Forever Between (Between Life and Death Book 2) (8 page)

Emily eyes Savannah then seems to decide something. She says, “Listen, you can’t make judgments like that. You can’t make decisions about who is safe and who isn’t based on stuff like whether or not their wounds are healing.”

“I’m not saying anything bad about you. I’m not suggesting anything,” Savannah breaks in, her face alarmed. That’s an expression I can understand easily enough. It means she’s afraid we’ll send her out after Emily nearly got herself killed rescuing her a week ago.

Emily holds out a hand to stop her. “I know. Just listen. What I’m saying is that there are so many different kinds of nanites that you can’t tell who has what. The First Responders do one thing, the Heart Insure do another, the ones for diseases, the ones for Alzheimer’s—they all do something and you can’t be sure which cluster you’ve gotten from any single bite. Heck, you might get none. All I’m saying is that you can’t tell who has what. It’s best not to make assumptions.”

“Or better yet, just assume everyone has everything,” Charlie adds as he walks up to the loading platform where we’re clustered as we tend to Emily’s wounds. He plops down next to Savannah and bumps her with his shoulder. She gives him a tentative smile in return.

I’m still not sure what I think of these two new people. After a week, I probably should have some idea, but it’s hard to get used to having more people around. It’s amazing how a person can get used to such a restricted existence and then, when something comes along to ease the restrictions, actually resent it.

It might be Savannah’s age that does it to me. She’s older and she acts it, like she’s the expert on life before things went wrong. But really, she was a college student. How much could she know? And she was getting a literature degree. How does that prepare you for flesh-eating formerly dead folks? Answer: it does not.

That’s catty and I know it. I just need to get used to another opinion mattering. And Charlie is another problem. He’s a guy. Until now, we sort of didn’t have to worry about stuff like stripping down to wash or hanging our increasingly ragged underwear along lines all over the warehouses. It was just Emily and me and little Jon, and he still poops his pants sometimes so he’s got no room to complain if I fart after dinner. But now there’s this guy. And he’s just a year older than me and it’s making me nervous and self-conscious. I’ve not cared about whether or not I get a pre-menstrual zit on my nose, or if my hair is washed, or even if I comb it once between washes—I mean, really, once you put it into a braid, is there any actual reason to take it out until you wash it again?

Now, there’s a guy. A cute-ish guy. I’m not sure how I feel about this at all. Except, of course, life is much easier already and I can sleep through the night every other night. That’s awesome.

Emily coughs a fake little cough and when I look over, I see her and Savannah looking at me with identical smirks on their faces. I was staring at Charlie. I could pretty much sink into the concrete right now.

“I was just thinking about assuming that everyone has everything,” I lie.

It works, because Charlie says, “That means anyone who dies is a danger. That’s how I’m looking at it. If anyone here gets really sick, I say they should go into that cage over there. So I, for one, am glad she’s not getting any infections.”

Emily gives a start at his words, looks toward the dim area beyond the open loading bay door where the cage is, then quickly away as if seeing that enclosure of chain link is somehow painful to her. I know she had someone in there because I saw her cleaning it again and again after I first got here, but the others don’t know that.

“I’d agree with that,” Emily says, and makes to get up from the bag.

Savannah stops her with a hand on her forearm, the only place she isn’t scratched or bitten. “No, you stay still for a while in the sun. It’ll help. Or, at least, you being still and not getting dirty will help.”

At that, Emily huffs and flops back down. I stifle a grin. I’m not the only one having trouble adjusting to having more people around.

Jon toddles over and sits down on her sleeping bag. “Squish,” he says, which means he wants her to move over. She does and he lies down in the crook of her arm.

So, this is it,
I think.
This is what family is like.

I guess I could get used to it.

Today - Deaders, Deaders, All in a Line

I thought it would be painful to get back on the bike, and to be fair, there was a tender moment between my butt and the bike saddle when I first climbed on, but overall, it’s fine. We make good time and the vast empty stretch as we near the military base gives us a little relief from the constant watching for any sign of humans or non-humans.

As the highway widens and we get nearer to the city, the riding is easier and the number of deaders actually diminishes. I hadn’t expected that. I’d thought that a few hundred-thousand inhabitants going in-betweener would have meant we would wind up sneaking through as quietly as possible.

Sam once told me that the military bases were still going after he holed up. He knew because he saw their trucks and plenty of neatly uniformed people going out and mowing down in-betweeners in the streets with gunfire aimed with peculiar precision at the heads of the afflicted. That’s how he figured out that it was the heads that needed to be destroyed in the first place, he’d said.

The problem was that the military simply shot everyone they saw, not because they wanted to kill people, but because it wasn’t always easy to tell who was an in-betweener and who wasn’t. Back then, they were still wearing their clothes and seasons outside hadn’t taken such a toll on their bodies. There were only a few times that Sam was ever able to make contact safely, and each time they told him the same thing.

Stay put. Stay hidden. Take these supplies. We’ll get this sorted out. Be patient.

But, by the time Sam found me, there were no more such forays and I never once saw a truck—military or otherwise—enter within viewing range of our windows. And I’d joined him and the other kids just a few months after things happened, when Jon was still tiny and drinking from bottles made with formula labeled as disaster relief supplies. So, the military must have been working for a while, just not long enough.

With tiny kids in his care, there was no way for Sam to bring all of us out here without being sure that the military was still around and helping those who might be left. We couldn’t have kept the babies quiet enough or moved fast enough to get here with our hides intact. There was simply no way to bring them to safety. Likewise, it was far too great a distance for Sam to go alone, not with us relying on his return. And once Emily found me, she didn’t believe there was anything at the military base except in-betweeners and deaders wearing military uniforms. And she wouldn’t hear of me—or anyone else—going there to find out, even to get help for her as she got worse.

We’re about to find out now. A sign almost covered in kudzu tells us to turn left for the main gate. Three miles.

Charlie let’s his bike roll to a stop and I pull up next to him. “Okay. Now we strategize,” he says, and reaches for the map. On the back of it there are a few blown-up sections of important things around this city, including one that details the area around the base. Inside the confines of the base, there’s nothing but green blankness on the map, but all that surrounds it—commissary, exchange, medical, visitor center, etcetera—are laid out in meticulous detail.

Heads together over the section, we both look down and then back up at the real world around us, trying to marry up the two visuals. I already know what we’re going to do, but I’ve mentioned before that Charlie is rather thorough about things, so I hold off.

“So, we need the old road that goes around the base, past the houses Emily talked about in that old neighborhood, and then onto the access road. From there, we just join up with the road that goes directly to the hospital. That sound about right?”

I nod and say, “We’ll be able to see the base near the flight line during part of our ride. I want to see if there’s anyone around.”

We share a drink of water, both of us tense now that we’re getting close to our goal. I’m afraid and I know Charlie is too, but we’ve come this far so there’s no going back. I’m not so much afraid of coming up on deaders or in-betweeners, because that’s our daily life. What I’m afraid of is what I might find. What if the hospital has burned to the ground? What if it’s occupied with a thousand deaders? What if the military is there and doesn’t feel like sharing any nanites?

We come upon the first pile of burned bodies a mile before we get to the turn off. It’s almost a little mountain really, at least two stories tall. It’s old, no longer stinking of decay, and only carrying the faintest traces of scent from the long finished burning. The forms inside the piles are black and gray and still, mercifully still. All of us know that burning works, but the amount of burnable fuel required and the resulting smoke means we don’t do that downtown. It’s not like there’s a fire department to come to the rescue if a fire gets out of hand.

Every block or so there’s another pile. Some are bigger than others, but even the smallest one must have a hundred bodies in it. I’m not stopping to count or anything, but that’s the impression I get. Charlie keeps searching the area as we ride, his lips pursed and eyes vigilant, but I can’t stop myself from staring at the piles. Who were these people? Were they from the neighborhood we’re coming up on or were they people who came here for shelter? Are they military members or civilians? The piles invite so many questions. At any rate, these piles explain why I’m seeing so few deaders.

Before we cross the main intersection that leads into the older housing development ringing one side of the base property—one that had been involved in many court cases over jet noise over the years—we settle our weapons more readily for drawing and check our loads to be sure nothing is hanging off or easy to grab.

“We go fast through this area. Okay?” I confirm, my nervousness showing.

Charlie gives me a grim nod, just one single dip of his head, and looks toward the street we’ll be going down. He’s readying himself for whatever gauntlet we’ll have to get through. I don’t think it will be thick with deaders or in-betweeners—thanks to those piles—but there could be people around. That’s what I’m worried about.

The neighborhood street ahead is lined with crepe myrtle trees. They usually bloom all summer here, making old neighborhoods like this amazing to see, covered in color. Even from where we are, I can see hints of hot pink. Though mostly green, the lack of tending and pruning means that they’ve gone wild and a few spots are blooming early. From here I can see piles of old leaves covering the sides of the road, masking any debris that might be waiting to pierce our tires or, even worse, rise up and try to grab us.

We hit our pedals at the same time, working up speed as we cross the once-busy five lane main drag. A rustling train of leaves lifts behind our tires before settling again as we disturb the litter everywhere.

The neighborhood is a mess. Fires have broken out here and there, leaving some of the houses gutted and second stories open to the sky. Most houses are boarded up, some of them using pieces of other houses to do the boarding up. There aren’t many deaders at all, so I’m guessing that those piles of bodies must consist of at least some of the people who lived here. Like other places, I can feel the emptiness, the eerie sense of disuse and abandonment in the air. If there are people here, they are well hidden and entrenched.

It takes forever to get through the neighborhood, but aside from an inexplicable line of deaders laid out across the road—side by side, head to foot and weighted to the ground with bags of cement and topsoil—there’s not even a hint of human activity. No old smells of cooking, no trails where people might have walked through the blankets of old leaves. Nothing. All we see is that line of sluggishly moving deaders on the road and a scattering of them, all in terrible shape, tottering about the yards. If I squint my eyes, I can almost convince myself they’re just people working on their flower beds during a sunny, weekend afternoon.

Once we get to the end of the neighborhood, there’s a large fence and an adjoining field that marks the boundary to the base. As I get closer to that fence, I feel a palpable sense of relief. Maybe it’s that the canopy of trees ends and the sky feels more open, or simply that the empty eyes of the houses are gone, but I hear Charlie’s hard exhale just behind me and know he feels the same. We hurry our bikes up into the field and toward the fence before we stop.

“That was weird,” Charlie says. “I was so creeped out I couldn’t tell if we were being watched. I felt like the whole neighborhood was watching us. And what was up with those deaders?”

“No clue,” I answer, wiping sweat from my face. “A warning, maybe?”

“Of what? It’s not like we don’t know that there are deaders around, right?”

“I don’t know, Charlie. I have no clue. Give me some water.”

We share a drink and scope out the wide field around the airstrips for the base. There’s a lot of bare ground, no trees, but it’s been overgrown by tall weeds and grass. There’s no way to see anything that might be shorter than waist height within it. That would include immobile deaders, but also any military on duty, crouched and watching for intrusion.

Beyond the field, the flat line of one of the runways shows up clearly. It’s too far away for me to tell if it’s in good shape or being used, but it looks flat and dark gray. I’ve not heard a plane since my parents were around, but you never know.

There are two big planes. I’m not sure what they’re called, but I know they are the sort that usually carry cargo, big-bellied and round-nosed. They’re at the far end of the runway, not far from one of the big hangars. One of the planes has its rear end flipped up into the air, but that’s as much as I can see. Details the size of a human are lost at this distance, but I don’t see any obvious movement.

“Let’s go,” Charlie says. “I don’t like this open space.”