Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (25 page)

“So we stay here. We set up our own camp and take small missions out to look for the person we came for.”

“The scientist,” he concluded.

“Right.”

“And what happens when we don’t come back?” he asked, challenging me.

“If,” I said.

“When.”

“
Whether
we come back shouldn’t make a difference to them.”

“It will if they can’t protect themselves,” he remarked.

“Then we train them.”

Again, he took time to contemplate my point.

“We’ve done it before,” I argued. “Doc, Mei…Beverly, of all people.”

He considered this for a few minutes, both of us watching the group below us. Their laughter, probably the first in months, floated up and the significance of the moment wasn’t lost on either of us.

“They deserve someone who will defend them at any cost.”

“We can do that.”

He swung his head until he’d caught my attention, his intense stare, the one that always stirred me, returned. “
I
can’t.”

I felt my expression shift into confusion.

“I can’t have that many people so close to me, Kennedy. I can’t have that many people relying on me.”

“Why?”

Then finally,
finally
he confessed to me the reason he flatly, painfully refused to accept the role of a leader when so many people needed him so desperately. “There’s something no one has brought up yet. I’ve been waiting for it but it hasn’t been voiced, at least not while I’m in earshot. I can guarantee that Mei has talked about it with Doc. He’s diligent after I’ve been bitten.”

“Diligent?” I asked.

He laughed to himself. “You’re always my strongest supporter, Kennedy, and therein lies the problem. That blind loyalty could get you…” He closed his eyes and seemed to swallow back the words, or one in particular. “Could get you killed.”

“What are you saying?”

“Kennedy,” he exhaled patiently but with a great deal of effort, “I’m not sure how much venom my body can take, what the effects of it have been on me, or even how it is merging with the antibodies. Every time I’m bitten I put you in danger, everyone who is near me is in danger.” He exhaled in frustration. “Why do you think I wait for sixty seconds after I’m bitten to come near you?”

That had never occurred to me, but he was right. I remembered seeing him move away from me after an attack; he’d gone so far as to put a muzzle to his head. I’d even caught him positioning himself within range of Doc, Mei, and Beverly.

“Wait…,” I mumbled, an understanding of something forming in the recesses of my mind. “Wait a second…”

Then it hit me. He had been training them to defend against the Infected’s strengths…the same traits that he possessed. He had trained them to detect weaknesses, the same weaknesses he possessed.

“Wait…” I said again, bile rising in my throat.

He had done this in front of me, with my help, and I hadn’t even realized
what
he had been doing.

“You…,” I whispered. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “You…”

He was watching me now, waiting for me to wedge free the statement that was so rigidly stuck in my throat. “I…?” he said coaxingly. “I what, Kennedy?”

What began the fire of infuriation in the pit of my belly was that he knew. He knew what he’d done and he knew I’d figure it out sooner or later. This was that moment.

The memories flooded back to me then. The shift in his positions around the group after he’d been bitten, the line of sight he’d maintained with someone, anyone but me on our team to take him out if it was needed.

“You trained them to kill you,” I uttered, the statement burning its way up my throat. “You prepared them to do what I wouldn’t. Doc, Mei, Beverly…” The realization blanketed me, suffocated me, churned my stomach until I felt physical pain. My hand moved to calm it but just as quickly shifted to my forehead where I swept back my hair to wipe away the perspiration. The motion did nothing to calm the sickening twist in my stomach. “That’s why you sparred with me when you were training the others, at the Nielsen vacation home. To prove to me that I didn’t have the ability to handle you.”

A flicker of pride warmed his eyes before sadness filled them. “To convince you, Kennedy. I know you won’t end my life when it’s needed-”

“If,” I snapped.

Patiently, he finished his sentence. “But the others will. They only needed to understand how.”

Apprehension began rushing through me, taking me in its claws and pressing the air from my lungs. He was at such a great disadvantage now. If the Infected didn’t finish him off, our friends would be there to do it instead.

“I recognize,” I whispered, unable to bring my voice any higher, “why you did it.”

He reached for my hand but I was quicker, yanking it away so that his palm hit the roof.

“But I didn’t think you were capable of betrayal,” I replied, unable to look at him.

That stung him. I could tell by the way his body stiffened.

His voice barely audible, he tried to justify his reasoning. “I couldn’t think of any other way to keep you safe.”

“Did it ever occur to you that if you should ever turn I wouldn’t want to be safe? That I wouldn’t want to survive?”

He recoiled at my honesty.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Yes?” I demanded. “You…” I was left stunned. “How could you do that? Go against my wishes like that, Harrison?”

His jaw tightening in anger, he said, “You will not die by my hands, Kennedy. YOU WILL NOT DIE BY MY HANDS!”

The rage that swept through him left me speechless. I’d never seen him be anything other than controlled, and there was good reason for it. He didn’t trust himself. What I’d just witnessed was exposed only by a small fracture created by the intensity of his resolve.

We didn’t speak or move for several minutes, giving time for the tension to ease. This was a feat because it would have been much easier to walk away. The fact that neither of us did meant we were both willing to work through it as best we could.

“You’re so convinced,” I said, my tone desolate, weary, “so completely entrenched in the idea that you’ll hurt me and all you’ve ever done is the exact opposite. I’m wondering who convinced you that you were such a risk, who made you believe you were so evil…”

His eyes, which had been downcast, lifted to the sky and he drew in a breath before laughing cynically to himself. “Who has the greatest influence over a child’s belief in himself?”

I inhaled sharply, knowing instantly who he meant.

“Your father,” I exhaled, finally understanding.

“Harrison,” I said keeping all emotion from my voice, “your father was wrong.”

This seemed to relax him, seemed to help him come to a conclusion, which I thought was a sign of progress until he responded. “I was on the fence for a long time about it, Kennedy. I wasn’t sure one way or another so I acted responsibly and kept others away. But then this epidemic hit and all the people who have been killed, everyone who has lost a loved one, everyone who has been misplaced…it all happened because of me. It’s my blood that brought all this into being.”

“No, Harrison,” I whispered, reaching for him, but this time it was my hand that found the roof instead.

He stood and stared vacantly out to the horizon, unblinking, believing he was seeing it all so clearly.

“So as much as we want to believe that my father was wrong, the evidence is what it is…and so far, Kennedy, it’s proven him right.”

Harrison did walk away then, having come to his own conclusions. As he moved with purpose toward the door, I didn’t need to ask if he would dissuade the others from ending his life. There was no reason in it. He wasn’t just preparing for it to happen, he was waiting for it.

CHAPTER 14

H
ARRISON AND
I
KEPT AN UNCOMFORTABLE
distance for the next few days. I caught sight of him in the dining area, where he attempted to blend in during meals, and I watched him from my bedroom window as he walked the perimeter at night. My heart ached every time my eyes landed on him.

I wanted to remind him that after we’d left our high school he’d promised never to create a space between us again, but in truth he was keeping his promise in that, too. He wasn’t avoiding the reformatory, just me. I assumed it was because he knew my anger and feelings of helplessness lingered in knowing that he’d given our friends the ability to hurt him and he wouldn’t even consider withdrawing that unspoken invitation. The tension between us was so thick in each other’s presence that Beverly commented about there being trouble in paradise. I told her to bite it, which resulted in a room full of applause. But I didn’t feel much victory in it.

Remaining true to his mission, Harrison began training the rest of the survivors. He organized them, forming units to work on various divisions of need. Doc and Mei oversaw supplies. Beverly and Christina ran artillery, and were disturbingly adept at it. Harrison managed surveillance. I couldn’t conscionably teach anyone how to kill an Infected so I taught another valuable skill set…how to develop an awareness of their surroundings and what to expect from an Infected if they were attacked. Basically, I taught them how to stay alive.

Some settled at the reformatory only so long as it took to regain their strength before heading out to continue their search for their families, but there weren’t many who left. Of those who remained, groups were run on a rotational schedule to learn defensive techniques on the soccer field. Free time was spent working to revive the garden, assemble traps and snares for Harrison to plant in the surrounding woods, cooking and cleaning. Despite the domesticity part being easier, the survivors naturally acclimated to the defensive training. There truly is something inside the human spirit that rises to the challenge when faced with probable death. Before long, their training took on an entirely new mindset. I knew this when familiar military terms were shouted across the room or out in the field, slang such as “sweet Fanny Adams” which translated to “sweet damn all” and “shut up and color” which told a complainer to quit it. There was also the ever present, “embrace The Suck” to remind other survivors we really didn’t have any choice in the matter when it came to survival. The mindset became so pervasive that I woke to find “Be Your Own Hero” painted down the hallways and we began hearing it shouted out during training.

At one point, I was asked about my rifle by a woman who used to be an administrator at an elementary school, though she never mentioned which one, but I veered her away from becoming charmed by firearms. The best weapon we could use in most cases was a silent weapon. Knives, spears, the tridents Beverly and Christina were beginning to manufacture. Gunfire draws in the Infected and eventually ammo runs out. They needed to evolve away from loud weapons, to use their mind and physical prowess in their defensive techniques. They learned quickly which gave us the chance to leave for our first scouting mission.

“We do this in the same way we clear a building,” Harrison said standing at the reformatory’s gate. “Quick, silent. Use your hand signals.”

“All right, dad,” said Beverly, yawning, “we know.”

“Right.” He nodded reflectively. “Right…” He gave me a final look, one of many since we’d last spoken and he spun to face the gate.

Part of Beverly and Christina’s artillery was now encircling the reformatory’s grounds. Having fashioned strangely unique defenses, like the wood stump with its sharp, jagged objects protruding from it, had given them the honorable title Duo of Death. Not surprisingly, they enjoyed the nickname. Harrison and Doc had to shift this one aside before we could exit.

We’d selected only our core team, with the addition of Christina, by Beverly’s adamant demands. Our winter clothing had been shed and replaced with the camouflage we’d taken from the army surplus store, helping us to better blend with our environment. We left single file, keeping equal attention on Harrison and on the territory we were entering. This was the first time any of us besides Harrison had left the reformatory since entering it, so the solace of security was immediately abandoned on the first step beyond the gate.

We headed back to the I-94 and continued east, bringing back a surreal familiarity when coming across abandoned vehicles. Brown and orange streaks still smeared the windows. Doors remained open, rusting from exposure to the winter that just passed. Bodies were still slumped in their seats. We found only one vehicle with keys in the ignition but it required the removal of a couple from the front seat, or actually the removal of portions of them. Beverly and Christina had no qualms about taking care of it and after laying down some clothing and rolling down the windows to whisk away the smell, the brand new Toyota Tacoma turned out to be a fine ride.

Our route took us into a small town where we stopped at the overpass looking down on what was essentially their main street.

“Hmmm,” Beverly muttered. “So maybe, just maybe you could get us a
little
closer?”