pressed some kind of compress into his wounded ribs. He saw her earnest expression. And he wanted to die.

"That was a close call, Jason Grant." She smiled the practiced, clinical smile reserved for caretakers when confronting the dying. "Shh… it's okay, Jason," she said, dabbing away.

His eyes and cheeks twitched and then she brought the cool cloth to his cheeks.

"You don't need to cry," she said. "He's not mad. He just… needs you."

Someone took hold of his hand, and he knew by the gentle, caring touch that it was Leah.

He turned, trying to see her, but with the sudden movement the darkness returned, pulling him down into its turbid floodwaters.

"Jason…"

He focused on her voice long after she uttered that single word. And when even that slipped from his awareness the firm pressure of her hand holding his became the limit of his existence.

3.

Jason swam through the darkness, seeking the surface of the floodwater. With every ounce of energy he fought against the sluggish water, reaching through the rippled waves, ever so close… ever so close to the gentle pressure—Leah's hand in his. That simple gesture allowed him to believe that madness hadn't appropriated life's every calm reassurance. That simple gesture allowed him to believe that life was still worth living, even in the face of such madness.

As he neared the surface of consciousness, he overheard one side of a heated conversation. It was Mandy's voice he heard, and she sounded tired and defeated.

"I've done what I can in the field."

"Well, for one, a sterile environment…"

"Possibly. But I can't see how that would do any good…"

"I'm not a surgeon... Yes, I could try…"

"Sure, but it'll likely kill him…"

Just before he could breach the surface of the floodwater, he felt the pressure he so desperately sought. Leah took hold of his hand. So warm. So gentle. Knowing that Leah was nearby allowed him to relax; he soon drifted beneath the waves, and as he sank deeper into the murk, the waves broke above him in a white-hot squall. The waves chased him down, thundering into him.

4.

The floodwater that had come so close to drowning him turned to steam, and the steam lifted the heat from his body.

As he lay immersed in the depths, the water surrounding him brightened and the waves above became dappled with golden light. His body began to rise from the depths, and when he finally reached the surface, Jason breathed. The cool night air entered his lungs without restraint, without the fear it might be his final breath. It was like the memory of being born.

"Welcome back, Jason." Soothing fingers brushed the sweaty hair back from his forehead, then traced his jawline. He felt a full beard under that touch.

His mind cleared enough for him to remember shaving the night he and Leah stayed at Aunt Cora's farmhouse.

"How… how long was I out?"

His vision had atrophied, cowed by the waking day. All he saw were shapes outlined in hazy, bright sunlight. He blinked several times and then rubbed his eyes with heavy hands. The shapes resolved to some degree.

The first thing he saw clearly was Leah's smile. That beautiful, coy smile.

"Nine days. We'd given up hope after two. But Mandy saved you. By the way, you didn't have a summertime cold."

"No, really?"

"It was some kind of lung infection. Mandy kept saying something about ARDs. You broke a couple of ribs, punctured a lung. If I didn't know better, I'd say that she weaved some kind of magic to keep you alive. Because you shouldn't be. You really shouldn't." She squeezed his hand, sending a flood of elation through him. "You weren't responding to her different kooky compresses and poultices, so she actually performed a minor operation. Right out here in the middle of nowhere, under the protection of a plastic tarp, Mandy cut you open, drained your infection, and administered antibiotics."

"And Marcus?" He already sensed the darkness lurking nearby, waiting to close in on him.

"Your brother couldn't be happier. He's so happy I could just about stab him in the heart."

"Never that…" Jason closed his eyes. He needed to regain his strength. He wasn't about to let Marcus spoil the innocent sanity that Leah represented. "Never…"